Business Blogging Consultants

Prescribing Web 2.0 Solutions For Your Business

2012-02-03T14:26:41Z

"TELL US WHAT YOU DON'T LIKE ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS..."

Common answers we hear are, "I hate my website - not enough traffic." or "I don't have enough customers." "GOOGLE can not find me!" or "I need to reach a wider audience."

You tell us your symptoms and we'll help you find the cure.
We are the business M.D.s, Michael Snell and Derrick Sorles.

Utilizing the Internet, we can help bring "pull" new business to you!

You have a website - great! That's one seed.
We know where and how to plant a hundred more seeds because wouldn't you rather have a full-blooming garden?

85% of People Find What They Are
Looking For by Using Search Engines.

Can Consumers Easily Find Your Business by Search?

Or look at it like this, if you have only a website today, that's like having a billboard out in a cornfield on a dirt road.

Wouldn't you rather have your billboard on a busy freeway where thousands and thousands of people can see it?

New studies show that companies that blog, have 55-75% more website visitors and up to 70-85% more leads per month than those who do not. These stats make it clear that blogging is a critical piece of a company's inbound marketing strategy.

Let us help you take your business to the next level.

Let us put our expertise to work for you! Since 2005, we have invested and studied for over 20,000 real time hours. (10,000 hours makes someone an EXPERT).

With all the noise in the market, it's hard to sort through the Clutter and Confusion and Identify the Social Media Tools that result in New Sales Opportunities. We'll walk you through the Tools You Should Use and how to integrate them to help bring eyes to you and/or what you do or offer.

We can be your mentor. We have BEEN THERE and DONE THAT. We can guide you because we know the terrain, the pitfalls and the challenges. We know what to do - and more importantly, what NOT to do! We can save you valuable time and teach you what we have already learned and figured out.

We are your business Marketing Doctors!

Michael Snell, Marketing Strategy, M.D.
Derrick Sorles, Business Strategy, M.D.

Your Business M.D.s
Providing business blog consulting and networking strategies
for your online business opportunities.

Komens Ship is Sinking with Planned Parenthood Nightmare

2012-02-03T14:26:08Z

You do realize the importance now, of Social Media, right?

We live in a transparent world people!

We have told clients for years, what a powerful medium this is growing into. As of this month, 800 MILLION people use Facebook! They had 600 million last year. And Twitter has 200 Million users. That's a LOT OF CONVERSATION.

Social Media destroyed 3 decades of brand building in just 24 hours. Susan G. Komen for the Cure has been rebranded. In a bad way.

Planned Parenthood made the announcement - and people around the world weighed in with anger, disgust, revolt and wrath! Within 24 hours, people dropped their support for Komen like a hot potato. They cut $900,000 out of their grant money and it will cost Komen MILLIONS and MILLIONS of dollars now.

Komen has faced a massive social media backlash since announcing the decision, with angry people flocking to its message boards and Facebook wall to announce that they will no longer donate to the breast cancer charity.

(FYI - After partnering with Planned Parenthood for the past five years to provide cancer screenings to low-income patients, Komen announced on Tuesday that it would sever ties with the family planning provider, and deny their $900,000 grant, because it is under investigation in Congress. However, the Republican Senator and groups that prompted that investigation are anti-abortion advocacy organizations that have long criticized Planned Parenthood over the fact that some of its clinics offer abortions.)

It spread like wild fire - Facebook and Twitter were swamped with pro-Planned Parenthood, anti-Komen comments. At one point last night, Kivi Miller did a quick count and found the ratio of anti-Komen’s decision to pro-Komen’s decision to be about 80 to 1 on Twitter.

Their mission blow up aside, they completely failed to understand how the Internet works, how news spreads, how a news cycle works, and the political climate.

(That's another whole story! The left side - Democrats - are using Social Media at high speed! Speaking out about the Republican's hourly! You have to admit, the Republicans have no one solid this year!)

But back to our story - Komen knew they planned to make this decision for almost 1 year. Their first mistake was they didn’t break the news, Planned Parenthood did with a press release. So right from the beginning they were not in control of the story. The story contained within the press release spread like wildfire on twitter, Facebook, and on listservs of activists.

And there’s absolutely nothing Komen can do to stop the story now. Even if they were to announce that the people responsible for the decision had been fired and the funds were being restored there’s plenty to keep going. And a door has been opened for all sorts of activism that wouldn’t have made an impact just 72 hours ago. New dimensions to this story will surface on their own, or activists will take action to keep the story going.

At the end of all this, whenever that comes, Komen will be a completely different organization. By changing their mission and stepping into a political debate unprepared, they will have had their future written for them by others.

Business Blogging Consultants

Organic Search Results are KING

2011-12-20T09:34:00Z

I hope you are measuring your site's traffic. I was talking with a client the other day and asked, "so what keywords are people using to find you?"

And the client had a glazed look on his face. Then I asked, "Do you know how many unique visitors you are getting a day? or a month?"

And the client had no idea.

So installed Google analytics into his site and followed up 30 days later.

It appears he is getting 5-10 unique visitors a day - but, almost all the traffic is direct hits
(meaning they already know the client and his business or were referred to the site, from his main website, business card email signature.)

