Despite Google’s claims that the exchanging of monies for links is against their quality guidelines, there are plenty of creative, value adding ways to use your cassets (see what I did there?) to obtain high quality links with a solid return and with little to no risk. All the methods I propose below, I would argue are very low risk. Here’s why:

Google’s algorithm detects patterns in order to determine unnatural link behavior, patterns like dozens of links with the same anchors, links from websites on the same IP address, links from a multitude of low quality, inter-linked directories, etc. None of the tactics below are scalable to a degree where they could trigger any type of unnatural link penalty. If your links are manually reviewed by a human quality rater at Google, they may see fit to deem some of these unnatural. However, in my experience, all of these methods add value to users, produce a substantial ROI, and are perfectly safe.

Donate to Developers

There are so many little Excel ad-ons, and WordPress plugins, and email extensions that we use on a daily basis, yet how often do we ever think about the developer behind the tool. These developers almost always have their own websites, and those websites tend to be old, and carry substantial authority. Usually small stuff like niche WordPress plugins, Excel add-ons, and Chrome extensions are side projects of some developer, and usually those developers rely on donations to keep their tools updated and free. And when they get these donations, they are grateful and give recognition!

I imagine that if one could prospect the web effectively for these kinds of people, they could find a gold mine of cheap, high value link opportunities. I’m going to refrain from giving away my exact prospecting process here, but I’m sure you can figure out creative ways to one-up me .

Buy Blogs

Guest blogging is cool, because you get a link. Buying the blog is really cool, because you get every link.

There are plenty of website selling and purchasing sites out there, and if you browse these often enough, you will find some good deals every once in a while. However, because the websites listed on these sites are actually up for sale, they typically go for market value, or above. But what if you could find valuable blogs and websites to buy that aren’t technically for sale? You can. Here’s one way.

What you’ll need:

• Scrape Similar Chrome Extension
• Buzzstream Buzzmarker (they offer a free trial)
• Google

How to do it:

1. Go to Google Blog Search

2. At the top of the screen, you’ll see “Search Tools”.

Click Search Tools > Any Time > Custom Range >

Set your search range to 2 or 3 years in the past. This will ensure that you are only getting sites that have been around long enough to accumulate at least some PageRank

3. Determine search queries that will return blogs that are relevant to the vertical that you are working in. For example, if you’re building links for a law firm, perhaps you’d search: “law” or “legal”.

Bonus tip: You can also tell Google to only return Home Page results, rather than specific posts. This can help you achieve more relevant prospects. However, the custom time range will be wiped out, so you do lose that ability if you choose to only receive home page results.

4. Configure your settings so that Google shows 100 search results, and use the Scrape Similar Chrome extension to aggregate your prospects. Export to a Google doc

5. Paste your URL’s into a URL opener tool.

6. While on each site, use your Buzzmarker to add the prospect, and get contact information

7. Set-up a personal outreach template in Buzzstream and send those emails.

8. Once the responses roll in, evaluate the most worth while blogs, and make offers

Sponsor Groups

For all intents and purposes, sponsoring a group (chess club, solar car team, local charity, etc.) in return for a link is a paid link. However, it’s also a link that 1) doesn’t leave a footprint 2) gives you a competitive advantage, and 3) provides a high ROI.

• It doesn’t leave a footprint because there is really no way to scale it. Also, typically your link will be in an image, instead of being a standard text link. Don’t be dumb and use keywords it your alt tags though. Just brand it or leave it blank.
• It provides a competitive advantage because your competitors cannot simply submit a payment and get the same link (as with a traditional paid link directory).
• And it yields a high ROI because you may pay half the price (I’ve paid as little as $25, one-time) as you would for a similar quality link elsewhere, yet these link are normally .EDUs, and .ORGs with high PageRanks, and which do not typically have paid link directories where anyone can just go get a link.

This is a win-win; people are empowered to pursue their intellectual and charitable interests, and you get a high value link for your generosity.

Offer Discounts/Scholarships

I assume everyone reading this post knows about these tactics, so I won’t go into much detail. (If you’re not familiar, I highly suggest giving this post a read.)

What I will go into is a way of thinking about the outreach that has helped my team and I drastically increase our success rate. When you’re prospecting site’s to link to your discount or scholarship, think about the individual person you will be relying on to put up your link. Ask yourself these questions:

What’s the person’s job?

If his job is a work/study position at his college where he can barely think of enough tasks to fill his 20 hours per week, you’ve got a good shot at the link. If it’s PR manager at a understaffed start-up, you may not want to even try.

The answer to this question should dictate whether you use email outreach, phone outreach, social media outreach, or maybe even video outreach.

