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Blog Comments are a Virtual Traffic Circle


Thursday August 5, 2010

Reading Time: 6 minutes
I remember the first time I encountered a “traffic circle“. It was 1988; I was 39 years old and living in New Hampshire. A business associate told me to meet him at a car dealership near the “rotary” in Portsmouth (or thereabout). But there was one problem with his directions. By “rotary” I thought he was referring to a ROTARY(as in the organization) office building. When I finally found him at the car dealership I told him I didn’t see the ROTARY to which he responded: “What are you talking about? You drove through the rotary!” Again I queried and finally he adequately described the nightmare that I had just been subjected to: A traffic circle!

So there you have it. Traffic circle, rotary or roundabouts “a circular arrangement constructed at the intersection of two or more roads in order to facilitate the passage of vehicles from one road to another.”

Recently someone (a client) asked me why I read blogs and why do I comment on the blogs I read. The obvious answer to the first part of this question is that I read other blogs to learn about the SEO and SMO industry, hoping to share the knowledge I glean with our clients and co-workers. I comment on the blogs that I regularly read if I have something to add to the conversation or if I have a question about the subject matter. The by-product of this process is that I develop social media relationships and links with relevance and reputation.

Here’s how I visualize blog commenting as a virtual traffic circle:

  1. A blog post is written
  2. I am notified of the post via an email or RSS feed (it is ok to start into the circle)
  3. I read the post
  4. I write a comment and identify myself with a link to our domain address or blog address – “the intersection is constructed”
  5. Other readers or the blog writer read my comment and perhaps click on the link to our domain address or blog address
  6. New traffic comes to our site – a visitor who may read our blog or search for a service we offer
  7. New visitor leaves a comment (with a link to their site) or sends us an email

Virtual Traffic Circle: “a circular arrangement constructed at the intersection of two or more blogs/websites in order to facilitate the passage of web traffic from one business to another.”

Lately I have read a number of really interesting posts about blogs and blog commenting. Here are a few I would like to share with you. I hope you will take the time to read these posts. You will learn so much.

Drive Traffic to Your Site with a 6-Step Blog Comments Blueprint 

Blogs As Loss Leaders

Value Your Blog Real Estate

Are Blog Comments Dead?

One last thought:

If you are not accustomed to traffic circles (real ones), they can be intimidating. You need to learn about them, understand them, know when to merge, know how to exit to your destination. The same applies to blog commenting and virtual traffic circles, don’t you think? I would love to hear from you on this…merge into the traffic circle and comment!
Reading Time: 7 minutes
9 tips managing business facebook
Judy Helfand’s Facebook Avatar

Do you have a personal Facebook page? Do you own a business? Have you created a Facebook page for your business? If so, here are nine tips for managing a business Facebook page.

So many of us have a personal Facebook page. Like anything else, it starts out fun and interesting and before you know it you are consumed with reading, posting, etc. Some of our clients have business Facebook pages and often they will ask for advice about how to manage their page, so today I thought I would give you some pointers I have learned. Maybe you know of some other ideas.

