Ideas for Business

As a long-time internet user, I have seen breadcrumbs really take off around the internet and recently with many of the major Wordpress websites using them. You may be asking, “Why should I use them on my blog?” Well, breadcrumbs are excellent for improving user navigation and helping the search engines establish your website’s structure, otherwise known as SEO purposes. Unfortunately, Wordpress hasn’t inherited the use of breadcrumbs, which is a grave disappointment in my opinion. However, there is hope. Wordpress plugin developers have created various breadcrumb plugins that enable us to enhance the functionality and SEO of our blog. The plugin that I use is a favorite of mine and gets the job done. I use yoast.

How do I install it?

1. You need to download yoast. You can download it here.
2. After you download the plugin, you must unzip the package and upload the file to your Wordpress installation’s plugins folder.
3. Go to your plugins menu and activate the plugin.
4. You can adjust the settings under Settings > Breadcrumbs.
5. After all the settings are correct, you just add the following code where you want your breadcrumbs to be displayed:


<?php if ( function_exists(’yoast_breadcrumb’) ) {
yoast_breadcrumb(’<p id=”breadcrumbs”>’,'</p>’);
} ?>

Now, that you have your breadcrumbs installed and working correctly, you have officially added another important asset to optimizing your blog for search engines.

On Wednesday October 1st, about ten of TopRank’s finest will be making the trek from the Western suburbs to downtown Minneapolis for the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association’s (MIMA) “sold out” Summit.

As in years past, MIMA Summit will take place at The Depot with a new focus on the subject of “mutualism”. Mutualism centers on the open use of material in the online world, in which web marketers and users alike participate with one another and share information together. In that spirit, I’m going to take the information provided by MIMA about the Summit and share with our readers.

The MIMA Summit is an all-day event including two keynote speakers (Rebecca Lieb & Ze Frank), numerous breakout sessions on just about every interactive marketing topic you could wish for and of course, a happy hour. Here are a few sessions I’m planning on attending to give you a taste of what the MIMA Summit 2008 has to offer.

Opening Keynote: “The Decline of Advertising and the Creative Renaissance” Rebecca Lieb, former Editor-in-Chief for the ClickZ Network, will kick off the MIMA Summit looking at the shift from ‘advertising’ to ‘marketing’ in the digital sphere. You can read our recent interview with Rebecca here.

“Creativity: Bridging Traditional to Digital Adrian Ho and Christian Erickson of Zeus Jones explore the creative divide between traditional advertising and digital marketing. Using real-world examples, this digital marketing duo will give advice on blending creative messaging into the value-driven digital landscape.

What Conversation? The Summit’s second keynote address will be given by Ze Frank, online performance artist, humorist and composer. Ze will be examining how brands can successfully participate in online conversations. The MIMA description assures that Ze will most likely avoid the difficult questions and instead focus on his own experiences. Who doesn’t love tangents?

Corporate Blogger: Angel or Demon? Director of Marketing Communications and Blogger Valeria Maltoni explains the interesting phenomenon that is the corporate blogger. Valeria will draw on her personal experience to give advice on blogging effectively about an organization while maintaining an authentic voice.

Afternoon Keynote: “What Conversation?” with Ze Frank. Ze Frank will talk about his experiences creating online environments in which participants gather, create, collaborate and play.

Happy Hour with Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal.  While I don’t know much about this comedy duo from North Carolina, what I saw on their website gives me hope that their show will be entertaining. I also like the fact that one of the comedian’s last name contains the word ‘laugh’ and the other’s first name is ‘link,’ which is only fitting for a digital marketing event.

There are many more sessions taking place at Wednesday’s MIMA Summit. Between all of us, the TopRank crew should be able to attend most of them and bring our newfound knowledge into play with both officemates and clients. Plus with all the humor on the schedule, we should have a new set of interactive marketing jokes to share.

If you’re attending the MIMA Summit this week AND you’re a Twitter enthusiast, be sure to tweet @mima08 or #mima08 about the event happenings, questions and observations during sessions. To follow the MIMA Summit conversation, click or subscribe to #mima08.  MIMA Summit info is also on Facebook.

You can read our past coverage of MIMA Summit events here.

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Free is something that most people look for when starting out with a blog. They don`t want to put too much money into a service when there are free sites like Wordpress and Blogger out there to post on. However, going for a standard blogging site like this could very well cost you business.

Blogging doesn`t have to be expensive. You can get hosting starting at $7 a month for a good host and a .com domain name will cost between $8-10 per year. It`s a small price to pay for the boost in traffic that proper blogging can give you.

When choosing a domain name, go for something that either is your company name or that has your keywords in it (though preferably, your company name will have keywords). This helps boost your search engine rankings and should also be nice and easy to remember.

