The March Page rank changes are implemented. Did your blog or site gain or lose Page Rank?

The table below shows changes in Page Ranks for the 170 blogs on my dofollow blogs list between March and January 2009.

3-09 Page Rank Changes Table

I’m going to highlight the changes in this post and go into more detail in a later post. The post I wrote on the 1-09 changes was more than 800 words, and that’s a bit long for one post.

3-09 Page Rank Changes In Brief

The most noteworthy change between January and March Page Ranks is the decrease in dofollow blogs that lost Page Rank. Only a third (37%) of the dofollow blogs lost Page Rank in March compared to more than half (55%) that lost during the January Page Rank changes.

Those that gained Page Rank were about the same – eleven percent in March and ten percent in January. Still for a third to a half to lose Page Rank, while only about ten percent gained, indicates that something isn’t right. Either Google is intentionally making it more difficult to acquire a good Page Rank, or they are systematically lowering the Page Rank of dofollow blogs or maybe of blogs in general. (Because this study only includes dofollow blogs, I prefer to limit conclusions to dofolllow blogs.)

On a brighter note, the percent of dofollow blogs maintaining the same Page Rank decreased from 62 percent to 46 percent. But All but one percent of those changes represent lost Page Rank.a
If you’re interested in more detail regarding 3-09 Page Rank changes, come back for my next post. Or I can remind you. If you subscribe to my blog, you’ll get weekly briefs on my posts for that week. Just complete the form below:

To read more about the March 2009 Page Rank changes, click the link below:

Page Rank Improvement Was Illusive In March ‘09

Posted 4-15-09: 3-09 Page Rank Changes For Dofollow Blogs

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This is my second post on effective communication skills and public relations. The first post introduced the communication confirmation table and covered the first two columns of it. If you missed it, you can access it through the link below:

Effective Communication Skills And Public Relations, Part 1

This second post covers columns three through six of the table.

Effective Communication Skills And Public Relations: Column 3 – Influentials

Public relations practitioners know that effective communication skills require communicating with more than the target public. It also requires communicating with people who influence target public members.

The target public in the communication confirmation table above is high school students. Column 3 identifies influentials for high school students as teachers and local leaders. You could add to this column peers and teachers.

By communicating with these influentials and winning their support, effectiveness of communications with high school students is increased. So public relations practitioners will take a two-prong approach to communications. First communicating with the influentials and then through the influentials to high school students, as well as directly to the students.

Effective Communication Skills And Public Relations: Column 4 – Strategy

Public relations practitioners use the term “strategy” much the same as marketers do. A strategy is a plan to reach a goal. You may want to include your communication goal in an additional column of the table. I didn’t because when I was teaching, I added a separate unit on goals. So goals were well covered before getting to the communication confirmation table.

Of course you have to know your goal of a communication campaign before you can plan a strategy to reach that goal.

For the communication confirmation table above, the strategy is to communicate with high school students about drugs through their schools.

Effective Communication Skills And Public Relations: Column 5 – Tactics

“Tactics” is another term that public relations practitioners and marketers use the same. Tactics are specific actions to implement the strategy. The communication confirmation table above lists four tactics.

First the public relations practitioners will produce curriculum packets for teachers to use in a unit on drug abuse. Providing all the teaching aids required to teach the unit effectively, motivates teachers to participate in the communication program by making it easy for them.

The second tactic is to do major presentations in high schools about the dangers of drug abuse. For example, public relations practitioners can produce a power point, video, or multi-media program as the major component of a presentation and deliver it at high school assemblies or through individual school organizations.

The third tactic is to create and produce bookmarks listing facts about the dangers of drug abuse. Every time a student uses the bookmark to hold a place in a book, that student will be reminded of those dangers. So the bookmarks will provide a subtle but repetitive communication.

The fourth tactic is to write and distribute a news feature to all major media in the campaign area. Media owners and managers are often community leaders so the prior communications with influentials will have helped set up support for this tactic as well as for the drug abuse units with teachers.

Media should be selected to further reach influentials and communicate with high school students both indirectly through the influentials and directly with the students.

