by Mary Killelea Dec 8, 2009

1. Decide on the one search phrase you want your page to rank for.
2. Title your page with a variation of the phrase you want it to rank for.
3. Create a headline on your page that re-enforces the title of your page
4. Write your page content for consumers, but do also keep in mind it’s important to give the search engines what they need to rank you correctly for the terms you are targeting, so use the key word term phrases you are targeting in your content.
5. Create links to your page using link text that contains variation of your search phrase.
6. Get external links to your page that also use variations of your search phrase.
7. Continue to do this through out your site on each and ever page, targeting a unique key word phrase on each of the pages.

Good Luck!

by Mary Killelea November 8, 2009 Portland Web Design

Here is a list of 13 great sites/tools that are FREE to help you with online market research. Be smart and do your market research.

1. https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
2. http://www.google.com/trends
3. http://www.google.com/insights/search/
4. http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
5. http://labs.wordtracker.com/keyword-questions 
6. http://technorati.com/search
7. http://www.google.com/alerts
8. http://www.spyfu.com/
9. http://www.nichewatch.com/
10. http://pulse.ebay.com/
11. http://new-pulse.ebay.com/
12. http://www.amazon.com/
13. http://www.shopping.com/top_searches

by Mary Killelea, September 14, 2009

You can now tag friends & Pages in status updates on Facebook Ex: tag your friend in your post. To tag Mary, start the post with @Mary (a drop down menu will appear so you can select which Mary - This is nice because if you use twitter you have to hope you remembered thier name correctly this feature helps you by providing choices.)

 Here’s how it works: when writing a status update in the publisher, users can tag connections by using the “@” symbol, just like on Twitter. Facebook pops up a dropdown menu that allows users to select any friend, Page, group, or event. When a friend, Page, etc, is tagged, that shows up on their wall. When you’re tagged, a notification is sent to you as well, and you can remove tags of yourself in others’ posts.

 What is great is that Facebook is enabling status tagging for all of a user’s Facebook connections – not just friends, but Pages, groups, and events as well. This means Page managers will now have a great new resource for tracking comments and feedback about their brand or business. Up until now, brands have been able to track posts and comments made on their Facebook Page directly by fans, as well as search public comments made by Facebook users through Facebook’s new real time search.

As of today, all @ tags will appear on the wall of the Page as well, even though users never visited the Page. The same applies to event and group administrators as well. That’s a big deal for Page administrators hoping to gain more insight into how they’re being talked about inside Facebook.

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by Mary Killelea, August 27, 2009

Origin of the name “Google”

In searchging the web for the story of the origin of the search engine and company name “Google” I have found this one by David Koller to  be the most intersting,  based on his understanding of the genesis of the name.

“The source of my information is my friends and colleagues from Wing 3B of the Gates Computer Science Building at Stanford University, where Google was born.

In 1996, Larry Page and Sergey Brin called their initial search engine “BackRub,” named for its analysis of the web’s “back links.” Larry’s office was in room 360 of the Gates CS Building, which he shared with several other graduate students, including Sean Anderson, Tamara Munzner, and Lucas Pereira. In 1997, Larry and his officemates discussed a number of possible new names for the rapidly improving search technology. Sean recalls the final brainstorming session as occurring one day during September of that year.

Sean and Larry were in their office, using the whiteboard, trying to think up a good name - something that related to the indexing of an immense amount of data. Sean verbally suggested the word “googolplex,” and Larry responded verbally with the shortened form, “googol” (both words refer to specific large numbers). Sean was seated at his computer terminal, so he executed a search of the Internet domain name registry database to see if the newly suggested name was still available for registration and use. Sean is not an infallible speller, and he made the mistake of searching for the name spelled as “google.com,” which he found to be available. Larry liked the name, and within hours he took the step of registering the name “google.com” for himself and Sergey (the domain name registration record dates from September 15, 1997). ”

by Mary Killelea August 24, 2009 

Whether you are concentrating your seo on Local Search or not it is a very important segment of SEO that every business owner with or without a website should pay attention to if you want customers to find you.

