I like what they are doing over there at Buzz Canuck.  A good example is the interview with Mabel’s Labels.  Tricia details the strange chain of events that lead to big sales and great word of mouth.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is when you modify your website so that it ranks higher in search engines and generates more traffic for you.

The great thing about blogging software like WordPress is that it is search engine friendly.

Does that mean your site is as optimized as it can be? No. But you have a good base to start from.

One thing you can do with your WordPress blog is to optimize the permalinks to use the title as the default link text. This strengthens the title words for the page.

The following image shows where to put the custom code. The code is /%postname%-%post_id%.htm

The code makes the link the post name and the post ID (to avoid duplication.) This is only one option, but it is a good way to set it and forget it and your posts will get better search engine results..

Another important element of SEO on your WordPress site is the All in one SEO pack. This is a free plug-in that you can install on WordPress that will let you set the meta tag information for the site and better target your keywords. Just search for it in the wordpress plug-in website.

The reason we want to bring this to your attention before you get too far along is because you do not want to publish a lot of information and then modify the url after it has already been indexed by search engines. It is much easier to get it set up correctly from the beginning.

The Best SEO may be NO SEO?

OK, I would not go that far.

Search Engine Optimization will always help. However, if you have a few hours to invest in your website, you should create more great content instead of worrying about modifying your meta tags. I saw one client that published 15 articles per week for years get great search engine results, even though they did not care about search engine results.  They were only publishing for their employees.

Great information, especially if it gets linked to by other people, will help you get noticed quickly in search engines.

You can set up a WordPress Blog in a few minutes at www.outstandahosting.com and buy a great template at template monster.

When you first started your business, it was simple.  You had a checking account and it had a few expenses every month, and if you were lucky, some deposits.

“Today you are trading in social currency.  You may be rich, or you may be poor, but it is the currency of the future whether you like it or not.”

If the IRS came knocking at your young business, you gave them the shoe box of transactions and brewed them some coffee while they sat at your kitchen table and reviewed a whole year’s worth of transaction.  If you have been in business for a while, you know how quickly that changes.  Multiple checking accounts, automatic transactions left and right, loans, credit cards, balance transfers….

For a more mature company, an audit is a hassle if you have to do it yourself.

Social Networking seems just as confusing and out of control as finances can be.  It all started out easy.  No need to keep lots of records, you are just trying out that new social media tool…

Doing taxes, and auditing your own financials is not fun.  But if you were not forced to do it periodically, imagine what a mess you could have after a few years.

Your Social Media Efforts Need Audited

Your social media efforts produce important things for you, even if you are not taking full advantage of them.

1. Connections – Also known as lists of people
2. Feeds – Avenues to publish information other people see
3. Access – Permission to publish on other websites

Much like scheduling auto-payments for a bill, many of these tools automatically publish information or grow your network.  It is easy to forget it is happening.

Here are recommendations to getting the most out of your social media effort.

1. Have a real strategy – Who would you like to connect with and what do you have to offer them?
2. Have a reason for them to sign up to an email list – Email is still #1 when used correctly.  What can you offer people in your many online groups to entice them to sign up directly with you for email?
3. Track all your accounts – Keep a spreadsheet of accounts, when you signed up, password, etc.
4. Audit your profile and settings at least twice per year.  You will find all kinds of things have changed, but you have not updated them.
5. Look for new integration opportunities – Social media is doing a better job of integrating and standardizing than financial tools are, in my opinion.  (Yes, financial is a bit harder, I know)

Perpetual Beta Social Media

Social media sites are constantly evolving.  If not the tool itself, then some other tool that will take data from a site and display it within another tool.  Crazy!

You have to keep up, or your image will get muddled or stale.  The good news is that there are social media bookkeepers.  A good virtual assistant can help you organize the tools, track progress and outcome, grow your connections and audit your profiles -  often in a few hours per month.  The Virtual Buzz Assistant network was created because of the incredible need for this kind of help.  It helps people develop their own Virtual Buzz Assistant business and help busy professionals that understand the importance of social media to find the help they need.

No sales pitch here – you can do it all yourself right after you update Quickbooks and finish your weekly payroll.

I drastically lost weight over the past 9 months.  43 pounds, to be exact.  I did not do it with anything fancy.  I just had a check list I went down each day and over time I lost weight.  It was a list of all the things I would eat.

Here is a list of things I try to do each day to grow my business waistline over time.

1. Meet Someone New
2. Post something to my blog
3. Twitter or other social media
4. Generate New Income
5. Follow up with someone
6. Work on new product development
7. Improve something we currently do

Do I do all these things every day?  No.  And that is why I am not as successful as I could be.

Use the comments below to let us know what your list looks like.

I have had a difficult dilemma over the years I have been advocating Employee Evangelism.  On the one hand, it is a great way to increase sales and visibility at no additional cost.  On the other hand, the cost could be huge if your employees spend all their time evangelizing and not doing their core job.

Shama Hyder did a research study on Twitter and the results are unfortunately in favor of not doing Employee Evangelism.  While twitter can be a great tool for marketing, it is also a great way to procrastinate and escape from the daily grind.  I have to admit that I expected that.

I also see a huge opportunity here.  If people are in businesses wasting time on Twitter, that is a great audience for you to tap into.  That is why you may not want to have your employees using twitter at work, but you definitely want to hire a Virtual Buzz Assistant to help you develop and bond with a great group of time wasters.

A Virtual Buzz Assistant is not going to impersonate you, but you can always set up an account that represents your organization and develop an audience of followers that care about the twitter feed.

You should check out Shama’s blog as well for information on using FaceBook.

Added Later: John Cow talks about twitter as well – The debate rages.

Well, this week I am super hard at work on a big eBook that will be offered free to people interested in having their own Virtual Buzz Assistant business.

And I also know that many of you are going to enjoy the holiday this long weekend, and you could not care less about Buzz Marketing – and you shouldn’t.  Go have fun.

But some of you are from other countries and couldn’t care about the 4th, so this is for you.

I added a floating window that is integrated with aWeber to the front of my blog and have doubled the conversion rate.  It is early yet, but I like how it is trending.

I know that the window could be built by hand, but for the $47 dollars it really sped up the process.  And I can keep going back and using it to build additional ads.

The only reason I did not roll it out on the sub-pages of the blog is because there is no way to make it only pop up once per session.  So I added it to the top page, and then use the older (and less fancy) aWeber pop-ups below that, because they can show up once and then not again until the next visit.

Long term I may or may not keep it.  Everything depends on the numbers, but I’ve been planning on doing something nicer like that for a long time, and that software made it super fast, so I stopped procrastinating.