Lately the whole Twitter thing has gone spastic as social marketers and more mainstream users have discovered Twitter and scrambled to get on the bandwagon. Now there’s nothing wrong with using Twitter to build great relationships with new and existing friends and business associates, in my humble opinion. However, there are some who take issue with a certain type of Twitter user.

Most folks are pretty responsible with their Twitter usage, but for those who are following WAY more peeps than they have following them, they’re about to be in hot water—of a sort.

A new service called Twitter Blacklist is tracking rogue Twitter accounts using a, “ ‘Follow factor’ (how many they follow divided by how many follow them) . . . ” So if you have too many followees and not enough followers, be careful as you might end up on the list.

There’s also another similar service called Twerpscan that seems a little harsher and is specifically targeting “SEO experts and entrepreneurs” using a similar algorithm to the Twitter Blacklist. This goes a little farther as a service such that you actually log into this one and it offers you a block link.

So a word to the wise—check your ratios and avoid getting on the blacklist. It’s not really hard to avoid if you’re using Twitter as intended. These services are new and may not get much traction, but it’s a reminder that abusing any social system, be it the karaoke mic at your neighborhood bar, or your shiny new Twitter account won’t go unpunished. Opinions? Let’s have ‘em!

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Are You on the Twitter Blacklist?

Here’s a curious and possibly useful new tool, if you use it with a grain of salt. Command Shift 3 has created a rating site that lets you peer into the mysterious depths of the collective web psyche. It’s a little like Google Zeitgeist for web site design, but more specific and less useful. Now you can see what the mob thinks of the current state of web site design and even submit your own site for rating.

Is it Useful? Maybe…

In general you can get a feel for what’s popular in site design today. Although this is, admittedly, only a little helpful since raters are encouraged to judge quickly with little to go on.

If you want to understand what people think makes a great looking website, this can definitely give you a certain type of insight. There is something to be said for the first 5 seconds a new visitor sees your site and attempts to place it into their master list of fantastic versus utter crud. In this case the aggregate attitude is interesting to see, but it’s really so very general that it has limited use in terms of learning about optimizing your site’s appearance.

How About Traffic and Backlinks?

I’m curious to see what kind of traffic might be generated by submitting your site and having it become popular. It might be an easy source of traffic. So far it’s nothing to click home about. I submitted my site on April 13 and have gotten a whopping 2 visits since then.

Admittedly, my site is not a design powerhouse. In fact, it leaves a lot to be desired so this is not the best test. For sites that have some truly astonishing design, the results may vary considerably. Here are my stats so far:

Additionally, you will NOT get any backlink joy from this site as all the outgoing links are set to nofollow. 

Bottom Line

It’s a fun idea that may end up generating a little buzz for those sites that make it into the top popularity listings, but otherwise it’s mostly a time sink after about the first 10 minutes.

At the very least, it’s a great way to see some cool and terrible designs that are out there, especially if you’re a designer needing a little inspiration.

They list the best web sites by weekly, monthly, and all-time and you can also see the worst sites of all time.

If you end up submitting your site and seeing decent results, or if you have some additional thoughts about it, please stop by and leave a comment. 

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Is Your Website Hot, or Not?

A couple weeks ago I seriously riled some folks up. It was fun, but now I want to show you why I did it and how perfectly my fiendish blog-traffic-linking plan has unfolded so far. If you haven’t yet, definitely read my recent post about misusing five words. If you’ve already been there, you know there was a little controversy stirred up, but otherwise, a lot of fun talking about the idea. If you hadn’t guessed yet, that post was not really about screwing up the English language at all. In fact, it was an experiment in linkbait. What is linkbait? Oh my, where have you been? Please allow me to refer you to the number one Google result for the term linkbait by Matt Cutts (at least it’s number one as I write this).  

