Below are some great links you should visit if you still have not made the switch from blogger.com, blogspot.com or any of the other ‘free’ blogging platforms… I would compare those services to the same services that were offered back in the day when websites were new and people did not understand them… Sure you could get a free website and have it hosted at some odd domain.. But it was not professional to do so… It’s the same thing with blogs… You can have a blog at a free blogging website, but it’s not the professional way to do it…

Below are a few articles that express that opinion as well as other great benefits of installing a blog on your own business website

Why Use WordPress to Power Your Small Business Website?

WordPress is one of the most popular blogging tools available. But what many people don’t know is that it is a powerful Content Management System (CMS) that can be used for more than just blogging. With WordPress you can build a blog, a website, or both. This is the first article in a series where we’ll explore why WordPress is a good choice for small business websites, and how to install, configure and use it for your small business.

Top 5 Benefits of Using WordPress For Your Website

WordPress іѕ a blogging platform tһаt allows уου tο һаνе a pre-built website fοr free tһаt wіƖƖ allow уου tο focus οח tһе more vital items Ɩіkе content, аחԁ іf уου desire іt, sales аחԁ profits.

Why Migrate to Wordpress – An SEO Expert Tells All

There’s a lot of hype about Wordpress these days, which makes it hard to separate fact from fiction. In this video, SEO Expert Steve Wiideman discusses the advantages of migrating from a static website to Wordpress, both for the site owner and for higher search engine ranking.

Wiideman shows real examples of websites that have been migrated and reveals metrics proving the value of Wordpress and search engine optimization. Learn how to save a fortune on website maintenance fees by writing and editing your own content. Use powerful plugins and customizations to check every SEO task off your list.

Produced and narrated by Steve Wiideman of http://www.seosteve.com/ (@seosteve).

Benefits of Wordpress

WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time. At Muku Studios, we believe it’s the future of the web. Wordpress makes content managed websites affordable and easy for the common public. With a little research and computer know-how, anyone can now become the master of their own domain. Muku Studios uses Wordpress as the framework for many of our web projects. And with the new release of Wordpress 2.9, it’s better than ever. We have compiled a list of a few benefits to owning a Wordpress powered website…

Let me summarize this for you…

If you install wordpress on your own domain name, not a new domain name, on the domain where you have your website hosted, you will see a lot more traffic to your website, which in turn will lead to more leads from your website traffic… 24/7.

Behind each beautiful bride are dozens of helpful vendors. Finally there’s a monthly magazine that caters to the caterers…and the florists…and the photographers, etc. Introducing WedLock Magazine.

WedLock Magazine is the first monthly magazine and webinar system to bring wedding professionals more traffic to their websites and more brides to their doorstep.

Atlanta, GA -  May 3, 2010 – They’re the unsung heroes of the enormous wedding industry. They sit in the back of the room wearing suits or tuxes, making sure every wedding runs smoothly. Quietly, unobtrusively, they make millions of bridal dreams come true. But who’s helping them make their business dreams happen? Who’s teaching wedding professionals how to find more brides and grow their businesses?

“We thought it was crazy!” says Jayne Hallock, Editor in Chief and Co-Founder of WedLock Magazine, “Many of us had worked in the wedding industry and could never figure out why there wasn’t a monthly trade journal for wedding professionals. One that taught great wedding marketing ideas, month after month. There are books, there are magazines for gown shops, there are seminars, but no monthly program for the industry as a whole. Once we factored in our publishing and marketing experiences – it became a no-brainer for us to launch this magazine.”

WedLock is the brainchild of the four partners of EverSpark Interactive, an SEO and marketing agency: Jason Hennessey, Chris Watson, David Hallock and Jayne Hallock. Before forming EverSpark, the partners had successful careers in the publishing field, the wedding industry and an award-winning marketing agency. They eventually all met while working at a company that taught internet marketing to small business owners.

There, the team helped publish a wildly popular marketing magazine (called “The Net Effect“) which taught readers how to maximize their profits online.  Once they were out on their own, the EverSpark partners realized that all of their combined expertise created the “ideal breeding ground” for a robust, cutting-edge marketing and trade journal for wedding professionals. This time, it would serve a market that had never seen its own marketing journal. WedLock Magazine’s marketing system is much more than just a flimsy journal. It includes:

1. Glossy 40 page journal: Issue one features writers from big wedding industry names like WeddingWire.com and WeddingSolutions.com and teaches wedding vendors a host of useful marketing practices like how to write copy that brides love, how to rank for wedding-related terms and how to leverage YouTube and more.
2. 2. Monthly Marketing Plan: Also included in every single issue is something of a “monthly marketing plan.” This is an invaluable tool for the busy professional who just wants to know what to do and how to do it. This way, readers don’t just learn theory about marketing – they are handed a clearly spelled out “To Do” list.
   (It’s kind of like a personal trainer for your business!)
3. Two monthly live, interactive webinars. WedLock readers are sent a private login code to two evening webinars, each lasting around two hours. These webinars featured top wedding marketing experts teaching cutting edge tips and taking live questions! Recordings of these webinars are available to WedLock readers, so they don’t miss a moment of top-notch instruction.
4. Fantastic 5 hour bonus DVD course: And finally, for the first 30 days of WedLock’s debut, every subscriber to WedLock Magazine also receives a DVD course entitled “Bridal Traffic“. This is five hours of visual, step by step, easily understandable instruction on how to make a wedding professional’s website rank well on the search engines. (This is called “Search Engine Optimization” or “SEO”) Wedding pros who have watched this series – taught by Jason Hennessey and Chris Watson -  marvel at how fun and understandable WedLock has made the normally intimidating subject of SEO.For more information about WedLock call 800-318-5059 and ask for Jayne Hallock. Or you can email her directly at jayne@wedlockmag.com

I recently started getting some traffic from a website which is Weddzilla.com. Being as curious as I am I decided to find out what it was, since it seemed to also include a Gmail.com value on the referring link. The website is collecting email addresses from Brides and Vendors, probably to send an email out when it is fully released to the public…

So what is Weddzilla.com?

It seems to be a site where brides can specify what they are looking for and allow for Wedding vendors to contact them through the website.

One of their motto’s is, “When Vendors Compete, Your Budget Wins.”

Here is a little more information about them from a page on Yournoodle.com

Who:

Brides – Stop contacting vendors 1 by 1 – Post what you need for free and Weddzilla.com brings the vendors to you!

Vendors – Stop waiting for a bride to contact you – browse Weddzilla.com now to find the perfect bride!

What:

Weddzila.com is a unique new website does the dirty work of planning a wedding for you. Brides can relax knowing that Weddzilla.com will do the tedious job of finding the perfect vendors for your wedding and vendors finally have a resource to browse local brides that are in need of their expert advice and services! Weddzilla.com was designed to help Brides and Vendors come together to ensure a picture perfect event!

When:

Use Weddzilla.com anytime to plan your perfect Wedding!

Where:

Find vendors & brides at Weddzilla.com, get vendor advice and wedding tips on our Blog, and visit our booth at a bridal show near you!

Why:

Weddzilla.com was created by a bride after dozens of unanswered phone calls and passed deadlines caused her to ask, “Why can’t the vendors just come to me?” Weddzilla.com was created for future brides with one goal in mind — to simplify the planning of her most important day! Weddzilla.com will never overload you with useless tools, bad advice, long checklists, or anything else that will add stress or make planning your wedding more tedious than necessary. Brides won’t become a Bridezilla as Weddzilla.com does the work…for FREE!

When doing my research, I also found that it seems to be a site built by a bride and groom but their idea for Weddzlila.com started out in 2008, so who knows exactly when the site will be released… however, according to the site, Yournoodle.com thier traffic to their website seems to be increasing over time… so they do have the attention of a large market and it seems that people are really liking the concept. Now if only the website could be released!

We wish them luck, as it seems that when they do release the site, it will be a major site that people will flock to join!

Happy Bloggin!

|o| Simply Frank |o|

Reaching the top of the Google.com Search Engine Results is pretty straight foreword with good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as I have proven it wit several websites; Most my own and a few are close friends who are completely clueless about SEO. Once they understand the basic concept, they easily achieve it.  It is challenging, and it even may seem like it’s never going to happen, but with consistent work, it’s ‘easily’ accomplished.

Even more challenging, is staying at the top for years and years to come. It takes consistent efforts of; playing by the rules, staying informed about current methods of SEO, and applying everything you’ve learned thus far.

This morning I was completely surprised that I have reached, once again, the #1 position in Google for the search Term, “DJ in Houston.”

There was a person with extensive SEO knowledge, probably a lot more then me, that went out and did things I don’t even know about, and withing weeks he was #1 on the Google Search results for “DJ in Houston.”

So when that happened, I became #2 and stayed #2 for over a year, which I was fine with. I didn’t stress nor did I try hard to achieve a #1 spot, I was staying busy and I was getting the business I wanted from the #2 spot. I never went lower than the #2 spot.

Today, I opened up the website, Google.com, and as I do about 2 or 3 times a month, I searched for the term, “DJ in Houston,” and to my surprise I turned up to be the #1 result and the person in question was bumped way down, lower than the #2 position.

