Social Media Blueprint

How To Customize Your Twitter Background

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 05:31:00 +0000

The 6th tab in Twitter account settings is design, and we encourage you to do exactly that! Customize your profile page with one of our 12 profile templates, or get creative with your profile by changing the colors of the background, text, links, sidebar, and sidebar border to create a custom profile of your own.

You can add background images large or small, and even tile an image if you'd like. Background images must be in PNG, GIF, or JPG format, smaller than 800k. To customize your design:

Log in
In top navigation bar, click Settings (or go to http://twitter.com/account/settings)
Click the last settings tab, Design
Select a template, change your text and background colors, or upload your background image
Save your changes

While there is no minimum size for your background image, the max is 800k, which will resize the maximum width to 2048. To start from scratch with the default background, select "Use the Twitter default style" and save your changes.

Twitter Background Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 02:47:00 +0000

Twitter Background Tips

Show Yourself - Transparency Builds Loyalty

In social media world, you are the brand. With Twitter, being one of the major players in social media, showing yourself on the profile page can be very effective way of strengthening your brand and community around your website.

Example: Todd Defren - Shift Communications @Tdefren

Example: Darren Rowse - ProBlogger @problogger

Use Icons and Logos

Following profiles illustrate simple, yet very effective technique to communicate association with or involvement in certain community, service, skill, etc by showcasing relevant icons or logos.
Example: Excentrix - @Excentrix

Example: Master New Media - Robin Good @robingood

Add a Header Bar

Adding a header bar could be used for creating unique look for your profile page, but it can also be used to separate Twitter logo and top menu (which contain links to user’s profile) from the rest of your page.

Example: Chrinstina Warren @Film_girl

Example: Dr. Darren White - @drdarrenwhite

Layered Textures

Example: Karen Bachelor - @Midlifetrip

Example: Melanie Watson - @Lonestarmom_com

Download This PSD Twitter Background Template #1

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 23:42:00 +0000

This Twitter background was provided by Chad Engle. His backgrounds have gained a lot of attention from Twitter users, this was his response when asked how he design his Twitter backgrounds and get everything to look right. So, instead of telling everyone- He took a few minutes and made a twitter template. Inside of the template he made guides that match up with different resolutions.

Twitter aligns all backgrounds to the left.

Make note of this when designing your background. Also, you can put elements to the far right but be aware that some users will not see them depending on what monitor/resolution they are running. I included the “twitter container” (logo and space where your tweets are housed) it is actual size. So you can move it into different resolutions to keep in mind what other users will see.

File Type: PSD
Number in Set: 1
License Type: Creative Commons 3.0
Author: Chad Engle

Durex Condoms: Viral Marketing Gone Wild

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:55:00 +0000

Brilliant illustration of edgy viral brand marketing. This Viral marketing video was conceived by Robert Rugan, creative director at Superfad. Durex PR firm Fitzgerald+CO conceived the viral, which was then produced by Rugan of Superfad New York.

"When you get the chance to create 'karma-balloon-animal-sutra', everyone involved gets really stoked about pushing the boundaries as much as possible."

-Robert Rugan, creative director at Superfad

A very clever viral production, perhaps one of the most risque viral productions I have seen illustrating what the product is used for but also incorporates the product itself into the advert. Genius! Too risque for mainstream Americanism and its moderate media palette It is a bold approach to play out the "act" with balloon animals made out of condoms simulating the "act" where condoms are required. The media campaign was a huge success in the UK and inspired a couple leading female contraceptive suppliers to follow suite with its own flavor of viral madness.

Durex is the number one ranked global supplier of condoms, a testimonial that if you shout a littler louder, you will stand out in a crowed space.

37 Best Practices Using LinkedIn for Business

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:07:00 +0000

Have you created your LinkedIn acoount? Is your LinkedIn account being maxim ized? LinkedIn is an amazing social media stategy that packs a lot of bang for thebuck, and its FREE. . Below, I have drafted an outline of some best practices that will supercharge your social media campaign to expand business or personal brand awareness, improve your Google PageRank, or enhance your search engine results.

Here are 30 ways to use LinkedIn more effectively.

