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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.. 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.. 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.. Using Google Local, Yahoo Local and MSN Local Using Google Local, Yahoo Local and MSN Local   Considering that a listing in Yahoo costs $299 per year, there exists 3 excellent opprtunities that are 100% free!   Those opportunities offer you a great way to get your local business to the top of the search engine results pages. It will take you about 1 hour of your time, and just 30 minutes in planning, but yields an amazing amount of long-term search results. Every business owner should perform this. If you have a physical address, adding your business to Google, Yahoo, & MSN local will help your current and potential customers easily find your company.   How To List Your Business On Local Business Centers Google Local Business Start by setting up a Google Maps account here. Then make sure to be as descriptive as possible about your business can be. Use your keyword phrases, separated with a comma, in the Description field. This will help increase the odds of your local business ad showing up when people are searching. Make sure and include all hours and payment information. Google local business ad?s will have the most power of the three and can really generate a lot of results within Google. Many times it will simple be people searching for your specific business but there is a lot to be said for making things easy on them. Also, remember to use an image, such as a logo.   MSN Local Business To add your local business to the MSN local business center you will follow a similar procedure except it?s faster. Go to this link and start signing up. As with Google local business you will want to be as detailed as possible and take the... 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.. 47 Simple Ways to Build Trust in Your Website or Blog 47 Simple Ways to Build Trust in Your Website or Blog By Miles Galliford (c) 2007 If your website does not create a sense of trust in your visitors, all your efforts will be in vain. Your online business will not succeed. That's the bad news. The good news is that it is very easy to create and build trust in your online visitors. Below, I have listed all the techniques used by the hundreds of websites I have helped launch. If you have additional techniques, please add them to the l?. As the old saying goes, you have only one chance to make a first impression. Building trust cannot be achieved by one single action. Trust is achieved by hundreds of little things you do throughout your website that, when taken together, give readers a sense of honesty, legitimacy and stability. The other bit of good news is that few website owners focus on building trust in the minds of their visitors. If you do it well, it can become a real and sustainable competitive advantage. Here are 47 simple actions you can take to get started.   1. Trust is built by lots of small actions on every page of your website.   2. Your website design is the first impression. Make sure it is professional and relevant to the subject matter.   3. Navigation must be intuitive. If visitors can't find what they are looking for easily, they will question your competence in providing what they want.   4. Make the website personal by giving it its own tone and voice. People buy people.   5. Follow the HEART rule of creating online content. (Reminder:... more.. Following Yahoo to a Wealth of Traffic Following Yahoo to a Wealth of Traffic By Mark Daoust  Consider Yahoo the first major casualty of the search engine wars. Yahoo has admitted that they cannot reasonably expect to take away any significant amount of the search market share from Google, so they have chosen to be happy as the second most visited search engine on the Internet. On the surface, this may seem strange. Why would Yahoo ever publicly announce that they are 'throwing in the towel' in the search engine war? That would be similar to Pepsi recommending that people drink their product only if Coca-Cola is not available. From a business standpoint, it is absolutely ridiculous and makes absolutely no sense. But be careful to not read into this too far. Yahoo may have tipped their hat to Google as being dominant in the traditional search engine market, but this does not mean that they are giving up the fight for Internet users' attention. In fact, for some time n?Yahoo has been moving towards a market which is quickly emerging as being just as powerful as search engines currently are. Yahoo Moves to Web 2.0 Style Websites In a few of the articles published h? at Site Reference we have mentioned Web 2.0 and how Yahoo seems to be following this development trend, but we have nev?looked into why Yahoo is so fascinated by Web 2.0. As most of you probably know, Yahoo launched My Web 2.0, a public bookmarking service, along with acquiring Del.icio.us, a well-established public bookmarking service. Yahoo also launched Yahoo Answers, a service which relies on a community of users to answer quest?s that the same community asks. There is a common trend with all of these services - they all rely on... 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.. 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.. Domain Hijacking Domain Hijacking By Douglas Miller (c) 2007 There's a frightening new batch of scams going around now that can damage your reputation as domain "squatters" steal your domain name. There are a number of ways the "game" is played. The first is entirely legal, if more than a little questionable. In this version, the name of a city or geographic area is grabbed by a domain squatter and pointed to... "sites that you wouldn't want your children visiting." (We chose that term to avoid getting caught in a lot of sp@m filters for the use of the word "p-o-rn.") A prominent notice is placed on the sites, offering them for sale at prices that range from $2500 to as much as $500,000! The idea here is that city officials will feel that enough damage is being done to the reputations of their towns that they'll pay to keep them from being associated with that type of material. It's obviously safe to say that it's not appropriate to pop those kinds of images into people's faces while they're looking for info on a completely different topic. That's where the pressure on the cities comes from, and why this is such a disgusting scheme. In essence, the domain squatter says: "Pay us, or continue to watch as your city's reputation suffers." Many would call this blackmail... The second variation on the theme is not always legal. When someone takes a trademarked name (or variation of the spelling of one) or a famous person's name, and does the same thing. For trademarks or close variations, there's a specific procedure for addressing the problem. (See the resource section at the end of this issue.) For the names... more.. How to Get Top Search Engine Optimization and Placement Results with Google Caffeine How to Get Top Search Engine Optimization and Placement Results with Google Caffeine By Wendy Suto (c) 2010 Since its debut in 1996, Google's search engine has experienced countless updates and revisions. But none of those revisions have fundamentally changed the architecture of the Google search algorithm as much as Google's latest update, codenamed Caffeine. While recent reports put Google's market share at around 65 percent, a massive update to its search engine technology makes sense at this point. Microsoft's new Bing search engine showed some resiliency in late 2009, while Web 2.0 services like Facebook and Twitter have done a lot to change the way people search for content on the Internet. For Google to remain the most popular search service, it will have to counter Bing's claims of technical superiority. It would also have to more effectively incorporate "real-time search," the term used for finding information and content - like tweets from Twitter and breaking news stories - that have just been posted. That means a radically different Google search engine. And it also means that those who care about Website search engine optimization and placement may have a lot of new rules to learn if they want to earn high Website rankings on Google. Because Caffeine is a significant departure from previous versions of Google's search engines, Website owners and marketers could see dramatically different results for their search engine optimization and placement efforts. But the good news is that Google has offered Webmasters and online marketers a taste of Caffeine's unique algorithms. Search engine optimization and placement specialists have been able to test their Websites against an early version of Caffeine. And while it's a nice gesture by Google to provide the... 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.. Social Networking with Training Wheels Social Networking with Training Wheels By John Jantsch (c) 2008 Look, I don't really think that the mySpaces and Facebooks of the world are that important for the typical small business as they stand today. There may be very practical business reasons for some to actually use these and other, what are called social networks, for business gain, but most people that have jumped on the social network bandwagon have found themselves left with a "is this all there is" kind of feeling. To those, I say this, the value of the current public social networks for business folks is not what you can get out of them for gain today, but what you can learn by using them for practical gain tomorrow. That's why SpacebookedIn makes sense for you now. The Facebooks of the world are busy teaching millions and millions of business folks how social networks work, how social networking works, how shared applications can be viral and ever-present. The real payoff in my opinion is that the wave to come after the Facebook bubble bursts is the "personalized business network." Once everyone of your customers and prospects knows how to use what are easily replicatable social networking tools, like building profiles, sharing video and connecting based on mutual interests, your job of building your own social business network around your own very specific community of niche will get a whole lot easier. 2008 will be the year of the personalized social business network. So, if you've decided to take a pass on the whole social networking trend, I would suggest that you use this handy list to start learning... 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 Benefits of a Solid Content Management System The Benefits of a Solid Content Management System By Mike Tekula (c) 2008 In the early days of the web most sites consisted of a handful of HTML pages. For smaller sites, it made sense for webmasters to use programs like Microsoft Front Page and Macromedia (now Adobe Dreamweaver) to edit their site templates, which usually contained the navigation, header and footer (the "shell" of the site), and individual pages. Editor's Note: On Dec. 29/08, we published an article by Kalena Jordan entitled "A Beginner's Guide to Google Website Optimizer (Part 1)". The entire article which includes Part 2 can be found at SiteProNews.com. The problems? Messy code These so-called What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWIG) editors didn't always get the code right. Webmasters almost always had to get into the back-end and tweak the HTML source code. This took time. Tedious site updates Edits to a site template meant every page had to be updated and reuploaded to the web server. This took time and used resources - especially before the days of broadband. Painstaking SEO Optimizing for search engines meant going through every page and manually making sure your H1 (header) and Title tags were well optimized. Risk of data loss Forgetting to download the most recent version of a site when working with multiple site editors or from multiple locations made it easy for editors to overwrite site updates - sometimes losing hundreds of hours of work with one ill-advised click of the "upload" button. While Adobe Dreamweaver has certainly come a long way over the years (messy code... 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.. 10 Truths About Obtaining Better Google Rankings 10 Truths About Obtaining Better Google Rankings By Kevin Gallagher (c) 2007 Introduction I have read hundreds of articles telling me how to get better rankings in Google. Some of this advice was very good and some was not. Here you will find 10 truths about getting better rankings in Google that I personally have found to be true after years of research. So let's cut through the fat and get to the lean meat of the subject. 1. The Quick Fix First the bad news, unfortunately there are no quick fixes in creating higher rankings in Google. You have to have a lot of patience in the search engine optimization game. It will take months for your efforts to come to fruition. That's why it's important to get things right from the start and plan out your strategy. 2. Keywords Keywords are the most important part of search engine optimization. You must do your keyword research before starting your website if you can, because this will form the basis of all your search engine optimization. There is no point going for broad keywords such as "website design" since there is too much competition for those keywords and you will find it very difficult, if not impossible, to reach the top spot in Google. You are better off using long tail niche keywords. They will have a smaller search volume, but it will be easier to obtain top position. People are more likely to find what they are looking for with long tail keywords. For example, if someone needs a website, they may type "web design" into Google and visit a... 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.. Social Marketing vs Generic SEO - What's The Difference? Social Marketing vs Generic SEO - What's The Difference? By Dave Talbot (c) 2010 There are many different methods of marketing your business website, on-line shop or e-commerce website, but for many business owners there seems to be a bit of confusion between what is considered generic back link building and what is a true social marketing campaign, and more to the point what is the aim of each marketing strategy? Different SEO and web marketing companies will of course employ different methodologies to promote a site and more often than not you get what you pay for so to speak. Equally there is bound to be a crossover in campaign strategies the debate of which could go on for months, but the purpose of this article is to highlight the key differences and aims of each type of campaign not what any single campaign should contain. Generic Search Engine Marketing Typically the aim of a generic search engine marketing campaign (SEM) is to develop relevant and targeted anchor text back links to specific pages on your website to improve your site's link profile and authority in the eyes of the search engines. This of course is all aimed at improving your website ranking and to ensure your website becomes "known" in the search engines for the particular key phrases you are most interested in ranking for. Low level or cheap link building services often include article marketing, content distribution and directory submissions, although most professional SEO practioners will probably dismiss directory submissions as the quality of these links is generally very poor at best and sometimes dubious also. Low level or cheap link building services can also take advantage of what have become known as social... more.. Top 10 Tips for Using Web 2.0 to Promote Your Business Top 10 Tips for Using Web 2.0 to Promote Your Business By Kevin Stirtz (c) 2007 We hear a lot about "Web 2.0" these days. It sounds neat and it's trendy to talk about blogging and social media. But does it really affect our businesses? Is Web 2.0 just for kids and tech-hipsters or is it something we business owners should use to help promote our businesses? I can't tell you if Web 2.0 is right for your business, but I can tell you it's something to be aware of. Ignoring it means ignoring a possible tool that could be valuable in helping you get more customers. So, to help you get started in thinking about Web 2.0 for your business, here are some things for you to consider. 1. Have a plan Don't dive in just because it's cool or because you read an article about it. Be clear about what you're trying to accomplish, how much you're willing to invest and what time frame you are working on. Like any aspect of your business - plan ahead. 2. Make sure your target audience is online Web 2.0 tools are fun but useless if the people who see your stuff don't want what you off? Or if they don't look to the Web for information to help them buy what you sell, then your efforts will be less effective. Like any marketing channel, it only works if your prospective customers are there to see (or hear) your message and they are receptive to it. 3. Create good content Web 2.0 is the social web, but it's still... more.. Killer Campaigns, Making Emotional Connections Killer Campaigns, Making Emotional Connections By Jerry Bader (c) 2009 We live in an age of clones: somebody makes a very profitable movie about vampires, and the next thing you know we're all inundated with movies, television shows, books, blogs, websites, and every form of blood-sucking permutation you can imagine. CSI begets CSI Miami, which begets CSI New York, which begets NCIS, which begets NCIS Los Angeles, which is just about as much as anyone can take. If something is successful, you can be sure more of the same will follow. Despite the occasional success story, most clones either fail completely, or never live up to the success of their groundbreaking predecessors. Most of the copycats fail because the clone-masters behind them don't understand why the original worked, and as a consequence, they clone all the wrong elements. This is as true of commercial presentations as it is with broadcast programming. Cloning a successful format is not the same as Slipstreaming. Clone marketing is just rote copying of technical elements without any reference to why the original worked, whereas Slipstream marketing takes a familiar idea and plays off it like a great jazz musician reinterprets an old standard. Kleenex "Let It Out" Campaign: Recognizing The Emotional Value Proposition What is more generic than facial tissue? A consumable paper product that you use once and discard; it is the very definition of a commodity, and as we all know commodity-sales are primarily based on price. Enter Kimberly Clark, one company that has managed to turn their commodity product into the industry standard to the extent that the commodity itself has become known by Kimberly Clark's designated brand name - Kleenex. The Kleenex, "Let It Out"... more.. Going Broke on Google Adwords? Going Broke on Google Adwords? By Kim Roach (c) 2006 You've heard the stories. Cl? fraud has run rampant on Google, Yahoo, and MSN. This is evidenced by the numerous law suits that have been filed. One of the most notable cases occurred this year when Google settled their own cl? fraud case to the tune of 90 million dollars. In fact, Google and Yahoo have each settled a class action lawsuit filed by marketers. Cl? Fraud - What It Is So, what is cl? fraud and how does it occur? Wikipedia provides us with a definition: "Cl? fraud occurs in pay per cl? online advertising when a person, automated scr?, or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad, for the purpose of generating an improper charge per cl?. Cl? fraud is the subject of some controversy and increasing litigation due to the advertising networks being a key beneficiary of the fraud whether they like it or not." However, I would like to simplify this definition. Cl? fraud is a crime, plain and simple. Cybercrime, however, is hard to track. Law enforcement has only just recently started focusing on the threat of cl? fraud. Cl? fraud is now being targeted by some of the industry's biggest names. This movement has both the American court and government system involved. Business Week recently announced that major brands including Expedia.com and mortg? broker LendingTree.com planned to go public with their disputes over cl? fraud in late September. Who can blame them? When it's your mon?that's going out the door, you need to be asking quest?s. Unfortunately, Google and Yahoo haven't... more.. Upgrading Your Company Website Upgrading Your Company Website By Jerry Bader (c) 2008 Dealing with website development issues can be an overwhelming task. There are many things your marketing team must consider, in fact, there are so many things to bear in mind that many of the most important ones never get dealt with, or are buried under competing interests. To avoid project paralysis you should focus on certain key areas of concern from which all other issues flow. Whether upgrading your existing website or developing a new webmedia initiative from scratch, consider these four vital questions that need to be answered: 1. What content should be included? 2. How should content be delivered? 3. How is your website going to be marketed? 4. What will visitors remember? What Content Should Be Included? Content is a function of purpose. Unfortunately many websites don't have a clearly thought-out realistic purpose; and orders alone, is not an adequate website objective. Obviously every company needs sales, that's a given, but sales are a result of all the marketing elements you put in place, and the degree to which your presentation distinguishes you from your competition. There is a prevailing view that traffic translates into sales; this viewpoint may be valid for websites whose economic model is commodity or advertising-based, but businesses that don't compete on price alone, or are more than an excuse to deliver advertising, must be structured around a purpose that is more meaningful, and far more compelling than 'give me an order or don't bother me.' An over-emphasis on search engine friendly site design ignores the fact that when someone does a search for what you... 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.. 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.. Is Google No 1 Forever? Is Google No 1 Forever? By Jim Hedger, StepForth News Editor, StepForth Placement Inc. Google is without a doubt the world's number one search engine. According to the research firm Neilsen/NetRatings, Google's share of the global search market in February 2006 was 48.5%, more than double the 22.5% share its nearest rival Yahoo saw. Having been the engine of choice for nearly five years, Google is synonymous with search. Because Google is the first thing most folks think of when they think about search, it is the most important search marketing venue, at least for the vast majority of SEOs. That might be changing in the coming years. There's a sense in the SEO sector that the horizons have expanded significantly and the search marketing map has gotten far larg? What the new landscape will look like exactly, and how large Google's footprint will be, is still unknown. The emerging online environment is still being explored, so to speak. As it is explored, it is evolving very quickly. In many ways, it feels like the early days of the commercial web where everyone knew that everything was about to change, but no one really knew exactly how. While Google's influence is incred?e and its dominance appears unassailable, a number of... more.. Top 10 Google Search Features for Your Business Top 10 Google Search Features for Your Business By George Muha (c) 2010 The people at Google are truly inspired! They are evolving their search engine into something that can be an incredibly powerful tool for business. There are a zillion things that Google can do for different parts of your business and in this post, I will highlight the top 10 Google search tools that will help your supply chain. Since Google is just a click away, I think it's a very useful for everybody involved in the supply chain to be aware of how much easier it can make their lives. Everybody from traffic managers, to purchasing people, to accounting people and customer service will likely need to reference what Google can do during the course of the week. There are a lot of people who don't even know all of Google's capabilities. So without further ado, here is your: Top 10 Google Search Tools That Will Help Your Supply Chain 1. Package Tracking - You can track packages by typing the tracking number for your UPS, Fedex or USPS package directly into the search box. Some of the LTL and motor carriers also allow for you to plug in their pro numbers as well. Google will return results that include quick links to easily track the status of your shipment. Example of what to search for: "1Z9999W9999999999" 2. Time - This is huge when dealing with vendors or customers overseas or across the country. To see the time in many cities world wide, type in "time" and the name of the city. Example of what to search for: "time London" 3. Currency Conversion - This is cool! To... more.. Top 3 Google Linking Strategies of 2008 Top 3 Google Linking Strategies of 2008 By Michael Small (c) 2008 If you're serious about getting great ranking on Google you need to be serious about linking. Of course there are lots of ways to get links so we'll focus on just the methods that are fast, low cost or free and get the best results. Here are three that can put you on top of Google in no time flat! First let's start with getting inbound links from directories. A link from a directory gets a lot of weight from Google because they value it as a form of endorsement. You've probably used some directories yourself, like Yahoo. Or maybe you've used some without even knowing it, like The Open Directory Project (DMOZ.org) that powers many of the most popular search engines, including Google! Each directory is different and offers different options for obtaining links to your site. Here's a rundown of how different directories will link to your site... 1.) Free Submission: Just like it sounds. No charges for inclusion. DMOZ.org is the best one and powers Google, AOL and even Yahoo Search (not Yahoo directory.) Just be sure to follow their submission guidelines and pick the most appropriate sub category possible for inclusion. This is extremely important. 