Do You Appreciate Your Readers?
January 23, 2010
I have written about this subject in the past and I thought it was time to take another look at this subject.
I have visited thousands of blogs and forums over the last two years. There are two trends that always appear on my radar screen. They are a large group of bloggers who want more comments on their blogs. The second group of bloggers don’t seem to care who is commenting or what is being said.
The whole idea of social media which includes forums and blogs, as well as many other types of sites such as Facebook or MySpace is about being social. Being social is about connecting, discussing and carrying on a discussion. A discussion requires ongoing input to be effective. That’s where many forum posters and blog authors fail.
I see it all the time, someone starts a conversation on a forum or blog and abandons the conversation. You know, someone starts a topic and let’s say its about marketing on Twitter. Then others begin to make comments and some ask questions, but the questions go unanswered. I’ve seen this many times over and over again. Blog posted are started all the time, the discussion begins, and questions are asked but they are not answered by the blogs author.
The problem is that so many blog owners and forum posters don’t follow the post or thread that they started. So these valuable questions go unanswered. The net result is that there is no real conversation. I don’t know about you but I am less likely to return to a blog that has chosen to ignore me or if I see others regularly ignored.
Most of these blogs are not moderated and the comments generally are posted immediately. Now, if that is how these folks want to treat those who leave comments that ok by me. I prefer to take the time to answer the question because I feel it my responsibility, after all I started the conversation and I want to show my appreciation.
These people I believe are missing the whole point of social media. Then there is the second group of bloggers who needs, wants, and desires to have more comments on their blogs. For this group I have a few easy to implement suggestions. The first one is that you need to reward your visitors for making comments.
I am going to make some suggestions here that are basically useless if you have lousy content. It is better to post great content every three days or so or maybe once a week than to waste your time posting just to post. People respond when you post ads value to their lives or stirs up emotions.
You then must learn to promote your blog. I have read hundreds of really useful blogs that lacked comments. We all have heard content is king but that only true if it is found and read. I am not going to go into detail about how to market a blog that’s been covered way to many times by others. If you new to blogging and blog promotion then go to Google and search for something like blog promotion tutorials. You will find lots of useful info.
The easiest way is to increase comments is to make your blog Do Follow. Yes, it will increase spam that’s the is the price you pay for attempting to acquire more comments. Here is how you make Do Follow work for you. First, your blog must be moderated so the spam doesn’t appear on your blog. Then you will need to add a plugin to protect yourself from bot spam. You might want to look into the Bad Behavior plugin.
This plugin will do nothing to stop comment spam from low wage countries such as China, India, Eastern Europe, or from unscrupulous link builders. Most of these comments will end up in your spam filter and will be easy to discard. This blog was averaging about 250 spam comments a day until I installed Bad Behavior. That has been reduced by about 95%. Be careful to actually review these spam comments. I usually pull several comments out of Akismet everyday. They are easier to find when I don’t have to sort through hundreds of comments to find the good ones.
Now, you will want to add the Comment & Keyword Luv plugins. The Comment Luv plugin pulls a permalink from your blogs latest post automatically. The newest version allows you to pull a much wider variety of posts from up to five different blogs. That permalink is added to the end of their comment. So others bloggers are rewarded with a second link. Other bloggers tend to leave better comments and they just might write about you if you have a great blog.
The Keyword Luv plugin allows you to use your name along with your anchor text link of the commenters choosing in the comments name field. This is an extremely valuable incentive for someone to leave a comment especially if they don’t have a blog. However, many purists will never use this plugin because they believe people should comment solely based on the posts content and that they should use a real name. Keyword Luv allows you to use both.
While I respect that opinion I think this position misses the dynamic changes that are occurring in the industry. Acquiring links that allow link juice to flow (Do Follow Links) are increasingly more difficult to obtain. This is especially true since Google began waging war on the practice of buying and selling links. Blogs are now ground zero in the link building game. So why not use this to your advantage?
Finally, there is one final piece of this puzzle to be put into place. You should consider thanking your commenters in an email. I am not talking about using an auto responders here. What I am suggesting is a short email response of a sentence or two that expresses gratitude for the commenter’s efforts. This shows that you genuinely care about the person who left a comment. This will encourage them to return or maybe even mention your blog on their blog. OMG what a concept, showing that you care!
