Exorcist Found to Exorcise Seth Godin from This Blog

Seth just wouldn’t let go. So I enlisted the help of the WWSGD plugin’s original creator Richard K Miller as resident exorcist.

Richard located and helped me exorcise Seth Godin’s grip in my blog. Seth was residing in a plugin I have been using for quite some time and am very happy with, HeadSpace.

Seth Godin was hiding inside the HeadSpace | Site Modules >> First Time Visitor.

Richard is a GREAT Exorcist. He found the problem and it is now resolved. Thank You Richard K Miller.

Richard is a backend web developer in Huntington Beach, California. He can be reached through his website RichardKMillea.com.

Richard’s latest project is for one of his favorite restaurants. Pantrucas Chilean Restaurant located at 3161 North Canyon Road in Provo Utah.

Pantrucas specializes in bringing the best of Chilean cuisine to Provo, Utah.

Pantrucas serves several tasty, authentic Chilean dishes. If it’s your first time, try the churrasco palta, a delicious steak and avocado sandwich on soft, home-made bread. Drink a tall glass of juice made to order from your choice of whatever fruit is in season.

If you are ever in Provo I would suggest you visit them.

Thanks again to Richard K Miller.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Seth Godin WordPress Exorcism Coda is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Exorcist Required to Exorcize Seth Godin from This Blog

I have been spending chunks of time this week trying to remove a WordPress Plugin’s “feature” from the Search Engine Optimizician.

“What Would Seth Godin Do” is a great plugin for WordPress. WWSGD has been serving me well for years.

As time has rolled on I have moved past this plugin. The problem is that WWSGD won’t move past me. You can probably still see it at the top of this page/post.
(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
 
I have done everything I can think of:

• deactivated the plugin through the WP interface
• deleted the plugin through the WP interface
• installed the plugin and changed the settings through the WP interface
• deactivated the plugin again through the WP interface
• deleted the plugin again through the WP interface
• ftp’d to the server and deleted from the plugins folder
• ftp’d to the server and search for and removed “what_would_seth_godin_do.php“
• I have even repeatedly emptied the cash
• I even deleted and reinstalled the cash plugin

Yet the WWSGD greeting still remains.

First time visiting Search Engine Optimizician? Make sure you subscribe to the RSS feed before you leave!

 
 
I have been emailing back and forth with Richard K Miller the author of this stubborn little plugin.

Richard has been very cooperative and helpful but yet Seth remains. I have no ill feelings for either WWSGD or Richard.

I would even recommend this plugin for WordPress beginners.

By default, new visitors to your blog will see a small box above each post containing the words “If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!” After 5 visits the message disappears. You can customize this message, its lifespan, and its location. The message can be excluded from Pages if desired.

I put out this post for some fresh ideas on how I might possibly be able to exorcize this sticky widget from the Search Engine Optimizician.

Any ideas?
I’m open to anything! Any seance experts out there?

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Seth Godin WordPress Plugin Exorcism is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

We Moved 3 Miles to the West and with Uhaul, Moving Boxes, Carpet Cleaning, & the Locksmith it Left a Gap in My Blogging

Well, as you have probably noticed my last blog post was pre-move. I had forgotten what a hassle moving was.

I never had to have my carpets cleaned before when we moved out.

Our old apartment management company required us to have the carpet cleaning done professionally or pay $150 per room for them to get it done.

Some of the things we considered when looking for carpet cleaners, other than price, was professionalism. Just how knowledgeable and reliable were they? With $150 per room on the table we didn’t want to make a mistake.

The door locks on our old apartment will need to be changed but at least that’s not our problem. We just turn in our keys and the rest will be up to our old apartment’s management company.

We will need to call the locksmith for any re-keying of any locks in our new place that we will want to change and to make new keys for our new digs.

We still have moving boxes all over the house. They are organized in neatly segmented areas by category. I didn’t realize we have so much stuff!!!

Over all the move was painless… We found the local Uhaul of great assistance. Not only did they supply the truck rental but, they also had a bin for recycling moving boxes and we scored there. We plan on returning not only the boxes we got there but others we were using when they are finally empty. We have already returned just short of a dozen. When we arrived to return the boxes we didn’t even have to go inside. We just handed them off to another young couple who had just rented a truck.
(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
We are sure we have made the right move. We have a great home overlooking the Columbia River if you are standing at the kitchen sink or at certain places on the front patio.

So there you have my moving saga.

When I thought about creating this post I figured it could have a marketing twist but I gave up. Well now that I have finished it, I see that the part about our local Uhaul having a moving box recycle bin is a blurb on one example of very good green marketing.

