www.strategicconcepts-ca.com » virtual incentives

Blog and Boost Your Search Engine and RSS Traffic

info — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:15:40 +0000

One of the more recent secrets people are using to get their websites in the search engines, the last couple of years, is with Blogs. Blogs are short for web logs and are like daily dairies on the web.

Blogs started out as ways for Internet reality types to share their lives with other people on the web, without having to learn very complicated web design applications like Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage.

Dreamweaver, the standard professional web design program takes a least 6 months to master.Ê While FrontPage on the other hand looks a lot like Microsoft Word, and therefore can be used a bit more quickly by people just starting out.

Blogs are much easier to use than any web design software. They can be used to change web content from a browser, email, and even simple desk top software. Blogs are web pages created with automated software that date stamps all changes to content. One of the secrets the web marketers use to get their new websites into the major search engines like (Google – Yahoo! and MSN) is called blog and ping. So many Internet fortunes are being built on this simple technique.

If you want your new website to be indexed (or included in the search engine database) you shouldn’t submit it to the search engines — instead you should blog and ping. There is a new feature with Google and Yahoo! known as sitemaps, which will also get your site indexed, but most of us will do fine with learning first to blog and ping.Ê

Blogs index and file your web pages automatically according to the way you specify in advance.

Google loves blogs and has its own web based application called Blogger. You can set up a Blogger account for free at Blogger.com.

You should use Blogs for your business to give updates to your customers and supporters every few days on your company’s news or inside information. You can also reflect on industry trends with your business blog.

What’s nice about blogs if you want to get your site in the search engines or keep the search engines up to date with your latest optimization or content efforts.Ê You can post your new website or page to your blog page and link to that page.

The search engines will visit the blog page more frequently and index your new pages or web sites some times in a day or two. Also make sure when you post a new blog in Blogger.com you set up your account to ping (or notify) the other major blog directories that your blog has been updated.

Or if you want to get your new site into Google go to a high ranked blog listed in Google. If the Blog allows comments give a good comment on the blog. Then link back to the page you want indexed in the Blog.

Make sure you give a worth while or useful comment or it will be considered blog spam by the website administrators. Sometimes blog publishers disable the comment feature for this reason, therefore it is important to have your own blogs especially if you have more than one site.

Ê This will get the Google spider to index your new sites or web pages within a few days and consider your site for its database given the criteria of its algorithm.

If you are looking for a fast, inexpensive and efficient way to build a lot of content on your site, which the search engines will pick up, go to Blogger and open up a free blogging account and join the blogosphere.

The Love Affair between the Search Engines, Blogs and RSS

I have been extolling the SEO benefits of Blogs since almost two years ago. Although blogs and search engines don’t seem to enjoy the free for all love affair they once had, the search engines and blogs seem to still be married “for better or for worst”. The romance and infatuation phase between search engines and blogs has waned because of blog spam. However search engines dare not divorce blogs because they tend to cook up regularly updated content.

Blogs are also search engine friendly in design. As publishers we love blogs because it is an easy way for us to update our sites with new content.

Many top marketers are extolling about the power of blogs and their natural extension RSS feeds. Almost every successful Internet Marketers today is using some variation of blogs and RSS feeds.

Everywhere you go the web gurus are talking about the great upside potential of blogs and RSS.Ê RSS for the purpose of discussing this issue stands for Really Simple Syndication. RSS is presently being used by Internet marketers to share their blog headlines with websites and desktops all over the world. Think of RSS as giving you the ability to blog without boundaries.

People on other websites and with downloadable RSS newsreader software can read your newest blog posts without visiting your site. Sites that value your expertise will in a viral fashion feature your RSS feeds and help generate traffic to your site. This allows you to leverage traffic from other peoples sites who feature your blog.Ê Moreover, your subscribers who read your RSS headlines on their desktop software will avoid email filters. Before you explore or upgrade to RSS marketing experiment with desktop newsreaders like Tristana or News Gator. If you prefer to read RSS from your browser download and install Mozilla’s FireFox Browser.

RSS feeds will be the next phase in Internet marketing following the search engines, email marketing, affiliate marketing, and joint ventures.

By having people subscribe to your blog’s RSS feeds, or having them syndicated on other people’s websites you will be getting a running start on the explosion in blog and RSS marketing once Internet Explorer integrates RSS into its browser.

