The Local Elements Blog

One of the philosophies of Web 2.0 is to give users the ability to make social networking sites like Local Elements their own site, meaning they are the contributers to the site. Users plow in the content giving Web 2.0 websites their personality, their color and purpose! According to Wikipedia, “Web 2.0 is a trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to facilitate creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. These concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs”, and of course our own Local Elements, social networking for local communities.

So now that you hopefully have a better idea of Web 2.0 and beyond, What Do I Do After I Join Local Elements? First, once you join Local Elements and after you receive your activation email and click to confirm. Then login, go to your profile and add more content about yourself, your business or local charity.

If you are registered as a local go ahead and click on “Edit Profile” and add fun things about yourself, things you like to do, information about the city you live in and what you love about your community. And don’t forget to click on “Your Photo” and add your mug or as some do, a unique photo that depicts your personality. Then add your “online presence” such as your myspace, facebook or flickr and don’t forget to add your “blog”. Go crazy and make it fun!.

If you’re a local business or charity do the same as a local account. We have given each business and charity a great platform to give the details and tell the story about your business or charity. Add “keywords” for your business, this will help locals find you on the search link, upload your “logo”, upload a direct link to your website! Take the time and opportunity to establish your web presence on Local Elements.

The ultimate goal of Local Elements is to provide a social networking tool for each community in America to enjoy the experience of discovering more about their city and community. You as the “User” get to make that experience happen!Chemical formula for potassium iodide
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There are links on websites that are informative and of course useful and then there is the Q&A link on Local Elements that is far more than just informative it’s turning out to be fun. Every time I go to the site it’s one of the first links I check on my city page in Chico CA. I get a little excited to see the various questions and answers posted but I also learn so much about my community that I didn’t know before. For example I posted a question asking “did anyone know where I could obtain some local Chico honey for allergy season”? Well the next day someone had posted an answer and bingo I not only knew where to buy it but I was informed as to the specific kind of honey that would help me with my hay fever.

So go ahead, post Q&A in your local community and have fun with it and watch what you might just learn about your local community.

As one of the owners of Local Elements I am of course a little bias towards the overall site and it’s social networking pleasures for local communities. But with that said I would like to write a few blogs on some of the great links within the site that I have personally grown to appreciate. I believe that once individuals stumble upon these particular links they will use them time and time again creating the power of social networking for local communities such as our local city of Chico.

So let’s chat about the News link on each city page of Local Elements. I really like the ability that locals have to write about the local news in their city. Not simply the story on the local evening news, although an individual can write about that as well, but what I really enjoy is the ability to write about news items that do not make the local evening news or radio stations. For example, “Local Soccer Player Scores Winning Goal in Last 30 Seconds”, this news story that might have been written by the parent of the child or a friend or a grandparent of the child. And the great part is that other locals can write comments about the news story. For example, “I was at that game as well and that kid really played their heart out”. The News link is a great way to discover your community and network with other locals.

So be looking each week for more information and tidbits about the influence that Local Elements has as a social networking site for local communities.

Local Elements Version 2.0 is now launched. It brings many new features to your local communities and many communities around the US. Some of the new features are Local Profiles for users, Business Profiles, User Driven News, a Q & A section, Job posting, Artist Profiles and Charity Profiles. Of course the Coupons migrated over to the new version too. So come over and view the all new Local Elements.

If you want to learn more about Local Elements and the features that it has you can visit the Local Elements Preview Site.

Yesterday, I was reading an article on Inc.com and found out about a new program that rewards customers for shopping locally, possibly giving smaller retailers the leg up they need to compete with big box stores. It’s a new kind of customer loyalty program that most small and locally owned businesses wouldn’t be able to afford to offer on their own. And it’s making it easier for locals to frequent small retailers and receive the same kind of rewards that big box stores offer.

From Interra’s website:

“The Interra Community Change Card programs are designed to help communities reverse the negative impact of losing dollars to retailers that are not locally owned. The program provides consumers with the incentives they need to shift their purchasing habits to support the cultural, economic and environmental health of their communities by shopping locally.”

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Over the past couple of years I’ve figured out (the hard way) some basic things that need to be done on a regular basis to my computer in order to keep it running optimally. Today, I ran across an article that summarizes those lessons well. If I had found this article a few years ago, it would have made working from a home office and taking care of my own computer maintenance a whole lot easier.

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I’ve been doing some research on blogging and search engines and here’s a list of things I’ve come up with that we can do to make our blog more search engine friendly.

1. Avoid duplicate content issues by blocking spiders from indexing categories. This way there will only be 1 copy of the posting over the long haul; although there will be at least 3 copies of the posting initially (on the blog home page, on the blog feed page, and on the archive page). The post will rotate out of the blog home page and blog feed page as newer content is posted leaving only one copy of the content on the archive page.

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Larry Sullivan of LocalBizBits.com interviewed me last week about online marketing & coupon marketing for small and local business. I thought you might like to read our conversation. Here’s a link to Part 1 of the interview & Part 2.

I found this video that explains the OLD and SLOW way of getting new information on the internet vs the NEW and FAST way. It’s all about using RSS. If you don’t know what that is, or if you’ve been too intimidated to try it out, check out this video that explains it all in really simple English. The video is produced by a Social Design Company called Common Craft.

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Earlier today I met the owner of John’s Pizza Cafe in Saint Paul while working from a coffee shop that I like to frequent. We started talking about the plight of small businesses trying to compete with franchises and chains for a presence online. After viewing his website, I offered some advice to help his site to rank more competitively. Obviously, I can’t guarantee what will happen if he implements my suggestions, and I told him as such. But everything I stated is based on countless hours of reading & researching the field of search engine optimization from the small business owners perspective.

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