Tag: Website

Image representing Alltop as depicted in Crunc...
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As a father of 6, parental analogies are always close at hand for me. It’s why I sometimes say that clients are like children in that when you see them take the things you teach them and they make it their own and excel, you can’t help but burst with pride. Recently, the AGCO blog was included in the agriculture feed at Alltop, the internet’s best source for news aggregation, becoming the only Farm Equipment manufacturer to do so…

AGCO’s success should rightly be credited to Jamy Johnson, a budding online community manager and social media practitioner who took the time to embrace the ‘e1evation workflow’ and make it her own. Last month, their blog had over 10,000 visits and it’s rapidly becoming a key factor in lifting the corporate website to new heights in search and traffic rankings as well…

Kudos to Jamy’s manager Sue Otten who had the courage to embrace social media in the ag space before ag social media was cool! If Jamy and Sue can rise to the top using “good, fast, and cheap” social media tools for agriculture, imagine what you can do in your industry!

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The way we get our news is changing

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Interesting data from a great source that should have you thinking…

“In the digital era, news has become omnipresent. Americans access it in multiple formats on multiple platforms on myriad devices. The days of loyalty to a particular news organization on a particular piece of technology in a particular form are gone. The overwhelming majority of Americans (92%) use multiple platforms to get news on a typical day, including national TV, local TV, the internet, local newspapers, radio, and national newspapers. Some 46% of Americans say they get news from four to six media platforms on a typical day. Just 7% get their news from a single media platform on a typical day.

The internet is at the center of the story of how people’s relationship to news is changing. Six in ten Americans (59%) get news from a combination of online and offline sources on a typical day, and the internet is now the third most popular news platform, behind local television news and national television news.

The process Americans use to get news is based on foraging and opportunism. They seem to access news when the spirit moves them or they have a chance to check up on headlines. At the same time, gathering the news is not entirely an open-ended exploration for consumers, even online where there are limitless possibilities for exploring news. While online, most people say they use between two and five online news sources and 65% say they do not have a single favorite website for news. Some 21% say they routinely rely on just one site for their news and information. ” Source: Overview | Pew Internet & American Life Project

Me? I use over 600 online sources aggregated in one great tool; Google Reader! Occasionally, I listen to WTAQ, but that’s not for the news — it’s to catch my good friend Jerry Bader! I rarely if ever watch television or read a dead tree newspaper for the news — I get it ALL online. I’ve covered my methodology in great detail here and here. Comment, call or contact me if you’d like to take your news aggregation needs to an unprecedented level…

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Email Overload: Download a Free Copy of David Allen’s Email Rules

Getting Things Done
Image via Wikipedia

Having problems managing email?

David Allen, author of Getting Things Done and inspiration for a lot of posts ’round these parts, gives away a free four-page PDF at his website that covers his basic principals for keeping email organized. Getting specific without going too in-depth, he explains the ‘two minute rule,’ why action-able emails should be kept separate from others, and why creating your own system—such as Gina’s [Trapani’s] modified ‘Trusted Trio‘. Great reading for GTD neophytes, and a good brush-up for the rest of us.”

Click here to get your copy! If you’re a Gmail user [and I hope you are] there’s more information here on how to use Gina’s system with Gmail or Google Apps mail.

Me personally? I use Gmail and Google Apps mail in conjunction with Remember The Milk [RTM]– the powerful task manager with the equally funny name. RTM gives me special tools to use within Gmail that allows me to convert an email to a task. In all fairness, Google now includes this feature in their task management system, however, it was not available when I built my approach to task management…

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A Tale of Three Websites

Here’s a case study — unscientific as it may be — about 3 websites. One is 12 years old, one 7 years old, the other was launched a little over two months ago. The first belongs to radio station WORQ, the second belongs to WTAQ, the third also belongs to WORQ — both stations serve the Northeast Wisconsin market. All three sites serve a similar demographic, although the WORQ properties have an added ‘spiritual element’ that WTAQ does not have…

Here are the Alexa snapshots for each of the websites…

Here’s what I find interesting. WTAQ has the highest traffic rank as well they should — they are a large and successful part of Midwest Communications and they are the local outlet for Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and my good friend Jerry Bader, who regularly outperforms them both in the Arbitron ratings. I don’t know what the budget was for the recent overhaul of the website, but it has yielded them great results in the Alexa rankings — until the ‘total beauty makeover’, WTAQ’s site was ranked in the top 5 million or so. Today they rank at 173,161.

