My D.I.Y. journey into learning all about link building, SEO and social media

Old Medias, New Medias, Parasites and Delusion

by francis on March 25, 2009

Photo by Ojimbo, Flickr Creative Commons

I have had a discussion with a friend of mine regarding old and new medias that I thought might be of interest to you, my awesome readers. But first, a little bit of contextual information is in order. Our discussion was born due to this post on Gawker. Newspapers are on death row these days and are blaming bloggers (charmingly called parasites) for their downfall. Funny thing is, my friend is facing the same arguments from her team at work - now she needs to get them to understand how to survive in this new economy. Here’s our (mostly) uncensored thoughts.

Frankster
11:35
old media

Mercedes
11:35
losers

Mercedes
11:36
by wikipedia, Traditional media is by definition any media that have been existing before the Internet era.
that’s what i want to reply
and give examples
yes?
or should i let go?

Frankster
11:40
don’t get into a war
maybe i would try something like this:
ideas that have been laid out are interesting, but i’m concerned about the perception of those so-called “parasites”
these people are willing to engage in a discussion
they are not parasites
to increase your link equity and help getting more inbound links and visitors
it would be wise to reach out and join these parasites
join the conversation
get them links

Frankster
11:42
let your readers know that discussions are happening here and here

Mercedes
11:43
its best to understand these so called parasites have a better knowledge of metadata, and of seo

Frankster
11:43
of course they have a better understanding of SEO
but they are also niche sites
with high density niche content

Frankster
11:44
but when you enter specific, niche themes
it means that they either have to do a better job of documenting their content, of improving it
because there are in-depth posts happening around the web
that do the work better than they are
papers keep using syndicated content
that already exists on other platforms
they are trying to spit out news fast to remain competitive
but they don’t write in-depth articles, at least not as much as they used to
jeff jarvis would say:
syndicate your content from blogs that do the job better than you
and instead concentrate on what your job is:
investigation journalism
uncover news stories

Mercedes
11:50
I replied:
Referring to Wikipedia, Traditional media is by definition any media that has been existing before the Internet era.
ideas that have been laid out are interesting, but I’m concerned about the perception of those so-called “parasites”
these people are willing to engage in a discussion, they are not parasites because they understand how the web functions

To increase your link equity and help getting more inbound links and visitors, it would be wise to reach out and join these “parasites” join the conversation, get them link.

Of course they have a better understanding of SEO, but they are also niche sites with high density niche content
on general terms i’m sure the papers rank better than small blogs. Syndicate your content from blogs that do the job better than you and instead concentrate on what your job is.

Frankster
11:52
it’s good but explain yourself more
otherwise they will dismiss it

Mercedes
11:55
oh

Frankster
11:55
d’abord:

Mercedes
11:55
hum..

Frankster
11:55
that sentence: “So all the online companies, or if they have an online presence, are considered in the New Media.”
that’s not right - yahoo is an online portal
but they are old media

Mercedes
11:55
of course not!
it’s the defintion on wikipdia

Frankster
11:55
well they are according to jeff jarvis

Mercedes
11:56
yahoo is not old media
crazy
i dont get it

Frankster
11:56
yeah they are old media because they see themselves as a destination and think like old media companies

Mercedes
11:56
its confusing

Frankster
11:56
they think they are something they’re not basically

Mercedes
11:56
…
im not sure how jeff jarvis holds the truth here

Frankster
11:57
well it makes sense in a way

Mercedes
11:57
they might be old media to some savvy blogger/thinker, but to the genral understanding of media, they are new media!

Frankster
11:57
yahoo’s business model is to sell advertisement space onto its portal
it wants you to come to yahoo, spend time on yahoo, be contained on their space
so that you will see advertisement

Mercedes
11:57
ok

Frankster
11:57
but a lot of people don’t even end up on the first page of yahoo
they might arrive onto one of its subdomain
or its directory
yahoo is meant to redirect people to whatever info they are looking for
not keep them onto their site
google on the other hand

Mercedes
11:58
ok
ok
ok

Frankster
11:59
it wants to send you as fast as possible to whatever info you’re looking for

Mercedes
11:59
loool
get me a link
ok

Frankster
12:00
actually:
http://www.changethis.com/42.01.MarketingMistmatch

Frankster
12:01
this is by seth godin

Mercedes
12:01
i know i saw it

Frankster
12:01
guardian to me is new media

Mercedes
12:02
hum

Frankster
12:02
even though they still have a paper
with their open platform they are totally new media

Mercedes
12:02
for sure
please blog about this, because you tought me something
and i need to teach my invisble croud something too
ok
this is ok then?:
Ideas that have been laid out are interesting, but I’m concerned about the perception of those so-called “parasites”.
These people are willing to engage in a discussion, they are not parasites because they understand how the web functions and because they have a better understanding of SEO.

