LinkedIn. Facebook. Twitter. YouTube. MySpace. StumbleUpon. Posterous. Ecademy.
And the list goes on. With so many options available today, it’s easy to experience social media overload.
Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m a big fan of social media and how it can help you generate buzz and develop your business. But it can be overwhelming, even addictive for some. With new social sites popping up every day, how do you make the most of the opportunities social media provides and still have time to run your business?
Top Six Ways to keep your Sanity and Stay Sucessfull:
1. Be choosy. You don’t have to participate actively on every available site. Pick a few sites that best match your goals and your target audience and invest your time there. Don’t feel guilty if you don’t have a presence on MySpace or Digg just because “everybody” else does.
2. Check your web analytics. Review your web stats to see where your traffic is coming from and focus on the social sites that bring the most traffic. A great free tool that helps you analyze your web traffic is Google Analytics. You may be surprised when you view your results. For example, I didn’t expect much when I created a Xing profile, but I generate a lot of traffic from this site even though I update it infrequently.
3. Schedule time for social networking. Whether it’s every morning for 15 minutes or once a week for an hour, having a schedule helps you set limits. Your schedule doesn’t have to be set in stone, however.
4. Categorize sites based on effectiveness. If you discover that Facebook generates far better results for you than Twitter, for example, invest more time on Facebook and update Twitter less frequently.
5. Consider automation. Using tools like Ping.fm enable you to update multiple social sites at once. Linking between your social site profiles, your blog, and your website also helps increase visibility with little effort.
6. Get focused to get results. Just because you spend an hour a week on social sites doesn’t mean you’re automatically going to generate the results you want. You need to understand the best ways to use each site so that you spend your time effectively. Fifteen means of strategic social networking can be worth far more than several hours of aimless social surfing.
For more information please visit Bosscher Design, a Howell, MI based company.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Five ways the iPad can help small business in the Brighton and Howell Michigan area
It's the consumer electronics gadget everyone is talking about, but is it ideal for business, too? Here are some of the ways an iPad can help your small business -- and some of its challenges, too.
There was a hush in the room when Apple CEO Steve Jobs (finally) took the wraps off the long-rumored Apple iPad in late January. Perhaps it was because the audience -- populated primarily by journalists and analysts -- realized this portable tablet would blur the lines between work and play, much like the iconic iPhone that came before it.
Now the iPad is available, and many are wondering if this digital device is truly suitable for small to mid-sized business -- or even a boon for it.
The basics
The iPad (from $499 for 16GB) is a thin, 9.7-inch touch-screen tablet, ideal for reading electronic books and digital newspapers, surfing the Web, reading e-mail, flicking through photos, watching videos, and playing games -- all via your fingertips instead of with a keyboard and mouse.
Sure, other manufacturers have launched WiFi-enabled tablets in the past -- aimed primarily at businesses -- but more often than not have proven bulky, slow, and limited in software. The iPad, on the other hand, is a svelte 1.5 pounds, powered by a 1GHz processor and out of the box works with most of the 150,000 plus applications ("apps") available at Apple's popular App Store (part of iTunes).
Built for business
A recent business survey conducted by Information Technology Intelligence Corp. (ITIC) found 42 percent of participants planned on purchasing an iPad within the first six to nine months. Only 14 percent said "no," leaving the remaining 44 percent as "possibly" or "undecided."
"Interestingly, the line that divides home life and corporate life has blurred considerably over the past few years," says Laura DiDio, a principal at ITIC, a research and consulting firm based in the suburban Boston area.
When asked how they'll use the iPad, 64 percent of respondents said they'd use the iPad for business, 31 percent for personal use, and 86 percent for both.
"Ten or 15 years ago you can be reasonably certain your IT department would issue you a desktop device that was more state of the art than what you had at home," says DiDio. "Now, consumers get more state of the art, feature-rich devices than what's issued by the company, and in many cases they can use them for work, too."
Top 5 reasons iPad is good for business
DiDio says there are a number of reasons why the iPad is good for business. Here are the top five reasons to consider an iPad for business:
Price (under $500)
Power (better than netbooks)
Portability (1.5 pounds, 10 hour battery)
Usability (home and business use, which fits today's telecommuting trend)
Functionality (150,000 apps and counting)
"With a list price that begins at $499, Apple has broken price barrier, making it appealing to consumers and businesses alike," explains DiDio. "Plus, the iPad has the performance and graphics capabilities not found in most netbooks."
