Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) February 4, 2010 -- Interactive agency Intrapromote has been selected as Search and Social Media Agency of Record by Schumacher Homes, one of the country's leading home builders.

Intrapromote will create and implement organic and paid search campaigns for Schumacher Homes, and also launch comprehensive link development, social media, online press and article optimization programs to build Schumacher's online visibility and sales conversion rates. Intrapromote's ability to enhance brand awareness and drive web site traffic via best practice, customized Internet marketing services will assist Schumacher Homes in advancing its reputation as the best custom home builder in the country.

Mary Schumacher Becker, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Schumacher Homes, looks forward to the new campaigns Intrapromote will custom create for Schumacher Homes, "Intrapromote not only embodies depth of knowledge and experience but is in sync with the fast paced innovative culture of Schumacher Homes. We look forward to achieving great things together," Ms. Becker said.

Erik Dafforn, Executive Vice President for Intrapromote, echoes the sentiments of the entire Intrapromote team with his comments on the new relationship with Schumacher Homes: "We are thrilled to be working with Schumacher Homes as a partner in their online marketing efforts. While we're in totally different industries, our approaches are strikingly similar: Remain current on industry best practices, and do whatever it takes to please the customer. We're very excited about this relationship and look forward to big results for Schumacher Homes," Mr. Dafforn stated.

Intrapromote is one of the oldest and most respected search marketing agencies. The combination of industry leading experts, best practice execution and an emphasis on web site conversions has positioned Intrapromote as a leader in organic and paid search marketing, social media marketing, link development and optimized content production and syndication. Intrapromote looks forward to working with Schumacher Homes as its new campaigns are strategized and implemented in 2010.

About Schumacher Homes

Founded in 1992, Schumacher Homes is one of the country's leading on your lot custom home builders and has built over 6000 custom homes, from 1100 to over 8000 sq. ft., priced in the low 100,000 to over 750,000 dollar range. They have Design Centers serving Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. Additional information and interactive floor plans can be found at www.schumacherhomes.com.

The key to fully utilizing their system is the way in which you approach users; always maintain an extremely professional manner in communicating with potential contacts. But, first you need to ensure that your profile is professional looking so that when other business people look at you in their system they get the best depiction of "who you are" and "what you can do for them". Once this is complete, your next step is to identify "what you want to achieve" in Linkedin regarding business development and then look at "who you will need to go after". Conducting these activities is paramount to being successful in Linkedin and can make or break your entire strategy.

Now its time to conduct some research regarding reaching your target market and Linkedin's new search feature called "Faceted Search" will enable you to reach further into it's database to find just the right people. Linkedin has added some impressive features in their latest update from December 2009 and describes the benefits as:

"Faceted Search offers the following benefits to your search experience on LinkedIn:
* Enables True Guided Navigation: A list of filters are generated dynamically for every search in order to guide you through the optimal path to find the most relevant people
* Provides Intuitive Interface: Refining your search is easier than ever with an intuitive user interface that allows you to slice and dice search results by 8 facets
* Improves Precision: As LinkedIn continues to grow by the millions, increasing search space requires increased precision to help you find exactly the right people
* Increases Efficiency: Find talent, business partners, customers or a former colleague faster than ever before.
* Reduces Need for Complex Queries: It significantly reduces the need for complex Boolean queries. This was a particular need we heard from many of our power users."

Here's a video that Linkedin recommends to users to get a better feel for how the search functionality works:

After you have collected a wide variety of people to contact it is a good idea to save their profiles, which is also a new feature Linkedin rolled out recently. This will give you the ability to go back and grab any needed information about your potential connections when making contact with them.

Now is the time to start reaching out to people you found while conducting your research and once again you must remember to be professional in your communication efforts. I always make myself available as a resource first to my potential contacts because I would rather help out where possible than be a pushy salesman. I know that by giving my time to all of my contacts, whether current or potential, I can be viewed as a positive influence to their business. This kind of attitude will pay off greater dividends in the long run as it relates to gaining referrals from my network. Also, you need to be transparent to everyone all the time because people are very smart and can read between the lines, and will know if you are trying to pull one over on them.

