What can Charlie Sheen teach us about SEO?

I’m assuming everyone is at least marginally aware of the whole Charlie Sheen fiasco but if not, here’s a quick primer and here’s his craziness set to music.  He has definitely been in the news lately and there is a lot we can learn about this tragic trajectory he is on but I want to focus on what we can glean about SEO from him.

 

Crazy brings the eyeballs

No doubt about it, controversy sells.  In our Post-Modern culture, everybody’s opinion is valid and has weight and the biggest sin anyone can commit is having a strong, inflexible opinion or saying someone is wrong.  Fortunately, we all know deep down that this is wrong, not every idea is a good one and some people shouldn’t be listened to.  Do you want to make your blog post stand out?  Have a strong, controversial opinion about something in your niche and back it up with a well-reasoned argument.  What are the things in your niche that are so universally accepted that no one even thinks about them anymore, are they still true?  There’s an old story of a man who was newly married and noticed that every time she cooked a ham, she would slice a few inches off the top making it flat on top.  When he asked her why she did that she said she didn’t know it was just something her mother always did.  So he went to her mother and asked her the same question and got the same response.  Next he went to the grandmother and asked her why she always sliced a few inches off the tops of her hams and she replied, “so it would fit in my oven!”  Because the women never knew the reason behind something, they just kept doing what they had always done even when there was no longer a need for it.  Take a look at your niche, what are the things that everyone is doing for outdated reasons?  What is a stance you can take that is so far from the norm that people will be compelled to discuss and argue?  (And link back, and repost, etc…)  Take a stand, have an opinion, and be prepared to defend it.

Content makes them stay

Once you have built a little trust and gotten a short-term boost to your traffic numbers, you have to continue teaching and providing content or the people will eventually go away.  Charlie Sheen is learning this right now as the arc of how much the public cares about him is in its inevitable decline.  You can’t always be crazy, eventually there has to be some substance.  If you are an actor, you have to entertain and if you are a blog, you have to inform.  (You can entertain also, but you can’t just entertain)  Not every blog post has to be a home run with tons of backlinks and comments, you can make a very good living at this just hitting solid singles, you just have to hit a lot of them.  Give the people good content and you will see your numbers rise.

Relationships are key

The relationship between Sheen and his co-workers has gotten so toxic that even if all the issues were resolved it would be very difficult for these people to work together.  In the online world, relationships are crucial.  Very few blogs are an island unto themselves and most of us rely on the goodwill of our community to help us grow.  Not only do you need to foster a good relationship with your readers but it often helps to have a good working relationship with others in the same niche.  For your readers, are you answering questions quickly? Responding to email? Keeping them informed through social media?  For the other writers in your niche, are you working with them?  Involved in guest posts or button swapping?  Commenting on their sites?  Promoting them on your blog?  Keeping our online relationships solid can be tricky at times but the rewards are worth it.

I hope that we all have enough tiger’s blood in us to improve our sites and keep winning!

 

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Do Emergents confuse Natural and Special revelation?

I’m reading Gabe Lyons’ new book The Next Christians and while I will do a full review later, one theme in particular keeps popping up that I think is indicative of some of the problems I have with the Emergent movement as a whole.  One of the points the author makes is that the next generation of Christians care less about the open evangelism that marked his religious forefathers and more about impacting the world around him (or her) in a positive way.  He brings up the TWLOHA movement that had its shirts in Hot Topic stores but decided to remove any mention of Christ from its in-store materials so as not to offend any potential customers.  He also mentions a movement called “Fringe” that has concerts and art shows to promote, not God, but beauty.  One quote in particular caught my attention. “When the next Christians create culture that promotes beauty, they give people a glimpse of the beauty of God.  There’s no need for a logo [of a church or ministry], because the beauty itself belongs to God and is a pronouncement for His existence, love, and desire for the world.” (pg 98-99)

Are we to exalt God…or Christ?

At its core, this type of thinking confuses natural and special revelation about the character and nature of God.  Natural revelation is found in the first half of Psalm 19.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard.  Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. – Psalm 19:1-6

The psalmist is pointing to the heavens and stars as proclaiming the glory of God and I think we can safely include other types of beauty in this list.  I concede that art, music, sculpture, and a host of other pursuits are beautiful and the ability to experience and enjoy beauty is a gift from God but the Psalm doesn’t end there.

