Articles List

How to Choose a Reputable SEO Company How to Choose a Reputable SEO Company   By David Jackson (c) 2011 The two most important elements that qualify companies to promote themselves as SEO experts are competence and professionalism. And the way you find out if a company is competent and professional, as well as legitimate, is to do your due diligence and check their credentials thoroughly, by exercising good old common sense and following these steps: 1. Verify Their Contact Information If the company provides a street address, Google it to see if it's a real address. If they provide a telephone number, call the number to see if it's answered by the company or an answering service. If they don't provide a telephone number, walk away. SEO is serious business. You need to have the ability to talk to whomever is going to be handling your account. You need to be able to ask questions, and you have a right to expect your questions to be answered in a professional manner. 2. Talk to Previous Customers If the SEO company publishes testimonials on their website, contact a few of their customers and get their feedback. If the company can't provide testimonials, walk away, or if the testimonials don't have contact information, they're probably bogus. Walk away. 3. Visit Reputable SEO Forums Visit reputable SEO forums like Jill Whalen's High Rankings Forum to find out what forum members have to say about the company. If an SEO company has a bad reputation, it will race across the Internet at warp speed. Conversely, if a company has a good reputation, you will find that out also. 4. Check Their Better Business Bureau... more.. 10 Tips for Launching your Business Blog 10 Tips for Launching your Business Blog By Beth Hrusch (c) 2010 Are you thinking about launching your business blog? You're not alone. A recent study by GuideWireGroup revealed that approximately 89 percent of businesses polled use blogs as a way to communicate with their customers. In another survey, Burson-Marsteller found that 15% of Fortune 500 companies have blogs. A successful business blog can generate tens of thousands of dollars in revenue each year, with figures for large corporations typically much higher. So, business blogging is becoming a mainstream marketing tool. That does not mean, however, that blogging comes easily or naturally for many companies, their owners and employees. Blogging, like any form of content, is a commitment of time and resources - namely, you have to know how to write (or have access to good writers) and you have to maintain your blogs with fresh, original and insightful new material on a regular basis. This should not scare you away. It should, though, inspire you to learn the basics of business blogging before you turn your baby loose on the world. Planning out your blogging strategy first is a wise move, because it gives your blog a greater chance of success. Here are 10 tips for launching your business blog: 1. Identify your readers. Before you start writing anything, make sure you understand who your target market is. This is also known as your "buyer persona", which marketing guru David Meerman Scott defines as "...a distinct group of potential customers, an archetypal person whom you want your marketing to reach." Basically, you want to tailor your topics to the groups of people who are most interested in your company. Otherwise, you're missing... 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.. 2010 Resolution - Give Your Website a Legal Check-Up 2010 Resolution - Give Your Website a Legal Check-Up By Chip Cooper (c) 2010 We all make New Year's resolutions - some are personal, some are business or professional in nature. Even if we don't actually make New Year's resolutions, we engage in formal and informal "planning" as we look ahead to the new year. If you operate a website, you're probably aware that your website operations are now highly regulated. And the pace of legal regulations continues to accelerate. Which means that you face an increasing risk of legal liability. So, it's a good idea to give your website a legal check-up and to update your site before it's too late. General Issue Checklist The general checklist below covers issues that are not new issues which arose in 2009. These issues have been around for a while, but some may be new to you, particularly if your website or marketing activities changed recently. ? Copyright Notice. These are the basic elements of a copyright notice: the word "copyright" or copyright symbol (c in a circle) followed by the year of first publication followed by the name of the copyright owner followed by "All rights reserved worldwide." Here's an example taken from my digicontracts.com website: Copyright 1996-2010 Digital Contracts, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. ? Blogs. If you've recently added a blog to your site, or if your site is a blog site, it's possible that a visitor could post infringing materials (e.g. text, video links, images). Under the strict principles of copyright law, you'd be a copyright infringer even if you were unaware of the posting. Your liability could be significant. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provides a "safe harbor" from liability provided you publish... more.. 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.. Internet Marketing Tips for Small Businesses Internet Marketing Tips for Small Businesses By Stephen Nelson (c) 2009 In this economy, any marketing tool you can use to find new customers is worth considering. But perhaps the best marketing tool available to many small businesses is a yellow-pages-style web site. Such a site means prospective local customers looking for a business like yours know that you're in business and ready for their patronage. But a word or two of explanation... While the traffic statistics of the typical small business web site may not impress Google, eBay or Amazon.com, many small business web sites do generate significant numbers of prospects compared to the other marketing tools available. Commonly, for example, small business web sites can attract anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred new unique visitors on a daily basis. And that's a lot! What's more, setting up one of these Internet marketing web sites just doesn't have to be that complicated or expensive. Often times, employing the following half a dozen tips lets you enjoy surprising success: Internet Business Marketing Tip #1: Evaluate Your Competition A first and very simple tip is this: Start out by sizing up your competition. Do see what the other guy or other guys in town are doing. Look at the information they're providing. And check out the number of links that point to their site. In a nutshell, you need a better site than your competitors in order to beat them at the Internet marketing game. You need more pages of on-topic content. And you need more inbound links pointing to your pages. You can check the number of inbound links pointing... more.. Website Content By Jerry Bader (c) 2008 Website Content By Jerry Bader (c) 2008 Every week I get asked to look at business websites and tell the owners why they're not getting the results they want. Some of these sites are straightforward brochures, others are e-commerce catalogs, and some are those direct-mail-style pitches reminiscent of old mail-order magazine subscription schemes ported-over to the Web. Some have incorporated do-it-yourself audio and video and some even had this media professionally produced; still the results stink. Why? 'The Close' Is Always Found In 'The Why' Certainly part of the problem stems from a very narrow definition of what a website is: by casting your site in terms of a brochure, catalog, e-commerce-site, blog, or portal, you are falling into the trap of concentrating on 'The What' rather than on 'The Why'. This focus on 'The What' is exacerbated by some search engine optimization techniques intended to drive traffic, not to brand product, sell services, or convert traffic into customers. Don't get me wrong, traffic is important, but converting that traffic into paying customers is more important. Even the best and brightest search engine optimizers will tell you that their job is to deliver traffic not orders - closing the deal is your job, and anybody who tells you that closing can be done by means of some automatic never-touched-by-human-hands method is just plain nuts. What you want to be careful of is search engine tactics and second rate media that actually gets in the way of effectively delivering your marketing message, of telling your business story, of creating a memorable brand image, and above all of generating... more.. Google Panda Update: 11 Important SEO Facts You Should Know  Google Panda Update: 11 Important SEO Facts You Should Know By David Jackson (c) 2011 On Wednesday, February 23, 2011, a category 5 hurricane named "Panda" swept through the Gulf of Google devastating businesses large and small alike. The hurricane was reportedly named after one of Google's engineers. So what was the reason for this catastrophic and "game-changing" update? Well, according to Google: "This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites - sites which are low-value, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites - sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on. It is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that's exactly what this change does." (Source: Google Blog) Mission accomplished. Anyway, in the aftermath of the Panda update, there are 11 important SEO facts I've learned based on my own personal experiences, the experiences of my clients, and from listening to top SEO professionals across the Internet: 1. Waiting to Exhale Think you survived the big Panda storm? Don't exhale just yet. Google will introduce around 550 or so improvements to its algorithm this year. Yes, 550. (Source: Wired.com) 2. Relevancy Matters More Than Ever In their aforementioned quote, Google says it is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded. It goes without saying, Google places a tremendous amount of value on relevancy. So do everything you can to make sure your pages are as relevant as possible. That includes making sure your keywords are relevant to the overall theme of your site and accurately reflect your site 's actual... 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.. 20 Little-Known Marketing Blogs You Should Be Reading  20 Little-Known Marketing Blogs You Should Be Reading A SPN Exclusive Article By David Jackson (c) 2011 When it comes to marketing blogs, we all know what the "authority" blogs are, right? After all, they're hugely popular and many of us follow those blogs faithfully. Blogs like ProBlogger, DailyBlogTips, SearchEngineJournal, ShoeMoney, CopyBlogger, just to name a few. You know, the usual suspects. But there are many other outstanding marketing blogs flying under the radar, whose marketing content is just as impressive, but perhaps not quite as well known to the average online marketer. I call these "the unusual suspects." And since they may not be quite as well known, chances are, you probably aren't familiar with them. Following are 20 Little-Known Marketing Blogs You Should Be Reading: 1. Content Marketing Today When it comes to content marketing and content marketing strategies, I can say without the slightest bit of exaggeration, Newt Barrett's Content Marketing Today blog is as good as it gets. 2. Brian Carroll's B2B Lead Generation Blog Brian Carroll's blog focuses on B2B lead generation, sales leads, and marketing. 3. Peter Stone's Copywriting Blog Peter Stone is simply one of the finest copywriters on the planet...period. But be warned, this isn't basic copywriting. These are sophisticated, highly advanced copywriting concepts, and as such may not be everyone's cup of tea. 4. Chris Mole's Media Blog From copywriting to website design, and everything in between, this blog covers it all. 5. Jeff Korhan Blog Jeff Korhan's New Media and Small Business Marketing Blog helps mainstream small businesses get practical results from their onl? marketing. 6. Search Engine Guide When it comes 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.. 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.. 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.. Anniversary gift ideas Anniversary gift ideas The first though in people's mind when it comes to Anniversary gift ideas is to run away. This is because of the fact that they simply don't know what to choose when that time of the year comes, regardless of the stages that that the relationship is at the moment. Some say that this is one of the hardest things that they need to do and that is the reason why they need some help in this matter. Why are people so afraid to find the best Anniversary gift ideas? First of all, they need to understand one simple and yet very important aspect: the meaning of an anniversary. There are many examples, especially of men, that simply don't understand why they have to come up with the gift once every year during a certain date. The explanation is represented by the fact that it's a celebration of the relationship and that is why it is so important. People are adjusted with the idea that a celebration is connected with the fact that a gift should be offered and that's why the Anniversary gift ideas are so searched for. One of the best advices in this area is that there are no rules when it comes to making a gift. This is because of the fact that people are different, their experiences are different and they see the world in a different way. That's why people have different tastes when it comes to everything and that's why life is so enjoyable. Offering something to somebody... 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.. Six Ways Into Yahoo Six Ways Into Yahoo By Kim Roach (c) 2006 Yahoo was started in 1994 by two college students named David Filo and Jerry Yang. They started Yahoo as a way to keep track of their personal interests on the Internet. Nev?did they imagine that their online ventures would turn into one of the most recognized brands on the Internet. The Yahoo directory quickly gained popularity as the hot spot for finding useful Web sites. In the fall of 1994, Yahoo had its first million-hit day, translating to almost 100 thousand unique visitors. Today, Yahoo is one of the top sites on the internet, receiving over 345 million visitors every month. Through the years, Yahoo has gone through a number of facelifts. You can see a visual history using the WayBackMachine. Yahoo has n?xpanded into one of the largest portals online, offering everything from shopping, video, and podcasts to finance, news, real estate and personals. Along with this expansion have come many additional opportunities for webmasters to distribute their content. Many webmasters today are constantly worried about their rankings in Yahoo. However, there are a number of other ways to get into Yahoo besides the Yahoo Search Engine. In this article, we will discuss 6 ways that you can market your content within the Yahoo portal. Mobile Site Submission Podcast Submission Product Submission Yahoo Directory Submission Media RSS Feeds Yahoo Answers Yahoo Mobile Site Submission Yahoo, Google, and MSN n?rovide many options for the mobile browser. With cell-phones far out numbering computers, this user-base is one that is far too lucrative to pass up. It's time we developed our sites for the communication... more.. Search Engines are Not the Be All and End All for Internet Success Search Engines are Not the Be All and End All for Internet Success By Tom Foster (c) 2008 There is more to internet exposure for your business than search engines. Editor's Note: The author wrote this article with law firms as his target audience, but his points are applicable to any business or web site. To be sure, Google, MSN, Yahoo and the like are all excellent ways of getting your name out there. But it can take a long time to get your site to the top of most of the major categories, and since the number of categories is only limited by the imagination of the typical Google user, getting the results that you want can sometimes take awhile. So while you are waiting to move up the rankings, what else can you do to improve the web presence of your law firm? What can you do to get more clients? What can you do to get better cases? For one thing, you might want to take a look at what your kids are doing on their computers. Facebook and MySpace are the scourge of teachers and employers everywhere. In many schools, a student caught looking at one of these sites during class ends up in detention, and younger employees caught on these sites during working hours can get reprimanded or worse. Wikipedia, which is an encyclopedia site that gives brief or lengthy summaries of almost everything, is also the scourge of academics because, since it is updated by users, it can be inaccurate. Many are the lazy college students who have been caught cutting and pasting a Wikipedia entry on their... more.. Google Sitemaps Explained - How To Use Google Sitemaps Google Sitemaps Explained - How To Use Google Sitemaps By Titus Hoskins (c) 2006 Three Ways To Index Your Site With Google Sitemaps [Difficult, Hard, And Easy] Google has recently implemented a program where any webmaster can create a Sitemap of their Site and submit it for indexing by Google. It is a quick and easy way for you to keep your site constantly indexed and updated in Google. The program is appropriately called Google Sitemaps. In order for you to best use Sitemaps, you must have an XML generated file on your site that will transmit or send any updates, changes, and data to Google. XML (Extensible Markup Language) is everywhere these days, you have probably seen the orange XML logo on many web sites and its often associated with Blogging because Blogs use XML/RSS feeds to syndicate their content. Today RSS is known mostly as 'Really Simple Syndication' but its original acronym stood for 'Rich Site Summary'. XML is only simple code like HTML and it is used to syndicate your content to all interested parties. And the interested party in this case is Google. By creating Sitemaps Google is really asking webmasters to take charge of the indexing and updating of their sites. Basically, doing the Googlebot's job! This is a 'Good' thing! With the steady influx of new web sites growing rapidly, indexing all this material will become a challenge, even with the resources of Google. With Sitemaps, webmasters can now take charge and make sure their site is crawled and indexed. Please note, indexing your site with Sitemaps WON'T improve your rankings in Google. You will still be competing with the other sites... more.. 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.. 7 Highly Effective Viral Marketing Techniques You Should be Using 7 Highly Effective Viral Marketing Techniques You Should be Using By David Jackson (c) 2011 I was watching the TV show Biography recently, and the celebrity being profiled was none other than Ted Williams. No, not Ted Williams the famous hall of fame baseball player and arguably the greatest hitter of all time. Biography, (which has profiled famous celebrities from Barack Obama to Michael Jackson to the Beatles) was profiling the story of Ted Williams, the homeless "man with the golden voice" who was discovered on a street corner in Columbus, Ohio in January, 2011 - thanks to a YouTube video that went spectacularly viral, receiving over 13 million views before it was removed at the request of the Columbus Dispatch newspaper due to copyright infringement. What is Viral Marketing? Think about that for a second. From homeless to being featured on Biography in only six short months. Such is the awesome power of viral marketing. So, what exactly is viral marketing? In essence, viral marketing is word-of-mouth advertising. Or, to be more specific, Internet word-of-mouth advertising. And as you know, word-of-mouth advertising is the most powerful method of advertising there is, bar none - online or offline. Viral marketing exists in many forms including articles, videos, e-books, software, reports, interactive flash games, white papers, text messages - even tweets. The term "viral marketing" was first used in 1997 to explain the extraordinary growth of Hotmail which accumulated over 8 million users in an astonishing 18 months. Hotmail was subsequently acquired by Microsoft in 1997 for an estimated $400 million. And what exactly was Hotmail's viral marketing success secret? Actually, it wasn't a secret at all. It was a clickable, single... 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.. 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.. Cracking the Google Adsense Code By Kim Roach Cracking the Google Adsense Code By Kim Roach (c) 2006 Google Adsense has empowered web publishers of all shapes and sizes to make money from their web sites. Whether you own a hobby site that gets 100 visitors per day or a popular finance portal that is flooded with millions of visitors per month, you can benefit from the Google Adsense program. Simply sign up for a free account, grab your Adsense code and paste it up on your website. Well, it sounds good anyway. In reality, that's not the whole story. Maximizing your adsense earnings requires a little more care. Fortunately, you can quickly increase your earnings by reading every word of this article. I will cover the basic necessities and also reveal advanced tips that you won't find on every digital corner. So, if you're looking to put more money in your pocket with a few tweaks of code, I urge you to read on. As you are reading, keep in mind that Google is actually one of the best resources for finding information on Adsense optimization. Think it's hard to believe that Google would give good advice? Well, it makes sense when you think about it. The more you make as a publisher, the more they will make. Google has a big incentive to help you perform well. Not to mention, they have tons of data to research what works best. So, for much of my research, I took quite a few tips from Google. But don't worry, there are also some advanced tips here that Google will probably never reveal to you. Most Effective Ad Formats In general, wider ad formats tend to outperform... more.. Google Instant Previews - SEO & Marketing  Google Instant Previews - SEO & Marketing Article By Titus Hoskins (c) 2010 Google wasn't satisfied with just having Instant Search, now it has introduced something called Instant Previews. Searchers and web users can now browse a large instant "preview" of a site's content by placing the cursor over the small magnifying glass displayed beside each listing. These previews are large and Google sometimes highlights a major paragraph or quote from each displayed site. Searchers can get a general look at the layout and design of a site, onpage graphics and bold headlines can usually be seen from the preview. However, small print and the general content of the page can't be read, so searchers will have to click through to your site if they want to read your information. Assuming of course, they don't find what they're looking for in the headlines or bold print. Whether searchers will use this new feature remains to be seen, but these instant previews could have some ramifications on who gets the "click through" to their site. One would also reason that getting the top spot in the rankings have diminished somewhat, if searchers can quickly preview all of the top 10 listings and then make their decision. So they might not click the top listing, but decide one lower down is worth clicking. This could make any listing on the first page more worth having, not just the top one. This doesn't really affect any of your SEO strategies and you should be optimizing for the search engines as usual. After all, getting those top rankings for your targeted keywords in the major search engines is what brings in the quality traffic to... more.. The Making of a Web Superstar Business The Making of a Web Superstar Business By Jerry Bader (c) 2011 We live in the age of communication. We are in constant contact with friends, family, and business colleagues. Each new digital device, software solution, or Internet phenomenon creates an opportun? for entrepreneurs to position themselves as the next-big-thing and business executives to establish themselves as marketing mavens, business gurus, or technology boffins. "In the future everybody will be world famous for 15 minutes." - Andy Warhol Superstars & Cultural Influence Andy Warhol was a graphic genius of course, but as importantly, Warhol was a cultural influencer with an eye for image and an ear for sound bites. It was Warhol who popularized the term "Superstar" which if you think about it in today's terms is fittingly ironic and incredibly perceptive. Warhol's "superstar" reference wasn't to a Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor but rather to Edie Sedgwick, a talent-deficient, troubled, anorexic Twiggy look-a-like socialite. If anyone can be famous, it follows that anyone can be a superstar, and the World Wide Web has spawned an entire society of 'wanna-be' Web superstars. But Sedgwick wasn't about making a viral spectacle of herself in return for her fifteen minutes like so many YouTube superstar pretenders. Sedgwick had real pretensions and surely thought associating with the famous Warhol would help her rise above her own unfortunate upbringing and self-destructive tendencies, but Sedgwick was merely a pawn in Warhol's world of marketing self promotion. The real superstar in this tragic opera (Sedgwick died at the age of twenty-eight after years of mental illness and drug abuse) was Warhol himself, for Warhol was the... 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.. The Google Goal Of Indexing 100 Billion Web Pages The Google Goal Of Indexing 100 Billion Web Pages By Danny Wirken Google's Goal of Quality Search In their paper 'The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine' it is very evident that Google's goal has always been to be one of the best search engines there is in terms of the quality of the results it gives. Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, however knew that in order to do this, Google needed to be able to store information efficiently and cost effectively and to have excellent crawling, indexing, and sorting methods or techniques. Google not only aimed to give quality results but to produce the results as fast as possible. Google started as a high quality search engine and continues to be the best search engine today. It has managed to stay true to its original intent to be a search engine that not only crawls and indexes the web efficiently but also a search engine that produces more satisfying results in comparison to other existing search engines. To stay true to the goal of providing the best search results, Google knew right from the start that it had to be designed so that the search engine could catch up with the web's growth. According to Brin and Page "In designing Google we have considered both the rate of growth of the Web and technological changes. Google is designed to scale well to extremely large data sets. It makes efficient use of storage space to store the index". They knew that they needed much space to store an ever growing index. Google's index size, which started out as 24 million web pages, was large for its... more.. 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.. 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.. 8 Secrets to Fill Your Business in 60 Days 8 Secrets to Fill Your Business in 60 Days By Donna Gunter (c) 2009 OnlineBizU.com Recently I was asked in an interview to imagine that I was starting all over again, and as a newbie, how I would fill my business in 60 days. Things have changed tremendously since I began my online business in 1999, mostly for the better. Most of the steps, however remain the same. Best of all, the strategies I recommend to fill your business are the same ones that can be applied to any business, and then applied again and again to other online ventures. Here are 8 secrets to filling the prospect funnel in your business in 60 days: 1. Success mind set. Don't gloss over this strategy -- it may be the most important of all. If you truly want to succeed in your business and are passionate about what you do, nothing will hold you back. This often means that you have to step out in faith that you'll succeed, and most importantly, believe in yourself as a success. Sure, you may stumble, or even fall, but you must be willing to pick yourself back up and persevere -- even without a safety net hanging under you. 2. Target market. The biggest mistake that business owners make is wanting to sell to everyone. If you've tried this, you have no doubt discovered that casting your net around everyone is a very difficult task. Narrowing that group to a more manageable number will actually serve you much better, believe it or not. If you can identify a smaller group of hungry prospects who are willing to pay for the solutions to the problems that... more.. 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.. 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.. Getting the Right Marketing Mix Using Social Media Getting the Right Marketing Mix Using Social Media By John Sylvester (c) 2009 For months (or is it years now?) we have been reading articles on how businesses should develop a presence on Twitter and build a Facebook Page as part of their SEM objectives. Now, with social media firmly established in the armoury of our online marketing efforts, how can we best take advantage of these two social media giants? As if to demonstrate their power in the market these days, both Twitter and Facebook (to a lesser extent) have been targeted and dealt painful denial-of-service (DoS) attacks and, as a result, many hours of downtime. With hackers determined to bring Twitter down to earth, it was acknowledged that although defensive measures had been taken on the company's part to repel further attacks, third-party developers whose applications have been using their application programming interface, were found vulnerable. In a similar vein, the social-networking site Facebook was also hit with a DoS attack, but it didn't appear to be quite so threatening as the one that knocked Twitter off its perch on the same day. Social media, as a phenomenon, has taken marketing online by the scruff of the neck and placed it in the control of the general public. In essence, traditional search engines, where votes have often been bought and traded by sleight-of-hand SEM tactics, have now been delivered on a platform where we decide our preferred content. Not ideal, but popular. But how do we achieve success in this and what should the marketing mix be? Let's take a look at how some of the "big guns" treat social media? One of the best marketing campaigns I have seen on Facebook Pages is that... more.. How search engine marketing tools can work for you: or, searching is really all about finding, first of three articles How search engine marketing tools can work for you: or, searching is really all about finding, first of three articles   How does one go from being a librarian and independent information professional to a specialist in search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing? In my case, it was almost inevitable. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As the Internet became more and more of a repository for crucial information, an increasing amount of my work involved sifting through hundreds of Web sites, searching for pertinent information on a wide variety of projects in a very short time. Because it was so hard to find the information on many of those Web sites, my frustration kept growing. I knew there were Web sites out there with great information--I just couldn't find them. When I did find a Web site, I couldn't find the information I was looking for in it. I'm a searcher. I know how to search and where to find information. I understand how search engines work. The problem? The companies and organizations behind these Web sites didn't understand how to have their information found by the people who were looking for it. Shortly after this realization, I started working on search engine promotion and optimization. So what does a search engine optimization specialist do? I am currently the SEO specialist at EBSCO Subsidiary Web Services (ESWS), a department within EBSCO Industries Inc. that provides Web design, development, maintenance, and Internet marketing for the company's 20-plus subsidiary divisions. These Web sites include businesses involved in real estate, hunting and fishing supplies, office and retail products, promotional displays, and publishing. My responsibility is to develop the sites into search-engine-friendly, easily indexed, highly ranked resources. I am also responsible for making sure the Web sites easily convert... more.. 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.. 7 Tips to Be a Successful Online Marketer 7 Tips to Be a Successful Online Marketer By Titus Hoskins (c) 2010 Bizware Magic Perhaps a quick introduction and a handy discla?r is the best way to start this article on Internet marketing. Mainly because you should know who is talking and you should definitely know what you're getting yourself into... I have been a full-time online marketer for over 5 years now, and I run 9 or 10 sites on the wwww - wonderful world wide web. I make a very respectable living and I enjoy every minute of it. But if you're under the impression that all you have to do is to slap some content together and place it on a web site and watch the money roll in; then you are sadly mistaken. Don't get the wrong impression, you can become a successful online marketer, but it will take a lot of time and work on your part. It just doesn't happen overnight, at least, this has been my experience and we can only write about our own experiences and views. Over the years, I have also found it helpful to get pointers from someone who is actually doing what we want to do. So below I have put together 7 Tips for becoming a successful online marketer. 1. Knowledge Up The whole concept of marketing online may seem quite simple, just place some content or product onto a website and you're in business. The reality is quite different. It may take you years to learn all the complex techniques and tactics to compete in the online marketplace, which is becoming more and more competitive as more companies and individuals discover its great potential.... more.. The Seven Deadly Sins of Website Copy The Seven Deadly Sins of Website Copy By Michel Fortin (c) 2009 Throughout my research, I'm always surprised when I stumble onto websites that are professionally designed and seem to provide great products and services, but lack or fail in certain important elements. Elements that, with just a few short changes, can help multiply the results almost instantaneously. Generally, I have found that there are seven common mistakes. I call them the "Seven Deadly Sins." Is your website committing any one of these? 1) They Fail to Connect Traffic has been long touted to be the key to online success, but that's not true. If your site is not pulling sales, inquiries or results, then why would it need more traffic? The key is to turn curious browsers into serious buyers. Aside from the quality of the copy, the number one reason why a website doesn't convert is that the copy is targeting the wrong audience or fails to connect with them. First, create a "perfect prospect profile." List all the attributes, characteristics and qualities of your most profitable and accessible market. Don't just stick with things like demographics and psychographics. Try to get to know them. Who are they, really? What are their most pressing problems? What keeps them up at night? How do they talk about their problems? Where do they hang out? Then, target your market by centering on a major theme, benefit or outcome so that, when you generate pre-qualified traffic, your hit ratio and your sales will improve dramatically. Finally, ensure that your copy connects with them. Intimately. It speaks their language, talks about their problems, and tells stories they can easily appreciate and relate to. Since this is the most common error that marketers and... more.. Where's Your Social Responsibility Google? Where's Your Social Responsibility Google? By Kalena Jordan (c) 2007 Unless you've been living on a desert island with no Internet access, you've probably seen the recent blog fallout from Google's latest crack down on alleged link brokers. This week it seems that Google made some type of manual Toolbar PageRank reduction on a handful of major blogs and portal sites like the Washington Post, ProBlogger, CopyBlogger and Forbes.com. Some of these sites had PageRank scores of 7 which have now dropped to 5, scores of 6 which have now dropped to 4 and so on. The blog buzz is that the sites have been singled out by Google as using their high PageRank scores to sell links and have been punished by the world's most popular search engine as a result. There is currently no proof of this and no public statement by Google acknowledging or denying the situation. A lot of bloggers have weighed in with commentary, observations and opinions. Every time I read a new post about the so called smack-down I imagine some Googlers at Mountain View laughing hysterically and high-fiving each other for turning the tables on the SEO industry yet again. The situation has even got the SEOs turning on each other. One of the world's best known SEOs, Jill Whalen, made a post in response to the situation that included a comment about one of the affected sites, Search Engine Guide. Jill's post has been interpreted in some circles as a type of attack. Here's the comment Jill made in her post: "Even my very good friends at Search Engine Guide were smacked down. I hadn't been to their... 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 Much Face-Time Does Your Website Need? How Much Face-Time Does Your Website Need? By Jerry Bader (c) 2009 How much time does it take your website to deliver your marketing message? Assuming the site traffic you generate is the least bit interested in what you have to say, how much of what you're saying do they remember, or more to the point, how much do they need to remember? Have you ever thought about, or even considered, how much face-time your website needs to be effective? It is probably the last thing many business website operators ever think about, let alone do anything about. The notion of 'stickiness' has been around for as long as the Web has been used as a commercial vehicle, and stickiness is a vital website ingredient. Developers, designers, and marketing experts are continuously coming up with ways to keep people on their clients' websites. Many of these sticky methods do work and keep people on sites for hours, but are they effective; just because someone stays on your site for hours doesn't necessarily mean they have any intention of doing business with you, especially if these so called sticky ingredients are implemented without any commercial purpose. Sticky Doesn't Necessarily Mean Effective Many sticky concepts were developed for sites whose financial model was based on advertising, which makes sense; the longer people stay on a site the more chance they will see the ads presented, and the more likely they will click on one of them. But for sites that are in business to sell something and are not just advertising vehicles, stickiness takes on a whole different purpose. The challenge is to make what you have to say engaging so that it attracts attention, informative so that it explains the offering, AND entertaining so... more.. Baby Gift Ideas Baby gift ideas When trying to discover what is that people are searching when it comes to Baby gift ideas, there is an interesting aspect that arises and intrigues some people. Many of them don't actually know what to buy, due to the fact that it is hard to determine what a baby might need. There are certain things that can be minded in order to actually come up with a gift that will surely hit its target. The details you should know about Baby gift ideas The very first aspect that needs to be taken into account is the gender of the child. This is very important as studies have proven the impact that certain things have on a baby's perspective on life from its early age. This means that one of the best ways to approach this aspect is to know whatever the baby is a boy or a girl. There are many Baby gift ideas that are suitable for a boy rather than a girl and the other way around. General gifts can be an option, but they will be seen as something with a lack of a personal touch. The other aspect that can be taken into account refers to the idea of taking to the parents to see what they need in order to raise the baby. A proper conversation will lead to one of the best Baby gift ideas that you can come up with. The parents don't need to know exactly what your intentions are as this may lead to an awkward situation, but you can easily establish what the baby needs after... more.. 20 Best Blog Post Ideas for Small Business Blogging 20 Best Blog Post Ideas for Small Business Blogging By Donna Gunter (c) 2009 "So, what do I blog about each time?" is a question I often get from clients. To keep your blog active and healthy, I recommend blogging at least 3 times per week. However, that notion is overwhelming for many. Even though you may be an expert in a topic, your mind may go completely blank when it comes time to blog, and then at other times when you're not blogging, your idea cup runneth over. The primary thing to remember is that blog posts don't have to be long and complicated. You're not writing an article, a report or a thesis. Many times a blog post is only a paragraph consisting of a few sentences that contain your thoughts about something. Now, doesn't that sound easier than composing a 600-word post each time you sit down to blog? Here are 20 ideas you can use to help you create a blog post when you're stuck for an idea: 1. Current events. Can you link what you do in your business to a current event? Open up your daily newspaper or your RSS news reader and see what's happening in the world, your country, your state, or your city. Give your opinion about the event and a solution, if you have it, and relate that to your business if you can. 2. Trends in your industry. I read constantly and subscribe to more industry publications than I have time to review. However, there are a handful that I do regularly read, and it's to those that... more.. 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.. How to Make a Website Successful How to Make a Website Successful By Shelley Lowery (c) 2009 When doing business on the Internet, there are many ways in which you can make a website successful. Although the look of your website is important, fancy websites don't make sales. There is much more to creating a quality website. To make a website successful, you must create a website that will be of interest to your target market and make them want to visit your website over and over again. In addition, your website should lead your visitors to take the action you desire, such as joining your mailing list, or making a purchase. Selecting a Website's Niche The first step toward how to make a website successful, will be to target your website for one specific niche. For example, if you are designing a website about wine, everything within your website should relate to wine. Selecting a Website's Keyword Phrase You must also select the most relevant keyword phrase for each webpage. A keyword phrase is two or more words that best describe your webpage. For example, if your webpage is about 'making wine,' your best keyword phrase would be 'wine making.' You should use your keyword phrase a few times within your webpage, as this will enable the search engines to determine what the website is about. This is a very important step to make a website successful. Using HTML Heading Tags When you begin writing your content, it is very important that you use the HTML H1 heading tag with your main title at the top of your webpage. In addition, use the HTML H2 tags for your sub-titles. This is very important, as some search engines place relevance on the text... more.. 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.. 17 Ways to Make Sure Your Website is Working for You 17 Ways to Make Sure Your Website is Working for You   By Hannah Du Plessis (c) 2011 Attraction Marketing Is your website bringing in at least five new inquiries per day? If not, you need to look at its functionality. Your website acts as a "storefront." You should put as much thought and care into your website as you would to the display in your store's window. Your website needs to attract customers and keep them coming back for more. The following should give you a place to start and a guideline of what a good website should have and what it should do: 1. Where Do Your Eyes Go First? You only have a few seconds to catch a visitor's attention. That means you need to make sure that you capture their interest immediately. You need a headline that stops them thinking whatever they're thinking, and think instead: "hey, this looks interesting! I need to read this." 2. Do You Know Right Away What This Website is About? Don't have any distractions from the message you are trying to get across. If you start talking about how great your company is instead of what the visitor is interested in, you lose them. 3. Is the Important Information Immediately Visible? Site visitors want to know details as soon as possible. If they have to work too hard to find out what you're offering, they will likely leave. You need to be clear on what you want them to do. Don't sell more than one thing from your landing page. Decide on the main action you want them to take, and... 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.. 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.. 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.. Web Design Los Angeles Web Design Los Angeles   There are still many people that don't actually understand what the benefits of a Web Design Los Angeles service are. They are so focused on doing things the old fashioned way, which makes it really hard for them to survive in their business. This is an aspect that has greatly been confirmed by the recession and the harsh time that the world has been facing until now. The necessities of the Web Design Los Angeles services People need to take into account several factors that are simply the best motivators when it comes to developing an online approach. They need to understand that the internet is a very powerful tool and if used well it will be able to generate the amount of profit that will surely raise your interest. That's why the Web Design Los Angeles services need to get your attention and most important, that is the main reason why people need to start enhancing their image in the online environment. Many would think that such a service is able to make some web pages and that's that. The reality is a little bit different as such a service covers a lot of ground, especially when it comes to promoting ones business. One of the best arguments in this direction refers to the other services that a web design company offers to their clients. The search engine... more.. SEO Or Page Rank Which Is The More Important? SEO Or Page Rank Which Is The More Important? By Peter Nisbet (c) 2007 Whether you believe in SEO or Page Rank and wonder which is more important, your thinking is irrelevant. You are wasting your time in wondering what is the correct answer to that question, since even if you knew it, there is little you could do to use that information. Why do I say that? Because SEO, or search engine optimization, is a way of designing your website, and placing content in it, to satisfy search engine algorithms. Search engines are so sophisticated today that if you achieve that, then you will also satisfy visitors to your website. If you satisfy visitors to your website, then they will stay on the page they landed on and read it. They will then cl? to read other pages on your website and might even make a purchase. Sure, some will leave right away, but if the search engines feel that your content is good enough for a high placement in their indices for the search term, or keyword, that your visitor used to get to your web page, then it is more likely that you will achieve a relatively high stick rate of people to your site than a lower one. Now, consider if you thought Google PageRank more important (and PageRank is correct, not Page Rank). You would then spend more of your time trying to get links back to your website than you would properly optimizing your site and filling it with good content. If you were successful in that difficult job, then Google, and possibly other search engines, would l? you a bit higher in their indices, not because... more.. Does Your Marketing Stop When Your Content Starts? Does Your Marketing Stop When Your Content Starts? By Mark Nunney (c) 2010 Your website's content will get noticed, get read, and get customers if you use your headline and first paragraph to let readers know what is in it for them. Here, I'll introduce you to some techniques you can use to make that happen. This article is an edited version of a chapter of Wordtracker's The Website Content Recipe Book - 21 irresistible content ideas to wow visitors and boost your search engine optimization. Don't Stop Marketing - Every Page is a Marketing Page Visitors may first enter your site through almost any page. And for various reasons no matter what you do, many will not read more than one page. Therefore, to maximize response you must treat every page as a marketing page. So add adverts to where they will be seen - a subject I plan to write about next week (look for 'How to make your articles sell'). But only a small percentage of readers will respond when first seeing even quality adverts. You'll have to work a bit harder for the rest of your readers. You'll have to use your pages' content to make them consider a marketing proposal (perhaps another day). You must prove that you (and your brand) are expert at delivering what's wanted, and can be trusted. To do that, your page must first be read. Who is Your Site for... and What Do They Want? When you're busy creating content, it's easy to forget that your website exists to sell your products and services to particular groups of people. And even if you wouldn't forget such a thing - can... 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.. Increase Search Engine Traffic With Quality Content Increase Search Engine Traffic With Quality Content By John Dow (c) 2007 Every web site owner wants to ?rease search engine traffic. It's free and the visitor is targeted to your subject matter, product or service. What more could you ask for in search engine traffic? The downside is that you need to understand search engine ranking methods and that is quite a challenge for many. The number of opinions and "experts" on ways to ?rease search engine traff?is overwhelming. And regardless of what anyone might tell you, they're all guessing. The search engines themselves don't divulge how their methods work for one simple reason. As soon as anyone figures out the method, there's a mad rush to implement changes based on the method. In a perfect world, where there were no scoundrels, this might not be a factor. Everyone would organize their web site information so that a visitor could easily find what they are looking for, and life would be good. But we certainly don't live in a perfect world and scoundrels are everywhere. So we are at the mercy of the search engines to help us sort through the clutter to find what we want. And that's the value that the search engines provide, accurate and meaningful search engine results that are related to the search terms or phrases. So it goes back to the quality of content, that's the only common factor in all 3 major search engines' ranking methods. Each of the big 3 (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) search engines use a little different method and technology to arrive at any given web site's ranking under specific search terms. As mentioned above, no one knows exactly how... more.. 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.. New Search Engines - Can Anyone Beat Google? New Search Engines - Can Anyone Beat Google? By Titus Hoskins (c) 2009 Can any new search engine beat Google, probably not, mainly because Google isn't going anywhere but up. It is the dominant search engine with around 72 percent of U.S. online searches and its percentages are much higher in other parts of the world. (Source: Hitwise) However, there are some serious new competitors that may just take a bite out of Google's rosy search numbers. Never know, one or several of them, may just give Google a run for those all important search engine dollars. Recently, there has been a whole army of new search engines debuting on the web. If you're a full-time online marketer like me, you really have to keep your eyes open to what is happening on the web, especially relating to search engines which deliver most of your quality traffic. Also keep in mind, this piece may be fairly biased since Google is directly or indirectly responsible for around 80% of my online revenue, so any opinions may be slanted in Google's favor, not that they need any favors from me or anyone. But as an online marketer you have to try to remain objective and examine all angles in regards to these new search engines. Despite this, in marketing and webmaster circles, everyone will know even if you have the number one ranking for a certain keyword in all three major engines Google, Yahoo! and MSN - Google supplies the most traffic, hands down. Despite its obvious dominance, Google is still basically the new kid on the block. We have to remember, there have been many search engines before Google and there will be many more search engines after Google.... more.. 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.. Brand Positioning Using Web-Video Brand Positioning Using Web-Video By Jerry Bader Multimedia Modeling and Vicarious Observation Albert Bandura, distinguished psychologist and expert in the field of social learning theory, points to television commercials as an important influence on social learning through multimedia modeling and vicarious observation. We often forget that like all creatures human beings are subject to our hardwired instinct for survival, one of the most important being our ability to learn through vicarious experiences rather than just direct encounters. We may learn not to touch a hot stove by putting our hand on a hot heating element, but it is far less dangerous to learn the same lesson by watching someone else do it, even if that observation is simulated as in a commercial. As Web-video presentations ?rease in popularity as a means of delivering marketing messages over the Internet, there will be the inevitable major successes and unfortunate failures. It is only a matter of time before Web-video becomes the dominating vehicle for businesses that are serious about marketing communication. The businesses that will be successful will learn how to use the medium beyond its technical implementation, focusing instead on the psychological elements that communicate beyond mere surface meaning. Marketing Campaigns Are Learning Experiences All marketing campaigns are learning experiences for the target audience in that advertisers are attempting to manipulate viewers' behavior by vicarious demonstration of brand benefits resulting from product or service use. Cost has limited the use of broadcast television commercials to all but the most deep-pocketed of advertisers, but the broadband Web and digital technology has changed all that. The means to produce reasonable-cost Web-video is at hand, witness the... more.. The Biggest Web Design Trends of 2011  The Biggest Web Design Trends of 2011 By Stephen Loates (c) 2011 Since we are over seven months into the year I decided it was time to give my take on what may happen in web design in 2011. (At least I thought I should probably write it before the year was over.) So, over the past several weeks I have read a number of my favourite web design magazines, web design blogs and articles and viewed a number of cutting edge websites, particularly outside of North America, so that I could share some thoughts about what appears to be some of the major trends in website design for 2011. There is nothing scientific contained here, just some observations. 1. Less Use of Flash It is not the fact that Flash is not a great technology...(when used appropriately it is)...but in the past year or so it has been over used, misused, abused to the point that it has developed a bad reputation. Certainly, the ongoing shenanigans between Adobe (creator of Flash) and Apple (iPhone and iPad) are not helping the situation. Today, websites need to have a clean, uncluttered design, fast loading and above all must be Search Engine friendly. This is a problem for Flash and now with the coming of the new web coding languages of HTML5 and CSS3, together with the explosive growth of web surfing on mobile devices perhaps it is the beginning of the end of Flash in web design. 2. Simpler and Cleaner Design Simple. Minimal. Uncluttered. There's nothing quite as "attention grabbing" as an honest, straightforward message on a... more.. Gear Up Your Site For Social Media Marketing Gear Up Your Site For Social Media Marketing By Deepak Dutta The year 2006 saw the emergence of social media. If you are engaged in operating a website, you must realign your site to exploit the popular social media sites for increased traff? You should also introduce social media components to your site because web users are experiencing these new forms of interactions on more and more sites and they may have an expectation of the same from your site also. The first step is to declare who you are to the online community. People should be able to relate to you. Unless they know more about you, you will be just an unknown identity and most people don't like to deal with unknowns. Create an About Us page and l? your achievements and skills. Create a MySpace page and link your bio in the About Us page to the MySpace page. Also provide a link back from the MySpace page to your website. Spend an hour every week to develop your online social network in MySpace. Invite a few of these new friends to write blog articles at your site about your products or services. If you want to attract repeat visitors and want them to stay longer, your focus this year should be on the social aspects of your site. Social media uses technologies like RSS, blogging, podcasting, tagging, etc. and offers social networking (MySpace, Facebook), social video and picture sharing (YouTube, Flickr), and community-based content ranking (Digg, MiniClip) features. The central theme of these sites is user generated content used for sharing among the end-users. The social aspects of these sites are to allow users to setup social communities,... more.. Website Traffic Generation and the Love of the Traffic Fairy Website Traffic Generation and the Love of the Traffic Fairy By Bill Platt (c) 2010 the Phantom Writers For a number of years, many online marketers honestly thought that the only thing they needed to do to be successful online was to build a website, and the buyers would come to them. They heard all of the success stories from people who claimed that they had simply built a website, and people just started to arrive in huge numbers. The story, as it is told, is: These folks built a website, then the search engines found their websites and started showing people the link to their website. And the people using the search engines saw the link to their websites and saw that it was good. Search engine users saw the link and, as if it were the only link in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), they clicked the link by the thousands. And hoards of people came to the website with fists full of money, ready to purchase what the website was selling. Some people still believe this is how the search engines work. They have built their websites, and they are waiting anxiously for the "Traffic Fairy" to sprinkle his magic dust on their websites too, so that they can also make lots of money. Are YOU Still Waiting For The Traffic Fairy? I hope not. Those who are "waiting" for anything may wait until they realize they are flushing good money down the proverbial toilet, month after month. When they realize that they still have more money going out... more.. Green With Envy in the Google Game Green With Envy in the Google Game By Bill Platt (c) 2007 Links And Traff?/A> Beginning on April 14th, 2007, a firestorm blew through the Internet community with the search engine optimization (SEO) community burning the hottest. The embers were warm and waiting for a strong wind to blow and kick up the flames, but it took Matt Cutts, the Google engineer extraordinaire to fire the flames with an off-the-cuff comment about "paid links." The flames raged and in most forums, the wind quickly shifted moving the firestorm back towards Cutts and Google. Thread Watch offered the most biting rebuttal to Cutts' comments: http://www.threadwatch.org/node/13925 and http://www.threadwatch.org/node/13941 . Aaron Wall at Thread Watch is a respectable fellow, and he tore into Google with a ferociousness that I had not anticipated. Matt Cutts tried to answer some of Aaron's quest?s, but it seemed that Cutts' rebuttals only added more fuel to the fire. I would not have wanted to be in Matt Cutts' shoes that week. Oh my, it was brutal! Even on Cutts' own blog where the "paid link" comment originally surfaced , Danny Sullivan posted a question that went unanswered, so Sullivan commented about it on his site. Search Engine Watch even mentioned this issue and linked to additional forums where the debate was raging. What Most Readers Took From Cutts' Comments There were only a few readers who took Matt Cutts' comments to be brotherly-advice. The vast majority of people were screaming that Google intended to exercise their "monopoly control" over the Internet to run all of their competitors out of business. Generally, I am not a "reactionary" type person. But... more.. Knowing Your Visitors Through Website Traff?Analysis Knowing Your Visitors Through Website Traff?Analysis By Don Resh (c) 2007 Analyzing your web traff?statistics can be an invaluable tool for a number of different reasons. But before you can make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to interpret the data. Most web host? companies will provide you with basic web traff?information that you then have to interpret and make pertinent use of. However, the data you receive from your host company can be overwhelming if you don't understand how to apply it to your particular business and website. Let's start by examining the most basic data - the average visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. These figures are the most accurate measure of your website's activity. It would appear on the surface that the more traff?you see recorded, the better you can assume your website is doing, but this is an inaccurate perception. You must also look at the behavior of your visitors once they come to your website to accurately gauge the effectiveness of your site. Traff?Analysis There is often a great misconception about what is commonly known as "hits" and what is really effective, quality traff?to your site. Hits simply means the number of information requests received by the server. If you think about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits, when in reality we are talking about a single... more.. 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.. 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.. Social Media Marketing is Dying  Social Media Marketing is Dying By Duncan Wierman (c) 2010 If nothing is certain, one thing is - social media is losing its magic. What once was a new and improved way to keep in touch with your closest loved ones has become just another sales pitch to convince you to sign up to another dreadful business prospect, newsletter, product, or service. There is no opening or closing - simply raw advertisements that lack sincerity. The people advertising their products don't care about you or your general interests. They're too set on the idea that you're going to sign up and turn them into a success. What's wrong with this picture? Could it be that the advertisements lack taste and real value, or could it be that the people who want your business care less about who you are and what you are interested in? What business entrepreneurs are forgetting is that they are on the other side of the fence of social media. They are on the advertising end, which means without a real connection to the "the people," they are getting nowhere. At some point, a real connection needs to be established or otherwise all efforts to make a sale or spread the word are pointless. The truth? No one cares about you unless you care about them, particularly when it comes to social media. Let's say that you've got an account with Facebook. Each day when you see those tiny red notifications, you're dead sure that they signify a message from your friends or family. Unfortunately, you open your inbox and all you see are loud advertisements. What do you do? You delete them, and you do so... more.. SEO Tips to Double Rankings, Traffic and Conversion SEO Tips to Double Rankings, Traffic and Conversion By Jeffrey L. Smith (c) 2010 The only thing better than one search result in the top 3 positions in Google is two search results from a double ranking. This SEO tip works by pushing a competitor off the first page, broadening your websites keyword funnel and thereby doubling traffic and conversions. Two Results are Better than One I read somewhere that 87% of search engine traffic for a given keyword is allocated from occupying the Number 1 position in the search engine results page. If you understand SEO, then this post will share a quick method to double your SERP positions and to improve the likelihood of keyword conversions - once you have reached the Mecca for a specific search term. SEO is predicated on one simple premise, rankings; in order for SEO to be effective, it must produce ranking on the first page in search engines. Not only is this the crowning achievement of search engine optimization, but once you achieve a top 10 position, then you can pull other keywords into the spotlight as a result of strategic linking. We often refer to this as the buddy system for lateral linking. Search engine algorithms pay particular attention to individual pages capable of offsetting all of the other inconsistencies of a competitor's web pages and deem one page worthy above all others for any given search term. Obviously the metrics are unique for each market, keyword or niche, but the reality is the same, once a top 3 or more importantly Number 1 or Number 1, 2 and 3 positions are present in Google. I have mentioned before, the fastest way to get a top 10 position in... 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.. Top 10 Reasons Why Every Small Business Website Should Be Built with WordPress Top 10 Reasons Why Every Small Business Website Should Be Built with WordPress By Philip Light (c) 2010 I'll tell you the same thing I tell every one of my new web marketing clients, "WordPress is incredible - and you should be using it for your website." It can save you both time and money, while making it far easier to build a beautiful and limitless website that you can manage and control yourself. Once you learn more about WordPress, you'll understand why over 80 MILLION websites are built on WordPress, and why now is the time for you to learn what WordPress is all about, and how it can provide immense value to your small business. Here are my Top 10 Reasons for why you should strongly consider WordPress for your website: 1. Incredible Power Straight Out of the Box Immediately upon installing WordPress, you'll have power features that make it easy to manage your website. You'll have a Content Management System that allows you to add/edit/delete your content, including images and videos, a User Access system that controls who can access your Admin Center and what level of access they have, powerful Blogging software, and a central location to manage virtually all aspects of your website. 2. Quickly Build Beautiful Websites with Existing Themes Forget spending $1,000's on a custom website design when there are hundreds of highly professional themes for under $100. Simply find the theme that projects the right image for your business, install it in WordPress, and badda-bing, your new website has a top-quality look and feel to it. Any aspect of any theme can also be customized to suit your needs. 3. Add Powerful Features with Thousands of Plugins Forget spending... 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.. 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.. A Blog Could Revitalize Your Website A Blog Could Revitalize Your Website By Raymond Carr (c) 2010 O.K. so you think you have an idea or even a product to sell through your brand new internet business. Internet marketing is a brilliant business to be in. There are boundless opportunities to run online businesses which can make incredible amounts of money, if you have established that there is a market for your chosen niche or product, and have done the necessary research. All set, ready to go? Er, not quite. You should establish a presence in your market before you unleash your product to the world. If you are about to start an internet business, then you should be wondering about attracting traffic to your site. There are many advertising options available, but if money is tight, some of these options may not seem practical. Advertising can be expensive especially if you are not too sure what you are doing. Money can be swallowed up very quickly if you do not study advertising techniques. Promotion can take many weeks or even months to show results, and then may not be effective. Many courses and books sold by some of the gurus are sometimes out of date. Outdated material and tactics which you pay for then find they just do not work. You may have an excellent website, but bear in mind blogging is now probably more effective than a static site. Of course, the most traditional way of running an online business over the last few years has been websites, and is still a very successful method. However, blogging has moved to the fore because search engines seem to favor blogs over the standard static website. For those who can constantly add to or update their... more.. Kitchen Cabinets Los Angeles kitchen cabinets Los Angeles The kitchen cabinets Los Angeles are one of the best in this industry due to the fact that they prioritize themselves accordingly to the customer. This means that they put the needs of the client first and that is one of the best qualities there is when it comes to any service that is provided for someone. That's why they are so popular and that's why people choose it. The very first choice is the kitchen cabinets Los Angeles service People are currently so obsessed with living their lives at a very high speed that it has become a rule to have everything done in a split of a second. That's why many businesses provide home service and home delivery and that's why they are so appreciated. When it comes to the kitchen cabinets Los Angeles services things go as fast as any other business. The user can easily long on to the website and browse throughout the available models until he or she reaches one that best suits the taste that one has for furniture. An important aspect to be minded here refers to the idea that the choice needs to be made according to the other features of the house as well. In this way, you will be sending out a message that you know what you are doing and you have a great taste in matters of interior design. After you have picked out the more.. Kitchen Cabinets Ventura Kitchen Cabinets Ventura The thing with the kitchen cabinets Ventura services is that they are designed for the comfort of the clients. Imagine having to go downtown to find a specific store and having to look throughout different models and textures in order to find the best possible choice for your own home. Not to mention, the time that it takes you to get there and the traffic. The comfortable way of the kitchen cabinets Ventura services First of all, people will always choose the comfortable side of things when it comes to a service that is provided for them because it is in human nature to act on this instinct. The developers of the kitchen cabinets Ventura services are aware of this aspect and have developed a system in which the client is in his comfort zone for the entire period of time. The first step of the process involves letting the client to log on to the website and browse through the various models until they find something that they like. It might take some time and he or she won't decide on the spot, but the important aspect here is that he can do it right from the comfort of his home. The next step involves a team coming to the client's house in order to make the proper measurements and to see the space where the kitchen cabinets Ventura will be placed. In this way, the cabinets will be designed exactly for the desired space and things won't get complicated when they will arrive. The last step of the process involves the team brining the designed cabinets, ready to be assembled and put together. The client... 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.. 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.. South Texas Ranches for Sale South Texas Ranches for Sale "When I will retire I want to get one of those South Texas Ranches For Sale opportunities so that I would live happy". This is one of the most common answers when people are asked about why they decline such offers. The idea is that people are too scared to think of investment in this area now due to the fact that there are uncertainties when it comes to the real estate industry. Stepping behind the South Texas Ranches for Sale opportunities There are many things that can be said here in order to prove that now is the best time to actually think of investment in this area. One of the things that come to mind is the issue of money. This is the number one reason why people are worried about this type of investment. Thy think that the South Texas Ranches for Sale offers are designed for wealthier people and that's why they don't afford them. Let's examine the real estate market and see how things are really going here. The recession has made some dramatic changes in this area and things clearly aren't the same as when this industry flourished. Companies have stopped buying land in order to expand, people have stopped thinking of this area as an something worth their while. That's the main reason why the value of the land has dropped to the lowest point in the last decade and that's where all the opportunities open up. The South Texas Ranches for Sale offers are designed to fit the pocket of anyone that wishes to have a home somewhere in the middle of the nature someday. The interesting part here is... more.. Why Your Website Needs Inbound Links Why Your Website Needs Inbound Links By Rick Hendershot Most web-savvy people quickly learn why they need "links" from other sites pointing at theirs. Your inbound links are one of the most important ways of getting yourself known in your field, generating traff?to your website, and influencing the search engines to notice your site. "Traff? is what linking is all about. Without traff?your website is useless as a tool for selling your products or communicating your ideas. Getting links from other websites is not the only way to generate traff? but it is probably the most important one. Learn the Secrets of the Top 10 Have you ever done a web search on your targeted keyword only to find the same 10 websites at the top of the rankings? How can they do it? What is their secret? Take an inside look into the workings of top ranked websites But how do links generate traff? **Direct traff?.. 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.. Social Media Beginners: Using SEO and Social Media to Build Brand Authority (Part 1)  Social Media Beginners: Using SEO and Social Media to Build Brand Authority (Part 1) By Andrew Schiller (c) 2010 You may be at a point where your site has lots of usable and compelling content. Unfortunately this isn't always enough to gain new readers and revenue. It could be time to build a link strategy to boost your brand authority and site ranking. The way to begin is by making partnerships, starting conversations and trading links so more webmasters (and their readers) know who you are. Why? The majority of computers and much of the media are now social, so it's time for you to break out of your bubble. Getting your site optimized can be time consuming and often you won't see the results of the labor for a few weeks, if not months. A site that ranks well is the outcome of shrewd planning and lots of effort with few shortcuts. You have to make good decisions early in the process to gain a good amount of momentum. Basic SEO strategy is a lengthy process, and you can find out smart ways to begin here. Similarly, incorporating social media into the public face of your business is a long process that will take time to reach its potential. Success in social media relies on cooperation and engagement with your clients and customers (and sometimes even your competitors). Where do you begin? Basic Inbound Links: Inbound links are widely regarded as a necessity for high ranking in the search engine listings. Search engines view links to web sites as a vote in favor of their importance. If popular sites like your site, then search engines like your site. It... 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.. 5 Ways to Manage Your Online Reputation 5 Ways to Manage Your Online Reputation A SPN Exclusive Article By Nick Stamoulis (c) 2011 In the online world, your reputation is one of your most valuable business assets. A good reputation instills confidence in your consumers and business partners, and can also help carry your company though bad press if/when it arises. Much of your online success is related to your online reputation, so that reputation needs to be carefully protected and maintained. The maturation of social media has taken the control of a brand and placed it squarely in the hands of the consumer. It doesn't matter how you define your brand, it all comes down to what your audience says. One negative comment on a social networking site can spread like wildfire in a matter of seconds and companies have to be prepared to deal with any related fall-out. Here are 5 ways you can better manage your online reputation: Set up e-mail alerts All you need is a Gmail account. An e-mail alert is Google's attempt to condense web activity around a given keyword or search phrase into a daily e-mail. While it doesn't show you the entire buzz about your company and related keywords, it is a good way to get a snapshot every day of what is going on online. Keep an eye on industry forums Forums are like the hybrid cousin of blogging and social networking, and they are a ripe breeding ground for consumer complaints and grievances. Many consumers turn to forums when they have troubleshooting questions about a product. They are looking to their... 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.. organic makeup organic makeup The story how women have begun to use cosmetics is pretty old because they are popular since the antique times. There are many reasons why they have chosen to use certain items to enhance their face, but the most common one of them all is that it helps them be and feel more beautiful. This is how the world works and that is how females feel. The change brought up with the organic makeup There are many products that have been used over the years in the cosmetics industry and most of them are popular now as well. This is because of the fact that people are constantly trying to adjust their current situation into a better one and that's how perfectionism was born. The developers of the organic makeup have generated a huge change in the field of cosmetics. There are still many people who aren't aware of such products and they need to find out of its benefits. One of those benefits refers to the matter of how the skin is treated. The regular products target the surface of the skin and try to cover it in order to look as smooth and as shiny as possible. But this process isn't quite durable and people use cosmetics to enhance that effect once every few hours, days or weeks. The organic makeup or other products that are designed on a natural way, work a little bit different. They are still designed to help the skin look as lovely as it can... 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.. Do You Pay Per Click Fraud? Do You Pay Per Cl? Fraud? By Kim Roach (c) 2006 The world of pay-per-click marketing started in 1997 with GoTo.com. Today they are known as Yahoo Search Marketing. What started in 1997 as a way to quickly get listed in the top of the search engines has turned into a 5.6 billion dollar industry in 2005. In fact, about 99% of Google's revenue comes from advertising. However, this multi-billion dollar search industry is under attack and has been for quite a while. Cl? fraud has become the greatest threat to the rapid growth of the paid search marketing sector. The Interactive Advertising Bureau estimates that 20 to 35 percent of ad clicks are fraudulent. Who's to blame? Cl? fraud can come from a variety of sources, including competitors, bots that simulate the human behavior of clicking on ads in web pages, or even friends of the publisher who want to "help" the publisher gain some additional cl? revenue. However, the major search engines have received the majority of the blame, even though they are not necessarily responsible. Yahoo has recently settled a class-action cl? fraud settlement. Under the settlement, Yahoo advertisers will be allowed to submit cl? fraud claims dating back to January 2004. Yahoo will reimburse any confirmed fraudulent clicks in c?, with no set limit on the amount of claims it will cover. This year, Google has been burdened with its own cl? fraud case to the tune of 90 million dollars. Currently, the court is deciding whether to accept the search giant's proposed $90 million settlement while roughly 50 plaintiffs are voicing their dissatisfaction with it. Cl? fraud is certainly no small... more.. How to Get Great Copy Without Hiring a Copywriter  How to Get Great Copy Without Hiring a Copywriter By Ken Hoffman (c) 2010   Most business owners now understand the importance of strong copy. What many business owners don't realize is there are other alternatives to paying a fortune for great copy. Most of these do require a nominal investm?. But nothing compared to the huge fees for copywriting. A big part of the value a copywriter brings to the table (aside from marketing knowledge and being a wordsmith) is a fresh perspective. It's that second set of eyes from a new perspective that can catch mistakes and provide more successful approaches. Unfortunately, copywriting is deceptively simple. Almost anyone that can write to any degree thinks they can write great copy. Creating a piece of copy that causes the reader to take the action of spending their dollars simply from reading words on a page is no easy task. 1) How a Simple Copy Critique Can Improve Your Copy Perhaps the simplest way to improve your copy is getting a copy critique. In the direct marketing industry this is a common term. Professional copywriters use copy critiques to sharpen each other's skills and copy. You can either hire someone to do this for a few hundred dollars typically, or you might be able to find someone to do it for free. Just be careful that you are getting someone who knows what they are talking about. The biggest value here is having things pointed out to you that you missed. It could be a headline that's unclear. Or a part of the copy that causes the reader to stop or bail out. Even your... more.. SEO Web Design Secrets, Search Engine Optimization Tips for Beginners SEO Web Design Secrets, Search Engine Optimization Tips for Beginners By Peter Nisbet (c) 2008 SEO web design is a skill that can be learned, though most search engine optimization for beginners courses dwell too much on linking strategy as opposed to web site design per se. There are many ways for most normal people to get an improved search engine ranking, and secure a high search engine listing, and while linking is important, good on-site SEO is also necessary. Although it might not seem like it, getting a good listing on Google or any of the other search engines is not as difficult as many like to claim. There are rules to follow, and if you play the game properly then the outcome should be in your favour. The tips provided in this article are not really secrets as such; although many people offer to divulge marvelous secrets to you, all they are giving you is stuff that people have been using for years. So you won't get any secrets here. I have nothing hidden away that I don't want anybody to know, and if I had I wouldn't tell you about it! Would you? If you had some secrets that were so valuable that they were making you money, would you give them away free in an article like this one? Of course you wouldn't! So here are my not-so-secret tips on getting a good list? in Google and improving your search engine ranking. You likely know a fair bit about meta tags, and have been informed that most are not used by search engines. Well let me tell you something.... 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.. 10 Tips For Creating a Brilliant Landing Page 10 Tips For Creating a Brilliant Landing Page By Joanna Colek (c) 2009 Building a great landing page should be on top of your priority list if you want your website visitors transformed into customers. While a great looking website can grab the attention of your visitors, a strong landing page will keep them involved and get them to buy your products/services. Wikipedia defines a landing page as: The page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link. The page will usually display content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and that is optimized to feature specific keywords or phrases for indexing by search engines. Wikipedia's definition sums it up nicely but there is certainly more to a great landing page then relevant and keyword rich content. Here are 10 things that you should be looking at when optimizing a landing page: - Relevant Content A landing page's content should be directly related to organic search results, PPC campaign, anchor text in inbound links and any other targeted inbound advertising, online and offline. If people don't get what they expect, they will be more likely to leave. - Multiple Landing Pages A landing page shouldn't necessarily be your homepage. In many instances a homepage is a good landing page. However, for more targeted traff?and better results, you want a landing page to be focused on a specific offering and specific call for action. To accomplish this, a given website should have multiple landing pages. Create some deep link landing pages that will focus on a specific proposition and your conversion rate will be higher. - Focus on Functionality More and more visitors seem to judge the professionalism and... more.. Birthday gift ideas Birthday gift ideas What is to be said about the best Birthday gift ideas? What makes them the best and why doesn't everybody know what to choose when it comes to celebrating the birthday of a friend, family member or any other person? The difficulty with the Birthday gift ideas People find it very hard to cope with this aspect and they end up being frustrated that they've lost several hours while trying to find the perfect gift. There are some details that can be minded when it comes to Birthday gift ideas, that will surely spear you the trouble of being frustrated. First of all, there is the aspect of linking the gift with some of the hobbies, pleasures or other activities that your friend has. There has to be something that he or she enjoys doing and that's your gate towards finding the perfect gift for that person. It can be something related to sports, music, movies, books, anything that he or she might enjoy. In this way, you can actually show, that you are paying attention and you basically know that person pretty well. The issue that arises here refers to the idea of having the obligation to pick out a gift for a person who isn't close to you. There are some social situations that might occur and might demand you this approach. The way with the Birthday gift ideas here is to actually try and find out more about the one who... 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.. What?s worse? The spam itself? Or how anti-spam solutions block legitimate mail? What?s worse? The spam itself? Or how anti-spam solutions block legitimate mail? Posted by David Berlind After being in New York City last week and being busy almost the entire time, I spent a good part of the weekend catching up on e-mail. I have more inboxes than I care to admit and use more technologies than I should be using to see access them (Via the Web, Thunderbird, Outlook, etc). Somewhere on my to-do list is a day or two?s worth of purging and consolidation. These e-mail marathons usually include the tedious job of searching junk mail and spam folders for any legitimate e-mails. When it comes to e-mail, most of us (e-mail users and the e-mail solutions providers that serve them) have lost our sensibilities. The facts that (a) legitimate e-mail finds its way into our junk mail folders, (b) we must spend our time searching through junk mail folders for that legitimate e-mail, and (c) we somehow think this is normal, is proof that we?re gluttons for punishment. So, let me make this abundantly clear: the very second you must access your junk e-mail folder to make sure there?s no legitimate e-mail in it is the very second in which your anti-spam technology has become entirely useless to you. After all, the whole idea of anti-spam technology is to make it so that you don?t have to wade through illegitimate e-mail in order to read your legitimate e-mail ? all of your legitimate e-mail. One statistic that anti-spam solution providers pride themselves on is the fewest number of false positives. That is, they?ll boast that their systems make the fewest number of mistakes when it comes to misclassifying a legitimate e-mail as spam (and dumping that legit mail into your... 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.. Medical Billing Software Medical Billing Software Imagine having to use the pencil and pen to do the entire math that is involved when working with numbers. It might be overwhelming and give you a big headache. That's why the invention of systems like the Medical Billing Software and many more are owed some appreciation. The development of technology has helped people in their daily routines and has changed their lives for the better. The way that the Medical Billing Software works Medical facilities are the ones that need the development of technology the most. This is because of the fact that people's lives are at stake and nobody can play with that. This goes not only for the equipment that is used in surgeries but to the Medical Billing Software and the other systems that are designed to keep track of the patients, their needs and the changes that occurs in their state. Those systems have an important role in the wellbeing of the patient as well. Imagine that you as a doctor are in need of a specific information here and now. It would have taken you a lot of time to find the information, if not for those systems. Your patient's live is involved here and that is one motivator that cannot be ignored. Another issue that can be developed on the matter of the need for Medical Billing Software is related to the idea of drug abusers. There are many people who think that they can fool a computer just by lying about their prescriptions. This system is well organized and it keeps track of everything that has been allowed by a doctor for a patient. In this way, overdoses can be avoided and the ones that have a certain addiction to a pill won't fool the medical facility. Working with... more.. How To Construct a Web-Video Advertisement That Works How To Construct a Web-Video Advertisement That Works By Jerry Bader Motivate and Persuade Your Audience More mon?is wasted on advertising than any other business function. Small and mid-sized businesses in particular throw mon?at advertising in a vain attempt to establish themselves in the marketplace. However, there is hope that the democratizing nature of the Web environment can even the playing field and allow smaller companies to deliver their marketing messages effectively. But before that can happen, the potential advertiser must understand what the big boys have spent a considerable amount of time and effort to find out: how to create an advertising campaign that motivates and persuades customers to do business with you. Take Advantage of What Major Advertisers Already Know Chuck Young, founder and CEO of Ameritest, an advertising and brand research firm and John Kastenholz, Vice President of Consumer and Market Insight at Unilever have done extensive research into how story telling, emotions, and ideas are linked in creating effective commercial advertising. Since their research was based on television advertising it holds immediate relevance to any company that intends on using the Web as a significant presentation tool for delivering their marketing message. The cost of producing and airing broadcast television commercials is exorbitant, and that cost necessitates the kind of research done by Young and Kastenholz. Web-based marketers can benefit from the psychological insights provided from these studies and implement the findings in cost effective Web-video and audio presentations on websites, Google Video, Google Video Ads, YouTube, MySpace, and the countless other video presentation vehicles popping up on the Web daily. In Chuck Young's article, "A Film... more.. How To "Big Brother" Your Own Website How To "Big Brother" Your Own Website (12 Handy Webmaster Site Checking Tools & Sites) By Titus Hoskins (c) 2007   How Well Do You Really Know Your Website? If you're like most webmasters, you have probably spent years building your site. You have spent years adding content, building links and cultivating traff?- but how well do you really know your website? How well do you know the intricate details of your website's traff? Where do your site's visitors come from? How long do they stay on your site? Just where do they go to on your site and how well do they convert into buyers or subscribers? Do you know your site's rankings in the major search engines? What are your site's top keywords? What's your site's Google PageRank? Who are your IP neighbors? What your site looks like in other browsers? How much is your site worth? These are just some of the quest?s you should know, mainly because the more knowledge you possess about your site, the better equipped you will be at improving it. So here's a simple l? of free site checking tools/sites that will let you "Big Brother" (monitor and watch) your site.   1. Google Analytics Perhaps one of the most helpful analytical tools you can use on your site. Google Analytics will give you a wealth of information about your site's traff? Where it comes from, how long it stays on your site, where it goes on your site, how well your content converts... invaluable information every webmaster should have in their possession.   2. NetMechanic Toolbox Review your site's mechanics - find... more.. Facebook Business Pages Demystified for Business Owners  Facebook Business Pages Demystified for Business Owners By Nancy McCord (c) 2010 Facebook is so popular that business owners can simply no longer consider it a site only appropriate for socializing and game playing. In fact, in September 2010, Facebook surpassed Google in regards to the amount of time users spent on their site. Facebook states that users spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook! With 500 million active users, Facebook is the new behemoth on the Web. With its popularity across diverse age groups, integrated email application, and new Bing search integration, a Facebook user may simply no longer need to visit Google for Web searches or log off to use an email application. They may be able to experience the Web fully all from inside Facebook. With more than 50% of the active users logging into Facebook every day, according to Facebook, Facebook is now so important to your potential customers' lives that it makes sense for you as a business owner to have a presence where your prospects are hanging out on a daily basis. Let's clear up a few things that have confused business owners about Facebook. First, a Business Page is not to be confused with a personal profile. They are two separate entities and provide different options and ways to interact with friends and colleagues. Are Business Pages Also Called Fan Pages? Many of you who have been using Facebook for a while will remember that Facebook used to call Business Pages - Fan Pages. Additionally, it used to be that someone "fanned you." Now they "like you." Don't get confused in thinking that a Fan Page is a different product than... 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.. Google Caffeine and the New Ranking Factors | Google Caffeine and the New Ranking Factors | By Titus Hoskins (c) 2009 Google Caffeine is the name given to Google's "Next Generation" search engine, which it will use to rank and index all the pages on the wonderful world wide web. According to all indications, this is not just another one of Google's infamous Updates, but a major "Overhaul" of its index and algorithm - the complex formula and calculations Google uses to rank all web pages, including yours. If that doesn't sound ominous enough, according to Matt Cutts (Google Spokesperson) one database is already showing Google Caffeine, and the full blown version will be released after the holidays. The reasoning behind this - Google doesn't want to upset webmasters and site owners during the lucrative holiday buying season. In the past, other major Google Updates have come around this time of the year, most notably the "Florida Update" which severely affected many web sites and webmasters. Recently, Google has been more aware and much more generous to webmasters by being more open and forthcoming in regards to how it indexes its pages. This time around, webmasters were even given access to a beta version of Caffeine which Google released last summer ('09) where webmasters could check to see how well their keywords and site would fare in this new search index. This beta site (www2.sandbox.google.com) has now been taken down by Google. Like any professional search engine marketer who works online, I was constantly checking my sites and keywords in Google's new search engine. I have drawn some conclusions from what I have observed, but please be aware it is often very foolish to draw conclusions and make predictions from a... 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.. Four Reasons Why The Smaller Search Engines Matter Four Reasons Why The Smaller Search Engines Matter By Bill Platt These days, all search engine optimization gurus only seem to talk about Google, as if Google was the only search engine on the Internet. Of course, we all know that there really are hundreds of search engines and directories available to us, and we know that some of the smaller search engines serve a very t?t niche of users. Honestly, I can understand why there is a lot of press on Google, because after all, granddaddy Google is the biggest of the big. We know that mill?s of people use Google daily for their search activities, and we know that our websites receive a lot of traff?from Google. There are actually four reasons why you would want to extend your search engine marketing activities beyond Google. I will discuss each of those reasons here: Reason #1: Targeted Traff?/SPAN> Niche content search engines can be a very powerful force in your... more.. 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.. Avoid These 5 Useless Website Promotion Techniques Avoid These 5 Useless Website Promotion Techniques A SPN Exclusive Article By Tremel Ennis (c) 2010 Every owner of a website on planet Earth knows that getting a constant flow of traffic is the key to making money online. The world wide web attracts such a massive number of buyers that regardless of what you sell, you will make some really good money when you have lots of traffic. Internet marketers are constantly coming up with newer ways to expand their reach across the Internet because no website can survive without enough specific traffic. In their quest to obtain more of the elusive traffic, the website marketers have come up with some rather creative ways to bring in greater amounts of traffic in a short period of time and with little effort. My email inbox has been flooded with sales letters promoting some automated software or seldom used secret that promises an explosion of website visitors within 30 days. The disturbing part of all this is that it goes against the teaching of our early years; that nothing good comes easy and there is no quick path to building a successful business. As a result of these promises of abundant website traffic and exploding sales figures, many have abandoned those time tested methods of attracting real targeted website visitors that are prepared to take some kind of action. Keep in mind that website traffic isn't something that you can just get, but visitors will come to your website when you have something to provide, enticing them to click on your link. Too many people are cashing in on... more.. Correcting Common Usability Mistakes Correcting Common Usability Mistakes By Mark Johnstone, Senior Web Developer, StepForth Placement Inc. Each day at StepForth Placement we view dozens of websites that request a SEO Review and a vast majority of these sites have fundamental usability problems. Often times neglecting this important element of a website can lead online visitors to become lost, frustrated and/or confused. All it takes for a visitor to decide to stay, explore or leave a site is 0.4 of a second. Attracting visitors to your website is a formidable challenge; it is yet another to build a fast connection with them and keep them there. With this in mind, here are some simple measures that can be taken to remedy these mistakes and help promote your online conversions. Having great search engine placements is one thing but to create a usable website environment is just as important. What good can come from "being found" if users quickly exit your site? A solid search engine friendly and usable website should be your answer to both of these major components for your online success. There are a variety of standards still in place when it comes to designing a usable website. This is not to say that the uniqueness and creativity of your website has to suffer, rather by following some simple guidelines visitors know where to go to find the information they need. The process of developing a usable interface can be a balancing act. Some core elements need to be assessed prior to any actual design work being done. Attention to content creation, search engine friendly design tactics, and the face you put on your design each have to be blended into this usable... more.. 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.. Google+ Reviewed  Google+ Reviewed     By Jacob S Strandlien (c) 2011 Social networking has grown steadily in scope and importance over the last decade, and over the past few years, Facebook's position as the top dog of social networking services has been solid and unquestioned. Enter Google+. Google's attempts to step into the realm of social networking have been plentiful and almost undeniable failures, but Google+ is undoubtedly their strongest showing yet, and has the best chance of success. It is growing steadily in popularity, but how well does it work and what sets it apart from its competitors? Read on. Social Networking, Google Style Google has a long, tumultuous, and mostly unknown and ignored history with social networking. The following is a rundown of their previous attempts.   Orkut: As far as I am aware, this is Google's earliest and (until now) most successful attempt at a social networking platform. It didn't ever gained much popularity in the United States, but it is huge in Brazil to this day, and it also has a following in India and other various countries. Open Social: Launched in 2007, it's not technically a social network in and of itself. Open Social is Google and MySpace's attempt to create a common programming interface that can be applied across several social networks, allowing programmers to easily integrate these networks into websites and other applications. This has largely been drowned out by Facebook. Friend Connect: Launched in 2008, Friend Connect was Google's next attempt at a Facebook or MySpace style social network, but it took the approach of using various open standards (including Open Social) to create this network across different types... 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.. Kitchen Cabinets Ventura kitchen cabinets Ventura The kitchen cabinets Ventura services are one of those services that are designed to really satisfy the customers and help them with their needs. Those services are really helpful when it comes to solutions that need to be implemented so that the kitchen will look as appealing as the rest of the house. The appealing side of the kitchen cabinets Ventura services First of all, people are always concerned with certain qualities when they contact various services or businesses for the problems or needs that they have. In order to see a firm as reputable or very professional, it needs to be able to satisfy its customers with a high personal approach towards the job that it performs, an efficient manner when it comes to time and most importantly a great customer care. The kitchen cabinets Ventura services come with the best customer care there is as the cabinets that I brings to the table are already assembled. This is considered to be one of the best things about this industry as the client won't lose some of the precious time that he has on putting items together in order to form the cabinets that he needs. The service provides him or her with whatever it was ordered and the only requirement there is refers to patience in order for things to be done quickly. At the end of the day, the client will be relieved to see that the cabinets are in their place and everything is in perfect harmony. There are many different models that are available here, so that the user can pick something that he likes and fits with the other features of his home. In this way, everything will look as part of the big picture. That is one of the best aspects when it... more.. Court Orders Google to Turn Over YouTube Data Court Orders Google to Turn Over YouTube Data By Donald P. Schweitzer (c) 2008 A federal court has ordered the giant of all Internet companies - Google, to hand over documents concerning YouTube's viewing data to another media monster - Viacom. Viacom and Google are currently entangled in a no-holds barred lawsuit, concerning allegations of infringement of intellectual property rights. Viacom wanted the viewing data to help it determine the extent to which YouTube's success was built on the popularity of copyrighted clips that were illegally posted to the site. Google contended that YouTube's viewing data should be kept from Viacom to protect the privacy of its users. Unfortunately for the millions of people who view YouTube videos, the judge granted Viacom's request. The court's ruling has caused many advocates of privacy rights to cry foul. For the following reasons, I believe the federal judge was correct in ruling against Google. The Court's Powers To Access Records Cannot Be Denied Like millions of Americans and other people around the world I love Google. I can say without a doubt that Google has been very good to me and my family law practice. And if Google wants to be viewed by it's customers as the champion of privacy rights, so be it. But, let's get real... , the court's access to private records under appropriate circumstances cannot be denied. We cannot let people hide behind their computers to commit crimes or torts. It would be absurd, for example, to give a child molester safe haven to either post or view child pornography. It would be equally absurd to give a person safe... more.. 3 Fast and Simple Ways to Dominate Google Rankings! 3 Fast and Simple Ways to Dominate Google Rankings! By Michael Small (c) 2008 I got into search engine optimization back in 1998. Of course back then SEO was a lot simpler than today. All the tricks like keyword spamming and invisible key phrases worked like a charm. Better still, little tricks like these were acceptable. Not anymore. In fact, most old-school tricks don't work today and many can get your pages banned. This is great news for you. Over the next few minutes I'll show you how to make Google absolutely LOVE your web pages and help you jump to the top! This is all you need to know... Search engines today place 90% or more of their ranking priorities on content and links. Keywords are still important, but more so in the text of your pages than in any sort of META tags. Simple, right? It really is. The first step is to find the best keywords and place them just right in your web page text. Next you need to get great inbound links. And finally, you need to monitor your progress closely (and that of your competition.) Part 1: How to Find the Best Keywords Google gets more searches than any other search engine so let's peek into their database. Check out https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and type in any keyword or phrase you can think of that you believe your target audience is looking for. Not only will it give you tons of data on that and related keywords, it will also provide "Additional Keywords to Consider", which is a section at the bottom of the page. BIG TIP: Try to... more.. Web Development Los Angeles Web Development Los Angeles Does a 50 year company need a Web Development Los Angeles service in order to expand the approach in the online environment? Or it's a simple fad that has come with the new businesses and the traditional ones don't actually need it? The reality is that the internet opens up a lot of gates and the power that comes with mastering this environment is quite incomparable. There is a need for the Web Development Los Angeles services First of all, let's talk about how a business promotes itself on the internet. It really depends on the business and the profile that it has. Another factor that is of great importance here refers to the idea of reaching out to your potential target without having to go door to door. These are only the basics of the internet and the reasons why a business should choose this environment in order to make real profit. But where does the Web Development Los Angeles services come in? Why do people need them and not handle things on their own? There are still many subtle details that can be handled when promoting a business here. That's why there is need for the expertise of such a service and that's why the new businesses have so much success. They use the knowledge and the resources that they have in order to have a head start and be in the spotlight before the other businesses. People need to take into consideration that if they are able to sell their brand in the online environment they are basically hitting it everywhere. There have been many businesses... more.. Using Internal Linking To Get Better Search Engine Exposure Using Internal Linking To Get Better Search Engine Exposure By Randy Zlobec (c) 2008 Anyone who runs a website should be aware of a few basic search engine linking tactics. Used properly you can interlink your website so that Google, Yahoo and the other major search engines will rate you higher in both page rank and search engine results for your keyword/key phrase niche terms. If you're unaware of what internal linking means, here's a basic overview. Internal linking involves the links on your website that point to other pages on your website. Internal linking is very important because it allows the search engine spiders, those automated bots that scour the Internet looking for information, to find all of the pages on your website. In comparison, external linking are links that are on your website which link out to other websites, and there are specific tactics for those as well. In this article, however, we're going to cover a few simple tactics and strategies to get your internal linking up to speed. When you're developing your website, you will tend to put a whole lot of pages of similar information tailored to a specific niche or subject that you want to convey to your visitors. You probably will have information, news, how-to articles, tips and sales pages, where informed visitors can buy your products or services. Your internal linking structure will not only benefit your visitors, but it will help you rank better with the search engines as well. Having a good navigation system makes Google and Yahoo happy, and in turn, they will reward you because you are doing things to improve... 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.. Guide to Facebook Marketing Guide to Facebook Marketing By Martin Sejas (c) 2010 Unless you've been living under a rock for the past 4 years, you know how popular and widely used Facebook is today. Just a couple of years ago, you had to relentlessly encourage family and friends to join this social networking website (shortly after others had convinced you to join). Nowadays, it's rare to find someone who hasn't got a Facebook account. At last count, there were over 350 million users on Facebook and this number is continuing to grow. It overtook MySpace as the number 1 social networking website on the planet last year and is just behind Google when it comes to online traffic. You can then understand how important Facebook marketing has become for websites everywhere. It's Not A Pitch Zone The most important thing to remember about social media is that it is not a place to blatantly and endlessly pitch your product or service. If you do this, then you will not get any favors from social media users, will get largely ignored and even receive bad reviews. Social media is actually used for building relationships with potential clients in the market. There are a number of ways you can do this:      ? you can post helpful information (links) that helps them solve a problem.      ? you can personally chat with them to assist them.      ? you can create content addressing the needs of users and post it. The bottom line is that you want to be seen as genuine and helpful. This way, word can get out that you're the real deal and before you know it, people will become interested in what you have to provide in terms of products... more.. Shaping Web Audience Preference Shaping Web Audience Preference By Jerry Bader (c) 2009 Wouldn't it be wonderful if you had the power to convince people that your product or service was exactly what they needed, and as a consequence your in-box was filled with inquiries and your e-commerce site was stuffed with orders. Wouldn't that be great? And isn't that exactly what you want to achieve with your website? The problem is you are part of a giant online bazaar called The Web; and just like your local weekend flea market The Web is filled with crap, conmen, and contraband. Without understanding some of the underlying psychological principles involved in shaping audience preference you are in danger of being regarded as just another mangy flea market hustler, even if what you offer is the greatest thing since sliced bread. The subject of shaping public perception, or in our case Web audience preference, is complex and convoluted but there are basic principles that if followed will help you achieve your business objectives, no matter how you define them. The Four E-Essentials of Website Presentation All the Google ads, search engine optimization, linking strategies, social networking, and Twitter twirping will be for naught if you don't implement four essential marketing communication techniques: engage, enlighten, embed, and re-enforce. These four website presentation elements are easy to grasp but not always easy to implement. If you've read any of our other articles you will know that we think Web-video is the most effective way to implement these elements on your website and in your Web marketing. But just because you use video on your website, doesn't mean it's going to be effective unless you understand the psychology behind the e-essentials. Perhaps the best way to illustrate how... 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.. Today's Google Bots and What They Do Today's Google Bots and What They Do By Kim Roach (c) 2006 Google currently indexes over 8 billion web pages. However, before these pages were placed in the index, they were each crawled by a special spider known as the GoogleBot. Unfortunately, many web masters do not know about the internal workings of this virtual robot. In fact, Google actually uses a number of spiders to crawl the Web. You can catch these spiders by examining your log files. This article will attempt to reveal some of the most important Google spiders, their function, and how they affect you as a web master. We'll start with the well-known GoogleBot. GoogleBot Googlebot, as you probably know, is the search bot used by Google to scour the web for new pages. Googlebot has two versions, deepbot and freshbot. Deepbot is a deep crawler that tries to folow every link on the web and download as many pages as it can for the Google index. It also examines the internal structure of a site, giving a complete picture for the index. Freshbot, on the other hand, is a newer bot that crawls the web looking for fresh content. The Google freshbot was implemented to take some of the pressure off of the GoogleBot. The freshbot recalls pages already in the index and then crawls them for new, modified, or updated pages. In this way, Google is better equipped to keep up with the ever-changing Web. This means that the more you update your web site with new, quality content, the more the Googlebot will come by to check you out. If you'd like to see the Googlebot crawling around your... more.. ready to assemble cabinets Los Angeles ready to assemble cabinets Los Angeles People might think that the ready to assemble cabinets Los Angeles models are just another thing on the market. This can be true due to the fact that many of the markets are very diverse and there are many great names in an businesses, but there is an aspect that needs to be considered here: the speed that the service has. The ready to assemble cabinets Los Angeles service handles their clients with speed First of all, people need to take into consideration that speed is not the dominant quality of the ready to assemble cabinets Los Angeles services. There are many other qualities that matter in this industry, like: durability, professionalism, time of response and so on. But, as we are livening in a world where everything goes at a very high speed rate, it surely does matter how fast the service is provided. Let's take an example of a regular order and see how things are going. The client can easily access the internet, right from the comfort of his home, log on to the website and start browsing throughout the ready to assemble cabinets Los Angeles models that are displayed there. He can take as long as he or she wants, until a decision is made. The great part of the internet here is that the browsing can be done quietly and without being disturbed by any shop supervisors that are constantly watching your every move. This is the perfect way to shop and take your time while doing it. The next step of the process is finalizing your order and waiting for the team that does the measurements to arrive. You need to point out where you want the ready to assemble cabinets Los Angeles to be placed and after that part... more.. How to Create Search Engine Friendly Title and META Tags (Part 2) How to Create Search Engine Friendly Title and META Tags (Part 2) By Kalena Jordan (c) 2007 In Part 1 of this article, I defined Title Elements and META Tags and took you step-by-step through how to create an optimized Title Element. Now it's time to create your optimized META Description Tag. Create Your META Description Tag Take your l? of target keywords and phrases and open another text file. Again, you can use an existing sample META Description Tag as your template. Let's say our existing description is: <META name="description" content="Miami Florists create beautiful floral bouquets, arrangements, tributes and displays for all occasions, including weddings, Valentines Day, parties and corporate events. Deliveries throughout Florida."> You can make your META Description Tag as long as you like, but only a certain portion of it will get indexed and displayed by search engines. According to Danny Sullivan in his (old but still relevant) article How to Use HTML Meta Tags, 200 to 250 characters of the META Description gets indexed but less than that gets displayed, depending on the search engine. So you want to make sure all your important keywords are listed towards the start of the tag. Now take your l? of keywords for the home page in order of importance. For our fictional florist these were: - florists Miami - florists Florida - wedding bouquets Now you need to create a readable sentence or two describing your web site and incorporating these keywords so they make the best use of the keyword real estate available. Because search engines often display the contents of... 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.. 5 Steps to Qualify for Your Business Black Belt 5 Steps to Qualify for Your Business Black Belt By Karl Walinskas (c) 2011 Many small businesses fail today without the process or discipline to succeed. When all the excuse-making is said and done, do you have the will and the skill to survive and thrive? A few weeks ago I watched the culmination of 4 years worth of work that started at the ripe old age of six. Huh? As impossible as it seems, 4th graders can set a goal, focus on it (kind of), and progressively realize it one step at a time. I'm talking about my son Jack, who just achieved a black belt in Karate. This was a big deal to all the kids and adults in his class, reminding me of achieving my Eagle Scout as a teenager, and this dad was beaming! These guys were unbelievable, and on the grueling 6 hour day of final testing and ultimate celebration, it was great to see not only Jack but everybody in the class crackle with a precision you wouldn't think possible. So how's this apply to you as a business owner? Here are 5 Lessons in Black Belt Mastery for your business. Progressive, Manageable Goals Do you know how many colored belts you need to get through in order to get a black belt? 13 of them! Somewhere, one of Gary Larson's talking animals is saying "What the?!" There is white, white & yellow, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, purple & yellow, brown, brown & yellow, red, red & black (danbo), and finally, black belt. Each one of these is a little step along the... more.. 18 Effective Search Engine Optimization Techniques 18 Effective Search Engine Optimization Techniques By Sue Cooper (c) 2010 Proper Search Engine Optimization, otherwise known as SEO, has quickly become a popular topic of conversation among website owners and entrepreneurs. The difference between having a successful website, and hosting a flop, is often the difference between whether or not you've incorporated proper keywords and phrases into your webpages. Learning proper SEO techniques can seem like a daunting task, especially to those who are not familiar with the concept. The following list offers 18 simple SEO techniques you should keep in mind when developing and marketing your website. 1. Make sure your website is initially designed with your search engine optimization needs in mind. Search engines look for text, not flashy graphics and cool layouts. The trendiest web designs will mean nothing if no one is able to find your site. 2. Every page of your website should have a title tag with text describing either your site or what is on the page. Be sure the text includes SEO-type keywords instead of the name of your website. Unless you're incredibly popular, no one is going to be looking for you by searching for your name. They'll most likely search for a product or service and the keywords you use will lead them to your site. 3. Consider canonicalization, or whether or not your website address includes or excludes the www prefix. If you choose to use the www version of your website, make sure the non-www version directs users back to the one you use. Make sure you use your preferred version (http://www.mydomain.com or http://mydomain.com) every time you place a link to your site on the web. Don't use both! 4. When... more.. EMR EMR The EMR system is one the greatest achievements in the field of medicine not because it brings some great adjustments in the surgical area, but it is something that has revolutionized the front desks of the hospitals. Many people aren't that aware of how important it is to have a system that is extremely efficient especially in cases of high pressure. EMR The Greatest Achievement One of the first aspects that are worth highlighting here refers to the idea of the space that is being saved with the EMR system. Imagine how the system used to work somewhere in the past decade. There were rooms filled with drawers that had files and files stored inside of them. The clerk had to search through all the files in order to reach the desired information and that took a lot of time as well. Additionally, there were cases when the clerk was in a hurry and he or she didn't have time to arrange the files in the order that they were before. This has generated some real problems when there were other files needed. The current system has some very efficient features and has the capability to store a great deal of patients without having the worry to actually be overwhelmed with files. Furthermore the EMR system gives the user the possibility to insert certain filters in order to be able to reach the desired information without having to lose precious time in the process. This is quite relevant when a doctor... more.. Google cn The Internet As Beijing Sees It Google cn The Internet As Beijing Sees It By Joseph Pratt In November, I wrote an article and referenced a trip that ICMediaDirect.com's VP of Business Development, Diana Lee, took to China. She participated in Shanghai's inaugural ad:tech conference. It was a great trip and our company's ties with China are stronger because of it. Like most Western companies doing business in China, we're just doing business and there are no extenuating circumstances. Google, the giant search engine, cannot say the same. China is an economic giant warming up to the power of the Internet, but this hasn't been a perfect marriage so far. Centralized power and the decentralized nature of the Internet do not mesh well. Beijing feels compelled to exercise tight control over whatever flow of information they can in order to stifle potential dissent within Chinese society. A governmental missive from 2000 states plainly that Internet providers must restrict information that may "harm the dignity and interests of the... 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.. 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.. 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.. 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.. Electronic Medical Records Electronic Medical Records   Is it safer to entrust the patient's files to one of the Electronic Medical Records? There are still many opinions who don't agree to the computerized system when people's life is at stake. Those people can be a little too traditional, but they need to see that this is a system that is designed to perform the actions that are already been done but with a much higher efficiency. The great thing with the Electronic Medical Records First of all, people need to observe how technology helps in their daily routines. There are so many examples that can be shared on this aspect that it is really hard to think of one that isn't affected by technology. The medical field is one of the best examples to prove how technology is the perfect assistant. Of course, there is the surgery room where all the equipment is so precise and it really helps people, but it can be spotted at the front desk as well. Many people don't actually know how the Electronic Medical Records really helps the doctors do their job without having another worry on their hands. One of the best benefits that can be illustrated here refer to the spearing a lot of time and space with the use of computers. All the information on a certain patient is being held in a computer and this means that the drawers and the files... more.. How to Use Facebook as a Branding Strategy for Your Business How to Use Facebook as a Branding Strategy for Your Business By Lindsay Dicks (c) 2010 If you aren't already connected to the social media revolution, it is time to get your head out of the sand and harness the power of the digital network. If you want to get out ahead of your competition and make consumers excited about interacting with your brand, social media is the way to go. It isn't an overnight marketing fix, it takes time to build a following, but if done correctly you can use social media to drive people to your website and ultimately to your front door. Are you ready? After building your incredible website and blog, it is time to build a Facebook fan page. Before you run away at the thought of building your page, let me assure you that it is easy to get started, and I am going to walk you through it. But, of course, if you get stuck or need additional help with the more complicated aspects, we're always here to help. (But I promise; set up is easy.) The first thing you need in order to create a Facebook fan page is a personal profile. What? You don't have one yet? Time to get one! I am not going to waste time walking you through profile set up because the steps are pretty self explanatory. Just go to Facebook, fill out the information to get started and let the steps guide you. You can probably set up a basic profile in about 15 minutes. After setting up your personal profile, spend some time poking around Facebook and getting to know the site - have fun. Check out some of... more.. 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.. 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.. All That You Need To Know About RSS All That You Need To Know About RSS By Jo Han Mok (c) 2007 You probably have seen this three-letter acronym called RSS in the course of your internet surfing. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary; syndicating means republishing an article that comes from another source such as a website. An RSS is a means of publicizing updates about websites. It may or may not include a summary and photos of the latest posting. But those that provide summaries (thus Rich Site Summary) allow users to skim through the article so that they can decide later on if they want to access the website source. The RSS feed usually contains the title of the update originating from the website. It is also usually the link to the website source. What are the benefits of RSS? RSS has benefits for both readers (users) and web publishers.   1. It gives you the latest updates. Whether it is about the weather, new music, software upgrade, local news, or a new posting from a rarely-updated site you learn about the latest as soon as it comes out.   2. It saves on surfing time. Since a RSS feed provides a summary of the related article, it saves the user's time by helping s/he decide on which items to prioritize when reading or browsing the net.   3. It gives the power of subscription to the user. Users are given a free-hand on which websites to subscribe in their RSS aggregators which they can change at any time they decide differently.   4. It lessens the clutter in your inbox. Although your email address will be required to enjoy the services of online... more.. Best Marketing Tips of Highly Successful Marketers  Best Marketing Tips of Highly Successful Marketers A SPN Exclusive Article By David Jackson (c) 2011 Most of the time when I write an article, I share my own personal marketing experiences, viewpoints and opinions - my OWN marketing tips as it were. Today, I'm going to change things up a little and share with you some of the best marketing tips of other successful marketers. I compiled these remarkable marketing gems from the thousands and thousands of quality blog posts, articles, newsletters and interviews I've had the pleasure of reading over the years. The hard part was narrowing my list down to only 20. I could easily have listed 100. Oh well, perhaps I'll write a sequel or two or three... Enjoy! - Tim Berry, Planning Startups Stories - "One of the most expensive myths in marketing is that lower price produces higher volume. That might be true for coal or gasoline, but not for most businesses. Lower price means, well, ask yourself: do you always eat at the lowest price restaurant? Purchase the lowest pr??ce clothes? Do you drive the lowest priced car? Pricing is your best statement of value." - Drew McClellan, Drew's Marketing Minute - "Do Less. One of the most tempting aspects of marketing is the veritable smorgasbord of different marketing tactics that you can toss into a marketing plan. It's almost overwhelming. Many marketing professionals make the very understandable mistake of believing that more is better. But they're wrong. You will be vastly more successful if you do less, but do it better. Pick 3-4 marketing tactics that you think are really going to be valued by your... more.. Why Directories Still Have SEO Benefits Why Directories Still Have SEO Benefits By David Lopez (c) 2010 Web directories have been around since the beginning of the World Wide Web in the early 1990's and are still recognized as an important channel for advertising businesses online. People often get web directories and search engines mixed up. The difference between a search engine like Google and web directories is that Google uses a web crawler to automatically index websites to show up in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), while a web directory organizes links under various categories and sub-categories. How Can Submitting to Director? Help Your Website? Here are some tips: Get Indexed Quicker in the Search Engines When search engines crawl directory websites any new entries within those directories also get crawled and indexed. Directories that are deemed authoritative by search engines like Google are crawled regularly, finding new website links to index which are then ranked to appear in the search results. If you are launching a new website, you should seriously consider submitting to website director? to speed up the process of getting indexed into Google. Raise Your Positions in Google As many website owners should know the more quality links to your website that you obtain, the more favorably Google will rank your website. Website Directories are a great source for one-way or reciprocal links. Well maintained directories will place your link in an appropriate category or sub-category, meaning that the directory's human moderators agree that your website is about what your website claims to be about and is useful to human beings. Drive Traffic to Your Website Having a listing on a popular, high traffic website directory can also... 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.. 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.. 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 for Traff?with Content vs Ranking with Links SEO for Traff?with Content vs Ranking with Links By Joel Walsh How do you grow your search engine traff?without adding a single new link or making any changes to your existing webpages? It's simple. Just add content. Simply having keyword-optimized pages of content on your site won't rank you high for competitive search engine keywords ? that's a fact of life. But keyword-optimized content can really bring in the traff?for low-competition and unique keywords. The low-competition and unique keywords are typically longer multi-word variants of the keyword. For instance, instead of "search engine ranking," "ranking for search engine traff?niche keywords." If you have lots of pages of optimized content?and you optimize well ? all the search engine traff?from these low-competition keywords will really add up. Plus, you'll usually get more repeat visitors and type-in traff? too. Just picture this realistic example of traffic-building with content vs. ranking-building with links. Company A invests $5,000 for link-building in order to rank for a competitive keyword. Company B invests the same amount, only in content. Company A and Company B: each start out on... more.. How SPNbabble Can Help Web Professionals How SPNbabble Can Help Web Professionals By Titus Hoskins (c) 2009 SiteProNews, a well established website geared towards webmasters, has recently introduced a new micro-blogging service called SPNbabble. Describing itself as "Micro-Blogging For Web Professionals" - SPNbabble.com lets you share your ideas with friends and colleagues. It also incorporates such popular services as Twitter and Facebook. To find out more about this interesting new platform, Bizwaremagic.com did an interview with Mel Strocen, CEO of the Jayde Online Network, which runs numerous websites, including SiteProNews and SPNbabble. 1. Lets cut to the chase, why should anyone use your micro-blogging program, SPNbabble? The main reason, and the reason we created SPNBabble, is that it provides social media marketers with a means to post to multiple micro-blogging sites simultaneously. Currently, SPNbabble members can configure their accounts so that a post on SPNbabble will also appear on Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Plurk, Tumblr and 5 other micro-blogging sites. If time is a factor in your marketing endeavors, then using SPNbabble is a no-brainer. 2. Not everyone is familiar with micro-blogging, could you go into more detail and fully explain how your program works or functions? Well, anyone who uses Twitter will find SPNbabble very similar in features and functionality. For those unfamiliar with micro-blogging, it's basically a concise form of blogging. Most micro-blogging sites, including SPNbabble, restrict blog posts to 140 characters. It takes some practice to get your message across in shortened form, but for busy web professionals less is more. Micro-blogging is ideal for getting short snippets of useful information out to a potential audience of millions of micro-bloggers. Short blog posts can be about news, articles, products, services, programs, links to interesting sites, what... more.. 11 Proven Ways to Turn Your Website Visitors Into Buyers 11 Proven Ways to Turn Your Website Visitors Into Buyers  By Charles Kiyimba (c) 2011 Learning to turn your website visitors into buyers is a skill that every internet marketer should acquire. Do you have a website or a blog you are promoting? Are you satisfied with the behavior of the people who visit your website? Do they come and disappear without accomplishing the desired actions you expect them to perform such as filling in a form, buying a product or signing up for the program you promote? How much time do they spend when they visit your site? If your responses to the above questions are in line with your expectations, then you are probably one of the lucky few website owners or marketers with the skill and ability to turn your website visitors into buyers. But if you still find hardships in this, like many other marketers, it's high time you tested the following tips for improvement. How do you then turn your website visitors into buyers? Before going into the details, bear in mind that your success in making a sale online will largely depend on your ability to create a reason for your visitors to hang around your website, to keep visiting your site frequently and to perform the actions you expect them to do. There are many ways of doing this, but let me share with you 11 proven ways. When you apply them properly, I believe you will be able to turn your website visitors into buyers slowly but consistently. 1. Having the right product for your targeted visitors. Review your product. Does the product you provide, meet the individual needs of your... more.. Website Development Strategy That Will Drive Customers  Website Development Strategy That Will Drive Customers By John Carroll (c) 2010 Take this one question quiz: What should be the first step in developing a website? 1. Creating a design to use as a basis, 2. Deciding how the content needs to be integrated and managed, 3. Gathering content from corporate collateral, 4. Developing a strategic plan for your specific needs, or 5. Choose the most cost-effective hosting plan. In just about any profession other than website development, your answer would be choice 4. After all, you couldn't build a house without considering the layout, number of bathrooms, and features of the home. You wouldn't create a design for a major advertisement and then plan the content and message of the ad. Yet, when it comes to website design, often the design comes first and the strategic plan for the site comes last. Being a veteran of about 20 years in marketing and design, this issue has perplexed me for years. It seems to me that the development process should be: 1. Discover the reason a business needs a website and the expectations of the business. 2. Understand your typical customer and what influences their purchasing decision. 3. Have a clear understanding of how the website fits into the marketing plan. 4. Research to find what customers are searching for in Google, Yahoo in relation to the business (keywords). 5. Carefully plan a site architecture which is best for the demographic, online search trends, and have a site that's easy for search engines to follow, is designed with the target market in mind, and has clear definitions of conversion goals. 6. Create a design which speaks to the target demographic. 7. Launch the site and begin... more.. How to Use Web Analytics to Grow Your Business How to Use Web Analytics to Grow Your Business By Mike Tekula (c) 2009 If you own a business, chances are you do. But don't pat yourself on the back too quickly. By now it's widely-accepted that if you have a business card you should probably have a website. It doesn't matter what your company is selling - a website, however modest, has become a standard. The real question is: what is your website doing for your business? As a web marketer I often put this question to the business owners I meet. Not because I'm trying to lead into my sales pitch, but because I'm intrigued to hear the answer. Most people get a certain "deer in the headlights" look in their eyes when I ask this question. To be fair, it's not a question we're used to hearing. But that's not all that's going on here. Traditional advertising mediums - print, TV, radio, etc - are notoriously difficult to track. Sure, you'll know how often the phone is ringing or how many people come in with a coupon clipped from the Sunday paper, but what you don't know is how many people saw/heard your ad and whether they were interested, oblivious or, worse, annoyed. Business owners are used to this. We all know we need to advertise - it's a necessary cost of doing business - so we buy that half-page ad in the Yellow Pages or the local newspaper, we sponsor an event or a little league team, we have a radio commercial written (maybe even with a jingle) and we hope for the best. This has been a given in marketing since... more.. Your Logfiles May Be Missing Important Data Your Logfiles May Be Missing Important Data By Ross Dunn (c) 2007 In this article I am going to explain logfiles and their importance in website analytics from my perspective as a ClickTracks user. Before I begin, however, I want you to know that although I provide essential analytic consulting, I am a certified ClickTracks Analytics Professional and have dabbled in books on analytics, I don't consider myself to be an analytics expert. In fact, I constantly find myself humbled by how much more there is to know. That said, I do know more than the average site owner and I hope that this article can shine a little light on this often confusing subject and save you some future headaches. As many of you may know I am a huge fan of the logfile version of ClickTracks Professional, a website analytics package that I find indispensable for myself and my clientele. ClickTracks can do a lot to determine what is or is not working on a website; much more than expected in most cases. The one thing, however, that ClickTracks or any other logfile-based analytics tool cannot do is interpret information in your logfiles if it is not recorded. Unfortunately this is a common occurrence and many site owners have no idea that their hosting company is not saving information that could help them now or later when they find they need it. The reality is that over ninety percent of the hosting companies I have dealt with have not been saving the vital data that a higher level analytics program needs; to work at peak performance if... more.. If You Want To REALLY Promote Your Site, Here's How... If You Want To REALLY Promote Your Site, Here's How... By Steve Shaw (c) 2006 Site promotion gimmicks and traff?techniques come and go, but the ones that really work are those that stand the test of time. This article highlights what I consider to be the most effective methods to promote your web site of all time. 1. Get Your Site High In The Search Engines Getting your site linked high in the search engines for your keywords and keyphrases. One of the best ways to do this is to ensure your site has a good number of incoming links from quality sites - I discuss how to achieve this with relative ease below. Also make sure that your site reflects the keywords/keyphrases that you are looking for - they should be in your title tag, your headline tags, and in your initial paragraphs. Don't however over do it, or it will look like "keyword stuffing" and you will do more damage than good - just make sure they are there in a natural fashion. more.. kitchen cabinets Los Angeles kitchen cabinets Los Angeles The kitchen cabinets Los Angeles service has become quite famous for the way it approaches their potential clients and the way it provides the service. Many companies are interested into catching their clients in a net, but there are others who are interested into building up a relationship with their clients in order for both to best benefit from this relationship. What's new with the kitchen cabinets Los Angeles services? People are always comfortable with their lives and that is why many companies and businesses develop services and items that don't take the clients out of their comfort zone. In this way, both sides are quite happy. When talking about the kitchen cabinets Los Angeles services and why are they so famous, this is the most relevant argument that comes to mind: the fact that the cabinets are designed and transported right at the doorstep of the client. This means that he or she won't lose much of his time running around from store to store in order to find what is needed. Furthermore, the service is designed in such a way, that the user can place the order on the internet and simply wait for the magic to take place. It might seem a little bit ordinary for a company to be in the online environment alongside with the "offline" one. This is because of the fact that many businesses have discovered the benefits of using the internet for their business. Why are the kitchen cabinets Los Angeles services so special? They answer to the needs of the clients as they bring the products right at their homes. This means that all the worries, frustrations and the stress is... 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.. Secrets Your Web Designer Isn't Telling You Secrets Your Web Designer Isn't Telling You By Kalena Jordan (c) 2008 If I was to ask you right now "Are you absolutely certain that your web site is optimized for high visibility in search engines?", what would you say? What if I was to ask "What position in the major search engines does your site appear in for your target search terms?" Or how about "Does each page of your site have tailored Title and META Tags?" If you would answer "No" or "I don't know" to any of these questions, you would be amongst the 60% of web site owners whose web sites are missing out on traffic because they are not designed for search engine compatibility. Has your web designer optimized YOUR site for your target keywords? Have they made sure it is visible in Google and the other major search engines? More than likely, you don't know because they haven't told you. Ask them today! But what exactly is search engine optimization? Simply explained, it is the technique of attaining a high ranking in search engines and directories via changes to your site code to make it more search engine compatible. In my experience, web designers keep a lot of secrets. One of the biggest ones is that they have no clue about what makes a web site compatible with search engines. Another is that they like to build expensive, flashy sites and so convince their clients that an attractive web site never uses a lot of text. So your web designer may have included target keywords and phrases in your Title tag and META tags (in the HTML... 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.. 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 Keep Your Website Fresh With RSS How To Keep Your Website Fresh With RSS By Jason OConnor (c) 2006, Oak Web Works, LLC One of the biggest reasons people visit websites is to get information. If you can regularly provide fresh, quality content on your website you can expect to be rewarded by visitors and return visitors. What's more, you will be rewarded by the search engines. I recommend that you add new and original content to your site as often as possible, ideally once a day. Regularly adding fresh and original content: Keeps your site visitors coming back Continually adds value to your website Makes people more comfortable buying from your site Establishes yourself as an authority in your industry Greatly helps your site rank higher in search engines All of the above factors translate into revenue. We all know how hard adding original and fresh content is, especially if you're the business owner. You have to be original, creative, organized, thoughtful and motivated, and above all, able to write. So what's a website owner or business owner supposed to do? RSS may be the answer. What Is RSS? Here's the Wikipedia definition of RSS: RSS is a family of web feed formats specified in XML (a generic specification for data formats) and used for Web syndication. RSS delivers its information as an XML file called an "RSS feed", "webfeed", "RSS stream", or "RSS channel". These RSS feeds provide a way for users to passively receive newly released content (such as text, web pages, sound files, or other media); this might be the full content itself or just a link to it, possibly with a summary or other metadata (data describing the... 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.. Birthday gift ideas Birthday gift ideas The birthday gift ideas are considered to be one of the hardest things to do because of a single and yet confusing aspect: it's hard to find something that will surely be seen as a great gift. Many people find it difficult to please their friends or family because they don't seem to find the best gift for a birthday. How easy it is to find some great birthday gift ideas There are no golden rules that can be applied to these situations, there are some guidelines and things to be careful with in order to send out the perfect gift. First of all, people should consider that the best birthday gift ideas are the ones that are personal. This means that the gift needs to send out a message to the one that receives it. There are many people who go into the first convenient store and pick up the very first thing that comes to their attention. They put the thing in a wrapping bag and that's that. This is an example of an impersonal gift as it sends out a message that the person doesn't know much about you and that's why he felt the need to buy something that hasn't got a personal touch. Another aspect that should be minded here when it comes to one of the best ways to have great birthday gift ideas is to think of other ways to offer the gift rather than just putting it on a table or wrapping it in a certain way. The key here is to come up with a method that will surely impress the ones that will be receiving your gifts. It's like coming up with a proposal method that will surely impress the one at the other hand only... more.. Fluff vs. Quality Content Fluff vs. Quality Content By Devin Hansen (c) 2007 There are basically three types of content you can use for your site. Fluff, leased, or custom. All three have their pros and cons, but which would work best for ranking well with Google and the other major engines? Let's first explore the definitions of this varied content: Fluff: Written cheaply by non-native-speaking writers, and used to fill up a web site with inexpensive content. Leased: Identical articles that are well-researched and written, but sold to numerous web sites. Custom: Well-researched, authoritative content that is tailored specifically to meet the needs of you and your business. Fluff content is fine for businesses just starting out. It helps you to at least get a place in the race to the top of the search engines, but for long-lasting results, fluff just won't cut it. The wording is often choppy, incoherent, and doesn't achieve your primary goal which is customer conversion. Also, if the content of your site is sloppy, it will not instill confidence in a potential customer. Leased content works well because it is professionally written, topical, and easy to find. Search engine algorithms favor content that has keywords and phrases that are strategically placed but those words and phrases must also be embedded in text that is lean and carefully crafted for consistent results. The drawback of leased content is that it can be found in a wide variety of other websites and cannot meet the unique needs of your business or specifically target the audience that you want to attract. Custom Content Custom content is content that has been professionally crafted to feature the keywords and phrases... more.. Six Proven Secrets to Writing a Trash-Proof Press Release Six Proven Secrets to Writing a Trash-Proof Press Release By Bill Stoller (c) 2008 PublicityInsider.com In baseball, it's said that you know an umpire is top-notch when you never 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 press release focuses only on its content -- and not on its creation -- the writer has succeeded. With that in mind, here's how to develop a style that can help give you a big edge in placing your press releases. 1) Master News Style By Reading News Stories The folks who write wire copy for the Associated Press are masters at presenting information without calling attention to themselves. Read all the AP wire copy you can and get a sense of the rhythm and flow of their writing. Examine their choice of words and sentence structure (typically, they choose the simplest way of saying things) and their overall tone of solid objectivity. This is the style to which you should aspire. 2) Write a Great Lead The lead paragraph in a press release should, theoretically, be able to stand alone as a news item. A standard news lead answers the Five W's -- Who? What? Where? When? Why? Successfully answer those five questions in one paragraph and you've summarized everything beautifully. Bad lead: The new Acme X100 is drawing raves from customers, who call it the best thing to happen to the flanging industry since the X99. Good lead: Philadelphia, August 15, 2007-- Calling... 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.. What You Need to Know About IP Addresses What You Need to Know About IP Addresses By John Buchanan (c) 2007 If you are new to the internet, often times things can seem quite overwhelming. People throw around terms like IP addresses, name servers, host?, ftp, etc. In this article we are going to cover IP Addresses. You'll learn exactly what they are and how they apply to search engine optimization (SEO). IP Address stands for Internet Protocol Address and is currently made up of four "octets" or numbers separated by a period. Each octet can be a number from 0 to 255 . Some examples of valid IP addresses are - 1.123.150.243, 35.35.36.10, 240.216.1.80 There is also a new standard for IP addresses that is slowly being launched called IPV6 (IP version 6). IPV6 numbers look quite different from our current IP addresses. An example of an IPV6 IP address is - 2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7334 You will notice each is much longer with MANY more possible variations. The new IP system is designed to give us enough IP addresses so that we will not run out of unique IP addresses any time in the foreseeable future. So why do we need IP addresses? Quite simply, an IP address is like your physical home address. It designates a specific computer that is connected to the internet. Every computer connected to the internet has an IP address. This is necessary for it to send and receive information. When you type in a website name, for example mine, http://www.sesecrets.com, that name is translated into an IP address that is then used to "find" my site. In the current set of IP addresses, going from left to right, the first "octet" is the most broad, with each... more.. Link Building Best Practices - A Guide to Effective Link Building Methods Link Building Best Practices - A Guide to Effective Link Building Methods By SEOFocused.com (c) 2010 Just to cover the ground, lets go over what link building is quickly. Link building is the process of building backlinks to your site. The more backlinks (links from other sites to your site) a site has, the higher it ranks on the search engines. Link building therefore is a mission of all money mak? webmasters. Link building methods have changed from time to time and a specific method that worked yesterday may not work today. This is due to changes in the industry over time and in some cases extreme abuse. If a specific link building method has been abused too much, then that method will not work anymore. It is therefore very important to know which link building method works today so that you can spend your time in a most productive way. There are many link building methods out there today that work with some working better than others. Below are some of the today's popular links building methods: Article Submission If you are reading this article, then you know that you can publish your article in article directories. Not only do you gain backlinks to your site from your published articles (see bottom of this article), you will get some traffic as a bonus. Think of you reading this article. There might be many reading your published articles as well. Article submission is a great way of building backlinks as it provides you with 100% relevant contextual backlinks that Google loves. Directory submission used to work lot better before, but it is still a popular link building method that still works if done properly.... more.. Google's First Page... Guaranteed?  Google's First Page... Guaranteed? A SPN Exclusive Article By David Jackson (c) 2012 A couple of weeks ago, I visited one of the Internet Marketing/Small Business forums that I'm a member of, and noticed a new member had posted a typical newbie question in the SEO forum. The member wanted to know how she could be guaranteed to get her website on the first page of Google. As usual, members came crawling out of the woodwork with advice - including members who didn't even own a website. Unfortunately, that's pretty typical on Internet Marketing/Small Business forums... members who don't own a website instructing other members how to get on the first page of Google... members who don't own a business dispensing business advice. So be careful where you get your advice from... but I digress. Not surprisingly, not a single member responded with the correct answer. And what is the correct answer? The correct answer is there is NO magic bullet that will assure a first page ranking on Google. Nev?has been, nev?will be. By the same token, NO reputable SEO company will promise first page rankings. By the way, this isn't the first time I've written about this topic. In my article How to Choose a Reputable SEO Company I wrote the following: "No SEO company can guarantee you a first page or top 10 ranking. I repeat: NO SEO company can guarantee you a first page or top 10 ranking. Here's why: There are far too many variables involved in the ranking of a website - not the least of which are... more.. Could New Generic Domains Spell Trouble for Google & Webmasters?  Could New Generic Domains Spell Trouble for Google & Webmasters? By Titus Hoskins (c) 2011 ICANN, the governing body for all Internet addresses, has announced new changes on how domains will be named in the future, which could definitely spell trouble for not only Google but all the other search engines as well. But they won't be the only ones. Small webmasters and online marketers should be more concerned and troubled by the introduction of these new "generic" or "dot anything" domains. Why? Mainly because these new ICANN changes will transform and alter the web forever. The impact and range of this transformation will largely depend upon two factors. First, how wide or liberal will ICANN be in their interpretation and implementation of these new domain naming changes? Second, how quickly Internet users adjust to these changes and for that matter, whether or not, they will even use these new generic domains. However, if human nature stays true and previous Internet usage stays firm, web users will want the fastest and easiest way to find what they're looking for on the web. This is where the new "generic" domains could change the whole playing field. It could even possibly transform the web as we know it today. Starting next year - between January 2012 to April 2012 - companies can apply to ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) for a "generic" or "dot anything" domain. Instead of using say a ".com" ".net" ".biz"... a company will be able to buy a domain such as "www.hotels" or "www.hotel" for a price tag of $185,000 and a $25,000 annual fee, which will probably mean anyone searching on the... more.. The Brand Story Web Marketing Process The Brand Story Web Marketing Process By Jerry Bader (c) 2009 If websites have one overarching goal it is to create confidence in whatever the website is promoting and who's promoting it. It doesn't matter if it's a product, a service, a sales campaign, or an idea, if the presentation is not minimally credible or optimally motivational, then it fails as a means of marketing communication. Communicate to the Subconscious Mind Branding is often thought of as a marketing strategy reserved for major consumer product companies, but the fact is all businesses are brands that are either cultivated so they blossom, or let go-to-seed like a garden full of weeds. Marketing neophytes often think of branding only in terms of some physical manifestation, like a logo, but a brand is the full complement of residual impressions resulting from all the experiences associated with a product, service or company. And today, the online experience is a vital venue for creating those experiences. By using video, the marketer has the opportunity to tap into the audiences' subconscious mind, the buried remnants of both remembered and forgotten experiences; the kind of experiences that form attitudes, prejudices, and preferences that inform our decisions, most importantly our buying decisions. Where Businesses Go Wrong Where businesses go wrong is settling for only the obvious, the logical, and the rational. Brands are formed in the subconscious, so if your marketing communication doesn't reach the subconscious mind then it is not establishing or enhancing the brand in any meaningful, effective long-term way. What video does, when done right, is communicate on both the obvious and subconscious levels, making it the ideal Web-communication vehicle for creating a powerful brand experience, but only if you understand how to use the... more.. How To Make Your Backlinks Count (Part I) How To Make Your Backlinks Count (Part I) By Serge Botans I think that we all know now how important backlinks are for the search engine ranking success of our web site. I also think that we all know now that one way to get these backlinks is by doing link exchanges with other sites. (For the uninitiated, backlinks are links on other web sites that point to ours.) But do we know that there are various things we need to ch? before agreeing to exchanging links with another web site? After all, the whole point of exchanging links with others is to benefit from the ranking of their web sites. It is therefore imperative that we investigate ahead of time as to whether exchanging links with another site is to our advantage or not. I have thought about this whole idea of link exchange preparation and came up with a 3-step process that involves an analysis of 3 pages of the web site we want to exchange links with. The 3 pages are: the home page where we will need to ch? 7 things about that page, the directory page: this is the page that contains a list of categories that the site has put together in a bid to organize its link exchanges. We need to ch? 7 things here, the backlink page: this is the page that will contain our backlink. We also need to ch? 7 things here. Note that in some cases, the 'target' web site will not have a directory page. In that case, our analysis will be a 2-step one rather than a 3-step one. In this first article, of maybe 2 or 3,... 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.. Proven Insider Tips to Get More Web Visitors Quickly and Easily Proven Insider Tips to Get More Web Visitors Quickly and Easily By James Gladwin (c) 2009   Believe me, in spite of the current financial turmoil, there hasn't ever been a better time to generate an online income stream! And yet it seems that so many budding Internet marketers are finding it hard to break through VNB - the "Visitor Numbers Barrier." When I started, I thought there was some magic elixir or secret technique that would transform my visitor numbers! If only I could find THE ONE successful method! Well, this article is to let you know that while there may be hundreds of ways to get visitors to your website - I've selected some of the techniques that work best for me.   And they can work for you, as well. Because, if there IS a secret of success, it is this: "Don't rely on ONE way to generate traffic. Become familiar with MANY." Better to have many visitor doors to your website, rather than just one, don't you think? I'm still... more.. Google Reinvents the Phone with Google Voice Google Reinvents the Phone with Google Voice By Merle (c) 2009 twitter.com/msmerle When it comes to "cool tools", Google is the master inventor. Say what you want about Google, but they know what they're doing when it comes to giving the public what they want and need. Take the telephone for instance. An old invention that now has been given a new twist with " Google Voice" (G.V.) . Hold onto your chair as I'm about to tell you how to have a lot more fun with Ma Bell. Google is giving you the ability to manage all your phones with one centralized number. At the time of this writing, it's only available to those in the U.S., and by invitation only. Upon registration, you'll be given your phone number that you connect to any existing phone number. When someone calls the Google Voice number, it rings the phone number that you specified. The option of selecting a word for your personalized number is also given. Now, if all Google Voice did was send phone calls to your cell phone, that would be great all by itself, but the amount of extra tools and features are truly amaz?. When a call is received you can answer it, send it directly to voice mail, listen in on the incoming call to decide what to do with it, or start recording the call upon answering. How's that for a few options? After receiving a call you'd like to record, hit 4 on your phone to start recording. Different states have different laws when it comes to recording calls, so check your current federal and state laws before using this feature. Currently outbound... more.. The 5 Minute SEO Site Audit Checklist The 5 Minute SEO Site Audit Checklist By Matt Siltala (c) 2009 From month to month I have the opportunity to present 4 different webinars on different topics related to Internet marketing to brand new online business owners. The reason I bring this up is because no matter what the topic I am presenting on, I usually get asked the same question by completely different random people. They are all wanting me to "look at their site" and give them a "quick, what do you think?". These people are wanting to know if their site is ready to "go live" (although I never really understand why people ask that question) but for these people, and this post - I have come up with what I'd like to call "The 5 Minute SEO Site Audit Checklist". If you have a brand new site, and haven't done any kind of SEO before, this will be a great list of reminders that will set you off on the right foot. 1. URL canonicalization and 301 re-dirs. One of the first things I look for on any domain I am giving a health check on is the URL canonicalization. In My Opinion it does not matter if you pick proper URL canonicalization pointing to the www's or non-www's, but you need to pick one and stick to it. I personally always choose the www's because more people (from my experience) tend to link to you with the full URL. So you need to get into your .htaccess file and make a few edits. Any variation of the homepage URL needs to be done this way too - for example you need to have the /index.php also re-direct to the main URL (however you have it set up) Bottom line here, you need to... more.. 25 Ways to Add Quality Content to Your Web Site (Part 1) 25 Ways to Add Quality Content to Your Web Site (Part 1) . . . Using ideas that cover at least 25 different industries! By Robin Nobles We've known for a long time that quality matters to Google. In a post Senior Google Engineer Matt Cutts made to his blog, "quality" was mentioned several times as being important to Google. Quality matters when it comes to content, and it matters when it comes to links. However, building content and links doesn't have to be painful. Web site owners tend to think of content in a very limited way. So, let's open up our creative minds and think of all sorts of ways of adding quality content to a Web site. A few things to remember: You're only confined by the boundaries you set for yourself and your Web site. Allow yourself to think in a totally different way than you've thought before. Your Web site content should be written for your buying customers . . . not for you. Your Web site content should not be written for the search engines. The search engines are not your target audience. Think of the overall picture of your site, as if it were a living, breathing entity. After all, Web sites should continue to grow on a constant basis and nev?be stale or stagnant. Let's Get into the Fun Stuff: Quality Content for Your Target Audience 1. A calendar of events. This is ideal for sites like real estate sites to show upcoming open houses; book stores to promote upcoming book signings or writers' meetings; collectors' sites to show meetings across the country, etc. Be sure to allow visitors... more.. How to 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.. Search Engine Optimization Four Vital Steps for Optimizing Your Website Search Engine Optimization Four Vital Steps for Optimizing Your Website By Donald Nelson (c) 2006 There is a bit of confusion about search engine optimization. Some people think that SEO (the abbreviated form) is nothing more than tricking search engines into giving a high ranking for a particular site. Others think that search engine optimization is so complex that they could not possibly understand it. Neither of these views are correct. Search engine optimization is best defined as the art and science of building web pages that are both search engine friendly and user friendly. Below are four basic steps that you should take when optimizing your web pages. 1. Your Web Design Should Emphasize Text and Not Graphics "Search engine friendly" means that search engines should be able to find data on your site that they can put in their data bases. While a picture may be worth a thousand words, a search engine is trying to classify pages by text and not by images. If you have an opening page with a beautiful picture of the sea and only two words of text saying "enter here" then this page will not rank high in searches for Florida Vacations. Similarly, if you have a headline with important... 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.. Understanding Business Cycles and How They Relate to SEO  Understanding Business Cycles and How They Relate to SEO A SPN Exclusive Article By Nick Stamoulis (c) 2011 As the song by The Byrds goes "To everything - turn, turn, turn/ There is a season - turn, turn, turn/And a time for every purpose under heaven." The same principle applies to Internet marketing - different aspects of Internet marketing campaigns run on different cycles. These business cycles have to be understood and accounted for when developing any SEO strategy, because they can directly affect the success of the campaign. While one company's business cycles may greatly differ from another, especially when comparing B2B companies with B2C businesses, the bottom line is that you have to be aware of your company's business cycles to more effectively measure SEO success. There are three main types of business cycles a company should keep track of: the sales cycle, the conversion cycle, and the SEO cycle. The sales cycle begins the moment a company gets a lead. It could be a phone call from a prospective customer or client, someone submitting an online form and so forth. Each business has to decide when they are dealing with a real lead that is worth pursuing. The sales cycle doesn't stop until that lead has either gone cold or been successfully closed. Some leads may remain active for months as potential clients hem and haw over making the final purchasing decision. Depending on the complexity of the products and services your company sells (medical testing equipment versus office supplies, for example), your business sales cycle could take a few days or even up... more.. Controlling Search Engine Spiders for Improved Rankings Controlling Search Engine Spiders for Improved Rankings By Eric Johnson (c) 2009 When it comes to getting your website listed at the top of the search engines keyword search rankings, it is essential for you to gain a deeper understanding of the search engine spiders that crawl over your website. After all, it is the spiders that determine the relevance of your website and decide where your site will land in the search engine results page. Therefore, by learning how to control the direction of the spiders, you can be certain your website will rise in rankings. Gaining Control with the Help of Robots.txt You may think that gaining control of search engine spiders is an impossible task, but it is actually easier than you might think when you take advantage of a handy little tool called the robots.txt file. With the robots.txt file, you can give the spiders the direction they need to locate the most important pages on your website while preventing them from wasting time on the more obscure pages such as your About Us and Privacy Policy pages. After all, these pages won't do much to improve your search engine ranking and won't help your target market find your website, so why should the spiders waste their time exploring these pages when ranking your site? Another positive aspect to using a robot.txt file is the fact that it prevents the spiders from indexing duplicate pages. This is beneficial because having duplicate content can actually reduce your search engine ranking. So, while you are making changes to your website or working on an area that isn't fully developed yet, you can instruct the spiders to leave those pages alone until you are ready... more.. What 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.. Search Engine Promotion - No Strategy. No Success Search Engine Promotion - No Strategy. No Success By Frederick Townes Whether you're planning the launch of your first site, or wondering why your site counter is actually moving backward, stop. You need a strategy to promote your site to search engines and to visitors. A plan of action based on five key factors, all of which should be weighed carefully before you take another step. Here are the five, most important considerations in the development of any search engine promotion. 1. The Site's Objectives What are your expectations for the website? These will usually point you to the site's objectives. In the case of commercial sites, the broad objective is straightforward ? to sell enough goods and/or services to become profitable. However, you might also want to educate, motivate, persuade and inform in addition to, or instead of, selling. A top-down analysis of your site's objectives is the place to start the development of your action plan. Once you've determined the site's objectives, keep them front and center during the entire development of an SE promo strategy. It's important that any search engine understand your site's objectives on the very first spider visit. 2. Market Analytics Essential. Who are you trying to reach ? your sal?demographic? What do the members of your demographic need? How do they make purchase decisions? Are they computer savvy? Critical to the design and implementation of a search engine promo strategy is to know your market. And the best place to learn is from the competition. Pull a Google on the competition to see how the successful sites do it. Perfectly ethical and a measurable,... more.. Webmaster Tips Webmaster Tips By Sharon Housley According to Matt Cutts, there are over 100 factors that affect search engine ranking. For those of you who don't know, Matt is a Google guy guru, he is employed by Google but writes an independent blog and shares information related to Google and search engine optimization. Unfortunately, of those 100 items that account for search engine ranking, there are only a few that webmasters can actually control. Unless you are a interested in an exercise of futility, it is important to only focus on those ranking factors that you, as a webmaster, can control and influence. What Search Engine Factors Do Webmasters Control? Outside of the obvious (webpage title and description) those items over which the webmaster has the most control are: PageRank, TrustRank, Anchor Text, Keyword Density, Domain Age, URL, and Relevant Links. How Can a Webmaster Use These Items to Help Ranking? First off--the obvious, each and every web page should have a descriptive page specific title and description. The title, description, and header tags are channels to communicate the most important details of a specific webpage. They should be used effectively, but not be abused. The web page should make use of h1 and h2 tags (header tags) to emphasize pertinent keywords and phrases. Particular attention should be paid when formatting urls. Keywords related to the webpage can and should be used in the webpage urls. Use hyphens rather than underscores between the keywords. Search engines are designed by developers and programming languages will recognize a hyphen and distinguish separate words, while an underscore blends the words. Keywords in the URL should not... more.. 4 Stealthy Sources Of Powerful Internet Marketing Intelligence 4 Stealthy Sources Of Powerful Internet Marketing Intelligence By Willie Crawford (c) 2009 In online market? it is critical that you keep up with what is going on in your industry. You do need to know who is doing what - and why they are doing it. You do need to take the time to research potential joint venture partners, products, and competing businesses. Here are four excellent tools and how to use them. 1) Internet Archive - Also known as "The Way Back Machine". There are actually many facets to this amaz? site but the feature that I use most is the ability to look at a historical snapshot of a website/domain. There is a box on the site where you can enter any url, and it will show you "snapshots" taken of that website over time. For example, if your were to enter my domain "williecrawford.com" you'd be able to sift through actual archived pages from my website between December 1998 and today. Every week or two a new snapshot of the site was taken and stored in the Archive.org database. That lets you confirm how long a website has been online (provided it was archived), lets you see how a business evolved over time, and will even reveal to you things a marketer may have been testing that perhaps didn't work out. I use this tool to confirm how long a site/person has been in business. I also use it to confirm how long a person has actually been in a particular niche or discipline. I use it in deciding who to actually form business relationships with. If you discover... more.. Free Traffic and the 4 Vital Elements of a Successful Website Free Traffic and the 4 Vital Elements of a Successful Website By Brye Bishop (c) 2009 Let's face it, anyone can build a website. There are countless companies out there offering a vast array of web building solutions, some good, some great, and some quite frankly are a complete waste of time! But throwing together a website is really only part of the story, only part of the process. There are literally, hundreds of thousands of web pages, that won't ever be viewed and therefore stand no chance of commercial success. Some of those sites are relatively good; unfortunately their owners have misunderstood the process and have the cart before the horse... In the online world no one just happens by your website, cred?card in hand! If you've yet to build your website, or about to create a new site, stop! consider first exactly what you wish to achieve with that site, before you start. "Creating a website should follow a process proven to deliver a commercial end result... or run the risk of ending up, just another pretty picture in cyberspace!" Fortunately there is a process, and I highly recommend you take a look at it... perhaps you already know it... Content > Traffic > Pre-sell > Monetize A time tested, 4 step process, proven to produce websites that deliver... commercially! Ok so, let's now look briefly at each step and why they work in this particular order. 1. Numoro Uno, as always. Content. Very, very important. Building information-rich sites is crucial. You must have high quality, unique, relevant content on your site, A; because you want to attract visitors in the first place and B; to generate long term, search engine based free traffic. Online,... more.. 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.. 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.. Tips for Developing a Link Building Strategy  Tips for Developing a Link Building Strategy A SPN Exclusive Article By Nick Stamoulis (c) 2011 Link building should be considered phase two of any SEO campaign (on-site optimization being phase one) and is a critical component of maintaining site ranking and establishing a trust factor with the search engines. Link building is an ongoing campaign necessary for improving a website's inbound link stream which can help promote your brand and overall visibility in the search engines. Link building can also help boost unique visitors to your site which in turn can lead to a boost in conversions. Link building efforts come in many forms including: local profiles, blogging and blog commenting, social networking, directory submission and online publicity, among others. The overall goal of a link building strategy is to grow links from many different, but relevant, sources over time. Most link building strategies range from 3 months to a year and should incorporate 10-20 different scheduled tasks a month. It is important to create a very specific link building schedule and stick to it as much as possible. Growing links too fast raises a red flag with the search engines and can result in negative consequences. Growing links slowly helps establish a trust with the search engines, leading to better positioning in their results. The first step in developing a link building strategy is to conduct a link audit for your website and its top three competitors. Google Webmaster Tools can analyze your site while Link Diagnosis (both free services) can be used to analyze the competition. Conducting a link audit helps establish a baseline strategy by determining how many one-way links are already pointing towards your site. Depending... more.. Read This Before You Submit to Web Directories Read This Before You Submit to Web Directories By Manish Shah (c) 2010 As the number of websites grow everyday, it is becoming increasingly difficult for a new site to attain good rankings on search engines. Since major search engines factor link popularity heavily into their ranking algorithms, building relevant links to your site is perhaps the single most important component of search engine optimization. For a new site with no, or few inbound links, buying text links on more established related sites could provide a boost to your link popularity. But this strategy could prove prohibitively expensive, especially in a highly competitive market where you'd have to buy lots of links to catch up with the competition. Web directory listings represent a viable alternative to link buying. Apart from driving traffic to your site through direct referrals, web directories provide one-way inbound links to your site, boosting your link popularity and ultimately improving your search rankings. There are thousands of web directories on the net, with dozens sprouting up every day. Some are general directories; others cater to specific niches. Some are free; others charge inclusion fees. Some are free only if you provide a reciprocal link in return. Many feature both free and paid listings. The main advantage of a paid listing is the luxury of having your site listed quickly above everybody else's. Free submissions may take several weeks or months for review. If you work on a limited budget, you may want to submit to a handful of paid directories and a few hundred free ones. Some directories charge inclusion fees that are too high for the listing to be cost effective. When considering a paid listing, look at not only the Google PageRank of the homepage of the directory, but... more.. Top 5 Ways To Benefit From Universal Search Top 5 Ways To Benefit From Universal Search By Jennifer Horowitz (c) 2008 What is Universal Search and Why Should You Care? Universal Search combines all the information within its Vertical engines/databases into one index to serve a single set of SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). An example of Vertical engines/databases are Google News, Google Video, Google Images etc. What this means is when you go to www.google.com, (their most highly trafficked domain) and do a search, rather than just getting websites from their main index, you will also get results from the News, Images, Video, etc databases as well. It is a more comprehensive results page. 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." Sometimes the information you are looking for is best delivered by video, or images or a news story. Currently, you would have to search each of the Vertical engines/databases to get all the information. Google is planning to integrate it into one search engine. As a searcher this means easier access to various forms of information with only one search. It seems like a good thing, as long as the results are easily organized on the page. It could mean more scrolling to get to the different areas of results, depending how they lay it out. What To Do and Why Changes with the search engines can sometimes be confusing. There is a lot of information to evaluate and some decisions to be made. Before you decide anything, you need to understand what your options are. If your site isn't already properly optimized... 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.. The 4 Points of Do-It-Yourself SEO The 4 Points of Do-It-Yourself SEO  by: Gordon Goodfellow Ever felt intimidated at the convoluted, jargon-ridden information about Internet marketing for small businesses available on the Net? Ever been horrified by the huge fees the experts charge, putting search engine optimization beyond your own means? Ever thought: What exactly is search engine optimization anyway, and can I do it myself? The answer is: Yes, you can! The basics of search engine optimisation in applied web marketing are simple. It's all to do with the keyword content of your text copy, and can be summarised in seven points. 1. Register a good domain name which reflects what your site is about. Even if you are an established business, don't register www.FredJones.com if you make widgets. Rather, you want to register something like www.BestWidgets.com because that would inspire confidence in people looking for quality widgets who would not necessarily have heard of Fred Jones the widget-maker. 2. Name your page URLs based on reasons similar to the above for your web promotion, except now you can be more specific. Search engines like to know what your page is about. Name a page after a product (BigYellowWidgets.htm) or a service or action (Buy-Widgets-by-Post.htm) on one of the sales pages. 3. The text in the title tag is crucial in letting search engines know what each page is about. Put your important keywords in your title tags, using both the singular and plural versions (people will search for both) and make these tags different and specific for each page. For example, "Widgets and After Sales Widget Services". Whatever you do, don't call the home page "Index", but treat it almost as a mini-description. 4. The other tags (at the top of the html page) between the two... more.. Anniversary gift ideas Anniversary gift ideas What is the first idea that comes to mind when talking about Anniversary gift ideas? Many would say that it really depends on what is the anniversary and the people who are celebrating it, but there is the concept that each anniversary is special and the gifts that are exchanged should really mean something. The way with Anniversary gift ideas First of all, people need to take into account that just going into a store and grabbing the first thing that comes to mind isn?t necessary the perfect way to come up with the best Anniversary gift ideas. This is because of the fact that an anniversary marks a special date alongside someone and that special date requires some attention and care. The idea here is that any gift should be personal rather than just the very first thing that comes in your hands while walking in a mall. This is because it needs to send out a message that you really care for the person that is sitting next to you, regardless of the status of your relationship. Many people have the tendency to choose certain gifts because they are too comfortable to make a little effort and discover certain items that will surely impress the one sitting... more.. A Slippery Slope: Google Owns a Search Engine Optimization Company A Slippery Slope: Google Owns a Search Engine Optimization Company By Scott Buresh (c) 2007 Medium Blue If you own or work with a search engine optimization company, or even if you're just hoping to better your search engine placement, then you are probably aware of the recent acquisition frenzy that took hold among the major search engines. Google paid $3.1 billion for DoubleClick, Microsoft paid $6 billion for Aquantive, and Yahoo paid $680 million for the 80 percent of Right Media that it did not already own and another $300 million for BlueLithium. The companies purchased are all intended to help widen the advertising range of each of the engines in question, and to take advantage of increasingly sophisticated behavioral-based ad-serving technologies that the acquired companies owned. What many people failed to realize was that when Google purchased DoubleClick, it now was also the owner of a very large search engine optimization company called Performics, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of DoubleClick. This fact is of course raising some eyebrows in the industry. Google has consistently maintained that there is no way that people can pay for better search engine placement in the organic index, a stance that the company still claims applies despite this recent purchase. In fact, a portion of Google's published guidelines about SEO says, "While Google doesn't have relationships with any SEOs and doesn't offer recommendations..." In another portion, Google says "While Google nev?sells better ranking in our search results..." However, anyone who hires search engine optimization company Performics is of course now paying Google for better search engine placement. It seems like a pretty black and white issue, but Google would obviously prefer... more.. Texas Hill Country Land for Sale Texas Hill Country Land for Sale There are many Texas Hill Country Land for Sale ads and other of such kind, but most of the people have the tendency to ignore them because they don't consider these opportunities as something that was designed for them. The interesting part is that most of them could really need such an investment, both physically and psychologically, but that's their first reaction. The first idea that comes to mind when talking about the Texas Hill Country Land for Sale There are so many things that can be said about the real estate industry and how people see this market. First of all, there is the media that has influenced the opinion by stating things like: the most affected market of them all, not worthy of trust and so on. This is one of the main reasons why a person immediately disclaims one of the Texas Hill Country Land for Sale opportunities. That's how people are programed and that's why they need something very solid to change their perspective. There are many different studies that can easily bring forth a very important idea: the value that the land has now is very different from the one that is given to the same lot somewhere around 2008 or 2009. This is because of the drastic changes that the economy suffered and most important this is because of the market's decision to actually stay as solid as possible. That's the most relevant argument that comes to mind when talking about the Texas Hill Country Land for... more.. 5 Best Practices of Content Distribution 5 Best Practices of Content Distribution By Bradley Hess (c) 2010 Creating excellent content is a key element of optimizing your online presence, but once you have created fantastic information you need to disseminate it. You may be one fantastic source of information, but if nobody hears you, does it matter? Make sure that you aren't leaving out the step that will get you heard. We have compiled a list of the 5 best practices for content distribution: 1. Blogger Connections: You aren't the only blogger out there. This may seem like a bad thing sometimes when there are so many other blogs to read. How will your blog get read if there are so many others that have equally great content? The trick is to get your content on blogs that are already being read. There are many wonderful blogs that get a lot of their content from guest bloggers. You can submit articles that you have already published on your own blog or create something new that you think the particular blogger would like for their blog. They may even have a request for a specific kind of content they would like from those interested in guest blogging. Along with contributing to blogs that you are following already, make sure that you are also using services that will connect you with other bloggers. These are great for not only getting your content posted elsewhere but also for getting guest bloggers on your blog. These blogger connection services already have a great network of bloggers who would love to share content. It would be a waste of a resource if you didn't use something like this. Getting others' guest content on your blog... more.. 5 Reasons Why Most Internet Marketers Fail 5 Reasons Why Most Internet Marketers Fail By Titus Hoskins (c) 2009 When it comes to starting any endeavor, whether it be learning a new hobby or starting an online business, we all have to start at ground zero. We all have to start at the very beginning from the very same place. Granted, we each bring different skills and backgrounds into the mix, but for the most part we are all on equal footing at the starting line. If this is the case, then we really have to ponder why is it only a choice few go on to succeed, while most people don't. Just what are the reasons why most online marketers fail? This is the core question that has to be answered if you want to fully understand Internet marketing and how it works. What are these basic reasons? What are the causes or stumbling blocks that hold many marketers and webmasters from reaching their full online potential? If we know these factors, we can learn how to avoid them and even overcome them in our own online marketing. These reasons can be a solid reference point or even a source of inspiration for any online marketer just starting out. Speaking from the viewpoint of someone who has started from the very beginning with little to no knowledge of computers or even marketing for that matter, I can honestly relate to the beginning marketer. I even had to learn HTML from scratch in order to construct my own webpages. Probably my only advantage, I did have a background in art but designing webpages was completely different from anything I had done previously to starting in online market?. But from my own experiences I have drawn some general... more.. Organic SEO or Pay-Per-Click Advertising... Which Should You Choose? Organic SEO or Pay-Per-Click Advertising... Which Should You Choose? By Scott Buresh (c) 2006 When people hear about online marketing, they often think of two of the more popular methods that a company can use to enhance its visibility on the Web: organic search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising. In an ideal world, you would use both strategically to maximize your site's profile. However, budgetary constraints often make this impossible, and trying to do both on a limited budget or with minimal resources can result in neither campaign producing ideal results. In this case, it's usually better to focus on one or the other. But which is best for you? Organic Search Engine Optimization Organic search engine optimization campaigns offer several distinct advantages over pay-per-click advertising campaigns, as many recent studies have shown. What follows is a brief listing of some of the findings. Propensity to Cl? Study after study indicates people are less likely to cl? on paid search ads rather than on results from organic search engine optimization. For example, one study found that search users are up t?x times more likely to cl? on the first few organic results than they are to choose any of the paid results [1], while an eye tracking study [2] showed that 50 percent of users begin their search by scanning the top organic results. Other studies have shown that only 30 percent of search engine users cl? on paid listings, leaving an overwhelming 70 percent who are clicking the organic listings. [3] And a 2003 study found that 85 percent of searchers report clicking on paid links in less than 40 percent of all of their searches, and... more.. Search Marketing Industry Shake-up Imminent Search Marketing Industry Shake-up Imminent By Jim Hedger (c) 2007 As sure as the sun shines behind the clouds on a rainy day, a major shake-up in the search marketing industry is coming soon. The signals are being sent and received through-out the various sectors of search and online marketing. Change in any marketplace, when it does come, is often swift, brutal and merciless. For some SEO practitioners, this one will be especially so. While the search marketing industry has been bracing for change for at least a year, the movement is now picking up speed and gathering momentum. As SEOs, our working-world is going to look very different this time next year. The biggest change is the death of "traditional SEO". Dead is taking it a bit far. SEO is not exactly dead. A better way to describe it would be to say it dyed (changed). SEO has evolved so far and so quickly in the past six months that it as a practice is hardly recognizable from its humble roots, much like a Neanderthal placed beside any given Homo Sapien. The thread that ties the past to the present is search. Everything still comes down to some sort of search. Nevertheless, the traditional view of SEO services is over. Having languished in a virtual state of stasis for most of the past year, the concept of traditional, SERP based SEO went to rest sometime in the early spring. With the introduction and rapid advancement of social networking, the attention of the search marketing world and Internet users has quickly spread outward, away from the common search engine results pages. While Top10 (first page) placements are still extremely important traff?drivers,... more.. What Your S.E.O. Strategist Won't Tell You What Your S.E.O. Strategist Won't Tell You By Jerry Bader (c) 2007 Maybe you own your own business, or perhaps you're a critical cog in the corporate machinery responsible for marketing your company, brand, product or service. If that describes you, here's eighteen things you need to know about Web-marketing but were afraid to believe. 1. Time To Be Heard Your mother told you 'children should be seen and not heard,' but you're not a kid anymore. So why are you listening to all those guys telling you not to use audio on your website. If you want to deliver a lot of content that people will remember, try letting your website do the talking. 2. There's Nothing Like the Real Thing In a world of virtual everything there's nothing like the real thing. The sound and image of real people delivering your marketing message makes it a believable, memorable presentation. 3. Unlock the Conventional Wisdom Straightjacket Driving traff?to your site is great, if those visitors stay long enough to find out why they should be doing business with you. If your website traff?is leaving as fast as it's arriving, maybe search engine optimization isn't the answer you've been looking for. 4. Linking Your Way To Obscurity You know the reciprocal linking strategy everyone is talking about as a way to generate leads? Did you ever consider that each link to another website is an invitation to leave your site? Is that really what you want - to invite people to leave? I think not! 5. Your Company's Voice... more.. Using Blog PR to Promote Your Site Using Blog PR to Promote Your Site By Adam McFarland of iPrioritize The recent trend of using the press release to promote an online business has emerged with good reason ? good press costs very little and can do more for a business than thousands of dollars of marketing. Most businesses use press distribution services like PR Web or PRFree to get the word out about their news. While distribution services certainly can be effective, they tend to miss out on arguably the most influential group of the press ? bloggers. Bloggers mold and shape the opinions of their readers, who are normally the most important in their particular industry, many of whom are also bloggers. Not long after a post from an influential blogger, your news has been picked up by several other bloggers and within days you are all over the blogsphere. Before you know it your site is getting more attention than it would if a story ran in the local newspaper! So how do you get the influential bloggers in your industry to run a story about your business? Why Would Anyone Do a Story About Your Business? Are you a new company? Did you just launch a new product that they could review? Did your business w?an award? Are you a group of college kids who started a company on savings from your summer jobs? You get the idea. There needs to be a reason that someone would want to read about you. Bloggers take pride in the content they feed their readers. You don't stand a chance of getting a blogger to write about you if you don't have... more.. 2010 SEO Predictions That Came True 2010 SEO Predictions That Came True A SPN Exclusive Article By Warner Carter (c) 2011 Each time a year ends, we encounter countless bloggers and writers who share their thoughts about the incoming year. Some predictions are theoretically supported and some are just plain wild guesses. Predicting what's in store for the next year is almost a tradition for writers, even those not involved in SEO and Internet marketing. Sports writers, business analysts, music critics, and amateur writers - they all follow this unsung tradition. Many think that this tradition is worth following because nailing a wild guess or a well-researched fact means only one thing: respect from your readers. It's only the third month of the year but some predictions from last year have become realities. People didn't ever expect that the realization would be this quick, but, unbelievably, many predictions are coming true right now. The Power of Content Length This was a common prediction that was heavily criticized. I read on some blogs last year that Google would be considering a site's content length as a determining factor for site ranking. Experts and SEO veterans commented that this was an amateur's prediction, but they all ended up wrong. As a result of this latest algorithm update, many guest blogging sites have increased their minimum article length to 450 words, and some are requiring even lengthier articles. Perhaps this recent update caused content-related terrors to some SEO geeks. They'll just have to remember that quality is still better than quantity. Mobile Search Growth Both local and global search benefited from the rise of high-tech phones... 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.. 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.. Who's Linking to Your Web Site and What Does That Say About You to Google? Who's Linking to Your Web Site and What Does That Say About You to Google? By Stone Reuning (c) 2010 Linking is the mechanism that connects all the pages on the Internet. You've got links throughout your web site to let people navigate their way around. You may have links going out to other web sites that you think will be useful for your visitors. And hopefully you have links coming into your web site from independent sources. All types of links can impact your search engine optimization results, helping determine where your web site shows up online. Though the hardest to control, inbound links pointing to your site can make the biggest impact. At its most basic, the concept is that if several high-quality sites are linking to your web site, then Google and other search engines figure your site must be a popular, valuable resource - and they will be more likely to show it higher in their search results. In effect, your site receives "link juice" from other web pages that link to it. However, it's not enough to secure a couple links and then sit still. The Google PageRank algorithm looks at the pattern of links to your site as they build over time. Building the right kind of links can bring a major payoff, while a wrong turn could get you penalized - and the Google Sandbox is not easy to dig out of. Armed with a bit of knowledge and some creativity, you can build up valuable incoming links naturally and powerfully, avoiding the traps that plague amateurs. Spice Up Your Links With Some Variety There are all kinds of link farming schemes to grow links, and... more.. Six Quick and Simple Ways to Dominate Google Rankings! Six Quick and Simple Ways to Dominate Google Rankings! By Mike Small (c) 2008 The reason Google is the most successful search engine in the world is because they provide the best search results; pages ranked by tangible value. That tangible value is a combination of content and links, with links being the more important factor (they assume any pages linking in will only link to good content or risk their own ranking.) Here are a few tips that will help you take full advantage of Google's love of linking... 1.) Link Deep and with Relevance So why is deeper better and what's this about relevance? Google figured out that a link to a homepage is only good if that homepage has the information the visitor needs. If a person clicks a link for "amaz? chocolate chip cookie recipe" and ends up on the home page, which has nothing of the sort, Google discounts it as a wasted link. On the other hand, if the link leads to the page containing info on the "Amaz? Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe," even five levels deep, the link has huge value to the visitor and to Google. Want some proof? You already have it if you've ever used Google's AdWords pay per cl? service. They will not even accept PAID links to pages that are not the most relevant for their visitors, regardless of what you are willing to pay per cl?. Now that's saying something! 2.) Use Absolute Links Internally It sounds complicated but it's not. Absolute links are those with a fixed full URL. There's another kind, called "relative" links that skip the... more.. The Ultimate Guide to Directory Submissions The Ultimate Guide to Directory Submissions By David Eaves (c) 2008 Submitting to directories is a great way to build links and increase your search engine rankings. In semi-competitive industries it can produce great results. If you add article creation and social media marketing into the link building equation then you can achieve great results for any industry. The Ultimate Guide to Directory Submissions Free or Paid Directories? When choosing directories going for the paid ones can be better, mainly because the links seem to last a lot longer. Many of the free directories seem to disappear or delete links after a year or so. However, there are a few free directories out there that should always be used - directories that have stood the test of time. Niche or General Directories? Submitting to a combination of both niche and general directories is usually a good idea. For most industries there are a variety of niche directories out there - the best way to find them is through a search engine. Do a search on Google, MSN or Yahoo for directories in your niche area - those that come up in the first few pages of results are usually the best ones to use. With general directories it's better to go for those that are more established. The older a directory is, the better. PageRank - Does It Still Matter? Because directories are generally quite large, they need a certain amount of PageRank to get all of their pages indexed properly. However a high PageRank isn't the be-all and end-all. Google's recent crackdown on directories has made visible PageRank even more irrelevant when it comes to... more.. Dispelling Fears About The GoogleBomb Algorithm Update Dispelling Fears About The GoogleBomb Algorithm Update By Bill Platt (c) 2007 Google algorithm updates always bring the fears of webmasters to a boiling point. In the aftermath of an algorithm update, some people come out swinging, making claims that Google is trying to put them out of business. Others look at their Google rankings and pat themselves on the back for having survived another "algo" update. It has been known in search engine optimization (SEO) circles for quite some time that one could successfully implement what is referred to as a GoogleBomb. The best example was a search on the phrase "miserable failure". A search on those words within Google would show George W. Bush's biography at the White House website, in the top three or four results of the search results. This would occur, despite the fact that neither word in the search criteria resides on the White House website. At one time, Bush's biography had been in the Number 1 spot, but counter-bombing campaigns moved Bush's listing down the page a bit. Many people have written about this phenomenon in time's past. I have even written about it myself. When I wrote about it, my point was to show the importance of anchor text in a link to build the value of a web page in the Google search engine result pages (SERPS). The "miserable failure" GoogleBomb came to exist within a loophole within the Google algorithms. Google puts a lot of value on the anchor text that points to a particular web page. It is part of their "one link ? one vote" philosophy as to the value of a web page. Bloggers joined forces to create thousands of... 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.. Rankings Dropped? 9 Possible Reasons and 9 Ways Out  Rankings Dropped? 9 Possible Reasons and 9 Ways Out A SPN Exclusive Article By Alesya Krush (c) 2011 Sometimes SEOs and site owners encounter the problem of their sites suddenly going down in the search engine results pages for no particular reason, it seems. When this happens, it is often hard to figure out why your rankings nosedived. So, let's consider possible reasons for and solutions to the problem. I arranged them by relevance, starting with the most common ones. 1. Your Site Got Penalized for Using Black-Hat SEO Techniques Google has Webmaster Guidelines by which all SEOs and webmasters must abide. If Google finds out (or your site gets reported) that you are not playing by the rules, your rankings may drop substantially, or your site may get removed from Google's index altogether. As stated in Google Webmaster Guidelines, one must not "participate in link schemes" (buying/selling links is basically meant here), create "doorway pages", or use "hidden text" on a site. These are considered illegitimate (Black-Hat) SEO practices and may incur Google's wrath. The Way Out Well, if your site does get penalized, find out what might have caused this. Re-read Google's Webmaster Guidelines and rem?whatever is in violation from your site - then file a reconsideration request. 2. The Search Engine Algorithm Has Changed On the one hand, search engines are trying to keep their search results as relevant and SPAM-free as possible. On the other hand, there are people who are trying to game the system or just take advantage of the existing loopholes. And, with... 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 a Google Penalty Can Make Your Site Stronger How a Google Penalty Can Make Your Site Stronger By Ross Dunn, CEO/Founder (c) 2009   Over the past 12 years consulting on web marketing I have answered countless questions but one question I receive often stands out from all; how to clear a Google penalty. The following is an example of a question I received in the past from a person named Patrick: Please Help! For the last 8 years we were #1 for a ton of search terms but then my site got penalized by Google because we had overused some keywords. We fixed the issue months ago but my top rankings are all still over the place. Sometimes we get back into the top 10 and we all breathe a sigh of relief, then just a few hours later we are on page 5. What is going on and how can I correct this? We are beyond frustrated! First, Some Research In order to answer Patrick's question I needed to find out a couple of things about his website to make my answer more accurate: ? His site has excellent content right now and when I looked at past versions of the site I see the content was still great but definitely had keyword stuffing problems. Key finding: his site is really well done so I can see why it had top rankings before. ? I took a look at competitors found in the top 10 under several keyword searches that were obviously main targets for his website. After reviewing the backlinks for each competitor's sites I could see they were all very well entrenched but their content was not... more.. Is Domain Age a Significant Factor in Website Rankings? Is Domain Age a Significant Factor in Website Rankings? A SPN Exclusive Article By David Jackson (c) 2011 The debate is over - well, at least in my mind it is. What debate am I referring to? The debate over whether or not the age of a domain plays a significant factor in website rankings. Some SEO experts say it does, while others say it doesn't. Count me on the side of those who say it does matter. Frankly, I don't see why there's a debate about this at all. I mean it's hardly a secret that Google gives preferential treatment in the search engine results pages (SERP's) to long-established businesses because of the trust factor. Meaning, the longer a domain has been registered and active, the more trust it will be given by Google - provided, of course, the domain has a good reputation and quality inbound links. Just to be clear, I'm not talking about a domain that has been registered for 10 years, but has not actually been indexed by Google. Because in Google's mind, a domain that's been registered for 10 years, but has no actual website, is exactly the same as a domain that was purchased yesterday. It has no juice. No, I'm referring to domains that are both registered and indexed - active domains. Does Domain Age Really Matter? Two years ago I wrote an article titled Domain Age: Does It Really Matter When It Comes to Rankings? In the article, I talked about how I conducted an experiment with hundreds and hundreds of domains in dozens of different categories...... 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.. 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.. Search in Internet Marketing The Importance of Search in Internet Marketing By Claudia Bruemmer (c) 2007 For long-time search marketers it will come as no surprise that search has become a media darling. Pay-per-click advertising is the most popular online marketing strategy, and organic search engine optimization provides top click-through and conversion performance. Search is more popular than display ads and ema?marketing because of its excellent performance and ROI. Internet marketers should take note of the development in the search marketplace in order to better focus their advertising budgets. Search is Evolving As the Web grows exponentially, search engine databases suffer from information overload. As a result, technology and consumer search behavior adapts and changes. One of the early attempts to make search easier was the use of metadata in search. The search engine, Clusty came out in 2004 to "deliver groups or clusters of similar results rather that mill?s of search results in one long l?." The clusters were supposed to help users see search results by topic so they could more easily find what they were looking for. Another of the early changes to search was the development of multiple databases within general search. Whether you go to Google or Yahoo, you'll see category choices such as Web, video, images, local, news, etc. These are all different databases that can help you target specific queries. Google aptly named this concept its OneBox solution; you could access many different databases from one box. Along with the development of multiple databases on niche products or subjects came the vertical search engines. These verticals are particularly useful for B2B companies. The latest trend in the evolution of the market is... 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.. 3 SEO Traps to Avoid During Your Redesign 3 SEO Traps to Avoid During Your Redesign By Jill Whalen (c) 2011 I receive a lot of SEO questions from business owners who want to spruce up their aging websites, but are dead afraid of losing their existing search engine traffic. And for good reason. Going live with a redesigned website without considering the SEO implications is like being ensnared in a nasty trap that you cannot escape from. It's hard to make mon?while stuck in a trap! With that in mind, here are a 3 SEO traps to avoid before, during and after you develop your website: SEO Trap #1: Your Content Management System If you are switching to a different content management system, (CMS) it often means that the URLs from your current site will have to change to something that fits with the new system. It's likely that the new URL naming convention will not match your old one. The Escape: If this is the case with your new back end, then 301-permanent redirect all of the old URLs to their new counterparts if you can. If this is a practical impossibility, then review your analytics to find the landing page URLs within your website that receive direct search engine visitors, and redirect those. Also redirect any URLs that have links pointing to them from other sites. While it's best practice to redirect all URLs, those that don't receive any direct search engine traffic and don't have any external links are less important. SEO Trap #2: Your Site Architecture Your new website is likely to be sporting a brand new navigational scheme as well as an overall change of its site architecture (how... more.. Seven Deadly Video Marketing Sins Seven Deadly  Video Marketing Sins By Jerry Bader (c) 2010 So you want to develop a Web video campaign to put on your website and add to YouTube and all the other Web video directories. Maybe you even want to create a new video micro site to promote that hot new product or service you're about to launch. You want it done right, professional, slick, and you want it to be effective. Well of course you do. You know you need to hire a firm that has the creative staff capable of not just shooting video but professionals who can write, direct, edit, and add all the post production elements you need, including signature music, sound design and on screen text. But are there other things you need to be aware of in order to maximize the return on your investment? You bet there are. There are lots of production companies that just want to crank out the work at the lowest cost without providing any marketing guidance as to what works and what doesn't. Perhaps these firms don't know the difference or perhaps they just don't care. The company you hire should be willing to provide some advice as to the best way to present your message so that it delivers the best return on your investment. Too many Web videos are technically proficient but lack any marketing impact. The last thing you want is a bland, boring, lifeless presentation that goes in one ear and out the other. When you're ready to add video to your marketing and sales tool kit make sure you avoid the following seven deadly video development sins. Doing It Wrong - 7 Web Video... more.. 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.. More Freeware SEO Tools for the DIY Webmaster - Part 2 More Freeware SEO Tools for the DIY Webmaster - Part 2 By Mel Strocen (c) 2007 In Part 1 of this article , some of the better, freeware keyword, sitemap and ranking tools available to webmasters were listed. Part 2 covers meta tag generators, link popularity apps, link checkers and general SEO tools. Again, all of these tools can be found in the SiteProNews Webmaster Tools Directory along with new additions as we find them. Let's start with a look at meta tag generators. Since meta tags lost their SEO relevance several years ago, most of the freeware programs in this category are either no longer supported or haven't been updated for several years. But, then again, not much has really changed in meta tag usage so the apps listed below should still be useful. Meta Tag Generators 1. BHead 4.1.1 (1.0 MB) is an advanced meta tag generator that can create your entire HEAD section, including CSS style sheets. Generates the code for all popular meta tags and also has an option for custom tags. Keywords and description can be imported from files. Comes with a basic Style Sheet editor that includes a color picker. Other features include spell ch?, search replace, syntax highlighting, etc. For Windows 9x/NT/ME/2K/. 2. Metty Meta Tag Maker 1.31 (2.5 MB) is a meta tag creator with support for 33 meta tags that ensure search engines properly index your website. Easy to use and requires no knowledge of meta tags. For Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP. 3. Search Engine Buddy 1.0 (2.7 MB) analyzes web page meta tags and web page content on or offline to help you create the... more.. mineral foundation mineral foundation There is always a big fuss when it comes to the outside image of a person. Many females are always interested in the latest news regarding cosmetics. The mineral foundation products, for example, are beginning to become popular because many women have seen real and tangible results. The results seen after using the mineral foundation products This isn't just another way to induce people a new brand. There are many benefits that can be highlighted when it comes to discussing the pros and cons of the mineral foundation products. First of all, females should take into account the fact that the products that don't have an organic foundation are designed to help the skin shine for a small period of time. Basically, the surface of the skin is covered in order to look at its best, but the process isn't natural. On the other hand, the products that do have an organic foundation handle the situation a little bit different. Their primary focus is to spot the problems of the skin and try to fix them. It would take some time and the process would vary from person to person, but one thing is clear: the problem will be solved and at the end of the day, the face will shine on its own. Secondly, there is the issue of durability. Even if the primary role of the mineral foundation products is to fix the problems that the skin has, it doesn't mean that it won't look at its best. Basically, the skin will look at its best and the duration of this process is much longer than the one that comes from regular products. This can easily be checked out with the environments that handle... more.. Advertising in RSS Feeds Advertising in RSS Feeds By Sharon Housley   As publishers have moved towards monetizing RSS feeds, there have been vibrant discussions as to whether advertisements in feeds are viable or whether they will drive subscribers away. At the end of the day while it appears that many are discussing the philosophical approaches to ads in RSS feeds few are taking the time to examine the options available for inserting advertisements in feeds. Ultimately the advertisements served are going to determine the success of RSS as an advertising medium. The ads served must be related to the content contained in the feed. If the RSS feed contains quality content, the ads are relevant, and the volume of ads is in balance with the volume of content served, advertising in RSS feeds will succeed. Take a closer look at some of the ad serving options currently available for RSS feeds. Review of Current Options Google AdSense for Feeds Google's AdSense for Feeds offers contextually targeted advertisements, with a wide selection of advertisers. Google chooses not to divulge the percentage of revenue that is shared with the publisher, so it is... more.. Tips and Tricks on Using Twitter for Business Tips and Tricks on Using Twitter for Business By Anton Pearce (c) 2010 Have you thought about using Twitter to market your business? Twitter is free, and available to small and large businesses. Here are some tips and tricks on using Twitter to promote your business. Here are four tips to use your Twitter account effectively. Following other Twitter accounts that are in your target demographic will help you get an idea of what the conversation is. Then you need to post updates about your company, brand or product. As with any online medium, you want to be very careful to not spam any of your followers. Lastly, make sure that you follow successful online marketers, and look for other participants who are in your industry. First Build an Account for Twitter Marketing The first thing that you should do is to set up your Twitter account and populate it with several interesting Tweets, which are Twitter posts. Then begin following people who are also using Twitter, and you will find that most people will follow back. When your entire Twitter feed has blanks, though, most people will not bother to follow you. Once you start a micro blog post, you can get on with following any target demographic, and this can be done in either of two different ways. 1. Go to Twitter.com and do a search by typing in keywords that relate to the demographic that you are targeting. For example, if you are trying to sell an application for the iPhone, you would enter the keyword 'iPhone' or 'iPhone app' or anything that may find people who own an iPhone. It's easy to follow people. If your posts are interesting and relevant,... 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.. Top 10 Issues in Website Design and Usability Top 10 Issues in Website Design and Usability By Pilar Torres Wahlberg (c) 2010 You've tested your website, you've visited it a few times, you've gotten some feedback on it, and you have a bit of data about your visitors. You might want to make some changes. Here are the top ten issues in website design and usability. Think about these things in relation to your website and consider what you might want to do to perfect your site. 1. The First Glance In general, people look at the top left corner of your website first. You should have your essential information there: what your offerings are and how your potential customers can get it. Some visitors are at your site only long enough to confirm that you sell what they want, and some are ready to buy. All visitors need to be able to tell what you do right away. Don't hide behind a splash page or make people wait while something loads - many won't take the time. 2. Navigation When your customers want and need more information, they'll stay and look for it. Make sure they can find it easily. Put your navigation in the usual places, and make it very obvious what your visitors need to click in order to find each section. Don't have more than 5-7 choices in your main navigation and keep it consistent on every page. Let your creativity and uniqueness show in some other way - follow the rules when it comes to navigation. 3. Contact Information Can customers (and search engines) find you when they need you? Your contact information must be clear and accurate. It must also be easy to find.... more.. A Perfect Link A Perfect Link By Sharon Housley (c) 2008 Webmasters are given the advice that they must attract links, but the key is not just to attract links... they need to attract good links. But what is the perfect link? The search for the perfect link need not be a quest in vain. Consider the following when attempting to attract links... 1. Related The best links should come from related websites which contain similar and related content but not the same type of material or content. For example: A link for baby clothing would benefit from a link that discusses baby care. 2. Anchor The anchor text (the "text" that is used in the link) should include keywords that relate to the topic covered on the web page that is being linked to. Anchor text should be varied; links that all have the same anchor text will appear manipulated and contrived to the search engines. Therefore, the text links should contain a variety of related words. 3. Deep Link The links should direct visitors to a related page within the website. Do not make the mistake of directing all of the web links to a website's home page. Deep linking, and directing visitors to material that corresponds to content that is closely related to the text link is key. Deep linking appears more natural to search engines, whereas links directing all visitors to a single page or the home page seem unnatural, and could be interpreted as an effort to manipulate search engine ranking. 4. Domain And Page Authority Search engines trust some websites more than others. Links from "authority" websites... more.. The Top 10 Dumbest Web Site Decisions The Top 10 Dumbest Web Site Decisions By Kalena Jordan (c) 2007 Having worked with web sites for the past eleven years, I've seen a LOT of errors, poor judgment and embarrassing gaffs on the web. Sometimes they are the fault of the client, the web designer, the IT Manager, or the SEO, but human error is always to blame. The saddest thing is that the problems are usually preventable. Here is a l? of what I consider to be the Top 10 dumbest web site decisions ever, in reverse order, David Letterman style : 10) Misspelling a Domain Back in the glory days of the late 1990's when I was working for a large Internet agency, the web designers had responsibility for the registration of domain names on behalf of clients. One particular designer had a face to face meeting with a major client, during which the client asked him to register CarTuneCentral.com (or so he thought!). The staffer did a check and was delighted to see the domain available. He made the purchase and proudly emailed the client. An hour later his boss called him in to his office to say that he'd had a call from a very frustrated client who *actually* wanted him to register CartoonCentral.com. Needless to say the desired domain wasn't available and the whole office dined on his mistake for months. 9) Letting the Domain Name Expire Now what type of company would allow their domain to expire a month after site launch? A very large one, that's who. I'll save the company some embarrassment and won't reveal their name but the site was offline... more.. Internet Marketing Tactics For These Tough Times Internet Marketing Tactics For These Tough Times By Titus Hoskins (c) 2009 As we enter into what many enlightened souls are calling the most dire economic times since the Great Depression, online marketers need all the help they can get - regardless of the source. You have probably heard of Google; but chances are almost 100% certain, you have never heard of me. Lucky you! Actually, the only thing you need to know about me is that I am a full-time online affiliate marketer and I make a very comfortable living from the web. Last year (2008), was my best year online so far, which left me scratching my head and saying what recession? But that may be something of a false positive, as I will never know how much I could have made if the economic times had been good instead of bad. Plus, judging from my own limited experience, selling and marketing online may not have been hit as hard as those businesses in the real world in 2008, since consumers are doing everything to save a penny