Using Content, Links and Social Media to Improve Your Site’s SEO

Search engine optimization is the process of attempting to improve a website ranking for one or more keywords. The underlying goal is typically to drive greater numbers of targeted traffic to the website, usually with the hope that a certain percentage of that audience will take one or more desired actions. The search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo, are designed to return search results that are most useful to searchers, but with an understanding of how the process works, there is a great Continue reading →

Tin Eye Searches the Web to Locate Your Images

One of my current projects involves the management of BaseballArt.com, a community of baseball artists and fans of baseball art. Earlier today, I was involved in a discussion about image copyrights and the increasing numbers of people who think nothing of taking another person’s work without permission or attribution, and using it as their own. I was given a link to a website called Tin Eye, and asked to give it a look. TinEye is a reverse image search engine. According to Tin Eye’s own Continue reading →

Five Simple Tips to Create More Compelling Instagram Photos

With more than 55 million photos posted on Instagram each day, it can be difficult to rise above the clutter. Are your photos getting noticed? Are they helping your brand reach its objectives? If not, there are several things you can do to improve the situation. 1) Take lots of photos and select the best ones. This will help your photography in two very important ways: First, the more shots you take of a given subject, the better your chance of getting that perfect expression, Continue reading →

Is Social Media Doing Your Business More Harm than Good?

Have you heard the experts saying that if you’re not using to social media to help your business, the very existence of your business is at risk? Well, here’s a twist. If you’re making sacrifices in any of the core areas of your business to experiment blindly with Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram — social media may actually be more of a problem than a solution. The truth is that most businesses have explored one or more social media platforms, but most have not achieved Continue reading →

How McDonald’s Succeeds at Social Media Without being Social

Social media experts keep telling us that the most important component of social media is the “social,” so why is McDonald’s showing us by example that they don’t believe it? Without a great deal of fanfare, McDonald’s continues to force itself into our daily social media experience through the use of paid advertising — as it has done across other media platforms for decades. America’s fast-food giant routinely buys its way into the top of our Twitter feeds and Facebook newsfeed, and simultaneously ignores the Continue reading →

The Five Reasons Social Media Won’t Work For Your Restaurant

Social media won’t save your restaurant from its woes. Social media won’t drive customers through your doors, it won’t cause people to say good things about your food, and it won’t make your chef a household name. I know this is not what you want to hear, but I’m going to tell it to you anyway. There are five reasons why social media will not work for your restaurant: Your Food — Your restaurant is not consistently providing menu items that meet or exceed the Continue reading →

7 Things a Restaurant Must Know About Social Media

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Well, I know just enough about cooking and fine dining to be extremely dangerous. At home, I’m allowed to use the grill, the toaster and not much more. Despite the reality that I’ll never be a culinary artist, I have developed a deep appreciation for well-prepared food and the service that is provided by top restaurants. I’ve met and gone into the kitchen with some of the Hudson Valley’s best chefs, and I’ve had the opportunity to Continue reading →

Alex Miranda Helps Westchester Community Build Website Audiences with WordPress & SEO

“The purpose of each sentence in a blog is to get the reader to read the next sentence.” I’ve spent quite a bit of time analyzing that sentence over the past two days, and I find it quite profound. You see, with so many social media platforms and so many streams of information coming at us every day, it’s easy to forget our what our goals are. Sometimes they can be summed up in a single sentence, and we just need to remember to keep them Continue reading →

Westchester Social Media to Shift Focus Toward Non-Expert Social Media Users

Just because you’ve always done something a certain way, does not mean you need to continue doing it that way forever.  On my way in to work this morning, I was thinking about the Westchester Social Media community I’ve been managing for the past couple of years through this website and the Westchester Social Media Facebook page. Using the Dragon Dictation app on my iPhone (hands free, of course) I “wrote” this short blog to outline some subtle changes coming to the Westchester Social Media Continue reading →

Food Photography More Important than Ever Because of Social Media — Q&A With Brannon Conza

It is a well-known fact that one of the most effective ways to increase engagement on social media platforms is through the use of quality photographs. And what better way for a restaurant to show off its offerings than through the use of photography? We’re seeing a surge in the number of Westchester restaurants participating in social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and events such as Hudson Valley Restaurant Week and the Westchester Magazine Wine and Food Weekend has only fueled the interest. Continue reading →