Good morning!

Some good SEO toolbox tips.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3630494

Resources for search engine optimization.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3630541

Some info on Call to Actions
http://www.wilsonweb.com/conversion/follansbee-call-to-action.htm

Enjoy your day!

Hope you had a great weekend -

A good review of what's happening in SEO
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3630547

Some good info on Google Knol.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3630546

Enjoy your Monday.

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.

Some good information on testing.

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3630480

Also you can find the latest edition of our newsletter here -

http://www.blitzpromotions.com/blitz283-august08.html

Enjoy your day!

Good Monday morning - a good article on creating some harmony with your promotions.

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3630461

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.

Hope your Tuesday is going well.

11 Different marketing tactics.

http://www.wdfm.com/marketing-tips/multichannel-shulock.php

Some good advice on optimizing flash.
http://www.wilsonweb.com/seo/dunn-seo-flash-optimization.htm

Enjoy your day.

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

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.

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!

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

The first of hopefully many Friday "Saving Money / Having Fun" posts can be found here.

http://www.gasmileageguide.com/gas-savings-blog/2008/07/having-fun-without-spending-much-money/

Today is social Thursday.

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

I hope you have a wonderful day.

A good article on blogging can be found here.

http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/chris-garrett-chrisg

Enjoy your day.

Improve your products (and the ability to sell them) with photos.
http://www.wilsonweb.com/ecommerce/wilson-product-photos.htm

A good slide show of information on testimonials.
http://www.marketingexperiments.com/images/multifiles/articulate/webclinic-07-09-08/player.html

Some ways to increase your email response.
http://www.wdfm.com/marketing-tips/solo-email-response.php

A nice issue from sitepoint.
http://www.sitepoint.com/newsletter/viewissue.php?id=2&issue=405

Enjoy your day!

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.

Has facebook found the key to making money with social sites.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3630185

Enjoy your day!

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.

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.

Today is Social Thursday -

All about Twitter

Three tips for a successful blog.

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3630126

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.

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.

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.

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/

Matt Cutts talks about spam.
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080630-095148

Some more fireworks from the Google Trends.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3630026

12 things about SEO
http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/mark-nunney-seo-expert-series

Enjoy your Monday

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.

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!

Setting up your adwords account.
http://searchengineland.com/080609-185008.php

More on competitive analysis
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3629862

Some info on the dark side of SEO - proceed with caution.
http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/archives/2008/06/smx_advanced_goes_dark.html

Some new seo info from Matt Cutts
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/improved-seo-documentation-galore/

3 ways to spy on your competition.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3629807

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.

Happy Thursday.

Some good social info for you.

Is your site social friendly.
http://searchengineland.com/080528-183909.php

Linked in and business profile.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629665

Doing a fake story is not a good idea.
http://searchengineland.com/080522-090746.php

Wikipedia and your business.
http://www.wilsonweb.com/newmedia/watlington-wikipedia.htm

Ten uses for Twitter
http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/05/top-10-twitter-uses/

Social Law?
Click here.

A good picture on how to trap those spiders.
http://searchengineland.com/080603-080659.php

What do you do when big keywords disappear.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3629776

Writing Search friendly html code.
http://searchengineland.com/080530-145827.php

Link building.
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=22624%3C

Adsense tips.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629702

SEO basics.
http://searchengineland.com/080528-150700.php

Enjoy your day!

Consistent links
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3629658

Some PPC help
http://www.wdfm.com/marketing-tips/ppc-best-practices.php

Using Google Adwords
http://www.wilsonweb.com/paid-search/churchill-broad-match.htm

Enjoy your day.

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.

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.

I can't believe that the school year has ended... my how time flys when you're having fun.

Viral Marketing on YouTube
http://www.doshdosh.com/viral-marketing-on-youtube-lisanova-videos/

Socializing Search - Part 1 ~~ Part 2

Some Resources
http://www.wdfm.com/publish/social_media/index.htm

Social Filtering - http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why_filtering_is_the_next_step.php

Ten tips for SEO

http://searchengineland.com/080519-072501.php

Optimizing the URL

http://searchengineland.com/080515-084124.php

Enjoy your day.

Design that sells -

http://www.wilsonweb.com/conversion/miller-design-sell.htm

10 Tips for SEO

http://searchengineland.com/080519-072501.php

Have a good one.

