Comment spam is pervasive especially to blog owners and it always intrigued me as to why bother. Most blog commenting systems are nofollow, many moderate and for the most part comment spam is pretty obvious so it begs the question, why are they doing this?

Email spam has been around since email began and should probably be considered the earliest form of Email Marketing. Strong subject. Succinct copy. Generally text-only…hey they do a lot right. Of course they also do a lot wrong like, oh I don’t know, not asking folks if they would like to receive their emails? I’m not forgetting listservs either as one of the earlier places to spam online.

So rather than getting pissy at spammers and ridiculous commenters, I like to learn why they are doing what they do. Those spammy one-page websites with all the bells, whistles and talking heads that I thought were ridiculous appear to actually work as I’ve had several clients reach out and ask about them. Some had even taken the offers. While I’d like to suggest that not all of them are rubbish, I’m afraid to say that the majority of them are. Most likely they are some out-of-the-box affiliate marketing scheme aimed at selling a cheap e-book on how to make money online by selling cheap e-books.

Comment spam like I said had baffled me until I saw a whole series of them on a blog post that was good quality and dofollow. Quite obviously that website did not moderate comments and this is what the comment spammers are hoping for. Get your comments out en-masse, maybe 1% will be fruitful. Hard Yakka if you ask me and not very beneficial but for most of these services, a link is a link no matter what the quality is like.

There have been a few sites over the years that seemed to attract a high level of spam and often this is where I will also look to help with Internet Marketing for clients only instead of spamming people, we prefer to do it properly and provide some value. A while ago ut was digg.com, then squidoo.com became quite useful and now I’m seeing quite a bit on Linkedin and Quora so I’ve been checking them out to see how they fare.

Can’t get over the stars they were able to gather for this video.

Questionables
1. That shirt doesn’t look familiar
2. The legs are too skinny (could be the angle)
3. No gray hair at the temples
4. The belly area looks a little larger than mine (could just be bad angle though or simply my own interpretation of my belly:)
5. I was only in Sydney twice last year for a total of 6 weeks so what are the odds of that!

“hello there, i just saw your web portal via google, and i would like to tell that you express interestingly good on your website. i am truly struck by the method that you write, and the subject is excellent. anyways, i would also like to acknowledge whether you would like to exchange links with my website? i will be to the great extent than willing to reciprocate and put your link off in the link exchange area. waiting for your respond, i would like to convey my appreciation and cheers!”

I mean, for someone to “express interestingly good on your website” is quite obviously a very touching sentiment and one not to be taken lightly. Of course I am willing to reciprocate.

And this one

“Cheers for this informative article. I am constantly searching for information on different subjects and it’s seldom far away on the internet. I’ll be coming back soon.”

They will be coming back soon. That’s great news. But my favorite of late that really offers up the warm and fuzzies and actually finishes with a smiley face is

“I view are made up of unnecessary waste copied from some other websites a trillion times, nevertheless I have to give you credit this website is in truth decent and also possesses a lot of unique substance, therefore kudos for stopping the trends of exactly copying other people’s websites,”

My website is in truth decent. If you don’t have a few comments slipping through the cracks, maybe once in a while have a little peek at what it does pick up. It may well cheer you up.

When I first got my drivers license I drove my mates up the NSW north coast and back…just because. So I think every year since then, I’ve managed 2 or 3 solid roadies a year, up and down, side to side, into the middle and back. The I went to the States and did it there and have traversed the country some 6 times with additional jaunts into both Canada and Mexico since arriving some 14 years ago. I really don’t care who I go with (unless they are really annoying and I mean really annoying) or where I go but most of the latter ones have been with my long-suffering-not-overly-enthusiastic-about-boring-road-trips wife who is far more interested in getting there than the journey to there. I am often left to my own devices in the car while she catches up on some sleep which also gives me a chance to rock along to a few tunes that are not necessarily her favorites – the soundtrack being an especially important element to a good roadie. I’ll take this opportunity to share with you a classic road trip tune which will no doubt be unfamiliar to anyone outside of Oz and that’s Cold Chisel. This is Bow River.

While Chisel weren’t my favourite favourites, they were up there and always remind me of home.

So I finally talked the missus into a week road trip up to Byron Bay last week which is most certainly one of my all time top spots in the world and I had a mate living up there plus a couple of other mates flying up to join us. Plus, this would be my 3 year-old’s first road trip (yes that means I haven’t been on a roadie for at least 3 years) so it was time for his official initiation and what better than a North Coast tour.