Today's Lesson: Research, Respect, Reach, Reward!

If you follow these simple words when connecting with people in Linkedin I promise you will make more connections and create wonderful business relationships in the process!

Their system allows users to send a referral email that includes product-specific content including images, descriptions, pricing, offers, reviews-even links to related products. I have seen many page sharing solutions but have yet to find a better product sharing widget than that offered by Te!! A Friend. Such functionality is particularly helpful for e-commerce sites that have product catalog pages dynamically constructed from database information. This means that large businesses can implement their product sharing widget with ease and give consumers the ability to share thousands of products with their friends in a few steps.

TAF4Commerce Email Example

How it works described by Te!! A Friend:

"Sign up for TAF4Commerce, then access SocialTwist’s Easy Set-up Wizard to quickly customize your button, widget and email templates. Next insert the Javascript code from the wizard on your product pages. The end result is a highly customized, word-of-mouth marketing tool that requires no additional oversight and that drives targeted, interested buyers back to your site."

Once again, if you are running a large eCommerce based Website I highly recommend utilizing a product sharing solution like Te!! A Friend to help give your products a voice!

The trick in their case seemed to be their creative usage as it relates to their brand since no one is expecting to see the types of things they are blending with their product. It seems primarily with Websites like YouTube that to get a users attention off the wall or crazy videos must be submitted to go viral. Not all brands have the luxury of creating wild videos to be placed on YouTube, but every company has the opportunity to make creative videos that showcase their brands doing something in a unique manner. The key thing to remember here is that if you are trying to promote a video on YouTube you have to be able to showcase your products and/or services in a way that grabs the attention of users interacting within this space. Here's where marketers make a major mistake, they try to create bland videos and showcase them to users who are really not interested in seeing every day product and service promotions. As long as you keep this in mind when creating videos to be placed within YouTube you have a much better chance of having your videos go viral. Blendtec is a great example of a company that was willing to take a risk in the social media space and that risk totally paid off.

Follow along as Social Media Strategist Jen Grant walks us through the most recent and perplexing privacy changes.

We've covered two really basic reasons why good link builders don't become great. Obviously self-doubt and the lack of best practices in their approach are slightly "duh" reasons. Well, prepare yourself because we're about to cover a third topic like that.

Ready? The third reason why good link builders fail is that they fail to expand their link building education.

Before you completely write off this post as another "duh" reason, hear me out. Because I think EVERY link builder has fallen victim to this. We (as an industry) have a nasty habit of getting into a rut and then camping out for a while. Or perhaps an eternity.

So consider these questions:

Are you questioning the "experts?" If not, why? Do you (deep down) know a better way to do something? Just because someone blogs that you should or should not do something do you automatically rush out and do it or do you think it through? People get really good at what they do because they constantly question things and try and find a better way. They differentiate themselves from everyone else. It's a good thing. If you're not doing it, try it.

Assuming that you read some link development blogs, who are you reading? Has it changed at all since you started building links? If you've been doing this for more than six months and the answer is no, consider a red flag coming your way. Things change and new link builders who are really good at what they do are appearing every day. Have you met them yet? The best way to find them is to browse the blogrolls of other link builders. Who are they recommending?

But, I'm going to go back to the "question the experts" note. Just because I think link builders should read Wiep's blog (and yes, he does rock), that doesn't mean he'll help you specifically. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

And beyond that, are you reading blogs that cover social media and copy writing? I've found those types of sites to be awesome fodder for some amazing link building concepts. Don't limit your ability to learn by only focusing on link building blogs. You could be missing a whole lot of awesome stuff.

Have a hunch about something? Test it. The best link builders out there are always testing things to see what happens and what impacts can be made by isolating variables and making evaluations. Learn your analytical jargon and start tracking what happens when you apply something to a site.

So, here's what you need to do: make education a priority. Don't pass up on free webinars, read some white papers and update your Google Reader.

And all the education in the world is great, but it amounts to nothing if you don't apply it. So get busy.

So, we've covered the biggest reason why good link builders fail. The second reason? They don't learn best practices.

