"TELL US WHAT YOU DON'T LIKE ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS..."

Common answers we hear are, "I hate my website - not enough traffic."  or  "I don't have enough customers."  or "I need to reach a wider audience."

You tell us your symptoms and we'll help you find the cure.
We are the business M.D.s, Michael Snell and Derrick Sorles.

Utilizing the Internet, we can help bring "pull" new business to you! 

You have a website - great!  That's one seed.
We know where and how to plant a hundred  more seeds because wouldn't you rather have a full-blooming garden?




Or look at it like this,if you have only a website today, that's like having a billboard out in a cornfield on a dirt road. Wouldn't you rather have your billboard on a busy freeway where thousands and thousands of people can see it?




Let us help you take your business to the next level.

We are your business Marketing Doctors!

Michael Snell, Marketing Strategy, M.D.
Derrick Sorles, Business Strategy, M.D.

Your Business M.D.s
Providing business blog consulting and networking strategies
for your online business opportunities.

Social media marketing is a way of promoting your site or business through social media channels and it is a powerful strategy that can bring new eyes to you, your business, and your product or services.  There is no other low-cost promotional method out there that will easily attract you new  visitors, some of whom may come back to your website again and again.

Chris Brogan advises businesses, organizations and individuals on how to use social media and social networks to build relationships and deliver value. He is a social media expert and we had the great opportunity to meet him and hear him speak this weekend at SOBCon08.

Chris blogs, writes articles, and makes media of all kinds at his site! He is a pioneer at this and if you haven't discovered his wisdom, stop by his sight and pay him a visit!

Social media marketing is here to stay. It's part of the Web 2.0. You need to learn it and understand it.  Maki at DOSH DOSH, another social media expert says, "Every site or business that wants to expand and become profitable, needs a core group of supporters who will be willing to make purchases or recommend the site to others.

The more supporters you have, the faster word spreads about your site. Social media marketing is an excellent way to get people to come into your site to take a look at at what you have to offer. You will grow when there are a group of loyal visitors ready to always act upon what you have to offer."

Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull"  New Business To You!
            Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0  Consultants and Strategists 

We get clients all the time, who already produce a successful newsletter and send it out to hundreds of exisiting customers.  The problem is, it is off the radar screeen of the search engines. You have got to take all the content you already are using and allow the search engines to find it! Thus attracting new customers. Let the whole world in on what you are talking about!

We live in the age of search. Everyone is online searching for something. Products, information, answers to questions...your content needs to found by the search engines and put into the hands of potential customers. It's a simple as that! It becomes search engine optimization for your keywords and search engine marketing to attract new customers.

Content is an attraction stragey. You "push" your newsletter out to people asking them to read it. You "push" your website address in front of people, in the hopes they will read it. What you want to do is strategically place your content online, on blogs, in social media, to "pull" new eyes to your business.

Attraction marketing is the new phrase for an old idea that has re-emerged as a hot new strategy for online selling. Attraction marketing is the ability to literally have people pursuing you rather then you pursuing them.

Attraction Marketing is a new marketing category, a hybrid cross between public relations and journalism.
You can provide valuable information to your customers. The more helpful and valuable your information is the greater the chance those customers will purchase from you. This is the finest form of advertising yourself and PR for your business . 

Good content will  attract prospects to you by positioning yourself as an expert!


Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull"  New Business To You!
            Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0  Consultants and Strategists

Blogging, Web 2.0 and social media must be examined very differently when it comes to return on investment. A blog account and domain is usually less than $50 a year, plus your staff time. If bring 5000 new eyes to your business, is it worth it?  If you get 5 new clients, is it worth it? If even a few customers are helped as a result -  the cost is cheap!

 

Katie Paine is an expert on blog ROI. And she was quoted in Paul Gillins The New Influencers.  She is a vetran public relations executive and has spent the last fifteen years researching, writing and speaking on the topic of measuring the value of public relations and social media investments. She believes nearly everything online is measurable; it’s just a matter of choosing what to measure.

