Search Engine Optimization has become the newest and best way to market products or services. Gone are the days where print advertisements can net millions of dollars as readership rates plummet across almost every market. The Internet has become the new frontier of marketing and at its forefront is SEO. SEO Basics can bring any company into the forefront of public visibility.

The easiest way to approach why search engine optimization is so important is to think about how users browse the Internet. If someone wants to purchase a product, they will typically go to Google or their favorite search provider and look for a review of the product, or even the best place to purchase it. They will then click on whichever of the first links looks to be the most relevant.

Search Engines are trying to find their users the most relevant content. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is essentially trying to get a search engine to think that a website is the most relevant for any given keyword. If a web owner is selling dog leashes on their website, when someone searches for "the best place to buy dog leases", that web owner wants to be the first result that shows up to get the sales. Hiring an internet marketing company can help you target search engine users for the product or service you offer, but if your budget is small, you might have to do some of your SEO work yourself.

Keywords are the basis for most of the popular search engines for today. A search engine looks at how many people are linking to a website to determine its value. Take the previous example for instance. If 200 other websites have a link to that website that says "great place to buy dog leases", the search engine "thinks" that that content is more relevant to their website.

The best way to begin Search Engine Optimization on a website is to figure out what keywords need to be targeted. Identify a product that needs to be sold and then the specific keywords that users would search for. From there it is just a matter of using those keywords and creating content offsite that will link users back to the original site.

I will definitely enter another if one come up,  it was fun testing my own limits when it came to writing and promotion, and winning $200 didn’t hurt either! Perfect timing too, my daughters birthday is this weekend so every bit of cash helps with that!  Thanks again for all of your support!

Let’s discuss some examples . . .

Let’s say you have a mega corporation within the Fortune 500 and are progressive about having a Twitter account, I would say kudos to you.  However, there are some rules of the road for Twitter.

Twitter

First – Twitter is about having a conversation.  When you are using Twitter, it’s about engagement and building long-term relationships – not hard selling or spamming.  Social media authority, Dean Holmes, recommends that a business follow back everyone except for MLMs and spammers.  Simply following people back makes your consumers feel heard.  When you do not follow back or answer replies, you appear to be either too high and mighty or extremely disorganized.  Why would I buy a product or service from a disorganized company?  In addition, the use of @ replies indicates engagement.  If every single tweet that is sent out contains a self-serving link – you are seen as a spammer.

My second point about Twitter is to spend some time designing a nice custom background indicating your company’s or your own personal brand.  Using the standard templates and not having a decent sized account (over 1,000 followers) makes you look amateur.  Consumers do not want to buy from an amateur – they want to buy from the best.  So be the best!

Blog

Another example I can use to illustrate my point is having or not having a blog presence.  Let’s look at health care giant, Kaiser Permanente.  Kaiser is a $34 Billion dollar plus company and does not have their own blog!  One would think that one person of out 167,300 employees could dedicate some time to educating the public, current and potential members by simply engaging and sharing health tips and trends.  By sharing content, they can build up their reputation as the leader with their Thrive campaign.

Kaiser offers so many free classes to its members about health care tips.  Why not blog about it?  I Google “Kaiser Permanente Blog” and find a site called Kaiser Permanente Thrive Exposed showing their lawsuits and medical errors.

Conclusion

Social media is here to stay.  The choice is yours to get with the program.

Posted by Deepak Gupta.  Deepak runs Marketing By Deepak and you can read more about him and his experience here.

They are ridiculously organized and use many methods.

With an organized business, you can handle and negotiate powerful business deals, manage and launch client campaigns, and oversee the productive employees who are at the core of every great business. Doing these things can allow the business to thrive because of the time the business takes to develop structural and organizational skills. Productivity can also be at an all time high when you’re organized and know, step by step, what you need to be working on. It makes your daily tasks less ominous.

Small business organizing is more than simply penciling in a client meeting or delegating duties and responsibilities. Organizing the business to enjoy a profit relies on systems that are more dependent on background systems or on things which occur unnoticed or without event. The following online and offline systems can help you organize your small business from the core.

