I am asked from time to time whether or not I think it is important for a client to Blog or not to blog.  Here are my thoughts on the subject:

Advantages:

1. Blogging is a great way to add current hot topics to your website (this post is a good example!).
2. Blogging is a great way to add lots of search engine friendly content to your website.
3. For certain industries (i.e. Food prep, coupons, computers, seo, etc.), consistent blogging can help grow a loyal following and brand yourself fairly quickly (yet with a lot of effort).

Disadvantages:

1. Time.   The most successful blogs have people dedicated to not only writing lots of blog posts/articles, but also being involved in the blogging community.  All of which takes an enormous amount of time and effort.
2. Low Sales Volume.  For most industries (i.e. local movers, dentists, attorneys, etc.), no matter how much you invest into your blog, the people following blogs are more likely competitors rather than people looking to buy your products or services.
3. I am not much of a writer, nor enjoy writing all that much.  This is a disadvantage for me.

Conclusion:

To Blog or Not to Blog, really depends on your industry.  Are you in an industry where you can develop a loyal following outside of your competitors and brand yourself to people that may buy from you someday?  In a way, anyone might benefit from blogging at least a little.

Perhaps a good rule of thumb is to Blog once per month per employee.  I have one employee (myself), and have found blogging about once per month (or less) is a good fit.  I like to have the ability to add information about current hot topics and who knows, maybe I actually have a following out there.

I added a SEO Blogroll to the blog today.  For consideration please contact, webmaster@haymeadows.com.

Q. Have you ever wondered what the “…” is on the search engine result page?

A. This is what happens when the <title> of a web page is longer than 70 characters.  This character limit can change from time to time, and is different from search engine to search engine.

It is amazing to me to see how many SEO’s have a character limit that is too long.

HINT: If you cannot fit your most important keywords into a 70 character limit, you are probably targeting too many keywords for that page and need to split-up your targeted keywords into multiple pages.

It happened again this week (see May 2009 post), I had to turn two probable clients away due to potential conflict of interest – or perhaps that should read, I had to turn two potential clients away due to probable conflict of interest.  I really don’t like turning away business, but it seems the only right thing to do.  Client loyalty wins out, EVERY time!

You have certainly heard of Proctor and Gamble, Chevrolet, and Camel Cigarettes.  How did each of these survive the Great Depression?

Advertising

Here is a GREAT read on the subject, http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=178334

Hot off the press this week is Personalized Search and how this is going to effect rankings in the search results.  And, following the hot press, are the misguided “SEO is Dead” folks.

I am happy to report that not only is SEO not dead, it is still very much alive and kicking.  Personalized Search brings yet another variable into the equation that we SEO’s must stay on top of for our clients.

Like any industry where there is money to be made, there will be crooks that go after the easy money, inexperienced people that simply do not do a good job, and in the case of SEO’s there are also Pay Per Click experts, content pushers, and design experts after a similar piece of the marketing pie.

Instead of learning about SEO, many of these folks love to talk about how “SEO is Dead” or “SEO is Easy”, without truly understanding that “SEO is profitable” and our job as SEO’s is to squeak out the most profits possible for our clients giving them a bigger reason to invest into their overall internet presence.

To do this effectively, SEO needs to be managed and is not a one time job but a never ending process.  I am proud to provide this service to our clients – and am happy to provide it for you.  Simply contact me (Dan Guay) at webmaster@haymeadows.com, to get started today!  Thank you.

A downside of having a wealth of information at your fingertips like the Internet is that one negative review or testimonial can hurt (even) a good company’s reputation.  One of the most fulfilling things I have done recently is help companies keep the good name they have worked so hard on for years.

One of the first things we do is attempt to work with the website displaying the derogatory information.  Many times this does the trick.  For long term ongoing efforts however it is imperative that you work on getting sites ranking in the top 10 and then the top 20 for your company name in which YOU have control over the content.

Social media marketing places like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn are great for this.  Many times they will automatically rank well for your company name after just a small amount of participation.  Other times, it takes some SEO tricks of the trade (and Social Media tricks of the trade) to boost these profiles up the search engines and to help push down any negative press that might be surfacing near the top.

Another alternative is to SEO positive reviews and testimonials to the top of the search engines for your name/company name.  Creating sub-domains, an https:// page, and additional new websites are also other alternatives we have been known to have at our arsenal.

Why not pull out all the weapons, after all your online reputation management is probably one of the most important of all.

Windows versus PC Dos

Excel versus Lotus

MS Word versus WordPerfect

Internet Explorer versus Netscape

Bing versus Google

Are you ready?

A quick guideline for PPC:
#1 – Get your CTR as high as possible.
#2 – To do this you need to create smaller groups of keywords and make the ads very specific
#3 – Include as many long tail phrases as you can put together
#4 – Use keyword insertion, https://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=74996
#5 – Use keyword matching, https://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?answer=6100&cbid=-kaxh38b5gqh9&src=cb&lev=answer
#6 – Set a goal for Cost per Conversion and stick to it.  I tend to find myself adjusting the entire campaign around this number.
#7 – Set your budget and bid so that your ads run all day long getting you the most number of visitors for your budgeted amount.

Just a quick post to say that I think the recession is over.  In hindsight, several things coincided with the beginning of the recession business-wise for us; and those things have since reversed.  My hunch is in a few months, they will be telling us we started pulling out of the recession in May 2009.  There, it’s official.  That’s my prediction.