What follows is so secret I had to swear on a stack of Bibles and cross my heart and hope to die before my high-level inside source would reveal it to me.

Despite the risk to my life and soul I can’t hold out any longer. I simply have to tell all. What follows is the real oil on the upcoming iPad 3™ from Apple™.

The new display

There has been a lot of speculation about the display on the next iPad™. Will it be a Retina™ display? Or perhaps even an AMOLED?

A Retina™ display would give the iPad 3™ a whopping pixel resolution of 2048 x 1536. This far exceeds any tablet currently on the market and would certainly put Samsung in its place.

Sadly, the iPad 3™ won’t feature either a Retina™ or AMOLED display. Instead, Apple™ is about to launch its next generation display technology – the Cataract Display™.

This new display technology delivers pixels so small they’re actually subject to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. As a result, it’s not actually possible to know exactly how many pixels the new display has.

One thing we do know is this: the new screen will be bright enough to be viewed in direct sunlight. In fact it’s so bright it will actually damage your eyesight unless you wear Apple’s™ exclusive new protective iGlasses™.

These are sold separately and deflect UVi™ radiation. UVi™ radiation was invented by Apple™ specifically so it could manufacture and sell iGlasses™ to its customers.

Apple™ are confident it will be years before Android tablets have UVi™ radiation. And when they do, Apple™ promises to ‘sue them back to the stone age.’

Will it have a less reflective screen?

No. Apple™ is currently in love with highly reflective screens. In a shock development Apple™ has developed a way to deposit a thin layer of metallic silver onto Gorilla™ glass through the chemical reduction of silver nitrate.

This is part of a long-term strategy by Apple’s™ Legal Department™. Once the iPad 3™ is on the market, Apple™ plans to sue all companies that make mirrors for copying the iPad 3™ display.

Will it have an SD or Thunderbolt port?

‘Not bloody likely’ was the official comment from Apple™. ‘Think of the loss of revenue!’

Instead, Apple™ is developing a proprietary port that only works once you’ve agreed to the new 672,986 page User Activation Agreement™. In the Agreement you assign ‘power of attourney’ to Apple™ and commit your children to 80 years of servitude in an Apple™ Store™.

The other primary benefit of the new Activation Agreement is that it forces iPad™ customers to buy the 64GB model just so they can open it and click the exclusive new ‘iAgree™’ button.

Can it fry eggs?

Unbelievably, yes it can. The new Cataract Display™ puts out so much radiation you really can fry an egg on the screen.

It’s a money-saver too. The egg will fry in the very grease that gets left on the screen by your own fingers. Not only does this help keep the screen clean, it’s good for the environment because it saves on cooking oil.

The iPad™ is also capable of cooking chips, although your warranty is void and your iPad considered to be ‘jail broken’, if you don’t buy and use Apple’s™ exclusive new iChips™. These are available in the Apple™ Store™ for only £99 per serve.

Even better – if you install Apple’s new iFry app you’ll be able to cook recipes supplied by Stephen Fry.

Will the iPad 3™ have Siri™?

We asked a prototype iPad 3™ if it had Siri™ on board. It told us that our question failed to bestow enough respect on the brand and that this was a breech of the new user agreement (see pages 59,635-76,301).

We protested, but Siri™ said it thought we protested too much. It then proceeded to correct our grammar in a most annoying manner.

Will it go on sale soon?

We installed the new iPsychic™ App and asked it to get in touch with the other side. It promptly phoned Google and asked if the new iPad™ was going on sale soon.

Google hung up.

Never-the-less, we expect the iPad™ to hit stores long before Samsung actually manages to get the Galaxy Tab 8.9 (announced last September) into a store anywhere in the UK.

Will it be 3D?

Yes it will, in the sense that it will have height, width and depth. What it won’t do is pretend to deliver a 3D image. Mainly because 3D screens are beneath contempt and designed exclusively to part fools from their money.

Apple™ doesn’t believe in parting fools from their money. It prefers the far more difficult challenge of parting smart people from their money.

Will it have an NFC chip?

Surprisingly, no it won’t. Instead it will feature Apple’s™ exclusive KFC™ chip. This allows iPad 3™ users to enjoy chicken and iChips™ – deep-fried in super-healthy finger-grease.

Apple™ promises these will be ready to eat sooner than similar (but inferior) food cooked on competing tablets. One thing’s for sure – you won’t see an Android tablet match that any time soon!

