Jeremy Blanton – Page 60

Father’s Day Gift Dilemma Leads to Technology Revelation

Yesterday afternoon, I had to show properties for a few hours, and my wife kindly took the opportunity to take our four kiddos shopping for a Father’s Day gift. Her destination was Fry’s Electronics. If you’re not familiar with Fry’s (I have no idea if they are nationwide), it’s basically a giant warehouse with every gadget, game, and TV that you can imagine. They sell phones, and speakers, and computers, books, CD’s, cables, you name it.

It’s one of my very favorite stores. Frankly, it’s difficult for me to go to Fry’s without getting anything at all. This is what’s known as an exercise in willpower.

While she was shopping, her first impulse was to buy me a movie or DVD series, then she realized that with Netflix, I can get pretty much any movie I want, many of which can be streamed directly to the TV from the internet, or enjoyed on the computer.

Then, she thought of getting me a CD. However, she knows that I have an iPod, which makes CD’s less appealing overall since it’s so easy to buy songs via iTunes.

How about a new book? Well, I have a Kindle, which has an application that allows me to read from my laptop, iPhone, or the device itself.

She settled on a gift certificate. 🙂

My point in sharing this is to illustrate the fact that technology has completely changed the way we consume information and entertainment. I recognize that this isn’t exactly an earth-shattering concept, but this was a real world example of how quickly things have changed in our household.

I remember when I had a massive CD collection, and lots of DVDs, too. Although we have steadily purged books, we still have roughly 1,000 of those in the house. I haven’t counted, so it could be more.

Prior to that, we had cassettes (sold or gave them all away) and albums (kept many of those since we have a working turntable and some of the classic ones are worth money).

I guess I just find it intriguing and exciting to realize how little space we have to use to entertain and inform ourselves now. We can even screen out many of the ads on “regular” television with Tivo/DVR devices.

So, here are my questions for you, gentle reader:

What item(s) other than the internet and your cell phone can you not live without which didn’t exist 10-15 years ago?
What do you foresee as indispensable 10 years from now that is in formative stages now?

I would love to hear your responses. Thanks for reading!

Photo Credit by Sammy0716

How to Optimize Blogs on a Budget

How To Blog, Social Media Advisors

Trying to optimize blogs can be a very difficult task. But trying to optimize a blog on a tight budget can be even more daunting a task. I often get asked by clients how to blog and how to write them to show up well in the search engines. This is known as search engine optimization, or SEO. With the current state of the economy many of the clients I help are not at liberty to spend bbuckets of money on advertising and PPC campaigns, so they are trying to optimize a blog on a small to non-existent budget.

So how do you optimize blogs with minimal money? Well, there are plenty of ways. The first step is to start with a small niche. The biggest mistake I normally see is that someone starts up their blog and begins writing with goals and aspirations of dominating search engines for these really broad & generic terms like car batteries, or wedding cakes. But if you go for more specific items like wedding cakes in Myrtle Beach, or a Duralast Gold 24-DLG car battery, then you will start to gain good rankings easier and quicker. The instant gratification will inspire you to continue on writing as well.

Secondly, know what people are searching for. Google Adwords is a great place to get an understanding of what type of terms are being searched and how often they are being searched. Sometimes just the slightest tweaks to your keyword focus can be the difference to getting to the top page of Google with your post. The biggest thing is to choose keywords that are attainable for great rankings. So be realistic in the terms you choose. I guarantee that if you take some time & focus on this before starting to write you will see results. A recent client of mine who has a very small budget and a completely brand new site was able to focus on a few good keywords and has been able to already start receiving clients directly from her blogsite. She also has several terms already ranking #1 in the search engines after only writing a handful of posts.

Thirdly, links can be a difference maker in how your site shows up in the search engines. Look for places you can link back to your blogsite. This can be a large time consumption, but if you can find things like your profiles on other networks, friends who are willing to link to you, it will increase your traffic to the site as well as the number of incoming links your site has. The one warning I would make is that this is where you could end up blowing your budget out of the water that you have set up for optimizing your blog. Companies will try to sell you links and charge you high prices for those links. This also can be the place that your site goes from ranking #1 to being blacklisted if done improperly, so please do some investigating before you start. While there are very reputable ways to do this, there are also several ways that the search engines frown heavily on.

