By Bob Speyer, Web Success Team

The New York Times is making news instead of just delivering it to its readers. Times have been hard on newspapers across the country. As the size of your daily newspaper dwindles, so have their profits. The NY Times operated at a $35 million loss in the third quarter of 2009.

To shore up its bottom line, the Times will now charge consumers for its web content. By increasing online revenue, it hopes to offset print advertising losses and utilize the digital press to build your business online. Let’s face it, we need our news organizations to be profitable. They provide a valuable service. As the “Fourth Estate” they act as our eyes and ears around the nation and world to keep watch on government while keeping us informed.

The New York Times’ “metered model” will permit visitors to read a fixed number of articles before charging a monthly fee. Any subscriber will have free unlimited access. It’s their way to boost readership and flip visitors into paid customers. They may even have to be more aggressive and use some online direct response marketing tactics and take advantage of social media marketing using Facebook and Twitter. Incidentally, the Wall Street Journal already charges for their online subscriptions.

So What’s Next? Our Predictions

We predict that charging for blog content will be the next online reality — and its coming to a computer screen near you! We have all been weaned on free web content, but most analysts conclude that newspapers and magazines will have to charge customers to remain in the news business.

With the explosion of smart phones, like the Apple’s iphone, delivering content to mobile devices will be the next big revenue source for providers of news and blog-worthy content. Content providers will be offering you subscriptions to news, sports, finance and more. And it may not stop there. Popular blogs may also charge a premium to be part of the “inner circle” to receive cutting edge content, such as proprietary information, insider tips and strategies.

We anticipate the pricing to be very modest but increase over time as the consumer gets use to paying for content. Paid value always is perceived to be better than “free advice.” In the end, the marketplace will decide and determine your web success.

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Ask yourself which is more powerful when you are deciding on a purchase: a referral from a friend or colleague; a printed advertisement; or a sales person.

Not to second guess you, but I bet overwhelmingly it is someone you have direct contact with, someone who has actually purchased the product or service, or has heard good things about it from a trusted friend. Recommendations are sales gold.

This senario falls into the realm of social media networking. It is powerful, it is convincing and it is proven. Companies have spend millions of dollars to promote their brand and to deliver the right message to consumers through traditional advertising. Now the statistics are in and they are moving more of their marketing dollars to the digital/social media arenas.

Here are a few social media facts and figures:

1. 300,000+ businesses use Facebook
2. 300 million people are active Facebook users
3. 100 million viewers are on YouTube
4. 14 million Twitter users
5. 346 million people read blogs; 184 million bloggers

Your new and current business will depend more and more on social media marketing. That’s were the hearts and minds of your customers will be focused. They are relying more on input and personal experiences in decision making that having some Madison Avenue wag influence your decision where to spend your hard earned money.

The paradigm has shifted. Power to the people. As James Frley, CMO Ford stated, “You can’t just say it. You have to get the people to say it to each other.”

Here are just a few real life examples:

• Naked Pizza set a one-day sales record using social media marketing. Using Twitter, they increased sales 67% of which 84% were new customers.
• An organized tweet-up for Susan G. Komen for the Cure netted 11,000 visitors in 24 hours and countless donations.
• Web host provider Moonfruit spent $15,000 on social media and increased their traffic by 300% — translation, a sales bump of 20%.

These stories are not uncommon. Creating and implementing an effective social media marketing plan is as essential to your business as your telephones. Implementing one is a must. There is no getting around that social media done correctly takes time and resources, but the return on investment is there for the taking.

The New Buying Reality

Buying habits have changed. Selling has to catch-up to this new reality. The better news is that it is affordable, considering its reach and appeal. You are building lasting relationships that will continue to pay dividends, or in business terms, profits. How’s that for a return on investment.

Get started today. The Web Success Team can tailor a social media marketing plan to fit your company and to promote your brand.

Source for this article: Socialnomics

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By Eric Pangburn – Web Success Team Contributor
As many web-savvy bloggers know, Google and the other major search engines regularly make changes to the way that web pages are ranked. This has resulted in a fair amount of confusion as you may have imagined, with many website owners being unaware of which way to go next, it seems that no sooner has your SEO efforts gotten you positive results before the rules of the game are changed yet again.

The Changing Face Of Website Ranking

This issue comes into marked prominence nowadays with Google’s recent move to place more focus on branded searches. This shift actually has its beginnings in 2003, when Google issued the Florida update, which radically leveled the playing field as far as SEO was concerned. Many websites that had previously enjoyed high rankings were suddenly nowhere to be found, and many site owners were understandably more than a little upset. It was later revealed that the changes affected websites that had repetitious inbound anchor text with little to no diversity and used keywords phrases too often, among other characteristics.

