SEO Image Gears

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a powerful tool which is nowadays used in all businesses. Without proper SEO, your website will not be placed among top search engine listings on sites such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing. Usually customers click the top three links in Google. When you are not ranked in that, your website is left out. In order to avoid this, search engine optimization plays a vital role. The best SEO Company can form the right SEO campaign and strategy for you based on the needs of your business.

What are some tips for hiring the right SEO Company?

Here are a few things you can keep in mind to select the best SEO company.

  • Check the experience of the company and how long it has been in operation.
  • Look for the team and check how skillful they are. You should also have a word with the SEO specialists of the company who should give you details you about the procedures they follow.
  • Check their company website. This will help you learn about their previous clients and what kind of work they have done.
  • Check out testimonials of the previous customers on Yelp, Facebook, and Google. This will give you an idea of how well they are working and what kind of quality and value they have delivered to their clients.

By checking these things, you will get to know better the internet marketing services that they will be providing you.

Assigning a SEO specialist to your project

Since each and every project is vital to the company, the best SEO services company will assign a SEO specialist who will look after all the SEO work that will be done for your company or business. As per to that, they will check whether the work is going in proper accordance or not. Also the right SEO strategy will be followed to ensure that you can see visible results in sometime only.

Forming the right SEO campaign for your business

Since different kinds of SEO strategies are followed by different web design companies, the right SEO campaign will be formed based on your business. The SEO company you choose should form the perfect SEO campaign, including PPC click, social media optimization, etc., so that your business can build a positive online reputation on the Internet. With a good and positive online reputation, your business sales and online visibility will increase.

You can go through the website of the top SEO company in Mobile, Alabama to check out the different kinds of services they offer. This way you will be able to discuss with their SEO specialist more clearly your expectations and also make any suggestions based on the nature of your business.

Does Blogging Help SEO? Still Skeptical? Here are 6 reasons why your business needs to be blogging to help your SEO rankings right now.

When we first started trying to SEO our website, we began by picking some keywords with decent search volume and began building links to that page. That worked OK for a while, but there was really something missing in this strategy.

We know this is true for many of our web development clients, and you might even be familiar with constantly checking your keyword rankings and feeling the frustration of not being able to control their movement.

When we speak to these clients about the importance of blogging for SEO purposes the most common response is:

“Does blogging help SEO? Let’s focus on link building – we don’t really think blog posts are going to achieve what we’re after.”

This thought process is the biggest flaw in SEO strategy for your website.

You’re focusing on ranking for a few terms instead of focusing on providing what your customers want. Sometimes customers come in and know exactly what they want. But most of the time, they are going to have a bunch of questions. They know they want to buy something… but they aren’t ready, yet. We know in our business, we hear the same questions over and over.

What about YOU? Do you ever wind up answering the same customer questions again and again? We’re sure you do, and this is where blogging for SEO can really help both you and your customers.

Some examples of questions we get asked are:

  • How will I migrate my site to BigCommerce?
  • Do you offer product photography services?
  • How do I remove negative seller feedback on Amazon?
  • What type of Adwords campaign is right for me?

This got us thinking… Maybe, just maybe there’s a better way to go after clients and rank for keywords that matter to them. So, we started answering the questions our clients had in the form of blog posts. Do you know what happened? We started ranking on the first page of Google within 12-48 hours for these posts and our website traffic grew leaps and bounds! Turns out, the same questions and problems people were asking us on the phone, they were also Googling!

So, does blogging help SEO? Yes, and it can help your SEO too!

If you’re not using blog posts to help your SEO strategy – you are missing out! If you’re a small business owner who’s still wondering “does blogging help SEO?” – here are six undeniable reasons start blogging now.

1. Create Blog Posts If You Want to Attract a Following

When you initially launch a blog, it probably won’t receive much traffic – and that’s okay. As your blog grows and becomes more popular, it will generate a strong following of loyal visitors. These visitors may follow your blog and/or its RSS feed on a daily basis, checking to see when new content is published.

2. If You Want To Announce New Products or Services

A blog is the perfect platform on which to announce new products or services. If your business recently added a new product to its lineup, let the world know by writing about it in a blog post. Assuming your blog has a strong following, this can bring invaluable attention to your business’s new product.

3. Blog Posts = Lead Generation

Of course, blogging is also an effective method for generating leads. You can install a newsletter signup form, for instance, allowing users to enter their email address in exchange for email delivered by your business. Alternatively, you can set up an inquery form where visitors enter their personal information to learn more about your business or its products/services.

4. Blog Post Can Target Local Search Optimization Too

Blogging can also prove useful in local search optimization (LSO). If you are trying to rank for geo-specific keywords (e.g. your city + business niche), you can write high-quality blog posts containing those keywords. Search engines will notice these keywords when crawling your site, encouraging higher search rankings in the process.

5. Be The Authority

You’ll present your business as an authority figure in its respective industry or niche by maintaining a blog. If a prospect is forced to choose between a business with a blog and a business without a blog, they’ll probably choose the one with a blog. Why? We already talked about this a little… but by answering your potential customers’ questions, you are establishing yourself as an authority in your industry. This instills trust and confidence in your knowledge and services. The key thing to remember, however, is that you need to publish high-quality content on a regular basis.

6. It’s Easy to Create Blog Posts

Blogging is actually easier than most business owners realize. Thanks to user-friendly blogging platforms like WordPress, you can have a blog up and running in minutes. Creating new content for your blog is also easy, as WordPress and similar content management systems (CMS) use a web-based interface.

