genuine seo tips

Entertainment Weekly and TVGuide Go with the Meebo Bar

2010-07-27T04:24:00.000-07:00

Meebo announced today that it has added EW.com and TVGuide.com to its list of publishers implementing the Meebo Bar. The Meebo bar is designed to let readers easily connect with the people they're friends with on social networks.

"Social connections are an increasingly important traffic source; it’s crucial for websites to take advantage of that," says Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg. "The Meebo Bar makes it easy for publishers to add social functionality to their sites, and provide a persistent, open experience on multiple networks that makes sharing and chat simple, fun and engaging for users."

"The introduction of the Meebo Bar has added value for both our audience and advertisers," says Tom Kirwan, EW's National Director of Digital Sales. "The functionality increases users' engagement and interactivity with our content, while simultaneously allowing advertisers a unique opportunity to be front and center."

In the fall, Meebo plans to introduce new advertising and branding products, including an interactive ad placement with customized skins and sponsored buttons.

Meebo claims to reach a quarter of the U.S. Internet population with 52 million unique monthly visitors and 110 million worldwide. Monthly visitors have increased nearly 300% over the last 10 months, the company says.source: webpronews.com

2010-07-21T03:04:00.000-07:00

Google launched a new version of its image search today (as well as a new ad format) and in the announcement, Google dropped a few interesting stats about its image search growth.

Google Image Search first came out in 2001. Back then, Google says it indexed around 250 million images. By 2005, the company says it indexed over a billion. As of today, it's over 10 billion.

"When you think about 'information,' what probably comes to mind are streams of words and numbers," says Google Images Product Manager Nate Smith. "Google’s pretty good at organizing these types of information, but consider all the things you can’t express with words: what does it look like in the middle of a sandstorm? What are some great examples of Art Nouveau architecture? Should I consider wedding cupcakes instead of a traditional cake?"

"This is why we built Google Images in 2001," adds Smith. "We realized that for many searches, the best answer wasn’t text—it was an image or a set of images. The service has grown quite a bit since then."

Google has released numerous features to Image Search over the years, and is always experimenting with design tweaks. This will likely continue.

The new version of Google's Image Search is in the process of rolling out.

Hulu Plus Makes It To PS3

2010-07-16T01:59:00.000-07:00

Although a fair number of people have hooked computers up to televisions, and a few folks might be willing to stare at their monitors for hours on end, a new development should help Hulu reach a much larger crowd. Hulu's now available through the PS3.

A couple of quick notes regarding the current state of things: only PS3 Plus subscribers are allowed access to Hulu Plus (meaning there are two fees involved), and this is still considered a "limited preview," so even among PS3 Plus subscribers, not everyone will allowed to participate.

Hold your boos, though. Susan Panico, Senior Director of the PlayStation Network, promised on the PlayStation Blog that a more inclusive experience is in the works.

Panico wrote, "As Hulu Plus becomes generally available in the coming months, all PlayStation 3 users in the United States will be able to download and subscribe to the full Hulu Plus service and it will also be available on wide range of Sony Electronics Internet-connected entertainment devices, including select BRAVIA TVs and Blu-ray Disc players."

So lots and lots of people should soon be able to enjoy Hulu Plus on a big screen from the comfort of their couch, which should result in a lot of new interest in the service. After all, however you feel about the commercials, the content selection, and the price of Hulu Plus, at least a folks who have already paid for those entertainment devices will probably opt for a pay service, as well.

Now we just have to wait and see whether their numbers are large enough to make Hulu Plus a genuine success.

RIM Unveils BlackBerry Protect Security App

2010-07-13T08:55:00.000-07:00

Research in Motion (RIM) has unveiled a new security application for BlackBerry called BlackBerry Protect. The product allows users to wirelessly backup, restore, and locate their BlackBerry smartphones.

BlackBerry Protect comes equipped with remote device wipe, remote device lock, a "lost and found" screen, the ability to locate the device on a map, remote activation of the loud ringer.

BlackBerry Protect is currently in beta status, and will be launched in limited beta later this week through the BlackBerry Beta Zone and invite codes.

RIM has more screenshots, as well as a walkthrough of how to use the product here. You can sign up for Beta Zone here.

Bing Captures Bigger Share Of U.S. Search Market

2010-07-09T01:46:00.001-07:00

Bing had the most search growth for the month of June, growing 7 percent month- over-month to capture 9.85 percent of the U.S. search market, according to the latest figures released by Hitwise.

Google accounted for 71.65 percent of the search market, but saw a one percent drop in growth month-over-month. Yahoo's search growth was flat, accounting for 14.37 percent of the market and Ask captured 2.19 percent of the search market, with 2 percent growth month-over-month.

Search engines continue to be the primary way Internet users navigate to key industry categories. Comparing May 2010 with June 2010, automotive, business and finance, entertainment, news and media, shopping and social networking categories showed double-digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines. source: www.webpronews.com/topnews/

Yahoo Loses VP Of Engineering To Skype

2010-07-07T09:38:00.001-07:00

Considering that laws prevent kids from working much, and that many people try to retire by age 65, it's a big deal when a person spends 10 years with a company. Unfortunately for Yahoo, that means it's also a big deal that Madhu Yarlagadda, a vice president of engineering, is leaving for Skype after more than 11 years.

Yarlagadda got his start at Yahoo when the company acquired MyQuest (which he founded) in 1999. Since then, he's worked on different global homepages, Yahoo Communities, Yahoo Messenger, and Yahoo Mobile, among other things. His latest duties covered "Integrated Customer Experiences."

Starting sometime this month, he'll begin to handle "global oversight of Skype's engineering and development initiatives," however.

Yarlagadda explained the move by saying in a statement, "I am excited to be joining Skype at this critical stage in the company's evolution. It will be a real privilege to build on the many core strengths of Skype's global portfolio as the company continues to deliver groundbreaking customer experiences on new platforms and devices." source: www.webpronews.com/topnews/

5 Tips for Marketing Through Content

2010-07-06T07:24:00.000-07:00

Content has always been "where it's at", and that holds true as much as ever these days. Gather CEO Tom Gerace, who is also founder of the Social Media Advertising Consortium (SMAC), a non-profit organization working on the creation of standards for social media engagement campaigns, offered some tips on marketing through content to share with WebProNews readers. These tips are:

1. Start with Search. There are 15.9 billion searches run every month and a small percentage are customers looking for you and your competitors. Figure out your market opportunity by understanding how many searches, keywords and keyword phrases are related to what you do.

2. Think holistically about your budget. What do you spend today per customer? What is your average SEM spend? Content-based programs can help lower cost/customer acquisition because fewer people are doing it and competition, so far, is less intense. Plan to shift some budget dollars from SEM and other acquisition marketing efforts to content marketing - it delivers results with an improved cost structure.

3. Target your content creation. Content needs to be targeted to areas that align directly with your brand; where sufficient demand for your content will make content marketing worthwhile.

4. Make lots and lots and lots of content at a low cost. Search engines weigh recency heavily when organizing content. There is always fresh content at the top of search results pages, so 1,000 posts on a topic will capture more customers than a competitor with 5 – 10 posts.

5. Don't go it alone. Managing dozens of writers, achieving top search engine placement, and establishing content creation costs to make content marketing make sense requires specialized knowledge and training. Find a partner and make them put their money where their mouth is on the numbers they promise.

Those are Gerace's tips, but I'll add that quality makes a difference. Not only does Google continually try to put more emphasis on quality with algorithm updates, but it also goes a long way when you're talking about reputation, and obviously you don't want to do something that will hurt your brand. source: www.webpronews.com/topnews/

Google Founders To Sell 10 Million Shares Over Five Years

2010-01-27T08:55:00.000-08:00

According to an SEC filing late this afternoon, Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin “each intend to sell approximately 5 million shares” — over a period of five years. This is not a reaction to any particular development in the market or perception of the outlook for Google; rather this is part of a plan to diversify their portfolios over time.

According to the filing:

These pre-arranged stock trading plans were adopted in order to allow Larry and Sergey to sell a portion of their Google stock over time as part of their respective long-term strategies for individual asset diversification and liquidity . . . Using these plans, they can gradually diversify their investment portfolios and can spread stock trades out over an extended period of time to reduce market impact . . .

Larry and Sergey currently hold approximately 57.7 million shares of Class B common stock, which represents approximately 18% of Google’s outstanding capital stock and approximately 59% of the voting power of Google’s outstanding capital stock. Under the terms of these Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, and as a part of a five year diversification plan, Larry and Sergey each intend to sell approximately 5 million shares. If Larry and Sergey complete all the planned sales under these Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, they would continue to collectively own approximately 47.7 million shares, which would represent approximately 15% of Google’s outstanding capital stock and approximately 48% of the voting power of Google’s outstanding capital stock (assuming no other sales and conversions of Google capital stock occur).

Google has a dual class stock structure, consisting of Class A and Class B stock. Currently Brin and Page control about 59% of the Class B stock, but a minority of all outstanding shares. Class A shares have one vote each and Class B shares each control 10 votes.

At the end of the five year diversification term specified in the SEC filing, the two co-founders would own 47.7% of Class B shares. And together with CEO Eric Schmidt they would still own more than 50% of the Class B shares.

There have been unsuccessful efforts in the past to equalize the voting power of all shareholders.

One could argue that this dual-class stock structure enables Google to do things like stand up to the Chinese government, against the dominant logic of the market and potential objections of Class A shareholders (especially institutional shareholders). Indeed, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has criticized the move as “irrational.”

If sold today, the 10 million shares would be worth a little over $5.5 billion at Google’s current share price. source: http://searchengineland.com/

Twitter Exec: No IPO in 2010

2010-01-25T09:16:00.000-08:00

In a video interview with Bloomberg, Twitter COO Dick Costolo said his company will not try to make an initial public offering this year, but instead focus on expanding and making more money.

That’s further affirmation of Twitter’s () apparent strategy; co-founder Biz Stone said a month ago that he and his colleagues “are definitely not interested in selling the company.”

Costolo said he expects revenue growth from a new advertising platform that’s coming “very soon,” commercial accounts with analytics features for tracking tweets and traffic, and at least 10 more distribution deals in the future. Twitter has drawn some criticism because the company’s revenues are low for its $1 billion valuation. That is clearly a concern within the company, and something that needs to be addressed before an IPO. “Now we have to go build the business the business that lives up to that valuation,” Costolo said.

