SEO 2.0 » Twitter

Science vs Reality: Do Not Obey Scientists – Practice What Works in SEO & Beyond

Tadeusz Szewczyk — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:18:01 +0000

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

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com

How Social Networking Has Killed Digg and SEO 1.0

Tadeusz Szewczyk — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 07:30:34 +0000

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.

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com

Twitter Dilemma: To Tweet or Not to Tweet? Pros, Cons, 50+ Links & Tools

Tadeusz Szewczyk — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 15:15:37 +0000

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 by Picture Taker 2.

Balanced Twitter pros and cons articles

Polka – the humming bird by Cris Pierry

Reasons to use Twitter

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.

Twitter scanners (Twitter search etc.)

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!

How do you use Twitter?
Do you use a client?
If yes, which one?
What are you using Twitter for?
What do you tweet about actually?
What are you doing?
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.

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com

101 Ways to Make Your Blog More Popular and Successful

Tadeusz Szewczyk — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 14:05:13 +0000

After 13 years of online publishing, 7 years of blogging for a plethora of blogs, being an SEO for six years and being paid for blogging for five years by now I finally am convinced that I know how it works.

What I learned about online publishing, blogging, SEO in more than 10 years you can now read in 10 minutes.

This is my list of 101 ways to make your blog more popular and successful. Most of it I tried myself, other measures have been taken by numerous other bloggers with success so I have to catch up on them myself.

1 – 5: Twitter

1. Get social on Twitter, the people on Twitter will support your blog if you do it right

2. Follow some people on Twitter who share your interests but not too many

3. Reward people tweeting and retweeting you, or say “thanks” at least

4. Tweet only good stuff, so people get interested in you and visit your blog

5. Add a retweet button like the one above to your blog posts or web pages

6 – 10: Niche social news sites

6. Target niche social news sites like SERPd, Earners Club or BizSugar

7. Become a power user at the one that fits you most

8. Tweet good articles from the niche social news communities

9. Use a striking avatar like the sombrero guy image I use

10. Socialize with other (power) users and add them as friends at Facebook or LinkedIn

11 – 20: Your blog

11. Add an unforgettable image or huge headline in your blog header

12. Use WordPress, as it’s the most widely used blogging platform and makes socializing with pingbacks easier

13. Use a great design or customize a great WordPress theme

14. Allow pings, trackbacks and real links in comments (dofollow)

15. Reply to your genuine commenters who add value in the comments

16. Link to other bloggers, most notably your peers, not only the well known ones

17. Create pillar or flagship content like huge lists, thorough tutorials, breaking or unique news

18. Be the first to say something: break news, uncover scams, debunk myths

19. Review and address other bloggers

20. Create a blogroll of blogs that are similar to yours and/or a good supplement

21 – 30: Other blogs:

21. Accept and support authorities in your field

22. Make a list of the top 10 blogs in your field and try being like them and better

23. Contribute guest posts on other blogs

24. Notify other bloggers if they have “Page not found” errors or their design is broken is some browser

25. Get inspired by other bloggers

26. Comment on other blogs, out of interest, not only for marketing purposes

27. Meet other bloggers in real life and connect

28. Submit other’s blog posts to your favorite social media or vote there for them

29. Do not expect other bloggers to like you just because you’re there, actively befriend them

30. Do not annoy other bloggers with IM, email or other means, only contact them if it really matters

31 – 40: Copy writing

31. Write about popular topics but not those everybody else already covered

32. Find a new angle to a story instead of mere repeating or linking

33. Use striking, funny, easy to remember post headlines like “The Day I was reborn, twice”, “I ate my iPod“, “10 Ways to become a Millionaire in 5 Weeks”

