Integration can be tricky, but stepping out of your comfort zone and embracing the larger world around you can mean the difference between winning a client and walking away empty-handed. ...
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
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Search Engine Watch
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Integrating Search, Part 2
5 Nov 2009 | 7:00 pm -
Do Follow
4 Nov 2009 | 7:00 pmPros and cons of building links through blog comments. ... -
The Worldwide Web Just Went Global
3 Nov 2009 | 7:00 pmAll countries soon will be able to apply for Internet extensions reflecting their name and using their own characters. It will be interesting to see what impact this has on search engines, domains, and trademark specialists. ... -
Getting Started with a New SEO Project
2 Nov 2009 | 7:00 pmBeginning search engine optimization efforts during the initial stages of a Web site project can save you time, effort, and money. ... -
Search as a Branding Channel
2 Nov 2009 | 7:00 pmDon't miss out on the opportunity to expose your brand to millions of targeted, potential buyers this holiday season. ...
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SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog
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Whiteboard Friday - How SEOs Know SEO
5 Nov 2009 | 2:11 pmPosted by great scott!So what's the trick? How do these folks who run around calling themselves SEOs actually know SEO? Do they just make it up? Is there a class you take somewhere? This week Rand looks at exactly this question: where do these guys (and gals) learn the stuff they know and how do they stay on top of the ever-changing search landscape to make sure they're putting forth best practices for their clients and projects? Watch this week's Whiteboard Friday to learn where you should focus your efforts if you want to learn SEO. You'll find it's not as complicated as… -
SEOmoz 2009 Search Spam PubCon Party
5 Nov 2009 | 3:57 amPosted by jennitaThis post really doesn't need much of an introduction, so I'll get right down to it. Pubcon is coming! Pubcon is cooommiiinnnnggggg! It seems like the whole industry might just shut down for a week while we take over Las Vegas (I hope they're ready for us). This would probably be a great time for spammers to come in and take over our SERPs since we'll be busy in sessions, going to parties, meeting new people... and gambling (DUDE! It's Vegas). SEOmoz will be representing in full force this year. Although we don't have a booth, you'll find us lurking in all corners of the… -
What Makes a Link Worthy Post - Part 2
4 Nov 2009 | 11:52 amPosted by chenryThis post was originally in YOUmoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.What really makes a blog post worth linking to? In my last post, What Makes a Link Worthy Post - Part 1, I took a look at the 3,800 blog posts on SEOmoz and did some analysis on a few different aspects of the posts and their affect on the number of in linking domains (ILDs). Some of the results were very interesting to me and it made me want to… -
24 Hours Without Privacy
3 Nov 2009 | 9:11 amPosted by Danny Dover Warning: This post has very little to do with SEO. It will apply to you and your work but not in the way that you are familiar with. It is an experiment for both of us. He wakes up at 7:31 AM just like the day before. With ignorance as his shield, he ventures out into a world without privacy. The young man (a title given to him by his mother) sits submissively in his bed and idly scans e-mail on his phone. Another notice from his bank, a forwarded e-mail from his friend, five new e-mails from his co-workers, and an intimate message from a girl he met last weekend at… -
30 SEO Problems & the Tools to Solve Them (Part 1 of 2)
2 Nov 2009 | 3:49 pmPosted by randfishEvery day, SEOs are challenged in their jobs to solve problems big and small - some are technically complex, others are merely time consuming, repetitive and tedious. At SEOmoz, we love to build, use and recommend tools to help solve these issues. Tools and automation aren't always the right answer, but for many of the challenges we face, they're a welcome ally in the battle for effectiveness and efficiency. In this first of the two part series on the subject, I'll be covering tools on SEOmoz. My next segment will focus on tools across the web. #1: View Source Sucks…
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Search Engine Land
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Business Owners: Are You Sabotaging Your Own Local Listings?
6 Nov 2009 | 1:21 pmAs SEO rapidly becomes a core task for local business owners, there’s a new temptation to build advertising messages or tracking mechanisms into business listings on the web. Typically, this might mean adding a slogan or campaign tagline to a business name or changing an office address to appear local to more customers. Unfortunately, this [...] .... -
Google’s Home Page Promotes Motorola / Verizon Droid Phone
6 Nov 2009 | 11:21 amGoogle really wants you to buy a Motorola Droid, the hot new phone that just hit stores today. In fact, Google is so enamored that it’s advertising the Droid on its homepage: “The Droid is on sale now. Learn more.” Clicking the “learn more” link leads to this “mobile partners” page that touts the Google search [...] .... -
Search In Pictures: Halloween Edition
6 Nov 2009 | 10:08 amIn this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more. Random Halloween Pictures from the various search engines: This May Not Be Halloween Related: .... -
Twitter Finally Begins Adding Search Relevancy Features
6 Nov 2009 | 6:28 amThe Twitter Blog has a short blog post mentioning that they have added technology “to show higher quality results for trend queries by returning tweets that are more useful.” Clearly, this is Twitter’s first step in improving Twitter Search by adding relevancy and search quality factors to the search algorithm. Currently, Twitter Search [...] .... -
Google AdWords Makes Conversion Tracking “Easier”
6 Nov 2009 | 6:18 amThe Google AdWords blog announced they have made it easier for advertisers to add and track the conversions for their search ads. Google has added to the AdWords interface sections for (1) Conversions, (2) Webpages, and (3) Code. The Conversion page shows you the conversion actions you’re tracking. Web pages shows the web pages [...] ....
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Search Engine Roundtable
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Daily Search Forum Recap: November 6, 2009
6 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pmHere is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.... -
Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: November 6, 2009
6 Nov 2009 | 11:37 amGoogle shows about ten Sesame Streets logos over three days for their 40th anniversary. Google, Yahoo, Bing, AOL and others dressed up for Halloween. Google's home page fade adds "this space left blank," and it is ridiculous. AdSense is testing... -
Google To Treat .UA Domains as Root Domains Soon
6 Nov 2009 | 5:56 amA Google Webmaster Help thread reports that because .UA domains are currently not considered "root domains" by Google, the change of address tool doesn't work for them. I am not sure if Google did not consider them root domains or... -
Google Keeps Banning AdWords Advertisers
6 Nov 2009 | 5:49 amBack in late September, Google began mass banning AdWords advertisers. A couple days later, after pushing Google for a response, they offered somewhat of a lame response. I was hoping to see Google come back to the thread and answer... -
iPhone OS 3.1.2 Breaks Gmail Push: Not Covered by SLA
6 Nov 2009 | 5:41 amIn the past few days, many users of the iPhone and Gmail Push service through active sync have been reporting that it is not working. A large Google Mobile Help thread has dozens of posts from unhappy Gmail users. Google...
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SEO Book.com - Learn. Rank. Dominate.
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Excuse Me, But Where Did Google's Organic Search Results Go?
5 Nov 2009 | 11:57 pmIn the past many SEOs have called organic search results the results on the left side of the page and the pay-per-click / AdWords results as the results on the right side of the page. As Google has grown more aggressive witht promoting vertical/universal search I think a better way of defining the portions of the search result page are ABOVE THE FOLD and BELOW THE FOLD. As recently as yesterday Google stripped the phone numbers off of non-sponsored map listings, even if you were doing a navigational search! And that shows that the primary goal of the maps is as filler content (rather than… -
More Ways for Google to Embed Themselves in Your Conversion Stream
4 Nov 2009 | 11:47 pmThe Free Credit Report ads have caused such user confusion in the marketplace that the government has felt the need to create a spoof site with $100,000 worth of amateur video to mock Free Credit Report.com. And yet even if you search for the official website [Annual Credit Report] to this very day Google is cashing in showing 3 PPC ads ABOVE the organic search results for that NAVIGATIONAL search query...sorta like how they were cashing in on eBay's brand recently. For [Annual Credit Report] the government has stepped in and said what is right for the consumer. But the Google AdWords team… -
Borrowing From PPC
4 Nov 2009 | 5:20 pmSearch marketers know that if the title of the ad matches the searchers keyword query, they stand a good chance of getting the click. This mirroring strategy works for obvious reasons. The visitor already has a psychological attachment to the phrase - after all, they typed it in! Making Sure You Get The Click A lot of SEO strategy talks about how to achieve rankings. Whilst important, the SEO pro knows ranking is only half the battle won. While it's true to say most searchers will click on the top results in preference to results lower down the page, they will also scan across the various… -
Jeremy Schoemaker (aka Shoemoney) Interview
2 Nov 2009 | 8:37 pmI have been meaning to interview Shoemoney for a while now, and after the most recent Elite Retreat we decided to do just that. I read a recent newsletter you put out about hitting rock bottom and remembering that as a key piece of 1.) what helped you grow 2.) what helped you sustain that growth. How many successful internet marketers do you know who have similar stories? How many do you know who became successful without first having hit rock bottom? There was a couple key things in helping me grow. I think a big key in growing was investing in myself - instead of wasting money on cars or… -
Google's Conflicting Push to Move Beyond Search
27 Oct 2009 | 11:50 pmAs Google has looked to increase revenues and move beyond being "just a search engine" they have put themselves at the top of the food chain in multiple categories. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, etc. ;) If you search for books their book search is the result in natural search and when you search for movies they push their iGoogle application in paid search. Every holiday season Google tries to make further inroads in ecommerce by doing things like offering free Checkout services (at launch of Google Checkout), integrating Google Checkout with AdWords ads (and claiming…
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Sean Percival's Blog
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Prince of Persia Sands of Time Trailer
2 Nov 2009 | 3:23 pmThe trailer for the new Prince of Persia movie is now out. Check it out below. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time in HDTrailer Park | MySpace Video -
iPhone Halloween Costumes
26 Oct 2009 | 12:17 amare pretty amazing actually. via TUAW -
Geocities Awesome Animated Image Archive
25 Oct 2009 | 10:19 pmIn case you haven’t heard yet Geocities is closing down. This is of course heart breaking for those of us who built our first shitty web pages through the service. I tried to find some of my masterpieces but alas, ye ol’ Google yielded no results. I did however want to do my part to preserve the Geocities legacy. So I’ve gone around and captured some of the all time greatest Geocities animated GIFs and saved them here. Please do enjoy, Oh and tap the visitor counter on the way out. -
Right vs Left Infographic
22 Oct 2009 | 10:06 pmclicky click to enlarge -
Gawker Redesign: Hybrid of Blog, Facebook and Twitter
18 Oct 2009 | 8:18 pmI’ve always been a big fan of the designs and layouts used by Gawker blogs throughout the years. They seem to always been trying something new and they iterate often. While some blogs push the same tired look from years ago, Gawker continues to innovate. Since they just pushed some new features last week I thought I’d take you through them. Tips Share Bar: In the header of the Gawker sites you’ll now find a share bar for sending in tips. Since many blogs like Gawker live off these tips lowering the entry bar is a great idea. Readers can now easily submit their tips and…
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Search Engine Journal
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New Digg Feature: Trending Topics
6 Nov 2009 | 12:28 pmDigg.com has always been known as “Reddit.com’s news from yesterday”. It appears now they’re trying to combat this issue…at least on a micro level. A recent post from Digg explains: …we’re launching a new homepage voting experiment called Digg Trends which will surface certain highly active stories as they’re trending to Digg’s homepage so people can vote on whether or not they feel the story actually belongs there. How Does it Work? Digg Trends identifies and highlights upcoming stories that have a high volume of activity (think Diggs, comments,… -
Search & Social Wants to Meet You at Pubcon
6 Nov 2009 | 11:43 amFive members of Search & Social will be in Vegas this week for Pubcon, and we are really psyched to meet SEJ readers and other people we have networked with online this year. The rest of our team will stay back and continue cranking out great content for SEJ and Internet Marketing initiatives for clients. Our team is hoping to start the networking before we even touch down in Vegas, and maybe that can begin in the comments thread of this post. Which five of us are going? Loren Baker Loren Baker is the Founder and Editor of SearchEngineJournal.com , he is also a crazy person. Recently he… -
Retweet Function Rolls Out on a Limited Basis
6 Nov 2009 | 9:01 amToday Twitter rolled out its retweet function on a limited basis: We’ve just activated a feature called retweet on a very small percentage of accounts in order to see how it works in the wild. Retweet is a button that makes forwarding a particularly interesting tweet to all your followers very easy. In turn, we hope interesting, newsworthy, or even just plain funny information will spread quickly through the network making its way efficiently to the people who want or need to know. You may remember that we shared the mechanics of this feature with developers a while back so they could… -
SEJ Tools: The Advanced SEO Toolkit
6 Nov 2009 | 7:56 amSearch and Social team is happy to announce the launch of advanced SEO toolkit allowing you to do multiple SEO tasks from one handy dashboard! SEJ tools offer plenty of options allowing to build and promote multiple projects. It covers various tasks from content creation to link building and keyword position monitoring so that you didn’t ever need to leave anywhere. Most of the tools are currently powered by Raven SEO tools but we are adding new resources and tools which are exclusive for SEJ readers. Please share your thoughts and feature requests in the comments! Research Any URL or… -
3+ FireFox Addons to Access the Page Text-Only Version
6 Nov 2009 | 5:26 amOne of the first steps to take when analyzing on-page SEO (and accessibility) is looking at the text-only version of the page. This way you remove all the clutter of CSS styles, images, JavaScript and flash and see what really is important: text content that matters to crawlers and users. Google’s text-only cache version of the page is one of the possible ways to do that. But not the only one. This post looks at 3 ways to quickly access the page text-only version of the current page: 1. Fangs creates a textual representation of a web page similar to how the page would be read by one of…
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Matt Cutts
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Gaping hole costume for Halloween 2009
31 Oct 2009 | 3:49 pmThis year for Halloween I tried to do a see-through hole in your body costume: It worked okay, but not great. The biggest problem was that I didn’t have a gadget lying around the house that could output live composite video. Both my normal video camera and my digital camera had exhausted batteries that wouldn’t recharge, which is a gadget fail on my part. And while my Flip video camera is tiny and it can output pre-recorded video through a composite cable, it can’t output live video (?!). Lame. I didn’t care enough to buy a new battery-operated gadget that could send… -
Export your Google Docs data
25 Oct 2009 | 8:56 pmOne of my favorite personal blog posts is about not trapping users’ data. In late 2006, Eric Schmidt declared “We would never trap user data.” Many of the major Google properties (search, Gmail, Calendar) make it trivial to export or download your data. In the past, Google Docs would let you export a single doc at a time, but Google Operating System runs down exactly how to batch export your Google Docs. For each type of document (text document, presentation, spreadsheet, etc.) you can choose what file format to get. I had about 81 personal docs (~13MB) and it only took… -
One million video views!
21 Oct 2009 | 9:54 pmThis year we’ve been making and posting videos on an official webmaster video channel, and earlier today we hit our one millionth video view. Making these little movies has been a ton of fun and we’ve covered dozens of topics for site owners. We decided to celebrate in a couple ways. First, we added captions to all 150+ videos (over 11 hours of information). That’s important because for movies with captions, you can translate the captions into different languages. Now if you want to watch my videos but see the captions in Portuguese or German or Turkish, you can! The second… -
Happy Diwali for 2009!
17 Oct 2009 | 8:35 amHey everybody, I just wanted to wish you a Happy Diwali! I hope that everyone has a wonderful festival of lights. It’s a good time today for introspection and reflection on the past year, and for hope for the year to come. Whether you celebrate with firecrackers, sweets, or appreciation for what you hold to be good and true–I hope you have a wonderful Diwali! -
Learn more about robots.txt
6 Oct 2009 | 10:10 pmWe made a video about how Google handles the robots.txt file. You can watch it if you want: This answers a couple questions such as: - Why is my url showing up in Google when I blocked it in robots.txt? Did you fetch that url? - How do I make that url disappear from Google? I hope the video helps if you have questions.
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Google News, Inside.
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Using Trends to Predict the Economy
4 Nov 2009 | 8:12 amGoogle is a powerful company, there’s no doubt about that. Google has access to some of the most valuable data in the world because of search tracking. It’s able to use search data to show trending of what’s being searched and therefore, can predict events like Black Friday.It’s truly incredible to see what [...]Blogged on Google News by Jonathan Dingman © Fireside MediaUsing Trends to Predict the EconomyRelated posts:SES San Jose Was a Great Show!Life at Google Friday: Bryan About the BGNGoogle Squared: New UI. New Success? -
Happy Halloween 2009
31 Oct 2009 | 1:28 pmGoogle wishes everyone a happy Halloween with a special Google logo today.The Adsense team sends their greetings. Blogged on Google News by Jonathan Dingman © Fireside MediaHappy Halloween 2009Related posts:Happy Halloween 2008!AdSense Officially Changes ‘Ads by Google’Google Analytics & AdSense IntegrationBlogged on Google News by Jonathan Dingman © Fireside MediaHappy Halloween 2009Related posts:Happy Halloween 2008!AdSense Officially Changes ‘Ads by Google’Google Analytics & AdSense Integration -
Google Music Search
29 Oct 2009 | 9:25 amGoogle is announcing Google Music Search, what has long been rumored and what most everyone can see as a straight forward move into the music biz. Without a doubt, lyrics is by far one of the most searched terms on the web. Google is partnering with companies like MySpace, Rhapsody, iMeem, and LaLa, to provide [...]Blogged on Google News by Jonathan Dingman © Fireside MediaGoogle Music SearchRelated posts:Google Music AdsYouTube Tracks with GoogleFree Music Videos -
Android 2.0 Support in the SDK
27 Oct 2009 | 9:49 amI’ve been using the Android SDK for the past few months, so this is some exciting news for me. Android 2.0 is now being supported in the SDK. There are a large number of things to highlight about this change, but I’ll just point out a few of them.Multiple accounts can be added to a [...]Blogged on Google News by Jonathan Dingman © Fireside MediaAndroid 2.0 Support in the SDKRelated posts:Better Gmail and Calendar for the iPhoneGmail Mobile Java ClientSogou Not so Pleased with Google -
Sergey Brin Shares His Story of Life
26 Oct 2009 | 9:43 amSergey Brin runs his own blog, but rarely does he ever update it. His latest blog post, however, is a great post about the story of his life and moving over to the United States of America. It’s truly incredible to see how far Brin has come from when he first arrived in the USA. Here’s [...]Blogged on Google News by Jonathan Dingman © Fireside MediaSergey Brin Shares His Story of LifeRelated posts:Hello Worl..errr IRS.Google to Integrate cPanel?Life at Google Friday: Bryan About the BGN
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Free Weekly Search Engine Optimization SEO News
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Paid links: do they really affect your Google rankings?
3 Nov 2009 | 6:36 amMany websites on the Internet will link to your website if you pay them for the links. Is this a good method to increase the link popularity of your website or can you get in trouble if you use paid links? -
Official Google statement: how to deal with bad inbound links
27 Oct 2009 | 7:36 amMany webmasters think that low quality links or links from spammy websites can have a negative effect on the ranking of their websites on Google. The problem with links from spammy websites is that it is very difficult to do something against them. Here's an official Google statement about bad links. -
How to get your website above the regular results on Google - without paying for it
20 Oct 2009 | 7:36 amThis week, we're showing you how you can optimize the listings of your website on Google Maps. Good listings on Google Maps can result in many website visitors. -
Five steps: How to outrank your competitors on Google
13 Oct 2009 | 7:36 amTo get high rankings on Google, it is not necessary to have everything that Google expects from a great website. You just have to be better than your competitors. If you have a website with optimized web pages, it is usually the quality of the links that make the difference. The tips in this article will help you to get better rankings than your competitors. -
What's the catch? How IBP's Google ranking guarantee works.
6 Oct 2009 | 7:36 amYou have probably seen the top 10 ranking guarantee that we give users of our website promotion tool IBP: we guarantee that your website will be found in the regular (unpaid) search results on Google for the keywords of your choice. Is it really possible to guarantee a top 10 position on Google? What's the catch?
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SEO BlackHat: Black Hat SEO Blog
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Google Domination through Less-Than-Free
1 Nov 2009 | 12:38 pmThis is one of the more interesting takes I’ve seen on Google’s Business Model going forward. -
The Games that Scam the Most, Win.
1 Nov 2009 | 11:46 amGreat write up over on TC on the various scams on Facebook and Myspace. Gotta love Mike bitching about scams on facebook with ads like this appearing on the same page of his site: Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black. That or maybe by clicking that ad, the majority of people can make $1000 per day from 60 mins a day of work. -
Here’s How You Make the Most Money With $5 and 2 Hours
30 Oct 2009 | 11:58 pmVia Hacker News we have this video out of the Stanford technology venture program. ****** Spoiler (also from hacker news) ****** She teaches a class at Stanford and offers each team $5 of ‘funding’ in an envelope. She tells them that once they open the envelope, they have 2 hours to make as much money as they can. She cites three teams’ approaches: 1) First team opens a free stand that offers to check peoples bike tire pressure for free, then charges $1 to inflate if necessary. This team changes midstream to accepting donations instead of charging, and makes more money. -
Spam as a Darwinian Force
28 Oct 2009 | 11:00 amApparently it’s not just working wives who can’t figure out how to combat spam and therefore let crappy projects fall by the wayside. Google’s letting their Google Groups rot on the vines as well. Score another one for the spammers: Spammers are now spoofing the email addresses of existing group participants to sneak their messages through. Previously you would’ve seen a delightful “FREE MOVIE DOWNLOADS” spam from “freemovies123@gmail.com” - but now you’ll see it coming from existing group users - or even the group moderators themselves. -
Facebook Games For Fun and Profit
27 Oct 2009 | 8:18 amTobold has a great write-up that strips Facebook games down to their most basic level and gives advice on what to design to maximize profits: the general principle of Facebook games. The purpose is rather obvious: Get people hooked with easy rewards, then block them from gaining those rewards as fast as they want, make them pay you money directly or via another company, and encourage them to invite all their friends to participate. It is an extremely effective way to make money with games, because much of the game is in the interaction of the players with his friends, and doesn’t cost…
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SEO by the Sea
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How Search Engines May Rank User Generated Content
3 Nov 2009 | 12:20 pmThe term “User Generated Content,” often abbreviated as “UGC,” covers a fairly broad range of the words and pictures, images and videos and sounds that you see and hear on the Web. One thing that tends to distinguish “User Generated Content” from other content on the web is that visitors to a site, possibly including a [...] -
How a Search Engine might Adjust Rankings based upon Patterns in Query and Click Logs
31 Oct 2009 | 6:27 amImagine that a number of people use Google to perform a search for “orange,” and then “banana,” and then “pineapple” and then choose the web page “http://www.example.com/fruit.htm” in the search results they see. Now imagine that Google looks at the information it collects about what people do when they search, and finds in its query [...] -
The Importance of Listening
26 Oct 2009 | 8:59 amWhen I was fairly young, my family picked up roots and moved from New Jersey to Ohio. As a six-year-old, it was quite a culture shock. I remember how much more slowly people talked in the great Mid-West, how polite they were, and how they had funny names for things, such as calling [...] -
How a Search Engine Might Distinguish Between Queries from Bots and from Humans
25 Oct 2009 | 7:26 pmSome of the visitors to search engines are people looking for information. Other visitors may have other purposes for visiting search engines, and might not even be humans. Instead, those automated visitors may be attempting to check rankings of pages in search results, or conducting keyword research, or providing results for games, or even being [...] -
How Search Engines Might Expand Abbreviations in Queries
21 Oct 2009 | 7:27 pmWhen visitors to search engines use abbreviations or expand abbreviations in their searches, it’s possible that they might be missing out on some pages worth visiting. For example, use Yahoo to search for [NASA Moon bombing] and compare the results to a search for [National Aeronautics and Space Administration moon bombing] and you’ll see some very [...]
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Cre8pc Usability & Holistic SEO
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Spam Forums at Your Own Risk
21 Oct 2009 | 9:15 amWith every industry, there is an underground of folks who find more pleasure in wrecking a good thing. Search engine marketing is no exception. Somehow, the idea that humans can outwit search engines became a challenge and even a battle. For myself, as an SEO who brings usability and user experience design to the mix, the key to marketing and web design is understanding what people want. It’s referred to as user behavior. Search engine computers are programmed to look for signals about what we want and like. Yet, somewhere along the way, somebody decided to promote the idea that… -
Intuit Web Site Setup Service Misleading
16 Oct 2009 | 11:39 amI would like to thank Intuit for their hard work in bringing me new clients. It came as quite a surprise that you support my web site usability and SEO services. Imagine my surprise when I flipped on the boob tube for several minutes while making tea from the comfort of my (very busy!) home office and there you were, all professional sounding like, with your (dare I say it?) sly and devious commercial to small biz web site owner hopefuls. For the mere fee of $4.99 (or some such pittance), new web site owners can buy a web site designed and marketed by Intuit. In just under 3 minutes, you had… -
Ms. Dewey Search Lives On
13 Oct 2009 | 3:17 pmEvery once in awhile I long for the days when my sassy female search idol, Ms. Dewey, would tap on my monitor asking where where I was. Today was one of those days. If you remember, Ms. Dewey as a viral marketing campaign started by Microsoft 3 years ago this month. The site was an experimental interface for Live Search. It didn’t take searchers long to discover you could prompt her to say and do naughty, silly things with certain keyword searches. Looking to see if there are any updates on her demise (they bring back dead soap opera stars, why not Ms. Dewey?), I found her domain alive… -
Learning From Conference User Feedback
8 Oct 2009 | 1:37 pmI spend most of my days in my office with 2 cats and 2 dogs as my office-mates, dual monitors and a laptop. For me, “talking” to people is all done virtually. When I tap into what’s happening in the industries I work in, the feedback is limited and based on my “friends” and “followers” living in the land of the Internet. This is one reason why I enjoy industry conferences. They get me out of the house and office. They’re far more exciting than walking to my mailbox. Where I live, only the birds and squirrels keep me company outside. I can hear… -
Search Marketing and Social Media Camp This Weekend for $21
30 Sep 2009 | 4:39 pmThis weekend a special event takes place in Philadelphia for those who want to learn more about search engine marketing, web site usability and social media. It’s called Search Camp and Social Media Camp. For a small attendance fee of $21 (no catch. That’s all it is!), you get a weekend at Temple University with a small group of like-minded folks and experienced speakers. There are 5 time slots, beginning at 10am, with 4 choices of sessions to pick from. The last one ends at 3:45. Not only that, running alongside this event is Pod Camp Philly. The entire program is accessible by…
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Search Engine Watch Blog
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5 Google Updates for 11/6/09: News, Maps, Books, Music and Mobile
6 Nov 2009 | 12:38 pmIt's the end of another eventful week in search blogging, and once again there are several Google updates just piled up waiting to be written about. So, we're saving everyone some time and just compiling them into one post. Check them out: Google News has a new sitemaps interface. You have six months to adopt the new sitemap. Google Books now has a magazine search page. Via Google Search's new music search, you can now access exclusive songs hosted by MySpace and Lala for artists such as Lady Gaga and Arctic Monkeys. Google Maps has released imagery of Berlin from 1945 to 1953. The Google… -
PRSA 2009 International Conference Features Two Online Marketing Heroes
6 Nov 2009 | 12:25 pmI'll by flying to San Diego this weekend to speak at the PRSA 2009 International Conference next week. Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing and a member of the SES Advisory Board, will also be speaking at the annual Public Relations Society of America event. Odden is speaking on Monday, November 9, at 10:15 a.m. about "Help Google Find Your Releases: Top 10 Search Engine Optimization Tactics for Public Relations Professionals." Nine out of 10 journalists, reporters and editors use search engines to do their jobs, according to a recent survey by TopRank Online Marketing. In this… -
Google AdWords Updates Conversion Tracking Options
6 Nov 2009 | 12:06 pmGoogle AdWords has updated the interface for Conversion Tracking. There are three tabs to manage data: Conversions, Webpages, and Code. Conversions Under this tab, you'll view details about the conversion actions you're tracking. The "Tracking Status" column shows whether those actions are being tracked properly. The "Value" column displays the accumulated value of the conversion actions. This is based on the value you assign to each action. Use the "New Conversion" button to set up the conversion actions to be tracked. These can also be imported from Google Analytics. Webpages Under this… -
AOL Completes Financial Team, Names Additional Board Member in Advance
6 Nov 2009 | 11:55 amIn preparation for being spun off from Time Warner, AOL has hired executives to their financial team and announced one additional board member. Here's a list of the financial execs: Mike Suffredini - Vice President and Treasurer Eoin Ryan - Vice President of Investor Relations Don Neff, currently a Senior Vice President of Finance, will become Senior Vice President of Internal Audit. Ned Brody - rejoining the company as Executive Vice President of Paid Services Meanwhile, Susan Lyne, Chief Executive Officer of the online luxury retailer Gilt Groupe, Inc. has been named to the Board of… -
Click Forensics Unveils Online Audience Verification Platform for Shopping Engines
5 Nov 2009 | 9:45 pmAt ad:tech New York this week, Click Forensics unveiled a new online audience verification platform for comparison shopping search engines. The technology evaluates traffic to determine its value to merchant partners. "Comparison shopping engines and other content aggregators need a simple way to optimize the money they spend on search engine marketing, while improving the quality of leads they send on to merchant partners," said Paul Pellman, CEO of Click Forensics. "The solution we're delivering does just that. To our knowledge, it's the only system available that provides the ability for…
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SEO Theory Blog
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Beware new comment spam
30 Oct 2009 | 12:16 pmOnce again Google shows us just how uncoordinated a very large organization can be. Webmaster Central is telling us they will now discover new Web pages through comment feeds in ATOM/RSS format. Why... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Another 20 Hard Core SEO Tips
16 Oct 2009 | 9:00 amIt’s a little early to say that publishing “20 Hard Core SEO Tips” articles has become a tradition for SEO Theory but I definitely have been thinking about writing this article for... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Why Brent Payne’s PageRank Sculpting report is bogus
5 Oct 2009 | 12:44 pmThere is no doubt that Brent D. Payne is a very smart guy and an extremely successful search engine optimization strategist. He is the Director of SEO for Tribune Technology, managing the strategies... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Link Zinged by Jim Boykin, I think
29 Sep 2009 | 12:05 pmDisclaimer: This article reflects my personal experience and represents only my opinions. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer, co-workers, or... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
The Laws of SEO – How The Searchable Web EcoSystem Works
16 Sep 2009 | 9:30 amMost people think of search engine optimization as if it is something that only marketers engage in, whereas over the past couple of years I have tried to show that any one of the three members of... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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StepForth Web Marketing Inc.
