TLA now available for Blogger Blogs!

We are excited to announce that Text Link Ads publishing program now is
compatible with Blogger! If you have not yet upgraded to the newest
version of Blogger, you will need to do so in order to use our publishing
program.

Thanks for your patience with us while we got our ad
program ready for Blogger. If you have a Blogger blog, create a TLA publisher account here today.  Next up for us will be getting TLA compatible with TypePad, any ideas?  We look forward to servicing you and making you some
money! 

*Hat tip to Belaji for bringing the Blogger implementation idea our way.

Job Opening At TLA NYC!!!

Readers,
please take a look at this new Sales position opportunity with TLA and consider
applying yourself or please pass it on to someone you think might be a great
fit.  The job is located downtown NYC (see map) at our brand new parent
company MediaWhiz.  The candidate would be working with a fun team in a
fast paced internet marketing environment in the greatest city on the
planet!  Itâs a no brainer!  Here is a little more about the jobâ



TLA
Sales Agent â NYC Office



Responsibilities
include sales and business development of TLAâs services to companies of all
sizes as well as interactive media agencies. This person is responsible for the
sales and the development of new business partnerships for these services.
Individual would be handling incoming sales leads as well as prospecting
new sales opportunities.



Sales
experience within the Search Engine Marketing industry a plus.  This is a
salary + commission opportunity.  Start date February 1, 2007.  Please send resume to: resumes (at)
text-link-ads.com

MonetizeIt Joins MediaWhiz

MediaWhiz today announced it has acquired Atlanta-based Online Media Promotions, LLC, which is known in the industry as Monetizeit. This acquisition expands MediaWhiz’s online marketing services platform to give it deep expertise in a number of lead generation vertical markets, including insurance and financial services. Lake Capital, a private equity firm that invests in growing services companies, first invested in MediaWhiz in August 2005 and provided additional capital to fund this transaction.

Founded in 2003 by Steve Wadley, Roger Dowd and Joe Hegedus, Monetizeit is a leader in the online lead generation space. The Company is recognized as a “one-stop shop” for internet advertising, handling all aspects of the process, including idea generation, product and offer testing, creative design, marketing and implementation of an effective long-term customer acquisition strategy for its clients. Monetizeit will continue to operate under its current name, with continued leadership from its existing management team.

“We are thrilled to have the management team, employees and clients of Monetizeit join the MediaWhiz platform. We have been using our online media distribution channels to drive traffic to Monetizeit’s offers for a number of years and this integrated partnership will significantly strengthen our ability to provide their clients with large volumes of high quality leads,” said MediaWhiz co-president Yannick Tessier.

“Adding Monetizeit’s strong lead generation capabilities is a perfect fit for our strategic growth plan. Not only will the acquisition bring further size and scale to our lead generation division, but it also allows us the opportunity to pursue cross-selling opportunities into new vertical channels,” noted Jason Cohen, co-president of MediaWhiz.

“We are excited to join MediaWhiz and gain access to new client relationships, infrastructure and additional distribution channels to support our clients’ marketing goals. With the support of the MediaWhiz team, we are confident that we can continue to rapidly grow our core business, while creating a platform for expansion into additional vertical markets,” said Steve Wadley, president of Monetizeit.

Would You Trust Your Dog With Mutt Cutts?

I was flying this week and enjoying Dumb and Dumber and couldn't help but to think back on Matt McGee's 21 Signs You Need a Break from SEO when I did a triple take on Harry Dunne's van promoting "Mutt Cutts".  Somebody help! :)

Graywolf now offering SMO / link baiting services

There aren't too many really, really good link builders out there -- and of those who are, most are overbooked with clients, or spend most of their time on their own sites.

The best way to retain the likes of Caveman, Aaron or Todd is to get in early, before they've been overwhelmed with thousands of service enquiries.

Which is why you should run, not walk, over to Graywolf's consulting page. (Maybe this has been around a while, but I only found it just now.) Besides SEO phone consulting and site reviews, he's offering a link baiting service which covers several areas of SMO, and is geared towards a strategy encompassing multiple baiting efforts over a period of time.

If you're having a hard time beating the 'box, or if you're losing the SERPs battle to uber-trusted authority sites, I suggest you whip out the checkbook and send Graywolf a retainer, before a dozen other people do :-)

You Requested, We Listened. New TLA Features Now Live!

Readers, we are constantly improving the TLA system and we are excited to announce MANY new features to make it easier and more efficient to use TLA.  Please let me know what you think of the new features and of any new ideas you would like to see implemented.  Thanks! Patrick



RSS/Email Inventory Alert System. You now have the ability to sign up to receive alerts of new inventory added to TLA directly into your rss reader or your email inbox.  You can set up to receive inventory alerts based on your top keywords or top categories of interest.  The "Inventory Watchlist" can be accessed by logging in to this page.










