Triune Designs Blog: Web Design, Development, & Marketing

How Do They Do That?
Have you ever written about a person, a product, or a company in your blog and then have them respond almost immediately in your comments?

One way these web-savvy people do this is by using Google Alerts. Google Alerts is one of the most valuable tools in your web marketing arsenal and it is also one of the easiest to use. You just sign up for the service and let Google do all of the work for you.

What Are Google Alerts?
According to Googe, alerts are

email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

You can use Alerts for

• monitoring a developing news story related to your industry
• keeping current on a competitor or industry
• reputation management for your company
• reputation management for yourself

How Do You Use Alerts?
Like I said before, using Google Alerts is very easy. You will first need to sign up for a Google account. Once you have it you can go to Google’s home page and look for My Account.

Next you want to find the Google Alerts link.

(You can also go straight to the Google Alerts page.)

You will now be on the main Google Alerts page. Simply enter the search term, criteria, frequency, and what email address you want to use. Once completed, you will begin receiving the alerts from Google as those search terms are found. Here is a little more information about each option:

Search Term – Enter your search term here. If you are using multiple words in your search I suggest using quotation marks around them. As an example I used the search term “web marketing” abominable snowman. This means I will receive alerts when Google finds information for “web marketing”, abominable, or snowman. I can simply move the quotation marks and it changes the alert completely. If I had used “web marketing abominable snowman” then I would only receive alerts when all four words are found. Using quotation marks is a simple concept, but they can prevent you from getting a lot of unnecessary emails.

Criteria – There are six options available for criteria: news, blogs, web, video groups, and comprehensive. Unless you are looking for something specific I recommend using comprehensive so that you get alerts for everything Google finds.

How Often (Frequency) – There are three options available for how often: as-it-happens, once a day, and once a week. This setting will depend on what you are searching for. I set up alerts for my name and my company. I receive them on an as-it-happens basis. However, in the scenario above, I would rather choose the once a day setting for “web marketing” abominable snowman since having that information is not as urgent.

Deliver To – You can choose from whatever email addresses you have set up with Google.

After clicking on create alert, you will be finished and you can now manage your alerts. While I was on the manage alerts list I went ahead and added another search: “web marketing” yeti. This way I have a pretty comprehensive list that allows me to see how well those snow monsters in the north are handling their web marketing.

2¢ – Your two cents
Do you use Google Alerts? Have you found it to be a valuable tool in your web marketing arsenal? Is there any other advice you would recommend when using Google Alerts? What other Google products do you use to enhance your web marketing? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. I would love to get your two cents.

I believe 2009 is going to be the year of the blog. Blogging and social media as a whole are continuing to become more popular and are now becoming essential tools in a businesses’ marketing arsenal. So this week’s recommendations provide some predictions for blogging in 2009 and information on how to become a better blogger.

Social Media Predictions
Mary Fisher is a blogger at Spinfield. According to her bio she used to be a newspaper reporter, and you can tell in her posts. She does an excellent job writing and I find her posts to be both enjoyable and informational. In this post, Mary provides six predictions on the state of social media in 2009. Here are a few of her predictions along with some of my thoughts:

Blogging Goes Mainstream – In 2008, many companies still needed to be convinced that blogging is beneficial. In 2009, blogging will be recognized as an economical tool for sharing information about organizations and products.

I completely agree. I think blogging really is going to take off this year. Dare I say that blogging might even become fashionable in 2009?? I guess we will have to wait and see.

The Rise of Blogging as a Profession? – Gone are the days of having an intern or just anybody regularly post articles about your company. Writing quality and legal concerns demand an increase in writing skill and professionalism.

I am not sure about this one. I agree that professionalism and good writing skills are important for business blogs. My concern, though, is the emphasis placed on hiring an outside professional blogger to write for a business blog. I wonder how much transparency is lost by hiring an outside writer to handle a company’s blog posts.

Budgets will be Saved – Reflecting the economy, lower marketing budgets will require creativity on the part of marketing departments. Limited marketing funds will continue to shift away from traditional media to more economical social media.

I agree that social media marketing is great given our current economic situation because of its low-cost nature. Almost no money is needed to start a web marketing campaign.

The problem a lot of people will encounter when they attempt web marketing is the amount of work it takes to maintain a solid campaign. This factor alone will weed out a lot of businesses who are not truly committed to web marketing and are not willing to put in the effort.

Beginners Welcome
The beauty of blogging is that it really does not take much to start – just a blogging platform and a few thoughts. Therefore, the barrier-to-entry is quite low. All are welcome to the world of blogging. Becoming a better blogger, though, does take some work. There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of posts providing advice to people who are just now entering the blogosphere.

