While I don't pretend to be a Bonsai tree expert, nor a Google Sandbox pro; I couldn't help but notice the uncanny similarities between the successful growth of a Bonsai tree and a fresh website ranking in Google.

As spring has certainly sprung (UK), my relatively new Bonsai Tree has just started to spurt new shoots. Not knowing a great deal about the tree, I contemplated a re-pot, but thought I should better do a little research first. My tree ———–>

It became apparent that when potting or re-potting a bonsai tree it is essential to get the moisture balance just right and the one thing to avoid at all costs is total settlement of the soil before roots can penetrate. Drawing from this, it is clear that the roots are the nucleus for driving growth.

BonsaiGardner.org points out that there are three primary things that stand out in bonsai tree care "“ water, soil and the pot which the bonsai is grown.

To Water or Not to Water, Links are the Question?

It appears that the key attribute to Bonsai care is the watering.

I remember hearing an old Buddhist proverb, that you can give an apprentice Bonsai artist tools to prune on his first day, but only after several years will he be in a position to water the tree properly.

As for the reference, sorry I am not sure where it came from "“ you will have to take my word on it but it really does highlight the importance of watering. Too much or too little water can result in root rot "“ a common cause for lack of growth and even fatality in fresh Bonsais.

This proverb also holds weight for your link building efforts for a fresh site.

I use the word fresh to illustrate a new or re-potted tree. Similarly with a website this may be for a new, recently changed domain (301) or a change of registry info for a site.

Just like an inexperienced Bonsai enthusiast can get the balance of the moisture for their tree all wrong, a novice SEO can acquire too few links or go out aggressively and get too many spammy links. Both limit the growth and presence of the tree and website alike.

For the Bonsai tree it's the dreaded root rot and for the web site owner it's the equally un-fancied Google Sandbox.

Trust in the Magic Roots

I think Ibrian over at SEOmoz gets it just right:

The result is that to rank on Google for any kind of competitive keyword, you need to be able to leverage some degree of "trust".

Likewise, with the Bonsai, in order to get any kind of tree growth with a newly potted tree, you need to leverage some degree of root trust or a root system. The Bonsai really does put a lot of faith in its roots and these roots are extremely fragile after potting.

Be Selective in your Watering/Link building

In order to leverage some degree of trust, it is important to be selective in your watering and link building approach. BonsaiGardner.org notes that you want to follow the old Japanese rule and water three times "“ once for the pot, once for the soil and once for the tree.

This ties in well with Aaron Wall's thoughts that being selective in links acquisition for a quality spread of trusted links is the preferred method to move forward and that sometime less really is more.

Similarly to the Bonsai tree, if you get the quality, volume and rate of link acquisition in the right areas for your website "“ the Google Sandbox will not provide too much of a problem; yes there will be a hurdle to climb "“ but a very achievable one.

Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule, while some fresh Bonsai species can handle long periods of dryness, others require near constant moisture. This can be said for web sites too, there are many variables that come into play and it matters a great deal as to the environment and marketplace that they are in. Yes, even Bonsai trees compete within their own market!

What about my Bonsai?

She is still a-growin’ strong! I took a little peek at the roots "“ they seem to be in pretty good knick, so a 301 direct re-pot really isn't necessarily. That makes me feel better, although this still leaves me with pruning (tuning keywords), maintaining the soil (good neighbourhood), ensuring there is enough sun light and fertiliser (engaging content). I am sure there are plenty more analogies we could go into, but I am tired and of need of sleep. Feel free to share any thoughts or suggestions.

January has been a great month for forward-thinking linkbaiting ideas. Two posts that really stood out for me are Todd Malicoat’s Linkbaiting Playbook and Nick Wilson’s 2007 Guide to Linkbaiting.

Todd opens up and expands in some detail to Nick’s original five linkbaiting hooks and adds two more gems of his own:

• News Hook
• Contrary Hook
• Attack Hook
• Resource Hook
• Humour Hook
• Ego Hook
• Incentive Hook

Todd illustrates some excellent ideas and examples. Although, it was Nick’s 2007 Guide to Linkbaiting coupled with Aaron Wall’s SEM & Lateral Thinking Skills that really struck a chord for the need to be creative, think laterally and to take calculated risks in the drive for link love.

