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Eyeball On The Past

“People Will Never Remember Not To Forget” – Dailey Pike

Poster for the “War of Wealth” by Charles Turner Dazey, a play that opened February 10, 1896. Caption: The run on the bank : a crisis in the affairs of the great financial institution. The most animated and realistic scene ever shown on the stage.

Well here we are over 100 years later going through the very same thing. It brings to mind George Santayana’s quote, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Santayana is a very quotable fellow. He also said, “Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better.”

Eyeball On Search Engine Optimization

The information in this blog is straight from the horse’s mouth.

Assuming your horse is named Google.

WWGD?

In this case those initials stand for What Would Google Do?

When it comes to search engine optimization this is a pretty important question.

Well now Google has made it easy for you. In fact, they tell you exactly what to do.

Take a look at their Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide

Of course everyone’s not sold on Google’s largess.

Blog critics abound.

So you might be interested in reading this post.

Google’s Search Engine Optimization Start Guide and Why It’s Bad for Innovation

But you know what they say… critics are like… uhm, search engine rankings… everyone has one.

Eyeball On Business Video Directory – HotPluto.com

There’s not many places where a company can post video ads touting their business or services.

Many sites reject such blatant commercialism.

Enter HotPluto.com created by Valencia, CA entrepreneur Brett Hill.

Any business can set up a FREE account and post a video in the Hot Pluto business directory.

They also offer other levels of service allowing you to post more ads and even be featured on the site.

I could write more about Hot Pluto but the best thing to do would be to visit yourself and see if it’s for you.

It’s a very well designed site already attracting some very high profile advertisers such as Discovery Channel and Bridgestone Tires.

So get in while the gettin’s good as they say down south.

HotPluto! The New Business Video Directory!

Eyeball On Keywords – DIY Search Optimization & Search Engine Optimization – DIY Internet Monitoring & Web Monitoring

Use of keywords for search optimization and search engine optimization is one of the most talked about and least understood aspects of internet marketing and PR strategies.

One of the keys to keywords, so to speak, is to pick them BEFORE you write your article or blog NOT AFTER.

Let’s take my previous post about internet & web monitoring as an example.

Instead of writing the article and then throwing in every keyword phrase I could think of, I did a little research and picked out two keyword phrases I wanted to concentrate on.

You’ll find them both in the title of the blog posting and in the first paragraph. They are “internet monitoring” and “web monitoring.” It’s generally agreed that the use of keywords in your title and keyword metadata does little good.

My research process consisted of using Google’s free keyword suggestion tool. Why not use the tool of the search engine you’re trying to crack. Plus, it’s free.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

For internet monitoring I found the search volume for October was 49,500 queries. For web monitoring it was 22,200 queries.

FYI, my search began with what I thought would be the most relevant keyword phrase, “brand monitoring.”

That phrase showed a whopping 720 queries for October. Shows how much I know. With a few more tries I settled on the two I wound up using.

My overall strategy was to pick keyword phrases that had a reasonable chance of getting my post into the top twenty of Google’s search results. With “only” 49,500 and 22,200 queries respectively, the odds aren’t as stacked against me.

Those were the keywords I used in my blog post. I used several other less searched for keywords in my tags. Just two of them. “Monitoring internet activity” (590 queries) and “internet monitoring tool” (320 queries).

So my odds of getting in the top 20 Google listing for those keyword phrases is pretty good.

Especially if the content of my blog post is educational and informative.

As for keywords in the title and content of this blog post I picked two big ones, “search optimization” and “search engine optimization” with about 450,000 queries each. Realistically I don’t have much of a chance of getting into the top twenty of Google for those two.

But the other two I used, “search engine optimization tool” and “search engine optimization tools”, with only 2,400 and 2.900 queries respectively, have a much better shot.

So my rule of thumb advice for keywords would be to get as specific as you can with them. The use of these less popular keyword is called “long tail marketing.” Think of it like a lottery. Your chances of “winning” (making a sale) is much better with odds of 1 in 500 than 1 in 500,000.

Make sense?

Keeping An Eyeball On Yourself, Your Clients, Your Competitors – DIY Internet Monitoring & Web Monitoring

How To Keep An Eyeball On Yourself, Your Clients, Your Competitors, Your Friends, Your Enemies… Well, You Get The Idea.

There are companies that charge hundreds, even thousands of dollars to monitor what’s said about you, your company or your brand on the internet, so called internet monitoring or web monitoring.

