It’s Write a Business Plan Month: How to Include Your Marketing Strategy

By: Marsha Friedman
December is National Write a Business Plan Month – so designated to encourage unhappy employees to become their own satisfied bosses. Whether your goal is to own your own business, become a consultant, a speaker or an author, you’ll need to start with a business plan.
Even if you launched your business years ago, it’s important to revisit and refresh your plan. In recent years, the economy, technology and consumer habits have changed rapidly and dramatically, affecting every aspect of your business. That makes it absolutely vital to re-evaluate your short- and long-term strategies.
One of the most critical elements of any business plan is your marketing strategy. Too often, people don’t think through that all-important component with the same rigor they tackle aspects like projected cash flow and long-term goals.
Or, they do put thought and effort into planning for market research, promotion and positioning – and then never follow through on their great ideas.
One problem is that most entrepreneurs (or professionals or authors) don’t have marketing experience. They may be skilled tradesmen, savvy financial advisers or talented writers – the expertise they plan to build their business around – but they’re not marketers. Some don’t realize that executing a solid marketing strategy is essential to any venture’s success; others know it’s important but don’t know where to begin.
Here’s why it’s so important: You may have the book that changes the way business is done, or the product that solves a problem for lots of consumers, but if no one knows about it, they can’t come looking for it. Marketing is the fundamental building block of any business; it’s what drives the business, so it can’t be an afterthought.
The marketing component of your business plan should include a budget for time (if you’re going to tackle the job yourself) and/or money. You need a timetable and a professional website that attracts visitors and makes it easy for them to learn more about you, your product, book or service — and equally easy to purchase what you’re selling.
Here are some other points to consider as you’re developing your marketing plan:
• What is my message? Your message needs to be more than “My product is great.” What’s the problem it solves? If you’re a professional, what’s the value you and your service offer? How are you different from your competition? As an example: At EMSI, we create visibility and credibility for our clients using a pay-for-performance model that guarantees media exposure and sets us apart from our peers.
• Who is my audience? Unless you have a niche product, consider your potential audience in terms of ever-expanding ripples. For instance, a collapsible coffeepot may be just the thing for a college student’s tiny dorm room. That’s your initial target audience. But his parents and grandparents, who are helping outfit that dorm room, might also be audiences. If they’ve downsized their living quarters, they might just want one for themselves, too. In fact, it could be great for campers, boaters – anyone living in a small space.
• Which are the appropriate media outlets for a PR campaign? Social media is great for niche products because online forums build communities around common interests. Daytime TV talk shows tend to have audiences with lots of women. Most newspaper readers are now 55 or older. Once you have decided who your audience is, figure out what they’re watching, listening to, reading, and doing online, then customize your message for that medium and audience.
• What’s your budget? When you’ve answered these questions, you should be able to determine how much marketing you can do yourself (if you’ll be doing any at all) and how much you’ll need help with. If you’re handling it yourself, budget for the time it will take to do things like keeping your website active with fresh blog posts once or twice a week; posting content on social media; developing pitches to get print, radio or TV interested. If you plan to pay a professional for marketing services, use your marketing plan to explore the costs and timetable, and budget accordingly.
Whether you’re launching a dream or strengthening your existing business, you need to lay a good foundation with a solid plan. If marketing isn’t an important component of that plan, your rocket to the moon will likely fizzle and fade.
About Marsha Friedman
Marsha Friedman is a 22-year veteran of the public relations industry. She is the CEO of EMSI Public Relations (www.emsincorporated.com), a national firm that provides PR strategy and publicity services to corporations, entertainers, authors and professional firms. Marsha is the author of Celebritize Yourself: The 3-Step Method to Increase Your Visibility and Explode Your Business and she can also be heard weekly on her Blog Talk Radio Show, EMSI’s PR Insider every Thursday at 3:00 PM EST.

 

 

How to Keep Electronics Safe when Moving

When you are moving there are a lot of things which are delicate and need to be paid special attention. These are usually valuable or easily breakable things. However, they can sometimes be things like electronics. One is for sure- do not cut corners on them because it will cost you thousands of dollars in the end. Going for the cheap we usually end up paying load of money because of damages. For this reason you should do your best when it comes to the safety of your computers, printers, etc. Here are some tips you could use.

