Business Management Consultant - Stuntdubl Search and Marketing Consulting

Welcome back! Good to see you. If you haven't seen it, here's the archive of my best writing. Thanks for visiting!

I microblog now more than I blog at Twitter.com/stuntdubl
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If you own a website, you should understand how to buy or sell one. Buying and selling is at the basis of any viable business. The web business sure has changed the ways of thinking about business with wild valuationn, deals with incredible return, and everything in between. During the first dot com bubble, ALL rules of business somehow magically flew out the window. There was a sense of urgency during the first bubble to “get in on the ground floor”. Even pet food was going to be sold online by sockpuppets! Hindsight is 20/20, and a lot of the promise of the web that was founded on business principles is returning after confidence has returned. Now investors are more skeptical, owners are more savvy, and everyone still wants to get in on the promising ground floor.

I’m pretty sure Nick Wilson gets credit for the idea of bringing linkbaiting mainstream. While Nick is certainly now well known in blogger circles, he’s got a background in the SEO community. Linkbaiting is a viral marketing idea created by someone with the mind of an SEO in my opinion. As I thought more about the ideas behind link baiting, I was suddenly hit with a simple ephiphany…”Finally, an SEO idea that Seth might be able to get on board with!” I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been pretty shameless over the course of a few years in trying to get a link from Seth (as of yet to no avail). I think that he may be partly reluctant due to having a sour taste in his mouth for anyone after his “googlejuice”. While the thought certainly has crossed my mind, I am much more excited about spreading Seth’s thought provoking ideas, and applying my own ideas and twists to them. Maybe if it’s about him spreading the juice to a “bad SEO neighborhood”, I’ll just get a rel=nofollow one day with a little help from my friends.

The best long-term SEO strategy is well researched website project management that maintains users and search engines as co-existing priorities by utilizing a combined understanding of search engines, consumers, and web technology. I am mind boggled by the garbage that passes as SEO and makes anyone claiming to practice SEO look like a dolt. Yes, SEO moves fast. Yes, the strategies change periodically, but the essence of SEO basically stays the same.
This post started just picking on BAD SEO companies, but I figured I’d keep with the theme of picking on ad agencies a little bit instead (mainly because I couldn’t think of any good reasons not to). These same lies are told by clueless account executives at ineffective SEO companies as well as ad agencies. If you hear one…run for cover.

At some point, ad agencies will be forced to come to terms with the fact that they will have to accept and work with search engine marketers even if they have to bring them in house. I must admit to having a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to traditional ad agencies, because I’ve been totally shot down every time I tried to have an abundance mentality with them. Since I fall somewhere in between affiliate marketing mercenary and corporate stooge, I love comparing the two worlds - the personalities involved, and the lifestyle associated with each. It is truly an intriguing comparison of people that share a lot in common, but can also be polar opposites.

If you want to inspire confidence, give plenty of statistics. It does not matter that they should be accurate, or even intelligible, as long as there is enough of them.
-Lewis Carroll

Redirects, Url-rewriting, changing and moving sites, and purchasing new sites are all hot topics in the world of SEO. These are things that you don’t want to make too many mistakes on, so you have better know them well even if you can’t necessarily do them yourself. A mistake in this area can wipe out months or even years of hard work very quickly. They can also make a huge difference if understood and applied correctly. I am constantly asked questions about redirects, and constantly trying to improve my own understanding of the subject. For these reasons I have put together what I found to be the best information for a “Redirect Knowledgebase”.

Despite being unsolicited, good e-mail link requests still *do* exist. Their not easy to do, because any webmaster with sites in the top 1000 for ANYTHING is tired of gettin’ arelis generated garbage requests that go out to everyone elese in the top 1000. Make your e-mails personal and relevant, and use the techniques that you can to get better conversion rates.

This makes it more difficult to write a good request that will have a likelihood for success. Crafting e-mails for successful link request conversion is an art and science like increasing conversions on a website.

I got the first VERY good request for a link that I’ve received in quite a while from someone that I didn’t know. I am going to republish the request with the permission of the author below. I’ve added a bit of insight of exactly what he did right, and a few things he may have done a bit better (or just different) below the mail.

It’s HARD to get good links, but if you do it right it can be done. If you’re gonna fish for lunkers, be sure to sharpen your hooks.

Example of a Good Link Request E-mail