Black Hat SEO… even the name sounds ominous. And indeed, black hat SEO practices mark the bad boys of the SEO world. Black hat SEO practices seek to improve search engine optimization in an unethical manner, often trying to deceive both the search engine crawler and the consumer. Though not illegal, black hat SEO practices defy the ethical boundaries set by Google and other search engines. Typical unethical SEO practices include: Placing inbound links on pages that are entirely unrelated to your site. “Keyword stuffing”- simply placing long strings of keywords on your page, without any thought to the [...]

  What do bus stops, public libraries and the Washington Capitals all have in common? They all use QR codes! A QR code – short for Quick Response – is a barcode that, when scanned with a smartphone, either takes the phone’s browser to an embedded URL or displays an encoded image. According to comScore Inc., over 14 million Americans scanned a QR code as of June 2011. That figure accounts for 6.2 percent of mobile users, and over half of them are between the ages of 18 and 35 years. QR codes are now becoming prolific in urban areas. Washington [...]

  LinkedIn offers several third party applications designed to boost your business’s productivity on professional social media site. In addition to the LinkedIn best practices we offered in a previous post, these LinkedIn applications are a great way to maximize the utility of your LinkedIn page. The six apps we list below are particularly effective for your business’s social media strategy. 6 Excellent LinkedIn Apps for Business                               Photo: Socialmediamx Tweets Tweets synchronizes your LinkedIn and Twitter pages, allowing you to post Tweets from your LinkedIn page and access Tweets posted by others in your network. Blog Link With Blog Link, you can [...]

  Although we don’t like to brag, OttoPilot Media happens to be located in one of the most celebrated cities in the nation. Our home in Charlottesville, Virginia currently features beautiful fall foliage and temperate fall weather. But, that alone could not account for the dozens of awards Charlottesville has won over the years. We are exceptionally proud of how wonderful it is to be a business in Charlottesville. Currently, Forbes ranks Charlottesville as #27 in Job Growth and #31 in Best Small Places for Businesses and Careers. It also ranked #18 on CNN’s Best Places to Live and Launch 2008, and#19 on CNN’s Best Places to Launch [...]

Here in Charlottesville, Virginia, we are fortunate enough to be surrounded by hundreds of savvy local business owners with incredible companies and smart online marketing techniques. So, we thought we would share some of the inspiration that surrounds us everyday. We have chosen five Charlottesville business websites that are particularly creative, engaging, and effective for inbound marketing. Carter Mountain Orchard Carter Mountain Orchard is a fall favorite here in Virginia, and its website does a particularly good job of advertising all of the wonderful fall treats the mountain offers. Carter Mountain’s webpage is extremely easy to navigate, with pull down menus [...]

  Anchor text refers to the visible text of a hyperlink, the text that a website visitor or blog reader sees when they click on that link. So, how do anchor texts and online marketing relate? Anchor text can be modified to include keywords for the page you are directing readers to. If your anchor text has the right keywords, it can help boost your SEO credit for that page. To ensure that your anchor texts are helping your business with SEO, check out these anchor text best practices. Always include keywords in your anchor text, preferably the main keyword that you [...]

  Having a Facebook page is important to any company’s social media strategy, but it’s important to not stop there. Your competitors utilize a wide array of different social media platforms – 4.6 on average. Having more than a Facebook page will allow your business to diversify its content, its audience, build a brand, and syndicate marketing. First, it’s important to note that many social media platforms have different uses and functions. Facebook is the most social of the social media outlets. Facebook allows you to have fans who “like” your business and to interact with those fans, which can provide valuable [...]

Like most professionals now, you probably have a LinkedIn account. You might even have a LinkedIn page for your business. While these are great things to have, many businesses fall into a trap of signing up for a LinkedIn account and not really doing much with it. Like Facebook, you should think of LinkedIn as a business tool, a valuable component in your online marketing strategy. So, instead of simply contenting yourself with a LinkedIn profile, check out our LinkedIn for Business Marketing Tips. Use LinkedIn to promote your website content, especially blog posts or premium whitepapers. Post this content to [...]

  You’ve likely heard that Google+ launched their Google+ Business pages the other day.  If you prefer to read instructions on how to create the page for your business, take a look at this 5 step tutorial from Hubspot. If you’re more of a visual learner (like moi), we hope you find this video tutorial to be helpful! Be sure to add OttoPilot Media on Google+ to your circles on inbound marketing! [Note: please excuse the brief motorcycle noise and the faint dog whine at certain points in the video.  It's a beautiful fall day in Charlottesville and we have our big [...]

Every summer when we see the latest Inc 500 list we are inspired by companies that are so driven for tremendous top-line results and entrepreneurial success.  Amidst difficult economic times and large layoffs in the Fortune 500, the 2011 Inc 500 companies generated nearly 36,000 jobs from 2008- 2011.  In 2009 alone, Fortune 500 companies eliminated 821,000 jobs, despite their profits.   What’s more is that Inc 500 companies want to get big—really big.  Nineteen of the companies exceeded $100 million in revenue in 2010 and, when surveyed, 157 companies of the 500 answered that they were aiming to become billion dollar companies.  [...]