The Buyer Group PR + SEO News

Rock the vote! Voting is underway for The Sun-Sentinel’s Best of Blogs Awards and Oppenheim Law’s South Florida Law Blog received a nomination in the Business Blog Category.

The South Florida Law Blog is committed to bringing timely news and advice to it’s readers as they work together to survive this treacherous real estate market.

You can vote once a day for your favorite blog (Hopefully The South Florida Law Blog!) after registering for a free Sun-Sentinel account here. Voting ends March 1^st.

Oppenheim Law and The Buyer Group appreciate your continued support, feedback and comments and look forward to bringing you the latest and greatest in Florida foreclosure defense and real estate trends.

Feel free to leave your own thoughts in the comments section, or join the conversation online with @thebuyergroup or @oplaw.

Lisa Buyer delivers online PR insight + shares how businesses can leverage the powerful reach of social media to increase sales, generate leads and improve customer service at the industry’s top seminars, webinars and conferences

The Buyer Group is more than interactive when it comes to industry conferences and dedicated to leading the pack with social media, online public relations and search engine marketing trends. During the past year, the communications industry witnessed unprecedented growth in social media, with social networking sites accounting for more than 11 percent of total time spent online.

Lisa Buyer, president and CEO of The Buyer Group, helps clients and public relations professionals stay ahead of the social media curve.

“One of our goals at The Buyer Group is to define the current digital marketing and PR landscape,” Buyer said. “Speaking at a variety of conferences, workshops and seminars affords our agency the opportunity to share cutting-edge social media and public relations practices with clients, CEOs and communications professionals.”

Below is a list of 2010 social media, PR and SEO events The Buyer Group is scheduled to participate in.

ShopToEarth’s The Next Step

The Buyer Group is the official online PR and social media agency for ShopToEarth, an online shopping portal. The Buyer Group launched the eco-friendly e-commerce business venture’s new social media channels and unveiled ShopToEarth’s 2010 Mission Video in January.

ShopToEarth Monthly Social Media for Business Training

Designing monthly social media training webinars focused on using networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, The Buyer Group’s Lisa Buyer hosts the network’s monthly social media training webinar on the second Thursday of each month.

Search Engine Strategies: New York

Lisa Buyer will join approximately 5,000 marketers and search engine optimization professionals attending SES New York each year to network and learn about topics such as PPC management, keyword research, SEO, social media, local, mobile, link building, duplicate content, multiple site issues, video optimization, site optimization, usability and more.

SES New York will be packed with 70+ sessions, multiple keynotes, 100+ exhibitors, networking events and parties.

News Search Optimization + Search, PR and the Social Butterfly

Moderating two panels in two days is just the beginning of The Buyer Group’s 2010 conference schedule. Join Lisa Buyer as she shares how to take social media to the boardroom and use press releases to tap into the power of news search.

Event Details: Wednesday, March 24^th – 2:15 p.m. and Thursday, March 25^th – 4 p.m. at the Hilton New York. Full agenda and registration information here.

PubCon Dallas: Social Media, PR + Search

Starting where other conferences leave off, The Buyer Group will be presenting on the intersection on public relations and search through social media at PubCon Dallas 2010.

Event Details: April 13 – 15, 2010 Dallas Texas Full agenda and registration information here.

Also on The Buyer Group’s conference list for 2010:

SES San Francisco – August 16-20, 2010 The Moscone Center

PubCon Las Vegas – November 8 – 11, 2010 Las Vegas Convention Center

SES Chicago – Fall 2010, dates to be scheduled.

The Buyer Group is available for custom client webinars or live presentations designed to teach your in-house team how to be social media savvy and maximize the direct and indirect benefits of social media.

More than just a press release, online PR and branding agency programs offer investor relations, social media, search engine strategies, journalism, and digital media talent

Delray Beach, FL - July 31, 2009 – What assets should a business look for when hiring an online PR agency? Talent, credentials, resources and results, says Lisa Buyer, PR agency owner, blogger and SES speaker. The Buyer Group announces the addition of a diverse team of industry experts for clients looking for more than just a press release.

