My recent entry on the SEO Chicago blog reads....
"The FCC Plans To Be More Lenient
For years the standard cardinal rule was that you could not own a newspaper and a radio or television station in the same area. According to the New York Times there is a push to change some of the old habits....."
PRINTED MEDIA TAKES A HIT
As advertising gradually slides over to Internet Media the newspaper market is slagging in sales. Part of that is due to the speed of delivery and instant gratification of getting the news when you want it. The consumer can log on line or read the headlines off an RSS feed in his/ her Blackberry and keep on moving. There is almost no time for news in this fast high tech world. Television and Internet media knows how to deliver a story. Often times the news is delivered quick and fast in two minute segments to give you an idea of what is happening. Then it will repeat itself again so you get the point.
CNN has been doing this 30 minute coverage thing for years. It just gives you the headlines of whats going on. Even Internet video clips are 2 minutes max. Media groups like TMZ understand the speed and often restless minds of the public."
** This ties into what Michigan marketers should be doing and thats levelling the playing field. Now for the first time in history you have the same coverage as large media giants. Thanks to Blogging and RSS feeds you can create your own network of potential customers and clients.And unlike traditional media you can run multiple blogs that carry media rich content in any city you choose. In fact you can have as many blogs as you want in any category. Each one of them can syndicate your content whether it is audio, web video and get them disributed onto web sites, hand held devices and multiple web sites. This of course is done with zero broadcasting fees.
Not only that but you do not have to worry about breaking any laws with the FCC. This is truly powerful. As The Detroit Free Press struggles for new subscribers the customer base is getting its news source from other venues via the internet.
How are you using this technology to further enhance your profit line?Posted by Ted Cantu on Oct. 18, 2007 at 7:38 AM
Forget all the stuff you are reading in the press. The great video wave for the Internet is already here. There are plenty of early companies who are jumping on this bandwaggon. Its a great thing to see. In fact I haven't seen this type of excitement come to the web in quite a while. I am talking about all the companies that deal with video email like VM Direct and Hello World. But there are many more exciting companies too like www.Oovoo.com
The predictions are incredible. You are looking at profit projections in the billions. And this is not just a local thing its a global phenomenon. Its going to reshape everything around you from the way you communicate to the way business will be conducted. This is not only encouraging but it is welcomed. In fact, it is everything that the telecommuncation industry has been striving for.
The End.==========================THE OTHER VIEW.....Well, it would be silly to let them tell us that this is THE BE ALL AND END ALL OF COMMUNICATION. Because what these firms deliver is just one part of whats possible. There are many other things that this technology can do for you as a company.
Sure its a blast to have your video emails delivered in the right bandwidth everytime. Its great to be guess right about everything. However Digital Video can be used strategically to nail down precise concepts at the right time. I am talking about combining it with Search Engine Optimization and being able to get ANY web page you want indexed.
This can benefit....
* Real Estate* New Property* Autos
* Key Business Concepts* Squeeze Pages* Product Demonstrations.....And far too many more examples that we could list.
The combinations of SEO mixed with web video, (that is keyword driven) can pinpoint any page to ANY NICHE MARKET. So what I am saying is that you will not have to invite people to come and look at your stuff. Your material just shows up where its supposed to and gets in front of the niche market. This is very powerful.
Your pages become marching soldiers of fortune. These are also optimized to 85% - 100% so the Meta Data is top notch. Bottom line you are going to breeze right past your competitors. This is going to be beneficial as you grow in search engine popularity. This is in some ways greater than what VM Direct can do because you show up in the search engines. You are not just one of the millions of people who are using a service.
Remember what happened recently with Google and Squidoo.
http://911copywriters.blogspot.com/2007/10/squidoo-gets-google-slapped-does-this.htmlIf this service ever gets Google slapped - for any reason - and it could happen you are flat out of luck. Its better to know both sides of the fence so you can be twice as much as your competitors. There are a lot of things to know about the search engine world that can strengthen any company. Don't rely on one service to be your personal Jesus. If something happens to that service you will lose your hard earned efforts.