The last way to optimize your blog and drive traffic to your site is to use your imagination and make your business different from everyone else’s online. When all the competition has the same type of advertising campaign you do, step outside the box and be creative. A company that recently did this that comes to mind is Pepsi. They stepped outside the normal box of advertising this year during the Superbowl. Instead of spending millions on 30 second commercials, they decided to use that income to build a giant online community of followers that would spread the word about their site & push traffic to them. Has it worked? Well, take a look at the stats according to compete. Year to date their web traffic is up 10% while their biggest competition, Coca-Cola is down 24%. Coincidence? I don’t believe so. I believe this is due to the change in their focus and doing something unique from the rest of the competition.

These four basic steps to optimize your blog can all be done for relatively no budget at all. It will just take a little bit of time, effort, and creativity to accomplish. Finally, I leave you with this video from the master of SEO, Matt Cutts from Google Webmaster. It seems we agree on this one 100%.

You Don’t Order Steak at a Seafood Restaurant, So Why Buy a Website From Postcard Companies?

Custom WordPress Sites, Online Consulting, SEO, Social Media Advisors

One of the things that we at 210 Consulting love doing is helping new businesses get their online marketing started in the right direction. Unfortunately unless you are always working in the web development, SEO, and online marketing industry, it can be overwhelming to a new company. Also, since you are just starting your new business, money is usually very tight. So, when you go to purchase business cards, accounting software, or a domain name and they offer to get your site up in running in less than 10 minutes for under $100, you are ecstatic to do so because you can now say you are on the internet.

Usually within 10 minutes of a conversation with a new prospective client I can tell if they have one of these types of sites. Why because they have only 5 pages of content, on a standard layout with zero ability of customization, and the adding of plugins or a blog is impossible! When I ask them why they chose this as their website company, the response every time has been this: “Well, I didn’t have a bunch of money to go buy a fancy site and didn’t want to put that much money into something. Once this site makes me some money I will upgrade. Besides my new site looks pretty and will be fine for my online marketing strategy.”

This is when I finally ask the client, Would you order a steak if you were eating at a superior seafood restaurant? No! Because they aren’t known for their great steaks. They are known for serving some of the best fish on the planet. This same principle holds true when you purchase a website from an online postcard company or an accounting software company.

These types of websites are designed to be simple, easy to set up, quick to activate and are inexpensive. But the limitations they possess are huge. My sister-in-law set up a website the other day for her new business and was very excited when she emailed me a link to look at the site. I pulled it up and called her within 2 minutes to tell her to stop wasting her time and that we needed to do something different. We then made a call to one of my connections that was able to create a WordPress Blogsite for her in just under a weeks time, she hired me to do some graphic design work and for under $1,000 we had her an awesome and amazing new site up and running.

So what made her new site that much better & worth the expense? Here are just some of the big differences:

Unlimited Pages of Content versus only 5- The original page had a total of 5 pages of content available. She had maximized that in her first 10 minutes of setup. She could add more, but there was a fee each time she went to add more pages. On her new WordPress.org blogsite, she can now add unlimited number of pages with pictures, videos, links and more. The reason the number of pages is so important is that it is a big factor in how search engines rank your content. More pages make you look more like an authority on a subject and thus the page goes up in the searches.
Power of Plugins- Plugins and widgets are awesome additions to any site. Unfortunately her template 5 page site did not offer any of this. She could not add simple things like a Facebook share button, or a ReTweet button. With a blogsite like WordPress she has the ability to do all these things and much more that not only make it easier for people to share her site with others, but some that also help her with her Search Engine Optimization.
Online Ordering- The template 5 page site also prohibited the addition of any types of online shopping carts or purchase online buttons. Which as her business continues to grow she wants to start offering these features to her clients so that they can purchase her items online and ship them around the world.
True Ownership of Her Content Forever- Unlike the other company, the information is now on her own site. She owns it and nobody else. She does not need to worry about if they decide to raise the price up. Or if they go out of business, or if they move servers and crash things for weeks at a time. The other nice thing is that she has a home base to direct customers to that only her content & products. The customers will not be finding her competition there. While online forums are great sources of online business, you do run the risk of your customer that found you there clicking a link to your competitor that is on the same platform and losing the business to someone else. The same holds true for those those that “have their website on their company site” which is nothing more than just a profile there that drives traffic to your organization and not you. All it takes is one accidental click on a company site and once again your co-worker is getting the sale instead of you.