If you will just treat your customers with care you can have them help you give better customer service by giving them better customer service. You give your customers a place to recycle their moving boxes when they are finished with them and your new customers a place to pick up recycled moving boxes when they are just beginning.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Making the Right Move – Uhaul, Truck Rental, Carpet Cleaning, and Locksmiths is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

WordPress Designer Personas for the New Edition of Firefox add-ons that are Cool and Fun

While perusing the WordPress Blog yesterday I came across an interesting post on WordPress style Firefox Personas.

Firefox Personas are the latest edition of personalization for Firefox browsers for the latest release. They allow you to put your stamp on your favorite web browser.

You are using Firefox aren’t you?

Already there are over 30,000 different versions of Firefox Personas to tantalize your creative self.

Now we can show off our personal creativity WordPress style.

WordPress Blog

Firefox Personas, WordPress-style
Posted March 11, 2010 by Jane Wells.

To kick it off, designer Chad Pugh created two WordPress personas based on the WordPress brand: “Vintage Press” and “Inkwell.” These two designs are a great way to show the WordPress love, even if you’re only showing it to yourself.

The “Vintage Press” Persona is inspired by the style of old-fashioned printing presses and the mechanics of working with type. This persona might appeal to WordPress developers and users who appreciate the way things work under the hood.

“Inkwell” is more of a palimpsest & watercolor hybrid that might appeal to the artists among us. Music, script and spills of color combine…

Okay, I’m starting to feel like an art critic so I’ll stop there. Check out the WordPress personas for Firefox and decide for yourselves.

(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)

This is a sample of the “Vintage Press” Persona.

This is a sample of the “Inkwell” Persona.

This is the “Inkwell” Persona in action.

This is an extremely small sample of the over 30,000 Firefox Personas available.

Go ahead and check out the Firefox Personas Video.

Get a persona for your Firefox browser and amaze your friends and colleagues.

Try one on today! – b

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Have You Seen the New Firefox Personas with WordPress Style? is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Using WordPress for a Blog post Just doesn’t get any Easier

When my MacSpeech Dictate arrived I couldn’t have been any happier. I couldn’t wait to get home and try it out.

I’d used speech rest of recognition software before, back in the old days I used to use headset to actually give commands to my computer to make it open programs and various little chores like that.

So I couldn’t wait to start talking to my computer and have it actually print out what I’m saying. I was interested in finding out just how accurate the program would be converting my voice to text. I was amazed. It was so easy spend a few minutes reading stuff into the computer and the next thing you know it’s typing what you’re saying.

(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
I didn’t think that WordPress blogging could even get any easier but MacSpeech Dictate has proven that wrong. This blog post was actually dictated through a headset that was supplied with the software and it’s just so much easier than typing all this stuff out. This is the best dictation software I have ever been exposed to.

I can’t wait till were my clients tells me I can’t blog I’m not a good writer I’m just a good talker. Well I have a solution for its called MacSpeech Dictate and all you have to do is tell your story in its types it up for you.

The only problem for some people is going to be that you don’t have a Macintosh. There is other software like this available for the PC but since I’m not PC guy I can’t recommend it. MacSpeech Dictate is powered by Dragon so you might give that a look.

MacSpeech has taken the work of blogging for me and it probably will for you too.

WordPress, blogging, and MacSpeech Dictate were made for each other. Even though I’m sure that there are many other uses for MacSpeech Dictate but blogging is my passion.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

First Time – MacSpeech Dictate for a WordPress Blog Post is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Guest video blog post by social media strategist Taylor Ellwood

In the video below I discuss why I video blog, and why I think video is an underused resource. Video should be incorporated into your social media presence. The advantage of doing so, is that it allows you to show people you and what you are doing, as opposed to just telling them.

Social Media Coach: Why I video Blog

Why I Video Blog is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

According to Alltop the Search Engine Optimizician has made it to the Top of the SEO Blog World.

Alltop is Guy Kawasaki’s baby. Alltop quotes sites from all over the internet.

– March 11, 2008
Today we are opening Alltop, a news aggregation site that provides “all the top” stories for forty of the most popular topics on the Web. The headlines and first paragraph of the five most recent stories from forty to eighty sources for each topic are displayed. Alltop stories are refreshed approximately every ten minutes.

I have made it to the Top, Alltop, that is. I am totally excited to be in the company of such SEO Blogging greats as:

• SEOmoz
• Search Engine Watch
• Search Engine Land
• SEO Book
• Search Engine Roundtable
• Search Engine Journal
• Matt Cutts
• Bruce Clay
• Sugarrae
• John Battelle
• Search Engine Optimizician

Even though the Google PageRank widget shows the page “un-rankable” this is still good company to be in.
(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
Alltop has an Alexa traffic rank of 4,906.

