Search Engine Optimization Blog - Optimizeforengines.com

Photo Galleries with Wordpress

2009-10-15T10:35:00.001-07:00

It’s the day after D-Day. The bride and groom have left for their honeymoon, everybody has gone back to their respective hometowns, the noise and cheers have turned into silence, the trash have been thrown out, and the living room has been redecorated back to what it was before.

You – the house photographer – sits alone in front of your computer. All the images that you shot at the event have been edited and saved inside the hard disk. All you have to do now is share copies with your relatives. You still remember the horrible smiles that the uncles and aunts gave you while saying “send us copies…or else!” Your body trembles at the thought of failing to fulfil their request.

The Cool DIY Way Of Sharing Images

Considering the huge number of family members and the many parts of the world in which they live in, printing the photos and sending the copies to them is not the perfect answer. You don’t have the time, the energy or the funds. Burning the images onto CDs will still cost you your spare time, the blank disks and the postage.

You think about uploading the images to the web and then start looking for an online photo sharing service. But then it struck you. You remember that you have an idle Wordpress blog. Instead of leaving it untouched, why not build a photo gallery web site?

Read more: Build A Cool Photo Gallery Website from Wordpress

Technorati Tags: wordpress, photo, photo album, photo gallery, seo, search engine optimization, web design

6 FREE Tools To Get The Best Keywords For Your Site

2009-09-03T11:46:00.001-07:00

Great list of keyword research tools:

3: Google Suggest

Google Suggest also offers a nice way to research keywords. When you start typing a word in the Google suggest box, it starts showing the related most popular search queries in a drop down menu. Therefore you can immediately come to know about the related keywords / sentences for a particular search query. Even Google Toolbar has this feature but it doesn’t show the number of search results for the keywords.

Read the full article : 6 FREE Tools To Get The Best Keywords For Your Site

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, keyword research, keyword suggest, google, keyword

Links for 2009-08-27 [Digg]

2009-08-28T00:00:00-07:00

Tweet and Win an iPod Touch 32GB
Abalone Designs Inc. is giving away an Apple iPod touch, 32 GB to a random Tweeter if this article hits over 200 Retweets.

10 Reasons Not to Host with Large Hosting Companies

2009-08-27T06:48:00.001-07:00

If your a seasoned veteran when it comes to dealing with web hosting then you probably already know everything you need to about what makes a good hosting company. For me there a few things that really make it or break it though, so here are my top 10 reasons to go with a smaller company rather than one of the hosting giants!

1. I'm a believer in supporting the smaller companies, especially in these tough economic times. After all they are what used to keep everybody in business and making money. In many ways it's the giants that have hurt our economy.

2. The small companies tend to be more upfront with what they are offering, as apposed to preying on people who aren't experts only to find out that they have to pay extra for this and that, ie. Godaddy charging for email addresses and SMTP relays, while Canadian Web Hosting offers unlimited free email addresses.

3. Customer service. I prefer to not have to call my hosting company ever to be honest, because generally if I'm calling them it's because of an emergency that can't wait for a support ticket to be responded to. Smaller companies are better at having a human answer the phone and not sticking you on hold for a long time.

4. When you go to the hosting company's web site, I've found that the larger companies tend to have a lot of ads, and banners that can be very distracting and confusing even to the experienced users.

5. Abuse. I know that many companies are more lenient than others, and on the web so much of what is considered abuse is relative. I'm not condoning things like spamming, for example, but I think that if something a customer does blurs lines of the hosting companies policies they should deal with it by contacting the customer and evaluating what it is that they are doing. Many larger companies will simply just shut down a paying customers web site, without notice or explanation because a "red light" went off somewhere.

6. Smaller companies tend to be more ahead of the times than larger ones, at least when it comes to offering new services and technology.

7. Flexibility. There have been times that I have needed to change my hosting plan, or even cancel and transfer file hosting in the midst of my hosting plan. I have never had a problem doing so when using a smaller hosting company, where as the giants fight you tooth and nail.

8. Fees and charges. This one always gets me. You pay for your hosting and maybe even buy a few domains through the same company, then the the big companies decide that they get to charge you a fee to activate your domain, or add a domain to your hosting account. Why don't they just start charging per second anyone is on your web site?

9. I sort of covered this before with customer service, but if you are unsure as to what you need or want, call a smaller company and talk to them. They will offer advice that will work for your business because they want you to be a customer for life, not just so they meet their quarterly quota.

10. Price. The big guys will claim to have affordable hosting, but there is always something hidden. The small guys can sell hosting for less because they are not employing an army and don't have nearly as much overhead.

In short, there really is nothing redeeming about these large companies that offer "cheap" hosting. It ends up being less affordable and more of a headache in the long run.