Nick goes on to say:

The linkbait way of link building is a mindset. To do it well, you need to put thoughts of manipulating the system to one side and focus entirely on providing value to your clients users and making that value easy to link to.

I agree that valuable content is the key, however I would go a little further in suggesting that the mindset for truly remarkable content that provides the highest rewards in links, is having the ability to think laterally.

In any competitive market it helps to think a little outside the box for new ideas. A savvy linkbaiter will then analyse the risks to link aggregation and have the confidence to take the most appropriate action.

Lateral Th(L)ink(bait)ing is where it is at for 2007 and lets finish off with Nick’s final and inspiring thoughts from his post:

Those of you already working on linkbaiting services are the rockstars of the industry, the pioneers of change, and you have a responsibility to yourselves and the industry as a whole to not let a wonderful win-win service gain an undeserved, shady reputation.

You could load them all into your favourite RSS reader, use a social bookmarking site or even create a custom search engine to plough through all the news. A custom search engine, isn’t that what Google does anyway you might ask?

Well sort of, although I think it holds value as the list has been filtered (customised) under the careful eye of Lee & co. Plus acronyms such as SEM, SMM & SMO are not that well represented for search marketing in search engines, eeek!

Search All Search Marketing Blogs

Loren Baker over at Search Engine Journal has been taking votes for the best Search Marketing Blog in various categories. The votes are in and congratulations to all the winners! This gave me the idea to categorise Lee’s Search Marketing blogs into custom search engines using Google Co-op. So here goes:

Category list can be found here.

Link Building

SEO

Paid Search

Blog Marketing & PR

Web Design & Analytics

Search (Engine) News

Miscellaneous Search Marketing

For simplicity I have limited each blog to only one category. Maybe I will expand it later on.

These categories are my interpretation of Lee’s descriptions and also some of my own judgments. With over 250 blogs and the quick nature that I put the search engines together, I am sure that a few blogs may have fallen into the wrong areas (or even worse, completely omitted).

So I apologise in advance if this is the case and to those that I have put into the miscellaneous list – they are all important, but time was the real issue!

Please let me know if I missed any blogs or if I am way off the mark and I will happily add or move them.

I hope this is of some use to someone, even if it’s just for a couple of playful minutes. As always, feedback welcomed.

Linkbaiting is really nothing more than a well thought out piece of viral marketing. Back in the day, word of mouth provided the vehicle for nearly all successful viral marketing campaigns. These days, online viral marketing is beginning to be driven by social media with the main purpose in attracting more links and more visitors.

At first, the term linkbait, may seem a little uneasy to swallow. Ok it does sound a little like a trap, however it’s perfectly ethical from a search engine’s perspective and in most cases from a human point too.

I think the controversy of its name has only added to the overall success and rapid adoption in the SEO world. Come on, isn’t the term itself an intriguing and alluring pull to find out more? And that’s the start to any great source of linkbait, right?

Ok, let’s have a quick gander at the various parts that make up linkbaiting:

The Linkbaiter

The first step to being an artful linkbaiter is being extremely knowledgeable and/or passionate about the content you writing about.

After that, it’s all about being creative! Think of ways to grab the reader’s attention, provide something of true value and make it easy for visitors to link and discuss your content. Make your bait really juicy and the ~ fishes >-)));> ~ are sure to follow .

Linkbait Goals

Every linkbaiter should have an idea for their linkbait goals! Yes, linkbaiting is great for (cheap) inbound links, but it is also useful for increasing visitors, branding, subscribers, registrations and of course customers. Does your linkbait have a persuasive goal?

Where possible, it is sometimes best to avoid diluting your goals. Oftentimes linkbait goals just don’t mix. Bloggers can provide heaps of lush inbound links and customers is where the money is at!

Both are important for business, but linkbait is all about going viral, so it’s often best to target links, visitors and subscribers as separate entities to customers. Customers can result from linkbait, but they are rarely the catalyst for viral success.

Linkbait Audience

Identifying your Linkbaiting audience or as Rand nicely puts it, your ‘Linkerati‘ should be high on the agenda in your linkbaiting strategy. Rand breaks these down into seven suitable areas: bloggers, forum posters, web news writers, content creators, resource editors, social taggers and viral connectors. Know who you are targeting!

