BaltimoreElevated

So long Farewell Aufwiedersehn Adeiu

2012-01-01T09:32:00.000-08:00

I have found blogger to be limited in regards to the creative process. I am switching to Word Press.

http://elev8design.wordpress.com/

5 Easy Ministry Uses For Facebook

2010-12-14T08:53:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I have to sit back and take it all in. Technology, Social media, Marketing everything evolving at the speed of sound, and it's my job to understand how to use them and how they fit into life! I can't imagine how the lay person tries to figure it out.

Then you get into Social Media. Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In.... They could all have it's own book by this point! Each outlet has it's own pro's and con's and potentials. Personal I think one thing that ties them all together is the fact that people especially ministries do not recognize their potential.

Let's talk about Facebook.

Facebook has.....

More than 500 million active users
50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
Average user has 130 friends
People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook
Facebook has more than 150 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users. For more statistics about Facebook go to LINK

Unfortunately, I think many organisations are missing the point of Facebook. Facebook's power isn't in its's ability to be a broadcast channel. The real power comes from the way it can engage an audience, connect people with other people who like the same things and use people to bring the audience to you by letting them share your content or articles.

A recent study was done by ourchurch.com on the effectiveness of their churches Facebook presence. The study concluded they don’t think their church is doing a particularly good job with Facebook. While those results could be perceived as negative, a closer look reveals some big opportunities for those churches willing to embrace the world’s largest social network. I have expanded on some of their findings.

Communicate More – Communication is key to anything in life . Do I mean that a ministry worker should send a personal message to everyone? No! But a tickler about this weeks upcoming sermon would be a great treat. Letting people know about an opportunity to serve the community is a great way to involve people and spread the word.
Because many pastors I know have a very busy schedule (they seem to work more then just on Sunday) :) A key team member can be appointed as a page administrator to help spread the word. Lastly, with all communication, consistency is key.
Ministry / Small Group Pages – A second opportunity for churches is for individual ministries to engage with people through Facebook. Whats good for the goose is good for the gander. Every ministry is can have its own fan-page free of charge! So make one :) By having a fan-page you can engage and communicate with the people in your group of the people you would like to see in your group. Your fan-page can be a great way to make newcomers feel comfortable. Many people are comfortable with Sunday service. It's big and they can hide. Put someone in a small ministry group and they can get nervous. This is ideal for getting people acquainted with the group or ministry. Also many ministries and small groups have their own agenda or announcements that the people who take part want to be included or updated on. Use this fan-page as a way to reach them and allow them to reach their friends, and then their friends.....
Facilitate Connections – A third opportunity for churches is to help their people connect with one another. It's no fun being a body if you never know what the other hand is doing :)
Evangelism – A fourth opportunity for churches is to encourage and train their people to develop relationships with those who are not Christians and show God’s grace and love to them. Every person that "likes" your group page can suggest the page to their friends. I have found in my own life that I will forward something to someone in my group of friends or repost someones event for my friends to see. We have a natural intention to want our friends to share in our passion for something.
Facebook Ads – A fifth opportunity for churches is to use Facebook ads to reach out to people in their community. Facebook provides a way to target people in exact areas who like certain things. Facebook will even tell you th exposure you should have in the groups you selected.

Recently I placed an add on Facebook. My advertisement targeted people who "like" the following:

lived in Maryland

liked Ministry

liked Pastors.

What was left was only a few hundred potential people. My advertisement would only run on their accounts no one else. I budgeted $50.00 this was the max I would spend. I was pleased by the straight forwardness of the billing options and the ease of creating a advertisement.

At the end of the day

At the end of the day Facebook can be a great tool for churches. If you use it for more then telling us what you ate for dinner, where your going on Friday night or Farmville......

P.S. your crops are ready both in Farmville and life so go get them!

For more information on how to establish your online presence visit us on at Elev8 Web Design or call us @ 443-986-8461.

Eating School Breakfasts Improves Math Grades????

2010-11-16T07:29:00.000-08:00

Apparently, Maryland State Department of Education has decided for us that we as parents are no longer capable of safely providing nutritional meals for our school-aged children as illustrated in the latests propaganda mailed home on our hard earned tax dollars.

Recently, my daughter delivered this gaudy over sized mailer titled "DID YOU KNOW..."
the postcard lets us know wonderful facts like...
"Compared to lunches from home, school lunches contain twice as much fruit."

Apparently, without knowing I must of been giving my daughter fake fruit all this time. Never again will I consider apples, pears, raisins or oranges to be fruit.

Next, I was reminded about economics. "It's cheaper to buy a school lunch than to pack one from home with the same nutritional value."
If I were to lazily buy and make my daughter breakfast and lunch I would be waisting about $10.00!!! If I buy school breakfast and lunch I will be investing a meager $21.50 per week..... Wait, isn't $10.00 less then $21.50? Oh well.... Details.....

While we are on the subject of math, "Eating school breakfast is associated with improved math grades."
I was grateful to learn if I buy my child school breakfast (not make it for her) I will be helping her become a smarter mathematician!

Since we are horrible parents providing non-nutritious meals for our children maybe we should look at a typical school meal consists of. I for demonstration will use todays Breakfast and Lunch 11/16/2010. You can click on the breakfast or lunch link to see their menu.

Breakfast

Bagel & Cream Cheese $1.25
Breakfast Yogurt Parfait $1.25
Cereal $ .75
Cornbread Loaf $ .75
Crackers, Fun Shapes $ .50
Fresh Fruit $ .75
Elfin Grahams $ .50
Hot Breakfast Entrée $1.25
Juice 100% $ .55
Oatmeal choc. Chip Bar $1.25
Power Wheel $ .75
String Cheese $ .50
Whole Grain Biscuit $ .75
Wheat Breakfast Bun $1.25

Lunch

ENTRÉES -
Choose 1 Pizza
Hamburger
Cheeseburger
SIDES -
Choose Up To 2 Sweet Potatoes
Fresh Vegetable Combo
Cinnamon Apples
Assorted Fresh Fruit Juice

Personally, I would take the Pepsi challenge any day of the week that a homemade sandwich of PB&J with an apple, carrot sticks, grapes or even a Twinkie are much better then the typical menu of cheeseburgers, pizza, chicken nuggets or pork BBQ with a side of french fries or canned fruit with preservatives suspended in sugary syrup.

I have to say I am very disappointed with Maryland State Department of Education. Not only have they lied but they are teaching us that we should depend on them not ourselves. The way they are doing this is also in my opinion very sneaky. They are sowing seeds of doubt on our ability to take care and responsibility for our future generation.

By telling us to teach our children that nutrition is best purchased from school, wont they continue with this behavior by continuing to purchase all meals from places like Burger King or McDonald's? If you think this comment is way off about the direction of how schools view lunch think about the recent comments from The Cincinnati Public Schools Food Services Supervisor, Jessica Shelly, as she recently told a reporter, "Our main goal was to create a restaurant style food (menu)..."

How long before school introduces a toy in their school lunches.....not long I would bet.

