Philadelphia Pet Adventures: Business Blog Brings Buzz

McBuzz Communications recently helped Philadelphia Pet Adventures of Philadelphia, PA, launch a new website and blog.

It's a local business looking for visibility in search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.com. Both the owners happen to be great writers, and this certainly helps when it comes to creating web marketing buzz using a blog. But it's possible to use a blog to gain search engine visibility even if writing is not your favorite thing to do.



There are many other possible sources of content for a blog. If you know someone who has expertise in a particular area relevant to your business, they may already have written a short article or presentation for some other purpose. Ask if you can use all or part of their work on your blog -- with attribution. There you have it. If you can find just one of these already-existing sources each month, you have half of what you need to keep your blog going.

Another excellent way to generate content for your blog is to do a short survey or review of existing resources. People are always looking for a good tip. There are lots of good resources out there, but who has time to look for them?! If you have experience with a particular kind of resource that's helpful in your line of work, sit down for a few minutes and compile a list, with a brief note saying what's good about each one. You don't have to love writing to be able to do this. Just imagine you are telling a good friend about it.

Here's one example from a fantastic blogger at Intuit named Avinash Kaushik. See his "Recommendation #6: Best WordPress Plugins" in that post. It's a list of additional features for blogging software called WordPress. The subject matter is not important. Just check out how Avinash gives a run-down of available resources.

This example is loaded with keywords (terms) pertaining to publishing a blog, which is great for search engine visibility with respect to those keywords, AND it positions Avinash's blog as a resource for people working in this field, which makes others want to link to his blog / website. In short, it's what good "search engine optimization" is all about.

Mark McLaren, McBuzz Communications and Buzz Marketing: A New mcbuzz.com Is In The Works

Mark McLaren and McBuzz Communications will be launching a new blog-based website at mcbuzz.com in the next several weeks — hopefully no longer than that!

Here's a preview:


The current Making Communications Buzz site and the McBuzz Communications site will be combined at www.mcbuzz.com.

"Buzz Marketing" has never been easier thanks to free content management software from WordPress and others. The new mcbuzz.com will be a resource for any business or organization seeking to get their message out on the Web. In some respects, "Buzz Marketing" is becoming so easy that, if I do my job right, McBuzz Communications will become obsolete.

See you soon at the new mcbuzz.com!

Lexmark Printer Problem Now Visible in Yahoo Search Results

The previous McBuzz Blog post, Lexmark Printer C522n Does Not Print OpenType fonts (aka Open Type fonts) - An Update (No Problem On Yahoo), noted that Yahoo search results for "lexmark opentype" did not include any of my posts on the topic, which was odd given that these posts have been at the top of page one in both Google and MSN.com results for many weeks.

When the McBuzz Blog first started posting about the fact that the Lexmark C522n printer does not print Open Type fonts, these posts were at the top of Yahoo search results. But after a few weeks, they disappeared altogether.

I also noted that Lexmark was, at that time, a top sponsor in Yahoo's Sponsored Links on page one of Yahoo search results for the word "printer", something Lexmark would have paid quite a bit of money for. This was probably coincidental.

And a few days after my "No Problem on Yahoo" post, the McBuzz Blog rocketed to the top of Yahoo's results for "lexmark opentype". What happened to prompt this? I have no idea.

Lexmark Printer C522n Does Not Print OpenType fonts (aka Open Type fonts) - An Update (No Problem On Yahoo)

The Lexmark C522n Color Laser Printer does not print OpenType fonts (also called Open Type fonts) on either an OSX Macintosh or a Windows XP PC. The Lexmark Corporation has never responded to my e-mails pointing out that fact — with either a real solution or an explanation.

Today a reader commented that he or she did not have trouble printing TrueType fonts with the Lexmark C522 , which is not the problem. (Updated Review: Lexmark C522n Color Printer Does Not Print Open Type Fonts) The problem with the Lexmark C522 is that it does not print Open Type fonts. For a brief discussion of the difference between the 3 most common font formats, see this post: Installing New Fonts, Continued: What's the Difference Between TrueType, PostScript and OpenType Fonts?

This is a problem with the Lexmark printer. It is a Lexmark printer problem. It is not a memory problem. It is not an operating system problem. It is not a printer software installation problem.

