SEO Consultant

Don’t Forget SEO For Navigational Searches

2009-04-19T21:11:00.000-07:00

During search engine optimization (SEO) consultations, we search professionals often see and hear things that make our jaws drop. Even after years and years of knowledge distribution through email newsletters, blogs, forums, and other forms of social media, we still witness companies making really stupid optimization mistakes.

Since I am a strong believer in learning from ones mistakes and the mistakes of others, here is my SEO stupid mistake contribution for this column: not optimizing a website for navigational keywords.

What is a navigational search?

When searchers use a commercial web search engine to go to a specific website, the search query is classified as a navigational search. Navigational searches are more common than one might imagine. In fact, you probably perform navigational searches without realizing it.

For example, suppose you want to go to eBay to do a little shopping. How do you arrive at eBay’s home page? Do you:

Go to the address bar in your preferred web browser (Firefox, Explorer, etc.) and type in: www.ebay.com?
Go to Google and type in the word “ebay” (without the quotes) and click on the first link in the search engine results page (SERP)?
Use the search function in your browser toolbar and type in the word “ebay” (without the quotes) and click on the first link in the SERP?
Look through your bookmarks and select the eBay option?

If you do numbers 2 and/or 3, you have performed a navigational search on a web search engine. You are using Google, or your preferred web search engine, to navigate to eBay’s home page.

Navigational keywords are the words, phrases, abbreviations, and portions of domain names and URLs that web searchers use to go your website via the commercial web search engines. For any SEO project, you should always make it easy for searchers to find your official company website. Think about it—when people perform navigational searches, they want to go to your website. Why would anyone make that task difficult for web searchers to accomplish?

Which brings me to the big SEO mistake…

Optimizing the home page for “home page”

One of my clients recently purchased new content management system (CMS) software for managing a rapidly growing website. During the content transition, the HTML title-tag content on the site’s home page was modified to say, “home page,” like the following:

Home page

A minor oversight, I thought, before the launch of the site redesign. However, when I contacted my client to alert them of this oversight, this is how the conversation went:

Client: “We did that on purpose.”

Shari: “With all due respect, when searchers want to find your official company website, they will probably type in your company name. So if you want to keep ‘home page’ in the title, okay. But at least change the title to state ‘Company name - home page.”

Client: “That is too long and messy looking.”

Interestingly, these statements came from a usability professional who wasn’t quite with the SEO program. In addition, many important keyword phrases were removed from title-tag content on other web pages.

The problem? The client’s new content management system forced the title-tag content and the primary heading (in this case, the H1 tag) to contain the same content. And management felt the headings were too long and messy. Result? Few, or in some cases, no keywords in title tags. Few or no keywords in the search listing. Considerable loss of search engine traffic from people who wanted to go to this client’s website because they were doing navigational searches.

Optimizing for new and repeat visitors

I believe it is imperative for all SEO professionals to communicate the importance of navigational searches and navigational keywords to their clients. Navigational queries can originate from both repeat and new visitors. A repeat visitor usually finds it simpler to type in a navigational keyword into a search engine and click on the link to the website, rather than type in a full URL in a browser’s address bar. A new visitor might have seen a reference to your website on TV, a text message, a billboard, an ad… or he might only remember part of your domain name.

Removing navigational keywords, especially from a home page, often results in decreased search engine traffic. In fact, when this happens, you might see search listings from other websites (such as product review sites and local directories) appear in place of the official company site. When I observe searchers’ reactions to these search results, they leave with a negative impression of the company site.

Part of the problem is content management systems. “I have seen this issue in a couple of open source CMS packages where there is only one input box for the ‘page title,’ which generates both the meta title and the page headline,” said Randy Pickard, VP of Product Innovation at User Centric. “However, a benefit of open source is that a knowledgeable coder can easily over ride the default code and provide the option to have a unique heading and page title.”

And part of the problem are people who make assumptions about navigational queries. For your site to appear accurately in web search results, you will need to optimize key pages on your site to accommodate navigational searches, especially the home page. Don’t ignore people who want to go to your website. You might lose prospects, customers and a positive brand experience.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the author, and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Shari Thurow is the Founder and SEO Director at Omni Marketing Interactive and the author of the book Search Engine Visibility.

Google Optimization: Using Search Operators

2009-03-12T05:20:00.000-07:00

The underlying premise of SEO suggests that you understand the task at hand when it comes to outranking the other 999 entrants for any given keyword.

Google stops indexing a particular keyword after 1,000 results when assessing the aggregate relevance score to determine which results are spawned. By truly understanding this, you can discover a great deal from using a few basic Google search operators to determine what type of foothold a competitor has for a given keyword or niche.

Basic Competitive Analysis Metrics

1. Start with the keyword you are interested in researching. Place the keyword "in quotes" in a Google search box.

For example "SEO" returns 262,000,000 competing pages with the chronological order of the strongest sites first.

Then look to the right and determine the number of competing pages you are up against "for that keyword". It will say results 1 of 10 of (the number of competing pages).

This allows you to assess the competitive landscape with one brief metric. The extent of what you consider a competitive keyword depends on the website. For example, most websites can acquire a keyword under 50,000 competing pages with ease and competitive keywords start above 100,000 results and ascend into the millions (pages in index / divided by the top 1,000 results).

The next few metrics will allow you to understand where your SEO ceiling is (what threshold your website has for keyword benchmarks). Our blog for example can devour a keyword with up to 1,000,000 competing pages just from one post of mentioning those keywords (without backlinks).

So, all the talk about building website authority does have a place when you understand the implications to rank with less effort. Authority sites have the ability to zero in on a keyword and skip over hundreds of other websites and reach the top 10 results by the merit of trust and internal link weight and dynamism they possess. In keeping with the topic at hand, let's move to the next metric.

2. Evaluate your competitors domain and determine the amount of pages they have by using this search command in Google. You can use the #1 site and the #10 site to gauge an average of pages required to capture the keyword or, if you want you can use the #1st, 2nd and 3rd site that rank for the selected keyword to see which formulas they are entrenched in.

site:competitorsite.com (this shows you how many pages they have indexed in Google)

3. Next, determine how saturated their website is with the keyword in question.

site:competitorsite.com keyword

This shows you how many pages are indexed that include the keyword within their website. If the site in the top 10 is an authority domain, it can rank from one keyword alone in the title tag, description tag or having the keyword in the body text (or any combination of these three metrics).

While most websites do not have that luxury, often dozens or hundreds of pages are required to cross the tipping point of co-occurrence for that keyword within the website and acquire a top ranking. However each keyword has a threshold which is going to vary depending on the unique metrics of each website (which is why you need to look at more than one site for evaluation).

4. Now that you know that your competitor's site contains Y amount of pages and X amount of those pages are dedicated to a specific keyword, you can go the the most relevant listing returned from their site and look at the off page factors (which means finding out how many backlinks are linking to that page). To do so, use Yahoo Site Explorer and type the specific URL in and look at the inlinks tab to see how many pages are linking to that page.

For example, if the homepage is returned as the top ranking result for the keyword using the competitorsite.com keyword search command, ignore it and look for an actual page that has a title, or relevant shingle with the keyword (in the title, URL or description).

If they targeted a keyword using a broad match method (which means it was not necessarily the objective, but their site acquired the ranking based on ambient factors, then you will only see a sparse mention of the keyword). The point being, the homepage is a catch all and will not provide you with the same amount of depth when attempting to data mine deep links from your competitors.

The idea is, you want to know (a) how many pages they have indexed (b) how many pages contain the keyword (c) how many deep links (how many links just to that page) the top ranking page has (from outside the site) as well as (d) how well the site in internally linked (for that keyword).

We can determine criteria a-c with simple search commands, and you can also determine if the site is treated as an authority based on the keywords that appear in bold when using the site: command, websites start transforming into authority sites through topical relevance after 200-300 pages are developed around a topic (if they are linked and optimized properly).

5. Crunch the numbers and assess the competitive landscape of the keyword in question.

For example, if you know that the top 3 sites all have an average of 1000 pages and out of those 1000 pages 50% or more of them contain the keyword in question and your site has 20 pages, then you are not being realistic with your ranking objectives.

I am not suggesting to go add 1000 pages overnight (as that would not be natural) but rather, start chipping away at the keyword using a variety of SEO tactics.

6. Check the allintitle, allintext and allinanchor thresholds for the selected competitors' sites. This means finding where they rank in Google (in the top 1,000 results before the results get obscured / redundant) using the following search operators.

allintitle:keyword (who has the highest occurrence of keyword in title)

allintext:keyword (who has the highest occurrence of keyword in their body text)

allinanchor:keyword (who has the highest occurrence of anchor text / links with this keyword)

Using Google again, you can look at the competitor's on page and off page metrics, instead of breaking them out individually, you can just use NicheWatch instead, or our Ultimate SEO Toolkit, to perform this function.

The Conclusion

SEO is only limited by your imagination when it comes to determining the extent of how you use tactics for discovery and analysis. We covered a few simple metrics using Google search operators above that allow you to isolate co-occurrence and determine the global keyword density for a site.

This does provide a preliminary analysis to at least let you know what your up against (qualifying a competitor or your domain to a keyword). If you reverse engineer the averages, you can find the tipping point for essentially any keyword and craft a plan of action to acquire it.

For example 1,000 pages indexed, 900 have the keyword in exact match and the main landing page has 50 inbound links from Page Rank 4 pages. Now you have a threshold to exceed. Although this is a preliminary method, sometimes looking at basic metrics such as these can provide an immense amount of insight and determine the next competitive threshold you target for analysis.

Ten Website Design Rules For High Search Engine Rankings

2009-02-19T06:07:00.000-08:00

While millions of people run some sort of website, only a few - it's estimated at only 1 to 2% - are really successful in accomplishing what they want on the Net.

The main reason for this is the lack of well defined goals and the necessary focus to achieve them. A great plan goes a long way. Part of a good plan is web design.

Successful website design lets your visitors focus on the most important part of your website: the content.

Whatever the content is, sales pages or valuable information, great website design makes your visitors feel comfortable taking notice of your content.

Because it's your content that has to do the job, whether selling, generating leads, picking up subscribers or whatever it is that you want your visitors to do. That is your MWR, your Most Wanted Response!

Therefore, the first and most important factor of website design is to get your content indexed and listed in the search engines. No listings means no free traffic. You can still buy it, but at what cost? Better to use search engine optimized website design.

So, how do you do that? Below are 10 rules for successful website design.

1. Use a search engine optimized template. Using a great template makes your life easier because all your pages will have the same lay-out which makes adding and updating websites a breeze. Templates will save you tons of time maintaining your websites.

2. Use Meta Tags. I know, the keyword meta tag isn't that important any more. But the Title tag IS! In fact, it's the most important meta tag and so many websites don't use it. Search engines use the title tag to see what your page is all about and list it in their result pages.

Also, they use your description tag as added information. It's a great way to entice searchers to click on your webpage when they find it.

3. Use CSS. With CSS, abreviation for Cascading Style Sheets, you can control the style and layout of multiple web pages all at once. In other words, your website layout and style design is defined in one place and one place only. Change your css file and your complete website will be updated.

4. Delete all the crap and focus on your content. Flash and (java)scripts are funny, but very often they don't serve a purpose. Instead, they fill up your visitors' computer memory and make them run slow. Dump it. Using as little code as possible is the best way to guarantee good search engine positioning.

5. Have simple and clear navigation. You have to provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu so that even a young child will know how to use it. Stay away from complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. If your visitors don't know how to navigate, they will leave your site.

6. Reduce the number of images on your website. Yes, I know a picture can say more than a thousand words, but many pictures don't. They make your site load very slowly and more often than not they are very unnecessary. And, if you have an image that says more than a thousand words, make sure you optimize it to a minimum file size and offer a larger version as an option.

7. Use a sitemap. Site maps are a great way to take search engine robots by the hand and show them all the pages of your site and also help them understand what each page is about, which means it makes your site more search engine friendly and helps get a higher ranking.

8. Write crisp HTML that will validate. When they arrive at your site search engine robots only see a bunch of HTML codes. No fancy images, no colored text, nothing of that kind. So to make search engines understand what your website is about and show them that it deserves to have a high ranking, you need to speak to them in their own language: crisp HTML coding that will validate!

Don't use deprecated HTML coding, make sure your website complies to w3 org web standards and make sure it is cross-browser compatible.

9. Write one page for one keyphrase and use the keyphrase as the page name. Divide your site into major blocks, ordered by themes, and start building new pages and subsections in those blocks. Without doubt you have researched the keywords and keyphrases you want to get listed for. Now, use them as the name of these blocks and individual pages at your website. Use synonyms inside the pages, so the search engines will get a good idea what your website is all about.

10. Keep your content limited to 500 pixels. For optimal reading convenience, a width of 500 pixels is recommended with a font size of 11 or 12 pixels. It's the easiest way for our eyes to read the text. Use dark text on a light background.

About The Author
Article by Case Stevens - CaseStevens.com

How to Use Web Analytics to Grow Your Business

2009-02-16T05:41:00.000-08:00

If you own a business, chances are you do. But don't pat yourself on the back too quickly.

By now it's widely-accepted that if you have a business card you should probably have a website. It doesn't matter what your company is selling - a website, however modest, has become a standard.

The real question is: what is your website doing for your business?

As a web marketer I often put this question to the business owners I meet. Not because I'm trying to lead into my sales pitch, but because I'm intrigued to hear the answer.