If someone asks a very specific question I often will often answer that question on the blog. I will then respond in person with an answer or I will provide a link back to the answer on the blog. This encourages this person to return to the blog to see your answer. This approach was provided bunches of accolades from my readers. They often are very surprised to get a response. I can’t begin to express the huge amount of good will this has produced.
Now, I will admit that when I get busy I can not respond to all comments. Thus I get a bit choosy when responding. However, if someone has left a truly worthy comment that got my attention I will definitely response. I am still new enough to blogging that I really enjoy most of the comments that I receive here. What really makes my day is when I read the return emails thanking me for responding personally. These are often very real, warm, and heart felt.
In closing I have one more suggestion for you to battle comment spam. I placed a minimum requirement on comments to obtain a link from this blog. The commenter must leave a 20 word comment before I will approve it. Anything less and the comment usually will get deleted. If the comment is short but useful it will be posted without a link.
What this posts is really about is treating your visitors with respect and giving them an incentive to comment and then rewarding them when you get the desired results which are great comments.
Update 06/10/2009 – There was another point that I would like to mention. I verify almost every website that wants a link from me. You need to be careful who you link to these days. While I am verifying if the website is worth linking to I often leave a comment on the blog if they have one. That’s really shows appreciation and really spreads good will.
Update 01/24/2010: I have not done any of what I have suggested over the last few months. This has been due to the fact that Geri, my life partner, is critically ill and has been in and out of the hospital over the last few months. Yet, this has also been a lesson about appreciating your readers. Many of those whom I have personally thanks for there comments have returned in our time of need and shared their caring and warm support. So being nice and appreciating your readers can pay off in ways that you never imagined.
Are you ready to grow your blog comments and possibly your search rankings?
Here’s some valuable resources:
Would you like to find 192 Do Follow Social Bookmarking sites with a Page Rank of 3 or Higher? Then go here.
Would you like 66 Do Follow Backlinks from high PR sites? Then go here.
Would you like to download the Scratch My Back Marketing anti spam plugin? Then go here.
Would you like to learn more about the Scratch My Back Marketing (not the plugin?) Then go here.
Too learn more about our services please check out these links:
Sierra Vista – Green Valley SEO – Internet Marketing Services Niche SEO – Internet Marketing Services
Holistic SEO Local SEO Services Phoenix Niche SEO – Internet Marketing Services
Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Yuma – Flagstaff Arizona SEO -Internet Marketing Services
Affordable Quality BackLinks Building Services Local Internet - Website Marketing Services
If your business is located in the US, Tempe, Phoenix, Glendale, and Scottsdale, Arizona or beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog, SEO, Niche SEO, Internet marketing, or our affordable website design/re-design services please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479 or 1-866-512-1230 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Ning Becomes More No Follow What A Bummer
October 10, 2009
I have been a very big fan of Ning.com. If you don’t know what Ning is that generally means that you are a new reader of this Blog. I will now, get you up to speed. Ning is a social media platform similar to Facebook. Ning allows anyone to create their own social networking group at no cost. All you need is an email account and some time.
From January to July of this year I reviewed social media sites in a program that I called the 109 Day Link Building Explosion. During this program I featured around 50 or so Ning sites. Ning has been around for about 5 years. It currently has about 1.2 Million networks on its servers. However, only about 200,000 are actually active. I control 7 of these networks myself that are currently considered inactive and 2 that are definitely active.
One of the main reasons why I have appreciated Ning was because up until a week or ago these network profiles were Do Follow. That was recently taken away. I took a bog hit link wise by this action. I am a member of 125 these networks. I visited each one monthly and updated my profile and would leave a blog post. I use a formal business signature with each post. In the tagline, I always include a few links. No one seems to mind as these posts provide useful intelligent information.
Ning has not yet, made links in blog and discussion posts No Follow, but it could happen. Each of my profiles text boxes included links so eventually I may see some slippage in how well our keyword phrases rank. That is unless I have the time to replace these lost links. It will be very interesting for me when I do my month to month report what effect this Ning change will mean.