WORQ’s website has been up almost since the dawn of the internet — 5 years longer than WTAQ and their Alexa ranking is a respectable 410,018. Not bad considering they are a Christian radio station that runs on donations. Their developer, Virtualtech, is doing a nice job for them and the station leverages the website well. I do not know the budget for the site…

Now for the upstart ‘Standupforthetruth.com‘. The site was launched two months ago as a companion site to a program called ‘Stand up for the Truth’ which airs M-F, for one hour at 9 CDT [listen here, either online or via podcast]. The show was launched December 6 and the site had a hard launch just 5 days before that. Here’s what I find noteworthy: Standupforthetruth.com is closing in on WTAQ’s Alexa rankings at 175,558 and should pass them up this week on their current trajectory. Pretty impressive considering the total budget for technology and training was less than $1,250!

In the spirit of full disclosure, I developed the social media hub for Stand Up for the Truth. The technologies implemented are all what I refer to as “good, fast, and cheap” free, open source tools:

  • Gmail
  • Google Reader + Feedly
  • Chrome + Shareaholic
  • Posterous
  • Facebook Page
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • MailChimp

All these “good, fast, and cheap” technologies are rolled up in the ‘e1evation workflow‘ — a ‘thought leadership’ methodology that produces great results online. Program host and station General Manager Mike LeMay has been trained in the ‘art’ of ‘consume, create, communicate’ and has done quite well considering he is an admitted technology neophyte. He would be the first to admit that program co-host Amy Spreeman and Hopenet360 director Jeff Strommen have been tremendous assets on the project, but he has come a long way himself demonstrating that the ‘e1evation workflow’ is truly ‘Mike-proof’!

There’s a fine line between blowing your own horn and sharing a story and I hope I haven’t crossed it here. I do believe, however, that it’s a sad dog that can’t wag it’s own tail from time to time. I don’t take credit for Mike’s great thinking, but he has confirmed again that the ‘e1evation workflow’ may be the shortest path to thought leadership on the internet. Mike perspective? “This just shows how hungry some Christians are for Truth. Lord willing He will be glorified as we move forward.” Ouch. I’m humbled — so much for my dog’s tail. I’ll put it between my legs where it belongs…

Bottom line? You don’t need to spend a lot of money to get your point across on the online — a ‘little guy’ like Mike bringing in the same traffic as a ‘big guy’ like Jerry Bader in such a short period of time and with so little money spent is an internet marketing success story of ‘David and Goliath’ proportions. Comment, call or use the contact form to connect so we can talk about how this applies to your business…

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6 Ways to Optimize Your Blog for Search Engines

a chart to describe the search engine market
Image via Wikipedia

In an earlier article, I talked about the importance of blogging and search engine rankings. However, once you’ve got the blog up and running, the next thing to do is to start optimizing your posts for the search engines. Although search engine optimization (SEO) can be overwhelming to the newcomer, once you understand a few basic concepts, you’ll soon find it’s really not that difficult.

Good SEO copy and a search engine–optimized website accomplish three things:

  1. They’re easy for the search engines to read
  2. They’re easy for the target audience to find
  3. They’re easy for people to read

Everything you do to optimize a post is based around those three basic concepts.

So with that in mind, here are six things you can do to optimize your website or blog posts for the search engines…

via socialmediaexaminer.com
You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go directly to the source to get the whole story if you’d like to get the 6 ways…
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B2B Social Media And Lead Generation

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With a business blog, there are many different ways to get people to become a “lead” from a visitor.  For example: including buttons in the sidebar to talk to a representative, or text links within content to whitepaper landing pages or to download content.  HubSpot has found it successful to add calls to action at the end of content.

We have found that a majority of posts generating leads haven’t been published recently.  Older content is generating  leads.

It’s important to remember that your customers are more important than you are.  For example, HubSpot has a customer in Virginia that installs pools and spas.  All he does is share what someone might want to know when installing a pool.  He doesn’t directly sell his products, but that’s okay.  Even if people aren’t ready to buy, publishing value added content adds them into that consideration section.

