Better Than Video Ppc - Put Advertisements Directly Into Viral Videos
November 6, 2008
photo credit: bjornfalkevik
You may have noticed lately the video megatrend that is taking place: Gone are the static brochure websites and in are interactive communities with video and Web 2.0 features. You can still find plenty of static, dead websites; but they become less relevant by the day. Viral videos, even amateur videos, routinely rack up millions of views on the video sharing sites, creating an opportunity for companies that want to advertise in this medium a chance to reach an incredible audience. Read more
Fast Wordpress Seo Guide - Step By Step With 6 Plug-ins
September 22, 2008
photo credit: adria.richards
Steps for performing SEO a wordpress blog using 6 plug-ins. This guide assumes you know basic html, css and are familiar with using basic tools like FTP software. Read more
Microsoft Word Blogging Tips – Change The Curly Quotes To Straight Quotes
September 22, 2008
photo credit: Eric F Savage
One of the most annoying things in Microsoft Word that bloggers run into, is that it uses fancy curly quotes that aren’t supported in the default character set of Wordpress and other blogging platforms. If you copy and paste directly from MS word into Wordpress or your blogging platform of choice you’ll end up with weird &@39; and other character numbers inserted to replace single and double quotes. Read more
Social Media Optimization Tip - How To Put A Digg Button On Your Wordpress Blog
September 22, 2008
photo credit: John Pastor
Believe it or not there is a right way and a wrong way to do this. Most wordpress blog templates use the content tag on the main index page, meaning it shows full posts unless you use a more tag. If you use a more tag it will truncate the post at that tag and give you a link to read the full article. Read more
How To Change Your Wordpress Blog To Display Excerpts Instead Of Full Posts
September 22, 2008
photo credit: adria.richards
The first question is why? Most wordpress templates display full content posts on the front page, making the main page of your blog have a lot of scrolling and only reveal a very limited amount of content to a first time visitor without lots of scrolling. Additionally for SEO (search engine optimization) it’s a good thing to reduce the amount of duplicated content (same content word for word as located in other areas). Here is a previous article I’ve written on how to identify and fix common SEO problems in wordpress. Read more
7 Common Wordpress Seo Mistakes And Their Easy Solutions
August 17, 2008
photo credit: magerleagues
1. Problem: The homepage doesn’t target a specific keyword combination that people actually search for.
Solution: Add specific keywords to the homepage title, use a plugin like ALL in One SEO Pack to rewrite the default wordpress titles. If you don’t know any specific keyword phrases offhand that also sound good to use for marketing purposes try keyword research. An easy starting place is: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal Read more
How To Put A Wordpress Blog On A Subdomain Using A Separate Host Account With Cpanel And Whm
August 17, 2008
photo credit: Tim Dorr
Many businesses are still only blogging on blogger or other platforms away from their main website. Others go the route of getting another domain. One great way to maximize the power of your blog and build links to your main site at the same time is to create your main company blog on a subdomain of your regular website. You can even have it point to a completely different server. Some reasons why you may want to do this include if your main website is just a shopping cart, has very strong security, or is in a different scripting language or under ‘corporate control’. Read more
Article Writing Guidelines - Creating Quality Content
February 13, 2008
A frequent question from many of our clients is “what do I write” or “how do I write.” Here are some good ideas for creating quality content for your site. Keep in mind that the article and/or post will be used for the first initial posting and/or initial article marketing efforts.
It must be unique – different from the information on your website.
This content is used to promote you as an authority in your field. You will need to compose (or have someone compose) an initial individual or company bio that invokes authority. It should say who you are, what your experience is and why they should respect your opinion and recommendations.
Many customers provide two posts, initially:
One as an introduction which contains a bio or description;
Another post, containing content that can be used for promotion.
Example: An article offering tips and advice or discussing industry-related problems and solutions.
Sample Posts
In order to illustrate this, here is a sample ABOUT/ARTICLE section of the questionnaire. In this example, Blue Widget, Inc. manufactures and provides specialized service and support for blue widgets in the widget industry. Their current website is a brochure site that encourages visitors to buy blue widgets and offers support information.
Author Bio:
Paul Smith is the president of Blue Widgets Inc, a manufacturer of premium blue widgets. He has 15 years of experience in the widget industry, dealing with small businesses as well as large corporate clients. He is interested in helping people discover blue widgets and has worked for hundreds of clients over the course of his twenty years in the field. Paul is a member of the Blue Widget Professionals’ Organization and holds an MBA from Washington State University, where he focused on blue widget fabrication techniques. Paul enjoys playing golf on weekends and spends as much time as he can with his family.
