This week Google released its new design for Image Search. The new design includes a tiled layout with instant scrolling between pages. This has already drawn some inevitable comparisons to Bing’s image search, which is particularly interesting given Google’s overall more Bing-like user interface launched earlier this year.

In fact, Google has been drawing a great deal of criticism, and general observation this week regarding its increasing “Bingness”. A very large percentage of the articles written this week about Google’s new image search, not only make comparisons to Bing, but mention it in the title.

Some question why Google is trying to become more like Bing, while it already controls a much larger part of the search market. Others think the changes are for the better. After all, it’s not like Google has changed its algorithm to match Bing’s.

Still, “It seems that almost every time that Google makes an improvement in its aesthetic appeal, it looks more and more like Bing, notes Converseon’s Mike Moran. “Remember the short-lived attempt to customize the Google home page recently which has since been removed?”

Let’s Look at the actual new design…

You can get up to a thousand images in one scrolling page, and the pages will have page numbers so you can keep track of where you are. This has been a feature lacking from Bing’s image search (though it does at least display a number for the range currently displayed…such as 377-416 of 6,400,000 results).

Google is also providing larger thumbnail previews on the results page, with a hover pane that appears when you mouse over a thumbnail. This includes more info and other features like “similar images.”
“Once you click on an image, you’re taken to a new landing page that displays a large image in context, with the website it’s hosted on visible right behind it,” explains Google Images Product Manager Nate Smith. “Click anywhere outside the image, and you’re right in the original page where you can learn more about the source and context.”

Finally, you can use Page Up/ Page Down to scroll through pages quickly.

Some webmasters have taken issue with Google’s new image search design, complaining that it puts their ads further away from being clicked. “The main issue from a webmaster perspective, as noted in WebmasterWorld, is that when you click on an image, it doesn’t take you to the site,” writes Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable. “Instead, it keeps you on Google, overlays the image in large format on top of your grayed out web site.”

“So any ads on your site won’t be clickable after the first click from Google. Users are instructed to either go back, click on the web site with the image or click on the actual image source file,” he explains. “I should note that clicking anywhere on the background web site will take you to that web site.”

Remember, the new design did come with a new ad format too. The format is called (appropriately) Image Search Ads.

“These ads appear only on Google Images, and they let you include a thumbnail image alongside your lines of text,” explains Google Images Product Manager Nate Smith. “We hope they’re a useful way to reach folks who are specifically looking for images.”

Advertisers can review specific performance metrics for their ads on Google Images. They are priced the same as standard AdWords ads with cost-per-click pricing. More on these here.

As far as Google’s recent design choices, it is pretty clear that Bing has had some kind of influence on them. The question is whether or not this is a good thing. So, I’ll ask you…is it?

Have you ever wondered who is listing you better Yahoo or Google?
Today we are featuring an app that will let you compare listings for certain search phrases between Google and Yahoo.

Bear in mind that it is always a good idea to submit your URL to both search engines before hand.
You cant expect Google to know your website exists if you don’t tell them about it!.

the application is called Comparing Google and Yahoo! Search results, You can also compare google to other google domains like google.com to google.cn

when running the search the results are displayed with lines joining the positions on each server.

So “Google” yourself or your website and see where you stand.

We have discussed the security risks of local business listing hijackings in the past. One of the comments made about these security discussions is why do the geo-listing websites like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and up to 60 others insure the security to avoid hijackings?

Of course the question to be asked is why should they provide the security service for a free marketing tool that will benefit the business?

Geo-Listing Security

Many of these websites do have some level of security built into the process of claiming an existing listing or adding a new listing.

So far, these security processes have included sending a post card to the existing address with a pin code; a computer calling to the business phone number with the pin; or in some cases a manual review by staff working for these geo-listing websites.

On May 27th, Google announced that community edits of local business listings was no longer be allowed to go without staff review. An excerpt of their announcement states:

“We recently made a change to Google Maps to require all community edits to be reviewed before they are shown. In the past, some “pending” edits were shown immediately on Maps and only moderated (and sometimes denied) later on.

We’re taking this step to ensure that changes to Google Maps pass the high quality bar our users expect, while preventing SPAM and other problems from showing up before being reviewed first.”

In summary Google is stating all community edits made to unclaimed local business listings will have to be approved by a Google representative before they are sent live.