Again, I do not profess to be an expert, but I do try to read as much as possible regarding Facebook, as it relates to promoting a business.
1. Be Social: Facebook because it is a SOCIAL Networking site encourages people to get involved. Unlike your personal page, anyone can now find your business page by simply searching your business name. They are “free” to say they “like” you and they can then post good news and bad news. This means you must monitor what is happening on your Facebook page. Think of it like Trip Advisor, YELP, or other social sites. Here is an article that addresses this issue of Facebook reviews. So remember with a business page anyone can find you and “like” you, then they can post to your wall and write reviews!
2. Photo Album Tips: Creating photo albums can be time consuming. What concerns me here is I do not know what ramifications there are to posting photos on Facebook. If you own a business I would take precautions to get permission from any of your employees, guests, customers, actors, etc before putting a photo on your page or in an album. Instead of creating separate photo albums on Facebook, push the people back to the page on your site that deals with photos. It might be a tour of your restaurant, your theatre, your inn, etc.
3. Drive Traffic: With a business Facebook page you should always want to drive the traffic back to your business website. So for example, if your business is a restaurant, don’t just put your menu up on Facebook, instead talk about your menu and put a link to your website’s menu page so that people will get to your site, not just your Facebook page. You will notice when you put in the link you can choose one image to display. The whole idea is to get people back to your site.
4. Status Updates: When you update your status try to include a link to a page on your website or a news story. Every time you update your status your followers will learn about it.
5 Respond: You need to be ready to respond to people when they post something on your page. Remember when you sign in, look at this view: Your Business Name + Others so you can see what the Others are saying. If they ask a question or say something, then respond to them. Don’t miss this opportunity to engage with your followers.
6. Share Articles: When there is an article about your business in the local newspaper or a magazine you should make it a point to mention it and link to it.
7. Main Domain: Always when you are referring to your website use your main domain (if you own more than one). If you use different ones, even though they redirect to your main domain, this can be confusing to people.
8. Social Media Buttons Help: Add links to your Facebook page using a social media buttons. Make it easy for people to follow you on the social networks.
9. Stay Informed: Follow the news about Facebook. For example here is a headline from May 7, 2010:  Understanding Facebook Privacy and the latest news on May 24, 2010, Facebook Privacy Tweaks Coming.
These are my nine tips. Can you think of more? Share them here.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Yesterday was the day of remembering November 22, 1963, as it is a scar in peoples’ memories for multiple reasons. Today is the day for Remembering November 22, 1963 and remembering the Long Tail with your blog posts! The Long Tail has become ever so crucial as far as placement with the Search Engines. The goal, when writing a blog, is to have as many people as possible be able to find and read your post. Content and keywords (labels) are very important when writing a post, but, a title with a Long Tail that can be found a couple times in your post is necessary.

Judith Helfand’s post titled “Remembering November 22, 1963 and President John F Kennedy’s Assassination” is a perfect example of the Long Tail put into practice. When you search Google with the words “Remembering November 22, 1963” Judy’s post shows up 4th out of 473,000 hits. The date Nov 22, 1963 is a very historical and for that reason there are many people with websites on or relating to that date. The fact that Judy’s blog post shows up before all but three of those sites is amazing, and it all can be owed to remembering the long tail.

Use a Long Tail to get more traffic to your blog post and in turn bring more traffic to your website. The key to being found online is to make yourself more search-able. Five words or more is a sufficient Long Tail for your blog post. When you increase the length of your title while incorporating it into your post, you will increase the amount of people who are able to find your post and your website.

Reading Time: 13 minutes

We have decided to send you our newsletter more frequently. You can expect one about every month.

In this newsletter we are going to discuss:
• Something you can do to generate traffic to your web site.
• An opportunity for our clients in the travel, hospitality, recreation industry
• How you can help yourself and us
• Silver, Gold and Platinum Accounts
• Changing Web Site Hosts

Something You Can Do to Generate Traffic

Frequently our clients ask us how or what they can do to generate more traffic to their web site. We think the one thing, and maybe the best, is to get links to your site, especially links that are relevant to the theme of your site.

You should go to the web site of any local, trade, or professional organizations of which you are a member. Does that web site list, with links, the web sites of their members? If so, are you on the list with a link to your site?

As you spend time on the Internet you should be looking for any directories or specialized search engines that target the theme of your site. You should be looking for opportunities to get your site listed on these directories. Many of them are free, or only require that you link to them. Some are paid, and for those you need to do your evaluation of the economics.

Links to your site help in three ways

  1. Someone may click on the link and visit your site. Obviously if the themes of your site and site linking to you are similar, the more likely that it generate traffic. 
  2. Search engines track the number of sites linking to you. The theory is that the more links to you, the more important the site hence a higher ranking. 
  3. Search engine spiders crawl the Internet going from site to site and indexing web sites. Links to your site help drive the spiders to your site. 

An Opportunity For Our Travel, Hospitality, Recreation Business Clients

Centraltravelguide.com is a one-stop resource that provides consumers with an online national travel and vacation guide of information. We are delighted to announce a Partner Arrangement with Webconsuls, featuring a tailored program to provide special benefits to Webconsuls’ clients.

