I’m learning more about the Russian search engine Яндекс through this great piece in the Times Online. It seems much like Chinese Baidu, Google is starting to lose its domination here as well. I love to hear about stories like this because

1) competition in search is good

and

2) new regional based search equals new opportunities

Recently I’ve started to experiment with Chinese SEO for Docstoc, visitors from the region have already increased by around 1000% compared to the month prior.  I can’t help but think there are some really big missed opportunities for content sites and regional search engine optimization. While everyone in the business likes to say international visitors don’t monetize, traffic (and most importantly traffic growth) can determ the true value of your startup.

What Others Are Saying:

• Mashable
• Alt Search Engines

What is Twitter Spam? The term is thrown around loosely today, even massive friend adding is considered spamming. I might disagree a little with this. Other then the bacon email they generate, they are hardly spamming me. In fact if anything they are helping by increasing my follower numbers, extending my reach further and so forth. Lord knows how us, the attention generation loves this. However the community has long spoken on the matter, its a clear annoyance to many.

Following someone on Twitter is probably one of the best examples of an “Opt-In” process. If I don’t want it, I don’t have to see it. Never the less, the technique of doing a massive follow of thousands, hoping, oh so desperately hoping that you’ll get a small return of followers is spammy. Twitter recently announced some ways they are trying to curb this.

So when I noticed a new site Topic5 creating several profiles for fake people like Julia Allison, Jimbo Whales and countless others I just couldn’t resist sending the above picture twit. Yes “you’re doing it wrong” as the kids like to say today. Tonight I find the following email in my Inbox:

“Name: Jeremy ——-
Email Address: topic5@——.com
Comments: Hi Sean. I was intrigued by your tweet. Can you give me a hint what we’re doing wrong. Just a tiny hint?”

Jeremy, I’d be glad to give you a few hints. In fact we can have a little group therapy sessions right here. Hopefully others will join the conversation and give their own hints as well. That’s kinda what this whole social media thing is about.

What You’re Doing Wrong:

• Setting Up Fake People: Unless you are Darth Vader this isn’t going to work. Following one Julia Allison is enough, please don’t make more. The technique makes me question the class of your operation in general.
• Massive Following: This technique is so tired, you are annoying more than you are engaging users with this. Finally, those few followers you get back are utter shit, they probably following everyone and will never see your twits. Advertise your Twitter account(s) on your site and try to drive incoming follows instead.
• Pump and Dumb: Twitter is not a pump and dump for your links. You have to be more creative than that. For one use Twitter as its intended, reach out and chat with others before blasting your profiles full of links. Second don’t send the same link out over and over again. If you are running a UGS site feed RSS into Twitter via TwitterFeed. Within reason, have it feed updates from your site to your account, at least this is refreshing and new content.

Final Thoughts:

I see what you are doing, an open forum where people can gather around a person or topic. You should have some type of presence on Twitter but for now narrow your output. You can’t possibly make an account for each topic you want to push, please tell me you don’t plan to! For a product like yours shift your focus from social media to search engine optimization. For example if you had editors build out topics based on Google Trends alone you’d see a much greater traffic return.

Either way best of luck, readers please share your throughts as well.

Update:

Shel weighs in! Also he said “social media tools”

Tonight we had a Docstoc dinner at Benihana’s with special guest Neil Patel. You may remember him from such Internet memes as “The Jason Calacanis SEO Challenge“. Neil has had some interesting experiences in his short but successful career. Unfortunately for you, we talked about most of the juicy stuff off camera. I did however manage to ask him a few questions in the valet line. Enjoy.

I’ve been doing some research on Chinese Internet usage and even Chinese SEO. At Docstoc we offer content in a variety of languages (some 50+). As you can probably imagine, our English content makes up the bulk of our traffic today. However I think now is the time for content sites to focus on their foreign language content as well.

Starting with China, let’s take a quick look at some of the challenges and trends developing over there.

A Billion Bikes on The Highway

Source: China Internet Network Information Center

It’s not surprising that China recently surpassed the United States in terms of Internet Users. Given their huge population and shifting classes, more and more residents are coming online. Imagine how high this will be in 5 years.

Google Is Not Your Master There

Search Engines are the main traffic driver for any good content site. So it’s interesting to learn that Google does not dominate the search market in China. Instead its Baidu, a Google like experience that has been tailored for the region. For me this raises all types of questions, some about basic SEO tactics and of course the censorship issue.

Attack of the Clones

Sure they have Web 2.0 in China, hell they already cloned many of your favorite sites. Every great idea Silicon Valley creates gets reborn here with a Chinese twist. For example, their LinkedIn is less about six figure blue shirts and more about networking through events and online photos. Having a good (and appropriate) presence on these sites is going to be important.

If anyone has any experiance with China online I’d like to hear about it in the comments or my mailbox.

Related Reading:

• SF Gate
• ReadWriteWeb
• China Web 2.0 Review
• Docstoc

Yes please stop Googling yourself, scouring like a desperate rat to see your name virtually dropped. Don’t you know thats what Google Alerts are for? Get the instant updates instead to curb those ego kicks.

Some of you might be self-googling to simply check your rankings. Obviously you’ll want your name attached to best search results possible. At the very least, with the inclusion of your official site. Here are a few tips you can follow to help improve your rankings.

1. Vanity Domain - Although a bit egotistical, having a vanity domain is the best first step you can take. Google ranks sites with the search times directly in them very well. Make this domain the focus of your SEO (or EGO-SEO) efforts. On a vanity domain you also get full control over the content of this site and its optimization. For aesthetics try and register your first and last name with no dashes, in my case www.seanpercival.com. If this is not available try adding a middle initial and if you must a combination of dashes or alternative spellings. Hopefully someone hasn’t “pulled a shel” on you and already snatched up your name.

2. Incoming Links - Just as with standard SEO work you want tons of incoming high quality links that use the anchor text of “Your Name” in the link code. First create a text link with your name on any web property you own. Start talking to friends in your networks and setup blog roll links. Make sure each of your social network profiles links back to your domain as well. This takes some time and effort but is well worth the effort.

3. Unique Names: If you are lucky enough to have a unique name there is no reason you can’t completely dominate the first page of results. Use your vanity name to link out to all of your profiles (facebook, linkedin etc) and include your full name in the anchor text each time. Create high quality content across several well ranked sites (blogs, social networks, user generated sites) with your name attached. In my case there was only 1 other Sean Percival with any type of Google presence. It took about a year but I’ve now pushed him back a few pages and taken over page 1 completely. After creating content across so many sites I actually dominate the first 10 or so pages.

4. Common Names: If your name happens to be some what common you may find its tough just to break into page 1. Using a vanity domain with good keyword rich (ie your name) content is going to give you the best chance here. You probably wont be able to dominate page one but over time you can get high placement.

Those are just a few examples of some techniques that can help. If you have anymore please share them in the comments.

I’ve started to work on getting my personal domain well placed under just the keyword “sean“. As you can see from the result s3anbonner (opps typo!) has done very well here, mostly through organic inbound linking. When I started my domain was on page 20, after a few months I’m now on page two (sometimes top of 3) as shown in the below image. Man is it going to feel good when I pass up Sean Hannity.