Saturday, April 12, 2008

Interviewing Seattle Real Estate agent - Janet McDermott

I am sitting here with my friend and Seattle real estate agent Janet McDermott, she is the owner of Seattle homes website called SeattleHomesforAll.com. Janet is also our Seattle Real Estate agent, representing the Singh family in their Queen Anne Real Estate property. We just got done changing the meta tags for her Seattle homes website, as she had not focused on the keywords Seattle Homes. While doing that, I did a quick search for the keywords "Seattle Houses", to my amazement, there are a lot of people searching for that keyword. Frankly, I am shocked how many times people are searching for that keyword. I have had this URL for this Seattle Houses blog for every, that is what it seems like. And, I have to tell you, this is the first time, I have checked that. Bad SEO, bad SEO services guy, moi.

Checking and doing this, I quickly added the Title Meta tags "Seattle Houses" to this blog, hopefully that will get us ranked in the top 10 on that alone, I hope any way. As you might know from a few weeks ago that UrbanTango.com our Seattle Real Estate website, is ranked #46 for the keywords "Seattle Real estate" and we had not even done any work on it for a few years folks. This also gave me the idea to start focusing on SEO'ing for the "Seattle Real Estate" market, but since I don't sell real estate, I had to talk to a Seattle real estate agent, and thank God Janet McDermott could use the business. I am sure there isn't any real estate agents in the US that wouldn't want more business at the moment. So we will be conducting a live interview with Janet the Seattle Real estate agent of choice, and getting an over view of the state of affairs in the Seattle Real Estate market. We will attempt to do this on a weekly basis, so here it is, our first interview:

Q 1. Janet, given that it's sunny and 70 degrees outside today, is the Seattle Real Estate market heating up from a cold winter?

Ans. Absolutely. The minute the sun comes out, people come out of the wood work. Sales are picking up with the nice weather. Listings are attracting more visitors.

Q2. We read recently seen that sales across the country had picked up quite a bit, up to about 8% from the previous month or quarter. Are you seeing any evidence of that in the Seattle Real Estate market?

Ans. Definitely, people are realizing that as time goes by, the bargains are going to disappear and they better get in the market now. And, people had to get use the tough financing world, and that things are just different now.

Q3. What is different?

Ans. People are really paying attention to whether or not they can actually afford the house, rather than just jumping in as before. And, that is very reassuring, because that means sanity is coming back to the market.

Q4. Any advice for Seattle homes sellers? Why not use an online real estate agent?

Ans. Find a good professional to work with, and listen to their advice. Statistics have shown that using a full service Realtor results in a higher net return for their homes.

Q5. Any advice for Seattle homes buyers? Should they use an online brokers?

Ans. In Seattle people are Internet savvy, and in the beginning people just jump in, without doing their home work. What I am getting at, is that it all gets back to finances. They slow down their ability to get the homes they want, if they haven't sorted out their financing. Home buyers could also profit by knowing about local real estate, and the source of their information, not just reading something online or reading the national statistic.

Speaking of statistics, we are going to close this interview for this Seattle Real Estate blog, but we do ask that Janet brings back some Hard statistics to show the current market for Seattle homes, and Seattle Houses. Thanks Janet McDermott for your help, and if any of our viewers want to visit Janet's website, where should they go? SeattleHomesforAll.com

Chapter 2: Marketing 5 P's, Branding, and Internet Marketing

This is from our book BlogCast your brand:

Chapter 2 Marketingbranding - Internet Marketing and search marketing

In this chapter we cover the basics of marketing and branding, and connect the dots to search marketing. As you read you will notice that all of our chapters are outlined and self contained.

The 4 P’s of Marketing, and the one that got away

This maybe all you need to know about marketing, well maybe not, but it is a great primer. Most people don’t know the basic’s of marketing, we not only provide you that, but we go further. We might even give you better than a marketing MBA. Because we cover the most ignored principal of marketing, the 5th P. Having made millions with my marketing skills and entrepreneurship, I have not only been a student of marketing, but an enthusiast.

A few of my friends/advisers have Stanford MBA’s, and yes my conservative friend is the one with a Harvard MBA. They all agree though, on the fact that SEO and Search Marketing are a must for any business wanting to take advantage of the internet. As you already know, we cover a lot of these topics in our blogs, but something was missing, so we decided to provide a holistic marketing approach. We take a step back and provide the basics of marketing and what is taught at all marketing 101 classes.

If some of you were lucky, smart or blessed enough to study marketing in college you certainly know about the 4 P’s of marketing. The basics have not changed within the years, but what goes in them has. I have been talking about the 4 p’s for 7 years now, and the 5th P, which I will tell you in a second. And hopefully you will agree that it is the most important. Marketing is not just about public relations or advertising, as most people assume. It’s a complex world of strategic positioning, product strategy, product development, product management, branding, and public relations and advertising. Branding, advertising, public relations and sales are really one of the lagging parts, though very important. The most important lessons of marketing came early on, from Anthony Robbins, yes Tony, the great motivational speaker. He talked about the VALS research from Stanford University, psychographics not just demographics, and profiling different types of people, this is where I got the concept of the 5th P, the most important P of marketing.

The 5th P does not stand for “Process” which is being taught at a national university, as the 5th P, told to me by an MBA in Marketing from the U. of Washington in Seattle. I can’t believe that is what they teach there at U. of Washington. U Dub (as they call it here) is a great school, but folks, process is just a process, it’s not the 5th P, process should be applied to everything we do, to repeat it and make it a science. So listed here are the 4 P’s and the 5th will be discussed in detail below, I bet you already have an idea of what it is.

