By ‘responsive’, I don’t mean to you reply to comments. Rather, does your website display properly on any device your readers might be using…
The wikipedia defines responsive web design like this "Responsive Web design (RWD) is a Web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from mobile phones to desktop computer monitors)."
Click images to enlarge:
While Google doesn’t ‘search for pretty’ [as I am fond of saying] it’s critical that your content will look good and be easy to use not matter on what device it lands!
Perhaps the beginning of the year is a good time to revisit your site from all the devices you use and make sure it measures up. If it doesn’t let’s talk…
Looking for an inexpensive alternative to a Macbook Pro with Retina Display? Get a Chromebook for a tenth of the cost and use VNC to connect for those few times you actually have to run an app off your Mac…
Looking ahead to 2014!? Is it too early to think about that already? Not if you’re a content marketer! I mean think about it — most of your competition will spend the month of December partying like the Grasshopper in the classic fable. It’s time to think now about being more intentional with your search engine marketing and social media and decide if you’ll be an Ant or a Grasshopper…
Looking ahead to 2014 I think the content marketing world will fall into two categories; those who are dominating search through effective use of Google Plus and those who are scratching their heads. In which category would you like to be? Don’t get me wrong! All of the basics still apply but now is a great time to review what you’re currently doing and thinking about adding Google Plus to the mix. Here are some thoughts I have on the subject:
Here’s the link to the Traphagan article — and sorry, it was Search Engine Land. By the way, I may turn this into a series depending on the feedback I receive so let me know what you think in the comments!
A few years ago, Eli Pariser did a now famous TED talk on the concept of filter bubbles. Here it is in case you haven’t seen it yet:
Now as a consumer of information this concerns me on some levels but as an internet marketer, it gives me all kinds of reasons to love any tool that allows me to create my own filter bubbles for myself or my clients and to use this to my/our advantage. I have come to believe that the best tool for creating these bubbles is Google+. Here’s Rand Fishkin of Moz talking about how it works:
Here are some of the world’s greatest Google+ practitioners [and Hulk Hogan] discussing how to put Rand’s insights into practice:
Does it work? It’s scary how well it does! If you agree with me that the number one benefit of using the internet for thought leadership is to get found when people are looking for you or what you do, Google+ is now the most important tool for you to understand and leverage. It’s all happening here…
I’m a huge fan of Gmail, but using ActiveInbox makes it even more useful for me! What is ActiveInbox? It’s an extension for Chrome that incorporates David Allen’s Getting Things Done [GTD] principles right in your inbox. Here’s a video of the new features coming online…
Want to get found on Google? As an adjunct professor for Search Engine Marketing and Social Media instructor at Northeastern Wisconsin Technical College and a personal digital coach in the same space, I spend a lot of time helping people get found in Google’s ‘Zero Moment of Truth‘ — the ‘space’ where people are googling their options before making a buying decision. I’ve been thinking about the importance of stepping up in Google+ for quite some time and Rand Fishkin’s post on Friday really got me thinking. Here’s a collection of thoughts on the topic…
If not, you might want to schedule [or reschedule] some time with me, the ’email whisperer’. I can show you how to apply Getting Things Done [GTD] principles to your inbox and help you get back in control with an intro session starting at $79…
You can’t run with the big dogs if you can’t get out of your inbox! Connect with me and let’s get started today via GoToMeeting…
No, I don’t use all of them [my list is here and the ones that I have automated are in color in the image below] — but I know they work with ifttt.com and I believe that automation is a big part of any efficient social media work flow. When you use a tool like ifttt.com, their engineers will keep track of all the connections for you and will even alert you via email if one of your recipes break! This product is so good, that I hope they offer an opportunity to pay for it soon…
As always, I recommend that you use exactly as many tools as you need and not a single one more…
Not familiar with ifttt.com? Watch this cute girl talk it up:
Personally, I think Matt Cutts and the Google Webspam team have waaaay too much power [which means you’ll probably never see this post!]. Watch any videos of him speaking about how the Google Webspam team treats specific technical issues and I think you’ll see what I mean. Struggling with the issue of how to adjust client sites for the latest release of updates to the Google search engine, I came across this:
Google’s Matt Cutts announced that Google is working on a search ranking penalty for sites that are “over-optimized” or “overly SEO’ed.”
Matt Cutts said the new over optimization penalty will be introduced into the search results in the upcoming month or next few weeks. The purpose is to “level the playing field,” Cutts said. To give sites that have great content a better shot at ranking above sites that have content that is not as great but do a better job with SEO.
