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Twitter, Facebook, Google Team Up After Attacks?

2009-08-07T05:04:00.000-07:00

Combined force would have better chance of finding culprit

Just about everyone is familiar with the proverb "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," and today, Twitter, Facebook, and Google may have bonded over it. Rumors indicate that the three companies are jointly trying to determine what was behind some denial of service attacks.

As many people noticed, Twitter suffered an outage this morning. Facebook experienced intermittent issues, too, and there were reports of problems with Blogger. Indeed, someone or something seemed to have it in for all sorts of social media sites.

It would make sense for their corporate parents to team up, then, and Adam Ostrow reports, "[A] source close to the situation tells us that Twitter, Facebook, and Google . . . are working together to determine the root of what has been exposed as a deliberate and simultaneous attempt to take down some of the web's most popular social media sites."

If this is the case, it's an encouraging instance of companies setting aside rivalries in order to achieve an important goal. It's also a sign that the parties responsible for the DDoS attacks are in trouble, since the combined resources of Twitter, Facebook, and Google are pretty formidable.

Who knows? The founders of all three companies are young and fit. Maybe we'll even get to see a corporate America version of "Death Wish" take place.

Source: webpronews

YouTube Gets Its Own AdSense

2009-08-05T01:52:00.000-07:00

Time To Make Some Money

YouTube may have just begun implementing its real moneymaker. The world's most popular video site is now essentially offering its own AdSense-style program. That comparison comes straight from the horse's mouth, mind you.

Last year, YouTube launched "Promoted Vidoeos." Now they are putting those on watch pages in the "related videos" section.

"If you think of the initial launch of Promoted Videos as similar to AdWords -- a search advertising opportunity for marketers on YouTube -- this new feature is a lot like AdSense," says a post from a couple of YouTube product managers. "For example, while Promoted Videos appearing next to search results are keyword targeted, those appearing on watch pages are contextually targeted based on the video and content of the page, so they are suited to your audience's interests. Also like AdSense, revenue generated by Promoted Videos on watch pages will be shared with the YouTube partner. This is another way we can help partners make money on YouTube, in addition to the display ads we serve in and alongside videos themselves."

The world has been waiting for YouTube to become profitable, and there have been hints recently that it was coming. This might just be the ticket.

Meanwhile, YouTube has been working hard at making improvements and adding more appealing content. In recent months they have added feature films and shows, as well as movie trailers.

YouTube has also begun taking a special interest in news content. They recently invited publishers to become YouTube partners and launched the YouTube Reporters' Center for citizen reporters. Now they have started including a "News Near You" section for local news. The point is, they're expanding on the types of content they offer, and this will be good for a AdSense-like program.

Source: webpronews

Google Offers AdSense Publishers New Filtering Options

2009-08-05T01:46:00.000-07:00

Block certain types of ads without decreasing your income

AdSense publishers who want more control over what ads appear on their sites are in luck; today, Google announced that it's upgraded a category filtering feature, and is extending the feature's beta to countries including the U.K. and the U.S.

Do you have something against dating sites? Drugs and supplements? Politics? No problem. By just checking a few boxes, you can block related ads. In fact, you can block ads from up to five categories, which shows quite a bit of flexibility on Google's part.

Google will also show you how the different ad categories contribute to your income, which should prevent people from shooting themselves in the foot (and/or checkbook).

Otherwise, Arlene Lee of the Inside AdSense Team stated on the Inside AdSense blog, "To give you a better sense of how many ads you'd be filtering, we've now added an extra column to show you the percentage of ad impressions on your pages which fall into each category."

And all of the numbers are now calculated based on stats dating back 30 days, not just 3, to increase their accuracy.

Visit the Ad Review Center if you feel like tinkering with these ad filters. Publishers in Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, the U.K., and the U.S. should all have access to the beta.

Source: webpronews

Twitter Launches New Homepage Design

2009-07-30T06:03:00.000-07:00

This past Friday we told you about the new Twitter homepage that was just days away. Well, now @Biz has updated the Twitter blog informing us that the new design has been launched.

Do you feel this is an upgrade from the previous homepage? Let us know.

Below is a brief description of the new design:

"Today we're trying a redesigned front page for folks who are new to Twitter.com. If you're a regular around these parts, then you won't notice the new look unless you sign out of your account. Helping people access Twitter in more relevant and useful ways upon first introduction lowers the barrier to accessing the value Twitter has to offer and presents the service more consistently with how it has evolved."

The new homepage features some pretty interesting trend information, which includes: popular topics by minute, day and week. Sort of makes you wonder if they'll add this info to the profile pages, doesn't it?

Even though the new homepage sports a more modern design, @Biz is quick to admit there is "More Work Ahead".

"The open and timely exchange of information will have a positive impact on the world and Twitter has a role to play. We have a lot of work to do when it comes to the quality of our search results and trend analysis but repositioning the product to focus more on discovery is an important first step in presenting Twitter to a wider audience of folks around the world who are eager to start engaging with new people, ideas, opinions, events, and sources of information.

We'll likely continue to make changes to the Twitter home page as we respond to feedback and ideas. We're eager to see if encouraging a sense of wonder and discovery leads to a better first impression of Twitter."

Jeremy Muncy Source: webpronews

Twitter Cracks comScore Top 50 Web Properties

2009-07-22T06:41:00.000-07:00

comScore Media Matrix released its top 50 web properties for the month of June. It's no surprise that Google sites remain on top with Yahoo and Microsoft in the second and third positions respectively.

Facebook has moved up 2 positions to number 6 though, giving the social network its highest ranking to date. Twitter actually just made its first appearance on the list, coming in at number 46 with 20.1 million visitors.

"It's hard to believe that Twitter.com had fewer than a million visitors in June 2008, and now attracts more than 20 million visitors a month and ranks among the top 50 U.S. properties," says Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix.

"Twitter has clearly been able to generate wide interest and cultivate a substantial following in a very short period of time," he adds. "If this momentum persists, then we will continue to see Twitter climb higher and higher in this ranking in the coming months."

Also worth mentioning is that travel sites jumped in June, although this is not incredibly surprising. "Travel sites typically see an increase in activity around this time of year as Americans look to get away," says Flanagan. "Summer vacation also means more leisure time for those out of school, leading to a seasonal increase in leisure categories including online gaming and entertainment."

