EMD

Exact match domain

Well, EMD is not the typo error for EDM which means “electronic direct mail” or “electronic direct mailer” and email marketing in layman’s terms.

EMD means Exact Match Domain

EMD is for a SEO technique and many people believe that you can get higher ranking in Google with EMD. However, EMD is not a new idea or technique.

The late Corey Rudl used it in his Internet Marketing Course and Dr Ken Envoy of Sitesell.com recommended it in his course. So it is not a surprise that many internet marketers have snapped up most if not all of the .com EMD for popular search terms.

How to Look for Profitable EMD

You will need a keyword research tool. A popular keyword tool is the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. If you are looking for keywords related to your interest or hobby e.g. photography, in particular some vintage rangefinder cameras, then you can enter a keyword into Google search box and see what search phrases are suggested by Google. And you have “vintage rangefinder cameras” there. So the EMD for you could be www.vintage-rangefinder-cameras.com!

If the .com version of the domain you wanted to rgister is not available, then you may consider to register an .org or .net. Personally, I prefer .org domain for EMD.

I have wanted to change this WordPress blog URL from year/month/file-name.html to just file-name.html. I could simply change the setting in the WordPress permalink option. But that is not 100% right because all the older posts will lose the inbound link. That’s why I have to use a htaccess 301 redirect to make sure the old URLs are properly redirect to the new URL structure.

After some googling, the solution is simpler than I thought!

Add these lines to your .htaccess file:

# change year/month/file-name.html permalinks to file-name.html only
RedirectMatch 301 ^/([0-9]+)/([0-9]+)/(.*)$ http://www.timmguru.com/$3


Now this blog has shorter URLs and older inbounds will continue to pass on the link juice.

If you were using Year/Month/Day/file-name then the codes should be:

# change year/month/day/file-name permalinks to file-name only
RedirectMatch 301 ^/([0-9]+)/([0-9]+)/([0-9]+)/(.*)$ http://www.timmguru.com/$4


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If you’re looking at cheap web hosting in Singapore, read my review at http://www.timmguru.com/godaddy-singapore-web-hosting.html. I think it’s a good deal for those who want to set up a new website for personal interest or home-based business.

I saw this on my Facebook wall… “trained in the alchemy that is SEO and SEM by arguably the best search team in the region.” It was written by the boss of Big Advertising Pte Ltd in Singapore. And so his “friend” asked, “and who is this arguably the best search team in the region?”

Read at his Facebook wall to find out the reply.

What Makes the Best Search Team

Teamwork.

It will help if you have a star or two in your team. But most importantly, it is the company culture and teamwork that matter. Search marketing and SEO can no longer be performed by a lone person. It requires both creative talents and analytical thinking. Also the process can be painfully tedious.

Technical Skills.

You will need to hire people who are not only the best in the technical expertise but able to work as a team to offer the most effective solution to the clients.

Experience.

An experienced team in both marketing and IT will increase your effectiveness and offer you the best result. The search marketing is a very young industry and whichever team with the most experience will also be the most valuable to the clients. Because we know a mistake can be very costly.

I guess the boss of Big Advertising must have a team with the above qualities in order to make such a claim… arguably the best search team in the region.

Isn’t cloud computing also means web hosting?

Not exactly.

The Difference: Infrastructure vs Services

Strictly speaking, cloud computing refers to the infrastructure, as in a network of data centres. Web hosting is a service which could be provided on a single server, a group of servers in a data centre or a network of data centre spread across different geographical locations.

Here’s an excellent article which explains…

The difference between Web Hosting and Cloud Computing

One advantage of using cloud computing to host your website is the reliability of the hardware. Also you can rent a cloud server at hourly rate and set it almost instantly.

Saving Development Cost with Cloud Hosting at Hourly Rate

I have been using Rackspace Cloud Hosting and saved a bundle on development cost. However, Rackspace’s data centres are located in the United States and took a little bit longer to access from Singapore. It would be really nice to be able to rent a Cloud Server located in Singapore and save on time too.

Not many people are aware of GoDaddy setting up its Asia Pacific data center in Singapore last month, announced on 24 September 2010. I said this because out of every 10 people that I spoke with in the past 2 weeks, 9 of them didn’t know Go Daddy has landed in Singapore.

Here’s a quick web hosting review of the GoDaddy’s Economy Plan on their Singapore-based servers.

If you live in South East Asia, India and Australasia this got to be good news to you. Now you have one more reliable web hosting option at very affordable pricing.

GoDaddy means Huge Storage Space, Unlimited Bandwidth

GoDaddy web hosting offers you a lot more storage space(10GB) and unlimited bandwidth for as little as USD3.99/month (12-month prepaid).

  ==> Unlimited Hosting at GoDaddy.com!

This is probably one of the cheapest web hosting plans with unlimited bandwidth you can get for a Singapore-based data center. All the other local hosting plans will cost you at least SGD5/month for a paltry 0.1GB storage and 3GB bandwidth.

Fast Local Access Speed: 25ms Ping

And you get very fast speed when accessing Go Daddy APAC data center. I know because I have been hosting one of my new website with GoDaddy Singapore data center for the past 10 days.

Affordable VPS Hosting Plans

Now that I am quite happy with Go Daddy shared web hosting, I really hope to upgrade to a $29.99/mo VPS hosting so that I can migrate my other domains to GoDaddy Singapore VPS plan.

And you get an even better deal on domain registration and web hosting when you sign up as a reseller.

