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Showing posts from March, 2014

Clutter, Noise, and Your Customer

Clutter, clutter, all around and not a post to read . Once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away there was a scarcity of information . It was hard to find stuff out; sometimes you even had to physically walk to a physical place, called a "library" and look up things on physical cards to find physical books.  Today, in contrast, with the click of a mouse you can Google something, and find blog posts upon blog posts answering every question. Too Much Information Cluttering Up Our Minds Today the challenge, however, is not a scarcity of information. Rather, it is information superabundance . There's a lot of information on the Internet, but a lot of that information is bad, wrong, salesey . The poor consumer or Internet searcher is confronted with too much information and not enough knowledge .  Whom should I trust? How do I know you are the expert you say you are? And are you just trying to sell me something? Today's Marketing Motivator task is to think ...

Tag You're It: Quizzing Yourself on Tags

Tags matter. And not just because of "tag, you're it!" To anyone who does SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and/or blogging tags matter (a lot). In this Marketing Motivator , I want to remind you of the importance of tags and then help you with tag todos. HTML Tags and SEO Tags matter a great deal in so-called "on page" SEO, because Google and Bing both prioritize content based on whether the keywords in a given blog post or web page "match" the search query. If, for example, you want to show up for a search for "organic baby food," your best "on page" SEO tactic is to weave the phrase "organic baby food" into the primary tags. I use the analogy that the HTML tags are to SEO what poker cards are to poker. Therefore: TAG POKER CARD Title Ace H1 / Header King / Face Card A HREF Queen / Face Card IMG ALT Jack / Face Card Therefore, just as if you were playing poker, you...

Can Evergreen Content Grow You Green?

Evergreen content , in case you haven't heard the phrase, refers to content that is perpetually relevant (just as an evergreen tree always has its leaves). That's compared to non-evergreen conten t, which is the ebb-and-flow of trends and news events that is the stuff of much blogging. In this marketing motivator , let's think just a moment about what evergreen content is, and how you might create some (and why). Evergreen Content: Examples Examples of evergreen content are items like tutorials or in-depth "how to" articles, common issues that recur again and again for your customers, or even content such as news calendars that, while changing frequently, are things that consumers want to check repeatedly (e.g., public transit schedules). One of my favorite examples of evergreen content is Link Building Tactics: The Complete List .  It's both a useful compendium of link-building tactics, and "link bait" in and of itself. Plus it's ever...