It Sounds a Little Dirty

The word linkbait sounds like it could be a bad thing, or at least, it could have a few negative connotations. In fact, it’s not bad at all if you do it right. Linkbait is essentially nothing more than writing a great headline that attracts a reader to click your link and commit to reading your article. And if the article is good enough, they cannot resist bookmarking it, or linking to it on either social media sites, their own blog, or their website.

When newspaper, or magazine editors select a headline, they’re creating the equivalent of linkbait. They make the headline as compelling as possible and attach it to a phenomenal article. And the best articles are passed around by friends who may eventually subscribe to the publication, if they like the article enough. This is offline linkbait. More like, readbait, or make-you-not-able-to-put-the-magazine-down-and-also-insist-your-friends-read-it bait. You get the picture. If you want your blog, or web site (or printed ad, for that matter) to attract and keep readers, you must learn how to write headlines and posts (articles) that are so compelling that a majority of casual observers click through and commit to spending a little time with you and then even bookmark you for reference and sharing. A curious thing about this:

The headline is useless if you write a terrible article and the article is useless if you write a terrible headline.  

Doing it Wrong Can Hurt You

If you’re just writing a snappy headline and it has a crappy article behind it, you probably just lost yourself a whole mess of readers. You made a great promise with the headline, but failed to deliver with the article. There’s good linkbait and bad linkbait and if your article is weak, or an obvious attempt to linkbait-and-switch, you will get what you deserve: a bad reputation and no catch-of-the-day, AKA link love. I’ve already written a post about how to write great headlines and there are some good references there to get you started. That post, by the way, had a terrible headline and is a perfect example of how to fail epically at writing a linkbait headline. I got almost zero readers for that post, although it did have some good info in it. Word to the wise—seriously consider your headlines.  

So, Does Linkbait Work?

I’ve been practicing and diligently doing the training in the Social Power Linking program and my last, best attempt at a linkbait piece succeeded better than I could have expected in my wildest dreams. I spent probably five hours on that post, whittling away every non-esssential word and making sure it flowed smoothly, etc. I also spent a good 30 minutes on the title alone, to which I grant the most credit for having made that post so popular. My post on five misused words got more traffic than any other post I’ve ever made.  

In fact, during the two days following my linkbait post, this blog received over 1800 pageviews and is now up to approximately 4870 pageviews at the time of this post. Unique visitors climbed to over 900 during those two days and have continued to flow in ever since. I got more unique visitors and overall traffic from that one post than all my other posts combined to date. 

A Few Resources

If you want to learn more about the fine art of linkbaiting, the following resources will really cover almost everything. I owe a lot to SPL, but I also spent a lot of time reading the posts linked below and I want to thank the authors for taking the time to put that information together. I’d also love to hear about your own experiments in linkbaiting as well as any advice that the resources below may have left out.  Andy Hagans’ Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and SMM The Link Baiting Playbook: Hooks Revisited

And if you don’t feel like reading right now, check out Aaron Wall’s video on linkbaiting, How to: Create Linkbait Every Day:

And finally, here are just a few more linkbait resources you might find useful:

• 5 Linkbait Ideas Any Blog Can Use
• Linkbait in difficult industries
• Beyond Linkbait with Media and Blogger Relations - SES NY
• Productivity, How-to and Advice Sites: Making Linkbait Useful Again
• Five Simple Linkbait Metrics (& How To Measure Them Cheaply)

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My Linkbait Experiment, Holy Mackerel!

If you’ve wondered about viral videos and maybe even thought about how you might make one of your own, check out the interesting discussions over at Social Marketing Central.

PS - If you want to know how I managed to embed the super-high quality YouTube video in my post, check out the Wired wiki for the secret

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What Makes a Video Viral?

This is only the beginning. It’s going to get much, much bigger.
Social marketing is all the rage right now and if the signs are to be believed, this is a mere taste of the future. Part of social marketing involves joining various online communities in your niche and adding value to those communities.

