How To: Get More Qualified Followers on Twitter | Social Media Today

Tracy Gold's article "How To: Get More Qualified Followers on Twitter | Social Media Today" provides one of the best overviews on getting followers. I especially like how she addresses attracting quality readers versus quantity, and tweeting thoughtful comments versus a blow-by-blow of your day. It's an easy read and worth your time.

Great SEO Starts With the Basics

Search engine optimization seams almost mystical in nature. The number of books, articles and seminars available on the topic is overwhelming when you are short on time and budget. Yet despite the promises to learning "SEO Secretes," everything I have come across has not strayed far from these key points:

• Get your Domain Name right.Choose your company’s name or brand name. Avoid general names based on keywords.
  
• Pick the relevant keywords. Identify words customers would use to find information about your products and services. Brainstorm, survey customers, research competitors for additional keywords. Create and organize your list from general to specific keywords. You may find that specific keywords bring less traffic, but result in more purchases.
  
• Find reciprocal link partners. Identify web sites of related industries, business suppliers, and customers for a link exchange. Look for sites with quality content that is up-to-date. Not only list your link partners as resources, but also link to them within your content where appropriate.  Quality links from and to your site builds credibility with search engines.
  
• Post a site map: Publishing a link list of all relevant pages allows search engines to navigate and index your site.
• Leverage page titles effectively. Write brief, but descriptive page title tags (<title></title>). Search engines use the title tag to determine content ranking.
  
• Use descriptive file names.Create relevant, keyword file names for each page, document, and image for your site. Make you site pages and documents are link friendly.
  
• Write good content. Content that attracts readers are how to articles, top ten lists, product reviews, ask the expert, hot trends, and research/survey results data.
  
• Call attention with headings and subheadings. Structure and organize content by using descriptive headings and subheadings (<H1></H1>, <H2></H2>) for your content. Headings should accurately relate to the associated content.

SEO Books

• SEO Help: 20 Search Engine Optimization steps to get your website to Google's #1 page - David Amerland

Inbox Versus Mail Box: Postcard Marketing Still Worth The Stamp

With the the surge in social media marketing, small businesses and new comers are getting lost in the crowd. According to a recent blurb from my favorites small business source, Deliver Magazine, postcard marketing is what’s getting results. "The average inbox receives 60 to 100 messages a day, but the average mailbox sees only one or two postcards."

White Envelope Wins Out

Bigger, bolder does not always pay off. Modest direct mail budgets can compete. Deliver Magazine offers a great example of simple is better.

"Aperture, a fine art photography magazine, found that a plain white control envelope tallied 10 percent more subscription orders than a more expensive green envelope with identical content inside. The more expensive green envelope, which was expected to stand out in a pile of mail, had been predicted to garner more responses than the white envelope."

Extend the Life of Your Marketing Materials

Include information in your marketing pieces that readers will refer to at later dates. Ideal reference information includes:

• checklists
• troubleshooting
• how-to

For example:

• lawn and garden service: maintenance schedule in a newsletter
• realtor: home selling tips in a brochure
• yoga instructor: quick office exercises in a postcards

Becoming a resource to your customers and prospects gives your marketing materials staying power.