Notice that career categories made gains as well. This is also unsurprising, considering the state of the economy and unemployment.

Source: webpronews.com

Facebook, Twitter, & Wikis Really Do Impact the Bottom Line

2009-07-22T05:09:00.000-07:00

Companies have long had problems putting numbers on social media marketing results. Wetpaint and the Altimeter Group have now released a study looking at how engagement with consumers through social media correlates with financial performance. How much emphasis does your company put on social media efforts? Tell us.

The "ENGAGEMENTdb study" shows that companies who measured as having "the greatest breadth and depth of social media engagement" grew revenues by 18% over the last year, while the companies that were the least engaged dropped 6% on average.

"This is the first study of this depth on the top global brands and we think the results provide a good guide for corporations and brand marketers in every industry," says Charlene Li, Founder, Altimeter Group. "The success stories we have uncovered provide a blueprint for companies making decisions about how to best apply their marketing and consumer relations resources."

Channels taken into consideration for the study were:

- Blogs
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Wikis
- Discussion Forums

Brands looked at were the 100 most valuable ones as identified by the 2008 BusinessWeek/Interbrand Best Global Brands ranking. In case you were wondering what the top ten brands are according to the ENGAGEMENTdb study, they are as follows:

1. Starbucks
2. Dell
3. eBay
4. Google
5. Microsoft
6. Thomson Reuters
7. Nike
8. Amazon
9. SAP
10. Yahoo!/Intel (Tie)

So what are these brands doing right?

According to Wetpaint and the Altimeter Group, the companies that scored well have dedicated teams (of varying sizes) who are active in the social media channels they utilize. Basically, it shows that it pays (literally) to have a team working full time on engaging with customers via social media. Even if that team consists of one person, it means they will not be distracted by other tasks and can give the social channel the attention required for it to make a significant impact.

As the social web continues to grow (meaning more people joining social networks, more people blogging, and more sites becoming social), there is a growing number of channels that require said attention.

"The ENGAGEMENTdb study goes a long way towards validating the importance of social media for business," says Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint. "The closer any company is to its customers, the better, and it's hard to argue with the ability for social media to create such proximity. In this day and age, companies should feel much more comfortable investing in social media -- the correlation to results is so clear."

It is in fact that clarity that many companies have had a hard time seeing in the past. Social media is still in its early stages though really. In the grand scheme of things, it's still a relatively new concept. Keep in mind, that many businesses still do not even have websites, let alone a social media presence.

It is going to take studies like this and concrete data showing the financial benefits for more small businesses to truly get on board and engage. Having dedicated teams is a strategy that will likely become more commonplace as companies realize that half-assing it is just a waste of time.

A couple of other highlights from the study:

- The study found that the most successful teams evangelize social media across the entire organization to pull in a broad range of stakeholders.

- These companies view social media as an indispensable tool to help them achieve results, and their approach is conversational.

Along with the study, the ENGAGEMENTdb site was launched as a tool where companies can measure themselves against the top 100 in terms of the strength of their social media efforts. It's probably not a bad idea to take a look if you're serious about those efforts.

Source: webpronews

Engage Your Target Market With Social Media Marketing

2009-07-20T07:23:00.000-07:00

Right now your customers are flocking to social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. Your competitors are also flocking there in droves to participate in the online "conversation" that is happening amongst the members of your target market although most companies have a very limited understanding of how to effectively engage their target market through these social media sites. They rush to quickly sign up with as many accounts as possible, maybe upload a picture or two and wait for the magic to happen - they wait for the people to come to them. What most companies don't know is that there is no magic - the people won't just show up.

"Social Engagement" is the activity of initiating or participating in the online social activities that are important to your target market. This is not to be confused with a selling or promotional activity. Although social media marketing helps attract loyal customers and keep past ones, it is done through influence and relationship building, not through the use of propaganda.

1. What is the best social media site for my company?
It important for a company to identify which social outlet is going to give them the best return on both their time and investment. Mainstream sites offer a vast audience but sometimes it's better to target niche social outlets and be a big fish in a small pond. Posting content in topically relevant niche social sites will also help you produce thematically related back links which will help your site build authority with search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.

I'm a firm believer that you should have a presence on the main stream social sites like You Tube and Facebook, but niche social sites allow you to target those people who are really passionate members of your target market - your industry influences. Truly enthusiastic members of your target market are going beyond mainstream social sites and searching out a niche online community where they can find others just like them and share related content.

These niche sites are the prime locations to identify and engage the true influences within your target market. Those members of your target market have enough passion in their industry to seek out a nursing social site are clearly going to be a great conduit for reaching other passionate members through viral marketing.

2. How Do I Effectively Participate in the Conversation?
Once you have identified your social outlets (both mainstream and niche) you need to put on your creative hat and start thinking on how you're going to effectively take part and contribute (not control) in the existing conversations. This will require time, research and creativity.

If you find an existing conversation regarding a specific topic, write a response to that topic or research a great article and point the readers to it. Post videos that will entertain enlighten or amaze. This content is your brand's vehicle and if done well and will be forwarded to the inboxes of many future brand evangelists and loyal customers. Besides content (both original and shared), consider adding a handy tool or resource like a "widget"or an "app". Not only does this offer useful contribution to the online community, it also is a great way to get back links and quickly build exposure. It doesn't have to be a big expensive widget - simply get creative and think of something simple and useful that members of your target market can share.

3. How Can I Keep My Presence Fresh and New?
Once you've identified your social sites, listened to the conversation taking place and offered something useful to it, you need to keep up the momentum. It's important to keep yourself in front of these members and find ways to engage new ones. Your engagement activities will attract a lot of visitors to your online conversation - both those who have found you through a search engine and those that have been referred. And just like in sales, you'll need to keep adding new members to your online conversation to replace the members that are leaving. Keep inviting others to join your conversation and use other forms of advertising to market your social endeavors. Promote your social groups on your company's website, at industry events and tradeshows, in email newsletters and through other forms of advertising.

It's important for you to post often and to continue posting at a somewhat regular pace, but not to monopolize the conversation. This means that you're going to have to make a time commitment for a member of your staff or a social media agency to continue your social media strategy on an ongoing basis.