To increase your link equity and help getting more inbound links and visitors, it would be wise to reach out and join these “parasites”. join the conversation, get them to link back to you.

There are also niche sites with high density niche content, on general terms syndicate your content from blogs that do the job better than you and instead concentrate on what your job is.

http://www.changethis.com/42.01.MarketingMistmatch

Mercedes

Frankster
12:04
regarding the parasites bit:
parasites are leeching from people - this is not what these bloggers are doing. They can’t be called parasites just because they do a good SEO job and understand the blogging process. Instead, when someone talks/reacts to an existing writing on the web, they contribute to a dialog and in a way are reaching out.

12:10
by para-sites they mean people ranking hire then their clients

Frankster
12:10
i know
stupid

Mercedes
12:10
lol

I would love to hear your comments on this.

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Social Media Won’t Save your Company - The AT&T Experience

by francis on February 23, 2009

Social Media is a big buzzword these days, just as Web 2.0 was in 2004 or ecommerce in the 90’s. I joined Twitter not long ago and found out that a lot of big corporations have now embarked in the social media speedtrain (Dell and Belkin for instance). Obviously a lot of these companies have heard of Dell’s success story and don’t want to miss out on this opportunity even though they might not really understand what they’re getting into. Belkin learned that the hard way.

I have had the opportunity to experience AT&T’s take on social media recently. Let me tell you what happened.

My good friend Celine is now living in Brooklyn, NYC (she previously was in Montreal, Canada). She got there sometime in October, work visa in hand and ready to start working at HUGE. Upon her arrival she got herself an iPhone from AT&T. She got the phone but learned soon afterwards that she would have to spit out an extra 500$ in order to cover the contract’s fees for non-US residents. She realized there was no way she could afford to keep that phone and decided to send it back.

Seems like it’s always easier to purchase something than to return it.

At the beginning of November 08, AT&T agreed to take the phone back and cancel her contract. She was told her reimbursement would be issued within 3 weeks.

Mid-January came knocking fast and Celine found herself still waiting for her money. She started making repeated calls to AT&T’s customer service department - this is when AT&T’s true take on customer service started to show. One call, one agent, one response. Always different. I have been working in call centers for a while myself and really most of the time you’re just clueless as to what to answer to customers. You are provided with a guide or scripts written in a Q&A fashion and asked to stick to it. If someone’s question is off the script (which happens frequently), you’re on your own. Better be as vague as possible while getting rid of the call A.S.A.P. so your stats don’t get screwed. This is definitely not encouraging agents in offering the service expected by customers, but it does answer the company’s need for efficient call stats.

That’s exactly what AT&T does in its call centers.

Back to Celine’s story. February came knocking and still no refund was to be seen. Pissed off, angry and disillusioned by AT&T’s lack of customer service quality, Celine emptied up her rage to me in a flaming gmail chat. To help her out with the matter, I did a search on AT&T in Twitter. I found out that:

1- People don’t seem to appreciate AT&T much.
2- AT&T has some folks twittering for them.

I contacted @sethbloom on Twitter and told him about Celine’s story. He asked me her contact number and passed that information along to an AT&T customer service agent, saying she would contact her shortly. I was actually quite surprised to experience some humanity and efficiency from such a big corporation. Could Twitter redefine the way we communicate with companies?

Well, maybe.

Indeed, Celine got the call from the customer service agent. She recall her as being slightly agressive and seemed to be annoyed by the call. The agent promised the money would come within the end of the week. She also told her she would get only half of the amount she was expecting to get back. That had never been mentioned to her before. The worst though is that AT&T NEVER apologized for its behavior or the quality of its service. I don’t even know if this can be called damage control since Celine is still pissed off and still won’t ever do business with AT&T again. They missed out on an opportunity to redeem themselves.

