What are you doing October 8^th ? Hopefully you’ll be joining us for our webinar entitled "Creating a Corporate Blog That Attracts Visitors". Learn more about getting traffic to your corporate blog, branding yourself or company as an expert, how to deal with content issues, and so much more. 

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Have a knack for graphic design? Well than have we got a contest for you! Vertical Measures is currently in the process of a website redesign and logo revamp. We like the basics of our design, but need to 2.0 it up. This of course will require a new logo. One of the key things we are looking for with our new logo is the integration of a pictoral mark. Pictoral marks are often utilized to define a brand with one specific image, like that of Apple and their chrome apple icon, or the panda in the WWF logo. 

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A recent study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project reports that a whopping 39% of the adult population have seen the frequency of their online use grow as their reliance on mobile devices has increased. The report, “The Mobile Difference”, relates this increase in technology usage to be similar to the spike in telephone use that was experienced between 1980 and 1987. The spike in that instance was determined to be caused by the introduction of the answering machine. Once unanswered calls were now being returned, significantly accelerating American’s calling patterns.

The Mobile Difference study links the recent growth of frequency in online use to increasing broadband adoption, and to improving attitudes about how mobile access creates better availability for personal and business purposes. It breaks this group whom it calls “Motivated by Mobility” into several subgroups including: 8% Digital Collaborators, 7% Ambivalent Networkers, 7% Media Movers, 9% Roving Nodes, and 8% Mobile Newbies.

The study notes that 61% of the adult population claim that they do not feel the pull of mobility into the digital world. I certainly don’t fall into this group, as my iPhone and I are inseparable. Those who don’t feel the pull of mobility in the study, which they’ve labeled the “stationary Media Majority”, fit into several subgroups. 13% are Desktop Veterans, there are Drifting Surfers, Information Encumbered individuals, 10% Tech Indifferent, and 14% are lovingly nicknamed "Off the Network". Some feel the off the network folks shy away from “even a little modern gadgetry”. I don’t know about you, but I’m wondering what cave these folks are hiding in?

So what does this information mean to you? Well for starters it means you need to start marketing to the mobile crowd. More and more are feeling the pull, and it goes without saying that your site should be easy to navigate on mobile devices. Optimizing your efforts for mobile search will also prove fruitful due to our growing reliance on mobile devices.

Have you seen your online marketing efforts change due to the pull? Check out the below commercial by Sprint and tell me you can’t feel the pull of mobile search and marketing!

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Since the advent and widespread adoption of broadband internet service, the number of videos viewed on the internet each day has swelled dramatically and is projected to continue growing at an extreme pace in the coming few years.  Statistics aside, this means that every day, various user-driven websites serve video content that is watched by millions of people around the world. 

To anyone familiar with internet marketing or SEO, this is obviously a huge potential marketplace to target so it’s no surprise that just about everyone is trying to cash in on the popularity of the various video marketing services these days (including the video sites themselves, with various monetization schemes).  This can take any number of forms, from video production and channel creation, all the way to PPC ads.  For the link builder, though, the benefit of these services is very clear:  Popular sites that accept and stream user video (YouTube, MSN, MySpace, Revver, etc…) are great places to acquire some links because they have plenty of authority and enormous amounts of traffic.

Obviously every video site is a little different, so there’s no single tactic, or set of link building strategies, that works to build links with all of them, but there are generally 3 places it can be done:

Each Video Page – The person who posts a video has a number of fields to work with, including a description field which can, and often does, contain a link back to the entity that the movie references.  As a link builder all you need is a user account and some sort of video to post and you can start inserting links.

User Profile Pages – Members of video sites are often given a place to create a profile page, much as they would do on a social network.  Nearly everything on that page is under the control of the user, so links upon links can be posted there.  Additionally, if you find another user who has relevant videos and profile information, you can certainly ask them for a link on their profile as well; you may have to give something in return, but usually a fair exchange can be had.

Video Comments – On many of the sites in question, there is an option to post comments about a video that has just been watched.  You’ll almost always be required to have an account before commenting, but if you plan to do video marketing of any type, you’ll already have one anyway.

Keep in mind that link building using video sites is a bit complex compared to some other sites, so care needs to be taken to ensure that the community and its administrators don’t ban your account.  The same could be said of many other social networking forums as well, so the principles of politeness and adding something that benefits the community apply equally to every video site.

As a final note on link building with videos, be warned that the NoFollow movement (which is equivalent to web fascism in the minds of most link builders, including this one) has gained quite a bit of steam as of late, and many of the links you can get on these media sites will have that tag attached.  That fact may make it seem relatively worthless to try for these links at all, but that’s simply not the case:  Think of online video outlets as a counterpart to social networks, and remember that brand exposure to a living, breathing audience is just as important as creating avenues for search engine crawlers.

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Most SEO professionals understand the importance of creating a variety of outlets for their online marketing efforts. Press releases can be great marketing tools, and can be one of the more effective ways of getting information out there for clients and creating powerful link juice, but coming up with great press release ideas can be confounding.

• Earning recognition of the company, product or executives by a publication
• Announcing that you’re available to speak on particular subjects of interest
• Issuing a statement of position regarding a local, regional or national issue
• Announcing the results of research or surveys you have conducted
• Making public statements on future business trends or conditions
• Announcing a public appearance on television, radio or in person
• Announcing that you’ve reached a major milestone
• Restructuring your business or its business model
• Forming a new strategic partnership or alliance
• Establishing a unique vendor agreement 

• Introducing a unique strategy/approach
• Setting up a customer advisory group
  
• Obtaining a new, significant customer
• Expanding or renovating the business
• Participating in a philanthropic event
• Announcing free information available
• Sponsoring a workshop or seminar
• Celebrating an anniversary
• Announcing a partnership

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