Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills

Link to ShoeMoney Internet Marketing Blog

Posted: 28 Aug 2012 06:10 AM PDT

2012 is supposed to be all about the open web and sharing all those happy-go-lucky feelings with others. Whether tweeting, pinning or sharing, the last thing you can afford to do is stifle the spirit of sharing and the conversation. And why? Because if you don’t, someone will be right there to take your place.

Older timers will remember that WebmasterWorld existed in a vacuum. Linking out was very rarely permitted, and only to very large news sites (think Washington Post) and where Brett Tabke even branded Matt Cutts blog – and even the official Google blog – as too spammy and self-promoting to link to (yes, he really did). The result? Many high profile administrators and moderators – and Google Guy himself, which was really WebmasterWorld’s claim to fame at the time – left or began posting very sporadically. The forums have never really recovered from that heyday when WebmasterWorld was THE place to be, but it does make you wonder how much more successful the WebmasterWorld forums would have been if it had been an early adopter of the open and sharing web, where people could link to SERoundtable or MattCutts.com without fear of the <snip>, rather than the closed off insulated space it stayed – and still is for the most part. If it was pagerank, WebmasterWorld was definitely hoarding it for all it is worth. But Brett’s approach is why Threadwatch was able to storm in and take over that part of the niche Brett lacked.

Another perfect example is the whole Jenn Matthews trademark discussion. It started as a long comment stream on Facebook, which was then later removed/hidden. Then came her blog post, but with the comments turned off so no one could leave any comments about it. So what were people to do? When I wrote my blog post When Will So-Called Experts Stop Trademarking Search Industry Terms people came out in droves to leave comments there instead. So instead of Jenn Matthews being in control of the comments with the ability to respond to each and every one, she was left with trying to respond to it all on someone else’s blog instead. Which was pretty significant, since Rob Garner disputed some of what Jenn and written in her blog post, and resulted in her editing her original blog post (she made no reference that a section was significantly changed, if you are reading it now).

An example of someone doing it right? When Bruce Clay got mired in the whole local paid inclusion scandal, he came out with a public blog post about the issue and allowed comments, which was pretty smart since he could bring the discussion to him and his team. If you ever have anything that has a negative spin on it that you need to get out there, transparency is key, and Bruce nailed it. Some of the comments weren’t pretty, but you know what, he bounced back. He is, after all, Bruce Clay But I am sure they waffled over the comments off or on aspect of it for sometime before clicking that publish button.

I do find it ironic that this industry seems to have more than its fair share of sites adopting the vacuum approach to their online business. After all, you’d think we’d be so far ahead of the game it isn’t funny. What do you think of the search community and this whole vacuum effect?

Looking for an SEO service that won’t get you banned?