Just a month or so ago I wrote a post on how much is a first page position on Google worth to your online business.
Online reputation management is a huge issue right now but here’s a crash course you need to nail on your office wall: 1. If you engage in blood sports keep it private 2. If you engage in blood sports do not link your company name to it 3. If you violate rules 1 & 2 do not then use childish arguments to justify what you did.
I have a confession to make. Back, in some other life I actually worked as a journalist (I still have my NUJ PRESS Card because I believe in supporting what the NUJ does for journalists). Now that I’ve come clean I can go ahead and tell you that I have never understood why people whose brains are uniquely designed to process masses of information, assess it from an editorial point of view, evaluate it from a reader’s point of view and then make the crucial decision of what combination of personal interest, global news value and average reader curiosity will work best in order for a news item to be included, cannot ‘get’ the web.
It’s bad enough that Facebook has become the trawling ground of HR staff and potential employers vetting their employees Twitter now has the power to cost a fortune.
As someone who works online I use Google and Facebook and Twitter and a dozen online social networks as tools. To me, at one level, they are the means through which I market my books, help clients find my services and advise companies and individuals to use correctly.
Disclaimer: I am really passionate about this aspect of the web. I believe it is instrumental in breaking down barriers of class and ethnicity and I believe that it can change the world. Success and opportunity, in every form, help to break down barriers and create more energy which leads to more opportunity. This is what really drives me on in much of what I write and many of the things I do.
It is no less a personality than Tony Robbins who said that we live in the entertainment age rather than the information age. Robbins was using the meme of the web and instant connectivity to make his assessment. A century ago, however, a stripper going by the name of Gypsy Rose Lee had made the same connection, mixed entertainment with information and succeeded in creating a brand which brought her fame and fortune beyond any expectation.
There is a perception in business, born out of real cases, that marketing and advertising are there to lie. Provided that the product or service being sold is of real value the assumption then is that consumers are incapable of making any decisions based on facts which means that in order for them to decide to access a service or buy a product they need to be told exactly what they want to hear about it rather than the truth.
Ever since Google introduced Google Instant the question has been how (and if) it will affect SEO. When it comes to search engine optimisation there are two schools of thought regarding this issue. There are those who say (quite correctly) that the introduction of Google Instant did not, in any way, change the Google search algorithm, therefore as far as SEO practices are concerned it should be business as usual and then there are those (who also quite rightly) say that Google Instant affects search end-user behaviour and is therefore significant.
Money, the pursuit, lack and attempts to gain it, is a motive force which makes many things happen, including the need for SEO and internet marketing for online business, so a it is only fair to quantify the context in which all this activity occurs. Analysis always has the capacity to provide insights which then can change our behaviour. I am going to explore here a couple of ideas which have been central in guiding my business help writing namely, that money is always a means to an end and that unless there is a greater framework guiding our work life, work itself gets to be pretty meaningless.
