So now I must caution you about using Bing for work, until they fix this fatally flawed search engine.

This image shows the results for “girls” on SAFE SEARCH. The organic results are fine, but take a look at the related searches!

I then clicked on videos, still in safe search mode. The first video was of a woman in a g-string dancing provocatively in a bar. At least there was no hard core porn, and most of the videos were okay.

However, our research shows that people tend to move their cursor to where there eyes are on a web site page, and as soon as my cursor hovered over the video, the dancer came to life, along with music that left no doubt what I was looking at.

Want this to happen at work? Probably not.

Microsoft has cleaned some of it up. Safe search and moderate safe search don’t bring up the same images they did yesterday. They obviously still have some work ahead of them, though.

Bing gives one minute clips of videos directly in the search window. Cool feature. Except they haven’t filtered out the porn. Any kid can watch it, and there’s no browser history on these for a parent to keep on eye on.

MSN supposedly tried to put a band aid on it buy making the boxes black, but if you mouse over them you can still see the video. Actually, I tested this (market research only) and the videos popped right up, no black boxes involved. One click turns off safe search, so that’s no protection for innocent eyes.

The only recourse parents have right now is to totally block Bing. Open DNS makes this easy to do.

Microsoft was so busy putting together their $80 million rollout of Bing, they overlooked a huge issue, and now people are actually blocking the site

I’m not going to rehash all the pros and cons that everyone else has covered by now. I do want to talk about a site I found where you can compare Bing and Google results right next to each other.

It’s cleverly named Bing & Google, and it’s interesting to type in your keywords and compare the two side by side. I liked the results I got for “seo diva” (which btw is not my goal keyword) much better in Google than in Bing. Since Google serves up about 80% of all searches, that’s fine with me.

Nevertheless, MSN searchers tend to be older and generally more affluent, so if that’s your target market it is in your best interest to rank well in Live Bing.

This hearkens back to the Baby Boomer marketing issue. Since most PCs are sold with the MSN search function toggled as the default, older and less sophisticated web searchers tend to use it as their address bar. They have no idea there is an actual address bar at the top of the page. In fact, I’m surprised MSN doesn’t reflect a higher percentage of searches just because of that.

Anyway, how do you rank better in MSN’s current search engine? The MSN search engine algorithms seem to place more weight on keywords and content than on the inbound links that Google likes, although they still definitely help. This doesn’t mean you should amp up the keyword density in your site’s content; that could blow you out of the rankings on Google, which nobody wants. I do recommend you review your content, making sure the keywords you want to rank for are there. If your site is light on content, you may want to add more. And since MSN places more emphasis on Meta tags, make sure they reflect the keywords you’re reaching for.

This theme may not be the keeper, but I like it so far. It’s clean, and I’m learned to arrange the content so it looks good. I like it that my pics can be larger, too.

As you visit, you may see changes or possibly a totally different theme. You input is welcome!

There are a lot of very cool and sophisticated magazine style themes available. I own a couple of those premium themes, and now I’m starting to seriously consider using one of them. Here’s an example of one that I like: I’d love it if my readers would weigh in with their opinions. What do you think? Is it time for me to refresh my image and get with the times? I kinda think you’re going to say yes. Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

A lot of online marketers are totally missing a huge segment of potential customers. Keep in mind this group has $2.3 trillion in disposable income and in 2004, people aged 50 and older spent an average of 47.6 percent of their family’s budget on “nonessentials” (Bureau of Labor). These numbers are staggering for online marketers.

I came across a blog (and site) that talks a lot about marketing specifically to Baby Boomers; it has a lot of valuable info on it that you can take away for marketing your products.

Vim, Vigor and Vassolo makes some interesting points that need to be considered when marketing to Baby Boomers:

1. Every Baby Boomer thinks he or she can make a difference
2. They care about others
3. They care more about substance than trendiness
4. Boomers don’t feel old and expect to live forever
5. They’re confidant and know who they are
6. They want to feel fully alive and connected
7. They’re willing to pay a premium for quality
8. Baby Boomers expect r-e-s-p-e-c-t

If you’re a young marketer that assumes the world of ecommerce looks like you, you need to realign your thinking.

If you’re selling your own products, give some thought as to how they will appeal to the Baby Boomer segment of the population.

