SEO MixTour by Web CEO newsletter

Here’s another great SEO newsletter I enjoy reading – SEO MixTour. It’s done by a company that manages WebCEO, one of the top all-in SEO software. As a result, the newsletter does occasional pitches. Regardless, the content of newsletters is very useful and easy to read.

Although it’s an easy read, in many cases they go into more complex stuff that may not be useful for a small business WordPress / Posterous / Tublr owner. Here’s an example of a few sections of this newsletter:

• Most of the newsletters are coming with cute cartoons of SEO world situations as you can see above.
• Theme article: each issue has it’s theme article. On the screenshot above you’ll that on October 6, 2010 they talked about “How to help dynamic websites get indexed”.
• WebCEO Metrics: the goal here is a pitch, however it also offers some interesting info / usage stats that WebCEO pulls. You can include it in presentations for example, or just have a giggle. Here’s an example below:

Feel free to check the archives and sign up for this bi-weekly SEO newsletter.

How Linkedin.com helped me

A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked me questions about linkedin.com and how I benefited by using it so far. I have been meaning to respond to her questions but didn’t have a chance to do it. Now, I realized that this information may be useful for other people too, hence I’m sharing it here.

Below is an overview of a few useful features on linkedin.com that I’ve benefited by since I first started using it.

1. One place for your resume
2. To connect with colleagues, past and present
3. To discover new connections
4. To join groups of similar interests
5. To help people solve problems
6. To stay up to date with your network
7. To recommend and get recommended
8. To look for jobs and apply for jobs
9. Search visibility and personal branding

Facts from Guy Kawasaki on the subject:

• People with more than twenty connections are thirty-four times more likely to be approached with a job opportunity than people with less than five.
• The average number for Harvard Business School grads is fifty-eight, so you could skip the MBA, work at Google, and probably get most of the connections you need. Later, you can hire Harvard MBAs to prepare your income taxes.
• All 500 of the Fortune 500 are represented in LinkedIn. In fact, 499 of them are represented by director-level and above employees.
• The average number of LinkedIn connections for people who work at Google is forty-seven.

How companies benefit by using Twitter

Just reading an article at iMediaConnection about Twitter Experiments and how companies are using Twitter to get closer with their customers, create and enrich the conversations. I’m still one of those who has no solid idea on how to use Twitter productively for business purposes. Please let me know how your company benefited by twitter. In turn I’ll post my insights on the tool. Below is the snippet of the article with URL.

Article Highlights:

• H&R Block’s feed is 75 percent @replies
• Glam Media’s Tinker allows brands to sponsor filtered Twitter feeds about hot topics
• A mobile L.A. eatery uses Twitter to keep customers aware of its location
• Microsoft sponsors a collection of tweets from top executives

To read the article: 5 Twitter marketing experiments

Takeaways on motivation

A good friend and a colleague of mine Rob Howard of Suitcase Interactive lent me a great book recently. “The Leader in You: how to win friends, influence people and succeed is a changing world” by Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc. Stuart R. Levine and Michael A. Crom, VP. I’m still going through it but I wanted to point that although it was printed in May 1995, the materials have significant relevance in today’s world and will have it in the coming years.

In this post I want to share key points that complete each chapter. If you are not sure you want to buy this book, please see the points below to get more details about it. Please note that these are not from the back or the front cover, these points are “hidden” at the end of each chapter. I’m writing these things down for two reasons: 1) I want to make sure that I review these principles. 2) I want to share these with you. Here we go…

1. the first step toward success is identifying your leadership strengths
2. communication is built on trusting relationships
3. motivation can never be forced. people have to want to do a good job.
4. there’s nothing more effective and rewarding than showing a genuine interest in other people
5. step outside yourself to discover what’s important to someone else.
6. nobody is more persuasive than a good listener.
7. team players are the leaders of tomorrow.
8. truly respecting others is the bedrock of motivation.
9. people work for money but work the extra mile for recognition, praise, and rewards.
10. be quick to admit mistakes and slow to criticize. above all, be constructive.
11. set goals that are clear, challenging, and obtainable.
12. leaders never loose their focus. they keep their eyes on the bog picture.
13. consistently high performance comes from a balance between work and leisure.
14. gain strengths from the positive and don’t be sapped by the negative.
15. tame your worries and energize your life.
16. never underestimate the power of enthusiasm.

I plan to get back to each of those points and add relevant examples from my daily life for each of the points above. I will be happy to see your examples too in the comments.

Great advertising campaigns: Sony Bravia Balls

Above is another great commercial. I will not be able to comment on the contents of the integrated marketing campaign as it was awhile ago. However, the commercial is amazing. I can definitely say that there was a huge viral component involved but not the SEO of the campaign. I just searched for sonybravia on google and got the youtube and ebay links in the related searches. This leads me to think that although there as a strong viral component, SEO and drive to website was slightly weaker.

Learning

• Great colour play. Beautiful production. Feel free to read some notes on rendering here: http://vimeo.com/3703357
• Great sound and motion play! Awesome track “heartbeats” by Jose Gonzalez.
• Again, advertising is connected to the product key selling points: colourful, realistic, hi-def.
• Because of the power of song within the audio-visual balance, Jose Gonzalez got extreme recognition. This is a great example of promoting musical talent. Event today, I’m searching google and finding a lot of curious questions from people about who this guy is. Great move!