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Link Building

eBay “Website for Sale” Scammers

Alright, I always see these sites that are “established” with “income” listed for sale. Normally they don’t sell, but I always see them.

You know, the text says stuff like, “Have you ever wanted to run your own online business from the comfort of your own home with the potential to make over $100k per year but did,nt know where to start.If so then you have come to the right place.This is your chance to bid on a popular proven real ecommerce website business and not an amateur maybe it might make you money website that is found on so many auction.”

Here is one such scammy, scummy, site for sale. What I don’t like about them can be found in the following picture:

eBay Scam

Now “scam” might be a strong word, but Merriam-Webster says scam is defined as, “a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation”.

So saying that the appriasal for this website is $22,400 is definintely deceptive. The website is worth $10 (domain) plus maybe $30 for an ugly template that has been used on at least 5 other identical websites.

So here is me, calling you scammers out. If your websites are really worth anything, lets have a contest. You vs. Me, Head to Head, One on One.

If your websites can make $100,000 per year like you say they can, I want to see a check!

By |June 1st, 2007|Reviews, SEO/SEM|6 Comments
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Jim Boykin says, “Brandon Hopkins is cool!”

As I said yesterday, “Technorati thinks I’m cool”. Today it’s Jim Boykin’s turn. He thinks this blog is so cool that he is offering me a free We Build Pages wall clock!

Jim, thanks for the wonderful opportunity to get a wall clock. Jim Boykin says, “Brandon Hopkins is cool!”I don’t really need another wall clock, but I would like some free ($720 or so) advertising for a certain problematic website I have. It won’t rank for crap and I can’t seem to get the stupid thing linkbaited. 🙂

So here is my official entry to the Jim Boykin $720 in free ads contest. Since you’re going to choose based on who knows what, I think that I should win because I have a new (28 day old) baby that needs a new pair of shoes! (No, she doesn’t really wear shoes yet, but I’ll invest the earnings and buy her two pairs when she’s 5 years old.

By |May 30th, 2007|Contests, Link Building|7 Comments
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Page Rank isn’t About Links

Page Rank isn’t about links, it’s true. Page Rank is Google’s silly way of giving us value on our domains, but trust me, links don’t matter. I don’t know what actually does matter, maybe it is unique visitors, maybe amount of unique content.

Here is some proof:

I have two sites, one with about 5 incoming links, one with 1500. Which should have higher PR?

PR 3 Here are the incoming links for site 1…only about 5 links are coming from outside sites.

PR 0 Here are the incoming links for site 2…over 1,000 links coming from outside sites.

You decide, is Page Rank really about links or is the wool firmly over our collective eyes?

By |May 27th, 2007|SEO/SEM|7 Comments
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How to Use Directories and Social Media

Lyndon Antcliff at Cornwall SEO asked me to give my thoughts on directories vs social media in terms of traffic and page rank. So here are my thoughts and a little how to use both directories and social media to increase traffic, gain PR and make money online (sorry, had to use some keywords!).

So what about directories?

I think directories are great. They are an easy link and you can pay directory submitters to manually submit a link to 300 directories for under $20. If only 10% give you a link, that is 30 links for $20. $.66 per permanent link is only beatable by the following.

What about social media marketing?

Social media marketing (SMM) (Digg, Del.icio.us, etc) is not only THE way to create links for 2007, but it is also the best bang for your buck. SMM is the undisputed champion where directories are on their way out like Oscar De La Hoya should be.

So which is “better”? SMM.

Which is necessary? Both.

Directories are almost free links and shouldn’t be ignored. Even if Google only recognizes 10 of your 300 submissions, that is still only $2 per permanent link, which should be considered awesome.

I don’t think I need to talk about the benefits of one SMM article. Just look at this. 3500+ incoming links, PR5, 153 comments/trackbacks and all because of one article.

If I had to choose one way of marketing, I would definitely choose SMM. But thankfully I don’t have to choose one way, so I choose both!

By |May 6th, 2007|Link Building|7 Comments
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