2.) Paid Submissions: They charge a fee to review the submitted link and possibly place the page. You might pay a few dollars one t?, a recurring annual fee or as much as the $300 that Yahoo charges for commercial site review. 3.) Reciprocal Link: These usually require you to link to the directory before they will even... 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.. The Death of Google Adsense And Other Myths The Death of Google Adsense And Other Myths By Titus Hoskins (c) 2006 Recent changes in the Google Adsense program has many online website owners and marketers seriously concerned. Many have seen their Adsense prof? and income flatline... seen their four or five figure monthly Adsense income disappear overnight. For many the Google Adsense bubble has burst. What happened? First, Google made a change in its Adsense program, letting advertisers choose between putting their ads in the search results or on the content pages of Adsense publishers. Search won out and started to receive the higher bids. Search results convert better than content ads. Next, Google has cracked down on Junk Adsense sites, like they should. These sites consisted mainly of software generated re-hashed search engine links and were totally annoying to say the least. But Google also cracked down on 'squeeze pages' or 'affil?e landing pages' - a lucrative source of income for many online marketers, mainly because these pages helped marketers build an opt-?list or use permission based email. The results of these changes produced an Adsense meltdown for many online marketers. Some Internet marketers are speculating recent changes could even mean the death of Adsense. One online marketer, Scott Boulch even published a free report entitled 'The Death of Adsense". Many affil?e marketers would agree with Boulch on some of his points, especially the obvious fact that using Adsense on your web content is starting on the bottom rung of the online marketing ladder. Instead of receiving pennies per cl? with Adsense, alert marketers and webmasters have already discovered that by using CPA (Cost-Per-Action) and direct affil?e links, they can produce significantly more... 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.. The Role of Memory In Website Content and Advertising The Role of Memory In Website Content and Advertising By Jerry Bader (c) 2007 The primary goal of all advertising, including website content is to be remembered. No matter what other marketing goal you want to achieve, if your audience doesn't remember your presentation, it is a wasted effort and lost opportun?. All the mon?spent on attracting people to your website goes right down the drain if your content is instantly forgettable. With that in mind it is hard to believe how little thought is put into creating content that people will remember. In order to create content or advertising that people will remember, we have to understand a little about how memory works. Professor Daniel Schacter of Harvard University is an expert in the study of human memory and has written numerous books on the subject, including 'The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers'. In this book Schacter describes seven characteristics of human memory that all marketing people need to be aware of in order to construct content and advertising that website audiences will retain. Transience Transience refers to the fact that memory degrades over time, our recollections become generic and what we are left with is a sense of expectation rather than specific features. If you overload your website visitors with a shopping l? of features or a series of b-school banalities, you are giving up the opportun? to make a singular impression on your audience, especially if the features you are so proud of are mere duplicates of features offered by your competitors. You may not remember the specifics of the latest Volvo automobile advertising campaign but you most likely regard... 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.. Black Hat, White Hat and Big G Black Hat, White Hat and Big G By Peter Adamson (c) 2009 I read a lot of articles and postings regarding Internet marketing, SEO and the like. One frequently recurring theme is the distinction between black hat, grey hat and white hat methods. Interlaced with the use and abuse of these terms is the notion of what is "ethical" and what is not. It seems to be generally assumed that anything black hat is somehow unethical. More disconcerting yet, anything that Google frowns upon is often deemed unethical as well. I would like to clear the air about these terms which seem to mean all things to all men. First of all, let's put to one side for a moment the recently coined terms which euphemistically refer to SEO techniques under hats of various colors. These are not dictionary terms, and anyone can make them mean whatever they want. However, the words "ethical" and "unethical" have very strict meanings, have had for generations and their misuse can call into question the personal integrity of individuals. So what does ethical mean anyway? According to dictionary.com: 1. pertaining to or dealing with morals or the principles of morality; pertaining to right and wrong in conduct. 2. being in accordance with the rules or standards for right conduct or practice, esp. the standards of a profession: It was not considered ethical for physicians to advertise. So doing something unethical is first and foremost immoral and wrong. Additionally, it may be implicitly wrong because it violates an accepted code of conduct adopted by a recognized professional body, whose moral judgement is above reproach. Given these definitions, when would Internet marketing cross the line into the realm of... 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.. Website Traff?and Search Engine Optimization: The Domain Name Website Traff?and Search Engine Optimization: The Domain Name By Donovan Baldwin Whether for business or personal use, before there can be a website, there must be a domain name, and one of the most important steps of a search engine optimization plan is to pick the right one. So what IS a domain name? A domain name is that thing that people give you when you ask for their website. anything.com, for example, is a domain name. Some things to consider in choosing a domain name are: 1. Keep it short and simple. If your website is for your business, a short domain name has its advantages. Whether you want to print it on business cards or display it on a billboard, making the domain too long or too complicated may make it too hard for potential customers to catch in one reading or recall later, if they did not have a chance to write it down. An exception to this is if you can get a phrase which will be remembered into the domain name (Example: buytwogetonefree.com) ...which leads us to point number two. 2. Make it easy to remember. Your customer won't always have a pen with them, or maybe they won't even think about your domain name or website until later. Short, simple, and easy to remember can be important, but you normally shouldn't just opt for something like qdipe.com, and we are about to tell you why. 3. Relate it to your business or organization. If you sell bicycle parts, try to put "bicycle parts" in the domain name. This is not only for the eyes... 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.. 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.. How to Optimize for Google: Part 2 How to Optimize for Google: Part 2 By Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO, StepForth (c) 2008 Optimizing for top Google rankings includes a number of factors. In Part 1 of 3 we discussed onsite optimization. In Part 2 we will touch on incoming links as well as using Google Webmaster Tools. LINKS Links are very important in today's Google rankings, but just how many links you need will depend on both the competitiveness of your target phrases, and the quality of the incoming links themselves. Essentially the number one rule of links is to keep it relevant! Topical relevance is very important in order for inbound links to give your site the most value. If the page that links to you is relevant that is good, if the entire site linking to you is relevant, that is better. First to get an idea of how many links you may need, take a look at the top 10 ranking sites in Google and record how many links Yahoo is noting for each site. (This is because Google does not display anywhere near all the links they have noted). The average of this count is often a good indication of how many links your site may need. There are many different ways to get links to your site including the age old reciprocal link trade, directory links, article based links, and links from press releases. Reciprocal Links Reciprocal linking has seen its value drop considerably over the past few years, however, if the site you are trading with is relevant you can still receive value from these links. Paid Links Google... 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.. 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.. 4 Steps To A Website Brand 4 Steps To A Website Brand By Jerry Bader (c) 2009 Do you have a plan? Most companies spend a considerable amount of time, energy, and money planning what to do and how to do it. Let's say you need a website, so you develop a plan, present it to a bunch of website designers, and get quotes or proposals. You're not going to get caught with your pants down like the last time by some nerdy geek, you know the skinny kid with the scraggly beard, whose techno-babble gave you a headache, or the bizarre young lady dressed in gothic chic with the black lipstick and tattoo to match - yikes, no thanks, not this time, this time you got a plan. Human Motivational Optimization You read all the blogs on website design, you know all the ins-and-outs of search engine optimization, and Google Adwords. No one is going to pull a fast one on you. You know your business, your market, and your needs. Or do you? How much do you really know about how real people interact with your website? How much do you really know about what we call Human Motivational Optimization? All the stats, logs, and number crunching analysis that forms the basis of many website development plans does not truly give you the visceral understanding of how to connect to an audience, and isn't that what you want your website to do? So maybe your plan is the wrong plan; it's like planning a trip to Home Depot to buy a cabbage; it just doesn't make sense. So how about a plan that does... more.. Everyone Is All A-Twitter About Twitter Everyone Is All A-Twitter About Twitter By Jennifer Horowitz (c) 2008 I personally have been Tweeting for a few months. But I use the phrase "tweeting for a few months" loosely. I haven't been all that consistent with it, and I definitely didn't have a strategy. I just thought it was kind of cool. Recently I've started paying more attention to it for a few reasons; my mother-in-law was at a librarian conference recently and attended a session on Twitter. I got into a conversation with her about it, and then the next day I saw John Reese's email about Twitter. It seems like there is a lot of twittering about Twitter going on. What is Twitter? According to the Twitter FAQ, "Twitter is for staying in touch and keeping up with friends no matter where you are or what you're doing." Wikipedia says, "Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates via SMS, instant messaging, email, to the Twitter website, or any one of the multitude of Twitter applications now available". Basically Twitter asks the question, "What are you doing?" and allows you to send a short update (your tweets are limited to 140 characters) to your followers (family, friends, colleagues, customers, potential customers etc). Twitter allows you to send and receive updates (also called tweets) via your browser, email, instant messaging clients and SMS (using your cell phone). No matter where you are, you can tweet! I haven't been following Twitter since day 1, so I'm not going to comment on it's evolution but I will speculate that as its popularity grows, as more and more marketers... 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.. 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.. All You Need to Know About YouTube's Promoted Videos All You Need to Know About YouTube's Promoted Videos By Merle (c) 2010 MerlesWorld.com Way back in 2006, Google purchased YouTube.com for an alleged reported figure of 1.65 bill? dollars. And, like with everything Google does, they've added their own special "Google Touches" over the last several years, turning it into one of the most popular video destination websites online today. Need proof? According to Comscore.com's December 2009 "Videos Viewed Report", YouTube was ranked as the top U.S. video site serving up 13.2 billion of the total 33.2 billion videos that were viewed online in the U.S. for that month alone. That's a lot of people watching mega videos. For more stats see tinyurl.com/y8jbnqh. Furthermore, according to Google, YouTube has twenty hours of new video uploaded every minute and 420 million unique visitors per month. Watching online videos and sharing them with others has become an Internet obsession. People really love watching videos. Remember the old song "Video Killed the Radio Star"? In today's marketplace, it should be called "Video Killed the Television Set". What if I told you there's a way to harness that huge audience in your onl? marketing campaign? Now you can with YouTube's new advertising program called "Promoted Videos". YouTube and its other site, Google Adwords, have partnered together in this latest ad serving project. When promoting your videos on YouTube, they'll also be shown across Google's Content Network, aka sites running Google Adsense on them. The purpose of "Promoted Videos" is to help your videos stand out from the millions of others on the site. At the time of this writing, they're available in the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada,... 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.. How Much SEO Do You Need To Get Top Rankings? How Much SEO Do You Need To Get Top Rankings? By Titus Hoskins (c) 2009 Perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions, perpetuated by industry SEO experts, is that a website must follow perfect SEO strategies to get top rankings. While adhering to simple common SEO standards does help the search engines both find and index your site more quickly, it doesn't guarantee by any stretch of the imagination that following those SEO guidelines will propel your site to the top of the rankings. If only search engine optimization was that easy! No doubt, there are some SEO faux pas that will do harm to your site's rankings, especially in Google, the ultimate hall-monitor all puffed up and ready to pounce on any misbehaving webmaster. Things such as keyword stuffing, keyword spamming or linking out to bad neighborhoods such as link farms, pharmaceutical or gambling sites may get you blacklisted. But how much SEO do you need? How much search engine optimization do you need to get top rankings? Do you need a whole lot or do you need very little SEO? Actually, after 10 years of marketing online, the answer to that question varies depending upon what you're trying to accomplish with your SEO efforts? If you're operating an online business in a very competitive (read lucrative) market, SEO will be high on your agenda as you go about annihilating your competition. Even if... more.. SEO Basics in 45 Minutes SEO Basics in 45 Minutes By Kalena Jordan (c) 2008 As most people who read this newsletter will know, Jill Whalen is a pioneer in search engine optimization. Nicknamed the First Lady of Search, Jill founded the site HighRankings.com in 1995. Today High Rankings has grown to be one of the pre-eminent SEO companies in the US. Jill's company is dedicated to educating its clients and sharing its knowledge with the industry at large through the High Rankings Advisor newsletter, the High Rankings Forum and her in-house seminars. In her presentation for Webstock 2008, Jill gave the audience a 45 minute tutorial in SEO Basics. First up, Jill discussed what SEO isn't. Some of the most common SEO myths she exposed included: PPC Myths: PPC ads will help organic rankings PPC ads will hurt organic rankings Tag Myths: you must have a keyword-rich domain you must have keyword-rich page URLs heading tags are necessary (H1, H2 etc.) you need to use keywords in meta keyword tags, in particular you need to use keywords that are included in your page content. Jill says that it's actually better to use the keyword tag to include misspellings and other keyword varieties that you don't have in your pages. using keywords in comment tags will hurt your rankings. Content Myths: page copy must be a certain # of words. Jill actually made up the 250 word limit a few years ago and it's stuck, but there is really no set limit to please search engines. that you need to bold/italicize your target keywords. that you must... more.. Top 5 Reasons Most Internet Businesses Fail Top 5 Reasons Most Internet Businesses Fail By Mark Yarrobino (c) 2009   If you've been online for any amount of time, then I'm sure you've heard many of the success stories about internet entrepreneurs, and how they're making millions every year, and you've probably heard how easy it is for you to do it, too. And the truth is, it actually is kind of easy, but not as easy as most salesmen would have you believe. There is a little bit of work involved, and anyone who's really been successful has put in the time and effort to get there. And they've managed to avoid the pitfalls on this list. If you're trying to start your online business and things haven't gone as well as you've hoped so far, then hopefully, these suggestions will help. Here are the five most common reasons that most internet businesses fail that I've seen, in no particular order: 1. Information Overload You've probably already been inundated with emails explaining how some new money mak? scheme is the hottest thing on the planet and you need to get in now so that you're on the cutting edge of internet marketing. The problem is that you haven't finished working on the previous hot new thing yet, and as soon as you start this one, yet another hot idea will hit, and so on, and so on. In every valid email you get, there should be an "unsubscribe" link at the bottom. Start clicking on it, and just stick with a few of the people who you know are giving you good information about building your business from start to finish in the right order without any distractions. And make sure that you see every task through to... 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.. 11 Things Every Successful Website Needs 11 Things Every Successful Website Needs By Merle (c) 2009 MerlesWorld.com So you've put together a spectacular website, and you're ready to go live on the Internet for the whole world to see. Not so fast there Bucky. In case you didn't know, there are a few essential requirements that every site needs to include in order to be successful. Let's review, shall we: 1) Privacy Policy/Disclaimer: Now, I'm not a lawyer and don't claim to be one, but these two documents should be standard issue for every site you have. People want to know how you're going to use their personal information, and a "privacy policy" does just that. In today's litigious society you'll also need to include a discla?r/terms of use page. This protects you and spells out to your visitors what they're agreeing to by using your website. If you don't know where to start in generating these documents, you'll find plenty of help online.     ? DMA Privacy Policy Generator     ? OECD Privacy Statement Generator     ? Google Adsense & other Ad Networks Privacy Policy Generator     ? Privacy Policy Generator     ? Free Site Discla?r This is not legal advice, and if you need help in this department, consult with a local attorney. 2) Contact Us Information: I can't tell you how many sites I've been to that fail to include a way to contact the owner. If you can't include a phone number, at the very least have an email address or a "contact us" form. By providing this information, you'll make your visitors feel more comfortable knowing there's a way to reach you should the need arise. If you need a form and don't know how to... more.. Search for secret millions + Google Search for secret millions + Google Ori Allon ? the 26-year-old UNSW student who promise to change web searches. IT IS the hush-hush deal that could be worth millions - many, many millions. Google, the world's biggest player in the internet search business, has paid the University of NSW an undisclosed sum for the rights to a mathematical process that promises to change the way we explore the web. But it is unclear how rich it will make Ori Allon, the 26-year-old doctoral student at the university who developed the algorithm, or formula, at the heart of the process. It could become the basis for the next generation of search engines, improving the relevance of responses to a search - and displaying a more detailed taste of each file so users can better decide if it is what they need. But having won a tussle against its two main competitors - Yahoo! and Microsoft - to secure the rights, Google has gagged Mr Allon and UNSW from saying too much. What we know is this: Mr Allon came to Sydney in March 2005 to work on a project run by Dr Eric Martin, of the university's computer science department, to develop a better search engine. Six months later, the team announced it had developed Orion - named after Mr Allon - which the university said would "revolutionise existing search engines". "I provided the spark," Dr Martin said last year, "but it is Ori who developed this through his amazing creati-vity and sheer hard work." Yesterday, he said: "What others would have taken two to three years to do, he did in six months." The university took the formula to the US, and now Mr Allon is working out of Google's head office in California. But because of confidentiality agreements, all the university can do is confirm that Mr Allon is... 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.. 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.. 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.. 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.. Website Traffic Generation Planning and Methodologies Website Traffic Generation Planning and Methodologies By Duncan Wierman (c) 2009 Real Estate internet marketing is like any other kind of marketing, you're trying to reach a niche market and must plan accordingly. You have to start by identifying your target market in order to develop your message conveying exactly the kind of high value business proposition which your niche will respond to. The first steps are to:      1) Identify your target market; start with geo targeting and work with the demographics from there.      