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Geo Tags – What Are They and Why You Need Them
23 Oct 2009 | 4:29 pmIf your business either has a traditional brick and mortar store front, or your site can value by being associated with your location, then you can benefit from Geo Tags. If your location is irrelevant to your online success, then Geo Tags will be of little use to you. Geo Tags are trivially easy to implement and they can help to improve your ranking results for searches specific to your area. This ultimately results in higher search rankings and increased targeted traffic to your site. Does Google Use Them? Currently Google most likely ignores Geo Tags. I say “most likely” because… -
September 2009 U.S. Search Engine Rankings by comScore
14 Oct 2009 | 2:19 pmJust an hour ago comScore released the U.S. search engine rankings for September. Without further adieu here is the lowdown on the search engine wars: * Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers. Americans conducted 13.8 billion searches in September, down 1 percent from August (which had one additional day compared to September). Google Sites accounted for 9 billion… -
How To Optimize for Google Images – 10 Tips
9 Oct 2009 | 4:41 pmThere are several billion images indexed in Google Images. Are yours there? If you’ve been wondering what it takes to get your images ranking, then this article is for you. Here are some tips to help you increase the exposure of your images, and with a little luck, have them appearing at the top of the regular web search results. 1. Image File Name The first step towards having your images appear in image search is with the image file name. When naming images consider using a target word or phrase whenever it makes sense to do so. If you run a hotel, consider naming a photo of your building… -
Google’s New Search Options
2 Oct 2009 | 3:59 pmEarlier this year Google launched a side panel called “Search Options” which allows users to refine their search results. Yesterday they expanded the available options to include a number of new filters. Now when you perform a Google search, but clicking the “show options” link at the top left, you can filter your results with the following options: Past Hour & Specific Date Range This option will allow you to filter results based on a specific time period. Say you are researching some current events, by selecting the “past hour” you will remove any similar news stories from… -
Google Base Beta is Rebranded Google Merchant Center
2 Oct 2009 | 2:37 pmThis Monday Google launched a new face for Google Base called Google Merchant Center which allows ecommerce businesses to upload product feeds to Google so individual products are searchable via Google Product Search (once known as Froogle). I am not sure what drove the reasoning behind this transition but the new name definitely makes more sense to the average user. Google also removed the “beta” element of the Google Base logo which is another indication that Google Merchant Center is the polished edition of Google Base. Here are the benefits of Google Merchant Center as noted…
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Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills
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Difference Between – Free Shirt Friday – UPDATE
6 Nov 2009 | 3:00 amApologies to differencebetween.net. I was at ad:tech all week and had this one scheduled. Links have been fixed. Difference Between is a very unique site that focuses on just what the name says, the difference between two things, usually two that are often confused with each other. The have articles in many categories including business (difference between GNP and GDP), Health (vegan vs. vegetarian diets), Internet (http vs. https), and language (difference between sympathy and empathy) also Science, Nature, Technology. This seems like a site that I would bookmark and check on every once in a… -
Can We Talk For A Minute
4 Nov 2009 | 4:50 pmI been meaning to do a post like this for a while but just did a video. Here at Ad:Tech and next week at Pubcon thought I would make a brief vid: This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog Can We Talk For A Minute -
SEOBOOK Interview
3 Nov 2009 | 8:58 amCheck out the lengthy interview I did with Aaron Wall here This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog SEOBOOK Interview -
Last day for ShoeMoneyX Signups!
3 Nov 2009 | 3:29 amAfter today the shoemoneyx.com program will be shutdown forever. But no worries we are working on something new that will be out first quarter of next year that is much more hands on and indepth. (notice the early bird signup on right hand side of the blog). So enroll in the free 12 week internet marketing training course today! This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog Last day for ShoeMoneyX Signups! -
Before You Pay For That Webmasterworld Pubcon Pass….
2 Nov 2009 | 11:18 amBefore you buy a pass to Pubcon to hear the same old company pitches you have already heard a million times from the same speakers check out DK’s line up of events (AKA 2nd annual Pubcon hijack). These events is actually where all of the “experts” will be at. AND in these settings you can actually “talk” to them instead of listening to their company stump pitch. Just check out all the people on DK’s attendees page and you tell me who are you trying to network with? Who are you trying to learn from? These mini events are the key. The events range from MMA…
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The Search Agents
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The Week We Searched For- November 6, 2009
6 Nov 2009 | 2:22 pmGoogle Introduces New Commerce Search Engine Google announced the launch of their new commerce oriented search engine on Thursday. According to some analysts, the launch is a bit surprising, coming from Google, as their traditional search engine already occupies a large, healthy retail based business. It could be that Google is trying to use their commerce search engine as a preemptive strike against Bing, which has concentrated on online shopping. While this may not be a ‘game changer’ for experienced, large retail business, it could help mid-size retail companies have a more robust… -
My First Week at The Search Agency
5 Nov 2009 | 7:18 amI just completed my first week as the newest member of the SEO account management team at The Search Agency. I’ve worked for different SEO agencies in the past and I have to say, from my limited time here, I can certainly see some features that distinguish The Search Agency from other companies in the search space. Here are a few observations based on my first week with the company. Collaborative Environment and Subject Matter Experts One of the most striking features of The Search Agency is the collaborative environment that I’ve found here. This culture of cooperation is actually built… -
Keywords Are Not Stocks
4 Nov 2009 | 6:49 amSince it seems almost trite to say this, I’m not certain why it doesn’t appear to have been said before (judging from a recent, fruitless Google query for this specific phrase): “Keywords are not stocks.” But listening to many firms in the SEM industry, one would think that bidding on keywords on Google is governed by the same rules as buying shares of Google, Inc. itself. One glaring problem with this, of course, is that search engine marketers don’t “buy and sell” keywords. If you bid on the keyword ‘running shoes’ on Bing, even if… -
Strolling through the SMERPs: 6 New Social Media Terms You Must Know
3 Nov 2009 | 7:00 amWarp speed ahead, transporter and Klingon were once new lingo that any self-respecting nerd had to become fluent in using. Next came SERP, PageRank, and partner link. Everyone comfortable with all of these? Ok, time to delve into a whole new world of required geek terminology. Social Media is the new frontier. It is that undiscovered galaxy just waiting to be named. There are all new beings, all new galaxies — Twitter , Ning, Outside.in. And all new phrase guns — Knowem, SocialOomph, Quarkbase. That means it’s time to get familiar with some lingo that will help us maneuver… -
The Week We Searched For – October 30, 2009
30 Oct 2009 | 11:29 amHappy Birthday, Banner Ad! October 27th marked the 15th anniversary of advertising’s first banner ad. The original ads first appeared on Hotwired.com, one of the Internet’s first digital magazines. Google Reveals New Music Service Google formally announced their new music search product this week at a surprise roundtable in Hollywood. Last week we heard the rumors regarding Google’s music plans and their intentions to implement Lala’s and MySpace iLike’s streaming platforms. This week’s official announcement emphasizes the role music plays in Google’s search data, accounting for…
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SEO Consulting - Search and Social Media Marketing | Business Consultant
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Miami Florida Real Estate Agent Needed ASAP
30 Oct 2009 | 9:23 amI will just be renting for a while - but I could use a hand on the inside scoop on things. If you are a top notch real estate agent in the Miami area, I could use your help. In return, I’ll be happy to answer some SEO questions, because I’m sure your website could use some improvement. I promise it will absolutely be worth your while. If you’re a Miami SEO, and you’re reading this - do your real estate buddy a favor and have them get in touch;) If you’re the person I’m looking for - drop me a line at todd at this domain name or just fill out the contact… -
16 Things I’ve Learned About Business while Being an SEO Consultant
4 Oct 2009 | 10:33 pm1. Pay extra for premium domains (if you develop them) If you can’t find and buy a good aftermarket domain and get creative - you need some marketing classes 2. Don’t skimp on hosting Such a painful expensive lesson to learn. 3. Respect contractors, but don’t overpay Don’t ever talk down to anyone you work with, but don’t allow people to tell you how smart they are without them proving it. 4. Always pay on time Evereyone always appreciates this, and you will lose contractors respect if you don’t. 5. Pay attention to cashflow See above. If you can’t… -
I Love Tools - and Bryan Eisenberg has 69 Awesome Ones for You!
30 Sep 2009 | 2:50 pmMarket Motive faculty Bryan Eisenberg has a great list of 69 really killer tools for making your website better. Since I’m a big tool fan myself, we’re planning a future Market Motive panel to discuss our favorite tools for website. It should be truly awesome - if for some reason you don’t know Bryan - you’ve been living under a rock, and are missing out on one of the true top level experts on conversion optimization. This guy literally wrote the book on the subject (in fact, several of them). Check out Bryan’s awesome list of tools to make your website better,… -
Affiliate Summit East and San Jose Search Engine Strategies and IMCharityParty.com
5 Aug 2009 | 4:07 am3 Things to post here at Stuntdubl Land. 1. IM Charity Party - Please help by spreading the word. If you were there last year, you know, and can help spread the word. Should be a great time for a great cause. 2. Affiliate Summit Panel of social media for affiliates - should be good with a great group of speakers. 3. MarketMotive and SEO Clinic panel at SES San Jose - MM folks have built something awesome, and we get to show it off a bit at SES this year. More details on everything below. Looking forward to lots of great meals, great drinks, and awesome seo discussion in my near future:) Be… -
Last Ticket to SEOktoberfest on Ebay
29 Jul 2009 | 2:43 pmSince I am incredibly lazy - here are the details from the auction for the last SEOktoberfest golden ticket copy and pasted. I do agree with Greg’s assessment of why Rebecca should attend, and will add that I’m expecting it to be a lot like Bavarian Festival in Frankenmuth, Michigan, except 10,000% larger and more rowdy…which may remind Rebecca of home if she was from Frankenmuth (but she’s not), though she IS from Michigan, and I will need some representation from another Michigander to remind me where to get booze when there are no “party stores” around.
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Techipedia | Tamar Weinberg
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Apple Gets More Serious About Using Twitter, but Why it Doesn’t Matter
22 Oct 2009 | 6:16 amApple, the company behind aesthetically pleasing hardware that keeps fanboys drooling, has recently joined Twitter. If you take a look at any one of their four accounts, you’ll notice one thing: they’re not using Twitter to converse but to broadcast. Effectively, they’re porting their press release information to the wide open, and perhaps going a little more granular by featuring content specific to elements of iTunes. First, I’m going to say kudos to Apple for trying involve themselves in the world of social media. I’m going to stop there, though. -
What Chris Brogan and Gary Vaynerchuk Have in Common, and What You Can Learn from it
19 Oct 2009 | 6:45 amIf you’ve been abreast of the strides and developments in the marketing space in the last few years, you’d know about both Chris Brogan and Gary Vaynerchuk. Both are incredibly popular public facing success stories with very strong brands, traveling often to make public appearances at a variety of conferences and venues. But while that’s a common trait about both marketers, that’s only the end result. It’s in the way that both Chris and Gary got there that is important. Let’s explore their characteristics and see how you can apply them to build your… -
The Nightmare Public Relations Professional and How to Stop Him
29 Sep 2009 | 6:09 amThis is a guest post I wrote for new media and PR expert Brian Solis, but I also wanted to share it with my readers. Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge just published an excellent book, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations. It’s a must read for any PR professional moving into or active in this space. As bloggers, we’ve all experienced it: the completely off topic pitch. After pouring blood, sweat, and tears into our blog that clearly is known for addressing a specific subject matter, we get an email from a public relations agency that takes us for someone completely… -
Content Aggregators are Killing Content Creators
23 Sep 2009 | 6:00 amThis is a guest post from Josh Schnell, founder of Macgasm.net and web developer. Somewhere down the line, an exploitation has to occur in order for a financial profit to be realized. This is no less true for the world of social networks. Networks like Digg, FriendFeed, and Facebook are seeing huge growths in value, but the little guys, the ones actually providing the meat and potatoes for those operations, rarely see a nickel. Let’s be honest for a second here. The major “Web 2.0″ and social networking technologies that have been created in the last several years have been… -
Creating Passionate Customers: Brand Evangelism and What it Means to Your Business
26 Aug 2009 | 6:06 amLast week, I wrote a piece on brand building for Forbes.com. With permission, I am publishing the unedited version here. Today, marketing your business for free may seem to be an unattainable process. But with social media marketing, it doesn’t have to be. The only investment in the act of marketing on the social web is time and energy. Thankfully, you don’t have to go at social media marketing alone. Engagement in a process called brand evangelism is one beneficial strategy to get your brand known and to help spread your message. Brand evangelism is a word of mouth marketing…
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Search Marketing Insights by Dev Basu
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Google Local Business Center Enhanced Dashboard Goes Live In Canada
20 Oct 2009 | 12:51 pmMore Robust Reporting Eh! When the Enhanced Dashboard reporting interface first went live in June 2009, I couldn’t wait till its new reporting features rolled outside the US and onto Canada and the rest of the world. The last two weeks have been pivotal in that type of progress, with reports that users in Europe and India being able to view the enhanced dashboard, complete with impressions, actions, and common search queries. I’m happy to report that as of today, the enhanced dashboard reports have been rolled out to all Canadian users. As a recap here are some of the top features… -
Google Local Listing Ads and The Death of IYP Advertising
11 Oct 2009 | 2:40 pmWhat are Local Listing Ads? For quite some time, local seo services have revolved around getting clients to the top of the 10 pack results by following best practices and optimizing for local search ranking factors. Organic search had its paid advertising counter part in Google Adwords, and although one could link their Local Business Centre listings with Adwords, the fit wasn’t as snug as it was meant to be. Last week, Google launched its Local Listings Ads service in San Diego and San Francisco in limited beta – Local Listing ads (pictured to the side) are fixed fee advertising… -
Are Google Place Pages Being Indexed?
27 Sep 2009 | 3:09 pmIntroducing Google Place Pages Google has officially switched over from the tabbed interface presented in all Google map profiles to a new ‘places’ page that offers business information in a more concise and apparent fashion. The shift to Wikipedia style map entries that are supported by community edits (US only) is a welcome change to Google Maps, with countries other than the US going through a transition from the existing tabbed bubble interface to the new ‘place pages’ interface in about 2 weeks time. Internal discussions with local search marketers has yielded… -
Entrepreneur vs. Employee
24 Jun 2009 | 6:29 pmWhich right minded opportunist has not thought about striking it out on their own? I currently lead the life of an intrapreneur – One who thrives as an entrepreneur within a corporate environment…perhaps the best of both worlds. My friend and fellow Toronto based marketer Satish Kanwar recently presented at Refresh, one of the increasingly popular ‘unconferences’ taking place in the city. Check out what he has to say beyond the jump:Satish Kanwar – Entrepreneur Versus Employee Wikipedia (no you’re not getting a link) says: Intrapreneurship is the… -
SES Toronto 2009 Day 1 Recap
8 Jun 2009 | 5:22 pmCliffnotes From Day 1 My first day at SES Toronto was info packed, networking wild, and quite interesting to say the least. Overall, the experience was worthwhile, though I do feel that the conference is better catered towards beginner to intermediate SEO/SEM types. Reconnecting with old friends at the Expo hall and meeting new ones felt great, and I hope to do more that tomorrow. So here’s an abridged version of what you need to know about today in 15 minutes or less. Keynote: Tara Hunt – The Whuffie Factor Since I love the efficiency of bulleted points (almost as much as…
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SEO Speedwagon
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Social Media URL Duplication and the Canonical Link Element
6 Nov 2009 | 4:33 amJust because you're not creating tracking versions of your content doesn't mean other people aren't. Here's how to handle it. -
Utilize Micro-blog Technology to Find Talent or a Job
4 Nov 2009 | 9:58 amThis morning I had the opportunity to review a site that enables recruiters and job hunters to connect with one another with greater ease utilizing micro-blog technology. -
How to Build Brand Awareness with Optimized Press Releases
28 Oct 2009 | 6:48 amWhile many companies have their own PR departments, marketing pros are always on the lookout for ways to extend their PR reach. Search engine optimized press releases offer an effective way to tell stories and gain increased online visibility and... -
Why Social Media Marketing is Expected of Big Brands
6 Oct 2009 | 5:43 pmAs we continue to move our resources to a “soft” platform, we realize that the flexibility of social media makes it a great culture to display the branded message. This very same identifying quality of pliability creates havoc in the... -
Sales & Recruiting Tool for Linkedin: People Toucher
2 Oct 2009 | 9:24 amI had the chance to review a sales and recruiting tool with a funny name offered by People Toucher this morning. The layout and functionality for finding sales and recruiting opportunities is pretty professional and easy to utilize. You have the ability to use multiple search criteria when finding individuals via Linkedin's network; which makes finding the right person much easier.
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Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim
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Cup of Joe: The Secret to Getting Rich on the Internet, is in Las Vegas – Part 1
6 Nov 2009 | 11:56 pmIt seems that around every corner on the web there is some one selling a get rich quick scheme or program. There’s always someone talking about a magic formula, or amazing tactic, that will make money fall from heaven. The truth is, there isn’t really one program or set of rules that are guaranteed to make anyone rich. The truth is, that some programs work for some and not for others. Some programs work for many and some don’t work for any at all. However, after a few years of building a business online, I have discovered that there is one tactic that most successful… -
Consumers Sharing Brand Opinions on Social Networks
6 Nov 2009 | 1:26 pmPerformics reports that Twitter may be the place to get your brand mentioned if you want social networkers’ attention, according to MediaPost. Nearly half (48%) of those who saw a brand mentioned on Twitter turned to a search engine to research that brand. Other social networks lagged far behind, with 34% researching. However, the study of 3000 active social networkers showed that 70% were on Facebook, and 22% were on Twitter. So of those respondents, 32 researched a brand from Twitter, while Facebook sent 714 running to their search engine of choice. 30% of those surveyed admitted… -
Most Bloggers Discuss Products/Brands
6 Nov 2009 | 12:06 pmAccording to Technorati’s 2009 State of the Blogosphere report, 70% of bloggers talk about products or brands on their blogs, eMarketer reports. And obviously some of these mentions would be prompted by free sample products, etc.—a practice popular enough to draw the notice of the FTC, which now requires disclosure on such review products. Interestingly, corporate bloggers were least likely to blog about brands and products (lawsuit anyone?), and hobbyist bloggers were second least likely. Technorati defined hobbyist bloggers as those that blog for fun. They don’t make money… -
Skype Founders Re-Found in Settlement
6 Nov 2009 | 10:07 amThe drama surrounding Skype as of late played out like a business soap opera. The accusations flew from both sides of the fence with founders and owners going at it tooth and nail. Check out Kara Swisher’s account over at All Things Digital for the blow by blow description. Now it looks like the ‘all clear’ can be sounded as an agreement has been reached. Here’s a synopsis for you from TechCrunch Earlier this morning, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis settled their lawsuits with eBay and a syndicate of investors in return for a 14 percent stake in the company they founded. The… -
You’re Facing a Reputation Crisis, Now What?
6 Nov 2009 | 7:09 amThere’s a growing interest in online reputation management. Over at Wildfire Marketing, I answered some reputation management questions for their Thought Leader Thursday series. Here’s a taster… What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve seen people make when it comes to responding to a reputation management crisis, and how someone salvage the situation if they’ve already made one of these mistakes? The biggest mistake is simply not having official channels in place to allow your customers to complain. Most disgruntled customers post to blogs and Twitter because…
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SEO Scoop
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How To Sitemap: Search Engine Submission
4 Nov 2009 | 7:48 amWhen I was first learning how to submit XML sitemaps to search engines, I found all the information I needed, however, the information was spread out amongst several sources. My intention is to create a quick reference guide on how to submit your XML sitemap to all of the major search engines (in one convenient location). If you have no idea what a XML sitemap is, or you are interested in learning how to create one, be sure to check out the precursor to this post: How To Sitemap: Creating XML Sitemaps. Monty & Spider by Ratkimo You can wait for the search engines to spider your site and… -
8 Utilities to Track Keyword Rankings
3 Nov 2009 | 7:49 amOne of the more tedious tasks in my monthly routine is preparing keyword ranking reports. While I enjoy analyzing the numbers and discovering how well our clients have (hopefully) improved over the past 30 days, actually collecting those numbers is a chore I don’t relish. If I can pay a few dollars to have a service perform this task on my behalf, I’m all for it. Listed below are eight services that will track your keyword rankings for you. I’ll do my best to list out their various pricing structures, to give you a simplified snapshot to help you find the service that most… -
Overcoming Drunken Monkeys & Writing Tips
28 Oct 2009 | 4:15 amHow to have your content ready when your boss asks for it. You waited and waited and now you have your keyword research. An exciting moment, until you realize you have to do something with it. Thousands of words staring at you from their excel spread sheet spells writer’s block and drunken monkeys. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott is a great book. It is about writing fiction but it has great points on general writing. The title comes from a clever story of Anne’s father giving her brother advise about a report on birds he is petrified to begin. “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird… -
How To Sitemap: Creating XML Sitemaps
21 Oct 2009 | 3:55 amHiya Google spiders, While you’re here, can you please make sure you check out our main product pages since we make changes to them frequently? Also, we added some new blog pages, so be sure to check those out as well. Have a great week! Thanks, Steph Wouldn’t it be great to leave a note providing suggestions to search engine spiders about how you want your site crawled when they visit your site? Well guess what? You can. Spider dog. Courtesy of epicfunnypictures.com. A XML sitemap is similar to the notes left behind by my well organized sister-in-law when I dogsit for her and my… -
Is social now a compulsory SEO skill?
20 Oct 2009 | 3:19 amThe convergence of SEO and social media as interrelated disciplines has been evident for a number of years. Smart SEO’s jumped on the social bandwagon years ago realizing the potential of social media to drive traffic and links. Today, search marketers (along with marketers in general) are some of the most active in the social arena. And for good reason. Well executed social media activity offers a range of SEO benefits, perhaps best captured in Adam Singer’s diagram: Image Source – Future Buzz Yet whilst they are clearly interrelated, the two disciplines remain distinct in…
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SEO and Tech Daily
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The media should be thanking aggregators
4 Nov 2009 | 7:07 amLet's face it. This isn't 1985. Most magazines are getting smaller. Newspapers are having more-than-serious financial issues and so are TV networks. This isn't the first wholesale change in our every day habits that the Internet has created. It's one of many, and somehow everyone is blaming Google. We're probably only a few short years away from 'regular people' adopting broadband for TV viewing .... and mobile is another story altogether. It's still in it's infancy. It's an all-out fight for your eyeballs! ... and it's on, in a big way, right now. While habits are… -
Facebook changes flip out users
25 Oct 2009 | 7:49 amThose of us that follow this kind of stuff knew on Friday (or earlier) that changes to Facebook were coming. The Facebook blog (and several hundred tech blogs) highlighted the story. In reality, most Facebook users don't read tech news ....and even if they did, the story disappeared entirely under the weight of the Windows 7 launch on Thursday. For the majority, the changes to the so-called 'newsfeed' log-on page came as a complete surprise, and as with any change, the reaction from the masses was ..... "Huh? ... Where's my stuff?". So here's a quick explanation. This isn't Facebook's first… -
Verizon - Yes, we're looking at you iPhone (Video)
22 Oct 2009 | 10:17 pmOver the course of the last few weeks, a variety of new cellphones based on Google's Android Operating System have been introduced by several major cellular carriers. Earlier today, here in the US, Verizon outright dashed rumors about adopting a version of Apple's iPhone (when the US exclusive with AT&T expires). It's been about two weeks since Verizon launched the "There's a Map for That" TV campaign targeting AT&T directly. Now, they're looking at Apple. A new buzz-building campaign on TV and the Internet went live a few hours ago, on the iPhone offensive with numerous… -
Google and Apple didn't derail Windows 7
21 Oct 2009 | 7:18 amThe timing couldn't have been a coincidence ... but it won't work. On Monday, Google announced a massive push (worldwide) for Google apps. Yesterday, Apple announced all-new MacBooks and iMacs. Tomorrow is the official release date on Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 7. The 'buzz', which has been around in tech circles for almost a year, is now hitting the (so-called) mainstream media ... and we all know what that means. I asked some 'regular people' yesterday (IE: non-techies) if they knew what Google Apps or Windows 7 were. The answer (without getting into some very… -
Google - We got a lotta green goin on ....
15 Oct 2009 | 6:52 amBlog Action Day has been around for some time and although, as of this writing, it doesn't appear to be eclipsing last year's numbers, it just got a boost on the Official Google Blog. Blog Action Day 2009 is dedicated to Climate Change and has some notable participants and new media partners. The Google post by Googler Anthony Ravitz showcases some extraordinary sustainable initiatives at the Googleplex including "9,212 photovoltaic solar panels that produce 1.6 MW of electricity — enough energy to power about 1,000 California homes". (Ugh .... Wow!) For those that don't remember it, or…
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SEO Web Help
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New Google PageRank to WebRank
It appears that Google has decided to remove PageRank from the Google Webmaster Tools. Surprisingly it hasn’t been removed from the Google Toolbar yet. I’m sure this is on it’s way though. What will they call the new PR? Many other SEOers in the field have been excited to see that the PR was removed from the [...] -
Generating Extra Income Online – questions answered part1
I have been looking into some Internet marketing ideas lately. What will help SEO Web Help grow? How can I start generating residual income on a site specializing in one topic – search engine optimization. I see MLM – Multi-level marketing, affiliate marketing, Adsense, reseller options and too many more to list out there. Then how [...] -
My Findings on Google Caffeine
Many people have been secretly working on the new algorithms for Google Caffeine which will help us all search a little better. Some people may not notice any difference in their searching while others may see the How does Google Caffeine work and what is it? What I believe it’s all about is offering us (searchers [...] -
SEO Buyers and SEO Sellers
Getting new SEO clients can be difficult at times since some of the SEO scammers have made people uneasy about what to expect from hiring you. As a company looking to hire a new SEO company, you may or may not have experienced an SEO scammer. What do you do? Who do you hire? This [...] -
Adwords PPC Campaign Help
I have been working exclusively on PPC campaigns lately and have been receiving about 30-40 emails daily asking for Adwords help. Dam support ticket system. lol PPC Campaigns – Pay Per Click I assume you are reading this because you need some PPC guidance. As easy as Adwords is, it can and will be difficult if you [...]
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Sugarrae aka Rae Hoffman
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Affiliate Datafeeds and Duplicate Content
The other day I posed a question on Twitter; “If you could learn more about one aspect of affiliate marketing, what would it be?” and a large portion of the responses I got back as a result were about using affiliate datafeeds. Even more specifically, several of them revolved around datafeed usage and duplicate content in regards to SEO. I’ve used (and still use) a lot of datafeeds in the construction of my affiliate sites and have learned quite a bit in regards to using them over the years. Hopefully, I’ll be able to pass along some of what I’ve learned to help… -
My First Affiliate Summit Experience
I know, I know. I’ve been an affiliate for over a decade now [I'm not old, I'm not old]… how have I not attended an Affiliate Summit before? I must have been asked that question thirty times this week. I really don’t know… I think because I’ve always been an organically focused affiliate, I’ve tended to mingle within the SEO community more than the affiliate community. That said, I was asked to speak at ASE, had always wanted to attend the conference and figured now was the time to pop that cherry. The Organizers I was actually impressed with how well the… -
Commercial Twitter Case Study Revisited
About a year ago I did a case study on the use of Twitter by BBGeeks.com – a site I own about BlackBerry phones. We were using Twitter as sort of a guerrilla marketing tactic to increase traffic to our site and more importantly, promote our brand. The results were encouraging – we’d acquired 500 followers in a short period of time and found they were actually visiting our site and engaging with us as a result. The initial results were promising enough that we kept with it, kept learning, kept testing – and we’re very glad we did. We went on building our brand via… -
Testing
Please ignore :) Testing something Thanks. This post originated at the Sugarrae online marketing blog, home to online marketing consultant Rae Hoffman.Testing This post originated at the Sugarrae online marketing blog, home to online marketing consultant Rae Hoffman.Testing -
Thesis Tutorial – Creating Custom Categories
I get asked at least once per week how I got the custom content on my category pages (you can check out the affiliate marketing category here on Sugarrae or the SEO conference category on Outspoken Media to see examples). The answer are custom category hooks and the instructions for creating them are below. Now first, I’d like to say that having custom categories is possible in any Wordpress theme. So, if you’re not using Thesis, all you need to do is duplicate the basic category.php template of your theme and and then customize it for each category, name it category-#.php (with #…
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Posts from the Econsultancy blog
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Gamers coming clean on scam ads: Is contrition enough?