Examples of types of posts you can write:
1. Tip post
Top 10 Tips for using Blue Widgets in your industry.
Hundreds of companies have discovered the value in premium blue widgets. Once you’ve bought a blue widget there are some easy things you can do to get more out of them. Here are ten simple tips to optimize your blue widget usage:
- Be a _____
- Watch _____
- Be sure to ______
- Know ____
- Use ___ when _____
(Recap of news / industry related item)
“Blue Widget Sales up 1,000%
In the past week, Widget Magazine (link here) published a story about blue widget sales being up 1000%. This is another example of mainstream media giving attention to the new blue widget phenomenon. I expect growth to continue for some time, now.”
“From my experience as president of Blue Widget Inc, more and more smaller companies in the widget industry are seeing the tangible quality difference that sets blue widgets apart in their field. This shift is paving the way for a more large-scale industry migration towards blue widgets.” –Paul Smith, as quoted in “Widget Monthly Digest”.
2. FAQ Post
Q. What the difference between green widgets and blue widgets?
A. That’s a question I run into a lot, both from those who are new in the field, as well as those who’ve been involved in widgets for some time.
3. Further Ideas
a. Comment on a news item in your industry / field;
b. Answer a basic question that a perspective user / buyer may have;
c. Post and comment on some type of metric or article published somewhere else;
d. Relate personal stories or anecdotes, this is the place to be human and speak directly to your audience.
Here are some quick links to excellent articles about creating valuable content and a more effective blog:
http://socialmediasystems.com/11/12/business-blogging-tips-for-non-writers/
http://socialmediasystems.com/10/24/dont-be-an-im-a-realtor-too-site-stand-out-market-your-site-with-quality-content/
http://socialmediasystems.com/04/11/10-rarely-used-quick-and-easy-tips-to-supercharge-your-blog/
Blogging Errors & Puretext
February 3, 2008
Many of our readers use Wordpress, and frequently run into the common mistake of copying text from Word or some other program, pasting it into Wordpress and finding it has numerous formatting errors and rich text code errors they didn’t know where there.
PureText is a free little utility that allows you to copy and paste items from rich text editors (Word, Outlook, Browsers, etc) and strip all the garbage code off of it.
“PureText only removes rich formatting from text. This includes the font face, font style (bold, italics, etc.), font color, paragraph styles (left/right/center aligned), margins, character spacing, bullets, subscript, superscript, tables, charts, pictures, embedded objects, etc. However, it does not modify the actual text. It will not remove or fix new-lines, carriage returns, tabs, or other white-space. It will not fix word-wrap or clean up your paragraphs. If you copy the source code of a web page to the clipboard, it is not going to remove all the HTML tags. If you copy text from an actual web page (not the source of the page), it will remove the formatting.
PureText is basically equivalent to opening Notepad, doing a PASTE, followed by a SELECT-ALL, and then a COPY. The benefit of PureText is performing all these actions with a single Hot-Key and having the result pasted into the current window automatically.”
To use PureText- simply copy as normal, but when you need to paste the item in Wordpress or your blog platform, use Windows-V (or an assigned hotkey) instead of Ctrl-V. In an instant, now you have some clean text. Check out PureText and streamline your blogging today.
Washington Ceo Business Networking
January 10, 2008
There is a growing trend in social media to relate real life interactions to the web, and web interactions to real life. This is nowhere more apparent than in the CEO and executive space- where sites like Linkedin and Zoodango are trying to harness the power from both sides of the offline vs online equation.
This is not an entirely new trend- in fact I have spent most of the last five years visiting and networking with groups to understand how they function in the real world and how that synergy can be merged online. From dozens of nationwide chamber of commerce events, local groups like BNI or Letip, and premium level social clubs such as ClubCorp- my team and I have probably been to thousands of different networking events (I know I’ve personally been to over 500.) Read more
E-pro Classes And Social Media Training
November 21, 2007
As a professional, my original interactive marketing experience started out in the recruiting industry working for the largest interactive ad agency in the world at the time- TMP Worldwide. As I progressed through corporate life and learned my lessons, one of the critical items always found lacking in numerous large businesses was up-to-date training.
Training however, is critical at all points of development. We cannot fail to realize that. In an industry I am very familiar with (the real estate industry), the National Association of Realtors has a program it endorses called E-Pro.