Effective Communication Skills And Public Relations: Column 6 – Messages

Column 6 summarizes the primary message to be included in all communications throughout the campaign.This primary message is the major idea of the campaign. Public relations practitioners call this a key message. You can read more about key messages at the page linked below:

What Is A Key Message?

To read more about improving your communications, click the link below:

How To Improve The Communication Process With Market Segmentation

What Technology And Human Communication Share

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Posted 1-9-09: Effective Communication Skills And Public Relations, Part 2

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Effective communication skills and public relations fit together like Internet marketers and blogs. And any marketer can learn to improve communications by adopting public relations communication practices.

One of those practices is conducting a communication confirmation table. It’s really a communication plan in table form to help you visualize strengths and weakness in your communication plans.

Effective Communication Skills And Public Relations: Sample Communication Confirmation Table

The table above illustrates a simple communication confirmation table. I introduce the table, the benefits of using it and discuss the first two columns in today’s post. I’ll explain the last four columns in Monday’s post.

Effective Communication Skills And Public Relations: Benefits of Using A Communication Confirmation Table

Public relations practitioners use communication confirmation tables because they provide the following seven benefits:

1. Checks that your planning decisions are consistent with information about your target public,
2. Checks the soundness of your analysis and planning,
3. Confirms alignment of messages, strategies, and tactics with purpose and publics,
4. Assures that relevant self-interest of the target public are included in messages,
5. Assures that public’s influentials are being used appropriately,
6. Assures that strategies and tactics are appropriate for the public,
7. Reveals discrepancies in logic missed in written plan.

Effective Communication Skills And Public Relations: How To Use A Communication Confirmation Table

The table above illustrates six major parts of a communication confirmation table as columns. You can read about each column below:

Effective Communication Skills And Public Relations: Column 1 – Key Public

The first column identifies the key or target public. The key or target public for this communication campaign is high school students.

A target public is similar to a target market. The difference is that target markets are through of as potential customers while target publics can represent any group of people who have an effect upon or are affected an organization.

I took more of a target public approach in a recent post that you can access below. It gives you a good idea of what public relations practitioners refer to as key or target publics.

Six Target Market Types

Effective Communication Skills And Public Relations: Column 2 – Self Interests

Public relations practitioners use the term “self interests” in the same way that marketers use “benefits.” Both terms seek to determine what targeted people want and how to appeal to them.

In the case of high school students, major self interests are peer acceptance, having fun, making and keeping friends. By deciding what your target market wants and listing it in the table, you’ll be more likely to include those wants in your communications.

To read part 2 of this article, click the link below:

Effective Communication Skills And Public Relations, Part 2

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Posted 1-9-09: Effective Communication Skills And Public Relations, Part 1

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This last post on modern advertising methods covers a type of mobile advertising. Only it’s not advertising that’s mobile, but advertising placed to get attention from people who are mobile.

If you prefer to start at the beginning of this series on modern advertising methods, click the link below:

Modern Advertising Methods 1: Introduction

Modern Advertising Methods: More Mobile Advertising For Mobile People

Most USA residents are constantly on the go. From getting to and from work, to traveling for business and pleasure, to shopping, most of us cover lots of territory within any given day.

So it’s no wonder that advertising pops up wherever we go. From billboards along the highways, to subway and airport advertising, to mall and even bathroom advertising. Smart advertisers catch market members wherever they go.

Are These Mobile Advertisements Modern Advertising Methods?

Just because these types of advertising are with us though the day or because some of them, such as bathroom advertising, are relatively new, doesn’t mean that they meet the criteria for modern advertising methods.

Let’s review this criteria. Modern advertising methods are interactive, target the people most likely to buy the product or service, and encourage an immediate response. While most of the advertising methods covered in this post are:

• one-way,
• too broad to target a specific market.
• too expensive and time consuming to market exactly what people want or need at any particular time, and
• usually fail to encourage an immediate action.

Thus, I wouldn’t classify them as modern advertising methods. But smart business owners and advertisers can use them in modern ways by designing them to meet modern advertising methods criteria.

This post completes my series on modern advertising methods.

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Posted 9-17-08: Modern Advertising Methods 11: More Mobile Advertising

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