6 Nov 2009 | 3:54 pmThe social gaming lead-gen controversy sparked by TechCrunch's Michael Arrington came to an end this week when OfferPal, the company he singled out for scamming users and advertsers, replaced its CEO and posted a mea culpa for its past and current practices. Beyond that, Facebook, MySpace and mega gamer Zynga have made moves this week to better regulate gaming offers. Will the move decimate the social gaming industry?Many of the gaming companies posting excellent revenues on social networks encourage consumers to pay cash for in game currency so they advance through the games faster. If… -
Brand tweets sends twitterers searching
6 Nov 2009 | 12:47 pmTwitter's traffic may be flatlining at the moment, but Performics and ROI Research have come out with good news for marketers: Twitter users pay attention to brands on the service. That may seem obvious to anyone who's ever promoted a product on Twitter. But the new study, announced today at Ad:Tech new York by Performics Marketing senior vice president Michael Kahn, also found that almost half of twitterers who have been introduced to a brand on Twitter have subsequently gone on to search for more information about it. If true, that's a big deal.Marketers are all over Twitter, but outside of… -
The Tony Soprano guide to social media
6 Nov 2009 | 5:47 amIt’s that time of the year: I’m considering watching The Sopranos again from the start. I need a week off, some quality Italian food and no distractions from the goddamned Feds. This urge was the result of a bunch of Tony Soprano quotes that I stumbled upon and – since it’s a Friday - I wondered if any of them could be applied to social media. Turns out that they can… "Let me figure out how to take care of you." Social media is not about sales: it’s about service. The sales that arise from social optimisation are a tangible bonus. Loyalty and satisfaction FTW. “Marriage, or any… -
The five biggest myths about Google
6 Nov 2009 | 3:00 amOn the internet, few companies receive more attention than Google. And for good reason: Google touches so many individuals and businesses. From search to its 'side projects', just about everything Google does creates interest. Google's prominence, not surprisingly, has led to the creation of many myths. Here are my top five.If you buy or sell links, Google will punish you. If Google catches you buying or selling links, it might punish you. But the more I see, the more I believe the chances of that happening are slim to none. In my opinion, if you get smacked down by Google for paid links, you… -
How should etailers ask for customer reviews?
6 Nov 2009 | 2:10 amThe fact that having user reviews can be an effective sales driver, providing valuable information for customers is well established, but how do retailers attract reviews onto their product pages? I looked at ways etailers can attract reviews a few months ago. One of those ideas was to email customers after purchase and invite them to leave a review of the product(s) they had bought. A recent report from Snow Valley(pdf) takes a closer look at the issue... In September, Snow Valley placed orders on 137 UK e-commerce sites, of which just 54 (39%) provided reviews. Of these 54, just 15 emailed…
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Search Engine Guide
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A Reptile Is Controlling You
5 Nov 2009 | 9:44 amby Sage Lewis I want to talk about how fear is being processed in your brain and how it's all out of whack with modern day society. Check out our small business news site. -
Google Analytics Goals
5 Nov 2009 | 9:34 amby Sage Lewis Now you get 20 of them! This is yet another great improvement for a great tool. Check out our small business news site. -
Going Down The Long Tail of Local Search
5 Nov 2009 | 8:53 amby Jeff Howard As the growth of local search continues, companies who serve large regions by remote service, warehouses, or otherwise should not feel disadvantaged from an obscure physical address. These companies can naturally optimize across a region by discovering how searches for niche areas occur within a larger region. Because so many searches are now localized a long tail of local phrases are emerging within major metropolitan areas. By drilling down for the names of towns, neighborhoods, municipalities, counties, and zip codes that receive search volume businesses serving larger… -
The Set-It-But-Don't-Forget-It SEO Strategy
5 Nov 2009 | 6:50 amby Stoney deGeyter Many people think that SEO is a set-it and forget it endeavor. The theory is that once you optimize the site then there really isn't much more to do after that. This is something that many penny pinchers like to espouse so they can try to "save money". Others just don't like the idea that online marketing is a never ending process. We like to have goals and want to see things through a conclusion. There are certain SEO strategies that are certainly goal oriented where you can get to a definitive end-point, but SEO as a whole is a constant ongoing process. Just like brushing… -
Web Analytics is the Foundation of Driving Strategy
4 Nov 2009 | 6:25 pmby Manoj Jasra In this video yours truly (Manoj Jasra) discusses how it's important to incorporate analytics into your marketing and website strategy from the very beginning and how you can use the stats from your websites to drive decisions which will have a direct impact on your organization. I am part of the 4 man roster at the Social Media Innovation Summit happening in Calgary on November 12th. This is an event presented by West17Media which is aimed at addressing high-level information planning, a key concern which many other conferences neglect. Check out our small business news…
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Online Marketing Blog
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5 Tips for Effective Email Copywriting
6 Nov 2009 | 4:34 amThe quality of email content is one of the core factors in determining whether an email marketing campaign succeeds or fails. But successful email copywriting is an art — rather than a science — making it different from most other forms of business writing. To start out on the right path, consider these 5 tips for effective email copywriting: 1. Focus on the subject line. The subject line may be the shortest piece of content to write, but it’s one your campaign’s most critical elements. The challenge is to create excitement for a special offer, provide enough information… -
Reader Poll Winner: SEO Dojo for Best Paid Subscription SEM Community
5 Nov 2009 | 7:53 amTopRank has been publishing the BIGLIST of SEM blogs since Jan 2007. We’ve created other BIGLISTs of resources as well including the BIGLIST of 100+ Search Marketing Resources posted in October. The categories for that list of SEM resources includes books, conferences, newsletters, blogs, forums and many more. We decided it would be interesting to see which resources from that list our readers felt were the best. In the past 3 plus years TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog has run over 50 polls: Everything from Best Social Media Podcast to best Keyword Research Tool to Best City for… -
How to Save Money on Social SEO Consulting
3 Nov 2009 | 5:45 amSocial Media Marketing is getting a lot of attention in the media on and offline, causing many business marketers to wonder how to adjust budgets and resources to participate. Others that have allocated funds to Social Media and SEO programs without proper implementation, timelines or measurement may question their return on investment. While businesses decide to push or pull budgets, companies that are focused on winning market share and driving revenue are soundly and consistently investing in a mix of digital tactics involving search, email, online PR and of course, social media. Adding… -
Pubcon Las Vegas 2009: Are You Ready?
2 Nov 2009 | 8:41 amAnother year in the Search Marketing world, another WebmasterWorld Pubcon in Las Vegas. Pubcon was one of the first search marketing conferences I attended and where I first met a number of highly talented SEOs in person. TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog has been liveblogging the Pubcon conference since 2005 and includes a mix of content ranging from interviews with Pubcon owner Brett Tabke to Google’s Adam Lasnik. Also videos (Neil Patel giving interesting tips), photos (see the 2006 Yahoo Party in the Playboy Suite and many, many posts from the sessions offering strategy… -
TopRank’s SEO Halloween Costume Contest
30 Oct 2009 | 10:42 amThe TopRank team loves to have fun – for holidays, on team outings, at conferences, etc. Because tomorrow is Halloween, a few members of the TopRank team decided to dress up for a costume contest. And it’s up to you to decide the winner! Winning includes at least $50 worth of coffee, so be sure to share this post and get your friends to vote too. We have a winner – Congrats goes to Dana Larson: Winner! Dana as Minnesota Strawberry Shortcake Safari Thomas Bad Angel Julie Michelle the Football Star Monkey Audrey and Veterinary Nurse Amie Mike as Zombie Soupy Sales Sue After…
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John Battelle's Searchblog
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Twitter Incorporates Retweeting (Beta Launch)
6 Nov 2009 | 12:50 pmSaw this greeting me whilst on Twitter.com today (gotta love WiFi on a plane): Nice to see Twitter rolling out so many new things, like Lists, which seems to be taking off (though I find the lack of a discovery interface vexing, for now). Retweeting is integrated in an elegant way, tweets that have been retweeted have a little cycled arrow icon, which identifies tweets that folks you've followed have retweeted. Another signal (as are Lists) that Twitter will be able to use as core data to drive its unique value. Watch that space, it's where Twitter will win (or lose). Twitter also added the… -
A Step Toward Realizing the Data Bill of Rights Vision
5 Nov 2009 | 4:19 amDanny was kind enough to ping me about this story, which breaks the news about Google's new "Dashboard," which is, in essence, a first start toward realizing the "privacy dashboard" I asked for so long ago (and again here), back when I was posting ideas like a madman (I'm going to be doing that again shortly, so watch out...). It's a big deal I think, even if most of us never use it. And it's very smart of Google to lead here. It really had no choice, when you think about it. And it's kind of cool to see stuff I wrote about here over three years ago happen in the real world. -
OK, What the Real Phone Map Should Be
3 Nov 2009 | 3:05 pmThe sphere is abuzz with today's news that AT&T is suing Verizon over those apparently quite effective ads which borrow heavily from Apple's tagline - "There's an App for that..." Verizon has created a map that compares AT&T 3G coverage to Verizon's, and then uses the tagline "there's a map for that." (Above is the commercial, here's the map.) Well, I've been ranting about a real carrier mapping application (executed as a marketing campaign, natch), for nearly three years, and while I've told just about everyone I can about it, so far it's still not done (I know, I know, we should… -
Twitter Lists
2 Nov 2009 | 7:12 pmThere's much to say about Twitter's slow to roll out but much discussed Lists feature. I'm a fan of it, in short, for many reasons. Lists is a pretty simple idea - it lets anyone make and share a list of folks on Twitter. But it's also a powerful new signal that will help Twitter solve two of its most vexing problems - first, that of discovery, and second, that of authority. Not to mention it gives everyone a chance to add value above the level of a single "follower", more on that later. In short, if done right, Lists will provide the Twitter ecosystem a third dimension that might just propel… -
What "Tweet" Needs to Become: To Share a Moment
27 Oct 2009 | 11:14 amLast week was big for Twitter. After years of speculation about whether the company was going to have a business model, Twitter announced two deals at our Web2 conference - first with Microsoft's Bing, and second with Google. Details of the deals were not disclosed, but as Google's Marissa Mayers admitted onstage, there were indeed financial terms. What those terms might be strike me as secondary to the fact the deals got done in the first place. Sure, they probably consist of some combination of data services fees and revenue sharing, but the fact remains that monetizing a real…
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Bruce Clay, Inc. Blog
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Friday Recap - Fine Fall Edition
6 Nov 2009 | 3:36 pmCrisp fall weather has come again, and it looks like we've got a beautiful weekend in store! Before you put on the house robe and hunker down with a log of cookie dough and a new episode of Ugly Betty (What?! Isn't that how you start your weekends? [No, I... -
Don't Be Controversial! (And Other Inflammatory Statements to Entice You to Read This Mild-Mannered Advice)
5 Nov 2009 | 3:52 pmThey say different people learn different ways. Some people learn by seeing. Some learn by hearing. Some learn by doing. In truth, it takes a little bit of everything to become a subject master. Let's take blogging, for example. When I took over the position of BCI blogger, I couldn't... -
Bye Bye, Old Media Thinking: CNN Leads the Way in Online Video Strategy - SEM Synergy Extras
4 Nov 2009 | 4:20 pmThe rising importance of online video is the topic of the day on today's episode of SEM Synergy. CNN -- a media outlet that before a few years ago was best known for its 24-hour television news coverage -- launched a newly redesigned site last week. Central to the... -
With Twitter Lists Come Great Responsibilities
3 Nov 2009 | 5:12 pmUg. Lists. Sometimes I feel like they control my life. To-do lists, both at work and at home. Lists of groceries to stock up on, books to read, songs to download. And as the holidays approach, so does the annual list of presents to buy. My relationship with the list... -
Shifting Search Marketing Strategy
2 Nov 2009 | 4:54 pmLess than two years ago, when I was introduced to the search marketing industry, I (naively) thought I knew what search was. Today I got my Google Wave invite and floundered around there for a bit. Last week I played around with Google's new Social Search experiment. With all the...
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MediaPost | Search Insider
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Search Extension
6 Nov 2009 | 10:45 amWe are closing in on the end of 2009, and if this year is anything like years past (Q4 2008 aside), we should soon see advertisers asking for advice on smart ways to spend incremental budgets before year-end. If you are a retailer, you'll have no problem identifying qualified search marketing opportunities for incremental spending. But for advertisers in most other categories, the economics and scale for search marketing in the holiday period are not necessarily improved. For some categories like travel, for example, the fourth quarter is a seasonally weak time period. If your search campaign… -
SIS Sneak Peak: Selling Search to the C-Suite
5 Nov 2009 | 10:58 amIn just under one month, we'll be gathering on the frosty ski hills of Park City, Utah for the Search Insider Summit. Between now and then, I'll give you a sneak preview of some of the main topic areas we'll be tackling in the meeting rooms of the Silver Lake Chateau. Today: How do you sell search to the C-Suite? -
More On: Everything I Need to Know About Business I Learned From Google
4 Nov 2009 | 6:45 amOK, kids. Class is back in session. Once again, we're studying business lessons learned from Google. As you'll recall, last time we covered these five Google-isms: 1. Innovate or die. 2. Automate or die. 3. Tap the long tail. 4. Keep your head in the cloud. 5. Don't scare users. Today, we'll discuss numbers six through eight. So get those pens and papers ready... -
Infectious And Contagious: Two Keys To Viral Marketing
3 Nov 2009 | 7:00 amHow many times has a client come to you and said, "I want a campaign that's going to go viral!"? If I had a nickel... I'm not knocking the desire for a campaign to go viral. It's just that, well, it's kind of stating the obvious. It's like saying, "I want my business to be really successful!" or "I want a product that people are going to love!" The critical question is, what makes viral viral? -
Don't Fall Into The ROI Trap
2 Nov 2009 | 7:15 amNobody's arguing that SEM (both in its paid and organic subspecialties) can deliver ROI. But viewing ROI as a primary and exclusive goal for your organization's search campaigns is dangerously myopic. Here's why.
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Search Marketing Standard
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Editor’s Picks, November 2-6, 2009
6 Nov 2009 | 4:25 pmA few weeks back, I shared my interest in interviews with you. There is always an abundance of video interviews online to look at, but I like the question-and-answer “hard copy” versions the best, mostly because I believe people think a little more before committing their thoughts to paper. One thing I like most about interviews is what they reveal about the people behind the answers, and three interviews that showed up online recently reveal more than most about the backgrounds of the individuals being interviewed. First up is Tad of SEO Blog talking with one of the youngest of the… -
Write the Perfect Online PR
3 Nov 2009 | 9:22 amWriting an online press release (PR) is a quick way to drive traffic to your website, build links and raise awareness. A good online PR will also help you to make more sales by raising awareness and desire amongst the target demographic. Most SEO consultants agree that writing and issuing online PRs at regular intervals is a beneficial addition to your online strategy. Depending on the service agreement you have with your SEO provider, it may be that creating content such as optimized news releases will incur an additional charge. If that’s the case or if you’re limited to the number of… -
Editor’s Picks, October 26-30, 2009
30 Oct 2009 | 5:50 pmThe search engine wars intensified this week as further details on developments involving Twitter, Bing, and Google’s new Social Search feature became clear. To help you make sense of what these developments mean for those involved in search and SEO, this week’s picks include a number of posts that bring clarity to the issues involved and the actual processes impacted. Is relevance more important than timeliness of results? What about privacy issues? Is anything real-time? Is Bing looking outward while Google looks inward? All are questions related to these events. First up are posts on… -
What’s Behind Your High Bounce Rate?
27 Oct 2009 | 3:11 pmA high bounce rate is a death knell for any website, as it means that much of your hard-won traffic is exiting at the landing page, without clicking through to any other page within the site. If you can’t retain your traffic, the likelihood of making a sale from the site is low. If the traffic exiting your site has reached unacceptable levels, it’s time to sit down and take action. The first place to start on your quest to encourage visitors to stick around is to identify what’s causing them to leave in droves in the first place. A site’s bounce rate is a standard analytics metric, so… -
5 Reasons To Bring SMM Into The House
23 Oct 2009 | 9:03 amIt has become a common practice among larger brands to outsource their social media marketing efforts to an outside agency. Although there are benefits to doing so, the trend itself is unsustainable, and as the great US economist Herbert Stein once remarked, “unsustainable trends tend to come to an end.” Here are a few reasons why you should consider bring your social media marketing (SMM) in-house: 1. No One Knows Your Product Like You Marketing agencies have dozens of other clients, most likely in different verticals, and you should not expect them to get to know your product…
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Pandia Search Engine News
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Top 5 sites for social search
2 Nov 2009 | 1:12 amSocial search is web search aided in some way by social networks. Google (NSDQ:GOOG) launched its own social search last week. Who else is on this scene and how can social search help you find what you are looking for? What kind of sites came into consideration for this short list of great social search engines? I have not been looking at sites that simply index social networks. I’m not looking for simply for information from social networks. I want search tools for general web search powered by information from social networks. The sites on this list all search information that has… -
Webmaster World’s PubCon is back in Vegas
1 Nov 2009 | 5:03 amIf you have the chance, go to Las Vegas on November 10 to 13 to take part in an intense search engine marketing learning arena. It started in 2001, in London. Search engine marketing enthusiasts met at the Cittie of Yorke pub to discuss the search scene and have fun. There were no speeches or stands, just a lot of networking. Image: Keynote speaker Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. From Pub Conference to PubCon Las Vegas Since 2001, Webmaster World has developed a large scale conference version of the pub gathering: PubCon. This year PubCon returns to Las Vegas, giving participants a new chance to… -
Pandia Search Engine News Halloween Wrap-up
31 Oct 2009 | 7:18 amIs Google’s Social Search as creepy as Halloween? That’s one of the topics found in this week’s search engine news. You will get our response on Tuesday. While waiting you may like to take a look at these stories: Google’s Creepy Social Search Google released Social Search, which prioritizes results from your friends’ Twitter feeds, FriendFeed updates, Facebook pages, LinkedIn profiles, and Picasa libraries. (PCMag Oct 10 2009) Bing loses users faster than impressions, says Chitika Users’ share down to 5.44% in October from 6.7% in August (CBR Oct 30 2009)… -
Google’s new revenue stream: books and music
31 Oct 2009 | 5:13 amGoogle adds new music search features to its regular web search and plans to open an online ebook store next summer. Google’s economic success has been based on its pay-per-click text ads. You will find such ads accompanying search results, emails in Gmail and so on. Any company relying on only one revenue stream is vulnerable, though, which is one reason Google (NSDQ:GOOG) is trying to diversify. Selling books and ebooks Recently Google announced that it is going to launch an online ebook store, called Google Editions. That makes perfect sense. Since Microsoft gave up on its book… -
The truth about ISPs and Network Neutrality
22 Oct 2009 | 3:59 amThe concept of network neutrality is that all internet content should be treated equally. This means that the content is treated and transmitted in the same way regardless of who uploaded it, who is downloading it, or what type of data it is. Advocates see network neutrality as the fundamental right of all users to have equal access to the internet, having control of what content they view and the tools that they use to view that content. photo credit: gualtiero By guest author John West It is already happening Internet service providers (ISPs) act as a gateway, giving users access to the…
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Ask Kalena
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First Recipients of the Free SEM Training Initiative
5 Nov 2009 | 1:28 amAs we posted earlier this week, Search Engine College has launched a free search engine marketing training initiative for charities and not-for-profit organizations worldwide. We’re offering 25 charities per year the opportunity to learn search marketing skills at no cost, to help them make the most of their limited marketing budgets. Thank you to everyone who tweeted and blogged about our offer, word has spread very quickly and we’ve been inundated with requests from all over the world! As well as announcing the recipients as they are decided, we’re going to publish a small… -
New Offerings from Google
4 Nov 2009 | 12:30 amI haven’t got time to review them all in detail yet, but I’ve noticed a number of new initiatives launched by Google over the past week or so that deserve mention here. Ad Sitelinks in AdWords Ad Sitelinks is a new AdWords feature that allows you to extend the value of your existing AdWords ads by providing additional links to content deep within your sites. Rather than sending all users to the same landing page, Ad Sitelinks will display up to 4 additional Destination URLs on your search-based text ad for users to choose from. Google Comparison Ads: Comparison Ads is another new… -
October Search Light Newsletter: the *only two days late* edition
3 Nov 2009 | 3:17 amThe latest issue of the Search Light newsletter came out yesterday. And it’s only 2 days late! At this rate, our November newsletter may even buck the trend and be published on time. In this issue, we celebrate Search Engine College reaching 45 countries by offering subscribers a USD 50 discount on all certification courses. The newsletter also includes some of the more interesting FAQs answered in this blog and an article debunking the myth of SEO as voodoo, written by web site usability extraordinaire Kim Krause Berg If you’re not yet a newsletter subscriber catch it here and… -
Free SEO/SEM course for charity sites
2 Nov 2009 | 3:52 amAs you may have heard if you follow me on Twitter, Search Engine College has now enrolled students in 45 countries. We’re thrilled that so many people around the world have benefited from our courses, but we’re also aware that many small businesses and not-for-profit sites don’t even have a marketing budget, let alone a budget for training like ours. So to make it easier, we’ve decided to offer 25 charities per year the opportunity to learn search marketing skills at no cost, to help them make the most of their limited marketing budgets. We’d like to extend an… -
Q and A: Can running a PPC Campaign affect my Organic Rankings?
28 Oct 2009 | 3:30 pmDear Kalena… I was wondering if you have an active ppc program if this hurts you in natural search optimization since your paying for keyword placement. Why would Google/Yahoo rank you high if your already paying them lots of money. I tested this by pausing my Yahoo ad for 1 month and sure enough my keywords are all on front page when beforehand they were are pages 3-5. Too nervous to do with Google since we spend a lot per month. Billy Hi Billy, This is a topic which has been much debated over the years, but the short answer is No, running a PPC Campaign will have no…
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aimClear Search Marketing Blog
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The “Complete Marketer” Search Agency Model
4 Nov 2009 | 3:15 pmphoto credit: craigCloutier Most larger Internet marketing agencies and in-house shops are configured as departments of specialists. It’s no wonder! In today’s complicated world PPC, ORM, social media, link building, affiliate networks, analytics, content creation, video, public relations, SEO, vendor and account management (whew) all require experienced and nuanced practitioners. aimClear takes a different approach than most agencies in that literally every employee in the shop is trained long-term to strive for functional fluency in all departments and specialize in several. We build… -
Rand Fishkin: SEO, Mentors & What Pisses Him Off
29 Oct 2009 | 11:29 amRand Fishkin is a singular personality and, to those in the SEO industry, needs little introduction. Having “started playing” with Microsoft FrontPage WYSIWYG web page software in 1993 as a high school student, he’s grown SEOmoz to take its place amongst the most recognized brands in search. Rand worked his way to thought-leadership by classic pathways: hard work, experimentation, speaking engagements at early Danny Sullivan/Chris Sherman SearchEngineStrategies conferences, tackling ambitious data-driven research projects, ahead of the times tool-making, endless… -
aimClear Announces PubCon Speaking Schedule
28 Oct 2009 | 6:53 pmRoll over Beethoven! Legendary search marketing conclave PubCon looms large as Sinatra on a flashing Las Vegas billboard. Beginning November 10th at the ‘Vegas Convention Center, PubCon truly is one of the world’s most storied annual Internet marketing conferences. Steeped in history, stand by to experience 4 killer days of content spread across 7 tracks, over 90 sessions and fantastic networking events. Learn from and mingle with over 200 expert speakers gathered to share real-world examples of bleeding edge SEO, PPC and affiliate-think-genius. On Day One the Interactive Site… -
Today’s Affirmations For This Search Marketer
23 Oct 2009 | 6:45 amThe wind whistles howling, this blustery Canal Park morning, 7:20 AM. The water churns brown, surface licking little whitecaps, tinted iron ore agitated by waves. There’s going to be snow south of us along the Shores of Lake Superior today, hazardous travel they say. It’s about 43 degrees Fahrenheit outside but I’m good. Each year it takes about a week of around-freezing weather to acclimate a soul and I’m there. Really, I got up and went to the store pre-dawn this morning wearing shorts, sandals and my Marshall School blaze-orange down vest. I’m good because Duluth… -
Facebook Internal Search: SEO & Ranking Hacks
18 Oct 2009 | 2:37 pmGoogle Insights For Search What does it take to rank in Facebook’s newly enhanced internal search engine, which now spans the entire user base? This post offers results from aimClear’s study of Facebook search and offers SEO tips & tricks for getting keyword queries ranked in FB’s organic SERPs. We also examine opportunities for savvy marketers to best exploit Facebook’s expanded social graph search to immediate advantage and share what we learned about ranking factors. (Advanced Facebook search-users can skip directly to “Facebook SEO.”) Why Do…
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Blogstorm SEO blog
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Google Analytics adds advanced filters in content reports
6 Nov 2009 | 3:19 amYesterday Google added an Advanced Filters tool to the content reports allowing users to filter using a number of different parameters. The tool even supports regular expressions. The filter can be seen at the bottom of the keyword or content reports and allows you to drill down into the information in a much more intuitive way than the previous filtering options allowed, mainly because it’s no longer hidden away in another section. Below is an example where I drilled down into a keywords report to find all keywords containing the word “car” with an per visit value greater… -
Dealing with multiple phone numbers in Google Local
5 Nov 2009 | 4:26 amGoogle Local has a different algorithm to the main Google search engine and requires different optimisation methods. The main ranking factors for Google Local include elements such as citations and customer reviews as well as the usual link factors and the expected address and geographical factors. There has been a lot of talk recently about using tracking numbers for businesses and the concerns are quite valid. If you have 2 phone numbers listed in different places then it’s the same as having 2 domain names showing the same website but a lot harder to fix. Some companies have a… -
Bulk verification in Google Local
5 Nov 2009 | 3:18 amWe’ve been doing a lot of work with Google Local recently and have come across a lot of challenges. In the next few weeks we’re going to be covering some of the issues on the blog. Google allows businesses to add new listings or claim existing listings via the web interface but for businesses with thousands of locations that’s not really possible. Luckily Google offers a bulk upload feature which allows you to upload a spreadsheet of all your locations nice and easily. The main issue with bulk uploads is that in the past there was no way of verifying the data so it was… -
Future Twitter trends
5 Nov 2009 | 1:16 amIt’s fair to say that we are now surfing the crest of the first great Twitter wave. Slight tweaks to the interface (the recent introduction of lists) don’t disguise the fact that growth in US user numbers has stalled. Multi-million dollar deals with Google and Bing, as well as translations (Spanish has just launched), will give the service a shot in the arm but its long-term future is somewhat of a mystery. Twitter’s development so far has been fueled by users – and developers harnessing its API – not by the company itself. It is these continuing changes in the way it is… -
Google patent granted: Rank adjustments via click data
31 Oct 2009 | 9:30 amGoogle has this week been granted a patent for adjusting search rankings based on click data for related queries. The patent, entitled Rank-adjusted content items, talks about the same types of query refinements we discussed earlier this month in the satisfaction rates post and in previous brand update analysis. In plain English the patent explains that Google may be counting the number of people who search for “insurance” and then search for “confused.com”. Google can then analyse the queries and determine whether they are statistically significant enough for…
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Natural Search Blog
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Good Practices SEO With A Tinge Of Creativity
1 Nov 2009 | 1:45 pmSearch engine marketing is increasingly becoming popular with people from all walks of life and businesses of all hues adopting the web in a big way. The global recesssion has clearly thrust SEM into the spotlight as a great way to drive targeted traffic that is measurable and also making a huge difference to the bottomline of any company, the $ generated in revenue. Search engine optimisation(SEO) and Pay per click (PPC) marketing are being accorded increasing importance as affordable means of tapping the market potential by reaching a targeted audience on the web compared to the traditional… -
SEO Tools: Using Xenu and Excel - Blindfolded SEO Audit Part 2
22 Oct 2009 | 8:26 amDuring Part 1 of the Blindfolded SEO Audit, we started learning how to use Xenu and Excel to begin our SEO audit and focused on the foundational element, URLs. Now let’s move on to the most important signal a site’s pages can send to the search engines, the all powerful title tag. Like URL constructs, sites often have nearly as many constructs for title tags. Three things that a quick scan of our data will tell us: General constructs and patterns used Title tag duplication General sense of optimization quality (potentially) Branding (or lack of) always jumps out quickly, of which… -
SEO Services: Blindfolded SEO Audit Part 1
21 Oct 2009 | 12:15 pmSEO consultants spend a lot of time looking at websites. Moreover, like web designers, SEOs definitely “see” websites very differently than the average web user. Some days, it feels a little like the Matrix, where instead of seeing the streaming code, you see the people, cars and buildings that the code signifies. After doing web design, this is heightened even more, although perhaps inverted … instead of seeing shoes, cookware, and dog collars, I see title tags, heading tags, URL constructs and CSS. Like any skill though, it takes continual honing and refining, along with… -
SEO Followed By Website Optimization - Beat Your Competition
18 Oct 2009 | 2:08 pmAs search marketers, most SEO professionals are focused on the optimization aspects (both on page and off page) that will help a site achieve top rankings in the SERPs of the major search engines. The complexity of achieving top rankings increases by the day with the algorithms focusing more and more on factors that cannot be manipulated by a site owner/webmaster. In this scenario, it is imperative that a site owner with a fairly new site maximizes her chances of retaining as many visitors to her site as possible by giving them an opportunity to communicate with her site through a comment on… -
Social Media Costs … More Than Just ROI Calculations
13 Oct 2009 | 9:26 amSocial media costs. Yes it does. One way or another, there is a cost that is (or should be) associated with social media efforts. Determining and measuring that cost isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but if you took the time to determine your Social Media Marketing Goals and established metrics for Social Media Measurement, then you are well on your way to understanding the financial (and resource) impact of social media. Why are social media costs so challenging to measure? Social media is about more than just ROI. Unlike areas of a business that have very specific and direct cost…
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Performancing
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Will Amazon Affiliate Twitter posting tool increase spam?
6 Nov 2009 | 5:15 amAmazon has introduced a new feature for its Affiliate members, making it easy to post a link to any product on the site to Twitter. It’s another step in making it easy to promote Amazon’s products, after the introduction of cut-and-paste widgets and “link to this page” for bloggers and website owners. Yet Twitter is already flooded with spam and promotional messages, and Amazon has just made it a whole lot easier for casual spammers to flood the service with affiliate links. Additionally, because the links are effectively cloaked (a side effect of having a limited… -
Would You Consider a Dedicated Twitter Device?
