Image above: I’m only ranking at #113 for [seo] in “people and pages” but some of my best friends are around me

While everybody was writing posts what the new Google personal search aka “Google Search Plus Your World” means for SEO I almost started to write one about what Google Search Plus means for SEO 2.0

Then I decided to be more conservative and just summarized a few common sense hands on SEO techniques for Google Search Plus and personal search results.

Neither personal search or social search is new to Google. It’s just a huge leap forward this time after it has been a bit neglected in recent years.

Google+ and +1 are part of the main motivation behind this new move. Also, the so called link economy where many webmasters are buying links to game Google is the target.

Google wants to know who you are and what you like in order to ensure that low quality web sites do not get the attention they sometimes mistakenly still get on Google search.

We have to understand first that Google Search Plus has a two tiered approach. You get still in a way organic results where personal/social search results are mixed in prominently and you can click on the “personal results” link below the search box to see solely your own search results nobody else sees in that way:

Everybody who is logged in into one of the manifold Google services will see the the new personal search results sooner or later. Logged out users will get some very broad suggestions too. They mainly see suggested profiles on the right of search results:

To really use this feature you at least need a Google Profile and a Google+ membership

if you ask me. Then you need to have some people connect to you via Google+ or other services you are using with the notable exception of Facebook it seems. These services have to be linked on your Google Profile to count.

What more can you do?

Google Profile

• Connect other sites – Link all your other profiles and sites even less obvious ones like Friendfeed or WordPress.com
• Describe yourself – Your short “Occupation” description on your profile matters a lot it seems. Also your latest “Employment” seems to have a big impact. Mention your keyword here.
• Claim authorship – Use the new authorship markup by Google and link back to your Google Profile from your blog posts or respective bio below.

Images

• Use images on your blog – Images on my blog that are properly tagged show up in image results. Michael Gray‘s images do perform even better, they come in second even when I’m logged in
• Share images on Google+ – Images shared on Google+ rank as well quite obviously
• Upload images to your profile using Picasa – Your profile image but also other images uploaded to Picasa perform very well
• Practice image SEO – Consider common sense image SEO best practices like understandable file names instead of numbers.

Google+

• Use on topic circles – Create topical circles on Google+ – I write mainly about SEO, blogging and social media thus I created these three circles for examples (and a few more).
• Use Google+ actively and frequently – Activity counts, even feeding in Twitter updates automatically, pages and profiles by active people show up much higher
• Encourage feedback – Feedback like comments and shares is very important, some profiles with more controversial posts with lots of comments show on top
• Make many people add you to circles – The number of circles you are in counts, Danny Sullivan is in 300k circles so ends up being the suggested user for SEO despite listing at as only one topics he deals with
• Make sure you’re in the right circles – The names of the circles you are in counts as well so when you are selling SEO use the term to describe yourself not many others
• Let people link to you on profiles – The number of people who connect their profile to your site is  a factor thus make your employees link, this is one of the reasons the guys from Dejan SEO ranks so well.
• Participate in social networking – Socialize with relevant people who are on your level. I don’t expect Danny Sullivan or Rand Fishkin to +1 my posts, I will +1 theirs from time, but I focus on people who are into SEO etc. and have enough time to read my posts as well.
• Share circles – You can create and share circles with other people. They can add all of the people at once.

Blogging

• Use buttons – Add a +1 button to your blog postings. I use the WordPress extension by Pleer SEO.
• Write about Google+ – Blog about Google+ your profile, your page and what’s going on there.
• Use a badge – Add a Google+ badge to add you to “your circles” in the sidebar for example.
• Call to action – Ask people to +1 your postings with a little call to action in the last sentence and display the button below.
• Check shares – Monitor who shares your postings on Google+ using Topsy and add these people to your circles.

Google +1

• +1 quality and popular sites – Clicking +1 is a double edged sword. Your authority influences the things you vote up but also the sites you +1 are influencing your reputation. Vote up crap nobody else likes and you get less influential on Google as a whole not just Google+ They call it Agent Rank. I’m afraid by quality sites they mean mostly popular sites so you have to +1 main stream sources not only high quality niche sites.
• +1 sites you often use – To see the sites you really like on top you simply have to +1 them. The more you +1 them the more likely they are to appear on top.
• +1 your own sites – I don’t like this as I prefer other people to vote for me but it seems you have to vote for own sites and articles. It seems Google doesn’t dislike self-promotion unless of course your won sites are the only ones you push.
• +1 what’s on top – To get more exposure on other people’s results it seems you have to +1 what’s already on top in organic search. A woman I follow on Twitter linked to the Wikipedia definition of SEO on her private blog and now I see her on top of my search results. I had to look up who she is, she doesn’t even follow me back.