By targeting the people with the most money to spend you’re bound to increase sales and ROI.

I had been lulled by the Goog’s assurances that they were not needed if the shared sites were not porn or gambling sites, although I always recommend them for clients (dedicated IPs that is). Once again, it’s hellooooo Kay, follow your own recommendations!

For those of you who don’t know what a dedicated IP address is…when you buy hosting for your web site, you share the server with other web sites. This means you share the same IP address. Large hosting sites often put many thousands of web sites on the same server (a recent client had over 72,000 sites on the same web server they use). The big danger is that some, or even one, can be blacklisted, or serve porn or gambling, which reflects on your innocent little site.

So the safest thing to do is pony up the $4 a month or so and get a dedicated IP address (you don’t need a dedicated server, btw, if the two terms confuse you). That way your site is the only one listed on that address. Besides the renewed opportunity to gain the first page in Google searches, your site will load faster, hopefully go down less often, and it it won’t end up in what’s called a "bad neighborhood."

You can use this shared hosting check tool to find out what other web sites share your IP address. It could be a real eye opener for you.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Internet users want to quickly scan and understand what you have to say…if they have to interpret your words, they won’t bother, they’ll just move on.

Don’t Make Me Think

The book “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug is primarily written for web designers, but I use that motto a lot when writing and structuring content for the Internet.

The following practices will move your visitors through your content with a quick understanding of what you want to communicate to them.

* Headers

* Bullet Points

* Bolded Words

Did it work?

Beyond amateur design, lack of keywords, poor navigation, and all those basics, quite often I encounter “textual masturbation” on the first page, and it usually continues throughout the site.

WHAT IS THAT? You may ask (or shout in this case). Simple, really. It’s content that strokes the site owner’s ego - I’m so special, look what I can do, it’s all about me.

One of the biggest keywords people overlook is the word “you.” A web site that works is not about me, it’s about you. Your visitor couldn’t care less about you and how great you are, other than how all your awesomeness will help them get what they want. That’s it in a nutshell.

Go take a look at your content. Pull out every we, me, and I that you can, and start rewriting your sentences with you and your. You’ll be amazed at the response…your visitors will stay longer, read more pages on your site, and your conversation rate will increase.

There, I said it. My inspiration is the blog article I just read by Sonia Simone, The Complete Flake’s Guide to Getting Things Done. Yes, she wrote it last year, but I only just read it, and it spoke to me!

So I say “Thank you Sonia, for clarifying my flakiness to me and giving me direction!”

Maybe you’re a flake too. Does this describe you?

Are you smart and motivated and passionate, and have lots of cool things you’d like to get done, but somehow when it comes to doing them, you just…don’t?

Are you great at ideas but lousy at execution? Talk a good game but don’t get any results? Spend a lot of time thinking about where you want to go, but not much time actually moving your ass down the road that would take you there?

Okay, enough free stuff – now you have to click over to her site and read the rest from there. It’s worth it. There are a couple of book suggestions and a software program to help you focus your flaky tendencies.

One of her tips is to do something in the next 20 minutes. So I did. Here ya go!

This has been written about many times, but it still happens…

If you own a company and you haven’t registered the domain name as a .com and .net, a disgruntled customer or crafty competitor can grab it and defame your company name and reputation.

I saw it happen just this week. Now these people, who did not protect their business name online,  have a huge (and they say totally false) complaint on what should have been their company web site, and there’s not a lot they can do about it without a large expenditure they can’t afford. Even if the site gets pulled down, it’s still in Google’s cache forever. It’s a reputation management nightmare.

If they’re available, at a minimum register your company name for the following (add hyphens if you have to):

• .com
• .net
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Linkedin
• MySpace

From Cnet Download:

So if you don’t want your computer unwittingly sending spam, participating in denial-of-service attacks, or infiltrating other PCs to steal sensitive data, there’s no better time than the present to detect and remove Conficker.

Joe Stewart from SecureWorks has put together an effective “eye chart” that sources its graphics from sites that Conficker would block. If you can’t see one or more of the images, you’re either infected, or image loading in your browser has been disabled.

Below is a screenshot of the chart diagnostics:

Take a minute and go over to check the eye chart - it’s any easy way to help determine if your PC is infected.