Supposedly, this means no more worrying about a competitor hijacking your listing and stealing your customers.

It definitely means it will take longer for information to reach the local consumers through web searches and mobile searches.

While on the surface this may sound like at least Google is addressing the security issues of local business listings, the announcement did not discuss the security of data coming from third party sources through API’s.

Certainly third tier business directories have no security and their data is sold upstream or makes its way to other database across the Internet with wrong information available for the consumers.

Why the high expectations for Free Geo-Marketing services?

I am certainly concerned about the security issues around local business listings, but I cannot expect these geo-listing websites to provide security for my company. The reason I do not expect them to provide this security is because they are providing the marketing service for free.

Why should any business assume that a free service should have high level of security? We could certainly say “you get what you pay for”!

The issue for businesses lies in the book titled “Crossing the Chasm”. This book discusses innovators vs. early adopters vs. late adopters. The questions to businesses that have seen the Internet add, mature, and change technologies are:

* How long are you going to continue to wait to adopt Geo-Marketing technologies to help you generate revenue?
* Do you feel like you’re always behind the eight ball with the Internet?

A business cannot possibly understand how to use the various Geo-Marketing technologies well. For this reason you need to consider securing professional help and engage in these marketing technologies sooner rather than later. Plan these technologies progressively over a 3-year period.

Additional incentives for early adoption of Geo-Marketing technologies

There are three critical points that businesses need to consider now and not wait until the 11th hour.

1. The first and foremost we already discussed, which is hijackings.
2. Now let’s add that for your business there may be multiple duplicate listings that need to be cleaned up, merged and/or deleted to not confuse the consumers when there are multiple listings for your business.
3. Lastly, consumer reviews especially negative ones can potentially have an adverse affect on your website’s search engine ranking positions as search engine adopt consumer reviews as an additional data point to decide who is in the top ten for a search.

Author: Melih Oztalay

Your website’s content will get noticed, get read, and get customers if you use your headline and first paragraph to let readers know what is in it for them. Here, I’ll introduce you to some techniques you can use to make that happen.

This article is an edited version of a chapter of Wordtracker’s The Website Content Recipe Book – 21 irresistible content ideas to wow visitors and boost your search engine optimization.

Visitors may first enter your site through almost any page. And for various reasons no matter what you do, many will not read more than one page. Therefore, to maximize response you must treat every page as a marketing page. So add adverts to where they will be seen – a subject I plan to write about next week (look for ‘How to make your articles sell’).

But only a small percentage of readers will respond when first seeing even quality adverts. You’ll have to work a bit harder for the rest of your readers. You’ll have to use your pages’ content to make them consider a marketing proposal (perhaps another day). You must prove that you (and your brand) are expert at delivering what’s wanted, and can be trusted. To do that, your page must first be read.

Who is Your Site for… and What Do They Want?

When you’re busy creating content, it’s easy to forget that your website exists to sell your products and services to particular groups of people. And even if you wouldn’t forget such a thing – can the same be said for everybody who writes for you?

As well researched and expert as you are in your field, it can be hard to put yourself in the position of your targeted visitors who, when they come, will spare just a few seconds to find a reason to read the content.

When constructing an argument or presenting a product, it seems logical to first present the building blocks of your case before giving the end result. The end results should be something that will make your readers’ lives better. But…

People Purchase Benefits Not Features

If you want readers to read on, you must spell out the benefits before describing and explaining the features.

Features are the characteristics of what you’re selling. Benefits are the things that those features will do for you.

or example, people don’t purchase light bulbs for features like being long lasting, bright, and cheap. People purchase light bulbs for benefits like saving money or the planet and helping them do things in what would otherwise be darkness.

Your Headline is the Most Important Part of Your Content

If your headline does not promise something of interest, then your article won’t get read and you’ll struggle to sell. This is because most visitors arrive at a page, read a headline and then make a decision to stay or go.

Also, if a page is linked from elsewhere on your site or others then your headline is likely to be used for the link. When reading headlines, potential readers are looking for what a page might do for them. They are looking for benefits and if your headline does not deliver, they are gone.

Here are a few guidelines for headline writing:

• Promise benefits – tell readers what the content will do for them.

• Don’t be clever or obscure and don’t make the reader think too much.

• Don’t be ironic because most readers won’t know you are being ironic.

• Don’t force readers to read the story in order to understand the headline.