With more people spending more time on the Internet and increasing online marketing activities, web hosting, be it shared, VPS, dedicated servers or cloud hosting is expected to grow exponentially in Asia over the next 5 years.

So don’t wait, go get the Unlimited Hosting at GoDaddy.com! now.

Some time ago, I wrote a blog post on How Much is My Blog Worth. Today, I am revisiting the topic to show you a couple of different formulae to calculate “How Much is My Website Worth”.

Measuring Your Website Worth Based on Visitors and CPC

Here’s a formula based on what I called the “Spending Model” as opposed to the popular “Earning Model”.

If the value of your website is a function of unique visitors and how much PPC advertisers are paying for each visitor then here’s how you can calculate the worth of your niche website using this formula:

Number unique visitors per month x 12 x average CPC x 3 = $$$

For example, if your site attracted 10,000 unique visitors per month, the average CPC for the niche is 10 cents then your site is worth…

10,000 x 12 x $0.10 x 3 = $36,000

Measuring Your Website Worth Based on AdSense Revenue

Another way to measure how much your site is worth is to use the Earning Model. You simply multiply your past 12 months earning of your website by a factor of 3.

For example, if your AdSense site earned $200 per month then it is worth…

$200 x 12 x 3 = $7,200

As the website owner, you will take whichever is higher to price your website. On the other hand, if you are the buyer then you will use the lower one.

So What is the Fair Market Value of My Website

I would think the fair market value lies between the prices calculated by each of the two methods above.

The Straits Times published on 1 April 2010 has this title “Forget Google, check out Onemap” when reporting the launch of SLA ‘s OneMap Singapore portal.

What an audacious title! Is this an April Fools’ joke. The journalist reported that the newly launched map site, OneMap is “Singapore’s own version of Google Maps”.

First Impression of OneMap Singapore

The map is very high resolution and detailed. It is better than www.map.gov.sg which is now redirecting to www.onemap.sg.

In terms of resolution and information details, Google Maps really “got-no-fight”. Really impressed with what the Singapore government can do. I think I will start using OneMap to find accurate location of places and bus stop information but I am not about to abandon Google Maps yet. Google Maps still load up so much faster. And I am so used to using Google Maps – be it on the PC or iPhone.

OneMap Singapore may have very detailed information but not the latest. I could not find Parco Marina Bay at the time of writing.

OneMap SLA is Slower

With OneMap Singapore, there is still a lot more getting used to and if people don’t use it often then they won’t use it at all. I really think beside the detailed information on OneMap, SLA should also have to make it work faster. Imagine the agonizing snail pace if I were to access OneMap SLA with a cheap netbook connected to the free Wireless@SG.

Has the government invested in a technology that requires the general public to use fast computers and high-speed broadband? Hopefully, the slow loading webpage will not turn it into a white elephant.

Also, there is another “small” problem and I think it’s the common canonical URL issue. If you type in just http://onemap.sg you will get an error in Internet Explorer. I got similar error when I used Safari and Chrome too.

I think many people will just enter “onemap.sg” in the browser address bar. Otherwise, they will be using the search box to type in one map or onemap singapore or even onemap.com which will not yield any result related to the SLA’s site.

So do you think we can “Forget Google” and use OneMap Singapore instead?

Did you know when you engage a cheap web designer to build your website, it is very likely that the design is not original, but modified from existing ready-made web design templates. Yes, for cheap website design, you get what you pay for – not very original artwork and unique website design.

However, ready-made web design templates are not poor quality works. And, there is nothing wrong with using web design templates to build your new websites. You just need to customize it to suit your taste or corporate identity.

In fact, I find myself using web design templates from TemplateWorld.com more often lately. It is definitely cheaper than hiring a web designer.

Reduce Cost, Save Time and Increase Productivity

Usually, it will take between 1 to 2 weeks to get the web design and layout ready. With ready-made web design templates and armed with some basic Photoshop skills, I am able to customize a template to my expectation within 3 days. The time saved for the design stage can be spent on content creation and search engine optimization. Consequently, the cost of the website development project is further reduced.

If you have not used a web design template before, go try it now. WordPress templates start from as little as US$40 at TemplateMonster.com.

And if you have to create new websites every month, you may want to subscribe to TemplateWorld.com for US$49.95 with 6 months access to over 15,000 templates.

If you have been pondering about the low visitor number and no sale on your thousand dollar web page, you need to learn more about link building. This is not some SEO tricks to get number 1 ranking or to pay for unqualified traffic.

Link Building: Tested and Proven SEO Technique

This is an SEO technique that has been proven to work for a blog which is now ranked number 2 for the keyword blog marketing.

Link building is the most effective SEO technique to promote your web page visibility.

Link Building the Right Way

However, there is the right way to link building and there is the wrong way. The right way consists of methods “approved” by the search engines e.g. Google and Bing.

Here’s the 13 methods which have proven to work for Blogopreneur.

1. Comment on someone’s blog
2. Write an article – submit it to Hubpages.
3. Write another article – submit it to eZineArticles.com
4. Submit a press release.
5. Answer someone’s question in Yahoo! answers.
6. Email webmasters. Ask for a link.
7. Write something interesting on your site. Tweet the URL out to your friends.
8. Participate in forums – change your forum signature to include your link.
9. Submit your site to directories.
10. Guest blog for someone.
11. Get your site listed in one of your local club’s website
12. Submit a WordPress theme/plugin
13. Submit a YouTube video

Source: Link Building: The Key to Exploding Visibility