What’s your relationship with the person?

If he’s a complete stranger in the IT department of some college somewhere, your odds go down. If he’s the president of a Fraternity of which you are a member, you have a really freaking good shot at the link. If he’s your brother, the link is guaranteed (or at least I would hope…). Always think about your relationship with the person you are relying on to place your link.

How can you help him?

You’re a SEO; you have so many skills, and connections, and pearls of wisdom! You’re talking to a college kid. Tell him about a job or internship opportunity he should look into; help him create an amazing digital resume or blog; shit, buy him a case of beer! Add value to his life with your unique skills and he’ll be happy to reciprocate.

I’d love to hear your tips below!

The post Ways to Build Links with Cash (not, ways to get “paid links”) appeared first on Mile High Twaddle.

Hiring is hard. See Ryan Leaf

One the many hats I wear in my position is that of hiring manager. We are a small but growing start-up, and so we are hire on a fairly constant basis. Before having this role I had never hired anyone, but now it has become critical that I make the right personnel choices. After all, when there are eight people in the entire company, one person can have a massive impact. As a hiring manager, I have found myself faced with one particular question time after time:

Do I hire the person who seems best given the nature of the role, or do I hire the person who has the most talent overall?

Ideally, these two things overlap, but usually they don’t. While there are TONS of intangibles present in a great employee that lie outside of pure talent, here I want to focus on only that trait.

For Your Consideration…a NFL Draft Metaphor

I liken this decision to that of a general manager of a NFL team choosing who to pick first in the draft. Each year around draft time the talking heads debate whether the team in question should choose a player which best fills a particular need (so, if the primary tight end is horrible, should they draft a tight end), or whether they should just take the best player available, regardless of position.

For start-ups in particular, I say take the best player available, regardless of her specific skill set. Here’s why:

The start-up environment is a fluid one, where adaptations must be made quickly. Hiring a person to fill a specific role may end up biting you when that role doesn’t exist a month down the road.

The start-up environment is also one where every single employee can have an impact on the direction of the company as a whole. The talented person you hire may end up creating her own role that is far more valuable then what you were hiring for in the first place.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste, and when you’re a start-up you face stiff competition for those great minds. Scoop them up when you can, even if they may not seem like the perfect fit for the position.

I’d love to get some feedback in the comments below from folks who have faced this very dilemma.

The post Hiring at a Start-up: Best for the Position or Best Available? appeared first on Mile High Twaddle.

Here is the first:

To address this person’s comment on Guest Posting for links: Links that are acquired from guest posts are not in fact against Google’s guidelines. Links that are acquired from guest posts on bullshit sites, with bullshit content which serves to add no value to the web other than you getting a link are against Google’s guidelines. This is a prime example for me of someone getting in their own way, by being so paranoid of Google that they won’t actually ever build any damn links. It is also common sense. Google wants to provide their customers with the best product possible. That means they need to incentivise less bad content. That means that need to speak out against guest post links from bullshit sites. Matt Cutts explains it here:

To address the rest of his comment on getting links in exchange for money, products, services, etc.: He is correct that these are not acceptable means in Google’s eyes for passing PageRank. However, you have to look at the semantics. G is telling us that if we get links for money, products, services, etc. for the purpose of passing PageRank, we are going against their guidelines.

Now, you tell me is what alternate universe would a tactic link setting up a scholarship contest, and then a University adding that scholarship to their website, which links to the scholarship page on my site, be deemed as purchasing a link in order to pass PageRank?  There are so many other benefits, both from a business and community perspective from doing this, not to mention it makes the web better! Google has not grounds or reason to penalize link building like this, and they won’t! This fellow needs to get out of his own way, build some links, and stop spewing off rubbish like this:

The post Stop Being Scared of Google, Use Common Sense, and Build Some F*&king Links appeared first on Mile High Twaddle.

1. Darren Shaw of WhiteSpark:

2. Mike Blumenthal of Blumenthals:

 3. Mike Ramsey of Nifty Marketing:

4. David Mihm

 5. Mike Blumenthal again:

 
If you know of any other good nuggets of local knowledge that came out during LocalU 2012, please share in the comments below!

The post 5 Tweets from LocalU 2012 to Note appeared first on Mile High Twaddle.

My buddy and colleague Frank Scharnell, who is rapidly becoming a G+ guru, is working on a timely post which will detail the exact process for businesses to use  in merging their old Google Places business page with their new (Google created) Google+ Local page. At this time, all of the benefits of completing this merge are not fully understood, but at the very least it gives you control of your content, which means it gives you control of the optimization of your Google+ Local page.

