Can this perception of selling be changed? Let us know in the comments.

For salesmen, overcoming this obstacle is an obvious challenge. It’s also a challenge for people trying to start a business because they don’t want to be connected to a group of people that are known for taking advantage of people. This sales association has had such an impact on society that it even discourages some people from pursuing their goals.

According to Johnny B. Truant, an outspoken blogging coach, there is a way to change this perception. He told us that he struggled with this issue but then realized a way around it. As he explained to us, both parties involved in a sales transaction should be happy. The customer wants/needs what you have, so you’re helping them. In turn, they are helping you because they are buying from you.

“It’s definitely a better way to do business for somebody like me because I don’t feel like I’m taking advantage of everybody,” said Truant.

Truant runs a different type of business and one that Sonia Simone of Copyblogger calls a “Third Tribe.” Simone coined this term to bridge the gap between the two groups that largely make up the Internet marketing crowd. The one tribe consists of marketers that are focused on selling, and the second tribe is the social media crowd that is primarily concerned about connecting.

Simone felt that a lot of people didn’t fit into either of these categories, and, as a result, Copyblogger has built an entire brand about the concept of “Third Tribe.”

“[It's] the idea that the best connections lead to the best customers and so forth, and the best customers come out of creating true connections,” explained Truant.

He went on to say that he doesn’t abide by a lot of the standards that people think are necessary for business including SEO and social media.

“I’m really bad at SEO,” he said. “I don’t even attempt to make it work.”

It’s not that he thinks these methods are ineffective, but it’s that he has found other ways to do business successfully. He believes so strongly in this method that he encourages others to embrace it as well.

What do you think about these unconventional business practices?

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1. The not for profit site that is down, requiring you to buy through the payment link inside of Google’s cache
2. The site with Google Checkout and Google AdSense on their home page
3. The site with a sleazy Clickbank affiliate ad for how to steal stuff
4. The site with no money back guarantee
5. The site with a design that looks like I created it in January 2003 (my first month on the web)
6. The eBay member with 0 reputation
7. The eBay member that takes a month and a half to ship
8. The eBay member selling authentic lithographs
9. The eBay member selling the item used

While I listed the above faults as though each was a different site, many of the sites actually suffered from multiple trust eating offenses. I consider myself a savvy searcher and yet these were the best sites I could find for what I wanted to buy. Because of the price-point I was unwilling to trust any of them enough to buy.

At lower price points we are more likely to let little things slide, but almost every site undermines conversion rates. A year from now I will probably look back on this post and laugh at some of the things I was screwing up today.

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According to Matt Cutts, the FTC thinks you should clearly mark paid links. If you do clearly mark paid links Google editors will penalize you for buying / selling links, then they will pay an AdSense spammer to steal all your content. Don’t worry though, as Google doesn’t clearly mark their own ads.

Look at how closely timed the above posts were. Why would any webmaster mark their own sites to be penalized and stolen? Clear language is a wonderful thing.

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So far, Google has never penalized any site for link selling. To the foremost, what Google does is prevent links from a site to pass page rank. But now the scenario is changing. For selling links, Google might penalize your site and your PageRank score can also get down.

To explain his point more clearly, Danny Sullivan gives the example of the Stanford Daily. Earlier, in one of his post titled, "Time For Google To Give Up The Fight Against Paid Links?", he has highlighted as how the student newspaper of Stanford University used to sell links, even when the news came into the limelight. Even there was no penalty imposed by Google at that time.

Around a week ago, the PR of Stanford Daily dropped. Interestingly, there is no apparent reason for this to happen. Drop in the PageRank is reported by others also. It has been confirmed by Google that sites that sell links will have a lower PageRank. In addition, Google said that some sites that are selling links may indeed end up being dropped from its search engine or have penalties attached, to prevent them from ranking well.

Danny Sullivan has his own views for all this, such as:

• It’s Google’s search engine. They have every right to say that if you sell links, they might penalize you.
• Google is not telling people what to do with their sites, which is a popular argument point. Google is telling people what to do if they are concerned about doing better in Google. Don’t want to be harmed in Google? Don’t sell links.
• Don’t care about Google? Sell links all you want.
• Despite Google’s policy and even this latest action, they’ll never catch all the paid links. It’s part of the reason I’d like to see them back off the paid links war and instead work out other ways to determine if a link deserves credit, paid or not.

One the question is "What if someone sells links and gets their PageRank dropped or traffic reduced under this new policy by Google? In regard to this question, Google says , "Most people hit with a PageRank decrease will likely notice this, and then they can request a review. Eventually, it may be something flagged within the Google Webmaster Central system."

Instead of doing all this, Google can simply change the PageRank meter to something like a red bar. This will warn the buyers from buying a nabbed site. Google also believes that by doing this, it would be easy for anyone to detect which sites have not had their paid links discounted. Google is only decreasing the PageRank for a subset of the sites they actually know about.

Once Matt Cutts said about paid links as an issue with his drop in rankings, when asking if they were gone and not coming back.

