Neil's blog

1. Be apart of the "Ten Pack" - Submit to Google Local Business Center and show up for service oriented keywords when queried with the business' city location.

2. Video Blast - Use TubeMogul and distribute your informational or How To video (some video sites won't accept straight commercials) to over a dozen major video sites. They show up in Google quite well.

3. Facebook Friend Specials - Have a daily drawing/giveaway as a bribe to gain new friends.

I used to write in personal blogs off and on for seven years on someone else's network. I started business blogging in 2006 for LevelTen and their clients, but had been blogging on my own since 2001. One day I had a realization and decided to stop building other people’s content and focus building an online presence for myself, as well as LevelTen and their clients. If I would have known then when I started, what I know now, I would have built a huge network over the years. Learn 19 reasons why.

Building a large following on Twitter can be akin to acting as a club promoter trying get as many people to the party as possible. You have to build up your street cred, know the right people (or at least seem like you do), and make people feel cool just being in your presence. You also want other people to want to get to know you because they feel it will increase his/her social or professional value.

The DFW Social Media Marketing group met last night at Dave & Busters where two amazing speakers taught small businesses/website owners and individual self promoters the value of Personal Branding online through Social Media to promote businesses as well as hands-on Twitter tactics and tools.

An interesting article by Emily Steel over at the Wall Street Journal describes the disdain many have come to feel from the overused font, Comic Sans. My favorite one liner, "Comic Sans walks into a bar, bartender says, 'We don't serve your type."

An article over at AdAge.com explains how the Federal Trade Commission has a proposed plan to start regulating viral marketing and blogs. As part of its review of its advertising guidelines, the FTC is proposing that word-of-mouth marketers and bloggers, as well as people on social-media sites such as Facebook, be held liable for any false statements they make about a product they're promoting, along with the product's marketer.

Recently, a paintball gun eccomerce site owner asked a question many business owners ask,
"I've got a blog, what now?"

His question has been repeated in its original form below and my response follows.
These 16 blogging quickstart tips are meant to: increase traffic, encourage community, get better search rankings.

--------------------------------------------------

Subj: Blog is up but what now?

This specific Google AdWords question came from the SEOChat Forum.

------------------
I am trying to learn how to setup a keyword using "broad, exact and phrase" matching.

Lets say i have a restaurant that serves Sushi in New York.....Using the the keyword NEW YORK SUSHI.

1) Would you setup each keyword type under a different Adwords Account?

Ex. a
Campaign Name: New York Sushi=Exact
Keyword: [new york sushi]

Ex. b
Campaign Name: New York Sushi=Phrase
Keyword: "new york sushi"

Ex. c.
Campaign Name: New York Sushi=Broad

Over the years, Google AdWords has offered ever-increasing flexibility. Although, PPC is much more complicated than it was even three years ago, it's all for the better. When Yahoo! Search Marketing announced its conversion to Panama in late 2006 with new dashboard and up-to-date features many search engine marketers breathed a heavy sigh of, "It's about time." Yahoo!

Lately, Google has been trying creative ways to maintain its profits by sneaking in forced default opt-in distribution networks and settings which show your ads for more search quires than even before. Showing your ads more often might sound like a good thing right? The only catch is although some of these quires may be relevant, many may be much less relevant to your keywords creating higher impressions and lower CTR.