march 2008

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A two-hour live season finale of the Celebrity version of The Apprentice seems somewhat frivolous. It’s almost as if Trump is taking this seriously. Maybe this gives us a little more insight on how un-seriously Trump takes the regular seasons when someone will actually be working for him.

But the ratings must be good. On signing off Trump declared they’d be around for “many more years”. My hope is that they get back to what made the show great to begin with, that is being about the business tasks and not about the personalities.

I’ll admit that Celebrity Apprentice afforded some ...

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Google February: 58.7% January 2008: 56.9% Change: +1.8

January 2007: 53.7% Change: +5.0

Yahoo February:17.6% January 2008: 19.0% Change: -1.4

January 2007: 22.7% Change: -5.1

MSN February: 11.2% January 2008: 12.1% Change: -0.9

January 2007: 8.9% Change: +2.3

ASK February: 2.5% January 2008: 2.4% Change: +0.1

January 2007: 1.8% Change: +0.7

AOL February: 5.2% January 2008: 4.7% Change: +0.5

January 2007: 5.4% Change: -0.2

Data scoring techniques tend to change over time making past data inaccurate. As always, information here is for entertainment purposes only.

Source: Nielsen//Netratings

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One Conference: I went to SEMpdx SearchFest 2008 in Portland earlier this month and loved it. Come April 21 & 22, we’ll be in Houston for Small Business Marketing: Unleashed. At SearchFest I found it refreshing that one track had sessions led by a sole speaker. These sessions gave the speaker thirty minutes to provide more in depth information. I loved them! The other track was more typical with 3-4 speakers, all given 15 - 20 minutes to fill you with as much information as they possibly could.

Two Conference: Previous conferences I’ve attended include Pubcon, in Las Vegas, and Three Conference: SES San San Jose. ...

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Speaking of publicity, I don’t know how much weight this has, but I got my name mentioned in an article on PCWorld.com. In the Internet/How-To section an article written by Jon Rognerud, Maximum Customer Reach in 2008, provided a passing mention of my name and an article I wrote, Content is Dead, Community is King Now.

The article is mostly about using RSS feeds to gain traffic, providing five RSS traffic tips. There wasn’t much context to the mentions and I certainly would have enjoyed the link, but its fun to see nonetheless.

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Google February: 59.2% January 2008: 58.5% Change: +0.7

January 2007: 47.5% Change: +11.7

Yahoo February: 21.6% January 2008: 22.2% Change: -0.6

January 2007: 28.1% Change: -6.5

MSN February: 9.6% January 2008: 9.8% Change: -0.2

January 2007: 10.6% Change: -1.0

ASK February: 4.6% January 2008: 4.5% Change: +0.1

January 2007: 5.2% Change: -0.6

AOL February: 4.9% January 2008: 4.9% Change: +0.0

January 2007: 5.0% Change: -0.1

Data scoring techniques tend to change over time making past data inaccurate. As always, information here is for entertainment purposes only.

Source: comScore

This post is from from my other blog here

Google February: 59.2% January 2008: 58.5% Change: +0.7

January 2007: 47.5% Change: +11.7

Yahoo February: 21.6% January 2008: 22.2% Change: -0.6

January 2007: 28.1% Change: -6.5

MSN February: 9.6% January 2008: 9.8% Change: -0.2

January 2007: 10.6% Change: -1.0

ASK February: 4.6% January 2008: 4.5% Change: +0.1

January 2007: 5.2% Change: -0.6

AOL February: 4.9% January 2008: 4.9% Change: +0.0

January 2007: 5.0% Change: -0.1

Data scoring techniques tend to change over time making past data inaccurate. As always, information here is for entertainment purposes only.

Source: comScore

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Getting links is great, but as search marketers we should be looking far beyond that. We should not be so much as trying to get other websites to link to us (that’s certainly a welcome result) but we should instead be working on getting exposure, in whatever format that comes in.

Why? Because exposure is far better than a link.

If you had to choose between getting a link from a decent, industry related website, or a mention in a high-powered publication such as Time Magazine, which would you choose?

Click here to read the full article at Search Engine Guide…

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In just four weeks I’ll be in Houston attending the most conceptually unique search engine marketing conferences of the year, Small Business Marketing Unleashed. But before I get to that I thought I’d provide a brief recap of Search Engine Strategies: New York.

Day Zero

I’ve been to New York once when I was in my late teens, visiting my sister on a military base in Buffalo. That was the closest I ever got to the Big Apple, until last week.

I flew into the city on a red-eye flight. My first flight was from Reno to San Jose. With barely 30 ...

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I loved the interviews as part of the narrowing down process in the first few seasons of The Apprentice. I think the last couple of seasons they moved away from that, but now they brought it back. Considering that none of these people will actually be working for Trump, this time it seems kind of superfluous. What’s the point? Let’s get back to the game… and the lessons!

Business Lesson One: The quality of the team can make or break your success.

The team you put in place is just as important as the leadership at the top. When choosing who will ...

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SEMpdx Searchfest

Ok, this one has come and gone but I wanted to provide a short debrief. I have to say that I had a fantastic time. Searchfest marked my one-year anniversary speaking at conferences. They opened the door for me at Searchfest 2007 and were kind enough to invite me back this year. Boy, am I glad they did.

I have to say that I was really surprised by the marketing power they were able secure for each session was amazing. I felt severely out gunned on both panels I was on. I was amazed at the quality of the information ...

