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Google Places Reports And Irony

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 06:36:45 +0000

Getting Google Places traffic reports may not be unusual for businesses that have claimed their Google Places account. However, it seems unusual to me because - 1. I have never claimed my Google Places account for my business. 2. As a rule – Google doesn’t show Map results of Advertising or Marketing businesses at the search results level in Google.com. The only traffic an advertising or marketing firm can generate for its Places account is from searches done at the Map level. ? Google Places Traffic Report ? Search traffic generated by maps as a percentage of all search traffic generated for the small business is low single digits at best and thus virtually insignificant. I am sure for most small businesses getting Google Places search traffic reports is even more so.

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Google Places Reports And Irony

Copyblogger Weekly Wrap: Week of October 3, 2010

BlogPostman — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 20:00:00 +0000

I’m going to keep this week’s intro brief because my dog is biting me. My mother says he bites us all because he’s herding us (he’s a collie mix and barks and corrals when anyone runs), but I think it’s because he wants to be on the winning side. If anyone is play-attacking anyone else, he bites the person being attacked. He’s kind of an ass that way. So it really can’t bode well that I’m being harassed while writing the Wrap. Speaking of ass, it’s just like that time he bit Jennifer Lopez while she was busy working on Gigli . Now for the part where I massively fail to tell you what happened this week on Copyblogger (with bite marks): Monday: 4 Simple Ways to Get More High-Paying Clients with Your Blog If you’re not getting clients with your blog, chances are you’re not doing the four things in this post. Or possibly, you’re doing them but are wearing a clown costume. So remember also #5: Don’t wear a clown costume. And off you go. Read the full post here . Tuesday: The Simple Tricks Experts Use to Always Get Paid For Their Time Sometimes the person asking to “pick your brain” isn’t a zombie, and when that happens, you’re really in trouble. Rather than awkwardly stumbling through a conversation containing sentences like, “But my brain is supposed to make me money, you freeloader!”, Laura Roeder has better ways to deal with sticky situations. Read the full post here . Wednesday: Captivate Your Readers with a Marketing Story that Sells Let me tell you a story: There once was a guy named Johnny, and he had the very unprofitable hobby of writing stories. Then he discovered that if you can learn to tell your own true story in business, you can make money… so he did just that, and taught others how to do it, too. Then he hooked up with seven Victoria’s Secret models and lived happily ever after. Read the full post here . Thursday, part 1: The Easy-to-Use Tool that Helps You Build a Breakthrough Blog Apparently there’s this newfangled trend out there in the Interwebz called “being organized.” The way I read this, some people actually plan things out on a calendar and do NOT blog totally randomly. Apparently this crazy new trend has some advantages that you can read about in this post, like “knowing what the hell you’re doing.” Hmm. Interesting. Read the full post here . Thursday, part 2: Two Conferences for Serious Online Marketers Brian Clark will be speaking at the BlueGlass Internet Marketing conference in Florida November 2-3, and at PubCon Las Vegas on November 8-11. That’s pretty much it. Not funny enough? Okay, imagine him speaking in a clown costume. Read the full post here. Friday: Blogging with a Learner’s Mind This post made me think of how people say that kids pick up languages naturally and well, and how my response is, “If you were content to just say stupid and incorrect things and had people tirelessly correct you for months until you got it right, you’d be good at languages too.” Pamela says it best: “A learner’s mind is fearless.” Learn to lose that fear and be content to learn over time and your blogging will become so much more awesome. Read the full post here. This week’s cool links: Three Problems that Make Me Leave Your Blog in Three Seconds : It’s kind of a problem if people arrive at your blog, are really turned off, and leave. Here’s what may be driving them away and how to fix it. Why Free Plans Don’t Work : A lot of software offers a free plan, with the intention being to convert those people to paid users later. But is it a good strategy? Yes, the Internet Is Changing Your Brain : So, the use of Google and the net in general is changing the way you think. The question is, how, and in which directions? Sales Psychology: Why People Won’t Pay Your Rates : The fact that you look expensive or cheap doesn’t have much to do with the price, because everything is relative. Here’s an explanation of what really matters. The Basics : Sometimes we make simple things too complicated, like when a restaurant adds a bunch of things to Macaroni & Cheese. Always remember the basics. (Mmm… basics.) About the Author: Johnny B. Truant specializes in selling through stories and would like very much to set you up with a cheap blog or website . (That’s “cheap” as in “inexpensive,” not as in “tawdry.”)

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Copyblogger Weekly Wrap: Week of October 3, 2010

490 Posts Published @TimothyCohn.com

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 22:24:36 +0000

I have published 490 blog posts to date here on TimothyCohn.com 490 Posts Between this blog and the 944 posts on my other blog – Search Marketing Communications , I have written and published 1,434 blog posts. ?

