The first site was pushed using old school SEO practices, including paid and reciprocal links, content development, doorway pages, etc.

The second site was build in a more ‘organic way’ focussing on unique content, with no paid links or doorway pages, but with a blog, videos, blogs, RSS feeds and Twitter integration.

Guess which one is earning money and getting quality Google traffic? You got it, the “SEO’ed Site.”

The forum member wrote:

Site 1 (AKA “SEO’ed Site”): after just 3 months it was skyrocketing past some pretty hefty competition with traffic increasing well each month. The site was making £10,000+ a month for the last six months we had it and just sold for a rather nice figure.
Site 2 (AKA “Quality Site”): has struggled to rank anywhere, even for it’s own name, and traffic has been stagnant since the outset - it made a loss for the first 8 months and made just under £3000 in it’s best month which was last month.

My two cents: Although the results of this case study are quite interesting (depressing for a white hat SEO), I am not convinced that we can draw any conclusions of this. I believe that, depending on the industry and the degree of competition, you can be successful with a less aggressive/more organic SEO campaign. Additionally, I would not not include reciprocal linking with any random site and true doorway pages as part of “regular SEO practices”, as described in the thread.

I recommend to read all the details in the forum thread.

April 1st is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four. (Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson, 1894)

Todays I don’t envie all the reporters out there. It’s is April Fool’s Day, and one needs to be on the lookout for what is real news and what is fake news. Here are my 5 favorite April Fools hoaxes from the search industry, starting with Google.


Google Mobile launched Brain Search, which uses their hoax technology CADIE (Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity) to “index your brain to make your thoughts and memories searchable”. The Big G also mentions some use cases for the new application: you can recall “the name of that guy across the room, where you put your car keys, why you started dating this woman in the first place”. Hehe, hillarious.

Yahoo launched a new search service called Ideological Search. The service allows searchers to “control the ideology of their search results for the first time in search technology history”.

MSN’s Live Search simply redid their homepage. Not a big effort, but still funny.

YouTube turns its videos upside down (add “&flip=1″ to URL to activate.

Reddit looks like Digg for a day.

Bonus (not search, but media related): the British newspaper Guardian announced that it will discontinue its publication after 188 years and publish its news via Twitter. Considering the state of the print media, not such a bad idea, isn’t it?

What were your favorite April Fools hoaxes on the web this year? Let me know in the comments!

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I just wanted to let everybody know who is working in the internet related field (or who is fascinated by the world wide web) that there is a great event to meet like-minded people and do some networking. It’s called Geek Dinner, an event which is happening every month in Los Angeles and many other cities throughout the United States. You don’t have to be a super nerd to attend, a little interest in all things digital is enough to mingle with this friendly and cool crowd.

I went to the 33rd Geek Dinner in L.A. which was held January 17th at the restaurant uWink located in the Hollywood & Highland Center. It’s a cool place (they call it an “interactive entertainment and dining experience”) where you can order through a touch-screen computer located on every table. The event had pretty good turn out. I chatted with many interesting people, and Heather Schlegel, the hostess-with-the-mostess, was working the room with her usual great enthusiasm.

For those who live in the Los Angeles area and are yet to join, you can check all the news on their website, the group page on Facebook - or get all the updates directly in your email inbox by signing up via  la-subscribe@geekdinner.org. And if you have a web service or your own event to promote, Geek Dinner allows you announce it to the crowd at the end of the event.

The next L.A. Geek Dinner will be this upcoming Tuesday, February 17, at the same location. You get get more info and RSVP on Upcoming.

Please spread it around and bring your geeky friends. As Anita wrote:

You know that the geek dinner is the gateway L.A. geek event. Once you start - you’ll just go hardcore on to Barcamp, Mixergy, Twiistup or one of Mahalo’s Movie Nights…

P.S. See more of my pictures I took at the Geek Dinner on Flickr.

Julia Angwin wrote a great article in today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal, about SERPs (search engine position ranking) and controlling your reputation online. She writes that among the top spots result in the search results for her name has been an (in her opinion dissatisfying) article she wrote four years ago.

Since he was about to publish her new book and wanted to make this unflatering article disappear from the the Top 10 of her SERPs, she explored various options how to achieve that. Her insights mentioned in this piece are part of ‘SEO 101′ and illustrate the Do’s and Don’ts when trying to control your online reputation (since Google is the dominant search engine in the U.S. and most other markets, she’s focusses her story on the ‘Big G’).

These are my favorite six takeaways from Angwin’s article:

1. It’s extremely difficult to remove items from Google search results. Persue other others. Only if you can prove that another site has stolen your social security, credit card or bank-account numbers and posted them online, the search company might consider to remove the offending data. In that case it’s still recommended that you contact the owner of that site directly.

2. You should take control of your own web presence. Create original content that is compelling to readers and can be easily accessed by search engines - and you’re in the right direction to be in charge of your reputation online.

3. Develop a linking strategy. Get incoming links from relevant and authoritative and websites. (In Angwin’s case, this certainly paid off.)