Utilizing these simple steps will help you engage your target market on both a personal and professional level and create life long relationships with your current and future customers.

By: Oliver Feakins

The Basics of Web Design - The Easy Way to Build an Authoritative Website

2009-07-20T07:06:00.000-07:00

The basics of good web design are similar to the elements that comprise good graphics design in general. So if you've designed a t-shirt, a business card, or the cover of a report and it got a favorable response you intuitively know the basics of how you can design a web page that works.

The Internet has impacted businesses and families and in little more than a decade has changed the way many of us communicate.

If you or your company has an Internet presence - and who doesn't these days - then it's critical that you use effective design concepts when you develop your website or blog.

If you use the net for business purposes you can attract more clients and customers and keep your existing clients happy when you incorporate the basics of web design.

Even if you only use the Internet to stay in touch with friends and relatives it will be more effective and you will have more visitors if you keep your website as attractive and uncluttered as possible.
There are some basics of web design that should be kept in mind, no matter if your intentions are to make money or to keep in touch with people you care about.

The first basic of web design is to conceptualize how your finished site will look before you even begin to build it. It's actually pretty easy to do, and here's how:

If you're like most people, you spend quite a bit of time each day surfing the Internet. Why not use that time even more affectively by jotting down the URLs of the websites that catch your eye?

After you draw up a list of sites, you can go back and leisurely analyze them. Note the things that attracted your attention. Perhaps it was the way the web designer used space and color. Or maybe it was the size of the fonts they used, or their use of images.

Make notes of all the things that you like. You'll most likely find some commonality amongst the sites.

Then, when it comes time to designing your own site, whether you're doing it yourself or hiring a web design firm to build it for you, you will have a much better idea of what you want.

Another basic to keep in mind, and this is especially true if you are designing a website for your business, is to make sure your website has the ability to grow as the business expands.

One of the best ways to do this is to make sure that your web design company understands both where your company is now and the direction it's heading in the future.

By: Wendy Moyer

How To Jam Your Website With Traffic

2009-07-18T03:35:00.000-07:00

"Traffic! Traffic! I need traffic to my website! I have been trying so hard to write articles and submit them to article directories but still can't see traffic flowing in to my website. Why?"....hear the screaming voice of many website owners who are hungry of internet traffic.

"Article" had been recognized as internet #1 marketing strategy and the most effective way to generate tons of traffic to a website. You heard about this statement before and putting a lot of efforts to write "articles" and working very hard to submit them to many article directories which you can find from internet; while waiting for your articles to be approved by these article directories, you start to imagine with smiling face:

"If those 200 articles directories which I submitted with my 3 articles, each one bring me 200 internet traffic to my website, then I will have 120,000 targeted traffic and If 10% of those visitors buy my product or click on my Adsense ads, then I will earn $$$.........".

You wait with patient and with full of hopes for your articles to be approved and drive tons of internet traffic to your website. Finally, your articles are lived on internet and you start to monitor your website internet traffic from time to time. This is the situation you may face:

Day one: 0 visitor drop by to your website. You give yourself an excuse that it only one day you articles live on internet, let wait for some times.

Day Two: again 0 visitors.

Day three has two visitors; day four has 3 visitors; day five has none visitor......day by day past.....where are those 120,000 targeted traffic? You wonder!

This time failed never mind, you try the same process again: Writing a few articles, submit them to hundreds of article directories, waiting with hopes for approval, monitor your website traffic from time to time.

"What's goes wrong.....why my articles can't drive traffic to my website?" This must be the questions come up to your mind after a few failures. If this is your case, the first thing that you need to do is review your articles. Are your articles attractive enough to lead your article readers to complete reading your article and curious enough to get further information by visiting your website through the link from your article.

In order to drive traffic to your website using articles, these steps must happen:

1. Internet surfer looks for information from internet or ezines directories. Hundreds or thousands of search results or related articles list up for the internet surfer to choose from; he or she will selectively click on the links from search results based on the summary of each search result or article which he or she thinks the links will bring him or her to the useful information he/she needs.

At this first step, you need to have an eye catching article title and summary which will draws the attention of your potential website visitors.

2. Next, your article needs to drive your readers to complete reading your article and create the anxiousness to get more or further information by visiting your website. According to the experts, good articles are articles which can connect to your audience with emotion beside provide them with necessary information.

Facts and Statistics are fine but what makes us take action is emotion. If your articles are all fact and create no emotion then who cares about going on to find more dry facts at your web site. Your articles will fall into the depths of article directories everywhere and be a big fat waste of your time and efforts.

There are many tips and tricks available from internet on how to write a killer article that will flood your website with traffic. Simply search on this article directory with keyword "Killer Article" or "Quality Article" will give you many results with useful information.

If there is a need, you might want to get help from a professional writer to write you a quality article and private label it to yours for submission. There are many good writers around where you can use their service; off course fee normally incur, but it's may gives you a good return in investment (ROI).

Do waste your time just to write articles but put your effort to write quality articles. It's true that "Article" is the internet #1 marketing strategy. Just good & bad articles that make the different.

By: Jenny Harvard

Internet Marketing: The importance of a Domain Name

2009-07-17T01:22:00.000-07:00

The domain name is the entry to your site. The address people type in their browsers to get to it. You need to pay attention to it, because your company name will not always be the best domain name you can get for your website. There are certain considerations you should keep in mind when choosing the domain name you will use:

· your domain name should be easy to remember for the intended audience
· your domain name should contain keywords so it helps your site positioning in search engines.

With these in mind, you will soon discover that your-company-name.com is not always the best alternative. It depends on whether you have a well established company, with a known name, or you are starting your business.

The domain name is a tool you can use to help your business grow. So don’t miss the opportunity. Spend the necessary time thinking about possible domain names, and trying to find their good and bad aspects.

A good idea is to get more than one domain name and point them to the same website. So if people type your-company-name.com or they type your-keyword-rich-domain.com they get to the same website. This way you can still use your company name as domain name, and also some other keyword rich name you register.

Another good idea is to register common variations of your chosen domain name. For example, if you register mydomain.com, you could also register my-domain.com or mydomains.com.

Once you come up with the domain name(s) you want to use, you need to register them. The first step is to check if they are available, because they could have been already registered by someone else. Once you have verified this, you can register them for a period of time, and they will be yours to use for that period. You can always renew them afterwards, before the period expires.