Fill out your profile completely to earn trust.
Use widgets to integrate other tools, such as importing your blog entries or Twitter stream into your profile.
Do market research and gain knowledge with Polls.
Share survey and poll results with your contacts.
Answer questions in Questions and Answers: show expertise without a hint of self-promotion.
Ask questions in Questions and Answers to get a feel for what customers and prospects want or think.
Publish your LinkedIn URL on all your marketing collateral, including business cards, email signature, email newsletters, web sites and brochures, so prospects learn more about you.
Grow your network by joining industry and alumni groups related to your business.
Update your status examples of recent work.
Link your status updates with your other social media accounts.
Combine your social media approach: when someone asks a question in Twitter, respond in detail on LinkedIn and link to it from Twitter.
Use the search feature to find people by company, industry and city.
Start and manage a group or fan page for your product, brand or business.
Research your prospects before meeting or contacting them.
Share useful articles and resources that will be of interest to customers and prospects.
Don’t turn off your contacts: avoid hard-sell tactics.
Write honest and valuable recommendations for your contacts.
Request LinkedIn recommendation from happy customers willing to provide testimonials.
Post your presentations on your profile using a presentation application.
Check connections’ locations before traveling so you can meet with those in the city where you’re heading.
Ask your first-level contacts for introductions to their first-level contacts.
Interact with LinkedIn on a regular basis to reach those who may not see you on other social media sites.
Set up to receive LinkedIn messages in your inbox so you can respond right away.
Link to articles and content posted elsewhere, with a summary of why it’s valuable to add to your credibility.
List your newsletter subscription information and archives.
Find experts in your field and invite them as a guest blogger on your blog or speaker at your event.
Post discounts and package deals.
Import vCards and contacts from other applications to find more connections.
Export your contacts into other applications.
Buy a LinkedIn direct ad that only your target market will see.
Post job listings to find qualified talent.
Look for connections related to a job you want.
Find vendors and contractors through connections.
Integrate the Box.net widget – pulls in external files, so you can display word, powerpoint, pdf and many other files. Box.net isnt my choice for other social media sites. Comes with plenty of storage capacity.
Add your LinkedIn hyperlink to your website, blog, and one other URL and select “Other” so you can specify the anchor text. Don’t use the pre-selected categories “My website” etc.
Add a LION (LinkedIn Open Networker) or two to your network.
–i.e. a “promiscuous sneezer” (in Seth Godin-speak)
–Use the TopLinked.com list. e.g. Flip Filipowski
Add your email address to your “professional headline” so folks 4+ degrees away don’t have to waste an InMail to contact you

6 Ways To Get More Out of Flickr

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 03:24:00 +0000

Always use tags – as many as possible while still being accurate. Put multiple word tags in surrounded by quotation marks “”

Make descriptive titles for your photos

Create thematic Sets for your photos

Links on profile, sets and collection pages are not nofollowed

If the photo is location specific, go into Flickr’s tools and geotag the picture
- Go into the Flickr set tools, and locate the location on the Yahoo! Map, then drag the picture onto the map to pinpoint its location

Creative Commons license your photo and put how you want the user to credit you in your photo’s description

Twitter Guide-Book

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:34:00 +0000

The Twitter Guide Book, a one-stop shop for getting up to speed with everything Twitter (), from managing your Twitter stream to promoting a business. Now, we’ve packaged up all of our best Twitter resources in a downloadable presentation so you can flip through all of the content in one place, and print and share it with your friends and colleagues.

Presented by Adobe Acrobat 9, sponsor of this year’s SlideShare “World’s Best Presentation Contest”, the Twitter Guide Book includes a special audio introduction from Mashable Founder and CEO Pete Cashmore, as well as five chapters:

1. Twitter 101: The Basics
2. Building Your Twitter Community
3. Managing Your Twitter Stream
4. Sharing on Twitter
5. Twitter for Business

Please note that Acrobat 9 or Adobe Reader 9 is required for viewing. You can download Adobe Reader for free here. We’ve included some screenshots of the Guide Book below. You can view and download Mashable’s Twitter Guide Book here.

Search Engine Optimization Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 22:56:00 +0000

A collection of my favorite keyword research tools. I will soon begin the videos lessons of a couple of these. I'm leaning towards Wordtracker just pay the upgrade fee.

SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool - tool shows top keyword phrases from Wordtracker.
Wordtracker Free Keywords - free keyword suggestions from Wordtracker. Wordtracker also has a more advanced paid version, and sells top keyword reports.
Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool - recommends keywords based on a keyword you enter or a URL you have the tool analyze
Google Suggest Tool - shows frequently search for phrases starting with the words and letters in your query.
Keyword Discovery - free keyword tool from Trellian.. Trellian also has a more advanced paid version of Keyword Discovery.
Microsoft Keyword Forecast - shows predicted Microsoft search impression count and historical trends.
Wordze - nice for generating decently large keyword lists quickly and inserting them into paid search campaigns.
Yahoo! Search Marketing - Yahoo! has a keyword research tool inside their platform. It is really bad marketing of them to only have the new tool accessible inside their platform, while neglecting their old keyword tool.

Analytical Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 22:53:00 +0000

Free Analytical Tools, basic functionality is solid, many require you upgrade in order to access advanced features.

Google Analytics - powerful full featured analytics tool. Has built in feature that gives you accurate financial reporting of ROI by keyword for each AdWords ad position. Google AdWords also has internal split testing and conversion tracking software.
Google Website Optimizer - almost sure it was release in 2007, it allows you to A/B split test landing pages and track conversion within Google AdWords.
Microsoft adCenter Analytics - not publicly launched yet, but accepting invite requests.
Piwik - open source web analytics program
Site Meter - starts off as free, but charges for advanced features
Stat Counter - starts off as free, but charges for advanced features and bandwith usage.
Webalizer - default log analyzer on many servers.
Analog - default log analyzer on many servers.
Awstats - another popular default log analyzer on many servers.