5% were coming in by way of pure organic search. That's not good. That means he is losing, at the Google game.
The "findability" game.

We have 12 sites. All of our sites attract 70-80% of all my readers, from pure organic search. That means they find me in top Google searches, for the keywords I want to be found for.

Last month my 12 sites came up for over 150,000 different keywords. THAT's how people find YOU. Not paid place placement. Not paid search. Pure ORGANIC search.

Organic describes a search that returns results by indexing pages based on content and keyword relevancy.
This is in contrast to listings ranked based on who paid the most money to appear at the top of search results.
Sometimes this is called "pure" or "natural search" as it is supposed to be "untainted" by commercial payments or bids.

If people thought their searches returned nothing but a bunch of advertisements, they would stop searching.
For that reason these organic listings are pure, or at least the search engines want us to believe they are pure.

Google has been praised heavily for returning what many have deemed the most relevant search results while
keeping their revenue stream clearly isolated from the organic listing results. As time passes though pressures
have degraded Google's search relevancy.

If your site is set up properly, you do your posts properly, position your posts for Google search, THEY WILL INDEX YOU! And you will ATTRACT readers.

SEO Tips to Improve Organic Rankings
There are many stages to achieving great organic listings.

- Scope out the competition to see how competitive your keyword landscape is.

- Decide what keywords you want to use prior to making your site (and before each page), and include them in your meta tags , page copy, page title, and file names when possible.

- Your site should be easy to navigate and search engine friendly.

- Submit your site to the directories - and share your site link in Social Networks.

- Build a linking campaign. (Link building is the single most important step to EFFECTIVE SEO.)

If you are not getting at least, at the very low end 50% of your traffic from pure organic search - you are doing something wrong.

Get Help!!

Can Your Business be Found online? Or Are You Invisible?

2011-01-13T00:40:00Z

Our number one complaint from new clients, when we ask them what they don't like about the current website, is that they don't come up in search for ANYTHING!

They are basically
invisible.

Of course they are! MOST websites templates are not built for search. You HAVE TO be using the right templates and know what your doing! They playing field has changed and most webmasters do not know how to play the new game of "findability".

You HAVE GOT TO be able to ATTRACT new eyes, by way of the web and all of its Social Media strategies. Period. That's the bottom line. If you are not doing that, they are are not going to survive.

Branding and Development: LOOKS are everything. You want to create a superior and easily recognizable brand and/or image that promotes attention, loyalty, and profits. We can help you increase your brand recognition by ensuring it is positioned appropriately, distinguished from your competition, and highly memorable.

Design: Search optimized weblog design must also be user friendly. We will help you determine the objectives you would like your customers to reach while on your site. Then, we examine your site from the customer's point of view, analyzing what your clients would like to see and what goals they come to your site to accomplish. The end result is a clean, fresh, and usable design built with you, your clients, and search engines in mind.

Search Optimized Weblog Design: We are experienced search engine optimization professionals who have spent over 20,000 hours in real time, understanding how to combine usable and search engine friendly design. We specialize in web design strategies that look beautiful and will help you rank well on search engines.

Content Development: Content is KING! A clear content strategy is vital when you are creating a blog site. By developing unique content, with professional looking images, you can optimize your site for search engines and provide your clients with an experience they can't get anywhere else. Our team can help produce professional, unique content that delivers a clear and optimized message. AND CAN BE FOUND! It's NOT about selling - your old website can do that. This new site, which is going to atttract readers, is going to show off your expert skills and knowledge.

Site Maintenance: We launch a new site, it is like a baby. It does not start running marathons overnight. It must be fed and nurtered. We will help you systematically advance your site's functionality, design, and content over time to steadily improve your search rankings. To achieve and maintain those high rankings, it is important to keep your website interesting, fresh, and in working order. We can you teach you everything you need to know - or you can keep us on, to help you maintain the site.

No matter how great your content is, if a search engine can't see it, it doesn't count. It is NOT about the code - and don't let your webmaster tell you otherwise. We build, and deploy aesthetically appealing websites using time-tested practices, which include usability, compatibility, and organic search engine optimization.

If you are not "attracting" new customers online....if your current site is invisible to the search engine eyes, you need to call us, for a free consultation. We can customize a package to fit anyone's budget.

We are your business Marketing Doctors!

Michael Snell, Marketing Strategy, M.D.
Derrick Sorles, Business Strategy, M.D.

Your Business M.D.s 1-773-878-5323

Providing business blog consulting and networking strategies
for your online business opportunities.

Website vs Blog - Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing

2010-12-01T15:06:00Z

It really amazes me that in the last 7 years, the blogosphere has really exploded. And we have been evangelists, spreading the word about this medium and on using the Internet to reach new customers and bring new eyes to you and your business. And yet every week, I run into people who still don't get it. We have numerous articles on this site that explore all of the aspects and advantages of blogs, Web 2.0 and Social Media. It should be a no-brainer!

If you have only a website today, that's like having a billboard out in a cornfield on a dirt road. Wouldn't you rather have your billboard on a busy freeway where thousands and thousands of people can see it???

