There are so many invaluable charities doing amazing work but needing help either with finding volunteers, funding, publicity, and overall visibility. With tight budgets, traditional marketing is becoming more and more difficult. However, creating a presence online can cost nothing more than time, and if you have the right online tools and education it makes things a whole lot easier.

This past April, StepForth’s CEO, Ross Dunn, traveled across BC with Sociability’s Terri Davies and Accent Inn’s John Espley to present to charities and non-profits about improving their visibility online; this is Ross’s second year as a featured speaker on this charity road tour. This event, called “Charity in Changing Times,” was sponsored by Accent Inns “InnAid” initiative designed to educate charities on marketing themselves through social platforms.

This event covered:

• Tips to improve your website
• How to set up a Facebook and Twitter account
• Social media etiquette and strategies
• Tools for tracking and monitoring your online activity
• Successful case studies of charities implementing social media campaigns

Read more about StepForth's initiatives for charities.

Learn how to create a list of links that are benefiting your competitors so you can obtain them as well. This competitor analysis tutorial focuses on the incoming links portion of offsite SEO competitor analysis. Taught by search engine optimization (SEO) industry veteran Ross Dunn (of WebmasterRadio.FM’s SEO 101 Radio Show) this tutorial will provide you with the tools and tactics you need to improve your competitiveness in search engine rankings.

Elements of this analysis include: how to find your competitors backlinks, how to determine why your competitor is succeeding online (from an offsite perspective), how to check if your competitor is spamming Google, how to beat whois privacy protection (legally), how to conduct a link popularity analysis, and much more.
... watch the link building competitor analysis video

With the recent addition of new staff and larger contracts, my position has evolved to take on the official role of Project Manager/Facilitator.  Up until recently, I defined Project Management as inputting data into BaseCamp (a web-based project management and collaboration tool), informing staff of receipt of contract, ensuring the project had begun and noting approximate end dates. During our weekly staff meetings, I was regularly updated as to the progression of the current projects.

With larger contracts now coming in, it means outsourcing some of the work to qualified project-based contractors, performing quality management with both in-house staff and the contractors.  Read more on Project Management

In parts 1 & 2 I have already discussed much of the onsite SEO factors, as well as some off site stuff such as inbound links and algorithmic updates. Here are some factors that are only slightly contributing today, but show a very strong probability of being major aspects tomorrow. If Google rankings are important to you, these are a few items you will want to consider seriously. Continue Reading on How to Optimize for Google

In Part one of How To Optimize for Google, I discussed some of the fundamental on-site SEO aspects and how they have changed over the past few years. This article focuses on a few algorithmic updates as well as some updates in the inbound link landscape. Continue Reading on How to Optimize for Google

I got your attention with that title didn’t I!? No, it isn’t actually a book I wrote… I wish! That said, it is a great book I just bought from Marketing Sherpa and I am really looking forward to reading it.

Although I have been practicing web marketing for 14 years I have absolutely no illusions that I know everything (far from it). As a result, I read content from my web marketing peers as often as I can and I try to pick up Marketing Sherpa handbooks and guides occasionally to see what marketing strategies I may be missing; Marketing Sherpa truly rocks!

It is on that note I thought I would share this great deal on the 2011 B2B Marketing Advanced Practices Handbook by Marketing Sherpa (a mouthful indeed!). The book will be released on March 1st but it is available right now for preorder at a significant $100 discount (down to $247 in digital format) which I couldn’t ignore. So, if you are like me and like to keep up on the best of the best techniques check it out!

Full disclosure: I am trying to cut my costs even more by advertising this with my affiliate code but can you blame me!?

Keep in mind they guarantee your satisfaction for this purchase 100% and I can’t imagine you not being happy with it – I have never returned one!

Here is what the 2011 B2B Marketing Advanced Practices Handbook by Marketing Sherpa includes: ... more about the 2011 B2B Marketing Handbook

Most savvy site owners have either Google Analytics or some other advanced tracking solution installed on their sites. Google Analytics offers extensive data about your visitors behavior for free which helps explain its immense popularity.

One feature of Google Analytics that is often over looked is Event Tracking. Event Tracking allows webmasters to easily track things such as file downloads, the clicking of external links and video views. Things that was once difficult to track. While the setup can be a bit confusing, viewing the data within Google Analytics couldn’t be easier. Read on to learn how to track Outbound Links using Google Analytics Event Tracking

For most sites, increasing your inbound link counts is important. But one aspect of link building that is often overlooked is not actually link building, it is making the most of the links you already have.

Have you ever stepped back and taken a look at your links? Often times when we do site audits we find opportunities to significantly improve the value of links that are already in place. Improving the quality of your existing links usually takes some time, but not usually much money. Continue Reading how to Improve your Current Link Value

Anyone who has seen one of my presentations knows that I am a die-hard MindJet Mindmanager user… in fact, I favour it over PowerPoint by far.

Some of my audiences have even requested more information on the product I use. Well, today, something special showed up in my mailbox… a 25% discount on all purchases at MindJet from November 29th to December 3rd, 2010. I immediately used the discount to upgrade from Mindmanager 8 to version 9

Click here for the discount: http://bit.ly/mindjetm

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. ... more on Raven Internet Marketing Tools