Cornwall SEO

Content Marketing Blog

Content Marketing

Content Marketing Training or Linkbait Coaching?

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I had a feeling it was coming about a year ago.

A new term to describe something that doesn’t really need a new term and yet at the same time is meaningless.

But lets put aside such semantic discussions for those who chose to burn time on such matters.

The term “Content Marketing” is here and lets embrace it like a long lost friend.

I don’t have to buy into the artifice that this is a new technique, all shiny and fresh. The readers to this blog are mostly hard nosed online marketers who know that knew terms like this are only created so the same old stuff can be repackaged and sold as a new marketing concept.

And so a writer, now becomes a content marketing consultant.

OK, it’s not exactly like that and there are nuances to the term and it’s meaning, blah blah blah.

The term “linkbait” went through a similar process when it stuck its mongrel head out the hole from whence it came. Lots of screen reading time was devoted to its true meaning and whether the £800 suited marketing exec of an International Corporation should be told he needed “Linkbait”, without implying it’s something found on a pavement after a crack addict has vomited on it.

And so it’s natural that the term, “content marketing” has kicked linkbait off the charts. Just like New Wave replaced punk, these things go in cycles.

I know what you are think, “yeah but linkbait isn’t anything like content marketing….” yada yada yada.

You are missing the point.

The reasons these terms exist in the first place is purely economic. They exist so we can sell stuff to clients who don’t want a two hour insight into the nuances of the technique.

The terms do not have defined meanings (a Wikipedia entry is not indicative of a defined meaning) and so when talking to a client the term can be shaped to suit the objective.

The term can now describe a range of things that were not bundled together before. Which is very useful when explaining things to a client, as they do not have the time to understand detail.

Maybe I am being a tad cynical, but I like the thought process to be transparent and it helps me when people say, “Dude, just get over it, content marketing is King“.

Now, as I train people in the dark art of linkbaiting, it’s not too much of a leap to repackage that training into content marketing training.

To my pals who agree with me that calling it “content marketing” is naff and really just a mind job, if the mainstream are running the term, may as well rank for it.

The process of going over to the dark side started last year, may as well embrace it and move forward.

Updating the List of UK SEO Companies

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I started a list back in 2007 of UK SEO Companies, I’ve been neglecting the list lately and quite a few new, vibrant, kick ass seo agencies have sprouted up and deserve to be on the list.

I originally tried to keep the list focussed on business that offered only SEO, but as things developed, agencies are more likely to offer a range of services covering all aspects of online marketing.

Also, I’m going to open up more geographical specific lists, after all this is the month of sharing the link love.

Click through to the page and add your seo agency in the comments. If there is a desire, I may also start a list for web designers, although as they are always at the hairdressers they may not have time to send details.

Sometimes it's Worth Doing That Which Makes No Sense

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I cranked up Tweetdeck early on Friday night to do my weekly check in. Unless I have a plan to implement I only check the feed about once a week.

I’m not really a user of Twitter, more a pusher. I mostly work with a bunch of other accounts than my main one.

But, when I heard that Pampers have a “follow me” request on every packet of nappies something clicked.

Don’t get me wrong, Twitter was great when it first started, noise to signal ratio was very low and the exclusivity factor was attractive.

But the Pampers thing seemed to whiff a little.

I would still advise clients to cut traditional advertising and put it into new media, Twitter being one of those. Although you really need to know the landscape to truly use it to increase your ROI

Which is the point, right.

And you can use it effectively to promote your brand and develop a following.

Although I don’t take on many clients these days I still have a healthy bunch to whom I can share cutting edge techniques with and the point about cutting edge techniques is that few people are actually doing them.

“Only dead fish go with the flow.”

There are incredibly profitable techniques out there right now. And no I’m not going to give them away on a blog, even when I do tell people the process they don’t quite get it. Some of it is extremely counter intuitive.

The point is if you are feeding where the rest of the herd are, you are going to be drinking muddy water, with the odd floater sailing by.

Twitter is one big, muddy trough. Most people don’t mind that, and to be honest it’s all they need.

Some need to be where the herd hangs out, nothing wrong with that. If you have thousands of followers and you can sell to them, it makes perfect sense.

Observing the social media scene as someone who uses it as a business tool, rather than the social aspect I see there are certain reasons that some platforms succeed and some fail, making gentle hissing noise as they go.

Most don’t realise you can actually break most rules of social media and benefit from it. Too many “How to Tweet” books out there, which I find very useful when I need to nod off.