Technorati Tags: hosting, web hosting, web site, domain name registraion, domain name, domain, budget, affordable, seo, search engine optimization

5 Social Networking Sites You Have No Excuse Not To Be On

2009-08-21T04:48:00.000-07:00

Social marketing can be a full time job all in itself. With new networks popping up almost daily it seems, how do you know where to begin, or what networks are the most important?

In our experience with our own business as well as those of our clients, these are the most productive social media web sites that a business owner can belong to:

1. Twitter - An absolute must for the business owner trying to gain targeted traffic to his or her web site. I wrote a more detailed article about how to take Twitter a few steps further in conjunction with your blog a few weeks back.

2. Facebook - Still one of the most visited web sites on the internet, and it's not really showing any signs of going away anytime soon. Facebook has become a phenomenon within circles of friends, with many people sharing entire relationships solely on Facebook.

3. Digg - Digg can be sort of like the lottery. It can be difficult to get an article Dugg hundreds or thousands of times, but if it does? Look out!

4. Identi.ca - What, you say? Yes. Identi.ca is a lesser known open source version of Twitter, but the bonus is: links on Identi.ca tend to hold some weight as backlinks.

5. LinkedIn - LinkedIn is *the* social network for business professionals. You can showcase your knowledge there with Answers, you can connect with other businesses and potential customers and you can recommend other products and services in your network.

If you don't have a lot of time to manage 99 Social Networks, at least make sure you're on these!

If you still don't have time for these, many Seo companies offer social marketing management services, freeing up your time to run your business. These Services can be quite time consuming for business owners, and often having someone else handle your social marketing is necessary.

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, marketing, social media, social networks, twitter, facebook, linkedin, digg, identi.ca

More about Social Media Marketing

2009-08-19T22:37:00.001-07:00

I realize we've been discussing this a lot on this blog lately, and rightly so. I'm not saying that social marketing is the only way to bring traffic to your web site. Heck, I'm not even saying it's the best way! Truth be told, what's going on right now with social networking, and other social media web sites may or may not last, but better get in on it while the gettin' is good! Here's an interesting article I "stumbled upon" and thought I would share.

Social media is all the rage these days, especially Facebook and Twitter, with everyone trying to figure out how make money from the latest technology phenomenon. Michelle Gabriel has managed the feat. She describes herself as a “solo-preneur,” a business of one, who specializes in making connections between people who are passionate about living their dreams. A business’ passion is key to making social media work as a marketing tool.

Sometimes she shows them how to make the connections with social media and sometimes she does the connecting for her clients. Either way, she has built a tidy little business based in McKenzie Towne that she uses as a platform to explore the global opportunities social media presents to business people everywhere.

Traditional media (TV, newspapers, radio) connects one source to many recipients. Or perhaps a few recipients, such as when the family gathers around the television to watch the nightly news. But none of the traditional media have the power to revolutionize society and business quite like social media.

VIDEO: SOCIAL MEDIA GURU SHARES BUSINESS MARKETING SECRETS : S.E. Calgary News

Technorati Tags: social, media, marketing, networking

21 Essential SEO Tips & Techniques

2009-08-19T07:25:00.001-07:00

This is a fantastic list of SEO tips:

4. Become a student of SEO. If you’re taking the do-it-yourself route, you’ll have to become a student of SEO and learn as much as you can. Luckily for you, there are plenty of great Web resources (like Search Engine Land) and several terrific books you can read. Aaron Wall’s SEO Book, Jennifer Laycock’s Small Business Guide to Search Engine Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day by Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin are three I’ve read and recommend.

5. Have web analytics in place at the start. You should have clearly defined goals for your SEO efforts, and you’ll need web analytics software in place so you can track what’s working and what’s not.

6. Build a great web site. I’m sure you want to show up on the first page of results. Ask yourself, “Is my site really one of the 10 best sites in the world on this topic?” Be honest. If it’s not, make it better.

7. Include a site map page. Spiders can’t index pages that can’t be crawled. A site map will help spiders find all the important pages on your site, and help the spider understand your site’s hierarchy. This is especially helpful if your site has a hard-to-crawl navigation menu. If your site is large, make several site map pages. Keep each one to less than 100 links. I tell clients 75 is the max to be safe.

8. Make SEO-friendly URLs. Use keywords in your URLs and file names, such as yourdomain.com/red-widgets.html. Don’t overdo it, though. A file with 3+ hyphens tends to look spammy and users may be hesitant to click on it. Related bonus tip: Use hyphens in URLs and file names, not underscores. Hyphens are treated as a “space,” while underscores are not.

