Bill Seaver with MicroExplosion.com, recently “pitched” a new concept: Social Media Batting Practice. Will You Play?

First up: How would a weekend fly fishing guide and instructor use social media to grow his business?

Here are 3 quick tips for this small business:

1. ‘Fly Fishing Tips’ Blog
   Creating an instructional blog is a great way to target specific customers. Don’t worry about revealing too much. You want to do just the opposite. This is a great opportunity to show your expertise in fly fishing.

   As an instructional blog, it has a clear focus. Many blogs are all over the place and have no consistency. Creating a clear, precise blog is a great way to target customers. Remember it’s not the quantity of visitors you want, it’s the quality. Five strong customers are better then 100 5-second visits.

2. Start the conversation on Twitter
   Start following friends, colleagues and competitors. Now of course, tweeting with friends will not expand the bank account. However, it does start the conversation. By discussing “fly fishing” the conversation expands beyond friends.

   After friends, begin following local lodging companies, restaurants, and local organizations. Don’t just follow. Join the conversation. Make friends. Make partnerships.

   Twitter creates followers, it creates buzz, and it eventually creates customers. It all begins with one sentence: “What are you doing?”

3. Flickr Photo Contest

   Ask for photographs of favorite fly-fishing spots. Then, give away free instructions to the best entries.
   
   After it’s over, be sure to give something to all entries. Even if it’s small, everyone loves winning.

   Flickr requires minimal time and investment. Plus, it has great photo sharing tools that allow you to integrate those photos into your blog and more importantly it allows “customers” to share those photos.

Other tips, outside of Social Media:

• Create packages with local lodging companies
• Place brochures in state border Welcome Centers
• Find ways to give away lessons. A small gesture will lead to great word of mouth
• Email is a great way to talk with customers. Look for ways to collect email addresses.

This week, I thoroughly enjoyed my speaking engagement at PodCamp Nashville. Plus, I was honored to be asked.

If you are ever asked to participate I would jump on the opportunity. Similar to BarCamp Nashville, the audience is eager and very welcoming.

As I stated while on stage, I am not a podcaster. My knowledge of any advanced media (video, audio, and graphics) is very limited, so I picked up great knowledge from the “camp”.

Below are some of the basic points I learned at PodCamp Nashville, which may seem obvious to those more experienced then me.

1. Anyone can be Podcaster
2. Advance equipment is not necessary for podcasting, but certainly helps.
3. Start small and build an audience before looking for networks or sponsors.
4. Users can quickly see through the sales pitch. Keep it personal.
5. I am starting to “get” Twitter. Thanks Dave Delaney.
6. Nashville wants to learn, they just need the opportunity.

Well, I was not chosen as a finalist for the Semmys, but its okay. As they say, “it is an honor to be nominated”. There were some great articles this past year. I definitely can not say my writings were better than the finalists.

Local Search
Anatomy & Optimization of A Local Business Profile - By Chris “Silver” Smith

Analytics
Web Analytics Demystified - By Avinash Kaushik, Occam’s Razor

Google
Google 2.0: Google Universal Search - By Danny Sullivan

SEO
SEO Linking Gotchas Even the Pros Make - By Andy Beard

Online Marketing / General
How A Pretty Face Can Push Visitors Away - By Bryan Eisenberg

PPC
Five Common Paid Search Mistakes That Can Sink Your Campaign - By Jennifer Laycock, Search Engine Guide
* This one mentions some of the same points that I mentioned in 7 Habits of Highly Effective PPC Advertisers. However, Jennifer does a much better job of explaining in many of the points. Plus, she has some other great points that I left off. I strive to write as good as her.

Small Business
When Ignorance Isn’t Bliss: What You Don’t Know About Your Web Site Can Hurt You - By Christine Churchill

LOL Funny!
Web 3.0 Sites - By Philipp Lenssen, Google Blogoscoped

Viral Marketing
Viral Marketing is NOT the Same as Word of Mouth - By Jennifer Laycock, Search Engine Guide

One of the most frequent comments I hear is: “Paid Ads? Oh, I never click on those”.

The fact is that’s simply not true.

I want to pass off an article that I contributed on SearchEngineLand.com that address that comment and others.

If Paid Search Isn’t Working Then You’re Doing Something Wrong

Greg Meyers posted a great article on paid search marketing here: www.semgeek.com/semgeek/2007/12/writing-effecti.html

A couple of his points that I loved:

• “First make sure Ads are set to ROTATE and NOT Optimize.”
  Do not let the search engines determine the success of your hands. Only you and your analytics can determine. Just because an ad received the most clicks, does not make it successful.
• “Understanding what Messaging works best with your customers and prospects is more important than writing and testing 10-20 different ads with the only difference being a few words being moved from description line #1 to line #2.”
  Too many people make it too complicated. Let the numbers speak for themselves.

