Voltier Link Lab
By Admin on October 3, 2007
Breaking News: Link Lab Released - BETA
Voltier is releasing, for the first time, a valuable and free tool to the SEO world. The tool is one of a series that we will be unveiling over the next couple of months. This first tool is one that we designed because we were tired of having to go to ten different places just to get the data we were looking for. We also found ourselves constantly switching between yahoo and google, and always using addons and widgets just to look up this type of info in bulk.
So, our first tool in the Voltier Link Lab is really designed as a time saver for the monotonous task of finding places to get links, as well as for comparing the authority of sites ranking on google for whatever keywords happen to matter to you.
You can run a search on any keywords you choose, and can select to have 10, 25, or 50 results returned. The Link Lab displays results from google, with data on current rank, domain age, pagerank, and backlinks according to site explorer. You can organize the results according to any of these factors, and can export your results to Microsoft Excel. Each search performed is saved in your “list of searches,” so you can log back in at a later time and review your data. Each user can perform 10 unique searches per day while the Link Lab remains in beta and as we expand and improve the tool. This may change depending on Link Lab’s popularity and efficiency.
To use the tool, please go to The Link Lab
Topics: SEO | 2 Comments »
Social Media Marketing - Answers from the Experts
By Admin on August 14, 2007
Social Media Marketing is a new and exciting branch of Internet Marketing. We thought it would be nice to do a survey on how other SEO’s and Search Marketers approach SMM for themselves and for their clients. Thanks go to the following for taking the time to complete the survey:
Eric Ward of EricWard.com
Content Publicity and Link Building Strategies
Geoff Simon of Sky Search Placement Marketing
Sky-SearchPlacement.com
Russ Jones of Virante Inc.
Virante Search Marketing
Neil Patel of Pronet Advertising
PronetAdvertising.com
Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting
StoneTempleConsulting.com
Daniel Tynski of Voltier Inc.
Voltier.com
1. Do you use Social Media Marketing for your own site, your clients sites, or both?
Mathew Inman
Both
Eric Ward
For both if and when appropriate
Geoff Simon
We use social media for our site as well as client sites.
Russell Jones
We primarily use SMM for clients and our blog, theGoogleCache.com
Neil Patel
both
Eric Enge
both
Daniel Tynski
Both, SMM has been a very successful for us, especially when launching sites for clients with little or no web presence already.
2. Can Social Media Marketing work for all types of sites, or just certain sites?
Mathew Inman
SMM can work on any site, although it’s more difficult on something that’s commercial oriented. SMM works best on a blog or tech-oriented website - especially with Digg. StumbleUpon users don’t care as much what kind of wrapper their content is in, and with SU it’s not quite as night and day as Digg or Reddit - where either you make the homepage or you don’t. One tactic I like to use is to place linkbait on a separate domain or even a sub-page of your site with a completely benign tone, get the links you need, and then 301 that content to your commercial site. “linkbait and switch”
Eric Ward
It’s not a case of either/or, it’s about potential. Yes, some types of content will enjoy a better overall social media experience and response than will other types of sites. But frankly any site that is designed for a specific purpose and user, and which provides a useful and valuable experience for that user, has a social media
potential.Geoff Simon
It depends on what you mean by “social media works”, any company selling any type of (P) can use social media and it will deliver some traffic. If what you are looking for is if that traffic converts, is it targeted and does it bring users to the site that is a different story. Our metrics show that consumer related sites perform better than B2B sites in terms of conversions from social media traffic (in general), there are always exceptions.
Russell Jones
For the vast majority of sites, SMM can be successful. However, certain sites tend to struggle, especially those that are either riddled with advertising or are in specific spam-heavy industries (pharma, gambling, etc.)
Neil Patel
I feel it can work on the majority type of websites (if you get
creative), but no where near all.Eric Enge
It can work for MANY types of sites, but I hesitate to say that it will work for all of them It can work for MANY types of sites, but I hesitate to say that it will work for all of them.
Daniel Tynski
In our experience, it can work for all clients in some capacity. Clients with businesses that cater to a similar demographic as social media will have an easier time taking advantage of it.
3. What Social Media Sites do you promote with?
Mathew Inman
In order of importance (kind of): StumbleUpon, Digg, Myspace (bulletins), Reddit, and Netscape.
Eric Ward
Any that are appropriate for the subject matter
being promoted.Geoff Simon
Geoff was awesome enough to give us an amazing list of the sites he uses (this could be a great resource in and of itself)
Russell Jones
Primarily the big 3 (reddit, digg, del.icio.us) but also Netscape, Furl, Stumbleupon, and a large number of SBS.
Neil Patel
digg, reddit, stumbleupon, netscape, del.icio.us
Eric Enge
Digg, Reddit, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, and Netscape are the main ones
Daniel Tynski
In order of importance: Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, Netscape
4. Reddit and Digg are probably the big two, have you had success with others?
Mathew Inman
Stumbleupon is my favorite, and if something gets picked up virally on MySpace it can generate some serious traffic.
Eric Ward
Yes, many many others. Social shopping sites can be powerful.
Geoff Simon
We have seen some success in terms of traffic from Netscape recently.
Russell Jones
While we have had easy success with sites other than Digg and Reddit, they simply do not push the traffic. Still worth it for the backlinks and branding though.
Neil Patel
I have had success with tons of them such as Netscape and StumbleUpon.
Eric Enge
StumbleUpon is a great area to focus on. We have had good luck with that, as well as success on Digg and Reddit.
Daniel Tynski
We love StumbleUpon and Del.icio.us too, and have seen some good traffic from Fark.com.
5. Do you use Social Networking sites like Myspace or Facebook for promotion. If so, which ones and how.
Mathew Inman
I use MySpace quite a bit because the bulletins can yield pretty impressive traffic numbers if they spread virally. Myspace users are also more likely to click on ads than someone from Digg or another geek driven website. I haven’t done much SMM with facebook because they strip HTML from your “wall.” If you create a viral badge myspace strips out <img> tags from bulletins but not inline styles using background images, so make sure and use inline styles because myspace is awesomely stupid and doesn’t filter them.
Eric Ward
I’m extremely conservative regarding interaction within these communities.
Geoff Simon
We do. We create profile sites for certain clients on these sites. Now that Facebook is really picking up steam and has better sharing options, we use Facebook and not Myspace anymore. We also create profiles on for our clients on LinkedIn and other business networking sites.