Christian artist???

2010-10-07T06:20:00.001-07:00

Growing up as an expressiv artist I had the ability to express any emotion through a wide variety of mediums and subjects.

When I attended art college I had classes where men and women unclothed so we could draw, sculpt or paint them. We had a variety of body types to explore; aged to youthful, fit to unfit. Each type representative of what happens. With the body as it ages.

I should tell you at this point in my blog I am a born again Christian. No I wasn't in rehab or prison. I didnt find God in the back of a cop car... :) One day I just felt the voice of God calling and reminding me that He loved and missed me. Im so thankful I was listening. :) I have been blessed in so many ways! If you don't have a relationship with Him. Or have questions email me anytime. Even if its just to pray for you.

As I grow more involved in adult life. I seem to have less time to create art (besides graphic design). When I can, I take photographs, draw or paint. I have found an online resources that allows artistic projects to be uploaded and viewed by other artists.

One thing I think about is can you be a true artist with no restrictions or taboo subjects and still be a Christian?

Some will say no, and some will say yes. Some will point out reasons and some just want to argue.

For me I guess the answer is almost similar to what is art...
I think it just depends on the point of view. As for me, Domonic, I think I can and am a Christian and an artist. While I don't sculpt, draw or paint nudes any more. I have found meaningful ways to express my feelings without feeling like a sellout. Perhaps this would of came by it's self with maturity. Maybe God said try this.

Even when I wasn't a Christian my art always evolved. Part of what I love about art is if your mind is open you will always grow be it technique, medium or content.

Either way I still, when I can create expressive, meaningful art projects while being a Christian. At the end of the day art to me is about perspective and joy and knowing I have a Lord who is proud of what im doing with the talents He gave me.

Raise Funds for Your Church With Google Adsense

2010-08-26T17:16:00.000-07:00

Google Adsense is a great tool for generating extra income for your church or ministry. It’s very easy to set up Google Adsense. You must first create an account and select a username and password. You will be required to enter your tax exempt numbers and other personal information, so have them ready.

Once your account is set up, decide what type of ads you want on your site, generate the code, and then copy and paste the code into your web page. Once the code is on your site, Google begins to generate relevant ads based upon your site’s content. I have been amazed at the accuracy of their choices. After that, when someone clicks on one of the ads, you make money.

Here are a few things that will help you get the most out of Google Adsense:

Ad placement. Where you place your ads is very important. Through trial and error we have found the best performer for us is a 160×600 vertical banner. We place it on the left side right below our navigation links. The second best performer is a 468×15 horizontal keyword ad. We place it at the top of the page right under our logo.

Ad format. The type of ad you choose will make a big difference in your performance. I use only text ads. I have tried image ads but they do very poorly on our site. You should experiment with different ad types because each site is different. For some sites using a combination of text and image ads works well. Google has a feature that allows you to create custom channels for each ad so you can track its performance.

Ad color. I have found that making the ads blend into our site as much as possible produces the best results. Google makes it easy to select colors for your ads. I use a white background with a white border and the title and URL are the same color as my navigation links. They don’t really look like ads, but additional links on our site.

Ad density. You are only allowed to have up to three ad units per page. We have two on every page and use an additional one on some pages. Often Google will only show one or two of the ad units at a time. You have the option of choosing either public service ads, or an alternate URL which will show the page of your choice during those times when the Google ads are not available.

Program performance. Google makes it easy to keep track of your site’s performance by showing how many clicks you have received and how many ad impressions have been shown. In the beginning a click-thru-ratio (CTR) over 3% is considered good. The amount of money you make is directly related to the number of visitors you have and how often they click.

Adsense for search. This is a great feature that allows your visitors to search for content either on your site, on the web, or a combination of the two. The landing page that is produced as a result of their search is full of relevant ads that will generate income if your visitor clicks on them.

Experiment with Adsense. If one type of ad doesn’t perform well, replace it with another. Once you have Adsense in place, Google does all of the work for you. Give it a try – you really have nothing to loose and everything to gain.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kim Linton is a freelance writer who covers a wide variety of topics including Christianity, technology and industry trends. Her work has been featured on major news outlets including The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, and has been published on a variety of niche sites including Woman's Day and Intel.

originally read on http://www.ministrymaker.com

Web of Neglect

2010-08-19T12:54:00.000-07:00

If your site's outdated, you could be paying the price--in customers.
By Nichole L. Torres | Entrepreneur Magazine - May 2006

You know the drill--you're visiting a business's website, looking for information on the latest sale or the types of services offered, and when you click on a link, you find it's broken or the printout coupon has expired. The website is out-of-date, and that entrepreneur
is losing business because of it. Don't let this happen to your business, warns Steve Grushcow, CEO of Edit.com, a website maintenance service provider in New York City. "We find that [some businesses] forget about [their websites] because they're sort of intangible," says Grushcow, "but it's the face [of the business] to a lot of your customers."

During startup, define what exactly you want your website to accomplish-will it provide information, make sales, or get people to call your 800 number? Once you get up and running, make sure it still meets those goals. Grushcow also suggests checking your site at least once a month for broken links or outdated news. You can even add a newsletter or blog to make your site feel more current. And if you keep a list of clients or samples of past work, make sure to keep that up-to-date as well. "Keep your business consistent," says Grushcow. "Changes in your business should also be reflected on your website."

You can update your website yourself with web-maintenance software
like Edit.com's, but if your design needs an overhaul, call in a professional developer to give it the face-lift it needs.

And if you're paying to advertise your site on search engines, you should be doubly concerned with keeping it updated and functioning well. "If your phone number is on your business
card and it doesn't work, that would obviously be a problem," says Grushcow. "It's the same case for your website."

Gmote Turns Your Android Phone Into a Remote Control for Your PC

2010-07-22T08:48:00.000-07:00

Gmote Turns Your Android Phone Into a Remote Control for Your PC

Android only: Gmote controls your desktop PC directly from your mobile phone, letting you control playback of music and movies, browse your file system, or even use your phone as a keyboard and mouse.

To get the media playback controls working, you'll need to make sure that your PC has VLC installed, install the Gmote server application—there are versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and then install the Gmote client on your phone. Once you've completed the setup you can connect the mobile client to the Gmote server by IP address, and start controlling your PC from your phone.

It's definitely not a substitute for a good media center remote, but it's a great way to control a PC using your Android phone. Hit the link for the download, or check out the How-To Geek guide for a screenshot tour of how it works. Gmote is a free download for Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Life lessons

2010-07-14T06:56:00.000-07:00

I was very lucky in hindsight to have a pseudo-father growing up. An artist and poet, with a giving heart to the beat down and tired. Not wealthy by the worlds standard yet one of the richest people I have ever known. He would make his living by going to flea markets buying then reselling the things the people had for sale. Many times when I asked him why he bought that worthless dirty thing he would say

"One man's junk is another man's treasure"

I always thought this was about material possessions. This morning I wonder if it means a man may see one person as worthless, while others will see him valuable? Or maybe the "bad things" we go through in life can be junk to us, but to others our experience are useful, like addictions or abuse. So many times in life we may never know that the hard times we can go through can help so many other people. Mr. Rodgers said

"If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person."