5 Nov 2009 | 5:33 pmSince I’ve started appreciating Twitter for both personal discussions and promoting my blogs and online content, I’ve been exploring ways to access the service conveniently, even while on-the-go. For this purpose, I’ve settled with a Symbian Series 60 application called Gravity. The application is a fully-featured Twitter client that supports practically anything that a desktop-based client can, such as retweets, direct messages, searches, TwitPics, and even multiple accounts. I’m satisfied with the application, but I only have one gripe, which is connectivity. At home… -
Who is Posterous good for?
5 Nov 2009 | 4:55 amPosterous has caused quite a stir in the blogging world, because it all but removes even the moderate level of complexity that other blogging platforms tend to put in the way of simply publishing. The service has even managed, somehow, to alter my view a little on using free, non-self-hosted blogging platforms, though I’d still say it’s not for everyone. The fact is, most people can benefit from having a platform that’s easy to post multimedia content to on the fly and integrating with social networks even if they are au fait with the likes of WordPress, TypePad and Movable… -
How to Be Wildly Successful in Blogging
3 Nov 2009 | 11:02 pmThere are many things that go into being successful in the problogging arena. Things like putting in the time and effort, determination, hard work, writing chops, and marketing savvy have been brought up by many people. But I think the most important thing doesn’t get talked about a lot. For the most successful bloggers, their biggest trait seems to be the ability to consistently produce conceptually new content over the long term. Check out the top bloggers in your niche and you’ll probably find that they’ve been around for a while. It’s rare to find a top blog… -
Facebook is not killing blogging…
3 Nov 2009 | 6:44 amAfter yesterday’s post on social media being key to blog marketing, there’s a certain irony in reading an article which suggest that Facebook is killing blogging. Of course, this is just one opinion amidst many, and the “x is killing y” argument is eternal, but it’s an interesting point of view. What seems to be happening is that people maintaining personal blogs are blogging directly less, but sharing more via Twitter and Facebook. After all, although personal blogs can build up a large following, many are most avidly read by closer friends — the sort of…
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Sebastian's Pamphlets
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As if sloppy social media users ain’t bad enough … search engines support traffic theft
26 Oct 2009 | 12:18 pmPrepare for a dose of techy tin foil hattery. [Skip rant] Again, I’m going to rant about a nightmare that Twitter & Co created with their crappy, thoughtless and shortsighted software designs: URI shorteners (yup, it’s URI, not URL). Recap: Each and every 3rd party URI shortener is evil by design. Those questionable services do/will steal your traffic and your Google juice, mislead and piss off your potential visitors customers, and hurt you in countless other ways. If you consider yourself south of sanity, do not make use of shortened URIs you don’t own. Actually, this… -
Derek Powazek outed himself big-mouthed and ignorant, and why that’s a pity
16 Oct 2009 | 11:30 amWith childish attacks on his colleagues, Derek Powazek didn’t do professional Web development –as an industry– a favor. As a matter of fact, Derek Powazek insulted savvy Web developers, Web designers, even search engine staff, as well as useability experts and search engine specialists, who team-up in countless projects helping small and large Web sites succeed. I seriously can’t understand how Derek Powazek “has survived 13 years in the web biz” (source) without detailled knowledge of how things get done in Web projects. I mean, if a developer really has… -
Full disclosure @ FTC
12 Oct 2009 | 5:00 amTrying to avoid an $11,000 fine in the Federal Trade Commission’s war on bloggers: When I write about praise search engines, that’s totally paid-for because I’ve received free search results upfront. Copyright © 2009 Sebastian`s Pamphlets. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator/feed reader, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement and will be put down immediately. Please contact sebastians-pamphlets.com so we can take legal action immediately.Plugin by Taragana -
Search engines should make shortened URIs somewhat persistent
7 Oct 2009 | 10:29 amURI shorteners are crap. Each and every shortened URI expresses a design flaw. All –or at least most– public URI shorteners will shut down sooner or later, because shortened URIs are hard to monetize. Making use of 3rd party URI shorteners translates to “put traffic at risk”. Not to speak of link love (PageRank, Google juice, link popularity) lost forever. Search engines could provide a way out of the sURL dilemma that Twitter & Co created with their crappy, thoughtless and shortsighted software designs. Here’s how: Most browsers support search queries in the… -
The “just create compelling and useful content” lie
25 Sep 2009 | 2:07 pmI’m so sick of the universal answer to all SEO questions. Each and every search engine rep keeps telling me that “creating a great and useful site with compelling content will gain me all the rankings I deserve”. What a pile of bullshit. Nothing ranks without strong links. I deserve more, and certainly involving less work. Honestly, why the heck should I invest any amount of time and even money to make others happy? It’s totally absurd to put up a great site with compelling content that’s easy to navigate and all that, just to please an ungrateful crowd of…
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Ramblings About SEO
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The Art of SEO
30 Oct 2009 | 4:06 amOne of our clients forward me an email message yesterday. The subject of the email was: “Fwd: Your Amazon.com order has shipped (#102-2280136-1739409)”. I scratched my head when I saw it, wondering what it could possibly be. Then I opened the email and saw these wonderful words: “FYI, your book is now shipping Look forward to reading it” Sweet! You can order your own copy here. -
SEMPO Mobile White Paper
19 Oct 2009 | 8:13 amRecently SEMPO released a white paper on the mobile market. The paper references data from comScore which shows tremendous growth (what a surprise!). The comScore data reveals that in May of 2009 more than 64.2 million in the US accessed the mobile Internet, a significant uptick from 36.8 million users from January of 2008, or a Neilsen study that showes 42.5 million users in July of 2008. This is a full 28% of US wireless subscribers, and 30% of all desktop Internet users. Mobile advertising related to search is seeing some nice growth too. In the US, the Kelsey Group indicates that $39… -
Interviewed by Richard Baxter
18 Oct 2009 | 12:31 pmWhile I am known for interviewing lots of different people I recently got interviewed by Richard Baxter of SEO Gadget. In it, I speak about how I got started in SEO, and my favorite interviews. Richard also does a great job on an ongoing basis on the SEO Gadget blog. Check it out! -
Less is More
11 Oct 2009 | 5:44 amOne of the fascinating trends of the 21st century (more or less) is the fact that “less is more”. This saying has been around for a long time, but this decade has brought it to new heights. In our industry there are two stunning examples. One of the best examples is Google: A quick spot check shows that Google currently has a market cap of $163 Billion. As we all know, a lot of technology goes into allowing Google to provide such a simple interface, and also to put them in the market leading position they occupy. But, for the user, one of the major advantages of the service is… -
Obscuring the Algorithm
27 Sep 2009 | 7:46 amThe Google algorithm is evolving. Gone are the days when you can read a single patent, or a document like the PageRank thesis writen by Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin to figure out how it all works. That PageRank paper was at the time a revolutionary algorithm, and it launched the dominant search engine of our generation. However, it also launched a generation of spammers. The reason is that people could read the paper and understand how it worked, and then make SEO decisions based around manipulating the algorithm. But no more. The major search engines will all continue to publish…
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Andy Beard - Niche Marketing
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Why Tweetglide Matters – seriously
27 Oct 2009 | 9:45 pmWhen Mike Filsaime first mentioned Tweetglide, I signed up to his notification list but I wasn’t really that interested in the concept. I thought it had a few flaws in the business model he was proposing, and there were already enough Adobe Air Twitter applications on the market.I am saying this as someone who even considered hiring some developers to make an app, or picking up a dying project and adding some viral life to it. There are ways to leverage the Twitter application market that will be attractive.Before Mike really started selling information products, he had a huge amount of… -
Value Trojans & Free Training Webinar (Wednesday 10/28/09 10:45 PST)
26 Oct 2009 | 4:09 pmI was meaning to get a post out on this most of last week but I was tied up helping lots of people big & small.Mike Hill is the only guy I know that teaches this stuff, but you will find Value Trojans all over the place when you realise the simplicity and powerful concept behind it.I also mentioned when I offered my bonus for Stompernet that I had plans to add some kind of Value Trojan to this site.Value Trojans First and foremost are about offering insane valueMike goes into incredible detail in his free promotional videos for his launch of sales tsunami and normally charges $25000/day… -
Product Launch Manager Bonus & Video CDNs
23 Oct 2009 | 7:51 amIf you have been following the theme of Jeff Walkers Product Launch Manager launch, a large chunk of it is that online marketers often have far more knowledge than they think they do – they just have to go out there and sell it.So my bonus is along those lines and will reveal a lot more of my long term plans, which I even hinted at long ago in a comment on Jeff Walker’s blog when he first launched PLF over 3 years ago.Best Existing Solution By FarThe other day I felt compelled to write about Quansite because it is the closest service to what I want to achieve.If you are looking… -
SEO Dojo – What’s That?
23 Oct 2009 | 12:36 amOne of the smartest SEOs I know who doesn’t run some kind of paid membership site now doesWhilst also blogging together on Collective Thoughts (ok so I have been slacking a little) we also have a chat group on Skype that has been running for 2 years.Dave knows his stuff (like really knows his stuff), and if your primary interest is SEO, I can’t think of a better place to hang out and share secrets.I absolutely refused to promote this as an affiliate as it is something we have chatted about in the Collective Thoughts group for so long, plus in various launch consultations I… -
SEOmoz Pro Review – Coupon Voucher Promo Discount Codes?
19 Oct 2009 | 4:55 amWould ranking for these terms bring SEOmoz additional traffic and take traffic away from affiliates? Would that be a benefit to the long-term SEOmoz brand?Tom Critchlow of Distilled has quite a disturbing post today for affiliates on the SEOmoz blog, encouraging brands to rank for their own coupon codes.The suggestion is that brands should try to rank for their own voucher codes and take that traffic away from affiliate coupon sites. Unfortunately in some cases that might be biting the hand that feeds you.Many of the sites that offer various forms of vouchers & coupons are brand…
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SEO Theory Blog
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Beware new comment spam
30 Oct 2009 | 12:16 pmOnce again Google shows us just how uncoordinated a very large organization can be. Webmaster Central is telling us they will now discover new Web pages through comment feeds in ATOM/RSS format. Why... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Another 20 Hard Core SEO Tips
16 Oct 2009 | 9:00 amIt’s a little early to say that publishing “20 Hard Core SEO Tips” articles has become a tradition for SEO Theory but I definitely have been thinking about writing this article for... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Why Brent Payne’s PageRank Sculpting report is bogus
5 Oct 2009 | 12:44 pmThere is no doubt that Brent D. Payne is a very smart guy and an extremely successful search engine optimization strategist. He is the Director of SEO for Tribune Technology, managing the strategies... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Link Zinged by Jim Boykin, I think
29 Sep 2009 | 12:05 pmDisclaimer: This article reflects my personal experience and represents only my opinions. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer, co-workers, or... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
The Laws of SEO – How The Searchable Web EcoSystem Works
16 Sep 2009 | 9:30 amMost people think of search engine optimization as if it is something that only marketers engage in, whereas over the past couple of years I have tried to show that any one of the three members of... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Wiep.net - SEO & Link Building blog
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Link Building this Month (10.2009)
2 Nov 2009 | 12:34 pmConsidering the large amount of good link building related posts I came across last month, I’m officially declaring October the official month of link marketing; Linktober :) Let’s start with one of the best posts I’ve read in a while – Gab’s 101 link buying tips. Whether you buy links or not, there are lots of useful tips in there for everyone! If you rather not buy your way to the top, you’ll have to learn the art of web promoting. And this art starts by fully understanding why people share stuff with each other, and/ or how you can persuade them into… -
Ready for New Challenges…
20 Oct 2009 | 5:56 amTime goes fast, especially online. It’s already been about four years ago since I started working at Tribal Internet Marketing, and I’ve learned a LOT in these four years. Tribal gave me the opportunity to expand my knowledge, to attend (and speak at) several search marketing conferences, and to work with lots of amazing colleagues and very interesting clients. It was great to set up a completely new service at Tribal, and to hire and coach a team of very smart link marketers. Although I still love working at Tribal, I felt it was time for a new challenge, which is why I decided… -
Linkbait: Good Content Isn’t Good Enough
14 Oct 2009 | 11:19 amJust recently, I was talking with someone about a linkbait campaign. He suggested that, instead of creating one page with outstanding content, it might be better to create two pages with good content for the same price. I didn’t agree with this, and we had a discussion about this topic, which lead to an (in my opinion) interesting comparison. For those who know a thing or two about cars – in my opinion, choosing between good content and excellent content is like choosing between giving away a BMW, or giving away a Bugatti Veyron. A BMW (I just couldn’t resist :) ) is a car. -
Link Building this Month (09.2009)
4 Oct 2009 | 12:14 pmA few days later than usually, but it’s here nevertheless: a new edition of Link Building this Month. At Tribal, I’ve had the opportunity to interview dozens of potential link builders, and certainly know how difficult this can be. Useful tips like the 5 questions for link builders that Angela Moore listed, may help you to select the right people, and to build a great team of link builders. If you would base your link building strategy solely on what people say in forums, or what they write about in blogs, it probably won’t bring you optimal results. Despite what some may… -
Link Building this Month (08.2009)
1 Sep 2009 | 12:09 amJust like last month, I came across a few interesting articles that might be good reading material for those who try to obtain links through sending out press releases. One of the best articles I’ve read in a while is Ken McGaffins list with 10 reasons why journalists may write about your site. Only link marketers who fully understand why people link to other sites in their niche can be optimally successful. Also, knowing the basics and trying to avoid PR mistakes and pitch no-nos can help as well :) You probably haven’t missed SEOmoz launching their updated Search Engine Ranking…
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High Rankings Advisor Newsletter Feed
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Twitter Question of the Week
28 Oct 2009 | 8:48 amWill you care if Google turns off toolbar PR? -
HRA Wrap-up 268
28 Oct 2009 | 8:48 amThat's all for today! -
Advanced Forum Thread of the Week
28 Oct 2009 | 8:48 amSEO Best Principles for Local Service -
Writing TO Your Customers-Not AT Them
28 Oct 2009 | 8:47 amSometimes choosing which company to buy from is about like deciding which brand of canned peas is the best. To make matters worse, the copy on most websites doesn't offer any help. -
Stuff You Might Like
28 Oct 2009 | 8:47 am20% Off All Karon Thackston Marketing Books!
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Michael Gray - Graywolf's SEO Blog
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New Twitter Account @graywolfseo
3 Nov 2009 | 6:00 amNow that twitter lists have taken off and are being utilized, and in some cases are replacing RSS readers, I’m going to try to take advantage by experimenting with a new account @graywolfseo.Some of the common complaints I get are that I am chatty, meander about, post too many cooking, disney, or other non SEO related tweets. If that describes your feelings then go ahead and follow @graywolfseo. The plan is to use it to post things from this blog and other interesting marketing, search engine, or social media links without being conversational. Lot’s of people think social media… -
Twitter Lists are Teh Awesome
2 Nov 2009 | 6:00 amNow that twitter lists have been rolled out just about everyone, I’m going to actually agree with Robert Scoble and say twitter lists are teh awesome. To be clear I haven’t gone as far as stopping to use my feed reader … but in the next few weeks I will be looking to move what I can out of google reader and into twitter lists. It’s not that RSS is bad, but RSS is too complicated for anyone but geeks to use, in fact I share Guy Kawasaki’s belief that if you can take the tech out of RSS and blogging it’s going to be better for everyone (shocking I agreed with… -
Thanks to this Months Sponsors – October 2009
30 Oct 2009 | 1:00 amI’d like to say thanks to the people who sponsored the blog this month, without them there wouldn’t be regular posts here. Text Link Ads – New customers can get $100 in free text links. CrazyEgg.com – Supplement your analytics with action information from click tracking heat maps. Clasione Directory – Quality directory for listing your business Efficiently manage your SEO and Social Media campaigns with Raven’s powerful suite of Internet Marketing Tools Check Out WordStream’s new Free Keyword Tool delivers thousands of niche keywords, fast. We index… -
Bad Architecture and Band-Aid Solutions
28 Oct 2009 | 1:55 amIn the past few months all of the search engines, but especially Google have released or started supporting new ways of fixing site architecture issues. However IMHO these are band-aid solutions for bad site architecture, and not something you should rely on … at all. In 2009 some of the big advances we’ve had the major search engines announce support for are things like the “rel=canonical” tag which allows you to tell a search engine this content at this URL may exist in more than one place, but you should credit it to one URL. Another new item is the ability to… -
How to Add Search Shortcuts to Google Chrome.
26 Oct 2009 | 1:24 amLast week Danny Sullivan twittered he was looking for a creative commons image to use. Christine Churchill poked a little fun at me wondering how I was able to get that so quickly. The trick is using search shortcuts, and I’m going to show you how to do it. For my first example I’m going to set up a creative commons search for commercially licensed images on flickr (aka images you allowed to use on websites you make a profit on as long as you attribute them properly). Go the advanced search page on flickr, put in your query term and check the boxes creative commons, and commercial…
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SearchEngineWorld
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Google Reports Spam Levels Rose 25 Percent In 2008
Google has reported a 156 percent increase in the amount of unwanted e-mail spam targeting users of its Postini enterprise system between November 2008 and data from earlier this month, a rapid increase from the 25 percent annual 2008 rise the Internet giant announced Monday. -
Yahoo Earnings Report Reveals $303 Million Loss And Weak Outlook
At the close of the market Tuesday Yahoo released its first quarterly earnings results under recently hired chief executive Carol Bartz, with fourth quarter results showing revenues down 1 percent to $1.80 billion from the same quarter one year earlier. -
Google Launches Measurement Lab Internet Traffic Analysis Effort
Google has launched an effort called Measurement Lab that is aimed at making it easier to measure how ISPs manipulate subscriber Internet connections, Google chief evangelist Vint Cerf, co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocol that underlies the Internet, announced Wednesday. -
AOL Laying Off 700 Employees Citing Weak Online Advertising Market
Time Warner Inc. will cut 10 percent of its workforce, or as many as 700 jobs, from its Internet services group AOL, in order to help curtail losses brought about by a weakened online advertising market, AOL chief executive Randy Falco wrote in an internal memo Wednesday. -
Microsoft Woos Users Of Rival Browser Firefox With Live Search Plug-in
Microsoft, the maker of the popular Web browser Internet Explorer, has released a free tool for users of Mozilla Corp.'s open source rival browser Firefox that provides search engine suggestions for Live Search, the Redmond, Washington-based software maker's search service.
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Alibi Productions - Website Promotion and Online Marketing Strategies
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@font-face breakdown
4 Nov 2009 | 11:42 amIf you’ve heard about the somewhat new @font-face CSS declaration, but not sure what its about or how to implement it, Dave Shea has the post for you. Starting with @font-face over at mezzoblue goes into detail and explains the @font-face method as well as other font embedding options and gives some good links if you need to investigate further. Check out his post to learn all about using @font-face. This is a post from Alibi Productions. If you'd like to get more try subscribing to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter . -
Content Strategy and Typography
19 Oct 2009 | 8:35 amLast week was extremely busy, which is good, but it didn’t give me a lot time to post some of the cool links I’ve run across. Content Strategy Content strategy is such a huge part of any website and sadly it seems like it is often overlooked. Listening/watching to the live feed from A Event Apart Chicago conference going on this past week, much of the topics I caught were on content strategy. Here’s a snippet from Kristina Halvorson’s Content First Results from good content strategy: better user experience, greater brand consistency, new operational efficiencies, better risk… -
The Show Must Go On
14 Oct 2009 | 7:38 pmWhen the sun is shining and your surrounded by some good friends nothing can be better. Above is a little Sunday jam session with John King on guitar and yours truly on the drums. This is a post from Alibi Productions. If you'd like to get more try subscribing to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter . -
Rotating Text with CSS
25 Sep 2009 | 9:49 amBeing a front-end developer with a strong emphasis on web standards, CSS is usually what I spend most of my time on when it comes to building out websites. One aspect of design that I’ve never really been able to accomplish with CSS is rotating text on its side. Snook.ca wrote up an exciting post on Text Rotation with CSS and explained exactly how you accomplish this task and make it work across multiple browsers (Safari, Firefox and even Internet Explorer). This is a post from Alibi Productions. If you'd like to get more try subscribing to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter . -
CSS Mega Resource
10 Sep 2009 | 8:16 amHave you ever found yourself looking for a way to do something specifically with CSS that you haven’t done before? I build out sites for a lot of different companies and whenever I have to build out a site that I didn’t personally design I always run across something that makes me think twice about a certain CSS method. Today I stumbled (not literally) onto Mega CSS Resource Roundup and I have to say I am very impressed. Here’s a quick list of some of the things the resource included: CSS for beginers CSS cheat sheets CSS shorthand cheat sheets CSS reference guides XHTML cheat sheets…
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SEO ROI
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How To Find Competitors’ Best PPC Ads
5 Nov 2009 | 12:07 pmIf you could find out your competitors’ top converting ads when you enter a market, you’d save a lot of time optimizing campaigns, wouldn’t you? It would be like knowing where the jelly is in a jelly donut – you’d bite right into the good stuff and skip the mostly-dough areas. The principle that applies in this case is to look at the length of time an ad has been running. Duration is indicative of ad performance. The problem is that when you search for a given keyword, you only get a snapshot in time of competitors’ ads. So you don’t know if what… -
Find Competitors’ Conversion Rates
3 Nov 2009 | 7:52 pmIf you could find out what competitors’ conversion rates are and you can estimate the traffic value to your competition? Surely the PPC pros could use that conversion data… Well, it turns out you can get a pretty good idea about competitors’ conversion rates. At SMX Advanced, Addie Connor shared the tip that you could bid for traffic to your competitors’ pages. Why do that? To find out their quality scores. The catch is that such a technique won’t tell you what they’re converting at. You still can’t access their analytics. Let’s think about this… -
Win The Knack, A Sweeeeet Book On Entrepreneurship
1 Nov 2009 | 5:47 pmReading is the best investment you can make in yourself, and it’s also incredibly enjoyable. So to share the fun and help you build your businesses, I’m giving away a copy of The Knack, a fantastic business book by Bo Burlingham and Norm Brodsky. (Here’s my review of The Knack.) It’s going to be a random drawing. Here’s how to enter: 1) Tell me what was the first post that you really enjoyed on this site, and name any others you found helpful along the way. The more detail you can share, the better. 2) Then, give me constructive criticism on things you… -
A Usability Reference For Internet Marketing Master’s Students
27 Oct 2009 | 8:34 pmFirst, the information that’s valuable to all my readers: Check out my most recent usability guest column for Search Engine Land, How Much Detail Do Product Detail Pages Need? Second, in response to my 4Q visitor surveys, Tara Cervantes wrote me the following in response to the question, “What do you value most about the [company] website?” “[I]nsight, shared knowledge, great food for thought. I’m an Internet Marketing Master’s student who just can’t get enough (now I’m thinking of old Depeche Mode)…Anyway, great site, I signed up for the… -
How Should I Create My “Best Of” Page?
25 Oct 2009 | 6:46 amHey guys, After my previous great experiences going to you for advice, I thought I’d ask how I should go about creating my “Best Of” page? In particular, I’m interested in 2 things: 1) What posts belong there? 2) How should I highlight the page? I used to have a best of page in my main navigation, but it got very few clicks. I’d like to perhaps try a different approach – what would you guys suggest? Cheers Gab Downloads: Internal Link Building, a Wordpress plugin. It optimizes your internal navigation so that you can rank like Wikipedia. More info is…
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Sphinn: New Topics
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Premium White Pro
7 Nov 2009 | 1:55 amTeeth whitening process is primarily done to eliminate all stains from the tooth enamel. Regular intake of food, caffeinated and dark colored drinks besides, smoking and aging stain your teeth. Normal brushing of your teeth does not remove stain causing factors like food particles and germs completely. -
How to create your own Twitter search results headline animator to a webpage?
7 Nov 2009 | 1:33 am10 simple steps to create your own Twitter search results headline animator to a webpage for your query or search keyword -
Solar Power Generator Solar Panel Kits Solar Generator
7 Nov 2009 | 12:59 amGet instant electrical power in any outage or disaster with the aid of best solar power generator and solar panel kits at Mysolarbackup.com. -
What is Acupuncture?
7 Nov 2009 | 12:30 amAcupuncture is natural holistic medicine. It helps to relieve symptoms and signs of many health problems and treat the underlying root causes of those symptoms. Each person’s treatment is customized and unique. -
Web Design Vancouver, SEO company Vancouver, SEO Vancouver
6 Nov 2009 | 10:09 pmNirvana Canada is a Vancouver-based web design and SEO company. It offers quality web development and online marketing Services for local and regional businesses in Vancouver and all of Canada.
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adCenter Blog
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Microsoft adCenter Fall 2009 Upgrade Rolling Out This Weekend
6 Nov 2009 | 4:01 pmThe adCenter team is in the process of getting ready to roll out the adCenter Fall 2009 Upgrade this weekend. This upgrade will include improvements in reporting, account management and will even add a few new features; we'll have more detailed information on Monday. You should expect to see the upgrade changes after Sunday, November 8th. Have a great weekend! -
Bing Buzz and The Holidays: Advertising on Bing Shopping
5 Nov 2009 | 8:00 amAs I mentioned in a previous Bing Buzz and The Holidays post, the current economic climate is forcing consumers to make price more of a priority in their holiday shopping decisions, which will make comparison shopping that much more important this year. Given Bing's branding as a decision engine from Microsoft that connects advertisers with more than 72 million unique searchers while they are in decision mode (and the marketing momentum that's building around this message as the holidays approach), I wanted to take a minute to point out another Bing opportunity that helps get… -
SEM Beginner Series: Ad Copy Importance, Best Practices and Resources
4 Nov 2009 | 9:30 amThis is the 3rd post in the SEM Beginner Series, the first introduced click-through rate (CTR) and the second, cost-per-click (CPC). This series of posts is intended for those new to search engine marketing who are looking for some guidance to help identify, monitor and adjust the key performance indicators (KPIs) that determine how successful a PPC campaign is. Why is Ad Copy Important? Ad copy is important because it delivers that crucial first impression potential customers are going to have of your business; it's what will make or break their decision to click on your ad and visit… -
Paid Search Bid Concepts and Strategies (Part III)
3 Nov 2009 | 8:00 amOur previous post discussed keyword level and portfolio level analysis. In this post, we will dive into a keyword level strategy called incremental bidding. Utilizing this strategy is a simple way to optimize each individual keyword and achieve a lower cost-per-acquisition (CPA). Tell Me about Incremental Bidding With incremental bidding, you compare each keyword's CPA to your overall CPA goal. Based on how the keyword performs relative to the overall CPA goal, you can adjust the bid, which affects the position. The objective is to test different positions until you find the keyword's… -
UK Search Insights: Life After Redundancy - Part 3: Keep Calm and Carry On
2 Nov 2009 | 10:28 amContinuing with our redundancy and recession insights series, the challenging economic situation has inevitably changed the nation's attitudes towards money and resources. With such sage mottos as: "Keep Calm and Carry On" harking back to World War II lingering on peoples' lips and printed on t-shirts; It's very hard to resist the jolly camaraderie of doing one's bit. We've taken a closer look at two thrifty search trends emerging on Bing using the Microsoft Advertising Intelligence Tool. Dig for Victory: Grow Your Own Top celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver and Hugh…
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Get Elastic Ecommerce Blog
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Every Second Counts: How Website Performance Impacts Shopper Behavior
5 Nov 2009 | 3:03 amAn under-performing site has serious consequences to revenue – online and across channels. Today’s shoppers have high expectations when it comes to buying online. Websites which take too long to load can result in negative brand perception, diminished goodwill and a significant loss in overall sales. In our recent webinar Every Second Counts: How Website Performance Impacts Shopper Behavior, we explored the findings of a new study by Forrester Research on behalf of Akamai which has identified two seconds as the new threshold for acceptable web page response times. The Impact Of Poor… -
Displaying Search Results: Grid View or List View?
4 Nov 2009 | 3:05 amOne of the testing ideas covered in the webinar Best Ecommerce Tests — Case Studies & Practical Advice to Raise Conversions Before the Holidays is grid view vs. list view in search results. We know from eye-tracking and search engine behavior studies that, when presented with a list of search results, people often click the first result – paying attention to the top 3 or so. Rarely do folks click to the next page (past the 10th result). Online stores may present search results in list view or grid view (grid view is more common on category result pages). Some e-stores offer both… -
The Importance of Site Performance
2 Nov 2009 | 3:42 amSite Performance: The Need for Speed In a 2006 study on site abandonment (.pdf) conducted by Jupiter Research on behalf of Akamai, 28% of online shoppers claimed they would not wait longer than 4 seconds for a page to load before leaving a site. This equated to 33% of broadband customers and 19% of dialup. Though broadband customers had higher expectations for page load speed, even 45% of dialup users were unwilling to wait more than 6 seconds for a page to load. Online power shoppers who spend more than $1500 online are more likely to demand fast loading pages (55% vs. 40% of shoppers who… -
November Webinar Correction and Update
2 Nov 2009 | 1:06 amMy apologies to all our Get Elastic readers, I got a little mixed up about our upcoming webinar this week on site performance Every Second Counts: How Website Performance Impacts Shopper Behavior with Margaret Rivera of Akamai. I had the date correct as November 4, but posted this morning that the webinar would happen tomorrow (Tuesday) when it will in fact happen on Wednesday, 9am PST / 12pm EST. The second correction is regarding the free copy of the research, which has not been confirmed. So make it up to you I’m going to post one heckuva detailed webinar recap on GetElastic.com,… -
Bloggers Digest: October 2009
30 Oct 2009 | 4:06 amIf you’re new here, welcome to Get Elastic. Bloggers Digest is our monthly ritual that highlight posts from other blogs that are of value and interest to online retailers and Internet marketers. Miss this month’s webinars? Catch the on-demand replays: Ecommerce best practices for the Telco industry Best Ecommerce Tests — Case Studies & Practical Advice to Raise Conversions Before the Holidays If you’ve just discovered Get Elastic in the last year, check out our Halloween fun posts the Ghoulgle (see the comments for funny captions) and Online Retailers Dressed Up For the…
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David Snyder's Snydey Sense
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How to Be Profitable Online on the Rebound
6 Nov 2009 | 6:53 amThis economy is allegedly rebounding. That is despite a 10% unemployment rate. Now is the time to make plans for personal wealth and expendable income returning to the American household. But where is the money to be made, and how does one make it? Verticals to Attack Now Green Technology - This area is read hot, and being picked [...] -
How I Became The Most Dangerous Man on the Internet
4 Nov 2009 | 6:23 amThe title “Most Dangerous Man on the Internet” is a tongue-in-cheek poke at people that believe people like myself are the most evil people on the planet. It’s insane hyperbole on their part. Sure some of what I have done can be characterized as “spam”, but in the end I am a realist and do [...] -
A Return to Blogging
2 Nov 2009 | 6:24 amSo I have tweaked SnydeySense, and I am making a commitment to return to blogging. This time out I will be using SnydeySense for true blogging, bringing a voice to things in the tech, business, and internet space that interest me. More of my internet marketing related posts will be found on SearchEngineJournal.com , which [...] -
My Short Response to Derek Powazek
17 Oct 2009 | 10:22 pmDear Derek, The website for your quarterly, Fray, is producing duplicate content due to a canonical issue with the www versus non-www version, http://www.fray.com http://fray.com http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=9Jj&q=site%3Awww.fray.com&aq=f&oq=&aqi= http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=HKj&q=site%3Afray.com&aq=f&oq=&aqi= So much for the obvious. Love, Dave -
Guest Post:Pros and Cons of Outsourcing your SEM
28 Sep 2009 | 2:23 pmBy now, anybody who wants to succeed in online business knows the importance of Search Engine Marketing (SEM). The big bad world of the Internet can be a trying place for the meek and docile. You need to aggressively and assertively promote your company and products everywhere on the Internet where you think your target [...]
