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Avenues of Promotion Simplicity

December 16, 2008 in SEM, tips | No comments

Avenues, streets, roads, paths, lanes, highways and byways all lead you in some direction or the other and the other thing they have in common is there are just way to many directions to go in. But maybe I can put  ” or are there”  after that last sentence.

The secret to getting out from under the avalanche of choices when it comes to promoting your business is simple. What’s the secret? Why it’s right in front of all of us, pick a couple of ways to promote and leave the rest on the side of the road. With hundreds of advertisers and social media mavens vying for your attention it is easy to think you need to do everything there is to do, you don’t.

Find one or two social networking sites to join, sign up with two bookmarking sites, grab a seat at the twitter fair, create content and get some links. Stir this for a while mix it with offline tactics and bake.

On an off topic note I found this list of Social Media 2009  Predictions over at Being Peter Kim and thought I would share it with you all. It is a bit hard to read in the viewer but can be made full screen with just a click on the box in the upper right corner of the viewer. It is not reolutionary but does offer a view to build on or tear apart as your needs in business dictate.

#Pound Privacy

December 7, 2008 in tips | No comments

I came across a site this morning and wanted to share it with everyone. It is called Pound Privacy or #privacy and has a goal of allowing people to use all search engines without their searches being tracked and cataloged by the serach engines.Below is the into from their website, I encourage everyone to check it out.

What Is #Privacy:
“Pound Privacy” is a campaign to create the first standard for search engine query privacy. The implementation is fairly straightforward: If you append the phrase “#privacy” at the end of a query on any search engine or site search, your query should not be tracked by IP or cookie, and should not be made public in keyword tools. It is that simple.  http://www.poundprivacy.org

Satellite Orbiting Your Brand

November 6, 2008 in backlinks, tips | No comments

Satellite Websites orbiting around your main website have been in vogue for quite sometime. Everywhere you look SEO practitioners recommend ways to build-out a series of satellite websites to strengthen your main (branded) website.

So what is a satellite website and do I need one? First, a satellite website or website are a series of websites each built around one topic. If your main website is about writing then you might build 5 or 6 satellite websites each with its own topic but all relating to your main website. An example: fiction, short stories, journal writing, writing exercises and science fiction would each have its own 5+ page website with all of them pointing to your main website. Other then pointing to your main website they would only point to one other of the satellite sites, so A would point to B, B would point to C, C would point to D and d would point to A with all other external links have a rel=”nofollow” attribute so not to leak away Google Juice.

Why on earth would you go to all this trouble? Back-links are the life blood of ranking in search engines but they can be very time consuming to acquire and that time adds up to lots of money. Building-out a number of great content websites can can you an ongoing set of strong links. The sites you build are under your control.

Don’t get me wrong, not for a second am I suggesting you don’t need a robust back-link strategy to go along with the satellite program, you do, this is just a highly effective way that gives you one more weapon in your arsenal to get to the top of the rankings.

Blog Directories

October 21, 2008 in backlinks, tips | No comments

Some think having a blog that helps shape the views and services offered at your website and helps in promotion both to the public and the search engines is old hat. I’m not in that camp. Blogs can have real impact in traffic, rankings and perception of authority.

If you have been neglecting your blog it’s time to once again dust it off and let the world know what you have to say. The main caveat is, blog at least 4 times every week and keep it going otherwise you are wasting real valuable time for no real benefit.

Once you get the old blog cleaned up and back on track make sure you have it listed in lots of good blog directories that are part of your link strategy. Here are a few I think offer value. Of course there are many more places to list your blog, some cost and some are free. The trick in to jump in and experience success.

  1. Best Of The Web  BOTW
  2. EatonWeb Directory
  3. Powered by Wordpress Directory
  4. Wingee Directory
  5. Delightful Blogs Directory

Get More Done After SEO

October 16, 2008 in tips | No comments

It seems the work we need to do to promote out business and our websites just goes up and up and up. When will it stop or when will it get easier is a question I’m asked all the time. Well there is good news, once your website has gone through the SEO (search engine optimization) part of your marketing things should get easier. And yes I said easier but not necessarily move into a time saving mode.

Once the SEO is complete you will have a strong set of keywords to use as your basis for things like article marketing, web page building and external linking. Having a direction is always easier then not having one.

Once you are ready to expand your pages and write expert articles you will need so help. The web is full of handy tools to help you organize your information and research your niche. Here is a list of sites you may find meet your needs in getting both organized and efficient in promoting your business.

  1. Advertised as “A personal research assistant. Inside your browser” Zotero is full of tools to help in your research endeavors.
  2. DecisionStreet bills itself as a website service that “helps you make smarter decisions through a set of simple yet powerful tools and access to the experiences of others.” Check it out.
  3. LingoZ offers a user built dictionary in many languages.
  4. Right off I loved this site, SuTree, it is a site of free instructional videos with hundreds of topics to choose from.
  5. MindBites is built around the community model of everyone has things to share.

Many of these sites are still in beta but you just never know when you will find just the right tool to help in your work of finding and collecting information that will put your business in the lead and your website on top.

Promote Your Idea’s Often

September 18, 2008 in SEM, tips | No comments

Promote your idea, your vision, your hobby, your product. That’s right get a blog and write about nothing, write about something. Why do I seem to be writing about nothing much and suggesting that you pay attention to what I’m saying? It’s because I want to emphasize how important content really is to the search engines and to your users.

If you create a blog for your organization or business and a couple of days go by without you creating any new entries don’t panic, just write about something relevant to the blogs purpose. You can rehash an old idea or you can review some blogs within your genre. If your stuck then give your readers an outline of your business, its history or why you started it.

I’m rambling along writing about something but this entry is not really focused and that is ok from time to time, your users will understand that you can’t always come up with an earth shaking subject to write about. The search engines will see you are sticking to regular relevant updates and will reward you for the creative work you are producing. Don’t misunderstand I’m not suggesting you scam the search engines with sub par content on a regular basis. What I am saying is that all the content on your website or blog does not have to be strictly perfect all the time. Of course if you are IBM or Microsoft and you can create a staff of workers that do research and blog everyday then your content better be very good all the time. If on the other hand you are a small business or nonprofit that is doing promotion on a part time basis then it’s ok to put something out rather then nothing.

And don’t forget the social sites like twitter and plurk after you have published your blog, let people know you have updated it. Also ask friends and colleague’s who have blogs to slip in a mention of your blog from time to time. Example:  I have a blog where I write flash fiction and poetry and I’m happy to put a link on this blog to that blog or to a friends blog from time to time.

Be creative in your promotional endeavors and never forget offline marketing to promote your website.

Strategy and Tactics

August 13, 2008 in general, tips | No comments

The first question to ask when interviewing a prospective SEO or Marketing firm might well be one you had not thought of. The question is, “what do you see as the differences between strategy and tactics?” The answer will enable you to weed out the pretenders quickly and move on with the interview for finding a firm that will serve your best interests.

So are there really differences between Strategy and Tactics, absolutely. A Strategy is the overall view of where you are going and what you will find when you get there. (read more about Strategy at wikipedia) The Tactics tell you what tools you will use to execute and bring to fruition your strategy. (read more about Tactics at wikipedia)

Success demands that you have a clear and extensive long term strategy. Having a well laid out strategy will then allow you to know exactly what tools and resources you need to assemble to be successful.