The SEO section, seo.alltop.com, gets 5.6% of the traffic to alltop.com. The seo.alltop.com section is number 3 in popularity behind the alltop home page. The section digitalmedia.alltop.com has 5.7% of the traffic, making seo.alltop.com making it only only 0.1% more popular than the SEO section.

While the average load time for alltop.com is considered slow (3.594 Seconds) and 69% of sites are faster, this doesn’t seem to slow down their traffic. The alltop.com pageviews are up 93% over the last 3 months.

Thanks Alltop.

Late,
Gary Pool

Search Engine Optimizician Rated One of the Top SEO Blogs is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

The Criminal Portion of the Chargers’ Shawne Merriman – Tia Taquilla Case is Over and So it is “Lights Out” for this Series

As the lights get turned off on this criminal case I will wrap up this series on keyword and social media monitoring and the value of research.

District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis ruled on Friday there was not insufficient evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the San Diego Chargers’ Merriman had even committed a crime.

Tila Tequila lashes out at the San Diego District Attorney’s decision to dismiss her allegation she was battered by Shawne Merriman- accusing authorities of “unconscionable negligence”.

(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)

Keyword research results.

Here are the numbers.

09/13/2009

09/10/2009

09/07/2009
Keyword research numbers via Nichebot.

Over all increases:

• Predicted daily searches on “shawne merriman” have risen from 38 to 225
• Predicted daily searches on “merriman chokes taquila” have risen from 0 to 108
• Predicted daily searches on “shawn merriman” have risen from 64 to 100
• Predicted daily searches on “merriman” have risen from 20 to 38
• Predicted daily searches on “sean merriman” have risen from 0 to 15

Social Media Monitoring Results

Social Media Monitoring numbers via SEOmoz.

merriman (all words):

• Last 24 Hours – 28 posts
• Last 7 Days – 2071 posts
• Last 30 Days – 3523 posts
• tweets (last 7 days) – more than 1500

“merriman “reached a high of 961 news/blog posts on September 7th

shawne merriman (all words):

• Last 24 Hours – 16 posts
• Last 7 Days – 1381 posts
• Last 30 Days – 2105 posts
• tweets (last 7 days) – more than 1500

“shawne merriman” reached a high of 801 news/blog posts on September 7th

shawn merriman (all words):

• Last 24 Hours – 2 posts
• Last 7 Days – 271 posts
• Last 30 Days – 374 posts
• tweets (last 7 days) – 1266

“shawn merriman” reached a high of 184 news/blog posts on September 8th

merriman chokes taquila (all words):

• Last 24 Hours – 0 posts
• Last 7 Days – 0 posts
• Last 30 Days – 0 posts
• tweets (last 7 days) – 5

I hope this series has given you some insight on the value of monitoring just what is going and the usefulness of the tools available.
Be sure to check out the other posts in the series on Shawn Merriman, Tia Taquilla, Keyword Research, and Social Media Monitoring.

Late,
Gary Pool

Shawne Merriman and Tia Taquila The Research Is Complete is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Tia Taquila’s side of the Shawne Merriman Story – Well at least her Lawyer’s Spin

Tequila’s lawyer is reciprocating with their own spin on Shawne Merriman. He is claiming the San Diego Chargers’ Shawne Merriman’s version of what happened the night he was arrested is nothing but pure “spin.”

Is anyone else getting dizzy?

Tila’s Lawyer — Shawne’s Story is a ‘Spin’ Move

Merriman claimed that Tila was drunk and he was trying to keep her safe by keeping her off the road — Tequila’s lawyer, Alan Gutman, says Shawne’s story will be “completely discredited.”

Gutman just released the following statement to TMZ:

Shawne Merriman and his advisors have decided that the best defense is a good offense, attacking Tila Tequila in the press with a lot of calculated spin to cover up his illegal and indefensible actions.

Fortunately, we as a society will not tolerate a 6’4″, 270 pound all-pro NFL linebacker physically assaulting a young lady who is 4’11″ and 93 pounds. It is never justifiable to brutally assault, choke, strike and imprison a woman.

Once the truth is fully revealed, Mr. Merriman’s fantastic story of how he was trying to keep Ms. Tequila safe will be completely discredited.

No one, especially a woman, should ever have to endure what Mr. Merriman did to Tila Tequila.

Now on to the keyword research results.

Here are the numbers.

The numbers we began with are as follows:

Keyword research numbers via Nichebot.

So what do we get out of these numbers?
(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
The first thing I see is that the majority of searchers are now using the proper spelling of “Shawne” rather than “Shawn” Merriman.

There is also another search phrase in the “related to merriman” searches. The predicted daily count on “merriman chokes tequila” is actually 2 more than the correct spelling of his name “shawne merriman” was when we started this venture.

