Tips, thoughts and topics on marketing for small to medium-sized businesses in Michigan and throughout the world. Contributions by Chris Slocumb, Casey Frushour, as well as other members of the Clarity Quest team.
If you would like to see who is Tweeting with a backlink to your site, check out Backtweets.com. The advanced option tab lets you set a date range and setup email alerts.
Google has extended its personalized search results to worldwide users - not just those signed into their Google account. So now when you search with Google, it will provide results that are aimed at higher relevancy to you as an individual user, as opposed to relevancy for the average person. For example, since I always search for [recipes] and often click on results from epicurious.com, Google might rank epicurious.com higher on the results page the next time I look for recipes.
The feature has been available to Google users who have accounts, are signed in, and have their web history enabled (on Google) for a while. Now it appears to just be the standard way of delivering search results to everybody.
You'll know when Google customizes results because a 'View customizations' link will appear on the top right of the search results page. Clicking the link will let you see how Google has customized your results and also let you turn off this type of customization.
What Does This Mean for Organic SEO?
Our agency has never promised search placement results (such as we'll get you the #1 ranking for a particular keyphrase) because we believe it's unethical. Now for certain search phrases it's impossible to make that promise. One user's search results could look significantly different than another user right across the hall. What we do promise with our internet marketing services is to increase lead generation and conversion, which in the end is the only metric that should matter.
If you're worried about privacy, Google lets you turn personalized search off altogether. For signed-in users, all you have to do is remove web history from your Google account. For signed out users, click "web history" in the top right corner of a search results page, then click "disable customizations." You can also just clear your browser's cookies.
While I normally don't do product reviews on this blog, this one warranted it. For 10 years, I've owned HP printers...everything from low end throw away units to more expensive office printers. I've always been unsatisfied with the overall quality of both the hardware and software, but I could never find a suitable alternative. Well now I've found one. Over the weekend, my latest HP all-in-one printer, scanner, fax died. I did some research and found Canon has a great product. As an amateur photograph, I've always been happy with Canon's cameras and photographic software. So I purchased the Canon PIXMA MX330 Inkjet All-In-One Printer which is on sale at Amazon and Staples for less than $70. It's normally $149. For the price it's amazing...great speed, well made, easy to open, and it's easy to change ink. It even has a mini LCD color screen. Most importantly their software does not crash my Microsoft Office applications like HP did. I hear it's not the best printer for very high resolution photographic prints, but as a general office or home office printer, it's a very good buy.
We are getting many inquiries in the past month from prospects looking for social media and interactive marketing campaigns. Paul Dunay's blog Buzz Marketing for Technology had a great entry on how to choose a social media agency given this marketing area just hasn't been around that long. Here's Paul's advice...
Now that we are beginning to feel the relief of the economic uncertainty that has been hanging around us for the past few months, I am beginning to hear a lot about the invention of some new roles inside organizations looking to get “social media”.
Typically this means hire someone who knows our “space” really well and someone who is an expert in social media.
Well it’s the latter part that is the hard part. Consider that in Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book Outliers: The Story of Success he goes into a discussion about Violinists and how long it takes them to become a master at their craft. So without spoiling the book for you – the bottom line was – it takes 10,000 hours to become a Master Violinist. This got me thinking about how it could apply to Social Media and how long it would take to become a Social Media Expert.
So if you practice Social Media on the job for a few hours a day, let’s say 3 hours a day learning more about social media and 2 hours a day practicing social media times 5 days a week that means you could become a social media master in 7.6 years. Throw in the weekends and that drops to 5.5 years! But wait, social media hasn’t been around that long!
So since you can’t hire an expert, what qualities would make for a good social media marketer? Here are 4 macro competences to look for:
1) Story telling – in social media you need to tell good stories, stories that people will be attracted to, identify with and want to share. Story telling is key!
2) Packaging – they need to be able to package the stories up and be able to make them shareable this means the content can be found in a variety of media forms not just one.
3) Reach – they need to know how to reach people with their content, the more forms the better. So that means they need to be fluent in many social media sites.
4) Measure – and finally the hardest part for most people is the measurement of the effectiveness of the media and the efficiency of the story being spread in those media.
I'm reposting a blog post from Josh Freedman of Seattle's Web1Marketing that outlines wonderful criteria to evaluate if your company needs a content management system (CMS) for its website(s). Clients often if they need a Content Management System (CMS) to help manage website changes. In theory, these systems allow organizations to effectively manage their own site changes. This post will delve into the pros and cons of using a CMS.
