Did you know that there’s an agency who decides what the color trends are going to be several years in advance?

It’s called the Color Marketing Group, the leading international association of color professionals.

What does this mean to you? If you have an online (or offline) business that has anything to do with colors, you’ll definitely want to be aware of what colors are in style for the current year.

For example, Web design firms, Webmasters, clothing stores, department stores, advertising agencies, SEO/SEM companies, marketing companies, interior decorators, wallpaper and paint companies, etc., need to be aware of what colors are “in” for the current year.

So what are the hot color trends for 2008?

According to the Color Marketing Group, here are your colors for 2008:

1. Green and all colors of nature

2. Blues that remind us of the sky and water as well as a navy that’s so dark it’s almost black

3. Coppery, bronze-y tones of metallic

4. Ethnic accent colors like Moroccan reds, sunny golden yellow, and turquoise.

For more detail, read the entire article at:

http://www.colormarketing.org/Media.aspx?id=784&

Be sure to visit the Color Marketing Group every year to learn what colors are hot for the current year.

Robin

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Mary Bowling from Blizzard Internet has written an excellent whitepaper called, “Make Your WordPress Blog Search Engine Friendly.”

You can find the whitepaper referenced on Sphinn:

http://sphinn.com/story/28775

In the whitepaper section of Blizzard Internet Marketing, you’ll feel like you hit the lottery with all of the phenomenal whitepapers you can download. This SEO/SEM company is really up on their game.

Robin Nobles

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Too often we let life’s true learning experiences pass us by. Barry Byers caught this one in action, and I’m so glad he did.  

The article below was written by Barry Byers, one of our Search Engine Academy associates. Barry and his partner, Greg Mate, own the Toronto and Montreal Search Engine Academy. If you live near either of those areas and are interested in learning search engine marketing, you know where to go for the most trusted SEO training in the area.  

Barry took a simple dinner and turned it into a learning experience in his article below.

Congratulations, Barry. It’s a phenomenal article!

5 Small Business Marketing Tips
By Barry Byers

Small business marketing tips are everywhere these days and if you pay attention, even in the most unexpected places. (more…)

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I’ve been in the SEO industry since 1998. At that time, it was called Web positioning.

Why was it called “Web positioning”? Because of WebPosition Analyzer software, which was the earliest version of Web Position Gold, first created by Brent Winters of FirstPlace Software. Brent called it “Web positioning,” and so did the rest of the very small “search engine” world.

The name morphed into search engine positioning, then different variations as the industry tried to settle in to actually becoming an “industry.”

I was the very first trainer in the Web positioning industry. I created the first training courses, either online or offline. I certified the first students. My courses were taught in conjunction with First Place Software, but I didn’t teach my students how to use the software. I taught them Web positioning.  

We’re taking a trip down memory lane here.

I created a six-week beginning course in 1998, then went on to create a six-week advanced course.

I wrote the first three print books on the topic of search engine marketing. My first book was actually published without my knowledge by my “boss” at the time.

The name “search engine positioning” morphed into search engine optimization or SEO for short, or search engine marketing when referring to the marketing efforts done across an entire Web site.  

For the average bear, none of those names actually means anything. None of them gets to the nitty gritty of what an SEO should do for a Web site.

Needless to say, most SEOs optimize Web pages and provide some sort of other services, whether those services are good, bad, or very ugly. They may perform research based on real Web sites, or they may base their research on test sites or forum gossip. I don’t know which is worse.

As the very first person to ever teach anyone in the industry, and as the one person who has trained more people than anyone else, I can honestly say that I’ve seen more scam artists masquerading as SEOs than you can imagine. Some of the so-called leading SEO companies are spam geniuses. My students come in with horrendous problems, and when they tell me who their SEOs are, I shudder.

What is search engine optimization? It’s a profession made up of professionals. The “experts” who slam others in forums need to go home. The “experts” who talk about others in public to make themselves look good should go home.

If we can’t look like professionals and act like professionals, what are we doing in a professional industry?

What is search engine optimization?

Tracy Fredrychowski, Owner of the Search Engine Academy of South Carolina, created a YouTube post answering that very question in a just a few seconds in language that anyone can understand.

Good for you, Tracy. Most techies couldn’t do what you did.

Hats off to Tracy, a phenomenally creative person and a superb SEO who is a search engine marketing trainer.

Robin

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My good friend and fellow SEO, Richard Burckhardt, from The Web Optimist, which offers views on search engine optimization, recently tagged me on a “Why I Blog” string. What a cute idea! Since I’m all about ideas, here I am!

1. I blog because I’m a writer, and writers have to write. It’s deep in my heart and soul. I can think of so many Web site content ideas for your sites and can help you make those content ideas compelling so that your readers/visitors will want to link to them (building link popularity).

2. I blog because I’m a teacher, and I love to teach. I can’t help it. Everything I see, I want to teach about it. I’m extremely passionate about the fields of writing and search engine optimization, and I want to share my passion with you.

3. I blog because I’m a creative person, and I want to help others become creative too. Creativity unlocks the doors that are otherwise nailed shut, and it motivates us to have more ideas for MORE content!

4. I blog because it is fun! What’s wrong with having fun?

5. I blog because I like to do things that are different. Blogging isn’t different, but this blog is different. It doesn’t look like most blogs, and I don’t treat it like most blogs, at least like most SEO blogs. I like to take the “usual” and add a twist to it, and blogging gives me that ability.

6. Blogging allows me to express my opinion publicly without being flamed. Wow! How cool is that?! (No, I’ve never kept anyone from posting anything nasty here, but I’ve always said that kindergarten flamings won’t be tolerated here.)

7. I blog because I love writing to YOU. You give me inspiration, and you make it all worthwhile.

Richard, thanks for giving me the opportunity to post reasons why I blog!

Marshall Sponder, the Web Metrics Guru, TAG, you’re it!

Robin 

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