Advanced Sorting.  On all category pages you can also sort by: Highest Link Popularity, Highest
Price, Lowest Price, Lowest # of Pages, Highest # of pages, and Zero Ads Sold. This is a great way to find the inventory you are looking for by many new criteria.










Previously Purchased Inventory Marking.  When you log in to your account and browse the marketplace, all inventory that you have already purchased is marked in red so you know not to purchase duplicates that are already live in your account.

ReviewMe Is Hotter Than Laguna Beach!

Check out the top searches and tags right now on Technorati, ReviewMe is red hot, thanks everyone!

Meet ReviewMe Roy in Las Vegas

In the last post, I forgot to add one other frequently asked question (here are some variations we've been asked):

Who is ReviewMe Roy?
Is ReviewMe Roy a joke, or is he a real person?
Is ReviewMe Roy single?
Can I have ReviewMe Roy's email address?
Can I meet/interview/hug ReviewMe Roy?

The answers, respectively:

He's our CEO.
I'm not going to dignify that with an answer, of course he's real.
Yes.
roy@reviewme.com.
You can do all three in Las Vegas next week, at the WMW Pubcon conference. Stop by the ReviewMe booth!

WBP Schools With Tools

I'm not really much of a "tool guy" -- I still use Notepad and FireFox for "just about everything" -- but WeBuildPages continues to bring the good stuff.

Check out the Top 10 Analysis Tool. Great for quick hit competitive analysis.

Jim, do you even have time to do SEO anymore, in between making all these wicked tools?

Elite Retreat Has a Few Spots Open...

I talked to ShoeMoney yesterday, apparently there are a few spots still open in the Elite Retreat but they are going fast. If there is one piece of advice I always give to new SEOs--especially if they work in competitive areas--it's that networking, and getting connected to the right people, can make or break you, your site, and your rankings. The ~$5k price is cheap to get quality time with the likes of Aaron Wall, Shoe, Lee Dodd, etc. Wish I could go! I still have a lot to learn.

Reserve your spot at the Elite Retreat

Text Link Ads Joins MediaWhiz

MediaWhiz has acquired Cincinnati-based Text Link Ads (TLA) to expand MediaWhiz’s online marketing services platform to include text link advertisements. Lake Capital, a private equity firm that invests in growing services companies, first invested in MediaWhiz in August 2005 and provided additional capital to fund this transaction.

Founded in 2003 by Patrick Gavin, president, and Bill Fish, chief financial officer, TLA is the leader in the text link advertisement and related services space, providing an automated, comprehensive marketplace for advertisers and publishers. TLA is recognized for having the broadest and fastest growing network of advertisers and publishers, a user-friendly platform, and a high degree of flexibility in ad type and placement. TLA will continue to operate under the Text Link Ads name, with continued leadership from its existing management team.

“We are thrilled to be working with Patrick and his team to bring this new service offering to our thousands of publisher and advertiser relationships, while also being able to cross-sell MediaWhiz’s existing services to TLA’s growing client base,” said Jason Cohen, co-president of MediaWhiz.

“Adding TLA’s recognized expertise in text link advertising is a perfect fit with our strategy of creating one of the broadest platforms of online marketing solutions to meet the diverse needs of our advertisers,” noted MediaWhiz co-president Yannick Tessier.

“This is an exciting time for our team and our clients. We have found a great partner that will be able to help our publishers and advertisers profitably drive more traffic to their web sites. We are looking forward to delivering more great products and even better service in the months ahead as a result of this partnership,” said Patrick Gavin, president of Text Link Ads.

RBC Capital Markets served as the exclusive financial advisor to Text Link Ads on the transaction. No transaction terms have been disclosed.

WhiteDelivery List Management Launches

MediaWhiz announced the launch of WhiteDelivery List Management (whitedelivery.com), which will offer transactional message delivery as an added service to its current and new e-mail list management clients.

Transactional messages include information that many companies rely on for day-to-day communications with clients. Message types include auto responders, newsletters, order confirmations, account updates, shipping confirmations, and privacy policy changes.

WhiteDelivery List Management, formerly known as GRS List Management, has been rebranded as part of the expansion of the division’s services. Interactive marketing firm Global Resource Systems (GRS) merged with MediaWhiz in April 2006 to form one of the largest providers of online performance marketing services; as part of the merger, GRS List Management was renamed WhiteDelivery.

“We are excited to offer transactional message delivery as a new service to our list management clients, in conjunction with the industry leading services for which we at WhiteDelivery are known,” states Yannick Tessier, Co-President of MediaWhiz and Founder of GRS.

“The business solutions offered by WhiteDelivery List Management are a key part of the integrated suite of programs MediaWhiz makes available to its customers, which also includes affiliate marketing, lead generation and search marketing,” states Jason Cohen, Founder and Co-President of MediaWhiz.

ReviewMe.com to give away $25,000!

