Archive for February, 2008

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Business Blog Consulting is Back!

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

Bbc
Well, after a long, drawn out hiatus, Business Blog Consulting is back. I just did my first post there in a while, Is Blogging Recession Proof? If you can’t get enough of me here or at Internet Marketing 101, you can check out that post.

BBC is a group blog with some of the most influential business bloggers contributing to its success. (Oh, and there’s me. Still not sure how I got on that list. Probably a Zelig kind of thing.)

In any case, some of my fellow bloggers include:

And I believe a few more will be joining soon. That’s a hell of a lineup, so if you’ve been wanting to get valuable advice on business blogging in just one place, be sure to check out Business Blog Consulting.

Rich Brooks
Zelig-Like

Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, flyte news | 6 Comments »


Facebook Privacy: How to Protect Yourself on Facebook

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008

Dear Rich,

Recently someone left an inappropriate response to something I posted on my Facebook page. This person isn’t a friend of mine, but is apparently in one of my networks. I deleted it, but I didn’t even realize anyone but my friends could see what I post! I’m kind  of freaked and concerned about posting anything else.

How do I block this person from my Facebook profile, and how do I better protect myself going forward?

–Creeped Out In Cranberry Isles

(more…)

Posted in Social Media | 4 Comments »


Flickr Loses Some Juice for Search Engines

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

I was reading today that Yahoo has slapped "no-follow" tags on Flickr’s photo owner links. Yahoo owns Flickr, the popular photo sharing Web site.

Incoming links help your search engine visibility…SE’s see them as "votes of confidence." The no-follow tag was created to let the SE’s know that this link carries no weight…that it shouldn’t be included in the algorithm of how valuable a Web page is.

This same no-follow tag is used by most blogging platforms these days in the comments and trackback sections. This was most likely due to reduce the benefits of comment spam. In fact, as Search Engine Roundtable states:

This does not come to a shock to many of us because this has been the
pattern of all popular user generated sites. What is next?

Last year the popular user-generated site Squidoo lost most of its search engine mojo in Google. YouTube could be next. In fact, any social media Web site may begin to lose its luster with Web marketers.

If you have been using Flickr or any other social media/user-generated Web sites in your Web marketing, you may want to de-emphasize the time you spend with these.

On the other hand, it’s more than just search engine benefits that these sites provide. It’s not just search engine spiders that follow links, it’s people. And it’s not search engines that buy your products and services, it’s people.

User-generated sites may not help your search engine visibility in the near future, but they can still be a powerful tool to engage prospects and drive traffic to your Web site.

Rich Brooks
Social Butterfly

Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media, Web Marketing | No Comments »


MD+A to Z: A Full Service Marketing Agency’s Blog

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

Mdaz
This week we launched a blog for McCabe, Duval + Associates, a full service marketing agency located here in Portland.

The blog will explore ideas on marketing, strategy, branding and anything else that gets their creative minds all wound up. Recent posts include reviews of The Art of Possibility, musings on milk chocolate vs. dark chocolate, and whether online mentoring is a viable option.

I’m surprised that more agencies don’t have blogs…it’s the perfect tool to establish their new media credentials, and deflect growing concern that agencies only know mass media. MDA is certainly taking a step in the right direction with their new blog.

Although the blog is fairly new, I’ve added the RSS feed to my newsreader.

Rich Brooks
Business Blog Guru

Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Web Site Launches | No Comments »


How Do I Really Stop Spam?

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

Dear Rich,

How do I stop emails for penis enlargement, rolex watches and the like? I’m getting dozens every day.

–Inundated in Islesboro

(more…)

Posted in Entrepreneur & Small Business, Web Design & Development | 6 Comments »


Is Your Web Site or Blog Discriminating Against the Disabled?

Wednesday, February 20th, 2008

Yesterday I received an email from a reader of my Internet Marketing 101 blog. On a post called Five Secrets to Promoting Your Business Blog I included a recommendation to post to influential blogs in your niche.

The reader responded that one barrier to leaving comments on blogs is the use of CAPTCHAs–those annoying, messy boxes of alpha-numerics that are supposed to separate the people from the machines. Unfortunately, they can be an impenetrable barrier to people with disabilities. More unfortunately, MaineBusiness.com, which hosts my blog, uses CAPTCHA to prevent comment spam on their site. (So does TypePad, which powers this blog.)

The reader mentioned that census figures show 20% of the population are somehow disabled; obviously, not all of the would be stopped by a CAPTCHA, but why would you use a tool that stops the voice of your reader and quiets the conversation on your site?

Obviously, there’s a very good reason for using CAPTCHAs. They help stem the tide of comment spam generated by computers. Spammers use computers to send out an infinite, unending stream of spam to online forms for a variety of reasons. These spams reduce the signal to noise ratio, clog the tubes of the Internet, and reduce everyone’s productivity.