Expansion into new areas and features is part of the plan despite slowing growth (or maybe in response to it), but Costolo didn’t go into specifics in the Bloomberg video. He did say that the company will be aggressive in making acquisitions of companies that have something to offer in the areas into which Twitter wants to expand. source: http://mashable.com/2010/01/20/twitter-coo-ipo/

Bing Updates Autosuggest With News & Trending Queries

2010-01-23T21:07:00.000-08:00

Bing’s autosuggest feature now provides more current suggestions as you type a query. Bing says that it’s added “breaking news and hot trending queries” into autosuggest, with updates being pushed out every 15 minutes.

So, for example, start typing “orange county” into Bing and the autosuggest feature will show a couple terms related to today’s extreme weather.

Bing hopes to improve some of the 45% of queries that it says “result in either a user conducting an immediate re-query, or abandoning the page altogether.”

But this is somewhat of a catch-up move, at least where Google is concerned. Do the same search on Google.com, and you’ll also get suggestions related to today’s weather.

Yahoo’s suggestions don’t take today’s news into account, however — even when you fully type “orange county.”

Social Media’s True Impact on Haiti, China, and the World

2010-01-22T08:29:00.000-08:00

The Social Analyst is a weekly column by Mashable Co-Editor Ben Parr, where he digs into social media trends and how they are affecting companies in the space.

We’ve seen some major world events unfold on the social media stage this week, the biggest being Google’s threat to pull out of China and the Haiti earthquake.

Google’s actions have brought attention back to the long-standing Internet censorship that blankets China, while the destruction in Haiti has mobilized hundreds of thousands to open their wallets and their hearts.

Just like the Iran Election crisis, people are again assessing the impact of social media on the world. It’s clear that social media has the power to impact world politics and the lives of billions, but some have overstated what social media can actually do. We need to understand what social media really is in order to utilize it effectively for social good.

Let me explain by highlighting a few examples of social media’s impact on the world stage, and then concluding with how I view social media’s impact in the larger context of mobilization and world discussion.

The Iran Election Crisis

During summer 2009, the world’s eyes were fixated on Iran. Questions were raised after Ahmadinejad was declared the winner over rival Mousavi in Iran’s Presidential elections. The abnormalities and potential tampering of the vote resulted in massive protests that engulfed the Islamic nation.

Social media’s role in the Iran Election Crisis started with #CNNFail, but that was only the beginning of social media’s role. With the Iranian government clamping down on information and enforcing censorship, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube became the primary mediums for bringing information out of the conflicted nation and spreading notes between dissidents.

Take a look at the Iran Election social media timeline we built if you want to see its full impact. Key moments in the crisis, especially death of Neda, were recorded and spread like wildfire, creating an outpouring of support for the protesters. Twitter’s role was so important in fact that the U.S. government got involved in scheduling Twitter’s downtime.

In the end though, social media didn’t topple any governments, although it has helped shift the political climate in Iran. In some cases the use of Twitter in Iran was overstated, yet the result is that the tipping point for Iran is close, thanks to social media.

The Haiti Earthquake

After a magnitude 7.0 earthquake (and multiple aftershocks) devastated the nation of Haiti, social media became the medium in which everybody spread the word. Dramatic Haiti earthquake Twitter pictures swept across the web, while tech giants mobilized.

The most impressive part of social media’s impact on Haiti has to be the charity text message campaign that has already raised more than $10 million for Haiti victim relief. Social media spread the word, technology made it possible.

It’s not all perfect, though: the money raised is small compared to the relief coming from world governments and donations face 90 day delays. Still, social media for social good is becoming more and more effective with each crisis.

The China-Google Standoff

While we are still far from the conclusion of this messy affair, Google’s threat to pull out of China has already had a dramatic effect in both social media and political circles.

Politically, China has been put under pressure. The U.S. government has thrown its support behind Google, though it’s doubtful that the Obama administration will get involved in the end.

More importantly though, social media is being used to lift China’s blanket of censorship. Social tools, while many are blocked by the Chinese, can get through China’s great firewall. We have the tools to undo censorship in China. Google’s efforts have re-ignited the debate over censorship, but they won’t break the barrier.

Breaking Down Social Media’s Global Impact

In all three cases (China, Haiti, and Iran), social media has had an impact, especially as the course of events evolved. Real-time communication platforms like Twitter and Facebook have spread the word about what’s happening within these nations, long before the mainstream media prints the story. These tools have also created a level awareness we’ve never seen before.

We have to be realistic, though: new media isn’t going to stop censorship, overthrow oppressive regimes, or heal the people of Haiti alone. Social media has transformed communication, media, and the transmission of information, but it still takes people on the ground to pull people out of the rubble or to fight for freedom.

Just as Paul Revere embarked on his midnight ride to warn that the British were coming, social media acts as both the first warning and the rallying cry for mobilization. In the end though, social media is just a collection of tools. It’s up to us, the people, to make the real impact on our world.

source: http://mashable.com/

Paid vs. Organic Search: Understanding the Dynamics

2010-01-19T07:41:00.001-08:00

“Why are we buying our brand keyword when we already rank #1 in the organic results?” “Why are we paying for traffic if we’re already getting it for free?” It turns out that the question isn’t whether or not you should be buying your brand keywords. The question is how much should you be willing to pay for that ad, and what should it say.

For search marketers like me (and probably you), the question of how to balance the paid/organic dynamic has been around for years. So why is there such an amazing dearth of good information on this topic? Why isn’t there any kind of industry-accepted framework with which to address the age-old question?

I believe that the reason is that the conversation around the interaction between paid and organic search has historically been sorely lacking any good data. As a result, we get stuck talking about opinions and assumptions, and we typically don’t come to any meaningful conclusions. I am grateful that at this point in my career, I am surrounded by savvy marketers who understand how search results pages (SERPs) work. They understand that the SERP is a complex landscape, that each link has its own clickthrough rate (CTR), and that any link’s CTR is affected by the other links with which it shares the SERP. This is the path to meaningful dialogue on the subject, so I encourage everyone to get intimately familiar with the data around the paid/organic dynamic.

So how do we look at the data in a way that can help us understand this phenomenon? First let’s get a few ground rules straight:

What keywords are we really talking about? Those that match exactly with your brand name or branded product name, where there is generally no competition. So if you are the Acme Widget Company we would be talking about keywords like “acme” and potentially “acme widget.”
What are we actually trying to compare? Ultimately we want to compare two different conditions: a) a SERP where the organic link for brand keyword is ranked #1 with no PPC ad (and no competitors’ ads) present and b) a SERP where the organic link for a brand keyword is ranked #1 with a #1 rank PPC ad (and no competitors’ ads).
What phenomena are we trying to measure? In the above cases there are two things that normally happen. I call them cannibalization and lift. “Lift” is the net amount of traffic that is added to the mix by virtue of the PPC ad. Cannibalization is the portion of PPC ad traffic that comes at the expense of the organic link. If you can quantify cannibalization and lift in any situation, you can then begin to think intelligently about what to do.

One thing we need to also acknowledge is the fact that the many variables affecting paid and organic search traffic—search volume, page layout, keyword bids and rankings—prevent us from doing any rigorous scientific testing around the paid/organic dynamic. It’s simply impossible to isolate all the variables necessary to completely understand what’s going on. However, there are some terrific ways that you can at least gather some meaningful data that can be interpreted and analyzed, and from which we can actually draw very useful and actionable conclusions.

Next, let’s agree on a few basic principles:

Internet (and search) traffic patterns move in weekly cycles.
Search volume is affected by seasonality, media and other factors.
You’ll want to “test” in a period of minimum volatility (avoid holidays and seasonal peaks and dips if possible).

Now, consider the following approaches to gather the data required to quantify cannibalization and lift:

On/off weekly: Pause your paid ads for one week and then resume. This is the simplest approach and takes the least amount of time. If you have more time, try alternating weeks as long as you need.
On/off daily: For a two week period, alternate pausing and activating your paid ads on consecutive days. Why two weeks? This is the minimum duration required to get both “on” and “off” data for each day of the week.

These are just examples. Use your imagination to design something more elegant if you have more time or budget.

Now What?

Now, you need to gather your data and estimate your lift and cannibalization. The incredibly tricky (and potentially inaccurate) part of this is trying to establish a baseline for organic traffic. Naturally, you will want to use the organic traffic during “off” periods as a baseline, but what about the “on” periods? What would the organic traffic have been without the paid ads present? For this you will need a third data point. Either use averages of organic traffic during “off” periods that bookend an “on” period, or if you have access to data like search volume for a given keyword, you can use this trend to estimate what your organic baseline should be.

The key here is to come up with an approximation for cannibalization and lift. It doesn’t have to be perfect, because you’re going to use this data to determine, based on your business goals, what you should be willing to pay for a click on your PPC ad. Here’s an example:

Let’s use a day’s worth of data, and suppose we determine that our organic baseline traffic is 100 clicks. When we add a PPC ad, that ad provides us with 100 clicks, but when we do so, our total organic+paid total is only 180 clicks. That means that of the 100 PPC clicks we bought, 80 were “lift”, and the other 20 were “cannibalization.” Then, all other things being equal, you should discount your maximum allowable CPC on your brand keyword by 20% to account for the cannibalization, and adjust your bids accordingly. Make sense?

Finally let’s look at the extremes. If your PPC traffic is 100% lift, then you can confidently say that buying your brand terms is absolutely justified, and you have the data to prove it. What, then, if all your PPC traffic is cannibalized organic traffic? If that’s the case, then you had better have an incredibly good reason for paying for the PPC ads. One reason might be that you want to put a differentiated message in front of people, a message that’s not reflected in your organic link. Possible reasons for this might be a brand re-launch or a strategic event like an important product launch or corporate milestone.

