Pimp My Keywords

Cincinnati AMA Digital Summit: The Social Media Symphony

By far, for me, the most informative and entertaining speaker during Thursday's Cincinnati AMA Digital Summit was Ted Murphy, founder and CEO of IZEA.

His topic, "The Social Media Symphony" was subtitled "Harness the power of social media to drive traffic and sales."

Far too many people are unaware of what social media means and Murphy explained it well pointing out that social media is a platform and distribution channels that provide scale to reach millions of people.

Consider this: Murphy said five years ago only a few people would have viewed a video of him snoring in the backseat of a car. Today, however, that video can be easily viewed by millions of people. The potential is unlimited.

Today, with Web 2.0, the difference is "social" and is now about people, conversations, interaction and community. A huge difference.

According to Murphy, the way social media works is to "listen."

Listen for mentions of your company or brands. Understand what your customers are saying.

Listen for mentions of your competitors. And, listen for mentions of subjects related to your industry.

These "conversations" are happening at:

• Facebook
• Friendfeed
• Twitter
• Utterz
• Plurk
• Brightkite
• Tailrank
• Techmeme
• Digg
• Google Blog Search
• Technorati
• CoComment

Murphy added that once you have located a discussion, you need to conduct your research (Who started the conversation? What is their relationship with your firm? What is their goal?), then determine your goal and never ever go straight into a sales pitch.

While social media does take time (and who has "time" these days?), you have to start somewhere and do what you can to get involved and participate.

Cincinnati AMA Digital Summit: Quick Review

Today, I attended the (first ever) Cincinnati AMA Digital Summit at Great American Ball Park. While I will post a few separate blogs on various speakers and topics, I wanted to quickly review the event.

Overall, I give it a "thumbs up."

Can it be better next year? Yes. I hope it is better. However, you need a starting point in order to make improvements for the next time.

The choice of hosting the event at GABP was honorable, but not comfortable. I felt a little cramped in an "let's-play-poker" chair with my notebook on my lap and my coffee sitting on the floor (we desperately needed tables). The breakfast was good and the hosts kept us hydrated with coffee, water and sodas throughout the five-hour event.

At times, speakers had some technical challenges but it was tolerable. A few outside noises in the stadium seats above the 4192 club were distracting from time-to-time.

The presenters:

• Pete Blackshaw, EVP Strategic Services, Nielsen Online - good speaker (more on this later).
• Ted Murphy, Founder & CEO, IZEA (excellent...the best presenter of the day).
• Kristen Hanschu, Compendium Blogware. While the original speaker list had Daren Tomey as the topic speaker, Kristen was good despite a little plug for her firm (more on blogging in an upcoming post).
• Chris Heile, Vice President Advertising, HyperQuake, LLC (I was unable to attend his breakout session).
• Ed Estes, President & CEO, Web Media Tools, LLC (good speaker).
• John Atkinson, Co-founder & CEO, PimpMyNews (I was unable to attend his breakout session).

The event started with Cincinnati Bell's Lisa Sammons giving us a basic overview of mobile phones which started to turn into a sales pitch, before introducing Rosalynn Madaglia, Director of Research in Motion (RIM...i.e., The Blackberry). Unfortunately, Madaglia's "presentation" was nothing more than a sales pitch and contributed zero to the overall event. She even showed us two commercials.

Speaker's presentations were available on flash drives given to attendees. However, there were some rumblings about event bloggers being asked not to take photos or do digital recordings during the event. Now, I can see both sides to this argument, but the approach of "let's have a digital event and not allow anyone to do anything digital here" goes against the grain a bit. But, at the same time, I paid to attend, so why should the world be allowed to see the entire event for free?

Pete Healy, Crowbar Marketing, keep the event on schedule by serving as an excellent MC.

Surprisingly, only a couple of event sponsors were on hand to participate and peddle their wares and swag. Too bad they missed out on an excellent opportunity to do some marketing (at a digital marketing event).

More blogs on individual speaker topics and other observations coming soon.

Keyword Stuffing Is Unethical and "Black Hat"

I just found out that one of our local Cincinnati SEO competitors is keyword stuffing their clients' websites in order to earn top rankings in Google and other search engines.

I won't name the firm (for now), but this is unethical and is definitely considered a "black hat" technique.

Here's the trick: At the bottom of each of their clients' pages they have placed a rather large paragraph of text in a lightly-shaded font color (the text is not hidden, but you might need a magnifying glass to read it). The block of text is a continuous list of their targeted keywords. It even goes on to mention that readers should go to Google and enter selections from their list of keywords. They even print the list of keywords they are targeting in search engines.

Unbelievable!

This kind of consulting behavior gives SEO firms a bad name.

When the website gets caught (and they will), Google will punish their site rankings and/or ban them from the Google server.

Shame on this yet-to-be-mentioned firm for stooping so low at the temporary expense of a higher rankings in Google. Enjoy it while it lasts.

More on this later...

SEO Tactics, Tips & Helpful Advice - No. 21

I received an e-mail over the weekend (from an unknown individual) asking me to trade links. In other words, if I put a link on my website pointing to his website, then he'll reciprocate and put a link on his website pointing to mine.

This brings up an interesting topic in the world of search engine optimization: Should you trade links?

• Never trade links with someone you don't know and have never done business with.
• Before you trade links, check out their website. Do you want your business name and link associated with their site?
• Only trade links with relevant websites. An auto mechanic might trade links with a body shop or tire dealer.
• Don't get into a habit of trading links for the sake of trading links.
• Don't create a web page of "Links" and turn your site into a link farm. After all, you go to a lot of work in order to get visitors to come to your website, so why give them an excuse to click on a tempting link and leave?