• Try asking a question about a problem and entice with the solution.

For a masterclass in headline writing, try Wordtracker’s recent eight-part headline writing course by Sean D’Souza, a master of the craft.

Your First Paragraph is the Second Most Important Part of Your Content

Make your first paragraph (aka the lead or the standfirst) as succinct, clear, and uncluttered as it can possibly be.

If a visitor has been interested enough in your headline to read on, the next thing they will read is your opening paragraph where you have to give the same benefits with a little more detail.

You can’t explain everything with your first paragraph. So find the most important idea you want to put across, explain what it is and perhaps begin to elaborate on it.

For example, this article’s lead is:

“Your content will get noticed, get read and get customers if you use your headlines and first paragraphs to let readers know what is in it for them. Here we’ll introduce you to some techniques you can use to make that happen.”

It starts with a benefit:

“…get noticed, get read and get customers…”

…and then comes a summary of how to achieve that:

“…if you use your headline and first paragraph to tell readers what is in it for them”

Then the second sentence repeats the benefit with some detail about how this will be achieved:

“…we’ll introduce you to some techniques you can use to make that happen.”

Hopefully we’ve achieved what this first paragraph set out to do and in the future no visitors to your site will leave without you having done everything you can to get them to read on and reach your marketing.

The people at Google are truly inspired! They are evolving their search engine into something that can be an incredibly powerful tool for business. There are a zillion things that Google can do for different parts of your business and in this post, I will highlight the top 10 Google search tools that will help your supply chain.

Since Google is just a click away, I think it’s a very useful for everybody involved in the supply chain to be aware of how much easier it can make their lives. Everybody from traffic managers, to purchasing people, to accounting people and customer service will likely need to reference what Google can do during the course of the week. There are a lot of people who don’t even know all of Google’s capabilities. So without further ado, here is your:

Top 10 Google Search Tools That Will Help Your Supply Chain

1. Package Tracking – You can track packages by typing the tracking number for your UPS, Fedex or USPS package directly into the search box. Some of the LTL and motor carriers also allow for you to plug in their pro numbers as well. Google will return results that include quick links to easily track the status of your shipment.

Example of what to search for: “1Z9999W9999999999″

2. Time – This is huge when dealing with vendors or customers overseas or across the country. To see the time in many cities world wide, type in “time” and the name of the city.

Example of what to search for: “time London”

3. Currency Conversion – This is cool! To use Google’s built-in currency converter, simply enter the conversion you’d like done into the Google search box and they’ll provide your answer directly on the results page.

Example of what to search for: “150 GBP in USD”

4. Unit Conversion – Countries use different metrics for measuring. This tool is extremely useful. You can use Google to convert between many different units of measurement of height, weight, and volume among many others. Just enter your desired conversion into the search box and Google will do the rest.

Example of what to search for: “10.5 cm in inches”

5. Calculator – Since Google is right on your desk top you don’t have to go searching for your calculator. Plus it uses Excel style equations so it’s really easy for business people who think in Excel. To use Google’s built-in calculator function; simply enter the calculation you’d like done into the search box.

Example of what to search for: “5*9+(sqrt 10)^3=”

6. Weather – Weather plays a big role in transportation so this is great for getting a snapshot of the world’s weather. To see the weather for many U.S. and worldwide cities, type “weather” followed by the city and state, U.S. zip code, or city and country.

Example of what to search for: “weather San Francisco, CA”

7. Maps – Want to see the mileage between a shipper and a consignee or try to figure out where your vendor is located? This is great! Type in the name or U.S. zip code of a location and the word “map” and Google will return a map of that location. Clicking on the map will take you to a larger version on Google Maps.

Example of what to search for: “Seattle map”

8. Area Code – This can be helpful in situations ranging from trying to find where a phone call is coming from to finding out what part of the country you are calling. To see the geographical location for any U.S. telephone area code, just type the three-digit area code into the Google search box and hit the Enter key or click the Google Search button.

Example of what to search for: “212″

9. Stock Quotes – Wanna see how a freight carrier or a vendor is doing in the market? Just type the ticker symbol into the search box. On the results page, you can click the link to see more data from Google Finance as well.

Example of what to search for: “MSFT”

10. Earthquakes – I have heard carriers make up some crack pot reasons why they missed the delivery. In case you are given the old earthquake excuse, you can use Google to see if the story checks out. To see information about recent earthquakes in a specific area type “earthquake” followed by the city and state or U.S. zip code.

