Richard Cummings
Latest posts by Richard Cummings (see all)
should you auto-message

Can/Should I Auto-Message My Followers on Twitter?

Richard Cummings

should you auto-messageQuestion:  I’ve only been using Twitter for about one year and I notice that a lot of people that I follow send me a direct message like:  “Thanks for the follow.  I’d like to offer you free access to this small business marketing PDF as a token of my appreciation. ”

So, my question is this:  How are these people auto-messaging me via Twitter and, secondly, is this considered a good business practice or is it spammy suicide?  Thanks, Gina in South Carolina 

Answer:  Gina, unknowingly, you have opened a can of worms that is the subject of much debate.  Let’s tackle the first part of your question and then we’ll get into the sometimes “heated” debate about whether you should auto-direct message people who follow you on Twitter.
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9 Startling Mobile Marketing Stats You Must Know in 2018

Richard Cummings

actionable-mobile-marketing-statistics-1Statistics tell a story and the latest mobile marketing statistics tell this story:

You have to optimize everything you do online for mobile!

“Whatever, I’m gettin’ by just fine without it. Can people just stop shouting about mobile this and mobile that?”“.

Not until you listen — sometimes you just need cold hard facts to spur you to action.

So here are 9 startling mobile marketing statistics you must know (and act on!) in 2018, each introduced with a corresponding Tweet.
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value of inbound anchor text

SEO & Inbound Link Anchor Text: Does inbound anchor text still matter?

Richard Cummings

value of inbound anchor textThe question that we are going to look at today is this: Is inbound anchor text still relevant when it comes to SEO best practices?

We know that it used to be. As you’ll see below, the volume of inbound links using specific anchor text was such an influencer, and yet so easily manipulated, that it threatened Google’s entire business.
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local search marketing seo

Google Places SEO: 8 Proven Ways to Dominate Google Local in 2018

Richard Cummings

local search marketing seoDo you want to dominate your Google local places search results in 2018? Then follow the 8 SEO steps listed below and you will beat your local competition!

Many businesses, especially small businesses, think that achieving first-page organic search results (as opposed to paid-for AdWords type results) is a near impossibility.

But the truth is, for local businesses, success in the organic results is now more achievable than ever. With a little SEO ingenuity and knowledge of how Google places SEO works, you’ll always have the upper hand on the competition.

Businesses simply need to understand how the local search results work and that is what I am going to explain in this article:

[bctt tweet=”How to win in the local search results by understanding how the local search results work.”]

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social media challenges for small businesses

10 Reasons Businesses Fail at Social Media…and How to Not Be One of Them!

Richard Cummings

social media challenges for small businesses

How Small Business Succeed on Social Media…and How They Fail!

Small businesses consistently fail at social media. True or False?

If you answered “true”, you are correct. Small businesses setup social media accounts and are then victims of their own great expectations.

The bottom line is this:

[bctt tweet=”Social media won’t work for your small business if you don’t know how to work it!”] Read More

virtual offices search engine results

Warning: Virtual Offices in Google My Business to Succeed in Google Local Places

Richard Cummings

virtual offices search engine resultsIf you intend to create a virtual office to include in your Google My Business profile to maximize your Google Places SEO positioning, you may want to reconsider.

A client of The SEO System in St. Louis recently asked me if he could succeed in Google local places in other cities by establishing virtual offices in those cities.

The question surfaced because he had noticed his competition having some success by establishing a virtual office in that location and then, rather quickly, getting a Google local listing for that location.

But, what may seem like a good idea at first, is not.

While establishing a virtual office and including that in your Google My Business profile to game the search engines may provide some short term gain, it will produce dire consequences for your business in the long run.

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small business brand building

Small Business SEO: How to Build Website “Authority” & Brand Awareness

Richard Cummings

small business brand building

Small Business: How To Build Your Online Brand

Let’s not mince words:  Small business SEO got a lot harder in the last few years.  Google updated their algorithms to favor authoritative brands and you have very little immediate chance of competing in any competitive niche.

Want a prime example of this?  Simply do a Google search for “Small business SEO”.   Ideally, who should compete for this term?  A small business, right?

Nope. The first result, 5 Ways Small Businesses Can Compete With Giants in SEO, comes from Entrepreneur media.  Check out their LinkedIn profile, which currently lists 1,832 employees.  And this does not even factor in the hundreds of guest authors that write for them, one of whom is Jayson DeMers, who wrote the article.Read More

online buying habits

Who Buys Online in 2018?

Richard Cummings

online buying habits

Who Buys Online?

Who buys products online in 2018?

This is a question that is too infrequently asked by people who try to sell online.

If you have a product that you are trying to sell online, it makes sense to first determine if your targeted audience is one who actually buys products online.

First, you absolutely need to find out if your product caters to those who buy online.

Secondly, to be an effective online advertiser, you need to know your advertising audience exactly! This will save you money and drastically improve the amount of people who actually buy your product.

But, how do you find this out?

In an article entitled “The surprising facts about who shops online and on mobile“, Cooper Smith attempted to find out the answer to this very question.

This topic was further researched in-depth in an article entitled The 19 Ecommerce Trends + 147 Online Shopping Stats Fueling Sales Growth in 2018 by Tracey Wallace.

The conclusions in these articles may surprise you.
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lifestyle marketing ideas

Lifestyle Marketing: I’m awesome so check out my web content!

Richard Cummings

lifestyle marketing ideas

Lifestyle Marketing: Is it for you?

Lifestyle marketing has become one of the hot new terms.

And, when you think about it, this makes sense. After all, who has the most Twitter followers? Is it some online marketing whiz? Some tech genius who knows how to master and perhaps manipulate social media and the search engines? Absolutely not!

It’s Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Barack Obama, Taylor Swift and these other 96 people.

So, perhaps, instead of researching valuable Twitter Business Tips, you should just go out and get yourself the latest fashionable sunglasses and then show pictures of how hot and successful you are!Read More

wordpress seo sql injection

WordPress SEO Vulnerable To Attack!

Richard Cummings

wordpress seo sql injection

WordPress SEO by Yoast Hacked

A security vulnerable has been discovered in the extremely popular WordPress SEO plugin, WordPress SEO by Yoast. This vulnerability potentially opens your WordPress site to a blind SQL injection attack. To remove any potential threats, you should upgrade the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin to version 1.7.4 or higher immediately.
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sulia shuts down

Sulia: Another Social Media Content Curator Bites The Dust!

Richard Cummings

sulia shuts down

Another Social Media Network Shuts Its Doors!

Sulia, a business that had raised $10 million dollars in funding and sought to be another type of social media content curation service, officially shut down in October of 2014.

It wasn’t but two years ago that Mashable called Sulia “The Hottest Social Network You’ve Never Heard Of” and Forbes hailed Sulia as the fast-growing subject-based social network. With all this hype, later that summer in 2013, Sulia received an additional $5 million in funding.Read More

social media analytics

Predictive Analysis & Your Business: A “Targeted” Lesson

Richard Cummings

When marketing and big data analytics merge, the ability to predict behaviors can be downright eerie.

social media analytics

Predicting Customer Behavior

In this article, we will take at how retailing giant Target used predictive analytics to determine if a customer was pregnant and how your company can follow the same principles to identify, predict, and influence customer behavior.

An irate father enters a Target story demanding that they stop sending his daughter promotional information about pregnancy products.

“She’s just a teenager,” he exclaims. “What kind of business are you running? Please stop this nonsense of sending adult material to my young girl!”Read More