Choose Your SEO Expert Carefully

If you’re going to buy something expensive, don’t you want a little proof that it’s gonna work?  Don’t you also want some reassurance that they know what they’re talking about?  With all the SEO experts popping up, you really need to do double duty in choosing your SEO “expert” carefully.

SEO (or Search Engine Optimization) is the art and science of optimizing elements of your website so that your website will rank higher in search engines like Google.

It seems that many a web designer has realized that offering SEO and Internet marketing advice and services will somehow benefit their clients.  So they find some old articles on the subject, and type out a pretty, well formatted article, and declare that they are experts in the matter.
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Twitters Gone Phishing!

One could argue that the infamous “Fail Whale” of Twitter has become an annoying little “Twitter Phish”.  I’ve received  hundreds of phishing attempts from friends and followers on Twitter because their accounts have been compromised.  The really scary part is that this could easily have been prevented… with just a little bit of common sense.

One of the first things that we need to address, is “How does someones account get hacked?“  This is common thinking, especially if they haven’t given out their password to anyone.  But the truth is that most people HAVE given up their username and password, and don’t even realize it.

Twitter Phish

I wrote up an article a few months back about twitter security, and it was a huge warning to folks on what would happen if they didn’t mind there P’s & Q’s.  Apparently  my message didn’t reach out  far enough  (Note the share buttons above and below this post)

Today alone I’ve had over 200 DM’s that were directing me to various sites about IQ tests, claims of me in videos , and other sites that I have no interest in.  But it seems that others (ahem) do enjoy such tests and videos, and are willing to supply their Twitter username/password to get the final results.

I’ve not taken any of these tests, but they usually are the same type. In the end, you are giving up your username and password to an untrusted source.  Do you know who’s on the other end? Is it an angel, or the devil?  We’ve all gotten fairly accustomed to popup warnings about security with 3rd party apps with Facebook, but we always tend to ignore what it’s talking about, and clicking through.  At least Facebook has a warning, and it’s there for a reason.  You’re giving private information to a programmer that you don’t know.  He could be collecting your data (name/email/password for example) and selling it to some spammer… or worse!

In the case of today’s DM spam, everytime they get a username and password, they DM everyone on your friend list a link to go take an IQ test (which is an affiliate link that makes the spammer money)

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t ever use a legitamate 3rd party app, but I am saying that you need to find and use applications smartly.  Third party apps that have a reputation in the community.  But don’t take stupid IQ tests (was that an oxymoron?) and jeapordize your twitter account.  What it they spammed your boss with hatemail?  or used your twitter password on your bank account?  In theory, you should have a unique password for every account you have, but I have a feeling that if you took the IQ test and gave up your password, you’re probably using the same password for everything.  So now your boss has fired you, and a hacker just wiped out your bank account.  Maybe it’s time to Google soup kitchen.

OK, you get the idea.  Don’t give up username & password to untrusted sources.

How do you get out of hot water with this Twitter DM spamming stuff?

Protect Yourself In Two Simple Steps:

1. Change Your Twitter Password!

2. In Twitter, go to settings->connections.  Revoke access to all 3rd party apps.

You’ll need to regrant access to the ones that you know and trust, but for now, just dump em all, and sort out the mess later.

I hope that clarifies a bit about how you got hacked, how your hacked account effects others, and how to clean up your hacked account.

Leave comments below if you find any more updates to these DM’s.

Domininator Officially In The Clouds

I’ve resisted….  I’ve been content…. I’ve been missing out!

I finally made the switch to Gmail today.  Yes, my tech friends have been pushing, prodding and even calling me a sissy for not using Gmail.

Well folks, I finally did it, and brought The Moxie Maven with me.

Why did I do it, and what’s it have to do with the clouds?

What's In A Cloud, Anyhow?