The envelope says:

• Predicted searches on “shawne merriman” have risen from 38 to 113 – 197% increase
• Predicted searches on “shawn merriman” have risen from 64 to 83 – 30% increase
• Predicted searches on “merriman” have risen from 20 to 25 – 25% increase

Just to put this into perspective, my second blog post “San Diego Chargers, Shawn Merriman, Tia Taquila, and Keyword Research – The Saga Continues” had over 80 visits in the first 24 hours and the original blog post “San Diego Chargers’ Shawne Merriman and Tila Taquila” has had over 150 visits as of the time I am writing this post.

Late,
Gary Pool

The Continuing Saga of Shawne Merriman and Tia Taquila is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Day 2: The Story of Shawne Merriman, Tia Taquila, and Keyword Research

Shawne Merriman said Monday that he did not cause any harm to Tia Taquila.

Merriman released the statement “I was concerned about her welfare given the intoxicated state she appeared to be in and I encouraged her to stay until safe transportation could be provided.” and “I in no way caused any harm to Ms. Nguyen, however, paramedics were called and she was examined but no injuries were reported.”
(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)

San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman said in a statement Monday that he caused no harm to Tila Tequila in an incident Sunday that resulted in his being taken into custody.

Early Sunday morning, deputies from the San Diego Sheriff’s Department responded to a call at Merriman’s house. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported Tequila, the star of a former reality show on MTV whose real name is Tila Nguyen, signed a citizen’s arrest complaint that charged the linebacker with battery and false imprisonment.

Tequila reportedly told them she was choked, thrown to the ground and restrained by Merriman upon attempting to leave.

But Monday, Merriman released a statement, saying that at the time, “I was concerned about her welfare given the intoxicated state she appeared to be in and I encouraged her to stay until safe transportation could be provided.”

The statement went on to say, “I in no way caused any harm to Ms. Nguyen, however, paramedics were called and she was examined but no injuries were reported.”

The statement said that there have been no official charges filed against him, and that he looks forward to clearing his name.

His statement was the second from the Chargers, as on Sunday, team general manager A.J. Smith said, “It’s disappointing to hear about the issue involving Shawne Merriman. We’ll continue to monitor the situation and let the legal process run its course.”

The 25-year-old Merriman is a three-time Pro Bowl selection and was named First-Team All-Pro in 2006, when he led the league with 17 sacks.

Merriman, the 12th overall pick of the 2005 NFL Draft, has spent his entire four-year career with San Diego. He missed all but the first game last season because of a knee injury that required surgery.

Copyright 2009 Courtesy of The Sports Network.

Now on to the Keyword Research

Even though the number of searches on all the derivatives of Merriman (Shawn Merriman, Sean Merriman, Shawne Merriman, and Merriman) haven’t changed the number of the blog posts and tweets have increased tremendously.

In the last 24 hours there has been an increase of 2 posts for the miss-spelling “Sean Merriman” (0 to 2), an increase of 137 posts for the proper spelling of “Shawne Merriman” (1 to 139), and an increase of just his last name “Merriman” of 171 (2 to 173). Plus there has been 11 blog posts for the miss-spelling “Shawn Merriman“.

The miss-spelling “Shawn Merriman” just happens to be the most searched keyword phrase at almost 2 to 1 for “Shawne Merriman.”

If you are interested finding out more about the graph I am using it is from the great Pro Toolset offered by SEOmoz.

Stay tuned and we will look at the numbers after the holiday.

Late,
seopdx/gary-pool.html”>Gary Pool

San Diego Chargers, Shawn Merriman, Tia Taquila, and Keyword Research – The Saga Continues is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Worth the price of admission tidbit from Matt Cutts’ talk at the WordPress WordCamp San Francisco 2009

I happened across a little known (or used) bit of code that might just make you more money if you use Google AdSense. So I thought I might share it with you.

The information is from Straight from Google: What You Need to Know

Did you know there is a little snippet of code that will allow you to tell Google to focus on this part of your content to determine what ads to show?
(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
Well there is and here is the little snippit:

What’s AdSense?

Google AdSense is the program that can give you advertising revenue from each page on your website with a minimal investment in time and no additional resources.

AdSense delivers relevant text and image ads that are precisely targeted to your site and your site content. And when you add a Google search box to your site, AdSense delivers relevant text ads that are targeted to the Google search results pages generated by your visitors’ search request.

Google grasps the meaning of your content

AdSense can deliver relevant ads because Google understands the meaning of a web page. We’ve refined our technology, and it keeps getting smarter all the time. For example, words can have several different meanings, depending on context. Google technology grasps these distinctions, so you get more targeted ads.

In this 46+ minute video Matt Cutts shows us how to rank higher in Google with our WordPress Blogs, although most of this information would work with any website.

Matt’s slides are also available in Google Docs if you are interested.

