Bing Launches New Maps with Apps

Microsoft has announced the launch of a new Bing Maps beta, which incorporates Streetside and Photosynth imagery.

"The new Bing Maps experience also features innovative new mapping applications such as Twitter Maps for real-time updates by area and Local Lens featuring hyperlocal, neighborhood content," a representative for Bing tells WebProNews. There are a number of interesting apps available, which is easily the most interesting part about Bing's new Maps experience:





It will be quite interesting to see what other kinds of apps become available. There is a lot of potential in that department. Watch this clip (Silverlight) about the new Bing Maps

Maps aren't the only area where Bing is doing some new things. Other new features Bing features that will be rolling out over the next few days include:

- A new Bing Windows mobile application featuring improved auto-locate and voice search, available for download at http://www.discoverbing.com/mobile.

- The new Bing toolbar which flags online content and alerts you when you’re about to make a purchase that qualifies for Bing cashback savings, available for download at http://www.discoverbing.com/toolbar.

- A social network Visual Search experience -- by integrating Facebook and Twitter feeds, Bing Visual Search allows you to quickly find your status updates of your friends and followers, sort by upcoming birthdays and more. This is coming soon at http://www.bing.com/visualsearch.

The Behind Bing site that Microsoft recently introduced has additional information on Bing's new features. The site was set up to keep users informed about what Bing is up to.

Google: Page Speed May Become a Ranking Factor in 2010

Over the course of 2009, a consistent theme that Google has been involved with is that of speed. In announcement after announcement, Google has talked about the importance of speed on the web, and how the company wants to do everything it can to make the web a faster place. Has it occurred to you that how fast your page loads may have a direct effect on how your site ranks in Google?

Don't worry, it hasn't had an impact...yet. In an interview with WebProNews, Google's Matt Cutts told us that speed may soon be a ranking factor.

"Historically, we haven't had to use it in our search rankings, but a lot of people within Google think that the web should be fast," says Cutts. "It should be a good experience, and so it's sort of fair to say that if you're a fast site, maybe you should get a little bit of a bonus. If you really have an awfully slow site, then maybe users don't want that as much."

"I think a lot of people in 2010 are going to be thinking more about 'how do I have my site be fast,' how do I have it be rich without writing a bunch of custom javascript?'" he says.

I would say that based on Matt's comments it is probably fair to assume that Google will indeed begin taking page speed into consideration as a ranking factor, although he doesn't come right out and say that they definitely will. That said, making your site faster is going to benefit your users and possibly your sales anyway, so you might as well start optimizing it for speed anyway. Then if Google really does start using this as a ranking factor, you will have a head start on boosting your rankings.

Google has generally been pretty good at providing webmasters with tools they can use to help optimize their sites and potentially boost rankings and conversions. Google recently announced a Site Speed site, which provides webmasters with even more resources specifically aimed at speeding up their pages. Some of these, such as Page Speed and Closure tools come from Google itself. But there are a number of tools Google points you to from other developers as well.

Tips for Getting Found in Real-Time Searches

Real-time search is still an emerging concept. At this point, using a real-time search engine will bring you results by time/date. This doesn’t always cater to relevancy, which is why there is still a lot of work to be done in this field.

So, if real-time results are based upon time/date, and the user’s query, it stands to reason that time and those queries are the most important components in getting your content found in these types of searches.

1. Use Keywords

This seems obvious, but use keywords in not only your content, but in your titles, and your updates. If you’re writing an article, you have to consider what people are going to include in their updates if they share it on a social network, whether this be Facebook, Twitter, or anything else.

More often than not, they are going to include the title. If the right keywords are in the title, then those keywords are also more likely to appear in any ensuing tweets, Facebook updates, etc. If someone searches for those keywords, they will be more likely to find your content in a real-time search.

The same goes for your own Tweets/status updates. Even if you are not sharing an article, if you want your update to be found, use relevant keywords. Again, obvious, but true.

2. Talk About Timely Events

Simply mentioning events that are current will put you directly into the results for any searches having to do with that topic, provided the right keywords are in play. This is a method that could and (surely is) being exploited by spammers, but that doesn’t mean you can’t provide legitimate conversation and simply put yourself on more people’s radars, without throwing links at them every time.

3. Have a Lot of Followers

If you have a lot of followers or friends on social networks, or even just readers of your blog, you are going to get more people sharing your content. The more people sharing your content, the more impressions of your content will be making their way into real time searches.

There is no easy way to instantly get a bunch of legitimate readers/followers. It will take some promotion. Provide useful content that people will link to and it will spread virally. Provide clear ways for them to follow you (like links to Facebook pages and Twitter accounts on your blog).

4. Promote Conversation

Whether on your blog or on a social network, spark conversations. Talk about topics that people are interested in. This is tied to number 2. The more conversations you are involved with, the more retweets (and equivalents on other networks) you are likely to get. And again, this means more impressions in real times searches.

5. Include Calls to Engagement

I recently talked about why there is more to retweeting than meets the eye for businesses. I mentioned the use of buttons like Tweetmeme’s and Digg’s. These are buttons you can put on articles that show the amount of retweets/diggs that article has. They kind of act as a meter for engagement.

These buttons are certainly not all-encompassing. They only represent the conversation on 2 channels, and not the web in general. I’m sure there are other buttons that can be used in addition.

More importantly though, they provide a “call to action” to share the content. People can digg or retweet a story with a simple click, and you’re one step closer to being found in somebody’s real-time search.

Wrapping Up

Real-time search is much more basic (at least so far) than say, Google Search. You’re not ranking for relevancy. Really, you could hardly call it ranking it all. It’s about visibility. That means, you have to get people talking about your content/updates.

Social media by nature is viral. Real-time search is nothing more than putting things in chronological order. You have to keep people talking to stay relevant to “right now.”

source: http://www.webpronews.com/

Facebook Pages to Get Click Through Rates

If you are the owner or an admin of a Facebook page, you are probably familiar with Facebook's Insights. This is Facebook's analytical offering that lets page admins see how fans are engaging.

BuzzMarketing Daily discovered that there is a blurb in the Fan Interaction Dashboard, which you can get to by clicking "learn more" from the Facebook Insights page, which talks about a couple of new metrics that are on the way (via Inside Facebook).

The new metrics are Click Through Rate and Engagement Rate for content that appears in the Facebook news feed. As described in the blurb, if a user clicks on one of your posts, it will be counted as "Stream CTR" and if a user likes or comments on a post, it will be counted under Stream ETR.

One knock against social media marketing has historically been its lack of measurable success. Metrics like this should be able to go a long way toward curing that.

With Facebook's Insights, you can already look at interactions (numbers of comments, wall posts, and likes), Interactions Per Post (average number of comments, wall posts and likes for each piece of content), Post Quality (score measuring engagement), Discussion Posts (number of discussion topics created on your page), and Reviews (number of times fans use the Reviews app to rate you page).

Suffice it to say, there are a number of things you can look at to gauge the success you are having with your Facebook page, and depending on what areas you are lacking in, you can take the necessary steps to try and improve - just like with any other analytics program.
source: http://www.webpronews.com/

Google News Italia Probe Expands

Google received a piece of bad news - and perhaps a laugh - today as we prepare to go into the long weekend. Here's the serious part: Italian antitrust regulators have decided to expand the focus of an investigation from the Italian version of Google News to the entire corporation.

Things began to heat up last week when an Italian newspaper federation claimed that Google would exclude papers from its normal search results when they opted out of Google News. Google Italy's offices got searched, and the concept of an $18.5 million fine was mentioned.