Good Monday morning.

Some emotional motivators for your landing page.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3629482

Info on Google Sitelinks.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3629524

Enjoy your day.

Short and sweet today.

Old fashioned link building.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629449

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

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

Some good advice on sales letters.
http://www.wilsonweb.com/design/usborne-sales-simple.htm

Google's (-60) penalty.
http://searchengineland.com/080505-083007.php

Microsoft cans the Yahoo offer.
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080503-215913

Five ways to improve your SEO
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3629357

Positions - Myth and Reality
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629336

Video SEO
http://searchengineland.com/080501-123746.php

News from Google Webmaster tools.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629317

Enjoy your Monday.

Social and SEO some things you need to know.
http://searchengineland.com/080425-200623.php

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

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.

A checklist for landing pages.
http://www.wilsonweb.com/ebooks/ralph-wilson-landing-page-checklist.htm

Enjoy your day!

Some notes on analyzing things.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629201

PPC ad tips.
http://www.wdfm.com/marketing-tips/ppc-copy.php

Creating a master keyword list.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629219

The SEO health of your website.
http://searchengineland.com/080424-085713.php

Have a great Monday!!

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.

A good explanation of twitter.

http://www.semportland.com/announcements/my-best-explanation-of-twitter/

But I don't have time for social media.
Click Here.

International optimization in pictures.

http://searchengineland.com/080422-132417.php

Pictures and search.

http://www.wilsonweb.com/seo/dunn-image-optimization.htm

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!

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.

Hope you are enjoying your Thursday!!

A video on Social Media - Click Here

Benefits of the blog in pictures -
http://searchengineland.com/080415-080402.php

Earning $$$ with social media.
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080406-113814

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3629084

The future of it all....
Click Here

Enjoy your day.

Selling to Seniors

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

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

Goood Monday Morning.

Optimizing your content

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629034

Website Redesign - improving things.

http://ask.enquiro.com/2008/website-redesign-improving-website-usability-and-seo/

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)

Some good info on blended search.

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3629051

and another article on universal search.

Click Here

Enjoy your day!

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.

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.

When does social media matter?

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628958

Some social media tips.

http://www.wdfm.com/marketing-tips/lee-odden-social-media.php

The evolution of social networks

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

Enjoy your day.

A guarantee from Microsoft - this is very interesting.

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

and a late April fools day to you!

Search engines and Blogs
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628914

Some tools to use for forms
http://www.wilsonweb.com/design/wilson-forms.htm

Is the Google Dance back
http://searchengineland.com/080331-084508.php

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.

Some good tips on social optimization

http://searchengineland.com/080325-100000.php

A couple of articles on analytics -

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628854

http://www.wilsonweb.com/analytics/wilson-kpi.htm

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

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

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

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)

Eight tips for successful B2B Blogs.

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

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

The look of a good search ad -

http://searchengineland.com/080311-083316.php

10 tips to improve your paid search -

http://searchengineland.com/080311-072531.php

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.

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.

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.

Hope your week is going well so far. A couple of articles on Link building.

http://searchengineland.com/080304-113110.php

Some 'secrets'

Using social media to build your brand.
http://www.searchengineguide.com/stoney-degeyter/social-media-marketing-is-branding.php

Enjoy your day.

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

Some tips for coordinating Organic and Paid search.

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628597

Enjoy your day!!

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

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.

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!!

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!!

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

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.

You Tube New features -

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080214-184339

A huge list of the social sites.

http://3spots.blogspot.com/2006/01/all-social-that-can-bookmark.html

Building a radio show.

http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/building-a-radio-show-audience-one-keyword-at-a-time

Enjoy your Thursday.

Why Customer Reviews Boost Sales
http://www.wilsonweb.com/conversion/wilson-product-reviews.htm

Page Rank Simplified
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3628444

Enjoy your Day!

Good Morning !!

Optimizing your landing pages -

Click Here

Enjoy your day.

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.

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.

Happy Thursday -

How to shout on social sites (without shouting)

http://searchengineland.com/080212-080047.php

Social Media Fatigue (a really nice graph / picture)

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/visualizing_social_media_fatigue.php

Enjoy your day.

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

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

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

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

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!!

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.

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

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.