more bloggers you probably don't know yet

Just had to post this pic SOMEwhere.

Sunday very early morning blog finds

Musings of an Inappropriate Woman by Rachel Hills - So damned inappropriate! :)

Intelligent Productivity — Work Less, Live More - I am impressed by the thoughtfulness of an Information Marketer. Practical Life Design for Smart People by @TheJohnSoares

The Busy Dad Blog IMO most Dad blogs are boring. Not this one, though. Hi! I'm Asian. While most people can think of at least one mainstream Asian professional athlete, we're still pretty much on the trailing edge of statistical significance in the arena of "cool sports."

Greg Cryns Work At Home Profiles
.
.

2 Kickass Lady Bloggers You May Not Know About

Photo credit: Sadistic


First, should it be Kickass or Kick Ass? I guess the first one is generally accepted?

How I found the 2 Kickass lady bloggers:

I saw an interesting title out there -Why You Can’t Make Money Blogging which is on the hugely successful Copyblogger blog. I looked to see who wrote it since I know Copyblogger is often written by talented guest bloggers.

About the Author: Sonia Simone ( @soniasimone ) is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and the founder of Remarkable Communication

I click the link to Remarkable Communication to see what Sonia Simone is about. Trust me, you want to take a look if you love good writing and great Internet tips. I subscribed to Sonia's free email class on creating better content.

Here is a list of her most popular posts:

• Must-Have Resources to Launch Your Small Business
• The Complete Flake's Guide to Getting Things Done
• 50 Things Your Customers Wish You Knew
• Email Marketing: How Not to Be a Dirty Rotten Spammer
• The Toddler's Guide to Salesmanship
• 7 Dumb Small Business Mistakes You Can't Afford

I then visited Sonia's About page to learn more. I see another interesting headline "Do you love it, or do you just have one of those creepy knacks?" which was written by Naomi Dunford.

So, I scoot on over to find out about this Naomi person who owns a talent for remarkable headings. I land at the IttyBiz blog. (gotta love that name)

IttyBiz (@IttyBiz ) is loaded with gold nuggets for people looking for excellent business marketing ideas. Here are some samples:

• A Home Business Marketing Lesson For My Local Sex Shop
• How We Killed Social Media
• When You Feel Like A Raging Failure
• Moral Of The Story: Topless Edition (With Photos!)
• Entrepreneurship: What To Do When You’re Scared Sh*tless

There you have it. Two blogs I plan to return to that I found by following the links.

Connect the dots for fun and profit.


Takeaways:

1. I like the idea of picking out your best posts to show your lucky visitors.
2. I'm wondering if the ladies are better bloggers than the gents. What do you think?

Greg Cryns
Work At Home Profiles

Google improves Google Local

There is a good article in the SFGate.com

The article describes the new features added.

• Service area: If travel to serve customers, you can now list the areas you cover.
• New advertising feature called "Tags." It costs $25 a month for a business to tag themselves. They get little yellow stickies that highlight their business on Google Maps with tags.
• Free photos of your business. Google will travel to your business, take nice interior photos and upload them to your page.
• Customized QR codes. These aren't really popular here yet, but Google is trying to change that. QR codes are those things that look like TV static, but are barcodes. If you take a picture of a business's QR code with certain smartphones, you get a ton of information on the business. Google suggests putting the QR code on flyers and business cards for users.
• More favorite places. Google is mailing out a fresh batch of Favortie Places decals, which you may have seen in the windows of certain businesses. Similar to Yelp stickers, or even City Guide stickers if you've seen those.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/04/20/businessinsider-google-places-for-local-business-2010-4.DTL#ixzz0lqA5yLpj

Greg Cryns

How to make money in business during a crappy economy

Photo by Wade Allsopp

Here is the short answer about how to make money in business: Do the things that other business people are not willing to do.

This morning I spoke with a client who wanted to put a video on his website. Mark paints houses for a living. Sometimes he does drywall installation.

Mark's voice sounded a little desperate. He told me he would not have time to talk to me in "normal" times. But he said he has plenty of time right now even though it is what used to be prime time for his business. "They just aren't calling like they used to," he said.

We shared ideas about how he can create new sales. Mark read from a list he made last week. They included door-to-door bell ringing and calling up old customers among others.

These tactics are also referred to as guerrilla marketing. Guerrilla marketing is "guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional; potentially interactive." In other words, they are employed when the tried and true methods are failing.

From Wikipedia: "Guerrilla marketing involves unusual approaches such as intercept encounters in public places, street giveaways of products, PR stunts, any unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources. More innovative approaches to Guerrilla marketing now utilize cutting edge mobile digital technologies to really engage the consumer and create a memorable brand experience."

I try to tell people what I think would be the best course of action even if I don't immediately make money for me. I've come full circle and honestly believe that the more you give the more you get.