Social marketing is most definitely not about joining as many groups as you can, regardless of their relevance to your niche, and spamming the living daylights out of everyone with “ME! ME! ME!” kinds of advertising and requests. This will get you banned, and rightfully so.

I wrote a post earlier that basically said marketing is really about making friends and exchanging value honestly and transparently with others in your community. I especially emphasized the importance of giving freely without immediate expectation of return, or profit.

Recently I’ve noticed traditional marketing folks who are excited to do this “new” social marketing thing and botch it up terribly by forgetting the cardinal rule of all human interaction. Namely, give before you request. Offer your assistance, advice, service and do so without expecting anything in return. Be a member of the community first and then you won’t be a so-called marketer.

[In online communities, the word, marketer has a fairly bad connotation. Members of a group frequently refer to an outsider who is trying to take value without offering anything in return as a marketer.]

Stop
If you’re ever banned, even once, you need to step back and take stock of your online behavior. And then change it; radically! Being banned means you didn’t follow the community rules. It also suggests that you’re in the wrong place, or offering information that is only self-serving.

Look
Whenever you join a new community, the first order of business is to read the guidelines and follow them very carefully. Next, if the guidelines don’t say not to, introduce yourself and don’t mention anything at all about what you have to sell. It’s not about pushing your wares, it’s about the opposite. You give people valuable ideas, answers, or assistance and they are eager to learn about who you are and what you might have to offer.

Listen
Are you getting repeated complaints about your profile, signature, or comments? Are you humbly taking the advice of the group? If people are kind enough to not instantly ban you, be grateful and listen carfeully to what they’re telling you. Assuming you are really interested in being a part of that group.

Be Valuable
Read all the hot discussions and get a feel for the group’s style of posting and responding. Follow along until you feel you have something valuable to add, whether that be an important, but so far unasked question, or a great answer to a previously posted query. Be a part of the group by showing up regularly and contributing excellent quality material and we will appreciate you and listen to what you have to say.

Social marketing is not about advertising. It’s not about yelling in the streets. It’s most decidedly not about appearing to be a member of a community so that later on you can sell the hell out of your products when everyone has their guard down. (Trust me, that’ll never work.)

Make connections with people and be a friend. Take the time to do it right and you just might find you’ve also made a bunch of great new friends who are as thrilled to become your customers as you are to become theirs.

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If You’re Getting Banned, You’re Doing Something Wrong

Day-before-yesterday I read a great post over at skelliewag.org that stirred up an excellent discussion about whether or not it’s important to write well online. I’m not a great writer myself and, in fact, I started this blog in part to get a little more practice.

But this got me thinking about writing in general, word usage and credibility. So I put on my tall, pointy hat and decided to post my opinion about five words that really annoy me when misused. Here they are in no particular order.

Our first word is unique. No, really, that’s the word!

Unique
Like being pregnant, you can’t be a little bit unique.

Wrong
Hey I woke up the other day and realized I was somewhat unique. Later I got over it.

Right
Hey I woke up the other day and realized I was unique. Thankfully, I’ll never get over it.

Next up, a word which will probably produce a little argument. I maintain that, unlike unique which should never have a modifier, quality must always have one.

Quality
I saw someone write (for the thousandth time at least) that, “this thing is a quality piece of work.” Or, in another instance, “that’s a quality blog.” The only thing missing is a clue as to whether the confounded thing is any good or not! Quality has to have a modifier. Bad quality, good quality; the word quality by itself is utterly meaningless.

But I’m afraid it may be far too late to get that issue fixed as it’s really gotten embedded in the English-speaking world’s psyche, no thanks to the foolish aristocrat who first pushed that concept out there in the 14th century. Blast that dictionary for contradicting me anyway. Nevertheless, I’m right.

Wrong
Hey buddy, you gonna’ finish that quality bowl of lecithin gravy?

Right
Hey buddy, you gonna’ finish that top quality bowl of lecithin gravy?

