Xstremeology Blog http://www.xstrememedia.com/ Thu, 17 May 2012 20:18:17 GMT FeedCreator 1.8.0-dev (info@mypapit.net) User Review Websites http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/36-tip-of-the-day/234-user-review-websites.html  

A recent review on small business search results found that more than 80 percent of results did not point to the websites of those businesses. Instead, they pointed to social network results and consumer reviews.

Some of the businesses surveyed were restaurants, travel agencies, law firms, beauty related businesses, plumbing companies and automotive repair companies – all highly susceptible to consumer reviews. These businesses and similar consumer-facing companies need to be aware of where they stand in search results with their own websites, compared to the rankings of reviews and comments from social media users.

It is a growing trend for consumers to go to their favorite review sites and leave reviews of companies they have done business with. A lot of times the reviews and ratings might not even be justified. So, not only is it important to know where you stand on these sites but also to have resources ready to speak out (or type) on your behalf. That means recruiting brand advocates. Of course, the best way to do that is to provide quality experiences for your users and to respond quickly to any problems before they become viral hate campaigns.

Some obvious places to look for your small business reviews are social sites like Facebook, Twitter and Yelp.com, and Google Maps, Bing, Yahoo Local, City Search and Local.com. Below are a dozen more places where your business or products might be getting reviewed.

InsiderPages.com
Mainly focused on rating those in the medical and health care field. Insider Pages also features reviews on restaurants, beauty and home & garden.

MerchantCircle.com
MerchantCircle focuses on promoting businesses by using online user reviews via a pseudo paid advertising system. Businesses can create their own local coupon book.

JudysBook.com
Judy's Book provides review guides to users, such as "Top 10 Auto Mechanics" and so on. Businesses can create their accounts and get help with promotion and SEO.

AngiesList.com
Angie's List is a paid service for consumers to get certified, unbiased reviews of local businesses. It is a large and trusted network, claiming more than one million members.

TripAdvisor.com
As the name suggest, TripAdvisor helps users filter travel destinations via user reviews. A must-know for travel businesses.

OpenTable.com
Because OpenTable.com allows users to make reservations immediately, good reviews on this site can help restaurants take advantage of the convenience factor.

BBB.org
The Better Business Bureau is a relative newcomer to the user review scene but its trusted reputation makes it a must-monitor for every business.

Buzzillions.com
Buzzillions' focus is products -- electronics, computers, sports equipment, clothing, etc. Manufacturers and retailers would be wise to research their products here.

Epinions.com
Part of the Shopping.com family, Epinions solicits reviews on just about anything a person can buy online -- from autos to office supplies.

Wize.com
Wize reports "the best & worst products" by matching products based on consumers' needs. The main focus is electronics and appliances.

PowerReviews.com
In tandem with Buzzillions, PowerReviews looks to connect consumers with reviews about the producty they care about, through SEO, mobile, social networks and more.

SiteJabber.com
SiteJabber provides reviews of websites as a whole. Obviously, every online property should make sure good things are being said about them, or find a brand advocate to get the ball rolling. They claim more than 450,000 people search websites for reviews every month.]]> design@xstrememedia.com (Lesa Seibert) Mon, 14 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/36-tip-of-the-day/234-user-review-websites.html Creating a YouTube Channel Part II http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/48-multimedia-tip-of-the-week/232-creating-a-youtube-channel-part-ii.html
Last we we discussed setting up a YouTube Channel and making a Brand Channel out of it.  This week we are going to discuss how to get the word out.

There are many avenues you can choose to get the word out about your YouTube Channel.  The first is to post the videos and links to your channel on your website.  Then share them on your social media sites, like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.  You can also share them on your blog and via email marketing by adding the link into your email blasts.  YouTube also makes it easy to share videos and make sure to ask your audience (customers) to subscribe to your channel.

YouTube also provides advertising options for brands.  You can advertise with a promoted video, which allows advertisers to choose which keywords their video will show up next to and only pay when a viewer clicks on the promotion and watches the video.  Other options include a partner-watch program that allows companies to advertise next to content partners; in-stream display ads, homepages ads, customer marketing programs, YouTube mobile ads and more.