Some people get it - some people don't. Since we have LIVED   THIS since 2005, we understand it,   inside and   out! We have invested over 20,000 hours between us, "blogging"!  I grew up living at the library! (remember those?!)

But delivery of information changed the world when Google joined the game 12 years ago with a mission to digitize the world! You have a question? Google it! You will find your answer in seconds!

BLOG is an ugly word for many people - and it is misunderstood and underutilized! They started out as boring junky journals. A place for people to vent, share their thoughts, whatever. They have now become robust online magazines! The top bloggers in the world figured out the more they post, the faster their audience grew.

    What is a Blog? The Lines Continue To Blur...

Wikipedia defines blogs as:
A Blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.

The Blogosphere is the collective community of all blogs. Since all blogs are on the Internet by definition, they may be seen as interconnected and socially networked. Discussions "in the Blogosphere" have been used by the media as a gauge of public opinion on various issues.

But as the Blogosphere grows in size and influence, the lines between what is a blog and what is a mainstream media site become less clear. Larger blogs are taking on more characteristics of mainstream sites and mainstream sites are incorporating styles and formats from the Blogosphere. In fact, 95% of the top 100 US newspapers have reporter blogs.

Blogs are the NEW website. So you can have an old-school website, out in the cornfield...or a new-school website on a super highway. Or have both, and just link them together.

We live in an information society! And people want their news, media, entertainment NOW - not on tonight's TV news and not in tomorrows newspaper.

Ask any business - what do they want to accomplish? Reach new clients and/or potential customers! Well guess what? A website probably won't do that. A website is simply a glorified business card or brochure online. It's a one-way "push" source of information.

ALEXA a respected authority in the WEB industry, the top 100 "websites" are not websites at all. (for the most part)
they are what we call WEB 2.0 sites. Interactive sites. Streaming news sites. Most of them are updated hourly, daily or weekly. And/or they allow interaction with the public. People seek current, useful information and the public can now participate in the sharing. (the #1 website in the world? GOOGLE!)

Google (and most search engines) know how to separate the good from the bad. There is a lot of garbage out there. There are "spammers" who try to weasel in and "work" the system. However, 9 times out of 10, Google will deliver you the best of the best information about what you are looking for.

Most people do not realize what has happened in the last few years.YELLOW PAGES are dead. They are doorstops! Google changed search. And Blogs and "new" information have taken over. And business owners can use this to their advantage.

This is the power of blogs. Providing information. Google loves freshness and they love information, that is why most websites don't get indexed well. They are not fresh. They don't provide useful information - they SELL. Also, most search robots cannot read a website fully, because of the crazy code used and complicated bells and whistles people add to the site to make it fancy, to make it "pretty". Search robots will shut down, and walk away.

You have to PUSH people to websites. 60-90% (usually) of all website traffic, is usually direct hits. Pushed traffic. People who already know the name of your company or have the web address. The information these websites provide usually does not attract the search robots.

You can PULL people to a blog. It can attract   readers organically. 60-90% (usually) of all blog traffic, usually comes in organically. They find YOU. That's the difference. That's the beauty of blogs. It's because they are written in a simpler code, it's because Google and robots can read them faster and easier, it's because search algorithms have gotten smarter! However, you have to understand how they work, the strategy behind a good publisher's efforts, and what the search engines are looking for to win in the game of organic keyword search! And you have to provide information people are searching for.

Google looks for freshness. The more you post, the more lift you get. Most websites do not update very often.

Google WEB 2.0   CONSULTANTS - we're on page one or two, out of 8,000,000 links!

Google GAY TRAVEL, we're on page one, out of 5,000,000 links!

Google MINIATURE YORKIE - we're on page one, out of 1,000,000 sites!

Google   BUSINESS BLOGGING, we are usually on page one or two, out of 10,000,000 sites.

Google SKULL ART,   under images - we represent an artist, who wanted a website - and we talked him into a blog.   He is ALWAYS   on page one! In the last 6 months, he has sold 8, $3000 pieces of art AND been picked up by 3 galleries, all because they found him and his "blog". - which is really just a website that he updates about every 12 weeks!

Google GAY ANAHEIM   - we have an article usually on page one or two. The city of Anaheim and the Orange County Tourism board discovered we were always on page one for GAY TRAVEL. They wanted to be there too - and expose their amazing city to gay travelers. They flew us out there, and wined us and dined us, all expenses paid, to get us to cover them. Because the saw the power of our site. Last month alone, we got phone calls from MTV, LOGO  TV, and press releases from 10 different companies, all asking us to help them promote something or they wanted to buy an ad on our site! They came to us.

Any business-any industry-can benefit. Anyone can set up a blog! It's cheap. We can help get you there quicker, by shortening the learning curve. That's why people come to us. They don't want to spend 6 months figuring it out and make the top 10 mistakes most people make.

