We All Need Passive Income!

Alright, so everyone would love another income stream. Lately we’ve been seeing a trend of clients setting up online stores that provide products and services to generate a passive income stream. It’s a passive income stream because these are people who have jobs and are just looking for another income to pay for things like vacations or maybe to save for retirement.

For example, we have a client who made a deal with a manufacturer to sell their products online. He now not only uses his online store to sell products, he uses it to automatically supply the brick and mortar businesses that re-sell his products. We’ve set up his store so when anyone securely purchases a product from his website, it’s automatically packaged and shipped from the manufacturer and our client’s only effort is to read the receipt emails that come in with every purchase.

If you have a product you’d like to bring online, talk to me and we can discuss your options.

Buzzword Bingo!

When new technologies and new methodologies emerge on the internet, people make up new words to try and communicate these new ideas with others.  There really isn’t any problem with buzzwords unless they are used to confuse people. All too often people use buzzwords in order to sound knowledgeable about a subject.

Ok, I admit; I did it too, way back in high school. I try to simplify things now and explain to clients what a particular buzzword means before I start using it in conversation. I certainly don’t want to be accused of playing “Buzzword Bingo”.

 

 

Why don’t all my Facebook Fans get my newsfeed?

You can be proud that you have a couple of hundred fans on your Facebook page, but are they quality fans? What’s the difference really? Well, the difference is something called Edge rank. Edge rank is an algorithm that Facebook uses that determines what shows up on the newsfeed, and that includes the posts and other information from your pages.

We can all understand why everything that everyone posts on Facebook can’t possibly make it to our newsfeed, but how does Facebook go about determining what actually does show up on your feed?

Looks complicated? Well, let’s go through it:
μ_e – the affinity score. How often you interact with a particular Facebook friend raises your affinity with that friend.

w_e – the edge weight. What interaction is going on? more weight is given to a comment than a like, for example.

d_e – the time delay. How long has the information been up. The longer, the less it’s worth.

So what does this all mean? Well, when all these factors are multiplied together, a high number means your object (picture, comment, tag, etc.) is more likely to show up on your Facebook friends’ newsfeed.

Taking this all into consideration, and making it simple; the people that interact with you, and you with them, are more likely to get your fresh objects in their newsfeed.

See the f8 video from April 21, 2011

Why am I not showing up on Google? Part 2

Part 2 of the series:

Why Am I Not Showing Up On Google?

In the last post we took a look at some reasons why a website may not show up at all on a Google search, and then explored how using optimized keywords can get a website to rank higher on a Google search. Now, as promised, why the type of website you have can also play a role in search engine ranking.

Basically, to be properly represented on the net with a website, you will need either a static HTML site, a dynamic blog/Content Management Site, or a combination of both.

HTML sites are very customizable and that’s their best advantage.  A good web designer can make art with a website. If you need that kind of customization, then you will probably have to use HTML.  For the most part, the web presence that will absolutely have to be completely HTML will be a rare type of presence. However, we have found a great number of static HTML sites on the net that are simple, and usually generated from a template.

The clients that come to us asking why they rank poorly in search engines usually have this type of site. I’ve heard these sites referred to as “set it and forget it” sites, or “build it and they will come” sites. The truth is, there is no setting and forgetting on the web, and if no one knows about it, they won’t come. Static HTML sites–even .net sites fall short when it comes to being found on search engines, unless they’re constantly updated and optimized.

Consider carefully the trade off between beauty of a site and search-ability. I know of companies that have spent tens of thousands of dollars for a gorgeous site that is virtually impossible to find on Google except for a few useless keywords. There are ways to be found anyway, but you probably don’t stand a chance against your competitors site that’s uglier, cheaper, and ranks way higher for the keywords you want.

In my opinion, there is no sense to having a website that no one can find, and I’m very weary of someone that would sell a website that is impossible or nearly impossible to find. The ability of a site to be found and ranked is absolutely essential to a public website. Part of the reason for writing this post was to rant about the web designers that build these useless sites and charge a lot of money for them. I’m talking about reputable companies with big name clients. They make useless sites! I digress…

Dynamic sites like WordPress fare much better in the search engine department. A few years ago, the big idea was to combine the customization of a static HTML site with the search engine favoring dynamic blog. This wasn’t a bad idea at the time, but that time has passed as well. Today’s site is all dynamic: there are WordPress sites on the net that look and feel just like their older HTML counterparts but work very well with search engines. They have interactive components that allow the audience of your dynamic site to interact directly with you. You can now generate your own fresh content and post it in real time through all your social media channels with one click because it can now all be interconnected. That means your Facebook page, RSS feeds, YouTube channel, LinkedIn account, etc., can all be updated easily from your website. Google loves fresh content and link backs!

WordPress can also be easily optimized for mobile devices, and those little QR codes you see on many product labels and print ads can also be simply connected and tracked.

Basically, if you’re at, or near the leading edge of website technology, you will rank higher in search engines for your keywords. If you have a site that is old technology and isn’t optimized, you won’t have nearly as high a ranking. It just makes common sense.

Why am I not showing up on Google?

