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 Ask Kalena – A Search Advice Column is a pretty darn good blog about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Kalena offers a course in SEO/SEM that attempts to provide something close to certification in the field — a comprehensive course in best practices and how to.
Back in 2008 Sarah Parker quoted from a presentation conducted by Ciarran Norris about Copy Writing for Search. It outlines the importance of clear and concise headlines, first lines, keyword analysis, link placement, and track backs. It’s all about simple mechanics. Make sure your website uses all the arrows your SEO quiver.
BUT…this works best when the copywriter weaves it into the warp and weft of the text so that it isn’t even noticed. The only people who will really see it are the search engine spiders and the experience SEO engineer. The spiders will respond by giving your site high rankings. The SEO folks will nod appreciatively at a job well and artfully done.
Continue reading The Copywriter connects SEO elements
 Is technology a blessing or a curse for your business?
Neither. It’s a tool. Like a screwdriver. Try driving a nail with a screwdriver. Not much good is it? But it sure is good for putting in screws. Using technology in your business is about using the right tool for the right job.
Technology has only 2 functions in your business.
- Increased efficiency.
- Increased effectiveness.
Continue reading Using Technology Effectively in your Business
 I talked yesterday with Neil Burtt, CEO of You Promote in Concord NH. Neil observed that the Google search algorithm seems to be shifting, so that quality content is more important than ever for creating high search engine rank results. It’s not all about the header, the title bar, and the meta tags. Google likes websites that give web users what they need, and it rewards those sites with higher search ranking that make them easy to find.
This is especially critical for small businesses that want their websites to pull in qualified prospects and create selling opportunities.
When your website contains strong compelling content that answers the searchers questions, everyone wins. In its Webmaster Guidelines, Google explains how it views content as part of the whole Search Engine Optimization recipe: Continue reading Google Likes Websites with Quality Content
 The good folks at Danconia Media services note some recent changes in they way Google handles local listings. This may have some powerful effects on the internet landscape, especially for smaller businesses that depend on trade from their immediate area. This may or may not be a bad thing, but as the Danconia blogger observes, “Obtaining organic search engine results will now be more important than ever.”
In the big picture, these changes mean that the results your business gets from organic search are going to become more and more important. When your prospects search for your business, what are you doing to show up high on the search results listings? Of course you must pay attention to your keyword research, meta tags, alt text, headings and all that. But none of that really works properly if you don’t have compelling content that is fresh, valuable to your prospects, and well written for web searching.
Writing is the key
Continue reading Quality SEO content gets search engine results
 It’s only a matter of time. Eventually it happens to every businessperson, striking catastrophically like lightning, or creeping up imperceptibly until it swamps you. There may be warning signs, but you may not see them. You may even take precautions, but then you are disarmed by the ferocity of its arrival.
It’s the business disaster.
A business disaster is not fire, flood, or vandalism. It is the economic disaster that burns your bank account, submerges your spreadsheets, or pillages your paycheck. Your job is cut, or your sales evaporate. Your key employees leave — or maybe even worse…they stay and REALLY screw things ups. No matter what the cause is, survival is YOUR problem. FEMA ain’t coming to rescue you — ever. The only ones calling are creditors, and they aren’t bringing your bottled water.
Continue reading Sample Article – Your Business Disaster Survival Kit
This is a sample article for a blog on CRM (Customer Relations Managment), Sales Force Automation or Knowledge Management. This particular article is not technical, but deals with some of the human aspects of introducing a new CRM system to your sales team.
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Create Buy In for your CRM System
There are lots of reasons why your sales team will resist sales force automation. Mostly, they all boil down to one thing:
Change is hard.
The good people on your sales team have been working hard using their current tool for years. They may kvetch, they may moan, they may carry on about the shortcomings of the system, but in the years that they have been using it, they have figured out how to make it work. They have worn grooves in all the right places, and created calluses where they need them. They may not like the old system, but they have grown comfortable with it.
Continue reading Blog Article – Create Buy-In for your CRM System
 The blog over at Harbor Light Strategic Marketing has a good tip on how to write blog posts that will engage your readers.
It reminds me of advice I received from Mark Pfeiffer, a mentor of mine and one of the best salesmen I have ever met. He is a huge advocate of using the word “you” as much as possible. He thought of “you” as the ultimate benefit statement.
Use your blog to promote your benefits
Continue reading Blog Writing Tip – Writing for “You”
 This is an example of an SEO article for the keyword “Financial Planner.” This kind of article is perfect for web pages, blogs, newsletters, e zines or any other web page focusing on locating a fee only personal financial advisor.
This article targets the keyword phrase “Financial Planner” so that anyone searching for that keyword will be more likely to find your website with this article. If you would like quality SEO content generated for your online media click Request a Quote at the top of this page.
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Continue reading SEO Article – Keyword Financial Advisor
 The Bugatti Veyron 16.4 may be the most powerful, most expensive, and fastest street-legal production car in the world. Its 1000 horsepower engine boasts a narrow angle double V8 configuration for a total of 16 cylinders and four turbos, with 8.0-litres of displacement per cylinder. Step hard on the gas and it will rocket you to 60 mph in 2.5 seconds thanks to four-wheel-drive traction. You’ll make 125mph in 7.3 seconds and 200mph in less than 20 seconds. Whew!
Yet, if you fail to put gas in the tank, the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 will take you exactly nowhere.
We’ve all been told that goals are the vehicle that will propel you to your destiny. And so we expend extraordinary amounts of energy crafting high-powered goals built for maximum thrust. We write our goals down. We carefully select a target date. We create detailed step-by-step plans. We evaluate our time, our resources, identify skills that we need to obtain and obstacles we need to overcome. We create pictures and visualizations and we even review our goals. We do all the things the motivational experts tell us to do because we are told that by building a turbocharged goal we are assured of success.
Continue reading Sample Article – Do You have Gas?
 Nicki Hicks, Search Engine Marketer at Flyte, a Maine Internet Marketing and web design company, wrote a good article on the different slices of the internet marketing pie. Driving your business growth through internet marketing is never about just one thing. It’s about doing lots of things that, when taken together, will drive prospects to your business and increase your sales. Nicki provides a good explanation of all the options and how they may or may not work for your business.
I will note that she calls article marketing “age old, tried and true, and always something you can count on.” It’s a good alternative (or complement) to a blog and when done properly and consistently will bring organic traffic to your site. If the idea of writing all those articles (or blog posts) just makes you want to roll your eyes back in your head and pass out…call me. That’s where I can help.
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Rock Solid Writing Newsletter
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Ask Kalena – A Search Advice Column is a pretty darn good blog about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Kalena offers a course in SEO/SEM that attempts to provide something close to certification in the field — a comprehensive course in best practices and how to.
