Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
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Our newest SEO Comic, which pokes fun at Jason Calacanis is live. You can read “Jason Calacanis - SEO Has No Future.”
Not sure who Jason Calacanis is? If you are in the SEO industry you would probably have some interest. You can read about him at Wikipedia, of course and you can check out his very opinionated blog as well. Suffice to say Mr. Calacanis doesn’t have a high regard for SEO and that is the crux of this month’s issue of Ranked Hard. Enjoy and please make comments on the comic. We love feedback.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Posted in Ranked Hard - SEO Comic | 2 Comments »
Thursday, June 5th, 2008
Our latest SEO Comic, Ranked Hard, deals with the delicate subject matter of PPC (pay-per-click) advertising. Read “The Real Reason Your Site Dropped in Google” and leave your thoughts about this tricky issue in the comments area.
And for all the conspiracy theorist out there let me make a statement, saying definitively, that we do not believe Google changes the ranking’s of any web site based on whether or not you use Google’s Adwords.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Posted in Ranked Hard - SEO Comic | 3 Comments »
Monday, May 5th, 2008
This month’s Ranked Hard, SEO Comic deals with the touchy subject of overseas outsourcing in the SEO industry with a humorous twist of course. Take a look at Outsourcing Reservations, leave some feedback and laugh a little.
Popularity: 36% [?]
Posted in Link Building, Ranked Hard - SEO Comic | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008
April’s installment of the SEO Comic Ranked Hard has been published. Read “Beware the Dark Side” which deals with the duality every search engine optimizer must sometimes face.
Thanks to our friends at Internet Marketing Sucks for the April Fool’s Joke using the Ranked Hard comic strip.
Popularity: 8% [?]
Posted in Out on a Limb, Ranked Hard - SEO Comic | No Comments »
Monday, March 3rd, 2008
We have finished our third installment of the “hit SEO comic,” Ranked Hard. Sorry to keep pushing it on our Big Oak blog, but we want to give the comic a fair chance so I’m announcing it on our blog.
Take a look at the latest strip, “Cutt Her Some Slack.” It deals with the SEO industry’s obsession with all things Google, particularly, Matt Cutts, a Google Engineer who has been the voice of Google to the SEO community for some time. A lot a value is placed on what Matt says and probably he would admit that everyone should relax a little and not over analyze every word he speak or types.
Suffice to say if you don’t know who Matt is you may not find this strip as funny as the rest, but hopefully it introduces you to Mr. Cutts and expands your knowledge of the SEO Universe.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Posted in Ranked Hard - SEO Comic | 7 Comments »
Thursday, February 21st, 2008
I personally like StumbleUpon. It is a good diversion, some would call it a time-waster, and I have discovered some amazing things through it. On the other hand, I don’t think it is a great method of marketing your site, but it does have its benefits, especially when you consider the minuscule amount of time your actually put into it…basically you click a button and you are done. Hard to complain about the work. No, the real work is creating something worth stumbling. I talked about the infusion of traffic and named then traffic spike “The StumbleUpon Shark” but something different happened this week.
You may have read about our new SEO Comic, Ranked Hard in a previous post (if not, check it out), well it has been stumbled and we saw the biggest spike we have ever received. Of course that was nice, but surprisingly it held serve the next day and increased even more the next day. Amazing.
The graph below shows our site’s total traffic from StumbleUpon. The top number of visitors from StumbleUpon reach 585. We will certainly keep watching over the next few days but it is good to see that StumbleUpon can provide traffic for more than just one fabulous day on occasion. Obviously the quality and possible niche of the content can be attributable to the staying power of the traffic. But it can be done.
Popularity: 28% [?]
Posted in Link Building, Out on a Limb, Social Media Optimization | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
I’ve been reading about the tactics and benefits of creating linkbait for a while now. I’ve come to the conclusion that linkbait is good, for the most part. Linkbait is good because you want to write something that other people feel is interesting enough to link to. Linkbait is also good because it supports the very backbone of the internet…linking. I think if you want to create something for the sole purpose of having people link to it, then go right ahead, nothing wrong with that. If it motivates you to write or build or create, then so much the better.
But here is where the line blurs, where the light moves to the dark, where angles fear to tread, so to speak. I don’t support the idea of creating poorly thought-out, duplicated information or junky linkbait. If you are going to create something for the sole purpose of increasing your link popularity then be sure it is worth linking to. This usually means it is something that you have put some time and thought into. It should be an investment of both. It isn’t natural to create a new linkbait page everyday. This is bordering on spam. One of my favorite blogs comes from the mind of Steve Pavlina and is chock full of great linkbait, but he writes what he does for the sake of creating interesting and creative ideas. The linkbait part is just a natural extension of his excellent writing.