Now, according to an AGI article, Italy's antitrust authority has stated, "On the basis of inspections by the authority, it has been found that the management of the Google News Italia service, currently under a preliminary investigation, was handled by Google Inc."

What brilliant detective work, right? Sherlock Holmes has been reincarnated in Rome.

Still, given a choice between chuckling at obvious statements and not facing an inquiry, Google would probably pick the second option. The fact that this investigation's picked up speed in just one week isn't a great sign.

source:http://www.webpronews.com/

Windows 7 first look: More than just "Vista, fixed"

Windows 7 won’t be officially available to the public until next week—Thursday, August 6, to be exact—when MSDN and Technet subscribers will finally get the chance to download the software legitimately and activate their copies with product keys. It’s the first step on a long rollout that will end October 22 when the software will be available for purchase in retail boxes and on new PCs.

I’ve been able to get a head start, using the official RTM build (7600.16385). For the past 10 days, I’ve been methodically installing and testing the final release of Windows 7 on a wide range of desktop and notebook configurations in my home and office. I’ve done upgrades and clean installs, with and without the Easy Transfer utility, using different editions in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. I’ll have a through review of Windows 7 next week, including a deep dive into its most interesting new features. Today, I want to offer some first impressions and an image gallery based on my initial experience with these final bits.

Windows 7 isn’t perfect, but it is greatly improved over its predecessors in many ways. Calling it an “evolutionary” release in comparison to Windows Vista is probably a fair characterization. However, if you assume that Windows 7 is simply “Vista, fixed,” you’ll miss many small but meaningful changes and several large ones that give Windows 7 its own identity. In daily use, I continue to be impressed by the attention to detail that went into the Windows 7 iterations of features that are part of every Windows user’s daily routine. I’ve also found some hidden gems, which I’ll spotlight here and in next week’s full review.

[See my image gallery for a close-up look at key features and hidden gems in Windows 7 RTM]

From a design standpoint, Windows 7 makes the 2001-vintage XP design look downright primitive. Switching between Vista and 7 is less jarring, but the improvements in consistency and visual presentation are still noteworthy and make 7 feel more graceful and modern. The palette is softer, and many of the UI rough edges have been smoothed out.

Arguably, the visual presentation is just eye candy. The more important changes, as far as productivity is concerned, are those that improve usability. When I switch from Windows 7 to a PC running an earlier version of Windows (or, for that matter, running OS X or Ubuntu), I miss some of the window management tricks that I’ve come to rely on, including the ability to peek at thumbnails of open windows on the taskbar and to “snap” windows into position with a flick of the mouse.

Over several months of use, I’ve really come to appreciate Jump Lists, which are pop-up menus that can be summoned with a right-click on a taskbar icon (or, more easily, with a quick upward flick of the mouse. The default Jump List for a program allows you to see a list of recently used files and pin favorites to the menu.

I fully expect that some Windows veterans will grumble over a few of the changes in Windows 7. In some cases, those are just different approaches to design. In others, they reflect the Windows 7 learning curve. As I’ve discovered after six months of intense research, some new features take a while to adapt to. A few, like Libraries, which are the new default file-organization scheme in Windows Explorer, are deceptively complex and require some basic training before they can be used to best advantage.

Resources: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=1195

Role Of Keywords and Key-Phrases In SEO

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.

Basic Steps of SEO

I am starting form SEO BASIC STEPS.

Website optimization is a never ending process. You may have noticed that off line stores keep changing their store fronts depending on season, campaigns and similar.

1 basic question erises in our mind that What is SEO?

SEO = On Page SEO + Off Page SEO

To do seo for any web site or any blog you must have to do this two level of seo steps.
If your website or blog is perfect with this then you can get top rank at all SE like Google,yahoo,msn etc.

Kindly note that some of these steps are more towards those hosting their own blogs especially with Wordpress or Typepad

Sticking To One URL
Built Into Title and Meta Tags
Permalink For Your Posts
Choosing The Right Keyword
Include Keywords In the Posts
Using ALT tags on Images
Help Spiders Navigate
Link Building
Update Regulalry with some Unique Content

Learn About you Basics Of Internet Marketing

Many businesses are not only depending on their physical offices in marketing whatever product they have available for the general public. With the introduction of the internet, there are many changes that took place in the business world.

The internet allows a particular organization to reach many prospective clients wherever they are. Even if you have one office, you can practically advertise your goods/services anywhere in the world.
Putting your business in the internet world is not an easy task. Don t regard the internet as a medium for advertising your business because it is more than that. You have to maximize the use of the unique qualities of the web, and in this manner, you will be able to provide prospects and clients with a better experience.

Internet marketing, this are two simple words but when put together, it covers a lot of subject matters that needs considerable amount of attention. The basics of internet marketing includes researching the market, search engines, advertising (email), marketing, promotion (local) and marketing offline.

Let s start with researching the market. You have to identify first your market, and think of ways on how to reach those markets. You should be able to convey a message with value, for your prospects and clients to get a better understanding of what you are trying to advertise.

The two most important words in market research are target and hit. An effective marketing research should be able to hit the identified target. Your target will depend largely on what your business can provide to clients. Examples are children aged 7-12; or it can be men and women.

Marketing research further involves primary and secondary research, combined research, quantitative and qualitative.

The next internet marketing basic is the search engine. This has two types, namely: directories search engine and the PPC (pay per click) engines. If you are to engage in internet marketing, the presence of a search engine is quite important. Although it can be quite expensive, most business can t possibly do without it because it is the most effective way to advertise the business.

Directories require a huge amount of patience for effective marketing. You have to wait for a couple of weeks before you actually appear on the site. Your site position can also change without further notice because this engines change their indexes and ranking rules every now and then.

PPC engines are more expensive but easier to utilize. You can obtain a much higher listing and fast and steady results.

Advertising is the next basic on the list. After you identify the desires and general wants of your target, you can also identify their interests. There are different publications which take up advertising; you can also make use of newsletter list advertising. It has three types: solo advertisement, classified ads, and top line ads.

The second to the last internet marketing basic is promotion. Make sure that you also promote in your local area, besides your first real clients will surely come from somewhere near your place. Since many businesses focus their attention to web audiences, they often forget to advertise locally. You can make use of press releases, magazines, newspapers, business guides, and many more.

Finally, marketing offline; classified ads are good if the publication itself focuses on your target market, otherwise you can do without it. Instead, you can correctly make use of print advertising, URLs, and movie slides.

Without advertisement, any business will fail. It is therefore imperative to have a good team that could handle all your business advertising, offline or online. Internet marketing requires a lot of thought, effort, and time. If you devote all these aspects towards proper advertising, all your efforts will be worthy once you see the business success.

Search Engine Marketing V.s Search Engine Optimization

Hey, in my opinion if you have a website online you need both SEO and SEM aspects. But we won’t be talking about needing one or the other more. Instead, we will be talking about the differences between each option. For some reason, a lot of people get the two confused. Or they think they are both the same thing! Oh no. They are both very different in their own right.

While both search engine optimization and search engine marketing will make your business more visible and hopefully more successful there are a few things you should be well-aware of when choosing which one you want to utilize for your website! Let’s take a look at a few of these differentials listed below.

The main definition behind search engine optimization, also known to some people as SEO is the action of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. Even though there is no way to really figure the secrets to search engines algorithms like Google, there are still various distinct attributes you can try out in order to accomplish high ranking status.

