Don't Take Down That Holiday Sale Page
Every year your site probably has a special holiday sale page, gift idea pages, a white sale page, or a year-end clearance page and the like. Don't make the mistake of reinventing these types of promotional pages year after year. Go static with the URLs and keep the pages alive all through the year. That way, when you need it, refresh the content, kick the page out of its suspended site map retirement, and promote the heck out of it from your home page and site navigation.
Go ahead and take down your Christmas tree and holiday trimmings, but don't take down your holiday promotional pages. Start reverse-archiving your holiday sales and promotions in 2009 to annualized, canonicalized URLs and watch the rankings improve for sales related pages year after year.
Make the Most of Your Metrics
Resolve to study and understand your search engine referrals in the new year. When you bind branded and unbranded keywords and phrases to search engine referrals, you can begin to open up new opportunities for higher rankings all through the year. Compare and contrast your site's paid performance with non-paid referrals. You can fine tune your PPC (define) budget with natural search performance to attain highly economical results. And you can also begin to exploit "long tail" opportunities, too.
Wag Your Tail
The theory behind the long tail of search remains unchanged, except it tends to be much longer than first estimated. Branded search referrals generally comprise the head and torso of search engine referrals. And just about everything else usually makes up the tail. Head terms can comprise as little as 5 percent of your total search-referred traffic. Most folks miss out on opportunities to wag their tail on the Web, which can comprise as much as 95 percent of their search engine referrals.
When you understand the relationship between your site's head and tail, you don't need to flip a coin to improve your site's performance. Themes become obvious and opportunities appear to be limitless when you focus on growing your long tail of search results.
Make It a Picture Perfect Year
Image search engines are driving more traffic than ever before. Don't miss out on this growing portion of search engine referrals for your site. Make it a goal in the new year to optimize all of the alternative attributes used in the photos and images that make up your Web site. Adding a little context to imagery can really help drive new-to-file customers and conversations your way.
Play a Game of Tag
Supplemental site navigation doesn't need to be complex. Sometimes, it can be as simple as adding a tagging structure to your site. You'd be amazed at how well tags can help identify key areas of your Web site that are missing out in the SERPs (define), especially if you focus on those parts of your site that are generally found on page two of results. So go ahead and use that flashy introduction to core categories within your Web site. Just supplement the situation with a handful of visible text links in the form of tags to make the most of a navigationally challenged situation.
Feed the Need
XML site maps remain one of the best ways to get every part of your Web site crawled by the search engines. Why wait for the engines to discover your new content? Set your site maps up for auto-discovery and update them frequently with all of the engines. Authenticate your feeds with Google, Yahoo, and MSN for greater insight into crawl rates and indexation levels to unleash all the great content your site contains.
Break out the Blender
While a frosty margarita might make for a great toast to the New Year, focusing on improving your blended search results may actually provides greater satisfaction. Why not make the most of your photos, press releases, videos, blogging, and such? It's one of the easiest ways to get more than two results on page one of the SERPs. There's no need to settle for a spattering of listings in the search engines when you can take your content universal and blend more results into page one.
Think Globally, Link Locally
Some of the best backlinks are sitting in your Web site's backyard. Growing inbound links for all your storefronts or offices is easy if you focus on finding high-quality backlinks on a local basis. Make certain you are getting linkable credit for your charitable contributions and local press coverage. There are a multitude of local and regional backlinks just waiting to be connected to your site if you focus on building a little local buzz.
Get Socially Aware
There have never been so many opportunities to tap into new traffic drivers for your Web site. All you have to do is reach out and embrace a few social media venues. Sure, YouTube's great for videos and Flickr makes a great home for photo ops. Yet Twitter can't be ignored as a way to reach out and micro-blog with loyal customers who are talking about your goods and services right now. Just don't fall into the trappings of blatant self-promotion. Resolve to be more socially aware in the new year by embracing social media venues as part of your overall online marketing plan.
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Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Pharma sector to invest more in internet marketing
New research has suggested that pharmaceutical businesses will spend more on web-based marketing in the next two years.
MarketBridge and Pharmaceutical Executive magazine surveyed about 220 executives within the industry and found that the majority of firms spend up to ten per cent of their marketing budgets on the internet, while 32 per cent spend between ten and 20 per cent.
It is likely that the proportion of companies spending up to 20 per cent on digital marketing will rise in the next two years, mirroring trends seen in other industries, the report said.
The survey also found that search marketing tactics such as search engine optimisation were viewed as being among the most effective online marketing campaigns.
"Digital marketing spend is expected to rise and digital has at least 'some influence' in hiring, as organisations move more towards digital marketing adoption," the report said.
Search engine marketing spending reached £981 million in the first six months of this year, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau.
Read More..
MarketBridge and Pharmaceutical Executive magazine surveyed about 220 executives within the industry and found that the majority of firms spend up to ten per cent of their marketing budgets on the internet, while 32 per cent spend between ten and 20 per cent.
It is likely that the proportion of companies spending up to 20 per cent on digital marketing will rise in the next two years, mirroring trends seen in other industries, the report said.
The survey also found that search marketing tactics such as search engine optimisation were viewed as being among the most effective online marketing campaigns.
"Digital marketing spend is expected to rise and digital has at least 'some influence' in hiring, as organisations move more towards digital marketing adoption," the report said.
Search engine marketing spending reached £981 million in the first six months of this year, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau.
Read More..
Why Blogs are Effective Internet Marketing Tools
Marketing blogs are ones that are kept strictly for marketing a person or a business. Many business blogs are written to advertise existing businesses like dental practices, hotels and local shops.
Writing a Business Blog
A business blog can be one that tells customers more about the business and why they are a trustworthy company. This often gives a personal face to the company and instills confidence in both the business and the employees and services that are featured in the business blog. The blog should be kept regularly in order to attract regular readers who want to find out more about the business and any news that occurs within that business.
Update the blog as often as possible. A business blog needs to have the latest information about the business as well as the industry it operates in. The more often the blog is updates, the better more information it will have and the more readers it will attract.
Keeping a Marketing Blog
A business blog may be a marketing blog that simply gets the name out there in order to get name recognition or to build up a readership of potential clients. This is a good practice if the company is new or if the product or service is not yet well known.
Internet Marketing Blogs
Using an Internet marketing blog is a good practice because search engines love blogs and rank them highly. Search engine generally favor sites that are updated often, and the nature of a blog requires that new content be added frequently. This makes blogs the perfect platform to advertise a product, company or a service.
Blogs are also a type of social interaction, with comments being left and a group of readers springing up around them. This can make marketing efforts far more personal and accessible to potential customers. Readers can subscribe to theInternet marketing blog both for the interaction between the writer and readers as well as the information they get from the marketing blog.
Free Blog Layouts
Even a small business with little start-up cash can create a marketing blog. There are many free blog layouts to choose from among the reputable free blogging sites. Any of these layouts is acceptable for a business blog, or the business blogger can buy a domain name and use WordPress or a similar free blog layout on their own website.
SEO for Marketing Blogs
Just like an article or other piece of Web content, a marketing blog needs search engine optimization. To make the blog easier for people to find, choose keywords that best describe what the blog is advertising. These should be words that people will type into search engines to find this type of information. Use those keywords in each post in order to get the blog indexed by search engines for those terms.
Read More..
Writing a Business Blog
A business blog can be one that tells customers more about the business and why they are a trustworthy company. This often gives a personal face to the company and instills confidence in both the business and the employees and services that are featured in the business blog. The blog should be kept regularly in order to attract regular readers who want to find out more about the business and any news that occurs within that business.
Update the blog as often as possible. A business blog needs to have the latest information about the business as well as the industry it operates in. The more often the blog is updates, the better more information it will have and the more readers it will attract.
Keeping a Marketing Blog
A business blog may be a marketing blog that simply gets the name out there in order to get name recognition or to build up a readership of potential clients. This is a good practice if the company is new or if the product or service is not yet well known.
Internet Marketing Blogs
Using an Internet marketing blog is a good practice because search engines love blogs and rank them highly. Search engine generally favor sites that are updated often, and the nature of a blog requires that new content be added frequently. This makes blogs the perfect platform to advertise a product, company or a service.
Blogs are also a type of social interaction, with comments being left and a group of readers springing up around them. This can make marketing efforts far more personal and accessible to potential customers. Readers can subscribe to theInternet marketing blog both for the interaction between the writer and readers as well as the information they get from the marketing blog.
Free Blog Layouts
Even a small business with little start-up cash can create a marketing blog. There are many free blog layouts to choose from among the reputable free blogging sites. Any of these layouts is acceptable for a business blog, or the business blogger can buy a domain name and use WordPress or a similar free blog layout on their own website.
SEO for Marketing Blogs
Just like an article or other piece of Web content, a marketing blog needs search engine optimization. To make the blog easier for people to find, choose keywords that best describe what the blog is advertising. These should be words that people will type into search engines to find this type of information. Use those keywords in each post in order to get the blog indexed by search engines for those terms.
Read More..
Top 5 SEO Mistakes you should avoid doing
1.Ignoring the Keywords:
This is one of the most common mistakes most people do when building a website/blog. What this will do is..to end you up creating a site with keywords that nobody searches on the web or you could create a site with most searched (competitive) keywords on the net which will make you wait forever to see any results.
So, you should do a quick research on the keywords that most people search...You can use the Google Adwords tool to check whether the keywords you choose have a good amount of searches per month.Also, type your keywords in google search and make sure that you feel confident reaching the first page.
2. Spamming the Keywords:
Some people create web pages just repeating the keywords hundreds of times or blending the font text color with the background color (hidden text)..but, this won't help you increase your search engine rankings.
Also, remember that you are making the content for your visitors, not just for the search engines. Don't repeat the keyword too many times in the article...it doesn't sound right when you read it back.
3. Javascript Menus:
Now a days, lot of people are using Javascript menus for navigation,but search engines can't read javascript.So, you have to build your site accordingly and make sure that the search engines and visitors to your site can quickly navigate the pages. You should consider building an xml/html sitemap, so that all your links are easily crawlable by the search engines.
4. Bad Linking:
You have to be careful on the outgoing links. Linking to irrelevant sites (bad neighborhoods),and sites that have been penalized by Google can seriously effect your own rankings. Also, make sure that you don't have too many outgoing links on a single page. According to Google Webmaster tools, you shouldn't have more than 100 outgoing links on a single web page.
5.Forgetting about Off site optimization:
Lot of people optimize their site well, but they forget about off site optimization...ie, building good and quality backlinks from relevant sites. It is a good way to increase your search engine rankings quickly... Get links from strong sites with your main keywords in the anchor text. Build backlinks by submitting articles, participating in related forums,etc.
Read More...
This is one of the most common mistakes most people do when building a website/blog. What this will do is..to end you up creating a site with keywords that nobody searches on the web or you could create a site with most searched (competitive) keywords on the net which will make you wait forever to see any results.
So, you should do a quick research on the keywords that most people search...You can use the Google Adwords tool to check whether the keywords you choose have a good amount of searches per month.Also, type your keywords in google search and make sure that you feel confident reaching the first page.
2. Spamming the Keywords:
Some people create web pages just repeating the keywords hundreds of times or blending the font text color with the background color (hidden text)..but, this won't help you increase your search engine rankings.
Also, remember that you are making the content for your visitors, not just for the search engines. Don't repeat the keyword too many times in the article...it doesn't sound right when you read it back.
3. Javascript Menus:
Now a days, lot of people are using Javascript menus for navigation,but search engines can't read javascript.So, you have to build your site accordingly and make sure that the search engines and visitors to your site can quickly navigate the pages. You should consider building an xml/html sitemap, so that all your links are easily crawlable by the search engines.
4. Bad Linking:
You have to be careful on the outgoing links. Linking to irrelevant sites (bad neighborhoods),and sites that have been penalized by Google can seriously effect your own rankings. Also, make sure that you don't have too many outgoing links on a single page. According to Google Webmaster tools, you shouldn't have more than 100 outgoing links on a single web page.
5.Forgetting about Off site optimization:
Lot of people optimize their site well, but they forget about off site optimization...ie, building good and quality backlinks from relevant sites. It is a good way to increase your search engine rankings quickly... Get links from strong sites with your main keywords in the anchor text. Build backlinks by submitting articles, participating in related forums,etc.
Read More...
Tips on Search Engine Optimization
1. Quality Content is and always will be your number one factor for getting high rankings and keeping them. You must understand search engines are simply businesses who supply a product like any other company. That product is information. They must offer quality results to anyone using their service to solve a problem, answer a question or to buy a product. The more relevant, the more targeted the search solution they return, the higher the overall quality of their product and the more popular their search engine will become. Providing quality content is vital for SEO success.
2. Keywords are your number one tools for achieving high rankings. You must understand keywords and how they work on the web. You must know how many searches are made each day for your chosen keywords. Sites like Wordtracker and SEObook will give you a rudimentary number of searches. Design your pages around your targeted keywords and don’t forget to do some deep-linking to these pages on your site. Find and build backlinks to these interior keyword pages and not just to your home page or domain URL. Picking keywords with medium to low competition has worked out well for me. So too has using the more targeted and higher converting “long-tail” keywords been very beneficial for me.
3. Onpage Factors and site design will play a major role in the spidering and indexing of your site/content. Make sure all your pages are SEO friendly, made sure all your pages can be reached from your homepage and no pages should be no more than three levels away from it - keeping a sitemap listing all your major pages makes the search engines happy. Make sure you have all your meta tags such as title, description, keywords… are all optimized. (Title = around 65 characters, Description = around 160 characters) Remember, your title and description should not only be keyword targeted but these are the first contact/impression anyone will see of your site — make sure you use them to draw and entice interested visitors to your site and content. Also make sure your title and URL are keyword matched for maximum effect. Having your major keyword in your Domain Name also helps, using a pike | to separate different elements of your title has helped my rankings, so too does having your keyword in the first and last 25 words on your pages.
4. Google will send you the most qualified traffic so concentrate the majority of your SEO efforts on Google. Don’t ignore Yahoo! or MSN but Google is king of search so give it the respect it deserves. With its new browser, Google’s influence will only grow stronger so you must optimize your pages for Google. Use Google’s Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to fine-tune your pages/content for Google. I also use Google Alerts to keep up on my niche keywords and for comment link-building on the newly created pages Google is indexing.
5. Link Building is still the most effective way to boost your search rankings. Make sure you get backlinks from relevant sites related to your niche market and make sure the ‘anchor text’ is related to your keywords but don’t ignore the text and overall quality of the content linking to you. The anchor text is the underlined/clickable portion of a link. Don’t forget linking is a two-way street, make sure you link out to high quality, high ranked relevant sites in your niche.
6. Article Marketing is a well established method of getting quality backlinks and it still works. Writing short 500 - 700 word informative and helpful articles with your backlinks in the resource box is still very effective for getting targeted traffic and backlinks. Longer articles have also worked for me and I use an extensive network of distribution including SubmitYourArticle, Isnare, Thephantomwriters… plus other major online sites. Don’t forget the whole element of blogging and RSS feeds in your article distribution. And always remember you’re also using these articles to pre-sale your content or products. Don’t forget to leverage sites like Squidoo, Hubpages… to increase your rankings and traffic.
7. Onsite Traffic Hubs have worked extremely well for me. These traffic hubs are whole sections of your site devoted to one sub-division of your major theme. For example, if you have a site on Gifts, then wedding gifts could be a separate section. This would be fully fleshed out with extensive pages covering everything dealing with wedding gifts — a self-contained keyword rich portion of your site on wedding gifts. Works similar as a sub-domain but I prefer using a directory to divide it up, such as yourdomain/wedding_gifts. (Most experts suggest always using a hyphen in your urls but underscores have worked fine for me.) Search engines love these keyword/content rich hubs but keep in mind you’re creating content to first satisfy your visitors.
