Recently, I created a blog strategy for a client that I thought was really pretty good.  Maybe a bit aggressive, but after reading Justin Kownacki’s post on “What I’ve Learned From Blogging Weekly Instead of Daily,” I thought that this strategy was pretty close to getting the sort of website traffic that I thought was needed to really make a difference.

It’s really pretty simple, as most things should be, and I know I don’t follow it myself, but as my parents told me several times, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  Let me know what you think or if you’ve created similar strategies.

Your Blog should have a purpose and strategy behind it to make sure that it works and doesn’t get blog rot.

Here are a couple questions to consider:

1. Why are we doing this?
   • because it’s fun?
   • to find business?
   • to show off our thought leadership?
   • increase customer engagement?
   • PR for media, news, social networking and other bloggers?
   • Improve search engine optimization?
   • Provide a way to disseminate information?
   • Recognize and promote employees, clients, partners, projects, etc.?
2. How will we know it’s successful. What metrics are we setting for ourselves?  Can we put numbers to this?
   • Analytics, increased traffic, time, pages, etc
   • Comments on blogs
   • Links to blog postings
   • Increased leads
   • SEO
   • Social Media mentions.

1. Purpose of the blog. The blog should show that you are a collection of experts that are not only knowledgeable in your respective fields, but excited about learning and sharing what you see, know, experience and demonstrate in your key business areas of expertise.

2. Solve a problem or identify a solved problem. This is somewhat related to number 1. Part of your strategy should be solving a problem, or another way to think about this is responding to issues from clients or to just find a way to be useful and relevant – with examples.

3. Be the Subject Matter Experts (SME). This will help determine your content strategy and help build your brand. Demonstrate what you’ve done and how it’s improved our success or our clients’ success.  Wave your own flag a bit.

4. Optimize our content for SEO. Do a bit more work to get the right titles and keywords for the post.  Find keywords that support the blog and the post.

5. Be honest, encourage 2 way conversations. Create content that is open and honest and is truly trying to offer solutions.  Give of yourselves without needing anything in return accept happy readers.

6. Monitor the world. Create searches on keyword or clients to watch what people are saying in the world.  Re-tweet, create a post about it or tell your client.  If there’s a client you’re trying to land, monitor what’s being said about them to find a way to respond. See Number 3 “Be the SME.”.

Some bullets on process:

• Address a business need
• Participate in other industry specific blogs, LinkedIn answers, business.com answers.  Guest post both ways whenever possible.
• Encourage online reviews of your work
• Be strategic not trendy
• Focus on long-term engagement, not a short term hit.
• Social media is NOT an experiment.  It is a proven, strategic, integrated part of your website.
• Test, Measure, Optimize, Repeat.
• Frequency: 1 major article per week, several supporting per week – create a schedule and trade off.
• Social connections.  Connect the blog to pre-determined set of social media outlets.  Don’t do all of them, but go deep in the ones we do.
• Take into account customers, competition, your Unique Value Proposition.

This is an interesting spam email I received yesterday that looked like it was from Twitter.

But, upon further examination, and something everyone should do BEFORE you click a link, is to hover over the link and see what appears.  You just might learn something the easy way.

Remember, always be careful what links you click on in your email.

So it’s been a while, but I did finally get my mail again.  It took almost a month and many phone calls, but the the good ol’ United States Post Office figured it out and started sending me mail again.  Phew.  I know it was something that many of you were concerned about, so thank you.  If it happens to any of you, now I know what to do and can help you out.  Basically, nothing.

More soon as I’m beginning to get active again.  It’s been too long.

Happy New Year!

As I look through log files for clients and potential clients, I’ve noticed some interesting trends.  First, the website traffic of companies without social media programs in their marketing plans generally have fairly random, but flat traffic.  And those that include social media planning in their marketing campaigns have increasing traffic with significant spikes around their marketing campaigns.

Some of you may be wondering what a Social Media Strategy is…  Well, from my point of view, it’s any way that you can start or add to a conversation with current or future clients.  Of course you all know about Twitter, Linked in and blogs (links are to my accounts, btw), but maybe you don’t know how to use them, or aren’t using them enough.   Here are some ideas:

Here are 6 ideas to develop a Social Media Strategy:

1. Find a way to start a conversation

   This can mean many things, but basically, it’s a way for you to find out what the world is saying and how you can participate in that conversation.  For instance, you could search Google trends for topics that relate to your business.  In this example, I’ve used the terms “toys.”  From this we can learn several things.