Firstly find the original boxes of your electronics. Ideally, you will have kept them and will use them for they are indeed the best solution since are specially made for this or that equipment. If you do not have them with you, you can always purchase special boxes for your electronics from your removals company. And do not worry if you are using the DIY method because you can still buy the boxes from any relocation firm without hiring its services.

A very important thing you should not forget is all the wires. Carefully remove them before the moving itself. Since there are usually a lot of cables and wires and the mess is almost inevitable try to avoid it by sorting them. Roll each cable or wire separately. After that you can put every two or three of them in a bag and properly label them. It is best actually if you write on a piece of paper a little note about where each one belongs to.

Now here comes the tricky part. What turns out to be a common mistake is loading CDs, DVDs, and floppy discs on a truck. You should know about them that they are very sensitive. If you put them in a place with too high or low temperatures, they will probably get damaged. That is why, just to be sure, take them with you in your vehicle.

As for packing, packing peanuts and popcorn can be really good for most items but not for electronics. They can seriously harm them. So, when it comes to your electronics use soft cloths, moving blankets and pads.

Electronics can be small and easily portable but some are really big and heavy. If you do not have the help of professional movers it can be very challenging for an amateur. And yet there is something which can ease your DIY method, namely a dolly. Using a dolly you will not have to actually lift anything heavy except to put it on the dolly. From then on it will do all the work, all you have to do is roll and control it. It is very useful when there are stairs on your way.

No matter how cautious you are there still might be parts which have shifted during the move. For this reason be careful when unpacking the boxes containing your electronics. Plus, remember not to open them immediately but to leave them for a while to adjust to the temperature of the room they are in now.

This guest post has been submitted by: http://removalcompanylondon.com/

 

An Executive Guide to Choosing the Right Courier Service

At one time if you wanted to send something from one place to another you used the post. Courier services are a relatively new phenomenon, first appearing in the UK around the late 1970s and growing out of taxi services. They typically offer additional features when compared to normal postal systems. These include fast service and same day and guaranteed delivery windows. Originally couriers would often be used to transport urgent documents but the use of email has seen a shift in the business model. The growth of courier services now is partly down to the boom in mail order deliveries thanks to Internet shopping and partly to more businesses using ‘just in time’ production methods.

Courier companies range from small ‘man and a van’ operations to large companies, with medium sized local companies somewhere in between. Larger companies are likely to offer extra services such as deliveries to overseas locations or the ability to handle awkward or fragile loads.

If you need a courier service then it’s important to look for one that’s going to be responsive to your business needs. That means having the flexibility to cope with different sized consignments and to be able to accept jobs and collect packages at short notice. The latter is especially important as one of the main reasons for using a courier is speed. You also need a pricing structure that’s easy to understand so you know you won’t get hit with unexpected charges.

Key Questions to Ask When Choosing a Courier

• How fast can they collect?
• Can they guarantee delivery to your timescale?
• Do they offer a 24 hour service?
• Are there limits on size and weight of packages?
• Is online tracking available?
• How is proof of delivery provided?
• Are goods insured in transit?
• Will there be additional charges?

Some additional features you might want to bear in mind are any special requirements you may have. Do you need to transport hazardous substances or high value items for example? Some couriers specialise in this type of work. If you need to send packages overseas, can the courier company advise you on the customs and taxation requirements needed for a particular destination?

If you’re looking to use a new courier company for the first time then it’s worth checking out their reputation online. Testimonials from happy customers are a good sign; look for recommendations and ratings on popular forum and consumer websites not just on the company’s own site. See if you can contact existing customers too. Be aware that some websites offering courier services merely act as brokers allowing you to compare prices from a range of different services. If you’re using one of these make sure that it gives you enough information about the courier that will actually be used. If you’re in doubt check out the website of the service directly or search online for more information.

Most companies now offer tracking services so that you can see where your parcel is in the delivery process. This gives you additional peace of mind and in many cases you can also give your customer the tracking information so they can see for themselves the status of their delivery.

When it comes to getting in touch, if you contact a courier by phone take note of how quickly they answer the call and how professionally they deal with your enquiry. If you book online make sure there’s a number you can call in the event of problems.