Don’t want to do it yourself?

There are plenty of blog writing services out there just like the professional blog writing services offered by TurkReno Incorporated who will:

  • Research and validate ideas for blog posts that are PROVEN to be a hit with your audience
  • Pitch ideas to you and you can approve or reject.
  • Vet, hire and train writers specifically to produce HIGH QUALITY content,
  • Format it in a way that’s easily readable on the web (What Google’s Looking for).
  • FULLY optimize your post for SEO including title tags, h1s, internal links and external links.
  • Post directly to your blog for a completely hands-off experience.

These are just a few reasons why your business needs a blog.

Try it! See first hand the positive impact blogging for SEO can have on acquiring new leads for your business.

How to become a website designer

Although every young web designer starts their journey from the same place, taking suggestions from the veterans in the industry goes a long way in treading the first few steps. From there, you have to write your own story. There are a lot of new creative minds trying to set their feet in the web design business. However, in a market that is already saturated, it is not easy to leave a solid mark. The right skills, expertise, intelligent decisions, and of course a spark of luck, is really what is required to reach your goal.

What really is a professional website designer?

A professional website designer is a computer professional who produces a website using web programming languages. Their job is to assemble websites, content and graphics creatively using technology, tools and computer software. These websites visually communicate ideas and information to the consumers/clients.

The projects undertaken by website designers usually include developing company websites, managing networks and servers, learning how the ICANN system works and how DNS is used in domains, creating company internal sites, managing social media sites, writing personal and professional blogs, and much more depending on the specific application. They are very engaged in creating content for search engines and social media like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, web pages, and usually have a say in the graphic design portion of the creative.

What makes a successful website designer?

Here are a few tips that will help you in establishing your career as a professional website designer:

Get professionally qualified

Though creativity is a natural flair, technical education is a must in almost any field. There are some steps one should go through before starting as a website designer.

  • Get a formal education – Undergo a formal training in the field of graphic design, web design, or visual communication.
  • A college degree or an associate degree would be helpful in knowing the fundamentals in this area. Design software like Adobe Photoshop and Dreamweaver are requisites for any website designer to learn and master. Other IDE softwares work. This can be accompanied by new tools and application knowledge as a supplement.
  • If a college or a diploma course does not seem feasible due to financial reasons, do your own self-study using textbooks and the vast sea of knowledge on the internet. Some great options for self-learning are Treehouse, Lynda.com, SkillShare, Kelby One, Creative Live, Codecademy, W3Schools and more.

Run your own network

We can’t stress how critical it is that a website designer have their own tools. That means their own network. This network needs to be a dedicated resource from a reliable hosting company like TurkReno Incorporated where there are no clouds and no shared environments. You can’t do this at somewhere like GoDaddy as they don’t sell anything but crap. It is absolutely essential that you begin learning how to harden a website as soon as possible to prevent intrusions and security flaws.

Learn the top web platforms

The more diverse you can get with different web platforms, the more successful you will be. These web platforms include:

  • Basic HTML5 – HTML runs the web. You should know this well enough to eventually write it on a blank sheet of paper.
  • WordPress – WordPress controls over 50% of the public Internet and is one of the most popular platforms available. There are millions of plugins that result in millions of different types of sites you can make, too.
  • Joomla – Joomla is a solid CMS that rivals WordPress. It has similar functionality, but is more focused towards the skills of the developer.
  • Drupal – Drupal is the most difficult of the three CMS’s as it relies entirely on your knowledge of programming. This also makes this CMS the most customizable.
  • Magento – This is one of the most popular eCommerce CMS platforms and is a good start for those who want a solid eCommerce web design platform.

Specialize in a niche

The arena and scope of website design are vast, and therefore, it is better to specialize into a particular stream. Secondly, with the market being flooded with designers of this niche, specialization could give you the edge in the competition. For example, some young professionals could opt for an addition in multimedia, print, animation, and advertising. Weigh all the pros and cons before taking the plunge into your field of specialization.

Keep reading and learning

Every successful person we know doesn’t stop learning. Even after the completion of any formal training, keep reading about the new design tools and applications that launch. It gives an insight into the industry changes, makes you more confident and gives clients a better impression if you are updated with the latest innovations in the web design field. Keep practicing to improve your expertise.

Stay updated with tools and technology

The recommended tools for application by website designers’ are:

  • Adobe creative cloud programs – These include Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Muse, and Dreamweaver
  • A reliable operating system – Use a good platform where designs can be made, applications can be downloaded and design programs can be run efficiently. We prefer MacOS.
  • A notepad and pen – This should be accompanying the web designer everywhere he goes. Rough sketches and points can be noted to use for ideation later.
  • Tablet or notebook – Though optional, this device comes handy when on the move or when quick changes have to be made.

Start small

As a newbie, it is best advised to start will lower means, keeping a low profile. One can easily start from home to save costs and look into the various avenues of freelancing sites. Investments should be made step by step once the revenues start flowing. In this process of starting small will help you discover your talent and then you can specialize in working in that stream. Grab any job, however small that comes your way, as it is your next step to the level ahead!

Market yourself well

Make an attractive portfolio of your work, highlighting your strengths and achievements. Since it is the designing world, it should be strong enough to grab attention. Also, try expertise in one field. It could be web development or blogging on technical issues or any other field you enjoy working in. Try and create a niche, so that when a company is looking for someone to design a website, it is only you that come to the mind. So basically: Leave an impact. At this stage, one has to put the best foot forward and try and deliver better than the client’s expectations and much before the deadline. This will leave the customer impressed and happy and would recommend your work to other organizations in future.