This may sound complicated, but I can assure you it’s both do-able and worthwhile. I just completed a study for one of our keywords and I can tell you that I am ecstatic about the results. I can’t wait to share them around the company! Good luck!

source: http://searchengineland.com

Google Real Time Search – 6 Minute Reaction Time for Earthquake

2010-01-18T08:56:00.000-08:00

Google is changing, and becoming far more effective than ever before. With personal and universal search we have seen results and information more relevant to our searches. Now with the relatively new real-time search, we are starting to see just how it can have a positive impact on results, and also give us more reason to trust in social media.

This morning 10:09 am a small earthquake measuring 4.1 struck San Francisco. According to Stephen Shankland at cnet, Within 6 minutes Google had reacted and was displaying real time search results in the form of twitter updates relating to the earthquake for searchers in and around the San Francisco area. In Detroit, it took about another 6 minutes for results to appear.

This kind of fast reaction on Googles part not only helps to improve the relevance of the search results, but also is a strong point in favor of pursuing social media as part of your web marketing campaign. If you put up a twitter post about a very current event, there is a chance that you will appear in the top results in a very short period of time.

Being active in Twitter is just one piece of the puzzle, but an active account can help drive traffic to your website and can also indirectly result in overall improved rankings for your site. Something every website owner should consider.

source: http://seomanatee.com/

Sync Your Computer's Firefox with Your Phone's

2009-11-17T03:30:00.001-08:00

Original Article: A couple years ago, Mozilla launched Weave, which is a Mozilla Labs project aimed at letting Firefox users sync their personal preferences with Firefox browsers on other computers or on their phones. Now, Mozilla has announced a new version of Weave Sync in Weave 0.5.

What Can You Do with It? - Get the same results on the Smart Location Bar on each of your Firefox browsers.

- Open any tab that is open in any of your other FF browsers

- Keep the same list of bookmarks throughout multiple FF browsers

- Easily sign in to all of your favorites sites using saved passwords

- It is all secure as Weave Sync encrypts user data before uploading it to Mozilla's servers

The new version includes additional improvements including a major upgrade in performance when uploading and downloading. Sync waits until you're not actively using the browser, and support for bookmark tags and smart folders has been improved.

Support has also been added for changing passwords, and there is better error handling and reporting. Weave Sync now supports Fennec on Windows Mobile and Firefox on x86 OpenSolaris now as well.

More information is available about Weave here, and it can be downloaded here. It requires Firefox 3.5 or higher.

Microsoft Granted Motion to stay Word Injunction

2009-09-08T10:05:00.001-07:00

XML-Related Patent Issues Cause Trouble for MS, Company Will Appeal

Update: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has reportedly granted Microsoft's motion to stay an injunction that would prohibit the software giant from selling Word. The injunction had an effective date of Oct. 10, but the motion to stay blocks the injunction until the appeal process is complete, according to The Microsoft Blog.

Original Article: A Texas judge has reportedly ruled that Microsoft cannot sell any version of Word in the US that can open .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML. Seattlepi's Microsoft Blog points to an announcement by the plaintiff, i4i.

In May, i4i in Toronto got $200 million from Microsoft, when a federal jury found that Microsoft infringed on the company's patent. That patent is 11 years old. The abstract reads:

A system and method for the separate manipulation of the architecture and content of a document, particularly for data representation and transformations. The system, for use by computer software developers, removes dependency on document encoding technology. A map of metacodes found in the document is produced and provided and stored separately from the document. The map indicates the location and addresses of metacodes in the document. The system allows of multiple views of the same content, the ability to work solely on structure and solely on content, storage efficiency of multiple versions and efficiency of operation.

The entire thing can be read here.

"We are disappointed by the court's ruling," a Microsoft spokesman is quoted as saying in a statement. "We believe the evidence clearly demonstrated that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid. We will appeal the verdict."

Four New Gmail Themes Released

2009-09-08T10:04:00.001-07:00

Gmail users who require that everything be just so may be in luck; a few new personalization opportunities have been made available in the form of four new themes. And in fact, one of the four themes caters to indecisive types, so members of the Gmail team really covered their bases.

All right, we admit it - these Gmail themes aren't going to generate Google's next billion dollars. In all likelihood, they won't even convince more than one or two souls (if that) to switch from Hotmail or Yahoo Mail.

Still, these are the first new themes in about ten months, so on we go.

Pictured on the left below is a screenshot of what Googlers Jake Knapp and Manu Cornet identified on the Official Gmail Blog as the "Orcas Island" theme. Knapp promised "a new image each day of the week."

On the right, you can see what Cornet called "High Score." It should seem familiar to anyone who spent more than a few minutes playing the original Nintendo.

The third theme is called "Turf." It shows some green grass and not much more. Finally, Cornet wrote that the "Random" theme "merely cycles through all the others."

Knapp and Cornet welcomed feedback if you're inclined to give it, and they also indicated that still more themes might wander down the pipeline at some point.

Bit.ly Shortens URL Shorteners

2009-09-08T10:03:00.001-07:00

On Twitter, Every Character Counts

URL-shortening service bit.ly, the favorite of Twitter, has introduced a new URL-shortening service, or an extension of the original one rather. The new one is j.mp, which as you can see by looking at it resides at a domain with very few characters.

That is exactly the reason bit.ly has introduced it. The company says that for some people, "every character counts," and that is certainly true in the Twitter age, where a maximum of 140 characters is allowed per tweet.

"j.mp has the same short URLs, metrics, history, user accounts (you’ll have to login again, but your bit.ly accounts will carry over), and customization you’ve come to enjoy on bit.ly, all on a short, memorable domain," says bit.ly on its blog.

So by simply using j.mp instead of bit.ly, you will be saving two characters automatically. This doesn't seem like a major difference, but it could be the difference between including one more word or not.

To some people - particularly marketers, tweets could almost be thought of like an email subject line. Having the right words can be key in getting someone to click a link (the tweeting equivalent to an email open).

Then there is the subject of being found in real-time searches. Keywords play a very important role in what tweets appear in these results. When there is a 140-character max, every character certainly can count. Either way, using a service like j.mp could save you from having to abbreviate certain words, which can frankly, sometimes make your message sound dumber.

We've certainly seen a lot of URL-shortening services appear over the last year or so, and I suspect we'll see quite a few more. I have a feeling that we might see more going for this as-short-as-possible approach with them in the future. J.mp has a pretty good advantage being an extension of bit.ly though.
source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/09/04/bitly-shortens-url-shorteners

Ballmer confirms Windows 7 Starter restrictions for netbooks

2009-08-26T09:55:00.001-07:00

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently confirmed that the company will limit Windows 7 Starter, the edition expected to end up on netbooks, to systems that sport small screens and low-powered processors.

During Microsoft's annual financial analyst day July 30, Ballmer got more specific than other executives in describing the limitations computer makers must abide by if they're to install Starter on their machines. Starter is the least feature-rich edition of the operating system available worldwide, and will not be sold direct to consumers or businesses. It will be available only to OEMs, or "original equipment manufacturers," such as Acer, ASUS, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba.

"Our license tells you what a netbook is," said Ballmer at the Microsoft-hosted day with Wall Street analysts. "Our license says it's got to have a super-small screen, which means it probably has a super-small keyboard, and it has to have a certain processor and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

Although other Microsoft executives earlier this year said that the company would place restrictions on the kinds of processors and screen resolutions supported by Starter, Ballmer is the highest computer official yet to spell out Starter's limitations, if only in the broadest terms.

Last May, the Malaysian Web site TechARP.com, which regularly leaks information provided to computer makers by Microsoft, reported that the company would restrict Starter to specific netbook configurations. According to TechARP, Microsoft will only sell Starter to OEMs for use on netbooks that have a 10.2-in. or smaller screen, no more than 1GB of memory, a hard disk drive of 250GB or less (or a solid-state drive no larger than 64GB) and a single-core processor no faster than 2GHz.

Ballmer was frank with analysts about Microsoft's rationale for setting Starter's limitations. "We want people to be able to get the advantages of lightweight performance and be able to spend more money with us, with Intel, with HP, with Dell and with many, many others," he said.

"With today's netbooks, we sell you XP at a price," Ballmer continued. "When we launch Windows 7, an OEM can put XP on the machine at one price, Windows 7 Starter Edition at a higher price, Windows 7 Home Edition at a higher price, and Windows 7 Professional at a higher price."

Microsoft has not disclosed pricing for Starter, since the edition will be sold only in volume to OEMs, and will not be available to end users at retail. However, Ballmer made it plain that Microsoft hopes to coax users into purchasing PCs with higher-priced versions of Windows 7. "It's not just what are our prices -- that's partly in here -- but it's also a function of how well do we do getting, in any segment, people to buy the more expensive offering," he told analysts.

"They're trying to force people into higher-end SKUs," said Allan Krans, an analyst with Technology Business Research. "Selling XP at a low price to OEMs hurt them financially, and they're trying to figure out a way to stem that."

Last month, Microsoft said revenues for the Windows client division were down 29% year over year for the company's fiscal fourth quarter, which ended June 30. Microsoft blamed the fall-off on the increased sales of netbooks and a global slow-down of PC purchases.

Ballmer acknowledged that Microsoft made a mistake pricing licenses of Windows XP Home that it's been selling only to netbook makers since April 2008. "[Windows revenues are] down primarily because we did a program this year to cut prices in emerging markets with a theory that the lower price would lead to higher attach and higher total revenue," Ballmer said.

"The theory was wrong. It's not that it was untested, but it turns out the theory was wrong, and you will see us address the theory in the Windows 7 time frame. We're going to readjust those prices north, so to say, and I think with our Windows 7 SKU lineup, we also have a great chance to do some up-sell ... to Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home...."

"They're trying to rectify the mistake," noted Krans. "But that will be very difficult for them to do. Netbook prices are low already, and adding another $20 or $30 for Windows 7 Starter will make it too tight for [OEMs[ to operate."

Microsoft doesn't divulge Windows prices to OEMs, but earlier this year the Wall Street Journal cited sources that claimed the company receives less than $15 per netbook for Windows XP, considerably less than the estimated $50 to $60 it gets for a Vista license.

Krans said higher prices for Windows 7 -- $30 to $40 more than XP Home -- would be a tough sell to netbook makers. "OEMs don't have a lot of wiggle room on price, since price points seem to be the most important feature for netbooks," said Krans.

