Stop Being Lazy With Your Content Creative

Brian Chappell — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:26:53 +0000

Seeing a tweet from @jonathanmendez got me thinking a bit this morning. “Don’t be evolutionary. Be revolutionary.” There has never been a time where that is more true. With the Internet it is very easy to get in a routine or a siloed structure of creating things. Marketers are constantly copying others techniques and rehashing them. This does no one any good.

Take for example a blog post (if you want to call it that) created by Iampaddy.

http://iampaddy.com/lifebelow600/

I would be willing to bet you a pretty penny that if Mr. Paddy created this same topic in a blog post, with no images, on a stock wordpress install this would have gotten no coverage what so ever. Instead, this piece trended on Twitter (that’s a ton of sharing), and will undoubtedly get passed around for the next few days and could even find itself front paging DIGG or REDDIT.

The unique nature and creative aspect of this example brings real world perspective to the saying “Don’t be evolutionary. Be revolutionary.”

How are you thinking outside of the box with your content?

Tool Review: getst.at – Competitive Search and Analytical Tool

Brian Chappell — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:27:38 +0000

Good friend and fellow code magician SEOcracy has come out with what appears to be a pretty helpful and usable search analysis tool. The site joins a crowded space of search analysis tools such as google analytics, google ad planner, yahoo site explorer, semrush, alexa and compete. Although getst.at doesn’t crawl and analyze sites itself it taps into API’s to compile its data.

From what I have seen so far this tool looks very comparable to google ad planner. The key difference is it attempts to show website analytics based more around search ranking metrics, such as backlink and indexed page counts, than actual traffic levels (although that looks like it might be coming later).

One can peruse through the codex iteration of the tool here: http://codex.getst.at/

You will find multiple verticals that allow one to quickly assess the competitiveness or lack of competiveness in each vertical (denoted by backlink count and index page count, albeit not the best metrics, gives you an idea none the less). I will enjoy seeing each category built out.

You Can Already Access All These Sites Metrics Elsewhere

You can in fact access all of these metrics with tools like yahoo site explorer, majestic seo, raven seo, link explorer, google ad planner etc. However, the shear speed at which one can compare the different sites is what sets apart this tool.

Monitor Your Competitors Backlinks With New Google Reader Addition

Brian Chappell — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:50:43 +0000

Google has just dropped a bomb shell here in my opinion and is giving users the ability to monitor any page on the web, with RSS like updates on page changes. There are 23,423 different ways this can be used, such as Andys idea to use this for unblockable scraping. However, one simple method is to monitor your competitions backlinks.

Pick the backlink page from yahoo site explorer for the page you want to track
Create a link to the URL you just copied by clicking “add feed” in google reader
Save the link.

Bingo.

Now, potentially, (I haven’t tested this since it just came out) any time new links are acquired and pop into the 1^st page of the top 10 results, you will get a notice of the link as if someone posted a new post on a blog.

What are some other ways you can think of using this outside of the obvious reputation management side of things?

The First Steps To Take After A Wordpress Malware Hack

Brian Chappell — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:39:17 +0000

I recently got hacked on not one but two different Wordpress installs I have. The intentions were made obvious to me after I actually saw a very sharp rise in long tail traffic from Yahoo. This might seem odd, but it made clear sense to me that something was embedded on the site causing it to rank for extraneous long tail phrases. Someone had installed a script later I found in the htaccess and index.php files (this is typically where they drop malicious scripts).

The first measures I took to clear the Wordpress Malware threat were:

· Changing Wordpress, ftp and database passwords

· Analyze my database for suspicious new fields (or modified fields)

· Assessed my index and .htaccess files

· Looked at Google caches of my site

· Run the ‘fetch as bot’ in Google webmaster central to see if they were cloaking

After wiping the php code that created the website.com/search?spam-long-tail-pages on my site and removing the htaccess modifications that made the server check the index file, I had effectively killed the malware. Google later came by, noticed the malware was gone and gave me my rankings back.

Read more on what to do about Wordpress hacks:

Hidden Admin Hacks On Old Wordpress Installs

How To Secure Wordpress

Endless Stream of Infographic Content Ideas

Brian Chappell — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 03:23:58 +0000

I came across a post yesterday that lists over 200 different infographic posts. It can be a handy resource when you are looking for inspiration.

With that said I will note that in the last 6 months there have been an onslaught of people pushing inforgraphics. If you are going to use this hook make sure that the layout and accompanying statistics are crisp.

Ive seen quite a few examples recently that don’t appear to have been too well thought out and designed. For some thoughts on how to create your own infographic, read this interview by Matt Inman where he outlines a few ways he comes up with his comics. Jump down to the “where do you source your inspiration” question for details.

Quality Of Information Doesn’t Become Sacrificed With Lack Of Length

Brian Chappell — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 02:52:03 +0000

Quality Of information online doesn’t necessarily become sacrificed because of the lack of length and thoroughness – Twitter has proven this. I set this blog up 3 years ago in an attempt to catalog my thoughts and experiences surrounding Internet Marketing. Over the last year, work has taken precedence, no longer am I allotted the time to create content like I used to be afforded. I don’t think that necessarily has to stop me from blogging.

In an attempt to share more information again I am going to start attacking blog posts as if I were writing a short synopsis. Posterous is a great vehicle for sharing thoughts quickly, so in part this blogpost is a test and also serves as an announcement that I will be changing the flow and style of BrianChappell.com Time is money afterall.

