I’ll be talkin’ blogs at the Maine Innkeepers Association‘s spring conference on April 26th, so Greg Dugal asked me to write up an article on how innkeepers can use blogs to better market themselves.
I wrote an article called "Why Your Inn Should Have a Blog" (PDF, 1.3MB) which they included in their winter newsletter and is available at their site. There’s also an article on podcasting by David Boggs in the issue.
If you read my earlier post on having my copy swiped by other companies I’m sure you feel my righteous indignation.
Over at MarketingProfs.com my Business Blog Consulting co-blogger Stephan Spencer has written "Stop, Thief! How to Protect Your Site from Copyright Infringement."
In the article he takes you step-by-step on how to combat people stealing your intellectual property, specifically the design and copy from your site.
Now, if I could just stop writing blog posts and take some action on these thieves some good might come of it!
You can make up your own mind, however.
It’s a shame, really, because I told the "Miserable Failure" story time and again to explain to people the power of incoming links.
The story goes like this: [up until a few days ago] if you Googled "miserable failure" the first result was George W. Bush’s bio page on the White House Web site. Now, you can be sure the words "miserable failure" never appeared on that page. So how would it rank #1 for that phrase?
A critical mass of Web site owners critical of Bush linked the words "miserable failure" from their Web sites to W’s bio at whitehouse.gov. Because Google looks at the words in a link to help determine what the lined page is about, this helped W’s bio rank first for "miserable failure."
For example, if I wanted flyte’s site to rank well for Maine Web Design or Maine Web Designer, not only would I want to include those phrases on my site, I’d like to get incoming links that used those phrases…like I just did. 
If you get enough people to exploit that feature of Google’s algorithm–the mathematical equation that determines how relevant a page is to a given search–you can create what’s known as a "Google Bomb."
However, Google just updated their algorithm to reduce the chances that a Google Bomb will work, and sure enough, George W. is no longer the number one result for "miserable failure."
This doesn’t diminish the power of quality incoming links, since that’s at the heart of Google’s algorithm; instead, it just reigns [thanks, Mom!] reins in the abuses.
I have heard people say that Google is just caving, and that Googling "great president" still brings up W’s bio page as the first result. I don’t think so.
From a political perspective–which I don’t believe is guiding Google’s latest algorithm change–why would you stop kicking W now? His popularity is at a low ebb, if not at an all-time low.
From a SEO perspective let’s remember that this page has a great PageRank (9), in no small part because of all the "miserable failure" links! Also, the word "president" appears 25 times (as of this writing) on the page, including in the page title and 66 times in the source code. "Great" doesn’t currently appear on the page, but appears twice in the code. (It looks like the Web developer commented out two places where the word great appeared that were no longer relevant.)
If I were to take away a lesson from just this one example, it would be that the page itself has to be "in on the joke" for a Google Bomb to work. In other words, external forces alone will no longer have enough power to vault a page to the number one spot; the page itself must provide relevant results. And isn’t that the goal?
To learn more check out the post on the official Google blog.
I’ve always heard horror stories of small business owners and clients who don’t pay their bills. Stories of owners laying out thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in products or services and then being unable to get a client to pay for it.
Sometimes the client’s business takes a nosedive or goes bankrupt. But what happens when the client just refuses to pay? They stall, asking for additional copies of the contract, or invoices, or they need to talk to accounts payable. Then they just stop returning your calls.
Obviously, I’m not writing this in a vacuum. I should count myself lucky that no one in the nearly 10 years we’ve been in business has ever stiffed me for more than pocket change, but it still stings when it happens.
I’m wondering if anyone out there wants to share some similar horror stories (no client names please!), or if you have some clever ways of guilting delinquent clients into paying I’m all ears.
Are you ready for a sailing adventure off the Maine coast? Then Maine Adventure Sails is ready for you.
Maine Adventure Sails is a partnership of two schooners, the J&E Riggin and the Timberwind. You and your family can enjoy a true adventure on these historic sailing ships that cruise the Maine coast.
Maine Adventure Sails already had a Web site for their partnership, as well as for each windjammer when they came to flyte. They were looking for help with their search engine rankings and their Web marketing in general.
We all decided that a Maine Adventure Sails blog would be a good addition to other online and offline marketing they were doing to promote their unique family adventures. The blog will focus on the ships, sailing, family vacation tips, sustainable business practices, Maine food and recipes and more.