In addition to its in-house PR and social media talent, The Buyer Group pools together a virtual team of business consultants as part of the agency business model including: investment relations specialist Kelly McCarthy, SEO/SEM expert Joe Laratro, senior journalist and new media expert Jennifer LeClaire, award-winning brand guru Carah Von Funk, and search-savvy web agency owner Stephen Rosen.

“These additions to our team underline additional depth, breadth, and value of the online PR services from The Buyer Group,” said Lisa Buyer. “The future of the online public relations agency system is fluid, virtual, adaptable, and diverse,” said Buyer.  “Our ability to tap into the diversity of industry expert minds when building a PR campaigns is priceless to clients.”

Industry Experts Joining The Buyer Group Team

• Kelly McCarthy @kelly_mccarthy, president and CEO of Infusion Capital, an investor relations agency.
• Joe Laratro @jlaratro, president and CEO of Tandem Interactive, an online marketing agency that specializes in search engine marketing and SEO strategies, education and training
• Jennifer LeClaire @jleclaire, a new media entrepreneur offering expert journalism content and reporting.
• Carah von Funk @vonfunk, brand champion at CvF, Inc with previous experience as senior management with Crispin Porter + Bogusky
• Stephen Rosen @sitemind, owner of Sitemind, a search-savvy web site design and development studio.

The Buyer Group is an interactive public relations and branding agency that leverages 20 years of award-winning PR services and social media experience. Always dynamic and cutting-edge, The Buyer Group bolsters its personalized and boutique approach to public relations, offering skills and knowledge that larger PR agencies are not positioned to supply without sending clients to multiple sources.

About The Buyer Group @thebuyergroup
The Buyer Group is a member of the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association and is recognized as a Google Advertising Professional Company. Lisa Buyer is a regular speaker at Internet Marketing conferences including PubCon and Search Engine Strategies talking on the topics of online PR, News search SEO and the influences of social media. For more information about The Buyer Group and its interactive public relations, social media and online branding services visit http://www.thebuyergroup.com or follow Lisa Buyer on Twitter @lisabuyer.

With rumors spreading that Google will soon offer real-time search capabilities, allowing for the indexing of Tweets and other up-to-the-minute data, it is becoming essential that users optimize their Twitter profiles and content to rank highly in search results.

The following list is a breakdown of the Top 10 Twitter SEO Tips from Mashable.com.  As an online public relations agency, The Buyer Group uses each of these strategies to manage and optimize clients’ social media channels, providing quality exposure and promotion for their businesses.

According to Mashable, “By following these 10 Twitter tips, you, your company or your brand can build up more prominent links in high places on the engines.”

1 -Choose a good handle - Usernames need to be memorable, relevant and add value to your brand.  Your username will also become part of your customized Twitter URL, making it important to be consistent among social media channels.

2- Select an account name wisely - Your account name appears next to your username.  The Buyer Group uses this field as an additional opportunity to incorporate relevant key words into a profile.

3- Make your bio count - Twitter allows users 140 characters to describe themselves.  Use them. Your bio needs to include relevant key words and phrases that boost the value of your brand and rank highly in search.

4- Spread the word – Placing your Twitter URL on other social media sites as well as on many of the pages of your own Web site will help drive up its link value in search engines.

5- Remember your URL – Including a link to your brand’s site or even another social media profile is one of the easiest things you can do to promote your business.

6 -Select the initial characters of each tweet carefully - The first characters of each tweet determine the message’s title tag as a search result and may end up having the most impact on its future SEO value.

7 – Write keyword-rich tweets if possible - There needs to be a balance between keywords and content.  Starting tweets with relevant keywords is a great way to theme your messages and capitalize on timely “buzz words.”

8- Mind your re-tweetability – Keeping your messages around 120 characters will allow for maximum re-tweetability.

