Google’s Focus on Quality and the PostRank Acquisition
This is an excellent & useful post from SitePoint clarifies the changing state of SEO & social media marketing. My take aways: 1. quality content rules 2. social media really does matter. 3. It’s the conversations, connections & relationships that matter most. Are you listening?

Why is Authenticity a Crucial Component of Internet Marketing?
As I’m re-grouping for the “next generation” re-invention of NewMarU.com, I was discussing with a friend, this ten-minute edited video conversation (linked above) with Robert Rabbin that came out of NewMarU’s first “guest” webinar. I LOVE what we said here and would really like more people to hear it. I sincerely believe that this is important information/perspective re marketing in the age of social media.

3 Smart Strategies for Book Promotion
Here are just a few smart ways that authors can promote their books with social media and PR. Practical steps any author can use for book marketing via SlideShare.

The “Talk Radio” Approach to Effective Email Marketing
I like the way that this CopyBlogger article underscores my core value that “it’s got to be fun.” Yes! In content marketing et al, FUN makes all the difference. Don’t you agree?

12 Awesome Facebook Stats, Charts & Graphs
Are you taking Facebook seriously as a marketing channel? If not, maybe you should check out these 12 stats via a nifty little Hubspot SlideShare presentation…

Learn How Your Website Can Be The Center Of Social Network Attention
My recent video comments on TheTVNews re social media marketing and a new solution that lets more active brands aggregate various social media conversations onto their website so it’s more of a “home base.”

How to Combine SEO and Social Media for Maximum Impact with Lee Odden
This is a good overview video interview that covers something I’ve been talking about a lot lately. It’s very important to understand the relationship between social media, SEO and content creation in order to produce effective marketing in today’s online environment. This is a valuable 5 minutes, IMHO.

Your feedback is encouraged. I’d love to hear any comments you may have.

Jon has given his one-hour workshop, “What Every Business Should Know About Internet Marketing” in locations from Kona, Hawaii to Silicon Valley (as you can see in the video clip on Jon’s keynote speaker web page). Now, as just one of the benefits of registering for the free level of New Marketing University, NewMarU.com, this information-packed hour is being offered FREE via the Internet and phone conference lines on Tuesday, January 18th at 10:00AM PT / 1:00PM ET. Click here to register now >>

This useful and informative webinar includes a complete overview of the three main areas of Internet marketing, including:

• The “Super Market-Trends” that have radically leveled the marketing playing field
• The two essential strategies upon which all successful internet marketing campaigns are based
• The three main types of internet marketing: search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click search engine advertising (PPC) and social media marketing (SMM)
• A comparative analysis of the time requirements for implementation, the kinds and quality of results, and the cost-per-lead that is derived from each main category
• Valuable tips, tricks and resources that are based on real world experience

Why are we producing this event for free?

• Jon LOVES to share information and people love learning this material. It’s important!
• It helps to expose the expertise that makes ComBridges such a valuable marketing partner.
• This is a “free sample” of things to come. We are working on a new educational website to be called “New Marketing University” that will have many more programs. We hope you’ll like this program enough to become interested in more. To learn more, please register now.

Mark your calendars for Tuesday, January 18th at 10:00AM PT / 1:00PM ET. We hope to see you there.

>> Please Click Here to Register Now <<
It takes just 30 seconds, really! And, even if you can’t make it live, by registering you will make sure that you get the link to the free recorded version.

Or view our 1-page PDF with the generic course description below . . .
What Every Business-Onesheet 03.25.10

Watch, Listen & Learn: Free Webinar on Internet Marketing

Read It’s a Wonderful Web; ComBridges July e-newsletter

Marketing Lesson From the Grateful Dead: Loosen Up Your Brand
As they say, this is “what I’m talkin’ ’bout!” If you don’t know David Meerman Scott, you should. He’s a true thought leader & best selling author re viral marketing and creating “world wide raves.” This is an excerpt from his new book which comes out August 1st. Cool, eh? And valuable, right?

More On The Power of “Empowering” Your Viewers via Social Marketing
My VIDEO commentary from last week on TheTVNews.tv. Subject: those who are authentic with their internet marketing vs the fakers.

Social Media’s Critical Path: Relevance to Resonance to Significance – The Conversation – Harvard Business Review
Neat Harvard BizReview piece on social media’s ‘critical path’ by @briansolis http://ht.ly/2e5N1 I like. Thx 2 @johnbattelle 4 link

Viral Video Marketing with Dilbert
“only the truth is funny”

Video is Becoming a Must Have for Online Retailers
I’m getting ready to make a video about the critical importance of online video. Meanwhile… Yes, it’s pretty much a MUST HAVE now for any website looking to do real business online. Really. No kidding. Check out the stats in this article if you don’t believe me. And, did I mention that ComBridges has amazingly affordable video packages.

