Buying links for mindshare, not search engines

After Aaron gave notice that ReviewMe was going to be offering half-price posts this month, I figured I should give the service a closer look.
We already know Google wants to devalue paid links, and for once I’m not looking at buying ReviewMe posts for direct ranking benefits - instead, I’m looking to buy mindshare.
One of [...]

Pros and cons of working for clients vs working for yourself

When I’ve chatted with more experienced SEO’s, the one thing that becomes clear is that SEO’s start working with clients, but many drop these to work for themselves.
The argument goes that if you’re good at making someone else money, you should be good at making that money for yourself - and much more than you’re [...]

How I’ve increased Adsense earnings by 50%

I’m not a huge Adsense earner, but at the beginning of this month I decided to more aggressively try to increase my revenues.
I’ve now seen a 50+% increase in my Adsense earnings since I began.
What does that mean in real terms? It means my earnings would now comfortably pay off the monthly mortgage repayments [...]

Examples of why businesses need SEOs

Todd Freisen continues the defence of SEO as a valid and important specialist service for businesses, underlining the points Danny Sullivan made previously that just because a specialist finds their specialist skills easy, doesn’t mean to say everyone else does.
What a lot of people are over-looking, though, is that SEO’s - good SEO’s - are [...]

Content development for links needs to be remarkable

Last night something hit me - the logical conclusion of Google’s anti-spam drive is that individual pages with rank according to the quality of their link profiles.
In other words - pages will rank best if many people are linking to them.
I know - that in itself isn’t a revelation - but it’s not the [...]

Marketing Do’s and Don’ts

Todd Malicoat posts one of the best weekly round-ups I’ve seen in a while.
Two key posts stood out:
1. Scoreboard Media on Client Baiting
Evangelises business networking and identification of potential clients - in this instance, CEO’s as risk-takers. The cheeky end line is that investing in a porsche could help sell his business. I’ve heard that [...]

Communities needs leadership

An interesting post from Creating Passionate Users highlights the issue of Collective Intelligence vs the Dumbness of Crowds.
The difference is very keen, and as a forum admin it’s something I’ve had to learn myself.
The basic gist is that Plato was right - benevolent dictators are very popular.
And, with online communities, if you’re a user and [...]

Why American business needs the UK

Both Matt Cutts and Jeremy Schoemaker post their blog stats online.
What’s really interesting is comparing the stats together, to peice an image of the English language internet.
For example, Matt Cutt’s site has the largest data sample, and in a simple and succinct manner I think most clearly demonstrates an image of the English language internet:

Combine [...]

Digg banning domains - open to abuse?

Lee Odden has apparently had his domain banned by Digg.
According to a support email from Digg:

“When submitted stories are consistently reported as spam and users complain via our feedback email about submission spam, we ban the domain. The domain will not be unbanned. The domain would consistently get reported as spam [...]

Bye bye Brian’s Business Blog

Platinax is currently undergoing redevelopment, and with that it’s time to say bye bye to Brian’s Business Blog.
The key reason?
It’s a crap blog.
I read various other blogs online, and the good ones are:
*fresh!
*informative!
*interesting!
I’ve managed to fail on all 3 here.
I have some excuse, though - since the last Platinax redevelopment I found myself separating the [...]

Another reason why MSN Search is failing

I casually use MSN Search - now Live.com search - for two main reasons:
Firstly, I report ranking positions for clients on MSN.
Secondly, I think the potential integration of MSN search with Windows users offers an exciting opportunitity for Microsoft to gain new users of its search business.
But…Microsoft are setting up unnecessary barriers for users.
The user [...]

Is SMA UK dead?

I was at SES London 2 years ago when SMA UK launched.
After Mike Grehan raised a high-profile series of criticisms at SEMPO - the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organisation - a splinter group worked it’s way out and set up a rival Search Marketing Association (SMA), which was supposed to work on a national level. [...]

Aaron says MSN marketing sucks…

and makes a very good point.
MSN set up 3-D mapping software on some major cities - but immediately dropped ads all over it:

By Microsoft placing the billboards in their images they change the focus of what people talk about from the quality of the product to the stupid billboards. If they have no users the [...]

Google News for organic link development

I have a few news sites accepted into Google News - they’re genuine news sites, and to be perfectly honest they’ve always been built as news sites as news sites with no ulterior purpose - not even SEO. :)
However, it’s been very interesting to note how having a news site can be good for organic [...]

Taking internet marketing offline

Often as a SEO/Internet Marketer the focus remains directly on - the internet.
Recently, however, I’ve been changing my promotional focus to - offline.
Point being, the internet has become such an integral part of life for many people, that by generating conversations offline, it translates into conversations - and links - online.
One way to do this [...]

Marketing money lost is wasted? Not at all

Steven Silvers posts that marketing campaigns that don’t deliver immediate returns are a waste of cash:

Research firm Blackfriars Communications estimates that U.S. business will spend around $615 billion on marketing this year.
That’s more than two thousand bucks per every living man, woman and child in the U.S. going toward online and offline advertising, direct mail, [...]

Traditional print publishing is dying

I was at FantasyCon a couple of weekends ago, and got to meet up and chat with writers such as Neil Gaiman, Raymond E. Fiest, Ramsey Campbell, Amanda Hemmingway, and Storm Constantine.
One of the most interesting conversations I had was with some very charming marketing staff from HarperCollins.
In conversation we mentioned Amazon, and that HarperCollins [...]

What to do with a PR7 website?

So Peter was right - Platinax is now PageRank 7.
I’m surprised - firstly because there’s no special link building program in play to try and increase the site’s PR value, and secondly, because I don’t think the site has done anything particular to warrant a PR7.
A couple of years ago I would have been overjoyed [...]

Social networking - the overhype

The BBC waxes lyrical about social networking and Web 2.0:

The notion of Web 2.0, or an internet model where content is created and shared by users, has given birth to some of the most popular sites the internet has ever seen.

The trouble is, social networking has been at the heart at the internet from the [...]

The future of viral marketing is personalisation

Gimmicks work on the chance of being different, of being memorable.
In a world where advertising desperately needs the attention of potential consumers, that’s worth something.
It’s been known for a long time that sex gets attention - hence it’s heavier use in increasingly media-saturated markets.
But sex only gets attention, and doesn’t sell the product. Too much [...]