The reason I’m writing this post is so that Frank will link to me in his far better post. One of the biggest challenges in completing the merge, that Frank will cover in detail, is getting all of the different types of G+ pages straight. That’s what I’ll try to do here.

If you’re completely unfamiliar with G+, this post may be of little use; but if you have a basic understanding, you’ll know what I’m talking about. There are essentially 5 types of G+ page: Personal, Local Business or Place, Product or Brand, Company, Institution, or Organization, and Arts, Entertainment, and Sports. You can see these page options for yourself here. Let’s run through what each of these pages is meant to be.

Personal Page

This type of page is for an individual.

Example: https://plus.google.com/100113243218660623924/posts

Local Business or Place Page

These pages are for local businesses. This is the page the Google created to replace the traditional Google Places pages. These pages are displayed in Google’s search results for locally relevant search phrases. This page has the content that you want to control from a local SEO standpoint.

Example: https://plus.google.com/108986387695427360714/about?hl=en

Product or Brand Page

This type of page is a bit hard to differentiate from a Local Business or Place page, but think of this one as purely a social page, much like a company Twitter profile or Facebook page. This can be a business, but it is not a physical location and will not be displayed in local search results.

Example: https://plus.google.com/111647990267476504720/about

Company, Institution, or Organization Page

If the Product or Brand page was ambiguous as it relates to the Local Business or Place page, this one is a real doosie. These pages are for non-profits, corporations, etc. Regardless of how you look at this page, the big thing to take away is that this page will not be displayed in local search results in Google.

Example: https://plus.google.com/109756604123259126640/about

Arts, Entertainment, and Sports Page 

This one is pretty self explanatory. This type of page is for art, sports, and entertainment organizations. Again, these pages aren’t displayed in local search results.

Example: https://plus.google.com/105846637640159944390/about

Alright, I hope that helps. Drop me a comment below if you have any questions.

The post Sorting Out the Semantics of Google+ Pages appeared first on Mile High Twaddle.

The new video SEO plugin from Yoast is out and if you’re like me, you think its arrival is just about 6 months late. The plugin allows you to easily implement video snippets, which are displayed next to your website in search results on Google, on posts and pages that have a video embedded in them. These snippets provide obvious value from a SEO perspective, specifically, increasing CTR in a similar way that author rich snippets do. One of my client’s major competitors is taking full advantage:

Like most of Yoast’s WordPress solutions, this one is painfully easy to use. However, there are a few things to note:

1. The plugin costs 89 bucks. Not cheap, but it’s a competitive advantage from a SEO standpoint, and you can use it on as many sites as you want.

2. You have to have the most updated version of Yoast’s WordPress SEO Plugin installed for this one to work

3. The plugin is currently compatible with YouTube, but it uses a hack, so that could change at any time.

How to use it, you ask?

Purchase.
Install.
Embed video.

That’s it. Thank you, Yoast.

Edit – 10.02.12

Major omission from the original post regarding automatic re-indexing:

In the dashboard for the Video SEO plugin, there is an option to re-index all pages. By choosing this option, the plugin will crawl your site in search of posts and pages with embedded videos, and automatically insert the proper structured mark-up .  Here’s what it looks like:

The post Video Rich Snippets for Dummies (a.k.a a new Plugin from Yoast) appeared first on Mile High Twaddle.

We took on a client today who has hired us because their site was apparently hit by Penguin, or an unnatural link penalty, or both. Naturally, one of the first things I did was have a gander at their link profile. It is about as spammy as a link profile gets, the majority of their top links coming from paid, spammy, and some completely de-indexed directories.

One of the de-indexed directories had something that caught my eye. Not only did they charge $8/year for a link, they are now charging a one time $20 fee for removing a link!

Of course, I have no choice but to cough up the dough, but goodness gracious. What a scam! This is why the industry has such a tough reputation challenge to overcome. Let’s hope bull-shit like this ends sooner rather than later.

The post Link: $8. Link Removal: $20. Capitalism: Priceless appeared first on Mile High Twaddle.

I think that most humans struggle with successfully adopting good habits, and because I was recently able to adopt a (rare) good habit, I thought I’d share how I was finally able to do it.

The prevailing thought is that it takes about 3 weeks of performing an action for that action to become “habit”. So the question becomes, how do we do the action for 3 weeks? I’m proposing that, in order to consistently do the action we want to do, we need to look at the habit as finish line, rather than the practice. Allow me to explain with an example.

The finish line (good habit):

Floss twice a day, every day.

The natural practice:

Floss twice every day…just do it!

The practice I propose:

Make changes that will enable me to floss twice each day.