Russell Jones
Rarely. We have done some local social promotion via these networks, but very little.
Neil Patel
I use both of them. For Facebook companies can create apps and for
MySpace you can create corporate profiles.Eric Enge
We are just beginning to dabble in this
Daniel Tynski
We have done a little bit with MySpace in doing widget creation and profile promotion. MySpace users are becoming much more savvy and less tolerant when it comes to self promotion, so providing something useful is the best way to take advantage of the huge user base. Facebook presents a great opportunity for all Search Marketers in my opinion. We have created a few applications with some good early success.
6. When generating content for social media sites, is it always on topic for the site you are promoting? or do you ever go off topic?
Mathew Inman
It’s a mix of both. If I want links that are highly topical I’ll try and create the bait to contain the right anchor text, but other times I’m just going for volume and am looking to improve the authority of my domain. I had a site recently that I’d registered and wanted to remove whatever domain age authority the site lacked, I did this by getting 20 thousand inbound links via social media marketing that were barely on-topic. From there I started building topical links and was able to rank for some highly competitive terms.
Eric Ward
You don’t have to generate content just for SM sites, though you can.
It can be far more powerful to engage the key influencers already
there for content that already exists.Geoff Simon
Always on topic, content + technology = social media success. Quality content that is useful, not promotional and interesting is what works the best.
Russell Jones
The topic is always at least tangentially related to the specific topic of the site. We rarely stray from topic enough that a visitor would be suspicious of the reason for developing the content.
Neil Patel
I try stay on topic.
Eric Enge
We never go off topic. We want the links to be relevant
Daniel Tynski
While we try to stay on topic, but many times we our clients can benefit from content that is only marginally related. It is not necessary to have a 100% on topic viral article to see improvements in rank. A successful piece of link bait can improve the authority of a domain even if that piece of link bait has little to do with the content on the rest of the site. As a rule, our ultimate goal is to develop relevant and interesting piece of content with keywords in the titles.
7. What methods do you use when promoting a story? Do you ask others to vote for your story? Do you have a lot of friends?
Mathew Inman
If the content is good enough you usually won’t have to rely on your friends to vote for it, but it helps a little.
Focus more on creating a killer piece of linkbait and less on having all your pals vote something up.
Eric Ward
I don’t explicitly ask others to vote, digg, tag, etc.
That’s a form of attempted manipulation. I believe you
let the content earn the natural degree of attention
it deserves.Geoff Simon
Seems a bit black hat to have all your friends vote for your story (especially when no one else does), and in fact know of a company that got banned from Netscape from doing this exact thing. I will submit a story to dig or somewhere else and maybe have one or two of my colleagues vote, but that is about it.
Russell Jones
Primarily through account reputation building. Having a strong, active account that regularly participates is the safest way to promote content.
Neil Patel
I just use natural methods. If the content is great then it should do
well on its own.Eric Enge
We offer top users with the various sites information about what we are offering. Hopefully, they pick it up. We do not actively ask others to vote for the story. We have not setup a lot of friends on our own accounts, but are beginning to scale that.
Daniel Tynski
Having accounts with good reputations can help more than you would think. Having a high karma score in Reddit, and a lot of friends and a good voting history on Digg can be the difference between success and failure.
8. How do you feel about manipulating Social Media sites or Social Networking sites? or SEM’s that use
sock puppets or other black hat promotional tools?
Mathew Inman
I have no altruistic obligations to social media sites, I’ll manipulate them until the cows come home if it means making more money. I avoid blackhat techniques simply because there’s not a lot of longevity to it, usually you’re just exploiting something and it doesn’t last long - which doesn’t make for a dependable long term business model.
Eric Ward
I don’t do it and I don’t take clients that request it.
Geoff Simon
I don’t like sock puppets….If you want to create buzz or defend a position, do it yourself. Creating fake personas on the Internet is common and okay in some cases, take secondlife for example, but not sock puppets or meat puppets or whatever.
Russell Jones
We do not currently employ these methods because they can be dangerous to the client’s long term SMM strategy.
Neil Patel
I am not a big fan of manipulating social media sites, with great
content you should naturally do well.Eric Enge
It’s too bad that this happens, but it does. I hope the Social Media sites will become more effective in combating this.
Daniel Tynski
It depends, sometimes some amount of manipulation can help bring you over that difficult first hump of downmodders a burrier’s on Digg and Reddit, but ultimately your content needs to stand on its own two feet or no one will link to it anyway.
9. If you had to give a one sentence piece of advice for writing content for social media sites, what would it be?
Mathew Inman
Make the content look as benign as possible - like it wasn’t intended for a social media site. Geek stuff helps, too.
Eric Ward
Spend time interacting within them before
treating them like marketing outlets.Geoff Simon
It’s not a sales pitch, write something you think people will say, “wow, I got to show this to……” – You just don’t get that reaction from spam.
Russell Jones
Make your content so good that even if everyone knew it was developed for-profit, they would still vote it up.
Neil Patel
Write content that appeals to the users of these social media sites.
Eric Enge
Understand that it’s not about getting on the home page, or the popular page, of some site. It’s about getting links as a result. So write something that people will vote for AND link to.
Daniel Tynski
Include as much Rich Media as possible. Illustrations of your points, videos, etc. Remember that your audience is intelligent, but with a short attention span. Make sure your content is interesting, but easily digestible.
10. How Important is a good title? What tips do you have for writing an effective title?
Mathew Inman
It depends on the site. For digg/reddit it’s incredibly important, for SU it doesn’t matter. Sensational titles work best - pick up a copy of “men’s health” or “cosmo” (print magazines) and look at the covers.
Eric Ward
Strategic truncation is under appreciated…
Geoff Simon
Titles are very important. Some advice, use your imagination, make the title relevant to the story and twists on words are always good. Controversial titles are also good, no matter what side you are on.
Russell Jones
The title is extremely important. There are several large players on the primary SMM’s who resubmit regularly with improved titles (ie: grab a failed, good story submitted by another user, retitle, and resubmit). Give just enough information to entice the user. Usually people say “the shorter the better”. This is just not the case, especially on a site like Reddit.
