Archive for January, 2009

If you haven’t heard of “Help a Reporter Out” (a.k.a. HARO) then you are likely missing out on a great opportunity to get exposure by connecting with journalists. Best of all, it is a free service to join – at least for now.

Through HARO, you will receive media queries via email three times per day right in your inbox. If you are journalist seeking sources, you can submit your query and have it send to the thousands of eager HARO members and most likely find a valuable source for your story.

I have used the service for a few months now, and I have received additional media exposure (i.e. free marketing and branding opportunity) and I have connected with experts in the niche markets that I serve by submitting a query for a story.

If you are in business and seeking exposure, this is a “must have”. Visit www.helpareporter.com and register for free. All I ask is that you share your success story with the community here at OldSchool SEO by posting comment. If it is a big win and earns you lots of money, you can take my wife and I out to dinner

Early on it seemed that many people who commented on blogs, wouldn’t use their name, but would rather use descriptive terms that describe their business. The goal here is to create keyword rich anchor text in an attempt to boost one’s search engine rankings. I am sure that I was guilty of this early on, but I have to say it just doesn’t sit well with me.

Although I use a spam filter, I get no fewer than 30 of these per day that slip through the filter and are waiting for me to approve or disapprove. I always disapprove, and most of all, I disapprove them and flag them as spam which (hopefully) helps to get them added to the “blacklisted” database in my spam filter.

commenting on a blog is about dialogue and creating community, not blatant self promotion. Trust me, I do occasionally get the urge to use a keyword or phrase for the name, especially when promoting a new site that I am trying to drive relevant to. And at this point, I need to point out that this would be a personal project, and never something I would do for a client site. This should also be an indicator that it falls in the “grey” area in terms of what is considered acceptable practice by me – and Google would probably push it more towards the unacceptable.

So what is the take away? Commenting on blogs is a great way to build community, get exposure, and build trusted backlinks, but I strongly urge you to resist the temptation to do this.

“Slow and steady wins the race” ~ from Google’s Webmaster guidelines – paraphrased by me

Many companies filter or limit the usage of Internet Chat applications such as Instant Messaging and block Social Media sites. Whether or not this is a good idea really depends on the industry you are in, but regardless, I do believe that there is more merit in allowing the right employees to use these powerful tools.

Just this week alone, I have set two appointment with large companies using non-traditional forms of media. In fact, one connection evolved from a Social Media platform to an Instant Message, and within an house lead to a phone call, followed by an NDA (non disclosure agreement) to continue high level discussions.

I understand the sentiments behind not wanting to allow these, such as the enormous amount of time that can be wasted on them. My recommendation is to establish policies, and most of all establish accountability for work loads. Specifically, employees should be made aware that if they are consistent under performers, it may jeopardize their job. It should also be made clear that these tools, including the content shared on them, are property of the company – as most company policies states. I know people want to argue about their rights and monitoring, and to them I say “if you don’t want to be monitored… don’t use the company’s equipment for personal use” – end of story.

If you aren’t encouraging your sales, management, and business development staff to use these tools, you are actually falling behind the times. Most and more companies are using Social Media sites such as Twitter successfully to connect with their employees. The ones that come to mind immediately are Starbucks and Southwest Airlines – but there are hundreds.

So employers, go out and empower your employees to make it happen. In fact, make it fun and create contests to see who can generate the most business using IM, chat and/or social Media AND reward them financially for making it happen.

There is more behind managing domain renewals than many people realize. The basics of domain management are:

1. Find a DOT COM domain, making it as short as possible. People think “dot com” and don’t like typing long URL’s.

2. Keep your renewal period out at least 3 years – and preferably 5, to show that you are going to be around.

3. ALWAYS USE AUTO-RENEW! I am amazed at the number of websites that still go offline because someone forgot to renew them. It’s super bad for business, as people may suspect you’ve gone out of business. Ever worse, the longer you go with your website down, the higher the likelihood that the search engines will notice – and you don’t want that.

As far a where to register, I recommend GoDaddy, but I do not recommend using them as a hosting provider. For hosting, I recommend HostGator.

I hope this is helpful.

It’s 2009 and although the Internet has been around for some time now, I am amazed that many small business owners still have not embraced it. Yes, there are those that still think they can do business the “very old school” way – without a website. Sadly, it’s not true. Just look around you. Last night as my wife and I walked through the mall, we noticed a multitude of stores that have gone out or are going out of business. Is mall rent expensive? ABSOLUTELY. Is that why these stores are going out of business? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

There are several businesses that are flourishing in these “challenging economic times”. There are many reasons why a business is able to stay solvent why another competing business cannot. Much of this has to do with acquiring customers and keeping them happy. Given that most customers start their search for products and services online, doesn’t it make sense to position your business to get those customers? I have done this for nearly a decade now for both my personal businesses and those of my clients. It has worked well, for the whole 10 years. Does it change? Absolutely. Is keeping up with change worth it? Absolutely.

Many of you know I wrote a book on the topic of Internet Marketing. I recently changed the title, not to reflect Internet Marketing (since so many still don’t fully get what that means), but to reflect what this book can do for you. It is not titled, Recession Proof Your Business. As I work with publishers to put it in print, they may want to even change it again, but it remains the same body of highly relevant information.

Because I feel so passionate that every business owner should read this book, I have dropped the price to a ridiculous $5.00 price tag. You have to pick it up before it goes to the publisher however, because at that point, I will no longer be able to sell it as an ebook.

While I’d love to just give it away, statistics show you are less likely to value it and read it, and that would be costly to you and your business. The techniques in this book have me and my clients thousands of dollars and can do the same for you. Since I am not giving it away, I am setting aside a portion of the proceeds from the book sales to go to support charitable causes – another area that Iam very passionate about. You can get your copy at: http://www.webtrafficteam.com/book

I do hope you see the wisdom in picking up this book for just $5.00 while you can. If you plan on being in business for the long haul, it could be the godsend you’ve been waiting for.

Wishing you the best!

~ Anthony