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Archive for the ‘Best practice’ Category

I talk to people every day who struggle with how to create unique and compelling content. It’s all around you – you just have to tune in. Here are some more ideas that I share with my customers regularly:

1. Follow Industry trends and hot topics – Being able to add relevant content on timely subjects is a huge advantage and mistake if you are not on top of things. If you are in technology then write about tech trends, if you are in entertainment write about the superbowl, if you are local then write about events, news whatever you can. You have to watch and listen and there are plenty of tools to do it for you…you don’t even have to go our hunting for it.

• Google Insights – so cool. Best insider tip – use this! Enter your keyword and it shows you trend wise what is going on, and you can see and follow what new “breakout” terms may be on the rise.
• Google Alerts – it doesn’t get easier. This sends you all the information you need and filter by topic.

Take what you read and summarize, rebuttal or general response to what you read. Simply copying what you read is not impressive, anyone can do that. Your readers can get that anywhere, provide people some insight, resolution or glimpse of knowledge other than what they can find somewhere else.

2. Use Social Media tools – If you have the luxury of using a tool to track conversations online, great…there is no reason not to listen in. At the very least use some of the free resources out there and you can even use wordpress plugins like Zemanta to give you ideas.

• Search.twitter.com – Using social media does not have to be complicated or expensive. This was probably the first search tool and it gives you plenty of information. Tip: Track your brand and name and subscribe to the RSS to track what people say. Additionally track your competitors and industry to stay abreast of developments.

3. Go old school – Hint: this requires actual human interaction. Attend an event, tweetup, conference, continued education classes, interview someone etc. And write about it.

Like I said, there is lots to write about. As you think of ideas write them down, use a sticky note pad or access your computer and keep a list by saving blog posts as drafts and then continue writing when you feel inspired or have time. Use what you’ve got!

image source: blog.mindjet.com

I am sure you have been among the many recipients of cold calls (or cold emails) from some search engine firm. And if you are like me you find it completely irritating when they send you a completely bogus email with absolute nonsense information…where do they get their information? The letter may sound lucrative. They get to the point and tug on the emotional strings of their prospect, and if you don’t know better you just may go for it…but that’s why I am here to lead you down the right path.

So, here is what the email said:

Hello,

Thank you for taking a few moments to view my introduction of our search engine and web services, it really is greatly appreciated.

To be brief, I’d like to invite you to take a look at how we could greatly improve www.domain.com in terms of achieving top, organic, search engine positions.

I’ve performed a complimentary link analysis for you by utilising 2 different link checks for your website – with a reference at Google.com followed up with a more comprehensive one at Alltheweb.com. Here are your results:

• According to Google.com you have 5 incoming links
• According to Alltheweb.com you have 164 incoming links

(It’s very common for a difference to show between these two numbers, I’ll be happy to explain why if you wish to hear more)

The better your inbound link profile, the higher your website is likely to rank on Google and the more visitors (and ROI) it will bring you.  So, to improve your link profile and have your website rank highly on the search engines for your keywords, we are able to offer you a search engine promotion service that includes ethical, ongoing sourcing of links throughout the Internet with a view to building your link authority – this is achieved through a mix of links from websites, intelligent forum participation, blogs and more.

Additionally, and of equal importance, we will examine the architecture of your website and provide advice to ensure it is correctly set-up for current search engine algorithms.

We aim to achieve Top 10 rankings for your website on the major search engines, whilst protecting your ROI with our unique Performance Agreement that refunds your monthly payments should this target not be reached. Specifically:

1. We will work to achieve first page results for your website across the three most important search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN).
2. The search terms we use will be chosen by you and designed to bring you the maximum level of purchase-motivated traffic possible.
3. If we can’t achieve first page rankings for your site we will refund your money.
4. If we can’t keep your website in the Top 10 we will refund your money.

No-one can promise Top 10 rankings with absolute certainty. What we can do is protect your investment.

We are confident our methods work; they’re tested on our own R&D websites and are currently achieving first page results for many of our existing clients with search terms as tough and massively important as, ‘Graduate’, ‘sales jobs’, ‘Bling’ and ‘dresses’.

As our client, you will be kept fully updated on your campaign progress, with regular ranking reports that show you exactly how your search terms are doing on each of the search engines, and of course, regular contact with your personal technical consultant to answer your questions whenever they arise.