2) Decide how you want to be perceived by this target market and decide how you'll foster this          perception.      3) Identify and refine your value proposition. Once you've done this, the next step is to develop and distribute your value proposition, making sure that your value proposition is perceived by your target market exactly as intended. In marketing, shaping consumer perception isn't just the most important thing: it's everything. You have to start by positioning yourself to be perceived in a specific way; from here, you'll need to maintain, develop, grow or alter this market position as you deem necessary. The real challenge is putting these principles into action: Driving Traffic There are some important principles of traffic generation you need to understand in order to be successful at bringing visitors into your website. There are both principles and rules of traffic generation; principles have to do with your approach to the task and the rules are the practical nuts and bolts of driving traffic. You need to have an understanding of the larger picture before you can successfully put the practical techniques into action. What you'll usually see a lot of is the techniques alone. While this is still valuable information, you probably... more.. Inbound Links Inbound Links By Andy MacDonald (c) 2008 Inbound links are now so important in the constant battle to achieve top search engine rankings, that tons of people are using every tactic under the sun to gain that one additional link. You must be careful when it comes to linking though. You could jeopardize your whole linking plan by getting links in a shady manner which could have an adverse affect on your search rankings. These inbound links are seen by search engines as votes for your site within a particular community of sites. Anytime you're being voted for, you want to have as many votes as possible. However you want to be using tactics which are going to pay dividends in your linking strategy, not do more harm then good. Below I l? some of the best and safest methods around for generating inbound links for your website. Some can be more effective than others: Requesting Links: The oldest method of gaining inbound links is to request them. This requires that you study your market to find out who the players involved in the market are. Then, you contact each one of the sites and ask them to link to your site. In most cases, the person you contact receives your request, but providing links to other sites is the least of their worries, so you may never hear from them. If you do, it can sometimes be months later. So, you put a lot of time into requesting links from other sites for a relatively small return on your efforts. For more on requesting links, I recommend you checkout The Do's &... 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.. 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.. Social Media Optimization -Shifting the Landscape of Search Engine Marketing Social Media Optimization -Shifting the Landscape of Search Engine Marketing By Julie Ann Ross (c) 2009 Social media optimization (SMO) is an important ingredient within your SEO and SEM campaigns. In the past, social networking sites were not much more than an oddity. Today, many have received enormous ranking authority from top search engines. If you are not leveraging these sites to improve your exposure and communicate with your niche consumer, your search engine positions are vulnerable to your competitors. In this article, we will describe the influence that SMO currently has on search engine marketing. We will also give you the rules of engagement for executing an effective social media optimization campaign. We'll explain what SEO social media is, and the advantages of hiring an experienced SEO consultant to spearhead your social media optimization efforts. The Influence Of Social Media Optimization On Search Marketing Search marketing has always relied upon exposure in the search engines to drive targeted traff? For years, gaining that exposure was based solely upon the development of your site and generating links pointing to your site. Both are still important today. However, social media optimization has shifted the landscape of search marketing. Google once maintained several disparate search platforms for blogs, videos, news, and similar types of "social" content. Each functioned as a separate search engine with its own set of organic listings. A few years ago, Google blended the listings from each platform into a system called Universal Search. Bing and Yahoo have since incorporated similar systems. Universal Search is now used as the primary index. That means blogs, videos, and news have been incorporated into the natural listings, pushing many sites off the first page. This is... 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.. 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.. 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.. 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.. Web Design 10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Designing a Website Web Design 10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Designing a Website By Herman Drost (c) 2010 Many site owners make the mistake of building a website without laying out a clear plan for their online business. This is a sure set-up for failure. There are 1000s of abandoned sites on the web due to lack of careful planning. Before designing your website you should ask yourself some questions to avoid making mistakes down the road. 10 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About Designing a Website 1. What Are Your Business Goals? It's easy to say, "I want to make mon?" however, this is not a great motivator. Think of a deeper motivation that you feel passionate about e.g. "I want to have the financ? freedom to spend more time with my kids as they are growing up." 2. What's the Purpose of Your Website? This is the question most visitors will ask when accessing your website. Your home page must clearly explain the purpose and benefits of the products and/or services you are offering. 3. What Type of Products or Services Will You Sell? Research the marketability of your products or services by doing keyword research. Use the Google Keyword Tool to find out how many searches your main keywords receive every month. If there are no searches, it means there is not much demand and therefore not worth marketing. If it is a very competitive market (millions of searches per month), it may be difficult to stand out from your competitors and create a profitable online business. 4. How Many Products Will You Sell From Your Website? This will determine how many pages your website will have. If you're only selling one product or service, you may only need 4 web pages... more.. Linking With Integrity Getting One Way Links The Right Way Linking With Integrity Getting One Way Links The Right Way By Jerret Turner (c) 2008 It's just as important to know what not to do when executing a website linking strategy as it is to know what to do. With inexpensive linking software and services so readily available, there's a strong temptation to take shortcuts when it comes to getting quality links. Avoiding these traps will help your search engine placements rise naturally and stay that way for a long time. In this article, I describe two ways that you can help yourself avoid being labeled a link sp@mmer. Link Farms What is a link farm? A link farm is any website designed and set up for the sole purpose of getting search engine spiders to crawl and index web pages. These websites provide absolutely no end user utility or benefit. So how do you recognize a link farm? First, you need to ask yourself, is this site heavy laden with links? Most link farms will have a "farm" of links with little to no content. As for an explanation of the site's existence, it's usually missing too. The next question you need to ask is, what does the URL of the site itself look like? Most of the time, link farms will have long, hyphenated URLs (i.e. our-great-linking- directory dot com). This is a generalization so not all link farms will have these types of URLs. Many of these link farms are generated using software. The software will go out and find a domain name that contains specific keywords even if it settles on something with several hyphens and numbers. You may... more.. Landing Page Usability: More Than Just The Curiosity Factor Landing Page Usability: More Than Just The Curiosity Factor By Frederick Townes A landing page is the page that visitors first see after becoming curious enough to cl? on a link to your site. The link may be found on search engine results pages, within a specifically target?email, on the site's navigation toolbar or within another website. In many cases, these are links you pay for. The organic results delivered by SERPs are free, but, unless your site appears on the first two pages, it's unlikely that visitors will connect. In many cases, the landing page is the site's home page - but not always, even within SERPs. Landing pages can appear anywhere within a web site. Paid Links Demand ROI If your landing page receives prominent display within search engine results pages, congratulations. Upward of 50% of visitor traff?found that landing page through an SE query. However, only 20 to 25 sites can appear on page one of Google's SERPs. What about the other 10,000 links Google delivers to its users? Often, smaller sites employ paid links to drive site traff? Google Adwords, for example, is a PPC (pay per cl?) means of building business. The important point is this: PPC programs have to more than pay for themselves in order for your site to remain a viable business. Any form of paid linkage to one of your landing pages must deliver a nice ROI. And to do that, you need a fully-usable, engaging landing page. Otherwise, visitors won't stick around long enough to read about your low prices and free shipping. The Purpose of the Landing Page While all... more.. The Impact of Social Media on Search Rankings The Impact of Social Media on Search Rankings By Susan Esparza (c) 2007 Over the past few years, the Internet has increasingly become a participatory social network where user-generated content is just as important as traditional advertising messages. This means your articles, blog posts, videos, podcasts, and other comments on the Web are now critical sources of information about your company, your products and services. This phenomenon has given consumers a voice and weakened the power formerly held by advertising media. Social media, therefore, becomes increasingly important to a Web site's success and its visibility in search engines. Not long ago, search engine optimization focused on fine-tuning your on- and off-page Web site elements in order to achieve better rankings in the search engines. While on-page elements remain the fundamental building blocks of your SEO campaign, it is no longer the entirety of the puzzle. With the rise of social media, it is more important than ever to create and optimize many different types of content in order to dominate the SERPs. The ?rease in user-generated content, and implementation of Google search personalization and universal search, has helped bring this about. Search Personalization In personalized search, individual user search results are reordered based on their previous search behavior and other indicators. Pages can move up or down based on the influence of a user's Google home page content, bookmarks, search history, Web history, etc. While Google is the only search engine currently adjusting rankings using personalization factors, Yahoo and Ask have variations on this theme with MyWeb and MyStuff. Google's reasons for initiating search personalization are that it delivers more relevant results and can reduce sp@m. Others have... more.. Landing Pages. What You Need to Explain to your Website Design Company Landing Pages. What You Need to Explain to your Website Design Company By Colette Mason (c) 2010 The definition of a landing page is simply "the first page that visitors hit on your site," so it is not strictly a certain page but any page that a user "lands" on. All websites have landing pages, whether they like it or not, even if it was not specifically designed as such. Landing pages can have a substantial impact on your e- commerce website. A poorly-developed one can hasten its breakdown just as an effective landing page can drive traffic to your site, respond to calls to action and make your business website a success. One vital measure of the effectiveness of your website is the "bounce rate," or the percentage of visitors who immediately leave your site without making any other click. The bounce rate is inversely proportional to the effectiveness of the landing page. Basically, this means that a high bounce rate indicates that your landing page isn't compelling enough for the visitor to pursue his interest or take some other action. Normally, the home page is the primary landing page of most typical websites. But more and more, site owners are designing landing pages outside of the home page, and for good reason. Most users prefer to skip information which is irrelevant to their needs. They want to get directly to their search, hence the need for a landing page that delivers just that. They can avoid the delays caused by having to click through pages and pages of information when they already have something in mind. Landing pages serve their purpose when the site owner knows the kind of visitor they are targeting. This is... 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.. A Pretty Face is Not Enough A Pretty Face is Not Enough (When It Comes to Your Website) By Ivana Katz (c) 2009 Imagine meeting someone new ... they have a beautiful face, lovely hair, stunning smile, drop dead gorgeous body and are dressed in designer clothes. Naturally you are attracted to their striking appearance, so you start talking to them. After a few minutes you realize this person has no personality, only talks about himself/herself and has no interest in finding out about you. Any attempt on your part to speak gets shut down and if you do manage to ask a question their answer is usually "Yes, but ... let's get back to me". How long do you think you would stay and chat to this person? Do you think you would want to become friends? Probably not. And the same goes for your website! You can create the most stunning website, with flash animations, video or audio features, rotating logos etc but the truth is, if your website doesn't have any depth, no amount of "pretty" will get visitors to come back, let alone purchase anything! Just as Dr Phil warns against spending your entire time planning a wedding (and spending thousands of dollars on it), instead of preparing for a lifelong marriage, many first time entrepreneurs become absorbed by the visual aspects of their website. They spend hours agonizing over colour schemes and designs (and then spend thousands of dollars having special effects added), but sadly don't give any priority or time to the content of their website. Every month millions of new websites are being added... more.. How to Find Free Content for your Web Site How to Find Free Content for your Web Site By Kalena Jordan (c) 2007 I see a lot of webmasters complain in forums and chat rooms that they don't have enough content on their web sites, but they don't have the means or the knowledge to find more. There are actually many ways to obtain more web site content. You could hire someone to write it for you. You could purchase some ready made content about your site topic or you could spend some time and write content yourself. But did you know that there is a way you can get hundreds of pages worth of high quality, fresh content every day without paying a cent? There is. It's called article syndication. Article Syndication Articles relating to thousands of topics are freely available for syndication on web sites. Authors provide them for this purpose to gain a wider audience and achieve more back links. Generally, the only requirement for webmasters is that the author's by-line, resource box and link are included with the published article. In terms of copyright, you simply need to follow the author's publishing guidelines when republishing their article. This usually involves an "About the Author" paragraph at the bottom of each article with a sentence and link to the author's site. These syndication requirements are generally specified in the article itself. How to do it: 1) Browse the Internet to find articles you can syndicate. I use the article announcement groups at Yahoo Groups, but you can also find them at sources such as Submit Your Articles. 2) View the articles being distributed by the group and review their freshness and... 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.. Your Website Does not Need A Traditional Call To Action Your Website Does not Need A Traditional Call To Action By Jerry Bader (c) 2008 The other day I received two emails, both with the same question, why didn't we have a direct call to action on our website? Sales people are taught, you always need 'a call to action,' a request to act or lose the opportun? of a lifetime. I'm sure you've seen the infomercials, website presentations, online direct market? come-ons, and even high-pressure seminar and tradeshow presentations that will never be repeated, so you better act now. You're familiar with the language used: "act now and we'll send you two pieces of junk you don't need, but wait there's more, call in the next ten minutes and we'll add a third useless item." Does any intelligent person really respond to this kind of pitch, and what self-respecting business would actually behave in this manner? The fact is, if you sell something of value at a reasonable price, and you treat your customers with some respect, you will get your share of business. You may not get all the business, nobody does, but the business you do get, will result in more satisfied customers, more word-of-mouth referrals, and ultimately more sales. High-pressure tactics, and demands for instant commitment, frighten off as many potential clients as they ensnare. Lies and Statistics Statistically it may be true that if someone leaves your website without ordering, the chances of them returning to order are low, but as Shakespeare's Cassius said, "the fault, dear Brutus lies not in the stars, but in ourselves." The problem is NOT the customer; it's what you're saying, how... 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.. How to Optimize for Google: Part 3 of 3 How to Optimize for Google: Part 3 of 3 By Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO, StepForth (c) 2008 In Part 1 and Part 2 I discussed general website optimization, links, and Google webmaster tools. In Part 3 we will look at a number of other considerations which play a role in successful rankings in Google, and also touch on some tactics which are best avoided. Completing Optimization: Other Considerations Redirects If you need to use redirects on your site, it is very important to use the correct one. If a page is moving to a new location, or being removed all together, it is very important to have this page redirected to either the new location or the next closest page using a Permanent 301 Redirect. While rare, if a page is being moved to a new location for a short term, with the intent of it returning to the original location, then and only then, will you want to use a Temporary 302 redirect. Non WWW Redirects To help eliminate page rank split, and provide your site with a little extra value, implement a non-www redirect. What this redirect will do is change the URL to include the "www" whenever a URL is accessed that does not include it. This can help to consolidate links to the correct page and give your site some additional strength. For more help on Non WWW redirects please see: How to 301 Redirect Non-WWW to WWW URL's HTTP Headers Check your page headers! If you have implemented any form of redirect on your site including mod rewrites, check your HTTP headers.... 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.. 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.. 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.. 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.. Social Media and Conan O'Brien Social Media and Conan O'Brien By Pace Lattin (c) 2010 The way I see it, NBC has little chance of survival in the next ten years. They've proven themselves so caught up in the normal TV schedule way of thinking that they fail to understand their audience, what little of it is left. Their lack of knowledge about social media, how it's formed and how it can control the conversation is part of their failure in this situation and may very well be part of their failure as an organization. Conan O'Brien on the other hand was able to harness the internet and social media to make a stand and, in the end, become more famous than he ever was before. I'm going to explain this slowly, for the folks at NBC, if they are reading this. Let's think of Conan O'Brien & Jay Leno as a brand, and that the internet is the next big media thing, where there will be millions and millions of Americans making decisions about their life based on what they read on the internet. When people run a search on this website called GOOGLE, they get thousands of pages of choices that they can read about the topic in which they are interested. That perhaps in the future, someday, consumers and people who watch television (aren't they the same?) will be able to type in "Conan vs Jay" and get real time results that help shape their thinking about the subject, and therefore create brand identification and/or brand alienation depending on what happens. Now for the rest of us, who understand Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization and a bunch of other three word phrases with Affiliate,... more.. Click Fraud: A Guide To Protecting Your Pay-Per-Click Campaign Click Fraud: A Guide To Protecting Your Pay-Per-Click Campaign By John Hill   Spending on Internet advertising is growing faster than any other sector of the advertising industry and is expected to surge from $12.5 billion last year to $29 billion by 2010 in the U.S. alone, according to the researcher eMarketer Inc., with around 50% of this spending being spent on pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Click fraud is the latest 'hot topic' circulating the online marketing arena, but what is it? And how does it affect you as a merchant running a pay-per-click campaign? Here we offer you a complete guide as to what this phenomenon is, who is likely to commit such an act, how to identify & prevent click fraud and how to best report instances of suspected click fraud on your PPC campaign. What is Click Fraud? According to Wikipedia "Click fraud is a type of internet crime that occurs in pay per click online advertising when a person, automated script, or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad, for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target of the ad's link" Click Fraud is estimated to range from 5% - 15% of pay-per-click traffic (some estimates are as high as 20% - 35%) although Google estimates click fraud at only 2% due to the rigorous detection methods they claim are in place. In a recent study by Click Forensics, click fraud reached a new high of 14.2% in the last quarter of 2006 with the average... more.. Guide to Listing on DMOZ Guide to Listing on DMOZ By Rob Fenn (c) 2010 What is DMOZ? Dmoz is a human edited directory that has been running since 1998. It was created as a cooperative environment that would allow volunteer editors to keep up with the internet explosion. Way back, Yahoo used to be a directory - not a search engine - and Dmoz was an (eventually bigger) alternative to this. The only difference of course is that we are now well into the Google era of information at your fingertips. Dmoz on the other hand, is pretty much where it started. Dmoz's full title is the Open Directory Project. Dmoz is an acronym for Directory Mozilla. The acronym reflects loose association with ex-owner's Netscape's Mozilla project, an Open Source browser initiative. Originally called 'Gnuhoo' by founder Rich Skrenta, it was renamed the Open Directory Project in October 1998 when it was bought by Netscape. It was then acquired by AOL shortly thereafter, and Dmoz was one of the assets included in the acquisition. Unlike a search engine, for websites to be l?ed in the Dmoz directory, they have to be submitted first. They