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Is There a Marketing Baboon Loose in Your Neighborhood?

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

The big news in Saint Louis today is that there appears to be a baboon on the loose.

But what’s worse than a monkey running around your back yard? A business owner that is letting monkeys market his business.
Get that monkey out of your neighborhood!
Don’t let some monkey run your marketing campaign, telling you that you need to be on the radio, on billboards or even on the side of the Metro.  Where you need to be is on page one of Google for your main search term.

And there’s only one guy in Saint Louis that can do that – me.

I’m the number one SEO in Saint Louis (Search Engine Optimization) guy for a reason – because I get your business to the top of Google, Yahoo!, Bing and many other search engines.

Don’t waste any more money on untargeted shotgun marketing schemes.  Get that monkey out of your neighborhood and hire someone that can get you targeted traffic that’s ready to buy.

Posted in St Louis, funny, local marketing, site ranking, small business, trending | No Responses »

Free Internet Marketing Classes

Monday, August 9th, 2010

This Fall I’ll again be teaching a set of Internet Marketing classes at the Jefferson County Library, Arnold MO branch.  There are two topics this fall – Marketing Your Business Website (SEO) and Leveraging Twitter & Facebook for Business.

Registration is required for the free classes, and priority will be given to Jefferson County residents.  These classes always fill up so make sure you get yourself on the list early.

To sign up, call 636-296-5171

Note: Attendees to the September classes will receive a promo code for discounted tickets to Market Saint Louis in October!

Class Dates and Times

Title: Marketing Your Business Website
Summary: Learn how to revive a “dead” website. Topics covered include Search Engine Optimization (SEO), online advertising tips and avenues, along with ways to increase your website traffic and offline marketing ideas.
Dates/Times: Sept 23 at 6PM and Oct 15 at 9:30AM

Title: Leverage Twitter & Facebook for Business
Summary: In this class you’ll learn how to set up a Twitter account and Facebook fan page. You’ll learn about some great tools that will help you grow your fanbase, engage your customers, and how to utilize some ‘behind the scenes’ tricks to get the most out of your new accounts.
Dates/Times: Sept 9 at 9:30AM and Oct 20 at 6PM

Download and Print the Flyer

Posted in Marketing, Saint Louis, free stuff, small business | 1 Response »

Traffic From Misspelled Domains

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

On most SEO-related blogs, you’re usually served with worn out, used up tips.  By the time you hear about the things that really make a website pop, or some newfound traffic method, they’re out of date.  This makes sense, I mean, when John Smith SEO finds out about some great traffic generator or tweak, he’d be hesitant to tell anyone as long as it worked.  Once he saw a significant decrease in traffic from the technique, he’d gladly publish it to the masses and make himself sound like a great expert.

But today I’m going to tell you about a tip that you can take advantage of today, and it’ll help you today.  But first, a little background in domain kiting. Click to continue »

Posted in domain names, traffic | 2 Responses »
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Your Hosting Company Can Affect Your Rankings

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

Recently I picked up an SEO client which has a pretty good web presence, a nice domain name and a great product.  But when you searched for their brand, they were no where to be found.

After doing a little research, I discovered that they were using a hosting company that was based out of Canada, giving them a Canadian IP address for their domain. Ouch.
Click to continue »

Posted in hosting, site ranking | No Responses »

A Selfish Social Media Experiment

Monday, July 12th, 2010

Social media is, well, social.  Taking a group of people that have (somewhat) common interests and sharing information about them helps everything grow – business, social life, confidence, awareness and much more.

Today I’d like to take advantage of my social circle for purely personal reasons.  Our oldest son Rian is a senior this coming year.  He’s getting his ducks in a row for the after school life, but for now we”ve got lots to focus on, including things like class ring, senior trip and photos.

That last one is what I’d like my social circle to help me with.  You see, a local St. Louis Photographer named Holly McCaig is conducting a sort of similar social media experiment of her own.  She’s giving away a $2700+ photo package to a senior this year.  That senior has to submit a non-professional photo and then the fans vote on the winner.  It’s called the Hottie Contest.  And I’d like your help to get my son to win.

How You Can Help Rian Win in Just Two Clicks

Here are the steps to help – there are just two.

  1. First you must Like the Holly McCaig Photography page on Facebook.  Don’t worry, once the contest is over you can always unlike it – but please don’t unlike it until after the contest is over!
  2. Second you need to Like Rian’s photo in her contest album.  His pic is the last one, he’s sitting on our back deck and has a black shirt with stuff on it.  Scroll to the bottom of the page with his pic and click the Like button.