8. WordPress blog software is extremely effective for SEO purposes. WordPress software is easy to install on your site even if you have no experience with installing server-side scripts. Besides search engines love these highly SEO friendly blogs with their well structured content and keyword tagging. I have at least one of these on all my sites to draw in the search engines and get my content indexed and ranked. I also use Blogger (owned by Google), Bloglines and other free blogs to help distribute my content.
9. Social Bookmark/Media Sites are becoming very important on the web. These include a whole range of social sites like MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter… media news sites like Digg, SlashDot, Technorati… you must get your content into this whole mix if you want to take full SEO advantage of Web 2.0 sites. You should be joining these sites and using them. It’s time consuming but it will keep you in the swing of things. One simple thing you must do is to put social bookmark buttons on all your pages so that your visitors can easily bookmark your content for you. You can use a WordPress plug-in or I like using a simple free site/service from Addthis.com which gives me a simple button to put on all my content.
10. Masterplan! Many webmasters and site owners forget to develop or have an overall masterplan/strategy when it comes to SEO. You must have an understanding of what SEO is and what it can do for you and your site. More importantly, you just don’t want SEO; you want effective SEO.
Read More..
2. Keywords are your number one tools for achieving high rankings. You must understand keywords and how they work on the web. You must know how many searches are made each day for your chosen keywords. Sites like Wordtracker and SEObook will give you a rudimentary number of searches. Design your pages around your targeted keywords and don’t forget to do some deep-linking to these pages on your site. Find and build backlinks to these interior keyword pages and not just to your home page or domain URL. Picking keywords with medium to low competition has worked out well for me. So too has using the more targeted and higher converting “long-tail” keywords been very beneficial for me.
3. Onpage Factors and site design will play a major role in the spidering and indexing of your site/content. Make sure all your pages are SEO friendly, made sure all your pages can be reached from your homepage and no pages should be no more than three levels away from it - keeping a sitemap listing all your major pages makes the search engines happy. Make sure you have all your meta tags such as title, description, keywords… are all optimized. (Title = around 65 characters, Description = around 160 characters) Remember, your title and description should not only be keyword targeted but these are the first contact/impression anyone will see of your site — make sure you use them to draw and entice interested visitors to your site and content. Also make sure your title and URL are keyword matched for maximum effect. Having your major keyword in your Domain Name also helps, using a pike | to separate different elements of your title has helped my rankings, so too does having your keyword in the first and last 25 words on your pages.
4. Google will send you the most qualified traffic so concentrate the majority of your SEO efforts on Google. Don’t ignore Yahoo! or MSN but Google is king of search so give it the respect it deserves. With its new browser, Google’s influence will only grow stronger so you must optimize your pages for Google. Use Google’s Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to fine-tune your pages/content for Google. I also use Google Alerts to keep up on my niche keywords and for comment link-building on the newly created pages Google is indexing.
5. Link Building is still the most effective way to boost your search rankings. Make sure you get backlinks from relevant sites related to your niche market and make sure the ‘anchor text’ is related to your keywords but don’t ignore the text and overall quality of the content linking to you. The anchor text is the underlined/clickable portion of a link. Don’t forget linking is a two-way street, make sure you link out to high quality, high ranked relevant sites in your niche.
6. Article Marketing is a well established method of getting quality backlinks and it still works. Writing short 500 - 700 word informative and helpful articles with your backlinks in the resource box is still very effective for getting targeted traffic and backlinks. Longer articles have also worked for me and I use an extensive network of distribution including SubmitYourArticle, Isnare, Thephantomwriters… plus other major online sites. Don’t forget the whole element of blogging and RSS feeds in your article distribution. And always remember you’re also using these articles to pre-sale your content or products. Don’t forget to leverage sites like Squidoo, Hubpages… to increase your rankings and traffic.
7. Onsite Traffic Hubs have worked extremely well for me. These traffic hubs are whole sections of your site devoted to one sub-division of your major theme. For example, if you have a site on Gifts, then wedding gifts could be a separate section. This would be fully fleshed out with extensive pages covering everything dealing with wedding gifts — a self-contained keyword rich portion of your site on wedding gifts. Works similar as a sub-domain but I prefer using a directory to divide it up, such as yourdomain/wedding_gifts. (Most experts suggest always using a hyphen in your urls but underscores have worked fine for me.) Search engines love these keyword/content rich hubs but keep in mind you’re creating content to first satisfy your visitors.
8. WordPress blog software is extremely effective for SEO purposes. WordPress software is easy to install on your site even if you have no experience with installing server-side scripts. Besides search engines love these highly SEO friendly blogs with their well structured content and keyword tagging. I have at least one of these on all my sites to draw in the search engines and get my content indexed and ranked. I also use Blogger (owned by Google), Bloglines and other free blogs to help distribute my content.
9. Social Bookmark/Media Sites are becoming very important on the web. These include a whole range of social sites like MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter… media news sites like Digg, SlashDot, Technorati… you must get your content into this whole mix if you want to take full SEO advantage of Web 2.0 sites. You should be joining these sites and using them. It’s time consuming but it will keep you in the swing of things. One simple thing you must do is to put social bookmark buttons on all your pages so that your visitors can easily bookmark your content for you. You can use a WordPress plug-in or I like using a simple free site/service from Addthis.com which gives me a simple button to put on all my content.
10. Masterplan! Many webmasters and site owners forget to develop or have an overall masterplan/strategy when it comes to SEO. You must have an understanding of what SEO is and what it can do for you and your site. More importantly, you just don’t want SEO; you want effective SEO.
Read More..
Getting ready to get indexed by Google
This goes out to all the new websites out there waiting to get indexed. While many prefer to believe that all the major SEO is done after the site is launched, I would hint that if you’re able to get indexed while in the best shape, that’s quarter battle won.
We all know that there are more than one way of getting indexed on Google. So while you are getting indexed, is there anything in particular that you got to watch out for ? Indeed yes.
A couple of things.
1 – Be in good shape while you get indexed.
Page Titles, Onsite optimization and Keyword highlights – if you’re able to get it all ready in good shape even before getting indexed, it’s better. So when the Google bots enter your virgin territory, they have a good first impression. I’ve seen that rather than making changes later, it’s better if you can get them convinced in the very first place.
2 – Get the best guy to link to you.
Forget the cheap directories. They’re no good. Instead, try out a link building strategy, or device your own and bait the suitable guy in your domain to link to you. (Guy with a decent PR, Authority etc)
3 – Get the sitemap ready.
Make sure you don’t miss to publish the sitemap. Both HTML and the XML one. If they are available to welcome the robots, nothing like it, a great indexing ensured.
4 – Get the links fixed.
Make sure you leave no broken links. They’re so amateurish. Run a link checker program, and make sure you plug those holes before the bots are here.
Basically the idea is to get all the metrics to be in good shape, ready to welcome the bots and leave no room for loose ends.
We all know that there are more than one way of getting indexed on Google. So while you are getting indexed, is there anything in particular that you got to watch out for ? Indeed yes.
A couple of things.
1 – Be in good shape while you get indexed.
Page Titles, Onsite optimization and Keyword highlights – if you’re able to get it all ready in good shape even before getting indexed, it’s better. So when the Google bots enter your virgin territory, they have a good first impression. I’ve seen that rather than making changes later, it’s better if you can get them convinced in the very first place.
2 – Get the best guy to link to you.
Forget the cheap directories. They’re no good. Instead, try out a link building strategy, or device your own and bait the suitable guy in your domain to link to you. (Guy with a decent PR, Authority etc)
3 – Get the sitemap ready.
Make sure you don’t miss to publish the sitemap. Both HTML and the XML one. If they are available to welcome the robots, nothing like it, a great indexing ensured.
4 – Get the links fixed.
Make sure you leave no broken links. They’re so amateurish. Run a link checker program, and make sure you plug those holes before the bots are here.
Basically the idea is to get all the metrics to be in good shape, ready to welcome the bots and leave no room for loose ends.
SEO tips for Online Video Content
1) All SEO specialists know that the search engines are built to index and rank text. Being that it is more difficult for the search engines to understand the content within a video (though they are working on it), it is a good idea to include as much text surrounding the video itself if possible. One excellent way to do this is to include a text transcript of your video alongside your video with keyword rich title and descriptions.
2) Don't forget to encode the keywords you are targeting into your video. Try to use the word "video" as much as possible, make sure the word "video" is used in your title, description, meta data etc.
3) Search engine crawlers rely a lot on the link texts to figure out what the video is all about as they are not capable to figure out the contents of the video otherwise. Therefore it is advisable to get as many back links as possible for your video.
4) Create a video sitemap exclusively for your online video content so that engines can find all of your videos and understand the structure of your site more easily. This helps the web crawlers to locate your video files speedily and effortlessly.
5) If you are hosting the video on your own site, it is advisable to do your best to utilize a player that is not flash as search engines have difficulty understanding flash content. That being said, it will be difficult to empower video on your site without a simple flash player. If you can not get around it, do your best to take advantage of the other SEO techniques since search engines cant understand the flash technology.
6) Create search engine friendly keyword URLs for your video pages. To do this, you can use mod-rewrite function or htaccess file so that the URLs are freely assessable and readable by the search engines.
7) Various video search engines use to capture thumbnails of your in different manner. Some of them take the first frame of your video, while others try to take from the middle or end. It is better to experiment with each site individually to make sure they are displaying the right thumbnail for your video. A video thumbnail is always crucial when it comes to decide for a viewer which video to watch.
8) When hosting videos on your own site, keep your videos one per page and put all the pages with videos into one directory. This combined with a video sitemap will help search engines find and index all of your important videos.
In addition to the specific optimization techniques listed above, make sure that you also follow some common guidelines for online video content:
9) With any SEO that you do online, choose keywords that you know users are searching for. Use keyword research tools to discover keywords and phrases that are most often searched for when looking for the information that you are creating.
10) Viewers who offer feedback are most likely to take the desired action on your video. This could be a good opportunity for you to submit fresh content, if the most popular videos were included months ago, it really helps.
Read More..
2) Don't forget to encode the keywords you are targeting into your video. Try to use the word "video" as much as possible, make sure the word "video" is used in your title, description, meta data etc.
3) Search engine crawlers rely a lot on the link texts to figure out what the video is all about as they are not capable to figure out the contents of the video otherwise. Therefore it is advisable to get as many back links as possible for your video.
4) Create a video sitemap exclusively for your online video content so that engines can find all of your videos and understand the structure of your site more easily. This helps the web crawlers to locate your video files speedily and effortlessly.
5) If you are hosting the video on your own site, it is advisable to do your best to utilize a player that is not flash as search engines have difficulty understanding flash content. That being said, it will be difficult to empower video on your site without a simple flash player. If you can not get around it, do your best to take advantage of the other SEO techniques since search engines cant understand the flash technology.
6) Create search engine friendly keyword URLs for your video pages. To do this, you can use mod-rewrite function or htaccess file so that the URLs are freely assessable and readable by the search engines.
7) Various video search engines use to capture thumbnails of your in different manner. Some of them take the first frame of your video, while others try to take from the middle or end. It is better to experiment with each site individually to make sure they are displaying the right thumbnail for your video. A video thumbnail is always crucial when it comes to decide for a viewer which video to watch.
8) When hosting videos on your own site, keep your videos one per page and put all the pages with videos into one directory. This combined with a video sitemap will help search engines find and index all of your important videos.
In addition to the specific optimization techniques listed above, make sure that you also follow some common guidelines for online video content:
9) With any SEO that you do online, choose keywords that you know users are searching for. Use keyword research tools to discover keywords and phrases that are most often searched for when looking for the information that you are creating.
10) Viewers who offer feedback are most likely to take the desired action on your video. This could be a good opportunity for you to submit fresh content, if the most popular videos were included months ago, it really helps.
Read More..
Friday, December 26, 2008
Ethical tips regarding on-page SEO optimization for SEO services
These are few ethical SEO tips to get stable search engine rankings.
1. Firstly we need a unique design with foremost features. Google always pay their faith to unique web designs, obviously those designs should be very search engine friendly with different kinds of search engine bots.
2. Then we need to concentrate about the age of that site. If the site is very new into the market then you have to face problems to get ranked in top competitive keywords else you can proceed for those keywords.
3. Before starting SEO work we need a quality keyword research for that site. On-page optimization is the base of any SEO optimization and keyword research is the foundation of any on-page optimization.
4. Search engine rankings are mainly depending upon the Meta title and description of every page of that website. Smart use of keywords within the title tag and Meta description is denoted as the professionalism of any SEO services.
5. Then we need to shuffle our targeted keywords with our content and that content should be fresh, catchy as well as unique for the business market.
6. We need to make modifications at our content in a regular interval to maintain the uniqueness of that content.
7. Fixing the canonical issue of that website for better result as well as optimize all images with appropriate alt tags.
8. It is better to rotate internal links of that website through that catchy content with the help of targeted keywords, because search engine crawlers as well as viewers are traveling through the links only.
9. If it is possible then place a brief description within H2 tag of that website with smart punching of targeted keywords at the header part.
10. Placing text links for internal pages is denoted as good SEO services at the footer section. We can use our targeted keywords within those texts while interlinking our important pages.
11. Never ever concentrating on any kind of black hat techniques such as placing hiding content, corking, vast use of targeted keywords within the content etc.
Read MOre...
1. Firstly we need a unique design with foremost features. Google always pay their faith to unique web designs, obviously those designs should be very search engine friendly with different kinds of search engine bots.
2. Then we need to concentrate about the age of that site. If the site is very new into the market then you have to face problems to get ranked in top competitive keywords else you can proceed for those keywords.
3. Before starting SEO work we need a quality keyword research for that site. On-page optimization is the base of any SEO optimization and keyword research is the foundation of any on-page optimization.
4. Search engine rankings are mainly depending upon the Meta title and description of every page of that website. Smart use of keywords within the title tag and Meta description is denoted as the professionalism of any SEO services.
5. Then we need to shuffle our targeted keywords with our content and that content should be fresh, catchy as well as unique for the business market.
6. We need to make modifications at our content in a regular interval to maintain the uniqueness of that content.
7. Fixing the canonical issue of that website for better result as well as optimize all images with appropriate alt tags.
8. It is better to rotate internal links of that website through that catchy content with the help of targeted keywords, because search engine crawlers as well as viewers are traveling through the links only.
9. If it is possible then place a brief description within H2 tag of that website with smart punching of targeted keywords at the header part.
10. Placing text links for internal pages is denoted as good SEO services at the footer section. We can use our targeted keywords within those texts while interlinking our important pages.
11. Never ever concentrating on any kind of black hat techniques such as placing hiding content, corking, vast use of targeted keywords within the content etc.
Read MOre...
Why SEO Services Drive Better Traffic to Your Website!
There are various SEO techniques to attract targeted traffic to your website. Principally, they target the ideal audience by using specific keywords in key points. On the other hand, once SEO services begin to bring you the targeted traffic, they will continue this influx of visitors for a long time. Here are some of those techniques:
1) SEO services optimize a website's content using keywords. If the content of all pages are related, the main keywords of the website will be repeated in many pages. This adds to the content relevancy of the site as well as general keyword weight throughout your website. As a result, only targeted traffic will be attracted to your website.
2)SEO services include your keywords in title tags. While optimizing a website, a professional SEO service provider will consider using your keywords in the title tags of your pages. Search engines pay lots of attention to the title tags of your web pages.
