Justin Freid - SEO and Social Media Blog

If you are here - sorry bout that - heres what Im working on now

2011-02-15T21:37:00.003-05:00

This website was my first attempt at... well.. at anything to do with SEO/Internet marketing. I haven't written anything on here in quite some time but it still does get some traffic.

So in case you landing here by some chance here are a few links to what I am currently working on.

My new consulting company is Front Street Consulting, a Philadelphia SEO and SEM Agency.

Tutorhand - a tutoring search engine that helps students find a tutor and has online tutoring.

I also do quite a bit of affiliate marketing, check out the following sites I manage - Barbecue Tips, Learn A New Language.

Launching Of New Site - Justin Freid Media

2009-12-16T14:55:00.006-05:00

Thanks for stopping by - unfortunately this webpage is no longer updated. I have launched a new website for my consulting company Justin Freid Media.

Please head over to www.JustinFreidMedia.com to find out about services offered by JFM and to learn about the latest trends and tips in SEO, Social Media and PPC.

To learn more about Justin Freid check out the about section.

SEO Is An Investment Not A Cost

2009-12-09T08:52:00.005-05:00

As I scanned through my Tweetdeck feed this morning a certain tweet stood out. @SethGoldstein, a web designer in Philadelphia, mentioned the following: "why don't people want to pay the right price for SEO? my god people are cheap".

This got me thinking back to my days working for an IYP and selling pay per click advertising, most of these small business see building a website, PPC adveretisements and SEO as an expense and not an investment.

It is the job of the sales rep, account manager or whoever is attempting to close a deal to really show value and how SEO can provide a ROI. SEO is not glamorous and it is not all about having your website show up at the top of Google rankings, it boils down to conversions.

The extensive keyword research done by an SEO along with the restructuring of a website and link building initiatives should all be focusing on giving the customer whatever conversion they are seeking whether it is a sale, a page-view or a newsletter sign up.

The fact of the matter is to the average business man or even upper level manager who is not familiar with SEO still needs to be sold on the benefits of SEO. A Search marketer needs to focus their pitch on analytics and sales not Google Rankings and Social Media results. If this is not done you will end up running into people who believe that SEO is to expensive or not worth the cost.

Site Performance and Loading Time Now Play a Role in Google Search Results

2009-12-03T09:24:00.002-05:00

For the past few months it has been rumored that site performance would play a role in Google’s ranking factors come 2010. Per Google’s Blog they have announced the launch of a tool called Site Performance in Google’s Web Master tools, which basically confirms it will be a ranking factor.

I had a chance to run the tool on one of my own sites and found it very easy to use and understand. Right of the bat it gives you an idea of the average load time for the pages on your website and also a percentile on where you rank against all indexed web pages.

The tool also provides a nice visual in the form of a graph that tracks your site speed over time. It also provides a list of the URL’s that have your longest loading time and offers tips on how to improve them.

Overall I found the tool to be very clean and easy to use and helpful. It will be interesting to watch the change in rankings for some of the older more authoritative sites who rank high but do not perform well speed wise. Will site performance be a large factor in Google’s algorithm or just a small percentage? Only time will tell.

If you are looking to use the new tool it is located underneath the lab tab on the left sidebar and is called Site Performance.

So I have had Google Wave for awhile now... and I still don’t use it.

2009-11-29T21:55:00.002-05:00

When I first heard about Google Wave I was excited, another platform that could help me communicate, network, gather information and assist me in personal branding. When I finally had an invite trickle my way I immediately signed up and was ready to start waving.

And that is pretty much where my fascination with Google Wave stopped. I signed up and attempted to see if any of my Gmail contacts had also received an invite but only two had. I searched for some of the people I follow on Twitter… not that many of them had accounts. So I was very limited in the “waving” I was able to do.

Those people I knew who did have Wave accounts did not seem to be logged into Wave that often, so Wave was basically working like a combination of AIM and email. Not too much else. Was it my group of friends/contacts that limited me? I do not believe so. My set of contacts and Twitter followees has some tech savvy people who span the SEO, social media and tech industries. What I consider to be the target market of this beta launch.

One other reason I believe Wave did not take off, at least for me, was it was much easier to communicate with Twitter. On Twitter I already had a group of contacts, who all had access to and weren’t limited by invites. After about a day of leaving Wave open in my browser I found it to be annoying. I already had Tweetdeck taking up space on my desktop so Wave eventually fell to the way side. Basically all out of the fact that no one was using it, including me.

I did receive quit a few invites from Google so I am hoping that as I spread my invites through out my circle more people will become more active on Wave. I am hoping that as more users have the ability to use Wave that it will become a tool I can utilize. But I have a feeling until it opens to the masses it is going to be a interface that I check rarely.

There also is the possibility that Wave may not be the social media platform I suspect it to be. I do see some valuable business related tasks it could enhance. During launches, releases or updates to websites QA and devlopers will often communicate through emails to fix bugs and relay any issues to the proper team members. They often embed screen shots and code within the body of the e-mail. I see the Wave as a possible solution to having your inbox flooded. If all members on the team had Wave accounts they could get real times updates flowing through a single Wave. With the fixed code and screen shots of issues right infront of them in real time. Not having to worry about a new email coming in and possibly missing something important. But the problem is.. none of them have invites yet.

TweetDeck Ads New Follower Column

2009-10-16T12:45:00.003-04:00

With the release of V 0.31.1 Tweetdeck offered quite a few helpful updates. One of the major highlights of the update and the one that I find extremely helpful is the "New Followers" Column.

I almost always utilize a client to access Twitter and rarely ever go through Twitter.com, I use Tweetdeck on my laptop for work, Tweetdeck on my personal Laptop and Tweetie on my iPhone.