We made the mistakes. We learned from the best. We studied online marketing. We have done tests and seen the results. I consider us experts, and I can say that confidently. We have launched over 50 blogs in the last 3 years. Our own 15 personal blogs rank in the top 2% in the world! Not many people can say that. - People come to us for our expertise and knowledge. They don't want to have to recreate the wheel. Can we promise to get you on page one? NO. I don't run Google. Do we get most clients on Page one? Yes! But it does depends on their keywords. If it's a competitive word, its going to take a strong, mature blog. We DO guarantee to get you brand new traffic. Traffic that find you. Traffic that never knew you existed!

We have a wonderful client here in Chicago who does electrolysis - permanent hair removal. She had a website and just was not happy. She heard us speak and she hired us to help her build her blog site. In 6 months - she has gotten more new clients, that have found her with the new site! And get this, she originally had about 2 dozen "keywords" that she thought people would find her by. We ran her analytics reports...over 5000 people found her using 2000 different keyword combinations! An old-school website can not deliver that. Period!

We have countless examples. IT WORKS! It may come in round about ways, but people will come and find you! People are still set in the old mindset though, I need a website... but guess what? blogs are websites. They are the NEW WEBSITES! You just have to understand them and how they work, to maximize your information that you can share with the world!

Web 2.0 Consultants and Strategists
Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull" New Business To You!
          Your Business MD's - Business Blog Consultants & Internet Marketers

Karen Wickre from Google Offers Tips to Business Bloggers

2010-07-20T14:57:00Z

Karen Wickre is a long-time business communicator, wordsmith & media specialist.

Karen has worked at Google since 2002, specializing in business writing and media relations. Karen first launched Google’s corporate blog back in 2004. Today the company has digital embassies for virtually every product. This armada spans dozens of blogs, Twitter profiles, YouTube and more recently, Facebook. She also developed Google’s corporate strategy using Twitter in 2009; in the first six months, @Google gained more than 2 million followers, making it one of the largest corporate Twitter accounts.

In a recent Q & A she offered -

What is the most important thing a company new to blogging should do?

Read other business, news, corporate blogs to get a feel for all that's possible. Some are personal (ie an executive writes it), some are collaborative. Some blogs are all about 'thought leadership' and others are more about customer service and best practices. The main thing to do is get familiar with a wide variety (there is no single right way to do this), and begin to consider what *you* would want to say.

What questions do good business blog posts answer?

Posts don't literally answer questions so much as establish ground for the company. Do most posts offer useful or unique information? Do they reflect the company's values and interests? Do they demonstrate the people behind the company/products? Collectively, these are the things a good company blog should do.

READ MORE AT HUBSPOT

Associated Cities and GEO DOMAINS

2009-10-01T19:10:00Z

This past week I had the honor of being interviewed by Associated Cities.

We talked about all the benefits of blogging and how Geo Domains can really benefit.
ALL BUSINESSES CAN BENEFIT in some way, shape, or form ~ PERIOD!

Because of the user-friendliness of blog software, many of these city sites can crank out immediate news faster with a blog than they could begin to with a website. The blog should be a complement to the website and used as a dynamic online newsletter or magazine if you will, of current news, entertainment and relevant information capable of reaching a whole new audience of readers because of its organic keyword search potential and power!

Read the Interview on Associated Cities.

Derrick Sorles
Blog Consultant and Social Media Strategist

Meta Tags - And Why Blogs Are Better Than Websites

2009-09-09T21:38:00Z

I had a conversation with a client today and she was very proud to tell me that she spent $3000 on some SEO work which included making her meta tags very robust. Yet, her website still comes up on page 26 for her keywords!

It is the belief of many, that Google places very little value, if any, on Meta tags. Again, this is why blogs can give you more lift and better rankings.

Google looks at the title, the anchor text of your links, the keywords used in your content, and proper use of tags in a blog. All of these components, done properly and consistently, will raise you to the top of the search engines! GUARANTEED.

Quit wasting money on SEO for your website. Anyone can load up a website with a ton of meta tags. But Google is looking for relevance and consistency.

Despite the claims of some SEO companies and many people who have read a forum post about SEO so understand better than anyone how to SEO a website, the keywords meta tag is not used by Google as a part of its ranking algorithm… not even a tiny bit! People have abused keyword meta tags, so now Google basically ignores them.

Google even blogged about its disinterest in the keywords meta tag here on its Webmaster Tools blog, together with a video showing little Google cares about the keywords meta tag. - There is a lot of valuable info actually in the Free Google Webmaster Tools, under Guidelines.

You should read it.

Derrick Sorles
Michael Snell
Business Blog Consulting, Web 2.0 and Social Media Strategists

The Mayo Clinic "gets it" - Do You? - The Web 2.0 Benefits for Business

2009-01-20T23:12:00Z

PLEASE tell me you have started a blog or at least, started to participate in Social Media Networking?!

There was a great article this week about the Mayo Clinic in the Jacksonville Business Journal.

While we preach the benefits of Web 2.0 tools for marketing and advertising, Mayo Clinic was looking to use the technology to transform the access, delivery and dissemination of health information.

The Internet in its infancy, or 1.0, was all about accessing information. Think WebMD.

But where Web 2.0 describes the onslaught of user-generated content like Wikipedia or Yahoo Answers, Health 2.0 is defined by the use of social software and its ability to promote collaboration between patients and the rest of the medical industry.

