How To Find Keywords With Market Samurai? What is Market Samurai?

Ethical Marketing

A while back, I wrote about how to craft an auto-DM for Twitter that isn't spam. In that post, I promised to elaborate on my "4 'N's of Twitter" strategy in a future post. This is that future post. The First 'N' of Twitter: Engage Okay, so the first 'N' doesn't actually start with the letter "N". That's [...]

Hi. My name is Antone, and I have a problem. I am an idiot. (But please, no comments saying "I agree with everything in this post!" :-) This morning, I took a look at the opt-in stats for my mailing lists, and discovered something disturbing. Two of my most important opt-in forms weren't getting any new [...]

As I mentioned in my last post, this blog was in need of a facelift. And today, it's here. (You can see what it used to look like in a screenshot at the end of the previous post.) The goal of the new theme is to reduce distractions, so that you can get right to the [...]

It's been said a million times - your website needs more white space. Judging from how most websites look (including this one! More on that below), it needs to be said a million and one times. I've been thinking a lot recently about how to use white space and related design elements to communicate more impactfully, [...]

You've heard the argument before: "Facebook is the biggest site on the internet. They get 70 gajillion hits a day. If you're not marketing on Facebook, you're missing out on the biggest traffic opportunity on the internet." You'll hear the same thing about YouTube -- it's the third biggest site on the internet. Therefore, only an [...]

Last July, I posted an article, inspired by Seth Godin, entitled Do Only Cheaters Prosper? Something one of my Twitter followers, Robert Medak, wrote recently brought the question back to mind yesterday. He said: Treating customers ethically and honestly is good for your bottom line, customer retention, and word of mouth advertising. What you are helping to [...]

The verdict is in on auto-DMs -- those direct messages you receive shortly after following somebody on Twitter. The judge and jury agree: everybody hates 'em. Some people unfollow anyone who sends one. Don't use 'em. But wait...breaking news! The decision has been overturned on appeal! That is, if you know how to write an auto-DM with [...]

If marketing had 10 commandments, one of them would be "thou shalt know thy customer". It's not difficult to get a general idea of why this is important. For example, you have to know your customer to know what kind of sales pitch will appeal to them. If your product has two benefits, and most customers [...]

I was thinking today that I'd like to do something for my subscribers -- something to benefit you, and to build some relationships. Those are themes that keep popping up in different ways in a lot of the things I'm doing and reading recently: do a favor, work together, build relationships. Nice ideals. But without action, [...]

Amazon.com is running an ad on TV where they brag about all their innovations. And they deserve to brag. Heck, I'll brag for them. My dad bought me a Kindle for Christmas nearly two years ago, and it's the one present I've used every single day since getting it. Awesome innovation. Another thing they brag about [...]

Internet Marketing Tools

When you own a business, be it a restaurant, a hair salon, or a deli, one of the most important factors to success is communication with your customers. The same is true of online websites. While brick-and-mortar business owners can simply speak to their customers in order to communicate, online businesses do not have the [...]

In 2013, Outrank Competitors & Pick Keywords with Confidence: Two Powerful New ?Authority? Metrics Have you heard this SEO ?story? before? Two African explorers who realise they?re being stalked by a hungry Lion. The first drops everything and runs for his life while the second scoffs and says, ?why bother, that Lion?s faster than you!?. [...]

Hi Folks, Today we?re excited to launch an important upgrade to our Keyword Research module. Quickly finding the perfect keywords and boosting your online profits just got easier. As a Market Samurai user, you?ve heard about the Samurai ?Four Golden Rules?. The rules that ensure you don?t waste hours (or months…) on the 99% of [...]

For many years, the 4 minute mile was considered not only physically IMPOSSIBLE, but according to doctors of the time – actually dangerous to the health of anyone who attempted it. But then on May 6th, 1954 a 25-year-old medical student named Roger Bannister – smashed through the 4 minute barrier in what Forbes magazine [...]

As a business owner like you, I?m constantly on the lookout for ideas that can help me and my team be more productive, and I?ve got a great one to share with you today! Recently I was reading a book named ?The Lean Product Development Guidebook? by Ronald Mascitelli. I?ll spare you the technical details, [...]