Our past can shape someones future. The stuff we go through can either build or destroy not only us but the people come into contact with and even our loved ones. Like the child with an alcoholic or abusive parent who becomes an addict. The way we deal with trials and hardships develop our character, good or bad. Helen Keller once said

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved".

How different my life would be if I had never went to the flea market with my Uncle Bob. I learned everything from discipline, work ethics and later in life, perspective. Many of my charter traits are from him and his time, love and quotes that he poured into me. I hope this encourages you to look at anything your going through in a new light and reminds you that we are all connected to each other. Lastly

"There was a man and they called him mad;
the more he gave the more he had".

A Guide to Church Social Media and SEO

2010-07-13T15:14:00.000-07:00

One of the big buzzwords in Christian technology and design circles is social media and its role in online engagement and community. To answer some of the questions about church social media, I’ve provided this short guide, which is the first in a series of posts about church social media strategy.

1) Quality content. Stories, art, insight, and fun content that keeps readers interested. You might also consider video if that works for you.

2) The three most important components to consider in your church’s social media vision are:

Spiritual gifting and passion

Intended audience

Available time and resources

God’s mission for you and His gifting to your church staff will likely orient much of the content and nature of your online and social media ministry efforts. For instance, one strategy is the use of the bridge strategy to guide social media efforts.

3) Focus on evergreen content over time-specific content. One way to help create more evergreen content is to create a series on particular issues important to potential members. What would be helpful or valuable to my members which I feel is consistent with my faith? Realize that time-specific content like church, community, and event announcements are still incredibly important, but this tip is more about focusing on what will be valuable 3 years from now than just 3 days from now.

4) Consider re-purposing content. If you already have a church newsletter or e-mail newsletter, perhaps 65 to 85 percent of that could be valuable to your users. One great way is to re-purpose sermon content in 1 to 3.5 minute snippets. Most users won’t be interested in listening to 25 minute lessons, so making short snippets available so they can access core lesson components in short bursts is important. One website that has done a great job of putting their content into snippets and is an example of video social media best practice in this regard is Stanford E-Corner website, which provides short themed segments.

5) Idea board. Create a document, wiki, or whiteboard to explore ideas for the blog. You might even just use a traditional paper model. This helps centralize your ideas so that no ideas get left behind. There are a ton of great free and low cost Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 tools that are perfect for document collaboration (Google Docs and PB Wiki are available for free, while Zoho Docs and Basecamp are inexpensive paid platforms). This is also a great way to collaborate productively on ideas in staff and ministry groups.

6) Try to keep it personal and conversational. This is one of the core precepts of the new era of social media on the web. One way to do this is with your tone. Another is to have short interviews with community members about important issues and events.

7) Look to models and proven social media best practices. Check out the top 100 church blogs. What do they share in common? This can provide you with strategic insight about what type of content is link worthy and therefore SEO friendly.

8) Think about users. What are the 7 to 10 most relevant items? This is the same decision you might make in a Christian newspaper or magazine. Front page your most important content by putting links on the top or side menu bar. Another user-centric design consideration is to keep your design visual.

9) Aggregation. If you have multiple publishing platforms online you may consider consolidating them in one place via aggregation. Content aggregation makes it easy for users to access and view all the content on one particular topic all in one easy to use location. Widgets and content aggregation is one way for you to bring in content from your favorite Christian magazine, website, or blogger.

You will want to return to some of these concepts every 6 to 12 months as you review your church social media goals and strategies. Make no mistake, it is a time and content creation commitment. Often solving that issue is just a matter of focus and time management.

If you have questions about church search engine optimization or church website design, don’t hesitate to give us a call.

What should a website cost?

2010-07-12T09:10:00.001-07:00

What should a website cost?

this is a common question many people ask.....

To not show favoritism because I am a developer and graphic artist I have take the pricing from the source many freelancers use to price their work..... The following comes directly from http://www.designquote.net/html/dq_estimate_wizard.cfm

Web Design Pricing Calculator

Average Hourly Rates

Student/Offshore $15 - $30/hour

Freelancer/Company $25 - $75

Expert Consultant $50 - $250

Professional Firm $75 - $200

Average Cost Guide

Logo Design:
$100 - $250+ (Student or Offshore)
$250 - $1000+ (Professional Designer)

Basic Brochure Website:
$500 - $1000+ (Student / Offshore)
$1500 - $5000+ (Professional Designer)

E-Commerce Website:
$1000 - $5,000+ (Outsourced Offshore)
$2000 - $10,000+ (Experienced Developer)

Custom Database / Interactive Website:
$1500 - $15,000+ (Offshore)
$2500 - $25,000+ (Experienced Developer)

To put this into perspective..... Elev8 Web Design just completes a website of 10 pages with a logo and 20 images, a java image slider with 5 custom images and client included 10 microsoft word documents that i placed in the pages. This site also included a email contact form... Our Cost..... $750.00

Premium	Medium	Discount
Estimates: Note: These are ballpark estimates, submit a project for real bids.
Professional Designer or Company	Small Company or Freelancer	Student or Offshore
BallPark: $11,305.00 - $15,295.00 DesignQuote Budget: $10,000 - $15,000	BallPark: $6,783.00 - $9,177.00 DesignQuote Budget: $7,500 - $10,000	BallPark: $2,826.25 - $3,823.75 DesignQuote Budget: $2,500 - $5,000

If you need a website let us know free quotes and prompt attention to details are our calling cards. For examples of our work visit us @ Http://www.elev8webdesign.com or email sales@elev8webdesign.com

Facebook now has Improved Analytics for Websites, Applications, and Pages

2010-07-09T08:01:00.000-07:00

Improved Analytics for Websites, Applications, and Pages

Having good analytics is a key to successfully growing a business. To provide you with even better metrics for your Facebook applications, websites, and Pages, we recently launched an improved Insights dashboard.

The new Insights dashboard is your single source for all your Facebook analytics needs for:

Websites: Fully-integrated sites and those that use social plugins, or add a non-integrated domain in one easy step
Applications: Including canvas, mobile, device, and desktop applications
Facebook Pages: Including Pages created on Facebook.com and those that are part of the Open Graph protocol

For example, you can now view analytics around specific stories liked on your website, or how many users commented on posts made on your Page (note that this is anonymized aggregate data and does not include personally identifiable information). From there, you will have a better idea of what your audience finds most interesting and capitalize on that content.

The Insights dashboard contains more data than before, as well as a host of new visualization tools, including the ability to view full screen, print, and save graphs. We've also released a new demographics visualization so you can get more information about the audience interacting with your application, Page, or website.

