1. Have someone post a question to a questions board such as yahoo answers, wikiHow, etc.
2. Have someone else post an answer that references your site.
3. Have the author of the question select your planted answer.
4. Spam the hell out of blogs with comments putting that questions board question page as the referenced web page and using strong keywords for the author name.  Make sure to use a content spinner of some sort to generate your answer so your comment doesn’t instantly get flagged as spam.

Yes, it’s just that easy. Now, you get the benefit of not touting your OWN site as the answer to a planted question, but to have someone else provide that social proof while having the third party site rank high in the search engines.  Cute, huh?

This is absolutely a black hat technique and fairly spammy, but the more you know, the more you are prepared to defend your blog against attacks like these.

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Whilst wandering around the favorite videos of some of my newest YouTube friends, I discovered something that reminded me of some of my earliest education in psychology: the “art”, as it were, of brainwashing.

Watch the following video from the creator of a popular MLM (Multi-Level-Marketing) program and notice the unusual use of the word “prompting” at time marker [0:29].  I had never heard this term used in this way prior to watching this video:

Having never heard the term "prompting" used this way before as a noun, I was reminded how interesting it is that each unique culture creates its own terminologies in order to isolate and insulate itself from others.

The Power of a New Language

Like an “inside joke” among friends, this “creation of a new language” is a very common tactic within shrewd marketing programs, such as MLMs and cults alike.  Each group leverages the same psychological and social principles to create their fervent following.

They’ll take a very common concept and create a new term for it. Then, those who use that term "properly" are considered "insiders" reinforcing the bond between members and creating a barrier for “outsiders”.

Once someone learns this new language, they, too, can communicate with this “secret language” to others on the inside, and they now feel a heightened affinity for the group and its members.

Language Controls Behaviour

In marketing , like brainwashing, if you want to control a person’s behavior, you must first control their thought, and the creation of a new language is one inroad to that thought control.  This is why you will see new programs and books constantly being introduced with new words for the exact same things that have been around forever.

Even the big guys, like Microsoft, do this.  They come up with a slightly improved version of a technology, and give that thing a whole new name and all of its tinier parts have different names than the same tiny parts of the previous version.

In the marketing world, this brainwashing concept of relabeling things you already know with a new word or using an existing word in a slightly different way is called “branding” and “differentiation”.

From the book “Cults and New Religions Movements” by Lorne L. Dawson , I’ve found some very interesting passages on human thought control that are very applicable to this marketing concept of “new language” development.

The goal of all of this is your conversion or your remolding… You affirm that you accept and understand the ideology by beginning to talk in simple catchphrases of the group… Using the new language fosters your separation from your old conscience and belief system.

Create Your Own Cult

What is it that YOU do, in such a unique way that someone else could see your unique value through creating a new word or using an existing word differently?

Can you create a community of loyal fanatics using Social Media tools like Twitter , YouTube, and Blogs that use this new language and turn your clients into a horde of raging fanatics ?

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• What the heck are permalinks
• Why would I care about optimizing them?
• Will I have to undergo expensive surgeries in order to optimize?

What’s SEO?

Search Engine Optimization is the science, or art (in many cases) of tweaking things in your favor with the search engines.  No one can “guarantee” top rankings on search engines, because the method by which Search Engines work is not completely known and changes constantly.  In fact, Google even employs real people to validate search engine results – they dig through popular search terms to make sure that people aren’t accidentally getting “bad things” to the tops of the ranks and ruin their good name.

Which brings us to the …

Two Types of SEO

Off-Page SEO

Off Page SEO is when you do things to build in-bound links through any of a variety of methods.  Things like link-directories, link-swapping, and article marketing are all effective ways of building inbound links, thus off-page SEO .

On-Page (or On-Site) SEO

On-page SEO is the type of optimization you can perform on your page of which you are in complete control.  This type of SEO pertains to things like using good keywords in the body and title your pages, having sufficient keyword density and linking to other pages within your site using frequently sought keywords, and the like.

Google takes a look at many on-page factors when determining what makes a page relevant for a certain search term.  One of those factors is the URL of the page itself.  If the URL of the page contains the words that people are searching for, Google lends just a smidge (since there are so many factors) more weight to the likelihood that your page will be found as relevant for the sought keyword.

Here’s an example:

http://Using-Twitter.com/blog/How-To-Retweet

Now, when people are searching for things like “Twitter How To Retweet ” or “Using Twitter Retweet ” or similar phrases, that page will be considered more relevant for those terms because those words (and sometimes complete phrases) are matched perfectly in the URL.

Knowing what you know now… how does a URL like THIS compare?

http://Using-Twitter.com/blog/?p=7

Exactly. ICK!   Which brings us to…

What’s a Permalink?

“Permalink” is an abbreviated form of the phrase “Permanent Link.”  In WordPress, it’s simply the URL someone would use in order to directly link to a specific page in your site.  It’s also the URL that Google will (or won’t) send people to when they search for your targeted keywords.

How do I optimize Permalinks?