Getting all team members involved in the business blog is vital.  People want content from people, not necessarily just companies.  Getting different people from different departments – i.e., research or product, allows marketers to expand the relevant information covered on a given blog to appeal to a larger subset of customers.

Business blogging drives leads and serves as a hub for search and social media visitors.  It doesn’t feel like they are visiting a website that hasn’t been updated in years.  A blog provides much better context for a business.

via toprankblog.com
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Make the switch to Posterous [+ WordPress]

A couple of weeks ago, the brilliant guys at Posterous started an even more brilliant marketing campaign to tout the efficacy of their Posterous platform against other blogging tools. They culminated their campaign with a post on the ‘Top 5 reasons to switch from WordPress to Posterous’ by saying…

“We’d be crazy to declare war on WordPress. It’s the most popular blog platform in the world — gazillions of bloggers have custom WP installations with plugin functionality that Posterous won’t touch anytime soon.

But WordPress isn’t for everyone, a fact supported by the thousands of WordPress users who have switched to Posterous in the last two weeks. So we thought we’d let some of them tell you why they switched.” Source: Top 5 reasons to switch from WordPress to Posterous – The Official Posterous Posterous

I encourage you to follow the link and read the 5 reasons. They conclude by saying…

“We’ve made it easy for you to make up your own mind by making the move from WordPress to Posterous hassle-free. We’ll copy over your blog content, URL slugs, comments and tags. Just go to posterous.com/switch/wordpress and enter in the url of your blog and email address.

We’ll take it from there. You don’t even need to set up a Posterous account. We’ll email you when we’re done copying your blog. And don’t worry, your WordPress blog will still be there.” Source: Top 5 reasons to switch from WordPress to Posterous – The Official Posterous Posterous

Here’s where I’ll add my two cents — which I think is actually worth quite a bit more! While I have used Posterous alone to take down website competition with much bigger staffs and budgets, the point I’d like to make here is that the answer in business is rarely either/or — many times it’s both/and. IMHO, WordPress still reigns supreme when it comes to the ability to theme a site and leverage plugins — they said it themselves: “custom WP installations with plugin functionality that Posterous won’t touch anytime soon” but Posterous handles some of the more difficult WordPress tasks automagically. So, why not use BOTH?! Posterous can automatically post to over 25 different internet platforms so I post to my Posterous blog and then autopost to my WordPress site. That way, I can leverage the 5 reasons to switch while still using my powerful WordPress site with the theme, the plugins and the seo that I’ve come to love AND generate valuable seo links from my Posterous blog to my WordPress blog as well. As you can see below, it’s working like crazy…

My ‘e1evation workflow’ leverages the simplicity of Posterous and the publishing power of WordPress in one, easy to use approach. I used this workflow for the 2nd quarter of this year and my traffic increased 590%. What’s even better is that thanks to Posterous, it’s drop dead simple to teach. Comment, call or use the contact form to discuss how we can apply the ‘e1evation workflow’ to your business…

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Blogging is the answer. Now, what is the question?

My business website is one of the most visited sites in Wisconsin, outranking websites with much bigger brands, more popular products, and bigger marketing staffs. How do I do it all by myself? The short answer is that I blog. The longer answer is that I have a documented workflow that anyone can use to drive traffic to their website and value proposition and it’s driven by email and bookmarking – two skills that almost everyone has mastered in this new millennium…

Now I don’t know a whole lot about search engine optimization or SEO – if that’s what you’re after, you want to call my friends at Envano. I do know however, that if you use the right tools and process, there’s a natural SEO that occurs through frequent posting. That ‘right tool’ is a blog…

“B2B blogging experts understand that a blog is a lead generation machine. This blog generates more traffic than our main company website. Each month, tens of thousands of people find this blog through search engines and social media websites, and thousands of them like the content enough to take the next step and respond to one of our offers and become a lead.