The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. –Psalm 19:7-14

Now we have special revelation, or the Word of God that tells us exactly who God is and how we should respond to Him.  It simply isn’t enough to use art or beauty and expect people to be able to make the jump from “That’s beautiful” to “I should love God”.  The chasm between those two statements is simply too large for anyone to make.  Beauty alone is not enough, it must be coupled with the Word of God and instruction on how to have a relationship with the God that made that beauty possible.  If an organization fails on this point, it has no right to call itself Christian because it does not point anyone to Christ.  At best it could call itself Deistic because all it’s doing is pointing to a formless, definitionless God that makes no demands on His followers and offers no real grace.

If you are involved in this type of organization, I implore you to realize that if you are a Christian (or a Christ-follower or whatever hipster term you are using this week) you are not called to point people to “God” but to the very specific “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”.  Beauty and art alone will not cut it, it must be joined with instruction on what to do next.

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Ted Haggard on Biblical Restoration

Ted Haggard interviewed on restoration

Click Here to view embedded video

I have to admit that I have a certain fascination with Ted Haggard.  Ever since his scandal broke (I had not heard of him before that) I have followed his story with a kind of macabre fascination with the hope that something positive will result from his shame.  And to be truthful, there have been some positive, God-glorifying things that have happened; most notably that his wife chose to stick with him through this and they are working to hold their marriage together in the midst of this (self-imposed) storm.  But when it comes to Ted himself, he seems to go out of his way to do the dumbest thing imaginable at every turn and this video is further evidence of his self-delusion that he is the victim and we should all act like nothing ever happened.  Before I speak about Ted directly, I want to use this video as a starting point to look at the Biblical concept of restoration.

Biblical Restoration can only happen within the church

In Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus gives us instruction for how to deal with a brother (or sister) that has sinned.  The goal of this process is to restore our brother to right fellowship with the church (vs 17), therefore before someone can be Biblically restored they have to submit to the leadership of the church elders and agree with them that what they are doing is wrong and needs to be stopped.  If the elders that God has established over that church deem it necessary for certain disciplinary measures to take place (accountability groups, counseling, cessation of public ministry for a time) then the brother should willingly and happily follow their instruction, convinced that God has placed his elders over him for his good. (Heb 13:17)  In fact, if the one who sinned rejects the leadership of his elders and decides to do what he wants, even if the person has stopped the particular sin that started the process, he has not truly repented and should not be restored to full fellowship with the church.  In fact the church as a whole should assume that he is unsaved (Mt 18:17) and treat him as they would any other sinner by witnessing to him and commanding him to repent.  (And in Ted’s case they should most certainly not join his church or submit to him as Pastor)

Biblical Restoration and Worldly Restoration are completely different

On of Ted’s complaints is that he has seen Martha Stewart, David Letterman, Michael Vick and others restored to their former place so K-Mart, CBS, and the NFL are better at restoration than the church.  The difference between the church and these companies is that these churches couldn’t care less about the eternal souls of these people and only care about the bottom line.  If Ted’s church had only money as their main concern then you can be sure that Ted would have been right back in the pulpit after a short time away but to their credit they were more focused on the man than the money and asked him to undergo a long process of restoration.  Ted’s efforts to say that the church should be more like the world in this respect shines a light on what is the problem with Ted really is, a defective and world-like theology.  Instead of going to the Bible to see how restoration should actually be done, he is going to the world and taking their advice and modeling his theology after K-mart and the NFL.  Unfortunately for Ted, that is not how either the Church or Jesus Christ Himself restores his people. 

I will still watch the Ted Haggard story as it unfolds, hoping and praying that somehow he realizes his sin and goes back to the church elders that loved him enough to confront him on his sin and not gloss it over as the world does.  Unfortunately, the longer this goes the more distant the possibility of that happening becomes.

 

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What does Google's Social Search for your SEO?

Today Google announced an update to their search results that incorporates the results of your social graph into your search results.  This has existed for a while but was relegated to the bottom of the results page, now the results will be interspersed throughout the page.  What does this mean for your SEO?

It is now more crucial than ever for you to get your readers to follow you through your social media outlets.

The great thing about this is that even if you get someone to follow you through FaceBook or Twitter and they never really engage with your blog, your blog posts could potentially be on their search result page.  For instance, lets say someone liked your FaceBook page one day on a whim (maybe because of a contest on some fantastic article you wrote years ago) but are not what you would consider your “core readership”, if they happen to search something relevant to something you wrote at some point in the past, your post will be right there for them to click on.  This will increase your traffic in direct proportion to the size of you social contacts. If you haven’t already been focusing on your social profiles, now is the time!