There’s a mass of information available on the Internet so it’s easy to research your chosen courier company. You can find their reputation via customer reviews that will vouch for their reliability, efficiency and price.

It’s easy to select the lowest cost when choosing suppliers for any goods or services. But when you’re looking at a courier service it is, if anything, even more important. If your goods arrive late or damaged then it reflects badly on your own business and you risk losing a customer.

If you require a same day courier, Manchester like other large cities has so many options in the courier business for you to choose from. So get researching and find one that suits your needs.

 

 

Driving Up Sales and Improving Customer Loyalty With the Best CRM

Assessing the need for organizational change

Analyzing interactions with customers is the key to ensuring the best CRM is achieved year on year and can lead to organizational changes which improve sales and prevent customers moving across to the competition.

Data collection takes place at a variety of stages of the customer experience and will bring different aspects of the customer profile into one touch point that is accessed by each relevant employee.

Replacing several systems with a single database

This one CRM database may replace several databases containing different aspects of information about the same customers, which were too disparate and without any linking criteria. Being able to see everything that is known about the customer in one place can provide multiple opportunities for improving the user experience. The best CRM is customer focused and having the information is one place ensures this can be achieved more effectively and with significant savings in costs.

Setting targets using the best CRM practise

The best CRM also provides a baseline for setting concise sales targets, and can show team members what new strategies are required to achieve these goals, including the tools and resources they have available at the moment, and what they may need to acquire in future to make the new and more ambitious targets a reality. Having concrete and often surprising facts and figures generated by the data in the CRM system can invigorate and inspire ailing companies, where in the past drops in sales and lack of customer retention may have been a continuing issue, without any real solution or apparent explanation.

Designing a modular CRM integration plan

The planning stage for the best CRM can involve a series of modules, where different aspects of the CRM system are addressed and tackled in stages. Each separate element of the plan would tackle individual aspects of the customer experience, for instance management of:

• sales leads
• showrooms and branches
• ending of leases or guarantees
• delivery schedules
• post purchase support
• employee engagement with customers
• environments for customers

Involving employees in change

Discussions and forums with employees can help generate new ideas and new purpose for the best CRM, where everyone feels involved and has some degree of ownership over the new ways of providing improved customer experiences.

Employees are far more likely to not just cooperate but actively subscribe to the best CRM practises where they feel they have had input to the solutions and opportunities presenting themselves.  They are more likely to understand the new policies by which the company is to operate and the need for increased use of information technology to ensure the CRM system performs in an outstanding manner.

The concept of customer centric operation is a means of improving the strengths of a company while at the same time identifying any training and technology needs, plus any opportunities for new ways of engaging with customers on an ongoing basis.  By taking each area of the business one at a time and assessing these elements of the best CRM practice, a powerful company infrastructure can be developed for the future.

Daniel Petrov have experience with CRM systems and he is using some of the best CRM (Melhor CRM is the portuguese term) systems on the market, and he is glad that he can share his experience with you.

 

 

How Meditation Leads to increase Psychic Ability

Do you want to increase your psychic abilities? It can be accomplished through meditation.

Psychic abilities can vary in each individual. We can reach and obtain these psychic abilities by practicing meditation. This has been proven for centuries by monks, holy men, and mystics. Even today, there is a need to want to explore what is beyond our five senses.

Most people are only familiar with their five senses: seeing, hearing, smelling,touching and tasting. These are our natural born abilities. But there are other abilities we have not explored.

You also have a sixth sense. This is called intuition. To those not familiar with pyschic abilities, intuition would be considered a “gut feeling“; or a feeling of “just knowing”.By practicing meditation, we can access and activate our intuitive sixth sense and begin exploring psychic abilities. Psychic abilities are a part of our intuition.

In most people, intution ability is not accessed. It lies dormant, and will never be used to enrich psychic abilities. They either prefer not to think about it or do not know this ability even exits.

If we want to learn more about ourselves and our own awareness, meditation can help us to achieve this purpose. Many practitioners of meditation have discovered their own psychic abilities after building confidence and mental control through the practice of meditation.