I’d like say thanks once more for your consideration, and you can take a closer look at what we have to offer by visiting a ‘business-card’ website we’ve compiled to provide more information for you…

When you do choose to call or drop me a line, you’ll find our approach refreshingly different, there’s no obligation, and our virtual coffee is the best!

I hope to hear from you soon, very best wishes,

Eva

Hilarious right. So I will dissect this in parts:

1. Professional firms don’t reach out cold to anyone. They work through referrals or are found in organic search or via advertisment. We use the tools that we talk about 24/7 to gain our leads.
2. Using Google for link analysis tells you nothing. When you search link:www.domain.com all that it gives you is a random sample of inbound links. It does not give you a complete list of links (ever)…I wonder if they include that as part of their explanations (doubt it).
3. Your inbound links effect your Google PR (PageRank) which is different from Page Rank (or positioning). Don’t let them fool you. PR is not nearly as influential as it once was. That said, inbound link are important, and you want to gain them naturally and having top search results listings is not the reason you gain inbound links. Sure having top page listings may gain you more traffic, and maybe those visitors will read through your site, and maybe they will share and/or link to information, but it’s not guaranteed. Nor is it guaranteed that having more inbound links will gain you top page rank. It is only one part of a hugely complex formula that helps you achieve that over time.
4. They aim to achieve top 10 rankings…cleverly phrases though still misleading. The parts that they choose to emphasize clearly lead the reader to believe that their site can end up on page 1, which should NEVER be a promise that any SEO makes. SEO should not be about selling ranking. Sure it’s seems like a good sell, that is how it worked years ago, and maybe that’s all you know how to explain.
5. Why would you let a client choose their keywords. I completely agree that keywords should be used that will help motivate leads, however this requires more than just a client telling you what keywords they want. You MUST do research, and research competitors, trends, history, search results etc.
6. As a client I would want to see more than my site’s ranking. Ranking alone does not bring in traffic. You will want to see all organic traffic sources, content viewed, time on site, entrance and exit pages, bounce rate and most importantly the number of leads through your site and specifically the source and what they did while on your site.
7. Sounds to me like a lot of their clients will be getting refunds.

PS: it helps to spell check a letter before sending it out.

What do you think? Would you go for it? Have you gotten any mail like this? What would your response be?

Today’s guest post is presented by Rachel Levy (@bostonmarketer), whose daily writings on marketing and social networking can be followed on her savvy blog www.rachel-levy.com.

Auto-follow
For every person who follows you, rather than going through and making an individual decision whether to follow back or not, you set up your account to automatically follow everyone who follows you. Socialtoo and TweetLater are two applications that I know of that do this.

Stepping back, first, I think it’s important to understand why you are using Twitter. Personally, I use Twitter to connect with people who have similar interests. I want to engage with people I find interesting, and who have something useful to say. It’s like going to a party… I want to talk to people I find interesting. (If you are on Twitter for a different reason, you will probably have a different thought on this.)

So, will you find every person who follows you interesting? Do you want to talk to everyone at a party who wants to talk to you? Many times the interest is mutual, but many times, it’s not. Therefore, why would you want to follow everyone back who follows you? Some people even go as far as un-following people who don’t follow them back. Again, my same thought applies. If you think they are interesting, it doesn’t mean they find you interesting. Why should their lack of interest in me, affect my interest in them (unless we’re talking about dating, of course!).

In general, I don’t understand the concept of why auto-following makes sense for people, but there are a few situations I see that it would be useful:

• People with tons of new followers every day – Personally, I am starting to see how difficult it can be to keep up with new followers, and I’m sure that people who add hundreds each day, can’t spend their life deciding who to follow. They have to auto-follow, in order to manage the flow. While I don’t know for sure, it appears that @GuyKawasaki and @Pistachio auto-follow, probably for this reason.
• Companies – If a person is interested in a company, then typically a company is interested in them. An example of this is @BostonTweetUp, an account I co-manage. We are interested in anyone who is interested in us. And, we want people to have the ability to DM us about events.
• Broadcast accounts – If you are an account that primarily broadcasts information, but you want to give people the opportunity to DM you, you might want to auto-follow. An example of this is @Twitter_Tips.

If you do decide to auto-follow, you will most likely need to set up a good system in Tweetdeck or another application to separate out those who you are actually interested in.