Once your channel is up and running, make sure to review your strategy.  The most important aspect of any marketing plan is the analytics, because these numbers show how successful or unsuccessful the project is.

Sometimes it can be difficult to analyze how video views turn into conversions.  YouTube provides many statistics to help brand channel managers analyze the popularity of specific content.  Recently YouTube updated its analytics data with the launch of YouTube Analyitcs.  This is a tool that provides a quick overview of important information, detailed  reports, as well as how much of a video the viewers are actually watching.

These statistics allow brands to analyze what type of content is the most popular with its audience.]]> design@xstrememedia.com (Lesa Seibert) Wed, 09 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/48-multimedia-tip-of-the-week/232-creating-a-youtube-channel-part-ii.html Generating Local Traffic Part II http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/36-tip-of-the-day/230-generating-local-traffic-part-ii.html
Last week we discussed the importance of and how to optimize listings on local directories.  This week we are going to look at optimizing your website itself for local search.

Optimizing your actual website content should also be an important part of your local awareness efforts on the web.  Optimizing titles, descriptions, header tags, body text and alt text should all be focused on the city/region for which you are optimizing by including the city/region name liberally throughout the landing page or site pages being optimized.

If your business has more than one location, but only one website, it is imperative to have a landing page for each and ensure that the information is current and has proper address tags.  The landing page will have information on each locality that is specific to that location. 

Another important step is to use a geo sitemap and a regular site map and make them accessible from the root directory of your website. 

A final note is that you have a lot of competition out there and one way to make sure there is some interest in the search terms you want to rank for is to user the Regional Interest Map on Google's Insights for Search -http://www.google.com/insights/search.  This tool allows you to see which state and metropolitan areas index high against search volume for a particular word or phrase. 
]]> design@xstrememedia.com (Lesa Seibert) Mon, 07 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/36-tip-of-the-day/230-generating-local-traffic-part-ii.html PayPal Tools http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/49-internet-marketing-tip-of-the-week/233-paypal-tools.html
PayPal has put themselves in an enviable position on the web as of late with a 22% increase in revenues in the last year.  With mobile payments on the verge of erupting into a multi-billion dollar industry in the next few years, analysts are predicting that PayPal's revenues will overtake those of eBay's Marketplace by 2014.

What make it even better is that PayPal is a very accessible partner to any online business.  PayPal recently announced some new procuts that are exciting web professionals:
  • PayPal for Digital Products - this is a micropayments solution that lets consumers pay for digital goods such as games, music and videos in as little a two clicks without ever leaving the publishers site.  This new solution will be integrated into Facebook to make PayPal the social network's new digital goods payment method, offering users the safest, fastest and most cost-effective solution for sending and receiving micropayments of under $12. 
  • Mobile Payments Library - A new functionality targeting subscription businesses that will enable pre-approved, chain and split mobile payments to be process through PayPal accounts.
  • PayPal Here - A mobile app that allows you to accept credit and debit cards, PayPal and checks anywhere you do business.
  • PayPal Fundraising Tools - PayPal offers multiple fundraising tools to make it easy to collect donations for your favorite cause(s).
]]> design@xstrememedia.com (Lesa Seibert) Thu, 03 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/49-internet-marketing-tip-of-the-week/233-paypal-tools.html Creating a YouTube Channel Part I http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/48-multimedia-tip-of-the-week/231-creating-a-youtube-channel-part-i.html
First go to www.YouTube.com and complete the basic setup process.  Once that is complete, a business must send its username to a YouTube representative and request to have the account converted into a brand channel.  Brand channels offer features that aren't available on standard channels, like a channel banner image, side column image and video page banner.  They also provide the ability to specify demographic filters and offer user tracking.

Once your channel has been converted to a brand channel, customization is the next and most important step. During this process, the brand is starting to set the tone of the channel.  You should remember that the final channel appearance and content should be cohesive.

Next it is time to start creating content.  You can produce many different types of videos for your company from a company overview to product or service overviews, client testimonials and how-to videos.  One thing to remember is to keep your videos short.  A good video length is between 45 seconds and two minutes.  If it requires longer, think about spitting it up into a series so that your audience does not get bored or overwhelmed with information.  The quality of the video is more important than the quantity. 

Next time we will talk about how to use your videos and spread the word.

