I will be speaking at PubCon about widgets on the Wonderful World Of Widgets session.

This will be my first officially “We Build Pages” speaking gig! For those of you who remember my adventures of last years PubCon you probably know that I do not like to be awake during the day, so if I have to be awake I might as well have some extraordinary things to say, which I will.

It will be a session worth watching for anyone who is considering getting into gadgets.

Before I joined Jim Boykin and We Build Pages I told Jim that I had to attend PubCon every year. PubCon is my “my time”.

I might even unveil some secrets about the ongoing team building here at We Build Pages

I will also be at SMX East. Forward thinking marketers should attend the Enhanced Listings panel. Danny and Vannesa are showing their already all too clear smarts by having this session.

If you do not know about enhanced listings, you should. Enhanced listings are what I am probably most excited about in the search engine community, they are also the things I spend most of my thoughts on, and there are many exciting things going on. To get a flavor of them see my articles on…

Yahoo Search monkey:

Yahoo beats Google to Widgets in search results Yahoo Search Monkey Launch Party Search Monkey SEOmoz example

Google Subscribed Gadgets:

Google Gadgets in Search Results Google and Human Behavior

Microsoft WebSlices: (I know this isn’t a enhancement per se, but it could be…)

Microsoft introduces Web Slices

I am working very hard to make We Build Pages the first major SEM firm to offer enhanced listings to their clients. We will be offinging alot more than link building very soon. Keep an eye on Jim’s blog to stay updated on this.

I am writing this post from the Troy, NY offices of We Build Pages where I now work

I have moved from Honolulu to Troy where I will work with Jim Boykin as the Search Engine Marketing Manager for We Build Pages. To learn more, see our announcement at We Build Pages.

Terms like semantic web, the social graph, and machine readable link relations are things that people in SEO and marketing typically sorta know about but don’t have a clear grasp on. I want to quickly explain a couple of terms and concepts that are part of the social future of the web and how link relationships can define more than we think. It will take a few posts to do so. Let’s start with XFN and defining link relationships.

Link Relationships:

When we think of a link we tend to think of a “vote” that makes our web properties stronger. Link relationships actually can be machine readable and defined. We all are familiar with “nofollow”, which is entered into links as [rel="nofollow"]. The “rel” part of that stands for “relationship” – as defined by the W3 here.

The only link “rel” that is widely used in the SEO community is the “nofollow” one. This occurs mostly due to Google via Matt Cutt stating that paid links must be”machine readable”.

If links are so important to SEO, then why doesn’t SEO define the relationships of their links?

Links that use XFN are a machine readable (ie Googlebot) way to define links. In other words, while many of you are worrying about changing anchor text around to make your links more natural, you are ignoring the actual existing machine readable way to do the same thing.

XFN

XFN is a standard of social link relationships. Who cares? You do, silly.

XFN and FOAF are really old things but one of Google’s newest API’s is called the Social Graph API and relies on XFN and FOAF data. XFN stands for Xhtml Friends Network.

XFN is the way that social link relationships are defined. In other words, instead of [rel="nofollow"] this new social API relies on things like [rel="friend met co-worker"] which means that I am linking to “a friend who I have actually met who is also my co-worker”

To create XFN machine readable links is pretty simple and we will discuss and illustrate why you might want to start doing it later, but for now let’s see what you can do with XFN. (if you are reading this via feed you won’t be able to see it, so come on over to the site) With this tool you can enter info about your link and define who or what the link is to you. So if you are linking to me for example you would put “Patrick Sexton” in the name field, and then define the rest by choosing which options apply to me…

note: The above tool was created by Matt Mullenweg and modified by me to be widget sized.

The XFN link tool is a really great overview of what relationships can be defined. Friend data, professional data, and even romance data can be defined.

Google Social Graph API

The Google social graph API identifies and displays social connections between links, websites, and people. Most interesting to me is the way the documentation spotlights XFN and FOAF (we will talk about foaf in another post). If Google is basing APIs on XFN and FOAF then that is about as clear of an indication that you can get from the search giant that it is using, and planning to use XFN and FOAF data.
If Google is using XFN, then you may want to know about it.
I will make SEOish “XFN friendly” and when I do I will take some screen shots and create a tutorial, but it is really very simple to do.

XFN Resources

To learn more about XFN go here
To make your site XFN friendly (in four steps) go here
To get the XFN link tool gadget go here

Social Graph API Resources

The API is here

SEM Canada is an event I am looking forward to speaking at. I just spoke at WidgetWebExpo in New York, and I discovered that my wacky style goes over quite well, even among professionals.