From their description “The e-PRO Certification Course is an educational program unlike any other professional certification or designation course available, comprehensive and Interactive. It is sponsored by the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION of REALTORS® and is specifically designed to help real estate professionals thrive in the competitive world of online real estate. In addition, the e-PRO Certification Course is geared to ensure continued success in online real estate after the course has been completed and certification earned, by online participation in the e-PRO Community and the e-PRO Referral Network.“
I found a mixed review of the program, ranging from harsh critiques to glowing testimonials. Like all certification programs in a big organization there are all sides to consider.
One quote I found online by the Jim Cronin at the Real Estate Tomato “The e-Pro class is so far removed from what it takes to be competitive in the internet marketplace, that ‘graduates’ deserve nothing but a tinfoil badge for their efforts.”
While programs like E-Pro may not be the cutting edge of the internet marketing art, professionals of all backgrounds and experience levels need to be brought up-to-speed about online technology. As a marketing savvy friend to many start-ups in the Northwest, it is my belief that everyone has a place in the realm of social media and it is our responsibility to assist and nurture everyone into an understanding of the benefits they may be missing.
Unlike Cronin, who goes on to say things like “If you are having to drag you agents into the 21st century with a class like E-Pro you are not only wasting their time, but it’s too late to help someone who needs a ‘beginner’s guide’ to grasping the internet. Let the dinosaurs sleep.”
~I ask myself, perhaps we can take the dinosaurs out of the past and leverage the incredible strength they have?
In the real estate realm, I am on the younger side of the audience. I understand the technology on a fundamental level, I “get it” and I even wake up in the middle of the night thinking about fantastic new ways of changing the industry. Yet I do not have the thousands of relationships that a 25 year veteran of an industry has… I do not have the experience of seeing true depressions in a market… I do not have the knowledge of a great number of things.
That is were the partnership of strengths becomes greatest.
I do not need to take the assets of those who have gone before me, I merely need to help them understand the new community they interact with. I need to focus on what I do best, to strive for a way to help everyone become something better than we are as individuals. I need to accept that I am best at what I do, and for everything else there is someone I must turn to.
This is the very nature of social media: of collaboration and community. Perhaps the military figured it out before everyone else did: it is the idea that no one should be left behind. There are no dinosaurs in my world, merely some of us who may be weak in one area, and stronger than Goliath in another.
Perhaps, when no one is looking and my youthful insight fails me… I will fail.
I should be grateful enough that one of those dinosaurs that were left behind by other people repays me and picks me up.
Google Is An Ad Agency, Not A Library
November 19, 2007
So many companies view Google as an impartial entity that serves up the best information on the net… but when you sit back and ask yourself the hard questions, a peaceful mecca of online prosperity is the last thing you find.
Google is about domination, acquisition, subterfuge, and even sabotage. I am not saying Google is evil, in fact it is far from evil, but the big boys of the search industry are corporate businesses that have a singular goal: profit (call me a little jaded!)
So when you ask anyone in the realm of search engine marketing, if you have a really good trick in your bag of goodies… it is only a matter of time before they either stop working or actually become assimilated by the Googleborg.
This past month Google “recalculated” part of it’s algorithm to affect a large number of blogs, in an attempt to reduce the number of SPAM blogs (splogs) that have been popping up… and to tighten it’s reign on profits.
In a post today over at WebProNews, I read a piece about Pay Per Post and how Ted Murphy (the guy in charge of that service) has been a “lightening rod for criticism” since it was created. Murphy has a blog covering how Google had tweaked the PageRank of some PPP bloggers to a big whopping ZERO.
Murphy ~“It is no coincidence that Google has gone after some blogs that utilize PayPerPost and many of our competitors services. We offer a very attractive alternative to AdSense and are leading a charge to provide real monetization for everyday bloggers.”
I agree whole-heartedly.
While I would like to think that the big players in the search industry are making these sweeping changes to preserve the wonderful information they collect and to help our ability to find worthwhile information, I can only be left with this gut feeling that they identify worthwhile information based on quarterly profit statements.
Social Media Bomb Sent From Usatoday Office Injures Thousands
October 29, 2007
Working diligently through the week, contributing reporter Greg Farrell from USAToday probably never realized that his actions would send an impact around the world. In a hurried rush of editorial confusion, Greg succumbed to the pressure of sending along a message that should have been double-checked. Read more
Don’t Be An I’m-a-realtor-too Site - Stand Out! Market Your Website With Quality Content
October 24, 2007
What makes you stand out as a realtor from the dime-a-dozen me-too sites that abound in the real estate industry? Is it the cool graphics? Usability? Layout? These are all important factors, but people tend to pay more attention to them and less to simple components like good content, which can make a big difference in how successful your site is online.
