Need to market yourself or your company, product, or event without a big budget? Learn how! We'll give an overview of how to: set up, search engine optimize (SEO), write, and promote a blog or web site with twitter, RSS, Facebook, and sharing icons; make a video at low cost and publish it to YouTube and elsewhere; video SEO; SEO basics.

1. Eric
Krock
Co-­‐Founder,
Voximate
@voximate
http://www.voximate.com/blog/

2. What
We’ll
Cover
 Trademarking
 Blogging:
Tools,
Tips,
SEO
 Basic
Search
Engine
Optimization
(SEO)
 twitter:
Tools,
Tips
 Filming
Low
Cost
Video
 YouTube
Video
Search
Engine
Optimization
(VSEO)
 Facebook
Pages
 Site
and
Blog
Promotion
Tips

3. Why
Would
You
Listen
to
Me?
What
Where
Notes
Co-­‐Founder,
http://www.voximate.com/
Solution
for
Agile
project
Voximate
management
&
collaboration
in
private
beta
–
ask
for
invite!
Blogger
http://www.voximate.com/blog/
Tweep
@voximate
1600
followers
/
7
mo.
(twitter
user)
@WeAreSaidMusa
580
followers
/
2
mo.
@WeAreShoaib
872
followers
/
1
mo.
@AIDSvideos
390
followers
/
1
mo.
Not-­‐for-­‐profit
http://www.AIDSvideos.org/
2.4M
views
for
106
videos.
Vlogger
http://www.youtube.com/ Cost:
$33k
all-­‐in
including
AIDSvideos
video
HW,
SW,
creation,
travel,
translation
Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/
WeAreAllSaidMusa
http://www.facebook.com/
WeAreAllShoaib

4. Trademarking
Your
Company
Name
 Nolo
Trademark
PDF
eBook
for
$23.99:
http://www.nolo.com/products/trademark-­‐TRD.html
 Do
your
own
initial
searches:
http://tess2.uspto.gov/
 Have
trademark
attorney
finalize
your
best
candidates:
 Price
for
formal
search:
$750
/
mark
searched
 Additional
price
for
handling
official
USPTO
application:
$1250
 International
trademark
filings
cost
extra
per
region
&
country

5. Why
Blog?
 Raise
awareness
of
company
and
offering
 Establish
credibility
in
target
audience
 Draw
traffic
via
organic
search
engine
results
 Raise
relevance
ranking
of
your
domain
on
Google
 Attract
prospects
who
may
convert
and
become
customers

6. General
Blogging
Tips
 Write
well!
 Read
book:
“Elements
of
Style”
by
Strunk
&
White
 Share
useful
knowledge
 Gain
audience
by
teaching
 Use
a
catchy
title;
it
must
be
a
“hook!”
 Humor
and
irony
work
well
 Publish
new
articles
frequently

7. Use
Wordpress
to
Blog
 Why
Wordpress?
 Leading
blog
software
 Free
and
open
source
 Supports
Search
Engine
Optimization
well
 Extensible
via
large
plug-­‐in
library
 Your
choices:
 Hosted:
Wordpress.com
 Self-­‐Hosted:
own
site,
plus
Wordpress.org
software
 Read
book:
“Wordpress
in
Depth”

8. Customizing
Look
of
Wordpress
 Use
a
theme
 I
use:
ThemeHybrid
from
http://themehybrid.com
 Outstanding
web
support
membership
only
$25/year!
 Customize
your
theme
with
a
“child
theme”
 Lets
you
update
parent
theme
later
 See:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes

9. Recommended
Plug-­‐ins
Plug-­‐in
Purpose
Akismet
Spam
filter:
$5/mo.
single
site,
http://akismet.com/
All-­‐In-­‐One
SEO
Pack
Optimize
Search
Engine
Optimization
of
blog
cbnet
Ping
Optimizer
Prevent
duplicate
pinging
of
blog
syndication
feeds
Google
XML
Sitemaps
Automatically
generate
map
of
site
for
Google
Widget
Logic
Enable
conditional
content
in
sidebar
Enable
Media
Replace
Enable
easy
inline
updating
of
images
•
Get
plug-­‐ins
from
http://www.wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
•
Back
up
your
Wordpress
installation
(HTML
files)
and
database
instance
before
installing
or
upgrading
any
plug-­‐in!

