Hey My Blog Log - You got one week to apologise to all of the social marketers out there you snubbed this week (calling “SchMOes”), or you are gone from all my sites - for good, and I am tagging myself as a Spammer. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. I forgave you once already, but it will not happen again. If it wasn’t bad enough for your business (and user credibility) banning ShoeMoney, calling the very people who use your service “spammers” was the most stupid move of all.

I missed this at first to be honest, I rarely use My Blog Log since the whole incident with ShoeMoney anyway (other then the cool statistical tracking ability they offer). I saw this week that they had introduced a new tagging feature which at first glance I thought was a cool idea.

For those of you that are not familiar with what My Blog Log did this last week, here it is in a nutshell - they created a new tagging system (as mentioned above) but went into to much detail about how to use tags (see below)

“Spam - If you think someone is spamming you, tag it out loud! Internally, we like to call a user who games the system a SchMOe (Social Media Optimizer). Tag anyone who spams you with the term schmoe.”

I will not go into all of the backlash, but you can read it here, here, here and here. The most amazing social media idea has been created by my partner and friend Chris Bennett over at (the other blog I co-author) 97th Floor. We already removed the My Blog Log widget from the 97th Floor blog.

My Blog Log has one week to apolgise to all of us “SchMOes” or “Spammers” who created them, or I am taking them off for the last and final time. I will tag all of my blogs as “SchMOes” and never look back. I know I am just one person, but I am one person deeply inter-twined with the search and social media industry, and if I get even one more person to stop using My Blog Log for calling us Spammers, then I am fine with that.

My prediction - I will have to stick a fork in them too, and call them done:

Who cares anyway? I survived life after Digg died. Did I mention how much I love Stumble Upon and Twitter?

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!

Before I continue to mislead you, two things:

1.) MyBlogLog is dead (as far as I’m concerned) put a fork in them!

2.) I do not know if Technorati is doing anything called “Teamorati” I made it up, but I will explain why they should.

Both Mybloglog and Technorati had major changes over the last week, neither of which I am particularly excited about. As you all know MyBlogLog’s in house Social Media made a retarded expert decision to create a new spam tagging system where a fellow MyBlogLog user can tag another if they feel they are spamming them.

I’m not going to recap the MyBlogLog Revolt you can find good info from Andy, Andy again, Cameron, SEL and Andy Beard.

Technorati completed another redesign and I have to say I didn’t really care too much. It didn’t do anything to make me want to use them more than the five minutes a month I use them now. No one uses WTF, no one uses really anything on there except to see where their blog is ranking, and blog search. They need to tie their unbeliavably big community together to form a team or a “Teamorati.”

Technorati has had multiple rounds of fund raising for millions upon millions of dollars, yet there still doesn’t seem to be a clear path to profitability or an exit strategy even. They have over 15 million blogs in their database and a huge presence they just aren’t leveraging it.

I think they should create a mybloglog competitor that networks all their users into more of a community, I thought the visitor widget was a great idea by mybloglog, but they have messed up 10 too many times for me to use them anymore. There is a gap that Technorati could jump in by connecting all of their users and getting everyone to switch from MyBlogLog to them. They have a stronger brand and bigger following and I am sure that the “SchMoes” would have no problem telling the world about them and adapting them right away.

It seems that MyBlogLog forgot that the “SchMoes” are the ones that pushed their product, they were around for a while with a relatively small user base, then Nov, Dec 06 every SEO, SMO, Marketer you name it was putting it on their blogs and telling their friends and clients to do the same. The next thing you know Techcrunch and every other respectable blog added the widget to their site.

“TEAMORATI” may be Technorati’s big chance to make some headway, they could even offer analytics and make a little dough.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!

Just wanted to make sure and give a quick reminder for those trying to do everything they can to gain favor with Google when setting up a website. About 8 months ago I started optimizing a clients site and sent out the normal requests to designers and what not which included 301’s and re-dir-ing the non www’s to the www’s. My oversight, but I never checked to make sure it was done, and for the last several months he has been dominating on the search engines for almost every word he wanted. A couple days ago he stopped ranking for his domain name, and a sub page was ranking about 6 spots down from the top with his homepage nowhere to be found. If you typed in other keywords though he would rank for his homepage.

After a little bit of research I figured out he was having a canicol issues with his non www getting indexed (with no backlinks etc) … got it all switched, and fixed and he is now ranking again for his domain name and no damage done to other keywords. Its just a good reminder to make sure and double check the simple steps.

If you are running an apache server and are looking for the 301 re-dir code check this out below: (this is taken from a post I did almost a year and a half ago)

Here’s the code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

(Make sure your Apache installation has mod_rewrite enabled.)

As long as your Apache installation has mod_rewrite enabled then you should be able to use this fix on almost any host.