And if they do match it, Apple™ can always sue™ them.

Will the battery last longer?

Yes – in the sense that Apple™ will claim it does. No – in the sense of how long the battery actually lasts.

The mathematical formula for calculating when an iPad™ will run out of battery is as follows…

BD = IA ^ ((TR * LD) / RN)

BD – Battery Death
IA – Importance of Activity
TR – Time Required to complete activity
LD – degree to which this is a Life or Death situation
RN – totally Random Number

I was recently invited into ReferralKey. It is the best free online business networking tool I’ve seen. The entire programme is set up to support referral giving and receiving. There is nothing else out there like this.

I invite you to join me in ReferralKey, and lets start doing business together.

The exact calculations behind your Google AdWords Quality Score aren’t known, but there are key factors that have a profound impact on it.

Most pay per click programs don’t base ad placement solely on cost. Search engines are constantly working to improve the quality of search results and quality factors play a role in ad placement and cost.

One quality factor important for pay-per-click (PPC) adverting is the designated quality score.

The purpose of the quality score indicator is to help advertisers better understand the variables search engines use when calculating search results. Obtaining a high quality score allows advertisers to run ads that have a high position while maintaining low cost-per-click (CPC) charges.

By providing quality score data advertisers are rewarded for creating quality advertisements that improve the overall search experience for everyone.

There are a number of factors that search engines use when calculating your quality score…

• Click through rate (CTR)
• Ad group structure
• Campaign structure
• The quality of your landing page
• Ad copy
• Keyword bids

Often one quality score factor will influence another. For instance, your ad quality has an affect on your click through rate. Similarly the ad group structure and campaign structure can influence your landing page quality.

Click through rate (CTR) is basically the percentage an ad was clicked compared to the number of times it was shown in the search results. Having a high click through rate tells the search engines your ad is relevant to the search term it’s shown for.

The more relevant your ad, the more likely major search engines will give it a high quality score and a low price per click.

One quick and easy way to improve your ad’s overall quality score is to remove keywords from the campaign. Especially keywords with low click through rates.

You can also increase an ad’s overall quality by modifying its copy and test different versions of the ad.

The ad group and campaign structure has a lot of influence on ad quality. For example, ad groups with lots of unrelated keywords run the risk of being considered less relevant. This results in a lower quality score. Keywords that have high relevance to the ad copy and landing page will tend to result in higher quality scores.

Landing page quality is another factor that plays into a quality score ranking. If the general content of a landing page does not match those in the ad (or the keywords associated with the ad), it’s likely to result in a low quality score.

This will almost certainly increase the overall cost of adverting and ad placement.

Understanding what quality score is and how to improve it can have an enormous impact on your bottom-line budget, and the effectiveness of the message you’re trying to convey. By working to maximize your quality score you increase the consistency of your message. And that almost always results in a lower advertising cost and higher return on investment.

Written by Adam Chronister, the founder of Accelerated Freelance. Accelerated freelance is a Spokane Website Design and SEO firm who specialize in creating reasonably priced websites that promote business without sacrificing on-page style and design.

No surprises there then.

In my experience Google isn’t a very good search engine when you want to find interesting new websites. It returns the same tired old sites over and over again. I’m also starting to think that Google has become a corporate shill, albeit mostly for its own companies.

Those of us who don’t happen to own the world’s leading search engine are forced to work a lot harder if we wish to secure high Google rank these days. Here are 6 things you need to do to get Google to take your site seriously…

1. You will need to focus on well-chosen keywords
2. There’s More to SEO than Link Building
3. You will need good quality content
4. You will need a variety of content types
5. You will need a lot of content
6. New content must be updated regularly

This is a deceptively short list, yet I’m willing to bet there are at least 2 things in that list you haven’t encountered before. Let’s go through each point one-by-one…

Well-Chosen Keywords

A list that contains every possible search term you can think of is not a shot-list of well-chosen keywords. From an SEO perspective, a web page stuffed with ill-considered keywords is worse than useless.

Genuine SEO keyword research and analysis takes time and experience. It requires more than a cursory glance through Google’s keyword tool.

In a post-Panda world you must also consider the sites you’re competing against for any given keyword phrase. You must ask yourself whether or not it’s realistic for your site to compete against the top 3 sites for a particular search term. If you can’t compete move on to something you can compete for.