Andy just announced Reviewme.com will be launching next week, November 9th, and the launch will kick off with a $25,000 giveaway!  For those of you attending the Vegas PubCon, Reviewme Roy will be making his first public appearance there :)  Details at the Reviewme Blog.


 

TLA Link Baiting Service Now Available!

We couldn't help but to throw our hat into the new linkbaiting service industry.  We have had our share of linkbait successes here at TLA including:

The Link CalculatorBlog Juice CalculatorAndy's Guide To Beating The Sandbox

Linkbaiting can be a very effective way to supplement your comprehensive link building campaign.  This is a high end service designed to get results.  Check it out and let us know what you think!

Always Get New Links

Link baiting, social media, article syndication... with all the hype on the many types of linking strategies, sometimes we miss linking opportunities "from real life". Always get new links is a reminder that you can get links from people with whom you already have real world relationships: suppliers, partners, distributors, other marketing channels... check it out.

TLA Steals New Hire From SEOMOZ!

We are happy to announce TLA's newest hire: R. Marie Cox.  She will be doing web development/design work here at TLA.  No we didn't really steal her from SEOMOZ but the cool part about Marie's background is her own personal project, Side Job Track, won third place in the "Business, Money, Ecommerce" section on SEOMOZ's Web 2.0 Awards. 

Marie will be working on some cool link bait projects as well that are destined to push Rand off the first page of Digg and Del.icio.us once and for all.  ;)

Welcome aboard Marie!

Center for Media Research: Product Placement Blazin’ Hot

While ReviewMe isn't exactly 'product placement', the theory behind the service is similar: get a relevant product into the content without annoying the readers (or viewers). I'm not surprised at all to hear that product placement growth is outpacing that of 'traditional' advertising; as users become more savvy (and ad-blind), smart marketers are evolving their strategies. From the report:
PQ Media forecasts that global paid product placement spending will grow at a compound annual rate of 27.9% in the 2005-2010 period to $7.55 billion, as product placement growth continues to significantly outpace that of traditional advertising and marketing. The overall value of the worldwide product placement market, says the report, including the barter/exposure value of non-paid placements, will increase 18.4% compounded annually to $13.96 billion in 2010.
Those are some pretty big numbers they're throwing around! :-)

Saturday Foo & Ninjitsu

In case you missed it, Jim Boykin wrote a great post this week, Why that site with 50 backlinks beats your site with 1000 backlinks. I think we all ocassionally tend to overcomplexify SEO and link building, focusing on numbers or other mostly meaningless data, when instead we should be focusing on macro-trends (in this case, the trend is quality over quantity).

I would also like to use this post as a time to start a little petition for one of Jim's former projects that he canceled:



That is all, please resume your weekend relaxation.

Guy Kawasaki: Online Reviews Important to Small Biz’s

Yes, yes, yes -- online reviews are very important. Heck, Web 2.0 sites seem to live or die by their TechCrunch review. The same phenomenon is observable many other industries on the Web.

Lest you doubt the importance of online feedback, Guy Kawasaki has written a post encouraging companies to embrace online reviews:


Use reviews to improve your operations. Some negative reviews are off the mark, but most provide at least a kernel of truth about problems in your business. Take steps to fix these problems.
Encourage your customers to post reviews. Mention these review sites to your regular customers, and tell them how much you would appreciate them posting an honest review about you.
Use positive reviews in your marketing. Just like a Zagat’s write-up or a newspaper profile, a good online review can be posted in your shop window or on your Web site.


Hmm, I wish there was a company that specialized in these points... oh well... ;-)

Order Matters, Says the Sandbox (Or, Where to start in a link building campaign)

My recently published article, 101 Ways to Build links, shows that you have many, many link building tactics at your disposal. For any given website, you probably need to use at least a few dozen link building different tactics over the course of a year or more to rank for anything remotely competitive.

One thing I didn't mention in the article, though, was that for a brand new site you need to build certain types of links first. Why? Thank TrustRank/the sandbox. To even get fully indexed (now that we have sandbox crawling), let alone ranked, you'll need to get the domain some trust right off the bat, and this is only going to happen by building certain types of links in a certain way.

OK, so what is "certain types of links in a certain way"? Basically, we need trusted links to happen first, and then a "natural growth curve". Want specifics?

When I launch a new site, I go after two types of links right away:

My short-short-very-short list of trusted paid directories (Business.com, Dir.yahoo.com, sbd.bcentral.com)

Link begging/buying/bartering at sites which already rank in the top 1-200 (if they're ranking, they have some trust)

The latter is time-consuming and frustrating -- but it has to be done, and sooner is better than later.  From Stuntdubl's recent post:Other Notes: Authority links are an absolute must for
improving your trust score these days. This is a MUST for a new site,
and should be where you start your efforts, and always be dedicating
SOME time. Suck it up, and take the time it takes to get some quality,
trusted links. The existence of trusted authority links will make or
break your site. Find the 800 lb. gorillas in your field, and **find a
way to get on a dozen or so of them. Failing that, hunt their backlinks, and find a way to get on some of those pages.  Use some creative queries with the combination tool.  Give the tattler a shot.