Irregardless
There is, in fact, no such word. I finally figured out why this is such a common mistake. I believe this to be the illegitimate child of the marriage of “irrespective” and “regardless”. It may sound like it’s a good idea, but regardless of your intense desire to misuse this one, and irrespective of all the reasons you might offer in your defense, using “irregardless” is probably the biggest no-no of the bunch since it’s not a real word.

Wrong
Bill continued to awkwardly reach toward the precariously balancing bowl of warm, lecithin gravy, irregardless of the inevitable disaster which was sure to follow.

Right
Bill continued to awkwardly reach toward the precariously balancing bowl of warm, lecithin gravy, regardless of the inevitable disaster which was sure to follow.

Hopefully
It’s almost always used incorrectly these days. Cotton really wrecked it for everyone back in 1702. “. . . Hopefully, we’ll see you tomorrow.” Hopefully I’ll do this, hopefully I’ll get that; this is just so wrong I can’t begin to even tell you. (Granted, according to the dictionary, my attitude about this word apparently places me in the traditionalist camp, but I’ll address that in a sentence at the end of this post.)

Wrong
Hopefully, the unicorn-riding space travellers from Alpha Centauri will arrive and give us plankton, chocolate and some sort of odd, gravy-like substance.

Right
I hope the unicorn-riding space travellers from Alpha Centauri will arrive and give us plankton, chocolate and some sort of odd, gravy-like substance.

In the wrong sentence above, the literal meaning suggests that the space travelers will be feeling hopeful as they arrive bearing their lovely gifts; they will arrive feeling hopeful. However, 99.9% of the time, the writer writing this intends to suggest that they themselves are the ones feeling hopeful about the arrival of the space travelers bearing gifts. Always ask yourself, “who is feeling hopeful?” and then make sure the sentence is reflecting that properly. (I know, purists will also say I should have said, “s/he himself/herself is the one feeling hopeful” but man, isn’t that awkward!?.)

Anxious Instead of Eager
Many people use the word anxious to describe an upcoming event they are excited about. In fact, by using the word anxious, they are saying they are worried about it. If you’re excited, say you’re eager. If you’re worried, then use anxious.

Wrong
Ludlow was anxious to open all the incredible presents he knew he would be receiving at his very first lecithin-gravy party.

Right
Ludlow was eager to open all the incredible presents he knew he would be receiving at his very first lecithin-gravy party.

Now many will probably hassle me endlessly about the swiftly changing nature of the spoken language arguing that anything that gets used often enough becomes validated by its very ubiquity.

But hey man, I’m tellin’ ya, if we don’t have at least a few ground rules and standards, I might as well start riggle plag mimmbly bum toothbrush the squirrelpaste. Know what i mean? How will we understand each other if we make up our own rules and just run with them? I’m as excited about change as the next guy, just as long as it’s change for the better.

If you are as excited and curious about language as I am, and if you want to find more ways to avoid those embarrassing usage boners, have a look at some of these related articles I found during my travels.

10 flagrant grammar mistakes that make you look stupid
Common Errors in English by Paul Brians
Style Guide from The Economist
Words & Expressions Commonly Misused from Bartleby.com

Disclaimer: I’m no expert grammarian and also don’t think anyone is a dummy. I’m just a grammar muckraker raking up some muck. Hope you liked it. I also encourage healthy debate.

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Five More Misused Words That Make You Look Like a Dummy

Or you can grab the free, 2008 version of the Authority Black Book that was just released a few days ago. I’m sure there are a few folks who will insist on the former option, but hey, whatever flings your shuriken. (*I know, I’m mixing styles and cultures all over the place, but you know you love it!)

About a year ago I downloaded the original version of this ebook and, sadly, let it collect a fair amount of dust before picking it up. When I finally sat down and read it, it felt like receiving a swift roundhouse kick to the head as I realized I could have gotten started and had a world-class blog (or site) by now.