Celine has a bitter AT&T aftertaste stuck in her throat.

Social media is not going to save your company. Instead it is a first step towards improving the dialogue with your customers. In AT&T’s case, I think their Twitter team is doing a great job in reaching out to people. The problem lies somewhere else: it feels as if their social media effort is not carried through the company, the customer service department and Twitter team being two independent entities.

It’s one thing to reach to your customers, but once you got them in the house, don’t greet them with shards of glass.

A few weeks ago I did business with a store called Composition. It’s well worth having a look at their website - they carry some lovely design items and their web interface is original and fun to navigate.

They also have incredible customer service.

I dealt with Samuel. He sent me numerous emails with shipment updates, offers for help and shopping advices. He even sent a handwritten note alongside a gift I was sending to my friend! Talk about great service.

These folks know how to make their customers feel special and human. I’ve been telling friends and relatives about Composition, will probably tweet about them, and now I’m posting about my positive experience shopping at their store.

Social media alone won’t save your company. Your humanity, desire for an honest and meaningful dialogue, modesty and sense of caring will. Social media is one step in that direction.

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Elegant Organization in What Would Google Do

by francis on February 16, 2009

I finished reading Jeff Jarvis’s lastest book on my way to IKEA last weekend. I don’t have a license yet so I had to resort to using public transit to get there. It’s a long journey (over an hour) but I don’t mind it since it gives me long, uninterrupted time to read. IKEA isn’t as enjoyable though, at least not on weekends. Trying to push a gigantic metal cart into the joyless Saturday mob is not my idea of a good time. Resting my ass in my new plastic throne definitely is!

Right.

I understood something critical about social media when reading What Would Google Do:

Communities don’t get created - they already exist.

To cater to the need of a community, you need to bring them elegant organization.

It makes so much sense that it is disarming. Not long ago I just assumed that you could build a community and get people to join it. Now that idea seems silly and condescending - communities won’t necessarily come to you, and if they do, it will be because you are enabling them to get organized elegantly. Facebook and Twitter are leading the social media train, both offering platforms where users can share and communicate. They help them build the tools they need by enabling third-party applications or by opening up their code. Basically they don’t assume to know how communities will behave - instead they let them lead the way while catering to their needs.

Don’t take a community for granted (or a lover for that matter).

Jeff Jarvis spends a lot of time in What Would Google Do analyzing and explaining how Google is leading a new economy based mostly on the immaterial. Come to think of it, Google doesn’t sell cars, flowers or insurance policies. It distributes ads while learning about ourselves in our most intimate details, making it more knowledgeable about our needs, habits and desires. Google’s example is fascinating - Jeff Jarvis does a great job illustrating it in his book. Well worth reading!

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Creating a Colour Palette

by francis on February 1, 2009

Colour Palette

Colour palettes are sort of a pet-peeve for me. They are at the basis of so many art and design projects and represent - in a few blocks of colours - the essence of an inspiration. I especially love fabric swatches with multiple patterns and hues. I guess it’s because it adds a textural element to the colours. Uniqlo in New York city has massive, high walls covered in clothes that are sorted by hues. It transforms the shop into a giant textural colour palette, which was pretty mesmerizing to me!

Photo taken by Alisdair, Flickr Creative Commons

I wanted to say something about one of my favourite website. ColourLovers is just what it says it is - a community gathered around their love for colours. It is a great place to browse and share colour and pattern palettes with other afficionados. There are also fantastic generator tools to build and manage your own palettes, which you can share with other members of the community.

Any good design project should start with a strong inspiration. Go and browse Flickr for inspiring pictures, or even better, go OUTSIDE (oui oui!) for a little photo session. Bring back found objects, memories and snapshots and get working on that palette. Having inspirational material makes this a much more constructive effort since you have a direction to start with.

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How to Customize the Thesis Wordpress Theme - Header, Hooks and Social Media Icons

by francis on January 24, 2009

To download my Thesis Wordpress custom stylesheet and custom_functions.php file (as well as icons), click on the download folder.

