Search Engine Feeds has proven they're worth their salt by launching an SEO-friendly, viral campaign...and they've nominated us as one of their "Featured Feed Sources" in the process.
Before I go any further with this post, be sure to vote for us.
The SEF blog has employed a time-tested and always smart marketing tactic -- the contest. This is the kind of marketing idea I love. It's clever, it's easy, it's cheap (or free) and it's effective on so many levels. Just a few of the things Search Engine Feeds has done -- and that anyone can do -- to make an online contest work.
Capitalizing on the fact that everyone wants to win something, SEF made their contest a battle for "most useful" engine marketing blog. Here are some of the crafty tactics they've employed. Read and learn:
1. They created a hyperlinked list of contestants -- Outbound links are an SEM staple, and key for attracting spiders.
2. They asked everyone to include a link to the contest post on their blog. Assuming their request is honored by all nominees, this brings in the ever-so-important inbound link, the "ying" to the outbound link's "yang." By having an abundance of both, your site becomes very attractive to spiders. Lots of relevant inbound links also raise your Google page rank, which brings me to ....
3. They've kept they're contest extremely relevant. This is a Search blog creating a contest (and inbound and outbound links) for other Search blogs. Does it get anymore SEO-smart than that?
4. Of course they've syndicated their contest post via RSS, which will ensure that the contest appears in any relevant searches in both Google and Yahoo news.
Add the fact that they've created a viral element by emailing notification to the nominees -- and encouraging us to email it to our friends and colleagues...and you've got a very clever and no-cost marketing campaign.
When you get down to it, good marketing boils down to creativity, hard work, and common sense. This campaign just reminds me of how much fun it is to roll up your sleeves, put your thinking cap on, and create something from nothing.
Terrific post guys, thanks for the feedback. We will continue to attempt to make SEF a better place for everyone.
Our goals are high and with the flexibility RSS and feed syndication offers we should have no problem getting to where we want to be.
The site itself along with the voting contest has gone far better than we imagined thanks to supporters and posts like this one on industry blogs and forums.
I love that we can all use each others information to make up a great site like this for everyone to learn from and enjoy.
Posted by: seoforumz | April 12, 2006 at 09:22 AM
Congrats to Getting Granular by DigitalGrit for placing within the top 5 in our voting contest to find some of the best search engine related feeds and syndicated content on the Net!
What you got:
1. A mention in the top post in our Featured Feeds blog.
http://www.searchenginefeeds.org/featured/archives/winner-best-search-engine-feed-goes-to/
2. Site wide links on the Search Engine Feeds main sidebar.
http://www.searchenginefeeds.org/feeds/
3. Prominent placement within your categories on Featured Feed Sources here:
http://www.searchenginefeeds.org/featured/search-engine-sources/
and here:
http://www.searchenginefeeds.org/featured/search-engine-sources/search-engine-blogs/
4. Your articles, news and posts syndicated into the MAIN search engine feeds category on Search Engine Feeds.
http://www.searchenginefeeds.org/feeds/index.php?section=Search_Engine_Feeds_
We are still developing and making changes to the site(s), and have many more things planned for the near future, however your participation and support has been much appreciated and we hope you continue to participate in other events and contests within the industry and on Featured Feeds.
Posted by: seoforumz | May 12, 2006 at 02:15 PM
I did not know that there are so many different blogs on this subject. Didn't Shimon work for you at one time? He has garnered a majority of votes and has been quoted all over the blogsphere.
Posted by: michael | May 13, 2006 at 07:53 PM