I found this video about logging into Blogger and doing a basic post. Best yet it comes with snappy music.
Patio Cushions by La Costa Upholstery
2 years ago
Sunday, June 7, 2009
1st Help info for New Blogger
Dave’s cheat sheet for blogging
OK, I have set up your blog, quickly gone over the work I have done and your head is spinning.
I have put together this email so that you can have the key documentation that you will need to Post on your blog site. I have linked the info in the Google Blogger Help that I think that you will need.
I have listed it in the priority that you should use. Start with just making text posts, then progress to putting in links and pictures. If you create posts I can access them and edit/ put in links and posts.
Please give me feedback if this is helpful in your efforts to be self sufficient in posting.
Step 1 - Posting Help – You should do this first and get good at it.
How do I edit what I've written?
How do I make a link to another webpage?
How do I delete a photo I have uploaded to my blog?
This is a nice overview. But has more info that what I selected above
Step 2 – Video from YouTube or your own – This is more advanced, but you are capable
How do I post a video to my blog from YouTube?
How do I post audio/music to my blog?
Step 3 – Changing the look of the Blog – This is advanced. Do it with caution.
Troubleshooting…
Friday, June 5, 2009
Microsoft agrees - Local Search is King
Microsoft continues to lag behind Google and Yahoo in the Search Market. Their newest product Bing was launched last week. Like Google and Yahoo, Bing emphasis the local content of its search ability
Satya Nadella, SVP of Microsoft’s Online Services Division, gave the morning keynote at the Microsoft Bing Summit in Carlsbad, CA last week. It was an introduction to Bing. The main reason I am highlighting this discussion is that Nadella explains that people engage in long search sessions when making purchase decisions. Almost 50% of time spent searching is spent during sessions longer than 30 minutes.
The slide shows 66% of people are using search more frequently as a decision-making tool; and in their strategic verticals:
Satya Nadella, SVP of Microsoft’s Online Services Division, gave the morning keynote at the Microsoft Bing Summit in Carlsbad, CA last week. It was an introduction to Bing. The main reason I am highlighting this discussion is that Nadella explains that people engage in long search sessions when making purchase decisions. Almost 50% of time spent searching is spent during sessions longer than 30 minutes.
The slide shows 66% of people are using search more frequently as a decision-making tool; and in their strategic verticals:- 75% product purchases
- 62% Local activity
- 45% Flight or hotel
- 43% Healthcare
Making it Easy for Customers to Review your Business
As small business owners become aware of all the information about their enterprise they can find both good and bad news. They are irritated that somewhere there is information about their sales revenue, who owns their business or other things that they view as company only information.
Google local is an amazing tool for promoting local business, but search engines like Google bring all the information together and takes away the ability to own the perception of a company. Hopefully business owners are pleasantly surprised that people have positively reviewed their business. But what gets most business owners attention is the negative review. Those negative reviews are out there and being spread across the internet. Unfortunately they are also listed on a company's Google Business listing. It is not all bad and here is a nice article discussing this issue: (Good or Bad - Reviews are important). Business need to embrace internet reviews and motivate their happy customers to review.
The natural way of life is that customers are more motivated to complain than praise. Many customers want to help local businesses, but for the customer there is a effort involved in providing a review. Most review services (Yelp, Yahoo, Google) require registration to provide a review. It is my experience that registering is too high a hurdle just to provide a positive review. The angry customer is more that motivated, but the good customer has better things to do.
So what is a business to do? How does sites like Amazon and Ebay get people to review others. The answer is they are already have an account and can simply write the review. Using that information, you can greatly lower the hurdle of reviewing a business. If a small business gets 4-10 reviews a year, they are way ahead of their competition. The secret is asking your customers with Gmail (Google) accounts to review on Google, your customers with Yahoo accounts to review on Yahoo and so on. My experience is if you have 1,000 emails around 200 to 300 of them will be either Gmail or Yahoo accounts. Getting 1-2% of these customers to favorably review your business should be easy, if not, you have greater problems than building a positive internet presence.