Dare to dream

It is not the most qualified that are the most successful in the field. Knowledge is necessary but how to employ it, and how creatively you can design is what makes the best stand out. Do not be afraid to take risks, challenging projects and nail gritting deadlines. Deliver good work and charge for it. Be confident in yourself and let it radiate in your personality and work. Who knows, after a few years, your story might shape the future of other young designers.

Stay updated

This is a highly vital point in this competitive and constantly challenging scenario where technology is being developed and dumped every minute. You have to be aware of the advances and developments in the web design arena. Listen to people, be alert, sign up on the social networks, meet the peers in the industry, read design journals, and make a note of any interesting web design you spot at any public place. You can use this for inspiration later.

In conclusion, the website design market is a hard niche to crack. It requires significant dedication, skill and business/marketing intelligence to make a name for yourself, and build enough credibility to earn a comfortable income. The results are worth it, though, working from home in your pajamas is only part of the dream!

Website Hosting Server

We understand the terms and products relating to running your own website may be new to many of you. In this section, we will attempt to explain what all of this means in order to assist you in determining which products you need. If, after reading the information contained here you still aren’t sure, you may email us and we will offer recommendations.

Domains
A domain represents the unique name assigned to an organization or individual on the Internet. For instance, we are all familiar with names such as google.com, microsoft.com, and so on. A particular name (domain) may only be owned by one person or company. To use an analogy, a domain represents your “street address” where you live on the Internet.  A domain is the “home” address where a particular website resides.

The domain name is comprised of several parts. The last part of the domain (.com for instance), is referred to as the top-level domain (TLD). In theory, the TLD represents a type of entity: for instance, .com stands for “commercial”. It was originally meant to be for commercial enterprises (business), but has become something of a misnomer as even people with personal websites use the .com TLD.

Other popular TLDs include:

  • .net – originally meant to signify Network orgainzations such as Internet Service Providers (ISP)
  • .edu – Education establishments (colleges/universities)
  • .mil – Military
  • .org – Non-profit organizations
  • .gov – Government organizations
  • .biz – a business
  • .name – individual/person
  • .info – information service There are others as well such as .aero, .pro, .coop, and so on. In addition, there are TLDs assigned to countries (e.g., .ca for Canada).

If you plan to have a website on the Internet, you will need a domain name for that site. If the name you want is already taken, you will have to find a different one. For example, if you wanted the domain CandlesForSale.com, that is already taken. However, the name CandlesForSale.biz is (currently) available. You could select the .biz name, or try to find an alternate such as Candles4sale.com (which is also currently taken).

There are literally millions of domains already taken so you may have to be creative in finding the name you want. But if you plan to put your own site on the web, you will need to identify an available domain. Once you do so, you should register that name immediately as it may not be available the next day.

When you go to our Domain Name purchase page, you will find a feature that lets you look up a name to determine whether or not it is available. It can be frustrating so be patient.

Hosting Plans
In order to make your website available it must be located on a “hosting server”. The type of hosting service you need depends on a number of factors:

  • the number of pages you plan to have
  • if you will have large files such as databases or numerous graphics or pictures
  • the number of visitors you expect each month
  • whether you plan to use your site to sell products
  • whether you plan to design the site yourself, or have someone do it for you
  • whether you plan to use scripting languages such as PHP or ASP
  • what type of database support you require (if any)
  • whether you have a preference for a Windows or Linux server

All of the plans offered by TurkReno include a significant amount of Hard Drive space, more than most people will ever need. This is the space on the hosting server reserved for your content (HTML, graphics, pictures, databases, etc.). Even the lowest priced plan provides for significant storage space. In most cases, this is more than enough for a personal website, even if you plan to include a large number of pictures. For instance, if you plan to post photographs with an average size of 100k, 5GB of space would allow you to store nearly 500,000 photos!

Database files (MS-Access, MySQL, etc) are typically very large. However, even if you plan to offer several applications using MS-Access or MySql databases, 5GB would ordinarily provide more than enough space. Also keep in mind, if you find that you require more space than you anticipated, you can also upgrade your hosting plan at a later date.

The amount of “bandwidth” you may require on a monthly basis is also a factor in deciding which hosting plan you need. You can think of bandwidth (or information sent out from the server) as a water pipe. The more water you need to put through that pipe during a given timeframe, the larger the pipe you need.

For instance, let’s say the total size of your site content (text and graphics) is 1 Megabyte (1 Mb). If you expect 1,000 visitors to your site each month, and assumming each visitor viewed every single page on your site (a BIG if), your bandwidth requirement would be 1 Gb per month. On the other hand, if the total size of your site was 10Mb, you would require 10Gb bandwidth for those same 1,000 visitors. In short, your bandwidth requirements will be determined by the total size of your site, along with the total number of monthly visitors.

If you plan to develop applications that run on your site (e.g., database access, games, etc.) you will need a hosting plan that supports the particular programming language those applications are written in. These would include PHP, ASP, and others. It doesn’t matter if you code these applications yourself, have someone else code them for you, or purchase/download the application from another site (and there are quite a few free applications available for download), the hosting service will need to support the language the application was written in for it to work on your site.

All of the hosting plans offered by TurkReno Incorporated already provide free forums, blogs, and other common applications so you may not need to add any additional ones. If you do, we offer plans that include PHP, Perl, ASP, ASP.Net, and Java. We can also provide other prepackaged applications such as shopping carts.