 

We always say, and she agrees, blogging and social media marketing is a competitive necessity and can be a competitive advantage. If you are not out there building new networks and webs, chances are your competitor already is. If he is not, great! You get the first mover advantage. If he is, you can catch up.

 

Paine has said for her own business, she likes to monitor click-throughs from her blog, to her website.  We also monitor very closely performance on Google key search terms and the traffic those bring in. Good search performance is money in the bank. If you can “own” your keywords, that’s  a huge ROI, that isn’t quickly translated to dollars, but will, eventually.

 

It’s all about search. We say it time and time again. Can you be “found”  easily online. Are you coming up in keyword searches. Search is the best thing that ever happened for small business. Many companies can not afford costly pay-per-click campaigns around certain keywords. However,  through blogging and Web 2.0 strategies you can come up in the same searches and reach an international audience for much less.

We had a client recently spend $5000 with us. Within 90 days he had traffic, owned 4 of 6 keywords on Page One Google, AND he got a new client for $4000! THAT'S HUGE ROI! That DOES NOT usually happen. We usually caution clients to view their investment and ROI over a one year period. It takes time to plant all the seeds and watch them grow. But the return is that people have so many new channels to find you and your services -  besides just 1 static website. 

Remember, it's all about SEARCH! Can you be found?


Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull"  New Business To You!
            Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0  Consultants and Strategists 



 

AA asked the bloggers on the Power 150 blog-ranking index to tell  what technology marketers should be paying most attention to in 2008.

Here's  some of what they said and things that we have been preaching! 

Andy Wibbels - Findability

AndyWibbels.com

Local search. Consumers are learning they can find resources not just across the globe, but down the street. "Findability" is crucial, whether you are a global organization or local mom-and-pop.

Marie Lena Tupot -  Mobile

BrandNoise

Mobile apps. But not in a whiz-bang, over-the-top manner; the sort of incremental mobile apps that make ordinary things even easier, like let you pay back friends on the fly, split the check at restaurants, pre-order your coffee so you can bypass the line at a local café, pay your belated phone bill, donate to your political candidate ... It's the little things that take us by storm.

Joost de Valk -  SEO

Joost de Valk's SEO Blog

The technique/technology most worthy of any marketer's attention is SEO. It's the cheapest and best way of getting quality traffic to your domains. Especially due to the emergence of so-called universal search, ie. the integration of the results from vertical search engines like images, books and local into the "main" search results, more chances of driving cheap, high-quality traffic have come up. 


                                         

Joe Pulizzi -  Content Marketing

Junta 42

The single biggest issue/technology that deserves the most attention is not a site or an application, but more an organizational philosophy. It's the content marketing movement -- which is the philosophy of marketing services not by traditional methods, but by delivering valuable, relevant and compelling content to customers and prospects on a consistent basis. This is being done through all media platforms, and we are seeing companies like P&G and Nike put a large amount of money and resources into these efforts.

Brian Keith - Search Marketing

All For You by Brian Keith

Search marketing. This includes search engine optimization, search engine marketing (also called pay-per-click), and dealing with universal search. When Jeremiah and others say that your corporate website is less relevant than ever, they're right. But if you ignore the basics in favor of the hot new technologies, you will fall behind those who made sure they built a strong foundation. Are you highly ranked for your most important keywords and phrases? Have you done the research to know what those phrases really are? Are you paying attention to how you are spending money on search engine marketing?

Martin Calle - Keywords

Madison Avenue

The most overlooked piece of digital technology today is the simplest and most overlooked: the keyword. With 81 billion blogs and websites, business owners depend upon keywords to drive site visits. But we all use the same keywords, so it becomes impossible for Google's AdSense for Search and Content Optimization Teams to help you build truly effective campaigns, regardless of the business you are in. If you are an ad agency, "ad agency" would be a keyword, so would "branding," "strategy," "product positioning," "differentiation," "marketing" and a plethora of other terms we all use. So using keywords, differentiation becomes impossible unless you find a way to identify keywords that only your site can offer.

