Summer´s finally arrived here in Barcelona and therefore my time spent in front of a laptop reading my feeds is diminishing by the day!

In my post from March 2009 Link building advice from 11 Experts, some real experienced professionals gave great advice on how to best gain links.

But I just stumbled across this interesting post on Keeping track of links with link building tools & spreadsheets. Anyone who ever done link building knows how important it is to keep track of URLs, anchor text, dates etc. Especially keeping track of all data is paramount during link building campaigns, when more than 1 person is working on gaining links.

The 3 link building worksheets & guidelines mentioned are as follows:

• The öntolo Link Qualification Work Sheet
• Ask Kalena link building help
• Your SEO Plan, from the book “Search Engine Optimisation an hour a day” by Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin.

Additionally in the comments of Ann Smartey´s post are a couple of link building tools listed, which some of you may find helpful.

• Raven SEO tools, which also offer a 30 day free trial (you have to enter your credit card details for the trial!)
• Wordstream

And here are a couple I would like to add to the mix:

• Internet Business Promoter, which allows you to download a trial version, which is sufficient if you just work with one website.
• WebCEO, which also offers a free version for download but has some limitations of course.

For anyone pretty new to SEO and link building, this should give you a good overview of what’s available to ease some of the link building tasks for you. I am sure there are many more tools out there, feel free to share them with us!

written by Feli \\ tags: Link building, link building tools, seo tools

In November 2008 I posted some ideas about how to promote an Etsy shop online and had great feedback from the Etsy community, which has encouraged me to continue with a second part of my series “How to promote an Etsy shop online”.

In my previous post I really concentrated on Facebook, Twitter and other social media tools. But social media isn’t everything. The next few paragraphs will show you the other side of getting your Etsy shop known.

• A simple email

Write an email explaining about your new venture and include a link to your Etsy shop. Send the email to all your friends and the rest of your contacts. This should already add up to a decent amount of people. Ask these friends to pass on your link to their contacts.

Especially do this again a few weeks before bigger events, such as Mothers’ Day, Valentine’s Day, Christmas or Easter. Remember those are dates where everyone (especially males) are looking for presents desperately and people are more likely to spend their money then on your lovely item, rather than in a highstreet store.

• Create a blog

A great example for such a Etsy blog is Akane Designs, which I think is a really lovely blog and really well executed. If you visit the site you can see this lady has put in a lot of hours creating and maintaining this blog. The blog has also a large group of followers. You can create a blog for free either at Blogger or Wordpress. With blogger you can start blogging after 3 steps:

1. Create an account
2. Name your blog
3. Choose a template

With Wordpress you are only required to fill out 1 form and you’re ready to blog. Note that with Wordpress you can also host the blog yourself with a domain name of your choice but this will require for you to purchase a domain name and webspace and may not be very straight-forward for anyone who is not too internet savvy.

Then start blogging about new items you’ve created, post pictures and link back to your Etsy shop. Tell all your friends about the blog and also share the new blog posts on your personal Facebook page but also on your company Facebook page and Twitter.

I would like to see some more examples of Etsy sellers’ blogs. Leave a comment with your link on this post!

written by Feli \\ tags: blogger, blogging, E-commerce, email, etsy, wordpress

This post is not online marketing related. Well, I thought we all deserve a little breather on a Thursday.

In my post Seven Things about me I mentioned that I was (an on occasion still am) a big fan of arcade games. I came across this real life human Pac Man game by a Frenchman called Remi Gaillard, which takes place in a supermarket. Really funny! Watch it here.

Remi Gaillard Pac Man in a supermarket

Happy Thursday everyone!

written by Feli \\ tags: pac man, remi gaillard

Are you an affiliate whizz kid who blogs on a regular basis? Then you’re reading the right blog post. Bigmouthmedia, the mighty European search company is running an affiliate blogging excellence award B.A.B.E. . So if you fancy winning £1,000 and receiving glory and enhancing your reputation, read how you can get nominated.

How can you participate? It’s as easy as this:

1) Get a friend to nominate you for the B.A.B.E. award.

This is pretty simple- 15 nominations will make it through to the panel.

2) Blog about the affiliate blogger award B.A.B.E.

Just make sure to use some relevant keywords in you copy, so that your post can be found through the Google Blog Search. 5 blogs will make it through to the panel this way.