Google+ Page

• Add keyword to name – Use your keyword in the Google+ page description. Point Blank SEO ranks better than just Point Blank of course when it comes to [seo]. The Point Blank SEO team does not only rank because of the keyword, they have a hugely popular Google+ baiting post but it surely helps.
• Update frequently – It’s crucial to update your page regularly. You know Google loves content, it’s their business model that you provide free content for them so they reward those who do provide it. Also people like me do not follow empty pages unless they trust the source already.
• Socialize using your page – Companies can follow people on Google+ and +1 updates it seems. They can comment and share like any other user.

Other techniques

• Use keywords in titles – It seems post titles with the keyword mentioned more than once rank better in personal results.
• Use common words – You can optimize for common words again. When I search for car, house or even love I see personal results but most of them are not relevant, they keywords may match but in most cases the whole update may be completely irrelevant to me. So it’s good to provide a few updates using these simple terms if you care for them.
• Share off-topic – Do not only share work related content. Google+ is not like Facebook, you don’t have to share baby and per photos all the time but some occasional beauty and humor is great to make people happy and encourage engagement I’ve noticed. It’s better than just talking about SEO.

Thanks Niall Mackenzie for screenshots he provided for this post

These are just common sense SEO techniques for Google+, the SEO 2.0 part of it starts when engaging with people. This is a bit tougher and can’t fit in short list items easily. I think I will elaborate on it in the near future. I’m still testing and trying to find out myself what’s it all about.

I’m looking forward to it. I’m glad that SEO 2.0 has become main stream finally. You can’t ignore it anymore. Social media participation and outreach from now directly affects search results. It’s about time. I’ve got used to it in 2008 already when I added StumbleUpon to my search results. Google+ integration is even better.

You can’t be a bot anymore.

Get personal now. +1 this post if you like it and join me on Google+!

Also please share more techniques on how to optimize for the new Google Search Plus Your World in the comments.

Related posts:

1. 10 New Google Personal Search Blogging, Social Media & SEO Tactics
2. 12 Effects Google Personal Search Will Have on SEO, Blogging, Social Media and the Web as Whole
3. Image SEO for Photographers and Other Visual Artists

1. 10 New Google Personal Search Blogging, Social Media & SEO Tactics
2. 12 Effects Google Personal Search Will Have on SEO, Blogging, Social Media and the Web as Whole
3. Image SEO for Photographers and Other Visual Artists

Everybody seems to agree by now that you need „great content“ to succeed on the Web. Both social media and search engines require quality content as their business model relies on others, us, to produce that content.

The problem is most businesses don’t get it.

Their execs might repeat the „content is king“ mantra and they even might realize there is a connection between SEO, SMO and content but they don’t act accordingly. Their content strategy is either non-existent or fundamentally flawed.

Today I’d like to summarize the 10 fatal content strategy mistakes most businesses make on their websites. I don’t use the ever present buzzword „content marketing“ for a few reasons. The most important one is: marketing is just part of the content strategy. Also by calling it content marketing you focus on a means not a goal.

Beyond not having a content strategy at all these are the most common content strategy mistakes:

No Content or Pseudo Content

Not having content is an obvious problem many businesses face. It can get even worse though. Many people mistake any type of text or other media for content. They assume that sales copy or advertising is content as well. Product or service descriptions are not content. Content is something that has value by itself. Just consider the other meaning of content, does it make you content as in satisfying you? Does it answer a question, solve a problem, entertain you? Does it make you laugh or angry? Does it make you want to scream out loud „hey, look at this!“?

Low Quality Content

What is low quality content? Content of low quality contains of words without much meaning. Sometimes its repetitive for the sake of SEO or rather the SEO of 10 years ago when „keyword density“ still mattered. It’s not meant to be read by people. It has no visible author and it’s barely readable. Sometimes it tries to be content while it actually sound like an ad or sales copy.

Low quality shallow content is often devoid of any emotion. It’s matter of act and solely descriptive or it’s sheer manipulation trying to convince you without explaining its points. It uses ready made cliches and common phrases. Sentence like „content is king“ are a good example of this. They are sheer repetition.

Boring Content

Your content can be very high quality and despite of it or even because of it boring. It can be a scientific paper or a statistic with really important insights but as long as it’s boring it’s a waste of time. Do you want a handful of specialists to read your content or do you want thousands of people to spread it on the Web? As a business you need to attract crowds even if you just sell to a few people or other businesses. Why? It’s the people who you attracts that make or break your website. Without the wave of appreciation by large numbers of people sharing your content your website will stay obscure.

Text-only Content

The Internet is not a book. Even a book has a cover with an image. So don’t treat your visitors like readers of a novel. Make sure to at least add images. With the proliferation of cameras and screencasting tools it’s even by now possible to create good videos by yourself without a whole team of professionals. So why artificially limit yourself? Content creation is not copywriting. Content creation can use a plethora if tools to create content using manifold media. A text that doesn’t even use images is far less likely to be noticed, read and shared on the Web.

