Sometime around the middle of last year, I hired someone to do an SEO audit on my blog.

SEO, by the way, stands for search engine optimization, or…how sexy google thinks you are.

The verdict…ACK!!!

That was literally what the final report said. My keywords were all over the place, posts went in a million different directions, my headlines were written entirely for humans, not google bots and reviewers. Oy vey, I was an SEO trainwreck.

You’d think someone who’s been doing this for a few years would know better. And, in fact, I do.

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A few days ago, Chris Brogan posed an interesting question on twitter:

Then, the next day, another friend, Charlie Gilkey, asked:

Now, I get that these two very wise guys were asking these questions on two levels….

One, because they wanted to see how you’d answer. And, two, because they wanted to:

Incite those who saw the question to examine their assumptions.

And, probably, three, they wanted to see how many people would go that deep (at least, that’s what I’d really be curious about).

Thing is, within Chris’ and Charlie’s questions lie a bigger lesson.

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I’ve been doing my own advertising creative and design work for close to 15 years. For my own businesses and for clients. And, one of the things I consistently say is:

Don’t use humor in headlines or make images the focus.

And, I give the same advice for blogs. The reason isn’t that they don’t work, it’s that humor is often (a) hugely subjective or (b) used as a crutch when you’ve got nothing else to offer. And, when it comes to images, all too often, they may be pretty or funny or edgy, but they add nothing to the emotion or “social triggers” beyond a dash of color.

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Box of Crayons founder, Michael Bungay Stanier, has a pretty awesome job…

He goes into companies and teaches people how to do great work. Not good work, but great, butterfly in the stomach, soaring with delight, serving the world in a powerful way work. In this interview, we spend time exploring how to make this happen in your career and life.

And, we get into some of the exercises from Michael’s new book, Do More Great Work

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I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others… I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent – Thomas Edison

Last week, in Part 1 of this series on business strategies, we saw how locking people into monthly memberships has the potential to smooth cash flow, BUT it can also very easily lead down the road to complacency, laziness, lack of innovation and business stagnation.

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It seems to be all the rage lately…

The power of personal brands. Become the wizard in your space. Establish yourself as the go-to person, the thought leader, the one with all the answers and the smartest strategies. Leverage the astonishing power and reach of the internet, the blogosphere, the twittersphere, the Facebooksphere, the Google Buzz-o-sphere, The LinkedIn-o-sphere.

Your quest is simple. Become…lé guru in your niche!

We’re told, online personal brands:

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• Lead to fame and and adoration.
• Drive the world to you for answers.
• Get you jobs, gigs and opportunities,

So many individuals and businesses see innovation not as an opportunity, but a burden.

People are always asking me about business strategy and business models…

“What’s the best one?” they ask. And, because I was a brick and mortar entrepreneur in the membership-driven fitness world and now operate largely online, membership websites, continuity and recurring income strategies tend to come up a lot.

Folks just love the idea of set it and forget it monthly income.

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Tools & resources mentioned in video:

• DezignWithAZ.com
• IdeaPaint.com
• Olympus LS-10 Linear PCM Recorder (aff link)
• Canon GL2 3CCD Digital Video Camera
• Theracane.com
• Guitar Wall hook (aff link)
• Washburn Guitars

Back in November 2009, I launched a book marketing venture that rapidly spawned a sold-out live event in NYC—Tribal Author Camp.

I did it because I love teaching, especially when I get to combine my jones for writing and experience as an author with marketing and social media. A big chunk of the event was focused on leveraging social media to build an author platform, then create a 3-stage launch campaign.

Which is why I got some raised eyebrows when my new book marketing mini-tribe turned to the first page of the manual to discover the following policy

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It’s become vogue to declare traditional marketing dead…

We hear, “People don’t want to be interrupted by messages they didn’t ask to see. Now, they’re pushing back.”

And, you know what, with thousands of advertising messages bombarding our eyeballs and brains every day, we ARE tuning out most of what we see and hear. It IS considered an intrusion. And, In 10 or 20 years, traditional display ads, banner ads, direct mail, TV commercials, radio ads may all be dead.

Conversations may well be the future of marketing.

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