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So, I’m like having a vacation week next week, at least from my regular job. It’s been 2 years since I took any time off at all. Unreal. I feel like an Internet Marketing automaton.
And two weeks ago, decided… This has to stop. Just for a while.
I wake up in the middle of the night and think: Lord, I never wrote back to the guy asking me to coach him. And then, I promised I’d promote this thing, that thing, and that other thing. Oh yeah, and the content has to be updated at Blogging4Boomers? (Like my new banner? I have absolutely no clue how to make it clickable. Help! Anyone.)
And so, worrying about such stuff when I should be sleeping means that Pat’s had enough for a few days–at least.
If you don’t see me, don’t worry. As the Governator once said, “I’ll be back!”
So, do you schedule in time every day to learn something new? I mean, actually put it on your calendar and then, do it? I hope you are.
I learned this (and most everything else having to do with online biz) from Tellman. One of our requirements of employment with Overcome Everything is that we spend at least 20% of our time learning. He asks us regularly to send him plans for further education, and I think that’s really awesome! I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned in the last two years.
Before I started working for Tellman, though, I always tried to learn new things, but the day just became filled with “to-dos.” You know. There were always fires to put out, stuff that had to be written, and on and on. Working online is a full-time proposition when you’re starting out. And though I learned stuff by reading books and hanging in forums, it was hit or miss, you know? Some days I learned a lot and other days, nada.
Making learning part of your daily schedule makes it as important as anything else you do online, and I totally thank Tellman for getting me to see that. He, of course, wants us to know more and more so that we can make the company stronger and stronger. Makes a real impact. Our team is getting stronger every day, and I know it shows.
So, if you’re not learning, get with it! Otherwise, your business won’t grow. You won’t be up to date in technique. You won’t be able to move forward. No matter how much time you have to do business each day, take some part of that day, even if it’s only 15 minutes and learn something new.
So, I get all kinds of interesting SEO stuff in my inbox every day, and read all of it with great interest. But one of my favorite digests is the one I get from the people at Axandra.com, the people who make IBP (IBusinessPromoter)
Today, they had an article about Cuil (pronounced “cool,” BTW), a new search engine that just opened its doors… yesterday! You can see it at http://cuil.com
It’s run by people with some pretty impressive credentials. Tom Costello, its CEO and founder, who was an important figure at IBM; Anna Patterson, President and founder, formerly in charge of GoogleBase; and a host of other IBM, Alta Vista and Google folks. Just go over and check out their About Us, Management page. You’ll be impressed.
They’re claiming that their engine is better than Google, according to Axandra. Well, time will tell, but I totally like what I see from a searcher standpoint. From a marketing standpoint, I’m not sure. Where I managed to get a #1 listing that has kept on keepin’ on for more than a year so far in Google, the site doesn’t even show up on page 1 at Cuil. In fact, I went through a couple of pages and nada.
To me, that says they have a totally different algorithm and the same things we do to rank with Google will hold no weight with Cuil. Should we worry? Hmm… Not yet. I think it will take any search engine to bump Google off the map—not that it can’t be done, but it will take a while, if that happens. We’ll have time to figure things out.
But the coolest thing about Cuil is how it returns your results. Rather than the listings that we’re so used to seeing in Google and Live Search, Cuil gives you a thumbnail and a description, followed by the URL. It’s cool looking, and makes images much more important. And beside the results, you get categories, like Yahoo, but in brief. Neato.
Since this just came out yesterday, I can’t give you an opinion of whether it’s better or not. I have no idea. I don’t know if it will take the Internet by storm or whether it will be just another good search engine that nobody uses. I hope that’s not the case. I think it’s pretty sweet.
Now, it will be my job to figure out how it works and whether it’s worth optimizing for. Time will tell. Keep ya posted.
Signed up for a cool new site today–Social Marketing Central, which comes from the Friday Traffic Report’s Jack Humphrey, where else? So, yeah… I really enjoy his kind of stuff, and it’s always top notch.