And, if you really want a scare do a search on the phrase “Google penalizes” and you’ll see that Matt and his team have mafia-like powers to ‘disappear’ people and websites!
Now, here’s my issue. Can anyone define for me exactly what constitutes ‘over-optimized’ – even Cutts skirts the issue because defining the term would be to reveal too much about the Google search algorithm would be my guess. The question I have is this, then: if most sites are ‘under-optimized’ then are sites that follow best practices ‘over-optimized’?
Click image to enlarge…
Take for example a website that uses a tool like RebelMouse or Twylah to capture their tweets and other social media shares as Search Engine Optimization [SEO] by adding those tools as a cname extension, or one that adds a blog to a static website using tumblr or WordPress using the same approach – are these sites ‘over-optimized’ because the webmaster is clever?
See what I mean? Search Engine Optimization [SEO] is a moving target and Google-style ‘leveling the field’ means content creators are shooting at a moving target in the dark. What do you think?
I know I’m opening myself up to a flame war here but I’m going to come right out and say it; the Mac is just not worth the money, especially if you do most of your work in the cloud.
There was a time when the Mac was demonstrably better at some tasks than others and that’s why is used it as my primary platform for 15 years. Heck, I even worked for Apple for 3 years I believed in the product and company so much!
These days though, in my work as an internet consultant, I use Mac, Windows AND Ubuntu and I am fluent in all three. I see no perceptible value in using Mac over the other two; in fact, it’s more the other way around. I like my 64bit Windows 7 machine but as Windows 8 [which appears to be another Vista to me] grabs more desktop real estate, I’m spending more and more time honing my Linux skills. After all, the Ubuntu operating system offers many of the benefits of a Linux or UNIX based operating system that looks good, but it uses inexpensive Windows hardware – the best of all possible worlds! Especially if all you’re doing is using the internet…
Right now, I think the best combination of hardware and software for business blogging is a Windows 7 computer although that may change soon. No matter what, however, you won’t find me paying for a new Mac – I don’t need the industrial design when I’m just looking at a monitor they’re just not worth the cost especially when Firefox, Chrome and Safari run on all of the major computing platforms! Questions? Feedback?
As the great philosopher Eric Clapton reminds us — it’s not the tools, but it in the way that you use them!
Still, for those who are curious, here is a dynamic list of social media tools that I use and recommend. Questions? Feedback? I’m also available for Personal Digital Coaching in how to use these tools ‘on purpose’ to prevent ‘random acts of social media’… Continue reading “It’s in the way that you use it…”→
Whether you’re actively posting or just browsing through your social streams, things move pretty fast. A post is often there one minute and gone the next. With hundreds of millions of status updates and tweets sent every day, finding them later is next to impossible. Here are 5 tools to help you hang on to those updates through archiving social media posts you’d like to save.
One of the most important things thinkers who aspire to thought leadership need to do is to effectively manage the information they need to nurture and nourish their expertise…
I firmly believe the single most important issue in social media is not whether or not it works to generate leads; rather, how can I add social media to my already overflowing plate and still get home for supper. I think the first place where people can find additional time in their day is by more effectively handling e-mail. Conversely, I think it’s pretty difficult to think about the idea of becoming a thought leader if you have thousands of unread e-mails in your inbox especially when e-mail can be so easy to manage…
The first of the holy trio is Gmail. There are a lot of tips and tricks that you can apply to Gmail however I don’t think any one of them is more important than this: using e-mail for what I called just-in-time information — information that affects relationships and revenue. Everything else belongs somewhere else! If your e-mail inbox doesn’t look like this then you’re going to have a hard time adding the extra work that you need to do to establish your thought leadership position…
Your inbox CAN look like this most of the time…
The second member of the holy trio is feedly. I use feedly to track the sites, searches and sources that nourish my expertise. Instead of chasing information around the Internet I make the things I need to know flow to me. Because feedly is completely cross platform down to the smart phone level I can use it in Mac, Windows or Ubuntu [I prefer Chrome as my primary browser and all three] or on an Android or iOS device. Feedly gives me the ability to create a virtual newspaper jammed with the best content in the world and it’s free! It also allows me to quickly share the good things I find…
Use feedly to create a virtual newspaper that nourishes your expertise…
Last but by no means least is Evernote. Evernote is a cloud-based app that is completely cross platform down to the smart phone level so I can access the things I save from anywhere…
Evernote is the best platform for saving and sharing great information…
These three tools together give me everything I need to effectively manage the information I need to continually refresh my expertise. In the following screen cast of show you some of my favorite tips for using all three:
