Cornwall SEO

Content Marketing Blog

Lyndon Antcliff

Biting Live Chickens with Content Marketing

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Content Marketing

I must have blinked.

And up pops another word for the same stuff we’ve all been doing for years, yeah millenia,

It’s now called “Content marketing”.

Or it could also be called “read stuff-buy stuff”. However, it’s tricky to sell services at £150/hour to a marketing executive when all you are going to tell them is to implement the read stuff/buy-stuff concept.

You may argue that content marketing is far more nuanced and psychologically driven, blah blah especially if you are selling content marketing serivices (which I am btw) then you probably are the type to elaborate and gesticulate and obfuscate and drop a bit of management speak and other such guff.

But those kinds of people never actually create content that makes people crawl over broken glass to consume.

They tend to repackage mediocre old school stuff in a sharp, brushed aluminium box with a logo coloured a soft shade of blue. A blue that has a subtle but effective gradient. Then they get the deal by revealing they go to the same school or buy the same crampons or kite surf the same beaches.

There are those who can present content which actually gets the results that turn the marketing executives heads, and there are those that can present and pitch trendy concepts and…. that’s about it.

Content marketing used to be called informercials, or advertorials. And they used to make mountains of cash. With not a blue gradient in sight.

Linkbait is content marketing, but what it is selling is the emotional warm glow you will receive if you link to the content. That is the action, that is the point.

Most of the people pushing the concept of content marketing seem to be fresh faced 20 somethings who have a brightness in the eye and think a new discovery has been made and use such terms as “globalize your creative concepts”.

Maybe I’m just a cynical, middle aged, frustrated film script writer who has seen the concept of “read stuff-buy stuff” repackaged and reformed so many times that it takes a lot even to raise one eyebrow 2.7mm.

But, I think not. I think this has always happened, the crowd always follows but it’s the mavericks that have found the oasis a few years ago and have time to build a hamburger stand to feed the hungry mob (Gary Halbert nod of the day) who eventually arrive at the place after following the 20 something, bright eyed, trendy types.

Imagine picking up a plump chicken. Holding it firm and then stretching its neck, it’s muscles taut and strained and then sinking your teeth into its neck. The hot, wet blood pumping out and running down your chin.

The life seeping out of the feathered body as it lies limp in your hands.

Shocking isn’t it?

But you wont forget that bit of “content”, even if you try for the rest of the day.

That’s the point.

You read, but did you buy?

That’s content marketing!

Link building with content is not the only way to get links

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You may think it counter intuitive for me to propose that link building content is not the only way to go for links, as I earn my crust selling link building services.

But this is what I tell my clients who hire me for link building consultation.

There are many ways to skin a cat and many ways to build links, sure, content is a tried and tested way to build links if properly implemented and this is discussed at length.

But as you roll back the reasons and psychology of why people link you find that content can sometimes be less important.

Something I have observed over the years is that you are more likely to link to someone if you meet and like them at an seo conference. Why is that? The content is still the same.

It’s because the process of giving a link is based on emotion. Not the sobbing into your hanky after watching a tear jerker, but the fact that deep down within the brain the bit that drives emotion always beats the cold hard logic.

In a way it’s odd that a bunch of Spock wannabe seo engineers will link to someone because they feel it deep within them.

But the human condition affects us all.

Good or bad.

We try to be logical and base our decisions on the cold hard data, but we never do and here’s the thing, we don’t even know we are doing it and hate it when it is pointed out.

  • Fear
  • Greed
  • Social acceptance
  • Sexual gratification
  • Jealousy
  • Pride

All impinge on our decision making process. It’s what makes linkbait work. Linkbait is not based on logic, it’s based on the emotional triggers.

Social psychology is what you should be studying, rather than that new programming language.

Don’t believe me?

Watch the links fly after an seo conference. It’s not because the link targets content got better.

Observe that people mostly retweet those who retweet them. Getting retweets is link building lite, same process. If you can do one you can probably do the other.

How can you up your link building game.

1. Develop a social context
2. Control the relationship
3. Know why people link
4. Give back to those that give

We will be concentrating more on link building psychology in the coming weeks.

Web 2.0 Link Building Service

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A quick an easy way to build effective back links is to implement a Web 2.0 link building technique.

This simply involves:

  • Writing an article about your niche
  • Placing it on a web 2.0 property
  • Link back to your target URL
  • Link to your links and send indexing power to placed article

It’s a technique that has worked well for aged sites, working best when targeting the long tail.