Anyway, once I have a few authority links (even getting 3 is quite an accomplishment), I wait a week or two, make sure the site gets indexed deeply, and then move into other types of link building tactics -- article syndication, social networking gaming, quality reciprocals, etc. Even if a few (or more than a few) low quality links make it into the link profile, it's not going to kill anything, since I gave the site a spine first.

Buying Links at TLA... The Movie!

Readers, Rich over at MindSmack just completed a real cool video that gives an overview on the link buying process at TLA.  Their team did a great job on the flash video, if you ever need any help in that department, Rich can be reached at: rich (at) mindsmack.com  Head over to this page to check the video out now!

101 Ways To Keep Aaron Wall & Andy Hagans busy!

Readers, I was wondering what Andy has been up to...

Looks like he teamed up with Aaron Wall and they have been doing some killer research to come up with this list:

101 Ways To Build Link Popularity in 2006

Well done and well worth a read.

TLA Account Management Improvements

TLA users, we have made some big design/usability tweaks to your "my account" area today.  As always, Chris did a killer job.  I think you will find it a lot easier to navigate around and manage your account with ease.  As always, if there is anything else we can improve to make your life easier, let me know. Thanks!

Is a .edu or .gov link just another link?

A very common request I will hear is, "do you guys have access to any .edu or .gov links?".  The answer is "no" and I have felt for some time that many link builders put too much emphasis on the search for these links.  For many link builders, .edu and .gov links are the "dmoz" links of a couple of years ago.  Meaning, I think the height of the DMOZ craze was about two years ago when many website owners thought getting listed in DMOZ was the magic pill to shoot to the top of the search results.

Now I am not saying that DMOZ, .edu, or .gov links are not links worth having but I do think their is some evidence that they are not the silver bullet to the top.  You need many quality, or as Mr. Hagans would say "trusted links", and spending weeks on end trying to get the one .edu or .gov link is in my opinion not any more valuable then securing a few other non .edu or .gov quality links.  Is there now some evidence of this?  Maybe...(below quote taken from Blogoscoped who transcripted off Matt Cutt's new seo video)Somebody else asked about links
from .govâs and .euâs, and whether links from two level deep .govâs and
.euâs (like gov.pl), are worth the same as .gov. And the fact is, we
donât really have much in the way to say, this is a link from the ODP,
or from .gov, or .eu, to give that some sort of special boost. Itâs
just those sites tend to have higher PageRank, because more people link
to them (and reputable people link to them).So this statement seems to say that Dmoz, .edu. and .gov links are not given special treatment from Google it is just that these links generally have higher PR and are just another trusted link.  I say build quality links like crazy and not worry about these three alleged special links.  What have you readers seen in regards to this?  Are Dmoz, .gov, and .edu all glitter and no gold?

When Your Domain is TR0

Bigdaddy was a turning point for hardcore Google organic SEO. Why? Graywolf said it best:What I am here to say is I think we are hitting the leading edge of a
new force to be addressed with, which for lack of a better term Iâm
calling âsandbox crawlingâ. Hereâs the way I see it, if your website is
missing the right âquality indicatorsâ what youâll start to see is
superficial crawling and indexing of your website. Your site which may
have had hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of pages
will just not be as well represented in Googleâs index as you would
like it to be.Great, now we have to worry about 'just getting indexed' again? What is this, 1999?


Matt Cutts of course had already basically confirmed what Graywolf said:Some folks that were doing a lot of reciprocal links might see less
crawling. If your site has very few links where youâd be on the fringe
of the crawl, then itâs relatively normal that changes in the crawl may
change how much of your site we crawl. And if youâve got an affiliate
site, it makes sense to think about the amount of value-add that your
site provides; you want to provide a reason why users would prefer your
site.Of course it always comes back to links, and link = trust. (And now for you affiliates, you have to make sure you have a 'value add' in Google's eyes, or the Eval team might nail you.)

But back to indexing. Domains with very low trust will have trouble getting fully indexed (they may go home-page only, or have, say 10% of their pages in). Now, for a domain that gets fully indexed, we won't know how much trust it has--it could be "very trusted", or "mostly trusted", or just "somewhat trusted"--but we will know it at last has more than "very low trust".

Which in my opinion is very useful. Aside from whether a site ranks or not, this is the only indication Google is going to give us on any given domain's TrustRank. PageRank they leave wide open, but obviously TrustRank is now the trump card to rank. Try checking that in the toolbar.