Here is a link to David Mimh’s recent survey of several experts that gauged the factors most helpful for ranking well in the Google and Yahoo Local algorithms, as well as techniques to be avoided.  He has done a great job summarizing the survey and it’s a must read for anyone interested in gaining ranking in the local playing field. http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml#results

When reading his article there were a few terms that I felt needed to be better explained for those not in the local search market trenches.  

survey glossary:

HCard Microformat – hCard is a simple, open, distributed format for representing people, companies, organizations, and places, using a 1:1 representation of vCard (RFC2426) properties and values in semantic HTML or XHTML. hCard is one of several open microformat standards suitable for embedding in HTML, XHTML, Atom, RSS, and arbitrary XML.   Want to get started with writing an hCard? Use the hCard creator to write up some contact information and publish it, or follow the hCard authoring tips to add hCard markup to your current contact page.

KML File - You can create KML files with the Google Earth user interface, or you can use an XML or simple text editor to enter “raw” KML from scratch. KML files and their related images (if any) can be compressed using the ZIP format into KMZ archives. To share your KML and KMZ files, you can e-mail them, host them locally for sharing within a private internet, or host them publicly on a web server. Just as web browsers display HTML files, Earth browsers such as Google Earth display KML files. Once you’ve properly configured your server and shared the URL (address) of your KML files, anyone who’s installed Google Earth can view the KML files hosted on your public web server.

If you’re new to KML, begin by browsing the KML Tutorial, which presents short samples of KML code that you can view in Google Earth and Google Maps. The KML Reference provides detailed syntax for all KML elements, with explanations and diagrams of how to specify them.  The Developer’s Guide contains in-depth conceptual material and examples.

Citations: a short note recognizing a source of information or of a quoted passage; “the student’s essay failed to list several important citations”; “the acknowledgments are usually printed at the front of a book”; “the article includes mention of similar clinical cases”  Or in the case of online Citations are mentions from other online sources.

UGC - user generated content

LBC - local business center

IYP - internet yellow pages

LBL - local business listings

Great resources to have handy: 

Most Important Data Providers + IYP Sites

1. infoUSA
2. Superpages
3. Localeze
4. YellowPages
5. Yelp
6. InsiderPages
7. Niche Industry Sites (BBB, Vertical Directories)
8. Acxiom
9. Yahoo
10. Citysearch

Other sites receiving significant votes: Niche Civic/Municipal Sites (Chamber of Commerce, Local Directories), Merchant Circle, UniversalBusinessListing, Yellowbot.

Most Important Review Engines

1. Yelp
2. InsiderPages
3. Yahoo
4. CitySearch
5. Google
6. Superpages
7. Niche Industry Sites (BBB, Vertical Directories)
8. TripAdvisor
9. Judysbook
10. Kudzu

Other sites receiving significant votes: Yellowpages, Merchant Circle, AngiesList. 

Also if you don’t know about it check out your site’s local listing on www.getlisted.org

by Mary Killelea, August 20, 2009 

As you know the power of video is undeniable.

• It generates traffic
• It’s an opportunity to presell your visitors, build a relationship, build trust with your users so they are more comfortable with you brand and are more likely to convert.
• It increases your search engine ranking - I’ve seen this work first hand it’s amazing!
• It’s an opportunity to create word of mouth and campaign that go viral.

Ever wonder what  you should create a video about? Here are 8 ways to use video to help sell your products.

1. Do a product review - usually it’s a person on camera doing a review touching and holding the product and showing usage.
2. Interview an expert, if you have a someone at your company that is very knowledgable or maybe your top tier buyers
3. Create a product showcase video - this is different than a review, there is no-one talking to the camera, it’s an opportunity to show the users the features and cool elements of the product rather than give technical data.  They can include music, voice overs at the beginning and end.  Kind of like a fancy slide show that evokes desire.
4. Create consumer video reviews - user testimonials can be very powerful capture that in a video and you have magic.
5. Make a top 5 list (or whatever number you wish) could be top 5 xmas gifts for teens. You get the idea. Be sure to include on the page a link to each specific product you highlighted so the consumer can view and purchase easily.
6. Imitate the QVC method - it works, study it and do it via video and put it on your site.
7. Video Blogging - chatting with your audience casually via video it’s a video post but visual, make them useful don’t just talk about your gramma coming over for dinner.
8. Free Online Videos - Everyone loves something for free, fill it with good quality info, at the end of the video you provide visitors the ability to get more info on a product that they can eventually purchase get them into your list for future promotions.

More to come on video production and video equipment in a later post. Meanwhile you can check out our video services.

