Content is KING, right?  we all know that.

But titling your posts that are keyword rich and search engine friendly, is equally important.

Google has a tool that will find these keywords for you. They call the tool the "Wonder Wheel."

Here is a step-by-step guide showing you how to use this tool to get your website ranked higher and get more traffic to your site.

To see how Google's Wonder Wheel works, go to Google and search for any word or phrase.

After you do this search look in the left nav. panel and click on the phrase, "Wonder Wheel." (If you don't see this in the left nav. panel, click on "More Options" at the top of the page under the word, "Google."

When you click on the Wonder Wheel link, you will see Google's wheel showing the phrases Google considers to be related to your searched for phrase.

You can take it a step further by clicking on any of the related phrases in the Wonder Wheel and you will see a new wheel showing the phrases that are related to the phrase you clicked on.

When you title a post, you have to ask yourself, "how will someone find my post?"
You want to use keywords that make sense and will attract the reader to you!

What is Thumbtack?

Why can you go online right now and buy any product you want but you can't do the same for tutors, handymen, dog walkers, or other local services? Thumbtack is changing that.

Thumbtack isn't like typical local search directories that simply return business listings with ratings and reviews, leaving you no better off than the paper Yellow Pages.

Instead, Thumbtack gives you the ability to vet, contact and book service professionals the moment you find them.

Check out my Web 2.0, Social Media, and Blog Consultants at Thumbtack.com



ThumbTack.com   Check it out!

WHAT ARE THEY THINKING? 

I am actually not a big of fan of Groupon these days, but totally respect the company and what they do. This little Chicago company is setting the world on fire with coupon deals.

Find Today's Daily Deal !


It is a great concept. And when they first started out, I loved buying the deals and going to new restaurants.  But this past summer, on 2 different occassions in Chicago, it was a nightmare redeeming the coupon.  The restaurants were overcrowded and understaffed and unable to handle the flow new customers coming in.
 
In Japan recently, one restaurant crashed and burned so badly recently, that Groupon is refunding all the customers who bought in and are now  educating its customers on ‘capacity planning’ .

You probably heard  Google  wants to be in the online group buying space, badly, and with good reason. The company offered Groupon a  $6 billion buy-out offer!

Which Groupon has TURNED DOWN!    WHAT?!  ARE THEY CRAZY?!
 
But  Google seems determined to get in on the action – through acquisition – regardless. Companies like LivingSocial and BuyWithMe, both privately-held and backed by tens of millions in venture capital, are some of the names that are dropped in various reports.



MEANWHILE,  Village Vines  is a company I have been using lately.  I love it!  You get a  "deal"  for  $10 at the restuarant of your choice, at the times they have avilable via reservation.  Then you get 30% off your entire meal. So the other night, 4 of us went to dinner.  The deal  was  $10. And we saved $65 of the entire meal. It was great! They are small and just starting out. So new restaurants, and more cities will be added in 2011. Check it out!

TECHNOLOGY IS  AMAZING!

Every year, AMAZING advances are made! We thought cell phones were great! Now our cell phones are mini computers!

I LOVE  DROPBOX !  This new application makes sharing, syncing, backing up and travel SO EASY!

Dropbox allows you to sync your files online and across your computers automatically.

• 2GB of online storage for free, with up to 100GB available to paying customers.
• Sync files of any size or type.
• Sync Windows, Mac, and Linux computers.
• Automatically syncs when new files or changes are detected.

NO more schlepping my laptop. Heck, I don't even need portable USB's  anymore. And I certainly do not need GoToMyPC anymore.   DROPBOX makes my life easier - and I NEVER have to worry about backups, anymore!

Check it out!

Like LOCATION,
LOCATION,
LOCATION in real estate, 

KEYWORDS,
KEYWORDS,
KEYWORDS is so important with your site.

The BIGGEST misconception about keywords, is that most people THINK they know, what keywords to use. WRONG. You need to understand how people search. Consult with keyword tools  like  SpyFu ,  Keyword SPY , WordStream , or the Google External Keyword Tool .

And you want to use keywords thoughtfully. Work the keywords in naturally and avoid over-use. Use keywords strtegically; like in titles and anchor-text.

Proper use of keywording will bring your desired traffic!


Derrick Sorles
Business Blogging Consultants

A Facebook page
asking an Arkansas school district
 to fire an official has
reached 20,000+ supporters!

The POWER of social media at work!
Today alone, nearly 3000 people joined the page!

Clint McCance, a school board member in Independence County, Arkansas, is under fire this week for a horrifically anti-gay Facebook statement he posted regarding last week's Spirit Day, reading,

“Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers committed suicide.

