This image is a screenshot of a simple FreeMind Mind-Map of Social Media sites, Business Review sites, Social Bookmarking sites.

Simply put, you will reach more people if you establish a business presence on each of these networks.  As an added intensive, Google has recently started rewarding top rankings to content that is shared by people who are active in any of these networks.

More than that – when you study and consider the relative value of online traffic sources,  social media starts to look even better!

Freemind Mind Map of Inbound Marketing for Tourism

Do yourself a checklist and write down the extent of the coverage of your current online presence, and tuck it away so you can compare it next year.

Every time I inhibit a thought or an action and chose something else, I’m going to make different choices that are going to lead me to a different destiny. It’s that simple. That’s quantum physics right there. – Joe Dispenza

Every time I inhibit a thought or action and chose something else, that’s quantum physics right there. – Joe Dispenza twitter.com/douglaslampi/s…

— Doug Lampi (@douglaslampi) May 14, 2012

Today I share two short videos. Actually see a demonstration of How Google Plus Can Help Your Search Engine Rankings – and bring your business more exposure.

A live case study of how Ontario’s Sunset Country is dominating top search rankings by using Google Plus.

This video dramatically demonstrates how your Plusing each page of your website can completely change the search results for people searching for your subject area.

Get NextGen Gallery Images indexed in Google Image Search Index

The second video has some great content for thousands of WordPress site owners who have this problem, but I consider this video to be more more of a demonstration of how easy it is to make a short video clip with an iPhone and upload it to YouTube! After I uploaded this wee clip, I used YouTube video editor to add image stabilization and a light color effect to soften the (low budge, unprofessional) background.

Getting your images indexed in the Google Image Search Index. Pictures and videos are very important for any tour company or vacation destination.

Before you get your pictures on the website – stencil them with your business logo so people can know where that image came from.

Next – make sure you have an Image Sitemap for the google bots to read. This make it easy to correctly index the photos.

If you are using the NextGen Photo Gallery Plugin for WordPress, and you are simply using the short codes to post your gallery images to your pages and posts, then your images may not be correctly indexed.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/

The solution to this is using the Yoast SEO Plugin for WordPress – and submit the pages and post sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools. I always recommend connecting Google Webmaster Tools up with Google analytics for best tracking.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/

This will result in more of your images being indexed in Google, and a lot more traffic to your website.

We are very excited to announce the new ‘Tweet Your Site Package‘!

Fresh out of testing phase – this stuff really works!

Simply put; we tweet every page of your Canadian Lodge or Resort Website out to 18,000 followers of five fishing-related twitter accounts – and you benefit in three measurable ways!

These twitter accounts have been carefully developed to reach an audience of anglers in the Midwest USA, and we keep strictly on-topic by limiting this package to resorts, lodges, campgrounds, fishing guides and other fishing related businesses located in Canada.

Very Limited Membership

Our audience is very responsive because we limit our tweets and because we offer great information!  This means we schedule Tweet Packages on a calendar and plan our content well in advance.  Many spots have been scheduled and reserved before this was made available to the public, and only a few time-blocks remain available.

Click Here for more details on the ‘Tweet Your Site Package‘

I’m saved by the password, but I really made a blunder…

While sharing a privately hosted video that reviews changes to an awesome brochure we are creating, I added the video to my site as a blog post instead of posting it as a page.

What’s the difference between a blog post and a page?

Funny you should ask…

My blog posts are automatically emailed out to my list, tweeted out to my followers, and drawn into Facebook and a number of RSS Feed websites – so I generally put some thought into a post before publishing it.

My pages, however, are not broadcast when I add a page or make a change to some service details.

Today I should have added this blog post as a page, and it would have remained private, and not broadcast… everywhere. >.<

Hope the 2012 season is shaping up well for you!

Keep Your Lure In The Water!

Doug Lampi

Learn how, on Tuesday, Jan 10, 2012, Google made the biggest change to their search algorithm ever. And, learn how we have been preparing for this!

Social media now dictates who appears on top of the search result page.

If someone who is connected to someone you know talks about what you’re looking for, it may bring that back to you as a personalized search result.

Thanks to Mike Brooks for the tip! Mike helps local businesses to get more customers online by making them findable when people search for their product or service, build their online brand using social media and creates celebrity and authority through video marketing campaigns. Mike also helps others build their career as social media consultants.

Big new going around the Net today about the new Social results in your Google Searches.

