Business Blogging Consultants

Prescribing Solutions For Your Business

Derrick Sorles — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 23:00:00 GMT

"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." 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?

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

Let us put our expertise to work for you! 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.

Associated Cities and GEO DOMAINS

Derrick Sorles — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:10:00 GMT

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

Derrick Sorles — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:38:00 GMT

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

Derrick Sorles — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:12:00 GMT

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!

Website vs Blog - Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing

Derrick Sorles — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:46:00 GMT

It really amazes me that in the last 4 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 for the the last 3 years, we understand it,   inside and   out! We have invested over 10,000 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 10 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, 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

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

Derrick Sorles — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:47:00 GMT

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?

Derrick Sorles — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:18:00 GMT

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.

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

Derrick Sorles — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:00:00 GMT

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

Derrick Sorles — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 13:40:00 GMT

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!

Derrick Sorles — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 22:10:00 GMT

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

Derrick Sorles — Mon, 26 May 2008 21:40:00 GMT

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?

Derrick Sorles — Tue, 20 May 2008 20:22:00 GMT

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?

Derrick Sorles — Sun, 04 May 2008 16:41:00 GMT

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

Derrick Sorles — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:36:00 GMT

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?

Derrick Sorles — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:07:00 GMT

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

Derrick Sorles — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:45:00 GMT

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

Crystal Ball 2.0 - Advertising Age Asks What's Hot and What's Next?

Derrick Sorles — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:16:00 GMT

AA asked the bloggers on the Power 150 blog-ranking index to tell what technology marketers should be paying most attention to in 2008.

Here's some of what they said and things that we have been preaching!

Andy Wibbels - Findability

AndyWibbels.com

Local search. Consumers are learning they can find resources not just across the globe, but down the street. "Findability" is crucial, whether you are a global organization or local mom-and-pop.

Marie Lena Tupot - Mobile

BrandNoise

Mobile apps. But not in a whiz-bang, over-the-top manner; the sort of incremental mobile apps that make ordinary things even easier, like let you pay back friends on the fly, split the check at restaurants, pre-order your coffee so you can bypass the line at a local café, pay your belated phone bill, donate to your political candidate ... It's the little things that take us by storm.

Joost de Valk - SEO

Joost de Valk's SEO Blog

The technique/technology most worthy of any marketer's attention is SEO. It's the cheapest and best way of getting quality traffic to your domains. Especially due to the emergence of so-called universal search, ie. the integration of the results from vertical search engines like images, books and local into the "main" search results, more chances of driving cheap, high-quality traffic have come up.

Joe Pulizzi - Content Marketing

Junta 42

The single biggest issue/technology that deserves the most attention is not a site or an application, but more an organizational philosophy. It's the content marketing movement -- which is the philosophy of marketing services not by traditional methods, but by delivering valuable, relevant and compelling content to customers and prospects on a consistent basis. This is being done through all media platforms, and we are seeing companies like P&G and Nike put a large amount of money and resources into these efforts.

Brian Keith - Search Marketing

All For You by Brian Keith

Search marketing. This includes search engine optimization, search engine marketing (also called pay-per-click), and dealing with universal search. When Jeremiah and others say that your corporate website is less relevant than ever, they're right. But if you ignore the basics in favor of the hot new technologies, you will fall behind those who made sure they built a strong foundation. Are you highly ranked for your most important keywords and phrases? Have you done the research to know what those phrases really are? Are you paying attention to how you are spending money on search engine marketing?

Martin Calle - Keywords

Madison Avenue

The most overlooked piece of digital technology today is the simplest and most overlooked: the keyword. With 81 billion blogs and websites, business owners depend upon keywords to drive site visits. But we all use the same keywords, so it becomes impossible for Google's AdSense for Search and Content Optimization Teams to help you build truly effective campaigns, regardless of the business you are in. If you are an ad agency, "ad agency" would be a keyword, so would "branding," "strategy," "product positioning," "differentiation," "marketing" and a plethora of other terms we all use. So using keywords, differentiation becomes impossible unless you find a way to identify keywords that only your site can offer.

Kevin Tomczak - Blogging

PowerUp

Blogging continues to be one of the most influential communications channels for B2B marketers in 2008. This channel is a precursor to a true social network, and allows companies to continue the conversation beyond our traditional touch points. Yesterday's mass marketing strategies don't work -- we're on the customer's time, and by keeping conversations going through blogging, we're increasing the chance that we'll be present when the customer needs our product or service.

We've also just begun to scratch the surface of the SEO benefits of blogging. In the US, roughly 80% of internet use (excluding e-mail) begins with a search. And a majority of business purchasers use the internet for research before a purchase is made. Blogging gives a company a lot of content containing a lot of keywords, and, with a lot of incoming and outbound links, that's SEO gold.

These were our top 7! What's funny is that we have been preaching these for 2 years now! I think businesses are finally starting to get it! Read the full article at Advertising Age!

