A new white paper from InterlinkOne’s Chief Big Guy, John Foley aims to take the mystery out of QR Codes. This brief, easy read explains just what QR codes are, how they work, and most importantly, how you can use them to grow your business.

QR codes have been around for quite awhile but have had little popular application until now. The lag in usability has been the need for popular application technology to catch up with the raw technology itself. In simple terms, now that 25% of the population carries a smart-phone that can capture the QR Code image, we can begin to seriously utilize the “bar-code on steroids” technology.

QR Codes are yet another tool the small business owner can utilize to gain market share.  Use them to capture yet another segment of the market doing something just a little different. Download the paper right here, have a good read and impress your friends.

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Dallas, TX – What is Social Media?

My answer? Social Media is that group of technology tools that allows anyone with a computer and internet access to participate in, and develop online communities of people with common interests. What you do with that opportunity determines everything about the outcome.

Here’s a solid collection of additional answers to the same question. Feel free to add a comment here with your own definition.

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Dallas, TX – Your business needs a blog. It’s the hub of your social network marketing efforts so here’s a simple outline of what to do to begin:

1. Use WordPress and host it on your own server. Most web hosting companies now offer WordPress through their control panels and it will automatically install for you. Do it this way and you own/control your content. Use Blogger or any of the other options that you have little control over and you don’t own your own content. That means that if those companies disappear overnite (don’t tell me Google and others don’t change their minds and do things without telling us!) your blog is gone and with it goes your content. It happens.
2. Darren Rowse at ProBlogger.net is an incredible resource for beginners-pro’s.
3. LIVE in the WordPress forums. You’ll get more help out of there than anywhere else.
4. KISS in the beginning. Learn the basics before you add the elaborate stuff.
5. Identify 3 blogging gurus (“how-to blog” gurus) subscribe to their rss feeds and read everything they write, everyday.
6. Just do something. Write something. Post it. Show it to someone. Fix it. Do it better next time. Just begin.

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Dallas, TX – Building your perfect website is a lot like building a house. You need a good set of plans or you’re going to end up with a dysfunctional collection of materials that costs about the same as the house done right, but it’s unfit for anything practical. You need a set of plans.

When building a website there are a number of activities utilized to “draw those blueprints”, one of which is creating your personas.

You create a persona much like the FBI might profile someone, and for similar reasons! Every aspect of their life, their personality, emotions, social interactions, demographics, psychographics and online behavioral tendencies are taken into account in order to develop “scent trails” and improve conversion rates.

Your website visitors move around your website much like people might hunt for an animal. They typically begin at a central point and fan out from there. As long as the scent trail remains evident the hunter proceeds down the path. But if that scent is ever lost the first thing the hunter and his dogs will do is back-track the path towards the original point of origin, until the scent is recovered, then attempt to follow it even if it leads off in another direction.

We do something very similar in the constrction of your website. From the developed personas we take our clues as to what your targeted personalities will respond to and incorporate that in an overall site map–a wireframe as they’re called and in the various content elements. The goal is to lead the visitor from his original landing point to the conversion event in as few steps as possible, making it as simple as possible for him to follow the scent trail.

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Dallas, TX – What Are Directories? “Directory” is the formal term for a folder.  The manilla folder on your desk holds files, or papers. That’s a real-world example of a directory and it’s file contents. Directories can have different purposes just like manilla folders can be assigned different functions but there are no native differences in the directory, or folder, itself.

If you were to log in to the back-end, the administrative portion, of your web site you would see a list of folders. Your resident geek will call those folders directories, just understand that that’s simply two terms for the same thing. If you want to be clear to other non-propeller-heads, say folder. When speaking to a member of Geekdom, say directory.

If you pay attention to the online world at all you’ve heard about directories that you should submit to, or belong to, etc. What’s that all about?

All of the files associated with a single website are ultimately housed in one, unique, directory. So the internet is made up of a jillion directories, each of which you know as a website. Got it?

Different Kinds of Directories (Small “d”)

Not all of those websites have the same function. Some are for selling things, some are for customer service purposes, some are purely informational, etc.  These are the websites you’re used to “Googling” for.