4. Make search result with the annoying content disappear with your social media efforts. Increase your online visibility by creating accounts at social bookmarking sites (Del.icio.us, Furl, Stumble Upon), social networking profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace and micro-blogging sites like Twitter. Talk about your expertise, share insights, thoughts, web finds and other links with others.

5. It’s the crawlability, stupid! A beautiful website with tons of stunning pictures doesn’t do the trick. You need high-quality content which can be easily be crawled by the major search engines.

6. Don’t forget the meta information on your site. You know, texts like the “title tag,” which is displayed at the top of the Web browser and describes the page to a search engine. Often forgotten by noobs, but crucial.

7. You can work to boost your results, and then lose control in an instant. Even if you think that you did a great SEO job, your work is never done. Among many reasons: the search engine constantly update their algorithms, other web content than texts is becoming more and more important (videos, music, podcasts, etc.), your competitors (who are trying to grab the top spots of the same keyword like you) never sleep.

Do you have other suggestions on how to get control of your own SERPs? Leave a comment!

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Belated happy new year! I wish you all health, happiness, prosperity and humor for 2009!

Opposite to previous years, I started the new year by making three resolutions:

• To be dedicated to help people to make most out of the internet and grow my business
• To expand my professional network
• To learn something new every day.

Since I was curious what kind of resolutions other internet professionals made, I browsed through the web for some great thoughts. Here are my favorite resolutions for 2009:

1. Canadian Marketing Blog:

I resolve to be optimistic that businesses will remember the golden rule: You have to spend money to make money - especially in tough times. Stay top of mind with your best customers and they’ll remain loyal.

 2. Copywriters Roundtable:

- Around the clock, make curiosity a habit.  Ask questions.
- Every morning, read one piece of direct mail.
- Every day, have a set time for writing.  Never deviate from it.
- Always seek out your critics.  They’ll teach you much more than your fans ever could.

3. Growthink: Top 10 new year’s resolutions for entrepreneurs. Number 5:

Keep Launching, Innovating and Growing! While the economy may be in for a bumpy ride, make sure you keep it in perspective.  Don’t let all the negative news stop you from moving forward with your entrepreneurial initiatives.

4. Wired: 10 new year’s resolutions for geeks. Number six:

I will follow @stephenfry, @JohnCleese, @wilw, @hodgman, @greggrunberg, @donttrythis (Adam Savage), @levarburton, @nasa, and @thinkgeek on Twitter. If I am not using Twitter I will finally realize what I’ve been missing and sign up right away.

5. @drhilarius:

Stay away from the internet 20% a day, increase productivity by 400%.

What are you new year’s resolutions?

It’s that time of the year again. The new year is approaching rapidly, and I’m a little bit stunned how time is flying. 2008 was a year full of exciting, dramatic and tragic events - also for the internet business. I am sure that I’m not the only one who wonders what 2009 has in store for us.

I browsed through the web and collected the most interesting internet related predictions for the upcoming year:

- Mediapost: Digital Will Impact Five Key Areas Next Year
Great list on ‘Marketing Daily’. My favorites:

• Conversation is king in 2009 because Web presence alone no longer is enough for individuals or brand.
• The Semantic Web will create more sophisticated, intuitive, refined ways to filter information and services.
• Savvy companies and brand marketers are starting to trust consumers and enlist their assistance in product design and development.
• Another notable trend is the transmission effect, or the speed with which conversations and content spread everywhere like rapid-fire– beyond the reach of editorial controls, sites or institutions.

- Junta42: 42+ Social Media and Content Marketing Predictions for 2009
Interesting predictions of the Junta42 community. Among others:

• Twitter will be officially mainstream, but here will be a backlash against company Twitter accounts.
• Social Media Marketing will become a more mainstream approach.
• Combining traditional media with electronic media will increase.
• More brands will developing a personality or a persona to represent the core values of the company. 2009 will be the year of the personality.
• Americans are showing more and more interest in RSS.
• There will be a “gold rush” for social media as new frontier marketing platform.

- Emarketer: Predictions for 2009
Great statistical insights by Senior Analyst David Hallermann and several collegues:

• Search marketing spending will grow by 14.9% in 2009, to $12.3 billion. (Good news: Search marketing is not recession-proof, but it is recession-resistant.)
• Video ad spending will run counter to overall economic developments, rising by 45% in 2009 to reach $850 million.
• Total US Internet ad spending will increase to $25.7 billion in 2009, an 8.9% growth rate.
• Multicultural marketing will gain intensity online. More African-Americans and Hispanics are going online, through their PCs and their mobile phones, and marketers will follow.
• Online retail sales (excluding travel) will grow by only 4% in 2009—the first full year to feel the impact of the economic crisis.
• E-commerce will be a growing revenue stream for social network sites. Expect both MySpace and Facebook to enhance their self-serve advertising systems to allow consumers and businesses to buy and sell real-world goods and services.
• Advertising in the traditional media will continue to decline in the new year more than any other medium. Industry-wide cutbacks will continue, and there will be some consolidation.

