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.

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!)

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.

140 Character Language Barrier

Hilarious video about a guy employee that is talking to female co-workers… to make matters worse, he has a cockney accent.

Use this as a gentle reminder to be careful what you say through social media outlets

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…)

Single Point of Failure: The Bresnan Experience

For those of you that are Bresnan customers, located in Colorado, Wyoming or Montana, you already know the news - “Bresnans Down!” – and yes, I’m an effected customer as well.

That’s right, in 3 states, Bresnan Communications is down for Internet and VOIP digital telephone.  Three States!!  How the heck did this happen?

With the worlds lessons of redundancy, how is it possible that a single catastrophic event can take out service in three states?

The answer?  No One Knows!  It took 12 hours, but look at the message that they leave us on there homepage:

Thanks for pointing out the obvious Bresnan!!

Several of the local news media tried to contact Bresnan, and they were in the same boat as us – the phone lines were so jammed up, that they couldn’t get through.

Absolutely no communication with customers is bad for business.  I first recognized the problem at about 8PM.  I decided that it was a glitch in the system, and I’d look into it in the morning.

Morning rolls around, and I have partial Internet.  Fortunately I was using a public DNS server so that I could browse without relying too heavily on Bresnan.  That’s all I needed.  It was enough for me to get on Twitter, and see what the heck was going on.  And they were just as clueless as me.

Bresnan made absolutely no attempt to communicate with it’s customers about what’s happened.  They had over 12 hours (and counting) and we’ve heard nothing from them.  I’ve gotten Internet, but mail is flaky and phones are still out (business phones mind you).

And no ETA on when service will be restored.

The lesson to you:  Always keep you customers informed.  Help them.  Love them.  They are your real stockholders.  They are the reason you are in business.  Treat them better than your employees and your family (which should already be super-duper).

Leave them in the dust, and they will leave you.  Treat them well, and they will remember you forever.

I still don’t know what’s really going on, and I have enough redundancy in my plan that I’m not overly effected, just inconvenienced.  But it would be nice to have an update as to when things will be back to normal.

With President Obama visiting our town this weekend, I’m almost bound to throw a conspiracy theory out there that someone cut the hard line in the name of national security….

Remember, I treat you well by keeping you in the loop… now if I could just convince you to remember me forever

Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail

Most companies I speak with don’t have a written document of their marketing plan.  They seem to think that because they have a plan in their head, they are somehow immune to planning.

I kindly point out that in marketing, it’s all about planning your funnel.  Where does your business make money?  When they call to speak with you?  When they email you? When they visit? Every store has a unique money funnel, resulting in every business having a different business plan.

For instance, if a customer calling your on the phone is where you make sales, then you need to be funneling all your Internet traffic to a page that has a direct call to action for visitors to call your business, where you finish the sale with some one on one communication.  You may have hated Billy May’s OxyClean commercials, but the call to action of “Call Now” is tried and true.

A blog is a great example of how to be informative, show authority in your industry, and to drive traffic to your webpage to get them to call you.  There are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of ways to funnel traffic to where you make money.

Your plan is going to be unique for your business, but the important thing is to make sure that you have one that is written, well laid out, and designed to funnel all your advertising to one focal point that drives a call to action that makes you money.

Call The Dominator Now! Let’s discuss your money funnel, and get you the online traffic you deserve. 970-985-4192 (Thanks Billy Mays!)

Take Care With The Power Of Free

Free is a great business model to gain attention and attraction of visitors, but without a proper plan, a free business model can be a drain to your company.

I was recently commenting on an article that asks, “Should you pay for AVG?”, of which you can read my full response, but the essence was that free is good, but they should still have a business model in place that will allow them to survive while giving things away for free.

It wasn’t 2 minutes after I made that comment, that the free URL shortening service tr.im made an announcement that it was going to have to discontinue services, because there is no business model that will monetize URL shortening services.

Their “plan” was to sell the tr.im URL service for money once the service was completed.  The problem?  They couldn’t find a buyer.  Not even a “token amount”, as they put it.

So the real problem is that they never had a real plan on how to monetize the service, or make it truly viable for another company to buy the URL shortening service.

This reminded me of the dot com boom days when money was handed out left and right, but there was no substantiative business plan that went with the funds… 2 years later, the big dot com bust, and all the equipment was on the auction block for pennies on the dollar.

It doesn’t have to happen this way, if a plan is created first.   But a plan is apparently “too much work” and a “waste of time” to many businesses.

I utilize free all the time.  But I always have a plan.  Free seminar?  OK.  As long as I get to pitch Moxie Mavens book, or upsell my consulting services, or even an affiliate product that’s worthy.

Sometimes free can be used for branding… if it’s part of your business model and plan.  But don’t give everything away and expect people to pay for premium services that don’t really exist.  If your front end is that great, then either make your front end a little less special, or make the back end premium services that much better.

Monetizing free isn’t impossible.  In fact, it can be really fun, and easy.  Just get a little creative, and plan a little, take some action, and see what happens.

Have a free idea, but don’t know how to monetize it on the backend?  Leave a comment below, or contact us with your idea.

BTW – If tr.im sold me the URL shortening service, I’d be making money within 6 months of purchase, either directly or indirectly.  That’s what The Dominator does…