Calgary SEO Meetup

9 Feb 2011

Hope You Enjoyed "Why Blog?"

Hey Folks,

We here at the Calgary SEO and Online Marketing Meetup Group HQ (located deep below the BOW building), just wanted to extend our warm thanks for attending the meetup. The presentation was fabulous, and the turnout was one of our best. I'd go over all the info right now, but I am not sure it would all fit in the blog-post, it was tonnes of information! I'll give you a quick recap if you missed it;

How to get your blog juice flowing;

Have a schedule (try and blog once a week, force yourself :P)
Blog your passion (if you are forcing yourself too much, maybe you should think of a new topic to blog on?)
Write first, edit later (get it out there, because if you slave over formatting and grammar, you may just scrap the whole thing!)
Network (read and comment on similar blogs)
Share with your friends (send your friends and family the links to your blog and ask them to share it too, if you don't share it, who will know you wrote it?)

These were just some of the great things I took away from the meetup. Please follow us on twitter @CalgarySEOmeet or shoot us an email with comments, suggestions or questions to seomeetup@foundpages.com and as always, check out the Meetup page: http://www.meetup.com/seo-calgary/

We hope to see you soon!

24 Jan 2011

Why Blog?

Hey everyone! I hope all are doing well, we have been amping up here for the Why Blog? talk on Thursday Jan, 27th @ CTI... here are some of details... http://www.meetup.com/seo-calgary/calendar/16037069/

Why Blog?

The topic will be covered by Shannon Bowen-Kelsick, who is currently the Social Media and Internet Marketing Manager at "The Partnership Group", a company that focuses on sponsorship marketing. Here is their official blog http://www.partnershipgroup.ca/blog/ Three days before the event, we have 25 RVSPs Yes, so we're really excited to see one of our largest turn outs yet. Come on down, bring a friend or two, and learn why you should be blogging!

If you didn't already know, Blogging is one of the best ways to open yourself to increased web-exposure, increased client/consumer trust, and have a little fun. Our experience shows us that blogs create a very good environment for Search Engine Optimization; tons of links, tags, keywords and comments give Google's spiders a lot to chew on. Google likes fresh content, and frequently updated websites have better rankings than stagnant ones, so the more posts the better! If you can blog everyday, there is a good chance that your blog will start creeping up the search results on various topics outlined in your posts. You probably won't become an internet celebrity, or get a book deal overnight, but every little bit counts, especially when you are a small business or freelancer needing any little bit of exposure.

If your search ranking is already really good, and you're still looking for a blogging bump for your business, you should be attempting to position yourself as an industry expert. Have you noticed that Apple stock takes a tumble every time Steve Jobs sneezes? That's because many investors would lose trust in Apple without Steve Jobs, he is considered to be an expert in consumer electronics and his company flourishes due to this fact. If Steve put me in charge, stock would nosedive, regardless of how good of a CEO I am. Blogging can help you achieve similar (but much smaller) success by proving your knowledge of your industry. It may take some time to gain loyal readers and followers, any little bit of exposure can help.

The old story goes... when you are walking in a forest with your competitor and you see a bear, it's important to remember that you don't need to out run the bear... just out run your competitor. Two small businesses stacked up side by side may not have many differences, except their logo. However, customers tend to buy from trusted sources, if you are both unknown to the customer, a testimonials blog, or a industry/news blog may just tip that scale in your favour by showing a little extra initiative and knowledge.

Well those a a few examples of how Blogging can help you, come to the Calgary SEO and Online Marketing meetup for a more in-depth run down of how you can grow your business with the power of a blog!

1 Dec 2010

Calgary SEO Meetup Scheduled for Dec 9th

I just scheduled a Meetup for The Calgary SEO and Online Marketing Meetup Group. You should come! http://meetu.ps/5917

21 Jul 2010

August 11 Meetup! Measuring #SocialMedia Marketing Success #YYC

Many of us do social media but is anyone actually listening? Presentation and discussion about social media tips and experiences.

Timing and Venue is still tentative but it'll likely be at CTI. We received some requests to make the meetup a bit later.
Tools, Panelists and more details to come!

To RSVP or for more details: http://bit.ly/ceFjLB

21 Jul 2010

Look out for the new #Bing results on #Yahoo #Search #SEO

Looks like the Yahoo and Bing is continuing to take steps together to ally against Google. Yahoo has recently announced that they are starting to test bing results into Yahoo's SERP.

Not a huge difference from the current SERP as you can see from the screencap (it looks like sponsored results). Both paid and natural results will under go testing to one day integrate fully with Yahoo's SERP.

This won't matter right now to most of you but for the SEO conscious, it maybe a good idea to keep an eye on this. If Bing and Yahoo find success in their alliance, it may have wide spread impact on optimization strategies.

#Google May Use Mouse Tracking As Part of the #Search Algorithm. #SEO

In Google's never-ending pursue of improving it's ability to deliver the perfect search results for the world, they've recently submitted a patent that'll allow them to analyze a searcher's mouse movements on a SERP.

This will be an interesting concept and i would love to see where Google's takes this. I think this concept will close an important gap that has not been explored in search algorithms. To be able to analysis behavior before a visitor clicks on something can be very revealing as to how people approach information before engaging with it. On the other hand, Google may just find out people read with their eyes and not their mouse pointers and people either go straight to clicking something or go to the scroll bar.

Who knows. Gizmodo goes more into it here, and there are a number of other blog entries about it throughout the net.

19 Jul 2010

Avoid 7 #SocialMedia Mistakes. http://bit.ly/bJYtJ4 Great article for those people asked about best practices on Twitter in our meetup. #SMO

I recall a few people from the meetup were interested in best practices for social media and Twitter.
Freelance Switch posted an article a few days ago about social media etiquette that I thought applied well to the topic. I summarized it from my perspective below:

Don'ts

It's not about you. Don’t RT compliments you receive.
You friends don't like to be spammed. Don’t blast your Facebook friends with everything
It's not about your ego. Don't quote yourself
No one likes to be spammed. Don’t blindly implement social outreach
What’s in it for them? Don’t assume anyone cares.
Be the bigger person. Don't Flame/Blast others online
Try to understand what's happening first. Try not to talk without first listening

Do's

Actively communicate with the community. Weigh in on current events and industry conversations
Make your social media the 'go-to' place. Mention statistics and link to resources
Captivate curiosity with good messaging. Think of your social marketing like you think of ad headlines.
It's about them. Focus on serving your audience.

You can check out the full articles from Freelance Switch here. You'll noticed I had taken some liberties in my summarization so it's worth it to see the original material. Plus, he goes into much better context.