As a domain administrator, you can now access sharing metrics and demographic information per domain and per URL so you can optimize your content for sharing and better tailor your content to your audience. To get started, you will need to associate your domain with a user ID or a Facebook application or Facebook Page that you administer. You can do this by clicking the green "Insights for your Domain" button on the Insights dashboard and adding the meta tag that is generated to the ">If you administer a Facebook Page or have integrated the Open Graph protocol into your Web pages, you can now see analytics for referral traffic and stream stories in the Insights dashboard, as well as tab views for your Page. Insights will capture engagement with Pages regardless of whether an action was taken on or off Facebook.

Accessing Analytics Programmatically

In the coming days, we'll discuss the ways in which you can get even more analytics, and in a programmatic way. Until then, we'd love to hear your feedback on the Developer Forum.

Alex, an engineer on the Platform team, enjoys having better insight.

RSS Feed? What to do with it! ?!?!?!?!?

2010-07-09T07:43:00.001-07:00

Subscribe to RSS Feeds found in Windows Internet Explorer

Subscribing to RSS Feeds from Windows Internet Explorer is the fastest and easiest way to add RSS Feeds to Outlook.

When you browse to a Web page that contains RSS information, appears next to the Home button.

Click .

A list of all available RSS Feeds on the Web page is displayed.

Click the RSS Feed that you want to add.
When the RSS Feed opens in Internet Explorer, click Subscribe to this feed.

The RSS Feed subscription is added to the Common Feed List (Common Feed List: A list of subscribed RSS Feeds that is saved with your Windows user profile. RSS clients, including Windows Internet Explorer and Outlook, use this list so that you do not have to configure subscriptions in each program.) in Windows. Your RSS Feed subscription is available in Internet Explorer, Outlook, and other programs which use the Common Feed List.

Tip On a Web page, you might see , or, . Usually, when you click these icons, you can view and subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Top of Page

Manually enter a new RSS Feed subscription

To manually enter an RSS Feed subscription, you are required to enter the Web address (Web address: An address that specifies a location of an object, document, Web page, or other destination on the Internet or an intranet, for example: http://microsoft.com. Also known as Uniform Resource Locator (URL).).

Click the File tab.
On the RSS Feeds tab, click New.
In the New RSS Feed dialog box, type the URL of the RSS Feed. For example, http://www.example.com/feed/main.xml.

Tip In most Web browsers, on a Web page, you can right-click the RSS icon, and then copy the shortcut to the Clipboard. Press Ctrl+V to paste the information from the Clipboard into the RSS Feed location box.

Click Add.
Click OK.

Top of Page

Subscribe to a RSS Feeds sent to you as an Outlook RSS Feed sharing message

When you receive an RSS Feed sharing invitation, click Add this RSS Feed.

You can click the button at the top the Reading Pane, or if you open the message, on the Share tab, in the Open group, click Add this RSS Feed.

Click OK to confirm the addition of the RSS Feed.

Top of Page

Import a collection of RSS Feeds from an OPML file

Outlook 2010 supports the .opml file format for exchanging a collection of RSS Feeds and sharing configuration information between programs that can organize and display RSS Feeds.

Click the File tab.
On the Open tab, click Import.
Select Import RSS Feeds from an OPML file.
Click Next.
Click Browse to specify where the file you want to import is located, and then click Open.
Click Next.
Select the Feed name check box for each subscription that you want to import.

Tip Click Select All or Clear All to quickly select or clear all of the check boxes.

Note You are importing only the subscription information, not the actual items from the subscription.

Click Next.

Rise and Sing By FEE

2010-07-07T07:07:00.001-07:00

INTRO I

Guitar I Intro (with delay)

e|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

B|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

G|----4-------------------------------4-------------------------------------|

D|----4-------------------------------4-------------------------------------|

A|----2-------------------------------2-------------------------------------|

E|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Just hit a B chord a couple of times with delay set to tempo.

Guitar I hits that last strum of the B as Guitar II starts.

Guitar II Intro

e|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

B|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

G|----------------------------------------------------------------------6---|

D|-----9-7-9-7---9--------9-7-9-7---9--------9-7-9-7---9--------9---7-9---9-|

A|-9-9----------------7-7----------------6-6----------------7-7---7---------|

E|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Play this twice, then...

INTRO PART II

Guitar I (No delay for the rest of the song)

e|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

B|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

G|----4----------------8----------------------------------9-----------------|

D|----4----------------8----------------6-----------------9-----------------|

A|----2----------------6----------------6-----------------7-----------------|

E|--------------------------------------4-----------------------------------|

B D# G# E

Guitar II

e|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

B|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

G|----11----8----9--8--9--8-------------11----8----9--8--9--8---------------|

D|---------------------------9---------------------------------9------------|

A|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

E|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Play these parts together twice.

VERSE I

Guitar I

these are just octaves...

e|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

B|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

G|----4----------------9----------------8----------------9------------------|

D|----X----------------X----------------X----------------X------------------|

A|----2----------------7----------------6----------------7------------------|

E|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

B E D# E

Guitar II

e|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

B|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

G|----------------------------------------------------------------------6---|

D|-----9-7-9-7---9--------9-7-9-7---9--------9-7-9-7---9--------9---7-9---9-|

A|-9-9----------------7-7----------------6-6----------------7-7---7---------|

E|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Play these parts together twice.

PRE-CHORUS

Either guitar...................Whoa, oh, oh oh....

e|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

B|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

G|----4--------9--------4--------9------------------------------------------|

D|----4--------9--------4--------9------------------------------------------|

A|----2--------7--------2--------7------------------------------------------|

E|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

B E B E

VERSE 2, Guitar I the same, Guitar II slightly different

Guitar II

e|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

B|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

G|----------------------------------------------------------------------6---|

D|-----9-7-9-7---9--------9-7-9-7---9--------9-7-9-7---9--------9---7-9---9-|

A|-9-9----------------7-7----------------6-6----------------7-7---7---------|

E|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

this once...

e|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

B|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

G|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

D|-----9-7-9-7---9--------9-7-9-7---9--------9-7-9-7---9--------9-7-9-7---9-|

A|-9-9----------------7-7----------------6-6----------------7-7-------------|

E|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

and then this once...

PRE-CHORUS again

CHORUS

Either or both guitars...

e|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

B|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

G|----4--------8-----------------9--------4--------8------------------9-----|

D|----4--------8--------6--------9--------4--------8--------6---------9-----|

A|----2--------6--------6--------7--------2--------6--------6---------7-----|

E|----------------------4-----------------------------------4---------------|

B D# G# E B D# G# E

Back to INTRO PART II (but only once this time)

VERSE 3 (same as verse 2)

PRE-CHORUS

CHORUS X 2

Back to INTRO PART II again (also only once)

BRIDGE

In the bridge, Guitar II has some delay effects that I haven't figured out.

But here's Guitar I...

