How did Charl Norman master the Springleap SEO competition?
Before I write anything more, I would like to state that this is NOT a negative post, but more an informative post for those of you who are unaware of how you would push your post up to the top spots in the SERPs for a specific keyword.
Springleap, an online t-shirt company is running this SEO guru competition, which basically assigns prizes to those people who rank highest in the Search Engine Rankings for the term ’springleap’. After Springleap announced the competition, a number of the local bloggers started fighting it out to see who could rank highest.
From a technical point of view, this competition is purely based on link building, the more links you can use with the anchor text ’springleap’, the higher your ranking in the SERPs will be. What do I mean by anchor text and how does this linking work? Well, when you create a hyperlink (a link from a website to another), you have to select some text to use as the hyperlink, for example: SA Blogger – ‘SA Blogger’ would be the anchor text linking to iMod.co.za – So, the more of these links pointing to a specific post, the more authority the post would get (Google would see it as popular) and therefore the higher your ranking.
What did Charl do? Charl, amongst others, is very involved in the online space and has a number of websites online, so what he did was go through his network of sites and basically place links pointing to his blog post on BandWidthBlog, with the anchor text ’springleap’ and now this post sits at position 2 in the SERPs.
Let’s get graphical and have a look at the building he did with his network:
Now although some SEO Gurus would see this more as not the real deal because the linking is a bit dodgy ;) -
Personally commend Charl for doing this. I thought about doing it myself, but then just decided that I really wasn’t up for a huge link baiting / link building mission, my time was better used elsewhere.
Now, Charl, I do have one thing to bug you about and that’s the amount of time it took to create all the links vs the money you’ll earn from this. If your blog remains in the SERPs in position 2 and a hanging link at position three, you’ll earn R1500.00. Weighing up the prize vs these time factors:
- Asking friends to link build for you
- Logging into sites and adding blogroll links
- Editing / Writing posts with anchor text
I would estimate about 4-5 hours of work all in all. My question to you is – does this mean I could hire you for R300.00/hour? Just jokes bud ;)
Well done Charl, it’s lovely to see that techniques taught by rainbow SEO Guru Eli being used so predominantly on the Internet by local blogging gurus!
Charl – Here’s a link in appreciation of your efforts: springleap
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Christopher is the founder of iMod - Most of his time is spent building websites and pushing the limits with Search Engine Optimization. You can follow him on Twitter @ChristopherM
Chris M has written: 4759 posts.
Mar 21st, 2008 at 2:18 am
Springleap is an edelstein product. Most ppl suck up to the guy, cos he actually is one of those few ppl who have some smack in the SA online world.
Its not about winning the cash, its about being winning the competition, and the recognition he will get.
SA blogging is pretty small and getting respect and credibility is harder than u think, so hats off to Chaarl for a pretty sneaky way of getting ahead.
Mar 21st, 2008 at 2:29 am
Absolutely, the PR side is definitely a perk, there is no doubt about that. I just felt like posting something a little more real and interesting, but very industry related :)
I hope this builds a number of comments and some decent discussion!
Mar 21st, 2008 at 3:41 am
Hey, Thanks for that, being new on the blog scene, and not knowing much about SEO, I was unclear as to how one would go about it, and and some of the more unethical ways to do it – LOL.
PS: Loved the R300 an hour thing.
Mar 21st, 2008 at 3:53 am
Hehe, ye, it’s lovely reading about SEO and the likes, but there’s no better way than when a lesson is related to a real life situation.
R300 – haha ;)
Mar 21st, 2008 at 8:56 am
Chris, you legend!
but the http://www.bluehatseo.com/ site doesn’t seem to be working – looked interesting…
Alex – lets do a drink some time – i’m pretty down to earth!
Mar 21st, 2008 at 9:06 am
I must say that is quite a jaded comment.
Everything about springleap is totally transparent and there are no ego issues involved.
As one of the co-founders of springleap, we created this empowerment initiative born out of seeking a sustainable method to empower artists and the clothing manufacturing industry in South Africa. I am an artist myself who has more than once fallen prey to an alienating closed door art-exhibition culture… this is partly from whence springleap was born – a true desire to make a “Gallery without Walls and niche experts”
We need to get the word out there and in this day and age of incredible communication innovation and methodology, I think Eric is doing a fantastic job of spreading the word and getting everyone involved.