Source: articlesengine
By: Sergio Roth

Web 3.0 Concepts Explained

2009-07-15T08:32:00.000-07:00

his slide neatly sums up the main differences between Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0.

Web 1.0 - That Geocities & Hotmail era was all about read-only content and static HTML websites. People preferred navigating the web through link directories of Yahoo! and dmoz.

Web 2.0 - This is about user-generated content and the read-write web. People are consuming as well as contributing information through blogs or sites like Flickr, YouTube, Digg, etc. The line dividing a consumer and content publisher is increasingly getting blurred in the Web 2.0 era.

Web 3.0 - This will be about semantic web (or the meaning of data), personalization (e.g. iGoogle), intelligent search and behavioral advertising among other things.

If that sounds confusing, check this excellent presentation that help you understand Web 3.0 in simple English.

Twitter vers un prix Nobel de la Paix ?

2009-07-15T08:08:00.000-07:00

S'il y a quelque chose à retenir à propos d'Internet au cours de la dernière décennie, c'est que vous ne savez jamais à quoi vous attendre avec les news diffusées sur Internet chaque jour. Le cas le plus récent est certainement la réflexion pour le prix Nobel de la Paix pour Twitter, sujet à polémique. Pour Mark Pfeifle, c'est une incohérence parfaite...

Un prix Nobel pour Twitter ?

"Sans Twitter, le peuple d'Iran n'aurait trouvé ni courage ni confiance pour défendre la liberté et la démocratie", explique Mark Pfeifle. "Mais aussi surprenant qu'il puisse y paraître, j'ai toutefois des doutes concernant la validité de la demande de prix Nobel, car j'ai du mal à croire que les partisans de la démocratie au Moyen-Orient pensent simplement en regardant Twitter : Maintenant, c'est notre chance !".

"Mais, attention, j'aime Twitter. Je l'utilise tout le temps, mais est-ce que quelqu'un pense vraiment que Twitter va apporter la paix et la démocratie au Moyen-Orient ? J'espère que je me trompe et il pourra alors aussi l'emporter pour la lutte contre la faim et le traitement du cancer...".

"Au-delà du fait que je crois que la qualification de Twitter pour le prix Nobel est un peu ridicule, il y a aussi le fait que Twitter n'est pas une personne... c'est une plateforme. Voulons-nous vraiment commencer à attribuer des prix Nobel à des choses ? En ce sens, si on permet de décerner un prix Nobel pour Twitter pour la lutte pour la démocratie en Iran, alors pourquoi pas en décerner un également à l'iPhone (le mobile le plus utilisé par les Iraniens pour envoyer leurs tweets sur Internet) ? [...] Autant nommer la "téléphonie" pour le prix Nobel dans ce cas-là". Et pourquoi pas tout simplement "Internet", Twitter n'étant qu'une partie de celui-ci ? Comment pourriez-vous avoir Twitter sans Internet ?".

"On pourrait donner le prix aux fondateurs de Twitter, ce qui serait plus rationnel, mais je doute que cela aurait été mieux. Bien que je pense que peu de gens en Iran connaisse ne serait-ce que son nom, Jack Dorsey, je doute fort que l'homme est passé beaucoup de temps au Moyen-Orient".

"Finalement, au terme de la journée, j'ai deux problèmes principaux avec la désignation de Twitter pour le prix Nobel de la Paix. Tout d'abord, ce n'est pas une personne. Twitter est une plateforme. C'est comme décerner un prix Pulitzer aux frites de McDonald's parce qu'un grand nombre d'écrivains les aiment... Ensuite, parce que Twitter n'a rien fait en Iran. Twitter ne marche pas, ne peut faire des signes. Twitter lui-même n'a rien fait en Iran. Ce sont les Iraniens qui ont fait. Pour être parfaitement honnête, je pense plutôt que la désignation de Twitter pour le prix Nobel de paix en raison de ce que quelqu'un d'autre a fait est une parfaite insulte à ceux qui ont tweeté".

Online Communication Tools And Your Business

2009-07-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

It is often said that the Internet has made the world a much smaller place. Thanks to this creation, people all over the world can communicate in an instant and hear about news that takes place thousands of miles away as it is actually happening.

For business people, the creation of the Internet has brought with it more than text-based tools for reaching out to others. While it's nice to read news as it happens, it's the other devices that have grown out of the Internet that can be of particular use for businesses. These tools have made it possible for professionals to travel the world to visit with clients, remote co-workers, and even freelancers without ever having to leave their own offices.

So, what are these tools and why do they matter to your business? Let's take a look at some of the more popular online tools that can literally close the gap between you and contacts hundreds of miles and several time zones away:

Voice chats
While the Internet won't provide tools that will enable you to close deals with a handshake, it has produced some pretty impressive communications devices. Voice chat programs, such as Skype and TeamSpeak, can be incredibly useful for providing you with a free and effective way to speak directly with a number of people at once. These tools are real-time, which means you can enjoy the normal back-and-forth exchange a teleconference would allow without the expense.
Video chats
Operating on similar lines as a voice chat, video chats will enable you and others to actually see the action in a room as it's going on. This technology can be incredible to use for creative projects, sales meetings, and more. Video chats can even help bring members of a virtual team together and assist them in working with a singular mind on a large, collaborate venture. Free video chat programs are available in a number of locations and are now even offered through e-mail programs like Google's Gmail.

Webinars
When the features of free voice and video chats don't go far enough, there are web conferencing services on the Internet that can facilitate full, private online meetings between you and your contacts. Webinars provide a platform for both voice and video chat and they also deliver security features, recording ability, and more. Web conferencing companies will generally charge you to use their products, but they can provide the communication effectiveness you need.
All of these tools can help you conduct business without having to leave your own office. In doing so, they can assure your effectiveness while saving you a great deal of money in the process.

The Internet has made the world a smaller place. For savvy business people, it's also provided excellent tools for communication that can replace the need for face-to-face meetings in many circumstances without sacrificing on the quality of the exchange. There's no reason to travel the globe to achieve a company goal, make a sale, or work with a team. The globe can now come to you.

