There are other ways to define social media but looking at the current situation the title might as well be the best fit. If you are an active social media user you must have seen the most talked about sites getting a little crazier day by day. First, as usual Digg and second Reddit. StumbleUpon usually seems to stay out of trouble but it also has one of the best algorithms as it is the hardest to game. Anyways, if you haven’t been keeping up with the social media scene lately, I would have to say you have been missing out on a lot of crazy stuff. In this post I will try and link to all the things that have been going on lately in terms of Digg and Reddit and some changes that StumbleUpon has implemented (certainly a good move from them).

Continue reading Social Media : 2 Crazy Monkeys and a Clever Fox

Tags: DIGG, reddit, Social media, social media optimization, stumble upon
Posted in Blogging, Social media

Note from Khalid: This post is by Social Media Insider who is an active user user on the big 3 of social media (Digg, SU and Reddit). SMI will be blogging regularly for Invesp on topics related to social media. The words might be a little harsh but it is our policy not to edit content submitted to us by our authors. Enjoy!

Social Media has become a hoard to become the champ, to rank on the top. Although most of us use social media partially for that reason, that’s not the only thing we are here for. Know the meaning of social media and how to utilize it to maximize opportunities for yourself, rather than wrecking it for everyone once and for all.

Continue reading Suggestion For Diggers and Trolls

Tags: DIGG, Social media, top Digg users
Posted in Blogging, Social media

With companies of all sizes cramming into the blogoshpher bubble like circus clowns in a VW bug, the results are just about as frightening — although, nothing is a freaky as a clown, let alone tons of clowns. (Shudder.)

Kidding aside, the threat these poor excuses for blogs pose to the more serious in the sector is real. It seems that so many late-to-the-game corporate blogs just want to look like they have content, so they flood their feed with PR and poorly constructed ad copy.

By clogging the search engines with 1,000’s of stripped-down press releases, these PR-churns mess with their own ability to succeed (assuming they offer content on anything other than clowns). That’s right, filling the void with noise ends up drowning everything out.

So how can the corporate machine wise-up and kick the lackluster habits?

With content, of course!

The minds over at Buildify came up with a couple of suggestions for getting rid of ad copy and fake bloggers, and I couldn’t agree more. Cut the posers out and add a little meat to the flimsy ad copy.

But is hiding the ads behind information going to clean up the mess on the search engines, or just confuse everyone more? My vote, as it is with most things having to do with social choices, is that the masses will still miss the point and the companies will keep churning out the posts, but now with more fat.

Continue reading Don’t tow the line: Simple ways to clean up that company blog

Tags: company blog, corporate blogging
Posted in Blogging, Business

Any blogger or site owner wants to have a significant subscriber base.

This is a key to online success. It means you have a large group of people who want to hear from you regularly. A captive audience if you like.

The challenges are obvious, especially considering the amount of noise and online competition we face as web publishers.

How can we overcome these obstacles?
Continue reading Growing Your Subscriber Count

Posted in Blogging

Content is King!

The statement above has become the holy grail of blogging. No matter what we do content still is and will forever be the main catalyst to drive your blog to success. Without an eye catching, attention grabbing content it is hard to persuade readers to “hang” around your blog and compel them to subscribe. We have all seen blogs that have been launched around the same time but one hits the rock bottom whereas the other reaches the heights of success. They both might be expert in the same field, but one rises and the other fails. The reason can be summed up in one sentence : Expertise and content alone will not do the magic, it’s the presentation, the ability to create curiosity, the desirability factor that does the magic!

There are some strategies most popular bloggers have followed which has driven them to success and popularity. They have tactically applied their strategies to elevate their content to take their blogs to the next level and set themselves apart from the rest. Here are 5 proven ways that will certainly help you elevate your content and help you eliminate the “i am lost among millions of blogs” feeling. Continue reading 5 Proven Ways To Elevate Your Content

Tags: Blogging, content, online-content
Posted in Blogging

Two of our friends made some changes in the last few weeks:

My friend Steven Bradley, AKA Vangogh, moved his blog and site to a new domain with a lot more focus on the great skill set he brings to the table. Yellow house hosting is now Van SEO Design. If there is one post you should not miss in April, it is Steven’s SEO monthly wrap up.

My friend Steven Snell from Vandelay Website Design started a new website, Traffikd, that focuses on marketing and social media. I read anywhere between 100 to 150 blogs every day. Every now and I then I find a blog that is packed with useful and “new” information. But that is exactly what Steven delivers in Traffikd.  From Traffikd comes, Long Term Results of Social Media Success: Increased Search Engine Traffic

Continue reading From around the blogosphere

Tags: DIGG, SEO, SEO Design, worth reading
Posted in Blogging, Business, Miscellaneous

The last issue of Time Magazine has a whole lot of people buzzing. The cover has the iconic photo of US Marines at the battle of Iwo Jima but rather than holding up a flag, they are holding up a tree signifying the importance of global warming. Now, I found many things about the controversy rather interesting, but two points have to do with conversion optimization.

