Lee Odden

3 Blog Mistakes You Can Avoid

Lee Odden     Blog Marketing, Blog Optimization, Blogging Strategy, Online Marketing

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As part of a blog optimization panel I participated in during a recent conference in Australia, I decided to forgo the bulleted list of blog plugins and recommendations that you typically see on such sessions in favor of something more personal.

The presentation focused on 3 of the biggest mistakes we’ve made with Online Marketing Blog in the past 3 years, why we made them (and why others do too), what we learned, what you can do to avoid them and the expected outcomes.

This format was well received, so I thought I’d share them here.

Mistake Number One: Goals.


3 Blog Mistakes You Can Avoid
Lee Odden

RSS Buttons for Your Blog

Lee Odden     Blog Marketing, Blog Optimization, Blogging Strategy, Online Marketing, RSS

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When reviewing search marketing blogs each week for inclusion in our big list, one of the most consistent problems we see is that blog owners don’t make it easy to subscribe. Either there is no icon for the RSS feed or it’s hidden way below the fold.

Something as easy as adding a prominient RSS button near the top of the blog template with the word “Subscribe” near it can increase the number of return visitors substantially. We’ve done this ourselves and we’re now just under 6,000 subscribers.

A study by Yahoo and Ipsos Insight supports the need to display RSS subscription options as blog readers were found to be far more likely to subscribe to a blog if they say a familiar graphic for their favorite RSS reader, whether it was Bloglines, MyYahoo or Google Reader. One solution is to use our free RSS button tool which has been used by over 50,000 blogs so far.


RSS Buttons for Your Blog
Lee Odden

Search Engine Room Wrap Up

Lee Odden     Blog Marketing, Blog Optimization, Blogging Strategy, Marketing PR Conferences, Online Marketing

Search Engine Room here in Sydney has officially wrapped up and it’s back to business for us. Well, sort of. The time difference between Australia and back home makes things a little tricky but thanks to Email and a great team, the show goes on. We’ll have 4 days to check out Sydney, which is both awesome and a crime since we’ve come so far and there’s so much to see. Maybe next time it can be a longer stay.

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Photo Courtesy Michael Visser

On day two I presented on a panel called, “Blog Marketing and Optimisation” with Andrew Pascoe (second from right below) who writes the Under The Rotunda blog and gave a great introduction to blogging as well as methods of deriving traffic via search and aggregation sites like Techmeme and Digg.


Search Engine Room Wrap Up
Lee Odden

TopRank Down Under with SEO, PR and Reputation Management

Lee Odden     Blog Marketing, Blog Optimization, Blogging Strategy, Marketing PR Conferences, Online Marketing, Online PR, Other Events, Press Release Optimization, Public Relations, RSS, SEO, TopRank Agency News

SunRise at 35,000 ft
Susan and I made it to Sydney, Australia early this morning and go to watch the sun rise over Eastern Australia during the descent. After a few hours getting through customs, then getting our bags x-rayed on the way out and then getting checked again to get into a line to get to the exit of the airport, we made it outside for the line to the taxis. It might have been a lot of hurry up and wait, but we were just thankful to be outside in the fresh air.

Tomorrow I’ll be doing a presentation on SEO and Public Relations. The buzz about SEO and PR has been strong the past few years, especially with Greg Jarboe, Jamie O’Donnel, Sally Falkow, Amanda Watlington and many others including TopRank making significant headway into developing new strategies and tactics for clients.


TopRank Down Under with SEO, PR and Reputation Management
Lee Odden

TopRank March Madness

Lee Odden     Blog Marketing, Blog Optimization, Blogging Strategy, Marketing PR Conferences, Online Marketing, Online PR, Other Events, Press Release Optimization, Public Relations, RSS, Social Media, TopRank Agency News

March has been a bit crazy so far as we’ve been rolling out an enormous SEO campaign for one Fortune 20 client and are in the final stages of signing another. On top of that, March will be a speakorama on blogs and public relations.

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting for the IABC chapter in Minneapolis at St. Thomas University with Sarah Bjelland, a VP from Wells Fargo. The event was called, “Delivering Insight into Business Blogs” and I presented on social media in general, trends with business blogging, applications for blog software in a corporate communications strategy and best practices for corporate blogs.


TopRank March Madness
Lee Odden

Search Marketing Blogs Update 020907

Lee Odden     Blog Marketing, Blog Optimization, Blogging Strategy, Online Marketing, Search Marketing, SEO

Here we are again with this week’s additions to the big list of search engine marketing blogs. Of course the OPML file and plain text file have been updated as well.  Enjoy!

  • RSS Ray – Offers articles on internet marketing and also hosts an online radio show.
  • TMA E-Marketing blog – Minnesota search marketing firm blogs about all aspects of marketing online.
  • In Search of Stuff – Humorous look at the search marketing industry by Scottie Claiborne and Michael Motherwell.
  • Alibi Productions Blog – Drew Stauffer’s blog about marketing online.
  • Startuplay – A guide to China internet marketing written by Sergey Mirkin, a Russian born, Silicon Valley educated fellow living in China.
  • Search Insider – Media Post’s group blog on search marketing.