34. Do not write too short or too long posts

35. Write timeless blog postings not just yesterday’s news

36. Know your audience and offer it what it wants, not only what you think is appropriate

37. Be yourself, do not write like you would write for an employer, write as if you write a letter to a friend

38. Offend offenders

39. Do not offend people weaker than you

40. Ask questions and incite discussions

41 – 50: X/HTML and CSS

41. Use clean, lean HTML and CSS for website speed

42. Use headings, lists, bold, italic and other means of making a text readable

43. Use large headlines

44. Use the h2 tag for post headlines (h1 is for the blog name)

45. Use image replacement to make your headlines look better

46. Do not use fonts for headlines which are not meant for them and look ugly (Verdana)

47. Make your font size readable in your posts but not too big, your readers are not half blind

48. Use colors that contrast but not too much and not too many of them, black on white is still king

49. Be original but let people recognize that your blog is a blog, by using some well known elements

50. Use compatible CSS rather than CSS 3 tricks only newer browsers support

51 – 60: Images

51. Use images in posts

52. Use striking images in your posts, like collages, bright colors, images that metaphorically illustrate your point

53. Be original, do not just display the Google logo when you write about Google

54. Do not steal images without proper attribution

55. Use a list of images to attract large audiences, but don’t forget #54

56. Use .png screen shots or parts of them as images for your blog posts

57. Use pictures of beautiful women

58. Do not use pictures as the only content of a post if it’s not a list

59. Do not use images that are bigger than 100 kb, not everybody in the world has a fast connection

60. Use thumbnails for bigger images

61 – 70: Topics

61. Cover the most important things in life: Love, peace, happiness, community, freedom

62. Do not write about SEO (it’s too late for me)

63. If you write about SEO call it blogging tips

64. Write about how you feel

65. Interview interesting and well known people

66. Write about stars, people love stars: Angelina Jolie I love you!

67. Write about what you know first hand, what you have experienced

68. Concentrate on positive topics, do not just write how bad everything is

69. Do not write about your wife, kids, where you live, how much you earn or what you bought unless you’re properly armed or live in Sweden

70. Write you earned thousands of dollars by blogging to get known

71 – 80: Blog SEO and promotion

71. Contribute to blog communities like the ones on LinkedIn or BlogCatalog

72. Tweet your blog posts

73. Ping Technorati and Google Blog Search (default in English WordPress)

74. Use WordPress 3.+ as it’s already SEOed to the max out of the box

75. Link out to others to get linked, do not engage in link exchange, link buying or selling or any automated link schemes

76. Do not use keywords like “california real estate” as your name when commenting unless it’s your blog’s name

77. Don’t overdo conventional SEO on your blog, it’s in most cases counter productive

78. Do not write content – write articles, reviews, interviews

79. SEO is not Spam, Blog SEO is not trackback spam

80. Do not automate your blogging efforts

81 – 85: Getting Subscribers

81. Display a (big) orange feed icon where everybody can see it

82. Use Feedburner to enhance your RSS feed

83. Let people subscribe by email via Aweber or Mailchimp

84. Offer a full feed not just excerpts

85. Explain what RSS is for people new to the concept and offer a choice of the best RSS readers

86 – 90: Branding

86. Create a personal brand. Don’t blog as “admin”

87. Get a unique and remarkable name for your blog

88. Get a short and easy to remember name for yourself, Tadeusz Szewczyk = Tad Chef

89. Use your blog URL and/or avatar throughout the Web

90. Trademark your blog name

91 – 101: Miscellaneous

91. Do not offend people for being different than you

92. Be open minded, let anything and everything inspire you

93. Treat your readers and other bloggers like real people, with respect and compassion

94. Explain stuff that you know, there are always some people who don’t know

95. Be different but stay true to yourself, do not pose as somebody else

96. Do not overload your blog with ads

97. Do not use Google Adsense or Text Link Ads unless you have to or depend on it

98. Become an expert in your trade, be a specialist for your topic, don’t try everything at the same time

99. Do not try to do everything or be everywhere, concentrate on the stuff you like, prefer and are good at

100. Cooperate with others, altruism is the best egoism

101. In short: Practice SEO 2.0

I want to thank five bloggers who have inspired me to write this post: Smashing Magazine, Vandelay Design, Skellie, Social Networking Articles and this SEO blogger.

Originally published October 29th, 2007. V2 republished August 14th, 2010. Last updated July 3rd, 2011.

* Image: Spreng Ben.

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com

Sometimes Success Lies in Moderation

Tadeusz Szewczyk — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:44:33 +0000

Balance by Liber.

Just yesterday i noticed that I entered the Adage 150 top marketing blog list at #143. Today I’m at #149. This might change quickly again so I’m not here to solely brag about it. The exact point in time SEO 2.0 has seen this surge has surprised me.