Continue reading Conversion Optimization tip to the wise: Bright fuchsia stands out

Tags: Conversion Optimization, optimized image, traffic
Posted in Blogging, Conversion Optimization, Sales & Marketing

Download your copy of this 20 page report that outlines a 4 weeks step-by-step instructional program that will get most of your submissions to the first page of Digg. The report is free but only available to subscribers of the Invesp blog.

By following the steps in this report, we were able to get 63% of our submissions to the first page of Digg in 2007.

So, why are we sharing this?

At the start of 2008, we restructured our services to strictly focus on conversion optimization work. By the end of March, we completed our last social media optimization project. Because of this we have decided to share some of the secrets we learned over the last few months.

How do you get your copy of "Breaking the Digg Code" report?

Subscribe to our RSS feed and the report will be available in the next email or feed update. If you are already subscribed, simply check the footer area of the your email or feed.

Tags: DIGG, first page of Digg, Social media, social media optimization
Posted in Blogging, Business

19 Dos & Don’ts before you start

1. Do host your blog on your own domain
2. Don’t spend hundreds of dollars hosting your blog when you are first starting out.
3. Do make sure your blog can handle traffic from social media sites
4. Don’t go for too cheap/free hosting plans. You do not have to spend a fortune since you can get a decent host for less than $20 a month.
5. Do brainstorm 30-40 topics for your blog before you start
6. Do have 10 posts written and posted before you launch the blog
7. Don’t create filler posts to have 10 posts for launch
8. Do invest money to get a professional blog template
9. Don’t think that you have to spend a fortune creating a professional looking blog. A professionally designed template can cost as little as $400
10. Do comment on other blogs in your field before starting out
11. Don’t spam other blogs just to get your name out there
12. Do define success metric for your blog before you start blogging
13. Don’t set unreasonable success goals that are too difficult or too easy to achieve
14. Do understand why you are blogging
15. Don’t think that blogging will solve your business problems
16. Do understand the time commitment it takes to blog
17. Don’t think that blogging will take less than couple of hours a week
18. Do use an SEO friendly platform. By the way: Word press is the best for blogging!
19. Don’t use a CMS for a blog. We used Joomla for our blog, and it was too much headache

31 Dos & Don’ts After you start

20. Do commit to a regular posting schedule
21. Don’t kill yourself if you are not able to keep up with your schedule
22. Do understand that traffic and comments will take time to come
23. Don’t get too frustrated if takes months before you see any comments on your blog
24. Do spend a reasonable amount of time every day reading other blogs
25. Don’t spend hours every day reading other blogs
26. Do select the categories for your blog carefully
27. Don’t have more than 10 categories for your blog
28. Do optimize your blog for SEO or hire someone to help you do that
29. Don’t think that anyone who claims to be an SEO expert is actually one
30. Do get a feedburner account for your RSS management
31. Don’t get hung up on RSS membership fluctuation
32. Do Install Google analytics to track your daily visitors
33. Don’t get stuck on daily fluctuation in traffic or unusual traffic hikes
34. Do Analyze keywords people are searching on to get to your blog
35. Don’t stuff your posts with keywords to get search engine traffic
36. Do invest the time to add pictures to most of your blog posts. Use a site such as istockphoto.com to purchase images for your blog
37. Don’t steal images from other websites!
38. Do optimize images before you use them
39. Don’t spend too much money on image optimization software. XT has a free version and you can pay $ to purchase the software
40. Do keep your blog conversational
41. Do create a series of blogs about topics you are an expert in
42. Don’t pretend to be an expert on everything
43. Do create a meaningful about us page
44. Don’t make your about us page too corporate
45. Do get to know other bloggers personally
46. Don’t calculate every blogging relationship in dollars and cents
47. Do create a robot.txt file
48. Don’t copy a robot.txt file from anywhere without really understanding it
49. Do allow users to subscribe to your blog via RSS or via email
50. Do use a full RSS feed

27 Dos & Don’ts Topics:

51. Focus your blog on specific niche
52. Don’t think that 100% of your posts have to be on one topic
53. Do keep a running list of topics that you can write about
54. Do share case studies and client success stories on your blog
55. Don’t share client success stories without their written consent
56. Do be authentic
57. Don’t do something you are not comfortable with
58. Do be honest
59. Don’t share too much information
60. Do share your knowledge with your readers
61. Don’t think you cannot sell your services through a blog
62. Do write a post each day
63. Don’t post a blog each day. Writing a blog and posting it are two different things. 3 strong posts a week can do wonders
64. Do use Hittail to get suggestions for long tail keywords
65. Don’t follow Hittail suggestions blindly.
66. Do interview leaders in your industry
67. Don’t assume that just because you are just starting out, industry leaders will turn your interview requests down.
68. Write “how to” articles
69. Write a “secret to” post
70. Write a tutorial post
71. Do create a 101 post
72. Do write a post about the top 10 blogs in your niche
73. Don’t use random judgment to determine the top 10 blogs in your niche instead relying on Google PR, technorati rank and Alexa
74. Do write a post that reviews books in your niche
75. Don’t write a review about a book you never read.
76. Keep most of your posts to less than 700 words
77. Do write pillar posts that explain topics in great details