1. Product; if you don’t have a product, you don’t have anything. A product can also be a service so for sake of simplicity we will bundle them. Marketing starts with promoting, selling, creating, usually all around product. Yes there are exceptions, such as within corporate marketing, which deals with the Brand of the company, similar principles apply.

2. Price; if you can’t make money selling your product, should you sell it? Or go back to the drawing table, Well you know the answer right? Strategic marketing deals with this issue quite heavily, and helps to product matrix and differentiations etc.

3. Place; This is where we will sell the product, retail, online, jewelry parties, it’s the sales channel. I think it’s pretty straight forward, keep it simple and think of it as the place, where we sell the products.

4. Promotion; this is the world of public relations, advertising, and call to action sales materials, search marketing etc. etc. For those of you who study marketing you may already know that eMarketing tools is the fastest growing segment of technology. This is from a recent Gartner report, of July 2007 on marketing automation.

Without, any further a due, the drum rolls rolling, the hearts beating, yes the claps, and church bells ringing. Tadaha..It’s People, People, People, how can the marketing geniuses of the MBA’s forget to teach about “People,the 5th P”. Is process more important than people, no silly.

So what do yo need to know about People and marketing?

Forget about demographics, focus on psychographics, and let’s get the data to back up our strategy. It’s the art of understanding not only who our customers are. The 5th P of marketing is all about people, you need to know everything about your customers, their profile is just a start. You need to know their likes, dislikes, passions, dreams and aspirations. Where are they going today? How much money are they spending on products that you sell, how much will they spend on them tomorrow? VALS research covers types, that I can’t really forget. There will be more on this topic tomorrow, so we will call the series, “Secrets to eMarketing, Part 1-6″, we will start with Part 1. tomorrow.

Tieing it all together, Blogcast your Brand: SEO blogs + Internet Marketing 2.0

B is for Brand, not just blogging, and it’s more important to build a brand than to just SEO. We want to help you be successful, and that is why our tagline is Blogcast your brand! Branding is everything in marketing, that is everything of everything, after you have developed a great product. So what is a Brand, and why should you care? If you build your brand the right way, you won’t just SEO for subject matter keywords such as Jewelry, but people will SEO for your brand name, such as for “Blue Nile” for jewelry. How do you develop such a powerful brand name, especially on the Internet?

People will actually SEO for your brand name, as consumers will be searching for your name, to buy your product or service. And, your competitors will SEO for your brand name, no matter how much they try, you will always be #1 on Google for your brand! Right? Being searched for as a keyword that is your “brand name” is when you have really hit it big, and you than will be the target keyword for your category, and that my friend is the success of a brand and you will have arrived. We will show you not only to SEO blogs here, but to be unique, and to always use and reinforce your Brand name.

Back to, What is a brand and brand building? I am not going to give you a text book definition, because I am not going to refresh my memory with a text book. but tell you everything I have learned and simplify the knowledge of over 15 years. The 15 years come from real life Sr. level marketing positions with top companies and successful technology companies. Isnt’ that what you want, real world, real life experience, instead of text book answers? After receiving my business degree is in Management Information Systems, where one of my favorite subject was marketing, I started a food company, and had billionaires over for dinner at the age of 25 to buy my company. To this day that is still one of my top 10 achievements. I love the Schwan’s family, but The Schwan’s food company, sent me an offer I had to refuse, so I did, back on that lesson later. Be patient lad, there is a tie in to at the end of the book to the Schwan’s story of turning lemons in to lemonade.

My love and passion for marketing has never left me, I still love advertisements that make me laugh, brands that stand out and make you think, product branding that is genius. Marketing and product marketing are such an amazing and creative field, but require a lot of skill and market research, which I learned at Gartner and working with top Gartner clients such as Microsoft. Strategic Marketing and strategic positioning is not usually thought of as marketing, people usually talk about brand marketing or marketing promotions and advertisements, as marketing. Hence they miss the boat on it completely because they don’t understand the big picture. I say if you build a brand the right way from the strategy level, than brand building and SEO are easy. It’s not just about getting ranked at the top of the search engines, but to actually sell products and make money. Let’s never forget that brand building and SEO should aways be about increasing sales.

A lof of my friends in college and after were in the AMA, American Marketing Association, my passion and association never left me. I read Adweek and other marketing + business magazines for years as a hobby, and still love to look at brands with an Awe of success and wonder. My experiences have lead to me to create a few amazing and fun brand names that even Sr. VP’s at companies like Microsoft chuckle at. It’s all in a name as I say, thanks to Larry C, who’s nanny helped me develop UrbanTango.com, a real estate portal in 2003. That brand is still admired in the Seattle real estate world.

I consider my self a Internet Marketing expert, a position which others may not argue with given my background and results in todays internet marketing strategies. Way back in 1999, I co-founded an Internet Company, Enthusiasm.com which turned in to Enthusiasm Technologies, that sold to a public company for $8.6Million, Metro One Telecom. Soon there after I founded another company that achieved $1million in revenues in it’s first 11months and $3.2m in it’s second year, Netisen Group, Inc. at Netisen.com.

We ended up doing business at Netisen with Microsoft, Safeco, Nordstrom, Premera Blue Cross, Amgen, and Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center. Now if you live in Seattle you certainly know about all of these brands. While working with all those brands added credibility to Netisen, it still ended up being sold for pennies on the dollar and us loosing millions. I bring this up as building a great brand can generate millions, but if business not taken care of properly, can destroy a brand. Debacles of bad suppliers from China are starting to impact the Toy brands of today, and some very powerful toy brands are at risk. A whole country China is getting a bad brand due to some bad suppliers. Some might say unreasonably at the fault of the US brand or not enough quality control or regulations at both sides, I say, yes. Remember the issues with Tylenol, and how criminals almost destroyed that great brand. So experiences such as Enron’s have been around, that show us, that a great brand be lost in a matter of months.