Cheap Analytical Tools

Clicky - cheap web based tool similar to Google Analytics. A few less features, but you are not giving all your data to Google either. Also offers a cheap white label analytics package convenient for SEO firms interested in maximizing revenue, and delivering professional unified brand.
Mint - affordable analytics program that you download onto your computer. One main drawback with Mint is the lack of conversion tracking ability.

Affordable Business Analytics Tools

ClickTracks - Downloadable software and hosted options. Starting at $99 a month.
Indextools - Starts at $50 a month.
Weblog Expert - Downloadable log analyzer. Starts at $75.

Expensive / Premium Tools

Omniture
WebTrends
Hubspot - I'm a customer. I use Hubspot to track the performance of my keywords and competitors' keywords (courtesy Gretel Going).
Website Grader - Hubspot product that will grade your website on a number of analytics and social media indicators. Great free tool!
Alexa - Some high-level information on website traffic for any site.
Compete.com - Excellent comparison tool for web analytics-type information.
Quantcast - Provides good overview of analytics and site demographics (courtesy of Kyra Reed).
Woopra - Analytics on steroids (courtesy of Kyra Reed).

Background Information on Web Analytics

If you need more background on analytics try the free 44 minute video by Avinash Kaushik.

Monitoring Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 22:41:00 +0000

Part 1 / 2 of free social media monitoring and measurement:

Brand Overviews

HowSociable? - A simple, free, tool that can measure the visibility of your brand on the web across 22 metrics
Addict-o-matic - A nice search engine that aggregates rss feeds, allowing you to quickly see the areas where a brand is lacking in presence
socialmention - A social media search engine offering searches across individual platforms (eg blogs, microblogs) or all, together with a ’social rank’ score. Whether or not the score is transparent enough to be meaningful is open to debate.

Blog Search Tools

TECHNORATI Search - Technorati’s new search interface. Use it to find top blogs based upon inbound links only.
TECHNORATI Advanced - Technorati’s advanced search page allows you to search for blogs (rather than posts) based on tags.
Google Blog Search - Google’s index of blog posts. The advanced search tab allows you to search based on additional criteria. Very good for searching between specific dates.
IceRocket - Blog search tool that also graph-ifies!
BlogPulse - Search for blog posts by keyword. Developed by Nielsen BuzzMetrics.

Buzz Tracking

Serph - Track buzz in real time
Google Trends - shows amount of searches and google news stories
Trendpedia - Create charts showing the volume of discussion around multiple topics. Generates cool graphs.
BlogPulse Trends - Compare the mentions of specific keywords and phrases in blog posts (LEFT vs. RIGHT)
Omgili Charts - Omgili Buzz Graphs let you measure and compare the Buzz of any term. Mostly from review sites/forums.
eKstreme - blog data is obtained from Technorati and the social bookmarks come from del.icio.us.

Message Board Search Tools

BoardTracker - tracks words in forums
BoardReader - Search multiple message boards and forums.
Omgili - Omgili is a specialized search engine that focuses on “many to many” user generated content platforms, such as, forums, discussion groups, mailing lists, answer boards and others. Omgili finds consumer opinions, debates, discussions, personal experiences, answers and solutions.
Google Groups - Searches usenet groups.
Yahoo! Groups - Searches all Yahoo! Groups.

Twitter Search Tools

Twitter Search - Search keywords on Twitter which “self-refreshes”. See what’s happening — ‘right now’.
Twitstat - Twitter Tweitgeist - Tag cloud for last 500 Tweets
TweetScan - search for words on Twitter
Twit(url)y - see what people are talking about on Twitter
Hashtags - Realtime Tracking of Twitter Hashtags
TweetBeep - Track mentions of your brand on Twitter in real time.
Twitrratr - Rates mentions of your search term on Twitter as positive/neutral/negative
TweetMeme - View the most popular Twitter threads occurring now.
TwitScoop – Through an automated algorithm, twitscoop crawls hundreds of tweets every minute and extracts the words which are mentioned more often than usual and creates a tag cloud.
Twilert - Twitter application that lets you receive regular email updates of tweets containing your brand, product, service.

Web Site Traffic

Compete - Competitor site traffic reports. Estimates only of monthly visitor data. Best used on large high-traffic Web sites.
Quantcast - Use this on large high-traffic Websites. It allows you to compare multiple web sites in one handy chart. Estimates only of monthly visitor data.
Alexa - Comparative site traffic reports. Includes estimated reach, rank and page views.
BlogFlux Page Rank - Tells you Google Page Rank for a web page. Use this to compare different websites.