Happily, I’m finally putting some of these principles into use and finding that this stuff is actually working; like gangbusters, in fact. (What actually is a gangbuster? Sheesh, will the research never end?)

I started this blog about a year and a half ago, but only started posting seriously in the last 3 months. And I only began to use the principles that Jack Humphrey teaches in the Authority Black Book within the last month.

It’s been quite a thrill to see the upward spike in my traffic stats. I’ve only used about 1/100th of the recommendations in this book so far and the big deal is this: unlike Entrecard, or Project Wonderful, where you either have to click and click like a spastic, clickity clicking madman, or pay cold, hard cash to keep the traffic flowing, this traffic continues to grow on its own, like a massive snowball, once you reach critical mass.

Here’s a screenshot of the latest news from Alexa:

Yup, like anything that’s worthwhile, it does take some dedication and a little elbow margarine, but if you focus and start right now, you can expect big, even huge results very quickly.

Best of all, the ebook is free. You may have seen it sitting there in my top recommendations spot and now you know why.

So what are you waiting for? Seriously, if you want to understand how to create marvelous content that adds real value to the online community and builds a foundation of permanent traffic for your site, this little black book holds the key.

I look forward to hearing your opinion after you read it and hearing about your results after you implement. Let me know!

*Grasshopper refers to the TV series, “Kung Fu” which referenced Chinese martial arts, black belts are usually associated with Japanese martial arts, holy grails are distinctly Western culture and roundhouse kicks are most often associated with Korean Tae Kwon Do.

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Become a Black Belt Blogger with the Brilliant Authority Black Book

As it turns out, even though those of us who blog take it mostly for granted, the vast majority of people have still never heard of blogging (don’t gasp so loudly, you’ll hurt yourself!) or still consider it as novel as email once was just a few short years ago. Because of this, it’s not unusual for me to start at the very beginning when explaining.

Of course, my response to anyone asking about a blog is to suggest that if they’re serious about building their business and serious about creating a fantastic platform for interacting with friends and customers, they need a blog yesterday.

So i have started to use the business card metaphor and offer the following reasons why blogging is like a super charged business card, only far better and why it will be a big part of succeeding in small business (I believe) as we move forward.

• A business card lets you quickly give someone your contact info.
• A blog has your contact information and far more constantly available 24 hours a day. And you can’t lose a blog the same way you might lose a business card.

• A business card is a reminder of a conversation you might have had.
• A blog IS the conversation you had, saved and stored and searchable online for future reference. Not only that, the conversation is bigger by far than a one-to-one telephone or email conversation since it involves potentially anyone who stops by and has an interest in joining in.

• A business card is a way of developing brand awareness using color, logography and short, pithy tag lines.
• A blog is a way of creating more than just brand awareness, it allows your customers to help you define your brand in an ongoing conversation about your mutual needs and interests.

• A business card is an impersonal pointer back to your business.
• A blog IS your business and it’s a humanized and honest invitation to be a part of creating powerful solutions. A blog creates an immediate opportunity for interaction on a personal and individual level whereas a business card is just a reminder of such a potential opportunity.

Of course there are some stretches here and some may argue that it’s silly of me to try to compare a business card with a blog, but I felt it was important to attempt to draw whatever parallels I could since so many people can relate to one and not the other. (Me? Silly? That’s unpossible!) A blog is also a heck of a lot more work than designing, printing and handing out a business card, but the rewards are orders of magnitude beyond anything a simple business card will get you.

If you want to maximize your marketing effectiveness, you will obviously want, not only a blog and a business card, you will, of course, have a business card with the address of your blog on it!

A blog is a powerful means of getting the word out about the ongoing nature of your business. It’s a calling card on the Internet, a tireless brand builder, and a marvelous conversation starter. If you haven’t figured out how important I think it is for you to have a blog, then please let me know so I can jump up and down and wave my arms while singing the happy blogger song . . . no, no, wait, I mean, seriously, what i meant to say is this: A blog is a critical part of your business and a fantastic way to open the lines of communication and create more transparency. If you don’t have a blog yet, stop wandering around in the dark and flip on the light!