4 People With Google Reputation Nightmares

Brian Chappell — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 04:01:26 +0000

Some people in this world have for one reason or another encountered really bad press for there actions. Google can be a bloody nightmare to disrupt negative press from. In fact its long been rumored that the algorithm tends to favor negative pages (OK not really, I am sure its just a correlation to links)

With an increased effort by Google as of late to place varied search results into the SERPS and the roll-out of Google suggest there are a myriad of ways to get slammed.

Lets take the following 4 people for example:

Michael Vick Reputation Problem

Eliot Spitzer Reputation Problem

Bernie Madoff Reputation Problem

Pacman Jones Reputation Problem

If you are a figure head or celebrity, or anyone who ever needs a squeaky clean reputation for that matter, be proactive. Fill up those results with content you control. Utilize your sources to link to assets with positive sentiment. Two folks who have done a pretty good job of this (intentional or unintentional I don’t know) are Kanye West and Michael Phelps.

Discrete Viral Factors That Cause People To Share Crappy Content

Brian Chappell — Mon, 04 May 2009 08:00:42 +0000

Creating captivating blog posts that get seen by thousands of people really isn’t as complicated as its made out to be. Granted, the execution of successful content distribution is an art in and of itself, however, the factors that cause content to spread many times can be boiled down to a few things. Many times, the real nuts and bolts of the blogpost can be total garbage, and with the help of a few tactile modifications the content can go viral.

Consistent Image Sizing

Consistent image sizing is critical, many times posts that have 25+ images laid out and sized consistently can go viral, just because the fact there are so many consistently sized images, no matter what the content of the images are.

Tutorial Posts With Clear Imagery and Explanation

Tutorial posts are another great way to convey information on a blog. Rather then explain how to do something with just text, breaking up the flow of the document with concrete call to actions and examples via imagery can help a lot. Many times I find tutorials that are completely inaccurate or represent false or dated information, but because the post is laid out so well, it gets shared around.

The OMG Photo

The OMG photo as I have coined is that awesome hero shot you find on some blogposts. I see this time and time again, where a unbelievably funny or creative hero shot causes a blogpost to go viral, no matter what the actual article said.

Lengthy Infographic Content

One of my favorite ways to convey information is through an infographic. Although time consuming to create, they tend to go viral.

Consistent Giant List Round Ups

This really is where quality gets washed away sometimes. Want to create a hit on your blog? Simply round up 146 sources that discuss a niche topic, write up brief descriptions about each and lay it out in a consistent, readable manner. I see several specific sites that make a killing doing this all the time, and guess what, typically the sites listed are not that great and sometimes are lucky to be on topic.

If you notice one of the biggest factors people will overlook in executing content distribution is consistency. Messy, outdated, false, regurgitated content gets shared all the time. Consistent, easy to read layouts is king, content is queen.

The snapshots I sourced in this article are examples of consistency + great content which will yield the greatest chance for success.

7 Reasons Not To Go To IM Springbreak – The Potential SEO Conference Of The Year

Brian Chappell — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:59:00 +0000

If you didn’t like Scary SEO then you definitely will not like IM Springbreak. IM Springbreak is going to be held at the same place in Ft. Lauderdale, FL on April 2-4. This is not going to be an exciting event and here are 7 reasons why you don’t want to attend.

1. You will realize that Dave Snyder is actually not a human and is a bear.

2. You own 456,000,000$ worth of domain names. You don’t need to try in life anymore – it is effectively game over. Therefore attending the conference and learning a ton is not priority.

3.Â You have to listen to me speak about things that don’t get regurgitated in the blogosphere.

4.Â You get nervous when getting ridiculously unique, great answers about your current internet marketing initiatives, from A list experts that would never give you the light of day at a large impersonal conference.

5.Â You are allergic to fun.

6. Because you think the bacon explosion on your computer screen will taste better by licking the screen than in person eating it from the creator himself, TheMadHat.

7. You enjoy spending 2,455$ to attend large conferences, and frankly having to spend 500$ to see
Chris Winfield – Kenny Hyder – Greg Finn – Brent Csutoras – Reg Saddler – Todd Mailcoat – Neal RodriguezÂ – Li Evans – Jeff Quipp – Brian ChappellÂ – Carolyn Shelby – Wil Reynolds – Rhea Drysdale – Steve Plunkett – Rae Hoffman – Michael Streko – Aaron Chronister – Frank WatsonÂ – Brandy Eddings – David Szetela – Chris Hart – Pamela Lund andÂ Tony AdamÂ irritates you.

With that said I definitely do not want to see the following people at the event. Whatever you do guys – do not show up!

Martin Bowling
Scott Hendison
Joanna Lord
Taylor Pratt
Ben Cook aka Skittzo
Pat Sexton
Dave Rohrer
Scott Clark
Kid Disco
Dan Zarella
Kate Morris
Lisa Barone
Eric Lander
Rick Galan
Wiep
Nick Andron
Dan Perry
DJ Litten

If this post thoroughly confused you then read this.

HOW TO: Dapper Content Portability Example

Brian Chappell — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:23:10 +0000

Dapper.net is one of my favorite services for turning content into a form or stream that I can better utilize. It gives you the ability to turn content into the following sources:

xml
rss
html
google gadget
netvibes module
image loop
google maps
icalendar
json
csv
email
xsl
yaml

Below you will see a demo video I made in which I grab images off of a page, and only images, and turned it into HTML that I can then embed wherever I want. Have you used Dapper for any projects?