Ideas for Business

A picture, they say, speaks a thousand words- and although I do want to stress the importance of written content on your blog (especially for search engine optimization purposes), adding images to your blog posts is always a good idea. Here are some tools to help you do that, and do it well:

Freebie Images by Crestock

From one of the best stock photography sites out there comes this Wordpress plug-in aptly named “Freebie Images”. Basically, what it does is allow you to use any of the free stock photos in their library. Once you’ve installed the plug-in, simply search their library from within Wordpress, and if you see something you like, simply drag and drop it into your blog post. You can also search according to image orientation (portrait or landscape)and filetype. Because Crestock has such professional, high-quality images, this one’s my favorite.

Photodropper Plug-In

Photo Dropper works almost the same way, but it searches Creative Commons-licensed photos in Flickr. You also have the option to only search for photos that can be used commercially, which is important when you’re running a commercial or business blog.

PicApp

PicApp also makes it easy to find high-quality photos and use them legally. What I like about PicApp is how easy it is to search for either “Creative” or “Editorial” images, depending on whether your blog post is a news item or a feature. Once you select a photo you like, PicApp gives you a snippet of code to use in your post- and voila! To show you how quick this is, I just did a search for “Business”, and got this picture on my first page of results:

Faster Image Insert Plug-In

Finally, if you want to use your own photos but aren’t too happy about how slowly Wordpress inserts your images, check out this plug-in, which works simply but can make a world of difference if you use a lot of photos. It gives you full control of the built-in Media Manager, and allows you to insert multiple images, or edit mass info in one-shot.

WordPress comes out with a new update two or three times a year. Should you upgrade to the new version every time? Most marketers would probably tell you yes. And I think it might be good to upgrade most of the time, but not necessary every time. Let me explain what I mean. Just a little over [...]

Two weeks ago myself and John Ring were invited to discuss SEO for a forthcoming Enterprise Ireland Podcast. Ralph Averbuch was our host for the day guiding the conversation from topic to topic, and I have to say Ralph did a lot of homework which really made things easy on the day.

Both John and I had a great time talking with Ralph, and while we really only touched on basic high level issues I think the discussion is useful for any SME considering Organic Search as a marketing channel.

You can listen to the Podcast by visiting this page: Enterprise Ireland SEO Podcast.

If you do listen I’d love to hear any feedback you have, both good and bad.

Have thoughts on this post? Head over and leave a comment on the blog: Enterprise Ireland Podcast on SEO Search Engine Optimisation
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1. Enterprise Ireland Podcast – eMarketing
2. Enterprise Ireland Doesn’t Look Too Good
3. Pibasure.ie Looking for a Google Slap?

A few years ago anyone and everyone who was doing any Internet marketing at all consulted Google’s PageRank system to determine whether a website was trustworthy or not. Marketers would bounce back and forth between Alexa and PageRank to see if a site was all that and a bag of chips. Some people still do. However, [...]

We recently posted a list of over 100 resources our readers could leverage to learn more about marketing online through search. One of the categories was paid subscription SEM communities that offer training, forums and often times templates, forms and guides for implementing effective Search Marketing programs.

A pioneer forum that has a paid channel in this area is the WebmasterWorld Supporter’s group. SEOmoz has been wildly successful with their Pro community over the past few years and SEO Book launched their training community after discontinuing the actual book.  The newcomer to this group is SEO Dojo.

Below you’ll find info and links on each community and if you’re a fan, take this poll to vote which is your favorite:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

WebmasterWorld Supporters
Since: Posts go back to Nov 5, 2002 but I suspect it was started before that.
Cost: 6 months $89 – 12 months $149
Description: A private forum for WebmasterWorld supporters dealing with Webmaster, Tech, and Business issues related to operating and promoting a website.

SEOmoz Pro
Since: Feb 2007
Cost: Pro $79/mo, Pro Plus $129/mo, Pro Elite $229/mo
Description: Access to exclusive tools, processes and knowledge that SEOmoz staff use to provide consulting to their clients. Offers a guarantee.

SEO Book Training
Since: Feb 2008
Cost: $150/mo – Membership is full
Description: Over 100 training modules as well as forums, templates, videos and tools.

SEO Dojo
Since: Oct 2009
Cost: $30/monthly or $250/full year plus other combinations
Description: Community and training resource for search and Internet marketers that includes articles, chat sessions, worksheets/guides and plans for webinars.

What has your experience been with these communities? What are the best features? Training, Tools, Community.  Which paid SEM communities did we miss? Please share in the comments and we’ll update our 100 Resources list as well as include them in next year’s poll.

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