Sean Clark

An Introduction To SEO For Small Business [PODCAST]

Sean Clark — Sat, 18 May 2013 10:46:19 +0000

The Small Business Marketing Report

This is Episode 10 of The Small Business Marketing Report a bi-weekly audio podcast co-hosted by myself, Sean, and Robert Tyson of the Tyson Report. In each episode we look at the challenges facing small business and startups in the world of online marketing and social media.

In this episode of The Small Business Marketing Report Sean & Robert look at search engine optimisation (SEO). As much an art as a science SEO is the “golden child” of internet marketing. Everyone wants to be number 1 for their phrase or term, but thanks to Googles every changing algorithm no one is exactly sure how to get there.

Sean & Robert provide some insight in to how you can maximise your chances of reaching that esteemed position and provide some guidance on the pitfalls to avoid along the way.

You can follow this show on the Small Business Marketing Report Google+ Page.

If you have a subject you would like us to cover or any feedback ont he show please leave a comment below. If you enjoy the podcast you can subscribe via iTunes and we’d be grateful if you could leave a review.

You can also find us on the Stitcher & Blackberry networks:

Stitcher Smart Radio

blackberry podcast

The post An Introduction To SEO For Small Business [PODCAST] appeared first on Sean Clark.

Social Media: Is Your Business In Control? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Sean Clark — Sat, 11 May 2013 15:02:36 +0000

Losing Control of Social Media

For some companies Social Media feels like it just takes so much effort for so little return. Whilst for others they are investing thousands of pounds in resources and tools to leverage it.

So where does the difference lay?

It’s simply in the planning. If your business doesn’t have a defined strategy for a particular activity, and a relevant plan to implement it, then it will always feel like a struggle.

No more so than when it comes to a Social Media Strategy as few people really understand how to leverage effectively, and are easily caught up in Likes and Follows, often a false measure of success.

In addition Social Media can be one of the most distracting marketing tasks to perform. Even seasoned professionals can find themselves off on tangents getting caught up in conversations and interesting factoids.

TIP: Instapaper is a great tool to save lengthy articles for later reading.

Then there are those that not only have a Social Media Strategy, have their plans in place and tactics developed, they also have dedicated teams in place to track conversations in the online space.

These organisations have set up dedicated Social Media Command Centres to monitor activity specific to their requirement. This isn’t just for large organisations though, you can have your own Social Media Monitoring System for very little cost with tools like Hootsuite.

As I said it is all in the plan, but this infographic from Being Your Brand should give you some idea of what is possible.

Social Media Command Centres

The post Social Media: Is Your Business In Control? [INFOGRAPHIC] appeared first on Sean Clark.

Hashtag Discovery: An Interview With Saul Fleischman of RiteTag [PODCAST]

Sean Clark — Sat, 04 May 2013 11:16:11 +0000

The Small Business Marketing Report

This is Episode 9 of The Small Business Marketing Report a bi-weekly audio podcast co-hosted by myself, Sean, and Robert Tyson of the Tyson Report. In each episode we look at the challenges facing small business and startups in the world of online marketing and social media.

This episode is a bit different as Robert is on holiday. So this week Sean interviews Saul Fleischman, based in Osaka, Japan, a hands on marketing expert and business developer with over 20 years experience. Sean talks to Saul about his latest venture RiteTag, a web based application that helps you discover the most effective hashtags to use in your social media messaging.

Podcast subscribers can also get free access to the beta version of RiteTag, just listen to the podcast to find out how.

You can follow this show on the Small Business Marketing Report Google+ Page.

You can also find us on the Stitcher & Blackberry networks:

Stitcher Smart Radio

blackberry podcast

The post Hashtag Discovery: An Interview With Saul Fleischman of RiteTag [PODCAST] appeared first on Sean Clark.

Fake Twitter Followers Damage More Than Your Social Media Credibility [Research]

Sean Clark — Wed, 01 May 2013 18:05:48 +0000

The Art of War

Nobody likes to lose, but what’s worse than losing is when you lose to a cheat.

I have recently experienced this exact situation, except it wasn’t in a game or sport, but in business. The opposing company had a strong position, they looked good, well staffed, were long established and had some big names on their client list.

So what did I have to complain about?

Something about this company didn’t quite seem right, although long established their list of services was like the Yellow Pages.

This raised my first red flag, you can’t be good at everything, and typically the bigger a company the less specialist they tend to be. So when the companies Director is a self-proclaimed “Social Media Expert” it makes me wince, even more so when he also suggests he has a wide range of other experience.