While I know a road trip is not for everyone, for me, it offers a lot of benefits.

The Cleanse - I think this is more and more relevant and I’m not sure about you guys, but most folks I know and myself included, have so many things going on that it’s really tough to switch off. I used to be a genius at it but now I suck. The ‘always on’ mentality really has become problematic for a lot of folks and while I’ve decided to try and battle against it a bit, I don’t think it’s really an option (I appreciate the fact that it allows me to work from home) but I’m aiming towards a better work/life balance. So I’m on a road trip, I do have my blackberry but connection is spotty and interruptions are minimal (somehow Ernie is the only one who can figure out how to reach me).

The Perspective – When you stare at a computer screen 8+ hours a day and also some weekends, one does end up with a big ugly set of blinders. When I come home and talk with my mates, they wonder what I’m talking about with the tweets and the SEO and the Adwords which reminds me that there is life outside of Internet Marketing. Then when you take a road trip and you talk to someone and they don’t even have a mobile phone, you’re reminded even more that there is still a brave new world of reluctant tech adopters. So I’ve found a little bit of clarity.

The Resolve – With all this time out on the open road, you get a unique opportunity to really think. Sometimes that might not be a good thing;) but in general, with all this new perspective you’ve got some new ideas to work through. I’ve personally been looking to shake things up for a while now and had made a decision to make a move professionally and this decision has been solidified following my recent roadie.

Oh the final destination Byron Bay? Beautiful.

Achieving Internet Marketing basics is something that alludes many small businesses. Whether it be poor advice, execution or simply poor decisions, we see a lot of common mistakes being made again and again, and it has a lot to do with listening. Having been part of both successful and not-so-successful campaigns I’m getting to see this pattern of what works and what doesn’t and the top on the list has to be the ability to effectively listen.

What should you listen to? There are a lot of things that you should be listening to:

- Listen to your audience
- Listen to your website

- Listen to people you trust
- Listen to the community
- Listen to your analytics

One of the greatest distractions from listening is yourself. A good number of our clients are “experts” at web designing. They have been to a lot of websites. They have read several articles about web design so their expertise is always invaluable during a redesign process. That is most likely how they came to be in the situation they are in.

Social Media is another area that clients are often “experts” in. I wouldn’t even consider myself comfortable using Social Media as a tool for Internet Marketing but i can tap into people who are and well-prepared to listen to them.

Listen to your website – there are a number of tools available to help with listening to your website. Analytics can be a big part of that. We’ll usually recommend Google Analytics particularly for its price point but also many of its useful features. The site overlay is very useful to determine where people are going, what they are doing and where their preferences lie. If you wanted visitors to contact you but they keep going to About you and bouncing, there may be an issue to address.

Listen to people you trust – sometimes you have to move forward on faith. A company that may have the skills you are looking for, may fall short. A website you thought would bring in traffic, may not fit the bill. As long as you don’t get locked into one of those ridiculous long-term agreements, you should learn from the experience. We do our own fair share of experimenting with services and websites so don’t assume that we are immune to it but because we are doing such a high volume, we can pretty quickly determine if there is any impact. In addition we can see things that raise red flags even before starting. If you plan to hire an SEO agency, how visible is their own website?

Listen to the Community – again there are a lot of tools out there to keep you abreast of any specific chatter happening online. Social media and online buzz can be captured through tools like Trackur and Google Alerts.

It’s very important to stress the benefits of listening for your business. Paying attention can ensure that you reduce the number of mistakes you may make and aligning yourself with some good, solid people to listen to is not a bad move either.

I recently came across an interesting statistic from ipressroom.com that cited:

“Social Media Is Prioritized and Utilized More Than Managing the Company’s Website Content”

This is despite the fact that users trust a website more than they trust Social Media. So why would a company spend greater time and resources on Social Media than their own website? Because Social Media is new? My best guess is that there is less of a barrier of entry. How much easier is it to set up a twitter account as opposed to updating a website or modifying code for SEO. I can tell you that our most successful clients are those who put a lot of effort and energy into their actual websites. They are ones who understand prioritizing their Internet Marketing. So stop ignoring your website. Hopefully you spent a decent amount of money on it, take advantage of it and leverage what you’ve got.