Widget Development

Good afternoon folks,

I just lost a perfectly convincing game of pool! I was supposed to win, I was in the lead through-out the game, and sadly I still lost I then decided that I need to quit fooling around @ the pool table and do something productive.

I then figured, it’s time to create a widget. The problem is, however, that I do not know how. Either I need someone to teach me how-to or I need someone to do it for free. I know what you are thinking, who works for free!!? The answer is nobody, and here is the thing. If you do create the widget, you get to put it on our showcase & furthermore, there are talks of incentivising the developer with each message sent via his software.

Linkbaiting & Clickatell.

As you can imagine, it is rather difficult to attract links to a site like this.  This site is not intended to be content rich and is not supposed to attract the same person more than once, unless it is a customer and a willing purchaser.

There are many articles on link baiting where they are extremely anti “link-begging”. For example, stuntdubl.com has an article on link baiting where he discusses the various forms, known as:

1. News Hook
2. Contrary Hook
3. Attack Hook
4. Resource Hook
5. Humour Hook
6. Ego Hook
7. Incentive Hook.

Now as true this may be, it is not always possible to attract traffic in this manner. For some reason it seems as though many search marketers forget that not all websites are web2.0 and they do NOT have to be in order to stay abreast. For instance, clickatell, this is a company that sells text messages, on their website they have their product and the necessary content to relay information to potential consumers. It is not a blog, it is not a social media platform of any sort, it is what it is. A shop front.

Now I would like to know how are you supposed to implement a specific hook to attract traffic, and even more so, constant traffic. Not necessarily returning traffic. When the website you are using is nothing more than an informative portal to company products and services?

Obviously, link baiting, is then not intended for all websites and the term “link begging” seems a bit harsh. How about strategic link placing? I wouldn’t place links on any old page, this would be useless for SEO purposes. I would, however, find relevant, industry related sites and approach them.

Other than that, the closest that a standard store front online company can get to link baiting is through other forms of media, releasing products that affect consumers. This in turn will lead to posts popping up over the blogosphere and this link baiting will change into viral marketing, god forbid stuntdubl sees this. He states that link baiting and viral marketing are similar but different, this is true, but, only to a certain extent. It all depends on the nature of the website/company.

SeoMart.com

Any of you familiar with SeoMart.com? I am wondering whether or not they are placing direct links and whether or not they are spammy. I don’t want SE unfriendly campaigns out there. For those of you who are anti purchased text links, sod-off. If they are relevant, then it helps the surfer find what he/she wants quicker.

I have read many postings on how some search marketers decide that fooling SE’s with purchased text links are unethical and unfair in practice. This is total bullshit, sure, if the links you are placing have the following anchor: “Quality Surfboards” with a link pointing to “http://www.dildoATnight.com” then it is invasive and foolish. But, if the anchor and text are relevant, especially to the site then no harm is done.

Now, I am not sure how relevant the SeoMart links are, which is why I am you. If you have ever used these services, what did you think of them, and if not, why not?

UPDATE:  I placed an order with them, and paid them via PayPal, however, this order has not reflected on their side (this I assume because it has not reflected on my account with them). I have to be honest, things are looking to be a bit sketchy.

Myspace integrates with Google

This probably has been mentioned on numerous other blogs, but, it seems as though MySpace has started integrating Google Ads into their site.

They must be receiving handsome revenue from this. It doesn’t seem as though there is any relevance in the ad appearance, seeing as these ads are displayed below an Afrikaans message.
I’m going to check these out, perhaps I’ll place a couple of ads on MySpace today.

UPDATE: this is old news.