So go slowly and be very strategic when SEOing or brand building, and be cautious of your business partners, great brands are developed over years not in a short time. We can all go through a tough period, and your brand will survive if it stands for solid values of ethics, compassion, honesty and respect. Respect is earned not only by doing things right, but also by managing the things that have gone wrong, so brand building and credibility go hand in hand. This is what Internet Marketing 2.0, search engines have unraveled at an accelerating rate.

Getting ranked and high rankings in search engines such as Google can get your brand Quick Credibility with the consumer. Especially as their are millions of web pages out there, and if you are among the top 10, why you are a leader, aren’t you! Organic SEO and search results actually give you and your Brand more credibility and Equity to your brand than Pay Per Click ads can. Consumers don’t like being sold to, do they, they prefer to buy, but you already knew that! I am very proud of our #1 search result in “Create a blog”, and many top rankings. Our brand MyTypes.com was recognized by a friend of a friend recently. As I spoke with this in house SEO expert of a large media company Real Networks, she has an MBA from a major west coast school, so she is very smart, and said she had seen our site at the top of the search engines so she thought highly of it. Wow, but that should not be a shock to you folks, Google and other search engines can make your brand a International phenomenon in a matter of days. The key is not just to SEO, but to build your brand with this strategy in mind.

Back to us, we are #1 for “Wordpress SEO” which is why you are here. #9 on Google for “Free Blog“, #11 for “Blogging“, and the #37 for “SEO“. Wowsa, that high for SEO and we weren’t even targeting it, boy we are good. I am saying these things about results and above paragraph about my/our past success, to not brag or be self promotional, but only to add credibility for all those doubters with MBA’s or not. I am sure some very smart people, will question my credibility, as they will yours or anyone who achieves success, especially in the public eye. In this world of rational reasoning, it’s not just what you know, what school you went to, but what have you done. To me the best thing about being an American, is that we tend to judge people by their actions, not just their degrees, caste system, last name or wealth status of lordship. In India, and other parts of the world, I am afraid it’s not the case.

At the end of the day, I will judge my success on how many people I can help with my skills rather than how many keywords I can get ranked on Google, or how many brands I can think of/or develop. There is a good list of below, and yes I do own over 70+ great URL’s. This article is not just about SEO, but rather on the topic of Branding, brand building, brand strategy, and most importantly about blogcasting/promoting your brand for eSuccess! This article may become a series, but for now we will stick with the following questions, gosh it’s so long already, ouch:-(.

1. What is a Brand? It’s the name of a product or company that captures it’s essence to the audience. Some common and newer example: Coke: a soft drink, but the bottle of coke; IBM, the personal computer, everything business computers, big blue, big branding, big shoes to fill:-)

2. What is the most important aspect of building a brand? That it be remembered, as well as capture the essence of it’s products value. Google, is as you can see, remembered. MySpace is remembered, Aveda: a health and beauty brand is remembered as it captures the plant essences. Remember that a brand my get old and tired such as Yahoo, but it’s the fault of it’s management. eBay is not tired, Microsoft is not tired?

3. How do we build a brand? Make it unique, smart-unique words, simple logos, hello Nike swoosh. Use colors or be black and white in today world of color, like Crate and Barrel. Music, any thing to set it up as a product or companies Unique Selling Proposition, can you think of the music or tune of the Vonage commercials? How about the annoying factor of the HeadOn, HeadOn, HeadOn. Make it an emotional grabber, and use it every where, every where, in all of your marketing materials, packaging, website, brochures, keep the colors and words consistent. And than keep it consistent by hammering it over and over again, liven in up every year or so, but not too often, keep it consistent. The main rule of branding, the more different the more it will stand out. In a world of blue, be pink or Orange, well Pink is the new black, as you already know.

4. How do we start building a brand? Ask your self these questions, what, where, how, when, and Why?

What does my product stand for? What do I want my customers to think of the solution? Is it a soft drink that quenches their thirst, or is it “oh what a feeling? What is association of the name and the product? When I was first thinking of a name for my first company, a frozen indian food co., my friend and associate William Mason, thank William for that great lesson. I had not idea, that his insights would get in my book some day:-). He asked me some very interesting questions, I can remember my first brand building conversation back in 1992 vividly.

In a matter of minutes we came up with the name, sitting right outside at a cafe in Minneapolis warehouse district, those were the days before the Target center, Prince, the musician without a name, still had his night club right around the corner. And there we were, at that same exact point, I figured out the art of Branding. Oh by the way, it ended up being called: “Masala, Cuisine of India”. Masala is the name for mixture of spiced used in Indian cooking, it is at the heart of every home, restaurant, everything Indian food. So having a name like Masala is the key, you have to capture the essence of the core of your category, your culture, your industry.

The word “Cuisine” means gourmet, so we added that as a positioning statement, we wanted the Indian food to have a sophisticated place in the palate, rather than peasant food. We knew that Indian food tends to be popular with the educated and cultural type of people who appreciate it’s complex tastes and smells. Not just some visually non-appealing poop style curry, yukh.

The average hamburger eating crowd does not define a connoisseurs of fine gourmet foods. At the same time, the word Gourmet may be too high-end for the average person. Last word “India” was important to say what it was, it is from the ancient land of Yoga and Taj Mahal, but isn’t it easier to just say India? But we could have said Curries, or Taj Mahal, Rubi’s, Turbons, Sacred cow’s etc. etc. Words have a lot to do with branding, and you MUST define your product or brand explicitly with your customers in mind. That is why the blog post on the 5P’s of marketing is so important to visit, well all the blogs and topics in the book are important. So to summarize, we asked and got to the Core of Indian food to come up with a name for product and company. Some times people want the company to be named different than the product, we disagree.