If you plan to run one or more applications on your site that require database access, you will need to make sure the hosting service you use supports that database. Depending on the hosting plan, we offer support for MS Access, MySQL and SQL Server 2012.

If you plan to sell products from your website, or if you will be taking personal information, you need a SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificate. The SSL has two major functions. First, it let’s the people who visit your site know that you are in fact who you say you are (by verifying your certificate). Second, it encrypts (or scrambles) any personal or sensitive information (such as credit card numbers) before that information is transmitted over the Internet. If you have ever shopped at eBay, Amazon or other such sites, you have probably noticed the “key” or “lock” that shows up in your taskbar. This tells you that you are on a secure connection. That secure connection is a result of your SSL Certificate.

Another consideration when trying to decide what hosting plan you need is the number of email accounts you require. For a personal site, you may require very few email accounts, if any. The 500 accounts that come with the smaller plan should be more than enough for your family and friends.

If you plan to use your website to run a business, you may require more email accounts. If that is the case you can either purchase one of the other plans, or you can simply purchase additional email accounts for a small annual fee. In any case, your email accounts will allow you to have an email address with your domain name (e.g., turkreno@mydomain.com). The email accounts we provide are web-based so you can access them anywhere you have Internet access. As with the other items, you need to think through how you plan to use your site.

We also offer both Virtual Dedicated Servers and Dedicated Servers. Both of these give you full control of the server (as if it were located in your home or business site). Dedicated Servers are usually required by larger business or those wanting to provide hosting to other people. If you need additional information on our Dedicated Server plans, you can check out the plans in our “product store”, or email us at the link below.

Shopping Cart and Merchant Account
For those of you who plan to use your site to sell products, you will need both a shopping cart and a merchant account (if you don’t have one already).

The shopping cart allows you to build an online “store front” and product catalog similar to what you see at Amazon.com and other sites. We offer an inexpensive application called QuickCart that should fit your needs.

The Merchant Account gives you the ability to accept credit card payments online (through a shopping cart or other means). If you are already running your own “bricks and mortar” business you probably already have a merchant account. If that is the case, you will need to check with them regarding the ability to take online payments. If you don’t currently have an account, or you are just starting your business, you may want to check the Merchant Account we offer.

Search Engine Optimization
There are literally millions of businesses online. In order to compete with these, you will most likely want to ensure that you are placed in “Search Engine” results with the highest ranking possible. One of our products, Search Engine Visibility, will do that for you. It will evaluate your site and make suggestions to give you the best search engine rankings possible. You can also use Search Engine Visibility to submit your site to Google, Yahoo and dozens of other search engines, as well as web directories. One of the really great features in Traffic Blazer is an Search Engine Visibility tool that will tell you if there is a problem with your site that would prevent it from being listed in the search engines. For instance, many of the search engines will not list sites that have internal “broken links”. Search Engine Visibility will notify you regarding issues such as that.

Google AdWords
AdWords is a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising feature that will allow your site to be listed in the Google “Sponsored Sites” area of their search engine results pages. If you aren’t sure what this is, just go to google and search for “candles” or some other item. You will see the sponsored ads on the right. These can be highly effective depending on your type of business.

Placement of AdWords links are based on how much you “bid” for each click. That is, if you bid 35 cents for each click you will get a higher placement than if you bid 25 cents. The amount for each bid is deducted from your total credits only when someone clicks on the link to go to your site.

Closing
If you still aren’t sure what you need for your particular site, please feel free to contact our support staff.

Inherently, Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) is a perfectly good business model; at least it started out that way. Companies such as Amway,  Avon, Pre-Paid Legal, Plexus and others still use it, legitimately and with much success.

Originally, MLM was designed so that companies would have a way to develop a distribution network for their products. When a person joins an MLM company as a distributor, they earn commissions in two ways. The first is by the sale of the actual products. The second income stream results by recruiting additional distributors and then earning a commission on their sales. There is nothing inherently wrong with this business model.

The problem is the original concept of MLM has come under heavy abuse by scam artists. The advent of the Internet has only exacerbated that situation. The abuses fall into two basic categories: pyramid schemes and Ponzi schemes. In both cases the emphasis has gone from the sale of a product to recruitment of additional members. Therein lies both the practical and legal problem.

Pyramid schemes have been around for centuries. Basically, they work like this: you pay into a program that, in theory, sells a particular product. You are also encouraged to recruit other members. In the case of most Internet MLM programs however, you don’t actually sell anything. The money you “invest” goes to the people at the top of the pyramid (the program originators). The people on the lower levels of the pyramid are promised huge profits, but in fact, they get very little or nothing.

Ponzi schemes are similar to pyramid schemes except there is no pretense of having a product to sell. You pay into the program and then recruit additional members to do the same. Chief among these types of scams on the Internet are the so-called “Randomizer” programs. The concept is similar to the old “chain letter” scams where you send $5 to the 5 people at the top of the list,  and then put your name on the bottom. Supposedly, in a few weeks as your name moves up the list, you will receive a small fortune in the U.S. mail. As WC Fields would say, “there’s a sucker born every minute”.

Besides the question of legality (and that is a serious issue), the problem is these programs are created to earn money for those at the top. As an example, let’s assume a pyramid/Ponzi where each person has to bring in 5 new members just to recoup his or her original investment in the program. For instance, if your “entry fee” into the program is $25, a “payback” of $5 for each person you recruit for the program requires 5 additional people for you just to break even.  Sound reasonable?  It isn’t. Let’s look at the reality.

