Ivygirl Media & Design

There’s a new list-building giveaway event that starts on July 3rd! The “Massive List Building Giveaway” already has a ton of contributors and has the potential to drive some serious traffic to your site…

Hi all,

Its been a while since I’ve posted to the blog and I want to start by apologizing for that. I’ve just been really busy working on some things that I think are really going to change the entire look and feel of this site.

But in the midst of all my hard work, I realized that I was still missing one really important piece to my puzzle – YOU! So… I need to ask you for a favor…

I’ve put together a really short survey and I’d really appreciate it if you’d take a couple of minutes to fill it out. See, I’m kind of nervous about some of these changes – I mean little tweaks are no big deal but some of the things I’ve been thinking about are pretty big and to be honest, that’s a scary concept!

Not only are we talking about a ton of work but there’s also some logistics that kind of limit how many people could take advantage of these ideas at one time. I don’t want to go into a lot of detail yet – I’m not ready for that but I do want to see what ideas might be most beneficial to you first.

And that’s where you come in!

So, go ahead – tell me what you think! Its really a short survey and you’ll be doing me a big favor by completing it! Plus, if everything goes as planned, your answers could play a big part in how this site moves into 2009!

Thanks so much in advance for your help!

Peace & Abundance!

Kate

These days, getting your “15 minutes of fame” can be as easy as being a top pick on YouTube. But getting that top pick status isn’t always so easy, especially when there’s so much competition to contend with.

Enter Peter Blomquist and Jeff Wiens, co-creators of the Get Hit series at IFC. Using some brutal yet symbolic scenarios, the funny, funny pair of video gurus show you how to master viral video success.

Okay, no more introduction from me – just go watch: http://www.ifc.com/GETHIT

With so much buzz about Twitter lately, marketers everywhere are asking the same question: how can we utilize this to market our service or product?

And that’s a good question.

What you shouldn’t do however, isn’t as difficult to decipher and after finding this on JackHumphrey.com, I thought I’d share – here’s a good look at how NOT to use Twitter:

A client of mine pointed me to a nifty little tool and what a tool it is. Plug in your headline and this free service will analyze your text and give you an Emotional Marketing Value (EMV) rating.

What can an EMV tell you?

Well, the EMV is supposed to gauge the amount of emotional value that your headline will convey. The higher the score, the more likely your headline will be successful and for those of you interested in link baiting, EMV would obviously be key. So, for example – the headline “You Deserve All The Riches That Life Has To Offer” has a 20% EMV rating out of 100, not bad but certainly nothing to write home about.

Theoretically, an EMV of 30 to 40% is considered average for a proficient copywriter while a truly gifted and talented writer might score somewhere between 50 to 75%. A perfect score is supposed to be 100% but according to the tool, that’s hard to do unless your headline is 5 words or less.

So, that got me to thinking: just what makes a good “emotional value” headline? And more importantly, does that really jive with what people are likely to read? So, I decided to test the process.

Before racking my brain, I went to my trusty email client where despite my spam filters, sits tons of spam emails begging me to open them. First, I tried ” baby eraser pebble adult meat”. Yes, that’s actually the subject line on a spam email I received yesterday. And surprise… it scored a whopping 60% EMV!

I found this at Jack Humphrey’s Friday Traffic Report who got it from Alex at HowtoSpoter.com and as I’m sure the creators intended, I wanted to pass it along.

The idea is simple but genius and gives “viral marketing” a whole new twist.

Dubbed the Reciprocal Review Carousel, the idea has the potential to really increase those all-important incoming links and thus, boost your traffic and search engine ratings. Follow the directions carefully and let me know how it worked for you.

— copy and paste the Reciprocal Review Carousel and instructions below this line —

Reciprocal Review Carousel idea is based on a few simple yet effective link-building and blogging techniques I have learned:

• Build value of the blog by creating a helpful link from within content.
• Provide value to community by doing a review on a blog you personally like.
• Link to YOUR blog has exact anchor text you want and helps you boost Google Rankings.
• No more than 30 outbound links from any page to prevent penalties for link farming.
• Viral effect of the link – as more bloggers participate, link to your blog with YOUR anchor text, coming from quality content post will spread.

Here is How to participate:

• Copy the entire text between the specified lines.
• Create a post on your site and put at least one paragraph explaining how you joined the Reciprocal Review Carousel.
• Paste the text you copied into your post.
• Remove the Bottom Review and At the Top add your own review with a link to a site reviewed, at least 2 sentences about the site and a note – Reviewed by: Your Anchor Text. Link your anchor text to your site. Here is an example:

WordPress Web 2.0 Guide is a blog providing very useful information on building your very own Web 2.0 portal based on WordPress. Detailed instructions and howto guides make it possible for anyone to create a sparkling and engaging blog and join the community of like-minded individuals. Reviewed by: WordPress Web 2.0 Spot-er

Sites Reviewed:

• Get the most from life at HappyGoKate.com. From blogging to saving, spirituality to mastering the law of attraction, you’ll find it here. As the tag line says – “life is what you make of it… why not make it something amazing?”