This also serves as a reminder again not to have too many eggs in one basket.
We at Tucson SEO Solutions are officially requesting that you join the conversation here. That is, if you found that this post was at all interesting, useful, or perhaps you are just looking for a useful link. Then, I would like to entice you to comment by providing you with useful backlinks as part of what I call “Scratch My Back Marketing.”
We are now using the Scratch My Back Marketing plugin. This anti spam plugin simply requires that your comment be at least 150 characters in length or it is automatically rejected. It’s that simple. We are now forcing commenter’s to do what we were requesting for months on this blog! The blog also uses Keyword and Comment Luv. Please note that if you only include keyword your comment may be used put you will not obtain a link!
The Scratch My Back Marketing requires you to scratch this blog by leaving a useful comment. We then will provide you with an anchor text Do Follow Link. It’s all about win/win marketing. I am willing to exchange page rank for the bump that a fresh comment provides.
Are you ready to exchange comments for links?
This is the part where I move link juice around the site and hope that someone might actually want to learn more about our local small business solutions and venture further.
Too learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Services Tucson Website Designs Tucson Search Engine Optimization Phoenix SEO
Holistic SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Arizona SEO Solutions
Ethical Link Building Training Affordable Website Designing Tucson
If your business is located in the US, Tempe, Phoenix, Glendale, and Scottsdale, Arizona or beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog, SEO, Niche SEO, Internet marketing, or our affordable website design/re-design services please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479 or 1-843-882-7661 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Comment Policy Update 2009
September 3, 2009
I thought it was time to address the SEO crowd and link builders that visits here often and who leaves comments. I have a very simple policy when it comes to providing links to my competitors. I will not provide a link on this blog that will give you a competitive advantage. This simply would be a foolish business policy for me to provide you with a one way link. However, if you have a blog that does not require me to register I will provide you folks with a link.
Many companies and individuals offers SEO services but they do not have a blog. So I can never acquire a return link if I chose to make a comment on their blog because they don’t have one. This may seem silly to some but this is my bread and butter. If you can not return the favor then I am not interested in providing you with a link.
Our business completes in Tucson, Phoenix, and across the US and Canada. So if you provide SEO services in any of these areas then you are a competitor you will not acquire links from here unless you have a blog. I actually had a direct competitor from Phoenix that started leaving 3 and 4 comments per visit and he visited every few days. The comments were great. However, when I visited his blog he never would approve my comments. That discovery prompted me to delete his comments. I also emailed him to explain my position.
I just thought that it was time to make a formal statement on this subject.
We have created the Scratch My Back Marketing plugin which requires comments to be at least 150 characters in length or about 20 words. Just think of it as a Tweet. If you do not meet this requirement will comment will be rejected!
If you do not properly execute Keyword Luv by using the @ symbol in your anchor text you will not acquire a link and I will use your comment. You simply should know better by now! This is the biggest reason why links are denied here. If all you can do is enter your keywords you will not get a link. I am still amazes that so many people ignore that the site uses this plugin. It’s all about following directions!
No profanity………………! Allowed Even the mildest forms will be deleted.
If you insert links into comments that are self promotion those links will be deleted.
Tucson SEO will not provide links to the following types of sites.
Porno
Gambling
Drugs
New blogs with little or no content (20 posts required with some comments included)
Political sites
One page marketing sites
Foreign language sites
All affiliate marketing sites and blogs that means yours!
If your comment appears to be spammy it will likely be deleted
If you want to be argumentative that will not fly either. Th reality here is this blog is part of my businesses marketing plan. It turns off clients to see arguing on the blog so it is not acceptable behavior. I will gladly let you make your point and I will counter that point. Then the discussion is over. I don’t have the time nor desire for protracted discussions. This isn’t a forum. It’s a blog, and it’s my blog
Finally, for those who like to tell me how to run my blog or business your comments like will never be published.
And that’s that!
We at Tucson SEO Solutions are officially requesting that you join the conversation here. That is, if you found that this post was at all interesting, useful, or perhaps you are just looking for a useful link. Then, I would like to entice you to comment by providing you with useful backlinks as part of what I call “Scratch My Back Marketing.”