For those who don’t know the Adage 150 list, you can submit your site for consideration (I did a few months ago) and in case your blog really deals with marketing related topics you get listed. You probably will be at #500 or below though. Even the flagship blog for the British SEO company I write for most of the time doesn’t perform as good in the list.

So I kept wondering because I add two posts a week to SEOptimise and sometimes don’t write for SEO 2.0 for a week at all. In June I even paused for two weeks. Also the posts I’ve written lately, were, with one exception, not the typically popular list or how to posts you usually succeed with on social media. The Adage 150 takes its data from several sources. Some rely on sheer traffic like Alexa others on multiple metrics like Postrank.

For a while already I’ve been quite envious of blogs with high posting frequency like

They manage to post daily or even more often and the bloggers are often whole teams. Even Micheal Gray who is a lone ranger like myself blogs very often.

Then it dawned on me after reaching the Adage 150 that sometimes success lies in moderation.

Sometimes it’s better to do less and say less to succeed. It’s not just the quantity vs quality point. Moderation is about finding the perfect balance when doing things.

In business blogging and SEO 2.0 we tend to go for the most traffic, most social media recognition and most subscribers or links. Sometimes that’s too much though. When you have to ask too many people for a vote on a particular social media site or you have to spend hours daily there to achieve some modest results it’s too much. You have to try to do less of it to achieve your goals.

A few weeks ago for instance I decided that I don’t want to follow more than 700 people on Twitter.

[I actually follow 704 because as the number includes for of my own accounts.] At the same time I didn’t want to unfollow hundreds of my followers lie some social media mavens do. I have followed thee people for a reason.

I don’t want to follow only 100 people just because I think I’m so important that i can’t spend more time with reading updates by other people. So I started reviewing the people I follow on Twitter on a daily basis. Whenever I encountered someone in my stream where I didn’t remember who that is or what website s/he owns or writes for I considered unfollowing the person. I only followed as many people as I unfollowed to achieve balance.

It worked. Lately I noticed that more often

I remember who the people are whom I follow on Twitter, I recognize the avatars and the people behind them.

Before, the number of clicks I got for links on Twitter was dwindling all the time. Now it depends again on the quality of the links. Whenever I share something that is really of value for the people I get many to click them. I got the attention of my Twitter friends because they got mine. I was able to reconnect with many.

Of course I could go on adding examples for ages but I decided to make my writing both more concise and valuable in future. The goal is less information more wisdom. I will try to achieve balance. Sometimes success lies in moderation. I want to make it happen more often.

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com

Stop Social Media Hopping Now to Save Your Business Later

Tadeusz Szewczyk — Tue, 18 May 2010 09:41:42 +0000

Social Media: Paradise or prison?

Are you social media hopping? Have you been on Friendster 5 years ago, on MySpace 3 years ago, on Facebook for a year or more and already planning to move on to Diaspora? Have you left Digg and tried Propeller to end up on Mixx where more or less 10 people read your submissions? Did you try Pownce and Friendfeed just to end up on Twitter but already consider moving on to Foursquare?

I’ve been there, done that. Maybe not exactly as described above but in very similar ways. I truly believed in these social media sites. I developed my networks, submitted quality content, I was friendly to everybody who deserved it and I fought spammers, trolls and racists who mess up social networks.

No matter how much time and effort I invested I have been disappointed in the end.

Most social media sites end up nowhere.

Either the community moves on by itself because of the next big thing, the site dies by itself or gets sold to someone who more or less kills it. What’s very common as well is that you get evicted out of your community. Or the community gets so ugly that you prefer to leave or you fight back and then you get banned for fighting back.

I left Mixx because of racism. I left StumbleUpon because of content theft and I left Hacker News because of my disagreeable opinions. Each of the social media sites have silenced me in one way or other. Mixx banned me for two weeks after I talked back at a racist. I was flagged at StumbleUpon by trolls and content thieves alike.

On Hacker News I have been called “idiotic” because I dared to criticize banks on a page populated by die hard capitalists. Then I cited the TOS which says don’t say “idiotic” and my account was set to invisible. I was a very prolific “power user” on all these sites before that. That didn’t help though.

