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Welcome to Google Trusted Stores

At our company we always try to encourage our clients to include “trust logos” on their sites to help with visitor confidence and higher conversion rates.

As of today, June 7th, 2012 Google just released the Google Trusted Store program for all merchants in the United States.

We wanted to include initial information about the program:

You will have to make sure that:
– You are an online business in the United States
– You are incorporated
– You have all customer service pages onsite (privacy, contact, shipping, terms, clear phone number and email)
– You feel free to submit your shipping and cancellation information to Google
– You have a Google merchant account (Google Base/Shopping Account & Feeds)

Also Google Specifies that you will NOT be able to apply if:
– They are part of marketplace sites and other sites where different stores share a common domain for their store and checkout pages.
– They are unable to add JavaScript to their confirmation pages.
– They are unable to provide daily feeds of shipped and canceled orders.
– They have greater than 50% of total orders shipped without tracking.
– They offer custom and made-to-order products in which average time to ship is greater than 14 days.
– They offer subscription services or future deliveries in which payment is taken in advance.
– They offer direct to store shipments in which customers are not direct recipients of shipment.

Visit Site Google Trusted Store for more information

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Conclusions on Marketing a Movie Online (from research only)

We recently received a new request to research and come up with a proposal for marketing a new film online without the help of large film studios. As a first response, we were thrilled as we love to help with projects that empower the individual and show that with a great product, technology and the internet we don’t need to follow the dusty old business model. After the initial thrill, we started research for this project. Part of the research included reverse engineer and taking examples from successful projects that have marketed online. We have come up with some conclusions and main ideas that need to be taken under consideration when starting a project like this.

Movie Related

Who is our Target Audience?
Including age group, countries, gender, income level, purchasing power, etc

Languages?
Do you want to create subtitles and market in foreign speaking countries

Is there a cause or a message?
Do you want a message to carry-on (documentary for example) or is the movie for entertainment purposes only?

How do you want to sell your movie?
DVD, Online (Itunes, Amazon, Own Website)

How much does the movie sell for?
And how much are your audience willing to pay. Is there a set standard online price and do you want to break this standard? ($2.99 rentals)

Pirated Versions
How do i deal with digital sharing and can i make this to my benefit. Can i add elements to my film to help? Will need to discuss distribution options with this in mind.

Create a Website

Each and every movie has a website. Creation of a high quality website with STRONG social aspects is an important key to success.

Important factors include:

– Encouraging Social Sharing
– Teaser Trailers
– Newletter Sign-ups and regular follow-up with news and fun content
– Simple concepts and videos

The website will have to use quality hosting in expectation to high surges of traffic.

Create Social Profiles

Depending on your resources, you may not want to setup too many sites to handle. It is all about quality.

Recommended Sites:
– Twitter
– Facebook
– Youtube
– Vimeo
– Reddit?

Finding Influencers

Even before we start marketing, we will need to gather a long list of potential influences.

A quick List of Possibilities:
– Actors from the film (utilizing twitter, facebook, pr)
– List of Movie Industry Contacts
– Celebrities – [w/ millions of twitter followers :)]
– Press and Journalists
– List of Top Movie Related Sites and Movie Bloggers
– Social Media Influencers
– Reddit Posts and Content Creation
– Nerd Geek Movie Freaks out there

Get the movie out to a small set of people with online importance and have them write about it.

Teasers and Trailers

Get people interested in the trailers much before launch. Get comments on your youtube and vimeo videos. Get them interested and bring them to your website, twitter and facebook for news sign-ups and close relationships with your fans. Create great trailers for buzz on sites like imdb commenting, indiewire, reddit, blu-ray.com forum, variety, etc.

Social Media 24/7

Make close contacts with everyone you can!

Interesting Facts and Considerations

1. Kony 2012 –

Setting aside what may or may not have happened, Kony v1.0 was a huge success from a social standpoint and we can learn from its

– 90 Million Youtube Views
– 18 Million Vimeo Views
– Targeted Celebrity Support – Justin Bieber, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Ryan Gosling and Oprah
– Multi-Country Span

2. Louis CK – Live at the Beacon Theatre

– Charged $5
– Self Distributed Video
– Has a huge twitter following (currently at 1.26 million followers)
– Keeps a mailing list
– Is very funny!