If you would like more information about the benefits of blogging and why you should have a blog, have a look at a few of the resources I found while researching this post.

The Social Customer Manifesto

Small Businesses and Blogging

10 Great Strategic Benefits of Blogging

Small Business Blogging (advice)

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The Electronic, Dynamic, Interactive Business Card: Do You Have One?

Now there are new sites popping up all the time that are far more sophisticated versions of the original ideas. Some of these sites incorporate even better incentives to participate by rewarding great content and excellent ideas with backlinks and traffic to your site (blog).

I just discovered one of these yesterday and wanted to let you know about it.

It’s called Qassia.com and they seem to be up and coming on the scene. I’m going to test it out for the next 3-4 weeks and see how it goes. I’ll post the results back here.

If you want to sign up, you can only get an account from someone who already has one.

Here’s my beta Qassia signup link that should work. If it doesn’t, it means they stopped letting new people in for now and you should just check back next month when it will probably go live.

From their FAQ:

What exactly is Qassia?
Qassia is a site to which you can add your websites. You can also add your knowledge, in the form of tidbits of information called “intel”. The more intel you add, the better your sites will rank, the more backlinks you get, and the more money you make.

Qassia is 100 percent free, and does not require reciprocal links. You can get unlimited quality backlinks to your websites from Qassia.

Also, here’s what you’re NOT allowed to do and this is why I think they may stand a good chance of doing well:

What You Should NOT Do:

Do not add intel about your website or product.
New users will typically start off by adding intel about their own website, in the following vein: This amazing website/product offers blablabla and has lots of cool stuff and info and blablabla. It was launched on whenever and gets lots of visitors, and there is some stuff you will find useful. Check it out! This is basically an advertisement. An advertisement is a form of information, and therefore allowed, but it won’t help you much.

Do not add poetry, short stories, jokes, or other creative writing.
We allow poetry and short stories and other creative writing because, technically, it is information. And we do not want to ban poetry because there is a thin dividing line between opinion, essay, lyrical writing, and poetry. However, passing your poetry off as intel is not a good idea if you want to promote your websites effectively, because most users do not appreciate poetry, and neither do the search engines.

Let me know if the signup link doesn’t work as well.

I’ve only gotten started, but it seems like Qassia could be a big player in the coming months.

We shall see.

Have an excellent Friday,

-Zack

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Very Interesting New Beta Program

Or is it?

Setting this blog up has given me ample opportunity to spend lots of time working with WordPress and learning many of its ins and outs.

As it turns out, building a site “while-you-wait” IS crazy talk if you don’t know anything about web design, installing scripts, or any of that. However, if you are technically savvy, the 10-hour web site is fast becoming a possiblilty. Now, of course, when i say ten hours, that’s a bit of stretch for a fully customized theme with logos and graphics etc., but the part that used to take 20, or more hours of painstaking coding can be all but eliminated now by using WordPress as the foundation of your site design.

Now all you have to do is concentrate on customizing the features, graphics and loading the content. Frankly, it’s enough to make a grown developer wriggle about a bit and even, just possibly, run naked through the streets drinking Ovaltine™ on a Saturday morning. Er sumpthin’ like that.

