Below I have outlined the phases that you will go through when determining key phrases for your campaigns. I would recommend using a spreadsheet program such as Excel to do this effectively.

Phase 1 – Brainstorm

Brainstorm about 10 -20 key phrases that reflect your products or services. It’s okay to have broad terms at this point as we will narrow them down later.  Examples: Sponge Candy or Crossword Puzzle Gifts. We will later add more descriptive words to these to make them more targeted. Example: Buy Sponge Candy Online

Phase 2 -Check the quality of your terms

Next we will check the quality of the terms. In order to do this, you will go into Google and type your terms in the search box. Check the results. If your competitor shows up or other related items that relate to your business, then you know that it is a quality relevant term. If it is a bunch of definitions or other mumbo jumbo that shows up, it is most likely not a good key phrase. In this case you should add words to the key phrase to make it more descriptive. Example: If you were a college and you first came up with the general  term MBA and got a bunch of definitions on what an MBA is, you should consider adding more descriptive words ending up with something like this, Accelerated MBA Program . People often think in broad terms, but the truth is more targeted descriptive terms are better. Refine all of your terms so that they are good quality terms. You should now have high quality  key phrases with the search volume next to it.

What about GEO targeting?

If you are Geographically targeting a certain region, now is the time to put regions in to make the keywords more descriptive. For Example: If you are a benefits company who works specifically in Buffalo NY and your original brainstormed keyword was Health Benefits you should now end up with something like this,  Health Benefits Buffalo NY. The same  company could do the same thing for  Dental Insurance by targeting the term Dental Insurance Buffalo NY .

Phase 3 – Check Search Volume

Using the Google Adwords keyword tool, check the search volume for each of you refined quality terms.  Write this number down next to each term. If there is no search volume, simply type zero. Note: Most GEO targeted terms will have little to no search volume.

Phase 4 – Check the  competitiveness of your terms

Next you will check the competitiveness of each  key phrase. In order to do this you will use Google in the same way that you checked quality.  This time you you will write down the number in the top right of the Google results page that tells you how many results come up for that particular term. This number will determine how competitive your key phrase is and how hard it is going to be to rank for it.  Example: The term staff augmentation only has 586,000 other sites that show up in the search results page. This tells us that it will be easier to rank than say, direct placement services which has 5 million results.

Phase 5 – Determine the most relevant terms

Next look through your terms and decide which ones are most relevant to your business. This is really a judgment call on your part. No one can tell you this but you. Some things to think about are: Will you feel comfortable writing about this term in your page copy? Is this term targeted toward what you do? Keep the terms that are highly relevant and get rid of the rest.

Phase 6 – Refine your terms based on the Magic formula

The last phase of refining your key phrases  is kind of a balancing act. The magic formula is ” High Search volume, High Relevance, Low competitiveness. ” Go through each of your phrases using this formula and eliminate the ones that do not fit the model. Note: If  your terms have low search volume but are very relevant it is worth keeping them. An example of this is GEO targets.

Good luck!

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010.  After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

I actually have a .png file on my company website that doesn’t render in Internet Explorer 6.0 and I refuse to change it because browsers are free and people should update them when a new one comes out. If you use internet explorer 6.0 or lower and it is your choice, you are not a good fit customer for me. Luckily I am not in web design. LOL!

So why is Google doing this? Most likely to support HTML 5.0 technology in the future. HTML 5.0 provides some really great enhancements to the web. Check out the small list below.

Video Element: My favorite HTML 5 features yet. You can embed video without having to rely on third-party proprietary plug-ins or codec. You can embed video code with the same amount of ease as you now embed an image with the ability to manipulate videos and built-in video controls among other things.

Canvas: Canvas element lets you render graphics and images on the fly. An excellent implementation of this element was done by the developers of Mozilla lab project Bespin. Which is an extensible Web Code Editor using Canvas (among other things). You need to register to try out Bespin. You can see a much simpler implementation of canvas with this drawing board (works with FF 3.5 – Chrome – Opera). All done without having to rely on plug-in, the possibilities are endless.

Application caches: The ability to store web apps like email locally and access it without having to connect to the internet or install an external client like Outlook or Thunderbird. Google gears, which helps you access Gmail offline, is an implementation of HTML 5 specifications for Applications Cache (and much more). If you use Google Gears than you are using already using this feature. You can try out an online demonstration of this feature in the form of sticky notes here, which saves information to your local DB. Works on Safari 4 and Chrome, FF 3.5 is a bit buggy on this demo.

Geolocation: This API defines location information with high-level interface (GPS) associated with the device hosting the API. Sources of location information includes Global Positioning System (GPS) and network signals such as IP address, RFID, WiFi and Bluetooth MAC addresses, and GSM/CDMA cell IDs. Yes, a big brother feature, but it can only be used if the user gives the application permission to use the information. You can try it online here

Of course there are some more features but these are just a few of my favorites.

“Mobile browsing now accounts for 1.3% of all web browsing and is rising at a rapid rate, according to the latest figures released by NetApplicatoins.”