Meditation is not unheard of in today’s fast-paced world. With regular meditation we will obtain an energy level that is higher and lower our blood pressure, and reduce stress. It is a discipline of clearing the mind to expore our inner self. It helps us retreat into ourselves and reconnect spiritually, discovering and remembering who we really are. A daily meditation helps us return to our life-renewed and refreshed.

Our inner self comes into focus when we meditate. We can see more clearly and beyond our capabilities. We want to connect with outselves.We can awaken our psychic abilities by meditating and awakening our third eye (pineal gland) also known as the Vision Receptive Area.,and “Eye of the Soul.” It is the easiest way to obtain a meditative state

We can change the way we think with psychic ability and meditation. Taking pyschic development classes will enhance our psychic abilities, along with meditation.It is said that humans have psychic powers we have never discovered within ourselves that have not be used to explore our inner world. Thoughts can remap the physical brain, and rewire our brains.

Did you know psychic abilities can also be opened by traumatic situations? It is an alterned state of consciousness caused by the stress of the trauma.

There is so much to explore of our inner technologies and our psychic minds’ abilities. It is a great adventure in store for those who want to know more about themselves. Just knowing we can find that quiet time of meditation to tune into ourselves to enhance our lives with knowledge that is beyond what we have ever known, waiting to be discovered is a delight in itself.

If you want more information about Psychic Abilities and Psychic Readings, please Clickhere.

Featured images:

•  License: Creative Commons image source
•  License: Creative Commons image source

Fran Jayne is an article writer from the United Kingdom,is certified student in Spiritual Counseling and Psychics. Fran enjoys writing about these subjects.

 

 

3 Tech Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2013

2012 was an interesting year for Entrepreneurs with many former startups going public to mixed results. Former industry and entrepreneurial darlings such as Facebook, Groupon and Zynga all went public in 2012 and all had their stocks battered and their business models brought under the questioning and scrutiny that comes with publicly traded companies.

In addition to companies going public, there were a host of successful entrepreneurial startups that included Twitter, Evernote, and Spotify that continued to grow and have yet to go public. What is the next group of entrepreneurial startups going to look like? Here are the top 3 tech entrepreneurs to watch for in 2013.

ecoATM

The founding team of entrepreneurs behind this company includes Mark Bowles, Drew Spaventa, Eric Rosser, John A. Beane, and Robert Genthert. The award-winning San Diego start-up known for its commitment to the environment and its innovative “ATM’s” that repurchase and recycle consumer electronic devices has recognized the fact that millions of new consumer phones and electronics are purchased every year. Rather than have these devices end up in landfills, ecoATM provides cash back incentives for people to turn them in and, in turn, recycles the products.

Considering the rate at which phones and device technology is being upgraded and the potential environmental impact of some of the harmful components of these devices, ecoATM has certainly positioned itself in a niche. Look for this company to explode in 2013.

RightScale

The company co-founded by Michael Crandell and Thorsten von Eicken has recognized the explosion in cloud computing and the corner that some companies are painting themselves in by developing proprietary software and code for their cloud infrastructure. According to their website, “RightScale cloud management enables organizations to easily deploy and manage business-critical applications across public, private, and hybrid clouds.”

Companies continue to downsize their IT infrastructure in an attempt to reduce operating costs. This trend is likely to continue well into 2013 and beyond as cloud computing grows. RightScale seems well positioned to take advantage of that trend.

Shopkick

Shopkick is a mobile app created by Cyriac Roeding, Jeff Sellinger, and Aaron Emigh. The company’s app, launched in 2009, is now one of the most popular shopping apps available. More than 3.5 million people have tried it, accessing rewards in more than 7,000 stores across the United States. Rather than rely on mailings, emailed coupons and rewards cards, the app allows stores to provide users with the ability to accumulate and redeem rewards right from their smartphones.

Since founding shopkick in 2009 and launching the mobile app in August of 2010, the app has gained a passionate following with over 3 million people having used the app, and the company says that every month thousands more join.

Look for all 3 of these companies to break out in 2013 as they are well positioned to take advantage of market and technology trends in 2013. Mobile devices, cloud computing and mobile apps with shopper discounts are not going away anytime soon. It will be interesting to see if and when these companies go public with their stock and how they would be received. Private investors have certainly been receptive to all 3 startups.

