Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills

Talking with @waterschool while @Namescon

Posted: 30 Jan 2014 08:46 AM PST

While in Las Vegas earlier this month I got the chance to meet some really awesome people at the NamesCon conference. I got a chance to speak with Leah from Water School, a charity focused on educating people about the process of obtaining safe drinking water.

If you’d like to learn more or donate, check them out at www.waterschool.com

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

Did You Hear About The New Internet? Here’s How To Reach and Influence Them.

Posted: 29 Jan 2014 08:16 AM PST

No, I am not talking about the Internet of Things. I am not talking about Mobile Apps. I am not even talking about websites becoming platforms.

I am talking about the only constant in our rapidly changing tech and internet landscape.

One of the biggest problems facing brands and marketers today is how rapidly technology evolves, and how dynamic the Internet has become. Every day I read another story about an SEO who gave up hope because of how confusing ranking in Google has become.

You could be the biggest SEO expert today, and tomorrows algorithm change can crush you in your sleep.

I am not just talking about SEO, I am talking about two big facts that influence most tech innovations.

1. Technology builds on itself, and every new innovation brings exponential use cases, integrations and possibilities that were never possible. This leads to an environment where innovation moves exponentially quicker, and changes happen at a more rapid pace as time progresses.

2. Technology innovation costs money, and therefore usually needs a monetization strategy. This leads to an even more progressive innovation environment in industries that create the most value, for example…in the advertising and marketing technology space.

This leaves us with a world where marketing strategies become obsolete before most people adopt them.

There is always a curve of early adapters and the mainstream business world. Still, even the most progressive advertisers and marketers out there are still struggling to keep up with the promise of tomorrows tech.

Big Data, Programmatic advertising, and Marketing Automation are hot buzzwords that are the flavor of the week for marketing professionals today, but using DMP’s and third party data to map offline credit card purchases back to un-clicked banner ad impressions hasn’t even been discovered by the majority of advertisers. All these innovations are meant to leverage information to bring a more personalized message in real time so brands can be more relevant to consumers in a scalable way. Yet, that tech is so yesterdays news… Tomorrows tech is first party cookies, multi-device attribution, publishers becoming ad exchanges, and who knows what else.

The problem you have is that tomorrows tech will likely leave these solutions in the dust. Probably the biggest problem facing marketers today is finding sustainable strategies that will continue to work despite technology evolving rapidly.

One of the areas that I see this being especially true is with Search Engine Optimization. Google makes 30-40 algorithm tweaks a month. Major updates are rolled out every month or so and their webmaster guidelines are constantly changing. Especially with link acquisition strategies. Pretty much everything has been banned by Google and websites are getting penalized today for what was once considered white hat strategies they employed several years ago.

So, what can you do that will still work tomorrow?

The good news is…within this chaos is actually certain stability. Stability we can count on. Stability we can latch onto and leverage for long term success.

What is stable about an ever changing world? CHANGE is the only thing you can count on.

Old News is boring. Change is exciting. Yesterdays story is over. Tomorrows Story is exciting.

This is the secret to sustainable success on the internet. Always be New. Always Be Fresh. Always be different. Break the News, Spin The News, Jack the News, but be part of the NEW INTERNET if you want to stick around for good!

If you want to succeed in search engines or engage on social media sites or just be relevant….

You Have To GIVE PEOPLE What They Want!

What do people want? They want stories. They want to be amused. To be entertained. To be informed. They want to be engaged. They want to be the opposite of bored!

Be INTERESTING. Old is Boring. New is Interesting!

I am a big believer in earning organic links. Writing content so compelling others choose to link to it. I have written 148 blog posts on my personal blog, and the ones that attract links from quality sources are far and few between. I think all my posts are great… That doesn’t make them all linkable.

Perhaps my most successful blog post that attracted links is my recent one about Super Bowl advertisers running PPC ads in Google before the big game. Not only did that post earn a link from Mashable, but the brilliant Mashable author managed to turn my plain old content into a fresh story. He focused on an interesting detail in my broader post, and not only did he create a great story, I earned a high value link and public shout-out.

Same Facts, Same Details… Completely Unique, Different, and Value Added Stories.

Here’s mine: #SuperBowl Advertisers Turn To PPC Advertising To Capture Big Game Searchers

Here’s Mashables: Bud Light Buys Up Most of the Super Bowl Ad Searches

Looks like completely different stories to me…

What’s amazing is that two other popular websites wrote similar posts, all with completely different spins, and neither of them ever saw mine or Mashable’s post. Completely fresh perspectives. This is key to realize:

You are likely blinded by the original story, and sometimes it takes a blank slate to find the unique angles…

Just four unique perspectives and stories built on the very same facts and data.

Let’s compare the other headlines…..

How Google Gets Its Piece of the Super Bowl Ad Blitz

5 Tactics Super Bowl Advertisers Are Using To Boost Their Paid Search Campaigns

This is the secret to staying fresh. When you find a story that is interesting enough to share. Find a unique angle and hone in on it and now you have a fresh new story. More importantly, now you have a story others may choose to reference in their own personal take.

When you manage to “See the Story Within the Story” Like Todd Wasserman did on Mashable, and make it seem so natural that you could just as easily have developed the story from scratch like the SEL, and BusinessWeek versions, you will have mastered the most valuable content skill possible.

Pretty much every major story that breaks will have dozens of completely different takes and perspectives of the very same facts and details. More importantly, all add value in their own unique way.

So, if you want to win on the New Internet… Find a way…any way… to be different. be fresh. be unique.

Want a Shortcut? Just Be Yourself.

Share your take. your view. your vision, be yourself, because that’s the easiest way to be unique.

I’ve written in the past about Sustainable SEO strategies that never fail. In that post I concluded that the single most effective brand building, link acquiring, traffic generating, readership engaging strategy is…

Give Your Readers Something They Can’t Find Anywhere Else In The World!

Journalists will cite you, bloggers will quote you, followers will tweet you, circlers will plus one you, and friends will like you.