"Mark, " I said, "I think the best thing for you to do right now is to call all of your customers starting from the earliest."

Mark paused and said, "But what about my Google Local listing?" Yes, that was my initial reason for the phone call. "You asked me what I thought was your best course of action so I gave you my opinion," I said.

"I think getting a better position in Google will help a lot in the future," I said. "But just think, you could have been earning money calling on old customers instead of talking to me for the last hour!"

I told him that successful people take actions that unsuccessful people won't do.

Calling people on the phone is an activity that is particularly dreadful to many business people.

But my experience tells me that I made money when I called people on the phone or made "cold call" visits at their places of business.

What do you think? Do you have any Guerrilla Marketing methods. Please share!

Greg Cryns
The Mighty Mo Website Design and Promotion
.
.

Birthday card marketing works

Carnival Cruise Lines sent me an electronic birthday greeting this year. We took a short cruise in January.

I know they used an autoresponder to send the greeting but I still feel warm and fuzzy about Carnival for this.

Think about it. How many birthday cards do you receive? Not too many, right?

One of the greatest auto salesmen, Joe Girard, would send out up to 13,000 postcards a month to his customers. He sold over 1,000 new cars in one year doing that.

Try postcard marketing for your business. It works!

Greg Cryns
Send Out Cards

Small Business Tips for LinkedIn

Guy Kawasaki put together a great post about LinkedIn with the help of his "buddies at LinkedIn."

Read and heed Guy's article Ten Ways for Small Businesses to Use LinkedIn It's a great one!

Guy said, "Acquire new customers through online recommendations and word of mouth." I agree that this can be a very powerful aspect of LinkedIn as its business potential is recognized and used wisely (no spamming allowed).

Some topics generate awesome comments. This is one of them. Here are some of the comments (abbreviated) to Guy's article:

1. To expand on point #2, you can also sync your primary blog to the LinkedIn account.

2. I've found that I'm bringing in more business since I decided to spend 15 minutes each day on LinkedIn.

3. On point 7 Fund Raising, be careful however, as the securities laws generally prohibit using public forums to solicit investors.

I expect there may be more commenting as this post gets tweeted on Twitter.


Greg Cryns
Work At Home Profiles
Wahm Search Engine

Really ugly online hotel reviews

105 story Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea

I get a kick out of Hotel reviews. Here are some bad reviews I thought were funny. Remember I was looking for the awful reviews in major cities. In fact, the good reviews far outnumber the bad ones on Google Local. Takeaway: if you are doing your job to provide a good hotel experience, you don't have to worry about the reviews. Else, pay the price!

1. COME ARMED WITH A SLEEPING BAG, A BOTTLE OF DISINFECTANT, DON'T STAY HERE UNLESS YOU COME ARMED WITH A SLEEPING BAG, A BOTTLE OF DISINFECTANT, EARPLUGS AND NO SENSE OF SMELL! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

2. One of the worst hotels you could ever stay in, I think you could have a better night sleep, staying in your car. The rooms are horrible, The service is terrible, And the free complimentary breakfast, THEY CAN KEEP IT

3. Don't be tempted by the price...AVOID!!!

4. I cant explain the smell....you feel like your suffocating on the smell...its throughout the entire hotel and it got through my suitcase

5. This hotel is horrifying! The front entrance is gorgeous but the rest is crap. The guy at the front desk was high and drunk. And he told us this after he took thirty minutes to check us in. The elevator was about to drop in a second!

6. They claim to restoring the hotel to its former glory. Well I couldn't imagine what it looked like before they supposedly remodeled it. I had a room with a twin bed, that would slide off the box spring during the night. I couldn't move in the shower and don't get me started with the window ac unit that had a TV in front of it. Roaches on the table at the breakfast bar

7. The bed set was dirty with hair on the sheet and stain on the comforter. I couldn't believe a 2 star hotel did not even clean/change another bed set for new guest. We turned on the lights, and none of them working.

8. OMG, the hotel staff was extremely rude and did not answer my question if window was front or back and gave very small stinky room. she had that frowned scary face when she handed keys...never ever go this horrible scary place

9. the El (train) goes by every 2 minutes, just beyond the 400-car parking lot outside the window. Stalinist architecture, Stalinist decor.

more...

I honestly thought "roach motel" was sarcasm

Gives a new meaning to the phrase 'shabby...
The condition of the lift and the smelly corridor was very off putting. Our room was only just OK. The curtains didn't open and one set kept falling down

THE PLACE SHOULD BE CLOSED AND THE MANAGEMENT REPLACED BY MONKEYS WHO COULD DO A BETTER JOB AND HAVE MORE SENSE AND MANNERS.‎

Worst Hotel
First thing one word DIRTY! Everything was unclean! Carpet had gum in it, nothing had been dusted, windows gross. Ice machine worked but disgustingly dirty. No towels, we had to ask for towels 3 times

Most patetic hotel with an arrogant
This is an unbelievably filthy hotel. Hotel manager has an attitude about her in that she is obliging you by allowing you to stay there. If you complain, she would tell you, "oh, you want that!" with her eye brows raised

I should have known what kind of hotel I was staying in when I saw that some of the other doors on the third floor had their room numbers printed in magic marker

There is a topless bar directly across the street.