It’s all about simple math and the power of 5 (5x5x5x5…).

The first level doesn’t require anything to recoup the original investment since he/she is the scheme originator. The 5 people in the second level need 25 new members in order for each of them to break even. Those in the third level then need 125 additional people to join the program. Those 125 in the fourth level require 625 new members. The fifth level requires 3,125 new members. Level six needs 15,625 new members. By the time you get to level 7, a total of 78,125 new people need to join in order for the suckers on level 7 to just break even. God help the people in the next level, who need 390,625 new members. Just keep multiplying by 5. Before long, the number of new members required would exceed the population of the planet. These schemes simply, and ALWAYS, implode by the weight of their own membership and the requirement for new “recruits”.

And in case you aren’t aware of it, Pyramid and Ponzi schemes are illegal.

Are all of the MLM-type companies on the Internet scams? No, they aren’t. There are numerous perfectly legitimate affiliate programs that use similar models. Some of these programs do make money for the hard working affiliate and are operated in a professional and ethical way. The operative word is some.

If you are contemplating this route you would be well advised to do your research. Join some of the many Internet Marketing forums and ask other people. Check the scam monitoring sites available on the Internet. If all else fails, ask an attorney.

But as a basic guideline, the formula is simple. If the primary focus of a particular program you are contemplating seems more focused on recruitment than sales (especially when there appears to be no actual product), and the claims of instant riches sound too good to be true, I would suggest you run for the hills. Once the program has reached its point of diminishing returns, the program owner will fold the tent and you will be left holding the (empty) bag. And for these reasons, we prohibit any kind of MLM activity on our network. Buyer beware.

Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Amazon are considering a day of blackout to protest the “Stop Online Piracy Act” or SOPA. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss SOPA and what kind of impact this protest would have.

Most people are completely oblivious as to what SOPA is. We hope that a tech blackout DOES occur so you can whine and call and complain that your cat photos aren’t viewable on the Internet. The Young Turks, no affiliation (yet), explain it above pretty well, but we’ve added some additional information below. We’ve given several examples of who is supporting it in past blogs and highly encourage you to go take a look before you logon to the Internet one day and have a stroke because you can’t look at cat photos on Facebook.

More info about it states on this pastebin:

Stop Online Piracy Act(SOPA) is a bill that would create America’s first Internet censorship system. In a nutshell, its similar like the censorship in China, Iran, etc.

Time Magazine’s Graeme McMillan wrote this about it:

SOPA: What if Google, Facebook and Twitter Went Offline in Protest?

Can you imagine a world without Google or Facebook? If plans to protest the potential passing of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) come to fruition, you won’t need to; those sites, along with many other well-known online destinations, will go temporarily offline as a taste of what we could expect from a post-SOPA Internet.

Companies including Google, Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, Yahoo! and Wikipedia are said to be discussing a coordinated blackout of services to demonstrate the potential effect SOPA would have on the Internet, something already being called a “nuclear option” of protesting. The rumors surrounding the potential blackout were only strengthened by Markham Erickson, executive director of trade association NetCoalition, who told FoxNews that “a number of companies have had discussions about [blacking out services]” last week.

According to Erickson, the companies are well aware of how serious an act such a blackout would be:
“This type of thing doesn’t happen because companies typically don’t want to put their users in that position. The difference is that these bills so fundamentally change the way the Internet works. People need to understand the effect this special-interest legislation will have on those who use the Internet.”

The idea of an Internet blackout should seem familiar to anyone who’s been paying attention to the debate so far. In addition to a blackout already carried out by Mozilla, hacking group Anonymous proposed the same thing a couple of weeks ago, suggesting that sites replace their front pages with a statement protesting SOPA. That suggestion itself came a week after Jimmy Wales had asked Wikipedia users about the possibility of blacking out that site in protest of the bill.

As a way of drawing attention to the topic, it’s something that will definitely work. Just Google alone going dark would cause havoc online, but the idea of it happening at the same time as Facebook, Twitter et al. follow suit seems almost unimaginable.

The question then becomes how to translate the inevitable confusion and outrage from those who don’t know what SOPA is into activism. The key, I assume, lies in the execution of the blackout: Will the sites that voluntarily go down be entirely unavailable or will they follow the Anonymous-proposed model of replacing the front page with a statement explaining what is going on, why and how users can best become involved in the discussion? If the sites do go entirely dark, is the hope that the resulting outrage will be enough to fuel news stories about the reason behind the decision? And that users will not transfer their frustration to the sites themselves, as opposed to the bill they’re protesting?

The fact that Facebook and Twitter are both said to be considering taking part in the blackout is simultaneously heartening and worrying. The former because, well, they’re standing up for what they collectively believe in — and that’s a good thing. But the latter because the lack of availability for social media on the proposed blackout day feels like it’s giving up the best chance to harness the frustration and energy people will feel about the temporary loss of the Internet as they know it, and a great possibility to focus and direct that energy into productive activism against SOPA. Then again, it may take losing Facebook and Twitter to really drive home how dramatically SOPA could affect the Internet.

All of this may come to nothing, of course. The companies may decide not to black out their sites and find other ways to protest SOPA. That could be for the best; collectively closing down the most trafficked sites on the Internet to prove a point will certainly garner a lot of attention, but the effects it’ll have beyond that (and the reactions it’ll cause as a result) are difficult to predict and could easily end up causing a backlash against the sites responsible at a time when they least want it. But still … just try to imagine an Internet without Google, Facebook or Yahoo. Even for a day. Almost makes you want it to happen, just to make people realize how reliant we are on the Internet as we know it now, doesn’t it?

