Google Search Engine Ranking Factors v2

August 18, 2008

Google Search Engine Ranking Factors v2: “Google Search Engine Ranking Factors v2 ‘represents the collective wisdom of 37 leaders in the world of organic search engine optimization. Together, they have voted on the various factors that are estimated to comprise Google’s ranking algorithm.’ The highest ranked factor is Keyword Use in Title Tag.

(Via MetaFilter.)

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Best Buy to sell iPhone 3G starting next month

August 13, 2008

And now for the irony: it’ll be no better a buy than what you can find at ye olde Apple or AT&T store. Best Buy officially becomes the first third-party retailer in the US to sell the iPhone in an official capacity — 3G or otherwise — when it launches the iPhone 3G in some 970 stores plus an additional 18 dedicated Mobile locations on September 7 for the same $199 and $299 price points found elsewhere. Quoth Best Buy Mobile’s CEO, ‘We had a lot of work to do, obviously, to get in a position where Apple and AT&T would feel good about Best Buy Mobile carrying it, and that’s what we’ve done in the last 18 months.’ In other words, this has been a pretty persistent effort to score the third-party exclusive essentially since the original model was announced, and it’s just now paying off. There’s no indication on how the addition of Best Buy to the US sales mix will affect production or distribution, but at least there’ll be one more place to try to find some frickin’ stock.

(Via Engadget.)

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40+ Topics for Corporate Bloggers

August 11, 2008

keyboardThere will be times that you have to contribute a post for your company’s blog and you just don’t have one idea that inspires you to start a conversation. We’ve all been there and that’s why we’ve created this resource with more than 40 topics for corporate bloggers to help provide that much need inspiration:

Press release – Read a recent press release from your company and write two paragraphs on its significance in plain English.

Industry news – Share your opinion about a recent story affecting your industry/audience.

Best practices – Provide an example of a best practice that you adhere to or that others could learn from.

Tradeshow 1 –  Prior to an industry trade show, share your list of interesting sessions, what to expect or what you’re looking forward to.

Tradeshow 2 – During the show, share images from the floor, notes from sessions or interviews with attendees.

Tradeshow 3 – After the show, write a quick wrap-up, discuss what you learned and who you met.


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Find video – Search for a video related to your industry and embed it as your post with a bit of analysis as to why it’s relevant.

Plan a meet-up – Use your post to organize an informal meet-up with readers around one of your blog’s topics.

Current event - Leverage a current event in the news to discuss how your company handles adversity or crisis.

Holiday party – Take pictures at fun company events to show you don’t take yourselves too seriously.

Productivity tip – Email, Excel, PowerPoint… do you have any tips for how to be more productive that your audience might appreciate?

Email query – Send an email asking 5 people in your company the same question and share their responses.

Blog comment – Review some recent blog comments and choose one to discuss in detail.

Write a how-to post - Maybe it’s about your job or about your product, but create a tutorial to help your readers.

Address a post on a competitor’s blog – What is your competitor writing about? Are there any of these topics you’d like to address?

Corporate culture – What makes your company’s culture unique? Why would a prospective employee want to work there?

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Humor – It might be a Dilbert cartoon or a video from FunnyOrDie, but everyone loves a laugh.

Stumble – Install the StumbleUpon toolbar and discover new blogs/websites to introduce to your audience.

Delicious – Search for keywords related to your blog and write about what you find.

Digg – See what stories are popular today and share your opinion about it.

Facebook – Look for a group related to your industry and share some thoughts about it.

LinkedIn Answers – Find a question someone has asked related to your industry, answer it, and invite your readers to do the same.

White paper – Is your company publishing new research? Do you subscribe to any analyst reports? Read the white paper and share your perspective.

Flickr image – If you had to pick one Creative Commons licensed image that reflected your mood/industry/workload, what would it be and why?

Make a list – Kind of like this, except related to your industry. People love lists!

Start a meme – Pick a conversation topic, discuss it and then tag a few other bloggers to post on the same topic.

Answer a customer support question – Does your company have forums? If so, pick a support question to answer. If not, ask your sales team for customer feedback and tackle one common issue.

Buck the status quo - Take the opposite view on an industry issue.

Does size matter? - Compare/contrast your product with a competitor.

Share a problem – Sometimes your community can offer insight into a problem that you’re not able to solve on your own. Just positing these types of queries will at times help your readers to feel closer to your brand.

Twitter – Posit a question to your Twitter community and use the collected responses for the basis of your post.

Try a new application and review it – Is there a new software app or a new version of an old app that your industry uses on a regular basis? If so, take the time to delve into it.

Start a series – Take a topic that you’re passionate about and create a series of posts examining it over the course of several weeks.

Take a picture – Use your mobile phone to take a picture of a cool part of your building and discuss it.

Share a PowerPoint – If you create a lot of presentations, pick out a slide (assuming it’s okay to share it publicly) to write about. You can also upload a deck to SlideShare to make it more interactive.