These are just four of the many reasons why I said she needed to change her site before even really starting. Luckily, she listened to me & took my advice. We worked together with a web developer and built her an awesome looking & highly search engine optimized blogsite. She then did a few training sessions with me to develop her targeted audience and keywords to write about. Since then she has written a few blog posts, added some great content to her site & seen an explosion of traffic. Without this, she would not have known the first thing about what to write about or what types of things people are searching for. Remember, she wants to bake cakes, not become a online marketing expert.

So what are the results?

Well, take a look for yourself. This was an email conversation I had with her today:

Hey Jeremy,

Just got 3 cake orders today for a word of mouth referral! So far since the website has been up I have actually collected about 450.00! Its quite a bit for cakes and chocolate covered yummies….

My response:

Awesome! So how many cakes have you sold in the first 2 weeks now? 5? 6?

Her Response:

8 actually

a gift basket

and 50 chocolate covered pretzels!

As you can see, she is well on her way to regaining the money she spent on building her website and the beauty is that she will continue to profit from the site for a long time thereafter too! So before you sign up for a website through one of these other companies, stop and ask yourself, Would you order steak at a seafood restaurant? Then why am I buying a website through a postcard company?

If your small business needs assistance getting started with your online marketing plan and would like to see this type of results, feel free to contact me to develop your online marketing gameplan. Also, if the picture above has you interested in some delicious chocolate covered pretzels, make sure you visit Vie Bakery. Lastly, if you are wondering what we suggest for a website, we believe you should go with a custom WordPress Site.

Real Estate Barcamp Charlotte 2010- A great day of learning #REBCCLT

Conferences, Social Media Advisors

Yesterday I attended Real Estate Barcamp Charlotte aka #REBCCLT. This year the event was held in Ballantyne Village which was a great venue. If you want to see what it is like just check out this quick video of #REBCCLT as people were checking in. There were four classrooms available for some wonderful times of learning. People from inside the real estate industry as well as several from outside gathered for this amazing event.

The highlights of #REBCCLT:

Here are just some of the things from REbarcamp Charlotte that I really enjoyed. First, I liked the fact that they had some great snacks of muffins etc for us to snack on for breakfast. They also had beverages there for us to grab throughout the day. Sometimes these events are so rush rush in the morning that there isn’t any type of food. When this happens you get to around 10:30 and everyone is no longer thinking of learning, but instead thinking of what they can get for lunch. In fact, I have seen a few sneak out of sessions early just because they cannot make it any longer which is sad because they miss out on so much good content that they could learn for free.

I also liked the way that REbarcamp Charlotte gave the group the ability to pitch ideas to cover for the day to the entire group. The reason this was so cool is that you were then able to find out exactly what those in attendance wanted to learn about. Several didn’t want to lead sessions but really wanted to learn, “How to do this, or what is…” so they were able to pitch the ideas & then the event found someone to lead the discussion. After all the ideas were pitched, then everyone there was able to go & vote and the classes with most demand were what was covered throughout the conference. This is what I would defintely call empowering the attendees with the way the conference runs. The one thing that I wish would have happened with the pitching aspect is that we could have done it a little bit faster. It seemed like we spent a lot of time on people voting that we could have almost added another round of sessions instead. Maybe next time just pitch the ideas & then do a show of hands type voting to speed things up.

The venue had 4 separate classrooms which were held on two different levels. The Superior School of Real Estate which was the main sponsor of the event opened their doors and allowed the use of their awesome space for two of the sessions. As usual though, the best part of a REbarcamp isn’t so much the great sessions, but the small impromptu breakouts that happened all over the facility. In a true unconference style, I even did a small class on the fly for a few that were begging me to help them blog better. So, the 5 of us found a few comfy chairs, brought our laptops and we did the session right there. Throughout the day I saw many small groups scattered all over learning on a specific thing to help their business succeed online.