Some of those websites are built to act specifically as huge repositories for links, some for content. Their main goal is to gather large quantities of data via content or link submissions and become extremely popular with the search engines. If they can accomplish that then they will have a solid Page Rank with Google

and other search engines. As a result they’ll show well in the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages). Now they have something that the public will want! If Google likes them and their content shows up well in user searches, wouldn’t you as a business owner want to be listed in their Directory so that when people search for what you do, you can benefit from their good standing (think hi Page Rank (PR)) with Google? Of course you would.

So a directory is a folder which houses either all of the files necessary for a traditional website, or a folder which houses specialized information about a topic (see next section of this post) with a twist on the normal website objectives.

Different Kinds of Directories (Capital “D”)

For simplicity’s sake let’s say there are two different, major types of Directories: Link Directories and Content Directories. What’s the difference?

A Link Directory is a website that specializes in collecting links, or website addresses if that makes things more clear. Typically these links are grouped into categories to make them easier to find, just like your local library does to make it simpler to find things. All the books on History are in the same area, separated from the rest and further sub-divided within even that singular category (think World History, American History, European History, History of Texas, etc). Sounds kind of like Yahoo! doesn’t it? That’s because that’s exactly what Yahoo! is; a Directory. Technically, Yahoo! is not a search engine it’s a Link Directory although you can search through a Link Directory to find things.

Where do the links come from? Usually a website owner will “submit” his website address to a link directory requesting that his website address (his link) be added to the directory. Link submission can be done manually or can be automated with specialized software. Approval is usually done by a live human in charge of reviewing the directory’s submissions (the best way) but this function can also be automated. Point here is that a website owner has to be proactive in submitting his website (link) to these directories.

A content directory focuses on collecting information about a topic, or topics, far beyond a simple link. Wikipedia is an example of a Content Directory on steroids. A visitor will find a large volume of material on thousands of topics. Wikipedia bills itself as an online encyclopedia (more a marketing tactic than anything that has to do with anything technical about the site itself). Content Directories historically have finished content submitted to them by anyone who wants to submit something, content which is subsequently review and approved or declined. Wikipedia’s contributors actually write the stuff, add to content that’s already there, edit each others’ material, etc in an ongoing flurry of orgyastic penmanship. Special presentation of material or unusual submission tactics aside, a content directory is simply a directory (folder) full of well-organized content that’s been submitted by people just like you.

Different Purposes For Directories

Much like there are many different purposes for the millions of websites that exist, there are many different objectives for the thousands of directories out there.  Let’s look at just three.

Link Directories

As mentioned above, link directories collect links! Addresses of as many websites offering relevant, helpful content as possible. Why bother? Because once the directory has achieved it’s Page Rank and bragging rights the profit motive can be cultivated. A high PR means the directory has a lot of traffic looking for links to good quality sites. A lot of traffic means the directory owner can charge for submission to his directory because there’s a demand for his product now. He can also monetize his sight through programs like Google’s AdSense. That would be those ads that show up on the sides, tops, bottom, and in the middle of content. If you click on those ads the site owner, the directory owner, is paid for that click. Traffic equals money and link directory owners amass good quality links to accomplish that traffic.

Article Directories

Links to your website are a good way to build credibility and PR with search engines. Article Directories are a good tactic to use to accomplish that. But first, an article directory is simply a directory that amasses a large volume of articles on a variety of topics (or a single topic if the directory is a specialized directory) written by hundreds of authors and submitted for various reasons. Once the directory is well-recognized by the search engines, traffic is good and the monetization can begin. Sound familiar? Is good to be in America!

But why would people write articles and submit them to an article directory? Links. Each article will contain links in the body of the article, to supporting website content but more importantly there will be a paragraph at the bottom of the article called the Resource Box that will contain the author’s name and…drumroll please….a coveted link back to the author’s own website. Pure gold. Submit an article to an article directory with a good PR and you have a solid link FROM a quality website, at least in the eyes of Google-dom. Do that 5 times and you have 5 solid links. Do it across a spectrum of different, well-thought-of article directories and Google will begin to love you, too.

Local Directories

Again, a Local Directory is still just a folder with files in it. The specialized purpose for their existence is to highlight local business and offer higher placement in the SERPS than the average website is able to garner on it’s own merits.

Huh?

Your website sucks in comparison to how well the local directory will rank in a search. You’ll place better in the searches if your site is listed in the local directories than will your site alone. Most of the time.

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