Greg’s points coincide with my Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pay-Per-Click Advertisers:

1. Separate Content from Search
2. Control spending by adjusting bid amounts, not daily spend budget
3. Create a negative keyword list

Find the rest here: www.johnwellis.com/seven-habits-of-highly-effective-pay-per-click-advertisers/

This week I had the pleasure of speaking at SMX Travel @ PhoCusWright in Orlando.

My session, “How ya doing?” Critiques, Appraisals and Kudos from Travel SEM Experts,” went very well.

I was joined by Elisabeth Osmeloski, Director of Online Media at Zonder.com and Christine Churchill, President at KeyRelevance. I was honored to share the stage and I managed to get some microphone time in as well, which is always nice.

This was an informal session that included reviewing sites for best practices on search engine optimization. Some of the common issues I noticed are below.

Page Title – For me, it’s still the most important step to take for search engine rankings. Developing a site title with a few targeted keywords makes a huge difference in search rankings. Surprisingly, as simple as this is, it’s still one of the most common mistakes.

Missing keyword-rich content – Many sites we reviewed at SMX Travel were missing quality content. In this session and throughout the conference, this is usually the first thing that site owners realize on their own after a few quick questions.

• Why should you be ranked higher in search rankings?
• What is the purpose of your site?

Now, express that answer on your website. Tell your consumers and tell the search engines who you are.

Targeting the wrong keywords – By reviewing analytics, pay-per-click campaigns and various other tools marketers can discover which keywords convert better. There are also many tools available that will discover missing opportunities. Many keywords may convert well, but the competition is to strong and not worth competing in. Marketers need to find their niche.

Site Maps – Search Engines love links, especially internal links. A site map is useful for indexing spiders to find all content of a site. The text you use to link to a page should be keyword rich and related to the URL that it’s pointing to.

Although I review all of our sites on a daily basis, it’s nice to get a fresh look at new sites. Some of the things that I can consider common knowledge are not always that common. This was a very enjoyable session for me because I enjoy helping people, plus it’s good to learn from Elisabeth Osmeloski and Christine Churchill.

I have long been a fan Rose Sylvia’s work at PPCThink.com. If you haven’t read much of her work I encourage you to subscribe and read often.

Her latest article: “Improving Your Conversion Rate is FAR More Important Than Driving More Traffic” is no exception.

PPCThink.com mentions what I have said often, “Conversion Matters not Clicks”. She sums up several great articles that have recently been published, so I can’t give her complete credit, but either way it’s still a great post.

She makes one terrific point: “The most important conversion rate for you is yours”. Don’t get caught up in industry standards and statistics, discover your own averages. After continuous monitoring of cost per conversion and knowing how much of a markup you have on your product, only you know your conversion average.

Getting traffic is easy. However, getting customers is where true pay-per-click professionals earn their money. It’s important to monitor the cost per conversion per product. Every product has a price. You and your analytics can determine what that is.

StudioNow has put together a great highlight reel for BarCamp Nashville.

If you are in the Nashville area, you definitely need to check out BarCamp Nashville.

There will be a wide variety of technology professionals at BarCamp Nashville. The list of topics includes Blogging, Social Media, Search Marketing, Web 2.0, and various forms of audio and video web publishing tips.

Plus, it wouldn’t be Nashville without music. BarCamp Nashville will close with live music at The Exit/In.

It’s a free event, but I hear registration is filling up quickly. Find more details on BarCamp Nashville here: www.barcampnashville.com/blog/

The two most common questions I get about blogging are:

Why don’t you blog more? And … How do you have time to blog that much?
Two totally opposite questions, but the same answer for both.

I blog when there is something to discuss. I do not have a set schedule. I have posted 7 entries in one week, several in one day, and 1 entry in 2 weeks.

The reason for this non-schedule: Sometimes there is just nothing to discuss … that has not been discussed already.

Many Bloggers in the Search Engine Marketing industry just regurgitate what’s already out there. They are not contributing anything to the community. I do not want to be one of those bloggers. If I do not have anything new to say, then I will not say it.

Now, I am not saying that I have not discussed the same stories that someone else has already reported. Sure, that happens, but it’s never my intention. I do not go searching to see if someone has already picked up the story. I just start writing. If the discussion has already started somewhere else, then so be it. I will not get many hits that day, I am fine with that.

I try hard to have something new to say. This is why I do not have a schedule. If I do not have a new take, then I do not waste your time or mine. I try to be original.

I try to contribute to the community. I hope I do it justice, but ultimately it’s not up to me to decide.

I do believe everyone has something new to say. They just have to find their voice and their topic. Unlike some bloggers, I do not think anyone needs to “step away from the keyboard”. We can all blog, we just have to find our voice and contribute.