Google local is an amazing tool for promoting local business, but search engines like Google bring all the information together and takes away the ability to own the perception of a company. Hopefully business owners are pleasantly surprised that people have positively reviewed their business. But what gets most business owners attention is the negative review. Those negative reviews are out there and being spread across the internet. Unfortunately they are also listed on a company's Google Business listing. It is not all bad and here is a nice article discussing this issue: (Good or Bad - Reviews are important). Business need to embrace internet reviews and motivate their happy customers to review.The natural way of life is that customers are more motivated to complain than praise. Many customers want to help local businesses, but for the customer there is a effort involved in providing a review. Most review services (Yelp, Yahoo, Google) require registration to provide a review. It is my experience that registering is too high a hurdle just to provide a positive review. The angry customer is more that motivated, but the good customer has better things to do.
So what is a business to do? How does sites like Amazon and Ebay get people to review others. The answer is they are already have an account and can simply write the review. Using that information, you can greatly lower the hurdle of reviewing a business. If a small business gets 4-10 reviews a year, they are way ahead of their competition. The secret is asking your customers with Gmail (Google) accounts to review on Google, your customers with Yahoo accounts to review on Yahoo and so on. My experience is if you have 1,000 emails around 200 to 300 of them will be either Gmail or Yahoo accounts. Getting 1-2% of these customers to favorably review your business should be easy, if not, you have greater problems than building a positive internet presence.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Local Business Continue to Shy Away from Yellow Pages - Giant R.H. Donnelly Files Chapter 11
Businesses continue move their advertising dollars away from Print and Yellow Pages. The latest to fall is Yellow Page giant R.H.Donnelley. Their strategy of big buyouts and combined with shrinking ad revenue sinks the Yellow Pages publisher
R.H. Donnelley filed Chapter 11 in a Delaware federal bankruptcy court last Friday May 29th. R.H. Donnelley said it has reached an agreement in principle with key creditors on the terms of a plan of reorganization that proposes to reduce debt by approximately $6.4 billion, eliminate approximately $500 million in annual interest expense and extend the company's bank maturities out to 2014.
The stock has had a tragic run, peaking at around $78 in 2007 before plunging on signs the economy was beginning to cool off.
As the deal stands, lenders will get 100% of the equity. I am not sure that is really a good deal for the lenders? Would you want to own a rapidly dying business with shrinking cash flow?
Say Goodbye to Yellow Pages and get with the program with Free Internet Local Business listings.
R.H. Donnelley filed Chapter 11 in a Delaware federal bankruptcy court last Friday May 29th. R.H. Donnelley said it has reached an agreement in principle with key creditors on the terms of a plan of reorganization that proposes to reduce debt by approximately $6.4 billion, eliminate approximately $500 million in annual interest expense and extend the company's bank maturities out to 2014.
The stock has had a tragic run, peaking at around $78 in 2007 before plunging on signs the economy was beginning to cool off.
As the deal stands, lenders will get 100% of the equity. I am not sure that is really a good deal for the lenders? Would you want to own a rapidly dying business with shrinking cash flow?
Say Goodbye to Yellow Pages and get with the program with Free Internet Local Business listings.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Getting above the Crowd of Interior Designers on Google Local Search
Ten Days ago, Karen T. called me asking if I could help her with marketing her Interior Design company, Beyond Words Design. She worked with Mechele from San Diego Kravet and Mechele referred Karen to me. We agreed that as a local business getting on the first page of Googles Local Search was job #1. If you are not familiar with the concept of Local Search, review this article before you move on.
With over 100 interior designers listed in Google Local Search for "Interior Design Encintas, CA" it looked like it may be a challenge to get on that key top 10 list. I am happy to report that within 10 days using the first Two of my Five Step process Karen was on the first page of Google. We started with the companies below coming up on the search term "Interior Design Encintas, CA".
A. Rustic Rooster
B. J W McCarter & Associates
C. Stems & Co.
D. Sensible Chic Interior Design
E. Id Studios
F. Designcorp
G. Cedros Design
H. Polinara Interiors
After these top local business were six more pages of interior designers based in the Encinitas area. Karen and I created her Blog / Business Website on Google, took control of Beyond Words Design local business listing and then researched why the Top 10 businesses on Google's Local Search were in the Top 10.