A few weeks ago I mentioned my love for the thesis theme as I was implementing it on my blog. At the time I was a bit confused as to how to use the custom hooks in Thesis. I have some knowledge of HTML and CSS, and do understand some PHP, but eh I’m no programmer. Still, I’ve experimented quite a bit with the hooks and can now say that they are cleverly constructed. Anyone willing to get their hands (somewhat) dirty can achieve great levels of customization within two easily configurable elements: the custom.css style sheet and the custom_functions.php file. I’ll guide you through the modifications I’ve applied on this blog (with code and source files). This should get you going on your own Thesis customization.

Customizing the Thesis Header

The first thing I wanted to modify in the Thesis theme was the placement of the nav_area (menu and pages) as well as the logo and tagline. Within Wordpress, start by enabling the custom stylesheet:

Design > Thesis Options > Customize your Thesis Design

Also, make sure Full-width Framework is enabled:

Design > Design Options > HTML Framework

Now we can start coding.

Open up custom_functions.php within an HTML editor (I use Dreamweaver), which is located within your Thesis > Custom folder. This file will be used to code your own custom functions that will be inserted within the Thesis framework. In most Wordpress themes, you would need to add your custom code inside each .php page. For example, to modify the header, you would open up header.php and add your code to the existing code. Not only is it time-consuming to manage multiple code files but the risk of messing up core code can make it intimidating for people not used to programming. Thesis is built around hooks. Before going any further, look at the image below (it comes from the Thesis Help Forums):

Hooks are basically placements around your Thesis theme. You can attach code to any of these hooks. For instance, if I wanted to add some code before a blog post, I would use this hook:

thesis_hook_before_post

Hooks enable the customization of code from one .php page (custom_functions.php). So let’s start digging in.

In order to change the nav_area placement, we will have to create a custom function. Start by adding this piece of code at the bottom of the custom_functions.php page:

/* To clear up the header */

remove_action(’thesis_hook_before_header’, ‘thesis_nav_menu’);
remove_action(’thesis_hook_header’, ‘thesis_default_header’);

/* Adds the navigation menu above the Title */

function full_width_header() { ?>
<div id=”nav_area” class=”full_width”>
<div class=”page”>
<?php thesis_nav_menu(); ?>
</div>
</div>
<div id=”title_area” class=”full_width”>
<div class=”page”>
<div id=”header”>
<?php thesis_default_header(); ?>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<?php
}

add_action(’thesis_hook_before_html’, ‘full_width_header’);

The first two lines of code clear up the header for the custom navigation. Then comes a function called full_width_header() which adds the navigation menu above the Title. Finally, the third line of code attaches that function to the thesis_hook_before_html hook. That’s it for this part of the .php code!

I have taken some snapshots of Firebug in action in order to help you understand which piece of code does what. By the way, if you haven’t installed Firebug for Firefox yet, I highly encourage you to do so. It is a very helpful add-on to have.

Click for a larger image

Here you can see the <div id=”nav_area” class=”full_width”> highlighted in Firebug, with pages hierarchy underneath. On the right hand side, CSS styles for this particular Div are listed. Notice the way the full_width_header() function uses this same hierarchy to call the thesis_nav_menu() and thesis_default_header().

Now let’s style the header. As you can see, I’ve attached an image on the right-hand side of the logo and tagline. I have also eliminated the line that was going across the nav_area, underneath the tabs. These elements have all been styled using the custom.css file. Again, the Thesis theme provides one global stylesheet that can be configured to your liking. Since it overrides only the duplicated styles of the style.css sheet (the one you SHOULD NOT modify, NOT located in the Custom folder), you won’t be messing with the core styles in an irreversible way.

You can download my custom.css stylesheet for the Wordpress Thesis theme here. It is also part of the download file I’ve prepared (you can find it at the beginning of this post).

Add this bit of code at the bottom of your custom stylesheet:

/*To make nav styles disappear and style the new nav*/
.custom #header_area{ display: none; }

.custom #nav_area ul { border-bottom: none; border-left: none; }

.custom #nav_area ul li { border-width: 0; margin-bottom: 0; padding-bottom: 0; background: none; }

.custom #header { border-bottom: 5px; }

.custom #header_area{ display: none; }

.custom #nav_area { background: none; padding: 0.5em 0; border-bottom: none; }

.custom #nav_area ul { border-bottom: none; border-left: none; }

.custom #nav_area ul li { border-width: 0; margin-bottom: 0; padding-bottom: 0; background: none; }

