Ideas for Business

A Life of Abundance

parMaster — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:01:07 +0000

BIGLIST Social SEO Blogs Update 031110

parMaster — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:02:25 +0000

Welcome to the post-Winter/pre-Spring version of the BIGLIST review of SEO blogs. Snow is starting to melt and you can actually walk around outside (in Minnesota) without your eyelashes freezing together. We have a nice group for you to review so fire up your RSS reader and subscribe.

LyndiT blog gets our attention for great design and user experience in this BIGLIST update. Lyndi Thompson is a Social Media and Online Marketing Specialist and like me, is addicted to peanut M&Ms. Besides writing about a mix of social media, SEO, web design and online marketing topics, you might be interested to know Lyndi lives on a mini farm, owns several animals including a donkey and supports some great causes in the Northwest.

Frank Thinking About Internet Marketing – Frank Reed blogs on several sites including Marketing Pilgrim and Biznology. Here, he shares is talented writing skills to tell stories about SMB internet marketing topics. This isn’t a how to blog, it’s a broader topic and things to think about blog as the name implies about Search, Mobile, Social and Local.

State of Search – What’s going on in the search and social media marketing space? This new blog from Dutch internet marketer, Bas van den Beld of Search Cowboys fame, and friends promises to be a source for what’s happening in the world of search and social. It also compliments a weekly radio show on WebmasterRadio.fm of the same name.

ezlocal blog – If you’re in search of great advice on local search marketing, this might be your lucky day. You can expect detailed how to posts including those about Google Maps and Local Business Center and local marketing topics. ezlocal itself is a local business search resource and directory.

Digital Marketing Zen – David Wells is a digital marketing strategist for an agency in Charlotte, SC and publishes a blog that documents his observations via posts, podcasts and a curated collection of videos on topics that include everything from Augmented Reality to SEO and Social Media to Web Analytics.

Single Grain Blog – This agency blog is written by Sujan Patel and Ross Hudgens on SEO, PPC, Design, Link Building and some social media.

Website Workshop – Buzzhound Learning Lab is a St. Louis, MO based agency with a newer blog that has started writing posts again about SEO and topics that support the SEO training courses offered. Hopefully they continue.

Aussie Internet Marketing Blog – Sean Rasmussen writes “down under” about practical tips on a variety of online marketing topics including SEO, blogging, social media and general web 2.0.

Did your SEO or SEM blog make the cut? Share the good news with your readers using the badge and link below or choose one from the badges page.

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Diversity The Beauty Of Web Marketing

parMaster — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 06:54:16 +0000

The beauty of online marketing is that you don’t have to settle for one channel. Diversity is the key to success, both online and off line. In fact, we recommend diversifying your Web marketing strategies for more effectiveness. Some of the methods of online marketing for small businesses that others have found successful in the past [...]

Publicizing Amazon’s affect on Colorado affiliates

parMaster — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:54:30 +0000

11 Free Tools for Social Media Optimization

parMaster — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:28:30 +0000

Plenty of bloggers are talking about the inevitable intersection of social media marketing and search engine optimization. Keyword optimized social content and channels of promotion provide abundant signals to search engines for improved visibility on standard, social and real-time search.

The changing nature of social media marketing and optimization create the need for tools whether for research, marketing and promotion or analytics. Here are 11 social media and SEO tools you might find useful:

howsociable.com – Social visibility score
knowem.com – Profile building tool
Social Media for Firefox – Build a powerful social profile on social news & bookmarking sites
semrush.com – Find competitor organic search rankings
Google Insights – Keyword demand trends
Page Inlink Analyzer – Analyze inbound links, their Delicious bookmarks & keyword tags
majesticseo.com – Historical back-link tracking
trackur.com – Social media monitoring
socialmention.com – Real-time social search & scoring, social keyword research
bit.ly – Search friendly URL shortening with analytics
analytics.postrank.com – Track social engagement with combined Google & social analytics

What low cost or free tools have you found to be effective for social media optimization tasks?

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Why You Should Check Domain Name Availability Before You Brand Yourself

parMaster — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:50:35 +0000

Start up companies in the future should perform a domain name check on any brand name before they adopt it. I believe this will become an accepted and common practice for new start ups in the future, both for large companies and for small businesses. There are several reasons you’d want to check the availability of [...]

Amazon Tax laws fail to raise money and will worsen state budgets

parMaster — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:10:24 +0000

Update on Amazon firing its Colorado affiliates and What local legislators are doing about HB-1193

parMaster — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:11:10 +0000

Ford’s Focus on Social Media: Scott Monty Interview

parMaster — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:04:26 +0000

When you think of successful consumer brands in the social media space, names like Dell, Zappos and Pepsi come to mind. Another is Ford. Last year the Ford Fiesta movement generated tremendous amount of awareness (and pre-orders) for a vehicle that wasn’t available to the public yet. At the same time, it inspired a community to engage, create content and continue discussions about the Fiesta with over 7 million video views.

While in Dearborn, Ford’s Head of Social Media, Scott Monty, extended to me an invitation to The Henry Ford Museum, The Rouge Factory and a visit to Ford’s World Headquarters where we did a short interview. In this interview, Scott talks about the place for social media with Ford’s new product lines, local social media work with Chapter 2 of the Fiesta movement and advice for companies on empowering communities.

Being able to take a learn about the history of this 100+ year old company through experiences at The Henry Ford and Rouge factory tours was very informative. Then being able to sit down with Bob Kreipke, Ford’s full time historian and hear stories about Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, company history and evolution was priceless.

Fast forward over 100 years and Ford is a very different company, as is the automotive industry. It’s not enough to be innovative but to be able to actually connect with customers in more meaningful ways. Based on my discussions with Scott, Ford is very committed to making those connections. Watch the interview below to get more insight on how Ford is approaching social media:

Click here to view the embedded video.

By leveraging technology and the social web, Ford is moving from being known from a truck and Mustang company to a car, utility and truck company. I think the decision to focus on local social media marketing is great evidence of understanding audience in a social strategy. So much of what companies are doing in the social space is more like a shotgun approach based on popular applications vs focusing on where actual customers spend their time.

Check out the The Ford Story, a great example of a corporate social media aggregator not only of Ford social web participation, but of what others are saying about their brands. I can’t imaging any active brand online not launching a site like this.

What are some great examples of consumer brands you think we should focus on in future posts? What kind of insights would you like to learn more of from those kinds of companies when it comes to the social web?

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Why Companies Are Spending More To Advertise Online (And You Should Too)

parMaster — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:31:13 +0000

More companies are spending more money on online advertising than print. The big question here is, Why? And should you be spending more money for online advertising as well? Keep in mind that by “online advertising” I mean more than just display advertising. I mean all forms of digital marketing. That includes search engine optimization, social media [...]