3)Careful SEO services use your keywords in internal links. The navigation theme and as well as text links of your website should contain your keywords. This is an important factor considered by search engines.
4)Professional SEO services will use your keywords at the URL at the file names of your webpages. Search engines give such pages higher score while listing them for your keywords. This will end up in attracting more targeted traffic to your site.
5) You can even find out that SEO services will add your keywords to the folder names of at your website. This will add to the search engine ranking of your webpages. On the other hand a page optimized with the keywords found even at the folder names, will be more likely to obtain a higher ranking and attract more targeted traffic.
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1) SEO services optimize a website's content using keywords. If the content of all pages are related, the main keywords of the website will be repeated in many pages. This adds to the content relevancy of the site as well as general keyword weight throughout your website. As a result, only targeted traffic will be attracted to your website.
2)SEO services include your keywords in title tags. While optimizing a website, a professional SEO service provider will consider using your keywords in the title tags of your pages. Search engines pay lots of attention to the title tags of your web pages.
3)Careful SEO services use your keywords in internal links. The navigation theme and as well as text links of your website should contain your keywords. This is an important factor considered by search engines.
4)Professional SEO services will use your keywords at the URL at the file names of your webpages. Search engines give such pages higher score while listing them for your keywords. This will end up in attracting more targeted traffic to your site.
5) You can even find out that SEO services will add your keywords to the folder names of at your website. This will add to the search engine ranking of your webpages. On the other hand a page optimized with the keywords found even at the folder names, will be more likely to obtain a higher ranking and attract more targeted traffic.
Read More...
5 Mistake Can Kill Your SEO Process
1) Screwing up Robots.txt file.
Make sure your text is like the one written as User-agent:* Disallow:
It should not be like the one written as: User-agent:* Disallow: /
This mistake can drop your organic rankings drastically.
2) Too many variables or parameters in your URLs
Although Search Engines are getting better and better in means of
crawling long and ugly looking links but still they don’t like them.
Short URL’s also do get clicked more often in the result pages and
they are good for crawlabilty and clickabilty.
3) Session ID’s in your URL’s
Search Engines straight away do not like session ID’s in URL’s. If you
are using Session ID’s then just store them in cookies rather than
including them in your URL’s. Session ID’s can cause a single page
content to be visible at multiple URL’s and thus obstructing the
SERP’s.
4) Your site suffers from code bloat
Even though Spiders are normally good at sorting out code from
content, but that doesn’t mean you should make it more complex by
having so much code that the content is tough to find.
5) Your navigation and internal linking
Designers and developers can be pretty creative while designing a web
site but this creativity may come in the way Search Engine Crawlers.
Your site’s navigation build in complicated DHTML, java script code,
flash or Ajax based can stop a crawler in its track.
Read More..
Make sure your text is like the one written as User-agent:* Disallow:
It should not be like the one written as: User-agent:* Disallow: /
This mistake can drop your organic rankings drastically.
2) Too many variables or parameters in your URLs
Although Search Engines are getting better and better in means of
crawling long and ugly looking links but still they don’t like them.
Short URL’s also do get clicked more often in the result pages and
they are good for crawlabilty and clickabilty.
3) Session ID’s in your URL’s
Search Engines straight away do not like session ID’s in URL’s. If you
are using Session ID’s then just store them in cookies rather than
including them in your URL’s. Session ID’s can cause a single page
content to be visible at multiple URL’s and thus obstructing the
SERP’s.
4) Your site suffers from code bloat
Even though Spiders are normally good at sorting out code from
content, but that doesn’t mean you should make it more complex by
having so much code that the content is tough to find.
5) Your navigation and internal linking
Designers and developers can be pretty creative while designing a web
site but this creativity may come in the way Search Engine Crawlers.
Your site’s navigation build in complicated DHTML, java script code,
flash or Ajax based can stop a crawler in its track.
Read More..
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Steps to Successful Search Engine Optimization
Submitting your website to search engines does not get your webpage better ranking. That is a misconception about SEO that has been going around for quite sometime. It does no harm by submitting your site to them but it does no good as well. Just submitting your site to the search engines doesn’t give you a good spot on their pages. In order to be eligible and indexed by search engine crawlers you need to optimize your site. Search engine optimization is an on-going process. You need to invest enough time to get the desired success. Compared to other forms online marketing, SEO offers higher return on investment (ROI). With the growing number of users relying on search engines to find their pages, it has become essential to optimize websites and make them search engine friendly. Here are few steps you need to follow for the search engine spiders to crawl and index your site.
Theme:
It is important to choose a theme for the pages of your website. Each page should be able to convey a message or fulfill a purpose.
Keywords Selection:
Choosing the right keywords is an important and crucial step of search engine optimization. You need to list the relevant and searched keywords and key phrases for each of the pages. Choosing the most competitive keywords can get really frustrating hence as a beginner you can focus on less competitive, yet searched words. You can make a list of relevant keywords and use tools like wordtracker and overture keyword analysis tool to know the search frequency.
Know your Competitors:
It is important to keep an eye on your competitors. You can study what keywords they are emphasizing on, know what websites are linking to them and where they rank. The less competition you have the better it is.
Optimize your Page Content with Phrases:
When you select the relevant keywords for your web page, you can rank them according to their importance. You can revise the existing pages and optimize your page content starting with your top key phrases. Optimizing your site includes alteration of the meta tags i.e. title, description, keywords, headings, image alt, link and the content of the site. You can also have robot.txt file to help the spiders to crawl the pages you want them to.
Linking Strategies:
As mentioned earlier link building is one of the important part of SEO. There are
1. two linking strategies:
Internal Linking: In your page content you can refer to other important pages of your website. You can make use of the keywords of the landing page for your hyperlink text. You can even use keywords in navigation structure.
2. External Linking:
You can build external links by various means. You can start your own blog or write articles so that other websites interested will link to you. You can ask other webpages to place your link on their websites for placing their link on your site. This is known as reciprocal linking. You can advertise your sites on directories like dmoz, yahoo directories etc. Getting backlinks from these popular sites will help you get better ranking. There are various other ways to increase your inbound links.
Traffic and Revenue Tracking:
After your website is optimized you need to track the sales and the traffic it is receiving. You need to focus more on traffic and revenue than the page ranking. There are many software which gives you the report on your revenues by keywords, search engine, advertising campaigns etc.
Analysis:
You need to analyze your website and make necessary changes. Search engines keep changing their algorithm, hence it is important you be updated and try the new marketing strategies. You also need to keep track of your rankings and reoptimize the pages if you need to. You can then wait for the results.
Read MOre..
Theme:
It is important to choose a theme for the pages of your website. Each page should be able to convey a message or fulfill a purpose.
Keywords Selection:
Choosing the right keywords is an important and crucial step of search engine optimization. You need to list the relevant and searched keywords and key phrases for each of the pages. Choosing the most competitive keywords can get really frustrating hence as a beginner you can focus on less competitive, yet searched words. You can make a list of relevant keywords and use tools like wordtracker and overture keyword analysis tool to know the search frequency.
Know your Competitors:
It is important to keep an eye on your competitors. You can study what keywords they are emphasizing on, know what websites are linking to them and where they rank. The less competition you have the better it is.
Optimize your Page Content with Phrases:
When you select the relevant keywords for your web page, you can rank them according to their importance. You can revise the existing pages and optimize your page content starting with your top key phrases. Optimizing your site includes alteration of the meta tags i.e. title, description, keywords, headings, image alt, link and the content of the site. You can also have robot.txt file to help the spiders to crawl the pages you want them to.
Linking Strategies:
As mentioned earlier link building is one of the important part of SEO. There are
1. two linking strategies:
Internal Linking: In your page content you can refer to other important pages of your website. You can make use of the keywords of the landing page for your hyperlink text. You can even use keywords in navigation structure.
2. External Linking:
You can build external links by various means. You can start your own blog or write articles so that other websites interested will link to you. You can ask other webpages to place your link on their websites for placing their link on your site. This is known as reciprocal linking. You can advertise your sites on directories like dmoz, yahoo directories etc. Getting backlinks from these popular sites will help you get better ranking. There are various other ways to increase your inbound links.
Traffic and Revenue Tracking:
After your website is optimized you need to track the sales and the traffic it is receiving. You need to focus more on traffic and revenue than the page ranking. There are many software which gives you the report on your revenues by keywords, search engine, advertising campaigns etc.
Analysis:
You need to analyze your website and make necessary changes. Search engines keep changing their algorithm, hence it is important you be updated and try the new marketing strategies. You also need to keep track of your rankings and reoptimize the pages if you need to. You can then wait for the results.
Read MOre..
2009 'to bring search engine marketing changes'
Search engine marketing professionals are likely to see significant changes within the industry in the next year, according to Search Insider's David Berkowitz.
The expert said that those making use of search engine optimisation (SEO) and marketing will need to consider their rankings in terms of social media as well as their own company website.
Those taking advantage of SEO services should think about how consumers find their organisations, as a growing number of web users do so via sites like Twitter and Wikipedia, as well as photo-sharing sites and blogs, Mr Berkowitz suggested.
"SEO is shifting from a focus of entirely maximising a site's rank in the engines to maximising a site's reach across all the top-ranked listings on a search engine's results page," he remarked.
Search marketing spending has increased by 30 per cent this year, according to the 2009 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide from advertising blog and resource provider MarketingSherpa.
Read MOre..
The expert said that those making use of search engine optimisation (SEO) and marketing will need to consider their rankings in terms of social media as well as their own company website.
Those taking advantage of SEO services should think about how consumers find their organisations, as a growing number of web users do so via sites like Twitter and Wikipedia, as well as photo-sharing sites and blogs, Mr Berkowitz suggested.
"SEO is shifting from a focus of entirely maximising a site's rank in the engines to maximising a site's reach across all the top-ranked listings on a search engine's results page," he remarked.
Search marketing spending has increased by 30 per cent this year, according to the 2009 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide from advertising blog and resource provider MarketingSherpa.
Read MOre..
Discover How To Use Analytics To Improve Web Conversions
The goal of any web presence should be to improve the business as a whole and complement its offline marketing and sales efforts. In other words, to help it achieve maximum profitability. In order to do this, your online strategy must: Drive targeted traffic to your site, persuade site visitors to take the desired actions you want them to take, and use Web metrics to analyze and measure user behavior. Performing these objectives correctly will ensure that you have an effective marketing campaign and increased sales for your business.
Driving targeted traffic begins with a search engine marketing (SEM) campaign including pay-per-click advertising (PPC) and a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. It's important to determine which keywords are worth pursuing in your PPC and SEO efforts. Determine how frequently each phrase is searched for, and evaluate which are feasible enough to put efforts into by checking how steep the competition is. Make your selections and test them out in your PPC and SEO campaigns Researching and selecting effective keywords is extremely important. Be sure to select keywords that your target market would use to find you.
With web metrics and analysis in place, you will be able to tell where people are coming from, what keywords they used to find you, and whether they are taking the desired actions on your site. If the wrong keywords are chosen, you may find that you have high rankings, but the wrong audience is visiting. Whether you are selling a product or service, obtaining newsletter subscribers, or enticing people to download a software demo, your ultimate goal is getting your site visitors to take a desired action. In order to do this you must have a compelling site that draws the visitor in, and then guides them to the goal. Design and site architecture factors such as usability, navigation, content, and ad copy all come into play here.
The key is to monitor how well these factors work at persuading your visitors into taking action. With web metrics you can monitor everything and see what's working and what's not. Armed with this knowledge, you can make the appropriate changes to your site; continue monitoring, and repeat the process until you get an increase in the desired outcome.
The area of web metrics and analysis is new and evolving. Compared to traditional offline marketing, the Internet provides an unparalleled opportunity to specifically measure how a customer interacts with a business. Web metrics and analysis will help you to monitor and improve objectives. This is done by paying close attention to where visitors are coming from, learning what keywords were used to find your site, seeing how they navigated through it, and what actions they took along the way. This information becomes a powerful tool in growing your business.
Read MORe...
Driving targeted traffic begins with a search engine marketing (SEM) campaign including pay-per-click advertising (PPC) and a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. It's important to determine which keywords are worth pursuing in your PPC and SEO efforts. Determine how frequently each phrase is searched for, and evaluate which are feasible enough to put efforts into by checking how steep the competition is. Make your selections and test them out in your PPC and SEO campaigns Researching and selecting effective keywords is extremely important. Be sure to select keywords that your target market would use to find you.
With web metrics and analysis in place, you will be able to tell where people are coming from, what keywords they used to find you, and whether they are taking the desired actions on your site. If the wrong keywords are chosen, you may find that you have high rankings, but the wrong audience is visiting. Whether you are selling a product or service, obtaining newsletter subscribers, or enticing people to download a software demo, your ultimate goal is getting your site visitors to take a desired action. In order to do this you must have a compelling site that draws the visitor in, and then guides them to the goal. Design and site architecture factors such as usability, navigation, content, and ad copy all come into play here.
The key is to monitor how well these factors work at persuading your visitors into taking action. With web metrics you can monitor everything and see what's working and what's not. Armed with this knowledge, you can make the appropriate changes to your site; continue monitoring, and repeat the process until you get an increase in the desired outcome.
The area of web metrics and analysis is new and evolving. Compared to traditional offline marketing, the Internet provides an unparalleled opportunity to specifically measure how a customer interacts with a business. Web metrics and analysis will help you to monitor and improve objectives. This is done by paying close attention to where visitors are coming from, learning what keywords were used to find your site, seeing how they navigated through it, and what actions they took along the way. This information becomes a powerful tool in growing your business.
Read MORe...
5 tips for internet marketing and SEO
It’s become quite common on the web to talk about SEO; one can corroborate this by having a look at the umpteen websites and posts on SEO. A common mistake or rather miss-out seen in these posts is the shoving away of internet marketing. Yes, indeed SEO is a major part of internet marketing, but SEO alone isn’t internet marketing! Very less is spoken about other ways that take a broader approach into internet marketing and effectively market a website.
1. Affiliation to good products/services : Affiliation to good products or services may not fetch you great returns on the SEO front but it is bound to give you lifelong income from the product or services, given in you crack up a fair deal with the company/website. All you need to do is to select a product or services related to your website and write an article on it. Yes, you are promoting it, and hence, do not bluff about a product/ service you have no idea about. Let authenticity prevail!
2. In-house email newsletter: Marketingsherpa surveys proclaim that house email gives more return-on-investment than SEO! Is anything left to say? But play the game smartly- Give a sign-up option on every webpage. Further, do not forget to declare that ‘this isn’t spam’ and ‘none of your information will be used publicly’, ‘no products or services will be endorsed i.e. no trade’ etc (promotional mails have become synonymous to headache on the internet). You could even try adding incentives for signup.
3. Subscription of RSS via other ways: Don’t constrain your readers to just RSS. Users today love to be given more flexibility to services, so try out other options to subscribe to your feed like email, twitter etc. This can also be seen as a long term strategy as by doing so, you are providing more channels to promote your website and express yourself online. Techcrunch is one of the exemplary to this method; they have around 4 links to subscribe to their RSS feeds. Their twitter account, which they use for sending out updates on their website, has around 33K keen followers and IE and FF plug-in is another option of theirs that gave them a huge increase in the number of readers.
4. A simple ‘share this’ link: This is undoubtedly one of the most underrated of all the tactics. The logic is simple- if someone likes a page they would love it to share it with their friends, peers, colleagues etc. So, just facilitate them with a simple option!! Don’t suffice yourself with a ‘share this’ word widget, use an additional link in each page with a more convincing title like ‘tell a friend’, ‘let your friend love this page too’ etc. Say, 50K people visit your webpage and 2% of them share the link and it still accounts for 1000 more visits!
