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Getting traffic to your blog, says master Chris Brogan, is a various thing and will take some experimentation; it is still as much an art as a science. Before you are seduced by the siren call of the snake-oil salesmen, check out Chris' ideas, which involve thought and hard work, rather than magic formulas.

You can always market your blog the good old fashioned way. I’ve had people hand me business cards at events that had a compelling question or interesting graphic, and then a URL to their blog. More often than not, I’ll at least check out the post. You might make postcards and bring them to the places where your prospective readers might congregate. For instance, if you write a restaurant blog, why not have a business card tray by the mints? Make an offer, just like you do with any other kind of marketing.

Often times, we sit around inside the fishbowl of social media and hope people from outside will find us. Here’s a hint, hero: the people you need are out there wondering what they can do to learn more about the thing you’re talking about. Go get ‘em, tiger.

Read the whole article here.
VIA: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/
Thanks: Chris Brogan

St Pete’s Seven North Web Design & Graphics Social Media-Hub Website: Leveraging WordPress for Easy SEO and Lower Cost.

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It seems to me that one must be a pretty good writer to get a snappy, readable message across while liberally larding the page with effective keywords in sufficient density. [Note to self-- lay off the adjectives].

Sadly, there are still people out there who call randomly dumping keywords onto a page “SEO copywriting.” And many companies have experienced the disappointment that comes with second-rate on-page optimization and writing.
But it’s not necessarily anyone’s fault. It just seems SEO copywriting isn’t developed enough to be considered its own certifiable craft yet. Not enough people are taking the time to learn and develop best practices for SEO copywriting to set standards.
Seems like it’s due to SEOs and business owners tasking themselves with the job of SEO copywriter because they believe it’s not important enough to hire an expert – or maybe they don’t have the funds to hire someone.

Read the whole article here.
VIA: http://www.bruceclay.com/

Thanks: Jessica Lee

St Pete’s Seven North Web Design & Graphics Social Media-Hub Website: Leveraging WordPress for Easy SEO and Lower Cost.

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Chris Brogan comes through again. I particularly like his blog because it frequently returns to basics in an increasingly refined and targeted way, while presenting innovations useful to the small business blogger. You can sign up for his newsletter here if you aren't reading his RSS feed.

The best compliment I ever receive about my blog is that my posts are short, simple, and actionable. Any time I get that response, I feel that I’ve hit the mark. When I get a lot of comments about uncertainty or when people seek clarity, or when I find myself defending parts of the post that didn’t mean anything, or when I get comments about the analogy and not the meat of the post, that’s when I know that I rushed it, or that I blew it.

Read the whole story here.
Via: Chris Brogan

Thanks to: Chris Brogan

St Pete’s Seven North Web Design & Graphics Social Media-Hub Website: Leveraging WordPress for Easy SEO and Lower Cost.

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Over a period of time, it is easy to forget the why and even the how of business blogging and social media marketing. The article by Pam Moore excerpted below will help bring you back on course with its peppy directions.

11. Engage your audience. Every page should have specific objectives for engagement. You want your customers to read, listen, watch and learn about what you have to offer. You want them to tell their friends about it. You want them to scream from a mountain top how awesome you and your company are and all the wonderful things you can do to help their life. A visitor that visits your site and leaves within seconds is not going to do this. Draw them in with a relevant and inspiring experience based on content that connects them to you and others in your audience (i.e., community!)  Bring them in closer with social links, surveys, video, comment plug-ins, audio, and of course rockin’ content!

Read the whole article here.

Via: PamMoore

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It's important to remind yourself to be OF the blogosphere/social media universe, rather than a mere observer/exploiter. Think of it-- you can spot a blatantly self-interested spam-meister in a single glance, can't you? Well, so can everyone else.

Thing is, some people don’t really reach out correctly to influencers. They don’t read 20 blog posts and comments. They don’t follow guidelines on contact form policies on what will be covered and what won’t be. Influencer outreach may possibly be the most powerful outreach tactic that PR practitioners or marketers are laziest about. This turns bloggers sour, thinking that everyone in public relations or blogger outreach is just a spammer.

Read the whole article here. (Via Techipedia - Tami Weinberg)

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I'll tell you, other people make the case for using WordPress as the center of your nascent social media marketing empire a lot better than I do. So don't take it from me...

We have all had websites that sit for months and some times years without getting updated because it’s too much of a pain to contact the original developer to make the edits, not to mention the hourly cost for their time to update a pricing page or new content.  If you can use Microsoft Word, you can update your WordPress website.  Want to add a photo or video? Add button, Select button, Insert button.