Example of what to search for: “earthquake 90210″

*When entering keyword or phrase into Google’s search engine with these tools, do not use quotation marks.

For years now, the squeeze page has practically been the lingua franca of the marketing online world. Whether you’re in real estate (and actually, the real estate industry in particular has leaned particularly heavily on squeeze pages), banking, e-commerce or anything else, the conventional wisdom has been to target tightly focused groups of consumers through these web pages/marketing tools.

These pages do OK at helping marketers identify which keywords or keyword phrases do well in terms of attracting targeted traffíc and if they’re well designed, at gathering email addresses or other contact information from these visitors. However, there are much better methods of doing keyword research than creating a separate squeeze page for each of your keywords. Additionally, building and maintaining these pages represents an investment of time and money which isn’t likely to produce a worthwhile return.

The squeeze page is dead – it just doesn’t know it yet and neither do the marketers who still use this direct marketing-style methodology in their líst building efforts. I know there’s probably at least a few of you out there reading this that still use them and are wondering what exactly is wrong with squeeze pages.

As it happens, the answer is plenty. They’re unappealing to consumers and increasingly, they’re seen as undesirable pieces of virtual property by the search engines as well. When you’re trying to market your business with a tool that turns off both your target market and the search engines, it’s clear that the time has come to abandon ship. I’ll explain in more detail below.

They’re Completely Unappealing To Readers

You’ve seen a squeeze page before – and chances are you’ve hit the back button on your browser almost immediately. These pages almost universally feature incredibly unattractive cookie cutter designs and copy which is generally nothing but sensational hype. That alone is enough to turn off most readers, not to mention that squeeze pages seem all too often to be riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. Put simply, they don’t look professional by any stretch of the imagination – but they do look professional enough to fool many business people who are new to the medium of the web into using them at least for a while.

Think of it this way – if you got a flyer in the mail that looked like one of these pages, would you be in a hurry to contact the marketer to sign up for their mailing líst, let alone actually do business with them? Probably not.

As a general rule, if it looks too awful to be true, it’s just what it looks like and squeeze pages are a prime example of this. They lack any kind of credibility with your prospective customers, especially when you’re in the real estate business. These pages make you look like the online equivalent of a shady used car salesman, not the kind of person that people want to do a real estate deal with. There are other things about squeeze pages that turn off your potential customers, but since there’s some crossover with this and the SEO shortcomings of the format, we’ll get back to that a little later on.

Google Slaps Squeeze Pages

It’s true: squeeze pages are nothing less than poison as far as your performance in the search engines is concerned. Google and other search engines have been working on ways to discount the rankings of these pages, which are rarely the kind of content that users are actually looking for when they use the keywords which these sites target. It comes down to what it always comes down to when search engine rankings are the issue – relevance. A webpage designed to entice visitors to fork over their contact information simply isn’t that relevant to many, if any, actual search engine queries, no matter how much content you try to cram onto the page.

Speaking of the content, this is something which has changed about squeeze pages in the last couple of years. Once these pages started being penalized by search engines for their lack of content (“classic” squeeze pages, after all, feature little more than an opt-in form), marketers started turning them into the online equivalent of the long form sales letter – in other words, something no one wants to read, especially not page after page. This unappealing content has led to a further decline in the ranking of these pages in search results, making them even worse marketing tools than they already were.

Squeeze Pages Can Sink Your Main Site

Let’s get back to that subtitle about Google “slapping” squeeze pages, because this is one of the most important points I’d like to make here today. If your squeeze pages either link to or are part of your main site, they’re more than likely causing a slump in your main site’s search engine ranking, making you less visible to your market online. In other words, the exact opposite of what you’d hoped to accomplish. If these pages link to your site, you can be penalized for these links from unpopular sites in what Google considers to be an iffy online neighborhood – and what are the three most important things in real estate? Exactly.

Another way that squeeze pages can drag down your online presence is through having a large percentage of duplicate content. Many businesses throw up dozens of squeeze pages which are basically identical other than the targeted keywords for that particular page. Even if you make an effort to rewrite the content on these pages, there’s only so much you can do without putting a disproportionate amount of time or money into the effort.