Following the carnage of Google?s Penguin update and the release of their Disavow tool, I?ve noticed an interesting shift taking place in the SEO community. I must admit, when I hear a new idea for the first time, I usually take it with a grain of salt… BUT – when several people I respect start [...]

On April 24th Google unleashed the biggest change to its search engine algorithm in over 8 years – the dreaded ?Penguin? update. In a nutshell, they began PENALIZING websites that obtained poor quality links, and websites that had too many ?SEO Optimized? anchor text links. For the first time ever, links can POISON your site, [...]

Today we have some GREAT news: After many long weeks of coding (and over 80,000 lines of new code) we?re really excited to unveil your New Rank Tracker System to you… And we couldn?t be happier with the result! Now there?s a ton of information in this blog post, but I wanted to be as [...]

Hi All, This is just a quick progress update on the new Rank Tracker… 1,218 Market Samurai Owners Have Tested The New Rank Tracker: Thanks to the 1,218 Market Samurai owners who have generously taken time out of their schedules to test the new Rank Tracker ? the beta program has been a huge success! [...]

**Sorry guys, the Rank Tracker Beta program has now closed! A huge thank you to everyone who participated in the Beta, we received some excellent feedback and made many changes to the software as a result. For everyone else, be sure to check your inboxes over the next few weeks for more information about the [...]

Premium WordPress Themes

Earlier this week we released Genesis 2.0 Beta 2, which puts us one step closer to the stable release of Genesis 2.0. In the spirt of preparing our users for what’s coming, I wanted to share some really great posts that talk about it.

There are a lot of great features coming in Genesis 2.0, from the introduction of HTML5 markup to a new default design. Our community has done an excellent job in writing about some of the changes and things that are new.

Here’s a list of resources on Genesis 2.0 that we think you’d enjoy:

1. Genesis HTML5 Visual Markup Guide

HTML5 introduces new CSS classifications. They may take learning and getting used to for some, but the effort will be worth it for the benefits provided. Here, Nathan Rice provides a helpful visual layout of some of the basic HTML5 markup.

2. Genesis HTML5 Markup Comparison

As a useful companion piece to Nathan’s visual layout above, here are several tables that compare HTML5 markup to XHTML. For those excited about learning the new markup, this “cheat sheet” is a useful starting point.

3. Genesis HTML5 Loop Hooks

Now let’s get Genesis-specific with the HTML5 changes. This post provides more tables that show what the pre-HTML5 loop hooks were and what the HTML5 loop hook locations will be.

4. New Loop Hooks in Genesis 2.0

And here is how the loop hooks look in action. Nathan Rice breaks down the new standard loop in Genesis 2.0.

5. Genesis 2.0 Hook Changes

Carrie Dils provides yet another breakdown of the changes to the hooks in Genesis 2.0.

6. Genesis 2.0 Explained

Wow, what an intro! That’s what you’ll be saying after you read this post by Nick Croft, which is the latest in his renowned Genesis Explained series. In this edition, Nick provides a complete hook reference for all Genesis 2.0 hooks.

Once you’re done reading, you’ll likely echo the thoughts of a commenter, who said, “Thank you so much, Nick. I too am a little uncertain about what 2.0 brings, so this is extremely valuable.” Indeed.

7. Schema.org & Genesis 2.0

An incredibly profound article written by SEO expert Joost de Valk covering the new Schema.org markup found in Genesis 2.0. He has already implemented it on his own website, and he explains in detail the many benefits of using it.

8. Preparing for Genesis 2.0

Rebecca Gill and her company Web Savvy Marketing has your back here with an overview of what’s coming in Genesis 2.0. She highlights some of the main features and gives you a little bit more about HTML5.

9. How To Convert Your StudioPress Child Theme From XHTML to HTML5

Remember that HTML 5 will not work in your child theme until you have updated to Genesis 2.0 and added support in your child theme for HTML 5. But don’t feel intimidated by this process. Brad Dalton provides point-by-point instruction for bringing your current StudioPress child theme into the future.

10. DOM Changes updating to Genesis 2.0 HTML5 support

Upgrading to Genesis 2.0 will not break your current site. HTML5 support must be added separate from the update, which you can do easily by adding a simple line of code. This post at Wandering Jon shows you how to do this, and shows you a side-by-side comparison of Genesis code with HTML5 enabled and without it.

