Dumb:
Minnesota bans Coursera: State takes bold stand against free education.: “As the Chronicle notes, with admirable restraint, ‘It’s unclear how the law could be enforced when the content is freely available on the Web.’ And keep in mind, Coursera isn’t offering degrees—just free classes. Nevertheless, the startup appears to be playing along, posting on its terms of service a special notice to Minnesota users. It reads, in part:”
Time to rethink this, Minnesota.
We like to preach about discovery (social media + organic search engine optimization + paid search) because we realize that channels such as Facebook Ads or paid search are not as effective at getting people to your site and performing an action there alone as they are in a healthy combination.
This report in the NY Times today comes as no surprise to us…
This concern has become increasingly common as online advertising has become a standard channel for large companies. Attracting those additional advertisers has been great for Google, which reported a 42 percent increase in paid clicks, year over year, for the second quarter of 2012. But the heightened competition has driven up the prices for keywords and made it harder for small companies like Mr. Telford’s.
While about 96 percent of pay-per-click advertisers spend less than $10,000 a month, according to AdGooroo, a research firm that studies the pay-per-click market, big-budget advertisers spend hundreds of times more. In the first half of 2012, Amazon reportedly spent $54 million, and the University of Phoenix $37.9 million. “AdWords can bleed many a small business dry,” said Sharon Geltner, an analyst at the Small Business Development Center at Palm Beach State College in Boca Raton, Fla.
It’s no secret that paid search is highly effective if you know what you’re doing with setup, keyword selection and eventual optimization.
What we do (and what we really enjoy doing) is helping small businesses realize that tactics such as targeting demographics or locations or keyword buying with a specific goal in mind can help level the playing field of the competitive pages of a Google result.
My daughters will read far more books than I have (and I’ve read quite a few) simply because they will grow up with the ability to read more books than I ever dreamed of having access to…
The Humble eBook Bundle: “Pay what you want. Support charity. Read.”
Here’s to the future.
The name of my next band…
Benjamin Franklin – Wikipedia: “Whilst in London, Franklin became involved in radical politics. He was a member of the Club of Honest Whigs, alongside thinkers such as Richard Price, the minister of Newington Green Unitarian Church who ignited the Revolution Controversy.”
Geez I love Ben Franklin.
We don’t pretend that we don’t need inspiration, too.
In fact, as we are grocery shopping or eating lunch or filling up our cars with gas, we are noticing and observing how businesses are telling their stories.
Today as we gathered for a team lunch, we noticed the diner had placed a paper 4 x 6 card on the table to sign up for their newsletter. Being the curators of ideas that we are, we picked it up and examined it and wondered if it was effective.
Five minutes later, we noticed the older couple at the table next to us had picked up the same 4 x 6 card. The following conversation resulted:
Woman: Did you see this?
Man: Aren’t we getting those emails all the time?
Woman: Not from here. You can get discounts.
Man: I think we probably are on too many email lists already,
Woman: But we eat here an awful lot.
In the digital world, these would be called impressions. We picked up the card and talked about it. This older couple picked up the card and talked about it.
The result is the diner is spreading their story.
See, we’re still talking about them!
We like to chirp on and on (and on) about the need for companies to invest in what we call Discovery (again… a blend of organic SEO, paid search and social media campaigns that all tie nice and neatly together at the end of the day and/or month).
However, one thing that we don’t get to chirp about directly, unless you’re in a client meeting with our team, is how insanely powerful mobile marketing is for everyone.
Mobile is not only the new hotness, it is the next wave of consumer interaction.
Here’s a great article from Matthew Creamer in AdAge about the Marketing’s Next Five Years that makes our point pretty well…
To put it bluntly, there needs to be more ad spending on mobile, which now comprises only about 1% of budgets, according to a recent study from the consultancy Marketing Evolution. Based on ROI analyses of smartphone penetration, that figure will be about 7%. In five years’ time, that number will need to be in excess of 10%.
75% of the world will be covered in 3G wireless data connections in 5 years. Let that soak in for a moment.
We’re in the middle of a radical transition from laptops and desktops to iPads and mobile computing devices (which are capable of making the occasional phone call).
Being prepared for this reality in the coming months/years is going to be (or should be) a major part of each of your strategy sessions.
Gotta love getting snail mail from the mothership!
Here’s an example of the weekly (or bi-weekly) stats and analytics report we like to provide to each our clients about their Discovery (SEO, Paid Search and Social Media Optimization/Ads) marketing campaigns
(The text, report and analytics are all real-life examples but we’ve changed the client’s name with their permission):
Harrelson Agency WEEK 2 Discovery Report for SAMPLEhttp://www.scribd.com/embeds/109210914/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-20sn0genr12c2vl2eiy8&wmode=opaque
Beautiful:
Apple’s Tribute To Steve Jobs, Yo-Yo Ma, And The Prelude From Bach:
As it turns out, Ma plays the first four Bach suites tuning down his cello a full semitone, and there is a specific reason for doing so. In baroque times, instruments like cellos sounded a little different: the musical note A (A440) didn’t have a frequency of 440 Hz, but was more around 415 Hz — something known as the baroque pitch.
(Via www.macstories.net)
Hope this helps you learn more about what we do with Discovery Optimization!
Where is Carl Sagan when we need him?
Are Those Spidery Black Things On Mars Dangerous? (Maybe) : Krulwich Wonders… : NPR: “‘If you were there,’ says Phil Christensen of Arizona State University, ‘you’d be standing on a slab of carbon dioxide ice. All around you, roaring jets of carbon dioxide gas are throwing sand and dust a couple hundred feet into the air.’ The ground below would be rumbling. You’d feel it in your space boots.”
