Our first workshop was a full house and a great success! Get ready, because there are more to come!

Every 2 weeks we will feature a new Business Development topic while you enjoy a phenomenal lunch in the Half Shell Oyster House private meeting room. This is also a great NETWORKING opportunity.

by Amanda Brooks

We had a great time at our full-day Facebook Seminar on August 10th! We had an awesome group of people attend who asked numerous engaging questions using our new online ticketing system which ensured all (over 50) questions were answered while maintaining the flow of the presentation. A "Spread the LIKE love" page was created on our website which gives visitors a chance to LIKE all the participants business Facebook Pages. Since then we have seen increased activity and interaction on many of these pages and have received positive feedback.

We will be holding another full day seminar about Blogging for Business this Friday, September 21! We would love to see you there!

Click here to register now!

Learn how to use a blog within your website to increase traffic, increase your Google ranking and generate more business. This is for everyone from small business owners to marketing specialists in large organizations at any knowledge level. 

Thanks for coming to our 10 Year Anniversary Party! We had an amazing time! You can see all the photos of the event from our photographer Cliff Roles by clicking here or on the image below.

Sarasota's First Full Day Blogging Seminar! 

Register at: www.destinyg.com/seminars

Friday, September 21, 2012

9:00 am - 5:00 pm

$99 (includes lunch)

 You will learn:

- How to create your strategy 
- Choosing the right keywords
- Developing content
- Anatomy of a great blog post
- Do's and dont's
- Distribution and promotion 
- Blogging and social media
- Analytics and other tools
- Conversion and ROI

Blogging for Business

Full-day seminar in Sarasota: Fri., Sept. 21 

The area’s first full-day Blogging for Business training seminar will take place at Hyatt Place Airport (950 University Parkway) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Fri., Sept. 21. We will jointly present the seminar with social media marketing company VP Social Consulting with Gary Donson, Gabriel Marguglio and Veronica Pastore speaking. The cost is $99 per person for the full day seminar, which includes lunch and access to the seminar's digital resources.

 
We at Destiny Group and VP Social Consulting are engaged with our own work in internet marketing as well as regularly presenting educational seminars and workshops that help those in the community more successfully do business in the online world.
 
“After the success of our first seminar on Facebook marketing, we decided to cover another hugely important aspect of internet marketing: blogging,” says Destiny Group’s Gary Donson. “A blog is the easiest and most efficient way to grow your website in terms of traffic, rankings and visibility so we’re excited to help people blog more effectively.”
 
The seminar will not focus on any one platform, but will instead teach how to manage a successful blog in terms of content, structure and strategy and be applicable for those using any blogging service including Wordpress, Joomla, Blogger and Tumblr. The specifics of using these platforms will not be discussed.
 
Topics covered include keywords, content development and strategy, dos and donts, the anatomy of a great blog post, promotion and social media integration, analytics, conversion, ROI and more.
 
Attendees are encouraged to bring their laptop or tablet computer to follow along with the session and should arrive by 8:40 a.m. to sign in and get seated.
 
Blogging for Business Full Day Seminar: 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Fri., Sept. 21, Hyatt Place Sarasota/Bradenton Airport, 950 University Parkway, Sarasota, (941)870-0623 or destinyg.com/seminars, $99.

Thanks for coming to our 10 Year Anniversary Party!

We had an amazing time! You can see all the photos of the event from our photographer Cliff Roles here.



A special thanks to those who participated in our silly photo contest! The photos have been posted so make sure you (and your friends!) vote for your favorite... The winner will receive a FREE website!


VOTE NOW:  www.destinyg.com/partypix

Voting is OPEN until August 10th

 
Terms/Conditions :  One vote per IP Address.  Photo with the most votes receives a website package from Destiny Group.  If the photo winner is already a Destiny Group client they can choose a non-profit organization of their choice to receive the website.

5 Simple guidelines that will help your on page SEO.  With the recent Penguin update these factors have only become more important than before.  Everybody knows not to use use duplicate content.  Duplicate content includes the Page Title and Meta Description, not just the text on the page.  There are many free tools available online to help check these factors very quickly.  With Joomla websites we use some of these tools as well as Joomla components that allow you to change your titles and meta tags on the front end.   The following recommendations fall within Google's Webmaster Guidelines.

1) Is every page URL in your site search engine friendly ?

Good Example : http://www.destinyg.com/web/website-packages
Bad Example : http://www.destinyg.com/index.php?option=com_content&;view=article&id=89&Itemid=509

2) META Title Tag - Should be Unique and Relevant to the page and limited to 70 Characters.  Anything over 150 characters may be truncated and not appear in a search engine result.

3) META Description Tag - Should be Unique and Relevant to the page and limited to 150 Characters.  Anything over 150 characters may be truncated and not appear in a search engine result.  90% of the time this “Description” is what will be displayed when your website is found in a search.  This is your “marketing message” for that invidual page!

4) META Keywords - Should be Focused / Relevant to the page AND limited to 10 keyword phrases - anything over 10 may be ignored by search engines and considered keyword stuffing.

5) Internal/External Links - Should be less than 100 per page.  Excessive links on any given page may lower the page “score” for ranking.  See the Penguin Update blog for an explanation.

Google released the Penguin Update on April 24th which is aimed to combat "spammy" web pages. If your site is over optimized it may be affected by this update. The update addresses website content & back links:

Content: Each individual page must be Unique and Duplicate Content across your pages should be avoided at all costs. Keyword stuffing & keyword cloaking will result in penalties and lower rankings. When you look at (read) any page in your site, does it sound 'natural' or is the same information repeated with slight variation? Is ALL of the content on your page about one specific topic or "keyword phrase" ? As an example we always tell clients to make their blogs very focused on one subject/topic because each blog entry is a single page in the eyes of search engines - each blog has its own url. This is why properly structured blogs rank so well and generally very quickly. By making each individual page in your site about one topic/subject/keyword phrase you are not only making it easy for a site visitor to know what the page is about, you are making it easy for SEARCH ENGINES to know what the page is about and you will be ranked accordingly. The goal has been and will always be: Readable, Quality, Focused Content.

Backlinks: Anchor Text vs. Link Source : The penguin update appears to be assigning more "Quality" to the Link Source as opposed to the Anchor Text and for good reason. It has always been relatively easy to manipulate the anchor text of a link, which until now has always been an important factor in Ranking Results(SERP). With todays technology it is easier to determine the "Quality" and "Relevance" of a site that a link originates from. It is more difficult to manipulate the source of al link so more WEIGHT is being given to Link Source vs Anchor Text. Many Link Building companies will continue to come with creative ways to get around this latest update and will often get results - until the next update. You can take the rollercoaster route OR you can simply go after Quality Link Sources , ideally within your niche. One of the best places to find these links is your top ranking competitors. If your competitor has better ranking for a given keyword, chances are they have more QUALITY links than you do. Reverse engineering competitors linking strategies has been a tried and true technique for years and this will not change any time soon.

How can you tell if your site took a "hit" ? By looking at your "Search" traffic between April 15 and April 30th. If there is a drop of more than 20%, chances are good that your site needs to be adjusted. If you are an SEO client, we are already evaluating your site through analytics and webmasters to see if any adjustments need to be made. Over the past 30 days we have also been updating the following for all SEO clients : Page Titles, Meta Description, Meta Tags. This was done in anticipation of the Penguin Update. If you have any questions or concerns about your website and the recent Google update please contact us.