Vancouver Internet marketing blog by killam&co

Blogging increases your content and page count

2007-06-29T20:50:00.000-07:00

Blogs are a great way to build out the page count and content of your site but if you're using a free account via blogger and are not hosting the pages on your own server, your site does not get the full benefit from the additional content / pages.

As such I am looking at moving the blog to the killamandco server or dropping it in favor of Typepad which has quite a bit more functionality. I've also been toying with the idea of installing wordpress as I really like it's functionality and the variety of themes available but I think we'll wait on that switch until I can hire a designer to customize the theme to match the look of the main site.

Result? I like the simplicity of the current blog but typepad does offer quite a bit more functionality for the serious business blogger. Either way I will be moving the current blog to the killam and co server so the site will benefit from the additional pages etc. I will probably give typepad a shot and then make a firm decision over the weekend.

Once I make the switch the plan is to keep the blog updated more regularly than before with internet marketing and self promotion related content. Stay tuned.

Official Google Checkout Blog: Let freedom ring

2007-06-13T16:13:00.000-07:00

Official Google Checkout Blog: Let freedom ring

Thought I would direct readers to this clash between eBay and Google. As some of killam&co's clients have ecommerce websites in addition to selling their products on eBay this story is interesting indeed.

Seems Google was planning to protest eBay's policy of not allowing alternative's to Pay-Pal such as Google Checkout by holding a "Freedom" event during the latest eBay trade show. eBay retaliated by pulling its US Google Adwords advertising which you can be sure, is a massive account for Google.

Personally I think this kind of thing is petty. I also think, as this Web Master World post shows, a lot of us will be happy to see eBay ads disappear from Google for Good. I mean seriously, eBay's dynamic keyword insertion for every phrase under the sun gets a little tiring after a while.

When the ecommerce platform / provider you use restricts you from directing traffic to your own site and can then cut off all or a significant portion of advertising and traffic possibilities for your products, it puts your business in a shaky position. I think it's high time eBay loosened its grip a little and let its merchants have a little more flexibility in how they operate....

What do you think?

SMX was a blast

2007-06-10T18:05:00.000-07:00

SMX Advanced in Seattle was a total blast. Not only did I learn a lot I got to meet some great people including: Bruce Clay, Aaron Wall, Tod Frieson, Todd Malicoat, Matt Cutts
and more.

I stuck mostly with the organic track, focusing on SEO rather than PPC. The one PPC presentation I did attend was very informative. I found it particularly interesting that the PPC arena seemed to be more formal and business like while the SEO side was much more casual and full of creative types (or so it seemed).

Thanks to Danny and the crew for a putting on a top notch event!

Search Marketing Expo in Seattle

2007-05-29T16:55:00.000-07:00

That's right! I'm off to SMX Advanced in Seattle Monday and Tuesday of next week.
I'm looking forward to meeting the top names in SEO including Danny Sulivan, Matt Cutts and Aaron Wall.

The content looks excellent and I'm happy to be attending an event that focuses on the non-basic / entry level stuff.

Should be a blast! Stay tuned for an update next week!

Build to flip

2007-05-16T18:18:00.000-07:00

A site I have been following closely of late is www.tropicalseo.com by Andy Hagens.
Andy is a noted search engine optimization consultant who just hung up his consultant spurs in favor of building sites to flip.

With Vancouver real estate prices being what they are after the last heat up, an alternative that is becoming more and more attractive is finding underdeveloped websites and building them up to sell. Andy has several great posts on this topic and has suggested in the past that this is the way to go rather than spending time consulting.

Another, related site worth checking out is secondlife.com.
Second Life is a virtual world where over 6 million people lead second lives. While I'm not going to do a review of Second life and all of its many business uses (just Google it!) I recently heard the world has produced its first virtual real estate millionaire, millionaire in real terms of USDs.

Crazy stuff...perhaps I'm in the wrong business? :)

Online Reputation Management

2007-05-09T21:37:00.000-07:00

A new post on online reputation management. Check it out.

