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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Mind you, I haven’t read the actual book, only excerpts and extracts such as The Art of War for Business and its ilk and read various pithy leadership quotes from Sun Tzu’s work such as:

• A leader leads by example not by force.
• Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.
• Management of many is the same as management of few. It is a matter of organization.
• The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand.
• Speed is the essence of war. Take advantage of the enemy’s unpreparedness; travel by unexpected routes and strike him where he has taken no precautions.

However, I was recently watching a military documentary about the impact of deception on the battlefield and I was exposed to a side of Sun Tzu’s teaching not terribly prevalent in those leadership books.  Sun Tzu’s Art of War was quoted as saying “All of war is deception,” setting the theme for the show.

As I have also spent a great deal of time lately soul searching about business ethics, this triggered an epiphany for me.  There is little wonder why we have a plague of deception in business – it’s baked in through the training of our leadership.

The power to deceive one’s enemy is the most powerful weapon that can be used in war.  Leveraging the techniques of misdirection used by illusionists, coupled with deep knowledge of “your enemy”, wars are won by spreading ‘misinformation’ that trick the opposition into believing they know your strengths, weaknesses, and intent.

But who is this “enemy” to whom we should direct all of our negative warrior-like energy and deception?  As they said in WWII, “Loose lips sink ships.”  So, when too many people know the “truth”, you run the risk that some of that truth will leak out into the general public and/or to the elusive enemy.  And, in these successful military campaigns the deception was maintained to those within their own ranks, the media, and the public at large.

So, when you take the “business is war” approach, and you accept the doctrine that deception must be maintained for an effective campaign, in the mind of the leader, what are the limits on this doctrine?  Who is it acceptable to deceive?

• Competitors?
• Customers?
• Employees?
• Stockholders?
• Investors?

I don’t have the solution in my pocket or anything, but it’s obvious we have a problem here.  Perhaps the only thing I am empowered to do is to save myself and maintain my own integrity.

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Depending upon how well you use it (Such as filling out good titles for your links, and content rich information in your “About Me” section) you may see a message like this on your Google profile like it appeared on mine this afternoon.

Your profile is eligible to be featured in Google search results. You can find your profile at <link here>.

Here are some ways to share your new profile with your friends:

• Add it to your IM status message
• Link to it in your email signature
• Note it in Google Reader
• Post about it on Twitter
• Share it on Facebook

These last three were dynamically created based upon the services which were hooked up in the Add Links section.  Make sure to set a vanity URL that matches your name as it appears in all other social media.

The awesome thing about it is that you can link to every last thing in the universe that you’re on from here.  FriendFeed, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Friendster, Your Blog(s), You Article Marketing Feeds, Reddit, Delicious, YouTube, YouNameIt!

In my few tests, Google’s profile page for the user name in question (for several of my nomes de plume (sp?)) came up in the first page of results again and again.

Conclusion

If you want to be found set up your own Google Profile, and link to every last thing in the world with your name on it (that you’re proud of, at least).

To sign up, just do so over in the bottom right of my blog in the “Friend Connect” box using the “Join This Site” button. and you’ll get started right away in setting up your Google profile.

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Kumo Search Engine

It remains to be seen if the Kumo search will revolutionize search as a new visual search medium , or whether it will merely try to integrate with and leverage the latest and greatest social media technology . From a search engine optimization perspective, the new technology may mean new rules, such as tweaking out friend feed, twitter, or Tumblr to maximize your brand’s continued freshness on social media.

Right now, Microsoft only claims 8% of the search traffic,way behind Google’s 65% lion’s share of the search traffic marketplace.  While there have been rumours leaked about the rebranding of Windows Live Search for quite a while now, it seems that the a newly branded Microsoft search engine is a reality. Microsoft will have to find a viral way to truly compete with Google and Yahoo to get greater share of search traffic volume – a mere rebranding of irrelevant content will not be enough.