Why Maine food? One of the captain’s wives–does that make it sound like he has more than one?–is Annie Mahle, a food columnist for the Portland Press Herald and author of At Home, At Sea: Recipes from the Maine Windjammer J & E Riggin.
I know Annie through MEBSR–Maine Businesses for Social Responsibility–and she treated board members to a day trip last year on the J&E Riggin. It was one of the most amazing days I’ve spent in Maine and the food she prepared was unbelievable. Just check out her post on meyer lemon recipes.
Whether you choose the J&E Riggin or Timberwind, you’re sure to have a vacation you’ll never forget. And be sure to check out their blog at Maine Sails Blog.
Since we host many of our clients’ Web sites, we are in an ongoing battle with spam and the spam-bots. (If anyone’s looking for a band name I think I just gave you one. Unfortunately, you’ll have a tough time with email marketing from a deliverability standpoint.)
I was preparing a message to our hosted clients in how we’re dealing with this increase in spam and what they can do to help when Robin sent me a link to MSNBC’s article w/accompanying video, "It’s Not Your Imaginiation — Spam Is On the Rise."
Nothing earth-shaking here, but just the fact it’s on the evening news shows what an invasive problem it is. No matter how smart we make spam filters, some hacker will create a spam-bot that will beat it, so we’ll need to create a smarter spam filter which will in turn spawn smarter spam-bots.
Can’t we all just get along?
Are you a hand therapist, occupational therapist or physical therapist looking for continuing education opportunities? Well Hand Therapy Consultation Services might be just the answer you’re looking for.
This therapist-owned business puts on both live and online courses for OTs and PTs. Therapists can learn about the different courses, the host facilities and the speakers through the site.
We don’t normally promote our ProSite clients through our blog, but I was really impressed with the backend programming the crew did on this one.
Through the backend admin, HTCS can add, edit and delete courses, including the title, the speaker, both a short and long description and other important information without knowing any HTML. They can also add, edit and delete speakers, and connect them with the courses they’ll be teaching. They can even create PayPal buttons so that visitors can immediately register and pay online with a credit card.
So, if you’re a PT or OT looking for some CEU’s, check out Hand Therapy Consultation Services. If you’re a small business or entrepreneur looking to develop a cool interactive online app, check out flyte new media.
Admit it. You’re curious. You’d like to know how much traffic your competitors are getting.
There’s a nice post over at Search Engine Roundtable called "Garnering Your Competitors Web Stats" with lots of appropriate links to tools that can give you an idea of how you compare to your competition. This is probably more valuable if you’re competing against Old Navy rather than the guy down the street, but it’s definitely interesting.
What are your biggest challenges facing your Web site this year? What one piece of information could change your Web marketing from middling to explosive?
Well, I don’t know either, but I’m putting together a quick survey I’m hoping you could fill out at SurveyMonkey called the Web Strategy Survey. Once I get back some responses I’ll share the results.
It’s only about 5 questions long, so if you have (literally) a minute, please give it a try.
Twice in the past few months I’ve used PayPal’s email support and twice I’ve amazed at how abysmal it is.
Both times after sending email requests for problems I’ve had with the service, I’ve received a generic email that reads:
Due to an increase in seasonal email volumes, we may not have been able to answer your email.
If your inquiry has not been resolved or you have further questions regarding your PayPal account please call 1-402-938-3531.
I’m sorry, but I didn’t realize that the week leading up to Martin Luther King weekend put such a strain on your email servers.
Not only are you telling me that you have no clue if you even answered my question, you’re putting it back on me to make a long distance telephone if you didn’t do your job.
Now, you have to understand: I use PayPal, I’m a PayPal merchant, and I reguarly recommend it to clients. Which is why I find this so frustrating.
PayPal offers a good service at a reasonable price. I just wish they
cared more about their customers.
Network Solutions used to treat their customers like an entitlement, too, until competition arrived. Now they regularly lose business to companies like GoDaddy. Will PayPal wise up in time, or will I start promoting Google’s payment service soon?
Rich Brooks
Looking for Options
Update: PayPal called me at home this weekend (which is weird, because this is a business account, but I must have left my home number as well) to follow up with me. However, I was at home, it was the weekend, and it was the middle of the 2nd quarter of the Pats/Chargers game (I’m a big Pats fan) so I told them to call me at work.
They did, and were able to answer my question in one minute and twelve seconds, according to the clock on my phone.
The lesson for PayPal: invest more money in customer support.
The lesson for you: get a blog and complain loudly.
Also, I found a few people who had gone through the same problem:
The list goes on….
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