We believe you should pick a name, a catchy name, a small name, an emotional brand that defines your product that you LOVE, and keep it simple and use that word for everything. Large companies pay thousands to millions of dollars for brand creation and brand positioning. You are a small business person, an entrepreneur or even a large business executive, regardless of who you are if you want to develop a brand from inception to reinforcing, you have to pick a few words to define what you do and hammer that brand name home. So pick a catchy name like “Purple Cow” by Seth Godin. Being different is not enough, capturing an essence is vital to you success. Here are some brand names that I have been associated with and or/have created.

Masala: Cuisine of India

MNDine.com: a Minnesota Restaurant online directory

Gartner: A global IT leader, any IT exec knows this brand

Microsoft: A software company, ask Bill Gates what they do, they are a software company. I helped managed the relationship between Gartner and Microsoft and I love some of the branding that they have created.

UrbanTango.com: A real estate website for Seattle Real Estate that I created and got to the top 10 search result on Yahoo, MSN, Google

XoomPad.com: A real estate websites, and IDX(Home Listings) search website

MyTypes.com: A community of bloggers to create and promote their blogs, what do you do with your blog, Type one right?

OrangePillow.com: A hosting company website, get it a Pillow a host?

Why did I bring up the not so well known brands that we own? They are not big names, nor does your brand have to super well known by everyone, just with your customers. And remember make them-catchy names, and being catchy is what we are after, well Brands that last, Brands that have equity, and Brands that make us money. I love to see brands at work, and so should your work, not you? A great brand usually means more jobs and more success for not just the company but also the community at large. We will address the other questions of When, where, How and Why in the next few questions.

Branding Your Blog: Five Questions To Ask Yourself

Branding a blog is not unlike branding a business - you want to design a brand that encapsulates your core characteristics, that makes you stand out from the crowd, and that sums up your philosophy. I’m not talking about pretty logos or a memorable slogan, however. In order to succeed in the age of Web 2.0, your brand/blog must be dynamic, beneficial and/or entertaining - or preferably all three. Today’s readers are savvy, demanding, and fickle, so there has to be substance behind the hype if you want your message to stick.

When you begin your blog, ask yourself these questions:

1. What do I want to say? Try to narrow your message down to a few sentences. Think of it as a blogging mission statement (you can put this on your about page).

2. What do I have to offer? What unique skills and knowledge do you have to share with your readers? How can someone benefit by reading your blog? This can can become the basis for your cornerstone content.

3. What is my niche? No one can be all things to all people, so focus on what you can do well. Define your niche so that your blog and brand can be tailored to it (this is also important for SEO purposes, as it helps you to focus on the best possible keywords).

4. Is this sustainable in the long run? Do I have enough to say on this topic to maintain a blog? If you are blogging about your business, (hopefully), you’ll be very passionate about it and have more than enough to say. Remember that creating a successful blog, like a successful brand, requires time and commitment.

5. What sets you apart from the competition? What makes you and your business stand out? Can you describe in a few words? Why should someone read your blog?

As an example, here are the answers for this blog:

1. What do I want to say? In a nutshell, I help bloggers make their blogs better; in particular, I teach to people use blogging to promote their businesses.

2. What do I have to offer? A finely honed writing ability combined with an knowledge of new media and web 2.0 topics, and an awareness of trends in the blogging community. Plus, I’m patient, friendly, and a good teacher.

3. What is my niche? Yes, I’m one of the many who blogs about blogging, but I’m focused on helping small business owners and entrepreneurs create compelling content and maximize the potential of their blogs.

4. Is this sustainable in the long run? Definitely. I clearly have lots to say, and the blogging community is incredibly dynamic and innovative, so there are always new topics to cover and lots of blog fodder. I’ve developed blogs before, so I understand the time commitment. Finally, blogging is something I’m passionate about on a personal level, because starting a blog literally changed my life (ultra quick summary - I was planning on going into a completely different field after I got my B.A., but I started a fashion blog as a hobby, fell in love with the world of blogging and online media, and the rest is history).

5. What sets you apart from the competition? I consider myself a writer as well as a blogger (just because the web is more informal medium than print doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t put my best face, or posts, forward), and I teach people to use their blogs as a means of active communication, connection, and involvement with their readers/markets instead of just a promotional tool. I’m in this to help other people succeed.

This post is being submitted to ChrisG on New Media’s Branding Round-up, so click the link for more posts on branding and how it relates to new media.**This article was previously written before 4th of July of 2007, by our previous blogging coach.

Secrets to eSuccess: blogs and search marketing!

I am surprised that most people don’t know about search marketing, but they should. They all know about Google, Yahoo, and MSN, right? That is why. I want to use the word “Secret” to your eSuccess.

The word Secret is over used a little lately, we do love the movie and didn’t want to play on it’s message. But the people in the search marketing world and SEO world are too secretive. The hidden secret is simple, but they want you to think it’s too technical, but it’s not, and it should be unveiled. It’s as easy as blogging with the right keywords every day.

Traditional marketing is not dead, but the new media of the Internet is not a pipe dream any more either. The biggest most powerful world of Internet marketing is not email, it’s not the web 2.0 social media marketing. If we were to keep it simple and stupid, it would be the Google effect. But, wait Live Search from Microsoft got a big leg up this week. Live signed deals with Digg.com and Facebook.com two of the top 5 leaders in the Social media giants of the internet.

