Web Optimized Press Release Keywords

Great, so you're going to start utilizing web optimized press releases. These are press releases that are written for the public as well as search engines. See previous blog posts for full descriptions and uses.

As you're posting the release to your website, you need to make sure all of your tags are properly in place. They need to describe the content that's on the page. Too many times, companies are making the tags generic and not describing the release on this page.

For this page on Ten Golden Rules, you can see how the tags properly describe what the press release and content are talking about. For each page they are different.

The Power of Twitter Save Lives of All Kinds

There are so many ways Twitter can be used to reach a large amount of people, from landing a job, serving customers, making people aware of what is going on in the world before traditional media can and even save lives.

The following story I stumbled upon is heartwarming, especially for me, being a dog lover and pitbull owner. It not only showed that good people do still exist and the power of what Twitter does to reach many people with just one simple tweet.

Two roommates from Texas (Jaime Whitt and Connie Donnellan), found an injured pitbull on the side of the road who needed immediate care. The problem was that the amputation procedure that the dog needed was $400 in order to keep the dog from being euthanized. Using Twitter, they asked their followers to help them out by donating money to help the dog. Collecting their donations through paypal, they ended up raising more than enough money for the operation as well as to care for the dog, who they named Caesar until he can be permanently adopted.

Below is the TV news report that discusses the story, and dog lovers alike cannot help but feel warm and fuzzy inside. :)

Ten Golden Rules Podcast Episode 40!

The Ten Golden Rules of Internet Podcast Episode 40 is now up!

This episode includes: The World’s First Quantcast? SOFIE AWARD!, Featuring a conversation with Richard Binhammer from Dell Computers, Leading Edge Social Media Customer Service, Twitter Search, Blog Monitoring, The 3 E’s of Social Media, Calls from Social Media Swami Shashi Bellamkonda from Network Solutions, @Iconic88, New Media Photographer Rosh Sillars and Staffing Co-Operative Everett Reiss, Song of the Week Stereophile from Australia’s Douglas Fir. Call in line 206-888-6606

Check out the Show Notes for links from the podcast

New Google Suggest Features to Speed up Searches

Google has just announced some new suggestion options they are including in their search in an attempt to speed up the time it takes searchers to find the website they are looking for.

The first new feature is suggestions based on the results page. After a search is done and results are displayed, if you start typing in your keywords for a new search, the suggestions will relate to the results on the current page. This is meant to assist searchers in refining their searches quickly.

Another new feature is personalized suggestions. If you are logged into your Google account, some of your suggestions will be based on past searches you have done. This is meant to help you recreate past searches that have been successful for you. There is also an option to remove any personalized suggestion from your search history.

Of course, Google has found a way to monetize on these new suggestion features by adding a sponsored links suggestion as well. Within the list of your suggestions will be an advertisement.

To all our Atlanta Friends - See you at the eCommerce-Summit June 3-4, 2009

Our friend John Lawson from ColderIce.com invited our CEO Jay Berkowitz to make the closing keynote presentation at the Atlanta eCommerce-Summit June 4th at the Atlanta Airport Marriott.

Jay's Presentation will be called “Web 2010: Ten Trends that will Define Your Business Future”.

The internet has become the critical hub for all business and personal communications. The presentation will explore the ten leading trends that will allow businesses and individuals to succeed online. What online innovations are driving business success? What are the top social media websites for business? How can you use the internet to build your personal brand? How do you make money in Social Media?


Ten Things Jay will Share at the e Commerce-Summit:

1. The Ten Top Trends that will define Your Business Future

2. A vision for the future for Google and my prediction for a company poised to challenge their market dominance

3. A guide for building your personal brand online

4. Ten FREE tools you can use to improve your internet marketing programs

5. Definition of the most important social media websites for business

6. A Beginner's guide for Twitter. Why it matters. How companies are using it. What you need to do to get started.

7. Real strategies for using Web 2.0 to make money

8. Top new websites and tools to explore such as PeoplePond and TweetDeck

9. A new style of presentation that brings the end to ‘Death by PowerPoint’

10. An opportunity to be featured on the award-winning Ten Golden Rules of Internet Marketing Podcast

Twitter Litter

Yep, that's right. I said it. Twitter litter. And it's a problem. If I hear one more person crowing about how many followers they have, or login to my twitter account to see nothing but irrelevant, spammy, inane message, I think I might go postal.

And I'm not the only one. Just like EVERYTHING you do online, the key to it having an possibility of working towards your bottom line is "RELEVANCE". If you ain't got it, you ain't gonna get nothing.