Having a company Web site is so five years ago. Social media — the umbrella term for blogs, social networks, photo video and podcasts, and other user-generated mediums — is the new era.

And the possibilities are seemingly endless!

It's a great article! Check it out!

Be Everywhere - It's About Findability - The Power of Social Networking

2008-10-27T20:47:00Z

FINDABILITY.

When I tell someone they need to be on LINKEDIN, FACEBOOK, 43 THINGS, NAYMZ and YOU TUBE....they look at me like I have three heads!

"Why on Earth do I need to be on all of these sites?" they ask.

TO BE FOUND. If you're not there, you can't be found. The more sites you are on, the more strands in the web 2.0 world that lead people to you, your products and/or services. Why plant 3 seeds when you can plant 100?

That's the same reason you need a blog. Someone told me other day they just spent $4,000 giving their website a full SEO makeover for their top 50 keywords. You know how many keyword combinations people used to find this blog in the last 60 days? 2173 keyword combinations! You have no idea of clients search habits and there is NO WAY to predict how someone is going to find you. Don't assume. BE EVERYWHERE.

Today I was at Inside CRM, digging thru their archives and found 50 Social Sites That Every Business Needs a Presence on. Sure, the usual suspects are here...like those mentioned above. But there are some you might not be aware of. Like MIXX, Sphinn, Frappr, NING, XING, and ZIGGS! (who comes up with these names?!)

You MUST have an online presence, beyond your website. The Internet provides powerful networking opportunities that allow users to effectively target their audience by logging on to social media sites.

Web 2.0 Consultants and Strategists

Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull" New Business To You!
Your Business MD's - Business Blog Consultants & Internet Marketers

What is a BLOG Anyway?

2008-08-18T20:18:00Z

A BLOG IS THE MOST MISUNDERSTOOD
AND UNDER-UTILIZED TOOL
IN THIS WEB 2.0 WORLD!

I gave a seminar the other day and amongst the audience, there was a lot of confusion around blogs, exactly what they are and what they can do.

Let me try to clarify....

A blog can be a personal diary.

A daily pulpit.

A collaborative space to build conversation and community.

A political soapbox.

A breaking-news outlet.

A collection of links.

Your own private thoughts.

Memos to the world.

A new marketing tool.

An online magazine.

Your blog is whatever you want it to be. There are millions of them, in all shapes and
sizes, and there are no real rules.
In simple terms, a blog (short for "weblog") is a website, where you can write stuff, or post stuff (text, art, photos, video, etc) on an ongoing basis. You can add to it as little as or as much as you want to.

Where most websites are more static, and rarely updated, a blog can be more like an "online magazine" or newsletter to the world. Always changing. Always growing. New stuff shows up at the top, so your visitors can read what's new.
Then they comment on it or link to it or email you. Or not.
Blogs have reshaped the Web, impacted politics, shaken up journalism, and enabled millions of people to have a voice and connect with others.

Merely blogging won’t dramatically transform your marketing. Your blog has to be well-optimized and promoted, and most of all, rich with content. Frequency of blogging plays an important role in this equation, too. In fact, research “Lead Generation Lessons From 4,000 Businesses” shows that companies that blog 20 or more times in a month see the biggest return in traffic and leads.
A blog is a long-term marketing asset that will bring traffic and leads to your business. It introduces you as a thought leader in your industry and allows you to earn people’s trust. In this ebook, we will walk you step-by-step through the blogging fundamentals and show you how to start reaping the benefits of this valuable marketing channel.
Businesses are now learning how to use a "blog" as a marketing tool. They are much more powerful than a website, and much more seach engine friendly, than a basic website. Websites just sit there. You have to promote them. You have to PUSH people to them. Blogs on the other hand PULL people to you through organic keyword search. People who are "Google-ing" looking for the information, ideas, products, and services that your talking about on your blog!
You might look at the front page of a blog and think that there is not much
to them. A few recent entries, some links to other sites and not much else.
However, look at the sidebar for the archives. The author only displays "X" amount of entries.
Then the information is archived. So it hold hundreds of pages of information.

A blog is simply and new and improved website! You don't need to be an IT person or understand complicated code to have one. They are super user friendly and search engines LOVE THEM.

Hope that helps!

Web 2.0 Consultants and Strategists

Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull" New Business To You!
Your Business MD's - Business Blog Consultants & Internet Marketers

Top 7 Free e-books on Social Media & Web 2.0

2008-07-14T21:00:00Z

A lot of people hear us speak about getting on page one of Google and the importance of blogs and social media...but then they have no patience!

They launch their blog in a vacuum, and wonder why their traffic is not growing. It takes time. And it takes networking. That's where social media comes in. You meet other blogs and bloggers, spread your word, let them spread your word, link to them, get incoming links, encourage conversation, leave comments on incoming comments, comment on other blogs, make friends in the blogosphere, etc.

These are some of my favorite articles and e-books I have come across, that I like to pass onto clients to read.