Read the rest: Seru-seruan: 21 Essential SEO Tips & Techniques

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, web development, web marketing

230 Link Bait Ideas

2009-08-15T11:12:00.001-07:00

A great resource from Portent Interactive:

Generating great link bait ideas is hard work. When link bait works it’s magical. Watching the page views, unique visitors and server load all go up at the same time is like watching the wheels spin on a slot machine right before it lands on 777. The difference is that a slot machine depends wholly on chance. With link bait, you have to earn your luck.

To help me create compelling ideas I created this poster - 230 Link Bait Ideas. I stuck it on my wall, printed in tabloid format, 11 inches by 17 inches, but it looks good in your PDF viewer too.

Download 230-link-bait-ideas.pdf : 230 Link Bait Ideas | Portent Interactive, Seattle, WA

Technorati Tags: seo, link bait, link development, search engine optimization

Links for 2009-08-13 [Digg]

2009-08-14T00:00:00-07:00

Charity 2.0: Surviving the Crowded Space
While there's little doubt that social media mainstays like Facebook and Twitter have been wildly successful at connecting groups of friends, musicians and fans, business and consumer and relatively recently, non-profits and philanthropists, but particularly where the latter is concerned, when is a saturation point reached?
Why businesses globally are getting social media wrong
It�s big, it�s powerful and it�s changing the way the business world communicates...
5 Challenges Social Business Will Face - Business Exchange
A recent survey conducted by Proofpoint found that 8% of companies had terminated employees due to social media usage (common causes including sharing sensitive information on a network).
Social usage takes the lead with social media over business
Data aggregated and analyzed through statistical analyses showed that of the participants polled that had some type of social media account through Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace or other networks used these sites for social purposes more than for business.
Getting Started with Social Media in 2009 | CyberhomesBlog.c
Are you standing on the sidelines of social media with your real estate business? This post was designed to give you enough information and the needed steps to get started participating in the social media world.
MBA Degree News | Social Media Lands MBA a Marketing Job
Online networking through social media such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have become essential to both the modern-day job hunt and the current state of marketing and public relations in the business world.
Does Social Media Work in Commercial Real Estate?
boston commercial real estate blog about social media and commercial real estate
Smart Analytics Tools to Track Vital Social Media Info
Gives a description and comparison of social media analytics tools including radian6, hubspot, scout labs and omniture. Touches on faults within different software platforms for social media measurement.
Reach your Demographic...Anywhere
Suggestions for reaching your audience while they're off your site. Includes tips for using text, photo, and video messaging and incorporating social media marketing strategies.
With social media, timing is everything.
With social media, timing is everything. One could take an educated guess and assume if email marketing works best on Tuesdays, social media will, too. But social media is tricky -- let's take a closer look.
Facebook, Twitter or Orkut – Which is the most popular
Take a look at the visits figures for these social networking services. I need a better word than whopping, if I had to use it for the numbers being displayed for Facebook. Well, Twitter is gaining momentum, and Orkut is on running flat tyres.
Awesome Video : Social Media Revolution
Nice video on social media revolution and how it shapes the future,
The Science Of The ReTweet [SlideShow]
Dan Zarella, a Famous Social Media and Viral Marketing Scientist, has posted some in depth data about How, Why, When and What people ReTweet. Dan found out how Originality of a Tweet, Quantity of Followers, Content, Wording, Politeness and Time of the Day - all affect the likelihood of a ReTweet.
Social Media Jobs On the Rise
CNN recently published an article, which highlighted five popular social media jobs that are making headway in companies all over.
Social Media That Matters
So you had a myspace account and now you have a facebook account. You also have a twitter, youtube, and linkedin account with a number of other social media sites under your belt stretching your capacity to keep up with every detail of information passing through these sites thin.
Retweeting as a Tool for SEO and Viral Marketing | Startup H
Overall, Twitter should not be underestimated a useful marketing tool. It is built to be viral, and the recent popularity of retweeting has made Twitter just as important as digg, reddit, and other social networks for distributing content and building a strong marketing presence.
Twitter Dee, Twitter Dumb
Social networking is the leading phenomena in modern society. Constructive Communication weighs in on online social media in the Architechture, Engineering and Construction industries.
Facebook Lite Goes Live
Social networking site Facebook unveiled a new downsized version of its Web site to selected test users, but accidentally revealed the 'Facebook Lite edition' to a much larger group than intended. "This evening, the test was temporarily exposed to a large
Facebook FriendFeed Fascination - what it means to marketers
Facebook and FriendFeed merge the top social media talent with the biggest audience. Also, the list of Most Useful Posts of the Week in Web Marketing for Aug 13 2009. Dugg by Online-Social-Networking.com.
How EMC used social media to recruit, rebrand, rebuild
A critical part of the EMC rebuild included attracting top talent to help drive a more successful business. To achieve the latter, EMC turned to social media for its recruiting efforts. The below interview with Polly Pearson, vice president of employment brand and strategy at EMC, details how they acquired talented employees through social media.
Social Networking Mistakes You're Making Now
Excellent tips for the social marketing beginner
99 Social Media Sites Business Owners Should Know About
A list and links to the 99 social media sites all business owners should know about