As far as SEM Canada goes, Google will be sending Ariel Barden (Google Group Product Manager) who will speak on paid search and also Phil Mui (Google Product manager) on analytics. The SEM Canada blog announced (rather mysteriously) that Google will also send “someone” to speak with me. Hmmm. Interesting. I hope whoever they send likes beer.

Jane Copland of SEOmoz will be there too! Yum.

Keep up with the latest speakers here

I just got two emails from someone via Linkedin that had to do with recruiting. It made me think for a second about companies I would recommend so I will just do it here. Many of the people I will mention are known to insiders, but may not be spoken of all the time or right there in your face obvious choices. I honestly don’t know if they will love or hate me talking about them

I reccomend…

For ROI based SEO/SEM services:

Red Door interactive

ROI isn’t just king with these guys, it is queen, jack, 1-10, and ace. Because they are lucky enough to have Paul Bruemmer a 15+ year veteran of the search industry, they have relationships and connections with just about every vertical and/or celebrity you want in the search field.

Stone Temple

I can’t think of one person who does not like Eric Enge. I can not think of one thing Eric Enge has ever said or wrote that I didn’t respect. I wish I had a company just so I could use his services.

For Analytic anything:

Frank Watson

I know Frank from drunken luncheons and late night poker games, the rest of the world knows him for some high level magical wizardry in the field of analytics and SEM.

For Web Design:

David Mihm

David is great and I have worked with him and he has a great portfolio. But what I really hope for is that he hires bunches of minions so I can get his services quicker (he is very busy).

For Icons both prepackaged and custom work:

Techlogica

I love these people. I use them alot. I think I have bought each of their very reasonable packages and I use them in custom work. I have been very happy with their work, their pricing and their artist Kyle White who has hooked me up at times when I was facing time crunches.

For Job Listings:

SEOmoz marketplace

If you want your job listing in front of buttloads of talented canidates, I suggest the SEOmoz marketplace. SEOmoz has an unique readership. There are some very talented people there, who are doing SEO / SEM related stuff on the side and I can honestly think of no other place to get great canidates. Every week Rebecca highlights new jobs and resumes from the marketplace, and I have seen some great things happen with it.

A couple of great lists:

Want to see a neat list of people to select from for SEM related services? Check out the right hand side of the homepage of Searchengineland.com their long blogroll is an extraordinary short list of great people in the field (and I am not just saying that because I am there).

Need an even wider pool of canidates? One can not mention lists without mentioning Lee Odden’s Big list .

Hi, this is just an open letter to Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask spam teams.

I will be speaking in depth about SEO and widgets at a couple of upcoming conferences and highlighting some of the more “dangerous” behaviors that can lead to spam trouble within widgets.

I have sent an email to Matt Cutts and I hope he sees it and responds. I also hope that anyone from any searchengine that has something they want put out to developers and marketers of widgets, please email me at guidelineguy@gmail.com

Thanks

I will be speaking at the SEM Canada conference this year. The conference will take place on September 4th and 5th in Calgary.

There is a great (and growing) lineup of speakers including Todd Friesen, Andy Beal, Bill Slawski, Jane Copland, and Ken Jurina – see the most current speaker list here.

More conference info can be found at www.SEMCanada.org

I will be also be speaking at some widget conferences as well, more details coming soon.

Keeping people on your page is good.

Gadgets are great for this, and a gadget we all use alot is an excellent example of this. One of the most used “Google” gadgets is, um… Ever posted a video from YouTube on your blog?

Thats a gadget, see you already use them

Keeping people on your website via gadgets is pretty easy. It is a simple, but often over looked tactic. Probably the simplest way to get someone to stay at least three minutes on your page is to post a three minute video on that page.

Putting together a set of videos on a certain subject adds value and can be great link bait as well.

Example: Sugarrae posted a collection of videos on the subject of Facebook and Facebook apps. I recommend you watch them.

If you have watched videos on a subject you enjoy, then you likely know which videos are worth watching and which videos suck. Use that knowledge! A simple post with five or so videos about a subject you know about will be appreciated by most, and will keep your visitors on your page longer.

Now that I explained this simple concept using videos, let’s remember that the videos you post are just gadgets that you have put on your web page. Think about that.

I am feeling nice and I am going to tell you a secret. The most important and fundamental piece of knowledge required to profit from gadgets fits in one pretty sentence…

The reason there is enormous revenue potential in gadgets is not because of the gadgets themselves, but because people don’t understand them and often do not even know they are using them, like when they post a YouTube video.

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly nintey-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think links are important for SEO.

- roughly quoted from Douglas Adams

Are links dead?

Me just asking that might baffle you, but the thing is…

Links are unnecessary to attaining traffic.