Enjoy!

Late,
Gary Pool

Google AdSense Tip for WordPress Blogs and Your Website is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Technorati is Just Too Busy or Just Too Important to Even Send Me a Real email

As you probably know by now, back in July on the 29th, I tried to claim my blog in Technorati. This has turned out to be a project rather than a simple event. So far I don’t own my own blog and I haven’t placed the code “fcayphqgb7″ necessary to prove that I own my blog on it.
(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
I even titled a post with the verification number “fcayphqgb7″ and that didn’t even work. The site still tells me they cant find the verification number.

How long will this process take?

According to their impersonal autoresopnder message it might even take weeks.

Dear Technorati User,

Thank you for contacting Technorati.  We have generated a ticket regarding: “Getting the “We could not find the claim code on your site” message?”, a summary of which appears below. Your request is in the customer service queue and will be reviewed by the appropriate department.  While we may not be able to respond personally to each ticket, we are grateful for your submission and are acting on issues which are found by users of Technorati.com.

For additional help resources, please feel welcome to browse and search our Support FAQs located at http://support.technorati.com/

If you’ve tried to claim your blog and received an error code, please make sure your blog adheres to the Techorati Blog Quality Guidelines http://support.technorati.com/guidelines/.  If it does, there is something else causing the claim to fail and we ask for your patience.  While we may not be able to respond to every request, we do save every blog claim, so you may find your blog successfully claimed in the coming days or weeks.

There is no need to reply to this message right now. Your ticket has been assigned an ID of [Support #28105].

Best Regards,
Technorati Support
trsupport@technorati.com

Sometimes those who want to be considered the big guys treat you as though you are a nobody while the truly big guys treat you as though you actually mattered.

I wonder if anyone has actually claimed their blog with the code they gave them to prove they owned it?

Late,
Gary Pool

Technorati Blog Claim Update is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Claim My Blog on Technorati > My Blog is Lost > Frustration Ensues

My blog isn’t lost to me but it must be to Technorati. They can’t find the code fcayphqgb7.
In my post yesterday I touted the ease of claiming my blog with Technorati. It appears as though I spoke too soon.
I claimed my blog all right but they can’t find the code they gave me.

fcayphqgb7

I actually put it 3 times in the post! (see screen shot below)
(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
While I was going back to make sure I could claim my blog I got this forbidden message from the server. (see screen shot below)

That server problem disappeared several minutes later and I was back on the task to claim my blog.
Technorati tells me that it has to be readable in the RSS feed. (see screen shot below)
Does it look readable to you?

OK so now I get this error message: (see screen shot below)
They said:
There was a problem finding your claim code.

Please make sure your claim code appears exactly as it was provided in your blog feed (either RSS or Atom):

fcayphqgb7

If you have already verified above, please contact Technorati support with the following information:

• Please include the following error code: 400
• URL you are claiming
• The name of your blog
• Your contact info
• A short description of your blog and the type of content you like to write about.
• Does your blog have a RSS feed? Please see if you can supply us with an example URL of your feed.

I went ahead and filled out the form with all the stuff required above and I still haven’t heard anything from Technorati other than the auto-responder message that was triggered by my submission.

This time I actually used the code as the title of my post. Maybe this will work. It just isn’t fair when they pull the hoop away the last minute like Lucy is always doing to Charley Brown with the football.

I will keep you updated as the saga continues.

Late
Gary Pool

fcayphqgb7 is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

When you claim you blog in Technorati they make you jump through a few hoops

fcayphqgb7
Claiming your blog establishes that you are its owner, and allows you to use Technorati services to increase your blog’s visibility.

Do you see the “fcayphqgb7″ above this is the way you prove to Technorati that you are the actual owner of the blog.
I guess it could also prove that you are a really accomplished hacker

(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)

They ask you to place it so it will show up in your RSS feeds.

So there you have it. I have claimed my blog and informed you about claiming your blog in Technorati in the same post.

Late,
Gary Pool

Technorati – Claim Your Blog – fcayphqgb7 is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

SplashCast was a Great Service I have Recommended it to Many of My Clients and Others Over the Years

It’s too bad they are throwing in the towel. As for us the early adopters of their services, we can’t help but feel abandoned. I signed up for their services shortly after launch and have been touting their easy-to-use video services for websites and blogs ever since.
Post from Search Engine Optimizician.
This morning I received this email from them.

Dear BrianC73,

SplashCast will be discontinuing its free service for publishers effective 12:00 AM June 1, 2009.

We’ve made this decision given our focus on developing our “Social TV” product and expanding our TV application network.

Three months ago, we asked you (our publishing community), whether you would be willing to pay for the service. The vast majority answered “no.” Furthermore, among those willing to pay, the average amount was extremely low. We discussed this in more detail in an earlier blog post.