Microsoft Search Engine

Kumo.com is only available for beta participants so far, so you can’t use it until the “softies” have had their turn of stomping out all of the bugs.  You can rest assured, however, that as soon as their algorithm is roughly sorted out, SEO preferences will lean in the direction of whatever Kumo finds the tastiest. Here’s a sample from CNet of the full extent of Kumo Search Results

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This type of “productization” of my knowledge is one of the goals I push my clients toward regularly (you know who you are!).  I, too, have suffered from the malaise that my most meaningful content is hard to separate myself from.

Perhaps this medium can allow me to do so.  Now, onto the meaningful SEO tips !

Search Engine Optimization Tips

Today, we’re going to learn about the most important part of SEO, the on-page content.  First, content should be written for people, and not for the search engines.  But, your content should be written in such a way that the search engines can tell what your site is actually about.

In order to do this, make sure to use the <title >, <h1 >, and <h2 > tags to contain your targeted keywords.  Also, make sure to use your keywords in your text.  Your target keyword density should be between two and four percent.

Unfortunately, there’s no “perfect” density. But, too scant a density, and the search engines won’t realize that your page is relevant.  Too high a density, and Google will penalize you for spamming.

One easy way to increase or decrease your keyword density, is replacement of pronouns.  If your density is too high, replace your keyword with a pronoun and reduce the density.  If your keyword density is too low, find your use of pronouns when referring to your keyword, and use your actual keyword in its place.

What other Internet Marketing questions can I answer?  Leave a comment and tell me your ideas for future blog posts!

What is Keyword Density?

Keyword density is simply the percentage of your text that consists of your keyword or your keyword phrase.  For example, if your keyword phrase is “internet marketing ”, and you have 100 words on your page.  A singular occurrence of “internet marketing” would be 2% of your copy.  Say it twice, and now you’re up to 4%, very close to being considered “spammy”.  A quick way to dilute your keyword density is simply to add more copy.

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1. Learning from Spammers: Blackhat Secrets to High Keyword Ranking Here’s a process I’ve picked up from the spammers to...

Having the skills without the caring doesn’t matter.  I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have a drunk derelict who would give his life trying to save mine administer CPR than a triple PhD who’s motivations are purely selfish.

Without further ado, here are some quick tips on improving your marketing from some of the top marketing folks around:

Marketing tips summary:

Adam Urbanski – Take a flip cam or small camera to live events, such as a networking event, conference, or training conference for your industry.  Record video segments like the one above and distribute them to convey value to your clients.

Bob Jenkins – Use teleseminars in a way that connects you to your audience and leverage those teleseminars many different ways, such as products, blog posts, articles, and promotional giveaways.

Carrie Wilkerson – Attaining success through M & M’s: Mindset, Mentoring, Masterminding and Massive action.

David Preston – Pull out the yellow pages, find websites without lead capture, and help them install lead generation tools.

Coach Deb – Get more things done in less time by cloning yourself, such as leveraging software which helps you get more done without even being there.

Mark Shilensky – Be authentic with your audience, share from your heart and give them everything you’ve got.

Felicia Slattery – Start speaking to market your business.  Think about the 3 questions you get asked the most and turn it into a presentation.

Willie Crawford – Conduct an exclusive interview of your affiliate partner’s product about the 10-15 benefits of that product.  Transcribe that interview, distribute the PDF far and wide.

Melanie Benson Strick – Make sure you outsource your marketing to those who can do the work better, faster, and cheaper than you.

James Wedmore – Use Video as much as you can, whether you get an inexpensive flip-cam or something more expensive, make video part of your daily routine.

Erica Douglas – Talk to your clients on the phone or in person about their needs and actually listen to their answers.  Follow up with a phone call or a personal letter thanking them for their time.

Which of these tips helped you the most?  How and when will you begin using it?

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What is TweetBacks WordPress Plug-In?

The TweetBack plug-in automatically picks up conversations when people Twitter about your particular WordPress blog post and inserts each tweet as a comment in your blog.

