Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Hope you had a wonderful holiday and got what you wanted in your stocking.

Here is a great presentation on your 2009 Blueprint and are you ready to break the rules.

http://www.marketingexperiments.com/images/multifiles/articulate/webclinic-12-17-08/player.html

Great info on improving your conversion rate with testing.

Enjoy your day!

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

First I hope that you and your family have a wonderful Christmas!

Here's a recap of things that happened in the Chicago SES.

http://searchenginewatch.com/3632156

PPC Landing page tips.

http://searchenginewatch.com/3632150

Tips for Local search.

http://www.clickz.com/3632121

Thoughts on what may happen in 2009

http://www.clickz.com/3632114

Design and your website.

http://www.wilsonweb.com/design/follansbee-graphics.htm

Enjoy your week!

Friday, December 19, 2008

Hope you are having a wonderful day - we just posted some tips for having fun around the holiday time at our sister site -

Fun things to do during Christmas.

We'll be taking a few weeks off as we enjoy the holidays and we hope you do the same!

Thursday, December 18, 2008

I hope you are having a wonderful day! Below is the video I promised. Sorry it is late, I hope that you enjoy it. We'll continue our video tutorials on Jan. 7th.


Monday, December 15, 2008

Hopefully you had a wonderful weekend - the weather has been pretty wild around here, as I'm sure it has been in many parts of the country. Last week was in the 20's, yesterday in the 60's, today the 50's, tomorrow the 30's. Hopefully you are warm, safe, and have power!

SEO opportunities in down economic times.

http://searchenginewatch.com/3632052

Ratings and reviews - how to join the conversation.

http://searchenginewatch.com/3632068

We hope you have a wonderful day!

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Our microphone is kaput - so we'll work on getting that replaced - we should have the video for you by next week - if thing work out. Have a wonderful day!

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Good Tuesday to you -

Some good info on how to format your newsletters.

http://www.wilsonweb.com/email/wilson-email-format1.htm

and if you're on shaky ground with your job here are some tips that may help you to be prepared.

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/11/26/10-tips-for-landing-your-next-job/

Enjoy your day!

Thursday, December 04, 2008

We hope you are having a great week.

Some good notes on building a social community.

http://searchenginewatch.com/3631904

Check out twit plug for some help getting the twitter word out.

http://twitplug.ning.com/

Enjoy your day!

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

As promised here are the first steps for making sure that you website is ready for any future changes. We'll be including a ton of different things, like adding video, using social networking and more. We'll work on adding videos to make it as easy as possible for you.

The first step in doing anything right is we want to be able to track how well we're doing. After all if we don't track things then how will we know when we're doing better.

The best way I've found to track things (and we've used them all ) is by using Google Analytics. It is super easy to use and tracks all the things we'll want to track. After all if you think about it don't you think they would include everything they find valuable in ranking your site?

Here is a video that will lead you step by step thru the sign up process.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2785StVvas8

Next you'll want to make sure to add the code to all of your web pages. It's pretty simple to do that and they give good instructions on how to do that within the analytics site. The most important thing is that we want to make sure that the tracking is on all the pages.

Steps for this lesson.
1. Create a google analytics account.
2. Add the tracking code to all of the pages.

That's it - we'll talk next Weds and using analytics.

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Tomorrow we'll be starting our series on getting your visitors more involved with your website. Every Weds. till we're finished we'll provide you information that will help.

If you use Google analytics then you'll enjoy this article.

http://www.wilsonweb.com/analytics/weber-ga-segment.htm

Some tactics you can use in an uncertain economy.

http://www.clickz.com/3631864

Have a wonderful day!

Monday, December 01, 2008

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had a great time with friends and family (and for once I didn't eat too much turkey).

Some good info on Designing your small business website.

http://searchenginewatch.com/3631829

Four things your ad should do.

http://www.wilsonweb.com/advertising/ad-tasks.htm

Enjoy your day!

Monday, November 24, 2008

Hopefully you enjoyed your weekend.

Couple of articles on Personal search - changes in how things are / will be ranked.

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/11/17/seo-about-to-get-turned-on-its-ear

http://searchenginewatch.com/3631746

Some thoughts on Content optimization.

http://www.clickz.com/3631734

Marketing Tactics in a down economy

http://www.clickz.com/3631714

An excellent video on getting off your but and doing something (and in the meantime teaches you how to get some money for your blog).

http://garyvaynerchuk.com/2008/11/10/want-to-get-advertisers-on-your-blogvlog-go-and-get-it/

Since it's Thanksgiving week - we'll be posting sporadically.

Enjoy your day.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

A good check list for your pay per click campaign.

http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/trinity-of-ppc-success

Still talking about pay per clicks - here is a way to decrease that cost.

http://www.wilsonweb.com/paid-search/churchill-dayparting.htm

Enjoy your day!

Monday, November 17, 2008

Some new info on Adwords -

http://searchenginewatch.com/3631651

More tips on marketing with Adsense.