Effective Communication

Using a hosted exchange system keeps everyone playing from the same business playbook. The system syncs all calendar, mail, and contact information and retrieves wherever an employee needs to access. Multiple users can access the hosted exchange platform and eliminate failed client communications or duplicated information.

Managing Projects

There’s a lot of useful web-based software you can use to help manage your team as well- if you want to escape the traditional and hop into the 21st century. Basecamp is an organizational software program. It shows detailed information about projects, time-lines, and deadlines and gives progress reports for each component of a project. Selected users can operate and manage the software, while large user pools can access the platform and find project details.

Central Desktop is another software application offering similar tools for project management. The program allows you to keep project details in view, helps determine costs, and creates a time-line for each project.

Whiteboards

Whiteboards are more useful than a small business can imagine- and not just because you can draw fun doodles of your team members and write silly messages. They can keep the team working creatively and collectively, serve as a road-map for brainstorming, and help with troubleshooting problems. Cloud computing is a concept that virtual whiteboards can use to work interactively with clients, also keeping them abreast and garnering any feedback or suggestions from their perspective.

Actionable Items

Another way to keep the business organized is to set goals and milestones for the team to achieve. There are both online and offline systems that you can use to stick to your action list. Long term goals with short term tasks will keep the team focused, motivated, and organized, so they know what to implement with each step of a project, both individually and company wide. Goal setting is also motivational, as well as organizational, because it gives the team a focal point to work toward.

Meetings

Meetings are always good to touch base. You can either use software, like GoToMeeting, if your team is split into different offices, or simply do face to face meetings. One technique for holding meetings that are efficient and not a waste of time is to hold “standing” meetings. This way, you are more likely to get to the point because you aren’t cozy in your seat. Meetings are also great for different teams- in the instance that their clients intersect and might affect how the other team is working.

All in all, managing and organizing a small business does have its challenges- but you can alleviate many of those challenges by implementing software and business ideas for organization. These tools help keep the business simple yet productive and operating optimally for future success.

Guest Post By Selena

Selena Narayanasamy is in love with all things technology, productivity, entrepreneurship, social media and writing- and you can always find her with a coffee in hand. You can find her on Twitter- @selenavidya or blogging on her website, Esvienne.

The newly launched site is TweetsByUs, as of last week it is live. With a custom design and logo we had a great time coming up with elements and content to help drive the site. I was able to try out some new techniques and learned a lot while working on this one!

Home page design for Tweets By Us

Be sure to stop by and check them out! I will try to get on here and post more often from now on, work has just been so busy that I haven’t had time to breathe!

Anyway, my entry was meant to be fun, and has become a great topic of conversation- the comments have been great and the support I have gotten has been amazing- I couldn’t be more proud! So head on over to my entry and RT and comment, even if you have already commented you can add to the discussion by replying to other comments or my reply to you. Everything counts as long as it is meaningful!

Help Eve win by commenting/tweeting her entry at the @FamousBloggers Writing Contest : Don’t Be “That Guy” http://bt.io/FVEG

check out the conversation happening @ http://bt.io/FVEG for the #FBCLcontest loads of support and information! @evelester

One of the sponsors is a Social Media Virtual Assistant, this seems like an awesome plan, I would love to have someone to help me get all this done- especially the business tasks part- although I wouldn’t know where to start or what to actually outsource at this point! But I could use a ‘virtual me’!

This guide is meant for both beginners and advanced users, and many of the steps after the plugin is installed and set up will work with any Cufon installation, as the code to product the effect is the same regardless of how you get the code to your site.  If you are already using cufon and just want to see some fun styles to try then jump to the Advanced Tips section now.

Step 1 : Install and Activate the Plugin

The first step of course, is to download and install the plugin, you can do this manually or by simply searching for WP-Cufón in the ‘add plugins’ page in your wordpress admin. After you install and activate the plugin you can now go to Appearance>Cufón to set it up to replace your text with a custom font. The first message you will see when you go to settings is an instruction “Please create the /fonts/ Directory in /wp-content/plugins/”  You are going to need to access your FTP for this step, this can be done through your host’s c-panel, or using any of the FTP programs available online.