are then reviewed by individuals (known as Editors) who are assigned to various categories within the Dmoz directory. Is a DMOZ Link Worth It? It's fair to say that Dmoz isn't what it used to be. You may notice whenever you search for something online these days that a Wikipedia entry is often on the first page. This used to be the case for Dmoz, meaning it was a good referrer of traffic to websites. The key words there are that it 'used to be'. Dmoz's category pages do not rank... more.. How to Optimize for Google I How to Optimize for Google: Part 1 of 3 By Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO, StepForth (c) 2008 In today's online world search engine rankings can make your business succeed, and while rankings in Yahoo and MSN are very valuable, their combined market value is still less than that of Google. This makes achieving top rankings in Google that much more important. In this three-part series on How to Optimize for Google we will touch on a number of important aspects for top Google rankings including website optimization, links, Google Webmaster tools, and a number of other considerations. The focus of Part 1 will be with on page website optimization. THE RIGHT KEYWORDS This article is not about keyword research so I will not spend too much time on this topic, however, I felt it was important to at least brush on this slightly. If you are interested in reading more, please see Keyword Research for Organic SEO. Make sure that your targets are achievable. If you select the wrong keywords, it can make your entire optimization experience essentially a waste. Choose keywords that are attainable but yet still provide a reasonable search frequency for your industry. Your phrase selection should also be targeted to bring qualified traffic to your site. Using the hotel industry as an example, targeting the word "hotel" would make very little sense but by narrowing it down to "Victoria BC hotel" you now have less competition, and a more qualified audience. Keep your targets in perspective and go after the obtainable rankings. WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION There are many on-site factors that play a role in... more.. 7 Simple Ways To Build Traffic To A New Website 7 Simple Ways To Build Traffic To A New Website By Mike Tekula (c) 2008 Got a brand new website? That's great, but nobody cares. OK, maybe that's a little harsh. The truth, however, is that just having a website doesn't get you much. Editor's Note: Publication of the SiteProNews newsletter will be intermittent during the next 2 weeks. Visit SiteProNews.com for the latest articles, webmaster news and blog posts. We wish all of our loyal readers a happy holiday season. Many business owners I meet are surprised to find, once we look at the numbers, that the shiny new site they had built not too long ago gets little to no traffic on a daily basis. Many newcomers to the web make the mistake of thinking that just by buying a domain name and putting up your site, visitors are going to happen by - something like when you buy property and build a storefront in a busy part of town. It just doesn't work that way. The web is harsh. You can have the best looking site in the world with great resources and content and go entirely ignored or unnoticed. It happens. It's happening right now. Somewhere out there in the ether is a brand new gorgeous website loaded with great content, and nobody cares. Poor little lonely site. But there is hope. Every website had its early days. Even sites that get hundreds of thousands of visitors a day started out with none. Here are 7 simple things you can start doing right now to help drive traffic to your site. 1. Get Some Quick Links From Trusted Directories Link building is a long-term process with... 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.. 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.. Site Content and Copy Writing Site Content and Copy Writing By Michel Fortin (c) 2008 An interesting debate is raging among copy writers, web designers and content developers about the differences, if any, between writing copy for the web versus writing content. According to prolific copywriter Nick Usborne of Excess Voice, a recent survey conducted among the readers of his newsletter of the same name offers some interesting results. They seem to be split almost three ways: one-third consists of copywriters, another content writers and the final third both. But it's wrong. This is an important debate, I believe, since all online copy is content but not all content is copy. And that's a real problem. Most web designers, webmasters and content writers develop text for websites in a way to educate visitors. They also write it with the notion that "content is king," "content increases search engine rankings," "content makes a website sticky" and so on. That's all fine and good. But I believe content fails when it strives only at informing the reader, and thus lacks important elements that take her "by the hand" and compels her to do something - anything, including the simple act of reading. In other words, while some websites may compel our attention, others fail to propel our actions, too. And their owners often end up screaming, "Why is my website not producing any sales," "why am I getting a lot of traffic but such a poor response" or "why are people leaving so quickly?" Well, if content is king, copy is the castle. The Internet is not a traditional medium ? at least not in the broadcast sense. It is intimate,... more.. Best 3 SEO Tips of 2008 Best 3 SEO Tips of 2008 By Scott Jason (c) 2008 Each year I spend the first three months looking for the best and most innovative SEO tips of the previous year's end. This year I have what I believe to be the best 3 SEO tips in a decade! SEO Tip #1: Make Google Alerts Your Personal Online Spy Google Alerts is a great way to let the world's biggest search engine be your personal online investigator. This takes search engine optimization insider info to a whole new level. Here's an excerpt straight from Google.... "Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic." Some handy uses of Google Alerts include: monitoring a developing news story keeping current on a competitor or industry getting the latest on a celebrity or event keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams" As you probably guessed, it's the second one we care about most, "keeping current on a competitor or industry." Here's how it works... Each time Google finds a reference to the query or topic you request you will be sent an email with the details. This is like having an online agent to make sure competitors are not using your protected keywords (trademarked names, company names, etc.) It's also an instant identifier to know when your site or product is mentioned in a news story or even when a topic is hot so you can take advantage of the situation. It's the easiest way in the world to stop competitors' dirty... more.. The State of Search Engine Advertising Reality and Alternatives The State of Search Engine Advertising Reality and Alternatives By Mel Strocen (c) 2007 The herd mentality nev?fails to amaze me. When the pay-per-cl? concept was first pioneered in 1997-98 by GoTo.com (now Yahoo! Search Marketing), it was years before the model was widely accepted. GoTo virtually created the market for pay-for-performance search single-handedly and redefined how businesses market online while other search engines sat on their collective hands. Then, when it was obvious that there was "Gold in Them Thar (PPC) Hills" hundreds of search engines entered the PPC arena and hordes of advertisers followed suit. As a search engine advertising model, pay-per-cl? was, and is, brilliant in its simplicity. In theory, it is a perfect way to bill advertisers based on consumer interest in their advertisements. Unfortunately, in real life mon?can bring out the worst in human, and business, nature. In today's search engine reality, pay-per-cl? should be on its last legs. But, as anyone with a knowledge of the search engine industry knows that simply isn't the case. Let's first examine the main reasons why advertisers should be abandoning PPC in droves: 1. Cost According to the Fathom Online Keyword Price Index, the average keyword price paid by online advertisers reversed a downward trend and increased 16.5% percent to $1.48 in the third quarter of 2006, up from a $1.43 per cl? at the end of 2005. That's one report. Another compiled by Cl? Forensics concluded that the average pay-per-cl? search-term cost was $4.51 across retail, financial services, health and fitness, technology and entertainment advertising. Whatever the average cost, it's too high for most small to medium-sized businesses. More stats and... 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.. Where's Social Media Headed? Where's Social Media Headed? By Nipa Shah (c) 2009 Barack Obama started using social media and the marketing gurus went "Oh my God, he's a genius, now all we have to do is use his name to promote this and voila, clients will be lining up to buy social media marketing (SMM) services". Well, it didn't quite happen that way. And the wonderful case study that was "Presidential candidate Barack Obama" became a not-so-active name on various online portals including, Twitter, where from November 2008 to May 2009, his twitter update has had five posts. Yep, only five posts in six months. So what is happening in the Social Media world right now? Well, first of all, social media website use has exploded with millions of people using popular Web 2.0 applications such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and dozens of others. I personally "play" and "work" on many, but my favorites remain Twitter and Facebook. Celebrities and politicians seem to have found a way to pontificate one-way to their audiences. I say pontificate because most of these are rarely engaged in a two-way discussion, more times sending out their updates but not really engaging with others who may wish to interact with them. Politicians and celebrities across the globe have taken their messages to their fans and followers on Twitter and Facebook. However, millions of users and dozens of so-called SMM experts later, small businesses remain offline and are positively scared of using social media websites. The business owners I interact with when I'm speaking at an event or when I'm networking offline (yes I still do that) are concerned about using social media websites to promote themselves. They are worried about the lack of privacy and a... more.. Anatomy of a Web-Advertising Campaign Anatomy of a Web-Advertising Campaign By Jerry Bader In The Beginning There Was Marketing Anyone in business who has any interest in using the Web to further his or her business is well aware of "search engine optimization." Not a day goes by that my email in-box isn't loaded with information on how to get the best search engine results, and not a week goes by that a client or potential client doesn't request that their website be not just search friendly but search engine fanatical. For some time we have been preaching the importance of delivering the marketing message and that your message should not be corrupted or distorted by techniques aimed at attracting search engine robots while driving away real people who may actually be potential customers. Now I realize that in many circles this attitude is considered outright heresy, but hopefully there are a few marketing types around that understand websites have to deliver more than miscellaneous random eyeballs; websites have to deliver a message that is memorable, understandable, useable, and if you're really good at your job, information that can be incorporated into your audiences' belief system. With that in mind we were pleasantly surprised when Google the primary target of this SEO obsessive compulsive frenzy of technical slight-of-hand announced that they were instituting Google Video Ads and to add a little icing on the cake, they purchased YouTube adding to their already considerable ?estment in Google Video. Somebody at the big "G" thinks video is a viable Web-medium even if the purveyors of search engine fool's gold would have you believe otherwise. The list of companies, including Forbes, Amazon, Wyeth, and Ford,... 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.. A Beginner's Guide to Google Website Optimizer A Beginner's Guide to Google Website Optimizer By Kalena Jordan (c) 2008 We all know that the most effective Pay Per Click advertising campaigns use landing pages that are matched perfectly to your target search keywords and designed to follow through with the idea or theme that your PPC ad has hinted at. But how do you determine the effectiveness of those landing pages? How do you know what design or page features will trigger a better response in your audience and lead to more conversions? The answer is that you don't, unless you test. Benefits of Landing Page Testing Whether they are a part of a PPC campaign or not, there are countless benefits to testing your web site pages, including: Improve the effectiveness of landing pages Increase conversions / sales Attract more leads / sign-ups Increase time spent on your site by visitors Reduce the Cost Per Acquisition of new customers Eliminate guesswork. Improve your site design via information from your site's end users Avoid staff disputes ? let your customers decide what design elements should be changed Google Website Optimizer The Website Optimizer is a tool that allows marketers and webmasters to test variations of pages on site visitors automatically, to see which pages or variations of pages perform the best (i.e. lead to the most conversions). In April 2007, Google took their Website Optimizer tool out of BETA and made it available to the general public. I had been wanting to use Google Website Optimizer to test our landing pages on Search Engine College for some... more.. How to Optimize for Yahoo! How to Optimize for Yahoo! By Ross Dunn (c) 2007 With a reported 22.1% of search traff?Yahoo is second only to Google's 64.4% (src: Hitwise ) for search user volume so it is extremely important not to forget that attaining a top ranking in Yahoo can be a big boon to the bottom line. As a result, I decided to write this update on how to attain superior rankings in Yahoo using today's useful tools and tactics. Overview: Optimizing for Yahoo! Algorithmically Yahoo is Google's much younger sibling. I say this because many of the requirements for a successful ranking mirror Google's requirement about 4 years ago and they sum up to one distinct fact; optimize your content boldly on Yahoo and you will be rewarded. When I say "boldly" I do not mean use sp@m; by nature sp@m and optimization do not mix... they are two entirely separate concepts (black and white in fact). The following are the current generalized specifications for achieving solid rankings in Yahoo. Web Site Optimization SEO tactics have not changed a great deal over the past 10 years I have been an SEO. In general terms the only effect time has had on SEO is to vary the intensity of the optimization for particular page elements. That is the rub of course; some search engines appreciate the optimization of particular page elements over others. In the case of Yahoo, this old property with a relatively young algorithm tends to favour the following elements: Title Tag: Keep your title tag as short as 5 small-medium sized words and include one complete incidence of your keyphrase. Yahoo! blatantly favours sites that include the keyphrase in... 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.. How Blogs Can Break or Make Your SEO Strategy How Blogs Can Break or Make Your SEO Strategy By Jon Rognerud Blogs are a great way to get started authoring content and sharing your knowledge and insights with other people. Plus, mix work and play - and you can get rich doing this. You don't have to be an MBA-accredited author by any means. However, there are some rules to play by, and I'll break those out below. We will talk about the top blogs, practicalities around blogs and creative ways to get started, including how you could possibly ruin your good-standing ranking and having to change your Search Engine Optimization strategy. Blogs - Structure and Layout I work in the field of Search Engine Optimization. It has a wide range of options, from the technical to the more strategic. Tons of discussions are found on off-page and on-page factors, latent semantic analysis, content scope, quality, HTML/CSS development, site navigational structure, spamdexing, 301 redirects, plagiarism, link strategies, directories, blogs, search engine news, email marketing tips & online (internet) marketing. Most all of the top 10 SEO firms out there agree that blogs are a "must" for driving traff?and to get established in the Internet community. There is a right way, and a wrong way. We'll discuss these below. Be warned - too many folks out there are thinking about "how to outbeat the search engines" and use the latest-and-greatest (blogs) to elevate their rankings, essentially via content and blog sp@m. Blogs are a powerful way to get seen by the search bots. Blogger (Google's own) is an important key to the puzzle, but there are many. The Un-Official Top 7... 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.. 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.. Designing Websites That Appeal To The Senses Designing Websites That Appeal To The Senses By Jerry Bader (c) 2006 Taking Advantage of The Experience Factor We read the newspaper, we watch television, and we listen to the radio, but we experience the Web; this is what makes 'The Website' one of the most powerful marketing tools available to today's marketing executives. Unfortunately conventional wisdom has stifled the 'experience factor' on most website presentations. Traditional circulation based advertising biases and pitch-mandated direct mail practices from metric-minded agencies have limited businesses' ability to take advantage of the Web's capacity to provide a more active, creative, and penetrating sensory experience aimed at furthering marketing objectives. As consumers of information we all filter what our mind considers irrelevant. When we go to a website we quickly recognize where banner and text advertisements have been placed and proceed to ignore them for the rest of our visit. Even television ads are becoming increasingly less effective, even as their cost increases. Yet people will watch and even look forward to creative, entertaining advertisements that capture our imagination and inform our ability to make better decisions about what we buy and who we buy from. Does Anybody Really Know What Works? It is easy to rely on after-the-fact number crunching and projected head-numbing statistics to justify how marketing campaigns are constructed rather than on the less predictable but more relevant elements of psychology and human nature. But do numbers really tell the true story, or are they just protect-your-butt justification designed to ease everyone's mind when it comes time to commit to a budget? Take the entertainment industry for example. Here is an industry that can... more.. Why 2010 Will Be A White Knuckle Ride For Web Marketers | Why 2010 Will Be A White Knuckle Ride For Web Marketers | By Titus Hoskins (c) 2009 Next year may just prove to be one of the most challenging times for pursuing online or Internet marketing on the web. It may just be a watershed moment for many marketers struggling to keep abreast of all the different factors which have come into play in recent months. Most of these changes will stem from two main sources for potential upheaval: the first being the New FTC (Federal Trade Commission) Guidelines regarding Testimonials and Endorsements and the second being "ALL" the recent changes within Google. Actually, we already have the new FTC Guidelines which came into effect on Dec. 1st of 2009, but how these new rules are enforced will play out in the coming year as test-cases are brought to court. Basically, these new rules call for absolute disclosure and full transparency regarding Testimonials and Endorsements when a product or service is being offered for sale. Any business (monetary) relationship between the endorser and the company must be made known to the potential buyer. Obviously for those in online or affiliate marketing this could have a great impact if these new rules are strictly enforced. Just imagine all the website owners and bloggers who slap a few banners or affiliate links on their sites to cover hosting or operating costs... will they now have to disclose all these business arrangements? For professional affiliate marketers and the companies/products they're promoting, these new guidelines could cause potential headaches and/or legal ramifications since a general blanket disclaimer on their sites will no longer be suffice. To help solve this problem, many of the major companies are now placing... 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.. 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.. 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.. 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.. 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.. The Art of Website Maintenance The Art of Website Maintenance By Erin Ferree (c) 2007 Now that you've designed and launched your website, you have a powerful marketing tool for your business. But, your website is only as useful as the content is current. The process of keeping the content on your site current is called website maintenance, and it's important to keep both visitors and search engines supplied with new information. Just like regular maintenance on your car, you have to make changes on your website every few months to make sure that things run smoothly. If you update the content on your website on a regular basis, potential clients will be drawn back to your site to find out "what's new". The search engines pay visits to websites in their queue regularly. The catch is that you'll stay in the queue only if you update your site regularly. If the search engines visit your site several times in a row, and don't find anything new, they may decide not to come back-which can be a blow to your search engine rankings. So, when is it appropriate to update your website? You don't want to waste time and mon?nitpicking at your site if you don't have updates of real value to add. You should update your site if you've: - Grown your skills. Have you gotten a new accreditation? New licensing? Improved your skills? Any change in your skill set is a great reason to update your website - and your potential clients - with your new capabilities. - Expanded your products or services. Do you have a new offering? Add it to your website and start making new sales in that area. - Completed a... 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.. Do This and OWN Google's Top Spots! Do This and OWN Google's Top Spots! By Michael Small (c) 2008 Ranking well on Google takes two things, good content and great links. But it's not an even split. Because Google assumes only a page with good content would get great inbound links it puts about 70% of the importance for ranking on links and only about 30% on content. That little tidbit alone will put you head and shoulders above all those competitors still messing with META tags and spamming keywords. But if you want a huge advantage over the rest of your competition, keep reading. I'm about to show you how the pros do it and win every time. Part 1: Perfect Your Anchor Text So just what is anchor text and why is it important? Anchor text is the clickable word or words that make up the hyperlink. You've seen anchor text a million times (the underlined words that are typically blue.) Google figures any words special enough to be used as a guide in a link are extra valuable, which makes anchor text extremely important for you to use properly. Just how powerful is anchor text? More than most people dream. Try an experiment. Go to Google and search for "cl? here" (without quotes.) The top match for years has been a page for Adobe Acrobat Reader. So does that Adobe page have "cl? here" copied 50 times in the text? No. In fact "cl? here" does not even appear on the page a single time! Does it have "cl? here" embedded in its META tags. No; again, not even once. So how can it possibly rank... 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.. Video Marketing - Its Different Manifestations Video Marketing - Its Different Manifestations By Punam Parab (c) 2007 Just go through these facts and figures: ? "This [online video ads] could very well become the dominant form of online advertising... probably within the next 18 to 24 months" - Bob Hanna, senor vice president of sales with Burst Media-a group that offers publisher sites to advertisers. ? "Online video ad spend is to surge by 89% in 2007 and is poised to grow and in 2010 will be worth around $2.9 billion". - marketing vox. ? "At some time early in 2010, one in 10 dollars devoted to internet advertising will go for video placements" - David Hallerman, a senior analyst with eMarketer and author of the report 'Internet Video: Advertising Experiments & Exploding Content' Well, if you have a sharp mind [and even if you don't], you cannot but notice the rising fortunes of video marketing. Video marketing is the next big thing in the world of Internet marketing. Video marketing entails the use of video for conveying your message to the audience. Most experts believe that videos are more effective when it boils down to establishing an engaging and interactive platform to communicate with the target audience. If you too are interested in entering into the world of 'online video marketing', then it will augur well if you are aware about the various forms of video marketing. Video advertising is one of the basic forms of video marketing. In case of video advertising, the advertiser makes use of the video that is already being run across television channels. Usually, the video is edited to shorten the duration. This also makes the video more appealing to the online audience.... more.. How To Make Your Website Structurally Sound How To Make Your Website Structurally Sound By Erin Ferree (c) 2008 You've decided to build a website. Great! Your first step is to determine its structure - the pages you want to include and the information you want provide to visitors. But how to begin? Your first instinct may be to make your site different from everyone else's. After all, trying to differentiate your business is what you've been doing throughout your branding process. Building a Website is Like Building a Custom Home When you create a custom house, you can arrange your floor plan however you want, paint the walls as you please and fill the house with furniture you love. Your goal is to create a unique space that stands out from everyone else's. In the same vein, there are elements of your website where standing out makes sense. For example, the overall look of your site and your copy should be different from other sites - especially those of your competitors. Differentiating your website is good for your small business - to a point. What you don't want to do is reengineer its basic structure. Standing Out Isn't Always the Stable Way to Build Underneath it all, even the most unique custom home has the same foundation and spacing between studs in the wall as every other house on the block. By following underlying principles of construction, builders help ensure that the house is structurally sound. Why not use the same approach when it comes to your website? That way, your site is far more likely to work well for you. To use site building rules, of course, you need to know what they are. 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.. 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.. 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.. 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.. 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.. 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.. 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.. 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.. 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.. 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.. 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.. The Search Landscape Reflected In Paid Results The Search Landscape Reflected In Paid Results By Dave Davies (c) 2008 Heart Of Business It's important to note that the writing of this article occurred on July 17, 2008. I mention this only to insure that you can put it into context and also so that those who read this article in a day or week or month from now aren't confused by my noting of Q2 reports and references to "today". Any of you who have read some of my past articles or who have visited Beanstalk's services pages will know - I'm not a PPC guy. Quite honestly, it's not in my primary skill set and it's something I would definitely prefer to leave to the experts. Now that said, following Google and it's health (which is tied directly to AdWords and AdSense) is something I'm keenly interested in. To this end, recent changes in Google's paid search display and ranking systems will have huge impacts on advertisers and, more important for the purpose of this article, on Google itself. A couple weeks ago a friend of mine, Richard Stokes from AdGooroo sent me a PDF entitled, "Search Engine Advertiser Update - Q208" . With this document they outline the changing trends in the paid search marketplace and many of the stats are surprising. If you're a PPC manager they're obviously directly important. For those of us in the organic optimization world they are still both interesting and important. They're interesting for reasons which will become clear below and they're important because anything that affects the economic health of the search engines affects the search landscape both... more.. 10 Free and Easy Ways to Improve Your Alexa Ranking 10 Free and Easy Ways to Improve Your Alexa Ranking By Darrell Howell (c) 2008 Alexa, which is owned by Amazon.com, gives away a free toolbar that you can download and install in your browser. Alexa is then able to keep track of the sites you visit and compute the traffic ranking of those websites, with a rank of "1" being the assigned to the most visited site. If you want a more technical definition, Alexa explains it like this: "The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and data obtained from other, diverse traffic data sources, and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). As a first step, Alexa computes the reach and number of page views for all sites on the Web on a daily basis. The main Alexa traffic rank is based on a value derived from these two quantities averaged over time (so that the rank of a site reflects both the number of users who visit that site as well as the number of pages on the site viewed by those users)." http://www.alexa.com/site/help/traffic_learn_more In April 2008 Alexa revised its methodology so as to "aggregate data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users". http://awis.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html How accurately this method reflects the actual surfing patterns of all Internet users is open to question. However, if you bear in mind that by the end of 2005 the toolbar had been downloaded well over 10 million times you will realize why many people still think... 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.. The Lifeblood of the Internet The Lifeblood of the Internet By Robert Imbriale (c) 2010 If you've been involved in marketing of any kind over the last two decades, I'm sure you've heard the saying, "content is King." Marketers, successful marketers, live by that mantra. When I look at the Internet what I really see are two things. There is the content and then there are the applications that allow you to interact with the content. To completely over-simplify things, the applications are what make it possible for us to create, share, and use the content we find on the Internet. So to say content is King, you'd have to also say that the applications are Queen in order to have a more complete view of the Internet. There are all kinds of applications from the browsers that make surfing the Internet possible to all sorts of applications that manage and deliver the content. Think about it. Without the application we know as Google, how would you find the content you're looking for on the Internet? I've been there and I remember finding things online was next to impossible, but that was back in 1987. Then we have Adobe TM Flash that allows us to see and hear sounds and images over the Internet. There are all sorts of content management systems available to us today that simply didn't exist a few years back. As it becomes easier and easier to manage and digest, the demand for new content grows and grows. Marketers who create quality content often find they are able to generate large amounts of traffic, they usually have large mailing lists, and it almost goes without saying that they usually have healthy bank accounts.... 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.. 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.. How to Optimize for Google - 1 How to Optimize for Google - 1 By Scott Van Achte (c) 2009 In today's online world search engine rankings can make your business succeed, and while rankings in Yahoo and MSN are very valuable, their combined market value is still less than that of Google. This makes achieving top rankings in Google that much more important. In this three-part series on How to Optimize for Google we will touch on a number of important aspects for top Google rankings including website optimization, links, Google Webmaster tools, and a number of other considerations. The focus of Part 1 will be with on page website optimization. THE RIGHT KEYWORDS This article is not about keyword research so I will not spend too much time on this topic, however, I felt it was important to at least brush on this slightly. Make sure that your targets are achievable. If you select the wrong keywords it can make your entire optimization experience essentially a waste. Choose keywords that are attainable but yet still provide a reasonable search frequency for your industry. Your phrase selection should also be targeted to bring qualified traffic to your site. Using the hotel industry as an example, targeting the word "hotel" would make very little sense but by narrowing it down to "Victoria BC hotel" you now have less competition, and a more qualified audience. Keep your targets in perspective and go after the obtainable rankings. WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION There are many on-site factors that play a role in your search engine rankings. Here are a number of those factors and what you can do to improve your chances of success. Title Tag The title tag plays one of the most important roles in search results at Google, and is... 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.. 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.. Twitter Demystified for Business Users Twitter Demystified for Business Users By Nancy McCord (c) 2009 Twitter is the current top "hot property" on the Web, but its popularity and how to use it has mystified many business owners. Many people think that they want to, or should be using Twitter, but simply do not understand the platform, its use, or its place in building web exposure. This article will demystify Twitter and help you to learn how to use it in the workplace and to promote your business. First, I have to say that I had been confused on how to use Twitter to benefit my own business until I downloaded TweetDeck. TweetDeck is a desktop application that allows you to review and post status updates on Twitter and Facebook simultaneously. I consider it a "must have" application for anyone who wants to make sense of Twitter. TweetDeck allows you to sort the people you follow on Twitter into groups, allows you to limit the number of Tweets (Twitter micro posts) to be shown at any time, and also allows you to discard all Tweets you have seen with one click. Additionally, using TweetDeck, finally a Twitter search on a topic makes sense. Since using TweetDeck, I have had a much better Twitter experience. As a Twitter newbie, visiting your Twitter home page is intimidating; it consists of post after post from people who you are following, who you may not know much about, and it just seems like a huge volume of content. To get started effectively first group the people who actually have something interesting to say on TweetDeck and voila, you have a powerful tool that keeps you at the forefront... more.. Sitemaps Improve Website Value Sitemaps Improve Website Value By Lisa Barone  Getting your pages indexed. It's your most significant SEO goal and maybe the one most vital in determining the success of your SEO campaign. Nevertheless, many seek engines have trouble finding links buried deep within the structure of your site. So how do you make certain your pages are simple for the seek engines to find? By using a sitemap. Making a placemap provides the seek engines with a one-stop-shop for all of the pages on your area. And if designed correctly, your sitemap could also be a valuable resource to lost visitors looking to figure out your site structure. What's a Areamap? A placemap displays the inner frameeffort and organization of your spot\'s content to the search engines. Your areamap should reflect the way visitors would intuitively effort through your site. Years ago spotmaps existed only as a boring series of links in l? f? Today, they are thought of as an extension of your spot. You should use your placemap as a tool to provide your visitor and the search engines by using more content. Make details for each section and sub-section through descriptive text aread under the placemap link. This will help your visitors figure out and navigate through your spot, and will also give you more food for the search engines. You can even go crazy and add Flash to your placemap similar we did with the interactive Bruce Clay areamap! Of course, if you do include a Flash sitemap for yourselfr visitor, you'll also need to incorporate a text map so that the robots can read it. A good area map will: Show a quick, simple to follow overview of your area. Provide a pathway for the seek engine robots to follow. Provide text links to every page of your area. Quickly... 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.. SEO Web Links - Directory Alternatives SEO Web Links - Directory Alternatives By Joel Walsh If you were writing a textbook on SEO linking circa 2001, you almost certainly would have included a chapter on web directories. They used to be the primary way of actively acquiring one-way inbound links, before content syndication, blogs, or the paid link market really took off. Web Directories and SEO Links: What Went Wrong? Fast forward a few years, and you'd have to rewrite the chapter on directories and web links. In fact, you would probably downgrade web directories from a chapter to a page or two. In the SEO world, nothing good ever lasts long, and so it is with web directories. ? Traff?/B> With Google more accurate than ever, there was no more reason to turn to a human-edited list of websites. A directory might get you one or two click-throughs a month--or none at all. ? Redirects Once directory owners realized their link popularity was valuable, they started hoarding it. Overnight, many, if not most, directories switched their HTML links to search-engine-invisible redirects. 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.. The Last Word in PPC vs. Article Marketing The Last Word in PPC vs. Article Marketing By Valerie Mellema (c) 2009 There is always a big discussion when it comes to comparing two of the best ways to advertise online: PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising and article marketing, otherwise known as "organic" or "natural" search engine optimization. There is no denying that both methods can be effective. However, which method is better? Which gives you a bigger bang for your buck? You may get varying statistics on this issue, depending on which website you visit for information. Oh yes, this matters, because you have to consider the source of the statistics and who is sponsoring the article. For example, two sources of information (respectively, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and ComScore) recently produced studies indicating that PPC advertising was more cost-effective on average. However, did the fact that Yahoo/Overture and Google were sponsoring this major study play any role in determining the final outcome? Of course it did - those are the two biggest PPC companies on the net! In figuring out which of the two is better, you have to consider cost-effectiveness as well as click-through-rates and direct conversion from visiting user to paying customer. We are going to review some statistics a little bit later on. For now, let's consider some logical points that illustrate how PPC and article marketing differ. Search engine result pages display more listings than PPC results, which does have a psychological effect on the user. For some users seeing ten search results (each one relevant to the search) is enough to convince them that there is enough web information on the subject and that "fishing" PPC ads might not be necessary. The catch is that in order to actually... more.. Rethinking Website Content Content That Entertains Rethinking Website Content Content That Entertains By Jerry Bader (c) 2007 In case you've missed it, the Web has changed; it seems like just yesterday it was good enough to take all your brochures and advertising collaterals and convert them to digital format, add a little search engine optimization, throw-in a little PHP programming and bingo, you've got a website. And if you wanted to show how cutting edge your company was, maybe you'd add a little dash of Flash animation, or some royalty fr?music. Well here's a bulletin from the frontlines, that isn't going to cut-it in the new multimedia Web-business environment. If you are looking for a mantra to begin any new website initiative or to correct an existing website disaster: Think Audience Not Customers. Almost daily I receive emails from people asking me to review their websites and tell them why they can't convert visitors to customers even when they are attracting significant numbers of visitors on a regular basis to their sites. The answer is both simple and complex: simple, because these websites fail to communicate the company's message in a meaningful manner to their visitors, which means no dialog is opened, and without a dialog, no business can be done; and complex, because the implementation of the solution requires a new way of thinking about communicating with your audience using sophisticated presentation techniques that put a higher premium on creativity than they do on facts, figures and old-school direct marketing tactics. New Words For A New Web-Business Environment In the past while I've run across three newly coined words or phrases (Communitainment, Branded Entertainment, and Snack-o-tainment) that attempt to capture the... 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.. SEO: Best Practices SEO: Best Practices By John Sylvester A few nights ago I was asked by a regular in a bar I frequent: 'what is this pub doing with a website? Somewhat bemused, I replied that it receives substantial hits to its website and that it is listed on all the Bangkok portals. More importantly, they have consistently remained at #1 on Google, Yahoo!, MSN and the other major search engines for well over a year. Visitors the site, although not verifiable, must convert into a lot of money.' He looked slightly bemused, shrugged his shoulders and muttered something about not knowing much about search engines. That is where we stand on building websites: our philosophy is based on making the web work for our clients; in providing them with a new revenue source. We don't just deliver tastefully designed websites, we also provide detailed research which we convert into accurately anticipated keywords likely to be used by potential visitors when searching for a source of information. With this knowledge, we optimise our clients' web pages and register it with sites we know will boost its rankings. This strategy has been successfully employed on sites based in Thailand, the UK, Germany, Australia, France, Austria and France. But there is another option to be seriously considered: commercial search. It is by far the most dynamic and fast-growing industry segment now, estimated to extend beyond $5billion by 2006. Pioneered by Overture (now Yahoo!), pay-per-click was created in response to three fundamental issues concerning internet search: poor quality results; random ordering of listings; and a weak advertising revenue model. It solved these problems by creating a real-time market for keyword bidding. Recently, however, it has spawned a series of bidding wars among a growing number of... 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.. Top 10 Sins of Blog Usability Top 10 Sins of Blog Usability By Linda Bustos "Sinning" is an archery term, which literally means "to miss the mark." If you're blogging to establish a two-way dialogue with the world, the "mark" is the optimal reader experience. The following is a l? of ten things that can hurt your blog's usability. 10. Sending Mixed Messages The focus of your blog should be decided before your first post and then committed to. Random blog entries about a melee of topics might work for a personal blog read by friends and family, but is not a good approach for a serious, professional blog. The lifeblood of any blog is in its loyal subscriber base. And readers are more willing to subscribe to blogs that talk about their area of interest on a consistent basis. If your blog's "personality" includes the odd personal entry, create a separate category for "fun stuff," "random" or other "personal," and think about each post's fit with your target audience before you publish. Or start a separate blog on that topic and cross-link your blogs. 9. Making It Hard to Subscribe Because subscribers are such an important part of blogging success, you need to make it easy for users to sign up. Since not all users understand and use RSS feed aggregators like Feedburner and Bloglines (also called newsreaders), off?both email and RSS options. Make them very conspicuous, preferably placing them at the top of your navigation menu and above the fold. Don't be afraid to "ask for the subscription" at the end of each post as well. Chicklets are mini-icons that make it easy... 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.. Reciprocal Linking vs. Mutual Linking Reciprocal Linking vs. Mutual Linking By Scottie Claiborne  Some of the advice floating around regarding linking for your site can be pretty confusing, especially when it comes to reciprocal linking. Is it something you have to do? Can your site succeed without reciprocal links? Will you be penalized for reciprocal linking? There are so many conflicting theories. Let's try to clear the subject up a little. Link Popularity The founders of Google worked off a premise that has been active in academic papers for years: citation authority. They found that the more academic papers cited another's work, the more likely that cited work was to be an authority on the subject. Similarly, when a lot of sites link to one site, it's likely that site is an authority for the topic. The "topic" is whatever those links say it is. If 25 sites link to another site with the term "oak shelving," it's likely that page is an important page for oak shelving. Manipulation of Links It didn't take long for people who wanted to rank well for certain terms to figure out that they needed a lot of links with their chosen keyword phrases to improve their rankings in the search engines. Many schemes were born, including mini-sites, site networks, link farms, and reciprocal linking. Reciprocal Linking At the most basic level, reciprocal links are links you trade with other sites (you add their link, they add yours) in order to build link popularity. There are online services, group exchanges, and software available to help you link up with more like-minded webmasters, fast. As a result, many sites have grown sizeable directories on topics that have nothing to do with their area of expertise, simply because those other sites were willing to... more.. Yahoo Panama - Pros and Cons Yahoo Panama - Pros and Cons By Scott Van Achte (c) 2007 Near the end of 2006 Yahoo officially unveiled the new back end for Yahoo Marketing Solutions, widely referred to as the 'Panama' Update. Since then they have been slowly allowing the upgrading of accounts from the old into the new system. While not everyone has had a chance to have their accounts switched over, it is expected that all will be upgraded by the end of this quarter. After several months of waiting, this new backend is a welcomed change as Yahoo finally moves into the future but as with any new system, it is not without its pros and cons. New System Cons There are a few negative aspects that have been widely noted in many forums and by Yahoo advertisers. As with any new design and back end, it is expected that there will be some wrinkles. Most of the problems are relatively minor, and for advertisers on top of their campaigns, these should not present any major issues. One of the downsides most discussed is the transfer of account stats from the old system to the new. Once your account has been transferred, the new system will not log any of the old system historical data. While this information is still accessible by logging into the old interface (which is made read only), it would certainly make more sense if stats were available under the new account login. Another issue is campaign tracking. After the switch has been made, as long as you do not change any tracking settings everything should continue... more.. How Important is Alexa Ranking? How Important is Alexa Ranking? By Adriana Iordan (c) 2007 Alexa Ranking - A Web Site Monetization Strategy? All businesses that employ online marketing, strive to improve their conversion rate. Now, there are different ways of attracting targeted traff? Some try to achieve a good ranking in the SERPs, while others are satisfied with heavier traffic. Either way, everybody has the goal of achieving financial success. But, while scoring high with Google may seem to certain business people the only way to make themselves known and thus reach their goal, there are others that think that a good position in the Alexa ranking system might benefit them just as well. What is Alexa Ranking? This is a ranking system set by alexa.com (a subsidiary of amazon.com ) that basically audits and makes public the frequency of visits to various Web sites. The algorithm by which Alexa traff?ranking is calculated, is simple. It is based on the amount of traffic recorded over a period of three months from users that have the Alexa toolbar installed. This traff?is based on such parameters as reach and page views. The reach refers to the number of Alexa users who visit a particular site in one day. Page view, as the name indicates, is the number of times a particular page (URL) is viewed by Alexa users. Alexa.com makes it clear though that, if a particular user visits the same URL multiple times on the same day, all those visits will be counted as one. The first step of the ranking process is calculating the reach and number of page views for all the sites on the Web on a daily... more.. Easy Web 2.0 Internet Marketing, Strategies for Social Media Easy Web 2.0 Internet Marketing, Strategies for Social Media By Gary Smith (c) 2008 The Web 2.0 social media revolution is in full steam. Are people finding your website? As an entrepreneur, how do you make your business website stand out amongst 435 million other websites and more than 1 million blogs competing for your audience's attention? It's not as hard as you might think. To begin, let's look at the demographics of Web 2.0 social networking sites, Myspace.com, Facebook and YouTube.com. This will give you an idea on how to position your message in the Web 2.0 World. The Web 2.0 Social Networking Revolution Web 2.0 is a real revolution on the Internet. And these aren't just college kids... 62% of MySpace visitors are older than 25 (40% are 35+), and 83% are mak? over $30,000 a year. Nineteen percent (19%) are mak? $100,000 and up... On Facebook.com 46% are over 25 and 34% are 35+, but they've got deep pockets. Eighty-eight percent (88%) mak?ore than $30,000 and twenty-three percent (23%) mak?100,000 or more. In the years ahead these numbers will get ridiculous... Social media giant Facebook is currently ADDING a million 25+ (non-student) adults per week to their rosters. That's 52 million new users a year. YouTube.com gets over 50 million unique visitors per month. That equals over half a billion a year. Facebook and MySpace have the equal daily traffic of Google. Experts predict within the next year they will DOUBLE the daily traffic of Google search. So your prospects are there. The traffic is there. The spending... more.. The Lucky Thirteen - The Critical SEO Checklist The Lucky Thirteen - The Critical SEO Checklist By Mike Tekula (c) 2007 When it comes to SEO not all of us have the time to be experts. At some point the real "gurus" of SEO and other topics are the people with a whole lot of time on their hands. This l?, put together with the everyday webmaster in mind, drives home some absolutely crucial points that you should keep in mind when optimizing your pages for valuable search rankings. 1. Check Search Engine Crawl Error Pages It's important to monitor search engine crawl error reports to keep on top of how your site and its pages are performing. Monitoring error reports can help you determine when and where Googlebot or another crawler is having trouble indexing your content - which can help you find a solution to the problem. 2. Create/update robots.txt and sitemap files These files are supported by major search engines and are incredibly useful tools for ensuring that crawlers index your important site content while avoiding those sections/files that you deem to be either unimportant or cause problems in the crawl process. In many cases we've seen the proper use of these files make all the difference between a total crawl failure for a site and a full index of content pages which makes them crucial from an SEO standpoint. 3. Check Googlebot activity reports These reports allow you to monitor how long it's taking Googlebot to access your pages. This information can be very important if you are worried that you may be on a slow network or experiencing web server problems.... more.. Key Marketing Methods For 2008 Key Marketing Methods For 2008 By Sam Law and Julian Stone (c) 2007 ProWorkFlow ProActiveSoftware - Julian101.com (c) 2007 Isn't online market? by definition, expensive? Not necessarily. Online businesses are coming to the realization that in an organic environment like the Internet, organic marketing is required; paying for traditional or static marketing only gets you so far before it becomes ineffective. The consumer now controls your marketing. What is Wrong With the Old Methods? Old marketing methods are failing because users are beginning to wise up (Rise Up) against the old brute force advertising that tries to win users over through sheer volume, using abrasive web-page banners, unrelated Adwords displayed on the page, or repeated newsletters (most being restricted by anti-spam laws). The old methods no longer work effectively for two key reasons. One is the fact that they are a "flash in the pan", directing users to websites only so long as you continue to pay for the campaign, the second reason is consumers are now at the stage where they either ignore them or go out of their way to block them (with plug-in based browser or email filtering). Let's quickly run through some of the "traditional" ways to market on the web, and their failings. Paid Campaigns - (These only work while active) Paid campaigns may lure people to your site, but they are regularly not your target market and after arriving they promptly leave (High "bounce" rate). Banner Ads - People hate banner ads. Most of the ads on the Internet are loathed because they aren't relevant. Seeing a banner for a better ?urance rate... more.. 12 Simple Steps to Explode Your Site Traffic Using Online Social Media 12 Simple Steps to Explode Your Site Traffic Using Online Social Media By Dave Foster (c) 2007 Last year saw the arrival of online social media. If you operate a website or blog, you would be well advised to realign your site to exploit the popular social media sites for increased traffic. You should also introduce social media components to your site because web users are experiencing these new forms of interaction on more and more sites and they will have an expectation of the same from your site too. If you want to attract repeat visitors and want them to stay longer, your focus for the next few months 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 amongst other users. The social aspects of these sites allow users to setup social communities, invite friends and share common interests. You don't have to change your site immediately to take advantage of these new technologies. Introduce small changes incrementally and you will be well on your way to measure up to your visitors' new expectations. Step 1. 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 people they don't know. Create an About Me page to l? your achievements, skills and aspirations. more.. Why Social Bookmarking? Why Social Bookmarking? By Tinu AbayomiPaul (c) 2009 Someone sent me the question "Why Social Bookmarking? " And I thought to myself: "Um. Why not?" Since I'm not really sure what they meant by that, I'm going to assume that this person mean "Why should I use social bookmarking in my business?" - with a full understanding of all the risks associated with "assuming". I figure that if you're reading this, you have that question, or a similar one. There are three reasons:      1 - More links      2 - More traffic      3 - More credibility More links are always a good thing. Think of links as the road traffic that moves through the web. If there are no roads to where your business "lives" online, namely your website, it's far less likely that the visitors you want will end up getting to you. That's true whether you're talking about search engines or links from other sites. Search engines use a mysterious cross between the number and quality of links to your site in their determination of whether you should be number one or number 701 for your desired keyword. In addition, the "nicer" the road, the more traff?will flow through it - think of an authority site linking to your site as a highway that leads directly to your site, and one from a reciprocal link or link exchange scheme as a back street in a sketchy neighborhood full of potholes. Improved traffic, also good. From social bookmarking, this traffic is often targeted. Through tagging, the description someone writes, or the title they assigned to your link, the person who discovers the submitted link on a social bookmarking site knows exactly where they're going, and why they're interested in getting there. It's like seeing the cover of a magazine on a rack.... 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 to Write a Media Release How to Write a Media Release By Sue Currie (c) 2007 Did you know that publicity is supposedly seven times more effective than advertising? And it is free ? that is if you do it yourself. If you know the elements of writing a good media release to capture the attention of journalists, you can benefit from free editorial coverage. Here's a few tips to help you write a media release. The Beginning The first and most important thing is to have something interesting to say. Consider your USP ? just like in sales. It's your unique selling proposition. After all publicity is "selling". You are selling a story idea to the media. I like to call it the unique shining point. It really needs to stand out, shine, be compelling ? not an advertisement, not a boring product plug. Another element that will really hook the journalist in is to consider the ESP the emotional selling point. Often it is the human element in the story that will capture the reader's attention therefore the attention of the media. Think about what your story is. What is your background? Have you overcome any obstacles to get where you are today? Any achievements or milestones? Where is the human interest? What's more compelling? An announcement about a wedding limousine service, or the 30th anniversary both in marriage and business of the couple who run the service? This is a story I helped someone uncover in a seminar I conducted. The couple later went on to get a full page colour photo and editorial story in a wedding supplement in their local paper ? for free, just by working out the human element... more.. Ten Ways To Clear Bad Press From Search Engine Results Ten Ways To Clear Bad Press From Search Engine Results By Linda Bustos (c) 2006 What do you see when you search for your company or brand name? Is there anything on the first page of the search engine results that you wouldn't be proud to display on your home page? Consumer review sites, blogs and forums have made it easy for anyone to say whatever they want about your company, whether they be disgruntled customers or competitors who like to play dirty. If you're in a situation where negative publicity is front and center in search results, there are ways you can reclaim search engine real estate for your corporate identity. Though you can't make negative results disappear from the search engine indexes entirely, the following strategies can help them slip off the first few pages of search engine results. 1. Good Old Fashioned Networking The first thing you should do is contact the webmasters of the sites in question with a polite request for removal of negative comments. There's a good chance they'll be willing to co-operate. Note that, even if they do remove the listing, the cached pages may remain in the search engine indexes for some time. But users who cl? through the search engine results will land on a page with the comments removed. Ch? out some of the sites that already have something good to say about you. Send them an appreciation note, and offer them a link back from your site. You could even create a special page called "Gary's Garage On The Web" (if that's the name of your business) or "Press Room." 2. Tap... more.. How To Find The Right Keywords To Optimize Search Engine Results How To Find The Right Keywords To Optimize Search Engine Results By Nelson Tan (c) 2009 Search engines are the vehicles that drive potential customers to your websites. But in order for visitors to reach their destination - your website - you need to provide them with effective signs that direct them right to your site by creating carefully chosen keywords. Think of the right keywords as the "Open Sesame!" of the Internet. Find the exactly right words, and presto! Hoards of traffic will be pulling up to your front door. But if your keywords are too general or overused, the possibility of visitors actually making it all the way to your site - or of seeing any real income from the visitors that do arrive - decreases dramatically. Your keywords serve as the foundation of your marketing strategy. If they are not chosen with great precision, no matter how aggressive your marketing campaign may be, the right people may not get the chance to find out about it. So your first step in plotting your strategy is to gather and evaluate keywords and phrases. You probably think you already know EXACTLY the right words for your search phrases. Unfortunately, if you haven't followed certain specific steps, you are probably WRONG. It's hard to be objective when you are right in the center of your business network, which is the reason that you may not be able to choose the most efficient keywords from the inside. You need to be able to think like your customers. And since you are a business owner and not the consumer, your best bet is to go directly to the source. Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list of potential search... 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.. Search Engine Tools Not Just For SEO Search Engine Tools Not Just For SEO By Gennady Lager (c) 2007 Sadly, not everyone in the world knows everything about search engine optimization. In fact, very few people know anything about SEO or even what it is. Even fewer know any search offerings that may help your experience as a search engine user, a website navigator, a webmaster or researcher. I have compiled a l? of free search engine and internet tools handy for everyone to use and improve their experience with some useful resources. Please note that if you are an SEO practitioner, none of these are news to you and you are well aware of these resources. For everyone else, this is a nice little database of handy stuff. Google Products Google has developed a smorgasbord of handy tools and products offered for fr?use to everyone. You can bet that they have developed something to almost everyone's interest. Some of the products I frequently use are Alerts, Blog Search, Earth, Analytics, Toolbar, Image Search, Trends, Page Creator, Maps, Gmail, Talk, and YouTube. These are only some of the products ? Google offers many more! Search Engine Commands Most often used by search engine professionals such as search engine optimizers - very few others know about these search engine commands. Knowing them can really bring information about a specific site and its standing in the World Wide Web to light. Here are some of the most important and generally supported commands: Site: - Displays all of the pages indexed by the engine of the site. Link: - Locates some links pointing to the site. Cache: - Shows the last indexed and cached version of a site. Info: - Displays general info about a site with other search commands. Related: - Shows websites that may be semantically or directly related to... more.. Landing Page Quick Reference Guide Landing Page Quick Reference Guide By Michael Cordova A landing page is a website page that is created for one purpose - to persuade the site visitor to convert into a customer by making a sale, completing a form (thereby becoming a qualified lead), signing up for a newsletter, etc. We provide this landing page quick reference so you can pull it out every time you are creating a persuasive landing page. It is divided into 4 sections and is intended to be an all-inclusive tip sheet. Most importantly, consider that you have 8 seconds or less to convince your visitor to act. If you haven't convincingly made your case in this time then your visitor will move on and will be lost, as the Internet has created the most fickle customer in sal?history. Page Layout Place your logo at the top left. Visitors expect it there so display your branding where it counts. If the visitor came from a search engine keyword search or a PPC ad, then place the keyword terms in bold at the top of the page. This reinforces to the visitor that they came to the right place. Always keep the Golden Triangle in mind. It is the most important and scanned part of the page. It is the area of the page that starts at the top left of the page moves to the top right side of the page then down diagonally to the bottom left of the page just above the fold. The fold is the area of a web page that the visitor sees without scrolling vertically. You should nev?force a visitor to scroll horizontally.... more.. Develop Quality Content to Rule the Web Develop Quality Content to Rule the Web by S. Housley Fresh content The age old question keeps coming up, how do you retain website visitors, how do you make visitors return to your website? The answer should come as no surprise, fresh content. Content is truly king, the fresher the content the better the site. What many webmasters fail to realize is that there is an endless supply of content on the web that is freely available to webmasters. Not only can public domain material be freely used and syndicated on websites, but a number of content publishers provide content in exchange for a link back to their websites. A variety of contents related to the website theme that is integrated into the website will attract the interest of both search engines and web surfers. The key to taking advantage of free content is integrating or including content that is directly related to the theme of the website. 1. Articles Article repositories exist that categorizes content articles. Searching the repositories using keywords that are related to a websites theme will result in a wide variety of articles available for publication that are related to the site's existing web content. Articles in the repositories are available for syndication, which means webmasters can freely include the articles on their websites as long as they include the author resource box with valid links. Use the following to locate topic specific articles: Free Website Content GoArticles 2. RSS Feeds The contents of many RSS feeds can be syndicated. The added benefit of syndicating feeds is that they are frequently updated which will result in a steady stream of fresh changing content. In order to reap the benefits... more.. 10 Key Things to Look for in a Good Web Designer 10 Key Things to Look for in a Good Web Designer By Gary Klingsheim (c) 2008 The pace of business today is positively supersonic. There doesn't seem to be enough time for anything anymore, and businesses of all sizes are working harder and faster all the time. It's important to work smarter, too. And that means when you have to choose an important vendor for an essential service, you need to slow down and make a deliberate, careful decision. This is particularly important when you are getting ready to put your company's face on the World Wide Web in a new or newly-refurbished web site. Before listing the ten key things to look for in a good web designer, let's define a few terms. Even though you may encounter variants on the name ? like web developer, web artist, webmaster and so forth - we're talking about an individual who, alone or with some assistance, is going to "get you up and running." This means more than simple design. You may need someone who can help you conceive and write copy. You may need someone who can plan smart site structure. You may need help getting a domain registered, files uploaded, e-mail accounts set up, and other technical details. You will definitely need someone who can do just about anything, or quickly find out how, or have an associate who can at the ready. With these caveats, and serious encouragement to shop around for price and professionalism, here are the ten things to look for, in rough order of importance: 1) Experience You will need someone with all the techniques, tools and tricks that... more.. Google's Real-Time Search Impact On Small Businesses Google's Real-Time Search Impact On Small Businesses By Suzanne Vara (c) 2010 Google recently introduced us to Real Time Search and this has been met with a lot of questions. What Tweets will show up in real time? How will this affect businesses who are, and those who are not, engaging in social media? How will it affect PPC? Where will the searches show up? The biggest question is what impact will this have on small business? Small business owners are met with limited resources and adding any additional hours into their day is nearly impossible. But can a small business ignore real time search? What is Real Time Search? As per Google "... new features that bring your search results to life with a dynamic stream of real-time content from across the web. Now, immediately after conducting a search, you can see live updates from people on popular sites like Twitter and FriendFeed, as well as headlines from news and blog posts published just seconds before. When they are relevant, we'll rank these latest results to show the freshest information right on the search results page." In other words, your tweets from Twitter and new blog articles will be appear as "Latest Results." The latest results are featured in 2 ways. a. On the search results page below the "News Results" (if there are news results). This appears for very hot topics that are getting a lot of activity. b. The "Show Options" menu: click on "Latest" under All Results and the live search results will appear. What Does This Mean for Small Businesses? 1. Customer Experience. Consumers are much more savvy and they are going online for more information. A quick Google search will provide... 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.. 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.. Debunking the Top 10 Search Engine Myths Debunking the Top 10 Search Engine Myths By Marc D. Ensign (c) 2009 We've all done it at some point in our professional lives. We search a keyword that describes our business only to scratch our head as to how our competitor's website shows up on the top of the l? instead of ours. If you've gone one step further and read about Search Engine Optimization, then surely you have come across the conflicting information online. One article tells you to do one thing while another tells you to do the opposite. Which one should you believe? This gray area of what you should or should not do is much like the modern day "Bat Cave." If you are lucky enough to stumble upon it, chances are you don't quite know how you got there and if you had to go back one day you would probably just find yourself lost in the woods. So what should you believe? The general rule is to combine what you read or heard with what you have experienced and somewhere in there lies the truth. To get you started, let's debunk some of the more commonly used myths floating around. 1) Use a Keyword Rich Domain Name: It is widely believed that if you include your keywords in your domain name like www.professional-website-design-in-nj.com it will greatly improve your rankings. This is not true. It is best to choose a domain name that is short, easy to remember and if possible includes your company name. 2) Google Partnership: If you are ever approached by a company claiming to have a partnership with Google, run in the... more.. SEO Duplicate Web Content Penalty Myth Exploded The "duplicate content penalty" myth is one of the biggest obstacles I face in getting web professionals to embrace reprint content. The myth is that search engines will penalise a site if much of its content is also on other websites. Clarification: there is a real duplicate content penalty for content that is duplicated with minor or no variation across the pages of a single site. There is also a "mirror" penalty for a site that is more or less substantially duplicating another single site. What I'm talking about here is the reprint of pages of content individually, rather than in a mass, on multiple sites. Another clarification: "penalty" is a loaded concept in SEO. "Penalty" means that search engines will punish a website for violations of the engine's terms of service. The punishment can mean making it less likely that the site will appear in search results. Punishment can also mean removal from the search engine's index of web pages ("de-indexing" or "delisting"). How have I exploded the "duplicate content penalty" myth? PageRank. Many thousands of high-PageRank sites reprint content and provide content for reprint. The most obvious case is the news wires such as Reuters (PR 8) and the Associated Press (PR 9) that reprint to sites such as www.nytimes.com (PR 10). The proliferation of content reprint sites. There are now hundreds of websites devoted to reprint content because it's a cheap, easy magnet for web traffic, especially search engine traffic. Experience. I've seen significant search engine traffic both from distributing content to be reprinted and from reprinting content on the site. How I Doubled Search Engine Traffic with Reprint Content When I first started distributing content for my main site, I was... 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.. 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.. Web Site Makeover Live Checklist Web Site Makeover Live Checklist By Marcia Yudkin (c) 2009 The web designer shows you her final version of your long-in-the- making revamped site. You cl? around and can hardly believe how gorgeous and rich it is. "Love it! Launch it!" Oops, not so fast. Too many times I've seen that sentiment lead to frantic scrambling, even to disaster. Before making your revamped site live, use this checklist to make sure you've caught or prevented horrible new-site glitches. 1. Timing. Never, never launch your new web site on a holiday, weekend or even on a Friday. Why? Because chances are high you'll discover something weirdly wrong with your shopping cart, images, blog or regular web pages, and the tech support you need will be closed down or just skeletally staffed. Likewise, make sure your web designer or developer will be on hand for the next day or two to quickly fix any problems that become evident. 2. Test on as many computers as you can, and request feedback with the site parked in a test location. A colleague of mine (whose experience inspired this article) replaced her old site with the new one, then asked for feedback on a discussion board. Several people reported pages looking peculiar in their browsers or receiving an obnoxious warning message instead of simply seeing the home page. Too late, she learned she should have asked for this feedback before the site went public. What looked great and worked fine in her office had not-so-positive results in various browser and monitor combinations no one had tested the site on. 3. Match the new file... 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.. 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.. 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.. Eleven Steps to SEO Heaven - Part 2 Eleven Steps to SEO Heaven - Part 2 By Tim Meadows-Smith (c) 2010 One piece of 'new media jargon' that has got the vast majority of business leaders confused is SEO (search engine optimization). Too many people have been charged too much for either inappropriate or ineffective SEO services, often because the supplier does not really understand it either. This two part article is for people who are not experienced or very knowledgeable when it comes to SEO - defining what it is and what it can do. The introduction and first five steps to SEO heaven discussed how to get a website ready for an SEO campaign. In part two (steps 6 to 11), we'll explore the continuous and competitive process of earning a high search engine ranking for a SEO prepared website. Step 6 to SEO Heaven - Web Analytics As with any marketing, but particularly for online marketing, where the tools and results are so effective, it is essential to measure and track results. Market behaviour is very predictable. Accordingly, the effectiveness of each part of your campaign can be compared and optimized. The options for web analytics vary from free services to very expensive and customizable packages. Whichever you choose, don't put it off. Measure your results from day one and use them to improve your site and your marketing campaigns. That old statement 'I know half my advertising does not work, if I only knew which half was not working I'd stop spending it' is not true on the internet. You can and must know. Step 7 to SEO Heaven - Content Building Part of being 'the best and most relevant' result is having the freshest content, and the search engines... 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.. Is Your Web Site Missing These Crucial Conversion Factors? Is Your Web Site Missing These Crucial Conversion Factors? By Kim Roach of UnleashTheTraffic.com Smart online marketers nev?guess. They base their decisions on precise testing. Unfortunately, 90% of online marketers nev?test at all. However, for those that take the time to test properly, they can quickly rise above the competition. Want to know how to increase your prof? without increasing your web site traff? Proper testing and tracking is the key. You should test all of your sal?letters, landing pages, order forms, and web designs. Here are some of the crucial elements that you should test on every page along with some advice on best practices. Keep in mind that nothing beats your own testing because different market segments will respond differently to your sal?copy. Headline Simple changes to the headline have been known to produce up to a 1,900% increase in conversion rates. The headline is the single most important part of your sal?letter. If they don't read past your headline, they will nev?reach the order button. An effective headline will capture your visitors' attention and draw them into your sal?copy. You only have about 8 - 10 seconds to capture your visitors' attention. To do so, your headline must hit your visitors deepest needs and desires. One of the most powerful headlines is a question. Why? Because quest?s irritate the brain and make your grey cells go haywire. Psychologically, quest?s are extremely powerful. Here are 3 quick tips for writing effective headlines: Ask a question that begs to be answered. Create curiosity. ( Our brains our naturally curious) Embellish your visitors deepest problem. If you are not... more.. Eleven Steps to SEO Heaven Part 1 Eleven Steps to SEO Heaven Part 1 By Tim Meadows-Smith in Featured Are you fed up with feeling baffled by search engine optimization (SEO) because of jargon and poor practitioners? Do you feel you have been charged too much for less than you were promised? This two part article sets out to explain the process and put you back in control. If you have focused objectives and a clear online strategy then SEO will almost always be a good cost effective addition to the marketing tool set. The first thing to understand is that search engine businesses, like Google, Yahoo and Bing, have customers to satisfy too. Their customers are searching and they expect to see the ?best and most relevant? search results. I expect like me, you get frustrated if your searches bring irrelevant results first. No surprise then, that the methods used by the search engine operators are designed to deliver customer satisfaction. They work hard to eliminate bogus SEO services that aim to cheat. It is possible for you to make your website ?the best and most relevant? for certain searches and to convince the search engine operator you are just that too. That is SEO. Each of my 11 steps to SEO heaven is necessary. I assume that you will be committed to a long term marketing strategy, and to measuring results with a view to adjusting your activity. The steps include those of preparation as well of those of continuous repeated activities. The early preparatory steps are perhaps the most important as errors here will frustrate the effectiveness of the later ones. Armed with our clear objectives and online strategy: Step 1 to SEO Heaven ? Keyword Research A vital first step that should not... 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 Methods Of Adding More Content To Your Site 8 Methods Of Adding More Content To Your Site By Matt Jackson (c) 2007 Content is king and your content site is your kingdom. When the adage "content is king" was first coined, the web was, in many respects, a simpler place for Webmasters. Creating a website with ten to twenty pages of keyword rich content would generate excellent search engine results and a mass of traff?as a result. Note that keyword rich has now been replaced by keyword optimized ? a subtle difference, but a difference nevertheless. However, the web evolved (difficult to imagine that it's only now considered web 2.0). With the evolution of the web came a much greater demand from web users. Where the static content site was once the epitome of everything good about the Internet, that is less true of the most recent incarnation of the World Wide Web. Your website visitors demand more, but are you able to provide it? We look at various methods of including more content on your website.   More Pages OK, we'll deal with the most obvious method first. Add more pages. It's simple and it might be considered old school to many, but it still has a place. The more pages of content you have, the more information you can provide and the more keywords you can target. The math is simple and the technique is devastatingly simple. Try to add new pages for new topics and, if a particular topic looks like being too verbose, split the page down into several parts. Host? plans usually allow for a lot of disk space so you should have no problems with space limitations in this respect. Content Management Systems... more.. Using Social Media to Boost Search Engine Results Using Social Media to Boost Search Engine Results By Lauren Hobson (c) 2009    Most of us are well aware that the search engines frequently change their algorithms to improve search results for users (and foil spammers), which can make it challenging for small businesses just to keep up. But as web technology continues to evolve, it also creates new opportunities for small businesses to improve their SEO strategies and boost their rankings as well. Social media (sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Technorati, Digg, etc.) provide an excellent opportun? for small businesses to not only promote their products and services online, but also to gain significant ground in the search engine results. One of the most critical components to getting top search engine rankings is the number of inbound links and link popularity a web site is able to build. Although there are several existing link building strategies available to small businesses (e.g., press releases, directory submissions, article syndication, etc.), social media can help create additional high-value, on-target inbound links that are essential to achieving top placements in the search engines. For example, each time you use Twitter to publish a link to new content on your web site, that link gets "planted" on the Twitter page of each person following you, and has the potential to spread even further as your followers share that information with their own network of contacts. Integrated Social Marketing (ISM)TM If you have properly integrated your social networking profiles together, that same Twitter "tweet" could then be fed via RSS to your Facebook business profile, your corporate blog, your LinkedIn account, and any number of other social sites that you have set up for your business. It's not a far stretch to imagine... more.. Relationship Marketing for the 21st Century Relationship Marketing for the 21st Century By Karen Saunders (c) 2010 Quick! Answer this question: What do you think of when you hear the term "relationship marketing"? If the only things that came to mind were your local business networking group, local chamber of commerce, or service club, you might not be aware of new strategies in 21st century relationship marketing. There is nothing wrong with any of these organizations, but if your relationship marketing efforts begin and end with them, you are not only operating under the old rules of relationship marketing, you are stuck in the 20th century. 21st century relationship marketing makes active use of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 and Social Media Only a few years ago, social media was something most people thought of as a tool for teenagers and college students. That has changed. Facebook now has more than 80 million active users and the fastest growing demographic of Facebook users is the over-25 age group. If that didn't make you sit up and take note, it should have. Your customers and potential customers probably have a computer and probably have high speed Internet access. And if they are not already using social media of some kind, just give it a few months. They will be. Think you are immune? How did you access this article? There is a good chance you came to it online. The communication mogul of the 21st century is the World Wide Web and the tools that make it work have advanced so much in such a short time that the buzz is now about Web 2.0. What is Web 2.0? No, you don't need to throw out your year-old computer or buy new software. Web... more.. Web 2.0: Way of the Future or Marketing Gimmick? Web 2.0: Way of the Future or Marketing Gimmick? By Mikhail Tuknov (c) 2007 The term Web 2.0 has come to dramatically increased usage over the past few years. Many people have since begun to appropriate this hot new buzzword for their own websites while others are not quite so eager to embrace this new concept, considering it little more than an inappropriately named web-marketing gimmick. It has clearly polarized the web into two opposing camps, of adherents on the one hand and skeptics on the other. Yet in spite of all this - or perhaps because of this - there is still plenty of confusion and controversy surrounding Web 2.0. What is it exactly? And are the changes to the way the Internet has come to be used in recent years really significant enough to warrant this name? The phrase itself is attributed to O'Reilly media, the company who coined it in 2003. Subsequently, the first Web 2.0 conference, which was held in 2004, brought it into widespread public consciousness. A series of conferences hosted by O'Reilly media has made the term even more popular than ever and facilitated the adoption of it by many industry pundits. The term as it has come to be used by O'Reilly media, refers to what many in the Internet industry perceive to be the second wave of Web-based communities and hosted services, following the first wave of communities which flourished during the initial Internet boom. These web sites encompass social networking sites, wiki sites and folksonomies - all of which share the trait of encouraging and facilitating content collaboration and sharing among its many users. Perhaps some of the confusion surrounding the use of the... more.. How I Got 70,000 Useless Visitors To My Site In One Day! How I Got 70,000 Useless Visitors To My Site In One Day! (An Analysis of Social Bookmark Traffic) By Titus Hoskins (c) 2007 Recently, a page on one of my websites was bookmarked or listed on Digg, a popular social bookmark site. It gave me the perfect opportunity to study and analyze the traffic coming from these social media sites. Read to discover the advantages and disadvantages of social bookmark traffic and how it can be applied to your own online market? or site.   Is Social BookMark Traffic Useless? First, we must make the distinction that no traffic is useless. Any visitor to your site is a good thing and should be welcomed. However, all traffic is not created equally, there are great differences in the sources of your traffic. This article takes a close analytical look at social bookmark traffic from an internet marketing perspective. In case you haven't noticed, right now social bookmark and media sites are all the rage on the web. Social bookmark traffic comes from such popular sites as Slashdot, Digg, Stumbleupon... basically these sites are driven by their users - that is, users or members pick and bookmark the content they want to view and discuss. These social bookmark sites are extremely popular; they command the high traffic numbers most ordinary sites can only dream about obtaining. But is this social bookmark traffic useful? Is it worth your time? Should you be actively promoting to these social media sites? Should you concentrate your online market? efforts on these types of sites? More importantly, what are the benefits and disadvantages of getting a front page listing on a site like... more.. Attracting Links To Your Website Attracting Links To Your Website By Trey Pennewell (c) 2008 the Phantom Writers You know it is funny in a way. Webmasters have learned that the most important thing that they can do to improve the traffic to their website and to attract attention from the search engines is to build links to their website. But when it comes time to actually start building links to one's website, people typically pick the hardest way to accomplish the task and then they get to work. Working Hard People have been told about various ways to build links to one's website, and they go through the process of picking out the method that they would prefer to use. It is kind of ironic that most people pick the method that they believe will be the easiest and least expensive to achieve, and when all is said and done, they will have picked out the hardest, least effective method of building links. For example, most newcomers to online business choose: Reciprocal links; Directory submissions. With Reciprocal Links, people buy a software package that helps them to search out websites that are supposedly "related" to theirs and then they send an email to the person who owns that website, proclaiming the benefits of trading links and asking for the link. With directory submissions, webmasters can get software that is supposed to help with the process, but it takes hours just to subm?one's website to a few dozen directories. Fortunately, there are service providers who also provide submissions to web directories. Regardless of how you get links subm?ed to web... 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.. 20 Must-Have Search Engine Marketing Tools 20 Must-Have Search Engine Marketing Tools By Kalena Jordan (c) 2007 Anyone working in Search Engine Marketing knows that this industry travels at warp speed. If you're trying to market your web site or the web sites of your clients via search engines, chances are your time is limited - severely limited. To squeeze as much into my schedule as possible without resorting to self-cloning, my daily routine involves the use of a range of time-saving tools and software. I use such tools on a daily basis and I truly don't know how I'd function without them. I'm not the only one. I've talked to other SEM experts and they also rely on various tools to help them through their hectic schedules. Here is a l? of 20 must-have tools used by busy SEM professionals:   1. Freshbooks Invoicing and Timesheets Freshbooks is an online estimating, invoicing, project management and time tracking service that gives your business a professional image, no matter how small. I use it to invoice all my clients online and it can even be set up to automatically bill and debit the cred?cards of recurring clients every month. It also has built in staff timesheets and project management tools for online collaboration.   Price: Free for 3 clients or less   2. XML Sitemaps Generator The XML Sitemap Generator trawls through all levels of your site to generate an XML sitemap. It also gives you a running count of pages, provides a text-based URL l? and a HTML sitemap you can import straight into your site. The online version of the generator is free for sites of less than 500 pages, but there's also a low-cost script-based... more.. 7 Tactical Reasons To Use Mini Campaign Websites 7 Tactical Reasons To Use Mini Campaign Websites By Jerry Bader (c) 2008 How many websites should your company have? That's a question that comes up often in discussions with clients, but perhaps the idea hasn't crossed your mind. Why would any company need more than one website? Not to be glib but the answer is as many as you need, but how many is that? If you're a large corporation, it is fairly obvious that you need a separate site for each brand you offer, and a separate site for corporate background material and perhaps investor information. But what if you're a small or medium-sized company with a limited number of products or services? Then the question becomes, do your products relate to one another? Does one item flow into the next? Is your audience for each product or service the same? And what about totally different audiences for the same product: audiences that need to be approached with totally different tactics? And then there are special circumstances like new product launches, time sensitive marketing campaigns, and limited availability offers? Mini Campaign Websites and Alternative Marketing Websites are an effective method of enhancing your marketing efforts and targeting optional audiences you wouldn't have otherwise reached using your traditional sales marketing approach. 7 Tactical Reasons To Use Campaign Websites 1. Focus Your Presentation: eliminate distraction and non relevant clutter. It is human nature to want to get your money's worth, but when it comes to website marketing this can be counter-productive. Wanting to cram everything you provide into one website aimed, or more to the point not aimed, at every interested audience only... 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.. Killer Campaigns Volume Four: The Color of Branding Killer Campaigns Volume Four: The Color of Branding By Jerry Bader (c) 2010 Web video is a communication technique that provides a viewer-experience that delivers several big advantages over broadcast: first, the length of your presentation is for the most part a non issue other than the degree to which your content and delivery holds your audience's attention; second, the cost to produce and present professional online video is far more affordable than broadcast; and third, Web video provides the chance to intellectually and emotionally engage your audience with a memorable viewing experience, and involve them physically by prompting direct-response action. On the other hand, broadcast does provide a mass audience, but not necessarily an attentive one like your website. As we have seen in previous installments of Killer Campaigns, the commercial broadcast industry, despite its economic and time constraints, has plenty of good examples of techniques that can be used effectively in Web video campaigns, if you understand how certain elements affect an audience. It's easy to misread a commercial's true marketing effectiveness and assume the big flashy special effects and grandiose production stunts are what makes a commercial work, but in fact those kinds of things generally only make a commercial more expensive. True the big-deal aspects of a production may attract attention, but it's the small things that are the most important, the most effective and the most affordable. It's the things you hardly notice like writing, casting, music, performance, and campaign consistency that have the most impact on a presentation's ability to communicate, influence and persuade. It's the production techniques to which the audience pays little attention that maximizes sale-conversions and increases the... 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.. Is Google PageRank Still A Valid Marketing Tool? Is Google PageRank Still A Valid Marketing Tool? By Titus Hoskins (c) 2007 The Google PageRank Toolbar in SEO circles is a hotly debated item, as are most issues dealing with Google. Some say it's useless, others say it gives you a general overview of your site's standing in Google. Regardless of who is right, this Toolbar shouldn't be ignored nor worshipped, just closely watched. The Google PR Toolbar is a simple tool you can download and place on your browser. When you surf the web, this toolbar will give you Google's PR or Page Rank for that particular site or page. Google ranks all web pages from a scale of 0 to 10. This Toolbar is more like the Richter scale than an ordinary scale. There's a big difference in the rankings as you go up and they are not proportional. You must also realize each of these ranking points are further divided and only Google knows the exact placement of your site or page within your shown PR number. For example, if you have a PR6 site your site could be at low end of the PR6 scale (closer to PR5) or at the top end which would make it more of a PR7 site. Big difference. ? PageRank Confusion Many suggest Google is not giving us the real value of the page in the first place and this toolbar is often out of date and more of a smokescreen than real information about a site. There could be some truth in this as Google nev?gives up all its secrets. Does any company? Certainly not the company that holds the keys to the most powerful... 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.. 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.. 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.. 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.. Google's Paid Search vs. Organic Results, A Rickety Wall of Separation Google's Paid Search vs. Organic Results, A Rickety Wall of Separation By Scott Buresh (c) 2007 Medium Blue "Chinese Wall - The ethical (not physical) barrier between different divisions of a financial (or other) institution to avoid conflict of interest..." Investopedia.com "While Google nev?sells better ranking in our search results, several other search engines combine pay-per-click or pay-for-inclusion results with their regular web search results." Google's Webmaster Help Center FAQ "NO pay for inclusion, and a complete separation of the search index part from the money part." Google Chief Engineer Craig Neville-Manning, Search Engine Strategies 2004 The good people at Google have long maintained that there is a Chinese Wall between paid search results and organic results ? that is, the department responsible for advertising is completely separate from the department responsible for organic search engine placement. The company insists that Google Adwords is a completely separate entity than the Google search engine, and nev?the twain shall meet. This all sounds very good, in theory. But do they live up to this ideal in practice? You don't hear Google talking much about Chinese Walls these days. This is certainly in part because they have had great difficulty gaining traction in the literal and very competitive Chinese market (headlines such as "Google Hits Chinese Wall" or even "Google Advance Halted at Great Wall of China" were commonplace). But might there be other, more nefarious reasons? Is there a reason why we hear less and less from Google about the virtual wall that separates paid search results from organic search engine placement? What Is Google Really Doing for Its Big Spenders? It has long been rumored that Google will provide technical... 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.. 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.. 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.. Google Caffeine - A Taste Test Google Caffeine - A Taste Test By Kalena Jordan (c) 2009 Earlier this month, Google invited the public to take their next generation of web search, code named Caffeine, for a test drive. The new search infrastructure is the beginning of Google's advance towards improving indexing speed and scale as the size of the web grows increasingly cumbersome. Google is seeking feedback on the changes from experienced users and web developers by making Caffeine available via a web developer preview. From the official blog post: "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." What Is It? According to Matt Cutts of Google, Caffeine is essentially a rewrite of the search index and it roughly compares with the Big Daddy index of late 2005 / 2006. In other words, it's a BIG change to Google search. Here's a couple of grabs from Mike McDonald's video interview with Matt Cutts on the subject: "We're shooting to get results identical to previous version. We'll open up a few datacenters with it first and then roll it out." "Caffeine will be more powerful, flexible and robust - allowing Google to index faster." "(Caffeine) builds a powerful foundation for including any changes we want to do with indexing. Not so much for taking advantage of semantic, real-time indexing, but for getting good infrastructure in place for growth and unlock more power." "Webmasters shouldn't be concerned. Caffeine does not affect your... more.. 10 Super Tips for Choosing the Right Web Hosting Company 10 Super Tips for Choosing the Right Web Hosting Company By Amy Armitage (c) 2008 The Web hosting firm you choose can make or break your small business. Good ones can run things smoothly, are easy to reach, and fix problems efficiently. But bad ones can have more problems than they are worth, be unreachable at critical times, and bring your business to a screeching halt. Finding a good one is crucial to your success. Here are some tried and true ideas for how to select a host that will save you money, avoid technical snafus, and build your online platform for the future. 1. Choose a Service that Primarily Does Hosting Although it might be tempting to sign-up with a firm that provides an umbrella of services in addition to website hosting, a good rule of thumb is that if a company overly-diversifies its services, it won't deliver top quality in any of them (e.g. tech support, updates, maintenance, etc.) 2. Choose a Host with a Great Record for Online Security Most secure hosts will provide SSL Certificates to guarantee your security. Without an SSL Certificate on your site, visitors may come and go without identifying themselves, and this could put your site at risk. Make sure your host implements best practices when it comes to maintaining security architecture, updating security software, and responding effectively to breaches if and when they do occur. 3.Excellent Technical and Customer Service Support via Phone Does the host provide phone support around the clock? Or can you only email for help during non-business hours? You definitely want the option to call a staffer. Studies... 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.. 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.. Websites, It's the Experience Stupid Websites, It's the Experience Stupid By Jerry Bader (c) 2007 The other day I picked up a book that was sitting on my night table for over a year. It's just a small book and seemed like an easy read, perfect for falling sleep. It was called, "The Invisible Touch" by Harry Beckwith. Mr. Beckwith has written several books and is an expert on positioning, branding, and client relations. I wasn't sure if I was going to bother reading it or not, but after looking at the introduction I was hooked. This guy knew what he was talking about; he must because I agreed with most everything he said. That surely makes him an expert, at least in my eyes. Anyway, he tells a story about going to a concert for one of his favorite artists, a Laura Nyro. He purchased her recordings and loved them for their exquisite sound and her technical playing ability but the concert was a disaster. Ms. Nyro performed with her usual skill and precision, but she nev?once looked at the audience, preferring instead to sit at the piano staring offstage while she played. Each song was preceded by a perfunctory introduction that was barely addressed to the audience. Needless to say, Harry was disappointed, as you can imagine anyone would be.   The Difference Between Products and Services The point of the story Harry Beckwith was making was that there is a big difference between products and services. To quote from his book, "Products are made; services are delivered. Products are used; services are experienced." In this case, recordings are products and concerts are services. This got me thinking of my own experience, perhaps not... more.. Tactics to Draw People Back to Your Site Tactics to Draw People Back to Your Site By Jeremy A Gislason (c) 2009 One of the biggest measurements of a website's success is the stickiness of its visitor base. Generally web masters would rather have 1,000 visitors who return regularly (they are "stuck to the site") as opposed to 3,000 visitors who only visit once or twice. These days the web is massive, carving out a niche for your site and gaining a following within that niche is the key to success. There are many reasons why you should try to make your website as sticky as possible. Visitors who return regularly are more likely to purchase some of your products or content. If you have a membership site, then retaining your member base is critical for growing your ?ome and long term success. Also, a faithful following will encourage viral promotion of your site. Search engine optimization can be a costly and time consuming task and your site's listing can be hammered down by the powers that be (Google) in the blink of an eye. If you gain a faithful user base though, they will tell their friends and family about your site and encourage them to use it as well. Viral marketing is the cheapest and most effective type of marketing there is and making your site and content desirable is the only way to achieve this phenomenon. There are "five C's" of stickiness to remember, and they are: Content Regardless of the site's design, without good content, the visitor will not come back or stay at the site for more than a few minutes. "Content is King" is a clich?but true. High quality content is far and away the most important... 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 Keywords Selection Search Engine Keywords Selection By Rajkumar Search engines are the vehicles that drive potential customers to your websites. But in order for visitors to reach their destination - your website - you need to provide them with specific and effective signs that will direct them right to your site. You do this by creating carefully chosen keywords. Think of the right keywords as the Open Sesame! of the Internet. Find the exactly right words or phrases, and presto! hoards of traffic will be pulling up to your front door. But if your keywords are too general or too over-used, the possibility of visitors actually making it all the way to your site - or of seeing any real profits from the visitors that do arrive - decreases dramatically. Your keywords serve as the foundation of your marketing strategy. If they are not chosen with great precision, no matter how aggressive your marketing campaign may be, the right people may never get the chance to find out about it. So your first step in plotting your strategy is to gather and evaluate keywords and phrases. You probably think you already know EXACTLY the right words for your search phrases. Unfortunately, if you haven't followed certain specific steps, you are probably WRONG. It's hard to be objective when you are right in the center of your business network, which is the reason that you may not be able to choose the most efficient keywords from the inside. You need to be able to think like your customers. And since you are a business owner and not the consumer, your best bet is to go directly to the source. Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list... 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.. SEO - Then, Now, and Tomorrow. SEO history based on my experience - a very late at night post. 1999 SEO - Creating 18 doorway pages for 18 major search engines. Looking at the sites in the top results and analyzing keyword density of each area of the pages, and repeating it with just a little more keyword density. Regularly submitting pages to the Search Engines. 2000 SEO - PPC at 1 cent per click at GoTo (later Overture/Yahoo). Yahoo owns 1/3 of the internet, MSN (Looksmart) owns ~15%, and another 15 engines share the rest. Google who? 2001 SEO - 3 major directories control much of the Internet. Yahoo Directory (~35% SE traffic), Looksmart Directory (top of MSN results), DMOZ (Helped in several search engines (including Google)). Being an editor for Zeal (Looksmart non ecommerce Editors - showed at top of MSN) and becoming a DMOZ Editor could control your listing. and with directory editor experience, then submitting to Yahoo with urls like www.car-parts-auto-part-cheap-discount.com. Back then you could have #1 rankings in 1-3 days accross 90% of the internet. 2002 SEO - Refining Keyword density and stuffing in 1 more keyword on your pages than the top guys have. By the end of the year Google?s taken over King, and the other search engines are fading fast, and the days of SEO link building are Priorty #1, trade them and buy them. 2003 SEO - With Yahoo now defaulting search results to Google, Google now controls 79% of all searches. MSN is a far cry #2 with ~13%. With Google ruling, he with the highest PageRank and most backlinks, and focused anchor text links wins monthly rankings in the Monthly Google Dance. By the end of the year almost everyone will feel the effects of a search update gone wrong with an updated called "Florida". 2004 SEO - After Florida... more.. Estimating the Real Cl? Fraud Rate Estimating the Real Cl? Fraud Rate By Nick Guastella (c) 2007 The controversy surrounding cl? fraud comes up every year, but it reached a fever pitch during December's Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago when participants voiced concerns over experiencing fraudulent cl? rates ranging from 20 to 40 percent, threatening the entire paid search industry. At the time, Google's Business Product Manager for Trust and Safety Shuman Ghosemajumder tried to calm advertisers' fears explaining that Google was currently "...examining ways to make its fraud-fighting efforts more transparent without revealing crucial information that might help swindlers elude detection." Ghosemajumder did, however, express concerns over revealing too much information, fearful it would give away algorithm secrets to competitors. Paid Search Revenues Continue to Rise While the major search providers have always insisted the cl? fraud rate is a gross overestimation, a 2005 Outsell survey found that cl? fraud was a $1.3 billion problem for publishers. At the time, many advertiser respondents (27 percent) said they planned to cut back and/or eliminate paid search campaigns in 2006. Outsell respondents may have intended to cut down on paid search, but they certainly didn't follow through. SEMPO's year-end search marketing report showed that North American advertisers spent $8 billion on paid placement programs in 2006, amounting to 86 percent of 2006's total search spend ($9.4 billion). Seventy-one percent of SEMPO respondents said they used paid search campaigns, illustrating that there were not many defectors. Despite advertisers' insistent claims that the search engines don't do enough to eliminate cl? fraud, paid search revenues continue to fill the coffers of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and many second and third tier search engines. Additionally, there is a... more.. Top 10 AdSense Tricks To Boost Your Commission Top 10 AdSense Tricks To Boost Your Commission By Kalena Jordan Google AdSense - http://www.google.com/adsense - is fast becoming the preferred way for people to earn an income online. Forget eBay and multiple aff?ate programs. Whether you are a work-at-home mom trying to make a little extra c? or an Internet entrepreneur with hundreds of monetized websites, AdSense is truly the easiest way to earn mon? Simply sign up for a fr?account, grab your ad code and paste it in your site. But here's the amazing thing - no matter how much mon?AdSense is making for you right now, a few simple tweaks can increase that amount considerably. And I should know, after learning about these tricks, I more than doubled my AdSense commissions! The self-proclaimed AdSense gurus and experts are sharing this insider knowledge, for a fee. Editorial Note: Some of the website AdSense examples provided below by the author may have changed since the article was written. You can learn all these secrets from them, as long as you... more.. SEO Tips: Get More Traffic with these 10 Important Inbound Links SEO Tips: Get More Traffic with these 10 Important Inbound Links By Donna Gunter (c) 2010 Don't overlook your inbound linking strategy as you think about search engine optimization for your site. An inbound link is a hyperlink back to your site from another web site. The one constant and reliable strategy in search engine optimization is that sites with a variety of high quality backlinks rank higher in the search engine results pages. Why are these links to your site important? They can can...     ? bring potential customers to your site when they click on the link     ? boost the number of visitors to your web site     ? dramatically improve your search engine rankings Even though there are software packages on the market that help automate the linking process, use them sparingly, if at all. The only way to succeed in linking strategies is (aside from creating useful content that will encourage inbound links) by manually creating the links. That's a hard fact to swallow, given how I like to automate as much of my marketing as I can. Here are the 10 most important inbound links you must have to your site: 1. Directory Links Directories are indexes of online sites, typically organized by category. Links back to your site from directories like Yahoo Directory and DMOZ.org are very valuable. DMOZ.org is edited by human editors, and while it's free, it may take awhile for your site to be added. Getting added to Yahoo's Directory costs $299/year. 2. Press Releases If you're writing press releases, make sure they are optimized for keywords that someone would use to find a business like yours and include links back to your site, as well. Once written, you can have your press... 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.. Is Your Website an Asset Or a Liability? Is Your Website an Asset Or a Liability? By Nick Yorchak (c) 2007 Remember back in the good ol' days when having a website was something every company needed and wanted? Websites were the wave of the future, and the dream of transitioning to conducting business onl? filled our heads with visions of a revolution in the way commerce was conducted. With a website, a company could reach clients and interact with potential customers on a global scale. A website was indicative of a company's technological prowess, symbolic of the desire to innovate and evolve with developments in the industry. Today, this mindset has changed drastically. We all know that we need a website, but many of us think that simply having one is enough. In fact, there is research indicating that many firms with an online presence haven't touched their websites in years. They haven't spent any time improving functionality and appearance, and they have yet to consider the basics of website usability and the inherent potential of search engine optimization. Of course, we all recognize by now that having a website is an essential business asset, if it's done correctly. It's easy to see that if your site is an outdated eyesore, it becomes a liability that hurts you more than it helps you. Conversely, a well-designed site can make all the difference. It's the first place users go to research your products and services, serves as a lead generator, a CRM tool, and even to make purchases. We've all heard the adage about first impressions, and it's no secret that they're the most important factor in the way people remember... more.. The Web of Tomorrow The Web of Tomorrow By Jason OConnor (c) 2007 Oak Web Works, LLC A woman switches on a tiny wireless chip that has been surgically implanted behind her ear, which then synchs up with the Web wherever she is in the world. The simple thought of logging on to the Internet triggers the system to turn on and connect to the Web. She could be on a bus or at the beach and from all outward appearances she's just staring off into space. But she sees a three dimensional artificial world before her that she can manipulate any way she chooses by mere thought alone. By looking at the trends of today we can begin to develop a image of what the Web of the future will look like. I believe the Web will improve and grow in a way that will dwarf its present existence and will improve and enrich everyone's lives way beyond what we can imagine today. The Net will become as integrated into everyone's everyday lives as much as, and even more so, than the television or telephone (in developed nations first, then everywhere). Television, communications and the Internet will merge. The Web will become increasingly realistic, interactive, and three dimensional. Two dimensional displays will evolve into three dimensional displays. And the Web will probably incorporate more than just the two senses of seeing and hearing. It will first be incorporated into all other electronics found in household appliances, copy machines, automobiles, and anything else with a microchip. Then it will be integrated directly into our brains. I also envisage this new Web creating an unimaginably sophisticated data sphere that surrounds and envelops the world like a warm... 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.. The Surprising Truth About Ugly Websites The Surprising Truth About Ugly Websites By Mark Daoust Ugliness has nev?looked better. I have spent the last few days examining a surprising trend in web design that has made ugly websites look absolutely irresistible. No, it's not the bolded, 18 point Times New Roman font shouting at me as I access the page that has me excited, nor is it the harsh colors that have actually managed to make my eyes hurt and distort my vision. In fact, it's not even that logo which is so pixelated from being processed, resized, saved, and edited so many times that it appears to be blurred to protect the identity of the company who owns the website that has me singing the praises of ugly websites. What is it? Ugly sells. That's right ? ugly websites are surprisingly effective in making mon? As a person who puts business before technology, a profitable website is a website that is an unbelievably attractive website to me. The Case of Plenty of Fish I was struck by an example of just how... more.. My Tactics for Getting Those Top 5 Spots in Google My Tactics for Getting Those Top 5 Spots in Google By Titus Hoskins (c) 2010   Actually, getting in the #1 spot is best, but I will settle for the top 5 or even anywhere on the first page for very competitive keywords. Obtaining those top rankings for your targeted keywords in Google will obviously be very important to achieving your online goals. I don't have some magic formula, just marketing online stuff that works. Very simple stuff that everybody can do to get those top rankings. Here are some of the tactics/things I do: * article marketing through the free article directories * create videos on my niche products * make blog posts in my niche areas * do press releases for my targeted products * create free ebook guides on my subject areas * build separate lists for each major niche market with follow-up emails * participate in online forums with my sig links added * make regular tweets about any new content * find out my competitors' main backlinks and duplicate them * create Google Alerts for my major keywords and add comments/links to the ones I like * keep adding fresh content pages to my sites keyworded to phrases used by buyers Now on second thought, some of those are not so simple, but they