That’s it – I really appreciate your help and hope that the social world pulls through for a winner!

Posted in contests, social media | No Responses »

Flip Your Own Site

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

There’s a growing movement out there based on flipping websites. It’s very similar to flipping a house, but with virtual real estate. The process is similar to a house, too – buy low, fix it up, sell for a profit. Flippa is doing a great job of catering to this group of ‘flippers’ and sometimes has some really great deals if you pay attention.

I’ve dabbled in the flipping world, but in a reverse kind of way – I’m flipping my own sites.
Click to continue »

Posted in flipping, money | 4 Responses »
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The Bad Decision: A Parable

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

This story was inspired by a recent broadcast on WMR with Dave Naylor, one of the industry’s well known and most vocal SEOs.  My good friend Russ told me about it, and after hearing it I just had to write a parable based on Dave’s comments.

Joe Starts a Business

Once upon a time there was a man who lost his job.  Because of the economy and his go-getter attitude, Joe decided to start his own company. Joe was eager to get his new business going, and a big component of it would be online.  So Joe went to his favorite search engine and typed in something like ‘buy my .com‘ and minutes later he had registered his business name’s .com address.  During the checkout process, he was offered a few other things, including .net, .org and .info extensions for his business.  He figured the .com was the only one worth having, so he didn’t get the others.
Click to continue »

Posted in SEO, competition, domain names | 1 Response »

Reading Roundup

Friday, June 11th, 2010

Haven’t had a lot of time this week for blogging, which I suppose is a good thing.  Business is really picking up, which definitely is a good thing.  So I figured I’d at least share a few things I read this week that interested me.

roundup lassoHow to Build Your Personal Brand
This is a topic near to my heart right now. I’ve been fighting an internal battle with myself over branding – trying to decide which way to go, etc.  I’m a big Inc. magazine fan anyway, so this article came at just the right time.

How To Convert Blog Readers To Paying Customers
Dave Navarro takes on the topic of getting your readers to take action in this great article on ProBlogger.  I’ve got a pretty new site that’s hitting some really nice traffic already, and this advice comes at a good time as well.

How a 3 Month Old Website Received 958,373 Visits From Google
Glen over at ViperChill always has very informative posts.  They’re long and detailed, and the guy is banking so I tend to listen to what he’s got to say.  He’s one of the few people that realize that sharing some of the things he does isn’t going to end up killing his revenue – it makes him a subject matter expert.  And that’s what you should be doing as well.  Anyway, check out this great writeup on getting some huge traffic numbers.

Using Content Marketing To Make Sales and Eliminate Puffery
My good friend and content marketing guru Russ Henneberry talks about tooting your own horn too often online.  Instead of just saying you’ve got the best widget, go ahead and add content to your site that proves it.  Good stuff.

Will Twitter’s New URL Shortener Hurt SEOs?
Barry Schwartz covers Twitter’s new URL shortener and how it could possibly affect some of your SEO efforts, particularly if you’re using your own URL shortener as well.

Posted in blogging | No Responses »

Eight Reasons Why Your Website is Crap

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

A few years ago I heard a quote, supposedly by Bill Gates:

Soon there will be two types of businesses, those online and those out of business.

While I’m not sure if the quote ever really came from him, the premise of the statement is definitely true.  And even years later, only a staggering 40% of small businesses in the US have websites.

Of that 40%, a good chunk of those websites are stale or dead.  They heard that they needed to be online, and rushed to get online, but had no strategy or planning about why they should be online.  They just knew they had to be there.  And after a few years of their website sitting there doing nothing, they’ve most likely abandoned what little hope they had about the Internet, when actually now is when they should be actively pursuing climbing the rankings and dominating the ever-growing online segment of their industry.
Click to continue »

Posted in SEO, blogging, small business, traffic | 1 Response »
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Microsites & Micropages

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Earlier this week I met with a potential client who sold personalized gifts.  He’s got a really terrific product line, something that I’ve never seen anywhere else.  In fact, I’m probably going to get me a Tshirt next week, even if he doesn’t hire me.  It’s that cool.

During the meeting, he was telling me how he had control over each page footer, how he could build out each footer to be different, link to different pages, etc.  That’s cool, could help with his internal linking.

But then he started telling me how he could build different pages for slightly different terms, and them link them through the footer, thus creating an entire network of pages.  For instance: Mother’s Day
Click to continue »

Posted in SEO, niches, site ranking | 2 Responses »
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