Secrets to Creating a Search Engine Friendly Website

Here is an interesting Free online event. This one is on making your site search engine friendly:

Secrets to Creating a Search Engine Friendly Website

Time and Place Date: Thursday, May 22, 2008
Time: 10:00am - 11:00am PDT (that’s 11am for MST)
Location: Online

PRICE: FREE

Register by clicking here

I was so excited to learn about this event that I signed up immediately upon seeing the invite. I am always interested to hear what the experts are saying about creating a search engine friendly site!

Though it is a field I am involved in, search is not my main focus: I like to focus on the visitor experience (after all, if the site is enjoyable for the visitors - who you are ultimately trying to get - it will help your search rankings, as well, because they will come back often and share your site with their friends.). But that doesn’t mean I ignore the search engines.

There are definitely proven steps you can take that help both the visitors’ experience and the search engines’.

That’s why, many of my clients’ sites get ranked quite well. In fact, I just got an email from one today (Read an excerpt from his email below and click on the screen shot to the right - just taken a few moments ago - to see a larger view of his current Google Results):

I am really happy with the work you’ve done on the site/seo. I get a lot of great feedback about the ease of use of the site, and that it is highly informative, and looks great. And I am hearing from a lot of folks (due to people finding the site in Google).

- Joseph Brenna from GuitarLessons.JosephBrenna.com

Another client sent this note after we posted a newsletter related article on his site:

Now indexed! Took all of about 4 hours from the posting.

-Adam from Lingoport

For those who don’t know, it used to take months to get your site indexed by Google and Yahoo. Fortunately, things have changed and now search engines send out crawlers all the time, to look for new content. Also, today, there are ethical ways to get indexed immediately. The above is an example of that.

What did we do? Simple, we built both these sites on the WordPress.org platform, which means when you post something, it doesn’t wait for the search engines to find it, it submits content to them, but that’s a post for another day.

To be able to share these kinds of results with my clients, I have to stay up on the changes happening in the industry.

Now, I am not an expert at SEO, and I have never claimed to be (in fact, if the client’s budget allows for it, I often recommend they hire a proven SEO firm to work along side me).

Since I am often creating my clients’ sites (whether with an outside firm’s assistance or not), as well as handling their marketing needs, it is critical for me to be as informed as possible of the ever changing world of search.

See, it is like this, the rules for search engine optimization are ALWAYS changing. So, if you are reading an article or a book that is more than 1 year old (maybe even 6 months old), chances are some of what’s mentioned has changed.

That doesn’t mean you won’t get ranked, but it Could possibly mean that you won’t get ranked well.

I don’t say that to be harsh or critical, I say that to make sure you understand that you either have to hire someone who is on top of these changes or (if you have a small or non-existing marketing budget, which is why I created MarketingAndWriting.com - and who I am trying to help here) you need to take the time to listen to free seminars, like this one, from (and this is equally important) reliable sources like the SEMpdx (which is the Portland Search Engine Marketing group).

They are doing this free webinar with Stoney deGeyter, President and CEO of Pole Position Marketing.

I registered for this great event so quickly, I didn’t even look at the calendar, to see what I had scheduled for that day. Turns out I am going to be on a road trip that day, so I do hope they record it (they usually do record webinars)! Just in case, please come back here and share all you learned!!!

WordPress Workshop Today

I probably should have posted this earlier, sorry.

Eliana Berlfein and the ladies of the Boulder Design Group have invited Angela Bowman and myself to give a WordPress Workshop for them, tonight at 5pm. So, email or call me to find out details, if you can make it.

At our last BDG meeting, Angela and I started telling everyone why we love WordPress. By the way, until last month, I had never met Angela. Yet, we connected so powerfully and, well, I guess persuasively that the group asked us to do a full presentation about how to use WordPress to build websites.

The best part is Angela and I come at it from different angles.

I come from the traditional offline marketing world and have been loving the Internet since 1995, when I first started using it as a research tool. Since then, with my company, UniqueThink, I have taught myself how to do social media and build search engine and visitor friendly sites for clients with small budgets.