Kevin Tomczak -  Blogging

PowerUp

Blogging continues to be one of the most influential communications channels for B2B marketers in 2008. This channel is a precursor to a true social network, and allows companies to continue the conversation beyond our traditional touch points. Yesterday's mass marketing strategies don't work -- we're on the customer's time, and by keeping conversations going through blogging, we're increasing the chance that we'll be present when the customer needs our product or service.

We've also just begun to scratch the surface of the SEO benefits of blogging. In the US, roughly 80% of internet use (excluding e-mail) begins with a search. And a majority of business purchasers use the internet for research before a purchase is made. Blogging gives a company a lot of content containing a lot of keywords, and, with a lot of incoming and outbound links, that's SEO gold.


These were our top 7! What's funny is that we have been preaching these for 2 years now! I think businesses are finally starting to get it!  Read the full article at Advertising Age!


Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull"  New Business To You!
    Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0  Consultants and Strategists 

     

Over the last 2 years we have come into contact with numerous people who wanted to start a blog and most never did. Or they did, and got off on the wrong foot, abandoned the blog, or they had unrealistic expectations about what the blog might deliver in the short-term from an SEO perspective and were frustrated.

We have been doing this for over 2 years now and have launched about 25 blogs. We have made many mistakes along the way and therefore, also have learned a lot. And continue to learn every day as this business changes. Eventually, all of our blogs have ended up on Page One of Google for organic, primary and numerous secondary key word searches...

Here are some of the most common blog mistakes we've seen -

1. Never actually starting one! I have  3 friends and  5 clients  that have been talking about launching blog for a year now! Do they realize, if they had in fact launched their blog one year ago, where they would be today??? Just DO IT already!

2. Using Subdomains.  We are not a big fan of hosting your site somewhere that has to use a subdomain. (ie  typepad, blogspot). If it's personal, that's fine. But for anything business related, where you hope to get search engine lift, we do not recommend it. - Buy a domain and use it. In fact, buy a few domains. If you don't buy it and you don't own it , it's  not yours.  So www.worldsbestflorist.typepad.com  really belongs to typepad. Plus, you deprive yourself of potential search engine lift by hosting your site with subdomains.

3. Design. DO NOT get caught up on design. Blogs are about words, not design. Blogs are all about the content. And that content is indexed by search engines. You can be one page one with the the most awful looking blog out there! Search engines do not care about flash and design. Blogs are about simplicity. That's why search engines like blogs more than websites.

4. Expecting too much too soon. The first 90 days are about  building "the temple." Most directories won't even let you list with them until you are 90 days old or have more than 36 posts. Don't even try to get traffic or build traffic the first few months. It's all about planting the seeds, building the temple, and then traffic will come!

5. Making Money. Every month I have clients that want to start a blog to make "some extra passive revenue." MOST blogs do not make a dime! At least the first year or two. Once you get a page rank of 5 or 6, in about 18 months to 24 months, then maybe, you can start to monetize your blog. Sure you can put Google AdSense on your blog. And make about 25 cents per month. If you are  lucky! The focus should be on building the blog. Build a following. Positioning yourself as the expert in your area of expertise. If you do it right, you will come up in searches and be found by new readers and potential new customers!


Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull"  New Business To You!
    Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0  Consultant and Strategists 

SETH GODINS NEW BOOK,
 Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync? 
is  a must for people still not convinced about the power of the Internet.

 And Rachelle Money from
WORDTRACKER did an interview with him.


A couple key things Seth pointed out were:


"Newspapers are going to go out of business in the next ten years all around the world. There are two problems in the United States newspaper industry. One is that you make a living from cutting down lots of trees, making the paper and hiring trucks to deliver the newspapers to stores. That’s not how information travels anymore."

