Web Hosting And Optimization

noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 13:43:00 +0000

Free website promotion tutorial

Welcome to A Promotion Guide. If this is your first visit, you might want to take the time to read through this page. It contains a free step-by-step website promotion tutorial

that also serves as a "User's Guide" to the site. Reading it will give you a good idea on what you need to do, when you need to do it and how the articles on this site will help you.

This tutorial is split into three phases that each have two, three or four steps. It is highly recommended that you start from the first phase and move forwards only after you have completed all of the steps in it.

We'll begin with the assumption that your site is brand new and that you haven't done any website promotion work yet. However, that doesn't mean that you can't use the tutorial if you have submitted to a few search engines or registered your site with a couple of directories. If you notice that there are some things you have already done, feel free to simply skip over them.

Promoting your site takes a lot of time and may involve waiting several weeks or even months to get into certain directories and search engines. Thus, it might be wise to bookmark this page so that you can return to it later and continue the tutorial from where you left off.

Website promotion, phase one - Directories

You should start your website promotion efforts by listing your site at the most popular Internet directories. Because they can send you substantial amounts of traffic and affect your ranking in various search engines, it is wise to make sure that your site is present in all of the major directories before doing anything else.

Step one - General information

Submitting to directories is easy and doesn't require much effort. It's ensuring that your submission will be accepted that makes this task a hard one.

First, read "Boost your traffic with website directories" to get a basic idea on what directories are and how to submit to them.
Examine the article about web page design to get some tips on how to improve your site and reduce the chances of it being rejected.

Step two - The Open Directory Project

Start with the Open Directory Project. While your site has to offer good, unique content to be accepted to the ODP, its editors usually review sites quickly and won't reject them without a good reason for doing so. This, along with the fact that submitting to the ODP is free of charge, makes it a perfect starting point. Completing this step successfully will also provide you with experience that will prove to be very valuable later on.

Read my thoughts on how Google's ranking algorithm works and notice how an ODP listing seems to affect your ranking at Google. Keep this information in mind when you submit.
Take a look at the advice on submitting your website to the ODP.
Finally, submit your site to the ODP.
If your submission isn't successful, consider becoming an editor at the Open Directory and listing your own site.

Step three - Yahoo

After securing a listing at ODP, your next task is to get the folks at Yahoo to notice that your site exists and is worth a place in their directory. This might cost you a fair amount of money if you are running a commercial site, but is usually worth it. Non-commercial sites can get in for free, but might require several submissions and a lot of patience before they are accepted.

Check out the Yahoo-specific guidelines and hints and the article abouthow Yahoo's search feature ranks sites.
Bite the bullet and submit your site to Yahoo.

Website promotion, phase two - Search engines

Now that your site has been included in ODP and Yahoo, you should already be receiving clearly more traffic than before. The next task is to get to know search engines and use them to bring even more people to your pages. Because you have completed phase one, you have established a good foundation for making your site perform well in the search engines.

Step one - Search engine optimization, basics

In order to gain good rankings, you'll need to learn the basics of search engine algorithms (ranking systems) and adjust your pages to meet their criteria as well as possible. This will take some time and effort, but doing some work now will save you from a lot of trouble in the future.

First, try to make the design of your site as search engine friendly as possible. To read more about the subject, take a look at my article about website optimization.
Next, you'll need to do some keyword optimization. Sounds frightening, but in plain English it simply means choosing the correct keywords for your pages. Using the wrong words is perhaps the most common reason why people don't get satisfying results from their search engine optimization work.
Continue by reading these search engine optimization tips.
Read the article about META tags and add them to all of your pages. The META keywords tag isn't absolutely necessary, but the META description tag is very important.
Learn what link popularity is and how search engines use it to rank your pages.
Unless you have already done so, read about Google's algorithm. Google is among the most popular search services of today, so it is wise to take its requirements into account.
Use all of this information to optimize your pages for the search engines.

Step two - Search engine optimization, advanced

Your site is now adequately prepared to really start bringing in traffic from search engines. But if you want to widen your knowledge about them and increase your chances of success, you still have some work to do. On the other hand, if you're totally exhausted and just want to get this thing over with, you'll be delighted to know that this step isn't absolutely necessary.

Study some of the more advanced things related to search engine optimization. Among them are cloaking, css tricks, doorway pages,themes and how to improve your search engine ranking with click popularity.
Read about the things you should avoid doing from this article that outlines common web site promotion mistakes.

Step three - Submitting to search engines?

Now is the time to make sure that your site has a presence in the indexes of major search engines. Fortunately, they are quite good at finding your site on their own. There are things you can do to help them, though..

Get to know how search engine submission works and how the search engines determine which sites to list.
Read the article "Targeting your search engine marketing" to see which engines are the most popular ones.
If you are running a commercial site, you might also want to consider paying for search engine placement. Take a look at how you can use PPC search engine advertising to buy your way to the top.

Website promotion, phase three - More techniques

After being accepted into the largest directories and having pages of your site come up in answer to searches done at the major search engines, the long hours that you've spent on website promotion have begun to pay off and your daily visitor count is starting to look good. But there is still plenty you can do to help your site attract even more traffic.

In phase three, we'll examine different promotion methods that you might want to try. However, in order to prevent you from wasting your time on things that don't work, we'll also go over a few techniques that have proven to be less than spectacular when I experimented with them.

Step one - Keep these in mind

First, let's take a look at the good stuff. The articles introduced in this step are about the website promotion methods that are at least partially effective. Some of them work better than others, but if used correctly, all of them can produce results that will be worth your while. Of course, most of the articles include advice on what you need to do to obtain the best possible results with the method discussed.

If you sell something on your site, you might want to try banner ads. Usually banner campaigns are seen as expensive and ineffective, but it is partially because advertisers don't know how to design good banners.
Read the article on how to increase traffic with return visitors. Getting people to come back is the secret to why some sites get amazingly many hits per day.
Learn what reciprocal links are and how to get them, then put that knowledge into use. In addition to sending you visitors, reciprocal links will also increase your link popularity and help your site rank higher in the search engines.
Start using E-mail signatures. They might not produce thousands of visitors, but are a great way to promote your site a bit without having to actually do anything.
Evaluate whether your site could benefit from joining a topsite list. These lists have their good and bad sides, but might be at least worth a try.
Consider trying to build traffic with Usenet advertising. It can give you a nice traffic boost and help spread the word about your site, but only if done properly. Read the article to learn why Usenet promotion should only be done with great care.
Writing newsletter articles often works well and can send you large amounts of targeted traffic in a short period of time, for free.

Step two - Forget these

As said, everything just doesn't always work the way it should in the world of promotion. In step two, our attention is focused on website promotion methods that are more trouble than they are worth. They might not be entirely useless, but your time would be better spent on improving your site or spreading the word about your site in other ways.

Click exchange programs are easy, fast, free and will get you a lot of visitors. That's why it might be a surprise to hear that they really aren't good website promotion tools.
A lot has been written about FFA pages and for the past few years, most of it has been negative. The only thing they are good for is increasing the flow of spam to your E-mail address.
Winning website awards can occasionally be useful, especially if the awards are well-known. However, sometimes the winner of the award is not the real winner.

Final words

Congratulate yourself for being persistent, bright and hard-working. Most get frustrated and quit before this point, which is why most sites never become anything. After all, the secret to having a successful site is working hard in both promoting

and creating it. You just might have what it takes.

After going through those three phases, you've read just about everything this site has to offer. While there is more to website promotion than what we have discussed here, you now know quite a lot about the subject. If you still desire more information, don't forget to come back to this site every now and then. This tutorial is always incomplete, because I continuously notice things that I want to write about.

I hope that A Promotion Guide has been able to help you to make your site more popular and thus given you the chance to spread your ideas and thoughts to a larger audience. And remember, if you have achieved good results, it's not because I showed you how to do it - it's because you did it.

noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 13:12:00 +0000

Definition of Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is term that describes marketing a Web site using various techniques to make it more visible on search engines. Search Engine Marketing techniques include search engine optimization (SEO), buying Pay Per Click (PPC) ads, Paid Inclusion or using a combination of these options.

