Archives for March 2013

Crutchfield Direct Meets Content Marketing

03/21/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Crutchfield-Direct-Mail There are few marketing catalogs good enough to devour and some you should trash. For them all, you ought to get on the “do not mail” list (can I get a personal assistant, please?).

The catalog I devour is Crutchfield. It is full of the most advanced tech gadgets from stereo speakers on a carabiner to cameras, earphones, and deck speakers for that outside life we all love to wish for.

I’m not an audiophile, but I sure do love tech toys. Didn’t I recently tell you we were all game players? I digress.

Direct Mail Say Hi To Content Marketing

Crutchfield is taking the direct mail catalog to new heights, and they are impressive ones:

On page 12 of the most recent not-junk-mail sales catalog is a piece fit for a blog post, “Making A Mustang Rock; We do the research so you know exactly where it fits.” It gets no link because it’s not online; it’s in print and mailed to me.

The article (yes, I said article) is for Mustang enthusiasts interested in souping up stereo speakers in the dash for Mustangs built in 2005-2009.

Throughout the authoritative piece that smacks of research and original proven content are photos of the speakers for sale.

In the sidebar is a feature of the guy, Jason, who’s been working for Crutchfield 18 years. He’s the savvy dude who fits your car with tech gear.

At the bottom, are two call outs —

First is oriented to establishing more authority, “We’ve done profiles like this for 38 more vehicles; hit crutchfield.com/vprofile to read more, etc.:
The second is definitely a favorite of Crutchfield customers and prospects…Outfit My Car, where Crutchfield has created a database of 17,000 autos and what the audio requirements are for each with a lot of “free installation accessories.” Check that out at crutchfield.com/whatfits.

Why Crutchfield is #RockHot

Have you heard that content is king? I know you have or else you’ve been under a rock for two years.
This type of blog-postesque content that melds sales with content marketing is brilliant.
Not only that, the experts behind the story are featured right there; authority zudes from the content.
They showcase their database of extensive vehicles and product requirements.
Products are seen in action and help illustrate the story IN THE SALES CATALOG.

If you are a content marketer, it’s time to get creative, just like this. We’re living in a souped up time for business opportunity…just like those Mustangs Crutchfield is outfitting with sound systems.

By Jayme Soulati

We Are All Toymakers And Game Players

03/20/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Nick Kellet, someone impressive you should know. Woah.

The best new shiny gadget launched this week to much fanfare; did you see it? It blew up Triberr and subsequently, the blogosphere. Or, is that the other way around?

What is this new toy that kindly brought to the hungry game players? Why, it’s– making them for eager readers to tick off and feel good about themselves.

At least, that’s what I read in one of the posts last night that was touting this new social game to feed the masses.

Apparently, people love lists, and the more you make them, the more they show up on the blog to read what’s on the list, to tick off what they already know, and to walk away satisfied that they are better off than the rest of the jamokes who had 1-2 ticks from a list of 10.

I can attest to that behavior…first off, when I write list posts (which I do all the time and seldom tout in the headline; I better change that up), more readers stop in.

Secondly, when I see a is famous for, and he is off the chain when he does these, I read each to see if I’m engaged, aware, have it, done that, already in the works, and I’m happier that I’m not behind the eight ball as much as the rest of those poor readers. Then, along comes who insists on being a big tease, just sayin’.

— We Love Lists

So, have brought you a new shiny plaything, and everyone is rejoicing because “Facebook is boring,” said one Triberr mate last evening, as I was catching up on my stream.

Is Facebook boring? Hmm, shall we make a list? The Top 10 Reasons Facebook is Boring, comes to mind.

Do you automatically see the impact List.ly is going to put on blog fodder? Those bloggers without ideas of what to write can head on over to the new toy. Mind you, I haven’t gotten there yet, but I sure will. (Correction: Since I wrote the post and fixed it up to publish, I have my first list building on List.ly!)

That’s the beauty of being a social media game player…the first to pass Go wins. Maybe I still win if I’m the 100th to pass Go?