Most people get a certain "deer in the headlights" look in their eyes when I ask this question. To be fair, it's not a question we're used to hearing. But that's not all that's going on here.

Traditional advertising mediums - print, TV, radio, etc - are notoriously difficult to track. Sure, you'll know how often the phone is ringing or how many people come in with a coupon clipped from the Sunday paper, but what you don't know is how many people saw/heard your ad and whether they were interested, oblivious or, worse, annoyed.

Business owners are used to this. We all know we need to advertise - it's a necessary cost of doing business - so we buy that half-page ad in the Yellow Pages or the local newspaper, we sponsor an event or a little league team, we have a radio commercial written (maybe even with a jingle) and we hope for the best.

This has been a given in marketing since the beginning. But the web, and analytics, changed the game.

So how should you be using your web analytics to grow your audience, and your business, online?

Track Everything

With web analytics on your site you can track:

Where your traffic is coming from by
- The referring website and page
- The search engine and keyword used

Your website visitors by
- Their location
- Their operating system, browser and monitor resolution
- Their network

Visitor behavior and actions by
- Duration of visit (time on site)
- Pages per visit (number of pages viewed)
- Bounce rate (percentage of users who viewed only one page before leaving)
- Conversion rate (percentage of users who completed a preset task)

If you're planning on doing any kind of web marketing, be it through search engines, email or advertising on other websites, information on your past and current traffic is crucial. Not to mention you'll want analytics in place so you can properly track the new traffic your promotions will, hopefully, bring in.

Tie Your Traffic Sources to Your Users' Actions

When looking at your analytics data the behavior and action metrics mean little by themselves. If the bounce rate of your site overall is 75%, what does that tell you? Well, this is a pretty high bounce rate - you should at least be shooting to have a bounce rate lower than 50%. But does this tell you exactly what is wrong?

Likewise, if you have secured advertising or a listing on another website, the number of visits coming in from that site only gives you part of the picture.

Tying your bounce rate to a specific traffic source, on the other hand, can tell you a lot.

If a given traffic source is generating a bounce rate of 85% or more, for example, this indicates that users are not being satisfied. There are a few possibilities as to why:

The users may not be well-qualified - or the site where you are listed or advertising might not have the best audience for your content/offer.

The listing/ad may promise something that the entry page does not live up to (or, at least, the promise is difficult to locate once the user arrives at your site).

Your site is simply not usable, is unattractive or unprofessional, causing users to leave immediately (and most don't come back)

Your users are not connecting with your content/offer.

There are other possibilities, but you'll want to find the most likely answer here - and try to fix it. Then, using the same metrics (traffic source + bounce rate), you can see whether things improve moving forward.

Using metrics like these you can also get a sense of which advertisements are bringing you a return on your investment and which aren't. With goal tracking in Google Analytics, for example, a conversion rate is added to just about every traffic metric, including referring websites. If you're finding that a website is sending you plenty of traffic but none of it is converting, re-examine the referring website's audience, how your site is being presented and the user's experience when they click through.

The Point

Your website is more than a brochure. It's an interactive tool for your users. The only true way to find out how they're using it (or not using it) is to get web analytics set up properly on your website (including setting goal points to track conversions).

And the best way to improve your website in the aim of building your business is to use the information your web analytics give you.

The age of blind advertising - of throwing money at the problem and hoping for the best - is dead.

If you aren't tracking everything, taking time on a regular basis to understand what the data reveals about your users and adjusting your efforts based on this information, you're missing an opportunity to optimize your advertising and get a better return on your budget.

In this economy, is that something you can afford?

About The Author
Mike Tekula is the President of Unstuck Digital - a Long Island, NY web marketing company that offers proven solutions and training for growing your business online.

Key Differences Among the Most Commonly Used Keyword Suggestion Tools - Part One

2009-02-12T22:21:00.000-08:00

Rigid, unchanging procedures threaten any business activity. With Internet-enabled and -related enterprises, keeping up with technological progress is absolutely essential to survival. As opposed to static (unchanging) websites that are not looking to strengthen or raise their industry share, any dynamic (changing) website will have new copy, even new strategies, on an ongoing basis. Regular, extensive, ongoing keyword research is not a luxury, but a basic survival tactic.

Understanding how people actually use words, and the relationships these words have in the context of an Internet search, is key to threading these words and phrases through the fabric of your site. Because the Internet is so very dynamic, with word relationships changing seemingly by the minute, this is a huge and growing challenge for more and more people and companies. After all, the Internet is growing into the major commercial and communication hub of the world. Accurate and useful keyword suggestion tools - and their intelligent implantation into business and marketing strategy, are a major part of the solution.

There are a plethora of keyword suggestion tools available, from free to cost-based, including NicheBot, Wordtracker, KeywordDiscovery, SEOBook, and the various Google keyword tools. In this two-part article, we will consider these tools and the differences among them. Part one will cover the first three on the líst, while part two will cover the Google tools and SEOBook's Keyword Suggestion Tool.

Most importantly, perhaps, these tools help you estimate the relative (rather than absolute) size of the search referral "market" produced by particular words and phrases. You will develop a better understanding of what terms appear how often in search queries, and what other terms are correlated with them, and how many times they are searched compared to those other terms. The analytics you develop with the tools will also give you a good idea of how their suggestions will fare, and provide a means of understanding "competition levels" for specific words and phrases.

Naturally, there are differences both large and small among these keyword analysis/suggestion tools. Google, of course, compiles its tool data from its own search network of sites and offers tremendous functionality at low or zero cost. The subscription-based services, such as Wordtracker and KeywordDiscovery, take advantage of databases of multiple sites and data that can be assembled, broken down, repurposed and presented in myriad ways.

Specific Tool Functionality

Wordtracker aggregates its keyword data from the leading meta search engines, primarily Dogpile but with input from MetaCrawler and others. In Wordtracker's attempts to mine keyword gold, it will discover how many times a certain term or phrase shows up in its database of over 316 million words. This is quite a trick in itself, as English (according to linguists) has between 600,000 and two million words, depending upon how we define a "word." It is clear that Wordtracker leaves no permutation or word-form uncounted, which is a distinct benefit.

Wordtracker's brain trust asserts that metacrawlers process the queries of the leading search engines with some precision, and that the software robots that continuously check site rankings and such do not interfere with the count. In a different approach, KeywordDiscovery relies on its global "premium database" of some 4.5 billion searches based solely on user data, thus diminishing the distortions inherent in some other strategies.

If you are considering which tool to use, you can still get free trials of most tools, except that you usually need to provide contact information, with phone numbers and e-mail addresses required. There are few ways to use and compare the tools anonymously, so the next best approach is "meta-analysis," in which we look at various published third-party reports on the actual use of these tools.

In a study published last year, one technology writer performed keyword forecasts for "dog food" with KeywordDiscovery, Wordtracker and several other programs. Despite using different original data sets, all of these tools try to supply reliable estimates of the available search referral traffic without "data inflation." There are numerous ways to analyze and present the results.

On average, KeywordDiscovery predicted there would be some 1,088 searches for "dog food" daily, while Wordtracker calculated the probable search referral market for "dog food" to be about double that. KeywordDiscovery does have a unique and quite useful algorithm that considers "seasonality" in its results, letting you review the seasonality of terms historically, as monthly estimates or even as a component of annual trends. Search engine market share is developed, as well.

KeywordDiscovery and Wordtracker results can both be repurposed to estimate just Google referral traffic or that of any other major engine. In the tech columnist's example, the Wordtracker daily estimate for Google's "dog food" search was 1,043, or almost half of all the "Daily Prediction" information. KeywordDiscovery had Google accounting for 67 percent of its "Average Daily" results, thus suggesting that 738 "dog food" searches would be made in Google every day.

Perhaps this does not seem to be much of an absolute difference, but when considered over a 30-day period, the difference scaled up considerably in this particular test. KeywordDiscovery estimated some 22,000+ "dog food" searches that month, but Wordtracker projected over 31,000 "dog food" searches for that same period.

A 'Niche' Player

Nichebot came on the scene with some degree of fanfare. It is a complex program, with a tightly specified methodology that lacks flexibility in some important ways. On the other hand, it gathers data from more sources than Wordtracker - leveraging the results from KeywordDiscovery and Google - and provides a great selection of explanatory videos, instructive screenshots and excellent "Help" functions.

However, Nichebot recommends a five-step system, which can be time-consuming and confusing, even for veterans. There are, of course, some free "quick-dig" tools, including, oddly enough, Wordtracker and its thesaurus. While it is free to search Wordtracker via Nichebot, you get only basic counts, and must pay for a premium search if you wish to see competition data and the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI).

You can dig a bit "deeper" without additional cost by clicking on a term or phrase in the results, which provides a líst of associated phrases. One savvy forum poster declared that the primary purpose for using Nichebot is "to find as many keywords from multiple sources to cover as much territory for the maximum traffic for your website." In practice, he explained, one can start "from a broad search and just keep refining, merging, narrowing in."

The proliferation of "niche" tools and functions would seem to be a sensible development given Nichebot's name, but the added functionality comes at a price. For instance, you can get the addresses of the sites that have the greatest number of backlinks for a particular term, but the learning curve involved with this program makes the more arcane data difficult to develop.

Generally speaking, Nichebot results are excellent, and it allows better organization of projects and searches via its folder hierarchy. Further, the program checks your site for keyword density "red flags" that Google may note (and disapprove of). As premium search charges kick in a bit early compared to others, the question for users has to be: Do the premium charges return enough value to offset the time and money spent to obtain it?

Time and Tide

While meta-analysis of user comments at a random selection of forums discloses that they don't find Nichebot particularly intuitive, it is considered an impressive software achievement.

Even its appearance gives Nichebot the impression that using it takes time and discipline. While KeywordDiscovery and Wordtracker can be used in a stream-of-consciousness manner at times, Nichebot does not lend itself to brainstorming or "fluid" search styles. This is a direct result, of course, of its having the power it does. Despite that power, it does have a number of anomalies that are commonly reported. For one thing, it applies its vaunted "Jackpot" rating to keywords for which it finds no competition, even if that is the case because of error or anomaly.

Finally, a number of users report that advanced searches can get stuck in a "holding pattern" (in a queue) and take from 15-20 minutes to generate results. With the tide of the Internet forever washing new waves onto the shore, time is of the essence. Even though advanced keyword research searches can return valuable data, it is no stretch to say that many marketers might consider 20 minutes per keyword tool inquiry to be a barrier to frequent or consistent use.

Rating the Tools

Wordtracker is easier to use for most people, but the possibilities are certainly expanded with Nichebot. Doing random or unassociated searches "by the seat of your pants" is among Wordtracker's great strengths, but Nichebot works well to focus your work and helps you take a step-by-step, measured approach. It can be said that Nichebot can not only return search terms and numbers, but can actually sub as your defacto keyword research process. As one user commented at a KEI forum, Nichebot "takes a lot of the guesswork out [but] getting there is somewhat painful."

KeywordDiscovery's "9-in-1 tool" approach (check their site, it's even divided up this way) is popular with many users. It goes some 10,000 keywords deep and the more you pay the deeper you can go. Nichebot does provide more information, but it has that steep learning curve and much harder to learn than the more "friendly" Wordtracker and KeywordDiscovery.

What works best for you will most likely be a product of trial and error - and for many will be a combination of the tools. Because you have to give up more and more personal data to get the "free trials," however, you may want to let other people's fingers "do the walking" and continue to do meta-analyses of others' results. There is a lot of wisdom to be gleaned from multiple opinions, yet there is nothing like running your research your way. Trust the judgment of tech columnists and meta-analysts, or acquiesce to giving up some personal information to find out for yourself.

Remember, because of the many search engines and the multitudes of sources the keyword tools get their numbers from, all of the results are relative. For starters, check out the most important, relevant and highly "trafficked" keywords and terms already associated with your site's content. As we move to Part Two and consider the Google tools and SEOBook's program, don't forget that ongoing study, research and testing are the most fruitful ways to stay abreast of an ever-changing universe of words – and all their relatives, too.

About The Author
AdGooroo is a leader in online competition analysis. With a cutting edge keyword research tool and providing free keyword research, AdGooroo is a must-have for any search marketer or agency.

20 Largest Social Bookmarking Sites | February 2009

2009-02-11T00:51:00.000-08:00

1 | digg.com 560,598,000 - Inbound Links | 33,432,650 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 12,200,000 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 284 - Alexa Ranking.

2 | Yahoo! Buzz
4,231,000 - Inbound Links | NA - Compete Monthly Visitors | 4,000,000 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | NA - Alexa Ranking.

3 | Technorati.com
250,287,000 - Inbound Links | 2,259,592 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 2,300,000 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 457 - Alexa Ranking.

4 | StumbleUpon.com
305,000,000 - Inbound Links | 4,209,353 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 978,000 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 939 - Alexa Ranking.

5 | del.icio.us
606,665,000 - Inbound Links | 1,704,343 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 325,000 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 2,648 - Alexa Ranking.

6 | kaboodle.com
3,693,000 - Inbound Links | 4,903,654 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 3,400,000 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 1,422 - Alexa Ranking.

7 | reddit.com
210,685,000 - Inbound Links | 3,807,418 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 1,200,000 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 4,815 - Alexa Ranking.

8 | mixx.com
17,326,000 - Inbound Links | 961,684 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 2,100,000 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 673 - Alexa Ranking.