So, Social Marketing Central is really a Ning network site, which is pretty cool, but it connects you with other Social Marketing buffs. You can check it out and join at:
You’ll get your own page, and you can add videos, and photos, invite friends, and all the other stuff you like to do at social sites around the ‘Net. This group also has a forum and a direct link to Jack’s Blog Talk Radio. If you like Web 2.0, you’ll enjoy this site, no doubt about it.
I’m going to hang out there for a while. I’m hoping to meet other Web 2.0-aphiles and learn some tips and tricks… oh, and maybe give some away while I’m at it. Let you know how it does for social marketing in about a month or so, after I learn whether it has potential for business or it’s just a fun place to be. I figure I can’t lose, right?
Can you tell? I mean, I’m just enthralled with all the cool things you can do, right? You can bookmark, network, Tweet, Tumbl, or blog and if you work them all together, they become a powerful traffic machine!
About three or four months ago, for a hoot, I set up a bunch of sites about cats. I love ‘em. I have two and have always had them around and thought it would be a lot of fun gathering material for them. Well, I was right! It was fun setting the stuff up. And it was like a test. I wanted to see if I could make Web 2.0 work for me in a niche.
I have a hub at HubPages, a Squidoo Lens, a couple of blogs about cats, and even a wiki. All full of fun content and information about the different cat breeds. Check out Captivating Cat Breeds, if you’re curious.
Once in a while I’ll add something, but I really haven’t done much to the sites, as you’ll see. But here’s the cool thing: I just realized that the system is getting traffic! And they’re just sitting there.
I didn’t do much about monetization because that wasn’t really my intent. I just wanted to have fun and so… Duh. I never realized that any of these sites would become popular. I mean, they’re not tearing up the track yet, but if I build them out, I can see that they will.
Next thing on Pat’s agenda: Find cat products that pay. Ha! Are there such things? Yes. I’m thinking a brass kitty bed or an automatic litter box that never smells might do the trick. (Is there such a thing?) LOL I’ll find something.
The point is, don’t rule out Web 2.0 when you’re marketing. If you’re not using it, you’re nuts! You don’t have to do a lot for the content sites like HubPages or Squidoo or any of them. If you don’t want to write articles, get someone to do it for you. I did, and I’m a writer! But who has time for fun like that? Har.
Create a whole new set of domains for what you want to do, and then, set up a systematic circle of sites so that you’ll get traffic and visitors. Like, link your Hubs to your blogs and to the wiki, for example. Here’s the thing… Most of the traffic is coming from organic search! I’m not paying a dime and like I said, I’m not really doing a whole lot about these.
Maybe I should huh? I’m on a new mission to be Cat Woman.
I remember when Traffic Geyser first opened. Tellman had Mike Koenigs on a call with us and we were all like, cool. Sounds like it can be a useful site. That was almost 2 years ago.
If you don’t know what Traffic Geyser is all about, it’s a video distribution site. You upload your video one time and Traffic Geyser does the rest for you. You can upload it to like 30 video sites now, the audio to like 16 podcasting sites, and bookmark it in 10 social bookmarking sites at the same time. How cool is that?
Wasn’t that big when they started out, and why I said it keeps getting better.
Plus, when you upload the video, you get to add tags, a good SEO title and a description which goes along with it to whatever site you submit it to via TG.
The biggest downside is that you have to go and join all the video sites, podcasting sites, etc. Still, it’s a small price to pay for getting the tool to work for you. Very powerful stuff.
Oh, and I forgot. It will distribute to blogs, too. You can choose from some of the hosted solutions or even customize and have it sent to your stand-alone WordPress blog. Kewl?
If you’re using video and not using Traffic Geyser, you’re wasting a WHOLE lot of time.
Yes, I’ve written a few press releases in my day. I’ve published a few, too, back in my editor days, but I love what they can do for your business in terms of getting traffic. If you haven’t written one, they aren’t terribly difficult, either.
First and foremost, you need a good hook.