11. What?s the deal with Genesis 2.0?

So … should you update to Genesis 2.0? Do you need to enable HTML5 support? What are the benefits of converting to HTML5? Do you need to change your CSS? Get answers to all of these pertinent questions here.

Updated: Here are some more resources we’ve found. If you find others that you think we should add, drop us a comment below.

12. Genesis Child Theme CSS Converter from XHTML to HTML5
13. Genesis XHTML To HTML5 CSS Converter

We are very pleased to announce that Genesis 2.0 Beta 2 is now available!

NOTE: Please remember that with all beta versions, we strongly suggest that you do not use it on production sites, but only for testing purposes.

Genesis 2.0 utilizes HTML5 to provide a number of features that we’re very excited to share with you, so can get testing.

Ready? Click here to see the new Genesis Framework 2.0 demo site.

Brand New Design

Genesis is sporting a fresh new look.

We’ve taken advantage of the new HTML5 markup, as well as some snazzy CSS3, and we think you’re gonna love this.

HTML5 Markup

Genesis has always been on the cutting edge of web technology, and Genesis 2.0 continues in that excellent tradition.

With a single line of code in a child theme, Genesis will now output HTML5 markup in place of the old XHTML tags. Also, every theme we build in the future will be developed on HTML5.

Microdata

If you’re using a theme with HTML5 enabled, Genesis will also output your markup using microdata.

We did all the research and modified the markup to serve search engines the microdata they’re looking for, so you don’t have to. It’s good to be a Genesis user.

Removing Features

We want to keep Genesis as lightweight as possible for you, nobody wants to use bloated software.

So we’ve removed the “Latest Tweets” widget, the “eNews and Updates” widget, the “post templates” feature, and the “fancy dropdowns” setting. There are some good plugins you can grab and install, if you want to continue using those functionalities.

Boring, but Very Important

We’re always improving. Call it a sickness, but we like to make things work really, really well. Here’s a list of the technical changes in this latest release of Genesis:

Better named loop hooks for HTML5. Network Upgrade now upgrades the Genesis database for all sites in a network when running WordPress in multisite mode. Widget classes are now coded in PHP5 format. Admin CSS and Javascript are now minified. Inline HTML comments have been removed to reduce page size. The Scripts option now has its own metabox when editing an entry. Custom Post Type archive pages now have a settings page so you can control the output. Genesis tracks displayed entry IDs so you can exclude entries from showing twice on a page. Entries without titles now display a permalink after the post content. How to Upgrade to Genesis 2.0 Beta 2

One of the very cool features that we’ve included in Genesis 1.8 is the ability to automatically update to future Beta versions of Genesis.

This is similar to the WordPress Beta Tester plugin that exists — the only difference is that users won’t have access to the bleeding version of Genesis.

You can automatically update your site to this version by downloading and installing our Genesis Beta Tester plugin.

If you don’t see the update notice via the plugin, we’ve also added the Genesis 2.0 Beta 2 and Genesis Sample 2.0 Beta 2 theme to the Member Downloads so you can login and access theme there as well.

Reporting Bugs

If you’re testing Genesis 2.0 Beta 2 and would like to report a bug, head on over to our help area and fill out the form.

It’s been a few months since we’ve released a new StudioPress theme, and there’s a good reason for that … our development team is hard at work putting the finishing touches on Genesis 2.0.

If you want to see what the new default looks like, you can check it out on the Genesis demo site. We’re hoping to release the beta version within the next week or two, and then release it shortly after WordPress 3.6 drops.

Genesis 2.0 isn’t the only reason we’re happy around here at StudioPress.

I’m very pleased to announce that Lauren Mancke has joined the Copyblogger family as Creative Director of StudioPress.

I’ve known Lauren and her superb work for over 5 years, so when we began thinking about who might fill this new role of Creative Director, it was a fairly simple decision.

If you’re thinking “but … don’t you have Rafal Tomal, the Superman designer?” Yes, we do, but Copyblogger Media is growing, and we’re expanding our reach in various ways. We’ve got a number of big projects in the pipeline, and with the upcoming release of Genesis 2.0, we needed someone to design themes, and manage the day-to-day creative aspects of StudioPress.