The best Microsoft can hope for is to make a case for more capable, but still-inexpensive laptops that run one of the "premium" editions of Windows 7, like Home Premium or Professional. "Netbooks have their place, but low-end notebooks are a more compelling value," Krans said. "For $500 or less, low-end notebooks are going to have a much more usable keyboard and a more usable screen. They're better for the OEMs and for Microsoft, because there's more pricing flexibility there than in netbooks to make some sustainable margins."

Resources: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9136454/Ballmer_confirms_Windows_7_Starter_restrictions_for_netbooks?taxon

SEO Trends 2009

2009-08-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

If you know anything about the fundamentals of search engine optimization ( SEO Tips ), you will know that the experts’ opinions on what to do, what is now considered redundant and recommendations of the absolutely necessary elements you must put in place on your website, change with mind-spinning frequency.

However, the bigger trends in search engine optimisation are easier to keep up with and most seem to be here to stay, as business owners become more attuned to just how important SEO is to their success.

SEO Trends 2009 And Beyond

The industry and ‘bigger picture’ trends have become relatively easy to identify as the SEO world becomes more established - increased awareness of SEO in general being the first major trend.

Search engine optimisation used to be an exclusive world, with only those practising it really knowing what it entailed and how it boosted a website’s visitor stats.

Now, most people know what it means, and most business owners are aware of just how important the internet is and how SEO can help them gain more customers.

The next major trend and one which is definitely here to stay, is the rise and rise of Google - they have dominated the world of search engine optimisation for years, and their lead over competitors such as Yahoo and MSN is only getting bigger.

When Google speaks, SEO consultants listen and if your business is not being found on Google, it’s almost certain it’s not being found at all - around 70% of user searches are done using Google.

SEO tools and automated processes are becoming an important part of the reporting of website results - individuals are focusing on developing these tools for companies to buy, who may be struggling to find or afford a good search engine optimisation agency. Such tools can offer good basic data, but it’s worth remembering that it’s still what you do with the data that’s important.

Dipping into the actual technicalities of good SEO practice, good content has been king for a while and remains so.

As a business owner, if you write, or employ an SEO copywriter to write good quality articles and press releases, this will benefit your search results hugely, encourages links to and from your website - and links are extremely important as the ‘currency’ of good quality SEO.

Finally, a trend clear to all - not just those operating in the search engine optimisation world - is the rise and rise of social networking sites.

Facebook and now Twitter are educating people to communicate in a whole different way, and business owners should be engaging these people in order to develop a whole new audience.

Keep Up With SEO - Your Business Will Benefit

There are many more trends in search engine optimisation, too many to mention here, but one thing remains clear - business owners small and large cannot afford to ignore SEO and must become well-versed in good SEO practice if they want to keep up with the ever-changing world of consumer web behaviour.

Google PR and Backlink Updated - Have You Been Affected?

2009-08-07T04:51:00.001-07:00

After an unusually long time, it appears Google is updating its PageRank and Backlink measures according to many website owners.
Google’s PageRank and Backlink count are are key measures Google uses to determine its search engine rankings. While many skeptics believe PageRank is an irrelevant indicator, its hard to dismiss it when Google continues to promote as a pivotal measure of a site’s ranking potential - and Top Google rankings = Better website traffic.
Did you notice something different on my this domain? I mean the PageRank icon at Google toolbar above!

It is showing a PageRank of 3 out of 10. I know, I know there is nothing to boast around with just a PR 3 but I am really happy about it. I was like waiting for so so long, finally I got ranked by Google within 3-4 months. I still remember a few weeks back, how I’d always check my Pagerank and worried why I am still not ranked (N/A) by Google. But now, I am relieved but I will keep on working on this blog and target a higher PageRank on the next update.

And most importantly,

Thanks to my readers, visitors and drop-byers. It is you that keep this blog growing !!

Google will update the PageRank once in a while hence we would have no idea when it is going to update again.

Internet Marketing Is A Better Marketing?

2009-08-04T01:28:00.000-07:00

Is it true that the Internet marketing niche is already too saturated? In a way, yes. But if you can create a unique slant on an old idea, then you can definitely prosper just as well as the others who dropped anchor in this niche years ago.

The World Wide Web is always changing, and new things are being created that give you an opportunity to break out onto the Internet marketing scene with a unique product that sells well despite the number of competitors in that niche.

Just like any other large market, there are smaller, more defined niche markets within the ‘internet marketing’ field. When you put a website up you need to know many things in order to succeed.You have to drive targeted traffic to your site, make your site search engine friendly (SEO), be able to write a high converting squeeze page and sales page, learn about free and paid advertising. So all these things and more could be a ‘micro niche’ within the larger ‘internet marketing’ niche.

You may also want to consider staying away from the Internet marketing niche and paving a path in another niche, such as dog care, parenting, or financial advice. As long as there is traffic and interest, then a niche can be profitable. It’s not enough just to find the huge search counts; you also have to be able to see how much competition there is for that particular niche. Then you can determine if it will be profitable or not.

What often happens is that the newbie ‘net marketer has a specialty in an area outside of Internet marketing, and once the launch a highly successful information product on it, they write a tell-all e-Book showing other Internet marketers how to do what they did.

There’s really no way for a niche to become fully saturated. As long as there is continued interest, there’s always a way to come up with a new slant for an old idea. Print publications do this all the time. Whenever a writer submits a story to a magazine, they have to take an old idea and convince an editor they can write about it in a fresh manner.

Many Internet marketers routinely try to convince others that their niche is, indeed saturated. Why would they do this? It’s because they don’t want the competition from you. If you are doing affiliate marketing - promoting other peoples products - be careful what you choose. Even though it may be a great product or service, a specific affiliate program can become saturated.

To determine if a niche is truly saturated, or better yet, if you have a shot at success, visit third party product sites such as Click Bank and see how many products are available for the idea you have as an Internet marketer. You can also find the hottest selling products in your niche market; check out commission payments, percentage of sales coming from affiliates and much more, a great place to start.

If you see twenty e-Books on affiliate marketing, ask yourself, ‘Could I come up with a unique slant or a better way of doing things’ Sometimes all it takes is having verifiable proof of your own success to position you as an expert in a particular niche. It can’t hurt to give it a try - and you may find that you edge out all of your competitors for the sheer fact that the consumers want someone new to take the reins and spoon-feed them their information.

source: http://www.article-buzz.com/Article/Internet-Marketing-Is-A-Better-Marketing-/299761

Follow this Article marketing Strategy Profits from Articles

2009-08-03T02:11:00.001-07:00

Here is an article marketing strategy for you to follow which will outline some techniques you can use immediately and dramatically profit from. If you have been online for some time you are probably aware that article submission or article publishing is one of the most effective and profitable ways top Internet marketers utilize. The reason why is because it works so well.

Writing and distributing articles is my #1 way to drive pre-targeted traffic to my sites. Besides that, search engines love fresh content and what better way than submit articles and to post or archive your articles on your own article directory which you should have implement on your own sites. For more details www.yourarticlecash.com.Better yet, writing and submitting unique content articles rather than submitting the same articles will produce more traffic, back links, and higher rankings. Although this can be difficult and time consuming writing hundreds of versions of unique and different articles, most of the article submission software available can only submit the same article to different article directories. Article Pro Software is one piece of software I can highly recommend that will automatically submit unique articles saving you valuable time. It is not an article spinner or content creator that submits gibberish. You write the articles and it does the rest.

The major keys to profiting from article submissions are to write articles filled with useful information and are of great quality. Adding your resource box to the end of your article is where you develop your traffic and back links. A simple, catchy one-line phrase will do the trick. Do not overlook trying a few longer resource boxes; say 4 to 5 sentences long. I have had great success with those as well.

Before publishing your articles, be sure and do a spell and grammar check on them. It does not convey professionalism when your articles are loaded with spelling and grammar errors. Some of the major have a spell check already built in, but I usually draft my articles in notepad and then copy and paste into Word where I can run a check on them before submitting. This is somewhat of an extra step, but a valuable one that does not take long to complete. Not only that, but you can learn a lot form going through the spell checks yourself.

Publishing your articles to the top ranking article directories and to your own Website or Blog are two great ways to get your articles exposed on the Internet. If you do not have a blog yet you may want to look into it. They are usually free and can serve as another Website for your own self-promotion. As previously mentioned, unique content articles are a major advantage over your competition. For more details www.internet-copycatting.com.Article Pro Software can create unique articles for you to distribute not only to it’s internal list, but you can also use those unique articles to copy and paste into the major high ranking article directories e.g. EzineArticles, Isnare, and Go Articles which require manual submission.

In closing, article writing and submissions is a great article marketing strategy that can yield huge profits if done correctly. There are other important factors that also contribute to article success which I will cover in future articles, but if you follow this article marketing strategy you will be ahead of your competition separating you from the field.

source: http://www.article-buzz.com/Article/Follow-this-Article-marketing-Strategy-Profits-from-Articles/290641

The Importance of Keywords to your SEO Campaign

2009-08-01T00:50:00.000-07:00

If you are working on an SEO campaign you will know the aim is to rank at the top of the search engines for your chosen keywords. However have you considered the importance of the keywords you select? If not this article will give you some insight into what you should be thinking of.

What are Keywords?

Firstly let’s consider what keywords are. Put simply they are the words or phrases that people put into a search engine when they search. The results that they get back are the ones the search engine believes are the most relevant to the chosen word or phrase.

Checking Number of Searches

When you are choosing your keywords one of the most important thing to know is how many searches there are for a keyword. There are a lot of useful tools, many of which are free that you can find on the internet that will help you with this. It is absolutely vital that you know this because what is the point in appearing at the top of the search engines for a phrase that no one searches for. So once you have an idea of the keywords you want to use you can find out how many searches there are for each of them to help you reduce your list and only include those with a large number of searches.

Checking the competition

Once you know how many searches there are for your keywords you also need to know how many results there are for each one. If you have a keyword that has a medium number of searches but a very high competition level it might have less value than those keywords that have less competition. It is really important to check this as words with very high competition as much harder to get to the top for and will take a lot longer so the search volume needs to be high enough to warrant the effort.