Make money by blogging...big time

2007-05-07T22:32:00.000-07:00

This post stems from a question a reader had about making money by writing online.
A few of the top ways to earn income from blogging that I have come across include:

affiliate sales (you sell products for another company and earn a cut)
ebook sales
indirect sales via consulting and speaking
advertising

programs such as Google Adwords
paid text links
sponsored links and banners

For a great post on the topic (more comprehensive), visit this post by advertisespace.com

If you're interested in writing as a source of income and want to get your feet wet in the realm of professional blogging here are two sites to check out:

http://www.johnchow.com One of the more popular blogs on the net
http://www.problogger.net Australian Pro Blogger Darren Rowse runs one of the best blogs I've come across about making money blogging.

The links above should give you a good start.

PS: if you've checked out the links above and aren't sure what to do next, sign up for a free blog at www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.org

Webmaster World

2007-05-04T19:25:00.000-07:00

If you're interested in programming, search engine optimization, website creation and management and just about anything under the sun to do with the www, check out: Web Master World

5 Reasons Why You Don't Need to Market Your Business Online

2007-05-01T16:23:00.000-07:00

Why Online Marketing is Not for Everyone

A thought occurred to me today while thinking about the ways in which businesses go about finding customers online: not everyone cares about marketing or has a need for it.

Marketing types may disagree, but here are 5 reasons why you don't need online marketing services:

You have more business than you can handle
You have no desire to reduce your cost of acquiring customers
You are maintaining rather than growing your business
You do not see a reason to generate a measurable return on your marketing dollars
You believe your clients won't use the Internet for anything related to your business

In my work with independent professionals and small/medium sized companies I often here objections like the ones above.

Strange as it may sound, I actually agree with some of the people I come across who say that they have no need to market online. If a company has no desire to grow, it has no need to promote itself.

Of course, if that's the case, time and competition will result in the inevitable....

Parkinson's Law

2007-04-30T23:20:00.000-07:00

Work expands to fit the time allotted to it, just as expenses seemingly rise to meet income.

Another reason for shorter work days...

View this Wikipedia entry on Parkinson's Law

Online Reputation Management

2007-04-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

Are you managing your online identity?

Online reputation management, also known as persona management, is the concept, techniques and strategies of taking control of and managing your online identity. In the past the concept was only associated with businesses although in most cases companies are all but oblivious to what's being said about them online. While that has begun to change, in today's virtual world people too are beginning to realize they need to pay attention to what's being said about them online.

As you will see in future posts, today more than ever it is becoming important to manage your virtual identity. For a great many of us, that means creating one in the first place. So what do you do if when Googling your name nothing comes up? This question will be first and foremost on a list of questions I will answer in the upcoming weeks. It will be joined by:

how do I track what's being said about me online?
how do I get listed in the major search engines for my name?
why should I care about having a virtual identity?
how can I get started without knowing much about web pages?
I've already achieved a level of success and have more work than I can handle, why should I care about managing my online identity?
And more....

In the upcoming weeks these questions will be the focus of this blog.

Search Marketing Expo

2007-04-28T11:29:00.000-07:00

I'm heading to the advanced Search Marketing Expo in Seattle June 4th.

Some of the best in the business will be presenting including Matt Cutts from Google and Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land. The event looks to be packed full of informative sessions and will focus on advanced search engine optimization and pay-per-click strategies and tactics.

Salesforce.com Parody

2007-04-25T20:07:00.000-07:00

This video by Wall Strip is absolutely hilarious.
In the video the Wall Strip team does a Glengarry Glen Ross spoof pitting Salesforce.com against a paper based filing system.

Definitely good for a laugh :)

Search Marketing Expo Comes to Seattle

2007-04-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

SMX, an advanced search marketing conference, is coming to Seattle this June.

From the SMX website:

"SMX is programmed by the sharpest minds in search marketing. Together, Search Engine Land editor-in-chief Danny Sullivan and executive editor Chris Sherman have covered the topics, interviewed the luminaries and educated generations of search marketers for years."

The event is separated into two tracks: organic search and paid advertising.

A bit of a hefty price tag at over $1000 USD for two days but the content and speaker list looks pretty impressive.

Are you up for it?

The Weekend Update

2007-04-22T16:30:00.000-07:00

It's nearly the end of the weekend and I've been thinking of what I could post.
Rather than online marketing news or tips, today I decided just to post a regular, good 'ol fashion update.

There's nothing saying that your blog has to be all business all the time.