So here's how observing the sandbox crawling helped me. I recently launched a site -- database-driven, affilitiate, and yes value-added with all unique content thank you for asking -- on a 2003ish PR5 domain. I expected, of course, to leverage all of its trust to gain instant rankings, wealth, romance, and fame ;-)

So we went live with the site, and one week later -- still homepage only. (When we acquired the site/domain, it was just a one-pager, so this didn't represent a decrease in pages indexed.) Two weeks later -- homepage only. (By this time we probably had 200 pages or so live.) Three, four weeks later -- still homepage only.

Mama didn't raise no fool, I don't know why or how, but I know this domain has the proverbial "TR0". Rather than whine and complain about it (well, actually, I probably did that for a bit), we grabbed a new domain -- something brandable -- and switched the site over.

Now a new domain probably isn't any better than the other one we had, and I wanted the launch to go right, dang it. So I grabbed it every trusted link that I could (quickly) -- Dir.yahoo.com, Sbd.bcentral.com, Business.com, a hosted adverpage on an older domain, and an in-content link from an old, ranking (trusted) related site that a friend owns (Thanks mate!)... Two days later, bam! 28 pages in, four days later, 160 pages in.

What's today's lesson? Maybe two things. (1) If you need to determine how much trust G gives a particular domain, watch how quickly Google does (or doesn't) index a lot of new pages on that domain. (2) When you launch, launch with some nice trusted links, it'll get you indexed and "somewhat trusted" status, and will start your domain's "linkage history file" off on a good note.

Tips For Increasing Search Engine Traffic

Readers, I could try to paraphrase it all here but it's better to read all of what Nick has to say right here.  Great read.

Garner More Links & Viral Traffic w/ Killer Post Titles

If Brian Clark's CopyBlogger is not on your RSS reader yet, it should be.  Brian's recent article gives you tips on how to affectively write a "how to" post that could garner you mega links and traffic.  By focusing on the benefits to your readers (weak attempt by me in this post title) you can do just that.  Check out his article for the details.

Get Your Daily Barry Fix

I think we have enough "news roundup" SEO blogs around. At least, if you ever take a look at Patrick's Bloglines, I'm not sure how he's able to ever stop reading! (I think he must 'skim' a lot).

Anyway, in my opinion the more enjoyable SEO blogs are those with a bit of personality & gossip. Well you can add a new "fun one" to your Bloglines, Cartoon Barry tracks the hijinks of none other than Mr. Barry Schwarz. The new blog links to his writings from Roundtable and SEWBlog, and also touches on issues such as his adventures in mazelink Ikea, a typical day and plans on posting baby pictures (well, to my knowledge, there's no baby yet).

** update: Barry confirms there's no baby on the way

90% of Japanese bloggers will like ReviewMe

Found on Multilingual Search:
A blog service provider, Hot Link announced the results of blog/SNS usage survey in Japan...
66.0% answered that they would write product/service reviews for rewards (products and/or money) if they receive no pressure to write good reviews from the company. 28.2% answered that they would write the reviews even if they are pressure to write only the good reviews.
Maybe we're in the wrong geographic market. ReviewMe.co.jp anyone? ;-)

Who Will Be At SES San Jose?

Will any LBB readers be down at SES San Jose August 7-10?  Text Link Ads will have a booth, also Andy and I will both be speaking at the show.  Let us know who is going down to the show and hoping we can catch up in person.

Link Buying Starter Kit & New Look

Just released on TLA, our new "Link Buying Starter Kit".  If you are new to buying links it is worth a look.  Update: while you are here look around and notice the new LBB look from Chris.  Really cool.  Thanks again!

“Bloggers don’t want to make money”… umm… yeah…

Jim Krukal has written many posts at Revenews which are controversial. I enjoy reading all of them, but disagree with some. A recent post Blogging Isn't Ready for Paid Posting contains a lot of things which I just don't think are the case. He writes:
There's a difference here. A big one. And that's that blogs are in essence NOT a broadcast medium built for viewership as tv, radio and others are. Those mediums are run specifically to make money, blogs are not, ok, the vast majority of them are not.
Well, in some ways this is true -- many bloggers don't want to make money. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that 60% of bloggers don't want to make money, 20% of them 'wouldn't mind' doing it, and only 20% of them are 'somewhat or very focused on making money'. That's still, what, about a hundred million bloggers who would like to make money on their blogs? Seems like a pretty big slice of the pie to me.

Meanwhile -- why is everyone so intent on making generalizations, such as bloggers like or dislike such and such, or the blogosphere is or isn't ready for this or that... the World Wide Web is still, thankfully, the Wild Wild West... many types of people will publish many types of content with many different motives and methods... and that's a GOOD THING. Many business models and ad networks will fail... and many will succeed... and every blogger will like or dislike certain models and networks for certain reasons... the point is that there can and will be a PLURALITY.

Where am I going with this? ReviewMe. It won't be for all bloggers. It may not even be for most bloggers. But I am very confident that SOME bloggers will love it. That's called our niche. And we plan to cater to it.