Commercial Intent of Keywords

One of the other things you need to analyse is the commercial intent of each of the keywords. If you are looking to sell to customers then you need to make sure that you are targeting buyers. There are a lot of keywords out there that people use just to find information on a certain topic and not for buying. Those are the ones you should be avoiding. One way to tell is to look at the top 10 results in a search engine if there is only one commercial site and the rest are information then it is not a commercial keyword. However if there are 9 commercial sites in the top 10 then your chances will be a lot better there.

Long Tail Keywords

These are basically search terms that include 3 or more words. These are phrases you should look at very closely as they are usually the ones used by people looking to buy. In addition to that the more general keywords are usually dominated by the big brands and will be a lot harder to break into.

As you can see from the above selecting the keywords to optimise your website for is not a simple thing. It is important to do the proper research to ensure you are going in the right direction. Without this research you could waste a lot of time and money on SEO with very little effect.
Source

Internet Marketing Services: Price vs. Value

2009-07-30T23:03:00.000-07:00

When you consider the price versus the value of your internet marketing initiatives – which is more important? The price is the most obvious thing to analyze first. Can I afford this? Does it fit into my marketing budget? How does the price of this initiative compare to my other marketing efforts?

However, over time, even more important than the price of a program – is its value. Do you have a clear understanding of the value of your internet marketing efforts? If you spend $400 on an email marketing campaign, that may seem like a lot of money if you’re only sending the message to 1,000 people. But what if that same campaign generates ten times that amount of revenue – would that be a good value? Are you measuring meaningful data to determine the value of your internet marketing programs? If not, then a “rate hike” for services can certainly be a little hard to swallow.

From both the business and the consumer perspective, rate hikes have become an inevitable part of doing business. The questions that every customer inevitably asks is “what do I get for that” and “why is the price increasing”?...

source: http://www.bluetentmarketing.com/blog/

Discover Why Content is King...

2009-07-30T01:06:00.000-07:00

Have you been struggling to make money on the internet and end up left feeling like something is missing?

This guy used to feel like this and struggled to make money at first, and then he discovered the secrets that sky rocketed his income from a few measly cents to over a hundred dollars a day online.

Now Dean James has decided to give away his Content Cash Secrets Ebook so you can follow the same system that makes him over $100 a day online....

source: http://internetmarketingebooks.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html

Meta Tags For Blogger Blog

2009-07-28T23:12:00.000-07:00

Every SEO buddy want their site to see on SERP, and meta tags fulfill your dream by helping search engine bots to crawl better and indexing also. Hopping matter is that you can incorporate meta tags on your own blogger blog.....

source: http://seodiscussions.blogspot.com/2009/07/meta-tags-for-blogger-blog.html

Search Engine's Track Your Activities

2009-07-21T01:36:00.000-07:00

Recently I came across a great article about link exchange by Jim Hedger here. While I do think that this is probably one of the best articles in web on this subject, however, there is a points on which I fail to agree with Jim.

In his article Jim has mentioned,

"As search users travel across linked pages, the search engines track how much time users spends on linked pages and the pathways they take when leaving a document."

To my understanding, in order to track this information, Google or for that matter any search engine would need to track the visitor's IP address and record the pages that are being accessed from that IP. They also need to record the time duration for which a particular website is being accessed in order to judge for how long a visitor is on that site.

They can do this only when they are installing a cookie or implementing some similar functioning technology that would track the activities on that particular machine and send that information to them.

If we consider that the search engines are implementing such a technology, aren't they violating privacy rights ? are they allowed to track the user's machine or IP address for that matter ?

I am pretty sure that most search engines claim that they do not violate the privacy rights and do not track activities on user's PC without their consent.

Now, if we are to believe them, Jim's comment in his article (as quoted above) does not hold water.

I have posted this question in one of the SEO forums, where most users have appreciated Jim's article ( Jim is also a member in this forum and has visited the thread before) but till now I haven't received any explanation about this from Jim or any other veteran members who have appreciated the articles. I also plan to mail the site that has published this article, in case I do, I will post the mail in this blog and if there is a reply from them.

In case any of you people feel that you have an explanation for this please feel free to shoot !

12 SEO Tips on Press Release Optimization

2009-07-16T23:28:00.001-07:00

Press releases can be a very handy tool in the process of promoting a web site. While a well distributed press release can bring a bunch of links for your website, if written well, press releases can also rank in search results by themselves resulting in loads of referral traffic.

Internet marketing professionals and SEOs have all realized the potential of press release in optimizing their website and are trying to leverage this to maximum benefit.In this article I will list a few tips that will tell you how to write a search engine optimized press release.

a)Similar to the basic principle of SEO content writing, do a short keyword research to identify which are the keywords you want to target. Find a keyword that people are actually searching for and is a proper match/ description for your product/ service/ company. Use any keyword tool like WordTracker or Keyword Discovery to find this.

b)Ensure you use your chosen keyword phrase in the headline of your press release. If your press release is relatively long, create a sub heading using the keyword phrase.

c)Use this keyword phrase in the content of the press release wherever applicable but make sure that you aren't forcibly stuffing your keyword in the content. A keyword stuffed press release would never meet its proper distribution potential thereby failing the basic purpose of the exercise. If you are not the best person when it comes to writing skills it is strongly advisable to take help of professional writers.For a good press release it is extremely important to maintain balance between the natural content appeal and the keyword insertion for optimization.

d)Use your website URL in the body of the press release. Make sure that the URL is inserted in proper URL form ( http://www.yourdomain.com ) and not just yourdomain.com

e)While Press releases are official communication and demands the mention of brand names, unless your brand is already a household name try to use short descriptive phrase for your product or service than just using the brand name. This would increase the chance of your press release showing up on search results when people search for those product descriptions. For example, instead of referring to your SEO software by its name "SEOUltima", if you would mention it as "SEO Software" or "SEO Software SEOUltima" that would help in optimizing the Press Release for SEO Software keyword.

f)Another easy way to increase the frequency of such descriptive phrases or brand names in your press release is to use them instead of pronouns like "it".

g)This should probably have been the first point in this list. Make sure that your Press release is actually newsworthy. That is one of the key factor that determines how well it gets syndicated.

h)Depending on available budget and importance of the release use a paid PR distribution service. Alternatively, there are various PR services that will distribute your news for free.

If you are choosing a free PR distribution service, first check if the service is indexed by popular news search engines. Check the coverage in places like Google News, Yahoo News.

i)Besides submitting to PR networks, put up the press release on your own site in its separate page and link to it from the home page.

j)Submit your press release to popular social media websites like Digg, Del.icio.us, Furl etc

k)Search Google News for your target keywords and make a note of the sites that are already listed. Check if those sites would accept and publish your Press Release.

l)If you are publishing frequent press releases ( that helps ! ) make sure you have a RSS feed for your press release.

Free SEO Tools

2009-07-14T23:32:00.000-07:00

Here's a list of some free online SEO tools that I find very useful. The site that provides the first seven tools listed here, also provides the source code for each of them so you can add these great SEO tools to your own website:

Google PageRank Prediction - This tool provides an estimation of your future PageRank. PageRank is a Google developed formula to determine a web page's "inbound link ranking". It's often referred to as "PR" value.

Backlink Checker - Find other websites linking to your site and their PageRank, Description, Language and Size.

Rank Checker- Find out what your ranking is and how popular your website is to users and search engines. You'll also find out which search engines have indexed your site.

Link Popularity - Find how many links your domain has indexed on the search engines.

Website Speed Test - Find out how fast/slow you website loads.

Meta Tag Generator - When your site is spidered/crawled the meta tags help identify what your website is about. This tool will help you configure them very easily.

Spider View Of Your Website - This tool will show you how most search engine spiders/bots will index your website for the keywords you specify.

Free HTML Validator - Validating your HTML will help insure that it displays properly on all users browsers.

Keyword Density Analyzer - This free tool will crawl your site and report back the percentage and number of times a particular keyword or keyword phrase shows up on your web page.

Gmail backup - with-in your Gmail account

2009-07-13T23:12:00.000-07:00

Know here to take Gmail backup - with-in your Gmail account
Your Google Account gives you access to Gmail and other Google services. At current time Google's Email services Gmail has a lot of user , you may one from them.

If you are using Gmail to send Email to your family member , your friend ,or your business partner it means you have some valuable contact in your Gmail Address book and you don't want to loss it ,So do you know how you can take back up your gmail conatct . If you don't know don't worry follow web-page-tip 's these easy step to back up your gmail contact.

Find and click on contacts label in left side of your gmail window after that you will see your all contact
look at right hand up corner of your Gmail window you will see Import | Export | Print , click on Export
And in next window you will see export option , here you can cho0se whether you want selected contact or full contact .
Next option is to select format in which format you want to store your contact.
In final click on Export.

why google is taping your IP

2009-07-13T00:54:00.001-07:00

Google's search engine monopoly now offers so-called local results - even if you
neglect to key in your particular location.

Acordding to a post in the Official Google Blog google may use a new tech that serves up local search results according to your IP address.

post says taht "When you search on Google, we will guess where you are and show results near you," the post reads. "In most cases, we match your IP address to a broad geographical location."
So it will help Google to serve best services in SERP(search engine result page) becoz the result will be more local for you .

(SEO) terms

2009-07-09T23:02:00.000-07:00

Web browser
Software installed on the Internet user's computer that allows him or her to view web pages. Popular web browsers include Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera.

Web Crawler
Also known as a 'web robot' or 'web spider', it is a program or automated script which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner.

Web standards
Web standards are widely adopted guidelines for CSS, XHTML etc. Web standards help ensure that web sites are accessible on a wide variety of platforms and to a wide range of users including users with disabilities.

Web2.0
Web2.0 refers to the new generation of web based services and communities characterised by participation, collaboration and sharing of information among users online.

Web2.0 applications include wikis, folksonomies, blogs and social networking sites which encourage user-generated content (USG) and social interaction online.

Submitted by Annemarie Hunter - Netconcepts

Weblog
A weblog, or blog is an online journal. Weblogs are something of a phenomenon and have become increasing mainstream. Blog search engine Technorati listed 71 million weblogs as of May 2007.

Weblog authors choose whether to blog openly or anonymously. Weblog entries are made regularly and chronologically but are displayed in reverse chronological order. The range of topics covered is endless. Some weblogs focus on a particular subject like travel, fashion, or astrology while others are personal online diaries.

