As more people come into the search engine optimization industry, more unqualified people are in the market making uneducated claims that they declare to be facts. The latest claim being made by a few people in the industry is that your competitors can knock your web site from Google’s search engine results pages by simply directing links to it (called “Google Bowling”). Fortunately, this is not true. Unfortunately, many people relying on the “professional” advice of the SEO firms making this ridiculous claim could be put in a bad situation because of it.

The information that they have tried to use to substantiate this claim is the word “almost” in one line in Google’s information for webmasters.

“There’s almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index.”

The fact of the matter is that the word “almost” does not make prove anything. To say that it proves the validity of the claim makes no more sense than saying it proves that wearing blue socks on Tuesday will hurt my competitor’s web site. In reality, SEO firms making claims like this are usually trying to create excuses for their own web site not ranking. Perhaps they should spend some of the time they’ve been using to create intricate fairy tales and spend it to get up to date on search engine optimization facts.

Wildfire Marketing Group would like to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving today. I would like to personally thank our phenomenal clients, staff and vendors for helping us to make the things we do possible. It’s through all of you that our success is possible. Thank you.

Jeremy L. Knauff
CEO, Wildfire Marketing Group

Recently, Yahoo & Clear Channel Malls (a division of Clear Channel Outdoors) partnered up to make the futuristic video billboards that we’ve all seen in science fiction movies over the years a reality. You can find these 4″x16″ screens suspended from ceilings in several malls throughout New York & Los Angeles carrying news, sports, entertainment and financial content from Yahoo. The company plans to roll out the network to 200 malls in the top 20 markets over the next two to three years.

With more and more forward thinking ideas like this becoming a reality every day it’s getting even more important than ever to take an aggressive approach to exposing your company through a variety of means.

For those of you not familiar with Donny Deutsch, he has built one of the most successful advertising agencies, Deutsch Inc. into a multi-billion dollar enterprise, launched The Big Idea and now, written his first book, Often Wrong, Never in Doubt.

Although the book is largely based on his life and experiences in the advertising business, there is a lot to be learned for business owners of all sizes in all industries. From how to get the most out of your employees and yourself, to how to project the image that you deserve and so many things in between, you can’t help but improve you business and yourself when you follow his advice.

This book is one of those rare books that you don’t want to put down. I picked it up on Friday and finished it by Saturday morning. Donnie writes with a no bullshit style and pulls no punches - so if a few expletives bother you prepare to be assaulted, but don’t let that deter you from reading it. I highly recommend any business owner or manager (or anyone with aspirations to become one) to grab a copy and read it.

As we move into yet another holiday season, business has the opportunity to increase dramatically…provided we’ve done our homework. That includes having our seasonal marketing and advertising ready to roll, enough inventory to sell, and last but not least, a staff capable of handling the workload.

If your marketing and advertising isn’t ready, you do still have a little time, but you need to get moving - especially if you’re planning on including television, radio or newspaper in your campaign as they often mover deadlines forward during the holidays. Many commercial printers also have a heavier workload during the holidays so don’t assume that they will be working on the same timelines as usual. You’ll even need to make adjustments when it comes to your direct mail since it is often delayed during this time of year.

When it comes to your inventory, well, we can’t help you there - every industry is different. Keep in mind though, the best marketing in the world won’t help if you have nothing to sell to your consumer.

When it comes to staffing during the holidays, if you think that you may need more employees, you should get ready sooner rather than later. Since many of the people that will be looking for jobs during this time of year are often looking for temporary (and usually part-time) work, you may want to consider a staffing firm. They are able to fill most positions very quickly with quality employees because they are in constant contact with job seekers in many fields which will save you from the hassles of advertising for, screening and interviewing potential employees.

Now, with everything in place - don’t forget to enjoy your holidays!

If you’re like many of the business owners that are beginning to see the importance of search engine optimization as a marketing tool, chances are that you’ve come across quite a bit of contradictory information. You’ve probably heard a dozen opinions of what the most important part of your SEO campaign is - everything from links to title tags and everything in between.

