Post about how Jobster is passing out free 'Google juice.'

Steve Rubel highlights a story featured in Business Week today regarding click fraud. Can't wait to get my issue.

There's no doubt that PPC solutions are wrought with spam, whether financially motivated or not. This is a primary reason why I fundamentally stick with organically ranking well for targeted keyphrases and providing content that is relevant.

I have not, however, seen or heard of any such fraud happening in the employment space to any critical degree. It makes more sense for spammer to focus on the high ROI keyphrases. The legal space, for example, is quite profitable from what I can tell.

Although I haven't seen it in the employment space, it doesn't mean it's not happening or wouldn't be profitable to an 'evil doer.' Many job sites spend plenty of cash on PPC advertising.

Additionally, whereas many e-commerce sites pay very close attention to fraud, I think most job sites would have few similar policing solutions in place.

I came across the following ad on LinkedIn:



Few direct employers leverage AdWords to drive targeted traffic to their job openings. However, what's most odd to me is the number of search marketing firms that fail to take advantage of this advertising option for recruiting - even though it's the same advertising medium they're pushing to their clients.

More search marketing firms need to lay off the Monster 'heroin drip' and recruit via AdWords.

Oaseo president, Joel Cheesman, recently spoke at Onrec:

On of the easiest and best ways to get into the search marketing profession is to get an SEO internship.

See, a lot of the effort behind optimizing a Web site can be categorized as "grunt work." As a result, many search marketing firms will look to provide an SEO internship to advance their business.

Interns are cheap, if not free, and as a result search marketing agencies can keep their overhead low and profits optimized.

In return for their SEO internship, the intern is able to learn the business from the inside and take such knowledge to further their career as a search engine optimizer. As an SEO, opportunities to do your own thing or work for any agency around the world presents itself.

As the demand for good search marketers increases, the amount of pay increases as well. In fact, there's a good chance the firm that gave you your SEO internship will be the first to offer you a job.

To find SEO internships, checkout Oaseo.com. Also, association site SEMPO offers a good list of current agencies around the world. There's a good chance more than a few will be looking for an SEO intern.

If you currently have search engine optimizers on staff or are considering hiring a trained search engine optimizer you probably know they aren't a dime a dozen. They are extremely hard to come by. You likely will be transplanting someone in from out of your area. And they are probably asking for a lot of money.

But that's all just the tip of your SEO iceberg troubles. Hiring an SEO is a lot easier than actually holding on to one.

Have you ever heard the saying that very often your biggest competitor is sitting directly across from you at the negotiation table? If you are in the service business your potential client is often weighing whether or not they should hire you or just do it themselves.

This is exactly the situation with SEO professionals. Everyday that SEO walks through your doors to come to work they are weighing whether or not they should stay with you, go somewhere else or just do it themselves. Like many service professionals today, they don't need the protective cover of a business to make a great living and have a great career. So, keeping your SEO happy and content is going to be your full time job.

Here are 5 recommendations to keep your SEO happy and putting out great work for you.
1. Every search marketing professional that I know wants their work to be appreciated and valued. They HATE when someone brushes off their optimization as just another web page. Make sure you are thanking them often and creatively. Tell them how great they are doing.
2. Set up incremental measurements for success. This is going to make both you and them happy. Find out how much traffic you are currently getting for a search engine key phrase. Set benchmarks for success as that traffic increases. Make sure you are thanking them often and creatively. Tell them how great they are doing.
3. Ask them their top 5 most important aspects of an ideal career. This often is things like: flexibility, being valued, vacation time. Ask them specifically what these things are and post it by your desk. Make sure you are either meeting these desires or have a clear plan to get these in place.
4. The goal of your HR department should be to create SEOs who are more motivated and more trained than what your competitors are doing. Be aware of what the competition is offering their SEO people. I guarantee your SEOs are aware.
5. Did I mention: Make sure you are thanking them often and creatively. Tell them how great they are doing.

Until there is a larger pool of SEO people, these recommendations are an absolute must. They have many options. You want to make sure your option is the best option.

Sage Lewis is the president of SageRock.com. SageRock is a focused search engine marketing firm that's been in business since 1999. They offer a blog of their own here: SageRock Web Marketing Blog. Most posts are video blog tutorials on overall search engine marketing.

The blogosphere has been abuzz lately regarding the value of using link brokers to increase a site's link popularity.

Rand has a nice viewpoint on both Textlinkbrokers and Text Link Ads.

When it comes to deciding on the purchase of a text link (or a package), I'd think about it from an ROI perspective. If you can break even on monetizing the traffic that comes directly through the link (referral traffic), any "linkjuice" you might get to help your rankings is strictly bonus, thus the purchase decision becomes clear. If, however, you're getting very little traffic, but may achieve great rankings from the boost, be cautious - if a search engine ever does pull the plug on the ranking value of those links, you might have a costly expense that's bringing in little to no income. At this point, my philosophy becomes - if your boosted rankings at MSN are bringing you enough revenue to sustain the link spend, keep it running.

Patrick Gavin offers the following:

One of the most sought after links is a "link embedded within content" of a page. The theory goes like this: search engines will be able to identify what links are in the content area of the page and which links are outside of the content area and "count" the links in the content and discount the links outside the content area as "commercial" links.

I don't think the search engines are there yet and it will always be difficult to divide a page and separate out commercial versus editorial links.

To summarize, Rand is in favor of link buying if the traffic and MSN rankings are worth it. Patrick doesn't believe search engines are savvy enough to pinpoint paid links vs. organic links, so buy, buy, buy.

Who's right?

In my own experience, Google seems to be doing a good job of flagging links that have the characteristics of a paid link and weighing them accordingly. Google Guy Matt Cutts even says no to link buying.

Checkout the bottom of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette homepage and you'll see a group of paid links. I would think Google could recognize these pretty easily. In addition, the Post-Gazette is a client of Text-Link-Ads and their participation in its network is easily accessible. Google can easily go to TLA and get a listing of their clients who are selling links.

To their credit, Textlinkbrokers is far more conscious of keeping their link building on the down low. This approach seems far better, although the links purchased here are still in the style that is typical with link pages, such as directory links and lists of links in a reciprocal manner.

Add the fact that Big Daddy has played a huge role in lowering the effectiveness of of backlinks from crappy sites, and the job of the text link broker becomes more difficult.

At the end of the day, building links to your site that matter is hard work. It takes creativity, time, energy and money to create link worthy content. Google wouldn't have it any other way.