Jessica Knobbe

So my some of my friends and I were sitting around the other night talking about Google Wave. I have just recently activated an invite and frankly, I don’t get it.  So I asked all these really smart people who are Twitter evangelists, Foursquare embraces and possessors of the latest IPhone gadgets: “Have you figured out a way to use Google Wave yet?” 

The answer in short- no.  Not one person has figured out a rational way to use wave in their daily life.  The consensus was unless you work somewhere with offices around the globe that is super techy where everyone would be required to have it installed, maybe I don’t know someplace like Google for instance, it just doesn’t make sense.  So, what is Google going to do?

We have the answer.  Turn this thing on it’s ear and instead of trying to get young techy hipsters engaged, go for the Boomers.  Ok, ok, I know it sounds crazy but hear us out. Boomers are a huge piece of the population with disposable income that craves things made just for them.  So adjust a few things to make Google Wave the perfect tool just for them.  Start filming the tutorials with Eric Clapton or Who songs in the back talkin about their ggggeneration.  A commercial combining Viagra and Wave showing a couple in bathtubs on the shore, watching the waves crash in from the sea and using Google Wave on their laptops.   

Ok, maybe not. But Google better think of something we all just wave goodbye to Wave.

After taking a bit of time off after a whirlwind year to enjoy some family time during the holidays, I’m back on the scene.  I’m very excited at the prospect of 2010 and my place in it.  I am excited learn more about online marketing and really dig deep into SEO strategies.  The hunger to learn has been recharged so lets start the new decade- shall we?

Hey All, sorry this is a weird post- just submitting to Technorati and they have a verification code to post: 2UUCC4WCV7Y2

Looks spammy and feels weird- hope this is all good!

I was asked to work on a small project for a friend.  He just launched a new website and wanted to find the top bloggers in his subject so that he could start to follow and interact with them.  My task is to find the top family or parenting blogs on the web and then find the demographic profile of those blogs. 
I started on Technorati and they have a nice list of top family blogs broken out by influence.  So I picked the top few and ran them through Quantcast to get a top line demo profile.  Here is where the problems began.  The low traffic volume of these sites either rendered them unreportable or threw off the indexes.  If your intabs are too low something might index at 215% but that doesn’t really mean anything if the base is only 100 people.  (Example, I think it’s slightly suspect that Age 13-18 year olds are 157% more likely to read a blog about post-partem depression)
What makes these “top” blogs?  I tried other searches and kept running into the same wall- sort of haphazard lists of “top” blogs but really with no rhyme or reason to them.  Now, I know if I was in a situation where I could afford all sorts of analytics tools there is a much easier way to go about that.  But I don’t have that option here. 
So, my question is: Is there a free tool that rates categorized blog sites by traffic that I am not thinking about?

For me the first step in establishing my personal brand was LinkedIn. If you are not familiar it’s a site that falls under the social media category but specifically focuses on building professional relationships and connections. Think of your profile as a giant expanded resume that anyone can search and see. Filling out the basics are standard and easy to follow- current and past employment, education and a summary of what you are all about so I will assume that you can get through that portion. I will just give you some additional tips on extras that you can do to make your profile stand out.

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  • Basic SEO principles- use keywords whenever possible in your content. Words like SEO, Internet Marketing, Targeting and Social Media are included in my content to really help my profile pop in the LinkedIn search directory.
  • Public Profile – Change the URL to your name instead of gibberish- http://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicaknobbe is so much cleaner than http://www.linkedin.com/3sc29/knob3/23ksn3/profile
  • Additional Information: Websites- Instead of letting them default choose “other” for each one type in the name of your website, your twitter handle and any other specific sites you want to include. I have “My Website” direct to my resume page of JessicaKnobbe.com, and I have “My Blog- Marketing On Target” direct to the blog section of JessicaKnobbe.com. My third option I typed in “Follow Me on Twitter“ that leads right to my Twitter profile.
  • Additional Information: Groups – Join groups to participate in the networking aspect of LinkedIn. This area could warrant an entire blog post on its own so I will just keep it at that for now.
  • Add Applications- this allows you to insert a feed of your blog directly onto your profile. There are many applications to choose from that range from what you are reading, where you are traveling to polls.
  • Recommendations- Try to get some really good, solid recommendations on your profile. Most jobs that are posted on LinkedIn boards require that the applicant have recommendations and if a potential employer is looking at your profile, it never hurts to show them how much you rock.
  • Network Updates- similar to Facebooks status update I keep my contacts abreast of my professional happenings. It is a great way to keep your profile appearing on their main log in page and it lets them know what you are up to. Think less “Man, the 151 bus smells funky today” and more “Just bought my pass to South By Southwest Interactive Fest in Austin” or “Who was surprised that Family Guy is not a great brand spokesperson” with a link to a blog post included.

I know that there are tons of other great things on LinkedIn that you can explore- Q&A, job boards, event searches, but I want you to remember one of the most important- creating a network. Connect with everyone you know and make a solid base group of connections. If you see a person that you want to know and they are a 2nd or 3rd degree connection don’t be afraid to ask for an introduction. You have access to people that you might not otherwise so take advantage of this opportunity. If someone is not an open networker then they can relay that message to you but I have found that most people are very willing to help out whenever they can.

