Lately the whole Twitter thing has gone spastic as social marketers and more mainstream users have discovered Twitter and scrambled to get on the bandwagon. Now there’s nothing wrong with using Twitter to build great relationships with new and existing friends and business associates, in my humble opinion. However, there are some who take issue with a certain type of Twitter user.
Most folks are pretty responsible with their Twitter usage, but for those who are following WAY more peeps than they have following them, they’re about to be in hot water—of a sort.
A new service called Twitter Blacklist is tracking rogue Twitter accounts using a, “ ‘Follow factor’ (how many they follow divided by how many follow them) . . . ” So if you have too many followees and not enough followers, be careful as you might end up on the list.
There’s also another similar service called Twerpscan that seems a little harsher and is specifically targeting “SEO experts and entrepreneurs” using a similar algorithm to the Twitter Blacklist. This goes a little farther as a service such that you actually log into this one and it offers you a block link.
So a word to the wise—check your ratios and avoid getting on the blacklist. It’s not really hard to avoid if you’re using Twitter as intended. These services are new and may not get much traction, but it’s a reminder that abusing any social system, be it the karaoke mic at your neighborhood bar, or your shiny new Twitter account won’t go unpunished. Opinions? Let’s have ‘em!
Here’s a curious and possibly useful new tool, if you use it with a grain of salt. Command Shift 3 has created a rating site that lets you peer into the mysterious depths of the collective web psyche. It’s a little like Google Zeitgeist for web site design, but more specific and less useful. Now you can see what the mob thinks of the current state of web site design and even submit your own site for rating.
Is it Useful? Maybe…
In general you can get a feel for what’s popular in site design today. Although this is, admittedly, only a little helpful since raters are encouraged to judge quickly with little to go on.
If you want to understand what people think makes a great looking website, this can definitely give you a certain type of insight. There is something to be said for the first 5 seconds a new visitor sees your site and attempts to place it into their master list of fantastic versus utter crud. In this case the aggregate attitude is interesting to see, but it’s really so very general that it has limited use in terms of learning about optimizing your site’s appearance.
How About Traffic and Backlinks?
I’m curious to see what kind of traffic might be generated by submitting your site and having it become popular. It might be an easy source of traffic. So far it’s nothing to click home about. I submitted my site on April 13 and have gotten a whopping 2 visits since then.
Admittedly, my site is not a design powerhouse. In fact, it leaves a lot to be desired so this is not the best test. For sites that have some truly astonishing design, the results may vary considerably. Here are my stats so far:
Additionally, you will NOT get any backlink joy from this site as all the outgoing links are set to nofollow.
Bottom Line
It’s a fun idea that may end up generating a little buzz for those sites that make it into the top popularity listings, but otherwise it’s mostly a time sink after about the first 10 minutes.
At the very least, it’s a great way to see some cool and terrible designs that are out there, especially if you’re a designer needing a little inspiration.
A couple weeks ago I seriously riled some folks up. It was fun, but now I want to show you why I did it and how perfectly my fiendish blog-traffic-linking plan has unfolded so far. If you haven’t yet, definitely read my recent post about misusing five words. If you’ve already been there, you know there was a little controversy stirred up, but otherwise, a lot of fun talking about the idea. If you hadn’t guessed yet, that post was not really about screwing up the English language at all. In fact, it was an experiment in linkbait. What is linkbait? Oh my, where have you been? Please allow me to refer you to the number one Google result for the term linkbait by Matt Cutts (at least it’s number one as I write this).
It Sounds a Little Dirty
The word linkbait sounds like it could be a bad thing, or at least, it could have a few negative connotations. In fact, it’s not bad at all if you do it right. Linkbait is essentially nothing more than writing a great headline that attracts a reader to click your link and commit to reading your article. And if the article is good enough, they cannot resist bookmarking it, or linking to it on either social media sites, their own blog, or their website.
When newspaper, or magazine editors select a headline, they’re creating the equivalent of linkbait. They make the headline as compelling as possible and attach it to a phenomenal article. And the best articles are passed around by friends who may eventually subscribe to the publication, if they like the article enough. This is offline linkbait. More like, readbait, or make-you-not-able-to-put-the-magazine-down-and-also-insist-your-friends-read-it bait. You get the picture. If you want your blog, or web site (or printed ad, for that matter) to attract and keep readers, you must learn how to write headlines and posts (articles) that are so compelling that a majority of casual observers click through and commit to spending a little time with you and then even bookmark you for reference and sharing. A curious thing about this:
The headline is useless if you write a terrible article and the article is useless if you write a terrible headline.