Read the whole article here (Via Clear Idea)

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You've heard of small businesses -- and large businesses, too -- using social media campaigns to attract new customers, cultivate continuing customers, and build community around their product or service. And you would like to try this yourself.

That's a great idea! And it's a low risk idea too, since all the ingredients are free. Free as in dollars. But not free as in time, imagination, and commitment.

Traditional marketing -- advertising -- and the early implementation of the Web-- Web 1.0-- was entirely a one-way flow. I put up a big sign, an offer, a pitch, and the target might go buy my stuff. I talk AT you, not with you.

Social media marketing-- Web 2.0-- is about establishing a conversation about your product or service with your clients and customers. Web 2.0 is about empowering your product or services users to cheerfully do your marketing for you. Not because this is easier or even necessarily cheaper (although it is). But because your customers are better at marketing your product than you are. Did you absorb that last sentence? If not, read it again. Does it remind you of the advertising maxim "the best advertising is word of mouth"?

Your customers are better at marketing your product then you are. Even when they are being critical of some aspect of it. Unmitigated praise is not believable. And criticism allows you to:

1. Improve your product or service with advice from free consultants.
2. Answer your critics directly and in public in a way that shows that you care, and that you are right on top of all issues concerning your product.

This kind of transparency can only help you.

Your best competitors probably already have social media strategies. The time to begin your social media strategy is yesterday. If yesterday is all booked up, start today.

Social media continues to get a lot of attention — and justifiably so. It’s the biggest, most complex, most dynamic change to happen in marketing since the invention of television in 1923. (In case you’re wondering, yes, TV was invented in 1923, but it didn’t take off in the U.S. until the early 1950s.)

With all the stuff going on in Social Media, it’s not surprising that people are making plenty of mistakes. With that in mind, we’ve decided to compose a list of how NOT to run a Social Media campaign.

Don’t upload a corporate YouTube video and claim you “have a Social Media campaign.” Social Media is about a conversation, not about uploading a YouTube video.

Don’t sit on the sidelines. As 60 Second Marketer visitor Ruby Gottlieb once said, “In order to understand Social Media, you have to use Social Media.”...

Read the whole 60 Second Marketer article "How not to run a social media campaign".

St Pete's Seven North Web Design & Graphics Social Media-Hub Website: Leveraging WordPress for Easy SEO and Lower Cost.

Social Media Marketing-St Pete's Seven North Web Design

Call Seven North Web & Graphics at 727-894-5266 in St Petersburg, Florida to talk about setting a WordPress website as the hub for your social media marketing program.

There comes a time in any web-related process when you have to get out a pencil, or a mind-mapping web app, and sketch out a structure, a visual plan, something to show how all the pieces fit together. Or you can do what I do and see if somebody has already done the work for you. Here is an easy-to-grok self-branding scheme visualized for you, thanks to visual-mapping.com:

Build Your Brand

Download this chart as a .pdf file.

Call Seven North Web & Graphics at 727-894-5266 in St Petersburg, Florida to talk about setting a WordPress website as the hub for your social media marketing program.

From Mashable

Why use social media?

The best way to illustrate why small businesses are using social media is with a story. Think back to the days of the wild west. In those days, towns had one general store, and the store owner knew everyone. People trusted him and knew what they were getting. Enter the industrial age, and efficiency trumped personalization. People didn’t mind where they bought from, as long as goods were cheap.

Now, that mentality has changed. Consumers are once again reverting to a need for personalization from businesses large and small. The need has been rekindled by the Internet and our ability to find anything we want, as well as a mistrust of advertising (think used cars salesmen).

We’ve reached a point where the consumer wants to know the store owner’s name and that he can be trusted. Small businesses must look beyond their want to grow into corporations, and instead focus on their core customers. Thanks to social media, we’re able to foster these relationships easily and quickly.

Read the whole story, 5 Easy Social Media Wins for Your Small Business, on Mashable.

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Say that you are blogging to create community and a better page-rank for your small St Petersburg Fl business. Say that you are flat out of inspiration for a compelling blog post. What the heck should you write about?

About.com to the rescue:

3. Conduct an Interview
You can contact a customer, distributor, supplier, manufacturer, or even an employee and ask if they would be interested in answering some questions to appear in an interview on your blog. Most people don't mind the online exposure and interviews give your blog readers an inside look into your business.
4. Highlight Your Office, Employees and So On
Another way to give your blog readers a view into your business and help them make a personal connection with it (which leads to customer loyalty) is by inviting them behind the scenes. Post photos and stories about employees or photos of your office. Write about company events or anything else that lets your readers feel like they're part of your "family."

Read the whole piece:
10 Business Blog Posts
Business Blog Post Ideas to Keep Your Company Blog Interesting