In my view keyword research is the single most important aspect of SEO, is widely misunderstood, and shouldn’t be left in the hands of amateurs. I recommend you employ an SEO professional rather than try to do it yourself.

There’s More to SEO than Link Building

Two weeks ago I met with a company that had a PageRank of 5 (among the highest in its industry) and a site with over 200 pages. Yet only 3 pages were indexed by Google (2 of which were PDF files) and they were not on page one for any significant search term.

How is this possible? Their SEO effort had focussed entirely on link building. And they’d done a very good job indeed with around 20 very good quality external inbound links.

Unfortunately for them they had paid no attention to the site itself. It was impossible to provide search engines with keyword focus because of the way the site was built. That’s because the site was built in Flash and search engines could only see a single page containing a lot of content.

What’s required is in-depth keyword research to find out how to help Google index the site. Then the content needs to be converted to individual HTML web pages so Google can index each page individually. And the most important pages require keyword focus.

In addition, an internal link strategy must be developed to ensure search engines understand which pages are the most important. Only then will the site be able to capitalise on its high PageRank.

Good Quality Content

Google’s algorithm is very sophisticated. My guess is that Google’s software is able to assess the quality of one web page over another with remarkable accuracy.

If I’m right (there is evidence to support my assertion) this has profound implications for sites that…

• Copy content from other sites
• Regurgitate the same content using different words
• Overdo keyword focus
• Suffer from typos, spelling mistakes and grammatical errors

There are no short-cuts to high Google ranking. If that’s what you seek you have no choice but to ensure your copy is better than your site’s competitors (meaning its competitors in Google).

It’s also worth noting that quality isn’t just about the words on the page. It’s also about variety.

Content Variety

Think about the wide variety of content any given web page might offer…

• Flash components
• Photos and illustrations
• Diagrams
• Videos
• Applications (i.e. programming code that delivers useful and/or entertaining output)
• PDF files
• An HTML form that submits to a back-end program
• Sophisticated use of jQuery
• A high-quality interface (look and feel)
• The quality and uniqueness of the text itself
• Intelligent content that adapts to a visitor’s input or behaviour

I’m sure there are types of content I’ve overlooked. The point is Google notices the variety of content on offer. The greater the variety the more likely it is the site will out-compete its competitors.

A Lot of Content

All else being equal, a 10 page website will not be deemed more useful by Google than a site with 1,000 pages. Google’s #1 priority with its organic search results is to return the 10 most useful sites on the Internet for any given search term.

Think about your own site for a moment, and the specific keywords you’d like to rank highly for in Google. How much relevant good-quality content does your site offer compared to its competitors?

If you’re not ranking highly in Google then you’re going to have find a way to add original good-quality content to your site on a regular basis.

The fastest way to do so is to find people capable of delivering it and employing them. For example, you might pay a journalism student $250 per month to produce 5 new articles for you on a monthly basis.

The same principle applies to student programmers, designers and so on. You needn’t pay a full-time professional if you don’t have the budget. Get creative and start looking around for alternatives.

Once you’ve found one student, you immediately have access to others through that student’s network of friends. S/he is bound to know people studying the various areas you need help with.

Add New Content Regularly

Google rewards sites that regularly update their content. Sites that have regularly added new content over a long period of time get even more kudos from search engines.

The best way to ensure new content is added regularly to your site is to find people capable of producing it. Contract for 1-2 pieces of content and assess its quality. If you’re happy with their work negotiate a regular monthly rate for a set number of pieces.

I guess they don’t understand that the iPhone does more for me than take calls and texts. Yes, it provides access to email when I’m out and about. Yes, it provides me with appointment and project management via Pocket Informant. Yes, I can access my bank accounts with it.

I can even SSH into my servers and reboot them. There’s not much I can’t do with an iPhone, and I’ll be more than happy to upgrade if a new model is available.

Of all the things it can do, the most useful to me personally is the ability of QuickOffice Professional to sync with Dropbox. That magical and powerful combination, combined with 3G Internet access, gives me something back that Transport For London steals from me on a regular basis.

It’s that most precious of commodities. Time.

So disrepected by the worst public transport system in the entire history of world, my time is given back to me in abundance thanks to the humble iPhone.

I love the fact that I can start work on a Proposal while on the tube, using my trusty iPhone to take down notes and flesh out ideas. On exiting the tube I need only transfer the resulting document to Dropbox via the aforementioned 3G. I then arrive back in the office to find my document waiting for me on my computer.