Offsite Content

Do you waste your best content on Facebook, Google+ or Quora? Are your best ideas, questions and even problems User Generated Content for services who make their money via the content of others? Are you active on social media and social networking sites on a daily basis while your own site or blog rarely gets updates? This is what offsite content is about. It might be useful to some extent as in guest blogging on important blogs but your Facebook page is not the place to dump your best pieces of content.

Facebook like other social sites is only a way to spread the awareness about you and your business. Working for Facebook doesn’t make sense. Spending half of the day on Quora and „blogging“ on Google+ doesn’t pay bills either. Don’t put your best content and spend most of the time on third party sites. Invest time and effort into your site first to then use them to gather attention elsewhere for yourself.

Irregular Content

Musicians who publish a new album after five years have to explain why they have been away for so long. The press is talking about a comeback. Nobody even notices that you haven’t been blogging for a year. I mean they notice that your blog is dead or your site hasn’t been updated in ages but nobody will come up and ask you what happened. Unless of course you have a very dedicated fan base. Most businesses don’t have it. So what you actually need to do is to publish content regularly.

It may be once a week or even once a month but the visitor has to know that the content is not a one time event. The reader has to have a reason to come back for more. When there is no more there is no reason to return. There are weeklies and monthly publications on paper as well. You will lose your most ardent readers when they have no way of knowing when to expect the next piece of work. They will simply forget about you.

Separated Content

Many business sites have added a blog in the recent years. That’s wonderful. On the other hand it seems that many decision makers were glad that the content problem has been relegated to the „blog reservation“. The bloggers are responsible for it and thus everybody else can take care of „real business“. The only existing content ends up separated on a blog that often is not even visually part of the whole site.

Some business use third party tools so that the blog appears to be a different site than the rest. They blog may even thrive but it doesn’t help the site a lot if there is no real connection. Also giving up content creation for the actual site beacuse of the blog is a huge mistake. What about a glossary, an FAQ, white papers, infographics, educational videos? The blog can’t be an excuse for not creating anything else. Also a blog is just a casual medium in many cases. The types of content mentioned above are much more substantial.

Duplicated Content

Some content by major publications or websites ends up being „reprinted“ on some many websites that in the end there is barely a way to locate the original source. I don’t even refer to content theft. Just think about so called journalism today. Most stories get produced by the whole sale journalistic factories, Reuters, AP or DPA. Then they end up on dozens of other sites with small changes but generally they just get copied. In large organization or companies you will also see press releases redistributed all over the place.

Heck, even Google who allegedly hates „duplicate content“ republishes some blog postings on other blogs. I don’t even want elaborate on duplicate content when it comes to SEO. It has been covered numerous times by others. Just don’t publish the same content using more than one URL. Strategically speaking ensure that you have unique sources of content and that you publish it just in one place. Don’t solely rely on third parties producing content for more than one website.

Wrong Audience

Before you even start creating content you have to ask yourself who you are writing, drawing or filming for. This may vary for each piece of content but generally a publication or site has preferred audience, I don’t like the common term „target market“ as we don’t shoot people here and don’t solely market to them. Imagine being on stage and looking into the audience. Imagine the people you want to see down there. Are they female or male? Are they young and wild? Or are they older and more respectable? Do they have to pay an entrance fee or are you playing at free spontaneous open air festival?

Some businesses create content with no audience at all beyond themselves. They write as if they are the only people they talk to. They focus on themselves, only saying „we are doing this and that“. They use terminology no one else understands. They write impersonal monologues. Who is your audience? Your industry peers? Your potential social media fans? Are your customers your audience? Is it the general public? I can’t tell you. You have to find out for yourself first.

Just Content

As content creators what they do and they rarely will tell you that they are actually content creators. They will be writers, photographers, filmmakers. Do you get the difference? It’s not the focus on the medium, it’s the focus on the outcome. They don’t wake up in the morning and think „today I will create a piece of great content“. When they get inspired the write a poem, a manifesto, they photograph beautiful women or places. For you, the business person, it might be just „content“ at the end of the day. You can’t start the day with the wish to create content because it ends up just fluff. Content is not the goal, it’s the byproduct of creativity and self-expression. Additionally content is just the starting point. It’s like a king in chess. You can’t win the game with just the king. So just creating content won’t suffice.

These mistakes are indeed fatal for your website. Just make one of them and nobody will actually read or share your content. Even if they do they might not even know that you are the author or that your company website is connected to it.

So what now? Now that you know what’s wrong and how to ask the right questions you can start thinking about your content strategy.

I will help you.

I will focus on each one of the above listed points and explain in depth how to actually do it right. So stay tuned and subscribe to my SEO 2.0 blog to read about a proper content strategy in the following weeks and months.

* Creative Commons image by Jon Wiley.