"The second problem is that newspapers make their money from classified ads. Now those ads work better and cost less online so I think there’s no question that there will be organizations like newspapers, but they’re not going to be in paper form. The sooner that people who make newspapers realize that and get into a different business the happier they’re going to be. They need to concentrate all their efforts online." 

    We tell clients this all the time. MOST print advertising, including the YELLOW PAGES, is a waste of money these days. Would you rather spend $1000 on ad that is gone in  month? Or spend $1000 online, where that ad can live on indefinitely?

Seth also comments on the speed of SEO - "

"My position is that the clients are the problem, not the consultants. That's because they want shortcuts, not hard work. The best SEO is great content. Don't do that and you don't get much."

The Web 2.0 has powerful tools to help someone be found online. But it takes time. It does not happen overnight, usually. You have to build the temple....and then  they will come! It's like planting seeds in the garden. It takes time for the seeds to fully grow and develop.



Meatball Sundae is the definitive guide to the fourteen trends no marketer can afford to ignore. It explains what to do about the increasing power of stories, not facts; about shorter and shorter attention spans; and about the new math that says five thousand people who want to hear your message are more valuable than five million who don’t.


Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull"  New Business To You!
    Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0  Consultants and Strategists 

This past week I got a call from  VOICE AMERICA Internet Radio. They found us through a Google search and invited me to be on their show.

The topic was "Coaching Success with Web 2.0".

Web 2.0 has changed the way businesses and consumers interact with each other. Technologies like blogs, podcasts, Wikis, RSS and social networking are now apart of everyone's  business strategy. Or at least they should be!

In case you missed it, Listen to the podcast now.



VoiceAmerica™ Network features more than 100 hosts who broadcast on four genre based channels: its flagship VoiceAmerica™ Channel, VoiceAmerica™ Health & Wellness Channel, VoiceAmerica™ Business Channel, and the newest, 7th Wave Network. VoiceAmerica™ and is the single largest producer of Internet talk radio programming in the world.

Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help Bring New Business To You!
    Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0 Strategists 
                                          
 

The YELLOW PAGES just aren't what they used to be. In most regions, a full page ad can run $20,000  per year! And now they are trying to convince people to advertise with them online. A friend of mine owns a tree service. He works back and fourth between 2 different states. The YELLOW PAGES  quoted him  $2,000  PER MONTH, to list him on their site and help him come up in searches! THAT'S  OUTRAGEOUS. But people pay it.

I have had clients ask me, "Can the Internet really help me, if I just have a local business with local customers?" - The answer is  ABSOLUTELY! Local search is fast becoming the most exciting search vertical on the web. Recent research by the Kelsey Group reported that 70% of Americans consult the web before making local buying decisions, while 36% of search engine queries now request local results.

I have a client in Chicago who provides a very specialized service, locally.  She had NO web presence whatsoever. We helped her launch a blog, got her into some free directories and she is now coming up on page one in searches around her keywords. She only gets 5-10  hits a day - but in 4 months, has attracted 10 new clients!

Daniel Bower posted a great article at Wordtracker, Five Tips To Maximise The Long Tail Of Local Search. He says," Local search presents huge long tail opportunities; the range of keywords, and the variations of those keywords that can land someone on your page are vast. Take for example our site welovelocal.com. In the short term after our launch, 96% of non-paid keywords had just a single visit."

He also points out the benefits of review sites," It goes without saying that a business owner/marketer should ensure they have maximum visibility in the various review sites and local business directories.

In the US these sites include Yelp, Insider Pages and Angie's Lists, but also the much smaller sites such as the excellent Lawrence.com. These sites provide an invaluable source of local data which can help you research fresh keywords. Spend time examining the way they are structured, the terminology they use and, where possible, the language used in the reviews.

Research from Hitwise earlier this month reported that small businesses rely on search engines now more than ever before - it’s a trend that is only going to increase as SMEs see the lead potential of local search. It’s yet another reason to hone your local keyword research skills."


Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull"  New Business To You!
    Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0  Consultants and Strategists 

We are  pleased to address your blog consulting,
online marketing and business development needs on a fee-for-service basis.

Today's networked world is here to stay!
What are you doing to profit from it?
We can help you leverage this unprecedented online opportunity, better, stronger faster!

The scope of talent and solutions we can bring to an organization (or individual) is vast. 

Our team of Resident Experts are seasoned professionals with at least 15 years of experience in their fields and chosen because of their credentials and value-based leadership.

Blogging and Internet Web 2.0 Marketing

Customized monthly packages to take you and your business to the next level via the next frontier - the Blogosphere, Web 2.0 and Social Networking. We can help you with web marketing, web design, web PR, organic search engine placement, sales optimization through LinkedIn and other online networks. We can help you with publishing books, e-books and design.

The Web 2.0 is the next big frontier and you want to be out there in it before your competition-The time to have a blog and/or strong web presence for your business is right now!

More than 80% of small businesses now have their own website, but when it comes to using the Internet Web 2.0 and specifically blogs, to reach out to customers faster, the percentage is far smaller.

Do you fit this statistic?

Learn how you can take your business to the next level using the Blogosphere and other
cutting-edge Internet Web 2.0 marketing tools.

Strengthen your customer base and bring new  prospects to you!
Below is a sampling of the scope of services we may assist with:

IDEATION

• Clarify blog's strategy, mission and target audience (with SEO in mind).
• Name your blog using select/target key search words in domain name.
• Assist in selection and execution of blogging software and hosting service.
• Review your online market/services opportunities via Google searches.
• Identify and prioritize initial key content, potential categories and overall direction.

IMPLEMENTATION

• Provide coaching and education on the back end of your blog and how to navigate and execute desired tasks.
• Share best practices on how to maximize your time spent creating content/postings.
• Get registered with Amazon, Google AdSense and other affiliate programs.

COMMERCIALIZATION

• Install affiliate's banners on blog's sidebar and promote/coach on understanding of basic HTML source coding for uploading additional banners in the future.
• Register your blog on select blog registry sites, directories, groups, and forums
• Identify top blogs/bloggers to introduce your blog to.
• Implement free detailed tracking analytics into the blog.
• Optimize RSS feed and an  email subscription system.
• Develop outstanding blog content/posts with our professional writing/research team.

OPTIMIZATION

• Help you develop press releases on sites such as PR WEB.
• Evaluate ongoing blog performance reporting through analytics.
• Explore seeding your articles on content sources/resources.
• Assist in trading links and getting links.
• Evaluate if paid directory listings would be of value and seek out examples for your industry.
• Provide ongoing support and assistance.

We are  coaches and consultants who can help with all of your internet marketing and business development needs. At present, we're focused on  Web 2.0 strategies for clients utilizing new technologies (blogs, podcast, video podcast) and other social media networks to drive their web traffic, facilitate online communities and conversations and build a "business celebrity" web presence.

We coach clients on understanding the impact of these new technologies to their business and the importance of first mover advantage and SEO discovery over their competitors.

Contact us today for your consultation - derrick@businessbloggingconsultants.com

Web 2.0, a phrase coined by O'Reilly Media in 2004, refers to a perceived second generation of web-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies—that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users. O'Reilly Media, in collaboration with MediaLive International, used the phrase as a title for a series of conferences, and since 2004 the term has been widely adopted.

Think of it this way - when the Internet and web development first started, it was this huge space
to post things to be read. There was no interaction. Web 2.0 is all about interaction! and sharing! and linking! It's social  now and everyone can play in the game! Everyone from IBM to my grandmother who lives  on a farm in Flint, Michigan!

Tim O'Reilly provided a compact definition of Web 2.0 in 2006:

"Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them."

We are  presently focused  on business development and Web 2.0 strategies for clients utilizing all these new technologies (blogs, podcast, video podcast) and other social media networks to drive their web traffic, facilitate online communities and conversations and build a "business celebrity" web presence. We coach clients on understanding the impact of these new technologies to their business and the importance of first mover advantage and SEO discovery over their competitors. You really have to take advantage
of all the tools out there!