This post is not meant to complain or whine. Also I have already written about the Mixx and StumbleUpon fiascos in greater detail. My short intermezzo at Hacker News was not even worth a post. In most cases I was a suspected criminal from day one because I admitted to do SEO or rather I wrote about SEO.

I’m now on Twitter and Sphinn mainly plus on Google Buzz, LinkedIn and Facebook halfheartedly.

I could easily become a Google Buzz, LinkedIn or Facebook pro with the right amount of time and effort. By now I’m an social media skeptic though.

Most social media sites turn ugly sooner or later. Facebook and LinkedIn already are in a way. They sell your private data to others or your social network back to you. You have to be there but you always need to remember that both sites are already useful as channels leading back to your website and business. Social medai sites do not make sense as a long time investment or time, effort and money. Sooner or later, or rather sooner they all deteriorate and you have to build up your network from scratch elsewhere.

You need to take control back and network with people directly.

Cut out the middleman. You don’t need to friend your mother on Facebook to know what she’s up to. You can call her. It takes less time. You have to invest the time and effort into your won website and business.

there are many ways to do that. You can set up an email list of subscribers and broadcast newsletters to them. This is very SEO 1.0 but it works when you use the correct tools. Most people suggest Aweber. That’s not my style though. You can use CRM tools but there are dozens of them and they don’t seem to have standards. For instance you can’t use Salesforce plugins for other CRM tools and vice versa.

CRM is very SEO 2.0 but I have checked so many CRM tools by now and I don’t like and trust any one of them to invest my time and effort. Also most of them cost money on a regular basis so you’re depend like on social media sites but you have to pay as well and you’re still locked in more or less.

The answer is much simpler: Most people who are freelancing one man shows like I am should simply keep address books and add not only email addresses there but also the website and blog URLs, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn names/URLs and so on. Your open source Thunderbird email client offers an address book with an “other” tab. There you can add 4 custom fields and notes (see screen shot above).

That’s your best best bet for your personal social network. That’s the best CRM tool. It’s open source, simple to use, easy to backup and move. That’s better than social media hopping. It can save your business when once a again a social site turns ugly, bans you and tries to sell your content, relations or data back to you or to others. Think Ning, think Facebook, heck, even Geocities. All you effort goes down the drain.

Many people have often suggested that SEO 2.0 is just another word for social media marketing. Well it isn’t. SEO 2.0 is still there even without social media.

SEO 2.0 is not about social media. It’s about being social.

It’s about the relationships not the tools. The most important thing when it comes to SEO 2.0 tools is that they don’t interfere with your socializing like social media sites do.

So stop social media hopping and now to save your business later. From now on I will add you to my own personal open source social network on Thunderbird. I will add your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Sphinn user names and I will be happy. Maybe I will even notify you about being added to my own social site on my computer. I won’t send you newsletters and such. I’m here for the long term relationships not the quick buck.

In 10 years from now most of the hot social sites will be obsolete but I will have the best relationships around as I will follow you no matter where you go. I will always stay here though.

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com

Arizona SEO Experts Against Racism

Tadeusz Szewczyk — Thu, 13 May 2010 10:19:54 +0000

Would you stop this guy from entering Arizona?

I don’t read the news. It makes me sick. Sometimes you can’t ignore the bad news though. They creep in from all over the place, Twitter, Facebook etc. One of the ugliest news recently has been the racist policies of Arizona. The aim of racial profiling and other racist measures is to prevent Mexican and other refugees from entering the US and staying there.

I don’t want to argue here about why made up terms like “illegal immigrants” do not make sense and why hunting refugees like animals and imprisoning them or even letting them die is wrong. I live in a city that has a long history of a bloody border, Berlin. The so called 136 wall deaths were just a few though compared to the hundreds of casualties of the inhumane border regime in the US. In Arizona alone people are dying by the hundreds every year.

I know I have many readers from the US including fellow SEO experts from Arizona. I want you, Arizona SEO experts to speak out on behalf of the desperate refugees and against the racist policies of your regional government.

Let the world know that not all people in Arizona hate immigrants.

Let the world know that SEO professionals have a sense of decency and support human rights.

