SEO webmasters - SEM - SMO - PPC - Internet Marketing

What is Affiliate Marketing?

2010-05-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

Affiliate marketing is the business of signing up to promote other people’s products or services, for a share of the sale in the form of commissions. This makes you an affiliate of or for a specific product/service. The great thing about affiliate marketing, is that you generally don’t need any special training or huge start up funds!
Your job as an affiliate marketer is to generate traffic to the product owner’s pitch page, allowing them to convert the prospective buyer you send, into an actual buyer. The more targeted and specific you are with your traffic promotions, the higher chance that those prospects, will become buyers.
You can promote a great many things as an affiliate. On Amazon, for instance, you can promote anything physical (and a few digital downloads also). If you want to be in the software niche, you can include links using your Amazon associate (affiliate) ID to sell specific types of software, spyware protection, antivirus software, and the like.
You can go to sites like ClickBank, PayDotCom or Nanacast and get a unique affiliate ID to promote a seemingly endless supply of information products. They have countless products and self help solutions from weight loss to PCs to business.
In addition, you can even become an affiliate promoting actions. There are many internet marketers who focus their business on getting a steady stream of traffic to take an action, such as filling out online surveys, for example. In these cases, an affiliate commission is received based on the completion of the desired action. (This is often termed CPA “cost per action”.)
Affiliate Marketing can exist in any industry. Today, many banks have an affiliate program that rewards members for referring others! (Although they rarely call it by the same name.) Mostly though, after signing up with various affiliate sites like those above, you will simply be given a URL link code that includes your referral ID and enables the product company to track which sales to give you credit for!

Affiliate Marketing – Success Made Easy

In the business of affiliate marketing, you don’t have to worry about developing ideas, creating products, or shipping and moving products. You don’t have to deal with customer service follow-ups or continually process more products for the marketplace.
Your job is quite often made easier by product owners desire so much to be successful, that they provide you with information and toolboxes to help you with yours! The toolbox usually includes web reviews, ready-made emails, and banner ads you can use with your own link embedded in them for instant plug-n-play success.
Affiliate promotion is one part of a good Internet Marketing campaign. Many Internet marketers will eventually become indistinguishable between product owner and affiliate. Product owners continue to use their list of buyers to promote affiliate items, and the affiliates often build such a good reputation in a niche, or category of focused sales, that they are urged to come out with a product of their own. (Product ownership is the “holy grail” of internet marketing so to speak and should be paid attention to as well.)
How much can an affiliate marketer be expected to earn? There are truly no limits. You can market in multiple niches if you desire, and work as much or as little as you want to generate targeted traffic through your links. Super affiliates often earn six figures or more, but even a new affiliate can earn enough to pay the bills each month – with some cash to spare!

What is DoFollow? What is NoFollow? What’s The Difference?

2010-05-26T09:32:00.000-07:00

So what is this DoFollow/NoFollow Nonsense?

If you’ve been reading about SEO, link building or backlinks you’ve probably seen people throwing around the terms “dofollow” and “nofollow” when talking about types of links.
Making a link seems pretty straight forward… you type some words (that become your “anchor text”) and then you add the link code (anchor code), that magically makes them clickable. For most people that means using the little chain-link icon in their text editor.
What you don’t see in the visual side of things – and sometimes not in even the editable html – until after its published and live on your page – is the little bit of information that sometimes gets tacked on that tells Google’s “spiders” (aka “robots”) whether or not they should crawl from your page to the page you linked to and give the page some of your “link juice”. Now I put link juice in quotes because its not something you can go to the Family Grocery and pick up a bottle of for breakfast! Link juice is a term we use to describe the SEO value or credit that your page has – and has to share with links you make.
If I make a link in wordpress that looks like this.
Then the code looks like this:

this

Then, wordpress and most other blogging platforms, auto-magically add this bit of code to links in the comment section…

rel="external nofollow"

This tells Google’s spiders/robots not to follow the link, even though I didn’t specifically add nofollow wordpress does when it displays it on the page.
So now, if I would go to a regular blog post and highlight over the name-link of the commenter, then right click and select view source, I now see that the link looks like:

Bill Gates

Now it turns out there is no real “doFollow”… that is simply the absence of the “noFollow” code being applied.
Fortunately, you don’t really need to understand that to know how to benefit from it…

Putting Your DoFollow Knowledge To Use

(Understand these numbers/totals are for illustration purposes and are kinda hypothetical but prove the point.)
All you really need to know is that, from an SEO standpoint, a DoFollow link may be considered 10x better than a NoFollow link.
Every time you leave a comment on a blog, by default you get one nofollow link from the name-url link. You also get a second nofollow if commentluv is enabled.
So a comment on a typical syndication-ready blog gives you 2 points: one for the name-url link and one for the commentluv link. (Total 2 points)
Now my blog isn’t fully DoFollow (see my post on Lucy’s Linky Love). The name-url field becomes DoFollow once you’ve left 3 comments. Lucy’s does not seem able to strip the no-follow out of commentluv. So essentially after 3 comments, your comments each of your comments become worth 1 point for commentluv (nofollow) and 10 points for the name-url link (dofollow), and a few more points, perhaps 2 if you used keywordluv for the anchor text. (Total 13points)
Now if you head over to Sire’s blog, where he is fully DoFollow, and get a dofollow for both the name-url (10pts) and commentluv (10pts) and also use his keywordluv (2pts), you’re sitting at a very pretty total! (Total 22points)

Now… here’s the simple part…

You only have so many hours in the day that you can spend leaving comments to get quality back links for your blog.
If you want to gain a hypothetical 100points in backlink SEO today…
Will you leave 50 comments on a typical syndication ready blog, 8 comments on a intermediary blog, or 5 comments on a full DoFollow blog
Looks like a no-brainer right? You’re going to look for the full/partial DoFollow blogs with commentluv & keywordluv to maximize your efforts!

TL;DR

DoFollow Links Much Better Than NoFollow Links

As promised, here’s the “too long, didn’t read” version:
DoFollow links are approximately ten times as good as NoFollow links. Any time you can comment on a DoFollow instead of a NoFollow blog you should. DoFollow is a great way to say thank-you to your blog visitors. Keywordluv works with DoFollow to give you even better SEO anchor text.

Summary

Hopefully this helped you get a better understanding of what NoFollow is and what DoFollow is and why they’re important to you! Be sure to check out my post on Keywordluv and Lucy’s Linky Love for more information on how to not only install those but how to use them here on my blog. If I decide to keep the math plugin, I will likely go full DoFollow as spam is the biggest downside. Please take a look at keywordluv and begin to put it into action. That’s a plugin that bloggers run FOR their visitors and it makes me sad when I see people not making the most of it! DoFollow links are incredibly valuable for SEO

Facebook Fan Pages vs Facebook Groups

2010-05-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

Are you maximizing your Facebook exposure? I recently realized that I wasn’t!
I saw countless businesses with pages and posts and profiles and groups and gaggles, and I didn’t have a clue where to start!
First, I’m going to share my thoughts and summary on the two types. Then I want to share three high-quality blog posts that I found on other sites, which I thought did a awesome job clarifying things for me. Hopefully these will help you make smart choices to maximize your time.
Both Facebook Fan Page’s and Facebook Group’s are a great way to increase your exposure on Facebook. Both allow you a type of community format and interaction with your members/fans. Both can be used to syndicate content. However, even with all of those similarities, there are some substantial differences.

Facebook Fan Page

This box links to a “Facebook fan page” (ie: business page) I created to enable individuals seeking to share syndication to find me and find each other. I welcome all of you to come share your value posts with the community, and help syndicate other members there. Feel free to contact fans of the community if you are looking for a tribe to work with!
Pros:

Customizable URLs (after you reach 25 fans go to http://facebook.com/username )
Search Engine Indexed (increases your search engine exposure, and responds to SEO keywords)
Visitor Statistics
Related Event Creation & Invitation
Extra Facebook Applications run on Pages just as on Profiles.
Ability to import your blog feed, to help support a page activity.
Best for connecting a fanbase to a source of information.
Publicly visible, so users don’t need to be logged in to find them.

Cons:

No ability to Direct Message (email) each fan individually, all emails go out as a “blast” to all fans at once via Updates.
Generally considered the more high-maintenance of the two choices.
Facebook users are still less familiar with pages, and often less likely to interact with them than with groups.

Facebook Group

This box links to a “Facebook group” I created to allow members to ask technical questions about Wordpress, Facebook & Twitter. Its a great place for members to help each other! Come help others while getting your questions answered too!
Pros:

Can Email/Direct Message each member individually, direct to their inbox.
Generally considered easier to set up and manage.
Better structure for encouraging member-to-member interaction
Best for allowing a member base to interact and develop a community without leaving Facebook.

Cons:

No Customizeable URLs
No Search Engine Exposure
No Visitor Statistics
No Related Event Creation & Invitation
No ability to support external stream/rss input, all activity must be generated in the group.
No access to any of the widely used Facebook applications that many use for social functions, opt-ins, etc.
Not publicly visible, users must be logged in to search for them.
Many consider the wording to be vague as to whether business advertising can occur on them without violating the TOS (terms of service)

Conclusion

For me, a Facebook Fan page, with its SEO/search-centric style and permissions for full business operations, was ideal for my Syndication functions and my personal page on Facebook. This helps me build my web presence.
The support community, which has no reason to be searchable from outside Facebook, is logically best served by a Facebook Group. However, generally speaking, due to the lack of SEO options, the lack of applications (which I depend on for good time management) and the lack of access to the fan’s wall, I have moved all of my Groups to Pages.
For my current uses, I personally have no use of a group. I consider them stalled/dead in development. That does not mean that they are not useful to someone that wishes to ignore the spam they encourage others to post on the wall (since it will not go down members news feeds) and utilize the email feature similar to an auto-responder blast.
How have you implemented Facebook Groups and Pages for your business or organization? What challenges have you had? When you leave your comments, feel free to include a link to your Page or Group to share with the community here!

Tips for Adwords account structure and optimize campaigns for online shop

2010-05-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

Search advertising with Google Adwords and e-commerce are a perfect team. But the path to best performance is long and arduous. The switching of Adwords ads appear to the SEA (Search Engine Advertising) entry only once as a fairly self-explanatory. The aim of the publication of the first own Adwords ad is reached quickly and the feeling of the Adwords system to understand or to control occurs relatively quickly. But this feeling is often subjective and does not correspond to reality.
During the first contact with already established clients Adwords accounts, often reveals a similar picture. The individual product groups of respective online stores were clustered on too few campaigns or ad groups, keywords are usually posted only in the keyword option Broad Match, search and content network campaigns run together on a campaign and, and, and ... These Mistakes can burn a lot of money.

Moreover, numerous Adwords beginners to complex possibilities of the system are not aware of. Google continuously developed the Adwords system further and more are constantly providing new functionality such as Recently, the remarketing and the Search Funnel Reports to do so. Therefore find themselves on Adwords management and optimization, specialized agencies like us in a continuous learning process.
Below is a few first steps to SET Up from Adwords campaigns.
Clusters of products and product into appropriate campaigns and ad groups
The account structure is the foundation for successful Adwords campaigns. The users are looking for in the search for solutions to your queries. Suppose you need a Mercedes shock absorbers and give "a Mercedes shock absorber" as search query. Now you are offered a variety of ads in which "car", "Mercedes Accessories, Mercedes tuning parts" and so on. A display provides the result "Mercedes shock absorber.
I suppose I need not mention who clicked the ads at the most and thus improves the quality factor. In addition, the searcher enters a shop on site with Mercedes shock absorbers. It is also more specifically, if for example is searched for 'Mercedes E-class shock absorber.
Suppose you own a car accessories shop for the Mercedes E-Class models for A-Class, C-Class models, etc. Below this there are still several series. The optimal structure would now account for each model to create your own campaign. Within these campaigns, one must now consider whether it makes sense to display groups by the series or for specific product groups such as "Subdivided shock," "Wheels", "spoiler".
A tough job to start, but it provides the necessary competitive advantage over competitors Adwords ads. With such a structure can deliver kleingliedrigen then for every query matching targeted ad text. Will you save yourself the work that has Google Dynamic Keyword Insertion with the possibility of the reserved keywords of a placeholder> (KeyWord: Mercedes Shock Absorber)
Performance in key words to outsource their own ad groups
In further steps can outsource with valid data base performance keywords in their own ad groups. This method is referred to as the "Peel & Stick" and ensures that your ad text can be more specifically focused on the search query and poor-performing keywords do not impact negatively on the performance keyword. (Keywords: Quality factor)
Adwords Content Network separate from search
The first thing you should consider when creating campaigns is the separation of search and content network. By default, Google has both selected in the campaign settings. The search advertising on the content network is running according to different rules than the search network. Keywords in the content network used as a topical limits, while should be in the search keywords matched as closely as possible to the search query.
Accordingly, the content network more generic keyword booked into the campaigns, while found in search network campaigns for more specific keywords their home.
After optimizing conversion figures
Without the use of Adwords Conversion Tracking it makes sense to buy any Adwords turn, as the conversion data is the basis for the optimization. to optimize only on the CTR to the Adwords Quality Score to improve does not make sense, as secondary to tweak this code so only to Google's will. To have a great CTR does not always necessarily positive impact on the conversion rate or conversion costs. In all tests, which one makes should therefore always be the main focus on the conversion numbers.
Use the options Google offers Adwords keyword with the keyword options "Broad" (Broad Match), phrase (phrase match) and exactly match (Exact Match) are important means to the Impressions of the ads, and thus to control clicks and costs.

Broad Match: Nike Shoes> Google provides the ads even with Nike sneakers, Nike sneakers and even boots from Adidas.

Phrase match: "Nike shoes"> Google provides the ad also in red Nike shoes. Nike shoes red, cheap Nike shoes

Exact match: [Nike Shoes]> Google provides the ad only to Nike shoes.

The majority of keywords should be in the phrase that best booked Exact Match. Thus, one has full control of the search queries for which ads are to be delivered. However, many daily searches are new. Therefore, it is impossible to capture all the exact queries that are entered daily in the Suchschlitze the search engines. Why not fit on the Use of Broad Match Broad Match should verzichten.Keywords in very subtle to detect by Long tail keywords are used. The used Broad Match keywords should also be limited with negative or negative keywords.
Use of negative keywords
Negative keywords are especially when keywords will be posted in the Broad Match duty. You can find the best out of the search report in the keyword list. Plus, you can for example on Google Analytics Bounce Rate orBounce Rate examine already booked keywords or search queries to exclude those at the campaign or ad group level.
A hohhe Bounce rate can also indicate a non-matching landing page / landing page.
Adwords Adwords without pain, no price!
These are some tips on how to optimize Adwords and it remains to note that job especially for online shops with several hundred to a thousand articles, the Adwords Management and Optimization quickly became full time. If you want to get the most out of the budget should be used click intensively involved with the account structure, ad text, keyword optimization of the pool and the analysis of the Adwords interface, and other web analytics tools generated data.
It's worth it!
What is your opinion? Use our comment form and discuss with you.

11 Myths of Social Media Marketing

2010-05-26T09:05:00.000-07:00

Social media marketing is currently the biggest hype in the Internet and many companies ask themselves whether they do enough to make it right or whether they really should jump on the moving train. are recipes for success for social media marketing is similar to many as for the search engine optimization of websites, but also many statements belong in the realm of myth.

In social media today an interesting contribution has been published the clean up with 11 myths that were within the range of social media so far stubbornly:

Social Media is so simple that it can make the trainee
Social Media Marketing is really hard
Social media is just what the young
Social media is free
Since social media is labor intensive, we should outsource it
The social media success is only possible on Rules and Best Practices
Social media marketing has no rules
Social media marketing creates instant results
Social media marketing is too dangerous
Social Media Marketing is new
Social media marketing has no impact on my business

None of these 11 points must be considered for Social Media Marketing as a universal. Why is this so in Original explained for each point.

Google adds more content to search pages

2010-05-14T06:20:00.000-07:00

Google will speed up the time from query to answer with snippets of information presented ahead of links to search results.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jim Kerstetter/CNET)

Google has figured out how to make use of the Google Squared technology it introduced last year, adding more content to its search results pages in the process.
Two new features are rolling out to Google users Wednesday morning, and both involve results generated through the Google Squared experiment. Google announced Google Squared exactly a year ago as a Google Labs project, in hopes of learning more about how to present structured search results
That effort has produced a nice side effect: Google has figured out a way to keep you on its search results pages for longer amounts of time. Searches looking for a specific fact--say, the birth date of actress Catherine Zeta-Jones--will now see that answer presented directly beneath the query box, eliminating that pesky problem of having to click through to the Web page with the answer. As with most new Google features, it will roll out gradually to users.
Google has been heading in this direction for a while, publishing this type of data in snippets below links to search results in January. It fits right in with Google's mission to deliver information to its users and will definitely be useful in a mobile situation, but it also has the benefit of keeping searchers on Google's sites for a little longer, during which time they might happen to glimpse an ad.
Google also announced that the "something different" section on its new left-hand rail was built using Google Squared technology, which remains in Google Labs. Google Squared crawls the Web to produce information in a spreadsheet-like format in response to a query, and judging by the example link provided on its home page "new york city bridges," it's definitely still a Labs project.

Twitter or Facebook: Which Is Right for Your Business?

2010-05-04T08:36:00.000-07:00

Since Facebook announced its new social pluggins designed to become the web's identity system, marketers have been buzzing about Facebook.

Clearly there's a lot of potential in Facebook -- but how does it compare to Twitter? And is it right for your business?

To answer those questions, I took a look at data from over 2,600 HubSpot customers. I looked specifically at the number of followers each company had last week on Twitter and Facebook (we call it their reach on each channel).

So which platform is best for marketers concerned about reach?

Depends which industry you're in. B2C businesses are having more success with Facebook. Many B2B industries are having more success with Twitter.

Don't Pick One -- Create a Presence on Both
Of course, more than indicating that one platform is better or worse than the other, this data is another sign that businesses need to engage on both. The pure scale and ambition of Facebook makes it a critical platform to participate in. But this data from HubSpot customers shows that you can't dismiss Twitter. In many industries, Twitter is a better way of reaching potential customers..

Bad Excuse: My Industry Doesn't Use Social Media
Another thing this data makes clear: It doesn't matter what industry you're in, you should be experimenting with social media. Check out the reach manufacturing and waste management businesses are getting! And not just one -- that's an average of at least 10 businesses.

A few words about how I got these numbers: I pulled data for more than 2,600 HubSpot customers (the average company in the sample has 100 employees). Once I had that data, I sorted the companies by industry and calculated the average Twitter and Facebook reach for each industry. I removed industries that had less than 10 companies. All the companies I sampled were using some sort of social media -- they had followers on Twitter, Facebook or both.

The Power Of Facebook

2010-04-26T22:56:00.001-07:00

Two years ago I was on the Charlie Rose show and we talked about, among other startups and trends, Facebook. It wasn’t clear then that Facebook had what it took to become one of the great technology companies. They had conquered the college market and were destroying the hopes and dreams of MySpace. But they were also reeling from the Beacon debacle and hadn’t proven that they could turn those massive reach and page view numbers into sustainable revenue streams.

You can watch the whole discussion about Facebook, which begins at about the 22:00 mark. But the key question I asked then was, “Will Facebook Have their Google moment?” I was referring to Google’s ability to pair awesome search in the late nineties with, later, an amazing business model – a bidding system for text ads. In 2008 it was clear that Facebook had taken the first step and changed our culture, possibly permanently. But it wasn’t at all clear that they would create the massive revenue streams to allow them to effectively dominate tech culture.

Fast forward to today. Those questions have been answered. Facebook is profitable and probably is running at a billion dollar plus revenue run rate today. They have 400 million users and 500 million people visit the site each month. Only Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have more monthly visitors than Facebook. And only Google has more page views. And they aren’t done growing yet. In a year they will likely be second on the list of unique visitors. In two years, they’ll probably be first.

In a talk a few days ago investor Ron Conway spoke about the explosive growth of Facebook. “They are the universe,” he said. I asked him if we are in the Age of Facebook. His answer was yes. Ron has been investing in startups for thirty years and he has seen the rise and fall of many companies. This wasn’t just idle chatter.

Microsoft dominated the technology world in the 90s on the back of their Windows and Office products. Google was the champion for the last decade after perfecting the business model around search. Both are still huge companies.

But all the momentum is behind Facebook and how they are changing the Web, and our culture.

Last week Facebook unveiled a variety of new developer tools, and new consumer applications are set to be launched in the near future. What’s most interesting about these changes aren’t the debates about whether what Facebook is doing is good for the Internet or not, or how open or not open their solutions are.

Those debates are important but they don’t affect the Facebook revolution any more than debates about Adsense a decade ago affected the decade of glory that Google just experienced. The fact is that Facebook is permeating the Web. Publishers, us included, are clamoring to organize our websites in ways that please Facebook.

Their vision of an open graph of people and things (with Facebook at the center) is becoming reality, and debates by technologists won’t changes that. Facebook is taking over our identity and we are going along with that happily. It will take a new technology paradigm to disrupt what Facebook is doing.

Microsoft’s Windows platform wasn’t threatened by user complaints, lawsuits or even government actions to weaken it. It took the evolution of the browser as an operating system, and new applications like Google Docs, to give users the comfort to move beyond Windows. And while the Windows franchise is still going strong, the writing is on the wall. Eventually, it will fall.

Someday, maybe a decade from now, some new technology will rise and allow other companies to threaten Facebook. But until then there is little to stop them. Their march to dominance has just begun.

Google Street View Adds Local Business Listings

2010-04-26T22:04:00.001-07:00

Last week, the newly renamed Google Places added a ton of features to help local businesses create a directory page right on Google. Today, Google’s Street View is joining the party by showing links to local business listings right in Street View. As you turn around in Street View, names of local businesses and other “Google Places” will show up overlayed on top of buildings. As you hover over those names, a small pop-up window shows some of the listing details such as business name, phone number, and ratings.

There have been links from business listings on Google Maps directly to Street View for almost a year, but now those business listings appear right within Street View itself. Google clearly wants to own local and is sprinkling these listings everywhere it can.

The next step I’m waiting for is to see Street view in a mobile augmented reality app, so that you can just point your phone camera at a building and see the businesses listed inside. That would be so Tonchidot of Google. Our augmented reality future awaits.

Effective Social Bookmarking

2010-04-26T11:20:00.000-07:00

If you are looking to promote your business online, you will get benefited from Social Bookmarking. This is a marketing tool which is far more productive than the other traditional methods of promoting. It is an important tool for any online business owner to know, master and take advantage of in order to succeed in their growing online business. Social Bookmarking is now one of the most recent trends online to help you in spreading your voice and presence across the Internet. It is basically a simple and easy yet very resourceful innovation. You would be having an option in which you could share your bookmarks with the wider Internet. Make your favorite websites and web pages available, with comment. This is a good way to promote your own business website to the millions of people that use these sites.

Social Bookmarking is a novel method of locating, storing and sharing files and data among online users, and also allows registered users to store their ‘favorite’ web-links. In most cases, the lists that are created by users of a specific bookmarking network may either be designated as public or private in nature. If the lists are public in nature, then other users would be able to locate and view the links. These lists can be searched randomly, by tags, popularity, or category, tags.

Advantages Of Social Bookmarking:

   1. Social Bookmarking websites drive qualified traffic and would also increase your link popularity, because search engines “index” the pages within these sites, and will see the links to your website.
   2. Social Bookmarking helps in quick indexing by the search engines.
   3. The best way to drive instant traffic to your website. This is the only method which helps to boost the traffic of the website, making it easier to spread your online business’ Web content.

Sites I would recommend:

   1. Delicious
   2. Digg
   3. StumbleUpon
   4. Yahoo Buzz
   5. Technorati
   6. Kaboodle
   7. Mixx
   8. Propeller
   9. Reddit
10. Newsvine

Tips of Successful Bookmarking:

   1. Create Accounts in all the bookmarking sites which have good reputation in WWW.
   2. Concentrate on building reputation by adding/communicating with other members.
   3. Organize your tags well. Try and keep them simple. That makes it easier for the other users to find you.

Basic Steps to get RANKED for the Targetted Keywords

2010-04-26T11:17:00.001-07:00

First of all, select the right targeted keywords for your web page. Please don’t do the mistake of selecting the most popular keywords. Instead you can use Google’s keyword suggestion tool to select the most appropriate variations considering both popularity as well as competition. During this process please make sure that keyword phrases should be related to your website content as without that the entire process will be of no use.

Before you start with Off-Page optimization like Building backlinks and generating traffic, you have to make sure that the keywords are placed in the right spot. No page will get ranked if you haven’t clearly indicated exactly what keyword’s the page should be ranked for.

The Basic Steps to get ranked for the Targeted Keywords are:

1) Keyword in the URL

2) Keyword in the title

3) Keyword in the only

1. Keyword in the URL

Just make sure that your URL is in the form www.example.com/keyword (.htm or .php or .aspx or whatever). Avoid URLs without the keyword eg www.example.com/products.htm?id=12. For the URL it is best to have only the keyword and no other junk.

2. Keyword in the title

It is also recommended to use the keyword in the page title, eg “Keyword (with some wording included) | Example.com”. Do not repeat titles on all your pages, and do not dilute keywords by using the same keyword in all your titles. Every internal page should consists a Unique page title.

3. Keyword in the only tag.

When you describe your Targetted Keyword, there should be a header above your description. Just add tags, eg Targetted Keyword

The title should also have some extra wording that is different from the title wording.

4. Keyword Usage in Body

Please make sure that the content that you posted is Keyword Rich.. Because Google Algorithms are more sensitive to pages that do not contain the keyword they’re getting links for. Do not spam the keyword though! Just use it a few times, naturally. (Keyword Desnity of 2%-6%)

So stop trying to implement all the hundreds of factors that could possibly help you rank higher. Unless you are done with these basic steps do not move on.

What's With Microsoft's FUSE Social Networking Lab?

2010-04-23T02:21:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has created a research group to look into how the company can extend its reach into social networking. The new research team will be called Future Social Experiences (FUSE), and will be headed by Microsoft General Manager Lili Cheng. The new group was announced in an e-mail sent to Microsoft employees by Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, who will oversee the project, according to TechCrunch.

FUSE reportedly merges three existing research groups within Microsoft into a larger collaborative group. Ozzie's memo explaining the project is scarce on details, and only emphasizes broad concepts that will guide the new research lab. In Ozzie's world, social networking is transforming how we use computers including our computer's operating system. So FUSE will focus on products "where 'social' meets sharing; where 'social' meets real-time; where 'social' meets media; where 'social' meets search; where 'social' meets the cloud plus three screens [PC, mobile device, television and online] and a world of devices."

That last quote may sound like a bunch of nonsense, but it does give us a vague idea of what Microsoft might be trying to do. Clearly, Microsoft isn't too interested in creating another Facebook or MySpace competitor; instead, Microsoft's concept of social is more likely to focus on collaboration and sharing information instead of posting photos and sending pokes on a Website.

Microsoft is already trying things like this with Office 2010's SharePoint Workspace collaboration software, as well as Office 2010's Web apps. We could also see items similar to the Xobni plug-in for Outlook that turns your e-mail client into a social networking hub.

These may be just guesses, but you can bet that unlike Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks, Microsoft is interested in introducing products that it can sell and make money from on day one. So whatever FUSE does work on, I think it's safe to assume the group's projects for everyday consumers will be tied to new or existing desktop programs, with a focus on Microsoft's productivity applications.

Twitter Launch New Business Section

2010-04-22T21:17:00.001-07:00

Twitter have launched a new business section under the sub domain of business.twitter.com, on the new sub domain is a section titled “Twitter 101 for Business – A Special Guide”. The new section has guides, case studies, best practices and resourses for businesses looking to get into Twitter. Could we soon see a new sub section for advertising on Twitter?? Below are a few small quotes from the new section:

“Every day, millions of people use Twitter to create, discover and share ideas with others. Now, people are turning to Twitter as an effective way to reach out to businesses, too. From local stores to big brands, and from brick-and-mortar to internet-based or service sector, people are finding great value in the connections they make with businesses on Twitter…. “

“Twitter connects you to your customers right now, in a way that was never before possible. For example, letâ€™s say you work for a custom bike company. If you run a search for your brand, you may find people posting messages about how happy they are that your bike lets them ride in the French Alpsâ€”giving you a chance to share tips about cyclist-friendly cafes along their route….”

How do I find quality backlinks?

2010-04-22T21:16:00.001-07:00

Link generation is the primary method to increase both your search engine positioning and also your traffic.

When it comes to the inbound links themselves, they can be in various formats. Ideally, you should be obtaining different types of one-way links to your websites to increase the diversity. The following are a few examples of the different types of backlinks available.

Inbound links from blogs:

These come from posting blog comments. If you find a blog that is related to your industry/service/products, you can leave a useful and constructive comment (not spam e.g. ‘I like this’ or ‘excellent read I will come back here often’ or simply ‘well done’), including targeted keywords as your name and a URL to link back to your site.

One-way links from forums:

These are simply one-way links that come from your forum profiles themselves. The backlinks are dropped inside your BIO / signature with your own anchor text.

Inbound links from web 2.0 sites:

These are backlinks from websites such as squidoo and hubpages and these types of backlink can rank very well. You can take advantage of articles here that include your keywords in the ‘title’ and 2/3 time in the article body. You can insert URL inbound links with anchor and also RSS feeds.

Another important thing is to get these links indexed!

Ping your links to the top RPC directories

What pinging does is to inform the search engine that your new content is available on various sites via RPC. These sites have huge amounts of updates, thus are crawled frequently by the search engines.

Google Navigation now available in the UK

2010-04-22T21:15:00.001-07:00

Earlier Engadget reported that Google Navigation was available in the UK. We can now confirm that this is indeed true and we have tried it out for ourselves. So far, it has only been confirmed that this works with Android 1.6 devices and above. Google Navigation is the free GPS Navigation app available for Android phones only, which you access through Google Maps. The app works in a similar way to your typical TomTom, but it takes advantages of the exhaustive information available in Google Maps, such as the Places Directory (Cinemas, Pubs etc) and Google StreetView. Google Navigation has been available in the US since early 2010. See below for a video of Google Navigation in action or visit the Official Google Navigation website for more information.

Google Places (previously Local Business Center) Announced

2010-04-22T21:13:00.000-07:00

Google have announced the release of Google Places (previously Local Business Center) This is a new push from Google into local search and gives advertisers a number of new options including a new dashboard (similar to what you get with Google AdWords.) See below for a quote from the Google Blog and a video:

“We launched Place Pages last September for more than 50 million places around the world to help people make more informed decisions about where to go, from restaurants and hotels to dry cleaners and bike shops, as well as non-business places like museums, schools and parks. Place Pages connect people to information from the best sources across the web, displaying photos, reviews and essential facts, as well as real-time updates and offers from business owners.

Four million businesses have already claimed their Place Page on Google through the Local Business Center, which enables them to verify and supplement their business information to include hours of operation, photos, videos, coupons, product offerings and more. It also lets them communicate with customers and get insights that help them make smart business decisions…”

Facebook's News bid to rule the web World

2010-04-22T21:01:00.000-07:00

Facebook set out its stall to unseat Google and be at the heart of the web experience as it becomes more social.

The world's largest social network unveiled a series of products at its developer conference F8 aimed at helping the company achieve that goal.

These tools will make it easier for users to take their friends with them as they browse the web.

"We are building toward a web where the default is social," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder.

"If you look back a few years ago and even as recently as today, in most cases the web isn't designed to use your friends. They don't assume you have a real identity but we are seeing that seep in more and more.

"We want to be one of the things that empowers that and right now most users are using Facebook and we hope we can be a good force in driving that forward," Mr Zuckerberg told the BBC during a news conference.

He added that the "web was at a turning point" and that the way forward was to have friends, or what Mr Zuckerberg called "your social graph", to guide you online.

"One of the points Mr Zuckerberg was making was that the web has become a lot less anonymous and Facebook is definitely positioning itself as wanting to be the owner of that information," said Maya Baratz of the Huffington Post.

Personalisation

At the F8 conference in San Francisco, Mr Zuckerberg unveiled a number of products aimed at putting users and their friends at the "centre of the web".

The most significant was an open graph protocol to let publishers tag their content by type along with a "Like" button that partner sites put on their webpage. This allows users to indicate what they like on a website, be it from photographs to news items and from clothes to music.

That information will then be stored by Facebook the way it already stores connections between people. At the same time any website will be able to take those individual preferences and use them to tailor a more "personalised online experience" for the user and their friends.

Facebook said this means its members will see a web that caters to their individual tastes.

Crucially all this can only happen when users are logged into Facebook and "makes it easy to make any page (on the internet) a Facebook page," said Bret Taylor, Facebook's director of platform.

Business opportunity

Mr Zuckerberg described the features he presented at the conference as "the most transformative thing we've ever done for the web".

Justin Smith, founder of InsideFacebook.com said there are a lot of business upsides to this product.

When someone "likes" your page, that is a valuable action because it means you will be able to publish updates directly to them in the future which could be used for a variety of purposes like promoting traffic to your website or advertising anything you want."

Some of the early adoptees of the "Like" button include CNN, the movie site IMDb.com, ESPN and Levi's.

Levi's will integrate the "Like" function on its e-commerce site as well as build a "friend" store where consumers logged into Facebook will be able to see a list of their friend's favourite products and shop online with them.

"We're creating a new shopping experience that will change the way people shop online," said Jodi Bricker, vice president of digital at Levi's.

'Audacious and a bit scary'

So what does this mean for Google, the world's most powerful internet company with billions of users who access the web using hyperlinks?

"People are discovering information not just through links to web pages but also from the people and the things they care about," Mr Zuckerberg told a conference hall of around 1,500 developers.

Om Malik, founder and editor of the technology blog GigaOM.com told BBC news "even a blind man can see this is a Facebook versus Google battle and in many ways if the web is going to be more social then that plays to Facebook's strengths."

Damon Cortesi, founder of social media company UntitledStartup, agreed.

"Facebook has won the internet," he told technology blog ZDnet.com

"Facebook has always been social, but in terms of dominating the web over Google they have made strides today."

But Mr Malik sounded a note of caution.

"The whole idea to socialise the whole web is fairly impressive, audacious and a bit scary. I am very scared about the privacy issues around this initiative. They haven't really been very clear as to how consumers will have more control over the things they do on the web."

The issue of privacy has been something of a thorn in Facebook's side. It has suffered backlashes in the past over moves to change users privacy settings.

"Nothing we have released changes any of the privacy protections we have," said Elliot Schrage, the company's vice president of public policy and communications.

"We're providing new opportunities for people to have a social experience if they want it."

Search gigant Google reveals government data and censorship

2010-04-22T20:58:00.001-07:00

For the first time Google has released details about how often countries around the world ask it to hand over user data or to censor information.

Brazil tops the list with 3,663 data requests while the US made 3,580 and the UK came a distant third with 1,166.

Just last month the internet giant pulled its search engine out of China over online censorship issues.

Google said it cannot provide statistics on requests from China which are regarded as state secrets.

Brazil also made the highest number of requests to Google to remove content with 291 calls between July and December 2009. In second place was Germany with 188, India with 142 and the US with 123 requests.

The search giant has launched an online tool breaking down the figures which it hopes will be "just the first step toward increased transparency".

"The vast majority of these requests are valid and the information needed is for legitimate criminal investigations or for the removal of child pornography, " said David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer.

"We believe that greater transparency will lead to less censorship. Unless companies, governments and individuals do something, the internet we know is likely to become ever more restricted - taking choice and control away from users and putting more power in the hands of those who would limit access to information."

Google has been at the centre of a high profile battle with China over the issue of censorship. It stopped censoring results earlier this year after the Gmail accounts of users associated with human rights groups were hacked.

The company said the attacks had originated in China while the Chinese authorities denied any involvement.

Inspiration

Google's "government's request tool" was unveiled on the same day that Canada's privacy commissioner sent an open letter to the company regarding privacy issues.

Officials from 10 nations backed the complaint sent directly to Google boss Eric Schmidt.

The California based firm said any suggestion that their release was done to deflect from that news was "unrelated".

guy in a tshirt that says freedom
Few companies publish any sort of data about such requests

"We have been noticing a trend with these requests and working on this initiative for a long time, " Scott Rubin, a senior spokesman with the company told BBC News.

"This is really about our ongoing quest to make information accessible and we are hoping this will inspire other companies to share data and become part of the conversation people are having about the scope of these kinds of requests."

Google said it was disclosing the information "in the spirit" of principles laid out by the Global Network Initiative, a group that promotes freedom of expression online. Yahoo and Microsoft are also part of the organisation.

Google said that to date 40 governments censor information compared to just four in 2002.

"Google's numbers are not nearly as transparent as they could be," said Tom Krazit of technology news site Cnet.com.

"The tool doesn't break out the data for the number of times Google complied or refused requests for information on individuals. It does say how often - in general - it complies with takedown requests, but does not provide specifics."

Google said it is working to perfect the information and that "it will get better". The next release will be in six months' time.

Google's secret new search engine technology "Caffeine" could change search result rankings

2009-08-12T22:27:00.000-07:00

Google is working on a new secret search engine technology, currently nicknamed "Caffeine," that could really shake up search results and existing Google rankings, according to PC World.

Many companies, whose businesses rely on prominent rankings on Google search results, could be forced to make some changes.

Google introduced the project in a recent blog post, and hinted that Caffeine could change the current way that search results are yielded, but it is still unclear whether companies will need to greatly alter their search engine optimization (SEO).

"For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search," two engineers detailed on the official company blog.

"It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits ‘under the hood’ of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we’re opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback," they wrote.

So, in the interest of maintaining a place on the first page of Google search results, or preserving a top Google ranking, if companies do need to retool their SEO, the next question would be: how?

Many SEO-practitioners have made a business and an art of achieving top placement in Google search results, but with little else known about Caffeine, SEO changes likely can’t be made until the new search engine technology is unveiled.

So, it seems as though prominent Google search rankings are safe for now, but who knows what can happen with a little Caffeine?

Page View & Traffic Analysis

2009-08-12T07:57:00.000-07:00

With state of the art tracker tools you can analyze actually down to the detail which users are accessing your web pages and how they behave.

Most webmasters and professional SEO companies use these tools to monitor the statistics and to be able to thoroughly analyze their web site and the pages of their clients. This is necessary to be able to improve content and keywords matching. If you realize that people that use a specific keyword are not even entering the site but turn away just looking at the index and people using a different keyword do enter and browse, then we are able to shift the emphasis into the right direction to increase page views.

The Page view system tracking device we use is very different from the normal hit counter that you can download for free and does not deliver enough and correct data to have control on your E-business. We are fully convinced of
arrow Opentracker Web Analytics Company.
This is fantastic software, free 4weeks full trail version is available and the service they provide is very satisfying. Each issue is resolved in no time. More info about this software is available on our page arrow SEO Web Site Tracking

We can analyze and monitor your complete web site, deliver view statistics reports and analyze your online campaigns. We are able to tell you exactly how successful they are.
Well known medium sized companies and multinationals like Apple Macintosh and other big companies make use of the very same tool we work with.

You can view when people are online (live page view) looking at your web pages, trace them and follow them on your web site so you will know what they are doing and where they’re going and how much time they spend on every single page.

CIA expert: Electronic voting not secure. Germany bans electronic voting machines

2009-08-07T05:49:00.000-07:00

A CIA expert in electronic voting machines officially declared last month that they are not secure. Just this month, Germany has joined 11 U.S. states, the Netherlands, and other countries which have banned electronic voting of one form or another. Dozens of professors and hundreds of computer experts around the country have shown that electronic voting machines can easily be manipulated and elections results changed.

How is it that electronic voting machines were approved in the first place? A 2004 MSNBC/Associated Press article started with this quote, "The three companies that certify the nation's voting technologies operate in secrecy, and refuse to discuss flaws in the ATM-like machines to be used by nearly one in three voters in November." A 2006 Washington Post article was titled "A Single Person Could Swing an Election," yet these machines are still widely used across the U.S. How can we allow this clear threat to this basic foundation of democracy to continue?

Below are key excerpts of an article on these revelations in the Miami Herald, one of the few newspapers to publish this story.

CIA cybersecurity expert [Steve] Stigall told the Election Assistance Commission ... that computerized electoral systems can be manipulated at five stages, from altering voter registration lists to posting results. Stigall summarized what he described as attempts to use computers to undermine democratic elections in developing nations. His remarks have received no news media attention until now. The commission has been criticized for giving states more than $1 billion to buy electronic equipment without first setting performance standards.

Numerous computer-security experts have concluded that U.S. systems can be hacked, and allegations of tampering in Ohio, Florida and other swing states have triggered a campaign to require all voting machines to produce paper audit trails. Stigall, who has studied electronic systems in about three dozen countries, said most countries' machines produced paper receipts that voters then dropped into boxes. However, even that doesn't prevent corruption, he said. Eleven U.S. states have banned or limited wireless capability in voting equipment.

Germany just this month banned computerized voting. Yet what's important is why they did this. Newspapers gave the impression that Germany banned e-voting due to "security issues" or bugs. Yet in fact, the ban was based on human rights violations. For more on this important development, click here. The Netherlands also banned electronic voting computers last year.

Isn't it time for the U.S. to ban voting systems than can be easily manipulated, too? The box immediately below provides several ideas on what you can do to make a difference on this issue so vital to our democracy. We also invite you to comment below and let us know what you think. Do you think the U.S. should ban electronic voting machines?

SEO webmasters - SEM - SMO - PPC - Internet Marketing: How To Research The Internet World

2009-08-06T21:25:00.000-07:00

SEO webmasters - SEM - SMO - PPC - Internet Marketing: How To Research The Internet World

How To Research The Internet World

2009-08-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

Most people tend to respect news which is backed up by information posted on websites of the major media, universities, or government sources. Below are a few key Internet research tips to find reliable sources like these for your articles. The tips covered are:

* How to find the strongest source for your information
* How to find reliable sources when you only have text
* Set your search results to 100
* Take advantage of the "Cache" link
* Find disappeared articles when you have the URL
* Use search engines to search a single website
* Search for reliable videos
* Consider a "What You Can Do" section

How to Find the Strongest Source for Your Information

Readers will generally trust what you write more if you include links to reliable sources for any key information provided in articles you write. A little Internet research can greatly strengthen your sources. If you receive some powerful information you want to include in an article, but it's not from a strong source:

* Pick out several of the key words which would identify all articles written on the topic.
* Type them into a search engine.
* On the results list, scan the URLs at the bottom or each entry.
* Look for the most reliable source listed.

If you don't immediately find a good source, search both on the search engine's news and its regular search page, as the news page often does not include all results from news websites, where the regular search is more complete. You may find the news reported on a respected news website. Note that entries to the news searches usually are deleted after about one month, so you won't find older media articles there.

How to Find Reliable Sources When You Only Have Text

If you receive the text of an article you want to use that claims to be from a major news, government, or other reliable source but no link is given, or the link is to an alternative news website, you can usually find the original article easily on its source website:

* Copy a string of seven to ten words or so from the text. It is better to find text with less commonly used words.
* Copy that string into your favorite search engine and put quotation marks on both ends. This limits the search to only webpages with that exact string and order of words.
* Click "Search"
* Scan the URLs at the bottom of each entry listed to find the news website.
* If the list is too long, click on the "News" link in the string of links at the very top left of the page on Google or in the dropdown menu on Yahoo. This limits the search to pages from websites defined as news websites by these search engines. It may be worth your while to search both Google and Yahoo, as they often differ.

For articles from a news agency like AP or AFP, some people trust it more if it is picked up by a website like MSNBC, ABC, New York Times, etc. By doing a search on a string of words as instructed above, you will often find the article published on a major media website.

Note that if a legitimate, but important AP article is not picked up by other media sites, you can then be fairly certain it is being censored by media ownership. In my extensive research on the Internet, I have found this happens often with subjects most sensitive to the power elite of our world. For clear examples of this by numerous award-winning journalists, click here.

If you are watching a video clip of a news report and want to find it online, you can use the same techniques above. Type in a string of words spoken in the video, and you will often find the report posted on the website.

Set Your Search Results to 100

To ease your searches, set your search engine to display 100 results. Here are directions to do so using Google. Yahoo is similar, though the page you want is under the link "Options" and then "Settings.".

* Go the settings link - to the right of the search button on Google.
* Scroll down to "Number of Results" and change it to 100. This makes searching through more than 10 results much easier.
* Click "Save Preferences" and you are done.
* In that same window you might want to choose "Open search results in a new browser window."

Take Advantage of the "Cache" Link

If you click on a search entry and it gives you a blank page or an error message, it will usually still be available at that cache link. The "Cache" button at the bottom right of search entries on both Google and Yahoo has a recorded image of the page. You might want to download and save the entire page, as it will likely disappear from the search engine before too long if the webpage has been removed.

Find Disappeared Articles When You Have the URL

If you have the URL of an important web page, but the page has been removed, you can often still find it using the Internet archive:

* Copy the URL
* Go to http://www.archive.org.
* If there is anything in the "Wayback Machine" box, delete it.
* Paste what you've copied into the box and click the "Take Me Back" button.
* Click on any date for the original article as it was posted on the date listed.

The above method will show you exactly how the webpage looked on the date it was copied into the archive. Please note, however, that any website can request not to be listed on the Internet archive. Unfortunately, many major media websites have done this. If this is the case, you may or may not be able to find the article on another website using a quote from the original article, as mentioned above.

Use Search Engines to Search a Single Website

When want to search for something on a specific website, there is a way to refine your search so that the entries listed only come from the specified website. In the search engine, simply type "site:" then enter the site's URL, no quotation marks. Type in a space and then whatever you want to search. When entering the site, http:// and www are not necessary, but there must be no space between the colon after the word "site" and the URL.

Search for Reliable Videos

You can sometimes find video coverage of key information by doing a simple video search using key words at http://video.google.com. Google owns both Google Video and YouTube. They also list many other video websites on the video search page, so searching this one resource gives you search results for most popular video websites online. A few times I've been amazed to find video footage of sensitive articles which disappeared from their source website.

Consider a "What You Can Do" Section

The Internet search tips should help you to find the most solid sources available for articles you write. If you want to recommend to your readers to contact the media and their political representatives, you can use this link or post the information from the link. You might also want to include a "What You Can Do" box like that below. It empowers people to join in spreading the word and making a difference. I also invite you to comment below and share any tips you might have.

Tips for Successful Social Media

2009-08-06T05:55:00.000-07:00

The panelists spoke about various topics such as; online tools, social marketing and challenges their clients face. Some good points were made throughout the session however, as most panels go, they were all intertwined and scattered. I have highlighted some of the main items that are beneficial to all businesses either as a refresher or as new information.

Communities

How are your customers currently buying items or services? Social media outlets such as Twitter don't work for everyone or every business. Let's take a business such as a local plumber or heating specialist. When do you need a plumber? Typically when something is wrong! Most people will more than likely pick up a phone book or do an online directory search. It's doubtful that anyone will follow a plumber's business on Twitter. On the other hand, if you are looking for a recommendation for a plumber, Twitter or Facebook might be the perfect place for you. According to Goddard, "Social media is really about reducing a risk by reaching out to like-minded peers. It's our way of saying, how do I not make a bad decision?" We go get advice and it's sitting inside these communities, we are getting the information when the conversation is happening and it's all about reducing the risk. The social tools that exist are about streamlining the process.

LinkedIn.com has been around longer than Twitter and it isn't getting as much hype. LinkedIn is a risk reduction and helps members make better decisions on how to build relationships. It's Quality over Quantity. Your business should be tied to your area of expertise, local community or industry specialty. If you are a local business in a specific trade industry try to focus on what you do and important topics that are relevant.

The Clutter

There's really no need to tweet about the peanut butter and jelly sandwich you just ate. According to Cangialosi , "THERE'S A LOT OF A LOT! " There is no way we are paying attention to everything you have written. There is so much white noise that it is crucial for businesses to stay focused. Try to use important keywords or tags that can be searched for easily.

Blue Sky Factory leverages social media technology by using Hubspot. The Hubspot tool looks at web analytics and takes all the keywords you want to optimize and ranks the conversations that are really important. Blue Sky's goal is to engage the community, cut through the clutter, and sharpen the focus.

Tools and Tracking

Messina recommended several different tools which keep a watchful eye on what people are saying about your product or who might be interested.
Search.twitter.com - Twitter's basic search tool
Google alerts - a great way to have information pushed instead of searching with the other tools
icerocket.com - a social and search tool
radian6 - a monitoring source for your brand across the web
Chi.mp - helps steam line across multiple accounts
Dragon Search - social media calculator

One tool that was not mentioned was Twitter Analyzer, which is a tool that is fun to explore.

Rule of Thumb to Execute Social Media

Mario's last question to the panel was, "How much time do you have for all of your social responsibilities? We all know that owning a dog can be free, but don't you have to nurture it?"

Leah recommends before you update your Twitter account to spend 2 hours researching and compile a list of daily social media updates. Update once in the morning and at the end of the day. Leah typically puts aside 1 hour a day for updates.

Greg doesn't use Twitter to update his Facebook account. The Twitter stream is primarily used for business and he separates his personal account from corporate account. He does his tweets in spurts. He recommends that your conversations grow into one on one dialog. You should pick and choose from one platform to another because it is not relevant between the two socials. Try not to use hash marks in your Facebook account - it may be Greek to many of your friends.

Final Words

Matt states, "The Internet is a buying engine - not a selling engine. You have to be a part of the buying process." You can't force the buying moment. Experiment with the tools available to you and evaluate the outcome.

Leah - "When you reach out you can tease out the most important people that are the influencers. They can help you be a bridge to the community. Be genuine and use it methodically."

Greg - "The influencer in today's social world has a very wide footprint so you need to be very authentic, transparent and methodical." The long term strategy for social messaging is making sure your messaging is exact. What's the right story to tell your audience; is it compelling and why?

Social Media Is Powerful.... But What about the Risk?

2009-08-06T05:52:00.000-07:00

I like to tell people that social media does not involve a risk. It's not a risk that someone will do something dumb someday. Actually, it is a certainty. If you allow employees to use social media, someone at some time will do something mind-numbingly idiotic.

It might be, as the questioner asks, a security breach. Someone decides that a trade secret would be just the thing to spice of their next tweet. Or it might be something else--making fun of your client, or sexually harassing someone, or telling a politically incorrect joke.

And, in fact, all of these things have been done on social media, and more. The problem, however, isn't social media. It's us. If we don't have the self-control to avoid that kind of behavior, then it will come out in social media or any other place that we operate.

The reason we see social media, or anything new, as risky is as fundamental as human nature. Studies tell us that we always are more comfortable with the status quo than with change, which has probably served mankind well throughout our history.

But risk doesn't disappear just because we are comfortable and accustomed to something. Think about financial risk. Many people were once comfortable with bank savings accounts because their money was growing, but they were running a huge risk that inflation would eat alive their purchasing power. Unfortunately, the risk of changing the investment loomed larger than the risk of staying the course, which seemed safe.

Social media, and just about anything new, is the same. You always have to balance the risk of doing it against the risk of not doing it.

How To Construction of an Optimized Web Page

2009-08-06T03:20:00.000-07:00

Having a basic understanding of the construct of your web pages allows you to ensure that the marketers will be able to work with what's been developed without asking for a redesign of the entire site. To successfully optimize your pages for search engine rankings many key elements that must be properly implemented.

Title Tag

Websites don't operate like a book or a brochure, where pages simply flow from one to the next. Every web page on your site is considered a unique document and it needs to be able to stand alone, as well as part of the collective whole. To help establish each page's "identity" (for lack of a better word,) each web page should be given its own unique purpose. The page's title tag is used to identify that purpose.

The title of each web page is found in the tag between the opening and closing <head> tags. For the most part the title is unseen to the visitor except in the top bar of your web browser or in the search results. <head> <title>E-Marketing Intelligence - Up to date search engine marketing information from the Internet marketing experts.

Your title needs to accurately reflect the content of the page. Keep it short, approx 8-12 words, and include the primary relevant keywords. Since this appears as the clickable text in the search results you also want to make it compelling. You're competing for attention here so make it good.

The title tag of each page should be unique. Don't use on-size-fits-all title tags, throwing them all dozens of site pages at a time. Take the time to craft one specifically for each page.

Meta Description

The Meta Description tag is a way to provide the search engines a summary of the page's content. Completely unseen to the human visitor, it can sometimes be displayed as the descriptive text below the clickable title in the search results.

In your code, the Meta Description is placed between the tags below the title.

Your Meta Description should be between 20-50 words in length. It factors in very little in terms of search engine rankings. Your primary benefit is as the description text in the search results, so again, use keywords but make it compelling. It's still a good idea to use unique descriptions on your pages, especially if you are targeting specific keywords. If your page doesn't have a specific keyword focus then it's OK to leave off the description completely.

Meta Keywords

The Meta Keyword tag has so little relevance that it's barely even worth mentioning here. Typically it appears below the Meta Description, but again, it can be left off entirely and nobody would be the wiser, not even the search engines.

Heading Tags

Heading tags are generally used as paragraph headings for your body content. It's a short headline placed in tags (

,

, . . .

.) On the page they are excellent for providing visual separation of content, making pages easier to skim.

Heading tags are really neat-o

Headings should be used as you would outline a term paper. Each page should only have one H1 tag. Your main sections of the page should use H2 tags, and then sub-sections can use any lower numb heading tags as needed.

You can also use your H2 as a sub-headline below the H1, in which case your main sections would be H3 with sub-sections using lower heading numbers as needed.

Body Content

The visible text of each web page is the single most important element for marketing and ranking purposes, with the exception of the tag. Most body content is located between the <body> tags and usually placed in (paragraph) tags. <body> <h2></h2> Your main body content sells your product or services </body> It's important that the textual content be in HTML form and not embedded within images or flash. Search engines are getting better at reading images and flash, but nothing beats text used in the proper paragraph format. Use your keywords within the textual content but don't muck it up by trying to stuff them in everywhere you can. Text should be written in natural language, clear of grammatical and spelling errors. Images Images can be used to convey many important concepts and visual cues to the visitor while also giving your site a more professional or elegant look. It's important to use images properly but within moderation, consistent with the needs of your target audience. As mentioned earlier, text in images is typically invisible to the search engines, so use text within an image only if it is unimportant to the search engine optimization and ranking process. In the HTML code, images are placed using the When using images, be sure that each is used appropriately to enhance the concepts conveyed on the page it is on, is clean, and works to help "sell" your product or service. Alt Attributes Within each image you can add "alternative" text which appears when visitors have their images turned off. Alt text can be found in the "alt" attribute of the image tag and is a great way to describe or name the image for those that can't see it. You want to be sure to use alt text conservatively and properly for each image. Don't use alt text just to stuff additional keywords into your page, but only to properly describe what the image visually conveys to the viewer. While there is a lot of other code needed to build a web page effectively, these are the key elements used when optimizing your pages or just making them search engine friendly. Throwing your keywords into one or all of these tags won't suddenly get you top rankings, but when used properly they provide both the search engines and your visitors better cues to the content and value of each page.<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>How to Use Simple Breadcrumb</h1> 2009-08-06T03:18:00.000-07:00 Breadcrumbs are a nice little addition to a website that largely goes ignored but can be a significant help to those that like to use them. They make both usability and navigation easier. The primary purpose of breadcrumbs is to provide a visual indicator to your visitor where they are in the site and give them an easy link "back" to higher up categories. <a href="http://www.searchengineguide.com/stoney-degeyter/quick-tip-simple-breadcrumb-usage.php#">Home >> Battery Chargers >> 12 Volt >> Solar</a> The breadcrumb above tells the visitor they are looking at 12 volt solar battery chargers. If the visitor wants to look at all 12 volt battery chargers she can click the "12 Volt" link in the breadcrumb trail to take her there. If she wants to see 24 volt, or 36 volt, or even all the battery chargers offered, she can click the "Battery Chargers" link in the breadcrumb trail and navigate from there. Simple enough. Now let's talk about implementation. I've seen enough content and product management systems to know that very few systems create breadcrumb trails properly. I'm working with some sites now that have it all wrong. On one site the breadcrumbs are an exact duplicate of the Title tag. On another the breadcrumb is an exact duplicate of the page heading. It looked something like this: <a href="http://www.searchengineguide.com/stoney-degeyter/quick-tip-simple-breadcrumb-usage.php#">Home >> Battery Chargers for Motorcycles, ATVs and Jet Ski's >> Durable 12 Volt </a>Battery Chargers for all Makes and Models >> Solar Battery Chargers | Recharge Your Battery Using the Power of the Sun This makes for a very long and convoluted breadcrumb trail and IMO is extremely poor implementation of a breadcrumb trail. The purpose of the page title (title tag) or the page heading (hx tag) are completely different than the purpose of the breadcrumb trail. The Title tag is typically needed to provide a compelling reason to click into the site from the search results. The page heading is a quick, compelling overview of the page. Actually, in some instances it makes sense for the title tag and heading tag to duplicate each other. However it rarely, if ever, makes the same sense with the breadcrumb. The breadcrumb is, for all intents and purposes, navigation. Its a visual indicator of where the visitor is and a quick link back to higher level categories. If the breadcrumb trail is going to be a duplicate of anything, it should be a duplicate of your navigation links. This makes the most sense. If a visitor clicks on the "Battery Charger" link in the main navigation, then follows that by clicking on "12 Volt", then narrows even further by clicking "Solar", it makes logical sense that the breadcrumb trail mimics this precisely. This creates a much more succinct and organized breadcrumb trail that is readily recognizable to the visitor. Home >> Battery Chargers >> 12 Volt >> Solar For usability purposes, I would avoid trying to "SEO" the breadcrumbs. Use your titles and headings for this and let the breadcrumbs serve their purpose for usability unhindered by additional keyword bloat that is typically done for SEO purposes. If your navigation is built correctly, SEOing the breadcrumbs won't be an issue as it will have already been correctly implemented into the navigation.<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Benefits of the Yahoo Web Analytics</h1> 2009-08-06T03:09:00.000-07:00 Yahoo has just launched the Web Analytics Consultant Network (otherwise known as YWACN). The purpose of this YWACN is to help <a href="http://web.analytics.yahoo.com/ywacn.php">Yahoo Analytics</a> clients get the best out of the tool as well as to help spread the gospel of YWA. In return and as a Member of this exclusive, global professional network of Yahoo! Web Analytics consultants you will receive a number of benefits, this including: * Yahoo! Web Analytics FREE account creation rights * Listing on Yahoo!'s Consultant Network web page * Potential client referrals from the Yahoo! Sales team * Exclusive "Yahoo! Web Analytics Consultant Network" icon for display on your website * Premium levels of technical support and access to a partner portal * Access to an exclusive YWACN forum to share ideas and technical tips with other top analysts worldwide * Unique opportunities to work with Yahoo! to provide trainings, books and speaking engagements Yahoo! may consider a number of factors in evaluating potential members for acceptance into the YWACN, including the following: * Your company or a prominent division of your company is dedicated to web analytics * Must work with a minimum of 5 Yahoo! advertisers * Must have at least two full-time web analysts employed that are accredited in one of the major enterprise analytics applications * Must provide a minimum of three customer references for whom you have provided paid analytics support (all major analytics solutions accepted), including deployment and consulting services Must be willing to share information, including: * How many client accounts you have that utilize Yahoo! Web Analytics * Website link from your home page that prominently describes your analytics services * Description of the complete range of paid services you offer related to analytics, including analytics planning, installation, configuration, data analysis, and training; as well as other services offered, such as SEM, SEO, display campaign management, etc.<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Cuil Vs Google - Cuil Search Engine turns Google Results on its Head!!!!!! ...????</h1> 2009-08-05T21:50:00.000-07:00 Welcome to <a href="http://www.cuil.com/">Cuil—the world’s biggest search engine</a>. The Internet has grown. We think it’s time search did too. Cuil, launched on July 28,2008, has taken the search engine to a whole new level. Cuil's unique approach to search combines the largest index of Web pages to ever exist with content-based relevance. The result, highly relevant, spam free (or at least less) search results that surpass Google's wildest dreams. Cuil for Searchers Cuil searches for and ranks pages based mainly on their content and relevance. When Cuil finds a page with your keywords it then analyzes the rest of the page for not only more keywords but its content, its concepts, its coherency and how it all relates to each other. These innovative algorithms provide highly relevant results. Cuil doesn't stop there. Oh no, search results that are immediately more relevant then Google are not good enough. The results themselves are not just a bland list of links with some text that might make sense. Cuil organizes the search results to make it easier to find the information you want. The search results are organized into columns that are read from left to right and top to bottom. The results are sorted by ideas and offer images and full text descriptions. Cuil’s goal is to guide you towards answers to the questions you’re not even sure how to ask. Cuils Features: Navigation Suggestion As you begin your search, a drop down box may appear below the search field with potential search terms and sometimes even a direct website. Drilldown Cuil's drilldown is a panel that appears on the righ-hand side of the search results that provides you with a list of related search terms. Roll-over one of those terms and box will pop-up with the defintion of the term. Tabs Cuil's tabs at the top of the search page also offer ways to clarify your search and narrow your choices. What Cuil means for Webmasters and Spammers: Cuil has developed new architecture and algorithms designed to handle and even organized the mammoth porportions of the internet. For the millions of honest hard working webmasters who toil day in and day out to deliver useful knowledge to the world, your day has come. For spammers, well none of us liked you to begin with and we won't mourn you when your gone. Cuil puts a far larger emphasis on page content and relevance. While they recognize that popularity has its usefullness it is not the sole or even the best means of determining a site's value in relation to a give search term. Establishing relevancy is more than a numbers game. Cuil prefers to find all the pages with your keyword or phrase and then analyze the rest of the content on those pages. As Cuil grows in popularity, SEO will see some dramatic changes. Scouring the internet to find social networks, blogs, directories, forums and other places to put links to yourself will become more a waste of time, as it should be, and quality content will truly become king and take its rightful throne on the top of the search results hill. <a href="http://www.cuil.com/info/webmaster_info/">Webmaster's Submit your site to Cuil here.</a> Cuil is an old Irish word for knowledge. If knowledge is power, then more power to Cuil. <a href="http://www.cuil.com/">Search Cuil here.</a> <a href="http://www.carnanco.com/html/cuil_toolbar.html">Or go here and download a toolbar that lets you Cuil search directly from the browser. </a><div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>THe Powerful Social Networking Meets Blog Networking</h1> 2009-08-05T21:47:00.000-07:00 The concept of social networking has changed the way people interact with one another. The fact that social networking sites are free and can bring a person in contact with millions of people makes not only a tremendous site for making friends it also provides a great business opportunity for many to promote a product or service. Surprisingly, most social networking sites have no problem with someone promoting a business or service provided they do not violate the terms and service of the site. If you put together a nice page on Myspace to promote yourself and your blog then people will probably investigate your blog. But, it is important to have a creative Myspace page with lots of unique graphics that truly promote the vibe of your blog. If your Myspace page is super dull that does not speak well of your blog! So, if you are going to use a social networking site to promote your blog you need to make your page exciting and stimulating interest. There are a number of strategies one could use with a social networking site to promote a blog and here is a relatively simple yet effective method: with Myspace you have the option of adding friends to your network. Simply add as many friends as you can in anyway you can. (There are some folks on the site that have tens of thousands of friends!) With Myspace, you have the option of sending an announcement that appears on the bulletin board of all the people on your friends list. So, when you want to let people know about new updates on your blog you can mention this on your bulletin site and it will be broadcast to all the members on your friend's list. Best of all, this is not considered spamming and there will not be any penalties with such actions as there would be if you used MySpace's email system. Also, Myspace social networking provides users with Myspace blogs which have the benefits of being fed into Myspace blog feed which can result in A LOT of hits. If you were to write blog entries on Myspace either promoting your blog or simply contained links to your "real blog" you would find using MySpace's blog service very valuable for boosting traffic to your blog. Actually, all social networking sites have their value and if they are used intelligently they can provide an excellent method for promoting a blog and greatly increases traffic. So, if you haven't already jumped on the social networking bandwagon then you need to! Do you want to learn "How I Make A Very Handsome Profit Niche Blogging Without Actually Blogging And Without Much Effort?" Download it FREE here:<a href="http://www.craigsandrews.com/bogusblogging101_FREE.html">How I Make A Very Handsome Profit Niche Blogging</a> Do you want to learn how to develop a successful Internet Business with more profits, less work and true freedom? Click Here: Craig S Andrews.com<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Forums For Link Building Process</h1> 2009-08-05T21:41:00.000-07:00 forum posting really a trite time expenditure for bored people? Oh, come on...surely you can see the potential value in forum posting. While there are a number of facets that go into increasing traffic to a blog, links remain one of the most important aspects. This is because every link to your site that exists on the net counts as a vote towards your Google page rank. The more links that you have on the net the higher your ranking will be in the search engines which means more people will discover your blog. The process is easy: simply join the message boards you are interested in (they are almost all free) and add links to your blog in the messages you post on the board. You can place links in the body of your messages or you can leave them in your message "signature" as well. In time, the search engines will deep scan the web and find those forum links. Yes, they add up and yes, they count for search engine optimization! It is always best to stick with the forums/message boards that have high page rank as links on such forums will be indexed by Google rather quickly. (Please note: this does not mean you should discard the value of lower ranked message boards as they have their value as well) Of course, you should also stick with message boards that share similarities to your blog so your link does not stand out awkwardly. Plus, if you stick with forums that you enjoy you will have more enthusiasm for posting messages if it relates to content you enjoy. Creating a link to your blog in a message board post is relatively easy as most blogs provide a link creation function often symbolized in the comment toolbar as the icon of a chain. (Get it? Link and chain?) Basically, you would create a term for the link (say "Comic book blog") and highlight the term. Then, click on the link icon and type in the URL of the box provided. Voila! Now, you have an instant link! If there was one caveat to put forth it would be not to spam any message boards. This will lead to your messages being deleted and your membership to the board being revoked. But, if you contribute to the message board with quality and interesting posts then your presence will be appreciated and your links will probably remain safe! Do you want to learn "<a href="http://www.craigsandrews.com/bogusblogging101_FREE.html">How I Make A Very Handsome Profit Niche Blogging Without Actually Blogging</a> And Without Much Effort?" Download it FREE here:How I Make A Very Handsome Profit Niche Blogging Do you want to learn how to develop a successful Internet Business with more profits, less work and true freedom? Click Here: <a href="http://www.craigsandrews.com/">Craig S Andrews.com</a> Do you want to learn how I make a lot of money with articles every day? <a href="http://www.articleprosoftware.com/">Click Here: Article Pro Software</a> <a href="http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Craig_Andrews">Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Craig_Andrews http://EzineArticles.com/?Forum-Posting-For-Link-Building&id=1006485</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Blogger Buzz: Tweet Your Blog</h1> 2009-08-05T21:40:00.000-07:00 <a href="http://buzz.blogger.com/2009/06/tweet-your-blog.html">Blogger Buzz: Tweet Your Blog</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Shari Thurow The Most Important SEO Strategy</h1> 2009-08-04T06:09:00.000-07:00 Many clients and prospects ask SEO (<a href="http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/SEO.html">define</a>) professionals to prioritize their organic optimization strategies. What's the most important component of an SEO campaign? Is it keyword selection and placement? Link development is certainly essential. But where does it fall in the list of SEO priorities? Every SEO expert will give you a different answer. The Foundation of Successful SEO The foundation of a successful SEO program consists of the following building blocks: * Keyword-rich text. The majority of a site's pages should contain the words and phrases the target audience types into search queries. Pages should appear somewhat focused on these important keyword phrases, and the phrases should be featured prominently on the page. Otherwise, the page won't convert well or receive consistent search engine traffic over time. Keyword research and copywriting for individual HTML tags are a part of this building block. * Information/site architecture and page layout. Search engines and end users must be given easy access to keyword-rich content. How text, graphic images, and multimedia files are arranged on a page tells search engines and site visitors which content the site owner believes is most important. URL structure and technical architecture figure into that as well. * Link development. Commonly referred to as link popularity, this is the number and quality of objective, third-party links pointing to a URL or Web site. Of course, not all links pointing to a site are objective, third-party links, but those types of links aren't always the most credible. For all the new technology that's emerged in the past 10 years, these building blocks still form a solid foundation, even with video, audio, and other multimedia search optimization. What's fascinating, however, is the different SEO opinions on which is the most important block. Keyword-Rich Text Since optimization is centered on query-based searches on the Web search engines, many SEO professionals feel SEO's core is text. It's a logical conclusion, since searchers must type text into a search box to receive document information. Sometimes, a document isn't text-based. Some documents (or files) are graphic images or multimedia files. Therefore, the document surrogate, or a text-based substitute for a non-text file, must contain text search engines can crawl and use to determine relevancy. As much as I understand the use of text-based, keyword-focused documents and document surrogates for information retrieval, however, I don't believe keyword-rich text is the most important component of a successful SEO program. Text without context carries little meaning to searchers. Information Architecture and Interface I consider a site's information architecture and page layout to be the most important component of an SEO program. Since I'm a Web developer with a background in user-centered design (UCD), my opinion shouldn't surprise anyone. In 1995, when I built my first Web site, I felt a Web site's information architecture was the foundation of successful information retrieval. And not just for commercial Web search engines either. Search engines are only one part of information retrieval. A scent of information and sense of place are also key areas of information retrieval. As I've reviewed more Web analytics data, my opinion has only grown stronger. If a house has a strong foundation, it will be around for a long time. Without one, the house will collapse rather quickly. It's the same for a Web site. SEO should be about building that strong foundation, not chasing algorithms and exploiting search engines. Start with a strong foundation. Accoutrements can always be added, refined, and removed. Every time I analyze a site for search usability, I find the most expensive, time-consuming SEO solution involves modifying the site's information architecture. Any beginner SEO can place keyword phrases in HTML title tags and meta tags. But creating site navigation and cross-linking with a labeling system that users understand? Identifying page types and assigning the most appropriate cross-links? Knowing when to use text-based documents -- and when not to? Optimizing for site visitors as well as search engines? These aren't quick, easy tasks to complete. Additionally, a target audience's search behavior often varies by site type (B2B, B2C, publisher, education, etc.), age, gender, education level, and so forth. Nonetheless, once a strong information architecture is in place the site sees vast improvements in qualified search engine traffic and cost savings. It's easy to modify Web copy when the foundation is solid. Link Development Sometimes, a site receives qualified search engine traffic due to link popularity. In fact, if a site type (such as a Flash-based site) is unable to have the aforementioned on-page criteria, link development is often the only organic SEO solution. As a side note, I understand black hat SEO professionals do link development, albeit low-quality, spam link development. They fill a niche. Web site owners don't like to accept the fact that their sites aren't as great as they think, and they fall prey to the black-hat SEO sales pitch: "You don't have to change your site. We can get your site instant link popularity." Web site usability and link development go hand in hand. People tend to link to sites whose content they find useful and informative. In addition, if Web site owners make that content easy to find through a solid information architecture, they pack one of the most powerful one-two punches: unique, useful content that's easy to find.<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Link Baiting, Viral Marketing and Social Media Consulting</h1> 2009-08-04T06:01:00.000-07:00 If you’re interested in link baiting, social media sites like delicious, digg, Netscape, MySpace, you tube or others this is the consulting service you need. For this service I will work with you to develop a strategy that can help get the most value out of these services. Instead of working for a “perfect storm” of traffic from just one effort, I’ll develop a plan for multiple efforts over a period of time, which in my experience is much more effective and has longer lasting results. Keep in mind every link baiting or viral marketing effort is different and will have different results. Some may get you 50 organic links and 50,000 visitors some will get you 10-20 links and bring only 1000 visitors, it varies by industry and what other stories are running at the same time, which is why I favor a multi-effort plan. The price for this service starts at $5,500 and will increase if any additional production costs such as video or new application development is required. SEO Site Review Is your site broken and you don’t know why? Do you think you’re doing everything right but still aren’t getting the rankings you should be getting? The SEO site review will evaluate all of your onsite factors and assess what the search engines think of your site. This will include a full report with specific details on what you need to do to correct any problems you have. Blog Consulting Are you looking to add a blog or get involved in the blogosphere but don’t know where to go or how to get started? The blog consulting package is the right choice for you. We will evaluate the different blogging platforms for you go over the advantages and disadvantages of each and help you choose the right one for your company or organization. Additionally we’ll help you develop an overall blogging strategy, keep you from making common and costly mistakes that could derail your blogging efforts. Reputation Management Are there negative listings for your company, product, or executives? Are you concerned that these negative listing are affecting your customers opinions of you and negatively affecting the profitability of your business? Do you want to take proactive steps to prevent competitors from encroaching on your brand and space, then look at our reputation management consulting. If you have question about which service is right for you or would like more information please use my contact form. Be sure in to include the following information, your name, your site, what type of service you are interested in and what’s the best time or way to get back in touch with you. You can use the button below to schedule a phone consulting session.<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>SEO Consulting</h1> 2009-08-04T05:58:00.000-07:00 If you’re interested in getting an expert search engine optimization consultant to assist you in developing and growing your business, I offer services that can help you. Depending on what level of service you need there are different packages for you to choose from. These services are high level consulting services that will assist you in developing or fine tuning your SEM strategy. If you are interested in having me work with you directly on a specific project please see the performance based marketing section below. All of the plans, except the basic phone consultation will include follow up communications via phone or email. You can use the button at the bottom of the page to schedule a phone consulting session. Qualifications In addition to running my popular SEO blog, I am an editor for the Search Engine Optimization and Marketing News Website <a href="http://www.threadwatch.org/">Threadwatch</a>, as well as an active senior posting member at <a href="http://www.webmasterworld.com/">Webmaster World</a>. I was a contributor the <a href="http://www.seomoz.org/articles/search-ranking-factors.php">SEOMoz Search Engine Ranking factors report</a> along with other industry experts. I have also been a guest on popular SEO podcasts such as SEO Rockstars and Good Karma. Phone Consulting We will discuss any basic or specific elements or area(s) of your site that you would like. I’ll also come up with some suggestions on how you can improve your website and assist you with developing a general strategy to help you bring your site to the next level. This service is available for any site including affiliate sites. I’ll need to see your domain and get a general idea of what you think you need help with before proceeding. This service is billed at the rate of $400 per hour of phone consultation.<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Search Engine Optimization</h1> 2009-08-04T05:23:00.000-07:00 SEO - Search Engine Optimization holds a solid key to the online success of any organization trying to earn money or gain popularity over the web. Search Engine Optimization is a technology which has evolved and introduced solely for the purpose of e-commerce and improving overall website quality. In a true sense, if you want to make successful website in the world wide web or earn rewards regularly from your e-business then SEO is for you. If you understand the role of search engines towards making your website found by people interested in the services and products that you offer through your website then you should count on SEO. SEO when coupled with Web Marketing makes a remarkable way of marketing one's product and services over the web which helps web master and organization to propel themselves to heights that they would have never imagined with such low cost and time. We use all simple, effective, impactful and standard techniques for Optimizing your website for Search Engines and users within the scope of White Hat SEO practices. Top search rankings equals more relevant traffic, clients and business and high quality website which is enhanced, optimized and engineered to make it an all success. Although every web site we build already includes basic on-site search engine optimization, this may not be enough for competitive and hard to rank keyword phrases. Our SEO method is simple. We will take care of everything for a low setup cost and a flat fee every month. We provide the following services for SEO.<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Top 4 Traps by Fake SEO's and Search Marketers</h1> 2009-07-31T23:39:00.001-07:00 Checkout the Fake SEO case studies, its very common to lose money when you dont know where to put your faith and trust in... 1. Guaranteed inclusion in Google The most killer line you can observe in most of the so-called Great SEO's in any part of the world. Some say we will make your site listed in Google's Search engine ( some go beyond and say we will do it for Yahoo! and MSN too.+ 100000000 other search engines) Remember the term inclusion ( means your site is there in the search engine's index) and ranking ( get top positions for targetted keywords) are totally different and used to confuse the potential client. The fact is if you have a site , Google will be crawling it as per DNS (Domain Name Server) Updates. Most of the webmasters or net surfers dont know the fact that Google is also an Authorized Domain Registrar, meaning that it has the power to search and crawl the WHOIS database as per wish. There is a concept of "Sandbox" with search engine (can assure for Google), which may delay the indexing of the site for some time, a new site therefore does not show the instant it is registered. If your site is still not indexed you can submit a Google Sitemap via Google Webmaster tools. 2. Top 10 Ranking in 24 Hours Is it a magic trick? well read the complete story first before following these SEO gurus. They have some "special" terminology for that and also have some "conditions", which you will come to know only after you pay. I have checked with some sites: One says, the top ranking you will get is for the keyword " Pravin Shivarkar is the best SEO in India". When asked about 24 hours ... well they say, they will submit the site and then "influence" the search engines to rank me for the keyword ; well is it a keyword anyway ;) One site goes beyond the logical ( Sorry....) imagination limit to say that, they are not talking about the organic ranking, they mean the top ranking is for the Sponsored results ( generally we get on the right hand bar in google) and they will rank your site ( here the really mean a paid advertisement) 3. Do you want guaranteed search engine ranking on Google, Yahoo , MSN? Who will say no, unless and until he dont know why it is all about ... The advertisement copy DO NOT Say which ranking, what rank to be exact. We might have seen for years that if you link a particular site via n number of backlinks ( one way linking) then it is considered that the site is important by Trust vote, which some Black Hat SEO's do try to experiment or spam. 4. Guaranteed 100000000 visitors !!! If you dont want to know who is coming from which site, or you want to show your client the sudden "Growth" that has incurred because of your "Magical" SEO techniques yesterday , this can be an ideal situation to be in with your money running out of your pocket........... There are many "businessmen" who buy 1000+ domains and put some "engine" to show some data on each of those "websites". So do employ people (Data entry operators) to add ( copy and paste) content on these sites. Now most of them are directories with whatever subject in this world you can imagine of. So if you are selling for a washing soap and are getting visits from college library sites ( well can be good no doubt) are you expecting any sales after that? Its all about asking exact questions in life and while dealing with Online Search Optimizers and Marketers!<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>Google Using OCR To Index Scanned Documents</h1> 2009-07-31T23:36:00.000-07:00 It used to be that, if you hoped Google would index a PDF file, you had to create a PDF that was text-based, not image-based; Googlebot couldn’t recognize the content of scanned or image-based documents. According to an announcement today, that’s no longer the case. <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/picture-of-thousand-words.html">Google</a> says it’s now using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to read any scanned documents that it finds in PDF format: This <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=repairing+aluminum+wiring">Optical Character Recognition (OCR)</a> technology lets us convert a picture (of a thousand words) into a thousand words — words that can be searched and indexed, so that these valuable documents are more easily found. Google’s announcement includes a few examples where you can see the results of OCR scanning in action. On a search for repairing aluminum wiring, the first result is a Consumer Product Safety Commission PDF that was clearly scanned as an image. You can now get the text of that image thanks to Google’s OCR scanning and the “View as HTML” link on the search results page. As with any use of OCR, results are probably not going to be perfect. But the examples Google provides do look quite accurate. Countless new documents are now available to searchers — documents that were never available before. On the other hand, if you’ve been scanning and uploading image-based PDFs knowing that they’d never be found by searchers — and I know people who have — you may want to rethink that strategy.<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>A Job At Google India Can Improve Marriage Prospects</h1> 2009-07-31T23:32:00.000-07:00 <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_719XO5PYKlM/SnPhw_nRM4I/AAAAAAAAADc/hHWOzKOooFA/s1600-h/googlelogo.jpg"></a> Fortune - Those who work at Google India speak of a halo effect. Landing a job at Google India is said to increase marriage prospects in a culture where title and income are critical to the practice of arranged matchmaking. Google says it pays on average about three times the annual salary of a tech services company in India. Depending on experience, that means $13,000 to $30,000 a year, according to industry watchers, who say that Google engineers with five years of experience make $40,000, and those who have developed a patent can make up to $100,000 - plus stock options, taxi service to and from work, and health insurance that includes a worker’s parents.<div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> 2009-07-31T22:47:00.000-07:00 How do I contact the owner of a website? How popular is my site on Digg or Delicious? What other websites are hosted on my web server ? Is my competitor using WordPress or Drupal? xyz.com is loading fast, what is the name of their web hosting company ? Is my blog accessible from China or Japan ? If you got questions like these in your mind, here are some of the most useful online tools to help you know each and every detail of any website on the planet. ping-websites <a href="http://www.just-ping.com/index.php">Just-Ping.com</a> - Just Ping help you know whether your website or blog is accessible from different cities of the world. Unlike other online ping services that run from one location, Just-Ping.com runs the ping command on your website from 26 different locations spread across the globe so you have a better idea about your site availability in different regions. They even have a checkpoint in Shanghai so you can easily find out if some particular website is blocked in China or not. whois-check <a href="http://www.whoistheowner.net/">WhoIsTheOwner.net</a> - If you like to know the contact address, email and phone number of the website owner, this free service will help. The problem with most whois services on the web is that they are tied to particular domain registrars. So if a website is registered with Network Solutions, you cannot find the ownership details of that site by doing a whois query on say Tucows or GoDaddy. WhoIsTheOwner is different because it queries the whois database of all popular domain registrars. Extremely useful when sites steal your content and you want to send a warning email to the owner. reverse-ip <a href="http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/web-sites-on-web-server/">YouGetSignal.com</a> - The web server that is hosting your website may also be housing dozens of other websites. YouGetSignal does a Reverse IP Check and lets you know about other websites that are hosted on the same web server as your site. This is useful information because sometimes one bad site can impact all the neighbours. You may then request your web hosting company to move your site to a different web server. Trivia: These alternate Google domains were determined with the help of YouGetSignal.com. web-hosting-companyWhoIsHostingThis.com - Enter the URL of any website and this online service will show you the name of the company that’s hosting the website. You need contact information of the web hosting provider for writing a DMCA Notice or if you are looking to switch web hosts. social-bookmarks <a href="http://www.socialmeter.com/">SocialMeter.com</a> - This service helps you determine the popularity of a web page on social sites like Digg, delicious, Google Bookmarks, etc. Type the web address of any web page and Social meter will show you the exact number of times that page has been digged, bookmarked or saved on various social websites. Related: How to Completely Test Any Website website-popularity <a href="http://www.popuri.us/">Popuri.us</a> - While Social Meter is for social bookmarking websites, Popuri is for estimating the relative popularity of a website with ranking data / inbound links from sites like Compete, Quantcast Google, Yahoo!, Windows Live, etc. Useful when your are looking to sell or buy websites. web technology <a href="http://builtwith.com/">BuiltWith.com</a> - Is Digg running on Apache or Windows Servers ? What advertising programs is Arrington using to monetize TechCrunch ? Is Google using Urchin for web analytics ? Is CNN using Akamai ? For answers to all these questions, refer to BuiltWith - a website profiling service that tells you about all the technologies used in creating a website. Want more ? Do check these DNS Tools and the <a href="http://www.labnol.org/google-adsense-sandbox/">AdSense Preview Tool.</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> <article> <h1>SEO Links, SEOArticles, interesting SEO info</h1> 2009-07-31T22:28:00.000-07:00 Check Updates: this websites talk about google updates which is very important to know in order to prevent massive drops on google. <a href="http://www.seocompany.ca/pagerank/page-rank-update-list.html">http://www.seocompany.ca/pagerank/page-rank-update-list.html</a> <a href="http://mattcutts.com/blog">http://mattcutts.com/blog</a> Blog de Mercadeo en español http://incdeveloper.blogspot.com/ Blogs and Good Articles sites: <a href="http://seomoz.org">http://seomoz.org</a> <a href="http://seochat.com">http://seochat.com</a> <a href="http://www.webconfs.com">http://www.webconfs.com</a> <a href="http://searchenginewatch.com">http://searchenginewatch.com</a> SEO Forums: <a href="http://www.seochat.com">http://www.seochat.com</a> <a href="http://forums.digitalpoint.com">http://forums.digitalpoint.com</a> <a href="http://forums.searchenginewatch.com">http://forums.searchenginewatch.com</a> <a href="http://webmasterworld.com/">http://webmasterworld.com/</a> Pagerank Checker: the pagerank of a website is a number google give to a website. It variates depending on your website's backlinks, it goes from 1-10... the more backlinks you have the more pagerank you will have - NOTE: Pagerank dont rank or help or do something in favor to the rankings. <a href="http://toolbar.google.com">http://toolbar.google.com</a> (hehe) http://www.iprcom.com/papers/pagerank/ <------------ a explanation of how pagerank work (a little technical) Future Pagerank Checkers: this is a prediction of what pagerank you will got in the future <a href="http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/future-pagerank/">http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/future-pagerank/</a> <a href="http://www.rustybrick.com/pagerank-prediction.php">http://www.rustybrick.com/pagerank-prediction.php</a> Pagerank Fraud Checkers: There are some guys that sale links on their websites, but charge alot of money pero text add depending on the pagerank they have, this tools check the legitimacy of that pagerank. <a href="http://www.webfooted.net/pagerankchecker.php">http://www.webfooted.net/pagerankchecker.php</a> <a href="http://www.seologs.com/pr-check/pagerank.html">http://www.seologs.com/pr-check/pagerank.html</a> Backlinks Checkers: this is the most important factor in terms of rankings, if you got good quality links you will be rank on top of those that dont have the quality you got. <a href="http://www.domain-pop.com/backlink-check.php">http://www.domain-pop.com/backlink-check.php</a> http://www.seo-consulting.de/online-tools/backlink-link-check.php (german) <a href="http://www.topwebsitetips.com/Tools/BackLinkChecker.aspx">http://www.topwebsitetips.com/Tools/BackLinkChecker.aspx</a> <a href="http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/indexed-pages/">http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/indexed-pages/</a> http://domain-pop.com <-- sometimes it can be slow Traffic estimator: Its very important that you choose the correct keyword to rank, beacuse later you can be very angry seeing that other word sometimes easier than the one you got get more traffic. <a href="http://www.seomoz.org/tools.php">http://www.seomoz.org/tools.php</a> <a href="http://www.webfooted.net/keywordstats.php">http://www.webfooted.net/keywordstats.php</a> <a href="http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-difficulty/">http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-difficulty/</a> <a href="http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/">http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/</a> <a href="http://wordtracker.com">http://wordtracker.com</a> Check Rankings Tool: i think its self explanatory <a href="http://www.googlerankings.com/">http://www.googlerankings.com/</a> <a href="http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/multiple-datacenter-keyword-position/">http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/multiple-datacenter-keyword-position/</a> (best one since seomoz get theirs off) Keyword Density Tools: its important that you keyword density is correct or at least ok and not be overcharge, this can help your rankings http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-density/ http://googlerankings.com/ultimate_seo_tool.php Explaning Robots: robots is a search engine delimiter. It tell the search engine what he can be allow to see or not to see. <a href="http://www.webconfs.com/what-is-robots-txt-article-12.php">http://www.webconfs.com/what-is-robots-txt-article-12.php</a> <a href="http://www.mcanerin.com/search-engine/robots-txt.htm">http://www.mcanerin.com/search-engine/robots-txt.htm</a> <--- this creats a robots file. 301 Redirections: this a type of redirection that allows google to follow the redirection, and its the most SEO friendly one. It also help google rank your website as one wesbite, beacuse some times he rank non-www and www, so rankings in sometimes cant be achive. <a href="http://www.gnc-web-creations.com/301-redirect.htm">http://www.gnc-web-creations.com/301-redirect.htm</a> http://www.seotoday.com/browse.php/category/articles/id/477/index.php Google Sandbox: this is a "filter" that google uses in order to detect spam, well at least they try to detect it, it usually, it can last even a year. What it do is avoid a certain website to climb on top 10 as it will normaly do http://www.seomoz.org/articles/google-sandbox-analysis.php (ufff... what a explanation) http://www.webconfs.com/google-sandbox-article-11.php http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/searchinsider/wpn-49-20040506GoogleSandBoxEffectRevealed.html Sandbox Analisys:Self Explanatory ... =) http://www.seomoz.org/articles/google-sandbox-analysis.php http://www.searchenginegenie.com/sandbox-checker.htm Interesting things and things you need to become a SEO guy: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners.php http://forums.seochat.com/seo-chat-faqs-64/seo-faqs-17418.html http://www.seomoz.org/articles/search-ranking-factors.php http://google.com http://starbucks.com <----- lots of coffee needed and some waste time to achive your goals... http://soople.com/ <---- uses google search system, its really cool. Pages with alot of tools: http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/ http://seochat.com http://www.webconfs.com/ http://digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/ Link Directories: http://linkmarket.net http://www.linkexchanged.com/ http://www.all-linksite.com/ Buy links: if you want to buy a space to add a link in a website you can use this link. People usually likes to get high pageranks which i see that is pointless in terms of rankings. http://www.linkadage.com/ http://www.text-link-ads.com/ http://www.textlinkbrokers.com/ Google Search Commands:this are the commands that people can use to search for especific information of a website (very usefull) http://www.google.com/help/operators.html Duplicate Content and Plagiarism Searcher http://www.copyscape.com/ http://www.dustball.com/cs/plagiarism.checker/ Google Trends: allows you to see how often terms are being included in google. http://www.google.com/trends Site Map Generator: A site map helps SE see easily you website's pages as they got a map they can know how many and here some pages are located http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps Data Center Dance Tool: Google work with several data centers (databases), in some cases the info move up and down in some data centers (dance) and this can be use to predict updates. http://www.mcdar.net/dance/ Anchor Text Checker:the anchor text is the text the link got for the url, this is what google based their rankings. http://www.webuildpages.com/neat-o/ <--- cool tool Broken Links Checker: http://www.snapfiles.com/get/xenulink.html <---- its a program but it seem to work very nice and smooth.... Report Spam: <a href="http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html">http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html</a> <a href="http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/ysearch/cgi_reportsearchspam">http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/ysearch/cgi_reportsearchspam</a> Who is :This websites give you information about website´s creating, expiration and address <a href="http://whois.domaintools.com/">http://whois.domaintools.com/</a> <a href="http://whois.net/">http://whois.net/</a> Compare Link Popularity <a href="http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/">http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"></div> </article> </main></body></html>