Our blog, for example, provides information on how to write better blogs. Another such blog (ProBlogger) does the same. I recently read one of his articles that provides a summary of posts to help the beginning blogger. I included a few links here. If you are new to blogging I highly suggest reading them to help you improve.

Introductory Posts

• What is a Blog?
• 23 Questions for Prospective Bloggers – Is a Blog Right for You?
• How to Choose a Niche Topic for Your Blog
• Choosing a Domain Name for your Blog
• Blog Tools

Tips for Writing Content for Blogs

• Useful and Unique Content
• Post Length
• Granular (One Topic) Posts
• Using Titles Effectively on Blogs
• Scannable Content
• Basic HTML Tags
• More on Writing Content for your Blog

(Note: It should be noted that I first found this great blog post at ChurchCrunch before I had checked my Google Reader. Therefore, I am going to give ChurchCrunch a thumbs-up.)

2¢ – Your two cents
Did these links help you? Are you new to blogging? If you are new to blogging, what is the one thing that you feel you need to learn to get better? If you have been blogging for a while, what is one thing you would tell new bloggers to help them improve? Where else would you suggest looking for advice on how to write a blog? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. I would love to get your two cents.

Do you like the photo in this post? It is courtesy of Nic’s events on Flickr.

A while ago I wrote a blog post that discussed a problem with Sonic Drive-In’s web marketing. I mentioned that Sonic Drive-In had some of the funniest commercials on TV, but they lacked a presence on YouTube. Sonic could have easily enhanced their web marketing by adding each of their commercials to YouTube. Basically, adding the videos is very little work that can have potentially huge returns.

In yet another case of “I really do believe a large corporation followed my blog’s advice (but probably not),” I recently found a YouTube channel made specifically for Sonic’s “2 Sonic Guys”. The YouTube channel shows two of the actors found in the TV commercials challenging amateurs to upload their own “sonic-esque” commercials. I am glad to see Sonic starting to utilize a great web marketing opportunity by embracing social media.

Sonic still has a long way to go before excelling at social media web marketing, though. For example, they still need to add all of their commercials to YouTube. Also, some of their newly-added commercials have been marked as private. Private? Really? Why would you mark your commercials, that are aimed at getting more exposure for your company, as private? I find that interesting.

2¢’s – Your Two Cents
Do you like Sonic’s commercials? What else could they be doing to enhance their web marketing presence? Have you added videos to YouTube to help enhance your company’s online presence? Do you ever look for funny or interesting commercials on video sharing websites such as YouTube? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. I would love to get your two cents.

Photo courtesy of wfyurasko on Flickr

Google Alerts is an awesome service that keeps you posted on what is being said? We will be talking about Google Alerts in a post coming in the next couple of weeks.

In preparation for that post, I thought this would be a great question to ask everyone out there the “Triune Designs zone”: do you use Google Alerts?

Our way of saying thanks
As my way to thank you for your thoughts, here is an annoying, yet very catchy song. I hope you get a laugh out of it like I did. Thanks Dan (@djByron) for introducing this to me.

I will let you in on a little secret about effective web marketing. Come closer so I can whisper it to you. Okay, that is better. It is all about the community. Yes, writing blog posts with search engine optimization in mind is important. Yes, participating on Twitter is valuable. Yes, participating in social networking sites is important. However, the common denominator for all of web marketing is building and maintaining a community.

Building A Community Using Your Blog
Building a community is pretty obvious for social networking sites (i.e. Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn). What may not be as obvious is how to create a community around your blog. Obviously, writing consistent blog posts is the start of building your community. If you are not writing consistent, freshly updated content you are not giving your community a reason to stay involved and come back. Therefore, this should be your first priority. (Note: If you are not writing frequent blog posts then stop reading, go back to your blog, write a quick and thoughtful post, and then hit the publish button. Come back whenever you are ready; I will be happy to wait.)

Respond To Your Commenters
So, now we know you are writing frequent posts for you blog, well what now? It is time to connect with your readers. First, respond to the people who comment on your blog. We can be honest with ourselves. Almost all of us are not the Seth Godins and Chris Brogans of the world. (Chris has so many people trying to contact him that he hired a personal assistant just to handle the email… wow!) Therefore, you are not getting so overwhelmed with comments that you cannot take the time to respond. If possible, respond to every comment that someone leaves on your blog. Sometimes, you may only need to leave a little “thanks for commenting” message. Other times, a more thoughtful response is better. It all depends on what the commenter writes. Regardless, always stay mindful of engaging with the people who are choosing to participate with you.

