Achievement with SEO and social media campaigns- I

August 25th, 2009

I intend to start a series of such posts where we underline the achievements of our clients…(PS: He is actually now our partner and social media point man on Brand marketing Experts).

Peter Robert Casey

Back in October, 2008, I received an email from my ning network saying somebody by the name Peter Robert Casey has left me a message. As it happens with most such messages, my 1st thought was that it’s another one touting another work from home scheme. I casually opened the message and read the transcript. It was a good introduction and I felt like replying. After a few threads, we jumped on Google talk and we discussed how we at BME could help in giving leverage to a passion that this man has- Basketball.

We got started and like every person we had a very humble beginning. We discussed things, mind stormed ideas and came to a plan which were palatable to the both of us.

All through the next 4 months, we worked on getting him started at places we thought would be good for him. facebook, twitter, blogging, etc.

Today, here is what he is:

http://redstormsports.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/082509aab.html

and

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?name=katz_andy

Here is quoting from the above URL and ESPN’s Andy Katz.

“In terms of basketball-specific Tweeters, the Brooklyn-based blogger is among the top 10 in followers, behind only prolific posters such as Shaquille O’Neal, Dwight Howard, Chris Bosh, Charlie Villanueva and Kentucky coach John Calipari.

In its press release, St. John’s even put in a quote from athletic director Chris Monasch promoting the addition of Casey to press row saying, “social media platforms like Twitter are what’s hot right now, and very few people are connecting better with the online basketball community than Peter.”

Just an Update: Peter’s involvement with St John’s has got coverage from our very loved website: mashable:

http://mashable.com/2009/08/25/st-johns-press/

and also on ESPN Life:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/thelife/news/story?id=4422840

Quoting from the above article:

“I kept running into the name Peter Robert Casey everywhere on the Internet,” said Mark Fratto, St. John’s associate athletics director for communications. “LinkedIn, Facebook requests, his blog. Peter’s marketing of himself really brought him to us.”

Besides this, he is working with some people who want help with their social image.  Also, laurels have been his way ever since he made his mind to keep the chin up and charge up the mountain. To mention some, he is a director at EBC, Rucker Park, has been offered to write a book… is the only person to be offered a press box seat despite not being associated with any mainstream media…..the list seems endless….(Peter, you need to jump in here to justify this list)

The idea is to believe and continue what you have started….the start is difficult, but keeping to it is more important at times. Results will follow- the idea is to keep the engine running.

Peter is one of the well known people in basketball’s online scenario today.

You can follow Peter on twitter @Peter_R_Casey. His blog can be found at http://www.peterrobertcasey.com.

So, good things will happen….Peter’s story is evidence of it….Are YOU ready for something similar?

If you are ready, give us a buzz at http://www.brandmarketingexperts.com/contactus/

The breadcrumb approach for better website navigation

August 24th, 2009

In the web 2.0 scenario, its almost impossible to make an impact with a plain looking website. Worse, if your website is good looking, it may have some basic features missing which makes the website stiff in terms of navigation which, in turn, confuses your visitors. For Example, you may have the best website (according to you) designed for you at some astronomical cost, but when you are in month 4, you see your website analysis and you are left disappointed. You see that although your hit rates are okay, people leave once they go into inner pages. Now, you are wondering about what happened? what did you do wrong?
Well, then you plan to hire someone who is an expert on user interaction and he points you out one of the simplest things: Navigation.

navigation

Your website needs to have a sound navigation system and this is where “the breadcrumb approach” comes in handy.
Especially websites that have categories, sub-categories and some pages under those sub-categories need such an approach.
A typical breadcrumb can look like this:
Home>Category>subcategory>page name
Apart from the more obvious user interaction angle, another one is its importance SEO wise.
Now, I have been telling programmers and website owners to have a website layout so that the URLs can be SEO friendly, but in most cases, people come to us after a design has been made. So, there are lesser chances of getting a hold of the programmers to do an overhaul. The breadcrumb approach can make your life a bit better. The breadcrumb approach not only makes sure that your users can go to the top category from where they are or can even go to the subcategory you specified.
Another powerful benefit of the breadcrumb approach is the keyword presence. The breadcrumb approach can hold some of the most valuable keywords for your web page. Keywords that you might fear are too dense maybe accommodated in the breadcrumb to make things a bit easier.
Also, the breadcrumb approach improves crawling. Better crawling ensures that your website has a better chance to getting a good visibility on searches and thus…its a blessing.
Most breadcrumb approaches don’t require a lot of real estate on a website. They can be stuffed just anywhere people can see. But, it gives a lot of SEO mileage. Are you in for such a goodie?