The new world of marketing has changed the most due to Google and other search engines. Search engine optimization or Search Engine Marketing or Internet Marketing in that order are subset of each other. Because Google is the first to give the small business a chance by it’s adwords product. What adwords does is makes it easier for small business to buy keywords to market it’s products. And contextual ads being mapped to search results makes everyone happy.

Why? When a consumer is looking for information, and a search engine provides the info, regardless if it is an Ad or not, they help by providing the right information at the right time. People don’t want to be pushed advertisements down their throat. People prefer to look for information, we are all treasure hunters and want to find stuff. And this is where Google made the search results better and created this huge world of Search Marketing. In fact, according to SEMPO.org the industry size is suppose to be a $7.8Billion dollars. We are not a member of Sempo, but we support it’s mission. SEMPO Mission: SEMPO is a global non-profit organization serving the search engine marketing industry and marketing professionals engaged in it.

So how do you have eSuccess in search marketing results? Search Engines want to provide the best contextual related results to consumers. They target news related websites first, and blogs are considered news. Blogs are considered news because, well you already know this, right? Each blog post has a time stamp on it. So for a blog to be found as a search result, it has to be written with the proper keywords that is searched for. But, how do you write unless you know the targeted keywords. Well, that is easy you have to go back to the Search engines and start with Search Marketing. So it’s a full circle, search engines provide that information in their keyword analysis tools. Which is the most important, but one of the many tools required for your eSuccess via Search marketing. The tool sets as a whole are referred to SEM and SEO tools. This is what the professionals use, and you as a small business can learn these too, especially for free SEO tools site called LinkMint.com

We are a commercial site, and actually built our on SEO Tools last year. I have been studying search marketing and SEO since 2003, and have been blogging since the same time. Why did I continue to blog, even though I had nothing to write. Because, I knew the secret that is easy to get over looked. Blogging is the best way to SEO and search market for your products and services. So this makes Blogging the best SEO tool on the market. And, to do it right, you have to blog often, and with the proper keywords. Do you also see how I write with all of our target keywords, linked to the proper site? That type of anchor text linking to a domain, are the kinds of links you need the most to be ranked in Google.

That’s search marketing in a nut shell, but we will go a step further. I will do a series starting next week. I will cover the 14 must know secrets to SEO, SEM, and search marketing. You notice, how I took out the word Internet out of it, I am changing the words because the word Internet is so passe. Search, social, eSuccess, inspiration, empower, human element, and new media is what it is all about:-).

Secrets of eMarketing Part 1: Keywords?

Yesterday, I finally made a decision to start this series, by discussing the 4P’s of Marketing, which is located at the top of this chapter. Why didn’t we do this before, you ask? Simple answer is, we just weren’t ready. We were trying to match our message with our target customers, which is easier said than done. Our internal debate is over, we now know what to call the book, which customers to target, and how we want to differentiate ourself. This background work is often the most ignored and most important marketing task, and it is called strategic positioning. Some times it can take months or years to get it right, but if you don’t get this part right, you will get everything else wrong.

By the end of this blog, you will understand who your target customer’s are, how to find them, and who you want to be known as to them? Wow all that, after reading one blog article?

To make the process simple, we have to answer simple questions. So that is why we are focused on eSuccess, a wholistic approach to your blogging, marketing, website and search marketing. The key to your success is the right keywords it takes a long time to figure that out thought. And finding the right keywords is the “secret” to your eSuccess.

The world Secret is so over used right now, It is a bit controversial and successful at the same time. So a part of us wants to take advantage of this new world created by it. But, the other part wants to be original, and use the word “Key”, as that is more us. So we will be us, and you be you. But we do like to unveil the industries hidden secrets, not to mention, we love the Movie. knowing the secret keywords is not enough, you have to blog about them every day or as often as you can. What? The secret to your eSuccess is as easy as blogging? Well yes, but I have to spend a lot of hours explaining this to you in detail, with specific examples, and show you the results of why it is so. Otherwise, you won’t believe me, will you?

Than and only than, your pragmatic side, will understand the world of Search Marketing. It’s too bad, that you can’t buy the DVD yet, we actually started it already on “The Secret Key to your eSuccess”. Yes we did, but it’s not Hollywood style and not-dramatic enough, yet. Till than, you are stuck with stupid looking text, no famous actors, no music, and no dramatic productions. But you might tell all of your friends and invite them to blog on MyTypes.com if our Key helps, you, and it will. And maybe, just maybe, our specific advice will help you promote your business and gain more customers? It will, if you do some basic easy work.

It’s all in a word as they say, “Secrets” or “Key”, or “Naam-Hindu for God and Om” and “Jesus”, “Allah”, and “Jew”, these words mean so much. The Keyword we choose is as important as the business online, keywords or words you choose to target for your business are everything. That is what the search engines will define you as. That is why it is the key to your eSuccess, eMarketing, SEO, and search marketing.

Why do large companies and smart people usually get to the top, not just the top of the search engines? The successful people understand strategic direction, they know who they are are, and they target the power of words.

To tie it back to this world of “The Secret”, it really is simple you have to use the keywords. And especially as the SEO industry is so secretive, it’s not that hard, they just want you to think it is. Isn’t that what techies do, they hold things a secret so that they can feel important, ouch–I really don’t like that. Everything you do in search marketing and eMarketing, and eSuccess has to do with the most appropriate keywords for your business. Believe it or not, all blogging platforms not just ours are your #1 SEO tool. You never thought it was that easy, hunh, well check out any great SEO they will have a blog won’t they? imagine that, all this for a 4 letter word.

So what are the proper keywords for your business? This process of fully understanding the ramification of all aspects of your business target customer and their searches is called key word analysis within search marketing. Can you believe some companies charge up to hundreds of dollars for doing this for you, and/or sell you expensive software tools that are free to most SEO search marketing firms by Google, Overture, Yahoo etc.

