content marketing

Orange County, California (May 16, 2011) – Brian Geary Consulting is offering a free website content review each day during National Small Business Week. The free review will be awarded to the first 10 requests received from May 16 to May 20, 2011 through the contact form at BrianGeary.com. The website's home page and up to 3 additional internal links will be included in the free review.

General layout, accessibility, content stickiness and freshness are some of the areas that will be assessed in the free review. Technical analysis such as page ranking, search engine listing and back-links will also be analyzed. The use of meta tags and their contents will be evaluated as well. Participants can expect to receive the results of the free review within ten days.

“There is a wide variety of DIY website design programs,” explains company spokesman Brian Geary, “and many users don't know how to take advantage of all the features that are available.” “It is difficult to take advantage of features,” continues Geary, “if you don't know what to look for.” The free review will check that the most common and effective web design features are implemented. “Some websites can significantly increase their effectiveness just by using what's already available to them,” adds Geary.

The free review provides a risk free way for businesses to assess their website. “Having an additional set of trained eyes to review the website,” notes Geary, “is an excellent way to identify areas needing improvement.” Since there is no obligation, website owners can implement any recommendations themselves or with their existing web consultant. Brian Geary Consulting will remain available for any additional services the free review recipients may need.

For many social media posters, the message is about them: what they offer, what they suggest, what they promote, what they think you need or will find interesting. Millions of people enjoy this genre of social media. But it's not for business.

In business, each moment of time has a cost. Not just in minutes or in dollars, but also in opportunity. Savvy businesses understand the opportunity cost of social media participation. To make your posts worth a business's time, you must create value in the post. Value can only be created by writing the post for the benefit of the business reader. It's about the reader, not about you.

When I was in the corporate world, we would route literature among management. Some team members liked to write notes on the route slip indicating an article they recommended others read. The notes served little purpose since members often didn't share the same interest in an article. More importantly, it was easier to simply read the Table of Contents to determine what you wanted to read. Sometimes I thought members made notes to appear they read an article when they didn't. There was one person, however, who would give a brief synopsis of an article and why it was important to the business we were in. I always read any notes from that person because more times than not, they were of value to me.

What was in it for my colleague? The same thing todays businesses exploring social media hope to acquire, professional recognition and influence.

Even though you may not have the time or desire to be social and develop relationships through social media, you still need to create an audience for your posts. Social media without an audience is like sex without a partner. It may be ...O.K., I think you can figure out the analogy. Minimum participation in social media means creating an audience through connections, friends, links or shares.

Some web designs are more amenable to social media participation than others. One simple addition can easily transform websites into social media magnets or at least social media wallflowers.

Service links for social bookmarking sites, blog search engines, and social networks are the single, most effective website addition for developing an unsocial social media presence. The service links allow you to easily post links to your website content from your accounts on these various services. With a minimum of effort, a website can establish valuable external links as well as increase exposure.

Website visitors can also use the service links to create bookmarks to your content from their own social media accounts. Although the number of links acquired in this manner may be small, the number will be zero if no service links are present. Since visitors will also use the service links, businesses should consider including links to popular services even if you do not have an account.

Content management systems (CMS) such as Drupal, Joomla and Wordpress have service link features that can easily be added. Non-CMS websites can quickly find scripts and graphic icons for incorporating service links into just about any type of website design.

Although service links allow a business to remain an unsocial wallflower while developing a greater social media presence, many of the service links provide options for forwarding your content to groups you have joined as well as to any followers, friends, or connections you have acquired. The next blog post will cover these options and offer some strategies for identifying and acquiring an audience for your content.