9 – Provide some link love- Twitter has become a very useful tool for promotion of messages and driving traffic to specific content.  Using a URL shortener such as Bit.ly will not only make it easy to fit links into your 140 characters, but also allow tracking click-throughs.

10 – As always, give ‘em what they want -Your followers on Twitter want timely and informative content.  Making sure your tweets and links provide something of interest to your followers is the number one goal on Twitter.

Read on for more information and make sure to check out the original post by Mashable.

As search engines continue to multiply and evolve, the giant Microsoft has launched its newest search offering, http://www.Bing.com, which for the realm of online PR adds to the list of places to be found and people to be seen.

New user-friendly features by Bing include:
•    A ‘related searches’ column on the left side of the page sorted by categories: news, video, images, and shopping sites
•    Each search result has a ‘preview’ option that pops up when moused-over
•    Clean, user-friendly design
•    Geo-targeted search, pushing local sites to the top of the list
•    Updated SEO guidelines (important for web site owners)

All of the above features are speculated to draw serious eyes to the search tool and many of which are expected to stay put. With a fragmented set of online eyes, online PR experts need to make sure their clients web sites and online reputations are reachable by all – user and search engine-friendly.

Thankfully, Bing is offering a Webmaster Center that allows online PR firms and online reputation managers to authenticate a site, check the value of back links, and see where each site ranks within Bing for various keywords.  Being listed in Bing.com should be at the top of the priority list for every company.  Just how Google maps offers a local business directory, which has recently added a much-appreciated set of analytics, Bing.com’s local directory and maps section may become a go-to source for online directory searches.

Likewise with Google Maps and Yahoo Local, Bing.com has a specific set of SEO (search engine optimization) strategies that will improve the rankings of pages.  Bing.com recommends writing unique, keyword-rich content for readers, rather than web crawlers.  It is also important to use title, meta and H1 tags to help search engines identify what specific content on each page is about.

For information on how The Buyer Group can help you gain greater visibility through search engine optimization, contact Lisa Buyer at lbuyer@thebuyergroup.com today.

One of the latest challenges in the SEO and online PR world is the issue of duplicate content.  One of the latest challenges in the SEO and online PR world is the issue of duplicate content.

While it may be mildly annoying for you to read the same sentence twice, duplicate content is a major problem for search engines trying to return unique and distinct results.

At The Buyer Group, we are constantly learning about the ever-changing realm of SEO (search engine optimization) and apply these tactics into our online PR practices.  Oftentimes, companies try to take the easy way out to deliver their message, in hopes to rank higher or produce more in search results.  This includes taking one page of content from a Web site and placing it on another site such as a blog or social media channel.

Unfortunately, this approach will not produce better search results at all.  Unless the content is heavily edited from one page to a next, using this practice will lead to issues within search results.  Search engines like Google figured this detour out quite some time ago and has adapted to filter search results that only display one set of duplicate content among its highest results.  So for example, if a company takes a Web page from their Web site and posts it on their blog, the search engine will only show one of these pages in the search results.

When it comes to online public relations, it is important for content to be thought out and uniquely designed across a company’s online real estate.  Strategic social media participation in addition to an optimized Web site can greatly increase the exposure of any company.

For information on how The Buyer Group can optimize your Web site for greater search results and brand your company’s presence on social media contact Lisa Buyer today at 954.354.1411 x 14 or lbuyer@thebuyergroup.com.

One of The Buyer Group’s online PR clients’ ShopToEarth celebrates Earth Day 2009 by giving back to non-profits. See the press release below for how you can participate in Earth Day.

ShopToEarth / ShopToEarn Celebrates Earth Day 2009
Shop To Earn’s Eco-Friendly Shopping Portal Gives Back to Non-Profits

Las Vegas, NV – April 2, 2009 – Shopping online and saving the environment go beyond Earth Day for ShopToEarth (Shop To Earth), the largest eco-friendly shopping portal dedicated to helping consumers live green, save green and earn green. In honor of International Earth Day, marked for April 22, 2009, ShopToEarth/ShopToEarn announces it is donating a portion of all proceeds of green shopping purchases from select ShopToEarth retailers to the ShopToEarth Foundation. The mission of the Foundation is to support non-profit organizations that protect, preserve and sustain planet earth.