Search Data

Google Trends - Search trends and see search volume by country and region.
Google Insights - Compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, and time frames.
Wordtracker Keywords - Displays average daily search volume of a given keyword or phrase.
Yahoo! Keyword Tool - Displays search volumes for specific keywords and phrases for previous month’s search data.
FACEBOOK LEXICON - Displays volume of wall postings for specific term(s). Similar to Google Trends. Not great with obscure terms.
Google Keyword Tool – Generate keyword ideas for related keywords and search volumes.

Multimedia Search

YouTube - Search for videos and channels by keyword.
MetaCafe - High-traffic video search engine.
Google Advanced Video Search – Search for videos, what else?
Flickr - Search Flickr for photos, groups or people/users.
Truveo - Aggregate video search engine. Search videos from YouTube, MySpace, and AOL.
Viral Video Chart - Displays top 20 most-viewed video (1, 7, 365 days). Includes view counts and charting.
Guardian’s Viral Video Chart – Weekly roundup of what’s excellent on the web

Social Bookmarking

Digg - Social Bookmarking, mainly for news, images and videos
StumbleUpon - Social bookmarking - general cool stuff
Delicious - Social bookmarking

Feed Aggregator

Yahoo Pipes - Feed aggregator and manipulator. Set up pipes for news alerts and overviews. Generally Awesome.

URL cruncher

Bit.ly - URL cruncher with dashboard metrics enabling measurement of number of clicks, countries clicked from, conversations around url etc

Specific Social Network Tracking

Adonomics - Facebook analytics and developer application tracking and graphing.

Search Engine rankings

PageRank Checker - Shows Google page ranking

Advertising and Event Tracking

MediaHound - Competitive tracking and analysis; focus on technology B2B space

However, those are very expensive tools for personal use and small businesses, so what I usually do as a free easy to use solution is set up a bunch of free services and aggregate them using Google Reader.
Start by setting up a folder for the brand you want to monitor, this of course could be yourself.
Next create 7 folders: Must Reads, Blogs, Comments, Message Boards, Social Bookmarkting, Microblogging, and General …
Folder 1 - Must Reads: this folder contains services that I feel pick up a good overview of where your name is being mentioned on the web. This is the one folder that I know if I only have a couple of minutes to spend looking that I have to hit. For this I use Google Alerts and Yahoo Alerts.
Folder 2 - Blogs: consist of most user generated content that doesn’t get picked up as news or alert. Use Google Blog Search, Blog Pulse and Technorati
Folder 3 - Comments: pick up comments and opinions of all those users who don’t write full blogs. use Backtype.
Folder 4 - Message Boards: interesting topics here; Board Reader does a good job at following conversations where people often forget to look.
Folder 5 - Social Bookmarking: follow services such as Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Delicious.
Folder 6 - Microblogging: I used to have twitter search and a few other things in here but I have really been impressed by the Twingly microblog search… or of course, use any of the tools from my Twitter Tools post.
Folder 7 - General: So thus far I’ve been just teasing, I like all those tools but 9 out of 10 times I don’t set any of them up … The quick solution is to use some mass social media search engine such as Serph, Keotag, and my favorite, Social Mention.
I have all this set up and it allowed me to find every tweet, every blog post, every comment about my panel at SXSW the same day they were posted. So try it for yourself, you’ll see how addicting is to find everything that everyone says about you or your brand

Social Media Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 22:41:00 +0000

Tweetdeck - The ultimate Twitter management system.
Hootsuite - Manage multiple twitter accounts from one dashboard.
Twitterfeed - Set your RSS feeds to post automatically on Twitter.
Twitter Search - Find anything on Twitter real-time. For tagging, use the # (hash) tag (#magsu event)
Tweetmeme - Find what's hot on Twitter.
Twilert - Twitter search alerts via email.
Yammer - It's Twitter for inside the company walls (courtesy of Paul Dunay)
Tagalus - Directory of Twitter hash tags (courtesy of Kyra Reed)
MyTweeple - Manage tweets and followers. Especially good for managing multiple profiles (courtesy of Laurie Dunlop).
Twitter Facebook App - Updates Facebook via Twitter (courtesy of Greg Padley).
Selective Twitter Facebook App - Updates Facebook only when you use #fb (courtesy of Greg Padley).
Seesmic - Managing with multiple accounts (courtesy Brad Hays).

Public Relations Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 22:41:00 +0000

www.pitchengine.com - Social Media PR Press Release Builder

Analytical Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:38:00 +0000

Great selection of free tools, basic functionality is solid, many require you upgrade in order to access advanced features.

Google Analytics - powerful full featured analytics tool. Has built in feature that gives you accurate financial reporting of ROI by keyword for each AdWords ad position. Google AdWords also has internal split testing and conversion tracking software.
Google Website Optimizer - almost sure it was release in 2007, it allows you to A/B split test landing pages and track conversion within Google AdWords.
Microsoft adCenter Analytics - not publicly launched yet, but accepting invite requests.
Piwik - open source web analytics program
Site Meter - starts off as free, but charges for advanced features
Stat Counter - starts off as free, but charges for advanced features and bandwith usage.
Webalizer - default log analyzer on many servers.
Analog - default log analyzer on many servers.
Awstats - another popular default log analyzer on many servers.

