Is SEO a waste of your time and money?

"Yes!" says one web expert.

Anthony Fallon, CEO of Warrington Web Works, a UK web publishing company, claimed this week that search engine optimization (SEO) is a waste of time and money for businesses.

In a February 27th press release, Anthony says that using the latest distribution technologies (like RSS), writing quality content, and taking advantage of vast improvement in search engine technology make SEO unnecessary.

"Web 2.0 it’s all about your visitor", Anthony added. "The new distribution technologies like RSS will get your message out there without any magic or manipulation of search results. The quality of Google’s Search technology is really coming on in leaps and bounds. If businesses can get in front of their customers without stuffing their content with keywords, it has to be a good thing. As for the SEO Industry, good riddance I say."

In order to prove his point, Anthony wrote an article, "SEO Mind Crime," posted it on Wednesday and told his readers to search for "SEO Mind Crime" on Google over the coming days. Within 24 hours, the article appeared at positions 3, 4 and 6 on Google's first page (out of 826,000 indexed pages).

According to Anthony, this isthe ultimate proof that SEO is no longer required in our Web 2.0 world.

I'm not so sure.

Anthony's test may have worked for an obscure phrase like "SEO Mind Crime" (I doubt ANYONE would normally search for that phrase without being specifically asked to do so), but we need results from "real" visitors searching for "real" keyword phrases.

What good does it to to be ranked high in search engine results for phrases people aren't using?

The REAL test is whether non-SEO tactics like those Anthony promotes can be as successful as SEO with commonly used keywords and search phrases our target audiences are likely to use.

That being said, I totally agree with Anthony that we need to put most of our emphasis on non-SEO tactics such as: (1) providing quality content, (2) using technologies like RSS and user-friendly media like video, (3) promoting and marketing our sites through social networking and bookmarking services, and other Web 2.0 tools.

But I do not believe that SEO is completely worthless. Sorry, Anthony!

Here's the link to the press release: Search Engine Optimisation A Waste of Time and Money

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This is "hot off the presses!"

My friend Jack Humphrey has just finished initial work on a new section of his JackHumphrey.com site that you can use to promote your own articles and sites.

If you have content, posts, etc. that fit the internet marketing news niche, you can start loading up this new "Digg-style" story area for the Friday Traffic Report (FTR).

Then be sure to link to it as much as you can from your sites to boost that directory for the next update. It will help your stories get read and ranked!

Jack will be promoting it from FTR and many other places once it fills up a bit and there are posts in all the categories to start.

Here's where to go to check it out and submit your stories: www.JackHumphrey.com/IMNews

There's an interesting article on Michel Fortin's blog about comments and spam.

He mentions the pros and cons of allowing comments on your blog. I agree with him that comments are a GOOD thing… as long as you can control the spam.

I'd already installed and activated the "Akismet" plugin he mentions. It is working nicely to catch spam comments.

I hadn't known about the benefits of the "Dofollow" plugin, though. I just installed and activated it after reading Michel's post.

Read Michel's excellent article by clicking here: How to Get More Comments, Less Spam.

This video is pretty funny. I actually watched it while I was at work (with no volume; I work in a cubicle after all, and I'm not an idiot).

Yes, I was working on this blog while I was at work. But unlike the guy in this video, I wasn't so… obvious… about it. I do want to keep my job (at least for now).

Enjoy!

Nope, not from me. But Kelly at A Yoga Coffee Outlook is giving away a Zune MP3 Player as part of a very smart link-building campaign.

To quality:

1) You must have a blog.

2) You must include in a blog post the following text: "Kelly at A Yoga Coffee Outlook is giving away a Zune MP3 Player."

3) You must include a link to www.yogacoffeeoutlook.com.

4) You must leave a comment at Kelly's blog so she knows you want to be included.

Kelly's contest is open through July 1st which means you have plenty of time to enter, and she has plenty of time to get a bazillion links to her blog. Hmmm… I'm gonna think about doing a contest like this.

By the way, her blog is entertaining and definitely worth reading. I recommend you check it out, even if you aren't interested in the Zune MP3 Player.

Here's the link: www.YogaCoffeeOutlook.com

Are you a music fan? If so, you might want to check out SearchWinMerch.com, a new web search engine with an interesting twist: every search offers a chance to win stuff — concert tickets, official band merchandise, autographs and more.

When I read the Press Release on this new service, two questions came to mind:

(1) Will niche-specific search engines become more popular as the Web 2.0 crowd gets bored or impatient with "old-fashioned" and huge seach engines?

(2) Is "bribery" (the chance to win stuff) a smart strategy for getting people to try a new service?

I think the answer to number (1) is yes. Niche-specific search engines are already growing in popularity. The Online Education Database has posted an article listing their opinion of the Top 25 Web 2.0 Search Engines.