I did find myself going back to Twitter for one reason - checking out my new followers to see if they are worth a follow back. I usually scan over m new followers last few tweets, check out their bio etc and make a decision if they are someone I would like to interact with.

This was basically the only reason I ever went to Twitter.com and now with the capability to dedicate a column that strictly shows your new followers and their bio - Tweetdeck has eliminated my need to use Twitter.com.

The use of this column is great - it shows your new followers along with their bio. You can easily spot those that are spam and those that are worth following. If you want to leanr more about a new follower simply drag your mouse of their picture and navigate to their profile.

Overall I find this one of the more useful Tweetdeck has implemented since I have started using it.

Addicted to Social Media

2009-10-13T15:22:00.002-04:00

I was recently by approached by Seth Goldstein, a great web designer in Philadelphia, about writing a few posts over on Addictedtosocialmedia.com, a social media blog, and my review of 42 Rules for 24 hour Success on LinkedIn by Chris Muccio went up yesterday.

Give it a read and leave a comment or two on your thoughts of how to best use LinkedIn. I am going to be writing another E-Book review and contributing to A2SM.com more often. So keep an eye out!

Yahoo Stops Using Meta Keyword Tag In Search Algorithm

2009-10-06T15:00:00.003-04:00

Over on Search Engine Land there was a post by Barry Schwartz that Yahoo has stopped using the meta keyword tag in their search algorithm. Via Barry's post this was just announced at SMX East during the Ask The Search Engines session.

This comes just a few weeks behind Google's announcement clarifying that they no longer placed any value on the meta keywords section of a website in their algorithm. Which anyone involved in SEO has pretty much known for quite some time.

So is a meta tag still useful in anyways? For search results - the answer seems like a big negative. But it can still help in a few ways.

If you are optimizing a page of your website and need a place to reference the keywords you are optimizing for, the meta keyword tag is a great place to keep track of them. Supposedly, Bing still references this section, but with Yahoo and Bing's relationship, who knows how long that will last.

The meta description can also still be a valuable piece of html code. Search engines still do sometimes utilize this area as your description on SERPs. So a well written, targeted meta description can help increase your CTR.

All in all this is not a major announcement - its just interested to see why this was announced so quickly after Google made a similar announcement.

Two Easy Excel Formulas That Save You Time When Creating PPC Keywords

2009-09-15T21:06:00.003-04:00

I manage quite a few large pay-per click campaigns, many of them get very specific with long tailed keywords and along with extensive research you also have to create different “tails” and variations of the keyword routes.

A trick many pay-per click account managers use to increase their quality score is to utilize the keyword they are bidding on in the headline of their ad copy. For example, if you are creating an ad campaign for a plumber based out of Philadelphia you could create the following ad:

Plumbing in Philadelphia

Need a plumber? Emergency services available 24/7

www.plumber.com

With an ad like this the term Philadelphia is very broad and very competitive. For a term like “plumber” people will often get even more detailed in their search and use terms such as “Plumbers in Northern Liberties” or “Plumbers in Fairmount Park.” To gain more conversions and increase the quality score of these ads you can add the keyword in the title of the ad.

An issue will arise when you have certain longer tailed keywords that are over the 25 character limit of that Adwords set for titles.

If you are trying to run this campaign for a large plumbing company that covers Philadelphia and the surrounding counties, that adds up to a lot of titles and way too many characters to count. Here is a simple way to utilize excel to find out with titles are under or above the 25 character limits.

In excel create a list of the ad titles in column A, with your first title appearing in cell A1 then in column B enter the following formula =LEN(A1)

This formula will automatically ad up the number of characters in the cell A1. Simply then sort by this column and you will be able to see any titles that are over 25 characters. Simply edit the titles down to fewer than 25 characters and you are good to go. You should see something like the following:

Keyword		Characters
Plumbing in Philadelphia		24
Plumbing In Northern Liberties		30
Plumbing in Fairmount Park		26

Another great formula that helps you create longer tailed keywords is the concatenate formula. In the case of a plumbing company again let’s use the following 4 keywords:

Plumbing

Plumbers

Plumbing Company

Emergency Plumbers

When creating local paid search ads you will want to include the tails such as Plumbing in Philadelphia, Plumbers in Northern Liberties etc. This is where the concatenate formula can help you out tremendously.

In the column to the left of your keywords place the tail you would like to ad

A	B
Plumbing	In Philadelphia
Plumbers	In Philadelphia
Plumbing Company	In Philadelphia
Emergency Plumbers	In Philadelphia
Plumbing	in Northern Liberties
Plumbers	in Northern Liberties
Plumbing Company	in Northern Liberties
Emergency Plumbers	in Northern Liberties

Now in the column to the left of where you placed the tails (Column C) place the following formula =(concatenate A1,” “, B1)

In cell C1 “Plumbing in Philadelphia” will appear and when copied down in cell C5 “Plumbing in Northern Liberties” will appear. This simple formula can be a very big time saver.

Note that the “ “ section is the part of the formula that places a space between the two columns without it your item in C1 would be “Plumbingin Philadelpia”

A	B	C
Plumbing	In Philadelphia	Plumbing In Philadelphia
Plumbers	In Philadelphia	Plumbers In Philadelphia
Plumbing Company	In Philadelphia	Plumbing Company In Philadelphia
Emergency Plumbers	In Philadelphia	Emergency Plumbers In Philadelphia
Plumbing	in Northern Liberties	Plumbing in Northern Liberties
Plumbers	in Northern Liberties	Plumbers in Northern Liberties
Plumbing Company	in Northern Liberties	Plumbing Company in Northern Liberties
Emergency Plumbers	in Northern Liberties	Emergency Plumbers in Northern Liberties

Top 10 Reasons Google Made Their Search Bar Bigger

2009-09-11T09:38:00.004-04:00

1. Since Bing and Yahoo hooked up, Google has been trying to swing a three-way by showing off the size of its search bar.