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490 Posts Published @TimothyCohn.com

Two Conferences for Serious Online Marketers

BlogPostman — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 22:58:54 +0000

In addition to our keynote at BlogWorld this month , I’ll be speaking at two other conferences this fall. If you’re serious about building your business with online content, search marketing, and social media, you’ll want to seriously consider attending one or both. 1. BlueGlass Florida – November 2-3, 2010 BlueGlass Internet Marketing Conferences feature the top social media and search marketing industry experts to give you the best in topics, trends, strategies and networking possibilities. The event is produced by BlueGlass Interactive , the powerhouse combination of several top SEO and online marketing firms (including my friends Chris Winfield, Loren Baker, and Greg Boser, plus search and viral marketing ninjas Dave Snyder and Brent Csutoras). I’ll be speaking on a panel that kicks off the conference called Online PR – The Art of Getting Your Business Talked About along with Peter Shankman and Lisa Buyer . The entire line-up of speakers is fantastic. Important! If you’d like to save 15% off the conference fee, use copy15 when you register. Hope to see you in Fort Lauderdale. Register for BlueGlass Florida here . 2. PubCon Las Vegas – November 8-11, 2010 PubCon Las Vegas is legendary as a gathering point for serious webmasters to learn, network, and drink themselves silly. Even if you skip the drinking part, PubCon provides some of the best education about online marketing you’ll find at a conference. This year, I’ll be doing a keynote panel along with New Marketing Labs president Chris Brogan , social media firm UnMarketing president Scott Stratten , and Sevans Strategy founder Sarah Evans . Can one stage hold all that ego? You’ll have to show up to find out. And you’ll save 20% when you use this code to register online – cb-5671220 . Register for PubCon Las Vegas here . About the Author : Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and CEO of Copyblogger Media. Get more from Brian on Twitter .

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Two Conferences for Serious Online Marketers

50 Can’t-Fail Techniques for Finding Great Blog Topics

BlogPostman — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:55:00 +0000

It’s one thing to know you need to create lots of great content . It’s another to actually know what you’re going to write about this week. Are you out of ideas for blog posts? Small wonder, if the only place you’re looking is inside your own head. We all need inspiration … and you’re not going to find it banging your head against the desk and hoping an idea falls out. You need fresh inspiration if you’re going to come up with new ideas. To help get your inspirational motor running, here are 50 techniques for generating great blog post topics. Two words: Google alerts . Set an alert with a few industry key words, and ask it to deliver at least 20 stories a day. Read the headlines and throw interesting links into a file for future use. When you get several related stories, you’ve got an instant roundup piece. Skim national newspapers and magazine stories. How does national news such as the recession affect your readers? Talk about national trends, and your audience will come to rely on you to tailor big news to address their concerns. Ask yourself, “What’s missing?” or “What will happen next?” Answer the questions those national rags didn’t address. What’s the next domino that will likely fall as a result of this piece of news? Point it out, and your readers will feel you (and they) are ahead of the curve. Read small publications. If you have an expertise blog, check the experts’ columns in local papers or business weeklies. Few people outside your community will have read these, and their topics are often easily recycled. Read trade publications. Trade pubs cover every imaginable industry and they’re a great source of trend ideas, from Ad Age to TWICE (This Week in Electronics). They’ll also track new companies and products you might mention (see #39). Read your competitors. I subscribe to several competing blogs on my iGoogle desktop, for real-time headline scanning. If you write on a similar topic, you can give the other blog link love. Riff on a popular post. Grab yourself some high-powered linkage by posting your reaction to a big-time blogger’s thoughts. Try a new medium. Burned out on the blogosphere? Look at YouTube videos, listen to podcasts, or watch good ol’ fashioned TV shows or radio broadcasts. Think about pain. What are the biggest problems your readers face? Focus on topics that would provide balm to their wounds. Talk to a friend. That’s right — use your lifeline, just like on the reality TV shows. Jawing about a problem usually helps ideas bubble up. Tackle a controversy. Weigh in on your industry’s hot topic. This can be especially effective if you have a contrarian viewpoint . Join a blogger’s group. Knowing your group will ask what you’re posting should help concentrate the mind. Hearing what they’re blogging on will no doubt suggest subjects for you to cover, too. Scan industry conference schedules. The list of session topics offers a quick guide to your audience’s hot-button issues. Get a critique. Find a mentor. Have them look over your blog and point out what’s missing. Mine your hobbies. People love posts that offer an unusual perspective on your topic. For instance, I once did a post called 7 Things I Learned About Business From Playing Bejeweled Blitz . Do an interview. Do you have a favorite thinker in your space? Get in touch. You’ll be surprised how many authors and thought leaders are game for a quick Q&A. Review your greatest hits. Read your most popular past blogs. Look for ways to take a slightly different angle and further illuminate the same topic. Write a sequel. If something has happened recently that puts a new light on a past blog post, update your readers. Write a new entry and link it back to the old one. Have a debate.