It isn’t enough to know your keywords, but you also have to know their search volume traffic by Google. Yes, Google, and only Google at this point. Sorry MSN Live, and the other search people, you are not driving the new economy yet. Google is the search marketing king, please don’t waste your search marketing dollars on most SEO Tools, if they are not free don’t use them. Also, don’t do any thing, well spend money on a SEO Services company, or search marketing agency or search marketing firm, until you are done with this series. Simply said, MSN, Yahoo, and all others just don’t have the traffic and web tools for the market research right now. If you are in the midst of making a SEO services company decision email me, and I will give you my 2 cents object advice. I am trying to be a third party analyst on giving people objective advice on search marketing firms. Therefore, I will write about them quite often in a blog.

So after the proper “Keywords, or Keyword”, you will need to focus on competition of advertisers and their search results. The secret unveiled of right keywords is not just not enough, as you already know, it is hard work getting to the mountain top. So if you expect it to be super easy, you may go home now. But, we do make it as easy as blogging. The key is you have to do it every day, and promote your blog, and write with real important content of proper keywords. You may have to work less if you use MyTypes.com blogging platform. Because we do a lot of this for you.

Sorry, but I had to cut this article in half, 4 more paragraph had to move to part 2. So to summarize, you need to find the proper keywords for your business and do a keyword analysis. Remember, if you don’t plan for your eSuccess and develop a plan, you won’t be successful. I heard this from Anthony Robbins back in 1992-3, in Minnesota. If you don’t plan for your success, you plan to fail. So the first thing in your plan for eSuccess is a keyword analysis. Come back tomorrow and we will go in to it in detail. If you want to get ahead go read up on it at our SEO tools area at LinkMint.com.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

My love for CRM Software

As mentioned earlier in a post about 2 weeks ago, that I have always loved CRM and CRM Software. I went on and on about my experiences, how my previous investors had founded CRM software companies that had gone public, and how I made a bunch of money in Clarify. I have always fascinated with sales and customer service aspects. In the best book of high tech marketing “Crossing the Chasm” CRM and high tech companies are discussed as examples of how high tech companies grow. So while my passion for CRM goes back a long time, I am not at the fore front of lead generation with SEO and Internet Marketing via blogs. Here is a relative simple idea of what CRM Software is all about, and the features in the Entellium products:

A simple definition of CRM Edit

CRM Definition admin April 10th. 2008, 4:00pm

This definition of CRM is from our friends at Entellium, they are one of the best and more progressive CRM Software companies in the country.

A Simple CRM Definition

Businesses Like Yours That Use CRM: 4.5%
Businesses Like Yours That Need CRM: 100%

Simply put, a CRM software or solution is anything that helps you develop, maintain or improve your customer relationships.

Whether storing information, automating processes, communicating directly with customers or analyzing customer data, CRM has several different aspects and many different types of implementations.

At Entellium, we focus on two of the most important aspects: sales force automation and customer service and support.

  • By supporting your sales force, you can make it more productive while gaining insight into your sales cycle and results.
  • By supporting your customer service and support functions, you can strengthen the relationships you have with your current customers.**By keeping track of both of both aspects, CRM Software helps you make sure your clients believe that they are #1 in your book!

Features of the Sales Force Automation CRM product features:

Features

The Survis Group

Sales Skyrocket 60% with Entellium eSalesForce

Read more ››

Activity Center™

Unlike most CRM Software solutions, eSalesForce gives you one location where you can manage all your daily tasks.

Quota Planner™

Any CRM Software solution can help you track revenue and sales targets. With Quota Planner, you can track every activity that affects your results, such as cold calls, number of appointments or conversion targets.

Leads Distribution

No more lost leads. eSalesForce automates lead distribution based on criteria you select.

Report Automator™

Create and distribute reports automatically on a customized schedule.

Document Automator™

Whether you need a proposal, quote, letter or contract, you can merge your data with included or customized templates to generate documents quickly and accurately.

Process Customization

Savvis

Your Data is Safe: We partner with the same data centers used by organizations like the New York Stock Exchange

Read more ››

The same sales process doesn’t work for every type of customer. With eSalesForce, you can create different sales stages, checklists and forecasting rules depending on your target.

Virtual Sales Coach™

Another industry first, this knowledge base gives your reps one-click access to competitive selling points, objection handling, product information, sales scripts and benefit statements.

Marketing Automation

Tear down the wall between sales and marketing with a wealth of features that integrate the two departments—and automate many tasks.

One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Most CRM Software solutions are intended for huge corporations with huge sales teams. Their complex features and complex rollouts make them hard to implement and hard to use.

eSalesForce is specifically designed to work with a wide range of business types and sizes, from just a handful to hundreds.

Make sure your solution is a good fit.