The Scratch My Back Marketing requires you to scratch this blog by leaving a useful comment of at least 20 words or more. Your comment should be relevant to the post. My scratch is that you will receive a Do Follow anchor text link (Keyword Luv.) And if you have a blog with an RSS feed enabled you will receive an extra permalink back to your blog via Comment Luv.
It’s all about win/win marketing. I am willing to exchange page rank for the bump that a fresh comment provides.
Are you ready to exchange comments for links?
This is the part where I move link juice around the site and hope that someone might actually want to learn more about our local small business solutions and venture further.
Too learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Services Tucson Website Designs Tucson Search Engine Optimization Phoenix SEO
Holistic SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Arizona SEO Solutions
Ethical Link Building Training Affordable Website Designing Tucson
If your business is located in the US, Tempe, Phoenix, Glendale, and Scottsdale, Arizona or beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog, SEO, Internet marketing, or our affordable website design/re-design services please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479 or 1-866-512-1230 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
SEO PPC And Supermarket Slotting Fees
July 22, 2008
This one might be a stretch for many but give me a few moments to explain. If you have a product that you would like sold in just about any supermarket today, you will first have to pay slotting fees. That’s right grocery stores require fees to be paid just to display your products on their shelves. It is a very difficult process just to earn the right to sell your products. Once you have earned the opportunity to sell your products, you then must pay before you have ever sold anything. This has been going on for decades.
In many ways, Pay Per Click search engine advertising programs like Google’s AdWords are very similar to slotting fees. You pay to play and you keep on paying daily. That is why I like search engine optimization. SEO can provide many websites the opportunity to avoid paying for search engine traffic.
A well optimized website has the ability to end up high in the free organic results. What’s better than free advertising that is highly targeted? If you are in the industry you already know this, the comparison to slotting fees maybe unique, but the basic concepts are still the same.
We write for a larger audience other than the SEO crowd. Our readers are searching for small business SEO solutions. These kinds of analogies we believe are very useful to our core readers. The website owners have two choices they are, pay to play using PPC or optimize. But let me caution you here, my small business friends, SEO is never a one and done situation. It puts you in a position to gain higher search engine rankings. Maintaining that ranking and taking it higher takes lots of planning and effort.
Just like in grocery sales, it is not enough too merely to get placed on the shelf. You have to continue to market your product. The same is true with successful websites. They create other advantages through different channels such as inbound links. You simply do not have the luxury to do SEO on your site and call it good. A truly successful website owner knows and understands that SEO is part of the process, and not an end all option.
As a small business owner who wants to play the search traffic game you have to pay to play. You can pay once for SEO or you can pay everyday using Pay Per Click.
Which makes more sense to you?
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, or in the Arizona cities of Casa Grande, Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and beyond and would like to learn how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
An SEO Gets Shopped
June 11, 2008
This post goes back in time to when we first began to domination all searches related to SEO and internet marketing in Tucson. We are were just begining to emerge nationally as a force to reconed with in the SEO industry in the US. I will interject some points as I go.
If you have been any business long enough a competitor will dial you up on the tele or, as the lazy ones do they send a email to get the shopping going. They always start the conversation off by inquiring about the fees that you charge. This is especially true if your product or service pricing is not posted on your website. One must be quick and clever to determine who is a real potential client and who is a competitor trying to acquire your pricing structure.
The shopper is rarely an established player in your industry, but the could be. This is where I love to being to direct the conversation to where I am the inquirer. The shopper usually doesn’t have a website yet or they are in the process of acquiring a business that has an existing website. Then there is the new kid on the block who starts of with “I have a client.” That may be true or they are breaking into the business and bidding on a job and that are looking for pricing guideience.
I don’t have a problem with this at all. I have done this hundreds of times over the decades myself so I am very familuar with the sport and I play it well!. When someone calls I’m a very good judge of who is real and who is not or at least I have convienced myself that’ this is so.
Another clear giveaway is if someone starts off by asking a whole bunch of questions without identifying themselves first, you can almost be certain that you are being shopped.