After establishing Beyond Words Design as a business on Google Local Business Center and taking ownership of that business idenity we started on moving Karen's company up that road of search pages. The next step was examinining the business that were already on the top ten list and looking at the information that Google had gathered and deamed of value for a Interior Designer from Encinitas CA.
Google and other search engines look to other business databases for information about the validity and value of each business. When prioritizing your plan for moving up the Google Local food chain, you must make sure that your business is in databases that Search Engines use to gather business listings. Google is known to use superpages.com as one of their basic sources of validating bussiness. It is always the first step on your road to the first page of Local Searches.
Another prime strategy is to find business listing data bases that Google may use for specific industries. For example Rustic Rooster and several others in Interior Design were referenced as a business on www.interiordesignersusa.info. With that info in hand we entered Beyond Words Design into the InteriorDesignerUSA data base. The results after 10 days of waiting for the data to be pushed around the internet was:
A. Rustic Rooster
B. J W McCarter & Associates
C. Stems & Co.
D. Sensible Chic Interior Design
E. Id Studios
F. Designcorp
G. Cedros Design
H. Polinara Interiors
I. Beyond Words Design
The next step is getting a similar position on MSN and Yahoo. The other direction is to broaden the Local Search Value of Beyond Words Design to cities close to Encinitas, CA.
With over 100 interior designers listed in Google Local Search for "Interior Design Encintas, CA" it looked like it may be a challenge to get on that key top 10 list. I am happy to report that within 10 days using the first Two of my Five Step process Karen was on the first page of Google. We started with the companies below coming up on the search term "Interior Design Encintas, CA".
A. Rustic RoosterB. J W McCarter & Associates
C. Stems & Co.
D. Sensible Chic Interior Design
E. Id Studios
F. Designcorp
G. Cedros Design
H. Polinara Interiors
After these top local business were six more pages of interior designers based in the Encinitas area. Karen and I created her Blog / Business Website on Google, took control of Beyond Words Design local business listing and then researched why the Top 10 businesses on Google's Local Search were in the Top 10.
After establishing Beyond Words Design as a business on Google Local Business Center and taking ownership of that business idenity we started on moving Karen's company up that road of search pages. The next step was examinining the business that were already on the top ten list and looking at the information that Google had gathered and deamed of value for a Interior Designer from Encinitas CA.
Google and other search engines look to other business databases for information about the validity and value of each business. When prioritizing your plan for moving up the Google Local food chain, you must make sure that your business is in databases that Search Engines use to gather business listings. Google is known to use superpages.com as one of their basic sources of validating bussiness. It is always the first step on your road to the first page of Local Searches.
Another prime strategy is to find business listing data bases that Google may use for specific industries. For example Rustic Rooster and several others in Interior Design were referenced as a business on www.interiordesignersusa.info. With that info in hand we entered Beyond Words Design into the InteriorDesignerUSA data base. The results after 10 days of waiting for the data to be pushed around the internet was:
A. Rustic RoosterB. J W McCarter & Associates
C. Stems & Co.
D. Sensible Chic Interior Design
E. Id Studios
F. Designcorp
G. Cedros Design
H. Polinara Interiors
I. Beyond Words Design
The next step is getting a similar position on MSN and Yahoo. The other direction is to broaden the Local Search Value of Beyond Words Design to cities close to Encinitas, CA.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Good or Bad - Reviews are Important
Reviews are one of the most important ways to insure that your Local Search Listing is on the first page of Internet Searches. Jeff Saxon does a nice job of showing that there is not much you can do to control the negative reviews that may occur.You Can’t Edit Your Way Out of Negative Reviews by Jeff Saxon
....Very simply, reviews increase conversion rates. And several studies point to the fact that, yes, even negative reviews help.Click here for the Article
It all boils down to credibility. Customer reviews simply have more credibility than your sales copy, so they inspire more confidence in the buyer. And negative reviews lend credibility to the review process itself, standing as visible proof that the reviews are not edited....
...The point: Your brand and product perception is not what you say it is anymore but what Google says it is....
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