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3631683

Six things you may be doing wrong and how to fix it.

http://searchenginewatch.com/3631650

Good info on tracking things offline.

http://searchenginewatch.com/3631707

Enjoy your Monday.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Monday, November 03, 2008

Good Monday morning - a great weekend for football (lots of close games).

Some notes about trademarks and brands.

http://searchenginewatch.com/3631366

Changes for Quality scores and Ad Ranks.

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/081031-081246

Interesting thoughts on getting links.

http://searchenginewatch.com/3631310

Creativity in SEM

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3631350

Enjoy your day and don't forget to Vote.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Some good info on how Zappos uses Twitter.

http://searchenginewatch.com/3631269

Facebook and how some schools are using it.

http://searchenginewatch.com/3631270

Enjoy your Thursday.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Monday, October 27, 2008

Hope your Monday has started well. A few articles below to help build your business.

If you're working with an SEO firm or getting advice from a website - remember that all the recommendations in the world won't help you any ... until you implement the changes. Here's an article that reinforces my point.

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3631237

Measuring the effectiveness of a text ad.

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3631223

More ways to get visitors to your site - part 3 in a series.

http://www.wilsonweb.com/advertising/wilson-traffic-other3.htm

Some good information on finding authority links and how the search engines score your links.

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3631226

Friday, October 24, 2008

We talk some about our trip last weekend to a football game and some ways we saved money. You can check it out here.
http://www.gasmileageguide.com/gas-savings-blog/saving-money/saving-money-at-the-football-game/

Have a wonderful weekend.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Hope you had a good Monday - we lost our voice over the weekend after watching the UK / Arkansas football game and we had a wonderful time. We're starting to get our voice back so that's good.

Some good thoughts on Keyword Creativity.
http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/keyword-creativity-advertising-marketing

Tools for length strengthening.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3631208

Making your text ads better.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3631223

Enjoy your day!

Monday, October 20, 2008

It's Monday - hopefully you had a good weekend. We have a few good articles on things that may help you with the economic downturn.

Four good tips.
http://www.wilsonweb.com/ecommerce/watlington-siteowner-financial.htm

Some more SEM strategies.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3631158

Some help on optimizing your landing pages.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3631180

Enjoy your day!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Couple of articles on ppc conversions today - after all if you could improve your conversions just a tiny bit you'll improve your bottom line.

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3631013

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3631079

Enjoy your day!

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Hope your Tuesday is going well.

A good look at what happens in search when tough times come.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3631040

Is the Google / Yahoo deal good for you.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3631058

Enjoy your day!!

Friday, September 26, 2008

I love Fall! Not so hot and my favorite spectator sport... football. I have also been playing another MMO that I have been enjoying a lot. WarHammer. We talk some about going to a football game with your family in a post on our GasMileage Site. You can click here to read it.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Good Morning!

Content is the big key when it comes to getting more from your blog.

http://www.webreference.com/programming/wordpress/business_blogging_content/

Here are some RSS tools that you need to know about.
http://www.wdfm.com/publish/rss/

Enjoy your day!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Happy Weds. Some good info on setting Goals if you use Google Analytics. If you aren't currently setting goals then make that something that you don't put off doing.

http://www.wilsonweb.com/analytics/steif-google-goals.htm

Enjoy your day!

Monday, September 22, 2008

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Good Tuesday morning to you. Posting this week will be a bit sporadic as we enjoy our local festival.

SEO Tools that will help you succeed.

http://www.wilsonweb.com/seo/dunn-seo-tools1.htm

SEO Reporting - going beyond the rankings.

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3630833

Simple = More Conversions

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3630805

Finding good link targets.

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3630795

Enjoy your day!!

Friday, September 12, 2008

For those of you that have been with us for a while you know that we enjoy computer games. We've recently been beta testing Warhammer Online and I do think it will be a hit - I'm having a blast anyway. The game starts up this weekend and hopefully it will continue to be a ton of fun!!

Enjoy your weekend!

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Here's a case study on how that someone increased their business significantly with a blog (remember if they can do it... what is stopping you from doing it!!).

http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/case-study-istylista

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Good morning - hope you week is going well, it is hump day after all... :o)

Something funny I would like to share with you. My niece came home yesterday (she's a sophomore in high school), we were talking like we usually do everyday and she said that all the kids, teachers etc. were talking about the Hadron Collider. So much so in fact that she said that not many people got there work done. I saw a pretty funny article about it this morning and it appears that the world won't end today because they will only be testing sending things in one direction (so they won't be colliding anything for a bit). You can get a few more laughs by checking out this link.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/10/lhc_day_is_not_today/

Some good information on improving your landing page for your pay per clicks can be found here.

http://www.wilsonweb.com/conversion/ash-landing-page1.htm

Does size matter with link building.

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3630756

Enjoy your day!

Monday, September 08, 2008

Friday, September 05, 2008

I talked a little earlier this week about the new Google browser Chrome. You can find some pros and cons about it here.
Click Here

We also talks some about some fun free things with the family here.
http://www.gasmileageguide.com/gas-savings-blog/saving-money/free-mmorpg-fun-with-the-family/

Enjoy your day!