We are very excited about the coming months.

There are lots of great features coming in Genesis 2.0, some incredible theme designs from Lauren, and a few things up our sleeve that I think you’re going to like. Stay tuned …

We are happy to announce the release of the Crave 1.0 theme. This WordPress theme works on the Genesis Framework and can be purchased here.

Crave was developed by Jessica Barnard of The Pixelista, and is categorized as a Community theme. These are not included in the Pro Plus All-Themes package, but we assure you that the design and coding of them are top-notch.

Theme Features

The Crave theme includes the following features: 3 color styles, 3 layout options, custom header, featured images, fixed width, theme options, threaded comments.

Take the Crave theme for a test drive…

We are happy to announce the release of the Epik 1.0 theme. This WordPress theme works on the Genesis Framework and can be purchased here.

Epik was developed by Wes Straham of Appfinite, and is categorized as a Community theme. These are not included in the Pro Plus All-Themes package, but we assure you that the design and coding of them are top-notch.

Theme Features

The Epik theme includes the following features: 10 color styles, 6 layout options, custom menus, featured images, fixed width, mobile responsive, theme options, threaded comments.

Take the Epik theme for a test drive…

We are happy to announce the release of the Fabric8ted 1.0 child theme. This WordPress theme works on the Genesis Framework and can be purchased here.

The Fabric8ted theme was developed by Shannon Dow of EightCrazy Designs, and is categorized as a Community theme. These are not included in the Pro Plus All-Themes package, but we assure you that the design and coding are top-notch.

Theme Features

The Fabric8ted child theme includes the following features: 4 color styles, 3 layout options, call to action, custom header, featured images, footer widgets, mobile responsive, threaded comments.

Take the Fabric8ted theme for a test drive…

We’re happy to debut the newest offering from our crack crew here at StudioPress.

Today, we welcome the Modern Portfolio 1.0 theme to the StudioPress lineup.

This mobile-responsive WordPress theme is built on the Genesis Framework, and can be downloaded by Pro Plus members by logging into my.studiopress.com.

If you aren’t a StudioPress Pro Plus customer yet, you can purchase it right here.

Want a more detailed description of Modern Portfolio’s design and features? I did a short write up about the theme for you over on Copyblogger today.

The Modern Portfolio theme is the 23rd mobile responsive design we’ve developed for you at StudioPress. You can see a full selection of all of our responsive themes for WordPress here.

What’s in Modern Portfolio 1.0?

This high-contrast, black and white frame emphasizes images with photographers and developers in mind.

Wide spacing and clean typography highlight your best work and the theme sports other out-of-the-box features including: custom background, custom menus, featured images, fixed width, footer widgets, landing page template, mobile responsive, theme options.

Go ahead, take Modern Portfolio theme for a test drive right now.

I’m pleased to introduce you to our newest theme from the hardworking team here at StudioPress… the Metro 1.0 theme.

This mobile-responsive WordPress theme is built on the Genesis Framework and can be downloaded by Pro Plus members by logging into my.studiopress.com. If you aren’t already a StudioPress customer you can find it here.

If you want a more detailed description of Metro’s design and features, I did a short write up about the theme for you over on Copyblogger today.

The Metro theme is the 22nd mobile responsive design we’ve developed at StudioPress. You can see a full selection of all of our responsive themes for WordPress here.

Theme Features

With an unprecedented 1152 pixel-wide content frame and magazine-style design, Metro theme sports the following out-of-the-box features: 6 layout options, 5 color styles, 3 story locations, fixed width, mobile responsive, after-post footer widget, landing page template, custom background.

Click here to take Metro theme for a test drive.

We are very pleased to announce that Genesis 1.9 is now available.

New Look for Genesis

As you can see, the default look for Genesis has been updated. The style sheet has been condensed and completely rewritten, with an emphasis on flexibility for mobile responsive design.

Note that in Genesis 1.9, we are also utilizing the rem unit of measurement and will use a pixel fallback for browsers that don’t support rems.

Want to see it? Go ahead and view the Genesis 1.9 demo site.