Here’s a fascinating report from comScore on numbers from August pointing to Instagram’s outpacing of Twitter relating to not just visitors but the all-important metric of engagement from AllThingsD.
Here’s a fun infographic we put together about one of our bigger selling points with clients (Discovery ie social media tied to SEO is insanely important to business):
We get lots of questions from folks interested in improving their position in Google searches but who aren’t quite ready to jump into a paid solution like we offer.
If you’re looking for “cheap SEO” (we didn’t coin this term), you’re in luck and have quite a few options. Here are a few free resources that you should definitely consider:
1. Create an account for your site or blog with Google Analytics. If you have a Google Account (GMail), you’re halfway there. Google Analytics isn’t perfect, but it’s more than most folks new to SEO or site optimization will ever need.
2. Sign up for Google Webmasters Central. It has a little bit of a learning curve but the payoff is certainly worth the thirty minutes you’ll spend. From learning about sitemaps to addressing problems that the GoogleBot might have indexing certain pages or parts of your sites, Webmasters Central is a goldmine of a reference site.
3. If you happen to have your site or blog on WordPress as a self-install (you pay a host like MediaTemple or BlueHost and install WordPress on a server yourself… not wordpress.com), then check out the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin. Yoast does a great job of walking you through easy steps to make your WordPress site more “Google Friendly” and will help you optimize options like your sitemaps and XML. Again… nothing free is perfect, but it’s a good start.
4. SEOMoz has a great page on what to expect when expecting Do-It-Yourself keyword management. Keyword research is insanely important. We stress this so much with our clients and we’re always amazed when people overlook this critical component of website and brand success. This is part of a larger book and not completely up-to-date, but will help you get a start when you’re ready to start dabbling with AdSense.
As always, get in touch with us when you’re ready to take your site or business to the next level. As strange as it sounds, we love helping people discover the power of search and what it can mean to their business, especially when combined with a healthy social media plan. But start playing with these tools and see what you can do for yourself.
For some reason last year, I didn’t run in many fall 5Ks and as I was running and training this summer, I realized I missed the scene and the energy that encompass a Saturday morning run for a good cause.
Asheville is the perfect place to get re-engaged in the running scene (although I would suggest hiding in the middle of the pack and not pushing your way to the front of the start line) because you have people who are passionate about running and people who are passionate about helping!
It’s intoxicating to be a part of this kind of community and to understand the world is bigger than you and your own issues.
So as I sit here drinking my post race coffee, I am happy that I was able to support Autism Society of NC and Harrelson Agency.
Oh, but I am definitely checking out the course map next time so as not to be surprised by quarter mile hills that lurk around mile 2!
We encourage our clients to embed a contact form into their websites because :
Plus, when you realize how many people really want to contact you, it makes you feel good inside!
It’s funny, odd and a little comforting to scroll back through back in my last.fm profile and see what music I’ve been listening to since I signed up for the service in August of 2005 (when I was 26 and a lot more wiser):
In 2005, the social web was still completely new and the idea of sharing what you were listening to with others was just revolutionary.
Still is.
In 2005, I was living in Columbia and teaching at Hammond School and had no idea what lie ahead.
What a long, strange trip it’s been.
By the way, I went a few years without having the last.fm audio scribbler hooked up, so there is so much data missing. I’ve listened to way more than 12,000 songs over the last seven years (about 4-5 a day if that’s to be believed). I’ve probably covered closer to three times that amount at least. But still… fun data.
Yay interwebs.
Painful.
I’m noting this here for my own needs as I’ll certainly have to follow this breadcrumb trail again.
If you are looking or have consolidate a bunch of email addresses into one Google Apps account, there’s nothing more sweeter than having that account work just as well on iOS as it does in your browser app (or Apple Mail if you will):
Handling Multiple Email Addresses with Gmail and iOS: “When I started adopting Getting Things Done and Inbox Zero, I decided to consolidate my numerous email accounts. For a few, this meant wrapping them up or forwarding them along, never to think of the account again. For others, like my personal and work email, as well as various customer service and sales email accounts that I monitor, it meant that I needed to find a way to receive everything in one inbox, while sending my replies back from the proper account.”
See also:
Solved: Gmail, iPad, iPhone, and multiple from addresses – Modern Nerd: “After much Googling, dribbling, and head bangering, I’ve managed to get around this in a way that works great on the iPad and iPhone. I thought I’d combine the various hints and tips I’ve discovered to put them in one place, then add some screenshots to make it more useful to others who’ve been driven nuts by the same issue.”
Then:
James’ Ubiquitous Blog – Journal – Making multiple ‘From’ email addresses on iOS my bitch without adding extra accounts: “This all came about because of work. I got a call from a client that we regularly work with asking if it’s possible to consolidate his some 20 email accounts into one of his Google Apps accounts (this also works with regular Gmail accounts too) while still being able to reply and send from the individual addresses. As it turns out this can be quite tricky but I managed to find an article that outlined the steps perfectly, or so I thought to begin with.”
Sounds geeky, but it’s a great 5 min solution to an otherwise incredibly annoying workflow issue for those of us with too many email accounts.
You can’t argue with this type of closure…
Closure « Steve Blank: “Fast forward 15 years. Retired for a year, I ran across an article that said, ‘$35 Million Dollar Supercomputer For Sale for Scrap.’ It was the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center Cray Y-MP that had beaten me at Ardent. It was for sale on Ebay.
I bought the Cray.
It took two semi-trailers to deliver it.”
Great story (read the links as well).