From the desk (and BlackBerry) of Keith Parnell

Are you wondering aloud where I’m going with that title? I know, this could go in a thousand different directions.

Truth is, the title is about ‘titles that catch your attention’. Specifically, blog article titles that catch your attention. In the wonderful world of inbound marketing, strategically crafted titles are invaluable for SEO (search engine optimization), which leads to great organic search results, which leads to website / blog traffic, which leads to (we hope) lead generation from your efforts.

While scanning the RSS feeds in my Google Reader this morning, I ran across an article that Chris wrote titled, “How Do You Stack Up“. He wrote about just this topic. He wondered how his blog article titles stacked up against the world for attraction by scanning eyeballs. Chris’ list of most recent titles are below -

• The Location Game – Over on OPENForum
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 Review
• How Social Media Can Power Your Business – Kitchen Table Talks
• Points of Contact
• The Social Media Pie – over on OPEN Forum
• How I Use Mindmapping to Write
• Cubicle Farming
• New Job New You – a Book Review
• The Writing Practice
• Switch- A Book Review
• The Beginning – Kitchen Table Talks
• How NOT to Help Haiti
• How Systems Thwart Service
• Your Farmer List
• Living In Google Wave
• What is Your Pop-Up Store
• Get Seen- Do It Now
• Represented by the APB Speaker’s Bureau
• More Fun Than Competition
• Business Stripped Bare – Book Review
• Do One Thing Very Well
• How Heartfelt Marketing Delivers
• The Future Is Evidently Blurry
• A Customer Aware World
• Experiment- 30 Days of Bing
• Deepen Your Networks
• New Sponsor – Search Engine Strategies NYC
• Are You Ready for Fun

What do you think? Did his blog article titles catch your eye?

Well, now I need to go look at my last few blog article titles. I wonder how mine stack up?

• February Schedule for Coffee with the CEO #cwtc
• Weather in Hampton Roads is so jacked!
• Our kids are connected - Are you?
• God will give Wisdom, just ask
• February IMG Session : Blogging for Business : You’re invited!
• I’ll help, we’ll do it together.
• Blogging gives you a Rockstar Voice. Use it!
• Top 10 Posts of 2009
• Social Media for Business comes to Norfolk
• Local #hrva Live Jams at Starbucks
• Agency’s Pitch requires the Right Brain and Left Brain
• Testing of Your Faith Develops Perseverance
• This is what I’m doing to you -
• NPR says the Phonebook’s Days are Numbered. Do you?
• What the heck is Inbound Marketing?
• Late Night Chillin
• Join Me at @gbvabeach at Town Center
• Can you remember Doody Calls?
• Prank Phone Call - Dublin School Demolition - Hilarious video!
• Why blogging will (still) change the world
• Twitter Updates for 2010-01-14

Hmm, I think I need work. Some are ideal for SEO. Some are ideal for eye-catching. But I need to get better. What about you? Do you stack up? Could you do better with your blog article titles?

Photo credit: Sister72

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On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to Luck Be a Lady by Frank Sinatra.

I get this question quite a bit. What is inbound marketing and why should I care?

Simply, inbound marketing is the opposite of outbound marketing. Remember the old days of setting up outbound call centers (telemarketing), creating television and radio commercials, and pushing out email blasts to get your word out? Well, that inefficient and expensive method of advertising and marketing is no longer a necessity.

Think smart website design and development.
Think online call-to-actions.
Think strategic blog content.
Think SEO (search engine optimization).
Think social media marketing.
Think audio and video marketing.
Think efficient online lead generation.

All of these strategies and methods are important pieces of the concept, inbound marketing.

What inbound marketing methods most interest you? What larger internet marketing methods do you already have in place?

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On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to Blame It On Me by Barenaked Ladies.

I will be speaking on Wednesday (10/28/2009)  next week in Chesapeake (VA) for the team at Real Estate-XChange. Real Estate-XChange is an exciting company that is just beginning their ventures into the social media marketing world.

