Wikiality, SEO, Building Relationships & An Argentinean Illustrator

Today I would like to start with a wonderful Argentinean (digital) illustrator who has a wonderfully designed website. I don't know if we could use him for something but here is his website:

http://www.alexdukal.com/

Just analyzing his website, it is clear that his site has to portray his work. While in the last TGIF I preached functionality over and above aesthetics, to the extent of deliberately not being artful, so as not to distract, here is one case (amongst many) where that theory does not apply. By the very nature of his work, his website has to be interesting, artful and unique, and project his work well. His website clearly does all of this admirably. The rich background, giving a tattered paper look and feel without overdoing pixels is also brilliantly done.

Don't Chase Web Traffic – Build Relationships

Here is an article about how web traffic may not be everything. Some of you have heard me talk about GoAntiques.com and how they are head and shoulders over everybody in the race when it comes to traffic. However, if anyone read my other report, GoAntiques has had some trouble in converting on that web traffic. Here is an article that gives some perspective to this problem and perhaps cautions us about our web traffic based projections and measurement focus.

A company's database of clients and prospects that they have a relationship with is one of their most valuable assets. The people that walk past their front door and glance at the sign are not especially important to a company, although a couple of them might stop in.

If you focus on driving traffic to your site instead of building a long-term relationship strategy, you are focusing your efforts on the people walking by your door instead of the people that are buying or might buy from you.

Which one are you doing?

Building Audience	Building Traffic
Steady approach to building audience Continually adding valuable content to website Participate in online blogs and communities that create organic, legitimate links to your site Build a list of people that ask for new information from you Focus on providing interesting content and the benefits of the product Allowing different voices to create some Buzz on your behalf	Expect results in weeks Leave a website static and focus on paid links and keywords Buy inbound links Use SPAM lists Focus on what you are selling without thinking about why someone would come to your site. Wondering why more people are not buying from you when you have such high traffic.

Traffic is important. However, if they do not have a reason to stay and get involved with the site, a visitor will click away in seconds.

One of our clients that gets the best hits from search engines does not care. They produce an average of 12 new articles for their audience every week and they get tons of links and hits with nothing optimized.

A comprehensive strategy for building and maintaining an online audience is more work. However, it pays bigger dividends as well.

http://marketing.buzzoodle.com/Website_Traffic.html

Wikiality

I am sure everyone has heard this term created by the Colbert Report's elephant experiment. Wikipedia can be an important for us in attempting to create a whole science of "Worthology" and can also give us valuable advertising. While spider external link following has theoretically been closed off by wikipedia, some people (like myself) don't believe that is true, as the ultimate power for deciding that is the search engine rather than wikipedia. True or not, wikipedia should feature as part of our overall marketing plan; at the very least it can generate cost free traffic. Here is an interesting article about wikipedia and SEO. I am pasting the whole article as I think it's a really good one.

May. 8, 2007 at 6:12am Eastern by Sara Holoubek

A Survival Guide to SEO & Wikipedia

"Who knows about Wikipedia?" asked Neil Patel. "Everyone," he answered. And this is exactly why the session "Wikipedia and SEO" was completely packed at the 2007 SES New York show.

Moderated by Danny Sullivan, the panel featured Neil Patel, Co-Founder of ACS, Stephan Spencer, Founder and President of Netconcepts, Don Steele, Director of Digital and Enterprise Marketing at Comedy Central and Jonathan Hochman, Founder and President of JE Hochman & Associates.

So why exactly does everyone know about Wikipedia? For starters, it is pretty hard to ignore a site that consistently ranks in the top 10 organic results for just about any query. Consider Wikipedia the organic counterpart to eBay's ubiquitous paid search ads. The success lies in the social media genius of a distributed model where anyone can contribute to the collective knowledge, trusting that the majority will balance the scales of information justice.

With over 1.7 million articles in English alone, it is clear why the site ranks so well. And as the equation goes, with visibility comes pageviews, and with pageviews come marketers.

Yet search engine marketers have been particularly fond of Wikipedia for an entirely different reason: its page rank. That is, until Wikipedia implemented a no-follow rule, indicating that outbound links should not be followed by search engine spiders. One would think that this move would kill all interest in Wikipedia's value to the SEO crowd, yet a link is still a link, and many search engine marketers have realized that capitalizing on the original intent of a link (to secure traffic) can be just as good, if not better, than securing PageRank .

Dos and don'ts

One of the more confusing aspects of Wikipedia is the underlying editorial policy, which, of course, is appended with the "break all the rules" rule. So how exactly to ensure Wikipedia success? For Patel, It all comes down to building credibility as an editor by first adding valuable information, and then links. Spencer furthers this conversation by suggesting that links be placed in the "References" section, and not to external links. "And of course, it helps to communicate with the main editor" he added.

Patel was firm in stating that it is best to follow the community's rules or face the consequences – something he experienced first hand. Furthermore, Hochman reminded the audience of wikisleuths – people that love finding spammers and placing you on the Wikimedia blacklist.

If you are hit hard by what Hochman calls "rabid Wikipedians," all is not lost. Such was the case of Barry Schwartz. Having started a column about himself the community immediately questioned why he was notable enough to deserve a column. Fortunately, others came to his aid and opinion was swayed. The keys to such situations are to be civil and polite, according to Hochman. For Spencer, it is best that there should be no connection between you and the article subject and that you have plenty of allies on hand should an article be deleted.

Advice to marketers

"The traffic volume and success in SEO make Wikipedia a channel for us to understand," said Steele, who works for the online leg of Comedy Central. Of course, his firm is a prime example of art imitating life in the Stephen Colbert "Wikiality" sketches.