The Most Dangerous Link Building Myth

(in Google)"Incoming links can't hurt you... the most they can do is 'not count' ."

In my opinion this used to be true.

In 2006, it's absolutely, certifiably, completely FALSE.

Your neighborhood better maintain a certain level of trust -- both trust IN and trust OUT -- or you can kiss your rankings goodbye.

To put it another way...

You have six trusted links to your site, it's ranking on page 2.

Then, add 10,000 untrusted links to your site. These should theoretically just "not count", and you should still rank on page 2... right?

Then why do such sites go byebye? (I've seen it time and time again in the last 6 months.)

5 questions with ReviewMe Roy

Who are you?

I'm ReviewMe Roy.

What are you?

I'm the official mascot for ReviewMe.com.

What is your inspiration?

I wake up every day and the first thought in my head is, "how can I provide both valuable feedback and buzz to advertisers in the blogosphere, simultaneously allowing bloggers to increase their revenue while mainting their editorial integrity and true voice?"

That's what drives me, and that's what we're trying to do here at ReviewMe.

What's your favorite part of the job?

I enjoy traveling to exotic locations. I do this as part of my duties to increase ReviewMe's brand awareness. What happens is, for instance, I go to Tahiti and walk around on a beach and people go WOW! look at that guy who looks like a giant 'Me' with legs and arms, he's so cool, let's go to ReviewMe.com and check it out!

Any favorite blogs?

I really like reading Chartreuse.

Welcome to the ReviewMe Blog

Welcome to the ReviewMe Blog! Along with Roy and other members of the ReviewMe team, I'll be posting on official ReviewMe announcements and support issues, as well as ideas and tips for reviewers (bloggers) and advertisers. I'll also be asking for a lot of feedback here, as ReviewMe is a work in progress and conversation with our users is going to be key to make our system as good as it can be.

Anyway, Roy is calling me to his office, so the rest of this post will have to wait a bit. Cheerio and don't forget to bookmark the the ReviewMe Blog!

About Andy Hagans, Roy & ReviewMe

About Andy Hagans: He lives and breathes online marketing. ReviewMe is his Mona Lisa.

About ReviewMe Roy: He's the ReviewMe Mascot. Read more about him here.

About ReviewMe: Aims to provide both valuable feedback and buzz to advertisers in the blogosphere, simultaneously allowing bloggers to increase their revenue while mainting their editorial integrity and true voice.

*Minus the buzzwords: Advertisers, you pay to get your stuff reviewed by bloggers. Bloggers, you get paid to review their stuff. And it's not payola.

Serendipity Script & Drupal Module Added!

TLA Publishers, we are excited to have added a script exclusively for Serendipity Weblog System users and also a Drupal module for our publisher script!  Special thanks to Garvin Hicking for his work on the Serendipity script and special thanks to Robert Douglass for his work on the Drupal module.

We still are working on pushing Ruby on Rails and also .NET scripts out for TLA publishers.  Are there any other specific scripts that you would like to see?  Thanks again!

Link Softly but Carry a Big... umm... Just Link Softly Sometimes

You know me by now. I'm a link lover, link builder, link swapper, link whore, link monger, link monkey, link-link-link-link-link-link-link-link link-link-link-link-link-link-link I LOVE LINKS.

But there are two situations where I like slowing the linking waterfall down to a small trickle.

The new site launch - I grab it a Yahoo! directory & bcentral listing plus 1-2 Premium TLA links, then let it bake for a bit... under no circumstances should you push it in Google with tons of low(ish) quality links, as when a new site goes beyond 'the threshold' it appears it's pretty unlikely it'll ever come back (this year, at least)

The old domain aquisition - You know the scenario "I just scored the ol' 2000 pr4 domain (transfered not expired) and bwahahaha boy is it gonna rank" - but in the first 3 months I only go Yahoo & bcentral listing plus 1-2 Premium TLA links, then let it bake for a bit... (why risk the trust you just bought?)

MSN still loves the sledgehammer approach but sometimes in Google you have to think more like a surgeon.

First Step: I am an Alexaholic

Ok Alexa data is not the most accurate traffic measuring tool in the world but it is very good at showing traffic trends.  One of my favorite sites to play around with and compare trends against other ad systems is Alexaholic.  Here is our graph.  This graph represents Text Link Ads compared to other top blog ad systems.














As you know the end goal of building links to your site is increasing your site's traffic.  This can come from the direct traffic from the links and from the indirect benefit of higher natural search rankings through the increase in link popularity.  Try comparing your site's Alexa data to some of your competitors and see if you are seeing the right kind of trends, if not, it may be time to get your link building in gear!