Cheap Analytical Tools

Clicky - cheap web based tool similar to Google Analytics. A few less features, but you are not giving all your data to Google either. Also offers a cheap white label analytics package convenient for SEO firms interested in maximizing revenue, and delivering professional unified brand.
Mint - affordable analytics program that you download onto your computer. One main drawback with Mint is the lack of conversion tracking ability.

Affordable Business Analytics Tools

ClickTracks - Downloadable software and hosted options. Starting at $99 a month.
Indextools - Starts at $50 a month.
Weblog Expert - Downloadable log analyzer. Starts at $75.

Expensive / Premium Tools

Background Information on Web Analytics

If you need more background on analytics try the free 44 minute video by Avinash Kaushik.

Common Good Policies Dilute Free Choice, & Personal Pesponsibility

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:42:00 +0000

Modern economic theory analyzes human action within a “society” or a “nation” and attempts to predict how it might respond to various policies. Let us turn to a basic philosophical principle concerning free choice; Groups don’t make choices, only people make choices. Classical Economics, and advocates of the Libertarian creed vehemently reject polices aimed at the maximizing utility of the “common good”.

In opposition to “common good” policies, classical economics defends the intimate relationship between economic freedom and personal liberty. In order for liberty to thrive, natural rights without exception or equivocation must be an integral consideration when public policies are on the table.

The underlying philosophical doctrine of Classical Economics is rooted in “Aristotelian Philosophy” adhering to rationalism, private property, social responsibility, subjective individuality, natural law, natural rights, and universal truths of human action.

Search Engine Optimization - Methodology

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:56:00 +0000

Methodology

SEO Phase 1
A Key Phrase is a combination of keywords that most appropriately define your product offerings and/or your area of operations. One of the most crucial steps in Search Engine Optimization is the process of Key phrase Identification. Our criteria while choosing the appropriate keywords for you are the following:

1. They will bring to your website the most qualified leads
2. They most concisely describe your products or service offerings
3. They are Specific, less-competitive and with the potential to get your website ranking high on all major search engines

For the above, we will discuss together your market, demographics, competition and business objectives. From here I will research on the keywords you’ve suggested and choose the right Internet marketing keywords.

SEO Phase 2
Making your website Search-Engine Friendly
Search Engines and Directories have guidelines – something like a rulebook, which defines what design factors are considered good and bad from the search engines’ point of view. Or rather, what is considered legible and illegible – as search engine spiders are blind and cannot see quite a few factors that constitute part of the aesthetically designed website, e.g. images, flash, etc.

I can either consult with you on an existing website modifying it to meet search engine parameters or help you design a totally new website that search engines can read, understand, index and promote.

Content Optimization
Your web site’s content is the search engine’s content, so search engines want sites with high quality content above all else. Web pages with high keyword density and Text that accurately reflects the products, and services offered by the website. Some authors combat this by placing their keywords at the bottom of their pages in invisible text. But this method is considered Spam and will lead to blacklisting of your website.

Website Page Re-naming
Recently, search engines including Google and Inktomi have started to use keywords in the URL as a part of their ranking formula. Unless you’re one of the lucky ones who registered their domain name back in 1996, you will probably have little luck finding a domain name with your keywords in it..

Website Link Re-naming
Good navigation through a website isn’t just important to users. Search engines use the links within websites to crawl and index the pages those links point to. It’s very important that you have text links on your website that contain your target keywords. The easier and more convenient it is for search engines to get in and scan your website, the more traffic they are going to deliver to your website.

Recommendation and Creation of Link Pages
Search Engines prefer websites that provide a host of external links. They consider such websites to be portals of information and thus relevant and helpful for the surfers’ queries.

SEO Phase 3
Meta Tag Composition
The way a page is coded is vital to the success you will get from search engines. There are three HTML Tags, which can affect your ranking; these are Title Tags, Keyword Tags and Description Tags.

Title Tags – HTML Title describes the contents of your web page. This title is most likely to appear in the results for search engines and on bookmarks, and should be made relevant to the contents on the web page.

Keyword Tags – Keyword frequency, weight, prominence and proximity are a few techniques that can help improve your search engine rankings. Most of these techniques have one thing in common – use of keywords. Keywords are words people type into a search engine… words that lead them to your site. Having the right keywords in your website’s source code in the form of a Meta tag is the first step to better search engine positioning.

Description Tags – Description tags are HTML tags that describe in brief the contents of the page. These are visible to the surfer when your page appears in the results of a search. These can be effectively used to increase the frequency of keywords in the HTML of your web page.