For the most part you are going to want to try and reach for the first page on the results of these search engines. This process allows you to optimize your website for search engines to be able to find your website and in turn index it. If your website is indexed on search engines like Google and Yahoo your pretty golden in terms of “being seen”. See when you are indexed your site will show up on these engines when people search for certain phrases.

So say your website is about laptops or more specifically Sony Vaio, if your website is optimized correctly and you use word in your meta tags and site title like “Sony Vaio”, then when people search for Sony Vaio laptop on the search engines, your site will show up. Obviously this is an important part of getting people to your website but it also boosts page rank as well. The higher the PR you have the closer your website will show up on Google within the pages of the results.

SEO is something that I would suggest you hiring someone to do. This is something you really need to understand and get right. Do you know where your META tags are? Or how to place keywords on your headers? If not, then you should either educate yourself or hire someone to do this for you. It’s quite cheap. Plus, they know exactly what they are doing so it takes them a few minutes to do it right the first time, while it might take you hours on end and you did it wrong!

Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs). According to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, SEM methods include: search engine optimization (or SEO), paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion. Other sources, including the New York Times, define SEM as the practice of buying paid search listings.

This is something you can do yourself or you can hire someone. In order to marketing your website you might want to try registering your link with the following engines: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live, Ask, Baidu, Rambler, Yandex, Timway, Onkosh, and Ayna. Other suggestions? Try practices which will result in backlinks such as directory submission, article marketing, content creation, etc.

While SEM is a bit less confusing, there is a lot of “parts” to it. This is usually a very broad term for a bunch of different facets. So if you don’t know which option to choose from - you could just as well hire someone. Or you could do a little reading and do it yourself.

Either way, as aforementioned I would seriously suggest doing both of these different aspects for your website. It doesn’t matter if it’s big or small. Chances are if you have a website - you have it for a reason. You probably want to sell products or services. Maybe you have CPA, CPC, CPM programs on your website. Maybe you belong to Amazon, eBay, Linkshare, Kolimbo or Clickbank. Either way - if you want to make money you absolutely must be seen. Without views and traffic and sales, you’re just another statistic!

source: http://www.article-buzz.com/Article/Search-Engine-Marketing-V-s-Search-Engine-Optimization/322143

9 Tips To Grow Your List

It’s all about size. In today’s e-marketing world, a robust email list is no longer a luxury it’s a must-have. Truth is, list atrophy is a fact of life and, in the long-run, could capsize ones campaigns. Since we all know database lists change, and at times dwindle, the onus falls on marketers to apply concerted efforts to grow, expand and cultivate.

That’s why resting easy when ones list reaches a satisfying size isn’t the smartest way to play. The secret to success is to continually forge and attract relationships with new customers and qualified prospects because eventually turnover happens.

Like ones own “field of e-dreams,” if one builds it and keeps it strong, one will create more opportunities for customers to come to the company.

The time for growth is now. Create a thriving list for the future. As many marketers attest, one of the thorniest challenges in marketing today is list turnover. In fact, according to Jupiter Research’s 2006 E-mail List Growth Survey, 39 percent of those polled say it’s the Achilles Heal of their efforts. With a stat like this, the desire to fertilize lists for success is foremost on many marketers’ minds.

Strategy Number 1: Overcome perceived limitations

In “recession-like” climates, many companies react by cinching budgets and predicting uncertainty. But we’re here to say, contrary to this “flinch and cinch” approach, now is the perfect time to invest in list growth.

A company’s email list is one of the most valuable assets, and it must be cultivated over time to combat list fatigue and attrition. Small investments now will result in big future payoffs just in time for the next holiday shopping season.

Strategy Number 2: Crunch the numbers

To yield the payoff a company is after, first define the numbers that matter. The easiest way to sum it up is to create a plan that measures and tracks list performance. Here’s a quick outline to get one started:

Create a list-growth strategy that defines conversion goals over weeks, months and years

By what percentage should one wish to increase their database?

What methods will one use to accomplish this growth?

What is the total expected cost of this time and resources investment?

Factor in expected losses based on industry standards and create your company’s own benchmarks

On average, one can expect up to one-third of ones list to become non-deliverable on an annual basis

A large percentage of non-deliverable email addresses can adversely impact ones deliver ability rates and depress ones other email response metrics

Monitor ones database. Are your company’s loss trends in-line with industry norms? Is deactivation higher or lower than what was planned?

Measure your company’s success quotient

Calculate how many new opt-ins one needs to acquire in order to outpace deactivations and unsubscribes

Monitor ones monthly list size and compare it with stated goals

Is growth outpacing attrition? Is your company on track or falling behind the curve?

Set an annual budget for list-growth tactics and integrate it within your company’s larger marketing budget

Organic Tactics

Growing in ones own backyard

Building ones list the natural way is truly a hands-on experience. By “organic,” we mean tactics that involve rolling up ones sleeves, using ingredients your company already has, and cultivating growth with creative ideas.

The most productive and economical method

When one build organically, optimize ones existing customer touch points to obtain email addresses for as many customers as possible. Organically acquired opt-ins will be ones most responsive email subscribers, because they already have an existing relationship with your company. If you’re an e-tailer, point-of-sale and special offer incentives can boost list growth in a few keystrokes. If you sell worthy causes or steward brands, prominent sign-up buttons and navigation links provide easy opt-in touch points.

Apply ‘organic’ growth widely

As one expands their list the organic way, one builds on existing customer relationships and data your company already have. That’s why it makes great sense to apply this tactic whenever and wherever one can and reap the benefits of earthly toil. Here are just a few ways to put this plan into action starting now.

TIP Number 1: Utilize customer touch points

Include email opt-ins at all customer touch points: cash register/shopping cart points-of-sale; online registration for products, services or general inquiries; packaging inserts; trade shows and exhibits; thank you cards and order confirmations

TIP Number 2: Build ones brand

Generate interest by promoting sign-up incentives through relationship marketing and PR outreach; business cards and printed collateral; and email campaigns with discounts, gifts and refer-a-friend offers

TIP Number 3: Devise a link strategy

Place sign-up links in prominent locations on ones website for example, above the Web page fold; in left or top navigation areas; or in an obvious promotional button, tile or banner ad

TIP Number 4: Integrate ones navigation

Make ones sign-up link(s) constantly available place perennial links in navigation bars

TIP Number 5: Wage campaigns and promotions

Launch promotional campaigns aimed at surging site traffic and motivating new sign-ups - stir interest with information tidbits, tunes, ring tones, discounts and free gifts

TIP Number 6: Make it easy

Remove all barriers to sign-ups, such as asking too much of customers, adding too many data fields to a form, or making the sign-up experience time-consuming or confusing

Paid Tactics

When organic list growth isn’t good enough

If one crunches the numbers and conclude ones list just isn’t growing fast enough, paid list growth is an excellent way to add a little fertilizer and fuel organic growth. By combining paid and organic list growth strategies, you are casting the broadest net possible to connect with existing customers and new prospects.

Test paid tactics to learn what works for your business

Paid list growth tactics work, but not all tactics work for all marketers. Since your business is going to be spending hard earned budget dollars, it is important to test different list growth tactics to learn what works best based on your company’s specific goals and objectives. Once you learn what tactics work best for your company, you can develop a roll out strategy to optimize your response and cost to acquire. Here are some paid list growth tactics to put on your company’s test list:

Test Number 1: Co-registration

Co-registration involves placing your company’s logo and offer on another publisher’s site to acquire opt-ins. After opting-in to your email program, the consumer receives an auto-responder message confirming their opt-in status which provides an excellent opportunity to drive traffic directly to your website.

