SEO 2.0 » Productivity http://seo2.0.onreact.com Search & Social Media Survival Guide Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:30:40 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.4 Pinterest or How to Evaluate Social Media Opportunities http://seo2.0.onreact.com/pinterest-or-how-to-evaluate-social-media-opportunities http://seo2.0.onreact.com/pinterest-or-how-to-evaluate-social-media-opportunities#comments Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:42:03 +0000 Tadeusz Szewczyk http://seo2.0.onreact.com/?p=2400

Unless you’ve been hiding in a cage for a few months you have heard the news: Pinterest is the best thing since sliced bread.

I don’t want to join the myriads of opportunistic writers and hail the new hype. Instead I want you to pause a bit and to try to learn how to evaluate social media opportunities and risks. I will use Pinterest as an example although I might use Quora or Foursquare as well.

Btw. do you remember Foursquare? It was the hype of 2010. You might still know what Quora is, it was the hype of last year. So here we are and this year Pinterest is the next big thing as everybody seems to agree.

I’m sure that Pinterest is a great site, don’t get me wrong. In case you or your wife, sister or mother use it, don’t get offended. There is nothing wrong with it. I rather address my audience of search and social media professionals who seem to flock to Pinterest these days as well. People from outside might even call them marketers but I personally don’t like this epithet.

Remember than I am business blogger, SEO and social media user most of the time. I’m not a marketing person in the sense that I sell products on social media. I don’t. These days you might call me a content strategist because I create and curate content others want to find on social media and search engines. I also teach people how to create and curate such content. I might teach you next time what kind of content you can use to appeal to the Pinterest crowd. Not today though.

Today I want to ask you: Why do you want to join Pinterest?

You are probably on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, maybe also on Quora and Foursquare. This is quite a lot. It needs also quite a lot of work to maintain. Just consider this: Let’s assume you’re not very well paid. You get 50$ an hour as a freelancer. Then think or better track the time you spend on social sites per day. Is it one hour? Or two? Or just half an hour?

Personally I schedule 30 minutes for social media each day.

That’s just for using it, no marketing or optimization or anything just simple participation. Just looking up what’s going on, keeping up and engaging with no particular goal other than informing myself and sharing. That’s 2,5h a week. 10h a month. So the cost of social media is an investment of 500$ a month or rather every four weeks.

What other things do you spend 500$ or more a month on?

Your car, rent, education? Now think of it, realistically I use social media more than the scheduled 30 minutes a day. On some days I assign half an hour for social media optimization, or more specifically social media outreach. I have a clear goal then, looking up and contacting influencers for example, or spreading the word about new content I created etc. Also I tend to use social media whenever I pause between tasks for a minute but not long enough to get up to do something else.

So let’s assume more realistically that I already spend 5 hours a week on social media. Additionally let’s assume I earn a bit more per hour, let’s say 100$. I know that many consultants in the search and social media marketing industry earn more than this. So let’s see, we have 20h a month worth 2000$. That’s already 24k a year you spend on social media. That doesn’t even include the tools you pay for when using social media or other investments to get traction there.

Now here comes the next big thing, Pinterest. Everybody is shouting how awesome the site and the traffic is, which is probably even true. Then they advise you to just “engage in the conversation” or here rather in pinning images there.

How much time do you assign a day or a week to engage?

Half an hour a day? An hour a week? I think it will be more like an hour a day as it’s a new site. It’s because you have to befriend all your social media friends from elsewhere anew, you have to share the content you shared elsewhere again, or you have to find new friends and content specific for this site. Creating social relations and UGC is crucial to get attention on a new social site. So you will spend probably around 20h the first month on Pinterest. Either you will add these 20h to your current social media budget or instead of it. Ask yourself though:

Will you really like less on Facebook?

Will you really tweet less? Or plus one less? Probably not. You will spend 40h this month on social media instead of 20h.

So unless you don’t have much other work, or you’re not a freelancer like I am, you have a time and effort problem here.

Thus I advise you not to jump in on the latest hype but instead think twice about it and consider your other social media obligations.

 

Ask yourself the following questions as well in order to know whether you have to engage on Pinterest or any other new site, be it Quora, Foursquare or whatever:

 

How much time do I have to spend on this site for it to work for me? Make  a schedule for a week or month. Or at least add the time you spend on it to your time tracking or to-do list.

Hint: How much will you earn after half a year of using the site from just using it? In case you get customers how make you more than the 2k you invest a month in it, great!

 

What direct use has the site for me?

Hint: Delicious for example has the use of having easily manageable and findable bookmarks for later use independently of the computer you are using.

 

Does the audience I usually address reside on that site?

Hint: Back in the days everybody wanted to submit my SEO 2.0 postings to Digg in spite of me not even having a Digg it button here. They all ignored the fact that Digg users hated SEO. I never engaged on Digg for the purpose of pushing this blog. It would be like running against walls.

 

Do I get more visitors on my blog or site due to using the service?

Hintz: Many sources exclaim how much traffic Pinterest is yielding. I can’t confirm that. I have sites that have been pinned a lot but the traffic is almost non-existent.

 

Can I get my submissions and connections out of the system once the site goes pay only or change in such a away that it won’t appeal to me anymore?

Just consider the case of Ning. It was a free site where you could create a niche community. Then one day it went premium out of the blue. You couldn’t just export your community. You would have to start a new one elsewhere.

 

In order to make this example even clearer I’d like to answer the questions for myself in a simplified manner and a hypothetical persona.

I’m a blogger and SEO using social media to spread the word on several topics like SEO.

  • I’d need 20h a month to make Pinterest work for me. I’d need consulting jobs worth at least 12k after half a year to get even.
  • My direct use of the site would be organizing the images I like on SEO.
  • The audience I usually address (webmaster interested in SEO) isn’t yet on Pinterest but now if flocks to it in significant numbers.
  • Judged from the tiny trickle I get from Pinterest pins on other site I assume that only every 20th visitor of Pinterest who can see my content over there would visit my site.
  • I don’t know yet but I assume that there is no way to take out my content and network out of Pinterest and recreate it elsewhere without major effort.

 

 

Now the persona, I chose one for whom Pinterest might actually work. John is a real estate agent from the US.

  • I’d need 20h a month to make Pinterest work for me. I’d need to sell a flat worth at least 12k after half a year to get even.
  • My direct use of the site would be organizing the images I like on architecture.
  • The audience I usually address (middle class Americans interested in modern architecture) is already prominent on Pinterest .
  • Judged from the popularity of some architecture sites on Pinterest I assume that I will get 1k visitors from Pinterest  a month. These people might even share my images elsewhere as well.
  • I don’t know yet but I assume that there is no way to take out my content and network out of Pinterest and recreate it elsewhere without major effort but I have all the images I’ll pin on my site already.

 

To find out whether people have already pinned images for your site type this in your browser URL bar: http://pinterest.com/source/seo2.0.onreact.com/ but instead of suing my domain name use yours.

 

So you use Pinterest might work for some but not for others. It’s a matter of strategic planning and evaluation. It may or may not be an opportunity. It depends on who you are, where you live and your business model. Does Pinterest already work you? Tell us how and why in the comment section please.

Btw.: I’m not really active on Quora, I’m not a member of Foursquare. I’m on Google+ though most of time.

I almost forgot it: What exactly is Pinterest? It’s an image bookmarking site. There are lots of other image bookmarking sites. I use some of them to promote on of my other blogs. They yield more traffic than Pinterest from engagement of years ago.

More on Pinterest:

  1. The Marketer’s Guide to Pinterest
  2. 6 Ways Brands Can Rock Pinterest
  3. 7 Examples of Brands That Pop on Pinterest
  4. Pinterest Referral Traffic Statistics | Shareaholic
  5. Why I Chose Pinterest for the Content Creation Curation
  6. What is Pinterest & Why You Should Optimize For It
  7. Pinterest Gaining Traction For External SEO

 

Related posts:

  1. How Can Websites about Boring Topics Succeed on Social Media?
  2. Top 10 Most Awesomely Amazing Creative & Funny Reasons Why Blogging for Social Media Sucks
  3. Productivity: 8 Ways to Save Time for Excessive Social Media Overuse

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com
Related posts:
  1. How Can Websites about Boring Topics Succeed on Social Media?
  2. Top 10 Most Awesomely Amazing Creative & Funny Reasons Why Blogging for Social Media Sucks
  3. Productivity: 8 Ways to Save Time for Excessive Social Media Overuse
]]>

Unless you’ve been hiding in a cage for a few months you have heard the news: Pinterest is the best thing since sliced bread.

I don’t want to join the myriads of opportunistic writers and hail the new hype. Instead I want you to pause a bit and to try to learn how to evaluate social media opportunities and risks. I will use Pinterest as an example although I might use Quora or Foursquare as well.

Btw. do you remember Foursquare? It was the hype of 2010. You might still know what Quora is, it was the hype of last year. So here we are and this year Pinterest is the next big thing as everybody seems to agree.

I’m sure that Pinterest is a great site, don’t get me wrong. In case you or your wife, sister or mother use it, don’t get offended. There is nothing wrong with it. I rather address my audience of search and social media professionals who seem to flock to Pinterest these days as well. People from outside might even call them marketers but I personally don’t like this epithet.

Remember than I am business blogger, SEO and social media user most of the time. I’m not a marketing person in the sense that I sell products on social media. I don’t. These days you might call me a content strategist because I create and curate content others want to find on social media and search engines. I also teach people how to create and curate such content. I might teach you next time what kind of content you can use to appeal to the Pinterest crowd. Not today though.

Today I want to ask you: Why do you want to join Pinterest?

You are probably on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, maybe also on Quora and Foursquare. This is quite a lot. It needs also quite a lot of work to maintain. Just consider this: Let’s assume you’re not very well paid. You get 50$ an hour as a freelancer. Then think or better track the time you spend on social sites per day. Is it one hour? Or two? Or just half an hour?

Personally I schedule 30 minutes for social media each day.

That’s just for using it, no marketing or optimization or anything just simple participation. Just looking up what’s going on, keeping up and engaging with no particular goal other than informing myself and sharing. That’s 2,5h a week. 10h a month. So the cost of social media is an investment of 500$ a month or rather every four weeks.

What other things do you spend 500$ or more a month on?

Your car, rent, education? Now think of it, realistically I use social media more than the scheduled 30 minutes a day. On some days I assign half an hour for social media optimization, or more specifically social media outreach. I have a clear goal then, looking up and contacting influencers for example, or spreading the word about new content I created etc. Also I tend to use social media whenever I pause between tasks for a minute but not long enough to get up to do something else.

So let’s assume more realistically that I already spend 5 hours a week on social media. Additionally let’s assume I earn a bit more per hour, let’s say 100$. I know that many consultants in the search and social media marketing industry earn more than this. So let’s see, we have 20h a month worth 2000$. That’s already 24k a year you spend on social media. That doesn’t even include the tools you pay for when using social media or other investments to get traction there.

Now here comes the next big thing, Pinterest. Everybody is shouting how awesome the site and the traffic is, which is probably even true. Then they advise you to just “engage in the conversation” or here rather in pinning images there.

How much time do you assign a day or a week to engage?

Half an hour a day? An hour a week? I think it will be more like an hour a day as it’s a new site. It’s because you have to befriend all your social media friends from elsewhere anew, you have to share the content you shared elsewhere again, or you have to find new friends and content specific for this site. Creating social relations and UGC is crucial to get attention on a new social site. So you will spend probably around 20h the first month on Pinterest. Either you will add these 20h to your current social media budget or instead of it. Ask yourself though:

Will you really like less on Facebook?

Will you really tweet less? Or plus one less? Probably not. You will spend 40h this month on social media instead of 20h.

So unless you don’t have much other work, or you’re not a freelancer like I am, you have a time and effort problem here.

Thus I advise you not to jump in on the latest hype but instead think twice about it and consider your other social media obligations.

 

Ask yourself the following questions as well in order to know whether you have to engage on Pinterest or any other new site, be it Quora, Foursquare or whatever:

 

How much time do I have to spend on this site for it to work for me? Make  a schedule for a week or month. Or at least add the time you spend on it to your time tracking or to-do list.