ALT Tags are basically image descriptions within a website. You can attach text to an image to describe it so that Search Engines can also find it. ALT descriptions help you rank higher in search engines. Search engine algorithms calculate the number of times keywords are repeated and give higher rank to pages that use them often. Keywords in the ALT descriptive text help you increase their frequency on the page. Search engines assume the terms are more relevant and important if they’re used in the page content.

SEO Phase 4
Manual Submissions
I will submit manually to the top search engines to provide maximum effectiveness, I will be submitting your website to Google, Yahoo etc.

Phase 5
Ranking Reports
We understand the client’s need to be periodically informed of the status of the site’s position on the search engines. Therefore, we generate reports that reflect the current search engine ranking of the site.

About Paul

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:32:00 +0000

Paul Clark is a passionate social media marketing consultant who thrives on teaching business professionals and organizations how to stand out in a crowded space, such as the internet. Mr. Clark has been optimizing websites since 1996 where he started his career providing technical support, web design, and internet marketing for an internet start-up in East Lansing, Michigan. From there he went on to an engineering firm in Troy, Michigan where he served as lead network administrator.

His past experience has included working with Non-profit organizations, Government and Law Enforcement Agencies, Real Estate Firms, Mortgage Companies, Law Firms, Financial Institutions, Public Policy Think Tanks, and Educational Institutions. He currently works as an internet strategist, as he prepares to begin the Media and Information Studies Ph.D. Program at Michigan State University beginning in January, 2010.

Having graduated from Michigan State University with BS in Telecommunications, and the pending graduation of his Masters in Economics, (August 5, 2009), Paul not only has the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) knowledge, but also has the business know-how to effectively ensure that resources are efficiently aligned with business objectives.

My Social Sites:

Paul Clark Social Media Resume

View more documents from Paul Clark.

Libertarian Links

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:04:00 +0000

Libertarian Links Below is a list (in alphabetical order) of some (not all!) important libertarian organizations - a place for you to get started in your exploration of the movement for liberty. ENJOY!
	Acton Institute Adam Smith Institute Alliance for the Separation of School and State Americans for Limited Government Antiwar.com Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) Association of Libertarian Feminists (ALF) Atlas Economic Research Foundation Bionomics Institute Bob Barr for President Buchanan Center for Political Economy Bureaucrash Campaign for Liberty (Ron Paul) Cascade Policy Institute Cato Institute Center for Individual Freedom Center for Libertarian Studies Center for Small Government Citizens for a Sound Economy Competitive Enterprise Institute Congressman Ron Paul's weekly column Democratic Freedom Caucus (DFC) Discovery Institute DownsizeDC Draft Resistance Drug Policy Alliance Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) FEE News Today Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE) Fraser Institute Free Market Medicine The Freedom Network Free State Project Friedrich Hayek Scholars' Page Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA) Future of Freedom Foundation (FFF) Goldwater Institute Grassroot Institute of Hawaii Heartland Institute Hispanic American Center for Economic Research Independent Institute Individualist Feminists (ifeminists.com) Institute of Economic Affairs Institute for Health Freedom Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) Institute for Justice (IJ) International Society for Individual Liberty (ISIL) Laissez Faire Books LewRockwell.com Libertarian Alliance Libertarian Enterprise Libertarian Futurist Society Libertarian International Libertarian Party of Canada Libertarian Party USA Libertarian Press, Inc. Libertarian Rock Libertarians for Life The Liberty Amendment Liberty Fund, Inc. Liberty Magazine LibertyMove.org LibertyTree Review and Catalogue Locke Institute Ludwig von Mises Institute Mackinac Center for Public Policy Mannkal Economic Education Foundation Mercatus Center, George Mason University Movimiento Libertario (Libertarian Party of Costa Rica) English language page Spanish language page National Center for Policy Analysis Objectivist Center (formerly Institute for Objectivist Studies) Outright Libertarians Pacific Research Institute Pioneer Institute Political Economy Research Center Professors of Liberty Reason Foundation Reason Magazine Republican Liberty Caucus (RLC) Resources for Independent Thinking (RIT) Thoreau Institute The Voluntaryist World's Smallest Political Quiz

Social Media Marketing Campaign - Monthly Rates

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:39:00 +0000

Social Media Marketing Campaign $299/ $999/ $2,999/ per month
Monthly Maintenance Agreement:

It is highly recommend that you maintain a 6month commitment, however my services do not require a contract. All plans include elements of Search Engine Optimization, Link Building and Social Media Marketing. The matrix below serves as a general framework to illustrate the various deliverables involved with Social Media Marketing. In practice, this matrix becomes a living document, reflecting a customized set of tactical social media strategies to engage and convert your audience. Search engine ranking is an ever-changing, dynamic environment and long term consideration should be given to maximize your online success.