Ask Some Questions
Ask questions in your blog. Instead of only preaching and teaching to your audience, engage with them. Your audience looks to you as a thought leader in your given area. That is one of the reasons they read your blog; however, that does not set you up to just stand on your box and tell everyone how things should be. Engage with your audience by asking them questions. Can they add anything to what you wrote? Do they have differing opinions? Have they experienced anything like what you just wrote? Find out, and in the process empower them to get involved with the discussion.

Enhance Your Discussions
Use a commenting system plug-in to enhance the discussion. As you can see, I use Intense Debate as my WordPress plug-in of choice. If Intense Debate members comment on my blog they will see any responses I make to their comment. As a result, there is a higher probability of them continuing to stay in the discussion and come back to leave more thoughts. I have seen this process happen many times on quite a few blogs. There are many other benefits of using Intense Debate and I recommend this as one of the top three plug-ins you need to add to your blog.

Visit Their Website
Your commenters have taken the time to read your blog and add a comment to your website. You have responded to their comment on your blog. Now for an added touch of community-building take the time to look at their blog. Read a few of their posts and if you can, make a comment or two. It will only take you a few minutes to do this, but it may be one of the best (and underutilized) ways to develop loyal readers. People love to receive comments so reward them with some comment love. The one-way street now becomes two directional and it shows that you are interested in them. Giving back to them can pay huge dividends for you in the end.

I like to think of blogs as group discussions instead of keynote speeches. The blogger is the moderator of the group and will work to initiate the discussion instead of merely talking to the nameless, faceless crowd. So get out there and engage your audience.

2¢’s – Your Two Cents
Do you engage your audience? What other methods of audience engagement do you use? What commenting system do you use, if at all? What other metaphors can you create for blogs as discussion starters? Have any of these techniques worked for you? I would love to hear your two cents.

Photo courtesy of striatic

I have a couple of recommendations for some good blog advice and web marketing reading for this week’s BB&P post. This week we are giving a shout-out to John’s (a.k.a. human3rror’s) blog over at ChurchCrunch. We also point out a good discussion on how you can use different criteria for Google’s AdWords to become a better PPC advertiser.

Want to be a good blogger?

Whether he has notoriety or not, John is one of the best bloggers you will find. (If you want a list of reasons why I believe this call me, email me, or ask in the comments.) Therefore, if John provides a list with best practices for creating an effective blog I would listen. That is the reason I am including his post on this week’s recommendations.

As you read his post, you should ask yourself the following questions.

• Does your blog have a voice?
• Is your (and your company’s) personality coming through the posts? Hint: if you have a blog that is Big-Blue-stiff then the answer is probably no (think IBM of the 80′s and early 90′s).
• If someone is reading your blog posts, can they immediately identify your business passions and obsessions?
• Are your posts well thought out and (mostly) grammatically correct (hint: avoid stream of consciousness writing)?
• Are you trying to create a successful blog? Honestly?

Read on for more his valuable good-blogging advice. The original article came from 43Folders.

Google Adwords – Gaining more precise control over your keywords

I usually do not advise most people to use Google Adwords. With that said, Google created a great program to try and increase traffic from search engine results for those that are willing to pay a little money. The PPC option has allowed businesses to target specific groups of people, thus making advertising slightly more effective. My advice; however, usually directs businesses to put their efforts into creating stronger organic search engine result first. I could go on, but this is not the point of my post today.

A forum topic I recently found provided advice on how to make Google Adwords even more effective: include negative keywords with your keyword matches. If you currently use Google AdWords or are thinking about it then I would recommend checking this out. You can also view Google’s AdWords support for more detailed information on this topic.

A quick example from Google’s AdWords support:

Say you bought the keyword “blue mercedes car” on broad match. Here’s how the different versions of the negative keyword “fast blue” would affect this ad.

1) -fast blue (Negative)
POSSIBLE SEARCHES:
blue mercedes car – WOULD SHOW
blue fast mercedes car – WOULD NOT SHOW
mercedes fast car – WOULD SHOW
car blue mercedes fast – WOULD NOT SHOW
fast blue – WOULD NOT SHOW
blue fast – WOULD NOT SHOW
fast blue mercedes car – WOULD NOT SHOW

Read more from the web marketing forum.
Read more from Google Adwords support.

Your two cents
What did you think about John’s post concerning good blogging? What would you add to the list of effective blogging techniques? Do you think your passion shines through in your blog posts? Do you ever use negative keywords during your Google searches? Do you use Google AdWords? Let me know in the comments below. I would love to hear your thoughts.

