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Effective SEO Through Good Code Structure Effective SEO Through Good Code Structure By Adriana Iordan (c) 2006 For a successful Search Engine Optimization strategy, take into consideration that search engines look at content and also at the structure of the markup. They emphasize the importance of text content, page titles, keywords rich text, meta descriptions and information architecture. A website where quality of content and code prevails will rank higher in the major search engines. There are many Search Engine Optimization tactics, but try to find the best combination and don't sacrifice the usability and performance of your website. Here is some basic information about improving your source code from an SEO perspective: Avoid Classical 404 Error Pages The 404 - File Not Found - page is presented to the user by the server as an error page. The user gets this message directly from the server of the website he is trying to visit. This error page is supposed to appear only when the server cannot find the requested location and is unsure of its status. In the vast majority of cases, the 404 error emerges for pages that were moved or even deleted or the layout of the site or page information changed. Many host? companies offer a 404 redirect page. This means that when a user enters the URL of any page of your domain, and that page does not exist or can no longer be found, you can automatically redirect the user to a specified page - usually your home page or your sitemap. Pay special attention when you decide to delete certain pages. Remember to redirect them to a main page of your site using the 301 (Moved... more.. How to Control Your Listing Text in Google's Search Results How to Control Your Listing Text in Google's Search Results By John Metzler (c) 2009 A Google Webmaster Help video from Matt Cutts released on Nov. 10, 2009 got me thinking how the listing text in Google's search results can easily be overlooked by some webmasters in their SEO efforts. SEO is all about extending the reach of your web site content to your target market using online search platforms. You can tell when this has been achieved, and to what degree, by using web analytics software to monitor referral and visitor data. But what that data won't tell you is how your site appears to users in a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Sure, you're getting traffic but perhaps you're missing out on a lot more because your listing text is weak. You wouldn't take out a newspaper advertisement without looking at the final proof first. So don't be in the dark over how your site appears to people who use Google. Poor page titles, visible copy, and description meta data can result in a weak listing. Webmasters have a lot of control over what text is displayed in a SERP, but in the end, Google reserves the right to modify result snippets if it feels the original isn't up to par. It's important to remember that this decision by Google is based on a highly refined algorithm and is ultimately for the benefit of people searching for your content. That said, I'm willing to bet most webmasters still prefer to retain control over how their web site is shown in Google. By ensuring your on-page content is the best it can be, you're greatly... more.. Online Marketing Methods That Work Online Marketing Methods That Work By Jeff Beale (c) 2009   Business owners are facing a harsh reality: A website in itself offers no assurance of business. "If you build, it they will come" is a clich?hat has misled many into believing all a company needed was an online presence to succeed. However, without a strategic marketing plan and a tactical approach, you're more likely to fail than to reach your goals. Proper planning will not only improve your chances of success, but it will also keep you from throwing away money on e-commerce fiascos. The first step of planning is to define your goals in light of the target market you aim to reach. As you classify your target, you should determine the core needs of that group and observe the buying behavior that occurs among your potential purchasers. Characterizing their purchasing habits enables you to position your business to appeal to your target market with compelling information before they buy from another resource.   Several online resources can help you place your business in the forefront of your target audience. The... more.. Using Images for SEO Using Images for SEO By John Case (c) 2006 Humans vs. Search Engines Human visitors and search engine robots that visit websites and index information about them look for different things in a page. People like to see an attractive layout with nice pictures and graphics, animation, easy-to-locate navigation, and friendly greetings like "Welcome to Annie's Online Shop" at the top of a page. Search engines, on the other hand, like sites that have lots of textual content, good site structure (sitemaps, consistent linking style), and a meaningful phrase such as "Chicago Area Florist" as the heading of a page. While search engines can read the "alt image" tags of graphics, they cannot "look at" pictures the way a human visitor can, and far prefer text. Replacing Text with Images One way to work around this paradox is to shift some of the text that search engines have no interest in over to graphics. For example friendly greetings like "Welcome to Our Site" or "Annie's Online Shop" work best as header graphics. Creating a header graphic in a graphic editing program like Photoshop, Illustrator, or Fireworks has the advantage of letting you know exactly what that part of your site will look like to visitors. If you create a header or navigation bar with text, you are limited to a common set of fonts. If you use a fancy font that is installed on your computer, your page will look great to you, but when a visitor who does not have that font on their computer visits your site, their browser's default font will be used and that nice aspect of your... more.. Green With Envy in the Google Game Green With Envy in the Google Game By Bill Platt (c) 2007 Links And Traff?/A> Beginning on April 14th, 2007, a firestorm blew through the Internet community with the search engine optimization (SEO) community burning the hottest. The embers were warm and waiting for a strong wind to blow and kick up the flames, but it took Matt Cutts, the Google engineer extraordinaire to fire the flames with an off-the-cuff comment about "paid links." The flames raged and in most forums, the wind quickly shifted moving the firestorm back towards Cutts and Google. Thread Watch offered the most biting rebuttal to Cutts' comments: http://www.threadwatch.org/node/13925 and http://www.threadwatch.org/node/13941 . Aaron Wall at Thread Watch is a respectable fellow, and he tore into Google with a ferociousness that I had not anticipated. Matt Cutts tried to answer some of Aaron's quest?s, but it seemed that Cutts' rebuttals only added more fuel to the fire. I would not have wanted to be in Matt Cutts' shoes that week. Oh my, it was brutal! Even on Cutts' own blog where the "paid link" comment originally surfaced , Danny Sullivan posted a question that went unanswered, so Sullivan commented about it on his site. Search Engine Watch even mentioned this issue and linked to additional forums where the debate was raging. What Most Readers Took From Cutts' Comments There were only a few readers who took Matt Cutts' comments to be brotherly-advice. The vast majority of people were screaming that Google intended to exercise their "monopoly control" over the Internet to run all of their competitors out of business. Generally, I am not a "reactionary" type person. But... more.. 10 Most Valuable Free Google Marketing Tools 10 Most Valuable Free Google Marketing Tools By Titus Hoskins (c) 2006 Google has become the dominant search engine on the Internet. It would be hard to imagine a web without Google. For that matter, it would now be hard to imagine a world without Google. As frightening as that may seem to many people, it is none the less true. For better or worse, Google has permeated into almost every aspect of our everyday life. Being Googled is now a common expression and an act carried out by mill?s of users around the world each day. New Google products and services are coming on stream at a frightening pace, further increasing Google's impact on our lives. Despite this dominating presence, many people still don't realize Google offers some excellent fr?marketing tools for marketers and webmasters. Marketing tools which can prove extremely valuable to any webmaster or marketer trying to promote their sites or products online. Useful tools that will make your promotions easier and much more profitable. Don't be fooled by the 'fr? label, these marketing tools might be fr? but they are also valuable. One even wonders why Google would be giving away these tools and services for fr? It probably makes good business sense in the long run, by providing these fr?tools Google is fostering a lot of company good-will and building up the Google brand name in the process. Good PR is good business. Every marketer and webmaster should be taking advantage of Google's good-will and snapping up these professionally run services and marketing tools. Here's a quick run-down of the 10 most valuable fr?Google Internet marketing tools: 1. Google... more.. 3 Things to Help Google Trust You 3 Things to Help Google Trust You By Mark Daoust (c) 2006 Google is all about trust. Who knows, maybe they were in a bad relationship, but if you want to rank well with Google, you need to be trustworthy. And let me make the bold assumption that you are currently not trustworthy (most sites are not ? especially new sites). So how do you get Google to trust you? The most obvious answer, and most commonly quoted answer, is to get inbound links from trustworthy sites. Any webmaster who has been around the block a couple of times knows that this is a bit of a catch-22. Sites that are high in Google's trust typically do not just hand out links to small startups ? those go to sites that are already established. Unfortunately, while this is probably the most frustrating answer you can receive, it is also the lions share of building trust with Google. There are, however, a few other things you can do to help Google trust you more. While having these things may not rocket your site to the top of the rankings, they will bring you closer to finding a good relationship with Google. Define a Privacy Policy A privacy policy is a page that explains to your users what information is collected, how it is being used, and what options they have to access or change that collected information. It may be a bit ironic that a major search engine would place any emphasis on privacy in light of the recent AOL data release scandal, but having a privacy policy in place shows a certain level of trustworthiness. This... more.. Seven Deadly Video Marketing Sins Seven Deadly  Video Marketing Sins By Jerry Bader (c) 2010 So you want to develop a Web video campaign to put on your website and add to YouTube and all the other Web video directories. Maybe you even want to create a new video micro site to promote that hot new product or service you're about to launch. You want it done right, professional, slick, and you want it to be effective. Well of course you do. You know you need to hire a firm that has the creative staff capable of not just shooting video but professionals who can write, direct, edit, and add all the post production elements you need, including signature music, sound design and on screen text. But are there other things you need to be aware of in order to maximize the return on your investment? You bet there are. There are lots of production companies that just want to crank out the work at the lowest cost without providing any marketing guidance as to what works and what doesn't. Perhaps these firms don't know the difference or perhaps they just don't care. The company you hire should be willing to provide some advice as to the best way to present your message so that it delivers the best return on your investment. Too many Web videos are technically proficient but lack any marketing impact. The last thing you want is a bland, boring, lifeless presentation that goes in one ear and out the other. When you're ready to add video to your marketing and sales tool kit make sure you avoid the following seven deadly video development sins. Doing It Wrong - 7 Web Video... more.. Countdown to Google Page One and Search Engine Optimization Company Nightmares Countdown to Google Page One and Search Engine Optimization Company Nightmares In August, Google announced the upcoming roll out of the Google Caffeine infrastructure. Google was quick to point out that they would not launch the new infrastructure until after the Christmas holiday shopping season -- giving many online retail stores confidence for the upcoming Christmas shopping season. In the August announcement, Google described Caffeine this way: "For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google's web search. It's the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits "under the hood" of Google's search engine, which means that most users won't notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences..." After Thanksgiving, Google said that they had taken Caffeine out of its "sandbox" phase, and that it launched Caffeine on only one of its Data Centers. Search Engine Land was able to confirm that Google had launched Caffeine on the IP address 209.85.225.103, and it was running on this IP address for at least half of its searches. However, the full roll out of Caffeine continues to remain in holding pattern, until after the Christmas season. Analyzing Google's Search Engine Result Pages... Several online publishers and SEO companies jumped into testing the Google Caffeine search results in August, when the original announcement was made public. The results of testing were somewhat mixed... ? Everyone pretty much agreed that the Caffeine infrastructure was faster than the original Google... more.. How Google Applies Science to Search 1 How Google Applies Science to Search 1 By Kalena Jordan (c) 2008 Dr. Craig Nevill-Manning is a New Zealander who joined Google in 2000 as a Senior Research Scientist to develop more precise search techniques. Previously, Craig was an assistant professor at the Computer Science Department of Rutgers University, where he conducted research in data compression, information retrieval and computational biology. Before that, he was a post-doctoral fellow in the Biochemistry Department of Stanford University, where he developed a software suite used by pharmaceutical research laboratories to identify the role of particular proteins within cells. A scientist at heart, Craig is probably best known as the developer of Froogle (recently re-named Google Product Search) and the founder of Google's software engineering center in New York City. This article is a summary of his presentation at Webstock 2008. Google's Spelling Bee Craig started his presentation by talking about one of his first challenges in his job at Google: the spelling correction tool. As the popularity of the search engine grew, Google needed to be able to spell-correct lots of obscure words. So his solution was to take a sampling of content from the entire web. Craig's team came up with a algorithmic model and ran it over the web. He discovered that there were several correct answers to the same question. For example, words like "kofee" could mean either the searcher is seeking a cup of java or information about Kofee/Kofi Anan. To combat this, Craig came up with an interesting solution: the "Did you mean?" alternative spelling option, based on predictive examples of searcher spelling patterns. You can see this in action if you type in "kofee anan"... more.. Google Sitemaps Explained - How To Use Google Sitemaps Google Sitemaps Explained - How To Use Google Sitemaps By Titus Hoskins (c) 2006 Three Ways To Index Your Site With Google Sitemaps [Difficult, Hard, And Easy] Google has recently implemented a program where any webmaster can create a Sitemap of their Site and submit it for indexing by Google. It is a quick and easy way for you to keep your site constantly indexed and updated in Google. The program is appropriately called Google Sitemaps. In order for you to best use Sitemaps, you must have an XML generated file on your site that will transmit or send any updates, changes, and data to Google. XML (Extensible Markup Language) is everywhere these days, you have probably seen the orange XML logo on many web sites and its often associated with Blogging because Blogs use XML/RSS feeds to syndicate their content. Today RSS is known mostly as 'Really Simple Syndication' but its original acronym stood for 'Rich Site Summary'. XML is only simple code like HTML and it is used to syndicate your content to all interested parties. And the interested party in this case is Google. By creating Sitemaps Google is really asking webmasters to take charge of the indexing and updating of their sites. Basically, doing the Googlebot's job! This is a 'Good' thing! With the steady influx of new web sites growing rapidly, indexing all this material will become a challenge, even with the resources of Google. With Sitemaps, webmasters can now take charge and make sure their site is crawled and indexed. Please note, indexing your site with Sitemaps WON'T improve your rankings in Google. You will still be competing with the other sites... more.. Does Your Website Need a Magic Act? Does Your Website Need a Magic Act? By Jerry Bader (c) 2008 In preparation for an initial meeting with a new client, we were asked to preview their website to see if we could come-up with some ideas for re-branding the company, and invigorating product sales. The client was suitably impressed with our thoughts but there was one problem, the product line that we stressed was not the focus of the company. The client explained that despite the fact most of their current website was devoted to a particular product line, it was not the product that differentiated them from the competition, nor was it the product that made them the most money. Once this was explained our entire focus shifted, and we were able to develop a website concept, and webmedia presentation that focused attention where it belonged. The experience drove home the fact that many websites confuse potential customers by inadvertently leading audiences down the wrong path, hindering profitable sales rather than promoting them. Pick A Card, Any Card Most companies sell a variety of products or services, but they are not all created equal, some are more important, and more profitable than others. At the heart of any website design project is the underlying goal of attracting attention, and directing that attention to the product, service, or concept that is being marketed. In that regard, an effective website sales presentation is a lot like a magic act. The PsyBlog, Understand Your Mind, recently published an article entitled, "Psychology of Magic: 3 Critical Techniques," in which they reported that the Association for Scientific Study of Consciousness held a conference called... more.. Dreaming of Pay Per Cl? Sausage Dreaming of Pay Per Cl? Sausage By Jim Hedger (c) 2007 The problem might have been that Jeffrey had heard the same set of quest?s once too often or it could just be the night noises one hears when traveling in strange cities. It could have been an undigested slice of deep-dish pizza from the evening before or a phantom blues-riff floating in his head. Whatever it was, it was 4AM on the morning of the last day of the Chicago Search Engine Strategies conference and Jeffrey K. Rohrs was wide awake. At 9:00AM he was scheduled to moderate a panel titled In House: Big SEO. Two hours after that he was to moderate another panel, the one that was keeping him up at night, In House: Big PPC panel. Five hours before presiding over two long sessions, and Jeffrey wasn't able to sleep. He wasn't nervous. Jeffrey is an SES veteran having appeared on or moderated large-attendance sessions for several years. The day before he had moderated for panels: Search Arbitrage, Dealing with Affiliates, Auditing Paid Listings and Cl? Fraud, and Search and Regulated Industries. So what could be running through his head at a time when he clearly should have been fast asleep? Jeffrey was thinking about PPC, Von Bismarck, Garlinghouse and sausages in that lucid but dream like state that comes when you wake from your sleep with a start. Jeffrey had had a revelation that jolted him awake so he pulled up his laptop and started writing what would become known as The Sausage Manifesto. As legend has it, nineteenth century German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck once remarked, "Laws are like sausages. It is better not to see... more.. Search Engine Optimization for Universal Search - Back to Square One? Search Engine Optimization for Universal Search - Back to Square One? By Scott Buresh (c) 2007 Organic search engine optimization, until recently, had been a fairly straightforward endeavor. The goal was to optimize the content on a website so that it would show up in the organic results on one or more of the major search engines - results that were comprised of nothing but other websites. However, in the middle of May 2007, Google began rolling out its new "Universal Search," something it had been working on behind the scenes for several years. This new search option may have long-term repercussions for every search engine optimization company in the industry if it is something that is preferred by the public at large and if it becomes the standard going forward. What Is Universal Search? Someone using Google's Universal Search will find that a query brings back results that encompass not only web pages, but also videos, blogs, images, news articles, and other media available online. While Google already had in place options for searching each of these areas individually, many searchers did not notice those options or did not know how to use them, a phenomenon that became known as "invisible tabs." With Universal Search, there's no need to select a separate menu item - the search will return results that encompass many different types of media. For example, a search for "breakdancing" might bring up not only web pages about breakdancing, but also blog posts about it, videos showing technique, and news articles about it. It would not, however, give you the reason why you were wearing parachute pants and trapped in the eighties. However, Universal... more.. Why You Should Create Controversial Content at Least Once a Week Why You Should Create Controversial Content at Least Once a Week By Tinu AbayomiPaul (c) 2009 Last week, like every other week, I wrote an article. This time I decided to syndicate it, something I should be doing twice a week, but only get to about 4 times a month, and that's if I'm feeling up to it. This was one of the biggest traffic draws from a single article that I have had in years. It is still producing a steady stream of traffic, sales and subscribers as I'm writing this. It's been 2 years since I've gotten that much of an appreciative response, or that amount of attention, period, for an article I wrote that wasn't widely syndicated. In fact, it only appeared in one major publication. So what's all the hub-bub, bub? As you may have guessed, there was a controversy surrounding the article. First, there were several typos. Normally I'd edit the article so relentlessly that by the time the article was perfect, it would be a month since I wrote it and it wouldn't fit into my article marketing campaign for that week. Since I'd been kicking my own butt to get content out on schedule, even when it isn't perfect, I took my own medicine and just sent it out the way it was. And boy were the grammar, typing and spelling police mad! Two people wrote me that they passed my article around at their meetings as an example of what not to do. Does it count as a backfire when one of the people who sees it Googles you and becomes a client? (Just had to get in that little dig. Forgive me.) What else was so bad about the article? I called my readers... more.. The Top 10 Dumbest Web Site Decisions The Top 10 Dumbest Web Site Decisions By Kalena Jordan (c) 2007 Having worked with web sites for the past eleven years, I've seen a LOT of errors, poor judgment and embarrassing gaffs on the web. Sometimes they are the fault of the client, the web designer, the IT Manager, or the SEO, but human error is always to blame. The saddest thing is that the problems are usually preventable. Here is a l? of what I consider to be the Top 10 dumbest web site decisions ever, in reverse order, David Letterman style : 10) Misspelling a Domain Back in the glory days of the late 1990's when I was working for a large Internet agency, the web designers had responsibility for the registration of domain names on behalf of clients. One particular designer had a face to face meeting with a major client, during which the client asked him to register CarTuneCentral.com (or so he thought!). The staffer did a check and was delighted to see the domain available. He made the purchase and proudly emailed the client. An hour later his boss called him in to his office to say that he'd had a call from a very frustrated client who *actually* wanted him to register CartoonCentral.com. Needless to say the desired domain wasn't available and the whole office dined on his mistake for months. 9) Letting the Domain Name Expire Now what type of company would allow their domain to expire a month after site launch? A very large one, that's who. I'll save the company some embarrassment and won't reveal their name but the site was offline... more.. The Benefits of Installing Internal Site Search The Benefits of Installing Internal Site Search By SEO Advantage (c) 2010 Today's websites are more complex than ever before. Many contain a wealth of information visitors can use to answer their questions and learn what they need to know before contacting a company or making a purchase online. But with all the information and features packed into many of today's websites, it can also be more difficult for site visitors to first of all determine whether or not a website will contain the information they need and then find it on the website. Installing a site search box can provide several advantages to help your site visitors - and also benefit your marketing function in the process. Site Search Satisfies the Customer's "I Want It Now" Attitude Installing an internal site search box can help visitors find what they need more quickly. With web users still looking to find what they need as fast as possible, confusing navigation and cluttered design are more likely than ever to prompt an "on-to-the-next-site" response. Internal site search is undoubtedly the quickest way for someone to find what they're looking for on a large and complex site. An internal site search helps visitors get around navigational structures that may be confusing to them. This is especially important for sites that are constantly adding new content. As the site continues to grow, many users will find the site search function to be a valuable tool in helping them find what they need. Site Search Makes a Website More Customer Centric Installing an internal site search also means you can transform your website from a static "one size fits all" style to a more "customer-centric" approach. More and... more.. Google Reveals More Linking Secrets To Webmasters Google Reveals More Linking Secrets To Webmasters By Titus Hoskins (c) 2008 One of the most problematic and confusing issues most webmasters have with Google concerns linking. How your links are ranked? How you should link out? How you should construct your internal links? How you should get more inbound links? How many links should you have on a page? And the l? of questions goes on... Perhaps, the most annoying aspect for the struggling webmaster, has been Google's secrecy in how it actually ranks links and pages. Google's whole PageRank and Ranking Algorithm is so complex that no one can fully boast they understand how the whole system works. Google's ranking secrecy and complexity has probably been well-planned mainly because there are mill?s of webmasters who would like to "game" the Google Algorithm and achieve high keyword rankings through manipulation with so-called "black-hat" SEO techniques and reverse engineering. Wouldn't it be ironic if this whole secrecy and complexity is more of a smokescreen rather than an actual deception on Google's part. What if the keys to the kingdom are actually yours for the taking? What if the solution is hiding in plain sight for everyone to see? What if the secret to high rankings in Google is not a secret at all? Wouldn't that be a hoot! Actually, that's not a far-fetched assumption to make, mainly because many of Google's linking policies and recommendations are freely given by Google. Whether you can believe Google is actually giving you the goods is another issue that we'll put on the back-burner for another day; but for now, Google's advice on link building is rather generous... more.. Google's 0.02% Spin Solution Google's 0.02% Spin Solution By Jim Hedger (c) 2007 Last week, Google made a startling claim, one that begs explanation even after close examination. Faced with lingering quest?s about cl? fraud, Google released a blog post stating actual cl? fraud charges are ridiculously lower than those projected by third party analysts from the search marketing community. According to Google, actual cl? fraud only accounts for 0.02% of all cl? activity found when Google's team is asked to audit an advertiser's account. If correct, Google's 0.02% assertion places the perceived dollar value of actual cl? fraud in their system somewhere in the range of $2,100,000. In a post to the Inside AdWords blog, "Invalid Clicks - Google's Overall Numbers", Google gave a brief outline of how it claims AdWords' 100+ data-point cl? detection system works to filter out 99.98% of the nearly 10% of overall clicks Google determines to be invalid. Other industry analysts have pegged the number between 15% and 20% with the cl? fraud index maintained by Cl? Forensics suggesting, "The average cl? fraud rate of Pay Per Cl? advertisements appearing on search engine content networks was 19.2 percent for Q4." Google has nev?given specific figures citing how much of the PPC-traffic they filter is caught and disregarded as invalid cl? activity saying it fluctuates from month to month but is below 10%. Though evidence of these clicks might appear in server logs or be noted as cl? fraud by third party analysts, Google says it does not charge for them. In the absence of a fee charged to an advertiser, the most such invalid cl? activity can be called is attempted fraud. On one... more.. Top 10 Internet Marketing Tips for 2008 Top 10 Internet Marketing Tips for 2008 By Gillian Meier (c) 2008 Internet Marketing has grown phenomenally over the last few years but the shift has quite clearly moved to a market that is driven by the consumer and that is no longer dictated by journalists and corporates. Online consumers are responding more favourably to non-intrusive, relevant and socially attractive campaigns and have quite frankly had enough of intrusive, forced online advertising campaigns. The top 10 internet marketing tips for 2008 are: 1. Optimize your website's content 2. Create a content development strategy for your website 3. Invest in a paid search (pay-per-click) campaign 4. Publicize your website through article marketing 5. Develop a social media marketing strategy 6. Create a Company Blog 7. Experiment with video marketing 8. Engage your audiences with web widget marketing 9. Discover the benefits of mobile marketing 10. Create an effective email market? strategy Let's look at each of these in more detail:- 1. Optimize Your Website's Content: First and foremost, get your website content right. Make sure it is easily read by both humans and search engines. An essential variable applied by Search Engines in the way in which they rank websites is based on the relevancy of the content that the search engine is indexing. 2. Create a Content Development Strategy for Your Website: In addition to optimizing the existing content on your website, it is essential that you develop a strategy to continuously grow your website's content on an ongoing basis. All new content should be written specifically with the web reader in mind and should also be optimized for the search engines. 3. Invest in a Paid Search (Pay-Per-Click) Campaign: When you... more.. Top 10 Issues in Website Design and Usability Top 10 Issues in Website Design and Usability By Pilar Torres Wahlberg (c) 2010 You've tested your website, you've visited it a few times, you've gotten some feedback on it, and you have a bit of data about your visitors. You might want to make some changes. Here are the top ten issues in website design and usability. Think about these things in relation to your website and consider what you might want to do to perfect your site. 1. The First Glance In general, people look at the top left corner of your website first. You should have your essential information there: what your offerings are and how your potential customers can get it. Some visitors are at your site only long enough to confirm that you sell what they want, and some are ready to buy. All visitors need to be able to tell what you do right away. Don't hide behind a splash page or make people wait while something loads - many won't take the time. 2. Navigation When your customers want and need more information, they'll stay and look for it. Make sure they can find it easily. Put your navigation in the usual places, and make it very obvious what your visitors need to click in order to find each section. Don't have more than 5-7 choices in your main navigation and keep it consistent on every page. Let your creativity and uniqueness show in some other way - follow the rules when it comes to navigation. 3. Contact Information Can customers (and search engines) find you when they need you? Your contact information must be clear and accurate. It must also be easy to find.... more.. Size Really Does Matter - At Least When it Comes to Twitter Size Really Does Matter - At Least When it Comes to Twitter By Merle (c) 2009 MerlesWorld.com Back in the days when newsletters first hit the Internet, they were usually published in text format because many email clients did not support HTML email just yet. One of the problems many publishers faced was long URL's being split in half and not being clickable to the reader. To solve this problem, shortening services started to spring up that would take a long URL and cut it down to a reasonable size. With the popularity of Twitter and the confines of 140 characters, URL (link) shortening services are in high demand once again. When you have such a small amount of space to work with, no one wants a long URL cutting into that precious real estate. There are a variety of shortening services to choose from, each having their own specific features and benefits. Most of them do work hand in hand with Twitter, allowing you to Tweet the link once it's been shortened. If you're an avid Twitter user this is a useful feature to have. Some only provide a basic shortening service, but many allow you to view stats and metrics on your newly shortened links if you register. If you're doing any form of social media marketing, it's nice to be able to see if anyone's actually clicking on all the links you're sending out to the "Twitosphere", or posting on Facebook and other sites. Tracking will give you an indication that you're being heard and that people are actually paying attention to what you have to say. Another important thing to look for is whether or not the shortening service uses... more.. More Freeware SEO Tools for the DIY Webmaster - Part 2 More Freeware SEO Tools for the DIY Webmaster - Part 2 By Mel Strocen (c) 2007 In Part 1 of this article , some of the better, freeware keyword, sitemap and ranking tools available to webmasters were listed. Part 2 covers meta tag generators, link popularity apps, link checkers and general SEO tools. Again, all of these tools can be found in the SiteProNews Webmaster Tools Directory along with new additions as we find them. Let's start with a look at meta tag generators. Since meta tags lost their SEO relevance several years ago, most of the freeware programs in this category are either no longer supported or haven't been updated for several years. But, then again, not much has really changed in meta tag usage so the apps listed below should still be useful. Meta Tag Generators 1. BHead 4.1.1 (1.0 MB) is an advanced meta tag generator that can create your entire HEAD section, including CSS style sheets. Generates the code for all popular meta tags and also has an option for custom tags. Keywords and description can be imported from files. Comes with a basic Style Sheet editor that includes a color picker. Other features include spell ch?, search replace, syntax highlighting, etc. For Windows 9x/NT/ME/2K/. 2. Metty Meta Tag Maker 1.31 (2.5 MB) is a meta tag creator with support for 33 meta tags that ensure search engines properly index your website. Easy to use and requires no knowledge of meta tags. For Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP. 3. Search Engine Buddy 1.0 (2.7 MB) analyzes web page meta tags and web page content on or offline to help you create the... more.. Smart Webmasters are Wasting Online Real Estate Smart Webmasters are Wasting Online Real Estate By Kim Roach (c) 2006 Many webmasters are not using their websites' traff?to full potential. The Web is full of wasted advertising space. Chances are that even your website has some virtual wasteland. These are areas that often go unnoticed by even the most experienced marketers, resulting in the loss of thousands of dollars of potential revenue. Below, four of the most underused online real estate spots are discussed as well as how you can reclaim these areas while maximizing your prof?. 1. 404 Error Pages The dreaded 404 page is something that almost everyone has encountered in their online journeys. The most common reasons for landing on a 404 page include: - a mis-typed URL - an out-of-date bookmark - a search engine link that is out-of-date - an internal broken link that the webmaster hasn't noticed Surveys suggest that approximately 40% of users who run into a 404 Page Not Found error will leave your site, nev?to return. However, as a webmaster, these pages should be customized in order to help the user find their way back to your website. To create your own customized 404 page, keep the following guidelines in mind. Provide an explanation of what went wrong. A nice way to apologize would be to offer them a fr?report. By using this technique, your visitors will not only be impressed by your creativity, but you can also collect their name and email adress at the same time. Provide a link to the site map. By redirecting them to your sitemap, they should be able to quickly and easily find what they are looking for. Provide... more.. 25 Ways to Add Quality Content to Your Web Site (Part 1) 25 Ways to Add Quality Content to Your Web Site (Part 1) . . . Using ideas that cover at least 25 different industries! By Robin Nobles We've known for a long time that quality matters to Google. In a post Senior Google Engineer Matt Cutts made to his blog, "quality" was mentioned several times as being important to Google. Quality matters when it comes to content, and it matters when it comes to links. However, building content and links doesn't have to be painful. Web site owners tend to think of content in a very limited way. So, let's open up our creative minds and think of all sorts of ways of adding quality content to a Web site. A few things to remember: You're only confined by the boundaries you set for yourself and your Web site. Allow yourself to think in a totally different way than you've thought before. Your Web site content should be written for your buying customers . . . not for you. Your Web site content should not be written for the search engines. The search engines are not your target audience. Think of the overall picture of your site, as if it were a living, breathing entity. After all, Web sites should continue to grow on a constant basis and nev?be stale or stagnant. Let's Get into the Fun Stuff: Quality Content for Your Target Audience 1. A calendar of events. This is ideal for sites like real estate sites to show upcoming open houses; book stores to promote upcoming book signings or writers' meetings; collectors' sites to show meetings across the country, etc. Be sure to allow visitors... more.. How to Make a Website Successful How to Make a Website Successful By Shelley Lowery (c) 2009 When doing business on the Internet, there are many ways in which you can make a website successful. Although the look of your website is important, fancy websites don't make sales. There is much more to creating a quality website. To make a website successful, you must create a website that will be of interest to your target market and make them want to visit your website over and over again. In addition, your website should lead your visitors to take the action you desire, such as joining your mailing list, or making a purchase. Selecting a Website's Niche The first step toward how to make a website successful, will be to target your website for one specific niche. For example, if you are designing a website about wine, everything within your website should relate to wine. Selecting a Website's Keyword Phrase You must also select the most relevant keyword phrase for each webpage. A keyword phrase is two or more words that best describe your webpage. For example, if your webpage is about 'making wine,' your best keyword phrase would be 'wine making.' You should use your keyword phrase a few times within your webpage, as this will enable the search engines to determine what the website is about. This is a very important step to make a website successful. Using HTML Heading Tags When you begin writing your content, it is very important that you use the HTML H1 heading tag with your main title at the top of your webpage. In addition, use the HTML H2 tags for your sub-titles. This is very important, as some search engines place relevance on the text... more.. The REAL Death of Email Marketing The REAL Death of Email Marketing By Willie Crawford (c) 2009 For many online marketers, conversions rates are a mere fraction of what they use to be. At the same time, there are a few marketers that I've chatted with who have experienced no significant drop in conversions. These are all marketers who have built incredible subscriber loyalty over the years. For many online marketers, the biggest problem is email deliverability. Their email is simply not getting through. Email is being filtered so heavily today that often less than 20% of a large ezine mailing gets delivered. There are things you can do to improve your email deliverability, such as run it through a spam checker prior to sending it out. Top mailing list management systems, such as ProfitAutomation.com, have built in systems that allow you to grade an email against the Spam Assassin database prior to sending it. If your email scores higher than a 2, I personally would revise it to lower the score. I've talked to friends over a year ago, who often confided in me that they sometimes sent out emails and got absolutely NO response. They wondered if anyone even got the emails or read them. Many savvy marketers also realized that a business totally dependent upon email was not a very solid business. They realized that what they really needed was a database that contained not only names and email addresses, but physical mailing addresses. That way, if something dramatic ever did happen in the world of email, they could just shift their marketing to direct ma? and still be in business. This is one of the reasons that you started seeing some online marketers offering loss... more.. Top 10 Ways to Improve Search Engine Ranking Top 10 Ways to Improve Search Engine Ranking By Darren Dunner (c) 2007 My top 10 ways to improve search engine rankings are based on 7 years of banging my head against the world wide web's search engines and reading numerous books on top 10 SEO tactics. Let me say first of all that there are a lot of books, sources and tutorials that make promises of getting your website into the top 10 spots on the major search engines. Most of these are self promoting and the end result is that you have to hire these people to accomplish the things they say you can do on your own. So I want to preface this by saying that this article on how to improve search engine rankings is not necessarily a do-it-your-self guide. In fact, the art of SEO can be time consuming and irritating to say the least. Some methods require the help of companies like mine so I write this in hopes that you will understand what it really takes to gain exposure, realize what you can do on your own and determine when you need assistance. One final point I want to make is "Don't use any SEO Company that can't explain what it is doing and that makes claims of using secr?software that you can nev?see or use". Yes, SEO can be complex but not to the point that you can't understand what is being done. A good SEO company is able to educate you on what is being done and explain that it is best to leave some techniques to the experts. My 10 Ways to Improve Search Engine Ranking... more.. Making Sense Of Website Statistics Making Sense Of Website Statistics By Paul J Coulter (c) 2007 Every website owner wants lots of traff?directed to their website, but this can sometimes involve spending a lot of time and mon? Fortunately, most website owners can ?rease their return on ?estment simply by paying closer attention to their website log files. Most website host? companies have special software installed that will process these website log files and display the information in an easy to read format. From this information website owners can get an understanding as to how many people are visiting the website, where the visitors are coming from, where they are entering and exiting the website, the average number of page views per visit, and many more interesting facts. These statistics will allow you to better analyze the effectiveness of promotional campaigns and give you some insight as to how you can tweak your website to ?rease your return on ?estment. "Hits" Explained There seems to be some confusion regarding the terms used to describe website visitor traff? We usually hear website owners speak in terms of "hits" to their website. Hits don't accurately describe the number of visitors viewing the website ? they are actually just any sort of HTTP request made to your server. Not only are requests made for website pages, but also for all the images and other files associated with viewing a single page. Therefore, one page view could actually result in dozens of hits, and, if a single user visits many pages on your website, this visit could generate hundreds or even thousands of hits. This can excite some website owners, but this number is not a... more.. A Perfect Link A Perfect Link By Sharon Housley (c) 2008 Webmasters are given the advice that they must attract links, but the key is not just to attract links... they need to attract good links. But what is the perfect link? The search for the perfect link need not be a quest in vain. Consider the following when attempting to attract links... 