Think about it this way- I have 133 direct connections which puts me 2nd degree to 30,900 professionals and 3rd degree to over 2 million people. That’s 2 million people that have the opportunity to see what I’m all about- why not build a brand that makes you stand out in the crowd.

Added Bonus: Mashable just had a post today about some sprucing up that LinkedIn plans on implimenting!

Throughout my education in Internet Marketing one of the first things I embraced was the potential strength of the personal brand. Brand reputation management is a hot button topic right now with companies and businesses but what have you done to make sure that you as a brand are being portrayed in the best light? I started out my self optimization with the old standby- I Googled myself. What came up was pretty sad. First of all, I didn’t even know there was another Jessica Knobbe (from the St. Louis Knobbe branch I assume) so that was a bit of a shock. She runs marathons. Definitely not me. I also got results of a friends wedding I was in, my senior art exhibit from college and the obligatory classmates.com result “We found Jessica Knobbe!” None of those results are necessarily bad or damaging but they are not really very compelling for a personal brand.

So, in the next few blog posts I will lay out what I did to own page one (and two!) of my Google results and create not only a personal online brand but one that moves with me in the real world at networking events, educational opportunities and even on a Friday night out with my friends.

Are you kidding me? So if you haven’t read this yet Microsoft pulled out of it’s original deal with Seth MacFarlane after they looked at the content of the show Family Guy which apparently included “riffs on deaf people, the Holocaust, feminine hygiene and incest.” 

Uh yeah.  That’s one episode.  I’m sorry but, really?  REALLY?  They are claiming they chose to partner with the show based on audience comp data and and (this is great) “creative humor” but apparently no one took 30 minutes out of the day to actually watch the show.  Its syndicated, it’s literally on all the time.  It’s out on DVD.  Heck there are even ripped episodes on YouTube.  And probably the assistant outside your office or the guy in the graphics department has watched an episode or two, why don’t you ask them?  Now Microsoft looks more curmudgeonly then usual and is fitting into Apples “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” stereotype perfectly.

Lesson: Be careful what you decide to tie your brand to without proper research.  Just because you have data reports doesn’t mean they are the full story.

I am putting an internet marketing strategy pitch together for a local pet store.  After searching keyword phrases to see if they were indexed at all (more on that later) I finally reached their current website and was greeted with…. a splash page.  Ugh, why?  Yes I want to enter your site that is why I came here.  Look, I understand that there are a couple of situations where this might be appropriate: if your website contains adult content or if your website is in multiple languages.  But splash pages are typically a search engine optimization no- no- they are invisible to the search spiders.  They lack keyword rich text. They lack internal links. Even if the spider could see your website, it couldn’t travel to where the good stuff, aka your content, is hiding.  Also keep in mind those with slower browsing speeds are just sitting there, growing impatient as this page loads as it’s most likely stuffed with ginormous graphics and music that I’m going to shut off anyway because I work in cubeland and for what? Just so that I can hit a button to enter?  Not a very compelling call to action. 
Granted we can expect to see advances in indexing flash especially with the new Adobe/Omniture partnership but until that happens remember a splash page is really just a wall between your website and the world.  Also, increasingly people are entering websites from many angles based on long tail keyword search phrases and the idea of a homepage is even becoming obsolete.  Consumers want direct, fast and relevant results.  You might want to re-evaluate whether a splash page provides any real value to your consumers and your SEO strategy.

When most people think of social media they think “Free Advertising!!”  Not so fast there buckaroo!  You need to stop and consider a few things:

• What are your marketing goals?  Just saying “I want to be on Facebook” and “Everyone’s on Twitter- why am I not on Twitter?!” is worthless unless you set a benchmark and these tools actually help you achieve that goal.  If your target demographic is Adults 45-64 being on Twitter is going to miss that audience by a mile.

• Are you going to hire a consultant to help you lay this out?  If you want to do it right I would say yes you are because there are tactics and strategies involved.

• Once this is all set in motion, who is going to keep it running?  Are you going to do it? Do you have time to do 3 blog posts a week and a monthly newsletter?  I was at a round table last night and one consultant panelist put it brilliantly “I am not selling you a goose that lays golden eggs, I’m building you a crank, you still have to turn it to get results”

Social media is a great option for so many businesses as part of a full marketing arsenal.  Listening to your audience online is a huge asset and can really help you get a feel for the sentiments of your brand and it’s strength’s and weaknesses.  Just make sure before you dive in you know how deep the pool is and that you can stay afloat.

The Wikipedia definition of search engine marketing is as follows:  

Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion.

You can also think of it as the variety of methods used to deliver your website or ad to based on a search query.  Think of how powerful that is.  People are looking for specific goods or services based on targeted keyword queries.  Show them relevent information and content you are already light years ahead of the curve and in the first stages of the sales funnel.  Instead of treating your ad as something disruptive to their experience they are ready for engagement and purchase.

Make sure that you are optimizing for the right keywords and phrases.  Make sure your content is relevent to what you are optimizing for.  Know your target audience and how they will search for your product.  Just because someone in the industry refers to it as a Whatchacallit, your audience might know it more commonly as a Whoozerwhatzle.   Are you optimizing for Whoozerwhatzle?  Because if you are not, someone else probably is.