• Paying Attention to Your Alexa Rankings?

  By Laurel | Posted Apr 21, 2008 | 0 Comment(s) | Filed in: Business, Internet Marketing, Resources, Technology

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  If you check your Website’s Alexa Ranking on a regular basis, chances are you noticed a change over the past week.
  
  Whether your Alexa Ranking improved and you started patting yourself on the back for your SEO skills, or it weakened and left you scratching your head, you can rest assured that you (fortunately or unfortunately) most likely had little to do with it.
  
  Thanks to the Internet marketing gurus at HubSpot, we know that the drastic change experienced by many sites occured because Alexa recently changed its algorithm.  Here are the basics:
  

  • Rankings now include more data sources.
  • Alexa has improved the methodology behind its algorithm.
  • The changes provide you, the one concerned about how your Website traffic stands up on the World Wide Web, with more accurate rankings.

  Learn more about the new Alexa Rankings straight from the source.

  Not sure what we’re talking about?

  Find out more about Alexa, a free online tool that ranks your Website traffic and how it compares to other sites on the Web – including those of your competitors.

  
  

• Talking Management with Jason Fried, 37signals

  By Paul | Posted Dec 30, 2007 | 0 Comment(s) | Filed in: Business, Management, Resources, Technology

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  If you aren't familiar yet with 37signals, and its founder, Jason Fried, do yourself a favor and check out this video from Crain's Chicago Business. Founded in 1999, the company designs web-based software for individuals and businesses. 37signals estimates that more than 1 million people use its products. To date, Jeff Bezos of Amazon is its only outside investor. Their products are simple and affordable, and as their Web site says, "they do everything you need and nothing you don't." Here are a few outtakes from the Crain's video, Talking Management: Leadership Lessons from Jason Fried. He offers an interesting perspective as the leader of a high-growth technology company that has become a media darling, and is sought after by investors:

  • "We're not big into increasing our headcount. We're big on increasing our influence."
  • "Interruption is the biggest enemy of productivity that there is."
  • "We have free versions of all of our products. And that's actually the best way to get someone to pay for something."
  • "We're focused on building things that provide way more value than they cost."
  • "People are always willing to pay for something they find valuable."
  • "I love the idea of building simple tools that work really well."
  • "I don't think you need to be a big company anymore to do big things."

  Screenshot from Basecamp, 37signals' project management and collaboration platform.

  
• What Can Google Do For Your Business?

  By Paul | Posted Dec 30, 2007 | 0 Comment(s) | Filed in: Advertising, Marketing, Public Relations, Technology

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  On the heels of surpassing the $200 billion mark in market value (which by the way is more than the combined value of News Corp, Disney, Viacom and CBS), Google amassed nearly 4 billion search queries in September, according to the latest report from Nielsen Online.
  
  That's 54 percent of all online queries conducted at the top U.S. search providers. Yahoo! Search is second with 1.4 million (19.5 percent).
  
  So, as Google's influence continues to expand, here are a few practical tips to help your business tap into the wealth of services offered by the search giant:

  • Sign up to receive Google News Alerts for your company, competitors and industry.

  • Create custom Google Maps of your headquarters to post online, and send in emails.

  • Research and monitor discussions and trends in the social media world through Google Blog Search and Google Groups.

  • Launch a pay-per-click campaign with Google AdWords.

  • Submit your Website to be indexed by Googlebot.

  To find even more uses for Google in your business, check out the Google Business Solutions site.

• Is Social Media More Relevant Than Mainstream Media?

  By Paul | Posted Dec 30, 2007 | 0 Comment(s) | Filed in: Business, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Technology

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  Mainstream media (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, etc.) continues to play an essential role in every PR campaign; however, social media sites such as Digg, Reddit, Mashable and Del.icio.us are becoming more relevant and rapidly changing the way people consume news.
  
  The Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ)recently released an intriguing report - "The Latest News Headlines - Your Vote Counts" - comparing the news agenda of the mainstream media for one week with the news agenda found on a host of user-news sites for the same period.
  
  Here are a few of the key findings:

  • The news agenda of the three user-sites that week was markedly different from that of the mainstream press. Many of the stories users selected did not appear anywhere among the top stories in the mainstream media coverage studied.
  • The sources news sites draw on are strikingly different from the mainstream media. Seven in ten stories on the user sites come either from blogs or Web sites such as YouTube and WebMD that do not focus mostly on news.
  • The user-news agenda, at least in this one-week snapshot, was more diverse, yet also more fragmented and transitory than that of the mainstream news media.

  The report goes on to conclude that, "For now, the percentage of Americans who rely exclusively on news from user-driven sites is just a fraction of what it is for mainstream news sites. And in this increasingly fragmented era, many who visit Digg, Del.icio.us, and Reddit may also be reading the online versions of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal."
  
  "But whether or not we see further divergence between user-driven sites and mainstream media over the next few years will surely remain a key question for researches, journalists, and of course, citizens."
  
  While the debate continues, one thing is for sure - the PR industry is evolving, and traditional agencies that don't quickly adapt to integrate social media will be left behind.
  
  See what The San Francisco Chronicle wrote about the PEJ report:
  
  User-news sites offer diverse stories, some questionable source
  The San Francisco Chronicle
  By Joe Garofoli - Sept. 12, 2007
  
  . . . The traditional news outlet wants to put a lot of gravitas on their front page. They want the readers to eat their spinach," said Kourosh Karimkhany, general manager of Wired Digital, which owns Reddit. Technology allows users to create their own news "agenda" from multiple online sources, rendering a traditional front page increasingly "irrelevant," he said.
  
  Instead, on these growing sites - Digg welcomed 19.5 million unique visitors last month - consumers rely on the "wisdom of crowds" (other readers) to figure out what are the top stories of the day.
  
  The study found that the news items on these sites are "more diverse, more transitory and often draw on a very different and perhaps controversial list of sources." It found that 40 percent of the stories on user-news sites originated on blogs and 24 percent came from mainstream sites like BBC News. Only 5 percent came from wire services. . . .

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