5. PPC link and brand recall: PPC is used widely for a variety of purposes in relation with SEO. One of them is brand recall i.e. the usage of PPC when your page is ranking in Google for a short-tail keyword rank. You just need to bid for the top sponsored listing for the high volume keywords you are leading in.
Read More..
1. Affiliation to good products/services : Affiliation to good products or services may not fetch you great returns on the SEO front but it is bound to give you lifelong income from the product or services, given in you crack up a fair deal with the company/website. All you need to do is to select a product or services related to your website and write an article on it. Yes, you are promoting it, and hence, do not bluff about a product/ service you have no idea about. Let authenticity prevail!
2. In-house email newsletter: Marketingsherpa surveys proclaim that house email gives more return-on-investment than SEO! Is anything left to say? But play the game smartly- Give a sign-up option on every webpage. Further, do not forget to declare that ‘this isn’t spam’ and ‘none of your information will be used publicly’, ‘no products or services will be endorsed i.e. no trade’ etc (promotional mails have become synonymous to headache on the internet). You could even try adding incentives for signup.
3. Subscription of RSS via other ways: Don’t constrain your readers to just RSS. Users today love to be given more flexibility to services, so try out other options to subscribe to your feed like email, twitter etc. This can also be seen as a long term strategy as by doing so, you are providing more channels to promote your website and express yourself online. Techcrunch is one of the exemplary to this method; they have around 4 links to subscribe to their RSS feeds. Their twitter account, which they use for sending out updates on their website, has around 33K keen followers and IE and FF plug-in is another option of theirs that gave them a huge increase in the number of readers.
4. A simple ‘share this’ link: This is undoubtedly one of the most underrated of all the tactics. The logic is simple- if someone likes a page they would love it to share it with their friends, peers, colleagues etc. So, just facilitate them with a simple option!! Don’t suffice yourself with a ‘share this’ word widget, use an additional link in each page with a more convincing title like ‘tell a friend’, ‘let your friend love this page too’ etc. Say, 50K people visit your webpage and 2% of them share the link and it still accounts for 1000 more visits!
5. PPC link and brand recall: PPC is used widely for a variety of purposes in relation with SEO. One of them is brand recall i.e. the usage of PPC when your page is ranking in Google for a short-tail keyword rank. You just need to bid for the top sponsored listing for the high volume keywords you are leading in.
Read More..
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
10 Reasons Why Your Website Looks Like Spam
1. You use the default WordPress theme.
It’s not illegal or anything, but using the default WordPress theme shows the sort of laziness generally displayed by MFA spammers with dirty, dirty splogs. Because they buy up hundreds of domains that do nothing but scrape content and slap on some AdWords, they don’t care what the pages actually look like. In fact, they want to be so unattractive that people want to click on ads just to get away from the ugliness. You’re not a dirty splogger? Congratulate yourself for not being sleazy! Then kick yourself for not taking more pride in your website, and take five minutes to find and install a free WordPress theme that doesn’t suck.
2. Too. Many. Ads.
Okay, I can’t fault you for wanting to monetize your website. My own sites are monetized. But seriously, when you have more ads than content, you put the MFA sites to shame. And people like me might be looking extra hard to make sure you have some sort of valuable content that separates you from the real spammers. It’s a fine line, so you have to be very careful you don’t cross it and actually become a spam site.
3. The spammiest-domain-in-the-world.com
You can have a beautiful website that is easy to navigate and is very user friendly, but people may not ever get there if they see you’ve got five keywords in your domain name separated by hyphens. Sure, hyphens are not inherently evil. But too many hyphens makes you look cheap and untrustworthy. And that’s before you even get off the SERP. Just don’t do it. If the good non-spammy keyword rich domain names are taken, then find a brandable domain name. (Think Zillow. Expedia.)
4. Link Pages
You may call it your “resource page.” How many of those are resources are affiliate links or reciprocal links you traded back in 2003? Link pages tend to be suspect even if you’re really just trying to give your visitors a list of resources for which you receive no form of compensation. It’s really looks better to make your links contextual, interwoven throughout your site content. If you absolutely must have a link page, you need to be absolutely sure it has real value for your users, relevant to your site content.
5. You don’t look “real.”
Do you have an About Us page? Contact page? Copyright notice? Privacy policy? If you sell stuff, do you have a shopping cart? Customer service information? Shipping info? If you don’t, you look suspiciously like a thin affiliate site.
6. Too many redirects.
It’s good to use a redirect when you shake up your site navigation, so that users following otherwise dead incoming links can be led to the new home of the proper landing page. But have you ever clicked on a link and seen more than three URLs switch out in the address bar before ending up on an actual page? If you’ve moved things around several times, you need to tidy up your redirects, or else people (your competitors, who are going to be trigger happy on the spam report button) might wonder what you were cloaking and hiding on those interim pages that never loaded.
7. You bought the .info
It’s unfair, but so many spammers have bought up the .info domains that it’s truly unusual to find a legitimate .info page. That’s all I have to say about that.
8. Your title tags look like
Your title tag should be readable. You can be descriptive without a comma separated list of your targeted keywords. The title tag is what people see on the SERP. Make it user friendly. A list of keywords is not user friendly. You look like you have nothing better to offer than a list of keywords, and that’s not good. Pick a keyword phrase or two and put it in sentence form.
9. Barely unique content
As the head of the WBP writing team, it makes me sad to see barely unique content out there. The less-evil cousin of the MFA site doesn’t scrape content from other sources. The articles you read there will pass Copyscape. Why? Because they paid someone (likely overseas) a dollar or two to re-write someone else’s content to become “unique,” even when the resulting rephrasing leads to some awkward reading. So okay, they may pass a cursory plagiarism test, but these sites have a “look,” very similar to the default WP theme sites.
10. RSS Feeds
If you have a web page essentially one big blog or news feed, you have the burden of proof that says your feed is valuable to users. If you have ads on that feed, you may not be able to avoid the spam label for scraping. Make sure you add value to the feed by adding some form of narrative or editorial. You need to provide some kind of unique content, or else you’re no better than the sploggers.
11. Sales letter sites
You’ve got this AMAZING product with PROVEN results and TRUSTED testimonials. See the pictures of these happy customers? You have a LIMITED TIME offer to get the SPECIAL price. You use lots of BOLD TEXT in PRETTY COLORS to drive the point home. Users have to scroll down the page for 45 seconds to find the obligatory lead generator contact form where they must provide their email address to LEARN MORE. Affiliate site? Legitimate offer? You be the judge, but it sure looks like spam to me.
Read More..
It’s not illegal or anything, but using the default WordPress theme shows the sort of laziness generally displayed by MFA spammers with dirty, dirty splogs. Because they buy up hundreds of domains that do nothing but scrape content and slap on some AdWords, they don’t care what the pages actually look like. In fact, they want to be so unattractive that people want to click on ads just to get away from the ugliness. You’re not a dirty splogger? Congratulate yourself for not being sleazy! Then kick yourself for not taking more pride in your website, and take five minutes to find and install a free WordPress theme that doesn’t suck.
2. Too. Many. Ads.
Okay, I can’t fault you for wanting to monetize your website. My own sites are monetized. But seriously, when you have more ads than content, you put the MFA sites to shame. And people like me might be looking extra hard to make sure you have some sort of valuable content that separates you from the real spammers. It’s a fine line, so you have to be very careful you don’t cross it and actually become a spam site.
3. The spammiest-domain-in-the-world.com
You can have a beautiful website that is easy to navigate and is very user friendly, but people may not ever get there if they see you’ve got five keywords in your domain name separated by hyphens. Sure, hyphens are not inherently evil. But too many hyphens makes you look cheap and untrustworthy. And that’s before you even get off the SERP. Just don’t do it. If the good non-spammy keyword rich domain names are taken, then find a brandable domain name. (Think Zillow. Expedia.)
4. Link Pages
You may call it your “resource page.” How many of those are resources are affiliate links or reciprocal links you traded back in 2003? Link pages tend to be suspect even if you’re really just trying to give your visitors a list of resources for which you receive no form of compensation. It’s really looks better to make your links contextual, interwoven throughout your site content. If you absolutely must have a link page, you need to be absolutely sure it has real value for your users, relevant to your site content.
5. You don’t look “real.”
Do you have an About Us page? Contact page? Copyright notice? Privacy policy? If you sell stuff, do you have a shopping cart? Customer service information? Shipping info? If you don’t, you look suspiciously like a thin affiliate site.
6. Too many redirects.
It’s good to use a redirect when you shake up your site navigation, so that users following otherwise dead incoming links can be led to the new home of the proper landing page. But have you ever clicked on a link and seen more than three URLs switch out in the address bar before ending up on an actual page? If you’ve moved things around several times, you need to tidy up your redirects, or else people (your competitors, who are going to be trigger happy on the spam report button) might wonder what you were cloaking and hiding on those interim pages that never loaded.
7. You bought the .info
It’s unfair, but so many spammers have bought up the .info domains that it’s truly unusual to find a legitimate .info page. That’s all I have to say about that.
8. Your title tags look like
Your title tag should be readable. You can be descriptive without a comma separated list of your targeted keywords. The title tag is what people see on the SERP. Make it user friendly. A list of keywords is not user friendly. You look like you have nothing better to offer than a list of keywords, and that’s not good. Pick a keyword phrase or two and put it in sentence form.
9. Barely unique content
As the head of the WBP writing team, it makes me sad to see barely unique content out there. The less-evil cousin of the MFA site doesn’t scrape content from other sources. The articles you read there will pass Copyscape. Why? Because they paid someone (likely overseas) a dollar or two to re-write someone else’s content to become “unique,” even when the resulting rephrasing leads to some awkward reading. So okay, they may pass a cursory plagiarism test, but these sites have a “look,” very similar to the default WP theme sites.
10. RSS Feeds
If you have a web page essentially one big blog or news feed, you have the burden of proof that says your feed is valuable to users. If you have ads on that feed, you may not be able to avoid the spam label for scraping. Make sure you add value to the feed by adding some form of narrative or editorial. You need to provide some kind of unique content, or else you’re no better than the sploggers.
11. Sales letter sites
You’ve got this AMAZING product with PROVEN results and TRUSTED testimonials. See the pictures of these happy customers? You have a LIMITED TIME offer to get the SPECIAL price. You use lots of BOLD TEXT in PRETTY COLORS to drive the point home. Users have to scroll down the page for 45 seconds to find the obligatory lead generator contact form where they must provide their email address to LEARN MORE. Affiliate site? Legitimate offer? You be the judge, but it sure looks like spam to me.
Read More..
Worst SEO Mistakes
Worst SEO Mistakes
In this article we cover some of the worst SEO mistakes. Some of these will cause the search engines to ignore you; others will cause potential visitors to ignore you; still others may make your site disappear from the search engine results pages entirely. We'll go over each practice and explain why you shouldn't do it. We'll even tell you what you should be doing.
Flash
If you're making a new website and thinking of using Flash - stop. Though Adobe made Flash crawlable and shared technology with Google and Yahoo (leaving out Microsoft), Flash is still a bad choice.
If you don't show much content to the search engines, you will have to invest more in links. Not only does a Flash site cost more to make, but you'll need more money to optimize it. If there is no real reason to use Flash, don't. If you want cool movies and features, consider embedding Flash videos and using cool CSS styles.
No Use of Title Tags
"The most powerful HTML tag you have at your disposal" - Ross Jones, Search Engine Ranking Factors. Put keywords you target the page for into the tag. This is the part that shows up in search results as a big blue link, so make it count.
Another mistake webmasters make is to put something like "Welcome To...." in the title tag. Aaron Wall calls this "Welcome to low rankings."
Title Tag Duplication
Many designers create a site design without much regard for SEO, using one title tag for an entire website. Make sure to vary the title tags on your pages.
Messed up Robots.txt
It's a good idea to have a file to keep your error log clean of robot.txt requests, but if you can mess up a lot if you use it incorrectly. Here's how it looks, assuming you don't want to block ANY pages:
Read More...
In this article we cover some of the worst SEO mistakes. Some of these will cause the search engines to ignore you; others will cause potential visitors to ignore you; still others may make your site disappear from the search engine results pages entirely. We'll go over each practice and explain why you shouldn't do it. We'll even tell you what you should be doing.
Flash
If you're making a new website and thinking of using Flash - stop. Though Adobe made Flash crawlable and shared technology with Google and Yahoo (leaving out Microsoft), Flash is still a bad choice.
If you don't show much content to the search engines, you will have to invest more in links. Not only does a Flash site cost more to make, but you'll need more money to optimize it. If there is no real reason to use Flash, don't. If you want cool movies and features, consider embedding Flash videos and using cool CSS styles.
No Use of Title Tags
"The most powerful HTML tag you have at your disposal" - Ross Jones, Search Engine Ranking Factors. Put keywords you target the page for into the tag. This is the part that shows up in search results as a big blue link, so make it count.
Another mistake webmasters make is to put something like "Welcome To...." in the title tag. Aaron Wall calls this "Welcome to low rankings."
Title Tag Duplication
Many designers create a site design without much regard for SEO, using one title tag for an entire website. Make sure to vary the title tags on your pages.
Messed up Robots.txt
It's a good idea to have a file to keep your error log clean of robot.txt requests, but if you can mess up a lot if you use it incorrectly. Here's how it looks, assuming you don't want to block ANY pages:
Read More...
Search Trends To Watch In 2009
Between the economy affecting stock prices and the potential mergers and acquisitions discussed among several of the major search engines, there is a lot of uncertainty as we head into 2009. Yet we can anticipate several shifts in search based on what we've seen over the past decade and other signs in the media ecosystem. Here are some major changes to anticipate:
Holistic -- In Every Sense
The word "holistic" should play out in a number of ways:
First, any significant media campaign or offline event drives search volume, so marketers must capture that demand by integrating search with other media planning.
Next, paid search and SEO should be planned in tandem for the best results. Several studies show that by integrating search engine marketing with search engine optimization, results are greater than the sum of its parts.
Lastly, expect the major search engines and others to push forward with new ways to infuse paid search listings with display and video media. This will make search also about engagement and not just clicks and conversions. To some degree, these new search engine offerings will be motivated by more concentrated efforts to attract large brand marketers . Additionally, given how effective search engine marketing is, the engines and portals will want to have a steady stream of upsell options. In the coming year, consumers may experience the most dramatic shift in the format of search engine results pages since the basic template was established roughly a decade ago.
Search Fragmentation
While the search engine landscape continues to be dominated by one player, new complexities keep emerging as search migrates far beyond the traditional engines.
This fall, comScore and Ad Age reported that YouTube surpassed Yahoo as the second-largest search engine; within days, YouTube announced its new search advertising platform. What's more, MySpace (563 million U.S. queries in October 2008, according to comScore) is a bigger search engine than both AOL (424 million) and Ask.com (362 million). Queries on eBay, Craigslist, and Amazon combined (980 million) nearly rival MSN.com (1.04 billion).
What does all of this mean for marketers?
It's true that not all queries are created equally. A searcher on a social network or video sharing site often wants something different than what they’re looking for on a standard search engine. But given the volume of consumer search activity (among other interactions) on these nontraditional search sources, it's important for marketers to be positioned the best way possible where those searches are happening.