Pay Per Click is a pricing model that most search ads and many contextual ad programs are sold through. PPC ads only charge advertisers if a potential customer click on an ad.

Common Ways for SEM:

Use PPC Platforms: Purchasing keyword triggered advertising on major search engines or content sites can be a great way to drive targeted traffic to your web site. Some common paid per click ad providers are given below.

Google AdWords - Google's pay per click ad program, which allows you to buy search and contextual ads.
Google AdSense - Google's contextual ad program.
Microsoft AdCenter - Microsoft's PPC ad platform
Yahoo! Search Marketing Yahoo!'s PPC ad platform

Digg is rolling out a beta program of a new PPC ad platform. The ads will appear along with submitted content, except they will clearly be marked as sponsored advertising. The more an ad is voted up, the lower cost-per-click (CPC) the ad will enjoy. The more the ad is buried, the higher CPC.

Paid Inclusion: A method of allowing websites, which pass editorial quality guidelines to buy relevant exposure. You may give these a try.

Directories such as the Yahoo! Directory or Business.com allow websites to be listed for a flat yearly cost.
Yahoo! Search allows webmasters to pay for inclusion for a flat review fee and a category based cost per click.
Advertisements that are formatted as text links.

Other Ways: Below are some examples of getting more exposure and to attract more traffic to your site.

Submit Press Releases
Write relevant articles and submit to popular article submitting websites.
Write Blogs
Provide RSS/XML Feeds
Submit to Social Networking Sites
Word of mouth also works. Try to tell your friends and their other friends.
You may also try advertising through banners.
Exchange links with other good relevant sites.

noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 12:56:00 +0000

How Keyword Density, Frequency, Prominence And Proximity Affects Search Engine Rankings

In this article, I explain the difference between keyword density, frequency, prominence and proximity, and how they affect search engine rankings.

Keyword Density

Keyword density refers to the ratio (percentage) of keywords contained within the total number of indexable words within a web page.

The preferred keyword density ratio varies from search engine to search engine. In general, I recommend using a keyword density ratio in the range of 2-8%.

You may like to use this real-time keyword analysis tool to help you optimize a web page's keyword density ratio.

Keyword Frequency

Keyword frequency refers to the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears within a web page.

The theory is that the more times a keyword or keyword phrase appears within a web page, the more relevance a search engine is likely to give the page for a search with those keywords.

In general, I recommend that you ensure that the most important keyword or keyword phrase is the most frequently use keywords in a web page.

But be careful not to abuse the system by repeating the same keyword or keyword phrases over and over again.

Keyword Prominence

Keyword prominence refers to how prominent keywords are within a web page.

The general recommendation is to place important keywords at, or near, the start of a web page, sentence, TITLE or META tag.

Keyword Proximity

Keyword proximity refers to the closeness between two or more keywords. In general, the closer the keywords are, the better.

For example:

How Keyword Density Affects Search Engine Rankings

How Keyword Density Affects Rankings In Search Engine

Using the example above, if someone searched for "search engine rankings," a web page containing the first sentence is more likely to rank higher than the second.

The reason is because the keywords are placed closer together. This is assuming that everything else is equal, of course.

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noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 12:54:00 +0000

How To Find Link Exchange Partner Sites To Improve Your Link Popularity

In this article I show you how to find link exchange partners to improve your link popularity rating, which in turn will improve your search engine rankings.

Search engine optimization experts agree that link popularity is now considered by most search engines to be one of, if not, the most important factors that determines a site's ranking in the search engines.

If you're not sure what your site's link popularity rating is, then use this link popularity check tool to check your link popularity rating in the top search engines.

Let's say we have two identical sites. One has thousands of targeted sites linking to it. The other only has a few incoming links. It's virtually guaranteed that the site with thousands of incoming links will rank higher than the other site.

So how do you find reciprocal link partners?

First, you need to work out what type of web sites would link to your site. Here are some examples of sites and the types of sites that would link to them.

	Your Site:		Links From:
	Pet store		Pet lovers' sites
	Site design service		Webmaster sites
	Travel site		Local guides
	PC store		Software/hardware review sites
	Music store		Music fan sites

As you can see, you're looking for sites that are on the same subject matter, but not necessarily similar.

So now you know what sites to look for, how do you find these sites?

There are basically two methods:

In the following examples, we'll use "pet lovers'" sites as the type of sites we're looking for.

1. Find targeted sites in the web directories, such as the Open Directory Project.

Go to a directory's home page and search with the keywords, "pet lover." Then click on the category the top listings belong to. The sites listed in these and related categories are the types of sites you need to contact.

If the category has a resources or directories sub-category, then try the sites in those categories first. Resources typically offer links to sites on the same subject.

2. Use the search engines to find sites that link to your competitors' web sites.

Using the search engines is probably a more efficient method of find reciprocal link partners, than searching the directories.

Go to your favorite search engine, such as Google, and search for any of the following keyword phrases:

"pet directory" - Searches for pet directories.

"pet search engine" - Searches for pet search engines.

"pet lover" links.html - Searches for link pages in pet lover's web sites.

"pet lover" resources.html - Searches for the resource page in a pet lover's Web site.

Don't forget to include the quotation marks to narrow your search.

Also try replacing the ".html" with other file extensions, such as ".htm," ".shtm," ".shtml," ".cfm," and ".php."

Now make a list of the sites. Then create a links or resources page and add links to the sites on that page.

After you've done that, link to that page from your home page. If you have hundreds of links, split the pages into different sub-categories. When you're done, upload the pages to your server.

Now contact each site by informing them that you have linked to their site and request a link in return. Don't forget to be polite and inform them of the benefits of exchanging links.

Some sites, such as web directories, will not require a reciprocal link. So simply submit your link.

The most important tip I can give you with regards to reciprocal linking is to only exchange links with targeted sites. I highly recommend that you don't exchange links with sites that bear no relation with your site. If you link to poor-quality or spam sites, it could affect your search engine rankings.

WARNING

Under no circumstances should you link to, or add links from, link farms. Link farms are considered as spam sites in the eyes of the search engines. Good luck with improving your link popularity.

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noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 12:11:00 +0000

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Internet Marketing is a new term. It's all about optimizating the content in your website in such a way that search engines find it, rank it, and place it high on a list of results. We consult with you on writing your web pages so they provide just what your customers want and simultaneoulsy enable search engines to find the pages.

However, search engines don't automatically crawl through your website. To begin, your website must be submitted to these search engines. Each search engine has software routines that look at pages in certain structured ways and ranks them according to what it finds. If the structure and content isn't what it's optimally looking for, than your website will rank low or won't be found.

Everyday there seems to more information about what it takes to improve a web page rankings. We keep on top of this. As our client, we will be on top of this for you. We will monitor your site's visibility in the internet and grow your presence. This is accomplished through site statistic reports and other analytical tools. It is work. We'll be there for you.

Five Steps that Grows Your Web Presence

The following will help you understand how we work the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) approach with you.

1.  Pick a Target Phrase

We help you pick a target phrase by using tools that assess popularity and aids in brainstorming ideas for target phrases, including how the competitiors use the target phrase you're after.

Determine one phrase that describes what your page is about and should:

Be an important part of the page information

Accurately describe the page's contents

Use common, popular descriptions

2.  Analyze Your Competition

We test drive your phrase in popular search engines. The next step in search engine optimization is to determine who your competition is at the page level.

3.  Write Your Page

We keep on top of the latest techniques search engines are using to see web pages, We can help you write the content for your web pages. There are techniques that go beyond placing words and phrases in the meta tags of web documents.

4.  Promote Your Page

We review your page content carefully and advise on any necessary editorial improvements. Your chosen target phrase is important. Promoting refers how you write the links on pages and the number of times the phrase is used on a page.