So if squeeze pages are out, what are real estate professionals to do in terms of marketing online? There’s plenty of options, all of which are better choices than building a series of squeeze pages. I won’t go into them all here, but as always on the web, it’s all about good content which is geared towards readers first and search engines second. When your market sees you as credible and reputable, they’ll beat a path to your door and happily sign up for your email list. And where the market goes, the search engines will follow; but no one’s flocking to squeeze pages.

There is no exact formula for internet marketing success, but there are some general guidelines that virtually all successful people follow.

Here are the 7 habits of highly effective internet marketers:

Habit 1: Doing something every day

Let’s start off our list with the one thing that will positively make or break an internet marketer: keeping your butt in the chair! It is so easy to keep working hard day after day when the results are flowing, but often in this industry, they take time to show up. It is not hard to get discouraged and take weeks off, but that will destroy your business and any chances you had for success.

You do not need to kill yourself every day, but just do a little bit. Lay one brick of your wall and in a few years you will have your own mini Great Wall of China.

Habit 2: Setting the right goals

As the old adage goes: failing to plan is planning to fail. You must, must, must set the right goals. What constitutes a “right” goal? Anything that:
1) is reasonable for you to achieve in the near future
2) is focused in the right direction, something that will lead to even greater things
and 3) is something you desire and is worth your effort to achieve. Follow those steps and set your goals.

Habit 3: Doing in-depth research

There is a time and place for gut feelings, but this business is very logical. Of course you need to do what your are interested in doing, and you need to have fun. But it is also important to do research on any new idea or technique that you have in mind.

9 times out of 10 you will fail if you just “see what happens.” Chances are, someone else has already done it and written about the results. You will save yourself a great deal of effort (and heartache) if you simply research any new thing you plan on doing, whether this is a new site idea, a new niche, a marketing technique, etc. Research before acting.

Habit 4: Networking with others

There are thousands of VERY skilled internet marketers that have much more experience than the both of us combined, and make far more money than us, too.

Why not find these people and ride their coattails? Go to forums or blogs and start interacting with others. At worst you find like-minded people that will encourage you, at best you will find an awesome mentor that can show you exactly what you need to learn.

Habit 5: Outsourcing

If you have been in this business for any length of time, you know that it is impossible to do everything yourself. The world is now far too specialized and there is simply not enough time to learn and keep up with it all yourself.

Find a pro. In fact, always have a team of pros just one email or IM away. A web designer, xhtml coder, php developer, content writer, and whatever else you might need. Build a good team and keep them happy, because they will keep you happy (and sane).

Habit 6: Building upon success

Many times in this business we get bored with success. Then, what happens is you start looking for new avenues to conquer. Don’t do this. Instead, if you have one success repeat that again and again. Use your momentum to propel you even farther.

Take one victory and turn it into 10 victories. Maybe you built one successful content site, now do the same thing 10 more times. Or if you have a successful local site, expand nationally. This is how you build an empire that is incredibly valuable.

Habit 7: Keeping Focus!

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, keep your focus!

There seems to be a virus that infects internet marketers. As soon as we get knee-deep into one awesome idea, something shiny in the distance catches our attention. We are then tempted to give up all our progress and start chasing this new object. Or worse, we think we can do both at once, but that just ends up in failure on all levels.

When you make a decision to start something new, refuse any other ideas, no matter how awesome they seem. Create a folder with good ideas for later, but for now you are committed.

Following the above tips will not guarantee you everlasting success online, but breaking them will most certainly lead to failure. Begin to implement these ideas and you will be preparing the way for internet marketing success!

Define yourself. When beginning, this is the first step in branding yourself. You need to realize that you are very good, even an expert, at what you do. You surround yourself, either in your job or in your circle of friends, with others who are experts in what you know. Then, you begin to believe that everybody knows what you know and you see yourself as average and begin making mental statements such as “What do I have to offér that is different or unique? Everybody knows what I know.”

WRONG.

You have friends, neighbors, and associates that come to you asking for your help and advice. Or perhaps asking, “can you teach me how to do that?” What kinds of questions do they ask you? Ask yourself this powerful question:

“What sort of things are people asking me when they ask ‘Can I pick your brain for a minute?’”