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1. 7 Social Sites Every Business and Professional Should Use
2. What is Content? It’s not Your Sales Copy
3. How Does Google+ Add to Your Social Media Strategy?

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3. How Does Google+ Add to Your Social Media Strategy?

Wow. Awesome! After just a dozen of tries I could sign up for Google+! Sadly it happened on late Friday so that I ended up trying it out on the weekend. You know I hate working on the weekend but after a while I had the impression that this is what I do on Google+.

You may already know that after a few years of social media enthusiasm I grew more and more critical of the whole hype.

Why do I have to work for free to make Mark Zuckerberg the youngest billionaire? This is one of the questions I asked myself when joining Facebook in 2008 (shortly after they entered the German market). I asked it myself again when I finally decided to actually use Facebook in 2010.

I test a lot of new tools but these days I don’t do it just for the sake of it anymore.

Just because a tool is free as in beer doesn’t mean it doesn’t cost me money to use. I could spend the time working on my won Web real estate so there must be a compelling reason to use a tool. Otherwise it’s a waste of time and money.

I still use plenty of social media sites, services and tools. I use

1. Delicious
2. Twitter
3. Tumblr

every day. I even use this forgotten social browsing tool called Browzmi almost daily because there is a rational reason to do so. Facebook and LinkedIn also have a role in my overall social media strategy but I use them only occasionally when I have a concrete task to accomplish (LinkedIn) or some time left (Facebook).

I use Tumblr and Browzmi only privately in the sense that I don’t earn money using them but it still makes some sense for inspiration or organizational purposes.

So here comes Google+ and requires a significant time investment on my side.

I schedule just 30 minutes a day for social media use, the same amount I schedule for sorting and answering emails that are not part of my projects. The only tool I used throughout the day until now was Delicious, I was bookmarking everything I’ve found of some interest in the SEO, social media and blogging sphere. Occasional off topic saves included. Later I use them for my blog posts.

When Google launched the +1 button I started adding +1 votes to all kinds of sites I appreciate. I +1 a lot, even more than I use Delicious, Twitter, Facebook together. I just vote for everything I appreciate no matter the language or topic.

Google+ doesn’t automatically display these +1 votes like Facebook does with likes.

So my Google+ stream is a different one than the +1 stream. That’s good because I don’t flood my SEO followers with off topic stuff from all over the Web but when I’d like to share something on G+ as well I don’t have an option to do so.

Instead I noticed that Google+ works a lot like Google Buzz, it encourages discussions. That’s great if you want to start one but I rarely do and when I do people don’t contribute. People like to discuss about stuff that doesn’t matter much. They like to discuss opinions.

I’m interested in opinions but not in discussing them.

Every opinion, even the “wrong” one has some value as it shows that some people think in a certain manner. You can adapt then once you know. You can’t argue with people’s opinion much though. It costs lots of effort to even make a point that contradicts someone elses’ opinion. You could argue all day and starve in the meantime.

So how does Google+ add to my social media strategy? It adds a place where I can discuss stuff, whether Google+ is this or that and whether it should add this or that feature, or whether Facebook is better or not. That’s great for Google+ engineers, they can learn a lot from these discussions. To me it’s just working for free for Google.

Why should I? To push my own properties there? Maybe. I will still have to find out. Maybe next weekend. Until them I consider switching of these notifications that follow me when logged in into Google. There is Greasemonkey script for that. I’ll have to find the link.

Also it took lots of work to organize just a few dozens of people into circles. I will have to plan this time investment. As I socialize mostly with the same people I am connected with on Twitter, Facebook and the likes I have to find more reasons to do so beyond just discussing opinions. I may create circles for all of my different blogs so that I can serve all my audiences, but that’s also additional workload.

How does Google+ add to your social media strategy? Does it only add more work to your todo list? What are your actual use cases? What does the “plus” actually stand for?

* Image by Akane Yamada.

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A few days ago I’ve watched a very intriguing movie called The Joneses. It’s about a seemingly happy family who is moving to a new city. Their main motive is to sell products though. How do they do it? They meet a lot of people and they sell by example, they use the newest gadgets they have to advertise and simply talk about them.

The stealth marketing of the Joneses reminded me of large parts of the blogosphere these days.

It’s not the just the obvious parallel I mean here. Yes, there are lots of bloggers who sell you the one and only WordPress theme, a web hosting package they use and some software you have to use. Indeed I almost made the mistake to behave like this as well. A few scattered affiliate links can still be found in the archives here.

No, I mean the bigger picture. In the movie it’s about keeping up with the Joneses money-wise. They don’t have to pay for the latest sports cars, flat-screen tv sets or smartphones. Everybody else has to though. On the Web it’s also about time. Web celebs like Robert Scoble or SEO industry icons like Rand Fishkin always use and write about the latest social site you have to be on (OMG, Quora is the best thing since the water toilet!), they visit lots of expensive conferences all over the place or better speak there.