Making Communications Buzz remains at the top of Google and MSN.com search results for "lexmark opentype" and "lexmark open type".

It is interesting to note that Making Communications Buzz is nowhere to be found in Yahoo search results for "lexmark opentype" or "lexmark open type".

I'm not sure why this would be the case. If you search for "printer" on Yahoo, you will see that Lexmark is listed prominently in the sponsored links on the right side of the page.

That posts on Making Communications Buzz — pointing out what appears to be a serious problem with the Lexmark C522n printer and OpenType fonts — are nowhere to be found in Yahoo search results for "lexmark opentype" or "lexmark open type" and Lexmark is listed prominently in the sponsored links on the right side of the page when you search on Yahoo for "printer" is probably just a coincidence. At least one can hope.

Google's Success Can Mean Web Marketing Success for Your Website and Your Business

Google is a wildly successful company. The New York Times and many others reported yesterday that Google's fourth quarter revenue rose 67% over last year. In the two and a half years since the company went public, its stock has risen from $85 a share to just over $500. (Not only are they profitable, but they recently ranked #1 on Fortune magazine's list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For.)

Most of Google's revenue comes from its brilliantly simple business model of serving up advertisements along side free search results. This model would not work if the search results were no good. The supercharged minds at Google are constantly improving their search engine's ability to crawl and index the Web. The search engine is so good, Google can actually show fewer ads with their search results than they did when they first began doing so, "but those ads are more relevant to users, are clicked on more frequently, and hence, generate a better return for both Google and for advertisers." (New York Times, Feb 1, 2007)

Here's why Google's success is good news for anyone who wants to do marketing and PR for their business using their website.

Google can offer more relevant ads to its users because it "knows the meaning of a web page." The better you and I are at putting detailed content on our websites - and at getting other sites to link to ours with instructive links, in a format that search engines like Google can read - the better Google is at bringing the right traffic to our websites.

For the same reason Google excels at placing relevant ads next to search results, it excels at giving search users results that are highly relevant to the terms or "keywords" they plug into the Google search box.

The thing to keep in mind is that bringing the right traffic to your website may not be as difficult or expensive as you think. The "right traffic" is site visitors that want what your business or organization offers, as opposed to what your competitors or peers may have to offer.

You can differentiate your product or service from your competitor's by doing three things:
1. Figure out exactly what sets your product or service apart. This is a critical part of any business plan. There are many resources available to help you with it, including the U.S. Small Business Administration.
2. Write it down using clear, descriptive language. (If you are not a writer, you can have someone give you a hand with this.)
3. Put this language into your PR and marketing materials, including your website.

Some of your competitors are not actively improving their website on a regular basis. If you are actively improving your website, then you automatically win that race hands down.

As for competitors that are actively improving their websites, you can gain an edge by using plenty of descriptive language - and putting it where Google can find it. The goal is to attract searchers using 3 or 4 words in their search: for a pet sitting website, "pet sitting Wyndmoor PA" rather than just "pet sitting" or even "pet sitting Wyndmoor".

The best way to do this is to use a blog or other form of content management system (CMS) on your website so that you can get new content up on your site quickly and frequently, without having to know HTML or other code. There are plenty of blog software and CMS packages available for this purpose - many of them free.

The other part of this equation is to foster links to your website from other websites - preferably links that say something about your product or service. For example, a link that says, "Learn more about Philadelphia Pet Adventures pet sitting services" is far more instructive to the Google search engine than a generic "click here".

It's also important to use the same language your customers use whenever you talk about your products or services, because that is the language they use when they do a search. This point is fitting material for a follow-up post.

As Google continues to improve its search capabilities, you can benefit by giving Google plenty of rich text on your website to work with. The beauty of this approach to web marketing and website success is that you are already creating the kind of content you need for your website every time you create a brochure or newsletter, or write a press release, or even when you write an e-mail to a client or prospective client talking about your products or services.

Leverage the power of readily available, easy-to-use blog or CMS software to get that content up on your website the very same day.

The Google "crawler" - Google's automatic text reading and indexing machine - will come by soon enough to see what it is that sets you apart from your competition, and the next time anyone does a search, Google will let them know about you.