2. Google is attempting to cater to the 65+ age group and feels larger, more readable text will attract this demographic.

3. Eric Schimdt, CEO of Google, likes telling others “My search bar is bigger than yours”

4. Google wants you to be able to fit all 140 characters of your tweets in their search bar.

5. Google recently partnered with McDonalds on a “supersized” marketing plan. Look for the Google Monopoly game on all of your Big Mac’s, Quarter Pounders and Supersized Fries.

6. To pull some attention away from Apple, Steve Jobs and all of their new products, Google upped the aesthetic look of their website… by making their search bar bigger.

7. Since more than 34% of Americans are obese, Google wanted to compensate for their fat fingers and make them feel more comfortable when searching.

8. Since Bing showed up, Google has been trying to compensate for the size of its search bar.

9. In order to compete with Bing’s one hundred million dollar marketing campaign, Google wanted to create some buzz in internet forums. What better way than slightly increasing the size of text and the size of the search bar?

10. Google will methodically increase the size of their search bar until it takes over your whole screen and eventually the whole internet. They then will proclaim “All your internet belong to us”

Twitter Should Monetize Their API

2009-09-09T15:22:00.003-04:00

Earlier I read a post on TechCrunch that dove into the issue of Twitter and the risk it would take if they decided to “turn on the revenue.” Just as FaceBook has an outlandish valuation by venture capitalists, many VC’s believe Twitter has the possibility of making a ridiculous amount of money. The post further goes into the affect that this could have on their valuation. What if they don’t make as much money as they once thought? The top execs at Twitter will look like fools for not selling at an earlier and higher valuation.

I am currently working on a research paper on how to monetize and make some of the more popular social media sites profitable. One of the areas I believe Twitter can be profitable is by monetizing their API.

With some elbow grease and a few extra hours in the office, Twitter can turn around their shotty API and use it to generate some cash flow. Currently there are hundreds of clients such as Tweetdeck, Seesmic Desktop and Tweetie all using Twitters data and functions. FaceBook lets you update your status from your Twitter page and Apple just announced that iTunes will now be linked to Twitter.

So why doesn’t Twitter ask for a few dollars in return for providing all of these companies and interfaces with their data and service? Yes, it is true that without some of these clients Twitter may not be what is today, but eventually they will have to start generating some revenue.

By choosing to charge companies like FaceBook, Apple and others for the info they are using, Twitter can forget about placing annoying ads all over their site and won’t have to think about making their users pay a monthly fee.

The fact is Twitter is “so hot right now” (Think MuGatu from Zoolander) that it could get away with charging these companies a large sum of money. Sure some companies will drop out but it is better than realizing you can’t monetize your company and end up with nothing. Apple and FaceBook would much rather pay to have Twitter feeds available in their interfaces then be non-associated with the most popular thing around.

Real-time search is the talk of the town and Twitter is leading the way. But they better make some moves quick before they miss out.

Colleges and Universities Embrace Social Media

2009-08-12T14:59:00.002-04:00

Many colleges and universities across the United States have begun to embrace social media and its capabilities of connecting with alumni, future students, and updating the public about news concerning the institution.

These actions provide a nice boost to the schools PR, a boost to their SEO efforts and some exposure for top professors and top performing students.

For those of you unfamiliar with me personally, I work for one of the top “Educational Content Providers” in US and we assist colleges and universities recruit students through multiple advertising outlets. I work daily with some of the top schools in US and am often in contact with Admissions and Web Marketers for the institutions.

Overall I have seen a common trend of embracing social media. I am often asked on how I can help drive traffic to a school’s YouTube page or help them get more followers on their Twitter account. There are many marketing departments out there for the institutions that are very enthusiastic about the power of social media. Some have even taken the time to imbed social media links into their email signature. Mind you some of these people are confused by the term “seo” or “social media” but realize that it is essential in connecting with students and alumni in the current higher education market.

The University of Scranton, my undergrad alma-mater has both a University of Scranton Twitter Account, and a University of Scranton Alumni Account, by following these accounts I am constantly updated about alumni functions in the Philadelphia area where I dwell and other news involving the school. They are really using Twitter in a great way to keep in contact with alumni across the country.

I also follow Philadelphia University on Twitter where I attend graduate school. They also keep their current students and alumni updated of Professor’s having articles published, pre-season rankings of their sports team and functions going on for their grad school. I have found their efforts to trump what most other schools are doing. Even the president of their university uses twitter and has a Presidential Blog!

Enough With The Twitter Lingo

2009-08-10T21:40:00.003-04:00

It was clever the first time someone used the term Tweeple. It was funny the first time someone welcomed me to their Twitterverse and then by the 500th time someone's first tweet of the day was "Whats up Tweeps?" I cracked.

Twitter can be a very light hearted place and a great place to interact with friends. Some twitter users utilize Twitter for business related purposes and other use it as a place to interact with their friends.

But everyonce in awhile I get a new follower, I check out their profile to see if they are someone I am interested in following back and interacting and learning from. One of my major turnoffs(that sounds weird) is if someone uses portmanteau words. Taking "Twitter" and "people" and forming it into Tweeple is not fun or cute anymore. It actually quite annoying and gives me enough info about you to not follow you or unfollow you.

There is even a website call Twittionary!

I purpose we ban the following terms:
Tweeple
Tweeps
Twitterverse
Twaiter
Twaggle
Twaffic
Twadget
Twazzup
Tweekend
Tweetard
Tweetaholism
Tweethart
Twellow
Twittastic
And any other portmanteaus involving Twitter

Thank you...

Read Before You Retweet

2009-08-06T09:23:00.001-04:00

How many of actually read through every article or blog post you retweet? A common trend I have noticed in my time using Twitter is how quick other people are to RT a tweet by someone without even reading the article.

