An Interview with The Gonzo SEO, Don Rhoades
Donny Rhoades is one of my favorite SEOs because of his no-frills & no-chaser temperament. You’ll soon see exactly what I mean. Follow Don on his blog, Search Marketing Savant or on Twitter @TheGonzoSEO; I also highly recommend pestering him about new mash-ups because he’s always got something fresh in his playlist!
Your career has taken on a lot of changes in 2011. Could you give us an overview & shameless plug?
Not really that many changes in my career. I got fed up with the C-level know-it-all squad and red tape dispensers at my day job. My side projects were picking up without really trying too hard. I resolved to leave the frustration factory in July and I haven’t looked back since. I planned to move back to the Bay Area about that time, but I carefully reconsidered and decided that my kids are better off growing up here. No shameless plugs here, just bare-knuckled truth and honest SEO are what you can expect from Gonzo and his merry band of savants.
To jump right in; this spring we saw an influx of SEO’s outing each other. Do you think outing is a chump-ass thing to do, or are they valid calls for industry regulation?
While I stand with Jon Henshaw on the subject of industry self-regulation, some of the outing is egregious and does nothing to promote better practice amongst peers. Here’s the rub: some of those that condemn most fervently in public are often the offenders, in my experience. At any rate, we’re living in the Bernie Madoff era so it is wise to protect your sources. A lot of the temporarily effective sources dry up or can become exploited by under-skilled SEOs. Also, I think most outing happens in the States, where you have more polar division of philosophies regarding politics, religion, new school vs. old school hip-hop and even meaningless sports rivalries.
Another recent trend over the last year or two has been the rise in infographic popularity. Do you think data visualization popularity is going to lead to more reliance on Google image searches?
Infographics are a brilliant invention. Useful information, everyone reads the side of the cereal box, y’know. I think image search is already evolving to include more images that contain more than just the alt tags and descriptions. I’ve seen image bars mixed in with organic SERPs for a couple of years now. There seems like a long way to go still. I think the main related and instant search terms are chart and map that can produce more refined results (infographics). Until there is a common term for them, I think they may not be so prevalent in images SERPs.
Most people want images for image searches, not necessarily data. Until they are either integrated into organic (everything) SERPs or there is an infographic search engine, I’m just not sure….
Favorite advanced operators, or most frequently used, when doing link discovery?
inanchor: intext: add comment site:.edu
What are your 3 favorite SEO tools, free or paid?
RavenTools (Paid): because it cuts down on reporting time and it visualizes data for easy digestion.
Whitespark LCF: (Free/Paid) dominant local citation results, very actionable data.
Screaming Frog crawl tool: (Free/Paid) Best diagnostic tool – broken links, URLs, titles….etc
Do you have any recurring tinfoil hat theories?
Tin foil theories… hmm. Yes, but they involve government more than search.
Would you consider your link building approach to be more manual or more automated?
The prospecting may be automated, but the outreach is always manual. So it’s 6 and ½ dozen.
Google+ is on Team Transparency in the war on online anonymity. Which team do you lean toward more?
Facebook actually made me use my real first name back in ‘07, which is embarrassing because I was named after an Osmond. I’ve always enjoyed my anonymity online. I’m a gamer, so my oldest handle Supernaut76 has been my most used pseudonym over the years.
<tinfoil> Why would I want the guys I murder in MMORPGs knowing my real name? If I play Battlefield 3 as a Republican Guard solider, does that put my name on a watch list? </tinfoil> I’ve never really hidden behind a moniker completely, except in the gaming world, but I think it should be a choice of the user.
Top 3 SEOs whose brains you’d love to pick?
Ha! There are several that I would like to get thoughts from, it’s a challenge to narrow them down to three. Let’s talk in terms of SEO tribute currency, beer. The folks I would most likely buy a truckload of kegs for are further between. I’ll give you five if you let me include who I would consider to be the Royal Couple of Search. Aside from them, I’d start with Ralph Tegtmeier, he reminds me of a guy I know from back home. He has probably forgotten more than most of us will ever learn about the internet.
Darren Slatten is a goddamn evil genius and has always kept me interested in getting better and coloring outside the lines. I think I would trade most of my future earnings if I could punk data like Annie Cushing, but that might require a double brain transplant and I’m quite certain she would get the short end of that deal even if I made a few billion. I would also kill for the chance to play Dungeons and Dragons with Garrett French, JP Sherman and Ian Lurie.
Do you remember where you first heard the word “Google” as a verb?
I’m sure I heard it before then, but what comes to mind was guerilla activism. I saw a sign at the civic center BART station in San Francisco back in 2001 that asked the reader to Google Bechtel. I thought it was a crude way to announce a merger between the two companies.