How To Build a Web Site

2009-08-11T08:41:00.001-07:00

How to Build A Website uncovers the best techniques, tools, tips and training on the web to establish and grow your online business whether you're starting out or are already an experienced internet marketer. See their 4-Part Case Study on how the big players do SEO!

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, web design, web development, web site

Links for 2009-08-10 [Digg]

2009-08-11T00:00:00-07:00

The Top 20 SEO Know-it-alls on Twitter
If you re new to the vast, and sometimes intimidating world of SEO, I have put together a who s who list of industry leaders that you should be familiar with. This list is in no particular order since many of these individuals and companies have different specialties
Izzy Maternity-Buckhead One-Year Anniversary Party
Izzy Maternity can help women of any size embrace their new figures with the most flattering and fashionable maternity styles.

21 Twitter Tips

2009-08-10T21:16:00.001-07:00

Even Canada's own tax payer supported national network, the CBC, is plugging the capabilities of twitter and it's users. Are there no boundaries anymore?

You've heard about Twitter — that curious, strangely addictive social-networking technology that facilitates torrents of truncated messages among millions of users. You might even know your hashtags from your re-tweets. But how can you make money with it?

Forbes canvassed scads of businesses and pricey social-networking gurus looking for honest answers. Admittedly, we were skeptical. After all, how much can you accomplish in 140 characters or less?

Turns out there are myriad ways Twitter can have an impact, and not just as a marginal marketing tool. Indeed, we found 21 clever ways to use Twitter — for everything from boosting sales and scouting talent, to conducting market research and raising capital. Chances are, there will be many more.

21 top twitter tips

Technorati Tags: cbc, twitter

Links for 2009-08-09 [Digg]

2009-08-10T00:00:00-07:00

Dear California
How to fix California's budget problem with legalizing marijuana and abolishing the death penalty, among other things.

10 Great Mac Apps for Web Developers

2009-08-06T09:20:00.001-07:00

10 Essential Software Apps For Web Development on a Mac

Whether Macs are the best computers for web development is up for debate, but one thing can be agreed upon – there are some great software apps for web development on a Mac.

Here’s a list of 10 essential software apps for web development on a Mac.

10. TextWrangler is a multipurpose text editor that works for editing code and plain text documents. It can even open files from (and save them to) remote FTP and SFTP servers.

9. Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editor similar to Adobe Illustrator. It is the first open source program to adopt Spiro curves. You can also go through their clip art collection and find dozens of images made with Inkscape that are free to use or modify.

Technorati Tags: mac, web development, apple, software, apps

Online Branding for the Future

2009-07-22T15:00:00.001-07:00

Always a popular debate in the web marketing world, but branding is certainly an important part of your online presence. I came across this pretty good article that touches on branding and the ways to make the most of what the internet has to offer in the web 2.0 world.

I've recently discussed some of the fundamentals of SEO that haven't changed for some time. Now let's touch upon the "new" realities of SEO and what you need to do to build your brand online.

Why Branding?

Well, you may have heard it mentioned that Google wants to rank brand Web sites. It isn't so much that Google only wants to rank big brands. But they do like all of the signals that these big brands carry.

Big brands, more often than not, have very deep/informational Web sites and have their share of other Web sites linking to them. These are two very important "signals" of the authority of these Web sites.

So, to dig into this deeper, I consult with Wikipedia (a "big brand"):

People engaged in branding seek to develop or align the expectations behind the brand experience, creating the impression that a brand associated with a product or service has certain qualities or characteristics that make it special or unique. A brand is therefore one of the most valuable elements in an advertising theme, as it demonstrates what the brand owner is able to offer in the marketplace. The art of creating and maintaining a brand is called brand management.

Brand Promotion Online -- Signals for Today's SEO - Search Engine Watch (SEW)

How to Deal with Blogger's Block

2009-07-13T18:02:00.001-07:00

Here's a great article about Blogger's Block. Very helpful!

1. Read other blogs with opposing view points to yours and write as though you are responding to it.

2. Expand on one of the questions in your frequently asked questions.

3. Go to an answer writing site like Yahoo! Answers and find a relevant question to answer.

Read More: Search Engine Optimization News - Gridlock by Abalone Designs Inc.