Featured images:

•  License: Creative Commons image source

Wiliam Grey also contributed to the creation of the Resource Guide for Businesses and Entrepreneurs.

 

 

Fast Growing Franchises

While in recent times the economy has been slow at best, there has still been success in some verticals. For companies that have franchise opportunities, a bear economy can hurt. With less money coming in, fewer people are willing to take on the risk of becoming a franchise owner. There are examples, however, of franchises that have not only expanded in recent years, but have done very well. They range across different markets, and each has a unique selling point to potential investors.

One profitable franchise in recent times is Subway. The well-known sandwich chain proved to be recession proof, and had a large amount of growth. Healthy food trends have been a boost to business, and with a relatively low franchise fee (compared with other big brand food establishments), investors saw Subway as a good opportunity. With real estate prices going down, prime locations became available and investors took their chance.

Another successful franchise was Synergy HomeCare, which is an in-home health company for the sick. While some may assume these franchises only focus on the elderly, a growing demographic, it is not the case. Synergy HomeCare looks after patrons of all ages.  Franchise owners also receive webinars and training stay on top of changes in health technology.  Since 2006, franchise growth has increased 950%.

Signal 88 Security is a specialized company that offers monitoring, emergency response and foot patrols, among other services. Most of the employees are military veterans or other security work. These franchises are primarily expanding in large cities.

While residential lawn care providers usually lose business in hard economic times. Commercial providers, such as U.S. Lawns, on the other hand, have grown, primarily because of their client base. With businesses and government buildings see lawn care as a business expense, and not a superfluous venture.

Being healthy is the new craze in the United States, and it should be, with alarming numbers of obesity growing. One company is devoted to stopping this trend, and creates fitness programs for children. JumpBunch believes that by stopping obesity in youth, it can circumvent this issue at an early point in life.

A commercial cleaning chain, Jani-King, has had recent success. This Texas based company offers janitorial services for a wide range of businesses including manufactures, restaurants and events. As stated before, many businesses consider services such as this a necessary expense, so franchises have had opportunity in a slow economy, with the potential of a boost when the wheel starts turning again.

These are just a few franchises that have done very well in recent years. As with any business opportunity, investors should do their homework before jumping into a new venture.

Andrew Yessen is a blogger for HomeVestors, America’s #1 home buyer. Check out our site if you have any real estate needs.

 

What Is Google+ Local and Why Should My Business Care?

If you’re new to the online review site phenomenon, then you may not have any idea of what Google+ Local is, but don’t worry—you’re not the only one.

So what is Google+ Local?

Before, Google had its own little review site known as Google Places. This was a way for businesses to get their company listed on the search engine. For example, if you were to search on Google for a “Italian restaurant in Chicago”, then all the Italian restaurants in Chicago that were listed on Google Places would appear in your search results page. Patrons who visited these restaurants could also rate the business and leave their review for others to see, and other patrons could use this information to decide whether or not they were going to visit that company.

Recently, Google decided to change Google Places to Google+ Local, and along with the name change, they made a few additional changes.

One big change that they did make was incorporating the Zagat scoring system into their program. This scoring system is a special way for the ratings and reviews left by customers to be scored appropriately, giving the company one overall rating based on the collaborative scores from reviewers.

Since Google decided to incorporate Google Places with Google+, now anyone looking at these businesses can see the reviews that were left by those people who are in their circles. Instead of reading all the reviews by total strangers, you can now read the reviews from people that you know in real life.

Why should my business care about Google+ Local?

As a business, it’s very important that you use Google+ Local to your advantage. First, by claiming your business on this site, you are allowing your company to appear in search engine results pages when people in your area are looking for companies that sell your products and services. This allows you to easily reach your target audience in certain locations, making it a great way for you to market to a niche group.

Today’s consumers are also turning to online review sites before making a final purchasing decision, so you need to use Google+ Local to find out what your customers are saying about your company. You can read the reviews that are left and learn what your customers love about you and what they don’t love about you, and you can use this information to make your business better.