3) Twitter about bigmouthmedia’s B.A.B.E. awards

But ensure it’s pretty straight-forward to find your blog URL on your Twitter profile!

What are the requirements for a winning affiliate blog:

• The blog has something given back to the affiliate community.
• The affiliate blog should be original or has controversial content.
• The blog will entail new marketing and/or design topics.

Important - Timeframes:

• Start date: 15th of April
• Closing date: 15th of May
• Judging meeting at bigmouthmedia: 22nd May
• Announcement of winner: 29th May

Well, I’m going to nominate Mark, from Digeratimarketing, I think he deserves it!

Good luck for everyone who’s trying to enter!

written by Feli \\ tags: affiliate blog award, awards, b.a.b.e., bigmouthmedia

Well, it´s the 1st April and everyone´s on the edge, expecting a prank or two.

It´s not even 11am, and so far I´ve already encountered 2 viral campaigns, which will probably be spiralling around the world today.

1) Expedia´s Flights to Mars for 99$

2) Twitter add on Shouttr, my personal favourite made by the Softonic team in Barcelona.

I´m sure we´ll see a few more today!

Happy Fool´s Day!

written by Feli \\ tags: shouttr, Social Media, viral campaigns, you tube

It’s always interesting to see what experts say about link building. I guess everyone has their own take on that. In December 2007, I shared some insights from gurus on link value factors.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I read Sugarrae’s interview: 11 Experts on Link Development speak out. It’s a really interesting read and covers the insights on link building resources and tips of the following whizz kids in the SEO world.

1. Jim Boykin of We Build Pages and Internet Marketing Ninjas
2. Rand Fishkin from SEOMoz
3. Justilien Gaspard, Link Columnist for Search Engine Watch
4. Michael Gray of the Graywolf’s SEO Blog
5. Rae Hoffman, CEO of Sugarrae & MFE Interactive
6. Andy Hagan who is living the dream at the Tropical SEO Blog
7. Todd Malicoat from Stuntdubl
8. Debra Mastaler of Alliance Link and the The Link Spiel
9. Roger Montti, founder and owner of Martinibuster.com
10. Aaron Wall of SEO Book and Clientside SEM
11. Eric Ward from URLwire

I like Rae’s idea to get each person to chip in a link building question, which is then in turn is answered by everyone. Nice idea!

As I am planning on having a series of interviews coming up, I may “borrow” this format!

written by Feli \\ tags: Link building, link building strategy

Thanks for everyone’s comments about my recent post about my internet privacy & security issues with my landlady here in Barcelona!  In my last email to Elena I asked her how she wanted to share 1 router with 3 flats (!) whereby she told me a hole would be drilled and a cable from downstairs would be plugged into our router up here. After a few days of silence, she finally got back to me with this:

• 5th Email: Landlady to Feli (me):

Sorry to reply you late, but the truth is that I am very busy with no time to sit in front of the computer! [I see!]

Yes, you are right, exactly like that a Lan cable will be pushed through a hole from downstairs to connect with your router.  It will not happen that the plug will come out, we have it like that in many places and it works well, nobody will knock on your door.  The only thing that may happen is that they phone me and I phone you to make a rerouting.  It is not the entire building, it will be three flats. You will have the rooter and the phone that as you know.
The other option for you is that we take out the rooter from your flat and the phone too, leaving you the connection, but I think that is more convenient for you to have it.
When we will have free the entire building, then we will do a connection always for three flats but with the rooters at the staircase, but in this moment the more convenient thing is to do it like that.
I apologize for any trouble that it make cause you to make the connection but it will be something that not will take long.
I am going to be away from Barcelona during next week and we can organize a day good for everybody, the afternoon to do it.  i do not think it will take you longer than one hour, probably less.
Best regards,
Elena

Aha! Interesting… she does this all the time?

Anyway, I am pretty sure that no-one will move in downstairs for another few months and by then we’ll have hopefully found another place where we can have our own router. What a luxury that would be!