5.  Check Your Results and Tweak

Major search engines, such as Google and Yahoo crawls web sites on a regular basis . Our goal is to help your web site get to the first or second page of search results. Optimizing web pages should be a continual process of refinement. Submitting your website to search engines should be a regular process.

noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 12:02:00 +0000

Creating A SME Web Presence That Delivers

In the today’s business environment the Internet has become an extremely powerful business tool. At a minimum it can be used to generate plenty of juicy new sales leads or at its full potential delivering a full e-commerce sales vehicle and revenue stream.

Unfortunately this been said it still tends to be the very large business groups or industry specific groups such as the hospitality sector that use the internet to anywhere near its full potential.

Using the Internet for your companies’ business advantage need not be either a complicated or costly measure. I believe armed with a little knowledge you can start to develop your company’s web presence so that it will quickly become an important part of your business strategy and ultimately deliver plenty of new sales and customers.

Your Website

Your website is your both your company’s shop front and product showroom on the web. Therefore it’s critical that you put in some work beforehand and plan for its design, wording and creation so that it delivers your company, people and products in their best light. Start by asking yourself questions. What do you want to achieve from this process? Can your on line presence add to your bottom line?

Goal

Once someone visits your site they become a potential customer so the primary goal of a business website needs to be to guide and encourage the visitor to make a positive next step such as giving contact details (leads), picking up the phone to call (leads) or making a decision to purchase on line (sales). Don’t forget a web designer’s business is the look and feel of the site not what your customers will want so you are the one that is best placed to manage the process.

About

Keeping your primary goal in mind your site is also a source of information to your potential customers. In other words, it’s like a sophisticated on-line brochure providing potential buyers with relevant information about the company, its people, products and existing customers. What is a potential customer likely to want to know about your business to help them to buy your product?

Text

The text needs to contain a decent sprinkling of the key words (search terms) that your potential customer is going to type into the search bar when searching for your product. In this way it’s very different to a standard hard copy brochure and that why it’s never a good idea to just replicate existing hard copy text on line. This bit requires some research beforehand from you. You may feel you have a good idea of what people are lightly to be searching for but you also need to consider and research less obvious keywords and search terms. Not doing this is lightly to be cutting off large numbers of potential visitors and ultimately customers. Include all these keywords in the text of the site and where possible in the text of your home page. It is also worth considering that search engines love new information so where you can stay away from coping or replicating existing on line content.

Pictures and Bios

It’s a good idea to include pictures and bios of the main people within the company. This allows you to demonstrate to the potential buyer the levels of experience within the organisation and show off any relevant qualifications and achievements.

Graphics

Buck the latest trends and keep graphics to a minimum. While they can look good they sometimes create more trouble than they are worth. Heavy graphic dependent type-sites are extremely difficult to get a good ranking on Google or the other search engines due to the nature of how websites are indexed. Remember Information rich sites rather than flashy sites usually win the ranking battle within the search engines.

E-content

Newsletters, blogs and free advice are a great way of keeping your potential customers on the site while also giving you an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise in your chosen field. The process of having a visitor sign up for a newsletter also provides you with sales leads.

Links Page

You also need to create a links page in your site. This is to allow you to add relevant links to other sites within your site. You include this page so that you can start to exchange links with other sites and build up the back links to your site.

SEO

Now that you have created your website you first need to get it listed in Google, Yahoo and DMOZ. You can wait for the search engines to discover your site or alternatively you apply to have your site listed. Yahoo charge for the privilege but if you wait they will pick it up. Once this is done your next task is to ensure that your site appears high enough up the search engine listings so that people actually click through and visit your home page. This is called search engine optimisation or SEO for short

One way to do this is to pay an SEO specialist company to do this for you or alternatively you can do it for your self. In simple terms search engine ranking is decided by three factors

1. The number of links backs to your site

2. The quality of these links

3. The relevance to your site of the sites linking in

Online Directories

Your first port of call should be on line directories. There are literally hundreds of directories out there that will list your site. Some charge for the privilege but many don’t. Be warned this can be a time consuming process because you have to enter the details about your site with each application and many take months to list your site. Remember try to target directories that are in some way relevant to your site i.e. Irish, Industry, business or product related.

Link Exchange

Exchanging links with other sites is another extremely effective way of building up the number of quality back links. Again target sites that are relevant to your business. Contact their web or IT person by e-mail or phone and propose to list their site provided the return the favour. Ideally you want to target sites that have a better or at least similar page rank than yours. To see what page rank a site has download the Google toolbar.

Online Articles

You can also write articles within your area of expertise and get them published online including a link to your site. One way to do this is to set up a free account with a site such as www.ezinearticles.com. These types of sites provide a service that allows their visitors to publish your articles on their website or blog therefore creating additional links back to your site. Alternatively you can target relevant sites and directly request to have your article published. Well-placed articles also deliver quality additional visitors and potential customers.

Google Adwords

Adwords is an online advertising service provided by Google. You pay to have your site listed for specific keywords and search terms. In effect you bid for relevant keywords and your site appears somewhere in the sponsored listing section. Where it appears depends on the popularity of the specific search term and the amount that you are prepared to pay. Adwords is a good way to get visitors to your site while you are building up your search rankings.

Google Page Rank

Page rank goes from 0-10 (10 being the highest) and is how Google views the importance of your website. Building up the number of quality back links is the easiest way to achieve a higher ranking. Results take time but it is worth the effort over the long term. Download the Google toolbar and you can watch your rank increase over time.

Summary

Your website should be an effective on line marketing and selling vehicle for your company. It can be used to generate good quality leads or be full e-commerce revenue stream for your business. Creating a professional business website is only the first step, it also needs to appear high enough up the search engine listings so as to attract sufficient visitor numbers. Lastly it will then need to hold these potential buyers attention and guide and encourage them to make a positive next step. This process doesn’t have to be costly provided you are prepared to invest some of your time and energies. What you will get back depends largely on what you are prepared to put in.

Author's Bio

Niall Devitt is a sales training consultant with Real World Sales Training web:www.realworld.ie. He has worked as a Sales Manager and Sales Trainer in the Insurance, Finance, Telecommunications and IT industries. He has trained salespeople to sell into the residential, B2B and the Irish Public Sector markets .He has trained people to sell products ranging from finance to search engine technology software and pocesses a broad experience of developing training in sales techniques, account management, presentation skills and new business development.

How To Get One Way Back Links From Other Webmasters

noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 21:19:00 +0000

To be able to achieve success in the World Wide Web, you need traffic. Traffic, as has been said many times, is the lifeblood of any website. Without traffic, you can never achieve any profit in cyberspace.

The best way to generate the traffic that you need is by placing highly in the search engine results. And to do this, your website needs to have a high page rank. One of the more vital determinative factors of increasing your website’s page rank is the number of relevant back links pointing to your URL.

Now here’s the catch. It’s not as easy as exchanging back links with another webmaster. What you need is to gain one way back links from different sources. This is what search engines want. And this is what you should aim for.

How can you convince other webmasters to include a link of yours in their web pages? Here are some tactics you can employ.

- The best way to get some unilateral links is to ask other webmasters. You don’t have to employ subterfuge, as some of these webmasters will be kind enough to assent to your request. There’s no need to bribe them with all varieties of kindness even. You’ll be surprised with the sheer number of webmaster who will actually agree to your request. The important thing is that you try this route.

- Often however, it’s a “what’s in it for me” business. Offering a link back to his website usually does the trick, but then again, we’re after one way links here, not reciprocal ones. One of the better ways to win his assent is to offer him something that he needs for his website. We’re talking about content, of course, as every webmaster needs content. Write an article for him, and exclusively for him, with a subject that is relevant to his website. Then ask if you can include your link within the article. 90% of the time, such a webmaster will agree. How can he say no to free content?