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In Last Thursday’s episode the teams had to build and sell a Quiznos sandwich. I think this episode really showed where the celebrity candidates are weakest, and that is in genuine business and marketing. They could not rely on their celebrity so everything came down to how to market a new sandwich to the average person on the street. But on with the lessons…

Business Lesson One: Savor victory, but don’t gloat.

Last week I enjoyed Piers reaction to Omarosa and his gloating in the boardroom to Trump. But come on now, enough is enough. While nobody likes a bad loser, a ...

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I’m big on reputation management tracking. I have well over 50 Google alerts set up at any one time. I track my own name, company name, blog name, names of my employees, names of my competitors, company names of my competitors and even my articles. All via Google Alerts.

So you know I had to be interested when I got an email about trackur, a new reputation monitoring tool from Andy Beal.

Here is what I like about trackur:

Trackur goes beyond just Google content. It tracks images, videos, Digg, del.icio.us, Twitter, as well as the usual news and blog stuff. Users can ...

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There are two kinds of duplicate content: content that is duplicated on multiple websites sites and content that is duplicated on multiple pages of a single site. I believe the search engines treat each differently and, of course, there may be different standards applied duplicate content within each of these two main differentiations, depending on the cause and instance.

Please note that I’ve not done any in-depth testing of this issue so everything I’m presenting here are my own theories. But I think as far as untested theories go, it’s pretty solid.

Multiple Site Duplicate Content

Let’s first tackle the issue of ...

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How many losses does it take to get fired? Only one if you’re anybody but Omarosa, but a class act like Omarosa gets three shots at failure (not to mention a second season.) You gotta know the world rejoiced at her firing when NBC is promoting “Omarosa Free” apprentice episodes! On with the lessons

Business Lesson One: Multi-tasking isn’t always effective:

Some people can multi-task, some can’t. For most, multi-tasking is only mildly effective as instead of allowing a person to have a dedicated focus on a task they give two tasks less than half their attention. This means you get less ...

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Over the past ten years the mindset of SEO has evolved significantly. In the early years, website optimization was considered more of an IT expense handled by computer geeks. But over the years, businesses (and SEOs) began to change their frame of mind, realizing that search engine optimization was much closer to traditional marketing than they had thought.

After all, SEO is about getting exposure. Whether that is through on-page optimization, link building, social media, etc., the idea is to get as many targeted eyeballs on a site as possible. But that itself isn’t enough, because once ...

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Most Read Posts:

1. The 19-Hour Website Analysis, in 20 Minutes or Less, Stoney deGeyter
2. Social Media Marketing is Branding, Stoney deGeyter
3. Surviving Through Business Droughts, Stoney deGeyter
4. The Anatomy of a 10-Step, 12-Month Link Baiting Campaign, Stoney deGeyter
5. Social Media Marketing: How to Win Friends and Influence People, Michelle Montoya
6. Qualities of a Good Leader, Stoney deGeyter
7. Write in the Quiet to Get Your Point Across, Michelle Montoya
8. Four Techniques for Getting Inspired to Write, Michelle Montoya
9. Blog Basics: 3 Keys to Overcome Your Lack of Readers, Rob Woods
10. 9 Tools For Generating Keyword Lists - PPC or Otherwise, Diana Adams

Other reading:

• State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III, Bob Woodward
• Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want, James Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine II
• 11 Experts on Link Development Speak Out
• The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas, G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa
• Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls, Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis
• The Wheel of Darkness (Special Agent Pendergast), Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

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I always wait until the last minute for these posts. I get so busy preparing that they just sneak right up on me. I forget that people need time to make arrangements to go to these conferences. But better late then never, eh?

Here is my schedule for the next few months:

SEMpdx SearchFest 2008

Date: Monday, March 10 2008 Time: 7:30 AM - 5:30 PM Place: Oregon Zoo - Cascade Crest Banquet Center

This is a one-day event in Portland Oregon. We are past the early bird registration discount but buying a pass now is still cheaper than at the door. You can get ...

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What happens when you ask some of the world’s foremost link building experts to dish out one of their most guarded secrets to the world in a single collaborative effort? They respond!

I found 11 of the world’s top link building experts and got them to give away a single never-before-revealed link building tip, trick or strategy. The result The result is 24-pages of linky goodness! Click the link below to find out more.

Link Building Secrets Revealed by Top Linking Experts

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Google February: 51.64% January 2008: 52.14% Change: -0.5

January 2007: 47.74% Change: +3.90

Yahoo February: 10.95% January 2008: 10.94% Change: +0.01

January 2007: 11.73% Change: -0.78

MSN February: 5.79% January 2008: 5.78% Change: +0.01

January 2007: 6.01% Change: -0.22

AOL February: 1.84% January 2008: 1.86% Change: -0.02

January 2007: 1.7% Change: +0.14

ASK February: 1.01% January 2008: 1.09% Change: -0.08

January 2007: 1.03% Change: -0.02

As always, these stats are for entertainment purposes only.

Source: Net Applications

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The task for this episode of The Apprentice finally offered a true business related task that didn’t let the candidates rely on star power or the pocket books of their rich friends. This was a true marketing oriented task. I really wish they would do more of these. On with the lessons…

Business Lesson One: Your marketing must answer questions before they are asked.

The first thing someone is going to ask themselves when seeing a bottle of lotion that is made with yogurt is going to be: Why? Eating yogurt, I get. Rubbing it on my body, not so much. Developing ...

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