Hint: How much will you earn after half a year of using the site from just using it? In case you get customers how make you more than the 2k you invest a month in it, great!

 

What direct use has the site for me?

Hint: Delicious for example has the use of having easily manageable and findable bookmarks for later use independently of the computer you are using.

 

Does the audience I usually address reside on that site?

Hint: Back in the days everybody wanted to submit my SEO 2.0 postings to Digg in spite of me not even having a Digg it button here. They all ignored the fact that Digg users hated SEO. I never engaged on Digg for the purpose of pushing this blog. It would be like running against walls.

 

Do I get more visitors on my blog or site due to using the service?

Hintz: Many sources exclaim how much traffic Pinterest is yielding. I can’t confirm that. I have sites that have been pinned a lot but the traffic is almost non-existent.

 

Can I get my submissions and connections out of the system once the site goes pay only or change in such a away that it won’t appeal to me anymore?

Just consider the case of Ning. It was a free site where you could create a niche community. Then one day it went premium out of the blue. You couldn’t just export your community. You would have to start a new one elsewhere.

 

In order to make this example even clearer I’d like to answer the questions for myself in a simplified manner and a hypothetical persona.

I’m a blogger and SEO using social media to spread the word on several topics like SEO.

  • I’d need 20h a month to make Pinterest work for me. I’d need consulting jobs worth at least 12k after half a year to get even.
  • My direct use of the site would be organizing the images I like on SEO.
  • The audience I usually address (webmaster interested in SEO) isn’t yet on Pinterest but now if flocks to it in significant numbers.
  • Judged from the tiny trickle I get from Pinterest pins on other site I assume that only every 20th visitor of Pinterest who can see my content over there would visit my site.
  • I don’t know yet but I assume that there is no way to take out my content and network out of Pinterest and recreate it elsewhere without major effort.

 

 

Now the persona, I chose one for whom Pinterest might actually work. John is a real estate agent from the US.

  • I’d need 20h a month to make Pinterest work for me. I’d need to sell a flat worth at least 12k after half a year to get even.
  • My direct use of the site would be organizing the images I like on architecture.
  • The audience I usually address (middle class Americans interested in modern architecture) is already prominent on Pinterest .
  • Judged from the popularity of some architecture sites on Pinterest I assume that I will get 1k visitors from Pinterest  a month. These people might even share my images elsewhere as well.
  • I don’t know yet but I assume that there is no way to take out my content and network out of Pinterest and recreate it elsewhere without major effort but I have all the images I’ll pin on my site already.

 

To find out whether people have already pinned images for your site type this in your browser URL bar: http://pinterest.com/source/seo2.0.onreact.com/ but instead of suing my domain name use yours.

 

So you use Pinterest might work for some but not for others. It’s a matter of strategic planning and evaluation. It may or may not be an opportunity. It depends on who you are, where you live and your business model. Does Pinterest already work you? Tell us how and why in the comment section please.

Btw.: I’m not really active on Quora, I’m not a member of Foursquare. I’m on Google+ though most of time.

I almost forgot it: What exactly is Pinterest? It’s an image bookmarking site. There are lots of other image bookmarking sites. I use some of them to promote on of my other blogs. They yield more traffic than Pinterest from engagement of years ago.

More on Pinterest:

  1. The Marketer’s Guide to Pinterest
  2. 6 Ways Brands Can Rock Pinterest
  3. 7 Examples of Brands That Pop on Pinterest
  4. Pinterest Referral Traffic Statistics | Shareaholic
  5. Why I Chose Pinterest for the Content Creation Curation
  6. What is Pinterest & Why You Should Optimize For It
  7. Pinterest Gaining Traction For External SEO

 

Related posts:

  1. How Can Websites about Boring Topics Succeed on Social Media?
  2. Top 10 Most Awesomely Amazing Creative & Funny Reasons Why Blogging for Social Media Sucks
  3. Productivity: 8 Ways to Save Time for Excessive Social Media Overuse

]]> http://seo2.0.onreact.com/pinterest-or-how-to-evaluate-social-media-opportunities/feed 1 The Joy and Pain of Starting a New Blog http://seo2.0.onreact.com/the-joy-and-pain-of-starting-a-new-blog http://seo2.0.onreact.com/the-joy-and-pain-of-starting-a-new-blog#comments Mon, 01 Aug 2011 11:21:44 +0000 Tadeusz Szewczyk http://seo2.0.onreact.com/?p=2124 *

It’s not a secret that I’m not as active on SEO 2.0 as in the early days anymore. I’ve turned out an “occasional blogger” over the years while publishing SEO related articles mostly over at the SEOptimise blog. I have been hugely successful with SEOptimise. It’s by now the number one and most popular UK SEO blog according to Google at least but it also has an impressive following and

some of my posts get shared by hundreds of people.

The SEO 2.0 blog is still modestly well known but not as widely acclaimed as it was once was. I get still some substantial Google traffic and even StumbleUpon sends me hundreds of casual visitors daily again. So everything is alright isn’t it then? Well, it bores me a little. Thus I joined a completely new SEO blog over at cognitiveSEO, a promising SEO software startup from Europe. Their blog was almost completely empty when I started to write for it.

While blogging here and on SEOptimise has become routine, both in a positive and negative sense on cognitiveSEO I have to rediscover the art of blogging in a way. I have to

experiment and find a new unique writing style once again.

As this is actually my third flagship SEO blog I develop it’s not as easy to become someone else for it. On the other hand I can’t just copy the blogging style I use on SEO 2.0 and SEOptimise. I don’t want to use the same types of posts, the same headline formulas. I don’t even like to repeat myself all the time.

In a way who else could start a new successful blog? After all I’m the guy who explained how to achieve it in 2007 and has proven ever since that it works. Still, it’s also a bit ridiculous. It’s the same person writing, the same topics (SEO and social media) and even the same Internet. My readers vary though. Surprisingly very different people seem to read SEO 2.0, SEOptimise and cognitiveSEO. At least they appear to be different as other people share the posts on social media for instance.

You could think that the audience follows the author, like with books.

On the Web the publishing house, here the blog, seems to be much more important though. People know a particular source to be trustworthy and they return to it again and again. A new source has to prove it’s worth it, even if the writer is already known from elsewhere.

Before starting to blog over at cognitiveSEO I considered writing again for Hubspot. I did a few times in 2007 but then lost touch with them. Now I did it again but it felt a bit weird. I didn’t really know what to write about. That was strange because Hubspot’s inbound marketing is largely the same as my SEO 2.0 philosophy. That lack of inspiration doesn’t really happen at the new blog. I think I know why:

A new blog is like a new love. It’s full of insecurities but it’s also exciting.

It’s exciting because not everything is routine and popular. You have to find out, you have to find your voice and audience. I love it. Call me a serial blogger. I love it despite the hard work it takes to get just a few shares on social media. That’s the joy and pain of starting a new blog.

 

* Image by Elliot in Wonderland

 

Related posts:

  1. How to Overcome the Established Blogger’s Apathy
  2. How to Analyze Your Link Profile with cognitiveSEO Tools
  3. 7* Writing for Subscriber Heaven: More of the Same but Better

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com
Related posts:
  1. How to Overcome the Established Blogger’s Apathy
  2. How to Analyze Your Link Profile with cognitiveSEO Tools
  3. 7* Writing for Subscriber Heaven: More of the Same but Better
]]> *

It’s not a secret that I’m not as active on SEO 2.0 as in the early days anymore. I’ve turned out an “occasional blogger” over the years while publishing SEO related articles mostly over at the SEOptimise blog. I have been hugely successful with SEOptimise. It’s by now the number one and most popular UK SEO blog according to Google at least but it also has an impressive following and

some of my posts get shared by hundreds of people.

The SEO 2.0 blog is still modestly well known but not as widely acclaimed as it was once was. I get still some substantial Google traffic and even StumbleUpon sends me hundreds of casual visitors daily again. So everything is alright isn’t it then? Well, it bores me a little. Thus I joined a completely new SEO blog over at cognitiveSEO, a promising SEO software startup from Europe. Their blog was almost completely empty when I started to write for it.

While blogging here and on SEOptimise has become routine, both in a positive and negative sense on cognitiveSEO I have to rediscover the art of blogging in a way. I have to

experiment and find a new unique writing style once again.

As this is actually my third flagship SEO blog I develop it’s not as easy to become someone else for it. On the other hand I can’t just copy the blogging style I use on SEO 2.0 and SEOptimise. I don’t want to use the same types of posts, the same headline formulas. I don’t even like to repeat myself all the time.

In a way who else could start a new successful blog? After all I’m the guy who explained how to achieve it in 2007 and has proven ever since that it works. Still, it’s also a bit ridiculous. It’s the same person writing, the same topics (SEO and social media) and even the same Internet. My readers vary though. Surprisingly very different people seem to read SEO 2.0, SEOptimise and cognitiveSEO. At least they appear to be different as other people share the posts on social media for instance.

You could think that the audience follows the author, like with books.

On the Web the publishing house, here the blog, seems to be much more important though. People know a particular source to be trustworthy and they return to it again and again. A new source has to prove it’s worth it, even if the writer is already known from elsewhere.

Before starting to blog over at cognitiveSEO I considered writing again for Hubspot. I did a few times in 2007 but then lost touch with them. Now I did it again but it felt a bit weird. I didn’t really know what to write about. That was strange because Hubspot’s inbound marketing is largely the same as my SEO 2.0 philosophy. That lack of inspiration doesn’t really happen at the new blog. I think I know why:

A new blog is like a new love. It’s full of insecurities but it’s also exciting.

It’s exciting because not everything is routine and popular. You have to find out, you have to find your voice and audience. I love it. Call me a serial blogger. I love it despite the hard work it takes to get just a few shares on social media. That’s the joy and pain of starting a new blog.

 

* Image by Elliot in Wonderland

 

Related posts:

  1. How to Overcome the Established Blogger’s Apathy
  2. How to Analyze Your Link Profile with cognitiveSEO Tools
  3. 7* Writing for Subscriber Heaven: More of the Same but Better

]]> http://seo2.0.onreact.com/the-joy-and-pain-of-starting-a-new-blog/feed 13 10 Ways Piwik is Better Than Google Analytics http://seo2.0.onreact.com/10-ways-piwik-is-better-than-google-analytics http://seo2.0.onreact.com/10-ways-piwik-is-better-than-google-analytics#comments Mon, 31 Jan 2011 09:30:07 +0000 Tadeusz Szewczyk http://seo2.0.onreact.com/?p=1802


Piwik is is better than Google Analytics in many ways, at least 10 of them. It’s:

Free, really free, you don’t pay with your data. Once you use Google Analytics you’ll get Adwords ads via mail both electronic and in real life.


Open Source – Do I need to say more? No big Google like corporation behind it or small business that could go bankrupt out of the blue.


Respects privacy while Google Analytics does send your data to the US where at least 40 different secret government agencies can access it.


Easy to use once it’s installed. GA is way to complex by now. You have to click several times to find some crucial reports.


Simple goal tracking. I have explained that in a recent how to post on SEOptimise. The way Piwik organizes goal tracking is easy to grasp and implement.


Customizable. While GA is also customizable you can make your Piwik dashboard show anything and everything you want.


Self hosted, so that you control your data and they stay i the same country you’re in and nobody else can view them, not even Google employees.


Tracks Google Image Search. While GA, sham on them, doesn’t properly track Google Image search traffic Piwik does with ease.​


Full referers: you have to perform bizarre workarounds to see the actual referers people come from to your site in GA. Once you have them you have to click several times just to see them. Piwik simply shows them after one click.


Almost real time – While Google Analytics data appears with sometimes a substantial delay​ Piwik shows your visitors right away.​




Did I overlook something? I bet Piwik has even more advantages. I’ve been playing around with it for roughly two weeks now. Add them in the comments. I also have to ​admit that Google Analytics has some advantages over Piwik. I’d miss advanced segments for instance.

So I won’t quit GA just yet but may in the future. Piwik gets developed fast. Last time I tested it they were Beta 0.4 or something, right now the current version is 1.1.1

Also

and other entry level paid web analytics tools have to look out.​ I use all of them except Chartbeat but I almost stopped after I started using Piwik.