Some Well Known Free Email Service Providers

2009-07-14T06:29:00.000-07:00

The Internet has a plethora of free email service providers and with tough competition among them; they vie to provide the best services to users by including better features on a constant basis. You will be surprised at the amount that you can get for free from a prompt interface, mail filter facilities and many other useful features at no added cost. You may even be tempted to have more than one free email account that you could assign to various categories of mails that you receive.

Some of the top ten email service providers include

Gmail.com from Google, which offers almost unlimited storage and an efficient interface that allows you to check your mails effortlessly. The POP and IMAP software allow gmail to be accessed from any kind of email programme. The advertisements can be seen on one side of the emails and do not cause a hindrance when your are reading or sending an email.

Yahoo Mail also offers unlimited storage besides which it provides RSS news feeds and instant messaging. Yahoo also has another service known as the Yahoo Mail Classic, which offers a fairly good Spam protection feature while a rich HTML editor is also available for writing emails.

AIM Mail from AOL offers its free services with limitless storage, a brilliant interface and an excellent Spam protection. It offers standard POP and IMAP access and sadly does not include features such as smart folders, labels etc.

FastMail offers an astral web interface, IMAP access plus other useful features but unfortunately it provides only limited storage of only 2GB and not a very good Spam filter with the free to use emails accounts.

GMX Mail is another consistent free email service that offers a rich interface along with POP and IMAP access, a good Spam filter, protection against viruses and a 5GB of storage. But proper organizing of mails is a bit lacking here.

Inbox provides its clients 5GB of online storage and an efficient web mail access along with POP for your email programme. However it does not support IMAP accessibility and organising of mails could use some improvement.

Windows Live Hotmail offers its free email services with 5GB of storage, a user-friendly interface and total security. However it does not give you POP and IMAP access and organising of mails fails to go past the folder level. The available Spam filter could also use some improvement.

Zenbe Personal offers various features like organising your mail with labels and search, uses several short cuts and has a good Spam filter but IMAP access is available only for the inbox.

Zapak Mail is a free email service that offers unlimited storage, POP access and a few background images besides which it is not such an efficient mail service.

Gawab is a fast and reliable free email service that offers its users 10GB of online storage along with POP and IMAP access. However it does not offer labels and a complete mail search facility.

If you are new to the Internet and do not know which email service providers are good as well as reliable, this list of free email service providers would help you select one for your free email account. You could choose to have one or more free email accounts as suits your requirement.

5 Steps to a Successful Adwords Campaign

2009-07-13T09:26:00.000-07:00

1. Find A Product
2. Keyword Research
3. Ad Copy
4. Bidding Strategies
5. Tracking & Testing

Let's explore these steps in detail below:

1.) Find a Product:

If you don't have your own product a fast way to get started is to join an affiliate network such as cj.com, clickbank.com or linkshare.com. There are thousands of great products at these networks. They are easy and free to join. You don't need a website to start however it is a good idea to invest in a website once you find a lucrative market. You can also join thousands of companies who run their affiliate programs in-house. To find these companies type in a product you would like to advertise and follow it with affiliate program. E.g. "guitar lessons affiliate program".

2.) Keyword Research:

Brain storm search terms that people would use to find your market. Use general and specific keywords. General keyword e.g. "guitar lessons" "learn the guitar". Specific keyword e.g. "guitar made easy" "ebook guitar lessons". Check your competitors' website source code and look at their meta tags to see what keywords they are using. Use keyword tools like Word tracker, Overture's free tool and Google's free tool. These will help you uncover hundreds or even thousands of keyword phrases and combinations.

3.) Ad Copy:

Writing good ad copy is crucial for getting visitors from Adwords. Focus on the benefits of the product you are selling and use the keyword in the title of your ad. If a web surfer typed the keyword "guitar made easy" you could write an ad like this:

Guitar Made Easy
Learn Insider Techniques to
Master the Guitar Fast.
http://www.your-guitar-store.com

The keyword is in the title and the benefits are in the ad body.

4.) Bidding Strategies:

If you have a small budget keep your bids low between 10 and 25 cents per click. Bid on as many keywords as you can. Don't get into bidding wars with your competitor for 1st place or any ranking. Figure out what a visitor is worth to you. If you have 4 sales for every 100 visitors and you make $20 per sale, a visitor would be worth $0.80.

This is how I calculate the visitors worth: 4 sales x $20 / 100 visitors. Once you know what a visitor is worth you will know how much your maximum bid should be. To obtain a healthy ROI never bid more than half of what a visitor is worth on a search term. Using our example above a visitor is worth $0.80 so you would keep bids below $0.40 because you want to try to make a 200% ROI.

5.) Testing And Tracking

Experiment with your ads. Split test 2 ads in your Adwords account. Keep the ad that performs the best and edit or rewrite the loser and split test again. Look at your Adwords stats to make note of the best performing ads. This will teach you what types of ads work best for your market. Test variations of your landing page. Modify your page and track your results. You should constantly be testing and tracking your website content and your ads.

Google has a conversion tool to help track specific goals like your ROI and your click thru rate to your website links. Google has an excellent tool called Google Analytics that tracks traffic,goals, ROI, keywords and much more. It is the best free tracking tool I have ever worked with.

By: Robert Walter

SEO Search Engine Optimization

2009-07-10T03:46:00.000-07:00

What is the so-called Search Engine Optimization? Does the internet truly provide all the answers? If so how we can be sure it is relevance?

The Internet appears to have an answer for every query one can think of. Type in the search engine box and just a click away a number of keywords or phrases are listed – a process which we called optimization. However, do we really achieve the so-called search engine optimization?

From the term itself Search Engine Optimization refers to “getting the most relevant answer or topics from a search engine.” To make it appear optimized, most search engines arrange the topics in a logical order. For example search engine A shows result from a chronological order, search engine B optimizes the result by sorting each website and pages through keyword density; and finally search engine C optimizes the result by highlighting the titles only.

Here are some suggestions for Search Engine Optimization.

(1) Be as specific as possible with the terms. Most search engines uses the so-called spiders, which will sorts all accessible web resources and pages in the internet which similar to your entered word.

(2) If you’re searching for a specific phrase, put the words in quotes. This is to ensure that your query would be treated as a single concept.

