If you haven’t seen or heard about the new face of Twitter, I found this video a bit tantalizing:
So You Want to Go Viral?
Sep 15
This slideshow presentation was prepared by Michael Crosson, VP of Sales at SocialTwist.com
So You Want To Go Viral?
View more presentations from Michael Crosson.
Marketing your business and your website in today’s economy is as crucial as it has ever been. With that said, there are numerous ways to get results from any number of marketing methods. One technique that can often be overlooked is the pursuit of article marketing.
Article marketing consists of writing informative and helpful articles relating to your area of expertise in an effort to educate prospective customers and those interested in what you have to offer. By publishing this kind of information you accomplish two things:
- You earn consumer trust
- You drive direct traffic to your website from highly targeted, engaged readers
As with any type of marketing, there are simple things that you can do to positively impact the success you achieve from your article marketing efforts. Here are a few proofreading tips to remember when you begin to submit your articles to various publishing sites:
Don’t Just Write and Publish
Many of us fall into the trap of quickly jotting down what we think is useful and quickly run to get it submitted. Don’t be hasty. Write your article, give it a proofread and then sleep on it. Read it again in the morning and determine if the original intent of your article is still intact. Ask yourself if it gets your point across in the same fashion it did when you originally started to type. I’ve found that a good night’s rest will usually clear my mind and allow me a fresh proofread at a later time. I’ve been known to re-write complete sections of my articles because I wasn’t happy with the structure after I gave my mind time to cool down.
Read Backwards & Find Typos
Just like your English teacher taught you in the 7th grade, a great technique for finding your typos is to read your article backwards. Reading from the end-up forces you to focus on just the words and not the sentences. By examining every word individually this way, you negate the subconscious tendency to pass over words because you are simply skimming thoughts and ideas (and not really reading word for word).
Read Your Article Out Loud
Sounds silly, doesn’t it? But imagine yourself having to stand in front of your audience and read your article verbatim without mistakes. Once again, this practice forces you to concentrate on the written words and minimizes the potential for typos or incomplete ideas.
Show It To A Friend
If you’ve got a trusted friend or partner, preferably someone with excellent proofreading skill, have them give your article a once-over. You’ll be amazed how often something that seems perfectly clear to you doesn’t translate to another reader the way you intended. This practice will often lead to suggestions for improvement or open your eyes to ways you might better your original content.
When In Doubt, Use A Spell Checker
It probably goes without saying, but many word processing programs come with a built in spelling and grammar tool. Use it! Especially if you have a tendency to use any form of slang, these tools will guide you with suggestions for improvement. Better yet, these are the same principles of good writing that the editors at the article submission sites will be using to review your works for inclusion. If you aren’t using proper grammar, spelling or writing form, your articles will most likely be rejected with no hope of going live on the internet.
Now that I’ve given you a few tips on how to improve your articles before submission, I’ll leave you with a teaser. When it comes time to submit your article to the various publishing sites, make sure you know how to properly insert a link to your website using anchor text and a “non-sales” approach. If you’d like to talk in more detail about how this is done, I would love to speak with you!
Happy marketing… -DAVID
Blog In 15-Minutes!
Apr 21
The honest truth we all know is that maintaining a successful blog takes a bit of time. We understand that its good for our business but the question still remains: How do keep up a blog without it becoming a 9-5 job?
For many business owners there is a struggle between managing the content of our social media presence and managing the business operations. If you’re like me, time is always limited so here is a simple and quick methodology you can follow for writing a blog post is 15-minutes.
- Keep a running topic list handy – Whenever you get a great topic idea, write it down. You may not have time to write the actual post then and there, but keep a list of topics you want to someday address. Try to keep a consistant list of 10 to 15 ideas handy. Tip: Use Google docs to create a free document that you can access from any computer and add to at any time – whether at home or work
- Write a quick outline – Luckily, blogs are best when kept to 4 to 7 main points. Think about it, who wants to read a dissertation in a blog? That’s what the library is for so keep your posts succinct. Once you’ve created your list, go through and edit out what’s not truly important to your topic. Now start writing a few sentences about each point you’ve kept. Tip: I recommend targeting 600-800 words per blog post. Keep your post short and to the poin and you’ll keep your reader’s attention
- Reasearch your topic, with Google – This is often overlooked, but simply Google your topic and check out the top 5 article results and quickly skim them. Especially if you’re stumped, this will help get your fingers typing. Adding links to your references is perfectly fine but never directly copy anyone else’s written word. Tip: If you’re not an expert, don’t fake it. Lend your insights and opinions and try to get a discussion started. Your readers don’t expect you to be Encyclopedia Britannica, just honest.