Co-registration is also a branding tool. Even if a consumer does not opt-in to your email program, you still get the benefit of making a branding impression just by displaying your logo and offer on the site.

Co-registration works best for marketers who have a well known brand with a broad target audience.

Test Number 2: Rent a List

Renting a list is a great way to utilize another publisher’s qualified, permission-based email list to drive incremental revenue and acquire new customers.

You can be highly targeted with list rental selections, which enables you to closely match your target audience.

Good creative design and a clear call to action are essential for list rental success. You may only have one chance to make a good impression so you need to make a big impact right away.

When you rent from a trusted source, you’re guaranteed list integrity. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t a good investment.

Test Number 3: Email append and email change of address services

Enlarge your list fast by expanding on what you already know. Email appending involves taking existing customer information and locating matching email addresses. By acquiring email addresses for your existing customers, you are able to expand the conversation you are already having with them through other marketing channels.

When email addresses churn and change, you can regain contact with valuable customers with an email change-of-address campaign. The process is simple, and it improves deliver ability.

Both Email Append and Email Change of Address programs should include a Welcome message to introduce (or re-introduce) subscribers to your email program. In addition to building trust and setting expectations, Welcome messages are a great opportunity to drive incremental revenue with a great offer and call to action to “shop now!”.

Source

Create an Effective Email Opt-in Process by Starting Simple

Email marketing is all about building and maintaining strong relationships. The email relationship starts when someone opts-in to receive information from your company or organization. Start simple and build the relationship from there. In the beginning, most people don’t want to give out much personal information. Asking for to much right away decreases your chance of getting that initial sign-up. Even just asking for the email address is a great start.

What happens after you get their email address is where the relationship starts to build, and first impressions are everything to building a good and trusting relationship. It is important that these next steps are done right and not overlooked. There are three key parts to this process that help create a great opt-in experience. First is the opt-in form itself. Second is the subscription confirmation page and the third is the subscription confirmation and welcome messages...

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

Discover the Google Cash Sniper!

This is without doubt of my most IMPORTANT announcements of 2009.

Discover How A 25 Year Old Self Confessed Loser Sniped A FREE $52,383 From Google In Less Than 3 Days With No Big "Guru" Friends!

If your struggling to make money as an affiliate, have no big "guru" friends then you need to STOP now and read every word of this letter very carefully....

source: http://internetmarketingebooks.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html

Content - Bots vs Visitors

The renowned concept of optimized content for search engines to crawl at a rate faster than ever before and webmasters are considering it for better search engine ranking and popularity.

The question that is of extreme importance for both leaders and followers is whether they should write for bots or for people? This is something divisive, someone tell writing for people doesn't worth because the search results are collected by robots, while others hold that robot won't search what people are not looking for. Both angel of thinking are right at their own place but that is not the ultimate solution
The targets of SEO writing

source: http://seodiscussions.blogspot.com/2009/07/content-bots-vs-people.html

Internal Links Important !

Most of the Internet entrepreneurs who have atleast some idea about the search engines are often engrossed about links. Yes, Links do play a very important role to affect a website's search engine rankings and the business it does. However, in most cases, I have seen that webmasters are more concerned about getting inbound links from external sites and often tend to ignore the internal links.

We need to understand while external links are important, internal links are actually the life line of any web based business.

As a webmaster you would definitely want your visitors to be able to visit every part of your website and for that they need a easy navigation path. Your need to set up your internal links in a way that they guide your visitors in a logical path throughout the website. Though a cool flash menu or an equally atractive Javascript menu might be pretty interesting for some visitors, think about those visitors whose browser do not support scripts or flash - It is most important that you provide a simple HTML links for all your pages.

Besides, this ensures that search engine bots are also able to crawl your site properly. Search Engines hate flash or JavaScripts and they would not crawl the links you set in them. Feed the bots with plain HTML links and your pages will definitely be indexed.

To add to it, if you are using suitable anchor texts to link to relevant pages that adds more value to your internal links. For example, in your site about Widgets, you can have a particular page about Red Widgets - linking to that page using the text "Red Widgets" is much more beneficial compared to using "Widgets1" or "Other Widgets" etc for the anchor text. This helps your visitors to understand where the link leads them to and also the page gets benefit in terms of search engine positioning.

In addition to enhancing the navigation system and facilitating search engines to crawl the site properly, your links can also help to increase your conversion - Yes, Links can affect your sales.

Think of a big retail shop, you have just picked a shirt that you like and have almost made up your mind to buy it but you dont see a salesman anywhere -- you might just consider looking for a few other shirts and in the process forget about the one you thought you would buy :( Yes - this happens in web too !!

If you want to increase your conversion add links stratezically; if there's a page giving small intro about the various products you sell make sure all of them have a link directly to the page that gives details about the products and from there it should have a prominent link to the order page.Make your links attractive and easy to recognize so that more people clicks on it.

When I say, "Make your links attractive and easy to recognize" - I really don't mean something flashy or zazzy.. it has been observed that most Internet users are more likely to click on the same old Blue Underlined Links compared to the fancy ones that we blend in with other content using our CSS skills.From the advent of Internet that was how a link used to look originally and in my opinion its basic e-ntuition that people tend to click or hover their mouse over any Blue and underlined text on the web. I am sure most of you have already done that to the above phrase , even though it is not linked.

Dan gives a lot of good stuff on this and also how to track which links are more effective for your website. He has mentioned quiet a few analytics tools and stresses a bit on measuring "average page views per visitors", though click through rate on a link is probably a more accurate measure for the links effectiveness (because a page may be accessible through multiple links and you might just change the link at one place for testing purpose). I personally find Google Analytics pretty handy for this. The "Site OverLay" link found under Executive Summary section will show you the click through rate for any link on a particular page of Your website. You can very easily compare the click through rates on a link blended using CSS and later by putting it back to the blue and underlined form.It is important that you do the testing on a measurable amount of traffic (atleast 1000 visitors) to get proper identifiable results.

Change in Google Referral Strings - Another Attempt to Push Google Analytics ?

Google has again made a change to their search result page URLs that is likely to create trouble with most other web analytics package besides Google Analytics. A few days back they experimented with their SERP URLs by using AJAX and putting the URL parameters after a #. While that experiment had the potential to kill all the existing web analytics package in the market and created a big buzz in the blogosphere, they seem to have stopped that.

Now in their new experiment with the Google Search result URLs, they have done some changes which again would leave most other web analytics package high and dry to track Google referrer data.

At present a typical Google search referrer URL would look like
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=candles&btnG=Google+Search

The New Referrer URL format would be
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=7&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.example.com%2Fmypage.htm&ei=0SjdSa-1N5O8M_qW8dQN&rct=j&q=candles&usg=AFQjCNHJXSUh7Vw7oubPaO3tZOzz-F-u_w&sig2=X8uCFh6IoPtnwmvGMULQfw

Now besides showing the complete result page URL and other multiple parameters, the key difference between these two referrer strings is that in the first on the parameters started after "/search?" and in the second one they start after "/url?". Now most of the present day analytics packages parses the Google referrer string based on the "/search?" part and looks for information after that to figure out which keyword or which page of the search result the traffic came from. Also most of them look for the "/search?" to determine if a visitor is coming from organic search results. Replacing "search" with "url" would leave them all messed up.

Google analytics however does not depend on the "/search?" string in the referrer and would continue to work properly. Also the latest version of Urchin (6.5) would not be affected by this change.