9 | Propeller.com
5,903,000 - Inbound Links | 1,080,258 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 773,000 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 2,252 - Alexa Ranking.

10 | Fark.com
55,162,723 - Inbound Links | 450,773 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 1,300,000 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 6,550 - Alexa Ranking.

11 | newsvine.com
90,708,775 - Inbound Links | 744,534 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 768,000 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 7,106 - Alexa Ranking.

12 | Slashdot.org
62,071,035 - Inbound Links | 881,082 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 461,000 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 10,512 - Alexa Ranking.

13 | clipmarks.com
765,141 - Inbound Links | 409,530 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 552,000 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 6,294 - Alexa Ranking.

14 | Furl.net
170,628,144 - Inbound Links | 173,364 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 85,500 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 21,691 - Alexa Ranking.

15 | faves.com
2,067,453 - Inbound Links | 157,420 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 232,000 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 8,846 - Alexa Ranking.

16 | dzone.com
4,933,009 - Inbound Links | 222,058 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 193,000 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 46,502 - Alexa Ranking.

17 | blinklist.com
78,582,576 - Inbound Links | 95,238 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 50,000 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 28,616 - Alexa Ranking.

18 | ma.gnolia.com
60,917,444 - Inbound Links | 89,558 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 18,300 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 79,651 - Alexa Ranking.

19 | simpy.com
37,090,730 - Inbound Links | 55,396 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 42,000 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 65,050 - Alexa Ranking.

20 | BlogMarks.net
31,281,453 - Inbound Links | 36,048 - Compete Monthly Visitors | 9,500 - Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 42,675 - Alexa Ranking.

Original Source: http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-bookmarking

7 Basics of Good Web Design

2009-02-11T00:48:00.000-08:00

Whether you are just starting a web design project, looking at revamping an existing site, or just wanting to double check the usability of your current web site you should consider these 7 Basics of Good Web Design.

These basics are aimed at new visitors/customers; your repeat customers will be judging your web site on different values. Just like wearing the appropriate clothes for a job interview, these basics will help you pick out the "look" of your web site so that you make a good first impression.

1. Fast Loading Web Site - Any way you look at it, a fast loading page should be your number 1 concern. The web is all about speed, fast searches, fast purchases, fast information. You can't have any of that with a slow loading page. Ask yourself this question - have you ever been on Google doing a search for something important and a link you clicked on didn't open up immediately? What did you do? Patiently wait for the page to open or move onto the next link on the page? My favorite sites open almost immediately.

So, a few suggestions: Make sure that your images are properly optimized. Don't use very many large images, save those for a different page. Keep any auto-running multimedia to a minimum, provide links to run media instead. Check your code for anything else that could affect your page loading times. Since text loads almost instantly go ahead and use all the text you want, just keep everything else under control.

2. No Meaningless Splash Page - Do you appreciate a fancy animation page that doesn't tell you anything and you have to wait for before the web site will open? Neither do I. The last thing I want once I find an interesting site is to wait through some animation before getting to the first page. This doesn't mean that I don't want multimedia on a site, I do. I just don't want an animation before the first page that forces me to wait for it to finish before getting onto the site. It's like having to wait for a salesperson to finish their memorized speech before you can ask them a question. No thanks! I like animation, just in the right place and at the right time. Plus, if I am a returning customer, I will have already seen that animation and don't need to see it again.

My suggestion is to use a smaller animation contained in your main landing page which also includes your main message and links to the rest of your site. It will make for a faster loading page (smaller file) and your visitors can go ahead with accessing your site without having to wait for the animation to finish.

One final note, don't ever put your logo as the only content on your landing page with a link that says "Enter Site". This just screams Unprofessional and will drive away potential visitors in droves. The last thing I want to do is to click on another link just to get into the site. This is a total waste of my time. I usually will skip a site if I see this.

3. No Annoying Web Gimmicks - Now that you have your visitor on your site quickly the one thing you don't want to do is to drive them away just as quickly. So, don't put anything annoying on that first page. No loud background music that makes them quickly hit the volume control or the back button on their browser. No flashing animations while they are trying to read your content. No popup, flyout, expanding ads that cover your home page. Basically, leave the gimmicks alone until you are sure that your visitor will stay on your site. Most casual visitors will leave your site in just a few seconds, no sense on driving them away more quickly.

Multimedia is great on a web site, just don't bombard your visitor with it first thing. If you want audio, then put in a nice picture with a link, like a picture of yourself with text saying something like "Let me tell you how to make fifty thousand this month!" If they are interested, they will click on the link and listen to your message; if they are not interested in audio, then you should be using a different pitch anyway.

Also, monitor what advertisers are putting on your site if you sell ad space. I am sure you have seen those ads with the animated dancing figure, cute the first time you see it. But after seeing it 10,000 times with every imaginable character I have added the company to a líst I keep of companies I won't do business with. So their animation has gone from "look at me" to "you annoy me" in my mind. Ads like these will impact your visitor's experience. So even if your site is perfectly designed, one misplaced ad can ruin all of your hard work.

4. Have a Clear Message - Too many web sites are a mish-mash of content. This is especially true of blog pages. Certain types of sites lend themselves to stream of consciousness content, but most don't. Make it easy for your viewer to understand what your web site is about, don't make them guess. Have a clear topic headline, followed by clear and concise text. This is also where a picture is worth a thousand words, but only if the picture directly pertains to your message.

You want your visitor to quickly understand what your message is. If they like your message, they will take the time to read the rest of your page and look around your web site. If they don't like your page, then it won't do you any good having them stay on your site anyway. So, don't make your visitors guess, let them know what you are about quickly and cleanly and you will have happy visitors. And when thinking about a sales page, a happy customer is a buying customer.

5. Coordinated Design - This one should be self evident, but it is surprising how many sites change their design for every page. You want your visitor to be comfortable in your site and one way to achieve that is by having a coordinated web design. Having a consistent logo, using a consistent color scheme, keeping your navigation in the same place. All of these help to create a coordinated design. This does not mean that you can't change colors or the "Look" on different segments of your site, but if you do, the changes should not be so drastic that it feels like you have moved on to a different site.

If you select one place for your logo, one place for your navigation, one look for your buttons or other common graphic elements and stick with those then you will be well on your way to a coordinated design. If you change colors for a different section, but keep the same logo location, the same navigation location, the same button shape, then your visitors will not become lost as they move from page to page.

6. Easy Navigation - Once you have grabbed your visitors attention you want them to be able to easily move around the different areas of your web site. This is done with easy to use navigation. There are three standard, accepted locations for navigation elements on a web page: along the top, on the left side, and at the bottom. I will usually put my main navigation either along the top or along the left side. I will then put text based navigation at the bottom of the page, this text based navigation is more for the search engines than anything else, but it also makes it easy for your visitors to move to the next page when they have reached the bottom of the current page.

Most people start reading a page from the top left and then read towards the bottom right. So navigation at the left or top will be seen as soon as someone enters your page. Also navigation at the left or top will not move or change position if the browser window is adjusted in size. The worst thing you can do is to put your main navigation on the right side of the page and have your page set for a large screen size. Let's say that your page is set for 1024 across with the navigation on the right, and someone views your page at 800 across, they will not see your navigation at all. The left side of your page will show perfectly, but the right side will be hidden outside of their viewing area. Of course by using floating or popup menus you can overcome some of these design limitations and keep your navigation visible at all times.

Unless you know that your audience will enjoy it, don't use Mystery Navigation. This is where your navigation is hidden within images, or spaced around the web page in some mysterious random order. This can be fun on gaming sites, or social networking sites, but in most cases the navigation should be easy to see and easy to use. If you do want to use Mystery Navigation, I would recommend keeping the text based navigation at the bottom of the page, just in case.

7. Have a "Complete" web site - And finally, no one wants to go to a web site only to find that the site is "Under Construction" and the content they are looking for is not there. These are words that you shouldn't ever use. If a section of your web site is not ready for prime time yet, then simply don't show it yet. It is better to have your site look complete and professional, then to have it look like a work in progress that should not be up on the web yet.

You can easily tell your visitors that you will be having more content in the future without having your site look like it is unfinished. Just use phrases like "Content Updated Weekly" or "New Products Added Monthly". Both of these will tell your visitors that it would be worth their time to come back and visit later, but neither one will make your site look unfinished. So no matter how small your web site is, give the impression that you have taken the time to complete the site before putting it up on the internet, this makes for a more professional presentation and a better visitor experience.

In Closing - By following these simple 7 Basics of Good Web Design you will be well on your way to having an easy to use and successful web presence. Just keep in mind what you look for when you first land on a web page after doing a web search in Google or Yahoo, or other search engine. If you want fast loading pages, make sure your pages load fast. If you want to be able to find what you are looking for quickly and easily, then make sure you have easy navigation. Just keep your first time visitor in mind, put yourself in their web shoes and make your web site an enjoyable place to visit and success should follow.

About The Author
George Peirson is a successful Entrepreneur and Internet Trainer. He is the author of over 40 multimedia based tutorial training titles covering such topics as Photoshop, Flash and Dreamweaver. To see his training sets visit www.howtogurus.com . Article copyright 2009 George Peirson

10 Steps to Testing the Viability of Your Online Business Idea That Won't Break the Bank

2009-02-10T00:03:00.000-08:00

The economic recession is pushing more and more people to consider self-employment. Starting an online business is a very low-risk way to put your toe in the entrepreneurial pond because the start up costs are minimal, the overhead is low, and the returns can be high. Despite these benefits, however, an online business is just like any other and needs to be thoroughly researched before starting to determine if there's a need in the marketplace and how viable the business idea is.

The Internet is rife with exorbitant claims of how much money can be made as an online entrepreneur and that you can be rolling in the dough by next week. Remember, most "overnight" successes are 1, 2, or more years in the making, and online businesses are no exception to this rule.

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How do you determine if your online business idea will sink or swim? Here are 10 steps you can take to test your idea without breaking the bank:

1. Research. Comprehensive research is always the first step for any business idea. Brainstorm a list of keywords someone might use to find the product/service that you're offering, and then use a keyword tool finder to see how many searches have been done on these keywords. The keyword tool will also make suggestions of related keywords to try. Once you have a list of keywords, conduct searches (use quotation marks around your search term for stronger results) in Google, Yahoo, and MSN to see who else is out there. Evaluate the popularity of the sites you discover by checking out their Google Page Rank and Alexa ranking. Use the same keywords to see if articles have been written about your topic in the major article banks. You'll uncover your competition in this research, as well as potential strategic alliances. Employ a powerful bookmark program to help you track your research results.

2. Monetize the idea. After completing your research, have you discovered enough competitors in the marketplace who are making money from doing something similar? If so, how are they making money -- is it from the sale of info products, consulting services, subscription to their site, advertising, etc? If you don't see much competition, that usually means one of two things:

a. There's not enough demand for the product/idea or
b. You're ahead of the curve in seeing the profit potential.

Unfortunately, in most cases, that result means that there's not enough demand for your idea in the way that it's been presented.

3. The "so what" factor. From your research you should be able to clarify what it is that you're offering and what group of people need what you're offering. In order to be successful, your offering must pass the "so what" factor in light of your competition. To take this test, you must successfully be able to answer the following question after telling someone what you do, "So what? How is that different from what x, y and z are offering?" You can answer these questions best if you review the benefits of what you're offering (the What's In It For Me) rather than just a listing of the features, and if you can speak from the heart about your idea. An online business will take time to manage and develop, so you want to settle on something that you love. If you don't enjoy what you're doing, you quickly become a prisoner in a prison of your making.

4. Industry information. Set up Google Alerts for your industry keywords and track them from info posted on websites, blogs, and newsgroups. Reviewing the alerts you receive over the next few weeks should help you expand your view of the problems/issues with your subject, help you see the "movers and shakers" in the industry, and help you discover other places (blogs, discussion forums, social networks) where your target market hangs out online.

5. Test the waters. The easiest way to test your idea is by creating a blog. Buy a keyword-rich domain name for the blog and map your blog to that domain. Then begin to blog about your insights on your topic, or reprint articles others have written on your subject. The idea here is to begin to establish your online presence and your online brand.

6. Build a list. Once you've got a blog set up, you need to begin to build your marketing list. The easiest way to do this is to create a free giveaway on your site (ebook, video, report, audio recording) and a form for the visitor to input his name and email address to receive your giveaway. Your privacy policy should be readily available to them and outline how you'll use their info and what they can expect to receive from you. You'll also need an emaíl marketing service or shopping cart service to manage your list.

7. Crown yourself the expert. The only way to become an expert in an area is to believe that you are one. By virtue of the research you've already conducted, you know more than a large percentage of your target market. Therefore, don't hesitate to begin to refer to yourself as an expert in your industry.

8. Drive traffic. Once you build your blog, they (visitors) won't come without some encouragement. Create profiles on prominent social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Start writing articles about your topic and submittíng those to article directories. Discover if your target market hangs out on niche-specific social networking sites and start networking there. Interview experts in your industry and release the interviews as a podcast. Create a weekly email newsletter to stay in touch with the prospects on your email list. Create powerful inbound links by getting your blog listed on various blog and website directories.

9. Implementation time. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is a successful online business. Allow at least three months to give your idea a test run and evaluate it after that time. Have you been able to build a list? Are you getting traffic to your site? Are you attracting the attention of others in your industry? If so, you're ready to move to the next step.