During the presentation, Social Media Business Strategies, we will discuss social media as part of an online marketing plan falling under the umbrella of a comprehensive marketing plan for the real estate industry, and our (JASE) experiences in using social media initiatives with our clients.

Other points of interest that will be covered are blogging for business, inbound marketing, internet marketing, lead generation, online marketing, search engine marketing and SEO.

2009 Oct 28: Social Media Business Strategies

Location:
The Real Estate-XChange
517 Baylor Court
Chesapeake, VA 23320

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Sascha (saschaeh in Cre8asite Forums) has written a very in-depth article on guidelines for following the SEO process. Here are a couple of excerpts but head over and read the ~~ Starting The Seo Process ~~, An SEO Forward article in full for yourself. You’ll be glad you did.

SEO is marketing and what is marketing without direction. Very often strategic planning and execution are synonymous with each other as we will see later in this post. There are couple variables which will have influence on how we go about finding direction for SEO. The mix of those different variables will have an effect on the depth of planning and style of execution.

5 considerations before strategy and execution:
1. Are you working on an existing site?
2. Will it be a new site?
3. What is the budget? (not always immediately available but try sus it out best you can)
4. How competitive is the arena you are entering?
5. What is the size of the company you are dealing with?

Overall Business Objectives:
1. What are the business objectives?
2. What marketing strategies do you currently have in place?
2.1 How does the online aspect of it fit into your current marketing strategy?
3. What are your core products or services?
4. Who are the different audiences that the site can appeal to, and provide goods or services or information for?
5. What are your primary & secondary key phrases?
6. How do you currently measure performance?
7. How might conversions be defined for the site? Purchases? Leads generated? Newsletter or service subscriptions? Downloading of specific whitepapers or pages or software?

Online Marketing Objectives and Considerations:
1. General, Short term and Long term goals for SEO.
2. Who do you consider to be your competitors?
3. Do you already have an “image” or “brand” in place that can be pushed.
4. Any specific ideas about the type of marking you want to do? (viral, advertising etc.)
5. What skills do you currently already have available in terms of web development?
5.1 If yes; What is the development or change process like, when you want to make changes, including the time that it typically takes to make changes?
6. Have there been any SEO efforts recently or in the past?
7. How are you driving traffic to your site now?
8. Are you willing to change varies elements on your website? (Content, Structure, technologies, etc)
9. Are there any design, infrastructure or development considerations?
10. Are you equipped to handle an increase in business?
11. Whats the budget either monthly or total?

New Media Conventions

Agenda

New Media Conventions

Agenda

Do you social media? Even more important, do you let people know that you social media?

FRONT:

BACK:

Keith Parnell
Founder & CEO
JASE Group, LLC dba JASE Group Marketing & Advertising
http://www.jasegroup.com
(757) 715-4595
keith.parnell@jasegroup.com

Google: Keith Parnell

My Social Media Life:
* http://jasezone.keithparnell.com
* http://twitter.keithparnell.com
* http://linkedin.keithparnell.com
* http://facebook.keithparnell.com

Our team has setup our new Facebook Page.

Join us: http://www.facebook.com/pages/JASE-Group/75656084112

Become a fan on our JASE Facebook Page and get inside (early) information on JASE’s free conference videos, slideshows, seminars, webinars, videocasts, podcasts, white papers, and more.

Marketing, Advertising & Technology Resources

Conferences / Seminars

Social media marketing presentations from various conferences and seminars.

Videocasts

Short video sessions hot issues such as social networking, blogging, search engine optimization and online advertising.

Podcasts

On-the-go podcasts discussing software, lead generation, Twitter, JASEzone, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Webinars

Marketing, advertising and technology webinars on a variety of topics including inbound marketing, blogging and network security.

Whitepapers

Internet marketing whitepapers on strategies and results-driven tactics.