If you are just starting out it makes sense to do this yourself, but if you want real power and need to scale it, you need to put a team on it.

Hiring and training a team takes time and skill, but can be done. But it’s much easier to outsource to a dedicated, experienced team already in full operation.

For over a year I have been running such a team and have now opened up the doors to allow anyone to hire it.

I first offered it to my Link building list, (you can sign up on the right) and they snapped it up.

It is now open to everyone else.

Here are the details

  • 1 x 500 word, human written article, written to be read (not spun)
  • Placement on a high ranking Web 2.0 property
  • Article is written within the context of the niche
  • Up to three links can be placed in the article, one to the target site and up to two to other articles placed by us
  • Links will contain keywords you provide
  • Full reporting of where articles have been placed with urls and keywords supplied.
  • Article is blasted using various methods to ensure indexing, after being published

Sites we use include:

  • Posterous
  • Weebly
  • Tumblr
  • Squidoo
  • Hubpages
  • Blogspot
  • WordPress.com
  • Quizilla

This is a short snapshot of the sites we use, we have over 40 sites in our database which are constantly reviewed. New sites are added when tested and pass quality control.

The price for all this is £15 per article/link

To order:

Email me at lyndon@cornwallseo in a spreadsheet format, preferably .csv or .xls:

  • Number of articles required
  • Keywords to include as anchor text
  • Theme or niche

I will then send an email back with availability and an invoice. Once payment is received we will process your order within the month and send a full report. Although the work can be completed in 7 to 10 days.

There is a minimum order of 16 articles, this technique works best with scale and regularity.

Email me if you have further questions.

Regards
Lyndon Antcliff

P.S Sorry, no porn, or illegal stuff or anything that is going to get me in trouble with Bubba.

I retain the right to refuse to accept any work for whatever reason whatsoever.

SEO techniques – Sun Tzu and Josiah Wedgewood

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What the hell has your Granny’s china collection got to do with you trying to rank for “kitchen cabinets”.

A lot of my seo pals are into Sun Tzu who wrote a book called The Art of War, it’s a collection of the Chinese Generals thoughts on war and battle. It’s quite short and can be quoted on seo forums to possibly increase the perception of your knowledge and power. It’s not good for pulling chicks in coffee shops though, for that you need Hemmingway or Kerouac.

But this isn’t a blog post about picking up chicks in coffee shops so lets focus.

The Chinese military commander, born in 544BC came out with lines such as this.

Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent’s fate.

For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.

As is quite apparent, his wisdom can successfully be applied to the implementation of not only seo but business and warfare in general. I’ve not actually read a blog post matching up his thoughts with ideas about seo tactics and strategy, it would be interesting though.

But, who I really want to talk about is the guy that enabled your Granny to have the china collection. Josiah Wedgewood.

Here is a quote from makingthemodernworld.org.uk

The founding of Wedgwood’s Etruria manufactory in 1769 saw him applying a high degree of work specialisation. Manufacturing was divided between ‘useful’ and ‘ornamental’ wares. Products passed from one specialist worker to another, each completing a small part of the overall production process. This improved quality and the dexterity of the craftsmen and also saved time.
Wedgwood divided work between design and production.

Before Wedgewood, stuff would be made by one or two craftsman from start to finished. This means the craftsmen cannot specialise, but must know all parts of the process. Wedgewood invented the modern factory line. One person, a specialist in one thing, would do that thing very well to a product and pass it along to the next specialist.

Seems a no brainer, as you then have the best talent working on all elements of the process.

He then got celebrity endorsement from the Queen for his line of China bits and pieces and made a fortune. Which is very interesting when you look at the seo tool market and how that works.

I encourage you to read up on the guy, there is lots to learn if you are interested in scaling it big and bad. Of course there is stuff that Sun Tzu can teach, but it’s a mistake to fall back on tactics everyone else is using. Best to suck in the juice from multiple sources.

So lets talk SEO.

With onpage seo you can basically get a monkey to do it. Or what in the seo business are called “interns”.

The part of seo that really matters is called “link building“. And this is where Josiah Wedgewood comes in. Because link building is not about art, it’s about the process. It’s about being able to implement a creative technique in a factory setting. In other words you need to grind it out, as fast as possible and at a consistent quality level. Being able to scale up and the flick of a mouse click when demand requires.