]]> design@xstrememedia.com (Lesa Seibert) Wed, 02 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/48-multimedia-tip-of-the-week/231-creating-a-youtube-channel-part-i.html Generating Local Traffic Part I http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/36-tip-of-the-day/229-generating-local-traffic-part-i.html
The Internet is becoming more and more local every day.  One reason is that consumers are using their mobile devices to perform searches for local businesses more frequently.  According to a recent report, there are nearly 3 billion search queries containing local terms each month.  For companies that have a local presence, visibility on local search is proving to be essential for them.

The most important piece to local search optimization is the presence of accurate NAP data: name, address and phone number.  Search engines aggregate data from multiple sources and ultimately they should all lead back accurately to your business.  If the information is not consistent, your websites listing will be seen as less accurate and will likely be lowered in the search results, causing you to potentially miss out on the opportunity for citations(links) that come with local listings.

To optimize local business listings, first focus on developing a quality title, then add an accurate, up-to-date physical address.  Next, choose the business categories strategically.  Make sure to have a local phone number and finally undertake a campaign to acquire reviews from your customers.  The more reviews you can get, the sooner you will be on the fast track to generating traffic from local mobile traffic and regular search traffic.

One of the most important parts of building a positive local presence is the existence of directory citations.  YellowPages.com, Yelp, CitySearch and InsiderPages.com are just a few.  But citations (links) should not stop at directories.  You should also acquire them from other websites.  Finding those on a city level is not an easy task, but it is possible.  Take your time to complete profiles on the following websites or hire someone to do this for you.  It can help your local presence.
]]> design@xstrememedia.com (Lesa Seibert) Sat, 28 Apr 2012 15:10:23 GMT http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/36-tip-of-the-day/229-generating-local-traffic-part-i.html Enhance & Track Your LinkedIn Profile http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/49-internet-marketing-tip-of-the-week/228-enhance-a-track-your-linkedin-profile.html
So now you have your LinkedIn profile optimized but how do you know it's working?  Here are some performance indicators to look for:
  1. Is your profile 100 percent complete (look at the top right side of your Profile page to find this status)?  If not, keep working until it is complete then keep going.
  2. When typing your keyword phrase selected from your optimized profile, does your profile appear in search results?
  3. Are you getting an increase in recommendations?  Keep soliciting recommendations from current and new clients.  In time, you will receive a notice of an unsolicited recommendation in your inbox.  That is a nice feeling.
  4. You should see an increase in personal messages in your LinkedIn Inbox.  The more conversations you create, the more people will want to connect with you.
  5. Watch for your profile in the search engines.  If you choose the right keyword that is not too highly competitive, you will show up quickly.

Feel free to check out my profile on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/lesaseibert and see how mine is optimized.  Good luck in increasing your visibility and connections on LinkedIn.

]]> design@xstrememedia.com (Lesa Seibert) Mon, 26 Dec 2011 20:40:56 GMT http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/49-internet-marketing-tip-of-the-week/228-enhance-a-track-your-linkedin-profile.html Setting Up Your LinkedIn Profile http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/49-internet-marketing-tip-of-the-week/227-setting-up-your-linkedin-profile.html
Next, you need to optimize the main parts of your profile as follows:
  1. Profile Photo - make sure to use a professional headshot in your profile photo.  People want to see your face, not a logo or a blank image.
  2. Last Name - Your name is your headline, so try to include a keyword.  To do this, keep your first name as it is - mine is Lesa.  For your last name field, include a keyword or keyprhase.  Mine is "Seibert - Web Designer/Marketing Speaker".  By doing this you are findable under your name and your expertise.
  3. Keywords - Keywords optimization techniques apply to LinkedIn as well.  Make sure you include keywords throughout your profile, including your professional experience, specialties, job description and company title.  Don't spam with keywords, but include them where they fit. 
  4. Website Links - Make sure to put your company or blog name in for your website and not use My Website.  To do this, when you are setting the link(s) to your website(s), DO NOT select and of the pre-defined options (Company Website, Blog, etc.) as that is what they put for the title.  Instead, select Other at the bottom of the list and put in your own link title (Website & Software Design, Social Media Marketing, etc.) and then the link to that site. 
  5. Recommendations - Make sure to get recommendations.  When you reach out to clients or colleagues,  ask them to use specific keywords in their recommendation (ex. website design, graphic design, etc.).  Make sure to give recommendations to people you support.
]]> design@xstrememedia.com (Lesa Seibert) Mon, 26 Dec 2011 19:41:27 GMT http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/49-internet-marketing-tip-of-the-week/227-setting-up-your-linkedin-profile.html Using LinkedIn Groups http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/49-internet-marketing-tip-of-the-week/226-using-linkedin-groups.html
When most people join Groups they often make these two common mistakes:
  1. They join the group but never participate.  You can't expect prospects to come to you for a solution when you don't take the time to make yourself heard.
  2. They join groups where there are similar members.  Does it make more sense to join a group that is full of your competition or full of prospective clients?  You should be in the same place as your prospects, sharing your knowledge of your industry so they can see you are a useful resource.  

