First of all, your blog has to have unique, interesting content if you want people to subscribe to it or link to it - the huge glut of information on the web means that boring or repetitive content simply won’t cut it.  Once you get that taken care of and you have a solid hook and a compelling creative voice, you need to start developing buzz.  Network with other bloggers on social media and get people talking about your site.  Ask for guest blogging opportunities from other bloggers in your niche.

Next, you have to keep the momentum going.  It may be difficult to maintain that initial burst of enthusiasm, so have a contingency plan - solicit guest posts of your own, create content in advance, or switch it up with podcasts and video blogs.  Moreover, it is essential to create an editorial calendar so you have post ideas and topics planned in advance; this tactic definitely makes content creation much easier.

Check back tomorrow for more advice on building a blog from the ground up!

The book is especially valuable for the leaders of web design companies and other people who work to market and influence communities (for whatever purpose) on the web.  To quote Seth himself, “the web can do amazing things, but it can’t provide leadership.  That still has to come from individuals - people who just like you who have passion about something.  Anyone who wants to make a difference now has the tools at their fingertips.” Essentially, the web has broken down the barriers to leadership and the ability to create change.

To quote another great marketing mind, Hugh MacLeod, “The market for something to believe in is infinite.”   This book gets it exactly right in that regard - “Tribes are about faith - about belief in an idea and in a community.  And they are grounded in that respect and admiration for the leader of the tribe and for other members as well.”  To that effect, it is one thing to get people to purchase your product - to get a one time customer; it is another thing entirely to get them to believe in you and your brand.  While Tribes the book isn’t a guidebook to marketing success (what could be, really?), it certainly helps you take the first inspiring steps in the right direction.

First of all, like our SEO agency and our free SEO evaluation tool, Jay-Z would understand the importance of letting people use his rhymes to make their own remixes, mashups and more - the musical version of user-generated content. He always releases an acapella version of his albums, so DJs and others can make their own versions, sometimes very different from the original. These variations tend to get plenty of play in the clubs and online, introducing Jay-Z’s songs to people who might not otherwise pick up one of his albums or even listen to hip hop.

Jay-Z would also understand that SEO and marketing is all about building a powerful, memorable brand, and unlike many of his fellow rappers who have achieved great commercial success, he hasn’t diluted his brand with fragrances or irrelevant endorsements. He has refined his hustler image over the years, but the core brand hasn’t changed.

On the other hand, he has been willing to collaborate with other artists and brands if they fit the overall message, even if they do not initially seem like likely candidates. Good marketing is also all about taking advantage of opportunities and keeping things fresh and surprising for your audience - judging by his remarkable career and ability to tell stories with his lyrics, Jay-Z would be particularly excellent at blogging, one of the core aspects of a fantastic online marketing.

First of all, your domain name should be easy to remember - you don’t want your customers and prospective customers to have problems getting to your website in the first place.  Second, it should be your brand name or contain your keywords if possible.  That said, you don’t want to keyword-stuff your domain name either - a site located at www.seo-online-marketing-search-engine-optimization.com is certainly not appealing.  Lots of dashes can look spammy and cheap as well.

Furthermore, you also want to consider the domain’s extension (e.g. dot com, dot net, dot org, etc.).  Dot info domain names tend to be associated with spam; on the other hand, dot org names are usually the home of nonprofits or other charitable organizations.  You also want to register your domain name for at least two years (ideally more like five), because the search engines consider the length of your registration a symbol of your commitment to being online with your website.  Another aspect of domain selection involves registering multiple versions/extensions and common misspellings of your name, in order to make sure that you control related domains and their content (you don’t want to leave yourself open to confusion or even nefarious strategies from your competitors).

Overall, it is essential to carefully consider the domain name you use for your company - it might make or break your online marketing campaign.

We’ve had many people ask how to blog and how to use social media to promote their business, and while those are certainly worthy questions, there really is no single good answer.  There are as many ways to blog as there are bloggers, and generally we feel the key to social media and blogging success is just to be yourself.  After all, people go online to interact with other people, not brands or marketers.

That said, it is important to remember to be respectful to customers/prospective customers, even if they leave a negative comment (how you handle these situations shows your brand’s true character).  But in the end, putting a human face on your brand and company and going with your instinct when it comes to what to post and how to interact will lead to a powerful and effective online marketing campaign.