WordPress is very configurable, and as such, there’s an easy way to set your URLs to be far more meaningful to the search engines.

1. Open the URL “<YourBlogUrl>/wp-admin/options-permalink.php”So, for the site mentioned above, the link would be

   http://Using-Twitter.com/blog/wp-admin/options-permalink.php

2. In the “Common Settings” section, select the radio button marked “Custom Structure”.
3. In the big text box over to the right of “Custom Structure”, enter this value: “/%postname%/” (without the quotes)
4. Click the “Save Changes” button at the very bottom to put those new setting in to effect.
5. MOST IMPORTANT: Visit your home page and click a few URLs to make sure the new ones look like you expect.  If not, repeat the steps above more closely.

PLEASE NOTE: If you’re using a crappy hosting provider (such as GoDaddy), you will have to wait about 10-15 minutes for your changes to take effect.  Make sure to make these changes during slow traffic periods or after hours.  Better yet, switch your hosting company to one that doesn’t suck .

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In catching up with the world, a technology I had largely ignored showed me it has really grown up.  This little tool is called Twitter.

Success is bred from Solid Marketing Tactics

As you probably know, I’m not one to head for the latest gold rush, falling for the “do this xyz new fad before everyone else is already doing it” thing. Why pay $900 for a product or a report, when it will be available in 3, 6, or 9 months for a fraction of the price, only to have Google catch on to the new ploy and wipe it out.

I constantly preach how we, as marketers, need to be aware of how the tools of the trade are used against us as well as how to show restraint when using powerful strategies such as social acceptance and scarcity, and thus avoid buying every little product tossed my way.

Given this tendency of mine, I’m kind of a “late adopter” of most technologies, despite my technology background.

There are just so many new technologies being introduced that it makes no sense to rush into every latest thing. I didn’t buy Betamax during the video tape wars. Good thing, because VHS kicked its butt. I didn’t rush to buy an HD-DVD player the moment it came out – and look how I’ve been rewarded, Blu-Ray is taking over through strategic relationships. Both of these products have won, not because they’re better products, but because of classic marketing paradigms. Strong distribution and mass-adoption finally pushed each product over the tipping point.

Here’s another brick and mortar product metaphor to consider. Buying a fax machine, in itself, is meaningless. It is not helpful for most people to own a machine that picks up the phone and screeches into it. The value of a fax machine is not the machine itself, but rather the network you’re gaining access to. With a fax machine, you can send an image of a physical document to anyone in the world (who has a fax machine). Nearly every business and a lot of individuals have fax machines nowadays. Being an early adopter into the fax world gets you very little reach while the hardware cost was 10x as much as today. But, now it makes a lot of sense for a lot of businesses.

Similar to the fax machine, Amazon’s success model is how it connects hoards of buyers with hoards of sellers. If you want to buy or sell a product, you’ve got it made. Amazon’s price for connecting you to tons of people is trivial and the network of buyers and sellers is the reason to put an item on auction or consider buying from an eBay auction.

Sure, they were the first big online auction house. But that wasn’t the reason for their success.  HotBot and AltaVista were first big entrants into the search game, but Google still whomped them by providing a better product and making sure the world knew it. So, while being “first to market” sure helps, without the rest of the marketing vehicle in place, being first to market simply isn’t enough to guarantee victory.

So, what makes Twitter special?

Twitter might have been first, but that’s not the point. Twitter is nearing the breaking point of popularity. Barack Obama twittered his Presidential campaign progress. It’s gaining the same kind of household acceptance that Google and Amazon have attained. The competition from “Pownce” and “Zipline” has all but evaporated. Heard of them? I hadn’t heard of them until I had researched this article.  Twitter is absolutely nearing the tipping point, if it isn’t already.

So, what is Twitter?

Twitter is a “microblogging” tool for indicating short, sweet “tweets” of what’s going on in your world. These tweets are limited to the size of an SMS message, because it targets mobile phone users… and that’s a huge community. Through twitter, you can reach your audience in real time. You can show your mastery of your subject matter, broadcast items of importance, build suspense, and truly connect to your market.  Common practices for this connection process are the sharing of recent ideas, key news, links to articles you’ve recently published, and pictures of the family doing family stuff and otherwise “being human” to your readers.

With twitter people ‘follow’ the tweets of others. Those who are interested in your world can follow you, when they’re not, they can leave. So, to be followed, you should probably be some sort of interesting. For example, you can follow me on Twitter at http://Twitter.com/DaivRawks , if you were so inclined. But, as Zig Ziglar, master sales mentor says, “No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” This is where the relationships come in.

By creating relationships, one at a time, you create your network – your viral communication medium of the 21^st century.  When people like the message you’ve delivered or are excited by the news they “retweet” your message to their own respective networks.  And they tell 70 friends, and so on.

I hope I’ve convinced you to give twitter a try. And when you look me up on twitter, you might just find me interesting enough to follow. And if you ask me a question, I’ll probably answer – that’s how this whole thing works.

