- Why Don’t All Restaurants Use Twitter? - “At Least Half Were There Because of Twitter”
- Adding Custom Default Gravatars to Your Blog - Not Your Typical Gravatar
- The Troubles of Crowdsourcing - How do You Keep a Secret?
- 47 Outrageous Viral Marketing Examples - A Decade Worth of Fakes, Faux-Pas and Oh No’s
- Intersection of Search and Social Media - Forward Thinking Companies Are Investing in Social Media
>>>>> Internet Marketing Blog
SEO Daily Reading - Issue 151
June 29th, 2009 by Lee Smith-BryanLink Building and Link Management Update
June 22nd, 2009 by Jon HenshawRaven just launched a major upgrade to our link management system. It includes an update to the Link Manager, Website Directory, and the addition of a new Contact / Lead Manager for link building.
Improved Website Directory
The Website Directory is now faster and more informative. It includes a much bigger website snapshot and lists any links, contacts or tasks associated with it.
Smarter Add Link Form
Adding a new link via the updated Raven Firefox Toolbar is now a lot smarter. If you’ve created a link record for a website before, and then attempt to add a link to the same website, Raven will ask you if you want to create a new link or use an existing link record. This feature is perfect for links that were saved with the status of Queue or Requested, but have since then become Active.
New Contact / Lead Manager
There’s now a Contact Manager that can help you better manage relationships with website owners and editors.
Watch the Video
Coming Very, Very Soon!!!
We’re almost finished completely rewriting the Reporting system. It will include:
- Unified Template Style
- Cover Sheet, Table of Contents, and Custom Summary Page
- Reports for All Major Tools
- An Amazing Report Wizard for Creating Custom, Branded PDF Reports
White Labeling and Google Analytics integration is also right around the corner. The next several weeks are going to be very exciting.
SEO Daily Reading - Issue 150
June 18th, 2009 by Lee Smith-Bryan- Strategic Link Building for SEO - Are You Doing the Hamster in a Cage Thing?
- Big Geo Problems Still Exist in Google UK SERPs - US Companies Ranking for UK Search Terms
- Build Brand Buzz Through Contest Through Contest Marketing - Links should NOT be the end goal of your contest
- How to Invalidate Wikipedia Articles - Know the Rules for an Overall Strategic Win
- Impacts of the Era of Social Colonization - Every Webpage to be Social
SERP Tracker API Now Available
June 16th, 2009 by Jon HenshawWe’ve been testing the SERP Tracker API for quite some time. We’re excited to announce that it’s finally available for all Raven users. The API will enable developers to incorporate SERP tracking into their own applications.
The API allows you to add and remove keywords, and retrieve rank results. API keys are unique for each Profile in Raven, so you will need to generate a new API key for each Profile.
In order to access the API, you must be an account owner or sub-user with Admin rights. To create an API key, visit the Profile Dashboard page and click on the Get API Key link at the bottom of the page. When you click on it, it will generate a new key and also reveal links to the API documentation and API testing tool.
SEO Daily Reading - Issue 149
June 16th, 2009 by Lee Smith-Bryan- Page Rank Sculpting Change - Matt Cutts Says “It’s Been Live for a Year”
- PageRank Sculpting is Dead! - Long Live PageRank Sculpting!
- Yes You Can Still Sculpt PageRank - No, You Can’t Do It With NoFollow
- NoFollow Change - Why Life Just Got Tougher for Niche Sites
- Expert SEO Testing - Usually Worthless
SEO Daily Reading - Issue 148
June 15th, 2009 by Lee Smith-BryanIt’s been too long since we did one of these, so time to rectify that small misnomer.
- Yahoo! Announces Common Tag - Like The Meta Keywords Tag, But Even Better
- How to Change Your Domain Name - And Still Keep Your Search Engine Ranking
- Your Content Should Educate, Engage, Entertain and Entice - The Four E’s of Quality SEO Copywriting
- The One Hundred Most Mentioned Brands on Twitter - But Are They Part of the Conversation?
- Google’s New Review Search Option and Sentiment Analysis - All Sentiments are not Equal
Stickers Are Great for Internet Marketing
June 11th, 2009 by Jon HenshawWhile most Internet marketers stick to online methods for promoting websites, there are still some offline methods that work well. T-shirts — if you do them well and give them away — can make a big impact with target audiences. The only problem with t-shirts is that they’re expensive to make and distribute.