You need to be even more focused on higher rankings

The flipside to this is now that more real estate on Google’s result pages will be taken up with posts from people’s social contacts, you need to be even more focused on improving your ranking for your favorite keywords.  If you ranked at #8 or 9 for a particular phrase, you may not show up on the front page at all anymore.  This means more backlinks, more focused content, and a lot more time spent on the SEO side of your business.  This would be a great time to outsource some of your SEO needs to an company like SEO Assistant.

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Best of Today's SEO - 2/10/11

Google Wedding Planner – Google has assembled some very helpful resources for anyone planning a wedding. Why?  Because Google is determined to be in every niche.  Look for Google Alligator Farm and Google Sewer Cleanout coming soon.

How to write an ebook – If you aren’t following Blogging with Amy I suggest you do so.  This is another great post in her ebook series going through the step by step process of writing a book and taking it to market.

Google rolls out Two Factor Authentication – So much of our online lives goes through our phones that security is becoming more and more important.  Here’s a great way to keep your data safe.

How to triple your blog post ideas – Running out of things to post about?  Here’s an easy way to get more post ideas.

200,000 people check in to Super Bowl with FourSquare – Seeing as how this happened across the street from me and it was utter chaos for a week, this doesn’t surprise me at all.

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Does God want us to be androgynous?

Earlier today, Jennifer Wright Knust wrote an opinion article on CNN saying that the traditional understanding of male-female relationships and homosexuality are wrong and the Bible’s original plan for mankind was not heterosexuality but androgyny.  Her thinking here is that Adam’s original form had both sets of genetalia until God split him with the creation of Eve.  Not having anything in the Bible to support her hypothesis she is forced to quote non-inspired ancient texts and non-canonical gospels like the Gospel of Philip, a text known for its heretical Gnostic teachings.

Despite her claims, androgyny was never God’s plan, the creation of Eve happened before the fall showing that this was God’s perfect will for His creation. God intended from the beginning to create both male and female but created Adam first to make a point about authority and headship.  Adam represents man and the man is to be the leader and final authority (under God) in the home.  He is to be the provider and protector and ensure the safety and well-being of his home just as Adam was responsible for the garden.  Eve came from Adam as a sign that neither man nor woman is complete without the other, that man and woman complement each other and bring each of their strengths and weaknesses to a relationship that will be strengthened over time.

God’s creation of Adam and Eve give us a clear picture of what marriage is supposed to be. One man and one woman, committed to each other and to God.  Despite the introduction of sin messing up the divine order, that is still God’s plan for each of today. No matter how much modern Bible scholars want desperately to undermine the Bible’s clear teachings about sexuality, they will always fail and the truth of the Word will endure.  God’s will for every man and woman is to be celibate until marriage and marriage can only be heterosexual.  The homosexuality that Paul condemned is the same homosexuality that exists today, that word has not changed its meaning over the intervening 2,000 years.

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The Seven Spirits of God

Rev 1:4  John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne,
Rev 1:5  and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood
Rev 1:6  and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

What are these seven spirits?

This is a tricky phrase that only the Apostle John uses and only in the Book of Revelation.  He uses it three other times (Rev 3:1; Rev 4:5; Rev 5:6) and each time it refers to the Holy Spirit.  There are two possible reasons why John chose to refer to Him in this way.

1 – Seven is the number of perfection

Through out the Bible in general and Revelation in particular the number seven is used to symbolize perfection or completeness.  Beginning with the seven days God took to create the universe, through the seven pairs of clean animals on the ark, to the seven times blood had to be sprinkled on the altar for atonement; time and time again we see the number seven pop up.  In Revelation alone John uses the seven motif many times including the seven churches in Ch 2-3, seven stars, seven lampstands, seven angels, seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowl judgments.  This is one of the reasons John gives a warning about adding to are taking away from anything in the book because to do so would mess up the groups of seven he has included.  So John may be highlighting the fact that the Spirit of God is perfect and in every respect, God.

2 – The Spirit has a seven-fold ministry

John may have also been referencing Isaiah 61:1-2 where the Spirit of God is shown empowering His servant to perform seven important tasks.  He brings good news to the poor, binds up the brokenhearted, proclaims liberty to the captives, frees those who are bound, proclaims the year of God’s favor, proclaims the day of God’s vengeance, and comforts those who mourn.

Whether John meant both of these possibilities or just one or the other, it is clear that John meant for us to see these “seven spirits” as the Holy Spirit.  We see here that the Spirit of God is always before the throne while simultaneously working out the will of God on the Earth.  Nothing created can be in two places at once, only the omnipresent God can do this.  John is showing us that the Spirit of God is the third person of the Trinity, completely God but not all of God.  The Spirit is fully God yet only one member of the Trinity, ever before the throne and always working on the Earth and in the heart of every believer.  The Spirit of God is God but He always points us to the Son and the Father as the objects of our worship and adoration.