Siri: The Holiday Horror Movie (Trailer)

If Apple’s hands-free assistant Siri one day turned against the human race and transformed into a freakishly evil killing machine, well, that would really, really suck. However improbable, that hypothetical situation is exactly the fodder Rooster Teeth Productions used to create the “Siri: The Holiday Horror Movie (Trailer)” clip above.

The clever spoof shows Siri taunting, attacking and killing a group of friends who all received the iPhone 4S for Christmas. At one point — in its familiar female voice — Siri quips, “Life has no meaning. It’s true, you’re alive and then you die, you die, you die, die, die, die … ” After that, all hell breaks loose.

SEE ALSO: Siri’s Abortion Stance, and 4 Other ‘Insensitive’ Technologies

Earlier this year, Rooster Teeth also brought us the explosive “Angry Birds: The Movie (Trailer).”

Via: Mashable – Viral Video of the Day for December 12th, 2011.

Twitter Logo

Four years ago, if you would have asked me to sign up for Twitter I would have refused, laughed at you and mocked it as the next MySpace. So what was it that stopped us four years ago? Privacy concerns? Not wanting to play into what we thought may be a fad? Refusing to adopt new technology (weird to hear here, I know.)? It’s obvious we’re on Twitter, enjoy ourselves being there and interact with a pretty entertaining number of people and brands. So I’d say it’s probably a mix of all of the above. But we just keep Tweeting!

As I sit here writing this, I have two memories come to mind “before Twitter”. The first is a radio broadcast on NPR, I believe. It was about the growing concern of Internet privacy discussing how we were becoming a culture of over-sharers – letting complete strangers into our innermost thoughts. The broadcast went on talk about Facebook’s polices, how people weren’t able to actually delete their profiles and how the content when shared became a part of Facebook. Then the talk became more centric around a younger audience who were already sharing everything in their lives and already feeling the sting of being fired because of what they posted they did last Friday on Facebook. And how Facebook’s policies were already longer than the constitution. It put me on edge and I joined in with the rest of the people who reacted to the media and committed “Facebook suicide“.

Before you go off the deep end and think that “Facebook suicide” is actual suicide, it’s not. It’s actually the process of completely removing everything that you shared, posted, linked, removing every tag you were tagged in – virtually vanishing and removing your face from Facebook. Since I already had a pretty good feel for Social Media and was seeing Digg and Mixx die, I knew as an advertiser I had to do something to drive traffic and attention to gain business on the Internet. Reddit was a no-go. At the time, I certainly wasn’t inspired to do what I do on Facebook today. Google Wave was horrible. I had no choice; I had to join Twitter. And it was awesome.

The second memory is one that comes from about 2,500 tweets in to participating on Twitter when I was being asked to teach a group how to use and market with social media platform. The same philosophy that I taught then I still have to this day. Be real and engage people. No one sits in a dark room actually expecting people to come to them and be social. You have to go outside, do things that you enjoy and engage others that enjoy those things, too. For me, a lot of my time was spent playing video games or doing introverted things. But I learned some valuable lessons. Talking to people can open doors. And if you don’t know how to converse, it makes it even more difficult. I don’t have any of my notes from my lecture, but several thousand tweets later, following and un-following lots of different types of personalities, the notes have pretty much become embedded.

Twitter still is a confusing platform. The searches people do to find you are all based off of what you say. A human search engine, sort of. I remember people being baffled about hash tags and know some who still are or who will complain about what the top trending topics are. You see, Twitter is contextual and somewhat like Facebook, you start to meet people you have similar interests in. A hashtag in 2008 could connect you with likeminded people pretty quickly and to this day still does. But then there was the even more baffling limit of 140 characters. People began shortening their thoughts, seeing it as a restriction. I saw it as a challenge. What better to do than mix hash tags with a topic that interests you. Conversations were abound and people were sharing what was happening and what they thought instantly. The pressure to share “what’s on your mind” was and is still there, but it, as the broadcast predicted, became easier and easier to do.

I decided to jot down some thoughts that I came to know as truisms for Twitter over the years, hence this post. To some, you may disagree and to others, it may be exactly why you seem to be beating your head against a wall and what you can do about it to soften those hard knocks.

1. Follow Friday is a Twitter tradition. Participate in it. You may have someone you’re following who you’ve seen using the hashtags #FollowFriday and #FF with a list of @ names following. Quite simply, this is how you participate in Follow Friday. My business partner at the time and I came up with a not-so-unique idea since Twitter has evolved called TWIFF (TWItter Follow Friday) that generated a list of your followers in a random order and in no more than 110 to 120 characters a list of automated tweets. In less than 10 minutes every Friday we ran our scripts, tweeted out the entire list of people we followed back and who mutually followed us as well in nice organized tweets. The key was to be random every time since duplicate tweets at the time were frowned upon. Nevertheless, instant Twitter karma, more followers mentioning us, new followers every Friday and it brightened someone’s day every time to be mentioned. Eventually Twitter’s staff got pretty mad and didn’t like the volume of traffic we were creating and suspended us and probably would do the same if you recreated TWIFF. Today, the API restricts us from really going about Follow Friday in a not so annoying way, but at least Twitter has stopped frowning upon “scheduled tweets” or automation. I digress. Follow Friday is a tradition and a way to show your followers that you remember talking to them and want to engage them. So why not tweet more than 120 characters?

