Three Things I learned from SEOMozs "Randfish"

[Wayde]

Posts to the Gizmo Cafe blog have been a little thin lately because Ive been at attending a two day seminar on the topics of website development and Web2.0 principals. The shindig was thrown by an SEO guru and all around usability expert named Rand aka Randfish from SEOMoz. If youd like to benefit from the wisdom of SEOMoz, its blog is literally giving away tasty morsels of website development goodness. Heres a few things I learned.
1/ Dont be spammy
I love to promote myself. You would too if you were me. Dont ponder that one too much, Im already confused. I didnt think I was ever spammy, spam is in your face ads and unsolicited emails. WRONG! Spam can also be things like a self serving backlink placed on a site. Even if you have permission of the webmaster to do so it's probably not a good idea. I have contributed articles to other sites and usually stuck links inside the text to my site. It made sense at the time but I have been enlightened that its not such a good idea (at least not as me). In fact, having thought it out I have my regrets for some of the places I stuck a link.
Sorry. Honestly, I didnt know what I was doing. I will pay penance to you all. Hear that Audioholics, HomeTheaterForum and Gizmodo I'm turning over a new leaf. From now on I will strive to provide you all with great content and community participation free of self promoting links (except in personal profile or a signature) even if it would be a natural source of information.
2/ Invite Guest Bloggers
Sometimes you can make some downright audacious connections with important people in your industry simply by being friendly and enthusiastic about your common interest. Honestly, most people who are passionate about what they do are usually willing to talk to you if you just ask. Ive had great email conversations with people I consider real authorities in their field. I never considered asking some to be a guest blogger. It was one of those ideas on the tip of my tongue all along and I just needed that push for the light bulb to go off in my head and say I should ask so n so and so n so if theyd like to blog on my site! What a brilliant idea! Im glad I thought of it. Or wait.
3/ Clean up those snore inducing pages on GizmoCafe!
In a sort of audit exercise Rand opened my site, liked the blog and then cracked open an embarrassing little secret. I wrote a bunch of pages that appear under beautifully designed buttons along the top without thinking about how those pages would be used. Theyre just boring text, text and more text. And theyll be changed into colorful dynamic hubs for their respective category asap.
Oh, and one more thing. I shouldn't be too afraid of going off topic for a post every now and then.
If you, dear reader of the Gizmo Caf blog, have any suggestions please tell. Feel free to comment what you think of the site and suggest how we can get better. Or email editor@gizmocafe.com and tell me what you think itll take to make site better than C-Net and About.com put together.



Link to Article