<tinfoil>Once I caffeinated, I realized what the sign’s intent was and so did so and read quite a bit of disturbing info on some of the engineering giant’s involvement in government affairs and their shareholders ties with the then current Oval Office. </tinfoil>
Exact match domains: worth cashing in on now or too vulnerable to future algo updates?
I’m not a domain baron, so I don’t really buy domains to sell. But if I were, I’d say to get while the getting is good. To me the only real purpose in having them is the possibility of authority they can provide in some cases and for mnemonic value for startup and refreshed brands. I’ve always been indifferent about exact match domains as a strategy. Sure they may have always been a heavy signal, but to me they can be perceived as generic by searchers and fall short of being recognizable in most cases.
In my experience, consumers are more familiar with brands, always have been. All portable cassette players were called Walkman’s, all copiers were referred to as Xerox, all diapers in the Philippines are known as Pampers. I’ve had exact match outrank brand domains for the same client at #1 and #2 respectively and gotten way more traffic to the exact match but better conversion and MUCH better qualified leads with the brand.
Fill in the blank: “All SEOs should know _____________.” How many words would you add to that sentence?
…when to STFU! (3 words unless you spell it out, then it’s 7)
Do you think Google is a monopoly, and if so, are any of its current competitors worthy opponents?
Not so much a monopoly, there are alternatives to searching with Google. Though, I think they should focus more on the search products than other extraneous shit like self-driving cars and also pay more attention to the UX of paid subscribers to their services.
How are you going to round off such a productive year for yourself? Going to any conferences? Any side projects?
On the horizon I have partnership ventures with some music industry cats in Denver, I’ll be continuing to build my agency and I’ll be finishing my ebook on ORM for lawyers. No conferences planned at this time, I might have to make time for PubCon in Vegas this year though.
The fun stuff! Got any new mash-ups for me?
Here are a few I figured you’d be into: Placebo vs. Air, these guys get a mention for the creativity: Rocket Man vs. Space Oddity, and this one reminds me of a conversation I had with my dad back in ‘89 about the parallels in our bad boy heroes of music: Johnny Cash vs. Eazy-E. Don’t judge me, but this one, I admit, has me noggin nodding when I hear it: another DJ Topcat joint.
(I don’t know why you hesitate to admit that you like Foster the People, Donny.) Thanks for the interview and the tunes!
1 comment August 9, 2011
Avoid Painting The Links Red
While I admire fearless SEO, I must also remind you of Forbes’ weak defense about previous link building campaigns, as well as the extent to which Google’s been on the offense lately here, here, and here. Kindly allow me to dispense a few tips that might save your ass within a decade.
With the online year of 2001 in mind, contemplate Google’s presence in 2021. It may not be Jetsonian, but ten years from now, the Google of 2011 will look like a GigaPet.
It’s only going to get tougher from here on out, babe, so keep your chin up.
Today’s search signals will seem primitive and penetrable. The standards for “organic” as you’d expect for fruit and vegetables (literal, not a simile: the lack of corporate influence) may come at just as high a premium for data.
Deviant Links:
Deviating from a host site’s typical external (outbound) link structure and style, such as placing a brand link (http://www.site.com as the anchor text) instead of its usual, which could be noise links, such as here.
- Linking an image on a site with no image links (aside from linking to the files themselves) or implementing Alt Text (Alternative text, alt tags; it ironically goes by many names) on a site where there are no other externally-linked images, or images with alt text.
Paid links. – Kidding! Thought you’d see this here? For real? Not a chance. Let us know when your voice stops cracking, Johnny Boy, so you can play with the big kids. Yeah, we’re tired of seeing Rupert Murdoch LOL all the way to the bank, too. I like to think of paid links as Girl Scouts Cookies – the ones flavored with raspberry filling and subversive economics. It’s still making money for the rich kids, when you boil it down, but it’s still not as bad as affiliate marketing. And helloooo, delicious.
Superman Links – linking to a noticeably strong post or page (upon comparison and predominantly TBPR) and linking to that whether or not it’s relevant. See also “ballistic links” below. This may or may not be SEO bait. Post coming soon.
HAAAY
Diva Links – Got a keyword that’s in a really famous quote or song? Don’t give in to the temptation to link ‘em! Chances are that if duplicate content filters don’t get set off, Google still knows (ahem, will be able to know) what Country Time Lemonade is, and it has nothing to do with that JFK quote about what you can do for your country.
Ballistic Links and Peripheral Relevance – Linking a keyword that’s hardly tangentially relevant (in a broad field), or a link for the sake of a link. For example, if your client wants to rank for Free Chopin MP3‘s and you run across a PR6 site chronicling Kasey Kasem’s childhood, don’t amuse yourself to think you belong here! The high of the TBPR6 is temporal and if you try to link here, you are out of control. OUT. OF. CONTROL. Your zen garden needs a raking, mon ami.
