The current path – which the President’s irresponsible budget commits us to – will result in a debt-fueled economic crisis, the shredding of the safety net, and a diminished future. Americans deserve better than empty promises from a government going broke. The budget advanced by the House Budget Committee ensures real security through real reform. The House Budget Committee’s FY2012 Budget Resolution helps spur job creation today, stops spending money the government doesn’t have, and lifts the crushing burden of debt. This plan puts the budget on the path to balance and the economy on the path to prosperity.

ECONOMIC GROWTH AND JOB CREATION: Fosters a better environment for private-sector job creation by lifting debt-fueled uncertainty and advancing pro-growth tax reforms.

SPENDING CUTS AND CONTROLS: Stops Washington from spending money it does not have on government programs that do not work. Locks in spending cuts with spending controls.

REAL SECURITY: Fulfills the mission of health and retirement security for all Americans by making the tough decisions necessary to save critical health and retirement programs.

PATIENT-CENTERED HEALTH CARE: Repeals and defunds the President’s health care law, advancing instead common-sense solutions focused on lowering costs, expanding access and protecting the doctor-patient relationship.

RESTORING AMERICA’S EXCEPTIONAL PROMISE: Tackles the existential threat posed by rapidly growing government and debt, applying the nation’s timeless principles to this generation’s greatest challenge. Ensures that the next generation inherits a stronger, more prosperous America. Read more at budget.house.gov

Example #1: Paper Clutter

Example #2: Girls In Spandex (or Worse)

Example #3: Superfluous Tech Eye Candy

Example #4: Incomplete Information

Example #5: Themed Lounges

See more at www.ignitesocialmedia.com

Spend any real time in the small business marketing world and you’ll quickly be inundated with new services, new tools, new updates, new features and new things everyone thinks you should be aware of. As a result, it’s not always easy to decide what truly demands your attention and what can be written off as background noise. For that reason it’s possible that when Google Place Pages was first released a few months ago, you ignored it. And if that’s the case, it’s time to reconsider your position.

Spend any real time in the small business marketing world and you’ll quickly be inundated with new services, new tools, new updates, new features and new things everyone thinks you should be aware of. As a result, it’s not always easy to decide what truly demands your attention and what can be written off as background noise. For that reason it’s possible that when Google Place Pages was first released a few months ago, you ignored it. And if that’s the case, it’s time to reconsider your position.

1. Your customers are looking for you online: While at SMX West last week, Gregg Stewart of 15 Miles noted that 20 percent of all searches on Google now have a local intent, and that number is even higher when you look at searches performed on mobile devices. SEO expert Bruce Clay later predicted that in two years 70-80 percent of queries will have a local result on the page (!). That’s pretty significant and offers a good indication of where things are going. Searchers are headed online to find local businesses and, thanks to personalization, Google is showing local results even when a user doesn’t specifically ask for them. Users are looking for your business online and one of the best ways to help them find you is to claim, optimize and enhance your Google Place Page. By ignoring it, you make it harder for customers to do business with you. Why do that?

2. Google Places acts as a one-stop-shop for your brand: One reason some small business owners aren’t too friendly to Place Pages is that they resent Google decentralizing their information and pulling people from their core site. Unfortunately, that’s exactly why users like these aggregate pages. They like being able to check out one page and see all your vital information. Embrace it and give users what they’re looking for. Because, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how a user finds your address and phone number…just that they do and that you’ve excited them enough to use it.

3. Google loves (to rank) Place Pages: Thanks to some Google algorithm changes, Place Pages have been given significant search prominence. That means whether you like them or not, they’re showing up, and potential customers are stumbling upon them. As a savvy business owner, you must do your part and help those searchers find you by completely filling out your Google Place Page. I know it’s a little monotonous to always be filling out those little boxes all over the Web, but you’re being asked for a reason – Google is using that information to rank you. Fill out everything, be careful when selecting your business category, and include as much information and (keyword-rich) details as you can. The more complete (and keyword-rich) your profile, the better.