Other analytics packages would probably need to do some changes to adapt to this change in Google referrer string to provide accurate analytics report.

These new referrer String is launched at beta stage and only a small percentage of users are getting this at present but it is likely that Google would soon roll out this in the main stream.

While Google has not explained or given any reason for this sudden changes there seems to be just two possible reasons for this.
a) Making other third party analytics less usable / giving them a hard time - I don't think other analytics providers would have a lot of problem to adapt this but they would definitely need some time and webmasters would need an option for that period and Google Analytics would be the choice.

b) This new referrer string would allow Google to pass all clicks through their server thereby making it much easier for them to track the CTR for individual sites. As it has always been said that Google uses CTR data as a factor for their algorithm, now that Google can track individual CTR with so much precision I would think that they are very likely going to use these information for further refining the organic results.

You are NoWhere on the Search Engines Why?

You have wonderful products and services, you always hymn “Customer is our king” and you have showcased some of the best services that anyone in your industry can feel proud of! Then wondering why still is your website not visible in the top searches of search engines? There could be many reasons why still your website is being buried somewhere deep inside the search engine results.

Let us analyze one by one as to what the probable and top reasons could be:

• First and foremost thing to start with is to choose URLs that are keyword driven, so that users land exactly on your website when they type those keywords!
• The first best thing would be to check if your website has been listed in the search engines or not. This can be checked by typing out the website URL in the search engines and checking out if the result is showing your website as a result or not. It should ideally show a result of your own website, thereby proving that your site is actually listed.
• Getting search engine visibility takes time. It does not happen just like that. You need to spend more of your time and effort on it, just like it takes time to build up a new business and establish it. Though the results are not SO long to be seen, still it done need to have some time for itself too, to get established and familiar for the search engines. Give it more of time and consideration and hard work, and am sure it’ll pay off. So don’t be lazy start off right away
• Another essential thing to be noticed is to have more of written and relevant content in your website. Now this does not mean you just fill your website with keywords, just for the sake of getting listed in search engines. You must write articles in such a way that are meaningful, relevant to your website at the same time uses important keywords that your visitors might search for in search engines.
• Title tag title tag title tag!!! Get this phrase embedded in your brain! The area in the HTML pages that asks for page title is where you must include keyword or keyword phrases, in order to get attention of the search engines.
• Next thing would be to include ALT tags to the images in the website. This also helps in the images in your website to participate and contribute its share to search engine optimization.
• How popular is your website among the search engines? This is the next question that you must be asking yourself. Popularity of a website increases with more of quality inbound links. The more other websites would link to your website, the more your website’s popularity increases among the net, thereby the search engines. This is done by link building, wherein you submit your website links to other quality and related websites, in order to develop site popularity.
• Finally create a business blog and update your current key services, products or any value added information which can help your business as well as your visitor. This can boost your search engine visibility and traffic

Well as I already said, there are many other things that might be one of the reasons hindering your website from coming anywhere near the top search results. But these are few of the important reasons.

With these tips, don’t be no-where in search engines, you are Now-here, get noticed!! Keep going!!

Downloaded google talk and don't want your boss or your parents to find out

suppose you have downloaded google talk and don't want your boss or your parents to find out. Because when you downloaded google talk it will show at the bottom toolbar thing opposite to
the start menu at the bottom. But at are tips to hide it!!! Or delete it.
see pic here and follow this step

1. just go to run and type msconfi
2. Choose start up tab
3. Remove the google talk service

Yes you have done now google talk will not come up at front in the toolbar.

Second way is to hide google talk follow tese step

1. At the top of the g talk messenger there is an option called "settings"
2. Click on settings and there will be an option i.e. "start automatically when windows starts"
3. Remove the tick for that option and press OK button !!!!!

read gmail offline

If you are a Gmail user then it is great for you because you can use Gmail offline also now,as you hear this your reaction may be "what!" so answer is yes now you can read,write and send E-mail from your Gmail account when you are offline. For work offline you need dowanlaod Google product google gear.

Gmail uses Gears to download a local cache of your mail and as you lose your connection,Gmail automatically switches to offline mode and use the data stored on your computer's hard drive instead of the information sent across the network. if send any message in offline mode it will be placed in your outbox and automatically sent the next time when you connect again.

Dowan laod google Gears here.

Define: PageRank Sculpting

PageRank Sculpting deals with the principle of link flow architecture utilizing rel="nofollow" attribute and by organising non-priority pages for SERP's in an external include file, blocked with your robots.txt to stop your site link juice to pass for unimportant pages, untrusted sites and bad neighborhood

Where all does PageRank Sculpting matters

• These can be implement to your least important pages like sign up, cart page and so
• Other domains that you don't know or trust
• This would work better for sites having 100's and 1000's of WebPages that are not important for keyword listing and in addition link juice loop to the domain

search engine optimization (SEO) terms

Landing Page
The landing page is a web page where people go to once they click on an online advertisement or natural search listing.

Landing pages are designed to be highly relevant to the advertisement or search listing and encourage users to complete a "call to action".

The landing page is also known as the "click through URL" or "destination URL".

Example uses of landing pages are newsletter sign up forms, download demonstration trial software and purchasing of a product or service.

Link bait
Useful or entertaining web content which compels users to link to it.



Link building
Requesting links from webmasters of other sites for the purpose of increasing your "link popularity" and/or "PageRank."

Considerations for link building can include directory submissions and press release syndication.


Link farm
A link farm is a group of highly interlinked websites with the purposes of inflating link popularity (or PR). A link farm is a form of spamdexing, spamming the index of a search engine.

Link popularity
When other web sites link to your site, your site will rank better in certain search engines. The more web pages that link to you, the better your link popularity.

Link spam
Links between pages that are specifically set up to take advantage of link-based ranking algorithms such as Google's PageRank (PR).

Links
text or graphics that, when clicked on, take the Internet user to another web page location. Links are expressed as URLs.


Log file
All accesses to a web site can be logged by the web server. Data that is usually logged includes date and time, filename accessed, user's IP address, referring web page, user's browser software and version, and cookie data.


Keyword research
Determining the words and phrases that people use to find something, then compiling them into a list for use on web pages, etc.

Keyword stuffing
Placing excessive amounts of keywords into the page copy and the HTML in such a way that it detracts from the readability and usability of a given page for the purpose of boosting the page's rankings in the search engines. This includes hiding keywords on the page by making the text the same color as the background, hiding keywords in comment tags, overfilling alt tags with long strings of keywords, etc. Keyword stuffing is just another shady way of gaming the search engines and, as such, its use should be strongly discouraged.

Keyword-rich
when a given page or bit of text is chock full of good keywords rather than a bunch of meaningless words (e.g. "welcome", "click here") or irrelevant words (e.g. "solution").

5 Tips for Success on Squidoo

Whether you're new to internet marketing or not, Squidoo really is one of the easiest ways to market your business online, build traffic to your site, and you can even make money.

For those that don't know what Squidoo is, it's the brain child of Seth Godin one of the top marketers online. A Squidoo lens is a page on the Squidoo site that is on a specific topic.

A lens can contain articles, reviews, RSS feeds, links, and all kinds of other resources on a specific topic. Lenses also tend to rank really high in the search engines making it an easy way to get your site seen without your site having high search engine rankings.

The best part is that this site is friendly to affiliate programs, so if you're a bum marketer, or you don't have a site of your own, this is an easy way to build one. There are, in fact, quite a few lensmasters who make a full time living with their Squidoo lenses, and if you choose to, you can too.