Kamau Austin Helps Small Businesses make more money by using search engines as marketing and sales channels to increase their business. He also publishes www.eInfoNEWS.com. For more search engine news visit His New Jersey based site www.SearchEnginePlan.com

The Key to Charisma – By Brian Tracy

info — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:38:03 +0000

There is a close association between personal charisma and success in life. Probably 85 percent of your success and happiness will come from your relationships and interactions with others. The more positively others respond to you, the easier it will be for you to get the things you want.

The Law of Attraction
In essence, when we discuss charisma, we are talking about the law of attraction. This law has been stated in many different ways down through the centuries, but it basically says that you inevitably attract into your life the people and circumstances that harmonize with your dominant thoughts.

You Are A Living Magnet
In a sense, you are a living magnet, and you are constantly radiating thought waves, like a radio station radiates sound waves, that are picked up by other people. Your thoughts, intensified by your emotions, as radio waves are intensified by electric impulses, go out from you and are picked up by anyone who is tuned in to a similar wavelength. You then attract into your life people, ideas, opportunities, resources, circumstances and anything else that is consistent with your dominant frame of mind.

The law of attraction also explains how you can build up your levels of charisma so that you can have a greater and more positive impact on the people whose cooperation, support and affection you desire.

Perception is Everything
The critical thing to remember about charisma is that it is largely based on perception. It is based on what people think about you. It is not so much reality as it is what people perceive you to be. For example, one person can create charisma in another person by speaking in glowing terms about that person to a third party. If you believe that you are about to meet an outstanding and important person, that person will tend to have charisma for you.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta
One of the most charismatic people in the world was Mother Teresa of Calcutta. In a physical sense, she was a quiet, elderly, frail woman in poor health, and she wore a modest nun’s habit. She might have been ignored by a person passing her on the street, were it not for the tremendous charisma she developed and for the fact that her appearance was so well-known to so many people as a result.

How Would You Feel?
If someone told you that he was going to introduce you to a brilliant, self-made millionaire who was very quiet and unassuming about his success, you would almost naturally imbue that person with charisma, and in his presence, you would not act the same as you would if you had been told nothing at all. Charisma begins largely in the mind of the beholder.

Lasting charisma depends more upon the person you really are than upon just the things you do.

Continually look for ways to improve other’s perceptions of you so that you can be more influential with them. Be a living magnet.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, be clear about the messages you are sending and the perceptions you are creating in others. Are these perceptions consistent with the impressions you want to make?

Second, see yourself and imagine yourself every day as an important powerful and charming person. Treat others as you would if you were already strong, famous and influential.

Fake it until you make it!

Virtual Enterprise and Virtual Business…

info — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:30:22 +0000

Virtual Enterprise and Virtual Business… The same? No! The perfect match? Yes! Teacher Combines Virtual Worlds

Christine Stroh teaches about business plans as part of her entrepreneurship class. Before Christine was introduced to Virtual Business, she would use lecturing and a book to teach the business plan concept. She then would have the students create their own business plans for a business of their choosing. However, she then had a classroom of students asking questions about a multitude of businesses that she could not answer. “We couldn’t even get a discussion started about a business plan because everyone had different questions and comments based on the business they were studying. It was absolutely insane,” states Christine.This confusion caused Christine to change the way she taught about business plans. She then discovered the simulated world of Virtual Business. With Virtual Business, her students create a business plan based on Virtual Business. With their business plans in hand and with the help of the Virtual Business simulation. Christine’s students are actually able to implement their own business plans. Christine realizes, “Class discussion now focuses on specifics that everyone can understand and relate to. It makes my one hour a day with them productive and fun!”

With the outstanding results witnessed due to simulated learning, Christine was just recently able to incorporate the beneficial teaching tool of Virtual Business into her Virtual Enterprise (VE) program as well. Because Virtual Business is such a thorough program and her students have so much fun with it, Christine knows these two simulations will be the perfect complement for one another. Virtual Business will help enhance the outcomes and benefits that her students will be receiving from the VE program. “As a new VE coordinator, I am planning on using Virtual Business as an introduction to business concepts for my VE program. Through my classroom use of Virtual Business, I know that students will gain an understanding of business and marketing and have an opportunity to apply business concepts in a virtual setting. This overview and knowledge is essential in making a VE company successful. It is a must for any VE program,” elaborates Christine. The combination of these two powerful learning tools is bound to have a lasting and informative effect on these students that they will be able to use as a strong foundation for their future endeavors. Not only was Christine’s business plan problem solved with Virtual Business, but so many other topics that Christine covers are also addressed. “The students get a working vocabulary, a working knowledge of business and marketing. They get it because it is so visual. They see what is happening and do not depend on a book,” explains Christine. A student teacher in Christine’s class also realizes the valuable versatility this simulation is capable of. “You can pick and choose the parts that you want to use. I even use it in my business math class,” states the student teacher.