Technorati Tags: blogger, blogging, blogger's block, seo, search engine optimization

Feature SEO Firm: Ad Stream

2009-07-13T09:45:00.001-07:00

Ad Stream is a small professional marketing company with more than ten years of experience. Our aim is to increase your position when it comes to organic search results. We guarantee visibility on Yahoo, Google, MSN, and ASK – the top four search engines. This means that your customers will be able to find you quickly and easily.

Setting up shop on the internet without hiring a skilled SEO team is a lot like setting up shop in the middle of a ghost town – you might be open for business, but who will find you? Even if you happen to sell the best product on the face of the earth, what good is your product if nobody knows about it? Most of our customers see a 10%-40% increase in traffic within the first month of signing up with Ad Stream – that’s a lot of new business revenue.

We want to connect with small and medium sized business owners, which is why we offer complete SEO packages at inexpensive prices. Every time you contact us, you can expect to speak with one of our team members directly – no waiting games. Every time you have a question, you can expect a clear answer – no confusing terms to try and understand. Whatever your SEO needs, we are confident that you’ll love the results you get when you make Ad Stream your SEO team.

Technorati Tags: seo, seo firm, search engine optimization

Will Twitter Try to Profit?

2009-07-09T08:35:00.001-07:00

SUN VALLEY, Idaho (AP) — It turns out the media elite aren't so different from a lot of less affluent folks: They think Twitter is a great communications tool, but can't figure out how the online messaging service is going to make money.

The recurring doubts about Twitter's moneymaking potential cropped up again Wednesday as an exclusive media summit hosted by investment banker Allen & Co. got under way at the posh Sun Valley resort.

One of the first sessions focused on how to capitalize on digital media. Twitter quickly became a focal point of the discussion because it has emerged as one of the Internet's fastest-growing services this year.

But Twitter hasn't attempted to profit from its popularity yet, leaving everyone guessing about how the 3-year-old startup intends to pay its bills after it exhausts its $55 million venture capital.

The participants on the panel moderated by media writer Ken Auletta of The New Yorker magazine predicted Twitter Inc. will face major challenges when the San Francisco-based company finally tries to generate revenue. Reporters were barred from the session — like all other meetings at the media summit — but Auletta confirmed the tenor of the Twitter talk afterward.

The Associated Press: Top media execs wonder how Twitter will make money

One of our Great SEO Partners

2009-07-04T07:59:00.001-07:00

Advanced Promotion provides targeted search engine services covering both SEO and SEP options for your site. The setup package they offer for the SEO program includes all the essential ingredients to get a search engine campaign started and optimized. This includes coding maximization, content consultation and submission. Whether you have content already on the site and needs tweaking or you are starting from scratch, they can help target the content to the keywords that will drive business. This service includes a guarantee of the top 30 for specific keyword phrases. As a part of the package, they will research the optimal phrases and make suggestions or modifications to the content in order to fine-tune your site prior to submission. A very unique feature of their particular SEO service is that they allow you to supply additional phrases as a part of the order no extra charge. This serves to increase the odds of success for overall top placements and also increase your odds of getting more phrases placed within the top 30 than you have specifically purchased, a win win situation! Once the phrases have placed on the engines, they also offer a maintenance package that not only attempts to keep the positions in the top 30, but also serves to boost up positions where possible. A monthly tracking report is supplied that details engines, phrases and positions.

Their SEP service drives targeted traffic from the three biggest search engines in the world. This service takes all the pain out of getting set-up properly and optimally on Yahoo, Google and MSN's cost per click programs. Within this program they offer the following services:
#1 research an optimal listing of keyword phrases & concepts that are market specific to your site and site prospects
#2 optimize the bids for your keywords thus minimizing the total cost per click
#3 optimize the creative ad presentation thus maximizing your keyword placement/exposure
#4 maximize the content of the ads on a ongoing basis and expand the campaign
#5 track performance

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, promotion, targeted traffic

Bing Continues to Grow

2009-06-18T07:43:00.001-07:00

In its second week since launch, Microsoft’s new Bing search engine has continued its steady growth, according to comScore. Bing is up about 3 percentage points in both average daily penetration among US searchers and their total share of search results pages (which indicates the percentage of all actual searches, though is not an exact measure), compared to the week prior to launch. Bing now has 16.7% searcher penetration and a 12.1% share of search results pages among all US workday searches. Those numbers are also both up compared to its first week in the wild.

Microsoft has been on an advertising blitz since their new search engine’s launch, spending a reported $80 to $100 million on a campaign to push Bing. That has, at times, ranged from clever to downright bizarre. But the early numbers indicate that Microsoft’s advertising push is at least driving a measurable number of curious searchers to Bing.