In the bigger SEO picture of link building, consider only reciprocal links when:

• Your website is new and hasn't been crawled by Google and other search engines.
• Your starting to build incoming links to your website. Do a few relevant link exchanges as part of your overall link building strategy.

Communicate With Your Complete Marketing Package To Boost Business

By Guest Bloggers Ken and Tina Hare
Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coaches
Image First Solutions

Does everything you hand out, send, e-mail, wear, and speak make your prospect feel like you are the right choice?

You should take an Image Audit of all the areas you touch your prospects on an annual basis to see if you are doing enough or if additional attention is required.

Is your organization excelling or just idling in the industry?

The best time to make a change is now.

For more information, contact Ken or Tina Hare at (859) 441-8888.

SEO Tactics, Tips & Helpful Advice - No. 20

Humans, like search engines, like to read fresh content on your website. However, keyword-rich content is even better.

This doesn't mean you need to re-write all of the content on your website for the sake of creating something "fresh". However, you may want to consider some of the following ideas for new content:

• Press Releases. If your website has a News or Media page, let's hope your most recent press release isn't July 2006. Publish all press releases on your website.
• Articles. Write and publish 1-2 articles a month. Topics can include "How To" articles to product comparisons to white papers and case studies.
• New Web Pages. Break up those long and multi-themed web pages into new pages. When finished, make sure you create a new sitemap.

Great content gives your visitors and search engines a reason to come back to your website.

A Reality Check On Blogging

Much has been written about blogging and the overnight expectations of more traffic and ranking success with search engine optimization.

Some marketing firms and search engine optimization companies are even promising unrealistic expectations by telling their clients blogging is the only way to go.

However, it's time for a little reality check on blogging.

Recently, David A. Utter, a staff writer for Web Pro News, reminds all to have a little bit of patience when it comes to putting all of your eggs into the blogging basket. For instance:

• Content is not king in the heavily saturated blogosphere. Good point. There are an unlimited number of blogs, so yours must be great in order to earn regular followers.
• Bloggers link to their friends more than to anyone else. Link building only works in blogging when you give your readers something to link to. You must earn the link.
• Writing a guest blog might work. I've used this technique in the past. I'll write a guest blog entry for you and you can do one more me (i.e., while someone is on vacation).

A blog is like a website. You need to optimize it. Fresh content alone will not get your blog ranked higher in search engines. It's going to take a little bit of time.

New Book Features Cards for Causes' Recycled Christmas Cards

Cards for Causes (one of our clients) has announced that best selling author David Bach has featured the firm in his new book, "Go Green, Live Rich"...50 Simples Ways to Save the Earth.

According to the author, "Cards for Causes was featured because we felt that they provided the "best of the best" product or service we could find to help people on one aspect of going green and protecting the environment."

Cards for Causes' Recycled Christmas Cards feature up to 100% post consumer content. Some of the cards use soy ink in the designs and still others are chlorine free. Cards for Causes can also provide a custom designed card using several recycled paper stocks.

Other lines of greeting cards include Business Christmas Cards, Thanksgiving Cards, and New Years Cards.

Best of all, 20% of your card purchase will support the charity of your choice. You can choose to support an environmentally friendly charity or any other charity you choose.

Webinar: Making Your Website Your No. 1 Marketing Tool

WealthBridge Connect is hosting a live WebEx training webinar titled “Your Website: Your No. 1 Marketing Tool.”

In this webinar, Steve Phillips, founder and principal of Purple Trout, LLC, will explain how your website can be your top marketing tool by using search engine optimization (also known as SEO). Imagine driving more consumers to your website for free!

True and effective search engine optimization begins with understand keyword research and selecting the best possible keywords for your website and SEO project. Phillips will provide an in-depth look of how to discover the best keywords to optimize your website. He’ll also explain how to incorporate these keywords that will improve your internet presence.

The webinar is set for Monday, August 25 from 10:30 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. It includes all materials, access to PowerPoint slides and other tools used during the session. Visit the WealthBridge Connect website to register.

About WealthBridge Connect:

WealthBridge Connect provides eLearning platforms for individuals, groups, and corporations with progressive, multimedia tools and applications regarding sales and marketing, leadership and management, new market research and analysis, marketing strength and development, financial management and turnaround, and operating systems and staff development.

SEO Tactics, Tips & Helpful Advice - No. 19

A common question among website owners is "how do I get Google to crawl my website?"

Good question.

No matter how dazzling your website is, or how much money you spent to give potential customers the website experience of their lifetime, if Google doesn't know your website exists, then you can forget about traffic and high rankings.

Yes, you can submit your website to Google and other search engines, but it has little impact in getting their attention.

The best way - and only way - to get search engines to crawl your website is link building (something you should be doing for your website on a regular basis).

For starters:

• Create and publish (on other websites) a press release about your new site. Always include a link back to your site.
• Actively participate in social media (Stumble Upon, Digg, Delicious, etc.).
• Write a blog and participate in other blogs. Be ethical about this. Don't post a comment to a blog such as "I agree" for the sake of trying to get a link back to your website. Chances are good your post will not be published.
• Participate in bulletin boards and discussion websites. Again, be ethical.
• Submit your website to top-ranked and high-traffic directories, such as Open Directory.
• Also consider LinkedIn (and other online networking website), Twitter, etc.

Google will react. Don't panic. Just keep working.