Google Authorship

Genesis now offers support for authorship. This allows Google to associate your content with your Google+ profile.

Just edit your profile, find the field where you can enter your Google+ account URL, and save. Genesis does the rest. And if you want to associate an author with the homepage, you can do that in SEO Settings.

Read why Google plays a critical role in building a successful online business and should be inevitable part of your content marketing strategy.

Updated Security Audit

It’s very important to us that we provide you the absolute best framework possible, so once again we hired WordPress Lead Developer Mark Jaquith to perform a full review of code for security as he’s done in the past.

Here’s what Mark has to say:

It’s clear StudioPress made security a priority when developing Genesis and from a security standpoint, Genesis 1.9 is at the top of its class.

Deprecating Widgets

Genesis has always included some useful widgets to help you build your sites faster and easier. We realized that some of these widgets should really be plugins, so authors can push out updates more frequently.

With that said, the “eNews & Updates” and “Latest Tweets” widgets are being ported to plugins, and will eventually be removed from Genesis.

Download Genesis eNews Extended plugin
Download Genesis Latest Tweets Plugin

Genesis Category/Page Menu Widgets Removed

We deprecated the Category and Page menu widgets a few releases ago, and as of this release, we’ve completely removed them from the framework. If you were still using either of these widgets, you will notice that your menu is no longer showing.

You will need to build a custom menu and add the custom menu widget to the Header Right widget area.

Special Thanks to Our Community

We’d like to thank the following developers for their contributions with the update to Genesis 1.9 — Jared Atchison, Chris Cochran, David Decker, Bill Erickson, Thomas Griffin, Gary Jones, Andrew Norcross and Travis Smith.

Genesis 2.0 Roadmap

We have big plans for a new markup structure in Genesis 2.0, all built with HTML5. You will have the ability to turn on HTML5 support with a simple function through your child theme.

In case you can’t tell, we’re big fans of designing for mobile devices around here. So, we’re going to be doing some things that will make it a whole lot easier to get your site mobile ready with Genesis in 2.0.

I’m sure you want to know when Genesis 2.0 is slated for release, and the best I can say is that we’re hoping for a Spring/Summer 2013 date.

Comments on this post have been closed. If you have a technical question, please file a ticket with our support team at My StudioPress.

We are happy to announce the release of the Pretty Pictures 1.0 theme. This theme can be downloaded by Pro Plus members in the My StudioPress member area. Others can purchase the package here.

The Pretty Pictures theme is the 21st theme released here which has been developed to be mobile responsive in design.

View all responsive WordPress themes.

Theme Features

The Pretty Pictures theme includes the following features: custom header, custom menus, featured images, fixed width, mobile responsive, theme options.

Take the Pretty Pictures theme for a test drive…

The official HostGator Company blog

Does your website feel stale and uninspired?  Have you avoided making any updates to your pages, due to a lack of time or technical ?know how?? Well, then, it?s time to move past these trite excuses and start updating your stale website! In today?s digital world, websites must be more than simple, static billboards that telegraph the same information day in and day out.  Your users are expecting an engaging, dynamic presence ? and the easiest way to convey this feeling is to regularly update your content.  At the same time, regular site changes are important from an SEO perspective, as the search engines value and prefer to reward websites that feature ?fresh? content. You don?t need to undergo a complete website redesign every month to keep things interesting.  Instead, consider the following strategies for ways to update your stale website without a significant investment of time or energy:   Tip #1 ? Add a blog Blogs are great from both a reader and an SEO standpoint.  When you install and regularly update your company?s blog, readers come back again and again to see what new information you?ve posted.  The search engines also reward your site, as the inclusion of more content naturally creates more opportunities ...

?A picture is worth a thousand words? ? and that?s as true when it comes to SEO as it is with descriptions. Images play a huge role in website development, as their visual appeal is a powerful way to attract and retain reader attention.  However, the way that you incorporate images into your site can also influence the way your website is handled by the search engines.  To get the best SEO bang for your image buck, consider taking all of the following steps to optimize images for your website:   Step #1 ? Check your licenses First ? before we even get into the meat of modifying your images to make them more appealing to the search engines ? take a few moments to be sure you hold the appropriate licenses to the images you plan to use. Smart webmasters know that you can?t simply right click and copy an image from anywhere on the web to use on your site.  Instead, you?ll need to download royalty free stock imagery, find images that have been licensed for commercial use under the Creative Commons license or purchase images from stock photo websites. Making sure that your image licenses are in order won?t improve your SEO, but ...