If using filezilla or other similar ftp programs you just navigate to the wp-content>plugins directory and right click and select ‘Create Directory’. Enter ‘fonts’ as the name of the folder and click ‘OK’.

If you are a beginner and need more help with how to install plugins, use ftp, and other basics of wordpress then you should check out Wp101, a series of tutorials in both video and text to help you learn the basics to be able to manage your blog. I also offer blog maintince packages and plugin assistance, just contact me for pricing if you need help.

Step 2 – Pick a Font to Use

Now you need to pick a font to use with your titles. There are a ton of free font’s available, you just need to find one that you like; it should be easy to read and should match your sites design style well. I use a site called DaFont. Once you locate a font you like, simply download and extract the font file to your desktop (if in a zipped folder) so it is easy to find for the next step. I generally download a few different fonts so I can try a few to see how they look, some will not render well in the size you need, and some will not work as well as you thought once you see it on the site.

Step 3 – Generate Cufon Compatible File with Font

Now, in order for the font you downloaded to work with Cufon you have to generate it into a compatible format and then upload that file to your new fonts folder. To do this you visit the free Cufon generator. To get started simply begin by uploading the font file you just downloaded, and if there were multiple versions of the font as some have (bold, italic, bold italic) then you upload those as well in the corresponding file boxes. The only one that is required is the regular version. If you are wanting to use a font you already have on your computer in the fonts folder, you will need to copy and paste the font file to another location in order to upload it to the generator.

Next you should name the new font, this step is optional but will make testing new fonts and organizing the ones you have much easier if the font has a long or difficult filename, this set’s a ‘nickname’ for the font to use when telling Cufon what font to use on your site. Be sure to check the box below confirming that you are legally able to use that font (refer to the information with that checkbox if you need help know inf if it is legal or not- most freely distributed fonts are legal to use.)

Next you will select what characters to include in the file, I usually do Uppercase, Lowercase, Numerals, Punctuation, WordPress Punctuation, and Basic Latin.  Besides those options everything else is optional so you can skip it (or read it and pick and choose) finishing off with checking the bottom box to agree to the terms and hitting the big blue “Lets Do This” button to get your file.

Step 4 – Upload New File to Your Server

Now you have a file produced by the generator, you need to upload this to your new ‘fonts’ folder on your host. Use the same steps you did earlier to make a new folder, only this time we are uploading a new file to that created folder.  Once it is uploaded you can visit the Appearances>Cufon page in admin and you should see the file you uploaded to the folder, if you do not then first refresh the page and if that does not work then try re-uploading it again, taking care that the file is going into the folder named fonts, which should be located in wp-content>plugins>fonts.

Step 5 – Set Up Cufon to Replace Your Text

Click to Enlarge

Finally, we are ready to make it work on our site! This is the fun part. The default entry is Cufon.set(‘fontFamily’, ‘Vegur’).replace(‘h1′)(‘h2′); – if you want to replace all of your H1 and H2 text to the same font, then this is perfect, all you will need to do is change the font name, in this case it is Vegur. Change that to the name of the font you want to try. The name is the nickname you set for the font, it is usually the first word in the font file so you can see it easily. (see screenshot)  Once you save this with the button on the bottom of the page,  all text on your page that is classified with a h1 or h2 tag will now display with the new font.

You do not need to specify colors, sizes, or anything because the plugin will recognize them in the CSS and apply the same attributes to the custom font. Likewise, if you want to change the size, color, etc. of a custom font, simply change the attributes in your themes CSS file.

Advanced Tips

For many of you simply replacing the h1 and h2 tags with your new font will be enough.  But there are some very neat things you can do with Cufón, you can do the following with most cufon plugins as well as on your own without a plugin if you already have cufon on your site. Being able to use more than one font, or changing the outputted font while keeping the text version the same.  Here are some of my favorites.