What is Social Media - A great basic primer - iCrossing
A Primer in Social Media - Another great place to start and learn - SmashLab
Masters of Marketing - How and Why the Web 2.0 works - Startup Internet Marketing
Effective Internet Presence - Why a website is no longer enough - Effective Internet Presence
Get Viral Get Visitors - WOM marketing with Stacie Mahoe
The New Rules of Viral Marketing - All the rules have changed! David Meerman Scott
Blogs & Social Media - lots of data and research - interesting and intense - PRSA

Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull" New Business To You!
Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0 Consultants and Strategists

Is Your Business Blogging Yet? A Blog Can Bring New Eyes to Your Business

2008-07-13T13:40:00Z

Is your website a glorified business card?

Are you even being "found" by search engines?

How much traffic do you get?

How do people find your website and what keywords do they use?

I met someone last year that is a great example of not knowing what to do to promote their business in this new Web 2.0 information age. Liz Stapleton. She is an expert electrologist here in Chicago. (And she was written up recently in the Chicago Tribune about her blog.)

Liz had a good website - called www. facereflections. com - but she made mistake number 1....a bad name. At least one of your main keywords, should be in your domain. When you open the Yellow Pages (does anyone use those doorstops anymore?) or when you search online, if you don't know the name of the business you are looking for, you look through the category for what you need. You would look under electrolysis - or electrologist - and probably look in your area. So I would search for CHICAGO ELECTROLYSIS or CHICAGO ELECTROLOGY. - I like to search for "Best" when I search. I will search for BEST CHICAGO PIZZA. BEST DIVORCE ATTORNEY CHICAGO. BEST GAY TRAVEL. BEST BLOG CONSULTANT. And I usually only look through the first couple pages of Google and find what I need.

After hearing me speak about the possibilities of blogging and how it can attract new customers, Liz had me help her set up a blog. Step one was the name. For ease of remembering for her clients, since her main site was www.facereflections.com - she bought the domain www.facereflectionsblog.com - this has no search engine pull but would be easy for people to remember.

For her main domain she chose 2 with great keywords -
www.bestchicagoelectrolysis.com and she also bought www.bestchicagohairremoval.com
So all three of the domains are used for the one blog.

Webistes are usually good selling tools. They describe your services, prices, location, hours, and all of the basics. A brochure of your services. Sometimes companies will post some descriptive articles on their website. Or maybe they send out e-mail newsletters to exisiting clients. This is usually a good starting point for your content development.

A lot of clients ask "What am I going to blog about?" The answer: INFORMATION. What would someone be looking for, that could lead them to you. In Liz's case, THE BIG MYTH ABOUT LASER HAIR HAIR REMOVAL, PERMANENT HAIR REMOVAL, TRANSGENEDER HAIR ISSUES....Content is the attraction strategy. You are going to post information people are looking for you. The blog becomes your online newsletter. Your own little magazine. And you can post as often or as little as you want. However, think of it as a huge mall in the middle of nowhere, when you first set it up. Each time you post something, you are a creating a new road that leads people to you mall. Put up 10 posts, you have 10 roads leading to you. Put up 100 posts, you now have 100 roads leading to you. The more roads you build, the more ways search engines can index your information and lead people to you.

Not every reader of your information will be your client. If your services are local, of course only local readers can be your client. If your product or services are not localized, then the world is your market. Liz currently gets about 20-30 hits a day - and most of that traffic is coming in by way of Google searches around her keywords and what she posts about. Pure organic traffic. She is "pulling" people to her, 24 hours a day. In the last 3 months, 10 new clients have come to her through her blog and hired her!

Out of those 20-30 hits, which equals about 700-800 a month, she has readers in 78 countries! Most of the readers are in the United States, and a lot of hits come from the Chicago area, but is reaching a worldwide audience. As a blog grows, you can develop an audience. People who look to you as the expert. They may not be a client today, but they could be tomorrow. Or maybe they work with a group who might hire you to speak at an event. Or maybe publisher will find your site and think your posts are terrific and offer you a book deal! The possibilities are endless. Blogs blow away websites, print advertising, direct mail and even radio and TV advertising! Today the Internet has become the ultimate place to accelerate the flow of relevant information and the fastest growing form of media.

When you Google "chicago electrolysis" there are 2500 entries - Liz is on Page one!

When you Google "health and wellness expert" - there are 6200 entries, our client,
Dr. Gaziano is one page one with his blog www.feelgoodhealthnow.com

When you Google "gay travel" - there over 1,500,000 entries! And our site is on page one!

Is your website on page one, around your keywords? Probably not.

So why aren't you blogging??

Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull" New Business To You!
Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0 Consultants and Strategists

Blogging, Social Media Marketing, Web 2.0 - This is the New Frontier - Don't get Left in the Dust!

2008-06-01T22:10:00Z

Do you ever feel like you are banging your head against a brick wall?

For nearly three years now, we have been preaching the amazing benefits of blogging, social media marketing and web 2.0 strategies. A few weeks ago, Entrepreneur said,

" Several years ago, the mantra was "Every business needs a website." Today it's "Every business needs a website with a blog." No matter your industry, your prospects have come to expect a blog from your business. "

Business Week, Entrepreneur, Forbes - they all get it now and are helping to spread the word!