Now, I have a few theories of why this happened so I will share them with you, in hopes that you can too reach the top of the search engines, just like my friend Audrey, from Events By Audrey, who is now at the top of the search engine results for her targeted keywords.

Theory #1: I’ve Been Doing It The Right Way

Just like everything else in this world, there is a right way of online marketing and there is a not-so-right way of online marketing. The not-so-right way of online marketing is known as Black Hat SEO. These are tricks that work, and work fast, but their practice are usually frowned upon and not tolerated by the major search engines. These tricks include; Hiding keywords into your pages (Example, white text on a white background), Meta Keyword Stuffing, Doorway Pages, and Link Farming. For more information read the Top 5 White Hat and Black Hat Search Optimisation Techniques.

Theory #2: I’ve Become Active Online

I’ve recently started participating in forums where the subject is the DJ industry. As a Wedding DJ, I felt I had something to say and I wanted to get feedback from other DJ around the world. So I researched some forums and started participating and putting my ideas out there to be heard.  Some agree with the ideas and some, strongly disagree with the ideas, even though reason that I provide them with my ideas is to help them out. Some people are so attached to their way of doing it that if you try to suggest to them a way to improve (even after they ask for it), it seems to backfire on you and before you know it, they are attacking not only your ideas, but you personally, without even getting to know you. Being active works on this principle: You participate on the forums, get well known, and people visit your site and Google can see that you are an active leader on your field.  So be sure if you do decide to participate on forums, that you include a link to your website (s) on the signature of your posts.

Theory #3: Uninformed Competition

This is the key to it all. I’ve almost hesitated giving this one out but, I guess if I want to help you out, as my regular reader, I’ve got to give you all my tools. Most people do very little to get to the top of the search engine results. They become complaisant, they stop trying when they don’t get what they want, they are following the wrong tips to getting to the top, they are focused on too many tasks at once, or they simply don’t know anything and don’t care to find out! When I realized that about the DJ industry, my heart and my thoughts started running 199 miles per hour with  ideas, plans, techniques, to-do’s (I’ve never been a to-do list type of person), and so on. I quickly found out how easy it is to get to the top… BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE IS REALLY TRYING TO REACH THE TOP… and this has been so for the last 5 years, well with the exception of the person mentioned at the top of this article.

I will keep it at 3 theories… I have more but they fall under these top three. One thing to notice is that Facebook had almost nothing to do with the fact that I am at the top of the search engines, and I’ve recently done little to no Twitting so I’m almost sure that had nothing to do with it. I’ve also done little to no blogging on my website, but I have done enough, about 1 post every 2 weeks just to keep the search engines coming back to my website and so they know I’m still active on my site.

Hope it helps you understand a little more. If you have a question or comment, don’t hesitate to leave it down there, and feel free to post a link to your website… as it will definitely help you out!

Happy Bloggin!

|o| Simply Frank |o|
Wedding Marketing Expert

Wedding Marketing Case Study Continued…

Well on my last post I started to a Wedding Keyword Marketing Case Study about a client of mine who allowed me to share her website statistics. I guess it’s time I post on here the conclusion, to that case study…

I will post statistics from August of 2009 even though it is the beginning of November just so that I can show you how quickly the search engines picked up her website and started showing it to her clients

Wedding Marketing Keyword Results (August 2009)

So let’s see, Now her website is ranked for ALL the keywords she was after, even though she is not highly ranked for some, she at least is ranked for most of them now.

The more popular keywords she is now ranked in the first page of the search engines.

Once again, the process is simple, and with the help of some very basic search engine optimization, her website is now picked up by all the search engines…

What is the Wedding Website in Question?

The website In question is Our Coordinator Friend, Events By Audrey… at http://www.EventsByAudrey.com.

How is her website doing now?

Why not check for yourself, today, if you were to go to Google.com and search for “Wedding Coordinator in Houston” you should see her website rank #3 or #4 on the search engine results.

Click the following link to see for yourself ( it will open up a new window)
Wedding Coordinator in Houston

Conclusion

Getting your website ranked high on the search engines is not hard work.

The steps taken for this case study were:

1. Search for Wedding Coordinator Keywords
2. Eliminate Blogspot.com, Blogger.com, and Wordpress.com
3. Install the Wordpress.org Blog on http://www.eventsbyaudrey.com domain
4. Install a FREE wordpress.org theme and edit it to fit our needs
5. Do some basic SEO
6. Blog at least 1 time per week

How easy is that? Besides 1 or 2 semi-technical steps, the rest is pretty easy and basic and now EVERY Blog post that Audrey Creates will benefit her and help her website increase her traffic.

Happy Bloggin!!

|o| Simply Frank |o|