I have spoken at the local SES twice as well but second time was awful.

Two speakers were scheduled, me and a guy from Mister Wong, but then the organizer decided to add three more speakers beacuse he thought we’re not attractive enough probably. So when finally my presentation came there was no time left and he interrupted me after a few minutes so that I couldn’t finish it. I was quite angry an decided not to speak at SES ever again but they haven’t invited me anyways a year later as it’s their policy not to invite people who need too long for their presentation.

So you see it’s not all glamour in the shiny SEO world. You get treated without respect even by people you work for without pay.

It’s not just the conferences though. It’s the latest hype as well you have to invest your time in. People who earn 500$ or even 1000$ an hour and have dozens of wage slaves who do their low level work can afford to spend half the day to hang out on the latest no ROI yet but in two years probably social sites.

Can you keep up with them? No, of course not. You can’t keep with the Joneses. You don’t have to. Why? Let me come back to the get rich quick make money bloggers again. They are the worst kind of bloggers I have mentioned at the beginning of this post.

There were several projects out there that sounded quite similar so I can’t even remember their domain right. They were called the million dollar blog project or the likes. They wanted to make a six figure income from blogging in one year etc.

You know what? I’ve recently started to monitor my broken links more closely. What did I find? Hundreds of comment links were broken. I checked many of them manually to find out what happened and amazingly many sites and blogs have disappeared. Some blogs after just a few months. Several of the million dollar blogs were among them while most of the lay low solid SEO blogs were still there.

So unlike the movie were the the neighbor who can’t keep up with the Joneses finally commits suicide on the Web the Joneses disappear much faster. Not only you don’t have to keep up with the Joneses you shouldn’t even try! Look at me instead. I make a quite modest income by blogging but I’m almost a full time blogger for a few years by now. I have to do some SEO consulting or other SEO work as well but my dream of business blogging for a living has come true and it lasts.

I don’t mean to tell you that you can’t become a millionaire by blogging. There were cases where blogs have been sold for millions of dollars and I don’t even mean the sell out of Huffington Post to AOL.

You don’t have to everywhere and follow the latest hype. You don’t have to spend hours and hours on social sites nobody outside of the Web geek circles even knows.

I’ve learned the hard way in some cases. I wasted time on a few sites where I either got banned, where they vanished or got sold out and abandoned by most of the cool kids.

Make small steps that makes sense, earn enough money and don’t try to get rich quick or even rich at all. This way you may be around next year as well. Don’ try to keep up with the Joneses of Web.

You can even blog less to succeed.

Most of my blogs don’t need more than two posts per week and they earn money anyways. Here on SEO 2.0 I don’t even need to earn money with the blog directly unlike other SEO bloggers who remove blog comments and substitute them with ads.

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3. Interview with Business Blogger Steven Snell on His Recent 50k Blog Sale

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A few weeks ago I had a lively discussion on Twitter with two quite opinionated individuals who are quite known in the SEO industry. I won’t name them here to prevent this discussion from getting personal but I want to come back to the actual topic we discussed about because it happens all the time that I have to discuss such matters​: the discussion almost always boils down to science vs reality.

Science will tell one thing and the reality won’t obey what scientists declare though in many cases.

The simplest example for this is the weather forecast: while the smartest and most gifted scientists using satellites and supercomputers want to tell you whether the sun is shining or not you are strongly advised to look out of the window to find out.

In many case you will notice that the weather forecast was wrong.

The so called chaos theory explains why you can’t forecast weather without erring from time to time and indeed I’m glad that there is some element of chance and not everything can be predicted.

Now is science bad to put it bluntly? Do we have to believe the church and explain everything with God? Well, you ask the wrong person, I’m not particularly religious but I respect religious beliefs. Also I don’t engage in futile discussions whether God exists or how man has evolved whether by way of evolution or “intelligent design”​. Personally I think that the Bible is partly a literary work so that it speaks in metaphors. Thus when the world was created in seven days it doesn’t mean you have to take it literally.

Why do I explain this? Well, you can reconcile science and religion. Also

you don’t have to denounce everything science hasn’t yet proven or even discovered.

Moreover science tends to err and most of scientific dogmas break down after a while because scientists themselves discover new phenomena they have not even taken into account before.

Quantum physics is the best example: it has rendered most of prior science obsolete.

So scientific laws hold true just for a few decades usually. Nonetheless there is a tendency today to treat scientists like priests in earlier epochs: whatever scientists say you have to obey. They don’t just discover and explain anymore they forbid you to do things and force their dangerous experiments on you.

Nuclear energy has been probably the worst crime against humanity committed by science, not just due the horrific effects of the atomic bomb but due to taking the wrong path when it comes to energy, one that we’ll have to deal with for ten thousands of years as the toxic waste will haunt us almost forever.

So you see, scientists can seriously mess up this planet, your health and your life. That’s not the end of the story,  the “is SEO science or art” (or something else) debate is not far from these issues.