- Another offer you can use as lure for webmasters for that vital virtual real estate that can host your website’s URL is an incentive program. If your website is selling some products, for example, you can tell the webmaster that you’d give the visitors that will come from his website a substantial discount. Such visitors will develop a sense of loyalty for the webmaster, and your proposition will be something that he’ll find difficult to dismiss.

- By far the best way to encourage webmasters from all over the World Wide Web to include your link in their web pages is by establishing an affiliate program. Such an affiliate program will reward these webmasters a specified commission for every sale they will manage to refer. John Reese, in one of his amazing Traffic Secrets conventions, said that if you’re not using affiliate programs, there’s something seriously wrong with you. Indeed, affiliate programs are the most efficient and the most expedient way of building your back links.

- Viral marketing is the next most effective way of gaining some back links, and this time, you won’t even have to actively invite people to include your URL in their web pages. Viral marketing comes in many forms. Just take a look at www.blogthings.com which provides a slew of cool additions for blog users. Because of the very interesting nature of what it provides, the website garners thousands of visitors per day without even having to advertise them. It’s all word of mouth. MySpace grew the same way. It’s system is viral in nature, and it expanded by nature as well.

Social Media Marketing Tools - Putting Your Finger on the Pulse of the Web

noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 17:55:00 +0000

Time makes a mockery of most predictions. Once derided as the tools and hobbies of hopeless shut-ins and intellectual ivory tower sorts, social media sites such as PayPal, Facebook and LinkedIn have become the home of an entirely new, powerhouse economy. Where hundreds of years of war and diplomacy have failed, social media marketing has succeeded in bringing people around the globe together in the pursuit of common interests and open markets. Social media marketing is the home of successful brand promotion, and finding the right mix of tools to take advantage of it has become the defining issue of the modern brand.

When people refer to SMM tools, they are discussing a host of applications and programs that allow real-time and long-term feedback on the performance of their social networks. This kind of information goes beyond the purely mechanistic approach of SEO and website performance, moving into the realm of genuine social engineering. Social media tools can track the number of times a brand is being mentioned across each network, compare traffic between networks, determine where the buzz is starting and which path it took to get from, say, Digg to Facebook. Knowing the focus of each of these tools and the best way to use them is the key to bringing all this power under control and using it to help promote a brand to its full potential.

TweetDeck

TweetDeck is an excellent platform for brands to manage social networks. A simple, efficient, all-in-one approach makes TweetDeck very useful for getting updates out quickly to a number of locations. TweetDeck supports Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, GoogleBuzz, LinkedIn and Foursquare, giving a user easy access to all of the major networks. Users can send out status updates to any or all of these at once, allowing unified messages to be spread in a single step, without the potential to forget one. However, it does have its limitations. Very heavy traffic to multiple accounts can slow down its efficiency, making it more of a startup and middleweight tool than a long-term solution.

HootSuite

Similar to TweetDeck in that it is targeted toward smaller businesses, HootSuite is an alternative tool that allows for several levels of customization. For starters, the basic package is completely free, and will support five networks of the user's choosing. Currently available platforms include Twitter, WordPress, LinkedIn, MySpace, FourSquare, Facebook and PingFm. Upgrading to paid subscriptions allows additional networks to be included.

HootSuite really shines because it offers steady "streams" of information about each of the user's networks, allowing the aforementioned real-time monitoring of web traffic. If a particular network is flagging or performing particularly well, it will be brought to the manager's attention. Further, HootSuite provides user bios and links to various users' social networking profiles, allowing a brand to tailor its content to the needs of the market more efficiently. The information is a bit limited in the default package, but even upgrading to the $5.99 a month subscription brings a great deal more detail to hand.

Engage121

For larger businesses looking to make their mark in the social networking world, Engage121 offers a number of more powerful options. This is a program for professional social networking managers, because it is entirely customizable to the exact needs of a business. One of its touted features, for example, is the ability of a local office to examine, modify and approve messages from the central branch. In this vein, a generic message can be sent out about company directives, while allowing each branch to add or delete content based on the relevance it has to their own particular mission. Thus a large clothing chain won't waste time sending out messages about their new swimwear line to their regional users in Alaska.

However, it has to be stressed once again that Engage 121 is not a tool for beginners. The sheer number of options can be daunting to put in the hands of an inexperienced manager. It's best to offer it to someone with a great deal of skill under his or her hat who can offer a specific plan of attack for using this tool.

General Thoughts

As a more broad consideration, there's no reason to limit oneself to any one of these applications, or indeed any of their competitors. A sound SMM strategy might, in fact, use several programs at once, either to get multiple sources of information or to test out which works best for a given company's needs. Then as the brand grows and needs increase, the manager can move up to more robust software and applications that better service the needs of the company.

Above all, remember the axiom that these tools are based on the need to promote communication between brand and audience. They are not meant to reduce the users of the network to data that can be analyzed and directed — these are people with their own minds and agendas, who will respond in kind if they feel slighted or taken advantage of. Instead, they should be used as a way to get information about what people want to talk about and to build a brand's reputation.

________________________________

Enzo F. Cesario is an online branding specialist
and co-founder of Brandsplat, a digital content
agency. Brandsplat creates blogs, articles, videos
and social media in the "voice" of our client's
brand. It makes sites more findable and brands more
recognizable. For the free Brandcasting Report go to
http://www.BrandSplat.com/ or visit our blog at
http://www.iBrandCasting.com/

Website Keyword Selection

noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 17:30:00 +0000

By M. Saqib Ansari

Search engines are the vehicles that drive potential customers to your websites. Since search engines are the first stop for people on the Internet looking for goods or services, the position that your website appears in search results is an important factor. But in order for visitors to reach their target site (your website), you need to provide them with specific and effective signs that will direct them right to your site. You do this by creating carefully chosen keywords.
Find the exactly right words or phrases, and presto! hoards of traffic will be pulling up to your front door. But if your keywords are too general or too over-used, the possibility of visitors actually making it all the way to your site or of seeing any real profits from the visitors that do arrive decreases dramatically.
Your keywords serve as the foundation of your marketing strategy. If they are not chosen with great precision, no matter how aggressive your marketing campaign may be, the right people may never get the chance to find out about it. So your first step in developing your strategy is to gather and evaluate keywords and phrases.
You probably think that you already know EXACTLY the right words for your search phrases. Unfortunately, if you haven't followed certain specific steps, you are probably WRONG. It's hard to focus when you are right in the center of your business network, which is the reason that you may not be able to choose the most efficient keywords from the inside. You need to be able to think like your customers. And since you are a business owner and not the consumer, your best bet is to go directly to the source.
Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list of potential search words and phrases yourself, ask for words from as many potential customers as you can. You will most likely find out that your understanding of your business and your customers' understanding is significantly different.
The consumer is an invaluable resource. You will find the words you gather from them are words and phrases you probably never would have considered from deep inside the trenches of your business.
Only after you have gathered as many words and phrases from outside resources should you add your own keyword to the list. Once you have this list in hand, you are ready for the next step: evaluation.
The aim of evaluation is to narrow down your list to a small number of words and phrases that will direct the highest number of quality visitors to your website. By "quality visitors" I mean those consumers who are most likely to make a purchase rather than just cruise around your site and take off for greener pastures. In evaluating the effectiveness of keywords, bear in mind three elements:

Popularity
Specificity
Motivation

Popularity is the easiest to evaluate because it is an objective quality. The more popular your keyword is, the more likely the chances are that it will be typed into a search engine which will then bring up your URL.
You can now purchase software that will rate the popularity of keywords and phrases by giving words a number rating based on real search engine activity. Software such as WordTracker will even suggest variations of your words and phrases. The higher the number that the software assigns to a given keyword, the more traffic you can logically expect to be directed to your site. The only fallacy with this concept is the more popular the keyword is, the greater the search engine position you will need to obtain. If you are down at the bottom of the search results, the consumer will probably never scroll down to find you.
Popularity isn't enough to declare a keyword a good choice. You must move on to the next criteria, which is specificity. The more specific your keyword is, the greater the likelihood that the consumer who is ready to purchase your goods or services will find you.
Let's look at a hypothetical example. Imagine that you have obtained popularity rankings for the keyword "automobile companies." However, you company specializes in bodywork only. The keyword "automobile body shops" would rank lower on the popularity scale than "automobile companies," but it would nevertheless serve you much better. Instead of getting a slew of people interested in everything from buying a car to changing their oil filters, you will get only those consumers with trashed front ends or crumpled fenders being directed to your site. In other words, consumers ready to buy your services are the ones who will immediately find you. Not only that, but the greater the specificity of your keyword is, the less competition you will face.
The third factor is consumer motivation. Once again, this requires putting yourself inside the mind of the customer rather than the seller to figure out what motivation prompts a person looking for a service or product to type in a particular word or phrase. Let's look at another example, such as a consumer who is searching for a job as an IT manager in a new city. If you have to choose between "Seattle job listings" and "Seattle IT recruiters" which do you think will benefit the consumer more? If you were looking for this type of specific job, which keyword would you type in? The second one, of course! Using the second keyword targets people who have decided on their career, have the necessary experience, and are ready to enlist you as their recruiter, rather than someone just out of school who is casually trying to figure out what to do with his or her life in between beer parties. You want to find people who are ready to act or make a purchase, and this requires subtle tinkering of your keywords until your find the most specific and directly targeted phrases to bring the most motivated traffic to you site.
Once you have chosen your keywords, your work is not done. You must continually evaluate performance across a variety of search engines, bearing in mind that times and trends change, as does popular lingo. You cannot rely on your log traffic analysis alone because it will not tell you how many of your visitors actually made a purchase.
Luckily, some new tools have been invented to help you determine the effectiveness of your keywords by individual search engines. There is currently a software that analyzes consumer behavior in relation to consumer traffic. This allows you to discern which keywords are bringing you the most valuable customers.
This is an essential concept: numbers alone do not make a good keyword; profits per visitor do. You need to find keywords that direct consumers to your site who actually buy your product, fill out your forms, or download your product. This is the most important factor in evaluating the efficacy of a keyword or phrase, and should be the sword you wield when discarding and replacing ineffective or inefficient keywords with keywords that bring in better profits.
Ongoing analysis of tested keywords is the formula for search engine success. This may sound like a lot of work - and it is! But the amount of informed effort you put into your keyword campaign is what will ultimately generate your business' revenues.

Article source: http://www.articles-heaven.com/articles/?Keywords-Selection&articleid=159

Web Hosting & Search Engine Optimization

noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:57:00 +0000

If you feel that everything possible has been done to your web site to meet all high search engine ranking criteria and you still do not find your site ranked at the top of search engines, you web hosting service may be to blame...

How Can My Web Host Affect My Rankings?

If your server is not guaranteed to be up 99.9% of the time, there is a good chance your site will be down when a spider or editor visits your pages. If your site is not viewable, it could be detrimental to your rankings.
If you do not have twenty-four hour access to your files, this will eventually slow the optimization process of your site.
Free hosting services can be slow, often require pop-up ads and experience frequent down time.
There could be numerous banned web sites being hosted from your server or from the very same IP address that your site resides on.

What You Want In A Hosting Service
For Successful Search Engine Optimization...

A unique I.P. address for each of your sites. (There is some controversy over the necessity of this, but we highly recommend having a unique I.P. address for each site and that you are sharing your I.P. with no one. If you are sharing your IP with multiple sites, the search engines could automatically ignore your site if there have been many incidents of spamming from other sites using the same IP as you are using.)
Guaranteed 99.9% up-time -- Be sure to monitor this.
A service that allows you twenty-four hour access to your files.
The ability to up-load files at YOUR convenience.
Technical assistance that is available at least during business hours on normal occasions.

Following the above tips will give your site one more added boost to increasing the accessibility of your pages for better indexing and ranking potential.

Source : http://www.internetmarketingwebsites.com/web-hosting-search-engine-optimization.htm

Use of H1 tags in SEO

noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:52:00 +0000

H1 tags are one of the most important part of SEO which is the header tag situated in body of a website. It can be termed as the most simple form of header found on a web page. Through h1 tags search engines come to know about the site content details. If its used in proper co-ordination with anchor text and title tag then you can even expect increased density of website traffic from major search engines like Yahoo, MSN and Google.

Although the feature of h1 tags is not new and is present since years, but from last few years its significance has grown due to increased demand by Google. It carries much more importance than keyword meta tag and description meta tag. The best position to place these H1 tags is at the header situated above the content. Experts recommend to exclude the HREF links from the tag. When you keep a link in h1 tag, it gives the impression to the search engines that the linked web page is more important rather than the present page.

Those desiring to keep a descriptive link to their own page can use the link along with proper anchor text including content of that particular web page. The tags produced by h1 are of largest form, and are very important requiring to be used independently having same HTML commands.

They also consists of same attributes having higher level of suitability like the Class, Align and ID attributes. Always keep the header tag at the top of the web page. You should know this that- when Google scans a web page, it goes from top left to the bottom right of the page. Search engines generally view websites from text perspective instead of graphical point of view.

Place the h1 header tag on the top left hand side or middle part of your web page, as here the main content is found. You can even use the h1 header tag as the title for the content present on that particular page.

You can also construct sub-keywords having same heading tags. In order to separate the text in the tags they are made BOLD, thus they get separated from other text on the page.

Usually search engines are in the search of important and authentic text on the web pages. And when h1 tags are used, they are considered signifying anything important thus giving more visibility to the heading tags.

Drive Traffic With Google Local Business Listings

noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 20:23:00 +0000

Drive Traffic With Google Local Business Listings

Are you looking for a cost effective way to further promote your business online?
Register your business today!

According to Google, 20% of its searches are local search
Google uses local business listings at the top of their search engine results

What is your website worth?

The real SEO question. What is my website worth? Answering such a question is near impossible. However using one of the latest website valuation tools such as RealWebWorth you may see an estimation of what your website or domain could be worth.
Keep in mind this is going by your back links, Alexa rank, Google page rank and any other statistics used in the valuation algorithm. Simply put, this is how much your website maybe worth purely from a statistical standpoint
Before seeking a loan to buy that website or domain youíve always dreamed of, it is important that you spend some time doing some traffic and back link research. After all, Such a risk is unnecessary in this day and age. One of the best ways of finding this information is using a website calculator. Compare websites relative to your own. You get a sneak peak at how they are doing and what their keywords are etc.
RealWebWorth also includes some basic Alexa graphs so you can view how the website has performed over the last few months. You may view the top50 of the highest valued websites on the internet. The top50 gives you an overview of how these high traffic sites perform against each other.

Drive Traffic With Google Local Business Listings

Are you looking for a cost effective way to further promote your business online?
Register your business today!

According to Google, 20% of its searches are local search
Google uses local business listings at the top of their search engine results

For as little as $20 NeedMoreHits will review, optimize and post your business listing in Google ensuring you get maximum exposure through out the organic and local search results in Google.
Register your business today @ NeedMoreHits.com!
Website calculators are not just for SEO companies but also for the average Joe wanting to keep track of his siteís potential value. Unlike most website calculators RealWebWorth lets you value a subdomain and give you a rough idea of how much its worth. A subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain. For example, mail.example.com and calendar.example.com are subdomains of the example.com domain.
Simple is better. RealWebWorth is not alone as a website calculator. There are heaps to choose from. A lot have fancy websites with so many numbers, its bound to make your head spin. RealWebWorth keeps its calculations simple and direct. If you want to know more you can drop an email through to their contact form.
Best of all you donít have to pay a cent for the use of this amazing website valuation tool. Save time and work smarter. Instead of doing hours of endless research let them do it for you. If you are in doubt always do your own research before investing your grandmaís inheritance.
Visit RealWebWorth to start calculating your websites today!