1. Related The best links should come from related websites which contain similar and related content but not the same type of material or content. For example: A link for baby clothing would benefit from a link that discusses baby care. 2. Anchor The anchor text (the "text" that is used in the link) should include keywords that relate to the topic covered on the web page that is being linked to. Anchor text should be varied; links that all have the same anchor text will appear manipulated and contrived to the search engines. Therefore, the text links should contain a variety of related words. 3. Deep Link The links should direct visitors to a related page within the website. Do not make the mistake of directing all of the web links to a website's home page. Deep linking, and directing visitors to material that corresponds to content that is closely related to the text link is key. Deep linking appears more natural to search engines, whereas links directing all visitors to a single page or the home page seem unnatural, and could be interpreted as an effort to manipulate search engine ranking. 4. Domain And Page Authority Search engines trust some websites more than others. Links from "authority" websites... more.. Suicide in Cyberspace - Your Outward Links Can Kill Your Rankings Suicide in Cyberspace - Your Outward Links Can Kill Your Rankings By Ben Kemp (c) 2007 Link building strategies have, for most people for a long time, revolved around reciprocal link exchanges. Whilst most people understand that links are important, they generally don't understand why this is so. In a nutshell, a link to your site has traditionally been accepted by Search Engines as a vote for your site. A link from a topic or theme-related site to yours is better than a link from a site having a completely different topic. An important site's link to yours carries more weight - for example from The Open Directory, or Yahoo Directory. All pretty straightforward... BUT... the rules have changed... significantly! All the thinking webmasters worked diligently to build links - willy-nilly - in order to subvert the search engine rankings and gain an advantage to themselves at the expense of everyone else. For a long time, there have been mutterings about this, and comments from Google staffers about possible penalties from linking to "bad neighbourhoods'" and - heaven forbid it - buying links! Google et al simply don't approve of willy-nilly link-building schemes, and have recently tightened the screws a bit more, in two notable ways... Bad Links Some links are bad... for example, if you are a car sales company and you've got dozens of completely irrelevant links to international hotel sites... yeah, YOU know the ones! in Prague, Munich, Shanghai etc! That's a BAD neighbourhood over there! That IS going to put a world of hurt on you! And as for the Free-For-All link sites, web rings, and 3 way link schemes... that's just suicide in... more.. Simple SEO Truths Simple SEO Truths By Kim Roach of UnleashTheTraffic.com According to the 1998 Georgia Tech GVU User Survey, 85 percent of respondents found Web pages from search engines. Since then, other studies have reported 50 to 80 percent of Web site traff?comes from search engines. Searching is second only to email as the most popular online activity. Unfortunately, there are many marketers who simply do not put enough effort into preparing their web site for the search engines. The following guidelines will help you to start seeing results in the search engines. Your first step is simply choosing the right keywords. Choosing the Right Keywords Often times, people make the mistake of optimizing for very general keywords like used cars or online marketing. Although these terms get lots of traff? it is very unlikely that you will be able to rank highly for them. Then, even if you do, this type of traff?produces very low conversion rates because they are not targeted prospects. For example, if you are selling hiking backpacks, it would be much more beneficial for you to target the phrase 'hiking backpacks' rather than the extremely competitive keyword 'backpacks'. It would be even better to target the phrase 'camelbak commander'. This is a specific type of backpack and therefore will attract more buyers than searchers. In fact, according to Jupiter Media Metrix, 28 percent of searchers will type a product name into a search engine. Nine percent type in a brand name and 5 percent type in company names. The more targeted your keyword phrase, the more likely they are to buy. A person who types in 'backpacks' may be looking for... more.. Maximizing the Triangle of Relevancy With Google Maximizing the Triangle of Relevancy With Google By Sydney Nelson (c) 2007 The "Triangle of Relevancy" is used to describe the relationship between the text in a landing page, a sponsored advertisement and the keyword or phrase that's entered into a search engine. Google places a premium on relevancy as it endeavors to ensure visitors have a positive experience by getting search results relevant to their search terms. I will outline specific steps an advertiser can take to maximize their landing pages and sponsored advertisement's effectiveness in their search engine marketing endeavors. Relevancy with Landing Pages The product, if you will, of any search engine is the resulting landing pages. The page's relevance to the search terms determines whether the page will show up in a search and at what position. Google's algorithm scores each page and/or sponsored ad's relationship to the keywords or phrase and uses this information to assist in determining the order in which the landing pages and AdWords ads are placed. The algorithm also monitors the amount of time a visitor spends on a page and includes this in the score. Search engine optimization (SEO) techniques such as placing keywords in the page's title and throughout the body of the page can sometimes affect the position of a page in the search results. But of greater... more.. How You Use Social Media Can Kill Your Business How You Use Social Media Can Kill Your Business By Nicole Hernandez (c) 2009 The social media movement has expanded the number of people we can reach and connect with on a personal level. The new relationships and connections we create with people all over the world can have a profound effect on our personal and business growth. We learn about cultures and nations that we were, perhaps, previously ignorant of. None of this is a new concept, but what may be is how quickly you can destroy your business by using social media incorrectly. Transparency is a Utopian Concept Not too long ago, Michael Fortin wrote an article titled Don't Be Transparent, Be Authentic Instead. That article is an important read for any social media wrangling business blogger and you can search for it online. That article is the tip of the iceberg in the concept of 'transparency' being too Utopian to work within the jaded confines of our society. Of course, true transparency is ideal. Many things about a perfect world are. Unfortunately, as a group, most of the world isn't ready or willing to accept true transparency without penalty. When Transparency Fails Let me give you a couple of examples of transparency failure we've seen. Failure 1: We had a copywriter who was posting on Twitter about the work he was doing. He made several posts within a few hours which were ugly complaints about a client and how 'stupid' he felt that client was. We obviously considered this unacceptable and immediately removed him from our list of subcontractors, but think about this: If he was hoping to use Twitter to get more client work -... more.. Does Your Website Need an Extreme Makeover? Does Your Website Need an Extreme Makeover? By Ivana Katz (c) 2009 It was Friday night and I was enjoying a quiet dinner at home, when suddenly CRACK! - part of my tooth broke off! "Damn" I thought, "Now what?" I immediately went online to see if I could find a dentist that is open on Saturday morning. So I searched and searched. The good news was there were plenty of dentists in my area ... the bad news was that I couldn't find whether they were open on Saturdays. After looking through various websites for about an hour, I narrowed it down to three dentists, who were open on the weekend. But in the end there was no competition as only one of the dentists had a professional looking website! Don't get me wrong the website wasn't flash, but it was clean, easy to navigate and most of all, provided me with the information I was looking for. I phoned the next morning, made an appointment and even got to see a dentist that day! After that experience, it really hit home ... what a difference a professional looking website makes! I am sure most of the dentists in my area are great at what they do, but none of their websites portrayed that. As a result they lost a customer who will spend hundreds, possibly even thousands of dollars on their services. So if you have a website... more.. Google's SEO Advice For Your Website Content Google's SEO Advice For Your Website Content By Joel Walsh The web pages actually at the top of Google have only one thing clearly in common: good writing. Don't get so caught up in the usual SEO sacred cows and bugbears, such as PageRank, frames, and JavaScr?, that you forget your site's content. I was recently struck by the fact that the top-ranking web pages on Google are consistently much better written than the vast majority of what one reads on the web. Of course, that shouldn't be a surprise, considering how often officials at Google proclaim the importance of good content. Yet traditional SEO wisdom has little to say about good writing. Does Google, the world's wealthiest media company, really ignore traditional standards of quality in the publishing world? Does Google, like so many website owners, really get so caught up in the process of the algorithm that it misses the whole point? Apparently not. Most Common On-the-Page Website Content Success Features Whatever the technical mechanism, Google is doing a pretty good job of identifying websites with good content and rewarding them... more.. Google AdSense Tips Google AdSense Tips By Sharon Housley AdSense allows website publishers to display contextually relevant advertisements on their website. If a web visitor "clicks" on an advertisement, the web publisher will earn a percentage of the advertising revenue generated as a result of the cl?. Many webmasters have built content websites around the Google AdSense model. In many cases the specific intent of the webmaster is to prof?from Google AdSense. Other webmasters use Google AdSense to supplement their revenue. Regardless of the webmaster's intent, the following tips will help webmasters looking to prof?from AdSense. Top AdSense Tips: 1. Niche Sites Targeted niche sites that have a clear theme, tend to generate more advertising revenue simply because it is easier for these sites to achieve decent search engine placement. Be warned though, you want to choose a niche where there is a sufficient number of advertisements available. 2. Target Keywords When determining the site's focus, consider how much advertisers pay for the advertisements. If the site is focused on ringtones, like Ringtone Central http://www.ringtones-central.com the payout per-click is going to be very small because ringtones are... more.. How Marketers Can Use Yahoo Pipes to Increase Their Online Sales How Marketers Can Use Yahoo Pipes to Increase Their Online Sales By Rok Hrastnik While RSS end-user adoption has been relatively slow, marketers have jumped at the chance to use this new internet channel ?rease their online sal? If you're new to the world of RSS --- RSS is a simple technology that allows you to deliver your online content directly to your subscribers, other websites and the search engines. It helps you improve your content delivery, as well as ?rease your online traff?and reach, and even conduct business intelligence more easily. RSS content is delivered through so-called RSS feeds, which are just simple files that carry your online content. Each of these simple files containts multiple "stories" that you may want to deliver to your audiences, called "content items". A content item can be anything ? an article, a blog post, a whole newsletter issue, a sal?letter and so on. But there is more to RSS than simply getting your content out. One of the fields of RSS marketing is also NewsMastering, which allows you to: [a] take multiple third-party RSS feeds, [b] mix them together, [c] filter your new mix using various keywords that you're interested in, [d] use the mix and your filters to create a new stream of content, pulling together all the content items from dozens or hundreds of other RSS feeds ? but only the content items that match your filters. You can now take this stream of content and either subscribe to it yourself, if for example you want to find out immediately what the market is saying about you, what it's saying about your competitors, and what your competitors are doing themselves.... more.. All That You Need To Know About RSS All That You Need To Know About RSS By Jo Han Mok (c) 2007 You probably have seen this three-letter acronym called RSS in the course of your internet surfing. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary; syndicating means republishing an article that comes from another source such as a website. An RSS is a means of publicizing updates about websites. It may or may not include a summary and photos of the latest posting. But those that provide summaries (thus Rich Site Summary) allow users to skim through the article so that they can decide later on if they want to access the website source. The RSS feed usually contains the title of the update originating from the website. It is also usually the link to the website source. What are the benefits of RSS? RSS has benefits for both readers (users) and web publishers.   1. It gives you the latest updates. Whether it is about the weather, new music, software upgrade, local news, or a new posting from a rarely-updated site you learn about the latest as soon as it comes out.   2. It saves on surfing time. Since a RSS feed provides a summary of the related article, it saves the user's time by helping s/he decide on which items to prioritize when reading or browsing the net.   3. It gives the power of subscription to the user. Users are given a free-hand on which websites to subscribe in their RSS aggregators which they can change at any time they decide differently.   4. It lessens the clutter in your inbox. Although your email address will be required to enjoy the services of online... more.. 12 Simple Steps to Effective Websites 12 Simple Steps to Effective Websites By Nancy Fraser (c) 2009 The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea In a beautiful pea green boat, They took some honey, and plenty of money, Wrapped up in a five pound note. Edward Lear must have had some precognition about what was in store for us all with the development of the internet when he wrote this nonsensical poem. Many people do feel at sea after they launch their website and attempt to navigate the sometimes confusing channels of the internet. They wonder why their website doesn't get more traff?and why their inbox is not filling up with emails from people clamoring to buy their products or services. It seems that the rules change as often as Oprah changes her clothes and who could ever hope to keep up with that! Price quotes for search engine optimization are all over the map; the process seems never-ending and expensive. How is it that some people seem to have great success on the web without spending a huge amount of money? Is it unrealistic to think that you can make a living working on the web? When faced with a seemingly overwhelming challenge it helps to break things down into bite-sized pieces. Effective websites should include the following: 1. Your website needs to focus on a specific niche. 2. You need to do keyword research and although Google no longer gives weight to Meta keywords some of the other major search engines still do. 3. Your website should have the main keyword used throughout and each page should be written around 5-10 keywords that are tightly focused on that particular page's topic. 4. Content is still King. Well written, focused content is crucial. 5. Meta titles need to include... more.. The A to Z Guide to Getting Website Traffic The A to Z Guide to Getting Website Traffic By Shawn Campbell In September of 1999, Brett Tabke wrote "26 Steps to 15k a Day" in the Webmaster World forum. A lot has changed since then, and now is the time to consider a new 26-step plan that meets the current needs of webmasters in 2006. Some of the old ones still apply (writing new content everyday, for example), and some don't (submitting to the search engines is no longer necessary), and we're here to tell you which is which! As you probably already know, bringing in traff?is not easy - it takes hard work, determination and lots of elbow grease. So if you're ready, roll up your sleeves and follow these 26 simple steps, and within just one year you will generate enough traff?to keep you busy for a long, long time! A) Keyword Research Before you do anything else, use a keyword research tool and do an extensive job researching the right keyphrases to use for your site. What keyphrases are your direct competitors using? Are there any keyphrases that create a potential for market entry? Are there any that you can put a spin on and create a whole new niche with? B) Domain Namemore.. How search engine marketing tools can work for you: or, searching is really all about finding, first of three articles How search engine marketing tools can work for you: or, searching is really all about finding, first of three articles   How does one go from being a librarian and independent information professional to a specialist in search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing? In my case, it was almost inevitable. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As the Internet became more and more of a repository for crucial information, an increasing amount of my work involved sifting through hundreds of Web sites, searching for pertinent information on a wide variety of projects in a very short time. Because it was so hard to find the information on many of those Web sites, my frustration kept growing. I knew there were Web sites out there with great information--I just couldn't find them. When I did find a Web site, I couldn't find the information I was looking for in it. I'm a searcher. I know how to search and where to find information. I understand how search engines work. The problem? The companies and organizations behind these Web sites didn't understand how to have their information found by the people who were looking for it. Shortly after this realization, I started working on search engine promotion and optimization. So what does a search engine optimization specialist do? I am currently the SEO specialist at EBSCO Subsidiary Web Services (ESWS), a department within EBSCO Industries Inc. that provides Web design, development, maintenance, and Internet marketing for the company's 20-plus subsidiary divisions. These Web sites include businesses involved in real estate, hunting and fishing supplies, office and retail products, promotional displays, and publishing. My responsibility is to develop the sites into search-engine-friendly, easily indexed, highly ranked resources. I am also responsible for making sure the Web sites easily convert... more.. Embracing Cascading Style Sheets Makes Good Sense Embracing Cascading Style Sheets Makes Good Sense By Fred Black Why do I like Cascading Styles Sheets (CSS) and what makes CSS so great. The answer only makes sense if you know what CSS is. The Holy Grail of CSS is to separate the content of a web page from the instructions that control what it looks like. This makes it much easier for various devices to display the web page correctly. The same page would display correctly on all standard web browsers (Internet Explorer, FireFox, Opera, Netscape, etc.), and devices used by persons with a handicap, cell phones, other devices, and yet-to-be-developed interfaces. The web site designer would not have to make separate pages for these devices. However, reality is different and here in the real world CSS does not do all these things. It does have enough positive points to make it worthwhile to learn and incorporate it into your web pages. There are multiple ways to control how something looks on a web page. The color, size, and font used for a headline or for a paragraph of text can be defined with in-line styles and tags. The term "in-line" means that the commands for controlling the color, size, and font are mixed in with the content. This makes the source code for the page cluttered and hard to read and edit when you want to update it or fix something. Also, because you're repeating the same commands over and over throughout the page, the file size of the page gets larg?and hence slower for those browsing your site. As opposed to in-line styles, CSS is not repeated throughout the page. CSS can be defined in the head... more.. Four Reasons Why The Smaller Search Engines Matter Four Reasons Why The Smaller Search Engines Matter By Bill Platt These days, all search engine optimization gurus only seem to talk about Google, as if Google was the only search engine on the Internet. Of course, we all know that there really are hundreds of search engines and directories available to us, and we know that some of the smaller search engines serve a very t?t niche of users. Honestly, I can understand why there is a lot of press on Google, because after all, granddaddy Google is the biggest of the big. We know that mill?s of people use Google daily for their search activities, and we know that our websites receive a lot of traff?from Google. There are actually four reasons why you would want to extend your search engine marketing activities beyond Google. I will discuss each of those reasons here: Reason #1: Targeted Traff?/SPAN> Niche content search engines can be a very powerful force in your... more.. Website Content By Jerry Bader (c) 2008 Website Content By Jerry Bader (c) 2008 Every week I get asked to look at business websites and tell the owners why they're not getting the results they want. Some of these sites are straightforward brochures, others are e-commerce catalogs, and some are those direct-mail-style pitches reminiscent of old mail-order magazine subscription schemes ported-over to the Web. Some have incorporated do-it-yourself audio and video and some even had this media professionally produced; still the results stink. Why? 'The Close' Is Always Found In 'The Why' Certainly part of the problem stems from a very narrow definition of what a website is: by casting your site in terms of a brochure, catalog, e-commerce-site, blog, or portal, you are falling into the trap of concentrating on 'The What' rather than on 'The Why'. This focus on 'The What' is exacerbated by some search engine optimization techniques intended to drive traffic, not to brand product, sell services, or convert traffic into customers. Don't get me wrong, traffic is important, but converting that traffic into paying customers is more important. Even the best and brightest search engine optimizers will tell you that their job is to deliver traffic not orders - closing the deal is your job, and anybody who tells you that closing can be done by means of some automatic never-touched-by-human-hands method is just plain nuts. What you want to be careful of is search engine tactics and second rate media that actually gets in the way of effectively delivering your marketing message, of telling your business story, of creating a memorable brand image, and above all of generating... more.. Increase Search Engine Traffic With Quality Content Increase Search Engine Traffic With Quality Content By John Dow (c) 2007 Every web site owner wants to ?rease search engine traffic. It's free and the visitor is targeted to your subject matter, product or service. What more could you ask for in search engine traffic? The downside is that you need to understand search engine ranking methods and that is quite a challenge for many. The number of opinions and "experts" on ways to ?rease search engine traff?is overwhelming. And regardless of what anyone might tell you, they're all guessing. The search engines themselves don't divulge how their methods work for one simple reason. As soon as anyone figures out the method, there's a mad rush to implement changes based on the method. In a perfect world, where there were no scoundrels, this might not be a factor. Everyone would organize their web site information so that a visitor could easily find what they are looking for, and life would be good. But we certainly don't live in a perfect world and scoundrels are everywhere. So we are at the mercy of the search engines to help us sort through the clutter to find what we want. And that's the value that the search engines provide, accurate and meaningful search engine results that are related to the search terms or phrases. So it goes back to the quality of content, that's the only common factor in all 3 major search engines' ranking methods. Each of the big 3 (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) search engines use a little different method and technology to arrive at any given web site's ranking under specific search terms. As mentioned above, no one knows exactly how... more.. All Optimized and Going Nowhere? All Optimized and Going Nowhere? By Jennifer Horowitz (c) 2008 It happens sometimes. Here are some of the common reasons you may not be indexed: Index Time: It hasn't been indexed yet. The amount of time before the engine indexes your site should be listed on the search engine's submission page, but these aren't always accurate or may be out of date. On the average, index times range from one to eight weeks depending on the engine. Some engines like AltaVista and Inktomi provide paid options if you wish to be indexed more quickly. TIP! Time frame and expectations: Allow up to 4 months, if you are number 10 and want to be number 1, then it may just be time that is needed - but if you aren't showing up at all, then you need to look at keywords, content, title, description and keyword tags. Already Indexed: The major engines won't tell you if you're listed; it's up to you to find out. The method to discover if a page or domain has been indexed varies from one engine to another. Don't assume you're not indexed just because you searched through keywords and you didn't come up in the first few pages of results. You could still be indexed and end up at the bottom of the heap. Roadmap from Home Page: Some engines have been known to drop pages that cannot be traveled to from the home page. HotBot has been rumored to do this. Think of your site links as a series of roads from one page to another. If there's no road from your... more.. Blog Flipping: 10 Important Factors When Selling Your Weblog Or Website Blog Flipping: 10 Important Factors When Selling Your Weblog Or Website By Chuck Crawford (c) 2009 The market for blogs has exploded. Many companies do not want to invest the time in developing a blog in their respective niche, which has given rise to a whole new cottage industry, blog flipping. Blog flipping is done in a few different ways. Some flippers buy an existing blog that has potential, but is not currently producing. They take that blog and build the traffic and sales up to a level productive enough to reap a profit from their investment, and then sell it. Or, more common in today's blog flipping market, is to research a specific niche, develop a domain / blog, and then sell it. But what does "developed" really mean? It depends on the flipper. So buyers really need to do their homework (read due diligence) before investing in an "established" blog or website. Because "established" is in the eyes of the beholder, and means many different things depending upon who you consult. In my opinion, established means that the site, or blog, is profitable. Now profitable can be defined very differently for different companies. It doesn't mean that the site has to be mak? money, though it does help justify the investment when purchasing the blog. It can mean to a prospective company only that the site has traffic that company believes it can convert into sales. Not everyone can convert website traffic in the same way. So there are companies out there looking to buy blogs that have a certain, specific reader demographic that fits their market. However, these types of sales are few and far between. Companies that are buying blogs normally want to see one... more.. 10 Secrets to Using Twitter to Attract More Followers and Get More Clients 10 Secrets to Using Twitter to Attract More Followers and Get More Clients By Donna Gunter (c) 2008 I do wonder at times if some Twitter users have any time to get any work done. Several of the more prolific ones that I follow swear they spend no more than 30 minutes a day on Twitter, but I really find that hard to believe. Many times it seems they are twittering just to say something, like "Good morning Twitterverse" when they begin their day, give more details than I want to know about what they had for lunch, what their children said to them, or when they take a nap. I realize that this is part of the "like, know, and trust" process that enables people to get to know each other, but sometimes it's simply too much information..LOL. I'm Twittering primarily to market my business. Consequently, I try and limit my personal twitters to no more than 2 per day. My clients, who create Twitter accounts for marketing, as well, tell me, "I'm signed up. Now what in the world do I Twitter about? How do I market my business with this tool?" Here are 10 strategies that I use regularly to market my business and my expertise via Twitter. Remember, you have only 140 characters for your tweet (Twitter post). 1. How you're helping clients. Talk about specific ways that your business helps clients and use their Twitter ID if you have their permission, i.e. "Just finished @clientname brainstorm great Internet marketing plan for 2009" or "Finally finished setting up Quickbooks for local hardware store -- now they can... more.. Content is Dead. Community is King Now Content is Dead. Community is King Now By Stoney DeGeyter (c) 2007 I can hardly bring myself to say the old cliche about content being... well, you know. I think it's one of the original cliche's in the SEO industry. And as redundant as it has become, for whatever reason we keep hearing it over and over again. And every now and then a new study pops up seemingly proving, once again, that content is... uh, good. But much like a TV producer suggesting "video is king" or a radio advertiser demanding that "audio is king", so goes the SEO demanding the same about content. Content has its role--and an important one at that, but it's not the be-all, end-all of online marketing. Not even close. But the roots of the "content is" movement are important for our industry. The mantra was first heard in the early days of the search engine optimization industry when SEOs were doing nothing more than throwing a bunch of keywords on a page and hoping they ranked well. Little or no thought or consideration was given to the readability of the web page. After all, it's only rankings that matter, right? But those of us who learned to game search engines slowly began to learn something that those in the marketing industry have known for years. Words sell. Or turn people off, depending on what's written and how it's written. So the movement to developing good content--real content--was an important one for our industry. But to get there we had to have the content mantra beat into our head over and over (and over). We got it. We know. The King is Losing His Grip... more.. Your Guide to Top Search Engine Rankings Your Guide to Top Search Engine Rankings By Trent Brownrigg (c) 2006 Does it seem like no matter what you do your website just won't climb up in the search engine rankings? If so, your web site may not be optimized well enough for the search engines to increase your rankings. There are some very important factors that determine where web sites are ranked. These factors are referred to as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques and they can make all the difference in your site's rankings. Here are some of the most important factors that the search engines use in determining your rankings: 1. Web Site Content Content on your site is one of the most important factors for successful search engine optimization. Your web site should provide valuable information on specific subjects relevant to your web site. Furthermore, your content should be updated regularly. It's not enough to just put up a few content pages full of information on your site and then nev?add to it. This is a continuous process that will help your search engine rankings if done correctly. It's also important that you don't try to trick the search engines by flooding them with multiple versions of the same page, repeating the same content over and over. Doing that will not help your rankings and will eventually lead to your site getting banned from the search engines. 2. Link Popularity Inbound links are very important for achieving high search engine rankings. Most of the search engines today regard link popularity as one of the most significant determinants of your website's rankings. Here are some of the best ways... more.. How to Build a Profitable Twitter Profile How to Build a Profitable Twitter Profile By Harold Hemmings (c) 2009   Twitter is one of the fastest growing marketplaces on the Internet. The reason why so many people like Twitter is because it is actually the perfect communication tool for people who don't understand and don't want to learn about Internet technology and the technological geek-speak that goes along with it. A few years back, I asked someone for his dad's email address. The son replied telling me that you just email his name. The son was clueless that there was an actual email address behind the shortcut for his dad's name. He did not understand email, and he did not care that he did not understand it. He was able to use it in a manner that was easy for him, and that is all that really mattered. What makes Twitter so popular to the masses is that one does not have to be tech-savvy to use the service. The new user simply needs to locate the profile of the person he or she wants to follow, and then the user simply clicks "Follow". From that day forward, anytime the person "Followed" posts (tweets) new information to his or her micro-blog, Followers will be notified about the message in the Twitter Timeline. The only thing that is really difficult about Twitter is that new people seldom understand that they must "Follow" someone, before they start to receive messages from others. But once someone has chosen to follow a few people, they get the idea behind Twitter very quickly. With its' system of 140 character micro-posts (referred to as "tweets"), users are able to communicate information to other users. Sometimes the tweeted info is a random comment, but... more.. The Seven Deadly Sins of Website Copy The Seven Deadly Sins of Website Copy By Michel Fortin (c) 2009 Throughout my research, I'm always surprised when I stumble onto websites that are professionally designed and seem to provide great products and services, but lack or fail in certain important elements. Elements that, with just a few short changes, can help multiply the results almost instantaneously. Generally, I have found that there are seven common mistakes. I call them the "Seven Deadly Sins." Is your website committing any one of these? 1) They Fail to Connect Traffic has been long touted to be the key to online success, but that's not true. If your site is not pulling sales, inquiries or results, then why would it need more traffic? The key is to turn curious browsers into serious buyers. Aside from the quality of the copy, the number one reason why a website doesn't convert is that the copy is targeting the wrong audience or fails to connect with them. First, create a "perfect prospect profile." List all the attributes, characteristics and qualities of your most profitable and accessible market. Don't just stick with things like demographics and psychographics. Try to get to know them. Who are they, really? What are their most pressing problems? What keeps them up at night? How do they talk about their problems? Where do they hang out? Then, target your market by centering on a major theme, benefit or outcome so that, when you generate pre-qualified traffic, your hit ratio and your sales will improve dramatically. Finally, ensure that your copy connects with them. Intimately. It speaks their language, talks about their problems, and tells stories they can easily appreciate and relate to. Since this is the most common error that marketers and... more.. 2010 Resolution - Give Your Website a Legal Check-Up 2010 Resolution - Give Your Website a Legal Check-Up By Chip Cooper (c) 2010 We all make New Year's resolutions - some are personal, some are business or professional in nature. Even if we don't actually make New Year's resolutions, we engage in formal and informal "planning" as we look ahead to the new year. If you operate a website, you're probably aware that your website operations are now highly regulated. And the pace of legal regulations continues to accelerate. Which means that you face an increasing risk of legal liability. So, it's a good idea to give your website a legal check-up and to update your site before it's too late. General Issue Checklist The general checklist below covers issues that are not new issues which arose in 2009. These issues have been around for a while, but some may be new to you, particularly if your website or marketing activities changed recently. ? Copyright Notice. These are the basic elements of a copyright notice: the word "copyright" or copyright symbol (c in a circle) followed by the year of first publication followed by the name of the copyright owner followed by "All rights reserved worldwide." Here's an example taken from my digicontracts.com website: Copyright 1996-2010 Digital Contracts, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. ? Blogs. If you've recently added a blog to your site, or if your site is a blog site, it's possible that a visitor could post infringing materials (e.g. text, video links, images). Under the strict principles of copyright law, you'd be a copyright infringer even if you were unaware of the posting. Your liability could be significant. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provides a "safe harbor" from liability provided you publish... more.. The Evolution of Online Advertising - Pt 1 The Evolution of Online Advertising - Pt 1 By Scott Buresh (c) 2008 Medium Blue Please bear with me as I go through a brief history of basic online advertising. The evolution of targeted online advertising is interesting, because I believe the perceived harmlessness of early advertising technology and targeting tactics lulled many people into a sense of complacency or perhaps even false security. In the beginning of targeted online advertising, there were banner ads. As many people recall, these were supposed to drive the Internet marketing industry in its infancy. Scads of publishers paid scads of money based on a CPI (cost per impression) model or simply paid huge dollars for banner ads and other targeted online advertising on well-trafficked sites. Then something crazy happened - nothing. It turns out that the banner advertising technology on the Internet was not the magic bullet it was purported to be. The old way of making money based on providing content (the way magazines and newspapers ran advertising) just didn't seem to work in this context. This new advertising technology was part of the reason for the collapse of the dot-bomb era. All the talk was about "eyeballs," "stickiness," "bleeding edge," "cradle to grave," and several other terms that, in retrospect, would have sounded more at home in a Wes Craven movie than in an emerging industry. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of business models depended on a traditional marketing strategy working more or less the same as it always had when introduced into a non-traditional setting. All the while, one company, originally called GoTo, then Overture, and finally bought by Yahoo!, actually formulated a targeted online advertising... more.. Webmaster Tips Webmaster Tips By Sharon Housley According to Matt Cutts, there are over 100 factors that affect search engine ranking. For those of you who don't know, Matt is a Google guy guru, he is employed by Google but writes an independent blog and shares information related to Google and search engine optimization. Unfortunately, of those 100 items that account for search engine ranking, there are only a few that webmasters can actually control. Unless you are a interested in an exercise of futility, it is important to only focus on those ranking factors that you, as a webmaster, can control and influence. What Search Engine Factors Do Webmasters Control? Outside of the obvious (webpage title and description) those items over which the webmaster has the most control are: PageRank, TrustRank, Anchor Text, Keyword Density, Domain Age, URL, and Relevant Links. How Can a Webmaster Use These Items to Help Ranking? First off--the obvious, each and every web page should have a descriptive page specific title and description. The title, description, and header tags are channels to communicate the most important details of a specific webpage. They should be used effectively, but not be abused. The web page should make use of h1 and h2 tags (header tags) to emphasize pertinent keywords and phrases. Particular attention should be paid when formatting urls. Keywords related to the webpage can and should be used in the webpage urls. Use hyphens rather than underscores between the keywords. Search engines are designed by developers and programming languages will recognize a hyphen and distinguish separate words, while an underscore blends the words. Keywords in the URL should not... more.. The 10 Commandments of Press Releases The 10 Commandments of Press Releases By Bill Stoller, Publisher (c) 2007 In baseball, it's said that you know an umpire is top-notch when you nev?notice his presence. If he's doing his job, he won't call attention to himself in any way. It's much the same for the writer of a press release. When the recipient of a release focuses only on its content -- and not on its creation -- the writer has succeeded. With that in mind, here's The 10 Commandments of Press Releases: 1. Thou Shalt Be Professional. No goofy fonts, rainbow paper or silly gimmicks. Even lighthearted press releases represent a communication between one professional and another. 2. Thou Shalt Not Be Promotional. If you can't get enough objective distance from your company to write a press release that's not filled with hype and puffery, hire someone to write it for you. 3. Thou Shalt Not Be Boring. Even the driest subject matter allows for some sparks of creativity. Journalists like knowing that there's a human being communicating with them, not some corporate robot. 4. Thou Shalt Be Brief. Learn to cut out extraneous words. Keep your sentences short. Include only the points necessary to sell the story. The well-crafted one page press release is a thing of beauty. 5. Thou Shalt Know Thy Recipient. A features or lifestyle editor is a very different creature from a city desk editor. If you're promoting the opening of a new winery, the food and wine editor may be interested in all the details about what kind of aging process and... more.. Internet Marketing Tactics For These Tough Times Internet Marketing Tactics For These Tough Times By Titus Hoskins (c) 2009 As we enter into what many enlightened souls are calling the most dire economic times since the Great Depression, online marketers need all the help they can get - regardless of the source. You have probably heard of Google; but chances are almost 100% certain, you have never heard of me. Lucky you! Actually, the only thing you need to know about me is that I am a full-time online affiliate marketer and I make a very comfortable living from the web. Last year (2008), was my best year online so far, which left me scratching my head and saying what recession? But that may be something of a false positive, as I will never know how much I could have made if the economic times had been good instead of bad. Plus, judging from my own limited experience, selling and marketing online may not have been hit as hard as those businesses in the real world in 2008, since consumers are doing everything to save a penny and shopping online has become a much cheaper alternative for many. As we enter into these uncertain times, online marketers and webmasters need all the help they can get. Recently, Google mailed a small booklet to its Adsense users; in it Google gives "6 Top Tactics For Tough Times." It is obviously referring to its Adwords PPC (Pay Per Click) program and clients but Google's advice can be applied to your general online market?. These tactics include: (quoting directly from the Google mail-out) 1. Focus your ads on low prices and sav?s. 2. Use Value-related keywords. 3.... more.. 9 Practical Reasons Why Web-Audio Is A Necessity 9 Practical Reasons Why Web-Audio Is A Necessity By Jerry Bader (c) 2006 1. Limited Screen Real Estate Computer screens have increased in size over the years but website designers still have to deal with the problem of how to get all a client's information presented 'above the fold' so visitors don't have to scroll too much. It's hard enough to get prospects to read anything, let alone copy that drones on. This problem isn't being helped by SEO tacticians promoting inflated text presentations often amounting to exercises in key-phrase diarrhea. If you have a lot to say, turn some of it into audio, so prospects can sit back, listen and absorb what you have to say, rather than hunt desperately for the information they're looking for. The single most important thing that effects a user's Web-experience is how fast they find what they came to learn and what could be easier and faster than pressing an audio button. 2. Computer Screen Readability We have all been raised with the eight and half by eleven format permanently implanted in our heads. Unfortunately computer monitors' four by three aspect ratio is horizontal and the new breed wide-screen monitors use a sixteen by nine format - great for timeline editing and spread sheets, not so great for reading. Computer monitors have nev?been all that easy on the eyes and the new flat screen LCDs are brighter and display more contrast which is great for graphics but again not so great for reading. So instead of giving your potential clients eyestrain and a headache, deliver the information using audio, a much more user-friendly experience. more.. Which Website Visitors Are Potential Clients? Which Website Visitors Are Potential Clients? By Jerry Bader (c) 2009 With today's website tracking software and services you can find out a lot about the people who visit your website. You can learn where they're from, what kind of browser they're using, how long they stayed on your site, and a whole lot more. But what all this high tech intelligence won't tell you is what kind of people they are, and how likely they are to be transformed by your Web presentation from viewers to customers. Your ability to convert website visitors into clients depends on your ability to find the soft underbelly of their subconscious desire. After all, if someone is happy with what they've already got, they don't need you, but if they were truly one hundred percent happy, they wouldn't bother coming to your website. Therefore every visitor that comes to your site is a potential client whether they know it or not. The Setup's The Thing Your website presentation has to find that annoying little subconscious scab just under the surface and pick at it until it becomes a full blown irritation that fosters discontent and a desire for change. That discontent is your opening to make your value statement. We refer to this process as The Setup. Like any good presentation you cannot, or rather should not, just blurt out how great you are, but rather you have to set the scene. Like any good story, the punch line, moral, or payoff only works if it is properly setup. Far too many website presentations suffer from premature pitch climax. The ability to transform viewers into customers requires patience. Entrepreneurial companies tend to view the setup as a waste of time, and... more.. Predicting Search Engine Algorithm Changes Predicting Search Engine Algorithm Changes By John Metzler With moderate search engine optimization knowledge, some common sense, and a resourceful and imaginative mind, one can keep his or her web site in good standing with search engines even through the most significant algorithm changes. The recent Google update of October/November 2005, dubbed "Jagger", is what inspired me to write this, as I saw some web sites that previously ranked in the top 20 results for extremely competitive keywords suddenly drop down to the 70th page. Yes, the ebb and flow of search engine rankings is nothing to write home about, but when a web site doesn't regain many ranking spots after such a drop it can tell us that the SEO done on the site may have had some long-term flaws. In this case, the SEO team had not done a good job predicting the direction a search engine would take with its algorithm. Impossible to predict, you say? Not quite. The ideas behind Google's algorithm come from the minds of fellow humans, not supercomputers. I'm not suggesting that it's easy to "crack the code" so to speak because the actual math behind it is extremely complicated. However, it is possible to understand the general direction that a search engine algorithm will take by keeping in mind that any component of SEO which is possible to manipulate to an abnormal extent will... more.. The Roller Coaster of Link Popularity The Roller Coaster of Link Popularity By Bill Platt (c) 2007 Most webmasters are in a constant state of confusion about how to create link popularity and how to rank well in the search engine results. Three of the top four search engines, Google, Yahoo and MSN calculate link popularity as one part of their search algorithms. So, for all intents and purposes, building link popularity is an important part of getting recognition and strong placement in the search engine result pages (SERPs). Link popularity, in essence, is a count of how many web pages point to one of your web pages. The Google PageRank Version of Link Popularity PageRank (PR) is a Google tool that expands on the simplest link popularity calculation. PageRank is a value given to every web page on the Internet, with 12 possible rankings. * The Gray Bar in the PageRank tool indicates that a web page has not been added to the Google PageRank database, or Google has banned the website. (If any page on a particular domain has its own PageRank, or if any pages are shown in the Google search results when someone searches "site:www.yourdomainurl.com", then the website in question has not been banned by Google.) * PR0 to PR10. PR0 indicates that the web page has been added to the Google database, but it does not yet have any PageRank assigned to it, generally because there are not any PR value pages that link to it at this time. If one is tracking PageRank from the Google toolbar, then it needs to be understood that the database that stores PageRank values is only updated about once every 3-4... more.. Top Ten Ways to Use Twitter for Marketing Top Ten Ways to Use Twitter for Marketing By Jason OConnor (c) 2009 Twitter is a micro-blogging site that asks you a basic question, "What are you doing?" It allows anyone with an account to write up to 140 characters in a text field as a means to update, comment, promote or communicate to others who are "following" you. When people follow you, they see what you've recently contributed when they login. They see your "tweets", which are the messages you leave. And of course you can follow others who tweet about the things that interest you. As an Internet marketer you may want to follow other Internet marketers, for example. Like anything, and this is especially true of working with social media, the more you give, the more you get. In other words, the more often you tweet the more activity you'll generate. Some suggest that you tweet a few times a day, every day. Not every tweet needs to be profound. But they should all be useful. It's important that you don't abuse Twitter for marketing and promoting your products, services or affiliate links. Most of your tweets ought to be about offering your followers useful and valuable information. Only once in a while should you try to use Twitter to promote something. Otherwise you'll be perceived as a spammer, and no one wants that tag. Imagine if you had a large number of people following your tweets? Some people have tens of thousands following them. If you had something to promote and you had a large following, you could quickly and efficiently alert a lot of people of your promo. It acts sort of like a mass email? blast to your house... more.. 20 Things You Need to Know Before Optimizing a Web Site 20 Things You Need to Know Before Optimizing a Web Site By Kalena Jordan (c) 2007 One of the most important aspects of a search engine optimization project is also one of the most overlooked ? preparation! There are some important steps to take in advance of optimizing your site that will make sure your SEO is successful. Before You Start Before you start any search engine optimization campaign, whether it's for your site or that belonging to a client, you need to answer the following quest?s: 1) What is the overall motivation for optimizing this site? What do I/they hope to achieve? e.g. more sales, more subscribers, more traff? more publicity etc. 2) What is the time-frame for this project? 3) What is the budget for this project? 4) Who will be responsible for this project? Will it be a joint or solo effort? Will it be run entirely in-house or outsourced? Answering these quest?s will help you to build a framework for your SEO project and establish limitations for the size and scope of the campaign. Ready: How Search Engine-Compatible is the Site Currently? Something I find very useful before quoting on any SEO project is to produce what I call a Search Engine Compatibility Review. This is where I carry out a detailed overview and analysis of a site's search engine compatibility in terms of HTML design, page extensions, link popularity, title and META tags, body text, target keywords, ALT IMG tags, page load time and other design elements that can impact search engine indexing. I then provide a detailed report to potential clients with recommendations based on my findings. It just helps sort out in... more.. New Search Engines - Can Anyone Beat Google? New Search Engines - Can Anyone Beat Google? By Titus Hoskins (c) 2009 Can any new search engine beat Google, probably not, mainly because Google isn't going anywhere but up. It is the dominant search engine with around 72 percent of U.S. online searches and its percentages are much higher in other parts of the world. (Source: Hitwise) However, there are some serious new competitors that may just take a bite out of Google's rosy search numbers. Never know, one or several of them, may just give Google a run for those all important search engine dollars. Recently, there has been a whole army of new search engines debuting on the web. If you're a full-time online marketer like me, you really have to keep your eyes open to what is happening on the web, especially relating to search engines which deliver most of your quality traffic. Also keep in mind, this piece may be fairly biased since Google is directly or indirectly responsible for around 80% of my online revenue, so any opinions may be slanted in Google's favor, not that they need any favors from me or anyone. But as an online marketer you have to try to remain objective and examine all angles in regards to these new search engines. Despite this, in marketing and webmaster circles, everyone will know even if you have the number one ranking for a certain keyword in all three major engines Google, Yahoo! and MSN - Google supplies the most traffic, hands down. Despite its obvious dominance, Google is still basically the new kid on the block. We have to remember, there have been many search engines before Google and there will be many more search engines after Google.... more.. Bingoo! Assault Heats Up - Google to Retaliate with Operation Chrome Bingoo! Assault Heats Up - Google to Retaliate with Operation Chrome By John Sylvester (c) 2009 Finally, a 10-year deal has been struck between Microsoft and Yahoo! Last week it attracted global media coverage, which said it was intended to create a stronger rival to the powerhouse of Google search, but perhaps the counter-offensive with the launch of Chrome OS next year will be the real bullet in the gun? Media reports on the Battle of the Bing mostly dealt with the facts of the agreement but fell way short of any concrete projections as to what web users will be searching with in the future. Yahoo!, it seems, with Carol Bartz at the helm, is busy refocusing the company on being a producer of media sites and a marketer of online display advertising. It will also receive 88% of the search-generated ad revenues from its own sites for the first five years of the deal. But a hint at the real story came from an unlikely source. This week's Economist also ran a factual piece titled Bingoo! on the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal, but its cartoon in The World This Week section went somewhat further. It showed an outraged Yahoo! sitting atop the shoulders of a belligerent Bing, both cudgel-bearing and incensed, standing on the palm of a club-wielding Neanderthal-like titan Microsoft, shouting, "We think it is wrong to have a market dominated by one giant!", to which the finger-pointing Palaeolithic Google responds, "Do a web search for 'operating system'..." Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010 and is open source, which is appealing. It is also a "lightweight" operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. It is... more.. 20 Best Blog Post Ideas for Small Business Blogging 20 Best Blog Post Ideas for Small Business Blogging By Donna Gunter (c) 2009 "So, what do I blog about each time?" is a question I often get from clients. To keep your blog active and healthy, I recommend blogging at least 3 times per week. However, that notion is overwhelming for many. Even though you may be an expert in a topic, your mind may go completely blank when it comes time to blog, and then at other times when you're not blogging, your idea cup runneth over. The primary thing to remember is that blog posts don't have to be long and complicated. You're not writing an article, a report or a thesis. Many times a blog post is only a paragraph consisting of a few sentences that contain your thoughts about something. Now, doesn't that sound easier than composing a 600-word post each time you sit down to blog? Here are 20 ideas you can use to help you create a blog post when you're stuck for an idea: 1. Current events. Can you link what you do in your business to a current event? Open up your daily newspaper or your RSS news reader and see what's happening in the world, your country, your state, or your city. Give your opinion about the event and a solution, if you have it, and relate that to your business if you can. 2. Trends in your industry. I read constantly and subscribe to more industry publications than I have time to review. However, there are a handful that I do regularly read, and it's to those that... more.. Are Your Ears Burning? - 20 Tools for Tracking Social Media Marketing Are Your Ears Burning? - 20 Tools for Tracking Social Media Marketing By Merle (c) 2010 MerlesWorld Social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter make it easy for people to come together and share opinions, experiences and thoughts on a number of topics. Smart companies understand this and are using the power of social media to connect and inform their customers, and potential customers. Referred to as "Social Media Marketing", it's a smart way to open the lines of communication between you and your prospects. Social media activities run the gamut from Blogging, micro blogging sites such as Twitter, social networking communities such as LinkedIn and Facebook, video and music uploading sites, discussion forums, photo sharing and more. With so many different sites and ways to participate, it can be difficult to keep track of all your efforts. Participating in social media doesn't take a lot of money, but it is very time consuming and businesses want to know that all of this investment in time is paying off. Before launching a campaign, you should have a firm grasp on what it is you're trying to accomplish. Is it increasing website traffic? Getting more ezine subscribers? Having more people download your free ebook or whitepaper? Or maybe you just want to work on your company's brand image. Whatever it is, you need to have a plan. As the old saying goes, "If you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there". Have your game plan intact before getting started in marketing yourself, or your company with social media. There are many different forms of social media, so it's impossible to use them all. Pick three or... more.. 10 Best Strategies to Massively Increase Your Visibility Online 10 Best Strategies to Massively Increase Your Visibility Online By Donna Gunter (c) 2009 Increasing online visibility is the goal of most online business owners. After all, without visibility, you have no traffic and thus no business. However, when you start to research how to improve your online visibility, you discover many options, but find that there is little time for research and implementation. Where does an online entrepreneur turn first to get the visibility (and traffic) to promote an online venture? New tricks and gimmicks come out every day, but unfortunately, most of them are like so many recording artists and become one-hit wonders. In my business, I've discovered that there are a handful that are able to stand the test of time. Some have been around for as long as websites have been around, while others are newer kids on the block. Here are my 10 most effective strategies to massively boost your visibility online: 1. Press releases. Press releases are a well-known marketing strategy that have worked for years with print and broadcast media. In recent years they have found new life as an online visibility tool. Just like in the old days, your release should carry some newsworthy angle that has been optimized with a select few keywords by which you want your business to be found. Don't waste your time submitting your release to the free press release sites -- the release simply sits on the site and goes no where else. Instead, invest in a fee-based service (I prefer PRWeb.com), which will ensure your release gets the recognition it deserves. 2. Social... more.. 5 Google Tools For Researching Your Market 5 Google Tools For Researching Your Market By Pete Moore (c) 2009 Internet marketers and webmasters have always had a love/ hate relationship with Google. Whatever you think of them they do provide website owners with some great market research tools. No matter what market you are in or plan to be in, you will find these free tools provided by Google very useful when researching your market. You should be researching your market constantly, NOT just when setting up your site. The internet is ever changing and, if you're not keeping up with those changes, you will be left behind. Market Research Tool 1 - Related Searches And Wonder Wheel When you start typing in the main Google search box you should see a drop down box appear giving you some alternative search terms related to the word you typed. Note these phrases down in a notepad file or write them on a piece of paper. They will be useful as part of your keyword list used in the next tool. You will also see more related search phrases after you click search. Scroll to the bottom of the results page and you will see "searches related to:" Note down any new phrases shown there. Recently Google has released Wonder Wheel which is also a related keywords tool but is shown in a mind map format. You can also click on the related phrases to find more useful search terms. To access wonder wheel: enter your keyword in the standard search screen, then at the top of the results on the left you should see a show options link. Select that and it will reveal a menu. Near the bottom of the menu you should see wonder... more.. Using Social Media Marketing to Promote Your Specialist Information Website Using Social Media Marketing to Promote Your Specialist Information Website By Miles Galliford (c) 2007 Before I get started, it is worth defining social media. It has become a widely used and abused term that means different things to different people. My definition of social media is: 'online technologies and practices that people use to share their opinions, insights and experiences with each other. Information can be shared as text, images, audio or video via blogs, message boards, wikis, RSS, podcasts and social networking sites'. At the heart of social media is the ability of individuals to interact with other people so that they feel involved and part of a community. A big part of this phenomenon is the activity of finding, sharing and recommending products, services, events and experiences to like-minded people. This is where social media crosses over with marketing. Social media can be a great way to have your website promoted by word-of-mouth. If you can get people to talk about and recommend your services to their peers, it is more powerful than any marketing you can buy. So how can you get started? How Can You Make Social Media Work for You? The good news is it is easy to start the process of using social media to promote your website. 1) Create a MySpace Page MySpace (www.myspace.com) is the largest and best-known social network. Individuals create profiles about themselves and then invite similarly minded people to become their online friends. When someone becomes a friend, you can communicate with them and subtly direct them towards your own website. Setting up your own page is simple and fr?... more.. Images are the Natural Evolution of Search Images are the Natural Evolution of Search By Ross Dunn (c) 2008 Over the past couple years it has been impossible to avoid the buzz about images and their increasing role in search; such as universal search which is becoming commonplace among the major search engines. But universal search is only the most prevalent news and only the baby-steps of a new format of search that is about to take over the Internet. Do I have your interest piqued? I will now lay the foundation of my statement to hopefully get you as excited as I am about this unstoppable search evolution. Evidence 1) Photosynth If you have any technology mavens as friends it is likely you saw this incredible video presented by Microsoft at the TED conference last year discussing Photosynth. To quote Microsoft Lab's Photosynth home page this software "takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and then displays the photos in a reconstructed three-dimensional space, showing you how each one relates to the next. In our collections, you can access gigabytes of photos in seconds, view a scene from nearly any angle, find similar photos with a single click, and zoom in to make the smallest detail as big as your monitor." My jaw still hurts from hitting the ground after my first viewing of Photosynth many months ago. This software made a massive impression on me that has led me to many interesting ideas on the applications for this software; I will leave these thoughts to another time. For now, however, lets just say that... more.. Social Networks - Search Engine Marketing for Web2.0 Social Networks - Search Engine Marketing for Web2.0 By Warren Pattison Social networks are getting a lot of attention these days including Wikipedia, del.icio.us and MySpace. Along with the buzz, these sites are also generating a lot of traff? How can you integrate links for these types of social network sites into your search engine marketing program? While there are an increasing number of social networks, this article will stick to the above as they are kings of their domains so to speak. I recently had the opportun? to attend Search Engine Strategies in New York City this past February, 2006. While attending a session in regards to community marketing tactics using both Wikipedia and tagging, the panel asked the audience, "Who here knows what Wikipedia and tagging are?" - less than half the room raised their hands. Let me give you an overview of these concepts. Wikipedia is a fr?community content driven encyclopedia. I have included an excerpt about Wikipedia from their about section located at About Wikipedia. "Begun in 2001, Wikipedia has rapidly grown into the largest reference website on the Internet. The content of Wikipedia is fr? written collaboratively by people from all around the world. This website is a wiki, which means that anyone with access to an Internet-connected computer can edit, correct, or improve information throughout the encyclopedia, simply by clicking the edit this page link (with a few minor exceptions such as protected articles)." Your benefits of using Wikipedia as an online marketing strategy are various. To begin with, your submitted content about your product or company may be very short and simple to begin with. As your content ages and more members view and contribute... more.. How SPNbabble Can Help Web Professionals How SPNbabble Can Help Web Professionals By Titus Hoskins (c) 2009 SiteProNews, a well established website geared towards webmasters, has recently introduced a new micro-blogging service called SPNbabble. Describing itself as "Micro-Blogging For Web Professionals" - SPNbabble.com lets you share your ideas with friends and colleagues. It also incorporates such popular services as Twitter and Facebook. To find out more about this interesting new platform, Bizwaremagic.com did an interview with Mel Strocen, CEO of the Jayde Online Network, which runs numerous websites, including SiteProNews and SPNbabble. 1. Lets cut to the chase, why should anyone use your micro-blogging program, SPNbabble? The main reason, and the reason we created SPNBabble, is that it provides social media marketers with a means to post to multiple micro-blogging sites simultaneously. Currently, SPNbabble members can configure their accounts so that a post on SPNbabble will also appear on Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Plurk, Tumblr and 5 other micro-blogging sites. If time is a factor in your marketing endeavors, then using SPNbabble is a no-brainer. 2. Not everyone is familiar with micro-blogging, could you go into more detail and fully explain how your program works or functions? Well, anyone who uses Twitter will find SPNbabble very similar in features and functionality. For those unfamiliar with micro-blogging, it's basically a concise form of blogging. Most micro-blogging sites, including SPNbabble, restrict blog posts to 140 characters. It takes some practice to get your message across in shortened form, but for busy web professionals less is more. Micro-blogging is ideal for getting short snippets of useful information out to a potential audience of millions of micro-bloggers. Short blog posts can be about news, articles, products, services, programs, links to interesting sites, what... more.. Successful Internet Marketing Without Search Engines Successful Internet Marketing Without Search Engines By Bill Platt (c) 2007 Believe me or not, a business can survive and thrive on the Internet without good search engine placement. That does not mean that a Webmaster should not strive to get good rankings in the search engines, but it does mean that a Webmaster should not throw his or her entire advertising budget towards search engine optimization (SEO). The SEO guys are rolling in their Ferrari's as you read this. I would have said that the SEO guys are rolling their graves, but they are not dead, yet. There Can Be Only Ten How many web pages will be listed on page one of the search results at Google? How about on Yahoo or MSN? That is right; there can be only ten web pages listed on page one of the search results. According to the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org), there are currently 85 billion web pages on the Internet. But, if you have ever used the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive, then you know as I know that they have not archived everything that is out there, so that 85-billion number is actually smaller than the real number of existing web pages. With only ten listings on page one of the search results, there are going to be a lot of disappointed people in the world. They cannot all be on page one of the search results. First Things First Search engine optimization is an expensive undertaking, so it shouldn't be taken lightly. I talk to people everyday who are building their first website for the very first time. These folks, bless... more.. Keeping an Eye on Bounce Rate Keeping an Eye on Bounce Rate By Merle (c) 2009 Merle's Mission When you hear the word "bounce", you're probably more inclined to associate it with a checking account, not your website. But for those who study and understand website statistics, they understand that "bounce rate" is an important measure of your website's effectiveness. Bounce rate, simply put, is the percentage of people who come to your site, then immediately leave without viewing any of the inside content pages. Think of it like window shopping. Say you browse by a shop and don't really care to enter based on what you saw at first glance through the window. The window in this case is your home page. A bad first impression, or irrelevant content, can chase away a visitor and stop them from freely investigating the full content of your site.  Google Analytics defines bounce rate as: "The percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. Use this metric to measure visit quality - a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren't relevant to your visitors." Therefore, a high bounce rate is bad but a low bounce rate is a positive sign that your visitors are engaging and exploring your website. So what constitutes a good rate? This is a very hard question to answer, but if you do some research, most say it needs to be under 50%. It also will depend on the type of site that you have. For example,... more.. Search Marketing Industry Shake-up Imminent Search Marketing Industry Shake-up Imminent By Jim Hedger (c) 2007 As sure as the sun shines behind the clouds on a rainy day, a major shake-up in the search marketing industry is coming soon. The signals are being sent and received through-out the various sectors of search and online marketing. Change in any marketplace, when it does come, is often swift, brutal and merciless. For some SEO practitioners, this one will be especially so. While the search marketing industry has been bracing for change for at least a year, the movement is now picking up speed and gathering momentum. As SEOs, our working-world is going to look very different this time next year. The biggest change is the death of "traditional SEO". Dead is taking it a bit far. SEO is not exactly dead. A better way to describe it would be to say it dyed (changed). SEO has evolved so far and so quickly in the past six months that it as a practice is hardly recognizable from its humble roots, much like a Neanderthal placed beside any given Homo Sapien. The thread that ties the past to the present is search. Everything still comes down to some sort of search. Nevertheless, the traditional view of SEO services is over. Having languished in a virtual state of stasis for most of the past year, the concept of traditional, SERP based SEO went to rest sometime in the early spring. With the introduction and rapid advancement of social networking, the attention of the search marketing world and Internet users has quickly spread outward, away from the common search engine results pages. While Top10 (first page) placements are still extremely important traff?drivers,... more.. Small Budget Promotion Techniques for Web Designers Small Budget Promotion Techniques for Web Designers: Direct mail: Direct mail is still one of the cheapest ways of getting your message out to a large audience. The cost of a well presented direct mail piece is easily justifiable given the almost guaranteed results if you target your audience correctly. Make sure you copy is done by a professional direct mail copywriter ? it's worth hiring their services for a one page letter. Most people think they can write good copy but most cannot ? even people who draft marketing copy frequently do not know how to write good direct mail copy.   Chamber of Commerce membership: Joining a chamber introduces you to other businesses and other businesses to your talents. An advertising listing is often included in most chamber memberships and a majority of businesses belong to local chambers. Do not assume that because you are small a chamber can not help you or has no role for you to play. Offer to do a class on web design. Connect with other IT professionals.   Rotary membership: Rotaries are good places to meet business leaders and introduce yourself and your company to the local economy. Also, because rotaries focus on issues affecting the business community, you will get a good idea of how the local economy succeeds and what it is facing. Involving yourself in a rotary also says a lot about you as a community member. Remember that most successful businesses start local and ?go global? after they have established themselves as viable.   Sponsor local education programs: These are different than high school sponsored adult learning in that they are usually sponsored by local organizations or charity groups. They help teach adults new skills. Getting involved in these types of classes will give you... more.. Current and Future Search Trends: Search Trends, What the Top Internet Search Engines Are Doing By Scott Buresh (c) 2007 Medium Blue The future of search is unclear ? what is clear is that change is rapidly happening for all of the top Internet search engines. Google as always is the frontrunner for many of these search trends, but even little guys like Ask.com are making waves. In this article, I will attempt to cover some of the more interesting search trends that are occurring today with the top Internet search engines ? but I am by no means being comprehensive about the subject. Things are changing on a weekly, or sometimes even daily, basis, and future articles will cover additional developments in depth.  Universal Search In May 2007, Google ? the leader among top Internet search engines -- got people talking (again) when it rolled out its latest search concept, Universal Search. Universal Search was Google's attempt to create a single page of search results, rather than separate pages for types of results, such as videos, images, maps, and websites. When it was first introduced, many search engine optimization firms raced around exclaiming that this was one of those search trends that would change everything and that new optimization rules should be created and followed immediately. I published an article in early 2007 in which I noted, "The problem with Universal Search is that it can muddy the results, and it can also introduce irrelevant results that a searcher cannot use."[1] I also wrote, "Clearly, Universal Search will change how an SEO campaign is run if it catches on. But this is a real if - users' search habits are hard to... more.. Blogging Your Way to the Top Blogging Your Way to the Top By Scott Van Achte (c) 2009 It is no real secret that a well written topical blog can significantly help out your website - so why aren't you doing it? The most common reasons I hear for not starting a blog involve a lack of time to write posts, and limited ideas to write about, but taking that extra time to get some useful content out there can do wonders for your search rankings among other things. An established blog that is updated regularly gets spidered by Google often, and increases the chances of new search rankings considerably. I have seen multiple situations where regularly updated blogs wind up ranking #1 in Google for relevant phrases literally within a couple hours of posting. It usually takes a well established website and blog to make this happen, but there is big potential if you do things the right way. While blogs work best if updated multiple times per week, even those with a new post every week or two have advantages. Blogs don't have to be a major undertaking, spending only an hour or so a week on posting can have you seeing results in no time. There are many advantages to adding a blog to your website. Here are a few. Increased Rankings By boosting your topical content, you increase the value and relevance of your site. The more new stuff you add, the more of an authority you make your site, and this helps to improve your overall search rankings. It can also help you obtain rankings for "long tailed search phrases". Long tailed search phrases are those that are less commonly searched,... more.. How to Use Facebook as a Branding Strategy for Your Business How to Use Facebook as a Branding Strategy for Your Business By Lindsay Dicks (c) 2010 If you aren't already connected to the social media revolution, it is time to get your head out of the sand and harness the power of the digital network. If you want to get out ahead of your competition and make consumers excited about interacting with your brand, social media is the way to go. It isn't an overnight marketing fix, it takes time to build a following, but if done correctly you can use social media to drive people to your website and ultimately to your front door. Are you ready? After building your incredible website and blog, it is time to build a Facebook fan page. Before you run away at the thought of building your page, let me assure you that it is easy to get started, and I am going to walk you through it. But, of course, if you get stuck or need additional help with the more complicated aspects, we're always here to help. (But I promise; set up is easy.) The first thing you need in order to create a Facebook fan page is a personal profile. What? You don't have one yet? Time to get one! I am not going to waste time walking you through profile set up because the steps are pretty self explanatory. Just go to Facebook, fill out the information to get started and let the steps guide you. You can probably set up a basic profile in about 15 minutes. After setting up your personal profile, spend some time poking around Facebook and getting to know the site - have fun. Check out some of... more.. Link Building Best Practices - A Guide to Effective Link Building Methods Link Building Best Practices - A Guide to Effective Link Building Methods By SEOFocused.com (c) 2010 Just to cover the ground, lets go over what link building is quickly. Link building is the process of building backlinks to your site. The more backlinks (links from other sites to your site) a site has, the higher it ranks on the search engines. Link building therefore is a mission of all money mak? webmasters. Link building methods have changed from time to time and a specific method that worked yesterday may not work today. This is due to changes in the industry over time and in some cases extreme abuse. If a specific link building method has been abused too much, then that method will not work anymore. It is therefore very important to know which link building method works today so that you can spend your time in a most productive way. There are many link building methods out there today that work with some working better than others. Below are some of the today's popular links building methods: Article Submission If you are reading this article, then you know that you can publish your article in article directories. Not only do you gain backlinks to your site from your published articles (see bottom of this article), you will get some traffic as a bonus. Think of you reading this article. There might be many reading your published articles as well. Article submission is a great way of building backlinks as it provides you with 100% relevant contextual backlinks that Google loves. Directory submission used to work lot better before, but it is still a popular link building method that still works if done properly.... more.. Link Popularity and Press Releases Link Popularity and Press Releases By Gary Sims The quantity of links to your site is used by the search engines (like Google) to calculate the importance of your site. This measure of incoming links is called "Link Popularity". Press releases are a powerful way in which you can promote your site, service or product while at the same time increasing your link popularity.   