Social search results first reported on December 3, 2011 – are starting to get wide-spread attention after Matt Cutts officially released an announcement about 30 important changes to the Google Ranking Algorithms.

On Wednesday evening, I get the honor of presenting on the topic of Search Engine Optimization with WordPress – to The WordPress Winnipeg Meetup Group at SkullSpace (Floor 3, 125 Adelaide Street, Winnipeg, MB)!

WordPress, As Part Of Your Balanced SEO Plan.

Wordpress Winnipeg Meetup Group

In some ways I feel that promoting SEO to this crowd is like I’m selling ice to Eskimos.

It’s not that I’m preaching to the converted, but rather, I use the analogy of how Climate Change is occurring faster than many Eskimos are adapting!

And it’s kind of the same with SEO Change on the Internet – fundamental shifts are occurring faster than many business owners are adapting!

Good news is, WordPress can and does adapt – no matter how SEO might change!

Organized by Ian Stewart and Matt Weibe, and including such Winnipeg WordPress Masters as Krista Stevens, David Pensato, Brent Toderash, Dan Bernardic and my sister, Jill Lampi.

I’m glad Sharon Evans will be in attendance, and I hope I can provide some helpful information to SEO Skeptics like Carl Seier. I’m keen to connect up with Anthony Ramos, Gordon Johnson, Anna Matthes, Syndi Cannon, Duane McLennan and Donald McKenzie.

And, it’s rumored that the Marketing Director for The World Famous Palomino Club, Tina Lussier will be attending, making more nervous than ever!

Three Take-Aways From This Talk

1. A Way To Measure Your Success And Progress
2. A Way To Improve Your On-The-Page Ranking Factors
3. The Unrealized Importance Of Social Media To SEO in 2012

My talk will be interactive, and I’ll be looking forward to participation from the crowd as I cover these three key areas.

A Way To Measure Your Success And Progress

Douglas Lampi, January 2012

First, I’ll introduce Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics. I feel these are core basics to helping measure and improve the success of any website online. It’s important to register your site and verify ownership within Webmaster Tools so you gain access to much more information that Google already has about your site. And it’s important to cross-link your Google Analytics with your Google Webmaster Tools to enable real time visitor stats and additional features for monitoring the activity on your site.

When using a WordPress site, I recommend you add the Google Sitemap Generator Plugin to your site, and then register this sitemap within Google Webmaster Tools.

Once these setup stages are complete, it’s a good idea to review this data at least monthly, and strive to adjust and improve your site content and layout etc., to get more of the actions you want from your visitors.

A Way To Improve Your On-The-Page Ranking Factors

A two phase process – first, selecting your keywords and second, tuning your page for that keyword phrase.

I recommend using the WordPress search engine optimization plugin called SEOPressor when creating blog posts and pages. This plugin gives you a numerical score – a percentage score – of exactly how well-tuned your page is for your target keyword phrase. It’s like having an SEO professional looking over your shoulder and telling you what to adjust in your page elements so that you have the best chance of ranking well.

Another essential WordPress SEO tool, for so many reasons, was recommended at our last meeting by Brent Toderash – WordPress SEO by Yoast

The Unrealized Importance Of Social Media To SEO in 2012

All the traditional White Hat Search Engine Optimization strategies still work today, and will continue to be important – but it’s vital to realize that top search rankings established by the best SEO – is trumped by the power of a Social Media connection.

Here’s a real-time example, and a personal experience of mine, as I first began to find Google Plus Connections and Twitter Shares turning up in place of top search rankings when I was doing searches in Google – a 3 minute video on YouTube: Google Goes Social – Twitter Shares Turn Up In SERPS

WordPress Helps You Adapt

How does WordPress help you adapt to the fact that Social Media Likes, Tweets and Shares are becoming an important component to top rankings in all the major search engines? Namely through the flexibility of plugins that give your site visitors an easy way to share each page and blog post individually, while also displaying the number of people who have liked, tweeted or shared the content.

Slick Social Share Buttons

Trackable Social Share Icons

Add Twitter, Facebook Like, Google plus one Social share

As the Internet Changes – it’s easy to simply switch plugins!

So Much To Say – So Little Time!

I’d be delighted if you shared your tips and plugins for Search Engine Optimization! If it was an item shared during our meetup, or an item that one of our Virtual Attendies would like to share, please leave your comments below!!