I’ll continue this series with more specific insights on how to maximize your leverage on Twitter. See you there.

P.S. Remember, you can follow me on Twitter at http://www.Twitter.com/DaivRawks

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Working long, long, hours in Orlando for the past 3 months or so, it wasn’t until very recently, I even spent a moment (not asleep) at the hotel.  When I did, I was studying, or programming, or something similarly productive.

If you’ve been working with me on the marketing front for any length of time, you’ve noticed I constantly mention how the most effective marketing motivator (for adults) is sex.  If you can find a way to squeeze sex into your marketing message, you’ll suddenly find customers.  To summarize, "sex sells".

Here’s why…

To be technical, sex is an "emotional motivator", along with fear, love, greed, and spirituality.  People buy because they are motivated to buy and these emotional motivators are at the core of this motivation.  For example, in the IT industry, the most successful sales reps for hardware, software, consulting, and outsourcing are women — notably, hot women.  Why?  Well, frankly it’s actually kind of sick, but to quote a notorious sicko, "It is what it is."  What I mean is, you don’t have to judge them as right or wrong, just realize that the horny old men in charge of IT dollars are simply looking for a little company.  Some of these sickos go so far as to impose "favors" in exchange for business.  Some male sales reps succeed by outsourcing the association of sex and their product by taking prospects to strip clubs, or providing for other forms of entertainment which fit that bill.  Regardless, it’s there, it’s pervasive, and it’s probably not going to go anywhere, despite my or your distaste for that reality.

Sexy Marketing

A few nights ago, I took a break and watched a little (gasp) television.  The ads I saw while flipping through the 50+ channels astounded me, not because the concept was new, but just how basal and absurd the link between the product and sex was. Regardless, they managed to squeeze a little sex appeal into an Arby’s commercial:

Now, the Arby’s spot is not as over-the-top as the Carl’s Jr commercial for the spicy BBQ burger featuring Paris Hilton from 2005:

Paris Hilton is nearly naked, writhing around in various provocative positions, covered in sudsy water which appears to be fairly cold.  At one point, Paris chomps into a token burger, but then proceeds to writhe around some more, cover herself in suds, completely bend over (I think that’s the “downward facing dog” Yoga position, if I’m not mistaken) and a few other things.  Luckily we didn’t have to actually hear her talk or anything, or have some voice-over ruin the fantasy… but what the hell does that have to do with a hamburger? Oh yeah, "It’s hot."  OMG!  That’s just sad.  However, the news around this ad created gazillions in free promotion for Carl’s Jr.  And here, 3 years after the ad was banned, it’s still virally floating around the internet.   Carl’s Jr. created a web site a few weeks after the ad was banned and the thing got so much traffic that it crashed again and again and again.  If advertising is about impressions and if impressions create customer momentum – there’s so serious momentum being generated here.

Another commercial I saw recently (can’t find it on YouTube) is for TVLand evening programming, or Nick at Night or something like that.  It features a married couple who, through perspective shots ala Austin Powers are engaged in a variety of provocative situations:

• The man opens a refrigerator, spouse in the background with two melons visible over her chest.
• The man, reclined on the sofa, hands folded behind his head, sits with a smug grin as his wife strokes a 2 liter bottle of soda, conveniently placed over his pants.
• He stands up and stretches, she tilts the bottle over a bit creating unmistakable phallic imagery.
• She goes over to the television, and leans over to form a perfect right angle, the man slightly behind (and nearer the camera than) her lifts the remote and pushes it forward toward her posterior.
• The narrator says something like, "we know what YOU want… to grab hold of your remote and watch TV with blah blah’s evening lineup."

THEIR message was actually almost related – get your spouse, go to the sofa, and relax together with our programming… maybe you’ll get lucky.

If you can find a way to harness the power of sex in your marketing, you’ll make a splash.  It doesn’t have to be vulgar, or over the top.  But, it’s amazing how powerful it can be.

Next up, "fear" — or why you need an alarm system, life insurance, baby gates, a fence around your pool, and absolutely MUST get your children’s fingerprints taken and sent to the FBI.

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So, here’s something you might find handy if you’re setting up a WordPress blog for yourself.  Maybe you already have one and just didn’t know how to optimize this (You know who you are!) because you’re as Stupid as George Bush .

To do this you’ll have to update your header.php file – the simple way to do this is to navigate to the current theme folder on your web server (in the wp-content/themes/ area) and copy the header.php file on to your PC. There, make a backup of the file (in case you need to restore it later on), open it in a text editor or an html editor and locate the following tags:

<title>
</title>

Once you find that chunk, delete it and replace it with this snippet of html, instead:

<title>
<?php if(is_home()) { bloginfo(’title’); } else{ wp_title(”); echo ‘ » ‘; bloginfo(’name’); } ?>
</title>

Then, rather than your blog name or, heaven forbid, the word "Archive" appear first in the title — the title of your post actually appears first in the title.   Then the search engines will believe that your page has more to do with that particular title, and get you more search engine traffic for the keywords which appear in your title.

Enjoy!

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