Regardless of your personal political beliefs, you first must realize that all politics is marketing - it involves marketing not only the individual politicians, but policy, ideas, concepts, and actions. What Barack Obama’s campaign staff did that was so groundbreaking was how they reached out to and then leveraged the support of the online community, and maintained a consistent positive message throughout. Here are several ways that you can adapt Barack Obama’s online marketing strategy to develop your business:

1. The Internet is a Conversation - One of the most important ways that the web has changed marketing is that it is no longer a one way street. Obama’s staff reached out to supporters on the websites that they already use, like Facebook and Youtube. They also encouraged user-generated content, allowing people to feel like they were participating in the campaign process instead of being manipulated.

What You Can Do: Participate on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and any niche social networks that are relevant to your business - and interact like a human, not a brand. Leave comments on blog posts that mention your company and allow comments on your own blog.

2. Be Transparent - Obama and his campaign staff weren’t afraid of potential negative comments; instead, they took the opportunity for transparency and allowed users to share their feelings and concerns. What’s remarkable is the way they responded to attacks in a rational way and calmly refuted opposing arguments using reason and logic.

What You Can Do: Transparency is key online - if you get a bad review or some bad press, respond in a rational way and leave it at that.

3. Provide the Answers - People do not really care about your products and services, they care about about solving their problems. Obama didn’t make his political campaign about himself; rather, he made it about the solutions he offered and what he could for this country. For political campaigns, that is the bottom line.

What You Can Do: Use your website and blog to tell prospective clients what you can do to improve their business and/or life in some way.

4. Don’t Worry About the Competition - Instead of obsessing over your competitor’s strategy, focus on how you can improve your business and better serve your clientele.

What You Can Do: It is easier said than done, but don’t let your competitors influence your strategy or how you run your business.

5. Be Positive - Negativity might get attention, but it doesn’t sell - you won’t build your brand by tearing down your competitors.

What You Can Do: The same thing as Obama: don’t slam the competition and be the bigger person. Your customers will respect you more for it.

It is important to remember that even the best search engine optimization campaign is not immune to seasonal changes; after all, very few people are searching for Christmas gifts in August or for ski trips in July (unless they are in the southern hemisphere, that is).  Therefore, if your company is highly dependent on seasonal business, your website traffic will naturally drop off during the off months - and of course, it will increase during the prime time of the year.

Furthermore, seasonal website traffic fluctuations can occur for businesses that do not immediately seem like they would be affected by the season change, like camping equipment suppliers, boat manufacturers, or even things like hot chocolate that are simply more popular at certain times of the year.  Accordingly, it is important to take that into consideration when you look at your traffic statistics - and be sure not to panic when your site drops in the off-season, because it will certainly spring back up when it is more relevant again.

Here an awesome view on Obama vs. McCain in social media.

Aaron Wall covers a “spring clean” for SEO, even though it is winter.

Axandra has five internal linking tips that will improve your search engine rankings.

Michael Gray launched ViralConversations.com, which looks very intriguing. The goal is to get people talking about your products.

The always brilliant Seth Godin shares marketing lessons from the most recent election (if you don’t read his blog and you’re in any kind of marketing field - and let’s face it, aren’t we all marketing something? - you should start).

Have a great weekend everyone!

Therefore, we’ve decided to make this week’s SEO post about the current president - lame duck George Bush.  While of course there are plenty of “Bushisms” that have nothing to do with online marketing or search engine optimization, many of them can be looked at from that perspective.

For instance, there are plenty of black hat techniques that involve attempting to fool the search engines; of course, Bush would think he wouldn’t fall for any of them - after all, he said “There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”  Of course, whether or not he would actually get fooled is another story.

He would also constantly persist in getting to page one, or as he said, “I will never relent in defending America - whatever it takes.” Even if it involved using ill-advised tactics to get there. That said, jumping on the anti-Bush is little bit like piling on the hate at the moment.  He’s too easy of a target.  Therefore, our SEO agency is going to look forward from here on out - here’s the new era!

Good SEO and good customer service have a lot in common.  An optimized website is easy for customers to find (after all, it appears at the top of the search results for relevant queries) and it is easy for users to understand.  Similarly, good customer service means that a business is easy to locate and easy to work with - an overall positive experience.

Therefore, it only goes to follow that good search engine optimization is necessary for providing good customer service online - just because your website isn’t a live interaction doesn’t mean that you can ignore customer service issues.  Having a clean, usable website that lets your clients interact with your business and brand at their leisure is an important part of taking customer service to the next level.