Link Buying - iAcquire Gets Shafted!

I don’t blog much these days, which is probably a mistake, but once in a while I come across a story that tugs at my soul which in turn gives me an opportunity to present my own opinion about the subject.

I have been a digital marketing professional for over 9 years and as a result I have seen my share of online tactics and strategies for both paid search and SEO. In the last year Panda, as well as the mighty Penguin update, affected websites that I have worked on personally, for SEO. I have seen sites get completely de-indexed and then later re-indexed in addition to just receiving penalties due to unnatural linking. I have been a part of content marketing, spinning content, as well as link buying. I have seen it all…black hat …. white hat…. been there done that. But the most recent issue that surfaced with regard to Dun&Bradstreet’s ignorance has literally “taken the cake”. These fortune 500 companies hiding behind the “we didn’t know what our SEO Agency was doing” is really getting old, get with the program folks!!!!

The reality is link buying has been a part of the overall SEO strategy forever. There are link brokers who have been around for YEARS who make no qualms about link buying, or building link pyramids, link wheels etc. and continue to “be in business” with no issue. Then there are those who are publicly made an “example of” for practicing bad tactics, like iAcquire. This issue is near and dear to me because I have worked with this company, and they were specifically hired to ‘build links’ – what does that mean? It means creating relationships with relevant sites and making “deals” with these sites to ensure a link will be placed the way “we,” as a company want it. Who ultimately drives that need? At the end of the day, the company who hired them, of course!!!  They provide the keywords and tell the agency this is what we need to do, right???!!! What did you think they were going to do? Did you think that webmaster's would give away links out of the kindness of their hearts?? C'mon there has to be an incentive, that is the reality. 

It is so disappointing to see the SEO community turn their noses up and totally act as a subset of hypocrites when one of their own gets called out for doing what EVERYONE else is attempting to do and for that I am disgusted, its just not right. For goodness sake, look at what GOOGLE did!!! 

Listen folks, start taking responsibility for the vendors you hire and the work they do. As a business understand what it takes, and to those who want to point the finger, make it a point to “roll your sleeves up” like you expect your middle management team to do, and stop making excuses. Furthermore, as an SEO professional, accept the fact that SO many people are doing exactly what they did, deal with it and then get over it!

I have said my peace, I stand by it and feel much better that I got it off my chest! Onward!

Looking to Get More Traffic Naturally? There is More to SEO...

There is big hype on how to gain more exposure on the search engines. Many small businesses think they just need to “optimize” their website. What exactly does it mean to optimize your website anyway? There are many company’s who will tell you that there are specific things that need to be done to your site to make sure the site is able to be crawled by search engines, and if you are lucky maybe they will talk to you about linking, accessing links to your site from other sites that are relevant, and then it stops there. There is more to optimizing your site than titles, descriptions, and directory links.

As a small business owner what else can you do that won’t break the bank?

1 – User Generated Content – let me explain what this is. Simply stated, it is available content that users are generating on social media sites across the web such as MySpace.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, and even Yahoo! Answers just to name a few. These sites allow you to create profiles and add valuable content to them which could be highly relevant to your business. It also allows for huge opportunities to increase traffic to your website which at the end of the day that is what you want to see.

2 – Blogs by far are the easiest ways to generate traffic to your site. How you ask? By simply writing and linking which is exactly what the search engines are looking for. The content within blogs gets crawled by search engines and eventually can make its way into the search results chock full of keyword phrases. It is so easy and it can be done for FREE! The only costs that are related to this effort is maybe ten minutes of your time about 2 times a week. If you are not a believer check out Blogger.com and get your blog started today!

3 – Articles and Press Releases – are also an easy way to generate traffic to your site. With this method you can actually increase your backlinks (links leading back to your website) naturally as well as give the search engines lots of content to crawl. Your article or press release is highly relevant to your business because it is typically about your business once again chock full of keyword phrases. For this effort check out companies such as PRWeb, Market Wire, and Ezine Articles.

4 – Last but certainly not least, there are Viral efforts. Have you checked out YouTube lately? If you don’t have a lot of money to spend on viral efforts my suggestion would be make a video and post it. It is easy and effective. You can also submit it to Google Video and don’t forget to optimize your title and description for this video with links leading back to your website. Imagine that! You can do it for such a low cost and actually get a stream of traffic absolutely free.

Remember having your own business is great but don’t forget that in order for your business to succeed you need to be visible and market your site the right way as well as the smart way.