What is DDoS and why it pulled down twitter, facebook and many others?

August 7th, 2009

DDoS- Distributed denial of service is one of the most dangerous and maybe one of the kind of attacks a network is unprepared for.

If we delve into a bit of detail as to what is DDoS here is what Wikipedia has to say.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_denial_of_service_attacks_on_root_nameservers

The attack isnt made on a particular network like many people would have thought. It hits where it “hurts the most”- the root Domain Name Servers. There are thirteen Root DNS servers which also serve as the internet backbone. Now, if these servers are under attack, not one, not a couple, not a bunch, but the whole internet can be pulled down!

Thankfully, the attack on the 6th of August was a very low profile attack which didnt manage to pull down the entire internet.

Websites like Yahoo, Google faced the attack with its super performant systems, but (comparatively)new websites like facebook and twitter faced the music. The worst hit was twitter which was down for some hours. Facebook was slow as a snail and was throwing all kinds of errors. Google’s services such as Youtube, Google sites and blogger.com was also partially affected.

If the reasons behind the attack are to be investigated, mashable came up with a good article about it at:

http://mashable.com/2009/08/07/twitter-facebook-2/

Thankfully, today the websites are back to normal. Is it the next level of warfare (considering the theory in the above URL) or some hacker trick? Its hard to tell at this point of time.

Now, the question arises…why is it hard to prepare such an attack?

The answer is simple. Internet is built on collaborative resources. At some point of time, you have to rely on systems that are not directly under your control. Now, if any of such systems are under attack ( although there are loads of security measures to safeguard such resources), you cant just plug away at another system as a “backup”.

So, the web admins do not much of a choice but to make sure that their systems are upto the mark and there is no glitch in their own system and wait….sounds scary!

Making most of your website meta description

July 17th, 2009

Most people consider that Title tags are very important for search engine results, especially Google. Many people forget that there is something more to a website’s meta tag than the title tag. The title tag is important, but it has a constraint. You cant post all your services/products/unique selling propositions there.

Thats where meta description becomes handy. If you search Google, you will come across results which have a nice description just beneath the title of the website. Thats where your meta description reflects. Poeple (genuine users) may find it difficult to find an authentic product or service considering the skewed landscape of the web. This is where your meta description comes to your rescue. If you can post really good and compelling words in your meta description, you might as well as find people who are interested in your product/service.

Bing

Bing

Not to mention that Microsoft’s new search engine- Bing is another website you may want to follow up. Bing also displays results like Google. Therefore, your keywords are up for grabs not only in Google, but for Bing as well.

Make the most of it :-)

Making your website’s load time optimal

July 17th, 2009

Scalability or the ability of a website to load in a short amount of time is one of the prime factors in a website’s user intreactivity. Your website maybe one of the best websites around, but if you have large image files that make for your website looks, you better be saving them right. Yeah, thats true. Images take the most time to load on any website. The larger the file is, the longer it takes. Taking into account the fickle minded nature of an average web user, you may find that your bounce rate is enormous and despite all efforts, you can’t seem to pull it down.

The reason is the large file sizes. In an age where many people use their cellphone browsers to open websites, its essential that you have your image sizes in order.

A 500kb image may look great for your desktop, but it may kill your web page.

So, the next time you upload images, make sure its optimized for the web.

Image Credit: http://www.aykew.com

Welcome to the Brand Marketing Experts Blog

May 25th, 2009

Brand Marketing Experts welcomes all you people to the Brand marketing Experts.

Brand marketing Experts is built with a good blend of people who are experts in one or more fields.

Heading our organization is Mr William Hefferan, who is a veteran in marketing and who has guided us in our journey.

Our President, Brian Hefferan is one of the greatest people person we have come across. His inter-personal skills are very admirable. Brian heads our business development activities and is the point of contact for all our clients.

Lastly, Saikat Bose heads the Search Engine optimization and other internet marketing activities.He also heads the website design and development team with BME.