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Monday, September 01, 2008

We hope you have a wonderful Labor Day, and had a good weekend.

Some good info on link building.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3630657

and still talking about links - check this article out.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3630689

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

I've always said that good content on your site can cover up a lot of other weaknesses. This article talks about that.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3630658

Some good thoughts on writing your webpage.
http://www.wilsonweb.com/design/usborne-webpage-connections.htm

Enjoy your day!

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Google changed a couple of things with Google Adwords recently - you can check the changes out here.
http://adwords.blogspot.com/2008/08/quality-score-improvements.html

And keeping on the topic of PPC's here is a good guide.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3630641

Enjoy your day!

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Monday, August 18, 2008

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Happy Weds.

Some good info on content.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3630503

and some good info on raising your quality score - remember the higher your quality score the less you pay when someone clicks on your ad.
http://www.wilsonweb.com/paid-search/churchill-quality-score-fast-load.htm

We'll be out of town for a few days and will catch back up with you on Monday.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Monday, August 11, 2008

Friday, August 08, 2008

Today is fun Friday. I can't believe that school started this week... my how time flies. I would like to tell you about a game that we played on our vacation at the beach.

Mexican Train Dominoes... we have had a blast playing it. Especially since there is cool weather coming ahead you may want to invest in a copy or get one for a family gift as a Christmas Present. Some details about the game can be found here.

http://www.pagat.com/domino/train.html

Have a great weekend.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Monday, August 04, 2008

Good morning - hopefully you had a great weekend.

Some good info on paid search.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3630397

Microsoft tries their hand at a 'page rank' type algo.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3630408

Enjoy your Day

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

A good article on press releases and search engine optimization can be found here -

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3630364

We'll be busy for a few days so our next post will be on Monday. Till then have a wonderful day.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

There is a new search engine in town - Cuil (pronounced Cool) - I'm still playing around with it a bit. Some results seem pretty good... others a bit spammy.

http://www.cuil.com


Enjoy your day!

Monday, July 28, 2008

A little late today - seemed like we had a thunderstorm that parked over our house and stayed there for a few hours.

An excellent post on ppc -

10 ways to waste your budget.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3630325

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Today is social Thursday.

Google is rumored to buy Digg -
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080723-091741

I hope you have a wonderful day.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Good early Monday morning.

We've got our blog up and running on the gas mileage guide - also you can find the first issue of out of gas here.

Some good information about Duplicate content.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3630225

Neglect niche marketing
http://www.wilsonweb.com/ecommerce/wilson-niche-success.htm

We hope you have a wonderful day.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

We hope your week is going well. We've been working for some time on a guide that will help you save money on gas. As we continue to build on the site we hope that it turns into an excellent resource to help people learn how to get the most from their hard earned dollar. You can check out the site by going to the following url -

http://www.gasmileageguide.com/

We hope you have a wonderful day.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Happy Monday Morning,

We won't be posting tomorrow as we put the finishing touches on a product that we'll be launching. We'll send you details about that on Weds.

A good interview the Adam Audette.
http://www.searchengineguide.com/todd-mintz/adding-value-to-the-search-community-my.php

What TV can learn from search.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3630201

Google has released a much more comprehensive keyword tool (instead of bars you get actual numbers).
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Have a profitable week.

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Hope everyone had a great Tuesday. You can find an excellent article on utilizing Adwords Content at the link below.

Click Here

Enjoy your day.

Monday, July 07, 2008

Hope you enjoyed your weekend.

A good article on the "Legacy of Lazy Linkers" you'll find below.

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3630093

Enjoy your day.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Today is Social update day -

Some traits of successful bloggers.
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/05/20/11-traits-of-successful-bloggers/

A good interview the Rand Fishkin
http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/rand-fishkin-interview

Some local ranking factors.
http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml

Some good information / resources on Twitter.
http://blog.fluentsimplicity.com/twitter-brand-index/

I hope you and your family have a very wonderful 4th of July holiday. We'll be back on Monday.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

A good video on optimizing images for your site.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDsIxhFb77Q

The new trend briefing is out, I always enjoy reading these.
http://www.trendwatching.com/briefing/

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Some good info on keyword research -

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629814

Five tips on SEO from Matt

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080623-101341

Enjoy your day - the thing I hate about vacations is getting back in the groove.

Monday, June 23, 2008

We just got back from a trip to Myrtle beach - we had a bunch of fun and we'll talk about it some more on fun friday.

Today we'll work on cleaning up our inbox from interesting posts.

An interview with Matt Cutts from Google on links.
Click Here

Learning from searches within your site.
http://www.wilsonweb.com/analytics/marshall-site-search1.htm

Reasons to use Google Webmaster tools.

http://ask.enquiro.com/2008/why-you-should-use-google-webmaster-tools/

Seems like google trends can now check out how your website is trending - some comments / discussion can be found here.

http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/archives/2008/06/google_trends_for_websites.html

Enjoy your day!

