The Web Strategies Podcast

I began updating the dozen or so websites I maintain for myself and my business and realized that along the way I had launched some new sites without following through with a few important steps.

We all want to know how many people are visiting our websites and we want to know that even if we are not on top of the search engines we have registered our websites properly. In this episode of the Web Strategies Podcast we take a look at installing Google Analytics and using Google’s Webmaster Tools.

I also talk about MindManager, software I use to keep my websites and workflow organized. The program is also a preview of my upcoming book “The Strategic Internet”. It does not have much content as of this posting, but if you would like to visit the companion website to the book click here.

The Strategic Internet [ 11:36 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is the second in our series featuring “The Digital Brand Review Board”. I believe it will interest you to see the how we film the sequences for Digital Brand Review, a joint Internet Marketing venture I am involved in with Robin Segbers and Chandler Turner. The edited middle portion of this video podcast is also available on our website and YouTube channel – but without the extra conversions at the beginning and end. Compare the two to learn a little more about how these segments are planned and produced.

The video posted below is optimized for delivery through iTunes and it’s not actually set up for streaming. Whether you watch online or through iTunes will probably take a couple of minutes to download.

As always I welcome your comments and questions.

The Ah-Ha Moment [ 10:13 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I want to Thank Cathy Lewis and her staff for giving me permission to rebroadcast the program as part of the Web Strategies Podcast.

WSP09-03 Techno-centric [ 54:04 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

What a great time as a guest on HearSay with Cathy Lewis yesterday!  The other guest – Ed Sykes of The Sykes Group, and Malcolm Venable of the Virginian-Pilot. Both great guys, and very well informed on various aspects of social media – or as Cathy likes to call it “The Facebook”

One of the topics we discussed was the public and private side of social networking – Cathy accepted my Friend Request – but instead of posting to her personal Facebook account I added a comment to the HearSay with Cathy Lewis fan area. If you listen to the show you’ll get the perspective – but essentially we were saying that sometimes the personal and the professional get unintentionally intermingled.

This fifth episode of The Web Strategies Podcast happened to be recorded a few days after four tornados ripped through an area about 15 miles from the studio. That prompted a discussion on Disaster Planning – Data Recovery and Hardware Restoration. This is important stuff for everybody. In the studio with me is Tom Walker, president of Web Teks and an expert on the strategic Internet.

WSP05 Disaster Planning [ 27:20 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Podcast Extra:

Today’s Podcast Extra is about something called “Add-ons” for the Firefox web browser. Add-ons are mini programs that let you personalize your browsing experience – and if you are not using them, not only are you missing out – you may be drifting behind your competitors. There are all kinds of add-ons, the most popular are tools to help you block ads or download files.

The most useful (at least to me) are add-ons like web developer, which adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools. Perhaps it is a little to geek side, but it has been downloaded over six and a half million times. Not just web developers, but us plain folks are using this tool bar to see how web pages are made.

Another Add-on category you should be aware of is SEO tools. There are probably a dozen good tools out of about a hundred or so available as of this posting. I use KGen (Keyword Generator) which is an add-on that allows you to see what keywords are strong on visited web page. For my own blog pages it lets me see which words will most likely be indexed, and it is useful in figuring out which words to use for social sharing. My hot list if Firefox add-ons can be found here: http://del.icio.us/tomanthonydotcom/addon

We will discuss social sharing and tags in an upcoming episode.

Next week we talk about the Big Catalog Project, and Marrying Integrators…Not that kind of wedding … tying together a line of business software to a website.