Related posts:

  1. Software for SEO: Tools, Why & How to Track Rankings in a Personalized Search World
  2. Keyword Research: SEO 2.0 on the Rise – Says Google “Insights”
  3. 7 Reasons Why Google Chrome, the New Google Browser is a Bad Idea

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com
Related posts:
  1. Software for SEO: Tools, Why & How to Track Rankings in a Personalized Search World
  2. Keyword Research: SEO 2.0 on the Rise – Says Google “Insights”
  3. 7 Reasons Why Google Chrome, the New Google Browser is a Bad Idea
]]>


Piwik is is better than Google Analytics in many ways, at least 10 of them. It’s:

Free, really free, you don’t pay with your data. Once you use Google Analytics you’ll get Adwords ads via mail both electronic and in real life.


Open Source – Do I need to say more? No big Google like corporation behind it or small business that could go bankrupt out of the blue.


Respects privacy while Google Analytics does send your data to the US where at least 40 different secret government agencies can access it.


Easy to use once it’s installed. GA is way to complex by now. You have to click several times to find some crucial reports.


Simple goal tracking. I have explained that in a recent how to post on SEOptimise. The way Piwik organizes goal tracking is easy to grasp and implement.


Customizable. While GA is also customizable you can make your Piwik dashboard show anything and everything you want.


Self hosted, so that you control your data and they stay i the same country you’re in and nobody else can view them, not even Google employees.


Tracks Google Image Search. While GA, sham on them, doesn’t properly track Google Image search traffic Piwik does with ease.​


Full referers: you have to perform bizarre workarounds to see the actual referers people come from to your site in GA. Once you have them you have to click several times just to see them. Piwik simply shows them after one click.


Almost real time – While Google Analytics data appears with sometimes a substantial delay​ Piwik shows your visitors right away.​




Did I overlook something? I bet Piwik has even more advantages. I’ve been playing around with it for roughly two weeks now. Add them in the comments. I also have to ​admit that Google Analytics has some advantages over Piwik. I’d miss advanced segments for instance.

So I won’t quit GA just yet but may in the future. Piwik gets developed fast. Last time I tested it they were Beta 0.4 or something, right now the current version is 1.1.1

Also

and other entry level paid web analytics tools have to look out.​ I use all of them except Chartbeat but I almost stopped after I started using Piwik.

Related posts:

  1. Software for SEO: Tools, Why & How to Track Rankings in a Personalized Search World
  2. Keyword Research: SEO 2.0 on the Rise – Says Google “Insights”
  3. 7 Reasons Why Google Chrome, the New Google Browser is a Bad Idea

]]> http://seo2.0.onreact.com/10-ways-piwik-is-better-than-google-analytics/feed 26 Quora vs Yahoo Answers: Which Q&A Site is Better for Your Business? http://seo2.0.onreact.com/quora-vs-yahoo-answers-which-qa-site-is-better-for-your-business http://seo2.0.onreact.com/quora-vs-yahoo-answers-which-qa-site-is-better-for-your-business#comments Wed, 19 Jan 2011 15:37:54 +0000 Tadeusz Szewczyk http://seo2.0.onreact.com/?p=1758

Graph: Yahoo Answers and Quora compared on Google Trends for Websites (plus Twitter and Tumblr for a better perspective)

Many people ask questions on the Web, especially on search engines like Google but also on social media. Even in cases where they don’t ask a question containing a question mark most queries are indeed questions as well, it’s just that people don’t enter the whole sentence in the Google search box.

When you search for [best smartphone] you are actually asking “what is the best smartphone”. Even a search for smartphone itself implies that you are looking for the best or at least most popular smartphone.

Right now we have a new frenzy on social media and the uber-hypebeasts Techcrunch and Robert Scoble are heavily promoting it. Pundits proclaim the next Twitter etc.

People have already written why such a hype is generally a bad idea and in the case of Quora particularly.

I’ve been on Quora for a few days now and have tested it so to say. Still there is Yahoo Answers, the number one Q&A site out there, the elephant in the room you have to beat to become the next big thing. Otherwise you’re just an also ran. I’m not a Yahoo Answers expert but I have advised small business owners to participate there in the past. Why?

Let me tell you again pointing out the reasons why. As Quora is so popular among early adopters now I’d like to compare them with Quora. Does Quora have the same or other advantages?

Who uses the site?

Q: Elite. Tech pundits, entrepreneurs, early adopters, bloggers, marketers, social media mavens.

YA: Everybody. John Doe and his wife and even kids.

Who is your audience?

Are you selling high quality services and goods for professionals and other businesses? Use Quora.

Are you selling large numbers of products or local services to average people? Use Yahoo Answers.

Who are you?

Are you an accomplished expert with lots of time? Use Quora. Otherwise you don’t have a chance to stand out. For instance every question about SEO gets answered by renowned SEO expert Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz. In other areas there are sometimes dozens or even hundreds of answers provided by highly skilled professionals. There is no room for you in case you aren’t a leader already. Although I’m pretty known in SEO circles I can’t compete with Rand who has a whole team of people working for him. He has the time to answer questions for free while others do the paid work for him. I don’t. Do you?

Are you the average business owner or freelancer like I am? Use Yahoo Answers, The answers are mostly so low quality that you can easily stand out. Real people aka potential clients read your advice and click your links. Of course you have to say more than “my SEO company is the best” but even some people get away with that low quality approach. You can perform better than that.

Are you after a good rep, authority and trust? Use Quora. Here you can build a reputation for yourself competing with the best of the best. You have to spend a few hours a day on it but it’s a long time investment. Then one day you can show that most people consider your answers and expertise to be worth it. Then you can earn money with it.

Are you after traffic, leads or even sales? Do you need to earn money right now? Don’t have the time to compete for days, weeks or months without getting something in return? Use Yahoo Answers. Here people are asking for things they need right now. They would pay for it. You don’t need to be the best expert on something as long as your answer makes sense.

I could ask question like these for a while but I don’t have the time. Also my impression is that I can’t cope with Quora.

The pace questions get asked, answered, liked etc. is too fast on Quora.

I’m spending most of my social media time on Twitter and I won’t build a new power profile from zero. Also there are other sites to consider joining which actually don’t cost so much time investment. Trunk.ly and Amplify actually save you time.

Btw. I even rejoined Yahoo to test Yahoo Answers again as I lost my two older accounts from years ago. Maybe I start using Yahoo Answer again. Judging from the replies to the SEO questions I could easily stand out in a positive way. Also Rand isn’ t there.

You can follow me on both Q&A sites, Yahoo Answers and Quora if you like but as I said I’m mainly on Twitter.

 

Related posts:

  1. 3 Traits of True Social Media Experts
  2. 7 Social Sites Every Business and Professional Should Use
  3. 7 Business & Blogging Clues a Puppy Can Teach You

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com
Related posts:
  1. 3 Traits of True Social Media Experts
  2. 7 Social Sites Every Business and Professional Should Use
  3. 7 Business & Blogging Clues a Puppy Can Teach You
]]>

Graph: Yahoo Answers and Quora compared on Google Trends for Websites (plus Twitter and Tumblr for a better perspective)

Many people ask questions on the Web, especially on search engines like Google but also on social media. Even in cases where they don’t ask a question containing a question mark most queries are indeed questions as well, it’s just that people don’t enter the whole sentence in the Google search box.

When you search for [best smartphone] you are actually asking “what is the best smartphone”. Even a search for smartphone itself implies that you are looking for the best or at least most popular smartphone.

Right now we have a new frenzy on social media and the uber-hypebeasts Techcrunch and Robert Scoble are heavily promoting it. Pundits proclaim the next Twitter etc.

People have already written why such a hype is generally a bad idea and in the case of Quora particularly.

I’ve been on Quora for a few days now and have tested it so to say. Still there is Yahoo Answers, the number one Q&A site out there, the elephant in the room you have to beat to become the next big thing. Otherwise you’re just an also ran. I’m not a Yahoo Answers expert but I have advised small business owners to participate there in the past. Why?

Let me tell you again pointing out the reasons why. As Quora is so popular among early adopters now I’d like to compare them with Quora. Does Quora have the same or other advantages?

Who uses the site?

Q: Elite. Tech pundits, entrepreneurs, early adopters, bloggers, marketers, social media mavens.

YA: Everybody. John Doe and his wife and even kids.

Who is your audience?

Are you selling high quality services and goods for professionals and other businesses? Use Quora.

Are you selling large numbers of products or local services to average people? Use Yahoo Answers.

Who are you?

Are you an accomplished expert with lots of time? Use Quora. Otherwise you don’t have a chance to stand out. For instance every question about SEO gets answered by renowned SEO expert Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz. In other areas there are sometimes dozens or even hundreds of answers provided by highly skilled professionals. There is no room for you in case you aren’t a leader already. Although I’m pretty known in SEO circles I can’t compete with Rand who has a whole team of people working for him. He has the time to answer questions for free while others do the paid work for him. I don’t. Do you?

Are you the average business owner or freelancer like I am? Use Yahoo Answers, The answers are mostly so low quality that you can easily stand out. Real people aka potential clients read your advice and click your links. Of course you have to say more than “my SEO company is the best” but even some people get away with that low quality approach. You can perform better than that.

Are you after a good rep, authority and trust? Use Quora. Here you can build a reputation for yourself competing with the best of the best. You have to spend a few hours a day on it but it’s a long time investment. Then one day you can show that most people consider your answers and expertise to be worth it. Then you can earn money with it.

Are you after traffic, leads or even sales? Do you need to earn money right now? Don’t have the time to compete for days, weeks or months without getting something in return? Use Yahoo Answers. Here people are asking for things they need right now. They would pay for it. You don’t need to be the best expert on something as long as your answer makes sense.

I could ask question like these for a while but I don’t have the time. Also my impression is that I can’t cope with Quora.

The pace questions get asked, answered, liked etc. is too fast on Quora.

I’m spending most of my social media time on Twitter and I won’t build a new power profile from zero. Also there are other sites to consider joining which actually don’t cost so much time investment. Trunk.ly and Amplify actually save you time.

Btw. I even rejoined Yahoo to test Yahoo Answers again as I lost my two older accounts from years ago. Maybe I start using Yahoo Answer again. Judging from the replies to the SEO questions I could easily stand out in a positive way. Also Rand isn’ t there.

You can follow me on both Q&A sites, Yahoo Answers and Quora if you like but as I said I’m mainly on Twitter.

 

Related posts:

  1. 3 Traits of True Social Media Experts
  2. 7 Social Sites Every Business and Professional Should Use
  3. 7 Business & Blogging Clues a Puppy Can Teach You

]]> http://seo2.0.onreact.com/quora-vs-yahoo-answers-which-qa-site-is-better-for-your-business/feed 16 Twitter Dilemma: To Tweet or Not to Tweet? Pros, Cons, 50+ Links & Tools http://seo2.0.onreact.com/twitter-dilemma-to-tweet-or-not-to-tweet-pros-cons-50-links-tools http://seo2.0.onreact.com/twitter-dilemma-to-tweet-or-not-to-tweet-pros-cons-50-links-tools#comments Tue, 28 Sep 2010 15:15:37 +0000 Tadeusz Szewczyk http://seo2.0.onreact.com/twitter-dilemma-to-tweet-or-not-to-tweet-pros-cons-50-links-tools the-birds-rickydavid.jpg

The birds by rickydavid.

This article has been updated on September 28th, 2010. 20 of the 50+ links have been replaced!

When it comes to Twitter people are very divided. Some people hate Twitter, others love love it. Both of them are right for different reasons. Actually there are many reasons to use Twitter or not. Here you’ll find plenty of them plus resources to actually use it.

.

Unlike Facebook where you just follow friends and family you already know Twitter gets used to follow mostly strangers you are interested in.

So follow me to get the latest insights on social media, business blogging and SEO! Indeed I’ve been using Twitter for over two and half years now and it is a powerful link sharing plus social networking tool for me. It wasn’t that way from the start. It took me some time to get it or even to understand why I need Twitter and what the pitfalls are.


For those still undecided here are the pros, cons and Twitter tools to make the experience of tweeting much more convenient as well as productive.


Indeed Twitter is a lot like Facebook although it’s a different concept. Both sites do not result in significant direct traffic or other benefits you can measure easily unless you are very popular.