   A. People search on the term exponentially higher at the end of the year. (no surprise)
   B. Toys are big in the UK. (interesting)
   C. The top US city for Toys is Philadelphia. (interesting)

   You can also use the Wordtracker tool to learn what people are asking using your keyword, in this case, Toys:

   1	where can i get free toys for christmas	590
   2	where is the nearest toys r us store	566
   3	super why toys	296
   4	what are the top ten toys this year	249
   5	how to make wooden toys	241
   6	how much are my star wars toys worth	127

   What does this mean?  Well, this is when we get into local search where you can focus your marketing efforts by location, keyword and actual, user questions.  For instance, if you’re giving away free toys for Christmas, then you should be answering that question on your website.

2. Start the conversation with a blog

   I’ve found the best, fastest and easiest way to get content out to the world is a blog.  Blogs are fairly easy to set up and maintain.  You can get free one or get one included with a basic hosting account many places.  If you already have a website that works well, than use this as an add-on to your website.  Do research and post regularly.  My advice is one really good, in depth article per week with several quick-hit articles during the week. (read mine at It’s all About the Conversation)

3. Get a Twitter account, even if you think it’s silly, it can’t hurt

   Twitter may not be for everyone and, unfortunately, it’s getting hurt by spammers and fake accounts, but it is still useful in many ways.  And with a recent $100 million in investment money, I expect it will get better.  And just because you have a twitter account, doesn’t mean you have to Tweet all the time.  Let your blog tweet for you, after all, that’s one of the many things it can do.  It will turn your blog entries into tweets so you don’t have to!  And, the best part is that all of your Tweets become search engine bait. So, get a Twitter account, start tweeting, search on Twitter trends to find more users similar to yours and then retweet their tweets too. (Follow me here)

4. Use Facebook more

   Of course you have a face book account already as most people do. While I typically keep my business contacts out of Facebook, I’ve found it’s nice to occasionally include what I’m doing in my status updates.  And again, this can be done automatically via your blog or twitter account. (If your a friend, friend me here)

5. Get a LinkedIn account

   LinkedIn is the professional version of Facebook and is pretty much business oriented. It’s a great place to list your business services and accomplishments.  It can also include your blog via a widget and has a status update that can be managed remotely.  It is also very search engine friendly. (If you’re a business contact, find me here)

6. Email Marketing is still key

   Email marketing still remains one of the best way to be in touch with your customers.  I know that I haven’t been great at it, but I am better at updating my blog and Twitter account.

The goal with all of this is to create a variety of avenues with which to distribute your message. Many of these can be tied together so you only have to update one and the rest get notified.  There are many other ways to get the word out, but these are the top performers and will get you more traffic, guaranteed.  If you have questions or ideas, please let me know.  I can also help to manage the process and submissions so you don’t need to worry about it.  Contact me for a free analysis.