The fact that you have your own domain name will really make your blogging look more professional. It`s pretty obvious if you are cutting corners and using a mycompany.blogspot.com type domain name. Since much of marketing is based on appearances, why wouldn`t you take steps to ensure that your blog looks professional?

Upon hearing news of attending Blog Orlando 3, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Having worked behind the scenes in an online world, I wasn’t sure what kind of environment to expect, people who were new age, older generation, people who were like me, or people who wouldn’t get me. Being the chicken I am I asked my girlfriend (who is not a web person by any stretch) to join me so I wasn’t alone in the experience.

We arrived to an empty street close to Rollins college (the site of the conference), hoping that we parked in a “permitted” parking area. We walked to the building, with our paper notebooks in hand; we saw people with briefcases and laptops, and quickly felt inadequate and unprepared. After we checked in, we met in the main auditorium.

In the auditorium we were introduced to the day to come. This was the 3rd annual Blog Orlando conference; so far everyone was very friendly and welcoming. There were people from all different walks of life, young and old, black and white, it was a very diverse group.

We plotted out the day to come. The event was split into 5 tracks:

1. Public relations/communication
2. Media / Creative
3. Community
4. Technology Basic
5. Technology Advanced

We chose for the first session, Shiny New Objects, it was presented by Frank Gruber of Somewhat Frank. He used an IPhone as a means for notes and dropped different sources of new internet tools.

Our second session was Hyperlocal thinking it was to assist in developing your blog for Local Search. I was a little disappointed that it was about keeping your blog local and focused on the local community, nothing to do with search. I would say this is my fault for thinking “search” when it’s a blog conference.

The third session was very intriguing, Monetization. The session was led by the founder of IZEA, Ted Murphy. He spoke of his experience and his business, he also emphasized that diversifying and exploring new things were essential in generating income. Mr. Murray said blatantly “if your blog isn’t making money, you are a donkey.”

Following a quite exciting lunch expedition to the taco place, we attended our fourth session, Going beyond Google. The session was led by Leah Jones of Edelman, this session basically informed listeners of different search engines other than Google. “Go beyond Google” emphasized Boolean searching. Leah was nice enough to provide the slideshow from her presentation to anyone here http://www.slideshare.net/leahjones/search-for-roi so if you’re curious to learn a little more take a look.

Next, we hiked up to the 3rd floor, Rollins has very steep stairs, to attend a jam packed session of Online Identity led by Jake McGhee - Community Guy. The group discussed their personal experiences with websites such as Myspace and Facebook and discussed how risqué photos and blogs affected their careers and their futures.

Following a short break, Geno Church, Brains on Fire, presented Movement, Activism and Social Media, which had to be the best PowerPoint presentation I have ever seen which included pictures, video and music. This presentation was the very informative and well put together. He spoke on the importance of passion and building online communities.

We hiked back down the stairs to attend a session with Josh Hallett about Flickr, the online photo gallery, the Josh discussed the uses and technique of Flickr and how to get your pictures seen.

The closing session was that of Erik Herson, WhiteAfrican.com. He discussed his websites, which were very monumental. He has developed groundbreaking African based websites that were very useful to the African people. His website, Ushahidi allows Africans to identify and report civil unrest, disasters and other major problems in their area by SMS.

The after conference networking event took place at Finnhenry’s in downtown Orlando.. When the group of 100+ arrived to the downtown establishment, there was a Notre Dame vs. Purdue game showing on all TV’s, packed with Notre Dame Fans. This unfortunately was not the great spot for networking and talking. The BlogOrlando3 group ended up gathering on the streets of Downtown Orlando, outside of Finnhenry’s.

If I could have changed anything about the event I would have split the conference into two days to allow for people to explore all the tracks offered. There were many times when I was interested in two different sessions being offered at the same time and basically flipped a coin to decide on which one to attend. There were a total of 25 sessions with the opportunity to attend only five. I was very pleased with my first blogging conference.

Overall it was really a great experience, I was able to network with people who share a similar interest and learned quite a bit about the people who make up the local blogging community.

Do you have a logo for your business? While most offline businesses tend to think of a logo right off the bat, the majority of small internet-based businesses neglect this aspect of marketing. It`s a very important part of branding.

What do you think of when you see the golden arches? Of course, McDonalds . . . that is a symbol that is recognized around the world . . . no sign necessary. What about the swoosh symbol for Nike? Or the leaping cat for Puma? These are logos that have been very successfully used to promote the business behind them and people are recognizing these brands everywhere.

Having a logo will help trigger recognition in your clients` minds. When they see your logo, they`ll instantly think of your services or products. Which is precisely what you want them to think of. A logo is part of the marketing process and it really does help to include this in your graphic design.