The Linkbait

If links are the objective, what is the bait? Linkbait can come in all shapes, and sizes, all with the end result of increased traffic, brand exposure and oodles of links back to your site or brand. Nick Wilson separates his thoughts of linkbait into 5 broad, but neat hooks:

• News hook
• Contrary Hook
• Attack Hook
• Resource Hook
• Humour Hook

Add one of these with a magnetic headline to arouse interest and if you can, be quotable! Remember, more often than not, links come from small citations or remarks from others which may only be a few words rather than chunks of paragraphs.

Linkbaiting Portals

There are lots of web 2.0 friendly portals like digg and del.icio.us which act a little like a linkbaiter’s playground. That’s right, a fun playground where many of the readers are bloggers or news reporters of some kind, and are all itching and possibly anticipating for a piece of your fresh linkbait!

You can seed your linkbait in such portals and also learn what’s hot, newsy and most importantly what’s baity!

The Search Engine’s Perspective on Linkbaiting

What better perspective about a search engine’s view to linkbaiting/link building, than that of Danny Sullivan’s recent take on a Google’s discussion regarding link building?

Here’s a summary of what’s covered:

• Earned Links/Trusted Links
• Non-Earned Links/Non-Trusted Links
• Buying Paid Links
• Selling Paid Links
• Have Good Content
• Link Baiting Is Fine
• Exchanged Links Are Bad BUT I Say Ignore This

The key area mentioned is that Google is only really interested in giving credit for links that you have earned and that it can trust. This seems straightforward and obvious, but it’s easy to fool yourself and believe that any link you receive, you have earnt. Oh, and it also covers that you should ‘have good content‘. And linkbaiting is fine – phew!

And finally a look at the Top Linkbaiters in SEO

Let’s finish things off by looking at the bright stars of linkbaiting and their best posts for 2006. Here you will see their most popular articles and it should also illustrate some rather fat juicy linkbait.

And not forgetting some of the other greats like Andy Hagans and Aaron Wall on their collaboration of the mighty linkbaicious 101 Ways to Build Link Popularity in 2006.

Basically, it all really boils down to having compelling valuable content that folks go crazy about and can’t resist in sharing and discussing further. Easy, isn’t it???

Social Media Optimisation (SMO) is creating quite a buzz as an alternative to traditional SEM or as Lee Odden puts it, a ‘traffic alternative to Google‘. The concept was first defined by Rohit Bhargava and has recently been coined into Social Media Marketing (SMM) by SeoMoz.

Although widely accepted as SMO in the SEM world, I am with SeoMoz that SMM is a far more suitable and self explanatory acronym. SMM describes the relatively new SEM strategy that enables others to easily comment on, tag, link and eventually share or bookmark an article or post on a social networking site, such as del.icio.us or digg.

Examples of SMM

There are a variety of social websites that can assist in bringing more inbound links, traffic and exposure for your brand and website. Digg, Technorati, StumbleUpon, Squidoo and Wikipedia are all capable of generating oodles of inbound links. SeoMoz provides quite a substantial list, detailing 25 of their most valuable sites that will help with your SMMing.

Like any successful SEO campaign, the key to SMM is having valuable content that people want to link to, discuss and share.

SMM, a new SEO link building technique for Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 has provided search engine marketers or social media marketers with a wide array of one way link building opportunities. The emergence and popularity of social networking sites, such as Digg and del.licio.us, has made social bookmarking and social news sites perhaps as important as the more traditional link building methods, such as press releases, directory & article submission – I would say perhaps even more so, with endless opportunities to lay down some ever so valuable linkbait.

Aaron Wall of SEOBOOK.com and the founder of the term (I think?) linkbait, has recently expanded his views on various linkbaiting opportunities that will no doubt help with SEO & link building efforts for the web 2.0. Cheers Aaron.

Ok enough rambling and back to the question, is SMM a new SEO link building technique for Web 2.0? I think the answer is kind of. SMM certainly shares some similarities to SEO, but also many differences. SEO focuses its attention on getting traffic from search engines, whilst SMM from social networking sites, making it a great alternative to Google.

I really do like Danny Sullivan’s simple definition: ‘SMO: it’s like SEO, for social sites‘. He then asks the question, ‘how SMO friendly is your site’? A question I think many search engine marketers are now asking too!

How can I hitch an SMM ride, I hear you ask?

Firstly, you need to understand the Rules!