Weblogs typically are made up of posts, images, videos, comments and links.

Popular blogging platforms include: Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad, LiveJournal and Dreamhost

Submitted by Brigitte Capp - Netconcepts

White Hat SEO
Ethical SEO approved by the search engines.

Wikipedia
Launched in January 2001, by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, Wikipedia is now the largest and fastest growing encyclopedia online. In fact it is one of the world’s ten most visited websites.

As of September 2007 the English Edition of Wikipedia had a massive 2 million articles and 609 million words, making it around 15 times the size of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

The site has more than 100 servers set up to deal with the 10,000 – 35,000 page requests every second.

Wikipedia is multilingual and is currently available in 253 languages. Operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization, it is a collaboratively written by volunteers around the world.

Contributing to Wikipedia:
* Is a peer-reviewed publication.
* Does not require contributors legal names
* Requires contributions are supported by published and verifiable sources.

Due to its open nature, Wikipedia has been criticized as an easy target for trolls, vandals, internet marketers, advertisers, and even those with a political agenda to push. However studies have shown that vandalism is usually short-lived and that generally the site is as accurate as other encyclopedias.

Wikipedia uses MediaWiki as its software platform, MediaWiki is free open source software built on a MySQl database.

For More: www.wikipedia.org

Submitted by Brigitte Capp - Netconcepts

Wordpress
Wordpress is an excellent open-source web publishing system or content management system. Created primarily as blogging software, Wordpress is written in PHP and backed by a MySQL database, it is ideal for managing content that is frequently updated.

Distributed under the GNU General Public License the latest version, Wordpress 2.2.3, was released on Sept 8, 2007.

WordPress is described as a “state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability” by its creators.

Features include:
* Integrated link management
* Plugin support
* Search friendly permalink structure
* Static Pages
* Trackbacks
* Pingbacks
* Typographic filters
* WYSIWYG
* Nested categories
* Multiple authors

For More: www.wordpress.org

Submitted by Brigitte Capp - Netconcepts

Wordtracker
Wordtracker is a popular keyword research tool established by Andy Mindel and Mike Mindel in 1997.

It is designed to assist search marketing professionals and webmasters in identifying important keywords and phrases relevant to their website. It provides detailed information on the number of searches, predicted number of daily searches, competing pages and KEI data. Information can be broken down by search engine.

Search terms are collected from - Dogpile and Metacrawler which represent around 1% of searches online. Due to its relatively small sample size Wordtracker is vulnerable to competitor spamming, and errors in the database can be magnified. Some terms can appear to be more popular than they really are – and others will be omitted all together.

For more: Wordtracker.com

search engine optimization (SEO) terms

2009-07-08T23:24:00.000-07:00

Hallway page
a page that serves as an index to a group of pages that you would like the search engine spiders to find. Once a search engine spider indexes the hallway page, it should also follow all the links on that hallway page and in turn index those pages as well.

Heading tag
An HTML tag that is often used to denote a page or section heading on a web page. Search engines pay special attention to text that is marked with a heading tag, as such text is set off from the rest of the page content as being more important.

Hidden keywords
Keywords that are placed in the HTML source in such a way that these words are not viewable by human visitors looking at the rendered web page.

Hidden Text - SEO Spam Tactic
Hidden Text is a SEO spam tactic to hide contextual html text from human visitors to a webpage, however making it available to search engines to spider the text.

The theory is that if you place more relevant html text content on the page rich with targeted keywords, then it will assist the page gaining ranking within search engine results. Some website owners do like text content on their page because they believe it negatively affects their brand and user web experience. So, they hide the text in the hope that the page will still rank for targeted keywords.

Hidden Text is an illegal technique as search engines consider it search engine spam. By undertaking this practice, it will eventually harm natural search performance of a website.

Google Quality Guidelines specify to “Avoid hidden text or hidden links”.

Yahoo!’s Search Content Quality Guidelines also considers “the use of text or links hidden from the user” unwanted.

Submitted by Jacqui Jones - Netconcepts

Hijacking of Websites
Hijacking of websites is a practice that makes search engines believe that a specific website resides at another URL. It is a form of search engine spam and cloaking. The reason why this method is undertaken by spammers is to increase rankings in search engine result pages. Webpage Hijacking is an illegal spam tactic.

When spiders crawl websites and they discover two pages with the same content, the search engine will decide which is the main url while the other is not indexed. Spammers will use tactics to ensure that their page is the one that is chosen by the search engine.

An example of website hijacking is where there are two pages with exactly the same content but at different addresses – company.com (the real site) and company.net (the rogue site). Spammers use tactics to ensure their site ranks above the real site.

Submitted by Jacqui Jones - Netconcepts

Hits
a download of a file from a web server. Hits do not correlate with web page visits. Every graphic on a web page counts as a hit. Thus, a single access of a web page with 20 unique graphics on it register as 21 hits - 20 for the graphics and 1 for the HTML page. Web metrics guru Jim Sterne says hits "stand for How Idiots Track Success." People who talk in terms of hits are usually either ignorant or are trying to snow their boss into thinking the website is doing better than it really is.

Homepage
A homepage is the main page of a website. Like a cover of a book or the front of a store, its function is to welcome people and to inform them of the overall purpose of the website. The homepage offers an index of navigation that organizes content and leads to other parts of the website.

The homepage usually accumulates the most PageRank score since its url is usually where other sites link to the most. The url of a homepage usually ends in a domain name extension such as .com, .org, .edu, etc.

Other terms used to describe a homepage are front page, main web page and webserver directory index.

It’s interesting to note that in some countries such as Japan, Korea and Germany, the term “homepage” usually refers to the whole website, not just the first page.

Even though the home page is designed to be the entry point of the website, people can go directly to other pages within the site without ever seeing the front page.

Submitted by Jacqui Jones - Netconcepts

HTML
Stands for HyperText Markup Language. The programming language used to mark up web content and display it in a formatted manner. It's up to the web browser software, e.g. Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape, to render HTML source.

HTML Source
The raw, unrendered programming code. It can be accessed in Internet Explorer by going to the "View" menu then selecting "Source".

HTTP 301 – Status Code Definition
The 301 status code means the URI requested has “Moved Permanently” and has been assigned a new URI. Any future requests should use one of the returned URIs.

It is best practice to use 301 Redirects when multiple copies of the same document reside on different URIs. This will ensure that duplicate content is removed from the site and each and every unique page will only have one URL.

HTTP 302 – Status Code Definition
The 302 status code means that the document requested is “Found” however temporarily resides under a different URL. Since a permanent redirect has not been used, the client should continue to use the original requested URL for future requests.

HTTP 400 – Status Code Definition
The 400 status code means a “Bad Request” stating that the server is not able to understand the document request due to a malformed syntax. The user is required to modify its request prior to repeating it.

HTTP 401 – Status Code Definition
The 401 status code means “Unauthorized”. This server requests user authentication prior to fulfilling the document request.

HTTP 403 – Status Code Definition
The 403 status code means “Forbidden”. The server understood the request, however is refusing to fulfill it. The webmaster may wish to alert the user why their request has been denied. If the organization does not wish to provide this reason then a 404 (Not Found) status code can be displayed instead.

HTTP 404 – Status Code Definition
The response error message “404” represents a document “Not Found”. This means that the client was able to communicate with the server, however could not find the requested document. Alternatively, the server could be configured to not fulfill the request and not provide a reason why.

HTTP 410 – Status Code Definition
Similar to a 404 Not Found error message, the 410 status code states that the requested document is “intentionally gone”, is no longer available and there is no forwarding address.

The 410 status code is usually used for limited display documents such as promotional information. It is up to the discretion of the web master to determine at what point to remove the 410 status message.

HTTP 500 – Status Code Definition
The 500 status code error message states that there was an internal server error which has prevented the document from being fulfilled.

HTTP 501 – Status Code Definition
The 501 status code message is displayed when the server does not recognize the document request method. The server is not capable of fulfilling this request and states the request was “Not Implemented”.

HTTP – Hypertext Markup Language
HTTP stands for hypertext markup language and is the main markup language for creation of web pages. It defines how data is structured and informs the web browser how the page is to be displayed with the use of formatting text and images.

Some of the page elements that can be coded with HTML include Page Titles, Text (paragraphs, lines and phrases), Lists (unordered, ordered and definition lists), Tables, Forms, Basic HTML Data Types (character data, colors, lengths, content types, etc) and much more.

The source html code of any webpage is available by simply clicking “Page Source” in a web browser such as Firefox or Internet Explorer.

HTML is not a programming language and therefore is quite static in nature. It is considered to be a subset of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language).

Tim Berners Lee first described HTML and it was publicly available in 1991 via a document called “HTML Tags”.

HTML became an international standard (ISO/IEC 15445:2000) and its specifications are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) of which commercial software vendors offer input.

Submitted by Jacqui Jones – Netconcepts

Hubs
Hubs are a range of centralized websites linking to many related topical Authority websites. Characteristics of a hub are:

1. Many outbound links to sites (typically Authority sites) that contain relevant content

2. The content on the hub site is highly focused

A site can either be a hub, an authority, both, or neither. An authority or hub site will get preferential treatment by a search engine algorithm that incorporates “topic distillation”.

Submitted by Jacqui Jones - Netconcepts

9 Ways to Increase Website Traffic Using Google Image Search

2009-07-07T23:23:00.000-07:00

Google search engine indexes images in your web pages. When someone uses Google Image Search to find images on the web, what chance does your website have to show up in the search results? If you know how to optimize images in your web pages, your images will have high rankings in the image search results. Using higly relevant and properly optimized images in your web pages will bring quality traffic from Google Image Search. Use the techniques described below for optimizing Google Image Search.