10. Move forward. If you determine that your idea is viable, what's next? Creating info products or a membership site? What are your longer term goals to develop this idea into a business? The best way to harness all the info that you've collected thus far is to create a business plan. It doesn't have to be complicated -- it can be only one page, in fact. What you need to commit to paper is your offer, your target market, your ongoing goals for how to monetize the idea, and an outline of how you plan to grow the business over time.

It's not too late to get your start in an online business. Don't be distracted by the false promises of quick wealth overnight. Success takes time and planning, so invest some planning and research time into your business idea. That's the strongest foundation you can create for yourself to become a successful online entrepreneur.

About The Author
Internet Marketing Strategist and Boomer Biz Coach Donna Gunter helps baby boomers create profitable online retirement businesses that they love by demystifying and simplifying the tools and strategies needed to market and grow their businesses online. To claim your FR*EE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at AskDonnaGunter.com .

24 Essential Pages to include on Your Website

2009-02-06T03:16:00.000-08:00

Wondering what pages to include on your website and why? Here is a list of important information that should be included on your site.

Before you start thinking about what to write, it is important that you create a plan, which outlines what each page will contain. That way you won't repeat yourself or forget vital information. The most common pages on successful websites include:

1. Home Page (First Page)
This is your "sales" page and should provide information about what you can do for your customers. It should also give your visitors a brief overview of what they can find on your site.

2. Products / Services
It is useful to have a separate page for each product/service and write as much detail about each as possible. Start each page with a brief summary of the product/service, then provide whatever information you can. When people are searching for information on the internet, they want to know it NOW. They don't want to wait until tomorrow when they can speak to you on the phone.

3. Contact Us
Place contact details in as many places as possible. Make it easy for your customers to contact you. Create a special "Contact Us" page and include your details in the "About Us" page and also at the bottom of each page. Information to include: business name, physical address, mailing address, telephone, fax, email, emergency number, website address.

4. Pricing
Whenever possible include the price of your products/services. Even if you can't be specific. It is helpful to put at least a range of prices, eg. Carpet cleaning ranges between $40 - $60 per room.

5. Testimonials / Product Reviews / Before & After
Include testimonials from your current customers to show your potential clients that you are trustworthy, reliable and that you provide great service and/or products. Make sure the testimonials are real and if possible provide contact details of the person who supplied you with the testimonial. If you don't have any right now, get them! Simply email your customers and ask for their feedback on your business and service.

You could also include before and after photos. Show the problem picture and beside it show the picture of resolution, with an explanation of your product's benefits.

6. Frequently Asked Questions
This has proven to be a great time saver for many companies. Instead of having to answer the same questions over and over again, place them on your website and keep adding to them. The more information you have on your website, the less time you will need to spend answering questions by email or phone.

Frequently Asked Questions should address your customer's concerns that may otherwise be an obstacle to making a sale.

7. Response form such as "Subscribe" or "Enquiry" form
An absolute must if you want to build a mailing list. Most people don't like giving out too much information, so ask only the basics, such as Name and Email Address. Then keep in touch with your customers on a regular basis by sending out information that may be of interest to them. You may even wish to develop an on-line magazine (ezine). There are many fantastic free or inexpensive programs that can handle this for you.

8. On-line Magazine or Newsletter
This is a great marketing tool. Not only does it help you keep in touch with your customers, but provides your website with fresh content. You can set up your Ezine in 2 different ways:

(a) Email subscribers on a regular basis, or
(b) Publish it on your website.

Or both. Include information about your business, industry or anything that may be of interest to your customers.

9. Resources/Articles
Add value to your business. Provide information that is complementary to what you do. For example, if you sell wedding dresses include information about reception venues, wedding planners, wedding cakes, flowers. By adding extra information you encourage more hits.

10. About Us
This is a very important page as it tells your customer about who you are and why they should buy your products, services and/or trust your organization. It can also feature your business hours (if you have a bricks and mortar store) or when they can speak to someone on the phone. Many companies also include their mission, details of their staff (photos, biographies, qualifications), recently completed projects, ACN or ABN, logo, directions to your store/office. It is also useful to include details of trade associations you belong to, trade and ínsurance certificates and any awards you may have won.

11. Guarantee
Provide a monëy back policy. The longer the policy period, the more effective it will be. It could be 30 days, 60 days, 1 year or lifetime.

12. Survey
Find out what customers think about your website, business or product.

13. Events Calendar
This can relate to your business or industry. If you are an artist, you can feature dates where and when your art will be displayed or if you are a singer, where you will be performing.

14. Search My Website Feature
Some visitors to your site may not know exactly what they want, but if you include a search function on your site, they can look for it very easily. Like search engines, this feature will allow your visitors to type in a word or phrase and then search for it on your site. It's like having a mini search engine, only instead of it searching the world wide web, it just searches your website.

15. Return/Refund Policy
To make your customers feel more comfortable when making a transaction at your website, you should provide them with your return/refund policy. Ensure it is easy to understand and spelled out step by step.

16. Privacy Policy
Privacy continues to be a major issue for customers shopping online. Concerns about how their information is going to be used is a major barrier when making a sale. Internet shopping experience is built on trust and privacy is the number one ingredient in trust.

17. Site Map
A site map shows visitors how the site is laid out and which sections are where.

18. Copyright Information
Your website should carry a copyright notice to protect its intellectual property. It is generally in the form of "Copyright (c) 2004, Your Company Name".

19. Links
Here you can place links to the manufacturers of your products, trade associations or complementary services. When you place links to other businesses, you can request they do the same for you. This will not only bring you more visitors, but may improve your search engine ranking.

20. Media Information
Include any information, articles, photos of your products, staff etc that have appeared in the media - print, TV, radio or internet.

21. News
This can include news about your products/services or about your industry.

22. On-line store
An on-line store allows you sell products directly on the internet 24 hours a day/7 days a week. When building an online store it is important to take in a number of key concepts.

Make sure that when visitors arrive at your store the navigational mechanisms are simple and effective.

The actual process of placing the order must be simple.

Make sure you accept common and convenient methods of payment.

Continually test your store so you understand your customer's shopping experience.

23. Blog
A blog is a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger." Blogs are typically updated daily or weekly using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Blogs are a great tool because they help with:

(a) Communicating with your customers. Blogs provide a way for you to communicate with your customers directly. And it is a two-way communication. You can post a message on your blog and your visitors can easily respond.
(b) Search Engine Marketing Blogs give you an increased presence on search engines, like Yahoo! and Google. If you use Blogger (Google's Blogging Tool), every message you post creates a new page on Google so in a very short time you could have lots of pages pointing to your website.

(c) Stay Ahead of Your Competition Blogs are relatively new and chances are your competition does not yet use them. So you will be seen as an expert in your industry when you post your knowledge and expertise.

(d) Media & Public Relations Blogs are excellent PR tools. You can post your Media Releases and articles and have them picked up by the media.

(e) Free or Low Cost

24. Photo Gallery
Even if you do not wish to sell your products on-line, you may wish to showcase your goods or services in a special photo gallery - show how your products or services are being used by your customers. They say "pictures speak a thousand words" and on your website it is particularly important.

Don't give your customers a reason to visit your competitor's website and provide them with all the information they may possibly need or want.

About The Author
Ivana Katz of Websites 4 Small Business makes it easy for you to get your busíness on the internet. If you're looking for a professional and affordable website designer, visit www.web4business.com.au and download a website plan for free.

Internet Explorer Protected mode and Vista Support

2008-12-11T02:19:00.000-08:00

Internet Explorer Toolbar Development

Some of the key Purposes of toolbar usages are as follows:

For easy navigation of websites.
For easy navigation of search keywords.
For keeping the bookmarks of the websites.
For creation of toolbar buttons by dragging and dropping the URLs
For Blocking the Popup
For giving notifications to users for IE Events
For capturing the contents of webpage
For getting the content of RSS Feeds.

What is Internet Explorer Protected in VISTA?
Internet Explorer's Protected Mode is a new feature in Microsoft Vista Operating System, and is one of the pieces of User Account Control (UAC). Protected mode is designed to protect the computer by restricting the parts of the system that code running in the IE process can affect. If a malicious web page exploits a code-injection bug in IE or an IE plug-in, that code will not be able to do damage to the system.

Vista introduces a new attribute on securable objects called the mandatory integrity level. There are four levels:

• System: Used by OS components, should not be used by applications.
• High: Processes that are running elevated with full admin rights.
• Medium: Processes launched in the normal fashion.
• Low: Used by IE and Windows Mail to provide protected mode.

The information that Windows keeps about a process includes which integrity level it was launched with. This level can never change once the process is started, it can only be set at the time the process is created. A process's integrity level has three main effects:

Any securable objects that the process creates get that same integrity level.
The process cannot access a resource whose integrity level is higher than the process's own level.
The process cannot send window messages to a process that has a higher integrity level.

To determine if our extension is running in a protected mode IE process, we use IEIsProtectedModeProcess which will return the BOOL Parameter whether protected or not.

How to develop a toolbar for and VISTA support?
Most of the plug-ins need Registry and/or File system access for reading and/or writing operations, these operations can be done without problem when Internet Explorer Protected mode is Disable.

When protected mode is enabled, an extension can only write to a few directories under the user's profile. There are special low-integrity directories under the TEMP, Temporary Internet Files, Cookies, and Favorites directories that are writable. Internet explorer also has some compatibility shims, which virtualizes other commonly-used directories. I haven't seen a full list of those "common directories Write operations to those directories will be redirected to a subdirectory of Temporary Internet Files. If an extension tries to write to a sensitive location, like the Windows directory, the operation will fail.

Developers need to use VISTA SDK for getting the File system Writable Location for downloading any files OR for doing any File system operations.

VISTA SDK can be downloaded at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=ff6467e6-5bba-4bf5-b562-9199be864d29&displaylang=en

How to Enable / Disable Internet explorer Protected Mode?
From control panel open your Windows Login User account settings from those settings…
Click on Turn User Account Control on or off

From that Screen make sure Use User Account Control (UAC) to help Protect your computer option is Un-Checked for Disabling Internet Explorer Protected mode (Once settings is changed you must need to Restart your PC).

Toolbar Development
Internet Explorer Toolbar Development
Custom IE Toolbar Development
Firefox Toolbar Development
Toolbar Development india

Refer: Internet Explorer Protected mode

Optimizing Your Site When It's Huge

2008-11-25T23:51:00.000-08:00

How do you optimize your site for the search engines when you have hundreds of thousands of pages of content? That's a big job and can get increasingly difficult as the days pass and more pages are created. It doesn't have to be as difficult as it seems though.

At Pubcon in Las Vegas, Mike McDonald of WebProNews caught up with Bill Hunt, CEO of Global Strategies International, a search engine marketing consultancy firm that specializes in global enterprise companies. They talked about some things that companies can do to simplify their search engine marketing efforts when their sites are huge. Hunt spoke a little about this at the PubCon session called "Discover Techniques Used by Enterprise-Level SEOs/SEMs", but talked a little more about it with Mike.

So What Do the Big Boys Use?

Companies with millions of pages often leverage all the different properties of partners they have and use them to get links. One way Bill talked about doing this is getting partners to link to specific pages instead of your homepage. He gives an example of a company like IBM sponsoring events. These event pages would have IBM logos linking to IBM.com, but what IBM could do is talk to the people running the event page and ask them to link to a more topical page instead of their homepage. If it was for a supply chain management event, they could link to a supply chain management page.

Another example would be OEM partners. You can have them link to the appropriate channel of your site instead of the homepage. The more partners you have, the bigger impact this kind or reaching out will make on your search engine marketing efforts. Bill says to just go out and see who's linking to your homepage and simply ask them to change the link. And if they're your partner, they're more likely to comply.

Affiliate Issues

A large company is bound to have some affiliates, and you probably don't want to step on any toes in cases like these. Bill suggests looking at the combination of paid and organic data that's out there and turning off paid words if they've got a good organic ranking. Bill says to ask yourself "Is there cannibalization?"

When working with companies that have a lot of channel partners and brands themselves you have to understand what the cost is of having that affiliate partner, he notes.

A lot of big companies (like Intel) are starting to use "co-op dollars" or subsidize their channel partners work by saying: Here's a list of words you can use, here's some acceptable copy and if you use those, we'll pay "X" percentage like they do with the Intel Inside program. It subsidizes and you get almost twice the amount of budget.

"Sit down and do the math," says Bill. Does it make sense to compete or does it make sense to subsidize? Or do you not need to do anything at all? Subsidizing your partners is a big win for them and you let them do all the heavy lifting.

Organizing Big Sites for SEO

For Big sites with many pages, Mike asked Bill for some tips to keep them organized and pointed in the right direction. Bill offered the following advice.
Bill Hunt

The first thing is to take your words and tier them (such as three tiers). Bill returns to IBM as an example of having 53 million pages. You can't do SEO on all of those outside of using templates. Tier the words...take 100 words for example, and assign them each a page and monitor how those are doing. Use the page ranking...is it meeting the criteria or is it not? Focus on making sure those primary phrases are there.

Another big issue is whether or not you are actually getting indexed. Bill says to use XML sitemaps and run your own spider to "make sure you're not getting trapped out."

Using templates is big though. Bill says he has clients that have hundreds of thousands of pages, but they can fit neatly into five templates. "Optimize five templates, and anything that's built in that template is search-friendly out of the box." It's not quite perfect, he says, but it's about 80% there, and then you can fine-tune it. I would also add that a good amount of internal linking in large sites is probably a good idea as well.

