Production Blog Reviews

Adding the Facebook Like Button To Your Site

Posted by cgseo under Social Media, Web Marketing

Adding the Facebook Like Button To Your Site This content from: Duct Tape Marketing Some pretty big changes are brewing over at Facebook and I’m working on a full coverage type of piece, but for today I wanted to jump in and cover one little change that makes some sense for you to consider right now. Facebook has changed the idea of becoming a fan to something a little less committed – Like. Now you can like or recommend a fan page to your friends. The net effect is the same as your choice to like something is noted on your wall. The big change is that Facebook wants you to start sharing your likes from anywhere on the web. Look for web publishers to start installing the FB like button on web sites, blog posts and in reference to individual items and products. The video below gives an overview of the Like button installation process. You can use the FB tool easily get started or, if you know a little HTML and FBML you can do a fair amount of integration. I’ve installed both the Like Box (over in the right sidebar) and the Like Button (in each post) The code that is generated from the FB like tool gives you some flexibility but will only link to the page you give it. If you want to add a button as I have in each post you need to edit the code URL to include the WordPress < ?php the_permalink() ?> code for each individual post. You can control some of what’s shown on a person’s wall when they click the like button by adding meta data to your page headers. Facebook is using the emerging Open Graph protocol to help this along. The image below is another implementation of the Like button related to a specific product. In this case the format include pictures and details about who likes the product. Image credit: Mark Zuckerberg – World Economic Forum Related Posts: Google Adds Wonderwheel Search Results Option Platforms Change, Marketing is the Same TweetDeck Adds Lists and LinkedIn How to Target GMail Users with Highly Relevant Ads Some Video Thoughts on Social Media Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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Adding the Facebook Like Button To Your Site

Google’s Forecast for Business Apps Is Mostly Cloudy

Posted by cgseo under Social Media, Web Marketing

Google’s Forecast for Business Apps Is Mostly Cloudy This content from: Duct Tape Marketing At the end of last year I wrote a prediction piece for AMEX OPENForum suggesting that 2010 would be the year that small businesses move more computing power online or, using the more trendy term, to the cloud. Google and Microsoft are both working very hard to create adoption of online versions of the most commonly used software tools such as spreadsheets, word processors and databases. In my mind Google just took a giant leap forward with the launch of the Google Apps Marketplace . The Apps Marketplace functions much like the iPhone or Android applications marketplaces, but all of the apps found here integrate in one way of another with the existing Google Apps suite of tools. With the additional functionality that can come with integration of tools to do just about anything look for Google Apps to take a giant leap in adoption from both enterprise and small business. Combine Google Apps and the souped up functionality available in the Apps Marketplace with GMail and Google Calendar and you now have the ability easily run you entire company with software and services in the cloud. Setting up your domain with Google Apps for domains , at $50 per year per user, allows you to create custom white label versions of the Google Apps for a seamless branded experience. Below are few examples of the types of applications found in the Apps Marketplace. Time Bridge – makes scheduling of meetings with various staff or even outside vendors much easier. Expensify – Easy expense tracking and reporting Survey Monkey – popular survey tool integrates into Google Apps Cordys Process Factory – helps users of Google Apps to create workflows, automate business processes TripIt – Share travel details such as hotels and flights with staff You’ll also find offerings from familiar names such as Intuit, FreshBooks, Vertical Response, MailChimp and Zoho. The online application space is getting very interesting and it still has a long way to go, but the near future have just been defined. Related Posts: Google Apps for Your Domain In Search of the Softwareless Office Get Your Google Alerts via RSS The Perfect Small Business Collaboration Tool Original iPhone Users Feel the Love Too Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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Google’s Forecast for Business Apps Is Mostly Cloudy

Is Google Local Search For Sale?

Posted by cgseo under Social Media, Web Marketing

Share Is Google Local Search For Sale? This content from: Duct Tape Marketing I’ve always assumed that Google Maps (and other local search directories) would build up the free local directory, drive other for pay players out, get us hooked on their service, and then start charging to be listed in the prime spot. In this case the prime spot for local search is the Google Seven box shown below for a search for “Attorney Houston, Tx” Click to enlarge Something else you might notice is that while optimizing your web site to appear in the lucky seven box is a great idea, the majority of these results are sponsored. That’s right, Google is playing with selling enhanced listings in several cities and looks to be headed towards paid listings in local search. At first this may not seem like such a bad thing to those on the outside looking in, but it may price some folks out of yet another organic search option. Related Posts: Google Adds Local Search to Mobile Phones Google Local Finally Adds Ability To List Your Local Business Google Maps expands local view Yahoo Adds Local Featured Listings Where In The World Is Local Search? Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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Is Google Local Search For Sale?