Links to Rankings - A Test Of Wills

One of the biggest changes in the seo world in the last few years is the time it can take to rank a website, particularly in Google.  A bit back Rand noted that even established "trusted" domains were taking 10+ weeks to see some traction in terms of higher rankings after building links to these pages.  The amount of patience needed to see results is even greater when talking about new domains.

Our own LinkBuildingBlog.com has not earned top rankings in Google until just the last few weeks when we have spotted our blog jump from out of the 100's for "link building" all the way to the top 10 on most data centers.  We registered the domain May 12, 2005 and our first post was May 16, 2005.  Our blog was a site that seemed to receive all the right links since the first day Andy and I started posting.  A quick search on Yahoo shows over 20,000 links into our domain!  Even with this nice linkage from many quality sites it seemed we had to wait for our domain to age past that magic one year mark before we saw what we thought made sense for our blog... a top 10 ranking.

The good news for new sites is I have personally seen three unique sites (12 to 14 months old) that I track recently break out of no where into the top 15 on Google with their latest index tweaks.  Andy is also reporting some sites that were created much more recently showing signs of ranking in Google much faster than what we have seen in the last year.  Now we all know results can be seen in MSN and Yahoo much faster but the holy grail is top Google rankings for most sites.  As a very general rule for link building (always exceptions of course)...

Established Domains (domains that are over 1+ year old or are already ranking for many terms)    *build links -> 10-12 weeks later see results.

New Domains (domains under 1 year old and are showing no strong ranking results) *build links -> 12 weeks to 16 months later see results. 

There you have it, I have oversimplified a very complicated issue.  Readers, what are you seeing in terms of time it is taking you to see traction in search rankings after building new links?

Best... SEO Advice... Ever.

Let's get one thing straight -- I disagree with a lot of what Michael Martinez posts on SEOmoz. But I have to credit where credit's due and I think his comment on an SEOmoz post should get an award for 'best SEO advice of 2006'.When what you're doing doesn't work, do something different.I know, I know, duh, it's so simple, etc. But when a recent site launch has been mediocre or even subpar, how often do you really step back, overhaul your strategy and tactics arsenel, and then implement the new one without falling back to those same old tricks?

I have to confess I'm guilty of this a lot, especially with churn and burn (not autogen, but thin-ish) affiliate sites. I use mostly the same methodology I used in '04 (then, targeting Google... now, targeting MSN/Yahoo!). The system is efficient and profitable. Why mess with a good thing?

(For the record, I can still get a site to rank in G. It's just for many sites I get faster & higher ROI by going for the other 2.)

But anyway back to the subject at hand. For a 'real' site for a 'real' business, you need to rank in Google. And every one of us -- from me, Todd, and Aaron to your local neighborhood amateur SEO -- has launched a site this year that's not performing as well as it should in Google. You readers who do client work, or have several sites- my guess is that you're in the same camp.

Ask yourself this: "Am I actively using new and different tactics?"

Maybe the extra push you need is something you've written off years ago (personalized link requests), or something you think isn't applicable to your theme (a niche real estate page getting on the Digg homepage?), or maybe even what's old is new again (need trusted links? Submit to directories).

The bottom line is, if it's been 9 months and you're still sandboxed, it's time to:

First, admit that the tactics you used were insufficient, and that something needs to change.

Second, concretely plan some new tactics you will use to to defeat the sandbox.

Finally, implement those tactics (the perennially underrated step).

OK...go!!!!!!

On With Shoemoney Tonight

LBB'ers, I am a guest co host for Shoemoney's new "Net Revenue" show tonight at 6pm EST.  I will be giving out four $250 coupons for Text Link Ads during the show too.  The show can be accessed here and you can hit the chat room here.  Jeremy (Shoemoney) is a very smart and talented internet marketer, should be fun!

Jim Westergreen's Linking Guide

I don't often like to make "me too" blog posts, but in case you missed it on all the other SEO blogs, make sure to check out Jim Westergreen's guide to building links. It's a very good introduction to what everyone's actually doing in the trenches (sometimes different than what you read on ClickZ), and I think there's some nuggets in there whether you're a seasoned link hound or a n00b.

...And Now For Something Completely Different

Excerpt from Webmaster's SEO LamentBy Madeleine "Mad" Kane

(Sing to "My Favorite Things"  from "The Sound of Music.")


.............

Wishing that Yahoo and DMoz would list them.
Wond'ring what causes those sites to resist them.
Viewing directory listings each day.
"I'll never get there," they moan with dismay.



Updating pages in quest of a breakthrough.
Hoping new  phrases will bring them more clicks through.
Checking competitors' links and their stats.
Wond'ring if they should employ a black hat.



Relevant content, reciprocal linking.
Publishing articles.  Now that's good thinking.
Linkage in edu and government sites.
Vowing to soon their competitors smite.

.............

Read the lyrics in their entirety

(Thanks Mad)

Boring our readers to death

I am guilty of it and so is my friend Andy Hagans.  I am going to wake him up with this post though and we both will do a better job of getting some original linking news up on this site again.  In the meantime I have to link out to a couple new interviews I stumbled through recently.