Use Multiple fonts for various Areas of Your Site

You can easily use two or more custom fonts by simply declaring the font name and then the css labels. In this example I am using a class named ‘multiple’ on this paragraph, and I named it in the code below, telling the javascript to replace anything in the ‘multiple’ class to use the font called junction. You can name as many fonts or classes as you would like by following the guideline below (first set font, then tell it what to replace, repeat)

Cufon.set(\'fontFamily\', \'typo\');
Cufon.replace(\'h1\')(\'h2\')(\'h5\');

Cufon.set(\'fontFamily\', \'junction\');
Cufon.replace(\'.multiple\');

You can easily find out the css names of various sections of your site (so you can replace only the sidebar titles, not the footer titles for example.) by using either Web Developer or Firebug, see each site for instructions on usage. On my blog, all instances of h2 that are within the sidebar have a name of #blog_sidebar h2, and I would enter this in the spot of the h2 in the code to only change the font of the h2′s in my sidebar, leaving all other text with the h2 tag alone.

Applying CSS Hover Attributes

Often links have a hover attribute, usually involving a change in color. These are defined in your themes CSS file. See below for an example of the CSS code to make all links change color when the user hovers the mouse over them. As long as you have something set in the CSS for hover for the text you want to replace then you can simply add hover:true to the Cufon code so that the replacement text will behave as the CSS calls for.

a { color: #000000; }
a:hover { color: #cccccc; }

Cufon.set(\'fontFamily\', \'museo\');
Cufon.replace(\'h1\' , { hover: true });

Adding a Shadow

Cufon.set(\'fontFamily\', \'Typo\');
Cufon.replace(\'.shadowexample\', { textShadow: \'2px 2px #c0c0c0\' });

Displaying with a Gradient

This uses any CSS2 color value, minimum of two colors, can also specify stops using the following syntax; red, 0.2=#fff, 0.8=#23d559, black the stops go from 0 to 1 and you must be sure stops 0 and 1 have a value. In the example of stops above the 0 would be red and the one would be 1. With the two other colors in between.

Cufon.set(\'fontFamily\', \'abugslife\');
Cufon.replace(\'.cufon-gradient\', { color: \'-linear-gradient(black, grey, purple)\' });

Displaying with a Gradient AND a Shadow

Cufon.set(\'fontFamily\', \'Typo\');
Cufon.replace(\'h1\')(\'h3\');
Cufon.replace(\'.shadow-gradient\', { color: \'-linear-gradient(black, purple)\', textShadow: \'2px 2px #C0C0C0\' }); 

Gradient and Shadow on a Link, with special Hover effects

Hover over the example above to see the hover effect.

Cufon.set(\'fontFamily\', \'Typo\');
Cufon.replace(\'a.linkedshadow-gradient\', { color: \'-linear-gradient(black, purple)\', textShadow: \'2px 2px #C0C0C0\', hover: { textShadow: \'2px 2px #C0C0C0\', color: \'-linear-gradient(pink, purple)\' } });

Hover over the example above to see the hover effect. This is making use of RGBA is RGB with an added alpha channel as it’s 4th argument. The alpha channel is a value between 0 (fully transparent) and 1 (opaque). RGBA is part of CSS3.

Cufon.set(\'fontFamily\', \'Typo\');
Cufon.replace(\'a.translinkedbackground\', { color: \'pink\', textShadow: \'8px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3)\', hover: { textShadow: \'8px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3)\', color: \'white\' } });

For some more style information you can visit the wiki page for Cufon here.  There is a good video is at NetTuts+ that goes step-by-step through how to use Cufon without the use of a plugin, manually, I use this method on static sites I design for clients.

I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments, if you have used Cufon or another solution. If you have any great tips or effects to add feel free!

I want someone that reads blogs like Social Implications for fun and really understands what they are reading. (Just kidding, that site is actually very helpful to even beginners in Social Media, see the article on Social Media Monsters for a good read!) Someone who is easy to talk to, not so business like that you feel you are nothing more than a number. Someone multi-talented, someone that can offer something to clients for less than a grand a pop, and someone who above all, loves what they do! This person will take over the SEO for this site, as well as post regular blog posts on topics they cover, someone that will not laugh (out loud) when they see an email time-stamped 3am with a subject line like “Have an Awesome Idea – we might CHANGE the world!” Cause I tend to get a lot of those late at night and would love someone as business minded as myself to look into these hair-brained ideas with me- we MAY just hit on the next big thing- you never know!