It was working out pretty nicely for a while.  I even recommended TweetBacks to members of my inner circle, but then I noticed some very strange things only happening on this blog.

Suddenly, when I looked at the “Review Comments” console, I saw gobs and gobs of comments (~2,000) in many in different languages tweeting links to this this URL:

http://bit.ly/1BOWLu

None of the links to that URL had anywhere near the same copy in the Tweet, obviously they were just trying to scam any and everyone in the world to visit the URL.  Perhaps it loads malware or something, and the spammer isn’t terribly picky about how to prey on their next victim.

I immediately went to Google to see if anyone else has suffered from a similar malady .  Maybe there was some sort of confusion with my specific URL or something, right?  Well, I found enough blog posts about the issue for me to conclude that this was a widespread problem.  It became obvious to me that the right course of action was…

My Recommendation

1. Immediately Deactivate then uninstall the TweetBacks WordPress Plug-in
2. To get rid of the offending Tweets/Comments, execute the following SQL if you have access to a SQL tool (or ask your hired-gun nerdfolk to do this for you):
   

   DELETE
   FROM wp_comments
   WHERE wp_comments.comment_content LIKE
   “%http://bit.ly/1BOWLu%”

3. Help anyone else you see suffering from this by pointing them here.

Post Script:  (The Developer Responds)

Since sharing with the world, via Twitter, my recommendation to uninstall the TweetBacks Wordpress plug-in , several interesting things have happened.

1. The author of the script, @jdevalk replied to me through Twitter, telling me that I have no idea what I’m talking about, and that the “right way” to handle this undesired behaviour is to talk to the developer first.

While I respect his right to his opinion, I beg to differ with his prescribed method of resolution.  I believe that the proper way to handle any threat such as this is to

• immediately deal with the situation at hand,
• prevent further attack, then
• determine if there was any malice involved before making any personal accusations (which I have not).

Post-Post Script:  (United Against Spam!)

I have been working with Joost de Valk (@jdevalk) to iron out the exact cause of the issue.  He does seem like a rather nice guy , and is earnestly digging into the bug which has caused this unfortunate situation.  I look forward to being able to use this plug-in again.

After I have used it for a while and have greater comfort that we’ve bulletproofed the application and that you will not be adversely affected by any further bugs, I will happily share with you the results of our joint effort to combat the spammers .

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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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Now, this retailer, oddly enough, is quite the effective marketer, due to her nationwide television adverts, traveling double-decker billboard bus, and tons of free press and huge buzz about her unique style, not to mention, her quite effective marketing techniques.

If you can manage to stomach it, examining her site shows quite a few offers, lead generation tools, sticky content and SO much more.  However, if you didn’t already know about LINGsCars.com – you’d probably be afraid to give her money, assuming you don’t have a seizure while trying to find the link you’re looking for.

The thumbnail doesn’t do the site justice… click the thumbnail to see the real site.  WARNING: If you have photosensitive epilepsy, click at your own risk! It’s THAT garish.

So, here’s how Ling’s site is a great example of things NOT to do.

1. Ow! My Eyes! Other than the potential side effects for the epileptic, that site just plain old HURTs to look at.  If you want people to hang out on your site and do things (like give you money) it has to be easy enough on the eyes to let them feel comfortable doing so.  After looking around on that site for a few minutes, my retinas had a burned-in image of all those garish flashing colors.
2. Where do I click? Let’s pretend I really WANT to give Ling my money?  Where do I click for that?  There’s a gazillion links on that page.  How long do I search to find what I want?  What’s a link?  What’s NOT a link?!

Other than that, though… it’s quite a piece of work.  Testimonials, free-live support, consumer information, contact info… it’s all there.  ALLL there… and ALL on the home page. 

You tell me!  If you did a search on Google to buy a car and found this site, without ever hearing about them before…  How would YOU react to this web site?

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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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