Search Marketing Blogs Update 020907
Lee Odden

SEO Benefits from Blogs

Lee Odden     Blog Marketing, Blog Optimization, Blogging Strategy, Online Marketing, SEO

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Is blog optimization part of search marketing? Absolutely! Blogs are web site content management systems with additional functionality such as comments, trackbacks and RSS. Blogs are really no different than web sites.

If you can optimize a document and that document gets indexed, categorized and ranked by a search engine, it’s part of search marketing in my book. As such, marketers should be aware of how these kinds of channels can be used within the overall online marketing mix. Blogs are one of many platforms that benefit from optimization.


SEO Benefits from Blogs
TopRank Marketing Editor

My 5 Favorite Blog Plugins

TopRank Marketing Editor     Blog Marketing, Blog Optimization, Blogging Strategy, Online Marketing

It seems that every week I find a new and exciting WordPress plugins. There are literally hundreds out there and many that are still un-discovered.

Wordpress PluginI thought I’d take the time to post my 5 favorite blog plugins in hopes that you might find some useful ones. I’d also like to hear your top five so I can discover some new favorites.

Thomas’ Top 5 WordPress Plugins ~ In No Particular Order

Optimal Title
– This re-arranges your blogs title page to be [post name ] – [blog name] which is good for SEO.

Headspace2
– Automatically create blog post descriptions. Or write your own.

Live Search
– Update your search box to show results as the user types.


My 5 Favorite Blog Plugins
Lee Odden

Blogs Rock for SEO, SMO and PR

Lee Odden     Blog Marketing, Blog Optimization, Blogging Strategy, Online Marketing, Online PR, SEO, Social Media

Blogs have been one of the big buzz items in 2006 along with social media. It seems companies are still trying to figure out whether blogging is worthwhile for their business and where social media fits in within overall marketing strategy. The number of “blog consultants” also appears to be growing at a much faster rate than business blog adoption.

For our clients, we use blogs extensively in both our public relations practice as well as for search engine optimization. One of the most productive uses of blog software as a content management system is for an online media room.

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Blogs Rock for SEO, SMO and PR
Lee Odden

SES Chicago SEO Videos – Stephan Spencer

Lee Odden     Blog Optimization, Interviews, Marketing Industry News, Marketing PR Conferences, Online Marketing, Search Engine Strategies, Video Interviews

Stephan Spencer from Netconcepts traveled to Chicago all the way from New Zealand and shares information about the blog SEO session here at Search Engine Strategies Chicago where he’s presenting on RSS feed optimization. He also talks about his daughter’s success with optimizing her Neopets blog and he offers tips for search engine conference attendees.

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Stephan writes for several blogs, most notably, Stephan Spencer’s Scatterings.


SES Chicago SEO Videos – Stephan Spencer
Lee Odden

Online Public Relations and Blogs

Lee Odden     Blog Marketing, Blog Optimization, Blogging Strategy, Interactive Marketing, Marketing PR Conferences, Online Marketing, Online PR, Podcasting, Press Release Optimization, RSS, SEO, Social Media, TopRank Agency News

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Later today I’ll be presenting here at DMA-06 on a panel called, Blogs, RSS and Podcasting with Amanda Watlington from Searching for Profit and Stephan Spencer from Netconcepts. Basically, my presentation will cover how blogs can be used as public relations tools in the context of “Push and Pull PR”. The presentation is broken up into:

  • Opportunity
  • Push and Pull PR
  • Blog Optimization & PR
  • Blogger Relations
  • Case Study

The “opportunity” section explains how many journalists are ignoring the noise of getting pitched by so many PR firms and company PR staff. Whether it’s a pitch by phone or email, many members of the media go online (98%) to find news sources (76%), story ideas (92%), experts and to research press releases (73%). The percentages come from a study done by Middleburg/Ross.


Online Public Relations and Blogs
Lee Odden

Monetizing with Feedvertising

Lee Odden     Blog Marketing, Blog Optimization, Blogging News, Blogging Strategy, Online Marketing, RSS

Feedvertising

For the past week I’ve been beta-testing a new product from Patrick Gavin and Andy Hagans of Text Link Ads called Feedvertising. Other beta testers include Jim Boykin, Phillip Lessen, Brian Clark and several others. This is a service that allows you to monetize your RSS feeds with ads. Text Link Ads will sell the ads for you, or in my case, I just put in ads for some things I’m doing with Marketing Sherpa. You can do it either way or both.

Not only is Feedvertising a potential money maker, but it’s also a clever way to cross promote other areas of your blog, company web site or other web sites that you publish.

There’s a very good tutorial on Feedvertising over at Tubetorial or you can check out the Feedvertising site.


Monetizing with Feedvertising