Let’s start with the clouds Cloud computing is when your computing is somewhere else – “in the clouds” so to speak.  So things like web based email (MSN, Hotmail, Yahoo, GMAIL – etc) are cloud computing services for email.  The physical contents of the email are on another machine that you don’t have to maintain or upgrade.

So why did I do it?  I finally had enough administering a mail server that wasn’t behaving, and I needed a fast solution to keep emails from being bounced.  So I forwarded my emails to a Gmail email address, and all is good now.

So setup was easy enough, but there were other reasons to want to make the shift to Gmail too (besides the constant snickering of peers).  My iPhone was only checking the main Inbox of my IMAP folders, and not my presorted folders, so I’d wouldn’t get any updates on the other folders, unless I would manually check them out.

But now I have all my contacts synced up in one place, my calendar is all in one place, I can drop Microsoft Word and Excel, and do it all online, and have access to all my files anywhere in the world that I can get an Internet connection.

That’s the power of Cloud Computing.

Thanks Big G and a big hand to HelpMeRick for suggesting the change as a powerful business changing way of life.

Anonymous Online Presence

Can you really be anonymous online?  That’s the question that was posed to me recently by a client that’s wanting to put up a website, and be 100% completely untraceable back to who she is.

So here’s my take.  Given enough time and money, anyone can be traced back to the source. But for the average Joe that’s ranting about political agendas, or making rude comments about their teachers,  no one is going to spend the time, money and effort to find out who you really are.

So how do you hide the identity of your website?  Most domain registrars, like GoDaddy , allow you to privatize your domain name, and for all intents and purposes, hides your identity.  They put your real contact information into a proxy database, that allows a generic name to be found in the WHOIS database, but hides the real owner to the general public.

But there are two sources of real identify that you can’t hide (well, not legally!).  And that is that to pay for your domain registration, and your hosting, each of them requires a credit card with a real name and address.  So you really have to trust who you’re doing business with if you’re trying to hide who you really are.  But beware, even the most trustworthy companies will have to turn over your data if it’s subpoenaed to do so.

The long and short of it is that for 99% of those that I deal with, GoDaddy’s private domain option is more than enough, and they have hosting as well, so you can keep your real identity to a minimum number of places that need to know.

Sharing Your Google Calendar On The iPhone

Syncing Google Calendar with the iPhone was almost too easy.  My wife and I had been looking for a shared calendar solution for years, and I think we’ve finally hit the jackpot.   It only took 20 minutes to figure out and install on the two phones.  Hopefully these instructions will cut your time in half.

Here’s how we did it, in 5 easy steps.

1. Create a Google Calendar. For this exercise, I assume that you already have a Google Calendar.  If you don’t you’ll need to set that up first. Don’t worry, it’s a breeze!

2. Share Your Calendar. Make sure that you are sharing your Google Calendars as read/write for the user(s) that you want to share with.  That way they can make updates to your calendar, and vice-versa.  This is done via the settings button on Google Calendar.

Login to your Google Calendar.  Click the Settings button just below your calendar list.

Then for each calendar that you have, click on (more…)

Windows 7 Party Success

Thanks to Adam Cochran of TalkingDigital.org fame, and Rick Castellini of HelpMeRick.com fame, Grand Junction, Colorado had an extremely fun and informative Windows 7 party last night at the Grand Junction Realtors Association.

With the release of Windows 7, there’s been a lot of questions across the country about what the improvements are, how to upgrade, and if the benefits are enough to make the switch to Windows 7 right away.

Adam and Rick did an awesome job of answering all these questions and tons more.  They had two systems running Windows 7 on display for everyone to see and play with.

Adam Cochran and Rick Castellini

Microsoft says that networking with Windows 7 will be even easier, so Rick and Adam put it to the test.  They networked the two computers right before our very eyes, and showed off some of the features, like permissions, password protection, and deletion.  Deletion does have one pitfall that’s new for networking – once it’s gone, it’s gone.  There is no recycle bin for network deletions.