Helping You Build  Business Faster Online in a Web 2.0 World
   We are your business Marketing Doctors!

Michael Snell, Marketing Strategy, M.D.
Derrick Sorles, Business Strategy, M.D.

Your Business MDs

This list of myths about small business blogs are common.


So many professionals hesitate to get into blogging because of not really understanding the true impact of not doing a blog.


Brian Brown from Pajama Marketing posted this list recently of his top 10 myths. 


Check out this link, it's a terrific article in it's entirety.  Below is a fast summary of our favorite 7 myths:

 

1. Blogs are for teenagers, not for professionals  - average blog reader is 18-45.
2. My business doesn't need a blog - Yes - it does. NOW! Before it's too late!
3. Blogging takes too much time - Once you establish a system, it takes about 3-5 hours a week. 
4. Creating a blog is hard  - It's easy. And cheap!
5. Writing a blog is hard  - It's easy.
6. No one is going to read my blog - You'd be surprised! Most blogs get traffic within 30 days.
7. Blogs are a fad -  no they are not! They are here to stay.

If you remember, you may have had similar feelings about doing a web site for your business. Now, everyone is expected to have a web site. Yet the results from most business web sites are appalling.

Think of a blog as a web site on steroids. Your blog, when done professionally and optimized for business and search engine optimization (SEO), will do the job you dreamed your web site would do: pull in pre-qualified leads to you.

Because you are constantly loading fresh new content, the search engine spiders have all kinds of new ways to find you. Blogs can make your business grow! People will read it. It's not a fad but I think only the good ones will survive.

And you don't have to be a writer. You can just be a publisher. Be the resource your clients turn to. There are a gazillion articles out there you can use for your site. Pick the ones that make the most sense, have the most relevance, and post them. Bloggers love sharing articles. And it's all about linking to each other!


Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull"  New Business To You!
    Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0  Consultants and Strategists 

While visiting Linkedin's blog today, I came across a post they did on social networking featuring a fun video by Lee LeFever and his talented team over at Common Craft.  They do an amazing job of simplifying and demystifying "Web 2.0 stuff."

If you haven't seen this video yet, enjoy!

For more video fun check out these jewels they produced:

RSS in Plain English
Social Bookmarking in Plain English
Wikis in Plain English

We needed a new mattress. Since I live online and shop online whenever I can, I started searching. But it was maddening! Mattress companies assign a dozen different names to the SAME MATTRESS, making it nearly impossible to comparison shop.

I remembered a post Andy Wibbels did about his Mattress experience here in Chicago at Sleep City. So, that's where I went. The service was great. The prices were affordable. I told him our budget range and he showed me a mattress in the range, it was perfect  and I took it! He didn't try to upsell me anything, in fact, he through in my choice of a free bed frame or deluxe mattress cover! And he waived the $85 sales tax and is delivering it, today, for free! How can you beat that?! That's good customer service. (Take note BEST BUY...)

 And when you Google CHICAGO MATTRESS STORE that post still comes up on page one, over a  year after it ran originally.  When that post ran originally and even to this day, the owner of the store admits "You wouldn’t believe how many people have come in because of that review on Andy's blog!"

I think finally, more and more businesses, even local businesses, are understanding the power of blogs. People are starting to GET IT! Andy says, "This is why local businesses should blog. Or give discounts to bloggers in exchange for reviews and posting. You don’t have to be in a ‘techie’ business. If you aren’t findable online you’re dead. Blogs are word-of-mouth made trackable, searchable and archived.

This is why you should be blogging. To forge meaningful relationships globally and locally. Bloggers can help new customers find you, a blog can help you find new customers."

EVERY BUSINESS CAN BENEFIT FROM A BLOG IN SOME WAY. A website is not enough, you need to be taking full advantage of the opportunities that exist online today!

