All the wrong ways to approach online marketing

Wouldn’t it be great if marketing were a science? We could test different methods and discover what worked, then we could apply it over and over again and watch the dollars come rolling in. Unfortunately our work isn’t that simple. It’s amazing how many marketers at top companies fail to realise this simple fact and implement the same marketing plans year after year, wondering why sales continue to decline.

When it comes to online marketing, it’s not the change in consumer attitudes and habits that we need to be wary of, it’s changes to Google’s search algorithm. Google’s engineers are continually working to refine this powerful engine to ensure that it returns only the most relevant search results. This means that old online marketing techniques can no longer be used to improve the ranking of your website in search results. In fact, not only are these techniques a waste of time, they can actually harm your business. If Google believes that your website is employing one of these techniques, they’ll punish you by burying your site way down the list.

The best way to ensure that your online marketing is performing as best as it possibly can is to hire a highly experienced SEO agency. Here are some of the search engine optimisation techniques that any decent search engine optimisation agency shouldn’t be going anywhere near in 2013.

1. Reciprocal Linking and Link Exchanges

Way back in 2004 this was all the rage, not any more. The technique involves contacting other website owners and asking to place a link on their page in exchange for you doing the same in return. Sites called Link Farms are set up for this specific purpose and host hundreds or even thousands of links. Unless the links you are exchanging are highly relevant, Google will pick up on this straight away.

2. Duplicate Content

One of the best ways to generate links and drive traffic to your site is with Content Marketing. This involves writing insightful articles and submitting them to blogs and news websites, who will hopefully allow you to include a link in return for providing quality content for free. It’s tempting to write one article and submit it to as many different sources as possible, however if you repeat the headline or substantial sections of the body copy, it’s a big red flag to Google and your hard work will got to waste.

3. Hidden Text

A classic old-school SEO technique, the hidden text trick involves stuffing lists of keywords into a website and making them the same colour as the background or hiding them behind a picture. Modern search engines are able to tell the difference between natural language and meaningless lists and can also detect when words have been obscured, rendering this trick completely useless.

4. Keyword Stuffing

Sure, it’s important to include relevant search terms in your website text, but words that are heavily repeated or out of context are easily picked up these days. Write your content for the reader’s eye, not Google’s.

5. Cloaking

Cloaking refers to showing different content to search engines than your website users. For example, this could be a page that is only accessible via a hidden link.


Ivy Delfin is a leading SEO Practitioner

20+ Worlds Funnniest Jokes and One Liners

1. I tried to catch some Fog. I mist.

2. When chemists die, they barium.

3. Jokes about German sausage are wurst.

4. A soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

5. I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid. He says he can stop anytime.

6. How does Moses make his tea? Hebrews it.

7. I stayed up all night to see where the sun went. Then it dawned in me.

8. This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I have never met herbivore.

9. I am reading a book about anti-gravity, I can't put it down.

10. I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words.

By the way, if you like these then you would surely enjoy the 50+ Funniest Quotes.

11. They told me I had type A blood, but it was a type O.

12. A dyslexic man walks into a bra.

13. PMS jokes aren't funny. Period.

14. Why were the Indians here first? They had reservations.

15. Class trip to the Coca-Cola factory. I hope there's no pop quiz.

16. Energizer Bunny arrested: Charged with battery.

17. I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.

18. How do you make holy water? Boil the hell out of it!

19. What do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary? A thesaurus.

20. When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble.

21. What does a clock do when its hungry? It goes back four seconds.

22. I wondered why baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me!

23. Broken pencils are pointless.

Best 8 Gifts You Should Gift Your Wife on the Wedding Day

Your wedding day is the most special occasion in your life that you get to celebrate with your wife. It is a day of joy and happiness for you and your family; the exchange of gifts is customary on this day.

Knowing that this day only comes once in a man’s life, it is vital that you make the most of it and get your wife presents that she will adore and love for the coming years.

Here are the best eight gift ideas for your wedding day:

1. Necklace
A necklace is a traditional gift which is very popular on this special occasion. You can never go wrong with this gift as it is something that your wife will always treasure. You should try visiting a nearby jewellery store to see what they have available. If your wife has a certain preference in gemstones then get what she likes. It will look beautiful and make a perfect wedding day present.

2. Photo book
A photo book is a very unique idea for a gift. It is not expensive either, you can get one from your local store or order it online. Once you get the photo book, put all the pictures you have with her in the book making a wonderful album.

You can also add a personal message along with each photo to make it more romantic and charming. Personalized gifts are always trend setters and give you the chance to express yourself.

Have You Been APE-d Yet?

Are you planning to write a book but not sure how to go about publishing it? Let Guy Kawasaki help you with it! How? Here's how.

Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch have come up with a book called APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur. With it they will show you the magic of self-publishing. How you can overcome the barriers that you would have had to face with traditional publishing. I had a chance to grab a review copy of APE and I was surprised at how easy it is to get yourself published!

Acquired Tastes

Last evening while sharing a few drinks with Suvomoy, I started discussing my inability to appreciate the true beauty in a glass of Whiskey/Scotch. I have always been an ardent fan of the Old Monk and continue to remain so, I never failed to go for that readhead because compared to it the glass of Whiskey/Scotch seemed pale. And that's bad news because I have heard from numerous dipsomaniacs that Whiskey/Scotch is the drink of a man and to become a true connoisseur of the spirit-ual world, one needs to get acquainted with the taste of that damned beverage.