By Mary Killelea August 13, 2009 

My new internet marketing tool is  Hootsuite ( http://hootsuite.com ) The great thing about Hootsuite is it allows you to streamline your internet marketing efforts. It allows you to still be broad in your reach but saves you precious time!  And it’s FREE.  We are truly living in amazing times with the amount of new technology we are seeing every day and it’s amazing the rate of new technology and services being offered and developed.  It certainly  can be overwhelming if you don’t use tools like this to help you stay on top of your field.  Here is a list of the what Hootiesuite offers as part of it’s service:

Multiple Accounts - Save your time and save your sanity. Continue managing all of your Twitter profiles through one client: HootSuite

Team Workflow - Have a company or organization with more than one contributor? HootSuite is still making it easy to manage multiple users over various Twitter accounts.

Track Statistics - Impress your friends, your boss or just yourself with our improved visualizations link statistics. Graphs show not only a summary but also individual tweet statistics!

Multi-Column View (like tweetdeck) - Never miss a tweet with HootSuite 2.0 multiple columns feature. Organize your Twitter stream into friends, news, search terms, keyword tracking - whatever you like! Our drag and drop feature allows you to easily move individuals into group columns.

Tabbed Layout - The new tabbed layout takes Twitter categories to new heights. Organize and customize your Tweeting experience. Within each tab, you are able to create up to 6 columns. Drag and drop your tabs for easy organizing.

Create Groups - Now you can create customizable columns for your friends, groups or topics of interest! Add users through their @username or drag and drop them from other columns! Hoot

Embed Columns - Want to feed the chatter from a customized Twitter column somewhere else? Now you can grab code from HootSuite to easily embed Twitter search columns in your blog or website.

Feed Your RSS  -Like to feed your blog or website through Twitter? Tis easy! Automatically feed your RSS to your Twitter stream with HootSuite!

Ping.fm Integration - Update all of your social networks with a single update! HootSuite with Ping.FM allows you to update your Facebook, Wordpress, MySpace, LinkedIn and more.  What’s Ping.fm? Think of it as your social network glue.  A Ping.fm account lets you send a single update to multiple networks simultaneously: Facebook, Wordpress, MySpace, LinkedIn, and more. And now you’re able to send those updates through HootSuite to take advantage of scheduling, clickthrough stats, and all the other cool features HootSuite has to offer. 

Schedule Tweets - Provide rich, nourishing content to your followers at any time of day using the HootSuite tweet scheduler. Pre-schedule anything you like, from radio programming to birthday well-wishes. Or, tweet live!

Quick Search - Located directly on the dashboard, click the search bar to see current trending topics, to search keywords, or monitor your brand. Like what you see? Save the search as a column!

View User Info - Easily view users’ details without being taken to a separate window! Click on their username or avatar to view an in-screen popup to view their detailed bio, follow them, or add them to one of your groups

And a host of other standard features like notifications and alerts etc. 

By Mary Killelea August 13, 2009 

Facebook’s U.S. users grew by 14% in July ALONE! - While metrics from other analytics firms say Facebook’s US growth slowed in July, new data just in from comScore actually tells the opposite story. According to comScore, Facebook’s traffic to its main site grew by nearly 14% month over month in July to over 87.7 million US uniques – the highest monthly growth rate Facebook has experienced in the last year

With Facebook hitting an all-time high growth rate in the US, according to comScore. It now seems that the redesign earlier this year hasn’t been “disastrous” as some people had claimed it would be – while Facebook is still working on improving the “highlights” section of the home page and  re-integrating it with the real time stream, Facebook’s American audience has continued to expand across the demographic board.

As Facebook continues its experiments to make sharing more efficient, the company is now testing a “faster, simpler version of Facebook” called Facebook Lite. Facebook Lite is now live at lite.facebook.com for those users included in the beta test.  Facebook says it is running the test primarily in countries “where we are seeing lots of new users coming to Facebook for the first time and are looking to start off with a more simple experience.”

Users who are part of the beta test are seeing what could be described as a more FriendFeed-like version of Facebook. The stream appears to be reduced to just status updates, likes, and comments – no activity stories, application stories, or embedded content appear. In addition, profile page tabs have been moved to the left side of the page, all basic info and small profile boxes have been removed, and the publisher is not open by default. 

If you ask me they want to compete with Twitter they can say it’s for efficency purposes but we’ll see how similiar the user experience is to Twitter when it’s all said and done.