For example, take a look at some of our local authors, especially prolific writers like Legacy Real Estate and Gitta. These clients have gotten tons of leads and traffic. Why? Because they consistently provide good content that is totally relevant to their readers.
In a competitive industry like real estate, everyone is searching for the best way to stand out and creating a steady flow of good content, from video and text to podcasts, is integral to gaining a strong presence online. People searching for real estate in your area WANT to know about it. They’re searching for the best location for themselves or their family; they want to know everything: where to find the best schools, markets, neighborhoods and more.
And who better to help them than you?
With years of experience as a real estate professional, you can help your readers and potential clients find what they need, when they need it, just as you do in every-day interactions offline. Approach any creation of content the same way you would approach a potential client and keep in mind the audience for which you’re writing. There is goldmine of information inside your mind, you just need to sit down and start typing. If you don’t want to write, record yourself talking and upload it as a podcast or create a video blog; there are numerous options available.
Text Specific Content:
The most common form content takes currently is text, but this is gradually changing. “But I’m not a writer” you might say. However, think about the accumulated knowledge in your head and how much you know about the areas you service and the real estate industry in general.
Before you start writing, take a moment and pick two or three target keywords. For example, a target keyword phrase if you’re a realtor in Orlando Florida might be “Finding Homes for Sale in Orlando, Florida” or “Real Estate in Orlando Florida.” Just think about what you’re going to write about and choose the keywords based off your topic. If you’re writing about home mortgages, make sure you include home mortgages once per paragraph. Simple elements like this will make your articles seo-friendly.
Here are a couple forms of common, highly effective article formats:
The Top Ten List
10 (or 5 or 7) Tips for Finding a Home in (City, State)
Intro paragraph - give a little background and stats about the city and state here.
1) Consider where you want to be in City, State
Always look at the areas in and around City, State. Decide which are is ideal for you and your family…
2) Find the right realtor
Find a realtor who really knows their stuff…
Tip 3
….
Tip 4
….
Tip 5
Tip 6
Tip 7
Tip 9
Tip 10
Conclusion- tell the reader why this area is great and why they should think about buying a home here, e.g. neighborhoods to see and things to keep in mind.
The Topic List
Buying Your First Home
Selling Your Home
Getting Your First Mortgage
Topics like those above can take any format you want, but the most effective are short paragraphs with headers:
Selling Your Home
Intro - Introduce and reiterate topic, then follow with something like ” If you’re thinking about selling your home in somewhere, here are some things to keep in mind:”
Get an experienced real estate agent.
An experienced real estate agent can make all the difference in getting a great price for your home…
Take your family’s home needs into account.
Think about the type of neighborhood or home that is best suited for your family…
Conclusion-why, when, how and where.
Quickbooks Just Start - Intuit Simple Start 2008
October 20, 2007
Various companies are experimenting with new ways of using social media. Intuit has jumped into the fray with it’s new campaign to launch the new Simple Start product, with www.iwilljuststart.com.
They are encouraging entrepreneurs to “Just Start” by sharing the motivation, karma, and professional business ideas through a video contest. “The best idea could score $40K in cash and over $10K in expert resources. Plus, two first prize winners walk away with $5K. Enter the contest, it’s easy. Tell us what you’ll Just Start. Fact, fiction or fantasy. What have you always dreamed of doing? What are you resigning from and moving towards? And, how will the Just Start grant ($50k) help you strike out on your own?” Read more
Web Hosting Contracts- The Hidden Nightmare
September 25, 2007
At Social Media Systems, we deal a lot with various online projects that cover an entire range of requirements.
As online marketers, this puts us in a 3rd party vendor relation as many times we promote a site that we have not originally created. In many of these instances, we discover helpful, bright, and supportive design/hosting personnel. In other instances, we discover companies that have painful ways of destroying the relationship… by holding the mutual client hostage with their own information.
Enterprise Social Media Forecast And Analysis
September 21, 2007
Having been a consultant regarding online media for over a decade, I am constantly growing very weary of informational white-paper companies that are charging top dollar for “analysis” of an industry that is forever changing. In my previous life working at a Fortune 50 company on interactive projects, I can tell you that far too many “big boy” companies are absolutely relying on the wrong informational sources to make huge decisions. This old-school system is leading more and more companies down the path of digital suicide. Read more
Spam- A Brand Abused Like No Other
September 13, 2007
This article was original published on RISMedia.com this past week. Due to the response and commentary there I felt it would be a good read for many of our other industry related readers here. Like many other things, some good articles are lost in cyberspace amongst millions of pieces of clutter, just like good e-mail being devoured by your SPAM filter.