It’s a really tough market out there and a really tough nut to crack – often this industry fights those who want to make positive change.
Hats of to Eric, in my opinion. I think that there will be a lot of empowered artists who will be thanking Eric sooner rather than later for hearing about this amazing initiative.
Mar 21st, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Interesting post, pity you didnt feature anywhere in the competition.. theres quite a bit I did besides what you mentioned
http://springleap.wordpress.com
http://springleap.blogspot.com
Some stuff you missed… i will keep quiet about the other tactics – save it for a blog post d:
Not sure if I will stay at the top.. Rafiq is a great SEO and has a PR6 domain. Its been crazy holding him off so far
Mar 21st, 2008 at 1:03 pm
@Eric – Blue Hat SEO belongs to the guru of SEO, I noticed that the site was down, but trust me, it’s there :)
@Eran – Not quite sure how your comment fits in bud? I think Eric’s idea was absolutely brilliant, so have a website COMPLETELY ranked and untouchable for a couple grand is brilliant! He knows it, don’t you Eric?
@Charl – Nah, I got the wordpress ones as well, but didn’t want to give absolutely everything away, otherwise you and I lose some of our tactics mate ;) I hope there are no hard feeling with regards to this post bud?
Mar 21st, 2008 at 11:08 pm
@Eran – No1 is doubting the artistic side to Springleap, infact the whole idea is downright brilliant. What I was trying to say, is that this competition is not about the money to most, its about the recognition of coming out on top and also beating the others in an Edelstein race
Mar 22nd, 2008 at 12:35 am
Ye, that’s the way I read it, had nothing to do with Springleap per say, but the reputation behind ranking highly in the SERPs, whether legitimately or not ;)
Mar 22nd, 2008 at 1:02 am
The evolution in the local ’sphere witnessed as of late is amazing. Let the organic process take its course :)
Mar 22nd, 2008 at 1:09 am
Absolutely rafiq, I agree with you on this!
Mar 22nd, 2008 at 1:36 am
Hey Guys – Domo Arigato Gozaimas – seems I took it the wrong way;)
But the really interesting thing here (for me) has been :
1. This competition has really pushed the bloggers into a very creative headspace and it’s a blast to see what each blogger will do next
2. Charl Norman, Rafiq, Chris, all u guys – I can’t wait to see what comes next! It’s incredible to see what each unique mind comes up with. Each blogger definitely has their own flair – awesome stuff!
Mar 22nd, 2008 at 1:42 am
I think it’s fair to say that Charl definitely made a blogging springleap here.
So the big Q : Who is going to make a springleap that is powerful enough to take out “The Norm”? ;)
Mar 22nd, 2008 at 1:43 am
Ye, think you did mate, was no disrespect to the Springleap brand at all, completely off topic :)
Ye, there are so many ideas for online topics when it comes to pushing a brand! Using the power of the online world to market a website is incredible, all you need is a couple grand now and then and you’ll have constant traffic!
Mar 22nd, 2008 at 1:48 am
This whole competition is purely about incoming links unfortunately, so he who has the most websites will have the highest rank :)
Mar 22nd, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Not sure I agree with you Chris.
You get ONE or TWO incoming links from some big name websites (thinking cnn, fox, bbc or anywhere in that league as my example, but even sites with less credibility than them will do), and I reckon you’ll be pretty much at the top.
My feeling is that one or 2 QUALITY links will beat 50 of the others…
Mar 23rd, 2008 at 11:13 am
Eric, indeed, inwards links from high PR websites would make a difference, as most of the links pointing to the current sites in the running are low PR sites. I do agree with you, but not completely. I’ve worked very hands on with this kind of thing and I’ve seen links from IOL, Techcrunch, etc. all pointing to a certain site and the sites SERP rank didn’t increase all that much.
Quality is definitely better than quantity, but at the day, it’s more about relevant incoming links. A big fishing website, pointing to a tropical fish website would be a quality, relevant incoming link and would definitely favour in the SERPs.
I guess I should be calling my contacts at IOL and Bizcom for favours ;)