It seems counter-productive to want to do something and do it well and not learn the best way to do it. And "best practices" can mean different things to different people. There's so much talk about "black hat" vs. "white hat" and the ever elusive "gray hat" way to do link building. But let's face it: there's a good way to do it and a not so good way.

The first question you need to ask yourself is "Who Am I Learning From?" Are you learning from a "guru" who advocates SPAM methods? What about someone who just learned this a month ago? Or someone who writes all the time about link building but has never had a happy client? Take some time and do some research on that person before you trust everything that they say. Do they have any recommendations from clients on their site? LinkedIn? What about forum or blog posts? How do they handle disagreements that go public?

Check your sources. I repeat, check your sources. When it's your reputation on the line, wouldn't you rather be sure that you're doing the best possible job you can? One bad mark of publicity can derail your entire career. Treat your reputation wisely and be sure you're not repeating bad information.

The other thing I see a lot is a link builder who gets a link through a questionable (and sometimes deceptive) method then advocates this as THE way to build links. Just because something works once, don't count on it as a long-term strategy. Do the less than tactful approaches to link building work? Sure, sometimes they do. Personally, I'd rather do it the right way every time. But that's just me.

Link building teams are incredibly dynamic and I love the team I work with. (Translation: I have the best link builders working with me.) We're a group of really talented individuals that put the needs of our clients first and work our rear ends off to do the best job we can possibly do. We're also a group that argues from time to time. But it's a good thing.

My team is great at bringing up things that they've tested, read about or are curious to learn more about in our regular team meetings. Sometimes, as the leader of this Motley Crue style group, I need to put my foot down. But I enjoy the conversations and the debate that it sparks.

My answer most of the time? Show me. Don't test this stuff on clients, but set up a test and run it by me. Prove me wrong. I'm willing to admit it when I'm shown it. But you have to show me.

The moral of this little anecdote? Speak up. If you're working with a group that's testing some choppy waters, speak up. Afraid to do that? Maybe you should re-read the post about Self-doubt. Link building is a combination of art and science and a little bit of gut instinct. If the group shuts you down, ok. But at least you spoke up. That's worth its weight in gold at the end of the day.

Last time, I talked about the fact that over the years, I've seen so many people that could have been amazing link builders fall way too short. And through those experiences, I've been able to pick up on some recurring trends and see why this happens.

The top thing I see happening over and over again that keep potentially great link builders fall short is Self-Doubt. I've put it as the top reason because I've been the victim of it more times than I can count.

Here's the thing. Self-doubt is rooted in fear and fear, by its very nature, is horridly corroding. It will not only take away any confidence you've built up, but it will keep the confidence from returning at all. And specifically, when it comes to link building, self-doubt can do any number of things to you including:

- Not let you make that potentially amazing link request
- Not point out a unique link building opportunity or partnership
- Not let you hit "publish" on that blog post because you think it isn't that great
- Not volunteer for speaking engagements because you're convinced you don't know your stuff that well
- Not refer or even think of yourself as an expert or that you are well-versed in the industry

Self-doubt limits you in your ability to continue to grow as a link builder and get your name into the industry. There are some link builders who throw their names everywhere, but when push comes to shove it's just a lot of show. I know of several link builders who have gotten attention and it's been well deserved. But I guarantee that nearly all of them had to overcome self-doubt.

For those of you who struggle with this, I recommend reading a ton of blogs and make a note of the ones that have taught you something new. If you've been doing this for a while and you've been diligent about your link building education, then the list shouldn't be too long. Take the new things you've learned to heart and apply them to your work. Go to conferences and get involved. Again, pay attention to how much you know and how much is new. When you really start paying attention, you'll find you know a lot more than you think.

Lastly, the best thing I can recommend to you is to take a chance. Put yourself out there. From there, you'll figure out that you either have a lot to learn still or that you're doing all right. But you won't know until you take the risk.

And it makes it even more interesting when the robot and the site belong to the same company.

A few weeks ago, I was trying to find out exactly when Google overtook Yahoo in the race for search engine market share. (It's not important why, but it will help you understand why I was searching for such an odd phrase.)