A huge site with tons of content would appear to be a gargantuan task when it comes to SEO, and without organization, it can be just that. Considering the advice Bill Hunt has offered though, it doesn't have to be as intimidating of a process as it appears on the surface.

Internet Marketing Blogs that Beg to be Bookmarked

2008-11-19T03:45:00.000-08:00

Let's face it, Blogs on the topic of Internet marketing are a dime a dozen. Everyone and their dog seems to have one. I'll be the first to admit it takes a lot to impress me. Some blogs are just boring and uneventful. But then there are some that make me want to come back again and again.

So, what are the qualities of a great blog? Well, for me it's one that offers me something of value, whether that be in the form of valuable information, or points me in the direction of free products or services. It's all about me. By the same token, I do appreciate a blogger with a sense of humor or strong personality. If you're stiff and mechanical it's just not for me. Show me who you really are and what makes you tick.

One final point. Don't forget about design. Blogs that are easy on the eyes, uncluttered and simple get my vote every time. If it has a black background and white text, I'm out of there in a big hurry.

So, who has some of the best blogs online today? So glad you asked. Listen closely as I enlighten you and point you in the right direction.

1) Willie Crawford:

An experienced online marketer, Willie is considered one of the world's leading Internet marketing experts. Listen to Willie, he "walks the talk" and can teach you a lot about the world of online marketíng.

He also has a radio show at: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/WillieCrawford

2) Michael Fortin Blog:

Copywriting and marketing tips from a man who is too brilliant for words. Michael is an expert copywriter who has done work for John Reese and many of the other top marketers. Without good copy you can't sell a thing, so learning all you can about persuasive writing is a must for your to do list. Also see: http://www.copywritersboard.com

3) Skip Mcgrath:

If Ebay is your thing then Skip's blog is a must. An expert at selling items on Ebay, and an experienced author of several books, Skip covers all of the ins and outs of earning money with Ebay.

4) Jensense:

Jennifer helps you to make sense of contextual advertising and helps publishers to earn more money. Topics include Google Adsense and other similar contextual ad programs.

5) Marketing Pilgrim:

Originally launched by Internet marketer Andy Beal way back in 2005. This blog covers the latest marketing news, reviews and other items related to online advertising.

6) Yahoo Publisher Network:

Everything you ever wanted to know about Yahoo's Publisher Network but were afraid to ask. All of your questions are answered here.

7) Matt Cutts:

A Google employee since 2000, Matt discusses all things Google on his Blog. He also covers search engine optimization and other interesting gadgets he runs across online. If Google is your thing, all is revealed here.

8) Bruce Clay:

Since 1996 way before it was cool to be on the net Bruce Clay has been teaching those about search engine optimization and online marketíng. He really knows his "stuff" and you can tell that by his concrete informative posts which go into great detail.

9) Clickz:

Clickz always has the latest dish on Internet marketing. Serving news and expert advice since 1997.

10) Jim Edwards:

Jim Edwards blog "I Gotta Tell You" is a multi-media blog. Covering numerous topics related to makíng money onlíne, Jim always has a funny story to tell. He has a strong personality, so if you like that you'll enjoy Jim's blog.

11) Marnie Pehrson:

Marnie is the creator of IdeaMarketers.com and covers all things related to article marketing and other online marketíng strategies. Again, she's been online for years and has much wisdom when it comes to gaining traffic from your short articles.

12) Google Adsense:

If you use Adsense by Google to generate an income you'll want to subscribe to this blog. Tons of tips and tutorials to improve your earnings.

13) Search Engine Diva:

Ginette Degner has been providing search engine optimization and Internet marketing consulting for over 16 years. She's good and also has a great sense of humor.

14) Income.com:

When you talk about Internet marketing you can't forget about John Reese. The only online marketer I know of who made a million dollars in one day when he launched his Traffic Secrets course.

15) Joel Osborne:

Joel has been making a living online for the past several years and has numerous web sites and products. Another expert when it comes to learning how to improve traffic and sell online.

16) Jonathan Leger:

Jonathan Leger has been earning a living online since 2004. His blog discusses search engine optimization, Adsense and online marketíng.

17) Pay Per Click Journal:

This blog is written by the website marketing experts at Brick Marketing. They cover all aspects of pay-per-click search engine marketing.

When it comes to marketing online there are plenty of blogs that can keep you up to date on the latest and greatest trends. This is just a small sample of what's out there. Make sure that no matter whose blog you're reading, that they thoroughly know and understand the topic they're discussing. If not, you're just wasting your time, and if that's the case you might as well be reading your dog's blog. But who knows it just might be more interesting.

About The Author
By Merle - The pay-per-click Authority when it comes to paid search engine advertising. With helpful articles, how-to's and tips that will help you make the most from your advertising investment. Download a Free "How To" ebook by subscribing to our ezine at PayPerClickResearch.com .

Google Homepage

2008-10-13T02:42:00.000-07:00

Google is finally celebrating its 10th birthday and here is a glimpse at how the Google home page has evolved from 1998 to 2008.

10 Most Useful Free Google Marketing Tools

2008-10-01T02:04:00.000-07:00

Google is celebrating its 10th anniversary
this year. Happy Birthday Google!

One way Google is celebrating this event is
thru funding 10 million dollars for the idea
that can help the most people. An idea that
could have the most impact on our world.

It’s an ingenious way to celebrate Google and
what it stands for… a birthday gift to everyone.

You can find out more about Google Impact Project
here: 10 to the 100

Google Has Already Impacted Many People

Like a lot of webmasters and marketers out there,
I am very grateful to Google. Mainly because
Google has been very good to me and has made
my online livelihood possible with organic
rankings, Adsense revenue, Adwords…

Maybe I could have done it without Google,
but it would have been a much more difficult job.
And it’s very hard to imagine a world without
Google.

It’s also hard to believe Google has only been around
for 10 years… it has made all the difference to
my online marketing. I have used Google and Google
Tools every day for the last six or seven years.

And it seems Google is only getting stronger and
better. The new Google Chrome browser will only
add to the long list of Google’s helpful offerings
to the public.

With this thought in mind, here is my (biased)
list of the most 10 useful marketing tools Google
has produced.

10 Most Valuable Free Google Marketing Tools

Google has become the dominant search engine on
the Internet. It would be hard to imagine a web
without Google. For that matter, it would now be
hard to imagine a world without Google. As frightening
as that may seem to many people, it is none the
less true.

For better or worst, Google has permeated into almost
every aspect of our everyday life. Being Googled is
now a common expression and an act carried out by
millions of users around the world each day. New
Google products and services are coming on stream
at a staggering pace, further increasing Google’s
impact on our lives.

Despite this dominating presence, many people still
don’t realize Google offers some excellent free marketing
tools for marketers and webmasters. Marketing tools which
can prove extremely valuable to any webmaster or marketer
trying to promote their sites or products online. Useful
tools that will make your promotions easier and much more
profitable.

Don’t be fooled by the ‘free’ label, these marketing tools
might be free but there are also valuable. One even wonders
why Google would be giving away these tools and services for
free? It probably makes good business sense in the long
run, by providing these free tools Google is fostering a
lot of company good-will and building up the Google brand
name in the process. Good PR is good business.

Every marketer and webmaster should be taking advantage of
Google’s good-will and snapping up these professionally run
services and marketing tools. Here’s a quick run-down of
the 10 most valuable free Google Internet marketing tools:

1. Google Analytics

Perhaps the premier marketing tool offered by Google.
It will prove helpful to both the marketer and the
webmaster. Google Analytics gives you a daily snapshot
of your web site. Google Analytics analyzes your traffic,
where it comes from and what it does once it enters your site.
You can monitor up to three sites for free.

Google Analytics is extremely valuable in analyzing your
marketing funnel, it tracks all the steps leading up to your
sales or checkout page. Vital information for raising
your conversion rate and ROI.

You may be placed on a waiting list for this highly in
demand service from Google.

Google Analytics

2. Google Sitemaps

Webmasters can use Google Sitemaps to almost instantly place
newly created pages on their site into the Google Search Index.
This is an XML file that is uploaded to Google as new pages
are added on your site. Needless to say this can be a valuable
service for any webmaster or marketer who wants to get their
information on the web quickly.

Google Sitemaps

3. Google Alerts

Be notified when someone or another site lists your site
or mentions your name. Great way to keep track of all your
online activities. Great way to monitor all your online
business interests and products.

Google Alerts

4. Google Froogle

Froogle is Google’s price directory! It simply lists all
the cheapest prices for different products on the web.
For marketers and webmasters who are promoting products,
it should be studied and analyzed. Optimizing your
site’s content for Froogle may prove to be very beneficial.

Follow Froogle or Google directions exactly on how to
list or display products on your site. Froogle will
spider your site and display your prices and products
to thousands of targeted customers. That, as they say,
is priceless.

Google Froogle

5. Google Checkout

Not exactly free but for those marketers who use AdWords
- for every $1 spent on AdWords you can process $10 for free.
You can also place the shopping cart logo on your AdWords ad
and take advantage of the prestige and trust the Google
brand name has built up.

Over time marketers may find this tool to be very
effective and valuable.

Google Checkout

6. Google eBlogger

Blogging has become vitally important to the health and
functioning of your web site. No site should be without
at least one blog and RSS feed. Creating a blog (online journal)
on the topic of your web site or product will bring in extra traffic
and targeted customers. eBlogger is a simple free
blogging service that even lets you publish or post your blog
files to your own web site server. Keep in mind, each blog
has that all important Google Blog Search bar.

Google eBlogger

7. Google Toolbar - Enterprise Version

Try the new enterprise version of the Google Toolbar
for your company or business. Integrates countless
features with all your employees or corporate
network. These could include a common customer
database, company calendar, financial news…

Keep in mind, Google also ranks every page it indexes on
a scale of 0-10. While it is important to know the Page Rank of
your own pages, it is even more important to know the PR of
your competitor’s pages. You can use the toolbar to get
the PR of each page you’re visiting. Extremely helpful
information for webmasters and marketers to know when
forming online linking or business arrangements.

Google Toolbar

8. Google Groups

Every marketer knows the important of having a large
contact list of people with a similar interest. Social
networking will play an ever increasing role in your
success on the web. Just look at the growing popularity
of sites like MySpace and LiveJournal.

Google groups is another form of social and business
networking that every marketer should be aware of and
pursuing.

Google Groups

9. Google Adsense

One simple way to monetize your web content is to
use Google Adsense. Just place the Adsense code
on your site and receive a check from Google each
month. For webmasters who are not really into
online marketing (does such creatures exist?) Adsense
can be a painless way to earn extra income from
your site.

For professional marketers using the Adsense system can
supply a tremendous amount of marketing information on the
keywords in their particular niche. It keeps the
marketer informed on what keywords are being bid
on and how much advertisers are willing to pay.

Adsense also has an excellent real-time tracking
system you can use to keep track of all your
important web pages.

Google Adsense

10. Google Docs

A recent addition to Google’s stable of free products.
Google Docs (Writely.com) is a full featured online writing
editor with spellcheck and great collaborating features.
It also lets you publish your content directly to your blogs.
One feature that may be of interest to marketers, it lets
your save files in the popular download format of PDF.

Lets face it, until video takes over the web in four
or five years time - the written word is still king on the
net. It is the medium that markets, promotes and sells
your content or products. Writely will help you write better.

Google Docs

Honorable Mention - Google Trends

This Google program will let you search popular trends,
important for marketers searching for the latest hot
product to promote. You can also break down these trends
by different regions.

Google Trends

Final Note

Please take note that signing up for a Google account will
usually help you in obtaining most of these free services or
programs. Some of these programs may have to be applied for
individually. But be assured, all these free Google marketing
tools are well worth your time and effort. They will make your
marketing easier and they will help any webmaster or marketer
run their online business more efficiently.

Original Source: http://www.sitepronews.com/2008/09/27/10-most-useful-free-google-marketing-tools/

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Services are the Best Option to Maximize your Business ROI

2008-09-11T22:32:00.000-07:00

With more people using Search Engines to explore the World Wide Web, Search Engines are playing a significant role in search activity. Search engines have laid down a new platform of marketing, “internet marketing”. Thousands of firms world wide are competing for customers has entitled Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as an integral part of their internet marketing strategies.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the latest drone in the click away world today. SEO is gaining prominence as it not only promotes your website aging and memory loss also helps in getting leaps and bounds of traffic. SEO is the technique of shinning a light on an otherwise least searched website and making it most searchable.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a technique which helps you to build a global customer base. Search engine friendly website is more user friendly, reaching the target audience easily. SEO by and large serves as a preeminent web advertising bargain.

The need of the hour to capitalize on how to use search engines to target your niche markets & your prospective clients as:

• At least 80% of the traffic emanates from a particular Search Engine to find goods, supplies & services online.

• Trafficking Patterns: Google: 63%, Yahoo: 21%, AOL: 2%, MSN/Live: 9%, Ask: 3% Others: 2%.

• 75% of Internet users generally have an intention of purchasing a product or service when using search engines.

Guidelines to adhere to when selecting the professional SEO services:

Pre-Contract Guidelines:

• Do not be misguided with firms which guarantee your website getting ranked 1st position in search engines.
• Do not talk to the sales people of the SEO company, talk directly to the SEO experts and find out what exactly they will be working on your site
• Research to find the SEO Company’s existing clients base and verify the actual results if possible.
• The SEO Company should be transparent and should be reliable.

Contract Guidelines:

• Do not allow the SEO Company to use any spamming techniques such as hidden text, doorway pages, mirror sites, hidden links, excessive keyword usage and link building.