Friday, June 06, 2008

Hope everyone is enjoying their Friday. Next week we'll be teaching bible school and getting prepared for some other things so posting may be a bit sparse. I also got an interesting call from some folks that we do travel with. We got a 3 night hotel stay and just have to watch a 'presentation', maybe I'll learn something and at 3 nights for $129.00 couldn't really let that one pass. I'll let you know how it goes.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Hope you had a great holiday weekend - we had lots of food / family / fun so it was enjoyable.

Some good information on customer service.
http://www.wdfm.com/publish/customer_experience_marketing/index.htm

Content Optimization.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629562

Since it's now 'summer' there will be times when we don't post for days or weeks at a time. Don't despair we're either out and about or getting ready to be out and about.

Have a wonderful day.

Friday, May 23, 2008

With Labor day around the corner and gas prices thru the roof - this weekend I think I'll just take it easy. The good thing about working from home and living near to everything is that gas prices don't affect things too much (although the aftershocks of that [higher food prices etc] does). We are planning on taking a trip to the beach, just the other trips that we normally take will be much closer to home.

We'll be taking Monday off so we hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Monday, May 19, 2008

Monday, May 12, 2008

Happy Monday.

I meant to talk some about our trip on Friday but time got away from me - I'll make sure to post about it if we have some time to do that this week.

Some Useful tools.
Click Here.

Content Optimization
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629378

Thursday, May 08, 2008

We had a great time on a field trip with our daughter yesterday - I'll post that more tomorrow.

Couple of social articles.
Social Media - Society's Watchdog
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3629342

Socializing Search Part 1
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629247

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

This is a pretty cool image.
http://searchengineland.com/080429-072106.php

Analyzing keyword prominence.
Click Here.

3 lines of code that could improve things on your site.
Go there.

Enjoy your day.

Friday, April 25, 2008

More wedding pictures for you to check out if you choose to.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25762078@N05/

A few notes on who you see in the pictures.

Tim is of course me :o)
Lisa my wife
Haley is my daughter

Wanda is my sister.
David her hubby.
Trevor and Morgan their kiddies.

Alex Aaron and Josh - kids in our church youth group.

James is my day, Myrna my Mom

Marilee my sister, Emma is her daughter

Susie is Haley's best bud.

Dawn (my little sister) is the bride, James (the younger one) the groom.

ENjoy.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Some possible case sensitive changes in results.
Click Here.

Paypal and Firefox ... changes that surprised me.
http://www.lockergnome.com/blade/2008/04/20/pay-pal-says-no-no-to-firefox/

Enjoy your day!

Friday, April 18, 2008


Here are some wedding pictures. It was a beautiful day last Saturday but it was definitely windy (as you can tell from the 'hair blown' looks). Lisa will be working on getting more up this week so you should have some more to look at next week.

<< this is the entire wedding party.









This is me and my dad... I am the one with not so much gray hair.
















And my gorgeous daughter and me.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Forgot to mention yesterday that the wedding went great - Friday we had a tornado warning (the wedding was outside) had to practice in the pouring rain, but on Saturday the wedding itself was beautiful. We're still working on getting the pictures uploaded and we'll make sure there is a link when we get them done.

Some future trends.
http://www.wdfm.com/marketing-tips/12-internet-trends.php

Thursday, April 10, 2008

The evolution of social networks.

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3628912

My sister gets married this weekend so our next post will be on Monday and should have some pics of me in my monkey suit :o)

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Tips on title tags

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080402-114828

Optimize your pdfs.

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080404-100034

Using video to sell your stuff.

http://www.wilsonweb.com/newmedia/wilson-sitesell-video.htm

One note on videos - we have done some tests for a client we have in the travel industry - it has helped him tremendously.

Enjoy your day.

Friday, April 04, 2008

Lot's of rain here today.

A big loss for Ky Wildcat fans as long time (48 years) equipment manager Mr. Wildcat passed away. I watched his funeral service yesterday and the big things I took away from it was...

Labor - he was there before anyone was at work and he was the last to leave.
Laughter - even at 82 he was always laughing.
Love - he made everyone feel like he was there best friend.
Passion - he did his job to the best of his ability - loved his family, friend, and team.

Think about that. Till Monday stay safe.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

A guarantee from Microsoft - this is very interesting.

http://searchengineland.com/080401-064948.php

and a late April fools day to you!

Monday, March 31, 2008

Hopefully you had an enjoyable weekend.

The fundamentals of link building.
http://www.audettemedia.com/blog/link-building-fundamentals

Advice on PPC during a recession -
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628906


8 things to check on your competition
Click Here

Enjoy your day.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Hopefully you had a wonderful weekend... it is trying to snow here today, last week we had a tornado warning... I guess that is why they call it Spring.

Jump Starting Keyword demand.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628787

Tips on email optimization
Click Here

Strategies for avoiding burnout
http://searchengineland.com/080320-083128.php

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Is it Weds... one thing we'll be taking a little spring break so the postings will be a little sparse till next week.