So, I thought I would break a few rules and throw something out there, just to see. Something that was a bit of nonsense.

I had the germ of an idea and probably in about 1 hour had bought a domain name, set up the web page, created a mailing list. I hadn’t done this for years, I usually get someone else to do it and the speed surprised me.

I called it Slagster.com I will invent a juicy tale of how I came up with the domain later.

After a few jokes about Angel investors and a failed IPO and a lot of nonsense Tweeting from me – I’m sure some people thought that Charlie Sheen had hacked into my account – I noticed someone else had already signed up a Twitter account for Splagster (good luck with that) and a bunch of people signed up to the email, without knowing what the hell what it was about.

Until now.

I do have the germ of an idea, something simple, something tasty, something counter intuitive. Not something for the IM crowd, but something designed to make a lot of noise and be disruptive.

It’s a challenge, and it’s exciting.

And it probably wont happen.

But that’s not the point. The point is to do something that sometimes does not make sense, even at the expense of attracting a few WTFs. It refills the reservoir and girds your loins. Not sure I want my loins girded, but anyway.

Splagster.com, it definitely will not be what you think, but sign up anyway.

Is Blog Commenting Useless for SEO

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The difference between an SEO who has tested commenting on blogs and one who hasn’t is that the one who hasn’t says it doesn’t work and the one who has keeps quiets about it and keeps commenting.

As an SEO it also marks you out as to whether they are in the Premier League or still slugging it out for the pub team.

Some SEO “experts” will see say, “nofollow”, doesn’t pass juice. End of.

This is a mistake.

A blog comment is an advert, it is a branding tool, it will add to the sum of how people perceive you. How people perceive you has a direct impact on whether they will link to you.

For example, when SEO “experts” say blog commenting is useless, my perception of their skill as an SEO is further informed.

It’s well known that blogs and their comments get scraped and nofollow removed.

A visible link means that a human can visit the site and drop a dofollow if they like what they see.

Blog owners tend to check out the links left in the blog comments, which means you can get very important bloggers to come to your site.

A blog comment can demonstrate your skill in an area and make people go, “ooohhhhhh, she’s good.”

If blog spamming did not work, do you really think it would still be happening? What’s interesting about the nofollow that was introduced to blogs to stop spamming is that it hasn’t done anything to stop it.

Also, even when the link was dofollow and SEO’s would look at a blog and say, “but it’s not a real website”

Does this mean that you should go out and leave “Great post”, in the comments of as many blogs as you can find. No, because there is a way to blog comment and there is a way to not.

Blog commenting is a tool in the tool box, brought out for specific tasks and for specific reasons. I’m not not going to give you a step by step guide of how to do it as you probably have a massive brain (you’re reading this blog) and have worked it out on your own by now.

However, I am always willing to listen to the other side of the argument and so if you have data on to show that blog commenting is useless I would love to hear it.

One of the problems of course is that it can be really boring if you hae no opinion and that outsourcing it can lower the quality.

It’s tricky, which means if you hit the sweet spot there are few others creaming it.

Ultimate Guide to using Quora for SEO Ranking on Google

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I don’t like Quora.

I didn’t get to invest in it or create it.

Quora is going to succeed.

But, I am not going to be adding to its database, unless it’s to do a bit of reputation management for clients.

Also, if lots of places start scraping it, it may be worth dropping a link, even if it is nofollow.

There are going to be specific advantages to using Quora, however it’s not going to be what the site owners originally intended. If you are in the business of getting people to go to your website to buy stuff or you have clients who need people to go to their website to buy stuff, I would take a very close interest in Quora.

Why?

Because it’s going to get eyeballs, and it looks like it is going to crush Yahoo answers and those SEO mercenary, Ninja assassins are already knee deep in Yahoo answers gore, getting websites to rank.

So, expect an e-book to pop up entitled, The Ultimate Guide to Using Quora to rank in Google. Expect to pay $47. But, not from me, I would never give away such great info. Only my paying clients get the good stuff 😉

My advice, open an account at Quora, have a little play. Do a few tests. See if you can rank for a keyword.

But don’t use it to throw up tons of original, interesting content. Have you any idea how much you are worth an hour?

Note: Apologies for the use of “Ultimate”. I should be ashamed.

Note 2: This did start as a comment at Quora when I thought, “Don’t be a Numpty!”

Note 3: If you secretly share your SEO Quora tip with me, I will secretly share that I have back at you.