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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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…)

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.

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

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.

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.

Small Bites: Make Things Easy To Consume

I learn more about life from my children than I do any other source.  And a lot of  what my children are teaching me makes perfect sense on how businesses should be run. They are my advisers if you will.

I have 4 advisers- a middle schooler, a kindergartner and twin pre-preschoolers, so I have a wide range of inputs of which to receive.   Sometimes they have so much to teach me, that I become quite overwhelmed, if you know what I mean.

One night in particular, I was serving a steak dinner to my family.  With the little ones, we  cut up the pieces of meat, and (more…)

Twitter Security – Buyer Beware!

I’ve had this serious gripe with Twitter for a long time… well, not with Twitter per se, but with the way that 3rd party applications interact with Twitter.

Don’t get me wrong, I use Twitter…. a lot.

Mashable seems to be the first to have reported on the twitter compromise, where they claim up to thousands of Twitter accounts have been hijacked.

If in doubt, login to your Twitter account and change your password right now!

But here’s my real gripe about Twitters 3rd party applications that get compromised…

None of the accounts had to be compromised!

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Western Slope Honor Flight Takes Off Aug. 25

World War II was a long time ago, before the time that many of us were born.  But there are still those around us that served during that Great War, and still deserve the love and respect of any hero.

Because the World War II memorial was put into place so late in history, many never got to see the memorial that was built in their honor.  The Honor Flight Network is a non-profit organization that is on a mission… a mission to get as many WWII vets back to Washington DC to see the memorials that were built on their behalf.

The flight will be taking off on August 25, 2009 from Grand Junction Regional Airport with 110 WWII vets from Western Colorado, and 70 guardians will be accompanying them to the memorials.

They will be returning on August 26, 2009 and a public “Hero’s Welcome” is planned at about 5:15pm.  The return flight is open to anyone in the community that would like to welcome home their hero’s

Many have forgotten, or simply never knew, the dangers that our country faced during WWII – but there are those that simply can’t forget, because they sacrificed more than anyone can imagine.

The Honor Flight Network needs two things.  1) Letters to Veterans  and 2) Donations for flights, and medical supplies (like wheelchairs and portable oxygen tanks)

If you would like to give a donation to the Western Slope Honor Flight Network, please send donations to:

The other thing that we need more of are letters to the veterans.  These are thank you letters to our WWII vets for the services that they provided us, and the freedoms that the helped to guarantee around the world.

Letters to our World War II vets can be sent to:

Vet letters are needed before August 15, 2009

If there are questions about donations to Honor Flight Network, or on sending letters to the vets, please contact us directly ( 970-985-4192) and we’ll get you in touch with the right people.

I’m going to conclude this article with my own letter to our vets.  (more…)

Water You Telling Your Friends?

Marketing needs to be creative and fresh to make your business stand out from the crowd.  We all know this, but how many of us are really standing out?

As you browse through some of the pictures in this post of Dr. Greg Haitz of RimRock Chiropractic, I think you’ll get the idea of one Grand Junction business that really gets it.

What is it that attracted me most to RimRock Chiropractic?  They like to have fun. And it shows from all the effort that is put into the almost party like atmosphere.  When’s the last time you’ve gone to the doctor, and they threw a party on your behalf?

I don’t know about you, but this is a “stand out from the crowd” marketing plan if I’ve ever seen one. (more…)

Moxie Mafia Kicks Off!

Well, it’s been a long 6 months of writing, but Jennifer Kettlewell (my most beautiful wife and best friend in the whole wide world), has finally finished her book on social networking.  It’s called, Moxie Mafia – Social Media Success.

Moxie Mafia actually started out as a women’s mastermind group that she started here in Grand Junction, Colorado. After seeing the success of the mastermind group, she decided that she needed to tell more women around the world about the ins and outs of social media. Moxie Mafia is a social networking system designed especially for the needs of women entrepreneurs and business owners.

If you don’t know Jennifer, she’s a mother to 4 adorable children, ages 12, 5, & twin 3 year olds, she’s the Vice President of Kettlewell Enterprises, she’s the assistant director of BNI in North West Colorado, she’s sporting a fancy 4.0 GPA while finishing up her MBA at Mesa State College (my alumnus school), she keeps Bizopoly running, AND she still cooks wonderful meals.

Now, aside from my bragging about my wife (which I’m always proud to do), it’s plain to see that she is motivated and dedicated to everything that she does. Her book is no different…

Her book is over 180 pages, filled to the brim with social media content, and it’s more than just a book.  It’s a step-by-step guide on how to create your own mastermind system (as taught by Napoleon Hill), through 52 weekly lessons.

If you’ve been looking for extra ways to gain business during recessionary times, a mastermind system, based on Hills teachings, and incorporating 21^st century social networking technology, is the perfect way to proceed.

You can take a look at her Moxie Mafia sales page, and see the 12 supplemental training materials that she’s written too ( I told you she’s motivated ). I was encouraging her to stop at 6 extra reports, but she insisted that material would be missing if she didn’t write them up and include them… so you get 12 supplemental materials, plus the jumbo sized book.

And it doesn’t end with the book either… she’s created a Moxie Mafia support blog, where she’s posting updates, tips & ideas, AND (with her there is always an ‘and’), she’s doing a weekly live radio show on Blog Talk Radio, which she captures and archives the podcast on the Moxie Mafia blog for future listening opportunities.

And now that the book and supplemental material are written and available to purchase, Jennifer is off to give training session seminars on social media, and she gives away her book as a bonus, just for attending.

I highly recommend that you check out the Moxie Mafia blog and get involved in all things Moxie –

And guys, it’s OK to visit… I learn a lot there too.

Tatiana The Dog – A Modern Day Wonder Dog in Marketing

Case Study: Tatiana The Dog

Did you know that dogs can talk? And that I can prove it?

To get a feel for what I’m talking about, checkout this video by Tatiana the Dog.

See? Not only can Tatiana the Dog talk, but she can give real world advice to humans, in a very fun and playful way. I’d be willing to bet that Tatiana was so excited while filming this video, that her tail was gently wagging the whole time!

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How to Find a Job in 2009 – Complete Manual

EDIT 4/09: There are already millions of unemployed this year, and several million were laid off last year.  This guide is designed to give a helping hand to all of those that can use it.

Download the 2009 Job Guide

There are roughly 2 Million people that have been laid off this year, and many of them don’t know how to find a job in the new world of technology.

This quick how-to guide is only 14 pages and gives direct links of where to go to look for work, and gives example Google queries to use to find places to apply specific to your industry and/or region.

There are also tips on how to use social media to your benefit, and a quick note on where to land a quick freelancing job.

If you’re looking for a job in 2009, I sincerely hope that this employment guide will help you on your journey to successful career.

If there is anything that we can do to help, we are listening, and trying to connect people together

Download Job Hunting Guide for 2009 Here:

Find Work in 2009 – the Howto Manual (PDF)

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