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50 Can’t-Fail Techniques for Finding Great Blog Topics

Copyblogger Weekly Wrap: Week of September 12, 2010

Sat, 18 Sep 2010 20:00:00 +0000

Nope, I didn’t get fired. I’m back in the saddle around here, ready to summarize things for you and put them into an easily digestible, bullet point form. So why the layoff on the weekly wraps (now twice as delish with half the calories)? Well, it was summer. Brian and Sonia wanted a break from removing libelous statements from my scribblings, and I wanted time to pursue my hobby of reworking large companies’ marketing slogans. For example: BP: Well, at least you know who we are now. No? Okay, fine… here’s what happened this week on Copyblogger and around the web: Monday: How Eminem Stayed Relevant (And Why it Can Save Your Blog) In this post that finally proves that Sean Platt actually is Eminem, you’ll learn about how Marshall Mathers phoned it in for a few albums, then apologized, and then BROUGHT IT yet again… and how you can do the same to rebound from mediocrity back up to your A game. Read the full post here . Tuesday: How to Build Credibility with Your Sales Copy This post is the definitive guide to writing cred-building copy that will get past your customer’s defenses and get them to buy. (Dave called those defenses “shields,” so really, converting customers is like attacking the Death Star.) There’s three shield-busting approaches in this post, but he totally forgot “bomb the ventilation shaft.” Read the full post here . Wednesday: The Freakonomics Guide to Making Boring Content Sexy The book Freakonomics proves that even boring subjects can be interesting if you add wrestlers, and so offers a great model for making your blog more readable. (But if you want real inspiration, watch for my memoir: Exciting Tales of the Pennsylvania Municipal Tax Code .) Read the full post here . Thursday: How to Blog Like Bond. James Bond. Today we learned that the best way to build a popular blog is to drink, be smooth, battle supervillains, have indiscriminate relations with many women, and kill people. Or possibly there was some other lesson here, I don’t remember. You might want to read this post and see, come to think of it. Read the full post here . Friday: 3 Reasons to Tell Readers Why You can’t trust that people will listen to you just because you think you’re talented or awesome. You have to give them a reason to care and to read. One Brian missed: “Read this post or the bunny gets it.” Read the full post here. This week’s cool links: If you want to learn to do marketing… : … then do marketing. I could go on and on, but that’s pretty much the important thing to note here. Storyselling 101 : The fine art of selling more stuff through stories, in four easy steps (my own secret sauce) Six Critical Steps to Take Before Starting Your Social Media Monitoring Initiative : Hey companies looking to monitor social media! Do you even know what you’re looking for? Maybe pay attention to these six things first. 5 Tips For Aspiring Digital Copywriters From A Marketing Practitioner : If you want to write online copy, this is a great 2-for-1 list. You get five tips that suck, plus five pieces of advice that are awesome. How to increase Facebook fan engagement: an interview with Andrea Vahl : Want to learn how to better use Facebook from Grandma Mary? I suck at Facebook AND don’t have my own Grandma Mary, so I’m sold. Do I really need a list? : Naomi Dunford answers the age old question, “Do I need an email marketing list?” (Spoiler: Naomi’s answer is “S#@&!”) About the Author: Johnny B. Truant is in the middle of a free, 4-session call and webinar series about selling via storytelling (which is how he sells pretty much everything).

At Least My 729th Post

BlogPostman — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:08:25 +0000

Since September 1, 2009, I have posted to this blog each and every single day except one – a day when I thought clicked “Publish” but didn’t. I have however posted a blog post to my other blog Search Marketing Communications each and every day now since September 1, 2008 – 730 days in a row. Within the last year and between the two blogs combined I have created over 729 blog posts in the last 365 days. The posts weren’t all necessarily pretty or comprehensive but for the most part they each were on topic. The concept of blogging each and every day for a year looks easy on paper but its not and it wasn’t. During this same time period I also surpassed 10,000 Tweets. The process of posting daily and tweeting even more regularly has yielded a level of focus and awareness that had previously eluded me.