Guitar I

e|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

B|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

G|--------------------------4---------------------------------4-------------|

D|--------------------6--4--4---------------------------6--4--4-------------|

A|--------------------6--4--2---------------------------6--4--2-------------|

E|--------------------4--2------------------------------4--2----------------|

G# F# B G# F# B

and then just one strum each...

e|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

B|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

G|----4--------8-----------------9--------4--------8-----------------9------|

D|----4-X-1----8-X-1----6--------9-X-1----4-X-1----8-X-1----6--------9-X-1--|

A|----2--------6--------6-X-1----7--------2--------6--------6-X-1----7------|

E|----------------------4-----------------------------------4---------------|

B D# G# E B D# G# E

Back to the CHORUS two more times but the second one is special like this:

Special CHORUS

Guitar I

e|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

B|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

G|----4-4---------8---------------9-4-4-----------8-------------------------|

D|----4-4---------8-6-6-----------9-4-4-----------8-6-6---------------------|

A|----2-2---------6-6-6-----------7-2-2-----------6-6-6---------------------|

E|------------------4-4-----------------------------4-4---------------------|

B D# G# E B D# G#

Guitar II

e|-------------11--------12---------11--------------------------------------|

B|----12-12-------9-9------12-12-------9-keep strumming and bend a half step|

G|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

D|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

A|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

E|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

CHORUS X 1 again

Then end on this

Either or both guitars...

(the last chorus)

e|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

B|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|

G|----4--------8-----------------9---9---9---4------------------------------|

D|----4--------8--------6--------9---9---9---4------------------------------|

A|----2--------6--------6--------7---7---7---2------------------------------|

E|----------------------4---------------------------------------------------|

B D# G# E E E B

6 Tips on Image SEO

2010-07-06T09:27:00.001-07:00

Images as an asset for organic search results and search engine optimization are often overlooked. Images can drive traffic through image search as well as inclusion in universal search results.

There are actually several dimensions to image optimization that involves better placement in search results, optimization for user experience and in some cases, optimization for easier sharing of images on the social web.

For image SEO, it can be helpful to think of optimizing images like optimizing a tiny webpage within your page. Things like url structure, anchor text and descriptive tagging are factors for optimizing images for search engines, just like regular webpages.

Here are a few tips for optimizing your images to improve their performance on the page and in search.

1. Find the right images

Finding the right kind of image is incredibly important. Great images can add another dimension to an article or page that can encourage people to share the page and create some great backlinks. Research shows that while text is still the first thing seen on the page, the image is what sells the page.

Here are some of the best places to actually find images:

Flickr – Probably the de facto service for finding free images. They have a really useful creative commons search as well. Skellie has an excellent article on how to find Flickr images.
stock.xchng – Weird name, but a ton of royalty-free stock images.
iStockPhoto – Large selection of stock photos that you can buy.

You can also use Google Images to find images for your site, as long as you search with the proper licensing. (They allow you to search Creative Commons and other public licenses.) But you have to be very careful when using images, as if you don’t have the permission to reuse it, companies and sites can take legal action against you.

The general rule of thumb is this: if the image isn’t Creative Common licensed or you didn’t buy or create it, don’t post it.

2. Use the keyword(s) in the file name

Just like keywords in post urls are important for pages, the same is true for images. Using keyword-rich words in your image filename is important for helping search engines determine relevancy. For example, the image above was originally named “iStock_000004221245XSmall.jpg” which doesn’t add much information about this web page. It has been renamed to “image-optimization.jpg”. Of course, most images that are not simply decorative like the one above are literal and connected to the content of the page such as a photo of a product. If the above image were used in an article about eye color, then the file name should reflect that.

Google suggests that you should place your images in one folder on your site, mydomain.com/images versus placing them in random folders throughout the site. Another suggestion from Google related to file names or URLs of images is to make sure you use common image filetypes such as JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP.

3. Create descriptive alt text

Alt text or tags are another way that search engines help determine what your image is about. Unlike traditional web content, search engines can’t determine the text content of an image. (Search spiders are pretty smart, but as far as I know they haven’t developed eyes yet.) As a result, search engines need to rely on captions around the image, alt text, file names and other surrounding text. Adding descriptive text in the alt tag helps the search engines determine what the content of the image is.

If an image is used as navigation, ie as a link to another page, be sure to use alt text that is meaningful to the content of the page being linked to.

4. The right anchor text

Anchor text is another important factor in image SEO. If you decide to link to images with text, your anchor text can play a role in how your image is ranked for keywords. Use descriptive anchor text that describes the image. For example, linking to an image using a generic term like “image” or “photo” or a file name that doesn’t use keywords doesn’t give search engines much meaningful information on what the image is about. Linking to an image with keywords is helpful to search engines as well as people visiting your site.

5. Make sure the image matches the content

The content surrounding the image should be related to all of the things that you’ve optimized thus far: anchor tags, image url, alt tags. When these things align, it helps search engines confirm that you’re not spamming and that the image is of higher quality and relevant.

6. Don’t stuff

This goes for all kinds of SEO, but we’ll say it again just for clarity: don’t keyword stuff when filling out things like image alt text. Your alt text, captions and file names should be short and descriptive, not a long list of keywords. Remember to optimize images for your website visitors. Image SEO is as much about user experience as it is about achieving better search engine rankings.

Additional Resources on Image SEO:

Get up-to-date on Image Search – Video of a presentation by Peter Linsley, Product Manager at Google offering insights into how image search is used, how it works, and how webmasters can optimize their pages for image searchers.

Google Webmaster Central Advice in Images – Following these best practices (as well as webmaster guidelines) will increase the likelihood that your images will be returned in image search results.

If you want to check many of these image SEO tips on your web pages, try this handyimage SEO tool.

Using social networking into ministry

2010-07-01T11:42:00.000-07:00

Way #1 - To build ministry through relationships

According to Internet Evangelism Day, chat room outreach is similar to street evangelism. It is a direct, up-front discussion with those who will listen. Word of caution here against dogmatic, beat you over the head with the bible types of witnessing. This is not the sort of "preachy evangelism" you may encounter on the street. I'm sure you will cause others to stay away versus be drawn to Christ if you barrel them over with this approach. The type of ministry that works best is being light and salt in your online community, establishing relationships with no ulterior motive, and being ready to give any man an answer for your faith.

Five-fold leaders, if you sense God's leading you to build business/ministry through social networking, it can become an awesome tool to reach those outside of your local area in an up close and personal way. Be careful they are not just attaching themselves for namesake. So in other words, they join to make a name for themselves or to ride off the coattail of your name and have no intention of being ministered to. They may even desire to attach to get to "who" belongs to your network. The sole purpose needs to be to spread the fame of Jesus Christ and what He will do through the ministry.

Way #2 - As an add on to ministry

Social networking can be easily turned into an extension of face-to-face ministry. Keep in mind that it does open people up to you 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So, you may choose to have a ministry assistant who can share the load with you and respond in a timely fashion. An ideal person might be your adjutant, armour bearer, intercessor, or church secretary. The key here is assessing where they are spiritually and how they are already ministering and interacting with others within the ministry in a face-to-face capacity. Other points to ponder: How fast do they type? How well do they write? How much of an interest would this be to them? Are they called/handpicked by God to do it? After you prayerfully consider these points, here is an example of how it might work. You could take the day shift (so to speak) and s/he could take the evening to early a.m. shift (so to speak). Be sure to not taint the purity of the ministry by placing yourself in a position where people begin to find a place they can go to for support and then you become unavailable to meet the very need(s) that caused you to create a ministry network to begin with. Building ministry relationships take time, and if you are limited on time, then establish some boundaries and determine the exact hours of availability regardless of who's online.