New CAPTCHA tools often give people alternatives to those messy alphanumerics. Sometimes there’s also an audio option (the computer will read you the answer and you type it in) or a simple math problem (what is 2 + 0) that these spam bots haven’t yet caught up with.

Regardless, it’s an ongoing battle between keeping communication flowing while keeping noise out. In a recent post, I talked about some of the benefits I’ve seen by using some non-CAPTCHA tools on online forms. However, ultimately spammers will figure those out as well.

We are in an arms race with the spammers, and of course there are innocent bystanders that are getting hurt, or at least disenfranchised.

There’s no right answer on how to handle the balance of reducing incoming spam and keeping the lines of communication open with any human who wants to be part of the conversation. Each company, each Web site owner, and each blogger needs to make their own decision.

What have you found that works for you?

Richcaptcha

Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Entrepreneur & Small Business, Web Design & Development | No Comments »


How Do I Find Influential Bloggers in My Niche?

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008

Dear Rich,

I’m looking to identify influential bloggers in my niche who might be interested in reviewing products and linking to those products on my Web site. How can I find them?

–Blogging in Bowdoinham

(more…)

Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Entrepreneur & Small Business, Web Marketing | 5 Comments »


Mmmmm….Cup Cakes!

Saturday, February 16th, 2008

CupcakesYou know what I love most about this job? Clients bearing gifts.

Lani Temple of Megunticook Market stopped in today while she was in town shooting a segment for 207, bearing a platter of cup cakes and brownies.

Now, Gloria and Jonathan, don’t you wish you hadn’t taken Friday as a personal day?

Rich Brooks
Happy Camper

Posted in Off Topic | 4 Comments »


Twitter for Politicians: Steve Novick Knows Social Media

Friday, February 15th, 2008

Today I got a notice from Twitter that I have another follower of my Twitter account.

For those of you with a life but without the driving desire to document and share every moment of it, you may not know of Twitter. It’s a free service where you can post updates of what you’re up to from a computer or mobile phone. You can choose to "follow" other people and get updates of what they’re doing.

If you need more explanation than that, I suggest you check out their FAQ.

In any case, the follower was novickforsenate. The "name" was intriguing enough for me to look into it. Turns out it’s Steve Novick, a democrat running for the U.S. Senate in Oregon.

Now, one thing that you often do after someone "follows" you, is to follow them back. So I can only imagine how this works. He asks one of his interns to do a search under "Oregon" or "Portland" (which is perhaps why he’s following me) or something similar and just start following fellow Twitterers. In turn, a certain percentage will start following him. (At this writing he is following 1,139 and only has 71 followers, but that may change.)

This is a great way–IMHO–of engaging the geekorati who spent time paying attention to Twitter. Once they’re following Steve, there’s not much more he has to do except to update his Twitter feed (again, probably done by an intern, but maybe not.)

He can post where he’s going to be, his response to news stories, or–like in a recent update–a link to his YouTube video, a Beer with Steve.

Yes, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, and a blog. This guy hasn’t just embraced social media, he’s made it his…well, let’s not go there. This is, after all, a professional business blog.

Will this help him get elected? Time will tell. However, I’m sure he’s loving the extra free media coverage he’s getting.

Rich Brooks
Twittering…twittering…

Posted in Social Media | 2 Comments »


How to Stop Spam Coming Through Your Contact Form

Friday, February 15th, 2008

Rich,

I am getting loads of spam through my contact form. Any ideas how to stop them and not exclude any real inquiries?

–Frustrated in Framingham

Dear Frustrated,

Sigh, the curse of the spambots. Welcome to the battlefield.

Unfortunately, as forms "age", they tend to be more susceptible to bots–little pieces of script–that in this case are used by spammers to fill up your inbox.

I used to get over 100/day of these time-wasters. We’ve recently been using two different forms that–so far–have been nearly perfect in protecting us from these emails.

One is a script you may be able to add to the very form you’re using now. It adds a piece of code that checks if the submit button has been pushed.

See, these spambots don’t actually use the form on your Web site, they go straight to the script that makes the form run, bypassing the submit button. By checking if this button is clicked, you can block about 99% of these emails. Users don’t notice any difference and aren’t required to type in a captcha, those sometimes indecipherable alpha-numeric combinations on irritating backgrounds. The script does require PHP on your server, and you may need to change the suffix of your Web page to .php to make it work.

Another option that we’ve used is called Wufoo. You can see us using their form at jobs page. This is a hosted solution that costs $9/mo…a worthwhile investment if you’re spending too much time deleting spam from your inbox. Wufoo has some nice additional options as well, including some small e-commerce solutions. However, we’ve found that the secure version of Wufoo doesn’t play well in IE6 (what does) so it might not be ideal for that purpose. Also, the autoresponder that’s sent to the person who completes your form has a Wufoo.com address…some people might find that a deal breaker, but it’s required to help email delivery.

Readers…what do you use to stem incoming spam from your Web site contact forms?

Rich Brooks
Talking Spam

Posted in Web Design & Development | 16 Comments »

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