Letters From Dan

One common mistake small business owners make is failing to outsource what isn't aligned with the goals of the family and the business. While that often means accounting, legal and…

Anyone ever offer to write a guest post for you? I imagine you were either daunted by what to do or very excited that someone else provided content for you. Either way, I bet your first response wasn’t strategic.

After creating a keyword theme map for a client this week, I was asked by the client what she was supposed to do with guest posts. She wanted to know if she was to put them in their on silo on site or if she was to stop accepting them. The answer is neither. Armed with a keyword theme map you won’t have to wonder about accepting guests posts.

Instead you can start offering and accepting positions for “blog post substitutes”.

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I’ve spent a lot of time learning about advertising on the radio. I understand ROI as well as MER (Media Efficiency Ratio). I understand the point of 30 minute long form ads verus :30 second spots and prime placement versus remnant space. These are all radio terms that help businesses get good at advertising on the radio.

But here’s something I don’t get. When I was a kid growing up in Anchorage, Alaska I first heard “That Song” by Genesis on KGOT. During College in Omaha I listened to Rush Limbaugh on KKAR. Here in Nashville I listen to Phil Valentine on WTN, or I’ll press preset button #3 on my car radio and listen to Top 10 Hits on JackFM.

But for the life of me I have no idea where to find these stations on the dial. Is it 99.7, 101.3, 87.1. . . I  have no idea. (more…)

I came across a keyword string this week that was unbelievable. I mean I thought about giving up all the work I’m doing to pursue this niche. I’m talking about tons of keywords in this niche that had 1,000+ searches and virtually no competition. Just astounding.

Two things stood in my way from tackling this “Jewell of the Nile”. The first was ethics. I was doing keyword research for a client and couldn’t turn around and use that research for myself. However, I did give that person notice that if they chose not to take on that line of keywords, I was going to do it myself.  (insert Facebook appropriate happy face)

The second thing standing in my way was Lynn Terry.  I mean look at this picture: (more…)

QR Code Marketing was just the beginning of what mobile marketing has to offer small businesses. Did you know that there is an audio version of QR Codes now as well? In fact Calvin Klein stores partnered up with the iPod app Shazam to play customized music in their stores. Customers would then get discounts if they used Shazam to scan, tag and share the songs. And that’s in addition to all of the other mobile marketing options like Foursquare and Scvngr, too.

So my question is do Shazam Marketing or QR Code Marketing make any sense?  What are the pros and cons of using this new medium? (more…)

So I got back from the NAMS event in Atlanta on Monday. (If you’re not familar, that’s an event  for people looking to increase revenue from their online efforts). Humbling as it is, I got to share the stage with Carrie Wilkerson, Susanne Meyers, and Jack Born among many others. Can you believe Elsom Eldridge, Daniel Hall and Erin Chase were some of the attendees? That event gets better every year.

As I do for my Weekly Notes subscribers (see sidebar) I thought I’d share a bit of what’s gone on this week:

What I Taught

For the 101 class we talked about prioritization of tasks once they got home. To really get your business moving you need to focus on 2 things: (more…)

Matt Cutts finally decided to produce another post about using hyphens and underscores in domain names. It’s not often that he does – so I’m always grateful to see him update Google’s position. As you’ll see in this video, it’s still very clear that hyphenated domain names are not penalized over those without hyphens.

I also found it interesting how Google sees underscores. I can only assume that Google treats underscores the same way whether in a domain name or in copy. It seems to all stem from the days when search engines weren’t that savvy. (more…)

Internet Marketing in Nashville is just fantastic. Nashville may not be a tech mecca like New York City or home to SXSW like Austin, but businesses as a whole understand…

I’ve got a friend whose about to get his website underway. He asked me what his first steps should be. Mind you his website name is his name, and he knows his niche. Also we set up WordPress on his domain, so we’re past that as well. Basically he wanted to know what the 1st steps in setting up a website were – in terms of content.

Determining what to write

The first thing I did was make a keyword research video for him to watch  (which I posted at our free forum http://freeweeklymastermind.com/webinars  So I asked him to watch the video and use the information to put together a map of keywords he’s going to go after with his website. Starting with the big picture. . . you really want to figure out what you’re about.  If you’re at this stage, start by asking yourself what you want your “tabs” to be on the website.

Since this is a branding site, in which he’s trying to prove his expert status and get hired, he’s going to have some pretty common tabs. To start he’s going to need something like an “about me” page, a “contact me” page and perhaps a testimonials or past projects page. You don’t have to have these things – but people look for these things. Sometimes it’s good to give them what they’re looking for. (more…)

Today I was forwarded an article about the Posies Cafe Groupon Problem. Their blog post examined the effect their Groupon decision made to their bottom line. The story is quite sad, I must say but certainly a learning moment for the cafe folks.

I can’t get a good feel for what Jessie, the owner of the cafe, was thinking when he chose to use Groupon as a method of customer acquisition. His article talks about the value of the network, reaching new people and a bit about how much money they would make or lose from each coupon used. However, he left out the important parts like the lifetime value of a customer.  He didn’t discuss his viable customer acquisition cost. And most importantly he didn’t reveal what their plans were for the traffic once it arrived at their doorstop.

As we discuss regularly here in posts like “How to use Groupon for your business”, these are really the most important parts of any advertising campaign. They can be broken down into 3 important categories: (more…)