Yes, SMM/SMO has rules and a good port of call to kick things off is with Rohit Bhargava’s well publicised 5 SMO Rules of Social Media. These rules seem to have gone down well in the SEO world, with a variety of bloggers adding to the growing list. Loren Baker supplies 8 more SMO rules and Lee Odden develops the list further with 3 more of his own, to bring the tally up to 16.

Moving away from the rules for a moment, I really liked Daniel Riveong’s take on the rules and how to get SMO success. He assumes there are two underlying SMO success assumptions:

1. The New Ruleset: If the Social Media is about ‘Engaging People’ and ‘Conversation’ why are we reading still reading [sic] just the Cluetrain Manifesto? We should be reading ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People‘ as well. Read up on it. Can you see how it applies online?
2. The Equation: ‘engagement + authenticity x audience reach’. Logic+Marketing has covered this and so has Scott Meyer at SES San Jose.

I agree and in fact this has inspired me to order a copy of ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ too. Nice one Daniel! He then comes up with 5 suitable themes to throw into the mix.

The 5 Themes of Search Media Optimization (SMO)

1. Understand, Cater, and Help Your Audience
2. The Internet is Alive, Make Your Web Site Alive Too
3. Treat the Audience Like People!
4. Social Media is Not a Tool, It’s Today’s Internet Culture
5. The Internet is More than a Webpage on a Computer, What about You?

And the Rules:

1. Increase your linkability (Rohit’s Rules 1-5)
2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy
3. Reward inbound links
4. Help your content travel – Content Diverification Beyond Web Pages
5. Encourage the mashup – E.g. Portability of YouTube Videos on MySpace
6. Be a User Resource, even if it doesn’t help you (By Jeremiah Owyang)
7. Reward helpful and valuable users (By Jeremiah Owyang)
8. Participate (By Cameron Olthuis)
9. Know how to target your audience (By Cameron Olthuis)
10. Create content (By Cameron Olthuis)
11. Be real (By Cameron Olthuis)
12. Don’t forget your roots, be humble (By Loren Baker)
13. Don’t be afraid to try new things, stay fresh (By Loren Baker)
14. Develop a SMO strategy (By Lee Odden)
15. Choose your SMO tactics wisely (By Lee Odden)
16. Make SMO part of your process and best practices (By Lee Odden)

That’s a lot of guidelines and there is a growing SMO community where bloggers like to discuss and share their views of what exactly SMO is.

The next step – Apply the Rules!

I think the rules have been discussed enough within the cummunity, so let’s have a look at how they can be applied:

1. Blog it Up! Oftentimes we are writing excellent content, but target it more for Google, than your average Joe Bloggs (excuse the pun!). Joe Bloggs may be interested in your product or services, Google isn’t! Joe Bloggs may participate, contribute or write about your blog, Google won’t! He may even start the ball rolling in helping build up your social network, influencing influential bloggers to share and further discuss what you have to say. Know your target audience and blog for the Joe Bloggs of your community and Google will follow. Yes, you still need SEO, but why not blend it in with a nice bit of SMM?
2. Digg it Up! Social Bookmarking/Networking sites are a great search engine alternative in attracting visitors and links. Make it easy for visitors to subscribe, digg, bookmark and share your stuff! Stuntdubl shows you how to Digg it Up!
3. Tag it Up! Make sure your pages have relevant tags associated to it and that they have been submitted to the social bookmarking/news sites that you wish to target.

So where does this leave SMM?

SMM, as I am sure you will agree, certainly has a bright future as an alternative SEM strategy for boosting traffic, that isn’t dependant on the big ‘G’. In fact, if combined with linkbaiting it can result in loads of exposure and links and we all know Google likes links! So it’s a double whammy really, more traffic through search engines and more as an alternative.

SMM and 2007?

Britopian Marketing posted an interesting article indicating that SMO is becoming mainstream. The article points out that Ad Age has recently released a Search Marketing Fact Pack that outlines SMO as the 9^th out of 12 SEO strategies for 2007.

Through spending much of my time rummaging through the various SEO/SEM blogs, on a daily or perhaps even hourly basis, I would say SMO or SMM should be in the top 5 for SEO strategies for 2007. I suppose it really comes down to how you define it. Its lethal combination with a well thought out piece of linkbait may even put it in pole position for the New Year. What are your thoughts?