Use the alt attribute in the html img tag. This is the most important one. Use a specific keyword or a key phrase that identifies what the image is all about. If the image is a red rose, use the key phrase 'red rose', instead of rose or flower, in the alt attribute.
Use the title attribute in the img tag. The title attribute is what people see when they hover the mouse over the image. You can use the same text for title that you use for the alt attribute.
Use both the width and the height attributes for the image. If the image height is unknown, use the image width. You should always use the image width from a design standpoint. Unknown image width can break your horizontal layout forcing your web site visitors to scroll horizontally which is very annoying.
Don't use image1, image2, etc. for the image file names. Instead, Use descriptive names. For example, use red-rose for a red rose image file. You can use the same text that you use for the alt attribute. Just hyphenate the words if it is a key phrase.
Put some description texts just beneath the image. For example, "a red rose blossoming in a quite morning" for the red rose image. Make the key word, red rose, bold. When Google displays the image in the image search result page, the result page will also display the texts surrounding the image.
Choose your anchor texts in links to images carefully. Instead of "click here for larger image" as the text link to an image, you can use "a large red rose picture is here" as the anchor text.
Put all your images in a root folder and, if you prefer, categorize your images in sub-folders under the root image folder. Make sure that your robots file does not limit access to the image folders. Use the img and src tags for images on your web pages. Avoid all types of java script tricks. Google search engine spider will be able to index all your images. If you have descriptive image files names, they will have high relevancy in Google image search results.
Use Google trends to find hot topics. Use your creativity to establish a credible relevancy between you images and the hot trends. For example, if "Hunt for Red October" is the hot topic, you can use "Hunt for Red October Rose" as your image text.
You should already have your website verified by Google. If Google has not verified your website, go ahead and get it done by opening an account for Google Webmaster Tools. Once you have your site verified, enable enhanced image search for your site by logging into Google Webmaster Tools.

9 Ways to Increase Website Traffic Using Google Image Search

101 High Paying AdSense Keywords

2009-07-07T00:17:00.000-07:00

For a typical blogger or website owner, we make money when someone clicks on one of the Google Ads on our site, or per 1000 impressions of the AdSense links. For most of us, we already know how hard it is to get people to click on these links and even if they do, sometimes the chosen ads are low paying ones because of the keywords used on our page.

So to help maximize profits, here is a list of 101 high paying Google AdSense words you can try and use to target the keywords in your content to. It is assuming that as the website owner, you will receive roughly 50% of the total cost per click (CPC) that Google charges its advertisers, but you should check this with Google to find out the actual value (if they'll tell you).

N	Keyword	CPC
1	AdWords	$9.41
2	available domain name	$12.97
3	addwords	$10.92
4	AdWords campaign	$14.63
5	AdSense	$12.43
6	buy domains	$8.84
7	buy domain name	$17.10
8	bachelor degree on line	$14.36
9	best webhost	$8.68
10	bulk email marketing	$11.77
11	bankruptcy	$5.72
12	cheap domain name	$9.16
13	car insurance	$22.89
14	credit cards	$10.93
15	crm software	$15.96
16	car loans	$11.79
17	construction estimating software	$5.80
18	domain names	$17.57
19	debt	$13.18
20	degree education on line	$12.44
21	dell computer	$5.79
22	degree	$6.37
23	debt management	$7.15
24	database software	$3.13
25	email marketing	$13.24
26	ecommerce hosting	$11.81
27	education degree online	$14.69
28	earn money online	$3.04
29	free domain name registration	$5.81
30	free credit report	$9.57
31	flowers	$4.83
32	financing	$4.50
33	gas prices compare	$6.19
34	google news	$2.07
35	graphic design degree	$12.58
36	graduate degree program	$7.93
37	hosting providers	$14.25
38	how to get a web site	$5.83
39	hp computer	$7.52
40	interest credit	$15.53
41	insurances	$17.67
42	interior design degree	$14.17
43	java software	$1.69
44	keyword tracking	$4.37
45	knee support	$1.57
46	life experience degree	$8.36
47	lung cancer treatment	$6.10
48	loans	$9.86
49	merchant account	$10.55
50	microsoft certification	$4.88
51	mba degree online	$15.78
52	master degree on line	$11.51
53	marketing software	$8.28
54	network monitoring software	$11.45
55	nursing degree	$8.81
56	norton anti virus software	$4.01
57	Norton virus protection	$3.85
58	online accounting degree	$27.50
59	online paralegal degree	$19.45
60	online degree	$13.74
61	online psychology degree	$20.78
62	online college degree	$14.10
63	payroll software	$7.95
64	pay per click	$8.18
65	personal domain name	$10.26
66	project management software	$10.80
67	quicken	$3.46
68	quick money	$3.32
69	register domain	$9.03
70	register domain name	$8.31
71	register a website	$10.47
72	register url	$8.69
73	student credit card	$10.54
74	survey software	$9.51
75	scheduling software	$7.60
76	shopping cart software	$5.23
77	travel insurance	$6.76
78	tax software	$6.89
79	teaching degree	$12.72
80	turbo tax	$5.47
81	University Degrees Online	$10.98
82	unlimited web hosting	$8.31
83	university degrees	$5.68
84	undergraduate degree	$4.71
85	voip phone system	$9.57
86	visa credit card	$11.83
87	voip billing software	$8.21
88	virus protection	$5.58
89	website domain names	$12.65
90	web domain name	$10.62
91	web host rating	$9.75
92	web site register	$13.04
93	web hosting	$13.03
94	web design software	$2.57
95	web space provider	$6.62
96	yahoo domain	$7.70
97	yellow page advertising	$6.56
98	yahoo domain name	$9.00
99	your site	$2.57
100	zire pda	$2.16
101	zenith television	$1.55

NB: The dollar values were correct at time of publication; please recheck keywords using Google's Keyword Tool for the most up to date values.

101 High Paying AdSense Keywords

How To Locate Ultra Profitable Products To Promote

2009-07-05T22:54:00.000-07:00

What is the 'secret' to huge Clickbank paychecks? Well I wouldn't say there is any ONE secret that defines Clickbank success, but one important factor for raking in the money is in promoting ultra profitable products which people buy by the truckload.

Just how do you find super profitable profitable products and 'separate the wheat from the chaff'?

Here's some tips to get you started:

1. Check the 'vital stats' of the product

Head over to Clickbank's marketplace and see the statistics of the products that are being sold. Two really important ones you want to look out for is Gravity and % Referred. Gravity is a measure of how many affiliates have successfully made sales with your product recently. % Referred refers to how many of the product's sales were made as a result of affiliates promoting. You should look out for high Gravity numbers (which means affiliates have had success selling the product) and % Referred numbers which are not too high (above 90%). If too many affiliates are promoting the product, it will be harder to grab your share of the pie.

2. Study the product's selling process

One way to tell if a product will sell well is to head directly over to the product's website. Study the sales letter. Does it have high quality graphics? Does it have a benefit-filled headline? Does the sales letter copy emphasize benefits instead of features? A strong sales letter is always an asset, so make sure you are promoting something which has a high converting sales letter.

3. Use the tools for finding profitable products

If you want to pick out hot affiliate products on Clickbank, there are a few secret tools you need to know about. These tools have been used by hundreds of successful affiliates for finding products to promote. If you want to be ahead of the game, you need these tools at your disposal, if not you'll lose out.

Here's the 2 secret tools for finding the newest and most profitable affiliate products:

Big Prism's Clickbank Product Finder

Big Prism's nifty little search tool is a more advanced version of Clickbank's official marketplace search engine. You can search products by keyword and also filter them based on commission payouts, gravity and all the other stats that Clickbank uses to rate products. You can also find out how many new products are added everyday.
Affiliates Alert

Affiliates Alert is an advanced program and it's free to sign up with. You can use this tool to find new products, products which are underexposed (are of high quality but are as yet undiscovered by affiliates) and also products which are promoted by too many affiliates to be profitable. You get regular updates by email. You can also observe the ranking of the products easily in a snapshot. This allows you to see which products are rising in the rankings and which are following. In other words, it's a goldmine for Clickbank users!

There you have it, the 2 tools you absolutely must be using if you want to skyrocket your sales and profits. If I had to choose one, I'd probably go with Affiliates Alert since it is a comprehensive 'spying' solution.

Benefits Of Having A Sitemap

2009-07-04T01:22:00.001-07:00

A website's ranking with the search engines is one of the most important elements of business success. It is important to get your pages indexed so that you can show up in the results of searches done using the search engines.

Indexing is a process by which search engines, such as Google, send their robots to process and categorize the pages on your website. Some search engines might find it difficult to find all of your pages, especially the pages that are deeply buried.

There are some things you can do to help the search engines find all of your pages. These techniques will also help the people who visit your site to find the pages and move through your website with ease. These tips are primarily for Google, because of Google's present dominance over the Internet search industry. Google has the potential to bring more visitors to your site than all of the other popular directories and search engines, such as Yahoo and MSN, put together.

Indexing Depth

The number of visits that Google's robot will make to your site pages is determined by how often your site is updated. If you update your site every day, Google will most likely visit your site everyday. The depth of the indexing done by Google depends on the layering of levels of your site's tree. Your homepage will be considered a first level page. Any page that is linked to from your homepage will be considered a part of the second level. Any pages that are linked to from these second level pages, but not from the homepage, are considered third level pages.

The depth that Google will travel while indexing your pages will depend on the page ranking of each page. The indexing will follow a pattern. For example, if your homepage has a ranking of at least one then your second level pages will get indexed. If the second level pages do not have a good ranking then your third level pages and any pages at a level beyond that will not be indexed. Google will not index these extended page levels.

Sitemaps

A sitemap is simply a list of your pages in a single page layout. When a visitor goes to your site they can access the sitemap to find any pages that they are interested in viewing. Usually the sitemap is to benefit the people who visit your site and give them a quick and easy way to navigate your site.

A sitemap has a benefit for the search engines as well. This sitemap will let the Google robot see how pages, such as those in the fourth and fifth level, fit into your site. If you link to your sitemap page from your homepage, all of the pages listed in your sitemap will be no farther from your home page than the third level. This will encourage Google to index your entire site.

The New Sitemap

The Google sitemap is a new type of sitemap that you can use on your website. This sitemap works a little bit differently than traditional sitemaps. The Google sitemap is a file that is on your site's server that shows all of the pages on your website and their attributes. This will allow Google to read the file and know about all of the pages on your website. Not only can you list all of the pages on your website, but you can specify how much each page is updated and what the index priorities are for each page.