10. URL
Best
PracFces
 All-­‐lowercase
file
names
 Separate
words
with
hyphens
(-­‐),
not
underscores
(_)
 End
URL
with
a
/
(not
.php,
.asx,
etc.)
so
can
switch
CMSes
later
if
wish
to
 Keep
page
name
short
enough
that
Google
won’t
split
page
name
when
it
compresses
the
URL
for
display
 Ideally,
keep
total
URL
68-­‐74
characters
(less
important
now
due
to
Google
URL
compression)

11. Other
Wordpress
ConfiguraFons
Have
static
company
home
page,
put
http://codex.wordpress.org/
blog
at
YourDomain/blog/
Creating_a_Static_Front_Page
Pretty
permalinks
http://codex.wordpress.org/
Using_Permalinks
Show
only
excerpt
from
post
on
blog
http://themehybrid.com/support/
home
page
to
avoid
duplicating
topic/show-­‐only-­‐excerpt-­‐in-­‐homepage
content
http://themehybrid.com/themes/
structure
Put
link
to
post
at
end
of
excerpt
http://themehybrid.com/support/
topic/how-­‐to-­‐change-­‐at-­‐end-­‐of-­‐post-­‐
and-­‐make-­‐it-­‐an-­‐active-­‐link
Hardening
security.
(Update
both
http://codex.wordpress.org/
Wordpress
&
plug-­‐ins
promptly!!!)
Hardening_WordPress

12. Blog
Social
Media
IntegraFon
 http://feedburner.google.com/
 Wraps
your
RSS
feed
in
easy-­‐to-­‐use
URL
 Have
your
blog’s
RSS
icon
point
at
FeedBurner
URL
 Use
royalty-­‐free
icons
for
RSS
Subscribe
and
twitter
Follow
links
 AddThis.com
to
provide
social
media
Share
link

13. Search
Engine
OpFmizaFon
 You
are
writing
blog
posts
&
web
pages
for
TWO
readers:
 Human
beings
 Googlebot
 Goal:
Enable
Googlebot
to
understand
page’s
content
and
focus
without
annoying
human
readers

14. Target
Keywords
&
Key
Phrases
 Create
list
of
keywords
/
phrases
you
want
to
rank
well
for
in
search
results.
Tools:
 Google
AdWords
(free)
 Google
Analytics
(free)
–
where’s
traffic
from?
 SEOmoz.org
Keyword
Tools
($70/month
membership)
 Targeting
niche
keywords
with
less
competition
may
be
more
successful.

15. Where
to
Use
Keywords?
 Domain
name
 Account
names
on
twitter,
YouTube,
Facebook
 Blog
title,
category
names,
tag
names
 Page
URL
(68-­‐74
characters)
 Page
TITLE
(60
characters),
Description
(160
characters),
Excerpt
 H1
–
H6
 Image
file
name
&
ALT
text
 First
sentence
of
paragraph
 Bullet
items
 Strong
/
emphasized
text

16. Avoid
“Duplicate
Content”
 There
is
no
“Google
penalty,”
but
if
same
content
is
on
two
pages,
they
divide
links,
clicks,
and
“page
equity.”
Single
page
will
rank
higher
in
Search
Engine
Result
Pages
(SERPs)
than
two
separate
pages.
 Ideal:
one
piece
of
content
=
one
page
=
one
URL
 Blog
post
lives
at
pretty
permalink
URL
 Blog
home
page,
category
page,
tag
pages
show
excerpt
only
and
link
to
full
blog
post
at
permalink
URL
 If
syndicate
articles,
ensure
each
syndicated
copy
includes
link
back
to
original

17. Put
Images
in
Blog
Posts
 Posts
with
images
rank
higher
than
posts
without
them
 Use
stock.xchng
(sxc.hu)
for
royalty-­‐free
images
 Use
image
editor
(e.g.
Mac
Paintbrush)
to
compress
image
to
small
JPEG
so
don’t
increase
page
load
time
 Give
image
SEOed
file
name,
SEOed
ALT
text

18. Inbound
Link
Campaign
 Get
other
relevant
sites
to
link
to
your
web
site
 Have
them
use
targeted
keywords
in
their
link
text
 GOOD:
project
management
solution
 BAD:
click
here
to
see
a
project
management
solution

19. twiTer
Tips
 Great
tool
for:
 Listening
and
learning
from
others
 Finding
your
audience
 Engaging
with
customers,
prospects,
others
 Promoting
blog
posts
 Posting
shorter
comments

20. twiTer
Basics
 Use
bit.ly
to
shorten
URLs
 Use
search.twitter.com
to
identify
hash
tags
used
by
your
audience:
#agile,
#pmot,
#prodmgmt
…
 Keep
tweets
less
than
120
characters
so
others
can
re-­‐
tweet
easily
 Embed
relevant
hash
tags
within
your
tweets
 Use
HootSuite
to
schedule
tweets
in
advance
and
follow
relevant
hashtags
 Follow
people
with
similar
interests
&
see
if
they
follow
you
back;
give
them
time
to
decide
 Tweet
Tue
–
Thu
between
9
a.m.
–
3
p.m.
Pacific
Time