Search Engine Optimization Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process of fine tuning your website to get higher rankings on Internet Search Engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. Broadly speaking there are two types of optimization, "on-page" and "off-page". On-page optimization deals with the layout and format of a web page to make it attractive to a search engine. Off-page optimization deals with external factors like the number of people linking to your page. Let's look at off-page first. Off-Page Optimization In trying to quantify the importance of a website, search engines have developed sophisticated algorithms that rank web pages for their quality. The largest factor in determining quality is the number of links to a web page. Links are an almost impartial method of determining how popular a website or a web... more.. Ins and Outs of Local Search Ins and Outs of Local Search By Scott Van Achte (c) 2009, Senior SEO, StepForth Web Marketing Inc.   As the population with internet access explodes, and more and more people are using search engines to find what they need, the usage of local search also continues to rise. For any sites servicing a local or specific geographic audience, submission to local search based engines is becoming more and more important. What is it? In a nutshell local search involves the use of specialized search engines specifically created to focus on a selected geographic region to find local businesses and websites focused on your area. Local search is commonly utilized as a directory, where users select their location, and narrow their search by categories till they find the list? they want. In many cases local search engines also guess at the users' location by using their IP, so when you visit the site and search, for example, "Chinese restaurants" you automatically see results specific to your location.   more.. Improved Search Engine Rank and Google Page Rank Misconceptions Improved Search Engine Rank and Google Page Rank Misconceptions By Peter Nisbet (c) 2007 Improved search engine rank is attainable through good search engine optimization, part of which is the maximizing of your Google Page Rank through intelligent linking with other web pages. In this first part of 2 on the subject of Google Page Rank, we will look at the argument for attaining high listings through a linking strategy. Google Page Rank is a buzz term at the moment since many believe it to be more important to your search engine listing than search engine optimization. If we ignore for the moment the fact that Page Rank is, in itself, a f?of SEO, then there are arguments for and against that belief. Before we investigate these arguments, let's understand some fundamentals of search engine listings. First, most search engines l? web pages, not domains (websites). What that means is that every web page in a domain has to be relevant to a specific search term if it is to be listed. Secondly, a search engine customer is the person who is using that engine to seek information. It is not an advertiser or the owner of a website. It is the user seeking information. The f?of words that is used by that customer is called a 'search term'. This becomes a 'keyword' when applied to a webmaster trying to anticipate the f?of words that a user will employ to search for their information. A search engine works by analyzing the semantic content of a web page and determining the relative importance of the vocabulary used, taking into account the title tags, the heading tags and the first text it... more.. Six Quick and Simple Ways to Dominate Google Rankings! Six Quick and Simple Ways to Dominate Google Rankings! By Mike Small (c) 2008 The reason Google is the most successful search engine in the world is because they provide the best search results; pages ranked by tangible value. That tangible value is a combination of content and links, with links being the more important factor (they assume any pages linking in will only link to good content or risk their own ranking.) Here are a few tips that will help you take full advantage of Google's love of linking... 1.) Link Deep and with Relevance So why is deeper better and what's this about relevance? Google figured out that a link to a homepage is only good if that homepage has the information the visitor needs. If a person clicks a link for "amaz? chocolate chip cookie recipe" and ends up on the home page, which has nothing of the sort, Google discounts it as a wasted link. On the other hand, if the link leads to the page containing info on the "Amaz? Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe," even five levels deep, the link has huge value to the visitor and to Google. Want some proof? You already have it if you've ever used Google's AdWords pay per cl? service. They will not even accept PAID links to pages that are not the most relevant for their visitors, regardless of what you are willing to pay per cl?. Now that's saying something! 2.) Use Absolute Links Internally It sounds complicated but it's not. Absolute links are those with a fixed full URL. There's another kind, called "relative" links that skip the... more.. In the click: want all the right people to notice your business? You Need SEO! In the click: want all the right people to notice your business? You Need SEO! You can't resist the temptation. Fixated on your computer screen, you anxiously type keywords relevant to your business into your favorite search engine. A list of search results appears. You cringe as you spot several competitors, then grumble because your company's Web site is nowhere to be seen. Where is it? That depends. Where is your search engine marketing strategy? Gone are the days when adding keywords in meta tags to your site produced rankings. Search engine marketing has evolved into a complex and competitive program. It's also profitable--according to a March 2003 report by Piper Jaffray senior research analyst Safa Rashtchy, online search is the most cost-effective direct-marketing method. The average cost per lead from search is 29 cents, far less than e-mail (50 cents), the Yellow Pages ($1.18), banner ads ($2.00) and direct mail ($9.94). Gather your Web design and marketing staff; both teams are required. Understanding search engine marketing basics will help your team execute a strategy in-house or outsource it to specialists. The sooner your site is visible for relevant keywords, the sooner future customers will find your company. HOW DO SEARCH ENGINES WORK? Many business owners are unaware that search engines feed their results to each other. For example, if you type a keyword into MSN Search on Microsoft's consumer information and entertainment site (www.msn.com), the Web site listings displayed could be from Inktomi, Microsoft or Overture. Overture provides search results not only to MSN Search, but also to AltaVista and Yahoo! Could a top site on Overture then appear as a top site on a distribution partner's site? Yes. Unfortunately, these distribution relationships change frequently, making it difficult to... more.. Do You Pay Per Click Fraud? Do You Pay Per Cl? Fraud? By Kim Roach (c) 2006 The world of pay-per-click marketing started in 1997 with GoTo.com. Today they are known as Yahoo Search Marketing. What started in 1997 as a way to quickly get listed in the top of the search engines has turned into a 5.6 billion dollar industry in 2005. In fact, about 99% of Google's revenue comes from advertising. However, this multi-billion dollar search industry is under attack and has been for quite a while. Cl? fraud has become the greatest threat to the rapid growth of the paid search marketing sector. The Interactive Advertising Bureau estimates that 20 to 35 percent of ad clicks are fraudulent. Who's to blame? Cl? fraud can come from a variety of sources, including competitors, bots that simulate the human behavior of clicking on ads in web pages, or even friends of the publisher who want to "help" the publisher gain some additional cl? revenue. However, the major search engines have received the majority of the blame, even though they are not necessarily responsible. Yahoo has recently settled a class-action cl? fraud settlement. Under the settlement, Yahoo advertisers will be allowed to submit cl? fraud claims dating back to January 2004. Yahoo will reimburse any confirmed fraudulent clicks in c?, with no set limit on the amount of claims it will cover. This year, Google has been burdened with its own cl? fraud case to the tune of 90 million dollars. Currently, the court is deciding whether to accept the search giant's proposed $90 million settlement while roughly 50 plaintiffs are voicing their dissatisfaction with it. Cl? fraud is certainly no small... more.. Google Street View Continues to Raise Privacy Concerns Google Street View Continues to Raise Privacy Concerns By Brian Cooper (c) 2009 Medium Blue Google Street View, a Google Maps feature that lets users see images of streets and the surrounding areas, continues to generate controversy. Since its launch in May 2007, the feature has prompted questions about whether it constitutes an invasion of privacy, complaints about inappropriate images, and even a lawsuit. Aaron and Christine Boring vs. Google The lawsuit came from a Pittsburgh couple in April 2008. The couple lives on a private road. However, Google's Street View team travelled down the road and continued taking images all the way up to the couple's home. The images were then posted to Google Maps and included close-ups of the couple's home, swimming pool, and outbuildings. Google's response? "Complete privacy does not exist in this world except in a desert, and anyone who is not a hermit must expect and endure the ordinary incidents of the community life of which he (or she) is a part."(1) While Google's assertion that its Street View imaging team is an "ordinary incident of community life" is far-fetched, Google does make some good points in its response. Namely, that the plaintiffs could have simply requested that Google delete the offending images from Street View via a form available on Google Maps. Instead, the couple filed suit and in doing so have made the matter public record and ensured that the images will be viewed by even more people. Since the lawsuit, Google has removed the images in question, but the suit remains open. The Borings' Neighbors On Goldenbrook Lane, a nearby street, some... more.. New Internet Marketing Tools New Internet Marketing Tools By Titus Hoskins (c) 2008 New Internet marketing tools are coming online each and every day. Why should you care? Mainly because these new marketing tools can have a dramatic impact on your online traffic, leads and sales. So much so, your online competitiveness can greatly depend on you finding and using these new marketing tools before everyone else does. And as Internet marketing grows more and more lucrative, it is becoming more competitive each day, so staying aware of what's happening has become vital to your online success. More importantly, if you're a full-time marketer like me, your livelihood will largely depend upon you being able to keep on top of all the new ways of marketing on the web. With these considerations in mind, I would like to l? some new or relatively new marketing tools that have been effective for me in my online market?. Some of these are marketing software, others are SEO strategies, marketing tips and the like... all have helped me achieve my online goals. Here are some new marketing tools you can try: 1. Real Link Finder Neil Shearing's "RealLinkFinder" is a handy little link-building tool you can use to increase your link popularity and SE rankings. It lets you find targeted blogs that don't have the "nofollow" attribute tag so your links will count in all the search engines. Great way to build targeted links related to your site's main keywords or keyword phrases. This is one "No C? link-building tool you should try. 2. Peel Away Ads Simple ads which sit at the corner of any webpage, when a cursor hovers... more.. The Best Page Layout and Design for Content Websites The Best Page Layout and Design for Content Websites By Miles Galliford (c) 2007 I was chatting to a veteran print publisher who had been producing magazines for over thirty years. He shook his head in despair, as he told me that every year he sees new magazines hit the newsstands with the publications' titles placed vertically on the magazine cover. "Whenever I see this," he said, "I know it has been produced by a new publishing company that does not understand the industry. Anyone with any experience of periodical publishing knows that publications with vertical titles fail, or at least have to change quickly to survive. The market has taught us this lesson hundreds, if not thousands of times, but still people make the same mistake." This message is just as relevant to website layout as it is to magazine design. The web has been around for long enough that rules and best practices have emerged from years of tr? and error by thousands of website owners. You can either go with the flow and be grateful that you can learn from the experience of others, or you can swim against the tide and try to convince the market that you are right and they are wrong. I would suggest that swimming downstream is far easier and will give you a much greater chance of success. To understand which layouts work you only need to look at the industry gorillas. These are the online content publishers who have been around for years, and who have tested just about every layout combination. Good examples are some of the most read websites on the internet including: - BBC - The Financial Times... more.. How to Reduce the Pain of Switching Domains How to Reduce the Pain of Switching Domains By Ross Dunn (c) 2007 Transferring traff?and popularity to a new domain is a painstaking process that no one on the web appears to be immune to, or so Topix.net has realized. Topix.net is a leading news aggregation resource that has been in the news lately because they are planning to move their site from Topix.net to Topix.com after purchasing the .com for a cool million from a Canadian animation company. The Wall Street Journal wrote this article explaining how damaging a seemingly simple process of switching from .net to .com could be for Topix LLC. The author goes on to explain such a switch is usually fraught with ranking drops while the major search engines notice and respond to the changeover. The fact that switching addresses will cause problems is not news in the SEO world; however, I thought Topix.net's situation was a great opportun? to review what one might expect when switching domains. Switching Shingles Switching a domain is tantamount to changing physical locations and it should be treated just as seriously. The following are the steps to take and consider when switching domains: 1. You must install a site wide 301 (permanent redirect) on your old domain to forward all human traff?to the new domain and inform search engine spiders that your website has permanently moved to a new location. For information on how to implement a 301 redirect here is a great tutorial. 2. Google is the biggest player and likely the most significant driver of traff?to your website. Keeping that in mind you will want to notify Google of your... more.. Article Marketing Success Secret: Give Them What They Want Article Marketing Success Secret: Give Them What They Want By Bill Platt (c) 2008 the Phantom Writers Some people find great success with article marketing, while others think its proponents are full of bull. The difference between the winners and the losers in article marketing is most frequently defined when the writer sits down and begins to write. That is right. Success and failure is most often determined by the writers' motivation, and more importantly, by the writers' commitment to the reader. Flawed Strategies In 2005, a few of the Internet Marketing gurus took notice of the success people were having with article marketing, and they passed this news to the Internet Marketing newbies of the world. But, there was something missing from the advice given. In a lot of cases, the people preaching the power of article marketing hadn't used the technique themselves. Even today, few of my article distribution competitors utilize reprint articles to promote their own businesses. Most of my competitors rely upon affiliate marketing to promote their websites. Unfortunately, the Internet Marketing newbies of the world were given a lot of bad advice. It was said that: The only purpose of article marketing was to build links, and link popularity for search engine rankings; The writer only needed to write enough words to meet the minimum word count requirements of publishers; It wasn't necessary for the content to be well-written, since the publishers do not read the articles they approve for publication; Anything that can be done to reduce the time/cost of article writing would benefit the marketer. The only suggestion... more.. What You Need to Know About IP Addresses What You Need to Know About IP Addresses By John Buchanan (c) 2007 If you are new to the internet, often times things can seem quite overwhelming. People throw around terms like IP addresses, name servers, host?, ftp, etc. In this article we are going to cover IP Addresses. You'll learn exactly what they are and how they apply to search engine optimization (SEO). IP Address stands for Internet Protocol Address and is currently made up of four "octets" or numbers separated by a period. Each octet can be a number from 0 to 255 . Some examples of valid IP addresses are - 1.123.150.243, 35.35.36.10, 240.216.1.80 There is also a new standard for IP addresses that is slowly being launched called IPV6 (IP version 6). IPV6 numbers look quite different from our current IP addresses. An example of an IPV6 IP address is - 2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7334 You will notice each is much longer with MANY more possible variations. The new IP system is designed to give us enough IP addresses so that we will not run out of unique IP addresses any time in the foreseeable future. So why do we need IP addresses? Quite simply, an IP address is like your physical home address. It designates a specific computer that is connected to the internet. Every computer connected to the internet has an IP address. This is necessary for it to send and receive information. When you type in a website name, for example mine, http://www.sesecrets.com, that name is translated into an IP address that is then used to "find" my site. In the current set of IP addresses, going from left to right, the first "octet" is the most broad, with each... more.. 16 Tools for Twitter Users 16 Tools for Twitter Users By Kalena Jordan (c) 2008 Hands up if you're a Twitterholic. Yes, my hand's up too. If you love the micro-blogging platform Twitter as much as I do, then keep reading. I've put together a l? of the coolest plug-ins and apps designed for us Twitterholics and scored each out of five on the *must have* scale. Twitter Specific Tools: 1) TwitterFox is a Firefox extension that notifies you of your friends' status on Twitter and lets you make posts from your browser status bar. It also allows you to switch between multiple Twitter accounts in one click. This is my #1 must-have, deal-breaker, cannot live without Twitter plug-in. 2) Retweet This is an application designed for use with the Greasemonkey Firefox plug-in. It allows you to append a retweet button to the end of each Twitter entry to encourage your followers to retweet your posts. 3) Classify Twitter Users is a script that allows you to classify Twitter users and decide whether they are worth following based on their friends, followers and post ratios. Another Greasemonkey app, it's a great tool to help you weed out the Twitter spammers and fan boys from the socially healthy. You can set the script to use your Twitter user scales (e.g. spammer, social climber, social rock star) or just gather more information about people you are following. Must Have Scale (4): ? ? ? ? 4) TwittAd allows Twitter users to monetize their account by accepting advertising on the background image of their Twitter user profile. You decide the duration and price advertisers pay for... more.. How to Build a Better Website Without Building a Website How to Build a Better Website Without Building a Website By Richard D S Hill (c) 2007 The most important thing to consider, when first thinking about any website, is the user. Like so much marketing, websites are, unfortunately, too often developed 'inside out' (company focused) rather than 'outside in' (customer focused). All website users have their own reasons and objectives for visiting a site. No matter how targeted, any website has to communicate with a wide range of individual users. To be successful, therefore, every site has to give each and every user a thorough but simple presentation of the site's content so that the site achieves your objectives e.g. registrations, leads, sales. To do this successfully, users want: Simple Navigation Navigation that is clear and consistent. Probably the worst issue is 'lost visitors' ? those who are in a maze and don't know where they are in the site. The site should always allow users to easily return to the home page and preferably get to any page with one cl?. Studies have shown that users want to find things fast, and this means that they prefer menus with intuitive ranking, organization and multiple choices to many layers of simplified menus. The menu links should be placed in a consistent position on every page. Clarity Users do not appreciate an over-designed site. A website should be consistent and predictable. For maximum clarity, your site design should be built on a consistent pattern of modular units that all share the same basic layout, graphics etc. Designing Websites That Meet Their Objectives Everything above... more.. Webmaster Tool Box Webmaster Tool Box By Sharon Housley (c) 2009 Here is a collection of what we consider "must have" tools for webmasters. These tools will benefit any webmaster, both novices and experts alike. Arm yourself with these tools in order to achieve a more professional online presence. 1. Custom 404 Page Use a custom 404 page, so that if a user incorrectly types a webpage URL, they will still retain navigational options within your site and be provided alternative solutions. When a domain is correctly entered, but a specific webpage's URL is entered incorrectly, it is possible to display your custom error page to the visitor. By providing users with a navigational bar and further assistance, rather than leaving them with a generic "page not found" error screen, you can often keep prospective customers on your site by providing them with navigation alternatives.   2. UrlTrends UrlTrends is a service that shows historical trends, so that webmasters can see how their SEO efforts are affecting websites in the search engines. UrlTrends should be used in conjunction with web-logging software. UrlTrends - www.urltrends.com 3. Favicon Polish your website by adding a Favorite Icon. When a "favicon" is available on your site, and the site URL is entered in the user's web browser URL box, the favicon will be displayed beside the URL. This gives the website a more professional and polished look. Favicon HTMLKit - www.htmlkit.com 4. Color Matching Match the primary web colors with those used in your logo. Simply choose a preferred color using the ColorBlender service below, and a 6-color matching palette and blend will be automatically calculated for you. ColorBlender - www.colorblender.com 5. Online WYSIWYG Editing Online webpage editing allows for collaboration, so that different users can log in and edit web pages. Edit - www.edit.com 6. RSS... more.. How To Create A Video Campaign Concept How To Create A Video Campaign Concept By Jerry Bader (c) 2007 Have you ever had a good idea, maybe a great idea, only to find that someone else already ready did it? Frustrating. You want to be a success and who doesn't? It's why you do what you do, why you put-up with what you put-up with? But it all gets so frustrating. As much as you'd like to believe otherwise, there just aren't any secr?methods, special potions, or motivational DVDs that are going to make you a success in thirty days, but there are things you can do that will help. Sure working hard helps but working smart is even better. So how do you work smart? Well you can start with presenting your core, marketing message to your targeted audience in a way that engages the spirit, informs the intellect, and embeds in the mind. And if you want to be cutting edge, the way to do it is with audio and video. What A Difference A Difference Makes Anybody who has ever tried to raise mon?for a project from a bank, or contacted an ad agency for help has heard the question, "What makes your company different?" If you don't have a different product, different process, or different way of doing or presenting what you do, you are nev?going to raise a cent or make an impact on the market. Yet most companies blindly continue to follow the market leader, and wonder why they nev?attain the level of success they hope to achieve. If you want to be a success, you have to reinvent your company as something unique,... more.. Ten Top Tips for Video Marketing Your Online Business Ten Top Tips for Video Marketing Your Online Business By Jay Allyson (c) 2010 Nearly all internet marketing professionals use video as one of the core methods for marketing their business. These ten tips aim to help you get started creating short, attractive, effective videos based on solid keywords that convert and that stand the test of time. Video grabs people's attention far more quickly and effectively than text, audio or photographs. Making a short video can capture a thousand words and pictures and helps to get across your personal brand and lifestyle. It's important to stand out in the crowd on video channels and search engines. Aim your headlines at capturing the imagination regarding your topic. So don't be dull - test out curiosity, shock or fun tactics for getting those download cl?s. First of all, get set up. When you're starting out, it's ok to just use your webcam. It will give you the chance to practice while you're honing your presentation skills before you fork out for a camcorder. When you're ready, you can purchase an inexpensive digital video recorder, like say the Flip and a tripod. Make sure you take your videos in well-lit conditions. Inside your office you'll need decent lighting, or you can whip out your camera when you're out and about. It makes for a much more interesting back drop. OK. So now let's go through each of my TOP 10 TIPS for creating and using videos to market your business. #1: Keep Your Videos Short Whether you're loading videos on YouTube or just putting them up on your website or blog, it's really important to keep to just 5 or 6 minutes. If needed, you... more.. Does Google PageRank Count Anymore? Does Google PageRank Count Anymore? By Titus Hoskins (c) 2009 Being a full-time SEM (Search Engine Marketer) I have been conditioned like Pavlov's dog (not a pretty picture) to jump every time Google twitches. Lately Google has been doing a lot of twitching. Specifically, the rather startling news from Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa that Google has ditched PageRank from Webmaster Tools. "We've been telling people for a long time that they shouldn't focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it's the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true," states Moskwa. "We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it." (Source: WebProNews) Now, for SEO reasons or for ranking in Google's index, PageRank has long been eunuchified by Google. However, even missing a few dangling bits, history has shown us, eunuchs still wheel tremendous power. PageRank is no different. Regardless of what Google wants to happen, PageRank is still extremely important to anyone marketing on the web, especially if you're selling SEO services or operating a web business. Try selling SEO services when that little green bar on your site is pointing to PR0 or worst yet, pointing to a solid gray bar. Obtaining a high PR7 or PR8 simply means more business and revenues... regardless of how Google is or is not using PageRank. People know how to count and they learned long ago, a ten is a lot more than a big fat zero. Placed against a PR1 site, a PR8 will win more respect in the eyes of potential clients and can... more.. Creating Widgets for Your Websites and Blogs Creating Widgets for Your Websites and Blogs By Doran Roggio (c) 2007 With a widget you can place the current information from your blogs and or/websites on other webpages, and your personal pages on social networks like myspace, ning.com and your private clubs. This is not only fun and informative, but an excellent promotional tool. What is a widget? According to Wikipedia a "web widget is anything that can be embedded within a page of HTML, i.e. a web page. A widget adds some content to that page that is not static. Generally widgets are third party originated... Widgets are also known as modules, snippets, and plug-ins. Widgets can be written in HTML, but also in javascr?, flash and other scripting languages..." Applications can be integrated within a third party website by the placement of a small snippet of code. This is becoming a distribution or marketing channel for many companies. The code brings in 'live' content - advertisements, links, images - from a third party site without the web site owner having to update." You have probably seen widgets on web sites you have visited. When clicked on the widget will take you to the source of the information. Although widgets have been around since the late nineties, they are becoming increasing more popular especially with the rise of social networking. I first started playing around with widgets as a way to promote my own AC published content. While widgets are not that difficult, they can be a little tricky at first if unfamiliar to you. It took me several tries to perfect my own widgets and place them on my blog and social networking sites. They now work perfectly without any... more.. Simple Twitter Tips that Attract Clients and Partners Simple Twitter Tips that Attract Clients and Partners By Meredith Liepelt (c) 2009 According to Mashable.com, a leading authority on social media, there are currently over 12 million users on Twitter. Another resource called istrategylabs.com reports that 46% of Twitter users are college grads, and another 17% have post graduate degrees. Furthermore, 47% are between age 18 and 34, and another 31% are between 35 and 49. Males and females are evenly ranked, with women accounting for 53% of users and men 47%. If your target market falls within these demographics, actively participating on Twitter is probably worth your while. Twitter is simply a micro blogging service. What does that mean? It means that you write short updates (140 characters maximum) called "tweets" and send them out to your followers. And it is a marketer's dream come true - it's an easy way to stay in front of your target market and showcase your authority for free. The myth around Twitter is that Twitter users (called tweeple or tweeps) tweet about useless information such as what kind of coffee they had with breakfast. Yes, some of that exists and it is actually important as you'll see below, but once you understand the power of connecting on Twitter, you may become a Twitter convert, just like me. So, if you're on Twitter or considering starting, the question becomes, "what do I tweet about that will make this a useful tool for me?" Here are some categories you can consider for your tweets. There are others but these will get you started: Industry Tips This is a big one. You are on Twitter to showcase your expertise, so industry tips act as your credibility builders. Here's how to do it:... more.. What's Wrong With E-Commerce Websites? What's Wrong With E-Commerce Websites? By Jerry Bader (c) 2008 What is going on with e-commerce websites? It appears that online entrepreneurs spend so much time worrying about website traffic that they ignore the customers who actually want to buy something. Recently, I tried to order a product we spotted at a trade show. It was perfect for our application so we did a Google search to find the manufacturer and a l? of dealers who sold the item. Almost all the websites that distributed the product had proper contact information and invited people to call, which we did. After six frustrating phone calls to dealers we still hadn't found anyone willing to answer the telephone. Since we had to leave a message almost everywhere we called, we decided to try California even though we are located in the east, and it was far too early for any reasonable person to be at work. We finally got in touch with a friendly salesperson in Boston, who was very helpful but unfortunately the company was out of stock. Despite not being able to fill the order, we kept their information on file because they were friendly, accommodating, and dealt with all our questions. They tried their best to meet our needs but if we would have ordered using their online system and found out later that the product was back-ordered we would have been very upset since we had a deadline to meet. Next we reached the manufacturer who told us he was too busy to check if he had any stock, and maybe he could get back to us by four o'clock. Just as... more.. Bootstrapping Basics Entrepreneurs Need To Know Bootstrapping Basics Entrepreneurs Need To Know By Ellisa Brenneman (c) 2009 Over the last five years approximately 600,000 entrepreneurs pitched first tier venture capital firms in North America and about 15,000 received funding. Your chances of getting funded are 2.5%. This is a fact. Many of those that were funded became quite wealthy and many more failed. Venture capital firms are looking for home runs not base hits. To begin, let's say you're having difficulties raising capital for one of a multitude of reasons. You lack an experienced management team with a track record of prior success, your product is still in development, the service you've created hasn't been market tested and you still haven't refined the sales process. Or, your company may simply not be a "VC deal" or a "home run", that is, something that will go public or be acquired for a bazillion dollars. Finally, your organization may be a non-profit with a cause like the environment or autism. Does this mean you should give up? Not at all. I could build a case that too much money is worse than too little for most organizations, not that I wouldn't want to buy a NBA franchise one day to emulate Mark Cuban. Until that day comes, the key to success is bootstrapping. Bootstrapping refers to a group of metaphors that share a common meaning, a self-sustaining process that proceeds without external help. The term is often attributed to Rudolf Erich Raspe's story The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, where the main character pulls himself out of a swamp, though it's disputed whether it was done by his hair or by his bootstraps. Regardless bootstrapping sounds a lot more businesslike and appealing than hairstrapping. What follows... more.. Twitter Under Assault Twitter Under Assault By John Sylvester (c) 2009 A new micro-blogging website, Yahoo Meme, similar in style and functionality to Twitter, was soft-launched in Portuguese in May. They have now launched a Spanish version. But what is unusual is that the word "meme" was first introduced by controversial British ethologist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene to discuss "elements of cultural ideas, symbols or practices that are transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena..." That doesn't sound a bit like Yahoo. Just as in the 19th century, when Thomas Huxley was known as "Darwin's bulldog" for his tenacious defence of Darwinism, Richard Dawkins has played a similar, modern-day role when talking about evolutionary principles and explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Analogous with the above, you may have noticed that Yahoo's Meme closely follows the etymology of the Greek word "mimema" for "something imitated" and that instead of a sweet little bird tweeting, it has a dog - admittedly not quite the image of Huxley the bulldog, but a dog nevertheless - barking "wow" in Spanish. A dog? Don't you think it would have been more appropriate to have used a cat that could have ruffled Twitter's feathers a little, like Yahoo Sucatash? According to Wiki, examples of memes are tunes, ideas and catch-phrases. But now, microblogging? Yes, Yahoo has introduced its own version in Spanish and Portuguese offering similar features to Twitter. At first glance it seems like another clone where users can populate with text posts, music, videos, photos and links to MP3 files, and with a repost rather than retweet button, but is it really an exact clone? According to readwriteweb.com,... more.. Hidden Content Sources for Your Website Hidden Content Sources for Your Website By Kim Roach (c) 2006 As I travel through the Google search engine, there is one element that defines almost all of the top-ranking websites. It's great content. People come online for information and those that offer the best content reap the greatest rewards. Unfortunately, this type of content is hard to come by. In most cases, you either have to spend hours in front of the keyboard or outsource the job to others. Both of these options are very costly. One requires your valuable time and the other requires an ?estment of around $10 - $20 per article. That's why I have scoured the net in search of valuable fr?content sources. I'm still not quite sure why I'm revealing my treasured piles of fr?content, but I certainly hope you enjoy them. One of my favorite sources of content is public domain. This comprises the body of knowledge without a copyright. Anyone can use this material for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Below are some excellent sources for public domain material. Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg is a library of 18,000 fr?ebooks whose copyright has expired. "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", "Pride and Prejudice", "The Time Machine", "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and "The Canterbury Tales" have all passed into the public domain. This means that you can put these on your website or even sell them in electronic or book format. Explore a wealth of fr?content at Gutenberg.org. Archive.org At Archive.org you can find th?nds of works that are currently in the public domain. Want to put some cartoons on... more.. Internet Marketing Blogs that Beg to be Bookmarked Internet Marketing Blogs that Beg to be Bookmarked By Merle (c) 2008 PayPerClickResearch.com Let's face it, Blogs on the topic of Internet marketing are a dime a dozen. Everyone and their dog seems to have one. I'll be the first to admit it takes a lot to impress me. Some blogs are just boring and uneventful. But then there are some that make me want to come back again and again. So, what are the qualities of a great blog? Well, for me it's one that offers me something of value, whether that be in the form of valuable information, or points me in the direction of free products or services. It's all about me. By the same token, I do appreciate a blogger with a sense of humor or strong personality. If you're stiff and mechanical it's just not for me. Show me who you really are and what makes you tick. One final point. Don't forget about design. Blogs that are easy on the eyes, uncluttered and simple get my vote every time. If it has a black background and white text, I'm out of there in a big hurry. So, who has some of the best blogs online today? So glad you asked. Listen closely as I enlighten you and point you in the right direction. 