We also have access to the throne of God if the Spirit of God is in us.  We can pray for the blessings of God through the power of the indwelling Spirit and in the name of the Son and one day we also will be before the throne of God in both body and spirit worshiping the Triune God.

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How to optimize your video SEO

As more and more of the web is moving towards video, you need to make sure that your video posts are optimized so you can get the maximum impact for the time you spent creating it.  There is nothing worse than creating an informative and helpful video that no one ever sees because no one can ever find it.  Here are a few tips to keep in mind before you post.

Create an optimized title

This is pretty basic and you should be doing this for each of your posts already but make sure you have relevant keywords in your title.  A video that teaches coupon shopping should be called “How to coupon shop” not “My trip to the store” or something equally as useless.

Optimize the description

The description area is very handy and you must be sure to utilize it correctly.  Use it to reiterate your main keywords and provide a better explanation of what you are doing.  In our couponing example, a good description would be “Learn how to use coupons at Kroger, Wal-mart, Albertsons, HEB, or your favorite grocery store.  Save money on every grocery bill!”.  If your video has multiple points, list them here.  This is also the place you want to include a link to your site so people know where to go to find more of your great content!

Use the tags

You need to remember that Google doesn’t actually “watch” any of the videos so it relies on these text fields to figure out what the video is about.  Use a variety of relevant tags to make sure your video is categorized properly.

Can you transcribe your video?

This is something that not a whole lot of people do but I’ve seen some success with the practice on the few sites that do it.  Again, it’s just a matter of giving the Search Engines the maximum number of opportunities to know what your video is about.  It also gives you an opportunity to clear up any places you misspoke or were unclear.

Increase your views

From the stats that I have seen it looks like Google gives more weight to videos with more viewers so be sure to share them on social media and ask others to watch it.  Google also gives weight to the viewer ratings on Youtube.  Viewers can give a thumbs up or thumbs down so ask for a positive rating.  You should also ask viewers to subscribe to your YouTube page.  Asking them to leave a comment wouldn’t hurt either.

Distribute widely

Tubemogul.com is a site that allows you to post to multiple video sharing sites automatically.  In the time it takes to upload a video to YouTube you can upload your video to a dozen video sites at once.  Very handy site and if you included a link to your site in the description then you’ve got a lot more backlinks that will help your site’s overall SEO.

I hope you found this helpful; don’t forget to subscribe to our FaceBook, Twitter, and/or RSS feeds using the buttons at the top of the page.

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Misunderstood Verses: Just Love Yourself

Mar 12:31  The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

It wasn’t too long ago that I was counseling a young woman that had been in some difficult situations in life and was struggling to deal with the repercussions.  She was making progress for a while but seemed to have stopped cold, as I asked her how her life was going she told me that she had a very helpful conversation with her brother.  He had told her that what she really needed to do was just love and forgive herself and she would do a lot better in life.  The verse he used to back this up was Mark 12:31 quoted above with the emphasis being on the “as yourself” part of the verse.

Not Helpful!

The problem is that is a wrong interpretation of this verse.  Jesus isn’t commanding us to love ourselves, He assumes we already love ourselves and we need to have that same love for other people.  Everything we do, we do for our own satisfaction.  We are born selfish and absent the grace of God we will die the same way but Jesus offers us a better way.

A More Excellent Way

Jesus tells us to take this same love that is so naturally pointed inward and focus it outward instead.  He tells us to be as consumed with the joy and satisfaction of others as we are with ourselves.  Not to deny our joy but to find our joy in service to others that we may glorify our God.  Jesus would never tell us to focus on ourselves or love ourselves because He doesn’t need to.  What we need is help getting our eyes off of ourselves and where they belong, on God first and people second.  It’s been said that they way you find joy is right in the spelling of the word, you put Jesus first, Yourself last, and Others inbetween.  May God free us all from the bondage of loving ourselves and make us lovers of Him and lovers of others.

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Get Backlinks Using Press Releases

One easy way to increase the Backlinks for your site is to issue a Press Release and distribute it as widely as possible.  There are a few quick and easy steps to take to do it and get the results you want.

Step 1 – Do something Press Release worthy.

This could be anything.  Build an app, make a downloadable form, change your site background, it doesn’t matter.  You just need something to talk about.

 

Step 2 – Write a Press Release.

Keep it short and pithy. Talk about your site and why people should give you their attention.  Most importantly, put a link to your site using your targeted keyword phrase as the anchor text.