Second: If you have any old page urls that are being replaced by new search engine friendly ones, but do not want to lose your page rank then here’s the code for that:

redirect 301 /old/oldurl.html http://www.newurl/new.html

MAKE SURE you DO NOT include the http://www.whatever.com ONLY USE whats after the .com starting with the / or it will not work! Also make sure to only put ONE space inbetween everything!

There you go! That is as simple as it gets…or atleast as I can make it!

Remember why we do the 301 redirect:

Mainly for Google. Google does not like a bunch of error pages and if you have alot of 404 error pages that do not exist anymore (maybe after doing a redesign, or introducing new SEF naming conventions) then its harder for Google to crawl and you can lose the page rank the page has. With the 301 redirects you do not lose PR and you will not have to worry about duplicate content issues with your www and non www’s. That alone is worth doing it!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!

I was reading an interesting post today over on Marketing Pilgrim about picking the right social network. It brought up some interesting statistics that I think any Social Media Marketer needs to be paying attention to. If you have never done any Social Media Marketing then it would be a good idea to take a look as well.

I want to take a closer look at what social communities can do for an individual and business owners, and give my two cents.

I have experimented with almost every single social network and community out there. Some I really like, and some I think are pretty worthless and a waste of time. With that said, I have recieved some amount of traffic from each social site I am a part of. I was even contacted by a person (now a client) about some Reputation Management issues he was having through a less known social community that in a year I maybe have received 50 total visits. With everything said and done this client is worth about 15k a year to me. What if I decided to snub that smaller social community? I would have never met that current client, and lost out on business he has brought to me.

Have I got you thinking about social communities (even smaller ones) in a different light now? Even if they will not do much for you traffic wise, they will help you with branding, as well as your online reputation. I really do not feel that a business should limit themself to just one social community. I feel this way for the same reason I feel business owners should not snub My Space just because they have thoughts of it being a place for teenagers, or kids to hook up. There have been rock bands that have been made because of My Space.

My point here? Do not limit yourself to just one social community. Sure you can focus on a couple that you feel are a better fit for your business (and put more time and effort mostly on them) but I suggest doing everything you can to get the word out about your business - everywhere!

One last tip - Make sure you are taking the time to fill out the profiles from every one of the social networks you are a part of. People will be more willing to trust you (and believe you are who you say you are) when you have a more complete profile with pictures, website and contact information. The whole point of these communities is to connect people, so make sure they can!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!

Just found a cool new widget (hat tip to Stuntdubl for being the one to tell me about it) from a site called Rate it All. They are in beta testing, but this looks like a pretty cool widget to have on your site. I am going to be testing it for a while. You can see a screenshot of what Rate it All looks like here:

You can find this widget on my sidebar about half way down. Check it out, test it, rate me (just be nice)! These kind of interactive widgets could be a cool thing for visitors, and you could probably get some good feeback. I really won’t know how much I like it until a few weeks, but I will keep everyone posted. If you want to get in on the beta testing on Rate it All click on the link.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!

Late last night one of our clients Angling Masters was featured on TechCrunch and it was very positive. One of the reasons I subscribe to TC is because their reviews are very good and they don’t hesitate to point out flaws in a site, or it’s execution. So you can imagine my joy when our client and good friend had their site reviewed and it came out with flying colors, even the comments were good. I have been really excited about this project for a long time I believed in the sites potential from the moment they contacted me and now that we are launching it is great to see such good reception.

Angling Masters is an online fishing community and social site for fisherman. It allows fisherman to create their own profile called cabins which come complete with Photo Gallery, Blog (to tell the, “I caught a fish this big” story) and other tools to network and meet other anglers. It also allows free profiles for businesses called Marinas which lets everything from a Bait and Tackle Shop, to Fishing Guides advertise their products or services and network or sponsor other members.

It also created the first fishing competition that allows fisherman all over the world to compete against each other through the creation of a scaled system that compares bass, trout, crappie and everything else equally so that all fisherman can compete. In the summer there will be a daily winner with $1,000 given away each day to the big catch.

It is the first of its kind and definitely on the fore-front of good niche social sites, there are so many clones out there it was nice to see something so fresh when they first contacted us. It is also backed by one of the smartest VC’s around out of Canada with a Rolodex that would make anyone drool, and it is networking one of the largest sports industries on the planet.

Up until now we have been focusing on proper site structure good old fashioned link building to get some traction, now we are telling the world. Since December when we started we took it from 1,500 pages indexed in Google to 6,000 plus and counting. We also took the page views from 90,000 a month to 243,000 last month with it increasing daily. We have had some exceptionally high conversion rates from good old fashion rankings and are very excited about working with a company set out to re-define a dinosaur industry.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!