When E-Mail Marketing Works And When It Doesn’t – Naomi Grossman

info — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:45:32 +0000

The cost of stamps keeps going up, but small and midsize businesses still need to mail catalogs, sale promotions, and reminders to clients and customers. Or do they?Online advertising expert Thomas Harpointner, chief executive of e-business marketing firm AIS Media, has some wise words about snail mail vs. e-mail. He addresses customers’ online security concerns, the (unavoidable) pitfalls of spam, and the future of online marketing (hint: smartphones).

bMighty: How will the rising postal rates affect smaller business’ use of the post office?

Thomas Harpointner: Businesses already have cut back on postal use. The rate hike is making the press, but now they will be raising the rates every year. Next May 1, it will be one more penny, at least. It could be much higher. With the rising cost of gasoline, any business that requires transporting goods will be affected. And we’ve already seen a 25% reduction in postal use by business.

E-mail is being used by virtually every type of business. There are some things that can’t be sent by e-mail–medical reports, credit reports, law firms’ documents and anything that needs to go through the post office; in some cases, the stamp makes the document official. Any official business will continue with postal mail, such as any type of a legal document that requires an original signature or postmark, for example, if a company is being sued.

Is there a way for those types of businesses to avoid snail mail?

Banks have found a way to circumvent the post office with direct deposit and paperless statements. Brokerage firms are also making statements available online. They don’t mail statements and they avoid cost of paper and ink. It’s also more environmentally friendly. And with the rise of fuel costs and postal costs, it’s cheaper.

What about customers who worry about security with e-mail?

Many customers prefer paperless statements. It’s voluntary, easily accessible, and they don’t have to worry about identity theft. The No. 1 complaint to the FTC [Federal Trade Commission] is identity theft. Until every mailbox has a padlock, anyone can get in. Banks are all guilty of this. Banks send these blank checks [to customers in the mail]. If somebody intercepts it and writes on the check, money comes right off the account. The postal service is still scarier than e-mail vis-à-vis identity theft.

If someone can open an envelope, they can have access to lots of financial records. A mailbox has no real security. It’s wide open to the world. Computers don’t steal, people steal.

People are afraid of using credit cards online, but they don’t have a problem handing it over to a waiter who disappears with it for 15 minutes. As long as confidential information isn’t sent in an e-mail but informing the user it’s available with login and password, it’s safer for their customers and cheaper for the business and more convenient for both.

What about the people who like having a hard copy?

If you get a coupon in the mail, how often do you have it on you in the store? But if it was sent via e-mail and you can pull it up in your BlackBerry and show the cashier? The big stores are starting to do that. Organizing your e-mail is easier than organizing your mail at home. Postal mail, people open over the trash can. Skeptics say much of e-mail goes to spam and junk, but I would argue that people open their postal mail [business and residential mail] over the trash! In one study, the average response from an e-mail marketing campaign is 4.5% versus 2% to 2.5% for a postal mail campaign.

So are we seeing the beginning of the end for postal mail?

I see no end to postal mail. But the type of postal mail we receive will be more targeted, more relevant. So small and midsize businesses should rate their communications of everything that gets e-mailed and mailed, and on a scale of one to 10, rate how important these pieces [are]. The very important pieces that have to be in paper–a document that requires a signature with blue ink, like a lease–needs to be in postal mail. But what about that reminder for a tooth cleaning? Does it need to be in the postal mail? Or the sales event at a local store? For small and midsize businesses [that] have been thinking about moving more stuff online, this is a push.

A lot of brochures are expensive to print and costly to send. Companies in all industries large and small have begun to digitize those documents, like brochures, case studies, and white papers. There is much less information being printed than there was. Salespeople can refer customers to a link where there’s a PDF, rather than mailing something.