Neil Patel
Titles are very important because some people vote based on titles
alone. I recommend checking out http://www.copyblogger.com if you are
looking to write great headlines.Eric Enge
A good title makes or breaks the submission. Best tip for writing an effective title is to get to know the audience you are writing for (i.e. the users of the social media site you are targeting) really, really well, first. Then target your title to that audience.
Daniel Tynski
Titles are extremely important. They are your one and only opportunity to capture the readers attention. Ask yourself as you create a title, “Would i click on this if I came across it on Digg or Reddit”. I know it sounds like a very common sense thing, but it will really help you separate the winner titles from the losers. Also, being a regular reader and participator on the social media sites outside of marketing will help you to get a better feel for what works and what doesn’t. A few months as a Digg or Redditor and you will have a decent idea of the difference between a good and a bad title.
11. Any “sure thing” topics that have almost always done well for you?
Mathew Inman
Geek stuff and tech humor.
Eric Ward
Sites with a current event focus have done well
Geoff Simon
Controversy is one, up to date (like up to the minute) reactions to news items in your field is another (this has more to do with timing though) also lists of tips, lists of sites to use, all compiled in one place. For instance, the top 10 social media sites (and supported with data).
Russell Jones
Create useful tools. It can be expensive, but everyone loves a new web app.
Neil Patel
Apple
Eric Enge
No. Variety is king. Also fit of the client’s site to the audience of the social media site.
Daniel Tynski
Top 10 lists have done well in the past, but are becoming somewhat cliched and annoying to readers. Anything about odd or ingenious people, place or things usually do well for us.
12. What is the most success you have had promoting with Social Media? (backlinks, organic traffic increases etc.)
Mathew Inman
Backlinks and visibility. Most social media sites won’t drive conversions but they’re an awesome way to get your brand out in front of tens of thousands of people in a very short period of time.
Eric Ward
Treating social media as tool to be measured ignores the real
power it represents.Geoff Simon
Backlinks is #1, secondarily the traffic helps, but social media traffic tends to bounce fairly quickly in most cases. Of coarse you will get the random user who reads an article about how great this new blender is then go to the site and buy it, but that does not happen often.
Russell Jones
Backlinks. The short bursts of traffic are rarely profitable. The natural backlinks, however, are invaluable.
Neil Patel
Best success was over 3000 backlinks and 100,000 visitors in 1 week.
Eric Enge
We focus on getting relevant backlinks. We have gotten up to 1200 backlinks in these campaigns.
Daniel Tynski
We had over 6,000 backlinks and 130,000 visitors from an article that made it to the number one spot on Digg and Reddit.
13. Is using social media for SEO/SEM a viable long-term strategy, or will it become ineffective?
Mathew Inman
Most social media sites will eventually become overrun - just look at squidoo. It’s become so cluttered with SEO spam that the site is pretty much useless now in terms of online marketing. I don’t think SMM will necessarily go away, but I think we’re continually going to have to mix up our strategies for it to keep working.
Eric Ward
Social media should never be thought of as an SEO/SEM strategy.
Geoff Simon
I don’t believe that social media overall will go away. I think the idea of user rated content and the pull vs. push information cycle will continue to flourish. This is in fact the next big movement on the Internet, not some new cool tool. When people look at social media, they see tools, social media and web 2.0 are movements, and movements don’t die quickly. Of coarse some of the names and faces will change, but the coming generation is almost more comfortable in the digital world than in the real world, and they want what they want and they don’t want you pushing it to them.
Russell Jones
It will remain a viable long-term strategy. Spamming these networks, however, will be come less and less effective.
Neil Patel
Long term.
Eric Enge
Yes, it’s viable, but you can’t depend on it alone. You need to have a balanced strategy, and use this as one interesting component of it.
Daniel Tynski
It will always be a part of the Internet Marketing game, you should never rely solely on SMM for increasing your sites popularity.
14. What is the quality of the traffic you have seen from social media sites?
Mathew Inman
Most social media traffic is fairly poor in terms of conversions. Instead make those users build links for you and then get your conversions from the search engines.
Eric Ward
It will depend on the quality of the content being promoted and
the care taken to identify those who care.Geoff Simon
Currently, the traffic is decent in terms of interaction with sites. But as far as conversion, it is still not as high as traffic coming in organically from search.
Russell Jones
Low. The long term branding and link building are by far the most important payoffs.
Neil Patel
Most the traffic isn’t high quality, but a small portion is. These
sites drive so much traffic you can’t expect every visitor to convert.Eric Enge
Really, really poor from Digg. Slightly better from Reddit. Better from del.icio.us and Stumble Upon.
Daniel Tynski
StumbleUpon traffic is decent, Digg and Reddit traffic is marginal, but all three produce great backlinks, which is always the goal anyway.
15. What has been your experience with the “anti-SEO” culture of some social media sites?
Mathew Inman
Like I said before, drop the commercial tone of your content and most of the time the users of those SM sites won’t have a clue that it’s the work of an online marketer.
Eric Ward
I agree with them.
Geoff Simon
I think it’s preposterous; the idea of social media sites is that users can promote the content they like. Many people find SEO/SEM related articles useless, which is fine, but there is a million dollar industry that a lot of people want to hear about. Manipulating the social media sites is a different story, but if you submit a story to digg and people find it useful there should not be a band of rogue diggers burying the story.
Russell Jones
It really is not so bad. The bar is a little higher for SEO stories, but the reason primarily is that SEO just isn’t all that interesting to the average social media reader. Honestly, who wants to read about URL canonicalization?
Neil Patel
These sites hate SEO’s so you better try and hide the fact that you are an SEO.
Eric Enge
We avoid any exposure to these issue, but not approaching them as an SEO.
Daniel Tynski
We have seen the worst of it from Digg, submitting anything that smells like SEO is a pretty sure way to get your story buried.
16. How should Social Media Marketing fit into an overall Search Engine Marketing strategy?
Mathew Inman
It should be an integral part of your strategy but don’t rely on the same tactics over and over again. Mix it up a bit and stay creative. If you keep making the digg homepage because you create some sensational “top 10 ways to [something techie],” that’s probably not going to keep working in the long term.
Eric Ward
It shouldn’t. Social media isn’t about rankings. If you think it is
you are missing the point.Geoff Simon
Right now we use social media for links. This should be a part of any SEM strategy.
Russell Jones
It should be a primary facet. The regular creation and submission of content that targets Social Media outlets is invaluable.