On Twitter people feel the need to present valuable information to their followers, they also feel doing so will gain them more followers and that will lead them to winning this microblogging game. Certain Tweeters, names withheld, will see a tweet by TechCrunch, Mashable or some other internet famous guru and automatically RT it. They do so just to say “Hey, I read Mashable too” or “Oh yea I did read John Smith’s latest blog post on social media and you should too.”

RTing a post by Mashable, Search Engine Journal or TechCrunch is like name dropping. People are quick to drop names of clients they worked with, who they studied under or who they have worked for. On Twitter people are quick to name drop which blogs or websites they frequent.

A fun game to play and which I may or may not have done, is to create a tweet with a title such as “5 SEO and Social Media Tips for New Businesses” and then have the bit.ly URL direct them to the infamous Rick Roll video. My hypothesis of people RTing without reading was proved because I received quite a few RTs to a tweet linking to the Rick Roll video.

An RT is a vote of confidence and attempt to spread solid information to your followers – so in the future I propose if you are going to RT something, don’t RT is 5 seconds after the original poster tweeted it. Give the link a click and read over before you retweet.

Social Media effects on SEO- Case Study: Lionshead Puzzles Caps

2009-07-31T13:26:00.001-04:00

It is amazing how quickly Social Media (specifically Twitter and Facebook) can create a brand presence for a company or website in search engine results. I recently began working with Lionshead Puzzle Caps on their SEO and social media marketing efforts. While they are somewhat of a niche market, a few tweeks to their site, some linkbuilding and the launching of a FaceBook fanpage and Twitter account has given them the ability to be visible in search engine results.

For those of you not familiar with Lionshead, it is made by The Lion Brewery in Wilkes-Barre PA. They offer an array of products but my personal favorite and the case for this study is their standard Lionshead brew. A standard American Lager, it is crisp, clean and slightly dry with some residual sweetness. These beer bottles have a puzzle, or rebus, under each cap. It provides drinkers of the lager a conversation piece and a little bit of frustration if they cannot figure the puzzle out.

Lionshead Puzzle Caps was created to provide fans of Lionshead a place to search, review and submit answers to all of the puzzles. The problem was – though often searched for, www.lionsheadpuzzlecaps.com was hard to find in search results.

That’s where Justin Freid Consulting came in, after some creative linkbuilding and directory submissions Lionshead Puzzle Caps began to rise in the rankings for our selected set of keywords. But to really create a presence on SERPs I turned to social media to see what it could do.

I just launched both a twitter account:@LionsheadCaps and created a Lionshead Puzzle Caps FaceBook fanpage for Lionshead Puzzle Caps and have already seen a presence on search results. Creating a branding presence in search results was my goal with social media and so far so good.

With more people exposed to the site through these social media outlets the more opportunities for them to place a link back to www.lionsheadpuzzlecaps.com which as everyone knows, increases what Google thinks of the site.

I plan on continuing to monitor social media’s affect on SEO for Lionshead Puzzle Caps and will make sure to update this blog as the SEO gets into full swing.

How To Use a Graphic as a Link in Your Outlook Email

2009-07-27T20:34:00.003-04:00

Here is a quick and easy way to use your company's logo as a link to your website in your Outlook email signature.

1. Find a Logo - Select the logo you would like to use and highlight and copy.

2. Open up your email signatures in Outlook by going to Tools - Options - Mail Format Tab - Signatures

3. Open up the signature you would like to edit and paste the Logo in your signature

4. Highlight the logo and click on the hyperlink logo in the top right corner.

5. Type the URL you would like the logo to link to, click OK and your done!

Your logo will now act as a link to your website in your email signature.

The Following/Unfollow Game and My Hatred for Those Who Use Bots

2009-07-26T17:37:00.002-04:00

Occasionally after posting or RTing a tweet about a popular topic i.e. SEO or Social Media I receive an abundance of emails of new people following my Twitter account @Justin_Freid.

Some of these new followers (or bots) have chosen to follow me and a few other hundred people without uploading a avatar or even tweeting once. There are also some tweeters who have posted nothing other then tweets about how you can make money like they did online.

These twitter accounts follow me for the next two day and then all of a sudden they are removed. Two more days down the line and they are following me again! Two more days - I am unfollowed again.

I could simply follow them back and have a dead account boosting my follower numbers but I refuse to do so. Twitter is about interacting, networking and promoting products and services through ethical ways. Setting up a bot to follow everyone who has SEO or Twitter in one of there tweets is pretty low. Anyone who is setting up one of these bots and follows 9,385 people and only has some 3,000 followers has some issues with trying to be "internet famous."

Brand Yourself - Create an Online Business Card

2009-07-20T13:04:00.004-04:00

Continuing with the theme of self branding from one of my posts Brand Yourself – SEO Your Name, creating an online business card is a great way for potential clients, employers and friends to learn more about you or your business.

You can easily take a half hour or less and create a great profile/website that provides your contact info and links to your social media profiles or projects you have worked on.

An example of someone who did this extremely well is Joe Salome, a Interactive Marketer from Atlanta. Joe has created a profile by using Extendr here: Joe Salome’s Profile. On his profile Joe has provided links to LinkedIn, Twitter and Gmail accounts. He also has provided links to past projects he has worked on, current projects and even his latest photos.

By providing all of this information in one source you can let your friends, potential employers or clients learn that you are a credible source and show off your work. You also can use this URL on your business card so you do not have list 800 email addresses, contacts numbers and URLs.

Creating something like this will also aid in the SEOing for your name. You can partner this profile with one of my posts from last week Brand Yourself – SEO Your Name to achieve optimal results.

If you happen to need cash for SEO services you can get a low interest payday loans.