Here is an example of some recent WordPress based sites I created:

Approachable Nutrition

Joseph Brenna’s Guitar Site

And, the latest (which I am collaborating with Patricia McFadden, the author on) is:

P.S. McFadden: Children’s Writer

Angela Bowman is a graphic designer, who started building sites for clients and found the versatility of WordPress was an incredible benefit for her and the client.

Here are a couple of the sites she used WordPress on:

Wendy the Weaver

Financial Abundance Guide

And, boy I wish I could show you her latest two, but they are still being designed and I am not sure she’d be happy with me. However, they are 100 times better than the two I just showed you of hers, not that they aren’t great sites.

But the fact is, we both are getting better every day, not only in our areas of specialty, but in each others areas, as well. And part of that reason is because we are sharing information with each other (and we’ve only known one another a month, yet we’ve both learned so much!).

So, tonight we are sharing that knowledge with the ladies of the Boulder Design Group.

If you are interested in the WordPress Workshop and can’t make it tonight, contact us to arrange for us to do this workshop with your group.

2008 Marketing eSummit

Thought some of you might find this of interest. It’s a FREE online event being put together by WebEx and MarketingSherpa:

Event: 2008 Marketing eSummit
Date: Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Event hours: 11am – 5pm EDT / 8am – 2pm PDT (that’s 9am for us mountain folk!)
View the Program Agenda

CASTING A WIDER WEB

Join in to discover best practices, get expert advice on emerging technologies in online marketing, and the best part is it is free & you don’t even have to leave your desk.

Sign up today! And meet me there.

Also, if you do attend, come back here and share the most important tip you learned!

Cover Story: A mini-doc on book covers

Eliana of the Boulder Design Group shared this video with me. I loved it and thought it might be of interest to some of you:

After all, a main marketing tool for any new book is its cover. This series, being put together by Barnes and Nobles, offers a look into the designing of book covers.

The first interview is with John Gall of Vintage & Anchor Books who shares his 5 rules for good book cover design.

My only disappointment in this series is that it is not a book, or at least it isn’t yet. Though I enjoyed the video, I would love to have this as a hardcover coffee table book, which had both the covers and the stories behind them.

Also, as a marketer, I’d have put a link on the page to be notified of the next installment in the series. This would make the visitor happy, because they’d remember to come back, plus B&N would have them on their mailing list.

What do you think? Let us know… post a comment below.

Click here to watch Cover Story now.

Inciting Inspiration: Combining timeless genius for a fresh look at today

I read about this video in an email from Very Short List and hesitated to go over and watch it, because I have a busy schedule today.

However, something made me check it out and, well, maybe it was exactly what I needed. It reminds me that sometimes you don’t need words to create a timeless message.

So, I decided to put the video here for you.  Hope it incites inspiration (on whatever level) for you, as well:

Inciting Inspiration: Combining timeless genius for a fresh look at today

The YouTube page states this:

No cue cards, no teleprompters, and no second takes–legendary funnyman Sid Caesar pioneered live television sketch comedy with his 1950s sitcoms Your Show of Shows and Caesar’s Hour. This classic sketch is “Argument to Beethoven’s 5th,” Sid Caesar and Nanette Fabray play a married couple in a argument with pantomimed action and the dialogue is classic music.Enjoy!

Getting over Writer’s Block

Here’s a quick video of Joel Comm getting over his writer’s block. His idea may help you, too.

I know, whenever I have any kind of creative block, I do as Joel suggests, and I remove myself from where I am. I saw a video years ago, can’t recall where, and they talked about this. They said when a ‘man’ (their words not mine) has a problem he needs to solve, he will usually do something to blow off steam. They showed a guy going out and playing basketball.

Then they said, LADIES, are you listening: “Women” (again, their words not mine) tend to dwell on their problems and don’t move pass them as easily. So, to prove them wrong (about women), I have always gone for a walk, gone for a drive, or even moved to another project. While I am doing the other activity, almost always, a light bulb goes off and I find my solution.