Enjoy your weekend!

written by Feli \\ tags: internet, internet privacy, internet security

I am expanding my online marketing service offering, since I´m becoming quite a social media fiend these days.
These new services will receive soon their own pages but I shall give you a sneak preview…

1. Online Reputation Management for companies and individuals
2. Social Media strategies

I would normally file the latter under SEO, but since everyone´s talking about social media and buzz marketing, demand increases in these areas alone and I am receiving a fair amount of enquiries for those type of services.
You can view the full list of my online marketing services here.
Please don´t  hesitate to contact me for further information!

written by Feli \\ tags: online marketing services, reputation management, Social Media

I never think about internet security and privacy that much to be honest. But an email conversation with my landlady changed my view on this matter completely.  The situation is just too funny, outrageous and a little bit scary, so I need to share it with you all!

Since my partner and I arrived in Barcelona we have been having quite an interesting time with our landlady. Over the past few months we’ve been living above a building site. The work was meant to be completed in January and we’re already half way through March and I can’t see the works being completed any time soon.

Hence I got in touch with our landlady to enquire about the aforementioned noise, which in turn reminded her to ask for a favour from our end.

I will just copy and past now, thinking about it makes me laugh so hard, I have tears rolling down my cheeks, whilst I am quite astounded how this can be real. I am also going to leave the names in, because the reader audience is mainly English speaking and I just need to keep them in there for effect.

Here it goes.

Internet security, we need no stinking internet privacy

Starring:

1) Landlady: Elena

2) Tenant: Feli

3) The all around handyman: Mr. Salas

4) Internet technician: Carlos Grau

• 1st Email - Landlady to me (Feli):

Hi Felicitas

There will be days with noise and another with less but they are working everyday to be able to finish soonest!.

I wanted to contact you because we would need to go to your flat to make a connection between your rooter and the flats below that will share the connection. Tell us please when it would be convenient to arrange it with Mr. Salas.

We will wait for your news, thanks and regards,

Elena

• 2nd Email - Me (Feli) to Landlady:

Hi Elena,

I’m not quite sure why Mr Salas would need access to our router to give the flats below internet access, surely those flats will have there own landline connections? if there were several people all sharing from the same connection this would make it very slow? or would the speed of the connection be upgraded?

Regards

Felicitas

• 3rd Email - Landlady to Feli (me):

Hi Felicitas,
I hope the noise is getting better.

Mr. Salas has to come to your flat to open a link, passing by the floor to connect the rooter with the flats below.  Then, below they will have their connections.

We would have the technician for the internet, Carlos Grau that would come together with Mr. Salas.  Sr. Salas will make a hole to connect below and Grau will pass the cable and this is it.  No more bother for you.

Regards

Elena

• 4th Email: Feli (me) to landlady:

Hi Elena,

Am I right in thinking from below that a LAN cable will be pushed through a hole from downstairs that will connect to the router sitting in our flat? this doesn’t seem right to me, what if the plug comes out? we would have people knocking on our door asking what has happened to the internet? or if like some days, it just does not work for a few hours? again, we would be responsible for the entire buildings internet? I did own a property in the UK previously so I know this is not the best way to get a whole building hooked up to the internet.

It would make more sense for each of the flats to have there own walled internet connection and own routers to allow for several computers in each flat to be hooked up.

If I have misunderstood what is getting done please clarify.

Regards

Felicitas

Well, what do you think? A little bit dodgy, isn’t it? What about privacy issues, someone savvy could hack into our computers easily. I am not very comfortable with that. Let’s see what the landlady tells us next.

written by Feli \\ tags: internet privacy, internet security, spain

I came across an interesting article on the German newspaper website “Die Welt” explaining an incredible social media success. But not the marketing kind.. the social kind.

The social networking site Facebook managed to save a French company from complete collapse.  After the suicide of the French shipyard owner Joel Gamelin in La Rochelle, his company faces a collapse and salaries were unlikely to be paid. In his suicide note the father leaves a note for his daughter Fanny Gamelin saying he’s sorry for having been unable to save the company from bankrupcy.

His daughter took the opportunity and published with the help of the family lawyer a press release on Facebook on the 23rd February 2009, pleading for people to donate 1 Euro each, in order to be able to pay for the salaries. Within days alone they managed to collect 201,000 Euros from 6,795 generous people via Paypal.  The workers of the shipyard have already been paid and the rest of the money will also be set aside for the employees. This is the first time (at least as far as I know) that a social network has been able to help a cause, whereby actually banks and the government have been replaced.

This only shows how powerful social networks can be, something which should not only be exploited for marketing purposes but the greater good.

That was a bit deep

written by Feli \\ tags: facebook, french company, gamelin shipyard, Social Media, social networks