Big Oak SEO Blog

Sphinn - Search & Internet Marketing Professional Website

Update (8/13/07): I Sphunn my first story today on Squidoo. We’ll see what happens. See my Squidoo Sphinn.

I joined Sphinn today and found a few hours of my time were soon gone. It is fascinating reading, especially so because I consider this very informative site built by the ideas and comments of my peers. If you are interested in Internet marketing, and I assume you are if you are reading my SEO blog, then I would say it is worth 30 minutes to read some posts and see what you think. The best and the brightest are there, of course you will also find too many people who are ignorant and/or just taking up valuable bandwidth. For now though, it looks like a promising site. Think of it as Digg for Search Marketers.

Here is the origin of the domain name:

Why Sphinn? We liked the idea of a place where marketers could put their own “spin” on news by commenting on stories or having discussions. But spin.com was taken, as was spinn.com and sphinnn.com was a N too far, we felt. So we went with sphinn.com, pronouncing it “sp-hinn.”

Sphinn away!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Posted in Out on a Limb, SEO Research, Social Media Optimization | 5 Comments »

Social Bookmarking - SEO Tip Week 8

What is Social Bookmarking?
Social bookmarking involves saving bookmarks (web addresses) to a public Web site such as Digg or Del.icio.us so you can access these bookmarks from any computer connected to the web. Your favorite bookmarks are also available for others to view and follow as well, hence the social aspect. If you wish to create your own social bookmarks, you must register with a social bookmarking site (we have many listed below). No you are able to store bookmarks, tag your bookmarks, and share with anyone interested in your bookmarks.

Hopefully you can see the value and power of social bookmarks. You can think of it as viral or guerrilla marketing in a way. It can be a powerful grassroots method of marketing your site. Be careful though, like everything else on the web you can spam these sites and make your list of bookmarks appear unappealing or an obvious marketing ploy which will net you very little.

Keep it honest
Bookmark sites you generally would like to share or feel are valuable, which of course can contain bookmarked web addresses of your own site. If enough people agree with the value of a bookmark you have placed they will bookmark it to and as the popularity grows your site traffic will grow.

Don’t abuse this by submitting every page of your site, try to be judicious and think about what pages of your site may be helpful and of interest to other web surfers.

All things must end
At some point you will reach a place where you are no longer drawing significant traffic from your older bookmarks, but that’s okay. Your social bookmark page should be included in the search engine’s cached sites and they are following your links like any normal web user. In fact, you have created an external link to your site that should be using useful keyword text in the link. The real beauty of this is the fact that others are also providing free one-way links from their own social bookmark pages. So even after the traffic from the bookmarks slow you have the added benefit of a grass roots linking campaign providing solid links to your site, increasing your site’s ranking in the search engines.

While you don’t want to base your SEO campaign on this one technique it should be in your SEO toolbox of tasks.

A Good Start for Social Bookmarking Websites
Here are some of the better social bookmarking websites. It wouldn’t be feasible to become a member of all of these but choosing a few couldn’t hurt. I have listed them in order of their Alexa ranking, which supplies some measure of popularity that should be taken with a grain of salt the size of Rhode Island. In any case here are some of the more popular social bookmarking sites:

1. Digg
2. Del.icio.us
3. StumbleUpon
4. Reddit
5. Squidoo
6. Furl
7. BlinkList
8. Blogmarks.net
9. Ma.gnolia
10. Simpy
11. Spurl
12. BlinkBits
13. Shadows
14. Raw Sugar
15. Yahoo MyWeb

Would you add any others? Do you have a social bookmarking favorite, please send us a comment and share it.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Posted in 52 SEO Tips, Social Media Optimization | 16 Comments »

Comprehensive Article on Linkbaiting

Well, I was going to write a post on linkbaiting and while doing some research I came across a thorough linkbaiting article already. The author, Andy Hagans does a masterful and clever job of outlining the types of linkbait, the methods of linkbaiting and the reasons to use linkbait. He even goes into social media bookmarking for good measure.

He notes that page titling is extremely important, but not just for SEO purposes, but to attract attention. He references Copyblogger’s 10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work as a starting point when trying to create linkbait. I like the list so much I am adding it to my blog too. When creating titles for your linkbait here are some title templates to start with or a cheat sheet, if you will.

Copyblogger’s title cheat sheet:

1. Who Else Wants [blank]?
2. The Secret of [blank]
3. Here is a Method That is Helping [blank] to [blank]
4. Little Known Ways to [blank]
5. Get Rid of [problem] Once and For All
6. Here’s a Quick Way to [solve a problem]
7. Now You Can Have [something desirable] [great circumstance]
8. [Do something] like [world-class example]
9. Have a [or] Build a [blank] You Can Be Proud Of
10. What Everybody Ought to Know About [blank]

I won’t go into this any further, but visiting Andy Hagans’ Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and Social Media Marketing would be a worthwhile use of your time.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Posted in SEO Copywriting, SEO Tools, Social Media Optimization | 3 Comments »

Digg’n It- Social Media Optimization

Social media optimization and marketing has become the hot-button topic for 07, especially when it comes to effective strategies to promote your site. The following video contains some incredibly valuable information from two social media gurus - Neil Patel and Todd Mailcoat.

Neil Patel and Todd Malicoat know a thing or two about Digg. As active members of the Digg community (in addition to their roles as leading SEO consultants) they’re afforded a unique perspective on the market. Having recently met with Neil and Todd at Search Engine Strategies, WebProNews had the chance to sling some burning questions.

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Posted in SEO Strategies, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Optimization | No Comments »