I played with Ricks laptop for about 10 minutes and immediately went to the admin consoles, to see what was in store for an advanced user.  In the process, I only had a UAC (User Account Control) popup window once.  Rick and Adam went on to explain that Microsoft has tuned the process, and that there are UAC controls to adjust how often you want to be alerted by UAC popups.  I was impressed by the finer control that users now have on UAC and the initial settings being very permissible.

The interface itself is a bit different,  and I think it would take a bit of getting used to.  The taskbar seems to have a quick launch and open programs buttons on the taskbar, but they don’t have a very good demarcation, and they tend to look all the same at first glance.  They also group things together, and create a sub-panel to choose which one you want.  So if I have two Word documents, it will put it into the same button, and display the two as a sub-menu popup when I hover over the button.  Might be fine for just two, but I often have 5 or more Word documents open at a time.  As I sit here after the fact, I have to wonder how 10 or more documents would look in that preview mode.

Another point they discussed was the release of Microsofts new Security Essentials anti-virus package, which is free, and talked about some of the other anti-virus packages, such as AVG ,  which is also free, but getting bloated, forcing upgrades to new versions, and pushing banners to upgrade to a paid premium package.  One point they made was that AVG is around 80 MB in size now, and the new Security Essentials is substantially smaller, and much faster as well.  I am surprised that they didn’t mention Prevx, which is a paid product, but is faster than AVG, requires no definition files,  is only a 800K download (4MB unpacked size on my HD), and takes only 3 minutes to scan my entire system.  Prevx saved my bacon years ago, so I am a bit biased.

The party was not only informative, but it was highly relaxing as well.  There were ballo0ns and streamers, coffee, drinks, and snacks to make everyone feel welcome and at home.  The final few minutes were filled with various questions about when and how to upgrade, and everyone left the party with a  new sense of things to come.

Great Job Rick & Adam!  You are my new Windows 7 Experts!

Treat Every Client Like They Have Cancer

The word cancer conjures up a variety of imagery and connotations, mostly vividly dark and negative, but every now and again we can find an interesting twist in the dark side of the universe, and turn it into a positive torrential force.

Let me explain.

I have a client that I’ve been doing business with for about a year.  He always drops off payments in person, and stays a bit to chat.  I always look forward to his visits, and make the time when he stops by.  He’s an SEO kind of guy, so we have a lot to chat about.

One day he calls to tell me that he’s going out of town for a few months to get treatments for cancer.

I instantly had a rush of feelings, and some questions.  He was swift to reassure me that everything was fine, they caught it early, and the prognosis is very positive.  Whew! I was relieved.

What happened next, over the course of a few months, was something that happened in my business that was so powerful, and yet so obvious, I couldn’t believe it.

I started treating his company, in his absence, as royalty.

If they had an email problem. I’d travel to their site, and help them figure it out.

They had their IP address blacklisted (it was a dynamic IP, so the previous leaseholder was being naughty with it), and I helped them resolve the issue.  It wasn’t my problem, and I certainly could have passed the buck that way, but I spoke with their ISP for 30 minutes, and helped resolve it.

The epiphany was this…

If I treat every client as if they are sick or wounded, and deserve better treatment, then they feel better for the services they receive, and I feel better for delivering them, AND who do you think they’re going to refer to when someone they know needs my services?  Somehow I doubt it’s Joe Blow down the street.

So next time you think you’re too busy for your clients, think again about how a cancer can become your friend.

Now Accepting New Patients

It’s come to my attention, that many of my clients felt I was too busy to help them. That my schedule was so busy that they were afraid to call me, for fear that they would be interrupting me from important work.

I’m glad that I have such courteous clients,  but without them, I’d be nowhere, and have a lot of unpaid bills to boot.

Looking at your own business, are you giving the impression that you’re too busy for your customers?

This perception of not needing new clients has prompted me to look back at the things that I’ve said, and how I’ve said them.  Turns out that there are a few subtleties that I’d overlooked.