If you watched 60 Minutes on Sunday evening, you may have caught Conficker Panic. Millions of computers have been infected and you’re in danger of being taken over on April 1, 2009. Kind of like the Borg - resistance is futile.

Well no, not really. Most of the machines that are infected are corporate computers. It’s easy to run a scan on your home computer to find / remove the virus if you have it. There are free tools designed especially to locate and remove Conficker from your computer. I started McAfee Stinger on mine this morning…an hour later it is still running and I have to leave for work, so I’ll give you an update when I learn the results.

Update: It’s April 1st, as far as I can tell the Internet is still working, so I guess we’re safe! Both my home and work computers were free of the virus. Did any of you locate it on yours?

Press releases have been used for decades by the public relations industry to make announcements and acquire media attention for their clients. Today, press releases have begun to be used in other ways, including as part of online marketing efforts.

Below are some tips to help you optimize and write effective press releases for your marketing methods.

Choose a Newsworthy Topic

One of the biggest mistakes people make when writing press releases is not making them something anyone would be compelled to read. Your web site’s launch is of little importance to the world at large unless you can show that you are offering a valuable and necessary service.

For example, if you were starting an online IT recruiting web site, your newsworthy angle might be the large number of vacancies in certain industries which are being left unfilled. Then people would take an interest in how you can help solve that problem.

Writing a Press Release

Treat the content just as you would any article in terms of keywords. Pick some that are relevant and are frequently used in searches. Add them strategically to your press release, particularly in the headline, summary, and several times in the body.

Do not overuse the keywords because these will make the PR seem too spam-like and may make it seem less than professional.

Use Clear Language

Another mistake that is easily made is writing the press release for a specific instead of a general audience. That means you don’t want to rely too heavily on industry jargon in your content. Readers are usually turned off by jargon not only because it can be challenging to understand but also because it can generate a negative impression of your site or your business.

Add an Image and Quote Someone

To make it more interesting, professionals recommend you add an image, if appropriate, to your press release. It’s also a good idea to insert a quote somewhere in the article. This will make it seem more professional and add authenticity.

Create Keyword Anchor Links

Because the goal of the press release you are writing is to drive people back to your web site, you’ve got to make it as easy as possible for that to happen. One way to accomplish that is by adding anchor links to your text. These are links back to pages of your web site embedded into the text through your keywords.

Link back to appropriate pages on your site, not just your home page. These links can become a valuable asset in your web site’s link inventory.

Follow Online Formatting Guidelines

If you’re going to be distributing your press releases through online services, you need to be aware of the format that is required by those services. The most common format requires the press release to be between 300 and 500 words in length, to have a headline, a summary, body content, an about the company section, and contact information.

You can find press release samples on the Internet fairly easily or you can hire a ghostwriter to prepare them for you.

The service I frequently use for press releases is PR Web. The cost of a press release, including the SEO Visibility option, is $200. There are also several free services online.

Hosted web content (aka pre-sell pages) is a linking opportunity that many people are not aware of.

What is Hosted Web Content?

Hosted web content is a page on another web site that includes links back to your web site. In some cases, this will consist of a page of content within the site with links to deep pages of your site. Sometimes it’s a review of your site with a link back.

The difficult part is finding relevant sites that will host your content. There are paid services that offer nice pre-sell pages that include several paragraphs of content with embedded links back to your site.

These can often do great things for your rankings if the web content’s home site is a trusted, reputable site. Also make sure the title, description, etc. have been optimized for search engines.

Risks of Hosted Web Content

Google does not approve of web site managers purchasing links to their sites. However, when hosted content pages are done well they are not obvious examples of paid links, so they provide a reasonable option for sites that want to gain more inbound links faster.

If Google does recognize that you’ve paid for this hosted web content, you won’t be banned from the results. The links just won’t count towards increasing your ranking. Your risk is higher if you’re using a free service.

Other Issues to be Aware Of

If you’re interested in hosted web content, make sure you shop around. Some of these services can be quite expensive: as much as $500 per month. If you allow the service to write the content for your page themselves, they own it and can remove your links if you stop paying.

You also don’t want a lot of other advertising on your hosted page, which is common with free services. Other ads can distract people from following your links and may alert Google that you have paid for your links.

One service you may want to try out is Linkworth. The last time I checked their prices were pretty reasonable and they include a lot of different link building options.