Back in November 2009 I wrote about hackers and the importance of having updated software. I had quoted a blogger that had taken the time to track down the guy that hacked his website to interview him. Apparently my wife did not read that post. She doesn’t have a website to protect but she could have learned the lesson that hackers do not attack individuals, they attack systems and vulnerabilities. Guess which one she fell victim to? Interestingly enough, she was the 4th person on my contact list to lose control of an email account in the last month.

Like many millions of internet users, my wife uses a cloud based email service, in her case she uses Gmail. A few weeks ago she called me in a panic because her “phone was blowing up with emails!” She went on to tell me that she was getting dozens of email bounces as well as a bunch of replies from people on her contact list asking her why she was sending out a spam link. Of course she wasn’t sending spam, but her account was. This wasn’t a typical email spoof, it was actually her account sending the email!

MarketingSherpa is a leader in online marketing research. Every year they publish the Search Marketing Benchmark Report - SEO Edition. It's over 200 pages of the latest research, resources, tools, metrics, and editorial content. The 2010 Edition included a survey of 2194 search marketers to determine which tactics and methods have been producing the best results. The top 10 results based on respondents answering that the tactic was "Very Effective" are -

For the last 12 years or so, Google has worked pretty much the same way – type your search query in to the box then click one of the 2 search buttons. September 8, 2010 marked a day of significant change to a brilliantly simple page. Meet Google Instant, did you notice?

So what changed and why?

After doing a little testing, Google determined that people read faster than they type. A simple enough premise right? Well, Google decided to see how they could use that to make a better user experience. Since we read faster, it would be possible to scan other parts of the page as we type. Using a mixture of several new technologies, Google now starts to search as you type, then magically updates your search as you continue to type your query. They also predict what search term you intend to type. In theory, we will save 2-5 seconds per search with the new format.

Free Resources

1. Google
   1. Gmail
   2. Analytics
   3. Docs
   4. Voice
   5. Webmaster Tools
   6. Base/Merchant Center
   7. Local/Business Center
   8. Reader
   9. Alerts
   10. Trends
2. Drop Box
3. Roboform
4. Firefox/Chrome
5. AVG Antivirus
6. Gimp
7. Copyscape
8. Camstudio
9. eBay Pulse
10. Stock.XCHNG - sxc.hu
11. Website Grader
12. Attention Wizard
13. OpenOffice
14. Skype
15. Filezilla

Websites

1. Hosting
2. Domain name
3. Content Management
4. Themes/Templates
5. E-commerce

Twitter

1. Setup your account
   1. Username selection
   2. Link to website
   3. Bio optimization
   4. Custom background
2. Related Accounts
   1. socialoomph.com
   2. bit.ly
   3. twitterfeed.com
3. Directories
   1. localtweeps.com
   2. wefollow.com
   3. twellow.com
4. Useful resources
   1. friendorfollow.com
   2. tweetdeck.com
   3. buzzom.com

Facebook

1. Facebook Fan Page
2. Solicit Likes from friends/family
3. Update content
4. Link to your website
5. Facebook advertising

LinkedIn

1. Recommendations
2. Join groups
3. Post in groups
4. Answer questions
5. Business listings

Act now while there are seats available! Registration closes 9/12!

Are you making the most of the resources available to you online? Did you know there are FREE options for many services and software that others pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for?

How about Social Media? Can you tell a Tweet from a Yelp? Have you been liked on Facebook? We live in an increasingly connected world and the online economy is experiencing tremendous growth, even in the middle of the worst economic crisis of our time.

Did you know

• The Internet economy was estimated to be $500 Billion – in 1999!
• Facebook has over 500 million active users
• Twitter has over 75 million users
• The average US internet user spends 7 hours per month on Facebook
• At the end of 2009, there were over 27 million tweets per day
• The 2nd largest search engine in the world … YouTube

For the first time, you will have an opportunity to learn the tricks of the trade from a seasoned veteran. Not only will you learn about at least 15 free resources that will help reduce your expenses, but you will also learn the “what now” for your website and social media strategies.

Spend an evening with online expert and website developer Brent Friar. Brent will guide you through money and time saving resources that will help make your online marketing efforts more efficient. Find out what it takes to be named one of the top 5 Twitter users in Charlotte by the Charlotte Observer.

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Here’s what you will learn

• 15+ free online resources your business needs
• How to set up a professional web presence in 10 minutes
• How to set up your Twitter account PLUS the other accounts and services you will need
• How to use LinkedIn to get introductions to new clients
• How to use Facebook to increase your brand awareness

Compare to other courses that cost $299, $499, or even more! More value for the one time low price of $149! We are so confident that you will learn enough to pay for your seminar with just a few of the resources and strategies that we are offering a 100% money back guarantee. If we can’t increase your revenue or decrease your expense, we’ll give you your money back!