For starters, when people ask how business is doing, I’ve always said that I’m doing great and I have all the business I need to survive.  But that’s not entirely accurate.

Our business has been struggling, like many in these turbulent times, but the pride of telling someone that business is rough isn’t always the easiest thing to say.  But by fudging the truth, you’re telling others that your business is thriving, and you may not have time for new work.

Swallow your pride, be truthful with others and let them know that business is slow, and you’re welcoming new clients with open arms.  Reminds me of some medical offices that have a sign that reads “Now accepting new patients“.  A good phrase indeed to let everyone know that you’re in business for them.

It also seems that with all of our preparations for new training, seminars and programs, that my clients (and potential new clients) think that I don’t have time to take out for them.

My solution?  Shield clients from our future projects until the project is ready to go live,  otherwise they see a whole bucket of projects in the works, and they can’t possibly imagine how I have time for them.

Are you giving the same perception in your business?

Now I’m no rocket scientist, but if you have too many clients perceiving your company to be too busy, how are you going to have enough business to pay the bills?

The moral is this:  Make sure that you make every client and potential client know – without a doubt – that you have time for them.  Never, ever give the impression that your schedule is booked,  unless it is really truly full with paying clients.

So to paraphrase from the medical offices:

The Dominator Is Accepting New Clients!

It doesn’t get any easier than that.  Try it out in your business,  in whatever medium you have available to you, be it a sign in the window, your newsletter, or simply your blog.

Good luck, and let me know how it works out for you.

Internet Marketing vs Online Marketing – Same Or Different?

The Moxie Maven and I were once again have a philosophical discussion on marketing, when the question arose if marketing is marketing, or if marketing is really marketing…

OK. All marketing philosophy jokes aside, as we target our markets to get our message out, we realized that there might be a subtle difference between “Internet Marketing” and “Online Marketing” or “Marketing Online”.

What do you think? Are they the same? Or are they different.

I’ll post my opinion on the matter later, but I wanted to get some un-biased feedback before I do.

Please leave a comment below with your opinion on the matter.

Thanks

Video: Hootsuite Scheduling Clarification

Hootsuite is my favorite online Twitter application because it allows me to group friends & searches into columns, has a built-in URL shortener, and allows tracking of stats for the links you shorten with their service.

They also allow for scheduled tweets, but the interface is a bit awkward at first. Once you know what’s going on, scheduled tweets are a Hoot! (ok, bad joke)

Take a peek at this video, it’s less than 2 minutes long, and easy to follow. (if not tell me, and I’ll redo it after I cry!)

TechDom #1

This is TechDom video numero uno.  This is a place for me to both vent my frustrations with those that are less tech savvy than myself, and at the same time, guide them towards the universal mecca of being a technologist.

This TechDom video specifically addresses what to do if you receive an attachment in .docx format.

Where’s The Dominator Been?

For those of you that keep track of my whereabouts, may be wondering where I’ve been… and I must say that my silence is very indicative of wonderful things in the works!

One of the things that’s The Moxie Maven and I finished, and is ready for the public, is her  Moxie Mafia Social Media Training System.  This site uses the Wordpress blogging framework with a slightly modified Revolution theme.

Included at the Moxie Mafia site are tons of videos, articles about Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and all your social media favorites.  And if you become a member, you get access to monthly lesson plans to get your business aligned with social media, expert interviews,  special reports, and member-only videos.

And if you’ve been paying attention to Moxie Mafia, you’d know that there was an entire blog there that that had The Moxie Mavens Blog Talk Radio show podcasts too… so what happened to it?  We moved it of course!

You can still find the same content as before, but at the new “The Moxie Maven” blog that is still an adorable site, with some very real social media content.

But what else is going on that’s kept me away from this blog?