Finally, Eplanit.biz SEO blog launches its own SEO Toolbar (for Firefox users)- a toolbar with only the stuff that Internet marketers and SEO’s really want. If you are wanting to learn a little more about:

• the competition
• research out keywords
• number of backlinks
• cache date
• index date
• find related pages
• PR

(and thats just the features for the Google SEO tools) this seo toolbar will flat out amaze you.You will also find these other, but probably more familiar SEO Tools with this seo toolbar:

• Check DMOZ
• Link Analyzer
• Page Size
• HTML Validator
• Server Headers
• Directories
• Archieve
• WhoIs
• Google Webmaster Quick Links
• View Source
• View CSS
• Outline Tables

There are so many more web developer tools included in this toolbar, (besides the SEO Tools) that I can’t even begin to tell you about them all. You will just have to download the toolbar and be amazed yourself! I have been using SEO Tools and toolbars for the last 4 years, and this is by far the most advanced “all included” set of SEO Tools on the web.

This toolbar is for Firefox users only, and is installed like any other Firefox extention. Download the SEO Toolbar here, and save to desktop, then go into Firefox and click on “file”, then “open file” and find the newly downloaded program on your desktop (called “eplanit.xpi”). You will be asked to relaunch firefox, and thats it! You will be amazed with all of the amazing SEO and Webmaster Optimization tools. This is just the first version, so if there is anything else (or other features) that you would like to see included in this toolbar then feel free to comment and let me know.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!

I just got an email today from the Google Analytics team about a new interface and upgrades that they have added to the analytics reporting. Here is an excerpt from the email,

“What is new?
In the new version, your reports have been redesigned for clarity, greater visibility of important metrics, and ease of use. Here are just a few of the features you’ll notice:

• Email and export reports: Schedule or send ad-hoc personalized report emails and export reports in PDF format.
• Custom Dashboard: No more digging through reports. Put all the information you need on a custom dashboard that you can email to others.
• Trend and Over-time Graph: Compare time periods and select date ranges without losing sight of long term trends.
  
• Contextual help tips: Context sensitive Help and Conversion University tips are available from every report.

The new interface has everything the previous interface had and more. In addition, links within reports make it easier to navigate related information and explore your data.”

I went and logged in and it hadn’t changed yet, so I will keep an eye out on it. I’m excited about customizing the dashboard and some of the other tools to make the spots I go on a regular basis more accessible.

I wonder if they are going to ever launch a paid version and try to compete with other web analytic companies?

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!

I wanted to post about a topic that has been on my mind so much lately, especially because (lately) I have been working on gaining even higher conversion rates on mine (and my clients websites). I am talking about web analytics and what they can do for you and your business. On 97th Floor there was a recent post about a new analytics company that gives a detailed report of step by step browsing through your website to show you exactly what visitors are doing, and I have talked before about analytics companies like Crazy Egg and Tape Failure which lets you record sessions of exactly what paths (viewing the mouse moving on your site) visitors are taking, as well as analytical statistics, and tracking too.

I have used programs out there that are free like Google Analytics (and still do), but have found accuracy problems with them, and really with they had more features that were useful, and tools that worked 100% of the time. The only web analytics software I have used that has been flawless, and perfect in every way is from Omniture. It is a paid analytics software, but by far the most superior.

When you can find out things like the exact paths that your website visitors are taking, you can figure out what is being viewed the most, what is working and what is not. You can find out what products people are viewing the most, but not buying and then adjust to try and increase the conversion rate (maybe your prices are to high and need adjusting). How important do you think it would be to find out the pages that people leave from the most? (so you could change it, and try to keep them longer) What could you do with information like, what are the hot spots on your site, where are people clicking the most, behavioral targeting, and are they clicking anywhere near where you really want them to be clicking?  You can really improve your search engine marketing 100 fold with proper web analytics.

When you find out information like this it could help you improve your navigation which we all know will help us with our Google rankings, increase conversion rates, more sales which leads to more money in your pocket. Taking the time to understand website analytics could mean the difference between success and failure.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!

I have been surrounded by technology (by choice) my whole life,  and I really got a kick out of something that happened this year for my birthday.  I found it interested that I only got ONE call from anyone I know to wish me happy birthday a few days ago (It was by my mom, the least technical person I know).  Do I not have any friends?  Did everyone forget about me?  No, I received probably 10 greetings via Twitter, 5 text messages, 8 instant messages and about 10 emails wishing me happy birthday!  It was pretty amazing in my opinion!   It tells me that people are thinking about me, and they are thinking about how I like to interact.  I mean, lets not waste time and chit chat about nothing, lets let him know we are thinking about him, and just wish him happy birthday the way he (me) likes it, and be done with it!  OH, and I got a couple greetings via my My Space page too.  This was a perfect birthday.  Now I love talking with people (don’t get me wrong) but when you are in your 30’s you really don’t care about birthdays as much as you did when you were say 4 or 5!  Ahh, technology!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!