 

Step 3 – Release through an online Press Release Distribution service.

There are several organizations that you can use and enough of them are free that you should never have to pay for anything.  I have used www.i-newswire.com and www.prlog.org and can recommend their services.  You can also find a list of press release organizations here.

Press Releases are a simple way to get more backlinks to your site and more authority in the eyes of the Search Engines.  You can even repeat this process once a month or as often as you like.  Hope you found this helpful!

 

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Market Like A Dog: Remind your readers of what's important

As I am writing this, we are in the middle a huge ice storm that has kept us from going outside and we are all getting a little stir-crazy especially poor Molly.  It looks like a field mouse has gotten on to our back porch so Molly is going crazy barking at it through the back door then barking at us to go kill it. (or maybe she wants to play with it, I’m not sure.)  When I went outside to try to find it the dutiful dog pointed out where she had last seen it, then hid between my legs.  My hero.  But this is a good segue to the next marketing tip we can glean from my mutt, she never fails to remind me when there is something that I need to do with her or for her. (like catch a mouse!)  And this is something she is very good at!  If I go too long without throwing the ball for her she will go get the ball, drop it in my lap and stare at me.  If she needs to go to the bathroom she will go to the backdoor and bark.  And God help me if I forget to walk her!  She is very good at giving me constant cues telling me the next thing that needs to be done and I’m actually grateful for it because I don’t like cleaning carpets!

 

What do your readers need to do next?

One of the most helpful services we can give our readers is to remind them of the little things that fall through the cracks.  Whatever your product is or service you provide, it is helpful to spur your readers on to action or just remind them of the next step they need to take.  For Instance, in the SEO business the one thing I find myself constantly pushing is backlinks so if I can remind my clients to try to get two backlinks today or exchange links with someone in their niche then they will accomplish the goals we’ve set.  If I can find creative and different ways to accomplish this then everyone wins.  In another example, say you have a blog that exchanges recipes, what can you do to inspire your followers to post new and interesting recipes?  What if you ran a contest rewarding the most interesting ingredient or the best photo of the finished meal?  Ramping up to the contest you could have short posts reminding people of the upcoming contest or send out reminders to your email list.  Just as I was writing this I received an email from Splenda advertising all their sugar-free recipes on their site for Valentine’s Day, in one email I was both reminded that Valentine’s Day was approaching and told what to do for it.   A great reminder at an opportune time!

 

Think it through

What do you want your readers to do next?  What will benefit them the most?  What do they need to be reminded of and how can you help?  Think these things through and come up with a plan to help then make sure you have every avenue available to help your readers.  Make sure everyone is following you on FaceBook, Twitter, email, text, and whatever way is out there to get your message to them.  Remind the right person at the right time of the right thing and they will follow you forever.

 

What are ways you have been reminded of the little things over the years that you have found helpful?  Come to my BlogFrog page and tell everyone!
Read all previous posts in this series.
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He who was and is and is forever

John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.  Rev 1:4-6

 

Several years ago, I went to visit my Dad after he married his new wife, Pam.  I got a chance to talk to her one afternoon while my father was at work and she was telling me how much she enjoyed living with him and showed me the gift she got him as a wedding present, a new recliner.  After a few minutes of conversation she looked me in the eye and said, “Do you know why I love your father and I know he loves me?  Because everyday he gets off work at 5:00 and by 5:15 he is here at home sitting in his recliner.”  Now to most women the idea of a man coming home and sitting in front of the TV after work would mean just the opposite of affection but to her, knowing where her man is was the most important thing in the world to her.  She never had to go drag him out of a bar or call his friends looking for him, in other words she could trust him because of an established track record.

 

John prays for peace

Here in the opening of his letter to the 7 churches in the area that we will meet in Rev ch 2-3 John prays for grace and peace upon the Christians worshipping at each of the churches that this letter is addressed to.  Do you see the reason he can pray for this peace?  It is because he is asking for peace to come from the God “who is and who was and who is to come”.  John can ask for this peace because there has never been a single second in time that God has not been ruling over creation and there will never be a time that God’s control over His universe will be lessened.  Some of these churches were going through some rough periods of persecution but even in the middle of incredibly hard times they could know peace because Christ was still in charge of everything.

 

It’s still true today

God is still in control today.  There is nothing that could ever happen in your life that is outside the plan of God.  Nothing ever takes Him by surprise and nothing ever happens but by His sovereign hand.  Therefore we can have peace in the middle of even the most trying and stressful times because God is in charge and He makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him.  We who have been called according to His purpose, who have turned from our own way and declared Him to be our rightful King can trust that He will do what is best for His followers.  He has a long track record of faithfulness and there will never be a time when He won’t still be faithful.  The same God that formed our bodies in the womb and redeemed our souls at Calvary will bring us safely home to be by His side forever.  He is truly faithful, “yesterday, today, and forever”.

