Comment Spam, Getting Hacked, And SEO

A couple of weeks ago we shared with you how comment spam hurts SEO…

We also shared with you that our WordPress sites got hacked because we failed to update the site in time to block some vulnerabilities…

Because of both of these problems – comment spam and getting hacked – the #1 keyword on this very site became “levitra”. Scrolling down, #15 is “viagra”. In case you are wondering – this is not good.

This is a huge problem we’ve since cleaned up and we want to pass on some advice to you on dealing with spam and security.

1. Whatever platform you use – make sure you are running the latest version and take security seriously. If you are using WordPress, start here to learn how to take care of it…

2. As much as it completely sucks to deal with comment spam – deal with it and figure out a system to stop it.

3. Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools NOW. Not only did GWT alert me of malicious content on my site (from getting hacked) it also told me “levitra” and “viagra” were high significant keywords on my site – obviously sounding off a huge alarm pointing at comment spam.

Do you have any questions on dealing with this? Let us know in the forums, @webstrategyshop, or via comment here. You don’t want this to happen to you.

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Comment Spam Hurts SEO

Google says comment spam may hurt your search engine rankings and offers this advice to avoid spam on your WordPress site…

• Disallow anonymous posting.
• Use CAPTCHAs and other methods to prevent automated comment spamming.
• Turn on comment moderation.
• Use the “nofollow” attribute for links in the comment field.
• Disallow hyperlinks in comments.
• Block comment pages using robots.txt or meta tags.

They also offer some other great advice which we often say here… Most times having a great content strategy is the best SEO technique…

FACT: Having original and useful content and making your site search engine friendly is the best strategy for better ranking. With an appealing site, you’ll be recognized by the web community as a reliable source and links to your site will build naturally.

via Google – Hard facts about comment spam

5 Ways To Not Be an Internet Marketing Spammer

There’s a fine line between trying to gain maximum reach for your business on the web and becoming a spammer. Here are five guidelines to help you avoid becoming an internet marketing spammer.

1. Don’t Use Social Media as A Marketing Bullhorn

Finding and building community around your business, industry, or niche can be a great way to increase your reach to your target audience. But with these ease of interaction and increase in transparency you need to concentrate on the message you are broadcasting. In order to build relationships you should try to become a resource for your audience and community rather than using the platform as to broadcast your marketing messages. If you are uncertain if your activities are spam behavior or not you can usually ask your community for feedback. Generally if you are providing value to the conversation then you should have no problem.

2. Use Permission Based List Building

Building marketing lists are essential for any businesses. One common misconception with these lists – which are generally used for email marketing – is that building a massive list is your best way to increase sales. I disagree with that and find it the quickest way to becoming a spammer. That’s why we teach businesses to build opt in lists using permission based marketing tactics. This guarantees that your message is delivered to an interested, targeted audience rather than a blasted message that has no relevance to the recipient. If you purchase or manually build lists you will experience low conversion rates.

3. Respect Your Community’s Time

If you have an email list or have built followers on social networks be sure to respect their time. Don’t blast them with emails, updates, copy, or blog posts. A general rule of thumb is to provide quality over quantity. One really good email a week is far more effective than 3 unthoughtful blasts a week. You don’t want to annoy your audience – you want to provide value. As long as you are doing that you will maintain respect with your community and build loyalty. This will pay off over time as you become a resource for your audience.

4. Optimize Your Landing Pages

The page where your targeted audience and/or community land is very important. If your landing page is not engaging you will likely lose your viewer. If you are interested in optimizing your landing page there are several resources. You should first figure out where on your site traffic is landing – homepage via advertisements or blog post via search engines are two examples of entry points to your website. If the bounce rates (you can find in web analytics) on your most popular landing pages are high you need to tweak those pages to retain those visitors and provide them the ability to browse to additional relevant content on your site. Also – use your landing pages wisely and perhaps you should setup different landing pages for different traffic avenues – ie: create specific landing pages for your Twitter account, advertisements, Facebook link, etc.

5. Advertise Contextually

If you are advertising online the quickest way to waste money is to pay for clicks and impressions on pages and in copy that is irrelevant to your business or topic. We recommend not buying links or advertisements on sites that do not pertain to your business. If you do receive a click the conversion rate will be very low because the visitor is has little intent for additional information on the topic of your site. If you do proper keyword targeting in PPC advertising campaigns you will see higher conversion rates as the content you are targeting is optimized to your business website or product.

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Is Your Internet Marketing Campaign Spam?

So you’ve been working hard on the internet marketing plan for your web strategy but have you stepped back to look at it from the user’s perspective? Are you a spammer? Online marketing is very community focused and it takes time to build a trusting relationship. You need to seriously reflect on your internet marketing campaign to avoid losing that trust. Last Friday at a Lunch & Learn session my company co-sponsors, our speaker Brett Trout said “Reputation takes a long time to build and a second to diminish” in regards to business ethics. The same idea holds true with a community building and internet marketing strategy.

Here are two examples of mistakes I’ve made where I developed what I thought were value-added marketing campaigns – which turned out to be the opposite.

In an effort to increase email subscribers on GetANewBrowser.com I implemented a modal popup feature of aWeber. I thought this was a value-add feature that provided a call to action to some extra content I was giving out. Even though this subscriber drive was a resounding success – it frustrated users. So I turned it off. Conversions went way down, but my readers are much happier.

The second example I want to share is the practice of auto direct messages on Twitter. Before I switched it – you would get an auto direct message whenever you followed @WebStrategyShop or @abrudtkuhl on Twitter. This means I sent you something like the following message “Hey thanks for following me have you checked out my Internet Business Podcast at ManagingTheEdge.com?” In one instance Aaron Houssian sent me a direct message follow up alerting me to my spammer behavior. At that point I realized my marketing campaign was indeed spamming people and they did not appreciate it. So, after much debate, I turned it off.

In both instances my community alerted me to the issue at hand and, thankfully, stuck with me after I addressed the issue transparently and followed through with their requests. This brings up another lesson – you need to listen to your community. Not only can you crowd source ideas from them they will give you immediate feedback if they feel you are spamming them.

If you are interested in hearing more discussion on this topic – we covered it in the latest episode of our internet business podcast Managing The Edge.

Don’t Fall For SEO Guarantees

I get this same email about twice a week claiming that this SEO firm can guarantee 1st page Google placement. This is spam. Whatever you do, please do not fall for this.

If any firm can guarantee you front page placement you should be very leery..

Often you will get these emails claiming for $200 you can be on the front page of Google. Even local, respected companies will make the same claim of guaranteed search results.

At 48Web we make no guarantees when it comes to SEO work. We’ll do our best to optimize your site and teach you how to write keyword rich copy – but we cannot guarantee the results. No one can. There is so much variability and competition for Google rankings that it’s extremely hard to rank for many keywords.

So please hesitate when you get these types of guarantees – whether it be from email spam or your local SEO firm.