- Reasearch your topic, with Google – I’m constantly amazed at how many typos I can make even when I’m staring at my words as I type. Never publish a post until you’ve read it through for errors at least once. I know this probably goes without saying, but it’s very important to have your posts looked polished. Tip: If you have someone else who can give it a quick glance, take advantage. Often a 2nd set of eyes can find mistakes you initially overlooked.
- ALWAYS include the important stuff – Your “must haves” may differ from others, but everyone should have a list of items that appear in every post. Some people love images and simply have to put an image in every post. Others feel it is needed to include a direct contact link or website home page link at the bottom. Figure out what’s important to you and have it prepared and ready. Tip: If you like your signature or contact info in every post, write it out in a text or Word doc and simply copy and paste. This maintains your consistancy and saves you time.
Selecting an SEO Firm
Apr 1
Ever wonder what questions to ask when you’re searching to hire an SEO firm? Here’s a short video from a colleague of mine that addresses just that:
If you have focused objectives and a clear online strategy then SEO will almost always be a good cost effective addition to the marketing tool set. The first thing to understand is that search engine businesses, like Google, Yahoo and Bing, have customers to satisfy too. Their customers are searching and they expect to see the ‘best and most relevant’ search results. I expect like me, you get frustrated if your searches bring irrelevant results first. No surprise then, that the methods used by the search engine operators are designed to deliver customer satisfaction. They work hard to eliminate bogus SEO services that aim to cheat.
It is possible for you to make your website ‘the best and most relevant’ for certain searches and to convince the search engine operator you are just that too. That is SEO. I assume that you will be committed to a long term marketing strategy, and to measuring results with a view to adjusting your activity. The steps include those of preparation as well of those of continuous repeated activities. The early preparatory steps are perhaps the most important as errors here will frustrate the effectiveness of the later ones.
Armed with our clear objectives and online strategy:
Step 1 – Keyword Research
A vital first step that should not be undertaken lightly. While experienced pay-per-click advertisers will know that you can easily test and change hundreds of keywords in paid search campaigns, they should understand this not possible for organic search optimization. It is normally advisable to concentrate on one to five key phrases for the whole site around a core theme. Then, for individual pages only one to three phrases. For large sites with hundreds of pages it is hard to optimize every single page. The effort and cost of SEO to the full extent produces diminishing returns.
Step 2 – Competitive Intelligence
SEO is competitive. There is only one front page and only one top slot so it is important to know your competition and perform better. What are they doing? Where do they rank and for which keywords? Who is linking to their website and why? The less competitive your industry is online the easier it is for you to outperform your competition. This is an important determining factor in the cost and resources necessary to achieve your desired SEO outcome.
Step 3 – Web Design and Development
Like trying to cable an old building for modern communications or boosting performance of an obsolete machine, fixing a bad website design is much tougher than building properly from scratch. When you create a new website, make sure to consider search engine friendly design and architecture before and during the actual development of the website. Almost all template-based websites are tough to re-engineer for SEO. A good design from the start will save you a lot of time and money. In most cases it will put you ahead of a considerable number of your competitors. In most cases a high performing design for SEO is also a user friendly design, but occasionally compromise is necesary.
Step 4 – Get Your First Inbound Links
There is no need to pay to submít your website to any search engine. Just as soon as you create inbound links from other websites to yours the search engines will find your website.
There are plenty of scam products and services. Avoid them. They are a waste of your money. No one can guarantee you a number 1 ranking. It must be earned and maintained by being the best and most relevant.
There are some web directories that are recognized by search engines and gaining a trade listing there will be a helpful kick-start to your SEO campaign. Then ask your customers and suppliers to place a link to your website from theirs. Most will be pleased for the favor to be returned.
Step 5 – Sitemaps
The larger search engines allow webmasters to submit a sitemap to them via a webmaster console. The search engines also provide reports and other useful information, such as technical problems with your websites you might not be aware of via their console. Even if you decide against the submission of a site map to the search engines, it is advisable to create an account and register your website with them, just for the reports and statistics they provide free of charge and which are invaluable for your internet marketing efforts.