2010 is going to be the year for mobile websites. With the advances in mobile devices like the Droid and an increasing number of iphone users, soon you will be faced with the question of whether your company should have a mobile website or not.

There are two schools of thought on this subject.

One states that mobile browsers are becoming so advanced, you do not need to create a mobile site for them to be rendered correctly. An example of this is how the iphone and Droid render regular websites so nicely. However,  most of us that have one of these devices would agree that it is a lot easier to navigate a website when it is tailored for a mobile device.  This is where the second school of thought comes into play.

The second school of thought states that a mobile friendly site has less graphics, less code, and is less busy than a regular website. Thus making it easier to navigate, and load faster on a mobile device. As mobile broadband becomes better, load times may not be as big of an issue, but why make it any harder than it has to be for a customer to purchase or contact you? The faster your site loads the less customers you will lose to lag time.

If you couldn’t tell, I tend to agree with the second school of thought. This is because I think a site should be brought down the the lowest denominator for the best user experience. By doing this you are limiting your chances of losing customers to things such as;  lag time, poor navigation  or not having the correct screen size for mobile devices.

I recently read an extensive report that showcased the current and future use of mobile Internet.

We are now in the “early innings” of the development of the mobile internet, according to a recent report from investment group Morgan Stanley, after the evolution of the PC and the desktop internet.

“As 3G adoption hits inflection points in many markets, consumers are flocking to a broad range of IP- based usage models over powerful mobile Internet- enabled devices. We predict that smartphones will out-ship the global notebook and netbook market in 2010E and out-ship the global PC market (notebook and netbook and desktop) by 2012E,” the report’s authors said.

Still not convinced? Below are some reasons you should think about having a mobile website in 2010.

1. 93% of U.S. adults own a cell phone.
2. Mobile web will overtake the desktop within 5 years.
3. $1.6 billion purchased from mobile devices in 2009.
4. Mobile advertising spending will surpass $6.5 billion in 2012.
5. Your regular website is not going to cut it for the small screens and mobile bandwidth.
6. Mobile sites are indexed separately than regular sites in Google.
   

It is no secret that mobile web browsing is only gaining momentum. Right now we are past the point of the early adopters phase as this year  the growth of mobile users is predicted to surpass 2009 by 10%.

My company(Zoodle Marketing Group) is currently working on our mobile website design. It is set to launch before mid February this year.  However, throughout last year we have been working with many of our customers to put together a plan for their mobile websites. Most of which will launch in the first quarter of this year.

If you haven’t put a mobile website into your  marketing plan for 2010, I would suggest you reconsider. It is going to be the year for mobile growth. Get in the game and get a head of your competition.

So why are some people saying that email marketing is dead?

One of the most common reasons why email marketing doesn’t work for a lot of companies is because they run into something called list exhaustion.

List exhaustion is when your emails have no perceived value to your recipients anymore. This occurs when:

• You are not sending information that is useful to your readers
• You are sending your non-useful emails too frequently
• Your emails are hard to follow
• Your emails have poor designs and your readers do not take them seriously

No one wants to receive emails about something they don’t care about.

Some of you reading this may have already run into list exhaustion problems. I feel for you. You will have a lot of work ahead of you to fix this. Been there, done that and yes it can be fixed. But those of you that are new to email marketing should start off on the right foot.

Here are some things that you can do to prevent list exhaustion.

Note: I use a program called Constant Contact to provide the following functions. If you are not using an email marketing software program you are missing out on everything that email marketing can do for your business. I recommend trying a free trail with constant contact.

So here goes.

• Segment your list - Segmenting is the process of splitting your list into multiple lists based on your recipients interests. You might have a general list of 1000 people. By splitting those 1000 people up into smaller segments based on their interest you can email them more frequently. These smaller groups of people will be more tolerant of your emails because they will be relevant to their interests. Example: A computer training company who does business in Buffalo and Rochester NY might have a general list of current and potential customers. The people in Buffalo do not want to hear about computer training courses in Rochester. So the more this company sends out unsegmented general emails about classes in Rochester, the more the Buffalo list gets exhausted. Eventually the Buffalo list will just start ignoring the emails, resulting in lower sales conversions.
• Provide something useful – This is where most companies really have a tough time. I think it is because the term “News Letter”. “News Letter” means tell em about your company right? Not in my book. Unless you have share holders, no one cares about what you are doing on a monthly basis. If you want to fill people in on what your company is up to, do it once per quarter. Use your other emails to provide value, sell products or provide useful information. Remember to use the WIIFM factor.
• Have a frequency that works for your readers – If you send too many emails without good content, people won’t even read them anymore. They will just end up getting deleted.
• Make your emails easy to follow – This seems simple right? Well you’d be surprised how many companies try to pack as much information as possible into one email. It is information overload. The important content in your emails should only be on one page. The user should not have to scroll to see it.
• Use a good design – A good design will make your emails come across more professional. Email marketing template design is a pain in the butt. Templates seldom work across multiple email platforms, but with a little testing you can get them to work with a majority of them. Constant Contact has a bunch of really great templates. You can also pay a professional to create one for you.