The Importance Of Protecting Your Brand

This update was probably the first time that that SEO was complicated enough to render most people unaware of how to use it. In previous years, it was enough to buy or trade links, and include your keyword in the anchor text. Do this often enough, and you could get a pretty favorable ranking.

With Google shift towards more brand-oriented search ranking criteria however, it becomes even more imperative to view your branding in a different light. As Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt puts it, effective branding can help a website win the confidence of their customers, and give these customers a clear sign that the website’s content can be trusted. This is particularly important given the huge number of different websites out there, not all of which can be relied on to provide quality content.

Ways By Which You Can Protect Your Brand

There are a number of ways by which you can protect your brand. Some of the more common–and effective–ones are described below.

Brand your blog with a unique company identity

A blog is one of the most powerful tools at anyone’s disposal. Rather than go into the many reasons why a blog can be useful–information you can find from numerous other websites–suffice it to say that if you don’t have a blog, get one ASAP!

After you have gotten your blog up and running, the next step is to optimize it with branded keywords. This will help you with the next step…

Utilize the power of branded social media pages to interact with your visitors

After you have made the effort to dot your website with branded keywords, you will want to put all that effort to good use. One of the best ways to do that is by frequenting social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, and finding out how much of a buzz your website is causing. If it isn’t causing the ruckus that you want, maybe you could go ahead and initiate conversation yourself. Join in on any existing conversations about your brand or start up some yourself. If you do come across some criticism or even downright hostility, strive to maintain a cordial and professional online demeanor.

Trademark your brand name

Failing to trademark your brand name can result in a number of difficulties, one of which is the possibility that other websites will benefit from your brand. You may find that several websites may actually use variations on your branded keywords, causing your potential customers to end up in other sites instead of yours! Without a trademark to rely on, you are essentially at the mercy of your competitors, and will have to ask them to remove those branded keywords from their sites manually; a process that can take up to a few weeks.

Buy up any domain names related to your brand

After you have settled on a good domain name that you are comfortable sticking with for the long term, it would be a good idea to buy up as many variations of the domain name as you can, including any possible misspellings. This will help prevent other websites from cashing in on your site’s popularity, and at the same time help ensure that visitors that misspell your domain name in the URL boxes of their browsers still end up at your site.

Get certified

Just like in the real world, credentials often count for something, and the best way to lend your website an air of credibility is by securing a certificate from a reputable governing body such as the Better Business Bureau, This will go a long way in inspiring customer confidence in your site.

Protect your reputation

Your reputation is one of the most effective means by which you can ensure a steady stream of visitors, and since visitors are the lifeblood of any website, you will want to make sure to protect your reputation at all costs. Remember that the better your reputation is, the longer you can stay in business. Keep your site up and running for a long time, and you greatly increase your chances of pulling in the numbers.

Practice only white hat SEO techniques

In the quest to achieve a higher ranking on the major search engines, a number of website owners and SEO “experts” routinely resort to “Black Hat” SEO techniques. These techniques typically involve flooding their pages with keywords without much relevant content to back it up, or hosting too many irrelevant links. While such techniques may get you a higher ranking in the short term, they will likely backfire on you as Google catches wind of your tricks. Stick to white hat techniques for all your SEO efforts, and you avoid the risk of being penalized–and even banned–by Google and the other major search engines.

Use links and affiliate ads wisely

Links and affiliate ads are essential components of any SEO campaign, although it is important to make sure that they are used properly. It may be a good idea to set up a redirect mechanism as well as to implement other techniques that will not only make your website more attractive to the major search engines, but to your readers as well. Keep in mind that this technique can be quite tricky, so you will want to check everything carefully whenever you make any changes.

As you can see, branding and how it relates to Google brings with it many concerns. Although previously unheard of, the many changes wrought by Google have necessitated a shift in the way that branding should be viewed. Stay on top of these changes, and you may be able to get branding to work for you.

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Join the Web Success Team for a FREE social media workshop hosted by the L.A. Chamber of Commerce. The workshop is called Latinos and Social Media Strategies for Nonprofits and is on Wednesday, December 16th from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m at Bank of America Room A, B & C on 350 S. Bixel St., Los Angeles 90017. The sponsor is the California Wellness Foundation. The workshop is promoted by VPE, a Hispanic Public Relations firm, whose social media practice area, commUNITY®, is geared to bringing online opportunities to Latinos.

