Internet Marketing Toronto - Ignite!

NorthxEast’s Fifty Most Influential Female Bloggers is out…

{{stephanie}} ‘Blogging is not just a boys club’ according to the NorthxEast’s Fifty Most Influential Female Bloggers article that was released recently.

Jarkko Laine breaks down a well thought out list of top female bloggers in the industry in this thorough article. My favourite main point in this article is that more women are becoming a part of the technology industry overall, blogging regularly and encouraging other women to get involved. This is a very positive message for those of us just starting out in the industry.

Instead of repeating the list of women here, what I am going to do is lay out the top 10 and also the ones that I found most interesting and have started to subscribe to. Can’t learn enough! I have to note one little peeve if you will indulge me. When trying to add some of these top 50 blogs to my Google Reader collection…some did not have an RSS feed available or have it noticeable. If bloggers are looking for an audience than please please please make your RSS feed link noticeable, available, clear…anything that would encourage me to click on it. PLEASE!!!! Further, if you don’t have an RSS link available to your audience…go get one! I can’t imagine that people are writing just for them…there has to be an audience of sorts. Rant complete!

Back on track. I have only entered the world of blogs in the last 2 years so it is a fairly exciting and new discovery on my part. Reading new information from a variety of sources on a regular basis is very exciting. Please feel free to share your favourite blogs and reasons why you love them! I appreciate your recommendations.

Alright…to the top 10 on the list of the most influential female bloggers:

10. Lisa Sugar

Sugar is the Editor-in-Chief of Sugar Publishing and started www.popsugar.comthat houses several networks surrounding celebrity gossip. NxE noted that her blog is significant because the project has been funded by Sequoia (they also funded Google and Youtube)…should be something to watch out for!

9. Ana Marie Cox

Cox has made herself famous, if you will, by writing political gossip as www.Wonkette.com with her alias Wonkette Emerita. The popularity of Wonkette gave her writer’s kudos in the world of politics. She wrote in Time Magazine’s blog and is currently the editor of Radar.

Personally, I love both Canadian and American politics and as such, will be taking a look at Cox’s work. It sounds exciting!! Who can resist?!

8. Xeni Jardin

Jardin is a woman of many talents as a tech culture journalist; co-editor of www.boingboing.net; co-host of Boing Boing tv; articles published in Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, Playboy and many more. NxE also notes that Jardin has also appeared on radio, television, and runs the Xeni Tech podcast. She is edgy and controversial…a love her or hate her personality and part of a hugely growing community online.

7. Heather Armstrong

Armstrong is well known for being fired from her job after gossiping about her co-workers and company on her blog. I love her already! She writes under the nickname, Dooce and her style is both fun and personal. According to NxE, “her incisive writing, wit and honesty” has given her a unique writing style and landed her in spot number 7. Check it out www.dooce.com! I have also subscribed to this one.

6. Erin Kissane

Kissane is the writer and editorial strategist for good editorial practices and business communications. Her blog, www.alistapart.com is an important resource to web developers. NxE totes her as a person who will “define what the Internet will be today and in the future.”

5 . Michelle Malkin

Malkin is known for her political socially conservative perspective and has made appearances on MSNBC, Fox News, and C-SPAN. Her writing is very controversial…so you know I will be checking it out! Plainly, when Malkin speaks and writes…people listen and read.

www.michellemalkin.com

4. Pamela Jones

Jones is the online legal guru focusing on issues surrounding open source and free software community. She keeps the rest of us non-legal minded folk up to date. She is currently the editor of www.groklaw.net and has offered her knowledge to the book Open Source 2.0: The Continuing Evolution.

3. Gina Trapani

Trapani is one of the best writers of technology and productivity today. She has acquired a committed large readership. Lifehacker is a Gawker media web blog that provides tips and tricks, software and information to its followers. NxE says that it is a “must-read for many people, bloggers, and non-bloggers alike.” This will now be moved to my top 5 list!

www.lifehacker.com

2. Ariana Huffington

How does this sound: 12 books, co-founder and editor of the www.huffingtonpost.com. Huffington Post is a political blog and another on my list to follow. Huffington Post is the fourth ranked blog on Technorati and gets more than 18 million page views this month. It also helps that she has a few noted celebrity friends, according to NxE, such as Norman Mailer and Nora Ephron. Time Magazine listed Ariana Huffington on their list of 100 Most Influential People in 2006.

1. Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort Page & Jory Des Jardins

The top female blogger is a team effort from these three women that are meeting and writing for the purpose of promoting a community site that encourages and supports female bloggers. These ladies have planned and are continuing to plan events that encourage woman to start and succeed at blogging. This is a blog that myself and all other women reading this blog should check out. www.blogher.com

Happy Reading!

~S

What To Look For In A Search Engine Optimization Firm

What you should look for when hiring a search engine optimization firm.

A while ago we wrote about hiring a search engine optimization (SEO) firm. Since then Google has updated their page titled “What’s an SEO? Does Google recommend working with companies that offer to make my site Google-friendly?“. If you’re looking to hire an SEO I highly recommend you read Googles page on the topic. The more informed you are about the services you’re trying to buy the more likely you are to find a reputable company who truly has your best interests in mind.

One thing in particular stands out in this Google guideline - “Be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do.” While there may be unknown “tricks” which may be producing organic ranking results which others have not yet caught on to - there really are no secrets in search engine optimization. Simply following best practices and standards for modern website development combined with a solid understanding of 1. Your keywords, 2. Linking and promoting and finally, 3. Conversion Principles, you will ranking for your terms and you will convert traffic.

Any SEO firm which is unwilling to fully explain their practices in language you can clearly understand is not someone you should seariously consider partnering with.

So before you make your decision, get informed about the search engine optimization and ask as many questions you can about the SEO firms you’re considering hiring - pick the one with the best answers and not necessarily the best price!

If you want to know more about SEO - feel free to contact me. I’ll tell you everything you want to know at no obligation. By informing consumers I’m improving our industry, and that’s good for everyone.

Internet Marketing Toronto - Post 6: Blogging

Internet Marketing Toronto - Post 6: Blogging

Blogging is a fantastic way to produce timely content on your website and participate in current conversations online. Confine this to a local geographic area and you’re now reinforcing your local presence to the search engines.

The first step in this process is installing the blog software - we recommend WordPress as it’s free and powerful. You should always install your blog on your main domain in something like www.domain.com/blog or a folder named after your most important keyword.

Installing WordPress is beyond the scope of this post but you can great information about it on the WordPress site. After installing the blog you should start investigating blogs you can participate in. Here is how you can do that:

Following Conversations In Your Target Locality

You need to find blogs that are publishing content preferably in your industry but not necessarily within the context of Toronto as a location or any geographic area you are targeting. There are several ways you can do this:

• Use Bloglines & Technorati to query for blogs with Toronto as a term. Visit the blogs and if they are indeed publishing content about Toronto then subscribe to their feed in your Google Reader (or favorite feed-reader application).
• Use Google to find .ca blogs talking about Toronto with this query [toronto blog site:.ca]. Add another qualifying keyword to target your industry. Visit each site and if it’s appropriate subscribe to their feed
• Setup Google Alerts to send you current data about your industry with .ca and blog as part of the query. Review and subscribe to those feeds as well.

Now that you’ve identified a tremendous source of content to work with you need to start reading each of the blogs and participating through comments in a very meaningful way. Don’t spam. Don’t use a keyword as your name. Don’t respond to to more than one post on your first visit to the blog. Don’t comment on older posts unless you find it particularly insightful! Use your real name, email and targeted URL and leave well written meaningful comments.

Do this on a regular basis  at least once a week and watch your backlinks grow. These are good links (followed or not)!

Publishing Content On Your Website

Now that you’ve begun participating with the other blogs - start blogging on your own site. Be free with your links and promote the other blogs your reading and commenting on. Overtime you’ll get their attention and they’ll begin reciprocating and your readership will grow as will your backlinks.

Identify timely local news and events preferably in your industry to post about.

All of these activities will serve to reinforce to the search engines your local presence and intent on being known for geographic terms!

