Favorite MN Blog Posts of the Week and Random Thoughts

Karen Sams from the MIMA blog writes on how to submit your content to Google.

Those in the search marketing industry know this already, but as Karen explains it goes beyond just submitting your URL. It does involve submitting an XML sitemap. If you’re unfamiliar, the XML Sitemaps site is very easy to use and one of the recommended sites from Google Webmaster Central. It doesn’t directly improve your Google results, but it does help them crawl your site and identify broken links. What’s good for the user… you get the rest.

Giving more love to the Technology Evangelist site. Ed writes about online retail dead zones. It does make sense. The posts speaks for itself, and suburbians have the easiest outlet to drive somewhere with easy parking to physically pick up a product.

BuyOnlineNow and the Office Supplies Blog wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving.

Bob happens to be my brother-in-law, and we all wound up having a later Thanksgiving dinner since they needed to stay open for their Canadian customers.

The next morning we had a cool conversation regarding SEO over-expectations. An example – you could be a local shop offering manicures and pedicures with connections to offer wigs and hair replacement products.

If so, do you want to have top Google rankings for “wigs” and “hair replacement”? More importantly, do you have the budget and resources to answer all the calls and emails explaining that you cannot help someone 1000 miles away who needs a wig for tonight?

Happy Thanksgiving! Now Go Play some Hockey

 

Posting has been light as of late, and I wanted to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving!

For those in the Twin Cities, you can also work off that turkey tryptophan by playing hockey at the Xcel Center on Saturday afternoon, November 24th, no matter what your skill level is. Really!!! It’s cheap, too!

Barbara Garn from JMS Hockey got a bunch of ice time this Saturday at the Xcel Energy Center, home of the MN Wild!

You can find different skate times depending on your level. The upper levels are filling up fast, but there is still good room available for beginners.

I’m not sure of the requirements and maybe Barbara will weigh in. I do know that it’s an hour of a fun, no check scrimmage and you need to wear full gear. Payment is just through Google Checkout, so with a gmail address you’re all set.

This is perfect for beginners and intermediates, or for those with gear sitting in the closet who haven’t laced ’em up for years.

Chris, do you play? I was thinking you did but wasn’t sure.

Favorite Minnesota Posts/Blogs/Sites of the Week

Sticking with the Minnesota theme again…

MinnPost.com is up and running. Its premise is to provide great journalism and news for those who care about Minnesota. It’s a non-profit print/Web/blog, accepts donations, and has been quite the buzz the last couple of months. Something tells me this will be a daily visit.

For those unfamiliar with Jason DeRusha, he’s a WCCO reporter who is very popular in the Twin Cities blogging community. On his WCCO video blog, there’s a hilarious, yet ingenious and informative video regarding Jason, Surly beer, and the MacKenzie Pub in Minneapolis.

A little late on this, but Karen Sams from the MIMA blog writes about the annual Summit’s success.

I took some cool knowledge from the MIMA summit and am glad to see the sold-out turnout. Also, I was able to make some really cool connections with industry peeps that may help us out at the FT job, one of which a couple of us are meeting for lunch Thursday in Eagan.

Speaking of Eagan and currently playing on iTunes: Jesus of Suburbia – Green Day

Social Media Daily

This has been out for a little while, but Michelle MacPhearson has released a really good PDF download labeled appropriately, Social Media Daily.

For those in the search marketing industry, you may already have this. It starts out explaining some already-known tactics such as backlinks and anchor text. It also includes really cool social media sites that I’ve never even heard of before.

Many readers of this blog are not in search marketing (or social media) and would probably find even more value in the above PDF. It can be overwhelming, but Michelle does send an automatic email (No, you don’t get a ton of emails – I think you get a whopping two, and they’re both worth the read)…

Take it one step at a time.  That’s precisely why it’s in a
step-by-step format.

Set a goal to complete 5 items from the checklist each day.  You
don’t have to do it all in one sitting!

The above is just a snippet, but this is an email I like.

I feel silly actually. I first downloaded it well over a month ago and never saved it, then of course lost it. Downloaded it a second time for the FT job and a couple days later my hard drive crashed. Downloaded again tonight and have safely secured it in a favorite social bookmarking site.

I guess there’s a social media lesson I learned in that last sentence. 🙂

What the Cincinnati Bengals are Doing that the Vikes are Not

Ok, it’s a misleading title – my bad. Both teams are currently 3-6 and aren’t really doing much of anything.

The Cincinnati Enquirer has an interesting article regarding their own Bengals fans who market them. On the Bengals.com site is an easy grab it widget that lets fans do a simple copy-n-paste function for their site, blog, or even Facebook or MySpace pages. It shows their schedule, a Chad Johnson video profile, news, and different links to merchandise and tickets.

It reminds me of an easy weather widget that Ahmed and company at iBegin came out with back in May. I’ve been meaning to post about that.

Thoughts on Video Optimization

It kinda’ mirrors my thoughts on standard search engine optimization. It’s great to be seen, but does the traffic convert?

There’s a good ClickZ article labeled Taking the Video Wheels Off.

Talk is cheap. It’s easy to discuss video and how it works online, but what about producing it?

That’s the first sentence in the article and the rest of it explains that statement nicely. Digital point-n-shoots have provided some pretty cool viral videos, but would branded businesses benefit from something like this?

Just as important, are businesses doing this for the right reasons? Once Google’s Universal Search came out, Joolie from Between Stations gave a good prediction of video mania that in many cases came true (But we neeeeeed video! They’ll show up on “the Google!”).

I’ve seen quite a few videos within Google search results that are basically commercials of a guy or girl staring into a camera talking about how good their company is. This doesn’t provide me a bit of trust and I’d love to see more creative and viral ideas in these videos.

In many cases, it would be a good idea to outsource this type of service to professionals that have the creative know-how and resources to produce quality online videos. To businesses that don’t have the budget, Ed Kohler and Filo have some good and humorous beginning tips.

Ed Learns Video 101 – Episode 1
Ed Learns Video 101 – Episode 2

A Closer Look at the Inaugural Houston Inline Marathon

This weekend I got a closer look to see how these inline marathons are put together and have the hugest respect to those who put them on!

Justin McMurtry did a fantastic job coordinating the inaugural Houston Inline Marathon from the registration, zoning auto traffic, cool pre-race expo at the Last Concert Cafe, and putting together a great race-day event, and more. This isn’t easy at all.

What I really liked is in addition to the pro racers, there were a number of Houston rec skaters, a couple of them were even on quads. Good times! Since we rec skaters started early, most of us got to finish the race, and watch and take pictures of the pro racers crossing the finish.

Kudos to Jeff Glaze and Jenifer Joseph of Premier Sports for the chip timing, and what you did for the event was great. It was cool to meet both of you! Equally cool was a brief, live impromptu microphone chat that Heather Lacayo gave me after the race! I felt giddy.

I hope to have a Flickr set up soon for the event, hopefully by Wednesday evening when I’m back in Mpls.

Nicole St. Martin will be happy and grossed out to know that Akhil, David Host, and myself ate some sweet calamari rings and tenticles tonight in Dallas. 😉