That’s exactly like a headline. So, if you’re good at writing headlines, you have half the battle nailed.
I like to tie my headlines in to something that people might currently be searching for. So, I cruise the headlines in the news. Of course, you have to tie your headline to the body of the press release or it won’t work.
I go to places like Google News and Excite or Yahoo to find the choice headlines, and the trick is to find something people are searching for. Right now, it could be Obama, Batman, or there’s always the fuel crisis.
Just be very careful how you do it or the release won’t be approved. If you can work a legitimate tie-in, though, you’ll be cool. Like, if you’re talking about Batman, you’d better have a gothic product or something superhero-like. I think that would be kind of hard.
Last year, when we were launching The ListBuilding Club, I did one for Tellman that said he was opening the club with more tricks than Harry Potter, which was out at the time, and then went on to say that Tellman’s not a magician, but he has more marketing tricks than a tutor at Hogwart’s. All worked out, you see?
Anyway, that’s my tip for the day. Have fun coming up with cool ways to get people interested. They may not even know that they want to know about your cool news, but well… when they get there, they just might be highly interested, eh? Get as many people reading your releases as you can.
I don’t know about you but I’m a huge fan of Brad Fallon’s Free Line Report. Actually, whatever Brad does is always stellar, and I always read his SEO blog, even before StomperNet, but this video short is something you can watch in a couple of minutes and get some really awesome stuff!
Yesterday, for example, Brad turned readers (watchers… it’s a video and written blog) on to several free video sites that rock. I’m trying out Jumpcut right now to see how it does with video editing. But he mentioned five totally great resources for photo and video bugs. They were each interesting and awesome in their ways.
Today, we got stuff about Firefox 3.01, which I didn’t know was out. (Thanks, Brad. You made it easy to jump on over and get the update.) But he also gave us stuff about ClipMarks (OK, I knew about that one, and BTW, your link is broken.), a tab solution, and one very interesting plugin that keeps you abreast of the competition called Niche Watch. Only problem there is that it’s for older versions of Firefox, and I totally love SEOQuake, even if it’s not working so hot with Google searches right now.
But that’s neither here nor there.
Brad Fallon gives great content every week day and I just love it. In fact, if you follow Brad on Twitter, you can see the minute the report comes out. Pretty sweet.
I mean, I totally love Twitter and enjoy seeing what other folks are up to all day with the Firefox plugin TwitterFox. It’s rad because I can quickly see it just by turning my attention (not even my whole head) for a split second and then, it’s over. Or, I can reply with a snarky “me” (yes, I’m a snark in real life) comment or whatever.
Generally, I only comment on other people’s Tweets throughout the day, though they have to be important. I mean, I’m picky. Really. John Reese was in a car accident in Greece! Worth a Tweet? I think so. “Hope you’re OK.” Simple. He had to make a “get the heck off the road fast move,” says he. And on with my day.
But I usually reserve my Tweets for blog posts or something cool like being interviewed by Early to Rise (which I was for the second time last week, BTW). And I don’t spend a lot of time messing with Twitter, really, because I have too much work to do.
Here’s the thing, though, and it really fries my bananas…
Some people Tweet about every stupid thing under the sun. I mean, I really don’t give a hoot what you ate for breakfast unless it’s something totally, incredibly funny or awesome. I mean, if you’re in Kawabunga and eat a tarantula or some monkey brains… Hey, that’s worth a Tweet.
Totally cracked me up, and then it dawned on me that people like that make me nuts. If you don’t have something really, really cool to Tweet about… tell your mom or your cat or someone who really wants to know this stuff, K?
If you’re a Twitter bug, like I am, you’ll really appreciate this plugin, it’s called Tweet My Blog. I have zero time. Really. Zero. If you know of a great time merchant, I’ll be there in a flash.
Anyway, that’s what makes this plugin so cool. You tweet the minute you hit the Publish button because the plugin does it for you. Watch how easy it is to install. I made a Camtasia about it. Check it out:
Pownce it!