After completion of the first 5 steps, schedule them for occasional review. The remaining tasks require regular and repetitive effort. In Eleven Steps to SEO Heaven (steps 6 to eleven) we look at taking a website that is a SEO ready site with a ready to run campaign and look at the steps and work needed to claim a high search engine ranking.
About The Author:
Tim Meadows-Smith is an experienced non-executive chairman, director and business advisor from a classical sales and marketing background gained with famous global FMCG brand owners. He has worked with businesses globally in the FMCG, logistics, service and technology sectors.
On-Page SEO Tips
Jan 12
Here’s a great video that discusses “on-page SEO” …the coding factors of your site that can dramatically affect your search engine rankings. In Steamboat today, I see a wealth of website owners that don’t know or take the time to review and update their on-page SEO.
One of the many questions that Steamboat Springs marketing businesses have is how to lower their budget for Google Adwords. The truth is that for the same words and same positioning, different businesses and individuals will be charged different amounts. That’s why in Steamboat today you must learn how to take advantage of all of the tricks of the trade to see improved results.
A major determinant for the prices you end up dealing with is your quality score as determined by Google. Your quality score is a reflection of how your ads perform. What percentage of people click on your ads, and what percentage of people who do click on your ads end up as bounced, or one page, visitors?
When you write ads that are more appealing to people, and you provide them with the content they are looking for once they make that click, Google recognizes you as a quality source and improves your rating, thereby decreasing costs. Ultimately Google wants to provide consumers with the best and most relevant ads – because it makes them a more trusted and reliable service. That’s why they reward high quality advertisements and campaigns.
Besides writing improved and more appealing ads, you can reduce your costs by targeting more appropriate markets. The more specific you get with your campaigns, the more relevant you can be. Therefore if you’re a mechanic in Steamboat today, instead of targeting “car repairs” you may want to target “winter car checkups Steamboat” or something along those lines, which will guarantee you can provide a match for a consumer making a search.
There are many other factors that you’ll have to consider to help lower your minimum bids as well. One of these is ad grouping, which goes hand in hand with the market selection described above. You want highly specific ad targets that include the keywords you use, and ad groups that play off relevant words and targets.
Of course, don’t forget that you can also lower your budget by changing your bidding strategy. You can target less popular keywords to reduce your costs, and you can also aim for a different spot besides the number 1 position to greatly lower your budget.
Sometimes it doesn’t make monetary sense to go for the top spot or the most popular market, particularly when you’re just getting started with your Adwords campaigns. So choose your markets and your targeted positions wisely, and you’ll actually end up driving more traffic to your landing pages for a lowered cost.
Businesses in Steamboat today are looking for as many ways as possible to reduce the costs of their marketing while improving the results that they see. Steamboat Springs marketing services should be well advised to take a new and improved approach to Google Adwords. Focus on improving the quality and relevancy of your ads, and in turn you’ll be rewarded not just with traffic that can be converted easier but also with lowered costs for your campaigns.
The topic of Twitter’s use has certainly taken center stage over the last year and there is surely more to come. The fact remains that the landscape of Twitter is in constant flux. Meanwhile, as new features, uses, trends, add-ons and conceptual designs are released, the robust nature of this tool is becoming increasingly enhanced. Here are some reasons why marketers can no longer afford to ignore it.
1. Subscribed & Published Lists
Twitter “Lists” continue to mold the face of Twitter. With the widespread use of the Lists gadget, your tweets are bound to appear in many different places throughout the web. Tweets are now popping up in blogs and other sites related to your niche. This increases the mass reach of your tweets by an exponential number if you are effectively targeting the right audience on Twitter.
2. Complete Transparency and Openness
Twitter is now presented to other audiences such as Facebook and various social networks. With this in mind, your tweets are no longer contained solely within just the spectrum of Twitter itself. The sharing of valuable tweets amongst more people across numerous online mediums is more rampant than ever. This gives your tweets an even bigger pool of prospects from which to target.
3. It’s All About Relationships
The book ‘Twitter for Dummies’ states that your success with Twitter breaks down to 4 basic rules: listen, learn, care and serve. Twitter is very much a community and your ability to listen to it will create an opportunity to learn from it. Once you show you care about your peers (or your audience) you will better understand how you might serve them best. By “serving” your community we mean to say that you are contributing something of value. Without value, your chances of reaping rewards from Twitter are slim to none.