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Compete Blog
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Dicing into Facebook Ads
6 Nov 2009 | 10:00 amIf you are an advertiser who wants to drive large volumes of traffic to your site, there are two important things you are probably looking for: reach and ease of implementing your campaign. Facebook meets these qualifications. It is currently the third largest site online with 125MM visitors in September and it is quickly approaching parity with the #1 and #2 publishers, Google and Yahoo. (more…) -
“Game Over” for Wii?
5 Nov 2009 | 7:25 amWhen Nintendo first introduced the Wii in 2006, they did so with a lower price point than the competition and a focus on capturing interest from all demographics. Demand for the Wii was so high that finding a Wii in a store was a rarity until earlier this year. Since then, Nintendo has dominated in sales of consoles leaving both the Sony Playstation 3 (PS3) and the Microsoft Xbox360 in the dust. In August, both Sony and Microsoft lowered the price of their consoles to $300, but the PS3 came out victorious in September with monthly console sales surpassing Wii for the first time. … -
Want a Tip about Podcasting? Digital 180 Speaks with Tippingpoint Labs’ Chief Strategy Officer
3 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pmDigital 180, Compete’s online “TV” series, spoke with Andrew Davis. Andrew founded Tippingpoint Labs with James Cosco in 2002. Since the early nineties Andrew has been creating valuable content for companies like The Jim Henson Company, CNN, The Today Show and even MTV. Andrew spoke with Digital 180 about podcasting and what he sees as an evolution in podcasting. “I think podcasting as a whole has kind off fallen off the radar screen. It was something big two years ago. But what changed I think was the expectation from the user.” (more…) -
More Castrol Traffic No Fantasy
2 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pmFor months, traffic to Castrol.com has trailed rivals, notably Shell.com. That all changed in September, with the Castrol site reaching its highest traffic level in at least a year and pulling ahead of Shell. The gains were unique to Castrol, so are not seasonal. Not seasonal to oil at least… (more…) -
Digital 180 Speaks with Espresso’s Managing Director Marta Kagan
1 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pmDigital 180, Compete’s online “TV” series, spoke with Marta Kagan, who leads Espresso’s growing Boston office. As the outspoken voice behind The Secret Diary of a Bonafide Marketing Genius, Marta writes and speaks frequently about branding and advertising in the digital channel. Her viral hit What the F**k is Social Media? has been translated into seven languages. (more…)
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Small Business Search Marketing
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Google Pulls Local Phone Numbers from Search Display
5 Nov 2009 | 1:14 amUpdate, 11:45 am: After emailing Google to ask why the phone numbers have been removed, a Google spokesperson replied back saying it was a bug: “For a few hours this morning phone numbers were not displayed as part of local universal search results on Google. This was a small bug, and we quickly fixed it.” —————–@—————- It looks like Google is making more small changes to how its displays local search results — but these are small changes that might have a big impact on both local businesses and the users… -
New Google Local Listing Guidelines
3 Nov 2009 | 11:23 pmGoogle has published a new set of guidelines for local businesses using the Local Business Center — guidelines that continue to get more specific to counter the very specific ways small businesses spammers try to bend or completely get around the rules. In a nutshell, there are three completely new guidelines that deal with spam/attempts to take advantage of the LBC system: The business name on Google Maps must be your full legal business name. PO Boxes do not count as physical locations. A property for rent is not considered a place of business. Please create one listing for the… -
Walking the Local Search Walk
2 Nov 2009 | 5:24 amMy wife went on a kitchen cleaning binge yesterday. When I came home from some errand-running, three yellow pages books were sitting on my office desk. So I asked what’s up. “You’re the local SEO guy,” she said. “Do we even need these anymore?” I thought about it for 30 seconds and decided no, we don’t need these anymore. If I’m always talking about local search and people using the web to find local information, I should walk the walk, too, right? So there they are, as you can see in the photo, sitting in my office trash bin. (Actually, you can… -
October ‘09: Best Search/Marketing Posts
1 Nov 2009 | 6:23 pmHere’s my roundup of the best search/marketing posts I found and read during September and October. (I’m combining the two months because I spent much of September traveling.) If you’re new to this blog, this is a monthly feature that began way back in 2007. You can find earlier “Best Of”s for each month in the archives: 2008 Best Posts and 2007 Best Posts. I never include my own posts in these end-of-month recaps. Local Search Gregg Stewart/SEW: Consumers Head Online for Local Business Information Mike Blumenthal: Google Maps: Six reasons why your listing might… -
Meeting the Press, Talking SEO
27 Oct 2009 | 6:33 amThat How to Get Started with SEO post that I published last week has a little backstory: It was inspired by a series of interviews I’ve done lately about SEO with members of the press. Each interview was about SEO and small businesses, and in each case I ended up talking about how a small business can begin to tackle SEO. The fruits of each interview are now online, and if I had to pick a favorite, it would be this article from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. It’s a profile of All About Spelling, a small business that I’d never heard of until the article was published…
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Hitwise Intelligence - Analyst Weblogs
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Windows 7 Release
5 Nov 2009 | 1:41 amExperian Hitwise’s resident gadget, expert Client Intelligence Analyst Richard Seymour, takes a look at the online reaction to the Microsoft’s Windows 7 launch last week. Using the Experian Hitwise Hot Consumer Electronics List, we saw that during the week ending 24th October - launch week for Microsoft’s new flagship operating system - 28% of all software searches were for Microsoft Windows 7 terms, overtaking the categories perennial leader Apple iTunes. A week later (w/e 31/10/09) and after the hype had settled, searches for Windows 7 still topped those of iTunes though the gap had… -
Canadian Banks Brand Association
4 Nov 2009 | 8:30 amInternet search data can be an excellent input to understand what consumers associate with a brand name. Looking at the words that consumers include with a brand name in a search query provides insight into the products, services and attributes consumers associate wtih that brand. The data, updated weekly is far more timely and cost effective than the traditional phone surveys to measure brand association. Today, I want to follow up on a post from last week to show what Canadians associate with the brand names of the big banks. The following table shows the top 10 branded search terms for the… -
Black Friday and Cyber Monday Predictions
2 Nov 2009 | 3:11 pmHoliday projections are out and many are predicting a gloomy holiday season for retailers. The NRF forecasts a 1% decline growth in total retail sales for the 2009 holiday season, totaling $437.6 billion. The online channel is poised to fare somewhat better, with Forrester Research projecting an increase of 8% to $44.7 billion. The official shopping season usually gets underway during the Thanksgiving holiday with heavy promotional activity taking place around Black Friday and Cyber Monday. However this year, fearful of weak sales, retailers are already starting to release Black Friday… -
UK Halloween and fancy dress costume searches increasing
2 Nov 2009 | 1:58 amJudging by the amount of merchandise for sale in the shops, it feels like Halloween becomes more popular every year in the UK. And Hitwise search data seems to bear this out: the chart below illustrates the breadth of searches for the term ‘halloween’ (which measures the number of different ways that people search for a topic). Last week (w/e 31 October 2009) we monitored at astonishing 49 distinct search terms containing the word ‘halloween’, and the top 10 were: ‘halloween 2009’, ‘halloween’, ‘halloween costumes’, ‘halloween games’, ‘halloween costume ideas’,… -
What retail categories are Gen Ys searching for online?
29 Oct 2009 | 5:45 pmIn my last post I looked at search terms by 18-24 year old Australian users, and indicated how they were more likely to search for bricks and mortar brands than online players; with an overall tendency to search by brands compared to products. As expected, some of the retail categories that these brand and product search terms fell into conformed to some gender stereotypes. For example, ‘Apparel’ related terms attracted the highest percentage of search traffic by 18-24 year old female users (25%), while ‘Electronics’ terms were heavily represented by 18-24 year old male users (28%).
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ReveNews
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Time to Take Mobile Advertising Seriously
4 Nov 2009 | 8:06 pmThere was a time when “mobile advertising” consisted of downloading cool ringtones or texting votes for American Idol contestants. That was before smartphones came along. Blackberry brought in the era of hand-held email, particularly for business users. But Apple’s iPhone has created a new and robust mobile advertising marketplace. (Never mind the kazillion apps, which is a burgeoning marketing opportunity in and of itself.) Now, with the introduction of more new smartphones like the Palm Pre and the recently launched Android, built around Google’s operating system, mobile advertising… -
“Pay-what-you-want” Drives 57,000 Game Sales in a Week
2 Nov 2009 | 9:34 amIn a win for micropayments, World of Goo, a top 10 PC game for January this year and popular seller on WiiWare, the Wii game store, was sold in an experiment to see what people would pay for their popular game by giving them the option to choose what to pay for the game. The “Pay-What-You-Want” sale marked the 1 year release of the game, so admittedly the game was not at the peak of the sales cycle and was likely in the hands of the users who really wanted the software. Also important is that the publisher reports piracy of the game close to 90%. Even so, the experiment provides… -
Books and e-Books: Who’s The Biggest Loser?
30 Oct 2009 | 1:22 pmOn the face of it, developments in digital publishing have signaled a decisive victory for aspiring and professional authors in recent months, judging by recent announcements: Amazon recently declared that it’s Kindle e-book reader was its overall bestseller by number of units shipped and total revenue generated. According to a MarketWatch article, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos recently mentioned during the company’s Q3 financial results (ended Sept 30, 2009) call that the Kindle is now the most popular product on its site by unit sales and dollar value across all product categories. -
Fifteen Years and Counting
28 Oct 2009 | 12:40 pmEver heard of Hotwired.com? Do you recall navigating a Time Inc. site called Pathfinder? Remember a company called MCI? If any of those things ring a bell, then you might look back fondly on October 27, 1994. That’s when the first banner ad was created. Adman Frank D’Angelo was in on that historic moment, and he shares his perspective in a fascinating piece in Ad Age. As with many advances in marketing, the birth of the banner ad really started because of an industry leader’s vision – in this case, Ed Atzt, then chairman of mega-brander Procter & Gamble. At a May 1994 industry… -
IAB Takes Up Arms Against the FTC’s Latest Endorsement Regulation Campaign
23 Oct 2009 | 12:25 pmIf the Federal Trade Commission had the intention to spark off a wave of sometimes worried, sometimes angry and often indignant blog posts and forum chatter with their “Final Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”, they’ve certainly succeeded. About a week ago, ReveNews contributor Andrew M. Baer, Esq, wrote “FTC Regulates Blogger, Viral Marketing Relationships: Analysis and compliance tips” stating why he’s not concerned about the FTC intentions. The guides which come into force on 1st December, are aimed at addressing…
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Understanding Google Maps & Local Search
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Google Changes Guidelines AGAIN!
6 Nov 2009 | 10:15 amStefano Gorgoni has pointed out that Google has once again changed the Business Listing Guidelines as regards to legal business name, switching back to the standard that was in use previously: Previous Guideline New Guideline The business name on Google Maps must be your full legal business name. Represent your business exactly as it appears in the offline world. The name on Google Maps should match the business name, as should the address, phone number and website. Do not attempt to manipulate search results by adding extraneous keywords or a description of your business into the business… -
Has Google Maps Fixed the OneBox Problem?
6 Nov 2009 | 8:17 amSince August, there had been numerous complaints in the forums (here, here, here, here) and in this blog that Google was increasingly presenting the Authoritative OneBox on more general searches that should really be showing the Lucky 7 Pack. In late September there was an active post in the forum that seemed to coalesce a number of complaints around the issue and posters presented a large number of examples of the OneBox showing inappropriately that Google could examine. On September 30th, Google chimed in and at acknowledged the issue. Numerous examples of the problem continued to surface… -
Local Search: News of the Weird
6 Nov 2009 | 2:00 amI love the intersection of Map and life and sometimes the things that I read provide a new angle that just wasn’t obvious before. This recent post in the Google Maps forums raises all sorts of questions. It falls into the category of “no wonder they are getting a divorce”: Date: October 31, 2009 4:17:25 PM EDT Subject: I have an ex – wife who is now a business competitor. How can I prevent her from posting fictitious bad reviews Author: Dream Parties When a customer googles my company, all reviews are positive, 5 stars. But my ex-wife is now in the same business and… -
Google Maps and PO Boxes – When can they be used?
5 Nov 2009 | 6:25 amUpdated 11/05/09- Authoritative word on PO Boxes from Joel Headley of Google: PO Boxes have proven unverifiable and are called out as such. We’re working on providing the right solution for businesses that need to hide a home address, however. The poor man’s virtual office, the PO Box, has been singled out in the new Business Listing Guidelines as they relate to your business address: Do not create listings at locations where the business does not physically exist. PO Boxes do not count as physical locations.(italics mine) Do not create more than one listing for each business… -
Federal Bust of Dependable Locksmith in Florida Strikes at Heart of National Locksmith Scams
5 Nov 2009 | 6:22 amUpdate 3:30 11/05/09: Glenn Younger of Grah Safe & Lock, forwarded me this piece from the RiverFrontTimes that details the scam and the charges. It’s a great read. A snippet: The complaint alleges that telephone dispatchers for Dependable Locks were instructed by managers to quote a price of $54 for a car lockout, while the responding technician was instructed by managers to charge up to $179 once services had been provided. The telephone dispatchers were instructed to misrepresent or understate the possibility of additional charges above the price quoted. The market rate for a…
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Local SEO Guide
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Business.com Social Media Survey - Are You Running 7 Social Media Campaigns?
5 Nov 2009 | 11:49 amBusiness.com just released the results of a study on social media usage by business professionals. The big data points that stuck out for me: The average company in this study was planning, developing or running seven(!!!!) different social media initiatives Facebook is the social media platform of choice for the majority of respondents, but I suspect that most are not using it for business reasons. Here are the high level findings: Webinars and podcasts are top social media resources for business professionals, used by 69% of those who turn to social media channels for business… -
Google Local Social Search is Coming
2 Nov 2009 | 8:00 amAnd so I thought I put up some deep thoughts on the subject at SearchEngineLand…Are You Ready For Google Local Social Search? -
Yahoo Flushes GeoCities, PageRank & Million$ Down The Drain
27 Oct 2009 | 1:49 pmYahoo finally closed Geocities.com in a way that proves Carol Bartz & co. really shouldn’t be focused on search - they just destroyed millions of dollars worth of PageRank in one fell swoop. As of this writing Google is reporting there are 7.45MM Geocities URLs in its index. Click on any of those links like this one for Medical Online Glossary & Resources: http://www.geocities.com/med_dictionary/ and you’ll see that the URL produces a 404 error on the search.yahoo.com domain. According to Compete, Geocities had 10MM visits last month - a fair amount of which I am sure… -
Google Social Search Not Very Local Yet
26 Oct 2009 | 1:52 pmI just checked out Google’s new Social Search experiment. The idea is that Google can index information from your social network and display relevant content in your search results. For more detail read Danny Sullivan’s post on the launch. Here’s Danny’s summary scenario on how the system could work: Google sees I have a friend on Twitter That friend links to their blog from their Twitter profile Google understands that they are connected to that blog The friend’s blog has a link to their Flickr account Google may understand, then, that the person I know on… -
Very Brief Local SEO Thoughts
19 Oct 2009 | 4:02 pmMy blog muse must have caught the h1m1 virus recently. So in order to appease the angry hordes of readers who await words of wisdom from on high here are a couple of very low-effort (to do and to write about) local seo ideas for you: Common misspellings can be effective for the right terms (see above). What are the common misspellings you can rank for that can convert to business? The advent of flat rate Google local search ads is going to force a lot of local search directories to start investing heavily in expanding their footprint in search. This means developing more content (read…
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Mihmorandum: Local SEO + Web Design
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More on the Possible Effects of Call-Tracking in Local Search
30 Oct 2009 | 9:17 amAs many readers probably know, Telmetrics president Bill Dinan responded to my original Search Engine Land column about call-tracking last week. Greg Sterling was kind enough to let me post a response to Bill's response on his blog this week. Please check it out & let me know your thoughts either in the comments area on Greg's blog, or on this post. -
Google Place Pages Show Prominent Snippets of Consumer Sentiment
19 Oct 2009 | 7:08 amGoogle Maps appears to have introduced another innovation to their interface recently: Zagat-like review snippets on Place Pages for individual businesses. -
My Thoughts on Google Local Listing Ads
9 Oct 2009 | 9:05 amAs I mentioned in yesterday’s SMX East recap, Google announced a new ad format–Local Listing Ads–on Monday afternoon. Both Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal have written fairly in-depth summaries of what the ads entail but I’ll try to lay out the highlights below: Only businesses with claimed LBC listings are eligible to participate. The landing page MUST [...] -
SMX East Local Items of Interest
8 Oct 2009 | 6:26 amWhat this post lacks in coherence it will make up for in speed :) Below are some of the items I found most interesting during my three days in New York this week: Ranking Tactics for Local Search It was truly an honor to be on a panel with Mike Blumenthal, Mary Bowling, Will Scott, and Andrew [...] -
New TMP (15miles) / Comscore Study on Local Search
6 Oct 2009 | 11:08 amTMP & Comscore’s annual study of the Local Business space was published this morning, and hot off the presses, Gregg Stewart, the President of TMP’s new Interactive wing called 15miles, shared the initial results with those of us in attendance at SMX East. There wasn’t really anything earth-shattering, but some interesting data came out nonetheless. The [...]
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SEO Igloo Blog
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Google Maps Sows And Reaps Incongruities
3 Nov 2009 | 1:56 pmA happy fall to all my readers, and I hope while you’re putting by locally-harvested supplies for the long winter ahead, you take a glance at Google’s pantry shelves to see what’s new in stock by way of their updated Local Business Center guidelines. Farmer Blumenthal wins the blue ribbon for his handy comparison chart [...] -
Are We Waking To A New Day With Google Maps?
8 Oct 2009 | 1:52 pmI think I’ll have to pinch myself! Has anyone noticed that Google seems to be throwing a surprise party this week? After years of collective public admonishment, cajoling, begging and pleading with Google’s Maps department to start backing up their giant local information entity with a sense of accountability, pebbles seem to be slipping down [...] -
Google’s Place Pages Play Hide And Seek
2 Oct 2009 | 12:38 pmYoo-hoo. Oly oly oxen free! You’re it! 3-2-1, ready or not here I come! Yes, this whole week has been one of playing games with Google’s new Maps interface – Place Pages. It all began with Greg Sterling being incorrectly informed that Place Pages wouldn’t be indexed by Google. This caused some scratching of heads, [...] -
Best Buy Brings On Crashing Wave Of Nostalgia
30 Sep 2009 | 1:10 pmScroll back three decades with me. Texas Instruments has just released its first home computer and the gatekeepers to technology open their humble shops, beautifully clean, beautifully quiet, carpeted, furnished with curious ergonomic kneeling chairs. The small computer store has the convivial hush and vibe of a library and the owners practically live there, so [...] -
The Powerful Potentials of Google Place Pages
27 Sep 2009 | 12:06 pmIf you haven’t already checked out the new Place Pages interface in Google Maps yet, try this sample search for Barbara Oliver & Company Jewelry in Buffalo and you’ll see the full page information layout that is causing buzz in Local Search circles this week. If you’d like to read up on this, take a gander [...]
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Local Biz Bits
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Twitter And My Blogging
1 Nov 2009 | 6:55 pmEvery time I sit down to work on a post, something comes up. Yeah, I know “a likely story”. LOL I have been reading so many articles that I like and think are worthwhile but I have been keeping them to myself. So to fix this situation, I am planning on twittering about the articles as I read them or find them. So the articles I have are old but the info is great. So If you can, follow me on Twitter (l_sullivan) or see the twitter update box to the right of the blog here for updates. Also too, if you find a cool article, let me know. I will be tweeting in a few minutes with my… -
SEM 09 Final Results
14 Oct 2009 | 5:26 pmHope everyone is well. Yes I am still around- got too much on my plate now. Got lots of post ideas to work on.. Well if you remember, I set up a fantasy baseball league earlier in the year. Thankfully that league and the main baseball season is over. It was a terrible year for my NY Mets and my fantasy team I am now looking forward to the NY Giants and the NY Knicks seasons. My last team the Florida State Seminoles….well it appears their season is pretty much over at 2-4. There is always beer. LOL Well here are the results to the SEM09 season: 1. Dial9 4LongDistance -Steve Meyer 2. -
Some Product Updates
10 Sep 2009 | 8:32 pmGot some info about a couple updates, that I wanted to pass on. 1. MerchantCircle launches: Neighbors “Neighbors enables consumers to “follow” local businesses for the latest promotions, coupons and announcements. Business owners can use the Neighbors “feed” as an easy way to communicate directly with their customer base and share information on new products, events or anything of importance to their customers. Want to receive alerts for deals on things like shoe repair services, landscaping, tax preparation or virtually any service in any industry? MerchantCircle connects you… -
Recommended Reading from Mike Belasco
2 Sep 2009 | 11:18 amAbout a month or so ago, my good friend Mike Belasco of seOverflow published a series of articles on Google Analytics for Local Search. These article are jam packed with excellent info for those wanting to know more about local search and analytics. Here are the links to those posts. Thanks Mike! Google Analytics For Local Search Part 1 of 7: Tracking Traffic From The 10 Pack Google Analytics For Local Search Part 2 of 7: Tracking ‘local’ Local Traffic Google Analytics For Local Search Part 3 of 7: A Filter For Local Google Analytics For Local Search Part 4 of 7: Tracking Outbound Links… -
The Key to Small Business Success Online – SEO
1 Sep 2009 | 7:40 pmWith more and more consumers searching online, it is critical for small business to get online themselves. With the current state of the economy, it is more important than ever to work on building your online presence. Right now I am seeing more business “giving up” being online and trying to “save money” but not using the Internet. This is the wrong thing to do. An article I recently read Why SMB owners should care about SEO by Lisa Barone, summed it up nicely “A lot of small businesses don’t fully understand SEO. They think it’s dirty, that SEOs are snake…
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The Friday Traffic Report
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Smartphone Wars, Google Friend Connect, Gwave, Dashboard, Opting out of Google, and more!
6 Nov 2009 | 12:05 pmSmartphone Wars, Google Friend Connect, Gwave, Dashboard, Opting out of Google, and more! is a post from: Blog Marketing Tips by Blog Marketing Expert Jack Humphrey Smartphone Wars, Google Friend Connect, Gwave, Dashboard, Opting out of Google, and more! is a post from: Blog Marketing Tips by Blog Marketing Expert Jack Humphrey iPhone step aside! My pocket is reserved for my Verizon Droid, coming in tomorrow via FedEx. Today we talk about smart phones, how we use them to keep our businesses [...] -
Still think Twitter is just a fad?
3 Nov 2009 | 5:01 amStill think Twitter is just a fad? is a post from: Blog Marketing Tips by Blog Marketing Expert Jack Humphrey Still think Twitter is just a fad? is a post from: Blog Marketing Tips by Blog Marketing Expert Jack Humphrey Image by VitiligoCover via Flickr It is tempting to blow off new social media applications as fads. When you’ve been “hurt” by the promise of a new, hot social site only to watch it crash and burn [...] -
How Do Price Wars Affect Affiliates?
2 Nov 2009 | 2:35 amHow Do Price Wars Affect Affiliates? is a post from: Blog Marketing Tips by Blog Marketing Expert Jack Humphrey What do Price Wars, Retail Stores & Online Marketers have in common? Alot more than you think! We are all looking to make a few dollars, but who is willing to really sweeten the deal for their customers? -
Twitter Lists: How to create an RSS feed from your Twitter list pages
1 Nov 2009 | 10:38 amTwitter Lists: How to create an RSS feed from your Twitter list pages is a post from: Blog Marketing Tips by Blog Marketing Expert Jack Humphrey Twitter Lists: How to create an RSS feed from your Twitter list pages is a post from: Blog Marketing Tips by Blog Marketing Expert Jack Humphrey I just stumbled on a really cool, much needed tool to convert your Twitter Lists pages to RSS. Why is that cool? Because I wanted to send my local bloggers [...] -
Gwave, DROID, Twitter Lists, Status.net and much more on today’s FTR Radio!
30 Oct 2009 | 11:48 amGwave, DROID, Twitter Lists, Status.net and much more on today’s FTR Radio! is a post from: Blog Marketing Tips by Blog Marketing Expert Jack Humphrey Gwave, DROID, Twitter Lists, Status.net and much more on today’s FTR Radio! is a post from: Blog Marketing Tips by Blog Marketing Expert Jack Humphrey Today I learned I could fit more into 35 minutes if myself and Jim simply talked faster! If you can hang with this show to the end, your head will be [...]
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SEO Training
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Social Media Blog
5 Nov 2009 | 1:03 pmThis is going to be one of my shortest posts ever!!! I just wanted to announce that I am the new owner and content contributor of the Social Media Blog SocialMediaVision.com. Social Media Vision Blog is a focused on Social Media, New Media, Technology, and all things Web 2.0. Social Media Vision is a blog offering [...] -
Big Week For Google Search
1 Nov 2009 | 8:21 amBig couple weeks for Google Search with Music, Social Search, and Twitter. -
SEO Dojo is the Place to Be!
28 Oct 2009 | 8:52 amSEO Dojo community launches to the public. Get an exclusive discount to the SEO Dojo membership site. -
Google Social Search On or Off the Mark?
