Today at BarCamp Sarasota we decided to Occupy Sarasota – Techies Take Over Gwiz with a little demonstration on using SEO effectively

But is that about to change?

Did you know that Facebook users are now apparently for sale? That your information is being sent to the highest bidder with the deepest pockets and your information is being used as an implied endorsement for their products!

By default everyone is opted into this program which automatically shares your information with their “partner” sites. I say partner sites because even though I haven’t seen a disclosure on it anywhere. I’m sure Facebook is getting well compensated for doing this.

This is great for marketers (such as myself) but really bad for the consumer who is generally unaware that such practices are being done ever so quietly. At least Facebook has learned from Google’s debacle when they launched Buzz…Facebook has made a way for you to opt out of it.

Here’s how to change your privacy setting to opt out of this instant personalization

Step 1: Navigate to your privacy settings

Step 2: Go to Apps and Website settings

Step 3: Select edit settings for Instant Personalization

Step 4: Un-check the box “Enable instant personalization”

Don’t forget to tell your friends to do the same or they can share your information as well.

The short version of this is that their website sucks ,but let’s take a closer look at some of the common problems in building backlinks.

Quality Content

The entire purpose of a link is to reference something of quality and relevance (I’ll get to that in a second) and somehow that gets looked over by people with they build a website and expect that other website owners will automatically want to link back to them. If you content isn’t coherent and resembles something that was put through an article spinner somewhere then why do you think anyone will want to link to your site?

Definition of Quality

high grade; superiority; excellence

As you can image I get requests for backlinks all the time but 99% of what I receive doesn’t fall into the definition of quality (not by a long shot).

Tip: The quality of your content will determine if someone will be willing to link to you.

Site Relevancy

When I first started doing SEO professionally in 2004 one of the old practices was to do link swap with anyone and everyone. We created large link directories on our sites and tried to get thousands of sites to exchange links with us. We used large networks of sites to build 3 way links to look more natural but ultimately as the internet has progressed that became a waste of time since what our site visitors really wanted was something that was relevant to what they were looking for.

Since then the SEO algorithms have changed a few times and have emphasized the importance of a relevant site linking to you.

Tip: Before having a ton of sites link to you find ones that are relevant and get them to link to you first.

Quantity of Content

It amazes me when I have a client as why their site isn’t ranking well for hundreds of term and they only have 5 pages on their website. The obvious reason is the quantity of the content that they have. Keep in mind that the quality of the content is a given. It has to be good. Site owner often don’t update their sites often enough and think that after they build it once everyone should come running to the site. This just isn’t the case but a lot of website owners think it is.

This may surprise most website owners but most need to increase the quantity of the content that produce. It’s the only way to have massive amount of links pointing back to your site barring a lot of press and media exposure.

Tip: Create a content creation schedule and determine how often you will publish new content to your site.

Just in case you got lost in the reading here’s what you need to do. Produce quality content on a regular basis and find relevant sites to link to you. When all else fails hire an seo.

image credit: ivanpw

This is an excerpt from the Burson-Marsteller blog

Following in the footsteps of consumers, large international companies are now becoming active participants in social media. A recent Burson-Marsteller study found that 79 percent of the largest 100 companies in the Fortune Global 500 index are using at least one of the most popular social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or corporate blogs.

Like the Fortune 100 study found, Twitter is the social media platform of choice among the Fortune Global 100. The study found that 65 percent of the largest 100 international companies have active accounts on Twitter, 54 percent have a Facebook fan page, 50 percent have a YouTube channel, and one-third (33 percent) have corporate blogs. Only 20 percent of the major international companies are utilizing all four platforms to engage with stakeholders.

Companies’ platform preferences also differed among regions. Companies based in the United States and Europe are more likely to use Twitter or Facebook than they were to have corporate blogs, while companies from Asia-Pacific were more likely to utilize corporate blogs than other forms of social media. However, Asian companies will use Twitter or Facebook to communicate with Western audiences (for example, Toshiba).

It also appears that some companies are getting more comfortable using social media as they are interacting and engaging more and not just broadcasting corporate messages. Companies using Twitter are following an average of 731 people each and 38 percent of companies are responding to people’s tweets (for example, Vodafone UK). Thirty-two percent have also “re-tweeted” or reposted user comments during the last week (like Verizon Careers).

Everyone remembers the commercial Google aired on the Superbowl. Well to continue the success of that campaign Google released a fun new tool called Search Story Tool.  Not only is this a great piece of marketing but also teaches us a few things along the way.

Let’s break it down to see why this is such a great viral marketing campaign.

They kept the process simple… 3 steps is all

You write a little story add some music and the upload it after you check it out. Keeping the process clearly defined and easy to follow is a prerequisite for any viral marketing campaign. The harder it is the less likely it will take off.

Give Creativity to the end user

Everyone likes to tell their friends about something they made or created even if they had a little help. If you give a way for your end user to do a little bit of customization it will pay  dividends in the long run. Get creative and let your end user show their stuff.

Make it easy to share

If a campaign is going to go viral it needs a way to easily spread. Leveraging the end user’s social media connection is the fastest and easiest way to do just that. You don’t have to go crazy and give them every option under the sun but the top 2-3 will do just fine.

On a side note….

If Google didn’t test using Google Buzz as one of the viral tools…shame on them

Also don’t over look the ease of sending a link or embedding the media on a blog or website. It’s a great way to get your end user to spread the word even more. Nothing says Viral like being linked on millions of blogs and websites.