During the month of April, all of the following ShopToEarth retailers will donate one dollar per order to the ShopToEarth Foundation: Aquasana, Bayes, Emugenix, Energetix, Natureall, Magic FlashDrive, People Pets and Horses, Sun Warrior, Sweet Wheat, Whole Food Farmacy and True Green.

Another way ShopToEarth associates are giving back for Earth Day is to purchase the stylish and organic ShopToEarth-Day T-Shirt, available exclusively via the Shop To Earth Store. From every order placed, two dollars will be donated to the ShopToEarth Foundation. In addition, associates purchasing a ShopToEarth Foundation Package will support Earth Day by triggering two dollar per order contribution to The ShopToEarth Foundation.

“We have a team of 80,000 ShopToEarn/ShopToEarth business leaders who are proactively greening their shopping and lifestyle,” said ShopToEarth President, Dan Swiniarski. “ShopToEarth supports and is aligned with International Earth Day’s efforts to stop climate change, green our schools, encourage environmental education, and foster a green generation of environmental activists. Every time our associates make a purchase from the ShopToEarth-store, a portion of the proceeds go directly to sustaining and growing eco-friendly programs and campaigns.”

Also, we are excited to announce that one of our retail partners has donated $5,000 to the ShopToEarth Foundation in an effort to kick off Earth Day and moving Shop To Earth into a place of growth and support for our planet earth.

For more information about how to contribute or participate locally for Earth Day visit: http://www.earthday.net/ or http://www.greenapplemusicfestival.com/ also check the official ShopToEarn / ShopToEarth blog: http://officialshoptoearn.blogspot.com/.

About Shop To Earn and Shop To Earth
Empowering its associates to choose a lifestyle of better health and increased wealth, the goal of Shop To Earn and Shop To Earth is to increase environmental awareness and social responsibility. Through its alliances with the biggest name retailers in traditional and environmentally friendly products, Shop To Earth associates have access to natural, organic, and earth-friendly brands. While purchasing these products, Shop To Earth associates receive a percentage of cash back on all their purchases through the Shop To Earn/Shop To Earth portals.

For more information about ShopToEarn and ShopToEarth visit: www.shoptoearnnewsroom.com.

Online PR Presentation on Blogs, Social Media & Google News Search Results

Deerfield Beach, FL – March 24, 2009 – How fast does news travel on Google News? “In a New York minute,” says Lisa Buyer, president and CEO of leading interactive PR agency The Buyer Group and guest speaker at Search Engine Strategies (SES) New York March 24-26, 2009.

As part of the News Search SEO Panel, Buyer will discuss how launching a targeted online public relations campaign can attract quality traffic through optimized press releases.

The News Search SEO panel shares how to create online PR that speaks to multiple audiences such as journalists, analysts, and end users as well as how this relates to the success of news searches and search engine results.

“This is my second year speaking on the News Search SEO panel,” said Buyer. “It’s remarkable how online news trends can shift even within a year; 2009 is definitely the year for Twitter.”

Industry trendsetters’ Greg Jarboe President of SEO-PR, Dana Todd CMO of Newsforce, John Shehata Senior SEO Manager of Advance Internet Inc., and moderator Mark Jackson President/CEO of Vizion Interactive will join Lisa Buyer on the News Search SEO panel.

The Buyer Group is a member of Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, South Florida Interactive Marketing Association, Agency Management Roundtable, and is recognized as a Google Advertising Professional Company.

For more information about The Buyer Group and its interactive public relations and branding services call Lisa Buyer at 954.354.1411.