Google+ Local can also be used as a cheap marketing tactic. Along with your company’s name, you have the ability to add pictures, descriptions and other important information to your listing. This allows your customers to learn more about what you have to offer, and if you use keywords, your Google+ Local page can help boost your search engine optimization. Plus, you can also add a link back to your website, which can help increase web traffic and generate more awareness about your business.

Google+ Local can be a great online review site to benefit your business, so what are you waiting for?

Caleb Grant lives in Austin and works with a review management company.  He often blogs advice about review tracking and recently wrote about his findings after studying the Google+ Local review scale.

 

Four Most Affordable & Talented Countries to Hire English Speaking Outsourcers

Outsourcing parts of a business to another country is a great way for businesses to save money. There are plenty of companies overseas that can help your business perform a variety of tasks, such as handle your online marketing to performing your phone customer service.

When you outsource your business overseas, you will not have to pay a team of individuals to do the tasks for your company in house, and you will also pay significantly less than you would if you hired a local company.

But some companies worry about the language challenges that occur when a non local company is hired to perform tasks for the business. These companies worry that there may be grammatical errors or misspellings on their written communications, and some fear that it may be hard for customers to understand them over the phone.

Luckily, there are plenty of talented countries that are not only affordable, but can also give you a team that can write and speak great English. If you want to outsource parts of your business to a country that is affordable and has great English, then you’ll want to choose one of these four.

1. India

India is one of the most popular countries to outsource your business to. Not only do they boast some affordable talents, but they are also great English speakers and can help avoid any language barrier. First, India has many universities and schools that focus on IT, which is why many companies outsource their IT needs to these country. But the reason that India is the most popular country to outsource business is because over 2 million people graduate from universities in India annually, and each one of them speaks fluent English. Plus, the average salary of an IT person in India runs about $5,000-$15,000, which is significantly less than what it is in the US.

2. Philippines

The Philippines is another popular country to outsource your business efforts to. Along with graduates who focus on IT, plenty of those who graduate in the Philippines focus on customer service and accounting, allowing your business to outsource additional efforts instead of just your IT needs. Plus, you will receive English speaking talent as well as low cost for all your outsourcing needs.

3. Ireland

Though unexpected, Ireland is also known as a popular outsourcing country. Though they don’t boast high graduating numbers as India or the Philippines, Ireland still has plenty of talented individuals that can help your country with call centers or software development. Major companies like Dell and Intel outsource to Ireland, and aside from the thick Irish brogue, you’ll have all the English speaking individuals you could ask for.

4. Russia

Russia is a great country to outsource to if you’re looking for affordable talent. They also have plenty of English speaking individuals, but there are not nearly as many as India, the Philippines or Ireland, so it’s best to use Russia as a last resort. Russia does boast plenty of engineers and scientists, so if your company is in need of this type of outsourcing, this may be the best country for you.

Mary Anne Bances helps American contractors learn Tagalog in order to more efficiently lead remote outsourcer teams. She is also the writer of several communication guides aimed at those conducting business overseas.

 

SEO DOs And DONT’S According To Google: Mixed Signals?

Google: Don’t over-optimize, but here’s all the algorithm changes we’re making

By Chris Crum · 

Google is talking a lot about SEO these days. In a recent webmaster discussion at SXSW, Google’s Matt Cutts spoke about some changes Google is working on that would seem to make SEO matter less, in that sites with good, quality content that don’t do a lot of SEO could potentially rank just as well, or better than a bigger site with a bigger SEO budget and a lot of SEO tactics implemented. The whole thing appears to be more about Google getting better at not helping sites just because they employ a lot of grey hat/borderline black hat tactics. Google has always tried to do this, but based on what Cutts said, it sounds like they’re about to get better at it.

Changes to Google’s algorithm have the ability to make or break businesses. Google is sending out the signal that you should worry less about the current SEO trends, and more about producing great content, and that they’re “leveling the playing field” for sites that don’t pay as much attention to SEO. Obviously great content is a positive, but at the same time, Google is showing us each month all of the changes it is making, and all the while, providing tips about how to do certain SEO things better. Is Google sending mixed signals? Just how much should webmasters worry about optimization?Share your thoughts in the comments.