Topical linkbaiting is falling out of favor recently, with users and search engines. Topical linkbaiting is the tactic of writing about something that is topical and hoping the buzz around it will have people linking to you. This is good marketing and shouldn’t be abandoned, but I wouldn’t rely on this for my search engine marketing strategy. Usually this type of linkbaiting looks like a series of peaks and valleys in your site’s analytics, which Google views as temporary popularity and not sustained popularity, thereby devaluing the links and the content. By all means, ride the current waves, but be sure you have a good stable of linkbait that provides a solid base of constant viewers and steady link building. Look to create helpful information that doesn’t have a shelf life - how-to articles and tips are good way to do this.
I suppose linkbaiting has been more on my mind as my SEO Company, Big Oak, creates a monster linkbait initiative. I hope it will be longstanding and provide increased readership and link popularity. I think you will find it follows my rules. It isn’t topical and I don’t believe it will only provide a one-time spike. It is a monthly comic, and probably too much thought and too much time has been put towards it, but I think you will agree that the quality of the product is there because of our care. So while you mull over your linkbait strategy, and you should have one, take a moment to read Ranked Hard, our SEO Comic. Oh, and if you want to link to it, who am I to stop you.
Popularity: 26% [?]
Posted in Link Building, SEO Mistakes, SEO Strategies | 6 Comments »
Monday, February 11th, 2008
You may have read our first attempt at an SEO comic called Ranked Hard which was posted here and used some SIMS magic to create the characters. It must have at least drawn interest because it has been the most popular (most read) post since it went on the blog. It was an honest, but not awe-inspiring attempt for a group of non-artists trying to run a SEO company.
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| This is just one panel of the comic, visit the Ranked Hard site to see more! |
But, with the encouragement of few positive comments and so many visits from our blog readers, we decided to take the Ranked Hard comic to a higher level. That required hiring an real artist who could bring the characters to life in a way beyond our skill level. We were very luck to find Kelly Ishikawa and he has done a wonderful job helping us define the characters and establish their appearance. And because of this, I can now introduce you to the whole SEO staff of Ranked Hard!
We decided that the format of the comic would not fit this blog so we created a new site/blog for ‘Ranked Hard, and SEO Comic‘ and will be posting all comics, comments and thoughts related to Ranked Hard at http://www.bigoakinc.com/rankedhard/. It was simpler to do it this way and we are hopeful that the larger format will make the comic more enjoyable for everyone. Of course we want feedback and comments from our readers so please post those on the Ranked Hard site.
We will be publishing at least once a month, and there are two comics on the site now. We have ideas for future comics already in the works, but we are looking for any funny suggestions from other SEO enthusiasts, so send them in to contact@bigoakinc.com for us to look at. If we do use your idea we will give you full credit and you can even write the story behind it if you wish.
Please visit: Ranked Hard
- Shell Harris
Popularity: 6% [?]
Posted in Choosing SEO Company, Ranked Hard - SEO Comic | 7 Comments »
Sunday, January 6th, 2008
Update 2/11/08: We have made this comic, bigger and better. Come view the new and improved ‘Ranked Hard: SEO Comic‘ at it’s new home. We have also posted all the SEO comic strips on Flickr.com.
Welcome to the first installment of our SEO comic, “Ranked Hard”!
This won’t be a daily comic or weekly, but we’ll do our best to get a new one out as often as we can. This comic will be about the trials and tribulations of the mythical staff of Ranked Hard, a growing SEO company. There will certainly be parallels to our SEO company, Big Oak, but we won’t tell you where reality and fantasy cross. Although most “SEO people” who read this will certainly have their own ideas about what is from real life. ;-). In any case, have fun and give us your feedback. This is our first attempt and I already see a few things to improve on the next comic.
I will be posting head shots and background about all the characters. For now, let me introduce you to the crew at Ranked Hard:
- Bradley Smart, President & SEO Consultant
- Roosevelt Jones, SEO Consultant
- Beatrice Gonzolez, SEO Researcher
- Simon Caine, SEO Copywriter
We hope you grow to love them as much as we do. And without further delay, our Ranked Hard’s First Comic Strip entitled “First Day.”
by George Perry & Shell Harris
Popularity: 5% [?]
Posted in Out on a Limb, Ranked Hard - SEO Comic | 11 Comments »
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