Here's what's going on at killam&co:

- added new pages to the online marketing services section
- updated the robots.txt and Google sitemaps files
- working on keyword research
- minor updates to the CSS formatting coming this week
- working on a partnership with a business contact
- client work of course!
- getting the accounting in order
- playing with digital video creation, optimization and promotion. This may turn into a new service in time. Currently trying it out for a client.

And last but not least: enjoying the playoffs (get this one done Cunucks!) and the great weather here in Vancouver.

Crawl Test Tool

2007-04-21T09:17:00.000-07:00

Seomoz.org has added a nice crawl tool to their site. It's free to crawl up to 5 pages of your site before you have to become a premium member.

The tool is useful for finding duplication errors and gaining an idea of how search engine spiders see your pages.

Why You Should Blog

2007-04-18T14:33:00.000-07:00

A great post on why you should blog at Seomoz.org

I would like to see more reasons under the "Grow Your Business" section. Perhaps I will write a similar post in the future.

Blogging is something that has really taken hold of me in the past year and I continue to learn about it's value for business. A personal connection with your clients and prospective clients tops my list when thinking about the value of business blogging: people get to know you and the company. This only happens of course if you drop the shields and "be real".

On that note, the recent update / re-launch of the killam&co website features an About page
that talks about the company in a real way. Right now the business is small but ambitious. Blogging is something I'm passionate about and believe will help me connect with people resulting in more growth. The more people you can connect with in a genuine way the better.
And if you provide value on top of that, the growth will come.

Salesforce.com Integration speech at the WBO

2007-04-17T16:13:00.000-07:00

I will be speaking tomorrow at the Vancouver Club at the next meeting of the Association of
Women Business Owners of the Lower Mainland, B.C.

The talk will be on why business owner's should be interested in Salesforce.com, how they can use it to better run and grow their business and the benefits of doing so.

Thank you Tami for having me out to the event!

Yahoo Search Marketing Event in Vancouver

2007-04-17T16:09:00.000-07:00

I found out about this event last minute (thanks Sara!):

“Success with Search Marketing - How To Grow Your Customers and Sales”
Presented By: Yahoo! Canada

Presenters / Q&A Panelists:

Martin Byrne
National Director, Yahoo! Search Marketing Canada
Maor Daniel
National Marketing Manager, Yahoo! Search Marketing Canada

Here's the link: http://www.soho.ca/events/event_2007_0418.htm

Sphere for Bloggers

2007-04-16T15:40:00.000-07:00

I came across an interesting site related to blogging recently called Sphere.
Sphere is basically a search engine for blogs. It has a nice interface and also offers some great tools if you use Typepad or Wordpress as your blogging platform.

One tool in particular I would like to try out (no version yet for blogger) is the contextual posting tool. The toll enables you to post news from other blogs in a sidebar on your site. Sphere will match the posts it displays with content on your site kind of like Google Adwords or Adsense.

Take a look over at http://www.sphere.com/

Local Search

2007-04-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

Local search has always been an important online marketing strategy but in the past year and a half it seems to be getting an increasing amount of coverage. With the web becoming more competitive, it's becoming increasingly important for businesses to rank for terms that contain their city and in many cases their area code, zip or postal code.

Even companies who do the majority of their business in another city or country far from where they are based can benefit from being found for local search terms. For a great article on the subject of local search, visit this post on search engine watch.

Google Site Optimizer Live

2007-04-12T14:01:00.000-07:00

Google has released a new tool to help test your landing pages.

Check out Google Site Optimizer.

Online marketing permits us the ability to continually test and refine our tactics and this tool promises to help marketers do this with greater ease.

*Landing pages are pages that traffic is directed to for the first time when entering your site. For example, if you run an email campaign, rather than including a link to your main home page, you might setup a page called www.homepage.com/landing_page.html . Then by testing different combinations of text or by using a form or other types of response mechanisms, it is possible to test to see what combination gives the best response. Google Site Optimizer makes it easier for marketers to test various combinations of landing page layouts and components against each other.

Let me know if you have any feedback or success stories related to this tool.

5 Ways to Promote Your Website Today

2007-04-12T13:42:00.000-07:00

One: Links

Links help people and search engines find your site.

