Community Juice

September 25, 2008 in SEM | No comments

Online and Offline community’s give juice to your Search Engine Marketing efforts. This is the headline in my head when I opened my eyes this morning and I’m sure it is neither news nor a new idea to anyone who had spent even a tiny amount of time marketing theirs or someone elses website and business.

Social Networking, Social Media and Social Interaction on just about any level all do the same thing, they grow your business and organization. While all the shouting and waving about how great Social Media is has taken on epidemic proportions, one thing may be overlooked. Below all the hype there is a truth about Social Media and it’s not that it is revolutionary but that it is easy and that opportunities abound to connect with people who are interested in what you are doing.

I can hear people now saying ” my niche is small and there is no online community for me.” Small niche or no niche there is a good chance there is a community for you and if there isn’t you can easily start your own.

Here are ten you may not know about and there are hundreds more just waiting for you and your clients to join.

  1. Vinivino a wine lover community. If you are selling wine are you there?
  2. YouPlanet a community for travel.  Involved in any part of travel industry, do you belong..
  3. GameVee a community for game makers and gamers. do you belong?
  4. Folia plants and garden are what this community is about.
  5. Zeer if your business is centered around food then check it out
  6. Fubar here is a place to check out if you are in the bar or alcohol business
  7. Razoo here is a community based on making a difference in the world
  8. Retroland if your business touches retro anything then check this community out
  9. UnitedCats the name says it all, if your business touches on pets then check it out
  10. Eons this is a community for people 50 and over. is this your demographic then join

The above list is just the tip of the hundreds of social communities available for your business or nonprofit to join and connect with your customers and supporters. Join 4 or 5 till you find the 1 or 2 that best adds value to your marketing efforts.

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.

Alternative Search Solutions

September 17, 2008 in opportunities, search | No comments

Search for many businesses means just one thing, Google. Sure Google is the biggest and baddest engine on the block but it is by no means the only game in town. There are hundreds of niche Search Engines and thousands of niche directories and forums that can help with your business information needs.

Some of the engines aggregate the results from the big 4 and present you with the top results from all the results. Others try and fill a niche by searching only with closely defined parameters. One engine may only get its results from Wikipedia while the next one may only search retail websites for their results.

The key is to be open to information alternatives. Maybe using one of the services that will allow you to build your own search engine might better meet the needs of your clients. Adding focus both to your searches and to the information results can add depth to your organization.

I placed a list of some alternatives to tradidtional search on a Squidoo page entitled Google Seach Engine Alternatives. It also has build your own engine links and some other information you might find useful. Check It Out!

Do They Know? Will I Remember?

September 12, 2008 in SEM | No comments

Social Media has a growing place in the promotion of your business and your website, it can add traffic in huge numbers if you hit on the right strategy and are promoting something that people care about at the moment.

We all know about Eventful and Upcoming as tools that will help you to promote upcoming events and happenings on the web and to your followers. But with so many people to tap I recommend you use more then just the big two. Others worth checking out are Eventsbot, Twitzu, Involver and Zevents. All four offer different things as well as complementary tools, check out each one and see if you can fit it into your event and promotion road map. If they don’t fit don’t worry just move on, everyday new things are popping up to meet the needs of small business.

Now that you are a promotional track don’t forget to find a really good To-Do manager. In the Internet and Social Media world scribbling on a piece of paper will not cut the mustard anymore. There are scads of free and commercial To-Do applications filling up the web just waiting to make your life easier. You can do a search or you can check out these 5 to see if any will fit your needs. First up is Remember The Milk followed by Zirrus, then we move on to Life Tango, and HipCal, we finish up this list with Rqall. One of these just might hit the bulls-eye of your needs.

Unique, Useful & Updated

September 4, 2008 in search | No comments

I’m pretty sure I could write about the 3 U’s everyday and still people would not get it. Marketing and Ranking on the search engines is dependent on new and “relevant” content. I stress relevant because if you have a website about Tabouli and you build a new page about Bulldozers it just ain’t going to help. Ok you might build the best one page in the world about bulldozers and Google may reward that page with a ranking of 4 or 5 if you are lucky, but it will do little to raise the ranking of your Tabouli website. It just is not relevant, the subjects clash and neither benefits the other.