21. Key
twiTer
Rules
 No
“aggressive
following”
 No
“mass
unfollows”
 Don’t
follow
the
same
person
repeatedly
 Can
follow
maximum
of
2000
people;
after
that,
can
only
follow
10%
more
people
than
follow
you
back
 No
inappropriate
(spammy)
use
of
hash
tags
 No
excessive
@username
tweeting
 Avoid
extremely
high
ratio
of
follows
to
followers

22. Unofficial
twiTer
Good
PracFces
 Not
official
rules,
but:
 Only
follow
people
likely
to
be
interested
in
your
feed!
 Don’t
follow
more
than
125
people
per
day
 Give
people
7
days
to
follow
you
back
before
unfollowing
 Should
get
at
least
1
new
follower
for
every
4
follows
if
you
are
targeting
correctly
 Don’t
“autofollow”
followers!
 Don’t
send
an
automated
thank
you
message
to
new
followers
unless
it’s
a
substantive
call
to
action.

23. Unofficial
twiTer
Good
PracFces
 Not
official
rules,
but:
 Not
all
tweets
should
be
blog
posts
 Retweet
more
than
you
tweet
 Thank
people
for
retweets
 Create
useful
lists
to
categorize
users
on
twitter

24. How
to
Find
PotenFal
Followers?
 Follow
opinion
leaders,
who
they
follow,
their
followers,
and
users
on
their
relevant
lists
 search.twitter.com:
who’s
posting
using
your
target
hash
tags?
 WeFollow.com
 Tlists.com

25. Blog
Post
+
tweet
Sequence
 Pick
blog
post
page
name
 Create
draft
blog
post
in
Wordpress
 Use
bit.ly
to
shorten
URL
 Draft
120
character
tweet,
including
hash
tags
&
shortened
URL
 Write
post
 Find
relevant
image,
retitle
it,
upload
it,
make
it
featured
image
for
the
post
 Use
Wordpress
to
schedule
post
for
next
day
@
9
a.m.
 Use
HootSuite
to
schedule
tweet
for
next
day
@
9:15

26. Filming
Low-­‐Cost
Video:
Equipment
 $350:
Consumer
HD
camcorder
with
Flash
memory
and
audio
input
port
 $19.95
Radio
Shack
lavaliere
microphone,
or
$1000
Sennheiser
wireless
microphone
/
receiver
set
 $837
Lowel
Rifa
eX
44
Pro,
TO-­‐83
Hard
Case
lighting
kit
(two
lights,
plus
hard
carrying
case)
 $1099
PrompterPeople.com
Flex
Series
Teleprompter
 $162
Libec
T68
75mm
2-­‐Stage
Aluminum
Tripod
 Macintosh
computer
 Final
Cut
Studio
(or
even
Express)
for
video
editing

27. Notes
on
Filming
Video
 Good
lighting
is
critical
for
making
people
look
good.
 Good
audio
is
MUCH
harder
than
good
video!
 Film
in
room
with
closed
door.
 Use
lavaliere
microphone!
 Make
sure
microphone
is
turned
on
&
battery
is
charged!
 Won’t
look
like
Francis
Ford
Coppola
filmed
it.
 Doesn’t
have
to;
costs
much
less!!
 Be
Agile.
Film
and
publish
many
videos
cheaply,
see
what
draws
interest,
and
iterate!

28. Video
Search
Engine
OpFmizaFon
 What
to
SEO?
 YouTube
account
name
 Video
title
(50
characters
to
display
without
break)
 Video
description
(make
long
and
detailed,
and
include
links
to
your
site!)
 Video
tag
list
(up
to
500
characters
total)
 Script
for
video
(upload
as
a
caption
file;
YouTube
will
automatically
synchronize
English
caption
file
to
video)
 Playlist
titles

29. More
Video
Tips
 Promotion
 Make
your
videos
replies
to
other
popular
related
videos
 Create
playlists
including
your
videos
and
other
popular
related
videos
 Use
YouTube
animations
to
cross-­‐link
videos
 Syndication
 Use
TubeMogul.com
to
syndicate
videos
to
multiple
sites

30. Facebook
Pages
 Many
corporate
sites
have
few
“Likes”
and
are
fairly
useless
 Reserve
Facebook
Page
with
your
trademark
name
early
 Consider
making
it
live
later
on
when
you
have
enough
interest
 Have
a
strategy
for
your
Facebook
Page,
not
just
a
page
for
the
sake
of
having
a
page

31. Site
&
Blog
PromoFon
Tips
 Register
your
blog
in
technorati
 Link
LinkedIn
profile
to
twitter
feed
so
your
tweets
are
automatically
copied
to
your
LinkedIn
feed
 Remember
to
cross-­‐post
your
blog
posts
to
Facebook
 Comment
on
relevant
blogs
&
include
a
link
back
to
your
own
site
(won’t
affect
PageRank
because
of
NoFollows,
but
humans
will
see
and
click
links)