New Models for SEO
These other search sources don't just operate in a vacuum; they impact the major search engines, too. Search engine optimization is shifting, from a focus of entirely maximizing a site's rank in the engines, to maximizing a site's reach across all the top-ranked listings on a search engine's results page. While many consumers go directly to a marketers' site, which should be positioned as prominently as possible in search engine results pages, many more consumers reach marketers through intermediary properties. These include blogs, social networks, photo sharing sites, Twitter, Wikipedia, and countless other social sites that tend to rank increasingly well in search engines. That means marketers have to shift their mindset from optimizing their Web site to optimizing their Web presence.
Your Car Engine's Your Search Engine
The biggest change in 2009 and beyond is that the device consumers search from will start to matter even more than which engine they use.
The most obvious manifestation of this is mobile consumption. New mobile devices and platforms such as the iPhone and Google Android are focused on improving the search and Web experience. This will fuel searches from mobile devices; iPhone users enter a disproportionate number of mobile search queries, though other devices are catching up.
Marketers need to adapt their strategies to reach their target audiences on these devices, such as by optimizing messaging and landing pages, and providing more consumer value by leveraging the unique features of these devices. For instance, mobile devices support integration with SMS (text messaging), click-to-call, mobile couponing, and location-based services, all of which take advantage of the mobile platform in ways that aren't as natural for PC-based Web advertising.
Read More..
Holistic -- In Every Sense
The word "holistic" should play out in a number of ways:
First, any significant media campaign or offline event drives search volume, so marketers must capture that demand by integrating search with other media planning.
Next, paid search and SEO should be planned in tandem for the best results. Several studies show that by integrating search engine marketing with search engine optimization, results are greater than the sum of its parts.
Lastly, expect the major search engines and others to push forward with new ways to infuse paid search listings with display and video media. This will make search also about engagement and not just clicks and conversions. To some degree, these new search engine offerings will be motivated by more concentrated efforts to attract large brand marketers . Additionally, given how effective search engine marketing is, the engines and portals will want to have a steady stream of upsell options. In the coming year, consumers may experience the most dramatic shift in the format of search engine results pages since the basic template was established roughly a decade ago.
Search Fragmentation
While the search engine landscape continues to be dominated by one player, new complexities keep emerging as search migrates far beyond the traditional engines.
This fall, comScore and Ad Age reported that YouTube surpassed Yahoo as the second-largest search engine; within days, YouTube announced its new search advertising platform. What's more, MySpace (563 million U.S. queries in October 2008, according to comScore) is a bigger search engine than both AOL (424 million) and Ask.com (362 million). Queries on eBay, Craigslist, and Amazon combined (980 million) nearly rival MSN.com (1.04 billion).
What does all of this mean for marketers?
It's true that not all queries are created equally. A searcher on a social network or video sharing site often wants something different than what they’re looking for on a standard search engine. But given the volume of consumer search activity (among other interactions) on these nontraditional search sources, it's important for marketers to be positioned the best way possible where those searches are happening.
New Models for SEO
These other search sources don't just operate in a vacuum; they impact the major search engines, too. Search engine optimization is shifting, from a focus of entirely maximizing a site's rank in the engines, to maximizing a site's reach across all the top-ranked listings on a search engine's results page. While many consumers go directly to a marketers' site, which should be positioned as prominently as possible in search engine results pages, many more consumers reach marketers through intermediary properties. These include blogs, social networks, photo sharing sites, Twitter, Wikipedia, and countless other social sites that tend to rank increasingly well in search engines. That means marketers have to shift their mindset from optimizing their Web site to optimizing their Web presence.
Your Car Engine's Your Search Engine
The biggest change in 2009 and beyond is that the device consumers search from will start to matter even more than which engine they use.
The most obvious manifestation of this is mobile consumption. New mobile devices and platforms such as the iPhone and Google Android are focused on improving the search and Web experience. This will fuel searches from mobile devices; iPhone users enter a disproportionate number of mobile search queries, though other devices are catching up.
Marketers need to adapt their strategies to reach their target audiences on these devices, such as by optimizing messaging and landing pages, and providing more consumer value by leveraging the unique features of these devices. For instance, mobile devices support integration with SMS (text messaging), click-to-call, mobile couponing, and location-based services, all of which take advantage of the mobile platform in ways that aren't as natural for PC-based Web advertising.
Read More..
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Tips for SEO on Your Blog
Blogs Get Scraped
You may have noticed that on each blog entry I do, I have a signature at the bottom that includes links to my website and details about me. I do this for a reason. There are robots out there in the world that will take and "scrape" your blog for articles relevant to what the site is that they are searching for content for. They will then (without permission) post your blog on their site so as to drive traffic to their site.
Google Alerts
Now, I have a Google Alerts that keeps track of when my name, my company name, or the name of my book comes up on the web. So when I get scraped (and it happens often), I can find out where it went. And, if they didn't maintain my links intact, then I can comment on the post and ask that they reinstate the links.
Let Them Have the Post
Notice I DIDN'T say that I could ask them to remove the posting. Because I don't want them to. Sure, they stole my content. But they could have had it for the asking if they kept the links in place. I am perfectly happy to have my stuff show up everywhere - with my links in place. Why? Two reasons.
Driving Traffic Directly From Scraping Site
Perhaps someone will find my site as a result of reading the article on their site. After all, they're scraping all sorts of relevant content - they should reach some of my target market too.
Driving Up Your SEO
And, more importantly, each incoming link to my site increases my SEO. A link about real estate training to my real estate training web page. A link about real estate products to my real estate product page. A link for real estate coaching to my real estate coaching page. A link about internet training, to my Web 2.0 Training for Realtors (sign up before the end of December and save $100.) web page. How great is that? (And did you notice the little trick I just did with putting all of those links in? Now when this post gets scraped, my SEO will go up even more.)
While We're On The Subject
Don't forget to put a copyright notice in the footer of your pages to protect you. And, if you have one already, remember that you need to change it to 2009 in a few days. We want to be accurate.
Conversion Tools
Remember also that your blog is advertising. Use it to convert lurkers into leads. Add a conversion tool like the one I have below. It references a free training program I have available online. All you have to do is tell me who you are and give me a valid email address. If you have a white paper or recorded class you can trade to buyers or sellers in exchange for their email address, then you're styling too.
Include a Share, Digg, or Delicious Button
You want people to be able to tell others about the cool things they read on your blog. Make it easy for them to do so using a simple button. Getting your posts included in these directories also does wonders for your SEO.
Read More..
You may have noticed that on each blog entry I do, I have a signature at the bottom that includes links to my website and details about me. I do this for a reason. There are robots out there in the world that will take and "scrape" your blog for articles relevant to what the site is that they are searching for content for. They will then (without permission) post your blog on their site so as to drive traffic to their site.
Google Alerts
Now, I have a Google Alerts that keeps track of when my name, my company name, or the name of my book comes up on the web. So when I get scraped (and it happens often), I can find out where it went. And, if they didn't maintain my links intact, then I can comment on the post and ask that they reinstate the links.
Let Them Have the Post
Notice I DIDN'T say that I could ask them to remove the posting. Because I don't want them to. Sure, they stole my content. But they could have had it for the asking if they kept the links in place. I am perfectly happy to have my stuff show up everywhere - with my links in place. Why? Two reasons.
Driving Traffic Directly From Scraping Site
Perhaps someone will find my site as a result of reading the article on their site. After all, they're scraping all sorts of relevant content - they should reach some of my target market too.
Driving Up Your SEO
And, more importantly, each incoming link to my site increases my SEO. A link about real estate training to my real estate training web page. A link about real estate products to my real estate product page. A link for real estate coaching to my real estate coaching page. A link about internet training, to my Web 2.0 Training for Realtors (sign up before the end of December and save $100.) web page. How great is that? (And did you notice the little trick I just did with putting all of those links in? Now when this post gets scraped, my SEO will go up even more.)
While We're On The Subject
Don't forget to put a copyright notice in the footer of your pages to protect you. And, if you have one already, remember that you need to change it to 2009 in a few days. We want to be accurate.
Conversion Tools
Remember also that your blog is advertising. Use it to convert lurkers into leads. Add a conversion tool like the one I have below. It references a free training program I have available online. All you have to do is tell me who you are and give me a valid email address. If you have a white paper or recorded class you can trade to buyers or sellers in exchange for their email address, then you're styling too.
Include a Share, Digg, or Delicious Button
You want people to be able to tell others about the cool things they read on your blog. Make it easy for them to do so using a simple button. Getting your posts included in these directories also does wonders for your SEO.
Read More..
Why Use BlackHat SEO Techniques?
Disclaimer* These are my personal views on Blackhat Search Engine Optimization Techniques. If you disagree please feel free to express yourself in the comment section bellow.
Blackhat SEO exploits weaknesses in the search engine algorithm by breaking rules and manipulating search results. Blackhat SEO is also about misrepresenting content to search engines through cloaking and other dirty techniques.
Blackhat SEO is mainly focused on fully automatic processes like comment spamming and they also take advantage of automatic directory submitters or they will slightly change/steal peoples content to submit to article directories with links to their own pages.
Blackhat SEO focuses on earning money without even trying to provide any value to the visitors! Often times you will see websites that are covered with affiliate advertisements and/or Adsence ads that will be listed high in the SERPs “Search Engine Results Pages” for keywords they are not related to in anyway.
Blackhat = Fast but short lived search engine love and Whitehat or Greyhat= A long-term process that will have great benefits over a longer stretch of time and the benefits will normally last for years as long as you never stop creating content, building links, and offering your visitors something to remember!
But not everything that Google says should be considered the law! There is a difference between flat out Blackhat manipulations and Greyhat SEO.
Read More...
Blackhat SEO exploits weaknesses in the search engine algorithm by breaking rules and manipulating search results. Blackhat SEO is also about misrepresenting content to search engines through cloaking and other dirty techniques.
Blackhat SEO is mainly focused on fully automatic processes like comment spamming and they also take advantage of automatic directory submitters or they will slightly change/steal peoples content to submit to article directories with links to their own pages.
Blackhat SEO focuses on earning money without even trying to provide any value to the visitors! Often times you will see websites that are covered with affiliate advertisements and/or Adsence ads that will be listed high in the SERPs “Search Engine Results Pages” for keywords they are not related to in anyway.
Blackhat = Fast but short lived search engine love and Whitehat or Greyhat= A long-term process that will have great benefits over a longer stretch of time and the benefits will normally last for years as long as you never stop creating content, building links, and offering your visitors something to remember!
But not everything that Google says should be considered the law! There is a difference between flat out Blackhat manipulations and Greyhat SEO.
Read More...
Monday, December 22, 2008
Organic Search Vs Pay Per Click (ppc)
One of the age old SEO questions that is frequently asked is, "Should I spend the time and money to improve my organic search ranking or foot the bill for an extensive PPC campaign?" In this article I will explore both of these options and discover which one seems to be a more viable option for most webmasters.
Organic Optimization -
One major advantage to organic search is that it could cost absolutely nothing. I was always told "There is no such thing as a free lunch." Well, that may be so but as long as webmasters are willing to put in the time and effort to build a best online courses Organic search campaign, then there is such thing as free SEO. With organic optimization, you can develop a longer term marketing strategy. Organic search has results that last for years as opposed to PPC that lasts only as long as your bank account does. Organic optimization has been around about as long as the web itself. Like the web, organic search has evolved with the times. However, the constant evolution can make Organic optimization difficult and confusing.
Pay Per Click (PPC) -
Pay Per Click is the search engine's bread and butter. If we were to break down the earnings of all the major search engines best online courses top of the list of revenue drivers you almost always see PPC. The numbers speak for themselves; people would not continue to purchase PPC ads if they didn't convert into sales.
If you are a new business to the web and would like to see immediate results, PPC is the only way to go. PPC is the only search engine optimization strategy that can yield immediate first-page placement. Another benefit to using the PPC campaign is that you can set you own fixed budget. If you want to only spend $100 dollars a month, no problem, $10,000, go for it. Another advantage to PPC online history courses you can instantly track your conversion, and success rates through Google Analytics and other PPC management soft wares. Another advantage to PPC is that if you find a particular keyword or phrase is not working, all you need to do is make a few minor tweaks and your new target phrase has changed. In Organic search, changes could take months to take effect.
Read More...
Organic Optimization -
One major advantage to organic search is that it could cost absolutely nothing. I was always told "There is no such thing as a free lunch." Well, that may be so but as long as webmasters are willing to put in the time and effort to build a best online courses Organic search campaign, then there is such thing as free SEO. With organic optimization, you can develop a longer term marketing strategy. Organic search has results that last for years as opposed to PPC that lasts only as long as your bank account does. Organic optimization has been around about as long as the web itself. Like the web, organic search has evolved with the times. However, the constant evolution can make Organic optimization difficult and confusing.
Pay Per Click (PPC) -
Pay Per Click is the search engine's bread and butter. If we were to break down the earnings of all the major search engines best online courses top of the list of revenue drivers you almost always see PPC. The numbers speak for themselves; people would not continue to purchase PPC ads if they didn't convert into sales.
If you are a new business to the web and would like to see immediate results, PPC is the only way to go. PPC is the only search engine optimization strategy that can yield immediate first-page placement. Another benefit to using the PPC campaign is that you can set you own fixed budget. If you want to only spend $100 dollars a month, no problem, $10,000, go for it. Another advantage to PPC online history courses you can instantly track your conversion, and success rates through Google Analytics and other PPC management soft wares. Another advantage to PPC is that if you find a particular keyword or phrase is not working, all you need to do is make a few minor tweaks and your new target phrase has changed. In Organic search, changes could take months to take effect.
Read More...
How to Increase Your Search Efficiency
Everyone feels the need to stretch every extra penny in these tough economic times. Even the most profitable company isn't immune to cutbacks and budget tightening.
Search marketing tends to be very cost effective, and can exhibit high ROI (define) as it is, but you still can't rest on your laurels. With less budget for traditional media and more going into online media, marketers are realizing that even though online is the "measurable" and "cheap" sister, it must be optimized to maximize results.
That means revisiting your search strategies to make sure you're fully exploiting every dollar you invest.
Let's review some quick tips for optimizing your search efforts (both paid and organic) to stretch your dollar further:
Measure Twice, Cut Once
Ensure you have an appropriate measurement and reporting framework in place so you can clearly see what is and isn't working. Your Web site analytics should show you which search engines are driving traffic, leads, sales, etc., and exactly which ads and keywords are performing.
Schedule regular internal analytics reviews or request reports from your search vendor so you can isolate areas of opportunity and items that aren't performing. Reallocate your dollars where the investment is paying off, but base your decisions on accurate, factual data.
Check Your List, and Check It Twice
Consider revisiting your keyword list to determine "must haves" and what keywords are unrealistic to keep. While a term like "online gaming" may be relevant to your business, it will cost you a lot of time and effort to get a top ranking.
With paid search, you'll pay an astronomical amount per click. If you're doing SEO (define), the odds of your business rising to the top of the rankings are slim, if not impossible. Seek out niche, long-tail (define) terms (three or more words) that have a higher probability of getting your business to appear higher in the results.
Go Free or Go Home
Don't buy directory listings or links on third-party sites. Instead, develop interesting content or tools to offer on your site that people will want to link to naturally.
Also, consider distributing limited content on a third-party Web site to procure a multitude of inbound links. Try building links the old-fashioned way -- prowl the Internet for potential partners, provide a strong rationale, and ask very nicely if they'll link to you.
Relevance is Bliss
In paid search, most search engines don't just base your position (or ranking) on your maximum bid -- they also take your quality score into account. Your quality score gets assigned to you at a keyword level and is based on how relevant a user experience you create (how well your ad copy matches the query, whether the landing page reflects the query, etc.). The more relevant the experience, the less you pay for a click.
