Tuning In to iRadio

Welcome to BlogTalkRadio’s Politics Today for Monday, July 14. I’m your host, John Smith, coming to you live from Washington, D.C., as I do every Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.

We’ve got a fantastic show for you this evening. Joining us later will be presidential frontrunner Barack Obama, who’ll be taking your calls and questions - so be sure to email us at PoliticsToday@BlogTalkRadio.com. We’ll be talking with Senator Obama about his newly chosen running mate, John Edwards.

But first we’ll chat with a former commander in chief - Bill Clinton - about how he sees the race playing out. Welcome, President Clinton . . .

That’s a sample intro that was suggested in BlogTalkRadio’s newsletter this week. But before we get into that, let me introduce myself. I’m Jenn Sierra, and most folks know me from the Ft. Hard Knox blog or Facebook group. I’m honored to be included here. I’m still learning about blogging, social networking, and SEO, and am looking forward to sharing my experiences as I go along. At the very least, perhaps they will amuse you.

Blogging here isn’t the only thing I tried for the first time this week - I also tried my hand at live iRadio. So far, I’ve produced four podcasts using this method; the best of those four is this one, Why you need a Facebook account, and what to do with it, and as you’ll be able to here, I still need A LOT of practice. I know I also have a lot to learn, but this is what I’ve learned so far: Continue Reading >>

Drawing in the Looky Lous

Since this is my first post here, let me take a minute to introduce myself. I work in sales and marketing for a telecom and IT company and I have known Eric for a few years now. I am not the SEO expert that Eric is, but I have substantial experience in the sales and marketing fields with a pinch of web design and a dash of blogging. I am here to share a bit of my melting pot of random knowledge. So here are 3 keys to drawing in looky lous.

1. The 3 second rule is in effect. And I’m not referring to that candy bar you just dropped. What I am telling you is that you have 3 seconds from the time someone stumbles across your site before they decide if you offer what they are looking for. Most times the easiest way to accomplish that goal is through the use of pictures.

Let’s face it, most people don’t read very fast and they don’t have a long attention span. If you can show your site visitors a picture of what you do, they will be motivated to investigate farther. Sometimes this can be more difficult than others.

If your site is about cars, it’s pretty easy to find a picture of a car. But if your site is about, oh I dunno, SEO, this task is exponentially more difficult. How do you describe SEO with a picture? With some creativity, a simple yet meaningful logo says it all. The bottom line is spend some time looking at your site in short blasts and ask yourself, if I stumbled across my site via a search engine or link, would I be able to tell in 3 seconds or less what this site is all about?

2. The 1 click rule is equally important. Your readers need to be able to get to the main topics of your site in one click from your home page. Here’s an example. If you have that same blog about cars from the last topic, and you find out that you have an article about Mustangs on the front page of digg, you better get a link, tab, or logo on your home page to take people to your Mustang section. You have to remember, most internet users are members of the microwave generation. We want the world and we want it in two minutes or less. If you want to draw us in, you gotta give us what we are looking for quickly or we will move on.

3. Make it shiny. Give your readers a little something that is pleasing to the eye. It doesn’t take much and you don’t have to be a graphic designer to pull it off. Do some research into what colors evoke what emotions. The colors chosen for this site are very relaxing and organic. The perfect choice for a site whose theme is “fresh”.

So take some time to really think about the first few seconds after a visitor finds your site.

Twitter buzz fades… Plurk buzz thrives

Twitter used to have a thriving blogger network following its every move. There was a PR/buzz machine that did more (marketing wise) for Twitter than its own marketing department could have ever dreamed of. But that following has all but died off, while being replaced by constant chatter of the dreaded Twitter fail whale.

For example… let’s take a look at some Twitter fan blogs that were, at one time, high energy user generated marketing machines Continue Reading >>

Using Atomkeep to manage online profiles

This post is more a review of Atomkeep rather than advise. I plan on talking a lot more about social media and web 2.0 projects here at FreshySEO moving forward, so I hope you enjoy this type of content.

Atomkeep was recommended by a friend of mine, and being the social networking junkie that I am, I had to give it a try. I was sold on the idea that it creates a single profile using data from your social networks and various Continue Reading >>

Bloggers Wanted

Time flies when you’re having fun. And time is definitely flying for me right now. The problem is, I don’t have enough of it. Indeed, Freshy SEO has sort of, well, gone in to a slump. I started a project about six weeks ago and had planned to follow it here at Freshy SEO, which I still do, but that project ended up being FAR more successful than I ever could have imagined.

I’ll post more about that later today, but in the meantime just know that social media can produce a lot of success with regards to online marketing. More on that soon.

Anyway… because this project is taking off, I won’t be able to manage this site by myself. We have some great guys here already, but they have busy lives as well. So, I’m going to put out a call for a few more bloggers.

The benefits:
The first four to sign up to post once per week, will get a 125X125 banner ad in the sidebar for every month he/she posts.

You will also get a link in the footer that links to your blog, as well as your profile.

And finally, I’ll create an author page for you so that you have another online profile to link to.

What do we blog about?
Anything related to SEO, blogging, marketing, and social media

Ready to get started? Drop me a line.