Online Marketing vs Crap Marketing

Last Update: July 28, 2012
Today, my daily small business forum announcement has 38 new discussions. I clicked on a few (14 or 15, or almost half) of them. All but one were the beginning of an article. When I clicked on 'read more' I was taken to the poster's website. All articles were written in proper English, some were blatant self-promotion, some were not so blatant at it though were still promotion. None but 1 was worth discussing.

I'm new at linkedin, though I've had an account for some years. But this is freaking spam... Well, a tad better quality than the spam links my akismet plugin catches (ata boy, Aki) but spam. The biggest spammer, an seo company (they have a 'discussion' every day). Of course, none of these discussions have any comments, followers, etc. though the day is almost gone and the group has tons of members.

Talking is not a discussion... You do start a discussion by talking, that's true. But it's only if there's thinking that preceded the opening of the mouth. Why do people not get it? I'm obviously not looking to hire an SEO expert, but if I were, I wouldn't consider the one that pops up in my 'small business forum announcements.' If they'd offer an honest to goodness observation, or one tidbit of info that was useful... I would.

Yes, I know, you're supposed to tell them what to do now how to do it, you're not supposed to give away the farm. But being 180 degrees away from giving away the farm ain't it, either.

A useful observation from an seo expert would be one like the one I've just made today: The guy who bought 3600+ backlinks from one site, disappeared from Google, asked me to help him, did follow/is following my advice: remove the backlinks. I checked last night and of the 3600+ backlinks, he only has some 1600. The result: he's back in Google... for 5, puny keywords. But he was not in the index for his company name (though it's a long one), not even when you googled his company name and added his suburb name to the search (though his company name contains the suburb name).

So, based on that, this is what I observed: Damn, I'm smart.

Secondary observation (and the one that would convince me to partake in a discussion I started): I now have the beginnings of 1st-handly-observed proof that too many links from one domain containing the same anchor text hurt you.

I thank you for wasting 2 minutes of your fine day reading my post.

By way of thanking you in a more meaningful way, here's the link to an article that discusses SEO... the comments - galore - make the article worth reading.

While reading it, note that I hate it when people say things like, Backlinks are dead. Google wants social signals now.

Because social signals are backlinks. They're just backlinks from different type of sites, backlinks that are harder to manipulate. But they ARE backlinks.

And while you think about the above, don't think I'm saying you should manipulate rankings. Or that you shouldn't. I'm just saying that social signals are backlinks.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenkrogue/2012/07/20/the-death-of-seo-the-rise-of-social-pr-and-real-content/

And now, as they say in Russian, Romanian, and Swahili: Sayonara, suckers!
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kyle Premium Plus
It is always the SEO companies that are doing SEO all wrong....the IRONY. You never see SEO companies with rankings in Google and they are always selling the idea that their services will actually work, when in fact they don't.

That is why we recommend people learn SEO and focus on their own efforts if they own an offline company that needs help. Most "SEO companies" will only lead to wasted money and the only reason they can call themselves companies is because they are selling people their crap service.
DABK Premium
I focused on the seo company, but the others were doing the same: a couple of vague/info-empty paragraphs attached to a catchy title, a link to a webpage that had some info, just not enough - most of the page was a list of products or services you could buy. As far as seo goes, they're #2 or 3 for some tough local seo keywords.

Some people ask a question... Do you get better results from this or from that... That, usually starts a discussion. Because that's how you start discussions. Others make strong statements about something, then ask you what you think... They do get comments, they get a discussion started.

They sometimes, but not always, have a link to some other webpage, presumably theirs.

Then, there are the others. No good question, no great useful info, no powerful statements, no reason for you or me to respond + a link to a page where they're trying to sell you something.

What you do linkedin, or anywhere your prospects see you, positions you as something or other... Positioning yourself as an annoyance, as a sleazy (or almost) salesperson takes up the same amount of resources as positioning yourself as a useful contact.

I mean, if you're going to have "3 Mistakes People Make When They..." and you're talking about something that's related to your business, you ought to be able to say something of substance (and useful to your prospects/readers)?

It's like bad ezinearticles.com deja vu all over again.

To me, it seems like it should be easy to start a discussion on linkedin... You think about how you start discussions in real life, and do the same... in writing...

How about them Cubs? the day after the Cubs win or lose a game, gets a lot of people in Chicago going... about the Cubs, sports... not about the bishop of Narbonne's wiping out the Cathars or how much more useful a Serta mattress is than other mattresses or the way in which Kant's Prologomena goes beyond and against the views of contemporary positivism or how to make the best chop suey.

I guess, when I'm promised information, I want information, not a sales pitch.
callalily123 Premium
Hi I'm Ginnie. I'm a real newbie. I can use ALL the help I can get. Never having to use the computer in Nursing, I don't know much about the computer either.
DABK Premium
Hi, Ginnie

The best thing to do is to take the 30-Day Challenge... It's step-by-step... takes you from picking a niche and keyword research, to having a site/blog that's got all it needs to make you money, to teaching you how to get visitors. All in 30 days... Depending on your skills, each day you'll put in between 1 hour and a few hours.
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