1) Willie Crawford: An experienced online marketer, Willie is considered one of the world's leading Internet marketing experts. Listen to Willie, he "walks the talk" and can teach you a lot about the world of online market?. He also has a radio show at: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/WillieCrawford 2) Michael Fortin Blog: Copywriting... more.. Google Everflux: Just What We Needed, Google on Speed Google Everflux: Just What We Needed, Google on Speed By Titus Hoskins (c) 2008 Is it just me or has Google gone into overdrive? As a professional full-time online marketer I have to keep my mind firmly placed on what Google is doing. As much as I try not to because Google has probably driven more people around the bend than Chrysler and Mercedes-Benz put together. Like any professional marketer, I monitor my numerous keywords on a daily basis - especially my major targeted keyword phrases that bring in the most sales and subscribers. For years now, I have had top rankings in Google for my chosen phrases; they move up and down, but mostly they don't leave the first page. However, lately I have been noticing a lot of jumping in the top listings. Links out of nowhere are appearing, links being dropped and my own links moving up and down much too quickly for my comfort. Even six months ago the Google main index seemed to be a whole lot more stable than it is now. Within the past months, rankings within Google have become more dynamic, more fluid. They can change from day to day, what some people are calling Google Everflux. This is very similar to the old Google Dance we used to have a few years ago...when Google would update or refresh its index about once a month. Now Google is stepping out on that dance floor every day. Once upon a time, your keyword rankings in Google didn't change that much. Every four or five months Google would do major updates where your keywords and your site's PageRank... more.. Top Six Internal Linking Tactics To Get Top Google Rankings Top Six Internal Linking Tactics To Get Top Google Rankings By Jason O'Connor (c) 2008 If you own or run a website and are not following these six tactics for properly linking your website together then you're losing Google traffic as you read this. First some definitions. Internal linking is the links on your website that point to other pages within your same website. External linking is when you link to another website. Tactics are specific things to do to achieve desired results, or any mode of procedure for gaining advantage or success. There are things you can do when developing or refining your internal linking structure. If you carry out the following tactics, you're going to achieve two things. One, you'll make your website better from a user's perspective. Two, you'll rank better in Google. And it's no coincidence that Google rewards you for doing things that make the website user's experience easier and better. In fact, the most important thing I can recommend is that you create, design and link your website together in a way that benefits the visitor first. Your visitors are most important, not Google rankings. One last thing before I get to the tactics. Have you heard that links from other websites that point back to your website are essential in getting top search engine rankings, especially with Google? It's true. These links vary in their effectiveness and value depending on the website from which they're coming. But did you also know that internal links often can have similar effectiveness and value as external links? So bear this in mind as you read on. 1)... more.. Does Google Have A Golden Rule? Does Google Have A Golden Rule? By Titus Hoskins (c) 2008 As a full-time webmaster and site owner, figuring out just what Google wants has been the most challenging aspect of running an online business. For many webmasters Google is the eight ton elephant in the room and you only have two options: upset the elephant and get trampled or quickly find out what it likes to consume and try to feed it. In order to keep Google fed, webmasters have to jump through more than one set of hoops. When it comes to getting top rankings in Google's Index or SERPs, there are 200 of these hoops or ranking factors. And if you want to play in Google's ballpark, you have to try and master the majority of them. For years, frustrated webmasters have been guessing and searching for these ranking factors. Asking what does Google want? How does Google rank pages and keywords? How does Google want you to build your site? Ten years ago it wouldn't have mattered what Google thought of your site for it wasn't even in the picture, but now when it comes to online search, Google is king of the hill. And as we all know, kings get whatever they want. Besides, any webmaster worth his salt, knows Google is what counts when it comes to organic traffic - you can achieve #1 spots for a keyword in all three top search engines (Yahoo and MSN being the other two light-weight contenders) but Google will simply deliver the most traffic to your site. Google doesn't as yet have a monopoly on web search, but it's getting close to... more.. SEO Copywriting Tips for Google, Yahoo and your Prospects SEO Copywriting Tips for Google, Yahoo and your Prospects By Angela Charles, President, (c) 2008 Pilot Fish It might not seem logical, but a web site that's well-written for human consumption with a little SEO help usually is also well-received by the robots of search engines like Google and Yahoo. So, what does "well-written" mean? Here are some tips to good SEO copywriting for Google, Yahoo and site visitors. SEO Copywriting Tips ? How to Write Great Web Site Content Keyword research: This topic deserves a whole article on its own, but suffice to say that you'll want to base your site content on the keyword terms that you know are most popular among the audience you're trying to reach. There are online tools available that can help you determine the right keywords for your company. Among them are WordTracker and Keyword Discovery. One topic per page: If your company makes 5 different products, you'll need to devote at least one page per topic. Details, details: Each topic should be covered in enough detail that the site visitor can determine whether to contact you for more information. From an SEO standpoint, the more detail you provide on each topic, the more easily the search engines will be able to determine the relevance of your site to that keyword. Kill the sales brochure: Internet users don't appreciate going to your web to find only a sales brochure. Avoid flowery language; it usually signifies a page that's light on content and heavy on sales pitch, which the search engines won't rank well. Good SEO copywriting will focus on objective facts about your company's products and services,... more.. Machine Translation SEO Machine Translation SEO for Foreign Language Search Engine Success By Mike Banks Valentine (c) July 12, 2006 Are English speaking websites based in the US simply insular and uncaring about foreign web traff?or are we actually Xenophobic? Xenophobia - a phobic attitude toward strangers - comes from the Greek words xenos, meaning "foreigner", "stranger". Trolling through the "referrers" section in my web site traff?logs routinely shows hundreds of Google foreign language searches. Those foreign language search referrals usually total just slightly more than the combined total of Yahoo and MSN English language search referrals. So doesn't it make sense to pay more attention to foreign language search in SEO than to fiddle with Yahoo and MSN optimization? My traff?logs routinely show hundreds of translation tool referrals. Those referrals come from foreign language searchers that REALLY want to read the pages. Foreign language visitors who don't know about online translation tools (like Google's) will leave the search result pages without visiting your site. Why not provide your pages in the most common European and Asian languages with your text in their native language already? Look in your logs for the following referrer URL: http://64.233.179.104/translate_c with URL's of your own site appended. This query at "Google English" is a request by a foreign language user for a translation of that page on your site. The most common of them are from Google.es (Spain) and Google.de (Germany) and Google.pt (Portugal). Last month there were nearly 1,000 of these queries from Google translation tools in my logs. Ch? that tool out here: http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en This translation - or "Language Tools" page at Google is helpful in escaping our insular attitudes about English language search... more.. Who's Linking to Your Web Site and What Does That Say About You to Google? Who's Linking to Your Web Site and What Does That Say About You to Google? By Stone Reuning (c) 2010 Linking is the mechanism that connects all the pages on the Internet. You've got links throughout your web site to let people navigate their way around. You may have links going out to other web sites that you think will be useful for your visitors. And hopefully you have links coming into your web site from independent sources. All types of links can impact your search engine optimization results, helping determine where your web site shows up online. Though the hardest to control, inbound links pointing to your site can make the biggest impact. At its most basic, the concept is that if several high-quality sites are linking to your web site, then Google and other search engines figure your site must be a popular, valuable resource - and they will be more likely to show it higher in their search results. In effect, your site receives "link juice" from other web pages that link to it. However, it's not enough to secure a couple links and then sit still. The Google PageRank algorithm looks at the pattern of links to your site as they build over time. Building the right kind of links can bring a major payoff, while a wrong turn could get you penalized - and the Google Sandbox is not easy to dig out of. Armed with a bit of knowledge and some creativity, you can build up valuable incoming links naturally and powerfully, avoiding the traps that plague amateurs. Spice Up Your Links With Some Variety There are all kinds of link farming schemes to grow links, and... more.. Top 5 Ways To Use Web 2.0 for Web Marketing Top 5 Ways To Use Web 2.0 for Web Marketing By Jason OConnor (c) 2008 Net Gazette Web 2.0 and Web marketing is a match made in heaven. There are many ways to create traffic to your website using the power of Web 2.0. Below I am going to examine what I consider to be the top five. Jack Humphrey, a well-known Web 2.0 expert, defines it this way in his Authority Black Book: Generally speaking, if people can submit links to content, submit content, make comments and vote good/bad content up/down thus affecting the amount of traffic that content can generate, it's Web 2.0. Blogs, wikis, file sharing sites, content rating systems, book-marking sites, and social networking sites are all examples of Web 2.0. Some of the more well-known Web 2.0 sites are YouTube (file sharing), Facebook and MySpace (social networking), Wikipedia (wiki), del.icio.us (book-marking) and Digg (content rating system). The l? is almost endless, and the traffic that these websites generate is absolutely staggering. So how can you harness some of this traffic? 1) Create original, quality and compelling content and submit them to Web 2.0 websites. For example, if you write an original and compelling article, you can submit it to content sharing and content rating system websites such as Digg, Propeller, Newsvine, MarkTD or Reddit. Sometimes content sharing and content rating system websites specialize in a particular industry. MarkTD specializes in marketing, for example. When you submit your article to these sites, people will give it a vote, and each vote moves the article up where it can be seen by more and more people. This has the potential of... more.. Google is Much More Than a Search Engine Google is Much More Than a Search Engine By Rick Hendershot We all know that Google is the dominant search engine, and controls a large percentage of online advertising. But many of us -- even regular Google users -- are not aware of some of Google's other services. Most of them are presented as new ways of listing and categorizing the universe. However, consistent with Google's new status as a profit-first public corporation, what lies at the root of most of Google's expanding ventures is the need to become less dependent on context-based advertising revenue. In other words, the people at Google are desperately looking for new ways of making money. ** Froogle Still Looking for a Mission in Life Google's product search and comparison tool called Froogle, was launched in December 2002. It was developed in an attempt to cash in on the obvious market for online shopping that major sites like eBay and Amazon had so successfully exploited. more.. The HSA allows you to Take Control of Your Health Care Plan The HSA allows you to Take Control of Your Health Care Plan Benefits of the H S A utilize the Consumer Driven Concept The H S A grew from the concept of consumer driven health insurance. To define what a consumer driven health product is, we need to look back years ago, before health insurance.  A patient visited a doctor; he or she then paid the doctor what they could afford and what the doctor would accept in payment.  It could be something as simple as a chicken.    Today our system design is completely different.  CMS is the acronym for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. CMS has standardized everything within the medical environment.  There are now CPT codes (CPT which is the acronym for Current Procedural Terminology) has to be assigned to each procedure a physician performs.  Each code is attached to an ICD 9 code which identifies the type of sickness or injury.   The insurance industry and medical providers now use these codes. A mistake or mismatch of a code which is improperly reported to an insurance company can slow or cause a claim to be denied.  Physicians and hospitals are in the business to be caretakers, but they are forced to spend much of their time and resources making sure they are properly compensated.  The payer is now the government or the insurance companies.    The system has become so complex that that the physician is compelled to hire personnel who understand procedures and mechanisms mandated before they are properly compensated.    This system has separated any monetary interaction... more.. Web Communication, "Sign, Sign, Everywhere A Sign" Web Communication, "Sign, Sign, Everywhere A Sign" By Jerry Bader (c) 2007 Your business success depends on your ability to communicate effectively to an interested audience. Driving appropriate traff?to your site is important, but the tactics that generate visitors are not the same tactics that get visitors to stay on your site. Web-communication is a series of elaborate multi-sensory sign languages; signs being the words, images, audio and videos that constitute the range of presentation vehicles that like all forms of communication have their own grammar, context, and relevance as interpreted from personal experience by each member of your customer-audience. Websites that consistently under perform and that don't meet business expectations generally suffer because they are not designed to hold viewers attention long enough to communicate a clear concise marketing message. When Words Lose Their Meaning Marketing is one of those words that has lost its currency because it has been tossed about with little respect for its meaning. To many, it's merely just another word for advertising, which of course it is not. To the more sophisticated it takes in all the disciplines of branding, positioning, identity, advertising, and more. Above all marketing implies a strategic approach to implementing these tactics. For companies interested in using the Web to further their business objectives, Web-marketing is the execution of a communication strategy through the creative implementation of multi-sensory signature presentations. Semiotics: The Study of Signs "Sign, Sign, everywhere a sign, Blocking out the scenery breaking my mind, Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign." - Five Man Electrical Band Like the lyrics of the song, 'Signs,' by the Five Man Electrical Band' suggests, we... more.. Why RSS May Be an Email Killer Why RSS May Be an Email Killer By Peter Lenkefi (c) 2008 According to online statistics from eMarketer, less than 20% of internet users intentionally read content with the aid of an RSS reader. Indeed, even frequent internet users have no idea what that little orange RSS square represents and certainly don't realize that there is a big shift brewing in the bowels of online publishing and marketing. But, that may change more quickly than we all used to think for 3 very potent reasons. There are advantages to RSS that will compel most, if not all, internet users and content consumers to "learn" to use an RSS reader and start managing RSS subscriptions. In the same way email eclipsed snail mail for content delivery, RSS will eclipse email as the consumer's choice for opt-in messaging. If you are an email marketer, the time for you to get engaged to RSS has come, because, whether you like it or not, the wedding bells will be ringing soon. Here's why... RSS = Embedded Video (and audio) I recently was asked to help a small business embed video into emails they wanted to send to established clients. Their vision was clear: 1. Create a quick video email with a webcam, stick it right into their corporate Outlook email with a Youtube style preview. 2. The customer gets the email, clicks the Youtube-looking video preview and the video starts playing. 3. No landing page, they wanted everthing to happen right there inside the email client, whether it was Outlook, AOL, Gmail, Yahoo or otherwise. Simple right? Nope... This is simply not possible with email. Many brilliant companies have tried... more.. Google's New Patent Translated Google's New Patent Translated By Kim Roach (c) 2006 There is always great interest within the search engine marketing community whenever a search engine files for a patent. This is especially true for Google, which just recently released a new patent application - System and method for supporting editorial opinion in the ranking of search results. However, we must keep in mind that just because a patent has been applied for or granted, the search engines may or may not implement the patent within their primary search results. Nevertheless, these patents often do give us clues about what the search engines are looking for in a website. Some of Google's patents have given us insight into the influence of anchor text, fresh content, themes, data history, link popularity, user behavior, and domain-related information. However, Google's most recent patent application shows a shift from focusing on algorithm-based changes to the integration of a human editorial process. Ultimately, Google is striving to create the best possible search results for their visitors. This patent proposes one possible method for doing that. For the most part, search engine algorithms have reached their peak. We've known for quite some time now that an algorithm-based search engine can never permanently deliver excellent results. Why, you might ask. Simply because there will always be people out there trying to reverse-engineer the system. Therefore, a cat and mouse game is created. Out of this problem, a number of solutions have evolved. One of these is social search engines, which rank their results based on the wisdom of crowds. Another solution to arise from this problem is a human editorial process. And now, Google has proposed in their patent application a... more.. The Myth of W3C Compliance? The Myth of W3C Compliance? By Sasch Mayer (c) 2007 The past few years have seen a huge ?rease in the number of search engine optimisers preaching about the vital importance of W3C Compliance as part of any effective web promotion effort. But is compliant code really the 'Magic SEO Potion' so many promoters make it out to be? For those of you not familiar with the term; a W3C compliant web site is one which adheres to the coding standards laid down by the World Wide Web Consortium, an organisation comprising of over 400 members including all the major search engines and global corporations such as AT&T, HP and Toshiba amongst many others. Headed by Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, the inventor of the internet as we know it today, the W3C has been working to provide a set of standards designed to keep the web's continuing evolution on a single, coherent track since the Consortium's inception in 1994. Whilst the W3C has been a fact of life on the web since this time, general industry awareness of the benchmarks set down by the Consortium has taken some time to filter through to all quarters. Indeed, it is only within the past 24 to 36 months that the term W3C Compliance has emerged from general obscurity to become a major buzzword in the web design and SEO industries. Although personally, I have been a staunch supporter of the Consortium's standards for a long time, I cannot help but feel that their importance has been somewhat overplayed by a certain faction within the SEO sector, who are praising code compliance as a 'cure-all' for poor search engine performance. Is standards compliance really the universal... more.. How to Increase Your Search Engine Rankings How to Increase Your Search Engine Rankings By Trent Brownrigg When talking about search engine rankings many people ask themselves quest?s like; how many keywords should I put in my anchor text? What is the keyword density that I should have on the page? Should I use short copy or should I use long copy? Can I use flash or not? How many keywords should I put in my "alt" text? Etc... A general statement to answer the above quest?s is that "magic numbers do not exist." The most important thing you can understand as a search engine optimization expert is that algorithms change. Just when you think you understand what is going to make you number one for a keyphrase in a search engine, something could easily change, and you might have to spend months or even years trying to figure the new algorithm. It is better not to try to reverse engineer the algorithm, do something much easier instead... observe your top competitors. All you need to do is to understand what elements your competitors are using to make them rank in the top positions. The main elements to getting top search engines rankings are: more.. The Google Shuffle? The Google Shuffle? By Jonathan Anthony & Kyle Krenbrink (c) 2009 Webmasters and SEO gurus have been scratching their heads for a few weeks now trying to figure out what has been happening to Google's SERP rankings. After scouring blogs and forums for the last few days, it would seem that there is no real consensus. In fact, it seems that no one is willing to even speculate much as to what is happening. To date there has not been any official word from Google. We all know that Google does not announce their algorithm updates, much to the chagrin of webmasters everywhere. The buzz recently on several blogs and from our own data demonstrates significant changes in PageRank and wild fluctuations in websites SERP. The last big news we did hear from Google was the June 16th 2009 announcement from Matt Cutts blog on PageRank sculpting where he discussed changes to how Google treats link juice when there are nofollow links. But that's another blog topic altogether so if you like you can read the full post here: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ pagerank-sculpting/ so it may be that the nofollow?attribute has been rendered useless for sculpting PageRank. But then, PR sculpting was never really the intended function behind nofollow; it was merely convenient side effect. All that Google employee, John Mu cared to say when answering a customer's inquiry as to why his site had suddenly dropped in PR with no apparent cause was: "Hi Radoslav You have a nice-looking site :) . As far as I can tell, it looks like the change in Toolbar PageRank for your site is only due to some technical quirk and not something that you need to worry about. Cheers John" Barry Schwartz (AKA "Rustybrick") then... more.. 7 Characteristics of a Great Webpage 7 Characteristics of a Great Webpage By Titus Hoskins (c) 2006 What makes for a great webpage? Wouldn't you like to know the main ingredients for creating a superior webpage? What basic elements you must have if you want a solidly designed webpage? A webpage that will stand out and be noticed by your visitors. One that will keep those visitors returning to your site, again and again. An effective webpage that is 95% better than most of the other pages on the Net. Follow these simple design features when creating your next webpage and you will have the answer: 1. Good Keywords The nucleus. The conception. Good keywords are the very first building blocks you must consider before your webpage even becomes a dim notion in your head. Picking the right keyword or keyword phrase is the ultimate factor that will determine the success or failure of your webpage. You must do major research on the keyword or keyword phrases that will be the focal point and drawing card for your webpage. You must get this right. It is vital. It is the single most important element of a webpage. You can use keyword research software and sites such as GoodKeywords, Wordtracker.com, Nichebot.com, or superior keyword research software such as Brad Callen's Keyword Elite. Regardless of what process you favor, you must choose your keywords very carefully. You must ch? the competition for your chosen keywords or phrase. You must ch? the number of searches made each month for your keyword. You must also ch? the keyword density of your page to see if it will register in the search engines. You may have to adjust or... more.. Gear Up Your Site For Social Media Marketing Gear Up Your Site For Social Media Marketing By Deepak Dutta The year 2006 saw the emergence of social media. If you are engaged in operating a website, you must realign your site to exploit the popular social media sites for increased traff? You should also introduce social media components to your site because web users are experiencing these new forms of interactions on more and more sites and they may have an expectation of the same from your site also. The first step is to declare who you are to the online community. People should be able to relate to you. Unless they know more about you, you will be just an unknown identity and most people don't like to deal with unknowns. Create an About Us page and l? your achievements and skills. Create a MySpace page and link your bio in the About Us page to the MySpace page. Also provide a link back from the MySpace page to your website. Spend an hour every week to develop your online social network in MySpace. Invite a few of these new friends to write blog articles at your site about your products or services. If you want to attract repeat visitors and want them to stay longer, your focus this year should be on the social aspects of your site. Social media uses technologies like RSS, blogging, podcasting, tagging, etc. and offers social networking (MySpace, Facebook), social video and picture sharing (YouTube, Flickr), and community-based content ranking (Digg, MiniClip) features. The central theme of these sites is user generated content used for sharing among the end-users. The social aspects of these sites are to allow users to setup social communities,... more.. 20 Must-Have Tools to Automate an Online Business 20 Must-Have Tools to Automate an Online Business By Donna Gunter (c) 2007 With all the information online about tools and techniques available to help someone effectively manage and run an online business, how do you ever decide which ones are truly useful to have in your business management toolkit? Here's my listing of the 20 indispensable tools that I cannot live without: 1. Article Marketing: SubmitYourArticle.com automates the article submission process by allowing you to submit up to eight articles each month and then distributes the articles to hundreds of web sites, article directories and ezine publishers. Without a doubt, this has been my most effective online marketing tool that has produced tremendous results for my business. 2. Audio Recording/Podcasting: AudioAcrobat.com makes audio streaming fast and simple, whether you want to add an audio greeting, audio testimonials, podcast or videos to your website or send out an audio postcard or record a teleclass. 3. Backup: Carbonite.com offers an unlimited amount of data storage for $50 per year. Carbonite is very intuitive and went directly to my email files and Roboform files to back them up without me having to manually select the backup files. I frequently use this service to find the original version of a file that I've accidentally overwritten, as well. 4. Blogging: Typepad.com is both simple to use and powerful. You can set up as many blogs as you desire with a Pro account, and you can customize your blog in an infinite number of ways. Once it's set up, the online interface makes... more.. Future Evolution of Search Engines Future Evolution of Search Engines By Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO, StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc. The search engine world nev?rests. As online marketing professionals discover new ways to obtain top rankings the algorithms evolve right along side. There are two primary reasons behind the updating of ranking algorithms. To increase the quality and relevancy of the results, and to decrease the many pages of online sp@m. As the algorithms are updated, new ways to affect the results are discovered, and the algorithm must then be again adjusted. This is a cycle that has been around since the early days of search, and one that won't be going away any time soon. A lot has changed over the years, and the future is sure to also deliver its plethora of surprises, but there are three main factors that will always have some level of impact on your search results. SEO, Content and Links Some people say that the world of search engine optimization is over and that the entire basis behind successful rankings lies in the power of incoming links. While incoming links do play a significant role, and in most cases are a necessity, they are far from the only determining factor. There are many determining factors behind what will affect the ranking of a site. The three largest contributing factors are SEO, links, and site content. To compete in highly competitive industries a site needs numerous on-topic pages of content, relevant incoming links from a variety of sources, and, solid site optimization. While search is always changing, these three factors will remain constant. Each may change in the level of impact they have, but... more.. Becoming The Spider, Next Generation SEO Tactics Becoming The Spider, Next Generation SEO Tactics By Titus Hoskins (c) 2007 Web 2.0 changes the whole ballgame. It not only places the Internet user squarely in the middle of things, but it gives that user the means and power to create and manipulate data. Web 2.0 dramatically changes how we view and use the web. Actually, in many respects, it creates a whole new Internet. Just when you believed you had all your SEO tactics figured out, the web goes and changes on you. Not just the rules of the game but it takes the whole web platform right out from under your feet and changes it. What's a poor webmaster to do? What Is Web 2.0? Just what exactly is Web 2.0? What does it mean? Is there a precise definition that all webmasters can get their heads around and understand? Not really, many believe Web 2.0 is just another one of those contrived buzzwords, signifying mostly marketing hype! However, perhaps the simple definition can be found in the word "you"! Time magazine probably summed it up best by making reference to the "you" in user generated content. Web 2.0 is basically all the platforms that give us this brave new user-powered interactive Internet, generally referred to as 'social media'. Web 2.0 can be seen or manifested in such sites as YouTube, MySpace, Del.icio.us, Digg, Squidoo... Web 2.0 uses scripting languages such as Python, Perl PHP, RSS... to construct interactive platforms that websites can use to create all this user-generated content. Many refer to these evolving formats and scripting platforms under the name AJAX and no this does not refer to the popular cleaning agent under... more.. SEO for Traff?with Content vs Ranking with Links SEO for Traff?with Content vs Ranking with Links By Joel Walsh How do you grow your search engine traff?without adding a single new link or making any changes to your existing webpages? It's simple. Just add content. Simply having keyword-optimized pages of content on your site won't rank you high for competitive search engine keywords ? that's a fact of life. But keyword-optimized content can really bring in the traff?for low-competition and unique keywords. The low-competition and unique keywords are typically longer multi-word variants of the keyword. For instance, instead of "search engine ranking," "ranking for search engine traff?niche keywords." If you have lots of pages of optimized content?and you optimize well ? all the search engine traff?from these low-competition keywords will really add up. Plus, you'll usually get more repeat visitors and type-in traff? too. Just picture this realistic example of traffic-building with content vs. ranking-building with links. Company A invests $5,000 for link-building in order to rank for a competitive keyword. Company B invests the same amount, only in content. Company A and Company B: each start out on... more.. 6 Website Redesign SEO Secrets Your Developer May Not Know 6 Website Redesign SEO Secrets Your Developer May Not Know By Jill Whalen (c) 2009 At the end of the year, many businesses start to think about redesigning their tired old website to breathe some new life into it. You may even be in the midst of a website redesign right now. If so, the first thing is to make sure you hire a design and development company that knows how to build the infrastructure of the website in a search engine crawler?friendly manner. Beyond that, you need to address a number of additional SEO tactics before you get too deep into your redesign. The reason you need to keep SEO front and center during this time is twofold: so that you do not lose your previous traffic, but also so that you can gain additional targeted search engine visitors when the new site goes live. Here are 6 SEO redesign secrets your developer may not know...ignore them at your peril! 1. Creating Your SEO'd Site Architecture Search engines look explicitly at how all your pages are linked together in order to determine their place within the site. Pages that are linked from every other page will be given more weight than those that are only linked from a few others. This is all considered a form of internal link popularity, or in Google language, internal PageRank. Recommendation: During your redesign, don't bury too deeply within the site any content that was previously bringing targeted search engine traffic. Ensure that any informational content that will be focused on the more competitive keyword phrases (for example, product and service pages) is high up in your site hierarchy. In addition, all content contained in a... more.. How To Tap Into Massive Sources of Traff?With Virtually No Competition! How To Tap Into Massive Sources of Traff?With Virtually No Competition! By Jack Humphrey (c) 2006  Tale Chaser Publishing, Inc. Things haven't been this perfect for a long time. In fact, not since one of the big engines really started to take off, when those who were lucky enough to be already seated firmly in the Top 10 for their keywords, has there been such a plethora of new traff?opportunities. The internet marketing world has become multi-dimensional in ways that are surprising to most people who are still hooked on search engine marketing as their sole website promotion strategy. Here are the new avenues of traff?that most people are NOT taking advantage of outside of the big companies and a handful of savvy marketers: 1. Podcasting While it was "the word of the year" for 2005, most people still have no idea what Podcasting is really about outside of being able to download music at iTunes.com. And, frankly, it's because the... more.. Is Article Marketing Still Effective In 2010? Is Article Marketing Still Effective In 2010? By Titus Hoskins (c) 2010 Don't exactly know what it is about starting a new year of marketing online, but I always stop and take a hard look at all my marketing tactics and methods. Article marketing is always at the top of my list, mainly because it is and has always been the cornerstone of everything I do on the web. By cornerstone I mean it is the key to basically all of my online earnings. Without article marketing I wouldn't be a full-time online marketer - it's as simple as that. No articles, no income. Articles bring in the targeted traff? Articles build those all important one-way backlinks. Articles build those even more important top rankings in Google for your chosen keywords. Articles build your online reputation and credibility in the eyes of your visitors. I was struggling on the web for around three years before I wrote my first article. "10 Reasons To Put RSS On Your Site" which is still on around 8,000 sites around the web. Writing was always a passion of mine, but it was more on the creative side, although I did work briefly as a reporter for a very small community newspaper. Looking back on it, I believe (perhaps falsely) that I had to gain all those years of experience before I could start writing articles about it. Which was the totally wrong attitude to take since anyone can research a favorite subject or topic and write a short informative article on it. Most of us have been doing that since grade school - it is the same as writing a report or an essay. Only with article writing you... more.. Reciprocal Lnking Strategy Reciprocal Lnking Strategy By BizAtomic If you want to get serious about driving more traff?to your website and improving your search engine rankings you need to develop a linking strategy. There are three primary linking strategies: 1. Reciprocal Linking 2. Purchasing text links 3. Employing a link finding service This month's issue of BizAtomic Advisor focuses on Reciprocal Linking ? How it can help. When a trusted site links to yours, people follow that recommendation. Reciprocal link means your website links to another website and that website links back to you. Search engines use link popularity to rank websites. Exchanging reciprocal links with other sites will build a great link directory that will motivate visitors to bookmark your website to get access to your link directory. One of the factors search engines use to determine your relevancy to a search term is the number of websites linking to your website. This is an effective way to increase your search engine rankings. Three key success factors for a reciprocal linking strategy are: 1. Quality of links should outweigh quantity 2. Link partners must relate to your site content 3. Partners should link to you from pages listing as few links as possible Linking is what the web is all about. It helps you move from one document to another and from site to site while maintaining your focus on a particular subject. The ideal situation is to have one way links from related sites without you pointing back to them. However, you would have to have a lot of valuable information, tips, tools, articles, resources, etc. in order to motivate people to link to your website. Unfortunately most sites don't fall into this category and reciprocal linking... more.. Google Page Rank Uses Domain Age to Score Google Page Rank Uses Domain Age to Score As reported in my post on how Google ranks websites, Link Building Blog reports that Google does indeed pay close attention to the age of the domain.   It seems Google has intensified the ranking factor of one key data point that is very tough to manipulate: the age of your domain name. I have been keeping an eye on trends with Google?s search results and it seems that there is an increasing trend towards ?trusted sites? owning page one. A ?trusted site? is loosely defined by me as: an older domain, a nice mix of anchor text, links built over time, links coming in from all kinds of c class blocks, maybe a .edu snuck in there, etc.   The factor I want to focus in on and get your thoughts on though is the age of the domain. This seems to me to be a very important factor in top search rankings for Google in today?s climate.   I know a lot of people are worried about domain age playing a critical role in page ranking, but reports are that this isn?t the only criteria that goes into the pot to evaluate a website?s page rank. But the driving determination to eliminate spam and splog sites that open and close domains overnight lends more and more importance to domain age.   Just because you don?t have a 5 year old website, don?t give up. Concentrate on the content, building relationships and links, and making sure your audience knows you have the goods that are worth returning for. SEO and Domain Age Google?s patent application 20050071741 displays how they rank... more.. Social Media the Instant Brand Killer Social Media - the Instant Brand Killer By Kalena Jordan (c) 2007 With the increasing uptake of social media sites such as Digg, Technorati, Slashdot, YouTube and MySpace, together with community bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us, Reddit and Ma.gnolia, companies the world over can reach their target markets via a whole new channel. Social networking is like viral marketing on steroids. Companies can release a new product in the morning and have it talked about by mill?s of users on thousands of sites by the afternoon. The good news is that social media is user driven. The bad news is that social media is user driven. Yes, there's the rub. Users are fickle creatures - they can love a product one minute and then drop it like a lead balloon the next, depending on their experience with the product, a rumor, or whether they have had their morning coffee yet. And if their experience is bad, the noise is generally louder. To protect their reputations it's not just journalists that companies have to impress these days. It's anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. Love it or hate it, the user community now has enormous power over the online reputation of a company or brand. Not surprisingly, businesses and individuals alike clamor for the attention and mostly enjoy the limelight that social media can bring. Others hate the intense scrutiny that often accompanies the popularity. An example is usability blogger Kim Krause Berg's unpleasant first experience of Digg - I Don't Digg Being Dugg. Online communities can even bring a site to its knees. Marketers are calling it the "Digg Effect" or the "Slashdot Effect". Buzz for a site... more.. Are Made for AdSense Sites Ruining Search Results? Are Made for AdSense Sites Ruining Search Results? By Adam McFarland of iPrioritize.com It's happened to you. You've searched for something on Google and several promising results appear. You cl? on a link, but when you get to the site all you see are a few ads and nothing even remotely close to what you searched for. So you go back to the search results and try again, only it happens again and again until you finally find a page with some decent content...or frustration sets in and you give up all together. Why does this happen? How come in this day and age Google can't give you the results you're looking for? A large part of the answer is the growing number of made for AdSense (MFA) sites on the web today. MFA sites are designed for the sole purpose of getting you to cl? on a Google AdSense advertisement. Define Made for AdSense A site is made for AdSense if its sole purpose is to get users to cl? on AdSense ads. Its owners don't intend that users will learn from its content or participate in a community. All that they want is for them to cl? on an ad. A site is NOT made for AdSense if its primary purpose is to provide unique content and the site owner decides to keep their content free by displaying advertisements, AdSense or other. This has been going on for years - television, newspapers, and magazines all generate revenue with advertisements. The difference is that the advertisements supplement the content of the show or article. The same applies for the web. If you have a news... more.. Adhering to Web Standards to Improve Business Adhering to Web Standards to Improve Business By Yuri Filimonov Taking web standards into account when designing a website may not be a primary concern for many site owners, but when it comes to finding an extra edge to improve their business, they are more than willing to do anything required to increase revenues. Let's see how complying with Web standards can help a business website. What are the Standards? On the Web, the main standards are the languages used when creating websites. The most wide-spread ones are HTML, XHTML and CSS. HTML or XHTML are used to create the backbone of websites - the structure. (The difference between HTML and XHTML is that XHTML was formed from XML and is forward compatible.) CSS, in turn, is used to style, format and position the structure and content. What is Web Standards Compliance? Put simply, web standards compliance is using web languages correctly. This involves using HTML tags properly and the way they were and are intended to be used. For instance, one of the most common felonies against the web standards is using table tags for layout, while the correct usage is to use them only for tabular data (information to be put in tables). Benefits of Standards Compliance Creating quality, standards compliant code has a number of benefits: website forward compatibility increased site download speed browser compatibility easier site maintenance broader target audience How Can This Help Business? Perhaps every entrepreneur is asking himself right now, "And where is the mon?here?" Probably every benefit can either increase revenues or... more.. Signs It's TimeTo Redesign Your Website Signs It's TimeTo Redesign Your Website By Erin Ferree (c) 2007 Designing your first website is a stressful undertaking. It requires you to dig deep into your business in order to write the copy for your site. You need to work with a designer and go through the process of creating a site that looks unique and works well. Plus you'll end up investing a lot of time, energy and money. And finally, after all that, you're finished and it's time for the site to go live. What a relief! Many business owners go through this same process. By the time the process is finished, many entrepreneurs are very glad that it's over - and don't want to do it again anytime soon. Unfortunately, websites don't last forever. Even if you plan your site to work for the current vision for your business, you can't accurately account for the entire future of your business. Eventually you'll have to make some changes to your website. Some of these changes can be accomplished with simple maintenance, and by making updates to your site. But there's only so far that patching and revising your current site can go. If your site is particularly outdated, or if it's not working well for you, it's probably time to consider a full-scale site redesign. Some signs that it's time to redesign your site include: Your Business Has Changed or Grown If your business is no longer the same as it was when you designed your site, chances are that you should redesign your website to reflect that. If you've only had a few small changes, you might be able to just update your current website. But, if... more.. 3 Fast and Simple Ways to Dominate Google Rankings! 