Source: http://www.corsavoo.com/seo/0,2577,402890,00.html

Five Steps to Effective Keyword Research

2008-09-11T22:23:00.000-07:00

There's no getting around it. Keyword research is a vitally important aspect of your search engine optimization campaign. If your site is targeting the wrong keywords, the search engines and your customers may never find you, resulting in lost dollars and meaningless rankings. By targeting the wrong keywords, you not only put valuable advertising dollars at risk, you are also throwing away all the time and energy you put into getting your site to rank for those terms to begin with. If you want to stay competitive, you can't afford to do that.

The keyword research process can be broken down into the following phases:

Phase 0 - Demolishing Misconceptions
Phase 1 – Creating the list and checking it twice
Phase 2 – Befriending the keyword research tool
Phase 3 – Finalizing your list
Phase 4 – Plan your Attack
Phase 5 - Rinse, Wash Repeat

Phase 0 - Demolishing Misconceptions

Over the years, we've had the opportunity to work with a wide array of wonderful clients. And as different and diverse as their sites and the individuals running them may have been, many had one thing in common: they were self-proclaimed keyword research mavens right out of the gate.

Or so they thought.

One of the most common misconceptions about conducting keyword research for a search engine optimization campaign is the belief that you already know which terms a customer would use to find your site. You don't. Not without first doing some research anyway. You may know what your site is about and how you, the site owner, would find it, but it's difficult to predict how a paying customer would go about looking for it.

This is due to site owners evaluating their site through too narrow of a lens, causing them to come up with words that read like industry jargon, not viable keywords. Remember, your customer probably doesn't work in the same industry that you do. If they did, they wouldn't need you. When describing your site or product, break away from industry speak. Your customers aren't searching that way and if you center your site on these terms, they'll never find you.

Another misconception is that generic or "big dollar" terms are the most important for rankings, even if the term you're going after has nothing to do with your site. Imagine a women's clothing store trying to rank for the term "google". Sure, thousands of searchers probably type that word into their search bar daily, but they're not doing it looking for you. They're looking for Google. Being ranked number one for a term no one would associate with your site is a waste of time and money (and it may get you in trouble!). Your site may see a lot of traffic, but customers won't stick around.

Phase 1 – Creating the list and checking it twice

The initial idea of keyword research can be daunting. Trying to come up with the perfect combination of words to drive customers to your site, rev up your conversion rate and allow the engines to see you as an expert would easily give anyone a tension headache.

The trick is to start slowly.

The first step in this process is to create a list of potential keywords. Brainstorm all the words you think a customer would type into their search box when trying to find you. This includes thinking of phrases that are broad and targeted, buying and research-oriented, and single and multi-word. What is your site hoping to do or promote? Come up with enough words to cover all the services your site offers. Avoid overly generic terms like 'shoes' or 'clothes'. These words are incredibly difficult to rank for and won't drive qualified traffic to your site. Focus on words that are relevant, but not overly used.

If you need help brainstorming ideas, ask friends, colleagues or past customers for help. Sometimes they are able to see your site differently than the way you yourself see it. Also, don't be afraid to take a peek at your competitor's Meta Keyword tag. What words are they targeting? How can you expand on their keyword list to make yours better? It's okay to get a little sneaky here. All's fair in love and search engine rankings.

Phase 2 – Befriend the keyword research tool

Now that you have your list, your next step is to determine the activity for each of your proposed keywords. You want to narrow your list to only include highly attainable, sought-after phrases that will bring the most qualified traffic to your site.

In the early days of SEO, measuring the "popularity" of your search terms was done by performing a search for that phrase in one of the various engines and seeing how many results it turned up. As you can imagine, this was a tedious and ineffective method of keyword research. Luckily, times have changes and we now have tools to do the hard part for us.

By inputting your proposed keywords into a keyword research tool, you can quickly learn how many users are conducting searches for that term every day, how many of those searches actually converted, and other important analytical information. It may also tune you in to words you had previously forgotten or synonyms you weren't aware of.

There are lots of great tools out there to help you determine how much activity your keywords are receiving. Here's a few of our personal favorites:

Overture Keyword Selector Tool: Overture's Keyword Selector tools shows you how many searches have been conducted over the last month for a particular phrase and lists alternative search terms you may have forgotten about. Our only complaint with Overture is that they lump singular and plural word forms into one phrase. For example, "boots" and "boot" would appear under one category of "boot". This can sometimes cause problems.

Wordtracker: Wordtracker is a paid-use tool that lets you look up popular keyword phrases to determine their activity and popularity among competitors. Their top 1000 report lists the most frequently searched for terms, while their Competition Search option provides valuable information to determine the competitiveness of each phrase. This is very useful for figuring out how difficult it will be to rank for a given term. It may also highlight hidden gems that have low competition-rates, but high relevancy.

Trellian Keyword Discovery tool: This is a fee-based tool where users can ascertain the market share value for a given search term, see how many users search for it daily, identify common spellings and misspellings, and discover which terms are impacted by seasonal trends (mostly useful for PPC).

Google AdWords Keyword Tool: Google's keyword PPC tool doesn't provide actual search numbers for keywords. Instead, it displays a colored bar, giving users only an approximation. Still, it may be useful.

Google Suggest: Google Suggest is a great way to find synonyms and related word suggestions that may help you expand your original list.

Thesaurus.com: Again, another way to locate synonyms you may have forgotten.

If those don't tickle your fancy, we'd also suggest Bruce Clay's Check Traffic tool, which estimates the number of queries per day for that search term across the major search engines.

Keep in mind that you're not only checking to see if enough people are searching for a particular word, you're also trying to determine how competitive that phrase is in terms of rankings.

Understanding the competition tells you how much effort you will need to invest in order to rank well for that term. There are two things to pay attention to when making this decision: how many other sites are competing for the same word and how strong are those sites' rankings (i.e. how many other sites link to them, how many pages do they have indexed)? Basically, is that word or phrase even worth your time? If it's not, move on.

While you're testing your new terms, you may want to do a little housekeeping and test the activity for keywords your site is already targeting. Keep the ones that are converting and drop the losers.

Phase 3 – Finalizing your list

Now that you have your initial list of words and have tested their activity, it's time to narrow down the field and decide which terms will make it into your coveted final keyword list.

We recommend creating a spreadsheet or some other visual that will allow you to easily see each word's conversion rate, search volume and competition rate (as given to you by the tools mentioned above). These three figures will allow you to calculate how viable that term is for your site and will be a great aid as you try and narrow down your focus.

The first step in narrowing down your list is to go through and highlight the terms that most closely target the subject and theme of your web site. These are the terms you want to hold on to. Kill all words that are not relevant to your site or that you don't have sufficient content to support (unless you're willing to write some). You can't optimize for words that you don't have content for.

Create a mix of both broad and targeted keywords. You'll need both to rank well. Broad terms are important because they describe what your web site does; however, they won't increase the level of qualified traffic coming into your site.

For example, say you are a company that specializes in cowboy boots. It may be natural for your site to focus on the broad search terms "boots" and "cowboy boots". These words are important because they tell the search engines what you do and may increase your visitors, but the traffic you receive will be largely unqualified. Customers will arrive on your site still unsure of what kind of boots you sell. Do you offer traditional cowboy boots, stiletto cowboy boots, toddler cowboy boots, suede cowboy boots or women's cowboy boots? By only targeting broad terms, customers won't know what you offer until they land on your site.

Targeted terms are often easier to rank for and help bring qualified traffic. They also make you a subject matter expert to the search engines, since the targeted terms strengthen the theme created with the broader phrases. Sticking with our example, targeted terms for your cowboy boots site may be "men's cowboy boots", "blue suede cowboy boots", "extra-wide women's cowboy boots", etc. Broad search terms may bring you the higher levels of traffic, but it's targeted, buying-oriented terms like these that will maximize conversions.

Phase 4 – Plan your attack

So you made your list of about 10-20 highly focused keywords, now what do you do with them? You prepare them for launch!

Chances are, if you did your keyword research right, at least some of the words on your list already appear in your site content, but some of them may not. Start thinking about how many pages you'll need to create to support these new words, and how and where your keyword phrases will be used.

We typically recommend only going after three or four related keywords per page (five if you can balance them properly). Any more than that and you run the risk of diluting your page to the point where you rank for nothing. Make sure to naturally work the keywords into your content and avoid over-repetition that may be interpreted as spamming. Your content should never sound forced.

Your on-page content isn't the only place where you can insert keywords. Keywords should also be used in several other elements on your site:

Title Tag
Meta Description Tags
Meta Keywords Tag
Headings
Alt text
Anchor Text/ Navigational Links

You've spent a lot of time molding your keywords; make sure you use them in all the appropriate fields to get the maximum benefit.

Phase 5 - Rinse, Wash, Repeat.

Congratulations. Your initial keyword research process is behind you. You've created your list, checked it twice, made friends with the keyword research tools and are now off to go plan your attack. You're done, right?

Unfortunately, no. As your customer's and your site's needs change over time, so will your keywords. It's important to keep monitoring your keywords and make tweaks as necessary. Doing so will allow you to stay ahead of your competition and keep moving forward.

Good luck!

Source: http://www.searchengineguide.com/lisa-barone/five-steps-to-effective-keywor.php

Successful SEO Begins With Keyword Research and Analytics

2008-09-11T20:31:00.000-07:00

Many webmasters / online marketers make a common mistake when they begin doing business onlíne. Often times, people do the processes necessary for their success - backwards. Rather than starting at the beginning and working forwards, they start at the end and work backwards. As a result, they waste more money and resources, often breaking the back of their business, well before they start to see any real success in their business.

In my years of helping online marketers promote their businesses, I have seen business models that seemed to have all of the elements necessary to ensure great success. And unfortunately, I have seen many of these perfect business models fail miserably, because their owners failed to honor their business with a realistic promotional plan.

Putting The Cart Before The Horse

Most people begin to err when they begin to promote their new business.

Just recently, I spoke with an individual who started a business in a pretty competitive field. I don't view heavy competition as being a bad thing. In fact, I find that there are often enough customers in any niche to support the additional competitors, especially when a new competitor answers a need not served by the current players.

The individual to whom I refer made his mistake by focusing 95% of his advertising budget on Search Engine Optimization (SEO), before he even knew what keywords would help him to be profitable in his business! He has so far blown $9,500 of his $10,000 to optimize his website for the search engines, and he still does not know what keywords will drive traffic to his website, leading to sales conversions for his website.

His "backwards" approach has left him with only $500 in his budget, with little hope for his future. He now emails me 4-5 times a week, always in a state of utter panic. All I can tell him is to be patient, since he has to learn how to "bootstrap" his way to success, now that he has no budget left to build strong and fast.

Test Your Copy First

Search Engine Optimization should "never" be a business' first step in the promotíon process. Although SEO can bring great rewards, it can also be very expensive to implement. Look at it this way. What good is search optimization if you have optimized for the wrong keywords?

The first step in the promotíon of any business should be focused on attracting potential customers to one's website.

The marketer needs to put human eyeballs on the website, so that they can test and tweak their sales copy for greater sales conversion.

Until a website has seen several hundred visitors, the sales copy should not be changed or tweaked. Sales copy should always be tested against a large statistical group of visitors, in order to ensure that the copy is given a fair and realistic test.

If the online marketer has a bit more money to start the process, often the best spent money will be to hire a professional copywriter to write the sales copy for the website. Professional copywriters have a skill, and that skill is to create the words that will drive people to buy what you are selling.

"Test Traffic" Is Important To The Process

Most Internet Marketing newbies are still focused on getting those first few hundred visitors to their websites.

At this point, there are systems like Link Referral and Traffic Swarm that can help the new business owner bring in a bit of traffic to their website. In a test with Link Referral, I am seeing 250 visitors per month. The neat thing about systems like these is that other members will review your website and provide good advice on how to improve your website, if necessary. Membership is free for both systems, with an option for paid upgrades.

The Law Of Attraction

While the traffic exchange systems mentioned above can send some traffic to your website, you are not going to get rich participating in those systems.

Once you have positioned your website to convert visitors to buyers, it is time to start attracting a larger number of visitors (potential customers) to your website.

There are a number of ways to do this, but two of the most effective are: Article Marketing and Pay-Per-Clíck Advertising.

Article Marketing

Mark Silver recently produced an exceptional home study course about writing articles that will help you be much more successful in your article marketing activities.

Just last week, a fríend of mine told me that he has not promoted his website in over a year, yet he noticed that his website has a steady stream of traffic to it, from the three-dozen articles that he wrote and distributed in 2006 and 2007. He said that his ebook continues to produce new sales each and every month, and the only thing he can really attribute those continuing sales to is the articles that are available on the Internet that are promoting his website and ebook.

Article marketing, in and of itself, is a promotional tool that will allow a marketer to bring regular visitors to his or her website, and if the website does its job well, then the website will be able to convert those visitors to buyers. This is important, because all businesses need money coming into a website early, to ensure that the business can survive financially, until the long-term "recipe for profit" can be found and duplicated reliably.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Pay-Per-Clíck (PPC) advertising is a process where you bid on keywords in the major search engines, through Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, etc. You tell the search engine companies what words you desire to bid on and how much you are willing to pay for a visitor, and the highest bidders for that keyword phrase will be shown above and to the right of the free results in the search engine results pages.