I wanted to share my thoughts on Twitter and help you decide whether it makes sense or not so I collected 50+ Twitter related links to answer the question: To tweet or not to tweet?

Also once you decided you want to use it, you will find plenty of ideas how to use it below:

pretty-bird-picture-taker-2.jpg

Pretty bird by Picture Taker 2.

Balanced Twitter pros and cons articles


polka-the-humming-bird-cris-perry.jpg

Polka – the humming bird by Cris Pierry

Reasons to use Twitter

i-look-up-to-the-little-bird-monkeyc-net.jpg

I look up to the little bird by monkeyc.net

Reasons not to use Twitter

red-wing-black-bird-3723-casch52.jpg

Red wing black bird 3723 by Casch52

Twitter clients

These are the the most common or bets Twitter clients. I’ve tried them all myself (with the exception of the mobile tools) and still use most of them in many cases daily. The first three clients are ideal for business usage and marketing campaigns.



Twitter scanners (Twitter search etc.)

bejia-flor-humming-bird-marcio-cabral-de-moura.jpg

Bejia flor / Humming bird by Marcio Cabral de Moura

Twitter marketing how tos, tutorials and resources

Now of course the main reason why I am using Twitter is to inform you of my eating habits! No, just kidding, rather to indoctrinate you with my SEO 2.0 propaganda. It does only make sense when I have enough people to preach to. So follow me now if you are really serious about the SEO 2.0 cult!

  1. How do you use Twitter?
  2. Do you use a client?
  3. If yes, which one?
  4. What are you using Twitter for?
  5. What do you tweet about actually?
  6. What are you doing?
  7. What is your user name?

If it makes sense I’ll follow, @reply and retweet you! Did I miss some valuable links? Add them in the comments, this list will be updated in future. Want more? Try 101 tweets on how to use Twitter.

Last updated: September 28th, 2010. Originally published: April 30th, 2008.

 

Related posts:

  1. Hey Marketers on Twitter: It’s not a Link List
  2. 10 Reasons to Follow Me/SEO 2.0 on Twitter
  3. Are You a Real Time Idiot? A Racing Rat on Steroids? A Twitter Zombie?

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com
Related posts:
  1. Hey Marketers on Twitter: It’s not a Link List
  2. 10 Reasons to Follow Me/SEO 2.0 on Twitter
  3. Are You a Real Time Idiot? A Racing Rat on Steroids? A Twitter Zombie?
]]> the-birds-rickydavid.jpg

The birds by rickydavid.

This article has been updated on September 28th, 2010. 20 of the 50+ links have been replaced!

When it comes to Twitter people are very divided. Some people hate Twitter, others love love it. Both of them are right for different reasons. Actually there are many reasons to use Twitter or not. Here you’ll find plenty of them plus resources to actually use it.

.

Unlike Facebook where you just follow friends and family you already know Twitter gets used to follow mostly strangers you are interested in.

So follow me to get the latest insights on social media, business blogging and SEO! Indeed I’ve been using Twitter for over two and half years now and it is a powerful link sharing plus social networking tool for me. It wasn’t that way from the start. It took me some time to get it or even to understand why I need Twitter and what the pitfalls are.


For those still undecided here are the pros, cons and Twitter tools to make the experience of tweeting much more convenient as well as productive.


Indeed Twitter is a lot like Facebook although it’s a different concept. Both sites do not result in significant direct traffic or other benefits you can measure easily unless you are very popular.

I wanted to share my thoughts on Twitter and help you decide whether it makes sense or not so I collected 50+ Twitter related links to answer the question: To tweet or not to tweet?

Also once you decided you want to use it, you will find plenty of ideas how to use it below:

pretty-bird-picture-taker-2.jpg

Pretty bird by Picture Taker 2.

Balanced Twitter pros and cons articles


polka-the-humming-bird-cris-perry.jpg

Polka – the humming bird by Cris Pierry

Reasons to use Twitter

i-look-up-to-the-little-bird-monkeyc-net.jpg

I look up to the little bird by monkeyc.net

Reasons not to use Twitter

red-wing-black-bird-3723-casch52.jpg

Red wing black bird 3723 by Casch52

Twitter clients

These are the the most common or bets Twitter clients. I’ve tried them all myself (with the exception of the mobile tools) and still use most of them in many cases daily. The first three clients are ideal for business usage and marketing campaigns.



Twitter scanners (Twitter search etc.)

bejia-flor-humming-bird-marcio-cabral-de-moura.jpg

Bejia flor / Humming bird by Marcio Cabral de Moura

Twitter marketing how tos, tutorials and resources

Now of course the main reason why I am using Twitter is to inform you of my eating habits! No, just kidding, rather to indoctrinate you with my SEO 2.0 propaganda. It does only make sense when I have enough people to preach to. So follow me now if you are really serious about the SEO 2.0 cult!

  1. How do you use Twitter?
  2. Do you use a client?
  3. If yes, which one?
  4. What are you using Twitter for?
  5. What do you tweet about actually?
  6. What are you doing?
  7. What is your user name?

If it makes sense I’ll follow, @reply and retweet you! Did I miss some valuable links? Add them in the comments, this list will be updated in future. Want more? Try 101 tweets on how to use Twitter.

Last updated: September 28th, 2010. Originally published: April 30th, 2008.

 

Related posts:

  1. Hey Marketers on Twitter: It’s not a Link List
  2. 10 Reasons to Follow Me/SEO 2.0 on Twitter
  3. Are You a Real Time Idiot? A Racing Rat on Steroids? A Twitter Zombie?

]]> http://seo2.0.onreact.com/twitter-dilemma-to-tweet-or-not-to-tweet-pros-cons-50-links-tools/feed 57 You Need Better Not More http://seo2.0.onreact.com/you-need-better-not-more http://seo2.0.onreact.com/you-need-better-not-more#comments Tue, 24 Aug 2010 08:42:10 +0000 Tadeusz Szewczyk http://seo2.0.onreact.com/?p=1265

Traffic Jam in Beijing by poelog.

In the recent weeks I haven’t published many new posts on SEO 2.0. Nonetheless I have been spending much time here. I’ve been updating at least a dozen of old postings from years ago.

Sometimes I just needed to fix a few links but in some cases I had to rewrite the whole post for it to still make sense.

I added new internal as well as outgoing links. In many cases I changed the tone of the post as my opinions have changed over the years. For instnace I’m not as enthusiastic about social media anymore.

While doing it I was always in doubt: Should I write “fresh content” instead? Should I focus on new postings instead of fixing sometimes outdated posts? I wasn’t sure. Although I focused on the articles that still get traffic via Google, StumbleUpon or other sources I could have been writing new posts instead to get more of it.

Today I read two articles that have convinced me that I was doing the right thing.

One blog post dealt with the right posting frequency on a blog. The other one was an article about a more than 60 mile long traffic jam in China in which people were stuck for nine days.

These exemplify that you don’t need more, you need better. Whether it’s content or means of transportation,

you need better and not more of it.

Once you have content you need to keep on improving it.

Let me explain: China had no traffic problems a few decades ago. Everybody was riding a bike and only a few people could afford a car twenty or thirty years ago. Then China embraced the capitalist system where you need to buy more things to keep it running. Their former system, falsely labeled communism for propaganda reasons while technically it’s so called “state capitalism” failed as the market demand can not be planned by a centralist government. On the other hand the current system only proposes producing more and more to solve any problem.

Environmentalists already know that resources are finite and we can’t grow forever on this planet. Likewise your time and creativity resources as a blogger are finite.

You can’t blog all day and you can’t write about one topic for years without becoming repetitive. Instead it’s better to update the resources you have already provided earlier. You have to adapt to the current situation and likewise you have to update your blog posts for them to reflect the current state of affairs.

The Chinese want cars like the rest of us in the Western world. By now the situation has changed already though. There are too many cars out there and progressive people in the West try to get rid of those. They rediscover bikes and trains. They even use cargo bikes for transportation like the poor Chinese of the past. In contrast western cargo bikes are very expensive though and only middle class buyers can afford them as of now.

The Chinese prefer to make the same mistakes the Westerns made during the last 50 or 100 years.

They buy so many cars that their more than impressive highway system is already overcrowded and SMOG prevails in the cities. Bikes remind people of poverty and the past.

Sometimes the past already had the right solutions though. So you have to go back and improve them.

The same applies to blogging. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel anew each day. Just improve the old one.

The people don’t want fresh content for the sake of it. They want solutions that work, they want proven techniques. They want to know how to improve the tools they already use. They want cheap, easy to use and long lasting solutions. Capitalism attempts to sell you new stuff as often as possible. I prefer sustainability. Believe me, you need better not more. More cars won’t transport you faster they just congest the highways. More blog posts won’t automatically bring better solutions, they will just clutter the RSS readers and mail boxes of your audience.

Also old postings have so many broken links or worse, they contain links to bad neighborhoods by now that you need to fix or remove them for the sake of Google SEO.

State capitalism failed also because they never improved their old solutions and kept using outdated tools. I know it. I lived in state capitalism myself.

Related posts:

  1. Wall Street Down, SEO Up: 7 Reasons Why
  2. Daily Routine Schedule for Enhanced Productivity and Happiness
  3. Does Link Building Still Exist as an SEO Practice in 2011?

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com
Related posts:
  1. Wall Street Down, SEO Up: 7 Reasons Why
  2. Daily Routine Schedule for Enhanced Productivity and Happiness
  3. Does Link Building Still Exist as an SEO Practice in 2011?
]]>

Traffic Jam in Beijing by poelog.

In the recent weeks I haven’t published many new posts on SEO 2.0. Nonetheless I have been spending much time here. I’ve been updating at least a dozen of old postings from years ago.

Sometimes I just needed to fix a few links but in some cases I had to rewrite the whole post for it to still make sense.

I added new internal as well as outgoing links. In many cases I changed the tone of the post as my opinions have changed over the years. For instnace I’m not as enthusiastic about social media anymore.

While doing it I was always in doubt: Should I write “fresh content” instead? Should I focus on new postings instead of fixing sometimes outdated posts? I wasn’t sure. Although I focused on the articles that still get traffic via Google, StumbleUpon or other sources I could have been writing new posts instead to get more of it.

Today I read two articles that have convinced me that I was doing the right thing.

One blog post dealt with the right posting frequency on a blog. The other one was an article about a more than 60 mile long traffic jam in China in which people were stuck for nine days.

These exemplify that you don’t need more, you need better. Whether it’s content or means of transportation,

you need better and not more of it.

Once you have content you need to keep on improving it.

Let me explain: China had no traffic problems a few decades ago. Everybody was riding a bike and only a few people could afford a car twenty or thirty years ago. Then China embraced the capitalist system where you need to buy more things to keep it running. Their former system, falsely labeled communism for propaganda reasons while technically it’s so called “state capitalism” failed as the market demand can not be planned by a centralist government. On the other hand the current system only proposes producing more and more to solve any problem.

Environmentalists already know that resources are finite and we can’t grow forever on this planet. Likewise your time and creativity resources as a blogger are finite.

You can’t blog all day and you can’t write about one topic for years without becoming repetitive. Instead it’s better to update the resources you have already provided earlier. You have to adapt to the current situation and likewise you have to update your blog posts for them to reflect the current state of affairs.

The Chinese want cars like the rest of us in the Western world. By now the situation has changed already though. There are too many cars out there and progressive people in the West try to get rid of those. They rediscover bikes and trains. They even use cargo bikes for transportation like the poor Chinese of the past. In contrast western cargo bikes are very expensive though and only middle class buyers can afford them as of now.

The Chinese prefer to make the same mistakes the Westerns made during the last 50 or 100 years.

They buy so many cars that their more than impressive highway system is already overcrowded and SMOG prevails in the cities. Bikes remind people of poverty and the past.

Sometimes the past already had the right solutions though. So you have to go back and improve them.

The same applies to blogging. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel anew each day. Just improve the old one.

The people don’t want fresh content for the sake of it. They want solutions that work, they want proven techniques. They want to know how to improve the tools they already use. They want cheap, easy to use and long lasting solutions. Capitalism attempts to sell you new stuff as often as possible. I prefer sustainability. Believe me, you need better not more. More cars won’t transport you faster they just congest the highways. More blog posts won’t automatically bring better solutions, they will just clutter the RSS readers and mail boxes of your audience.

