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Gevril and Haurex Italia dinner during Baselworld in March 2011 with Larry Brauner standing in the background.
Baselworld 2012 is right around the corner!
Feb
27
My Dirty Little Secrets of Search
Filed Under Best Practices, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Web Marketing, Website Traffic | 20 Comments
Search engine optimization professionals usually have a few tricks up their sleeves. Of course, they want to generate lots of website traffic for their clients or employers.Most so-called SEO tricks are actually legitimate techniques for tackling complex search problems, while some, like the recent JC Penney website traffic scheme — no, Penney didn’t purchase this link from me
— are totally reprehensible.Every sordid detail of the JC Penney search scandal — and how JC Penny allegedly racked up much unjustified website traffic during the holiday shopping season — are spelled out in Dirty Little Secrets of Search on the NY Times website.
Every cloud has a silver lining. Google “changed its mathematical formula late Thursday in order to better weed out ‘low-quality’ sites that offer users little value,” said Amir Efrati in Google Revamps to Fight Cheaters on the Wall Street Journal website. Hopefully, Google’s new algorithm will improve its search performance and deliver traffic to deserving websites.
My Dirty Little Secrets of Search and Website Traffic
Like other webmasters and website owners, I too want to generate truckloads of website traffic, and as you might guess, I have a bag of tricks at my disposal — my dirty little secrets of search.I share with you four of my top secrets of search and website traffic:
- Help the Search Engines - Lay out your site, tag your images and your posts, and embed your internal and outbound links in ways that make it easy for search engines to determine the subject, thesis and nuances of each of your articles.
- Help Readers - Write articles that are easy to find and read. Doing so will help your readers and help you remain honest with your on- page search engine optimization.
- Don’t Cheat - As much as you’re anxious to get more website traffic, don’t do anything on-page or off-page that you wouldn’t be willing to shout out to Google, because the search engines are listening. All your tricks should be legit. If you buy links, buy relevant links from reputable sites and directories. Avoid any form of linking scheme.
- Keep it Simple - If you can’t explain your strategies and techniques to an intelligent layperson, they’re probably too complex. Seek ways to simplify your approach.
Honesty and transparency are at the core of my dirty little secrets of search and website traffic.
Search gurus will likely call my way simplistic, but it has permitted me — with plenty of hard work posting content, of course — to take a new watch company website from 0 to 75 search visits per day in only 12 weeks with more web site traffic on the way.
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Tags: JC Penney, Search Engines, SEO, Website Traffic
Feb
20
Why Bad Things Happen to Good Content
Filed Under Best Practices, Blogging, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Web Marketing, Website Traffic | 12 Comments
Sadly, very many potentially useful web sites languish in obscurity like proverbial trees falling in forests with no one around to hear them. While these web sites have excellent content, they have few readers to use or enjoy that content.Good content needs to be consumed. I would rather publish marginally good material that is highly consumed than top-notch content that merely gathers dust.
Generating Ample Website Traffic to Your Content
If you are a blogger or webmaster, what you do before and what you do after you publish to create website traffic to your content are no less important than the creativity and effort that shaped your content.Yet, most of us do too little of the preparation and follow-through that our content requires to succeed, as I explained in How to Hit the Right Mix of Website Traffic Sources.
Preparation can include website infrastructure design, SEO and community building. Your follow-through might include email, social bookmarking sites, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ning and other social networking sites. These types of activities are mandatory, not optional.
Bad things happen to good content when preparation and follow-through are inadequate. However, the right steps taken both before and after publishing your content will enable your website traffic and content consumption to soar. I know this from personal experience.
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Tags: Get More Web Site Traffic, increase website traffic, Website Traffic
Feb
13
You Say I Can’t Have More than One Facebook Personal Profile
Filed Under Best Practices, Business Networking, Facebook, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 12 Comments
At times, Facebook users create multiple personal profiles for business purposes in violation of Facebook’s Terms of Service that clearly state:“You will not create more than one personal profile.”
These Facebook users usually create one personal profile for family, friends and acquaintances, and another personal profile for business associates and prospects.
The word personal in “personal profile” is easily misunderstood and deserves clarification.