Another advantage: many corporate workers are "road warriors" these days, adds DiDio, "from the smallest businesses all the way up to enterprise." The iPad's svelte 1.5-pound frame and 10-hour battery make it ideal for travelers and telecommuters alike.
"Many today juggle home and business life simultaneously, so while the iPad is great to keep the kids entertained in the backseat of the car, mom or dad can then edit a sales report when they reach their destination," says DiDio.
A wide range of applications also make the iPad very appealing to small and mid-sized businesses.
Not everyone agrees
Tim Bajarin, principal strategist at the Campbell, Calif.-based Creative Strategies research firm, says he recognizes Apple has added some productivity software to the overall iPad model, such as the iWorks programs, but still believes the iPad is more of a consumer device than a business tool.
"You saw Jobs demonstrate the iPad reclining in a chair because the iPad is optimized for a 'lean back' experience rather than a 'lean forward' one," explains Bajarin. "This is fine for browsing the Web, reading a book, or watching video, but business is more of a learn forward experience -- such as writing long e-mails and reports, or working on spreadsheets and presentations."
Bajarin says the success of the iPad in the workplace will also depend on the type of job at hand. "Those who need bigger screen real estate will stick with a PC monitor, such as those in graphic arts," says Bajarin, "but vertical markets -- such as hospitals, transportation, police and fire, and small medical clinics -- might find this tablet of use, where ultra portability is important."
For more information please visit Bosscher Design, a Howell, MI based company.
There was a hush in the room when Apple CEO Steve Jobs (finally) took the wraps off the long-rumored Apple iPad in late January. Perhaps it was because the audience -- populated primarily by journalists and analysts -- realized this portable tablet would blur the lines between work and play, much like the iconic iPhone that came before it.
Now the iPad is available, and many are wondering if this digital device is truly suitable for small to mid-sized business -- or even a boon for it.
The basics
The iPad (from $499 for 16GB) is a thin, 9.7-inch touch-screen tablet, ideal for reading electronic books and digital newspapers, surfing the Web, reading e-mail, flicking through photos, watching videos, and playing games -- all via your fingertips instead of with a keyboard and mouse.
Sure, other manufacturers have launched WiFi-enabled tablets in the past -- aimed primarily at businesses -- but more often than not have proven bulky, slow, and limited in software. The iPad, on the other hand, is a svelte 1.5 pounds, powered by a 1GHz processor and out of the box works with most of the 150,000 plus applications ("apps") available at Apple's popular App Store (part of iTunes).
Built for business
A recent business survey conducted by Information Technology Intelligence Corp. (ITIC) found 42 percent of participants planned on purchasing an iPad within the first six to nine months. Only 14 percent said "no," leaving the remaining 44 percent as "possibly" or "undecided."
"Interestingly, the line that divides home life and corporate life has blurred considerably over the past few years," says Laura DiDio, a principal at ITIC, a research and consulting firm based in the suburban Boston area.
When asked how they'll use the iPad, 64 percent of respondents said they'd use the iPad for business, 31 percent for personal use, and 86 percent for both.
"Ten or 15 years ago you can be reasonably certain your IT department would issue you a desktop device that was more state of the art than what you had at home," says DiDio. "Now, consumers get more state of the art, feature-rich devices than what's issued by the company, and in many cases they can use them for work, too."
Top 5 reasons iPad is good for business
DiDio says there are a number of reasons why the iPad is good for business. Here are the top five reasons to consider an iPad for business:
Price (under $500)
Power (better than netbooks)
Portability (1.5 pounds, 10 hour battery)
Usability (home and business use, which fits today's telecommuting trend)
Functionality (150,000 apps and counting)
"With a list price that begins at $499, Apple has broken price barrier, making it appealing to consumers and businesses alike," explains DiDio. "Plus, the iPad has the performance and graphics capabilities not found in most netbooks."
Another advantage: many corporate workers are "road warriors" these days, adds DiDio, "from the smallest businesses all the way up to enterprise." The iPad's svelte 1.5-pound frame and 10-hour battery make it ideal for travelers and telecommuters alike.
"Many today juggle home and business life simultaneously, so while the iPad is great to keep the kids entertained in the backseat of the car, mom or dad can then edit a sales report when they reach their destination," says DiDio.