I repeat, I don’t want to discuss those policies or read arguments why the immigrants should die instead of entering the United States. Racism is not an opinion, it’s a crime. I will delete such comments. Spread your hate and petty excuses elsewhere. I want SEO experts to speak out and to make a positive effort.

The whole issue sickens me and I can’t take it no more. In case you work for an SEO company in Arizona or are an independent SEO consultant there voice support for the cause in the comment section. All SEO pros who add their full name and SEO website URL will be added to this post. In other words they get an authority link in this post.

I may be a fake Mexican with a ridiculous sombrero but that doesn’t mean I can ignore the situation in Arizona.

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com

6 Twitter Social News Mashups that Kick Digg’s Ass

Tadeusz Szewczyk — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:00:03 +0000

Refresh Monday is back. This time I revisit the 5 Twitter social news mashups that kick Digg’s ass as two of them were obsolete by now. Plus I have added a new one, a personalized Twitter social news service. So we have 6 of them.

Wisdom of crowds has proven very useful in organizing the information overflow of the Web. Sadly though the first wave of social news sites like Digg and Reddit are broken to the point where some topics (like SEO) are banned for good while the second wave, Mixx or Social|Median never reached a meaningful size.

There is a social site that has huge success currently though that has changed the face of social news, Twitter.

How that, isn’t Twitter just social networking and one to a few communications?

Well, yes, but that’s not the whole truth. Several sites have sprung up that analyze Twitter wisdom of crowds to organize and highlight the most important news and trends on the Web.

Some of these social news mashups, interfaces or tools have already disappeared again but a few of them grow while others, new ones appear. My favorite is the “Twitter newspaper” Twitter Times that collects links tweeted by your friends and their friends.

What are the 6 Twitter social news mashups that kick Digg’s ass?

Twitter Times
The Twitter Tim.es is the best social news mashup I’ve seen so far. It not only finds the most popular stories or links it also personalizes them. You can view the stories linked by people a particular user follows. Just check mine to understand that. Also you can check out the most linked stories from renowned sources like the NYT or widely known groups of people from certain areas of expertise. I read my Twitter Times daily.

Topsy
While TweetMeme is more popular by the numbers it seems Topsy is better at collecting Twitter links. It’s more a Twitter search engine but it has an excellent “trending” section in several languages. The German one works perfectly. I use Topsy daily as well both as a Twitter search alternative and as a social news interface. You can search for the most popular links or tweets for a given query. The screen shot above shows the most tweeted SEO links last month.

TweetMeme
TweetMeme is probably the most popular Twitter social news mashup but it’s not perfect. Sometimes it’s down. Some websites aren’t listed at all, this very blog, SEO 2.0, has been ignored for a while. The best thing about TweetMeme is the topical categorization of Twitter links.

Twitturly
This very Digg-like social news interface for Twitter was amazingly popular long before Tweetmeme and Topsy, it has been almost overwhelmed with its success and was later sold by the developer. It’s still works fine. It’s very easy to use and allows to get a quick overview on what’s going on at Twitter and thus also what’s hot on the Web right now. It also has a killer feature, the language filter, which shows you the most popular tweets in more than a dozen languages. Sadly these filters are not very accurate (e.g. German) or find many tweets (Persian, Russian).

Twitturls
This site is somewhat similar to Twitturly but it focuses more on the most recent tweets which also are popular, an interface that confuses me a little. It has an advantage though, it displays popular images and videos as well. Unlike other Twitter image search engines it seem to be safe for work.

MicroBlogBuzz
While MicroBlogBuzz resembles both Twitturly and Twitturls it also shows an overview of two of the other Twitter-like microblogging sites namely Jaiku and Identica. Google has discontinued Jaiku but soon after the platform has been resurrected as an open source version. The best thing about this MicroBlogBuzz are the several time frame options. You can check out what’s popular in the last hour, today etc.

These sites are at the forefront of the Twitter social news trend. In contrast highly biased social news sites where marauding troll groups censor topics that don’t fit their world view lose ground.

Twitter is the number one place for social news by now.

You just have to know how to find the most popular news there. These tools are more than enough to achieve that.

Last updated April 26, 2010. First published: January 19, 2009.