Let’s start with these two absolutes.

a. Keeping track of what is being said about you, your brand or company can be a make or break proposition. On the positive side, not knowing what’s being said can be a valuable missed opportunity. On the negative side, it can be a cancerous tumor that grows unseen, its existence unknown, until it’s too late to do anything about it.

b. Keeping up on what your competitors are doing and what’s being said about them is just as important.

So how to DIY?

Let me count the ways.

1. Google Alerts http://Google.com/Alerts

I’ve found this to be the most effective of all the ways to keep track of anything and everything. It will notify you of relevant information posted in news, blogs, the web, video and groups. So when you pick the type of Google Alert you want pick COMPREHENSIVE.

One good piece of advice. The more specific you get about the alert the better. One method is to put the alert in quotes, such as “Acme Database Systems.”

If you don’t put the alert in quotes you’ll get every piece of information about not only Acme Database Systems but dozens of URLs related to database systems in general.

You can also set the frequency of your alert to as-it-happens, once a day or once a week.

If you’re only going to do one, Google Alerts should be it. But wait, there’s more.

2. Yahoo Alerts http://Alerts.Yahoo.com

Amber/Missing Children
Avatars
Breaking News
Fantasy Sports
Farechase India
Feed / Blog
Games
Health News
Horoscope
HotJobs
Local News
Mail
Market Summary
Movie Recommendations
News
Snowfall
Sports
Instant real-time updates.

Breaking news, stock value increases or decreases, airline flight deals and more are available via Yahoo! Alerts.

Track any type of web content.

Get an alert whenever new content is available on your favorite blog or website.

You choose how you get your alert.

Alerts can be sent via email, Yahoo! Messenger, or your mobile device.

The only downside to Yahoo Alerts is they don’t have a COMPREHENSIVE alert like Google so you have to set each category individually.

Again, I suggest putting you alert in quotes (“Acme Database Systems”) to avoid unwanted alerts.

3. Google Blog Search http://Blogsearch.Google.com and Technorati Blog Search http://Technorati.com/search

If you want to know what those influential and sometimes malicious (yes, there are malicious people lurking on the world wild web) bloggers are saying, use these two search engines.

What to do when you find them?? How to capitalize? Play defense if need be?

We’ll examine that in a future blog post.

4. Yotify http://Yotify.com

If you’ve heard of Yotify you’re truly on top of things. Yotify’s concept is to send out what they call “scouts” to search for information in numerous areas including new & blogs, classified sites, shopping sites, YouTube, eBay, Linked In and more.

Go to the site, look around, send out some scouts and see if this site isn’t a great tool for your internet monitoring toolbox.

As with Yahoo, there is no COMPREHENSIVE search but setting up individual searches is well worth your time and effort.

5. Tweet Beep http://TweetBeep.com

The latest entrant into the mix is Tweet Beep. Tweet Beep describes itself as Google Alerts for Twitter. Here’s what they say they can do.

(Reprinted from the Tweet Beep website) “If you love Twitter, you’ll love TweetBeep! Keep track of conversations that mention you, your products, your company, anything! You can even keep track of who’s tweeting your website or blog, even if they use a shortened URL (like tinyurl.com).

Great for online reputation management, catching all your @replies, finding job/networking opportunities, keeping up on your favorite hobby, and more!”

6. Newsletter/Email subscriptions

One of the simplest ways to keep up with your competitors, vendors and the like is to let them tell you themselves.

These days most every company has a blog, a newsletter or a social network.

So join up and let them (as they used to say in 50′s detective movies) “spill their guts!”

7. USPTO – http://www.uspto.gov

Not a source you’d use every day but let’s say you thing you’ve got the next greatest idea for a product name or business. You might want to check and see if it’s already in use. It’s easy. Go to the United States Patent & Trademark Office website.

Click on TRADEMARKS then click on Search Trademark Database (TESS). Finally click on NEW USER FORM SEARCH and off you go. If you’re searching for a product or business name the FIELD you want to search is Combined Word Mark. If you’re searching for competitors and any recent/past trademark filings, just enter the person or company and use the Owner Name & Address FIELD.

Might seem a little complicated at first but it’ll be easy once you get the hang of it. AND you can impress your friends by knowing what shows say TIME WARNER will be debuting before they’re announced. Just enter TIME WARNER in the search term area and owner name & address for the FIELD.

Soon I’ll be doing a post about registering a trademark by yourself. It’s relatively simple and only costs you about $300 bucks.

Monitoring can be fun. Especially if you have a little bit of the voyeur in you, or you’re into spy cams, or you’re a bit of a gossip.

The bottom line is the more information you have, the more successful your PR and marketing efforts will be!