"Our content is highly referenced," said Steele, "requiring us to make sure that information is accurate, up to date and that our own site has the information being referenced." While Steele never edits anything about Comedy Central's shows, he makes an effort to understand what is being said and the impact on the audience.

For example, 24 hours after the South Park Easter Special, there were references to this episode on Wikipedia. "It becomes this community. If we do not understand that in 24 hours, that people are taking the time to talk about our show, we are not doing our job," Steele concluded.

For numbers junkies, the site received 90,000 visitors from Wikipedia in March, making it a top 10 referrer. When one extracts the engines and sister sites, Wikipedia is the most consistent referrer over all. In Steele's words, "We are saving about $20k a month." When an audience member asked how much time this consumed, Steele suggested that monitoring is a daily task.

Of course, building a Wikipedia article could ultimately mean knocking oneself out of a first place result. The panel agreed that second place is not bad. The same tactic can be used to knock a competitor off. "If you have a competitor ranking first for "notebook computer" You could knock competitor off by building Wikipedia up – and your competitor down," said Hochman.

WikiFuture?

One of the more debated topics of the session was the question of whether Wikipedia will overtake Google. In one sense, it appears that optimizing a Wikipedia article internally and externally has become more important than optimizing one's own site.

To this, Sullivan suggested that "people are desperate for the next Google killer. It's like asking what's new in TV? Well, there is a new knob. We have HD, but for the majority, it doesn't change. But that doesn't make it easier for the person sick of writing about Google." What many forget is that if Google suddenly decided so, Wikipedia could lose its traffic overnight.

Sullivan also commented on the no-follow rule. "I feel this resentment that I link to you, but you won't like to me? I think the Wikipedia community should find a way to get it back. A lot of times they deserve the link." Spencer chimed in that with a no-follow rule, it is actually the engine that holds the cards, and that it is possible that the links are indeed being followed. For those who are curious, Sullivan suggested Search Status to determine whether a link has a no-follow tag.

Sara Holoubek is a free agent consultant for the interactive advertising sector and its investors. She can be reached at saraholoubek@gmail.com.

http://searchengineland.com/070508-061206.php

Jokes for the Week

A guy with a severe stutter applied for a job in an antique shop. The shop owner never believed he'd make it as a salesman, and was about to tell the guy to look elsewhere. The stutterer begged for the job, "P-p--ple-ease g-g-ive m-m-mee a ch-cha-a-ance. I-i-c-c-can d-d-o i-i-tt, h-hon-hon-estly."
"Well," the owner said, "OK." He offered to trial him for the rest of the day to see if he could sell one or two items. "I have to go out for a few hours, try to sell that old antique bible in the corner, I've had it here for 5 years. If you can sell it, you've got the job!"
After lunch the owner returned to find the bible had gone. The stutterer had indeed sold it. The manager was impressed, and asked how he had achieved such an impressive sale.
"E-e-easy," said the guy, and explained that when a woman came into the shop, he said, "G-g-good a-a-ftern-n-n-noon, M-m-ma'am. I-i-'m s-s-selling t-th-this B-b-bible. W-w-w-would y-y-you l-l-l-like to b-b-b-buy it, or sh-sh-sh-ould I j-j-j-ust r-r-read it t-t-t-to you?"

Whilst clearing out the loft in the family home, a man finds a rather nice painting and a tatty old violin. Remembering that such things should never be discarded before being valued, he takes them to the local auction house to show an expert.
"Well, this is interesting, sir," says the auctioneer, "what you have here is a Turner and a Stradivarius. Have you heard of either of them?" The man replies, "Very vaguely, the names ring a bell somewhere, why?"
"Well, unfortunately for you, Stradivarius wasn't a very good painter;.. and Turner made rubbish violins."

This is a true story overheard at an antiques trade fair, on a very cold winters day. One dealer to another; "I'm cold, I must be getting old". To which the other replied, "We're all getting older, dear - the only thing that's not getting older is these antiques."

A shady antiques dealer was doing the rounds and ended up on an old ladies doorstep. He rings the doorbell and Mrs. Smith appears.
"Good Day Mrs. Smith. I just thought I would drop by and see if you had any antiques for sale." The woman says, "Well, I'm not sure, come on in and we'll have some tea."
While sitting at the coffee table, the dealer notices a Royal Doulton bowl on the table full of almonds. "That's a nice bowl of almonds!" says the dealer, all the time wondering how he was going to get hold of the bowl. "Mind if I have one?"
"Not at all, have as many as you like" replies the old woman. After a few hours of negotiating, the dealer looks at his watch and alarmed at how long he has taken decides to give up and says to Mrs. Smith, "Oh my goodness, look at the time. I must be going. Oh but dear me I have eaten all your almonds. I'll have to replace them next time I visit."
To which Mrs. Smith replied, "Oh don't bother sonny. Ever since I lost all my teeth, it's all I can do just to lick the chocolate off them."

The antique shop owner was doing a roaring trade, when the shop next door was taken over by another antique shopkeeper, who erected a large sign, which read, BEST ANTIQUE DEALS IN TOWN.
Trade was hit bad, when to his horror, the very next week, another antique dealer set up shop on the other side of him, and erected an even larger sign, which read, FINEST QUALITY ANTIQUES AT THE BEST PRICES IN TOWN.
The antique shopkeeper thought his business was destroyed, until he had a bright idea. Next day he erected an even bigger sign, right above his own shop doorway, it read, MAIN ENTRANCE.

www.antiquecollector.uk.com/ACjokes.htm