A wide range of applications also make the iPad very appealing to small and mid-sized businesses.
Not everyone agrees
Tim Bajarin, principal strategist at the Campbell, Calif.-based Creative Strategies research firm, says he recognizes Apple has added some productivity software to the overall iPad model, such as the iWorks programs, but still believes the iPad is more of a consumer device than a business tool.
"You saw Jobs demonstrate the iPad reclining in a chair because the iPad is optimized for a 'lean back' experience rather than a 'lean forward' one," explains Bajarin. "This is fine for browsing the Web, reading a book, or watching video, but business is more of a learn forward experience -- such as writing long e-mails and reports, or working on spreadsheets and presentations."
Bajarin says the success of the iPad in the workplace will also depend on the type of job at hand. "Those who need bigger screen real estate will stick with a PC monitor, such as those in graphic arts," says Bajarin, "but vertical markets -- such as hospitals, transportation, police and fire, and small medical clinics -- might find this tablet of use, where ultra portability is important."
For more information please visit Bosscher Design, a Howell, MI based company.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
71 Ways to Build Links
Love for Lists
1. Build a "101 list". These get Dugg all the time, and often become "authority documents". People can't resist linking to these (hint, hint).
2. Create 10 easy tips to help you [insert topic here] articles. Again, these are exceptionally easy to link to.
3. Create extensive resource lists for a specific topic (see Mr Ploppy for inspiration).
4. Create a list of the top 10 myths for a specific category.
5. Create a list of gurus/experts. If you impress the people listed well enough, or find a way to make your project look somewhat official, the gurus may end up linking to your site or saying thanks. (Sometimes flattery is the easiest way to strike up a good relationship with an "authority".)
Developing Authority & Being Easy to Link At
6. Make your content easy to understand so many people can understand and spread your message. (It's an accessibility thing.)
7. Put some effort in to minimize grammatical or spelling errors, especially if you need authoritative people like librarians to link to your site.
8. Have an easily accessible privacy policy and about section so your site seems more trustworthy. Including a picture of yourself may also help build your authority.
PPC as a Link Building Tool
9. Buy relevant traffic with a pay per click campaign. Relevant traffic will get your site more visitors and brand exposure. When people come to your site, regardless of the channel in which they found it, there is a possibility that they will link to you.
News & Syndication
10. Syndicate an article at EzineArticles, GoArticles, iSnare, etc. The great thing about good article sites is that their article pages actually rank highly and send highly qualified traffic.
11. Submit an article to industry news site. Have an SEO site? Write an article and submit to WebProNews. Have a site about BLANK? Submit to BLANKinformationalsite.com.
12. Syndicate a press release. Take the time to make it GOOD (compelling, newsworthy). Email it to some handpicked journalists and bloggers. Personalize the email message. For good measure, submit it to PRWeb, PRLeap, etc.
13. Track who picks up your articles or press releases. Offer them exclusive news or content.
14. Trade articles with other webmasters.
15. Email a few friends when you have important relevant news asking them for their feedback and/or if they would mind referencing it if they find your information useful.
16. Write about, and link to, companies with "in the news" pages. They link back to stories and blog posts which cover their developments. This is obviously easiest if you have a news section or blog. Do a Google search for [your industry + "in the news"].
17. Perform surveys and studies that make people feel important. If you can make other people feel important they will help do your marketing for you for free. Salary.com did a study on how underpaid mothers were, and they got many high quality links.
Directories, Meme Trackers & Social Bookmarking
18. This tip is an oldie but goodie: submit your site to DMOZ and other directories that allow free submissions.
19. Submit your site to paid directories. Another oldie. Just remember that quality matters.
20. Create your own topical directory about your field of interest. Obviously link to your own site, deeplinking to important content where possible. Of course, if you make it into a truly useful resource, it will attract links on its own.
21. Tag related sites on sites like Del.icio.us. If people find the sites you tag to be interesting, emotionally engaging, or timely they may follow the trail back to your site.
22. If you create something that is of great quality make sure you ask a few friends to tag it for you. If your site gets on the front page of Digg or on the Del.icio.us popular list, hundreds more bloggers will see your site, and potentially link to it.
23. Look at meme trackers to see what ideas are spreading. If you write about popular spreading ideas with plenty of original content (and link to some of the original resources), your site may get listed as a source on the meme tracker site.