But Google itself is allowing paid links to be promoted in another way via its own ads. Here’s an example:

Whatever be the outcome, this step takes Google into a new era of attacking paid links. If Google traffic is important to you, it will ge good if you don’t sell links.

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Link Selling Equals Google Juice Squeeze

From Google’s mouth to Danny Sullivan’s ears came the word on selling links. He’s followed the issue, using the Stanford Daily student newspaper website as an example.

Stanford Daily had enjoyed a PageRank of 9, and a $350 per month revenue stream per text link. That PR 9 has dwindled from its position in April, said Danny:

Last week, I noticed the Stanford Daily had dropped from when I wrote the above in April to PR7 today. That’s a huge drop that has no apparent reason to happen. Some others were also reporting PageRank drops. So I pinged Google, and they confirmed that PageRank scores are being lowered for some sites that sell links.

In addition, Google said that some sites that are selling links may indeed end up being dropped from its search engine or have penalties attached, to prevent them from ranking well.

Humorously enough, Danny discovered an instance where Google doesn’t let link selling get in the way of its multi-billion dollar business. On his site, Google advertising for a “PR 6 .Edu Backlink” appeared within a Search Engine Land story.

With content that you freely distribute you are primarily trying to build relationships with people who don’t know you and have never bought from you. Since attention is limited you have to make your content accessible to gain market attention.

Highbrow = Low Readership

Most potential buyers can not distinguish between great information and average information, but most people…

• can distinguish between well formatted information that is easy to read and information that appears too complex Formatting plays a big roll in selling content.
• follow the crowd and look for signs of trust from others (recommendations, on site comments, etc.)
• care about enthusiasm and topic selection (why read a site that is not unique and/or too negative?)

Some of My Errors

One of my biggest problems from a conversion standpoint is that I often write copy that does not sell…content that speaks well to some, but not to the buying market. Many posts exhibit the following traits:

• are focused on big picture ideas and broader market relationships
• are seen as being negative for being too blunt & honest
• offer too much information for people to get through
• try to convey too many different ideas

People want to feel the comfort and accessibility of reading a for dummies guide one page at a time while being told they are becoming gurus / experts in the process. Which creates an interesting problem for anyone trying to sell how to information. Do you aim to make it as accessible as possible? Or do you aim further along the learning cycle and write at a higher level?

Where to Aim if You Are Looking for Profit

There are more people at the bottom of the pyramid, and if you capture their attention that will likely make you considered an expert to most outsiders looking to your field. As the online experience improves hobbiests use the web much more frequently. Yahoo! and MediaVest have done research about hobbyists, calling them Passionistas:

Passionistas heavily engage with communities of like-minded consumers who use email, text messaging, and instant messaging significantly more than typical users, and are more likely to create and share user-generated content online such as photos, blog posts or videos about their passions.

Because of their intense engagement around sharing information, Passionistas are 52% more likely than typical users to recommend or influence others about brands aligning with them.

In the SEO market (and probably most business related markets) it seems passionate hobbyists new to a field are much more likely to exuberantly promote brands than those who have been in the field for a great deal of time. I am not sure how well that translates to other fields though.

How Can I Use This Post to Help Market My Site?

Become a Platform for Passion

If top rated competing sites lack passion you can own your market in well under a year. If they are passionate then to stay competitive you have to raise your game and become a platform for passion.

Microsoft recently held a search event for SEOs to show they are serious about search. Google gives passionate charities free services to promote YouTube and Google Checkout. Cater to the passionate and create purpose driven media – use the same marketing techniques that Microsoft and Google use.

Make Your Site Look Alive

You can always add interactive features to build community interest. When you do so people are more likely to participate (fueling more people to participate) and they are more likely to market your site because they feel a sense of ownership.

My designer place the recent comments and this week top 5 sections on this site before I ever saw it. And I love it because it gives the sense that the site is dynamic, alive, and active. If you receive awards or have many feed subscribers publishing those signs of validation help improve your credibility and bring in new visitors.

Virtual Demand is Becoming Real Demand

Amazon tapped some of their top reviewers to review transcripts for a book publishing contest. How long until publishers are no longer required? You can look at the success of shows like American Idol to see how much people want to be engaged with what they consume. Also look to the stats about how often passionate hobbyists turn to the web to fulfill their wants. Deep profit margins exist in deep pools of passion.

Eventually consumers will go from hell to create the markets THEY want. The businesses with passionate communities will grow while the remaining businesses go to hell. Look for new ways to track demand and get feedback to create what people want. You don’t even need a product off the start…just an audience willing to give you honest feedback.

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The NYT just went free and likely the WSJ will follow. Once something goes free it is hard to start charging for it again – just ask Prince.

Getting Real Information From Google

A few years ago some Google human review documents were leaked stating things they considered spammy at that time. Google usually gives webmasters misinfomation about organic search results, but their advice on AdWords ads is typically clearer in how they want to shape the web. The Inside AdWords blog just classified ebook sites as being similar to other types of sites that are likely to get hit by quality score issues.