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

5 Big Blog Mistakes - And Avoiding Them

Derrick Sorles — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:04:00 GMT

Over the last 2 years we have come into contact with numerous people who wanted to start a blog and most never did. Or they did, and got off on the wrong foot, abandoned the blog, or they had unrealistic expectations about what the blog might deliver in the short-term from an SEO perspective and were frustrated.

We have been doing this for over 2 years now and have launched about 25 blogs. We have made many mistakes along the way and therefore, also have learned a lot. And continue to learn every day as this business changes. Eventually, all of our blogs have ended up on Page One of Google for organic, primary and numerous secondary key word searches...

Here are some of the most common blog mistakes we've seen -

1. Never actually starting one! I have 3 friends and 5 clients that have been talking about launching blog for a year now! Do they realize, if they had in fact launched their blog one year ago, where they would be today??? Just DO IT already!

2. Using Subdomains. We are not a big fan of hosting your site somewhere that has to use a subdomain. (ie typepad, blogspot). If it's personal, that's fine. But for anything business related, where you hope to get search engine lift, we do not recommend it. - Buy a domain and use it. In fact, buy a few domains. If you don't buy it and you don't own it , it's not yours. So www.worldsbestflorist.typepad.com really belongs to typepad. Plus, you deprive yourself of potential search engine lift by hosting your site with subdomains.

3. Design. DO NOT get caught up on design. Blogs are about words, not design. Blogs are all about the content. And that content is indexed by search engines. You can be one page one with the the most awful looking blog out there! Search engines do not care about flash and design. Blogs are about simplicity. That's why search engines like blogs more than websites.

4. Expecting too much too soon. The first 90 days are about building "the temple." Most directories won't even let you list with them until you are 90 days old or have more than 36 posts. Don't even try to get traffic or build traffic the first few months. It's all about planting the seeds, building the temple, and then traffic will come!

5. Making Money. Every month I have clients that want to start a blog to make "some extra passive revenue." MOST blogs do not make a dime! At least the first year or two. Once you get a page rank of 5 or 6, in about 18 months to 24 months, then maybe, you can start to monetize your blog. Sure you can put Google AdSense on your blog. And make about 25 cents per month. If you are lucky! The focus should be on building the blog. Build a following. Positioning yourself as the expert in your area of expertise. If you do it right, you will come up in searches and be found by new readers and potential new customers!

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

Seth Godin - Meatball Sundae - Is Your Marketing Out Of Sync?

Derrick Sorles — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:51:00 GMT

SETH GODINS NEW BOOK,
Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync?
is  a must for people still not convinced about the power of the Internet.

And Rachelle Money from
WORDTRACKER did an interview with him.

A couple key things Seth pointed out were:

"Newspapers are going to go out of business in the next ten years all around the world. There are two problems in the United States newspaper industry. One is that you make a living from cutting down lots of trees, making the paper and hiring trucks to deliver the newspapers to stores. That’s not how information travels anymore."

"The second problem is that newspapers make their money from classified ads. Now those ads work better and cost less online so I think there’s no question that there will be organizations like newspapers, but they’re not going to be in paper form. The sooner that people who make newspapers realize that and get into a different business the happier they’re going to be. They need to concentrate all their efforts online."

    We tell clients this all the time. MOST print advertising, including the YELLOW PAGES, is a waste of money these days. Would you rather spend $1000 on ad that is gone in month? Or spend $1000 online, where that ad can live on indefinitely?

Seth also comments on the speed of SEO - "

"My position is that the clients are the problem, not the consultants. That's because they want shortcuts, not hard work. The best SEO is great content. Don't do that and you don't get much."

The Web 2.0 has powerful tools to help someone be found online. But it takes time. It does not happen overnight, usually. You have to build the temple....and then they will come! It's like planting seeds in the garden. It takes time for the seeds to fully grow and develop.

Meatball Sundae is the definitive guide to the fourteen trends no marketer can afford to ignore. It explains what to do about the increasing power of stories, not facts; about shorter and shorter attention spans; and about the new math that says five thousand people who want to hear your message are more valuable than five million who don’t.

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

Seth Godin Meatball Sundae Web 2.0 consultant Derrick Sorles Turbo Tagger

Derrick Sorles on Voice America Internet Radio Speaking on Web 2.0

Derrick Sorles — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 00:26:00 GMT

This past week I got a call from VOICE AMERICA Internet Radio. They found us through a Google search and invited me to be on their show.

The topic was "Coaching Success with Web 2.0".

Web 2.0 has changed the way businesses and consumers interact with each other. Technologies like blogs, podcasts, Wikis, RSS and social networking are now apart of everyone's business strategy. Or at least they should be!

In case you missed it, Listen to the podcast now.

VoiceAmerica™ Network features more than 100 hosts who broadcast on four genre based channels: its flagship VoiceAmerica™ Channel, VoiceAmerica™ Health & Wellness Channel, VoiceAmerica™ Business Channel, and the newest, 7th Wave Network. VoiceAmerica™ and is the single largest producer of Internet talk radio programming in the world.

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

voice america radio derrick sorles web 2.0 consultant Turbo Tagger