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Archive for the ‘Friday Reads’ Category

5 Fantastic Facebook Fan Page Ideas to Learn From – I frequently suggest for customers to review well established Facebook fan pages to become inspired and get a sense of what a well optimized social network site should be like. Here is a list of 5 such sites.

HOW TO: Build a Facebook Landing Page for Your Business – Curious how to make some of those fancy pages…Mashable lays out a helpful and detailed guide on how to build your own splash page…let’s be honest…most of these pages are not created with conversion in mind and probably should not be called landing pages…but I digress. It’s worth checking it out if you want to build one.

5 Ways We Could Improve Social Media Together – Great tips on how to put the social back into “Social media”…sometimes with the process of automating we become detached, Lisa Barone of OutSpoken Media presents five simple ways we can all contribute to making social media better.

A Beginner’s Guide to Made-for-Internet TV – TV is being transformed right in front of our eyes…every day new advertisements include ways to connect with the brand on Twitter or Facebook or follow their blog. There’s lots of technology coming out there with means to connect right through your TV…super cool. I myself have the Samsung Blue Ray and it let’s me not only connect directly to NetFlix but also Pandora and YouTube. Similarly Nielsen Company reports 82 percent increase in time spent on social networks.

It’s been a busy week, and finally the sun is out.

Excellent advice all around on Google Analytics – Site Architecture & Google Analytics. They also offer great insight into Google AdWords, especially as it applies to the new interface. Check’em out.

Another long time favorite, Hubspot offers some good advice about how to stop obsessing over the number of blog comments

More on PPC, using Geo Targeting to boost your campaign. The great thing about AdWords is that you can do exactly that, pick which part of the country you want to target. Sometimes going for those broad terms can be costly but not necessarily so if targeted right.

5 Things Small Businesses Can Learn From Big Business Social Media Campaigns – Do I need to say more about it…definitely worth a read.

Last but not least, Google introduced their new Chrome OS (operating system). Here’s why Michael Gray is looking forward to it and why Microsoft shouldn’t worry yet

Have a great weekend everyone!

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?

Here is a little some’tin some’tin to send you off to a great weekend…

• Personal Branding Winners and Losers - I’ll give you a hint, “Miss California” did not make the cut *wink* 
• A modern day fairy tale about the value of loyal customers. If we only all thought this way. 
• Can You Save A Damaged Brand?
• A question that everyone (or most of us) is thinking about – What Matters in Local SEO in 2009
• Here’s an interesting take on 5 lessons from the recession
• Are Search Engines Getting Smarter…or is it the Searcher, or maybe a little bit of both?…you have to read it to find out

This week, like whiskers on kitten…these are a few of my favorite reads:

• My favorite topic of the week, Zemanta’s Blogging for a cause
• Setting Social Media Goals
• Link Building from A to Z (SeoMoz.com)
• Mapping Social Media Strategy to Metrics: Listen, Learn, Adapt (Beth Kanter)
• Top100 blogs in Social Media, list and RSS feeds to each
• 10 Steps to Personal Branding Success (junta42.com)