 

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Market Like A Dog–Get Where Your Customer is Going Before They Do.

In the two previous posts we looked what my dog Molly has taught me about marketing.  She is a rescue and has constant need of reassurance and bellyrubs from her owners.  Honestly, if it were up to her she would spend her entire life in my arms or on my lap and be fine with that. However having a dog all over me is incredibly annoying so she has to come up with sneaky ways to get the lovin’ she needs.   Today’s lesson has to do with the fact that she predicts where I’m going to go next and beats me there.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten up to go to the bathroom and she is right outside the door before I get there and if I don’t pay attention she sneaks in with me.  Once she’s gotten that far she knows she’s in!  She knows I’ve got nothing better to do than scratch her ears for the next 3-5 minutes!  She also knows that if she can already be on the couch before I sit down then the chances of being able to curl up next to me are better than if she were to get on the couch after I sit down.  I’m telling you she’s sneaky!

Where is your customer going?

Molly has hit upon a tried and true marketing principle; instead of following your customer, if you can get to where they are going before they do then you will have a better chance of influencing them to do what you want.  For instance, on my other site a company contacted us about a new product they were going to be launching soon and offered us the chance to use the product, promote it and offer coupons to our followers at the launch.  Once the product actually launched and people started Googling it to find out more information, whose site was at the top of the search results?  That’s right, lil o me.  That turned into a big spike in traffic, many new followers, and who knows the long-term residual effects of that traffic surge.

What’s the next big thing in your niche?

Where is your market going?  What will your customers and readers be interested in six months from now?  Anyone can be reactive but if you can get out ahead every once in a while it will make a huge difference in your readership.  Here’s a few ways to try to get the inside scoop on what’s coming

1)  Industry newsletters or magazines.  Especially if you can find one that has the equivalent of a “Gossip column” where info that is not common knowledge is leaked out.

2)  Industry contacts.  You will develop these more the bigger you get but there is no reason not to reach out to a few insiders and let them know you exist.  I sent out some email a few years ago to companies in another niche I’m involved in and that led to a few informal relationships that I rely on for “inside information”.

3)  Subscribe to everyone’s Twitter.  I follow some blogs for a certain segment of the publishing industry and there is one column in particular that always does a good job of revealing upcoming projects for certain artists and many times it’s just by reading their (or sometimes their wife’s!) Twitter account.  Listen to what’s being said and run with it.

4)  New ads.  Are you seeing new banner ads or pop ups for new products in your niche?  Are you getting emails advertising the next big thing?  Do a story on it!  If it takes off then you’ve got an older, established post dealing with it already out there!

There are many other ways to do this but they basically boil down to one thing, know your niche.  Be connected enough to it to be able to tell where it’s going and get out in front of it!

 

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Change your FaceBook Settings-What's on your wall?

Did you know that you can control the posts that appear on your FaceBook fanpage?  The default settings is to allow not only the posts you post but also any comments by your followers directly on your status bar.  (Not the comments under a post but the comments directly on your page from your status bar.)  For most people this is what you want but what if there is a reason to disallow direct comments?  For instance, perhaps your site is getting spammed with comments that are obvious ads for other sites or products.  Or perhaps you have a contest where your followers need to comment on your fanpage but you don’t want anyone else to see the comments.  Fortunately it is very easy to toggle between the two views.

1)  Go to your Fan page and click on the “Settings” link.

2)  Under “Default view for Wall” select the setting you want. 

That’s it!  Now either your followers will be able to see every status update on your page by anyone or only the updates you post yourself.  Enjoy!

 

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Introduction to the Trinity

When trying to define the Trinity, analogies fail us.  We can’t say that God is “like” anything else because He isn’t like anything else.  In fact most analogies people use only serve to illustrate a heretical view of God.  Some have suggested that God is like an egg, there is the yolk, the white, and the shell all comprising one egg.  The problem is this promotes the idea that God is 1/3 Father, 1/3 Son, and 1/3 Holy Spirit and all three combined are all of God when the orthodox view is that all of God is the Father, all of God is the Son, and all of God is the Holy Spirit.  God cannot be divided and this analogy compromises the simpleness of “indivisibleness” of God.  Another analogy sometimes used is that of water, water can be solid (ice), liquid, or gas (steam) but it is all water.  The problem is that water cannot be in all three states at the same time but God is all three persons of the Trinity simultaneously.  This analogy does a better job of illustrating the heresy known as modalism than it does the orthodox view of God.