2. Try not to tweet using more than 120 characters. In short, you’re taking up room that someone could use to reply and quote you. When we joined Twitter, being mentioned was king. It somehow ranked you higher in their algorithm to be seen the more you were talked about — the more you were engaged. You still can easily spin a topic or subject into a conversation or cut yourself out of one just by re-wording what you said into something shorter. But why not just say what you’re thinking?

3. Don’t share irrelevant information; Be concise and informative. For example, no one wants to read what the weather is like unless they ask. Sure, you may love the sunny day or hate the hurricane you’re living through, but that’s what The Weather Channel is for. Try to talk about something that excites you. And if the weather really does excite you, share it and engage them with it. And preferably with a hashtag so other people who enjoy talking ’bout the weather get to know you. But if you’re a brand or business, how do you share your products and services?

4. No one wants to be sold something on Twitter. Do you remember the last time you went to a car dealership and wanted to have an annoying salesman engage you for the purposes of luring you into his office to buy a brand new vehicle? If you said “Yes” to that, we should have a chat. Soon. No one wants to be haggled, annoyed, told how great one service or good is over and over…and over. It comes across the same way the bastardized idea of a used-car salesman is. Sure you can be excited for a product or brand, and if you follow us you know we have one in mind we love to talk about. The difference is that we use those products or services to engage in a conversation with people we’ve gotten to know over the years. Or maybe we find something that we love at the office, like our Keurig coffee machine. The coffee machine is worth talking about because it’s cool and we like it! The difference is we’re not trying to sell you one. Perhaps we are losing a potential market by not tweeting about what we can do for Web Design or what we’ve done for our clients in the past, but Twitter is a “right here, right now” social media platform. And what about those people who won’t shut up?

5. Chances are the people who won’t stop talking, who are generally annoying or honestly don’t get Twitter have a disproportionate follow-back ratio. People are not engaging them for some reason. If you scroll down their timeline and take a moment to read what they’ve had to say in the past, you may find instantly that you’re not going to enjoy engaging them. One really good reason is because they’re a feed, or rather they have linked their Facebook profile to Twitter thinking they can knock two birds out with one stone. No one wants to read Facebook when they’re on Twitter. Why talk to someone or interact with a brand you don’t like. If you like Deadmau5, it’s probably likely that you’re not going to get along on Twitter with someone who likes to talk about Justin Bieber constantly. Proportion of follow-backs, I said? Yes, I did. Before you hit that follow button, look at how many people someone is following and more importantly, how many people are following that tweeter back. One of the most important things I’ve learned is NOT to follow others on Twitter who are following way more people than are following them back. Easily 9 out of 10 times within a week, I’ll unfollow them. What about celebrities and huge corporate companies?

6. Engage those you find interesting! If I didn’t make my point clear enough, this is the part where it becomes crystal clear. Sure, celebrities may have hundreds of thousands of followers and are only following a few dozen back. Most of them followed the people they’re following back because they are relevant, concise, don’t over share, don’t try to sell them something and have engaged them in conversation — or at least attempted to — on more than one occasion. And most of the time they’ll have a cute little sticker showing they’re “verified” when they’re actually who they say they are. Unlike the account @Apple, which at one point simply had “I like apples” as the only tweet, it’s not actually Apple in Cupertino. Occasionally you’ll engage a celebrity out of dislike, which someone here at the office did, and they responded. Jimmy Kimmel. I don’t find him funny and neither did who tweeted at them. It was one of his very first tweets and apparently it “bruises his balls“, but it got some interesting attention and engagement. Here’s the thing: when a famous personality engages you, the most important thing to do is be yourself. After all, that’s what Twitter is all about.

So I’ll end this with two sites that I’ve found extremely helpful in managing the numbers game of followers on Twitter. The first is a site simply called Friend or Follow. You don’t have to sign up or sign in. Simply type in your username and it will show you who you’re following that’s not following you back. That annoying tweeter who you want to get rid of, I can almost guarantee you he’s probably already un-followed you as Twitter has made it pretty difficult and not so obvious for the average user to know the status of being followed back.

The second site I give high kudos to. It’s called TwitCleaner. You sign in, allow it to scan who you’re following and it will give an analysis of your followers back to you that’s surprisingly brutally honest. The site was created by a New Zealander named Si Dawson. (Just to nail the other point home, he’s following less people than are following him back. Quality usually comes from people who show this proportion.) I’ve yet to find a more accurate tool on Twitter to gauge just how many people you’re following are really just trashing your timeline up. It will tell you if they never engage others, if they are nothing but app abusers, if they have been inactive on Twitter for a period of time and so much more. Invaluable information to someone who is serious about quality and not quantity. Go use it, we promise it’s amazing and tweet that TurkReno sent you for good measure.

Google Voice

Google VoiceWe recently changed back to AT&T for our wireless carrier from Verizon for the iPhone 4s and iPhone 5 launch. After a pretty bad mix-up with Sprint (they tried porting the Google Voice number that we use) shutting down our VoIP network for almost 3 hours while things got situated, we decided to give AT&T a second shot. Little did we know that with the release of Apple iOS 5 and iOS 6 that the Google Voice app would be completely out of commission.