Connect with The Buyer Group
Visit our Facebook Fan Page
Follow me on Twitter
Connect with me on LinkedIn

Online PR Agency Debuts its Social Media Side of Life

Deerfield Beach, FL – March 17, 2009 – Fans of The Buyer Group can now stake their claim. Who is winning the popularity contest on Facebook? Barack Obama and Coca-Cola seem to be the most popular brands on Facebook, but The Buyer Group joins the ranks with the debut of its Facebook Fan Page.

The Buyer Group’s fan page acts as an interactive resource where the Internet PR firm can connect with clients, fans, marketers, and other media professionals, providing the latest updates on SEO, online PR, and branding news.

“The Buyer Group’s fan page was a natural progression to network with clients and fans,” said Lisa Buyer, The Buyer Group President and CEO. “With blogging, networking, newsfeeds, and a platform that still can’t be beat, Facebook continues to grow in popularity as a social media tool that also doubles as a PR tool, depending on the nature of a business and its market.”

While Facebook is continuing to gain popularity with social media users all over the world, the free, interactive platform can connect businesses and consumers directly – allowing PR professionals and online advertisers to communicate with potential clients and prospects in a user-friendly environment. The Buyer Group’s fan page features informative articles, blogs, and photos while allowing “fans” to communicate directly with The Buyer Group for their online PR needs.

Social media services like Facebook, also known as Web 2.0, are a staple in the online landscape, quickly proving a necessary component in relevant online PR campaigns. Helping businesses embrace the advantages of Facebook, along with other emerging online technology, is part of The Buyer Group’s mission to provide clients with the best of traditional and online PR services, branding, and search engine strategies.

About Facebook
Facebook is a social media network launched in February 2004 as a platform for online users to connect by sharing ideas and information. Over the past few years Facebook has emerged as one of the most successful social media services in the world, allowing millions of people to connect with friends and family members, share photos, blog about their experiences, and discover new web sites and friendships along the way. This initial concept has quickly evolved into a valuable resource for online marketing, providing companies with the opportunity to target and optimize their online impact while keeping in tune with their customers wants and needs. To learn more about Facebook, visit http://www.facebook.com.

About The Buyer Group
The Buyer Group is a member of Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, South Florida Interactive Marketing Association, Agency Management Roundtable, and is recognized as a Google Advertising Professional Company.  Lisa Buyer is a regular speaker at Internet Marketing conferences including PubCon and Search Engine Strategies talking on the topics of online PR, News search SEO and the influences of social media.  For more information about The Buyer Group and its interactive public relations and branding services call Lisa Buyer at 954.354.1411.

Connect with The Buyer Group
Visit our Facebook Fan Page
Follow me on Twitter
Find me on Facebook
Connect with me on LinkedIn

Looking for Lisa Buyer this week?  Check Twitter.com/lisabuyer for constant updates.

Speaking in 140 characters or less, Twitter users have up-to-the-minute information about the who’s, what’s, where’s, and why’s of business, plus a little extra. My current status would look a little like this:

In twitter language that translates to: I’m attending Pubcon, a search marketing conference that covers all aspects of online business.  I am speaking on the panel  “Moving Old Brands into the New Social Media,” but better yet — I’ll be attending the coolest sessions that will take The Buyer Group PR campaigns to a new level.

And how valuable is PR right now?

It’s about as valuable as you make it — and in this economy, you must make every dollar count.

Check out what I have highlighted from a PR perspective:

• Writing Headlines that Rock
• Web Site Design and SEO Deployment – Get your PR agency involved!
• The Twitter and Microbogging Revolution -
• How PR Agencies Intersect with PR
• Brand and Reputation Management
• Intersection of Search and Social Media
• Optimizing a Local Search Campaign using PR
• Personalized and Universal Search
• Leveraging Consumer Generated Content
• Tracking Results

Let us know if you are interested in getting together to see how you can apply some of these strategies and help get the best PR/Branding ROI in this challenging economy. And keep in mind, traditional PR is still The Buyer Group’s foundation, all of this new media only gives us new tools to make PR more powerful — and all strategies are not created equal.