Some things to keep in mind to make order management easier.

http://www.wilsonweb.com/ecommerce/wilson-order-management.htm

A recap of SES NY

http://searchengineland.com/080318-181433.php

Monday, March 17, 2008

A good Monday to you - hopefully you had an enjoyable weekend. I watched the wildest basketball game every when a tornado hit the Georgia Dome while I was watching the SEC... I can't really imagine what I would have been thinking if I had been sitting in the stands.

Some changes in Google SERP.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628749

A success story -
http://searchengineland.com/080313-073713.php

Keyword suggestion tools.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628708

Friday, March 14, 2008

Sawyer is still growing like a weed - looks like no snow this weekend, only rain. One thing I have definitely been enjoying lately is our high speed internet. If you haven't checked it out yet you may want to check out http://www.hulu.com

They have all kinds of programming, probably the best thing (for me anyway) is that you get to watch tv shows before they are shown on tv. They also have a nice (and growing) selection of tv shows (all episodes of both new and old shows).

This weekend (and for the next few) I'll be enjoying some good hoops action but when the sports slow down I'm sure that I would be able to enjoy several long afternoons of huluing.... ;o)

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Eight tips for successful B2B Blogs.

http://searchengineland.com/080312-152806.php

Basketball season is in high gear ;o) - enjoy your day!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

An excellent article on blended search can be found here - what is it - and some tips on benefiting from it.

http://www.wdfm.com/marketing-tips/grehan-universal-search.php

Enjoy your day.

Monday, March 10, 2008

A good Monday morning to you - hopefully you didn't forget to "Spring" forward and change your smoke detector batteries. We got a bit of snow Friday night / Saturday. Around 4 inches. It is now gone.

Here are 7 types of advertising that can drive sales.

http://www.scottfish.com/online-advertising-strategies/

Today we have to go to the vet to get Sawyer's shots... so wish me luck.

Friday, March 07, 2008



As promised here are some pictures of our puppy. He is a minature schnauzer and he is already the king of the house... his name is Sawyer.

We had a couple of inches of snow and this was him checking it out. We're still coping with the flu here... and we're supposed to get several inches of snow. I don't know about you but I'm ready for Spring. Speaking of spring don't forget about your clocks this weekend.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

The flu is still better although... not at as bad as it was, I guess anyway.

Optimizing your landing pages.
Click Here

Using keyword insertions in your ppcs.
http://www.wilsonweb.com/paid-search/wilson-dki.htm

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Monday, March 03, 2008

Hope you had a great weekend. Most of us had the flu this weekend... achoo.

Is your copy crystal clear?
http://searchengineland.com/080228-075943.php

Optimizing your content.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628543

Friday, February 29, 2008

Hope your Friday is going well. The dog is doing well... his name is Sawyer ... and he is pretty smart. The drive to get him last Sunday was adventurous. Some of the trip was on a one lane gravel road along the ridge of a mountain, with big, steep, valleys on both sides. The trip was definitely worth it as he is a very welcome addition to our house. He is probably 95% or so potty trained now which is a huge plus. I'll work on getting some pictures and maybe even a video up by next Friday.

I beta tested "Dofus" a game that I think comes originally from Spain. Maybe I've been spoiled, or maybe it gets much better after the first few levels but it is really, really boring to me. You can still check it out though if you're so inclined by going here.

http://www.dofus.com/

I also think we're all in the process of getting the flu here, so please keep us in your thoughts and prayers and have a wonderful weekend.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Hey we finally got a little snow - four inches or so.

Sociagami - you can monitor your Myspace and Facebook in one place.

http://www.sociagami.com/

Content is still king - even for social media.
http://searchengineland.com/080226-122341.php

A good visual representation of social sites
http://searchengineland.com/080226-074010.php

Blogging for SEO
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628519

Thats all for today - enjoy it!!

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Some analysis on the pending (or not) merger of Yahoo / Microsoft - is Google the real winner?

http://in.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idINIndia-32167620080226

Optimizing your paid search ads.

http://www.wilsonweb.com/paid-search/wilson-keyword-matching.htm

Minimum bids are changing in Yahoo paid.

http://searchengineland.com/080226-190001.php

Highlighting terms for SEO

http://searchengineland.com/070222-133032.php

A great way to discover keywords using social marketing

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080216-114837

Enjoy your day!!

Monday, February 25, 2008

The trip to get the new dog (Sawyer) was interesting to say the least... I'll talk more about it on Friday.

A good place to find out head lines that work is Traffic Jam.

Some discussion on three search engines.

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628482

A nice article to check out.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-brash-seos-antifesto

Friday, February 22, 2008

I don't think we've mentioned yet that we are looking for a new puppy - so please wish us luck and success in our search. We have a possible lead and will be checking on that today.

We had a wonderful miniature Schnauzer for 17 years and he was a whole lot of fun and such a blessing to us. If we can find one that turns out half as well as him we'll be doing good.

You can see a picture of him here.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Good Morning !!