Those Who Tweet Also Bing

2009-07-14T15:56:00.004-04:00

Taking a look at the demographic data from Alexa.com on the average users for Twitter and Bing a few common data points emerge.

The average users of both Bing and Twitter fit the same exact demographics. This average user is male, between the ages of 25 and 34, does most of their Tweeting and searching at work and has a graduate level education.

Most of these users can be considered millennials and have been taught since first grade the ins and outs of web surfing. Their smart phones are loaded with applications that provide them the availability to search and update their status on the fly. Some may even call them techies who have the attitude of "Hey I am an educated male age 24-35, everyone listens to me!"

The next growth stages for Bing and Twitter will be beyond this educated, young male customer. It will be reaching out to the next set of demographics. Let’s not forget that Google was once only visited by this exact same demographic set.

This group of young male professionals is a very influential and powerful group when it comes to the business world. The question of success for Bing and Twitter will be answered if these key niche users experience above average results and spread the the news via word of mouth and social media outlets.

Facebook has succeeded in reaching into new demographics over the past 6 months and has reached the millenial's mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles. If Twitter has even half the success Facebook has had with gaining market share with these types of visitors, accompanied by a way to generate $, they should be extremely successful. As for Bing - they have a lot of work to do to catch Google.

My Close Encounter With @Questlove From The Roots

2009-07-10T14:11:00.002-04:00

Hundreds if not thousands of celebrities have Twitter accounts. From Rainn Wilson to Oprah, all of them use Twitter in different ways. Being a Philadelphia native and somewhat of a hip hop aficionado one of the few celebrities I follow is Questlove (@Questlove) from The Roots. Why? He is probably my favorite non-lyrical musician and most of his tweets are pretty funny.

I started following him a little over a month ago and then something really weird occurred. I walked into my gym one Saturday afternoon and there he was, afro and all riding a stationary bike. After a double take or two I confirmed it was definitely him. Now with my iPhone in hand and my Tweetie app loaded – I pondered; To tweet or not to tweet. Maybe even @ him?

It got even weirder as he moved over to the machine right across from where I was working out. I thought about approaching him and saying what’s up and that I follow him on Twitter. I chose otherwise in fear of sounding like a groupie, I mean who really wants a 6’5 230lb sweaty guy halfway through his workout telling you they follow you on Twitter. Not I.

So when he is in and out of Philly he shows up at my gym and I sit here wondering if there is an elegant and non-creeper way to approach a celebrity through Twitter. I am not trying to stalk the guy, just want to say what’s up and that I appreciate the music he makes. Do I drop an @reply saying “@Questlove, you can squat like a mother f’er” or “Yo @Questlove see that bitty over there on the treadmill?” The fact of the matter is I can’t think of a way to approach him without looking like a weirdo.

Any thoughts?

What's In Your Email Signature? Social Media Perhaps?

2009-07-08T15:05:00.003-04:00

That little bit of contact information at the bottom of your email, it states your name, your company, email and phone number. Hey who knows you may even have a link to your company’s website in it. But why not more?

Email is the way most of us communicate with each other daily, we reach out to new potential clients through it but only so much about someone can be translated through text in an email. Your signature is supposed to tell the recipient more about you i.e. title, company and ways of contacting you.

Relationship building and networking is vital in today’s business market and by adding certain links and/or pieces of information about yourself to each email you send can aid in the email receiver understanding who you are professionally and as a person. It could easily take a standard business relationship to the next level.

I propose putting more than just the standard contact information in your signature. If you work for a consulting company or organization that utilizes FaceBook, Twitter and other social media outlets you should be presenting others with the opportunity to see the work you put in, especially potential customers. Now I am not advocating putting a link to your personal FaceBook page where your friends tag you in a bunch of drunk pictures from last weekend, that is career suicide.

But at the same time social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Freindfeed can help you take a business relationship to the next level. If you become a friend of or linked to current customer you can learn more about them through their profiles, where they went to school, what area they grew up in and if they have a family. All of these things can nurture an existing relationship.

Just think if a prospective employer receives your resume via email. At the bottom of your signature you have a post to your industry related blog and your most recent post was extremely relevant to the position. If the hiring manager happens to stumble upon your great write up – it just increases your chances of being selected for the position.

So why not give it a try? The worst thing that can happen is no one adds you as a friend on FaceBook or becomes connected with you on LinkedIn. And hey- they would not have had the opportunity if you did not put the link in your signature anyways.

Brand Yourself - SEO your name

2009-07-06T15:11:00.005-04:00

Self branding is an important tool to further ones career. Getting your name out there and networking can be a big step in securing your dream job or getting that job offer from a rival company. I was inspired to write this post after I read a post over at www.SearchEngineJournal.com by Matt Leonard about SEOing your Twitter profile. It has some great info and if you haven’t checked it out you can view it here : Twitter SEO: 4 Simple Tips to Help Your Twitter Profile Rank

You can take self branding to another level by utilizing a few SEO tactics to your other social media profiles.

1. Create a public LinkedIn profile - with your name in the URL. You can go here: LinkedIn Profile and create a custom URL with your name. URLs play a substantial role in SERPs and could move your LinkedIn profile up the ladder for your brand/name.

2. Create a blog with your name in the URL – You can utilize any of the popular blog providers; if you are not familiar with them check out www.Blogger.com, www.Tumblr.com or www.Wordpress.com. When asked to create URL simply use your name. You will end up with something like http://justinfreid.blogspot.com . URL’s are powerful when it comes to SEO ranking. Make sure you update your blog frequently, web crawlers love fresh content.

If you choose to use Blogger, you will have to create a blogger profile. Make sure to use your real name because it will show up at the websites title and your description of yourself with show up at the meta description.