I ended up searching for this query:

["google passes yahoo" "search market share" 2004]

And the results page looked like this:

If you click over, you can clearly see that we're in the /archivesearch portion of the toolbar.google.com site:

If you go to the Google Toolbar site's robots.txt file, however, you'll see that this portion is supposed to be off-limits to Googlebot:

(Note: This robots.txt file also has certain "allow" commands, but none that should pertain to this particular page.)

But wait. Couldn't this just be an "uncrawled reference" -- that rare-but-easily-recreated instance where Google indexes pages based on incoming links, but doesn't actually crawl the page, so therefore still honors the robots.txt exclusion protocol?

No, I don't think so, at least in this case. Uncrawled references are generally don't have snippets attached to them, and if you look at the SERP above, you'll see a snipped pulled from deep within the actual page:

I'm not claiming to know each subtle nuance of uncrawled references, but I study robots exclusion pretty closely, and this is the first instance I've seen of a section from within an excluded page being used as its snippet.

I'm certainly willing to concede that Google just happened to find this information somewhere else and attribute it to this page, but part of me making that concession is someone proving that it actually happened. I'm not tied to any particular outcome; I'd just like to learn more about why this happens.

But then there are those who "get it" but don't "get it" at the same time. Those individuals are the ones that frustrate me. They have all the potential in the world to be incredibly successful at link building and they just... don't.

What I have learned in the past couple of years is to recognize patterns and there are definitely patterns of behavior that lead to a potentially great link builder either only becoming "good" or failing completely. I've identified the top 10 things I see happen time and again that contribute to this. Those 10 reasons are:

1. Self-Doubt
2. Not Learning Best Practices
3. Not Expanding your Link Education
4. Moving Too Fast
5. Poor Writing Skills
6. Lack of Creativity
7. Not Asking for Help
8. Missed Opportunities
9. No Personal Outlet for Frustration
10. No Support Team

While this isn't all the reasons, most of the situations I've witnessed fall into one of these categories. And because I see it all the time, I've decided to write about it. But the more I planned out this post, the more ridiculously lengthy it became.

So, this post is the kick off to a 10 part series on the most common reasons link builders that have amazing potential fall short of the mark or fall off the map completely. Some of these things can be changed immediately with some focused discipline. Some of the reasons are through no fault of their own, but can still be fixed. The point is, what good is potential if you can't tap it?

This series has been designed for the following groups of people:

- Link builders who feel like they are constantly struggling
- Managers of link building teams and interns who may want to do link building at some point
- People who are just cracking into the industry but are a bit intimidated
- Experienced link builders who feel like this is a good time for gut check of their progress to date

I'm sure that this list can be expanded exponentially. But I encourage you to watch for future posts on this topic and if you start to identify with things, keep reading. Over the next couple of months, this series will come to fruition and I hope that you will find at least one thing that you can take away and work on and become truly successful in what you do.

When it comes to link building, the worst thing you can do is give up prematurely. I'm just here to help.

As usual what I actually said versus what I wish had said (hindsight is good but cruel) were two different things. It went something like this, "No we do not guarantee results. There are too many variables involved in PPC to guarantee results. If anyone you are talking to does guarantee PPC results they are selling something they can't deliver on." Now this is all true but after reflection I would have loved to have said "I can guarantee you that we will work our hardest on your account, we will employ all the latest best practice recommendations, and we will work hard to communicate with you to define and meet your goals. As for guaranteed results, there are just too many variables at play in any PPC campaign to guarantee results."

As with any search related effort the only guarantee that should be garnered is one of a willingness to work hard with a good client centered focus. A good partnership between client and agency is stronger than any 'secret sauce' and will end up providing many years of solid returns for everyone involved. Anything other than that is an attempt to sell something that you don't own.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

This post discusses how using the canonical link element might help you even if you don't think you need it.

Quick question: Should you use the canonical tag on your pages even if you're not sending out multiple versions of them?
Absolutely.

Why?
Because someone else might be creating versions of your pages that you don't even know about.