3 Fast and Simple Ways to Dominate Google Rankings! By Michael Small (c) 2008 I got into search engine optimization back in 1998. Of course back then SEO was a lot simpler than today. All the tricks like keyword spamming and invisible key phrases worked like a charm. Better still, little tricks like these were acceptable. Not anymore. In fact, most old-school tricks don't work today and many can get your pages banned. This is great news for you. Over the next few minutes I'll show you how to make Google absolutely LOVE your web pages and help you jump to the top! This is all you need to know... Search engines today place 90% or more of their ranking priorities on content and links. Keywords are still important, but more so in the text of your pages than in any sort of META tags. Simple, right? It really is. The first step is to find the best keywords and place them just right in your web page text. Next you need to get great inbound links. And finally, you need to monitor your progress closely (and that of your competition.) Part 1: How to Find the Best Keywords Google gets more searches than any other search engine so let's peek into their database. Check out https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and type in any keyword or phrase you can think of that you believe your target audience is looking for. Not only will it give you tons of data on that and related keywords, it will also provide "Additional Keywords to Consider", which is a section at the bottom of the page. BIG TIP: Try to... more.. Web 2.0, Are We Bowing To A False Messiah? Web 2.0, Are We Bowing To A False Messiah? By Barry Densa (c) 2007 Are you absolutely beside yourself ? giddy with delight because Web 2.0 has finally arrived to help you sell more, sell faster, make you richer, smarter, sexier, and lower your triglyceride levels? Whoops, I'm sorry... do you even know what Web 2.0 is? Web 2.0, in a nut shell, is the latest evolution in the online experience. The World Wide Web is now... ready... here it is: a tad more interactive, technologically speaking. Where does Web 1.0 end and Web 2.0 begin? Beats the heck out of me! I'm basically your average techno-phobe ? the proverbial anti-Geek, if you will. Nevertheless, Web 2.0 typically refers to an assortment of internet-based communication tools and services ? such as social networking sites, wikis, and "new and improved" chat functionalities. Writing a book review on Amazon.com is apparently considered Web 1.0 technology. I know all of this is a big whoop for some of you, but for others it's equivalent to the coming of the messiah (for either the first or second time, depending on which operating system you're laboring under). Is Web 2.0 a Boon or a Bane for Consumers and Countries? For most marketers, their company's website has been a rather static billboard of sorts. But now, thanks to Web 2.0, a website can provide visitors, prospects, customers and selected victims, with a certain degree of "give and take". You can talk to them, they can talk to you; you can learn more about them, they can learn more about you; they can "experience" you, you can "experience them" ? in short, the level of... more.. Elements Of A Good Design Elements Of A Good Design By Moonrise Productions(c) 2009 One resoundingly negative consequence of the amaz? advances in computing power over the last 25 or so years is the notion, still popular despite constant debunking, that all you need to be a designer today is to buy a computer (usually a Macintosh). When over-caffeinated pundits were first promoting the term "desktop publishing" in the mid-1980s, many said the new technology would result in so many great new print publications (this was before the Internet boom) that it would put the First Amendment into overdrive. What really happened, of course, is that entirely unqualified, untrained and untalented people got hold of a Mac, a LaserWriter and some software and proceeded to crank out a few metric tons of 300dpi landfill. My, how judgmental, you may think. Oddly enough, for all the counterculture tendencies of some, artists in general are among the most judgmental and elitist folks around, and have no problem observing (and saying) that people are not "equal" when it comes to design talent. A clever advertisement from that bygone "DTP" era promoted a graphic design firm with the tagline, "Using Picasso's paintbrush doesn't make you Picasso". Since this is a principle and not a value judgment, it is as true now, and will be as true in 2050, as it was then. Fact is, there are elements of a good design that must be attended to and contended with, no matter the medium - print, broadcast, web, even mobile phone displays. Classic Components Think of the elements of design as the basic building blocks. These elements will be part of everything you design, from consumer products and furniture to magazine pages and billboards, whether you... more.. How To Start A Social Marketing Campaign How To Start A Social Marketing Campaign By Jack Humphrey (c) 2008    Social marketing is a relatively new, often misunderstood form of online marketing that is reaping huge rewards for website owners who incorporate it into their marketing plans. I work with clients and customers who, while being very new to social marketing, are seeing results in the following areas: 1. Higher search engine rankings for their top keywords. 2. More rankings of additional keywords or "long tail" keyword phrases. 3. More link popularity from sites linking on their own accord. 4. More link popularity from social media sites. 5. More activity on their blogs, such as more commenting and interaction. 6. Direct traffic from incoming links on social media sites (One good StumbleUpon.com submission can net thousands of visitors alone.) 7. Fast traffic increases and steady growth in unique visitors month after month. 8. An increase in subscribers and sales. Social traffic, properly acquired, is very warm to your message and products. The problem for most people when thinking about social marketing, after getting a taste of all the hundreds of sites there are to interact with, is becoming overwhelmed and paralyzed into inaction. They assume established social marketers gained their "social authority" in a short period of time. This is simply not true. Although the opportunities for driving serious traffic and rankings from hundreds of social sites exists, it is an embarrassment of riches. And it cannot be conquered over night. It is a gradual process you manage with all your other responsibilities and grow as time allows. What I encourage my clients to do is set aside enough time each day to get one more link, participate in... more.. Ten Ways To Get Web Traffic Fast - And Free Ten Ways To Get Web Traffic Fast - And Free By James Gladwin (c) 2009   There are several ways to get website traffic fast and free, and I'm going to share ten niche ways with you. Article Submission You don't need to be an award winning expert on the topic you are writing about - just pick an area that is related to the theme of your website, do a bit of research using a search engine and before you know it you will have more knowledge on that subject than most. Write in a relaxed, straightforward way. And, of course, when you add your details at the end of your article, make certain that you include your web address as well.   URL Submission This sounds so obvious, yet so many people overlook it. Website URL submission is about getting more links to your website to help your website get ranked high on major search engines, thus getting more visitor traffic by, well, submitt? your website URL to the major search engines. You can buy or... more.. Using Google Alerts to Help Your Business Using Google Alerts to Help Your Business By Adam McFarland of iPrioritize.com At times it seems that Google releases more new products and services than we can keep track of. From Google Calendar and Google Video, to Google Base, Google Finance, and Google Trends, it can be overwhelming just to remember what each one does. One of the oft overlooked hidden gems in Google's enormous offering is Google Alerts. Within minutes, you can be signed up for email alerts that can give you and your business a leg up on the competition. Alerts can be used to spy on competitors, keep track of what people are saying about your business, or follow an important news story. How Does It Work Google Alerts sends you an email each time a new page for your chosen term makes it in the top twenty results on Google's web search. You can also have the alert ch? Google News and/or Google Groups. To sign up for a Google Alert, all that you need to do is visit the Google Alerts homepage, enter the search term, type of alert (search Google News, Google Groups, or the web), frequency of emails (daily, as it happens, or weekly), and your email address. You can set up alerts for as many terms as you like using a Google Account. So why would you want an unl?ted amount of alerts? Because as a business owner, you have a lot to keep track of and very limited time to do it. Spy on Your Competitors Every business has a competitor. More likely, you have several direct competitors and several more... more.. Blogs, WordPress and Google Blogs, WordPress and Google By Scott Van Achte (c) 2009 It's no secret that a continually updated website with new content being added regularly stands a good chance of doing well in Google. One of the long standing methods to regularly expand a site's content is through the use of a blog. While there are numerous platforms to choose from for managing a blog, few can compare with the immense flexibility offered with WordPress, and at a cost of free, the price can't be beat either. Google likes fresh new content, and setting up a blog on your site, assuming it is updated often with interesting and relevant material, can be one of the best things you can do to help out your search rankings. The beauty behind WordPress is that there is a wide array of totally free plug-ins you can easily install that will make your blog totally search engine friendly. The following are some basic guidelines and essential plug-ins you should consider when you install your WordPress blog. Template Design The first configuration you need to do is work on customizing the design template to match your existing site. I suggest finding a template that matches as closely as possible to the look you are going for then work on tweaking its graphics, colors, and other particulars till you achieve the desired appearance. Most of your changes will occur in the header.php, footer.php, index.php, and page.php files in the theme editor, however, the theme you install will dictate which files actually need to be updated. You will also need to make some adjustments to your CSS file. These changes all involve working with code and graphics, and are most likely left to a professional. Once you have your... more.. Video Microsites - The Brand Story Campaign Solution Video Microsites - The Brand Story Campaign Solution By Jerry Bader (c) 2009 Everybody wants to do more business. Everybody occasionally runs a promo, a new marketing initiative, a product launch, or a new seasonal lineup. Everybody has a website stuffed with all kinds of content ranging from the important to the useless. But only the truly smart business minds understand that campaigns require their own space and identity if they are to succeed. And when it comes to using the Web as your vehicle for such a campaign, the obvious solution is a Video Campaign Microsite. What's A Video Campaign Microsite? Video Campaign Microsites are websites that employ a series of highly focused video presentations designed specifically for the purpose of promoting a single marketing initiative aimed at a highly targeted audience. Video Campaign Microsites are dedicated to delivering an engaging online experience that compels an audience to act by taking advantage of the marketing initiative's pitch. These sites benefit from removing all the corporate clutter and irrelevant information that inhabits most business websites and generally gets in the way of an effective marketing presentation. Video Microsites are often implemented by means of a direct ema?campaign or depending on the budget, magazine, television, or radio advertising. You can also channel corporate site traffic by means of a graphical home page link. There are different styles of video Microsites that you can employ depending on your brand personality and the goals of the campaign. 1. New Product Launch Video Microsites The launch of a new product or a seasonal line should be an event, and there is no better way to attract attention and generate public and media interest than to create a brand... more.. 5 Reasons Why Most Internet Marketers Fail 5 Reasons Why Most Internet Marketers Fail By Titus Hoskins (c) 2009 When it comes to starting any endeavor, whether it be learning a new hobby or starting an online business, we all have to start at ground zero. We all have to start at the very beginning from the very same place. Granted, we each bring different skills and backgrounds into the mix, but for the most part we are all on equal footing at the starting line. If this is the case, then we really have to ponder why is it only a choice few go on to succeed, while most people don't. Just what are the reasons why most online marketers fail? This is the core question that has to be answered if you want to fully understand Internet marketing and how it works. What are these basic reasons? What are the causes or stumbling blocks that hold many marketers and webmasters from reaching their full online potential? If we know these factors, we can learn how to avoid them and even overcome them in our own online marketing. These reasons can be a solid reference point or even a source of inspiration for any online marketer just starting out. Speaking from the viewpoint of someone who has started from the very beginning with little to no knowledge of computers or even marketing for that matter, I can honestly relate to the beginning marketer. I even had to learn HTML from scratch in order to construct my own webpages. Probably my only advantage, I did have a background in art but designing webpages was completely different from anything I had done previously to starting in online market?. But from my own experiences I have drawn some general... more.. Controlling Search Engine Spiders for Improved Rankings Controlling Search Engine Spiders for Improved Rankings By Eric Johnson (c) 2009 When it comes to getting your website listed at the top of the search engines keyword search rankings, it is essential for you to gain a deeper understanding of the search engine spiders that crawl over your website. After all, it is the spiders that determine the relevance of your website and decide where your site will land in the search engine results page. Therefore, by learning how to control the direction of the spiders, you can be certain your website will rise in rankings. Gaining Control with the Help of Robots.txt You may think that gaining control of search engine spiders is an impossible task, but it is actually easier than you might think when you take advantage of a handy little tool called the robots.txt file. With the robots.txt file, you can give the spiders the direction they need to locate the most important pages on your website while preventing them from wasting time on the more obscure pages such as your About Us and Privacy Policy pages. After all, these pages won't do much to improve your search engine ranking and won't help your target market find your website, so why should the spiders waste their time exploring these pages when ranking your site? Another positive aspect to using a robot.txt file is the fact that it prevents the spiders from indexing duplicate pages. This is beneficial because having duplicate content can actually reduce your search engine ranking. So, while you are making changes to your website or working on an area that isn't fully developed yet, you can instruct the spiders to leave those pages alone until you are ready... more.. What Google Thinks Of Your Site? What Google Thinks Of Your Site? By Titus Hoskins (c) 2008 How Google views your site does matter if you want to succeed online because Google has become the dominant search engine on the web. It now has over 60% of the U.S. search engine market. In other countries around the world that percentage rises to 80% or more. In addition, the Google Brand Name has solidly permeated the popular psyche and any top rankings within Google will bring much weight and prestige along with all that traffic. If you're a webmaster, you will already know how vital Google is to the success of your site, especially if you rely upon organic keyword rankings for your traffic. This free organic traffic from Google is highly desired by webmasters because it is extremely targeted and delivers high conversion rates. In trying to reach the highest rankings possible, I (like most webmasters) have to be constantly aware of what Google thinks of my site and content. As a webmaster and marketer I have always geared my onl? marketing towards Google. I have spent years building my keyword rankings within Google; if you take out the fact that it has nearly driven me insane, it has mostly been a positive experience. This experience has also shown me it is indeed important for anyone to know how Google views and rates your site or content. The more knowledge you have, the better able you will be to tackle any obstacles and challenges that will come your way. SERPs Is The Only Opinion That Counts And like most webmasters, I try to find out as much about Google... more.. BigDaddy Means Big Changes at Google BigDaddy Means Big Changes at Google Jan 25, 2006 11:19 AM , By Brian Quinton   One of the most popular forms of exercise among many search engine optimizers?both the third-party firms that do it for others and the advertisers who spiff up their own Web pages for better natural search rankings?is a periodic workout called ?chasing the algorithm?. The race begins when Google or Yahoo! updates some portion of the software that determines how they look at Web pages and decide which are most relevant and valuable to a searcher. The engine makes that change; Web operators see their rankings rise or fall as a result; and they, or their outside search engine optimization (SEO) firm, scramble to get back the old rank by providing the new elements the search engine now needs. After a few months, the engines make another change, and it?s off to the races again. Well, optimizers on Google are lacing up their running shoes for another race. Only this one promises to be more a marathon than the usual sprint. Google is testing a new data center infrastructure, a feat much bigger and comprehensive than an algorithm change. Dubbed ?Big Daddy? both in the search marketing blogs and forums and by the friendly folks at Google, this new data center?still in shakedown mode?will reportedly add new ground-level capabilities into the Google search function and drive those powers deep into all the algorithms with which Google searches, studies and indexes the Web. First, a bit of big-picture talk. Google?s examination of the Web relies on a global network of data centers with different IP addresses. These decentralized servers speed the job of sending specialized Google services to users in different regions; they also share the workload of spidering the Web and... more.. The Impact of Personalization on SEO The Impact of Personalization on SEO By Claudia Bruemmer    Personalization of seek has been a growing topic of interest for a while, but has stayed under the radar for most people until now. By using Google\'s widespread integration of personalization into standard search results, seek marketers\' attention has lastly been firmly riveted on the issue. Up until recently, Google provided two personalization selections: You could customize your Google Personalized Homepage for quick access to information of your choice (email messages, news headlines, etc.). You could get automatic personalization from your search history.   Major Changes at SiteProNews: The SpotProNews webplace no longer reflects the content of the SpotProNews newsletter. The webarea has a completely new look, provides keyword and category search and proposals more article content as well as dynamically changing webmaster blog and news feeds. New features and sections will be increased in the coming weeks. Be sure to visit and bookmark the new AreaProNews webplace.  Recently, Google begined combining the above two choices for users who become associated for services through their Google accounts. When you sign in, you can get access to tailored results utilizing information from your seek history and your Google home page. If you don\'t wish to see results based on your past seekes, you simply sign out of your Google Account or turn the choice to track your history off in your Account settings. To quote Danny Sullivan, \"...anyone who signs-up for any Google service using a Google Account (such as Gmail, AdSense, Google Analytics among others) will automatically be enrolled into three additional Google product or services: Search History -- Personalized Search -- Personalized Homepage.\" In the past, Google Accounts required you to manually enable Search History. However, by using the recent change, personalized search has been enabled for all accounts, new and old alike. All... more.. Three Hot Trends to Watch Out For Three Hot Trends to Watch Out For By Michel Fortin (c) 2008 Since the new year is right around the corner, bloggers and marketers alike are posting their predictions as if a psychics convention has come to town. So in keeping with that tradition, I'd like to post a few of my own. But unlike those who post their predictions in point form, I won't make a specific l? but rather share with you some of my thoughts. (Near the end, however, this post will culminate in what I believe will be three major trends to watch out for and dive into, if you want to make some serious money in 2008 and beyond.) First off, let me state that you may or may not agree with me on these. But something is definitely going on right now that points to these three trends. All the clues are pretty evident, and you've probably seen some of these yourself. What I'm talking about is... ... Internet marketing is correcting itself. When the stock market tumbles, short of a full-on crash, they call it a "correction." Sometimes it happens precipitously. Other times, it takes place over a period of time. Likewise, I believe that Internet marketing, right now, is going through a similar correction. It may not be as precipitous as the stock market, but it's indeed quite significant. To explain what I mean, let me back up a bit. If you've read Geoffrey Moore's "Crossing The Chasm", then you understand the product adoption curve. (In marketing and academic circles, they call it the "Diffusion Process.") In plain English, it means that new markets go through a certain adoption process that... more.. Understanding Social Media Understanding Social Media   Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flikr, etc.  These are all social networking sites the business world is buzzing about these days. But why?  And how are some people using these platforms to make money and bring in new clients for their companies? Let's face it, no one wants to get left behind in business and certainly no one wants to miss out on a new way to attract new customers.   First let's talk about the wrong way to do social media marketing. These sites are not advertising vehicles to blast out sales pitches to millions of people.  Sorry it's not that simple.  The fastest way to fail at this new form of marketing is to try to slap old marketing methods on a new media. There are two terms that are often used interchangeably but they have important distinctions.  Social media and social networking.   Social media refers to the technology.  The various platforms mentioned in the first sentence of this article are all social media sites.  They are places people can go to... more.. Future Of Social Media Sites Future Of Social Media Sites By Mikhail Tuknov (c) 2008 The current proliferation of social media sites is the most pervasive phenomenon on the Internet today. Not since the dot.com explosion has the there been an Internet trend that is so widespread in its popularity. The comparison with the dot.com growth is in fact one that is made by many industry observers, and while there are a number of clear similarities, there are also some important differences. It is expected that by early 2008, all the various social media sites will have more than 230 million members. That number is predicted to grow until 2009, with a leveling off on the number of new members expected by 2012. The combined revenue from these sites, which in 2007 reached almost $970 million, is estimated to balloon to a whopping $2.4 billion by 2012. Membership growth in social media sites varies greatly from region to region. The Asia Pacific region accounts for the lion's share of users, with 35% of the total users expected by the end of 2007. EMEA accounts for about 28% of all users, North America follows closely with 25% percent, and the Caribbean and Latin America trails behind with 12% of all users. With the inevitable crowding of the social media site industry, many observers feel that consolidation of the market is a sure thing. This has given rise to some predictions that the smaller individual social media sites will be swallowed up by the bigger players in the field. Some experts feel however that this is not necessarily the case. In particular, social media sites with a focus on special interests... more.. Web Standards, Browsers and Designing For The Future Web Standards, Browsers and Designing For The Future By James Opiko (c) 2006 At present, a vast majority of webmasters are designing for IE (Internet Explorer) 6, which is not as W3C standards compliant as is FireFox, Netscape, Safari and Opera. In my article - "The importance of sound website design & search spiders to Internet Marketers," I mentioned the importance of a designer being cognizant of the fact that web browser standards are not yet fully harmonized - a web page that looks great in Internet Explorer (6) might look hideous in a Mozilla based browser like FireFox or Netscape. I also noted that with the explosion of devices with which to serve Internet applications, compliance with W3C standards has become critical. When the final release for IE 7 for Windows XP, Server 2003 & Vista is launched, hopefully before the end of 2006, the tables will be turned, so to speak. Internet Explorer 7 will be more standards compliant and your HTML code will be subject to much more rigorous interpretation than is the case with IE 6, consequently some web pages that look fine in IE 6 might not look the same IE 7. In IE 7 Microsoft has made a solemn effort to fix the browsers acquiescence to W3C standards and CSS(Cascading Style Sheets) compatibility. CSS interpretation as recommended by W3C has been improved tremendously giving designers and developers more leverage in functionality for cross-browser design. Microsoft asserts that they are taking W3C compatibility issues seriously. Concisely what this means is that IE 7 will tend to interpret your web page code more scrupulously than before. Therefore, if you have been designing your pages and have not... more.. How to Defend your Website from the Google Duplicate Proxy Exploit How to Defend your Website from the Google Duplicate Proxy Exploit By Sophie White (c) 2007 There is a current and active way to knock a website out of Google's search engine results. It's simple and effective. This information is already in the public domain and the more people that know about it, the more likelihood there is that Google will do something about it. This article will tell you how it works, how to get a website knocked out of the search engine rankings, but most importantly, how to defend your own website from having it happen to you. To understand this exploit, you must first understand about Google's Duplicate Content filter. It's simply described thus: Google doesn't want you to search for "blue widget" and have the top 10 search terms returned copies of the same article on how great blue widgets are. They want to give you ONE copy of the Great Blue Widget article, and 9 other different results, just on the off chance that you've already read that article and the other results are actually what you wanted. To handle this, every time Google spiders and indexes a page, it checks it to see if it's already got a page that is predominantly the same, a duplicate page if you will. Exactly how Google works this out, nobody knows exactly, but it is going to be a combination of some or all of: page text length, page title, headings, keyword densities, checking exactly copy sentence fragments etc. As a result of this duplicate content filter, a whole industry has grown up around trying to get round the filter. Just search for "spin article". Getting back to the story... more.. Conversion Rate Optimization Part 1, Google Takes the Leading Role Conversion Rate Optimization Part 1, Google Takes the Leading Role By Frederick Townes (c) 2007 Within the e-commerce sphere, the "mind games" between site owners and search engine designers have focused on search engine optimization (SEO). After all, you can't make a sale if visitors aren't reaching your site. However, as the web marketplace grows exponentially more competitive, attention among webmasters and site owners has turned to conversion optimization ? converting site visitors to buyers. Conversion optimization has nothing to do with SEO. SEO is designed for spiders and bots. Conversion optimization is based on two factors only: the needs and motivations of human site visitors and persuasive site content and design to encourage humans to make a purchase or perform some other action. Any other considerations are sub-sets of these two factors in conversion optimization strategies. Measuring Human Motivations and Site Effectiveness SEO is based on the development of numbers (metrics) that are immutable. Numbers are numbers, there's no debating that. The interpretation of site metrics, on the other hand, is a true combination of art, science and testing. Assessing conversion rate optimization must apply a completely different approach to data gathering and the accurate, actionable assessment of the cold hard facts (percentages and such) that are the basis of SEO. The Google Website Optimizer (GWO) Google owns SEO (sorry Yahoo). It is now moving into eyeball optimization (EBO) to help site owners improve conversion rates. It's got lots of features, it's totally flexible in designing useful tests for human reactions and it provides data using simple to read and understand charts showing what's working and what... more.. What is Internet Marketing? What is Internet Marketing? By Daniel Scyphers (c) 2008 Internet marketing is still a complete mystery to a large majority of Internet users. For many users, internet marketing is seen as some foreign area of the web, populated with silly get-rich-quick schemes and unsavory characters ready to rip off the innocent and uninformed consumer at the click of a mouse. In reality, Internet marketing is populated mainly with hard working professionals promoting and selling high quality brand products by many of the world's Top 500 companies. Worldwide there are now over a billion Internet users, representing one large global consumer base or marketplace. The total amount of goods sold online has been steadily increasing each year as the Internet gains in both popularity and familiarity. Studies have shown people shop online because of lower prices, a wider selection of products, easier comparison shopping, and many just prefer not having to travel to stores to make a purchase. Still Internet marketing has gotten a raw deal. If you mention to any group of professionals that you're an Internet Marketer and that you work full time on the Internet... you will receive some very skeptical looks and more than one arched eyebrow of disbelief. Regardless of this lingering skepticism, Internet marketing has become a viable alternative for many disgruntled professionals dissatisfied with their working hours or conditions. It has become a viable alternative for many people from all walks of life. From the college student to the bored housewife to the retired doctor... all are enjoying a part time or full time income from the comfort of their homes. And since the Internet is now practically available to... more.. 8 Secrets to Fill Your Business in 60 Days 8 Secrets to Fill Your Business in 60 Days By Donna Gunter (c) 2009 OnlineBizU.com Recently I was asked in an interview to imagine that I was starting all over again, and as a newbie, how I would fill my business in 60 days. Things have changed tremendously since I began my online business in 1999, mostly for the better. Most of the steps, however remain the same. Best of all, the strategies I recommend to fill your business are the same ones that can be applied to any business, and then applied again and again to other online ventures. Here are 8 secrets to filling the prospect funnel in your business in 60 days: 1. Success mind set. Don't gloss over this strategy -- it may be the most important of all. If you truly want to succeed in your business and are passionate about what you do, nothing will hold you back. This often means that you have to step out in faith that you'll succeed, and most importantly, believe in yourself as a success. Sure, you may stumble, or even fall, but you must be willing to pick yourself back up and persevere -- even without a safety net hanging under you. 2. Target market. The biggest mistake that business owners make is wanting to sell to everyone. If you've tried this, you have no doubt discovered that casting your net around everyone is a very difficult task. Narrowing that group to a more manageable number will actually serve you much better, believe it or not. If you can identify a smaller group of hungry prospects who are willing to pay for the solutions to the problems that... more.. Use Robots.txt and Save the World Use Robots.txt and Save the World By Sante J. Achille (c) 2007 Robots.txt Help the Search Engines Learn All About Your Website There is a growing interest in the little known file that every website should have in the root directory: robots.txt It's a very simple text file you can find all about at the robotstxt.org website. Why should you use it ? Here are some good reasons for you to consider. The Growing Importance of Robots.Txt At SES New York a robots.txt summit was held where major search engines (Ask, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!) participated, sharing interesting information on this file. Here are some numbers. According to Keith Hogan from Ask: i) Less than 35% of websites have a robots.txt file ii) The majority of robots.txt files are copied from others found online iii) On many occasions robots.txt files are provided by your web host? service It looks like the majority of webmasters aren't familiar with this file. This is going to play a major role as the size of the web continues to grow: Spidering is a costly effort that search engines tend to optimize. Those web sites demonstrating optimal command (which in turn determines efficiency) will be rewarded. During the summit, all search engines announced they will identify (or autodiscover) sitemaps via the robots.txt file. In essence search engines are now able to discover your sitemap via a link in the following format: Sitemap: <sitemap_location>, where <sitemap_location> is the complete URL of your Sitemap Index File (or your sitemap file, if you don't have an index file). Controlled Access to Your Content With a robots.txt... more.. Cracking the Google Code? Under the GoogleScope Cracking the Google Code? Under the GoogleScope by Lawrence Deon Google's sweeping changes confirm the search giant has launched a full out assault against artificial link inflation & declared war against search engine spam in a continuing effort to provide the best search service in the world? and if you thought you cracked the Google Code and had Google all figured out ? guess again.Google has raised the bar against search engine spam and artificial link inflation to unrivaled heights with the filing of a United States Patent Application 20050071741 on December 31, 2003. On March 31, 2005 is was available online for the first time.The filing unquestionable provides SEO's with valuable insight into Google's tightly guarded search intelligence and confirms that Google's information retrieval is based on historical data.What exactly do these changes mean to you? Your credibility and reputation on-line are going under the Googlescope! Google has defined their patent abstract as follows:A system identifies a document and obtains one or more types of history data associated with the document. The system may generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on the one or more types of history data.Google's patent specification reveals a significant amount of information both old and new about the possible ways Google can (and likely does) use your web page updates to determine the ranking of your site in the SERPs. Unfortunately, the patent filing does not prioritize or conclusively confirm any specific method one way or the other.Here's how Google scores your web pages.In addition to evaluating and scoring web page content, the ranking of web pages are admittedly still influenced by the frequency of page or site updates. What's new and interesting is what Google takes into account... more.. 7 Basics of Good Web Design 7 Basics of Good Web Design By George Peirson (c) 2009 Whether you are just starting a web design project, looking at revamping an existing site, or just wanting to double check the usability of your current web site you should consider these 7 Basics of Good Web Design. These basics are aimed at new visitors/customers; your repeat customers will be judging your web site on different values. Just like wearing the appropriate clothes for a job interview, these basics will help you pick out the "look" of your web site so that you make a good first impression. 1. Fast Loading Web Site - Any way you look at it, a fast loading page should be your number 1 concern. The web is all about speed, fast searches, fast purchases, fast information. You can't have any of that with a slow loading page. Ask yourself this question - have you ever been on Google doing a search for something important and a link you clicked on didn't open up immediately? What did you do? Patiently wait for the page to open or move onto the next link on the page? My favorite sites open almost immediately. So, a few suggestions: Make sure that your images are properly optimized. Don't use very many large images, save those for a different page. Keep any auto-running multimedia to a minimum, provide links to run media instead. Check your code for anything else that could affect your page loading times. Since text loads almost instantly go ahead and use all the text you want, just keep everything else under control. 2. No... more.. Social Media Optimization - The Power Of Popular Opinion Social Media Optimization - The Power Of Popular Opinion By Brian Easter (c) 2008 Why should I care about Social Media Optimization? You should care about Social Media Optimization (SMO), because you care about your company's image. There's an old saying that goes something like, "A happy customer will tell one other person about his good experience. A disgruntled customer will tell ten people about his bad experience." Good or bad, that's powerful marketing. Social Media Optimization gives you the power to take an active role in managing your brand by interacting with your current and potential clients by discussing your products, their comments and concerns and continually promoting your brand. Social Media Optimization Defined In its most basic form, Social media optimization is any method used to raise your website's online visibility through meaningful communication. SMO opens a dialogue between you and your clients, using the power of popular opinion to fuel your marketing campaign. The open format strengthens your search engine optimization efforts by fostering a mutual connection with your clients through the myriad of online communities, also called social media sites. Current examples of SMO include: Creating profiles in social media communities such as MySpace, Facebook, and VIRB. Participating in and/or creating blogs. Disseminating your blogs or articles using RSS feeds. Creating and sharing content through community based sites like Flickr, YouTube, and more. Not to incorporate unnecessary buzz words, but SMO is a very Web 2.0 approach to Search Engine Optimization. Of course, Web 2.0 merely refers to the perceived second generation of Web-based communities and hosted services... more.. Correcting Common Usability Mistakes Correcting Common Usability Mistakes By Mark Johnstone, Senior Web Developer, StepForth Placement Inc. Each day at StepForth Placement we view dozens of websites that request a SEO Review and a vast majority of these sites have fundamental usability problems. Often times neglecting this important element of a website can lead online visitors to become lost, frustrated and/or confused. All it takes for a visitor to decide to stay, explore or leave a site is 0.4 of a second. Attracting visitors to your website is a formidable challenge; it is yet another to build a fast connection with them and keep them there. With this in mind, here are some simple measures that can be taken to remedy these mistakes and help promote your online conversions. Having great search engine placements is one thing but to create a usable website environment is just as important. What good can come from "being found" if users quickly exit your site? A solid search engine friendly and usable website should be your answer to both of these major components for your online success. There are a variety of standards still in place when it comes to designing a usable website. This is not to say that the uniqueness and creativity of your website has to suffer, rather by following some simple guidelines visitors know where to go to find the information they need. The process of developing a usable interface can be a balancing act. Some core elements need to be assessed prior to any actual design work being done. Attention to content creation, search engine friendly design tactics, and the face you put on your design each have to be blended into this usable... more.. Google: Judge, Jury and Executioner? Google: Judge, Jury and Executioner? By Sasch Mayer (c) 2007 Your website has gone from being in the Google search results for several years to not even being included in Google's index. What Happened to My Site? As another user quite rightly pointed out, this is by far the most commonly asked question in the Google webmaster help group. Which is to say; "My web site was ranking very well up until recently, but has now dropped in the results or disappeared from the Google index altogether." Although the comment about this question's frequency was initially made as part of a post highlighting the need for a properly structured FAQ section, it eventually prompted a heated debate regarding Google's sp@m report and penalty system which raised a few interesting points of its own. What happened? I generally spend a few hours a week taking part in discussions and lending the occasional helping hand at the Google Webmaster Help group, a forum set up to help address the problems and technical queries of frustrated webmasters, designers and SEOs with regards to anything from site verification to indexing & crawling; in fact, just about any Google related issue imaginable. Populated by a colourful mix of regular characters and part-time contributors from across the globe as well as more than a few of Google's own staff, it acts as a kind of front-line support forum which has thus far attracted a membership of over 16,000. Indeed, this article is the result of one particular discussion thread which caught my eye this afternoon. Persecuted by... more.. Top 10 Tools to TurboCharge Your Marketing Top 10 Tools to TurboCharge Your Marketing By Donna Gunter (c) 2005  Most business owners hate the entire marketing process. I find marketing to be an energizing exercise to showcase my creativity, however, and enjoy it -- when I do it. However, I fall into the same trap as mill?s of other small business owners -- I'm so busy with clients (my profit-generating days) that I often push aside my marketing (my business development days). So, to aid me in my marketing efforts, I try and "get the most bang for the buck" out of what I actually end up doing -- and try to do that with a minimal amount of effort. These are 10 tools that I use in my marketing efforts that help me turbocharge my marketing: 1. Assessment Generator: Like to create an interactive survey or assessment that will help your visitor learn something about his/her life or business? With Assessment Generator, you can create online assessments that you can post to your website to increase your traff?and attract more clients. 