Auto-DM
For every person who follows you, you automatically sent them a DM (direct message). These vary in content, but are normally suggesting you visit their website or purchase their product. TweetLater is one application that I know of that allows you to set this up.

Using a networking event as an analogy, think of how you approach a party. You walk in, say hello, introduce yourself, and start chatting and getting to know each other. After a while of talking, you may start making a sales pitch or telling them what you can do to help them. But, you DON’T walk in and immediately say “Hi, would you like to buy my product?” That’s what an auto-DM feels like to me. It feels like spam, and that’s what the vast majority of people on Twitter feel. Do a search on auto-DM, and you’ll see it’s 95% complaints.

Some people even go as far to say “Auto-DM = un-follow”… if you auto-DM them, they will un-follow you. Socialtoo even dropped the ability to auto-DM from their service, and instead gave you a way to block auto-DM’s (a bold, but smart move on their part)

Until yesterday, there were no acceptable exceptions in my mind to my no auto-DM rule. Then I saw John Haydon’s take on auto-DM’s in his blog post… focus on OTHER people, rather than yourself. His auto-DM recommends people he thinks are good to follow, and he rotates the people for each auto-DM. I really like that idea, as it’s not salesy, and is helpful to most people.

(Photo credit: Cartoon, Networking)

What do you think? Are auto-follows or auto-DM’s OK? If so many people dislike auto-DM’s, why do so many people still use them?

My most recent wordpress project was one that required a move from Blogger’s Blogspot to Wordpress. Check it out www.rungranolarun.com

Many bloggers often start out with Blogspot.com and then wish they were using Wordpress instead. The move is actually not too difficult.

Depending on the hosting solution that you use for your Wordpress, you may or may not be able to upload the Blogger’s blog directly. I use Bluehost (found it’s limitation) and had to use a workaround. Wordpress.com actually did the trick.

Here are the steps you want to follow:

1. Log in to or create a Wordpress.com account. Once logged in you want to find the “Tools” tabAfter selecting the tools tab click on “Import.” Within the import section you then select “Blogger”, then authorize. This section will take you to your Google Account for which the log in is the same as your Blogspot.com log in. If you are already logged in then this won’t be prompted. Google will then ask you again to authorize the connection so click “grant access”.

Once you have finished this connecting process. Your Import > Blogger access will now show you all Blogspot.com blogs that you have with that respective account. Select the one that you want to transfer to Wordpress.

Click “Import” and the process will proceed automatically. This however is where (if your Wordpress setup won’t allow it) you could get stuck. What happened to me was that I’d select import and each time only one post would import and then the process would stop. The workaround is to use Wordpress.com as I mentioned.

After the import is complete and you verify that indeed all of your posts and comments are uploaded you can then do the reverse (unless you are not self hosting, in which case you’d be done now). For those who are self hosting follow the steps under “Tools” > “Export” now. It simply exports Wordpress to a file that can then in turn be uploaded to your hosted wordpress account.

2. Before you proceed with the final import make sure that you have installed the Wordpress Plugin Blogger Redirector and that your permalinks are set to /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html which is the same format that Blogger uses. This way when you set the final redirect from Blogger all of your posts will redirect as well.

3. Test, test, test

4. Log in to Blogspot.com under “Settings” > “Publishing” > “Advanced Settings” and enter your new Wordpress domain address. Then save those settings.

Your final product just may look something like this

Hope this helps. I’d love to know what your experience with blog migrations has been.

I am a strong believer that social media tools should in part be used as “reputation management”. What you happens online, stays online…but that doesn’t mean it’s forgotten. Quite to the contrary, anything you say online will stay online forever…anyone can find it.

I encourage everyone who participates in any online mediums to think about the following:

• Think before you write
• Why are you sharing the information that you are
• What will you gain from sharing that information (not that there should be the expectation of getting something in return)
• Who could you hurt if you say something negative
• Is what you are saying factual
• Review what you wrote, check grammar and spelling (please!)
• Sit on it! Give it some time if you are writing a long piece, come back to it and then review it again
• Share your information with the appropriate niches

One person whom I follow online for great personal branding and reputation management advice is Dan Schwabel. Through his blog he shares advice on how to best manage how you present yourself to the digital world. Check it out.

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• Scouting your reputation online
• When Trust Breaks