I am not looking for someone that wants to charge crazy amounts for things they can’t even list… You would be surprised, in helping my mother research good SEO companies for her Consulting Business, it seemed the more they charged the less their list of services made sense. It was so hard to figure out exactly what you were getting for $500 or more (a month!) My new partner will be able to say exactly what they do, and do exactly what they say. If you think you are that person, or you know that person- let me know!

It is sitting there scared and along ready for you to visit and ‘vote’! You can vote by commenting (relevant comments please, no generic “great post” comments- they won’t count- and then you would be ‘That Guy’!) You can also vote by Tweeting the link- simply hit the retweet button on the post or copy/paste the tweet below. You will also be helping me a lot by digging, stumbling, sharing, etc. etc. I am really exited to see how this turns out- I don’t see my entry winning amongst the other entrants, they are much more active in the social media scene than I am so if I can even get close I will feel it’s a success!

Visit my post, titled “Don’t Be ‘That Guy’ When Commenting” and help support me in my quest to become rich and famous! You can easily copy/paste the tweet below to help spread the love too!

Help Eve win by commenting/tweeting her entry at the @FamousBloggers Writing Contest : Don’t Be “That Guy” http://bt.io/FVEG

I will be working on my entry tonight and as soon as it is submitted and posted to the contest site I will be needing your support by commenting, twittering, etc. It is sure to be an experience, I am in it more for that than the winning, while it would be great to win, it is a popularity contest and those are hard to compete in- especially when many of the contestants are social media pro’s.   Anyway, go check it out, and see the great sponsors below! Let me know if you enter as well so I can help your entry as well!

Contest Sponsors

This is the FamousBloggers ComLuv Contest Sponsors, feel free to check them out, also check the Online Contest page for more information. Special thank to Gail our Social Media Marketing Strategist for the great work.

$300 SPONSORS

- Main sponsor The ComLuv Network
- Claims.com specialists in Accidents at Work Claims and Compensation

$150 SPONSORS

- FamousBloggers ~ Group blog about How to Blog, making money and blogging for business.
- Brian Longest ~ GoDaddy Coupon FAN3 30% Off

$100 SPONSORS:

- Andy Bailey’s personal fiddyp blog
- FiredWok Chinese Takeaway & Delivery ~ Chinese Takeaway Lancaster
- GoodMillwork ~ Florida Based Millwork Architectural Mouldings
- Andrew Rondeau Ltd ~ Blogging Guide
- Marc Duquette ~ Scribnia Blogging Community
- The Happy Guy Marketing ~ professional SEO consultant
- The Online Recruiters Directory ~ Executive search firms
- Monster Auto ~ Auto Monster Cars Blog
- Bill – ANS Gear ~ Paintball Guns & Gear
- Cori Padgett- Big Girl Branding ~ Entrepreneur Business
- NowRelevant.com ~ Best new search engine
- The Internet Time Machine ~ Niche marketing software

$50 Sponsors

- DennisEdell ~ Direct Sales Marketing Coach
- Ditesco ~ Home Based Business Resources
- Firas ~ WP Worx – WordPress Services
- Kiesha ~ Blogging tips & tricks to help you blog better
- Melinda ~ Simple Home Organization
- Dan Keller – TycoonBlogger ~ Promote Your Blog
- ProjectCenter ~ Club Flyers
- PPI Claims ~ PPI Claims
- Free Gifts ~ Free Gifts
- Zoomit Canada ~ Social Bookmarking just for Canada
- Fence Houston ~ Houston fence contractor
- Fence Philadelphia ~ Philadelphia fence company
- Location Villa Espagne ~ Location Villa Costa Brava
- Lube Oil Sales ~ Buy Amsoil Motor Oil
- Olympic EyeWear ~ Designer sunglasses

May 14, 2010: Brandy is told she has a mass the size of a volleyball on her ovary that needs to be immediately removed. Without health insurance due to her husband’s self-employment, Brandy is at a loss as to what to do next. Bloggers and friends come together to create Brandy’s Battle to help raise funds to support her in her time of need.

I can’t imagine the fear and worrying about bills on top of this, when I had to have surgery on Christmas night to remove my Gallbladder worrying about how we were going to pay for this expensive surgery only made it worse!