• Peter Lenkefi writes about Web 2.0 marketing strategies at Web2Center.com. He has some killer videos over there you should check out along with a ton of good information on blog marketing and various “new media” promotion tactics. Reviewed by: Link Building Maniac, Jack Humphrey, for the Friday Traffic Report

• Andy-Coates.com is an original creator of Viralink concept and a blog publishing information on Magic, Personal development and blog development. I have found a wealth of information on getting your blog noticed and generating the traffic for free. Reviewed by: WordPress Web 2.0 Guide

• FitForFreedom is well-established blog where you can find multitude of information on achieving financial freedom. Blog is run by Marco Righter and his writing style greatly adds to the value of information he provides. Reviewed by: Alex

• Secure Your PC For Internet blog run by Colin and provides essential information everyone accessing internet should know. Identity theft is becoming more and more of an issue and by visiting his blog you can minimize the risk of being compromised. Reviewed by: Alex

• VI-SU blog is all about WordPress, AdSense, SEO and Internet Marketing. Although mostly written in German I have found that using Google translate is worth the effort for his posts. Reviewed by: Alex

• Home With Heather is a great informative blog targeting WAHM (Work At Home Moms) and run by … you guessed it – Heather Masson. Information on what works for her in Internet Business written is very easy to read and comes from her personal experience. Reviewed by: Alex

• A Copywriter’s Blues blog published by Alex Badalic, a veteran of advertising turned musician gives you great food for soul. I have found some nice old videos of Johnny Cash performance and he has a lot more of vintage videos to satisfy fans. Reviewed by: Alex

• Did You Smell That blog authored by one of the veterans on network marketing filled with business ideas you can use. David Ledoux is well known and respected in online community and now he makes his experience available via blog posts. Reviewed by: Alex

• Best Damn Blog run by Richard Wing is all about Internet Marketing. Your visit will be rewarded by honest reviews, freebies and information you need to succeed in this cut-throat business without sacrificing your integrity. Reviewed by: Alex

— copy and paste the Reciprocal Review Carousel and instructions above this line —

And that’s all there is to it!

Crash posted an excellent step-by-step at the SEOmoz blog to help you get your linking campaign under control. After all, anyone who’s ever attempted to increase their search engines rankings through link building knows that its a thankless, tedious and sometimes overwhelming process.

And for those just starting to explore the link-building possibilities (yes, there are many), a little “101″ certainly wouldn’t hurt. Check it out and compare notes – who knows? You might just get an “Aha!”

Which brings me to my question of the day: do you have a tried-and-true method for link campaigning? Ready, set, SHARE!

Sometimes, its the little things that make the difference and when you’re talking about standing out amidst the zillions of other web sites out there, that statement couldn’t be more true.

I’m not sure how it happened but somehow, somewhere, we turned our back on service. And I mean the good old fashioned kind of service where customers were valued and loyalty was forged.

Case in point: a certain web hosting company, which shall remain nameless hosts a shopping cart for one of my customers. They’ve had an ongoing issue with their MySQL database but for some reason, they don’t seem to want to acknowledge it. I’ll skip all the technical details but in short, it doesn’t work properly. It isn’t talking to the open source software it installs and it isn’t creating users to set permissions to the account.

The result? The shopping cart, blog or other OS application doesn’t work. And I’m beating my head against a brick wall to get it fixed.

Just as everyone seems to be grasping the full impact of the Web 2.0 evolution, I’m noticing that “Web 3.0″ is starting to pop up all over the web.

Wait a minute… 3.0??? When did that happen?

The truth is, it was inevitable as the Internet continues to grow into a comprehensive (albeit complex) money-making tool instead of just another form of entertainment. With Web 2.0, we saw the birth of social networks like MySpace, the endless slew of social bookmarking sites such as Digg, del.icio.us and Furl and a new Internet “voice” in the form of a blog. Where sites used to be static and limited, users now enjoy a full-range of interactive services that keep them connected even when they’re on the go.

So, what could Web 3.0 possibly have to offer that Web 2.0 doesn’t?

Unless you’ve been vacationing under a rock for the past several weeks, you’ve probably heard of The Secret. The Secret is a DVD (or you can get it in hardcover form) that shows us how to use the Law of Attraction to manifest absolutely anything we truly desire. All the great thinkers were privy to The Secret, the DVD tells us, and it will work for us just as it worked for them.

So, what’s this got to do with web content and SEO?

The Secret is currently at the top of the “buzz” list, showing up in the most unexpected places. Your friends have heard of it, your family may be talking about it… even Oprah dedicated not one but two shows to it… that has to say something, right?

Which brings me to the point of this post:

In order to write effectively, you’ve got to be able to tap into what your readers want. It’s not enough to know that they want to learn more about personal finance for example, you also need to tap into the obstacles that have held them back so far. What challenges do they face? What goals have they set? Is there a realistic path to help them achieve the results they’re hoping for?

I see so many blogs and sites that talk about what “I want to do for you” but nothing about “what do you need from me” and I think that’s a key element that needs to be addressed.

People want what they want. And either you’re ready to give it to them or you’re not. But if you’re not, they won’t wait. They’ll click back and keep searching until they find someone that will.

And as far as writing for the web is concerned, that’s the real “secret”.