27 Oct 2009 | 8:55 amGoogle Social Search has launched again or has it. -
SEO Meets Social Media Article Post
22 Sep 2009 | 1:45 pmRecent article called SEO meets Social Media that I guest wrote at Ron Hudson's new blog.
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SEO Diva
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Thinking Outside the Box
4 Nov 2009 | 10:51 amWe all need to develop new ways to advertise our businesses and get new customers, especially in the current tough economy. The term “think outside the box” has been around forever, but exactly how do you do it? Today I came across a poll that asked which you put on on a sandwich first, the peanut butter or the jelly. My first thought was “Peanut butter, of course!” But wait…how many people actually put the jelly on first? As it turns out, just over 1%. Those are people operating “outside the box” – whether they actually think that way, or are just copying how Mom used to make… -
Fast and Easy Way to Build Links to Your Site
13 Oct 2009 | 8:54 amHow do you build links back to your site? Do you find your progression slow and time consuming? Article marketing is a great way to build links to your site, but it can be a tedious process to come up with a volume of unique articles. Enter a fast and relatively easy way to build a lot of links quickly with article marketing. Build Links to Your Site Quickly I am a total fan of Alex Krulik’s Magic Article Rewriter and Magic Article Submitter. I’ve been using both for over a week, building links to my sites like mad! Here’s how they work… Magic Article Rewriter is a dream to use,… -
Keyword Index Tool
23 Sep 2009 | 12:02 amI feel like I’ve become Sears, and September is tools month! But I’ve sure come across some handy ones, lately. Here is one I think you’ll like – simple to use, great information. If the info was downloadable I’d be extra happy. According to the Alexa site, they claim to get the search date through several ISPs, retrieving millions of searches on several search engines. (They would have to kill you if they told you any more than that). It’s called KeywordIndex. They keywords are straightforward – no synonyms. Below is a search for SEO, and I find this type of search helpful when… -
WordPress Privacy Default Option: Invisible
21 Sep 2009 | 10:34 amAfter my blog post last week about invisible blogs and sites, I started a couple of new sites using WordPress. That’s when I discovered that the default for WP is I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors Yikes! That means unless you know to go under “Settings” and then “Privacy” and change it to the following: I would like my blog to be visible to everyone, including search engines (like Google, Sphere, Technorati) and archivers …the search engines will skip over your Wordpress blog or site. It really sucks that this is the default. It’s okay, in… -
Website Rank Checker Toolbar
14 Sep 2009 | 5:15 amHere’s a brand new, cool tool I just came across…the KPMRS Website Rank Checker Toolbar. You can use it directly on their site , or download the toolbar to your browser. The free toolbar offers a handy way to check a site’s ranking of a specific keyword on the fly. It shows rankings for Google, Yahoo and Bing. It also indicates number of impressions social media sites, page rank (which wasn’t correct) and Alexa ranking (which I don’t pay much attention to). Share this on del.icio.usDigg this!Share this on RedditBuzz up!Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUponShare this…
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Utah Search Engine Optimization | Utah SEO Consultant
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PixelSilk – SEO At It’s Core
29 Oct 2009 | 2:16 pmPixelSilk is an extremely SEO friendly web based CMS (content management system). This platform was created with SEO at in mind and thus allows users to have a wide range of SEO controls, HTML and more. From PixelSilk: PixelSilk is a scalable, Web-based CMS that provides SEO, marketing and Web development teams with the features they need to maximize their online initiatives and gain a competitive edge in their organic search engine rankings. Cutting-edge tools that allow full control of the HTML code, the ability to interact with business and social media applications, open framework… -
Social Media & Online Reputation Management (ORM) – SMX East 2009 Presentation
9 Oct 2009 | 2:17 pmSMX East, in New York City, was great this year. I was double-booked on two panels at the same time. One being SEO for Wordpress and the other was Social Media, Search, and Reputation Management. The Social Media, Search, and Reputation Management panel was a great list of people including: Moderator: Chris Sherman, Executive Editor, Search Engine Land Speakers: Brent Csutoras, Social Media Consultant, Brent Csutoras, Inc Rhea Drysdale, COO & Co-Founder, Outspoken Media Jordan Kasteler, Co-Founder, Search & Social (myself) Chris Silver Smith, Director of Optimization Strategies,… -
Mobile SEO – Affiliate Convention 2009 Presentation
21 Jun 2009 | 4:03 amAffiliate Convention was a great time thanks to the fine people at WebmasterRadio.fm. I had a great opportunity to present on Mobile SEO and Mobile Marketing with Gary Ackerman and Cindy Krum. As promised to attendees, here is my presentation below: a Bookmark to: Hide Sites -
Is Your Hosting Ready for Social Media Success? – SMX Advanced 2009 Presentation
5 Jun 2009 | 8:38 amSMX Advanced 2009 was a great time this year with lots of good content, good networking, and fun. I spoke on a panel called “Is Your Site Hosting Ready for Social Media Success” with Curtis R. Curtis, Ken Spreitzer, and Steve Hasselbach. The slides from it are below: a Bookmark to: Hide Sites -
SEO and Podcasting – Podcamp SLC Presentation
28 Mar 2009 | 11:57 pmI had the pleasure to present locally on SEO and Podcasting at PodcampSLC in Salt Lake City, Utah recently. The presentation strongly focuses on multimedia in general and the importance of enhanced media in Google’s Universal Search. Unfortunately, I had to run after I presented in the morning so I missed the rest of the event, but I’m sure it was a great success like it has been in the past. Special thanks to Thom Allen for putting together the event. Below is my presentation as promised to attendees. a Bookmark to: Hide Sites
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SEO Group Blog
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Best Video Review on Windows 7
21 Oct 2009 | 10:04 pmThe video review below is the best I’ve seen and from the comments I read, most people agree. I have to admit Windows 7 looks good but I haven’t actually used it yet. In fact I may never use it. About a year ago I became a Mac person. After a month or so of research I decided the Mac Book Pro was for me. But let’s back up for just a minute and see why I switched to a Mac…. About a year previous to my operating system switch I purchased a new PC with Windows Vista. Need I say more? I’d been using Windows for years prior to Vista. I had 95/NT, Windows Professional… -
9 “Google Approved” Directories - So Start Submitting!
14 Sep 2009 | 3:38 pmIf you, your web design company or your SEO company are having a tough time deciding what directories to submit your website to then keep reading. I’m sure you don’t want to waist money and I know you don’t want to get penalized or banned from Google. To begin…yes, buying links are a direct violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and a violation could cause your website to be dropped in the search results. So, I have compiled a list of the top 9 free and paid directories that are Google approved. Before scrolling down to all the directories, play the video of Matt… -
9 SEO Tips on 9/9/09
9 Sep 2009 | 3:04 pmSince today is the “day of 9’s’, or 9/9/09, we are sharing nine SEO tips that go beyond the fundamentals, since if you are reading our blog you probably already know that the same phrases used in the keyword tag should appear in the copy, the importance of having a constant stream of fresh content, and other basic SEO tactics. 1. While this is usually considered SEO 101, we see it time and time again - a site will be beautifully optimized except for the fact that the images either lack alt tags or have something generic. It is such a simple step but apparently it is easy… -
Being an SEO Consultant is like being a Lawyer
1 Sep 2009 | 3:24 pmI think one of the best ways that I’ve heard SEO consultants described is as advocates for your website who make your case for a page #1 ranking to the search engines. Essentially, they are like a lawyer who represents you in the court of Google, Yahoo, and Bing - they understand the intricacies of the search engine’s rules, they present arguments in your favor to the algorithm (the judge) which renders the verdict and decides where to rank you. The jury, in this case, is the users who decide whether or not to click on your listing in the SERPs. Like a good lawyer, a good… -
Why Your Employees Need Social Media Guidelines
20 Aug 2009 | 10:58 amYesterday, Search Engine Journal posted an excellent article by Matt Leonard about why (larger) companies need social media guidelines for their employees. Now at SEO Group and The Ocean Agency, we have some basic guidelines, but ours are more along the lines of Zappos - “be smart about what you put on the web”. On the other hand, bigger companies (we’re talking at least a couple hundred employees) have different issues to deal with. There may be trade secrets, legal issues, and other questions to answer about what employees are putting out there online, so creating a…
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Hobo
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Google Commerce Search
5 Nov 2009 | 4:26 amGoogle Commerce SearchFree Search Engine Optimization Blurbs By Hobo. Google have just launched Google Commerce Search – which “is nothing short of an all-inclusive e-commerce software package” for retailers. There’s been some excitement on various news blogs. Google Commerce Search is hosted in the cloud, meaning it lives online, so e-commerce sites can get up and running quickly. Using a cloud search tool will also help site owners meet the rise in demand from the holiday rush without having to devote extra time or resources to worrying about their capacity or… -
Guide To FREE Google Local Business Centre Listings
4 Nov 2009 | 5:50 pmGuide To FREE Google Local Business Centre ListingsFree Search Engine Optimization Blurbs By Hobo. Note – This is a mash up of information originally provided by Google itself Google Local Business listings get your business featured for various keyword phrases in your local area, as well as your business name, including a map to your business and contact details. It’s FREE, so your crazy not to do it. Optimising for Google Local Business – In my experience, giving Google as much information as possible about your business is just about the best policy. Get listed in as many… -
Wordpress Plugins That Power This SEO Blog
4 Nov 2009 | 11:12 amWordpress Plugins That Power This SEO BlogFree Search Engine Optimization Blurbs By Hobo. Here’s a list of the Wordpress plugins I use on this Hobo SEO Blog. Some plugins are permanent, some are being tested. Some are heavily modified, too. 1 or 2 although installed are not active yet. Wordpress plugins add functionality to the core wordpress CMS we create, design and develop web sites with, if you don’t know. There are 27 plugins used: 23 active plugins and 4 inactive plugins. Active Plugins • Hobo WP Custom Link Love 0.9 Beta» Shaun Anderson / Martin… -
FREE SEO Training For Charities – Search Engine College
3 Nov 2009 | 11:00 pmFREE SEO Training For Charities – Search Engine CollegeFree Search Engine Optimization Blurbs By Hobo. Kalena Jordan at Search Engine College is doing a neat offer for free SEO (and SEM) training course for registered charities. Best be quick and register your interest. We’d like to extend an invitation to any registered charities interested in taking online marketing training (regardless of global location) to get in touch. We’ll choose up to 25 charities and send them a coupon for one of their staff to take a self-study course of their choice. When contacting us, please use the… -
Google Toolbar Pagerank Update October 2009
29 Oct 2009 | 9:41 pmGoogle Toolbar Pagerank Update October 2009Free Search Engine Optimization Blurbs By Hobo. Well I’m seeing some sort of Google Toolbar Pagerank update on some pages if you are interested Some new sites have PR. Some have stabilised. Some the same PR. Internal Pages with new PR…. Now that that’s done my advice would be to forget about it – it’s not a metric I use on any of my sites…. ranking and traffic are much more important! Question – Will Having a Higher Toolbar Pagerank Improve My Ranking? NO!!! Get Notified When Google Toolbar Pagerank Updates…
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DailySEOblog.com
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5 Tips to make Twittering more meaningful by reducing the signal to noise ratio
7 Nov 2009 | 12:20 amYou can only find two type of people on Twitter. The one’s who’ve really found the gold mine on Twitter and the one’s who’re still trying. There are possibly none who doesn’t have a clue about anything. We all started from zero and I’m guessing most of us would’ve gone through more or less the same thought process. Registered on Twitter, put your name in there, start a profile and boink !! What next ? In fact, that’s not a bad start. Because the moment you start adding friends and strangers, you come to terms with reality – that this is a huge network and you’re only at… -
SEO Tips Day 13 – 3 Crucial things you should avoid in SEO
2 Nov 2009 | 8:19 amCall it black hat or grey hat, but these sure are forbidden things when it comes to SEO. If you do it, the heaven will fall on you and the Google gods will curse you for your deeds. So what are they ? (I know you know this better than me, but remember..this is all basics for the beginners, so if you know more, feel free to add.) 1. Hidden Text Never ever hide text in your code. Either with CSS or otherwise. Its bad karma and even though it might look tempting, its fatal. I find it interesting that there are websites with elaborate tutorials still on this. 2. Cloaking Dangerous… -
Google Launches Voice Search for Nokia S60 Mobile Phones
1 Nov 2009 | 11:49 pmThis is really really good news for Nokia users. After all, not all good things are on iPhone and Android alone. Google launched the Voice search application for Nokia mobiles today, making lives easier on S60 mobiles. Now you can just literally order a search by voice on your Nokia mobile phone and Google would do the searching part, obviously finding you the best results. All you got to do is download the Google Mobile App and install it on your mobile. Check out this video that demonstrates the Google Mobile voice Search. Way to go Google ! Related SEO Tips & Articles:Videos from Google… -
SEO Tips Day 12 – Top 3 Influencing factors in backlinks
31 Oct 2009 | 11:45 pmSo, we know backlinks are probably the most important influencing factors when it comes to search engine ranks, but what are the most important influencing factors within the backlinks sources ? Lets try and find out. 1. Anchor Text Obviously the most profound is anchor text value. Google places a lot of value on the anchor text in your backlinks. So much that even if your onsite optimization factors aren’t aligned to support the anchor text. your site could rank high. The most popular example is the “click here” example where Adobe ranks on number one position, because a lot of site… -
Google Toolbar PageRank Update October 2009 is on !
30 Oct 2009 | 6:36 amLooks like a new Google toolbar update is underway. Though there are no official announcements from Google team yet, there’s a lot of buzz on Twitter as usual, where webmasters are reporting visible toolbar updates. Did you have a PR update this time ? Via Binoy Related SEO Tips & Articles:Google Toolbar PageRank update May 28th, 2009Yahoo Search Index updates are on the wayAnother Google Toolbar PageRank update just happened !2009 Google Page Rank updates – Nothing official yetGoogle PageRank update – December 31st 2008 Make money on Twitter - Get paid for every single tweet -…
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Link Building Strategies to Help Increase One Way Backlinks | Linkers Blog
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List of Blogs With Top Commentator’s Plugin Installed
3 Nov 2009 | 5:24 amA couple of the readers requested that I make a list of all of the blogs that have the top commentators plugin installed on it. On this blog, I try to make it a point to give people what they ask for. This is by no means all of the sites that have this plugin installed on it, but it is quite thorough. If you don’t know what this plugin is and the benefits of this plugin, please take the time to read a couple of my post about the top commentators plugin Here is the list of blogs that have the plugin installed on the site and are in order according to pagank. Blogs With Top Commentators… -
Interview With Caroline Middlebrook on Blogging
26 Oct 2009 | 10:23 pmCaroline Middlebrook Expert Blogger Who is Caroline Middlebrook and what is her blog about? I used to be a software developer and in 2007 I quit my job to begin an online business. My blog is a chronicle of that decision and the journey in building that business When did you start blogging and who or what did you learn from when you first started? I started my blog on the day I handed in my resignation, which was August 2007. At the beginning I learned almost exclusively from other bloggers. Some notable ones that I still read today include Yaro Starak, Darren Rowse and John Chow. What are… -
Creating Backlinks by Referencing Other Bloggers Posts
24 Oct 2009 | 9:27 pmAlan from Affiliate Confession, blogs about giving away free stuff in return for huge profits. This idea has continued to work over and over again simply based on the fact that people love free stuff and they will do almost anything to get it. Tom from Standout Blogger, posts about boosting your business with blogging. Blogging has become the ultimate form of free advertising because it costs almost nothing to run and host a blog. The unique thing about blogging is the ability to reach such a large audience. Michael Martine discusses how knowledge is power and convenience is weakness. … -
The Propriety of Link Building
20 Oct 2009 | 6:08 amThis guest post was written by Armen Shirvanian of Timeless Information, a site focused on providing substantive information about mindset development and social interaction. Business cards are shared at a networking function. Flyers are passed out by a door-to-door method in a neighborhood. The process of building links to your site is equally as relevant, and has as much merit. There is more to link building than just being a point-blank advertising campaign. It is a focused effort at letting a specific group of individuals know about that which you are providing. It can fast-forward the… -
Link Building: The Power of the Trackback
17 Oct 2009 | 7:36 pmI wrote a guest post on Thoushalblog.com about why blogging is the undisputed culture. Many people fail to realize how diverse the blogging world really is. You have all kinds of people from all over the world from different cultures, races, and sexes. You are not judged by the color of your skin, but by the content that you blog about. David Risely explains whether a blog can be useful for marketing an offline business. This post demonstrates how you can use your blog to build a better brand for your company and will also help you gain more loyal customers for your business. Sean…
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Search 1.x
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How To Search Twitter Effectively
17 Oct 2009 | 7:23 pmExtending from my previous post on What Treasures Can You Find On Twitter?, I want to now discuss how to search Twitter effectively beyond just using basic keywords. Just like Google’s search, Twitter offers advanced search functionalities that can really help you find what you are looking for and filter out all the trash. Also, due to the real-time and conversational nature of twitter, there are some unique search operators you need to be aware of in order to search twitter effectively. Firstly, to get a feel of all the advanced search functionalities, you should head over to the Twitter… -
What Treasures Can You Find On Twitter?
20 Sep 2009 | 12:06 amNow that Twitter has added a search box on its home page, I often get people asking me why would I ever want to search through twitter? After all, isn’t it all about people going on about what they had for breakfast? Whilst it is true there are plenty of comments about breakfast cereals on Twitter, there are actually useful treasures if you know what you are looking for. Here are some ideas and examples of of some of the treasures that you might find useful but didn’t know that you can find on twitter! Find A Good Deal This is probably one the most powerful and useful use of Twitter… -
How to Customise Your Browser For More Search Power
13 Sep 2009 | 3:37 amBrowsers such as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox provides a window to the World Wide Web and are increasingly playing a bigger part in the overall search experience. So much so that Google, the king of search has launched its very own browser to get in on the action and control our window to the Internet. You may know that tinkering with your browser can help protect your privacy and often improves your overall web experience, but you way not know that you can also customise your browser in various ways to improve your web search productivity. Here are some basic… -
Why Should You Bother With Alternative Search Engines
12 Jul 2009 | 3:08 amFor most people, Google is the only search engine they know (OK maybe you have heard about Bing now!) when in fact there are a number of powerful and useful alternatives search engines out there. Blogs such as AltSearchEngines does a great job in promoting and teaching the merits of these alternative search engines. At Search 1.x, we believe that whilst a lot of these alternative search engines are complete waste of time, some of them definitely offers value to any serious searcher and you should definitely bother checking them out! And if you are still lacking motivations and think that… -
Bing Search Improves on the Search Results Page
14 Jun 2009 | 3:40 amSo Bing has a good name that you can now replace “To Google Something” with “To Bing Something!” and has been getting tonnes of positive media coverage, but from the searcher’s point of view, what is the big fuss and why should I care? Well the good new is that Microsoft has done their homework this time and Bing is definitely a better search engine than the old live search service. By in large, it is a very similar Search experience to Google in terms of the display layout and results relevancy which is a good thing. However, Bing has some cool innovations that Google currently…
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Reel SEO Video Marketing
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uSocial is Selling YouTube Views – Should you Buy em?
6 Nov 2009 | 9:45 amuSocial, the company that has created controversy regarding their services in the past, is at it again. You might remember them as the company that sold Diggs for your Digg submission, friends for your Facebook account, and followers of your Twitter ramblings. Now they’re offering a new service: views for your YouTube video. For $127, you can buy 5,000 views for your fledgling viral video. That’s about 2.5 cents per view. uSocial claims: “Using several of our methods, we can get a totally unknown video in front of the eyes of potentially millions of people which can mean… -
BitGravity – A Cool, Quick Embeddable Player + Major Content Delivery Network
5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 amNeed to embed a video in a site super-duper fast? Why not try the 3 form version of Bitgravity Player 6. Give it a video URL, width and height and you’re all set. But is it truly that easy? Actually, it truly can be that easy. But that would leave out a lot of people who need a more advanced set of controls over their online videos. Luckily, Bitgravity has you covered on that end as well. Simply flipping a switch so to speak gives you a range of fine detail controls over the player including: Playback Options – Autoplay, buffer size and advanced seeking (for Bitgravity content… -
YouTube Beefs up Partner Video Blocking Ability
5 Nov 2009 | 8:51 amIt is making the rounds on the webosphere that YouTube has implemented two new buttons on the partner interface that pertain to blocking of videos.TechCrunch (Hi guys!) got a tip that two new buttons appeared on the YouTube partner interface specifically dealing with the blocking of videos: Enable Autoblock outside Ownership – Streamlines the blocking of duplicate content on the site which used to be like pulling teeth Block by country – Sort of self-explanatory no? So now you no longer need to jump through a series of hoops like Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games but rather… -
Streaming Media West 2009 – Discount for ReelSEO Readers
4 Nov 2009 | 6:23 pmJust a quick note to all readers… Streaming Media West – the leading online video industry conference & expo – is offering a $100 discount until FRIDAY, November 6 to attend Streaming Media sessions. Click here to take advantage of these savings. If you can’t buy a conference pass, you can still sign up for a free expo pass which this year includes access to two separate, open-bar networking receptions! Streaming Media West is in 2 weeks – November 17-19 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center. The Exhibit Hall opens on November 17 at 5pm. More to come… -
Predictions with Local Online Video Marketing – Interview with Topix
4 Nov 2009 | 10:26 amI interviewed Chris Tolles, CEO of the online news portal Topix, on his predictions for how video will mature into the local landscape, and its impact for audiences and businesses. The following interview took place at the Chicago Interactive Marketing Association’s 7th Semiannual Interactive Marketing Survey, where Chris was one of the featured panelists. Sorry in advance for the audio/video quality as all I had with me was a Flip and it was dark and loud at the show. Chris Tolles’ forecast of the local video landscape for business Prediction #1: Increase in scale. Video content and…
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Antezeta Web Marketing
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The real news behind the Google and Bing Twitter deals
22 Oct 2009 | 1:50 amYesterday we saw a lot of press and blogosphere attention devoted to deals being made between the two leading search engines, Google and Bing, and leading social media services Twitter and Facebook. Twitter search deals, while interesting, doesn’t yet merit much beyond a big yawn – we’ve already had decent, if imperfect, search via Summize, which [...] -
Italian press to Google: you’re unfair (and we’re confused)
30 Aug 2009 | 12:51 pmThis past week the Italian antitrust authority (Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato) conducted a search of Google’s Italian office and announced it was beginning an investigation into Google’s possible abuse of its dominant position in the Italian search engine market. The case was triggered by a complaint from the Italian Federation of News [...] -
10 shadows hanging over Google: does Google have a dark side?
5 Aug 2009 | 7:35 amIn a recent article on Microsoft’s bing, I felt it necessary to temper my enthusiasm for Microsoft’s commitment to web search by noting Microsoft’s decidedly checkered record as a good net citizen. What about Google? It is almost too easy to write a glowing review of whatever new service Google unleashes. For example, Google Maps Street View [...] -
Bing – features and SEO recommendations, one month on
21 Jul 2009 | 7:14 amAt the end of May Microsoft announced its new search engine, Bing. Microsoft justified many of Bing’s new features by noting that 50% of search queries are either abandoned or refined – users aren’t getting the right answer on the first try, citing studies by Jakob Nielsen, Enquiro and internal testing. Microsoft also said that [...] -
Eying Search Engine Market Share in the era of Bing
20 Jul 2009 | 7:48 amAt the end of May Microsoft announced its new search engine, Bing. As data from Bing’s first full month becomes available, I thought it would be interesting to take a quick look at the current market share enjoyed by the major search engines in the US and a “typical” European market, Italy. The real test [...]
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Search Engine Algorithms
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iqast
12 Oct 2009 | 8:47 amFast Internet access becomes a legal right in Finland -
StomperNet is reopening its doors
4 Sep 2009 | 10:05 amStomperNet is opening its doors again on Wednesday, and now not only are they going to teach you how to be vastly successful online, BUT now they are actually also giving you all the essential tools to make that all possible, and this is where you need to go to make this all happen http://bit.ly/N24e9 -
Custom Programming
26 May 2009 | 2:16 pmChoosing php and mysql as a programming language for a website is not enough. With open source coding being one of the inherent properties of php mysql development, securing your codes becomes essential. So when one allows the users to upload files on the website, then security is definitely at stake. PHP Programming Protection While it is not entirely possible to protect your site, yet there are few precautions that you can incorporate for better protection of PHP custom programming. Some of these are: • You should check the referrer, for being sure that the information sent is from your… -
3 Key Off Page Search Engine Optimization Methods
20 May 2009 | 12:35 pmOn-page search engine optimization is definitely one of the key methods if a website owner would like to improve the results for his or her website’s searchability. However, on-page SEO often entails technical skills. Why? Not a lot of people are HTML enthusiasts. This is often what needs to be tweaked to do an excellent job in optimizing web pages. What if a geek friend already did the on-page optimization and now you want to know how you can contribute to the “search engine goodness” of your website? Off-page optimization is the next step. And the results you will have to… -
“Maximum Exposure on Low Cost Internet Ad”
24 Feb 2009 | 6:20 am“Maximum Exposure on Low Cost Internet Ad” (Make the most of a low cost Internet advertising method) Advertising had long since been a major determinant of a business’ success. This would include the presentation of the product / service to the consumers. What really matters is how it is presented to the target market to be able to capture it. Whatever the package, the ad media also plays a great role in determining the success of the product or service awareness. What may be its advantages over other proven medium like the best-selling TV ads? Advantages 1. Low Cost…
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Science for SEO
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7 Semantic web FireFox extensions
3 Nov 2009 | 10:06 pmI’ve been using some add-ons for FireFox that enable me to investigate semantic mark-upon any given page if there is any on there. It’s good because it means I can begin to see which sites are all out on Semantic web and which ones aren’t yet. I’m definitely seeing a move towards more of [...] -
SMORE: link up your data
20 Oct 2009 | 2:52 amFinally semantic web formats are becoming more mainstream, although many of us in the SEO world are considered slightly odd and confusing for adopting them. We are not alone, search engines have adopted both RDFa and Microformats so it’s not so crazy for web professionals to be paying attention to them. Yahoo has been on [...] -
Can gibberish rank? Why Certainly.
5 Oct 2009 | 10:18 pmWe could argue until the cows came home as which 2 main elements of SEO were the core components. I’ll cut to the chase and ask you to consider content and links alone this time round. They are (arguably) the most important two variables present in the SEO diagram at this time. It makes sense [...] -
???!!!
3 Oct 2009 | 3:57 amI have not posted since the 22nd of September. ???!!! I am sorry dear readers but I have been rubbish. I will try and put my thoughts into binary for you more often than I have, that I promise. I ask you to be patient with me for the next few months because the <dramatic music> [...] -
Lisp & the Semantic Web
22 Sep 2009 | 12:56 amThere are a number of new formats and languages that have sprung up with the semantic web in the last few years. LISP (LISt Processing) however is not a new language by any means but seems to have found a new role in the new web. I have and sometimes do program in Lisp because a [...]
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Saad Kamal
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Trakkboard – Google Analytics for Desktop
7 Nov 2009 | 12:12 amIf you work with multiple Google acocunts to Track many different Google Analytics profiles then you already know that its a very clumbesom process. Signing in and out of various Google accounts multiple times in a day can be a real pain if you are dealing with a lot of websites of your own or of your clients. Trakken, a company from Germany has recently released a free desktop app called Trakkboard that uses the Google Analytics API to pull data from different analytics accounts. Trakkboard lets you access multiple Google analytics account simultaneously and also compare data from each of… -
The International Language of Online Marketing
5 Nov 2009 | 10:44 pmIt has quickly become a commonplace that the internet has made the world much smaller than it ever was. Friends, family, and businesses based thousands of miles across the globe are just seconds away through email, facebook, or skype, just to name a few of the many examples of online communication. However, international businesses, large or small, still need to appeal to a distinct regional or national base to be successful. Globalization and the internet have not – yet – made the world completely homogenous. Linguistic, cultural, and economic differences exist between regions in a… -
Google Dashboard
5 Nov 2009 | 5:35 amIf you have been using internet for a while then its very likely that you use quite a number of Google services. For instance, my net life is purely surrounded by Google – starting from my email (Gmail), IM (Google Talk), documents (Google Docs), search (Google Serch), photos (Picasa), Feeds (Google Reader), Calendar (Google Calendar), Online Payments (Google Checkout) – everything is just Google. Since everything in Google is sort of “inter connected”, it’s really scary to think of how much Google knows about each of us. Google Dashboard, is a new portal which… -
MSN Portal Revamped – Now Clean & Sleek
4 Nov 2009 | 4:38 amMicrosoft has recently revamped their old school MSN portal and gave it a very clean and sleek look. I must say that it does look a lot like Yahoo because of the way the site has been structured and also the blend of social features (twitter, facebook & email) right at the homepage. This is a very smart move by Microsoft as MSN is the default home page for a lot of people and get tons of traffic (over 400 million/per month). By making this change in design & site structure Microsoft also hopes to drive more people to its search engine – bing!. Microsoft vice president Erik… -
Twitter Radio
4 Nov 2009 | 3:27 amIf you are too lazy to read your tweets, you might want a service like Twit Radio – Thats reads your tweet out loud. Currently the service only works with search thus you can search for a keyword or phrase and twitter radio will tune in to that channel and start reading out every tweet that comes along. The site is very easy to you, there is a big search box right in the middle where you can put your search query, or select from the pre-programmed channels or trending topics, and start listening to tweets right away. I know this may sound a bit geeky at first, but just try it and I bet…
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SEO Service Blog
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Lovingtech.net - Webmaster & Tech Forum Review
26 Oct 2009 | 7:05 amA couple of weeks ago, I got an email from one of my Blog reader asking about any good webmaster forums in my knowledge which I would recommend him to join. On drilling down his email further I figured out he got frustrated of being member to many of known webmaster and technology forum's. He just want to concentrate and get active on limited but informative forum's. It's all about quality information online not quantity. I think we all look for same, being a Online Marketer I do want to utilize my limited time getting involved on useful webmaster forum's. Certainly maximum percentage of… -
Top 20 SEO Blog's which are on my SEO RSS Radar
15 Oct 2009 | 4:50 amSearching to get latest update's and news from SEO industry to be on top of everything. Everyone loves to be pioneer in their niche industry. Being an SEO Expert I too love to keep myself up to date on what all are is happening in Search Industry. Image Source: Chocopars.com Do I Google every-time to find new advancement and latest news in SEO, not much instead I have subscribed to limited, but very good SEO Blog's whom I admire reading. I love the content which they publish, quality write up's from all these blog's are well-renowned Blog Author's whom I can trust. So if you are beginner in… -
Google Sitelink - What are Google Sitelinks & How to control which Links to show at SERP's
14 Oct 2009 | 7:34 amHave you ever noticed some additional links shown at Google Organic Search Results while you searched for something on Google. You will find Google will show sub-pages/URL's along with main domain for top ranking website. Sitelinks are these additional links which Google show's at search engine result page's for #1 ranking website, while many times Google also shows Sitelinks for top-10 ranking websites. Above screenshot show's how Google show's website sitelinks, I believe all those who were not aware now knows what are Sitelinks and how it shows at Google. It is important for you to try get… -
Barcode Google Logo - Google Doodle BARCODE Logo on 07th October, 2009
7 Oct 2009 | 12:56 amGoogle Celebrates the patent Barcode invention by displaying "Barcode Logo" at Google Search Home Page, Barcode Logo to remark Barcodes 57th Anniversary at Google (www.google.com) as on 07th Oct, 2009. On decoding "Barcode Logo" image it say's GOOGLE. Barcode Information Source WikipediaA barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data. Originally, bar codes represented data in the widths (lines) and the spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or 1D (1 dimensional) barcodes or symbologies.They also come in patterns of squares, dots, hexagons and other… -
Mahatma Gandhi Google Logo - Google Doodle Gandhiji's Logo at Google.co.in on 02nd October, 2009
2 Oct 2009 | 11:52 amMahatma Gandhiji's Logo at Google, India (www.google.co.in) Search Home Page as on 02nd Oct, 2009. Google doodle appeared into Gandhi Logo to honour the Father of the Nation on his birthday, 2 October (Gandhi Jayanti) Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (M.K.Gandhi) Information Source Wikipedia Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Gujarati: , pronounced [moːɦənˈdaːs kəɾəmˈtʂənd ˈɡaːndʱiː] ( listen); 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India during the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of satyagraha—resistance to…
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Frank Thinking About Internet Marketing
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Social Business Development
4 Nov 2009 | 2:08 pmLess words. I promised myself and my readers that I would say more with less this year. I have failed miserably. I write and talk too much. Here goes my attempt at sharing my latest observation with you by just getting to the point. Social media is the best business development tool that has ever come down the pike. It’s simple (when you let it be), it’s relational and it’s informational. These are the most effective elements of taking someone who knows nothing about you and your product / service and helping them to decide, on their own, if you are good fit or at lest worthy of a real… -
The Most Bestest, Ginormous Social Media and Internet Marketing Guru Expert to Ever Walk the Planet and Breathe In Your Air ……. Ever!