4. Targeted, Caring Traffic
Twitter will bring you a fair share of traffic “just stopping by” or those you might consider random. But the tool is also well set up to bring you a highly targeted audience that honestly cares about the niche you represent. The ability of users to “retweet” your information becomes increasingly important in this regard. If a person is willing to retweet your content, they are in essence giving you a testimonial of sorts. This form of public support goes a long way in attracting dedicated followers.
5. Always Current
Showing up in real-time Twitter searches, which is becoming an increasingly important area of focus for many search engines, provides a load of opportunity for added online exposure. The goal of remaining relevant in present time is becoming more and more imperative to the engines and Twitter is the best example of this today.
6. Attracting Local Customers
Yes, even Twitter gives you the ability to connect with a local customer base. Downloadable tools such as TwellowHood give you the ability to find and attract Twitter users in your immediate locale. Related to Steamboat Springs marketing, using Twitter could be as targeted as the Steamboat Today or Steamboat Pilot for advertising purposes. As the emphasis on creating better tools to target users locally increases (which it is, as seen in the Google “Social Search” example) people’s user profiles will naturally become another means by which savvy marketers direct their efforts.
7. Still A Young Gun!
Considering that Twitter is still being developed into an application that will ultimately fit into the grand scheme of overall search, its current state is still that of a fledgling. Even with the thousands of current apps designed to give Twitter more productivity, developers have only scratched the surface of what it might do. Everyday uses of Twitter by various people and businesses both locally and internationally is growing daily. Chances are good that if you closed your eyes and thought of what you might like to see from Twitter in the future, there is probably somebody already working on its creation.
This post comes from Chris Crum of WebProNews:
Social Media policies of well-known organizations often appear in the news with commentary throughout the Blogosphere, the Twitterverse, etc. There is an ongoing debate about just how restricted social networks should be when it comes to employee use.
Bloxx, based in the UK, has released some research finding that 90% of IT Managers surveyed believe access to social networking site should be banned or restricted. 90%. That’s a lot. The managers surveyed came from across the UK public sector as well as private organizations.
The concerns addressed in this survey were the usual suspects: staff productivity, network security risks, and damage to the corporate reputation. Productivity was by far the top concern.
The Bloxx Report Findings
More Bloxx Study Findings
The research found that not only are an increasing number of organizations completely banning staff access from social networking sites, but it is also quite common for staff to post disparaging remarks regarding other employees, their boss, or the company on social networks.
Over 22% of respondents don’t have any controls in place for staff accessing social networks. 35% of IT managers believe staff are spending over 30 minutes each per day on average accessing social networks. The companies are potentially providing an additional 16 days paid vacation for each employee, Bloxx says. Still, the research also shows that social networking is increasingly being used as a valuable business tool. Obviously access is required to take advantage.
“UK businesses really can’t afford to underestimate some of the risks of Social Networking use in the workplace,” says Bloxx CEO Eamonn Doyle. “However, our view is that a complete ban is unrealistic and adopting this approach means that companies can’t obtain the potential business benefits of Social Networking and can alienate staff.” Among Doyle’s suggestions are increased employee education, “well-thought-out” acceptable use policies, and the use of Web filtering.
There are plenty of reasons why social network access shouldn’t be completely banned. We cover these reasons about every day. If your company completely ignores social networks, you’re ignoring a tremendous amount of opportunities for marketing, customer service, traffic, sales, communication, etc.
Social networks are not going away. The popularity of specific ones may change in time, but the concept of social networking is going nowhere. It’s not even a new concept. Forums and email are pretty much social media for all intents and purposes. Social networks have recently been blamed for $2.25 billion in lost productivity. I wonder how much money lost productivity from personal email and general web surfing accounts for. I wonder how much employees simply talking to each other at the workplace has cost companies. That’s not necessarily online, but it’s still socializing. How have you handled email and general web use in the past?
Reputation issues are one thing. Security is another (and I think employee education plays a big role there) but as far as productivity, I really don’t see that the use of social networks is really that different than any other form of simply not working. People can spend their time using the phone for personal calls, but you probably haven’t completely banned the telephone. You may need that to communicate with customers, drive sales, etc. I’m sure you see my point.