Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®

Archives for August 2006

Marketing and Advertising Blog Network

Marketing.FM has announced a new network of marketing and advertising blogs syndicated under one RSS feed called the Marketing and Advertising Blog Network. The initial group of blogs has over 50,000 subscribers and cover marketing, media, advertising agencies, PR, branding, television, radio, internet, new media, interactive advertising, and influential discussion. Online Marketing Blog is happy to be included with this project.

Current blog network members include:

Adrants
Advertising for Peanuts
Duct Tape Marketing
Entrepreneur’s Journey
Logic+Emotion
Marketing Headhunter.com
Marketing Pilgrim
Marketing.fm
MarketingVOX — The Voice of Online Marketing
Micro Persuasion
Online Marketing Blog
ProHipHop – Hip Hop Marketing
Small Business Branding
WonderBranding: Marketing to Women

Familar names (at least to me) from this list include: Steve Hall, John Jantsch, Andy Beal, Tig Tillinghast and Steve Rubel. You can subscribe to the combined RSS feed which is hosted by FeedBurner’s new network feature.


Marketing and Advertising Blog Network

Post Summaries vs Full Posts on the Homepage

I have just activated the Post Teaser plugin. It cuts off each post around 100 words and ends up shortening up the homepage.

I seem to go back and forth on the idea of post summaries vs full posts on a blog homepage. I’d like to get your input, what do you feel is better.

Putting post summaries shortens up your homepage; without removing any posts. It gives users a certain number of words and then cuts the post off. This leaves the visitor having to click thru the posts individual page to finish reading.


Post Summaries vs Full Posts on the Homepage

Most Popular Blog Posts for OMB

When I shared the design under development for Online Marketing Blog with Todd Malicoat, one suggestion he made was to add a list of the best posts. Todd posted about making a list of “best posts” over on his excellent blog, Stuntdubl as well. Deciding what the best posts are is pretty subjective, so I am going to make a list of the 10 most popular posts based on traffic:

1. Google Dance V Photos
2. Yahoo CEO Terry Semel interview
3. Matt Cutts on toolbar data
4. Lowdown on press release optimization
5. Gmail for business
6. How to create Google and Yahoo site maps easily
7. Just say no to discount SEO
8. RSS feed button tool
9. Interview with Eric Ward of URLWire
10. Ten creative traffic building ideas


Most Popular Blog Posts for OMB

Online Marketing Blog Re-Design

The Online Marketing Blog got a face lift today as the new design was made public. I’ve spent quite a few hours on it the past couple of weeks and I’m very pleased with the outcome.

The new design cleans up the look and feel quite a bit. The header area has been condensed a little and the menu has been re-worked stand out a bit more. The design also removes the left column and gives more room for posts. This is a big feature as it gives the ability to post bigger pictures and long posts don’t look quite so long.

Other features include:

  • More prominent RSS icon with a drop down menu that includes the feed buttons.
  • No tables, all cascading style sheets (CSS).

Online Marketing Blog Re-Design

Spanking New Design for Online Marketing Blog

After threatening many, many times to get a new face on Online Marketing Blog, we’ve finally done it. Thanks to Thomas aka TwisterMC for putting up with my many revisions and for developing the cool subscription and bookmarking tools.

Also thank you to those people that I kept bugging for feedback and provided it!  We may not have implemented many of the suggestions received, but all of them were appreciated.

New plug-ins and “social media optimization” features include:

  • Smart Search – suggest search results as you type
  • Slick foldout RSS subscription options in the right column
  • The social bookmark dropdown option after each post

There are a number of finishing touches that are still being worked on, such as adding more static pages of resources, vidoe and tools, but for now this is it.


Spanking New Design for Online Marketing Blog

Lend a Hand to BOTW Blog Directory

Best of the Web, the web’s oldest directory, has launched a new program for volunteer editors in conjunction with their Blog Directory. With other volunteer directories, there is often a problem with over-enthusiastic SEOs trying to stuff their client listings in. Greg Hartnett of BOTW has a response to that:

“Please don‚Äôt see this as an opportunity to stuff your blogs into the directory. First of all, you don‚Äôt have to become an editor to get your blog listed. Just submit it. It‚Äôs free, so you don‚Äôt need to feel compelled to put on some big charade to get your blog listed. Secondly, editors don‚Äôt get special priviliges to stick any blog they want in.”

The guys behind BOTW are as standup as they come – in any industry. Interested and qualified individuals can sign up online.


Lend a Hand to BOTW Blog Directory

7 Usability WordPress Plugins

Blogs sure are great, and owners are doing everything they can to optimize them for search engines, but what about people? There are a few usability plugins that make it easier for visitors to interact with your site.

Optimal Title / SEO Title : Good title tags are not just for search engines. They also appear in the users history and possibly bookmarks. Title tags should be specific -> generic. So, don’t start all your tittle tags with your blog name please.

Subscribe to Comments : Getting comments is one trick, keeping the people up to date on the comment discussion is important. I can’t think of how many times I’ve posted and then I couldn’t remember where I made my comments. Email notifications is a great way to get updates on comments and keep your visitors connected.


7 Usability WordPress Plugins

New Rules for Social Media Optimization

There is an exceptionally interesting meme developing around the idea of social media optimization. It started with Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy Public Relations and his 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization (SMO) and this insight:

“The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs.”

With contributions by Jeremiah Owyang, “Rules of Social Media Optimization and Cameron Olthuis, “Introduction to Social Media Optimization” who offers this take on SMO:


New Rules for Social Media Optimization

Blogger Relations: Ask.com “gets it”

On Wed night of Search Engine Strategies last week I had the privilege of attending a dinner hosted by Gary Price of Ask.com. Organized by their PR department, Ask was making a specific effort to reach out to bloggers in the search marketing space. Other Ask staff were in attendance as well including Paul Vallez the Director of Ask search advertising, a representative from Bloglines as well as Paul Loeffler and Patrick Crisp from their public relations department.

Bloggers in attendance included: Matt Bailey, Rand Fishkin and his mom Gillian, Chris Pirillo, Andy Beal, Loren Baker, Lee Odden, Jennifer Laycock and our favorite party crasher, Jim Hedger. (links are to photos from the dinner)


Blogger Relations: Ask.com “gets it”

Blogger Finally Starts to Catch Up with Categories & Upgrades

Blogger is one Google application that is way behind the times and yesterday they announced that they are finally starting to catch up. However, I think it could be a little to late.

So what’s new? Finally Blogger is starting to support categories, I mean labels. Taking a tip from Gmail, Blogger is using labels as it’s organization system. I think this is good for Gmail users to understand how to organize information, but non Gmail users may find it extremely confusing. Why don’t they just call it categories?

Another great improvement is instant publishing. No more publishing icon that never stops. This is one big reason I left Blogger. Publishing sucked as it never seemed to complete half the time.


Blogger Finally Starts to Catch Up with Categories & Upgrades

Larry Chase Web Digest for Marketers

If you’ve been in the Internet marketing biz for a while, you’ll recognize the name Larry Chase and his Web Digest for Marketers. I’ve been a subscriber for a very long time and always salivated at being one of the companies/websites profiled in his highly subscribed to email newsletter.

Well guess what? Today Online Marketing Blog was listed in Larry’s “Top 12 Sites for Marketing to Marketers”. Here’s the what he said:


Larry Chase Web Digest for Marketers