Not that I claim to know everyone in Social Media, but I had not heard of this guy before, and he’s relatively local. Not seen a blog post by him, Twitter feed or other reference.

Now whilst Sun Tzu, in The Art of War states “All warfare is based on deception.”, he also says “Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster”.

So a little digging was in order, and it didn’t take long to uncover the charade.

Please note: No company names, or names of those involved other than my own will be mentioned in this post. This article is about highlighting the issue with buying fake followers and how easy it is to spot, not outing the competition.

The following process is useful not just to to root out Social Media cheats, but also allows you to better understand your competitors, potential new clients, suppliers or even future employees.

The Investigation Begins

The first port of call was their website. Was there a blog and was he blogging?

Well yes there was, and there was also a recent post in his name. In fact, his profile linked directly to his Twitter account, with some 4,000+ followers, that’s not bad.

The Twitter Account

Hang on, but he’s following back less than 100 people!

Red flag number 2.

It is unusual to encounter such a disparity in Follower and Followed rates. This usually only occurs when you have someone famous, or who is popular for other reasons, or sometimes with brand accounts.

Pieces of the Puzzle

So let us check out his Followers.

Twitter Followers

Notice how all the accounts, although with different bios, profile photos and names still all seem similar in some way?

Now look at a few sample Follower profiles:

Fake Follower 3

Fake Follower 2

Fake Follower 1

All profiles follow 84 or 85 accounts, have no Followers themselves and have never sent a Tweet. This is a classic fake profile, it is also evidence of buying Followers.

So now we suspect our competitor is buying Followers on Twitter to make his profile look more impressive from a numbers perspective. Unfortunately for him what he doesn’t realise is that his activity is an open book that could not only embarrass him, but also his company.

SocialBakers Fake Follower Check is a great tool that gives a guide as to whether you have picked up any fake Followers on Twitter, inadvertently or otherwise. In this case it reported that the account following was 100% fake, so I wanted a second opinion.

Update: Here is an explanation of how the SocialBakers Fake Follower Tool works.

StatusPeople also have a Fake Follower Reporting Tool and on the target account suggests 57% of his Followers are fake.

Status People

Both tools take a cross sample of Followers and check these against known fake sources, so results may vary on the same account but are a good indicator.

The Final Evidence

Just to ensure we have a water tight case on our competitor one final check is to see if there is anything unusual in the rate at which he is acquiring Followers. We can do this easily using TwitterCounter, amongst other things it will provide a graph showing the rate at which Followers have been acquired.

Twitter Counter Fakes

And there we have the evidence, somewhere around the beginning of February he suddenly gained 1,000 Followers overnight.

A sure sign of buying Followers.

He then starts to steadily gain Followers at the rate of exactly 7 a day. Probably aware that a sudden uplift too often may look suspicious, whereas a steady rise may not. The trouble being that natural Follower growth like other things in life varies, because it’s ermmm…natural! So any consistent number over a period of time obviously stands out.

My Conclusion

My competitor is a cheat!

He’s faking his profile without realising the transparency of what he has done. Which in turn means he lacks understanding of not only the social space, but probably the analytical reporting that is possible behind it.

This also means that clients of this agency are at risk of receiving poor advice at best. In the worse case scenario they may also have some of these awful tactics unknowingly applied to their brands account in a bid to make it look like the agencies strategy is working.

If this is the type of activity they get up to with Social Media, I hate to think what their Search Engine Optimisation tactics are like!

What do I do with this knowledge?

I’m not sure, hopefully the client will see through the shiny graphics on the agencies website and the promise of online marketing nirvana. And instead realise that a small company with practical experience really can offer a big brand the type of expertise they require.

We wait on their decision.

My Advice

Whatever the temptation, please don’t buy Followers or Likes; fake people don’t buy from your company and are not advocates of your brand. In the long run you have more to lose than just money!

There is more…

Whilst I am not going to name names in the case above, there is some further interesting analysis that can be done on the fake Followers.

By clicking on the Following link of any of the fake Followers you can see who else has been buying Followers. So far I have uncovered a Reuters correspondent, a famous UFC fighter, numerous Social Media marketeers and even a New York Stock Exchange Governor who is buying followers at the rate of 198 a day!

NYSE Governor

The post Fake Twitter Followers Damage More Than Your Social Media Credibility [Research] appeared first on Sean Clark.