Also old postings have so many broken links or worse, they contain links to bad neighborhoods by now that you need to fix or remove them for the sake of Google SEO.

State capitalism failed also because they never improved their old solutions and kept using outdated tools. I know it. I lived in state capitalism myself.

Related posts:

  1. Wall Street Down, SEO Up: 7 Reasons Why
  2. Daily Routine Schedule for Enhanced Productivity and Happiness
  3. Does Link Building Still Exist as an SEO Practice in 2011?

]]> http://seo2.0.onreact.com/you-need-better-not-more/feed 4 The New SEO – Search Engine Organization! http://seo2.0.onreact.com/the-new-seo-search-engine-organization http://seo2.0.onreact.com/the-new-seo-search-engine-organization#comments Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:01:08 +0000 Tadeusz Szewczyk http://seo2.0.onreact.com/?p=1172

Mexican Fans by Celso Flores (image added by sombrero expert optimizer Tad of SEO 2.0)

“The New SEO – Search Engine Organization!” is a guest post by Albert Gouyet, Vice President of Product Marketing, BrightEdge.

With the World Cup Finals in South Africa already becoming a distant memory, it’s that time again to draw analogies between team sports and marketing activities. Today’s topic: SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Disclaimer: if you are a soccer fanatic, still struggling to come to grips with your country’s failure to win the World Cup, you probably should stop reading now! All others please read on…

In this World Cup we saw the success of teams with a balanced structure that exhibited high-levels of co-operation

- think

  • Spain
  • Holland
  • Germany

- and the failure of those that relied primarily on the brilliance of individual players – think Brazil, Argentina, and England. (Italy and France were so bad, they fall into a category of their own!)

What does this have to do with SEO? In most enterprises, SEO tends to be more of an “Argentina” when it needs to be more of a “Spain” – in other words, less dependent on an individual SEO specialist and more reliant on a team efforts, or a “search engine organization” approach.

You can have the most brilliant SEO mind in the world managing your SEO or you might have outsourced it to the premier SEO specialist firm. But if your web-developer updates your site without any understanding of the existing backlinks that are driving the authority for your natural search rankings, all their genius will count for naught! (For those of you who didn’t see it, Germany, with their team-base approach, destroyed Argentina 4-0!)

SEO Team Line-up

So what is the optimum team line up for the search engine organization?

Goal Keeper – Web Developer

If this guy drops the ball, you’re in trouble (ask England!). Often forgotten unless he makes a mistake, the web developer needs to ensure all the key internal and external links that drive the SEO authority are pointing to the right content.

Defense – Product Marketing

Very much a self-contained unit, just like the defense in a soccer team, the product marketing group lays the groundwork for a successful SEO operation. Leveraging the market intelligence generated by the SEO manager, this team incorporates the critical keywords into all marketing collateral and website material. They also need to avoid costly defensive mistakes; for example, breaking SEO by creating new content that targets keywords already covered by better pages.

Strikers – Marketing Communications/Media Relations

If these guys are shooting blanks, you’re not going much further than the group stages (again, ask England!) The life blood to a successful SEO operation is content that is relevant to your target market. Much of the content will be generated internally, but the real “goal” is to secure high profile articles in industry-respected media outlets with backlinks driving authority to your website.

Midfielder – the SEO Manager

The Maestro! He/she is in the middle of everything and orchestrates the SEO play. For example, he/she ensures that the “goalkeeper” is aware of the impact of website changes, works with the “defense” to ensure the correct messaging is incorporated into all product marketing, identifies sources of backlinks that need to be targeted, and works with the “strikers” to develop relevant content and backlinks, etc.

Sports analogies aside, for SEO to really be successful and become an integral, revenue driving part of your marketing program, it takes a team effort that is well coordinated, balanced and based on cooperation and playing off the strengths of the entire team, not just one individual.

When it comes to being a Search Engine Organization, are you Spain or France?

Albert Gouyet is BrightEdge’s Vice President of Product Marketing. He brings over 20 years of broad technology and senior management experience from Netscape, AOL, Sybase as well as venture backed private companies.

At AOL, Albert was Vice President of Web Clients and Services where he led the team responsible for developing and implementing a new strategy for Search for Netscape and CompuServe, which culminated with the game-changing partnership between AOL and Google.

For the record, Albert is a native of France and can be reached via email: agouyet at brightedge.com.

Related posts:

  1. Best Search Engine According to Google
  2. Top 10 Benefits of Speaking at Search Engine Conferences
  3. SEO Company, SEO and Search Engine Optimization Google Results Are a Disgrace

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com
Related posts:
  1. Best Search Engine According to Google
  2. Top 10 Benefits of Speaking at Search Engine Conferences
  3. SEO Company, SEO and Search Engine Optimization Google Results Are a Disgrace
]]>

Mexican Fans by Celso Flores (image added by sombrero expert optimizer Tad of SEO 2.0)

“The New SEO – Search Engine Organization!” is a guest post by Albert Gouyet, Vice President of Product Marketing, BrightEdge.

With the World Cup Finals in South Africa already becoming a distant memory, it’s that time again to draw analogies between team sports and marketing activities. Today’s topic: SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Disclaimer: if you are a soccer fanatic, still struggling to come to grips with your country’s failure to win the World Cup, you probably should stop reading now! All others please read on…

In this World Cup we saw the success of teams with a balanced structure that exhibited high-levels of co-operation

- think

  • Spain
  • Holland
  • Germany

- and the failure of those that relied primarily on the brilliance of individual players – think Brazil, Argentina, and England. (Italy and France were so bad, they fall into a category of their own!)

What does this have to do with SEO? In most enterprises, SEO tends to be more of an “Argentina” when it needs to be more of a “Spain” – in other words, less dependent on an individual SEO specialist and more reliant on a team efforts, or a “search engine organization” approach.

You can have the most brilliant SEO mind in the world managing your SEO or you might have outsourced it to the premier SEO specialist firm. But if your web-developer updates your site without any understanding of the existing backlinks that are driving the authority for your natural search rankings, all their genius will count for naught! (For those of you who didn’t see it, Germany, with their team-base approach, destroyed Argentina 4-0!)

SEO Team Line-up

So what is the optimum team line up for the search engine organization?

Goal Keeper – Web Developer

If this guy drops the ball, you’re in trouble (ask England!). Often forgotten unless he makes a mistake, the web developer needs to ensure all the key internal and external links that drive the SEO authority are pointing to the right content.

Defense – Product Marketing

Very much a self-contained unit, just like the defense in a soccer team, the product marketing group lays the groundwork for a successful SEO operation. Leveraging the market intelligence generated by the SEO manager, this team incorporates the critical keywords into all marketing collateral and website material. They also need to avoid costly defensive mistakes; for example, breaking SEO by creating new content that targets keywords already covered by better pages.

Strikers – Marketing Communications/Media Relations

If these guys are shooting blanks, you’re not going much further than the group stages (again, ask England!) The life blood to a successful SEO operation is content that is relevant to your target market. Much of the content will be generated internally, but the real “goal” is to secure high profile articles in industry-respected media outlets with backlinks driving authority to your website.

Midfielder – the SEO Manager

The Maestro! He/she is in the middle of everything and orchestrates the SEO play. For example, he/she ensures that the “goalkeeper” is aware of the impact of website changes, works with the “defense” to ensure the correct messaging is incorporated into all product marketing, identifies sources of backlinks that need to be targeted, and works with the “strikers” to develop relevant content and backlinks, etc.

Sports analogies aside, for SEO to really be successful and become an integral, revenue driving part of your marketing program, it takes a team effort that is well coordinated, balanced and based on cooperation and playing off the strengths of the entire team, not just one individual.

When it comes to being a Search Engine Organization, are you Spain or France?

Albert Gouyet is BrightEdge’s Vice President of Product Marketing. He brings over 20 years of broad technology and senior management experience from Netscape, AOL, Sybase as well as venture backed private companies.

At AOL, Albert was Vice President of Web Clients and Services where he led the team responsible for developing and implementing a new strategy for Search for Netscape and CompuServe, which culminated with the game-changing partnership between AOL and Google.

For the record, Albert is a native of France and can be reached via email: agouyet at brightedge.com.

Related posts:

  1. Best Search Engine According to Google
  2. Top 10 Benefits of Speaking at Search Engine Conferences
  3. SEO Company, SEO and Search Engine Optimization Google Results Are a Disgrace

]]> http://seo2.0.onreact.com/the-new-seo-search-engine-organization/feed 10 Interview with Business Blogger Steven Snell on His Recent 50k Blog Sale http://seo2.0.onreact.com/interview-with-business-blogger-steven-snell-on-his-recent-50k-blog-sale http://seo2.0.onreact.com/interview-with-business-blogger-steven-snell-on-his-recent-50k-blog-sale#comments Fri, 30 Apr 2010 09:46:24 +0000 Tadeusz Szewczyk http://seo2.0.onreact.com/?p=1020

Steven Snell is a professional blogger who also runs a design business. He is the man behind Vandelay Design, DesignM.ag and Traffikd. Especially his two flagship design blogs have been very succesful in the past both by the sheer numbers as well as financially.

A few days ago he has sold one of his design blogs, DesignM.ag. I asked Steven a few questions about the blog, the sale, his overall business and blogging of course. The interview was conducted by email.

Tad Chef of SEO 2.0: Hello Steven, congratulations on your recent blog sale. You sold Designm.ag for 50k US $. Are you satisfied with the outcome of the auction?

Steven Snell of Designm.ag: Thanks Tad. First, for clarification, the winning bidder on Flippa actually wasn’t able to buy the site for personal reasons, but I was able to find another buyer at almost exactly the same price. I have mixed feelings about the outcome of the auction. I don’t have experience buying or selling established sites, so when I was planning to sell I reached out to some friends that I know are pretty active in that field. The feedback I got was that it could sell for a good bit more than what it did, but of course it all just depends on finding the right buyer. So honestly,

I wasn’t that excited about the price, but I’m confident that it was the fair market value

because I had about 4 people who were seriously interested and all were right around the same price. I’m really excited to be able to move on and have some time in my schedule now to be able to do some different things, but it will be weird not to be working on DesignM.ag anymore.

Tad Chef: You own/ed and lead/led at least 3 flagship blogs Designm.ag, the Vandelay Design Blog and Traffikd. Did I miss one? How did you choose which blog to sell?

Steven Snell: I have a few gallery sites, but yes, those are my three blogs. The decision to sell DesignM.ag was made because it took a significant portion of my time to manage on a continual basis and because I thought it had some value and would be of interest to buyers.

Tad Chef: It took you two years to sell Designm.ag – How long does it take for a blog to make sense financially in your opinion? Are 6 months of daily work enough?

Steven Snell: I think the amount of time it would take depends on the type of blog. For small niche blogs that are mostly set up to make money with AdSense or affiliate products you could probably sell at any point, assuming your able to make money with it. For the first year of DesignM.ag’s existence it really wasn’t monetized very aggressively,

my focus was on establishing a reputation and sustainable traffic.

A few months ago once those things had been accomplished I started to pursue some new monetization methods to increase the value of the site. For a blog that takes a similar approach (I guess you could call it an “authority blog”), it seems to me that you would want to wait at least a year before selling. I’m sure you could sell it earlier, but the early days of establishing a blog like this take a lot of work and usually generate only small amounts of income. So if you sell early I don’t think you’ll be maximizing what you can get for it.

Tad Chef: Of course not all blogs succeed inspite of the time (and money) invested. What were the most important factors for your business blogging success? Can you name them?

Steven Snell: I think one of the keys to DesignM.ag’s growth over the past two years was consistency. There were no gaps of more than a couple of days without new content and I was always working on new posts and new ideas.

I approached the site as a business and was willing to invest time without making much money in the early months.

The other big factor is the community aspect. When I launched the site I wanted it to be more than just a blog. The community news section has always been of interest to a lot of people, especially other design bloggers that are looking for some exposure. At the time I launched the site I thought that feature would be somewhat unique (CSS Globe and Noupe had news sections at that time) but in the past two years countless design blogs have added news sections, so it’s really not unique at all.