Everyone and their brother  have started up a blog these days, but many people just aren’t taking the steps needed to optimize their blogs for both readers and search engines. There are a lot of bad blogs out thgere! While it's true, anyone can start a blog. But is anybody reading it? Is there any traffic? Is it being indexed by the search engines?

That's why people come to us. We have a 2 hour strategy session just determining the blogs focus, layout and name! The name can be crucial! And you want the template set up correctly. You want the posts laid out correctly and keywords optimized.

There was a great article a while back at Search Engine Land. Jennifer Slegg gave 25 tips to help optimize a blog. Whether your blog is business or personal, you should ensure that you are optimizing your blog for both your readers (after all, you want to keep those readers coming back) and the search engines. Unfortunately, optimization is an important step that far too many blogs seem to be skipping over, even those that have a broad appeal to surfers and have the potential to be monetizable.

However, optimizing a blog is a bit different than your standard website search engine optimization (SEO), particularly because most blogs run off standard blog platforms, or worse, run as a hosted blog on someone else’s domain name. And there are design issues that can be unique to blogs which can impact your rankings.

Here  is a sampling of  the advice she gave and some I  think are important;

Offer RSS & Feed Subscription Buttons -  make it easy for readers to subscribe.

Make sure you have  descriptive posts titles utilizing keywords

Post often - don't let your blog become stagnant

Use tags and ping Technorati

Name  your images with keywords!  Not  36580477 jpg.

Create  a signature line to end every post with! Fill it with keywords and a link somehwere!

Make sure your permalinks are structured well.
      Bad  =  www.yourblogsite.com/?p=123
      Good = www.yourblogsite.com/2007/01/01/blog_entry_title_
  Most blogging platforms allow you to change from the standard numbered permalinks to this style of search engine friendly ones. And just in case the blog platform you use has funky dynamic URLs for each entry, you will want to ensure that the bots can crawl them easily or use a mod rewrite to create a good structure such as in the example.

Make sure people have a way to contact you! There is nothing more irratating then not being able to contact the publisher of the blog!


    Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell
    Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants - We Help Bring New Business To You!

    

You thought you were pretty hot when you had a website and paid someone $1000 to optimize it! So where is all the traffic? Weren't they supposed to be pouring in? WRONG! While you were sleeping, the Web 2.0 effect has changed the whole ballgame. And the rules! The Internet user doesn't just browse anymore, they can jump right in and play and create and manipulate data!

Tim O'Reilly provided a compact definition of Web 2.0 in 2006:

"Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them."

 

Perhaps the simple definition can be found in the word "you". Time magazine summed it up best by making reference to the "you" in user generated content. Web 2.0 is basically all the platforms that give us this brave new user-powered interactive Internet, generally referred to as social media. YouTube, LinkedIn, MySpace, Flickr, de.licio.us, Wikipedia - these are all sites and tools you need to start spinning a web and connecting too. Or you can sit back and take another nap. It's time to WAKE UP Rip Van Winkle!

So what are you going to do? First and foremost, start a blog with an RSS feed, on your site or along side your site. Blogging is where it's at. It's not just for geeks anymore. Businesses of all sizes have joined the blogosphere by the millions. They're seeking to connect with customers, increase their credibility and grow their businesses. You have to be an expert of sorts to really SEO your website with proper tags. But guess what, just by starting a blog with an RSS feed, and placing keyword categories into your blog, you are in the game and the whole tagging system.

Get Googled better and faster. Join as many interactive sites as you can. Digg, MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, Naymz, Squidoo. And of course, always link back to your sites in your posts and creations, in these user-created content havens. Become the spider! The more connections you have the more your own sites prosper.

Use interactive platforms on your sites. Create polls, membership forums, feedback forms, even allow user contributions. It's all about being interactive. It's about sharing, connecting, linking and spinning your own intricate web out into the Internet. You can't just sit there on top of your static website and wait for people to come. Those days are GONE.

Derrick Sorles