Select Plan	All Inclusive Silver Plan $999/month	All Inclusive Gold Plan $2,999/month
Month One	30 Day SEO Campaign (Included) Competitor Research Site Analysis & Suggestions Keyword Analysis (deep) Initial Rank Report	30 Day SEO Campaign (Included) Competitor Research Site Analysis & Suggestions Keyword Analysis (deep) Initial Rank Report
Month Two	(Target 10 Niche Keywords) Keyword Analysis Setup Google Web Master Tools Setup Google Analytics Examine No Follow Links Forward Looking Comments Ensure White Hat Compliance Monthly Rank Report Monthly Website Position Report	(Target 50 Niche Keywords) Keyword Analysis Setup Google Web Master Tools Setup Google Analytics Examine No Follow Links Forward Looking Comments Ensure White Hat Compliance Monthly Rank Report Monthly Website Position Report
Month Three	Fix Meta Tags (10 pages) Source Code Optimization Continued Site Optimization 200 Directory Submissions 200 Social Bookmarks Forward Looking Comments Ensure White Hat Compliance 1 Social Media Press Release Monthly Rank Report Monthly Website Position Report	Fix Meta Tags (50 pages) Source Code Optimization Continued Site Optimization 300 Directory Submissions 300 Social Bookmarks Forward Looking Comments Ensure White Hat Compliance 1 Social Media Press Release Monthly Rank Report Monthly Website Position Report
Month Four	Continued Site Optimization Source Code Optimization Continued Keyword Optimization 200 Directory Submissions 200 Social Bookmarks I will optimize and distribute (10) articles for you and submit it to the top Article Marketing Web Sites Forward Looking Comments Ensure White Hat Compliance 1 Social Media Press Release Monthly Rank Report Monthly Website Position Report	Continued Site Optimization Source Code Optimization Continued Keyword Optimization 300 Directory Submissions 300 Social Bookmarks I will optimize and distribute (50) articles for you and submit it to the top Article Marketing Web Sites Forward Looking Comments Ensure White Hat Compliance 1 Social Media Press Release Monthly Rank Report Monthly Website Position Report
Month 5	Continued Site Optimization Source Code Optimization Continued Keyword Optimization 200 Directory Submissions 200 Social Bookmarks We will install (10) SEO Articles on your web site and update your site maps (XML + site map) We will create 500 word Squidoo lense, Hubpages, 1 Word Press Blog, 1 Blogger Blog, 1 Facebook, 1 MySpace, 1 Linkedin, 1 Twitter, Each social site will have 2 modules on your topic and up to 3 links of your choosing. We will also promote them via social bookmarking. Forward Looking Comments Ensure White Hat Compliance 1 Social Media Press Release Monthly Rank Report Monthly Website Position Report	Continued Site Optimization Source Code Optimization Continued Keyword Optimization 300 Directory Submissions 300 Social Bookmarks We will install (25) SEO Articles on your web site and update your site maps (XML + site map) I will create 500 word Squidoo lense, Hubpages, 1 Word Press Blog, 1 Facebook, 1 MySpace, 1 Linkedin, 1 Twitter, Each social site will have 2 modules on your topic and up to 3 links of your choosing. We will also promote them via social bookmarking. Forward Looking Comments Ensure White Hat Compliance 1 Social Media Press Release Monthly Rank Report Monthly Website Position Report
Month 6	Continued Site Optimization Source Code Optimization Continued Keyword Optimization 200 Directory Submissions 200 Social Bookmarks We will submit (10) variations of your targeted SEO Articles to the top Article Marketing Web Sites We will create a 500 word Squidoo lenses and a 500 word Hubpages with about 2 modules on your topic and up to 3 links of your choosing. We will also promote them via social bookmarking. Forward Looking Comments Ensure White Hat Compliance 1 Social Media Press Release Monthly Rank Report Monthly Website Position Report	Continued Site Optimization Source Code Optimization Continued Keyword Optimization 300 Directory Submissions 300 Social Bookmarks I will submit (50) variations of your targeted SEO Articles to the top Article Marketing Web Sites We will create a 500 word Squidoo lenses and a 500 word Hubpages with about 2 modules on your topic and up to 3 links of your choosing. We will also promote them via social bookmarking. Forward Looking Comments Ensure White Hat Compliance 1 Social Media Press Release Monthly Rank Report Monthly Website Position Report

Benchmarking and Reporting Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

Monthly Benchmarking Reports: We will run a benchmark ranking report showing all your existing listings, in the major search engines before we start. This concise report will be sent monthly to help document our progress.

Monthly Website Position Report: Every month, we will run a ranking report to document the progress and send it to you via email. The rank reports include rank reporting on Yahoo, Google, and Bing, and indicates which keyword your web site currently ranks for on the search engines.

Pro-Bono

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 23:54:00 +0000

Warm Regards,
Paul Clark
Non-Profit & Pro Bono Search Engine Optimization & Social Media Marketing

Paul Clark donates 40 hours a year to Pro Bono Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing. The 40 hours is divided on a case by case bases to companies who are chosen for the program. Pro Bono work is usually offered to select non-profits, with a few exceptions to outstanding businesses. If you are interested taking advantage of this great program please send an email to Paul Clark at clarkpau@yahoo.com. Tell me about your company and why we should donate hours to your cause.