You might want to revisit your paid search strategy to ensure your quality scores are top notch and you're paying the minimum possible for each keyword.
Stop The Love Affair With Google
While Google has the highest market share, it also likely has the most advertisers vying for high placement. More competition usually means higher cost.
While you might still want to have some presence on Google, test out other engines to see if you can extract improved efficiencies. Consider looking into smaller or niche engines -- and I'm not just talking Yahoo or MSN.
Does your industry have specialty engines that your audience might use? For example, in the healthcare industry, healthline.com is a health information engine.
Do you offer audio or video content on your site? You might try BlinkX, a TV search engine.
Do you have a corporate blog? How does your site fair in Technorati?
You get the picture.
First-Timers, Just Say No to DIY
You've seen those TV shows on home renovation disasters, right? That's exactly why you should call a professional to do a job that isn't your area of expertise. You'll only end up paying more to correct your mistakes.
Consider enlisting a search marketing expert. Even though a search professional will cost you more upfront, the long-term reward will actually more than likely save you money, reaping a higher ROI than trying to do it in-house.
Read More..
Search marketing tends to be very cost effective, and can exhibit high ROI (define) as it is, but you still can't rest on your laurels. With less budget for traditional media and more going into online media, marketers are realizing that even though online is the "measurable" and "cheap" sister, it must be optimized to maximize results.
That means revisiting your search strategies to make sure you're fully exploiting every dollar you invest.
Let's review some quick tips for optimizing your search efforts (both paid and organic) to stretch your dollar further:
Measure Twice, Cut Once
Ensure you have an appropriate measurement and reporting framework in place so you can clearly see what is and isn't working. Your Web site analytics should show you which search engines are driving traffic, leads, sales, etc., and exactly which ads and keywords are performing.
Schedule regular internal analytics reviews or request reports from your search vendor so you can isolate areas of opportunity and items that aren't performing. Reallocate your dollars where the investment is paying off, but base your decisions on accurate, factual data.
Check Your List, and Check It Twice
Consider revisiting your keyword list to determine "must haves" and what keywords are unrealistic to keep. While a term like "online gaming" may be relevant to your business, it will cost you a lot of time and effort to get a top ranking.
With paid search, you'll pay an astronomical amount per click. If you're doing SEO (define), the odds of your business rising to the top of the rankings are slim, if not impossible. Seek out niche, long-tail (define) terms (three or more words) that have a higher probability of getting your business to appear higher in the results.
Go Free or Go Home
Don't buy directory listings or links on third-party sites. Instead, develop interesting content or tools to offer on your site that people will want to link to naturally.
Also, consider distributing limited content on a third-party Web site to procure a multitude of inbound links. Try building links the old-fashioned way -- prowl the Internet for potential partners, provide a strong rationale, and ask very nicely if they'll link to you.
Relevance is Bliss
In paid search, most search engines don't just base your position (or ranking) on your maximum bid -- they also take your quality score into account. Your quality score gets assigned to you at a keyword level and is based on how relevant a user experience you create (how well your ad copy matches the query, whether the landing page reflects the query, etc.). The more relevant the experience, the less you pay for a click.
You might want to revisit your paid search strategy to ensure your quality scores are top notch and you're paying the minimum possible for each keyword.
Stop The Love Affair With Google
While Google has the highest market share, it also likely has the most advertisers vying for high placement. More competition usually means higher cost.
While you might still want to have some presence on Google, test out other engines to see if you can extract improved efficiencies. Consider looking into smaller or niche engines -- and I'm not just talking Yahoo or MSN.
Does your industry have specialty engines that your audience might use? For example, in the healthcare industry, healthline.com is a health information engine.
Do you offer audio or video content on your site? You might try BlinkX, a TV search engine.
Do you have a corporate blog? How does your site fair in Technorati?
You get the picture.
First-Timers, Just Say No to DIY
You've seen those TV shows on home renovation disasters, right? That's exactly why you should call a professional to do a job that isn't your area of expertise. You'll only end up paying more to correct your mistakes.
Consider enlisting a search marketing expert. Even though a search professional will cost you more upfront, the long-term reward will actually more than likely save you money, reaping a higher ROI than trying to do it in-house.
Read More..
Google increases US search engine market share
Google's share of the US search market rose by 0.4 per cent in November compared with the previous month, new figures have shown.
According to comScore, Google accounted for 63.5 per cent of all search queries made last month, with AOL being the only other search engine in the top five to also increase its market share.
Yahoo!, Microsoft and Ask.com, which were in second, third and fourth place respectively, each saw their share of the 12.3 billion core searches made by US web users fall by either 0.1 or 0.2 per cent in November.
Overall, 7.78 billion searches were made on Google, compared with 2.5 billion on Yahoo! sites and 1.01 billion on Microsoft sites, search engine marketing executives may be interested to read.
Meanwhile, recent figures from Attributor showed that Google's DoubleClick and AdSense programs accounted for the bulk of the ad server market in October, followed by Yahoo! and Revenue Science.
Read More...
According to comScore, Google accounted for 63.5 per cent of all search queries made last month, with AOL being the only other search engine in the top five to also increase its market share.
Yahoo!, Microsoft and Ask.com, which were in second, third and fourth place respectively, each saw their share of the 12.3 billion core searches made by US web users fall by either 0.1 or 0.2 per cent in November.
Overall, 7.78 billion searches were made on Google, compared with 2.5 billion on Yahoo! sites and 1.01 billion on Microsoft sites, search engine marketing executives may be interested to read.
Meanwhile, recent figures from Attributor showed that Google's DoubleClick and AdSense programs accounted for the bulk of the ad server market in October, followed by Yahoo! and Revenue Science.
Read More...
Tips for Search Engine Optimization For Websites
Below are the basic Tags and points to be considered for Search Engine Optimization so to get website listed in major search engines. It is necessary to follow under mentioned steps for search engine optimization, as to catch the eyes of the “ROBOT” of search engines
Firstly, two or three main keywords are to be decided for each page (the words that users will most commonly users type to find the page or the product). These words are to be used in the Page Title, Description Meta tag, Links and Page Body
Page Title -
The title of the page is one of the most important elements for site optimization. The tag must contain keyword rich phrases, place name and company name respectively. It should be unique for individual pages and limited to 62-64 characters.
Meta Description-
The Meta description tag consists of 160 to 180 characters including spaces. It should describe what the page is about in descriptive manner with the main key phrases in it. It has to be written in an appealing manner, as this will appear as a description in the listing.
Meta Keywords-
The tag includes the keywords and key phrases from title, description and some other phrases (believed to be typed by search engine users in order to track the page) but to 1000 characters. It must contain company and place name. The phrase must not be repeated thrice. The keywords can be modified in different phrases and placed in the tag.
Heading-
Each page should have at least one heading tag at the top of the page with primary keywords/key phrases and subsections of the page with h2 tags, and so forth. all the heading tags have to be relevant to the title and content of the page. The tag should be short and descriptive.
Alt-
The tag is used for images along with img src tag. When the cursor is placed over an image a text called as alt text is highlighted. The text has be corresponding to the image and must contain key phrases. The tag should limit to 70 characters.
Content-
The main keyword should be placed in the first 25 words of the visible content as they're given more importance than other areas in a balanced ratio (keywords: Total text). Density for keywords should lay under 3% to 5% to the text of the page, excluding stop words (words which search engine automatically ignores). The last few lines also hold considerable weight, though it's less than the former.
Navigation-
The navigation tab must contain Keyword rich anchor text on the top of the page. It should have title tag indicating summary of the page. HTML hyperlinks that lead to major pages inside the website are to be added to the home page. It should include a sitemap on the home page, so Search engines can crawl all the links.
Domain Name-
Short Domain name having keywords and phrases of the website separated with hyphens along with the company name should be chosen. As, search engines do give importance to key word rich domain names. Though it can go to 67 characters max. Choose domains starting with A, B or C as some directories do alphabetical placement. Avoid "1" or 1st, since the Open Directory considers only the meaningful part of a domain.
Directories & Search Engines-
The next step is to submit website to directories. Directories powered by human beings, it compile the list of website in respective categories. Select the required category for the website and submit it to "add site" page with the required data information.
Getting listed with the important directories is very important, as crawler based search engines are more likely to find your site and add it to their listings for free.
Similar to directories search engine are also collection of website, but they are
powered by ROBOTS. These Robots crawl automatically web pages to compile their listings.
Submit only home page, as search engine will follow the links from the index page. Submit website to major search engine manually, don't rely on software; it may result in over submission. There are many affiliated search engines. Thus, before submitting you should be aware of which search engine is powered by whom.
Read More..
Firstly, two or three main keywords are to be decided for each page (the words that users will most commonly users type to find the page or the product). These words are to be used in the Page Title, Description Meta tag, Links and Page Body
Page Title -
The title of the page is one of the most important elements for site optimization. The tag must contain keyword rich phrases, place name and company name respectively. It should be unique for individual pages and limited to 62-64 characters.
Meta Description-
The Meta description tag consists of 160 to 180 characters including spaces. It should describe what the page is about in descriptive manner with the main key phrases in it. It has to be written in an appealing manner, as this will appear as a description in the listing.
Meta Keywords-
The tag includes the keywords and key phrases from title, description and some other phrases (believed to be typed by search engine users in order to track the page) but to 1000 characters. It must contain company and place name. The phrase must not be repeated thrice. The keywords can be modified in different phrases and placed in the tag.
Heading-
Each page should have at least one heading tag at the top of the page with primary keywords/key phrases and subsections of the page with h2 tags, and so forth. all the heading tags have to be relevant to the title and content of the page. The tag should be short and descriptive.
Alt-
The tag is used for images along with img src tag. When the cursor is placed over an image a text called as alt text is highlighted. The text has be corresponding to the image and must contain key phrases. The tag should limit to 70 characters.
Content-
The main keyword should be placed in the first 25 words of the visible content as they're given more importance than other areas in a balanced ratio (keywords: Total text). Density for keywords should lay under 3% to 5% to the text of the page, excluding stop words (words which search engine automatically ignores). The last few lines also hold considerable weight, though it's less than the former.
Navigation-
The navigation tab must contain Keyword rich anchor text on the top of the page. It should have title tag indicating summary of the page. HTML hyperlinks that lead to major pages inside the website are to be added to the home page. It should include a sitemap on the home page, so Search engines can crawl all the links.
Domain Name-
Short Domain name having keywords and phrases of the website separated with hyphens along with the company name should be chosen. As, search engines do give importance to key word rich domain names. Though it can go to 67 characters max. Choose domains starting with A, B or C as some directories do alphabetical placement. Avoid "1" or 1st, since the Open Directory considers only the meaningful part of a domain.
Directories & Search Engines-
The next step is to submit website to directories. Directories powered by human beings, it compile the list of website in respective categories. Select the required category for the website and submit it to "add site" page with the required data information.
Getting listed with the important directories is very important, as crawler based search engines are more likely to find your site and add it to their listings for free.
Similar to directories search engine are also collection of website, but they are
powered by ROBOTS. These Robots crawl automatically web pages to compile their listings.
Submit only home page, as search engine will follow the links from the index page. Submit website to major search engine manually, don't rely on software; it may result in over submission. There are many affiliated search engines. Thus, before submitting you should be aware of which search engine is powered by whom.
Read More..
Email marketing 'should be integrated with other channels'
One of the biggest mistakes a company can make in terms of promotional strategy is to limit itself to just using email marketing to reach customers.
This is according to Larry Golden, one of the chief executives of RSVP Publications, who explained that it is important to integrate email campaigns with other marketing platforms to maximise success.
"To increase the response rate, research a targeted audience to find an exact fit for the particular message and consider combining email marketing with other web-based marketing as well as direct mail," he advised.
Mr Golden went on to cite a study by International Communication Research showing that almost three-quarters of respondents preferred to receive announcements of new products by direct mail.
The advice could also be extended to other forms of online advertising. Almost half of marketers do not integrate their search marketing campaigns with offline channels, according to a report published by iProspect earlier this year.
Read MOre..
This is according to Larry Golden, one of the chief executives of RSVP Publications, who explained that it is important to integrate email campaigns with other marketing platforms to maximise success.
"To increase the response rate, research a targeted audience to find an exact fit for the particular message and consider combining email marketing with other web-based marketing as well as direct mail," he advised.
Mr Golden went on to cite a study by International Communication Research showing that almost three-quarters of respondents preferred to receive announcements of new products by direct mail.
The advice could also be extended to other forms of online advertising. Almost half of marketers do not integrate their search marketing campaigns with offline channels, according to a report published by iProspect earlier this year.
Read MOre..
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Pay Per Click Optimization VS. Search Engine Optimization
A little over a decade ago Search Engine Optimization was still in the embryo stage, it did not even have a name yet. Some people happily wandered around the Internet and are excited at the interesting things they could find, while others became increasingly frustrated at wasting time in trying to find what they were looking for.
Now SEO is ‘the’ buzzword on everyone’s lips and over time Pay per click Optimization came along to fight for a piece of this lucrative business that has turned into a multi-billion dollar industry. For the man on the street it can be bewildering when you want to promote your own website as you can easily be drowned under the mountain of conflicting advice thrown to you constantly.
Pay per Click is fast and hot
To understand why PPC and SEO both work, you must understand how they work. Basically you sign up for the service and you pay x-amount every time someone clicks on your site. This is the ‘push’ method; your site is pushed to the top of the search listings, so people see it straight away. This is the ideal way to go if you want to promote your website very fast for a limited time period for you will burn money fast.
The trick is to convert those website hits into paying customers that in turn generate income for you, otherwise you will be paying for thousands of clicks that bring in no money. PPC is excellent if you need to promote a campaign fast, have a promotion that is going to last only for a limited period of time or for those businesses that are seasonal, so they have to get the word out fast, get their customers interested in the minimum of time, thereby generate their own income before the season is over.
Search Engine Optimization the steadily growing tree
Natural Search Engine Optimization is most definitely alive and growing. Going with this means that your ranking depends on the pulling together of certain criteria, the type of website you have, the content of your website and your marketing strategy.
You want your website to appear on the first two pages when someone does a search. Search Engine Optimization works through what is called the ‘pull’ method; people come look for you, you don’t push your product into their faces. Above all, you get this ranking for free. It takes time to build natural SEO, but you lay a solid foundation that will keep on growing in time.
What website owners must remember is that searchers are not stupid, they know sponsored sites involve money and often they mistrust that. They also know that a free ranked website is placed in that spot because for instance Google deemed them worthy of that place and this is something most people can identify with. It is really up to each website owner; do they want to push and go in like a fast burning rocket, or do they want to go in free, build their rating slowly on a strong foundation, in the end it comes down to your circumstances, needs and budget.
Read More..
Now SEO is ‘the’ buzzword on everyone’s lips and over time Pay per click Optimization came along to fight for a piece of this lucrative business that has turned into a multi-billion dollar industry. For the man on the street it can be bewildering when you want to promote your own website as you can easily be drowned under the mountain of conflicting advice thrown to you constantly.
Pay per Click is fast and hot
To understand why PPC and SEO both work, you must understand how they work. Basically you sign up for the service and you pay x-amount every time someone clicks on your site. This is the ‘push’ method; your site is pushed to the top of the search listings, so people see it straight away. This is the ideal way to go if you want to promote your website very fast for a limited time period for you will burn money fast.
The trick is to convert those website hits into paying customers that in turn generate income for you, otherwise you will be paying for thousands of clicks that bring in no money. PPC is excellent if you need to promote a campaign fast, have a promotion that is going to last only for a limited period of time or for those businesses that are seasonal, so they have to get the word out fast, get their customers interested in the minimum of time, thereby generate their own income before the season is over.