Google Changes To Come

WebProNews spoke with former Googler and Google Webmaster Central creator Vanessa Fox about it, after she wrote her own blog post, sharing her thoughts about Google’s approach to SEO. In her post, she wrote, “Some are worried that Google will begin to penalize sites that have implemented search engine optimization techniques. My thoughts? I think that some site ownersshould worry. But whether or not you should depends on what you mean by search engine optimization.”

“Matt talked about finding ways to surface smaller sites that may be poorly optimized, if, in fact, those sites have the very best content,” she said in the post. “This is not anything new from Google. They’ve always had a goal to rank the very best content, regardless of how well optimized or not it may be. And I think that’s the key. If a page is the very best result for a searcher, Google wants to rank it even if the site owner has never heard of title tags. And Google wants to rank it if the site owner has crafted the very best title tag possible. The importance there is that it’s the very best result.”

There has been a lot of discussion about it in the SEO community, and there will no doubt be plenty around SES New York this week. Some of the talk has been blown out of proportion, and Cutts appears to feel that the press has contributed to this. For the record, when we first reported on it, we linked to the full audio from the panel, as Cutts provided, and since then, he’s linked to the full transcript for those who don’t have time to listen to an hour’s worth of audio. We’ve also pointed to this in previous coverage. Cutts seems to have given his seal of approval to Fox’s take on the whole thing:

@mattcutts
Matt CuttsRob Snell did a full transcript of the recent #sxsw session with Danny Sullivan, Duane Forrester, & me: http://t.co/RCGR99Ff 21 hours ago via Tweet Button ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by@socialditto

@yoast
Joost de Valk@mattcutts ah thanks! That might come in useful against the press who are taking some quotes WAY out of context. 21 hours ago via Osfoora for Mac ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by@socialditto

@mattcutts
Matt Cutts@yoast yup, totally agree. Vanessa did a good write up too. 16 hours ago via Twitter for Android ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by@socialditto

Following is a snippet from our previous article, discussing the Google changes with Fox, because it’s highly relevant to the larger story:

If you’ve listened to or read what was said, you’ll notice that the whole thing was in response to a question about mom and pops, which might make you wonder if brand is a significant part of what’s at play.

“I don’t think it’s about just mom and pop vs. big brands,” Fox tells WebProNews. “Lots of big brands don’t know the first thing about SEO. I think (total guess on my part) the sites that will be negatively impacted are those that focus on algorithms and build content/sites based on the things what they think the algorithms are looking for. The kind of sites where someone didn’t say ‘I want this page to rank for query X. How can this page best answer what the searcher is asking about X’ but instead said ‘I want this page to rank for query X. How many times should I repeat X in my title, heading, content on the page, internal links…”

“I think it’s still useful (and not negative) to make sure the words that searchers are using are on the page, but some sites go well beyond this and get so caught up in what they think the algorithms are doing that they forget to make sure the content is useful,” she adds.

“As far as sites that will see a positive from this, I think it will likely be both small sites (B&B in Napa that titles their home page ‘home’ vs. an affiliate site that sells wine gift baskets) and large brands (sites that use a lot of Flash),” says Fox. “I think foundational SEO practices (like those I describe in my article) will continue to be beneficial for sites.”

When she talks about SEO in her article, by the way, she says she’s talking about “using search data to better understand your audience and solve their problems (by creating compelling, high-quality content about relevant topics to your business)” and “understanding how search engine crawl and index sites and ensuring that your site’s technical infrastructure can be comprehensively crawled and indexed.”

Interestingly, though Google always puts out webmaster tips and videos, there seem to have been quite a few nuggets making their way out of the company’s blogs and YouTube channels over the past week or so – the time since the SXSW session took place.

Last week, for example, Google’s Developer Programs Tech Lead Maile Ohye talked aboutPagination and SEO, complete with a 37-page slideshow:

In fact, it looks that this might be part of a new series of SEO tips from Ohye, as another one has come out about SEO mistakes and “good ideas”:

SEO DOs And DON’TS, According To Google

According to Google, these are some things you should not do in your SEO efforts:

1. Having no value proposition: Try not to assume that a site should rank #1 without knowing why it’s helpful to searchers (and better than the competition 

2. Segmented approach: Be wary of setting SEO-related goals without making sure they’re aligned with your company’s overall objectives and the goals of other departments. For example, in tandem with your work optimizing product pages (and the full user experience once they come to your site), also contribute your expertise to your Marketing team’s upcoming campaign. So if Marketing is launching new videos or a more interactive site, be sure that searchers can find their content, too.