I did one for Brad Fallon's SEO RADIO, here.  Brad Fallon is one of the most underrated seo's in the world.  How this guy is not bribed into the seo conference circuit is a mystery to me.  Check out Brad's blog when you can.

If interviews that are rated 3/5 stars are your thing, check out the interview I did at IT Conversations.  3/5 is no complement from the listeners but I'll take it because it was nice being able to sneak on such a high quality site.

Hagans come back soon before our rss subs go in reverse...

Drupal Now Supported!

In TLA Publisher News, our publishing system now supports Drupal!

If you run a site using Drupal, you can sign up to start making money with TLA here.

Don't be the "Beat Cop Driving A Ferrari"

Joining me on the "Buying and Selling Links" panel at SES NYC this week was my friend Greg Boser.  It's pretty hard to mix comedy in with link building but he did it for me.  When describing the do's and dont's he said something to the affect of,If you are in an industry where your competitors are all PR4 and PR5 sites and you are out buying PR7 and PR8 links you are like a beat cop who drives a Ferrari.This really does help you visualize the problem with going too aggressive with your linking campaign.  The problem is when you are working way out of the scope of the websites you are competing with.  Ultra competitive industries require a different game plan than not so competitive industries.  You have to do your homework to see how your competition has risen above you and then you can decide what is best for you.  Just as the "beat cop who drives a Ferrari" you too can raise some flags from your competitors and from the engines by engaging in overly aggressive link building that is not in line with current competition.   

The Viral Copy Report

Brian Clark has posted a 30-page link baiting report on his site, CopyBlogger.Viral Copy: Trading Words for Traffic is your guide to creating content that gets attention.  In this free 30 page report, youâll learn:

The Four Viral Content Categories

Eleven Strategies for Getting Link Love

Why Headlines and Storytelling are Crucial

The Counter-Intuitive Rule of the Internet

Why Not All Traffic is Worthy

How to Avoid the Dark Side
Minus points for putting it in a PDF, plus points for going meta (link baiting a link bait report).

SES NYC This Week

Andy and I will be in New York City this week at the Search Engine Strategies show.  This is one of my favorite shows in one of my favorite cities to visit.  Andy and I both are speaking on Wednesday.  Andy is speaking on "SEM Via Communities, Wikipedia & Tagging", and I am speaking on "Buying and Selling Links".  We also have a booth at the show and invite all readers to please stop by and say hello if you get a chance.  Hope to see you there!

Search Engine Journal T-Shirt Contest

For those of you haven't yet entered Search Engine Journal's T Shirt contest, Loren is still accepting submissions. Winners get their shirt printed up!

Interview with Patrick posted at SEJ

Loren Baker has posted a lengthy interview with Patrick at Search Engine Journal. It touches on Text Link Ads, our new publisher program, SEO and more.

Attn: Magic Middle Re: We want to earn you money!

Interesting article by David Sifry on the state of the blogosphere.  Of particular interest to us at Text Link Ads is this quote on what Sifry calls the "Magic Middle":"At Technorati, we define this to be the bloggers who have from 20-1000
other people linking to them. As the chart above shows, there are about
155,000 people who fit in this group."Our publisher program is accepting quality blogs at a fast rate but we are going to have to do a better job of getting the word out as it looks like there are 155,000 possible TLA publishers in the blogosphere!  If you have a quality website or blog and are looking to make more money please check out our publisher program.

Turn Off Comments for Links

Link building for blogs carries its own set of (sometimes odd) strategies and tactics. Graywolf and Problogger have both posted on how turning off comments on a blog ensures that it gets more links. I have to admit I find the whole thing a bit funny... because it really does work.

Another benefit of this tactic is that it removes the need to deal with comment spam :-)

Publishers Cash In

Our independent publisher network is now open for business and our publishers first monthly payments went out last week!  We spent a couple years of exclusively targeting large publishing networks for our ads and we are now moving into the world of independent publishers.  The program is off to a fast start and we are seeing some nice comments on the program. 

If you are interested in making some extra money with your website please check out our publishing program and let me know if there are any ways we can make it better! 

New TLA Affiliate Program!

LBB Readers, we have launched a new Text Link Ads affiliate program today!  You can place a text ad or graphical banner and you can get paid in two different ways:1.  You earn $25.00 for each visitor you refer that results in a sale.

2.  You earn $25.00 for each visitor you refer that results in their website getting approved into our Publisher Program.

What is unique about our affiliate program is you earn the $25.00 for referring either buyers or sellers of Text Link Ads and you earn the $25.00 right when a publisher is approved to sell links and not when we actually have sold a link off their site which gets you paid faster.

Please check out the program and let me know if you have any questions or suggestions to make it better.  Thanks Again!  Patrick Gavin