Additionally, advertising is not a realistic option. We’ve explored several approaches. While we love your content, advertisers aren’t willing to pay a reasonable price to sponsor it [As an aside, this is the issue that YouTube faces on a monumental scale.]

Beyond subscription fees and advertising, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about other, more creative, approaches. The unfortunate conclusion is that continuing our free service does not make business sense (we even considered a public broadcasting-like pledge drive).

We’ve listened. We’ve thought creatively. We’ve weighed the alternatives. We’ve slept on it.

In terms of alternatives, you might check out a service called Embedr. Here is a recent review on the ReadWriteWeb blog. If you know of other services, please let us know.

Thanks for being a part of the SplashCast community. This is a tough (and sad) decision for us. We hope that you can understand that, as a startup, we have to focus.

Sincerely,
The SplashCast Team

No I am not BrianC73. This must be an email sent in bulk by an email client rather than a database service that will actually personalize the email by placing the individual’s name in the “Dear” section. (see Constant Contact for a solution.)

SplashCast’s “Social TV” product is advertised as Never watch your favorite TV shows alone..
It allows you to “watch your favorite TV shows where you already spend your time online: in Facebook and MySpace.”

I have switched to Vimeo for my video hosting services. Vimeo is a high quality host that appears to have longevity. In any case I am hitching my wagon to them and have full intentions of using them for the rest of my digital life.

Late,
Gary Pool

Say Goodbye to SplashCast as We Know It is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

The Social Media Trilogy: Three Vital Components for Building a Successful Online Strategy

It’s time to look at the big picture – beyond starting a blog or getting your team on Twitter. To survive in these trying economic times, enterprises must adopt a trilogy of Web 2.0 fundamentals as part of your long-term communications objectives.

Gerardo Dada (Vignette)

Best practices and ideas

Social Media trilogy

• building a social media strategy
• building a community
• success in social media

Cluetrain Manifesto, 1999
A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter-and getting smarter faster than most companies.

Why

• low cost marketing
• we have to do it
• getting traction

secret sauce
blogs
visitors

Only 12% call it successful

2007 Why?
2008 Try
2009 Embrace

Social Media Trilogy

building a social media strategy

• You don’t build a social media strategy it is a tool
• marketing
• corporate communications & PR
• customer support
• human resources
• knowledge management
• product development

Social media is not about a blog

People are looking for the answers and they don’t care how the information is delivered just that the get the information they want.

Customer Expectations for the web

• personal
• multichannel
• social
• immersive

building a community

• You can’t create a community
• you can foster a community
• participate in a community
  • fish where the fish are
• communities vs tools
  • Professional
    • LinkedIn is just a tool
    • twitter
    • xing
    • plaxo
    • tripit
    • naymz
  • personal
    • facebook
    • twitter
    • flickr
    • genoom
  • gamer

What is a community? = A group of like minded people that interact with each other about the topics they care about.

• Understand what people are saying.
• Content is King! The challenge is to unlock the value of your content.
• It is about a rich and engaging social experience.

Success in social media

• You can’t succeed it is about the people.
• Dev Patanik, Wired to Care

Social media is a new way of engaging and interaction customers, Partners, and employees supported by technology You can’t fool customers any more! This requires a mind-shift in a new culture

• transparency and authenticity
• participation, listening, and acting
• quantity and quality of information

tweets, posts, and blogs

5 steps to success

• Get people on board
• Develop a strategy
• Clear goals and metrics
• Resourcing
• Promotion

Have the community balance it self. Marketing has led social media deployments But now IT is jumping in

What is next > Consolidation

Late,
Gary Pool

LinkedIn – Twitter – Blog – Facebook – Flickr is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Blog WordPress and SEO

The WordPress and SEO session dealt with how to make your blog work better, not only with the search engines but also with your users. WordPress and SEO also gave us some great insights into how to make updating our blogs an easier task.

Moderator: Scott Hendison – SEO Automatic

Scott has released his own WordPress plugin “WordPress Core Tweaks Plugin” for your blog.
I have been using this plugin for a while now and I would recommend it to anyone using WordPress.
You can read my review of Scott’s plugin “WordPress has a new plugin from Search Commander“.
Thanks for the great plugin Scott.