Local Online Marketing Made Easy [PODCAST]

Sean Clark — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 18:50:26 +0000

The Small Business Marketing Report

This is Episode 8 of The Small Business Marketing Report a bi-weekly audio podcast co-hosted by myself, Sean, and Robert Tyson of the Tyson Report. In each episode we look at the challenges facing small business and startups in the world of online marketing and social media.

In this episode we look at the challenge of online marketing for local small businesses. With ever improving web based technology and the prevalence of mobile devices, local online marketing has never been more important for small businesses.

What holds back a lot of small businesses is just where to start. Sean & Robert go through some of the channels, online and off, that you can use to promote your business at a local level.

You can follow this show on the new Small Business Marketing Report Google+ Page.

You can also find us on the Stitcher & Blackberry networks:

Stitcher Smart Radio

blackberry podcast

The post Local Online Marketing Made Easy [PODCAST] appeared first on Sean Clark.

WordPress Security Is Yours Up To Date?

Sean Clark — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 22:57:17 +0000

What type of security do you have?

If like many small businesses you use WordPress then you may have been concerned by a recent report stating that, “Hosting providers around the world are seeing a massive increase in brute force attacks against WordPress and Joomla sites”. It certainly prompted me into action, to ensure my website was as secure as possible.

I’ll take you through the precautions you can take to protect your site.

For those that don’t know, a brute force attack is where an attempt is made to access a secure area of a website, in this case the admin area of WordPress, by trying combinations of usernames and passwords multiple times until they find one that works.

This isn’t performed by one person sitting at a PC and manually typing usernames and passwords into your login page. No, the perpertraitors use somehting called a Botnet, a group of computers controlled remotely and working automatically to attempt a login.

You maybe interested to know that Botnets are largely created from unsuspecting PC’s, normally Windows based, infected through malware or other types of virus. It could possibly be your own!

You’re Not Alone

It must be said that WordPress is not alone in terms of vulnerability. Many websites and web based applications are potentially at risk from attack. If you have a custom built CMS (Content Management System), then you should check with your developer how they update against new vulnerabilities.

Strength & Weakness

One of WordPress’s strengths as well as it weakness is its popularity. Very much like the Windows operating system sees far more virus’s than its counterparts Mac and Linux.

One thing WordPress has in its favour is the volume of people working to identify and close those vulnerabilities.

Learn to Protect Yourself

There are some simple steps you can take to protect your WordPress website:

1. Change your username

Make sure your username is not the default, admin. You can’t actually change the username via the WordPress dashboard, but there are a couple of solutions.

The first is to create a new user and swap over control from the old admin user. My preference though is to alter as little as possible and use a plugin called Admin renamer. This allows you to change the admin username directly in the database using a user friendly interface.

2. Change your password

It still amazes me the amount of people that use ordinary words or dates of birth in their passwords. If you website is your business, then please treat it the same as you would your house of car. Protect it adequately.

A strong password consists of 8 or more characters ideally random in upper and lowercase, including numbers and symbols. These type of password are infinitely more difficult to crack. Read this article if you want to see just how easy it is to crack even an encrypted short password that is a common word.

I use an application called 1Password to create and store my passwords, it is cross platform and works on mobile too. So I always have access to my totally randomly generated passwords wherever I go.

3. Keep it updated

Probably the easiest of all is to keep your website updated. WordPress release around 4-6 major security updates in a year. There will also be updates for your plugins. Backup your website before updating, maybe with a plugin like BackupBuddy and ensure you apply updates on a regular basis.

I had an old unused WordPress installation that had been on a server I owned since 2007, and through this install the whole server was infected.

So make sure you delete any plugins or WordPress instances you no longer require and keep the rest up to date.

4. Install some protection

During my update process I came across 2 plugins that can help protect your WordPress site from attack.

The first is Wordfence Security, a free enterprise class security plugin that includes a firewall, virus scanning, real-time traffic with geolocation and more. This is a substantial, yet easy to use plugin that scans your website for infection, and then locks it down from attack.

Then install BulletProof Security, recommend by a friend Simon at SoCreative, which provides website security protection against: XSS, RFI, CRLF, CSRF, Base64, Code Injection, SQL Injection hacking and many more.

It’s Not Personal

If someone does attempt to hack your website, most likely it is the work of a randomly generated bot working from an infected PC. They are not necessarily after your website information but looking to use your server to help them create bigger and better Botnets to wreak further havoc.

Don’t give then the opportunity and protect your website and your business proactively!