Anyway, the point here is that there are some really great reasons to use WordPress as a starting place for your brand new web site and here are the ones I can think of right now:

1. Major time savings in creating a consistent templating system for end users. It’s an instant foundation for a custom CMS (Content Management System)
2. Makes it a breeze for non-techy folks to add content (text, graphics, audio, video) without programming a custom interface. (Save days of programming time (or money paying a programmer) )
3. Creates a site that is automatically optimized for the search engines (with easily added, free plugins)
4. Update the look and feel easily with changes to the CSS, templates and widgets.
5. There are thousands of free and low cost, gorgeous themes available to start with
6. Easy to add new functionality at the drop of a hat with plugins
7. WordPress is free
8. Most WordPress plugins are free
9. WordPress is constantly being upgraded and bugs are fixed by the dev team almost immediately
10. Keeping spam off your site is a peace o’ cake using even the base installation and it gets even better with available, free plugins
11. A huge WordPress community is available to help you with answers should you run into trouble
12. So many marketing opportunities are aimed at WordPress blogs that a WordPress-based web site is a marketing no-brainer
13. Instant RSS feed for all your content. Now that’s a BIG deal!

OK, so that was actually 13 reasons. Just smile and nod with glee that you got 2 bonus reasons.

So how to get started? When I first thought about doing this I wondered if anyone else out there was doing it yet and if there were any easy and fast ways to do it. You need to do way more than just create a blog. You need an entire web site.

So I researched it and found that Tara over at Graphic Design Blog has already done a massive amount of work in this area and pulled together almost all the known information on creating a website with WordPress so check her post out posthaste.

If you are looking for more technical information about the nuts and bolts of editing the existing WordPress structure, check out Nick La’s post over at Web Designer Wall.

Additionally, since Tara published her CMS article, Freshout Development has published the Fresh Post - WordPress CMS Plugin that practically turns your WordPress installation into a CMS in one fell swoop. The only issue that I can see is that it may limit your design a bit and it’s a little on the technical side as far as getting it up and running and possibly managing it.

Also, you will sometimes need to limit areas of the site to members only and WP Members is another plugin not mentioned elsewhere that will help you with that.

While I was writing this I also realized that many folks are not able to pull all this stuff together and then run it and maintain it. I hadn’t originally thought of this when I started writing this post, but as it turns out, I have an answer for that too.

You want a website that’s totally optimized and perfectly designed and ready to work round the clock building traffic and I have only one answer for that.

You can go to the front of the line (yes it will cost a little, but way less than what I would charge) and get all the design and customizing and search optimization done automatically and have your new site up within about 48 hours (or less depending on the situation). I’m referring to the Blog i360 Site Management for Small Business Owners and it will pay for itself in short order if you are serious about your site.

ASC Blog i360 uses WordPress as the foundation of their system and I recommend it to all my clients now when they say they need a website immediately and they don’t know any HTML and don’t have time to learn any tech stuff and don’t know where to start. Frankly, you shouldn’t have to know all that tech stuff, unless you’re a geek like me and really dig it.

Update about ASC: they are no longer offering their original site building program and although their Authority Site Center system is still a great way to learn about building authority web sites, they don’t do the actual blog creation and maintenance for you anymore.

I’ve since found an even better resource for getting a new blog up and running extremely fast, with no technical skills needed and a HUGE amount of search engine and social marketing clout built-in. I recommend you give Blog i360 a look. They have an outstanding program and I really like the folks who created it, Deborah (@CoachDeb) and JP (@JPMicek) Micek. I’ll be writing a review of the system as well so watch for it.

OK, back to the regularly scheduled blog post…

I’ve decided to build my next site with WordPress and have started working on it already. It’s a secret for now, but as soon as it’s done I’ll post it for your review and we’ll see what you think.

If you can think of any other reasons to use WordPress (or not, for that matter) feel free to comment.

Thanks for reading and be well.

-Zack

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11 Reasons You Should Build Your Next Website with WordPress

Remember when I said this was an experimental marketing blog? Did I not say that yet? Ah, right then . . . this is an experimental marketing blog. That means a couple things actually.

This is certainly my experiment with marketing and blogging ideas in general and blogging about it all at the same time. But it’s also a blog in which I’ll use ideas I think will be useful and we’ll all see if any of them work, or not.

Don’t worry, I’ll be documenting my successes as well as my failures. Even the epic ones. Really. We will all win.