Content marketing is the hottest marketing trend out there right now, as the regular publication of fresh content can be a huge differentiator for your website. From business blogging to ?how to? videos, this engaging content comes in many forms. However, most businesses find that it can be overwhelming to keep up with the demand for new content, as it takes time and effort to regularly develop high quality content. As a result, many businesses opt to have users generate content for them, either in place of or as a supplement to the content they?re already creating. If this all sounds appealing to you, read on to learn about what user generated content (UGC) is and how to decide if it?s right for your business.   What is User Generated Content? User generated content comes in many forms. This can include product reviews, guest posts, customer images and more:   Product Reviews Product reviews are often used by consumer goods companies. If you sell a product or range of products, you may allow customers to review them directly on your site. Some examples of companies using this tactic include Modcloth, Zappos and Babies R Us. Product reviews can include information on the quality of your product, how quickly it ...

With Facebook rapidly approaching its 10th anniversary, it?s not that social media marketing is a new thing for business owners and webmasters.  But that said, there are still quite a few people out there making mistakes that could cost them both followers and sales. To be sure that your social media strategy is as effective as possible, check your campaigns for the following mistakes:   Mistake #1 ? Not customizing your profile design All of the major social networks ? including Facebook, Google+ and Twitter ? all give you different opportunities to brand your profile page.  Don?t miss out on these great opportunities to distinguish your company!   Mistake #2 ? Not updating your design in response to platform changes That said, keep an eye out for platform redesigns, as in the case of the recent Google+ overhaul.  The display issues that can result from failing to adapt your profile images to these new standards can leave your page looking out-of-date.   Mistake #3 ? Only talking about yourself Social media isn?t just about you.  Keep the self-centered updates to a minimum in favor of posts and content that puts the emphasis on your products and your customers.   Mistake #4 ? Being overly-promotional At the same time, remember that social networking websites ...

Logging in to your Google Analytics account and seeing a sharp downward trend in your traffic stats can be scary.  What once looked like a promising trend in upwards traffic growth can quickly degenerate to visions of closed doors and scrapped expansion plans in the absence of the natural search traffic you once relied on. Fortunately, some causes of traffic drops can be easily remedied, while others will take more time repair.  So before you start to panic, walk through the following diagnostic steps to determine exactly what?s caused your declining visitor counts:   Step #1 ? See if your site is up and running Though this first step might seem a bit obvious, your immediate reaction to a decrease in website traffic should be to determine whether or not your site is live. Any number of things can take down a websites ? from hosting issues to problems with your domain name registrar and more.  If you see that your site is down, contact your hosting provider immediately for information on what might be causing your current outage.   Step #2 ? Make sure your analytics code is installed correctly If your site is live, your next step should be to check your analytics code integration. ...

Odds are, you haven?t put a ton of time and energy into your website just to have it sit around gathering digital dust.  Instead, you want your website to do something ? whether it?s to sell products, generate leads or just promote your way of thinking. But given the amount of noise most internet users are faced with these days, you need to make it explicitly clear what you want your visitors to do.  This can be done using ?calls to action,? which can be implemented with the following steps:   Step #1 ? Define your target action Before you can create a call to action, you first need to determine what type of action you want people to take after reading each page of your website.  As a general rule, it?s best to have no more than one major call to action on each page of your site. Consider the following example target action and call to action combinations: Prompting a blog post reader to share the article on a social profile ? ?If you liked this post, take a second to share it with your friends on Facebook.? Encouraging visitors to sign up for a web design email newsletter ? ?Enroll now for free tips ...