Search Engine Optimization the steadily growing tree
Natural Search Engine Optimization is most definitely alive and growing. Going with this means that your ranking depends on the pulling together of certain criteria, the type of website you have, the content of your website and your marketing strategy.
You want your website to appear on the first two pages when someone does a search. Search Engine Optimization works through what is called the ‘pull’ method; people come look for you, you don’t push your product into their faces. Above all, you get this ranking for free. It takes time to build natural SEO, but you lay a solid foundation that will keep on growing in time.
What website owners must remember is that searchers are not stupid, they know sponsored sites involve money and often they mistrust that. They also know that a free ranked website is placed in that spot because for instance Google deemed them worthy of that place and this is something most people can identify with. It is really up to each website owner; do they want to push and go in like a fast burning rocket, or do they want to go in free, build their rating slowly on a strong foundation, in the end it comes down to your circumstances, needs and budget.
Read More..
How to Use CSS for Search Engine Optimization
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a language that permits Web designers to attach styles such as spacing, color, font, etc. to HTML documents. Cascading style sheets are similar to a template, permitting Web developers to label styles for an HTML element and then apply it to the number of Web pages required. Thus, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are collections of formatting rules, which control the appearance of content in a Web page. With CSS styles you have great flexibility and control of the exact page appearance; from precise positioning of the layout to specific fonts and styles.
There are many benefits of using CSS. Maintenance of a Web site made with CSS is much easier compared to the ones which are table based. Aside from being able to make extensive changes with one CSS file, the code it generates makes it simpler to update. With CSS, when you decide to craft a change, you simply alter the style and that element is updated automatically anywhere it appears in the site, saving you an enormous amount of time. Without CSS you'd have edit each page independently. CSS generally requires less code compared to a table based layout, making your code lighter, cleaner and easier to maintain.
Cascading Style Sheets Benefits and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Another major benefit of CSS is that it makes your Web site SEO friendly. The reason behind this is simple. Search engines spiders are actually lethargic. They don't go through the bundles of HTML code to get to the indexed codes. Font tags and tables make HTML code cumbersome, and thus reduce the accuracy of the results. If you use external CSS files to determine the design attributes, the HTML code will be clean and will create better search engine rankings. With some knowledge of CSS you can change the code without destroying the visual layout. For instance, you could easily make the main content of your site to show up above the header or navigation menu in the code of your Web site; this will help to show search engine crawlers the importance of your content. I personally saw a huge boost in rankings in fully functional CSS Web sites. When I look at someone’s Web site that was built using old school HTML code with tags such as: TABLES, TD, TR, FONT and so on, I convert that site to a CSS layout. There are many tools on the Internet that shows the actual code over text ratio weight of your site. Modern search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN love light-weighted Web sites. They want to see your content; the text, not the code. With CSS everything is possible. You can place excessive code into an external file, thus leaving the actual page clean and simple.
Web Site Accessibility
CSS makes your Web site more accessible. By 2008, it's estimated that one-third of the world’s population will be using hand held devices to access theInternet. It's important that your site is accessible to them also. You can make an additional CSS document particularly for handheld devices like cell phones, which will be called up in place of the regular CSS document; which is not achievable with a tabular layout. CSS benefits accessibility chiefly by separating document structure from presentation.
Increases Download Speed of Your Website
CSS code downloads faster than tables. Browsers read through tables twice prior to exhibiting their contents; first to work out their structure and then to determine their content. Moreover, tables are shown on the screen as a whole, no part of the table will be displayed until the entire table is downloaded and rendered. Tables support the use of spaced images to assist with positioning. CSS generally requires less code than tables. All layout code can be placed in an external CSS document, which will be called up just once and then stored on the user’s computer; while the table layout stored in each HTML document must be loaded up each time a new page downloads. Also with CSS, you can manage the order of the items downloaded. You have the control to make the content appear prior to images, which tend to load slower than text.
Cross Browser Compatibility
To summarize, CSS makes your Web sites load faster, it saves on time and labor, links can be more attractive and dynamic, and you can add rollovers without using JavaScript. Currently all the major browsers ( Firefox, Explorer and Netscape) recognize CSS. - Web Design,Website Designing,Web Designers.
Read More..
There are many benefits of using CSS. Maintenance of a Web site made with CSS is much easier compared to the ones which are table based. Aside from being able to make extensive changes with one CSS file, the code it generates makes it simpler to update. With CSS, when you decide to craft a change, you simply alter the style and that element is updated automatically anywhere it appears in the site, saving you an enormous amount of time. Without CSS you'd have edit each page independently. CSS generally requires less code compared to a table based layout, making your code lighter, cleaner and easier to maintain.
Cascading Style Sheets Benefits and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Another major benefit of CSS is that it makes your Web site SEO friendly. The reason behind this is simple. Search engines spiders are actually lethargic. They don't go through the bundles of HTML code to get to the indexed codes. Font tags and tables make HTML code cumbersome, and thus reduce the accuracy of the results. If you use external CSS files to determine the design attributes, the HTML code will be clean and will create better search engine rankings. With some knowledge of CSS you can change the code without destroying the visual layout. For instance, you could easily make the main content of your site to show up above the header or navigation menu in the code of your Web site; this will help to show search engine crawlers the importance of your content. I personally saw a huge boost in rankings in fully functional CSS Web sites. When I look at someone’s Web site that was built using old school HTML code with tags such as: TABLES, TD, TR, FONT and so on, I convert that site to a CSS layout. There are many tools on the Internet that shows the actual code over text ratio weight of your site. Modern search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN love light-weighted Web sites. They want to see your content; the text, not the code. With CSS everything is possible. You can place excessive code into an external file, thus leaving the actual page clean and simple.
Web Site Accessibility
CSS makes your Web site more accessible. By 2008, it's estimated that one-third of the world’s population will be using hand held devices to access theInternet. It's important that your site is accessible to them also. You can make an additional CSS document particularly for handheld devices like cell phones, which will be called up in place of the regular CSS document; which is not achievable with a tabular layout. CSS benefits accessibility chiefly by separating document structure from presentation.
Increases Download Speed of Your Website
CSS code downloads faster than tables. Browsers read through tables twice prior to exhibiting their contents; first to work out their structure and then to determine their content. Moreover, tables are shown on the screen as a whole, no part of the table will be displayed until the entire table is downloaded and rendered. Tables support the use of spaced images to assist with positioning. CSS generally requires less code than tables. All layout code can be placed in an external CSS document, which will be called up just once and then stored on the user’s computer; while the table layout stored in each HTML document must be loaded up each time a new page downloads. Also with CSS, you can manage the order of the items downloaded. You have the control to make the content appear prior to images, which tend to load slower than text.
Cross Browser Compatibility
To summarize, CSS makes your Web sites load faster, it saves on time and labor, links can be more attractive and dynamic, and you can add rollovers without using JavaScript. Currently all the major browsers ( Firefox, Explorer and Netscape) recognize CSS. - Web Design,Website Designing,Web Designers.
Read More..
Search Engine Optimization Tips
Search engine optimization (SEO) poses many challenges for solo entrepreneurs. Professional search engine optimization services are often beyond the solo entrepreneur's budget; but learning all the tools and tricks, not to mention the ever-changing "rules", would take time most solo entrepreneurs don't have. The following search engine optimization tips will help you focus your SEO activities effectively.
Search Engine Optimization Tips: Start with the Basics
- Research your keyword phrases. What words would people use to find you? This is the most important SEO activity you'll need to do, particularly for solo entrepreneurs. You'll want to look for keyword phrases that are unique, not just single words. Google offers a great keyword tool that helps you find synonyms and compare which keyword phrases are searched for more often. If keyword research seems daunting, invest in a course that teaches you the basics.
- But, don't let keyword phrases dictate how you write. Write your copy for your audience, not the search engines! Make your copy relevant to your readers and easy to read, then see where you can incorporate keyword optimization. Hire a copywriter if you aren't a naturally good writer; it may be expensive but is a high-return investment for solo entrepreneurs. Ultimately, search engines want to serve high quality content. If your readers love your website, search engines will too.
Search Engine Optimization Tips: Shortcuts to Avoid
Be skeptical of search engine optimization services' promises. Avoid high-priced services that promise to put your website on the top of the rankings for any particular keyword phrase. If it is a highly-sought-after phrase, it's unlikely to be a successful project; and by the time you get the results, it's too late -- you've already paid them. Plus, you’ve put all your SEO eggs in one basket! Look for search engine optimization services that offer more reasonable, well-rounded solutions.
Beware of "secrets" and "tricks" that claim some hidden advantage. Tools or techniques that "game" the system may work for a short time, but they will ultimately become useless...and may earn you a long-term black mark from search engines. Known as "black hat SEO", they often appear in ebooks or are offered through various membership services. If they involve formulas, special linking programs, or automated content-pushing, among other suspect methodologies, don't be fooled.
Read More..
Search Engine Optimization Tips: Start with the Basics
- Research your keyword phrases. What words would people use to find you? This is the most important SEO activity you'll need to do, particularly for solo entrepreneurs. You'll want to look for keyword phrases that are unique, not just single words. Google offers a great keyword tool that helps you find synonyms and compare which keyword phrases are searched for more often. If keyword research seems daunting, invest in a course that teaches you the basics.
- But, don't let keyword phrases dictate how you write. Write your copy for your audience, not the search engines! Make your copy relevant to your readers and easy to read, then see where you can incorporate keyword optimization. Hire a copywriter if you aren't a naturally good writer; it may be expensive but is a high-return investment for solo entrepreneurs. Ultimately, search engines want to serve high quality content. If your readers love your website, search engines will too.
Search Engine Optimization Tips: Shortcuts to Avoid
Be skeptical of search engine optimization services' promises. Avoid high-priced services that promise to put your website on the top of the rankings for any particular keyword phrase. If it is a highly-sought-after phrase, it's unlikely to be a successful project; and by the time you get the results, it's too late -- you've already paid them. Plus, you’ve put all your SEO eggs in one basket! Look for search engine optimization services that offer more reasonable, well-rounded solutions.
Beware of "secrets" and "tricks" that claim some hidden advantage. Tools or techniques that "game" the system may work for a short time, but they will ultimately become useless...and may earn you a long-term black mark from search engines. Known as "black hat SEO", they often appear in ebooks or are offered through various membership services. If they involve formulas, special linking programs, or automated content-pushing, among other suspect methodologies, don't be fooled.
Read More..
Internet Marketing Optimization Factors: 7 Optimization ...
Internet marketing optimization - more commonly called search engine optimization (or SEO) - is a set of techniques, tools and methodologies you can leverage to get your site noticed by the people who matter most to you or your business. Whether you are looking for would-be buyers of your product or service or just have something wonderful to share with the world from your website, SEO is the only way to get people there short of paying for advertising.
Here are 7 of the most important internet marketing optimization factors:
1. Start by clarifying the true goals of your website:
Many days, weeks or years ago, you or someone in your organization set out to build a website. Whether the site is new or was built long ago, you now face the a question that is of utmost urgency: why do we have this website and what do we want to do with it? You would be surprised to learn how many firms and individuals never sufficiently answer this question for themselves. You must define the goals of your website so that you can determine exactly what it is you want visitors to do once they arrive. If you don’t know what you site represents, how can you expect search engines to find it and classify it properly?
2.Identify the keywords for which you should optimize your site:
Think about it from a search engine’s perspective: its job is to connect the right content with the right searcher, serving up the content it finds in order of priority from best/most relevant to worst/least relevant. The way they do this is to first use “bots” (automated agents) to constantly scour most of the site on the Internet. So, when the bots get to your site, what will they see? How will they know how to classify your site? The only way is to make your site rich in the keywords most relative to what you do. So, short of “stuffing” your site (an SEO no-no) with keywords, pack your site with plenty of well-written, keyword-rich content that tells bots how to classify your site.
3. Fortify your site with the right meta tags:
Meta tags are, in essence, information about your site that only search engines see but that humans do not. There are many types of meta tags, but the ones you need to make sure you have properly covered in your internet marketing optimization efforts are: meta description, meta title, and meta keyword tags. Make sure that each of these is under the maximum character length and that each strategically includes your target keywords.
4. Submit your site to top search engines and directories:
One of the easiest ways to cut your teeth in search engine-optimizing your site is to submit it directly to top search engines and directories. Google, Yahoo! and the other major search engines have FREE services for submitting your URL/web address. (See my blog for details on how). The Open Directory Project and Yahoo! Directory also allow you to apply for consideration for inclusion in their directory services.
5. Add fresh content to your site regularly:
Search engines love fresh, quality content that is updated regularly. I suggest making a space on your site for recent articles, blog entries or news blurbs. Then, update that content frequently. Search engines will reward you with more frequent visits and better rankings. Also, having fresh content on your site also encourages Webmaster of other sites to link to your site (i.e., to form backlinks).
6. Get more backlinks to your site:
Speaking of backlinks: you can never have too many! Backlinks are merely links to your site from other sites. Backlinks are more valuable when: 1. you have lots of them; 2. the links themselves include keywords for which you are optimizing your site;. 3. the sites that are linking to your site are themselves well-regarded by search engines (e.g., have a high Google PageRank).
7. Have a compelling call to action:
Once you do all of this work to get people to your site via better search traffic, make sure you offer them something compelling to do once they get there. This is often referred to by marketers as a “call to action,” and your site needs one. So, make sure you make it clear to visitors what you most want them to do once they reach your site. Then, make that call-to-action so compelling that they will not be able to resist taking it.
Read More..
Here are 7 of the most important internet marketing optimization factors:
1. Start by clarifying the true goals of your website:
Many days, weeks or years ago, you or someone in your organization set out to build a website. Whether the site is new or was built long ago, you now face the a question that is of utmost urgency: why do we have this website and what do we want to do with it? You would be surprised to learn how many firms and individuals never sufficiently answer this question for themselves. You must define the goals of your website so that you can determine exactly what it is you want visitors to do once they arrive. If you don’t know what you site represents, how can you expect search engines to find it and classify it properly?
2.Identify the keywords for which you should optimize your site:
Think about it from a search engine’s perspective: its job is to connect the right content with the right searcher, serving up the content it finds in order of priority from best/most relevant to worst/least relevant. The way they do this is to first use “bots” (automated agents) to constantly scour most of the site on the Internet. So, when the bots get to your site, what will they see? How will they know how to classify your site? The only way is to make your site rich in the keywords most relative to what you do. So, short of “stuffing” your site (an SEO no-no) with keywords, pack your site with plenty of well-written, keyword-rich content that tells bots how to classify your site.
3. Fortify your site with the right meta tags:
Meta tags are, in essence, information about your site that only search engines see but that humans do not. There are many types of meta tags, but the ones you need to make sure you have properly covered in your internet marketing optimization efforts are: meta description, meta title, and meta keyword tags. Make sure that each of these is under the maximum character length and that each strategically includes your target keywords.
4. Submit your site to top search engines and directories:
One of the easiest ways to cut your teeth in search engine-optimizing your site is to submit it directly to top search engines and directories. Google, Yahoo! and the other major search engines have FREE services for submitting your URL/web address. (See my blog for details on how). The Open Directory Project and Yahoo! Directory also allow you to apply for consideration for inclusion in their directory services.
5. Add fresh content to your site regularly:
Search engines love fresh, quality content that is updated regularly. I suggest making a space on your site for recent articles, blog entries or news blurbs. Then, update that content frequently. Search engines will reward you with more frequent visits and better rankings. Also, having fresh content on your site also encourages Webmaster of other sites to link to your site (i.e., to form backlinks).