Tad Chef: Traffikd seems to be for some reason the least popular of your blogs. Why is that the case? Or is it just the obvious numbers and it earns much money behind the scenes?

Steven Snell: Traffikd is definitely the least popular, I think for a few reasons. First, it gets almost no attention. When I launched Traffikd I had been blogging actively at Vandelay Design for about six months and I’d learned a lot about blogging and social media. I was very active with social media at that point and I wanted to have a place to share some of the things I was learning.

Over time I’ve become less active with social media and now my efforts for promoting my blogs is just to focus on content.

So that leaves me with less ideas to write about and less interest in the topics covered at Traffikd. I removed ads from the site a while ago so that I won’t have the need to publish new content at any particular frequency.

Tad Chef: Working on so many high quality blogs wasn’t the only thing you do, you also have a design business and client work. How do you manage to do all of this? 80h work week? Employees?

Steven Snell: My client work is pretty limited right now, that may change after selling DesignM.ag. I have a few clients that I manage on an on-going basis and I take new projects when there is a really good fit. I have been working really long hours for 2 or 3 years (not really sure about numbers of hours) but I’m hoping to cut back a little bit and get a better work/life balance. I have no employees and outsource very little. At this point I don’t really have any desire to manage employees or deal with all that comes with it.

Tad Chef: Do you still have time to read other blogs and participate in social media beyond blogs? If yes, what bogs do you read, where are you most active on social media?

Steven Snell: I check a lot of blogs in my feed reader and on Twitter, but I mostly scan and wouldn’t say that I spend a lot of time reading blogs. I stay up-to-date with other design blogs so I know what is going on in the industry, but I don’t do as much reading as I would like. My activity with social media is also very limited. I get a lot of requests for votes on various sites, I post links on Twitter, and sometimes I submit my own posts to niche social media sites. A few years ago I used to spend much more time on social media sites, but now my voting is usually done from the blogs/sites I’m visiting, such as clicking on a Digg button or a Tweetmeme button.

Tad Chef: You are one of those bloggers who use lists/listicles extensively. It seems to have worked for you. On the other hand I notice that the Web is full f lists nobody can digest anymore. Are the days of successful lists over? What are the alternatives?

Steven Snell: You hear a lot of people say that they don’t like lists, but if you have a good list that really is helpful you will get overwhelmingly positive comments. There are so many design blogs now, and most of them publish lists. It’s definitely a challenge to keep the content original, but in my opinion there is still a place for lists.

There’s a big difference between a list for the sake of having a list and a list that is well-researched and helpful to readers.

One of the reasons I’ve used more lists on Vandelay Design in the past year is because of the time that I was spending on DesignM.ag. Now that I’ll have more time available I plan to diversify the posts a little more, although lists and inspiration posts will not be going away.

Tad Chef: I’ve noticed that you focus on church websites with your design agency. Are you a religious person? If yes, does being religious help you with being determined to succeed in the sense of the protestant work ethic? If not, why churches, accidentally or did you seek out a special niche like that?

Steven Snell: Yes, I am a Christian. I chose to focus on churches because it was an area of interest for me, and because there is a large market for church websites. I’m sure that my faith impacts my work ethic, I think it impacts all aspects of my life. Also, I’m a pretty competitive and stubborn person, so if I want to accomplish something I’ll usually keep working at it even after failures and setbacks.

I’m certainly not the most talented person in the world, but I do work hard and I’m commited to being successful with my business,

and I hope to be able to do it in a way that pleases God.

Tad Chef: Do you have something to add, something you want the SEO 2.0 readers to know?

Steven Snell: I had a few people ask me if it was my plan all along to sell DesignM.ag. The answer to that is no, I planned to keep it for the foreseeable future and make it a major part of my business. However, in recent months I really wanted to make some changes in my daily work (managing two active design blogs can lead to burnout!) and also wanted to free up some time for other things. I did start DesignM.ag with the intent of making money, but honestly I thought I would sell my other sites before selling DesignM.ag. I chose not to sell Vandelay Design because it’s really more of a business, whereas DesignM.ag is just a blog.

Steven started his blogging career around the same time I’ve started SEO 2.0 so I was able to watch him closely. We’ve been on he same social sites as well for a while. While I have focused on blogging for clients Steven has followed the path of independent flagship blogs. I think say it wasn’t a bad move. What do you think?

  • Was it worth it?
  • Did he sell below market value?
  • Is this a success story others can repeat?

Add your thoughts in the comment section below.

Related posts:

  1. Common Blog Business Models: What Works What Not?
  2. 7 SEO 2.0 Lessons: SEO for Humans Instead of Spiders is Not About Google and “Content is King”
  3. 3 Phases of Flagship Blog Growth or How to Fall in Love with Blogging

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com
Related posts:
  1. Common Blog Business Models: What Works What Not?
  2. 7 SEO 2.0 Lessons: SEO for Humans Instead of Spiders is Not About Google and “Content is King”
  3. 3 Phases of Flagship Blog Growth or How to Fall in Love with Blogging
]]>

Steven Snell is a professional blogger who also runs a design business. He is the man behind Vandelay Design, DesignM.ag and Traffikd. Especially his two flagship design blogs have been very succesful in the past both by the sheer numbers as well as financially.

A few days ago he has sold one of his design blogs, DesignM.ag. I asked Steven a few questions about the blog, the sale, his overall business and blogging of course. The interview was conducted by email.

Tad Chef of SEO 2.0: Hello Steven, congratulations on your recent blog sale. You sold Designm.ag for 50k US $. Are you satisfied with the outcome of the auction?

Steven Snell of Designm.ag: Thanks Tad. First, for clarification, the winning bidder on Flippa actually wasn’t able to buy the site for personal reasons, but I was able to find another buyer at almost exactly the same price. I have mixed feelings about the outcome of the auction. I don’t have experience buying or selling established sites, so when I was planning to sell I reached out to some friends that I know are pretty active in that field. The feedback I got was that it could sell for a good bit more than what it did, but of course it all just depends on finding the right buyer. So honestly,

I wasn’t that excited about the price, but I’m confident that it was the fair market value

because I had about 4 people who were seriously interested and all were right around the same price. I’m really excited to be able to move on and have some time in my schedule now to be able to do some different things, but it will be weird not to be working on DesignM.ag anymore.

Tad Chef: You own/ed and lead/led at least 3 flagship blogs Designm.ag, the Vandelay Design Blog and Traffikd. Did I miss one? How did you choose which blog to sell?

Steven Snell: I have a few gallery sites, but yes, those are my three blogs. The decision to sell DesignM.ag was made because it took a significant portion of my time to manage on a continual basis and because I thought it had some value and would be of interest to buyers.

Tad Chef: It took you two years to sell Designm.ag – How long does it take for a blog to make sense financially in your opinion? Are 6 months of daily work enough?

Steven Snell: I think the amount of time it would take depends on the type of blog. For small niche blogs that are mostly set up to make money with AdSense or affiliate products you could probably sell at any point, assuming your able to make money with it. For the first year of DesignM.ag’s existence it really wasn’t monetized very aggressively,

my focus was on establishing a reputation and sustainable traffic.

A few months ago once those things had been accomplished I started to pursue some new monetization methods to increase the value of the site. For a blog that takes a similar approach (I guess you could call it an “authority blog”), it seems to me that you would want to wait at least a year before selling. I’m sure you could sell it earlier, but the early days of establishing a blog like this take a lot of work and usually generate only small amounts of income. So if you sell early I don’t think you’ll be maximizing what you can get for it.

Tad Chef: Of course not all blogs succeed inspite of the time (and money) invested. What were the most important factors for your business blogging success? Can you name them?

Steven Snell: I think one of the keys to DesignM.ag’s growth over the past two years was consistency. There were no gaps of more than a couple of days without new content and I was always working on new posts and new ideas.

I approached the site as a business and was willing to invest time without making much money in the early months.

The other big factor is the community aspect. When I launched the site I wanted it to be more than just a blog. The community news section has always been of interest to a lot of people, especially other design bloggers that are looking for some exposure. At the time I launched the site I thought that feature would be somewhat unique (CSS Globe and Noupe had news sections at that time) but in the past two years countless design blogs have added news sections, so it’s really not unique at all.

Tad Chef: Traffikd seems to be for some reason the least popular of your blogs. Why is that the case? Or is it just the obvious numbers and it earns much money behind the scenes?

Steven Snell: Traffikd is definitely the least popular, I think for a few reasons. First, it gets almost no attention. When I launched Traffikd I had been blogging actively at Vandelay Design for about six months and I’d learned a lot about blogging and social media. I was very active with social media at that point and I wanted to have a place to share some of the things I was learning.

Over time I’ve become less active with social media and now my efforts for promoting my blogs is just to focus on content.

So that leaves me with less ideas to write about and less interest in the topics covered at Traffikd. I removed ads from the site a while ago so that I won’t have the need to publish new content at any particular frequency.

Tad Chef: Working on so many high quality blogs wasn’t the only thing you do, you also have a design business and client work. How do you manage to do all of this? 80h work week? Employees?

Steven Snell: My client work is pretty limited right now, that may change after selling DesignM.ag. I have a few clients that I manage on an on-going basis and I take new projects when there is a really good fit. I have been working really long hours for 2 or 3 years (not really sure about numbers of hours) but I’m hoping to cut back a little bit and get a better work/life balance. I have no employees and outsource very little. At this point I don’t really have any desire to manage employees or deal with all that comes with it.

Tad Chef: Do you still have time to read other blogs and participate in social media beyond blogs? If yes, what bogs do you read, where are you most active on social media?

Steven Snell: I check a lot of blogs in my feed reader and on Twitter, but I mostly scan and wouldn’t say that I spend a lot of time reading blogs. I stay up-to-date with other design blogs so I know what is going on in the industry, but I don’t do as much reading as I would like. My activity with social media is also very limited. I get a lot of requests for votes on various sites, I post links on Twitter, and sometimes I submit my own posts to niche social media sites. A few years ago I used to spend much more time on social media sites, but now my voting is usually done from the blogs/sites I’m visiting, such as clicking on a Digg button or a Tweetmeme button.

Tad Chef: You are one of those bloggers who use lists/listicles extensively. It seems to have worked for you. On the other hand I notice that the Web is full f lists nobody can digest anymore. Are the days of successful lists over? What are the alternatives?

Steven Snell: You hear a lot of people say that they don’t like lists, but if you have a good list that really is helpful you will get overwhelmingly positive comments. There are so many design blogs now, and most of them publish lists. It’s definitely a challenge to keep the content original, but in my opinion there is still a place for lists.

There’s a big difference between a list for the sake of having a list and a list that is well-researched and helpful to readers.

One of the reasons I’ve used more lists on Vandelay Design in the past year is because of the time that I was spending on DesignM.ag. Now that I’ll have more time available I plan to diversify the posts a little more, although lists and inspiration posts will not be going away.

Tad Chef: I’ve noticed that you focus on church websites with your design agency. Are you a religious person? If yes, does being religious help you with being determined to succeed in the sense of the protestant work ethic? If not, why churches, accidentally or did you seek out a special niche like that?

Steven Snell: Yes, I am a Christian. I chose to focus on churches because it was an area of interest for me, and because there is a large market for church websites. I’m sure that my faith impacts my work ethic, I think it impacts all aspects of my life. Also, I’m a pretty competitive and stubborn person, so if I want to accomplish something I’ll usually keep working at it even after failures and setbacks.

I’m certainly not the most talented person in the world, but I do work hard and I’m commited to being successful with my business,

and I hope to be able to do it in a way that pleases God.

Tad Chef: Do you have something to add, something you want the SEO 2.0 readers to know?

Steven Snell: I had a few people ask me if it was my plan all along to sell DesignM.ag. The answer to that is no, I planned to keep it for the foreseeable future and make it a major part of my business. However, in recent months I really wanted to make some changes in my daily work (managing two active design blogs can lead to burnout!) and also wanted to free up some time for other things. I did start DesignM.ag with the intent of making money, but honestly I thought I would sell my other sites before selling DesignM.ag. I chose not to sell Vandelay Design because it’s really more of a business, whereas DesignM.ag is just a blog.