Here's an example: When I share something in my Google Reader, here's what happens:

1. Twitterfeed grabs my Google Reader "public" RSS feed, which is how my shared items are dispersed.
   
2. Twitterfeed takes the URL I'm sharing and appends two UTM tags to it -- "source" and "campaign".
   
3. Via Twitterfeed, Bit.ly shortens the long URL (including UTM tags) that I'm sharing.
   
4. Twitterfeed shoots the title of the post and shortened URL out over the @intrapromote Twitter stream.
   

In other words, I might read this URL:

http://searchengineland.com/blocking-and-tackling-10-fundamentals-of-local-seo-29115

But when I share and tweet it, it ends up looking like this:

http://searchengineland.com/blocking-and-tackling-10-fundamentals-of-local-seo-29115?utm_campaign=ipshare&utm_source=reader

Basically, I've created a duplicate URL for Search Engine Land, which they didn't ask for and probably don't know about. But the crew over there has anticipated this, because when you look at the source code for the page I created, you see this code:

link rel="canonical" href="http://searchengineland.com/blocking-and-tackling-10-fundamentals-of-local-seo-29115" /

This tag tells engines that no matter what tags I (or anyone else, including SEL) puts on those pages, this one is the authority.

UTM tags, of course, are primarily for measuring the effectiveness of your own social media endeavors on your own content, but the idea of someone appending tags to your content isn't far-fetched. Don't rule out people wanting to measure everything -- including their effect on other sites' traffic. Agencies use it to measure their efforts to a variety of client sites, and ad-selling sites use it for case study purposes to illustrate their reach.

Search Engine Land likely uses the canonical tags to consolidate authority because of their own tracking tags. But in this case, I've shown how someone on the outside can splinter your authority. It's pretty easy to add this tag to your pages (despite the obvious fact that I haven't done it on this blog yet), and the more ways you distribute your content, the more sense it makes to find the time to do it.

This morning I had the opportunity to review a site that enables recruiters and job hunters to connect with one another with greater ease utilizing micro-blog technology. Tweet-A-Job, which is currently in Beta, describes its services as such, "We provide recruiters the fastest way to connect with qualified candidates - online or on-the-go." Recruiters have the ability to Tweet jobs posts via their network and job candidates can receive updates via the Tweet-A-Job platform or from directly within their existing Twitter account. The thought of receiving job information via the Twittersphere isn't new, but providing recruiters with a platform to better connect with passive job candidates is still a good idea. All you need to do is sign up for a free account, write a job tweet and pay five dollars to post the information via their system which will connect your message with a large number of recruiters. If you make multiple posts per week then you'll be eligible for a per post discount. It will be interesting to see how many recruiters interact with this new platform in the up coming months!

So what exactly does the working relationship look like between a search marketing agency and its client-side marketing counterparts? At Intrapromote we understand that our clients' PR people are intimately familiar with their company's messaging. Intrapromote coordinates with the client's marketers and writers to produce search enhanced press releases that retain all of the necessary components that the client requires; while engineering them to compete for online attention versus myriad similar news stories.

With an Intrapromote optimized press release of only 500 words brands can accomplish all of these objectives:

* Get their message included in Google and Yahoo News within hours of syndication.

* Track Mission Critical Keywords and improved positioning for these on a month over month basis through detailed reporting.

* Gain links pointing to their site within a relevant context that stay online in perpetuity.

* Receive a powerful boost to their ongoing Intrapromote SEO program.

Still not convinced? Take a look at this optimized press release syndicated on October 1, 2009 that helped Autograph Store's Charity Fundraising Division achieve significant gains in its online visibility for its Mission Critical Keywords.

This press release will remain online in perpetuity, providing lasting value via its anchor text links. PR Web syndication also embeds social media sharing capabilities, and adds relevant Technorati tags to the release to create a highly optimized news story that can complement any online marketing campaign. The advantages don't stop there: Intrapromote can enhance your release with YouTube videos, podcasts and PDF and image attachments to build a truly interactive content vehicle that places the spotlight on your brand.

Take your brand building to the next level. Contact Lisa Santora at Intrapromote for more details on our optimized press release writing and distribution service.