6. Get more backlinks to your site:
Speaking of backlinks: you can never have too many! Backlinks are merely links to your site from other sites. Backlinks are more valuable when: 1. you have lots of them; 2. the links themselves include keywords for which you are optimizing your site;. 3. the sites that are linking to your site are themselves well-regarded by search engines (e.g., have a high Google PageRank).
7. Have a compelling call to action:
Once you do all of this work to get people to your site via better search traffic, make sure you offer them something compelling to do once they get there. This is often referred to by marketers as a “call to action,” and your site needs one. So, make sure you make it clear to visitors what you most want them to do once they reach your site. Then, make that call-to-action so compelling that they will not be able to resist taking it.
Read More..
Friday, December 19, 2008
11 Internet Marketing Trends To Ignore in 2009
Analytics. Yeah, you heard me. I love analytics. But they're gonna flop big-time in 2009 when everyone looks at everyone else and says "Holy crap. There's no standards!" If a pageview on Google Analytics isn't a pageview in Omniture, how the hell can anyone compare anything? Look for 2010 to be the Year of the Standards, and for someone to make millions of dollars talking about "Analytics 2.0". At which point I'll take out a contract on their worthless lives.
Vertical Search. I hate to kick that dead dog again, but it sucked in 2007, it sucked in 2008, and it'll continue to suck wind in 2009, assuming anyone actually bothers to try and start another vertical search service.
Google Searchwiki. Actually, this service will do well. But spammers will abuse it. After 1 million people bury the #1 listing for "bailout" and it throws Google's results on their ear, Google will implement new, undocumented policies that render Searchwiki utterly random.
Mobile Advertising. Someone else called this a trend, saying it'll "flourish". I love the StrangeCorp blog, but flourish? I don't think so. Maybe among us snobby elites, but it takes more than 10,000 to make a serious advertising market.
The average web user will continue to refuse to even sniff curiously at RSS.
Internet Explorer 8. Everyone's talking about it. I don't care. Google Chrome and FireFox will continue to take big bites out of IE, which will be released on December 31 2009 so Microsoft can keep their promise.
Content marketing. 2008 was the Year of Crappy Content. Everyone who thought they could write slapped together an ebook (cough) and threw it on the web for sale. 2009 will be The Year We Go Broke, when we realize spending 4 days to write a 30 page booklet that earns a total of $300 a month isn't worth it.
Social Media Conferences. In 2008 these things sprang up like zits on my forehead when I was 14. In 2009 layoffs, travel costs and the utter horror of air travel in the US will thin things out a bit.
Nofollow. The concept of pagerank sculpting will die a horrific death when Matt Cutts reveals it never existed, and he was just messing with us.
Twitter monetization. OK, I'm addicted to Twitter, I admit it. But how the hell will Twitter make money?
Yahoo!'s Downfall. Further indication the world has gone insane: The banking system has collapsed, the Big 3 are bankrupt, we lost 500,000 jobs in November 2008, and we're bitching about Yahoo!'s "decline". Why are we mourning the 'failure' of the #2 search company on the planet? A company that is profitable?!
Read More...
Vertical Search. I hate to kick that dead dog again, but it sucked in 2007, it sucked in 2008, and it'll continue to suck wind in 2009, assuming anyone actually bothers to try and start another vertical search service.
Google Searchwiki. Actually, this service will do well. But spammers will abuse it. After 1 million people bury the #1 listing for "bailout" and it throws Google's results on their ear, Google will implement new, undocumented policies that render Searchwiki utterly random.
Mobile Advertising. Someone else called this a trend, saying it'll "flourish". I love the StrangeCorp blog, but flourish? I don't think so. Maybe among us snobby elites, but it takes more than 10,000 to make a serious advertising market.
The average web user will continue to refuse to even sniff curiously at RSS.
Internet Explorer 8. Everyone's talking about it. I don't care. Google Chrome and FireFox will continue to take big bites out of IE, which will be released on December 31 2009 so Microsoft can keep their promise.
Content marketing. 2008 was the Year of Crappy Content. Everyone who thought they could write slapped together an ebook (cough) and threw it on the web for sale. 2009 will be The Year We Go Broke, when we realize spending 4 days to write a 30 page booklet that earns a total of $300 a month isn't worth it.
Social Media Conferences. In 2008 these things sprang up like zits on my forehead when I was 14. In 2009 layoffs, travel costs and the utter horror of air travel in the US will thin things out a bit.
Nofollow. The concept of pagerank sculpting will die a horrific death when Matt Cutts reveals it never existed, and he was just messing with us.
Twitter monetization. OK, I'm addicted to Twitter, I admit it. But how the hell will Twitter make money?
Yahoo!'s Downfall. Further indication the world has gone insane: The banking system has collapsed, the Big 3 are bankrupt, we lost 500,000 jobs in November 2008, and we're bitching about Yahoo!'s "decline". Why are we mourning the 'failure' of the #2 search company on the planet? A company that is profitable?!
Read More...
Share Your Content with Tell-A-Friend
pretty slick way for my readers to share content via email, instant messenger, social networks and bookmarks.
SocialTwist supports numerous platforms, so the implementation was pretty simple - it even worked for Classic Blogger (which is what I use on my personal blog).
The Tell-a-Friend service works in most blogging platforms and popular Content Management Systems (CMS). Currently supported platforms are: Wordpress engine, Wordpress.com (free accounts as well), Blogger/Blogspot, TextPattern, JRoller, TypePad, Movable Type, Drupal, Joomla, Pligg, Mambo, and OSCommerce.
Here are the different methods you can share with your readers:
Email: GMail, Yahoo! Mail, MSN/Windows Live Mail, Type Email Address.
IM: Y! Messenger, GTalk, MSN/Windows Live Messenger, AIM.
Blogs: WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, MovableType, Xanga, Expression Engine, Joomla, Drupal, Textpattern
Social: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Indenti.ca, FriendFeed, MySpace
Bookmarks: Del.icio.us, Digg, Slashdot, Technorati, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Yahoo! Buzz, Google, Blinklist, Facebook, Newsvine, Furl, MySpace, LinkedIn, Propeller
Read More...pretty slick way for my readers to share content via email, instant messenger, social networks and bookmarks.
SocialTwist supports numerous platforms, so the implementation was pretty simple - it even worked for Classic Blogger (which is what I use on my personal blog).
The Tell-a-Friend service works in most blogging platforms and popular Content Management Systems (CMS). Currently supported platforms are: Wordpress engine, Wordpress.com (free accounts as well), Blogger/Blogspot, TextPattern, JRoller, TypePad, Movable Type, Drupal, Joomla, Pligg, Mambo, and OSCommerce.
Here are the different methods you can share with your readers:
Email: GMail, Yahoo! Mail, MSN/Windows Live Mail, Type Email Address.
IM: Y! Messenger, GTalk, MSN/Windows Live Messenger, AIM.
Blogs: WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, MovableType, Xanga, Expression Engine, Joomla, Drupal, Textpattern
Social: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Indenti.ca, FriendFeed, MySpace
Bookmarks: Del.icio.us, Digg, Slashdot, Technorati, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Yahoo! Buzz, Google, Blinklist, Facebook, Newsvine, Furl, MySpace, LinkedIn, Propeller
Read More...
SocialTwist supports numerous platforms, so the implementation was pretty simple - it even worked for Classic Blogger (which is what I use on my personal blog).
The Tell-a-Friend service works in most blogging platforms and popular Content Management Systems (CMS). Currently supported platforms are: Wordpress engine, Wordpress.com (free accounts as well), Blogger/Blogspot, TextPattern, JRoller, TypePad, Movable Type, Drupal, Joomla, Pligg, Mambo, and OSCommerce.
Here are the different methods you can share with your readers:
Email: GMail, Yahoo! Mail, MSN/Windows Live Mail, Type Email Address.
IM: Y! Messenger, GTalk, MSN/Windows Live Messenger, AIM.
Blogs: WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, MovableType, Xanga, Expression Engine, Joomla, Drupal, Textpattern
Social: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Indenti.ca, FriendFeed, MySpace
Bookmarks: Del.icio.us, Digg, Slashdot, Technorati, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Yahoo! Buzz, Google, Blinklist, Facebook, Newsvine, Furl, MySpace, LinkedIn, Propeller
Read More...pretty slick way for my readers to share content via email, instant messenger, social networks and bookmarks.
SocialTwist supports numerous platforms, so the implementation was pretty simple - it even worked for Classic Blogger (which is what I use on my personal blog).
The Tell-a-Friend service works in most blogging platforms and popular Content Management Systems (CMS). Currently supported platforms are: Wordpress engine, Wordpress.com (free accounts as well), Blogger/Blogspot, TextPattern, JRoller, TypePad, Movable Type, Drupal, Joomla, Pligg, Mambo, and OSCommerce.
Here are the different methods you can share with your readers:
Email: GMail, Yahoo! Mail, MSN/Windows Live Mail, Type Email Address.
IM: Y! Messenger, GTalk, MSN/Windows Live Messenger, AIM.
Blogs: WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, MovableType, Xanga, Expression Engine, Joomla, Drupal, Textpattern
Social: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Indenti.ca, FriendFeed, MySpace
Bookmarks: Del.icio.us, Digg, Slashdot, Technorati, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Yahoo! Buzz, Google, Blinklist, Facebook, Newsvine, Furl, MySpace, LinkedIn, Propeller
Read More...
Use Different Keyword Types for PPC Success
These basic principles apply to most of the PPC programs out there, but today I’ll talk specifically about Google AdWords. With Google AdWords there are 4 types of keywords you can bid on. Different keywords types have different features so it’s very important that you understand the difference between them and how they can impact your PPC campaign. So here they are:
Broad Match
Sadly, this is the one that a lot of people are probably doing without even knowing it. If you just have the keyword phrase typed in normally on your keyword list, you’re doing a broad match. Let’s say for example that you’re bidding on the phrase apple developing online courses Your ad will show up whenever a searcher types in apple ipod, blue apple ipod, i want an ipod that’s blue, etc. Any phrase that has those two words in it will bring up your ad. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily, but you don’t know for sure unless you test it and find out if it’s doing you any good.
Phrase Match
To do a phrase match, you just have to put the phrase inside of quotation marks. So sticking with our last example it would be “apple ipod”. Now in order for your site to show up those two words developing online courses to be together. So in this example your ad would show up for apple ipod, blue apple ipod, but not for I want an ipod that’s blue because the two words are not together in the phrase. You’ll need to test these phrase types to see if they work for you or not as well.
Exact Match
To do an exact match, put the phrase inside square brackets like this: [apple ipod]. This will only allow your ad to show up on the phrase apple ipod. This is a third match type you’ll want to test with.
Negative Match
This is how you exclude words from your list. Maybe you don’t sell blue apple ipods. If so, then just add -blue to your list and you won’t show up for phrases with that word.
Read More...
Broad Match
Sadly, this is the one that a lot of people are probably doing without even knowing it. If you just have the keyword phrase typed in normally on your keyword list, you’re doing a broad match. Let’s say for example that you’re bidding on the phrase apple developing online courses Your ad will show up whenever a searcher types in apple ipod, blue apple ipod, i want an ipod that’s blue, etc. Any phrase that has those two words in it will bring up your ad. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily, but you don’t know for sure unless you test it and find out if it’s doing you any good.
Phrase Match
To do a phrase match, you just have to put the phrase inside of quotation marks. So sticking with our last example it would be “apple ipod”. Now in order for your site to show up those two words developing online courses to be together. So in this example your ad would show up for apple ipod, blue apple ipod, but not for I want an ipod that’s blue because the two words are not together in the phrase. You’ll need to test these phrase types to see if they work for you or not as well.
Exact Match
To do an exact match, put the phrase inside square brackets like this: [apple ipod]. This will only allow your ad to show up on the phrase apple ipod. This is a third match type you’ll want to test with.
Negative Match
This is how you exclude words from your list. Maybe you don’t sell blue apple ipods. If so, then just add -blue to your list and you won’t show up for phrases with that word.
Read More...
Google Enables Cross-Language Search for Enterprise Search Appliance
If your business is global, then you likely have many documents in foreign languages. In order to help employees find documents in languages other than their first, Google has enabled cross-language searching for enterprise customers using the Google Search Appliance.
Queries will be passed through a translation engine which will enable search in several languages. Users can choose the document to be returned to them in any of the available languages.
Google Mini and Google Search Appliance owners can head to this link at Enterprise Labs to check out the new feature.
Read More...
Queries will be passed through a translation engine which will enable search in several languages. Users can choose the document to be returned to them in any of the available languages.
Google Mini and Google Search Appliance owners can head to this link at Enterprise Labs to check out the new feature.
Read More...
Yahoo! Finance is Market Leader in Business Information Sites
One of our readers, Marc Jones, asked me to update a blog post that I wrote back on March 19, 2007, entitled, "Yahoo! Finance Market Share 52 times Bigger than Google Finance." Well, 'tis the season.
So, Marc, here's an update from Matt Tatham of Hitwise:
Business Information Sites Nov-08
Rank Website Domain Market Share
1 Yahoo! Finance finance.yahoo.com 29.63%
2 MSN Money moneycentral.msn.com 10.24%
3 CNN Money money.cnn.com 9.02%
4 Bloomberg www.bloomberg.com 3.81%
5 Market Watch www.marketwatch.com 3.44%
6 Reuters www.reuters.com 3.11%
7 Internal Revenue Service www.irs.gov 2.32%
8 Google Finance finance.google.com 2.31%
9 The Wall Street Journal www.wsj.com 2.29%
10 CNBC.com www.cnbc.com 2.26%
So, Yahoo! Finance is the leader of the pack -- by almost a three-to-one margin over MSN Money, which is in second place. But Yahoo! Finance is no longer 52 times bigger than Google Finance. Today, it is "merely" 12.8 times bigger.
Okay, that's still a "humongous" lead. (Humongous is a term that we bloggers use to mean extremely huge. We don't get to use it that often when talking about someone who competes with Google. But, we are talking about Google Finance and not Google.)
So, let me thank Marc for asking the question and thank Matt for answering it. And for all of you who are watching your 401K plans become 201K plans, may I suggest that you visit some of the top business information sites to see if one provides you with better insights than the others. And let me know what you find.
Read More..
So, Marc, here's an update from Matt Tatham of Hitwise:
Business Information Sites Nov-08
Rank Website Domain Market Share
1 Yahoo! Finance finance.yahoo.com 29.63%
2 MSN Money moneycentral.msn.com 10.24%
3 CNN Money money.cnn.com 9.02%
4 Bloomberg www.bloomberg.com 3.81%
5 Market Watch www.marketwatch.com 3.44%
6 Reuters www.reuters.com 3.11%
7 Internal Revenue Service www.irs.gov 2.32%
8 Google Finance finance.google.com 2.31%
9 The Wall Street Journal www.wsj.com 2.29%
10 CNBC.com www.cnbc.com 2.26%
So, Yahoo! Finance is the leader of the pack -- by almost a three-to-one margin over MSN Money, which is in second place. But Yahoo! Finance is no longer 52 times bigger than Google Finance. Today, it is "merely" 12.8 times bigger.
Okay, that's still a "humongous" lead. (Humongous is a term that we bloggers use to mean extremely huge. We don't get to use it that often when talking about someone who competes with Google. But, we are talking about Google Finance and not Google.)
So, let me thank Marc for asking the question and thank Matt for answering it. And for all of you who are watching your 401K plans become 201K plans, may I suggest that you visit some of the top business information sites to see if one provides you with better insights than the others. And let me know what you find.
Read More..
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