Fire Your Financial Advisor suggests the following to stimulate ideas on who you are and how you can stand out:

“Do you have a certain skill where someone said ‘Can you teach me that?’ Or, have you overcome a certain experience, such as death of a loved one, divorce, financial ruin, raising children, passed a training, etc? Sometimes, we discredit our own uniqueness because ‘it’s just our life.’ However, there are others that have questions or problems that want answers that YOU can offer.” They go on to suggest you ask yourself the following questions:

“What was I being asked to teach or do when someone asked ‘Can I pick your brain for a minute?’ What skill/hobby did a person ask me to teach them? What difficult experiences did I overcome? What do I constantly get compliments on that I downplay? What ‘quirky’ things do I do?”

Be known as the expert in one thing – stand for something! Find your niche, something you are passionate about.

Create a signature look. Something people will recognize immediately. I’ve often told people if you were to find a piece of product literature on the ground and the brand or logo had been torn off, would you know who created the piece? If it came from Apple Computer you would. They have their signature look to everything they create. You can too.

This could be your unique name or a unique nick name. A buddy of mine has a very common name and has become an expert in social media. He created a signature and calls himself “SocialSam.” Laurie Pehar Borsh from Laurie Pehar Borsh Personal PR Productions has a simple logo she always associates with her name.

Maybe your signature look is a tagline. My son has a tagline or mantra of “No food, only music the doctor says!” Yes, he is a musician. For others, their signature look is their attire or hair. For others it is a greeting. An Irishman I know always answers the phone or greets people in the morning with “Top of the mornin!” This is his signature.

Maybe it is as simple as a unique business card. A good buddy of mine just handed me his new business card that looked and felt like a circuit board! What is unique about what I do, what I love, what I know?

Step back from yourself and ask yourself, how do others see me?

Become well known for one thing – you’ve got to stand for something or you stand for nothing. Find your niche. This is NOT the time to play it safe. Doing just enough to blend in to the crowd will get you just that, you’ll blend in and when someone needs your advice or expertise they will not be able to find you. Creating a personal elevator pitch with your “who” and “do what” statement followed by your “why” statement will keep you on track and focused on your goals. Without clearly understanding your personal brand, it will be difficult to stand out and be found when someone is looking for you. Your “who” and “do what” statement is a very simple thought about yourself. Keep it simple and easy to understand. It answers the question “who are you and what do you do?” concisely and in a fashion that is memorable.

For example, which says more and has more impact:

“My name is Jack and I am a business consultant.”

Or

“I’m Jack. I help business owners and sales professionals grow their clientèle.”

Simple, yet powerful. You answer the question of whom you help and what you help them get or do. Depending on what type of professional you are, your “who” and “do what” statement should include the following elements:

– As a business owner this statement should express who your target market is and what problems you solve for that market.

– As an employee this statement should express what problems and obstacles you tackle for your managers and bosses.

– As a salesperson this statement should express who your target customers are and what problems you solve for them. It should also express what goals you are helping your boss achieve through your sales expertise.

Here is another example. “Telecom Senior Executive who took a startup to $120MM annual sales with $28MM EBITDA in less than three years.” This directly speaks to a potential client or employer and says who you are and what you can do for them backed up by a history of success.

Now tell me, why do you do it anyway? Why do you get up every day to help them get what they want? My favorite interview question is “What gets you out of bed every morning?” An alarm clock is the wrong answer! I’m not looking for a specific answer but rather to discover the passion driving someone’s life. Your “why” not only drives the choices you make, but it also affects how others connect emotionally to what you do for them. The why is reflected in everything you do. It completes your personal brand.

Michael Port, Entrepreneur Magazine has this why statement: “Because I want to help people think bigger about who they are and what they offer the world.” He goes on to say, “I can go one step further and turn my why statement into a tag line to spread my personal brand and grow my sales potential, ‘The guy to call when you are tired of thinking small.’ This expresses the most fundamental, deepest part of my character.” Michael Port, Entrepreneur Magazine – January 2010.

Guy Kawasaki, The Art of the Start, inspired by John Doerr, says,

“The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning – to create a product or service that makes the world a better place.

Does the product or service you are pursuing change lives for the better? Change the world we live in for the better? Provide something incredible previously out of reach of the average person?”

If what you are doing provides one of these benefits or similar benefits and fits your personal “why” you are on the road to success. Your brand is beginning to take shape. Your personal brand is built on a solid foundation. With your “who”, “do what”, and “why” statements in hand and in your heart go forth and “make meaning.”

article by Brad Hess

Most business professionals are on LinkedIn at this point. LinkedIn tells us that:

• LinkedIn has over 70 million members in over 200 countries.