Read More: Bing Keeps Growing: Has Microsoft Finally Cracked Search?

Technorati Tags: bing, search, seo, microsoft, search engine optimization

PageRank, & Sculpting

2009-06-17T13:00:00.001-07:00

Matt Cutts of Google, discusses changes that have been made regarding "nofollow" and how it affects your PageRank.

People think about PageRank in lots of different ways. People have compared PageRank to a “random surfer” model in which PageRank is the probability that a random surfer clicking on links lands on a page. Other people think of the web as an link matrix in which the value at position (i,j) indicates the presence of links from page i to page j. In that case, PageRank corresponds to the principal eigenvector of that normalized link matrix.

Disclaimer: Even when I joined the company in 2000, Google was doing more sophisticated link computation than you would observe from the classic PageRank papers. If you believe that Google stopped innovating in link analysis, that’s a flawed assumption. Although we still refer to it as PageRank, Google’s ability to compute reputation based on links has advanced considerably over the years. I’ll do the rest of my blog post in the framework of “classic PageRank” but bear in mind that it’s not a perfect analogy.

PageRank sculpting

Technorati Tags: pagerank, sculpting, links, google, nofollow

Microsoft's New Search Engine

2009-05-28T10:40:00.001-07:00

Bing: Microsoft Reveals its New Search Engine [Video]

Following speculation last week that Microsoft was planning to rebrand its search engine, the company has announced that it will be launching Bing on June 3rd.

In addition to a new name, Microsoft is re-positioning itself in the search market as not necessarily a better place to go for navigational queries (i.e. – where’s the official site for my city government?), but rather to help people make what the company is calling “complex decisions.”

Technorati Tags: microsoft, bing, search engine, seo

Microsoft to Release New Search

2009-05-22T08:14:00.001-07:00

Next week, at the D: All Things Digital technology conference in Carlsbad, California, Microsoft is expected to unveil its updated search engine, codenamed Kumo.

Now, we know that when it comes to search, the last couple of years were all about Google gaining market share, and everyone else losing it or, at best, stalling. The only thing that seems like a real challenge to Google (Google reviews) is real-time search, and none of the major competitors, including Microsoft, have done much about it.

So what do we know about Kumo? The Wall Street Journal claims it’s designed to better organize search results. This can be seen from the screenshot, which shows search results on the right, and categories such as images, songs, lyrics, albums, videos on the left. Microsoft has confirmed it’s been testing Kumo internally for a while, without giving much details about it.

Read more: Kumo: Can Microsoft Catch Up With Google?

Technorati Tags: microsoft, kumo, search engine, search engine optimization, seo

Links for 2009-05-18 [Digg]

2009-05-19T00:00:00-07:00

Honeymoon travel planning
Honeymoon travel planning checklist
Dead Horse Point State Park, Utah
Dead Horse Point State Park is a great place to take the kids. Discover fun things to do with kids. Get travel planning tips. Find out what to keep in mind.
Olympus Digital Camera SLR
Get all the best olympus digital camera slr information here ASAP! Here's the only site that provide olympus digital slr camera tips and olympus digital camera accessories guide for free!
Canon Powershot Camera
Been looking for resources about canon powershot camera? Don't go to another website. Find everything you want to know about canon powershot cameras here. For FREE!
Five great cameras for summer
Summer travel is just around the corner, and now would be a great time to start shopping for a new digital camera. Here’s a round-up of five point-and-shoots on the market you could take on the road.
Uglified Camera
Here is a great post from Boing Boing about how a traveler "uglified" his camera to make it theft-resistant on his journey.
The Economic Impact on Travel Trends
In terms of destinations, 12 percent of those planning a trip said they would stay in their home state, 67 percent will go to another state and 19 percent will travel outside the U.S.
Vote For Genpop.org at the Blogger's Choice Awards!
I just noticed that Genpop.org is starting to actually get some votes over at the Blogger's Choice Awards for Best Charity Blog. Let's see if we can boost that a little. Go vote for Genpop.org

How To: Lose More Customers

2009-05-18T11:19:00.001-07:00

This is an excellent article about how some web sites make it very difficult for customers to give them money.

# 75: The percentage of those clicking the “forgot password” button that don’t come back to finish the purchase.
# 23: The percentage of those abandoning the checkout process at the first sign of a registration prompt.
# 45: The percentage of registered customers who have bad memories and register multiple times, some as many as 10 times, meaning sites requiring registration might have inflated data.
# 300 million: The number of lost dollars one major retailer found after taking away the registration button.

Read More: Stop Making It Hard For People To Give You Their Money | WebProNews

I have often had these thoughts as I surf through the web. Other things that make it hard for potential customers to give you their money are:

1. Intros - Any sort of entrance page adds an extra step to the purchasing process. Adding an extra step, anywhere, is a very bad idea.