To take the most advantage of Groups, create a group for your company and post all of your articles/discussions there.  This creates a community of followers for your company.  Then using the LinkedIn share tool, share that article with all of your other Groups with one click.  To explain the power of groups, I belong to 32 Groups that I post in regularly.  Those 32 Groups contain over 188,000 members.  If you figure that some Groups have some of the same members, you can easily say that you are reaching at least 130,000+ people every time you make a post to these groups.  You do the math - in a few minutes you can post content that will be read by over 130,000 people either daily or weekly (depending on how often they get group updates).  When I started this for our company, our site traffic went up 1200% in 4 weeks, because my posts were links to our company blog, which drove the readers back to our company website.

LinkedIn can be a powerful marketing & networking tool if you use it properly.

]]> design@xstrememedia.com (Lesa Seibert) Mon, 26 Dec 2011 19:22:53 GMT http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/49-internet-marketing-tip-of-the-week/226-using-linkedin-groups.html Verizon HTC Trophy http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/45-data-a-telecom-trends/225-verizon-htc-trophy.html

htc-trophy-hero-dsc5730-engadgetFor those looking for a Windows 7 phone that offers an easy to use interface with good Office integration, the Verizon HTC Trophy will work for you. The trophy is 4.67 inches tall by 2.42 inches wide and .47 inches thick weighing in at 4.95 ounces with a 3.8 inch touch screen. It has a 1GHz Snapdragon processor and 568MB RAM, which makes it very responsive. Its slim profile makes it comfortable to hold and easy to slip into a pant or jacket pocket.

This is Verizon’s first Window’s phone device, which provides ease of use for the owner. The onscreen keyboard is simple and very accurate. It stacks up against the iPhone keyboard. The display is sharp and bright, although it is harder to see in the sun. The touch screen does respond well, but is prone to smudges and fingerprints. The blocked home screen makes it easy to find the most popular items (messages, missed calls, calendar, etc. ), with one touch. It also has some cool apps that you can install.

Some highlights of the system are integration with Zune and Xbox Live, coupled with a user-friendly interface. The phone is international capable and will automatically detect and switch to a GSM network, an important feature for those who travel internationally. The HTC Trophy also features a speakerphone, call forwarding, conference calling, voice dialing, and text/multimedia messaging along with Bluetooth Stereo support and a 5.0 Megapixel camera, which is average at best.   For business people, it supports Gmail, Exchange, Yahoo!, Windows Live, POP3 and IMAP email accounts along with a GPS. The call quality was good, but in areas outside of the city, I had a hard time getting a connection.

All in all, the Verizon HTC Trophy is a good, moderately priced phone at around $149 before rebates.

Verizon Wireless’ 4G LTE network now covers more than 186 million Americans coast to coast. With additional markets planned before year-end, Verizon’s 4G LTE network build-out is ahead of schedule and has already exceeded the company’s 2011 target of covering a population of 185 million.

Verizon launches 4G in Lexington Nov. 17. At the same time, the Louisville 4G footprint will grow along I-65 to the south toward Lebanon Junction, and I-71 toward Carroll County.

]]> design@xstrememedia.com (Lesa Seibert) Sun, 30 Oct 2011 14:12:58 GMT http://www.xstrememedia.com/blog/45-data-a-telecom-trends/225-verizon-htc-trophy.html