21 Dos & Don’ts of marketing and promoting your blog

78. Do plan on investing time and money to market your blog
79. Don’t think that marketing your blog means posting regularly!
80. Do use your blog as a way to increase your brand online
81. Don’t rely on your blog as the only way to increase your brand online
82. Do allocate sometime in your weekly schedule for blogging activities
83. Don’t stretch yourself thin to keep up with blogging activities
84. Do spend at least 50% of your blogging time off your blog (commenting, emailing, reading other blogs)
85. Don’t conduct networking blogging opportunities without a plan: planned comments and emails can help promote your blog if done correctly
86. Do use your blog to market your business tactfully
87. Don’t make your blog a sales brochure for your business
88. Do create content for social media sites
89. Don’t make all your content targeted for social media
90. Do use social media sites such as Digg, Stumble upon, Reddit to promote your blog
91. Don’t submit your content to these sites. Find a friend who can submit the content for you
92. Establish relations with other bloggers in your niche
93. Don’t spam other bloggers in your niche
94. Do invite guest bloggers to post on your blog
95. Don’t let your guest bloggers write without any guidelines
96. Do write guest blogs
97. Don’t write a guest blog in a topic that does not relate to your niche at all
98. Do use contests to promote your blog

4 Dos & Don’ts of bloggers:

99. Do Ask people in your company to blog
100. Don’t force people to blog if they don’t like to do so
101. Do review the posts of your colleagues before posting them
102. Don’t fix more than grammar or spelling mistakes in a colleague’s post

10 Dos & Don’ts comments:

103. Do create and enforce a comment policy for your blog
104. Don’t hide your comment policy. We are guilty of this one
105. Do encourage comments on your blog
106. Don’t allow abuse to the comment on your blog
107. Do respond to comments on your blog
108. Don’t think that you have to respond to every comment
109. Do reword your commentators by linking to them
110. Don’t link to commentators on your blog for the sake of linking. Remember, only link to good content
111. Do visit commentators blog and leave a comment
112. Do email commentators to thank them and start a relationship with them

11 Dos & Don’ts of links coming in and going out:

113. Do check your technorati ranking every day
114. Don’t think that technorati is the authority site on blogging!
115. Do monitor incoming links to your site
116. Do visit blogs that link to your site and leave a meaningful comment
117. Do create link worthy content and links will come in
118. Do email other bloggers telling them about good content posted on your site
119. Do not spam other bloggers with every topic you post
120. Don’t get frustrated if it takes a while for links to start coming in
121. Do select your links in your posts carefully. You are telling your readers that you vouche for the quality of each link
122. Do link to other blogs in each post: we usually try to link to at least 3 other blogs in each of our posts
123. Don’t link for the sake of linking

6 Dos of formatting and design

124. Do keep a blog log and journal any changes (design, plugins, etc) in the blog
125. Do use your picture next to each blog post
126. Do include a clear RSS button on the left/right nav
127. Do use a tag line next to the name of the blog to inform new users the topic/niche of your blog
128. Do display your most popular posts
129. Do display your pillar content in your left or right navigation

16 Don’ts of business blogging

130. Don’t require visitors to login to view your blog
131. Don’t require visitors to login to leave a comment
132. Don’t quit too fast
133. Don’t vent frustrations concerning clients/co-workers/bosses in your blog
134. Don’t dig deep into your personal life, try to keep the blog’s focus business related
135. Don’t post anything you don’t want Google to pick up
136. Don’t use adsense on your blog
137. Don’t quit blogging if you cannot keep up with your schedule.
138. Don’t over post. 3 posts per week are plenty.
139. Don’t start another meta blog: There are too many blogs about blogging
140. Don’t start another SEO blog
141. Don’t offer blog coaching services if you just started blogging or if your blog hardly has any comments on it!
142. Don’t think you will make a lot of money directly from blogging
143. Don’t think that content is enough to get people interested
144. Don’t badmouth your competition
145. Don’t allow others to high jack your blog

7 Random Dos of business blogging

146. Do think about hiring a virtual assistant to help you with auxiliary tasks for your blogs
147. Do consider hiring a ghost blogger!
148. Do read and subscribe to Chris Garrett on New Media daily
149. Do read and subscribe to Copy Blogger daily
150. Do read and subscribe to the invesp blog daily
151. Do be patient
152. Do have fun

Tags: Blogging, blogging success, business blogging
Posted in Blogging, Business

Happy new year everyone!

Posting on the Invesp blog has been light over the last couple of weeks since most of our team members were either out on vacation or trying to close last minute projects. We will be going back to our regular posting schedule starting next week.

Until then, here are few posts worth reading from some of the popular blogs:

• 100 Resources, Case Studies and Tools to Analyze Your Traffic and Improve Conversion
• Skellie offers an interesting 3 month growth plan
• A must read: Best internet marketing blog posts of 2007
• 8 Clever Ways to Lower the Bounce-Rate on Your Blog

Tags: link-love
Posted in Blogging, Business