Doing it Wrong Can Hurt You
If you’re just writing a snappy headline and it has a crappy article behind it, you probably just lost yourself a whole mess of readers. You made a great promise with the headline, but failed to deliver with the article. There’s good linkbait and bad linkbait and if your article is weak, or an obvious attempt to linkbait-and-switch, you will get what you deserve: a bad reputation and no catch-of-the-day, AKA link love. I’ve already written a post about how to write great headlines and there are some good references there to get you started. That post, by the way, had a terrible headline and is a perfect example of how to fail epically at writing a linkbait headline. I got almost zero readers for that post, although it did have some good info in it. Word to the wise—seriously consider your headlines.
So, Does Linkbait Work?
I’ve been practicing and diligently doing the training in the Social Power Linking program and my last, best attempt at a linkbait piece succeeded better than I could have expected in my wildest dreams. I spent probably five hours on that post, whittling away every non-esssential word and making sure it flowed smoothly, etc. I also spent a good 30 minutes on the title alone, to which I grant the most credit for having made that post so popular. My post on five misused words got more traffic than any other post I’ve ever made.
In fact, during the two days following my linkbait post, this blog received over 1800 pageviews and is now up to approximately 4870 pageviews at the time of this post. Unique visitors climbed to over 900 during those two days and have continued to flow in ever since. I got more unique visitors and overall traffic from that one post than all my other posts combined to date.
A Few Resources
If you want to learn more about the fine art of linkbaiting, the following resources will really cover almost everything. I owe a lot to SPL, but I also spent a lot of time reading the posts linked below and I want to thank the authors for taking the time to put that information together. I’d also love to hear about your own experiments in linkbaiting as well as any advice that the resources below may have left out. Andy Hagans’ Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and SMMThe Link Baiting Playbook: Hooks Revisited
And if you don’t feel like reading right now, check out Aaron Wall’s video on linkbaiting, How to: Create Linkbait Every Day:
And finally, here are just a few more linkbait resources you might find useful:
This is only the beginning. It’s going to get much, much bigger.
Social marketing is all the rage right now and if the signs are to be believed, this is a mere taste of the future. Part of social marketing involves joining various online communities in your niche and adding value to those communities.
Social marketing is most definitely not about joining as many groups as you can, regardless of their relevance to your niche, and spamming the living daylights out of everyone with “ME! ME! ME!” kinds of advertising and requests. This will get you banned, and rightfully so.
Are you making these mistakes? Proper word usage will make your writing efforts powerful and effective and build credibility with your audience.
Day-before-yesterday I read a great post over at skelliewag.org that stirred up an excellent discussion about whether or not it’s important to write well online. I’m not a great writer myself and, in fact, I started this blog in part to get a little more practice.
But this got me thinking about writing in general, word usage and credibility. So I put on my tall, pointy hat and decided to post my opinion about five words that really annoy me when misused. Here they are in no particular order.
So, grasshopper, you seek the holy grail of site popularity? Indeed, you are not alone. And you must prove your worth. You must wait, on your knees, in the rain, for many years. Maybe then we will teach you what you wish to know. If you beg. And fetch us some green tea from time to time . . .
Or you can grab the free, 2008 version of the Authority Black Book that was just released a few days ago. I’m sure there are a few folks who will insist on the former option, but hey, whatever flings your shuriken. (*I know, I’m mixing styles and cultures all over the place, but you know you love it!)
I’ve been talking to some friends who own small businesses recently and they all wonder what this whole blogging thing is all about. And when I start to explain, I inevitably start describing all the benefits of blogging and end up likening it to an electronic, dynamic, interactive business card. Of course, it’s much more than that, but it’s a great starting point for a fun conversation about blogging and marketing.
As it turns out, even though those of us who blog take it mostly for granted, the vast majority of people have still never heard of blogging (don’t gasp so loudly, you’ll hurt yourself!) or still consider it as novel as email once was just a few short years ago. Because of this, it’s not unusual for me to start at the very beginning when explaining.
One of the main things we want to do as bloggers and publishers of information is to create a network of links leading back to our sites. The Web 2.0 social thing has certainly created an initially interesting opportunity to do that, but that was a secondary benefit to the social sites’ primary intent.
Now there are new sites popping up all the time that are far more sophisticated versions of the original ideas. Some of these sites incorporate even better incentives to participate by rewarding great content and excellent ideas with backlinks and traffic to your site (blog).
I just discovered one of these yesterday and wanted to let you know about it.
Photo by belgianchocolate
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Are you making these mistakes? Proper word usage will make your writing efforts powerful and effective and build credibility with your audience.
So, grasshopper, you seek the holy grail of site popularity? Indeed, you are not alone. And you must prove your worth. You must wait, on your knees, in the rain, for many years. Maybe then we will teach you what you wish to know. If you beg. And fetch us some green tea from time to time . . .
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