Yahoo Instant Search

noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 20:14:00 +0000

Yahoo Instant Search

Before Google solidified its hold on the Internet, Yahoo Search was the top Web destination. Now, Yahoo is struggling to compete and take its place back at the top.
The year 2011 seems like a promising year for Yahoo Search, though. Just this 23rd of March, the search engine released Yahoo Search Direct, a new tool similar to Google Instant Search.
As with Google Instant Search, Search Direct gives you results as you type in the search box. So what’s in it for us users? Well, for starters, you get faster results, and there is less typing and clicking involved.

Search Direct brings you results in real time the moment you click inside the search window. A dropdown box shows the latest trending searches even before you’ve entered one single character.
Once you’ve typed in the keywords you have in mind, the trending list is replaced with an auto-suggest list and the window to its right is filled with results relevant to your query.
Once you hit enter, you’ll be redirected to the regular Yahoo Search results page and be greeted by the usual blue links.
As of now, Search Direct is still in beta phase in the US. Later this year, the new tool will expand to other markets and Yahoo products.

Search Direct is a lot like Google Instant Search, but the two are not entirely the same. For one, unlike Google Instant Search, Search Direct’s real-time results only show up on the drop-down window but not in the actual results page.
Benefits

Thanks to Search Direct, you don’t have to leave the search box to get relevant information. While you may be directed to Yahoo’s own in-house content (such as Yahoo Shopping), that’s hardly a problem, and it only makes sense for Yahoo to promote its own websites.
Here are more of Search Direct’s advantages:

1. Faster Searches

Some of the most successful inventions in human history let us accomplish taxing activities with very little energy and effort. This is partly why Search Direct is a winner. You do not have to finish typing a search term since you get results right away.
That said, Search Direct also saves time.

2. Smarter Predictions

How many times have you gone on a search engine to look for something but do not know what it is exactly you are looking for? Search Direct helps you know what to look for by suggesting keywords related to your query. The top suggestions are shown in grey text right below the search box, so you can stop typing after finding a relevant suggestion.
How to Turn Off Search Direct
Some people are more comfortable with regular search, though. Here are the steps to turn Search Direct off or on.

1. Click the Options link found to the right of the Search button, then hit Preferences.

2. Select Edit beside Search Direct.

3. Choose either On or Off.

4. Click Save, and you’re done.

To save this setting, you have to log in to your Yahoo account.

Tips on Coping with Google Panda and How to Get Traffic with Non-Google Techniques

noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 20:03:00 +0000

Tips on Coping with Google Panda and How to Get Traffic with Non-Google Techniques

Google Panda is perhaps the most significant algorithm update to ever hit the Internet, yet. It's been a month since Google rolled out the new algorithm and it's still one of the hottest topics in the SEO world. This isn't surprising, though, because the update practically reshaped the search landscape.

According to Google, the new algorithm is intended to improve search quality - Panda is aimed at eradicating duplicated content, low-quality articles and pages with worthless information.

Millions of pages in just about every topic area took a dramatic drop down the search results. Content farms are the main target, but in the process of filtering out content farms, several high quality sites were also affected. To add insult to injury, many of the high quality affected sites do their own SEO and are clueless as to how to fix the damage.

The website Mahalo.com, a massive information resource, has been practically squeezed out of Google's organic search rankings. As a result, Mahalo reported a 10% employee reduction.

While a massive number of websites have been scurrying to get their lost rankings back, some have used Google Panda to their advantage. Some unaffected sites announce traffic increase of about 10% ever since Panda's release.

All this commotion over Google Panda and its impact over search results bring us back to one of the most basic ingredient of online marketing: high quality, compelling and relevant content.

If your Google search positioning suddenly dropped like a stone, don't hit the panic button just yet. There are ways to redeem your website and get back in the game.

Check if Panda is the culprit.

Panda was rolled out on February 24th, so if your rankings plummeted before or much later, the reason could be something else. Check your analytics before you blame the new algorithm.

Countries outside the United States haven't experienced Panda yet. Start filtering out US-based visits to get to the bottom of the dip in rankings.

Look at each of your site's pages.

Google Panda looks at individual pages for low-value, scraped or shallow content. Therefore, you can easily find out where to start the site revamp by looking at pages that have performed terribly since the algorithm change.

Create original, interesting and deep content.

It only makes sense to re-evaluate your site's content and do a content overhaul. The basic SEO rules are still the same. Create great content – the kind you'd like to read online. Authoritative, useful and unique content always wins. If you think content that simply rotates around keywords work, you couldn't be more wrong because that is exactly what Google Panda wants to eliminate. Do what's necessary to have content that's valuable to readers.

Remember, Google Search is not the ONLY source of traffic

Google has somehow bent the Internet and everything in it to its will. This brings us to one vital peace of advice: don't depend solely on a third party business model, e.g. Google. Otherwise, you're bound to fail at one point or another.

Get a clue from what Google continually aims for: making its users happy, not content makers or website owners.

Also, Google always points out the need to establish a brand, not a website. This is why the search engine tends to support established brands.

Considering the above tip, your next step should be generating strategies that will take your eggs out of Google's search basket. Here are invaluable techniques to help you start.

· Social media

Facebook and Twitter are effective destinations for social media advertising. What's great about social media is that you have the opportunity to directly interact with existing and potential customers. Just note that this isn't meant to boost your search engine rankings because Facebook and Twitter aren't really ranking factors.

· Alternate Search Engines

Let's not forget there is 100's of other search engines that generate good amounts of traffic and often it is much easier to include your site and optimize for these engines. We've always been told to not put our eggs in the one basket, making sure your site is listed in the other hundred plus search engines is the most effective way of "spreading your egg's".

· Paid search

If ranking high organically is difficult, try Yahoo Search Marketing, especially if you have enough funds for it. Search marketing is an effective alternative for driving Web traffic.

· Google Images and News

While this still falls under the reigns of Google, being included in these destinations doesn't depend on organic traffic. Include alt tags for your images so that Google can identify them and your photos will be optimized. News sites or blogs have a good chance of being optimized on Google News, so make the most of this feature to drive good traffic.

· E-mail and Newsletter

E-mails provide a direct line to customers or site visitors, while newsletters feature top deals or news. Both these platforms are good non-Google methods of improving traffic.

Panda is yet to effect 100% of the world wide web, for the lucky few you may want to look at employing some of the above points to secure your alternate sources of traffic.

Web Browsing, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 19:25:00 +0000

Your Web browser can enhance your Internet experience, but of course, the speed of your Internet connection matters, too. Still, you won't have to pull your hair out of frustration if you're using a browser that won't crash or freeze all of a sudden.
Here is a Web browser review that summarizes the pros and cons of the best and worst browsers.

Google Chrome Review

Let's start off the showdown with Google's killer Web browser, Google Chrome. The search company entered the arena of Web browsers with a remarkable entry. Everyone seems to love Chrome's simplicity, compatibility, speed and advanced features.
While Chrome's features are relatively complex, they're engineered in such a way that users can easily use them.
The download manager is very convenient and inconspicuous. It's integrated at the bottom of the window and just sits there while the downloading is occurring.
Another one of Chrome's interesting features is the drag and drop function. You simply highlight a text or link on a webpage and drag it to your search bar to get search results.
With the recent roll-out of Chrome 10, the browser seems to have earned more followers. The pinned tabs feature is a delight and the minimalist layout allows you to maximize the display of your entire computer monitor.
The browser has problems with Windows OS integration, though. However, Chrome's biggest drawback is the lack of add-ons. For instance, it doesn't have toolbars for StumbleUpon, S3Fox, AdBlock or other applications that many depend on. If it weren't for that, Chrome would probably be the best Web browser.