Keyword research, utilizing systems like Word Tracker, or my favorite, NicheBot will enable you to brainstorm keywords and get a good idea of which keywords might be more profitable for your business.

By utilizing Google Analytics or Yahoo's Panama Full Analytics (traffic analysis), an online marketer can follow a visitor from the search engine to the marketer's sales page. Where this is important is it enables an online marketer to uncover the essential business knowledge of which "keywords" will bring people into a website and help convert those visitors into customers.

Essential SEO Knowledge

What one must keep in mind is that some keywords will deliver visitors who will never buy, while other keywords will deliver visitors who are extremely likely to buy. This one paragraph holds within it the secret to a successful SEO strategy. This is the essential knowledge that a marketer should have, before engaging in any Search Engine Optimization campaign.

Like I said previously in this article, "Although SEO can bring great rewards, it can also be very expensive to implement."

If you are going to spend a lot of money to optimize your website for the search engines, doesn't it make much more sense to target the keywords that will actually help you to earn back your investment?

The Backwards Thinking

The backwards thinking I referred to in the beginning of this article was the idea that many people put SEO in front of their keyword research, keyword tracking and keyword conversion statistics.

An industry I like to pick on is the travel industry. To rank well for the solitary keyword "travel" in the search engines requires an astronomical SEO budget. But most people seeking travel information are looking for something just a bit more specific, like: Disney vacations, Hawaii vacations, and European travel.

So long as a keyword has been proven to convert visitors and sales, then it makes sense to optimize for that keyword. But you will never truly know which keywords will convert visitors and sales, until you have invested some of your budget into pay-per-clíck advertising and traffic analysis.

Once the necessary "keyword" knowledge is in hand, then the marketer can make an investment into search engine optimization for those keywords that can actually make them money, and with good SEO deployment, the marketer can find that they can actually capture a lot of the search engine traffic for specific keywords through the search engines' free listings.

About The Author
Bill Platt has offered article marketing services on the Internet since 2001 at thePhantomWriters.com - As an extension of his article marketing service, he has developed a process he refers to as "Karma SEO". After two years of testing his Karma SEO philosophy, Bill has reached an understanding of how he can finally provide Pay-For-Performance SEO Services. We don't have to pay Google for traffic... They give it to US for FREE!

12 Tips to help build the foundation for a new SEO career

2008-09-10T05:32:00.000-07:00

TIP 1. Set your focus on your clients success.

Stop focusing on sales and start focusing on your client's success! Do all that you can do to make them successful. Pour all of your talents into making their projects work. So many folks I talk to can never stop thinking about
where they will make their next sale, instead of working on delivering results to the clients they ALREADY have. In so doing, you establish "lifetime" residuals.

Make your client successful and they will literally become part of YOUR sales team.

TIP 2. A difference in your performance is a difference in your profits.

If you are NOT up to speed, you better catch up fast. Truely a difference in your performance is a difference in your profits! If you are not up to speed on solid SEO marketing techniques and methods, start learning now. Take a course or study at a live workshop but however you do it, get your SEO career skills up to speed so you can genuinely help get your customers results. If you can show them a strategy that really puts dollars in their pocket, they'll put dollars in YOUR pocket!

TIP 3. Have confidence in your own strategies and explore profit sharing.

How's your batting average with profit sharing? Don't be afraid to explore this one! If your skills are medium to above average, why not share in the profits yourself? I am referring to offering someone a vertical deal. This would be a deal where you own part of the company in return for making it successful with your SEO skills. Don't brush this off. There are some exceptional deals to be had if you start thinking laterally.

TIP 4. Don't forget community and charitable work.

When's the last time you helped promote a charitable work at NO cost. Build a site and promote it for the literacy council or the Easter Seals Society or your local Rotary Group or your Chamber of Commerce.

Don't forget that this work can OFTEN open unusual and even surprising doors. Help make others successful and you will NOT fail. Many important leaders within your local community will be serving on these committees right next to you!
This is a great way to network and meet new people and help the cause too.

TIP 5. Work on Relationship building and position yourself for success to come.

Watch the latest SEO trends and position yourself to quickly take advantage. The study and practice of SEO has been extraordinary. A few years ago, I never dreamed that my study of optimization would lead to the Internet lifestyle. As a result of our work, we enjoy wonderful repeat business and client loyalty.

If you have not been enjoying good profits, a rewarding lifestyle and being appreciated by your clients, then you need to consider a plan of action.

Tip 6. Set your course of action and get started.

Consider taking a live hands-on SEO workshop which can kick-start your professional SEO career in just a few days of hands-on training. Or if you cannot travel, consider taking an Online SEO Training Course.

Tip 7. Choose which voices you choose to listen to carefully.

You MUST be able to "deliver" and make a difference. Do whatever it takes to get your SEO skills and lateral thinking skills up to speed. In business there are many voices offering free advice. You need to choose carefully who you will listen to.

Tip 8. Run a balanced business.

Are you charging for what your services are worth? There are some folks who charge steeply and don't even know how to get the results. For goodness sakes, if you're good at what you do, make sure you are charging well for your services. You DESERVE fair reward if you're helping other business owners to prosper.
(Some folks are afraid to charge for their work)

Note: The ones that charge steeply but DON'T deliver may make a few dollars initially, but they won't enjoy the customer loyalty, the referral business, and the repeat business that you do, and they won't have a "customer for life" like you will.

Tip 9. Don't forget to recognize and be thankful for the progress you've made.

Yes, this is extremely important. How else can you truly measure your progress unless you benchmark along the way. Be sure to benchmark your victories but even more important, celebrate your CLIENTS' VICTORIES too! After all, you helped bring them about.

Tip 10. Give something back to your community (with gladness).

Look for opportunities to help others who genuinely need help and avoid those who are only after your talents to exploit them. (Trust me, when your SEO talents and success stories increase, you'll have strangers coming out of the woodwork to take you to dinner and wine you and dine you and pick your brain). Proceed with wisdom.

Tip 11. You must be willing to change and take action!

Performing the way you perform now has delivered a certain result. Maybe you're happy with that result. If you're happy with this result, carry on exactly the same way and you should get very similar results. However, if you are NOT happy with your results now, then you must change the way you do things.

Some people go all their life complaining that they would like a better career
or a better position in life and yet they continue taking the same actions and
getting the same results year after year.

Think of it like this...

Same action = same result
Different action = new results

Tip 12. Surround yourself with the high quality people!

Without a doubt, your SEO interests and abilities will make way for many new working relationships. Be sure to carefully choose the people you want to work with. Look for those with whom you can share synergies and be very observant of the skills and abilities within the others that surround you. No single person can operate as effectively as a group of people that work as a team. Learn to choose the right people to work with and recognize the latent strengths and talents that will sometimes be present but initially hidden within the group. Build to your ultimate potential by choosing wisely, encouraging one another and recognizing the talent in one another.

Is a career in SEO right for you?

Are you ready to take your SEO career to the next step?

We would be delighted to meet with you personally and teach you exactly how
search engines work. The beauty of learning new SEO skills, is that it puts you
back into the position of having the power to choose and make your own choices.

Source: http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/career.html

GMI’S Advanced Web Application Development Services

2008-09-03T06:28:00.000-07:00

Web Applications have transgressed geographical boundaries thanks to an ever evolving open global economy. Web apps, a jargon that they are better known by, allows innovative bright ideas from varied sections of the globe to be floated across civilizations opening up new vistas to reach out and be recognized. Business ideas have never had more beneficial breeding grounds, than what is offered now, through progressive thinking applications.

Web Portal Development: Every community, social network, collaboration space, online event is different; this means that growing a successful online social network requires social know-how as well as technical expertise.

The first step is to conduct a needs analysis and assessment, we start with your business reasons, your customer or constituent, your value proposition and the experience that would deliver it, and derive a plan that covers the interlocking technical, social, and marketing infrastructures necessary for growing successful online social networks as desired.
At the end of the assessment period, GMI presents a draft Community Software Requirement Specification and Action Plan. This Community Software Requirement Specification is meant to be a living document that is built flexibly enough to adapt to changing circumstances your online social network may face.
GMI assembles a team of experts who have knowledge of your particular subject domain or market segment, along with experience in organizational development, training, and online facilitation. We work together with your teams to launch, grow, and keep your online social networks healthy.
GMI provides all the support services you need to nourish your virtual community or online social network until it is self-sustaining, We maintain the efficiency of the working of your site and update it in accordance to the changing trend around it.

Social Networking Website Development: GMI has invested over 400 man years in the competitive social networking arena, building core competency in all aspects of its social network development - from visualization and designing to the implementation of robust frameworks that ensure the smooth functioning of the network. Whether an emerging enterprise or a seasoned player in the field, you can count on GMI's expertise to turn your vision into full-fledged community portals that cater to the ever-increasing needs of this service market, yielding greater revenues and higher dividends.

Ecommerce Website Development: Rapidly growing competition and ever-changing market trends have elevated the need of efficient shopping cart software. There is no end to attractive and accessible features that a successful ecommerce solution must have. Choosing the right Ecommerce Solution provider is an intellectual resolution for your business growth. With our extensive e-commerce experience, we are ideally positioned to help you deliver a comprehensive and effective e-business strategy that will encompass communication, marketing and personnel issues for your company's ecommerce solutions. We specialize in ecommerce development Services such as website promotion, website management and maintenance, ecommerce web site development and design, ecommerce portal development, we can assist you with:

Ajax Development: We offer AJAX to develop applications as it offers the following benefits:

For enabling specific portions of a web page to be updated without the need to reload the entire page thereby enabling the creation of rich internet applications.
For utilizating less server resources
For being cross platform and cross browser compatible.
For lending desktop-application like experience on web based applications.
For integrating multiple levels of interactivity on the same page.
For separating data, format and functioning.

About Grey Matter India technologies

Over the years, GMI has undertaken extensive projects, empowering the wireless revolution with innovative solutions aimed at enhancing user experience. GMI is one of the largest independent solution providers in web application development, web portal Development & Offshore software development. To know more about GMI, Visit Offshore Software Development Company.

Search Engine Optimization SEO Glossary

2008-07-08T23:43:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Optimization Glossary terms beginning with A:

Absolute Link:

An absolute link is the entire path to whatever it is your trying to reach.
An absolute link is the direct and full address to a file on the web.
An absolute link is also used for linking to other websites.
An absolute link is a hyperlink that includes the complete URL, consisting of the domain name.
An absolute link is the full URL link to the target page.

Accessibility:

Accessibility is ensuring the access of information is available to the widest possible audience.
Accessibility means access to information for all.
Accessibility is about giving equal access to everyone.
Accessibility is something most web designers consider an afterthought.
Accessibility no current laws in place to enforce it.

AdSense:

AdSense is people paying to advertise on their own web space.
AdSense is a programme that lets normal people earn lots of money from their website.
AdSense is a wonderful opportunity to earn extra capital from the pages of your website.
AdSense is a context based advertising system that analyses page content to suiting ads.
AdSense is fit for random traffic and parked domains.

AdWords:

AdWords are paid advertising in Google rankings.
AdWords are basically small advertisements that appears for a certain keyword search.
AdWords are now displayed in the same colour as standard results.
AdWords are simply those words you pay for to attract clicks.
AdWords are a great way to enhance site exposure and traffic.

Agent Name:

Agent Name. Example Google user agent name is Googlebot.
Agent Name is a process of sending search engine spiders to agent pages, yet sending visitors to what they want to see

AJAX:

AJAX is a dynamic method in which to communicate with server.
AJAX is program that Google Maps needs.

Algorithm:

Algorithm is a method developed to solve a wide variable of problems.
Algorithm is an operational programming rule that determine how a search engine indexes content and displays the results to its users.
Algorithm is one method of unscrambling lots of information.
Algorithm is an equation or, more generally a maths expression.
Algorithm is the study algorithm is called algorithmics and is the core of all computer science.

All The Web:

All the Web is a search engine that returns results as fast as any other.
All the Web is more customizable than most search engines, using skins.
All the Web is owned by Overture.

Alt Attribute:

Alt Attributes are HTML elements specified within image tag.
Alt Attributes is often called Alt Tag, required to provide a text equivalent for an object or image.
Alt Attributes is for someone without a graphical browser so it can make sense of the image.
Alt Attributes is one very strong hint to the content of an image.

Alt Tags:

Alt Tags are used when ever you have an image in your site that is important to the overall massage.
Alt Tag are basically the description of a said image.
Alt Tag are text descriptions within a code that describes the image.
Alt Tag are instructions in the HTML tag that describe graphics.

Anchor Text:

Anchor Text is visible text in a hyperlink.
Anchor Text is used to tell search engines and visitors what the page is about.
Anchor Text is a factor that can increase your search engine rankings for set keywords.
Anchor Text is important for both internal web site structure and external linking.
Anchor Text can be optimized both internally and external.

API:

API is intended to dictate implementation as little as possible.
API is a set of classes used to store and retrieve site wide configuration.

ASP:

ASP is designed to empower independent software.
ASP is purely a microsoft based technology, primarily used on Window NT servers.
ASP is a free code to create an object system for a content and management system.

Automated Submitting:

Automated Submitting is an automatic process that takes place to gain a link.

Search Engine Optimization Glossary terms beginning with B:

Back links:

A Back Link is a HTML link from another site back to your site.
A Back Link is placed from one webmaster to another.
A back Link is a link that points to your site.
A Back Link is very important for SEO purpose.
A Back Link are also called inward links, in links, inbound links or incoming links.