So what can you do? You can build new fresh pages that are relevant to your subject and it’s not hard to do. An example is the Tabouli website. Say I want to build a new page every month that gives authority to the main theme of Tabouli, well I could build a page on each of the following subjects. Tomatoes,bulgar,garlic,mint,parsley,cucumber,black pepper,olive oil,chick peas,lemons,pita bread, and great side dishes that go well with Tabouli

Google and the other search engines are in and out of your website all the time. The ranking are in flux all the time, up and down the pages is the fate of your website. So make your pages relevant and always practice the 3 U’s . You can read more at Seth Godin’s blog and download his more indepth view of the 3 U’s Unique, Useful & Updated this cat knows what he talks about.

Change Is Constant

September 2, 2008 in search | No comments

It’s a hum in our heads or it may be following us, we may bump into it going around the corner or trip over it getting out of bed. The “it” is change and try as we might it won’t stop. Large companies like Google or Microsoft seem to put up walls so the only change that occurs is in their control. We know however the change is its own agent and plays for no team nor joins sides even if they are red or blue.

Where I’m going with this rant is to share a recent post from John Battelle on his blog about culture as the agent of change in unseating Google. He recognizes the inevitable and this is remarkable given that society works so hard to have us believe the status-quo is, well, the status-quo. check it out.

More and more search engines pop up everyday and I thought I would share links to 3 of them with you. Snap has been around for a while and seems to have morphed into a search engine that gets people to use it by being everywhere, its SnapShot is an interesting strategy. Wikia Search is from those great people who brought us Wikipedia and it allows for voting and commenting on search results as well as adding URLs to those results. It too is an interesting strategy and surely bares watching and participating in. Finally there is Scour which uses MSN, Yahoo and Google results in a simple aggregation scheme. What might set it apart from other aggregates is allowing voting on results and in collecting points for searching that can be redeemed for merchandise. Like Wikia Search, using and being involved in Scour may produce some benefits to you and your business.

See Me Better - Business Opportunity

August 31, 2008 in general, opportunities | No comments

It’s not without a bit of irony that I noticed this morning that Google is about to make better pictures available on their Google Map program, for a long time I was against the increased resolution that I now embrace. Their new pictures have more detail and can map an area the size of the United States in 30 days.

If your business can take advantage of satellite mapping results on your website then now is the time to get on board and jump ahead of all those businesses not looking at this technology. The new pictures have eye popping resolution and will bring a strong emotional impact to even the most jaded customer-client you have. Check out more in the ZDnet article and do have a look at the example.

Google Earth to license new satellite imagery by ZDNet’s Garett Rogers — Google has agreed to license imagery for their mapping products from a satellite due to launch on September 4th.

Visual Previews w/ Snap Shot

August 21, 2008 in general | No comments

Introducing Snap Shots from Snap.com

I just installed a nice little tool on this site called Snap Shots that enhances links with visual previews of the destination site, interactive excerpts of Wikipedia articles, MySpace profiles, IMDb profiles and Amazon products, display inline videos, RSS, MP3s, photos, stock charts and more.

Sometimes Snap Shots bring you the information you need, without your having to leave the site, while other times it lets you “look ahead,” before deciding if you want to follow a link or not.

Should you decide this is not for you, just click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the Snap Shot and opt-out.

A Clear Look Wednesday

August 20, 2008 in backlinks, general | No comments

Wednesday

A couple of blogs entries to take note of, over at John Battelle’s blog he let’s us know “Apparently Bill Gates is still engaged at Microsoft, at least on one issue: Search. From a piece covering the integration of Powerset into Microsoft’s search index:” Check it out.

Over at We as humans always want the best… the top… the supreme… but in link building, that doesn’t always matter. Yes, if you can get some good PR 6+ links, it’s going to help you out in a pretty tough niche. But, if you have a fairly uncompetitive niche, then go for any backlinks. Link Building Bible postulates some good common sense “We as humans always want the best… the top… the supreme… but in link building, that doesn’t always matter. Yes, if you can get some good PR 6+ links, it’s going to help you out in a pretty tough niche. But, if you have a fairly uncompetitive niche, then go for any backlinks.” Check It out.

Finally Arron Wall over at SEOBook.com shares some thoughts about being real and being polished. Check it out.

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.

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