Where does your website’s traffic come from?  We all know that the Internet is just a series of plastic tubes with cats running through them, and these cats and tubes somehow result in visitors to your website.  This infographic endeavors to explain where this traffic comes from and a few tips to increase said traffic as well.  Here is “A Roadmap to Your Website’s Traffic”: A Roadmap to Your Website’s Traffic via HostGator

With Memorial Day upon us, we wanted to find a way to show some appreciation for our veterans.  The Wounded Warrior Project provides programs and services to severely injured service members during the time between active duty and transition to civilian life.  HostGator would like to invite you to donate to the Wounded Warrior Project via our causes.com page, where we will match donations up to $5,000 (total). We hope we are able to hit this $5,000 mark in order to give back a small amount to the veterans who have given so much to the rest of us. We appreciate your participation in this effort, and we again thank our veterans who have risked their lives to protect ours. If you experience any difficulty in accessing our donation page, please use this direct link: http://www.causes.com/actions/1753343-hostgator-will-match-your-donation-to-wounded-warrior-project Thank you again for helping us support a great cause.

If you spend any amount of time on digital marketing blogs, you?ve probably noticed by now that content marketing appears to be the ?hot promotional strategy? of 2013. However, what you may not have noticed is that content marketing is more than a fad ? it?s a shift in online promotional paradigms that?s here to stay.  According to the Content Marketing Institute ?2013 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends? report, 86% of B2C companies plan to maintain or increase their content marketing investments throughout the year, with 54% of B2B companies sharing the same opinion.  If your website doesn?t yet have a content marketing strategy, it?s time to create one.  Here?s what your plan should include:   Element #1 ? A detailed description of your target audience The first thing you need to know when planning a content marketing campaign is who you?re trying to reach.  The better educated you are about your target customers; the more likely it is that you?ll be able to develop content pieces that appeal to them.  Specifically, try to find out your customers?: Age and gender distribution Geographic location Average annual incomes Education levels Personal interests Belief systems and personal priorities Online habits and activities   Your website?s analytics data can provide insight into some of these topics, as can customer ...

When it comes to website promotional techniques, there?s almost nothing better than a good quality guest post.  Not only does this powerful marketing strategy send traffic to your website and confer upon your brand the implicit recommendation of the hosting site, a well-crafted guest post also gives your website the benefit of a natural, highly-relevant backlink. But that said, not all guest posts are created equal.  There?s a big difference between securing a guest post spot on a well-known authority blog in your industry and posting your content to a no-name blog orchestrated by an SEO spammer.  If you really want to take advantage of the power of good guest posting, keep the following five guidelines in mind:   Tip #1 ? Post to relevant websites  Plenty of websites accept guest posts ? but that doesn?t mean that they?re all good targets for your guest publishing campaign!  For best results, stick with publishing to websites in your industry or in fields that are closely related.  Trying to shoehorn your area of expertise into an unrelated article results in content that won?t encourage visitors to visit your site (as they likely won?t be interested in your on-subject content) and diminishes the SEO value of the link you ...

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Bob & Leann show you the biggest and most positive change to hit the internet since it began. It's going to be huge. Lots of opportunity. Billions of dollars are up for grabs. How to get in on the action.

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We're back! Bob and Leann step through the top 10 reasons why you should start your own business NOW!

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Got a problem! News flash: Just about everybody does. My favorite techniques for dealing with problems, so you can keep your sanity and stay productive on the job.

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It's the employees who make a business work. That's why it's so important to hire the right ones. Bob tells you his top secret technique for avoiding bad hires and hiring great employees.

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It's hard getting any business off the ground. Bob steps you through 10 reasons why MOST entrepreneurs are NOT successful.

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How you use the web tells others quite a bit about YOU. Successful people know the pitfalls to avoid. It's about time YOU did too. In this video blog Bob tells YOU the top Internet 10 do's & dont's.

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Like it or not, Cyber-bullies and Cyber-haters are for real. Bob gives you his top tips for putting these pesky losers into perspective and getting them out of your hair.

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It's a fact. Life can be a bitch. It's easy to give up. Bob shows you his best tips for hanging in there and enjoying the ride when the going gets tough. Leeann is a crazy as ever!

Being an IndyCar sponsor worked well for us last year. We were an associate sponsor of Go Daddy Girl® Danica Patrick's number 7 car, and the presenting TV sponsor of the Indianapolis 500 and the Indy 300 at Kentucky Speedway.