The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide."

I cant believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid.
And from an education professional, at that! 

In response to the dangerous homophobia the education board member spewed, the Arkansas Department of Education says it does not have the authority to fire McCance.

It writes in a statement posted to its website :

The Arkansas Department of Education strongly condemns remarks or attitudes of this kind and is dismayed to see that a school board official would post something of this insensitive nature on a public forum like Facebook. Because Mr. McCance is an elected official, the department has no means of dealing with him directly. However, the department does have staff who investigate matters of bullying in schools and we will monitor and quickly respond to any bullying of students that may occur because of this, as we have with other civil rights issues in the past.

Still, the Facebook group  calling for McCance's bigoted head continues to grow!
PLEASE JOIN!!

10-28-2010  UUPDATE    UPDATE    UPDATE!
Mr McCance has said he will RESIGN... due to the pressure!!!
He told CNN he was sorry. His resignation isn't official until he has submitted a letter of resignation. No such letter has yet been submitted.

dot429 ushers in the next generation of business networking. Specifically targeted to LGBTA lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender professionals, dot429 provides a unique on and offline platform for the LGBT business community and ITS SUPPORTERS to connect and expand their business network, further their careers and stay current with the business world. Want to network with gay community? This is the place.

Online members communicate through profile pages, updates, messaging and online introductions. Articles written by industry-leaders keep dot429 members on the leading edge. Job postings and an executive mentoring program create career growth. Art, leisure, travel, health, entertainment, politics and more.

Along with this powerful online networking, dot429 will also host monthly live social events across the country and internationally.

dot429 already has more than 10,000 members from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York’s LGBT business leaders. By Q4 2010 dot429 is expected to reach over 100,000 members nationally.

Profiles and sign-ups are FREE! What are you waiting for?!

Best Gay News

Hopefully, you use  Google Analytics .  Their data shows you show much about your readers.  Now comes  Google Insight For Search . The new Google Insights for Search Tool is still in the beta  phase, but you need to take a look at it.

It will give you a LOT more information than is available from the older Google Trends tool. It will tell you whether interest is growing or decaying for your keywords and keyword phrases -- plus tell you the words and phrases that are really hot for your topic.

There are many, many  things you can learn by using Google's  Insights Tool -- I was even surprised at the countries searching for my terms  vs. the countries that Analytics told me were actually reading my blog. This told me to cater more to Ireland!  Who knew?!

Play with the tool and its many features for a few minutes and you'll be amazed at what you can learn about your topic.

Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the Google Insights page and take a look at the list of Top Searches words and phrases and the list of Rising Searches. This will give you a direction to follow for future posts.

Very cool!

Derrick  Sorles

Blog Consultant
Web 2.0 Internet Marketing Expert
Social Media Evangelist

BEWARE! 

Google is really pushing  their new FREE CALLS.  While I love Google, this new program has bugs, I think.

A   few days ago, an empty "debug.log"  Notepad  file began popping up on my desktop.  You try to delete it, it won't let you. I opened it, it was blank, I typed in some gibberish and closed it, saved the changes. And then was finally about to put it in the recycle bin.  Then, I deleted it from there, to make sure it was gone.  I even restarted  my  PC.

A few hours it came back!  I  scanned my  PC  using a couple tools, and the report said  it found a  "backdoor trojan".  It deleted it. And the  notepad debug disappeared again.  - A few hours  later  ir  came  back!!!

After doing some research online, I found several other people had this same issue - and all had recently installed the Google  free phone call program.  So sure enough, I  uninstalled the program,  and have gotten rid of the Notepad DEBUG this time.

So just beware.  I don't know what this is or why Google isn't addressing it,  but I want no part of a backdoor trojan.

  



The World Wide Web was originally mostly a tool for the Western world and English speaking people. That’s been rapidly changing in recent years; English will soon no longer be the predominant primary language of Internet users and web page translation is becoming a increasingly important strategy in web site marketing.

While over 350 million people speak English as their first language and it’s estimated somewhere around the same have English as a second language (and to varying degrees of proficiency); given that the global Internet population is now over 1 billion and rapidly climbing in Non-English speaking regions; that’s a huge number of people and potential customers who may not be able to read your site. It’s interesting to note that as of the end of 2006; Asia had more Internet users than the USA!

A client the other day, who is a plumber in Chicago, asked me, "What do I care if someone in Asia can or can not read my blog? They're not a customer anyways?" - You have to look at the BIG PICTURE.  ROI  does not always come in the form of a customer hiring you.  Perhaps a foreign magazine see's you as an expert, and wants a quote from you.   I had someone from France, who only spoke French, contact me about an image on my site. Turns out, I owned the image. And he wanted to buy the rights to use that image in a brochure he is developing.  You never know where the ROI  will come from.