To quote the Social Media Today blog: It does not matter how many followers your business has if you cannot engage with this community and show measurable results from your activity. The getting followers quickly schemes are like a fad diet, they will work in the short term but will yield marginal if any sustainable results.

'Nuff said.

Reputation Management as an Individual…Have You Ever “Googled” Yourself?

I’m sure at one point in time you might have “Googled” your name and saw results that were either yours or someone else (who may have the same name as you). For myself, my name seems to be common enough that I share it with other people. If you have “Googled” yourself, are you happy with the results? Some people are not aware that people do Google other people’s names, especially if they want more background information about them.

For some people, their own individual online reputation may be important if you own your own business, or you're looking for a new job. Keep in mind that once your name is attached to something that is negative can stay on the internet for a very long time, but there is a way to get those results off the first and second page of Google. It’s called reputation management.

It is definitely a process that requires a very strategic approach, and there are internet marketing consultants who help companies and even individuals manage and improve their reputation online.

Go ahead and Google your name and see if you’d want the results to come up for your name if someone was to find more information about you.

The Most Important Online Strategy - Just Do It!

I was recently asked by a web student about how to get over a creative hurdle with stating a web business.

I answered the question with a popular ad expression 'Just Do It'!

Entrepreneurship and the world of the web require action! Velocity! Forward Movement!

My recommendation: Spend 1 more day on strategy, set a firm direction. Search for a domain name. Buy it. Start a WordPress blog and point it at the Domain name. Build a Squidoo page. Set a schedule. 4 blogs per week. 7 original Twitters per week. Minimum 7 Re-Tweets per week. 14 new Twitter follows per week. Make a list, check it off as completed. Never waiver from meeting your schedule.

When I started Ten Golden Rules I was asked to speak at a Direct Marketing Association Meeting. I had about 5 weeks. I spent 2-3 days putting a bunch of thoughts I had on paper. I searched several domain names and TenGoldenRules.com was available. I moved quickly forward to build a very basic site (it is embarrassing to look back at it now :) ) I wrote the Ten Golden Rules of Online Marketing presentation. I rehearsed it about 50 times. The presentation was well received and the rest is history. I started a company, wrote a book, launched a blog and a podcast using the 'Ten Golden Rules' name. I gave the presentation over 100 times in the last 5 years.

The most important lesson I have learned about being an Entrepreneur is to move forward smartly and quickly. The only guarantee of failing in business is not trying at all. As Wayne Gretzky says 'You miss 100% of the shots you don't take!'

So, stop waiting for 'one day'. Stop developing and analyzing the perfect idea. As Gary Vaynerchuk who has built a $50 Million wine business and huge online brand says 'Crush It!' Good Luck, please come back here and comment, let us know about your success! Or if you are already crushing it please share your success stories.

TrafficWave Matrix-Buster Slide Show

For those who like their information on the hurry-up (and who doesn't?), I've put together the general overview of TrafficWave's 'Matrix-Buster' concept that you see above.

http://www.trafficwave.net/members/rustyshelton/matrix.html

Are Your Employees Going To Quit?

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google, the leader in creating algorithms for just about everything, has created another one, this time focusing on when employees are going to quit. The employer of 20,000 people, claims they are able to determine who will leave the company by factoring reviews, pay and promotions given. Although they are still withholding the details, they have been able to identify complaints among those who have left.

The chief complaint about Google, employees claim to be unengaged...

Use New Google Search Options to Help Map Out Your Pay Per Click Ad Groups

Google has released a useful new search options panel on their search engine results pages. One option that can be utilized to build out your keyword list to more targeted keywords and help map out your pay per click ad groups is the "Wonder wheel". The wonder wheel works by taking your search term and displaying a group of similar phrases that people search. Each of these phrases can then be clicked on and another group of phrases related directly to that phrase is displayed. This process can be repeated an unlimited number of times, each retrieving more specific phrases.

To access the wonder wheel, as well as some other greatnew search options, perform a search in Google for a phrase you are interested in. On the search results page, click on the "Show options" link under the search bar on the top of the page and a panel will be displayed on the left side of the page. Within that panel, you will see a link for the "Wonder wheel".

In the example shown, the initial Google search was for "ten golden rules". In the image, several other phrases branch out from that phrase. By clicking on one of them, in this case "internet marketing consultant", we see that another set of phrases branch out related to internet marketing consultant, and so on.

This can be especially useful if you are trying to determine how you should separate your keyword phrases into ad groups in a pay per click campaign. It can give you an initial idea of how phrases can be grouped. Use this as a road map to help determine how your campaigns should be grouped.