There are many companies that strive to mold and change the way they are perceived through brand identity and control. In the 90’s the company that officially lost a huge chunk of “online identity” was SPAM®. One would think that a food item as wondrous and amazing as SPAM would hold its own, but in the meeting of the electronic world and the brand of the old, new terms like Spammer and Spamming took on entirely new meaning.
Read more
The 12 Do’s And Don’ts Of Website Usability - Seo Basics Part 5
September 6, 2007
In this article we’ll take a look at some of the dos and donts of website usability.
First, lets explore the dos:
Do make the call to action more prominent visually and make it stick out more on the page.
Do include a one sentence tagline that says what the site or company does.
Do add a search box to any website over one hundred pages.
Do give the visitors at least one call to action on each page, because each page should specify what it wants the user to do. For example, a call to action would be a link under an article that says “read more on this topic” or “read more.”
Do use color to distinguish between visited and unvisited links.
Do ensure that people are able to find what they entered the site or page looking for within three clicks. If you have a large website, this is more difficult, but keep it as low as possible. Also, even though you might have a hundred or more pages, you can still arrange the individual pages on your site to have information readily available in three clicks.
Now that we’ve heard some of of the dos of web design, let’s take a look at the donts:
Don’t make the font on your page too small. 12 point font and up is the way to go if you want to avoid straining people’s eyes. Also, stay away from fancy, hard to read, or all bold text. Go with web standards like Verdana or Arial. Remember that both Verdana and Arial were developed through hours and hours of research by Microsoft to find the font that was easiest on people’s eyes. And there is a reason these fonts are used on many major websites. These legibility problems are a major factor in the usability of a website.
Don’t have text that in one long block. Breaking it up into paragraphs, and better yet, paragraphs with headers, makes it easy to scan with the eyes. Text that is one long block is difficult and often annoying for users. People want information quickly and efficiently. Bold key words and break your information into paragraphs under specific headers to help your users find what they need.
Don’t have graphics and animation that don’t connect to page content. This is important for cohesiveness, and if its lacking, everything else on your site will be far less effective.
Don’t have a website that is compatible with some browsers and not others. Your browser needs to work in all major programs, like MozillaFirefox and Internet Explorer.
Don’t make your users fill out big, long forms. People hate long forms that take forever to fill out, and you probably agree. So stay away from them when optimizing your website for usability.
Don’t forget to check the log for your website periodically to see what pages your customers are entering and exiting on your site. If you find a large amount of customers exiting on one particular page on your website, that can be a sign of a usability problem.
For previous articles in our SEO basics series, please see below:
Creating a Usable Website That Converts - SEO Basics Part 4
Researching Your Keywords - SEO Basics Part 3
What is Search Engine Optimization? SEO Basics Part 2
What is a Search Engine? - SEO Basics Part 1
Creating A Usable Website That Converts - Seo Basics Part 4
September 6, 2007
If you’re SEOing your website, you’re obviously trying to draw visitors or customers from the search engines to your website for a purpose.
Usability is a measure of how easy it is for a user to find information they are looking for or complete a task like buy something from a website. It’s basically ease of use, and can include customer or user satisfaction.
It’s extremely important to SEO for three main reasons:
One, You’ll make money and actually get something from your search engine traffic if your Usability is good.
Two, almost all off-site SEO will be enhanced if the quality of the website is increased. So usability will increase visitor satisfaction, which in turn increases traffic, which then increases your link opportunities.
Three, search engines are slowly factoring usability into their rankings.
For example, one past client had a website with no additional product information, just an off the shelf shopping cart. It ranks with targeted traffic, but guess what? Hundreds of targeted visitors, NO sales.
The most important step in ensuring the usability of your site is having people use it after it is designed and check for what people like, what they use, and what they don’t. You can never totally predict what customers will do, but by testing your site and avoiding some common errors, you can increase the usability of your website, which in turn increases your traffic and conversion ratio.
One way to get usability information tips is to visit competitor websites and identify what you liked about the site and what was annoying. Tell friends, family and colleagues to do the same, and consider their complaints and compliments as they navigate your site.
For past articles in our basic SEO series, please see the links below:
Researching Your Keywords - SEO Basics Part 3
What is Search Engine Optimization? SEO Basics Part 2