How to get links:

Find relevant websites in your industry and purchase links on their site to yours
Ask friends and contacts to link to your site in return for something of value
Place a link to your website on every off-line piece of marketing you produce

Two: Email

Email is one of the cheapest and easiest marketing tools available to business owners today. Are you using it for more than just day-to-day communications?

Here’s how to get started:

Create an email list of friends, family, contacts, and clients (new and old) and send it out. Ask them to join your mailing list or to refer a friend or send an email promoting a new special.

The goal is to generate traffic, inquiries for your services and ultimately sales. But a one time send, while effective, is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to email.

The key is to get permission to follow up. It may be ok to send one or two emails without implicit permission, but after that you’ll need to get people’s ok to keep sending them stuff.

Tip: if used properly email it’s possible for email to generate an ROI that is right off the chart. I’m not talking 30% or 60% I’m talking in the 1000’s. Why is that? Because it’s an extremely low, cost, relationship based means of spreading the word. With returns like that would it be worth your while to learn more about how you can use email?

Three: Add useful content to your site weekly

What is useful content? Anything that helps you clients do what they need to do better and is related to your business. Take this article as an example, it helps visitors by focusing them on things they can do right now to begin promoting their websites. It also implies killam&co’s credibility and authority on the subject. See how this could work for you?

An added benefit to regular content updates is that search engines like Google tend to favor regularly updated websites and blogs.

Writer’s block? Articles don’t need to be long to be effective. This list would have been helpful even without the explanations attached. Once you get into the habit it’s really pain free and the return is worth it.

Four: Partner Up

Who do you do business with on a regular business that you could team up with to promote your site? Give a speech at the networking group your friend runs, exchange links with a non-competing business or group, offer a bundled special with another business and promote it on both of your websites. It’s not that hard to think of several people and companies who you could work with for mutual benefit.

Just remember: keep it simple and sell them on the benefits of working with you. Them first, you second = win win.

Five: Volunteer

Give a speech, give away some free branded schwag, or give of your time in return for some free promotion online. You get to look good to your community and the increased exposure is going to drive more traffic to your site.

What do you have to loose? Nothing. Period. So, what are you waiting for?

SEO Moz and other new links added

2007-04-12T12:22:00.000-07:00

I've been adding links to the side bar that I believe are a good resource for anyone interested in learning about online marketing and promotion, seo, and other strategies.

SEO Moz was one of the latest additions. They are an online marketing company in Seattle and I had to ask myself 'Do I want to put competitive links on my blog?' in short, it makes sense to do so.

The point of this blog is to point people towards relevant, valuable information that will help them better promote their businesses online and SEO Moz is a great example of a company providing great information for free (read: lots of value). Yes, they are a competitor of sorts although killam&co is tiny in comparison and located in a different country and niche.

While I don't recommend linking to your direct competitor just down the street, if someone in your industry has good information that could help your client base, don't be afraid to link to them. The more you focus on the client and what's in their best interest, the better off you'll both be.

Authenticity of of Internet Marketing Sources

2007-04-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

Interesting to me that I would visit SEObook today to find a post that discusses exactly what I am working on here. Creating a credible resource for people and providing value first before asking for the sale. Aarron Wall writes interesting and thought provoking articles. This particular post speaks about how to understand whether a website or blog is just out to make money, or if the authors are really attempting to provide people with value.

Seobook.com is a great example of a site that provides a ton of value to people. You can buy the book any time you like or you can drop by to soak up Aarron's knowledge of SEO. I bought the book after reading the site for about a month. One month to a $90 sale and potential referrals from this site for years to come. Not a bad exchange in my opinion. By the time I purchased the book I felt like I had already gotten my monies worth.

On that note: what do you have that you could give away to your customers?
Could you create value for them before they buy? Something to think about and something I am attempting to do here by publishing this blog.

First Post

2007-04-03T16:52:00.001-07:00

A lot of fidling and several baby steps later and the first post is up. I decided to start the blog using blogger due to its ease of use and the fact that Google recently increased the control and functionality of the platform.

I may still look into whether or not the Blogger bar can be removed but aside from that the service has come a long way from where it began. While most professional bloggers tend to use Typepad, Word Press , Movable Type or other pay-to-play services, the killam&co blog is a "let's get started and see where this goes" project and blogger proves to be a good tool when it comes to just that. Stay tuned.