So about that headline . . . I’m reading a book on copywriting right now by one of the top practitioners of the art named Joseph Sugarman. I mentioned him in a recent post.

I was told, and have read many times elsewhere, that the headline is equally as important as the rest of your piece, sales letter, page, or whatever it is you’re writing. Some people rank it even higher.

That means that if you spend an hour on your post, you should spend an hour thinking about a headline to go with it. Wow.

In fact, sometimes I invent the headline before I ever think about what the article will be about.

Today’s post was an experiment with headlines and curiosity and if there’s one thing that makes a huge difference in whether, or not anybody ever sees what you write, it’s getting the headline right.

So did you read this because of the headline? I’m curious. Let me know.

And here are a few good resources for writing headlines:

1. The Cheater’s Guide to Writing Great Headlines
2. Headlines: Making an Impact — Accurately [I totally violated the rules in this guide. Hmmm . . . let's see if it works anyway.]
3. The Best Headlines Are Not Just Written For Google or Digg

Hope that was fun. It was meant to be.

-Zack

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Savory Random Slam Pow, Hold the Spandex

If you haven’t thought about image search and tagging, start now. I recently read a great post about image optimization by Judith Lewis over at SEO chicks where she details some excellent points about using images to create relevant results and, by extension, relevant visitors. It gave me some curious ideas about putting image search to use for much more than simple image browsing.

Here’s an SEO image exercise suggested by Lisa Ditlefsen (also from SEO Chicks): go to Google image search and type in your full name. If you’re like most of us, there’s likely nothing there.

Wow, an empty space. So you now have the opportunity to fill that space the way you wish. Make sure people looking for you, or your product, find you. If it’s not empty, you now have the opportunity to make sure what you find is what you want others to find. Probably an important thing. Are you monitoring your image online?

But wait, there’s more . . .

Quality makes all the difference. Have you seen the quality of images on the web and especially in image search results? Holy mackerel it’s awful, for the most part. I feel like I’m using Mosaic and it’s 1993 all over again!

Think about this: If I’m looking for a drawing of a green cow with purple spots and a golden crown and you have the best picture of a green cow with purple spots and a golden crown I’ve ever seen and you only used the term “cow” for your alt tag (if you even used an alt tag, for shame if not! ok ok , I’m for shame too since I am only now starting to use alt tags . . . but I digress . . .) then your image will probably be buried in the mass of cow images in the search results. But if you used the exact terms to describe your image precisely, your green cow with purple spots and a golden crown is probably going to be the only one in the entire list. And there’s probably a fairly good chance I will click on it.

And then the next part of our story unfolds . . .

If your image is an excellent quality image, I will probably be even more interested. We judge images even more stringently and quickly than we judge text when we’re deciding whether or not we have found what we’re looking for. It’s just the way our brains are wired.

So if I quickly eliminate all the crappy images of cows, even if some of them were green cows, once again your green cow will rise even higher in my estimation. In fact, I will probably raise my opinion of you and your web site by association. Heck, I may even dig a bit to check out your site.

Think about this: what if you could get a jump on the rest of the online world because most web site owners don’t know how to tag their images and have no idea why it matters? Imagine what starts happening when you corner the market, as it were, on the kinds of images you deal in simply because you tagged your images and the other folks didn’t. What if your picture quality is so high it blows away all the others in your niche, even if they are also using alt tags? Just some thoughts.

Here are a few resources to get even more ideas along these lines. Get started learning about this now since it’s only going to get more and more relevant as we go.

Here’s a video of Matt Cutts Explaining ALT Tag Use
This a basic intro to the concept . . .

As usual, Dosh Dosh has one of the best resources you can find . . .

19 Ways to Get More Traffic to Your Site Using Google Images

Google’s Image Search FAQ

Have you heard about the Google Image Labeler? Well get cracking!

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Images: The Next Web Traffic Frontier