Have a Big Idea, Break it in Half | Jason Fried
Best business advise I’ve heard in a while from Jason Fried of 37signals

Beet.TV: Giant Convenience Store Chain Gone Viral: 7-Eleven Web Series Has 2 Million Views
Illuminating VIDEO story by @DaisyWhitney Big Brand Viral Video Marketing: 7-Eleven Web Series Has 2 Million Views

Jon has given his one-hour workshop, “What Every Business Should Know About Internet Marketing” in locations from Kona, Hawaii to Silicon Valley (as you can see in the video clip on our web page). Now, for the first time, it’s being offered free via the Internet, Thursday, May 27th at 11:00AM PT / 2:00PM ET. Click here to register now >>

This useful and informative webinar includes a complete overview of the three main areas of Internet marketing, including:

• The “Super Market-Trends” that have radically leveled the marketing playing field
• The two essential strategies upon which all successful internet marketing campaigns are based
• The three main types of internet marketing: search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click search engine advertising (PPC) and social media marketing (SMM)
• A comparative analysis of the time requirements for implementation, the kinds and quality of results, and the cost-per-lead that is derived from each main category
• Valuable tips, tricks and resources that are based on real world experience

Why are we producing this event for free?

• Jon LOVES to share information and people love learning this material. It’s important!
• It helps to expose the expertise that makes ComBridges such a valuable marketing partner.
• This is a “free sample” of things to come. We are working on a new educational website to be called “New Marketing University” that will have many more programs. We hope you’ll like this program enough to become interested in more. To learn more, please register now.

Mark your calendars for Thursday, May 27th at 11:00AM PT / 2:00PM ET. We hope to see you there.

>> Please Click Here to Register Now <<
It takes just 30 seconds, really! And, even if you can’t make it live, by registering you will make sure that you get the link to the free recorded version.

Or view our 1-page PDF with the generic course description below . . .
What Every Business-Onesheet 03.25.10

Recently, in a WordPress group on LinkedIn, the question was asked “Is WordPress the answer to all our prayers?” The writer was extending the conversation about his own blog post which objected vehemently to crazy claims that complete novices could build “killer websites” in minutes if they just used WordPress. It seems that the world of technology is filled with these kinds of false promises and unrealistic expectations.

For those of us who have hand-coded HTML back before tools like Dreamweaver were invented, and who have experimented and had learning experiences with creating web pages in a wide variety of ways, WordPress is an important new platform for website development. Compared to anything we’ve seen before, WordPress is amazingly simple and intuitive, especially given its array of powerful features. It lets you change your design without affecting your content, it has great built-in SEO (search engine optimization) features, and it’s free.

WordPress also has advantages over competing website publishing systems like Drupal and Joomla. For one thing, you can use easy offline editors (like Windows Live Writer and Ecto) to update content on WordPress sites. WordPress also began as a blogging platform, and as a result, it’s “natural” for WordPress websites to include blogs. For many website designers, even those who have never learned Java, never learned Flash, never learned PHP, and don’t know a single programming language, WordPress does answer many prayers.

But, that’s very different from saying that anyone can use WordPress to design and implement a sophisticated website. If you try to take advantage of WordPress’ full capabilities as a content management system without knowing anything about HTML, CSS, or PHP — or about WordPress itself — you are simply asking for trouble. Yes, you can set up a basic blog using WordPress.com without knowing much, but to really make WordPress (or any other new software) sit up and do tricks, you have to put some time into learning how to use it. (More advanced users download WordPress from WordPress.org. The supply of tricks available at WordPress.com is limited.)

When you think about it, most people only know how to use the most basic features of the software that they use every day. They treat Microsoft Word like a glorified typewriter and don’t even know most of its tools and options exist, much less how to use them. They pay hundreds of dollars for Photoshop and only use the functions they could have gotten for free with Picasa. (Photoshop is so sophisticated that even advanced users can spend hours studying DVD tutorials to learn new things.)

So why should WordPress be any different? It’s not, but people get excited and apparently WordPress’ many benefits give birth to irrationally exuberant expectations. Either that, or there are some people out there who think that because WordPress is easy for them, it must seem that easy to everyone else.