If you have already established a ministry base locally or abroad, and sense God desires to expand the ministry and limit your time traveling, ministry networking will serve you well as an addition to what God is already doing via face-to-face ministry. Here are some ideas to jumpstart this expansion: You can posts blogs that teach, minister, and promote further discussion and collaboration. You can highlight ministerial, volunteer, and employment opportunities. You can also share photos or videos of ministry engagements to minister to those who God is adding to the ministry. These are all great ways for others to get to know the God in you. What a way to bring everyone and everything to one spot. Nothing does this quite like your ministry network; e-mail doesn't and blogs don't!

Way #3 - To keep in touch with those who you're already ministering to and see what's going on with them

Did you know that studies have shown that most individuals answer social network updates and alerts before they respond to e-mail? So, this is an excellent way to keep in touch with those who you are already ministering to and to see what's going on with them. "Where else are you going to get a view into their lives on a daily basis?" With this platform, you'll be in tune. Let's say you are called to train and equip others in ministry, you can see what upcoming ministry assignments, projects, and traveling engagements are on their radar. Subsequently, you can keep these assignments, projects, and traveling engagements in your prayers as you log in and out of the network. Forging a ministry network can be an excellent way to communicate the same message to everyone at the same time.

If your church has two different services, many of the ministry leaders may be like ships passing in the night and never really interact. In a ministry networking environment, they will be able to see one another's profile information and even special events like birthdays and wedding anniversaries and reach out to another minister who it may take weeks to see in real time. Hence, ministry networking serves as a connecting tool for others in the ministry.

There are many who wouldn't even say the words social networking and ministry in the same sentence. These same individuals are the ones who also never say ministry and marketing in the same sentence. Now, I know there are some who are extremely carnal and obnoxious in how they "get the word out" about ministry endeavors. At the same time, don't lump yourself and everyone else into this category.

The key here is motives. If your motives are truly to minister to the needs of others, then what's all the hesitation about? Ministry in any form is not about you, the minister, anyway. It's always about what God has in mind for His people. I often say this, but it's worth repeating. Stop using ministry to define you. You are not what you do. It's always about being like Jesus because in Him we live, move, and have our being.

The possibilities are endless in terms of utilizing social networking as a way to minister to the needs of others. How about the other ministry relationships and partnerships that might be forged as a result of your willingness to expand via ministry networking? I pray this article has sparked some creative God-thoughts as to how God might be gently nudging you out of the boat or ministry box you may find yourself in. I also pray it has destroyed some UGB's (ungodly beliefs) that keep many of us and others stuck doing same ole, same ole.

Social Networking Resources
Here are just a few to prayerfully consider:

Exclusively Christian

New Faithbook

Shoutlife

Heartbeat

Not Exclusively Christian

Facebook

Ning

Create your own . . . i.e., Ministry Space.com! Yes, you can use it if you desire.

International coach trainer, author, and minister Karen M. Pina has been creatively writing for over 15 years. She is author of the well-received Leadership FITness - Experiencing Fullness in The Temple and Is it the job, the boss, you . . . or are you an entrepreneur?, creator of the One Stop Marketing Program, and founder of Gifts Ordained by Direction and GOD's Coach U, a training and coaching practice. She is the virtuous wife of Stanley Pina, a leadership coach and pastor. They live in Connecticut where they raise two beautiful daughters.

Mine for the gems in your career, relationships, and leadership development by joining the many readers of Gem News. Subscribe now and instantly receive a free audiobook chapter on career fitness.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Karen_M._Pina

How Journalists Use Search & Social Media

2010-06-25T14:32:00.000-07:00

TopRank ran a survey of journalists, reporters and editors on their use of search and social media in 2008. We found 91% use search engines like Google to do their job. 64% use social networks. Published in Jan 2010, a George Washington University and Cision survey of journalists reports 89% use blogs and 65% use social networks to research stories.

As prep for a presentation I’m giving Thursday at Online Marketing Summit on the intersection of SEO, Social Media and PR, I reached out to a few local journalists and industry news contacts and asked for examples of how they used search engines or social media to do story research.

Newsrooms are cutting staff and reporters and editors are hard pressed to do more with less. Tools like search engines and social media make available a tremendous amount of information in real-time. The news world is a world of deadlines and it would seem the use of search and social networks to source experts or people/companies that fit a story angle would be ideal. Even respected news organizations like the BBC are encouraging their journalists to embrace social media.

This kind of insight is very helpful to understand how companies can make their news content more easily discovered via social web participation, content and optimization. Why is that important? According to TV News Reporter Jason DeRusha, “Private business does a horrible job cataloging their expertise in a manner that’s search engine friendly. This is a real opportunity, as journalists become much more crunched for time, and use search as quick way to identify local experts.”

National Public Radio’s Jon Gordon uses search and social in a way that epitomizes the response we received from all types of journalists: “I use search engines on almost every story. I use social networks to find additional sources, as well as for story idea generation and story feedback.”

Here are a few examples of how journalists use search engines and social media tools to connect with story subjects. Not all of them are business situations, but are helpful as feedback on where to spend time creating, optimizing and socializing news content.

I begin every day at search engine. It doesn’t matter what story I’m working on, it always starts with a search. I work on a segment called “Good Question,” so I often type my question directly into Google, and see what comes up. When searching for local experts, I’ll often take the subject matter, tack on the word “Minneapolis” and add the word “expert.”
For example, last week I did a story on whether cursive handwriting was vanishing because of e-mail. I typed “Minneapolis handwriting expert” into Google, and found several local handwriting analysts. Next, I searched for private schools (because public schools are often challenging to get permission to shoot at) and found the school we used for our story.
For my story on whether we get enough Vitamin D in Minnesota, I searched “Vitamin D” “Minneapolis” and “expert.” If a local company showed up very high with their own expertise in those results, I would have called that company.
Jason DeRusha, WCCO (CBS) TV News Reporter

Often times, the use of search engines and social media sites intersect. Here is an example provided in our initial survey:

I was writing a column about the planned partnership between Google and Yahoo. I tracked down potential sources first using Google and LinkedIn, and came across a white paper prepared by a senior fellow at the American Antitrust Institute. While I could not easily find an e-mail address, I went to Facebook where I located him, then sent a message. He replied and we followed up with a phone interview.
Marketing Industry Journalist

In some cases, news publications also run real world events. Example: iMediaConnection has ad:tech, MediaPost has OMMA, Search Engine Watch has Search Engine Strategies. Here’s some great insight from MarketingProfs on how they’ve used social media tools for finding writers, case studies and speakers:

We do use social networks extensively to find key writers or speakers for our events or publications. I also use it to monitor key issues to cover in our newsletters, seminars, research, and so on: Social networks are a great way to take the “pulse” of a topic. What are people talking about? Is this a hot-button issue or not?
For events: Social media is integral to programming the agenda. We always distribute the proposal form for potential speakers via various social channels (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn).
Same for our case study collections: We mine for good stories by asking Twitter/FB/LI. For example, “Who has a good story on social media ROI?”
We always harvest an abundance from this “social Google,” open-ended approach. Once we have harvested leads from those channels, our seminar programmer or writers can follow up via email or DMs, whichever.
LinkedIn is a great place to mine client-side folks. It’s especially valuable for us as we try to include a significant percentage of client-side speakers at our events, and often client-side folks are harder to uncover/book. And obviously, our case studies always feature client-side folks.
We also use Idea Scale to crowdsource topic ideas for our event agenda.
We use Flickr all the time to find creative common graphics for use on the blog (or for the contributed pieces I do for AMEX Open Forum); we use YouTube and Slideshare to see possible speakers or presenters in “action.”
Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs

Some Journalists are more tech and social media savvy than others resulting in some unconventional uses of social channels to create efficiencies in reaching sources:

“One of my key social-media tactics for work is a bit obscure: I autofollow everyone who follows me (using SocialToo). The reason for this: Crucial exchanges for stories occur via DM, which is why I do not want to ever think about whether there is reciprocal DM-ing with this or that person. Once this is set up, I can use Twitter as a sounding board with questions related to stories, get initial responses via public tweeting, then take them into private DM-ing as needed (or switch to e-mail or the phone). With close to 10,000 followers now, this is a system that works well – with parallel sourcing via ProfNet and HARO, which I see as two legs of a tripod. Twitter is the third.”
Julio Ojeda-Zapata, Technology Editor at St. Paul Pioneer Press

Sometimes the information found isn’t what companies or individuals would want a reporter to find:

I routinely track down potential interviews by sending out a Tweet. Most recently, we came across a number of Toyota car owners who fell under the recent recalls. It would have been very difficult to find those people in a short amount of time without this type of technology.
Just today I was feeding and getting information through Twitter on the house explosion in Edina that helped our crews navigate around the situation and get better pictures of the breaking news.
Also, I used YouTube to find video of a man who is being investigated by a Ponzi scheme by the Secret Service. It turns out he had many videos of himself giving sales pitches to potential customers. We used the video on the air where otherwise we would have never known what the man looked like.
We often use Facebook to get photographs of crime suspects and or victims. And police investigators tell me Facebook is one of the first places they check when investigating someone involved in a crime.
Chris O’Connell KSTP (ABC) TV News Anchor/Reporter

Sometimes it’s not your content that gets discovered, but a connection to someone else that leads to being found:

This fall I was working on a feature about ethnic weddings in the Twin Cities, for our Weddings magazine. I was looking for recently married couples of various cultural backgrounds. I posted a query on Facebook to my recently married or engaged friends. Their responses led me to three of the five couples interviewed (via email contacts). After initial email correspondence, I interviewed the couples by phone and in person.
Senior Editor, Mpls.St.Paul magazine

I think this quote from Chris O ‘Connell sums it up nicely: “social networking has changed the way we do business and how we are able to get news and sources faster when deadlines matter.”

We’ll be conducting a new survey on Journalist Use of Search soon and will be posting more detailed data on how stories are sourced, tools used, preferences of types of information and more.

If you are attending #OMS10 be sure to check out our session on Social Media, Search and Public Relations at 3:15. It will be a very informative and engaging set of presentations from: David “dk” Klein, Dana Todd, Rand Fishkin, myself and moderator duties handled by Sally Falkow.

Does your company incorporate news optimization as part of your online marketing and content strategy? Do you optimize and promote news content differently than marketing content? Do you track whether the media finds your content via search or social media?

Social Media Tips for Beginners

2010-06-25T08:03:00.000-07:00

Plunging into social media for the first time can be a bit daunting for individuals or businesses. There is a learning curve when it comes to becoming more social online, and it can take a while to learn what works and what doesn’t. Here are a few of the best Do’s and Don’ts that can save you time and help grow your social media authority more quickly.

1. Start small

You’ll want to start small and try a couple services out at a time. Oftentimes newbies sign up for every social network under the sun and try to grow each of them. Guess how long they last? Building profiles for multiple social sites is hard work, so it’s best to start by only tackling a couple at first.

Once you find the right ones for you or your brand, then start to narrow your focus on those. Eventually you may want to scale your social media strategy to include more services, but you have to crawl before you can walk.

Start small, and then grow to other social networks as your confidence grows. Success breeds success.

2. Get a widget

Put a widget up on your site for your social networks. The best place to find followers is your own blog or site. Also, it’s much easier to get your readers and friends to vote or retweet your content than strangers. Adding a widget next to your content can help.

Facebook has a widget generator you can use, and the Tweetmeme badge is easy to add to your site as well.

3. Frequently test your buttons and widgets

Start testing which social media profiles have the most impact, then drop the rest. For example, if your site does really well with Facebook shares but hardly ever gets voted on Digg, then drop the Digg vote button.

Oftentimes you’ll see sites littered with tons of widgets and buttons. Having a gazillion widgets at the end of each article only creates noise and annoys the reader. Figure out which buttons are getting clicked, and drop the buttons that don’t convert. Ideally you’ll only have two or three widgets on each page.

You can tell which buttons are effective by using Google Analytics and goals to see who’s clicking what. You can also use A/B to see which types of buttons are getting more clicks.

4. Don’t annoy your followers

Sounds like common sense, right? Unfortunately, lots of companies that are just starting out with social media think the best way to “promote” their brand is to publish coupons, offers, news, and anything else related to their business.

Rule of thumb: if it’s something you personally wouldn’t like to receive, avoid it.

Your social media goal is to be helpful first. People follow and respect brands that are helpful, not self-promoting shills. Give first, then ask.

Try posting useful links to industry articles, answer questions, and engage. The followers, engagement, and ultimately sales will come if you’re helpful first.

5. Don’t fret about follower counts

Don’t believe all the spammy ebooks out there that sell you the notion that you can attract thousands of followers in a matter of days. Sure, you could do that and it’s not hard. But the types of followers who are going to be following you are mostly bots. Or they’re just following you in hopes that you’ll follow them back. Ultimately, they aren’t followers who would engage with you.

You want social media followers that are going to listen and interact with you, and 10 of those followers is worth more than a thousand bots.

It takes a while to organically build up a great social profile. Focus on building great content and being helpful, and the followers will come.

6. See what the pros are doing

Everyone has a different strategy when it comes to social media, and sometimes it’s best to take a look at people who are real social media experts. Lee Odden is a good example of someone using Twitter and Facebook to help people, which in turn grows his social media influence.

There are plenty of fantastic examples of people who truly understand how to interact and build powerful social media profiles the right way. Check out sites like WeFollow to find influential Twitter users within your niche.