If you have any further security tips for WordPress please feel free to mention them in the comments below – no bots allowed…

The post WordPress Security Is Yours Up To Date? appeared first on Sean Clark.

Content Marketing, The Fuel For A Successful Online Business [PODCAST]

Sean Clark — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:23:46 +0000

The Small Business Marketing Report

This is Episode 7 of The Small Business Marketing Report a bi-weekly audio podcast co-hosted by myself, Sean, and Robert Tyson of the Tyson Report. In each episode we look at the challenges facing small business and startups in the world of online marketing and social media.

In this episode Sean & Robert discuss the world of content marketing and how you can use it to fuel your Blog, SEO, Social Media, Email Marketing and other promotional channels.

Content marketing is used by some of the biggest brands on the web to drive traffic and influence purchasing decisions. You can use content marketing to do exactly that for your own business. Listen to the show to find out more.

You can follow this show on the new Small Business Marketing Report Google+ Page.

You can also find us on the Stitcher & Blackberry networks:

Stitcher Smart Radio

blackberry podcast

The post Content Marketing, The Fuel For A Successful Online Business [PODCAST] appeared first on Sean Clark.

Get Personal With Google

Sean Clark — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:41:44 +0000

SEO Is Getting Personal

There has been a lot of discussion in recent months over Google Plus and it’s potential influence on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Some are not as convinced as others to its relevance.

Correlation is not necessarily Causation

One thing is for certain, that Google controls the majority of searches in Europe and the US. And another that all Google is interested in is delivering relevance. If social indicators can help make Google results more relevant, then why wouldn’t they use it?

Who’s on Google Plus Anyway?

An argument I hear from many businesses is: “Google Plus is not worth my time as nobody is using it”.

I would counter, that if you wait until it is mainstream you may already be behind your competition. As an example, how do you currently stand against your major competition on Twitter and Facebook?

For Those That Want To

So if you do want to be a ahead of the curve, and take competitor advantage, all you need do now is start using Google Plus in an optimal way.

To make Google Personalised Search work for you, try implementing some of these: 30 awesome Google Plus tips from Tadeusz Szewczyk.

Our interactions online WILL affect what we see when we search…take advantage of that fact and let us connect.

The post Get Personal With Google appeared first on Sean Clark.

The Mobile Arms Race

Sean Clark — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 21:26:52 +0000

Nokia 7110 WAP Phone

Just like the major Super Powers of the 1980′s the “Arms Race is On” for the control of “Mobile”. This time it isn’t countries that are fighting for control and supremacy, but corporations.

Why Should You Care?

Control of the mobile space is very important as we start to access the Internet on the go. Valuable data can be gleaned from our location, that – when combined with our other habits- easily recorded online, can help deliver highly targeted content or advertising.

As a business it is a massive opportunity if you understand the space and can use it to your advantage. As an individual you should be aware of who is using your data and when and where your it is being used.

Facebook’s announcement of their “New Home on Android” to be revealed on 4th April has rumours flying that they will unveil their own mobile device. Bringing them inline with the other major players in this market.

The Contenders

In the mobile market currently Apple and Google are in prime position, both have their own devices and control of an operating system. I will also include Amazon as they have taken Google’s Android platform and manipulated it for their own use.

Whilst Amazon don’t have a true mobile device i.e. a phone, they do deliver a lot of content through their own ‘mobile’ tablet devices.

Running behind is Facebook, whilst a large part of its audience accesses the platform via mobile it isn’t wholly in control of the end user experience. The upcoming announcement may just change that, and if they can get enough leverage in the market recoup greater revenue via the device.

The Hardware & Operating System

Apple’s iPhone and it’s iOS platform is probably the slickest on the market with a focus user centric design. It is a ‘locked down’ platform though in terms of what both users and developers are allowed to do with it. This has its good and bad side. On the good side: applications tend to be of much higher quality and for developers as they don’t have as many versions of phone and OS to worry about. On the bad side: they don’t have the freedom to connect into the the underlying framework of the operating system and link to other utilities as they would like.

The Android operating system on the other hand is far more open. Available on a wide range of devices, it does have many versions with some of the older versions carrying limitations. Although developed by Google, the Android platform is free for any one that wants to to reuse and develop their own version. In fact until recently Google didn’t have a decent device of their own to run it on. With the release of the Nexus 4 this has changed, and the Nexus is ‘the’ Google Phone.