These are just the first three tools in my workflow — you can find more ideas here. If you could use some help managing the information you need to stay on top your game please contact me and ask me about personal digital coaching…
Earlier this week I had the opportunity to speak to a group of interior designers about how to become known on the Internet. It was one of the most enjoyable presentations I have given in a long time because 97% of the audience were lovely females from co-eds at UWSP to practicing interior designers, but I digress…
Many people in this audience were new to social media and it quickly became clear that the primary focus should be what’s the least amount of tools and work I can do to get started in the social media space. The conversation around that topic inspired me to come up with the following diagram and the explanation that follows it. I hope you find it useful…
Questions? Feedback? Comment below or connect with me so we can talk about how this applies to you and your situation…
By the way, here’s a copy of my opening presentation…
When I’m teaching social media, I don’t spend a lot of time talking about whether or not social media works for lead generation or thought leadership — that’s been pretty well established at this point. I usually start out my classes by saying that the single most important issue in social media today — especially for my students were who are mostly business owners or traditional marketing professionals — is ‘how do I add social media to my already overflowing plate and still get home for supper?’. Most of the people in my classes are struggling to keep up with e-mail let alone manage a blog, four social networks and an e-newsletter…
As a consultant, every minute that I spend on my own Internet marketing is a minute that I can’t bill to a client, therefore, I’ve had to force myself to become pretty efficient about how I do things like process e-mail, consumer information and published to the Internet. My constant inspiration in this process has been David Allen’s classic work ‘Getting Things Done‘. I recommend it to anyone who will listen. The heart and soul of David Allen’s book is this diagram:
How I apply Getting Things Done [GTD] to social media and ‘thought leadership’ marketing…
Thanks to David’s methodology I use as many containers as I need and not one more. I usually handle information only once — especially if I can process it in 2 min. or less. Here’s an attempt to depict what my thought leadership process looks like:
If you’re looking for a way to become more efficient about how you develop and document your expertise, comment below or use the contact form to get in such. I’d love to talk with you about applying David Allen’s Getting Things Done [GTD] principles to your world…
Do you ever wonder what makes certain people captivating, and others…
Not so much?
Often, it has nothing to do with someone’s age, looks or even talent, but rather an innate ability to get and keep other people’s attention.
Kind of like an “it factor.”
Now what if I said that you have this certain “it factor” too but you probably don’t know it and worse, you’re not using it to your full advantage.
Hopefully, you’d be intrigued enough to keep reading…
Because my guest today, Sally Hogshead, is the world’s leading expert on the science of fascination and she’s going to show you six steps to be more fascinating.
Now before you balk, please understand that this isn’t about changing who you are.
This is about understanding and embracing the distinct advantages you were born with and being more of that.
Why prefer Coke over Pepsi or GE over Samsung or Ford over Chevy?
In markets that aren’t natural monopolies or where there are clear, agreed-upon metrics, how do we decide?
Yes, every brand has a story—that’s how it goes from being a logo and a name to a brand. The story includes expectations and history and promises and social cues and emotions. The story makes us say we "love Google" or "love Harley"… but what do we really love?
We love ourselves.
We love the memory we have of how that brand made us feel once. We love that it reminds us of our mom, or growing up, or our first kiss. We support a charity or a soccer team or a perfume because it gives us a chance to love something about ourselves.
We can’t easily explain this, even to ourselves. We can’t easily acknowledge the narcissism and the nostalgia that drives so many of the apparently rational decisions we make every day. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not at work.
More than ever, we express ourselves with what we buy and how we use what we buy. Extensions of our personality, totems of our selves, reminders of who we are or would like to be.
Great marketers don’t make stuff. They make meaning.
What is a blog? It can be everything and it can be nothing. As the Bard said “Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so”. During my blogging career, I estimate that I have created between 15 and 20,000 blog posts on every topic from A-to-Z — most of them, unfortunately, ineffective…
And this is only my business blog…
In this next phase of my business I’m attempting to become more mindful and intentional about what I’m doing online and why in this post is an attempt to unpack blogging from that perspective; more mindfulness and awareness of why we actually do social media and what we can expect from the effort.
What blogging isn’t…
A get rich quick scheme. If you are thinking that this was one of those articles I think you’ll be happier somewhere else on the Internet. But if you’re looking for deeper insight into what blogging is from perspective of mindfulness and intention and what it can do for you then please read on… Continue reading “What is a blog?”→
Bright, shiny objects! 
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