A friend of mine Newell Nussbaumer and I started a magazine together about 6 years ago and there basically wasn’t enough money for 2 owners. Therefore I was bought out and as payment he gave me a Bose 321 system which I still have and Love…I had always wanted a Bose system and 6 years later I have one in about every room of my house. The following is a copy of a email I just sent to him after I heard that the Magazine was in it’s last issue:

Hi Newell,

How are you?

I have to ask you…who makes these decision to “keep changing the brand identity“? Very bad move.

Buffalo Rising print has gone through a number logo changes (what‘s with this?)…3-4 in about the same number of years it’s been around.

Buffalo Rising print also went through like a 100 different tabloid sizes.

Buffalo Rising online changed it’s color/design theme to this current grayish blue color…a big mistake! It’s drab and dreary. The old design sang Buffalo’s praises with wonderful header photos of the area with a nice framework that mixed vintage colors with a few brighter colors.

www.hyperlocalmedia.com never has it’s site up (at least not when I have checked)…”coming soon” is one of the Biggest SEO mistakes a online Biz can make…this site is always changing it’s look as well?

Now I hear that the print magazine is in it’s last issue…sorry to hear that.

…at any rate, I tend to think that we were mislead by the people that told us when we were young that if we “follow our passions…the Money will follow”. Easier said then done. I have found that it’s a little more complicated then this!

Back to “brand identity” , never assume that we as individuals really know what’s best for our Brand Identity…if you want to make money from the  product or service then the “brand” has to have utility taken into consideration from the people with whom you wish to serve (or sell to).

…… on another similar level, Buffalo Rising issued an apology for a almost Guerrilla Marketing campaign gone arise…(as they sometimes do)…But, sometime the point of the Guerrilla Marking campaigns are intended to do just that! …who said bad publicity is still good publicity?

Paris Hilton is a walking billboard…

I just read a really cool article that I found at www.seobook.com which lead me to this great article that every marketer should read about being a billboard for others thus explaining why Paris Hilton is so popular.

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Two-for-One Writing Assignments

Know that old saying about how you can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, but never all of the people all of the time?

When it comes to writing for the internet, you’ll have to do better than that!

At least if you want to make money.

In the moment you sit down to write anything for the internet, you instantly have two audiences tuning in to see whether they want to stay with you or click elsewhere. And some of what they’re expecting to see is the same, but some of it isn’t.

Meet your two audiences:

Audience #1 is furry, creepy-crawly, and potentially nightmare-inducing, in a virtual way, anyway. It’s made up of search engine spiders that crawl all over the internet looking for snacks. They crave fresh, relevant content, and when they find it, they mark the spot where they found these munchies so they can come back for more soon.

Audience #2 looks a lot more like you, a human who goes online to find information, solutions for problems, entertainment, and even connection. People want to read informative, valuable, engaging, and conversational text. Understand how many options are at their fingertips when they’re reading your content and make it worth their while to stay put until they follow your call to action.

What makes for irresistible spider bait?

Unique content. Spiders are not interested in leftovers, rehashed, refried, or recycled. If they sense they’ve stumbled into the online version of the back of your fridge into that mysterious, unlabeled Tupperware container full of who knows what from who knows when they’re out of there faster than you can call for take-out.

Don’t even think about scraping, borrowing, or pasting content from another site. Original content is worth its metaphorical weight in gold, and will go a long way toward making your site the one where all the spiders want to hang out.

Relevant content. What you say your content is about better be exactly what it’s about. These spiders make a list and check it twice to make sure that when your content comes up on the search engines, they’re not embarrassed when you click and find something completely unrelated to what you searched for. This is where you need to have a solid understanding of keywords, and how to use them.

Don’t even think about keyword spamming, jamming your words into the text at some crazy high density rate. The spiders are onto that nasty trick. Some key places to use your keywords include the title, the first sentence, your anchor text, and then sprinkled throughout the content where it fits naturally.

What about for your human readers?

Conversational text not techy, insider, we-we-we ramblings. Write like people speak, like people like to read. Nobody wants to break out the dictionary when they’re reading online. They also don’t care all that much about you it’s nothing personal; it’s just that they’re there for their own reasons.

Valuable content. While clearly the primary reason you’re building a web presence anyway is to make sales and make money, you don’t want to beat people over the head with your sales message. The market is based on swapping equal values money for goods or services. If what you’re offering is truly valuable, your prospects will recognize it when they’re ready to. If you try cramming it down their throats, they will run away and never be seen again. Remember to give first, and see what happens.

So, if you were cutting your audiences like a pie, how should it look? A good rule of thumb is to write first for your human readers, and then come back and tweak to make it irresistible to your arachnid visitors. The proportions about 60/40 in favor of people.

Following that recipe, you’ll cook up some copy that pleases most of your audience most of the time and that’s not bad at all.

Written by Mark Bove’

Today I was reading an interest article from Danny Sullivan at www.searchenginewatch.com on how some search engines look to other search engines for help in powering their searches. An interesting flash representation of a Search Engine Partnership Chart is provided by www.ihelpyou.com .