Mozilla Firefox Review

Of course, there's good old Firefox. This product from Mozilla is reportedly the fastest browser as far as download speed goes.
Most Internet users are impressed by the browser's security functions. There's a pop-up blocker that prevents 100% of pop-ups from showing up, and the spyware feature has greatly protected so many computers from certain viruses.
Firefox's tabbed browsing capability is one of the main reasons why the browser became such a hit a few years back.
Now that Firefox 4 is here, it looks like the browser is still ready to fight despite the tight competition. The new and improved version boasts interesting features like Tab Groups, which allows you to group regularly used pages together. There's also a new layout that maximizes a lot of monitor space.
One disappointing thing about Firefox, however is that it easily crashes if you've opened too many tabs. In fact, this is the reason why Mozilla invested so much in the memory recovery feature.

Internet Explorer Review

Developed by Microsoft, Internet Explorer has generated a lot of support, as well as hate. While some say that it's the worst Web browser ever, many still use Internet Explorer because it comes pre-installed in Windows-based computers.
Yet another streamlined new browser, Internet Explorer 9, looks like it's ready to compete. Overall speed performance is impressive, and graphics are delivered better. IE 9 also boasts of sharper looking fonts so that you can easily drag and drop tabs, just like with Chrome.
The final version of this new IE was released last March 14, 2011.
Earlier Internet Explorer versions were a pain sometimes. The entire browser would freeze and crash at times if one single page failed to load. With IE 8, however, only the affected tab would close if it got bugged.
Speed-wise, Internet Explorer 8 is definitely better than its predecessors. The faster downloading has considerably helped Microsoft win back some customers.
Integration with other Microsoft applications is another plus. Internet Explorer 8 can easily work with Outlook Web Access, among other computer programs.
IE 8 has its fair share of shortcomings. For one, it only supports Windows, and it lacks a download manager. What's more, launching the browser takes a frustratingly long time.
Internet Explorer 9 looks promising, but it has a problem with websites that show up incorrectly.

Apple Safari Review

A favorite among many Mac users, Safari has come a long way. It was even more loved when it became available for PC users in 2007. Of course, there are others who think that Safari is better left to Mac users.
One good thing about Safari is that it looks clean. One look at the browser and you'll figure out where the options are and what most of them are for.
Simplicity and ease of navigation give the browser more cool points. There's no need for a lot of customization, and this may be one thing that make it run effectively and smoothly.
Safari 5, specifically, is praised for its cover flow, lovely interface elements, fast JavaScript performance and good tab integration.
On the other hand, people looking for themes and personalization may get turned off by the Safari's simplicity. More importantly, Safari doesn't come with extensions (yet).

Bottom line

The browser of your choice remains a matter of personal preference. On the other hand, you can't help but notice differences among these browsers. One thing's for sure; you will always have a choice if you're big on speed, features, add-ons, security or convenience.

Local Search Optimization Tips

noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 19:25:00 +0000

Drive Traffic With Google Local Business Listings

Are you looking for a cost effective way to further promote your business online?
Register your business today!

According to Google, 20% of its searches are local search
Google uses local business listings at the top of their search engine results

What is your website worth?

Before seeking a loan to buy that website or domain youÃve always dreamed of, it is important that you spend some time doing some traffic and back link research. After all, Such a risk is unnecessary in this day and age. One of the best ways of finding this information is using a website calculator. Compare websites relative to your own. You get a sneak peak at how they are doing and what their keywords are etc.
RealWebWorth also includes some basic Alexa graphs so you can view how the website has performed over the last few months. You may view the top50 of the highest valued websites on the internet. The top50 gives you an overview of how these high traffic sites perform against each other.

Drive Traffic With Google Local Business Listings

Are you looking for a cost effective way to further promote your business online?
Register your business today!

According to Google, 20% of its searches are local search
Google uses local business listings at the top of their search engine results

For as little as $20 NeedMoreHits will review, optimize and post your business listing in Google ensuring you get maximum exposure through out the organic and local search results in Google.
Register your business today @ NeedMoreHits.com!
Website calculators are not just for SEO companies but also for the average Joe wanting to keep track of his siteÃs potential value. Unlike most website calculators RealWebWorth lets you value a subdomain and give you a rough idea of how much its worth. A subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain. For example, mail.example.com and calendar.example.com are subdomains of the example.com domain.
Simple is better. RealWebWorth is not alone as a website calculator. There are heaps to choose from. A lot have fancy websites with so many numbers, its bound to make your head spin. RealWebWorth keeps its calculations simple and direct. If you want to know more you can drop an email through to their contact form.
Best of all you donÃt have to pay a cent for the use of this amazing website valuation tool. Save time and work smarter. Instead of doing hours of endless research let them do it for you. If you are in doubt always do your own research before investing your grandmaÃs inheritance.
Visit RealWebWorth to start calculating your websites today!

How Google+ Will Effect SEO?

noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:30:00 +0000

How Google+ Will Effect SEO?

The Internet is buzzing with headlines and reactions about Google's new social network, Google+. Recently launched this summer, Google+ is set to become Facebook's greatest rival yet. Considering that the new social media platform is another product that Google has under its belt, Google+ may just be more than a Facebook contender. If it really uses the power already wielded by Google, G+ may have a tremendous impact on search engine rankings.

Signs That Indicate Influence on Search Rankings

Even before G+ was rolled out, Facebook and Twitter were already integrated into the search engine results pages (SERPs). In fact, before Google and Twitter's real-time tweet stream deal expired just a few weeks ago, the number of times a link is retweeted would directly affect how that link is indexed in the search results.

Now that Google+ is here, users can engage in online social activities within Google itself, although the chances of G+ beating out Facebook and Twitter look pretty slim as of now since the new Google product is still very new.

With that said, it's hard not to expect that Google+ will influence a page's organic rankings, especially when Google pulled the plug on its real-time Twitter stream feature.

The +1 Button

Speculations about Google+'s search engine relevance have sprouted, but you may not speculate anymore once you've understood Google's equally promising new tool, the +1 button.

Google actually dropped an official announcement on YouTube regarding the use of the +1 button. According to the video, every time the +1 button in the SERPs is clicked, users are telling Google that that particular search result is more relevant to the keyword they're searching for. The video also says that Google considers "+1'd" results in indexing pages.

So, the personalized annotations can help certain sites rank higher since users will be given search matches that are more pertinent to their keywords.

However, that's when you use the +1 button on the search results. What about Google+'s +1 button?
Google+'s +1 button is a clone of Facebook's "Like" button. You can click on +1 to confirm that you like a post in the way you can click on the "Like" button if you like something on Facebook.

Google+ may have copied many of Facebook's best features, but what makes this new social network interesting is that you can view search engine results, not just G+ posts, your friends have +1'd by clicking on their Google profile's +1's tab.

There's only one setback. Unlike Facebook, Google+ doesn't post your +1's on the homepage feed. To see your friends' +1's, you have to go to their individual Google profiles, hope they've enabled the +1's tab, and repeat this entire process for the rest of your friends.

Social Interaction and Content Quality

If you've been keeping a sharp eye on Google's latest updates and algorithm changes, you've probably noticed that the search company has been emphasizing high-quality content that users will find useful and relevant. When you throw the +1 button into the mix, creating valuable content becomes even more essential. While we still don't see our friends +1's in the Google+ homepage feed, this is very likely to happen eventually.

Google's motives have always been tricky. Even so, every Internet marketer and webmaster should consider taking advantage of Google+ as evidence of social interaction being integrated into the search rankings is becoming clearer, even if it's too early to say that Google+ will have a huge role in your search engine positioning.

The Best Email Marketing Services

noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 08:46:00 +0000

1. Are Approved as Bulk Mailers

Many email accounts and most ISPs limit the number of emails that you can send at one time, further, most ISPs guard against bulk emailing, as it is often spam. Legitimate services typically have strong relationships with ISPs and are able to send bulk email.

2. Follow Professional Mailing Practices

For those of you using Outlook or another email account, mistakes can happen.Perhaps the most common mistake is exposing your entire list in the To: line, which violates all of your list members' confidentiality and exposes their email addresses. In addition, failure to includeunsubscribe instructions, an unsubscribe link or a physical mailing address is now against the law. Email services provide an automatic unsubscribe that is oft en effective immediately, and require inclusion of a physical address in every email.