3. SEO your Twitter account – (Via Matt Leonard Post) Twitter SEO: 4 Simple Tips to Help Your Twitter Profile Rank There are some great tips in his article - to summarize, place your real name in the username and name sections in the settings section of your profile. Also make sure to update your bio - this will be used at your meta tag in search results and could affect your CTR.

4. Linkbuilding – Now that you have SEOed each individual profiles/blogs, link them all together! Place links on your blog to your twitter account and LinkedIn profile , and links on your LinkedIn profile to your blog and twitter account etc… Search engines place high value on inbound links especially if they all have relevant content. Try to use your name or brand as the anchor for the links to increase the value of these inbound links.

5. Use a common photo for every social media profile. If you do this it will establish brand consistency across the board and people will put a face to your brand name.

If you complete these five easy steps it will increase your chances of having these specific web pages show up higher in SERPs and increase your self brand. Good luck!

Why Bing Will Never Win

2009-07-02T12:33:00.003-04:00

People do not search anymore - they Google. When an issue arises in common conversation and individuals need to go to the internet to research the answer they often will "Google it". Google has become such a part of our every day lives that no gigantic advertising budget can change that.

The average internet user has Google as their homepage and a Google search bar in their toolbar. This makes Google there and takes no effort by the searcher to do what has been embedded in their lives for the past 5 years. To search on Bing they have to physically type in the URL, face the fact, we are lazy. We do what is convenient and familiar and that is Google.

Take a look at the recent Firefox release, 5 millions downloads in 24 hours. What is their default homepage come equipped with? A Google Search, not a Bing Search. One of the other factors I find interesting is that Google has spawned a whole industry. SEO firms across the world cater their business to Google. Their tactics are geared to help your company show up higher in SERPs but in reality they put more weight on what Google's search algorhytem is looking for over what Yahoo, Bing or any other search engine is looking for.

Overall I like Bing, I think its interface is easy and the reults I recieve are relavant to my search queries. The related searches and other sidebar widgets are very helpful but are they enough to change the average internet user over? And that is why Bing will never win.

Real Entrepreneurs Have An Exit Strategy

2009-06-29T19:26:00.004-04:00

I categorize myself as a young, ambitious entrepreneur in search of that business idea to whisk me away from the 9-5 life. I recently had the opportunity to learn what it takes to be an entrepreneur from the founder of Jiffy Lube and current Philadelphia University President Stephen Spinelli. The semester I spent with him in class has changed the way I approach every day. I see every business, every problem, every situation as an opportunity to launch a business and create value.

One of the main topics I was taught was to make sure my venture had an exit strategy, something I see many internet entrepreneurs not currently utilizing. When drafting a business plan, venture capitalists and angel investors want a time line to see when they will get a return on their investment. Most of the time a clear and thought out exit strategy is a great way for the entrepreneur to do so.

With this in mind, I saw a Tweet today that linked to a valuation of Facebook at 4-6 billion dollars. This is down from the 10 billion valuation they received when they secured their last round of financing. That is quite a significant drop off and could be due to the lack of IPO and acquisitions in the past year. But lets not forget Google had a significant offer on the table just awhile back.

The point I am trying to get across is that Mark Zuckerberg is not a true entrepreneur. Yes he launched a business and will be ungodly rich once he sells privately owned Facebook. But if Mark was a true entrepreneur he would have sold his business, repaid his investors and already have launched a new venture that would change the world just as FaceBook did.

Advice for new PPC Account Managers

2009-06-26T12:59:00.001-04:00

Many companies are moving more and more of their marketing budget into search engine marketing. They are often handing off their brand name to Account Managers at an advertising agency and expect unparalleled results. These companies often do not fully understand the benefits of SEM and it is the responsibility of the account manager to explain the benefits of SEM and set realistic expectations.

Setting expectations – PPC is the baseball of marketing. You are praised if you succeed over 2% of the time (Avg CTR of 2%) similar to how baseball players have a great season failing 70% of the time. This is important to address when speaking to a client. Seeing a low CTR for top keywords can be devastating to your relationship if these expectations are not set prior to the launch of your campaign.

One of the major hurdles I have to jump over with almost every client is the “But I don’t click those” rebuttal. This can be easily combated by showing stats of high performing campaigns you are currently running and explaining that there is a large population of searchers that do click on paid search ads. You can also take the approach of brand recognition. By associating your brand name with the search term, your brand will receive recognition for the term or industry. By having an effective PPC campaign along with a successful SEO campaign, your brand name can appear twice on the SERP thus giving you double the chance of driving traffic to your website.

Be targeted but not to targeted to meet your customer’s needs. You want to provide your clients with very targeted, quality leads. Long tail keywords are often a great approach to doing so but do not provide a large amount of traffic. You manager would like you to provide quality leads but also burn through your clients budget at a reasonable rate so you can re-up them and generate another round of revenue. Using a combination of long-tailed keywords with more broad, high traffic keywords can solve this problem. The long tail keywords provide you with the targeted, quality leads while the more generic keywords provide you with the higher CPC and impressions to prove to you clients and your boss that your program is working.

I believe SEM marketing is the most recession proof marketing outlet because everything you do and spend can be tracked. From keyword, to CTR to setting goals on your clients website, they can evaluate and measure the success of your campaign.

New to Twitter -- 5 tips To Get Started

2009-06-20T19:56:00.002-04:00

New to Twitter? not sure how to use it? Here are 5 tips to get started with Twitter.

Upload a pic - People on Twitter want to follow and interact with real people. If you do not have picture this will discredit your account. Try to use the same photo you use for LinkedIn and Facebook to keep a common self brand for all of your profiles.

Fill out your bio - write a quick description of who you are and what you do. Make sure you remember to ad a website to your bio as well. This is a great way to promote your blog and if you do not have a blog you can use your LinkedIn profile instead.