No one in the 1800s found her jowly scowl attractive either.
Time Travelling Links – Why would you place a link for a Roku player in a post from 2001 other than for Page Rank? There are no plausible explanations for this. If the Roku didn’t exist in 2001, it shouldn’t exist on a subpage or a post from 2001, period. Also, why would anyone write a guest post about Halloween safety in March? Just something to keep in mind.
Duplicate Co-citations - Dun dun dun! These will create a footprint. The damning kind, not the Jesus kind. If you write guest posts and get into a ritual of placing 1 client link, 1 Wikipedia link, and one .edu link you need to get creative. You’re probably stuck in a lot more footprint-potential routines than this one. Take the opportunity to place links to sites that deserve attention in your niche which may, in turn, link to you. You can’t argue with relevant authority but if you’ve been working within a niche long enough, you know what has link potential and what doesn’t. At the very least, you must switch up sources, quantity of links, images, among other things.
Just to be on the safe side, of course.
Add comment March 1, 2011
Blog Turn-Ons and Turn-Offs: The Reader & The Marketer
It’s unanimous. We want you to stop pretending there’s no middle ground between curator and spammer. As a blogger, you need to put yourself out there.
Blog Turn-Ons For a Reader:
1) Interaction: Let’s make this crystal clear: giveaways are not interactive. Chatting, retweeting, commenting back, and linking to readers in a post once in a while are the real deal. (Pssst, it’s a little thrilling, too.) Although it may seem trite, that little gulp of thrill will lead to referrals and reader loyalty. Appreciative blogger spotlight: Cats Eye Writer
2) A “cast list”. Not enough personal bloggers do this! A cast list resides in a sidebar and attaches frequently blogged-about names to faces, along with basic descriptive text. It’s not just a booster shot for your narrative. It welcomes new readers with the common courtesy of a basic introduction, as you’d expect in a face-to-face conversation. Cast list spotlight : Ni Hao, Y’all
3) Have an opinion. Don’t curtail your principles (the ones you feel strongly about) for fear of alienating a handful of your readers. It’s guaranteed that you’ll offend someone eventually, but you know what? Fuck ‘em. They’re no where near as important as the readers that share your convictions, who will be further endeared to you when you prove you can shepherd your passions and don’t have to rant. Opinionated blogger spotlight: A word or two about vaccinations by Heather Armstrong of Dooce.
Blog Turn-Offs For a Reader:
1) This automatic music player right here:
The idea of summarizing your blog package with a soundtrack is appealing, but pummeling your readers with automatic music is just as bad as a pop-up ad with noise. I will click off regardless of your content, never to return, and sigh with satisfaction when the music finally stops. I’m also not settling down with a bowl of popcorn, giving you my undivided attention, and waiting for magic. Your stories, videos, and podcasts should be magic enough.
2) Awash in a sea of irrelevant photography. Are you actually a photography blogger or can I take you seriously in my niche? If photography were salt and recipe blogs were actually entrees, the tongues of foodies everywhere would be pickled and Chef Gordon Ramsay would for once be involuntarily speechless (Kidding! I adore that man). It’s not limited to cooking. If you contribute more jowl than content to your dog blog – cute, huggable jowls that I don’t need to inspect – you’re not a dog blogger. Not really.
3) Blog Respectfully: Please don’t post photos of your naked babies, your concerns for an extended family member, or the beef you have with a coworker. Web permanence is something people don’t yet fully comprehend. If you think it’s impossible for someone more technologically inclined than yourself to find media after you’ve deleted your content, prepare to be amazed. And then embarrassed, followed closely by possibly being sued or fired.
Blog Turn-Ons For a Marketer
1) Consistency. When a blogger is on point, I know I’ve found my audience. If their strongest post is off topic, though, it says a lot about the rest of their content and how threadbare their blog is to my demographic. Consistency spotlight: Urban Weeds
2) Original, Well Written Content. Everyone makes grammar and spelling mistakes once in a while, but if you offer compelling content, nobody minds those occasional slip-ups. However, it’s still vitally important that you spend time developing your posts. If you’re sincere about your points, you validate them in a way that oozes personality. This is called substance, and it’s exactly why those will-blog-for-money bums can’t touch you. The fearless and substance spotlight: Nerdy Apple Bottom
3) Your brand translates offline. One online marketing Eureeka! moment is finding a blogger in my client’s niche who are there because they just can’t help themselves. They’re blogging about something they’d do anyway, something that excites them, and have become an artery in the community. If this is you, your dedication to our niche is the stuff of endorsement daydreams. Spotlight! I hate bees but am inexplicably drawn to a blog about beekeeping. Yes… beekeeping. It’s called Linda’s Bees and it’s adorable. I’m just as dumbfounded as you are.