Let me use the example we used in the discussion with the SEO professionals on Twitter. The discussion started with the issue of potentially harmful vaccines. This is a taboo topic in some circles. People who blindly believe in science and what their doctors tell them tend to think you’re insane even when you suggest that not all vaccines are needed. They are accepted out of tradition and because doctors and scientists say so or rather the pharmaceutical companies behind them.

Now I won’t explain here why some vaccines are harmful, this would be offtopic. I want to dwell on the comparison of dogmatic treatment of vaccines and the one exhibited by alternative medicine, be it Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) or homeopathy. Practitioners of the latter two will tell you that vaccines can indeed be harmful and ask you to be cautious when getting vaccinated. Especially children can get harmed by vaccines.

Now the tow SEO guys were infuriated that I could even bring this issue up. Also they declared acupuncture and homeopathy to be a placebo etc.

So you see, while I am not anti-science but ask you to see its limitations and never blindly believe in science people like the two believe in science to such an extent that you are not allowed to do things that are not approved by scientists.

Either you obey science or you are a nut

is what they think. They don’t even bother with conflicting scientific results or new discoveries, they protect tradition and a belief system. More than that, it’s part of their identity. It’s an attack on themselves when you dare to doubt scientific results from hundred years ago.​ Most vaccines have been created back then and people don’t care that the situation is completely different now. It’s like still using steam engines.

In SEO we have a similar situation: the science of SEO is nascent if it exists at all so you can’t really prove everything.

You can have theories and show statistics. You will never exactly know why something worked exactly and what exact factors made it work. Especially as Google makes around 400 tweaks to its algo a year. Your SEO science is outdated​ the moment you have proven it or quicker, I’m with the author of SEO Theory here.

So SEO, like many things life, and even the weather is changing all the time. Even the climate is not static, it changes as well, being influenced by us. Thank you science for noticing and proving it!

Also SEO changes as we have an impact on Google and other search engines.

We create content farms, Google and Blekko react. So at the end of the day you have to take a look outside the window yourself to find out what the weather is like. It’s like with climate change: ​while we can see and prove it we don’t really know whether the ocean tides will bring us a colder period or whether the global warming will have a more direct impact by rising temperatures. We have to observe reality to find out.

So you see I’m not anti-science. I appreciate science, especially when it discovers and proves the obvious. Acupuncture works for thousands of years and I know it because it works on me as well, like homeopathy does.​ Still science and its methods are often not enough to prove it because ​science is too limited as of now. It can’t quantify the data of acupuncture or find any substance in homeopathic​ remedies (which are based on information not substances like conventional medicine).

So I appreciate science where it makes sense but I don’t let science make me ignorant enough not to try things that have worked long before science even existed. Likewise

I practice what works in SEO

and do not blindly obey scientists who tell me one day that I need PageRank sculpting just to backtrack next day after Matt Cutts’ announces that it has been discontinued several months ago.

When it’s science vs reality I tend to believe what I see and I expect science to explain it. Science is not an entity to force you to do something or ignore something else. Science is not the church, so stop blindly believing in it. Always take a look at reality itself and when the glaciers melt you know science is right.

BTW.: there are many new scientific studies that indeed prove that acupuncture works and also which explain other worldly phenomena many people deemed obvious long ago.​

* Image by by Okko Pyykkö

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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.

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A while ago I have written a post about how you should treat the people who visit your blog. My point was that treating them like an amorphous mass of “traffic” is wrong and that you have to think about each and every person visiting your blog or site as an actual human being and guest.

Today I want to elaborate on the topic of traffic vs visitors and show you an example.

I’ve just read a case study on StumbleUpon traffic on The Next Corner. Also StumbleUpon has been boasting recently that they have surpassed Facebook as number one source of social media traffic.

These numbers are questionable but I don’t want to argue with themhere, I already have on Twitter and in the comments on some posts about the stats.

Let’s take a look at the actual “traffic” coming from StumbleUpon.

I have been a staunch suppoter of StumbleUpon and its traffic a few year back and there is still one article on SEO 2.0 arguing that SU traffic is the best social media traffic around. It’s still true in a sense but in a group of serial killers the simple one time murderer is best as well.

One way to determine the quality of traffic is considering the bounce rate but it’s a fuzzy metric you can’t compare from sie to site really. Another way of finding out whther the traffic actually makes sense for you is the the average time on site as Google Analytics calls it. So how long do your visitors actually stay on your site?

Well visitors from StumbleUpon stay 11 seconds on SEO 2.0 according to Google Analytics. I think the number is even lower as there is at least one user counted a 12 of times in there so the number is artificially blown up.

You could argue it’s my fault and SU users don’t care for SEO but I have several still popular posts on SU and some of them are not even dealing with SEO. Many of them recently got updated.

