OVBlogger: Blogging and SEO

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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:

http://socialauthority.ning.com/

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?

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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.

What? Someone already did that? Sheesh.

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So, have you seen the new “social” browser yet?

It’s called Flock and it’s pretty cool, if you spend your life in the trenches of Web 2.0 every day.

I like it, but not for work. It has some cool features. Like, you can see who’s Twittering immediately in your sidebar. Or, what’s happening on Facebook. Or even Pownce or Digg. Pretty sweet. You can also see several different feeds in “My World” which comes up as a single page in your browser window.

But one feature I really like is that you can search for videos on You Tube or stuff on Flickr at the top of your browser window. So, you search for something and get like this whole strip of videos on that topic without actually having to go to You Tube. Pretty cool.

Flock also has some of the same add-ons as Firefox, since it’s built on the same framework.

And you can post to a blog from Flock, but it has to be a hosted blog like Blogger, WordPress.com or LiveJournal. These are great if you’re just goofing around, but we all know (right readers) that WordPress on your own server negates the need for this particular feature.

And while we’re on the topic, even if you are blogging for fun, you’re obviously doing it for a readership, right? Well, why give your blog audience to someone else? Get up off your lazy, cheap butt and get a hosting account and install a WordPress blog on your own server. You never know what you might want to do with that audience. You might want to make some money from all your hard work, and WordPress.com is no place to do that.

Off my soapbox.

Flock also has a photo uploader and a Web clipboard.

But here’s the thing… None of these features will pull me away from Firefox. Just won’t. Flock is too fun and too social for me. If I used Flock as my regular browser, that would be bad.

I’d never get any work done and Tellman would fire me. Har.

But even if that weren’t true, Flock doesn’t have the SEO goodness that Firefox does. No Search Status. No SEOQuake. No S3 add-on and so on. You really can’t do business from Flock.

Now, if there was a meld. A hybrid, Let’s call it FireFlock, then… Well…

Maybe.

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I’ve been living under a bushel basket for the past few months due to the ListBuilding.com launch.  And as I do when I”m busy, I’ll see a piece of mail that I have to read, but… I have no time. So, I flag that puppy in Outlook and wait until I have a down day to go through the messages. I had built up more than 100.

Gawd!

But there’s a message that I always read, and that’s the one that comes in on Fridays or Mondays from Jack Humphrey’s Friday Traffic Report. You know I’m a huge fan and that I’ve mentioned Jack before here, but whoa. He comes across with some of the coolest and most exciting information that (like I’ve said before)… If you aren’t subscribed, what the hell are you waiting for?

Today, work’s a little light for the first time in a while, so I’m going through my stuff and came across a message from Jack from waaaaayyyy back in January. Oh, sure. Tons of people have already seen it and put this great information to task already, but well, I’ve been painfully slow to get things done for myself. I’m running a membership site and a teleseminar series at Blogging4Boomers.com, too, remember. Right?

OK, no excuse.

Here’s the deal: HubPages. Do you know what they are?

HubPages is a Web 2.0 site where you can build “hubs,” which are sort of like Squidoo lenses. You add text modules, video modules, Amazon modules, etc. And just generally build a hub around a topic. It’s totally fun. I have one over there about cats. In fact, I’m a cat junkie and have several Web 2.0 sites about cats and a couple of blogs and whatever.

So, back to my story.

I find this message in my Inbox from Jack that says “Get More Traffic to Your HubPages.”  I’m all for that! And whoa. Very cool. I find not one but 7 Hubs all about getting traffic to your hub. Pretty neat. I’m certainly going to take some of that advice. Instinctively, I think I already have some of that going from my SEO background, but I don’t care what stage Hub Meister you are, you’ll find some information to turn you on.

The first Hub by Mark Knowles–”How I Got My Hub to Be on Google’s First Page“– is really great.  Mark gives you a virtual recipe of making it happen. We’ll be adding that cool advice to our own Hubs (and Tellman’s).

But all of the Hubs in that blog post are totally cool, and you should definitely check Jack’s post and every single one of those Hubs out…

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Do you Twitter?

I don’t mean, do you chirp like a bird or talk inanely until your lips fall off? I mean, do you belong to Twitter?

Well…

Why not? It seems kind of silly to be “following” the activity of people, but I follow some pretty cool people, like Brad Fallon and his “Free Line Report” and Paul Colligan, podcasting journalist. So, when I go to Twitter, I can see just what’s up.

I get a Twitter from Brad daily, and if you’re interested in Web 2.0, the Free Line report is pretty cool. Takes just a minute to watch and keeps you up on the 2.0 news.

Paul Colligan posts to Twitter about a gazillion times a day. I try to stop by the stuff I’m really into, and keep the other stuff for later. There are just so many hours in the day!

I keep one open for education, usually first thing in the morning. It’s a “Tellman” thing. He says, “One hour of education; one hour of implementation.” It really works, and because of that bit of encouragement, I learn something new about our online world of glittery gems at least once per day.

But anyway, Twitter is so cool that some guy named James Buck, a graduate student in journalism from the University of California-Berkeley was arrested last month in Mahalla, Egypt while covering an anti-government protest. He just had enough time to Twitter “arrested” and his Twitter followers both here and in Egypt contacted the U. S. consulate to help him. How cool is that? James was freed and his one-word “Tweet” of “Free” was the next message he sent along. CNN even reported on it.

So, see? Twitter is useful.

And with folks following you and reading your blog and such, and some signing up for your list, it’s the best of all worlds.

Plus, it’s the quickest micro-blog on the planet.

Who doesn’t need more time?

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