(3) On many search engines you can get more specific results by clicking on the advance search options. Other people refer to it as the true “Search Engine Option” because one could limit and define their searches. Usually there is a form which one should fill in with options such as title, date, author, topic, etc.

(4) If you’re not having luck with your search term, try using a synonym. Otherwise, if you are looking for Foreign words try looking at its English translation. This is useful especially if you are looking for another language or regional dialect. When using a search engine one should open translation software.

(5) If looking for a biography, type the word biography after the person's name in the search engine.

If at your first try you didn’t find any luck in your query. Take a few seconds to take a deep breath and relax then try searching again. Who knows maybe the information you are looking is just being uploaded while you are taking a quick rest. Of course there are other means and ways for you to have the so-called Search Engine Optimization … whether be it on Yahoo!, MSN or Yehey!

By: Michael Colucci

This is a good slide for SEO

Webuquerque SEO Presentation - July 1, 2009

View more presentations from skyhawk133.

Improving your search engine ranking

2009-07-09T04:17:00.000-07:00

In today’s world of Internet, it doesn’t matter much whether you are a small business or a large enterprise, you need to have a strong online presenc e. If not, you would be loosing heavily to your competitors. However, having a website only is not going to do a lot of good to your business. You should be able to generate quality traffic to your website, you have to convert that traffic as consumers for your business and you have to make them loyal for a long time. Then only, the online presence is going to add to your business.

Research tells that more than seventy five percent of web traffic comes from search engine s like Google, MSN and so on. So, it is very important for your website to have higher rankings on these search engines for the keywords with which your potential customers search on the Internet for information. Hence, improving search engine ranking is very important for your business. And also, maintaining that search engine raking for at least the chosen keywords is also very important.

There are lots of things that have to be done by any web master if he wants to have a very good search engine ranking. First the content should be quality content and you should be updating it quite regularly. You should have keyword rich content. You should first do a lot of research in finding out keywords, which your prospective customers will be using while searching on the Internet. Then you have to get content accordingly. This can immensely help in improving search engine ranking. But, never use content, which is only focusing on keywords, and have no substance. You have to strike a good balance between the both.

Google uses Page rank concept to rank the websites. Hence, you should have quality links that are referring to your website. Getting loads and loads of reciprocal links can do this. You should do a lot of research to find the companies, which will be interested in participating in the reciprocal link programs of yours. Even though, this consumes a lot of time, as a web master you should do it to improve search engine ranking.

It’s not a better idea to concentrate only on tier-1 search engines. Try and get into top ten rankings of other search engines also. For example, if your site is a career site then it is advisable to get good ranking on search engines which are mainly dedicated for job portals like bixee.com in INDIA. This helps quite a lot in improving your search engine ranking.

What is the need of a SEO Consultant?

2009-07-09T03:52:00.000-07:00

If you are not getting enough traffic from all your online marketing expenses, then don’t get too much worried with that. You are not alone in this category. Most of the online businesses fail to generate sufficient amount of quality web traffic even they spend quite aggressively on the online marketing campaigns. One of the main reasons for this is the lack of knowledge of various online marketing practices and activities. To overcome this limitation, you should consult an SEO Consultant who has got a great amount of expertise and knowledge in the field of online marketing and business in your business domain or in related domains.

Normally people think of SEO Consultants as web content writers who can write keyword rich articles or content. Even though this is quite correct up to an extent, the truth is that the content writing is only one of the most important jobs of an SEO Consultant but it is not the only job. A good SEO Consultant can do a variety of things to increase quality web traffic to your site. This includes generating incoming links from relevant website to increase the Page Rank of your website.

Conversion enhancement is one of the major things that any SEO Consultant will do to increase your traffic. He will use techniques like copywriting strategies, site usability, call to action tactics and advanced conversion reporting to enhance the conversion rate on your website. The main focal point for any of the websites should be the content. If the content is not useful to your target visitors, you just can’t run a profitable website.

Professional SEO consultants continuously strive to keep updated with the latest evolving techniques in the field of SEO. Hence they will take less time to produce perfect results which you are looking for. But, if you decide to do it on your own, then there come some great disadvantages to your business. This is mainly due to the lack of your knowledge and experience in the field.

You are definitely not going to spend enough amount of quality time consistently to learn new strategies, as it is not your bread and butter. This results in the usage of age-old techniques in your business. As you know, Internet space is the space that keeps changing literally everyday. So, you will be certainly behind your competition. You will also waste a lot of money on several online marketing campaigns and generate a very poor traffic.

To avoid these problems, it is better to hire a professional SEO Consultant who has got a proven track record in his field. This not only provides your online business with good web traffic but also saves your valuable money and time. You can concentrate better on your competent skill, building your business, leaving SEO activities to a professional SEO Consultant.

By: Darren Dun

Internet Marketing With Classified Ads

2009-07-08T07:11:00.000-07:00

You have likely heard by now dozens of success stories from internet marketers about classified ads placement. Aside from social networking and article marketing, classified ads are the biggest and most common internet marketing strategy today, largely because it is free and simple. But very few will explain the best way to use classified ads for your business.

There is a lot more to classified advertising online than simply writing an ad and posting it everywhere. You must start with a list of sites where you will place your ads. Visit the sites, and register for a free account. This is not mandatory for most sites, but you will need to do this to make things easier to track and post.

You will also need to check the websites for their submission guidelines and terms of use. Some specific items or subjects may not be allowed. You may also be limited in how many times you can place the ad, how many categories you can post to at one time, and what language you can use in your ads. If you do not follow the guidelines and rules of the site, your posts will be removed and your account could be banned.

You should also check to see how many of your compatriots are listed on the site. If you do a lot of affiliate programs or work within a network marketing company you may not be able to use the website assigned to you or the company name. This is due to the fact that the automation of the classified ads see these as one internet marketing campaign, even though it is actually many individuals unaffiliated with each other. The result in using these overused names and subdomains is that you will be flagged or removed for spam, even though you only posted one time.

You should also check any internal internet marketing policies with your company or affiliated program. There may be specific phrases or terms that are not allowed in online classified advertising. You will need to be sure to follow all rules and guidelines that could potentially apply to your campaign.

Finally, you can begin writing and posting ads. Be sure to make the headline very catchy, and grab the reader's attention with the first line. You should also include pictures and a website link for maximum exposure. Don't forget to include a method of contact.