So How Does the New Sitemap Work

The Google sitemap must be created in XML (Extensible Markup Language). XML is structurally similar to HTML. You may recognize XML if you have used blog feeds or RSS. An example of an entry written for each page in a website would look something like this:

http://www.yoursiteurl.com 2007-05-18 monthly 0.8

Let's look at each tag. The "url" tag specifies you are including new information for a new URL (a page on your site) and you specify this URL by enclosing it between tags. The "lastmod" tag indicates the date the page was most recently updated. the "changefreq" tag indicates how often the page is updated, and the "priority" tag indicates the relative priority for indexing the page.

Some Tools to Use

A Google sitemap is a wonderful way to let Google know about all the pages on your website. One thing that is difficult about the sitemap is that you must edit it in a text editor such as notepad every time you make a change to your site. If you make regular changes, you will find that this is very cumbersome. You can do a search for a free Google sitemap generator to help automate sitemap creation.

While Google does not claim that the use of the Google sitemap will give you a better ranking, it does improve the chances of your whole site being indexed. Google may then determine that your website is larger and therefore more important. As a result, your site should receive an increase in traffic. Whenever you make changes to your website you should remember to update the sitemap too. If you keep both types of sitemaps on your website regularly updated, your site will be better indexed and easier for visitors to navigate.

10 SEO Tips to be Number 1 on Search Engines

2009-07-03T01:25:00.000-07:00

Being number 1 on search engines isn't the easiest thing to achieve. Depending on the niche you're trying to rank #1 on Google and Yahoo, competition will vary. Here are 10 SEO tips to make sure you achieve your ranking goals.

Target keyword phrases with 2 or more words

When choosing the keywords to target in your yahoo and google SEO campaign, instead of targeting words like "shoes", target keyword phrases such as "sport shoes for men". Doing so, you will target the following keyword phrases:

sport shoes
shoes for men
sport shoes for men
shoes

This will attract much more traffic than targeting single words that you have almost no chance to even be on the first page of search results.

Create inbound links with relevant anchor text

When you want to create an inbound link from your homepage to your "sport shoes for men" page, create the link with a text anchor that is relevant to the linked page.

This will tell search engines what the page is about the they will rank it higher because it assures them they will not link to non relevant content. Make full use of this is your whole website to have a better SEO approach.

Your title is the most important tag for search engines

Be careful to what you put in your [title] tag. Include the main keywords you want to target in your page. If you have a page called that targets the "sport shoes for men" keyword, make sure to insert the keyword as-is in your title.For now, this is the most important SEO technique to use with the main search engines. If the rest of the page is relevant to the title, you have a very good chance at ranking high on google.

Don't waste much time with META tags

While they once were the most important thing to do in SEO, META tags are now less than useless for google. Yahoo still accords some importance to them so you still should insert them. Just don't overdo it and waste precious hours trying to tweak them to perfection. Instead of doing that, create other quality keyword rich articles or tweak the actual content of your existing articles.

Don't stuff keywords in your META tags that arent used in the actual content. Some sites have been penalized doing so. According to many SEO experts, google totally ignores the tag but other search engines could see it as spam and penalize you.

Don't assume you know what keywords people search for

When determining what keywords you will target on your new page, don't assume you know what keywords the users will search for when looking for info related to your page.

To make sure you target the right keywords, use keyword tools provided by Google and Yahoo. You can also use Wordtracker but it ain't free. Enter a couple keywords and the tools will give you hundreds more that you havn't though of. They will also give you relative numbers to know how much times the keyword(s) was search for in the last month/year.

After seleting a few keywords that interest you, go on google and type "selected keyword". This will give you all the pages in the index which contain that exact keyword in their page. This gives you a good idea of the competition for that particular term. Try to find keyword phrases with high demand and low competition. This is called finding "niche" keywords.

Submit articles to get quality backlinks

By creating quality articles and publishing them to article submission websites, you will gain very good backlinks. Publishers go on article websites and get content to publish to their website with a link to your website as a credit for the free article he just grabbed.

When creating your articles, be sure to include 2-3 links to different parts of your website to gain even more from the exchange.

Google values backlinks as much as the actual content of your website. They think that if other publishers link to your website, it indicated that your content is quality content.

Be sure to vary the anchor text of the links pointing to your website. Google will see them as more natural links and you will gain ranks doing so.

Just like links inside your website, make sure the links you receive from other website have an anchor relevant to the linked page.

If you do this regularly and have quality articles, you will gain a huge amount of backlinks and this will give you the chance to target more competitive keywords on google and yahoo.

Submit to many directories

Even if it's true that directory backlinks are no longer as important as they were before, submit to as much as possible. It's easy, fast and cannot harm you.

Some quality directories like DMOZ and Yahoo are sure to help you ranking high, especially at Yahoo and MSN.

When submitting to the directories, try varying the anchor (often the title of your directory listing) pointing to your website. Some directories will only let you use your company name but some less popular ones will let you put what you want. Keep the anchors relevant but varying them will seem more natural to search engines, especially Google. Don't spam too much keywords in your page

Keyword density is not as important as most webmasters think. Don't overuse keywords in a context where it seems unnatural to your visitors. As long as the keywords appear in strategic places such as your title and headers (see tip bellow), include them wisely in your paragraphs. As long as the phrase appears at least 1 time in your content, search engines will know you targeted it. Don't repeat the same keywords 2-3 times per paragraph, your content will be of lesser quality to your readers and you will gain less natural backlinks doing so.

One more thing to not do is stuff keywords at the end of your page hoping that search engines will think the page is relevant to them. The search engines will penalize such "blackhat" techniques and your pages will be dropped from the index. Too much blackhat tricks will get your entire site banned from the search engines forever.

Use header tags wisely

Instead of bolding text to create headers in your pages, use the header tags. They vary from [h1] to [h6], h1 being the biggest and h6 being the smallest. I suggest you use only one h1 tag to put a title at the beginning of your page and then use h2, h3, h4, etc. to create sub divisions. Search engines give allot of credit to headers. Try using keywords that you will target in the following paragraph so search engines trust the header even more and give it more credit.

Be very patient

Search engines take allot of time to master. When changing the content of your page to have a better SEO approach, don't expect engines to pick up your pages instantly and rank them. It can take several days to several weeks for Google, Yahoo and MSN to update your rankings.

Put up any SEO changes and just forget about them. If you want to know if the search engines updated the content of your page, search for your site by searching for site:yoururl.com and find the page in question. Click on "cached page" and look at it. The cached page is the page they are using to give you your rankings

I hope this small guide will help you have a better SEO approach and give you all the success you are hoping for your business. Good luck and don't forget to not overdo any SEO techniques. Create pages for viewers and adapt them to search engines, not vice versa.

Role Of Keywords and Key-Phrases In SEO

2009-07-01T03:24:00.001-07:00

Search engine optimization (SEO) is necessity for the success of almost every site. SEO is the use of keywords from the beginning of the site that is called page title to throughout the website content. In particular, the density, placement and the actual keywords phrases themselves.

The first thing you need to do when you begin chasing a good search engine ranking is decide which words you want to rank well for. This is called keyword analysis.

There are many tools which provide you data to choose your keywords and phrases. Some of the popular ones are:

http://wordtracker.com

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Do you think that to get the keywords and put them in your site content will give you the top rank in the highly competitive market. Absolutely not. So here are some guidelines regarding keywords and phrases which you must bear in your mind:

Relevance

Keyword should be relevant to your site at the same time excessive repetition of one keyword is considered "Spam" by most engines. For example you have your site domain name is "xyz" if you repeat it 100 times in the space of keywords you are making several mistakes and not taking the full advantage of keywords power.

Use Power Combinations

Some search engines look at the first 200 characters or keywords (in Meta tags). Use the space effectively like if your site is offering different deals so you can use "digital camera, handy cam deals" instead of digital camera deals and handy cam deals. This way people searching for both keyword combinations will pull up the page with less space used.

Use Phrases

In a recent study conducted by one of the major search engine, it shows that over 65% of all searches made use phrases rather than single words. Try to put more key phrases instead of single key word.

Number of Keywords or Phrases per Page

Search engines look at only a certain portion of your page. The more pages your site has, the more keywords you can target. I would say you can optimize one page with 3 keywords or phrases. I would urge starting with one or two.

Keyword font

Write the keyword in bold and italic. Keyword text should be larger then other text size. Put keyword in to bulleted list.

Belongingness

If your site offers a product from a well known company with brand recognition, include that company name in your keyword.

Branch out your keyword

Try to get into the mind of someone else who would find your site/product useful. It means you have to pick up more words which someone can use to fetch the information your site contains. Use plurals and put the hyphen to separate the keywords or key phrases.

Places to put keywords

Search engines give higher relevance to certain words and phrases within HTML documents so it's vital to put your keyword phrases in the right places. Keywords should ideally be placed in the following sections of your web page:

Page Title - you must creatively include your keywords in a professional looking title. Google's maximum character count for page title is 83. Yahoo's maximum character count is 111.
Headings tags like H1 H2 and H3 - Placing the primary keywords in these sections is equally important as putting them in page title. Don't use filler words like: and, for, the, or etc.. they are neglected anyway by the search engines. You should strive to make optimum use of this place.
As links - Start the link with keyword. Use more text internal links between the body content. Don't create simple link like "click here" instead you can use few other words which will work as a keyword for you and acquire a better rank in search result.
Meta Tag - Till few months back we considered it as the most significant part of the site but dependency on the Meta Tag is diminishing. However we should not get complacent and ignore the importance of it. Be careful when you put keywords in keyword meta tag and description meta tag. It should be meaningful, informative and relevant with product or service you are offering.
Alt tag - Alt tags are also displayed as a quick pop-up when you point mouse over an image. Images don't show in text browsers so ALT tags tell the visitor what it's about. You should frame main keyword(s) in the ALT tags, but don't over do it because you could get dropped in the result.

Local based site

Suppose you are offering some service which is limited in the particular city that is called local based site. Here you need to mention your complete address with city name an zip code in the header of your home page. Use city name as a keyword in the links which you put in the bod body text.

One final tip I would suggest on using keywords and key phrases if your site is having separate pages use different keywords phrases for each page. This tactic will work as a magic to optimize your web pages and getting good rank in the search engines. Ultimately more traffic on your website.

Role Of Keywords and Key-Phrases In SEO