Waht we see here is that these visitors are indeed traffic not guests, they don’t even drop in, they just move on. They pass your website while moving somewhere else. 11 seconds are indeed abysmal, even on a blog like mine which gets lots of off topic traffic (Google Image search for instance). Other users, aka real visitors stay 10 times as long.

You should aim to get these real visitors not traffic that moves on.

People who stay in their car and just slow down without even leaving their car are not the perfect clients, unless you have a McDrive type of business. I’d prefer to be a restaurant, not because my name is Chef but because I want to offer my guest more and a better service instead of just getting the stink of the trafic exhausts and a few bucks.

So I ask you again: Are you after traffic or visitors?

Related posts:

1. Mob vs Smart Mob: 7 Reasons Why StumbleUpon Traffic Is the Best Social Media Traffic
2. StumbleUpon Traffic Stopped
3. Stop Link Building, Links != Traffic

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One of the most important factors of my success until now is the fact that I was never been content with following. I never liked

• following orders
• following trends
• following people

I always preferred leading. I’m not speaking of following on Twitter. Following is a general strategy most people adhere to. It has something to do with laziness. You follow a path people went before you because you are either afraid or too lazy to find your own.

Y​ou will never be the first to do something when you just follow others.

In business we speak of the unique selling proposition that enables your business to stand out. How do you think you will be able to have an USP when you just copy something someone has done before you?

I’​ m not talking about leading like in “being a leader” either. The German word for leader is “Führer” and you know who the most well known leader in Germany was. I don’t want people​ to follow me either.

Many of the Web celebrities have a business model of making other people follow them.

They can sell you affiliate products they recommend and make you spread their message on social media.

T​he people who follow me on Twitter or elsewhere are not followers of that kind. They are people who lead themselves. These people find and follow their own path.

It’s not easy to find your own way of doing things these days. You get inundated with information, choices and your desires are constantly played with. Almost the whole make money online blogging industry is based on the wrong leader-follower relationship.

I​n SEO 2.0 you get the optimal win to win situation when peers work together and support each other.

I can’t understand why people are following exploitative​ and deceiving individuals like Jason Calacanis, Steve Rubel or Kevin R​ose. You have to lead yourself instead of following false idols. I don’t want to be your idol. I don’t want to show you my way of doing things in order to be able to sell you products. I want you to find your own way.

* Image by David Spinks

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Three years ago I boldly predicted that social browsing services like StumbleUpon will kill Digg and SEO 1.0. Did they? No. I was wrong. Social networking did though. Let me explain.

StumbleUpon was the first and only to succeed big time with social browsing. Nevertheless it still is a mix of conventional social bookmarking and real social browsing services: Services that monitor your online activity and match it with your own and others’ patterns automatically. With StumbleUpon you still have to “stumble” manually.

There were other more automated services that just watched your moves. They guessed and suggested the next website you might like based on what you like. They worked like Last FM but for websites not music. Most of them did not succeed though. Instead

social networking and link sharing sites like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr succeed.

They have replaced SEO 1.0 known for keyword rich but poorly readable copy with high quality SEO 2.0 flagship content.

StumbleUpon, a “missing link” service and the new wave of social networking sites rendered both old school SEO “1.0″ and first wave social news media like Digg useless. At Digg you still have to sift through piles of irrelevant and untartegeted information to find something. The “top news” are still the lowest common denominator (crap). In version 4 Digg got better by following the lead of Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr but it’s still difficult to get the right stuff in “my news”. You have to find decent people to follow an there aren’t enough on Digg.

Conventional SEO 1.0 that sticks to link building using links that barely anyone clicks fail in an environment where social networking is the benchmark of popularity. Digg dies as there are many and more effective ways to find what you look after without being served the same type of main stream low value content geared towards a mass audience.

Social networking works for all niches and at the same time is better at reflecting overall trends. So you do both: You can communicate with your community on Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr and still use services like Topsy to find out what most people deem worthy to be shared. It’s not one size fit all. It’s a collection of all sizes and colors where each one of them has a chance to become popular.

On Digg V4 this still doesn’t work. The obsolete frontpage metaphor only allows content to succeed that offers what the predominantly disgruntled, male, geeky and white middle class aka the average Digg user wants. That’s why I’m on Twitter most of the time. Here every niche can thrive and sometimes you can get traction even outside of it depending on the circumstances.

So I was right about Digg and SEO being replaced by something better but it wasn’t social browsing. I erred here almost completely.

SEO 2.0 is today almost the norm though. It’s still called SEO but it’s something quite different these days. It’s social media outreach, blogger relations and killer content creation.

There is still SEO 1.0 out there but it’s more and more spammy while the real SEO has evolved and is social to the core by now. StumbleUpon is still around but it’s stagnating for years, in spite of the PR the company propagates. Just watch the Google Trends for Websites stats to see how Tumblr has outpaced SU and Digg. Facebook and Twitter are another league altogether. They are huge in contrast to the tiny SU and Digg.