Customer Service and Support CRM product features:

- High Level Components

  • Incident management
  • Workflow management
  • Workforce tracking
  • Activity tracking
  • Web-based support forms
  • Contract/Warranty tracking
  • Personalized support pages
  • Full 360-degree view of customers
  • Alerts and notifications
  • Business intelligence
  • Email incident management tools & integration

- Business Intelligence

  • Response time and resolve time measurement
  • Built-in report generator and distribution engine
  • Report on system & custom fields
  • Ability to build and save reporting scenarios
  • Export reports to Excel

- Incident Tracking

  • Customized incident capture forms
  • Capture incidents from Web chat, Web forms, personalized support pages, email and manual data entry
  • Call tracking by type
  • Review and track incidents online in real-time
  • Route items to work queues
  • Establish standard turnaround times for items in a queue
  • Automatic alerts when incidents exceed standard turnaround times
  • Incident cloning
  • Complete call scheduling
  • Store and monitor Service Level Agreements (SLA)
  • Setting for due date and time including target date and time for resolution
  • Auto-update customer progress using email and SMS
  • Customer self-service
  • Set target resolution times for incidents and monitor progress against goals
  • Sort work queues as well as custom user-defined criteria
  • Search for specific data within queues such as responsible role (i.e., look for all work-items last handled by customer service)
  • Supervisor notification—reporting alerts and warnings to the participant’s supervisor

- Workflow Management

  • Automatically assign work based on staff skill levels and/or workloads
  • Build separate business rules for each customer
  • Match and deliver to contracted service levels
  • Define absolute or relative dates when activities or work items must be completed
  • Escalations and re-assignments
  • Conduct team-resolution
  • Ad-hoc & FIFO routing
  • Rules builder
  • Generate and manage notifications and alerts, including how the alerts are registered, logged, and to whom they are posted
  • Support roles
  • Ability for users to have multiple roles
  • Push or assign work to participants as well as allow participants to pull work from their queues
  • Preserve consistency by ensuring only one participant can access a task and its work-items at a time
  • Multiple views of a user’s work lists (as a group member and as an individual; users may take items from a group list and place them on an individual list)
  • Clearly differentiate between new and existing work tasks
  • Set up various work queues such as an individual inbox or person-specific queue
  • Define automatic routing and escalation (routing to a supervisor) of a work item as a result of activating a trigger

- Activity Management

  • Track all activities related to Incidents
  • Create and apply sets of activities to match business processes
  • Delegate actions to others
  • Integrate rule-based workflow processes
  • Task/Diary function that synchronizes with MS Outlook
  • Allow scheduling of both service staff and other staff
  • Alerts and notifications
  • Convenient daily print outs

- Customization

  • Add custom fields
  • Change field values
  • Change look and feel of application
  • Customize business rules at record and queue level
  • Web Services API

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

MyTypes.com SEO Blog explains Google Algorithm

Check out this SEO Blog i just wrote on Google Algorithm simpliefied:

The Anatomy of a Search Engine

The link above will take you to the research paper by the founders of Google, it is hosted on the Stanford University website. It discusses in relative detail the problem that Google is trying to solve, and how it goes about doing so. Some of you are not technical SEO types, so you can pretty much ignore it. For some of you software engineer types, and the SEO Services people, it gives you real clues on what Google maintains as it’s core, which will never change, just enhanced. Those of you who want to know the intricate details of how the Google Algorithm ranks a page, it is explained in the above article. By in large the original system still is true within the Google back bone. 396730_27936030_sxchu-photo-blogs.jpg

What has changed is the ability of the system to understand, spam links and many other types of tricks the unethical SEO’s have implemented over the years. Anchor text section is still in place as the most powerful SEO Tip, and writing good quality content is still king. So we will attribute Anchor text in links from high PR sites as the SEO Tip #7, the most powerful SEO strategy.

I was going to leave this post as is after the preceding paragraph, but I did some more searches on the “Google Algorithm”, and decided to add more clarity on what I see to be more accurate right now. If you are an SEO Services provider, and/or searching for the keywords “SEO“, you see us in the top 10. But prior to us, the kid genius as they call him, and Jedi SEO Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz.org was always in the top 10. He has written a good post on what he thinks is the Google Algorithm, he wrote it on 10-16-06, here is the formula as he sees it:

GoogScore = (KW Usage Score * 0.3) + (Domain Strength * 0.25) + (Inbound Link Score * 0.25) + (User Data * 0.1) + (Content Quality Score * 0.1) + (Manual Boosts) - (Automated & Manual Penalties)

KW Usage Factors:

  • KW in title tag
  • KW in header tags
  • KW in document text
  • KW in internal links pointing to the page
  • KW in domain and/or URL

Domain Strength

  • Registration history
  • Domain age
  • Strength of links pointing to the domain
  • Topical neighborhood of domain based on inlinks & outlinks
  • Historical use & links pattern to domain

Inbound Link Score

  • Age of links
  • Quality of domains sending links
  • Quality of pages sending links
  • Anchor text of links
  • Link quantity/weight metric (Pagerank or a variation)
  • Subject matter of linking pages/sites

User Data

  • Historical CTR to page in SERPs
  • Time users spend on page
  • Search requests for URL/domain
  • Historical visits/use of URL/domain by users GG can monitor (toolbar, wifi, analytics, etc.)

Content Quality Score

  • Potentially given by hand for popular queries/pages
  • Provided by Google raters (remember Henk?)
  • Machine-algos for rating text quality/readability/etc

Here is the link to the full post: Google Algorithm Post by SEOmoz.org

**Based on my understanding of the Google Algorithm, Here is a simple break down, the small factors are not as important for most people, so I am ignoring them. Also, I don’t see most people doing all four of them well enough, this is all we focus on and we consistently get ranked in the top 10 for very very competitive keywords. If you are not seeing your self in the top 10 for your keyword, than make sure you do all of the bottom four well.

(.40) Actual keywords in the domain

( for example for keyword “Weddding Photos” weddingphotos.com would rank very high, as long as it has proper title Tags, but mycompany.com/weddingphotos is ok, and still better than www.NorthernLightsphotography.com) This example is courtesy of our friends who run the Seattle Wedding photographers site, I always use them as example because for WeddingPhotos.com they are ranked #1 in Google. But, for their own keywords they are targeting “Seattle Wedding Photographers“, they are not in the top 10.

(.40) Anchor Text Links

( “Business Blog” Linking to MyTypes.com would be much better for ranking in “Business blog” than, “best business blogs“).