Local & Business Links
24. Join the Better Business Bureau.
25. Get a link from your local chamber of commerce.
26. Submit your link to relevant city and state governmental resources. (Easier in some countries than in others.)
27. List your site at the local library's Web site.
28. See if your manufacturers or retailers or other business partners might be willing to link to your site.
29. Develop business relationships with non-competing businesses in the same field. Leverage these relationships online and off, by recommending each other via links and distributing each other's business cards.
30. Launch an affiliate program. Most of the links you pick up will not have SEO value, but the added exposure will almost always lead to additional "normal" links.
Easy Free Links
31. Depending on your category and offer, you will find Craigslist to be a cheap or free classified service.
32. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Yahoo! Answers and provide links to relevant resources.
33. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Google Groups and provide links to relevant resources.
34. If you run a fairly reputable company, create a page about it in the Wikipedia or in topic specific wikis. If it is hard to list your site directly, try to add links to other pages that link to your site.
35. It takes about 15 minutes to set up a topical Squidoo page, which you can use to look like an industry expert. Link to expert documents and popular useful tools in your fields, and also create a link back to your site.
36. Submit a story to Digg that links to an article on your site. You can also submit other content and have some of its link authority flow back to your profile page.
37. If you publish an RSS feed and your content is useful and regularly updated, some people will syndicate your RSS content (and some of those will provide links… unfortunately, some will not).
38. Most forums allow members to leave signature links or personal profile links. If you make quality contributions some people will follow these links and potentially read your site, link at your site, and/or buy your products.
Have a Big Heart for Reviews
39. Most brands are not well established online, so if your site has much authority, your review related content often ranks well.
40. Review relevant products on Amazon.com. We have seen this draw in direct customer enquiries and secondary links.
41. Create product lists on Amazon.com that review top products and also mention your background (LINK!).
42. Review related sites on Alexa to draw in related traffic streams.
43. Review products and services on shopping search engines like ePinions to help build your authority.
44. If you buy a product or service you really like and are good at leaving testimonials, many of those turn into links. Two testimonial writing tips — make them believable, and be specific where possible.
Blogs & the Blogosphere
45. Start a blog. Not just for the sake of having one. Post regularly and post great content. Good execution is what gets the links.
46. Link to other blogs from your blog. Outbound links are one of the cheapest forms of marketing available. Many bloggers also track who is linking to them or where their traffic comes from, so linking to them is an easy way to get noticed by some of them.
47. Comment on other blogs. Most of these comments will not provide much direct search engine value, but if your comments are useful, insightful, and relevant they can drive direct traffic. They also help make the other bloggers become aware of you, and they may start reading your blog and/or linking to it.
48. Technorati tag pages rank well in Yahoo! and MSN, and to a lesser extent in Google. Even if your blog is fairly new you can have your posts featured on the Technorati tag pages by tagging your posts with relevant tags.
49. If you create a blog make sure you list it in a few of the best blog directories.
Design as a Linking Element
50. Web 2.0-ify your site. People love to link to anything with AJAX. Even in the narrowest of niches, there is some kind of useful functionality you can build with AJAX.
51. Validate and 508 your site. This (indirect) method makes your site more trustworthy and linkable, especially from governmental sites or design-oriented communities. There are even a few authoritative directories of standards-compliant sites.
52. Order a beautiful CSS redesign. A nice design can get links from sites like CSS Vault.
Hire Help
53. Hire a publicist. Good old fashioned 'PR' (not PageRank) can still work wonders. Andy Hagans now offers a link baiting publicity service.
54. Hire a consultant. Yes, you can outsource link building. Just make sure to go with someone good. We recommend WeBuildPages, Debra Mastaler and, ahem, Andy Hagans.
Link Trading
55. Swap some links. What?! Did we really just recommend reciprocal link building? Yes, on a small scale, and with relevant partners that will send you traffic. Stay away from the link trading hubs and networks.
56. In case you didn't get the memo — when swapping links, try to get links from within the content of relevant content pages. Do not try to get links from pages that list hundreds of off topic link partners. Only seek link exchanges that you would consider pursuing even if search engines did not exist. Instead of thinking just about your topic when exchanging links, think about demographic audience sets.
Buying Sites, Renting Links & Advertisements
57. Rent some high quality links from a broker. Text Link Ads is the most reputable firm in this niche.
58. Rent some high quality links directly from Web sites. Sometimes the most powerful rented links come direct from sites not actively renting links.