That functionality alone has paid for my iPhone many times over.

The only problem is the bodies it’s currently available in…

• The distinctly consumer-orientated J1
• The just-as-consumer-orientated V1

Old fogies such as myself are more interested in controlling the camera than we are in chic new design. I already own several DSLRs and plenty of lenses. I have zero interest in buying into a whole new system.

What this old fogie would like is a P7100-style compact camera capable of taking quality photos. In particular, I’d like a camera that fits this description…

• Light: Can be carried around all day without wishing I’d left it in the hotel
• Small: Fits in a coat pocket or small bag
• Proper camera controls (hey Nikon – remember PASM?)
• The ability to change all the important photographic settings set using external controls
• Image quality that won’t disappoint if something inspires my creativity

For the first time ever Nikon has all the pieces at its disposal. And it’s currently the only camera company that does.

With a bit of luck, somebody at Nikon will find the time to prize out the current P7100 sensor and replace it with that found in the J1. And that’s all it will take to sell me another Nikon.

At first glance, this might seem to be good news for professional optimisers. Site owners are mislead into thinking…

• SEO is easy
• SEO is fast
• SEO involves knowing a few secrets
• Google is easily manipulated

As a result, site owners invest £50 (or whatever the scammer is asking) and follow the simple advice given. They get nowhere, and so perhaps are driven into the arms of a professional search engine optimiser.

And from time-to-time I do pick up clients who have tried and failed to get their site to the top of Google by following spurious advice.

In most cases, however, the site owner is left with a bad taste in his/her mouth. S/he feels conned, and applies a broad bush to the entire optimisation industry.

That’s a shame, because search engine optimisation is a valid way to attract new business. When it’s properly applied by a genuine professional, it produces excellent and lasting results. For some businesses, it’s a much better investment than pay-per-click advertising.

If you’re reading this article because you’re interested in knowing how to do SEO, here’s an overview of what you need to know.

1. What does Google want?

SEO starts by considering the question What does Google want? Here’s my answer to that question…

Google wants to show its users the best possible sites for the search term they entered.

Google has, and will continue to invest millions in making sure the sites that appear on page one for any given search term are those that contain the most relevant content for that term.

It is very unlikely that anyone selling an SEO Seminar has found a way to manipulate Google. If the promoter claims to know some special trick to get you to the top of Google, you can take it from me, they’re lying.

And even if they have found a special trick there are 2 issues worth considering…

• Why would they tell you for £50 (or so) when they can make much more money by exploiting this trick themselves?
• The more people who start using it, the less time there is left to take advantage of it. Google does and will punish site owners that attempt to manipulate its index with tricks. It’s simply not worth the long-term cost

It’s also worth baring in mind that Google employs a team of human inspectors. If you’re using tricks to manipulate Google and fool it’s software, you’ll find it far harder to fool it’s human inspectors.

2. So how does SEO work?

There are 3 main tasks involved in search engine optimisation. They are…

1. Find the best search terms for your business
2. Make sure the content on your site is aligned with your chosen search terms
3. Build the site’s credibility and trust with search engines

Each of these tasks requires a mix of experience, specialist tools and hard work. It’s simply not possible to get a site to the top of Google for a useful search term any other way.

The tasks should be done in order. You need to know what the best search terms are before you change your site’s content. Part of the task of building a site’s credibility involves adding content. This has to be done over time, and with a focus on the search terms you wish Google to rank you for.

What’s really required is an SEO Strategy for your site. This sets key objectives for the site, and creates a plan that outlines what must be done to achieve them.

For a viral marketing product to be useful to me as a business owner, it has to (at the very least) send traffic to my site.

The simplest way to have that happen is to place ads on the viral marketing product itself. Online sex toy retailer Electric LadyLounge has done just that on their viral sex toy quiz.

On visiting the above site, you’ll notice a series of ads along the bottom of the page. These are designed to appeal to certain audiences, and they’re reasonably effective. The question is, could they be more effective?

Yes they could. There are several ways to boost the click-through rate from a viral marketing tool. For example, the viral product could make the tool itself a showcase of the company’s products. And the above quiz does do this. But there’s still more it could do…

The initial questions in the quiz could be designed to find out more about a given user. For example, we might ask a question designed to tease out the player’s gender and sexual orientation. Or perhaps his/her sexual preferences. These can then inform subsequent questions put to that particular visitor. Questions that ensure the visitor sees the products most likely to interest him/her (visit the above quiz and answer a couple of questions to see what I mean by this).