Steven started his blogging career around the same time I’ve started SEO 2.0 so I was able to watch him closely. We’ve been on he same social sites as well for a while. While I have focused on blogging for clients Steven has followed the path of independent flagship blogs. I think say it wasn’t a bad move. What do you think?

  • Was it worth it?
  • Did he sell below market value?
  • Is this a success story others can repeat?

Add your thoughts in the comment section below.

Related posts:

  1. Common Blog Business Models: What Works What Not?
  2. 7 SEO 2.0 Lessons: SEO for Humans Instead of Spiders is Not About Google and “Content is King”
  3. 3 Phases of Flagship Blog Growth or How to Fall in Love with Blogging

]]> http://seo2.0.onreact.com/interview-with-business-blogger-steven-snell-on-his-recent-50k-blog-sale/feed 7 Hey Freelancer: Are You a Worker or an Entrepreneur? http://seo2.0.onreact.com/hey-freelancer-are-you-a-worker-or-an-entrepreneur http://seo2.0.onreact.com/hey-freelancer-are-you-a-worker-or-an-entrepreneur#comments Tue, 20 Apr 2010 11:49:39 +0000 Tadeusz Szewczyk http://seo2.0.onreact.com/?p=1003

Construction Worker by Saad Akhtar

Recently it dawned on me what the biggest roadblock to my financial success is. I started my freelance career as a worker and I’ve remained one ever since. I sensed it in the past as well but the realization came only recently when I was able to put it in words.

Roughly 10 years ago I got a great web agency job during the new economy boom. It was a well paid and it was easy. I got paid by the hour and after work I still had enough time for sports, partying or whatever. Then the tide changed and the new economy broke down within a few weeks. I kept my job for a while but soon enough someone who was cheaper has replaced myself. He was a nice guy and I even showed him everything before it became apparent that he’d replace me.

In a way I was lucky. The company went bankrupt a year later in spite of the lay offs. The management has been replaced as well but they were just cold blooded capitalists. They were all about cutting costs no matter what happened with the people. So soon enough nobody cared for the company anymore, the employees cared only for themselves and even fought each other not to get laid off first.

Long story short I was quite happy to leave early after I overcame the humiliation and feelings of failure. I was trying to find a new job for a while but wasn’t really serious about it. I didn’t want to live through all that again.

In a company where you’re just an employee it doesn’t matter who you are or what you like doing.

At the end of the day only the money you earn matters. So you have to do things you hate, sit all day in a crowded room (aka office) with people you often despise and your boss or employer decides about your fate. I’ve described this as wage slavery in the past and I haven’t changed my mind since. Wage slavery hasn’t been abolished along slavery although the Abolitionists meant to end both kinds of slavery.

Today you can abolish wage slavery yourself. The most common and often easiest way to do so is to try to freelance. Of course freelancing is not easy but once you’re established it’s OK. There is one problem though with freelancing. Freelancing, at least done the way I did it, is not really the end of wage slavery. It’s just a different, more subtle way of wage slavery as long as you remain a wage slave in your head. To simplify the matters and to make this article less provocative I’d like to call the wage slave “worker” as everybody else does.

Even as a freelancer you remain a worker. You become “your own boss” as the saying goes. This is “truer” than you think. As your own boss you are the person who has to exploit you.

You have to force yourself to wake up early, to work hard and to work long hours, after all you get paid by the hour, just like a worker. You have only a finite number of hours to sell so you can make your clients pay more but “the invisible hand” of the market will slap you once you become too expensive.

The problem is your mindset. It’s the mindset of the worker from the nineteenth century. Someone who toils al day and is still dirty and hungry. Think about it: We’re in 2010, automation is not just about the manufacturing process. With computers and the Internet you can automate almost everything. At least you have tools to make everything easier.

As a worker you are serving the tools not the other way around. You have to keep them running like the assembly line in the factory.

It’s not the tools that assist you, you assist the tools. For web designers Photoshop is the assembly line. For bloggers WordPress is the assembly line. For SEO people Google Analytics is the assembly line.

Now let’s compare it to the entrepreneur. I don’t mean the already rich lazy capitalist living off the fortune made in the distant past. Imagine an entrepreneur like yourself. Somebody who has no money yet to multiply by itself. S/he has a different mindset.

An entrepreneur has an idea. S/he then invests time to put in practice. S/he may borrow money but let’s assume s/he does not for the sake of simplicity of understanding. This person won’t get paid from the start in many cases. So an entrepreneur has to invest time and work without being paid at first or not much. Then later the entrepreneur expects that the investment will pay off. The investment pays off once the product the entrepreneur has developed get sold.

The product can’t be time of the entrepreneur. Remember, a worker would sell time but not the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur strives to sell something, be it a product or service that is scalable and can be automated. Today we can automate production with ease.

Any digital product can be reproduced endlessly without a major effort.

Even services can be automated to some extent as repetitive tasks do not have to be performed over and over, think of templates etc.

To become an entrepreneur you have to to think like one. Your mindset is more important than having capital. A worker would spend the money after a while and stay a worker. An entrepreneur would invest it. You don’t have to read Marx (I never had) to know that today we, the workers, own the means of production. The desk, the computer, even pencil and paper are all means of production. In the West everybody can afford a desk, a computer or pencil and paper.

Most of us stay workers, even as freelancers. We keep our assembly lines going and we tend our tools, we care for our Photoshop, our WordPress, our Google. We buy new versions of Photoshop, we keep on updating and securing our WordPress, we hug our search engine the cute Google monster.

It’s the entrepreneurs behind Photoshop, WordPress and Google who make the money off your work.

They don’t force anybody like the capitalists of the nineteenth century. We’re just too dumb to earn money like they do. They automate, they scale, they sell self replicating products and services but not time. You can’t fight them like the workers did hundred years ago. You have to join them and I don’t mean working for them as your employers.

Change your mind. Become an entrepreneur like them. You don’t need capital, you don’t even need workers. You mainly need a different mindset. The means of production are already yours. So I ask you again, like I asked myself these days: Hey Freelancer, are you a worker or an entrepreneur?

Related posts:

  1. 20 Ways to Survive as a Freelancer Working on the Web
  2. SEO 2.0 Services 3.5$/h
  3. Why Social Media are Like Slavery and SMO Equals Abolitionism

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com
Related posts:
  1. 20 Ways to Survive as a Freelancer Working on the Web
  2. SEO 2.0 Services 3.5$/h
  3. Why Social Media are Like Slavery and SMO Equals Abolitionism
]]>

Construction Worker by Saad Akhtar

Recently it dawned on me what the biggest roadblock to my financial success is. I started my freelance career as a worker and I’ve remained one ever since. I sensed it in the past as well but the realization came only recently when I was able to put it in words.

Roughly 10 years ago I got a great web agency job during the new economy boom. It was a well paid and it was easy. I got paid by the hour and after work I still had enough time for sports, partying or whatever. Then the tide changed and the new economy broke down within a few weeks. I kept my job for a while but soon enough someone who was cheaper has replaced myself. He was a nice guy and I even showed him everything before it became apparent that he’d replace me.

In a way I was lucky. The company went bankrupt a year later in spite of the lay offs. The management has been replaced as well but they were just cold blooded capitalists. They were all about cutting costs no matter what happened with the people. So soon enough nobody cared for the company anymore, the employees cared only for themselves and even fought each other not to get laid off first.

Long story short I was quite happy to leave early after I overcame the humiliation and feelings of failure. I was trying to find a new job for a while but wasn’t really serious about it. I didn’t want to live through all that again.

In a company where you’re just an employee it doesn’t matter who you are or what you like doing.

At the end of the day only the money you earn matters. So you have to do things you hate, sit all day in a crowded room (aka office) with people you often despise and your boss or employer decides about your fate. I’ve described this as wage slavery in the past and I haven’t changed my mind since. Wage slavery hasn’t been abolished along slavery although the Abolitionists meant to end both kinds of slavery.

Today you can abolish wage slavery yourself. The most common and often easiest way to do so is to try to freelance. Of course freelancing is not easy but once you’re established it’s OK. There is one problem though with freelancing. Freelancing, at least done the way I did it, is not really the end of wage slavery. It’s just a different, more subtle way of wage slavery as long as you remain a wage slave in your head. To simplify the matters and to make this article less provocative I’d like to call the wage slave “worker” as everybody else does.

Even as a freelancer you remain a worker. You become “your own boss” as the saying goes. This is “truer” than you think. As your own boss you are the person who has to exploit you.

You have to force yourself to wake up early, to work hard and to work long hours, after all you get paid by the hour, just like a worker. You have only a finite number of hours to sell so you can make your clients pay more but “the invisible hand” of the market will slap you once you become too expensive.

The problem is your mindset. It’s the mindset of the worker from the nineteenth century. Someone who toils al day and is still dirty and hungry. Think about it: We’re in 2010, automation is not just about the manufacturing process. With computers and the Internet you can automate almost everything. At least you have tools to make everything easier.

As a worker you are serving the tools not the other way around. You have to keep them running like the assembly line in the factory.

It’s not the tools that assist you, you assist the tools. For web designers Photoshop is the assembly line. For bloggers WordPress is the assembly line. For SEO people Google Analytics is the assembly line.

Now let’s compare it to the entrepreneur. I don’t mean the already rich lazy capitalist living off the fortune made in the distant past. Imagine an entrepreneur like yourself. Somebody who has no money yet to multiply by itself. S/he has a different mindset.

An entrepreneur has an idea. S/he then invests time to put in practice. S/he may borrow money but let’s assume s/he does not for the sake of simplicity of understanding. This person won’t get paid from the start in many cases. So an entrepreneur has to invest time and work without being paid at first or not much. Then later the entrepreneur expects that the investment will pay off. The investment pays off once the product the entrepreneur has developed get sold.

The product can’t be time of the entrepreneur. Remember, a worker would sell time but not the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur strives to sell something, be it a product or service that is scalable and can be automated. Today we can automate production with ease.

Any digital product can be reproduced endlessly without a major effort.

Even services can be automated to some extent as repetitive tasks do not have to be performed over and over, think of templates etc.

To become an entrepreneur you have to to think like one. Your mindset is more important than having capital. A worker would spend the money after a while and stay a worker. An entrepreneur would invest it. You don’t have to read Marx (I never had) to know that today we, the workers, own the means of production. The desk, the computer, even pencil and paper are all means of production. In the West everybody can afford a desk, a computer or pencil and paper.

Most of us stay workers, even as freelancers. We keep our assembly lines going and we tend our tools, we care for our Photoshop, our WordPress, our Google. We buy new versions of Photoshop, we keep on updating and securing our WordPress, we hug our search engine the cute Google monster.

It’s the entrepreneurs behind Photoshop, WordPress and Google who make the money off your work.

They don’t force anybody like the capitalists of the nineteenth century. We’re just too dumb to earn money like they do. They automate, they scale, they sell self replicating products and services but not time. You can’t fight them like the workers did hundred years ago. You have to join them and I don’t mean working for them as your employers.

Change your mind. Become an entrepreneur like them. You don’t need capital, you don’t even need workers. You mainly need a different mindset. The means of production are already yours. So I ask you again, like I asked myself these days: Hey Freelancer, are you a worker or an entrepreneur?

Related posts:

  1. 20 Ways to Survive as a Freelancer Working on the Web
  2. SEO 2.0 Services 3.5$/h
  3. Why Social Media are Like Slavery and SMO Equals Abolitionism

]]> http://seo2.0.onreact.com/hey-freelancer-are-you-a-worker-or-an-entrepreneur/feed 18 Are You a Real Time Idiot? A Racing Rat on Steroids? A Twitter Zombie? http://seo2.0.onreact.com/are-you-a-real-time-idiot-a-racing-rat-on-steroids-a-twitter-zombie http://seo2.0.onreact.com/are-you-a-real-time-idiot-a-racing-rat-on-steroids-a-twitter-zombie#comments Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:06:05 +0000 Tadeusz Szewczyk http://seo2.0.onreact.com/?p=988

Blue Eyed Zombie by Josh Jensen

After spending two years on Twitter, participating almost daily there, I have noticed a gradual change in user behavior. It seems that many of us, including me are becoming real time idiots. Another tendency is to become racing rats on steroids. Last but not least some people become Twitter zombies.