Just keep a small notebook and pen handy, so you can pick up where you left off…and bring your mittens (if you take Joel’s ‘uniquethink’ for locations to visit…)
Enjoy

By the way, if you have your own ‘uniquethink’ (a special trick or tip) for removing writer’s block, share it with everyone here, by commenting below.

A view of Social Media

I’ve wanted to write more about social media, so when I saw the following video on Click Newz with Lynn Terry, it seemed like a worthy post to share with you.

It’s with Boulder’s own Dave Taylor, who you may know from AskDaveTaylor.com - if not, you need to check that out too.

Just choose how you want to watch it, either flash or quicktime, and watch it from this page.

Dave discusses a little bit about blogging, as well as each of the following: LinkedIn, FaceBook, and Twitter. By the way, if you didn’t know you can find me on each of those, as well, just go to the following links:

FaceBook: http://profile.to/BethanySiegler/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/uniquethink
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/uniquethink

If you aren’t on any of these social media sites, now is the time. Don’t wait to know everything about it, just sign up and start adding connections and knowledge, as you go. (But take Dave’s advice, from the video, that this is a combination tool, half professional/half personal, so don’t post something you don’t want the world to know).

What? You don’t know who to invite as your ‘friends’? Well, these tools make it easy, they let you add contacts from your Outlook Express (or other mail clients). They will search and see if anyone whose email address you have is already on these services. And, you can always add me, too! Follow my shorter online actions, when I am not writing on this blog.

Then come back here and ask me questions that need more in depth discussions.

Hope this helps - watch the video now:

• Flash
• | QuickTime

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DYI PR Campaign Advice

So many people ask me for PR advice that I decided to provide you with some links:

1. The first one needs to be read right away, because, though it is available for free right now, it will only be open to the public until April 11th!

It’s called:

How to Do Your Own PR Campaign: 8 Steps & 3 Mistakes to Avoid

And it was written by Charles Epstein of BackBone Inc. I found it in MarketingSherpa’s newsletter and I would say, if you haven’t joined their free newsletter, you should definitely do that, too. Or at least check out their free reports section. I wish I had time to read everything in there, because just about everything I’ve read from their site has been useful!

Now about this PR advice, Epstein states a lot of good info, but this was one of my favorite things he wrote:

Tip: Think about what is going to happen during the next 3-6 months. What initiatives, new products, new partnerships can be announced? Come up with a rough schedule so you can plan when you will release the first, second and third press releases.

I think people tend to do one press release and leave it at that. But aren’t you always involved with new things, so why not make each one its own release?

For example:

1. New website or new blog - this is a great start, you are doing something fresh, tell people what your plans are and why you started the site/blog. What are you hoping to offer your visitors?

2. Partnering with someone - I often hear from authors that when they do book tours now-a-days they partner with another author. Isn’t that press worthy? After all, not only one great book author, but two are appearing at a store near you! If you let the press know, even if a particular publication is only interested in one of you, it is still more exposure for both, when people who read about it show up!

3. Awards - Karl Hirschmann (who designed my UniqueThink logo) of Hirschmann Design recently won 10 awards from a single competition. 10 awards is definitely news worthy, but so is one! Write about it!

These are just a couple of examples to get you started. But really, there is always something happening, so why not write up a simple release. Here’s what Charles says about writing up your first release:

The first press release should achieve three things:
o Let people know what you’re offering
o Let people know what problem you can solve
o Let people know why your solution is better than anything else

So, go read his article while it is available on MarketingSherpa.com - and sign up for their newsletter.

2. Publicity Hound - This is a great set of tips, 89 in all!

Joan Stewart of Publicity Hound offers up great advice. I signed up for this a year or two ago and I still go back and reference it. Your never too old or experienced to learn something new. Even though I have done PR since I can’t remember, it is not something I focus my business on (I am more interested in helping people build their online presence and things like that). So, when a client does ask me for help with a PR campaign, I like to check in and see what others are saying. Joan’s advice offers a lot of “new” PR insights.