For one, we’re in the process of finalizing our brand – us being me “The Dominator” and she “The Moxie Maven”

And part of this brand shift means creating a few extra sites, and getting the right content in the right places.  We’re breaking our Wordpress services off into a completely new realm at Blogging Emergency, where we’ll be taking our existing Wordpress offerings, and combine some how-to videos, discussions and articles with it.

We’re also going to break-out our seminars and training services into a combined Mox&Dom label.  We seem to do more seminars together, and the name has been really successful, so we decided to not push our seminar services separately, and combine them together, since we were rarely giving speaking engagements independently anyhow.

Neither Blogging Emergency nor Mox&Dom are ready for prime time yet, but I wanted to give everyone a heads-up on why our blogs have been silent for the past few weeks, and to let you know that we’ll be providing you with more avenues to learn what’s important to you.

And as always, if you have a question,  use our contact form, or leave a comment at the end of any post, and we’ll do the best we can to address it.  Likewise, if you’d like to see us writing about something specific, let us know that too, and we can write up special articles, just for you.

Video: Social Media Addicts Association Meeting (SMAA)

This is a riot!  This video really shows my true nature… being an iPhone addict that Tweets and Facebooks all day long, I may have to consider attending one of these… or at least tweet about it!

Calling All Industry Experts!

Are you an expert (or nearly so) in your industry?

I’m looking to leverage my marketing expertise with the expertise of those in a variety of industries to put together highly profitable membership sites that are valuable to the community at large.

What kinds of industries do I need?

Just about any, so long as you have information that is valuable enough that people will want to pay for it.  Examples include Programmers, Stock Traders, Insurance Agents, Realtors, Fortune Tellers, Fitness Trainers, Dietitians – and these are just a few of thousands of examples.  Any industry that can be leveraged to sell things to the public on a continual basis.  Don’t let this part throw you off, contact me, and let’s brainstorm.  90% of industries can be leveraged to make money on a continual basis.

Are there industries that you already have ideas for?

I do.  I’m actively looking for WordPress experts, Programming Experts (especially AJAX), and Financial Indicator Programmers (TradeStation, NinjaTrader, etc).  I have programs that I could have up and running in a weeks time for these programs.

What kind of money will we make?

Great question, and it all depends on how successfully we can work together.  The idea is that all profits will be equitably split 50/50 between the 2 of us, minus expenses like marketing, PPC and other advertising.  The idea is the have a subscriber base of over 300 members in a years time.  To put that into perspective, if we were to charge out $30/month that’s $9,000 or $4,500 each – per month! Some industries and concepts will allow for a higher priced monthly charge, say $100/month.  With 300 members, that’s $30,000 total, or $15,000 each – per month!

What kind of commitment is there?

Every site and concept will be a little bit different, but I would figure at least 20 hours per month, and maybe up to 40 hours per month.  So there is a commitment, but with the possibility of a large payout in the end.  Your commitment will consist of writing.  If writing scares you, then this won’t be the right opportunity for you, unless you can convince a friend to do your writing with your oversight.  Some programs might require daily intervention, others will only require weekly or monthly attention.  We can discuss specifics and put a quick plan together to see if it’s still something you want to pursue.

So what is my role in this whole thing?

My role is to handle all technical and marketing aspects of this joint venture.  This includes setting up the membership site, getting the site laid out professionally, hosting, graphics work, get video&audio feeds put together, and to market the site to assure that we gain the necessary exposure, including banner ads, print ads, PPC, social media, SEO, and other Internet marketing techniques.

Do you have an example membership site?

Our latest membership site is the Moxie Mafia Social Media Training System.  As you can see, it is very professional, informative, and inviting.  This is a great example of the kinds of sites that we’re aiming to have put together.

I’m interested, what do I need to do?

I’m glad you’re interested.  All you need to do is call me (Matt Kettlewell) on my cell phone at 970-261-2684 , or call the office at 970-985-4192 or use our contact form and I’ll call you back to discuss our opportunity.