• A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second, and
about half of our members are outside the U.S.

• Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.

To me that states clearly that if you have almost ANY kind of business and are prospecting, LI will be a good resource for you. But just setting up a profile and dabbling once a week or so is not going to do much for your prospecting efforts. Below are a few tips that not many folks know about, but are powerful techniques for increasing your visibility and maximizing that “inbound marketing” that Social Media is known for.

1. Create 3 saved searches. If you are doing a search on a company, person, industry or whatever, save your searches. At the top where you see the number of records in your search you’ll see a “save this search” button – you get 3 if you are at the basic level. LI will send you a weekly email, if you want, to get updates to your search.

2. Recommendations are important, so ask for them. But make it easy. I first call or email my contact and ask if they will recommend me. If so, write the recommendatíon yourself – so you are sure that you are sending the right message. Be sure to talk about the problems you solved – that’s really the point, isn’t it?

3. Use the Question and Answer area to gain more visibility on the Internet. On the question that you answer you will see a “share this” with a drop down menu. You can email your network, Digg it, Bookmark the question on Delicious, or use the link provided in your answer and link to one of your blog posts, or somewhere else on your site to pull in traffic.

4. Join groups that are in line with your business, your objectives or your hoped for job. Fish where the fish are. The more “on target” the group, the more valuable the content they provide, and the networking opportunities will be.

5. Use groups to expand your network, but be selective. In the groups tabs, you will see “Groups Directory”. Select that and on the next page use Search Groups, selecting “other” from the drop down categories menu. Join the groups that interest you. Once you are a member, you will have access to the members in that group. Try connecting with the ones that make sense. You might evaluate based on the size of their network, the type of company or industry they are in or how much interaction they have had with the group.

6. Did you know you can export your connections? Go to “Contacts.” Then “Connections. ” At the bottom of your Connections box is “Export Connections. ” Export the connections and import them into your preferred address book. Do this frequently so you are consolidating all of your contacts in one spot (might be Outlook, Act, Salesforce).

7. Refer to both the LinkedIn Learning Center and their blog. The Learning Center is full of great tutorials and the blog has info on updated and new features with full explanations.

8. For better and more valued networking, when you invite someone to join your network, don’t use the canned LinkedIn message. Say something about who you are and why you want to connect with that person.

9. To really maximize your profile, find one or two LinkedIn specialists (Google that phrase, or check Amazon for authors) and look up their profile. Study carefully and learn by example.

10. Be creative about how you use the Answers section. It can be used to ask for solutions to problems, for resources, for vendors, for processes. But it can also be used to find good connections, or find other groups you may want to join, to deliver information on your products or services, IF it provides an answer to the question. Sometimes you’ve got the perfect solution!

11. You can share a group with your connections – more value added to your community. When you are in a specific group, on the Overview tab you will see an option to “share group” and you can send an email to 50 of your connections.

12. Don’t hop over the “People You May Know” suggestions that appears in the upper right corner of your home page. Expand the box and start connecting with people on an ongoing basis. This is a great way to widen your circle.

LinkedIn is a powerful tool for almost any social media objective – branding, lead generation, or job searching. Invest some time in learning the finer points – you will be glad you did.

When you think of public utilities, you think of things such as water, electricity, and telecommunications, right?

It’s an interesting thought and one that, according to Kevin Ryan of Motivity Marketing, is not too far out in left field. He did not mince words when he told WebProNews, “Search is going to be seen as a public utility.”

If you look at various definitions of the term “public utility,” you can see that they often explain it as a monopoly on the services it provides. Since Google is clearly the leader in search, with comScore’s most recent report showing that the search company occupies 63.7 percent of the market, is it a monopoly?

Although many rumors have indicated as much, no one has ever challenged the idea until last week. The New York Times reports that France did, in fact, call the search giant a monopoly in regards to advertising in online searches.
Not only is Google a leader in search and advertising, but it is also quickly gaining ground in the mobile industry. It has and is continuing to receive its fair share of antitrust concerns from both the U.S. and abroad in all these areas.

Incidentally, Ryan also points out in the above video that Google obtained a license to buy and sell electricity earlier this year.

Based upon this information, the idea of search as a public utility doesn’t really seem too far off after all.

“It’s going to get really, really interesting really fast,” said Ryan.