59. Become a sponsor. All sorts of charities, contests, and conferences link to their sponsors. This can be a great way to gain visibility, links, and a warm feeling in your heart.
60. Sell items on eBay and offer to donate the profits to a charity. Many charities will link both to the eBay auction and to your site.
61. Many search algorithms seem biased toward older established sites. It may be faster to buy an old site with a strong link profile, and link it to your own site, than to try to start building authority links from scratch.
Use the Courts (Proceed with Caution)
62. Sue Google.
63. Get sued by a company people hate. When Aaron was sued by Traffic Power, he got hundreds or thousands of links, including links from sites like Wired and The Wall Street Journal.
Freebies & Giveaways
64. Hold a contest. Contests make great link bait. A few-hundred-dollar prize can result in thousands of dollars worth of editorial quality links. Enough said.
65. Build a tool collection. Original and useful tools (and collections of tools) get a lot of link love. What do you think ranking for mortgage calculator is worth?
66. Create and release open source site design templates for content management systems like Wordpress. Don't forget the "Designed by example.com" bit in the footer!
67. Offer free samples in exchange for feedback.
68. Release a Firefox extension. Make sure you have a download and/or support page on your site which people can link to.
Conferences & Social Interaction
69. It is easy to take pictures of important events and tell narratives about why they are important. Pictures of (drunk?) "celebrities" in your industry make great link bait.
70. Leverage new real world relationships into linking relationships. If you go to SEO related conferences, people like Tim Mayer, Matt Cutts, and Danny Sullivan are readily accessible. Similarly, in other industries, people who would normally seem inaccessible are exceptionally accessible at trade conferences. It is much easier to seem "real" in person. Once you create social relationships in person, it is easy to extend that onto the web.
71. Engaging, useful, and interesting interviews are an easy way to create original content. And they spread like wildfire.
For more info please contact
Bosscher Design
http://www.bosscherdesign.com
1. Build a "101 list". These get Dugg all the time, and often become "authority documents". People can't resist linking to these (hint, hint).
2. Create 10 easy tips to help you [insert topic here] articles. Again, these are exceptionally easy to link to.
3. Create extensive resource lists for a specific topic (see Mr Ploppy for inspiration).
4. Create a list of the top 10 myths for a specific category.
5. Create a list of gurus/experts. If you impress the people listed well enough, or find a way to make your project look somewhat official, the gurus may end up linking to your site or saying thanks. (Sometimes flattery is the easiest way to strike up a good relationship with an "authority".)
Developing Authority & Being Easy to Link At
6. Make your content easy to understand so many people can understand and spread your message. (It's an accessibility thing.)
7. Put some effort in to minimize grammatical or spelling errors, especially if you need authoritative people like librarians to link to your site.
8. Have an easily accessible privacy policy and about section so your site seems more trustworthy. Including a picture of yourself may also help build your authority.
PPC as a Link Building Tool
9. Buy relevant traffic with a pay per click campaign. Relevant traffic will get your site more visitors and brand exposure. When people come to your site, regardless of the channel in which they found it, there is a possibility that they will link to you.
News & Syndication
10. Syndicate an article at EzineArticles, GoArticles, iSnare, etc. The great thing about good article sites is that their article pages actually rank highly and send highly qualified traffic.
11. Submit an article to industry news site. Have an SEO site? Write an article and submit to WebProNews. Have a site about BLANK? Submit to BLANKinformationalsite.com.
12. Syndicate a press release. Take the time to make it GOOD (compelling, newsworthy). Email it to some handpicked journalists and bloggers. Personalize the email message. For good measure, submit it to PRWeb, PRLeap, etc.
13. Track who picks up your articles or press releases. Offer them exclusive news or content.
14. Trade articles with other webmasters.
15. Email a few friends when you have important relevant news asking them for their feedback and/or if they would mind referencing it if they find your information useful.
16. Write about, and link to, companies with "in the news" pages. They link back to stories and blog posts which cover their developments. This is obviously easiest if you have a news section or blog. Do a Google search for [your industry + "in the news"].
17. Perform surveys and studies that make people feel important. If you can make other people feel important they will help do your marketing for you for free. Salary.com did a study on how underpaid mothers were, and they got many high quality links.