2. AudioAcrobat: AudioAcrobat makes audio streaming fast and simple, whether you want to add an audio greeting or audio test?nials to your website or send out an audio postcard or record a teleclass. 3. Ezine Director: Ezine Director is a great service for creating, mailing and reporting back on the success of yournewsletter. I love to be able to see how many readers opened my newsletter, who opened the newsletter, and what links they clicked on from the newsletters. EzineDirector offers the service fr?of charge if you send out less than 249 emails per month. 4. FreeAudioConferencing.com: Ever need to meet with colleagues, associates or even family members at a distance but don't want to do it... more.. Simple SEO Page Optimization Guidelines Simple SEO Page Optimization Guidelines By Greg Schipper, fast seo ranking   Most people make on site optimization very complex. I want to set a simple guideline for on-page optimization that anyone can adapt into their pages and website.   1) Determine the page topic, and use 2 to 4 keyword phrases to accurately describe your page topic. 2) Place those keyword phrases in the Page Title tag, and only those. Don?t waste the most valuable page component on promoting your company, brand, or domain name. Example: ?<title>Wedding dresses, discount wedding dresses, designer wedding dresses</title>?. 3) The second most important tag on the page is the ?<H1>? tag. Use this for paragraph headings and subtitles on your page. Since H1 is large and ugly, simply redefine in CSS to your specs. Also, these H1 tagged content titles should have 1 keyword phrases in each. It is not uncommon to have 2 to 5 section titles using H1 tags. 4) When you write your page copy, make liberal, but sensible use of your keyword phrases. This is the 3rd most important page component; content. 5) When you insert images, use alt text to include some of your page keyword phrases for... more.. The Ten Commandments of Search Engine Optimization The Ten Commandments of Search Engine Optimization By Bhaskar Thakur (c) 2008 Most of the time when we pitch to a new client we are asked for SEO guarantees. "Your competition has guaranteed top results and submission to 100,000 Search Engines and Directories". We go all out educating clients that Search Engine Optimization is all about smart work and not just adding random keywords and submitt? to every directory possible. I'm writing this article to reach out to the SEO buyers and help them distinguish the crooks from the genuine SEO cos. I've compiled my Search marketing experience over the years in this article. I hope this helps you in selecting your Search Marketing initiative. Commandment 1: There are No Rank Guarantees. (Period) Search Engines alone control their indexing and ranking algorithm. Do not try to trick Search Engines. The only way to improve your search engine rank is by playing by the rules. And the rule is very simple: make it logical. Web content is primarily for the site visitor and not crawlers. If your Search Engine Optimizer sold you magic "Top rank on Google in 10 days flat". Forget it. There are no short cuts. Top ranking in Search Engine Natural Results will take time. Hard work is imperative especially in developing the content on your website and the links to your site. Commandment 2: Ranking is Not the End, It's the Means. Ask yourself what will a top search engine rank get you? Most businesses are interested in increasing sales on a website or at the least driving qualified traffic. Ranking for the right keywords (keywords used by... more.. 9 Hot Tips to Increase Site Conversions 9 Hot Tips to Increase Site Conversions By Gary Klingsheim (c) 2009 "Site conversion" is a very dry and unexciting way of saying "how to get more prof? from the same amount of website traffic." Isn't that a more upbeat way of expressing it? Who doesn't want to get more prof? from the same number of visitors? Increasing your conversion rate is a straightforward, even dramatic way of positively impacting your bottom line. It really cannot be emphasized too much that any improvement at all in your conversion rate means additional revenue that is total prof? Remember this fact when you are told that the way to "make more money" is to invest in more traffic-generating schemes (and dreams, at times). Before you start spending more money to generate additional traffic, you need to do as much as you can with the traffic you are already getting. If you keep the horse ahead of the cart in your planning, you will have an efficient, stable, measurable conversion rate from which you can extrapolate x amount of additional profit from y amount of new-traffic generation. The following tips are not in any particular order (except for Number 1), and can be modified and reordered to suit your particular situation. Take ownership of the change and improvement, and make sure everyone involved understands the importance of maximizing every revenue source, beginning with the existing ones! 1: Before you can repair or improve something, you have to have a good way of measuring where you are, what you're doing, where you're going, etc. You can sign up for a free Google Analytics... more.. 7 Words That Will Make Your Website Worth Viewing 7 Words That Will Make Your Website Worth Viewing By Jerry Bader (c) 2009 Seven. It's just a number like any other, but it does seem to come up on a fairly regular basis. There's the Seven Wonders of the World, The Seven Deadly Sins, and the Seven Dwarfs: Happy, Sneezy, Sleepy, Bashful, Doc, Dopey, and my personal favorite, Grumpy. Phone numbers are seven digits, and they say the optimum brand name should be no more than seven letters long. Seven it seems is a magical number, as the average human brain can only grasp seven things at a time. Interesting, my wife says I've got trouble with two, never mind seven, but that's another story. So I've been thinking, what are the seven most important words associated with Web-marketing. I'll give you a hint: Search, Engine, and Optimization don't make the cut. So what words do make the l?? What are the seven words that will make your website worth viewing? Words Can Move You By someone's count there are 171,476 entries in the Oxford English Dictionary, plus another 47,156 words that have fallen out of favor. This of course doesn't count the 9,500 additional permutations, that don't deserve their own special attention. Fifty percent of these words are nouns, twenty-five percent are adjectives, and 14.285% are verbs, with the rest made up of all those other things, the purpose of which most of us have long since forgotten. Others may find fault with these numbers, but no matter what the total, it's a lot of words. Of the several hundred thousand words to choose from, the average person recognizes less... more.. Multiply Your Marketing Like a Virus Multiply Your Marketing Like a Virus By Michel Fortin (c) 2009 In today's Internet, conversations are cropping up all over the place. People are talking. They are talking about products. They are talking about businesses. And they are certainly talking about their experiences. When you look at how blogs, forums and social networking sites have exploded in the last few years, you can see how powerful word-of-mouth is. But the question is, is it all really important? Can it really help your business? Yes. And I'm not talking about traffic. And you don't need to be controversial, either. I'm talking creating systems to leverage, manage and profit from the "buzz." Word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful lead and business generation processes there is. Online, some people call it "word-of-mouse." But we know it more as viral marketing. Viral marketing is the process of implementing means or tools through which the knowledge of your existence self- propagates. Like a virus, your visibility spreads throughout a network of people who refer you to each other. Notwithstanding the power of backlinking, traffic and SEO, viral marketing is key for a number of reasons. Success in the offline world is "location, location, location." The Internet is no different. Your success depends highly on the number of locations you appear online - places on which your site, link, company or product name exist. In essence, to expand your reach, you need to be in as many places as possible, talked about by as many people as possible and be in front of as many eyeballs as possible. With viral marketing, there are three ways of doing it:     Create content     Create applications     Create systems The first is self-explanatory. Your content may be controversial or buzzworthy. It may create raging... more.. Social Media Puts Fortress Journalism Under Siege | Social Media Puts Fortress Journalism Under Siege | By John Sylvester (c) 2009 In a recent report by Peter Horrocks, Director of BBC World Service, it is clear that as society becomes more networked, the fortress mentality of the mainstream media is increasingly under siege by social media, but they are adapting. There's a lesson for us all in this. For so long now, Web 2.0 has been working in the background to subtly but unwittingly undermine mainstream media, especially in America where, for example, RSS is understood and used far more readily than in most other nations. In this, the role of the "fortress journalism" is being steadily eroded as the nature of RSS feeds allow you to choose the BBC for video news, the New York Times for international news, the Guardian for ecological reports and ESPN for sports - so storming the gates of the fortress has been around for some time, but it is only now that publishers are seriously looking at new dissemination models in a more integrated and enlightened manner. The main problem for the newspaper industry is that journalists have been very slow to recognise the changes that have been happening under their noses, and whilst the major players have all installed news feeds on their websites, they still continue with the assumption that their news product provides a complete set of information for their readers. However, in the world of Web 2.0, the choices available for a total news information set is beginning to change journalists' collective mindset: as Jeff Jarvis, Professor of Interactive Journalism at the City University of New York, described it: "Cover what you do best. Link to the rest." Social media websites now have millions... more.. Free Traffic and the 4 Vital Elements of a Successful Website Free Traffic and the 4 Vital Elements of a Successful Website By Brye Bishop (c) 2009 Let's face it, anyone can build a website. There are countless companies out there offering a vast array of web building solutions, some good, some great, and some quite frankly are a complete waste of time! But throwing together a website is really only part of the story, only part of the process. There are literally, hundreds of thousands of web pages, that won't ever be viewed and therefore stand no chance of commercial success. Some of those sites are relatively good; unfortunately their owners have misunderstood the process and have the cart before the horse... In the online world no one just happens by your website, cred?card in hand! If you've yet to build your website, or about to create a new site, stop! consider first exactly what you wish to achieve with that site, before you start. "Creating a website should follow a process proven to deliver a commercial end result... or run the risk of ending up, just another pretty picture in cyberspace!" Fortunately there is a process, and I highly recommend you take a look at it... perhaps you already know it... Content > Traffic > Pre-sell > Monetize A time tested, 4 step process, proven to produce websites that deliver... commercially! Ok so, let's now look briefly at each step and why they work in this particular order. 1. Numoro Uno, as always. Content. Very, very important. Building information-rich sites is crucial. You must have high quality, unique, relevant content on your site, A; because you want to attract visitors in the first place and B; to generate long term, search engine based free traffic. Online,... more.. 12 Ways to Use Twitter for Social Media Marketing 12 Ways to Use Twitter for Social Media Marketing By Ron Knight (c) 2009 Twitter is a wildly popular microblogging service. It involves writing Tweets, which are short updates of a maximum of 140 characters that tell your followers what you are up to. Although your Tweets are technically supposed to answer the question, "What are you doing?" Twitter has moved far beyond that. Tweets are used to share stories, link to photos, promote content, break news, and a whole lot more. Twitter has also become an incredibly important tool for social media marketing professionals. Here are 12 ways in which Twitter can be used in your social media marketing campaign. 1. Sharing Links to Items of Interest As soon as you read something online that you think is interesting, it is easy to share it on Twitter with all of your followers. Twitter is highly effective in this manner because it is such a quick way to be able to reach a large group of people. You can also get a lot of great ideas for blog posts from Twitter since many new ideas and stories are floating around that haven?t even made it to the blogosphere and definitely not to mainstream media. 2. Building Your Network Using Twitter is a great way to build your network because it allows you to find and follow people with similar interests. You can use Steeple to find people who live in your geographical area. You can also use other tools that help you find new people to follow based upon who your Twitter friends follow. 3. Build Relationships within Your Current Network People in different networks often use Twitter to connect with their contacts... more.. New Website? It's Time To Think Links New Website? It's Time To Think Links By Matt Jackson (c) 2007 Link building has long been the staple dietary topic for SEO and Internet marketing experts, but with good reason. This is hardly ground breaking news but having a powerful link profile will help you to rank well in the search engines. Having an especially powerful link profile will also drive traffic directly to your website. As the webmaster of a new site, there are several things you must do. First, you need to create a genuinely useful website filled with equally useful and informative content. You need to ready yourself to add fresh content on a frequent basis, in order to retain existing site visitors and to attract the search engine spiders. You also need to start building links ? a good link profile takes time to develop so it is essential that you start as soon as possible. Below are some of the more and less effective methods of building quality inbound links to your new website. Create Quality Content OK, we've already mentioned this in passing, but it's important. Linkable content will get linked to (eventually). You may not have the traffic base to command links organically in this way yet, but you will do soon. Unique, informative, and even controversial content will ultimately see other sites willing to link to your own. Video marketing has become especially popular because of its viral nature. You can create a good video clip, embed it into a page of your site and include "email to a friend" links. Also ensure that it is well branded so that everybody knows where the video first came from. Free Directory... more.. SEO Or Page Rank Which Is The More Important? SEO Or Page Rank Which Is The More Important? By Peter Nisbet (c) 2007 Whether you believe in SEO or Page Rank and wonder which is more important, your thinking is irrelevant. You are wasting your time in wondering what is the correct answer to that question, since even if you knew it, there is little you could do to use that information. Why do I say that? Because SEO, or search engine optimization, is a way of designing your website, and placing content in it, to satisfy search engine algorithms. Search engines are so sophisticated today that if you achieve that, then you will also satisfy visitors to your website. If you satisfy visitors to your website, then they will stay on the page they landed on and read it. They will then cl? to read other pages on your website and might even make a purchase. Sure, some will leave right away, but if the search engines feel that your content is good enough for a high placement in their indices for the search term, or keyword, that your visitor used to get to your web page, then it is more likely that you will achieve a relatively high stick rate of people to your site than a lower one. Now, consider if you thought Google PageRank more important (and PageRank is correct, not Page Rank). You would then spend more of your time trying to get links back to your website than you would properly optimizing your site and filling it with good content. If you were successful in that difficult job, then Google, and possibly other search engines, would l? you a bit higher in their indices, not because... more.. Using New Content to Build Links Using New Content to Build Links By Rob Sullivan Sometimes, link building is more than just searching out sites to request links from. Sometimes you have to get creative in how you build links. In this article, we look at another way of building links that doesn't really require you to go out and search for relevant sites to request links from. The web is growing at a phenomenal rate. Technorati, a popular blog search and syndication site estimates that the blogosphere alone doubles in size every 5 months. As of the end of July 2005, Technorati was tracking over 14.2 million weblogs, and over 1.3 billion links. Who knows how much the rest of the web grows? I would bet that while it doesn't double every 5 months its rate of growth is pretty impressive. It is because of this growth in the web that other forms of link building become somewhat easier. I am talking about building links through content creation and publishing. Chances are you are reading this article on the Text Link Brokers blog, or one of a number of syndication partners who agree to republish the article with links intact. Through such syndication, you could come across this article through a variety of high profile websites on the web. In addition, these high profile sites are industry specific. This means that any links I embed into this article (which is then syndicated) will ultimately point back to this site on important key phrases. Think about this, for the time it takes me to write this article, I could have built as many as 2 dozen high quality, keyword rich links back to both the main site as well as the blog site.... more.. 10 Steps to Testing the Viability of Your Online Business 10 Steps to Testing the Viability of Your Online Business By Donna Gunter (c) 2009 The economic recession is pushing more and more people to consider self-employment. Starting an online business is a very low-risk way to put your toe in the entrepreneurial pond because the start up costs are minimal, the overhead is low, and the returns can be high. Despite these benefits, however, an online business is just like any other and needs to be thoroughly researched before starting to determine if there's a need in the marketplace and how viable the business idea is. The Internet is rife with exorbitant claims of how much money can be made as an online entrepreneur and that you can be rolling in the dough by next week. Remember, most "overnight" successes are 1, 2, or more years in the making, and online businesses are no exception to this rule.      Make Your Monthly Google AdSense Check Bigger! Algorithm figures out the ideal ad unit sizes, formats, shapes, and colors. No guesswork! Works w/Google AdSense and other popular ad networks. Up to 200% revenue lifts typical. Easy, one-time setup. Easier to install than AdSense. No ongoing tweaking and maintenance.     Profiled on TechCrunch, John Chow, and Search Engine Journal.... more.. Optimizing Content for Universal Search Optimizing Content for Universal Search By Claudia Bruemmer (c) 2007 By now, you've all heard about Google's new Universal Search concept, which combines all the information within its vertical databases into one index to serve a single set of Web search results. As you can imagine, this will require some adjustments to standard search engine optimization techniques. If you have been following the Bruce Clay methodology, then you should already be on the right track to optimizing every aspect of your Web site that is under your control. With the arrival of universal search, it's not just a good idea; it's a necessity. Google Vice President of Search Products and User Experience Marissa Mayer said the company's goal for universal search is to create "a seamless, integrated experience to get users the best answers." Mayer stated on the official Google blog that the universal search vision would be "one of the biggest architectural, ranking, and interface challenges" the search engine would face. Mayer first suggested this concept to Google back in 2001. Since then, the company has been building the infrastructure, algorithms and presentation mechanisms needed to blend the different content from Images, Video, News, Maps, Blogs et al into its Web results. This is Google's first step toward removing the partition that separates its numerous search silos, integrating these vast repositories of information into a universal set of search results. The object is to make queries more relevant for users, but what are the ramifications for SEO? Google Relevancy Challenge Based on industry research, Google has a relevancy problem because the database is too vast. Back in 2005, Jupiter Research touched on this, stating it identified an... more.. How to Get Free Press How to Get Free Press By Kim Roach (c) 2008 Free press is one of the best ways to spread the word about your website, your product, and your brand. However, most people don't know where to start. Fortunately, it's really not as hard as you might think. There are thousands of articles being published every single day on blogs, newspapers, and magazines. Bloggers, writers, and journalists have pages to fill and all of them are actively looking for interesting topics to write about. Many people forget that PR is about public relations. It's not just about writing a press release. It's about getting to know the journalists. Find out what kind of stories they're working on and see what you can do to help them. PR is really about listening and engaging key influencer's. You need to connect. Connect with journalists who are writing about stories in your industry. Send them a quick note to tell them what you like about their writing. Provide them with story ideas within your industry. Provide them with value and they will have open ears whenever you want to pitch your story. But remember, a journalist is extremely busy. You must respect their time. Keep everything short and sweet. Get to the point quickly and concisely. Most journalists can be easily contacted through email, which can be found on their website, in their byline, or within the publication they write for. However, many writers and journalists can also be found on a number of different social media networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. These social media platforms are another great way to connect with bloggers and mainstream media... more.. Cache's Web-Marketing Manifesto Cache's Web-Marketing Manifesto By Jerry Bader (c) 2008 Who is Cache Closed and what can he do for you? Cache is a digital construct created to inform, enlighten, and entertain Web-marketers interested in learning how best to market on the Web. Now don't be alarmed, Cache isn't interested in selling you anything, no e-books, no DVDs, no magic elixirs or potions, no sir, just a pixelated-paranoid, pied-piper of ideas and concepts designed to improve your Web-business. The Cache-man has put a little something together he modestly calls, 'Cache's Web-Marketing Manifesto:' ten things every marketing manager, business owner, and sales executive needs to know about business websites. Cache's Web-Marketing Manifesto 1. If it isn't working, stop tweaking and blow it up. If what you're doing isn't working, or if it's working about as well as a 1973 Yugo, then it's time to start over. You can only make so many modifications and adjustments until your site gets a bad case of digital disconnect: a cyber version of Capgras Delusion where the brain can't connect the content to the emotional context. 2. If you're relevant, search engines will find you, it's their job. Isn't it time you stopped chasing the imaginary pot of gold at the end of the Google rainbow, and start thinking of practical ways to connect to your audience. Search engines are supposed to find you, it's their job, it's what they do, what they get pa?for. All this stuff about you can't do this or you can't do that because it's not search engine friendly is so yesterday. If you have something to say worth listening to whether it's text, audio, or video,... more.. Dominate Google Rankings Quick and Easy! Dominate Google Rankings Quick and Easy! By Michael Small (c) 2008 Does dominating Google rankings quick and easy sound too good to be true? It really isn't. Following are a bunch of surefire SEO tips that have kept hundreds of my clients' sites on top of Google for years, with new ones every month. There's a lot to cover and I hate long articles that drone on so I'll keep the info short and sweet. Let's start with the domain name. Domain Names Age:Make sure your domain name is at least six months old. If it's more than a year old, that's even better. Google often (but not always) likes domains to be at least six months old before indexing the site. How do they know? They use a "whois" database like the one at: http://www.AllWhoIs.com Go there and enter your domain if you want to see what Google (and anyone else in the world) can instantly know about your site. TLD Type: TLD stands for Top Level Domain, which is to say the letters after the dot. The best ones to have are ".com, .net. .org and .edu." These get the most play in Google's top 3 rankings for just about every keyword you can imagine, with ".com" and ".edu" being the best. Embedded Keywords: If you have your main keyword (and ONLY your main keyword) as a dotcom domain name with even just halfway decent page text and some good inbound links you can usually nail number one on Google for that keyword. I've done it dozens of times. It's a no brainer. Dashes: Having a dash in your domain... more.. Is Your Business Website Old School - 5 Reasons To Redesign With CSS Is Your Business Website Old School - 5 Reasons To Redesign With CSS By Linda Bustos Many small business owners have a hard time seeing the value of a website redesign. They believe "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." And this is understandable. Unless you are eating, breathing and sleeping technology and staying up to date with the moving target of Internet business, you're not likely to know intuitively if your site needs a redesign. And as a small business owner, you may be concerned about the up-front costs of a website redesign. But once you understand how a redesign can help you drive traff?to your site, convert more users and even save mon? you'll feel more positive about making the ?estment in your business. Old School Web Design - Tables-Based HTML Not long ago, fax machines were the best way to deliver business documents fast. But now it's so easy to scan and email documents, and even capture digital signatures through email, the fax machine is quickly going the way of the typewriter. With email, recipients can choose to read and archive the message online, or print it out themselves on their own desktop printer. No need for individual telephone lines for the fax machine, taking up desk space, replacing toner, uncurling fax paper and listening to screeching fax machine tones! Tables-based HTML websites are like the fax machine. At one time tables were the best way to render information on the Web. But like curled paper and fading ink, tables left something to be desired. Designers were constrained by tables that allowed data to be rendered only in tabular f? The clean, professional and... more.. How to Troubleshoot Dropped Search Engine Rankings How to Troubleshoot Dropped Search Engine Rankings By Ross Dunn (c) 2008 Are you baffled about a recent drop in your search engine rankings? Do you know where to start and get a handle on what the problem might be and how to remedy it? One option to consider is using search engine forums as a resource. They are full of questions from people who have experienced similar situations and are great resources for an answer or two. But let's say you really want to get to the bottom of the problem and you want to do it yourself. The following are some of the beginning steps StepForth takes when evaluating dropped rankings. Retrace Your Steps Write a list of everything that anyone has done to your site within the past 3 weeks. Now look for anything that could have negatively impacted your content, site structure, or the reliability of your URLs. Once you write down the course of events the answer might pop right out at you. Here are some common situational culprits: You just moved your website to a different hosting provider: did your site experience much, if any, downtime during the switch over? Quality hosting companies will allow you to setup your site on their servers before the switch takes place so that downtime is minimized if not removed entirely. If a search engine happened to visit your site while it was down, there is a small chance your rankings would be negatively affected, but it will only happen for a short period. Once the search engine re-indexes your website everything should be back in order. The... more.. Keywords Are It! Seven Powerful & Useful Keyword Marketing Tools Keywords Are It! Seven Powerful & Useful Keyword Marketing Tools By Titus Hoskins (c) 2009 After years of running websites and earning a full-time online income, I am constantly reminded that it all comes down to keywords. Actually, it all comes down to obtaining top rankings for your profitable keywords in the search engines, mainly Google. And that statement has to be refined even further, it's all about obtaining top keyword rankings and keeping them at the top. You must consistently keep your keywords in the top spots on that all important first page of SERPs since your keyword rankings can make or break your online marketing. If you're targeting extremely competitive and profitable keywords you will have your work cut out for you; unless you have tons of money to buy your way (links) into the top spots, expect to spend months if not years, getting to those top listings. Google has frowned upon link buying and has taken steps to fight it, but this practice is still widespread throughout the web. Most beginning and honest webmasters want to take the proper route and earn those top rankings by providing good quality content that web users will actually find helpful and useful. They build those links the natural way by offering viral link bait in the form of videos, ebooks, articles, reports... all branded with backlinks to their sites. Gradually over time, these links will build up and your keyword rankings will go up in the search engines. People will find your content and bookmark it in all the social bookmark sites like Digg, Facebook, MySpace... and your rankings will climb even faster. However, since keyword marketing has become extremely competitive, you do need a little help with... more.. Click Fraud, Six Things You Should Be Aware Of Before You Buy Click Fraud - Six Things You Should Be Aware Of Before You Buy "Guaranteed Traff? By John Young (c) 2006 Bill was getting frustrated and desperate. He'd being trying to promote his website for months with little or no success. Adwords didn't seem to be working. He'd devised the most fiendish ads he could think of and set them up on Google only to find that nobody clicked on them. He had written several articles and, using an automatic article submitter, had placed them on hundreds of Article Barns across the web. There had been an increase in his Alexa Ratings, but that was it. Maybe there was a slight flurry of hits when he first placed the article, then nothing. He'd set up a blog, made a press release announcement, and done everything except don a Shaman costume and dance around his computer. He'd purchased ebooks on increasing his traff? and tried every idea he ran across. His budget was beginning to show the effects, and he had the chilling realization that if he didn't come across something that worked, he was simply going to run out of mon?and go bankrupt. In other words, he was about to become one of the 90 per cent of the Info Marketers on the web who fail. That was when he ran across a site that guaranteed traff? Little did Bill know he was about to become a victim of cl? fraud. Cl? Fraud and Big Business Cl? fraud has been discussed in a recent issue of Newsweek (Oct 6, 2006) as one of the most serious issues that faces online advertising. It has cast doubt on at least... more.. Do You Really Need To Come In First Place? Do You Really Need To Come In First Place? By Erin Ferree (c) 2008 When I was in 6th grade, track and field was all the rage. I've never been particularly athletic. But it was 1984 and everyone in my class was pretty fascinated with the Olympics that year. As you can imagine the school's annual track meet turned into a mini-Olympics. So I surveyed the events and the sign-ups for each one. I decided that the long-distance running events held the most promise for glory. The 2 mile, in particular, only had 2 other girls signed up - so I was pretty much assured a "medal". That sounded pretty exciting. Maybe I could go for the gold! However, watching the other events leading up to the 2-mile, I soon learned that one of the other girls was a seasoned runner. She knew all about pacing, how many minutes she should be able to run a mile in, and all that fancy stuff. At that point, I knew that first place was pretty much done for. I barely knew how many laps around the track I had to run. I ran the race anyway and wound up coming in second - which was just fine by me. It's not all about winn? - a place or a show can be just fine. Whenever I talk to a client about search engine placement, this track meet comes into mind. The client comes to me wanting to be Number 1 for their chosen search term. But for many small businesses, being ranked first is not truly that important - and depending on the search term, being... more.. 10 Tips to Grow Your Business Using Online Video 10 Tips to Grow Your Business Using Online Video By Diana D'Itri (c) 2010 Lacking any information to the contrary, many businesses still think that all they need to do to get new clients is to put their name and face in the Yellow Pages or online social directories, get some professional looking business cards, a website and Voila! It's the old adage "build it and they will come". Trouble is, that's what their competitors are doing also and in this day and age, it's just not enough. Does Your Business Stand Out Online? Most advertising on the Web follows a time-honored format, although some might call it a time-worn format as it does little to differentiate itself. You can bet that a high percentage of this advertising will be ignored and the money spent on it will be wasted. So how does a company stand out from the crowd online? Thanks to an oversupply of similar text, claims, and presentation - coupled with a short 21st century attention span - your website has less than ten seconds to move a visitor to action. If it doesn't, that visitor will click away to another site, and then another. Therefore, it's critical that you find a way to break through the noise your competitors are making. But even that's not enough. Statistics show that even the best-looking websites generate conversion rates of under one percent, so for every 100 visitors you do manage to get, less than one will call or email you. Sound bleak? Thinking of redirecting more of your advertising budget back to the Yellow Pages? Don't. You're on the right track - you just haven't leveraged all the power available to... more.. Promoting Your New Website Promoting Your New Website By Scott Van Achte (c) 2008 A few weeks ago I wrote about building your website from the ground up. This article did not dive into great detail on any specific topics, but rather touched on the key points you will want to address. In this article I will place most of the focus on the promot? aspect of this previous article. Image of bullhorn saying 'Promoting Your New Website' While at times new websites can experience organic search rankings in a matter of months, for the most part, it can take well over a year before you start to see any progress, and that is if you start promoting right away! SEO If your new website has not been properly optimized for the search engines, then this is a necessary first step you must take. Ensure that your new site has integrated the appropriate keywords into all the fundamental areas of the site. Without this critical step of optimizing your site, in many cases no level of promot? will help you get those search rankings. Note: Extreme numbers of inbound links can sometimes cause an un-optimized site to rank, but an optimized website will seriously reduce the number of links needed, and its associated cost. This varies from industry to industry, but is true as a general rule. Ideally the optimization of your site occurred during the planning and building stages, but if it did not be sure to get this completed as soon as possible. Press Releases The first thing you should do when your site goes live is issue a press release. Be sure to... more.. The New SEO - Let's Get Real The New SEO - Let's Get Real By Jack Strawman (c) 2008 Once upon a time, onsite optimization was the most crucial factor in search engine ranking. Webmasters and SEO experts spent ample time ensuring keywords were used in all relevant tags, and that the keyword concentration on each page was just right (usually 5-7%). Then came all the spamming and keyword stuffing, as webmasters and SEO experts fought viciously to usurp one another in the ranks. Search engines took notice, and adjusted their scoring algorithms accordingly. Onsite optimization lost its footing. Nowadays, onsite optimization is becoming less and less significant, overshadowed by the all powerful offsite optimization. Where keyword concentration was once god, now links have become the mighty ruler of the search engines. The fact of the matter is, onsite optimization counts for almost nothing these days (I did say "almost"). So why are webmasters and SEO experts still spewing all this nonsense about the importance of building great content. I really wish it were about building great content. The sad truth, however, is it's all about the links. Search engines want you to believe that ranking well is all about building a great website with great content. Build a site for your users, keep your users happy, and you will do just fine in their eyes. After all, isn't this the main principle behind organic search results; let's keep it real, honest, and user-friendly. Boy, I wish that were so. What I don't understand is why all these so-called experts and webmasters are spouting the same foolish nonsense all over the Internet. Perhaps it's because they don't want us to work on improving our own... more.. What Makes a Website Design a Good One? What Makes a Website Design a Good One? By Laura MacPherson (c) 2009 A lot of people can recognize good design when they see it on the web. But most people don't really know what makes that design good. How do you define "good design?" Is it subjective, like your favorite flavor of ice cream? Although there is some subjectivity within good design, there are artistic principles that good design is built from. Here are a few that form the foundation of good design. 1. Proximity Because items that are in close proximity to one another become one visual unit, items that are related to one another should be grouped together. Laying out related items on a website page this way helps the eye associate the information and enables the viewer to mentally categorize the information easily. The flip side of this principle is that items that are not related should not be placed in close proximity to one another. The purpose of the principle of proximity is to organize information in a way that enables viewers to quickly and easily comprehend. When information is organized, people are more likely to read it and respond. People are also more likely to remember information that is organized. How can you determine if items form a visual unit? Squint your eyes and look at the page on a website. Now count the number of times your eye stops as it views the page. On a page that is using the principle of proximity well, your eye will stop three to five times. In other words, there will be three to five groups of information for the eye to comprehend separately. 2. Alignment You've seen website page layouts where the text and graphics... more.. Proven Insider Tips to Get More Web Visitors Quickly and Easily Proven Insider Tips to Get More Web Visitors Quickly and Easily By James Gladwin (c) 2009   Believe me, in spite of the current financial turmoil, there hasn't ever been a better time to generate an online income stream! And yet it seems that so many budding Internet marketers are finding it hard to break through VNB - the "Visitor Numbers Barrier." When I started, I thought there was some magic elixir or secret technique that would transform my visitor numbers! If only I could find THE ONE successful method! Well, this article is to let you know that while there may be hundreds of ways to get visitors to your website - I've selected some of the techniques that work best for me.   