Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Build Your Online Profile

This is really a key component of becoming an online presence to be reckoned with. Personally I hope you read this post before you begin just to get headed in the right direction. Anyway when you begin your online campaign you will have an overload especially when it comes to marketing and a lot of new people get sucked into the world of black hat and spam. First let's discuss what exactly these two are:

Black Hat SEO: Is when you use unethical means to achieve high position within the SERPs (search engine result pages). There are several ways to do this such as placing your competitors on the so called "bad places" online such as ffa pages and link farms. Some other techniques that would fit are keyword stuffing (repetition of over 10% density)you can check your density with this tool- http://www.ranks.nl/tools/spider.html if you see any keyword or phrase over 10% it is a good idea to replace some of the keywords with synonyms. Another black hat technique considered black hat is cloaking which is when you have headings or text on your page the same color or very close to your back ground color in an attempt to make it impossible for your visitor to see the words, but the search bot of course can see them. The other one that I have heard of people using is when people change their entire website to heading 1 and disguise it with CSS. Now if you decide to do this with your website/page you may perhaps see a jump in the SERPs, but Google is always looking for trickery and when they catch you expect to see your site banned from the index or dropped severely within the SERPs.

Spam & Spammers: This is when people place their link on a platform which it is not welcome and can come in many different styles. Everyone knows the email spam since your email address is bought and sold the same as any commodity. The best tip I can give any new webmaster to the online world is never place your link until you see someone within the community place it. Let's go over some different places where you will see a quick rejection if you decide to spam. First forums, these are the places where people communicate and for some reason these act as a vacuum sucking in the spammers. When in a forum it is suitable to place your link once you have reached the appropriate post number and only place your link in the signature. Blogs are another place where spammers seem to thrive though when you leave your comment spam on a blog it is quickly rejected. When you are trying to gain backlinks and you think that blogs will help you it is important you actually read the post before commenting. If you notice there are quite a few posts that have no comments on this blog even though it is a do follow PR 2 blog. I delete 3-4 crappy comments each day only letting comments in that are actually about the post. I actually do this from my email and guess what I can't tell/remember which posts are which and if I can't tell which post you are commenting on your comment gets rejected. Such comments as "good post" "great ideas" "thanks" "thanks for the article" or whatever bland generic comment people leave gets the boot. So you want a PR 2 one way backlink? Then talk about how much you hate spammers as well and maybe discuss a concept talked about in this post and you will be published and get the backlink or 2 or 3 depending on how many posts you read and comment on. Anyway when trying to promote your site read the rules and interact appropriately. Also those who have resorted to spamming emails just get off this blog if you have resorted to that level of low spam then you are pretty much helpless.

So I have spoken in length about what not to do when building your online presence perhaps it would be wise to suggest some places and ways in which to effectively and appropriately promote your presence. I want you to look on the right side of this blog and scroll until you see "my best posts" these have thousands upon thousands of free one way backlinks. Very important for those of you trying to market and do not want to receive the label of spammer. If you wish to use Google rather than the resources that I have provided I recommend searching for article directory list, social bookmarking list, and free directory list. These three should be the foundation of your marketing campaign since they all offer one way, relevant, high authority backlinks.

Web 2.0 should really be the place which you begin building your profile. Every top blogger has a twitter, myspace, facebook, digg, and any other social profile out there so be sure you get yours. When you build your myspace be sure to make it about what your built your website or blog about and explain yourself then leave links back to your main presence. Build your twitter account and when you update your website or blog be sure to tell your followers. If you need more info on twitter then I suggest you look back through the posts until you find the beginning of twitter week where I explain how to use twitter as well as give you a ton of tools. This is where you will personalize your website and/or blog making your visitors feel not only welcome, but important enough to open the lines of communication.

So as you embark on your online endeavors be sure to never leave a bad taste in anyones mouth. Market something worth marketing and you must truely beleive in what your are selling. Personally I have found it easy to sale my blogs and website since they excite me greatly. If you do not have love for what you do then you will be within the 97% that fail at the online world. Anyway if you like this blog or post please share it with others and by the way thanks for reading.

1 comment:

  1. So that is the black hat technique. I don't see the point in getting into such practices when in the end you only end up getting penalized. I don't see logic in spamming either. If you spam and you get the boot and you get your ip banned, is that not a big slap to the face?

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