Up next: Post #7: Forums. Find out which forums might be worth participating in within the Toronto context.

Good Summer Reads

{{stephanie}} A lot of us are heading up to cottages and campsites with a book or magazine in tow.  Here is a short list of some fantastic business book reads.

If you have reads some or all of the selections below, please post your reviews for others to see.  Multiple perspectives are always beneficial.  Over the next few months I am going to read and post a summary and a review of some of the books listed below.

1. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t by James C. Collins

2. Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by James C. Collins

3. The Emyth Revisted: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to do About it by Michael E. Gerber

4. The Go-Giver: A Little Story About A Powerful Business Idea by Bob Burg & John Mann

5. Blink: Powerful Thinking without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

Okay, those 5 should get you at least until September!!

~S

Google Makes About 10 Changes Per Week To Their Ranking Algorithms

In a recent blog post Google announced it makes About 10 changes per week to their ranking Algorithms.

In reading my feeds today I came across the Google blog post “Introduction to Google Ranking” which is a great post introducing the topic of how Google ranks the search results. It’s apparently the first of many posts on the topic. While I found it quite informative what really stuck out is this statement

“We make about ten ranking changes every week. . . “

That’s quite amazing if you think about it. In the span of 7 days the algorithms used to rank the results for a search term can change as many as ten times. There are two things to consider about this fact. First, that Google takes search very seriously and they are constantly working to improve the process for end users. Second, it’s no wonder that rankings vary from day to day including parts of a single day! When evaluating your rankings you can’t just look at a single day and say today we’re successful with our results. It just does not work that way. You have to look at longer term trends to determine overall results for your search engine optimization efforts.

In fact, if the particular algorithm change was strongly focused on a particular search it’s likely that your rankings could be dropped significantly for a short period of time while the results of that change are being evaluated and further refined.

If you want to know a little more about the Google ranking process I recommend you read the blog post. It really is informative!

Internet Marketing Toronto - Post 5: Produce Local Based Content

Internet Marketing Toronto - Post 5: Produce Local Based Content

In our last post we talked about integrating Google Analytics and configuring it properly. Today we’re talking about the need to produce local based content.

The three major search engines have become quite sophisticated and are no longer simply looking for links and keywords. Today it’s more about relevancy and timeliness. Search engines want to serve up results for searches that are more current than others if those make sense. So for our purposes in this series that means you need to write content for you site about local news and events as they pertain to your industry!

If you’re not staying on top of local events in your industry you should be. You can then write about them as they are happening on your website. You’ll generate more traffic for your site by getting ranked higher. All the while you’re reinforcing the fact that you’re website is about this specific locality which will benefit your rankings long term.

We wrote about staying on top of your industry in a earlier post, so you should check that one out. Also - the best and simplest way to write content for your site is through a blog - but you can always do it old school and simply write new static pages for your site!

Up next: Post #6: Blogging. One of the best and simplest ways to produce local based content is to install and write on your blog. Along with blogging comes in actively participating in local blogs in your industry which generates links back to your site and reinforces your local presence to the search engines!

Top 5 Tips for Goal Setting

{{stephanie}} Goal setting is extremely important but only a small number of us actually participate in it. By outlining what we want in the future and how we are going to get there…the difficult part is complete.

Goals are an important part of any segment of one’s life. You can have personal, professional, athletic, leisure, spiritual, familial or relationship goals. All of which can create who you are and who you want to be. I started writing out my goals about 2 years ago. I never thought that it was making a difference until one day I sat down with a friend of mine and looked at my goals from a year ago. Each and every single one had been met. WOW!! Fantastic. It was very exciting because when I thought back to how I achieved each one, I realized that by listing them and looking at them regularly, I did not feel as though the goals were huge unachievable things. Rather, my goals started to feel like logical next steps. Below are my top 5 tips for goal setting:

1. Think before you write…and don’t be afraid to edit

Really go through that head of yours and think about all of the different things that truly make up what others see as you. Think about who you want to be in life and how and what it will take to get you there. Write out each one in a journal or notebook that you will look at regularly. Most importantly, feel free to edit. Feelings change and life throws us surprises that we never expected…so don’t worry, just change them. Your allowed!