Huh? I mean it. Every day, there are tens of millions of people visiting websites that are not linked to very well. The acquisition of traffic is not the same thing as link building. One need not build links to acquire traffic.

Just to be clear. Link are important, but so are other factors. For the purposes of this article, let’s forget about link building.

Links are sorta losing their luster. Don’t believe me? You already know it, but you may need an example.

One of the most universally known things in SEO actually illustrates this…

Google PageRank

“In the beginning the Universe PageRank was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.”

- roughly quoted from Douglas Adams

We all know that PageRank is not the same thing as “RankingRank”. There are many other factors in ranking than just PageRank.

PageRank is Google’s measure of the importance of your links.

It is pretty normal to have a website with a PageRank of 5 or 6 or 7 to be not ranking for desired terms. Let me play Babelfish and translate this for you…

Google: “Hey you have great links, simply marvelous and juicy and strong links. Great job, I am going to give you a 7! On the scale of 1 to 10, you are a mighty 7, Congrats!”

You: “Can I rank for, like, the words on my page then?”

Google: “No”

You: “Why not?”

Google: “Because your link strength isn’t the only indication of your relevance.”

You: “Then what the hell is, and why the $%#@ have I been working my ass off for links?”

Google: crickets chirp

but it should be said…

“It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes links.”

- roughly quoted from Douglas Adams

Perspective rocks! Here are 6 scrumptious angles you may want to look at things from…

1) Websites are Not Useful, Until Proven Useful

- Google does not consider your new website to be useful. This is the beginning place where websites start at. No matter how incredible, no matter how innovative and wonderful and useful any website really is does not matter. Your website, whether it is a new website, or an old website that isn’t ranking, is a steaming pile of crap until it is proven to be useful.

The essential issue to ranking is not links.

It is proving to Google that your website is relevant and useful for your terms.

Those are different things. If you do not see the difference you are screwed.

Okay, links are one major thing Google uses to judge your site, but there are dozens of other ways to illustrate your quality and relevance to Google.

Do not think “How can a get Google to know how wonderful my website is?

Do think “How can I show Google my website doesn’t completely suck?”

The difference is important. Keep it simple, most of the ways to prove to Google your website doesn’t suck require having people visiting and using your site. You might think that is inconvenient, and that your entire plan was to have search engines send you all your traffic. You can still achieve that goal, but most of you will need to get people to your website without search engines first. And yes, it is inconvenient.

2) If your website was not listed in any search engine, how would you get visitors?

- You want traffic, you need it, you go to bed with a goofy smile on your face dreaming of it. If you are thinking only of links and search engine rankings, then somewhere along your journey you stopped thinking about what you really want.

Visitors. You want people visiting your website.

People visiting your website and ranking well on a search engine are two different things.

People visiting – is your goal

Ranking well on a search – is your means to a goal

They are different things. If you do not think that distinction is important then you are screwed, because the best way to get Google to like your website is to get people to like your website.

Are you ready for a secret? Prepare yourself… I am about to explain the entire concept of social media for you in seven words. These seven words have been around a long, long time but they have only just recently been called “link baiting”. The reason that link baiting is so successful, the reason it is hot and the reason it functions so well in attaining ranking in Google is because when you are link baiting, you are following the Google guideline that has for many years said simply…

“Make pages for users, not search engines”

Before you roll your eyes at that, think about it. What is link baiting? Link baiting is the creation of content that people will enjoy. We call it “link baiting” but it really is “people baiting”. It is thinking about people, and what they will respond to. We tend to think that the benefit to link baiting is the links but what if, just bear with me a second… What if the benefit to link baiting is actually the people visiting your website? (you know… that goal you had)

An example of a linkless SEO strategy would be to create content that people will like and use and be pleasured by.

3) Reality should have an important place in your marketing strategy

Just for the heck of it, lets say that your web venture has not attained top page ranking for all your desired terms.

“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.”

- Douglas Adams

When determining the way you get traffic to your website, people often think “SEARCH ENGINES!”

Stop doing that. Reality does not support it.

Adam Lasnik of Google once gave an outstanding analogy in the Google webmaster help forum in response to someone complaining and asking (what else?)…

someone: “How else do I get inbound links????”
Adam Lasnik: “How do any businesses in the real world get noticed? Elbow grease. I
respectfully recommend that you take place in conversations around the
net that pertain to subjects addressed by your site. Write articles on
your site that are informative and thus garner links because people
find them to be interesting or useful.
Sure, you’re not going to get links from competitors. But surely there
must be auxilliary offerings in this space… companies that make
something that goes with your product and doesn’t compete with it? No
company, no subject is an island.
It may be slightly time consuming, it may be frustrating, but that’s
also the case in the real world with new businesses; a new Chinese restaurant (especially here in San Francisco) does not get instant newspaper mentions or customer traffic just be existing. It has to do
something to stand out.”

