Email Versus Social Networking

Communication is highly crucial for any business and the #1 way to communicate important information is through email. Recent research has shown us that people use the internet to communicate and share content in various ways and age, sex and the type of content you share all affect the way in which we choose to share information. While social networking sites are popular; nothing beats email when it comes to communicating serious information.

So, who shares what with who and why?

• Almost 90% of those questioned aged between 35-54 use email as their preferred form of communication
• Social networking sites are great for communicating but the majority of the content shared is humour related via videos
• Social networking content is far less likely to be business-related than email content

Social networking websites are fast becoming a normal way of life. Five years ago we would all get up and check our emails as a habit; we now all jump onto Facebook as we feel the need to tell the world what we just ate for breakfast. However, this doesn’t mean that social networking is taking over email as the types of conversation through social networking is far different than the content shared via email.

Check out some of the facts and figures on why people use sites such as Facebook to share information:

• 30% claim they share information because they think that it will be beneficial to the recipient
• 7% say they share information to generate ideas and create discussions
• 2% send information to help others to get to know them better

How to Use Email Instead of Social Networking..

All of the statistics so far prove that email is mainly used as a way to transfer and communicate important information rather than chit chat. So, the trick with email marketing is to make sure that your email is perceived as helpful and beneficial rather than as dreaded spam. This means extra attention MUST be applied to the content..

Here are a few simple ideas on how to create an email that people actually want to read:

• If you want to get your recipients to trust you, create a email template from a professional company because it makes an email easy and inviting to read
• Create a content strategy so you know exactly what to put in your emails so your readers can respond appropriately
• Analyze what works and what doesn’t work so you know what to avoid doing in the future
• Only include those people in emails who will be interested in the content and those who have given you prior permission

Apply these tips to every email you send out and your email marketing plan will take off in no time. Email vs. social networking as a means to do business-related communication is an unfair fight and email will win hands down over its worthy opponent every single time.

Local Business Listing

A citation is when you ‘mention’ a business or person on other websites, without direct linking being involved. You may also see the term ‘web references’ used on other websites instead of the word citation. An example of this would be if your company was under the yellow pages directory, but you’re not linked to the yellow pages. citation.

Citations are a major factor in the ranking algorithms of the major search engines. Like links, the business with the greater number of citations will most likely rank higher than the business with the fewer citations.Just like when it comes to links, citations from well-established sites help increase the degree of assurance the search engines have about your business’s contact information and categorization.

Citations are exceptionally important in less-competitive niches (like lawn services or pluming) where many service providers don’t have websites themselves. When your business doesn’t have much credit to run off of, it’s best to rely highly on whatever you have available to you.

Citations also confirm that a business is part of a community. It’s really tough to fake being a part of a community when you have an established online community newspaper or local blog citing you. Citations from highly reliable websites can considerably improve your Local search engine rankings.

Me and Don King at TRAFFIC Miami Beach 2010

So the Traffic conference in Miami Beach 2010 just wrapped up, it was ridiculously AWESOME!

I have been to TONS of conferences where I have either been an attendee or speaker and this is hands down been the BEST one ever.

It was an honor to speak at the event on the same panel as such storied mega domainers like Rick Shwartz and Mike Berkens. The other speakers where also a pleasure to work with, Michael Gilmour and Owen Frager. Howard Neu asked some excellent questions and did a great job at keeping the conversation alive.

One of the guest speakers at the event was was Simon T. Bailey, who is without a doubt the coolest dude I’ve met in a long time. That guy has a gift for making you feel good. I could step in a pile of a dog poo with my brand new $150 Nikes and he would make me feel good about it.

Living in Miami, I rarely get star-struck, but when Don King showed up, I was in amazement as he spoke. The man is VERY well read and while many people may not have understood or kept up, I can tell you he has a very sharp intellect and is my kind of guy. Thanks Don for coming. Thanks Rick and Howard for having him there. The fact that there was a 2 hour line to meet Don King and get a photo, made me late to my first speaking session with TRAFFIC, which was EXTREMELY embarrassing, sorry guys, my bad, won’t happen again.

Take Aways:

• I will go to every TRAFFIC conference I can make it to.The knowledge was first rate. A++

• I should have gotten into domaining along time ago.( I already made over $92,000 on the sale of 3 domain names this month alone) YAHOO! …pun intended

• I’m lucky to live in South Florida next to the biggest, baddest domainers like, Rick Shwartz, Zappy The Internet Warrior, Chad Folkening and John Ferber from Rapid Domain Builder and Domain Holdings, Mike Berkens and his blog about Domain News and Rick Latona.

• We live in an age where domainers are the new wild catters. If you know how to find and develop the wells (domains) you can strike it rich almost overnight.

• .CO domains are getting harder and harder to find. Can’t believe I was late to the game on this one. Great job pulling it off and making it work Juan, you friggin ROCK! The Versace Mansion party was perfect, the food, the girls, the crowd, even the weather!

Thanks again TRAFFIC!