(.10) Meta Tags and Heading Tags of site

(Meta Tags are almost a requirement, and if you don’t have your keyword in the title it’s difficult to get ranked in it, but it is possible based on the other factors).

(.10) Content on site

(The more content the better, blogs are great, just the mention of the words such as blogs, news, report, reviews and forums helps a ton).

So much for the Google Algorithm, all I can say to the average person, (the non-SEO Services providers), don’t worry about the Google Algorithm, write lots of blogs, and promote your blogs in wikis’s etc, with lots of anchor text of course, of course.

Monday, April 07, 2008

Is Jerry Yang of Yahoo nuts, and is he looking for a shareholder law suit on the Microsoft offer?

I just read that Jerry Yang of Yahoo has turned the deal with hostile with Microsoft, after sending the letter. Rarely do I say this, Microsoft has done everything it can in as neutral and strategic way as possible. And, this Yang A** is screwing things up, as he did Yahoo and MyBlogLog. Oh what a great company Yahoo was, now it will soon to be a search engine has been. Why, ego maybe?

Yahoo and MSN (Microsoft) have a big problem, they do not have enough internet traffic for us SEO/SEM services providers to focus on them. We won't buy ads on their systems, and we are the profitable large segment of small businesses. Their are 27 million small businesses that advertise on Google, how many is Yahoo loosing daily.

What do you think of this deal? We want it done, not because we want to run to the #2 network to advertise on. No that is not it, we want to have another choice. We also think consumers win if there is competition for Google, competition is what the American system is built on. Knowing all of this why would Jerry Yang, not take the Microsoft deal? Because his ego is too big, and he still wants to make Yahoo work. We do too, but we are not the ones with fiduciary responsibilities to share holders of Yahoo stock.

We want another choice, so be it, what do you think?
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

How to write Quality Blogs

Webmaster Guidelines

Click on the link above to go to the Google Webmaster Guidelines, you can’t ignore them, even if you are an ethical SEO Services provider like us. I saw a reference to them, when I was doing a search for Seattle SEO’s. I was wondering who would show up in Seattle SEO’s, And, Google’s Matt Cutt’s blog showed up within the top 30. Even though, his blogs are good to read, not very relevant though hun:-). So I decided to write this blog about quality. Google’s webmaster rules are important to know, but more importantly if you try to write Quality blogs and quality content, you should never have to worry about it. I do a lot of links in my blogs, you are wondering duh right? 941940-friends-fromsxchu-photo-blogs.jpg

Don’t worry you can too, Matt Cutts provides lots of links in his blogs, just make sure you write well, contextually linking is just fine.

Here are some SEO tips for writing Quality blogs:

1. Write as if you are telling a story, make it your story, your opinion, your feelings.

2. You can write about anything, but use photos to jazz up your blogs, yes I wrote about this a couple of days ago. Did I mention that our community blogs site got over 500 visitors just in one day, because someone uploaded a famous person’s wedding photo? Yes, don’t forget about pictures to SEO your blogs. 655337-passion-sxchu-photo-blogs.jpg

3. Write with numbers or bullets, when providing information, it keeps readers focused, and makes the flow easier.

4. Use Tags at the bottom, just the words tags are important.

5. Be Casual, means be conversational, that’s the beauty of blogs. I was reading a blog of a CEO of one of the best SEO Services companies this weekend, and I found his tone to conversational and professional.

6. You might write a lot blogs, but it’s the quality so keep your content focused, and always try to provide helpful information.520217-fishing-boat-frmsxchu-photo-blogs.jpg

7. Be newsworthy? Blogs are considered news by the search engines, because the blogsphere really is a great way to get end user content. The search engines such as Google like to empower end users and unique voices not just commercial promotion. What makes your blogs news worthy? That could be a blogs topic of another day, maybe even a series. I heard a news commentator talk about news and what makes it to the news. I think he was right on, “SOMETHING UNIQUE, SOMETHING STRANGE, SOMETHING THAT MAKES YOU STOP AND SAY–Can’t be”. Usually these are emotionally charged human type stories.

I think one of the biggest attractive traits of blogs is that, it’s the perspective of an average person, not the washed down version of a politician. So get the truth out, go be newsworthy!

**By the way, since this is my CEO’s blog, I can talk about CEO or personal stuff. I am starting to write my blogs here first, and than edit them to make them even more impactful. Than, I will publish them on our SEO blog. I am trying to increase the quality of our blogs, can you tell. Also, Keith reserved a very cool URL for our Seattle SEO business, call iSeoServices.org and .com. Hopefully those will get us some Seattle SEO clients. One of our major contracts ended last week, and we are desperately trying to gain more SEO Services business. Yes, the Internet works, I am actually working on a proposal from a lead we got online.

Thanks to all of our supporters, we have a number of prospects and leads for SEO Services because of our network of friends. Keep an eye out for businesses that spend a lot on pay per click, there are a perfect match for our SEO Services.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Arthur C. Clarke..Science Fiction from Sri Lanka

More accurate than he ever thought he would be, things occuring much faster than planned. Must read a few of his books, especially 3001, from Ovation TV. Wow. I just found out that Arthur Clarke died this year, tragedy, I never could meet this great man. I do want to go out and get the book, loved this Ovation channel show on Arthur C. Clarke, 1917-2008.

Yes I wrote this one of many blogs, on my blackberry! I don't like my service though, I don't want to give the company the benefit. You too can be blogging from your blackberry, just email to your blogger account!

What's so special about Blogger Draft?

Blogger the best blogging tool, well besides the Wordpress.org open source blog website open source system, had me click to the Blogger in Draft. I am writing this post, in this new system. I am curious as to what the features are?