Here’s something you might not have considered and perhaps a very important motivator for having your web site translated into different languages. If you translate a page into a different language; search engines see it as a totally separate page; so it’s another ticket in the search engine lottery. Your 20 page site translated into 7 languages suddenly becomes a 140 page site casting a net to a broader audience.

So, a multi language site will not only bring more visitors to your sites, but the number of pages that show up in the SERPs will increase as well. Yahoo/Babel  and  Google  both have  easy-to-install  codes to create a language button for your site.

Being in this business  since 2005,
we have seen a lot of growth and change!
The cheese is being moved all of the time
and you can't rest on your laurels for a minute!

Over the years, we have prided ourselves on getting  our  20 sites and our clients sites, on Page one of Google for THOUSANDS of keywords. And we teach clients how they can do they same for their business keywords they are trying to capture.

Google, and the rest of them though, are always changing the rules of the game. And last fall one of my most popular sites on travel, fell off Page one for it's  main keyword. We had no idea why. We had been on Page for 3 years. We tried everything. We talked to people all around the world and got 100 different answers.  Nothing worked.  After 7 months in limbo, thankfully,  our site is back one Page one for it's primary keyword. But will it stay this time? Who knows.

The landscape is continually changing. And when changes happen, the result shift in rankings can be huge. The new partnership between BING and YAHOO will surely impact GOOGLE and will no doubt impact search, across the board.

There is a great article this month in WEBSITE Magazine . It talks about search basics, social media, feeds and local search as well.   It's a great FREE Magazine everyone should be reading.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and comments on SEO nightmares you have experienced.

Derrick  Sorles

Michael  Snell and Derrick Sorles  
Web 2.0 and Social Media Strategies

People often ask me
what is the ONE BEST BLOGGING TIP you can offer? 

My answer:  PATIENCE.  

You keep at it and keep putting in the work, IT WILL PAY OFF in some way.  The rewards can come in various forms. But it will pay off if you put in the hours and do it right.

Marketing guru Seth Godin once said, "Be patient. Do good work, keep doing good work and then do more good work. That’ll pay off."




 

We were on a press/media  trip last week to Las Vegas, and the schedule was so JAM PACKED I had almost no time to check e-mails, or anything else for 5 days. 

For us, that is HUGE.  We touch about  200  emails  a  day.  So imagine  coming home  to  nearly  900  emails,  22 phone calls,  98 LinkedIn requests, and 589  Facebook  requests!  YIKES!

Someone said to me on the trip, "I can' barely keep up with e-mails and voice-mails at work - how do people find time for all this other crap?!"

If you can't do it yourself, have someone do it for you. Unfortunately, we still do it all ourselves. But you don't have to. Find an intern. Hire us. Hire someone.  It's a crucial part of new business development today.  We have been telling people for  4  years, you better get blogging and you better understand Social Media's impact on your bottom line, fast. 

Now we tell them  they  have to have a  LinkedIn account  and  probably  a  FaceBook  fan page, and possibly  even  Twitter. The world is  FLAT and the rules of the game have changed.  You MUST take  advantage of these tools. Trust me, you competition is!

We have had 3 clients hire us to help manage their Social Media and Web presence in the last month. Even if you can only afford a few hours a month. The investment is well worth it long term.

FINDABILITY. You have be found online. Print does not work anymore. 80% of the world searches online for the information the need. If you can't be found, how are they supposed to call you?

You need to be out there on the Web and finding a way to make it all  work for you!



Derrick  Sorles


Michael  Snell and Derrick Sorles  
Web 2.0 and Social Media Strategies

Photographer ADAM BOUSKA

 became a LGBT activist quite by accident. He calls it "accidental activism". Gosh, he has come a long way in the 6 years we have known him!

We met Adam in 2003.  He was living here in the suburbs of Chicago and had just graduated college where he studied Computer Science. Being a photographer myself, I was always on the lookout for fresh new young talent. I met Adam and asked him to pose for me. During the shoot, he confided that Computer Science was not really his passion. And though he was dabbling with modeling, it was the art of photography that really intrigued him.

It was also at this time we were delving into  computer science and blogging and social media. Shortly afterwords, Adam moved to Southern Californina. We stayed in touch now and then through  MySpace and watched as his young budding career began to blossom.

It didn't take long and his name was sprouting up everywhere!

In November 2008, Proposition 8 in California happened. California wanted to put a stop to the idea of gay marriage. The defeat of Prop 8 provoked a groundswell of activism within the LGBTQ community and many new political and protest organizations were formed in response to the defeat. It was like Stonewall was happening again!