Follow People - you can go to the Find People section and scan your contact list and see if any of your contacts are using Twitter. You can also think of major players within your industry and search "Their Name Twitter" in Google or Bing and click the link to their profile. If you are a big music fan or movie buff follow your favorite celebrities and sports teams. If you have websties or blogs you visit religiously chances are they have an account. You can follow them to know when a new post or article is posted to their site.

Interact - Once you begin following a select group of people begin to interact with them. If they post an interesting quote or link - RT it. If they ask a question answer it. This will show other you are interactive and using Twitter to learn and help others. Not just to gain followers.

Download an interface to manage your account - there are hundreds of interface or apps to manage your Twitter Account. If you have an iPhone or Blackberry check out the Tweetie app and if you are looking for a computer based interface check out www.TweetDeck.com or www.SeesmicDesktop.com.

The important thing to remeber is to not get discouraged. I have friends and co-workers who say they have signed up but don't understand it and never end up using it. The power of Twitter is the real time updates from all over the world. The amount of information being exchanged is phenomenal. So sit back - interact and learn.

Four Ways Your Business Can Use Twitter Right Now

2009-06-15T20:16:00.005-04:00

You have your Twitter account created… now what?

MONITOR YOUR BRAND – By using websites such as http://search.twitter.com/ and using the search functions on programs such as Tweetdeck and Seesmic desktop you can monitor what people are saying about your brand. Simply search your brand name and the most recent tweets (microblogs) will show up. Find positive feedback? Great, now you know what good things are people are saying about your product but more importantly you can find negative feedback and direct your PR team to put out the fire.

REACH OUT TO POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS – Instead of searching your brand name, search your industry. See what consumers are saying about your competitors branding, advertising and products. You can also use @replies to interact directly with twitter users. Reply to their tweet with quality information and a link about your product or service. This is a great way to establish a connection with potential customers and give them a feeling that your brand is more then just a product or service.

ANNOUNCES UPDATES, NEW PRODUCTS OR SERVICES – Have a new product launch or an update to software? A new flavor of soda or a fashion show coming up? You can promote any of these plus anything you company does through Twitter for free. If someone is willing to follow you they most likely are looking for information about you or your company. therefor your marketing of events, products or software updates are going to a targeted audience which will translate in to a higher ROE.(Return on Engagement)

GET PEOPLE INVOLVED IN A LIVE EVENT – If you are speaking at a live event and want to get immediate feedback and have the attendees interact simply do the following. Select a #hashtag for your event. Let use Twitter University as an example and use #TwitterU as our #hashtag. Have a large screen preferably located behind the presenter open to a Twitter page showcasing #TwitterU. Have your attendees tweet comments or suggestions followed by the #TwitterU #hashtag. The tweet stream will show up as a continuous conversation as your presentation goes along and you have live feedback and more conversation topics.

54% of Twitter users have never Tweeted!!

2009-06-11T21:30:00.004-04:00

Hubspot recently put out some really great stats on Twitter the past week showcasing activity, growth, distribution of followers and much more. Below are a few highlights:

One of the first things Twitter users do is set up their profile, link to their webpage and set a location. Of the 4.5 million users who Hubspot pulled the data from 79% failed to provide a homepage URL and 76% failed to fill out the bio section. Even more flustering is 55% are not following anyone and 54% have never tweeted!

I find this pretty amazing – there is a large group that loves Twitter and understands its capabilities but there is an even larger group that signs up and never does a thing. The account just sits there. I blame Oprah, Ellen, Ashton and the rest of the celebrities that wanted some limelight and got a bunch of house moms to sign up. Those are the stagnate accounts that are just sitting there.

In Hubspots first edition of Twitter Stats 80% of the users on Twitter had at least filled out their bio, now it’s down to 24%! The fact of the matter is people don’t get it. After you sign up what do you do next?

You can find HubSpots write up here. There are some great stats about account usage and growth.

Check back soon for a New Users Guide to Twitter.

iPhone 3GS Review

2009-06-08T20:58:00.006-04:00

With the release of the iPhone 3GS Apple made sure it added the features their loyal fans had been asking for.
The first major upgrade will be to the built in camera. The camera will now have the capability to zoom in and capture video. Something that the 3G was missing. Users will also be able to tap the touch screen to focus on a certain object in the picture.

One other piece of hardware that was much needed was a longer lasting battery. Apple must have been following me and every other iPhone users on Twitter complaining about the battery life of the 3G.

In the next software update Apple finally gave iPhone users something that should have come a long time ago, the ability to cut and paste. Emailing links, pictures, copying a quote and texting it all will be capable with this update. One of the other major additions to the software upgrade will be somewhat of a lowjack system. If you subscribe to Mobile Me, you can track your iPhone if lost. You can set off an alarm to notify surrounding people or track it down by ear yourself. You can also shut off an erase everything on the iPhone if it has been stolen or lost for good.

The price point will be somewhat similar to the 3G - $199 for 16GB and $299 for 32GB with a new contract. Though the camera functions are pretty cool, unless their is a major upgrade in hardware I do not see myself running out to replace my 3G. Let's say it will be a game time decision.

Sources: Apple.com and CNN.com

The 10 Most Annoying Types of Twitter Users

2009-06-07T17:44:00.006-04:00

There are quite a few people out there that are just plain annoying on Twitter. From the Overtweeter to the self-promoting tweeter, they all have their way of annoying their followers and ultimately being unfollowed. Below is a list of the 10 most annoying types of Twitter users.

1. The “I make money online and so could you” Tweeter – We all know you are part of some scam and what you are pitching will cost us a large start up fee. You would not spend time tweeting and posting about it if it did not make you any money. The fact that you have 16 followers and follow 6,368 people is a huge tip off so please stop, just stop.