I applaud these new services for showing up when they did. In fact, I can find some use for them myself. I'll be honest. They are pretty incredible for what they can do. They have the video email market down cold.
But if you want to use digital video to anchor your web pages so they will be found onilne, (think Geo Targeting) then you need good Search Engine Optimization.
Get the best of both worlds. Why fool around?
Posted by Ted Cantu on Oct. 11, 2007 at 10:16 AM - Cantu is the creator of www.911copywriters.com and a Dan Kennedy IBA Member.
I got a call today from someone who inquired about our SEO packages. Before he could commit to getting a solid solution he tried to defend his position on PPC and why it was "working". Now I got to tell you that this particular prospect was blowing $1000 bucks a month and getting a shoddy ROI.
Thats $12,000 a year out the window.
I must also add that this guy hadn't sold anything to date despite this hefty price tag. As if he was defending his actions he was trying to convince me that his PPC efforts were.... "pretty good" and that he may not even need organic SEO. I wasn't buying it.
WHAT ARE HITS?
I had to go over this twice today with two different people. But it basically breaks down like this. You may have 20,000 hits a day. At least, that is what your traffic counter claims right? Wrong. What you are REALLY looking at is a tab of how many elements were reviewed by a search engine spider. That means every graphic element is counted as a "hit". So if you got a gallery on one of your pages with 50 images - one visitor goes to your page and every one of those pictures will register as a "hit".
HITS = HOW IDIOTS TRACK TRAFFIC
So you can have 10,000 hits a day. Maybe what it really comes down to in most cases is 500 unique visitors are going through your web pages and not buying anything but looking for content. Each time the pages are opened the full graphic count registers as a large hit count. Sadly, this is how a lot of companies look at their web traffic. They just aren't in the know.
The Other Type of Traffic
Just because you are getting hits doesn't mean that the people who stumble onto your site, (in most cases - especially if you are using PPC tactics) are simply not qualified to be a customer. The trick to getting GOOD traffic is to make sure your web site pops up into the right corners of the web where your niche audiences are hanging out in. This could be a variety of areas but not limited to:
* WIKIS* Directories
* Portals* Regional Directories
* Review Sites
* Message Boards
* But More Importantly.... Good Use of PR.
Traffic is just traffic unless its singled out and has some directive. You need to have the appropriate type of people pop up on your site as they are more likely to buy something that you are selling. Keep in mind that if you ignore this fact you are really playing darts in the dark.
Posted by Cantu on Oct. 3, 2007 at 9:26 PM
There is a GOOD CHANCE that you're killing yourself online. I just came back from a wild jaunt in the east coast in New York City, (you can read all about my recent adventures at the DigitalLife conference here.....).I come back from a highly technical two weeks to find something very disturbing back on my home soil. Companies from all walks of life in Troy, Michigan have ZERO IDEAS on what it takes to make a page rank properly....Most alarmingly......
* Keyword Density
* Meta Data* Proper Copywriting Length
Sadly, a lot of sites that I come across even in the manufacturing realm INSIST on putting all the body copy into a - h5 -tag. That doesn't say much for the city of Metro Detroit. IN fact, it makes us look pretty shoddy when it comes to the nation at large. Especially after our recent embarrassment this past Monday with our National American status as a state.
** Worse, I have seen many manufacturing sites in the State of Michigan try to skate by with one or two sentences per page. Please take note that there is a direct number system when it comes to using the proper number of keywords per page. I am not saying this to be over the top or cruel but its a standard fact.
There are a lot of things you must put into your pages. I am not talking about FLASH and other outdated technologies. I am talking directly about the type of formating that gets your pages easily indexed online.
There is no reason that a company should have to pay 25k - 50k for some watered down "programming" or animation functionality or even java navigation, (Java is not visible to search engine spiders by the way).
But what do I know?
Maybe Michigan businesses like throwing their money out the window.
There is a reason why Michigan is in last place.
Ted Cantu posted this on October 2, 2007 at 8:58 PM