3. Something to think about? should we disrupt the business model?

Radiohead’s “Pay what you want” Rainbows model from 2007

4. Avenues to Sell on

Do you want to enable purchasing on multiple avenues?

Project will need to determine and weigh the benefits vs drawbacks of each avenue

– Sell your own – easy to “Torrent-It”, extra bandwidth
– Amazon vod – charges 50% of sale – https://www.createspace.com/Products/VideoDownload/Index.jsp
– Itunes – TBD charge – http://www.apple.com/itunes/content-providers/movie-faq.html

5. Get Joe Rogan to see it and honestly review it. If it’s good it will spread!

6. Paid Ads and Extra Engagement

What about adwords, youtube ads, facebook ads, etc?

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Great Alternatives to SMX Advanced Seattle: June 5-6, 2012

As a small business and growing SEO and internet marketing company we understand the importance of going to industry conferences, learning new tactics and being involved in the mass-group energy of SEO’ers. Conferences are great for networking, their amazing workshops and speeches by leading experts (Would love to meet Rand Fishkin one of these days…) but on the other hand for a growing company it is not that easy for us to spend any extra $2,000 on a few days of a conference.

Expenses for one are:
– $1,095 for a workshop pass – All access passes have been sold out.
Based on above, guessing All Access Pass at around $1,395

– Flight from San Diego (just checked orbitz rates) – $370

– Hotel for 2 nights – Roughly $100/night for more affordable hotel

Total Spending – $1,395 + $370 + $200 = $1,965

See Our $2,000 Alternatives

ALTERNATIVE 1 – Using $2,000 in Adwords Campaign

As a short simple calculation based on old data

– Adwords “SEO San Diego” variation terms @ $6/click.
– Roughly we will be able to get 333 clicks for $2,000.
– Conversion Rate for new customers at 1% for roughly 3 new clients.
– Average Client fee per month – $650 with contract for 12 months

Estimated revenue – 3 x $650 x 12 = $23,400 in a year

ALTERNATIVE 2 – Using $2,000 to Buy a 3D Printer and Play with Arduino

Since the first time that i saw a 3D printer, which by the way was a MakerBot, i absolutely loved it. The idea of DIY and the growing power of the individual in thanks to the internet and technology have been mind blowing to me. Arduino is another example of DIY power.

ALTERNATIVE 3 – Using $2,000 for a Paid All-Inclusive Vacation in Mexico

Will return with hundreds of photos to post on facebook…

ALTERNATIVE 4 – Buy my Dog new Toys

ALTERNATIVE 5 – Save $2,000 for SMX West Las Vegas

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Nofollow Chrome Extension

See Astral Web’s Chrome Extension for easy to find out nofollow links on any page.

Description – Hover over a webpage link to discover if it is a follow of nofollow link. Great for SEO work & link building. Utilizes robots.txt, meta robots tag and rel for nofollow diagnosis. Currently does not work with javascript links.

Get nofollow chrome extension

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10 Ways to find content ideas for your SEO efforts

For most of our SEO efforts we have dealt with the need to find ideas for content and writing for our client blogs and websites on a regular basis. We typically prepare monthly tasks for our writers and sometimes it happens that we have trouble with unique fun content to write (especially for those clients that don’t sell space travel and that we have been working with for a long time).

This article will explain a few ideas of how to find new content and a walk-through of a sample website and keywords to showcase how easy it can be.

Website Topic – Ecommerce Site Selling Yoga Mats (we choose this because we do not have a client in this field and it is the first idea that popped up in mind)

Strategy #1 – Using Google AutoSuggest

We would like to begin with a variation of the terms you all learned in preschool, The 5 W’s OR The six W’s and one H’s:
Who
What
When
Where
Why
How

Our tip is to take the 6 terms and add to them. For example “who sells …”, “what is a…”, “when is the …”, “why do …”, etc.