2. The “I post one tweet with every hashtag and trend” Tweeter – you have all seen these people. When you search something that is trending on Twitter you see some guy with a tweet that contains every single trend with and without a hashtag. Are you that desperate for attention?

3. The “Auto DM” Tweeter - Why people use Auto DMs I do not know. Most of the auto DMs I receive are composed of a corny quote or thanking me for following them and that they look forward to my Tweets. I have to say as soon as I receive one of these you get unfollowed.

4. The “I only follow you if you follow me” Tweeter – I have had a few people that have followed me and after reviewing their last few posts and profile I decide not to follow back. Within a few hours they are no longer following me. What was the point of following me in the first place? To gain yourself more followers? No thanks.

5. The “OverTweeter” We know you have valuable information to tweet about Mr. OverTweeter, but is it necessary to post 14 tweets in a row 5 times a day linking to multiple web pages? Spamming people’s twitter feed so your cute little picture is all over their Tweetdeck is not cool. Unfollowed.

6. The “Hello new followers” Tweeter, Look we know you have a ton of followers, frankly you probably have that many because you present people with valuable information. But is it necessary to welcome them to your twitterverse?

7. The “Whats up Tweeple” Tweeter – the rep of Twiiter is that is used to tell people what you had for breakfast and coming on each morning and saying “Whats up Tweeple” is a partial reason for that. No one answers you, you just like to hear yourself tweet.

8. The “Self promoting” Tweeter – Yes you are just so awesome and so much better looking then everyone else, thanks for letting us know, I will be adding your Tweet to Tweetingtoohard.com

9. The “Why is ___ trending on Twitter” No one is going to answer that question. You obviously saw that it was trending, why not read a few tweets and figure it out yourself. Like the guy above you are just looking for attention!

10. The “Who is going to be my 10,000 follower” Tweeter – Congratulations – you have a lot of followers, probably because you have a website or blog that gives great information in your industry. But filling up my twitter feed with posts attempting to get more followers is worthy of being unfollowed.

Five must read sites for SEO and Social Media

2009-06-03T21:02:00.005-04:00

Everyone knows that SEO and social media are not an exact science. In order to stay on top and ahead of your competition you have to keep up to date on the latest trends and tricks in the industry. In order to do so visit these five sites daily and read up on the latest news, tips and events in the SEO and social media.

Each site has a team of dedicated posters offering great insight into both industries. Guest posters are often utilized to ad a different perspective on topics.

1. Search Engine Journal

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/

Headed up by Loren Baker and one of my favorite sites, SEJ has a great group of contributors and interesting articles on a wide variety of internet marketing topics but specializes in search.

2. SEOmoz

http://www.seomoz.org/

SEOmoz provides companies around the world with consulting, Internet marketing and search engine optimization services. The daily updated SEO blog is where you will find great info on SEO.

3. Search Engine Land

http://searchengineland.com/

Led by journalist Danny Sullivan, SEL is packed with the latest news, trends and tips in the search industry.

4. Social Media Today

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/

Social Media Today helps companies utilize social media to the fullest. They also provide great information on the latest trends in social media.

5. Mashable

http://mashable.com/

One of the most recognized sites when it comes to social media – a great team of writers so check here frequently for posts on the latest news in social media.

These are the the five sites I choose to visit daily to keep up and stay ahead of my peers. If there is something new going on in social media or SEO one of these sites will cover it and cover it well. Are there others out there? Sure there are. If you feel I have missed another great site leave a comment about why you like it.

Xbox and Social Media

2009-06-02T21:49:00.001-04:00

At E3 yesterday Microsoft revealed their plans to add to Xbox dashboard’s capabilities and enter into the social media realm. Already Xbox users can download movies via Netflix and customize their gaming dashboard with an avatar, friends and backgrounds. Reviews, demos and updates are all accessible through the interface. The next additions to the dashboard will integrate Twitter and Facebook and give users the options to Tweet and post status updates on Facebook with stats of their latest online match or pictures of their latest sniper shot.

As an avid gamer/techy my Xbox is mostly used to destroy and dismember adolescent kids in Call of Duty but I do find the ability to download movies through Netflix a major plus. It cuts out the hassle of going to Blockbuster and is cheaper than buying a movie from On Demand. It is easy to navigate and use due to the simplistic actions needed to download a movie.

With the integration of FaceBook and Twitter Xbox is hoping to attract more users then the hardcore gamer. Nintendo obviously had great success with this with the launch of the Wii and Xbox has been trying to emulate this over the past 10-12 months. The facts are there – Wii sold more units then Playstation and Xbox combined last year all due to the casual gamer. If Xbox has success in making the hardcore gamer, his girlfriend, his little sister and parents all comfortable using Xbox for their social media needs they will have leaped over their competition of Sony Playstation and Nintendo Wii. This has the possibility of opening a larger revenue stream with downloaded content from the dashboard.

With these new ideas and collaborations I do have a few concerns and the concerns start with the interface. Typing 140 characters tweets and posting on your friends FaceBook wall will be a pain in the ass without a qwerty keyboard. It currently takes me a good five minutes to type a five word message to a friend on Xbox. If they do not offer some other alternative I fear they will lose users within their first trail run. These causal gamers already see an Xbox as a complicated machine and if they are unable to use FaceBook and Twitter easily they will shun Xbox even more than before. And if they are attempting to attract the nontraditional gamer – I do not think too many 15 year old girls or 44 year old mothers will be twitpicing their Halo character using a gravity hammer on some poor noob.

While I do think Xbox has done a great job reworking their dashboard and emulating the success Wii has had with their avatars they need to make sure that these new features are easy to use and do not confuse the casual gamer. The move from a gaming console to a media center can only help Microsoft attract new users but retaining those users will be difficult. The idea of using my Xbox to Tweet has me intrigued but for now I am going to continue to get my social media fix from Tweetdeck and my iPhone.