Directories, Meme Trackers & Social Bookmarking
18. This tip is an oldie but goodie: submit your site to DMOZ and other directories that allow free submissions.
19. Submit your site to paid directories. Another oldie. Just remember that quality matters.
20. Create your own topical directory about your field of interest. Obviously link to your own site, deeplinking to important content where possible. Of course, if you make it into a truly useful resource, it will attract links on its own.
21. Tag related sites on sites like Del.icio.us. If people find the sites you tag to be interesting, emotionally engaging, or timely they may follow the trail back to your site.
22. If you create something that is of great quality make sure you ask a few friends to tag it for you. If your site gets on the front page of Digg or on the Del.icio.us popular list, hundreds more bloggers will see your site, and potentially link to it.
23. Look at meme trackers to see what ideas are spreading. If you write about popular spreading ideas with plenty of original content (and link to some of the original resources), your site may get listed as a source on the meme tracker site.
Local & Business Links
24. Join the Better Business Bureau.
25. Get a link from your local chamber of commerce.
26. Submit your link to relevant city and state governmental resources. (Easier in some countries than in others.)
27. List your site at the local library's Web site.
28. See if your manufacturers or retailers or other business partners might be willing to link to your site.
29. Develop business relationships with non-competing businesses in the same field. Leverage these relationships online and off, by recommending each other via links and distributing each other's business cards.
30. Launch an affiliate program. Most of the links you pick up will not have SEO value, but the added exposure will almost always lead to additional "normal" links.
Easy Free Links
31. Depending on your category and offer, you will find Craigslist to be a cheap or free classified service.
32. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Yahoo! Answers and provide links to relevant resources.
33. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Google Groups and provide links to relevant resources.
34. If you run a fairly reputable company, create a page about it in the Wikipedia or in topic specific wikis. If it is hard to list your site directly, try to add links to other pages that link to your site.
35. It takes about 15 minutes to set up a topical Squidoo page, which you can use to look like an industry expert. Link to expert documents and popular useful tools in your fields, and also create a link back to your site.
36. Submit a story to Digg that links to an article on your site. You can also submit other content and have some of its link authority flow back to your profile page.
37. If you publish an RSS feed and your content is useful and regularly updated, some people will syndicate your RSS content (and some of those will provide links… unfortunately, some will not).
38. Most forums allow members to leave signature links or personal profile links. If you make quality contributions some people will follow these links and potentially read your site, link at your site, and/or buy your products.
Have a Big Heart for Reviews
39. Most brands are not well established online, so if your site has much authority, your review related content often ranks well.
40. Review relevant products on Amazon.com. We have seen this draw in direct customer enquiries and secondary links.
41. Create product lists on Amazon.com that review top products and also mention your background (LINK!).
42. Review related sites on Alexa to draw in related traffic streams.
43. Review products and services on shopping search engines like ePinions to help build your authority.
44. If you buy a product or service you really like and are good at leaving testimonials, many of those turn into links. Two testimonial writing tips — make them believable, and be specific where possible.
Blogs & the Blogosphere
45. Start a blog. Not just for the sake of having one. Post regularly and post great content. Good execution is what gets the links.
46. Link to other blogs from your blog. Outbound links are one of the cheapest forms of marketing available. Many bloggers also track who is linking to them or where their traffic comes from, so linking to them is an easy way to get noticed by some of them.
47. Comment on other blogs. Most of these comments will not provide much direct search engine value, but if your comments are useful, insightful, and relevant they can drive direct traffic. They also help make the other bloggers become aware of you, and they may start reading your blog and/or linking to it.
48. Technorati tag pages rank well in Yahoo! and MSN, and to a lesser extent in Google. Even if your blog is fairly new you can have your posts featured on the Technorati tag pages by tagging your posts with relevant tags.
49. If you create a blog make sure you list it in a few of the best blog directories.
Design as a Linking Element
50. Web 2.0-ify your site. People love to link to anything with AJAX. Even in the narrowest of niches, there is some kind of useful functionality you can build with AJAX.
51. Validate and 508 your site. This (indirect) method makes your site more trustworthy and linkable, especially from governmental sites or design-oriented communities. There are even a few authoritative directories of standards-compliant sites.
52. Order a beautiful CSS redesign. A nice design can get links from sites like CSS Vault.
Hire Help
53. Hire a publicist. Good old fashioned 'PR' (not PageRank) can still work wonders. Andy Hagans now offers a link baiting publicity service.