And they can work for you, as well. Because, if there IS a secret of success, it is this: "Don't rely on ONE way to generate traffic. Become familiar with MANY." Better to have many visitor doors to your website, rather than just one, don't you think? I'm still... more.. For SEO Beginners - Twelve Definitions You Need To Know For SEO Beginners - Twelve Definitions You Need To Know By Mike Tekula (c) 2007 SEO is a trade that exists solely on the internet, and even then it is comprised almost entirely of the hot air of so-called "expert opinion." Plenty of it blowing around these days as search maintains position as one of the most important marketplaces in the modern business world. Many DIY webmasters will end up searching for blog entries, articles, informational web sites, etc to help get them up to speed. The problem is that in most cases certain key terms are flung around like household names while the people doing the flinging are way out of touch with the average web browser. What some of us don't realize is that not everyone knows even the basics of SEO. This l? of twelve SEO-related definitions in alphabetical order (with notes) serves as a great companion for your initial SEO reading. Read alone it will get you up to speed on some key terminology that you'll need to know to intelligently engage the ever-changing world of SEO. ? Algorithms. A search algorithm is, in short, the incredibly complex mathematical formula that a search engine uses to "rank" web sites for keywords. Based on a huge number of variables and calculations, algorithms are among the most closely-guarded secrets on the internet. Why? Imagine if they were leaked - suddenly the less-than-honest would have a very specific guideline to follow in climbing to the top of search results in a less-than-organic way, ruining the quality of Google's search results and their entire competitive advantage with it. ? Bot or Bots. See... more.. What is Link Bait and How Can It Help Me? What is Link Bait and How Can It Help Me? By Philip C (c) 2008 Specifically, linkbait is used to attract visitors to your website whether through interest, anger or knowledge seeking. Linkbait is content that is specially written to either educate, entertain or inflame your readership and prospective readers. These articles create buzz, and the buzz spreads virally from site to site in the form of links and comments that others make about what is written on your site. These inbound or back links are used by search engine algorithms to rank a website. The higher the rank, the higher the listing, the more traff?that arrives at your website. More visitors create more buzz which in turn creates more visitors. Linkbait creation is a marketing campaign on steroids and falls under the task of link building. Its sole aim is to increase the quantity of high-quality, relevant links to a website. Search engine optimized on a specific keyword phrase, linkbait comes in two flavors: specific, helpful, useful content written by an authority in a niche market or content that will incite discussion and sometimes argument on a niche subject. Either way, linkbait articles attract visitors to your website. Here's the difference. Your content is supposed to generate links from other websites, right?. That is the goal. You want people to like or hate your article/post/rant enough to write about it on their website and post with that follow-up a link back to your site and page of where the content is sitting. This is basic viral marketing in that visitors don't just read your material, but webmasters who find you are either riled up enough to... more.. Understanding Search Engines So You Can Get a High Ranking Understanding Search Engines So You Can Get a High Ranking By Rusty Ford (c) 2007 Just 5 years ago getting a high ranking in the search engines was easy. As search engines have gotten smarter it has become impossible to get a high ranking in the search engines with gimmicks. Now the only way is to have one of the best pages about your topic and lots of people agreeing that it is one of the best by linking to it. Before explaining how to get high rankings in the search engines it is important to understand some basics about search engines. If you were to run a search engine what would be your number one goal. This one is simple; you would want to be the most used search engine on the Internet. The only way to become the most used search engine is accuracy. People use a search engine for one reason and that is to find what they are looking for. When I first started using the Internet 12 years ago, it was difficult to find anything in a search engine. You would type in baby toys and get hundreds of sex toy sites with a few baby toys sites mixed in. Now you type in baby toys and you get baby toys. The reason Google became number one was that for several years they had the most accurate results. So if you want to get a high ranking in a search engine for the terms your pages are about, then you must give the search engine what it is looking for. The search engines became more accurate because now they look primarily at one thing. That one thing is... more.. Social Bookmarking and Power Linking Social Bookmarking and Power Linking By Andrew Daum (c) 2008 Just in case you missed it... the Web has changed. I think a little history of the Internet is in order to grasp the big picture. I'm not going to give any dates (late eighties and early 90's)... I'll just give a quick run down. I would say nearly fifteen years ago I had a dial up Internet connection that allowed me to log into various College computers, BBS's (bulletin boards) and Newsgroups. The Internet was much different than the Web is today. There were no graphics... it was totally text based and everything was dial up. All you could do was basically post to a newsgroup, post messages on some BBS's and send email. Internet Marketing as we know it today did not exist. In time though - a few brave souls ventured out of the shadows and began marketing within the newsgroups. This started wars between the "Purists" and new "Marketers" that I still remember to this day. You see, the Purists considered the Internet to be their own little playground. They viewed anyone selling something as evil. After all... Marketers had the TV, the Radio, Magazines, Newspapers, etc, etc as an avenue in which to sell their crap. "The Internet is ours" was their battle cry. They viewed the Internet as a way for them to communicate with each other without having to wade through all the BS advertising - and they could control what was being said. When the evil "Marketer" entered the picture, this all changed - and it changed quickly. Once the evil Marketer had discovered the Internet as a new... more.. The Top 10 Tools for Monitoring the Success of Your Website The Top 10 Tools for Monitoring the Success of Your Website By Steven Snell (c) 2007 One of the most important aspects of running a website is monitoring the site and its progress. By monitoring your website you will be able to see how it is performing and how it can be improved. This article covers 10 fr?tools that can help you to optimize your site for maximum results. 1 ? Google Analytics Google Analytics has become the preferred option among fr?statistics programs. Like any other stats program, Google Analytics provides data on the number of visitors, and page views, referral sources, entry and exit pages, and more. Unlike most other programs, Google Analytics includes the ability to track and monitor pay-per-cl? (PPC) campaigns. Other useful information includes the geographic location of your visitors, their internet connection speed, and their screen resolutions. You can sign up for Google Analytics at: http://bizsolutions.google.com/services/ 2 ? Google Webmaster Tools Want to know how the largest search engine in the world sees your website? Google's Webmaster Tools will give you loads of information such as the pages that are indexed, errors found by the Googlebot (dead links), your search engine rankings for specific search phrases, your anchor text on inbound links, internal and external link data, and robots.txt and sitemap data. By knowing how Google sees your site you will find some basic items that you'll need to change in order to reach your maximum potential in search engine traff? You can sign up for Google Webmaster Tools at: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ more.. How & Why You Should Perform An SEO Audit On Your Website How & Why You Should Perform An SEO Audit On Your Website By Mike Tekula (c) 2009 What makes or break an SEO campaign is knowing where to start, what is important and what is simply not worth the time. Resources are never infinite. If you're not careful you can spend them spinning wheels and tweaking things that will have no real effect on your search traffic. Plan effectively, and you'll achieve true growth and a positive return on your investment. The difference lies in understanding how search engines work - how they crawl the web and how they use that data to rank web pages - and how your website does or doesn't meet these criteria. The Technical Audit The first order of action is the technical audit of your site. Tackle these issues first because this represents the foundation of your site. Some technical problems can render web pages invisible to search engines. Identifying and resolving these issues upfront is critical. A technical audit should include: Code cleanliness / content visibility      ? Does the site use JavaScript heavily?      ? Is the code bloated?      ? Is content generated by JavaScript or otherwise not SEO-friendly? File size / page load time Navigation structure      ? Is the navigation Flash or JavaScript driven? If so, does it degrade gracefully for browsers        that don't support these technologies (like a search crawler)? URL structure      ? Are there session ID's in the page URLs?      ? Are the URLs long and do they include multiple variables and parameters?      ? Do the URLs contain keywords? Title tag / headlines      ? Does the site have unique titles and... more.. The Importance of Meta Tags Providing the Human Touch The Importance of Meta Tags Providing the Human Touch By Matthew Coers For the uninitiated, meta-tags are pieces of code within your website that contain information about each page. These tags are supposed to tell search engines and users what the page is about. If you're a little rusty on your Internet jargon, here's a primer. There are essentially three types of meta-tags that concern most marketers: Title - This is the text that appears in the title-bar of your web browser. Description - This is a quick summary of the information on the page. Keywords - These are words that are important in the page. Up until about 4 years ago, there was a tremendous focus on meta-tags as a method of improving search engine rankings. Webmasters could stuff all sorts of words into the meta-tags to improve their... more.. Why You Should Use Article Directories to Promote Your Website Why You Should Use Article Directories to Promote Your Website By Jay Gaulard (c) 2009 If you are online and are not already using article directories to promote your website, you are missing out on a free and highly effective marketing option. Article directories are great ways to draw traffic to your site without paying for advertising. However, to get real traffic to your site using an article directory, you must know how to use them correctly. What Article Directories Are Before you can use an article directory, you have to know what one is. Article directories are websites where thousands upon thousands of articles on just about any subject are posted. They are generally categorized to make it easier for readers to find information they want. They are also linked together, so a reader reading about "Hawaii travel" will naturally go from article to article on that topic. People can use the articles they find in the directories on their own websites, either for free or for a small fee. Authors pay nothing to subm?to article directories. How Article Directories Benefit Online Businesses You are probably thinking, "Sure, that's great. But how does an article directory help me promote my business? Doesn't giving away free content defeat my purpose as an online business?" These are great questions. When you subm?an article to an article directory, it will contain a bio with a link to your website. Since you are the author of the article, you are allowed to include this information. This means that anyone who is searching online and comes across the article directory will see a link to your site. Not only that, but the people who use the content on their own websites... more.. The SEO's Toolkit: Tools The SEO's Toolkit: Tools By Dave Davies (c) 2009 Welcome to part two of this three part series on SEO tools and resources. In the last article we discussed the variety of Firefox extensions used for SEO. In this article we'll discuss some of the free and affordable tools you can use to better your organic optimization efforts. By affordable I mean for virtually everybody so I'm going to set the bar at $100/yr or ownership. Admittedly, we use tools that cost more than this but many of those tools will be out of some people's price range. Here are some of the key tools you need to use to help insure the successful optimization of your website. Google Keyword Tool Many of you are likely familiar with Google's keyword tool, but it needs to be noted. This is a great resource for researching keywords. As with all keyword tools, it has its limitations and most would agree that it seems to overestimate search volume but nonetheless it is probably the best of the keyword tools out there, especially at the price. Keyword Discovery No individual set of data is perfect and no stage of the SEO process is more important than keyword research and selection. Keyword Discovery is a great tool to compare with the Google keyword data. Where you find commonalities you know that 2 independent sets of data agree. With a free tr? that may itself work for many - it's certainly worth looking into. Keyword Spy While the paid version of this tool is more than the $100/yr. max I noted previously - the free version provides some great data. Simply enter... more.. Microsoft vs Google: Game On or Bing results too "Spammy"? Microsoft vs Google: Game On or Bing results too "Spammy"? By V9 Design & Build (c) 2009 It didn't look too promising at the launch but Bing has been constantly in the news ever since. Some say the results are better than Google, even going as far as suggesting Google is all but finished. I don't agree. On one of the search engine forums I often comment on, one of the moderators had this to say on the subject: "But overall this confirms my sense that Google, having abandoned the business model that got it to the top, viz. fast no frills search, in favour of added features and buying up other companies, is becoming increasingly fat and complacent, and along the way their search results are becoming less relevant." Now, I have to say that I had a small run-in with this guy as he supports everything Microsoft does, from its browser to its operating system and now to its new "decision engine". So when he writes - "I've been using Bing lately and I'm finding a lot of advantages over Google. These are early days yet but this is the first emerging search engine that may provide a real threat to Google's dominance - something I for one welcome," - I'm a little suspicious. There's plenty of supporters out there giving online commentaries on Bing's progress. TechCrunch.com, for example, analyses its early success by saying: "Microsoft sites' average daily penetration among US searchers reached 16.7 percent during the work week of June 8-12, up 3 percentage points from the May 25-29 period (which was prior to Bing's introduction) and up over 1 percentage point from its first week." However, on webpronews.com following its launch, Matt Cutts,... more.. The Most Common Reason for Dropped Rankings - Duplication The Most Common Reason for Dropped Rankings: Duplication By Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc. Repeatedly my sal?and consulting staff find themselves explaining that using duplicate content can and will negatively affect search engine rankings and it is heartbreaking to see clients having to rebuild rankings due to such a simple mistake. As a result, I felt it was time to write this article and hopefully dispel many misled website owners. Why write an entire article on something as simple as duplicate content? Well probably because it is not as simple as it sounds and many website owners find themselves in the grey area of duplication; where they don't know for sure whether they are risking rankings or not. The following is a sectional breakdown of the most common duplicate content issues we see defined from the standpoint of a question ? hopefully making this article a little easier to read. After all, I have no illusions that reading up on duplicate content rules is exciting. Duplicate Websites Definition: a duplicate website is a website that has many if not all of the same pages as another live website. Note: the following quest?s are based on a person who owns two websites that are duplicates. Q: "Why is a duplicate website such a bad idea?" A: The major search engines are constantly trying to improve the quality of their search engine results in an effort to provide the best quality content for users. When duplicate content is indexed by search engine spiders, valuable time and processing power is wasted. As a result, search engines have blocked sites that used duplicate content from... more.. Top Ten SEO Myths Top Ten SEO Myths By Andy MacDonald Ever wonder what the biggest SEO myths are? I have taken the most prevalent myths that seem to be constantly resurfacing and examined them for you. This is a must read for anyone looking to hire an SEO firm or someone looking to do SEO for themselves. Myth # 1: All Meta Tags Are Of Equal Importance Some Meta tags are useful while others are not. I have stated this many times. Search engines are relying more and more about what is on the website than what the tags are telling them. The description tag is used by some (but not all) search engines. The same goes for the keyword tag. Keyword tags are used more by spammers and people using software to find you as a link partner than the search engines. In my opinion, the only tags you should concentrate your efforts on are the robot tag and the description tags. Myth # 2: You Should Submit Your Site to Search Engines Weekly or Monthly Honestly, I nev?submit any site more than 1 time and sometimes I don't even do that. If you submit your site once, you're good. The engines will come back on their own. You can sometimes speed up the process of getting your site indexed by linking it to a high traff?or high PR site. The search engines will find the URL to your site and index it automatically. Myth # 3: SEO is Too Expensive Actually, SEO is probably the most cost effective f?of online marketing. Organic SEO is cheaper... more.. Putting The "Ad" Into Adwords Putting The "Ad" Into Adwords By Peter Astley-Sparke (c) 2008 When you're new to AdWords, it's tempting to devote far too much time and energy in trying to craft that "killer" ad. But the truth is that writing ads is a science, not an art. Here are a few of the rules. 1) Don't Fly Blind... In over five years developing AdWords campaigns, we've haven't ever seen a profitable example that didn't track conversions. AdWords Conversion Tracking is simple to install and a "must" for measuring ad performance. Remember, by itself the Cl?-Through- Rate (CTR) of an ad tells you nothing about the ROI it's delivering. We've seen many examples of ads with a lower CTR, but higher conversion rate. Google Analytics obviously adds a great deal more data, but takes time to master. However, one feature worth using immediately is its ability to tell you which ad position yields the best results. Finally, don't forget the AdWords Reports section. This has improved significantly over the past year, and the Search Query Performance report is a real asset in optimizing keywords and ad copy. 2) Cut out the Middle Man... In this case, the "middle man" is Google. When developing and testing your ads, it's vital to put yourself in control as far as possible: Delivery Method: By default, Google spreads the delivery of your ads evenly throughout the day, ensuring you don't exhaust your daily budget (and they get to spend as much of it as possible). However, it also serves to mask the true demand for your product or service. We have seen many cases where ads are more profitable at certain... more.. Microsoft Going After Google Microsoft Going After Google By Jim Hedger, Step Forth News Editor, Step Forth Placement Inc. "This is hypercompetition, make no mistake," Bill Gates, November 2005. Gates is worried about Google and has been for a while. For years, observers have watched Microsoft, imagining the frantic pacing behind closed office doors in the executive suites, waiting for something major to happen. There have been articles about the rearrangement of furniture around the board table and the flinging of furniture across Steve Ballmer's office but, for the most part, very little of substance has been written about Microsoft's plans to deal with Google. That's because, until recently, the moves Microsoft has made have appeared to be either cosmetic and internal, or clumsily executed and easily thwarted. This week, work that's been happening in the background is showing fruit. For Microsoft, the month of May has come in like a triumphant lion. When you are used to being the king of the pride, nothing says success like taking big chunks of business from the competition and over the past few days, Microsoft has scored big gains in its fight against Google. These gains, coupled with today's rumors of a Microsoft/Yahoo... more.. Powerful Press Release Distribution Tips Powerful Press Release Distribution Tips By Diana Barnum While press release writing is important, press release distribution plays an equally important role in your return on ?estment (ROI) with this marketing / public relations tool. Because without targeted distribution, many prospects, clients and other interested parties may not even read your latest announcement or hear about it via other channels; TV, radio, print publications, etc. In order to bring your news to light with more of your targeted audience, try some of these tips for a more successful distribution: Media L? Management Start a folder on your computer and in hard copy form for media lists in order to keep a l? of contacts readily available and updated. Identify media outlets - both online and off - in your targeted industries; for example: Business and Marketing. Add local, regional, national and International channels to cover television, radio, newspapers, magazines, online publications, newswire and other services. A targeted media l? is an invaluable tool for most businesses. The best way to build your l? is to carefully watch, read and listen, then track media publications and shows, and to identify reporters and producers who would be interested in your story. Contact the media outlets as needed for their most recent contact name, email address, telephone and fax number, before sending your information. Tip: Using contact management software program such as ACT! or Maximizer for this purpose can help you build and maintain relationships with the media. Even using Excel to create your own spreadsheets helps with organization. There are several sources online that will help you build your media l?; however, keep... more.. The Google Goal Of Indexing 100 Billion Web Pages The Google Goal Of Indexing 100 Billion Web Pages By Danny Wirken Google's Goal of Quality Search In their paper 'The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine' it is very evident that Google's goal has always been to be one of the best search engines there is in terms of the quality of the results it gives. Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, however knew that in order to do this, Google needed to be able to store information efficiently and cost effectively and to have excellent crawling, indexing, and sorting methods or techniques. Google not only aimed to give quality results but to produce the results as fast as possible. Google started as a high quality search engine and continues to be the best search engine today. It has managed to stay true to its original intent to be a search engine that not only crawls and indexes the web efficiently but also a search engine that produces more satisfying results in comparison to other existing search engines. To stay true to the goal of providing the best search results, Google knew right from the start that it had to be designed so that the search engine could catch up with the web's growth. According to Brin and Page "In designing Google we have considered both the rate of growth of the Web and technological changes. Google is designed to scale well to extremely large data sets. It makes efficient use of storage space to store the index". They knew that they needed much space to store an ever growing index. Google's index size, which started out as 24 million web pages, was large for its... more.. What Your S.E.O. Strategist Won't Tell You What Your S.E.O. Strategist Won't Tell You By Jerry Bader (c) 2007 Maybe you own your own business, or perhaps you're a critical cog in the corporate machinery responsible for marketing your company, brand, product or service. If that describes you, here's eighteen things you need to know about Web-marketing but were afraid to believe. 1. Time To Be Heard Your mother told you 'children should be seen and not heard,' but you're not a kid anymore. So why are you listening to all those guys telling you not to use audio on your website. If you want to deliver a lot of content that people will remember, try letting your website do the talking. 2. There's Nothing Like the Real Thing In a world of virtual everything there's nothing like the real thing. The sound and image of real people delivering your marketing message makes it a believable, memorable presentation. 3. Unlock the Conventional Wisdom Straightjacket Driving traff?to your site is great, if those visitors stay long enough to find out why they should be doing business with you. If your website traff?is leaving as fast as it's arriving, maybe search engine optimization isn't the answer you've been looking for. 4. Linking Your Way To Obscurity You know the reciprocal linking strategy everyone is talking about as a way to generate leads? Did you ever consider that each link to another website is an invitation to leave your site? Is that really what you want - to invite people to leave? I think not! 5. Your Company's Voice... more.. How to Write Articles for Improved Search Engine Rank How to Write Articles for Improved Search Engine Rank By Peter Nisbet (c) 2008 If you are looking for improved search engine rank for any page on your website, you have to learn how to write articles in order to make use of one of the major and most useful resources online: article directories. Just as website directories can be used to promote your website online, article directories can be used to publish your articles. These articles can in turn be used to promote a specific page on your website, and in this respect are more useful than a website directory listing that promotes only your home page. You have few opportunities to direct search engine spiders directly to a page of your choice, and when one arises it should be made good use of. In fact, other than article directories and links on your website, you are unlikely to find such an opportun?, and it should be seized whenever it arises. However, very few people actually know how to make best use of such an opportun? and to use their articles intelligently to drive masses of traffic to their site. You can use your Author's Resource to achieve that, but in order to get the Resource read, you have to get the article read. For that to happen, you have to write a good article and then make people read it. To do that your title must be good enough to persuade people to read it. To achieve that you must be able to write a good title. So how do you achieve all of these things? That is the purpose of... more.. Knowing Your Visitors Through Website Traff?Analysis Knowing Your Visitors Through Website Traff?Analysis By Don Resh (c) 2007 Analyzing your web traff?statistics can be an invaluable tool for a number of different reasons. But before you can make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to interpret the data. Most web host? companies will provide you with basic web traff?information that you then have to interpret and make pertinent use of. However, the data you receive from your host company can be overwhelming if you don't understand how to apply it to your particular business and website. Let's start by examining the most basic data - the average visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. These figures are the most accurate measure of your website's activity. It would appear on the surface that the more traff?you see recorded, the better you can assume your website is doing, but this is an inaccurate perception. You must also look at the behavior of your visitors once they come to your website to accurately gauge the effectiveness of your site. Traff?Analysis There is often a great misconception about what is commonly known as "hits" and what is really effective, quality traff?to your site. Hits simply means the number of information requests received by the server. If you think about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits, when in reality we are talking about a single... more.. How to Use Web Analytics to Grow Your Business How to Use Web Analytics to Grow Your Business By Mike Tekula (c) 2009 If you own a business, chances are you do. But don't pat yourself on the back too quickly. By now it's widely-accepted that if you have a business card you should probably have a website. It doesn't matter what your company is selling - a website, however modest, has become a standard. The real question is: what is your website doing for your business? As a web marketer I often put this question to the business owners I meet. Not because I'm trying to lead into my sales pitch, but because I'm intrigued to hear the answer. Most people get a certain "deer in the headlights" look in their eyes when I ask this question. To be fair, it's not a question we're used to hearing. But that's not all that's going on here. Traditional advertising mediums - print, TV, radio, etc - are notoriously difficult to track. Sure, you'll know how often the phone is ringing or how many people come in with a coupon clipped from the Sunday paper, but what you don't know is how many people saw/heard your ad and whether they were interested, oblivious or, worse, annoyed. Business owners are used to this. We all know we need to advertise - it's a necessary cost of doing business - so we buy that half-page ad in the Yellow Pages or the local newspaper, we sponsor an event or a little league team, we have a radio commercial written (maybe even with a jingle) and we hope for the best. This has been a given in marketing since... more.. Improve Every Aspect of Your Business With Twitter! Improve Every Aspect of Your Business With Twitter! By Abe Cherian (c) 2009 You've seen countless articles and e-books written about it, but do you know how to market online with Twitter? If you don't, you're not alone. Most marketers are still boggled when it comes to using Twitter in their promot? efforts. The main reason is because marketers don't realize the sheer ingenuity of our favorite microblog's 140-character limit communication. The reality is that the internet is information overload for most people. The genius of Twitter is that communication is forced into small chunks of information which most people can willingly digest. Presented with the option, people are more inclined to read a sentence or two as opposed to a long, involved blog entry or email! In this article, I will demonstrate how Twitter can not only be used by your business for marketing purposes, but also for customer service, product development, free publicity, and valuable access to experts! Twitter for Marketing If marketing entails everything you do to place your product or service in the hands of potential customers, including all communication, relationship building, and brand recognition - Twitter makes it instant. For this reason, it is the perfect social networking platform for announcing sales, specials, and promotions. Many larger companies, such as Dell, have a Twitter account to announce sales as soon as they become available. As a small business owner, you can harness the power of Twitter this way too! If you can get hundreds, or even thousands of people interested in your niche to follow your company's tweets, you have a targeted l? of prospects at... more.. Web Directories for SEO Web Directories for SEO by Adrian Lawrence If you are looking for ways to promote your website, then web directories should definitely be considered a big part of your promotional plan. Web directories provide web visitors with a one-stop destination on the web to find the information they are looking for. Further, in using web directories, you can increase the visibility of your website and derive myriad benefits offered by web directories. Let's take a look at the benefits that webmasters derive from web directories: 1. Some webmasters might wonder why they should bother to submit to web directories when 80% of all website traffic comes from search engines. The answer is simple when you consider the following: what about the other 20%? When you are attempting to maximize the traffic that comes to your website, every little bit of promotion helps and web directories can help you gain a big chuck of that 20% of web traffic you have been missing out on. 2. Did you know that a key factor in the ranking algorithm of search engines is link popularity? By using web directories you will be creating more links that point directly to your site and the raising your ranking in various search engines across the Internet. Further, everyone knows that a higher search engine ranking is equivalent to easier accessibility... more.. Website Design That Works (Part 1) Website Design That Works (Part 1) By Kevin Gallagher (c) 2007 Introduction Before you even think about opening Dreamweaver or your favourite html editor and start designing your site there are a few things I believe you need to do first. I am going to describe how to ?rease your work flow and give you some general tips and tricks that will speed up the design of your website project and help to get it showing up in search engines quicker. In future articles I will be going into greater detail of some of the topics I describe here. Now let's get started. Purchasing and Optimizing Your Domain Name The first thing you need to consider is your domain name. I suggest that you don't just use your company name, i.e. if your company makes tartan paint and your company name is "Hamish Paints" don't go for the obvious choice of hamishpaints.com. I would try and come up with a keyword rich domain name. Some search engine optimizers (SEO) would say that having keywords in your domain name doesn't make any difference to your listings but I disagree. Google will highlight your keywords in the search engine results page (SERPS), which leads me to believe that keywords do hold some we?t, and besides it will make it clearer to the searcher what your site is all about. What are Keywords? Keywords from a search engine optimization (SEO) stand point are the key -words that are used to optimize your website for better listings on search engines. These are the words or phrases people are typing into the search bar of Google... more.. Backlinks - How To Get High Quality One Way Links To Your Websites Backlinks - How To Get High Quality One Way Links To Your Websites By Matt Garrett (c) 2007 There are basically two aspects to SEO, "on page" & "off page" optimization. "On Page" SEO is easy because it's totally under your control. It's simply a case of making sure you have optimized your web pages correctly. OK, so there is a bit more to it than that, like keyword research, keyword density & frequency, which html tags to use, making sure your site/pages are W3 Compliant, using relative/absolute internal linking structures to feed the pagerank where it's most effective, using titles and descriptions that encourage people to cl? through from the SERP's etc. But essentially, once you know how to do all that, it's not difficult to get it right for all your pages/sites. It's also less important in the long run than getting sufficient links to your site/pages from other sites. Getting links to your site is fundamental to getting visitors, and without visitors all the time, effort and money invested in getting your site up and running, and looking "nice", is irrelevant. No Visitors = No Point! So links are essential to the health of your site, and indeed your business, but all links are not equal in value to your site. Reciprocal links will help, but they are far less effective than one way backlinks, i.e. links from another site where you don't have to link back to them. These "One Way" backlinks will give your site a far greater boost in the search engine results and bring you more traff? providing of course that you have chosen good (relevant) keywords for your links. There... more.. Six Steps to Writing Offers Inspiring Customers to Act Six Steps to Writing Offers Inspiring Customers to Act By Judy Murdoch (c) 2008 Highly Contagious Marketing Until fairly recently, writing marketing copy was a strange and mysterious undertaking to me. It's funny because when I was doing advertising research, I often worked closely with copywriters. I would interview customers to learn how they responded to different messages and report back to the creative team. Sometimes the copywriter or art director would have questions they wanted me to ask my focus groups. So I got to know the writers and their work pretty well. Yet, when they went back to their desk to actually create the message, I had no idea how they came up with the words that moved customers to action. Customer-Focused Story to the Rescue! Turns out like any professional, copywriters have systems. One such system that has made my writing life infinitely easier is the Customer Focused Story: A six step process that helps you develop a message that inspires action on the part of your readers. [ Note: I am grateful to marketer/copywriter extraordinaire, Mark Silver, who developed the Customer Focused Story process and taught me how to use it. Learn more about Mark at www.heartofbusiness.com ] The power behind the Customer Focus Story is this: before people are ready to take action, it is absolutely critical that they feel safe to do so. By "safe" I mean your copy addresses two, usually unarticulated questions: (1.) Do they feel that the business making the offer understands the problem they're struggling with? (2.) Can the business help THEM? If your copy helps them answer "yes" to those two questions,... more.. The Brand Story Web Marketing Process The Brand Story Web Marketing Process By Jerry Bader (c) 2009 If websites have one overarching goal it is to create confidence in whatever the website is promoting and who's promoting it. It doesn't matter if it's a product, a service, a sales campaign, or an idea, if the presentation is not minimally credible or optimally motivational, then it fails as a means of marketing communication. Communicate to the Subconscious Mind Branding is often thought of as a marketing strategy reserved for major consumer product companies, but the fact is all businesses are brands that are either cultivated so they blossom, or let go-to-seed like a garden full of weeds. Marketing neophytes often think of branding only in terms of some physical manifestation, like a logo, but a brand is the full complement of residual impressions resulting from all the experiences associated with a product, service or company. And today, the online experience is a vital venue for creating those experiences. By using video, the marketer has the opportunity to tap into the audiences' subconscious mind, the buried remnants of both remembered and forgotten experiences; the kind of experiences that form attitudes, prejudices, and preferences that inform our decisions, most importantly our buying decisions. Where Businesses Go Wrong Where businesses go wrong is settling for only the obvious, the logical, and the rational. Brands are formed in the subconscious, so if your marketing communication doesn't reach the subconscious mind then it is not establishing or enhancing the brand in any meaningful, effective long-term way. What video does, when done right, is communicate on both the obvious and subconscious levels, making it the ideal Web-communication vehicle for creating a powerful brand experience, but only if you understand how to use the... more.. 4 Stealthy Sources Of Powerful Internet Marketing Intelligence 4 Stealthy Sources Of Powerful Internet Marketing Intelligence By Willie Crawford (c) 2009 In online market? it is critical that you keep up with what is going on in your industry. You do need to know who is doing what - and why they are doing it. You do need to take the time to research potential joint venture partners, products, and competing businesses. Here are four excellent tools and how to use them. 1) Internet Archive - Also known as "The Way Back Machine". There are actually many facets to this amaz? site but the feature that I use most is the ability to look at a historical snapshot of a website/domain. There is a box on the site where you can enter any url, and it will show you "snapshots" taken of that website over time. For example, if your were to enter my domain "williecrawford.com" you'd be able to sift through actual archived pages from my website between December 1998 and today. Every week or two a new snapshot of the site was taken and stored in the Archive.org database. That lets you confirm how long a website has been online (provided it was archived), lets you see how a business evolved over time, and will even reveal to you things a marketer may have been testing that perhaps didn't work out. I use this tool to confirm how long a site/person has been in business. I also use it to confirm how long a person has actually been in a particular niche or discipline. I use it in deciding who to actually form business relationships with. If you discover... more.. How search engine marketing tools can work for you: or, searching is really all about finding How search engine marketing tools can work for you: or, searching is really all about finding Summary This is the second of three articles. Part 1 appeared in the August issue of Information Outlook. Search engine optimization and marketing covers a wide range of activities, many of which are similar to what a reference librarian, systems librarian, or market researcher does. Although the focus is the World Wide Web, many of the tools that are used have broader applications for special librarians. Internal corporate processes. Web analytics tools measure and analyze corporate sales, customer preferences and problems, viable products and channels, and other issues that may provide answers for questions received by special librarians. Competitive intelligence/market research. Keyword research, Web site saturation and popularity tools can provide information on a company's competitors: how they are marketing on the Internet, what they are spending on online marketing campaigns, how they are pricing their products. Legal issues. Who Is tools can provide valuable information relating to copyright and trademark issues. Link Popularity tools can show who is deep-linking to your site. Log files, in conjunction with Who Is tools, can tell you who may be committing click fraud on your paid placement campaigns or spamming your e-mail servers. Back end knowledge of how Web sites work. These tools can show you what may be keeping search engines from indexing your site and can highlight customer service issues. SECOND OF THREE ARTICLES Web site saturation and popularity tools show how much presence a Web site has on search engines through the number of pages of the site that are indexed on each search engine (saturation) and how many times the site is linked to by other sites (popularity). more.. How To Construct a Web-Video Advertisement That Works How To Construct a Web-Video Advertisement That Works By Jerry Bader Motivate and Persuade Your Audience More mon?is wasted on advertising than any other business function. Small and mid-sized businesses in particular throw mon?at advertising in a vain attempt to establish themselves in the marketplace. However, there is hope that the democratizing nature of the Web environment can even the playing field and allow smaller companies to deliver their marketing messages effectively. But before that can happen, the potential advertiser must understand what the big boys have spent a considerable amount of time and effort to find out: how to create an advertising campaign that motivates and persuades customers to do business with you. Take Advantage of What Major Advertisers Already Know Chuck Young, founder and CEO of Ameritest, an advertising and brand research firm and John Kastenholz, Vice President of Consumer and Market Insight at Unilever have done extensive research into how story telling, emotions, and ideas are linked in creating effective commercial advertising. Since their research was based on television advertising it holds immediate relevance to any company that intends on using the Web as a significant presentation tool for delivering their marketing message. The cost of producing and airing broadcast television commercials is exorbitant, and that cost necessitates the kind of research done by Young and Kastenholz. Web-based marketers can benefit from the psychological insights provided from these studies and implement the findings in cost effective Web-video and audio presentations on websites, Google Video, Google Video Ads, YouTube, MySpace, and the countless other video presentation vehicles popping up on the Web daily. In Chuck Young's article, "A Film... more.. Google cn The Internet As Beijing Sees It Google cn The Internet As Beijing Sees It By Joseph Pratt In November, I wrote an article and referenced a trip that ICMediaDirect.com's VP of Business Development, Diana Lee, took to China