Personal Profile vs. Business Page
With a Facebook “personal profile” you network and acquire friends. It doesn’t matter whether these friends are personal friends or business contacts.A Facebook personal profile is a friend page, and Facebook prohibits creating more than one friend page for yourself.
With a Facebook business page you brand your business and attract people who “like” your page.
A Facebook business page is a fan page, and Facebook permits creating more than one fan page for your business, although that might not be practical.
If You Have More Than One Facebook Personal Profile
If you find yourself in the predicament of having more than one Facebook personal profile, my recommendation here in six steps is very similar to my advice in last week’s OMG! I Can’t Use My Facebook Personal Profile for Business:
- Create a Facebook business page as soon as possible. Either How to Create a Facebook Fan Page or How To Set Up a Facebook Fan Page can help you to get started. Let me know if you need my help.
- If you have no more than a few hundred business friends on the Facebook personal profile you’re using for business, send each of them a private message explaining your situation and inviting them to “like” your new Facebook page. If you have too many business friends for this to be feasible, limit the procedure to your most important business friends.
- To avoid raising red flags with Facebook, don’t send more than 20 to 30 messages per day, don’t fire off messages rapidly and don’t merely cut and paste an identical script.
- Don’t say or imply that you’ll be deleting friends or threaten to remove them if they don’t comply. Such an approach is likely to backfire. Be courteous and professional.
- Read Why Should I Like Your Facebook Page? and Top 10 Ways to Get Facebook Page Fans for ideas to market and grow your new Facebook page.
- When most of your business friends have migrated to your new fan page, delete the extra Facebook personal profile you were using for business and breathe a sigh of relief.
6/14/11 Update: Facebook now provides a tool to convert a Facebook profile to a Facebook business page.
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Best of luck with your Facebook business page!
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Tags: Facebook, Facebook pages
Feb
6
OMG! I Can’t Use My Facebook Personal Profile for Business
Filed Under Best Practices, Business Networking, Facebook, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Promoting Yourself, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 11 Comments
In my 7 Issues to Consider About Doing Business on Facebook and ONE Facebook Business Page, No More, No Fewer, I strongly advised not to use your Facebook personal profile for your business, advice that was echoed in Top 5 Things Not to Do on Facebook on HubSpot.Feedback from some very concerned small business marketers using their Facebook profiles for their businesses led to this follow-up article to address their concerns.
Some have a Facebook personal profile for personal use and one or more Facebook personal profiles for business use, in violation of Facebook’s Terms of Service, which state that “you will not create more than one personal profile.”I shall discuss this situation next week in You Say I Can’t Have More than One Facebook Personal Profile.
Tips for Businesses Using Facebook Personal Profiles
If you’re employing one Facebook profile page for both personal and business use (or for business use only), I offer you these eight tips:
- Don’t panic. For most users, the choice of how to market yourself and your business on Facebook isn’t really a life or death matter. (For the small minority of Facebook business users for whom this choice is a life or death matter, your panic is understandable. Seek professional or law enforcement assistance without further delay.)
- If you’re comfortable enough with the many limitations I set forth in ONE Facebook Business Page, No More, No Fewer, stop reading these tips right here and continue to do as you’ve been doing up until now. If and when you see the light, return here and keep reading.
- Create a Facebook business page. Either How to Create a Facebook Fan Page or How To Set Up a Facebook Fan Page can help you to get started.
- If you have no more than a few hundred business friends on your Facebook personal profile, send each a private message explaining the situation and inviting them to “like” your new Facebook page. If you have too many business friends for this to be feasible, limit the procedure to your most important business friends.
- To avoid raising red flags with Facebook, don’t send more than about 20 messages per day, don’t fire off messages rapidly and don’t merely cut and paste an identical script.
- Don’t say or imply that you’ll be deleting friends or threaten to remove them if they don’t comply. Such an approach is likely to backfire.
- Read Why Should I Like Your Facebook Page? and Top 10 Ways to Get Facebook Page Fans for ideas to market and grow your new Facebook page.
- Don’t remove business friends from your Facebook personal profile unless you have a security or privacy issue that compels you to do so, since removing friends can not be undone.
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Tags: Facebook, Facebook pages