Isa 40:25  To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

There simply isn’t a good way to illustrate the Trinity because God is utterly unique.

God is not bound by time or space.  He is an infinite being that defies description.

Here is our working definition of the Trinity shamelessly stolen from Dr. James White.

Within the one Being that is God, there exists eternally three coequal and coeternal persons, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

Within the one Being that is God - We are monotheists.  We do not worship three separate Gods but one God only.

 

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - God is three persons.  Not three beings that are one being or three persons that are one person.  Three persons that are one Being.  This distinction is absolutely critical to an orthodox understanding of the Trinity.

God is one what and three whos – One being and three persons

there exists eternally three coequal and coeternal persons, These three relationships are eternal.  There has never been a time that the Father was not the Father or the Son was not the Son.  The Father did not create the Son.  There relationships are eternal
Each is not ⅓ of God

These are the Three Foundations of a clear understanding of the Trinity: Monotheism, 3 Divine Persons, The persons are Coeternal and Coequal

Every Heresy will deny one of these truths

The word “Trinity” doesn’t appear in the Bible but the Doctrine of the Trinity is the only one that affirms everything the Bible says about who God is.

If you deny Monotheism-You get Polytheism
If you deny Equality – You get Subordinationalism (By which I mean that the Father is more powerful, or older, or more valuable than the Son or the Spirit, not that the Son nd Spirit don’t willingly submit to the Father.  More on that in a few weeks.)
If you deny Three Persons – You get Modalism (The heretical belief that God exists sometimes as Father, sometimes as Son, Sometimes as Holy Spirit.  God exists as all three simultaneously.)

A correct understanding of the Trinity will answer most objections to it.  Here are three common ones.

If Jesus is God, then when He was baptized and the voice of God was heard, was Jesus throwing His voice like a ventriloquist? 

No, while Jesus was (and is) God the voice heard was that of the Father who is also God but a separate person of the Trinity.

When Jesus prays, is He praying to Himself?

No, He is praying to the Father.

When Jesus was dead for three days, does this mean that God was dead?

No, The Godhead was still alive and holding the universe together.  Only the physical body of Jesus was dead.

 

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Book Review: Radical by David Platt

Wow!  That’s probably the best one word review of this book I could give.  Every night I would read a chapter in this book and every night I was challenged, convicted and inspired to a deeper and more radical walk with my Lord.  The big idea of this book is that typical American Christianity has gone astray and led most of us down a path of the kind of consumerist, materialist, stuff-obsessed spirituality that is dramatically different than the faith described in the Bible.

 

Platt asks some very tough and difficult to answer questions that every Christian should struggle with.  We need to realize that every dollar that moves through our hands is there by the grace of God and to be used for His glory.  We re the most prosperous people on Earth but most of our wealth goes to making our lives easier or for our enjoyment, and while it isn’t necessarily wrong to enjoy the blessings God allows in our lives we need to make sure that we are maximizing our money has upon the Kingdom of God.  What would happen if every Christian committed to just $1oo a year to foreign missions?  What would happen if American Christians were intentional about making sure they were using their money in ways that honor God?  As the author points out, there is a world of difference between “How much can I spare” and “How much will it take”.

 

I cannot recommend this book enough.  In fact, now that I’m done I’m going to give my copy to some other people in my church because this message is too important to keep to myself.  Please get yourself a copy, read through it, and respond to the challenges the author gives you.

 

This Book was given to me for free by Blogging for Books for the purpose of review.  I received no monetary compensation.

 

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Market Like A Dog: Bark for Attention

In my previous post I introduced you to Molly, my needy Boxer-Pit mix dog.  She is a little insecure and absolutely desperate for attention, love and bellyrubs and has many tricks she has learned to get what she needs.  It amazes me how much attention she wants and how she always gets it from me, my wife, or my son.  She absolutely never goes without because she has learned exactly what to do let us know what she wants and we are happy to oblige.  A happy dog makes for a happy home, I guess.

 

If just standing in my way or getting in my face doesn’t work, she has a sure fire method to let us know she needs something; a loud, sharp bark.  The most comical times that this is used is when she must go to the bathroom RIGHT NOW!  She will get between me and the TV set or stick her nose on my laptop keyboard, bark and just stare at me, we all know that this means that we have maybe seconds before we will have a little puddle to clean up.  She also barks when it’s time for exercise, she will bring me her bone and bark, that’s my cue to throw the bone so she can run and go get it.  Her bark is a fantastic way to let me know that she needs me to do something.

