How To Rank Highly When Competitors Spam and Stuff Keywords
Quick Guide to Competitive Niche SEO.
In competitive niches, SEO’s can have success in ranking highly for key terms related to their business.
The way you SEO is relative to the other internet marketers in your niche.
1. Submit to directories and comment on blogs.
If your competitors are spamming forums and linked to bad neighborhoods, you should first build only the most high quality backlinks in your niche. Your goal is to obtain one-way, top-quality links, as many more than your competitors as possible. One-way link directories and blogs can be your friend. Look for respected authorities that link out liberally and seek new content.
2. Ethically use social media.
Work to write only the most linkable content, and poise your content to go viral so you can gain thousands of backlinks. In a spam-filled niche, you’re likely playing a bit of catch up to the sheer numbers of backlinks your competitors have amassed. Even with more high quality links, it’s still a bit of a numbers game. The backlinks generated from social media aren’t necessarily high quality but they are certain to be of greater value than bad neighborhoods. Remember that your competitors probably don’t know how to embrace social media without spamming forums.
3. Write longer content.
You can rank highly without keyword stuffing. Even when the top 30 results in the SERPs for your niche are all keyword stuffing, white hat SEO has a simple trick that allows you to use the targeted keywords the same number of times as your competitor: make your page content a heck of a lot longer than your competitors! Instead of five paragraphs and spammy sounding text with excessive keyword density, write twice as much and spread out your keyword usage. That way, you’re writing for humans (i.e. not appear or sound like spam) and using your keywords, in context, as many times as your competitors.
Corporate Social Media Strategy - Sprint Ahead
The corporate social media strategy embraced by Sprint is very attractive to me, (as was their Sprint flashlight ad), and puts them directly at odds with the branding of Cingular and AT&T as “The New AT&T”. It is discussed at Phone News, that the ads, “don’t tell you one good reason to go with Sprint over anyone else.” While this is true, I do not see that as a fundamental flaw in the advertising campaign. The new Waitless.org site is pretty cool. I disagree that it “establishes [no] more than a tenuous link to Sprint.” I encourage you to see where your time goes each day with their “calculate your time” tool, and then discover how to live a more productive lifestyle.
People switch networks for a number of reasons. The only reason I am going to switch from one carrier to another, is based on the network and the price. I am not one to switch my network to purchase a brand new iPhone, (available only on AT&T). This ad campaign has the potential to grab people on many different fronts. The fact that they haven’t indicated pricing points or innovative phones or other reasons to go with Sprint over another network does not mean it isn’t a good ad campaign. And it is, in fact, a great viral marketing campaign. Sending an e-card is generally boring, (though I quite like them at Sprint Sweets, minus the long load time). Showing people something, like how to take off a shirt quickly, chill soda, or parallel park, is engaging because it is humorous, entertaining, and creative, while sticking to their “sprint ahead” and lifehacking branding.
I applaud this corporate social media strategy and effort, and look forward to seeing them incorporate reasons to switch as the campaign continues to evolve.
Stop Shooting Viral Marketing Blanks, Stupid.
“Social media this”, “social media that”, “web 2.0-ify your site”. If you’ve been marketing online for even the shortest amount of time, you’ve surely heard that the web is social, and that your marketing efforts should be social too…to the point of viral marketing.
An internet marketers goal is to create downright viral content, right? Wrong. Content going Viral isn’t necessarily the goal, it’s often a byproduct of well positioned content. The goal is to create well positioned content and prep it for at least some viral success.
How to Prep a Blog Post for Viral Success - Your Viral Marketing Plan:
Success is not instantaneous for most marketers.
Not everyone can gain thousands of eyeballs to their content. Fewer can make their content stick long enough to achieve backlinks. Instantaneous success often comes from careful planning and calculated steps towards achievable goals. Receiving hundreds of visitors to new content from del.icio.us, mybloglog, or any social site often comes from successful marketing of yourself and your blog generally. If you haven’t begun these basics, instantaneous success in making content viral is unlikely.
Improve your chances for instantaneous success.
Carefully plan and take calculated steps towards achievable goals, such as becoming a Digg user and amassing 20 friends who actively promote their own and other’s content and can be reached by IM, email, or your favorite form of communication. Join networks. Spend time developing your profile, then use the system. Come back tomorrow and use it some more…repeat. Engage regularly. Make friends on the social sites by digging, plugging, sphinning, and stumbling. Spend time developing your del.icio.us bookmarks into a resource for yourself AND others.
Identify your targets.
Is Digg the best place for your content? Or is a traditional, laser-focused forum a better idea? BTW, one of my greatest marketing successes came from a forum.
Prepare content with multiple titles and descriptions.
Digg and Reddit users like different things. You can’t just write one title and description and expect it to be acceptable everywhere. I’ve seen it happen where users of both see the duplicated effort and vote down content. Study and practice copywriting.
Pre-launch content, if possible.
Mention to your friends that you’re going to be posting something that you hope they’ll comment on. Mention in a blog post that you’re excited about upcoming content.
Launch!
1. Title sticks out in a crowd.
If you’re writing titles like, “Internet Marketer’s Viral Suggestions,” which this post could have been called, you need to rewrite your title. Try some action words, and think about using “tips”, “tricks” or “toolbox.” Aim at viewers emotional needs and desires, if possible.
2. Content that can be easily scanned.
Write for someone with the attention span of a gnat.
3. Posted on a blog which has been claimed in Technorati.
Help others find your blog. It’s easy as pie with Technorati, and it’s a humongous database of blogs where people actually search and surf for blog posts by topic.
4. Post is tagged with appropriate words for Technorati.
Your blog can be found, but take some extra steps to have your blog post tagged for the right keywords.
5. Bookmark it with del.icio.us and/or similar bookmarking services.
Like Technorati, bookmarking services categorize their content according to tags and relevant keywords.
6. Stumble it on stumbleupon.com.
Submit your blog post to stumbleupon.com and let others stumble upon it and vote it up or down. This can drive a slew of traffic some of the time, and people are more likely to stumble through than actually vote you down.
7. Submitted to citizen/mob voting sites like Digg, PlugIM, etc.
The more eyeballs to your content, the better. Just remember, not all audiences are equal. If at all possible, avoid submitting your own content.
8. Comment on other blogs.
If someone has a higher profile than you, and often talks about the same things you do, become a regular commenter on their site. Similarly, link to their content and get into their trackbacks.
Have any of these launch steps helped your content go viral? How much preparation do you estimate it took to go viral? I’d love to hear in the comments. Free backlinks when you comment because I follow.