4. Google Places connects third-party sites: You know the information being posted about you all over the Web? Much of it is being aggregated and displayed in your Google Place page. That means what’s out there about you for your business – all the reviews, the associated images, the business information, etc. – is getting more attention than ever before. If you don’t know what’s out there about your brand, Google Place Pages provides more incentive for you to find out. Take this time to make sure it’s all accurate and consistent. Read more at smallbiztrends.com

Then he drops somewhat of a bombshell for all those SEOs that have been relying on the keyword in the domain to do all the heavy-lifting:

Now if you are still on the fence, let me just give you a bit of color. that we have looked at the rankings and the weights that we give to keyword domains, & some people have complained that we are giving a little too much weight for keywords in domains. So we have been thinking about at adjusting that mix a bit and sort of turning the knob down within the algorithm, so that given 2 different domains it wouldn’t necessarily help you as much to have a domain name with a bunch of keywords in it. – Matt Cutts

So, should you panic? Only if you registered something like “ringtones.com” and are sitting at #1 without lifting a finger to optimize it. In other words, the free ride may soon be over for those that managed to secure a keyword-rich domain name and failed to build relevant content or links. Read more at www.marketingpilgrim.com

Most bloggers know that one way to encourage people to sign up to their blog is to offer an incentive. Some kind of free report, or ebook or other gift that is a tempting reward for a visitor to transform into a newsletter subscriber.

If you’re struggling to create your incentive, or your incentive doesn’t seem to be converting well, read this article. We’re going to look at how to quickly create an incentive that works as hard as possible to get you the right audience—and get them wanting your freebie.

Don’t give them what they need

It goes without saying that your freebie needs to be valuable to the customer, but giving too much can overwhelm them to the point that they can’t be bothered to sign up for it. Even if it’s something you know they desperately need.

Make it quick (to create and consume)

Valuable content that can be applied straight away is a very attractive offer for someone with limited time, but with a problem that you can solve.

What problem do you pick to solve?

With your visitors all having slightly different interests, and with you knowing so much about your chosen subject, how on Earth do you decide what problem to solve, and what kind of freebie to give away to encourage people to give you their details?

For example, if you teach social media marketing for small online businesses, your customers might be coming to you because they want to:

get more clients

build brand awareness

improve customer loyalty

increase viral marketing for the company

learn more about social media for businesses.

Once you have your top five, pick the one problem that you feel 70-80% of your target market is having. Let’s say in this instance it is: “getting more clients.” Read more at www.problogger.net

New: Google Disables Starring Results On Search Results

Google has disabled the ability to star search results from within the Google search results page.

As you may remember, Google replaced SearchWiki with starring results back in March 2010, about 16-months after Google launched SearchWiki. Now that Google has re-introduced a way to block sites in Google, Google has determined you no longer need to star search results from the search results page.

This does not mean that you can no longer see stars in your Google search results. It does however mean that you will no longer be able to star results directly from the search results. Instead, you now need to go Google Bookmarks and add a bookmark there for a star to show up in your search results. Read more at searchengineland.com

But once search analytics firm Systrix collected some data on “farmer”, a different picture emerged: while some sites had been slammed, article marketing stalwart EzineArticles lost 90% of its traffic, and Yahoo!’s Associated Content lost even more, the big names were largely unscathed. Demand’s eHow actually rose slightly, although some of their other properties dropped.

I’ll admit it: my SEO strategies leaned a little too heavily on article marketing in the past. It was tempting, it was easy, and it was pure SEO.

The old trick was pretty simple: there were dozens of “article directories” online, which would pay somewhere between “A pittance” and “$0″ for 300 words or so of content, which could include a link. They took care of the hard part:  building a trusted site that could rank for the long-tail terms that showed up in the articles, and would pass link-juice along with traffic.