7. Don’t overlook niche social media sites

When people think of social media, they typically think of Twitter or Facebook. But there are literally hundreds (maybe thousands?) of social media networks and sites that you can use to help promote your brand. Jut because a network isn’t huge doesn’t mean it’s not going to impact your social media strategy. Oftentimes targeted niche social sites can bring more targeted traffic to your site than larger sites.

If you’re smart, you can use smaller social networks to help promote your site on other bigger social networks. For example, I’ve written posts on web development that have made it to the front page of Dzone, a social media site for web development. Once the article made it to the front page of Dzone, the attention brought a lot of saves onDelicious, and subsequently made it to the Delicious front page. The delicious front page brought even more traffic, and those Delicious users voted the story up to the Digg front page. So, by simply submitting my site on a smaller niche news site with a great headline, I managed to make it to the coveted homepages of both Digg and Delicious.

Niche social news sites can be very powerful, and oftentimes much easier to become influential in than the larger sites. Here’s a list of social news sites organized by category.

8. Find people within your niche to follow on Twitter

The ideal follower on Twitter is one that has similar interests within your niche. You can find like-minded people to follow on Twitter through these directories and odds are many will follow you back.

Once you’ve started following these people, start interacting with them. Participate in discussions, and retweet things they say that would be helpful to your community.

Not only will this method help build your follower counts, it also gives you more influence within your niche. You’ll find great friends that will help you promote your content and site too. Always remember to give first and ask later.

9. Stay Humble

Social media beginners often try to quickly establish themselves as “experts” within their field, but they have nothing to back it up. (For example, search for “social media experts” on Twitter. You’ll find many with only a handful of followers. Shouldn’t an “expert” have more?)

As with anything in life, nobody likes a know-it-all. Be humble. Ask questions. Teach, but don’t preach. Let others do the hyping for you. And they will if you’re helpful and humble.

Originally written by: http://www.toprankblog.com/author/Glen/

How I Increased Traffic to My Blog with These Easy Tips from Google

2010-06-23T09:46:00.000-07:00

When you’re optimizing your site for Google and other search engines, images may not be everything, but you shouldn’t overlook them. According to Google, you can use Google Image Labeler and other tools “to associate the images included in your site with labels that will improve indexing and search quality of those images.”

To opt in to enhanced image search:

1. Sign into Google Webmaster Tools with your Google Account.

2. Click the URL for the site you want.

3. Click Tools, and then click Enable enhanced image search.

Image search is less competitive than keyword search if, for no other reason, fewer sites bother to make sure their images comply with HTML standards. There’s a very good chance you’ll see a jump in traffic, or at least I did.

To be compliant, your images should include:

Alt attribute that describes what the image is

Title attribute that appears when you mouse over the image

Height and width of the image

URL where the image resides

Google in its Webmaster Help Center says descriptive alt and title tags are the most important.

Use Google Analytics to find out what percent of your traffic comes from image search and keep an eye on that figure over several weeks. You might be surprised by the results.

What makes a good Facebook fanpage?

2010-06-23T09:40:00.000-07:00

Over the last year, and especially the last few months,Facebook fan pages have quickly risen in noteriety. The launch of the new Facebook a few months ago shot fan pages into the spotlight as it allowed fan pages to be more customizable.

Fan pages also became more like profile pages, in that status updates now appear in feeds. Over the last month, fan pages have gotten even more publicity, as Facebook announced that administrators could create vanity urls for their fan pages. All of this begs the question: What makes a good Facebook fan page?

One of the most important things to make a good Facebook fan page is to make it pop. This requires more work, but it pays off as users want a page that’s going to jump out at them. Many fan pages fail simply because they don’t grab the user. All successful fan pages have at least some html or flash that is graphically appealing to users.

Another idea for creating a good Facebook fan page is to offer incentives or specials. Make your fan page a resource for people and they will return again and again. If you’re a small restaurant, you might post weekly coupons or specials. If you’re a service provider, you might use the fan page to answer questions from your fans or offer discounted services one day per week. You have to find what’s most relevant to draw people to your fan page, and then ultimately to your business or website.

Similar to incentives, another way to build an interactive Facebook fan page would be to run contests or giveaways for fans. Contests are great for fan pages because they build a loyal audience and makes your fans feel like a VIP. With the economy how it is, everyone is looking for all kinds of giveaways and contests. Think about partnering with another brand or Facebook page to give a prize away and encourage your fans to “cross-over.”

Fourth, leverage all your resources. Odds are that many of your customers and friends may be using Facebook and not even know that you have a fan page. Use your website, email, instant messaging, printed material and other social networking sites to drive people to your fan page.

Lastly, give fans the opportunity to connect, interact and have fun with the fan page and your brand. Many fan pages fail and lose fans because there’s no interaction with fans and no reason for fans to come back daily. Most people check their Facebook several times a day, but how often do they check for updates to your fan page? It doesn’t have to be something complex, but just a way to get people to interact and participate, because ultimately, the power comes when it’s not you, but other users who help spread and promote your fan page virally.

Five free ways to promote your blog

2010-06-23T09:33:00.000-07:00

It’s no secret that the ailing economy has hit everyone, even us bloggers who depend so heavily on Google Adsense and page impressions. It’s become increasingly harder to grow and maintain those high page views, while also competing with other bloggers in your niche.

As a blogger you don’t want to pay a high rate to advertise your blog and risk not getting a return on your investment; nor do you want to do an adwords campaign. You want quick, easy andfree ideas for marketing your blog.

Lucky you! Here are five free ways to promote your blog.

1. Social Networking. In the web 2.0 times we currently live in, this may seem like a dead giveaway, yet many bloggers don’t take full advantage of it. Make sure you use the social networks and take advantage of the sites that are most advantageous to you. Create aFacebook fan page, develop a fan base on Twitter and promote your blog on these social outlets.

2. Article Submission. Similar to social networking, article submission is another way to get your blog in front of more eyes. Stumbleupon appears to be the best place for submitting blog posts, but other good submission sites include Digg, Sphinn and Mixx. This also has SEO value by building links.

3. Guest and sponsored posting. This can have a couple different benefits for your blog. By having guests posts, the guest often promotes their posts, and therefore your blog, through their different networks. Depending on the authority and size of your blog, you can often charge a rate for sponsored posts.

4. Optimize your content. You should check your search engine rankings every few weeks to see where you stand and continually look at ways you can rank higher by including new keywords and stregthening your current keywords.

5. Participate in blog carnivals. You can often participate in at least one blog carnival on a monthly, if not a weekly basis. These offer dual purposes, as they build links and promote your blog.

Godpod Video

2010-06-23T09:21:00.001-07:00

Elev8 Web Design has a new look

2010-06-18T13:16:00.001-07:00

6/18/2010

We are happy to launch our new website.

Check out our new online portfolio featuring website designs, Graphic Design samples, Photography, Video section and our personal artworks.

We look forward to the future elevating Baltimore local business and ministries.

For more information visit us at www.elev8webdesign.com