• Apparently, Twitter is dead… or heading that way. Maybe, HOPEFULLY, the recent $100 Mil will fix some things… http://bit.ly/GkRpJ #
• Got IE 6 or 7 Still? Don't upgrade, get Chrome for Clunkers! – http://bit.ly/39FWTj #
• The Windows 7 Launch Party!!! Who's gonna do it? C'mon, don't be shy! http://bit.ly/QWopD #
• @PaulDunay Paul, I'd love to chat with you if you get a chance…. freshcurrent.com Thanks! in reply to PaulDunay #
• Only 1/2 the original Great Lakes Wetlands remain. GREAT online conservation presentation! http://bit.ly/bHDe0 #water #
• Another one of those time wasters for you…. http://bit.ly/4DrlD6 #
• RT @csmonitoronline: Do you really understand everything about climate change and global warming? http://bit.ly/4pis7X #
• Good info on URL shorteners… Via a URL shortener. http://bit.ly/hTZYz #csmonitoronline #
• First day of snow today! #
• Enjoying some organic Ethiopian form #BVRoastery.com… get some!! Congrats on the new location too! #
• Enjoying some organic Ethiopian form BVRoastery.com… get some!! Congrats on the new location too! #
• More companies are moving their marketing dollars from traditional to digital. Are you? http://bit.ly/41PSzo #
• The National Parks and Climate Change: The Canary in the Coal Mine – http://bit.ly/2W5qA – Go see them quickly! #
• RT @RickysRidge: Check out our new Epic Pass site- much improved and very cool http://bit.ly/24Ze2j – check out Vail.com too! Well Done! #
• If you're near Denver on 10/23 & 24, come 2 Telluride Mt. Film on Tour! Awesome films! Benefit 4 Alpine Rescue Team. http://bit.ly/akpa5 #
• Check out the composition of The Great Pacific Garbage Patch: http://bit.ly/1A3xLh "made up of billions of tiny pieces of plastic" #ick #
• Here's that time-waster you've been looking for… http://bit.ly/khiSv #
• @UnitedAirlines true in reply to UnitedAirlines #
• Will include the link too! – http://bit.ly/MRP40 #
• http://twitpic.com/hl742 – A really cool panorama of Loveland Pass using the new pano app. It's pretty wide, so hopefully you can see it … #
• Leaving Copper Mountain now. On my way to winter at the top of Vail pass. #
• Volunteering for a long time client coloradorelay.com. Sweeping the course in Frisco now just left Breckenridge, Copper Mountain next!! #
• Quick research poll. What do U use for task mgmt: Things, OmniFocus or Evernote? Something else? Why? DM or contact: http://bit.ly/YOwbM #
• RT @PaulDunay: A Social Media "How To" for Retailers http://bit.ly/yXeFX – Very interesting…. #
• RT @LenKendall: Oh ya. Tomorrow is 9 9 9 – The Beatles get released tomorrow! Will we see it on iTunes?? #
• http://bit.ly/18pIqr#mb Salesforce Launches Lightweight Contact Manager For Small Businesses – integrated with Google Apps, no less! #
• After posting about how bad affiliate marketers are and that they don't care about you, http://bit.ly/dqwoz , guess who follows me? #argh! #
• RT @tweetmeme 5 More Facebook, Twitter Scams to Avoid | The Industry Standard http://bit.ly/hjmPU – Update your FB privacy settings today. #
• RT @rww: Poll: Are Pilots a Waste of Time? http://bit.ly/2tJwIK – I like pilots, they keep the airplanes flying… Always a good thing. #
• What do facebook quizes know about you? Probably EVERYTHING – best to check your privacy settings… http://bit.ly/2XvUmN #
• 10 Twitter "don'ts" and 3 social media "don'ts" – http://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/worklife/08/24/cb.job.social.medial.pitfalls/ #
• is wishing I had the "Fiesta Trio" to play their little ditty for each of my successes! #
• Overheard client to developer @ coffee "I REALLY, REALLY hope this works!" What's wrong with this picture? Talk about confidence! Run! #
• Cool. Careful what you say, even when you blog anonymously… http://tr.im/wHzL #
• RT @justinpeacock: @mpeesel What if I follow you, *then* change my profile pic to one with a bikini? – Now THAT I'd like to see… #
• Seriously, if your profile pic is you in a bikini. Please don't follow me. #
• How Twitter might affect the movies you don't see. What will happen this weekend with "Inglourious Basterds?" http://tr.im/wGya #
• RT @0boy 15 Most Annoying Types of Twitter Users http://bit.ly/14bkJg – please don't tweet like this… #
• @TheRealPRMan Thanks for the great info! I'm a human and like your stuff! in reply to TheRealPRMan #
• Info on the great pacific garbage patch in the Pacific Gyre… http://bit.ly/EZRvw #
• #followfriday for GREAT info! @danschawbel @andybeal @adamcohen @MariSmith @TheRealPRMan @zen_habits #myfavorites, thank you! #
• Do you REALLY need to be a part of all 50? Seems quite excessive to me. I say pick 10 of the best and hit a home run. http://tr.im/wnu5 #
• Mexico just scored… 2-1 . bummer #
• Seth Godin (worth reposting) on how "Internet tribes give ordinary people the power to lead and make big change" http://tr.im/wi6j #
• Google's new search. Test it out now! http://tr.im/whYg #
• 19 Great Places to Find Tons of Social Media Case Studies & Examples – http://bit.ly/cTrjp #
• RT @zen_habits: The 10 Rock Solid Elements of Effective Online Marketing http://authorityrules.com/ #cool! #
• More on the Great Pacific Gyre "a soupy mix of plastic-filled seawater that stretches for maybe thousands of miles." #ugh http://tr.im/vwLJ #
• RT @socialnetandyou: "The power of social networking is finding a niche and building a community around it." #
• RT @MariSmith: Social Media Roadmap Boosts Small Business SEO http://ow.ly/iZxu [Excellent!! Go @LeeOdden!] #
• It's all about the conversation… http://tr.im/vrYt – http://tr.im/vs42 #
• @MarketingProfs – Social media is about the art of creating good content to support your conversation. It's all about the conversation. #
• RT @danschawbel: REPORT: 87% of adults questioned prefer human interaction over social networks http://tinyurl.com/m64fm8 #ditto. thx dan #