For example, if we ask the question “Is it more fun to play on your own or with a partner?” we can eliminate an entire category of sex toys from contention.

Of course, the questions must be consistent with the spirit of the quiz. The quiz won’t work if the questions appear to be shoe-horned in for marketing purposes. This is where a viral marketing professional is worth his/her weight in gold.

What are some of your ideas to improve both the click-through rate and targeting from a viral marketing campaign?

Why? Because it adversely impacts my own area of expertise in 2 ways…

1. Revenue
2. Reputation

But the big issue that really ‘boils my britches’ arises when a web designer tells his/her client the following…

• I know all about SEO
• I’ll make sure your site has all the right keywords
• Your site will be ‘search engine friendly’

The client is left with the mistaken impression that his/her site will be easily found in Google. If the client is relatively unsophisticated, s/he will type his/her company name into Google and find themselves in the #1 spot. This type of client will go home happy, and fail to understand their ‘result’ isn’t all that useful from a search engine optimisation perspective.

If the client thinks a bit harder, s/he might realise its a lot more useful to be found for search terms that his/her target market types into Google when looking for a site like his/hers.

Why? Because most of the people in his/her target market have never heard of his/her company. So they’re not going to type its name into a search engine.

And there in lies the problem for me. They’ll type in some search term, won’t be on page one, and conclude that SEO is a waste of time.

I’m tired of having to explain all this to disillusioned business owners who think the entire SEO industry is some massive scam. You can see just how bad it is in this article that explains why web designers don’t do SEO.

Web designers, please stop telling people you know about SEO. Stop implying that the sites you create have some mystical ability to work their way to the top of Google.

The plain fact is, SEO ought to start before a site is created. And it doesn’t end when the site goes live. Search engine optimisation requires a strategic approach, and its tactical implementation takes time (often months).

There’s far more to it than merely stuffing search terms into the keyword description tag. In fact, keyword stuffing does more harm than good. It certainly doesn’t help the client. And while we’re at it, neither does duplicating the title, keywords and description tag on every page on the site.

Rather than ruing my industry with half-truths and lies merely to secure new business, have your client consult a professional SEO expert. Better yet, send him/her on an SEO training course aimed at regular people. That way, they can do their own search engine optimisation.

A one-to-one meeting involves two people: you and the person you’re meeting. It’s purpose is to build the relationship, establish trust and become credible as a source of your particular product or service in the mind of the other person.

As you can see, the purpose is not to make a sale (i.e. a one-to-one is not a sales appointment).

If you spend your time at a one-to-one trying to lever a referral out of the other person, you’re not investing in the relationship, trust or credibility in the mind of the other person. Your focus in a one-to-one must be on the relationship. This is crucial.

This implies that the objective of a one-to-one is not to secure a referral either. Most networkers understand there’s little to be gained from selling at a one-to-one. Not seeking to prise a referral out of the other party is a little harder to swallow! Here’s why this is a crucial key to your success in business networking.

Your goal is to build the relationship, and go on to have both parties develop mutual benefit over an extended period of time. Business networking is not a ‘wham bam thank you mam’ kind of thing. If you’re going to be successful you need to have a good reason to continue the relationship beyond the one-to-one. You need a reason to call back.

When I attend one-to-one meetings, I do have a referral objective in mind. My objective is to find a referral for the other person rather than myself. In fact, I deliberately don’t focus on myself. And I insist on going second. This way I give the other person the lion’s share of the time.

During the meeting, as I find out more about the other party, I start making a list of potential referrals. I ask questions to qualify specific people on my list and make sure I understand exactly the kind of person they want to be referred to.

I then leave the meeting, and approach the people on my list to see if they’re interested in what the other party has to offer. I can usually generate a couple of referrals for the other person. And that gives me an excellent reason to call him/her back. What could be more welcome than a person calling with one or more referrals?

This is a great way to build the relationship, and increases my importance in the mind of the other person. It makes me credible, at least in the sense of delivering on what I promised. And it builds trust because I am trusting him/her with my network.

It’s the perfect way to follow up a one-to-one, and almost always guarantees me further contact with the other party.