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By The Squirrel, on September 25th, 2011
Found flying around on Facebook, I have no idea who the author is. But it’s too good not to share – and surprisingly accurate. (If you know who wrote it, please email me the URL, or post it in the comments.)
“What is Marketing?”
You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You approach her and say: ‘I’m fantastic in bed’ – That’s Direct Marketing.
You’re at a party with a bunch of friends and see a gorgeous girl. One of your friends approaches her, points at you and says: ‘He’s fantastic in bed’ – That’s Advertising.
You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You approach her and get her telephone number. The next day you call and say: ‘Hi, I’m fantastic in bed’ – That’s Telemarketing.
You’re at a party and see a gorgeous girl. You get up and straighten your tie; you walk up to her and pour her a drink. You open the door for her, pick up her bag after she drops it, offer her a ride, and then say: ‘By the way, I’m fantastic in bed’ – That’s Public Relations.
You’re at a party and see a gorgeous girl. She walks up to you and says: ‘I hear you’re fantastic in bed’ – That’s Brand Recognition.
By The Squirrel, on May 26th, 2011
 Tweet me! A friend called with some Twitter questions, and concerns regarding the marketing skills of a company’s new Web Strategist. This prompted me to do a web-presence assessment of the fair-sized international corporation. During this assessment I noticed their new Web Strategist may not have the level of Twitter experience one would like, even expect, in a marketing professional. In fact, I was shocked by some of the mistakes made.
To help those of you without Web Strategists, or perhaps with Web Strategists whose qualifications may be suspect, below are some of the Twitter tips I offered to my friend, and the CEO.
We’ll start with the basics of getting a Twitter account, just in case you haven’t grabbed one yet. Obviously you want to choose a name that is either the name of your business, or what you do. For example, if you own a cake decorating company you have the option to use either your company name or something with the word “cake” in it. Choosing likely search terms can be useful for getting followers.
Setting up your Twitter Bio. Twitter bios are searchable by Google. Use all the text space they give you, and include all buzz phrases specific to your industry. Also include your company name if your Twitter handle [ex: @thebestcakedecorators (this is not a real handle, and has nothing to do with the company assessed)] doesn’t include it. People may want to find you by your company name and this will help them.
Now that you’ve got your account set up, what are you going to tweet? Continue reading How To Use Twitter Effectively
By The Squirrel, on November 17th, 2010
The question The Squirrel gets most often is “How do I design my posts, page, or site for search engine optimization (SEO)?”
Well, I’ve got some simple SEO tips for you.
For starters, there are a few very basic posts on this site that you might want to read first: One is about the new Google search and how it may affect keyword searching, and another about Google Analytics basics. There is also one on the importance of using Pretty URLs. All of these will help with search engine optimization and finding the right keywords.
In a recent blogging class, they went over some good, basic SEO tips. Since you probably weren’t there in the class, I’ll share those tips with you.
SEO Basics
First up, if you’re familiar with Analytics, (or a similar product), you’re off to a good start. Note the keywords people use to find your site and ask yourself, ‘What do the words say about the demographic of the traffic finding me? Are those the words I want them to use to find me? ‘ If so, great. If not, then work on incorporating the better, more desirable, keywords words into your posts and pages. Continue reading SEO and YOU
By The Squirrel, on November 7th, 2010
 Prevent hacking of your blog. Like all of our posts this one, on preventing your blog from being hacked, was generated from our circle of friends and clients.
Several of our bloggy friends have had their blogs hacked at some time in the not-too-distant past.
Realizing we probably didn’t know enough about preventing it, we decided this was a great opportunity to not only educate ourselves on avoiding the horrors of a hacked blog, but to also educate our reader(s). <— our attempt at humor. We really hope there is more than one of you out there.
Here are a few very simple tips we picked up in our research:
1. Spammers can insert code via comments. Along with the wonderful spam catcher Askimet, install Conditional CAPTCHA. This adds a CAPTCHA window only for those comments Askimet labels spam. The potential spammer must then enter the CAPTCHA code to have their comment go forward to the Askimet spam queue. Best of all, your regular, non-spammy commenters won’t even see the CAPTCHA screen. We’ve only had it in place for a couple days on all of our blogs and it is fantastic! No more having to dump hundreds of spam comments!
2. Hide your WP version. Hackers often need to know which WP version you’re using in order to hack it. This used to be visible in the footer. We’ve just checked and either the latest version of WP, or the themes we’ve chosen, are aware of this security flaw and have removed this information from the footer. It may also be in your blog’s header.php template tag. Remove the meta tag named “generator”, which states which version you’re using. Continue reading Seven Ways to Prevent Those Bloggin Hackers
By The Squirrel, on October 19th, 2010
 Google Analytics Lately we’ve come across several clients who don’t have Google Analytics. And the few that do don’t utilize the wealth of information it provides. For FREE.
If you have a web page or blog there is no reason you shouldn’t sign up for Google Analytics. Did we mention it’s FREE?