Although there are numerous “travel related” websites currently available on-line, Centraltravelguide.com sets itself apart by specializing in “a quick and easy searchable database” of information.

This content is free of the usual “banner” type of advertisements, pop-up windows, airfare offers, hotel discounts coupons and other travel related information that often interferes with a consumer’s informational needs.

The site is simply ‘sponsored’ by travel and vacation related websites. These sponsors are conveniently located in their corresponding area of the site. For example, our client, Magic Falls Rafting (www.magicfalls.com) is a sponsor of Centraltravelguide.com’s MAINE accommodations area, as well as its RAFTING section. With this system of sponsorship Magic Falls specifically targets those consumers applicable to their services.

Best of all there’s no cost to Magic Falls Rafting. All Magic Falls does is host a link to Central Travel Guide on their main index page. This linkage provides visitors of Magic Falls with a national database of information just clicks away. This type of co-sponsorship markets both Magic Falls Rafting and Central Travel Guide.

Centraltravelguide.com is in the process of building its network of sponsors. Besides sponsors in the vacation and travel industry, CTG is also visited by consumers from other websites outside the travel industry. Their database information is partnered with sites like Collegenews.com, a site that has received over 3 million hits annually for the past three years.

Central Travel Guide is like an online ‘inserted travel guide.’ Their database of information is currently available on 12 partner sites. The site, and it’s easily accessible database, was launched this past May and expects to fill up with partnerships quickly. For information on becoming a Sponsor, contact Webconsuls as soon as possible to ensure obtaining your State Sponsorship position.

How You Can Help Yourself and Us


Your web site was developed on a computer, probably by a designer, maybe one of our designers, maybe by yourself or a friend. In any case the site was transferred to what it called a Server where it is hosted on the Internet. So your designer has a copy and there is a copy on the server. When you hire Webconsuls for Web Site Marketing we download your site from the server, make critical changes for search engine placement, and put the site back on the Server. We also monitor the success of our work and may later make other changes to improve positioning.

Now let’s say you want to make a change to your site, maybe a modest change like changing a few images. If the designer works with the version on the designer’s computer and then uploads it to the Server, our important changes will be lost. It is therefore critical that you inform whoever is changing your site that they should work with the version on the Server so that they then start with the version that has our changes. You should also tell us that the site is being changed so that we make sure that our work has not been lost.

Redoing our work because someone else has destroyed it is not part of our arrangement with you. In the future we will charge for this work. Before starting we will tell you what has happened and provide an estimate at $75/hour.

Silver, Gold and Platinum Accounts


Our Silver Package is designed for small sites, those about 5 pages or less, that are not in extremely competitive categories. For these sites we make our changes to up to 5 pages and submit to the major search engines and directories. Quarterly we resubmit the key pages and send a position report to the client. We have recently raised the sign up fee for Silver Accounts to $475. The quarterly fee is $75.

The Gold Package is designed for larger sites in more competitive categories. For these sites we work on up to 9 key pages. We resubmit monthly and send the position report on a monthly basis as well. The sign up fee for Gold Accounts has been raised to $500. The quarterly fee remains at $100.

Platinum accounts are large sites in very competitive categories. These sites are custom quoted. The schedule for submissions and the position report is done on a case by case basis and we generally add pages designed by us for search engine placement.

Changing Web Site Hosts


It is sometime necessary to change your web site host. This can be a simple process or it can get very involved. A new host needs to be found, Internet records must be updated, your site needs to be uploaded to the new server, any server functions that your site uses need to be tested and perhaps redone, and email accounts may need to be reconfigured.

We have recently moved the Webconsuls web site to Millennium, a hosting company located in Southern California. As part of the move we will have to redo the area that processed credit cards on-line, so that functionality is currently down at our site.

We will work with you if you want to change your web site host. However we will need to charge if there is extensive work involved. Contact us and we can discuss.

Dennis Helfand and Dick Fay, Managing Partners.