.custom #title_area { background: none; padding: 1em 0; border-bottom: none; }

.custom #header { border-bottom: none; }

This will give some padding to your header and get rid of some of the borders. To attach an image inside the header, next to the logo and tagline, add this bit of code:

/*Attaching an image/logo in the header*/
.custom #title_area { background: none; padding: 1em 0 0.5em; border-bottom: none; }

.custom #header { border-bottom: none; height: 140px; padding-top: 0; padding-bottom: 0; background: url(images/logo.png) top right no-repeat; }

Put your image in the Custom > Images folder, and change logo.png for the name of your logo under background: url(images/logo.png). The height attribute will determine how big your header will be. Avoid using too big of a header as you want to leave as much space real estate for content as possible. In this case, I’ve attached a small image in the top right corner of the header. By changing these attributes, you’ll modify the positioning of your image. This Firebug snapshots shows the code hierarchy of the header section:

Click to make image larger

If you want the logo and tagline to disappear, you can add this code:

.custom #header #logo { display: none; }
.custom #header #tagline { display: none; }

Personally I like the tabs look and wanted to keep them. I’ve added this code to restyle them without the long border that was going across the page:

.custom #nav_area ul { border-bottom: none; border-left: 1px; }
.custom #nav_area ul li { border-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 1px; padding-bottom: 0; background: none; }
.custom #nav_area ul li.rss { border-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; padding-bottom: 0; background: none; }
.custom #nav_area ul#tabs { border-left: 1px; }
.custom #header { border-bottom: none; }
.custom #header { border-top: none; }

/*—:[ nav menu styles ]:—*/

.custom #nav_area ul#tabs { list-style: none; border: 1px solid #999999; border-width: 0 0 0px 1px; }

.custom #nav_area ul#tabs li { margin-bottom: -0.1em; background: #FFED60; border: 1px solid #999999; border-left: 0; float: left; }

.custom #nav_area ul#tabs li.current_page_item, ul#tabs li.current-cat { padding-bottom: 0.1em; background: #fff; border-bottom: 0; }

.custom #nav_area ul#tabs li a { display: block; line-height: 1em; color: #111; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 2px; }

.custom #nav_area ul#tabs li a:hover { color: #111; text-decoration: underline; }

.custom #nav_area ul#tabs li.current_page_item a, ul#tabs li.current-cat a { cursor: default; }

.custom #nav_area ul#tabs li.current_page_item a:hover, ul#tabs li.current-cat a:hover { text-decoration: none; }

.custom #nav_area ul#tabs li.rss { padding-right: 0; background: none; border: none; float: right; }

.custom #nav_area ul#tabs li.rss a { padding-right: 16px; background: url(’../images/icon-rss.gif’) 100% 50% no-repeat; float: right;}

This is it for the header tutorial. I’ve added more resources at the end of this post if you’re interested to read more or push your customization a few steps further.

Adding Social Bookmarking Links at the End of your Posts

Social bookmarks help in getting authority from search engines. It’s actually quite simple to add your own bookmarking icons. We will have to start by adding some more functions to the custom_functions.php file.

At the bottom of the page, we will add a function to link Stumble Upon and del.icio.us. It goes like this:

/* Adds Stumble Upon and del.icio.us bookmark links after each post */

function add_social_media () {
?>
<ul>
<li id=”stumbleupon”><a href=”http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=<?php the_permalink() ?>”>Stumble Upon </a></li>
<li id=”delicious”><a href=”http://del.icio.us/post?url=<?php the_permalink() ?>&title=<?php the_title(); ?>”>Bookmark this on del.icio.us</a></li>
</ul>
<?php
}

add_action(’thesis_hook_after_post’, ‘add_social_media’);

The function consists of a list of 2 elements: a “<li id=”stumbleupon”>” and “<li id=”delicious”>” tags. Notice I’ve added some id to both tags. I did this because I want to style both list elements without it affecting all the “<li>” tags on my blog. I also want to attach bookmarking icons next to each link. This is all the code you need in the .php page. If you wanted to add Digg or any other service to your posts, all you would need to do is add another list element with proper link and id. Now to style both tags and attach icons, you’ll need to add this code at the bottom of your custom.css stylesheet:

/*Adds Social Media icons next to Stumble Upon link and del.icio.us underneath each post*/