While all of them are not really niche-specific, they do show this trend: what we tend to think of as a "typical search engine" is quickly evolving into a tool that is more personal, more targeted and helpful to its users.

As for the answer to question (2) above, I think only time will tell. If SearchWinMerch.com becomes a big hit, we'll have our answer.

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger has added his personal touch to an original post by Daniel of DailyBlogTips entitled "10 Requisites for Professional Bloggers."

Daniel's post talked about these:

1. Time
2. Expertise on a topic
3. Passion for the topic
4. Writing skills
5. Technical Knowledge
6. Blogging Knowledge
7. Web Design Skills
8. Business/Marketing Knowledge
9. Creativity and Innovative Ideas
10. Network of contacts

Darren added these:
Read more

What's your sign? Want a new one?

How about seeing your name imprinted on a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame? A cool bumper sticker? A theater markee?

Here's how:

1. Go to RedKid.Net

2. Take your pick from several images (new ones are added every so often).

3. Enter your text in the fill-in-the-blank form.

4. View the clever result.

5. If you like it, copy and past it into your site!

It's all entirely free.

Warning: This can be addictive!

Here's the link again: RedKid.Net

Philip at ihelpyoublog has put together a Complete Blogging Resource List For The Pro-Blogger.

He says "This will be a work in progress and I’ll be updating the list frequently." But it's already a very comprehensive list that includes links to resources about blogging platforms, revenue generation, helpful forums and blogs about blogging, and much more.

You'll want to bookmark it. See the entire list here:

Complete Blogging Resource List For The Pro-Blogger.

Good images make blogs and websites much more interesting. I should use more of them myself. Now that I've found this handy list of resources for good-quality images, I'm out of excuses.

Presentation Zen has a very helpful post with a list of resources where you can find good inexpensive and even free images. Check it out here:

Where Can You Find Good Images?

Aaron Wall of SEOBook makes a compelling case for quality writing in a recent post, If People Hate Your Writing Google Hates Your Website.

Here are a couple of the excellent points he makes:

More and more people are reading and writing online. As the amount of content increases the value of strong filters goes up. Thus if you have content that you can pitch to them it will spread virally. I recently created one good article for a client, pitched it to 3 websites, and it got well over 100 organic citations in the first week.

… and…

After you have strong baseline knowledge of the topic, general writing principals, and know how to package information then the packaging is the only difference between profitable and and unprofitable content.

He also offers some great tips on information packaging.

Read Aarons entire post by clicking here: If People Hate Your Writing Google Hates Your Website.

Richard St. John of TED compacts seven years of research into a terrific 3-minute slideshow on the real secrets of success (Hint: Passion, persistence, and pushy mothers help).

Think about your biggest competitors.

Now how are you feeling about them? Jealous? Angry? Frustrated? Intimidated?

How about friendly? Admiring? Generous? Even grateful?

Say nice things about your competitors! That's the advice of an excellent article at Presentation Zen called Love thy competitor! (And it wouldn't hurt to say nice things about them either).

The article includes a video of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer responding to a question about the Apple iPhone. Public reaction to Ballmer's (perceived) dismissive and disrespectful comments was negative. What if he'd been complimentary instead? Hence, the idea for the article.

Here's are a couple of great quotes from it:

Good bloggers operate from an "abundance mentality" rather than a "scarcity mentality." They are more concerned with being linky than being sticky. Readers trust a blog that happily points them to other cool and useful sites. Likewise, people respect someone who has enough confidence in themselves that they are not afraid to introduce you to others who are perhaps even more talented than themselves.

…and…

Former Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble included this idea in his Corporate Blogging Manifesto:

"Link to your competitors and say nice things about them. Remember, you're part of an industry and if the entire industry gets bigger, you'll probably win more than your fair share of business and you'll get bigger too. Be better than your competitors — people remember that. I remember sending lots of customers over to the camera shop that competed with me and many of those folks came back to me and said 'I'd rather buy it from you, can you get me that?'"
— Robert Scoble

By putting a human face on the company, Robert did much to make Microsoft seem "less evil" in his three years with the company. Although he was a Microsoft employee and used and even loved many of its products, he also criticized the company and often praised its rivals. To many this made him more trustworthy that Bill, Steve B. or the Microsoft PR machine.

Read the entire article and get more great insights about the best way to deal with competitors by clicking here: Love thy competitor!.

This video is fascinating, thought-provoking, and a even little scary to me. It basically explains Web 2.0 in under 5 minutes. It's been viewed over a million times!

Check it out…

Because my newly installed Internet Explorer 7 and my Google Toolbar refuse to play nicely together, I've found another way to check the page rank of my (and other's) web sites:

www.smartpagerank.com

It's a pretty nifty tool — free, too. In addition to providing the page rank, it shows the Alexa ranking (for what it's worth) and number of backlinks.

If you subscribe, you'll be automatically notified via email when the page rank changes.