So the big question we’re being asked around here lately is: “Why am I not showing up on Google?” or the variant: “Why is my site on the 23rd page of Google?”.  If you’re not showing up on Goggle at all, try this; In the search box type:  site:http://www.yoursitename.com . Does your site show up?  If it does, then move on to the next paragraph, if not, I have waited for up to two weeks before a site I built was indexed. Although search engines will naturally find your site and index it, your webmaster should also submit the site to the popular search engines asap to kindly ask the friendly search bots to drop by to visit.  If the site has only been in existence for less than a couple of weeks, try again later and move on to the next paragraph.  If you’re still reading, your site may be hidden from search engines, so talk to your webmaster to change this setting.  Lastly,  you may have been removed by Google due to an offense.  If this is the case, you should have received instructions to correct this and apply for reconsideration.

First of all, we’re not a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company (it is a hobby of mine and we do the best we can with all of our sites), but what we do can and will help with your Google ranking. Google is now real time, and gives preference to websites that change a lot, add a lot of content, have relevant link backs, as well as a bunch of other stuff that fits into their ever changing mathematical algorithm that decides who shows up first with certain keywords. “Keywords? What?” OK Let’s start with the basics:

Keywords are the words that you enter into the search box of your favourite search engine to find what you’re looking for.  They are also listed within your site so those searched keywords match up with the relevance of your site.  When new clients come to us seeking higher ranking with their existing site, we mainly check two things: 1. The type of site (static, or the preferred blog site like WordPress) 2. The current keywords. We’re noticing many sites are lacking useful keywords or have poor or misspelled keywords (may not be a bad thing to misspell if it’s a popular misspelling) so let’s see what you have on your site now:

1. 1. Go to your favourite web browser and enter your url into the address box.
2. 2. When your page is loaded, click View, Page Source (crtl+U) in Firefox, or View, Source in Internet Explorer.
3. 3. Observe the gobbledy gook (the source code that makes up the page).

Somewhere in the top part of that gobbledy gook (if you’ve hit the </head> tag, you’ve gone too far) should be a meta tag that looks like this: <meta name=”keywords” content=” Selection of keywords separated by commas” /> Is it there?  If it isn’t, well, pass me the grease rag, now there’s your problem; or at least part of it.  You can ask your web programmer to add some keywords for you if you have an HTML site, or if you’re using a WordPress site, you can add an SEO plugin that will allow you to add specific keywords to each or all of your pages.

Google doesn’t use meta keywords; keyword rich content, description tags, alt tags, url’s, and title tags are key. There is some confusion as to whether Yahoo and Bing use meta tags. Since the search algorithms are closely guarded secrets, we can only use our best intuition with the information we have. For the time it takes to make a meta tag, I include them anyway.

Aside from good site structure, W3C compliance, and links, Keywords are an important part of being found on the internet. Keyword research is part of what a social media marketer does to increase the usefulness of the keywords you use and ultimately rank your pages higher in search engine organic results (the results that aren’t paid for). We call it keyword optimization, and it does make a difference to how relevant your content is in a search.

Another big deal for ranking is the type of website you have.  But alas, that’s for the next post.

 

 

Social Media is Not Advertising

When I tell people I’m a social media marketer, people often respond with something along the lines of “So you’re in advertising…”

Well, yes and no.  Yes I do use social ads on Facebook and yes I do generate some content and creative that would be classified as advertising, but no, social media marketing is not about advertising.

It is about generating interest and making connections.  That may not sound like a completely worthy venture for business, but it is and I’ll tell you why: no business survives without a network of connections.  You must respect your connections, they are valuable people.  Social media allows you to not only connect with them, but with their network of equally valuable people.

You wouldn’t go to a business cocktail meeting and advertise your business to everyone in the room, or the next time you’ll be having cocktails alone, on your balcony with only your thoughts for company.  Think about it for a minute; if one of your connections needed the widget that your company sells, wouldn’t they already know you sell them?  Unless they are the newest of the new connections, they probably already know you sell widgets and didn’t connect with you to get spammed with widget ads.

The idea of social media marketing is to keep you and your widgets top of mind for the next time someone in your audience (or your audiences’ audience) is in the market for a widget. Instead of spamming your audience with advertising, (of which we are all inundated with) provide them with some useful, interesting, or entertaining content related to the widget product/industry. You need to make connections, widen your network, and grow your business, but a sure shot way to get “de-friended” or have your feed blocked is to advertise relentlessly to your connections.

Can you advertise with social media marketing? Yes, but keep it less than about 20% of the time.  Maybe only when you have a super mega blow out special on French Dijon widgets.

Are You Lost in Social Media Land?

Scenario

You sit down at your computer with the best intentions to make the most of a 20 minute social media marketing session and an hour later there you are – watching kittens jumping through hoops on Youtube. Evil Evil kittens…now your morning is shot!

You have just found yourself sucked into the time warp of Social Media. Read more

3 Great Ways For Realtors To Use Twitter

Unless you have just landed your space machine here from a far far (have to be pretty far) away galaxy then you have heard about how phenomenal Twitter is for connecting with potential clients and the real estate industry is one that benefits huge by tweeting. If you are a Realtor that is new to Twitter here are some ways for Realtors to use Twitter. Read more

Social Media Cool

You have to be Social Media Cool; Marketing in the Web 2.0 world is almost the polar opposite of traditional marketing and advertising methods.

You can avoid some of the pitfalls by practicing these strategies. Read more