Please see real live examples of ideas that we have found:
#1 Why are:

includes: why are yoga mats so expensive, why are yoga mats so thin, why does my yoga mat smell

#2 Why do:

includes: where do i buy a yoga mat, where to buy yoga mat

#3 What is:

includes: what is yoga mat made out of, what is yoga mat material, what size is a yoga mat

#4 How does:

includes: how does a yoga mat help, how long does a yoga mat last, how much does a yoga mat weigh

* NOTE – ofcourse this strategy gives you content ideas for your blog as well as new things to add to your site, products descriptions, reviews, etc.You can go on and on for this.

Strategy #2 – Use Twitter Content Ideas, Suggestions and Funny Topics

Using a quick search for “yoga mats”, https://twitter.com/#!/search/yoga%20mat we have found a few topics to play with:

a. Funny or not, this is your decision: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/leisure/2012/05/28/every-dog-has-its%E2%80%A6-yoga-mat/
b. “Walking around with a yoga mat is the new borrowing your friends dog.”
c. “Lately there’s been an improvement in my wife’s trustworthiness. Now she even takes her yoga mat when she goes to yoga class.” – Suggested topic learned form this post – “Becoming serious in yoga, invest in a quality mat”
d. “mat cleaning tips” link

Strategy #3 – Google Insights for Search

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=yoga%20mat&cmpt=q – Use Google Insights for information such Country searches and trends.

found sample articles such as
The McRib Sandwich and a Yoga Mat: What Do They Have In Common?
Fangtastic! Vampire Diaries star Nina Dobrev turns contortionist as she uses Conan O’Brien as a human yoga mat
An 8-months pregnant Lara Dutta on the yoga mat

found terms such as:
best yoga mat
manduka mat
jade yoga mat
yoga towel

DON’T FORGET – to add the search terms and rising searches to your igoogle if you are like me and you load igoogle multiple times a day once you load your browser.

Strategy #4 – Search Social Sites

Compare and get ideas of what works – We typically use reddit, digg and delicious to start with but you can search for both yoga related or any other desired site. Please see a few topics we have found:
– Yoga 30 Day Challenge (Starts Friday 4/20!) Join us!
– Border yoga event stretches boundaries at U.S.-Mexico fence
– Five Reasons You Can Thank Yoga for Better Sex

Strategy #5 – Look at Video Content

Search for ideas of videos that work – for example on youtube.

Use you have come up with ideas for videos, if you don’t have budgets to create videos, search sites like fiverr or craigslist for help with videos.

Strategy #6 – Use customers questions to write content

In addition to updating your FAQ, try to write specific detailed content on your blog about the most frequent emailed questions.

Strategy #7 – Write an annual summary report

Some users love to use the year in their search terms. Try to include the year in your content for the year in review and the upcoming year. We have found that in many cases these terms as much less competitive.

For example – Yoga Mats Reviews 2012 or Upcoming Yoga Mats 2012

Strategy #8 – Use Google Adwords Keywords Tool

This is a pretty obvious tool to use while completing keyword research but finding long tail terms is great for content ideas.

Ideas found: model numbers, coupons (coupon code), personalized, materials (cotton, plastic, bamboo, etc), non slip, thickness, shape (round, rectangle, square?), colors (pink, green, red, etc)

Content from above idea: what are the colors …., what is the best material, …. can a yoga mat be round?

Strategy #9 – Finding Niches from Article Submission Sites

A quick search on ezinearticles shows new topics to read about and learn from including:

– 5 Yoga Mats for an ECO Friendly Practice
– How to choose a yoga mat
– Improve Yoga by Learning How to Clean a Yoga Mat
– What Does an Ashtanga Yoga Mat Provide?

Strategy #10 – Experimental and Photo Galleries

With the entire inventory of products, try to be creative and photo shoot unique products, products together and be creative.

Examples just made up:
– Rainbow yoga class pictures
– Create a quiz for “What does your yoga mat color mean about you”
– Yoga mat kite flying in the air
– Red Carpets photoshop changes at Academy Awards with yoga mats.
Etc Etc.

Hope you loved this article from Astral Web. Also see our Yoga SEO Link List. Share the love and spread this on Twitter, Google + and Facebook.