What I mean by new PR is that traditional methods of doing press releases have been altered, like everything else, by the Internet.

Joan addresses that, and she does it for free!

So sign up for her 89 tips. You’ll receive them in your inbox each day.

If you can’t wait to read them all, she does sell an ebook with all 89 Tips in it for only $27. Having read the tips, I still consider purchasing the ebook, because then I’d have them handy when I went to look for them. (Oh, and I don’t get any commission on this ebook, I just really think it is well worth it).

Consider signing up for her free email of the tips, and decide later if you want to purchase the book, but sign up now. Because it is well worth the read.

Well, I hope that helps.

Let me know if you have a specific question about P.R., but first check out these links, because they might have already answered it.

Is this guy trying to control you?

MindControlMarketing.com: How Everyday People are Using Forbidden Mind Control Psychology and Ruthless Military Tactics to Make Millions Online

I received this email about Mind Control Marketing (a book that the author pulled off the shelves, when it originally came out) and I hesitated mentioning it on this site.

After all, I don’t like the idea of someone controlling me. And I don’t like the idea of other people being controlled, either.

But since the site and the book in question comes from Mark Joyner, I have to hope it is going to be done with the best intentions to help the newbie to ethically market their stuff. So hopefully it has helpful info.

Besides, if those ‘unethical’ marketing guys out there are about to get their hands on it, I wanted to make sure you guys could get your hands on it first!

Yeah! We’ll show them. If we all read this report, then those who shalt not be named won’t be able to control us! Right?!

So, if you want to see what all the hype is about, why not go to Mark’s newest site and take a look.

And, please let me know, by commenting below, what you think of the whole idea of mind control marketing and can it be used ethically.

Why Use a Reader?

A down side of working in a home office is you don’t have someone to bounce your copy off of before you release it to the world.

So, I have become very reliant on Victoria, the voice on my computer that reads text back to me.  Text to Speech Rules!

It’s not that I was lonely - after all - with email, blog comments, Skype, Meebo, Twitter… I’m always talking with or hearing from people.

The beauty of Victoria and her friends (most of which are too robotic for my liking) is they can read back to me what I just wrote - without bias opinions. Instead of saying, “You should say it this way…” (which is usually someone else’s voice not mine), she just reads exactly (well almost) what I wrote.

This means I can hear how it will sound to others.

Of course there is the occasional words:

1. “Read” is always read as “Reed” not “Red“

2. It won’t tell you of a typo like using “Their” when you mean “There“

3. If a product name is a made up word, sometimes it can’t figure out how to pronounce it

But overall she is a wonderful reader.

On the Mac, you can even choose which keystrokes you want to use to hear her reading. The default setting was Apple T, but since I am a Firefox tab user (which defaults to Apple T), it made for complications. I use Ctrl Z.

If you are on a Mac, and want to set this function up just follow these simple steps:

1. Open System Preferences

2. Click on the Microphone Icon that says “Speech”

3. Click on the Text To Speech tab

From there you can pick your System Voice and Speaking Rate. Also, you want to Check the box that says “Speak selected text when the key is pressed” and click the box next to it that says “Set Key.”

Again, the Set Key function is automatically set to Apple T (or at least mine was), so choose your preference.

That is it, you are done.

Unless you are on a PC. On a PC, there may be an easy function like the Mac, but on my old dog of a PC, I had to get a software application to do the same thing.

Good News, there is a free one that works fine:

ReadPlease can be downloaded for free from download.com - a reliable source for downloading free applications.

Bad News:

It makes you cut and paste your selected text and has limited voices to choose from, but it is free and I think it has an upgrade option to allow more functionality.

Either way, just to hear your words being read back to you can be a delight (if you write well) or a saving grace (if you are half a sleep and didn’t catch a typo that the spellcheck would never find).