If your business is not utilizing these new tools, you are going to be left in dust. GOOGLE has changed the way people use search. And by doing so, allowed small businesses to be "found" in a whole new way that never existed before!

It's a whole new world out there - can people find your business and services?

Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull" New Business To You!
Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0 Consultants and Strategists

Business Blogging Consultants Featured in the Chicago Tribune

2008-05-26T21:40:00Z

BUSINESS BLOGGING CONSULTANTS was featured in the Chicago Tribune today, in part one, of a 2 part story on blogging. Part one talked about ways revenue can be generated from blogging - which IS NOT the reason to start a blog. Part two, should be really good - depending on how the writer edits it down. It's focus is on what we preach all the time - the benefits a business can reap from blogging, in terms of "pulling" new eyes to a business and new ways of being found through keyword search. Watch it for next Monday, June 2nd!

* Read Part 2 Here.

Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull" New Business To You!
Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0 Consultants and Strategists

Still Have Doubts about Blogging for your Business?

2008-05-20T20:22:00Z

I subscribe to Barbara Payne's newsletter for Really Good Freelance Writer. This week she had a great article that really hits the nail on the head about the value of blogs for businesses as well as some great statistics! She graciously allowed me to reprint the piece here - but stop by her site - she has a lot of great info and provides a great service!

Still have doubts about blogging for your business?
Guys, it is not a fad. It’s an integral part of the new way of being in the global marketplace.

Whatever terms you use, “Web 2.0” “social networking” “new media” etc., the fact is a blog is part of the new approach to marketing. It gives you a new and powerful way to engage with your prospects and customers. An opportunity to build a personal—albeit virtual—relationship with them at a low cost. Even if you hire a professional blog writer—which you should definitely do if you can’t find time yourself and/or don’t have a staff member who has the skill and can devote the time—the cost, compared to advertising and other methods of reaching prospects is breathtakingly minimal.

Some statistics from a survey of over 2500 Internet users (in Germany, where the corporate blogging phenomenon is only just beginning):

1 out of every 10 Internet users reads blogs
91% of blog readers expect fast responses to questions and comments in enterprise blogs
90% feel blogs should clearly differentiate commercial from non-commercial content.
54% of blog readers form their opinions about products/companies on the basis of blogs.
51% of blog readers visit product and/or corporate sites as a result of reading blogs.
58% of blog readers read them to find news and information they can't find otherwise.
57% of them are interested in the personal opinions of the authors.

Keep in mind that one thing people are endlessly fascinated by is other people. That’s why it’s so important to have a personal voice in the blog. And even if you’re reporting on something they could find elsewhere on the Internet—there is theoretically “nothing new under the sun”—your post becomes unique when you express your personal feeling about an event, a trend, a circumstance, or a story.

Don’t worry about how many numbers of readers you have.
Don’t worry if you don’t get comments.
Don’t ask for a financial ROI on your blog—it’s not a sales tool.
It’s credibility. It’s a credential for your knowledge and your expertise.
It’s the True Voice® of your company.

And it's going to pull new eyes to your business, through search!

Really Good Freelance Writer - sign up for the newsletter!

What is Social Media and Do I Need To Use It For My Business?

2008-05-04T16:41:00Z

You have a website!

        Great!

You started a blog!

          Awesome!

Now what?

Are you playing the Web 2.0
sandbox of Social Media???

Launching and maintaining a blog takes a lot of work just to keep up on posting. But you really need to spend a few hours a month, minimally, playing in the Web 2.0 sandbox of Social Media Marketing.

Social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning, as people share their stories, and understandings.

Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, message boards, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, and crowdsourcing, to name a few. Examples of social media applications are Google Groups (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), Facebook (social networking), Last.fm (personal music), YouTube (social networking and video sharing), Second Life (virtual reality), Flickr (photo sharing), Twitter (social networking and microblogging) and other microblogs are Jaiku and Pownce. Many of these social media services can be integrated via social network aggregation platforms like Mybloglog and Plaxo.

DOSH DOSH said it best- "Social media marketing is the process of promoting your site or business through social media channels and it is a powerful strategy that will get you links, attention and massive amounts of traffic.

There is no other low-cost promotional method out there that will easily give you large numbers of visitors, some of whom may come back to your website again and again."

Social media marketing is a way of promoting your site or business through social media channels and it is a powerful strategy that can bring new eyes to you, your business, and your product or services. There is no other low-cost promotional method out there that will easily attract you new visitors, some of whom may come back to your website again and again.

With Social Media, you can spread your word and gain supporters. - "The more supporters you have, the faster word spreads about your site. Social media marketing is an excellent way to get people to come into your site to take a look at at what you have to offer. You will grow when there are a group of loyal visitors ready to always act upon what you have to offer."

Social Media is a way to interact others, a way to help promote your site, product, or services and drive new traffic to your offerings! Find the groups that make the most sense for you, your product or your services, start planting seeds and Participate!

Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull" New Business To You!
          Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0 Consultants and Strategists

CONTENT is an Attraction Strategy - It's SEO and SEM

2008-05-02T18:36:00Z

We get clients all the time, who already produce a successful newsletter and send it out to hundreds of exisiting customers. The problem is, it is off the radar screeen of the search engines. You have got to take all the content you already are using and allow the search engines to find it! Thus attracting new customers. Let the whole world in on what you are talking about!