Some B2B bloggers think a business blog is just about thought leadership. Yes, B2B blogging is great for thought leadership and brand building. But, with this blog we get all the benefits of thought leadership, and also get lots of leads. By maximizing the lead generation potential of your B2B blog, you can have your cake (thought leadership) and eat it too (leads).” Source: How to Turn a Blog into a B2B Lead Generation Machine

There are options to consider whether you have a website or not. The first situation may actually be easier to resolve, depending on how much you want your new blog to resemble your existing website. I used to be a real stickler on this, but as time has gone on, I’ve become less concerned about matching the exact look and feel of the site [just know there are options for you regardless of your perspective] and more concerned about just driving traffic.

It’s an easy thing for me to add a blog to an existing site that will drive traffic using my ‘e1evation workflow’. From a design perspective, it’s much easier to just start from scratch using WordPress – a blogging platform that offers blogs that are already integrated with websites – but starting from scratch begs the issue of how you will populate the other pages on your site with information about your brand and products…

The bottom line is that whether you have an existing website or not, there are a couple of “good, fast, and cheap” solutions that are available to you. If you’re trying to figure out how you can add blogging and social media to your already overflowing plate and still get home for supper, comment, call or contact me — I’d love to show you how…

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Make your LinkedIn profile as effective as it can be…

…while avoiding common mistakes. I’ve collected some great resources for you here…

Posted via web from e1evation, llc

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Kick Off Your Web Project the Right Way

I don’t normally post over here very often but since this is a busy week for Todd I figured I would share a few things.  Normally I blog about making beer and staying productive but lately I’ve been spending a lot of time exploring project management, web development and freelance contracting.

Today I want to share with you some tips for getting a good start on a web project.  For those lucky souls to have hired a web consultant, defined a project and implemented it flawlessly then don’t waste your lunch hour here.  Get on Facebook or Twitter or something else and enjoy your time.

For those of us who have had projects go south here are my top four (yes, only four – if you have a fifth please add it to the comments to share with the rest of us) tips to kick off a web project the right way.

1. Clearly Define the End Result
I’ve worked with a lot of clients that expressed some vague goals like “I want a website” or “I want to rank in the #1 spot on Google for a generic keyword”.  These are not good goals to give to a consultant (unless you have a lot of money to burn, in that case – email me…). Continue reading “Kick Off Your Web Project the Right Way” →

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Why no one is reading your blog…

You want to throw a party and have lots of people show up.
You want to have a successful blog but you want people to read it.

It’s a trick
So here’s the trick (and it really is a mental trick).  You have to write a blog post like someone is reading it…even if no one is.  Anyone who knows how to use Google and can “cut and paste” can add analytics to their site to see exactly how many people are visiting.  Here’s my advice…add analytics and then ignore them.  They’re too discouraging and in the end it’s not the point.  CNN.com has a lot more visits than your web site and they always will.  So what?  If your goal is to spread your ideas then start spreading them one post at a time.  You’ll know when your ideas are spreading, trust me.

How do I get traffic?
Somebody cares about what you’re saying.  If no one seems to care then talk about something else or change how you’re delivering your message.  But, somebody cares.  Let’s go back to the party comparison.  If you don’t come to my party guess what…I’m not coming to yours.  So if you want me to come to your blog then come to mine and let me know how to get back to yours.  If you want readers then spread the love.  Spend time at other blogs and then go back to yours regularly and write like someone is reading it.

You better have a frosty beverage for me
The other reason you need to write like someone is reading is that one day, when you do start to get visitors you’ll need something for them to read.  Blogs archive your entries so they’ll have a treasure trove of info that you’ve written if you post before they show up. Not regularly posting to your blog or creating content of any kind (podcast, ebooks etc.) and inviting me to visit your site is like inviting me to a party without having any good beer to drink or any food to snack on.  When I get there…I expect something from you.  It’s bad news if you expect those people to come back if they didn’t find anything the first time they showed up…they’re not likely to return.


Action points:

  • Install analytics on your site
  • Ignore the analytics for a long time
  • Comment on other sites every day (you can start with this blog).  Commenting on the big blogs can get you traffic…not from the big names but from other people who leave comments (happened to me this week).
  • Write a post a week (minimum).  But please write something.
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I’m playing around…

…with a new site template this morning. Please take a minute to offer your opinion on the new site design…

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I keep telling you…

…that in order to thrive, not just survive, on the internet, you’ve got to master RSS feeds! Perhaps if someone else explains it this time, it will start to sink in…

“RSS or “Really Simple Syndication” is a term used to explain how, instead of you having to chase all over the Web to find the latest stories and news items you are interested in, you get the Web to bring them to you.