Why Social Media May Not Earn SEO Benefit

03/19/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Whoever thought that social media is the sole solution for a failing SEO campaign is bound to face more disappointments. Although social media is highly recommended and lauded by SEOs and marketing experts, it is not an SEO tool that will immediately function with just one click, producing concrete results a few seconds later. The benefits that some websites have indeed experienced did not appear overnight.

Although the majority will still say that social media is useful for SEO, and for sure you yourself believe it to be true, it is important to recognize and acknowledge the flaws of social media so that you and your SEO company can do something to circumvent them.

Flaws in Twitter

Social marketing experts favor Twitter because it seems to be the most effective in influencing the SERPs and getting a newly published page indexed by Google. This is true to, as proven in so many experiments. However, there is a clincher: In most of the experiments conducted to test Twitter’s influence in Google SERPs (including one conducted by the SEO giant SEOMOZ) the tester requested people to retweet a link for an experiment. People complied and within hours, the links have been retweeted hundreds of times. Within hours as well, the links were later found on the first or second spot in the SERPs.

This tells us two things: one, Twitter can do your website a lot of good, and two, you need to have the cooperation of your Twitter contacts and the public in general.

There’s actually a third lesson here too: Twitter activity is only significant if Google uses its direct, real-time data. When Google turned off the Twitter Firehose in 2011, the massive amount of activities that went on there went largely unnoticed by the search engine.

So, how do you deal with this flaw? The first thing obviously is to use Twitter more as an engagement tool than an SEO one. Second, when you compose a tweet, leave enough space for Re-tweeting.

Flaws in Facebook

Considering that Facebook has the most number of members, you’d think that it will have a wealth of information sitting in its archives waiting for users to have access to them. It’s actually false on the first, and a “we’ll see” on the second.

The content posted in Facebook is very limited; you’d be hard-pressed to find valuable information from its users. Actually, at present it’s quite impossible to search for valuable content in Facebook. The search bar on top will only conduct search matches for user accounts, not content posted on timelines and shared among users.

Besides, active users socialize in this website. That includes companies, websites, and blogs that have Facebook accounts. If ever they do post significant content, they can only do so by posting links to articles and web pages outside of Facebook. The site is also riddled with privacy settings, and they can meddle with your search queries.

The most you can benefit from Facebook search is if the search is an exact match with your account name or your About page.

Facebook intends to level-up its search feature and is set to introduce its Graph Search (which is powered by its partner, Bing). The Graph Search will not function like a regular search engine like Google. Rather, it will consider social signals in generating search results.

It will only post results that are popular within your community and the groups that you belong to. Many recognize this as similar to what Google+ was first meant to do: incorporate social signals into your search results by virtue of the +1 function.

The Graph Search is yet to be launched though, and while that may be an improvement for an SEO-minded Facebook user, the totality of its benefits are yet to be seen.

Flaws in Google+

As mentioned above, Google+ is the social arm of the search engine. It is supposed to be the provider of social signals so that Google will be able to present users with more personalized results. There are two problems here though:

First, there are too few Google+ users compared to the numbers present in Facebook and Twitter. It needs to grow more in order to be a reliable measure for social signals for websites vying to rank first in the SERPs.

Second, the social integration of search results will only work if the user has a Google account, and if he/she is currently logged in to it when he conducts his search. While there are advantages in getting personalized searches, many users still prefer to see actual, organic search results.

Having said that, with Google giving weight to authorship by displaying pictures of authors next to their post (if they have set up rel=author), and talk about author rank becoming a crucial ranking factor in 2013, it looks like Google+ may become more powerful as an SEO tool.

So, if you have a blog on the web, it will be a prudent move to set up your authorship profile to make the most of Google+.

About The Author

Emma-Julie Fox writes for Pitstop Media Inc, a Vancouver company that provides SEO services to businesses across North America.

The Happy Friday Series: Finding Happy With Scoliosis

03/15/2013 By Jayme Soulati

“Let Your Backbone Slide.” Do you remember that song? I know….I’m showing my age. But I’m not here to talk about old high school songs or rap music. What I am here to talk about is taking the good with the bad and being happy, and letting things roll off your back, or letting ‘your backbone slide’, both figuratively and…well for me, literally.