As their name implies, Content Management Systems are software packages that make website maintenance more systematic and (in theory) easier. Typical features include:
Security — Password protected logins and different levels of control over site design and content.
Multiple users with multiple roles — Different users can have different capabilities so that, for instance, many people can create new content, but only certain editors and administrators can make those changes part of the live website.
Templates — Standardization of web sites and site sections, and removing the need for special formatting of each new piece of content. Also enables some things to be changed site-wide very easily.
Simplified content creation and editing — Most common CMSs allow users to create and edit content without knowledge of HTML and CSS.
Task automation — Automatic creation of menus, navigation tools, sitemaps, RSS feeds, etc.
Expanded functionality — Many CMS systems support “plug-ins” that provide additional functionality like blogs, email list management, usage statistics, etc.
Lower cost — Simplified content creation and editing saves time and reduces the reliance on technical services and outside vendors.
The above list is by no means complete, but they summarize the basic capabilities and point out the most popular benefits. There are hundreds of different CMSs that offer a variety of additional capabilities that may be valuable for particular situations.
The most common alternative to a CMS-based strategy is to built websites using standard HTML and CSS (and perhaps limited use of ASP or PHP). Much of the initial design and development work is the same for sites that do and do not use CMSs. You will either have to know or pay for HTML expertise to make changes, but there are tens of thousands of people and firms that can help, which cannot be said of event the most popular CMS.
So what are the downsides of CMS use? Well, there are many potential challenges:
Software cost — There are many open-source (hence “free”) CMS tools, but there are many that cost hundreds to thousands of dollars.
Installation and configuration cost — Any CMS must be setup and configured for a particular site design, group of users, initial information organization, and any additional features of the CMS or integration of other tools. This process requires significant technical expertise and experience with that particular CMS. The required level of expertise is typically much greater (and more expensive) than HTML and CSS authoring. Typical installation and configuration costs run from the thousands to tens of thousands of dollars.
Database dependence — Virtually all CMSs rely on database software. This adds technical dependencies that static websites do not share and may require the skills of database experts for advanced configuration issues.
Lack of portability — Unlike static websites, CMS-based sites typically require a variety of technical steps to be relocated from one server to another, and the underlying server software usually needs to be the same. Moving a static site is usually as simple as copying files form one location to another.
Maintenance — While a CMS may make creation of content easier, systematic changes to a site require expertise with the particular CMS and specific implementation, and they can be expensive.
User training — Content authors, editors, and anyone else who will be using the CMS must be trained on its use, which includes how NOT to create new problems in configuration.
Upgrading — A CMS is a piece of software that must be upgraded periodically to insure that any security patches or bug fixes are implemented in a timely manner.
Vendor dependence — The cost of making systematic changes is usually lower if you work with the people that installed the CMS because of system and installation-specific knowledge. This makes it much harder to cost-effectively to change vendors.
Security — Any software that allows multiple users introduces the risk of abuse by a user or someone who gains access through other means. The risk rises as more users are granted access. Integration with other systems (e.g. lead management) can introduce security risks for those systems.
Breadth of failure — In a site that relies on “static” HTML and CSS, problems are typically isolated to a particular page and are not catastrophic. Problems in any software-dependent system can bring down an entire site. Such instances are rare, particularly with high quality CMSs and skilled vendors, but the risk is not zero.
Feature additions — If you need a capability that your CMS doesn’t offer, it may require custom programming that requires integration with the existing system. This can be simple or it can get very complex, and any integration may complicate subsequent upgrades to the CMS.
With all of these challenges, it should be pretty clear that for very small sites and those that are changed infrequently, CMSs can be a very poor investment. For larger sites or those that require frequent updates from multipe authors, a CMS might be a good solution.
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which is on sale at Amazon and Staples for less than $70. It's normally $149. For the price it's amazing...great speed, well made, easy to open, and it's easy to change ink. It even has a mini LCD color screen. Most importantly their software does not crash my Microsoft Office applications like HP did.
he goes into a discussion about Violinists and how long it takes them to become a master at their craft. So without spoiling the book for you – the bottom line was – it takes 10,000 hours to become a Master Violinist. This got me thinking about how it could apply to Social Media and how long it would take to become a 