That’s where stickers come in. People love stickers! They like to put them on their vehicles, laptops and pretty much wherever they can stick them. Stickers are also easy to distribute. Here’s just a few ways you can give away stickers:
- Conferences or Local Meetups
- Postal Mail (either with a package or with a simple thank you note to a customer)
- Retail Outlets (leave stacks on a store counter — with permission of course)
- Social Networks (see item 2 for delivery)
Although I’ve used a few online sticker printing services, one of my favorite companies is PsPrint. Their prices are competitive and the quality of their stickers are excellent. I recently received an order for Raven laptop stickers and couldn’t be more pleased (that’s the main reason why I decided to write this entry.) Another nice thing about PsPrint is that they give a 30% discount for first time customers (with a maximum discount of $200.) However, to get that discount you’ll have to use the promo code blogger.
If you’re looking for an affordable and effective way to promote a website offline, you should seriously consider making stickers. Make sure you have an aesthetically pleasing or clever design (which may include the need to hire a talented graphic designer.) Then go and get them printed and distribute the crap out of them!
Check Readability & Keyword Relevance with the Content Analyzer
June 9th, 2009 by Jon HenshawAn old R&D project has finally seen the light of day. We had played around with copy analysis a long time ago, but got distracted with some other features we wanted to work on for Raven. Yesterday afternoon we stumbled upon this feature and decided to clean it up and push it live. We hope you like it and look forward to getting your feedback on it so we can make it better in the future.
This video will show you how to use the new analysis feature in the Content Manager.
Webisode 1: Using Raven In a Marketing Agency
May 19th, 2009 by Jon HenshawThis first webisode kicks off JLB’s effort to redesign their client’s website to be search engine friendly and to lay the groundwork for their upcoming brand management and social media marketing campaign.
Each webisode in this series will focus on how Raven can be used by marketing agencies to optimize their client’s websites and successfully market it online.
The Facebook Vanity URL Fiasco
June 10th, 2009 by Taylor PrattAt the stroke of midnight on Friday, June 12 (technically Saturday at 12:01 AM EST), geeks all around the world will frantically login to Facebook with the attempt to land as many great vanity URLs as they can. Unsuspecting businesses around the world will think they have nothing to fear. Or do they?
There is an enormous flaw with the Facebook vanity URL registration. If you intend to register your company’s vanity URL, there is a very good chance you won’t be able to. Unless your company had a Facebook page setup prior to May 31, 2009 AND has at least 1,000 fans, you will not be eligible to claim your vanity URL during the first round of registration (the second round begins June 28, 2009).
On the flipside, if you are Joe Schmoe with a dummy profile account, you can grab that same company vanity URL, no questions asked. Unless a company has registered with Facebook to prevent the registration of their business name, the vanity URL is up for grabs. Facebook of course made it so you can’t fill out their prevention ticket, unless they provided you with a registration number to do so. I know what you’re thinking, “I’ll just have my company signup for a Facebook profile and grab it.” Wrong. Facebook does not allow companies to setup profiles, only pages. And that is where this horrible fiasco will begin.
Thousands of great brand names will be available for users to grab, because so few companies actually have over 1,000 fans. And what about the companies that have over a dozen Facebook pages setup by fans that have exceeded the 1,000 fan requirement? Take Audi, for example. There are 8 Audi Facebook pages eligible to register the vanity URL /audi/. What happens if it is a “hate” account? Twilight has a fan page called “Twilight Sucks” with over 3,000 fans. They are going to be eligible to grab the vanity URL for Twilight because they meet all of Facebook’s requirements.
Although Facebook says vanity URLs are permanent and can’t be transfered, they do reserve the right to remove the vanity URL from you. There are always loop holes, of course. Take a company like SAS for example. You could create a Facebook profile with the name Sarah Ann Stevens and claim the vanity URL /sas/. It would be hard for SAS to make a valid claim to Facebook when the person who registered it was only using their initials. And just like that a Fortune 500 company vanity URL is gone.
Your last line of defense is to fill out an Intellectual Property Infringement claim. We all know how big of a pain it is to reclaim Twitter accounts, do you really think Facebook will be any better?
Update: The registration number is your registered trademark number. My SAS example is invalid b/c the URL must be five characters long.
Taylor Pratt is a Search Marketing Specialist at nFusion. You can follow him on Twitter.
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