Although there are many ways to market your Squidoo lenses, here are five tips that will help you quickly promote your lenses and get high rankings:

1. Carefully choose your keywords.
   You want to make sure that the keywords you use are keywords that people are actually searching for. You also want to make sure that the keywords aren't too broad. Long tail keywords, keyword phrases at least three to four words long, will help you drive more targeted traffic to your lens.
   
   Test your keywords to see which ones are getting you traffic. Look for more keywords that may be related to your lens and add those.
2. Bookmark your lenses.
   This is one of the easiest ways to get new traffic to your lenses and announce them. You can use services like Digg, as well as Only Wire.
   
   Not only will this give your lenses some good, high ranking backlinks, but it will also help your lenses get indexed faster.
3. Link your lenses to other lenses.
   You want to make sure that the lenses you create in your account are similar in topic. You can easily link these lenses together. This is another form of linking for your lenses, but it's called internal linking. This will also help you raise your rankings in the search engines.
4. Visit other lenses.
   You can share your lenses on Squidoo by visiting other lenses. You want to look for lenses that are related to yours and have a guestbook. You can post comments on these guest books and leave a link to your site. You also want to vote on other lenses. This will help get other lens masters to your lens.
5. Join groups.
   There are thousands of groups on Squidoo you can join and showcase your lenses. You can do a search through the groups to find groups related to your lenses and add your lenses to these groups. This is also an opportunity for you to see what others are doing with their lenses so you can improve yours, get more traffic, and make more sales.

Squidoo also has plenty of resources to help you get more traffic to your lenses, including Squidoo U, a forum, and tips on showing off your lenses.

5 Tips for Success on Squidoo

Paid Survey, How to Get Started?

Make money with paid survey, is it just a scam or non-sense. Well, there are actually a lot of reputable market research and consumer companies welcome people to become their members to earn cash participating in their online survey. It is a legitimate way to make money online. Additionally, Paid survey is very popular, there are more than 100,000 people searching for paid surveys every month in Yahoo as recorded in Overture Search tool.

However, the downsides of paid survey is that you will not know how much money you make ever month. The companies only send paid survey invitations to you if you are eligible. If you receive more surveys in the month, you'll earn more. Another problem is that most paid surveys only available to US residents, so people outside US will find hard to make money with paid survey.

Start Earning with Paid Survey in 3 Steps:

• Step 1 - Create a new e-mail account specially for receiving paid survey invitations. You can use Yahoo, Hotmail and other free email services. This will make finding your survey invitations easier compare to using an existing email that receives plenty of mails daily.

• Step 2 - Go to Yellowsurveys.com to sign up with as many online market research companies as possible. The site compiled a long list of market research companies that offer paid surveys. Sign up with the companies in "Most Popular" category first and then continue to join the rest. This can take few days of work.

• Step 3 - Wait for paid survey invitations send to you. It can take fews days to months to receive your first survey invitation. You shouldn't rely on paid survey as your main source of income. It can only be a way of earning extra money.

Paid Survey, How to Get Started?

Is your competition beating you in SEO?

You have optimized your website for winning keywords, are mid-way with your link building campaign, and have been going absolutely crazy creating fresh SEO friendly content that pleases the users and search engines.

You are obviously very serious about your online business, and yet you cannot seem to cross the rank No.12, Page 2 barrier of Google search listing for your primary keywords.

A series are questions arise from the imaginary situation above:

1. Why is my ranking for the particular keyword not going up?
2. Am I missing out on any SEO strategies?
3. Maybe I am not building enough links? How much will be enough?
4. Do I have to improve my content quality?
5. The search engine has changed their algorithm (…again)
6. Others are using illegal SEO techniques

Now while one could go over the questions in your head, read up on latest search engine algorithms, contact a SEO expert, or blindly start buying links out of desperation, there is an easier way to find your answers.

Simply ask why are the other 10 websites ranking before your website?

Now that does not mean that the above questions 1 to 6 are not relevant, but simply put, one of the easiest way to boost your search rankings is to study the top 5 to ten websites for your keyword and then apply what working for them into your own strategies.

Now I am not asking you to copy the competition or have a strategy that just involves beating the competition at the ranking game. It never works. What is needed is a better balance between your company's SEO strategies and of those of your competitors.

Like in any business strategy, you have to know your competitors, study what strategies they are using, and then apply the best of those strategies to your own game plan.

In the same way, in defining the SEO path ahead for your website you must analyze your competition. What are they doing to rank in the top 10 that you are not doing? After all those websites are listed on the top for a reason, and they are applying SEO strategies that the search engine in particular seems to like.

Now while finding the answers to those questions in the real business world may be difficult, in the online world all you have to do is to right-click and view the source of the page.

The above simple step will open up a world of information to you. (Editor note: you can use Site Information Tool and Keyword Density Analyzer to reveal some important information about your competitors' sites).

1. Does the domain name contain the keyword? If the link is a sub domain then does the sub domain contain the keyword?
2. In what Meta tags, title, etc has the competition placed their keywords?
3. Does the link name contain the keyword? eg. www.seo-optimization-experts.com/mumbai-seo-expert.html
4. 4. How many keywords are listed in the keyword tag i.e. is the page focused around one or two keywords, or is it a jumble of keywords listed out.
5. Is the title and description captivating enough? How has the keyword/s been placed in the title and description and at what position?
6. Is the page graphic intensive? Is the site using a lot flash or active server pages? Search engines cannot understand graphics, only the text it can read on the page. Make sure there is a good balance between the graphics and content.
7. How long is the body text? Writing 400 to 600 words is normally fine.
8. Has the keyword (keyword weight) been used appropriately in the body content? Ideally the first 25 words of content should be keyword rich, and the keyword should appear after every 100 words in remaining content.
9. Is the content interesting to you as the reader? Does the content follow a theme? Is the content relevant to what keyword the page has been optimized for?
10. What is the page rank of the page (You can check page rank of any website by downloading the Google Toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com.
11. Which is the first place in the source code the keyword appears?
12. Has the keyword been used appropriately in headline tags and link text?
13. Does the site use java script, tables, frames, dynamic content, CMS etc?
14. Is the page focused around a theme?
15. How many inbound links are there to the page? You can check the link popularity of the page on www.marketleap.com? Visit the sites that have given the link? What is their page rank? What is the link text that describes the link to the website? Has the keyword been used in the link text?
16. How many pages does the site have?
17. Does the site have a good site map that lists all the content pages, videos on the site that search engine spiders can crawly easily?
18. Are there any 404 errors on the website?
19. What is the domain name extension e.g. .com,. net, .edu, .co.in
20. How long has that domain name been in existence? Search engines rank those sites better that have been around for a while, or those that plan to be around for a while?
21. How many directories has that page/ website been submitted to?
22. Has the site used any spamming or illegal SEO techniques like keyword stuffing, cloaking, hidden text, duplicate content and other such Spam's? If yes you can inform the search engine of the same but do so with caution. For Google: http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html

Please note that sometimes you will find no reasons why the competitors' website is ranked above yours. And that's ok. I have experienced many cases of certain sites which go against the search engines guidelines (set by search engines themselves), and yet they rank above meticulously optimized pages.

Search engines are constantly trying to remove badly optimized or spam pages which offer little or no value to the users. Our intent here is not to focus on the missing pieces/loopholes of search engines algorithms or isolated instances of sites that don't deserve it and yet are ranking high, but to work within the framework and guidelines for the long haul.