3. Time-consuming workarounds: Avoid implementing a hack rather than researching new features or best practices that could simplify development (e.g., changing the timestamp on an updated URL so it’s crawled more quickly instead of easily submitting the URL through Fetch as Googlebot).

4. Caught in SEO trends: Consider spending less time obsessing about the latest “trick” to boost your rankings and instead focus on the fundamental tasks/efforts that will bring lasting visitors.

5. Slow iteration: Aim to be agile rather than promote an environment where the infrastructure and/or processes make improving your site, or even testing possible improvements, difficult.

On the flipside, this is what Google says you should do:

1. Do something cool: Make sure your site stands out from the competition — in a good way!

2. Include relevant words in your copy: Try to put yourself in the shoes of searchers. What would they query to find you? Your name/business name, location, products, etc., are important. It’s also helpful to use the same terms in your site that your users might type (e.g., you might be a trained “flower designer” but most searchers might type [florist]), and to answer the questions they might have (e.g., store hours, product specs, reviews). It helps to know your customers.

3. Be smart about your tags and site architecture: Create unique title tags and meta descriptions; include Rich Snippets markup from schema.org where appropriate. Have intuitive navigation and good internal links.

4. Sign up for email forwarding in Webmaster Tools: Help us communicate with you, especially when we notice something awry with your site.

5. Attract buzz: Natural links, +1s, likes, follows… In every business there’s something compelling, interesting, entertaining, or surprising that you can offer or share with your users. Provide a helpful service, tell fun stories, paint a vivid picture and users will share and reshare your content.

6. Stay fresh and relevant: Keep content up-to-date and consider options such as building a social media presence (if that’s where a potential audience exists) or creating an ideal mobile experience if your users are often on-the-go.

Of course, Google has continued to put out the usual Webmaster videos from Matt Cutts. He did one, or example, on meta tags, talking about how “you shouldn’t spend any time on the meta keywords tag,” but how Google does use the meta description tag.

In that video, Cutts says, “So if you’re a good SEO, someone who is paying attention to conversion and not just rankings on trophy phrases, then you might want to pay some attention to testing different meta descriptions that might result in more clickthrough and possibly more conversions.” Emphasis added.

“So don’t do anything deceptive, like you say you’re about apples when you’re really about redwidgets that are completely unrelated to apples,” he adds. “But if you have a good and a compelling meta description, that can be handy.”

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

This advice is basically in line with the position Google has had for years, which is also inline with what Fox had to say. It doesn’t sound like much has changed, but Google is getting better at distinguishing the good from the bad. Or at least that’s what they want SEOs to believe.

I’m not saying they don’t have things in the works that are improvements, but Google has a broader issue with relevancy in results, and it would certainly be inaccurate to say that nothinghas changed. Google makes changes to its algorithm every single day, and these days they are even going so far as to list at least some of the changes publicly each month. These lists are invaluable to webmasters looking to boost their Google presence, because while Google may say to not chase specific changes, they also show webmasters the areas where Google actually is changing how it does things. Ignoring them is foolish. That doesn’t mean you have to exploit them in a black hat kind of way, but you can certainly be aware of them, and look for tweaks that may have a direct effect on your current strategy.

For example, if Google says it is putting fresher image results in image searches, perhaps you should consider how visual your content is.

It will be interesting to see what this month’s changes are, as well as the changes Cutts discussed at SXSW. Will they make Google’s results more relevant? If enough sites follow the advice Google is giving, will the results get better? On the other hand, how much will it matter if you’re following all of Google’s advice if Google’s getting better at “leveling the playing field’ for those who aren’t paying attention to SEO at all? Those who aren’t paying attention to SEO probably aren’t reading articles like this or following Google’s webmaster blogs and videos. All of that said, doing the things Google says to do probably won’t hurt.