 

Similarly, you need to develop ways to “bark” at your readers.  Something that is used infrequently to highlight the very best posts or at least the ones that you think your readers really need to pay attention to.  Let me tell you some of the ways Dian developed her “bark” for her site, GroceryShopForFREE.com.

Formatting – Every time the word “Free” is used on her site it is all caps, bolded, and pink.  Her frequent readers recognize this as a cue that she is going to talk about something that’s free in that post and nothing grabs people’s attention like free!  You might take a look at your site and if there is one subject in particular that seems to grab your readers’ attention more than other subjects, try to develop a particular “formatting brand” for that information.  Maybe that post starts with a certain word or phrase, or something is underlined, or a different color, or whatever.  You re just trying to develop a short-hand way to “bark” and draw people’s attention to something.

 

Texting  -  Twitter has a very simple method for your customers to receive your tweets directly on their phones in the form of a text message.  Instruct your customers to text “follow (your Twitter name)” to 40404 and they will get whatever you tweet on that account to their phones.  That’s a great way to cut through all the noise and get your info to your customer in a way that can’t be ignored.  One word of caution, consider creating a separate Twitter account so they don’t get everything, just the cream of the crop.

 

FaceBook  -  This one is pretty obvious but I want to include it anyway.  (Mainly so there are three things in this list!)  Most people have a FaceBook tab open in their browser all day long so getting your info into their stream is a great way to “bark”.

Just like Molly barks to let me know she wants something from me, you should take the time to develop ways to bark at your readers to let them know you want their attention.  It should be something that cuts through all the distractions and grabs their eyeballs and refuses to be ignored.  What are some ways you have developed to bark at your customers?  Let me know at my BlogFrog page.

 

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Market like a dog: She's always in my way

I have a beautiful American Pit Boxer named Molly that we rescued from the Arlington Animal Shelter a few years ago and she is easily the best dog we’ve ever owned. (except for maybe Patches but that’s a different dog and a different story)  Being a rescue meant dealing with a few personality quirks along the way, for instance she really didn’t like confined spaces in the beginning.  The first weekend we had her we locked her in the bathroom with her food and water and figured she would be fine for  few hours while we went to dinner.  I still to this day cannot believe how incredibly wrong we were!  We returned home to a bathroom that was absolutely demolished, in fact the first thing we saw as we came round the corner was her nose sticking out of the door and into the hallway.  She had actually torn the bathroom door up so much that she had created a hole big enough to get her head through.  If we had come home twenty minutes later she would have been out of the bathroom and probably would have started on the front door.  Thank goodness that waiter finally brought us our change!

Over time we learned each others personalities and she doesn’t do crazy things like that as long as I keep her in a steady supply of food, water, exercise and belly rubs but as I’ve owned her I realized that my dog was a very good marketer.  She had a list of things she needed from me and she knew exactly how to play me and my family to get what she needed.  She is like a part of the family now and fits right into our daily schedule but never goes without anything she wants and as I watched how she did it I realized that what she did was applicable for every blog site owner or anyone with a product to sell so over the next couple of blog posts let me share with you a few of Molly’s insights

 

She is always in my way

The first thing that is apparent is that she is always in my way and right next to me so I can pet her.  In fact she does this so well I think she is part ninja!  When I come out of a room she gets in front of me and walks backwards in time with me so if I suddenly get the urge to pet her she is in position to jump up and get her ears rubbed.  The amazing thing is this almost always works!  She has trained me well!

 

Are you in your followers’ way?

Don’t underestimate the value of having a constant presence in front of the eyes of your reader.  You should have fresh posts in their RSS reader, a newsletter in their inbox, tweets in their Twitter stream, posts on their FaceBook page, and any other way you can think of.  Each impression raises familiarity with your brand incrementally and makes you more trustworthy and authoritative.  I have a certain speaker I follow, I listen to his podcasts, follow him on Twitter, read his blog, etc. and in the middle of every show he has a commercial for a book that he has written.  Over the last year, the desire has grown to buy this book just by the sheer number of ad impressions he was hitting me with and this Christmas when I got my new Kindle and $100.00 in Amazon gift cards (Best. Gift. Ever!) that was one of the first books I bought.  In fact I plan on buying more of his books as soon as I finish this one and he was able to make that sale because he was always in my way.  In fact at this point I’ll probably buy anything else he writes from now on.

 

Are you in your customers’ way?  Do they expect to see you everyday?  Are you a normal part of their day?  What can you do to get more impressions in front of your followers?  Join the conversation at my BlogFrog page and tell us what you think!

 

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