Google’s “Farmer” update didn’t end that process, but it definitely changed it. The first reactions assumed that Google was going after the big content farms — i.e. the biggest of all, Demand Media’s eHow.

But once search analytics firm Systrix collected some data on “farmer”, a different picture emerged: while some sites had been slammed, article marketing stalwart EzineArticles lost 90% of its traffic, and Yahoo!’s Associated Content lost even more, the big names were largely unscathed. Demand’s eHow actually rose slightly, although some of their other properties dropped.

“Farmer” means that doing article marketing the easy way is over. You can no longer treat low-level content production as a commodity, and crank up the dial in order to achieve rankings. Not only did many content farms lose rankings, but they responded by raising quality requirements and implementing no-followed links. Not only will you get a smaller audience, but you’ll have to invest more to get it.

Target the top content sites. eHow is still ranking well, and still delivers traffic. Youtube also benefited from the latest rankings change; it’s not hard to create a one-minute video around each of twenty different long-tail terms, which could easily rank on page one.

Reemphasize social media. Facebook was one of the top beneficiaries from this change. But more importantly, social media as a whole may benefit in a relative sense: you can’t get into the universal search results as easily, so getting into the stream and the newsfeed may be the next-best option. A few possibilities: Instead of five generic articles, write one compelling (and re-tweetable) piece of linkbait. On Facebook, don’t just “own” your business name. Try to own a mid-tail keyword, too. Find out which “sharing” icons your users click on; ditch the rest.

Start emailing. If you can’t own the SERP and you’re already at maximum capacity in the stream, you need to own the inbox. Read more at searchengineland.com

The path of the musician has become easier in the modern age, with online resources allowing musicians to get their music to the masses quicker than ever before. While persistence, dedication, and actually having good music all play a major role, there’s an additional factor that’s even more critical: you have to approach marketing correctly.

One of the major things to keep in mind is that MySpace is no longer the musical mecca that it once was. While still an excellent resource to check out established bands, much of the MySpace flock has moved over to Facebook. Facebook has some major advantages, such as the ability to quickly sell band merchandise and music through the ReverbNation Store, the opportunity to set up events, live music players and a veritable mosh pit of other useful band applications synced with Facebook.

One of the most common mistakes bands make on Facebook is setting up a “Group” or a “Profile” instead of a “Page.” What’s the difference? While you’ll have to manually go in to manage permissions, add friends, or otherwise interact with people from a “Profile” or “Group” page, an actual “Page” is designed to allow for the fastest possible spread of your band. Beyond allowing people to “like” your page without you giving them permission to do so, Pages have integrated advertising options, are displayed or suggested to users more frequently, and give some major revenue opportunities.

One of the most important and difficult parts of getting exposure is selling merchandise. Selling music, t-shirts, and other gear will help spread word about your music, and it generates the cash you need for simple things like gas for the band vehicle or recording fees, etc.

Now that you’ve set up a page and populated it with some basic content, you’ll need to actually bring people there to see it. As always, one of the best approaches is “word of mouth.” Word of mouth can be done online. As always, start by spreading words to friends, existing fans, family members, and anyone else in your social network. From there, begin including your Facebook info in your other materials, including: Read more at www.blueglass.com

While common wisdom says that “nice guys finish last,” this is not necessarily true in the branding arena, according to new analysis from trendwatching.com. In particular, trendwatching.com says “random acts of kindness,” rather than distributing free samples or providing specific rewards for actions such as posting a positive social network review, can pay big dividends for brand marketers.

trendwatching.com says that consumers long used to distant, inflexible and self-serving corporations will gratefully receive any random act of kindness performed by a brand. Increasingly open communication between consumers and brands, especially online, make performing random acts of kindness easier than ever before.

Random Acts of Kindness Spur Positive Reactions

The Human Touch Appeals to Gen G

trendwatching.com advises there is new generation of consumers it calls Generation G (for “generosity”) who seek brands that are socially, ethically and environmentally responsible. Generation G is disgusted with traditional business priorities and practices and prefers to enjoyably interact with businesses that show compassion, personality and humanity.