Resurrecting Old Keywords

Through the evolution of a pay per click campaign, many keywords and ads will be removed for various reasons, including poor click through rate, poor conversion rate, etc. Of course, I hope you paused these keywords and ads rather than deleting or editing them so they retain their historical data (click through rate, conversion rate, etc). Paused keywords and ads are often forgotten and new variations are more likely added to campaigns over the course of time. Some of those ads and keywords that did not work out well in the past, however, may work out now.

Lets say at some point you found your ad copy to convert poorly. Therefore, you paused the ad and replaced it with a new one. Later down the road, you have found that a new landing page is causing your campaign to convert much better. You may have some old paused ads that are actually very good, but rather than going through your old ads, you forget about them. For this reason, it is beneficial to go through paused ads and keywords from time to time and see if they are worth resurrecting.

It may not only be the case that a new landing page gives new opportunity to old phrases and ads. Changes in the market can also have an effect on performance. So before you decide to add a bunch of new keywords and ads to your campaign, go through your paused ones and see if there may be some that are now more relevant.

MySpace Getting Heat From Music Execs

More bad news for myspace.com. As if it wasn't enough that Facebook overtook their market share last December and has since been increasing the gap, music executives are now up in arms about the revenue MySpace is generating for them. In a board meeting last month, MySpace Music CEO Courtney Holt was criticized by board members because of sluggish performance in sales generated by the social media website.

It will be a tough battle for Holt to overcome the online music monopoly shared by iTunes and illegal peer-to-peer sharing.

Guest Blog - Your SEO Copy May Rank ... But How Does It Rate?

Thanks to Guest Blogger - Larry Gotterer

In the search engine world, your rank means everything. Show up on the first search page and you’re on your way. Land a spot in the top seven and you’re clicking with the big dogs. Reach the top three and your competitors start fuming with envy. Grab the top position and you’re a Google God!

The question now is: What have you sacrificed to get to — or closer to — that coveted number one spot? Search engine optimization is a science. To succeed, it means writing to get noticed by search engines. There are rules to follow (Ten Golden Rules come to mind right off the bat). But unfortunately, search engines only list your pages. They don’t do the purchasing — people do. So, if you don’t also write for your target audience, you’ll be paying the price for a lot more than clicks in the long run.

It’s easy to see if your search engine optimization efforts are working. Just search yourself. But is your copy working? Have your relevant keywords sucked the life out of your content’s creativity? Have your key messages lost their voice in a web of multiple keyword doubletalk? The truth may be lurking in the answers to these questions:

1) Is your copy overly written for search engines ... or is it also written to sell what you
offer in an engaging, enticing, entertaining and/or educational way?

2) After reading your copy out loud, do your keywords make it sound like a robotic, dry encyclopedia excerpt ... or do your business identity, brand and personality still shine through?

3) Your click rates and visitor counts have been going up ... but have your sales?

Search engine optimization should be a critical component of any Interactive marketing plan. Just remember that businesses buy keywords, but customers, clients and consumers buy the pitch behind the keywords. Bottom line: when you optimize your search engine efforts, make sure to optimize the impact of your copy.

Know Your Product Before You Start Marketing

Why do you expect people to sign up in your new affiliate/MLM program?


Why should they do it?


Why should they pay money for your product or service?


If asked these questions, do you have a ready answer? If not, then don't feel bad. Most people can't sum up the primary benefit of whatever they're promoting in a few simple words. But think about it. If you can't do that, how on earth can you convince the average person to get out their credit card and join your program?

Seriously.

What if you have someone before you who is actually interested in what 'you've been doing online' and asks if you can explain it? What if there are several others sitting there listening as well? For far too many people, that's one of those 'deer in the headlights' moments where you just freeze. Your words stumble out and you're not convincing. You can't answer questions because you don't truly know what you're talking about.


RULE #1: Know your product.

With Global Domains International, it's easy to have an answer for anyone asking questions - whoever they are. Why? Because it's real easy to know and understand the product, which is a fundamental key to success in this business.

All you have to do is listen to the interview with the company's two founders to see what I mean: http://movie.ws/kvmlm2/founders16k.html


It takes about twenty minutes and it's worth it. Do that and you'll be able to explain (not 'sell') it to anybody. If you really and truly want to replace your job with mail-box money, then wouldn't twenty minutes of your time be worth it?

With Global Domains International (GDI), you have everything that you need to start a totally new business that requires a mere ten dollars a month to maintain. To make it work for you as a business, it's super simple: Know the product, be able to explain it in a few words and send people to your website by passing the GDI business cards and/or marketing online. That's all there is to it.

If you're ready, then why not get started today?

http://www.website.ws/rustylshelton