By mapping out the answers to the above questions (preferable on a spread sheet), you will find the overall patterns of what is working for those sites and why, and then figure out ways to modify your SEO strategies to improve your rankings.

Key Differences Among the Most Commonly Used Keyword Suggestion Tools

Rigid, unchanging procedures threaten any business activity. With Internet-enabled and -related enterprises, keeping up with technological progress is absolutely essential to survival. As opposed to static (unchanging) websites that are not looking to strengthen or increase their industry share, any dynamic (changing) website will have new copy, even new strategies, on an ongoing basis. Regular, extensive, ongoing keyword research is not a luxury, but a basic survival tactic.

Understanding how people actually use words, and the relationships these words have in the context of an Internet search, is key to threading these words and phrases through the fabric of your site. Because the Internet is so very dynamic, with word relationships changing seemingly by the minute, this is a huge and growing challenge for more and more people and companies. After all, the Internet is growing into the major commercial and communication hub of the world. Accurate and useful keyword suggestion tools - and their intelligent implantation into business and marketing strategy, are a major part of the solution.

There are a plethora of keyword suggestion tools available, from free to cost-based, including NicheBot, Wordtracker, KeywordDiscovery , SEOBook, and the various Google keyword tools. In this article, we will consider these tools and the differences among them.

Most importantly, perhaps, these tools help you estimate the relative (rather than absolute) size of the search referral "market" produced by particular words and phrases. You will develop a better understanding of what terms appear how often in search queries, and what other terms are correlated with them, and how many times they are searched compared to those other terms. The analytics you develop with the tools will also give you a good idea of how their suggestions will fare, and provide a means of understanding "competition levels" for specific words and phrases.

Naturally, there are differences both large and small among these keyword analysis/suggestion tools. Google, of course, compiles its tool data from its own search network of sites and offers tremendous functionality at low or no cost. The subscription-based services, such as Wordtracker and KeywordDiscovery , take advantage of databases of multiple sites and data that can be assembled, broken down, repurposed and presented in myriad ways.

55 Quick SEO Tips Even Your Mother Would Love

Everyone loves a good tip, right? Here are 55 quick tips for search engine optimization that even your mother could use to get cooking. Well, not my mother, but you get my point. Most folks with some web design and beginner SEO knowledge should be able to take these to the bank without any problem.

1. If you absolutely MUST use Java script drop down menus, image maps or image links, be sure to put text links somewhere on the page for the spiders to follow.

2. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.

3. If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link. Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for that site to link to you, you don’t want the link.

4. Don’t be obsessed with PageRank. It is just one isty bitsy part of the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one with a higher PR.

5. Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of your site. And, if you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it at the end. Unless you are a major brand name that is a household name, your business name will probably get few searches.

6. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.

7. Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.

8. Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to help you get found in local searches.

9. Don’t design your web site without considering SEO. Make sure your web designer understands your expectations for organic SEO. Doing a retrofit on your shiny new Flash-based site after it is built won’t cut it. Spiders can crawl text, not Flash or images.

10. Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text links, image ALT attributes and even your domain name.

11. Check for canonicalization issues - www and non-www domains. Decide which you want to use and 301 redirect the other to it. In other words, if http://www.domain.com is your preference, then http://domain.com should redirect to it.

12. Check the link to your home page throughout your site. Is index.html appended to your domain name? If so, you’re splitting your links. Outside links go to http://www.domain.com and internal links go to http://www.domain.com/index.html.

Ditch the index.html or default.php or whatever the page is and always link back to your domain.

13. Frames, Flash and AJAX all share a common problem - you can’t link to a single page. It’s either all or nothing. Don’t use Frames at all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO results.

14. Your URL file extension doesn’t matter. You can use .html, .htm, .asp, .php, etc. and it won’t make a difference as far as your SEO is concerned.

15. Got a new web site you want spidered? Submitting through Google’s regular submission form can take weeks. The quickest way to get your site spidered is by getting a link to it through another quality site.

16. If your site content doesn’t change often, your site needs a blog because search spiders like fresh text. Blog at least three time a week with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers.

17. When link building, think quality, not quantity. One single, good, authoritative link can do a lot more for you than a dozen poor quality links, which can actually hurt you.

18. Search engines want natural language content. Don’t try to stuff your text with keywords. It won’t work. Search engines look at how many times a term is in your content and if it is abnormally high, will count this against you rather than for you.

19. Not only should your links use keyword anchor text, but the text around the links should also be related to your keywords. In other words, surround the link with descriptive text.

20. If you are on a shared server, do a blacklist check to be sure you’re not on a proxy with a spammer or banned site. Their negative notoriety could affect your own rankings.

21. Be aware that by using services that block domain ownership information when you register a domain, Google might see you as a potential spammer.

22. When optimizing your blog posts, optimize your post title tag independently from your blog title.

23. The bottom line in SEO is Text, Links, Popularity and Reputation.

24. Make sure your site is easy to use. This can influence your link building ability and popularity and, thus, your ranking.

25. Give link love, Get link love. Don’t be stingy with linking out. That will encourage others to link to you.

26. Search engines like unique content that is also quality content. There can be a difference between unique content and quality content. Make sure your content is both.

27. If you absolutely MUST have your main page as a splash page that is all Flash or one big image, place text and navigation links below the fold.

28. Some of your most valuable links might not appear in web sites at all but be in the form of e-mail communications such as newletters and zines.

29. You get NOTHING from paid links except a few clicks unless the links are embedded in body text and NOT obvious sponsored links.

30. Links from .edu domains are given nice weight by the search engines. Run a search for possible non-profit .edu sites that are looking for sponsors.

31. Give them something to talk about. Linkbaiting is simply good content.

32. Give each page a focus on a single keyword phrase. Don’t try to optimize the page for several keywords at once.

33. SEO is useless if you have a weak or non-existent call to action. Make sure your call to action is clear and present.

34. SEO is not a one-shot process. The search landscape changes daily, so expect to work on your optimization daily.

35. Cater to influential bloggers and authority sites who might link to you, your images, videos, podcasts, etc. or ask to reprint your content.

36. Get the owner or CEO blogging. It’s priceless! CEO influence on a blog is incredible as this is the VOICE of the company. Response from the owner to reader comments will cause your credibility to skyrocket!

37. Optimize the text in your RSS feed just like you should with your posts and web pages. Use descriptive, keyword rich text in your title and description.

38. Use captions with your images. As with newspaper photos, place keyword rich captions with your images.

39. Pay attention to the context surrounding your images. Images can rank based on text that surrounds them on the page. Pay attention to keyword text, headings, etc.

40. You’re better off letting your site pages be found naturally by the crawler. Good global navigation and linking will serve you much better than relying only on an XML Sitemap.

41. There are two ways to NOT see Google’s Personalized Search results:

(1) Log out of Google

(2) Append &pws=0 to the end of your search URL in the search bar

42. Links (especially deep links) from a high PageRank site are golden. High PR indicates high trust, so the back links will carry more weight.

43. Use absolute links. Not only will it make your on-site link navigation less prone to problems (like links to and from https pages), but if someone scrapes your content, you’ll get backlink juice out of it.

44. See if your hosting company offers “Sticky” forwarding when moving to a new domain. This allows temporary forwarding to the new domain from the old, retaining the new URL in the address bar so that users can gradually get used to the new URL.

45. Understand social marketing. It IS part of SEO. The more you understand about sites like Digg, Yelp, del.icio.us, Facebook, etc., the better you will be able to compete in search.