If they pause or stumble when you ask these questions you know you’re being shopped.
• What is the domain name?
• What is your business?
• What do you want your website visitor to do on your website?
• Who are you trying to market?
If the visitor hesitates on any of these questions you can be sure that your time is being wasted by a shopper. However, those who are skilled shoppers may be prepared for these questions. They are a little harder to catch. After all I role play the call many times before I shop a business. If you know how to ask the right questions it can be easy.
If someone seems more interested in pricing then anything else in the conversation I explain that everything starts with a website review and that a paid service. I then ask them to email me from their website to get the ball rolling or something to that effect. If they are a serious inquiry they will email while you’re talking. If they make excuses, at this point, you know this is a waste of time and I quickly end the call. If they ask you why this is needed you can state its company policy to assure that this is a genuine sales call.
I mention this because I got shopped today by someone from the San Francisco Bay area code. We have just started targeting the area in advance of our new website launch. So I have been expecting these types of calls.
Sometimes the caller jumps right into the deep end of the pool from the get go. They asked if we did page titles, page descriptions, Meta tags, and ALT tags and what we charged. Well, nothing like cutting to the chase. What they didn’t realize is that real customers don’t talk like that. They just want to acquire search traffic and had read that SEO is the way to go. They don’t generally understand how we do what we do.
That’s was 2 years ago and things have changed dranatically. Callers inquiring about our services are smarter and more aware about the process of SEO. When I began this business back in 2007 things were much different as far the the potential client knowledge of SEO. The responce was mostly “I read something on a blog like you need SEO to rank well, but that’s all that I know.
Yesterday, I was being shopped by an inexperienced shopper I thought I would have a little fun. It started with the basic questions I mentioned previously, and of course they didn’t have a website. They went on to explain that they wanted to market to the 48 states and that he was going to be selling computer parts.
Well, our website is very clear that we don’t provide service for highly competitive markets that are national. I went on to explain that if his market was local we would gladly consider him as a client. I further explained that we only take on clients that when know going in can benefit greatly from our services.
Trying to take a website that sells computer parts nationally to the first page of Google is not a challenge that we will undertake. While I noted that it can be accomplished given enough time and money but that it was not anything that we wanted to be involved with. Its just not our market.
This person quickly became very defensive and started talking SEO slang and started to explain how it could be accomplished. I thought this guy is so clueless that he is being played and he doesn’t even know it. Then he started talking about Page Rank. I have never had a client or potential client that knows what Page Rank is. Now this person is talking straight-up SEO shop talk. To this day I have never had a real potnetial client know anything about Page Rank this was so obvious that I could barely contain my laughter
Since I had flushed him out the conversation needed to end. I politely ended the conversation by informing him that we don’t work on these kinds of sites and moved on. I have become very skilled at ending a conversation quickly and abruptly when I have finally gotten bored.
The moral of the story is if you’re going to shop someone get the story straight first and don’t sound like you know so much that you really don’t need my help. If this caller knew about page titles, Meta tags, page descriptions, and ALT tags then why would they need me?
With the economic slowdown like many I have had sometime on my hands. When I get shopped these days I am more likely to get up on a soapbox an give a long winded lesson on who we provide ethical services based only on the specific needs of each client. I go into great detail about our manual link building program Called Scratch My Back Marketing.
I also provide a detailed explaination about our website review. I gouing throught just about every step in our processes for our client. I provide them a map, a oral blueprint of how to provide services that assure that the clents needs are assured. If by change it tuurns out that it an actual potential client then they will certianly know that they are dealing with a professional.
For the shopper, I am an unashamed braggard. My attitude is, and I express to whomever I am speaking with. When I simply stae “the difference between myself and most other SEO providers is that we simply this; I like to think that I work smarter and I put in more hours at this than they do.” If you are willing to do what it takes you will succeed. I also remind my inquirer of our monthly ranking report. I also never fail to mention that we have never failed to get a client onto the first page of the Google results (pause for effect) multiple keyword phrases.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, or in the Arizona cities of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and beyond and would like to learn how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479 or 1-866-512-1230 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.