Neil Patel
Social media is a great way to build links. These links can help
increase your search engine rankings.Eric Enge
It’s one component. Natural backlinks from authority sites are still the key to long term success. We get those by approaching the sites directly. Social media campaigns, properly done, can help you get some of these too.
Daniel Tynski
It should be a large component for promoting new sites, it can help them avoid the sandbox and get indexed quickly. For older and larger sites it should play a part, but should not be the main focus.
17. Anything else you would like to add?
Mathew Inman
I think a great non-tech/liberal oriented social media site has yet to emerge, so it should be interesting to see if a site pops up in the next few years that has the volume of users of myspace with the democratic appeal of a site like Digg.
Eric Ward
If the only time you ever interact with a social media venue
is when you are doing so for a client, you are part of
the problem. Why not get online without an agenda every now
and then and see what makes them so wonderful.Neil Patel
If you can relate to the social media audience you will succeed.
Daniel Tynski
Thanks so much for all who contributed, it is great to see how others approach Social Media Marketing.
Topics: SMM | 3 Comments »
Faux Forecasting
By nick.santillo on August 10, 2007
If there is one major lesson learned in the past year, it’s how to consistently forecast where we will be as a company in the future. When you’re creating forecasts, projections and analysis, you’ve got to remember that those documents aren’t reality. One caveat to this is that these documents rarely incorporate the notion that humans are producing the material behind every number and trend line we’ve assembled. While it’s not possible to predict what’s going to happen along the way, it is possible to give yourself room to move in between the numbers and still keep everything afloat. I guess what I’m trying to emphasize is the importance of allowing for human deviation in order to keep those documents valid or else, what’s the point of ever creating them? For small businesses, they can actually waste time that could be spent doing other things and thus the concept of opportunity cost applies to this situation.
-Nick Santillo
Topics: Business Topics | No Comments »
The beginning of time
By nick.santillo on August 10, 2007
Up until this point, Chris, Dan and I have kept Voltier on the backburner in order to reach the top of the learning curve, gain capital to invest and develop our image and brand. We still have a lot to do but there is a lot to celebrate. For two of us (Dan and Myself), Voltier has become our priority and we’re looking forward to getting her to take flight. After she’s climbing steadily around 5,000 feet, Chris will join in for full time flight. It’s hard to believe how far we’ve come in the last eight months from being virtually unknown to a steadily building client base. No more working for other people or climbing the corporate ladder!
This has been our dream. We’ve held countless positions throughout and post-college that took so much out of us to be there and those positions are what prompted us to start Voltier. We’ve sacrificed a lot during the last year in hopes of getting to this day where our dream slowly changes to reality. It’s amazing how work feels when you’re doing it for yourself and a few close others. I’m not positive how workers in the corporate world do it but great for them, that’s just not what we’re about.
In addition to this becoming a full time gig for Dan and I, this is also when our blog becomes active and not just an archive for work that we’ve previously done. So, take an RSS feed to your desktop and keep reading!
-Nick Santillo
Topics: Company Happenings | No Comments »
Get ‘er Dugg - A Comprehensive Guide to Going Viral on Digg (part 1)
By Admin on March 2, 2007
The Ideal Article:
In order to have a successful Digg, you must submit information that is new, exciting, and very interesting. More than anything, though, your submission must not be old news, no matter how interesting it may be. The ideal article is one that presents 100% brand new, interesting information before anyone else. Take for instance a recently Dugg article about Anna Nicole Smith’s death. It immediately rose to the top of Digg…and this happened within minutes. There were dozens of other similar stories, but the story that made it was the one that was submitted first. When the article became old news (within a day), it was buried.
In an attempt to be a first responder, many users have become that guy who sells t-shirts depicting the winner of the World Series before the last game has been played. We saw this phenomenon in another Anna Nicole Smith example. If you look through the Digg’s referencing this topic, you can see posts of varying popularity about every possible scenario, each trying to be that original source - each trying to create news before it was actually news. While it is nearly impossible to be the first one to present such a scoop, there is still a lesson to be learned from our “perfect article” archetype. Users are interested in information they have yet to hear. Better yet, if it is new information about something they already know about, it will be that much more popular.
The Less-than-ideal, but still Digg-worth article (and your best shot):
“The key to generating good content is writing something that creatively combines information that has been mildly popular in the past, but is still relatively unknown. “ While it may be very difficult to go out there and bring real news to the masses, there are still many opportunities to create viral content. In our experience, generating good content is done by writing something that creatively combines information that has been mildly popular in the past, but is still relatively unknown. The goal is to build on the popularity of the content that has already proven itself to be at least mildly popular, and inject new value which could push people into making it go viral, while making sure to keep the article feeling cohesive and central to some main idea, and not simply an aggregate of mediocre ideas. An example of how we did this was in our “8 diseases that give you super human powers” article. You can read about our success with this article here. If this seems a bit convoluted, keep reading it will be clearer soon.
Brainstorming: Good sources for viral content are not as hard to find as you might think. Ideas can easily be generated just by perusing subjects you might be interested in already (or that may be related to the site you are looking to promote with your viral content). Spend a few hours surfing wikipedia, following links from the more general to the very specific. Find those interesting pieces of information that are related to ideas or topics others have already expressed interest in, but that have only been shallowly explored. There may be an opportunity somewhere to explore more deeply, to flesh out an idea into an article. Questions to ask yourself during the Brainstorming Process:
1. Have I picked a story that I find interesting, but few others will? Am I miscalculating the potential of the story because I think its “SUPER COOL?” Basically check yourself for personal biases.
This is a very large pitfall for writing link bait; failing to step into “the average Digg readers” shoes and ask, would they think this is interesting?
2. Does my story have mass appeal; is it relevant to a wide demographic?
3. If it doesn’t have mass appeal, is it extremely relevant to the largest demographic of Digg (industry news/ anything on the wii, programming tricks etc.)?
4. Does my story do one of the following:
-Present a scoop (first time news story)
- Story allay a fear, or present something fearful and then allay the fear? (Think local news teasers like “you will never believe what’s in your water that could be making you sick, tonight at 11”)
- Provide a new resource or amalgamate the webs top resources into one place?- An interesting new perspective on a widely talked about story?
- Talk about a widely held but seldom talked about belief or common experience (the Seinfeldesque-linkbait)?- provide new insight to an industry along with proof in the form of statistics and facts?
