After my divorce, I got lots of advice from single friends on dating. I was pretty clueless. I learned that waitresses weren’t really that into me (they were just being nice), and not all women are into video games. They also didn’t seem to care about SEO. Hmm…
But one friendly lesson stuck with me. ”When in a club, don’t look too eager. Women notice that!” This hit me – not because I was necessarily being one of those Night At The Roxbury guys, but I realized I did notice it when I was out; single guys craning their necks to target every woman. Like throwing a flurry of darts with reckless abandon.
Many businesses who get into social media remind me of this. It’s a sea of people, and instead of learning to speak the language, make friends, and nurture relationships, they start aggressively firing shots at potential closers. When they don’t convert, they blame the night club (platform), or the girls (customers). It’s too frantic. In online social marketing, your customers expect you to engage with them. They know when you’re desperate. They see businesses do it all the time – the only rookies in the social media space are the businesses still going for instant gratification.
Unfortunately, bad pick up lines with your customers are just as bad, if not worse. They destroy your chances and put you in a much worse light. Cheap engagement tactics and sloppy execution without sizzle and value make businesses look even more desperate, and turn a flat “no” on the dance floor to blatant giggling and pointing. Put some thought into what you should really do when taking your chances.
I had to learn to shape my conversations to my new audience (and not talk about video games). Businesses need to do the same. Forget a conversion rate if you can’t do this.
Note: The title is not How To Trick Google. I am not a spammer – not in the slightest. It’s just not the side of the fence I reside in. But, as someone who breathes SEO, I do get curious about understanding blackhat techniques from time to time.
I followed a thread on Webmaster World (via SERoundtable), where an SEO was requesting a direct answer on a tactic he uses. His tactic uses Javascript for hiding affiliate links from Google. His external .js file places the links and content into the webpage quickly after it loads. But, he blocks the external file with robots.txt, so Google never sees the full final page with the inserted Javascript content.
With all the technology that makes up webpages, and incredibly smart techies working as SEOs, it’s interesting to see what clever things SEOs still come up with. Obviously Google engineers eventually learn all these new tactics, but are they really able to defend against them? They provide guidelines on their Google site, but these guidelines are usually written loosely. They often raise more questions then they answer. And per the tactic above, I’m pretty sure that’s why – loosely, Google is able to take the stance against this tactic, without addressing (or even knowing about) this tactic.
As a whitehat SEO, I talk to link building tactics that “are against Google’s guidelines”, or CSS tricks that “are against Google’s guidelines.” Not because I think that Google is definitely able to catch them automatically, but because there’s a possibility. There are humans behind Google’s rankings – they might hear about it. A competitor might report you. Google’s toolbar, that’s on one of your visitor’s browser, may report back a different experience than the Google spiders report back.
Even though I fall for the loose guidelines, it does sounds like a big if though. If Googlet wants to thwart spammers, maybe it’s time to get more clear. Spend the time specifying the guidelines. Is it fear that specified guidelines will act as blueprints to spam techniques? Maybe – but it also might thwart SEOs from walking in the gray.
It has begun.
If you didn’t hear, Bing and Yahoo have merged to a degree. Bing search will begin powering Yahoo.com’s search function. This merge also includes paid search (which is the real monetary motivator for this merger). The transition timelines are now out there.
Apparently it should be done between August and September.
Read more at Search Engine Roundtable.
If you’re in Philadelphia, come check out Social Media Day Philadelphia at the Field House, put together by Mashable. Come network, hang out with some cool peeps, win some prizes, and play Twizzo (Quizzo on Twitter). I’ll be there. Say hi!
Bill Sebald - Ex-big agency guy, now focused on helping small and medium sized business. I've been practicing SEO since 1998. I started the SEO practice at a major digital agency owned by eBay and helped develop SEO products for one of the largest ecommerce platforms. I'm a proud member of the Philadelphia SEO scene. I'm passionate about search, writing, UX, CRO, and psychology in marketing.
Hang out with me at the SEO Grail