Bait and Switch:

Bait and Switch is a tactic where you offer to sell an excellent product at a very good price.
Bait and Switch is a well known link building strategy, works well with viral marketing.
Bait and Switch is considered to be a spam technique when used in SEO.
Bait and Switch is not good for ranking.
Bait and Switch is advertising something that you do not intend to sell.

Banner Ad:

Banner Ads are different because they are random.
Banner Ads are sold as a CPM basis or on a CPC basis.
Banner Ads are typically bought in-conjunction with keywords.
Banner Ads can be available for download and placement on a third parties website.
Banner Ads are straight HTML text ads that appear in a floating windows.

Bid Management Tool:

Bid Management Tool is a software application that allows advertisers to manage PPC keyword bidding.
Bid Management Tool is designed to manage extremely large keyword lists.
Bid Management Tool is a software that will categories your keyword lists.

Black List:

Black List is part of the spam protection that tells the filter not to allow through.
Black List is the list of unwanted windows, titles and URL's.

Blog:

Blog is also known as a web log.
Blog is your own resume.
Blogs are a new marketing vehicle.
Blog is an indirect form to gain clicks to your website.

Body Copy:

Body Copy is the last part of an ad to be completed.
Body Copy is where your actual selling is done.
Body Copy is any printing on the tab sheet other than the tab extension.

Search Engine Optimization Glossary terms beginning with C:

Cache:

Cache is more expensive than RAM, it is well worth getting a CPU and motherboard with build in cache, in order to maximize system performance.
Cache is identified by cache key which is build as a dot-delimited.

Cgi bin:

Your own CGI bin directory you can, you can store custom CGI scripts that you have written yourself or found on the web.
CGI bin is the custom directory where you normally run your custom scripts.

Clickrate:

Clickrate is the percentage of expressions that result from clickthrough.

Cloaking:

Cloaking is often confused with doorway pages.
Cloaking is serving different content to visitors than the search engines.
Cloaking is search engine spam.
Cloaking is were you can set to sets of content.

Conversion:

Conversion in e-commerce is the result given to a positive sale.
Conversion is a marketers term used for a site visit.

Cookie:

Cookie is an element of data that a website can send to your browser.
Cookie is an "enticement" to get a computer user to visit you.

Cost Per Action: (CPA)

CPA is a fancy way of dressing up a "Affiliate Program"
CPA is a very difficult program to track and is expensive.
CPA is a form of direct advertising.

Cost Per Click: (CPC)

CPC is the price you pay per click to your website.
CPC is advertising such as Google Adwords and Overture.
CPC is a method adopted to gain high volumes of traffic for a set price.

Cost Per Lead: (CPL)

CPL is good but you must follow up for the sale or its not worth it.
CPL is a ratio and strategic metric.

Cost Per Order: (CPO)

CPO is based on every time an order is processed.
CPO is simply the cost column divided by the number of orders received from that station that day.

Counter:

Counter stores data to let you look at your site statistics over a set period.
Counters track web site traffic.

CSS:

CSS is a very powerful way to make good layout.
CSS is what gives web sites their layout and colour.
CSS is supported by all browsers today.
CSS is a style language that defines layouts of HTML documents.

Custom Error Page:

A custom error page is a temporary solution.
A custom error page is called 404b.

Search Engine Optimization Glossary terms beginning with D:

Data:

Data is the storage of information produced from work effort and is manipulated via applications.
Data is a source of information gathered in the one place for search purposes.
Data is lots and lots of information utilized by applications.

Database:

A database is a structured collection of information or data.
A database is one component of a database management system.
A database of information is represented one way and one way only.

Database Driver:

A database driver is just the name of a Java class in X.
A database driver is there to select all values to their initial state.
A database driver is easy for the person skilled in the arts.

Database Generator:

A database generator is assumed to use a memory.
A database generator is for accessing multi-level databases.
A database generator is proportional to the size and complexity of the database schema.

Daughter Window:

A daughter window is an optional creative component and is spawned from 120 x 90 buddy list unit.
A daughter window is a 350 x 300 pixel browser which opens up direct when a visitor accesses you web page.
A daughter window is a new browser window, usually smaller than the existing browser window that pops up when clicked on.

Deep Submissions:

Deep submissions are normally allowed for paid listings only.
Deep submission is the submission of many pages deep in the pages of a website.
Deep submission are found during deep indexing of a particular web page.

Directory:

Directories are a good place for research on topics.
Directories are like catalogues of collective information.
Directories are becoming very popular amongst web developers.

Domain:

Domains are internet addresses to websites.
Domains can be Top Level or Country Code.
Domains must be registered first before use.

Doorway Page:

A doorway page a an HTML page on your website to get better listings at the search engines.
A doorway page is a page that redirects to another page.
A doorway page is build to rank high for a particular keyword or phrase.

Dynamic:

Dynamic is that it will always be measurable.
Dynamic is a built in prefix operator.
Dynamic is specified.

Dynamic Rotation:

Dynamic rotation is standard on most CAD applications.
Dynamic rotation lets different users see different ads on the same page.
Dynamic rotation allows ads to be viewed on different location on a single web page.

Refer - http://ezinearticles.com/?Part-D---a-to-Z-SEO-Glossary-of-Terms-and-Definitions.&id=1300292

Yahoo-Google deal faces scrutiny: antitrust experts

2008-06-20T00:55:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Google and Yahoo face intense U.S. Justice Department scrutiny of their deal to share some advertising revenue, and the heat will likely increase under a new administration, antitrust experts said.

Google, with more than 60 percent of the Web search market, and Yahoo, with 16.6 percent, announced a deal last week that would allow Yahoo to place Google ads on its site and collect the revenue.

The firms said Yahoo's cash flow could grow by $250 million to $450 million (127 million to 229 million pounds) in the first year under the deal, which Yahoo sought as an alternative to software giant Microsoft's $47.5 billion buyout offer.

Yahoo and Google describe the deal as very limited. "These are still independent companies who will continue to compete aggressively," said Yahoo lawyer Hewitt Pate of law firm Hunton and Williams.

But the deal has raised eyebrows among antitrust lawyers.

Bruce McDonald, a Jones Day antitrust attorney and former deputy assistant attorney general, pointed out that the arrangement could lessen Yahoo's incentive to compete vigorously against Google because Yahoo would collect revenue no matter which company placed an advertisement.

Google, Yahoo Clients Defend Tie-Up, Say It May Boost Sales

2008-06-20T00:50:00.000-07:00

June 20 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., owner of the most popular Internet search engine, may have some unlikely allies in defending its proposed partnership with Yahoo! Inc.: the very advertisers that critics say may be hurt by the deal.

Microsoft Corp., the software maker that tried to buy Yahoo, and lawmakers argued that the agreement announced last week may reduce competition in Internet marketing and raise prices. Some customers say the arrangement for Yahoo to show ads sold by Google actually may lower their costs because Google ads do a better job targeting Web users.

``The agreement between Yahoo and Google should help the relevancy of our advertising on Yahoo, which should actually make the dollars we spend more efficient,'' said Geoff Atkinson, vice president of tactical marketing at online retailer Overstock.com Inc. in Salt Lake City.

The views of advertisers may help determine whether the tie- up between the two biggest Internet ad companies passes U.S. government muster. Google already gets $7 of every $10 spent on sponsored search links in the U.S., according to researcher IDC in Framingham, Massachusetts.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, and Yahoo, in nearby Sunnyvale, say they will wait up to 3 1/2 months for a Justice Department review before closing the deal.

Waiting will give executives time to address concerns and avoid forcing the government to sue to halt the transaction, said antitrust lawyer Glenn Manishin at Duane Morris in Washington.

Government Review

``We are looking at the proposed transaction,'' Justice Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona said. She declined to comment further.

Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said last week the deal will improve the relevance of ads on Yahoo's pages, so customers are more likely to buy. Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang forged the agreement, which Yahoo says may add $800 million in annual sales, after merger talks with Microsoft collapsed.

Google fell $2.18 to $560.20 on the Nasdaq Stock Market yesterday and has lost 19 percent this year. Yahoo, the second most popular search engine, slipped 18 cents to $22.73. Yahoo spokeswoman Diana Wong declined to comment. Google's press office didn't return e-mails.

Among those questioning the deal are Senator Herb Kohl, a Democrat from Wisconsin, who said June 12 that the partnership raises ``important competition concerns.''

`Makes It Easier'

Representative Joe Barton, a Republican from Texas, sent Yang a letter this week with eight questions about it. Harry Alford, head of the National Black Chamber of Commerce in Washington, said in an e-mail last week the arrangement would hurt small businesses that advertise online.

Eric Parkinson, who runs distribution at Empire Film Group Inc. in Beverly Hills, California, disagrees. He said he sees advantages for his company in the Google-Yahoo pact.

``When it comes to online advertising, it's simpler to reach people if the access to the marketplace is controlled by fewer sources,'' said Parkinson, who has released more than 800 movies and is best known for marketing ``The Terminator.'' ``As the market matures and the number of players consolidates, it actually makes it easier.''

Parkinson plans a $750,000 Web campaign for the Sept. 5 release of ``Hounddog,'' a drama starring Dakota Fanning.

Customers will flee if Google abuses its power, Parkinson said. ``If it turns out that Google becomes the bully of the marketplace, hopefully someone will step in and not be a bully,'' he said.

Zappos View

Darrin Shamo, who manages search ads for Zappos.com Inc., the shoe retailer in Henderson, Nevada, said he and his staff have concluded that prices won't change much because of a Google- Yahoo partnership.

Read Full News at - http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aC75mgm67PNc&refer=us

SEO Marketing LLC Helps Webmasters Achieve Top Search Engine Listings

2008-05-05T00:08:00.000-07:00

Website design will only get you so far. What really matters is the traffic you can bring to your website. However, if you don't know anything about search engine optimization services, the traffic-building process may seem overwhelming. Fortunately, with SEO Marketing LLC, you can leave the traffic-building process into the hands of professionals.

However, don't confuse 'professional' with magic, since genuine SEO can't be accomplished through some secret trick. Instead, SEO Marketing LLC uses legitimate, old-fashioned methods to secure your placement in Google and other search engines. Specifically this means focusing on link-building with high-ranking sites.

"Part of our formula mixes link quantity and quality back links, combined with a great search strategy. The quality links are coming from authority sites, topic specific sites and content related pages to help you rank higher." Notes Kris Kinard, company founder.

Now, if you want even faster results, you may want to consider using SEO Marketing LLC to provide assistance with your pay-per-click campaigns. Whether you're working with Google Adwords, Yahoo or MSN, SEO Marketing LLC can help you get high rankings with just a handful of cheap yet highly-trafficked keywords. In fact, you will only need a budget of $150 a month per website to fund your campaign.

Read Full News at - http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/05/prweb910234.htm

RIC Announces New Clients and Provides Insights into Search Engine Optimization

2008-05-05T00:06:00.000-07:00

Regency Interactive Corporation, a North Carolina based SEO company announces the addition of forty one new clients during quarter one of 2008. Based on the increasing number of new domains registered and new online businesses created, it is getting more difficult to compete in the search engines. The number of internet business owners prioritizing top placements in the search engines is presently more concentrated. The typical SEO practices of yesterday are no longer enough for top placement. Businesses are more focused today on hiring a dedicated search engine optimization (SEO) company to handle online marketing.

The forty one new accounts now give Regency Interactive a total of 300 small businesses and corporate clients. The services provided include, but are not limited to standard search engine optimization and Google Adword management.

Regency Interactive boasts the same team that's been in place managing optimization services since 1999. One of the very first groups of IT experts managing SEO services, Regency Interactive also specializes in Google Adword campaign management. Certified by Google, Regency Interactive Corporation also helps customers save money in their adword spending by increasing click-thru rates and split testing ad copy. You can view these services and more at http://www.webmarketingindia.net/search-engine-optimization-seo-service.php

Having an SEO consultant can be the difference in helping a company use the internet to its fullest capacity. With the competitive nature of industry today and the amount of web pages competing for top positions, it's imperative to have a well optimized, search engine friendly website. In the wrong hands, optimization can prove to be a detriment if not implemented correctly. Regency Interactive Corporation maintains a staff of sixteen highly qualified html editors and html designers that have working knowledge of nine plus years of optimizing web sites. Continuing education on known solutions in this industry along with known knowledge allows Regency to continue to deliver top results.

If unfamiliar with search engine optimization or general search techniques, here is a brief overview.

Full news at - http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/05/prweb914874.htm

Searching to get to the top of Google

2008-05-05T00:03:00.000-07:00

THE hotels website Superbreak had a problem three years ago. The volume of traffic arriving at its web pages was worryingly low. Surfers were confused by cybersquatters trying to pass themselves off as the business and, to make matters worse, it shared the same name as a popular brand of American rucksacks.

Search-engine optimisation (SEO) proved to be the answer.

Part crystal-ball watching, part trial and error, it is the practice of improving lacklustre internet commerce by getting a firm noticed on the results pages of search engines. And it is perhaps the fastest-growing sector in the marketing industry.

Cracking the code of how search engines like Google work is forecast to be a £400m industry in Britain alone this year and it is growing at 60% a year.

Superbreak called in the experts to ensure its name rose to the top of search lists when users tapped in queries for “short break” and “hotel break” into Google or other search engines.

The plan involved redrawing every web page to focus on the word “break”, simplifying its design, and making information more sharply relevant to weekend trippers.

Read Full News at - http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article3866889.ece