The Web is a Social Medium

By: Aaron M. Wall

Mechanical SEO is Dead

• Google has filters for … – Duplicate content– Excessive reciprocal links– Excessive low quality links– Anchor text abuse

• Google does not want to filter…– Great information and conversation– Real brands recommended by real people

• Easier to succeed giving Google what it wants– Sustainable SEO revolves around spreading ideas

The Tipping Point• Buy Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point today• Mavens

– Share because they love to learn and share.– Know their industry better than anyone.

• Connectors– Good at promoting others. – Much like public relations. – Lee Odden is always helping someone out.

• Salesmen– Turn ideas into profit. – Really get people to believe in something.– Customers, brand evangelists, affiliates, etc.

Cumulative Advantage

• Just being popular makes you more popular– More subscribers see your story faster– More subscribers link to your stories quickly– High authority & more links = quicker indexing and

higher rankings– More comments on your blog– Social proof of value also makes others more likely

to trust you • Read more on cumulative advantage

Publishing Models• Some people only talk about themselves

– Eventually they lose market momentum from participatory narcissism.• Popular sites with sustainable growth are platforms

– Highlight other people & brands– Offline Paris Hilton is a good example of this

• Gawker does not pay much per pageview– Author needs many pageviews.– Creates rapid fire posts.– Need to be first with the news (or have a contrarian view) to make

that model work sustainably.– If you know what they like, it is easier to get referenced than you

think.

Example of Knowing Link Target

• I sent a 10 second email to ValleyWag about Mahalo publishing a spammy page– They posted it right away, even though they

screwed up my name!

– They didn’t know me, but I knew what topics they liked

50,000+ SEOs?

• But probably less than 1,000 read the Google documents that were leaked– All SEOs who read it have an advantage over those

who did not.– Those who took the time to read it could relate it

to the broader market.

Predicting Trends From Past Markets

• Del.icio.us popular list• Digg homepage• Blogger’s old content– Subscribe to blogs and learn their biases– A few years back I read so many SEO blogs I could

virtually predict who would link at something, and write specifically for their link

Bias

• We are more receptive of reinforcing communications• People who subscribe to your site often share your biases (at

least on some level)• We are all really interested in ourselves

– Advertise on sites you want to be related with– Hire people who you want to be related with– Interview and promote each other (connectors)– Ask for help from those you helped when you do a big

launch

Best Photographers EVER!!!

• Awards work!!!• But this guy screwed it up

Political Blogs

http://research.microsoft.com/projects/blews/blews.aspx

http://www.blogpulse.com/papers/2005/AdamicGlanceBlogWWW.pdf

What Happened to the Dollar?

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