During this one-day workshop, you will learn how to utilize the latest web technology for your organization’s advantage. Presenters will share outreach strategies and how to manage an online presence for your organization in support of your mission. You will get key insights and recommendations to harness the power of new media to maximize your dollars.

Marci Rosenblum – Featured Speaker

Throughout the day there will be guest speakers on a variety of social media topics. Kicking off the morning is Marci Rosenblum, co-founder of the Web Success Team, who will be talking about “Effective Branding in a Social Media World.” Marci will discuss the pros for carrying your brand forward in social networks; and the benefits that it creates for spreading your message to the right demographics.

Other topics include successful social media campaigns. You will learn from nonprofit organizations using social media. This session will focus on successful strategies and challenges in launching social media campaigns including online fundraising, community organizing and civic engagement. The afternoon session will delve into developing social media strategies. You will learn what steps to take before launching a social media effort and strategies to use to engage with your online community.

Take-Aways…

There will be a host of tips, techniques and strategies you will gleam from this one-day workshop. The focus may be on non-profits, but anyone can benefit from the content presented by these social media marketing experts. Some of the workshop take-aways include:

• Learning about the most useful web tools for nonprofits.
• Discovering the latest trends on how to use Social Media to communicate with constituents.
• Conversing with experts on how to develop strategies and manage online presence.
• Discussing with organizations that have successfully used social media for promotion, advocacy and fund raising.

Sign-up and join the team for this FREE.

For more information and a schedule of workshop activities and speakers, go to the link: Latinos and Social Media Strategies for Nonprofits. Join the Web Success Team for a day of learning and networking.

TeamWork Builds Web Success

The Web Success Team specializes in building and marketing direct response websites that take full advantage of the latest developments on the Internet. The Team has an arsenal of effective web strategies, online tools and proven techniques to promote your products and services. And we’ll show you ways to increase the amount of qualified traffic to your site through the expanding social media and online marketing strategies.

For more tips, tools and articles of interest, become a fan of the WebSuccessTeam Facebook Page and learn more about online marketing, SEO and social media.

Contact the Team today for a complimentary consultation to your web success!

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By Kristin Tomlinson-Web Success Team

Thanksgiving dates back to 1621, when both the Mayflower Pilgrims and the American Wampanoag Indians shared 3 days of celebration for conquering their harsh environment and feasting with new friends in a new world. Today, Thanksgiving is a time where people come from near and far to reconnect, rejuvenate, reflect and rejoice. Thanksgiving is one of the few times of the year that can be classified as a social holiday. People actually have a reason to get back in sync with someone they’ve lost touch with or possibly repair old ties that have previously been severed.

Like Thanksgiving, social media gives people the tools to reconnect and stay in touch. Instead of a wooden table decorated with lavish decorations and dishes, people gather around electronic devices adorned with various forms of networking sites and portals that enable people to get plugged in and unite. Thanksgiving and social media networking draw similar parallels, bringing people together for practical purposes, whether it be eating or solidifying business deals, cooking meals or cooking up interesting tweets and Facebook chats.

Just as Indians and Pilgrims from distant lands came together on common ground to harvest their bounty, people from various parts of the globe join forces in a “cyberspace” field to prosper for business and networking purposes.

Thanksgiving is also a time for welcoming friends and neighbors into your home to get better acquainted and make existing bonds stronger. Similarly, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter were all designed for people to welcome others to their homepages and websites and get reconnected.

Proclaimed a national holiday by President Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiving has morphed into an international event celebrated by Americans and their friends across the globe. In contrast, social media was founded by a few daring entrepreneurs and has exploded into virtually millions of household and businesses throughout the world wide web, granting a ton of web success.

Thanksgiving only comes around once a year, but by incorporating online marketing into your everyday life, you can have a reason to celebrate daily. You certainly have a reason to give thanks because social media is known for giving back. It can help businesses reach more customers, boost their sales and give them an edge on the competition. Social media can sit at the proverbial head of the table, and allow consumers to feast on success and profits (instead of turkey and yams).

Both Thanksgiving and social media gives us a reason to celebrate and bring us closer together. But unlike our historic ancestors, we hope our brave new social world will lead to better and more understanding between people of all ethnicities and cultures. Happy Thanksgiving.

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Pubcon got off to a good start today at the Las Vegas Convention Center. After a little confusion as to where the whereabouts of the conference we got settled into the first session of the day: In-House SEO, a rehash of the same topics covered last year moderated by Melanie Mitchell.