This can save you hours. I call it designing your own news service, delivered to you every day or as often as you want.

The “syndication” part of it is like when a comic strip is “syndicated”, that is, licensed to be used in newspapers all over the world. Bloggers and others who provide stories and articles online want more people to read them, so they “syndicate” them – that is, give permission for them to be read where you want to read them.

Blogs (and some other websites) have code in them to make this happen – it’s called a “feed” because it feeds the information to you that you want. How you usually know where that code is to be found is the orange (or whatever colored) icon. And sometimes words like “subscribe to my feed” or “subscribe to this blog”.

“Subscribe” just means that you get the feed and put it into a tool called a “feed reader” – most of these are free.” Source: What’s RSS? — Des Walsh dot Com

Do go to the source and read the rest of the article, but only if you’re wanting to gain a competitive advantage that will help you crush the competition!

Then, if you’re inspired, go back and read all the posts I’ve done on the topic! Hmmm. Sounds a little cranky — maybe I need more coffee [or, I’ve had too much!]… ;-)

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I’m working on a project…

…to put my business online using only tools that are freely available from Google. The purpose of the exercise is to ‘eat my own dog food’ so to speak and thereby demonstrate that it’s possible for any entrepreneur, SMB, volunteer group, etc. to have a robust web presence and take advantage of these tools for their own purposes. Sign up for updates in the Feedblitz box in the right hand column and track my progress…

Update, November 9: I ultimately had to pass on this project in favor of adding WordPress and a few other tools to the mix. Since the time of this original post, I’ve learned 10x more about ‘good, fast and cheap’ tools to put your business on the internet. Questions? Feedback? Comment, call or write!

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Tactic #3: Blogging. The ‘why’ and the ‘how’…

WordPress
Image via Wikipedia

Tactic #3 in the series ‘tactics and tools for tightening your tribe using social media’ is blogging and I’ll be covering not only the why but the how. Admittedly, though, the more obvious something is to me, the harder it is to write about it and blogging falls into the ‘duh’ category as in “Do you blog?” “Duh!” The benefits are that obvious! Let me back off a little though and see if I can make my case…

In the olden days — the days when my boys tell me I grew up — freedom of the press belonged to those with a printing press. Now, anyone who can fill out a form on a website can have a blog. Seriously, it’s that easy — why do you think there are so many bad blogs out there? ;-)

A good blog, however, is a powerful tool for establishing thought leadership in an area. My good friend Dana VanDen Heuvel @ MarketingSavant describes it this way — the difference between a thinker and a thought LEADER is that the thought leader has a public point of view. That public point of view leads to share of voice, which leads to share of mind, which leads to share of market and that improves your bottom line! Personally, I know of know better way to make your point of view known than using a blog. Continue reading “Tactic #3: Blogging. The ‘why’ and the ‘how’…” →

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There is no ‘easy button’…

'THAT WAS EASY!'
Image by spackletoe via Flickr

…for social media, but there are some good, fast, and cheap tools that are simple to use and support the social media lifestyle. Unfortunately, most companies are taking a different approach. My good friend Dana VanDen Heuvel scratches his head here…

“I was in a meeting recently where I witnessed a demonstration of a very well developed internal social network for a fairly sizable, though not very well known company. This particular tool was (almost) completely custom coded by the developer and web design shop for their client. While I sat through the meeting, I wondered “why did they build this from the ground up? isn’t there an off the shelf package to do this?” Which, being one of outsiders, I asked “so, why did you build this from the ground up? isn’t there an off the shelf package to do this and didn’t the client ask for an evaluation of best-of-breed software before giving you the go ahead to do this?”” They chose us because we have passion…

Here’s what I have found. You don’t have to have a spectacular website to dominate as a thought leader, but having a good blog with good content and social media connections helps! Most important? It’s not expensive dollar-wise, but it does take a certain mindset. My formula for using a blog for thought leadership? Good system and process based on a couple of free tools! Questions? Feedback? Leave a comment or use the contact page to reach me…

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