Optimizing your landing pages -

Click Here

Enjoy your day.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Good Monday Morning,

Hope you enjoyed your weekend - I did.

Chicken Soup for the SEO soul -

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628416

If you use Google Ads they're going to be cracking down on the "Display URL"

http://searchengineland.com/080213-084231.php

Using Keywords to find your niches.

http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/identify-and-exploit-niche-markets

What happens if you get blacklisted by Google

http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2008/02/google_blacklists_gocompare.html

Enjoy your day.

Friday, February 15, 2008

The lucky 700th post - and I do mean lucky. Some of you know - but for those of you that don't we live in the boonies. I have no real complaints with living in the middle of no where - since I don't have to drive to work (and really I can work anywhere) it is no big deal. In fact there are some benefits to it. The only draw back (until now) was that the only internet access we could get was dial up... and pretty crappy dial up at that (we're talking 33k here on a good day). Yesterday we got cable internet access. To say that I'm pleased would be like saying that ice cream is yummy. I don't think I've really grasped the full effect yet, but I will be having a whole lot more fun on World of Warcraft and I know that my work will go much faster (because that has already happened) and I need to make this post short :o) - UPS just dropped off my router. I know, I know I'm like a little boy at Christmas.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

65 degrees yesterday and snowed about half an inch this morning. Not much in the inbox today but here is a good place to bookmark and catch the latest news on the Microsoft / Yahoo stuff.

http://searchengineland.com/lands/microsoft-yahoo-merger.php

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Happy Tuesday!!

Couple of articles on the Microhoo possible merger.

After the rejection from Yahoo Microsoft isn't backing down.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/11/technology/yahoo_microsoft/index.htm

Does Yahoo have what it takes to stop a hostile take over.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a8Uktx266dwQ&refer=us

Involving SEO in the design process.

http://www.wilsonweb.com/seo/dunn-seo-webdesign.htm

Monday, February 11, 2008

Hope you had a wonderful weekend - it has been pretty windy here... I guess winter isn't over yet.

Google bashes the Microsoft bid -

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628370


One other thing over the weekend Yahoo rejected the Microsoft bid - guess they want some more cash. And they want to talk to AOL about merging.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080211/wr_nm/yahoo_aol_dc

Friday, February 08, 2008

A good post from the LED Digest is below -

Five Link Bait Methods -

http://searchengineland.com/080205-084849.php

Could people be tiring of the social networks -

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/31/myspace_fb_comscore_drop/

Reputation Management

http://searchengineland.com/080130-084420.php

Five Questions - Getting started with a blog

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628251


Here's the Post ---------

From: Steve Pronger
[email]: http://flow-to.com/email/LED.1202258253l3phwf2su.mth
Subject: Social media

> Personally, I was tired of [social media] > long ago. I still use some social sites for > marketing purposes.
- Nathan Holley, LED 2583
- http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1998/190/

How do you "use" them Nathan? Do you jump in and say "Hey guys, I'm a marketer, and I'm here to sell you something". If you do, you'll be about as welcome as the telemarketer who rings you in the middle of dinner. Or do you say "Hey guys, thanks for letting me join YOUR community. I'm here to contribute and learn. If you follow my participation in this community - content submission (not just mine), comments, messages, voting etc you'll start to see me as an expert in a particular field. Your go-to guy. And having accepted me as a trusted advisor in this particular field you'll look a bit deeper into my profile and discover that I just happen to sell a product or provide a service which can help you."

I'm no expert on social media. I'm still a rookie and I've made PLENTY of mistakes, as do most "marketers". Even the big name Web marketing "gurus" are getting this wrong. And that's because we approach this as marketers and SEOs. The social communities see us coming a mile off.
But, get it right and the benefits are real. I'm starting to see tangible results. Links, rankings, traffic. It works.

> Will social media sort of die out, at least > a bit, after the hype wears off?

Nope, not a chance. Hype? Rupert Murdoch didn't fork out $580 Million to buy MySpace because of hype. Social media and Web 2.0 is a fundamental change in the way your potential customers spend their time online.
According to the Online Publishers Association (Feb 2007) they spend only 5% of their time using search engines. Download a copy of Rich Schefren's Attention Age Doctrine Vol 2. Makes for interesting reading.

Steve Pronger
http://www.stevepronger.com

Comment: mailto:post@led-digest.com?Subject=Social-media




Steve, thanks for your comments. I sense you don't have much experience using social sites - not meant as derogatory at all - you stated yourself that you're not an expert in the space. I've been using sites like Digg since early 2006, not as long as some but long enough to build up very powerful profiles. And I use them every day.

When I stated that I use social sites for marketing, I meant exactly what I said. I use social media sites for marketing. I don't use them for fun, or to find news, or to make friends. I use them for marketing.
But how, you ask? Good question. I won't tell you, you'll have to figure it out, but here's a summary:

1. Approach social media like you approach a party: attend to join the conversation and add value. Don't look like a drunk loser and don't post your own stuff (until you earn the right).