Get personal – Share a story from your own life. Although this is a corporate blog, it’s always nice to know about the people behind the brand.

Conduct an interview – There are many people in the company that aren’t blogging, but probably have some great stories to tell. Find people doing interesting work and sit down for an informal interview with them. You don’t need fancy equipment. In fact, you can probably do it with your digital camera.

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Look for trends – What new innovations are igniting conversations in your industry? How is your business changing? Share some insights on the future of your industry. Maybe Trendpedia can help.

Random Thoughts on X – Set aside 15 minutes, pick a topic and start writing. See what you’ve got and post it under the title, ‘Random Thoughts on…’

Test a pitch – If you’re trying to figure out how to best position your product, use your blog post an opportunity to test what messages resonate with your audience.

Ask the intern – After all, they have a whole different perspective on the company than you do. Some of them are already blogging.

Presentation creation – We all have to create presentations, either for internal or external use. If you’ve got some tips, share them!

Remember, what makes a good corporate blog post is the passion of the writer. Find the topics that you are most interested in and help your readers to feel that same type of excitement.

(Via Mashable!.)

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How To Use Twitter For Marketing

July 25, 2008

Twitter is a relatively new web 2.0 site that is starting to gain a lot of popularity. That means that a lot of people have heard of it, but it is also quite common to run into people who haven’t heard of it.. yet. Twitter.com is this social site that encourages users to post often about what they are currently doing.

A lot of people are using it to improve their marketing reach, by being an active twitterer they gain followers who are interested in what they have going on. This means people being exposed to their updates on a regular basis. For example, if you have hundreds of followers in Twitter and you decide to post an affiliate link, that means hundreds of people have instantly been exposed to your offer. In this article, I will discuss ways to maximize Twitter for your marketing as well as a big mistake you need to avoid.

In order to have a fan base per se of followers in Twitter, you must be able to keep their interest in you and what you are doing now. “What are you doing?” is the whole foundation of what Twitter is about in the first place. Make sure to post daily, if not several times throughout the day, updates about what you are doing. The magical thing behind this is that many of your contacts will be able to feel like they know you so much better, will trust you more, and feel much more comfortable about working with you. On the other hand, when you follow others you can learn about them and their possible needs.

The big mistake to watch out for is only posting affiliate links or offers on your Twitter page. This looks like Spam and many people will see you as just abusing Twitter for your personal gain. Think of it this way, if you would not want to invite your friends or family to keep up with you via Twitter, then you are going about it all wrong. As with anything you send out or provide, ninety percent should be content and ten percent (at most) advertising.

So this concept is quite simple… constantly post throughout the day what you are doing.. it is usually very simple and only takes a few seconds to post! Secondly, if you write articles or provide content online, provide a link for those in your Twitter posts. You may post many things within one day, but the last thing you post for the day is usually the most important because it will be there the longest. This means that your last post for the day should contain a link that you want your followers to see before your start Twittering again the next day!

Another part of Twitter is contributing. As with any social site it should be a give and take relationship. Notice that give comes first… the more you give the more people will want to work with you and the more attention you will receive. Make sure to read and follow other users in Twitter. If you read something interesting or helpful, then make sure to reply and say so, or even put a link for it on your Twitter so that you are directing others to more quality content. This can also be as simple as connecting with other users. If they know you are reading their Twitter page, they will be much more likely to check out what you have going on too.

To get started in Twitter you should first invite contacts who aren’t using Twitter and also find contacts who are already using Twitter so that you can start following them and also start getting people to follow you. Twitter has a nice invite and find feature that makes this incredibly easy. To grow your reach even more you can start following people who follow or are followed by the people who follow you.. or that you follow. You might need to read that sentence again.. but basically you can find other users to connect with that are already connected to other users.

Now for a big tip. If you really want to maximize the potential with Twitter, you should make sure to take advantage of any plug-ins or sites that support Twitter. Here are three, but I’m sure there will be many more in the future if not already.

Squidoo allows you to input your Twitter account info into your Squidoo account and then it can automatically post updates to your Twitter account when you create or update Squidoo lenses.

Facebook has an application called Twitter, that automatically updates your Facebook status when you make a Twitter post.

The other tool is a free WordPress plug-in called TweetMyBlog that allows you to create a two-way connection from your blogs to Twitter. TweetMyBlog allows you to use a widget on your Wordpress blogs that will display your current Twitter feed.. that way all visitors to your blog can look at the widget and see a running feed of your latest Twitter posts. If they clíck on that, they will be brought to your Twitter page. In addition, when you make a new post to your blog, TweetMyBlog will automatically make a post to your Twitter page with a link to your latest blog post. Imagine the extra exposure you can receive by using these tools that help people see more of what you are doing.

Lastly, have fun! Twitter is a social site… so interact and enjoy!

By Darren Olander

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