Since we also use a VoIP line here at the office, once they released the updated app today for Google Voice, we had to remove our old number since Google recognized it at Verizon and add it back in. One of the critical things that we do is use our mobile phones for voice since Google Voice will transcribe the messages into both e-mail and text messages and send them to us as soon as a client or potential customer calls us. It’s a great way to get at least the gist of what the message is before you even have to call someone back and can save time in getting a problem or question resolved when there’s not a ticket.

So what’s the magical code to get your Google Voice number working?

(As an updated pre-text: When going to the Google Voice website and after selecting Settings for your account, the removal process or installation process may give you more precise method or instruction if this ever updates or changes.)

*004*11234567890# <– Activate a Google Voice number as Voicemail

So it’s Star 004 Star, 1 plus your area code (all of the other instructions just said without the 1, so use it!), your Google Voice number and then pound. Plenty of sites listed other methods, but this is the most recent way to activate it as of today. The instructions are all listed at https://www.google.com/voice once you add your phone, but for those of us who don’t want to add a second line, this can be helpful. You HAVE to have your number activated with Google voice.

##004# <– Deactivate a Google Voice number as Voicemail

Pound, Pound, 004 and then Pound again. Press Call and it should return everything back to the original Google Voice settings.

Here’s THE LINK to Google Voice on the Apple iTunes App Store. We hope this helps someone out there.

This was a very interesting article we picked up on from Twitter. Worth the read considering who it’s referring to and how Social Media continues to shape the Internet landscape.

Just last month, the U.S. State Department announced that it was shutting down www.America.gov, the website launched to provide cultural and policy content to the world. Instead, the State Department will focus on using social media to get out its message. The aim is to communicate in a more interactive way with today’s networked audiences around the world—like those blogging Egypt’s revolution from Tahrir Square or documenting Syrian unrest on YouTube.

Shutting down your website to communicate solely through social media channels might seem like a crazy idea for any large organization. But then again, there is some logic to it. The Wall Street Journal reported that Starbucks receives over ten times as much traffic to its Facebook page (19.4 million unique visitors each month) as to its corporate website (1.8 million). For Coca-Cola, the divergence is even starker: 22.5 million visitors on Facebook vs. just 270,000 to its website—over 80 times as much traffic.

A decade ago, the corporate website had become the new “must-have” communication tool. But now, as web users spend increasing amounts of time on social media, traffic to static corporate websites appears to be on the decline.

Facebook vs Website Traffic for 2 Brands

Facebook vs Website Traffic for 2 Brands

But before you rush out to pull the plug on your own web site, it’s worth considering the benefits of each approach.

Benefits of Social Media

1. Inherently interactive. That’s where the term “social” comes from. Unlike a static HTML website, designed to read and click, social media like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are designed around sharing, responding, and interacting.
2. Where people are spending time. With over 500 million active users on Facebook, most Web audiences are spending more time there than browsing company sites. Just be sure that’s true for your own demographic (e.g. Facebook is a nonstarter in Japan) and your own industry (most users still do not use Facebook for learning about b2b topics).
3. Easy to acquire. Clicking a “like” button on Facebook or “follow” button on Twitter is a lot easier than filling in the sign up form on a web page. So it’s no surprise that many companies find it easier to build a large following on social media platforms.
4. Virality. When your audience interacts with you on social media platforms, it is instantly visible to their own friends and contacts. This digital “word-of-mouth” can be one of the most powerful tools for reaching new audiences.

Benefits of Your Own Website

1. Control the design. Have you ever tried designing a page on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube? The experience is like trying to swim with one hand tied behind your back. Having your own website allows you complete control, which may be essential if you have a lot of content or options that you need to organize for different audiences.
2. Own the data. Social media platforms are owned by the companies that run them, and, as such, they are the only ones holding all the data on your customers and your interactions with them. On your own website, you own all the data.
3. Targeting and personalization. Owning data and controlling design allow for much more targeted interaction with your customers than is possible on social media platforms. If you know which emails a customer in your database is clicking on, you can ensure her follow up emails, Web landing pages, and ecommerce experiences are much more suited to her particular interests.
4. Reach all your audience. Unlike Facebook, Twitter, or other services which might reach large segments of your customers, your own website is available to 100% of them. (That is, as long as your website has been optimized to work on a mobile phone.)

So, unless you are so small (e.g. a one-person enterprise) that you lack the resources to maintain both a Facebook page and a website, you almost certainly need both. (Even the State Department still kept its main website after shutting down America.gov.)

Fresh Approach Needed

But as you hold on to your familiar company website that’s grown a little musty over the last decade, be sure to give it a fresh look. Are you using the unique design capabilities of a stand-alone site? Are you capturing and leveraging data? Are you interacting and building a database with your most loyal customers who care enough to do more than press a “like” button for you? If not, your website needs a revamp to be worth keeping it alive for next year.

David Rogers examines the five core strategies of successful networked businesses in his newest book, “The Network Is Your Customer: Five Strategies to Thrive in a Digital Age.” He teaches Digital Marketing Strategy at Columbia Business School, where he is Executive Director of the Center on Global Brand Leadership. Rogers has advised and developed marketing and digital strategies for numerous companies such as SAP, Eli Lilly, and Visa. Find him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/david_rogers.

Now our own thoughts on this are mixed. Not every client needs a website. Some clients need a boost in their Social Media strategy, some need a website and some need both. We’re here and happy to give you a free analysis on your online presence. In any case, we’re about to publish this article and it syndicates to Social Media. Why the U.S. State Department isn’t using this exact same strategy to balance out their numbers and create a stronger presence is a bit baffling. Please feel free to share your thoughts!