Adam, his partner Jeff Parshley  and some friends attended the Prop 8 rallies in Los Angeles. Afterwords, they got so emotionally stirred they knew they wanted to do something,  to make some kind of statement. He and a dozen friends went to the store and bought some paints and duct tape, went back to his apartment and shot photos. Using photography as his voice, Adam placed tape over their mouths and painted the now famous NOH8 on their cheeks, and the next day posted their images to MySpace and Facebook, to demonstrate their silent protest.

Before he knew it, a dozen more friends wanted to do the same thing . Adam shot more photos and those friends also posted them online. The next month 30 of their friends wanted the same photos! It started to grow exponentially. In the 6 months that followed it exploded and nearly 500 people had been photographed and pictures were flooding the Internet. VIRAL MARKETING IN ACTION! And it was not even planned!






Soon celebrities want to join in and show their support. To date, 3,000+ faces have been shot by Adam and his team for the NOH8 Campaign. The campaign began with portraits of everyday Californians from all walks of life and soon rose to include politicians, military personnel, newlyweds, law enforcement, artists, celebrities, and many more. 

Cindy McCain, wife of former Presidential candidate Senator John McCain, was even photographed by Adam, speaking out on behalf of gay marriage rights as part of a popular ongoing photo campaign. "Cindy McCain wanted to participate in the campaign to show people that party doesn’t matter – marriage equality isn’t a Republican issue any more than it is a Democratic issue. It’s about human rights, and everybody being treated equally in the eyes of the law that runs and protects this country.”
 
The NOH8 Campaign has received overwhelming support from around the world, appearing on various local and national news programs and publications. The images are currently being used on various social networking sites to spread the message of equality, predominantly Facebook and Twitter. Eventually the images are expected to be compiled for a large-scale media campaign. The group just shot their 3rd PSA. There has been talks of  billboards, possible calendar, coffee table books and even a documentary.


Just last month the team shot 500 people in 5 hours in New York City. Adam hopes to tour major cities soon, doing more open shoots and spreading the message across the country.

Thanks to the power of Social Media and the interconnectedness of the Internet these days, we can make a statement about who we are and show the world our messages. Whatever those messages may be. Internet Marketing is WHERE YOU NEED YO BE.  Print is so last century!


THE NOH8 store online  has t-shirts, bumper stickers, tattoos and my favorite, THE BRACELET! 

Funds raised by the NOH8 Campaign will be used to continue promoting and raising awareness for Marriage Equality and anti-discrimination on a global level through an educational and interactive media campaign.




Adam Bouska
Adam Bouska MySpace
Adam Bouska FaceBook
http://twitter.com/bouska
NOH8 CAMPAIGN
NOH8 NEWS BLOG



Michael  Snell and Derrick Sorles  
Web 2.0 and Social Media Strategies

Pinging your site really isn't necessary these days. However, if your site is coming up poor in search engines and maybe you want to try to give it a boost, this certainly can't hurt.  FEED SHARK  will  ping your site on command and send out pings to about 2 dozen sites.

Want to make sure your RSS FEED is working properly? Use  W3C Feed Validator. They also make a good LINK CHECKER  which can check your links and anchors.

Copyscape – allows you to track down other sites that are stealing your content.

 Only Wire – a bookmarklet that submits posts to multiple social bookmarking sites at once.

Make sure that you join Google Webmaster Central - they have lots of tools there and some tips for quality guidelines you should be following.

Many online publishers

have been able to turn their hobby/passion into a small business.  Once you have a following  and  good  search engine rankings, many companies will start coming to you with press releases and offers to be featured on your site. They want to reach your readers. Some will even pay to advertise on your site.

We get hundreds of press releases each month. Businesses wanting to be featured on our sites. It's just like a magazine or any other publication. Free things are given all the time, with the hopes the writer or publication will write about the product.  But now the FTC wants disclaimers ran.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Tony's Pizza. All opinions are 100% mine.

PIZZA? 
On a Business Blogging Site?
You are probably asking,
what's this all about?!

As the power of Social Media grows, everyone is trying new ways to reach their public.  We have been a  member  of  Social Spark for  some time. We were contacted recently and asked if we wanted to have some new  Tonys Crispy Crust in the office to try and review,  and  I said  SURE! We love Pizza!

So yesterday we picked up three (of the reasonably priced) frozen pizza's.  Tony's  new  CRISPY CRUST  Cheese, Pepperoni and Supreme, and sampled them all.