So, try & make it out to a Barcamp if there is one in your area. They can be loads of fun as extremely informative. Every time I leave I leave learning several new things that will help take my business to the next level. My ultimate suggestion though is this: come with an open mind ready to learn, participate, and make new friends. If you do, you will definitely leave the event a changed person with tons of ideas on how to use different types of technology to increase your business. The best part of all is that these events are totally free to attend!

Lastly, I loved that the people attending #REBCCLT were definitely tweeting heavily. When I finally stopped tracking the number of tweets, there were over 350 tweets made by 77 people in about a 12 hour period! In case you were wondering who all these people were, I put them all into a list so that you can follow everyone instantly. To follow all that tweeted with the hashtag click here for the list of people who tweeted about #rebcclt. All you will need to do is enter your twitter id & it will connect you with everyone else.

Finally, I will leave you with a few photos from the event. Check it out & enjoy!

A giant thank you to Lori, Sandy, Debe, Todd, Chad, Susan, and everyone else who helped make this an awesome event!

The wordle above is courtesy of Jeff Turner, aka @respres

How to Use Twitter – Tip #1 – Start or Join a Conversation

Social Media Advisors

When I started using Twitter back in the fall of 2008 (I had joined many months earlier, but barely used it up to that point), I was a little stumped by all of the lingo and the fast pace of the platform:

What is a “retweet”? Why do I have to use an “@” symbol in front of everyone’s name to talk to them? Is anyone really listening?

Over time, I became much more comfortable with the platform, and it has been invaluable to me as a business tool. I connected with my radio co-host there. I recruited some people to work for our company. I had real-world dollars in my pocket because of the things that I learned there and the people I met, some of whom I got to know in person as well.

In an effort to share some of the things that have worked for me, I am starting a series of posts about Twitter and its usage. If you’re looking to learn how to use Twitter as a legitimate tool to grow your business and your base of connections, you will probably want to follow along.

Today’s tip (as you probably noticed in the title above) is this:

START OR JOIN A CONVERSATION

One analogy that I’ve heard and used to describe Twitter is that it’s much like a big party. If you are hanging out at a party, you will probably be part of many conversations throughout the event. Sometimes the conversations get a little more in-depth, and sometimes they even get private. Other times, you’re just kidding around with friends and having a good time. Most things that you can do with regard to networking in person can be done on Twitter as well, although I am not suggesting that Twitter or any other social media tool should replace face-to-face meetings.

HOW TO START A CONVERSATION

I know that this seems really rudimentary, but we’ve had so many clients ask this that I thought it would be pertinent to include here. Think of how you start a conversation in person. Do you mention a blog post you just wrote? Well, maybe, but only if you describe it somehow and then chat about it afterward. The same applies with Twitter. Simply broadcasting your posts to the tweetstream with no commentary is valueless, in my humble opinion. You can include them, to be sure, but only as part of a larger plan.

Try these ideas:

Mention a cool article or video you have seen
Take a poll
Ask a question of any kind (“what is your favorite TV show/movie/80’s song?”)
Say something funny – anything truly funny will usually get a good response
Promote others by retweeting stuff you find interesting or wise

HOW TO JOIN A CONVERSATION

Unlike being at a real-life party, Twitter offers you the opportunity to join conversations with little chance of personal rejection. If you spot something of interest, respond to it, as in, “Me, too. That book changed my outlook on life in general.” If you see something funny, respond accordingly, “I laughed so hard just now that milk came out of my nose.”

If you see a discussion about something that looks interesting or about which you can converse, just jump in and participate. The worst case is no response at all, and you haven’t really risked much, right?

Again, I recognize that this is pretty basic stuff, but I’m trying to illustrate that Twitter isn’t mysterious or difficult. It can facilitate things if you use it the right way.

I hope this is helpful for you. I would love to hear your input below. Thanks very much for reading!

Next Twitter tip (coming soon): Promoting others