- Offer the reader any of the following without sounding scammy or preachy: money or ways to save money, time savings, easily acquired valuable talents or abilities, popularity, a reason to feel good about themselves or (Schadenfreude ) feel good through the misery of others.
5. Can my story be popular to both the Digg and Reddit crowds, because without both, it is harder to launch a successful link bait campaign? (This one means you really need to get a feel for both sites,–become a regular reader of both.)
6. Above all, is this story something I am excited to tell my friends about? When I think about my story do I think, wow so and so needs to know about this, it is that cool!?
Increasing the Viral Load:
Once you’ve found a topic to blog on, and have written a preliminary draft, your next step is to beef up the article’s cool factor. Let’s call this point in the process “increasing its viral load.” In our “8 diseases article,” we knew already that people had exposure to some of the diseases mentioned, and that these topics were at least mildly popular (we watch TLC). Two great ways to increase the viral load include:
- Using rich media. Audio and Video content can make an incredible supplement to an already interesting article
- Using authoritative sources. (Wikipedia at the least, and academic sources at the best).
Adding this kind of content seems to really increase the credibility of a source. It makes it seem well researched, and in the minds of many Digg and Reddit users, the article becomes more likely for a positive vote. Digg users are pro’s at detecting a half assed attempt at generating traffic, so you must take the time to research your subject. You must look like you made an effort to provide your readers with something of real value by actually providing your readers with something of value.
Understand your audience: Understanding your audience is essential. Users of these sites are an interesting combination in that they are somehow both impulsive, and at the same time very critical and discerning.
Your Title Really Matters: This is the impulsive part. Whatever catches someone’s eye is what they click on….but they then immediately become like vultures, picking apart your idea at the seams (at least if your article presents some kind opinion at all). Your goal here is to come up with a very eye catching title, and then back up that title with real, readable, interesting content. People behave as though they have given you a token of trust by clicking on your article, and will respond positively if they feel rewarded with the type of content they were expecting. However, if your content isn’t up to par with your title, they are likely to feel betrayed–and then you’ve lost.
People can get angry, quickly: Another important thing to remember is that you absolutely cannot disregard the power of people to downgrade your story. This is especially true in the beginning. You want to give your article the longest possible amount of time to catch on. Going viral is almost like starting a lawnmower. Either your mower will sputter and die immediately - sputter for awhile, then die…..or if you’re lucky, sputter for awhile and start. The longer your motor sputters, the more likely it is that it will start up. The same is true for viral content on sites like Digg or Reddit. Get that content sputtering; keep it in front of your users eyes. Avoid getting buried by making sure your content isn’t too offensive or too controversial, and don’t give your readers a reason to think you have a motivation in sharing your content other than your pure desire to spread information (i.e. don’t try to monetize your submission at all, or at the very least, until after you have gone viral.)
Diggable vs. Linkable: If you are Dugg to the first page you are certainly going to see a great number of links, but it is important to note the difference between something that gets Dugg to a very high level and something that gets linked to a very high level. An example would be the number of links an interesting picture might get vs. an article that is a news scoop, or offers a great piece of previously unknown information. It is a fine line and sometimes hard to figure out if your Digg submission is also link worthy.
Ask yourself the following questions about the linkability of your content:
1. Am I Digging this because I want others to see it, and pressing a single button is an easy way for me to say “this is cool?”
2. Or am I Digging this because People need to know about this, because they can’t live without it or because without it they would be out of the loop.
3.) Is it possible that my information is so new and/or informative that I will actually become an authority on this information, or serve as a reference for others interested in writing about similar content?
Those of you answering number 2 or 3 will probably see better backlink results than those who answer number 1. An additional caveat for those who submit single pictures, videos, or other easily copied or remotely hosted content for Digging: Which is easier, linking to your site, or copying your single item of content and hosting it yourself? Truly great content is likely to become popular no matter what, but there are some things you can do to almost guarantee massive success. What I’m talking about is building a base that can send your traffic into the stratosphere. You can do this completely from scratch, or you can leverage previous success. The following are our techniques for launching viral content in the social media arena.
Going Viral on Reddit (from scratch) ! Submit to a sub-category- First, submit an article to a sub-Reddit, and the Reddit homepage at the same time. (This is a feature of Reddit. We are not suggesting duplicate submission). The science sub-Reddit and programming sub-Reddit are two excellent options if your article fits into one of these categories. The benefit here is a lack of competition. Compared to the main section of Reddit, these sub-sections get far less competition. Your presence on the “New” page of one of these sub-Reddits can assist you in remaining on the “Hot” page for as long as possible Even if your content doesn’t go viral, you can still expect to see a good deal of traffic from these pages. Another benefit of submitting to a sub-Reddit is the extra exposure and the more highly targeted exposure. If your article happens to be in one of these categories, your readers are likely to be fans of the topic you chose. Although there is little concrete proof to back up this assumption, it would not be surprising if the ratio of vote-up vs. vote-down was much better in these sub-sections for all on topic articles.
Give it a push:
a.) Comment on your submission. Or, better yet, get a friend to comment on your submission. Say something controversial, and say something interesting. This is your chance to get a dialogue going. The benefit of this is the increase in exposure you’ll get as the result of having a lot of comments. It seems as though many people are drawn to read articles that have a lot of comments, and if they comment positively themselves, you’ll get points there too.
b.) Use residual or short burst traffic. For those who already own sites or blogs that get a lot of traffic, you are at a lucky advantage. By using on-page Digg and Reddit voting buttons, you can launch viral content very easily. Instead of relying on visitors on the Digg and Reddit sites to vote you up, you can leverage your sites visitors to build your traffic and beat out your competitors. If you don’t have built in traffic, you may find success with methods that can get you a small amount of instant traffic. Anything that can get you an instant but short lived boost of traffic to your site can give you that needed push. This technique will be the most important within the first 30min after your Reddit or Digg submission. It can be essential in cases where a few votes may mean the difference between you being in the top 12 results on Reddit (the articles seen without scrolling down), and those results fluctuating between the first and second page.
Some quick fix traffic ideas:
1. Submit your site link and article title or snippet to popular message boards. Please be relevant though, spamming boards is in poor taste.
2. Comment on related articles that are on the already on the Digg front page, or are moving up quickly and post a link to your site. Again, make sure you are adding value or risk angry burials.