This post is not just another rant. Let me explain what I mean by all those derogative terms. Also

let me explain how to deal with the situation

without giving up Twitter altogether. I still believe that it can be a valuable tool for business people. In case you are new to Twitter read my posts on Twitter pros and cons and ways to use Twitter first.

The faster the Web becomes the less we can cope with it. No surprise here. It’s important to recognize how it changes us though. Social networking in real time is in a way information overload all the time. Even after more than 12 years on the Web it’s difficult for me to manage the incessant influx of messages, news and media.

Scientists have shown that a more of information does not mean more knowledge or even more wisdom.

The opposite is the case. Just image a 100 people shouting at you at the same time. You won’t understand anyone of them most of time. From time to time you will be able to discern what the loudest of them is shouting. The more people and media shout at us the less we know. The huge onslaught of in ost cases worthless or faulty information makes you a real time idiot.

Many people attempt to keep up nonetheless. They have Twitter clients on their mobiles to be able to tweet and read tweets everywhere and all the time. They drink caffeine all the time to stay awake, or worse they take drugs a generation ago were used to stay awake while dancing all night.

Only a few can make it in the digital rat race.

We call them early adopters or power users but those positive connotations are only half of the truth. You have to get up early and have enough power to stay in the race. You have to become a racing rat on steroids but the bots will always be faster than you.

Some people of course realized real time means an info overdose. They know they can’t cope. There are basically two kinds of Twitter zombies apart of course of the metaphorical use of the term for people who like like zombies after a long day of social media toil. The one kind of Twitter zombies are basically cyborgs. They have no implants and such but they are cyborgs.

Cyborgs claim to be human but they’re Twitter accounts are in many cases complete automated. So at first you think a real person is following you, tweeting your link or retweeting your tweet. Then you notice that they are not. They match keywords they retweet and follow you based on those. They insert RSS feeds into their timeline and link to your post without ever reading them. They send DM (direct messages) automatically.

The other kind of Twitter zombies are those who have abandoned Twitter by and large but they keep their old account. They follow 20, 50 or 100 people instead of the 2000, 5000 or 10k they followed yesterday. Still they keep most of their followers. You can’t detect them as easily as the cyborgs because they look even more like humans and keep quite most of the time until they broadcast to their audience once again. I call them hollow men. They aren’t real on Twitter anymore even if they have real people behind them in real life.

Many people by now advocate the so called social media suicide. Deleting all your profiles to get away and reclaim their lives. That may be a solution for some or even many but I don’t want to go back to living in cages. I’m for progress. The only question is the right direction for that progress and to find the way of course to go there.

So I still want to use Twitter as a business tool but I don’t want to become a real time idiot, a racing rat on steroids or a Twitter zombie.

As I read several self improvement and personal development blogs from time to time I’m familiar with

  • decluttering
  • time management
  • working smart instead of hard
  • focusing

techniques which help me survive the real time frenzy unscathed. Of course the most important tool is common sense. So let me outlöine a few basic techniques to help you cope wit Twitter and other real time Web applications.

Don’t use and try everything.
Believe me or mot but it’s 2010 and I still don’t use Facebook. I’m on Twitter only and fro time to tie LinkedIn just as much as to keep my profile alive. You have to focus on one medium or up to 5 for different purposes but you don’t need 5 social sites for social networking at the same time.

Perform one task at at time on one medium at a time.
Imagine making a phone call, chatting online and writing an email at the same time. It doesn’t work. While you still may need a phone, an IM app and an email client you will go crazy being available all the time on all channels. I make appointments to chat via Skype. In case we need to talk I or th eperson on the other end calls. I write one email per recipient per day. I check my email once daily. This is also the best way to deal with Twitter. Check it once daily unless you use it for actual productive work like I sometimes do.

Use advanced tools.
To sort the wheat from the chaff these days you can’t solely rely on your brain. It’s too much to cope. There are advanced tools tools there that can help. advanced does not mean complicated. They literally advance you. Some of the tools are:

A combination all three of them works great for me. For instance I do not follow the people and sources I need to follow for my client blogs. I have them organized in lists based on the topics I write about or optimize for. I check the lists only when needed. Also I use Twitter lists to organize the people I follow from the SEO, social media and blogging spheres. For instance you may wonder why I retweet hours or days old tweets of yours. Everybody knows that the attention span on Twitter is more or less minutes usually. You are probably on my “best friends” list. Also I will look up what’s popular on Topsy and search for SEO related tweets. Last but not least I read the Twittertimes, a “newspaper” that collects news suggested by people I follow and their friends.

Unfollow people, the right people.
While unfollowing 99% of people might work for some hollow men it’s like throwing aw most of your precious relationships. You still should unfollow some people or should I say accounts to miniize the work load associated with Twitter.

  • Unfollow heavy hitters tweeting 20+ links a day. Nobody can follow these anyways.
  • Unfollow people who never reply or retweet. One way communication is like talking to a wall.
  • Unfollow one way accounts that only broadcast their blog entries.
  • Unfollow cyborgs and hollow men.

Organize them in lists or in your RSS reader instead if you want to keep some of them.

To keep both your sanity and credibility you have to actively prevent becoming a real time idiot, racing rat on steroids and Twitter zombie. Don’t try to be the

  • most prolific
  • fastest
  • or loudest

to get noticed. You’ll end up being a wreck like Jason Calacanis or Dereke Powazek who have to piss of people to stay a celebrity. Prefer substance over boldness.

Strive for being the

  • most trustworthy
  • friendly
  • or straighforward

person on Twitter in your trade, industry or niche. Bot visits on websites do not count as visitors. Bot followers on Twitter do not count either. Real time idiots, racing rats on steroids and Twitter zombies are almost as bad as bots.

Related posts:

  1. Twitter Lists for SEO How to
  2. Who to Follow on Twitter?
  3. 10 Reasons to Follow Me/SEO 2.0 on Twitter

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com
Related posts:
  1. Twitter Lists for SEO How to
  2. Who to Follow on Twitter?
  3. 10 Reasons to Follow Me/SEO 2.0 on Twitter
]]>

Blue Eyed Zombie by Josh Jensen

After spending two years on Twitter, participating almost daily there, I have noticed a gradual change in user behavior. It seems that many of us, including me are becoming real time idiots. Another tendency is to become racing rats on steroids. Last but not least some people become Twitter zombies.

This post is not just another rant. Let me explain what I mean by all those derogative terms. Also

let me explain how to deal with the situation

without giving up Twitter altogether. I still believe that it can be a valuable tool for business people. In case you are new to Twitter read my posts on Twitter pros and cons and ways to use Twitter first.

The faster the Web becomes the less we can cope with it. No surprise here. It’s important to recognize how it changes us though. Social networking in real time is in a way information overload all the time. Even after more than 12 years on the Web it’s difficult for me to manage the incessant influx of messages, news and media.

Scientists have shown that a more of information does not mean more knowledge or even more wisdom.

The opposite is the case. Just image a 100 people shouting at you at the same time. You won’t understand anyone of them most of time. From time to time you will be able to discern what the loudest of them is shouting. The more people and media shout at us the less we know. The huge onslaught of in ost cases worthless or faulty information makes you a real time idiot.

Many people attempt to keep up nonetheless. They have Twitter clients on their mobiles to be able to tweet and read tweets everywhere and all the time. They drink caffeine all the time to stay awake, or worse they take drugs a generation ago were used to stay awake while dancing all night.

Only a few can make it in the digital rat race.

We call them early adopters or power users but those positive connotations are only half of the truth. You have to get up early and have enough power to stay in the race. You have to become a racing rat on steroids but the bots will always be faster than you.

Some people of course realized real time means an info overdose. They know they can’t cope. There are basically two kinds of Twitter zombies apart of course of the metaphorical use of the term for people who like like zombies after a long day of social media toil. The one kind of Twitter zombies are basically cyborgs. They have no implants and such but they are cyborgs.

Cyborgs claim to be human but they’re Twitter accounts are in many cases complete automated. So at first you think a real person is following you, tweeting your link or retweeting your tweet. Then you notice that they are not. They match keywords they retweet and follow you based on those. They insert RSS feeds into their timeline and link to your post without ever reading them. They send DM (direct messages) automatically.

The other kind of Twitter zombies are those who have abandoned Twitter by and large but they keep their old account. They follow 20, 50 or 100 people instead of the 2000, 5000 or 10k they followed yesterday. Still they keep most of their followers. You can’t detect them as easily as the cyborgs because they look even more like humans and keep quite most of the time until they broadcast to their audience once again. I call them hollow men. They aren’t real on Twitter anymore even if they have real people behind them in real life.

Many people by now advocate the so called social media suicide. Deleting all your profiles to get away and reclaim their lives. That may be a solution for some or even many but I don’t want to go back to living in cages. I’m for progress. The only question is the right direction for that progress and to find the way of course to go there.

So I still want to use Twitter as a business tool but I don’t want to become a real time idiot, a racing rat on steroids or a Twitter zombie.

As I read several self improvement and personal development blogs from time to time I’m familiar with

  • decluttering
  • time management
  • working smart instead of hard
  • focusing

techniques which help me survive the real time frenzy unscathed. Of course the most important tool is common sense. So let me outlöine a few basic techniques to help you cope wit Twitter and other real time Web applications.

Don’t use and try everything.
Believe me or mot but it’s 2010 and I still don’t use Facebook. I’m on Twitter only and fro time to tie LinkedIn just as much as to keep my profile alive. You have to focus on one medium or up to 5 for different purposes but you don’t need 5 social sites for social networking at the same time.

Perform one task at at time on one medium at a time.
Imagine making a phone call, chatting online and writing an email at the same time. It doesn’t work. While you still may need a phone, an IM app and an email client you will go crazy being available all the time on all channels. I make appointments to chat via Skype. In case we need to talk I or th eperson on the other end calls. I write one email per recipient per day. I check my email once daily. This is also the best way to deal with Twitter. Check it once daily unless you use it for actual productive work like I sometimes do.

Use advanced tools.
To sort the wheat from the chaff these days you can’t solely rely on your brain. It’s too much to cope. There are advanced tools tools there that can help. advanced does not mean complicated. They literally advance you. Some of the tools are:

A combination all three of them works great for me. For instance I do not follow the people and sources I need to follow for my client blogs. I have them organized in lists based on the topics I write about or optimize for. I check the lists only when needed. Also I use Twitter lists to organize the people I follow from the SEO, social media and blogging spheres. For instance you may wonder why I retweet hours or days old tweets of yours. Everybody knows that the attention span on Twitter is more or less minutes usually. You are probably on my “best friends” list. Also I will look up what’s popular on Topsy and search for SEO related tweets. Last but not least I read the Twittertimes, a “newspaper” that collects news suggested by people I follow and their friends.

Unfollow people, the right people.
While unfollowing 99% of people might work for some hollow men it’s like throwing aw most of your precious relationships. You still should unfollow some people or should I say accounts to miniize the work load associated with Twitter.

  • Unfollow heavy hitters tweeting 20+ links a day. Nobody can follow these anyways.
  • Unfollow people who never reply or retweet. One way communication is like talking to a wall.
  • Unfollow one way accounts that only broadcast their blog entries.
  • Unfollow cyborgs and hollow men.

Organize them in lists or in your RSS reader instead if you want to keep some of them.

To keep both your sanity and credibility you have to actively prevent becoming a real time idiot, racing rat on steroids and Twitter zombie. Don’t try to be the

  • most prolific
  • fastest
  • or loudest

to get noticed. You’ll end up being a wreck like Jason Calacanis or Dereke Powazek who have to piss of people to stay a celebrity. Prefer substance over boldness.

Strive for being the

  • most trustworthy
  • friendly
  • or straighforward

person on Twitter in your trade, industry or niche. Bot visits on websites do not count as visitors. Bot followers on Twitter do not count either. Real time idiots, racing rats on steroids and Twitter zombies are almost as bad as bots.

Related posts:

  1. Twitter Lists for SEO How to
  2. Who to Follow on Twitter?
  3. 10 Reasons to Follow Me/SEO 2.0 on Twitter

]]> http://seo2.0.onreact.com/are-you-a-real-time-idiot-a-racing-rat-on-steroids-a-twitter-zombie/feed 7