So to recap…

When creating a viral marketing campaign remember to:

1. Keep the Process Simple
2. Give Creativity to the End User
3. Make It Easy to Share

Don’t be shy let my know what you think and make a comment below

I was reading on the Aweber blog today that they just released a new feature for their autoresponder service. It has to do with the broadcast archive that’s available. I haven’t really used this feature very much mainly because it looked terrible and unless I put a link back to my site in the email it doesn’t link back to my site. here are a couple of screen shoots that I took from the Aweber blog to show you how this visually makes a difference.

Before

After

Now the old look vs the new look is 1000 times better. Here are a couple things that I really like

• Branding Elements added
• Reader Engagement in the Sidebar

These are great additions to the once very boring RSS feed of your emails. But as  marketer I look at things a little different. The biggest glaring thing that I see is inserted into the footer.

Don’t get me wrong I have no problem with them branding their own product. I do that all the time. After the excitement wore off of this new feature the problem I have is that I’m an affiliate of Aweber. And if someone reads my RSS feed and clicks on that link will I get credit?

NO…

There is no way of inserting my affiliate link in there **Hint: This would be a great new feature Aweber**

I’ve sent out promotional emails for them in the past. Put banners out on several sites that I have but this would undermine everything that I’ve worked so hard to do.

Can I just get a little help here!

[stepping off my soapbox now]

The other issue that I have is just a small one.

I love the branding elements so I can keep my messages consistent but how about a link back to my own website in the sidebar or header image?

Internet users have been conditioned to look for them there and the only thing that happen is they will remain in the archive. Since this RSS feed is actually hosted on Aweber’s site I can understand them not wanting to link back to my site….

Wait….

No I can’t. I am a paying customer and they are using my content to promote (very quietly) their email autoresponder service.

WOW! This is Genius. It’s like integration marketing in reverse. I wish I would have thought about doing that with my customers.

Wait… I do. But I actually ask them first.

Even though this is a great new feature these two glaring things make it a big turn off for me and I probably won’t be using it.

Anyway… Here’s a great video about the new feature from Aweber.

I normally don’t make post about online scams or questionable internet marketing tactics but this one is happening on such a large scale that I felt the need to pass it on. Last week the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation release a really disturbing investigation about some of the aggressive sales tactics that a surprisingly large number of Fortune 500 companies are practicing.

Here’s what Sen Jay Rockefeller had to say:

“After six months, this Committee has found that the companies we are investigating have figured out very clever ways to manipulate consumers’ buying habits so they can make a quick buck.  American consumers have been complaining for years about these misleading practices and asking for answers – and rightly so,” said Chairman Rockefeller. “Millions of Americans are getting hit with these mystery charges every month – we have to do all we can to protect the hard working families relying on us to look out for their wallets and well-being.”

The Today Show did a segment on it which you can view here.

What you need to know about the report.

• Three Internet companies—Affinion, Vertrue, and Webloyalty—exploit consumers’ expectations about online shopping to trick them into joining their membership clubs.
• Consumers often do not know these companies have their credit card numbers until they start seeing charges on their bank statements.
• Affinion, Vertrue, and Webloyalty and their e-commerce partners have earned over $1.4 billion in revenue with their misleading tactics.
• There have been more than 30 million consumer enrollments in these clubs and several million people are unknowingly enrolled in these clubs at any one time.
• More than 450 e-commerce websites and retailers have partnered with Affinion, Vertrue, and Webloyalty to employ aggressive sales tactics against their online customers splitting the revenue about 50-50.
• Eighty-eight companies have made more than $1 million by partnering with Affinion, Vertrue, and Webloyalty, including Classmates.com, which made more than $70 million.
• Almost no one receives the “cash back award” that Affinion, Vertrue, and Webloyalty offer to online consumers at the time of enrollment.

What do you think about this? Leave your comment below and pass it on.

This is a clip from the Web 2.0 Expo in NY of @chirsbrogan

A couple of questions that he posed at the end:

• how do we share?
• how do we develop relationships that yield?
• How do we collaborate? distribution

Spend the next 10 mins and listen to this video and gather the insight that you need to fix your social media strategy.

Is your marketing in order? With some of the biggest shopping days of the year just a few days away have you considered some of the other aspects to marketing online to have your best year ever this holiday season.

Black Friday: November 27, 2009  it’s the Friday after Thanksgiving this has been in years past the largest single shopping day of the year. If you have a retail location have you integrated your specials for that day in all your marketing and advertising?

Cyber Monday: November 30 2009, in the past few year the Monday after Thanksgiving has been the mega day for online shopping as people start to look for those special deal or those hard to find items that eluded them at the store. Send your emails early so people have them first thing in the morning.

Shipping Deadlines:Everyone wants their gifts delivered by Christmas so make sure you know the last day you can send your goods. Email reminders with incentives and if possible include free shipping (a big deal around the holidays)

• Wednesday, December 16, 2009 – USPS Parcel Post
• Thursday, December 17, 2009 – FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery
• Monday, December 21, 2009 – FedEx Express Saver, USPS First Class Mail, and USPS Priority Mail
• Tuesday, December 22 – FedEx 2Day
• Wednesday, December 23, 2009 – FedEx Overnight, UPS Next Day Air, and USPS Express Mail

The biggest thing to remember with customers is that they will always procrastinate. Keep them informed about shipping deadlines and remember in make adjustments on times to include your processing time. You will always have an influx right before the deadline be prepared and everyone will be happy. A happy customer knows what’s going on especially around the holidays.

Photo by: Premier Packaging

David Booth shows you how to run and play your first experiment using Google’s Website Optimizer. He also tells you about some case studies, best practices and usability tips. He even spills the beans on a few technical tricks for getting your first test up and running.