46. To get the best chance for your videos to be found by the crawlers, create a video sitemap and list it in your Google Webmaster Central account.

47. Videos that show up in Google blended search results don’t just come from YouTube. Be sure to submit your videos to other quality video sites like Metacafe, AOL, MSN and Yahoo to name a few.

48. Surround video content on your pages with keyword rich text. The search engines look at surrounding content to define the usefulness of the video for the query.

49. Use the words “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT descriptions and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those words.

50. Enable “Enhanced image search” in your Google Webmaster Central account. Images are a big part of the new blended search results, so allowing Google to find your photos will help your SEO efforts.

51. Add viral components to your web site or blog - reviews, sharing functions, ratings, visitor comments, etc.

52. Broaden your range of services to include video, podcasts, news, social content and so forth. SEO is not about 10 blue links anymore.

53. When considering a link purchase or exchange, check the cache date of the page where your link will be located in Google. Search for “cache:URL” where you substitute “URL” for the actual page. The newer the cache date the better. If the page isn’t there or the cache date is more than an month old, the page isn’t worth much.

54. If you have pages on your site that are very similar (you are concerned about duplicate content issues) and you want to be sure the correct one is included in the search engines, place the URL of your preferred page in your sitemaps.

55. Check your server headers. Search for “check server header” to find free online tools for this. You want to be sure your URLs report a “200 OK” status or “301 Moved Permanently ” for redirects. If the status shows anything else, check to be sure your URLs are set up properly and used consistently throughout your site.

Google SEO

This article is part three of a four part series on optimizing your website for the the three major search engines. Part one, titled "Google SEO For MSN" covered optimizing your website to rank highly on MSN, while part two, titled "Google SEO For Yahoo!" covered optimizing your website to rank on Yahoo!. In this article we will cover optimizing your website
for Google.

I likely don't even need to mention that Google is currently the largest of all the search engines with ComScore Media estimating this giant to be responsible for 42.7% of all online searches in March of 2006. For this reason people tend to view Google as the engine to rank on. While this
point is debatable (let's remember that there's still 57.3% of searches that aren't done on Google) it's definitely an important engine to rank on. So how is it done?

The Factors To optimize and rank highly on Google, as with any of the major engines, specific areas need to be addressed. On Google the most important of these factors are:
• Backlinks
• Age
• Content
• How it fares in the results

Backlinks

More than on either Yahoo! or MSN backlinks are key to attaining top rankings on Google. More importantly, Google's methods for calculating the weight of backlinks is very different than either of the other two engines. Once upon a time backlink acquisition was mainly a numbers
game. If you had more links you had higher rankings, it was basically as simple as that. Today however Google has an algorithm inside their algorithm for determining which links are more valuable than others. This algorithm has a number of factors itself, however there are some that are more important than others. They key factors that determine the value of a link in regards to its contributions to the ranking of your site are:

• The age of the links - Like domains, links gain weight with age. The longer your links have been on a web page the higher their value. Basically this means that your link building efforts today aren't going to pay off for a number of months. The weight seems to age gradually. In a month your link will hold partial weight, in two months it'll hold a bit more and so on. Links hold the majority of their weight after about 5 to 6 months.
• The location of the link - The physical location of your link on the page is an indicator to Google of its value. A link buried in the footer of a page will hold virtually no weight whereas a link near the top (i.e. where a visitor is likely to see it) will hold much more. Another location factor is how this link is situated relative to the content around it. A link that is located within content holds more weight than a link in a typical link-page or directory format with a title and
description. The inline nature of the aforementioned location indicates that the link itself is more natural.
• The anchor text and formatting - The linking text used is obviously important. If you are targeting a phrase such as "SEO firms" then using these two keywords in the anchor
text is going to attach relevancy between your site and these keywords. Be careful though, building a thousand links using all the same anchor text is going to look suspicious.
Vary your anchor text, perhaps include other keywords and you'll find your efforts rewarded. The formatting of the link is also relevant. A link that uses bold, italics, etc. is obviously
meant to be seen by a visitor and is thus more highly regarded by Google.
• Relevancy - The relevancy of the site linking to you is of key importance. Getting a link on a health site if you're an SEO firm is going to hold little weight whereas a link from an SEO resource site will be much more valuable.
• PageRank - While the value of PageRank is arguably dropping when one is considering it's importance in link building it is still a factor. A link from a PageRank 5 page is worth substantially more than a link from a PageRank 2 page.

Age
In a patent application from back in 2004 Google told SEO firms (and anyone else for that matter) that age was an important factor. Google has since become a domain name registrar which gives them access to whois data and thus they can clearly see the age of a domain, who it is
registered to, where it is hosted, etc. The older your domain is the more legitimate Google sees it and thus the more likely they are to rank it. Additionally, domains that are registered for longer periods of time are also seen as more legitimate and thus will tend to rank higher.

Content
Google is pickier than either Yahoo! or MSN when it comes to content. While the phrase, "content is king," may be overused it is still relevant. The more content you have on your site the more likely someone is to find what they're looking for when they get there. Thus, the more content you have on your site the more likely Google is to believe a searcher will find what they're looking for there. This does not mean that you should grab every bit of content you can
find and build a 500,000 page site about potatoes. The content needs to be relevant and preferably well written. While a search engine spider may not be able to tell if your
content is truly well written it must appeal to a human visitor.
The reason for this will be made clearer below. A blog is a good option for the easy addition of relevant content provided that you can dedicate the time (generally only a few minutes per day) to post some new and interesting information on your industry. Keyword density is not as large a factor on Google as on Yahoo! or MSN however it is a factor and in the SEO "game" any factor that holds weight needs to be taken into consideration in all but the least competitive areas. While a site targeting a phrase such as "bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere" can afford weakness in some of the areas most of us cannot. As noted in the articles on MSN and Yahoo! it would be unwise for me to specify an optimal keyword density here as the optimal levels vary by site type, topic, and fluctuate with the algorithm updates. Keyword densities need to be reanalyzed approximately monthly or any time an update is noted.

How it fares in the results
How your website fares in the results is a growing factor and will only continue to gain importance as time passes. If your website appears in the results for a specific phrase yet no one click on is your website will drop out of the rankings. Arguably worse, if your website is clicked however after a few seconds Google detects that the searcher has returned to the results to find a new site your site will drop. It is for this reason that it is important to insure that the titles you
write for your website are both search engine and human friendly. You want Google to rank it highly and you also need humans to click it or Google won't rank it highly (circular
logic I know but valid nonetheless). You also need to make sure that what people see when they first land on your page either is the information they are looking for or alternatively, clearly indicates where that information can be found. This point may seem obvious simply from a usability standpoint however the number of sites out there that violate this basic principle is vast. As part of your SEO efforts you will want to take a look at your site from a user's standpoint or better yet, watch real users navigate it to see if they can find what they're looking for quickly. You have about 3 seconds to get a visitor's attention so make sure that your visitor can find what they want in that time. You may need to hire experienced web designers to bring your website up to speed however the cost of this is lower than the cost of losing rankings and business due to poor design and the falling rankings that will follow.

Conclusion
Google has the most sophisticated algorithm of the three major engines and must be treated as such. Tricks rarely work and when they do they tend to work only for a short period of time. Build a strong site with lots of quality content that is easily navigated and will appeal to your human visitors and you're off to a good start. Optimize your keyword densities and secure quality links to your site and while it may take a bit of time to get past the aging delays, you will succeed on Google.