Use paid search, Use StumbleUpon, Use telephone calls, Use print ads, radio ads.

If you do not have the money to do that you will have to be innovative. You have to do something better, more notable, and just so gosh plain neato that you will be remarkable enough to attract people to your website.

If your plan is to make a website “perfectly optimized for search engines” so that it will rank high, then I am sorry to have to bo the one to tell you this, but that hasn’t really worked too well for a few years now. Even in the cases where you can achieve some success via search engines, guess what? Your non Search engine traffic is still your best place to improve upon and doing so will naturally improve your search engine traffic.

4) Trends are important. Use them to decide what not to do.

Whenever you read something that seems like a sparkling and shiny great idea. Do something else, or find a way to implement the ideal in a different way.

Almost everything you have read about SEO has been read by others right? It has been implemented by others right? Ummm, that means something.

When my butt itches, my finger smells funny, that is a trend.

When everybody is buying links, everyone is also falsely inflating their importance. That is a trend too.

Buy links if you must to survive, but you know what else you should do? You should think to yourself… “If all my links lost their value, would I have any other way to prove to Google that my website doesn’t suck?”

In other words, set yourself apart from others. Use great ideas and techniques in such a manner that will benefit you even if the idea or techinque ends up losing it’s “magic”.

5) Say You, Say Me – “You” is the new “Me”

Almost all SEO efforts used to be concentrated on your own webpage. Remember those days? They are gone.

The most successful sources of traffic, recognition, and yes, links is not search engines is it? It is social media.

Let’s think about the thing that is common to all social media campaigns…

Improving and working on other peoples sites instead of our own.

Huh?

If you want something to do well on Digg, what do you do? You have a power account, don’t you? How do you get one? By doing things like making your profile meatier, interacting with other users, and spending time on Digg. All of those things Improve and work for Digg.

You is the new Me.

Want to get lots of juicy StumbleUpon traffic? Hmmm, well you need to spend time using it, and it is also highly recommended by most people who know what they are doing to link to your Stumbleupon pages to make them more important.

Once again, you is the new me.

Hey I want a video to show up in the Google universal results, like this one, which is about Video SEO in Google Universal results. Guess what? That link goes to Youtube, not me. I am improving and working on somebody elses website (youtube) for my own purposes.

(pssst – It is called interaction)

6) Be innovative, think from different perspectives

“Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”

- Douglas Adams

If you want to make money from the internet, you likely think you need a website.

You also may feel you need links to that website.

You are wrong.

Here is a way to think differently…

No website…

No links…

makes money…

Google gadgets. Don’t believe me? here are 3 ways to get traffic and money from Google gadgets.

There are hundreds of millions of Google gadget page views every day.

To make a Google gadget requires no website and no links to your gadget. Yet your gadget can create money, traffic, and links for you.

My 44 second video rant about Mahalo whiners received at least 380 links, was watched nearly 800 times, and was one of the most linked to videos (see stats in image) on YouTube in the “people and blogs” category for the first two days of its existence.

This is interesting to me in two ways.

One - A 44 second action can create alot of links… hmmm.

Two - Mahalo is a community of people who seem to link to stuff they like at a high rate (comparing the amount of views to the amount of links).

Whatever you think of the founder of Mahalo (a controversial guy) it makes sense to attempt to see Mahalo as a community of people, not as a person.

Just as Sphinn is not Danny Sullivan, it is a community of people. Mahalo is not Jason Calacanis, it is a community of people. It is a community of people who are active internet users.

Link building is what I do, but I was surprised by the reaction to that video.

380 links in 44 seconds?

1) Drink

2) See something that pisses you off.

3) Publish something about it.

Sorta like the revenue model for this blog, huh?

Link building is really about communicating.

If you communicate, you get links to your stuff.

Most sites/blogs I see that are not getting linked to are very often lacking any communication. Think about what you are writing, read it over, is it saying anything? Is it original or useful? Is it somehow interacting with the reader, will it garner a response?

Pretend it is a conversation. Seriously, if you were talking to your friends and you said your post aloud, would it bore people? Would it suck? Would people start yawning?

Write a post as if you are at a table of people and you are saying something witty and thought provoking, rather than boring and sucky.

It is sorta like poetry, the deeper you go into yourself, the deeper you will affect others.

It is like poetry in another way. There is alot of crap poetry out there that does not affect anyone, which makes the special stuff, well, special.

Be special, communicate something when you write.

Or get drunk, I am pretty much drunk every time I write, be it my stories or this blog. Hopefully you all have better fuller lives than I do and you can get your muse on without a bottle