I always though that drinking Whiskey/Scotch is like listening to Rock, you either have the ear for it or you don't. There is no middle path. Your palates can either appreciated the taste of Whiskey/Scotch or they cannot, you simply cannot force yourself into getting high on it. But I guess I was wrong.

Suvomoy was of the opinion that tastes can be acquired, forcefully. And to accept the taste of a great beauty, be it in the spirit-ual world or otherwise, at first its eminent that one would not be able to truly appreciate its great beauty. Probably that's why its a great beauty. And if you force yourself to indulge in it, slowly you start soaking and basking in its glory.

It made me rethink about my own opinion on drinking Whiskey/Scotch. It is somewhat like the music of Pink Floyd. At first I never used to like them, could make any head or tails of what they were trying to convey. But one fine day I bought The Wall, a discography of Floyd. I listened to it for hours, and slowly it started seeping into my soul, getting inside my flesh, giving me goosebumps with every pluck on their strings. Finally my room started reeking in the spirit of Floyd, and I started swaying to their tunes. Since then I have been in love with Pink Floyd, they have been the Gods of Rock.

Hopefully in the coming months I be able to hold a conversation with the spectral beauty of a glass of Whiskey/Scotch. Ofcourse, the teachings of the Old Monk would never be forgotten, but still.

Ritu Chakravarti, Not Funny!

I found this video yesterday from a friend's Facebook stream. After after I saw (or heard, rather) this video, I was dying to share these thoughts with Rubi Chakravarti (and BBC World Have Your Say).

Now I don't know about you but I got my schooling in humor and sarcasm from the legends like Mitch Hedberg and George Carlin and Russell Peters. Because of which I can differentiate between comedy and "tragedy". And what we have here Ritu is pure trash. Not the kind that Stephen King keeps talking about every now and then though. Even if I stretch the periphery of my imagination I cannot conceive this video in my mind as a comedy, or you as a comedian.

All I could make out of this video is a fat woman accusing the entire Indian male population just because some stupid guy invented some stupid product that some stupid female is bound to use some day! All I could hear was how that fat woman discuss the winnie of Indian male with her female friend and yearns for a hawt Italion stallion. And how the entire Indian male populace is to be penalized for the wrong-doings of that one guy. You are supposed to be a comedian, where's the comedy in this! Honestly, the only comedy I found in this video was the comedy of errors where you never had your witty rebuttals ready for Nagessh Pannaswami, and so ended up lashing out at him and the entire Indian male populace. Next time please come up with something really funny, our bandwidth still costs a lot.

And just one last thing before I bid adieu. If you are not satisfied with the winnie of an Indian man, we always welcome you to try other flavors. If that's not an option, feel free to buy the latest penis enlargement kit from eBay: a magnifying glass.

Love Marriage Vs Arranged Marriage

Coming from a man who is about to get divorced very soon, advice about marriage is not something to be taken seriously. But nonetheless, we all have our opinions. And at some point of time we all want to be heard. So when I first read about Indiblogger's Love Marriage or Arranged Marriage contest, I too wanted to write about it, I too wanted to express my views. And don't we all know, that it is from our failures that we achieve the key to our success.

Now, to be very honest with you there isn't much difference between a love marriage and an arranged marriage. The custom of arranged marriages have been predominant in this part of the world since centuries, and many of these nuptial bonds have been more than just successful. And I know a lot of men and women who belong to the new generation have left it upon their parents to decide about their life partners, or have started searching for a prospective bride or a groom through ads in newspapers.

And then there are some of us who were lucky enough to find that someone special in their lives. That someone who they couldn't think they could spend their lives without. They fell in love with that someone and then after they get to know eachother a little too well, they decided to take it to the next level, as you might say, and tie a knot. My parents had a love marriage, and they are happy together even after all these years!

But then I have seen marriages fail. They can be either of them, love or arranged. I have seen arranged marriages collapsed within days of the wedding because of simple misunderstanding. And I have also seen couples get separated because one or both of them fell out of love of eachother who had were once convinced that love is the best thing that had ever happened to them.

So what goes wrong?

The answer to that is very simple. Be it love marriage or arranged marriage, more often than not we don't seem to understand the true meaning of the word marriage. When people say that marriage is an institution, we fail to understand its teachings. We fail to understand that marriage is not just signing off a few legal documents or wearing sindoor on your forehead, marriage is not the right to have sex with your partner. Marriage is a bond of love that is to be respected by both people involved in it, that is to be cherished for what it is. It a relationship of a lifetime that is above all other relationships, the truest of them all. Marriage is a oath that a couple needs to fulfill, an oath to stick to eachother through thick and thin and love eachother inspite of all the odd of life. Marriage is a feeling that is not bound by a legal document or a pinch or red powder.

If you want to be married to someone because you love that person, you can do that without signing off a legal document in front of thousands of witnesses, you can do that without wearing that pinch of the red powder. Because if you want to break the bond of marriage, no legal document or no vermillion can save it. But if you want to keep it, no adversity would dare to break such a beautiful bond.

That is marriage!

And once we understand the true essence of marriage, whether its an arranged marriage or a love marriage, we would be able to cherish it like it says in the books, happily ever after.