One of the biggest mistakes in online classified ads is people trying to post too much, and then finding themselves banned from the sites altogether. It is true that you can delete your post and repost it to remain toward the top of the category. However, this will get you banned as well if done incorrectly. You must delete a post, and then post a new ad. If you post the same ad repeatedly you will be flagged and removed. If you alternate ads and post only once per day you will not have that problem.

Something that many websites are starting to do is allow you to pay money for some additional features, even though the majority of classified ads online are free. This way you can maximize your internet marketing reach while not spending as much time on the task of posting. These features sometimes include an automatic repost daily or weekly, bolding the ad headline, or sponsored ads that stay at the top or side of the advertisements lists, similar to search engine sponsored ads.

By : Jason Osborn

Search Engine Marketing - Importance of Getting Your Website Found on Search Engines

2009-07-08T01:28:00.000-07:00

What is search engine marketing and why is it important to your business? Search engine marketing is a form of online marketing where you promote your website on search engine result listings to get more traffic to your website, and generate more leads and sales for your business. Search engine marketing can involve search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click advertising (PPC) and paid inclusion in search engine directories.

Today, people spend more time online than offline, especially for the younger generation. Search engines like Google and Yahoo are getting millions of visits every single day. This means that it is extremely important to get your website found on search engines. People go online to search for services and information. So let's assume you are a local business offering cleaning services. Your prospects will be going to search engines to search for companies offering cleaning services. Just imagine what happen if your website is not listed on the search results when your prospects are looking for your service? You are losing business to your competitors who are up there.

One of the most utilized types of search marketing is search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website via search engine organic search results. The earlier your site appears on search engine results, the more visitors you will receive from search engines, which ultimately translates to more leads and sales. In order to get more visitors from search engines, your website must rank high in the search results for important key phrases or keywords that pertain to your business. This way, you can capture the people who are looking for what you are offering and convert them into your customers.

SEO is a tedious process which requires a lot of time and effort in order to achieve success. It is not a one-time project. Therefore if you are not well-verse in SEO, you should outsource the task to a professional. Spend your time on the things that you do best.

Another popular type of search marketing is pay per click advertising (PPC). This service places your website at the top of search results in the sponsored area. The main difference between PPC and SEO is that PPC brings traffic almost immediately to your website once the campaign is active. SEO may need to take at least 3 to 6 months before you can see any result.

Search engine marketing is definitely an essential part of your overall marketing plan. You should try it out if you have not done so.

By: Cheow Yu Yuan

Pay Per Click: Online Marketing

2009-07-07T05:25:00.000-07:00

Pay Per Click (PPC) is a kind of marketing used on the web. Pay Per Click (PPC) is used to pay for marketing activities using search engines, blogs, and advertising networks. The advertisement is made to appear when the user searches for a keyword. Now when the user clicks the advertisements that have popped up then the advertiser makes payment to the search engines or ad networks based on PPC.

Some well known PPC networks are Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Mirosoft adCenter. Here the advertiser can bid for the PPC. Some networks will charge a fixed prize and for some you can make a bid for the price. The network or the search engine encourages the PPC model of marketing and will let you have a sponsored link or advertisement to appear adjacent to the relevant keywords that have been searched or the content displayed on a webpage.

The advertiser is able to implement PPC marketing depending on the products and services they offer. Moreover the advertising can be done on the internet websites which the advertiser chooses. This is a very interesting solution to web marketing.

Pay Per Click may face click frauds where people might just go and click the advertisement without actually reading it or some corrupt developers might also lead to click fraud. Some automated applications to prevent this click fraud are also implemented and so PPC marketing is guarded again inconsistent, non relevant and fraudulent activities.

There are websites that control this PPC marketing on the World Wide Web. They help in designing, optimizing, running, displaying, and collecting revenues for your PPC marketing. Some games sites like the websites for online bingo and online poker encourage PPC marketing on their websites.

Some other search engines that encourage Pay Per Click are ask.com, baidu.com, and business.com, for your PPC advertising campaigns. Some websites that help you do this PPC marketing activity conveniently at first ask you to browse their collection of websites. Then you will select the websites most relevant for your business. Then you need to choose the geography where you need the marketing activity. Finally you create your own text for the advertisement.

You need to specify the budget for your PPC marketing activity. You pay for the clicks of your advertisement to the affiliate website. The affiliate website will let you monitor your advertisement campaign as you can get reports about the clicks and the money you have spent as a result of the Pay Per Click marketing.

By:James Copper

How can you improve your personal brand with social media?

2009-07-07T01:39:00.001-07:00

Whether you work for yourself or someone else, it’s important to establish and maintain both a strong personal and professional online presence. Given the uncertain economic times, you should be actively engaged in how you present yourself to the world (wide web). When prospective employers or clients Google your name, what do they find? If it’s nothing or next to nothing, then you have a great opportunity. If there’,s a lot of junk, then you also have an opportunity to turn that around to your advantage! Either way, you have some work to do. Get out the calendar and resolve to tackle one of these items every couple weeks as you polish your image.

1. Register Your Own Domain Name

When branding yourself on the web, there’s no better place to start than registering your own domain name. If your name is somewhat unique, chances are it’s available. If you have a more common name, then try lots of variations. For example, johnasmith.com is taken, but john-a-smith.com is available. If it weren’t, you could try more combinations or see if any of your top choices are open as a .net, .info, or .tv address.

Use a domain registrar like GoDaddy to find out what’s available. When you’ve made your selection, buy it for several years at a minimum. Search engines will sometimes take the registration period into account in factoring how valid an address is.
2. Start a Blog

If you don’t already have a personal website, using a blogging platform is a quick, inexpensive and flexible way to make one. You could opt not to take advantage of the actual blogging features of a blog, but that would defeat the purpose. If you can commit to posting interesting and intelligent observations or articles on a regular basis (ideally at least one of week), then a blog will go a long way toward helping you establish a “voice” on the web.

I recommend using Wordpress. Read previous articles about setting up and using Wordpress.

I also highly recommend using Feedburner once your URL and blog are ready and working. It will help you maximize your RSS feed, which is essential for getting well indexed by search engines and blogging directories like Technorati.

