I chose 7 because, well…I typed them out and ended up with 7 (7’s my lucky number). On to the list:

1. Bring 4-5 copies of your resume to the job interview

Hand one to the interviewer as a courtesy just as you sit down. They also come in handy in case there are additional supervisors or executives who sit in during your interview. I usually carry 8-10 copies of my resume in a small folder wherever I go.

2. Carry a leather pad-folio with pen and pad to take notes

They usually like that. The pad-folios have a pocket or sleeve where you can store your extra copies of your resume, a list of references (including phone number, address, job title and relationship; you never know what information you will need). I also carry copies of letters of recommendation, copies of awards, certificates, etc, with me.

3. Bring your Driver’s License and Social Security card with you

All employers need to have copies of these items upon hiring, so be prepared, expecting that you will get the job so that you don’t have to make an extra trip home. Hey, even if they say they are going to hire you, they could bring in an additional interviewee after you leave. Don’t take any chances.

4. Turn off your cell phone completely during the interview

I know you’re waiting for that call from the other job or that extra-special someone, but you do not want it to disrupt the interview process. People can still hear the vibrating noise in your pocket, so just turn it off all the way.

5. Thoroughly research the company using Google

Check out their website thoroughly, learn the names of important executives, financial information about the company, their stock ticker symbol, recent news about the company and recent changes in the industry that apply to the company.

6. Prepare at least 3-4 intelligent questions you would like to ask the interviewer

These can be about the company, their personal experience on the job or similar. If they ask you if you have any questions, you can choose the most relevant from your prepared list to ask them.

7. Just relax!

Remember that you are also interviewing the company to determine that you in fact wish to work for them. You have options! We all do, and over-worrying is not going to solve anything.

Please comment, enjoy and share!

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Three types of social media
There are three main types of social media: publishing, sharing and networking. Each social media service should fall into at least one of these categories. There will be some overlap, and services like Facebook can fall right in the middle.

What should I publish?
Publish everything you have, anywhere you can. Paul Lavenhar of PL Communications says:

Most businesses have subject matter experts with tons of “inside” expertise, which is often what they leverage to persuade new clients to buy their products or services. When that same expertise is “repackaged” as a blog entry or web content, it serves the same function to a potentially much wider audience. Plus, the content has the added bonus of helping with SEO.

Spend some time finding this inside expertise. Unlock it by turning it into web content such as a blog article or instructional video. Then, publish it! Here is a small list of popular social media sites where you can publish your content:

• Flickr – Photos
• Upcoming – Events calendar
• Yelp – Local reviews
• Google Groups – Discussions
• Wikipedia – Encyclopedia articles
• Podcast.net – Podcasts/audio
• YouTube – Video
• Twitter – Blogging
• Squidoo – One page guides

Publish whatever you have
Mike Volpe described how hiring an intern to upload YouTube videos helped SolidWorks, a former employer, increase business exposure. These 100+ (somewhat dry and technical) videos were already published on their company web site. By uploading them to YouTube, they generated an additional 10,000 views per month. Many people (particularly 3D CAD engineers—their company’s target market) found them useful, and the company’s brand awareness was improved.

Monitor what’s published
Sign up for Google Alerts and monitor what people are saying about your company or brand. Using an advanced search query like the following will allow you to be alerted whenever someone posts something about you, while still filtering out content from your own web site:

yourbrandname -site:yoursite.com

You can also search for your brand name on Technorati, a popular blog search engine. Subscribe to RSS updates for your search results and you will be able to stay current on what popular bloggers are saying about you.

When people say good things about you, promote it
Promoting flattering content is a good way of helping others in your social network while still helping to promote yourself. When another blogger writes a wonderful article about your product or company, promote it by submitting and voting for it on social news sites or by linking to it from your own web site. This is what social media is all about: making friends.

Tomorrow I will cover Part 3: How to Share, Network and Measure Results.

Please comment with your experience in social media publishing here.

Why is social media important?
Traditionally, we have practiced many forms of outbound marketing—we attempt to pull people in toward us. We have tried seminars, trade show booths, telemarketing, print ads, direct mail, email blasts, television commercials and radio ads. Sometimes successful, these types of marketing are expensive and are very easy to block out. We have Do-Not-Call lists, our DVRs can skip TV commercials and we even have handy ways to assassinate spam.

Social media is important because people do not need more marketing. Instead, people are now relying on recommendations from trusted friends in their social circle.

What is considered inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing could be search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), blogging, social media, RSS, etc. Customers already know what they want, and they come looking for you. Ideally, when Customer A steps up to the Google search box, your site will rank high enough so that Customer A will find you (instead of your competition).