3. Post to numerous other social bookmarking sites that may give you that initial boost. (Netscape, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Fark, etc)
Considering Day and Time: In our experience at Voltier, an important factor in getting Dugg is the time that the story is made popular. Digg seems to have some of its heaviest traffic during periods of the day that coincide with downtimes at work. Many people working 9-5 do so in front of a computer, and what better way to waste time than to look at Digg or Reddit? While it is impossible for us to see Diggs exact traffic patterns in the long term, an indicator is the availability or unavailability of Digg’s search tool. It seems to become disabled during specific and predictable times of day. Here is a look at Digg Traffic patterns from one 24 hour period which recently became available. Each horizontal line represents a single Digg article. The dots that make up the vertical line represent individual Diggs. (Dot color corresponds to the Digg users account age. Red=older Digg account, Blue=newer Digg account). Digg articles that have become popular show up as bright yellow/orange lines. I have highlighted the times of day that seem to have surges of Digg articles suddenly becoming popular Many thanks to This Site for the great stats and graph.
- 8:30am-10:30am
- 1:00pm-3:00pm
- 4:00pm-6:00pm
- 8:00pm-10:00pm
We have had success during the first and third time slots.
Piggybacking: With an excellent article at a peak viewing hour, you can receive a large number of Reddit votes in a short period of time. Because the Reddit algorithm is based primarily on a (time v. # of votes) system, your number of votes per hour will decide where you land on the front page of Reddit and for how long. If you can manage to write an article that starts getting attention at Reddit, make sure you are already submitted to Digg and that you have “Digg this” buttons on your page. As Reddit visitors start Digging your story (because of that handy on-page Digg button) your number of Diggs per hour should go high enough to tip into the Digg “popular” section. Make sure you put your “Digg this” button both at the top of the article, and at the bottom. People are going to Digg your article after they have read it, or at least looked through it and have found it Digg worthy. Don’t insult your visitor’s intelligence by assuming they will impulsively Digg you as soon as they reach your page (although some might). At this point you will likely be made “popular” on Digg. From here on out, the quality of your content will be the determining factor in how popular you become. If you are lucky, and follow our timing instructions above, you will go viral on Digg in the late afternoon by catching the final wave of people wasting time before the end of the work day. This also gives you your best shot of getting on the Digg top ten list for the day (a huge traffic booster). If you do happen to get a story Dugg, play on the insane traffic you are already getting by putting a link at the bottom of your page saying something like: “if you liked this story, check out: X related story” make sure to add a picture or give it a large font size to grab attention. You would really be surprised how well this works, and how easy it is to make a second story go viral using traffic from the first.
Build a base for success: Getting content to go viral from scratch is like building a pyramid. Each step of the base you complete, the more able you’ll be to complete the next stage, and so on until your pyramid is complete. Even if you don’t get to the top– you’ve likely created something damn impressive anyway. Again, make sure you content is linkable, interesting, and new. Use the few tools at your disposal to give your content the best possible chance for success, and then leverage other social sites to create the voting equivalent of a feedback loop, and watch your traffic shoot into the stratosphere.
*One Last Hint– if things don’t go right the first time, reevaluate the quality of your content. If, after a thorough second look, you believe you’ve got a winner, realize resubmission is heavily frowned upon. Digg and Reddit users hate re-submitters — but if the only thing preventing a great article from getting out there is the title, you may be justified in releasing it again. Remember: if the content can’t back up the title, it’ll never make it. Good luck everyone on a successful social media link baiting campaign. Let us know how things work out!
For Your Consideration: There have been some who have expressed their concern that any outright attempt to gain traffic and/or links through the intentional and calculated creation and deployment of creative content is the equivalent of SPAM. We wholeheartedly disagree with this assessment. What we propose, and the techniques we encourage, have the effect of giving the best possible chance for viral exposure to unique and interesting content. We do not encourage the use of said techniques for the deployment of uninteresting, copied, or spam content —not purely for ethical reasons—but also because any such attempt would be a complete waste of time. In any democratic medium, the public decides what it wants and what it is willing to tolerate. In social media sites like Digg and Reddit, interesting content rules. It is valuable only according to its popularity, which at every moment is under the control of users willing to read. To this end, interesting content is valuable regardless of its source, and regardless of the after-effects generated by such content. Spam is by definition the opposite of creative, unique, popular content. Additionally, the desired SEO benefits of gaining popularity through social sites are perhaps the most democratic of all. The large number of backlinks (or lack thereof) generated by a Digg are based solely upon the discretion of the bloggers and webmasters in cyberspace. They have each earned the right to distribute their linking power as they see fit…and the presentation of linkable content to them on a massive scale is by no means coercive or unethical – it’s simply good marketing. As we have previously discussed, there may be a certain power associated with the backlinks generated by a Digg, even if the content being linked to through such an effort is completely off topic, or unrelated to the domain seeking exposure. We agree that the creation of unrelated content in an attempt to inflate the relevance of an unrelated site is questionable. (It is certainly an interesting experiment, and the effects of such a link baiting campaign should certainly be considered by the search engines.) But we encourage the creation of content that is on-topic. Not only will this invariably have a much greater effect in increasing the popularity of a site, it will also assure that you won’t be accused of trying to game the system or take advantage of anything.
Topics: Traffic, SEO | 11 Comments »
Personality Analysis: The makings of a SEO
By Admin on February 23, 2007
We’re not at all like used car sales people | A look at the unique and rare personality combinations that drive the best in the industry.
Ok, lets face it…people love to read these kinds of things to get the ego boost that can come out of them. Invariably, any online personality analysis pumps you up by going into great detail your many unique strengths, while glossing over or playing down, or even spinning any negative traits into something positive. There is even an entire sect of psychology known as personality theory that seeks to understand the reasons for the development of certain traits. Recently, the Jung typology, based upon the personality theories of world famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung, have gained somewhat of a pop culture appeal. Its become somewhat of a fad to discover whether you’re an ISTJ, and ENTP or an ESFJ (and then of course the quest to discover your partner’s typology and if you are, indeed, compatible). Putting this to the side, in an attempt to forget the pop psychology and gross over generalizations, most of us can probably agree that there, at the very least, a definite set of personality types which each of our personalities can loosely be defined. So here is my attempt to explore the typology of an SEO. This analysis is, of course, based upon no real empirical knowledge, completely biased, and based mostly on my own bloated sense of self….but it will be an interesting exercise nonetheless —and hopefully an ego boost to those of you out there proud to call yourself SEO’s.
