Website Promotion is not Voodoo

I have most recently become a fan of “ProBlogger”, Darren Rowse. His website problogger.net contains rich insight and useful tips that can be used by both a blogger newbie up to a more seasoned one. I have found that his suggestions transcend to Internet Marketing and are easily applied to one of our favorite topics – increasing site traffic.
We always want our clients to have a steady increase in website traffic, the reality is that there will be occasions when a dip may occur. A recent post published by Rowse offers explanations and suggestions to better understand declines in blog, or in our case, website traffic, 6 Reasons Your Blog Traffic Might Be Declining [And What to Do About It].

I have most recently become a fan of “ProBlogger”, Darren Rowse. His website problogger.net

contains rich insight and useful tips that can be used by both a blogger newbie up to a more seasoned one. I have found that his suggestions transcend to Internet Marketing and are easily applied to one of our favorite topics – increasing site traffic.
We always want our clients to have a steady increase in website traffic, the reality is that there will be occasions when a dip may occur. A recent post published by Rowse offers explanations and suggestions to better understand declines in blog, or in our case, website traffic, 6 Reasons Your Blog Traffic Might Be Declining [And What to Do About It]

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My friend, and a very smart local entrepreneur, Chris Schultz

wrote an interesting piece entitled 10 Tips for Launching Your Startup in which he makes a pretty bold statement relative to PR (that’s public relations, not PageRank, for you search geeks).

There are a ton of other great posts on startups and bootstrapping including a recent one from a guy I’ve been reading since he was in print Guy Kawasaki.

So, whether or not a young startup needs a PR firm will no doubt be hotly debated for some time to come but I think there’s an important message in there: make a positive contribution

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Updated after another day of marathon editing by Aimee:

Wow!

Talk about some great feedback!

Thanks to everyone’s input we already have an updated theme incorporating all that feedback.

Please feel free to reference the original (and of course the comments). I’m feeling pretty good about the current design. I think it needs a little more polish, like amplification of the navigation but otherwise it’s approaching Ideal. Then of course there’s the sub-pages and blog-theme (whew, it’s a good thing Aimee ’s a friend of mine).

I had the great experience recently to be interviewed in a lengthy email by Natalie, the Office and Marketing Manger, of an Atlanta Office Cleaning company Clean-Guard Inc.

She sent me an email with a list of questions which were based in large measure on a list at SEOConsultants.com. It was a great list, I’m a guy who likes being challenged and with Natalie’s permission I’m reposting the bulk of that email here:

It’s funny this is the first time I’ve been asked to answer so specific a set of questions but I’m happy to have the opportunity.

Internet marketing for plastic surgeons presents some interesting challenges. Surgical practices make a lot of money and are attractive targets. Unfortunately, more often than not, the results haven’t matched the promises.

Right when it came out I pointed to a recent article in the NY Times. This post is intended to clarify my thoughts in response.

Table of Contents

• The good news for plastic surgeons’ internet marketing
• The bad news about internet marketing (history)
• Return on Investment (ROI) analysis
• Tracking your results – Important!
• I’m a surgeon (or I work for one) what do I need to know

In this morning’s session at Small Business Marketing Unleashed Jennifer Laycock was talking about the value of ratings and reviews as a component of social media.

For those of you who don’t know, Search Engine Guide is putting on a show this week focused on small businesses: Small Business Marketing Unleashed

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I have been a huge fan of Search Engine Guide for a long time. I also plan to be a huge promoter of the next show.

For a first show this seems to be a pretty good turnout and even for someone like me who does this for a living there’s always something worth seeing.

The New York times is out with and interesting piece on Plastic Surgery Internet Marketing and how effective it can be.

Update: I’ve expanded on this post greatly in: Internet Marketing for Plastic Surgeons – Less Scary than You Think.

You may also be interested in: Convert Offline – Everybody’s Doing It

I’m sad to say we weren’t featured. That said, we absolutely believe in Internet Marketing for Plastic Surgeons (as any of our Plastic Surgery Clients will tell you).

I may say more later but for now, here’s the NY Times piece.

At the risk of repeating myself, Miriam of Solas Web Design in her SEO Igloo blog has been engaged for a few weeks in an investigation of Local SEO culminating with a series of interviews. Miriam was nice to include me and most recently asked me to respond to some questions from the comments on one of her recent posts.

This is an answer both to Miriam and to current and future clients wondering about our process.

What this post will not cover:

• Managing offline conversion (I’m working on a case study for this)

Andrew Shotland at Local SEO Guide has kicked off a great concept: Giving A Little SEO for Christmas.

To that end, I’m going to work a theme close to home:

• Rebuilding New Orleans
• Support Green Building
• Rebuild The 9th Ward
• New Orleans Business Directory

Nice idea Andrew.

Image at About.com.