Greg Cryns
Work At Home Profiles
Wahm Search Engine

Website counter : an essential tool for online success

If you do not have an analytical tool (website counter) for your website then I think you are in the wrong business. Why? Because Internet marketing success nearly always requires that you know how your targeted visitors found your site and what they did when they got there.

There are some businesses who can live without a site counter such as associations that have an apparent reason to visit. Maybe they need to attend online courses for CEUs (certifications). Others who may not need website analytical tools are people who have large email lists that can be directed to a blog or static website to obtain something of value.

I use Google Analytics for some of my websites. For some others I use StatCounter. But my favorite analytical tool is Sitemeter.

Usually I first check referring URL to see where the visitors are coming from. If they came from a search engine, I want to know what key phrase they used to find my website. If I see a trend developing for a particular key phrase I often make a new web page dedicated to that phrase.

Below are some pictures of my visitor results for McHenry Online, a local related website for the county in northern Illinois where I used to live.

PICTURE OF REFERRING URL RESULTS




If they came in from another website, I want to revisit that site. Since blog commenting is a significant part of my overall strategy, I consider whether to make more comments at a blog because usually people come to my website when they see more about the brilliant person who commented. :) Well, at least they clicked my link.

Next, I will check my visitor count for the past 7 days for websites that I check every week. Many sites I check only once a month. In that case I want to see the past 30 day numbers of visitors. I want to know about visitor number trends, up, down, level.

PICTURE OF VISITOR COUNT RESULTS




Next I will check the entry page. Which pages are getting the most visitors? If you have advertisers, they will want to know those numbers before they pay to be on your site. I may want to improve some entry pages testing font colors, headings and copy.

I also like to see the exit page tally. Where did they leave the site. Why did they leave the site from that page?. They may have a good reason (they bought something or signed up for something). Or maybe they just didn't find what they were looking for or get bored. I want to know why. I can never tell for sure, but I can get hints and do more changes and testing to try to find out.

PICTURE OF EXIT PAGE RESULTS



I also want to get a snapshot of how my website is performing overall.

Here is a picture of the SITE SUMMARY




Here is a list of items you can check with a good stat counter:

1. Summary
2. Who's On?
3. Traffic Prediction
4. Recent Visitors (details, referrals, World Map, Location, Out clicks and more)
5. Visits (by day, week month, year)
6. Visits and page views (what other pages did they visit?)
7. Page ranking (pages are ranked by the number of total visitors they get)

You can see there is a lot to learn about your website visitors. Your website counter can help you turn this information into more success for you.

Incidentally, all three of my stat counters are free.

Greg Cryns
Work At Home Profiles
Wahm Search Engine

Google Local improvements for small business

Are you a small business owner? If so, then you probably need to get into the Google Local listings.

Reasons to get into the program:

1. It's free and takes very little effort to set up your listing
2. It is at the top of the Google page of many local searches
3. More people will see your business listing than ever before
4. More people will click on your link in Google Local if you can get into the top seven (you can!)
5. You don't even need a website to participate

Did you read that? You don't need a website to get a high ranking for your business.

Let's say you are a house painter in my home town of Paso Robles, California. People are likely to search "painter in paso robles" to find a house painter, right? Right.

Now look at the picture below. This was snipped from the first page of my search for "painters in paso robles". Google is now smart enough to know that I am looking for a city in California. If your business is located in a town called "Springfield" I think Google will require more info, such as a zip code or a state name or state abbreviation in the search term.



This is what we nerdy SEO guys call the "Google Seven Pack" because there are always no more than seven business listed, though there are often many more when you click the "More" link at the bottom. What you have are seven very lucky businesses in this Google search.

What is important to me as a guy who tries to keep marketing costs down for my clients is that in the picture below you will see which "painters in Paso Robles" DO NOT HAVE WEBSITES! (they are underlined in red)



When you click on the link where the business is not represented by a website, you are brought to a page that offers important contact information about the business and a map to help people find your business. Here is a picture of that page:




I will soon have a report on Google Local. It will explain how you can get your business listing found there and much more. Send me an email message if you would like to be contacted when I release this product.

Greg Cryns
The Mighty Mo Website Design and Promotion
Work At Home Profiles
McHenry County Illinois Online

Jung Lin Performing Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody no 2"

aka The Running Song - At 4:55 is the running part. ;)