The traits;
Highly Inquisitive Nature
The scientific types are drawn to questions that don’t yet have answers. They are practitioners of the scientific method, proposing hypotheses that can be tested. In this way, SEO’s are very similar. We have been faced with a great mystery of the internet (why Google & others do what they do and why). The search algorithms are, to us, what a grand unified theory might be to a physicist. We are working with a black box whose inner workings are only revealed to us slowly, piece by piece, often in contradictory or changing ways. But this is the truly great thing about being in this industry. We are constantly challenged. Each time we think we understand what needs to be done to get our sites to the top, something changes, little variables change, and we are faced with the challenge of discovering what will bring us back where we want to be.
An Analytical Mind
Some would define the term analytical as an approach defined not by trial and error, but by formula and definitive equations. I would not necessarily argue with this definition, and it could be said that we are in the business of trial and error, but I believe our methods are more precise than this, and our goals are certainly loftier. Our analytical minds may have to play the game of trial and error, but we derive our satisfaction through our concrete discoveries. The rooting out of those little problems on our sites, the little gems and techniques we find that offer us insight and better understanding (and of course better rankings!). In fact this analysis of our results, our analytics (ha!) are at the crux of our business, and what we learn through these discoveries is what propels us forward. So this thinking person that loves to be analytical, to ask why, to be looking for those formulae that exist somewhere and can explain our questions - this is the SEO.
A Gambler’s Sensibility
I’ve read that being in SEO is similar to being on crack. I have to agree with this on some levels. The addicting nature of anything has to do with the high that it brings you, and then the loss of that high. The reward which is processed is so great, and the low felt when that reward has been lost sends you hungering again for that high. If this is the definition of an addiction, SEO is an addiction. Like any gambler we love those highs, and hate those lows. We’ve experienced the blow of a drop in our rankings, any number of penalties or (gasp) being faced with the prospect of filing a re inclusion request. We also know that feeling of hitting the jackpot when their SERPS change drastically and you’re on top of the world. Whether you’re white hat or black hat, you know the temptation of “checking your stats.” Its addicting, and to me, its like playing the slots every time.
A Highly Active Imagination
This is one trait that I believe really makes people in our industry exemplary. Its what makes our personalities truly unique and a very special combination of abilities. The combination of an incredibly creative mind that is also highly analytical is certainly uncommon. It is, however the archetype of the SEO. We are the definition of the out of the box thinker. We love to hear those ideas that make us slap ourselves on the forehead and say “why didn’t I think of that.” We’re constantly putting our analytical mind to work on those creative projects, those creative ideas. Its this combination that makes a fanciful marketing notion into a reality….what makes an idea on a whim into a killer piece of link bait.
Independent Attitude
For me, this does not mean an aversion to working in groups. In fact, I would credit with most people in our industry as being highly collaborative and in many ways, community minded. What I mean here is that we have the self-reliance and the resourcefulness necessary to propel our businesses forward, to take that extra step, or come up with that little push that will deliver results. This is essential I think, and it comes along with our ability to be independent thinkers, to take what others say at face value, and to always question what we find, and what others find.
Entrepreneurial Nature
This seems like a universal, and is perhaps applicable to many who make their living on the internet. For SEO’s, though, there is certainly that desire to build something brewing under the surface. Like any entrepreneur, we desire networking, new knowledge, new techniques, anything that will help our business grow, anything that can help us help our clients. We learn all we can hungrily, understanding that knowledge truly is power in this business, the power to become an authority, to be trusted. Those in our business approach the goal of growth from different viewpoints. Some agree that sharing knowledge is the key, others hoard their secrets and hold their ideas closely. Some are white hat, some are black, and some somewhere in the middle, but we all share that entrepreneurial spirit.
We are all, of course, very different. So what do you think? What would you add to the list…or possibly take away. Or are we way off base to be attributing a list of qualities to a whole group to begin with?
Topics: SEO | No Comments »
Anatomy of a Super Digg.
By Admin on February 19, 2007
The article that got us the traffic.
I recently submitted what I believed to be a fairly interesting article to Reddit. I did not expect it to take off the way it did. It was in the health/science field, and the following is an account of what has happened since.
The Climb.
In the first 45 minutes I saw a steady climb in votes from reddit. The article remained at the top of the Science page in Reddit, and made it onto the front page of Reddit “Hot” within an hour. It continued climbing the Reddit Hot page (non-science category) until it had reached the number one position.
When the article was first posted to Reddit, it included a “Digg” buttion, and was submitted to Digg. The Digg button was located at the top of the page, and even through the climb of the article through the ranks of Reddit, there were only a few more diggs (around 8). After the article hit the front page of Reddit, however, I decided to place an additional Digg button at the bottom of the page, assuming people would decided to Digg the article only after they had read it through. At this point, the article started to receive massive amounts of Diggs. Within an hour of being on the front page of Reddit, the article went from 8 - 110 - 250 - 450 Diggs. The article rose through the ranks on Digg, and within 3 hours had made it to the front page, with over 800 Diggs. As the night progressed, it continued to rise on Digg, and became the Number Two story of the day, with over 2,000 Diggs. The story also entered the top ten on Digg, and by 11pm that night (8-9hrs after submission to reddit) it had reached the Number 1 position on Digg’s top ten. As it stands today, the article is the 191st most Dugg submission in the past 365 Days.
The Traffic.
The following are my traffic results from the “Super Digg.” Keep in mind that these results are unadulterated insofar as the site was receiving under 100 unique visitors per day before the submission to Digg and Reddit and are therefore not skewed.
First 4 Days:
Top Refferring Sources:
As you can see, being on the Top of Digg and Reddit gets you some serious traffic, but not just from those two sources. Not only did our page make it to del.icio.us popular, but it made it to the front of some very high traffic sites, such as Ebaumsworld.com and Gorillamask.net. As you can see, within five days, we received a total of almost 234,000 unique visitors. As it stands now, we are continuing to see traffic from sites such as ebaumsworld, although the main link is far from the front page. Additionally, we received significant traffic referrals from webmail clients such as gmail and yahoo mail, meaning our links were most likely being shared over email as well.