What is it? Google Analytics is a tool to help you understand how people are finding you on the web. By way of graphs and charts, it shows you what sites are sending traffic to you via referral, and what keywords people used to be shown your site by a search engine.
While it may be called “Analytics”, it’s really up to you to do the analyzing of the data.
Start at the “Dashboard”. Under “Site Usage”, you see a snapshot of the information provided. Clicking on each of the categories in the boxes below take you to a more detailed explanation.
“Visitors Overview” tells you, just as it implies, how many visitors you had, how many were new visitors, how many pages they read, how long they stayed, etc. It also tells you what browsers they used, how many were mobile phone visitors, and more.
“Map Overlay” gives very detailed location information when you drill down into the menus. Continue reading Google Analytics – Why You Need It
By The Squirrel, on September 20th, 2010
 Pretty URLs just need a little makeup. (click to enlarge) What’s a “Pretty URL”? It’s when you take a URL, put a nice dress and some make-up on it, curl it’s hair…
Oh, sorry. Wrong blog.
A common mistake made by new bloggers is not changing the URL settings for posts. Actually, I’ve seen a lot of seasoned bloggers still using so-called ugly URLs. One of my favorite bloggers, one who gets a lot of traffic, does all the things “they” tell you not to do and she seems impervious to any negative consequences.
But for the rest of us who need all the help we can get, Continue reading Pretty URLs Just Need A Little Makeup
By The Squirrel, on September 9th, 2010
 Google Instant Search Yesterday Google unveiled it’s new instant search, which makes hitting “enter” unnecessary. As you type Google instantly offers suggestions in a drop down window, predicting what it thinks you are looking for. Their selling point? It saves you a whopping 2-5 seconds of search time.
But, more importantly, how does this affect your marketing and organic search results?
It’s too soon to tell, but here are a few things you might want to watch out for:
1.) Will long tail keyword searches drop off?
Fewer people may finish their intended long tail phrase and opt instead for one of Google’s instant offerings. This could negatively affect websites or blogs that depend on long tail searches.
2.) Will Google’s suggestions shape keyword prevalence?
We suspect it will most certainly affect the number of times a specific keyword is used – particularly synonyms. If Google’s prediction is influential enough, one keyword could gain a huge increase in traffic – all because Google offered that suggestion. This means websites ranking for niche markets with slightly less popular keyword variants will suffer a big hit. This also begs the question: Is there a conflict of interest for Google to serve up one keyword over another? After all, they do make money on those keywords, and charge by how frequently they’re used.
3.) Will keyword research become more challenging? Continue reading The New Google Search – Could This Affect Traffic To Your Business?
By The Squirrel, on August 30th, 2010
 Facebook Places Poor Facebook. It seems to be under constant attack from pranksters (or haters?) always starting rumors. The latest had nervous folks indiscriminately posting the following in their status:
ATTENTION!!!! Facebook launched Facebook Places yesterday. Anyone can find out where you are when you are logged in. It gives the actual address & map …location of where you are as you use Facebook. Make sure your kids know. Go to”Account”, “Account Settings”, “Notifications”, then scroll ………down… …to “Places” and un …check the 2 boxes. Make sure to SAVE changes and re-post this!
Sadly, I saw this reposted over and over. All taking the above actions do is remove Notifications to your email or cell when someone has tagged you in a Place or comments on a Place you visit. This is even less helpful from the point of view of the privacy conscious.
In light of this, Facebook posted this notification to each profile: Continue reading Facebook Places, Are You Being Watched?
By The Squirrel, on August 7th, 2010
 Blogging all the time. Blogging really is an art form. You need the ability to hold the attention of your reader, maybe even entertain then a bit, engage them, all while getting your point across. But don’t be discouraged and run out to get that journalism degree – some of the best bloggers never went to journalism school.
Here are some quick tips on the general tone to use when blogging…
Talk to your audience like you would a friend – but without the cuss words and off-color comments. (Unless of course, that is your “shtick”.) Be friendly. If they feel they know you a little maybe have a smidgen of a rapport with you, they are more likely to use your service or buy your product.
Avoid the newspaper article tone. Too many sites are dry and humorless. Consumers just aren’t drawn to it. If they wanted to read the newspaper, they’d be on that website reading emotionless articles instead of your blog.
Don’t write posts that are too long, or too short. The general consensus is 250-750 words per post. Got more to say? Break it into a series. Those do well, and keep the reader coming back. Continue reading Blogging For Your Audience
By The Squirrel, on August 1st, 2010
 WordPress Once again we’re blogging about blogging. 
Wait, don’t go! This might actually be useful. Well, if you have a blog it’s useful, particularly if it’s a WordPress blog.
Here’s a list of our favorite WordPress plugins, in alphabetical order:
Add To Any Share/Save – This popular plugin allows your readers to share your content with dozens of popular social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, etc.
All in One SEO Pack – A few themes are already SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly, but if yours isn’t already, this is a perfect addition. Continue reading Our Favorite WordPress Plugins
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