Danica heats up Sports Illustrated!
Sports Illustrated just published a series of revealing photographs of Go Daddy Girl Danica Patrick. It's definitely worth a look. After checking out the photos I called Danica and asked her "Why were you wearing a watch?" And, "why not a Go Daddy (temporary) tattoo?" Danica's response: "Gee Bob, I had a Go Daddy tattoo on my forehead. They must have photo shopped it off. Sorry." I'm not sure I believe her.

Better than beer!
We were also trackside at most races. Indy patrons who visited our tent picked up souvenirs and had their photos taken with a Go Daddy Girl, alongside the Go Daddy Chopper. The crowds at the Go Daddy tent were usually so huge, one of our staff commented "we wouldn't attract more people if we were giving away beer!"

An old tip from Dad.
My Dad used to tell me "you don't need to taste much soup to know how the whole pot is going to be." Early on we knew our decision to do IndyCar was a winner. So we started thinking ... "If Indy works so well ... we wonder ... how would NASCAR work for us?"

A little about NASCAR.
First a quick little lesson on the makeup of NASCAR. NASCAR - which stands for National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing — is actually composed of three separate and distinct levels of competition. The most important is the Sprint Cup Series. It's followed by the Nationwide Series. Finally there's the Craftsman Truck Series, which, unlike the other two series, races trucks.

Bootleggers started it.
Lore has it NASCAR has its roots long ago when bootleggers would race each other to see whose car was fastest. A typical NASCAR has a 358 engine, is a Chevy, Ford, Dodge or a Toyota, and boasts about 850 horsepower. Bumping into each other or "trading paint," as they say, is often part of every race.

NASCAR dwarfs IndyCar.
We learned quickly that NASCAR has a following that literally dwarfs IndyCar.

For example, total annual viewership of all Sprint Cup series races is about 160 million households. The Nationwide Cup Series has a total viewership of 56 million households. This compares with the IndyCar Series which has an annual total viewership of about 31 million households. The difference is just huge.

It started with a test.
So last year we decided to test NASCAR. We used a few of our Danica Patrick testimonial commercials. The results were encouraging. From there it didn't take long, we struck an exciting deal with the Hendrick Motorsports team.

Our deal revolved around Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
Our deal involved a relationship with Dale Earnhardt, Jr., and creation of the #5 Go Daddy Car that will run in six races in the Nationwide series. We are also an associate sponsor of the Nationwide #5 car in 29 of the remaining races. In additional to these Nationwide series sponsorships, we will be an associate sponsor of the Hendrick Motorsports #5 car driven by Casey Mears for 20 races in the Sprint Cup series.

Meet the Go Daddy #5 Chevy NASCAR!
The GoDaddy.com Car will participate in six Nationwide races this season - Texas Motor Speedway, Montreal, Darlington Raceway, Watkins Glen International, Michigan International Speedway and Kansas Speedway. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. will be behind the wheel in Texas and Watkins Glen. Mark Martin will drive in Darlington, Michigan and Kansas. Ron Fellows will drive in Montreal.

To see the GoDaddy.com car - PLEASE CLICK HERE!

A big TV deal to boot.
We also agreed to be the presenting TV sponsor for the Nationwide Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on March 15th.

Trackside at Daytona.
Fans who attend Daytona can expect to see a GoDaddy.com tent trackside. The Go Daddy #5 Chevy will be there on display, along with several Go Daddy Girls. They will be providing visitors with special souvenir lanyards. Go Daddy Girl Daytona Lara Haworth will also be there this Saturday and Sunday signing photographs.

New Go Daddy NASCAR ads.
The crew at Go Daddy Productions produced two new ads with Dale Earnhardt, Jr. to air this season. To check out the ads please click on the following links:

To see Dale One — PLEASE CLICK HERE.

To see Dale Two — PLEASE CLICK HERE.

I'll be at a lot of the races.
Business aside, I'm excited about the upcoming NASCAR and IndyCar seasons. You can expect to see me trackside and in the pits at a number of these races - many of which my friends and I will travel to on our motorcycles.

Ain't that America!
There's no doubt about it, NASCAR racing is as grassroots American as it gets. I love the sport and all the people connected with it. I definitely identify with them as "my people." It's where Go Daddy belongs!

Until next time.

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