Ours is a geek industry where Ethics is a valid topic for conversation, forum threads, newspaper articles and blog posts.

As an example, here’s a small selection of SEO blog posts from June that in one way or another deal with Ethics:

• Blackhat Ethics: Whose Rules Are They Anyway?
• Hey Google NoFollow this!
• SEO, Colored Hats & The Pollyanna Pissing Match
• In Defense of Hats: White, Gray, Black and Blue
• The Evil Side of Google? Exploring Google’s User Data Collection
• What Are Community Standards?

In last week’s post I mentioned that good link builders had to consistently add new strategies to their link building mix. I was really surprised, however, to find out that a lot of people (especially clients) have very little knowledge about link building PERIOD; if at all. Even more puzzling was that this response wasn’t an anomaly!

It ALMOST seems like a standard in the industry…the mysterious link builder…hiding behind closed doors…where do they get all those quality links? How can I get some of those much sought after links for my client?

After having looked at one week of Sphinn SEO lessons it’s time to put a number on things.

SEO’s, SEM’s and other abbreviated people within our industry love, love, numbers. Clickthrough rate, how many positions up in the rankings, number of estimated searches per month, links per minute. Heck, even Google is into it: -6, -30, -950, -whatever number penalty. Our very own Tom Tsinas loves numbers so much he’s created a series of “[insert keyword] by the numbers” posts.

Your boss just read an article on the benefits of online communities…

You know, how online community members visit Web sites nine times as often, stayed five times as long, and represented 65% of sales.

or maybe

how 89% of mid to large sized companies have adopted at least one of six community-building tools, such as blogs, wikis, social networking, or content-tagging.

so now he’s asking

“What about our website? Shouldn’t we have an online community?” (Damm you McKinsey! Now I have to come up with an online community strategy).

OK, I’ve had it with link building; I’m done. Tossing in the towel. Waiving the white flag, no fight left in this link ninja. Google, you win!

Ever feel like your link building efforts are going to waste? Are you worried that the latest link you worked so hard to build might prove to be DAMAGING to your site? Trying hard to get ahead in the SERP’s but confused by the massive amount of backlink offers and other “automatic link building software” readily available on Digitalpoint and other webmaster forums?

Its difficult isn’t it? When you begin in social media, you feel dwarfed by this immense creature called Social Media that stands before you. You think to yourself; how could I possibly ever tackle something this large and win … its just too big?

The truth is … its not impossible because of a little concept I like to refer to as cross-pollination. This is where two plants or media support one another, and the resulting whole is stronger than the mere sum of the parts. Another way to look at it is; don’t fight, but rather join forces.

Picture this … you’re ranking really well for an important keyword(s). It’s driving a lot of traffic and life is pretty good.

You decide it’s time to take better advantage of that traffic by giving your site a face lift.

The next thing you know, you’ve fallen out of the SERPS and you’re left shaking your head, not quite knowing what happened.

It’s an all too common scenario. To us Marketing People it was just a “face lift” a “re-skin”. We didn’t really make any major changes that should matter to the search engines.

Are links your nemisis rather than a powerful tool?

In last week’s post I talk about 4 alternative uses of social media. Point #2 I mentioned in that piece talked about “generating direct backlinks”, though I wasn’t able to elaborate as much as I would have liked to.

Obviously there are many ways to get links from social media. One such technique is to establish profiles on various social media, and link from your profile on those sites, back to your web site. The key obviously is in knowing which social media sites permit links, and which permit DoFollow links.

Sometimes, looking at things from a different perspective helps. Here are 4 ways to look at social media from a different perspective … and none require the submission to go ‘hot’ to receive benefit.

Use it for:

1. Reputation Management - as my previous post on the subject (Reputation 50+ Posts to Help You Bury Negative Posts About You or Your Company ) suggests, by developing and building out profiles on numerous social media sites, you can often preempt negative posts about a person or company, so they never make it to the first page of the search results. You can also use it in a more reactionary way … to bury existing negative posts about you or your company.

What valuable lessons, if any, do we teach on Sphinn regarding SEO?

A high-level analysis of one week of Sphinn postings.

The Selection

I’m coming at this from an angle where a non-SEO site owner says "hey, I have to do something… now let’s learn from the best".

I sifted through the  900+ items posted between Friday May 9 00:00 and Thursday May 15 24:00, culling the ones that seemed to convey real value for a newcomer and dropping items like "30+ Weird, Educational and Stupid Search Screenshots", "Trolls or Upset Customers? Do You Know the Difference", "Exercises For Lower Ab Workouts" or "Is Bebo better than Facebook? Creating a profile network".