I have removed the list of 7 social browsing services this post contained originally. I admit I was wrong. I’m glad the the more advanced model of personalized social networking and link sharing with followers and friends has taken over. The one size fits all social news model has never really worked in the first place. Also SEO today is much better than the SEO of the old days before Twitter and Facebook went prime time. Your followers won’t retweet crap and even if they will people won’t follow them in future as much.

First published on August 14th, 2007. Republished an last updated on October 5th, 2010.

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2. Social Browsing Can Make the Web a Better Place
3. Mob vs Smart Mob: 7 Reasons Why StumbleUpon Traffic Is the Best Social Media Traffic

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The birds by rickydavid.

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

.

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 by Picture Taker 2.

Balanced Twitter pros and cons articles

• What is Microblogging or Tumblelogging? Pros and Cons « Lorelle on WordPress
• Influential Marketing Blog: 6 Reasons Twitter Rocks and Sucks Simultaneously At SXSW
• mathewingram.com/work | Twitter: Waste of time or social tool?
• Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media: Twitter for Nonprofits: Waste of Time or Potentially Useful?
• Twitter Review: Waste of Time or Extremely Valuable? | TechConsumer
• Twitter: I Twink I Twove You | Brent Csutoras

Polka – the humming bird by Cris Pierry

Reasons to use Twitter

• 17 Ways You Can Use Twitter: A Guide by Dosh Dosh
• How To Make A Small Fortune With Twitter | Scoreboard Media Group
• How We Use Twitter for Journalism – ReadWriteWeb
• Hate Twitter ? Become A Media Mogul With It | BloodhoundBlog
• Think Twitter Sucks? You’re Wrong, Here’s Why.
• Held by Egyptian Authorities? Time to ‘Tweet’ – washingtonpost.com
• The Business Value of Twitter | Advice and Opinion
• Using Twitter in IT Support
• How I Use Twitter for Headline Examples | Cornwallseo.com

I look up to the little bird by monkeyc.net

Reasons not to use Twitter

• Twitter ’spam’ threat leads to paranoia « What Matters Online
• Twitter Sucks. Lightning does not. | CenterNetworks
• Twitter Is Unethical For Business Use | Andy Beard – Niche Marketing
• Why Twitter Sucks…
• Alt Text: Twitter Away Your Life With Social Networking
• Twitter is a Complete Waste of Time! – Problogger
• Why I Stopped Using Twitter – Publishing 2.0
• Twittering Your Way to Social Media Unproductivity | Cape Cod SEO
• Buzz Kill by Leo Laporte
• The 12 Major Problems with Twitter at theOtherblog
• Seven psychological complaints of bloggers and social media addicts « Online Journalism Blog

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.

• Tweetdeck: The most popular standalone professional Twitter client based on Adobe Air
• Cotweet: Web based Twitter for business client with some social CRM features
• Hootsuite: Social Media dashboard for teams using Twitter
• Powertwitter: In-Browser Twitter enhancement for Firefox, Chrome and Safari
• Echofon: Twitter client for Firefox and various Apple products
• Twitter Acquires Tweetie, the Best iPhone Twitter Client: What’s Next?
• Popular Android Twitter Client Gets Picked Up By TweetUp
• Official Twitter for BlackBerry App Now Available
• Twikini a Twitter client for Windows Mobile
• App of the Day: Gravity, the Symbian Twitter client

Twitter scanners (Twitter search etc.)

• Topsy, the best third party Twitter search engine
• The Twitter Tim.es: A newspaper-like Twitter interface that collects links from your Twitter friends – Take a look at mine
• Doesfollow – A simple check tool to find out whether a particular user follows you
• Refollow is an advanced but easy to use Twitter follower management tool
• TweetReach shows your real impact on Twitter by displaying the number of impressions of your tweets and who contributed them

Bejia flor / Humming bird by Marcio Cabral de Moura

Twitter marketing how tos, tutorials and resources

• Twitter Wrote This Column For Me
• 7 Ways Marketers Can Use Twitter | Marketing Profs Daily Fix Blog
• Twitter Secrets Revealed | Portent Interactive, Seattle, WA
• A Twitter Marketing Experiment
• how to use twitter for marketing
• How-To: Using Twitter to Build Brand Integrity – MarketingVOX
• Twitter Marketing Guide – Tips on using Twitter from the Twitterati | Online Marketing Blog
• 200+ Internet Marketing Gurus on Twitter
• SEM Twittering? – SEM 2.0 | Google Groups
• The Golden Rule of Twitter Marketing
• Twitter Marketing Do’s and Don’ts: Interview With Ma.gnolia – Get Elastic Ecommerce Blog
• 26 Reasons Why I Love Twitter | Social Desire
• Twitter Tweet Sheet — JasonTheodor.com

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.

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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?

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