Cameron Olthuis

I wish I had a good joke for you or something but I don’t. But if I did, I’m sure it would make for some good linkbait and all 5 of my readers (4 of which are family) would link to it. I wrote about this strategy last year on the TLA blog and it works. Seriously though, even though most of these jokes are beyond lame and they’ve become increasingly easy to spot, people still eat it up and link to it like crazy. There is something about the April Fool’s Day joke that just gives the geek bloggers a chubby. Extra bonus if you sue or get sued.

Now excuse me while I start rolling these out for my clients

Goog referrals…

I love it when charts look like this. Been working with this client, who is also a good buddy, on SEO since Jan 1st.

Two great linkbait pieces that really caught my attention today. I love this kind of thing.

This one is seriously one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time. Who would’ve known that Neil and I would make such cute kids.

What if SEOs mated?

The other one, from my good friend Rhea, is also very well done. I’m honored to be selected to the first ever SEO Dream Team. Watch out for us in the ‘10 Internet Olympics. To all you other teams - “You’re going down like a sweet muffin!”

SEO Dream Team.

Both are great examples of targeted linkbait. While they’ll probably only spread through our little SEO industry, I know they’ll pick up a bunch of super targeted authority links.

Did that get your attention? No, I’m not going to write another SEO is dead or all SEOs are scumbags post. Actually just the opposite.

There’s been a lot of hate towards SEOs and the industry lately. Most of which has been led by Jesus Calacanis. Just for the record I happen to think Jason is a brilliant guy and I respect him a lot. I don’t agree with half the shit that comes out of his mouth, but then again I’m not so sure he does either. I think he’s just an attention whore and attention he gets.

For the most part I’ve been watching the battle from the sidelines. Listening to both sides of the story but refraining from jumping in with another me-too rebuttal. I decided this morning that I want to add my two-cents.

As the CEO if an Internet company (or any company for that matter) — if you don’t want traffic from Google you should be fired. Simple as that. If by now, you don’t understand the value of Google rankings then you’re an idiot.

I’m not talking about spamming and ranking for obscure crap that is irrelevant to your business. But if you’re not fighting for a top 3 spot for relevant terms then you have no business running a company. It’s common sense really.

And that’s really all I have to say about that.

Not five minutes after I post about picking a brand over keyword domains comes news that Business.com is on the block for 400-500 million. Business.com was bought back in ‘99 for what then was the largest domain purchase ever at 7.5 million. Turns out that it was a huge win for them.

My question is — how much did the domain factor in toward their success? They don’t even rank number one for business. It obviously had something to do with it though as that’s a domain that would get a lot of type in traffic.