What is social media?
Social media is any form of media with a social component. This may be the ability to add to it, share it, comment about it, etc. Social media is permission centric and sometimes the ‘conversation’ has already started. All we need to do as marketers is join in at the right time and place.

What if I don’t understand all this social media stuff?
That is okay. The latest generations have had the opportunity to grow up with social media. Many of us have not. Try to think of social media as being similar to a business cocktail reception, except without the time or space constraints. Now, simply follow some business cocktail party advice like:

• Meet people and start conversations
• Answer questions and help others
• Ask questions and trust the advice of others

Become a real member of the community. Figure out how you can add value to the community. The great thing about online social media is that everything is well documented, other people can easily listen in to your conversations and you can be found by search engines.

Tomorrow I will cover Part 2: Three Types of Social Media and What to Publish.

Please comment with your experience in social media marketing here.

Private Registration is usually $8.99 per domain name, but if you register 5 or more, you get free Private Registration on all domains in your cart. I try to buy domain names 5 at a time to get the free Private Registration. It saves me nearly $50, and I can qualify for the discount by adding one or two cheap $2.99 .INFO domains to my cart.

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3. Enter one of the above coupon codes into your cart at checkout.

I noticed that the .TV domains in my cart do not count toward the 5. They also do not count toward your total price to receive some of the discounts above. That’s too bad, but oh well. You save 50% off the .TV domains anyway.

Enjoy, and feel free to post your questions, comments or deals!

The problem is that www is considered a sub-domain, just like: http://mail.yahoo.com or http://analytics.google.com.

Search engines consider subdomains to be a completely different web site. So, http://www.dauclair.com is a completely different site than http://dauclair.com in Google’s eyes.

This affects your SEO in two areas:

1. If Google happens to index your site as both www and non-www, you may be penalized for duplicate content. Your site is essentially competing against itself.
2. Google determines your PageRank, the importance of your site, by the number of inbound links your site has. So, if people are linking to www, but your site is indexed as non-www, you are missing out on all the inbound links pointing to your www site.

By default, most web servers will redirect both www and non-www to your main web site. This is why most sites work by typing either. However, as web developers and SEOs, we have the flexibility to disable or change this behavior on the apache web-server using redirect rules in the .htaccess file or the main server-auth files.

When I started building inbound links to dauclair.com, I used non-www. I chose this because the URL is shorter. Now, I think that it was a mistake. When other webmasters or just people referencing the site post a link, they naturally assume to use www since that is the standard way they see it on tv, the internet and other forms of advertising. They are not looking out for SEO best interests.

Any thoughts on this? Otherwise, its www from here on out.

So What is a Nameserver?

Nameservers are like the road signs of the internet. For example, if you type a domain name into your web browser (also known as an ‘address’), a site usually pops up. That is because your browser followed all the road signs (nameservers) until it ended up at your destination, the web site you were requesting. These road signs need to be setup by somebody. That somebody is probably you, unless you have a web designer working for you, who will gladly handle this task.

How to Setup Your GoDaddy Nameservers (DNS)

1. Visit www.GoDaddy.com in your web browser.
2. Enter your Login Name and Password to login to your account. The login box is located at the right hand side of the home page. Screenshot
   (NOTE: This login information was created by you when you bought your domain name and should have been emailed to you by GoDaddy. If you cannot find your login info, click on ‘Forgot your password?’ and follow the instructions to retrieve your password.)
3. Once you are logged in, hover your mouse over the ‘Domains’ tab near the top left. The drop down menu will appear. Click on ‘My Domains’ from the list. Screenshot
4. The next page lists all of your domains. Put a check mark on all the domains you would like to make changes to, and click on the ‘Nameservers’ button near the top center of the page. Screenshot
5. The next page shows your ‘Set Nameservers’ options. Click on the ‘Custom Nameservers’ tab and enter your nameservers here. Your nameservers are provided to you by your web hosting company. In this case, we are hosting our web site with MediaTemple, so we enter NS1.MEDIATEMPLE.NET and NS2.MEDIATEMPLE.NET. Click the OK button to continue.
6. The next screen lists the domains you have just updated, simply as a confirmation to you. It also indicates for your to allow a few minutes for processing. Very good! Just click the OK button to continue.
7. You are returned to your main list of domain names again. You are finished and can now ‘Logout’ near the top center of the page.
8. Now you wait. The changes need to ‘propagate’ (spread) across the internet to all the nameservers out there. Once your nameserver information gets updated across the internet, your site will start becoming accessible by entering your domain name into your web browser. This can take anywhere between 2 and 48 hours. Some computers will take effect sooner than others. Continually test your site by entering your domain name into your web browser and hitting refresh every few hours. If a page comes up, then your site has become live!

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