Jordan Kasteler – Search & Social

Robots.txt – block all the unnecessary areas

Canonicalization – helps solve duplicate content problems

WordPress Templates

• rename:
  • image files
  • CSS IDs
  • Classes
• rearrange:
  • code
  • layout
• delete:
  • extraneous code
  • comments in code

Code Optimization

• Title Tag – (header.php)
• Post Headings – (index.php)

Duplicate Content

• Meta Robots
• Canonical URLs

Code

• Make your code as static as possible
• CSS stylesheet location
• Blog title
• Meta http-equiv
• etc

Permalinks

• It is best to use just your post name.
• Use slug trimmer plugin

• Pagination
• Categories
• Nofollow – add Link Attribute Plugin
• Breadcrumbs
• Custom 404

User Generated Content

• DoFollow Plugin
• Top Commentators Widget

Internal Linking

• Popular Posts Plugin
• Sticky Post

Security

• htacess
• Protect wp-config.php file
• Protedt wp-admin directory
• WP Security Scan
• Login Lockdown
• WordPress Firewall Plugin

David Wallace – SearchRank

David shares with us some of his favorite WordPress plugins.

• All in One SEO Pack
• Share This
• Twitter Tools
• WordPress Mobile Edition
• Dofollow
• Math Comment Spam Protection
• Subscribe to Comments
• Sitemap Generator Plugin for WordPress
• Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress
• SEO Slugs
• Avatars
• Category Order
• Meta Robots

Rick Turoczy – Silicon Florist

• Visual tour of WordPress 2.7
• instinct.co.nz
• eCommerce plugin

Rick says he will save time for the Q & A since that is where he does best.

Change your submit button to javascript and that will defeat every spam bot on the planet.

Great session I learned and re-learned a lot. I am even taking inventory of my WordPress plugins for my blog.

Late,
Gary Pool

WordPress Blog and SEO Session SearchFest 2009 is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

What’s the most important part of your blog post?

If you didn’t say, “The headline,” think about what made you click through to read this from your reader or twitter.

You probably arrived at my blog based on the power of the words in the headline.

This post was inspired by a great post from Remarkablogger, Michael Martine.

This could be the best video I’ve ever done in my life, but if the headline didn’t pull you in, would you be here watching it?

Here is the Video by Michael.

Here are some of the points he makes in the video.

Blog writing headlines

Magazine headlines are good inspirations for your headlines

Cosmo is a great inspiration for headlines.

Woman’s World is very Good for headlines.
Examples:

• “The 10 Minute Happiness Tricks”
• “Thrifty Dinners So Delicious No One Will Know They Are Cheap”
• “Discover the Beer Cure for Alzheimer’s and Insomnia”
• “Try This Lipstick to Look Years Younger”
• “Get More Good Luck, Try The Tricks Really Lucky People Know and Even Learn How To Even Beat A Bad Luck Streak”
• “How Coffee Can Save Your Life”
• “Find Money Savers Already in Your Wallet”
• “Your Not Dreaming Your Dog Can Read Your Mind”
• “The Walking Trick Health Gurus Love”

Take these ideas from a magazine and apply them to your blog headlines and/or even your posts.

You can swap out the words and make them fit your topics.

Michael also recommends you visit Brian Clark’s blog copyblogger for more in depth information on writing headlines.

Regardless of the information in your blog if the headline doesn’t pull readers in it doesn’t matter.

CONTENT may be KING but without a good HEADLINE bringing in visitors what difference does it make. The content is there to bring your visitors back the headline is there to bring them in.

Late,
Gary Pool

Blog Headlines Tricks The Pros Use in the Copywriting Market is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Copywriting for SEO on Your Blog

Well I did make my first major decision of the SearchFest day I choose to attend the Blogging, Copywriting, and SEO Session in the big room. I didn’t even have to change seats after Danny Sullivan’s inspiring keynote.

Blogging, Copywriting, and SEO

Moderator: Scott Hendison – Search Commander, Inc.

Scott Hendison is the CEO of Search Commander, Inc. and a search engine expert. Scott is a former Portland computer & software retailer that built his Portland computer repair business with Pay-per-Click and organic search engine optimization.

Here are my notes as taken, with a little formatting thrown in.

Stoney deGeyter – Pole Position

Who is your market? – What are they interested in? – What are the needs?

Who it is you want to attract? You need to speak to them on their level.

• Keyword research
• How to hit the broad topics
• Topical concepts

Have a good pick-up line!
How do you capture the audience and bring them into the website?

• Compelling opening

Speak the language
Scannable
Bullet points
Bolds and italics

Use headings, use pictures

• Be really easy on the eyes (Anglina Jolie)
• Make the content more than just a book
• Formatting counts

• Keep them interested
• Appeal to their needs
• Ask questions
• Inform

Give more than they came for via Links

• Do it right and do it again
• Proof and rewrite
• Integrate keywords
• No stuffing
• Need value, desire

Rebecca Kelley – SEOmoz

7 Blogging Myths

The Black, The White and Everything In-Between

Blogging is a Link Magnet!

Blogging is a great way to attract links

• Crap is crap
• Great content can lead to links

Content is King

• If you blog it they will link
• Good content doesn’t magically spread
• don’t be afraid..