.format_text ul li#stumbleupon { list-style: none; padding-right: 0; background: none; border: none;}
.format_text ul li#stumbleupon a { padding-right: 25px; padding-left: 25px; padding-bottom: 5px; background: url(’images/stumbleupon.png’) 100% 50% no-repeat; float: right; }

.format_text ul li#delicious { list-style: none; padding-right: 0; background: none; border: none; }
.format_text ul li#delicious a { padding-right: 25px; padding-bottom: 5px; background: url(’images/delicious.png’) 100% 50% no-repeat; float: right; }

This will get rid of the bullet points, will align links onto the right hand side, will add some padding to it all, and finally it will attach the bookmarking icons next to your links. I have added the Stumble Upon and del.icio.us icons onto the download file at the beginning of this post. Make sure you save them onto your Custom > Images folder. Again, here is a snapshot of Firebug showing the code placement within your Thesis theme:

Click for a larger image

Click for larger image

Must-have Plugins for your Thesis Wordpress Theme

Google XML Sitemaps Plugin
This great (and free) plugin generates XML sitemaps of your blog and submits them to Google, Yahoo! and Live Search. The Thesis theme is constructed in such a way that pretty much all your content should be indexed easily, and some of you might wonder what’s the point of generating sitemaps. When submitting your sitemap to Google when a new post is up or content has been changed, the time it takes for bots to visit your site will be greatly reduced, which means faster indexation.

WP-DB-Backup Plugin
This plugin creates backups of your database. There isn’t really a point in discussing the virtue of backing up, we all know what losing valuable materials is like. It’s also good to run a backup before updating Wordpress (like upgrading to version 2.7! By the way, the lastest version of the Thesis theme, 1.3.3., is also out. It supports the latest version of Wordpress).

Askimet Plugin
Askimet is preinstalled in Wordpress, but for it to be functional you need to first activate it and then get your API key from Wordpress.com (unless you already have one). It is a spam filter for comments that is quite effective.

Mint for Analytics
Mint analyzes server data and produces tons of analytics data on user behaviors, visits and plenty more. A 30$ very well invested. Easy to install, it can be done from within Thesis.

Voilà! As you can see a little code goes a long way, and those were just basic adjustments to the Thesis theme. It has high levels of customization that can be achieved without too much fuss. I have gathered some lovely Thesis resources on my del.icio.us bookmark page for you to look at. Check out also Kristarella’s header tutorial and Sugarrae’s Hooks for dummies tutorial.

If you believe this article was helpful, please do not hesitate to bookmark them on del.icio.us or Stumble Upon for others to see! Also, if you have anything to add, I would be delighted if you did so in the comments!

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The Power of Craigslist: The World Is Going Local

by francis on January 19, 2009

Photo taken by Elemenoh, Flickr Creative Commons

When I got back from working and traveling in the UK, I settled down in Montreal and bought my first pieces of furniture at IKEA. Among those was a loft/mezzanine bed, which I thought would be a clever purchase to gain some real estate space in my tiny room. That was 7 years ago. Turns out I hate sleeping up there, so for the past few years I’ve been sleeping on the floor, underneath the metallic platform while the bed itself has become an expensive dry rack.

Last weekend I decided it was enough and unmounted the bed to get rid of it. I’ve been a fan of Craigslist for a while now. I check the Real Estate and Missed Connections almost daily, and other sections sporadically. Even thought its style is raw and primitive, it remains easy to navigate and very efficient at communicating information. I put up an ad to get rid of the bed in the Free Stuff section and less than an hour later someone was at my door to pick up the beast!

Craigslist, with its millions of monthly visitors, is a huge success. It has remained ad and banner free, runs with less than 30 employees, and thanks to its flagging system run by the community, is mostly spam free.

Can the Power of Craigslist Be Harvested for SEO Purposes?

I have researched the question and found this article which details the matter fairly well. Basically there’s 4 things that you need to know:

A well written post with at least 100 words has a great code to text ratio.
You can add your own H1 tag in the post. The post title is set has an H2 tag.
Craigslist adds a “rel=nofollow” to any links added in the post. Still, it makes for juicy links since the ad will be seen by many people and will probably rank high in search engines.
It is very likely that your ad will get flagged down (probably by competitors) - Avoid spammy-looking post in favor of organic ones.