Website Advertising – Spread Your Message

Posted by BlogPostman under Website Advertising

Coming up with a good idea and a good product is only the beginning of having a successful online business. Not only do you have to come up with something that your target audience is likely to need and purchase, you also have to come up with a way to make sure they see it and realize that they need to buy it. That’s why website advertising is so important to the success of your business.

Many people are excited by the opportunities that are provided by the open design of the internet. Literally anyone with a little startup capital and a lot of determination can turn their ideas into a money making business. But without a quality website advertising campaign, all of this hard work will be for nothing.

Just because you are running a small or brand new business with a tiny website advertising budget doesn’t mean that you can’t make use of some time-tested techniques for drawing in viewers to your site and turning them into customers very quickly.

One of the keys to successful website advertising is targeting your message to the people that are likely to be most receptive to it. This means that before you can advertise to them, you must fully know your audience and research the ways that they like to communicate.

These days everyone is using email because it is faster, more convenient and doesn’t require that you recycle a bunch of wasted paper when you’re done reading the message. This is why many companies have switched over to website advertising that utilizes electronic communication instead of paper.

Another website advertising tactic that has proven to be successful time and time again is the placement of banner advertisements on sites that members of your audience are likely to visit on a regular basis. This means if you’re selling sports drink, you might advertise on team uniform sites, or if you’re selling pet care items, you might advertise on dog training sites.

In case you’re rather new to the world of website advertising and aren’t sure that you can pull of a campaign successfully on your own, know that there are many qualified internet marketing firms out there that can explain the different tactics that are available, and construct a package that will spread your message in a comprehensive way on the internet.

Don’t fall for website advertising tricks that will turn off your customers and get you slapped by the search engines. Click here for tactics that work.

Making Your Google Alerts Smarter

Posted by cgseo under Social Media, Web Marketing

Share Making Your Google Alerts Smarter This content from: Duct Tape Marketing If you follow my writing you know that I’m a big fan of setting up routines that let you listen in on what’s being said about your brands, products, people, industry and competitors using free tools like Google Alerts . Google Alerts let you set-up custom searches and then have any mention of that search term sent to your RSS Reader (like Google Reader) or email in box as they happen or at the end of the day. This is a great way to keep tabs on things that matter without needing to scour the web universe for this kind of intel. You can set up very specific searches such as your name or broad searches so you know who is talking about a concept like referral marketing. Alert Rank detail – click to enlarge Recently I came across a tool call Alert Rank that works hand in hand with Google Alerts to make them smarter. You see, Google picks up everything, including the very low value content scraper sights that simply republish other people’s stuff. One of the main ideas behind keeping tabs on what’s being said is it allows you to jump in and join the conversation. Few things make a blogger happier than when someone they mention in a post shows up and adds a comment. Alert Rank looks at the mentions of your alert terms and gives you solid information about the quality of the mention. Now quality is a loaded term, but what Alert Rank does is measure things like numerous inbound links to the site, PageRank, no follow, comments allowed, and delicious tags to come up with a quality score about the link. You still get the alerts in your inbox, but you can quickly use the quality score to decide if you need to jump right in. You can also click through to get lots of information about the site that mentions your term. This is simply a much better way to manage alerts and find networking opportunities. Alert Rank report – click to enlarge Alert Rank also offer reporting tools that make it easy for anyone that monitors alerts for clients to set-up custom reports in excel of PDF format. The one thing I need to tell you though is that if you already have alerts created you will need to set-up a new Google account and create your alerts again using your custom Alert Rank email as that’s how the alerts get routed through the Alert Rank system. It’s not a big deal, but may not be readily apparent when you first read the set-up instructions. All in all it took me about five minutes to get it going and it works wonderfully. Related Posts: Google Alerts Hack Google Alerts to Twitter Get Your Google Alerts via RSS Weekend Favs February Six Use Yahoo and Google Alert as Sales Tools Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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Making Your Google Alerts Smarter