Next session covered Twitter and Microblogging and was by far the best session of the day. Jon Henshaw and David Snyder gave excellent presentations showing us how to set-up an Online Marketing Campaign from start to finish using some combination of twitter tools like SocialOomph (for scheduling tweets and DMs), WildFireApp and BlvdStatus (for statistics) to name a few.

Further discussions included how to get quality followers as opposed to random tweeters. To sum it up, quality always beats quality where Twitter is concerned.

I personally took some time in between to catch up with some much needed CSS and HTML coding updates. Speakers Todd Keup, Ted Ulle and Dave Werth shared new tricks with CSS3 (still not compatible with all browsers!). Check out CSS3.info and CSS.tricks.com.

Missed out on the afternoon session: Top Shelf SEO, the room was so packed out it could barely fit another soul. I guess that soul was yours truly.

Moved on to Experts on PR and Twitter Session, a rehash of the above, this time using public relations campaigns through Twitter. Some good PR monitoring tools were shared like: SocialMention, PitchEngine and TweetEffect.

It’s good to be back at Pubcon, always a great place to network and meet new people. More to follow later

@websuccess

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By Bob Speyer and Kristin Tomlinson – Web Success Team

The speed of the way we communicate has morphed into an Internet monster. Today we can virtually work in anywhere on the planet. Hotels, planes, cell phones — anywhere we can get our WiFi fix. Yesterday’s news is today’s fish warp. Our gratification is instantaneous, but like anything, be careful what you wish for. There is always a downside to hyper-productivity.

From Tortoise to Virtual Hare.

It’s hard to comprehend that it was only a couple of years ago when present day technology had yet to evolve, and business folks alike carried serious stress about meeting specific deadlines, worried about finishing work on time before departing on vacation, or were hesitant of traveling, not because of the fear of flying, but because of the anxiety that their future destination would not contain the necessary accommodations needed to get work done and lost productivity. Offices were tense, and businesses were limited.

Looking back, it would give any business savvy worker cold sweats to wonder how they could get their present job done efficiently. In America there’s a saying that we “live to work,” and with that accompanies the ideal that we have the divine right to work whenever and wherever we are.

Welcome to the land where those concerns have become extinct, and a new species has staked its claim on planet earth. It’s the virtual office.

Cars, Online Trade Shows and In-Flight WiFi. . . Oh My!

The Internet has indeed become elastic, stretching its reach into various places once deemed impossible, but now a reality. In this day and age, we have wireless Internet in our cars and on our phones; a tool that has acquired so much attention in the past couple of years that it has actually turned into a major problem. The Internet application on cell phones has only added to the controversy of cell phone use while driving, and Congress has created a law banning such use, officially putting that application in “time out” indefinitely.

Even traveling business people have the Internet in literally every country they travel to, allowing them to stay connected to the office from their “business away from home,” thousands of miles away. Everyone has jumped on the WiFi bandwith. Hotels that aren’t connected lose business. Today it is as essential as in room telephones and bathrooms.

The Web Success Team recently took a business trip to New York. Just before returning to Los Angeles, we had a rush project that “couldn’t wait.” We finished what we could in our room on the laptop, took a cab to Newark; connected to the airport WiFi to “kill 2 hours”; reconnected on the plane via gogoinflight, finished the job; emailed the completed files; then kicked back to relax for the duration of the 6 hour flight. A short time later, the client emailed from her Blackberry that they received the files, reviewed them and thanked us. Just another day at the “office!”

The Internet “Fix”. . . Good or Bad?

The Internet has come along way from the confinements of a cubicle to expanding its power to the farthest borders of the world. Not only has it offered its services to help strengthen and build your business online, but it has also allowed people to stay connected. It’s funny how you can’t imagine a world without it, but yet there was once a time when it didn’t exist at all. Looking back, it must have been an anxious time, not being connected 24/7 – or has this ultimate Internet fix made us more nervous and less laid back with even more stringent deadlines? Makes you wonder.

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Back when blogs didn’t exist…or did they?

By Eric Pangburn Web Success Team Contributor

Looking back, it is hard to imagine that there was a time when things such as “blogs”, “blogging” and “bloggers” didn’t exist. Yes, some of us have been around long enough to remember when everyone didn’t have some sort of online presence. Things are a lot different today as blogs are routinely used by everyone in order to achieve web success, implement corporate branding and act as an effective tool in direct response marketing. In fact, direct response websites – of which blogs are only some of the more recognizable incarnations – can be some of the most effective tools to have at your disposal to grow your business online. The online world is a constantly changing environment and you neglect the blogging phenomenon at your own risk.