Dofollow Blogs = Easy Link Building
You dirty spammer

List of dofollow blogs

It’s List or Bust

• This presentation is a list
• causation does not = correlation
• Diversify your content

• Blog When it’s Convenient
• Blogging takes consistency
• viral content on empty blog is suspicious

• Look for Content on Google Trends
• Social Media Searches
• SEOmoz PopularSearches
• SEOmoz Blogscape

Don’t Over think it
Let your heart lean and you follow with your posts.

It’s Your Blog, Do Whatchoo Wanna Do

Your Website Needs a Blog – But you need to maintain it.

Heather Lloyd Martin – SuccessWorks

Marsha Brady Syndrome

Make your site dateable
You can… In just 7 easy steps!

Rethink your approach

• Tailor your blog to the economy.
• Will your “old” approach work in today’s economy?
• Rethink your benefit statements – are they still valid?
• Go where the action is

Keyword research…

• 2-3 keyword phrases per page ignore keyword density
• Consider if you have good copy
• Grab their attention

Title structure

• 60-75 characters including spaces
• include main key phrase/s in title
• Always stay current – Always

Give your copy an update check

• press pages
• conference/events
• product
• old articles that are obviously out dated

Let your personality shine through
Pages need personality

Ask for what you want
CALL TO ACTION on every page!

• Don’t lower your writing standards
• Enjoy ultimate success
• folded listings

Well there you have it. I did choose to go to the blogging session. It was a great session and I am glad I chose to improve my blog.

Late,
Gary Pool

How to SEO Your Blog – SearchFest 2009 is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

WordPress

The software that blogs run on is the key to the presentation and features available. There are a multitude of different applications available, all with their own respective pros and cons. It is not very surprising that close to half of the Top 100 blogs run on customized software. When it comes to out of the box blog software WordPress is still the most popular.

There is blog software of all kinds as well as free blog hosting available today.
Here is a list of just some of the options available:

• WordPress
• Typepad
• Blogsmith
• Movable Type
• Gawker
• WordPress.com
• Dupral
• Blogger
• Expression Engine
• Scoop
• Bricolage
• iWeb
• LiveJournal
• MySpace
• Open Diary
• Skyrock
• Typo
• Windows Live Spaces
• Xanga
• Vox

There are many ways to get you blog on the internet. All you need to do is choose one.

I have chosen to use WordPress for many reasons:

• open source
• template system
• widgets
• customizable
• easy to use
• link management
• search engine friendly
• clean permalink structure
• multiple categories
• multiple author capability
• rich plugin architecture
• trackback and pingback support
• support for tagging of posts and articles

Blog

So what is a blog?
A blog (a shortened version of the term weblog) is a website, usually maintained by an author with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other stuff like graphics and/or video. The posts or entries are usually displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” is also used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Themes

There are many free WordPress themes available today. Your theme will present your online personality to the world.

The best WordPress themes are really a matter you your personal preferences. What is you want your WordPress theme to do and/or present to the online world?

The WordPress site currently offers 618 free themes and there are more available on the net.

Plugins

There are many WordPress exciting plugins available today for just about any use you can think of. There are even an astounding amount of WordPress photo plugins that will give you total control over your images. Plugins are very useful if you’s like to customize the WordPress Theme you have chosen to use.

Some of my favorite WordPress plugins I use are:

• WordPress Automatic Upgrade
  Wordpress Automatic Upgrade allows a user to automatically upgrade the wordpress installation to the latest one provided by wordpress.org. By Keith Dsouza.
• Plugin Central
  Automatically installs WordPress plugins by name and URL. Provides automatic update of multiple plugins. By Vladimir Prelovac.
• Maintenance Mode
  Adds a splash page to your blog that lets visitors know your blog is down for maintenance. Logged in administrators get full access to the blog including the front-end. By Michael Wöhrer.
• Search Commander WP_Core_Tweaks Plugin
  Conceived by Scott Hendison and programmed by Heather Barger for Search Commander, Inc. to automate proper WP setup. It also extends the built-in features of WordPress menu management, an and combines several common plugins into one.
• TweetSuite
  A WordPress Plugin to integrate Twitter and WordPress By Dan Zarrella.
• Advanced Excerpt
  Several improvements over WP’s default excerpt. The size of the excerpt can be limited using character or word count, and HTML markup is not removed. By Bas van Doren.
• Post Avatar
  Attach a picture to posts easily by selecting from a list of uploaded images. Similar to Livejournal Userpics. Developed with Dominik Menke. By Vicky Arulsingam.

These are just some of the WordPress plugins I have chosen to install my blog.
What are some of your favorite WordPress plugins?

Late,
Gary Pool

WordPress – What is a Blog without Plugins? is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician