SEO, PPC, Online Marketing, SEM

Twitter for Business: 10 Things to Consider Before You Get Started

2008-11-24T23:30:00.001-08:00

Thinking about starting up a Twitter account for your business? Or considering allowing employees to use Twitter? Here are 10 tips to consider before getting started.

Decide before you join how you want to use Twitter. Will it be used for Customer Support (like Comcast does via @ComcastCares) or will it be used to offer promotional deals (like Zappos the on-line shoe site via @Zappos) or will it be to socially network to build up business?
If using a business name be sure to use something like "Name_Business Name" (Jane_ABCCompany). That way more than one employee can use Twitter and represent the company. Zappos does a great job with this one.
Be sure to use a photo (and not a logo), fill out the description (tell folks why they should be interested in following) and include a link to the company's website.
Let everyone be authentic. Twitter isn't about just tweeting news about your company or promotional deals. It's about developing relationships. If you or an employee loves music, let that come through too.
Realize that it will take time to develop a following.
Don't follow hundreds or thousands of people just because you can. Try to find those people in your target market or that have common interests. (Following too many people at once can make you look like a potential spammer)
So just how do you find people to follow then? Read Mack Collier's great post on this. He suggests using TweetScan and a few other interesting ways.
Have something relevant to say. For example, if you have your marketer's on Twitter, make sure they understand the industry well enough to have a conversation with people who just might be potential customers (and not fluff, deep industry knowledge).
Don't just take, share valuable information as well.
Have fun! Twitter can be a lot of fun from a business perspective. When people are real, it shows and that leads to a lot of great help and insightful conversations.

These are my 10 tips, what else can you add to help businesses feel more comfortable with using Twitter?

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Statistical Analysis of a Blog’s Traffic

2008-11-24T23:28:00.001-08:00

Today blogger and MBA student Eric Rosenberg fromThe Israel Situation and Narrow Bridge Adventures talks us through some statistical analysis of the traffic to his blog.

As a hobby blogger trying to increase readers to my Israel blog, The Israel Situation, I have always been glued to my site traffic. What does a spike mean? How can I bring more readers? Is there anything I can do to help my blog grow?

I am currently an MBA student, and I took a statistics class this past quarter. For a class project, I tried to use statistics to prove what you can do to help your blog grow. I used a lot of technical tests including regression, chi-squared, and correlations to prove my theories. Darren gave me the opportunity to share my findings with all of you, and I have translated the findings into plain English to help you grow your blog readership.

I first tested to find a relationship between posts per day and site visitors. I started my blogging believing that the key to more visitors was more posts. Not true! A two sample test comparing site visitors to page loads proved that there is no association between the two. If you are working your tail off to post ten times a day, it might be better to focus your efforts on fewer, better quality posts.

Next up I tried to find a way to drive subscriber growth. I tested the relationship between page views and subscriber count. A two sample t-test (statistics talk for two variable relationship test) proved that again, there is no relationship. At this point, it seemed that no numbers could predict a successful blogger, but I continued my testing.

Next, I used a test called chi-squared to find if day of the week had any big impact in visitors. The test is designed to test if proportions are equal across periods. I did find a difference here. I found that there were constantly more visitors on Sunday and fewer on Friday and Saturday. This, I believe, is specific to my target audience. Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, is from Friday night to Saturday night. As a blog that focuses on Israel, many of my visitors are Jewish. This explains the difference. If you have a blog with a niche audience, you might find this variation as well. A business blog, for example, may have a spike in readers on Monday morning at the beginning of the week and less visits on the weekend.

My next test is the one that applies to virtually every blogger. I tested page views against time. I found that time since starting the blog does correlate to an increase in page views. At first I had trouble substantiating this data. I removed outliers, or non-regular data, and was able to then prove my hypothesis. As you can see from my chart, I was able to demonstrate that days since blog inception closely related to an increase in regular visits. My spikes in traffic, caused by Reddit and hosting the Haveil Havalim blog carnival, did not cause an increase in traffic. Just to reiterate, social bookmarking and other spikes in traffic did not cause a statistically significant increase in blog viewers. You can see the five dots that stick out in the chart below. Those are my big days of social bookmarking and blog carnival hosting.

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Spot On! This Week's Best Marketing Advice

2008-11-19T23:34:00.001-08:00

Here are some of the week's best small business marketing blog posts. They are categorized by the four spots of The Marketing Circle of Life. Enjoy and be educated.

Promotion: Blogs versus Websites: What's the Difference? by James Chartrand at Men With Pens. There’s a misconception surrounding blogs and websites. Many people still believe these two types of Internet presence are different. Well, they are different, but only in how you use them and not how you build them.

Branding: Tell Me Why It's Better by Jonathan Salem Baskin at Dim Bulb. Cutting prices is not a good way to attract more customers. Price is the bugaboo of any brand communication, and usually the tool of last resort. Maybe your strategy shouldn't be lower prices whatsoever.

Conversation: Customers Are Your Most Effective Sales Force by John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing. Happy, educated, results oriented customers are the greatest sales force you can employ. Here are four primary steps involved to raise the level of customer participation. What are you doing to involve your customers.

Experience: Proof of Micro-Interactions by Davide Armano on Logic + Emotion. How a $4 cinnamon roll turned a Disney World customer into a customer evangelist. One magic spot added to one customer interaction can go a long way. Do the little things really matter?

Now Build Your Own Marketing Plan
Our nine-part series Build Your Marketing Plan is available for free on The Marketing Spot blog. Each installment includes a slidecast presentation and downloadable worksheets. Spend the weekend building your marketing plan.

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New Tool: Website Optimization ROI Calculator

2008-11-19T23:09:00.001-08:00

How can you estimate the return on investment for optimizing your Web site?

he Website Optimization ROI Calculator, a new interactive tool, was developed by interactive agency ZAAZ. It helps digital marketers estimate return based on anticipated outcomes such as increasing site traffic.

Plug in the numbers, for instance, to evaluate how an investment can change the present and future value of your business.

For more details behind the calculator, read the column by Jason Burby, ZAAZ's chief analytics and optimization officer. Jason and his team at ZAAZ developed this tool.

The ROI calculator joins other invaluable digital advertising resources on ClickZ.

A new addition, the ClickZ Flashback Widget, provides historical perspective on today's news.

And the CPM Calculator, an old standby.

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The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing & Social Media Blogs

2008-11-19T23:07:00.001-08:00

Here's the standings for Week 128:

1 - Duct Tape Marketing - 249,000 (+2,000)(LW - 1)
2 - Church of the Customer - 238,000 (+3,000)(LW - 2)
3 - CopyBlogger - 44,982 (-117)(LW - 3)
4 - Web Strategy by Jeremiah - 16,782 (+214)(LW - 4)
5 - Search Engine Guide - 12,985 (+27)LW - 5)
6 - Chris Brogan - 12,495 (+608)(LW - 6)
7 - Logic + Emotion - 10,808 (-125)(LW - 7)
8 - Influential Marketing - 7,117 (-289)(LW - 8)
9 - Daily Fix - 6,452 (+145)(LW - 9)
10 - Jaffe Juice - 5,003 (+75)(LW - 10)
11 - Drew's Marketing Minute - 3,484 (+47)(LW - 11)
12 - What's Next - 3,350 (+47)(LW - 12)
13 - Converstations - 3,309 (+172)(LW - 14)
14 - The Viral Garden - 3,290 (+82)(LW - 13)
15 - Conversation Agent - 3,132 (+88)(LW - 15)
16 - Techipedia - 2,483 (+76)(LW - 16)
17 - The Social Media Marketing Blog - 2,417 (+119)(LW - 17)
18 - Being Peter Kim - 2,261 (+137)(LW - 18)
19 - Social Media Explorer - 1,900 (+146)(LW - 20)
20 - Emergence Marketing - 1,893 (+35)(LW - 19)
21 - Greg Verdino's Marketing Blog - 1,756 (+35)(LW - 22)
22 - The Social Customer Manifesto - 1,742 (-9)(LW - 21)
23 - Techno Marketer - 1,600 (+64)(LW - 23)
24 - Spare Change - 1,365 (+23)(LW - 25)
25 - Movie Marketing Madness - 1,329 (-24)(LW - 24)

The Top 25 Marketing & Social Media Blogs are ranked according to the number of subscribers, according to FeedBurner. The number you see after the blog name is how many subscribers accessed the blog's feed, according to FeedBurner. FeedBurner (and I had to look it up to make sure) tracks the number of times your blog's feed is accessed, and matches it against the IP address of the computer making the request, to approximate the number of subscribers that access your feed, and report this as the number used in the Top 25. After that number is a positive or negative number, and this represents how many readers the blog gained or lost from last week's Top 25. The final stat tells you what position the blog held in the Top 25 Last Week (LW). If you see this; (LW - UR), it means the blog wasn't ranked last week.

Another solid week for the Top 25, with 20 of the 25 blogs gaining subscribers last week. Not as many blogs were up as last week, but 9 of the 20 up blogs gained over 100 subscribers, with Chris Brogan's 608-subscriber gain being the biggest. Social Media Explorer had another big week and moved up another notch this week.

Servant of Chaos and Customers Rock! just missed the cut this week. Remember if you want to have your blog be considered for inclusion in the Top 25, make sure you add the Feedburner feed count chicklet to your blog.

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Planning an SEO Campaign

2008-11-19T23:05:00.001-08:00

Did You Know: In 2002, Habitat for Humanity set a world record when it built a 3-bedroom, 2-bath home in Alabama in only 3 hours, 26 minutes, 34 seconds? It’s true. (official YouTube video) Guess how long it took to plan such an amazing feat….

3 years, 9 months

Nothing great really happens by chance. As the saying goes, luck happens when preparation meets opportunity. Real success, real accomplishment is always the result of careful planning and preparation — of creating a plan and then executing it. That’s certainly the case with great SEO and online marketing campaigns, and that’s why planning is one of the foundational elements of the SEO Success Pyramid.

How to Plan a Successful SEO Campaign

I love working with clients who bring energy and enthusiasm to an SEO campaign. It’s great to want to jump in and get started on new content development, link building, blogging, and so forth. But first, that energy and enthusiasm has to be channeled into creating a plan that outlines the strategies and tactics that’ll be used.

Step 1: Set Goals

The first step in an SEO plan is to set goals. What problems do you hope the SEO project will solve? You might need more organic traffic, more sales of your red widgets, more sign-ups to your newsletter or community, or more contacts via a lead generation form.

The question I like to ask at this early stage is, How will we measure success? Answer that question and you have your goals.

Step 2: Establish Your SEO Team

This is easy if you’re a one-man-band or a company with only a few employees. But if you’re a small business with multiple departments in your organization, it’s imperative to establish at the start who will be the primary drivers of your SEO campaign. A typical SEO project will touch your Marketing, Product, PR, and IT/Tech departments. And it’ll obviously need sign-off at the executive level.

This is also a good time to discuss other resources that will be needed. For example, do you have an analytics program tracking web site traffic, or do you need to choose one? If you plan to launch a blog, do you have a good writer with a blogger’s personality? Know what you have and what you need in terms of people and resources.

Step 3: Identify Your Audience

Chances are you get a variety of people visiting your web site, but do you know which type of person tends to become a customer most often? You might have a product that appeals mainly to men/husbands, but studies suggest that major purchases are usually decided by women/wives. Know your audience and you’ll be able to tailor your copy for better SEO success.

Step 4: Choose Appropriate Strategies/Tactics

There’s no fixed solution here. Every company is unique, and every SEO campaign has to be unique, too. Knowing your goals, your available resources, and your intended audience will help you choose the right strategies and tactics for your SEO campaign. Be careful not to try too much at the start. I believe it’s better to move slowly and do a few things very well than to spread your company so thin that the campaign as a whole suffers from lack of accomplishment.

Step 5: Measure Your Results

Plan on tracking your results closely, but realize that SEO is not about overnight success. Like many other search marketers, I tell most clients it usually takes 3-6 months to see any tangible results from most SEO tactics. The actual time depends on the competitiveness of your industry and a host of other factors that are out of your control.

Step 6: Adjust and Repeat

SEO is an ongoing process, not a one-time effort that can be turned off like a TV when the show is over. After a few months you should have a good idea of what worked and what didn’t. Plan on using the data you have to eliminate the underperforming strategies and tactics. Go back to Step 1 — do you need to re-examine your goals? Go back to Step 2 — did you put together the right team? Continual evaluation of your success and failures should be part of every SEO plan.

Final Thoughts

This has been an attempt to simplify what can sometimes be a complex process. I’ve purposely left out the discussion on doing SEO yourself vs. hiring an SEO consultant, and I’ve also ignored any mention of budgeting. Both of these are important parts of planning an SEO campaign; this article assumes you’ve made those decisions already.

The main point I hope to make here is that you must devote time to planning. “If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail” is a truism that fits small business SEO campaigns. Be enthusiastic, but first channel that enthusiasm into developing a winning plan for your online marketing efforts.

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A Very Brief History of Micro-Media

2008-11-19T23:01:00.001-08:00

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The Most Useful Posts On This Blog (Probably)

2008-11-12T22:31:00.001-08:00

Beginners Start Here

Number 1 Ranking In Google. Is Your Site Good Enough?

Incompetant SEO Companies

What Is SEO? A Guide For Beginners

Nobody Can Guarantee You Rankings In Google

Ignore Google Webmaster Guidelines!

How To Submit A Site To Search Engines

Get Site Into Google, Yahoo, MSN FREE

Google Trusts Online Business Authority

Be Number 1 in Google When You Launch New Site

Google Pagerank

Small Businesses Internet Marketing Tips

Google Rankings Change Constantly

How To Get Started In Social Media | Shana Albert

Idiot’s Guide To StumbleUpon

SEO on a Dime - 7 Tips for Improving Search Rankings for Under £100

Build A Better Website

Project Checklist For Web Designers

Link Out To Other Websites Properly

An Idiots Guide To Why We Build Accessible Websites

Google Promotes Uncool URLs?

Websites & Clean Search Engine Friendly URLs

Does W3C Valid HTML & CSS Help SEO?

Google Prefers Valid HTML & CSS - NOT!

Your Website Design Should Load in 4 Seconds!

Test Your Website Designs In Different Browsers

Optimize Internal Website Navigation

SEO Mythbuster Test #1 - Valid HTML Test

Accessible Website Design

Google SEO Tips For Those With A Bit More Experience

Webmaster Search Engine Guidelines

What Is The SEO Magic Bullet?

Get Top Ten Rankings In Google With Simple SEO

Don’t Flag Your Site With Bad Onsite SEO - Be Good

Google Penalty For Duplicate Content On-Site?

DIY SEO For Your Website

What Is The Best Title Tag For Google?

How Many Words In A Title Tag?

SEO MythBuster Test #2 - Title Tag Test

Create The Perfect Meta Description For Google (& Searchers)

Use Header Tags For Visitors & SEO

Don’t Optimise Your ALT Tags For Google!

Do I Need To Redirect Non WWW To WWW, Google?

301 Redirects - For Moving URLS

301 Old Pages To Strengthen Existing Pages?

Do I Need A XML Sitemap For My Website?

How Many Words On A Page For SEO & Google?

Is There A Perfect Keyword Density?

SEO Experts Speak Out On Keyword Density

Keywords In Bold Or Italic - Better For SEO?

Google, Word Sense Disambiguation & Relevancy

What Is Nofollow? Should I Use It On Internal Links?

Which Is Best For Google - Directories or Files?

Which Is Best? - Absolute Or Relative URLS

Which Is Better For Google? PHP, HTML or ASP?

Do I Need To Redirect Non WWW To WWW, Google?

301 Redirects - For Moving URLS

301 Old Pages To Strengthen Existing Pages?

Do I Need A XML Sitemap For My Website?

Google Search Engine Optimization Obsession

Should You Bother With The Robots Meta Tag?

Beginners Guide To Robots.txt

Linkbuilding Tips For Everybody

The Perfect Link Strategy In SEO - Mix It Up!

10 Simple Linkbuilding Tips

10 Free Blog Directories Worth Submitting Your Blog

Forum Linkbuilding - Not As Useful As It Used To Be?

Don’t Link To A Bad Neighbourhood

Broken Links Are A Waste Of Link Power

Check For Broken Links On Your Website - Sitewide Test

How Easy Is It To Actually Bait for Links?

Jim Boykin’s Linkbuilding Tips

Keep Anchor Text Links Under 55 Characters In Length?

Does Only The First Link Count In Google?

Link Internal To Relevant Pages, Often, Stupid!

Link Out To Related Sites, Often, Stupid! (3)

Link To Important Pages In Your Site - Often (2)

Linkbait With Lyndon Antcliff (Lyndoman) (6)

Ninja Commenting Via Blogs

Is A Trusted Site Linking To Your Content…Elsewhere?

Visualising Neighbourhood & Website Structures

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34 Techniques To Avoid - Best Practice SEO by Google

2008-11-12T22:29:00.001-08:00

So Google has now released a search engine optimisation starter guide for webmasters, which they use internally:

Although this guide won’t tell you any secrets that’ll automatically rank your site first for queries in Google (sorry!), following the best practices outlined below will make it easier for search engines to both crawl and index your content. Google

Still worth a read even if it is fairly basic, generally accepted (in the industry) best practice search engine optimisation for your site.

Here’s a list of what Google tells you to avoid in the document;

choosing a title that has no relation to the content on the page

using default or vague titles like “Untitled” or “New Page 1″

using a single title tag across all of your site’s pages or a large group of pages

using extremely lengthy titles that are unhelpful to users

stuffing unneeded keywords in your title tags

writing a description meta tag that has no relation to the content on the page

using generic descriptions like “This is a webpage” or “Page about baseball

cards”

filling the description with only keywords

copy and pasting the entire content of the document into the description meta tag

using a single description meta tag across all of your site’s pages or a large

group of pages

using lengthy URLs with unnecessary parameters and session IDs

choosing generic page names like “page1.html”

using excessive keywords like “baseball-cards-baseball-cards-baseball-

cards.htm”

having deep nesting of subdirectories like “…/dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4/dir5/dir6/

page.html”

using directory names that have no relation to the content in them

having pages from subdomains and the root directory (e.g. “domain.com/

page.htm” and “sub.domain.com/page.htm”) access the same content

mixing www. and non-www. versions of URLs in your internal linking structure

using odd capitalization of URLs (many users expect lower-case URLs and

remember them better)

creating complex webs of navigation links, e.g. linking every page on your site

to every other page

going overboard with slicing and dicing your content (it takes twenty clicks to

get to deep content)

having a navigation based entirely on drop-down menus, images, or

animations (many, but not all, search engines can discover such links on a site,

but if a user can reach all pages on a site via normal text links, this will improve

the accessibility of your site; more onhow Google deals with non-text files)

letting your HTML sitemap page become out of date with broken links

creating an HTML sitemap that simply lists pages without organizing them, for

example by subject

allowing your 404 pages to be indexed in search engines (make sure that your

webserver is configured to give a404 HTTP status codewhen non-existent

pages are requested)

providing only a vague message like “Not found”, “404″, or no 404 page at all

using a design for your 404 pages that isn’t consistent with the rest of your site

writing sloppy text with many spelling and grammatical mistakes

embedding text in images for textual content (users may want to copy and

paste the text and search engines can’t read it)

dumping large amounts of text on varying topics onto a page without paragraph, subheading, or layout separation

rehashing (or even copying) existing content that will bring little extra value to

users

Pretty simple stuff but sometimes the simple seo opportunities often get overlooked.

Search engine optimization is often about making small modifications to parts of your website. When viewed individually, these changes might seem like incremental improvements, but when combined with other optimizations, they could have a noticeable impact on your site’s user experience and performance in organic search results.

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60% of Marketing Budgets Remain Unchanged by Economy

2008-11-04T02:53:00.001-08:00

So far, the majority of marketing budgets are not facing changes or cuts due to the economy, according to survey results released by eMetrics.

60% of respondents said their marketing budgets haven't changed.

After that, the news gets a little discouraging.

27.6% said their budgets are being affected negatively, while 6.9% answered very negatively.

Only 3.4% said their budgets were being affected positively and a miniscule 1.7% answered very positively.

Don't stay bummed for too long. The economy seems to finally getting senior management on board with those ever important analytics.

80.4% of marketers say interest in web analytics from senior management in the past 6 months has increased. On that note, it might be a good time to start pitching landing page testing as well.

So what advertising campaigns are specifically being affected? Check out this chart:

Some of the channels are being outsourced:

You can view the full report here (pdf).

Google Analytics Unveils 7 Major Updates

2008-11-04T02:52:00.001-08:00

Just in time for a weakening economy and the holiday retail season, Google will begin rolling out 7 new features to Analytics over the coming weeks.

The new updates are enterprise level features that Google will now be offering for free.

First up is an integration with AdSense. This one will be rolled out over several months, so if you don't see it for a while, you'll know why. You'll be able to view AdSense performance based on page and referring site. Plus, you'll be able to tell where you're traffic is coming from geographically.

The rest of the updates will begin rolling out over the next few weeks. Don't expect to see them all at once. You'll more likely see them added one at a time. Here they are, in no particular order:

Updated user interface. You may have seen this already today on your account. This is a cosmetic update with a cleaner look.
Updated management interface. Soon, you'll be given a summarized glimpse at your stats upon logging into analytics. Also included are added administrative abiliies to rename and delete accounts and profiles.
Custom reporting. You can create reports based on the data that's important to you and organized how you want to see it. Choose which stats you want on the x and y axis and what data you want to drill into.
Advanced segmentation. Check out data on subsets of traffic. You can use this feature to compare traffic from paid search versus organic search, for example. You can integrate this with custom reporting, as well.
Motion Charts This takes your data and visualizes it using colors and bubbles. Sound funky? Check out this video to learn more:

New API - People have done some pretty creative things with Google Analytics from mobile and desktop applications to Grease Monkey scripts. Now, developers have it easier with the new Google Analytics API. Google is hoping that third party developers will dream up applications that aren't currently floating around the offices in Mountain View.

Google has a YouTube channel dedicated to these updates. It's a great way to learn more about how the new features work. Check it out and then let us know your impressions of these coming changes by leaving a comment.

Google to Change Calculations for Quality Score and Ad Rank

2008-11-04T02:51:00.001-08:00

Changes are coming to the way AdWords calculates its Quality Score and Ad Rank. The changes will be implemented in the coming weeks.

First up, ~~Quality Score will no longer take ad position into account~~. The idea is that simply dishing out the dough for a higher position has nothing to do with the quality of the ad.

CORRECTION: Here's what Google really said: "To calculate the most accurate Quality Scores, it's important that the influence of ad position on CTR be taken into account and removed from the Quality Score." Bloggers have been pointing out that Google has been doing this. When I get further clarification from Google, I'll let you know! Stay tuned.

Next, Ad Rank is going to focus on quality for ads that appear on top of the search results. Ads must meet a "quality threshold" in order to appear in that prime real estate. It will be possible for a lower positioned ad to jump above a higher position ad in the sidebar ads to hang out in the box above the organic results if it meets the threshold but the higher positioned ads don't.

Clearly, Google is making quality a key focus in AdWords. This may be an attempt to improve the program in the midst of a slowdown in growth for paid search. Or it could be an attempt to show that Google is more concerned about quality than price - and therefore advertisers need not be worried about a little thing like a search advertising deal with Yahoo.

What do you think about the focus on quality? Let us know in the comments.

Social Media Marketing

2008-10-21T02:42:00.001-07:00

But for all of the space they give to digital marketing, it's clear that they just don't get it. I suppose I can't fault them; they're a publisher that, like every other publisher these days, is concerned about revenue. But as they try to protect their position and demonstrate effectiveness to their supporters, I think AdAge is missing the bigger picture.And just to show that I'm not using my blog to mount a snarky complaint, I'll offer some free constructive criticism in this note to AdAge:Dear Advertising Age,You've been the mainstay of the advertising and marketing industry for a long time - nearly 80 years, in fact. Crain Communications (which interestingly is headquartered near my new home base in Michigan) has a vast empire of publications that are respected across the globe.But you need to loosen the reins on AdAge. Here are three ways you could make it a little more tolerable.RSS feedsYou employ RSS feeds on your web site - bravo! But you know what? I don't find them of much use because the feeds are only partial; if I want to read the full article, I'm forced to click through to your site. Yes, I realize that this is because you want me to pay attention to all of the banner ads and interruptions you place in my way while I'm there.But you know what? As someone who is savvy enough to use RSS feeds, I'm also savvy enough to ignore your annoying advertising - or even better - I employ a Firefox add-on that blocks them. If you just give me the option to consume your content the way I want, I guarantee I'll be a more interested / loyal reader.Online Video

Social Media Marketing

6 Common Website Mistakes That Are Costing You Money

2008-08-26T03:28:00.001-07:00

As I'm reviewing company websites to prepare for our August SEO Training Class, I'm struck by how often I see the same website mistakes.

Since we've been offering the SEO classes over the past 7 months, we've reviewed over 40 websites. In each class of 6 online marketers, there's never a dearth of problems to point out to them. I'm not talking about minor glitches here, but stuff that prevents the website from reaching its full potential with the search engines. In other words, as long as these problems exist, they're not going to be able to gain all the targeted search engine traffic that they could be.

To put it into terms that anyone can relate to--the company is basically losing money every day they don't fix their website.

Here are 6 common website mistakes that could be costing you money:

6 Common Website Mistakes That Are Costing You Money

AdSense For Feeds Is Now Available To All Google Publishers

2008-08-26T03:27:00.001-07:00

AdSense For Feeds Is Now Available To All Google PublishersGoogle Operating System reported they are now seeing the Google AdSense for Feeds option in their AdSense account set up screen. I noted at the Search Engine Roundtable that many folks are buzzing about the new feature at several discussion forums. It appears to me that this beta offering is now open to all, if not most Google AdSense publishers.

AdSense For Feeds Is Now Available To All Google Publishers

Five Sites You Can Use To Grow Your Blog

2008-07-01T02:21:00.001-07:00

Think all you have to do is create great content, and readers will beat
a path to your blogging front door? Think again. One of the best ways
to grow your blog, is by participating on other social sites.

As I've talked about before,
I'm a big proponent of growing your blog, by leaving it. Here's five tactics you can use to boost your blog:

1 - Use LinkedIn's Question and Answers section. If you aren't already a member of LinkedIn, check out Jennifer's excellent recap of why you should be. The Q&A section is a great way for you contribute value to others. Simply pick the subjects that you are knowledgeable about, and that tie into your business, and answer away! As you begin answering questions, others will check out your profile, and also any links your profile has, such as your blog/website. If you are identified by other LinkedIn users as giving good answers, that helps raise your visibility. And of course, you can also learn from the answers and questions that other members submit!

2 - Networking on Twitter. Yes I am a big-time Plurk evangelist, but for most people and businesses, Twitter is still where the action is. Using a search tool such as Summize, you can search for topics that others are talking about that interest you (or, if they are talking ABOUT YOU!). Once again, your goal is to create value for others. As with LinkedIn's Q&A section, look for conversations where you can contribute. If you own a pet-grooming business, find conversations among Twitter users concerning, for example, how to properly groom their pets, and help them with any advice you have. This will likely result in your gaining some friends/followers, as well as new blog readers!

3 - YouTube. This is something else that I've talked about before, but it's never been easier for a small business to create videos and post them on YouTube. Once they are posted, you can add your blog's URL to the page, and YouTube members can leave comments on the videos. Don't overlook responding and engaging viewers via the comments section. They are giving you valuable feedback that you should respect by replying to.

4 - Facebook Groups. Same idea here as with Twitter and LinkedIn's Q&A section, look for ways to create value for others. If your blog is for your home furnishings store, then look for Facebook Groups around similar topics. Once you start finding groups that cover topics related to your business/industry, then you can start interacting with the members there, as well as contributing to the message boards that most groups have. Thanks to Deb for this idea!

5 - Other blogs. This is still my favorite. In my opinion, the best way to grow your blog's readership and awareness, is to participate on other blogs. Read blogs that are in your industry and that cover the same topics your business blog does. Comment as you can, and by spurning on the conversation. This increases the liklihood that other readers and the blogger will click back and check out your blog. Also, as you find interesting posts on other blogs, create a post on YOUR blog linking to these posts. This is a great way to share valuable content with your readers, and again, it gives other bloggers a reason to check out your blog.

But the common thread running through these tips is; find ways to create value for others. It can be by answering a question, by adding a comment, or sharing a link. The beauty of social media is that as you use these social sites and tools to create value for others, the more value comes back to you. The best way to grow your blog, continues to be by leaving it.

How to Set Up a Link Building Campaign for a Web Site or a Blog

2008-06-26T04:01:00.001-07:00

Building up good quality inbound links to your web site or blog is still the best long term strategy to ensure your site will be found by your target audience. Below is a set of instructions to help you set up a link building campaign for your own site, or for a client’s site, using Microsoft Excel. You will need to create 5 or 6 worksheets (tabs) within the spreadsheet, to keep track of the various aspects of the link building campaign. The first five worksheets will need eight columns each (A – H), with the following headings:

Column A – Number

Column B – Search Engine Name

Column C – Search Engine URL

Column D – Link Page (address of the category page you want your site listed on)

Column E – Submission Page (address of the page where you submit your site)

Column F – Date Submitted

Column G – Date Added

Column H – Submission Comments

The sixth worksheet (tab) will contain all the web site or blog information required for submitting your site to search engines or directories.

Submissions Tab:

The first task is to add the details of your web site or blog into the submissions tab. You will use this information for each submission. Submission information includes:

Web site/blog name,

Web site/blog url,

In the case of a blog, it is helpful to list the rss or atom feed address as well as the standard url,

Short description (150 words or less),

Long description (250 words or less),

Anchor text (the short sentence of text you wish to have listed with your link),

Keywords,

Your name and email address (for tracking submissions only).

Please note: When writing your web site or blog descriptions, do not use overly promotional language and do not repeat the name of your web site or blog within the description. Most directories do not accept submissions which breach these two rules.

Tab 1: Major Search Engines

The first tab will contain a list of the major search engines and directories. For a comprehensive list of major search engines to include, visit: http://www.searchenginewiki.com/CategorySearchEnginesMajor Once you have your list imported into the excel spreadsheet:

Check each one on the list to see if your site is already listed.

If your site is displayed in the search results, write ‘already listed’ in the comments field.

Once you have checked through the list, begin submitting - record the date in the ‘date submitted’ column.

Always submit your website/blog to the most appropriate category.

Note in the comments column any directories or search engines that require payment. Depending on your budget, examine the directory to determine if it is worth paying to get your site listed with them or not.

Some sites will require you to sign up as an editor or member in order to be eligible to submit to them. Record all relevant membership data in the comments column.

Tab 2: Minor Search Engines

The second tab is to contain a list of minor search engines and directories. To view a comprehensive list of minor search engines to include, visit: http://www.searchenginewiki.com/CategorySearchEnginesMinor

Submit your site/blog as per the instructions for the major search engine tab.

Tab 3: Niche Search Engines and DirectoriesThe third tab is designed to contain a list of niche search engines or directories which may be relevant for your site/blog. The search engine or directory itself may be targeted towards your niche area or it may contain a category which is directly related to the subject of your site/blog. To view a comprehensive list of Niche search engines to include, visit: http://www.searchenginewiki.com/CategorySearchEnginesNiche

Submit your site/blog as per the instructions for the major search engine tab.

Tab 4: Regional Search Engines and Directories

The fourth tab is to contain a list of search engines or directories from a particular region of the world. You may not wish to have a regional focus in regards to your link building campaign, but if you want to target a particular region, you will need to submit your site to directories and search engines from that region. For a comprehensive list of regional search engines or directories to include, visit: http://www.searchenginewiki.com/CategorySearchEnginesRegional

Submit your site/blog as per the instructions for the major search engine tab.Tab 5: Blog

DirectoriesThis tab is only relevant if you are conducting a link building campaign for a blog. The fifth tab is to contain a list of blog directories. Sometimes the submissions page will ask for the rss address instead or as well as the standard url. (This is the address people use to subscribe to your feed). For a comprehensive list of blog directories to include, visit: http://www.searchenginewiki.com/CategoryBlogDirectories Submit your blog as per the instructions for the major search engine tab.Follow Up:After you have made your submissions, wait about six weeks and check to see if your site/blog is listed yet. If it is listed, write the date in the ‘date added’ column. Keep checking about once a month until all submissions are finalized. Some may take quite a long time to get around to listing your site/blog. If a directory or search engine does not intend to accept your submission you may receive an email indicating the reason. Sometimes however they will not notify you of the outcome either way.

Some search engines and directories require payment for submissions. Sometimes paid listings are worthwhile if the directory is very popular with a high page rank (5 or over) or contains focused relevant categories. Feel free to skip them and stick to free submissions only if you are working with little or no budget.

Happy submitting!View Original Article

Start Small to Make Big Waves in Social Media: Three Steps to Build Relationships

2008-06-26T03:56:00.001-07:00

I attended the NewComm Forum earlier this year in sunny San Francisco and Joe Jaffe founder of Crayon was one of the session speakers. During his speech he mentioned that companies need to make a wholesale commitment to engaging in social media and that testing the waters was not a good idea (I am paraphrasing big time).

Of course, I had to challenge that idea. The Photo to the right, taken by Steve Lubetkin, captures how doubtful I was about this "all or nothing" approach.

In my work with clients, I have consistently seen that the smaller efforts often yield larger returns over time.

I appreciated Jaffe's point that too many initiatives are undertaken for the wrong reasons (read: quick results) and companies that attempt to do this tend to fail miserably. But I still believe that social media initiatives are best approached in a step-wise manner.

Three Steps to Build Relationships

It starts with small steps, because trust, and the holy grail of brand loyalty, is earned. And trust needs to go both ways. Notice, that like the dancers in the photo, most of the steps occur at the sidelines.

1) Join the community. Take the time necessary to get to know the group you are hoping to influence. Read their blogs, watch their videos, leave sincere and useful comments on their content.

2) Treat the community as a trusted advisor. One of the most interesting byproducts of working with an online community of your customers is that you can learn about their pain points. Assemble an advisor group, have informal chats, attend their events and get to know them

3) Look for ways to contribute. Companies have money and resources, and they have time and interests - how to the two collide? A big event might be fun (especially if I am invited), but what does it accomplish. How can a company, and its products, help the community solve a problem? How can you inspire brand loyalty?

It is like a dance, with both parties learning the steps. And social media marketing and public relations activities might be more this way than traditional channels of communication. Like Jaffe said, there has to be a long term commitment, but notice that by joining the community and seeking its input, you may find that you don't want to go on to step three. Or you might pilot something and let the community decide if it should go forward. In other words, you haven't yet invested hundreds of thousands of dollars on something that (while nice) has negligible impact.

What do you think? What are some ways that you think a company could build better relationships with online communities?

Credits: NewComm photo by Steve Lubetkin, Dance Steps by Fuksija

View Original Article

Five Things Companies Should Consider When Outsourcing Social Media Services

2008-06-26T03:54:00.001-07:00

In a nascent industry, it seems that everyone is an expert just because they have a blog or a Twitter account.

But are they really? What if they don't have either?

Tom Formeski from Silicon Valley Watcher makes a point that PR firms who sell social media services should also have a blog of their own. He intends to take "a regular look at PR firms and their blogs or lack of them."

My friend and PR guru Joe Thornley from Fallis Thornley takes it a step further by insisting that PR firms should be constantly experimenting and returning value to the community.

I want to take it a step further again by suggesting a few steps a client can take when evaluating a public relations and marketing firm or consultancy to handle its social media efforts:

Participation. Look for a wide range of social media participation by both principals and employees of an agency/consultant
Case Studies. Ask for case studies about how the agency/consultant helped its clients run a successful social media campaign, look at the results from a business perspective
Failures. Ask the agency to discuss campaigns they worked on that didn't work and why. This is a new area for communicators and some campaigns will work better than others, is the agency or consultant learning from mistakes?
Visibility. Google the names of the principals of the agency/consultancy and the company name to see what comes up. Are they involved in social networks? Does it seem they are well regarded by their peers in comments and blog posts?
Breadth. Does the agency or consultant only offer social media services, or do they also have a background in delivering solid public relations and/or marketing campaigns? This is a young field, what prior experience does the team bring to the table?

As social media continues to get HOT, HOT, and HOTTER clients are starting to clamor for their agencies to help them understand the trends. As a result, agencies are looking to either acquire or learn these skills.

The problem will come when the client starts looking for results and integrated strategy. They want to know, "what is in it for my company?"

I agree with the list of questions that Jeremiah Owyang recently published a post that listed the questions companies are asking as they work toward engaging in social media. Before they choose any meaningful long-term integration of social media strategies they will want to clearly understand the return on investment.

The agencies that can deliver a meaningful answer to these questions will be the long-term winners.

View Original Article

Online Marketing Tips: Social Media Types Video

2008-05-15T00:49:00.001-07:00

Embedded Video

Web Analytics - Conversions, Clicks, Site Analysis

2008-05-15T00:47:00.001-07:00

Embedded Video

Web Metrics - Conversion Tracking

2008-05-15T00:45:00.001-07:00

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The 5 Easiest Ways To Get Search Engines To Trust You

2008-04-30T07:43:00.001-07:00

With the days of meta tag stuffing, hidden text and all the wonders of “SEO” in the 90s and early 2000s well and truly behind us, search engines are investing billions of dollars into top secret algorithms to keep the search results for any given query spam free and relevant. One of those algorithms is Google’s TrustRank, a way of assigning authority to a website or domain. Aaron Wall has a nice brief rundown on TrustRank you can read to get you started. Based on that article and white paper, I am going to outline the five easiest ways you can increase your TrustRank, authority and hopefully general online visibility.

1) Get an SSL cert.

You might not need one but having an SSL cert for ALL forms on your site shows search engines that you are serious about security and reassures your users that the information they are providing is being sent over a secure channel. If you were a web spammer would you care about any security or privacy of your website visitors?

2) Register your domain for ten years.

At a cost of about $10 a year, registering your domain for ten years shows search engines that you are serious about your business and domain. Spammers are renowned for registering cheap .info domains to do whatever nasty business they are planning and then letting them drop when they are caught. If you were spamming would you shell out your money to register your domain for ten years if you knew what you were doing would probably get you banned from the search engines?

3) Get a dedicated IP address.

If you cannot get a dedicated IP, make sure you are not sharing your IP with any “less than desirable” websites. This is a widely debated topic but the general consensus among SEOs is that a static IP address is better. There are a few technical reasons for this and Barry sums it up pretty nicely here. Getting a dedicated IP address can be as simple an affair as calling up your hosting company and asking or at most paying a few extra Euros a month for the privilege and peace of mind.

4) Get listed in the top authority directories.

Quality paid and free directories show search engines you are willing to shell out sometimes big bucks to promote your business and market it online. Adding your site to the Yahoo Directory and Business.com are costly annual fees for the average webmaster but the authority gained by both listings can make a huge difference. Likewise, a DMOZ listing shows search engines that a human manually reviewed your site and deemed it to be worthy of classification among the best in it’s category (It’s debatable how much of a “review” a paid submission to Yahoo or Business.com gets you).

5) Use factual information for your Whois data.

Don’t hide behind domain privacy services if you don’t have a legitimate need to. There is evidence that search engines can see right through this “wall” anyway and it makes your site less trustworthy to normal (albeit tech savvy) visitors/customers. Make sure the whois data matches the contact details on your site and in your privacy policy too. Have a read of the post on Whois Data and SEO by Adam Sharp. Adam goes through a session at PubCon last year about the topic with Matt Cutts and is well worth the read should you disagree on this point.

It should be noted that after implementing all over the above there has been a noticeable increase in search engine rankings, quality score and overall online visibility for not only our own sites but our client sites also.

While there is no real way to test exactly what effect each has on how search engines perceive your site, they are common sense, real world methods to get that extra authority for your domain with very little effort. Many people have reported that using the above methods can dramatically improve SEO efforts and along with a general “site cleanup” get search engine penalties lifted. Try them for yourself, you have absolutely nothing to loose (except for a few extra Euros a year).

What other methods have worked well for you? What other methods are within the dedicated webmaster/business owner control?

View Original Article

Conversion Rate: What's Your Website Tracking As A Conversion?

2008-04-30T07:42:00.001-07:00

When you hear the word "conversion" do you automatically think "shopping cart", "secure server", or "SSL"? It's O.K. if you do, most people think along those lines when they hear talk about converting visitors to buyers. When people first started talking about successful websites and how to measure the success of a website, conversion rates went hand in hand with retail sites.

The world of online marketing and being held accountable for the bottom line has advanced quite rapidly in the past few years. It is no longer the retail site that is concerned about the "conversion". Just about every site on the internet can track some kind of conversion. Now you are probably scratching your head and thinking "what's she talking about"? Well lets take a look at the different types of conversion rates you can track - and help to prove the success or the failure of your online marketing efforts.

Purchase Conversion:
This is the type of conversion that most equate with the term "conversion". This is where a visitor comes to your website or web page and then eventually, either in that visit or a subsequent visit depending on your analytics tracking, purchases a product or service that your website offers. This type of conversion is pretty clean cut as you can clearly tie back advertising spend, resources and product/service costs to the conversion.

Email Sign-Up Conversion:
Signing up for an email newsletter is a conversion? You bet! You have engaged the visitor enough for them to check that box, fill out that form and hit the submit button. Although not quite a clean cut to tie back resources too, some companies assign a specific value to each sign up, in order to be able to track the success or failure of the campaign.

Viewing More Than One Page Conversion:
If your site is a
content site, and you get revenue from impressions, this is type of
conversion is rather important. You've gotten the visitor into your
site, now you need them to come in and visit more articles, blog posts,
or content. Being able to use some sort of Path Analysis would be a
smart way to also check on if there are bottle necks or problem areas
of your site. Is there a certain area the visitors seem to leave at?
Are there areas of your site that aren't visited? Watching the path
and correcting the issues, could help this conversion type increase!

Engagement Conversion (Watching Videos / Playing Games, Etc.) :
Again,
this is likely an important conversion to content sites. You've gotten
the person into your site, now you want to see how many people become
engaged with the video or game on your site that's been offered. Games
that are programmed in Flash are a bit harder to track, since the game
itself is embedded in a .swf file. Videos are a bit easier, as most
players now are offering some type of statistic showing the number of
plays - some even show "partial plays" as well as "completed plays."

Lead Conversions:
They might not have purchased something
today, but they are interested in your products or services and want
more information. This type of conversion is more common with bigger
ticket items, car dealerships, real estate agents, financial loans are
all examples where the "lead" is the conversion for the site. Visitors
come to the website and fill out the form. Online marketers should be
wise enough to assign a monetary value to each "genuine" lead that is
recieved through this method to help show successes and failures.

Offline Literature to Website Visits Conversions:
Do you
have a catalog? How about some printed literature you hand out? Not
sure how successful it is? Want to be able to track this? The next
catalog you drop ship or the next set of literature you have printed
up, print up the url with a special page on it. For example:
www.sitename.com/special-offer - and block this from being indexed by
the search engines, as well as not having it in your on site
navigation. Doing this will help you get a true handle on how well
your offline literature is working for you and converting online

New User Sign-up Conversion:

Like the lead conversion, this type of conversion isn't a purchase, but
it is showing interest by the visitor in your site. They took the time
to actually fill out the form and sign up as a user to your site - this
is a conversion as well. This type of conversion goes for retail
sites, forums, and even social communities that rely on "memberships"
to keep them going should be measuring this type of conversion and
applying some kind of monetary value to it.

Contribution Conversion:

This is particularly useful for a social media site to track. Every
time a member of the community contributes something, this too is a
form of conversion. They are adding user generated content to your
site. From posting photos, videos, comments, answers to questions, to
adding their own blog posts to their profiles, this is all an action
taken by your users. Assigning some type of value to each type of
action would be a smart initiative to measure the popularity or
unpopularity of features of your site if you are promoting them.

Don't be pigenoned holed into thinking that the term "conversion" means
one thing. Conversion can mean something entirely different for every
site your visit. You may have something very unique to show on your
website, figure out how to measure that and attach a value to it! If
you don't, you're missing out on understanding the value of your online
marketing efforts.

View Original Article

META Keywords Don't Matter According to US Court

2008-04-30T07:40:00.003-07:00

At Search Engine Land, Barry writes about how a US court has decided that META keywords don't matter -- they are "immaterial." The tip came from Eric Goldman's blog where he writes about a recent case that held a company...

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Buying 70,000 Links From Same Site Equated to "SEOicide"

2008-04-30T07:40:00.001-07:00

A newish term, named SEOicide, caught my attention via a WebmasterWorld thread. The thread discusses how an SEO has the opportunity to buy 70,000 links from a PR7 site for a great price. He asks if it he should do...

View Original Article

Update: Top SEO Blogs by RSS Subscribers

2008-04-30T07:38:00.001-07:00

Online Marketing Blog manages a list of over 500 search marketing blogs called the BIGLIST, but it’s not ordered other than alphabetically. A year ago I took a sample of SEO and SEM blogs that were publishing Feedburner counts and posted a list ranked by the number of RSS subscribers. Below is a re-ordered list of search marketing blogs by RSS subscribers as of today:

Search Engine Roundtable

Search Engine Journal

Online Marketing Blog

Google Toolbar PageRank Update Creates Major Webmaster Buzz

2008-04-30T07:36:00.001-07:00

Over the past few days, many webmasters and SEOs have been noticing an update to the PageRank score found in the Google Toolbar. Usually PageRank updates aren't that noteworthy, but it seems something is different about this PageRank update

Click to continue reading...

Social Media, Karma And Coffee Breaks In The Business Of Freelance Writing

2008-04-28T02:31:00.001-07:00

You hang a freelance writing shingle, you learn to expand your social media base. These days writing for a living is so much more than it used to be. Or than it ever was for that matter. I’ve survived the profession by keeping an open mind, by being willing (even eager) to learn new skills, and by questioning almost every declaration of alleged fact I encounter.

So when I discovered the community at Blog Catalog, I didn’t get very involved at first. I already had pages at Facebook and MySpace but they occupied maybe 15 minutes of my time each week. At first, I registered my site at BC, popped a widget in my sidebar and pretty much left it at that. But I had friend requests and I made some requests of my own. Every now and then I’d scan the discussion board.

You work as an independent journalist, you rely on information. You juggle a dozen or more editors if you’re lucky. Fact is there were an unusually high number of participants at BC who seemed to know a lot about their interest areas. I’m always in need of experts for articles. One of my favorite clients, The Writer, has led to interviews with Ken Burns, Billy Collins, Christian Wiman and many other great writers. My news clients have led me to celebs like Russell Crowe, up and coming actors and creatives like Stefan Pinto, to governors, senators and even famous psychics.

But one of my favorite projects is the Web column I do for The Writer. Several times I’ve picked BC brains for that column, Web Savvy. For my marketing column at Beneath the Brand and for my own blog, I’ve done the same. The discussion board grew on me. Now I visit on a daily basis, and I’m inspired by what I learn and read. Despite an aversion to general political discussions, I even got involved in a recent discussion on global warming. The fact it remained civil says a lot about the community.

Some of the bloggers I’ve met are friends in the making; others are “friends” in the sense of people with common interests who connect via social media. At times, I’ve tried to give advice when it was sought.

Most of my online interactions are drive-bys. The pro writers’ groups I’m in—the ones where you have to submit thousands of words published in acceptable outlets and prove your skills—focus on the business of writing. But at Blog Catalog, there’s a global convergence where people share information on topics like banner making or moneytizing your blog. There’s added comfort because the blogs are approved by an actual human being. Discussions are monitored and ad hominem attacks are squelched. When I started a new blog recently, I received lots of help from members.

In between columns, interviews and the routine of running a word factory, I duck in and out much like you’d stick your head in the door or chat at the water cooler if you worked in an office. After all, my co-workers are a hound dog, a parakeet and a chicken. Humans need humans at times. Being part of the community has been an asset and an inspiration.

In a profession where one day you might descend into the dark shaft of a gold mine, or watch a Peregrine Falcon lift her wings towards the sky, or hold a snake in your hand and try very hard to remain calm, Blog Catalog is sort of a comfort room in cyberspace for me. You write a piece about the presidential primary for Sky News and a half-track for a wire service agency then hop over to peck out 1,000 words for a daily, you need a little comfort, you know?

You hang out a freelance writing shingle, you learn to expand your social media base. I think Blog Catalog actually taught me the meaning of the term social media, reminding me that these days, writing for a living is so much more complex than it used to be. Or maybe than it ever really was to begin with. (Filed by Kay B. Day)

Kaybday is an Independent journalist and poet, content provider for daily newspapers, wire services, magazines and Web sites as well as a self proclaimed blogging addict. Her blog Covering Florida focuses on everything from culture to politics and all points in between: travel, restaurants, breaking news, and health alerts.

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Online Content Strategies: One Hit Wonders or Writing for Your Audience?

2008-04-27T23:25:00.001-07:00

While I was at Unleashed, I got the opportunity to sit in on Matt Bailey's Analytics presentation. If you haven't gotten the chance to see Matt speak, you should make it a point to do so in the near future. Matt has a passion for relating information to an audience in a very enthusiastic way.

During SES, I let Brian Cosgrove have the honors of blogging about his session at SES NYC. Brian's got a great summation about Matt's session at SES, which people were spilling out into the hallway to hear him speak.

Why I mention Matt's presentation, is because another post on Seth Godin's blog really got me to thinking. Add that together with all the furor over Jason Calacanis' reported comments at SMX Social, (by the way Danny has clarified and I also got some clarification on this direct from Jason and he has promised a video response). It really got me to thinking, seriously thinking.

Do you know, truly know who your audience is?

Are you creating content for your audience, or are you creating content for the search engines, or for the hopes of getting to the top of Digg, or maybe making it big at StumbleUpon? Sure, these sites (search engines included) bring in, as Matt stated in his presentation, "butt loads" of traffic an links, however, is this really who you want coming into your site?

Jason isn't far off the mark, and neither is Seth, and Matt's right on the money. Creating content for your audience is what website owners should be doing. Now, don't get me wrong here, I'm not in the slightest way saying "SEO is bullshit", you still need the SEO to have that content found. However, if all you are doing is constantly creating "Top Ten Lists" or insane videos, and these really don't reflect your brand, product or service - you are just going to get that spike in traffic and nothing more.

One hit wonders in viral marketing and linkbait tend to create nothing in the way of decent targeted audience members. While viral marketing can be great and wonderful for that bounce in traffic and maybe to get a new site discovered, can you sit down and analyze that segmented traffic and see if it was truly successful? Did these visitors just come and view one page (your linkbait or viral piece) and leave? Did they navigate any further in your site? Did they subscribe to your newsletter or blog? Did they read another article on you blog or even leave a comment? Did you even have a goal for that viral strategy to begin with, because honestly "just getting hits" really isn't enough these days.

If you can't see that your content isn't appealing to your true audience, and is only being a one hit wonder to sites like Digg and Stumbleupon, maybe you should be rethinking your online content strategy. Do you even have one to begin with or are you just hoping that with each launch of a viral campaign, this will be the "thing" that launches you into stardom on the internet?

Write content for your audience first, they are the ones that will buy what you are selling - not the "one hit wonders." If you don't believe me, take a look at your analytics and see how high your bounce rate is for that segmented traffic.

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Your Voice Counts! How To Turn Your Answers Into Inbound Links!

2008-04-27T23:23:00.001-07:00

My friend has a young daughter who just learned the most imporant thing in the English language… How to ask a question. In our day to day lives, we simply couldn’t exist without this fundamental tool that allows us to access more information about something that we need or want. That same tool is now becoming more of reality on the internet.

While search engines base their results off of keywords, it is sometime difficult to plug in just the right word to find what you want. You can’t ask a long winded or complicated question; that need has not been filled. Well, there are now niche websites that aim to fill that particular need, by utilizing users to answer the questions. At the recent SMX conference panel on “Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers & Answer Sharing”, Matt McGee of Marchex, stated that over the past year, US traffic to Question and Answer websites is up 118%!

With this in mind, as a website owner, it is more and more simple to harness the power of these types of sites to get inbound links. According to McGee, Yahoo! Answers has a 74% market share, so it should be your first adventure. Setup a Yahoo! profile, and be sure to equip it with all your details, photos and links to your site before you proceed. Simply find a topic you are comfortable with and start answering questions. After a while, you might find a question here or that your site legitimately addresses. For the love of pete, don’t spam your website into every answer, as there is peer review. In fact, that is the best way for you to earn “points” on Yahoo! answers, is to judge which answer was best for a particular subject. The key is to participate and over time slip your relevant links into your answers.

There are other answer sites, but they tend to be more niche specific. For example Trulia, an online real estate search, recently opened their platform up to allow users to post questions, and Realtors to post answers, along with their URL. Excellent exposure plus inbound links!

To sum up the best strategy in two words, be patient. It takes time to develop these profiles, and you don’t want to be kicked out for spamming. Now go forth and answer the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything!

Author Bio:

Jeremy Rivera is the author of his Content Writing Advice blog where he focuses on providing quality tips and guidance for generating unique content that generates search engine traffic and converts visitors to customers.

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Blogged with the Flock Browser

Building Communities in Social Media

2008-04-25T02:42:00.001-07:00

Wendy Piersall started her blog as a hobby, the blog was an extension of her business, a tool to compliment it. Within three months, Wendy’s eMom's at Home blog became its own full time job. She had to rethink her strategy about the business. Within 2 years Wendy had a thriving community on her hands, with thousands of readers and subscribers. How did this happen?

Conversation.

Communities thrive on it, we humans crave it. Unless you are a hermit or a person on a religious quest that requires seclusion and not speaking, we seek out human interaction. We want to hear other people’s thoughts, we long for interaction to know if our own thoughts are in line with common thinking or if we are out of line, or are we rebels (with or without a cause).

Communities are nothing new. Communities bond upon a single or a few commonalities. It was how this nation (the United States) was formed, a common bond of the wish to have freedom of religion. Later on for immigrants coming through Ellis Island, the bond was the dream of a better life. It is no different even with all of our gadgets, speed and technologies, we as humans still need to bond, and it is why we seek out communities online.

Wendy’s community grew and thrived because she fostered a great conversation. She listened and she also conversed with her audience – she never spoke "at" them. She constantly listened and she participated in the conversation, always keeping in mind “what would her audience get” from each conversation she would invoke with her blog posts.

Wendy was also wise enough to realize the conversation wasn’t just going on, on her blog. There were other blogs out there having similar conversations that she felt helped or contributed to the conversation. Wendy wisely not only sought them out and commented about on their blogs she included them in her own conversation as well. By doing this, she was eventually pulling in their audiences to participate in the conversation.

Now a little over 2 years later, realizing that what started out as her “hobby” has grown into this enormous community and her original thoughts for the blog my limit the potential for the conversations growth, Wendy reached out to her community. Wendy asked and the community overwhelming responded and now eMoms at Home is opening to an even wider community by becoming SparkPlugging, focusing on the entrepreneurial community. Wendy's own blog is getting renamed to Sparkplug CEO, as well.

When you recognize that a conversation is happening and you embrace it and foster it, a community can grow around that conversation. Hard sells, preaching a message, and advertorials just don’t work, those methods do not foster and grow communities. You really have to have a love, a passion for your conversation, you have to care about it, if it is going to even have any shot at succeeding in this new online social world.

It’s why companies who really do care about what people think about their brands, or their products or services succeed in overwhelming ways in social media. If you only care about selling a soda (think Sprite Sips on Facebook ), or getting people into your store (think Walmart Flogs) you likely won’t get very far since your conversation is only one way and isn’t really genuine. However, if you are like Wendy, or BlendTec or even Lionel Menchaca from Dell, your community grows at astounding rates.

The key to building communities? Conversation and realizing that as much as they involve speaking to someone, building communities involves a lot more listening and understanding. So, stop and think – are you preaching or are you conversing?

I said yesterday that Mack Collier inspired me to love Blogging again. Wendy also inspired me about communities and she made me excited about the potential of building a great community. To read about Wendy's presentation at SEG's Unleashed Conference for Small Business Marketing, check out David's take on Wendy's session. Hop on over to SEG to get all the coverage of what happened at SEG's Unleashed Conference in Houston.

You can also find Wendy on Twitter, Mack on Twitter and even me on Twitter, too. Why not start a conversation with us? :)

View Original Article

Diagnosing The SEO Health Of Your Website

2008-04-25T02:40:00.001-07:00

Is your website sick?

In many ways, SEO consultants are like doctors, only instead of analyzing your personal health symptoms, we analyze the overall health of your website. It's true we're not working with life or death situations the same way doctors do, but having a website this not receiving all the targeted search engine traffic it could be, is a sign of a sick website.

When working with a new client our first task is to research their website's symptoms of underperformance. Once we diagnose what the problems are, we can provide a "cure" that will make the website perform better. As with human health, there are varying degrees of website unhealthiness; for people it might range from those that just need to get more exercise to those who have an all out deadly disease. For websites, it can vary from those that can't even get their pages indexed by search engines (and thus are not able to receive any organic search visitors), to those who are receiving lots of organic traffic, but could be obtaining more.

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Consistency Is Key in the PPC Conversion Process

2008-04-24T22:44:00.003-07:00

Let me enlighten you about something you might not have considered. Ultimate conversions from pay-per-click (PPC) ads come from a process, not a single event. Oftentimes, online marketers focus on the effects of PPC copywriting and the clickthrough rate it achieves. That clickthrough rate is thought of as the end-all, be-all for the campaign. But the overall goal of PPC copywriting is not to get people to click. Clicking a PPC ad is merely step one. The ultimate goal is to get visitors to take action once they reach your site.

View Original Article

How Too Many Press Releases Can Damage Your Credibility

2008-04-24T22:44:00.001-07:00

As an online PR consultant, there are a few questions I repeatedly get from webmasters and online entrepreneurs. One of those common questions is how many press releases a company should send (weekly, monthly, more?). I always give the same answer: Send a press release whenever you have something newsworthy to say.

Because press releases are increasingly being used for their SEO benefits, many business owners assume that more is better, or that they should be on some kind of set press release distribution schedule. That’s generally not the case.

Sending too many press releases can actually damage your company (or site) reputation and credibility. Here’s why:

You’re very likely targeting a similar, if not the same, audience with each press release you send.

Sending multiple newsworthy press releases over time can help to keep your company’s name fresh in their minds.

Sending too many press releases just for the sake of sending them (as opposed to disseminating real news) will also keep your company’s name fresh in their minds… just probably not the way you’re hoping for.

If you put enough garbage in front of people, you’ll end up with a sort of “boy who cried wolf” syndrome when you have real news. Members of your target audience will now recognize your name, and immediately attach it to images of “fluff” instead of news, and you won’t get the coverage you otherwise might have. You’ll put yourself on the fast track to being ignored.

View Original Article

Sitemaps: How Important Are They?

2008-04-24T22:42:00.001-07:00

When you're done reading the SEO Standards threads, here's a good one on sitemaps.

View Original Article

The Desktop Analytics Package Of Your Dreams

2008-04-24T22:39:00.001-07:00

Do you love Google analytics? Do you love how granular it allows you to get with your data? Do you want more? The guys over at Boulevart have quietly been working on a pretty fantastic desktop version of Google analytics using the Adobe Air framework and the analytics API set. While it is still in Beta, we have been testing for the past few weeks and I have to say, I think it is ready for release. The official site is over on the Analytics Reporting Suite domain, but the real action is on the dev blog here.

The beta version of the Analytics Reporting Suite brings Google analytics to your desktop in a visually striking way along with a slew of additional functionality that’s just not possible with the standard web based version of Analytics. According to the official site:

The Analytics Reporting Suite brings Google Analytics to the desktop.

It’s an Adobe AIR desktop application that delivers the same advantageous as Google’s web version but with a richer experience and extended functionality.

While the developers are still trying to decide on an exact UI design (they are looking for public votes on this) what they have so far is pretty.

The ability to switch easily and compare different accounts.

Fantastic animated and FAST reports.

Some nifty cross segmentation features.

By far the best feature though is the integration with Google maps for use in the geographic location reports. The application is completely free at the moment and will be free for standard users when it comes out of beta. The application requires you to download Adobe Air but it is completely worth the small, 11MB download. More screenshots can be found here.

Watch the brief video on Youtube here to some of the other little features. Try it out for yourself and see how much fun analytics can be. If you don’t think analytics is fun, well… you probably would not have read this far. Let me know your thoughts on this handy new tool.

View Original Article

Make Sure Your Links are Legit (5 Easy Steps)

2008-04-24T06:16:00.003-07:00

The following post is a guest post. SEO Scoop endeavors to showcase and highlight guest bloggers, in the hopes of giving up and coming bloggers and SEOs a chance to shine. Please take some time to appreciate their efforts by visiting their sites, or by networking with them.

SEO Scoop does not necessarily agree with or condone any tactics mentioned by guest posters.

By: Vince Blackham

Assuming that up until this point you have a good knowledge of link building [if you’ve subscribed to this blog, you certainly do/should … thanks, Donna]. Many times we get an opportunity at a link on a site that looks great and we are super-pumped about it because it is in the right spot, on a great looking, relevant website. But don’t get your hopes up yet … there are a few simple steps you can take to make sure that you’re getting all the right juice from the right place.

1. Check the page’s backlinks. One real quick thing you can do to assure the page has juice to pass over in the first place is to see what links it has built up. Yahoo will normally pick up most of the links pointing to a site’s page; go there and do a simple link: and see what work the webmaster has been doing to build up his/her site’s trust.

2. Make sure the site’s outbound links are to relevant sites. “Thanks, Capt. Obvious!” Ok, while it is pretty apparent that you don’t want your link sitting next to a “Cheap Viagra” link, it is still important that the site link out to mostly relevant websites. I was stoked when I had found a highly relevant site for a client of mine whose site was based on finding egg donations for surrogate mothers. As great as the site was and as great as my link would have been, I would be sharing it with other links like “hoodia” and “best diet pill”. The site was “mother” related, but the outbound links (which I guess were “health” related) struck a sour note with me and the engines may feel the same.

3. Check the last time Google cached the page. Do a simple cache: on Google to figure out if the big G has been there recently. If it’s been a couple months, there could be issues with a drop in links, dupe content and possibly even a blacklisting. By doing a cache search, you ensure that Gtown has been there recently and that they will come back soon to see your newfound link.

4. Check the site for co-citation. Along with getting your link from a relevant site, it’s important to know the related sites affiliated with where you’re getting your link from. Consider the following image:

If sites 1, 2, 3 and 4 all link to sites A, B, C and D, they are related. Not necessarily because they are relevant in content and structure, but because the same sites link to them. Go to Google and do a related: (or, after doing a site: to view the indexed pages, click on the link under the description that says “Similar pages”). This will pull up a listing of pages that Google deems relevant based on the link neighborhood it is involved with. If you are looking for a link from a sunglasses-based website and that site has built most of its links from general webrings (partying like it’s 1999), crap directories and other spammy sites, your link may not pack the punch you had hoped for.

5. Trust your gut. All in all, it comes down to what you believe this site’s link will do for yours. If you feel that it won’t bring the right traffic, pass the right juice or provide your site with better rankings, chances are you’re right. Look for well groomed sites with excellent content, great value and on that is well optimized.

Looking for these things can literally take you less than 2 minutes on your part. I’ve found that the Firefox extension SEOpen has been invaluable and makes all these checks and re-checks very simple. Spending just a couple extra minutes on the site you’re analyzing will get you better, more trusted links and you and/or your clients will be much happier, especially when you see the end result of better rankings and great traffic.

Author Bio:

Vince Blackham is the President of Primary Affect, a Utah SEO Firm where he specializes in on page optimization, link building and viral marketing campaigns.

© DazzlinDonna for SEO Scoop, 2008. |
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Terrible Landing Page Rant

2008-04-24T06:16:00.001-07:00

Be forewarned: I may have several rant posts coming at you over the next few days. Here’s the first.

Let’s get one thing very, very clear. A good search ranking is wonderful … but for all that is sacred in the geekdom, please don’t ruin a perfectly good ranking with a terrible landing page!

Being the geek that I am, a large proportion of my daily searches are for software, scripts, or applications of one sort or another. Unfortunately, a large percentage of the landing pages that I am directed to from those top 10 rankings are so bad that they immediately lose me as a customer. Some of those products are commercial and some are open-source. But make no mistake about the free ones - their goal is to convert just as much as the commercial ones. Otherwise, why bother having a product, right?

Sure, everyone talks about conversions and landing pages, and getting that right can sometimes require a freaking Ph.D. in marketing and stats, I know that. But it doesn’t take a genius or a degree of any sort to recognize a TERRIBLE landing page. So why do so many product pages look like the example below - in which there’s not one single hint of what the product does, who it is for, or what features or benefits it has. Why do product home pages (yes, the screenshot below is the freaking HOME PAGE), so often have nothing on them but announcements that should be relegated to a sidebar at best? (I’ve blurred much of the text, because I’m not into embarrassing anyone. But this was such a good example, I just had to share).

And now…the visualization of my rant…

Absolutely nothing on this site’s home page tells me anything I would want to know about the product. Needless to say, I did not waste my time trying to find out if the product was right for me or not. I just returned to the SERPs and chose a different result.

Moral of The Story: If your landing page sucks, your top 10 ranking is a waste of space.

© DazzlinDonna for SEO Scoop, 2008. |
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Optimizing News Content for Search Engines

2008-04-24T06:15:00.001-07:00

The buzz about SEO in the public relations industry has grown tremendously over the past 2-3 years. Press releases in particular, have been the easy target for promotion as candidates for optimization. With the growing use of Google and Yahoo News, optimizing press releases have been an easy way to gain prominent visibility in the short term and in some cases, long term visibility in standard search engines.

As both a SEO and a PR practitioner for companies ranging from startups for Fortune 20 corporations, our Online Marketing Agency is tasked with educating audiences in both industries. For example, at public relations conferences, I’m the SEO guy talking about optimized PR. At search marketing conferences, I’m the PR guy talking about using PR for SEO. Our Account Managers like Jolina Pettice and Mike Yanke do the same thing with clients.

The continuing convergence of public relations and SEO is inevitable. Neither is based on pay to play, ie advertising. Editorial visibility in offline and online publications is “earned” as is the top ranking of a web page on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live.

Public relations practitioners have significantly warmed up to well documented possibilities and opportunities to extend their effectiveness for clients through implementing search engine optimization into their programs. However, the reality is that PR doesn’t have control over all of a company’s digital assets and web properties.

While corporate public relations may not be able to influence their newfound SEO knowledge and enthusiasm across a company’s web content, there are several areas readily available in most cases.

The most common web site content areas under the influence of PR, at least from a content management perspective, include: press releases, online newsrooms, re-published media coverage, videos, podcasts, images, webinars, white papers, newsletters, in some cases a blog and routine announcements and media communications.

The first step is to take inventory of the digital assets you have to work with. For PR organizations, that means developing keyword glossaries relevant to categories of information and then train those individuals in the organization responsible for publishing news content, to reference the keyword glossaries when making decisions about titling documents, keywords within the copy and linking between pages.

The types of news content to optimize varies by site but often includes:

Press releases

Online newsrooms

Corporate blogs

Special reports / white papers

Archived email newsletters

Archived webinars

Archived podcasts / Internet radio shows

Interviews where keywords are included in media relations training

There are entire programs organizations can implement that leverage news content optimization independently, or ideally, in concert with the optimization of an overall company web site.

To learn more about optimizing news content, be sure to check out the PRSA Digital Impact Conference, June 9 & 10 in New York. Keynote speakers include Josh Bernoff of Forrester and David Carr from the New York Times. I will be presenting on a session “SEO for News Content” that goes into the details of how public relations content producers can optimize content specific to news audiences: journalists, bloggers and direct to consumers.

Sponsored By: SMX Social Media Long Beach 4/22-3 Get the lowdown on marketing with social media for your business at SMX Social.

Optimizing News Content for Search Engines was orgionally published at http://www.TopRankBlog.com

Web site Analysis - Analyse a Web site

2008-02-11T00:43:00.000-08:00

I found a online tool for web analytics and like it its called SiteYogi.. a cool name..
It provides the below information

Syndication Validations
Social Bookmarks
Ranking
Backlinks
Indexed pages Diagnosis
Domain
Screenshot
Real time stats check

Its really nice to quickly check all the above paramaters :) so check it out..

BIGLIST of Search Marketing Blogs

2008-02-01T01:41:00.000-08:00

Below is a collection of over 400 blogs maintained by the staff at TopRank Online Marketing. This edited list includes blogs that cover a range of internet marketing topics ranging from SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay per click) to blog marketing, marketing with social media and online public relations.

Firefox Addons for Search Engine Optimization

2008-02-01T01:37:00.000-08:00

SEOpen - 23 different metrics from back links on Yahoo and Google to Archived pages, whois and checking robots.txt.

SEO For Firefox -Aaron Wall’s clever and configurable tool with 13 different signals ranging from domain age and Page Rank to del.icio.us bookmark and .edu inbound links.

yExplore - Thomas’ handy tool offering easy right click access to Yahoo Site Explorer info.

Web Developer - Adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools including the ability to disable JavaScript, images, and CSS to see what a page looks like in a text browser or for robots.

SeoQuake - Interesting tool for analyzing search results and various parameters that may influence SEO. Work can be saved for future reference or comparison to subsequent measurements. Don’t overdo it or you’re in trouble.

KGen -Keyword generator analyzes a page for keyword frequency and placement. Also offers transfer to clipboard for use when tagging bookmarks.

Niche Watch Tool - Checks back links, indexed pages, keyword frequency and several other SEO signals.

MetaTags - Offers a side bar menu showing a web page’s meta data, links, keyword frequency and others.

Search Status - Highlights nofollow links, back links, indexed pages, Alexa and Compete rankings.

Prefbar - Toggle JavaScript, Flash and images as well as spoof user agent.

Google Hacks And Tricks Video

2008-02-01T00:21:00.000-08:00

9 Common Mistakes in Landing Page Campaign Design

2008-02-01T00:19:00.000-08:00

1. Mismatched URL and Site Topic to User Inquiry

2. Below the Fold Call To Action

3. Collecting Unnecessary Data

4. No Testimonial

5. Too Many Calls to Action

6. PPC Not Directed to Landing Page

7. Call to Action Not Distinguished or Obvious

8. Using Flash, Video, or Other 'plug-in required' design elements

9. Being too cheap with your PPC campaign to target top terms

Spock - find friends and colleagues on the Web

2008-01-30T01:27:00.000-08:00

Spock is a search engine that helps you find friends and colleagues on the Web.

When you join, you can build your search network to find where everyone you know is on the internet. Every time you search, Spock will personalize your results to include information about friends and colleagues. You can enhance your search experience even further by establishing a trust relationship with others on Spock. By connecting with trusted contacts you will be able to search within their network to rediscover people you've lost touch with and make new acquaintances through friends.

Spock was started by Jay and Jaideep in 2006. Since receiving funding from Clearstone Venture Partners and Opus Capital Ventures, the Spock Team has grown to include engineers and scientists from top schools such as Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, Caltech, Princeton, and Carnegie Mellon.

Web Analytics Solution Profiler

2008-01-28T03:01:00.000-08:00

I was reading through an web analytics forum and came across this FF add-on...
and found it interesting.. check it out

WASP is the Web Analytics Solution Profiler, a free Firefox extension aimed at web analytics implementation specialists and web analysts who wants to do quality assurance and understand how their web analytics solution is implemented.

Features

* Detects 72 solutions
* Detailed Query String breakdown
* Detailed cookie information
* Dynamically updates as you surf
* Convenient status bar indicator
* Easy to install and use
* Free! Donate to keep it going

Wouldn’t it be nice to view every single mouse gesture of your visitors? Here’s the tool you need.

2008-01-25T02:09:00.000-08:00

Here it is ..

Clicktale has been opened to public and looks very promising to me, as it offers a lot of unusual feature for a web analytics tool

Check the video here...

Supplemental Index Ratio Calculator

2008-01-25T02:03:00.000-08:00

Came accross this tool called Supplemental Index Ratio Calculator nice tool to check how many pages are in google suppliment index..

Now What is the Supplemental Index Ratio?

Google has a secondary index containing pages pages considered of less importance.This pages are considered supplemental results, and returned in SERPs only if there are no pages from the main index matching the given search term(s).
The Supplemental Index Ratio tells you what percentage of pages indexed from your website are supplemental results.The lower your Supplemental Index Ratio is, the better.

How to reduce the ratio is the question

The primary solution is to get more relevant inbound links… but this is the solution of 90% of SEO problems.Some other suggested solutions are

Avoid duplicate content
Write long posts
Avoid linking at bad neighborhood
Avoid excessive reciprocal links

A tool by mapelli.info

Scribd, Publish Yourself Online

2008-01-25T00:48:00.000-08:00

Scribd, a self-publishing network, is a self-professed Silicon Valley startup founded in 2006 by Trip Adler, Jared Friedman and Tikhon Bernstam and as the story goes, “The idea was inspired when Trip and Jared wanted to publish some of their school papers online and couldn't find an easy way to do it. They hit upon the idea of making a website designed for people to share their documents with the world… Part of the idea behind Scribd is that everyone has a lot of documents sitting around on their computers that only they can read. With Scribd we hope to unlock this information by putting it on the web.”

StickK -- Achieve your personal goals.

2008-01-25T00:45:00.000-08:00

StickK - This is a creative and rather unique site that beacons the user to "put a contract out on themselves" - the site is designed to help people achieve their goals: from quitting smoking to exercising regularly - the vision is obviously geared to applying self help for new users. Healthier and happier living are just a contract away and there is fun at the end of the StickK rainbow too. Be careful - failure may cost you.

Nice idea :)

Ushops - online shopping simplified

2008-01-25T00:42:00.000-08:00

Ushops - This is a new online shopping site that claims to simplify buying and selling online for individuals and businesses. The site is very well designed and offers a rather more interesting approach to the buying/selling process. This Hong Kong startup is not eBay yet but the interface and relative simplicity of the process are inviting. With a little effort these guys just may have a shot at becoming - well sort of - a mini eBay. This is a nice site and it looks like fun.

Sometimes we get all immersed in state-of-the-art technology and the big headliners. So often we miss the simple things in life and also some of the best web startups. None of these sites is going to change the world, but a few of them may just change some of your surfing habits. If you get sick of searching for VeohTV movies late one night, just go to MOMB and sign up for some simple surfing fun.

Web 2.0 validator

2008-01-25T00:37:00.000-08:00

Want to check if your site is Web2.0 site
Have some fun, but please validate responsibly

Web 2.0 validator

Enjoy.... validating

If you are web 2.0, or hope to be some day - here are some buttons we made so you can show your enthusiasm for web 2.0.

SEO Tools used by Masters

2008-01-23T21:11:00.000-08:00

So what are the SEO tools used my most of the SEO masters ... ?

A question asked in High Rankings Forum got the below reply...

Keyword Tools
WordTracker
Keyword Discovery
DigitalPoint's Tool

Ranking Tools
Thumbshot Rankings

Analytics
Google Analytics
ClickTracks

Firefox Addons
Web Developer Toolbar

Informational Tools
WebBug
Xenu Link Sleuth
Copyscape
WebPosition
Google Website Optimizer

Go through them and start using them... I have also started using them :)

Mosaic cloaking: a new form of search engine spam?

2008-01-23T21:05:00.000-08:00

Mosaic cloaking

"Webmasters involved in rather shady search engine optimization methods invented a new form of cloaking. That new method has been called mosaic cloaking and it is an attempt to make cloaking less detectable."

Reading this I thought that how will it make less detectable.. so I went ahead with the article

What is cloaking?
Cloaking is a search engine optimization technique in which the content presented to the search engine spider is different from that presented to regular web surfers.

If Google detects that a website uses cloaking, it will remove the website from the index.

What is new in mosaic cloaking?

While traditional cloaking served totally different content to search engines and human web surfers, the new cloaking method replaces only parts of the page.

For example, the blank space on a web page might be filled with keyword rich text when a search engine spider requests a page. The rest of the page remains unchanged.

Read further the full article on free-seo-news.com

AdWords Seminars for New Users

2008-01-18T01:19:00.001-08:00

Overview
* Want to learn how to get more out of your AdWords campaigns?
* Looking for account management tips from industry professionals?
* Ready to boost your ROI and drive more business to your site?

Whether you're a new advertiser interested in learning more about AdWords or a seasoned veteran ready to take your account to the next level, AdWords Seminars for Success can help you meet your goals. Led by independent and unbiased search marketing professionals*, these full-day, in-person seminars will help you learn how to make the most out of the time and money you invest in AdWords. Sign up now and we'll also give you a $50 credit** to spend on AdWords advertising.

What will I get from attending an AdWords Seminar?

The seminars will be offered in two tracks: Beginner & Intermediate, and Intermediate & Advanced. Both are designed to teach you how to manage your AdWords account more effectively by covering topics from best practices on account setup to bidding and campaign management strategies. Seminar leaders will use in-depth course materials, hands-on exercises and valuable tips from their years of managing AdWords accounts to teach you how to achieve your advertising goals.

Find a Seminar in Your City

CSS CHEAT SHEET

2008-01-18T00:24:00.000-08:00

Syntax
selector {property: value;}
External Style Sheet
Internal Style selector {property: value;}
Inline Style

BOX MODEL

height; width; margin-top; margin-right; margin-bottom; margin-left; padding-top; padding-right; padding-bottom; padding-left;

Shorthand*
background
borderborder-bottom
border-left
border-right
border-top
fontlist-style
margin
padding

Comments
/* Comment */

Pseudo Selectors
:hover
:active
:focus
:link
:visited
:first-line
:first-letter

20 Quick Ways to Increase Your Alexa Rank

2008-01-17T22:45:00.000-08:00

This is really a good article from doshdosh

Alexa.com is a subsidiary of Amazon.com and is a website which provides information on traffic levels for websites. The Alexa rank is measured according to the amount of users who’ve visited a website with the Alexa toolbar installed.

In this article, I’ll examine the importance of the Alexa Rank as it relates to site monetization while briefly discussing some of the weaknesses involved in using Alexa ranking as a reliable traffic measure for any website.

Try out these 20 ways and see your alexa rank increasing..

Press Releases for Inbound Marketing Webinar

2008-01-17T22:36:00.000-08:00

Hey Guyes..

I just attended the webinar on Press Releases for Inbound Marketing Webinar. From Hubspot

Just and overview what was there..

What percent of your press releases get real media coverage?

New Rules of Marketing and PR

OLD = Press Releases
– For the media/press
– Media coverage or bust

NEW = News Releases
– For everyone (Your buyers!)
– SEO tool
– Maybe get media coverage

Watch it here

Online Marketing Boot Camp

2008-01-17T01:16:00.000-08:00

What is Online Marketing Bootcamp?

Online Marketing Bootcamp is five action packed days of seminars covering online marketing strategies, web analytics, site optimization, ecommerce optimization, social media and web advertising trends. This innovative seminar and training series brings together industry leading experts to identify proven online marketing methods and explore new online opportunities. Every session is followed by our unique "Ask the Experts" session, where you can engage in face to face discussion with our subject matter experts.

Join industry leaders to learn online marketing tactics plus Google advertising solutions.

Web 2.0 Color palette

2008-01-17T01:12:00.001-08:00

A Blog on Lotus Domino

2008-01-17T01:04:00.000-08:00

Hey ..

Found a blog on Lotos domino... its nice to see such blogs coming up :)

Read the first post by the blogger: An attempt to define Lotus Notes from various dimensions

Look for more later.

Delicious Search Engine

2008-01-16T22:08:00.000-08:00

deliGoo is an extension for Firefox (2.0+) and Internet Explorer (6.0+), which is built into your browser in the form of an additional button on the tools’ panel.

deliGoo searches on the sites, indicated in your del.icio.us bookmarks. With its help you can find the necessary page according to any phrase or word, which it contains.

And one more thing – deliGoo can create on your demand custom search engines on any del.icio.us tag.

Enhance your blog posts with Yahoo! Shortcuts

2008-01-16T22:06:00.000-08:00

The Yahoo! Shortcuts powered Wordpress plugin is an easy way for webmasters to enrich blog posts with great content (maps, finance quotes, news headlines, Flickr photos, and much more.)
ConvenienceAs you type, we automatically find and recommend badges and photos

ControlYou decide where and how todisplay badges and photos.

ExperienceCreate elegant & engagingposts in a snap.

See how it works...

AnalyticsLife - networking community solely for the web analytics

2008-01-16T21:37:00.000-08:00

A professional networking community solely for the web analytics industry.

analyticsLife offers open communication, blogs, chat, groups, events calendars, resources and a job board. Register for your free membership and begin networking, sharing ideas, learning about hot topics from experts and growing the web analytics industry.

For Businesses: analyticsLife is the place to find the most sought after web analytics professionals in the field. Business memberships include company profiles, job postings and advertising opportunities.

Hang out for a while and see what analyticsLife has to offer!

iGrOOp

2008-01-16T21:33:00.000-08:00

iGrOOps is a Social Network. iGrOOp provides tools and applications that allow for 21st century communication among groups of any kind. With software not available in other social networks, iGrOOps has a unique advantage in the social network space.

iGrOOps is Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is all about interactivity and content created by users. iGrOOps applications allow its members to build content by their contributions to the group. The webmaster/administrator still takes the lead, but the members have can have much to do with creating the content.

AJAX Activity Indicators

2008-01-15T22:07:00.000-08:00

A big collection of AJAX Activity Indicators which you can use it for FREE...

Take a look

available with White and black bg

ColorSchemer Studio

2008-01-15T22:05:00.000-08:00

ColorSchemer Studio is a professional color matching application for anyone from hobbyists to advanced professionals.

Work with a dynamic visual color wheel, instantly explore harmony relationships and even let ColorSchemer Studio intelligently suggest color schemes for you!

Its really good tool to use.. buy it at

21+ Fresh Ajax CSS Tables

2008-01-12T09:08:00.000-08:00

Not many web designers have fun when it comes to styling tabular data. take a close look at today’s best functioning and styled tables to showcase over 15 modern css and Ajax tables teaching you some useful techniques for displaying information in a tabular mode using sorting or filtering functions.

So let’s take a look around.

47+ Excellent Ajax CSS Forms

2008-01-12T09:06:00.000-08:00

Forms needs a solid visual structure, a profound hierarchy of form elements (Fields and Labels), powerful techniques and Functionality (AJAX) to make the form look and work creatively. There is a great bunch of creative, outstanding and individually designed from scratch forms.

Thanks to AJAX, we can provide real-time feedback to our users using server-side validation scripts and eliminate the need for redundant validation functions and processing data.

Let’s take a look, hopefully you’ll find new ideas you can develop further on your own.

Visit and learn more here

7 Advanced CSS Menu, A Great Roundup!!

2008-01-12T09:04:00.000-08:00

New techniques are being developed and updated all the time for creating unique menu techniques. We keep an eye on the recent developments and collect new ideas and methods for our readers and after all the great appreciation this post got 13 Awesome Javascript CSS Menus, i thought it would be nice to get you a fresh round-up of 7 Advanced CSS Menus techniques, that might be useful for you in your next design project.

Visit: www.noupe.com

9 Essential Principles for Good Web Design

2008-01-12T08:58:00.000-08:00

Web design can be deceptively difficult. Getting a design that is both usable and pleasing, delivers information and builds brand, is technically sound and visually coherent...

Precedence (Guiding the Eye)
Spacing
Navigation
Design to Build
Typography
Usability
Alignment
Clarity (Sharpness)
Consistency

Source: psdtuts.com

The Web Analytics Association

2008-01-11T04:43:00.000-08:00

The Web Analytics Association (WAA) unites and fosters the interests of industry practitioners, vendors, consultants and educators who use, sell, install, implement, consult, teach or train in the field of web analytics.

Explore the types of WAA memberships available: Professional, Corporate, and Student.

For the WAA to effectively represent you and our industry we invite your participation. The WAA is actively seeking passionate and capable professionals to join the WAA and serve as committee members. Get involved at the ground level and offer your skills to help.

* Help standardize the terms, definitions, and best practices used by our entire industry.
* Influence legislation that affects you and the web analytics industry as a whole.
* Develop and implement training and certification programs thereby strengthening the professionalism of our entire trade.
* Unite web analytic professionals, consultants, and end-users to discuss, combine forces and powerfully promote our common interests worldwide.

Learn to create your own Web2.0 Logo

2008-01-11T04:34:00.000-08:00

This is a simple tutorial on how to create Web2.0 logos. I use Adobe Photoshop CS2 for this tutorial. Enjoy!

From Nicora

Enjoy it!

Future Of Social Media Sites

2008-01-11T04:11:00.000-08:00

The current proliferation of social media sites is the most pervasive phenomenon on the Internet today. Not since the dot.com explosion has the there been an Internet trend that is so widespread in its popularity. The comparison with the dot.com growth is in fact one that is made by many industry observers, and while there are a number of clear similarities, there are also some important differences.

It is expected that by early 2008, all the various social media sites will have more than 230 million members. That number is predicted to grow until 2009, with a leveling off on the number of new members expected by 2012.

Details on SiteproNews.com

Ajax-Based Website Builder

2008-01-10T22:54:00.000-08:00

WebNode delivers an innovative way of creating and editing websites that redefines the industry with website building technology that is easy to use. Users can create active content (articles, polls, FAQ, dynamic lists, e-commerce, site maps and photo galleries) via drag-and-drop from the toolbar, wherever the user wants them to display on the page.

Free & Easy Website Publishing

Webnode brings you a brand new innovative way of creating and editing advanced websites by just using a web browser. The system is very easy to use and is fully interactive. Real-time fast editing as you see it in the browser. By using Drag-and-Drop from the toolbar you can add new content such as polls, forums, articles, catalogues, widgets such as PayPal and much more. Webnode contains more than 40 beautiful templates or you can make your own.
Webnode is completely free. There is no catch

I love this :) mr bean christmas

2008-01-10T22:47:00.000-08:00

Mr bean christmas

MP3 Ringtones and SMS Alerts

2008-01-10T22:42:00.000-08:00

mjelly is a mobile music thing where you can download bare amounts of free mp3 ringtones to your phone.

There’s no subscriptions, no clubs, no junk messages and loads of free mp3 ringtones and sms alerts

Use the TAGS to find different types of music from Old Skool Rave to Drum and Bass to Metal

Web-Based PDF Editor

2008-01-10T22:38:00.000-08:00

PDF Hammer is a website that allows you to edit your PDF files online for free. You don't need to install any additional software, you can edit PDF documents right now inside your browser. Once you start, you will be able to upload one or more PDF files into your project, arrange the pages in any order you wish, and delete any pages you don't want.

For example, you can create a PDF document that has the cover page of one PDF file, followed by all of the pages of another PDF file, and finally followed by the back-cover page of the first file.

PDF Hammer is in beta and currently has the following features:

Reorder pages
Delete pages
Append PDF to another PDF

Features coming soon:

Rotate pages
Apply Watermarks and stamps to pages

Using PDF Hammer is very easy, try it out right now by clicking below!

JumpTags - Beyond Social Bookmarking

2008-01-10T22:31:00.000-08:00

Jumptags.com is a revolutionary Web 2.0 social bookmarking web service for collecting, storing, sharing and distributing web bookmarks, notes, rss feeds, contacts, and much more. Based on AJAX and other next generation web development techniques, Jumptags.com offers the easiest, fastest, most intuitive and productive way of maintaining and collaborating bookmarks and other internet resources online.

Jumptags will increase the average Internet user productivity substantially by saving time in storing and retrieving web resources. Using the latest Web 2.0 techniques, Jumptags will change every Internet user’s habits and make surfing a pleasure.

Become a member and start saving time!

Bizak - The Web Quantified

2008-01-10T22:26:00.000-08:00

Bizak calculates the profitability of internet startups. Entrepreneurs use these calculations to increase profits & lower costs. Investors analyze the statistics to connect with new funding opportunities and professionals network with startups to form business partnerships.

Request a Launch Invitation

Shefinds: Womens Fashion Finds and Latest Trends in Style and Beauty

2008-01-10T05:19:00.000-08:00

You're busy - we know, we know - we hear it all the time. The busy career woman doesn't have time to shop. She doesn't even have time to browse the web much less paw through endless piles of cashmere sweaters at the mall. But she still wants to look good and stay on top of the trends.

Relax. We’re going to tell you what to buy. We study the trends and surf the web for the best items and then send you a link in the SheFinds weekly newsletter. We also find you online coupons if they exist. All you have to do is click. SheFinds doesn’t carry any inventory, so we don't push anything we wouldn't wear.

Check the site at : www.shefinds.com

Web 2.0 Colour Palette

2008-01-10T05:17:00.000-08:00

Web 2.0 is about finding new ways to interact on the internet and collaboration, at least to a certain extent. Those of us in the know realise what Web2.0 is really all about - putting things on super shiney tables and painting them with gradients and candy colours and shiny silver and stuff.

Organised into 3 distinct colour groups - neutrals, muted tones and bold colours, you may recognize a few of the shades from some of your favourite Web2.0 sites. Now you can quickly and easily assemble your own colour scheme - simply choose any number of bold or muted colours, then add as many neutrals as you see fit - you'll have a Web2.0 masterpiece in no time at all!

Visit: http://www.modernlifeisrubbish.co.uk/article/web-2.0-colour-palette

Bebo - social media network

2008-01-10T01:16:00.000-08:00

Bebo is a social media network where friends share their lives and explore great entertainment. Get started by signing up.

Social media network

Best Social networking site

Bebo's cool videos and animations have been designed for Beboers to help you to have the best Bebo experience.

Parents and teachers: Helpful advice and downloadable teaching materials about using the internet safely are available at Bebo Safety.

Social Marketing - There are NO Secrets

2008-01-10T01:09:00.000-08:00

Forget SEO! Watch How You Can Drive More Traffic, Get Better Search Rankings, And Improve Your Conversion In Just Minutes Using A “Back To The Future” System That's So Simple That Your 14-year Old Is Already Doing It (And Doesn't Even Know It!)

Social Marketing - There are NO Secrets by Don Crowther

Social MARKETING is HERE - to STAY. So you MUST take the time to learn how to be an effective Social MARKETER. In this Jaw-Dropping Report, you'll see how to INSTANTLY reach an audience of MILLIONS, and best of all - how to AVOID THE PITFALLS that could derail your entire business if you aren't SMART about it.

So lets start on Social Marketing

Latest hot deals and coupons

2008-01-09T05:10:00.000-08:00

Hey Are you looking for Hot deal and coupons.... look at

Dealplumber - find hot deals & coupons online

dealplumber aims to address this problem by delivering a community-driven deals and coupons engine where you can simple search or browse for deals on product and services you might want, compare the different deals posted by different users and choose the best one. dealplumber, essentially, aims to democratize the deals landscape so everyone can access the best deals and coupons across the Internet. dealplumber is pioneering the next generation evolution in how consumers find deals & save as well as share deals & make money.

So lets start looking for some cheap deals here.. www.dealplumber.com

Mahalo.com: Human-powered Search

2008-01-09T05:04:00.000-08:00

Mahalo.com: Human-powered Search

What is Mahalo?

Mahalo is a human-powered search engine that creates organized, comprehensive, and spam free search results for the most popular search terms. Our search results only include great links.

Why use Mahalo?
1. Save time
2. Discover great new links
3. Spend time enjoying great content instead of looking for it
4. Say goodbye to spam, mediocre content, and deceptive sites
5. We focus on the areas where traditional search engines struggle

Many of the great links we find are very hard to find on Google. People who use Mahalo often find great links that they'd never discovered with Google, despite many searches. Our comprehensive result pages also offer great related links that you may not have thought to look for.

So here is the Human Powered Search visit - www.mahalo.com

Flodeo - Your photo blog to the World

2008-01-09T03:29:00.000-08:00

Photo Blog -- :) Good to blog your photos

Flodeo is a website that lets you easily create your own photolog, your own space to share your life and communicate through photographs. Create your own personalized account. Your friends will be able to visit your blog and post comments on your photos!

Flodeo offers

1. Create your own personalized photo blog
2. Upload up to 6 photos per day and share them with your friends
3. Invite them to visit your blog and to post comments on your photos

Keywords: blog, create blog, create photo blog, free blog, free photo blog, image, images, photo, photo blog, photos