For example, if you hear that there are 5,000 free plugins that extend WordPress’ platform, and hundreds of free themes in the theme repository, shouldn’t you expect that just looking through them and testing them to see which ones would be best for you might take quite some time? And then there’s the fact that new versions of WordPress come out a lot more often than new versions of Photoshop. So you have to stay up to date, by doing things like attending meetups and Wordcamps, reading blogs, watching videos, listening to podcasts, or even reading books. (There are several good books on WordPress, but it is hard for print books to keep up with the rapid developments in the platform and its plugins.)

Because WordPress is a web-based platform, it’s much easier for geographically dispersed teams to collaborate on websites. But due to its popularity, WordPress sites are also open to server hacks and blog spam attacks–as ComBridges discovered first hand recently.

While it doesn’t necessarily take a programmer to learn WordPress, if you want to create a sophisticated WordPress site, skills like PHP will come in handy. And, if you want to learn your way around, study the WordPress Codex and be sure to allow some time to learn important fundamentals such as, for example, which plugins make it easier to use WordPress as a CMS (content management system). For professional website developers like us, that’s part of our job.

Even though WordPress is easy enough for Sallie’s hairdresser to update, Sallie was the one to create the site, and had to provide more than one tutorial on posting to the blog and editing pages.

WordPress deserves to be praised for many reasons, but exaggerated claims about its ease of use for the complete novice does everyone a disservice. Let’s practice a little expectation management, people.

In the meantime, what I’ve come to call “Twittermania” has continued to heat up. In addition to the resources listed in the enewsletter linked above, here are a few more that I have found valuable:

• O’Reilly did a webcast on “Twitter for Business” and the webcast is now available online. It’s an hour, but there’s lots of good information
• A great resource who I actually discovered on Twitter who goes by @problogger wrote an insightful article with Tips on How Bloggers Can Use Twitter Effectively
• Search Engine Journal published a reference list of 16 Examples of Huge Brands Using Twitter for Business

And the list goes on, and the beat goes on, lots of interesting information being found by tuning into Twitter streams.

As pointed out in the O’Reilly webcast, Twitter really is different than other Internet communication channels. 1. Because the posts are SHORT, it’s microblogging, snappier and more accessible. 2. Because the posts are public and you can “follow” (or “listen”) to someone without permission, it’s more open than other social media platforms where you have to accept people as “friends” or whatever. And finally, 3. because it’s a text-based platform it can be pushed to you on a wide variety of distribution platforms from cell phones, to the web, to IM clients, you name it.

Mark my words, Twitter is really a big thing, maybe even the “next big thing.” The experience seems to be consistently that people don’t get it at first. It was that way for me and lots of others. But once you do get it, you see its enormous power and how much fun it is, especially for us information junkies. Enjoy.

It’s a thoughtful list with brief articulate reasonings, and includes WordPress, Skype (without the emphasis on video & webcams that I think it deserves), as well as Zoho (whose CRM we use daily at ComBridges), Firefox and YouTube. I’ve gotten into Pakeflakes (rather than Netvibes) recently as a personalized home page, but otherwise it’s all good.

My favorite new gizmo is The Flip (Ultra), a pocket-sized, web-ready video digi-cam. No tape, just 60 mins of MPEG-4 video in Flash memory and a flip-up USB port.
Now I need time to do some video blog posts… More on that very soon, I hope.

And, I’m always delighted to be proven right. (who isn’t?) So, I appreciated a link forwarded in an e-newsletter for web application developer interactivetools.com pointing to this overview of the bottom line about “click here” text, “Does Telling Someone to “Click Here” Actually Matter?”

This post includes the link to this original post from MarketingSherpa, “Test Results: Simple Word Change in Email Hyperlink Raises Clicks 8.53%”. Oh, I mean, click here for original post from MarketingSherpa.

All of which reminds me of my favorite book on web interface/interactivity design which has one of the best titles ever: “Don’t Make Me Think”, click here to learn more

Like the rest, he’s also using YouTube, among other online grassroots techniques. For example, it’s an indication of the word-of-mouth impact that many of his traffic referrals come from email systems (which translates as individuals forwarding links.)

Along those lines, this video clip references his huge crowds as evidence of something more meaningful. Frankly, I’m encouraged. Maybe it really can be different this time? What do you think?

Anyway, I was encouraged by this video and web review by one of the most authoritative tech reviewers in the world, Walt Mossberg of the Walt Street Journal:

In fact, I found his Personal Technology pages on the AllThingsDigital website to be quite excellent… a fun and useful resource… Although I totally disagee with him about Apple’s iWork products (Pages, Keynote & Numbers). I love these programs and get things done with them not only with more style, but with more ease. I would never use Word or MS Office unless I have to.