The new crisp crust is baked, which I love, and has zero trans-fat. It's a new odd, smaller shape, than the traditional 12" pizza's you might be used to. Most 12" pizza's you buy in the frozen foods run about 15 ounces. This new shape is 8.5"  and about 9-10 ounces. And priced right. About $2 at most stores.

LOOKS - Like MOST  foods, the inside product NEVER looks like the real product. 
                   Could have used more cheese.      1 out 5
TASTE - I like the crust - And we all liked the flavors. I thought it would be crispier however. 
                I prefer  thinner and crisp as opposed to heavier and thicker.  Overall  2.5 out of 5
OVERALL - I would it average. But I rate almost all frozen pizzas average. 
                     For the price, a couple bucks, I think it makes a good  kids pizza.
                     For adults, I think we want more.  But to get more, you have to pay more. 
                     So at the end of the day, I would give them a 3  out of 5.

Tony's Pizza




Derrick  Sorles
Business Blogging Consultants
Web 2.0 and Social Media Strategies

I work in Social Media
10 hours a day, 6.5 days a week.

I GET IT!

But a lot of people under-estimate the power of the people. There are still many businesses that have not tapped into the power of the Web 2.0 and Social Media Networks.  When a recent grassroots campaign involved both Facebook and a beloved Golden Girl, the scope of its influence cannot be underestimated. 

 
A couple months ago, someone on Facebook started a campaign to get the 88-year old Betty White a spot on SNL.  People laughed. Even she laughed! 

"I don't even know where that came from," says  White,  "That just came out of left field. It's ridiculous. I don't think ['SNL' creator and producer] Lorne Michaels even knows about it, so we won't worry about it."

Today, sources  say Saturday Night Live is thisclose to signing TV legend Betty White to host the show for the very first time.

But she would not have to host it alone.

We hear SNL is putting together a “Women of Comedy” episode that would team  White with several of her younger contemporaries. Ex-SNL MVP Molly Shannon is on board, we hear, and feelers have also been put out to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. (An NBC spokesperson insists no one has been confirmed at this time.)

This tag-team approach will allow Lorne Michaels to appease White-on-SNL zealots (half a million and counting!) without making the 88-year-old shoulder the burden of all 90 minutes on her own. 

This is the power of Social Media at work!



Derrick  Sorles
Web 2.0 and Social Media Strategist

What is the secret to being found?

to the Web 2.0?
 
to Social Media?

There is no ONE  secret!

It's many pieces of a pie. And if you only have a website for your business, you only have one tiny piece. You need many more pieces!

This graphic is not a great visual but it does show a variety of pieces to be considered.  There was also a great article on Mashable this week by  Brian Solis.

We have been preaching this for  4  years  now - and Brian think's the time is right.
 
"At last, 2010 is expected to be the year that social media goes mainstream for business. In speaking with many executives and entrepreneurs, I’ve noticed that the path towards new media enlightenment often hinges on corporate culture and specific marketplace conditions. Full social media integration often happens in stages — it’s an evolutionary process for companies and consumers alike."

We often refer to the process of staging a big broadway show. It's done in steps and is a slow growth process, to reach the finish line. He does a great job of outling the  ten most common stages that businesses experience as they travel the road to full social media integration. It's takes time. It does not happen overnight. But you simply MUST be a part of this new world or your business will be left behind the dust. There is a great distance between where you  are today, and where you need to be.



Read Brians full article outlining the 10 stages of growth.


Derrick Sorles
Blog, Web 2.0, and Social Media Consultant

This may seem a little off topic but I'm sharing this because I know many readers are small business owners and or some of you may be planning to launch a business in 2010 and I've found this an extremely useful resource in the business building BS we've been dealing with in our Gay Travel Online Publishing.

 It's easy to search patents on the Internet, but trademarks are still lost in government websites that are not particularly search-friendly.Trademarkia makes trademark search a breeze.

Trademarkia let’s you search all U.S. trademarks filed since 1870, including dead trademarks. The company has scans of all the marks and returns results in a very appealing visual grid. You can search by company, theme, product category, or even filing attorney. Companies can also file a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office through the site.

 

Trademarkia is an excellent resource for anyone researching trademarks, companies getting ready to file a trademark, or even product and brand logo designers. It operates much like a domain registrar like GoDaddy. Instead of searching for available domain URLs, you search for trademarks, and if they are available, you can register them for a fee.

On Trademarkia, for example, you can search all trademarks with a certain image you may want to use to make sure you are not duplicating someone else’s trademark. You can search for dead trademarks as well, and if you like one, you can register it for $159.

You can also can look at all trademarks registered to a company, or sort them to see just the trademarks the company has allowed to expire making them currently available!