Amazon has taken advantage of the Android platforms open source licensing to develop its own version for use on the Kindle Fire tablets. They have cleverly taken the features that enhance the content they wish to sell and downplayed the communications side of both the device and operating system. They shouldn’t be ignored though, as they are able to leverage knowledge from the content that is consumed and you can be sure location is part of that data collection.

Facebook is the real straggler here. There have been many rumours that they were to launch a phone. And with their platform a mobile device only made sense, enabling to more effectively target advertising. Until now focus has been elsewhere, but it looks like they can’t ignore the obvious anymore. We shall find out for sure on April 4th.

The Content

Hardware and operating systems are only one part of the battle. Whilst the features of a device may attract users, technology is always advancing.

Content is the real gold that needs to been mined.

Where Amazon always had content, but no device, Apple built the device specifically for the content it also sold, music.

Google has had to work hard to get its content offering up to scratch and is only now boasting about the volume of applications in the Play Store. Applications have been the battleground for Apple and Google, with many developers still choosing iPhone version releases in preference to Android.

Apple has pretty much controlled the music market through iTunes, and nobody has been able to compete with Amazon on the book front.

Movies are still up for grabs, especially as the big studios are not to be as easily persuaded as Steve Jobs was able to do with the music industry.

Facebook certainly has a lot of apps, mainly games and tied to a desktop experience. Will these transfer to mobile? We wait to find out.

Location

This is the biggest area up for exploitation through mobile and all 4 corporations have the ability to leverage location information.

The best placed is Google as it has proven with the popularity of Google Maps. Apple have already had a minor set back with their failed map application, whilst Amazon have yet to show their hand and Facebook? We can only wait to see.

Location is also the biggest opportunity for advertising revenue. Enabling businesses to use highly targeted ads to reach customers. Innovations here are likely to determine the winners as advertising revenue will be the largest slice of the mobile commercial opportunity.

Search

Of course, search goes hand in hand with location. Again Google are way ahead, their algorithms are already geared to recognise the intent of the end user and deliver context based advertising.

A search on a mobile device already returns a very different set of results than the same search on a desktop.

Search is also a dream revenue stream for Facebook; could mobile be the answer?

The biggest issue for all is the effectiveness of mobile ads. Up to now the results have proved disappointing in comparison to their desktop counterparts. For local business appearance in the local results through Google+ Local and Bing Local are the biggest attraction.

The Power of Voice

Very much an early adopter technology, voice based search on mobile is one of the upcoming areas the big 4 are vying for control over.

When you use your voice to perform a search you are no longer going to a search engine first; the application you are using determines which platform to get its results from. Therefore the big battle is around the efficiency and quality of voice recognition.

The application that can transcribe more accurately will gain popularity, especially in uses cases such as when driving. Whoever develops the ultimate voice recognition software, if it isn’t one of the contenders, can then send search queries out to the highest bidder!

The Future Business Effect

Whilst we are in the developing stages of this mobile evolution you need to aware of what is going on. You need to ensure your business features in all the popular and relevant local listings.

Facebook may come in to play dependant on their offering so this should be followed closely.

Outside of this the biggest change in the way we promote ourselves will come with voice search. When this is ubiquitous we will need to have a clear understanding of what source data is being used to return results for any popular applications.

Although voice search is going to take time to develop, it was only 13 years ago that people started talking about mobile being the next big thing. At the time WAP was the content platform and there was no 3G, which severely handicapped its development.

So Mobile hasn’t taken long to get to its current usable state, and voice recognition is likely to develop much more rapidly.

The post The Mobile Arms Race appeared first on Sean Clark.

Why Not WordPress? [PODCAST]

Sean Clark — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 15:20:06 +0000

The Small Business Marketing Report

This is Episode 6 of The Small Business Marketing Report a bi-weekly audio podcast co-hosted by myself, Sean, and Robert Tyson of the Tyson Report. In each episode we look at the challenges facing small business and startups in the world of online marketing and social media.

This week Sean & Robert delve into WordPress and why they think it should be the default website development platform for most small businesses. Covering the basics of setting up a WordPress site, themes, plugins and some of the pitfalls.

Links to some of the resources mentioned in the show:

You can also follow the podcast on the new Small Business Marketing Report Google+ Page.

You can also find us on the Stitcher & Blackberry networks:

Stitcher Smart Radio

blackberry podcast

Thank you to Peter Clitheroe of the Suffolk and Cool podcast for producing the intro and outro. If you’re into music I would definitely recommend checking out the Suffolk and Cool podcast which has been running for 7 years.

The post Why Not WordPress? [PODCAST] appeared first on Sean Clark.