Alexa Rankings After The Digg:
Another astonishing fact was how our website moved up the rankings on Alexa. We went from being ranked around 1,200,000 to ranking at 120,000 in just 5 days. This means our boost was nearly enough to put us on the Movers and Shakers list, and put us well above the rankings of some very well established websites. We are particularly interested to see how this ranking drops again to previous levels. To the left is how Alexa saw everything.
How Adsense Treated Us:
After being Dugg, our Adsense account was finally approved 36hrs later, and some adsense ads went on the front page. (we assumed we’d make no money but were very interested in conversion rates as we’d heard confliction reports about the click through rates of Digg users. ) What we found was not too surprising, although there were a few unexpected things. First was that adsense actually accounted for more impressions than analytics. Our analytics showed 100,199 page views, but adsense told us that we’d had 102,029 ad impressions. Over the four days we used adsense, we made a total of 71.87 cents. Our average click through rate was a dismal 0.24%, although the ads on our site seemed to be fairly highly targeted.
*Funny Sidenote: there were relevent Amazon Ads on the site as well. They recieved 200,000 Impressions. We made $1.00.
The Aftermath.
Above all else, we are interested in how our “Super Digg” will result in links from other sites and blogs. Our particular scenario can help shed some light on a few questions.
links from other pages:
Before The Digg: 207 links
3 Days After Digg: 1,270 links
5 Days After Digg: 2,642 links
7 Days After Digg: 3,545 links
Technorati:
Before The Digg: 0 Links
After: 138 Links
Del.icio.us
Before the Digg: 0 Links
After the Digg: 532 Links
Changes in the search engine.
Google’s latest crawl (7 days after the Digg) resulted in a huge increase in our rankings for our keywords. We jumped up anywhere from 20-300 places, with most of our most important keywords ranking in the top ten (many in the top 5). Furthermore, Google has increased its rate of indexing, has increased the number of our pages that appear in the index, and have released over a dozen important pages from the supplemental results.
1.) The Page that was dugg was experimental, and was not linked to our main page in any way. There was no link from the dugg page to our main site and there was no link on our main site to this page. (this was partially due to the fact that we did not desire any digg traffic on our main site, as our site desires only highly targeted local traffic.) The only connection between our main site and the dugg page was that they reside on the same domain.
2.) The dugg page has absolutely none of they keywords we have attempted to rank for on our main site. It does not link to or discuss any topics or other pages that are related to the keywords or topics of our main site.
3.) The dugg page ranks very highly for a great number of the keywords it contains, but does not rank first for the words in its title.
This article was written for the purpose of input. I am very interested in anybody’s opinions, ideas, or predictions about these results. I will be updating this blog post with additional information as it becomes available so we can track the true long term effects of this type of event.
Topics: Traffic | 13 Comments »
9 Super Hero Powers Made Real
By Admin on February 18, 2007
1. Overclock Your Brain With Meditation (like Prof. X)
In a monastery in northern India, thinly clad Tibetan monks sat quietly in a room where the temperature was a chilly 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Using a yoga technique known as g Tum-mo, they entered a state of deep meditation. Other monks soaked 3-by-6-foot sheets in cold water (49 degrees) and placed them over the meditators’ shoulders. For untrained people, such frigid wrappings would produce uncontrolled shivering.If body temperatures continue to drop under these conditions, death can result. But it was not long before steam began rising from the sheets. As a result of body heat produced by the monks during meditation, the sheets dried in about an hour.Attendants removed the sheets, then covered the meditators with a second chilled, wet wrapping. Each monk was required to dry three sheets over a period of several hours. - Taken from The Harvard Gazette (Harvard Gazette Full Article)
2. Fly (Like Superman and numerous others)
One of the best known and most desired of all superhero powers, self-powered flight (without the aid of a plane) is a fantasy for many people. The man in this video has accomplished the feat of flight without a plane by using a specially constructed suit called “The Birdman Suit” in conjunction with mini jet engines strapped to his feet. Simply Incredible.
3. Learn Superhuman Climbing Ability (like Spiderman)
Although very few could ever master the sport of climbing as well as this man, he is an example of just how amazingly adept the human body can become at climbing if practiced enough. This is as close as it comes to a real life spiderman.
4. Gain Invisibility (like Harry Potter..haha)
Invisibility is one of those superpowers everyone has imagined having from time to time. The possibilities that come with this ability are endless. Admittedly technology still has a way to go when it comes to making true invisibility a reality, but this is still very very cool. For more information on how “the invisibility cloak” is made, check out this page from howstuffworks.com
5. Shoot Lightning Out of Your Hands (Like Darth Sideous)
The ability to shoot energy or lightning out of their hands is a superpower many characters have (think Darth Sidious in Star Wars). The man in this next video has managed to gain this ability by dangerously charging his body with electricity and allowing it to discharge through his fingers. Very Cool, but very stupid. Please never try this at home. You could very easily die or be severely electrocuted.
6. Leap Tall Buildings in a Single Bound (Like Superman)
Okay, so this one won’t allow you to jump over buildings, it does allow you to jump vehicles. These modified stilts called Powerisers use curved springs to allow you to jump over 6 feet in the air with little effort, run with 9ft strides, and sprint over 20mph. You can get them HERE
7. Fire Laser Beams From Your Eyes (Like Cyclops)
New advancements in handheld laser pointers have now made more powerful lasers available to the general public. Some of these laser pointers operate around 75mw (15 times as powerful as most laser pointers you have seen) and have the ability to pop balloons, burn through plastic, light matches and more. You can get them at WickedLasers.com
8. Enhance Your Body Artificially (Like Robocop/Terminator)
Although Bionic technologies are still in their infancy, many scientists believe it is only a matter of time before many of us have bodies augmented by some sort of electronic aid. The Following Two Videos feature a woman with a bionic arm and a woman with a bionic eye. In terms of super hero abilities, it is not much of a stretch to imagine bionic arms that give superhuman strength or speed and bionic eyes that give us the ability to see great distances or in different spectrums such as infrared.
9. Break Things with Your Voice (like Banshee of X-Men)
Probably one of the crappier super powers, I thought I would add this because it would at least be a pretty cool trick to do for your friends. Here are the mythbusters showing how to break glass first with an amplified voice and then with just a voice alone.
Topics: Funny | No Comments »