What about the concern that a business’ e-mail will end up as spam?

You can’t avoid it. Business to consumer [postal] mail is easier to get through, but business-to-business e-mails have a much better chance of getting read than if they go by postal mail. Every executive has their own e-mail address, and it’s personal, but only one mailbox, and the administrator is the screener there. Marketing gets thrown in the trash at that decision point.

Eve Partners, a mergers-and-acquisitions firm for the trucking industry, started to do e-mail campaigns. They were trying to reach executives at certain firms. They started an e-mail weekly newsletter, and since they started, their CEO said they can’t handle the amount of inquiries they’re getting. If they had to print the newsletter and mail it, it may or may not get read.

The benefit of e-mail is there are more statistics available. With a postal campaign, if you send 1,000 pieces, you don’t know how many people opened and read it. With an e-mail system–we use Excerpo Mail [ Ed. note: an AIS Service]–you get a reporting system: How many were sent, deleted, opened and clicked on. Most of the better e-mail marketing systems have this. Postal mail can’t compete on that level. The sender of the e-mail has a clue. He can see if everything is being deleted. Maybe the message is becoming irrelevant.

Business to consumers is a little different, but more consumers have e-mail than ever before. Most consumers have their own e-mail address. Reaching consumers is effective with postal mail, but [it] still gets opened over the trash. E-mail is still more effective. The Direct Marketing Association reports that e-mail marketing has shown to deliver $51.45 ROI [return on investment] for every marketing dollar spent. Catalogs have been with us a long time, and they work well–$7.20 ROI. You can make more money with e-mail campaigns.

What is the next frontier in mail for smaller businesses?

A major catalyst in our industry–smartphones. They will become the de facto Internet device in the next few years. More and more people are using them to check e-mail and connect to the Internet, at the office or the airport. You can browse the Web, check e-mail and check statements. As more and more people have access to the Internet, e-mail marketing will grow. Even if it was more expensive, it would continue to grow, but the fact is that it is much less expensive. And with the reporting capabilities, people can instantly respond. Who doesn’t want a cheaper, faster, more effective way to do marketing? You can’t get access to postal mail easily if you’re traveling.

The printing industry is 60% smaller than it was in 1995. People are just not printing as much. Small and midsize businesses don’t have the IT power, the technological savviness, or the resources of large companies, but over time, they will adapt. They have access to e-mail, they can see it’s working, it’s just a matter of how to get into it.

Advertising to Generation Y – Anonymous OC Business Journal 6/4/07

info — Thu, 22 May 2008 23:47:02 +0000

Advertising is becoming ever more difficult and expensive. Air time during the nightly, network news is much more expensive, in inflation adjusted dollars, than a generation ago, yet none of these shows reaches anywhere near the market share that Walter Cronkite did. Getting the attention of Generation Y is the most challenging demographic for advertisers. They watch much less television (and fewer commercials), subscribe to fewer periodicals and listen to less commercial radio than the generations preceding them. This group has less brand loyalty than any other.

The reason for all this can be summarized in one word, according to Rob Dodson, President of Irvine based Vail Dunlap & Associates – technology. The web has replaced the nightly news, the iPod has replaced the radio and favorite shows can be downloaded sans commercials.” “The effect of technology goes deeper,” says Dodson. This generation is not only comfortable with change but expects it and sees it as positive. When they need to buy a new widget they do not just buy the same one they bought last time. They are more likely to research it via the web and text messaging their friends; thus the lack of brand loyalty. Tried and true is passé; new and improved is the norm.”

Given all this, Dodson says that advertising to Generation Y can be a tremendous challenge. Promotional products imprinted with a logo and advertising message CAN be very effective (rad, tight, sweet, whatever). Gen Y wears caps and t-shirts just like the rest of us; they use a wide variety of computer related products and they drive cars. If you use a cap or t-shirt, it needs to be a style they will relate to, low profile, sleeveless, moisturewicking, etc. If you get them to use your mouse pad, they may be seeing your message eight hours a day. The key is to have a quality pad (one that will work well with lightening fast games) and with a graphic that has appeal. On a cost per impression basis, this could be the most cost effective idea in history. Generation Y will continue to be elusive for advertisers. The right promotional product will possess three of the most important advertising attributes – highly targeted, affordable, and keeps the message in front of the target.