Communication in the pre-blog age

This is not to say that people didn’t have any means by which to share information, we have indeed advanced dramatically since the “two cups tied to a string” phase, thereby enabling peers to interact with each other before the advent of blogs and blogging. Back then, there were actually numerous thriving digital communities, among which the legendary USENET, GEnie, BiX and CompuServe reigned supreme. In addition, there were also e-mail lists. By the time the 1990s rolled around, certain enterprising individuals and companies banded together to create WebEx, which was the first online service to introduce the concept of “threaded” conversations. Tell that to the Facebook-happy online cowboys of today! This early online communications model – which can be paralleled to posting and replying to messages on a corkboard– served as the blueprint upon which virtually all online communications services that have come along since then have been built on.

While CD’s were busy outselling vinyl, blogs were busy putting outdated and old fashion norms of communication six-feet under… permanently. The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 indeed marked the end of an era that was defined by ancient forms of communication, and introduced an uprising of technological advancements in blogging and the online world.

Online diary and so much more

The next significant phase in the development of blogging occurred between the years of 1994 and 2001, where the concept of “the blog” as an online diary first took root. This essentially meant thousands of people kept an online record of everything that went on in their lives. The term “blogger” wasn’t used then obviously – in fact, it probably hadn’t even been conceptualized yet – and most people who engaged in such online activities referred to themselves as “diarists” or “journalists”. Many of these practitioners were members of the academe and the scientific communities, and these people are recognized today as the earliest “bloggers” in the modern sense of the word.

It is surprising to note that these early blogs actually had more in common with modern blogs than you would think. An early blog called the Wearable Wireless WebCam utilized text, graphics, and video in pretty much the same manner that modern blogs do today. Of course, the results were far from the smooth and slick displays that confront you with some of today’s more impressive blogs, but you can definitely see the roots of today’s current blogging scene at work in these early examples.

Blogging trickles down to the masses

As significant as all these previous events have been, these wouldn’t have been much different if it weren’t for the introduction of easier to use blogging tools that essentially served to democratize the entire blogging process. Back then, blogging remained a “black art” for many of the less technologically inclined Web residents, many of whom didn’t have the slightest idea about how to go about putting together a blog. Apparently, Borders didn’t carry “Blogging for Dummies.” This eventually led to the rise of a new stream of online publishing and made it easy for anyone anywhere to post his or her thoughts online without having to know very much about the underlying technologies. These days, you can simply download some sort of browser-based blogging software, of which services such as WordPress, Movable Type, Blogger and LiveJournal are some of the most widely used.

The origins of the word

All this still hasn’t explained where the term “blog” came from. As it turns out, the term “weblog” was introduced by Jorn Barger, with Peter Merholz later coming up with a shortened term “blog”, and the rest is history. It was shortly afterwards that “blog” came in the popular usage as both a noun and as a verb.

Blogging is a potent political tool

Beginning roughly around 2001, blogging became particularly prevalent among certain individuals in the American political scene. Blogs such as Politics1.com, Political Wire, Instapundit, and Little Green Footballs all greatly contributed to the wider spread exchange of information among political analyzers and the public. One blog called The Daily Dish achieved considerable popularity in the days after the September 11 tragedy involving the WTC twin Towers.

More recently, blogging has been used to marvelous effect during some of the more newsworthy political campaigns, such as the drive to instill now-President Barack Obama into the White House. If that doesn’t drive home the influencing power of the blog, then we don’t know what does!

Blogging made easier

By the end of the year, blogging was sufficiently popular to inspire the release of several blogging how-to guides, all of which aimed to instruct the general public on the finer points of blogging. At the same time, blogging’s role in the community outside of the Internet increased exponentially as well. In fact, even many of the more established journalism schools all over the world were looking into the implications of blogging as it related to traditional journalism.

Blogging today and in the future

Today, blogging has undeniably penetrated the mainstream, with everyone from high-powered corporate executives (and those involved in scientific and academic pursuits), to housewives (and even younger children) blogging on a regular basis.

It remains uncertain as to what the different forms of blogging would take on in the coming years. Even now, many bloggers have moved on from the Web into various other media such as radio and television. The migration process has gone the other way as well, with many personalities associated with “traditional” media having gone on to become influential bloggers in their own rights. One thing is for sure, with the many benefits that blogging continues to offer, anyone who is looking to achieve web success, grow your business online, launch a direct response marketing campaign, or simply get their thoughts out for the world to read, blogging will remain an important facet of the online experience for many years to come.

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