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Act now, class size is intentionally small! You will not be a nameless face in a large auditorium, this class is hands on and you have the opportunity to ask questions and interact during the presentation. You will have unprecedented access to direct advice about your existing strategies and web presence! Bring your laptop or netbook, WiFi will be available free of charge.

About the Speaker

Brent got his start building his first website in 1994 which turned in to a part time consulting gig. In 1999 consulting turned in to full time work for one of largest sports sanctioning bodies in the world. Through the dot com boom Brent was at the helm of web properties that accounted for millions of page views daily.

In 2005 Brent turned his sights on e-commerce, helping build a top performance parts website that experience triple digit growth year over year under his supervision. Marketing the site lead Brent in to the realm of search engine optimization and some of the earliest social media marketing campaigns.

Brent now spends his time building his successful website development firm BNR Branding Solutions and educating small business owners and entrepreneurs about online marketing and online resources.

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This may be a general human obsession, but the tech world seems to be enamored with the next giant killer. Not a week goes by without a news report or blog post touting the next iPhone, Warcraft, Google, or Microsoft killer. In case you hadn’t noticed, iPhone, Warcraft, Google, and Microsoft are still alive and kicking – and might even have made a buck or two even in the middle of the worst American economy in over 70 years.

Back in May 2009 there was a giant killer story with a twist. This time it wasn’t David v. Goliath, it was more like USA v. Russia or Ali v. Foreman. Microsoft had decided to make a serious effort to cut in to Google’s dominance in online advertising. Apparently the thought of Google taking the lion’s share of the multi-billion dollar market without a serious threat was enough to make them invest in their Bing search product. Bing debuted with a lot of fanfare and TV commercials backing the launch. There was finally another big kid on the block that was going to muscle in on Google’s turf.

A while back I got a call from one of our clients that also happens to be a good friend of mine. He was a little upset that he had an advertiser that wanted to pull the banners from his site. The advertiser had bought a full package with banners of every size they offer on the site, and the banners were very nicely done by an agency with online marketing experience. He asked me to take a look and see what was going wrong with the campaign so we could hopefully salvage the client.

There really isn’t much to check on our end – make sure that the banners show up where they are supposed to and then link to the correct page. I logged in to the admin and all the banners where there. They had the impressions that I would have expected and the click rate was actually a bit higher than average. I was a little puzzled, but I went ahead and pulled up the front end of the site so I could actually click a banner to make sure everything was working properly. After a couple of reloads I got one of the banners in question and clicked it.

Last week I wrote about the people who say “I never click on those links.” Of course, for every one of those I also hear “We tried AdWords, it didn’t work.” Now, I will be the first to admit that AdWords is not for everyone, but more often than not, it’s not that AdWords didn’t work, the problem lies in the execution of the campaign.

It’s fairly easy to pick out the people who tried AdWords on their own with poor results. You start asking some basic question – How did you research the keywords you used? What were your criteria for promoting or demoting keywords or ads? How did you come up with the dollar value for the goals you set up? You did set up goals right? If their eyes glaze over, chances are they did it wrong to begin with.

Have you ever noticed when you do a search on Google that there are “Sponsored Links” that show up above the search results and to the right of the search results? You know, those links you never click on? You’ve seen them right? You do use Google as a verb right?

Now that we’ve established that you don’t live under a rock, let’s talk about those “Sponsored Links.” When discussing online marketing the subject of pay-per-click ads inevitably comes up, and as sure as the day is long the very next statement always seems to be “I never click on those links.”

One of the common questions a prospective client has is “Why do you insist on providing the hosting?” There are several reasons ranging from server set up to security. Today I came across an article that illustrated once of the most important reasons why we highly recommend BNR hosting so I figured I would take this opportunity to talk about hosting in detail.

First, there is the matter of server setup and why it matters. Most hosting providers have a standard server configuration they use on all of the boxes they maintain outside of the custom dedicated servers that are usually way too much hosting for a small business client. Try calling GoDaddy and ask them to configure a server to your spec. From the provider standpoint it makes perfect sense to have a standard install because it makes setup and maintenance a lot easier to do.

BNR servers are configures and optimized specifically to run Joomla. The setup we use is the one recommended by Open Source Matters and it is more secure that most providers standard installation. Our installs allow us to turn off the FTP layer most providers require for proper uploading capabilities. Our setup also fixes the permission and file ownership permissions common to other configurations.