10 Reason Your Company Website Sucks

Posted by SoMe Guru on Aug 22, 2011 in blog, SEO, Social Media | 2 comments

10 Reason Your Company Provided Website Sucks

If you work for a financial or real estate company chances are you get a company website.  In fact, they might even offer it to you as a bonus!   I mean what could be better than not have to pay for your own website.   Please don’t share this with your boss, but you probably need your own website and I’ll tell you why in this blog post!

For this blog I reviewed some of the top company sites that offer templated sites or “profile” sites for their employee/members/contractors.  The companies we reviewed were Keller Williams Realty, Remax, Edward Jones, State Farm, AllState to name a few.  Some sites were so convoluted that it was hard for us to even use (Prudential).

Social Media Analytics With Klout

Posted by SoMe Guru on Aug 11, 2011 in Marketing, Social Media, Tools, Tutorials | 0 comments

Social Media Analytics With Klout

Klout.com is a site that offers lightweight social media analytical data on your social media usage. It basically tracks your “likes”, followers, friends and more on facebook, twitter and linkedin (they are adding google+ at the time of this article). I heard about Klout sometime ago but was reminded when Ben Kinney of Keller Williams did a video on it and had people buzzing about it at the office. Many of these real estate agents thought Klout was some new social network.

So I decided to do my own video to go over what Klout is and is not.  (Click “Read More” to see the video)

Just Do It – It’s an Implementation Thing

Posted by SoMe Guru on Mar 16, 2011 in blog | 1 comment

For many years I’ve thought I had this special gift for ideas.  I love coming up with new ideas and ways to do things.  I just love to figure things out.   That’s it, there’s nothing else to this gift.   Unfortunately, I know a lot of people who have this “gift.”  The more I age, the more of these people I meet.  In fact, in retrospect, I’ve met so many of these people that it’s hardly a “gift” anymore.

Over the years, I’ve used the words “Visionary,” “Leader,” and even Scientist, Inventor or Engineer has come up.

The “world” has some different names for these people with this “gift.”

Pre-Teenage Years – Daydreamer
Teenage Years – Smart @$$
Young Adult Years – Opinionated, or Hard Headed
Middle Aged – Spaceball, blowhard, loser,

Need I go on?

It’s not that there is inherently anything wrong with dreaming. In fact, I think it’s noble and a great way to pass idle time.

The key here is not to demean dreamers (I’m in that bunch), it’s to key in that the key to being a successful dreamer, a Visionary, a “Steve Jobs” is to actually do it.  As Seth Godin mentions, it’s time to “SHIP.”   Most consultant etreprenuers fail to ever capture this essence, it’s in the DOING that dreams can become real.  Don’t just “think” on it, DO it.

I have a great series of posts on Guy Kawasaki and why every consultant should be reading his material, but instead of doing it I’m waiting for the right time, the right book launch, the moment I get a few minutes with him, etc.  I can’t sit on my rear end, I need to just do what I can and MOVE FORWARD.

The success is in the doing, not the dreaming, not the planning.

Oh and your idea isn’t even all that original.  Chances are if it’s a good idea, there are others already thinking it and some doing it.  (Note: 322,000 blog posts about Guy already).  The reality is that very, very, very, very, very few actual DO IT and follow through (only 17,000 mention the word consultant).

Do it, implement it, take it on.  If you fail at least you tried.  Don’t die a daydreamer.

Zen of Social Media Marketing Book Review

Posted by SoMe Guru on Mar 15, 2011 in Book Review | 0 comments

If you’re here then you might be new to social media.  If you only own one book on Social Media, then Crush It, is the book to buy.  However, if you have a library like I do, then you might pick this up.  Shama goes over enough detail that it’s definitely worth looking at.  She lays out in almost “e-book” fashion some basic plans on how to set up your facebook and twitter accounts and what strategy you might implement to maximize their usefulness.

The Good:  She gets it right when it comes to your website being the most important thing.  It HAS to convert to be worth anything.

The Bad:  There’s so much puffery in the book that I was tempted to see if the book was a self-published vanity event.  After reviewing her blog, I’m left thinking it’s just her style.

Bottomline: If you don’t know anything about social media this will get to you “Level 1.”  If you have more than 200 friends and know what FourSquare is then you might be a bit more advanced.

Keep in mind this is coming from someone who works in the same industry as Shama so I might be a wee bit jaded.  Coming up next time, “Why Technology Professionals Drink Haterade”

Why You Shouldn’t Worry About Google’s New Algorithm

Posted by SoMe Guru on Mar 1, 2011 in blog, Featured, Google | 1 comment

This week Google released their new Algorithm. It bascially checks the kind of content you have and decides if it’s legitimate or not. I could go into the really cool details of what it’s looking for but chances are if you actually into that kind of stuff, you wouldn’t be reading this blog. So what does the new algorithm do.

Basically it penalized all of those article sites that supposedly have great content and are certainly not overwhelmed with just keyword rich junk. This means, Hubpages, EzineArticles, AssociatedContent and other “content farms” got penalized. In fact, 10% of the search results are effected. Some say this was a direct attack on Yahoo.

There’s very little to be concerned with if you are putting out original content. Yes, you can still target keywords, but you can’t farm or aggregate content like you could.

Since I’m from the Real Estate world, here’s the interesting effect on the real estate industry.