2. Build your profiles through consistent use of the sites: submitting content, commenting, voting, and sending private messages.

3. Keep a low profile about what you do for a living. I'm an affiliate marketer, I do it for myself professionally, I don't have a firm or even a site that anyone knows about. You can bet I don't advertise my site's on my profile pages - instead I advertise my other profiles. That's key.

4. Learn the ropes. Each site has its own flavour and style. After a time, you'll learn what types of content works where and why.

5. Build content for the sites. See #4 and then create custom content that's just for the sites you're targeting.

6. Keep it non-commercial. The content you promote needs to be valuable and unique, and non-commercial. Blogs are a popular format, but Digg especially dislikes marketing blogs, anything to do with SEO, or lots of ad supported sites. Stay as .org as you can in terms of presentation.

7. Track progress. Develop a set of metrics you can apply to social media, and track your marketing progress. If you don't, it's all just a big guess.

There, I don't use social sites for fun, because they're all a giant waste of time (except Delicious). And I don't use social sites to make friends. I use them to market - I play the game according to the rules and I benefit from the traffic and backlinks. Don't ask me to give you a digg or a stumble, I won't, and you won't ever know my profile IDs. But you'll see me on the frontpage of Digg all the time - heck I was just there on Monday!!

-Nathan Holley

Comment: mailto:post@led-digest.com?Subject=Social-media

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Apologies for the no post yesterday - it was pretty wild here Weds night / early Thurs morning. Lots of wind and trees blown down around our area - but we are all safe and no damage here... It did continue to storm during the morning on Thurs so we stayed off the computer for the am. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those folks that had damage / injuries / and loss of life.

We'll be doing our social update tomorrow - we'll take care of cleaning out the inbox of other stuff today.

Finding ideal price points - Click Here

Rating how the Super Bowl ads did from a SEM stand point.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3628357

Enjoy your day and hug your family!!

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

It will be 70 degrees here today... all I can say is wow. We're also supposed to have some big storms tonight and hopefully they won't be too bad.

Balancing looks with your SEO

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628289

An update on the Yahoo / Google / Microsoft battle

http://searchengineland.com/080204-172011.php

Using testimonials to increase your conversions.

http://www.wilsonweb.com/conversion/wilson-testimonials.htm

Enjoy your day.

Monday, February 04, 2008

I hope you enjoyed your weekend.

Here's 5 reasons why rankings may be a poor judge of where you're at in your optimization program.

http://searchengineland.com/080131-071244.php

Friday, February 01, 2008

Hope you are enjoying your Friday. I'm a big snow lover so I'm jealous of you folks north of us.. there is snow all around us except for south and we get nothing.

Today a little off beat with the fun. I've started to try to get in a little better shape (as well as Lisa and Haley). So I got them a "Total Gym" - they have been loving it so far, I haven't really tried it yet as I'm easing into some tread mill walking first. One thing there were a couple of things wrong with it when we got it but the company sent us some replacement parts pretty quick.

Lost is finally back on - I did get the Lost 3rd season DVD but the 'extras' to me anyway weren't that great. It was great to review things... I had planned on watching Season 1 and 2 but time got away from me.

We are also in the process of shopping for a puppy so wish us well that we'll get one half as good as Schotzi.

Enjoy your weekend.

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Some good advice to day for Social and Local - one thing to remember many people think that you can 'trick' the Social networks... my advice is don't do it. It does take a whole lot of work, but isn't doesn't it make you feel better when you have to work for something worthwhile.

Some questions to ask yourself before you start a blog.

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628251

Some truths about marketing with social media.

http://searchengineland.com/080129-122519.php

Creating your profiles

http://searchengineland.com/080129-083225.php

Why your local business should be like the jerk.

http://searchengineland.com/080128-070132.php

Digg changes their algo and lots of folks are angry.

http://searchengineland.com/080124-094438.php

Using Social Media to Increase your search visibility

http://searchengineland.com/080124-091032.php

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Monday, January 28, 2008

We hope you had a wonderful weekend.

The Mysterious position six penalty -

http://searchengineland.com/080123-091710.php

Marketing positions for 2008 - part two - make sure that you check out part one.

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3628216

Flying under Googles radar

http://searchengineland.com/080124-080800.php

Enjoy your day !!

Friday, January 25, 2008

It's Friday !! Hope you have had a wonderful week. We got a skiff of snow, but like I mentioned earlier. We got a whole lot of fun things for Christmas but like I mentioned earlier it has been a busy time so far.

So we'll talk a bit about television. The writer's strike has hit some of my favorite shows pretty hard, including 24 and Hero's. I have enjoyed quite a bit the new show Terminator, and Prison Break has been pretty good as well. I'm not a huge fan of reality shows which if the strike continues will be all we get to watch.

One of my favorite computer mmorgs World of Warcraft hit Ten Million subscribers - say the average subscribe cost is low at $6 - thats 60 million a month. I am looking forward to the next expansion.