My wife and I just ran in Charlotte’s Thunder Road Marathon this past Saturday. It was a grueling battle between man and nature to see which one would be victorious… okay, not quite. It was a serious challenge and it was fun, but maybe not quite a grueling battle.

About a month ago as we were rounding out the last portion of our 18 mile training run I came up with this list that provides some useful tips on how to be a successful blogger (or marathoner).

Break things into manageable chunks
In a marathon, a runner has to travel 26.2 miles. There is no doubt that is a long distance, but what helps is to break the run apart into smaller-sized chunks. The obvious follow-up questions is how do you break up your specific individual behemoth? That depends on you. For the marathon, my wife and I set it upon ourselves to only focus on reaching the next mile marker. We did not let ourselves think about the remaining miles ahead. It worked for us.

Likewise, for this blog, I break the massive goal of writing countless blog posts into manageable chunks. One day is spent providing useful links, two days are spent on writing specifically about web marketing and blogging, and one day is spent trying to get feedback from this community. These mini-goals make it easier to focus on a small amount of posts instead of hundreds. It works for me. Try a few different techniques and find what works for you.

Your gait will improve over time with repetition
If you are not writing a blog, but are interested in starting then jump in. If you are new to blogging, but are worried about how it comes across or whether you are doing it right then do not worry. There are some successful ways of creating a good blog, but for now do not worry. Just start writing.

Blogging is very similar to running a marathon because of the repetition required. Our training for a marathon started months ago. Over that time we logged hundreds of miles of training runs. What I noticed was that my running gait changed over time. My body learned how to adjust to running longer distances. Likewise, over time your blogging will become better. With repetition you will find your blogging voice. You will become a more confident writer. Things will get easier for you because your mind will adjust to becoming a blogger. Believe in the power of repetition and practice, and just get out there and do it.

Find good bloggers and learn from them
Three things helped my training for a marathon: (1) my wife had run two prior marathons so she knew how to train and what to expect, (2) we read some marathon training books, and (3) we read some running magazines. These were essential to our preparation for the day of the race.

For a new blogger this advice is important: read other people’s blogs. Find good bloggers and learn from them. What do they do right? What do they do wrong? How do they engage their community? How does the community respond back to the blogger you are watching? You can learn a lot from participating in other people’s blogs. Additionally, find some web marketing or social media bloggers that provide advice on how to get better. They are on the front lines of web marketing so they should know a lot of great techniques for making your blog better.

Be prepared for the mental games
This key was probably the biggest shock for me: the strength of the mental games. Be prepared to put down the mental games. When running long distance my mind constantly wanted to tell me how far I had to go before finishing. Then my mind told me I might as well stop instead of trying to finish. I had to put the mental games to sleep.

In the beginning, blogging will be no different for you. With the exception of a few circumstances, your new blog will not attract a single person. In fact, you will probably have a hard time getting your own family to read your blog. Your posts will sound like you are at the end of a cave where you are only talking to a wall with the accompanying echoes. That is tough! The mental games will begin creeping up. “Why continue?” “You should stop writing; no one is reading.” “You have not gotten a single comment in weeks, is this worth the trouble.” “You are wasting your time.” You must put those mental games to sleep. A blog takes a lot of time to develop; a community takes time to develop. Some blogs may take months to gain momentum, some longer. Be patient, continue to write your posts, and engage with the online community (via blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc.). Your own community will develop over time through perseverance.

Give credit when it is due
We have all had to do it in school: create a works cited page or bibliography. Therefore, I know you have a little practice in giving others credit when it is appropriate or necessary. Bloggers also need give credit to others, the method is just a little different. The best way to give others credit for ideas, quotes or just plain talking about them in a blog is to add a link to their website or blog. This is also a very simple way of engaging the online community. Adding links are so important to maintaining the health of your blog. Make sure you do not neglect them.

In training for a marathon there are multiple people a runner can thank for help along the way. For me specifically, I would like to thank Judy and Allen (Asher’s grandparents) for watching Ashe on countless Saturdays during our long training runs. I would also like to thank Michele for setting up the training schedule, keeping me motivated, and for basically dragging me across the finish line when I was way past the point of exhaustion. I never would have run or finished the marathon without her.

Your thoughts
So, what are your thoughts? For those of you who have blogged before, do these sound like things you have battled? For those of you who want to blog, but have not, what is holding you back? Do you have any other sports similes for blogs? Please leave your thoughts below. I look forward to reading them.