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At Least My 729th Post

The Three Key Elements of Irresistible Email Subject Lines

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:11:26 +0000

Email is back. Despite repeated proclamations of its extinction, rumors of the death of email marketing have been greatly exaggerated — especially since email and social media are a powerful combination. You might not reach the average college freshman , but for slightly older types (you know, the ones with the money), email is still the way to go in many lucrative mainstream niches. You must first, of course, get your emails read. And it all starts with the subject line. Email subject lines are a form of headline . They perform the same function as a headline by attracting attention and getting your email content a chance to be read. So, headline fundamentals still apply. But the context is different, with the email space having its own funky little quirks that need to be accounted for. Here’s the good news — email also implies a special relationship with the reader; a relationship that will get more of your messages read, even with subject lines that wouldn’t work in other headline contexts. Let’s take a look back at headline fundamentals, the specifics that apply to subject lines, and the “secret sauce” that makes email your top conversion channel. 1. The Fundamentals: When you’re writing your next email subject line, run it through this checklist, based on the Four “U” Approach to headline writing : Useful : Is the promised message valuable to the reader? Ultra-specific : Does the reader know what’s being promised? Unique : Is the promised message compelling and remarkable? Urgent : Does the reader feel the need to read now? When you’re trying to get someone to take valuable time and invest it in your message, a subject line that properly incorporates all four of these elements can’t miss. And yet, execution in the email context can be tricky, so let’s drill down into subject-line specifics for greater clarity. 2. The Specifics: Beyond headline fundamentals, these are the things to specifically focus on with email subject lines: Identify yourself : Over time, the most compelling thing about an email message should be that it’s from you . Even before then, your recipient needs to know at a glance that you’re a trusted source. Either make it crystal clear by smart use of your “From” field, or start every subject line with the same identifier. For example, with our own Internet Marketing for Smart People newsletter , every subject line begins with [Smart People]. Useful and specific first : Of the four “U” fundamentals, focus on useful and ultra-specific, even if you have to ignore unique and urgent. There are plenty of others who work at unique and urgent with every subject line — we call them spammers. Don’t cross the line into subject lines that are perceived as garbage. But do throw in a bit of a tease. Urgent when it’s useful : When every email from you is urgent, none is. Use urgency when it’s actually useful, such as when there’s a real deadline or compelling reason to act now. If you’re running your email marketing based on value and great offers, people don’t want to miss out and need to know how much time they have. Rely on spam checking software : We all know that certain words trigger spam filters, but there’s a lot of confusion out there about which words are the problem. Is it okay to use the word “free” in a subject line? Actually, yes. All reputable email services provide spam checking software as part of the service or as an add-on. Craft your messages with compelling language, let the software do its job, and adjust when you have to. Shorter is better : Subject line real estate is valuable, so the more compact your subject line, the better. Don’t forget useful and ultra-specific, but try to compress the fundamentals into the most powerful promise possible. 3. The Secret Sauce: Getting someone to trust you with their email address is not easy. Twelve years ago when I started in email publishing, people would sign up for anything remotely interesting. No longer. But if you do gain that initial trust, and more importantly, confirm and grow it , you can write pretty lame subject lines and people will still read your emails. Just as with that ditzy friend from high school who nonetheless always has something interesting to say, trust and substance matter most. Don’t get me wrong, writing great subject lines combined with the more intimate relationship email represents is much more effective. And you have to get your initial messages read to establish the relationship in the first place. Regardless, your open rates will improve based on the quality of your subject line. But there’s something special in this jaded digital age about being invited into someone’s email inbox. You just have to over-deliver on the value to ensure you’re a treasured guest who gets invited back. The inbox can be a stressful place. How do you make it brighter? About the Author : Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of the writer-friendly Scribe SEO software . Get more from Brian on Twitter . P.S. Have you checked out Internet Marketing for Smart People , the Copyblogger email newsletter? It features a free 20-step course that builds your business, so click here and subscribe today .

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The Three Key Elements of Irresistible Email Subject Lines

Social Media Marketing Insight from 21 Smart People (And Me, Too)

BlogPostman — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:50:44 +0000

There’s a new book out called Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars . Yes, that title sets off my hyperbole radar a bit too (not to mention my alliteration alert), but it’s a solid collection of smart social media advice based on real-world case studies, best practices, and proven techniques. I wrote Chapter Two of the book – The Psychology of Social Media . It’s about applying tried and trued influence factors in the social media space to build a business or make whatever case you’re trying to make. Here’s what else you’ll learn: How to Create a Mega-Following With Social Media – Gary Vaynerchuk Personality : How To Stand Out In Virtual Crowd – Andy Wibbels

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Social Media Marketing Insight from 21 Smart People (And Me, Too)

Article Marketing Lab

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 02:23:44 +0000

Feature Product Review:Article Marketing has proven its metal for the bigwigs of the web world. In fact, even the top Internet marketers utilized this marketing method to rank their pages on the top of the search engine results pages, and thus, grow their online business through it. Marketing in today’s world boils down to promoting

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Article Marketing Lab