Google will push selling ebooks that are published by a publisher they have a deal with, but if you are selling information outside of a large Google partner and Google is not hosting your content (and getting a cut of the action) they don’t want you to be selling ebooks on their web. To be fair, for every satisfied ebook purchaser there are likely many people who paid to buy an ad formatted and sold as information, as marketers have abused the ebook format.

General Web Publishing Trends

• each day the web collectively improves how page elements are used (example: using tabs better)
• relevancy algorithms and ad networks make the most useful or most profitable business models easier to find while less sophisticated or lower value formats / models / businesses die
• a near endless sea of information becomes freely available, as information gets commodified by open competitors
• technology decreases the cost of creating interactive experiences (you can embed Google presentations in your web pages and hold live real-time chats)

Profitable Longterm Sales Growth

Given those trends I think the 4 big things we will see in selling information are

• demise of one time sales based business models – they are nowhere near as profitable as subscription based models, and they expose the merchant to lower end customers that are less likely to invest enough to succeed or invest in recurring charge based models
• the rise free and ad supported – if information is generic in nature and not time sensitive then it is going to get harder and harder to charge for it, especially if little value is shared before the sales pitch and Google is trying to clean these types of sites out of the advertisement slots as well
• people paying to distribute valuable information for free – I recently saw an AdWords ad for OpenCourseWare from the Sloan Business School. They are not only giving their courses away, but now they are paying to give it away. This means that if you go to MIT you are paying for the interaction, format, certificate, and atmosphere. You are not paying for learning or information. In a couple years, in many industries, better free information will exist than what you currently pay to access.
• subscription for interactive stuff with various formats – Google just launched their Gadget ads. As ads get richer and can show more I think the keys to selling will be to use a variety of formats to convey your messages, give people more than they want and let them consume the parts that are most interesting to them, and come up with formats that feel personalized and interactive. Publishing will become less about investing in a variety of projects until you find a hit and more about the art of investing in relationships.

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About.com has been selling custom branded sponsored content for about a year. This WSJ page hawking Accenture is a PageRank 4, and this BizJournals lead generation page is also an indication of where sponsored content hosting is heading. How long will it be before you can log on to the WSJ ad platform and just buy a topic and upload a page?

A few months back Threadwatch had a post about Yahoo selling subdomains. Yesterday I stumbled across an AdSense ad for a company selling subdomains that they forward to other sites. I don’t believe it is smart to build a big site on someone else’s domain, but if you wanted to fling up a bunch of spam or create a single targeted ad page that goes after a competitive phrase why not leech of their authority and let them assume the risks?

There are no search engine guidelines on hosting advertisements for third parties because it is not an idea Google wants people thinking about or talking publicly about, and they can’t edit out WSJ.com if they will want the WSJ to spread their public relations messages and business interests.

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Let’s go with seriously confused: News.com.au states that the suit “alleges [that] Google does not do enough to differentiate ‘organic’ search results – those ranked by relevance – from sponsored links which appear at the top of the results page.”

For a laugh, read the rest of the story:

Trading Post chose the dealership names through AdWords, a Google commercial program that sets up hyperlinks.

AdWords linked any search on the dealerships’ names to the Trading Post site through a link embedded in the search results.

Trading Post then paid Google “per click”, Ms [Christine] Adamson [for the ACCC] said. “That’s how we found out about it,” she told Justice Jim Allsop. . . .

“Google represents to the world that its search engine is so good that it can rank, out of the multitudinous entries of the world wide web, these entries in order of relevance of the user’s query,” she said.

“Part of that (reputation is) that it’s not influenced by money, it’s influenced by relevance.”

Justice Allsop asked: “And that’s misleading because there would be results put at the top which are placed there not by reference to relevance but because people have paid to have that?”

“Yes,” Ms Adamson answered.

Hm… so, none of these things (from actual Google.com.au SERP) are clear enough indicators?

A shaded yellow box, different information and the phrase “Sponsored Links” . . . yeah, pretty well hidden.

In 2005, the box may have been blue, matching their design a bit better. So sue them. (Oh, wait. . . .)

Other parts of the case may have a bit more merit: Read/WriteWeb summarizes the ACCC’s case:

Specifically, the ACCC names online car dealership Trading Post, which purchased sponsored ads on Google in 2005 for search results relating to searches for the names of other New South Wales car dealerships. The ACCC argues that by using the name of those dealerships in their ads, the Trading Post links appeared to point to the official dealership web sites or implied an affiliation that did not exist. The ACCC alleges that this is a breach of Australia’s Trade Practices Law.

I’m not familiar with Australian Law, but I’ve been told that to protect a trademark in AdWords here in the US, you first must file a claim with Google. If the situation is similar in Australia, did the companies in question do that?

The judge has stated that the case is “opaque and repetitious” and granted a motion by Google Counsel Anthony Bannon to force the ACCC to file summaries of its cases (suing both Google Australia and Google Ireland).

Further decisions were scheduled October 4.

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