Let me explain. You see, I have Scoliosis. For those unfamiliar, it’s a back deformity where the afflicted person has one, or in my case, two curves in their spine. They can be in varying degrees, and for some, it doesn’t affect them. Others require physical therapy, bracing or surgery for the severe cases.

xray1 Here’s where my story comes in. Doctors have seen me, orthopaedic and spinal surgeons have brought an audience in to see me, and…well, physiotherapists and massage therapists have been in awe when they see me for the first time. As I said earlier; I have two curves in my spine, one at an angle of 48 degrees, the other 55 degrees. Breathe! Surgeons won’t touch me unless it’s a matter of life or death, so I’ve been in physiotherapy since I learned I had it about sixteen years ago, and I’ll be in physiotherapy for the rest of my life….and I’m very happy to be there too.

None of this is bad. At least, I don’t think so. Why you ask? Because like many things in life that some of us fail to see, I consider having Scoliosis a blessing in disguise.

Quoted from my book ‘I’ll Never Wear a Backless Dress’, I said, “I made a deal with God. I look after my body; he looks after my back.” So far nobody’s broken that deal.

I’m in better physical shape than a lot of people I know, and I owe that to having Scoliosis. How? Because if I didn’t have it, I probably wouldn’t pay so much attention to my daily exercise regime, I wouldn’t keep my weekly physiotherapy appointments and I certainly wouldn’t watch my weight like I do.

How come? Because I’m happy to have the physical freedom that I do, and I know that if I don’t keep up with all these things, it could be easily taken from me. I have learned to love getting up at 4:45am to exercise, to revel in the wonderful things that I can do each day and to enjoy life and live it to the fullest. I take nothing for granted and I couldn’t be happier with my life.

I believe that every day we’re given is a gift, and every healthy day we’re given is a very special gift that we should enjoy.

I’m resisting the urge to break into the lyrics to ‘Let Your Backbone Slide’…just fyi.

But seriously, don’t think of the things you can’t do….think of what you can do. Despite having severe bilateral Scoliosis, I’ve got a college diploma, two kids, a husband, a happy and healthy home, four published books…and a loving cat. What more could I ask for?

If you have a personal story that you’d like to share, please feel free….

Author Bio:

Sandy Appleyard is from Niagara Falls, Canada. As a prolific author, she loves reading, physical fitness, animals and of course, writing. Find all of her books via the links above or visit her website to subscribe and never miss a new publication.

Prediction: Web Browsers Will Control The World

03/14/2013 By Jayme Soulati

English: Browser usage share on Wikimedia Foundation projects on June 2011. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How’s your browser? No, I didn’t say bowser.

I’m talking about Mozilla (not gorilla) Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Safari, and other steroidal and hormonal necessities of online life as we know it.

From the sounds of it, we can jump into a chrome fox mobile and explore while on a hot safari.

I don’t know about you, but I’m a wee bit tired of the issues with browsers of late:

Google and Java don’t like each other.
Heck, Firefox and Java don’t get along, either.
Java and Shockwave interfere with Facebook.
Chrome doesn’t work with my webinar hosting platform.
Firefox is the best blog publishing browser, but there are glitches with Chrome.
Browser plug-ins? Fuhgeddaboudit. Don’t try them; stay basic.
Chrome is for anything else.
Safari is just for Apple.
Internet Explorer? Uhmm, who uses that?
Mac and Windows are arch enemies; that’s why I have to run both side by side with one browser for one OS and another browser for the other…or some such.

Get my drift?

My prediction: Web browsers will control the world; heck, they already do. (Not you hackers.)

I will cry harder because my work product productivity is seriously suffering already. Every day. I wish I was born an IT guru; the problem is my mom loved to read, so she probably read me books on creativity while I was nesting in her belly.

Back to our African safari…let’s throw in the food. The only thing I know for sure is to eat your cookies and clear your dough, I mean cache.

Clear your cache every two to three days and your browser should work fine. At least, that’s what all IT support tells me.