I was recently followed by an affiliate marketer from Australia claiming that she could “guarantee 25,000 followers in 90 days.”  There are 2 things wrong with this statement.

First, why do you want 25,000 followers?  Seriously, do you think they all really care what you have to say?   There is so much twitter spam out there and the real guarantee here is that your followers will be lousy.  Here’s a good summary from WebWorkerDaily.com describing the result of too many followers well.

How Auto-Gathered Followers Hurt You

There are services available that claim to increase your follower account automatically. These are a bad idea, however, because auto-gathering followers creates:

• Chaos and noise on your Twitter stream if part of the automated follower-building process you’ve adopted entails “auto-following back.” That reduces the value of your Twitter stream as a listening tool and information source.
• Followers who aren’t listening to what you have to say. That diminishes the value of marketing anything on Twitter and reduces the chance of being heard at all.
• Overinflated follower numbers, which are a turn-off for those looking to make meaningful connections. Many people use the “follow-to-follower ratio” as part of assessing someone’s “worth” on Twitter, as opposed to sheer number of followers. For example, if someone is following 48,895 people and has 46,975 followers, that looks suspiciously like they are fishing for followers rather than genuinely interested in interaction.
• Automated activity in your Twitter account that you don’t control.
• The possibility that your Twitter password gets into the hands of an untrusted third party.

And secondly, This person was guaranteeing 25,000 followers but only had 11,000 themselves!  If you’re gonna say you can do something for me, you netter be able to do it for yourself first.

My advice is to pick your followers carefully.  Don’t auto follow everyone. Then check out their twitter page first to see if you’re even interested in reading what they have to say.

A few rules I have for who I won’t follow.

1. Are their tweets boring?
2. Are all their tweets inside jokes?
3. Are all their tweets trying to get me to buy something form them that I know is gonna be too good to be true?
4. Do they cuss?
5. Is your profile picture a picture of you barely in a bikini?

Basically, if they offer something I’m interested in and will benefit from, I’ll follow them.  Likewise, I try to have my tweets offer some good information that I hope someone will benefit from.  If you aren’t interested in what I have to say, I hope you don’t follow me either.

Currently, I’m following 149 people and that’s almost too many.  Fortunately, there’s only about 10 of them who post regularly that I’m interested in.  Otherwise, it’d be too much to follow.

So, If you like what I have to say, follow me at twitter.com/mpeesel, don’t worry, I don’t tweet too often.

PS.  While researching this article, I found a great article in a blog that I’d never seen before talking about how bad thousands of followers were and the bad tactics affiliate marketers….  It sounded great until I checked his twitter account and found it was FULL of affiliate marketing links for making quick money, losing quick weight and more.

I now have a number 6 on my list: People who send inconsistent messages and don’t practice what they preach.

Yesterday I was in a local coffee shop in Evergreen, Colorado getting some focused work done.  I go to coffee shops somewhat regularly because I can plug in my headphones and really focus on getting some work done away from the phone (I turn my email off too!).  I went again today because I needed a couple hours to put together a new program I’ve been working on called SEO Readiness for the Small Business Website.  But that’s info for another post (coming soon).