54. Hire a consultant. Yes, you can outsource link building. Just make sure to go with someone good. We recommend WeBuildPages, Debra Mastaler and, ahem, Andy Hagans.
Link Trading
55. Swap some links. What?! Did we really just recommend reciprocal link building? Yes, on a small scale, and with relevant partners that will send you traffic. Stay away from the link trading hubs and networks.
56. In case you didn't get the memo — when swapping links, try to get links from within the content of relevant content pages. Do not try to get links from pages that list hundreds of off topic link partners. Only seek link exchanges that you would consider pursuing even if search engines did not exist. Instead of thinking just about your topic when exchanging links, think about demographic audience sets.
Buying Sites, Renting Links & Advertisements
57. Rent some high quality links from a broker. Text Link Ads is the most reputable firm in this niche.
58. Rent some high quality links directly from Web sites. Sometimes the most powerful rented links come direct from sites not actively renting links.
59. Become a sponsor. All sorts of charities, contests, and conferences link to their sponsors. This can be a great way to gain visibility, links, and a warm feeling in your heart.
60. Sell items on eBay and offer to donate the profits to a charity. Many charities will link both to the eBay auction and to your site.
61. Many search algorithms seem biased toward older established sites. It may be faster to buy an old site with a strong link profile, and link it to your own site, than to try to start building authority links from scratch.
Use the Courts (Proceed with Caution)
62. Sue Google.
63. Get sued by a company people hate. When Aaron was sued by Traffic Power, he got hundreds or thousands of links, including links from sites like Wired and The Wall Street Journal.
Freebies & Giveaways
64. Hold a contest. Contests make great link bait. A few-hundred-dollar prize can result in thousands of dollars worth of editorial quality links. Enough said.
65. Build a tool collection. Original and useful tools (and collections of tools) get a lot of link love. What do you think ranking for mortgage calculator is worth?
66. Create and release open source site design templates for content management systems like Wordpress. Don't forget the "Designed by example.com" bit in the footer!
67. Offer free samples in exchange for feedback.
68. Release a Firefox extension. Make sure you have a download and/or support page on your site which people can link to.
Conferences & Social Interaction
69. It is easy to take pictures of important events and tell narratives about why they are important. Pictures of (drunk?) "celebrities" in your industry make great link bait.
70. Leverage new real world relationships into linking relationships. If you go to SEO related conferences, people like Tim Mayer, Matt Cutts, and Danny Sullivan are readily accessible. Similarly, in other industries, people who would normally seem inaccessible are exceptionally accessible at trade conferences. It is much easier to seem "real" in person. Once you create social relationships in person, it is easy to extend that onto the web.
71. Engaging, useful, and interesting interviews are an easy way to create original content. And they spread like wildfire.
For more info please contact
Bosscher Design
http://www.bosscherdesign.com
Monday, January 25, 2010
Web and Graphic Design for Small Business
We all would like to land that "BIG" client to pay our entire salary for a year, but if we are all honest the majority of our business comes from the smaller business owners. As such, I think we as web and graphic designers, should show special appreciation for these people. I live and work near the Detroit, MI area.. more specifically Brighton-Howell, MI. I'm finding that even in a down economy, people are investing in the future of their companies. Small business owners and ever new start up companies are coming to Bosscher Design with new projects. Working in the web and graphic design field for over eight years now, I'm continuing to see a gradual up-tick in work every year, regardless of economy. I think small business is finally seeing that the internet is the future of their company and unless they have a presences online, they will soon disappear. But simply having a website that looks good is not enough anymore. You have to optimize it for SEO (search engine optimization). This includes things like page titles, keywords, key descriptions, and page names. When these things are working correctly, a finely tuned site can draw in customers and bring in business. The SEO work pervasively mentioned however, is only 25% of what makes your website get noticed. The other 75% is don off-page, through blogs like this, facebook, twitter and other social media outlets. Gaining links that point to your site are maybe the most important aspect of SEO. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me http://www.bosscherdesign.com.
Thanks so much
Dustin Bosscher
Creative Direction
Bosscher Design
517-518-2415
dustin@bosscherdesign.com
Thanks so much
Dustin Bosscher
Creative Direction
Bosscher Design
517-518-2415
dustin@bosscherdesign.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