The idea here is that if we have a goal, we must take steps to enable ourselves to reach that goal. If we say we want to make $100,000, our practice cannot be “go make $100,000″. Instead we are going to form a plan and make changes that allow us to reach our goal. For example, we will look at careers that typically earn individuals $100,000, determine the education / experience / connections we will need to obtain one of those careers, and then go about obtaining those things. The same holds true for something as seemingly simple as flossing twice every day.

What does this look like in practice?

Because we know that we will not naturally floss twice every day, just the same as we know that we will not naturally make $100,000, we need to determine what changes will allow us to reach our goal. In the case of flossing, some examples of those changes may include:

• Waking up 5 minutes earlier in the morning to allow ourselves time to floss
• Keeping the floss visible on that counter rather than in a drawer so that we will remember to floss
• Putting a T.V. in the bathroom so that we won’t be bored while flossing (extreme, but same idea)

By thinking of the habit as the finish line rather than the practice, we are able to make the necessary changes which will allow us to do that which will not naturally occur.

The post An Idea for Adopting Good Habits appeared first on Mile High Twaddle.

The Problem

I manage the SEO projects of 10 clients. Some are small clients, others are big, but one thing they all have in common is that when they have a question, request, or concern, it is my job to reply promptly with an email that effectively addresses their concerns. This level of customer service is critical to our business model, as we rely on residual income from clients who stick with us, and keep paying us, because they are happy. There are two things that make our clients, and all clients happy; results, and accountability. Results in the form of increased traffic and more business, and accountability in us doing what we say we’ll do. This is where the challenge of balancing customer service with email time-sucking comes in.

A few months back I identified that I was spending far too much time throughout the day responding to emails from clients. As a result, their overall project progress suffered. My decline in productivity was not  a result of the overall amount of time I was spending addressing emails, but rather the distraction from my work (real SEO work) that checking and addressing the emails was causing. If you spend 1.5 hours on emails throughout a given day, you would expect that whether that time was spent between 9am and 10:30am or spread throughout the day, would make little difference. In my case, this expectation was incorrect. Taking 5 minutes while in the middle of another project to respond to an email was costing me far more time, because I was being distracted from real work. Here is what I did to fix it, without sacrificing customer service.

1. Make a Rule

My rule is this: Every morning when I get into work I will address every email that is in my inbox, regardless of how much time it takes. When my inbox is clear of those messages, I am done addressing emails for the rest of the day. By addressing emails in this fashion, not only am I able to do it faster because my focus is on one task, I am also not being distracted from far more productive tasks.

2. Make an Exception

If there are urgent messages from clients that come in later in the day, I will respond to those messages.

3. Make a Email Checking Schedule

My inbox does not stay open on my monitor. I have an alarm set on my phone to go off twice between 12pm and 4pm. When that alarm goes off, I check my email for any urgent messages.

So far, I have had zero complaints from my clients, and my ability to “get shit done” has improved drastically. Being that our business model is centered around customer satisfaction, and ultimately customer retention, this simple method has been a perfect solution for me.

Bonus Tips for Reducing Email Time-Wastage

• Take an hour or so one day, and audit all of the sites who regularly send you emails that you delete without reading. Figure out how to unsubscribe, and do so.
• Turn off email push notifications on your smart phone.
• DO NOT keep your inbox permanently open on your browser.

The post How I’ve Spent Less Time on Emails Without Sacrificing Customer Service appeared first on Mile High Twaddle.

What I found to be the source of the data corruption was a tracking number on a dexknows listing.

NAP as seen on G+ Local (AKA the “good” data):

And then…dexknows:

I don’t know all the specifics of the plan that my client was on with dexknows, but what I do know is that this inconsistent data (as a result of the call tracking number) not only made the dexknows listing a negative contributor to the client’s local rankings, it actually contaminated their NAP data on several different sites to which dexknows feeds their data.

This is where the post gets lame, as I failed to note the sites that were pulling the bad information from dex. I could try to remember and list them here, but I don’t want to spread any lies. I even asked Mike Blumenthal - so it’t not from a lack of effort that I’m missing this information – but he wasn’t quite sure either.

I realize this isn’t a ton of specific information, but the point is that, if your business or a client is on a call tracking plan with dexknows, check out the listing and make sure that it isn’t causing data corruption. You can do this by simply searching the tracking number in Google. If other directories are getting that bad data, you will find them.

If you’re local online marketing doesn’t include Google+ Local, then you’re stupid. Just kidding. If you’re local online marketing doesn’t include Google+ Local, then no need to worry about this kind of listing. But if it does, you may want to rethink the dexknows tracking number listing.

The post How dexknows Might be F*ing Up Your Google+ Local Rankings appeared first on Mile High Twaddle.