2. Be Realistic

The worst thing you can do is write out goals that you will only ever achieve if a miracle happens. Write out goals that offer a challenge but that are also in the realm of possibility.

3. Take Baby Steps

Try writing out goals that are incremental steps to a greater purpose. For example, join a local running group. This goal focused on something attainable and realistic but something you have to work for nonetheless. The fact is that your goal could be that you want to run a marathon but you have never run before in your life. Baby steps!

4. Look at them often

Look at your goals daily if you can.  They will keep you focused and a constant reminder for what you want.  Some people like to use visuals on a goal board and others enjoy journaling.  I have tried both and liked them each for different reasons so try them out and see what works for you.

5. Have both Short and Long Term Goals

Although baby steps is important, you also need to have a bigger picture in mind.  Write out your long term goals and then break it down. What little steps will help you get to the greater goals?

Good Luck!!

~S

Google Can Now Better Index Flash Content

Google has announced it can now better index Flash content.

In the Webmaster Central Blog on June 30th Google announced it can better index Flash content with the aide of Adobe’s updates to the new Searchable SWF library. Our position on Flash does not change - use it sparingly. Don’t build an entire site in Flash.

I encourage you to read the entire press release as there are some really great questions answered. In particular - Google cannot index text within images that are embedded in your Flash Video, nor will they index external content loaded through seperate text, or html files. It does not mentioned databaes content though.

So for the time being - let’s wait and see what happens with Flash based sites and the Google Index. If this really does work then we’ll begin to see a bit of a shift in thinking around Flash for some people. In our opinion though it does not affect the usability issues associated with Flash - but it will mean that our banners can now have content that will be indexed!

Internet Marketing Toronto - Post 4: Analytics Integration

Internet Marketing Toronto - Post 4: Analytics Integration

In our previous post we talked about all of the on page optimizations you need to do in order for your site to be recognized as being locally relevant to Toronto (or any geography you’re targeting). Today we’re talking about integrating analytics and knowing what information you need to review.

Google Analytics Integration

There are quite a few analytics packages out there, some are free while others are not. For the time being we prefer to recommend Google Analytics  purely for it’s balance between simplicity, ease of integration and features. There are more powerful platforms and simpler ones too - this one just strikes a nice balance.

Here are the basic steps for obtaining an analytics account and integrating it into your site:

1. Go to https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount and sign up for a Google Account. If you have one already, skip this step.
2. Go to http://www.google.com/analytics and choose the SignUp Now button from the middle of the page.
3. Once your signed up you need insert the Google Analytics tracking code into each page of your website above the </body> tag.
4. Deploy your pages and you should see that Google Analytics has detected the code and data should start collecting - although you cannot see it until the next day.

Now that your analytics are being tracked you should do the following things:

1.  Set your default page (the page that displays when enter just your domain name into the browser). Do this by clicking the Analytics Setting link in the top left corner, and then editing the settings for the section titled “Main Website Profile Information”. The default page is usually something like index.html, .htm, .php, .asp, or default.html, .htm, .asp, .php. This causes your Google Analytics to consolidate pageviews for your domain represented as “/” and your home page (default page).
2. Setup a Goal to track conversions. Most of the time visitors to your site will contact you by filling out a contact form. If you don’t have one, set one up with a seperate thank you page. From your Analytics Settings page you can define a new “goal” by specifying the name of the thank you page and assigning a goal name. Now whenever anybody submits a contact form a goal will be recorded.
3. From within your analytics account you should always keep an eye on the keywords that are bringing you traffic and monitoring your bounce rate for them. If it’s a relevant term but with a high bounce rate you may need to improve the quality of content on the page that is ranking for that term.
4. Finally - you should have a look at the geographic locations where your drawing traffic from. Ideally if you’ve been doing your local search engine optimization properly you should start to see an increase in local traffic!

Up next: Post #5: Produce Local Based Content. Producing some local based content gives you the breadth of content needed to anchor your website in a specific geographic region. You don’t need tons of content - just some!