2 Nov 2009 | 2:16 pmIn case you didn’t realize it, the title is about me. I know everything about social media and Internet marketing that was and ever will be. Heck, I forget more in a day than you’ll ever know about social media and Internet marketing. I won’t tell you that though because it is better to appear humble and it’s likely that you are so lost about social media and Internet marketing that you won’t even know that I am not sincere. Don’t worry, though, I’ll show pity on you ….. honest. That wears me out even trying to be satirical about where this whole Internet marketing thing has… -
Under Staffed, Over Worked, Under Paid and Under ‘Passioned’
28 Oct 2009 | 10:55 amOK, so passioned is not a real word but that’s the beauty of blogging. I’m not a real journalist either so I call that here at Frank Thinking, grammar rules and proper writing technique are not required. Having said that I can now move on. Thank you. So what do I mean by ‘under passioned’? Well, let’s first look at the other common cries of the SMB and anyone in today’s workplace for that matter. When marketers / business owners / stakeholders are asked if they are able to do something more to help promote their product or service the typical responses include being under staffed,… -
Is Aimless Meandering Just a Part of Social Media?
21 Oct 2009 | 11:05 amI am writing this post to reclaim some time I just lost or, better yet, misplaced. I just snapped out of my social media induced haze (if I had any musical talent I think a “Purple Haze” parody called “Social Haze” would work well). As a result I think I learned a few things. I think I may have ‘spoken’ to a few people. I may have even read a blog post or two. I’m not sure. It’s like a blur. One thing I do know for sure though is that I didn’t do any real work while I was in this self-induced exile from the real world. That is a bit concerning because since I am ‘in the… -
When Left Unchecked, Marketers Tell Tall Tales
20 Oct 2009 | 8:37 amI had an interesting experience this morning. I blogged yesterday about Google and the spreading of its apps offerings worldwide and someone who read the post was offended by my take. Since it was a blog post from Google I was covering I thought it would be pretty upright of them to discuss that they are working to iron out issues they recently had (read: outages) so as to even out the picture of all is good with the Google world. The ‘exchange’, as it were, made me think about marketing in general and social media specifically. I realized that the sheer ‘one-sidedness’ is kind of…
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SEO White Hats
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4 SEO Mistakes You Must Avoid
5 Nov 2009 | 3:37 pmAre you getting mediocre results from SEO? To achieve success with SEO, you must target the right key phrases and build links consistently. It is a continuous process – not a one-time effort. With this in mind, let us take a look at the 4 SEO mistakes that you must avoid: 1.) You do not tag your pages with relevant keyword phrases. This is the most common mistake that many webmasters made. I believe you have seen websites that place only their company names in their Title tags. Title tags are words that appear on the top left hand side of your Internet browser. You must place keywords… -
Google Algorithm Update Analysis
4 Nov 2009 | 10:47 amAnybody who monitors their rankings with the same vigor that we in the SEO community do will have noticed some fairly dramatic shifts in the algorithm starting last Thursday (July 5th) and continuing through the weekend. Many sites are rocketing into the top 10 which, of course, means that many sites are being dropped at the same time. We were fortunate not to have any clients on the losing end of that equation however we have called and emailed the clients who saw sudden jumps into the top positions to warn them that further adjustments are coming. After a weekend of analysis there are some… -
10 Ways to Get Free Traffic
2 Nov 2009 | 3:32 pmGetting traffic is one of the most important tasks for any web master. What is more important is understanding you can’t get traffic once and then try to reap the benefits. Getting traffic is an ongoing task and you must be constantly doing it, if you want to get traffic and keep it. Here are 10 ways to get traffic for free: 1.) Optimize Your Website For Search Engines. Search engines have always been a major way to get traffic for free. That is why you need to do your homework and optimize your website so that it ranks well for the keywords you target. SEO is still the most powerful… -
Writing SEO Articles To Advertise Your Business
29 Oct 2009 | 1:06 pmThere are so many tools available on the Internet to advertise your business and a number of ways to use them to your advantage. Because the World Wide Web is such a vast place, it is absolutely crucial to utilize all available resources in order to receive high website rankings in the search engines. Writing SEO articles to advertise your business is one tool that will help you gain readers who will then become potential customers. SEO articles are also written to inform, educate and to sell a product. The average SEO article, the type of article that earns a website a higher search ranking,… -
See Your Website With the Eyes of a Spider
15 Oct 2009 | 3:48 pmMaking efforts to optimize a site is great but what counts is how search engines see your efforts. While even the most careful optimization does not guarantee tops position in search results, if your site does not follow basic SEO truths, then it is more than certain that this site will not score well with search engines. One way to check in advance how your SEO efforts are seen by search engines is to use a search engine simulator. Spiders Explained Basically all search engine spiders function on the same principle – they crawl the Web and index pages, which are stored in a database and…
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Natural Search & Mobile SEO Blog
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Free SEMPO Chicago Google Analytics Mixer November 4
28 Oct 2009 | 9:26 amWasn’t planning on having a Chicago SEO Meetup next month since Q4 is a bear for marketers in general, but I’m happy to announce that November’s Meetup will be a Google Analytics demonstration hosted by Google and SEMPO Chicago. Details and RSVP at the Chicago SEO Meetup site: http://www.meetup.com/chicago-seo/calendar/11732725/ Thanks to Bob Tripathi and SEMPO Chicago for inviting our members to participate! Great opportunity to peek under the hood of the new Google Analytics features. -
Google Finally Announces Mobile Analytics
24 Oct 2009 | 11:52 amNearly two years ago, Google Analytics was noticeably absent from my review of available mobile analytics packages. It was still possible to use Google Analytics to track smartphones, to some extent, but my unscientific test showed their solution wasn’t as accurate as mobile analytics packages that didn’t rely on JavaScript for tracking. Omniture and Coremetrics had since developed a mobile tracking solution, and the mobile analytics-only players that were developed in the absence of a prior mobile analytics solution for Google Analytics and other web analytics players had… -
Co-hosting Mobile Presence with Cindy Krum on Webmaster Radio
21 Oct 2009 | 11:00 amIt’s been my pleasure to be the new co-host of Mobile Presence on Webmaster Radio. I was actually a guest on the first program a while ago, and now host a weekly half-hour show with Cindy Krum where we discuss the latest happenings in mobile marketing and interview important mobile movers of the day. It airs every Wednesday at 1pm EST, so be sure to tune in and discover more about mobile! First show on Google Adsense for smartphones is available now as a free podcast on the Mobile Presence site. You can also become a fan of the show on its Facebook page. -
Google Adds Mobile Search Volume to New AdWords Keyword Tool
25 Sep 2009 | 2:14 pmHave you tried the new beta keyword tool within AdWords yet? Kudos to Google for simplifying the process of finding mobile search volume, turning a four step process into two steps. Once you’ve accessed the beta keyword tool, select Mobile Search within the Advanced options to base your targeted monthly search volume on mobile searches in the country you specify. It would be nice to see what percent of search volume is mobile and what is desktop to highlight the keywords that will be most effective in mobile search, but this is definitely an improvement in what is currently the only… -
Hiring Entry-Level SEO in Chicago
19 Sep 2009 | 10:31 amGreat opportunity for smart people with limited experience in SEO to get in on the ground floor with a great company. Job description for a Resolution Media SEO Coordinator is below. Apply at the Omnicom jobs site if you’re interested. Job Description: Resolution Media (www.ResolutionMedia.com) is a leading Search Engine Marketing firm with offices in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco and over 80 employees. With experience in Pay-Per-Click and Natural Search engine marketing & content optimization, Resolution Media connects clients� brand to their audience based…
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SEO, Marketing Blog
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Twitter and the Hype Cycle
25 Oct 2009 | 6:15 pmIn early 2009, there was a lot of hype around micro blogging and platforms such as Twitter. The research group, Gartner, has produced a detailed report on where micro blogging falls in the hype cycle.Technologies tend to follow a cycle of adoption and Twitter is no different. While everyone in the media has jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, many users have signed up only to leave their new accounts tweet-less. With a large number of people turned off by the technology, the hard core tweeters are still in full force. It's this core group that will see Twitter through the "trough".Now you will… -
What is Google Wave anyway?
2 Oct 2009 | 10:11 amWith all the hype recently, I thought it would be good to get the word out about what Google Wave actually does and how it is helpful. Below is a simple video that helps explain Google Wave in plain English.(thanks to cmilburndesign) -
Brother can you spare a Google Wave invite?
1 Oct 2009 | 10:31 amA while back I posted about Google Wave, the new chat, video, sharing wiz-a-ma-jig from Google. I would like to provide a review but I am still waiting for an invite to this app and would appreciate anyone who has an invite to share. If you do, please email or DM me on Twitter. I would be happy to link to you or do a review on your product or company. -
SEO and Google SideWiki
30 Sep 2009 | 9:20 amRecently, Google released a new feature called SideWiki to add to their Internet browser toolbar. The goal of SideWiki is to allow users to input comments and share information about web sites all over the Internet. When visiting a site with the Google SideWiki toolbar enabled, a small blue arrow and comment icon appear to the left of your browser window. When clicked, SideWiki expands to reveal details about the current site and include comments shared by other toolbar users who entered comments.Why should I care about SideWiki?SideWiki allows anyone to comment on your site. This means that… -
Email Marketing and SEO
4 Sep 2009 | 8:28 amThe gang over at SEOmoz put a nice video together on using email marketing and SEO together to promote your web site. This video does a great job explaining how each plays a role in attracting visitors to your site and how to keep them coming back.
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Level 343 Articles
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Social Media Marketing: Four Reasons to Join the Revolution
14 Oct 2009 | 5:00 amWith television commercials validating the importance of online social media portals like Twitter and Facebook, the battle for domination in the social media marketing arena is leaving many feeling confused and dazed. After all, as the language of the Tweet-osphere cuts communications to 140 characters or less, it also add a unique brand of instant [...] -
SEO Techniques: Does Any Optimizer Really Know What To Do?
6 Oct 2009 | 2:00 amEverybody knows that search engines no longer care about meta descriptions. Everybody knows that header tags don’t matter. Everybody knows that there has to be a 5.6% keyword density in written content. What else does everybody know? And who the heck is “Everybody”? Most people visiting this blog are looking for a “how-to”. They’re trying to [...] -
Social Media Marketing: Top Five Best Time Investments
1 Oct 2009 | 5:00 amThe first rule of any good marketing campaign is “go where the people gather!” Although this marketing strategy is certainly not an epiphany, the onset of the new frontier of marketing encompassing social media and networking has added confusing complexity to the old game of marketing. With new social media networks virtually popping up on [...] -
Your Website Code May Not Be As Clean As You Think
22 Sep 2009 | 4:59 amTrue story: About two weeks ago, I came across a website that listed top SEO companies – well-known SEO companies at that. The website had used a site validator to see how clean the top SEOs’ site codes were. I stared in shock and then started gloating. Several of the top name SEO companies had more [...] -
The Cost of Optimization – Time Equals Money
1 Sep 2009 | 5:00 amLately, I’ve noticed an increasing amount of questions about SEO. Not “What is SEO”, but more specific questions about the practice and providers. A surprising number of people have misconceptions about what an SEO provider does, and many of these questions deal with the cost, the time, what’s involved and the results. The main question, [...]
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eVisibility Insider - Internet Marketing Blog
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The Weekly Insider 11-2-09 to 11-6-09
6 Nov 2009 | 3:28 pmThis is what we found this week in the world of search engine marketing: Here’s How You Make the Most Money With $5 and 2 Hours How a Search Engine might Adjust Rankings based upon Patterns in Query and Click Logs Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to Keynote SMX West – March 2-4, 2010 in Santa Clara, CA Refining Rankings - Click-Trough Rate as a Ranking New Google Maps Business Listing Guidelines – What’s Changed Jeremy Shoemaker (aka Shoemoney) Interview Google Adds “Page Preview” To Search Options Google Maps and PO Boxes – When can they be used? MSN Home Page Gets a Major Face Lift… -
The Weekly Insider Halloween Edition 2009!
30 Oct 2009 | 1:11 pmWe found this guy walking around our office this morning … This is what we found this week in the world of search engine marketing: Goodbye GeoCities: Yahoo Shuts Down GeoCities Today Google Webmaster Tools Showing Sub-Sitelinks Video: Demo of Google’s Social Search Project As if sloppy social media users ain’t bad enough … search engines support traffic theft GoogleVoice now allows use of an SMB’s primary phone number, is call tracking far behind? Google Voice with your existing number Best Practices for Verifying and Cleaning up a Compromised Site generate 18 quick and… -
The Weekly Insider 10-12-09 to 10-23-09
23 Oct 2009 | 1:27 pmThis is what we found in the last two weeks in the world of search engine marketing: Area Man Murders Palm Pre At Local Bar 4 Visual Charts on the Value of SEO Tactics No More TeleAtlas, Google Goes It Alone For Maps Data? Fetch as Googlebot and Malware details — now in Webmaster Tools Labs! News Alert: SEO is a Scam Winning the SEO Battle at Every Step of the Purchase Path Fetch As Googlebot Shows Only 100Kb But Real Googlebot Gets More One-stop shop: Buy Promoted Videos in AdWords Get Out Of Google Jail For $50, Web Site Captures Mug Shots Getting Indented Listings Google Trust Rank… -
What’s New and Next in Display Advertising- Video
21 Oct 2009 | 11:58 amDaniel Redman & Erich Wasserman : MIMA Summit 2009 Video & Audio Supplement What better way to experience all that was and is MIMA Summit 2009 than recapping it with every one of your senses. First, read the Summit recap by Daniel Redman, and if that whets your whistle just enough, check out the below video or audio of the actual presentation. You’ll soon ask where you can learn more about the Behavioral Marketing T-shirt. That’s perfectly normal. Please stay tune for our smell-o-vision nosecast of the conference to give you, the summit-heads, the perfect 360dg experience. -
The Weekly Insider 10-05-09 to 10-09-09
9 Oct 2009 | 11:40 amThis is what we found this week in the world of search engine marketing: Try this Anchor Text Experiment Canonical Tag 2.0: Google To Add Cross Domain Support Google’s Experimental Homepage Fades To A Single Word Yahoo Search No Longer Uses Meta Keywords Tag Minimizing Complexity In User Interfaces Learn more about robots.txt SEO Cheat Sheet: Anatomy of A URL Google Barcode Logo Celebrates Anniversary Of Barcodes Quickly view formatted PDFs in your search results Google Offers A Proposal To Make AJAX Crawlable Reviewing Some Bad Google Search Results With Sergey Brin 15 Common Mistakes in…
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Jive From The Hive
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Legal Versus Social: 7 Steps To An Amicable Relationship
25 Oct 2009 | 7:58 pm7 Steps to integrate your corporate legal department and an evolving social business model seamlessly.(This post is designed more for those deep in the corporate trenches, looking for guidance on how to plan out a new guidelines around social business practices policy).As social business communications become more prevalent in your marketing strategy, it should be expected that legal will also become more adamant about creating documents to lock down your companies brand message.Evolving integrations of social with current legal policies and communications can be difficult for many… -
How Do You Overcome Communication Obstacles?
17 Oct 2009 | 12:36 pmCreating content that all of your network or community enjoys all of the time is nearly impossible. It is Fall and my favorite season of the year. Everything changes and abruptly. I'm taking advantage of this and I suggest you do as well. The way I communicate through specific mediums is changing. I usually communicate directly through twitter, text messages or through speaking gigs. Apparently, I do loose of connection points by not following through after the first touch point. Most often this happens after events and conferences. So in attempt to ignite new friendships and to… -
Re-Evaluating Your Strengths and Goals in Eleven Steps
29 Sep 2009 | 3:54 pmUpdating my Blog In the past month I've been terribly absent from my blog and my writing passion in general. Not for lack of love of my readers I needed to step back and address my own life goals and priorities and where I want to go. Thank you for all the emails I am still here:) I was just getting stuck on the small stuff and reevaluating how I can be better to my community and grow my own personal Business Blue Blazing Media. I stepped back and sought feedback from my inner circle of friends. I had lost my focus. After reading a significant post By @PamSlim I realized fall is just a time… -
Affiliate Summit East 09 NYC
18 Aug 2009 | 7:00 amAffiliate Summit East 2009 My adventures at affiliate summit have been vast. I set out at any conference with set goals. To maximize my time and to grow my networks. This was primarily done in the blogger lounge. To meet influential individuals that have the potential to be game changers. Listening to the pros and perils of other people's experiences. Communicate with other like minded individuals and to discuss what processes are working and what processes are not working. To quantify and calculate my time and actions online and find algorithms in online success. Why Go? I… -
Digging Into the New "Trust Agents" Book
17 Aug 2009 | 12:36 amI just received my copy of "Trust Agents" authored by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith last night. I am excited to dive into it. So far, I'm about 1/3 of the way through it and overwhelmed with just how applicable the content is across a variety of industries. With every page I read it inspires new thoughts of how trust is actually very visual in everyday business life.
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Outspoken Media, Inc.
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Don’t Watch Your Language. Use it.
6 Nov 2009 | 11:12 amI had a different post all written and scheduled for today. But then my girl Virginia Nussey had to go getting all “controversial” over at the Bruce Clay blog. So plans changed. Blame her. Also blame the brownies I had for breakfast. And the ones I had for dinner. I’m so ashamed. Over at Bruce Clay, Inc, Virginia talks about a blogging tenet that she’s never particularly agreed with. One that says that bloggers are to Be Controversial in order to get links, garner attention and attract the almighty blog comment. Virginia calmly states that she’s not so comfortable with that. She… -
Debunking the “Everyone Is Equal” Myth
4 Nov 2009 | 7:42 amSorry, Joey. Mommy loves new baby more. David Spinks caught me on Twitter Friday morning and asked a question that was hard to answer on less than four hours of sleep and within the confines of 140 characters. Thanks to Twitter Search, you can watch me awkwardly try. However, the question he asked was an important one. And my inability to appropriately answer it haunted me all weekend (GET IT?). David asked for my thoughts on treating all customers equally – basically ARE all customers equal or are some customers “more important” or “more vital” than others? He was piggybacking off… -
PubCon 2009 Liveblogging & Speaking Schedule
3 Nov 2009 | 7:30 amIt’s time for one of the biggest and baddest search events of the year – PubCon Las Vegas! Oh yes, baby. I suggest you start hydrating and stocking up on sleep now, because there won’t be any once you arrive. PubCon Las Vegas is a favorite among a lot of folks in the industry. Yes, everyone loves a reason to hit Vegas, but PubCon is known for pulling all the elusive industry veterans out of their caves and throwing them up on stage for public consumption. That means not only are the panels chock filled with information, but the knowledge transfer you get at night while everyone is… -
Enter Dawn Wentzell, Senior Account Manager
2 Nov 2009 | 8:00 amToday, we are very proud (and excited!) to let you in on a little secret. To be honest, it’s one that our clients have been privy to for a while. Her name is Dawn Wentzell (@saffyre9) and she’s the new new Senior Account Manager for Outspoken Media. Everyone please welcome Dawn. Dawn kicks ass. Though her title says Senior Account Manager, we’re a shop of four. That means titles don’t get you out of what needs to be done. So, just like the rest of us, Dawn will be doing a little bit of everything as we continue to grow and take over the world. Dawn’s our first official hire,… -
Dealing with Negativity Online (& in Life)
30 Oct 2009 | 6:00 amAbby Johnson from WebProNews scored a great video interview with Bloggess Jenny Lawson during BlogWorldExpo a couple weeks ago. If you haven’t watched it, you should. Not because Jenny is adorable and hilarious (though she is), but because she shares her secret for dealing with haters, trolls, and those absolutely set on trying to ruin her day. And it’s Friday. You could probably use a double dose of awesome. Here’s the video: Jenny’s secret is to choose to find the humor and to laugh. Because, as she so eloquently puts it, if you can’t find a way to appreciate the people who love…
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Search Engine People
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14 How To’s You Should End Your Week With
6 Nov 2009 | 5:50 amScan, click, scan or read – learn. Get better. Be better. MONEY How To Earn Millions From How To's APPLICATIONS How to Edit PDF Files without Adobe Acrobat How to Really Browse Without Leaving a Trace LIFE & WORK How to Stop Being a Workaholic How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Other People: 5 Effective Tips How to Deal With a BlackBerry Junkie WRITING How to Think Of Blog Posts How to Revise Your Titles for Maximum Results SEO/SEM How To Sitemap: Search Engine Submission How To Stimulate & Maintain Search Marketing Integrity to Get Results How to… -
Google Analytics Profile Architecture for Dummies
5 Nov 2009 | 5:55 amSecond in a 3 part series on Google Analytics setup Best Practices. This is the second post in a 3 part series on Google Analytics setup Best Practices. Google Analytics is something we sometimes take for granted, but in reality sometimes accounts with years of data have to be abandoned simply because they were not set up properly. Hopefully this series will help people understand some of the best practices for setting up Google Analytics. As we saw last time, it's important that each site you manage or oversee is set up in its own Google Analytics account, and not just set up in a… -
HOW TO: Stimulate & Maintain Search Marketing Integrity to Get Results
4 Nov 2009 | 3:47 amMake your life as an in-house search marketer easier and more efficient; create processes that hook into your company. Laura Callow, Senior Search Marketing Manager for Intuit Global Business Division, introduces us to the two key steps to achieve this with maximum results. Step One The First Step is to identify exactly what folks you work with perceive search marketing to be; from what it actually is and can achieve, to who understands what and to what extent. Get together with all your counterparts in web development, design, copy, QA, online advertising as well as whoever is responsible… -
The Holiday Link Building Blitz: A Plan for eCommerce Sites
3 Nov 2009 | 8:53 amWait, what are you doing reading this introduction? There's no time… it's already "Week One" of our link building blitz plan! Like the great holiday and Cyber Monday deals on your site, your company's link building opportunities won't last long… But, if you start now,right now, you'll have a serious shot at scoring some great exposure and increase your sales to those holiday shoppers. As a time-saving holiday gift for all you ultra-busy eCommerce marketers, we used the Ontolo crawler and RVP scoring technology to create a listing of the top… -
Keywords That Click
3 Nov 2009 | 3:33 amKeywords and click are two of the most popular words on the Internet. Countless readers will have visited this blog post because they realize the importance of those two words. We should immediately warn you that many may find the content of this blog post disturbing. If you think you know all there is to know about keywords you may be in for a surprise. If you stay with us through to the end, be warned. Your preconceptions about keywords may be in for some serious disruption. Hold onto your hat, here we go. Keywords For What How could we even pose a question…
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New Media SEO Blog
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SEOtool selected as a DEMO Showcase Finalist at Internet Summit 2009!
3 Nov 2009 | 8:44 amWe’re proud to announce that our proprietary technology, SEO tool, has been selected as a DEMO Showcase finalist for the Internet Summit event. Here’s the official release: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/triangle-direct-medias-seotool-selected-to-present-at-internet-summit-2009-demo-showcase-68850962.html. If your company has a focus on improving its search engine optimization, then you should speak with us about SEOtool and the unmatched intelligence and SEO metrics it can uncover for your website(s). We’re biased, but we strongly believe there is not a single… -
Social Media - The Explosion - Need Any More Evidence For Your Boss?
19 Aug 2009 | 10:33 amIf you’ve not seen the video from Socialnomics yet, titled “Social Media Revolution”, then you need to carve out 5 minutes to watch and enjoy! If you or your team are trying to get buy-in & more budget, from upper management, for social media content marketing, please share the below video. You can also speak with a New Media Account Executive here at TDM to learn more about solutions, strategies and ways to greatly leverage the power of social media and search optimization. -
How Consumers Shop Online - Study Highlights
13 Aug 2009 | 11:06 amChannel Advisor just released its bi-annual study titled “How Consumers Shop Online”. As an industry leader in shopping comparison engines & product feeds, CA knows a thing or two about consumer shopping trends for the advertiser’s they serve. The study comprised 850+ individuals in nearly 30 states, ages 18-65 years old. To access the full report, click here. Here are some key takeaways for online retailers to strongly consider as they plan for the Holiday Shopping season and into the future: “81 percent of consumers begin their product searches with Google… -
Study claims PPC brings more buyers than SEO — What’s Missing?
13 Aug 2009 | 6:57 amA recent study by PPC management firm EngineReady presents alot of great data for retailers to consider regarding order sizes, conversions & other purchase metrics important to eCommerce. The study was summarized by InternetRetailer, which can be found here. The problem with this study, as many studies & surveys in the online marketing industry, is that it is SKEWED to the target audience. Below are some reasons why the study is wrong in its claim that PPC is more likely to bring buyers than SEO. Key findings from the study included: The conversion rate from paid search is 2.03%… -
Microsoft-Yahoo Deal Finally Becomes Reality
29 Jul 2009 | 9:26 amMicrosoft & Yahoo have announced a 10-year partnership to take on Google and its search engine market share dominance. For those companies keenly interested in successes in organic search, this announcement states that Bing’s search engine will power results for Yahoo Sites. How is your website ranking in Bing for your most important keywords, themes & topics? It’s about to be reflected in Yahoo.com organic listings, so plan accordingly! While Google is still king of the mountain in terms of search engine market share (65%), one can reasonably conclude that…
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Local Search Simplified by Shagun Vatsa
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Local Search Interview With David Mihm
3 Nov 2009 | 5:25 amIn light of the new changes that Google has introduced to its local platform, I thought it would be a great idea to get feedback from some of the local SEO gurus on what they think the ramifications are of these enhancements. These interviews will detail their views opinions about the local sphere and also give us an opportunity to get to know them a little more personally. I chose to kick things things off with interviewing David Mihm. David is one of the leading industry experts in the field of local search today. Innovator of the annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey and a regular… -
Google’s Recent Changes to its Local Algorithm
29 Sep 2009 | 9:10 pmGoogle has recently rolled out a series of changes to its local algorithm which have the local SEO community on their toes and have caused many business owners to voice their concerns through frustrated and angry threads on the Google Maps Help Forum. These recent algorithmic updates include: Category customization & spamming penalties Google One Box gains authority over the 3 & 10 pack Introduction of Google Place pages Sudden drop in local rankings of business listings Let’s take a closer look at some of these concerns: Custom Category Penalization Google is now penalizing… -
Canadian Guide to Local Citations - Updated
20 Jul 2009 | 8:15 pmThis concept was initially started by our very own Toronto Local SEO expert, Dev Basu. David Mihm recently added to this list and I aim to contribute further and make the list of Canadian Local Citation Sources more complete. I cannot stress how important it is for SMB’s and SME’s to undertand and respond to the increasing local intent of searches online. In addition to being represented in the maps, it is imperative to submit your business to these local search engines which allow you to engage with your community, build social capital and eventually enhance your local… -
YouTube Gets The Wonder Wheel
19 Jun 2009 | 7:56 pmAttending the video search panel last week at the SES Toronto gave me a great insight into the evolution of search and how optimizing for video search is gaining momentum against the good old organic SEO. With statistics showing that Youtube is now the second largest search engine and Canada is the global leader in online video watching (ComScore), enhancing the search capabilities of online video viewers is a must! YouTube has done exactly that with the introduction of its own Wonder Wheel. Wonder Wheel was first introduced by Google amongst its many other search options in early May. The… -
SES Toronto 2009 Day 1 Recap
8 Jun 2009 | 8:08 pmAttending my very first Search Engine Strategies Conference here in the heart of downtown Toronto was a unique experience. Despite being an early Monday morning, Day 1 was packed with sessions covering a wide array of search marketing topics. The Expo Hall was busy all day, making it a great opportunity and venue for networking and re-connecting with old friends. I must say, the Bing Booth did attract a lot of attention! The combination of valuable informational sessions and conversational discussion panels made my overall learning experience worthwhile. Here is a quick summary of the key…
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Web Traffic Pro
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$0.01 Traffic
6 Nov 2009 | 8:30 amLearn Cell Phone Marketing from Mack who makes $350,000+ from his cell phone. Discover StomperNet. Know these Email Tricks that doubles sales! How was your week? I’ve just been given a sneak peek into a super underground marketing method. The craziest part is that you can literally get targeted visitors for less then ONE CENT! It doesn’t involve the ‘usual suspects’… - Blogging - Social media - Pay per Click Marketing - Article Marketing But yet works better than all of the above…Imagine how much money you could potentially make buying clicks for $0.01 that… -
How To Choose A Better Affiliate Program?
5 Nov 2009 | 11:15 pmAsk yourself before you join an affiliate program, and do a little online research on the selection of program you intend to join. Get some answers from your question, because they will help you after you join a program. What will cousing you to join affiliate program? Most affiliate programs are offered free of charge today. Why, then, for those that address a number of U.S. dollars before you are charged. When they issue the commission checks? Each program is different. Some issues, monthly inspection, every quarter, so choose a suitable time for your payment choice. Many affiliate programs… -
The Secrets To Seducing Traffic From Social Bookmarking Websites
30 Oct 2009 | 9:16 amLinks articles: Vaulting to the front of Social Networking sites is not as difficult as it seems. I have been successful with digg and del.icio.us (and others as well), several times and have noted the steps that have helped me succeed: 1. Headlines Many great articles go unnoticed on social bookmarking sites because their headline is not catchy enough. Your headline is the first (and very often the only) thing users will see from your article, so if you don’t make the effort to provide a catchy headline, your chances of getting to the front page are small. Here are some examples to… -
Free Targeted Web Traffic Is Beneficial, But Buy Targeted Web Site Traffic If You Want Immediate Results
23 Oct 2009 | 1:47 pmTraffic is your greatest internet based marketing asset and is the livelihood of your web business. In the world of online business it is a must for you to attract as many prospects as possible, turn them into customers, and then turn them into recurring purchasers. When you get this formula right you can literally write pay checks as big as you wish. But if you have an erratic trickle of visitors, you will struggle to even afford a ordinary standard of living. The key is “constant targeted traffic”. With this you can test, tweak and determine your average conversion ratio, which gives… -
Three Traffic Tactics That Won’t Cost You A Cent
5 Oct 2009 | 8:01 pmAre you constantly banging your head in frustration on not receiving all the internet traffic you would like to get to your web site? Are you tormented from information overload listening to all the latest free website traffic tactics and not being able to understand any of it? Are you dejected of people trying day and night to harassing you to max out your credit card and get loans for Google clicks, and in the process loose your credit score? Are you stupefied by the way your website just dropped out of the Google search results? Or are you just too broke and all you have to rely on is…
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Link Building Best Practices
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What’s This? More Real Time Search Options!?