3. Provide List Hosting and Management

An email marketing service hosts your email list and automatically performs critical list management functions. These functions can include signup for new subscribers, editing capabilities so that subscribers can edit their own profiles, and the ability to unsubscribe with one click. Because you are required by law to process an unsubscribe request within 10 days, the unsubscribe functionality alone is critical to successful email marketing.

4. Require No Technical Skill or Support Staff

Whether you are using your email account (and going it alone), or using a bulk email soft ware package, you will find that an email marketing service can save you precious time and money. With a service, the bandwidth, power and flexibility are 'built-in.' You do not have to worry about the technology or infrastructure required to send your email campaigns.

5. Handle Formatting

Email services usually send emails in multipart format. This means that your emails will be delivered to your subscribers in the correct format every time. In comparison, your email account can't tell which email format each recipient is able to receive - HTML or text. If you send HTML from that account, some of your recipients will get gibberish that they can't read. In addition, the size of your email may exceed the requirements of the ISP or corporate domain, making it more susceptible to blocking and filtering. If you send only plain text, you'll be missing out on response rates of up to 35% higher with HTML.

6. Create Great Looking Emails

Some email marketing services provide professional HTML templates to make email creation easy by eliminating the need for any HTML skill. Templates are pre-formatted to help you organize your content. They include appropriate fonts, colors and placeholders for graphics and company logos that are easily customized to create a look that matches your company's website or brand. .

7. Get Higher Email Deliverability

A good email marketing service maintains strong permission policies and has an active anti-blocking team working with ISPs on your behalf to ensure that your email is delivered. A service delivers your emails with proper protocols, develops relationships with ISPs and is white listed to be sure your permission based email gets through.
An email marketing service monitors all outgoing email to ensure that all major ISPs and corporate domains are successfully accepting your email.

8. Deliver Measurable Results

An email marketing service enables you to measure the response of each email campaign. Many services report the number of emails sent, opened, who opened, who clicked through and which links they clicked on. Reports also show new subscribes, unsubscribes, bounces and formal spam complaints. These reports help you track and measure your success, target more effectively, determine warm leads and improve your results over time. By understanding the individual and campaign results, you will know your subscribers better, and build more effective future email campaigns

9. Include Frequent Updates and Enhancements

Using an email marketing service guarantees that you will always have the most current tools available to meet the changing requirements of the industry without having additional updates to install as required in the case of most purchased bulk email soft ware. It is critical to keep up with email marketing legal compliance and new technology on the spam elimination front. Most new technologies that are being employed by ISPs to eliminate SPAM will require changes in both how you send email, and what you send. A good email marketing service provides regular updates and new features to enhance functionality, comply with the law, and optimize email delivery though ISPs. delivery and response and minimize the spam in your subscribers' inbox.

10. Comply With Email Laws

As email marketing matures, so do the laws. An email marketing service will ensure that your email campaigns are compliant with legislation. For example, the U.S. CAN SPAM law that went into effect in January of 2004 required that every email campaign sent include the physical address of the sender, and that unsubscribes be honored within 10 days of the subscriber's request. Because email marketing service providers are responsible for ensuring their customers' compliance, they focus on the law and ensure that their services are up-to date on compliance.

Comparing types of Web Hosting

noreply@blogger.com (macrocosmtech) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 06:19:00 +0000

Free web hosting

Many ISPs offer small scale web hosting free to customers on a paid internet plan. There are also a number of public platforms where you can host your webpages for free, although your webpage might have unwanted ads and there are often no guarantees as to reliability. Free hosting can also mean your site could be slow to load. This option is generally best suited to fun or non-essential webpages such as personal websites.
Pros: Free
Cons: Can be slow or subject to unexpected downtime
Sponsored ads may appear on your webpages

Shared web hosting

Shared hosting means your website is hosted on a server shared by owners of other websites. The physical server and its software host multiple webpages, so it is often cheap. It can also be slow as you're sharing the server's resources with others. Another potential problem is that other users' web applications can compromise the stability of a shared server.
Pros: Cheap
No ads

Cons: Can be slow or unstable

Dedicated web hosting

Dedicated hosting means you have a web server dedicated to hosting your website. Website speed will usually be very good because the server's resources are reserved for your website only. It may cost more because you pay for the operation and upkeep of the server. Dedicated web hosting is better for websites that need significant system resources (e.g. e-commerce and membership based websites).
Pros: More stable and faster
You control your server
Cons: More expensive
May require technical expertise to solve server problems

Virtual web hosting

In virtual web hosting, many users can share one system's resources (such as the CPU), but the server environment is configured so that you have your own ‘private' server. Each user is generally allocated a percentage of the system resources so they don't affect the function of other users' websites. This means you can install your own web applications and host your website without competing against other users for speed and resources.
Pros: Your own virtual private server with associated speed and stability
Cheaper than dedicated hosting
Cons: Service levels can vary greatly across different virtual hosting providers

Collocated or managed web hosting

Collocated web hosting means you provide your own web server and it is housed by a web host in a facility such as a data centre. Even though it is stored off your premises, you still have control over what applications and scripts you install. Collocated hosting has similar benefits to dedicated web hosting. You may be able to upgrade this service to managed web hosting, in which the web host provides support services.
Pros: Highly secure and stable
Cons: Can be expensive

When unmanaged, you are still responsible for problems with your server

Web Hosting And Optimization

Website promotion, phase one - Directories

Website promotion, phase two - Search engines

Website promotion, phase three - More techniques

Definition of Search Engine Marketing

Common Ways for SEM:

How Keyword Density, Frequency, Prominence And Proximity Affects Search Engine Rankings

How To Find Link Exchange Partner Sites To Improve Your Link Popularity

Search Engine Optimization

Five Steps that Grows Your Web Presence

1. Pick a Target Phrase

2. Analyze Your Competition

3. Write Your Page

4. Promote Your Page

5. Check Your Results and Tweak

Creating A SME Web Presence That Delivers

Your Website

Goal

About

Text

Pictures and Bios

Graphics

How To Get One Way Back Links From Other Webmasters

Social Media Marketing Tools - Putting Your Finger on the Pulse of the Web

TweetDeck

HootSuite

Engage121

General Thoughts

Website Keyword Selection

Web Hosting & Search Engine Optimization

How Can My Web Host Affect My Rankings?

What You Want In A Hosting Service For Successful Search Engine Optimization...

Use of H1 tags in SEO

Drive Traffic With Google Local Business Listings

Drive Traffic With Google Local Business Listings

What is your website worth?

Drive Traffic With Google Local Business Listings

Yahoo Instant Search

Yahoo Instant Search

Tips on Coping with Google Panda and How to Get Traffic with Non-Google Techniques

Web Browsing, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Google Chrome Review

Mozilla Firefox Review

Internet Explorer Review

Apple Safari Review

Bottom line

Local Search Optimization Tips

Drive Traffic With Google Local Business Listings

What is your website worth?

Drive Traffic With Google Local Business Listings

How Google+ Will Effect SEO?

How Google+ Will Effect SEO?

Signs That Indicate Influence on Search Rankings

The +1 Button

Social Interaction and Content Quality

The Best Email Marketing Services

1. Are Approved as Bulk Mailers

2. Follow Professional Mailing Practices

3. Provide List Hosting and Management

4. Require No Technical Skill or Support Staff

5. Handle Formatting

6. Create Great Looking Emails

7. Get Higher Email Deliverability

8. Deliver Measurable Results

9. Include Frequent Updates and Enhancements

10. Comply With Email Laws

Comparing types of Web Hosting

Shared web hosting

Dedicated web hosting

Virtual web hosting

Collocated or managed web hosting

What You Want In A Hosting Service
For Successful Search Engine Optimization...