2. Making it hard to understand what products or services your site offers - because we offer a free analysis of anyone's web site, we often get sent to sites where it is not immediately clear what it is that these people are selling. I've said it before and I'll say it a million times more, the web is about instant gratification. You have mere seconds to make an impression on your web site visitors. If, in those seconds, they cannot discern what it is you do, why would they stick around? You need to make sure you speak in everyday language as well as industry-specific jargon. Remember, not everyone is going to refer to your product or service the same way you do.

3. Making it hard to find out what geographical area you serve - If you are an online retailer that ships worldwide, you need to state that clearly and boldly on your front page. If you are a lawyer in Boise, you need to make it clear on your front page that you service Boise. So many web sites out there have no geographical information. I find that I often need to visit the contact pages and search for the area code listed in their phone numbers to find out where they are located.

4. If you absolutely must have some sort of registration process to make a purchase, think very hard about whether or not you need your customer's mailing address, phone number, or if password hint questions are really effective. If you're a bed and breakfast and you have a booking form, do you need to know where the people booking live? I'm sure once they're staying there, there will be ample opportunity to find out, but is it necessary to ask them in a booking form? If your web site offers a password retrieval process, why bother with a password hint question? Not only are they useless, but they make your password less secure as many people in our lives know the street we grew up on and what our mother's maiden name is. Making your registration forms longer is going to scare people away. Your forms need to be bare bones - only ask for information you need. The quicker your customer can get the process of giving you money over with, the more likely they will place the order.

These are just a few things that bother me, off the top of my head. I am a busy person, running a home business and taking care of my new baby boy. I don't have time to fill out my address on software sites when I purchase a piece of downloadable software. I don't need to figure out a hint question for a lost password when I purchase a $5 book. I usually hit the back button as soon as there is an intro page or music that loads with a page and I won't stick around very long so if you don't tell me what you do or where you are within the first second or two, you've lost a customer in me.

Technorati Tags: howto, seo, search engine optimization, user friendliness, make more money, profits

Links for 2009-05-17 [Digg]

2009-05-18T00:00:00-07:00

Twitter Tools For Your Blog
I have found to improve your use of Twitter in relation to your blog and a couple that have been helpful for using Twitter.
How To: Get Traffic to Your Site From Twitter
This week we are going to look at tools to help you make the most of Twitter and get traffic to your site from it.

How To: Get Traffic to Your Site From Twitter

2009-05-17T09:06:00.001-07:00

Last week we skipped a newsletter because it was my first Mother's day as a real Mommy. We had a lot of fun, but now back to business. This week we are going to look at tools to help you make the most of Twitter and get traffic to your site from it.

1. Sign up for your account at Twitter.com - Edit your profile and add your URL to the web site field. Brand you profile by using a custom background image with your company logo on it.

2. Sign up for an account at Tweetlater.com - This site will allow you to set up an auto-responder to anyone who follows your Twitter account. In your auto-responder, you should politely ask your followers to visit your web site.

3. Start following people. Most users on Twitter will follow you back, which means almost all the people you follow, will follow you back and get your auto-responder sending them to your site. Use the find people function on Twitter to look for users to follow that are somewhat related to what you do. Follow as many as Twitter will allow. Twitter tends to stop you following when your ratio of following to followers is one-sided. They generally do this once you reach 2001 following. When you have about 1900 followers, Twitter will allow you to follow more people.

4. After you have reached the point where Twitter stops you from following more people, wait about a week and then use Twitter Karma. Enter in your username and password and Twitter Karma will show you your account statistics. You can choose to see the people who follow you but whom you do not follow, or the people you follow but whom do not follow you back and all of your followers/following together. If you choose to look at the people who you are following but are not following you back, you can select all and Bulk Unfollow. Chances are, because you've waited a week, they probably won't follow you back, so if you unfollow them, it will free up some more space for you follow more people yourself. Of course, there are going to be some people who you really want to follow but whom may not ever follow you. Just make sure you unselect them before bulk unfollowing.

5. Set up Twiggit. Twiggit will automatically tweet anything you Digg with your Digg account.

6. Start Tweeting. Nobody likes following an idle account. You can use your account to create more traffic to your site as well by Tweeting about every new blog post and anything else new on your site, sales, new personnel, etc. You also want to actively involve yourself with your followers as well. Try ansering any interesting questions you see being tweeted that you know the answer to, and always answer your direct messages. The more you interact with your followers, the longer they will want to follow you. And the more interesting, valuable stuff you Tweet, the more your followers will recommend you to others. Be a valuable asset to the Twitter community and your followers and the whole thing will just snowball.