5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 amI’ve already admitted my recent addiction to real time search. I love it, and I’ll tell you why. My experience on the Internet has been one in which most interactions take place after the fact. My guess is, instead of participating right now, most Internet users are still functioning in this delayed response mode (with [...] Related posts:More Options for Real Time SearchWhat Do You Use For Real Time Search?Real-time Twitter Search and Trends only for the Tweeps You Follow -
Behind the Scenes of Our Website Redesign
3 Nov 2009 | 5:56 amIf you’ve checked out our newly redesigned website lately you’ll see we opted for a more personal feel by adding photos to each of our pages. What you might not know, however, is that each of the photos are actual Vertical Measures employees! We had a fun and exciting photo shoot with Phoenix Commercial Photographer Darren [...] Related posts:Vertical Measures: The Big MoveIndependence Day: Glad to be an AmericanGood Friday SEO -
Announcing Our New Site
2 Nov 2009 | 4:32 amIn case you haven’t noticed yet our site redesign is now live! Thanks to Chris, our Director of Search Marketing, for working so hard and coordinating the web design. We wanted to get some feedback from our regular site visitors and blog readers on how you feel the site looks and feels. Take a look at [...] Related posts:Announcing “DoFollow” TuesdaysMonthly Tip Blip – On-Site SEO is Not OptionalBefore You Start: Assumptions About Your Site -
Happy Hall-SEO-Ween!
30 Oct 2009 | 1:45 amHappy Hall-SEO-Ween to all of our freakishly awesome and ghoulishly white hat SEO’s and SEM’s out there. In the spirit of the holiday we wanted to share some great Halloween inspired SEO finds with our readers, as well as some photos of our team dressed up. This post by Distilled shows "The Best SEO Halloween Costumes", [...] Related posts:Win $250 and Help Design Our New Logo! -
Your Green Marketing Strategy
29 Oct 2009 | 5:00 amI’m your typical alternative conscious tech guy. I start my day with some Yoga and meditation, I ride my bike to work (almost every day), and we even started recycling in our office. Before I lived close enough to start riding my bike, I’m the guy who advocated for a carpool with my co-workers (and [...] Related posts:Link Building Campaigns That Work3 Ways to Make Article Marketing Work
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Increase Traffic and Rank Using SEO
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Google to Offer Free SEO?
5 Nov 2009 | 7:22 amThere is a long standing rumor that Google wishes to ‘take over the world’ - now that might not be exactly true but they sure as heck got their fingers in a lot of different pies! While the title is a bit ‘tongue-in-cheek’ at the moment, it might just be the future? While this post is not directly related to SEO, it does give a glimpse into where Google is headed and what type of power they wield. How long till Google offers free SEO advice or automated SEO advice? The turn-by-turn GPS market is huge and you just have to take a look at the juicy prices Garmin and… -
Google Page Rank to go Poof!?
15 Oct 2009 | 10:51 amMany SEO’s and Google themselves have been preaching the relative un-importance of visual page rank for ages….now it appears Google is finally ready to put its words into action - they have removed Google page rank from being reported in Google Webmaster Tools and here is the official explanation: Susan Moskwa from the Google Webmaster Central team explained it was removed because Google keeps telling webmasters “that they shouldn’t focus on PageRank so much.” They felt it was “silly” to keep telling webmasters that, and at the same time show it in Webmaster Tools. So… -
Made for Adsense Sites Hit?
8 Oct 2009 | 12:06 pmIt seems MFA sites have been hit with low quality scores and are being warned/banned by the truckload!! This is great news for ‘real’ adwords users because now the bids won’t be artificially pumped up with the estimated 10-15 million MFA sites rotting the web. Here are some excerpts from a thread over at Webmaster World: “they are still at it.. got a few campaigns hit by 1/10 QS.. Ads that have been running for last 2 years with no change in ‘domain’ or anything.. They just decided overnight that they are low quality..” “Our affiliate/partner… -
Keyword Tag Means Even Less Now
8 Oct 2009 | 8:39 amIt is official, Yahoo! is not longer considering the ‘keyword’ tag when ranking websites in their search results. Google stopped paying attention to these many eons ago but it seems Yahoo! has finally followed suit. It was just too easy to manipulate so I am not really surprised. This tidbit of info came out Tuesday during the SMX East conference. For a long time, the industry some what made fun of Yahoo for using it (at all) for ranking purposes. Then, during the Q&A period of the session, Cris Pierry, Senior Director, Search, Yahoo said at 2:09pm (EST), that they no… -
Language Barrier, Buttock = Butt Talk
17 Sep 2009 | 8:43 amI found this log from a conversation I had with someone I was outsourcing some web design to in India a few years ago. I was laughing so hard by the end of this I just had to save it. net_karigar :what is a butt ? net_karigar : what type of button you needing ? net_karigar : and u need a celebrity button ? eqiwantgame: yes I would like the flash to incorporate the logo being written out, animated and somehow incorporating a butt, ass, tush, bottom, bum eqiwantgame: behind eqiwantgame: rear end eqiwantgame: what you sit on net_karigar : ? eqiwantgame: not a button net_karigar : then…
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Seo Tips
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Do follow blogs
A new search engine has borned. Its made for only do follow blogs and is very easy to use. We all know that dofollow blogs are a good way to post comments with links to transfer Page Rank and the most used tool to find this blogs are directory's for do ... -
Do follow blogs search engine
The reason for "the unupdated blog" in the last time was the fact that I spent all my time in building a do follow blogs search engine. Its not finished yet, but is all most done.Its a new tool for seo purposes, for those of you who want to find dofollow ... -
How to not start link building for a site - mistakes in seo
All market is full with lots of tools that promise top 10 positions in Google,100000 backlinks in seconds and other cracks. I will give you a list of things to NOT to do in a link building strategie. 1) Do not submit your site to more than 50 directories in a month.This ... -
SEO friendly urls after submiting a form
What means that? It means that in a form whit GET method, when you submit, you will be redirected to a new page with "?example=variable" added to the URL. Think if your users will search on your site some data and wish to place the link with the searched results on blogs,forum ... -
Dofollow blogs lists give the backlinks you need
This days Ive tested my own spider for dofollow blogs post, in order to get links with PR were I can place a comment with a link in it.So I came to conclusion that I have to spent a lot of time to place comments ,well written and I had ...
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SEO Unique
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HTML Sitemaps Help Increase SEO Rankings
26 Oct 2009 | 9:38 amSitemaps are an aspect of web design that has been around from the very beginning. The ideology is simple; create an accessible area of the website whereby users can navigate to any one area of your site architecture easily. A lot of web designers see these pages in the same way a builder would see four walls, a floor and a roof – they are part of the infrastructure and should not be ignored. While this is sound advice the reason and benefits for SEO may not be so transparent. A sitemap can be a very powerful platform for SEO and I mean VERY powerful and yet it is so simple and often… -
5 Link Building Tips for The UK
10 Sep 2009 | 2:59 amOk guys, I have been link building for many years now but don’t always get the chance to practice the art as much as I’d like to, mainly due to my more strategic based role at my current job. Call me crazy but I do actually enjoy link building and I think you have to if you’re involved in the job, it’s a buzz to setup quality links for a client at absolutely no cost then watching the impact these links have on the rankings. So the reason for my post is to share with you my observations from a recent batch of link building I completed. Most of you will probably already know what’s… -
How using twitter could harm your brand
4 Aug 2009 | 8:07 amThose of you may or may not have seen many references to random words such as “MoonFruit” and Mpora on twitter over the last few months. Let me just explain to those of you who are not so up-to-date with these seemingly meaningless phrases what exactly they are all about. Since twitter has been snowballing in popularity more brands are quickly diving into the “twitter barrel” in hope for some kind of brand value to pour out. Lots of businesses are “doing twitter” just because someone sitting in a nice empty office at a top of a tall building says” it’s what everyone else is… -
Vince Update Hits UK – Brand Update Phase 2
6 Jul 2009 | 5:59 amBack in February 2009 when the original Google brand update or “Vince update” hit the US there was a lot of talk regarding why this had happened and how long the results would last. In the UK the original update was not a heavily influence in rankings although a few new sites made an appearance in the top 10, these sites would be considered “big brands”. Now after a month or two of this activity all things seemed to return to normal and these big brands returned to the lower depths from where they had risen. However around the beginning of June 2009 the results in one particular high… -
Anchor Text Optimization 101
3 Jul 2009 | 6:50 amOk, I thought I’d go back to basics for some beginner SEO’s and those who take an interest in the subject. Anchor text is the name given to the text of a link or a link description, for example in the link SEO Blog, the anchor text is “SEO Blog”. The anchor text on any website is completely editable and can provide some great SEO value from inside a website and from external websites as well. Essentially the best practice to use in any situation is to provide the most accurate description of what the link destination is as possible. Use the image below as guidance, so for example…
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SEO Design Solutions
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SEO Tips for Link Building and Directory Submissions
6 Nov 2009 | 4:09 amToday’s SEO tip is about using citation and search modifiers to find creative solutions for link building. Citation (a websites footprint or popularity matrix) is a prominent principle used by search engine algorithms to assess importance. SEO Tips to Find and Qualify Directories Hence, authoritative links in to the quantity or percentage of links out a domain has, determines how much link flow a domain can produce in tandem with its contained volume of content. Popular websites with user generated content are always ahead of the supply and demand curve, because they always have… -
Sacrificing Content for Relevance using SEO
5 Nov 2009 | 5:22 amSometimes you have to “make sacrifices” to keep your website lean, relevant and mean. Every time you add content to your website, the global term weights shift within that site which could either (a) steer the site off topic by diffusing the underlying structure of the sites semantic relevance or (b) improve or decrease rankings (which constantly vacillate). Finding the proper balance to streamline relevance and prevent theme diffusion using SEO means pruning, nurturing and tilling dated sub folders, managing cyclical content and finding enough link flow to feed each segment of… -
Search Results for SEO Experience Technical Difficulties
4 Nov 2009 | 12:25 pmWhat happened to the search results for SEO today around 1PM CST? I think at this point, only the Google engineers responsible for hitting the “scramble results for kicks button” really know. Glitch? New Algorithm? Amnesia? Who Knows... Let’s back up a bit, as someone who takes pride in producing top rankings for competitive keywords, the strangest thing occurred today; SERP data from the UK appeared in the US and usurped common positions held down by yours truly and others. The typical search results for SEO typically comprised of a double listing of Wikipedia results at the helm… -
SEO Tips for Using the SEO Ultimate Competitive Research Module
3 Nov 2009 | 5:57 amPlanning is just as big a part of SEO as execution. If a flaw is present in either, the website pays the price. Built within the fabric of the SEO Ultimate WordPress SEO Plugin is a competitor research module that allows you to use shortcuts to Google Search Operators to identify thresholds of competition for specific keywords and key phrases; today, we will cover a few… Using SEO Ultimate for Competitive Research Behind every great ranking there is a process, with the two types of results you can create (intentional and unintentional) the former is ideal, while the latter is always a plus. -
SEO Ultimate WordPress SEO Plugin Version 1.2 Released
1 Nov 2009 | 11:09 amSEO Ultimate, the powerful WordPress SEO plugin from SEO Design Solutions, has just been upgraded with a new Competition Researcher module that provides you with 3-step access to the investigative tools of search engines. SEO Ultimate Version 1.2 Released with New Competitor Research Module The Competition Researcher comes with a total of 9 tools to help you analyze the competitive landscape of relevant search engine result pages. These tools help you research either the general competition for given keywords, or the websites of specific competitors. When you install or upgrade to the…
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Kneoteric Blog
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Google’s Local Featured Listings
7 Nov 2009 | 3:29 amFor long, small and local business have struggled to effectively capitalize on search engine promotion, be it organic or paid promotion. Blame it on the ever increasing competition and efforts required to achieve and maintain healthy organic rankings or the complexity and intricacies involved in running a fruitful paid search campaign. On top of this, [...] -
A spook-tacular gift for You
31 Oct 2009 | 12:31 amGet Started Today -
Google Search goes Social
27 Oct 2009 | 3:20 amYesterday, Google announced the introduction of Google Social Search. This service is available as part of a new experiment on Google Labs and getting started is pretty simple and straightforward. Login to your Google account and join the experiment christened “Google Social Search” – your job is done. I honestly believe that the name is a [...] -
Look through the eyes of Google
14 Oct 2009 | 2:58 amGoogle Webmaster Tools has announced the addition of “Labs” section which includes two new features for webmasters. Fetch as Googlebot & Malware details It appears that Google is taking the ‘Labs’ route to introduce new features to a larger audience and thereby illicit more feedback and shorten the test phase. This also means that these features are not [...] -
Another Wiki in Google’s Kitty
24 Sep 2009 | 4:06 amGoogle added another feather to its cap in the form of Google Sidewiki, a Google Toolbar option that allows users to leave comments about webpages as the browse the net. This will enable surfers to share their opinion about a particular page with other users who have Google Sidewiki enabled. The World Wide Web, it [...]
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Bruce Clay Australia Blog-Search Engine Optimisation, Internet Marketing and SEO Blog
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SEO News Update | 5 November
4 Nov 2009 | 6:16 pmPhoto by See-ming Lee via Creative Commons in homage to the 40th birthday of Sesame Street After a lengthy absence the SEO news roundup is back. Enjoy what our analysts thought were the most interesting and high value blog... -
Google Social Search
29 Oct 2009 | 7:12 pmPhoto by manfrys via Creative Commons Google's Social Search was announced this week by the Official Google Blog. It sounds like a great tool for making search results more relevant. Social Search essentially pulls in information from social networks... -
Website conversion tactics | SEO Drives Activity - Activity Drives Sales
26 Oct 2009 | 6:05 pmPhoto by alan(ator) via Creative Commons I use this in our SEO training and have many clients meetings on the topic. Many website developers profess to be experts, but few will agree to be measured on it. Nobody likes... -
Twitter | Bing and Google Seal the Deal
22 Oct 2009 | 8:47 pmThe biggest news this week was the fact that Bing is starting to index and list in its search results, Twitter and Facebook information that has been made public by the profile owners. Oh and Google is doing the same... -
Spam | Where the Wild things are
20 Oct 2009 | 10:07 pmPhoto by freezelight via Creative Commons So I have a pretty standard ritual most mornings when I come in the Bruce Clay Australia Offices. Generally, I will come in, boot up the PC and open my Outlook. While my...
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North South Media
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Getting Links From the BBC … Well, Kinda!
19 Oct 2009 | 2:22 pmAfter taken a week and a bit break from blogging, social networking etc.. I thought it was time to jump back on the bandwagon and get things moving again. Before I started getting into the grind, I had a wee peak at Google Webmaster Tools where I noticed a number of links coming from a site called Shownar. After a little bit of investigating it turns out that Shownar is the BBC’s experimental prototype to track buzz online about its shows. At the moment, Shownar, is centered around the BBC’s iPlayer, but it is expected that, if it becomes popular enough, it will be the main site… -
What Does Your Online Profile Say About You?
7 Oct 2009 | 1:43 pmWhen you consider those that work and are actively social online, just how much information about ourselves do we really reveal? Think back to the recent Project Gaydar scandal, where two MIT students constructed a program that could tell, with striking accuracy, if a person was gay by analysing their friends list on Facebook. Now, we have the Canadian Police using social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to bait and trap potential criminals and predators. Nought much wrong in that but you’ll hear plenty say that it is further proof of the erosion of privacy online. The counter… -
Top Sources For Online Related News
22 Sep 2009 | 4:32 pmI find myself spending more time than ever before watching or reading technology related news stories. I’d like to say it’s hardly susprising really, given the industry I’m involved in. But the truth lies more with the fact that I normally get given the remote for the channel hopper well close to midnight after ‘The Family’ have given up on the day and saunter off to lullaby mountain. Then I’m free to catch-up on the latest news and happenings. I thought I’d write a list of my fav shows / websites that I rely upon to keep me up-to-date. It is a… -
Twitter Top Tips For Business Users
21 Sep 2009 | 2:26 pmTwitter can be an effective tool for promoting your business online. As with anything in life – you only get what you put into it. So, with that in mind, always remember that Twitter is no golden egg but with a bit of effort on your part it could turn into the goose that lays the golden egg for you. Here is a list of top twitter tips that I have used and advised various businesses to start using to help them getter a better realisation on how Twitter can be, if used correctly, a powerful marketing tool for their business. Posting to your Twitter Account Keep it relevant with links : Linking… -
Scunnered With Your Job Then Try A Career in SEO and be Truly Scunnered
17 Sep 2009 | 6:30 pmMake no bones about it, after reading Jennifer Osborne’s excellent post about ‘So, You want a Career in SEO‘ and reading the poor woman’s frustration in trying to find a suitable applicant for a SEO/Online Marketing position within their company have I ever wanted to post about a subject of considering a career path in SEO. Looking back on my own fledgling career within the industry if I were to score my progress, in a control freak type headmaster fashion, I’d probably score myself with a B-. Reason being, is that no matter how much you progress in this…
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Yoomost - Experiments in Earning Online
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Pagerank Stagnation is Over (for me)
4 Nov 2009 | 6:26 pmHurray! I noticed today that the pagerank of Yoomost.com has increased from PR2 to PR3. This follows a very long period of pagerank stagnation, and I’m not the only one that has witnessed this. Lots of reports have been left on some of the forums where people have thought that Google has just given up on PR changes. However, it looks like things may be moving again. I’ve also noticed that my PR hasn’t changed at all on my travel experiences site, TrippedOff.com, following my PR penalty from PR3 to 0 earlier this year. However, through my consistent link building over the… -
No Penalties for Duplicate Content
27 Oct 2009 | 9:59 pmJust before I begin this post, apologies for the long duration without any new posts. My wife and I have just had a baby, and as you can imagine, I’ve had my hands full for the last few weeks. While I was away, I did manage to unearth some information about penalties from search engines for duplicate content. Now, before you get excited, this really only affects sites that are found on multiple ccTLD’s (country coded Top Level Domain’s). This means that if you’re trying to target different geographic regions, what you used to have to do is to create unique sites for… -
Is Email Marketing Dead?
30 Sep 2009 | 4:46 pmIn my role as an e-marketing manager, back a few years ago, email marketing was perhaps one of the most effective forms of direct marketing that was available to us. More recently, the company that I’m at now, does barely any email marketing at all. With the amount of spam going around the cloud nowadays, I’m not surprised that email marketing may perhaps have lost some of its effectiveness. However, I’m still receiving a healthy amount of marketing emails in my inbox, so I suspect not everyone would agree. One person that understands the value of using email to connect with… -
Google Caffeine
27 Sep 2009 | 4:05 pmIf you haven’t heard (where have you been??), Google is about to release a new updated (and improved) version of their search engine, that has been named Google Caffeine. Since they’ve released it for all to try at a temporary address (http://www2.sandbox.google.com), there have been a lot of comparisons between the new and the old. The main conclusions that they have drawn is that: Caffeine is much faster Has blended search results (with images, videos and news results appearing within the results) It’s more accurate (subjective but the algorithm has definitely been… -
Why Links Matter
22 Sep 2009 | 4:32 pmWhen you search for any particular keyword in a search engine, like Google, that search engine needs to figure out how to get you the best results from the millions of sites that it’s already visited and indexed. First, the search engine needs to evaluate which of these pages are related to that keyword, and then it determines out of those pages, which are the most important from that and displays those to you. One of the most important factors in this process is what external pages are pointing to each page, or what the link profile of the page is. You could almost see this as a voting…
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10 Golden Rules Internet Marketing Strategy Blog
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Google Dashboard Allows You To See All Your Google Account Information
5 Nov 2009 | 10:56 amIf you use Gmail, YouTube, Google Docs, Picasa, Google Reader, and any of the many products Google provides, you will now be able to view all your information in one place. By logging into your Google Dashboard, (www.google.com/dashboard) with your Google account log in, you will see a summary of all of your accounts with Google. It is pretty interesting to see how many Google applications you may have and not even realize. Of course, Google Dashboard is secure, and you can manage settings for all of your account in this area as well.Below is a great video that summarizes what the dashboard… -
What’s Your Web site’s Deep Link Ratio?
2 Nov 2009 | 3:07 pmWhen it comes to organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO), the links pointing to your site are one of the most important factors that influence your search engine rankings. It’s not just a numbers game, however. The quality of those links is important, too - especially to Google. For example, if a large number of links and/or extremely reputable sites, such as The New York Times, point to your Web site for a particular search query, then Google "trusts" you are a relevant and popular authority on that topic.From an SEO perspective, where those links point is yet another important… -
InternetMarketingClub.org Presents Ten Golden Rules of Affiliate Marketing Webinar
2 Nov 2009 | 2:21 pmJay Berkowitz will be hosting a free webinar to discuss the following topics:- How to get a virtual sales force selling for you- Selecting the right solution- Recruiting affiliates- Best practices for program management- How to stay current on new programs and technologies- Payment strategiesThe event will take place on Wednesday, November 4, 2009 12:30pmEST – 1:30pmEST and to register please visit: Ten Golden Rules of Affiliate Marketing Webinar -
Stay Secure with a Fresh Browser
2 Nov 2009 | 1:51 pmNow that National Cyber Security Awareness Month has wrapped up, it is a good time to make sure you are taking all the necessary precautions to keep your computer and network secure. One of the most common mistakes people make that leaves them open to a security breach is using outdated browser versions.Regardless of what browser you prefer, always using the current version is important and often overlooked. Think about it...every website you visit runs through your browser. That makes your browser among the most prone software to viruses, malware, spyware, etc.If you haven't updated your… -
Google Wave: The Email Killer?
2 Nov 2009 | 10:58 amLate Friday evening as I was going through my email, I came across an email I was pleasantly surprised by: a Google Wave invite! I don’t even remember when I submitted my interest (it must have been that long ago), but I do remember this new feature sparking my curiosity. So what’s behind this “Let’s Start a Wave” saying? To sum up the Google Wave, this apparently seems like a not so easy task; Lars Rasmussen compares it to a hybrid of texting, wikis, instant messaging, blogging and emailing. His name may seem familiar as he and his brother, Jens, sold their idea of “Google…
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SEO.com Blog
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5 Steps to the Perfect Elevator Pitch
5 Nov 2009 | 7:22 amThe last time I was in Seattle for SEO training, I was walking back to my hotel room after dinner when I was stopped by a homeless man. He was sitting outside my hotel and struck up a conversation. He was homeless but not hopeless. He prided himself on his musical talent and his unique songs on YouTube. I was immediately intrigued and wanted to hear more. He proceeded to inform me that he has two years worth of daily uploads to YouTube and how to Google his somewhat common name to be sure I saw all of them. I handed him my leftover dinner since it was likely headed for the trash and we parted… -
Brand Your Competitors Into Irrelevance
4 Nov 2009 | 8:38 amWe, in the SEO business, usually tell our clients that a good website is made up of two things: on-page optimization and off-page optimization. On-page refers to your titles, descriptions, and so on. Off-page refers to how many links point to you, engagement in social media, and so forth. We can get your site some awesome results by working in these two areas. But there is another area that depends more upon you. It is an area that will make the work we do 100 times more effective. We count on you to establish a magnetic brand and deliver killer content. My purpose is to help you understand… -
The Value of Fresh Content
2 Nov 2009 | 10:01 amHopefully, we should all know that websites need good, relevant content in order to be successful at SEO. The better your content is, the more likely it will be to show up in search engines and naturally attract links to your site. Additionally, fresh content is a major factor that plays a role in search engine rankings (which was recently confirmed by Google’s patent application). Perhaps it would be best to explain using an example. In one of the websites that I own, I noticed a huge drop in my traffic from organic search (note the graph from my Google Analytics account). It wasn’t a… -
SEO Tricks and Treats
30 Oct 2009 | 12:30 pmWe would like to thank everyone that attended the SEO Tricks and Treats Workshop & Webinar yesterday. It was a great event. To watch the recorded workshop and learn about SEO Tools, PR, Social Media and PPC Campaigns, click here. We would also like to wish everyone a Happy Halloween. At SEO.com, we really got into the spirit, and decorated cubicles, offices, and came dressed in costume. To see pictures of our office, visit our facebook fan page. For your viewing pleasure, click below to watch our fearless leader sing, “Monster Mash.” Have a great weekend! Try JibJab… -
SEO Tricks and Treats Workshop
27 Oct 2009 | 4:50 pmThis Thursday, October 29th, we will be holding the SEO Tricks and Treats Workshop to help business owners learn about some of the most recent trends in the Internet Marketing industry. You don’t have to be haunted by poor website rankings anymore. You can register to attend the event in Salt Lake City, or attend the event via webinar. AGENDA Tricks & Treats-Presentations Using SEO Tools, Ash Buckles: SEO requires a lot of research. There are many tools available to assist in the process. Each tool you choose will guide your actions to provide the best possible rankings for your site.
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How My Dad Taught Me To Use Social Media
1 Nov 2009 | 7:19 pmWho taught you how to use social media? My Dad taught me. -
How Not To Fix A Communication Problem
1 Nov 2009 | 3:44 amImagine you have started up a software company. You start to grow a bit. You hire a person to act as a sherpa for your flagship product. Your development team now is pushing out updates on a monthly sprint cycle. Sounds pretty good right? At this point you notice a problem. The backbone of any company [...] -
Jeffrey L. Cohen Talks About the Social Media Business Forum
29 Oct 2009 | 7:56 pmJeff Cohen answers some questions about the 2009 Social Media Business Forum for me. -
Why It’s Called BETA
28 Oct 2009 | 7:26 pmCharlotte.com is in BETA, here's my take on it. -
Where Do You Find Inspiration
26 Oct 2009 | 7:34 pmSome days are not going to be home runs. Where do you find inspiration on those days?
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SEO Services Group - Blog
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Google Reader - More Personalized with Two New Features
23 Oct 2009 | 5:07 amFor the past few months there has been so many features included in Google services. Search gets more options to help you get what you need, inclusion of labs features in Webmaster tools etc.., Now... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Mobile Analytics - The Need Of The Hour
16 Oct 2009 | 3:28 amWe’ve got thousands of applications for almost all smartphones available. Namely, the iPhone, Blackberry, and Android powered phones. And millions of users dowload these apps from their... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Top 5 Most Popular Microblogging Sites Other Than Twitter
15 Oct 2009 | 3:49 amMicroblogging is one of the latest evolutions of the web with web 2.0 technology. Microblogging is a service that allows users to send brief text or micromedia such as photos or audio clips to... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Does SEO bitters without the essence of link juice
12 Oct 2009 | 10:57 pmOnce you have written a meta tag for your site, what you are really like to do next? No question, we start our link building process. Before doing link building how many of them consider the PR of... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Google squared vs Wolfram Alpha - Which one beats other?
5 Oct 2009 | 11:08 pmGoogle has launched out an experimental new search product called ”Google Squared.” Google squared fetches and organizes facts from across the Internet in an online spreadsheet. Wolfram Alpha is like... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Smartacus Web Development Blog
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Mad SEO Scientists
27 Oct 2009 | 11:26 amIn a recent post I talked about some dumb job posting terminology found on job sites. It occurred to me that SEO specialists aren't "rock stars" or "gurus" at all. The more accurate descriptor of an SEO consultant is "Mad Scientist." -
Stupidest Job Posting Tactics Ever
19 Oct 2009 | 12:33 pmI'm looking through the classifieds on some well-known career placement sites, and I'm seeing some of the same stupid things over and over again. Eventually, the outrages piled up until I felt compelled to point out their idiocies. Hiring managers, don't let these happen to you! -
Top Nine SEO Twitter Folks to Follow
15 Oct 2009 | 12:13 pmIn Twitter-land there's a weekly event called Follow Friday; you point out folks you enjoy reading tweets from, helping your followers find new useful accounts to follow. Here are my top nine favorite search engine optimization tweeters for your enjoyment. -
Secret Behind Free SEO Reviews
5 Oct 2009 | 10:58 amIn a previous post I expressed my opinions about the Value of a Free SEO Report (short version: not a fan). In my opinion, free SEO reports are essentially useless to the customer and nothing but a lead generator for the SEO firm. Let me elaborate further, and give you the real inside skinny on how they work. -
Key to Selling Your Ideas
1 Oct 2009 | 9:26 amWhether you're pitching a new business idea to prospective partners, or trying to drum up support for a web development project, you need to be aware of this critical obstacle to success and how to overcome it.
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Li'l Engine - Search Engine and Marketing news and tools
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Google keeps SEOs & Bloggers busy in Q4
5 Nov 2009 | 10:51 amHas this been a busy week or what? We’ve barely had time to dissect the new Google Social Search from last Monday and now the big G is hitting us with even more announcements. Why the sudden spurt of new products ? Is Mr Schmidt planning something? Is Google feeling threatened by ‘Bing’ ? These questions will have to wait, for the time being lets see what has happened; Google Dashboard See what data Google collects from your all your Google products, manage them in one simple place Official Release Test it here Google Commerce Search Hosted ecommerce platform by Google… -
Ad Sitelinks – New to Adwords advertisers
4 Nov 2009 | 12:51 pm