I have tested Craigslist’s capabilities for a project I’m working on. Point 4 proves to be a big issue. The first ad I put up got flagged down 30 minutes after being visible to the community. The next day, I tried putting up another ad, which stayed up less than 20 minutes on the site. In both cases, I made sure the ad was as “innocent” looking as possible. Even though they were taken down rather soon, the ads got us a total of 77 hits in less than 45 minutes (in the Toronto area), which is pretty good. Imagine what it would be like if it had been up for a few hours in multiple cities.

Is the World Going Local?

It’s been about 50 years since the expression “Global Village” has first been coined by McLuhan. I now wonder if things are headed in the opposite direction. Of course globalization won’t disappear, but local life will increasingly gain importance in our lives. In a way, Craigslist’s success is due to the sense of community it helps hosting in local areas. A survey of the “Rants and Raves” section of different cities is a great way to experience various cultural specificities.

Geosocialisation applications such as Brightkite are also on the rise. I think once Twitter will go local we might experience a big shift towards geo-specific communities, from communicating with surrounding friends (and follow their whereabouts) to shopping, from walking the dog to exercising. In a way, I believe the future of Social Media might be headed in that direction.

Care to comment? Please do!

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Fever Ray - If I Had a Heart

by francis on January 12, 2009

I’ve always been a fan of The Knife, so naturally I’ve been anticipating Karin Dreijer’s Fever Ray solo project for a while. It will be officially available for download tomorrow, but eh, unofficially it is already out there. The video for the first single is amazingly eerie and beautiful, just like other The Knife releases. And it creeped the hell out of me. Somehow it reminds me of the woods that were standing on the edges of my parent’s backyard when I was young. I used to be oddly attracted to the dark woods at night but was way too scared to get my foot in. This video captures the essence of what I was (and still am) afraid of. That’s even scarier than the woods itself.

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Building an Editorial Calendar

by francis on January 9, 2009

Photo taken by Dier Madrid, Flickr Creative Commons

Wow, it’s been a while. It feels like I’ve been hibernating for the past two weeks, mostly satying in and working on keyword research. The holidays are now over and winter is settling in for real.

Two weeks ago I posted about the importance of content, and how it was at the basis of any good SEO practice or any web project for that matter. I’m gonna keep going in that direction today and talk about editorial calendars. Having great, desirable content is one thing, but planning your content is another. To make the most out of high search volumes, it is important to plan content in order to make it coincide with events, holidays and such things. For instance, there will be high searches on Thanksgiving-related keywords as we get get closer to Thanksgiving. In order to benefit from this search volume, you need to plan your content accordingly. That’s what the editorial calendar is about.

There are some great tools available to determine high volume searches. A lot of you must be familiar with Google Trends and Google Insights. Google Trends lists the top searches on the web everyday, which is great for weekly planning. It also allows specific keyword searches. Here’s are the results for a search on Valentine’s day:

Search trends on Valentines day keyword

As you can see, search volumes on Valentine’s day starts building up in January till it peaks on February 14th. Then it drops back to nearly nothing. Also, results can be broken down according to geographic location, which can be useful if you’re targeting a specific market. An editorial calendar would help planning content to make the most of these searches, and bring more visitors to your pages.

Google Insight does a similar job to Google Trends, though there are more ways to break down searches. It also provides a list of rising searches that includes the main keyword. Here’s what you get on a search for Valentine’s day:

Delicious Noise

by francis on December 23, 2008

Photo taken by Wexner Center, Flickr Creative Commons

They’ve got Guided by Voices written all over them. Love it. Love the smothering lo-fi noise. It’s just like a winter storm for the ear, numbing and comforting at the same time.

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← Previous Entries

My D.I.Y. journey into learning all about link building, SEO and social media

Creating a Colour Palette

How to Customize the Thesis Wordpress Theme - Header, Hooks and Social Media Icons

Customizing the Thesis Header

Adding Social Bookmarking Links at the End of your Posts

Must-have Plugins for your Thesis Wordpress Theme

Fever Ray - If I Had a Heart

Delicious Noise

They’ve got Guided by Voices written all over them. Love it. Love the smothering lo-fi noise. It’s just like a winter storm for the ear, numbing and comforting at the same time.

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