Consumers Are Putting It Out There

More people are now publicly and knowingly disclosing more personal information than ever before via social networks and blogs about their daily lives, their moods or their whereabouts. All this personal information increasingly enables brands to actually know what’s happening in consumers’ lives.

Passing It On Via the Web

A random acts of kindness strategy can now be cost-efficiently applied by all brands, because rather than having to call, text or even see people personally, social networks’ streams allow users to easily broadcast information to a wide range of people without interrupting or intruding. The explosion in both the volume and reach of connections creates huge opportunities for brands that create interesting, meaningful, funny, uplifting moments that people love to share.

Social Media Creates Brand Advocates

In another example of reaching out to consumers online, retailers can use social media to turn consumers who have had a negative experience with their brand into brand advocates, according to a new report from RightNow and Harris Interactive. Data from “The Retail Consumer Report” indicates 68% of US consumers who posted a complaint or negative review of a holiday shopping experience during the 2010 holiday season were contacted by the retailer. Two-thirds (67%) of them wound up taking an action that would be considered positive for the brand. Read more at www.marketingcharts.com

How the Red Cross and the Los Angeles Fire Department integrate social tools into crisis response.

The Red Cross and the Los Angeles Fire Department have been at the forefront of adopting social media in crisis response. That’s not entirely by choice, given that news of disasters has consistently broken first on Twitter. The challenge is for the men and women entrusted with coordinating response to identify signals in the noise.

Public expectations for those staff are high, as research released by the Red Cross on at the Emergency Social Data Summit last year showed. Nearly half of respondents ask for help on social media and 3 in 4 would expect help to arrive within the hour. “We’ve set up an expectation that, because we’re present in these spaces, we’re listening,” said Wendy Harman (@wharman), the Red Cross social media director, at a training conference in Tampa, Fla.

At present, those high expectations don’t always match up with the capabilities that first responders possess. That’s changing. First responders and crisis managers are using a growing suite of tools for gathering information and sharing crucial messages internally and with the public. Structured social data and geospatial mapping suggest one direction where these tools are evolving in the field. Prototype group-messaging platforms like Loqi.me point to ways they may evolve further this year.

Some tools, such as the Red Cross shelter web app and the Shelter View iOS app, allow the public to access information. “If we’re going to ask the public for help in a disaster, we need to give them tools,” said Trevor Riggen (@triggen), senior director at the Red Cross.

The Red Cross is working on building better filtering tools and mapping geotagged updates to help improve their situational awareness, said Riggen. By aggregating crisis data, visualization, and analysis into operations, they’re pressing the opportunity to see where issues are emerging and introducing more relevance into social streams. “One tweet doesn’t tell us to shift,” said Riggens. “50 tweets will.”

The opportunity that more crisis managers are seeing lies in the situational awareness that comes from analyzing massive amounts of social data generated in disasters. In those moments, “the public is a resource, not a liability,” said FEMA administrator Craig Fugate (@CraigAtFEMA) last year. “Social media’s biggest power, that I see, is to empower the public as a resource.” Read more at radar.oreilly.com

I puzzled over the title of this column for a bit. The initial title I wrote was “The Importance of Unique Content”, and I actually mean something different than that. Most of the time when we talk about unique content we mean not simply using copies of someone else’s text (whether it be plagiarized or licensed). What I am going to focus on today is the importance of covering different topics than other people do. Let me illustrate the problem using the mortgage marketplace as an example.

If you look at this data carefully, 66% of the ranking weight (according to the survey) is directly related to links. An additional 6% goes to social ranking factors, and as with links, these are related to how people perceive your site. That gives us a whopping total of 72% or ranking weight.

So how are you going to attract attention? By being the 18,500,000-1st website to offer basic info on mortgages? By offering a mortgage calculator? Have to be millions of sites that already do that.