Though there are many great non-profits out there, I can’t promise free hours to all applicants, but strongly encourage you to make a request. I’m partial to non-profits that seek to impact social equality — be it through:

* Economic Freedom
* Personal Liberty
* Human Rights

Occasionally we also make an exception to do Pro Bono work for regular businesses who have done great things as well. If you are not a non-profit and your company has demonstrated a commitment to impact social change, please feel free to make a request also. Tell me about your company and what you are doing that makes a positive impact in society.

Contact

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:36:00 +0000

Blogs

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:32:00 +0000

Blogs

Contact Paul

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:25:00 +0000

Paul J. Clark
Social Media, Search Engine Strategist

P: (517) 574-5278 F: (702) 925-3384
E: sirpauljamesclark@gmail.com

Follow Me Online:
W: social-media-blueprint.blogspot.com
FB: www.facebook.com/pauljamesclark
L:   www.linkedin.com/in/pauljamesclark
T:   www.twitter.com/pauljamesclark
S:   www.slideshare.net/pauljamesclark

Search Engine Optimization Methodology

noreply@blogger.com (Paul James Clark) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:25:00 +0000

Phase 1
A Key Phrase is a combination of keywords that most appropriately define your product offerings and/or your area of operations. One of the most crucial steps in Search Engine Optimization is the process of Key phrase Identification. Our criteria while choosing the appropriate keywords for you are the following:
1. They will bring to your website the most qualified leads
2. They most concisely describe your products or service offerings
3. They are Specific, less-competitive and with the potential to get your website ranking high on all major search engines
For the above, we will discuss together your market, demographics, competition and business objectives. From here I will research on the keywords you’ve suggested and choose the right Internet marketing keywords.

Phase 2
Making your website Search-Engine Friendly
Search Engines and Directories have guidelines – something like a rulebook, which defines what design factors are considered good and bad from the search engines’ point of view. Or rather, what is considered legible and illegible – as search engine spiders are blind and cannot see quite a few factors that constitute part of the aesthetically designed website, e.g. images, flash, etc.
I can either consult with you on an existing website modifying it to meet search engine parameters or help you design a totally new website that search engines can read, understand, index and promote.

Content Optimization
Your web site’s content is the search engine’s content, so search engines want sites with high quality content above all else. Web pages with high keyword density and Text that accurately reflects the products, and services offered by the website. Some authors combat this by placing their keywords at the bottom of their pages in invisible text. But this method is considered Spam and will lead to blacklisting of your website.
Website Page Re-naming
Recently, search engines including Google and Inktomi have started to use keywords in the URL as a part of their ranking formula. Unless you’re one of the lucky ones who registered their domain name back in 1996, you will probably have little luck finding a domain name with your keywords in it..
Website Link Re-naming
Good navigation through a website isn’t just important to users. Search engines use the links within websites to crawl and index the pages those links point to. It’s very important that you have text links on your website that contain your target keywords. The easier and more convenient it is for search engines to get in and scan your website, the more traffic they are going to deliver to your website.
Recommendation and Creation of Link Pages
Search Engines prefer websites that provide a host of external links. They consider such websites to be portals of information and thus relevant and helpful for the surfers’ queries.
Phase 3
Meta Tag Composition
The way a page is coded is vital to the success you will get from search engines. There are three HTML Tags, which can affect your ranking; these are Title Tags, Keyword Tags and Description Tags.
Title Tags – HTML Title describes the contents of your web page. This title is most likely to appear in the results for search engines and on bookmarks, and should be made relevant to the contents on the web page.
Keyword Tags – Keyword frequency, weight, prominence and proximity are a few techniques that can help improve your search engine rankings. Most of these techniques have one thing in common – use of keywords. Keywords are words people type into a search engine… words that lead them to your site. Having the right keywords in your website’s source code in the form of a Meta tag is the first step to better search engine positioning.
Description Tags – Description tags are HTML tags that describe in brief the contents of the page. These are visible to the surfer when your page appears in the results of a search. These can be effectively used to increase the frequency of keywords in the HTML of your web page.
ALT Tags are basically image descriptions within a website. You can attach text to an image to describe it so that Search Engines can also find it. ALT descriptions help you rank higher in search engines. Search engine algorithms calculate the number of times keywords are repeated and give higher rank to pages that use them often. Keywords in the ALT descriptive text help you increase their frequency on the page. Search engines assume the terms are more relevant and important if they’re used in the page content.
Phase 4
Manual Submissions
I will submit manually to the top search engines to provide maximum effectiveness, I will be submitting your website to Google, Yahoo etc.
Phase 5
Ranking Reports
We understand the client’s need to be periodically informed of the status of the site’s position on the search engines. Therefore, we generate reports that reflect the current search engine ranking of the site.