The fact of the matter is that selecting the right keyword phrases is the single most important aspect of any SEO campaign . If you choose keywords that are too competitive you may never achieve any ranking for them, and if you choose keywords that no one searches for you will not receive any traffic even if your web site ranks #1. That’s why it’s so important to put a little extra effort into your keyword selection or hire a professional to do it. Let’s say that you are a real estate agent in Tampa , Florida who wants to generate additional business from the internet. While it may sound great to target the keyword phrase “real estate” because it gets over 67,000 searches each day, you would really be much better off targeting a keyword phrase like “Tampa bay waterfront real estate” which gets about 6 searches each day. Visitors searching for 3-4 word keyword phrases are more likely to convert to clients than those searching for more general keyword phrases. When coupled with the competition you’ll face for a general term like “real estate” you’re ROI quickly dissipates, despite the high number of daily searches. You have to consider that someone using the keyword phrase “real estate” could be any number of people outside of our target market, such as a person looking for general real estate information, a person looking for a career in real estate, or a person looking for real estate in a location that you don’t serve.

By choosing keyword phrases based on relevance, traffic and competition you will get the highest ROI out of your SEO campaign and see results more quickly.

If you’re like most people then you’ve probably been to a few networking events and weren’t really sure what to do. Maybe you felt awkward introducing yourself or didn’t know how long to talk to each person. The good news is that these are all pretty common for the majority of people. The better news is that it’s relatively easy to learn how to make the most of your next networking event.

• Be prepared - Have enough business cards in an easily accessible place. Then, have a “back-up” stack of cards in another pocket in case you run out. You should also bring a small notebook that fits in your pocket along with two pens.
• Dress appropriately ? Arrive underdressed and you usually won’t be taken seriously, overdress and you may be seen as pretentious. You should find out what the recommended attire is and dress similarly.
• Arrive early - There is no such thing as “fashionably late” when it comes to business. When you are one of the first people to show up, you have the chance to meet and talk to some of the other people that have shown up early with less interruptions.
• Work the room - Don’t spend your whole night talking to one person, no matter how promising a prospect they may seem. Spend between five to ten minutes with as many people as you have the chance to meet. Spending more time with each person cuts into the number of people that you and the people you are talking to will meet.
• Be a facilitator - If you see someone being a “wall flower” introduce them to a few people. It’s even better if you can introduce people that are likely to benefit from meeting each other. In doing this, you’ll be seen as a valuable resource but more importantly, you’ll also be helping other people - it’s not always about you.
• Follow up - Meeting people is the easy part, it’s following up afterwards that most people forget. A simple email or thank you card will set you apart from crowd and only takes a little time.

“We recently employed Wildfire Marketing Group to conduct a web site usability consultation to increase our internet sales. They gave us many recommendations to keep potential customers from leaving our web site before making a purchase. Since implementing these changes, we’ve seen an immediate increase in sales as well as potential new customers contacting us to ask about our products. Prior to this, we had never gotten a phone call every day of the week, but within the first week we got a phone call everyday and we made a sale that week.”

Jon Lewis
Owner, Anchor Audio Club
Anchor Audio Club Web Site

You’ve been in your industry for a while now and you’ve hopefully learned a few things along the way. Maybe it’s techniques to make something easier, more effective or cheaper but chances are that your clients don’t have the same information available - that’s why they come to you. But how is the situation different when they are comparing your knowledge to you competitor’s knowledge, rather than their own? In most cases your competitors have much of the same information that you do so to earn the business you have to present yourself in a more credible manner than your competitors.

So the task we have to deal with now is how to become more credible than our competitors. If you are a politician you would simply dig up something bad that your competitors did during college and plaster it all over T.V., the internet and newspapers, but since you are probably a business owner, you really should take the high road. You can start by publishing articles on various industry specific web sites. You could take that a step further and publish a book. If you can set aside about thirty minutes or so you could offer to speak at the chamber of commerce or similar organization’s next function. Setting up an email newsletter is fairly simple even if you’re not very technical. The options are only limited by your creativity - you just need to find ways to share your knowledge and before long you will be thought of as the expert in your field.

At some point, most businesses, especially small businesses will find themselves in a position where they feel that they can’t afford to advertise properly, or even at all. Unfortunately this can cause a vicious downward spiral because by not advertising your business will rarely increase.

The good news is that they sky isn’t falling, chicken little. There is a fairly simple solution that will give you the opportunity to properly advertise your business despite your limited resources. If you’ve been networking then there is a good chance that you have a fairly substantial rolodex - flip through and find a few companies that are related to your company in some way. For example, if you run a clothing store then a good choice could be a salon or a jewelry store. If you own a furniture store, you may consider a home builder or an interior decorator. The idea is to find companies that share a common target market but are not in direct competition to share the cost of advertising with. This advertising can consist of anything from direct mail to magazine advertising and everything in between. For the most impact you should partner with one or two companies at the most.

Now get that rolodex out and get to work!