I always wanted to work with charities and non-government organizations; I find their sincere dedication to causes they’re passionate about an inspiration. Last year I had the opportunity to pursue this interest and flew to Hanoi, Vietnam to work for an NGO (Non-Government Organization) called “Center for Development of Community and Children.” This experience made me realize locating funding and raising awareness is hair pullingly tedious, exhausting, and beyond frustrating. To get any funding from governments or private sponsors was painstakingly time consuming and rather impersonal. Of the several projects I was working on, my primary donation hunting efforts were for building a school in the rural area of Dien Bien, North Western Vietnam.  All of the funding applications I spent hours filling out consisted of budgets and past organization reputation.  Understandably, these are important but I never felt like the reality of the project was communicated to the reader which was how badly these tykes wanted to learn how to read and get a basic education.

When I started working in online marketing, I realized quickly, these barriers I’d faced didn’t need to exist.  An online presence is so powerful for charities. It makes them visible, allows them to engage with their donors, and acquire donations faster than if they were to wait for government assistance.  Below, I’ve put together 5 tips I’ve found to be most significant when a charity is trying to build a presence online. Read more…

I have been with StepForth Web Marketing for just over two months now working as the Sales and Marketing Assistant. I had just graduated from university and thought I knew a thing or two about Marketing. Little did I know the Marketing being communicated in university classes was really more of a “History of Marketing.” What was taught was interesting: concepts, theories, ideas and maybe it’s great to learn how things were but if you don’t understand how things are then what use is it to you? It’s like taking lessons on how to use a DOS program or program a VCR. You know how to do what used to be relevant. Staying with the times is difficult in this day and age. Especially because what people did yesterday is SOOOO yesterday. How are you supposed to know what bandwagons to jump on? Read more…

Every day simpletons who think they are very clever visit our web site marketing blog and post completely useless, and often amusing comments. Their goal is to get links back to their website (or their clients) by making the post look personalized and legitimate. Sadly, they are almost always painfully daft, nonsensical, grammatically retarded posts. What is even worse is if they had half a clue they would have discovered our blog comment area blocks all outgoing links; thus they are wasting their time to start with. Anyway, over the past year I thought it would be fun to collect some of the best postings before I nuked them from our database and here is a selection of the 10 best.

WARNING: Reading this article may cause impairment of mental ability!

StepForth’s “Top 10 Most Rediculous Spam Comments Received” may be associated with fatigue, dizziness, lightheadedness, fainting or blurred vision. Please exercise caution or avoid operating machinery, including automobiles, following the visual digestion of this article.
>> Minor List of Side Effects

# 1. I wish I remembered which article this was sourced from. Whatever it was, it clearly had relevance.

“Blog looks really good mate, keep it up! I keep shedding the pounds thanks to information like this and my studies on resveratrol.”

Read more…

If you have any connection to the online marketing space then you know MySpace has been on the way out for a couple of years now. Well, apparently the situation is far worse than popularly known! The following graphic is from the Silicon Alley Insider shows how the once mighty Facebook competitor has crumbled:

The Rise and Fall of MySpace in the News

Here is a list of articles depicting MySpace’s rise as the sweetheart of social media to where it is now; it actually starts in 2003 but I thought some peeks at the former MySpace occupants starting in 1997 would be good for a smile or two. I have to say this social property has sure had its ups and downs!

1997 (yes, really!)

January 17th, 2007: Courtesy of Web.Archive.org, here is possibly the original owner of MySpace.com… sexy site!!

2000

May 10th, 2000: The online storage company, MySpace.com

2001

June 7th, 2001: “In Web Storage World, No Space at Myspace”

ON Sunday at 8 p.m., Myspace .com disappeared. Typing in its Web address yields only an error message.

Since more and more commercial Web sites have the life span of fruit flies, that would not usually be news. But when Myspace.com, an online storage locker, bolted its virtual doors, it also deleted an untold number of files stashed there free by its registered users, which the company says numbered 7.5 million as of last week. (read on)

2003

August 31, 2003: The MySpace phenomenon began… this is the earliest image of the MySpace launch.

2005

July 19th, 2005: “News Corp.’s Place in MySpace”

In less than two years, MySpace has emerged as one of the hottest sites on the Web. It has more page views than Google (GOOG ). And with 22 million members, and a growth rate of 2 million a month, it stands to rival MSN (MSFT ), Yahoo! (YHOO ) and AOL (TWX ) as one of the major destinations on the Web.

Read more…

Tonight join StepForth’s CEO and SEO Specialist, Ross Dunn as he discusses the best ways to merge social media with search engine optimization for best effect. Ross is only one of the speakers – read on for the official advertisement for this event to raise money for the BC Cancer Foundation.

7-9 pm, February 22nd – purchase tickets here.

How much would it be worth to you or your business if you could be known as “the best” in your industry?

Everyone has something that they are “the best” at and with Social Media it’s easier than ever before to Read more…

Here is a powerful video on YouTube which shows the blinding growth of social media and it states, without a doubt, social media is here to stay while providing glimpses of the future where social media will dictate everything we see online:

Link to original video

Some great takeaway stats: Read more…

In the course of my day at StepForth I come across a ton of interesting stuff which I Tweet, Facebook, Stumble etc. on a regular basis. That said, the following are two pieces of media which I simply could not pass up sharing with you.

#1: Video: “A Life on Facebook”

This video was created by Maxime Léure and it is so brilliant I think it deserves Emmy consideration. What do you think?

Here is a direct link to “A Life on Facebook” Read more…

Tune in to Monday the 16th of August’s episode of SEO 101 on WebmasterRadio.FM where I (Ross Dunn) and my co-host John Carcutt interview Jon Henshaw and Taylor Pratt of Raven Internet Marketing Tools (affiliate link – this article is, however, a legit preliminary review).

In short, Raven Tools can help you with the following:

Website analytics, managing link building campaigns and tracking their success, search engine optimization, social media reputation and campaign tracking, keyword research, and… see more farther on as I outlined the list of features.

The August 16th show will delve into some of the unique (and very cool) reporting options and tracking functionality that Raven has integrated over the years. From discussing how Raven IM Tools has uniquely layered link building reports and ranking reports over top of your overall site analytics (powerful combination!) to learning more about their integration of bit.ly, social mention and other popular metrics providers, this show is well worth a listen. That said, here is a little more about the show and my experience with Raven Tools since we recorded the program. Read more…

It’s taken a little while but Twitter has jumped on the bandwagon and launched an official “tweet” button for your social icon set. Twitter made the announcement yesterday on their official blog. While this is not the first “tweet” button made available, it is the first official button put out by Twitter directly. Read more…

Becoming a sensation on YouTube is a lot of work but it is a passion for many and the how-to’s are plentiful in that open community. Today, however, I came across a series of videos that are incredibly inspiring and do a great job of showing how truly achievable it is to become a YouTube sensation. If you want to see what it takes for an everyday person to go from a YouTube noobie to superstar then read on! Read more…