Bing for Seo

Before you learn why Bing is important for SEO, did you know both Bing & Yahoo will be showing BING results in their search engines? This is huge because now, Yahoo will still look like the Yahoo we’re used to – and Bing will still look like the Bing we’re used to but search results on both sites will now be coming from Bing.

This impacts your SEO because if you currently have good rankings in Yahoo, but not in Bing, then your Yahoo ratings are now somewhat useless. Whatever your ranking is in Bing will be what your new Yahoo ranking will be, too. Considering Bing is moderately new and their index of the web is still so very small, it’s really possible that they don’t even know anything about your site yet and you won’t have any exposure or chance for organic traffic from Bing or from Yahoo.

Now, to how this impacts your search engine traffic. If you look at the table from Comscore.com, http://bit.ly/aURoDb, you’ll see that together, Bing and Yahoo make up 30-35% of all searches online. Another interesting fact is Bing powers the search bar on FaceBook. Bing’s now showing up everywhere, huh?

To see if you rank well on Bing, go to Yahoo and search for your keywords. Then, compare them to how you rank in Bing. Whatever you see in the Bing results will be what you will soon see in the Yahoo results, too.

In the past, Google has towered over any other search engine when it comes to generating the greatest amount of site traffic. But, due to this Yahoo and Bing merger, it’d be a really smart idea to keep Bing on one of your front burners.

Jonathan Volk’s article on farticles is a great piece of journalism that shows us that not all fake articles are conniving and manipulative and that a farticle can be used to sell a good product in a fun way. A farticle is a little like turning on a tap when someone in the room needs to use the bathroom – deceptive encouragement!

Farticles are basically fake articles that are made to look like genuine news stories that encourage people to make a purchase as they convince the reader the news article about the ‘fantastic’ product is real – when in fact it is simply the company deviously marketing their own product.

These fake news articles can be used as a spammy way to convince people to buy a product and is a truly illusory way to make a sale. Yet this great example of how to use such a devious form of advertizing in a positive way is truly unique and goes to show that we shouldn’t always think with such closed and pre-opinionated minds..

To read Johnathon Volk’s article in it’s entirety, go to http://www.jonathanvolk.com/email-marketing/farticle-via-email-marketing.html

1. Log into the personal account where the fan page is under.
2. Go to www.facebook.com/username.

>You will see a page that looks like this:

>Select the name of the fan page from the drop down menu

>You first need more than 25 fans on your FB page, or else you will see this:

>If you have over 25 fans, then select your page, and enter the desired username on the right

>NOTE: you cannot change URL. Make sure all spelling is correct

Now you have successfully changed the fan page’s URL.

Intertwine Blogging and Social Media

One solid fact about blogging is that it is horribly ineffective when used in isolation. This is because it is simply too long-form to survive when placed beside short-form social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. As the length of posts increase, interest fades, and bounce rate increases. However, if an effective short-form social media site is paired with a blog, then a blog can become a long-form companion to a blogging service or news feed.

There are some essential tips when it comes to effectively managing your blog+social media duo.

Crop Post Titles for Twitter.

The best bloggers use twitter as a tool by using short-term posts to attract long-term readers. Your tweets should be treated as if it were a news headline. Excite the reader, leave room for the imagination. Give the reader a reason to click through after they have read the headline.

Use an Auto-Tweet Script

There are several auto-tweet scripts and plugins out there, each designed for a different platform and offering a slightly different set of features. Some crop headers, others use post titles, while a smaller amount paste the entire first sentence into a tweet, occasionally auto-cropping important details and extra content. Whichever you pick, be sure to configure it alongside your blogging software.

Model Your Posts on TV News Stories

News stations have mastered the art of attracting attention through short headlines. These headlines build interest, and keep the viewer interested to follow through to the end. This approach will guarantee consistent traffic and blog growth, especially with a valuable social media presence as your aid.

Use Images in Your Initial Paragraph

Many of the top social media sites, such as Facebook, automatically crop and include images in post summaries, previews, and feature boxes. Make sure your posts are properly formatted and media-heavy to avoid disrupting or breaking the standard media box. Images have been proven to increase click-through rates, so make sure you have had yours included properly.

SEO Reasearch And Development

So I was reading Wired magazine this month and I came across some interesting statistics. At the bottom of page 52 in the October 2010 issue, there is info on the 2009 R&D Expenses of some major institutions and companies.

DataSTREAM Percentage of total revenue spend on R&D:

1. NASA $14.3 Billion (80.3%)
2. Microsoft $9 Billion (15%)
3. National Science Foundation $5.3 Billion (82%)
4. IBM $5.7 Billion (6%)
5. Intel 5.7 Billion (16%)
6. General Electric $3.3 Billion (2.1%)
7. Darpa $2.9 Billion (97%)
8. Amgen $2.9% (19.8%)
9. Siemens $2.3 Billion (5.2%)
10. Philips $2.1 Billion (6.9%)
11. BASF $1.8 Billion (2.8%)
12. BAE Systems $1.7 Billion (4.9%)

The above got me thinking, how much do SEO companies spend on R&D?

I emailed Aaron Wall of Seo Book and Rand Fishkin of Seomoz.org to see what they spend and when they answer, I’ll update this post.