If you need any help or have any questions with utilizing any of these tools, or Twitter itself, please do not hesitate to email us. We do manage Twitter accounts for a small fee.

We hope you enjoyed this week's Sunday Sites and hope you'll read again next week!

Technorati Tags: twitter, tweetlater, twiggit, twitter karma, tweet, digg, seo, search engine optimization

Links for 2009-05-16 [Digg]

2009-05-17T00:00:00-07:00

How to Use Twitter for Blog Traffic
Twitter is not just for fun but can also be used much like other social networking media to gain more traffic. In this case, you want to attract more blog traffic. Twitter can help with that.
6 Easy Tactics To Increase Your Blog Traffic And Search Engi
Here I present to you 6 Easy Tactics to increase your blog traffic and search engine rankings, which could help your site a lot.
Make the most of Your Twitter
Twitter is likely to be one of the only social networking sites to have long time viability. Twitter usage and name recognition has been rising in leaps and bounds.
Fast Traffic-Twitter Add Ons and Tools
Generate fast traffic with Twitter Add On and Tools

Ali Hale - Staff Blogger

2009-05-12T07:11:00.000-07:00

If you are an avid blogger you should check out this interview with Ali Hale. She is a staff writer for many blogs and makes a great living at it. She tells about how she became a staff writer for many high profile blogs

I first met Ali Hale via a guest post submission. She sent an article to be published on Daily Writing Tips, and it was so good that I offered her the chance of becoming a paid staff writer on the blog. She accepted, and stayed with us for almost 8 months, writing over 50 posts. After that she went on to become a paid writer for several other high profile blogs.

Interview with Ali Hale on Staff Blogging

Technorati Tags: blogging, staff writing, articles

The Economy and SEO

2009-05-09T09:06:00.001-07:00

t’s a fact of life in business that when there’s an economic downturn, the first thing that’s usually cut is available marketing spend, typically an unfortunate byproduct of accounting’s inability to justify costs without hard data in place. While the argument has been made numerous times over the years in books and articles that cutting budgets in a down economy is one of the worst moves you can make, I won’t rehash this old (but still valid) argument. Instead, I’d specifically like to address why cutting your search engine marketing budget in a down economy is a bad move, and why it’s equally important to place your trust in your search engine marketing company during a down turn.

Why It’s Vitally Important to Trust Your Search Engine Marketing Company in a Down Economy

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, economy, budget, marketing

Neil Patel Share Tips for the Newbie

2009-05-07T08:28:00.001-07:00

Neil Patel is a 24 year old owner of several internet businesses including Crazy Eggs, and KISSmetrics. He started as a 16 year old, venturing into the world of starting businesses on the web. In this article he shares tips on starting your business. He relates often to mistakes that he made along the way and how to avoid these same mistakes.

I have started a handful of companies and every time I start another one, I always learn something new. If you are a new entrepreneur you are going to make a lot of mistakes, but hopefully you won’t make the big mistakes I made.

8 Things I Wish I Knew When Starting My First Business

Technorati Tags: marketing, business, mistakes, neil patel

SEO vs SMM

2009-05-04T07:24:00.000-07:00

If you are interested in social media marketing and how it compares to SEO, this is great article to check out. The author goes on to explain the pros and cons of both based on the eventual ROI and factors in the time used to go through each process. He makes excellent points through, and the only disagreement I have is that I believe both are necessary, not one or the other. He doesn't suggest only using one method, but he does hint in that direction.

Tonight, I'm throwing out a hypothesis about social media participation & social media marketing:

The majority of marketers who engage in social media do so NOT because it produces greater ROI (professionally), but because the metrics are more immediately tangible and emotionally rewarding.

Social media engagement, whether it's building a name for yourself on Twitter, growing your connections on Facebook, increasing the number of followers on Digg or ratcheting up your popularity in a niche service or forum produces some very compelling results. Changing some title tags, tweaking internal links or writing an article on a boring, business-relevant subject may bring more direct financial ROI per hour invested, but the metrics don't FEEL as emotionally rewarding.

I'll show, rather than tell.

Let's say I put in some effort attracting more relevant visitors to my site. I see that a certain phrase is sending good quality traffic via my analytics and decide to pursue a higher ranking for that keyword. I do a bit of external link research, find some good places for a listing, maybe acquire a small handful of external links. I tweak the title tag, the H1 and a bit of the page content and make the call to action more prominent and compelling. I find a few important pages on my site (the top pages tool is badass for this) and place some good internal links. My rankings rise a few positions and I see more traffic the next week.

SEOmoz | Getting Honest About Social Media Marketing

Technorati Tags: seo, smm, social media, marketing