Don’t play with fire… or a blog.

March 6, 2008 | Leave a Comment

So, yesterday I was feeling pretty good about myself. I had just closed a potentially sizable deal with a company that wants to–get this–refer business to me and essentially ask for nothing in return.

I could get used to this.

I had a phone call, I met with a representative of the company, I called to confirm the deal was closed the next day, and then I set fourth to announce (and brag) to the world that I was one lucky mofo. I was going to be partnering with a company that plans to have up to 20 people on the street hocking my wares and all I have to do is show up, do what I do best and get paid. Leave it to me to find a way to screw it up. Read more


Posted by Christopher Auman | Filed Under Internet Marketing 

Website traffic development 101

January 18, 2008 | 1 Comment

Creative Commons License photo credit: pbo31

Thanks to webmasterworld.com and poster sugarrae for this useful list of traffic development practices for the new year. Enjoy…

1) Find sites that are about your topic in general but are missing pertinent information that you provide on your site or that you can create an angle to merge with their topic and email the webmaster at one email address with a personal email that notes things about their site only a human visitor would and explain why you think linking to your content would benefit their readers. Read more


Posted by Christopher Auman | Filed Under Internet Marketing 

Promote your site locally with online yellow pages

January 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Creative Commons License photo credit: metrostation

So you say you want to advertise your local business but a full online marketing campaign is just too much investment for your small local business. What are your options? Try the Yellow Pages… Online!

Now, I’m not suggesting that you call up the phone company to get listed on their website. Most yellow page sites don’t provide enough traffic to justify any extra expense. If you advertise in the Yellow Pages you know what I’m talking about. So what are your options you ask? Try Google local and Yahoo local. Read more


Posted by Christopher Auman | Filed Under Internet Marketing 

Your web address (Part 1) How to choose a website domain name

December 27, 2007 | 1 Comment

Getting started with a website begins with your address. The magical set of letters and numbers that all start with “http://” that allow users to find YOU on the internet. The process of choosing the right domain name should be carefully considered when you’re starting and marketing a new website. Especially if SEO is going to be one of your main vehicles for driving traffic to your new site. Read more


Posted by Christopher Auman | Filed Under Internet Marketing 

Notes on the 22 Immutable laws of marketing

December 21, 2007 | Leave a Comment

For those of you that are interested in learning about basic marketing principles I’d like to recommend The 22 Immutable laws of marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout. This is not a book review, this is just a summary of some of the points that the authors cover in the book. I thought it might be a good resource to scan if you need a refresher from time to time. Maybe you’ll gain a little nugget of information that will help you expand your marketing ideas and techniques online. Read more


Posted by Christopher Auman | Filed Under Internet Marketing 

What is a blog? Getting started with blogging

December 6, 2007 | 1 Comment

I had a client contact me today about starting a blog and she asked me a series of questions that turned out to be a great primer for those considering starting a blog. I love blogging and I believe it can be an amazing tool for SEO and website promotion. If you’re considering getting started in the Blogosphere, the information below should be a quick primer to get you on your way.

Question: What are the relative merits of a professionally designed blog over using the freeware that’s available? My boss is going to want to know why he should pay for this when we can, in theory, do it for free.

Free is good but there are many reasons why you should pay if this is a serious endeavor. First, the blog can be presented within your existing site design if you use software like Wordpress on your own server. You can’t do this with free services like Blogger or the hosted version of Wordpress. Read more


Posted by Christopher Auman | Filed Under Internet Marketing 

What is the semantic web and what can we do with it?

November 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment

By Chris Auman
quickstartSEO.com

What is the semantic web and why should we care? Essentially the Semantic web is all about words and information. Specifically it’s an idea cooked up by legendary internet creator Tim Berners Lee who’s concept is about to set the world of web searching and the current state of search engine optimization on it’s ear. As you continue reading you’ll get a quick preview of what’s going to be possible. In some cases it’s already possible now if we look hard enough. My guess is that we won’t be looking too hard in the near future as these new services and technologies take hold. SEO is all about getting found in the search engines and ideally we (the website owner and SEO company) want our sites to be found because we feel that our information is highly relevant. Google and Yahoo have done a decent job at this so far but after reading below you’ll see that we’re just at the beginning of a wild frontier. In the future, web searching will be highly specific, incredibly relevant and much less in the vein of the current Google and the concept of “I’m feeling lucky”. Read more


Posted by Christopher Auman | Filed Under Internet Marketing 

How search engines work

November 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment

By Aaron Wall via Creative Commons

Article Sections

Why Did I Write This Article?

Many people think a search engine is broken or their site is banned if they do not rank in one engine while they rank great in others. This article will hopefully help searchers understand the different relevancy criteria used by different engines. While people have looked at search engine ranking factors on a global level I do not think anyone has spent much time comparing and contrasting how different search engines compute their relevancy scores or bias their algorithms. Read more


Posted by Christopher Auman | Filed Under Internet Marketing