This weekend we're having a skating party for Haley's birthday if the weather fairs up like it is supposed to... and speaking of the weekend we hope you have a very enjoyable one as well.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

We finally have the ground covered with some white stuff - and it is supposed to be 60 degrees on Monday... who would have thought that.

A video explaining social bookmarking -

http://www.commoncraft.com/bookmarking-plain-english

Some power points that you may find of interest.

http://www.slideshare.net/toprank/social-media-marketing-with-social-bookmarking

Longer version -

http://www.slideshare.net/toprank/seo-social-bookmarking

Tips on building your social profile.

http://www.10e20.com/blog/2008/01/22/tips-tricks-strong-social-news-profile/

What drives local search directories.

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628130

Using widgets to help your social campaign.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Monday, January 21, 2008

Happy Monday - hope you take at least some of the day off to celebrate the holiday.

Google has issued a marketing challenge to some folks.

http://searchengineland.com/080116-103222.php

Some more predictions for 2008
http://www.bruceclay.com/newsletter/volume45/2008predictions.html

Reasons to avoid dates
http://searchengineland.com/080117-083954.php

Some opportunities for publishers.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628141

Friday, January 18, 2008

Boooyahhh - It's Friday!! Hope you have enjoyed your week. It's been a busy week here (but I'm not complaining after all that's what puts food on our table). I kept thinking that every day was Monday ... last week everyday was Friday... hopefully this coming week I'll finally be able to get the days of the week down. I haven't really had much of a chance to play with many of our new toys yet, so we'll work on those reviews as we get time.

Should be some good football this weekend as both of the teams I was rooting for continue with a chance to go to the super bowl (and they aren't playing each other this weekend).

I thought this was pretty neat as well - some pictures of Mercury.

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/mer_flyby1.html

It's supposed to be chilly this weekend in our neck of the woods although no where close to how cold it will be up north. So stay warm and enjoy your weekend.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Welcome to Social Thursday -

Some important Facebook updates.
Click Here

Some ways to spice up things (most Digg related).
http://searchengineland.com/080115-155559.php

We got some snow today but was mostly just slush by 6am - then some sleet, then rain. Bahh ... I would really like to have just one decent snow. Enjoy your day!

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

This week is zooming by. It has decided again that it is winter and the 60+ temps have been replaced by the 20s and this weekend we may hit zero.

A visual SEO checklist.
http://searchengineland.com/080115-113645.php

Boosting conversion rates -

http://www.wilsonweb.com/conversion/wilson-persona.htm

Monday, January 14, 2008

Friday, January 11, 2008

The most fun so far we've had with things we've gotten from the Holidays is our Xbox and particularly the game "Rock Band" - the cool thing about this is that 4 people get to jam. Two guitars, the drums, and a singer. The whole family has enjoyed this quite a bit. It does take some time get the 'feel' of things, and it may sound hard but its really not. One of the coolest features is if someone is not as good as the rest of the band they can be rescued and everyone can set their own individual level... but one note to progress your band you'll have to play things on a higher difficulty than "Easy". So far we have about 20 bands in various stages... the good thing is that it has some good tunes and although we haven't done it yet, you can download additional tunes from the internet.

Enjoy your weekend.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Happy Social Thursday,

It still thinks it is spring here (and a good day for ducks), although this weekend we're supposed to get some snow.

10 steps to help your social media campaign.

http://searchengineland.com/080108-134105.php

Make your blog posts viral - click here.

Expanding your blogs reach.

http://www.doshdosh.com/expand-your-blog-reach-in-2008/

Enjoy your day.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Monday, January 07, 2008

Happy Monday.

It is summer here now - or seems like it.

Google's Algo rewarding new pages?

http://searchengineland.com/080102-082903.php

Enjoy your day.

Friday, January 04, 2008

One of my New Years Resolutions is to try and post every Friday. I've been kind of lax about that lately but we hope to change that. We'll start here next week with some things we got (and gave to the kids) for Christmas presents. I got something today thought that really made me think... the New Year should include some review of what happened last year and some planning for what you want to happen this year.

Reflections for the New Year includes reflections on the past and some goals for the future.

http://chris.pirillo.com/2008/01/03/reflections-for-the-new-year/

Do something fun this weekend. I will be enjoying the NFL playoffs.

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Hope you are having a great day - we got our first snow in a while ( more than just a skiff) and it's cold... in the mid teens. By Monday it is supposed to be 60 - go figure.

Below are some social posts for Thursday.

The 2008 outlook for local search -
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628002

Not just for your social marketing but a great place to help remind you to post on your blog and otherwise promote your site.

http://www.joesgoals.com/

Is Google the stealth social network?
http://searchengineland.com/071230-104658.php

A link building case study.

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3627929

Enjoy your day.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

We hope you had a great New Years celebration and got a few days off with friends and family.

The most popular stories -

http://searchengineland.com/071231-142906.php

2 Search budgets for one business.

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3627985

Most influential blog posts in the past year.

http://www.capecodseo.com/top-10-most-influential-blog-posts-for-2007/

It's snowing here today and bitterly cold... so stay warm and have a wonderful day.