Offering content on the same topic matter as all these other sites is not going to cut it. You have to figure out how to differentiate. In the mortgage market, this is going to be particularly difficult. If you are going to try and break into a tough market, here are some ideas you could try:

The key thing is to figure out how to do something that is truly different. You might argue that the market you are in is not as competitive as the mortgage space. That may be true, but for fun, I sampled a bunch of other markets by conducting the following searches, including the “” to reduce the number of false positives: Read more at searchengineland.com

I love tabs and have played with multiple addons to make the most of tabs in FireFox. One of my best discoveries ever was a handy little addon with a very basic but ingenius functionality: Faviconize Tab helps to manage a tab jam by adding an option to minimize each tab to its favicon (and thus keeps it always in front of your eyes).

The addon turned out to be an awesome task management tool: I use it to sort and organize urgent tasks, create daily reading lists, etc. (Note: Google Chrome has this functionality by default and FireFox 4 calls it “App tabs”)

And recently I have discovered another great way to supercharge that tiny favicon area by adding more information to it.

1. Add Unread Message Count to your Gmail Tab Favicon

2. Add Current Date to Google Calendar Page Favicon

3. Unread Items in Your Google Reader Read more at www.searchenginejournal.com

Social Glitz

I’m not telling you anything new when I say that Web 2.0 and social media have changed the way we use the Internet. Neither am I telling you anything new when I say that that’s the reason why marketers and PR professionals are finding themselves in an increasingly difficult situation. We, as consumers, are no longer as easily identifiable as we used to be. These days, us consumers can be any number of things. Producers, users, active participants, members of niche communities, and if worse comes to worst, even critics.

So how can the companies of today ensure that they don’t only find new customers and retain existing ones but also avoid all hell breaking lose when they are confronted with a critic that happens to be quite influential in the online space?

The answer to that question is rather simple but sadly, still very often misunderstood. It’s this question and the simplicity of the answer that led me to conduct research on how to use Twitter as a tool for relationship marketing. By telling you the topic of the research I’ve given away quite a bit upfront but not to worry, the most interesting part is yet to come.

The term “relationship marketing” is used frequently. In fact, it’s used to a point where everyone things they know what they are talking about but only few really do. What is it? How does it work? And how do we best use it in combination with online communication tools such as Twitter?

Transactional vs. Relationship Marketing

Before the 1990s mass marketing was all the craze. Most marketing activities were focused on finding as many customers as possible for a product. But then one of the most important changes in marketing took place. One that is now as important as ever. Companies these days continuously develop the right products for their customers, which is also where the idea of relationship marketing comes in. The idea behind it is simple. It’s not about solving individual customer problems but rather about the long-term support of customers in their processes. In contrary to transactional marketing, that has a raise in market shares as a goal, relationship marketing builds upon long-term relationships to raise customer value. Read more at socialmouths.com

Over the past few months we’ve seen Google push location reviews pretty hard. Its Hotpot feature has been developing quickly and today the company has added something pretty significant – Twitter integration for place reviews in the Android Maps app.

The ‘Post Review to Twitter’ feature is available in an update to Google Maps that launches today. Also included is a new feature for social location sharing service Latitude. Now when you see that a friend is nearby on the map, you can ‘Ping’ them right from inside the app. This will cause a notification to appear on the friend’s Android device, helping you arrange to meet. Read more at thenextweb.com

40 Dead Simple Ways to Get More Comments on Your Blog

Want more engagement and interaction on your blog?  Yeah, most of us do, here’s 50 tips to get you started:

Blog Design:

1 – Put your picture on the front page and the About page of the blog

2 - On the About page write who you are and why you are blogging.  Both #1 and #2 make it easier for readers to connect with you, which makes them more likely to interact with you.

3 – Highlight commenters.  Remember to always reward the action that you want to encourage.

4 – Use the Comment Luv plugin on your self-hosted WordPress blog. Again, when someone comments, they get an extra link, which encourages more comments. Read more at mackcollier.com