We live in the age of search. Everyone is online searching for something. Products, information, answers to questions...your content needs to found by the search engines and put into the hands of potential customers. It's a simple as that! It becomes search engine optimization for your keywords and search engine marketing to attract new customers.

Content is an attraction stragey. You "push" your newsletter out to people asking them to read it. You "push" your website address in front of people, in the hopes they will read it. What you want to do is strategically place your content online, on blogs, in social media, to "pull" new eyes to your business.

Attraction marketing is the new phrase for an old idea that has re-emerged as a hot new strategy for online selling. Attraction marketing is the ability to literally have people pursuing you rather then you pursuing them.

Attraction Marketing is a new marketing category, a hybrid cross between public relations and journalism.
You can provide valuable information to your customers. The more helpful and valuable your information is the greater the chance those customers will purchase from you. This is the finest form of advertising yourself and PR for your business .

Good content will attract prospects to you by positioning yourself as an expert!

Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull" New Business To You!
Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0 Consultants and Strategists

The ROI on Blogging, Web 2.0 and Social Media - It's all About Search! Can You be Found?

2008-04-15T17:07:00Z

Blogging, Web 2.0 and social media must be examined very differently when it comes to return on investment. A blog account and domain is usually less than $50 a year, plus your staff time. If bring 5000 new eyes to your business, is it worth it? If you get 5 new clients, is it worth it? If even a few customers are helped as a result - the cost is cheap!

Katie Paine is an expert on blog ROI. And she was quoted in Paul Gillins The New Influencers. She is a vetran public relations executive and has spent the last fifteen years researching, writing and speaking on the topic of measuring the value of public relations and social media investments. She believes nearly everything online is measurable; it’s just a matter of choosing what to measure.

We always say, and she agrees, blogging and social media marketing is a competitive necessity and can be a competitive advantage. If you are not out there building new networks and webs, chances are your competitor already is. If he is not, great! You get the first mover advantage. If he is, you can catch up.

Paine has said for her own business, she likes to monitor click-throughs from her blog, to her website. We also monitor very closely performance on Google key search terms and the traffic those bring in. Good search performance is money in the bank. If you can “own” your keywords, that’s a huge ROI, that isn’t quickly translated to dollars, but will, eventually.

It’s all about search. We say it time and time again. Can you be “found” easily online. Are you coming up in keyword searches. Search is the best thing that ever happened for small business. Many companies can not afford costly pay-per-click campaigns around certain keywords. However, through blogging and Web 2.0 strategies you can come up in the same searches and reach an international audience for much less.

We had a client recently spend $5000 with us. Within 90 days he had traffic, owned 4 of 6 keywords on Page One Google, AND he got a new client for $4000! THAT'S HUGE ROI! That DOES NOT usually happen. We usually caution clients to view their investment and ROI over a one year period. It takes time to plant all the seeds and watch them grow. But the return is that people have so many new channels to find you and your services - besides just 1 static website.

Remember, it's all about SEARCH! Can you be found?

Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull" New Business To You!
Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0 Consultants and Strategists

There is a Lot More to Publishing a Blog Than Just Throwing Up Some Posts

2008-04-01T16:45:00Z

We had a potential client call us the other day that had an idea. He had heard you could make great money by setting up a blog and using things like Google Adsense and Amazon. So he wanted to launch 30 blogs. He said he read's a lot and could and paste and post onto his sites and become an hub of news and information around certain topics. And if each site yielded a couple hundred dollars a month, he expected to generate about $6000 a month. NOT GONNA HAPPEN!

People thinks it's easy to publish and run a blog. Even if you want to post 3 times a week - we tell clients to plan on spending AT LEAST 4 hours a week/ 15 hours a month on their blog. It takes a minimum of 30 minutes to put a post up, tag it, add some hyperlinks, and add a photo, and tag the photo. Usually, more like an hour.

Beyond all of that, you need to go out and play in Social Media Sandboxes at different sites.

Let people know about your blog;

Create useful profiles all over the Internet;

Network with other bloggers;

Join communities and forums;

Leave comments on other blogs;

Get listed in directories;

Minimally, besides posting, you need to be spending 2 hours a month on social media and other strategies. You could easily spend 2 hours a day doing this. I know bloggers that spend 5 hours per day per blog! It's an endless task. To get listed in a directory it takes about 15 minutes on average to fill out a form. Then you have to take a HTML back to your site and post it. If you are super fast, maybe 20 minutes total. Times 12 directories, you are looking at 4 hours right there.

Figure how much time you have to invest and start networking. You can easily spend one hour a month at each of these sites. - It is easy to get overwhelmed. Just do what you can do. And have patience. And know that it is not going to happen overnight. Some blogs see success in the first 6 months. Others can take more than a year to penetrate targeted keywords. There are no shortcuts. But the more you can put in, the better and faster the pay-off!

Derrick Sorles and Michael Snell - We Help "Pull" New Business To You!
Your Business MD's- Business Blog Consultants -Web 2.0 Consultants and Strategists