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com

Are You a Real Time Idiot? A Racing Rat on Steroids? A Twitter Zombie?

Tadeusz Szewczyk — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:06:05 +0000

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:

Twitter lists
Aggregators and niche social news sites

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.

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com

The Best Way to Convert Visitors to Supporters is to Forge a Bond

Tadeusz Szewczyk — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 12:33:18 +0000

Friendship by sarniebill1

In modern SEO we often encounter the term conversion (rate) optimization. It means making visitors of your site your clients or customers in most cases. A conversion can also mean to make someone convert from a casual visitor to a subscriber.

Conversion optimization is often a very technical term and has to do with A/B split testing and landing page optimization. Behind the idea of conversion optimization is the concept that the Web is full of strangers and you have to route them in a way so that once they appear on your site they follow the path you want them to.

When it comes to business blogging and getting supporters who will link to you and vote for you it’s a whole different story. You can’t streamline these people in such a way that they always click the right link, vote for you on social media or even better link back to you mentioning you by name.

The best way to convert visitors to supporters is to forge a bond.

Contrary to popular belief the Web is a place full of friends and acquaintances. Especially in case you blog and cover a relatively small niche like SEO, social media optimization or business blogging. All three niches are closely related so you can combine them like I do but still there aren’t millions of people but hundreds or even dozens you will meet virtually over an over. I’m blogging for 2 and half years in this niche and I keep on stumbling over the same people over and over. It’s really like a global village.

Don’t get me wrong though. I do not talk about Facebook friends, I’m not even active on Facebook. I do not refer to Twitter followers either although many people I’ve known before Twitter on the Web connect with me via Twitter.

SEO 2.0 is about mutual support.

It’s not as simple as a vote or link exchange. Many people try to barter those. That’s not it. Some supporters of mine are in industries where my support is of barely any use. I might have submitted their sites to StumbleUpon or Mixx in the past when I still participated there but they are still around today when I don’t.

The best thing about the Web is that is is by design a frustrating place. Yes, it’s an oxymoron. People are so glad to meet a friendly human being on the Web amidst this huge wasteland that you can forge bonds much faster. You don’t have to go to school together to become friends. In many cases

attention
mutual respect
a congruence of interest (like blogging in the same niche)
a short contact

are enough. People will support you not out of direct self-interest but because you notice them, appreciate them, express interest in what they do and contact them. You wouldn’t get that kind of support by small talk on a party in most cases. On the Web it works faster and better. You skip the small talk. You talk business without talking business. It’s difficult to grasp and put into words. It works like that though. I’ve written in the past that you have to think relationships not technology.

Let me give you a simple example. When I started this blog in 2007 I was a nobody. There was no reason to become friends with me other than being a nobody as well. One of my first articles here on the blog was a list of available SEO 2.0 definitions by other people. One of them was by Lee Odden. Lee was huge in the SEO industry back then already. Nonetheless he commented on my blog. He was polite and respectful. Back then we forged a bond of mutual respect. I gave him kudos for offering a good SEO 2.0 explanation. As he cared enough for the term SEO 2.0 I’ve often referred to his definition from then on. He showed by his appearance on my blog that no matter who I was my blog was worthy of being noticed.

We’re not friends in the real sense. I’ve never met Lee and we even didn’t email each other until now but we follow each on Twitter and from time to time we retweet our links. Still Lee Odden knows that I’m the crazy guy with the sombrero and the weird name who came out of nowhere to set up one of the most succesful SEO blogs out there.

On the other hand most of the other people mentioned in the list who by and large were less important than Lee Odden haven’t showed up on the blog to comment on SEO 2.0

I have no idea who these people were without looking up the article. I don’t remember their names or when I do I don’t remember their SEO 2.0 definitions. I’m not a supporter of them, neither are they supporters of mine. I haven’t linked their sites since then again or voted for them. They were simply off my radar because I connect mostly with the people I have a bond with. Why should I connect with those who don’t care and support them?

So if you want to get links and votes on social media make sure people know who you are, that you care and that you forge a bond of mutual respect. This way you can convert them to long time supporters.

by Tadeusz Szewczyk
©2012 SEO 2.0. All Rights Reserved.Copyright SEO 2.0 at onreact.com