Having a seo production line means you can employ talent best suited to the individual task. Ensuring the best product possible is being produced and also at the required quantity.

Clever implementation of technology enables the individual to earn a crust online, but employing a team who are expert in the individual processes means you cannot only own the loaf, but also the bakery too. Leaving the lone blogger to make do with the crumbs.

The process and implementation of seo does not get talked about enough, you mostly get fluff and guesses presented as facts. Whilst you do need your technique tool box to be of the highest quality, you will be crushed if your competitor is using an army of seo factory workers to deploy his mediocre techniques.

Which is annoying, because then you have to pretend be nice to people and develop social skills. But that’s cool, because there are instruction manuals on that to.

When we talk about seo we are really talking link building

Link Building Machine Introductory Price ends 1st October

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Note: If you have already ordered from Link Building Machine, don’t worry, you are locked in for one year at the introductory price.

The introductory offer for the Link Building Machine will be finishing on October 1st. Those ordering the minimum spend before then will be locked into the introductory price.

Why have an introductory price?

  • I like to reward those who sign up first
  • Uptake has been surprisingly high
  • Generates loyalty from those who sign up first
  • Highlights the inexpensiveness of the product, this is important when price is a buying trigger
  • An increase in price allows the potential for an affiliate offer
  • So many people have told me its too cheap, it probably is.

Order before the first of October and get locked into the introductory price for one year year.

If you have already placed an order, don’t worry about it, you are already locked in at the intro price for a year.

To order, subscribe to the email list on the right to receive preferential information on how to order.

Deploy The Link Building Machine V 1.0

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OK, here’s the deal.

Over the past 12 months, I have researched, tested and developed a way to build contextually accurate, Google loving links with a tasty, long tail anchor text capability, which can be scaled up or down at will depending on specific requirements.

My desire was to build a system which created a semantic footprint that is contextually aligned to the niche of the target website, whilst not detracting from brand development and could be as big or as small as needed.

I knew three things were crucial:

  • Ability to Scale
  • Efficiency of implementation
  • Reliable level of quality

Rather than simply outsourcing the work to fickle freelancers, I hired and trained my own full time workers which enabled me to ensure a consistent level of quality needed to add valued backlinks. Focussing on the processes of hiring, filtering out the best people and training, I’ve been able to systematically build a quality team from the ground up.

By putting together a full time team and implementing correct training, I could deploy tried and trusted methods and processes which enabled me to compete and win in the most competitive industries.

Even though it’s basically a bunch of highly trained,hard working people, I call it a machine because it performs efficiently and effectively at the rate required no matter what amount of work needed. It delivers the required level of quality consistently over and over. As long as it is fed it will not and cannot be stopped. Cue Terminator theme music.

This is something that is clearly lacking in cheaper offerings you can find around the web. Although what I offer is more expensive than what you can find on certain forums, what I add is consistency at the required quality level. Plus a more open and honest approach and the fact that I personally check all work that goes out and can be reached on the phone, providing a level of assurance not found in other cheapo services.

I’m not interested in offering a cheap service, but a competitive, effective one that brings home the goodies. By focussing in on making the processes more efficient, I was able to create a more cost effective service, which I can now offer to you.

Before I get too carried away, and I am a tad excited about this offering. Seasoned, grizzled, hard core SEO types are probably not going to find anything new here and probably have built your own machine, implementing tried and trusted methods. This is not brain surgery or even highly creative. It’s about taking what we know to work and delivering an efficient, scaled up version.

But, if you don’t have the time to hire a team of people, filter out the bad ones from the good ones, train them in current best practice and effective methodologies and then manage the day to day running of the team, who can then deliver a constant stream of linkalicious ouput,my link building machine is now available for hire.

Although I have quite a large initial capacity, spots are limited, this is not a marketing wheeze. This is because I intend to keep quality at the level it needs to be at and if extra capacity is demanded I can train more link building Terminators and deploy where needed.

With regards to pricing, I’m going to let the market set the price. My personal day rate is £850 a day, usually for strategic planning. This is different though, and so I can offer at a rate at which will sell out 100%

We officially launch next week in the Cornwall Seo newsletter, you can sign up on the right. All the juice will be dished out in the first edition of the newsletter.

So there you go, some of you will love it, some of you will not need it as you do it in house already and some of you will try to copy it. Good luck to you if you do intend to copy it, it’s taken me about a year to get to this place.

May your links be many and aged.