Dirxion Wishes You Happy Holidays

Dirxion would like to take a moment to wish you a prosperous and happy holiday season! It’s hard to believe that it’s almost 2009 - time really does fly by. Enjoy the next few days, and we’ll see you next week!

Using Social Media To Boost SEO Efforts

SEO best practices can be found in many different places on the internet. The basic principles of SEO are quite simple really, and with a few hours of research, you can generally get a good idea of what direction you need to be moving in with your website.

On the other hand, there is another aspect to consider when it comes to SEO, one that is so important, that Fortune 500 companies are already jumping on it on what seems a regular basis.

What am I talking about?

Social networking.

Social networking websites (come on, I know you’ve heard of MySpace, Facebook, etc…) are powerhouses when it comes to search engine authority (meaning, the big search engines absolutely LOVE these types of sites because they’re jam-packed with content), and it behooves you as a small business owner to try and get involved with at least a few of these types of sites, as it has really paid off for a lot of different companies.

One of the keys to being successful in the social networking community is, in the words of John Fischer, owner of StickerGiant.com (who dominates the search engines with anything having to do with stickers) is to “be everywhere your customers are”.

Here’s a quick list of social networking sites that his company maintains a presence in:

1. Facebook
2. Blip.tv
3. Flickr
4. LinkedIn
5. MySpace
6. YouTube

The sites above are massive communities where all of your younger buyers (who usually have a nice amount of disposable income) are hanging out in. Why wouldn’t you have a presence in these communities? You’re nearly committing corporate suicide if you’re not actively engaging customers in these environments. It’s never too late to start! (One customer of ours, Moosejaw, comes to mind when I think about this situation - they have a massive following on Facebook, and apparently it works out very well for them!).

To read further on this topic (and trust me, it’s an extremely informative article that all webmasters, marketers, and small business owners should read) check out “How To Use Social Media To Boost SEO”

Since we’ve shared all this phenomenally helpful information with you, here is a shamless plug for Dirxion’s social media profiles - we would love it if you joined us!

Dirxion on MySpace

Dirxion On Facebook

Dirxion on LinkedIn

Dirxion on Digg

Case Study: Pelican Pages

Back in early November, we introduced you to one of our newest customers, Pelican Pages. Pelican Pages publishes four books in the Baton Rouge and Covington areas of Louisiana, and they’re very happy with their new digital publications, to say the least!

Ron Richmond, VP of Sales & Marketing for the Pelican Pages, was nice enough to help the Dirxion marketing team assemble a quick case study of what the Pelican Pages team has been able to accomplish so far, and we’d like to share it with you! It’s a great read, and really shows the power and opportunity of having your publication online.

Don’t take our word for it, have a look at the 2008 Pelican Pages case study.

It’s Time To Recycle Outdated Phone Books

Since many publishers distribute new phone books around this time of year, we thought this would be a great opportunity to remind our readers that recycling your old phone books is a great way to stay green and actually make a difference. Read more

Hutchinson Pushing Green Initiative With RealPagesLive.Com

The great city of Hutchinson, KS is encouraging residents to recycle older phone books and to make an effort to go green in 2009. Besides the upcoming recycling program, another way that residents will be able to take green initiative is by using RealPagesLive.com, which is the AT&T online directory that will begin serving the Hutchinson area in January of 2009.

Read more about Hutchinson’s recycling program and AT&T here.

Business Directories Of Texas Shows Off Marketing Savvy

Here at Dirxion, we always enjoy highlighting customers that are moving forward with multimedia marketing and advertising campaigns, and one great example of this is the Business Directories of Texas team. Read more

Report Warns: Go Green Or Lose Money

From Adweek:

Environmental legislation and climate changes could eat up as much as 47 percent of packaged-goods companies’ profits by 2018 if they don’t adopt long-term sustainability measures, according to a new report released by A.T. Kearney. Read more

Google Gets Stronger Despite Wall Street Battering

This ought to make all the Google fans out there happy. Even though Google (along with many others) have taken a beating on Wall Street for the past few months, search market share is still a figure that surely ranks up there on the importance scale. A new report released last month shows just how much Google outshines their closest competitors like Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.

U.S. Search Market Share - October 2008

Google - 71.70%

Yahoo - 17.74%

MSN - 5.40%

ASK -3.53%

Everyone Else (remaining 43 search engines) - 1.62%

So for SEO reasons, there have always been a few different schools of thought on which search engines you should place more importance on - the biggest arguement being that even though Google had the majority and is obviously important, there was still more than 30% of the search market share left to target (on other engines like Yahoo and MSN). But now as that gap closes (which it definitely is, considering that last October Google was at 64.49%), I think you’ll see more and more search marketers slowly move a majority of their SEO “eggs” into the metaphorical Google “basket”.

AT&T Takes the Lead in Reducing Phone Books That Find Their Way to Area Landfills

In a bold move to go green and reduce print costs, AT&T will replace the majority of its white pages phone directories with a CD in two prominent markets. Customers in Atlanta and Austin will continue to receive their copy of The Real Yellow Pages print book with all the features and coupons that they are accustomed to receiving. Read more

Happy Thanksgiving From Dirxion

Dirxion would like to take a moment to wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving! We feel extremely lucky to be surrounded by so many customers that allow us to advance our digital publishing solution to the next level. Read more

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