Blog Turn-Offs To A Marketer
1) Again, the automatic music widget. This is the opposite of professional behavior for a blogger. If you’re using this widget, you’ve got a lot of other things going on in your sidebar, including external links. The more external links you have, the weaker your links become for SEO (making my ad less effective.) I can put up with a lot of blog smog but knowing readers could also find the music abrasive will scare me away.
2) Irrelevant Advertising - Why a fishing blog would agree to host ads about roofing tiles or dark chocolate is beyond me. A wise marketer buying ads for tackle will shy away because they’re painfully aware of how much it could discredit themselves to affiliate with you. Are they wrong for thinking this way? It’s all good and well to make money, but establishing your brand needs to happen long before you establish a press kit. Don’t want to exclude yourself from anything possible? Be my guest – I hear Acai berries are ripe in your neighborhood, all season ’round.
3) Too many ads, affiliate links, and giveaways. – Let’s say you’re onstage with 50 other people, all of whom are talking at the same time. If you start talking, will anyone hear your message? You’re definitely not part of the solution, that’s for sure. If a blog is worth the advertising dollars it makes from text links, buttons, banners, and affiliate clicks, it must tame its ads run amok by charging more rent for (very) limited ad placement. That’s just supply and demand. For an example of a blog that ought to consolidate ads, go to any coupon Mommy blog. I refuse to link for the sole purpose of bad press, but I promise you won’t have to look long.
Parting Point:
If you’re blogging because you want to express yourself, please, do exactly that and don’t stop. I buy links and shun bobby socks and Utah bangs, but the internet is headed in a direction of honesty and international checks and balances, which I rather appreciate. But that’s just me.
1 comment February 19, 2011
Love Is The SERP
… but more importantly, it is also the query.
This is my valentine to you, my fellow SEOs.
I don’t believe that love is all there is, but that love always wins. Just consult the charts at Google Trends. Who better?
Love is trendier than unrest, cynicism, and insecurity. Wives are more popular than mistresses, revolution gets more buzz than terrorism, and the heart, as it always has, trumps the brain. A kiss is mightier than a punch.
You might be thinking, these terms are broad and subjective, you hippie.
Oh, my dear, cynical valentine, lets see how much ass love kicks when compared to war, hate, doubt, and greed.
Happy Valentines Day!
P.S. Is it a coincidence that the Super Bowl and Valentines Day are so close together? Love beats football in the freaking United States. In all fairness, football outsearches war.
2 comments February 14, 2011
Out Spammers, Not SEOs
It’s tough to hit ‘Spam’ or ‘Trash’ on a rough & bizarre, text-book example of comment spam. They endear themselves to me like lisping, curious toddlers who don’t have a grasp on the English language:
“Do you don’t thoughts!” I love it so much, y’all.
The distance between spam and true search engine optimization is far and wide. Sure, any doctor can prescribe a painkiller to an addicted celebrity, but saying that the entire field of medicine is full of deviant enablers is asinine.
The ones that would out your client by falsifying their link profile.*
Shock! Awe! Really?
I’m tired of having my relatives and friends ask, “your job ISN’T illegal, right?”
I’m exhausted by the necessary use of pseudonyms in SEO, which only perpetuates our own vilification by feeding into the falsehood that we work in a shady profession.
I’m sick of being called a spammer because of transparency issues, only hours later to see everyone on a TV show drinking Coca-Cola and everyone on the flip channel drinking Pepsi.
You shake your head about it, too.
Not only should we out comment spammers, we ought to consider their competitors: they’re most likely the ones behind all of this. We ought to trace them back like it’s our genealogy because it’s thrilling to explore the connections in a web of spammy culprits. You know you’ve done it and been amazed by what slides by Google.
One of the most common forms of comment bait is “hello, I we bookmark you website, thanksn for grate blog psot”. The old bookmark ruse. Tsk tsk. A more clever parlor trick is for comment spammers to give you a backlink from their spammy site in the hopes of prompting a sense of gratitude or indebtedness. You see, they’re not lying about placing those links. One guy even claimed to have submitted my post to “Polish Digg”.
If you think the idea of outing these comment-baiting spammers is silly and/or industry-hurting nonsense, I dare you to strip your spam filters away for one week. Just a week. If your mind isn’t changed, you win.
You may ask, Why should we out comment spammers if everyone uses a spam filter of some sort?
Easy question.
If comment spammers are using bait in the form of backlinks to link to your site (not their own, like J.C. Penney’s or Forbes’ case) and they aren’t taking them down, how badly could that turn out for you and me?
Are you being ‘outed’?
*Comment spam is NOT part of a natural link profile.
2 comments May 6, 2011