I got the opportunity to interview Leonardo Da Vinci at the Tri-City Valley Women’s Network about Creativity.

So many people these days are trying to reach people online and it’s getting very competitive. We all want to stand-out and not be cliché.

I've been involved in several presentations lately on using LinkedIn.  Everyone should use LinkedIn and it's never to late to start growing your network.

LinkedIn Has a Variety of Uses

1. It is a great way to connect immediately after you meet someone with a follow-up email to become part of your online rolodex.

It's always fun to hear Gary V talk about social media.  I'm not in total agreement with his statement that  "99.5 Percent Of Social Media Experts Are Clowns".  I think its only about 80%!  At any rate, this reinforces the fact that social media is just yet another platform to share your message.  There are techniques and tools to better use social media tools, but it all stems back to good business sense.  Is there a strategy behind the product?  Are you solving a problem for your end user?

Our clients are always asking us to how to get started on twitter and build a following.  One of my favourite blogs just posted The Ultimate Guide to Twitter.  This provides a collection of articles from basic set-up, how to's through to advanced twitter strategies.  Enjoy!

Do URL Shorteners like Bit.ly or TinyURL Reduce SEO Benefits?

With the increase usage of URL shorteners and their great benefit in tracking marketing campaigns, I wondered what impact they have on SEO.

Google counts backlinks in its measure of popularity for search engine ranking.  So one can wonder - will NOT having your own domain in the backlink actually reduce your score for rankings with Google?

Part of SEO on page optimization requires writing the titles, descriptions and keywords for the pages. 

We recommend doing this at the same time as you write the content for your new website.

Your keyword/keyphrase rich tiles and descriptions are indexed by the search engines. The title and description shows up on Google search and thus needs to be enticing. Only so many characters show up, so long titles and descriptions will be cropped. Make sure the most important part is at the start.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Questionnaire

Search Engine Optimization is much more that entering in a bunch of keywords on a page.

First step is to come up with a broad keyword list and check out what your competitors are doing for their keywords.

1. Provide a list of keywords and phrases you feel are important. Prioritize them.
2. List your top 3-5 competitors  (we will look at their source code and do a competitive analysis).
3. How do your clients search for you online? What words and phrases do they use?

Are you a British Columbia small business or non-profit with one or more employees?

There's an employee training grant out that you may qualify for. Training can include online marketing and social media.

Here’s the link to the grant application form: http://www.aved.gov.bc.ca/workplace_training_program/docs/application.pdf

These are some topics we provide training on:

Main Areas of Training

Social Media Marketing

Facebook with an active community of over 350 million needs to be part of your marketing strategy.
(Need proof -check out their stats! )

What is a Facebook Page
A Facebook profile is for personal use and your pages are for your business. From your personal profile you can set up a page or pages.

Where to Sign Up for Your Facebook Page

The HST Deadline is Approaching Quickly. Time to Plan!

Business owner's in Canada are likely aware that the HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) is soon making its way to British Columbia and Ontario. On July 1, 2010, PST and GST will be combined to form the HST, a 12% or 13% tax in these provinces.

Many Canadian websites with ecommerce will need to makes changes to their tax table calculations, invoices, and descriptive information.