Anyway, yesterday I happened to pull my headphones out and noticed 2 women at the table next to me talking about building a website for what appeared to be this woman’s greeting card business.   I didn’t hear much and I wasn’t trying to listen too hard, but as they ended the meeting I heard the client say “I REALLY, REALLY hope this works!”

hm.

My first thought was what did this web developer tell her client to make her doubt her abilities?  How could she part with her client and leave her doubting?  Definitely not the way to end a client meeting.

My second thought on this was to be grateful for the almost 15 years I’ve been in the internet marketing world and the knowledge I’ve gained.  When I’m in a client meeting, it’s not over until ALL of their doubts have been addressed and are gone (and I can talk a LONG time).  I never hold anything back; if you have a question, I’ll tell you everything I know about it.  In this case, the client had a doubt and she did her job by telling the web developer, but the web developer either missed it, or ignored it and failed.  I only wish I knew who they were so I could see what transpires.

Remember, it’s all about the conversation…

• 43 weird things said in job interviews – http://tr.im/tx5I A great 5 minute time waster… #FUNNY #
• RT @danschawbel: NEWS: Facebook Relents, Lets You Change Your Username http://bit.ly/arqjx – but it has to be 5 characters or more. #fail #

• A fun list of 15 Ways to Promote Your Blog Offline – http://tr.im/sixn #
• Good info re link building. http://tr.im/slXw "If you start thinking about not getting caught, you're probably doing things you shouldn't be #
• A good list of 5 twitter practices for the new Twitter user, or reminders for the experienced user. http://tr.im/sv9j #
• WAY cool Apollo 11 relaunch website! http://wechoosethemoon.org/ #
• RT @Mike_Stelzner: I noticed I just lost about 400 followers in last few mins? Maybe spammers were zapped? – I lost some too. good @mpeesel #
• Wordtracker FireFox plug in to find good, usable keywords in your blog, as you blog. #prettycool http://tr.im/sP0R #
• Wood Starch in Organic Cheese? Great read about what "organic" means from our friends @bvroastery http://tr.im/sPk6 #organic #followfriday #

Here are 6 of the most simple things you should do to market your product or service on the internet.  It’s amazing how many people I come across that don’t do these.  These aren’t the hard to do and don’t take a big commitment like blogging, twitter, pay per click or even the full blown search engine optimization campaigns.  I’d call these the low hanging fruit to get you started.

1. Email Signature. Always, always make sure that your signature has your name, company name, address, phone number, email address and maybe fax number and tag line. Many times I get emails from people with no signature information.  It makes it hard to call them back right away and then I need to ask for their phone number.   Also, when I save their email address to my address book, if they have footer info, it will automatically save that to my address book too.  As a bonus, if anyone prints or forwards your email, your info is right there.
2. Footer info on your website. Always make sure that every page of your website has your same signature information in the footer.  Since you can optimize every page for search engines, this helps you optimize the page and identifies you right away for people who don’t hit your home page first.  Also helps when users print your pages or forward your links.
3. Title tags. Use appropriate and different title tags on all of the pages in your website.   This should be very simple to do and will be the most effective thing you can do to optimize your website.  Title tags are arguably the most important location for your keywords.
4. The rest of your content. Take a couple hours and re-write the rest of your content and meta description on each page (or pick your 10 most popular pages).  If your site isn’t too big, it shouldn’t take long.  Focus each page on your keywords, but be sure not to overuse them.  Write casually and conversationally.
5. Links to your website. Be the subject matter expert.  Surf around, find other blogs that discuss things you have knowledge about and share that knowledge in the form of replies.  Be sure to include your URL in your signature (see number 1).  Also, ask your friends and anyone you know with a website to see i they’d link to you and link to them also.  I’d stay away from the “free link exchanges” as they can tend to reduce the credibility of your site.
6. Submit yourself. Lastly, go to google.com/addurl and add your url to Google yourself.  It only takes a minute.  But only do it once…

These are all pretty easy things to do and you shouldn’t need to spend any money to do it – just a bit of time.  But it’s time that could be very well worth it.   Let me know if you have any ideas, questions or thoughts on this.

Here’s another good list here from ProBlogger.