Post-Talk Follow-up – What Are People Saying

Other Speakers – Matt Weibe on Typography and Fonts

Every year at this time, we all stop and reflect on the busy activities of the past year.

As my business passed it’s tenth year, there was new growth and vigor and development in my company like I have never seen in any one single year previously! It’s been a great deal of fun and very satisfying as well!

Running my mind over each month of the past year, six highlights stand out as the reasons my business has grown so much in 2011. The first five of those highlights are people, and the sixth is a technology.

First Highlight: Gary From iMarket.ca

Gary is a great guy to work with and an outstanding designer who specializes in creating stunning websites for Fishing and Hunting Lodges throughout Canada, that are red hot in the search engines. After years of comradery and sharing tips and experiences, recently we have formalized a working partnership that has encouraged new development and growth for both of our companies.

Second Highlight: Eric from TheTechnologicalEdge.com

Eric is an awesome web designer for the outdoor travel industry with a calm, open personality and a solid understanding of business and marketing. I met Eric at a Sport Show in Indianapolis in February of 2011 – and he introduced me to elements of his Web Design Business Plan that were so simple, yet profound, that I’ve worked the rest of 2011 to incorporate them into the fundamentals of my own business. As a result, I provide better service to my clients – and improved my bottom line as well.

Third Highlight: Tina from PalominoClub.ca

Tina is the Marketing Director of The World Famous Palomino Club – and working with her is always a highlight of my week! Tina is a spitfire who has embraced all aspects of blogging and social media! Her enthusiasm, attention to detail and consistent day-by-day efforts have given her the skill to use the Palomino Club website and social media to target and gain top rankings for almost any local keyword phrase. Tina’s belief in the value of social media and her regular work at building the online connections have created fantastic results for several Social Media Development Projects that Tina has managed recently. Tina has moved from being a client/student to being a respected colleague and friend.

Fourth Highlight: Tim from Travelbusinesssuccess.com

Tim is a Tourism Marketing Professional that I have followed and admired for a number of years, and this fall when Tim offered to teach his strategies for marketing Tour and Adventure Businesses, I started to know, like and respect Tim a great deal more! When I took the recent course on Tourism Marketing Success by Tim Warren – I thought he knocked it out of the park! Tim did a great job with the layout of the information and did a great job with the technology of the website, but more than that, the content of the course was a game-changer for the way I create websites for my tourism clients. In fact, the changes are so far-reaching, that I’m sure I’ll be blogging or making videos about Case Studies every month or so for the next year. I’m looking forward to working with Tim on a number of projects that I cannot announce yet!

Fifth Highlight: Jill from Webgrrl-enterprises.com

Jill is my sister! She is smart. And has technical knowledge in all areas of social media, blogging and areas of the internet that surpass my own. In 2011 we began working together in a slightly different way than before, that has turned into a synergistic, cooperative effort to each build our own individual businesses offering roughly similar services to our own set of clients. Among other things, over this past year, Jill and I have been taking all the strategies, case studies and business plans we have been implementing for clients, and writing a book on Tourism Internet Marketing, due to be released in the fall of 2012.

Sixth Reason My Business Grew So Much – is Skype

Skype has revolutionized the way I work with my clients. It has improved our communications and increased the ease of sharing information and teaching strategies about blogging and social media. The most powerful feature is that we can share screens, so it’s really easy to *show* my clients details as we work on the same web page together in real time. Thank you Skype!

2011 – Mature Company Hits Growth Curve

I can trace almost all of my increased success this year… new clients, better services, more effective solutions and reaching a wider audience, and, having a great deal of fun at the same time… directly to these key people that influenced me in 2011. And I’d like to thank each of you – just for being awesome – you are the six reasons my business grew so much in 2011!

I’d also like to express my gratitude to the support and effect these groups and people have had on my success in 2011:  Social Media Manitoba Meetup Group, The WordPress Winnipeg Meetup Group, my training partner Max and the awesome clients that I had the good fortune to assist, or that I get to work with on an monthly or weekly basis; Brian, Gord, Cary, Linda, Paul, Mike, Bary, Faron, Len, Cheryl, Carolyn, Darlyss,  Carol, Fern, Quent, Jeremy, Cindy, Mark, Rob, Urs, Michael, Don, Josh, Joerg, Carl, Cathy, Dan, John, Tom, Judy, Drake, Chad, Ross and Daryl. (hope I didn’t miss anyone)