Posts tagged as:

Google

7 Ways To Prevent #FF from Jumping The Shark

by Eric Miltsch on 05/16/2009 · View Comments

Every Friday on twitter, you’ll find an a endless supply of recommended people to follow. If you’ve ever seen a tweet begin with #FF or #FollowFriday – that’s what its all about. Its a brilliant idea and a very unique way to use twitter; @micah is the bright guy who came up with the concept.

An idea that’s about to jump the shark.

#FollowFriday recommendations begin to flood the screen at the stroke of midnight on Thursday. People even like to sneak some in before midnight; some like to brag about being the person who delivered the first tip.

For the next 24 hours, you’ll see carefully crafted messages containing profile names like a shopping list. Oprah? Really?

The Queen of Spades buy

Afro Samurai: Resurrection movies Recommending quality followers is a great thing. I’d hate to see it turn into an exercise in futility. I enjoy being recommended just as much as the next person. Thing is, I don’t see a noticeable increase in Friday followers when compared to any other day. Probably because everyone else on twitter is busy making lists of people to follow.

Here’s the guidelines I follow to make it effective and reduce noise – adopt as you wish:

When recommending someone, at least be sure you’re following them; why would I follow them if you’re not?
Don’t re-tweet someone else’s tweet recommending you. Tacky.
Don’t send individual, public thank-you’s to every person who gave you a #FF bump. Send a DM.
Send out a couple individual #FF rec’s; include a meaningful reason for the recommendation.
Help deserving people with less followers than you; they’ll appreciate it and it’ll help build your presence even more.
If you can’t fight the urge to create a list of names, group them together others within a market segment.
Don’t brag about how many #FF rec’s you received that day. Yay. You’re popular.

Sam Kinison: Breaking the Rules divx

My Bloody Valentine video

How do you effectively use #FollowFriday?

{ View Comments }

6 Great Plugins Your Blog Needs

by Eric Miltsch on 05/11/2009 · View Comments

Is your blog firing on all cylinders?

Hollow Man rip

Here’s 6 WordPress plugins you should have in your toolbox to ensure maximum performance.

TweetMeme Button

Getting your blog retweeted is great. So why not make it even easier for your readers to do so. Don’t rely on just the tweet stream; let your blog visitors become a distribution channel as well.

High Anxiety

You’ll quickly see how may times your story has been retweeted with the built in counter. Quickly adjust its placement, icon size and the name of the twitter profile being retweeted. That’s my TweetMeme button at the beginning of this post. Go ahead. Click it.

Google XML Sitemaps Control ipod

Within a couple of clicks your Google compliant XML-Sitemap is complete. Notify ASK.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO once you create or edit a page. The search engines like it when you notify them of current content changes; keeping them happy with your new XML sitemap coundn’t be easier.

SEO Friendly Images Dead Silence divx

Give your images the correct ALT and TITLE attributes per your custom settings. Your posts will also be W3C/xHTML valid; doing so helps with a key element of the search engine optimization process. This plugin provides a description of your images and also helps when users search for specific images.

SEO Slugs

This plugin helps your SEO efforts by eliminating unnecessary words such as ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘in’ from within your post slugs. Simply install and let it do the rest.

Sociable

Another great tool to get your posts linked to social bookmarking sites and in your RSS feed. One of the better tools with 99 different social sites to choose from.

All In One SEO Pack

The best one stop shop in the blogosphere for effecting your blog’s titles, descriptions and keywords.

Affect your blog post titles by including your most specific key word phrases. Create specific, descriptive descriptions to help provide even more information to search engine users when you’re found in the results. Accurate descriptions help drive qualified visitors interested in your content by providing them with a quick detailed overview of the post they’re about to click on. Control specific keywords, within the keyword text box and select auto-detected keywords and/or add your own custom KW’s.

Which other plugins are you using to improve your blog’s performance?

{ View Comments }

Google Conversion University

by Eric Miltsch on 03/07/2009 · View Comments

Want to stay ahead of the analytics pack? Google will help you lead the way.

The Haunting of Molly Hartley download

Carlito’s Angels movie

In typical form, Google quietly launched their Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ) test this week to help you become a more effective Google Analytics user for your own site, at your company or educating others.

Start preparing for analytics excellence by taking the online lessons within Google’s Conversion University. Four lessons contain video lessons ranging from two to 13 minutes. When you’re finished, you’ll only need your new-found smarts and $50 to take the IQ Test. Certification lasts for 18 months and will ensure your analytics abilities are running at peak performance.

If possible, I recommend using dual monitors while taking the lessons. Seeing your own analytics while following the lessons is helpful. More answers can be found in the qualification FAQ’s.

What are you doing to improve your analytics abilities?

Changeling dvd