- Search Insider: Search Trends To Watch in 2009
Great thoughts by the sharp mind of David Berkovitz. Three predictions which stood out for me:

• More and more consumers reach marketers through intermediary properties, likeblogs, social networks, photo sharing sites, Twitter, Wikipedia, and countless other social sites. As a result, marketers have to shift their mindset from optimizing their Web site to optimizing their Web presence.
• This fall, YouTube surpassed Yahoo as the second-largest search engine. Marketers have to adapt their strategies to n these nontraditional search sources.
• Search will shift even more beyond the PC. This includes not only mobile devices, but also television models (delivering a hybrid TV-Web experience) and GPS systems in the car (with inbuilt restaurant, attraction etc. search function). Marketers need to reach the target audience on these devices.

Other articles and blog posts with predictions for the upcoming year:

- FolioMag: 117 Magazine And Media Predictions for 2009

- ReadWriteWeb: Social Media in 2009: Our Predictions And Desires

- Fast Company: 8 Experts Predict How Web 2.0 Will Evolve In 2009

- Vator News: Consumer Internet Predictions for 2009

- Peter Kim: Social Media Predictions for 2009

- CSM Watch: Technology Predictions for 2009

- Web Video Unleashed: 9 Online Video Predictions for 2009

- Appirio: Top 10 Cloud Computing Predictions for 2009

Plus: On Twitter you’ll find a great list of Enterprise 2.0 predictions. They are aggregated via the hashtag #e20predictions. Add your own prediction!

If you’re interested in general what will happen with the web not only in 2009, but in next 10 or 20 years, you need to read the report “The Future Of The Internet III” by the Pew Internet & American Life Project” (PDF version). Three interesting takeaways:

• The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020.
• Voice recognition and touch user-interfaces with the internet will be more prevalent and accepted by 2020.
• The divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations.

Any thoughts on this? Or did you find any other great posts or articles with internet related predictions which should be added to this list? Let me know!

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I’ve have been blogging for a couple of years now. Of all blog publishing platform I’ve ever used, I still think Wordpress is the best of all.

Apparently I’m not alone: The desktop version has been downloaded over 11 million times this year, and blogs created with the web based tools on Wordpress.com have been viewed by over 230 million unique visitors.

I recommend Wordpress to clients who ask me to build a new website , but haven’t thought of starting a blog. I most cases, they turn into passionate bloggers, because the easy to use admin panel of Wordpress helped them to learn fast - and fuel their blogging passion.

I also love the huge selection of Wordpress designs and templates which is available on the web. There is a solution out there for everybody: from the simple and free one column template to sophisticated and advanced premium themes which include numerous customization options.

Here are my 20 favorites resources for Wordpress themes:

Compilations and Lists:

- Wordpress.org: Theme Directory

- Smashing Magazine: 100 Excellent Free Wordpress Themes

- Teknobites: 10 Clean and Light Wordpress Themes

- Hongkiat: 49 Most Downloaded Themes Of All Time

- Courtney Tuttle: 48 SEO Wordpress Themes

- Theme Playground: The Best Magazine Wordpress Themes Available

- Vandelay Designs: 17 Specialty Wordpress Themes

- Wordpress Hacks: Best 2 Column Wordpress Themes

- Dazzlin Donna: Best Premium Themes For A Non-Blog Look

Great Premium Wordpress Themes:

- WPremix: I created the website of my Los Angeles SEO consulting business Max The Web with this great theme (also promoted as ‘content management system’) developed by R. Bhavesh. As as buyer of the first version, this theme gave me many headaches and bigger and smaller heart attacks because of its bugs. There have been several updates with many improvements in the meanwhile. Now it works smoothly and I am very pleased with it. In my opinion, there is no other Wordpress theme out there that offers such a wide selection of customization features and layout options.

- Woothemes: Over a dozen of great designs by Mark Forrester and his friends, including three free themes.

- Revolution2: Great new themes by Wordpress design pionier Brian Gardner. Technically, the templates are free, but in order to install and use them easily, you need to get the professional support from the creators by purchasing one of the membership packages.

- iThemes: Very slick themes offered by Cory Miller and his buddies. Great design solutions especially for small businesses. I bought one of the early designs, and I liked their support very much.

- Thesis Theme: Great and very flexible theme created by Chris Pearson and his team. It has a passionate following, and the majority of bloggers really seem to like it.

- One Theme: This Wordpress theme has a very modern and fresh look. It comes in five colors and includes many customization features. The only downside: With the price of $99, it’s not exactly the cheapest theme on the market.

- Theme Forest: Great selection with great looking designs at affordable prices (starts at $10).

Free Wordpress Designs:

- Blog Perfume
- Performancing
- WPdesigner
- Skinpress
- Elegant WPthemes

Update:

WP Zoom has some many great posts with WP theme lists. Here are three of my favorites:

- Best Free Wordpress Themes in 2008
- Using Wordpress As A Portfolio: 15 Examples and Themes
- 10 Wordpress Themes Designed For Photo Galleries

Do you have other useful resources for great Wordpress themes I did not mention I my list? I know that there are TONS of sites out there, but tips for really well built and great looking templates? Let me know in the comments!

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