Try to avoid list exhaustion before it occurs and you will have huge success in your email marketing campaigns.

There are only 26 seats available and we have 6 left to fill before January 20th.  They are going quickly, so I am going to be doing another one around the same time at a different location. As soon as I know about the new dates I will post them. Please click the register today link below for details.

Register Today!

I put together a list of some important aspects of writing web page copy. Enjoy!

• Companies love to talk about themselves so naturally they ramble on and on. Don’t ramble. Keep it short and sweet.
• Your message should be about the reader not your company. People don’t really want to read about how great you think your company is. They want the WIIFM(Whats in it for me?) factor.
• You have less than 8 seconds to catch a persons attention. Make your page easy for someone to scan by using white space, heading tags, and bold fonts when necessary.
• Welcome… For some reason some organizations think that their home page should welcome their visitors. Why, it’s not a house, its a website. Give them the information that they want..Information about what you do, or your products or services.
• Thank you…Companies also feel the need to thank visitors for coming to their site. Why, is your site so bad that you have to be thankful that someone came to visit it? Okay, that might be a little harsh. But seriously, if you do this you are wasting prime real estate on your web page for more important page copy. Don’t thank people until after they have made a purchase.
• Bad grammar – It is fascinating how many companies use  grammar improperly in their page copy. You should always have someone read over what you write. Even if you are good at writing. A second eye is always a good idea.
• Make sure to use a call to action where it is  necessary. Don’t be afraid to ask someone to contact you or make a purchase.
• Use blurbs that have a read more link on your home pages. Blurbs are easy to scan.
• When writing page copy, try to identify with the reader. What are the important pieces of information that they would want to read?

I hope this was useful . Good luck and happy page copy writing.

However, there are a lot of do it your-selfer’s out there. For you guys there are ways of skinning a Wordpress blog that doesn’t require you to go into the code and spend all day making tweaks.  One of the best resources that I have found is Frugal Themes . I am a big fan of keeping the blog clean and there is no cleaner theme out there. Unfortunately this is a paid theme ($79.00), but it is well worth the money!

It provides complete customization of layout style, colors, logo, fonts and what ever else you can imagine without having to know any code.  I have to admit, even for a guy like me who doesn’t mind getting my hands dirty with code, I use this from time to time.

The other reason I thought this would be a good post is because a lot of people in my seminars are not tech savvy. Frugal Themes support and comprehensive directions are unmatched. I think most non savvy people would be able to figure this one out with a little help from the Frugal support forum.

This theme also lends itself nicely to most business people because it is very clean. If you are looking for a funky style theme, fugal themes is probably not for you.

If you do not want to pay for a theme, there are plenty of free ones available, but you will have to spend a lot of time tweaking code to get it to look like you want. I love when I find something that truly stands out from the rest and this is one of them.

Click here to check out the video on their home page to see how it works.

I hope this helps. Good luck with your theme.

This service is really easy and totally cool. Essentially all you have to do is sign up to be a publisher, and advertisers find you. They will send one tweet advertisement per day from your account. You don’t have to do anything. The best part about it is that they are expecting some large advertisers to pay out big. That means people like us get paid well for tweeting.

The best part about it is that you don’t have to have a huge following. In fact most people who have 200-500 followers will make out better than others. This is because the advertising is built on a quality score similar to other online marketing.

The quality score is based on “real followers” not bots that auto-follow. Since most of us with a lower amount of followers have real followers, we are better off.

I would recommend this to anyone. What a great idea. What’s the worst that can happen. Sign up, its free. If you don’t like it, then cancel. I signed up right away.

Click here to sign up. Good luck and I hope you make a million dollars.

Update: Another good one to join is Sponsored Tweets

Google is finally fighting the spam that has plagued the Google local channel for sometime. According to some experts, there are 5 new guidelines.

1. The business name on Google Maps must be your full legal business name. For example, you cannot use product descriptors such as, bulk silica gel.
2. PO Boxes do not count as physical locations.
3. A property for rent is not considered a place of business. Please create one listing for the central office that processes the rentals.
4. You must use a shared business email account if multiple users will be updating your business listing.
5. If possible, use an email account with a domain that matches your business URL. For example, if your business website is www.menssilkbowties.com, a matching email address would be you@menssilkbowties.com.

If you haven’t signed up for Google Local yet, you can do so by going to the Google Local Business Center.

Sitemaps do not guarantee all links will be crawled, and being crawled does not guarantee indexing.  However, a Sitemap is still the best insurance for getting a search engine to learn about your entire blog or website.

This article is about generating an XML Sitemap for your Wordpress blog that auto generates every time you post a new article. This requires a little FTP knowledge and that is about  it.

• First of all you will need to download an XML Sitemap plugin.
• Follow the directions on how to install the plugin. Follow the configuration instructions and viola, you now have a dynamic XML  Sitemap for your Wordpress blog. Now what?
• Once you have the Sitemap ready to go, you should submit it to Google webmaster tools, Yahoo and Bing so that you can track results.

It’s really pretty easy. I absolutely love this plugin. XML Sitemaps are an absolute must for every Wordpress blogger.