If you’re a business owner, instead of (or in addition to) a personal blog, you might also consider a professional blog for your company. I’ve heard some businesses argue, “Customers in my industry don’t find [our type of business] online (or on blogs).” To which I say, are you nuts? If that were actually the case for any given industry, it would make an even more compelling case for using blogging and other online resources to your advantage. The fact is, many companies in “boring” B2B and B2C niches have realized how effective blogs are at establishing thought leadership and credibility. A favorite example of mine recently is a commercial and residential fencing company in Raleigh, NC, that installs fencing. The are effectively using a blog to spotlight jobs, discuss challenges and educate consumers on things like how to get permits. The strategy is a good one, especially since it lands their blog on page one of Google’s natural results for raleigh fencing.
3. Hire a Professional Photographer

You know a picture is worth a thousands words. So why settle for using your own cheap, red-eye riddled, poorly lit and badly composed photos on your website and other places on the web? Pay money and sit down for a professional photo shoot, with someone who can make you look like a million bucks. Be sure to get the rights to use your photos anywhere, and obtain digital files.
4. Write a Professional Bio

Spend time sprucing up your biography. If words don’t come naturally, sit down with a friend and a tape recorder and talk about the things that make you unique. Or hire a copywriter to craft the story for you.

When you have it ready, paste it (along with one of your sharp new photos) to sites like VisualCV and LinkedIn.
5. Improve your LinkedIn Profile

Speaking of LinkedIn (you are on LinkedIn, right?), now’s the time to fully complete your profile. Replace your photo. Flesh out every job description you have. Connect with former co-workers and clients. Search for and join groups related to your professional interests. Seek references from former co-workers, clients, teachers and friends. Better yet, write references for others first; they will likely return the favor. Use LinkedIn Answers to search for topics you’re well versed in, and post well-written responses.
6. Launch (Or Clean Up) Your Facebook Page

It’s not just for the college kids anymore. This was the year Facebook really took off, hitting 100 million users in August 2008. So if you’ve been sitting on the fence (my apologies to the above-mentioned Raleigh company), get on it!

If you’re starting with a blank slate, treat it with respect and build your profile carefully using your professional quality photos and bio. Listen and learn before you start posting a whole lot of nothing. Remember this crucial point: anything you post there can help you or hurt you. Several public school teachers in my hometown of Charlotte were fired or reprimanded this year for inappropriate posts on Facebook. Take this and other social networking channels very seriously, unless you don’t care about the possible consequences.

If you’re already on Facebook and have embarrassing information, get rid of it. Lose any bad language, drunken or half-naked photos, rambling diatribes and anything else that paints you in a negative light. The same goes for information on any other social networks you actively use, like MySpace or Bebo.
7. Learn and Apply Best Practices for Search Engine Optimization

A common misperception is that search engine optimization, or SEO, is out of the realm of non-techical mortals. Actually, some essential best practices can be learned fast, and are surprisingly easy to implement.

One of the best books I read this year was Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online(Andy Beal and Dr. Judy Strauss). Among the many tips in the book are specific ways to find out what’s being “said” about you in search queries, and more importantly how to use SEO techniques to make positive changes in how you rank.

If you’re in the Charlotte area, my friend and SEO specialist Corey Creed of Hippo Internet Marketing teaches outstanding classes on SEO as well as pay-per-click advertising (which you can use to more quickly direct links to your personal or professional sites). Another excellence learning resource (courtesy of Corey) is Michael Campbell’s Internet Marketing Secrets. Michael’s free podcast interviews of SEO experts are packed with useful tips. Yet another fantastic resource is Aaron Wall’s SEO Book.
8. Twitter Your Way To The Top

Twitter is service that took off like wildfire this year. Millions of people are now sending short text messages or “tweets” of 140 characters or less. More importantly, they are using Twitter to learn about news and trends instantaneously (often before mainstream media reports on it, like during the Mumbai tragedy), get fast customer support, seek advice and connect in unprecedented ways with others.

For many (myself included), Twitter is initially puzzling and frustrating. A common question early on is, What’s the point? However, if you stick with it, Twitter can lead to amazing things like meeting fascinating people where you live or who work in your industry, creating lightning fast business contacts and uncovering resources you never knew existed.

I suggest following power Twitter users (some of my favorites are Chris Brogan, Wayne Sutton and Lisa Hoffmann) to learn the secrets of this powerful tool. Hint: it’s about giving information freely and acknowledging others, before tooting your own horn.

There are now dozens of third-party sites that tap the power of Twitter for various purposes. Use sites like Twitter Search and TweetBeep to look for keywords important to you, Twubble to find people to “follow,” and Monitter or TweetGrid to watch “real time conversations” happening on Twitter. Get hip to the strange Twitter lingo and keep exploring!
9. Hire A Professional Image Consultant

Chances are the image you think you’re portraying is not what is coming across to others. Are you unknowingly hurting your chances in business and personal settings due to deficiencies in your visual appearance, your verbal or nonverbal communications? Believe it or not, these shortcomings also manifest themselves online, through poor language skills and other ways.

It might be time to engage with a professional image consultant. He or she is trained to help you present yourself to your best advantage and to express your highest potential. An image consultant can teach you how to polish your professional image in three areas:
* Your physical appearance
* Your behavior
* Your communication skills

To learn more about the benefits of working with an image consultant and to locate one near you, visit the Association of Image Consultants International.
10. Get A Real Life

Face(book) it, you can—and should—focus just so much of your attention on your online profile and your virtual life. You also need to make a concerted effort to unplug and engage with living, breathing people in the Real World 1.0. Your virtual life should compliment your physical one, not the other way around.

If you’re starting or already have your own business, join your local chamber of commerce or an association specific to your industry. Can’t find a chapter in your area? Then start one! Or use Meetup.com to invite small groups of like-minded people to informal gatherings. Even on Twitter, lots of users are fond of starting nearly spontaneous “Tweetups,” where people get together for events. Another emerging concept, especially in larger cities, is the concept of casual co-working, or more affectionately known as Jelly. There are lots of opportunities to mingle with and develop great relationships with others, especially if you work alone.

Do you have other ideas to improve your personal and professional brand, both on and off the web? Leave your comments below. Happy branding!

Social Networking for Marketing?

2009-07-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

At one time not so long ago, it used to be that the only reliable way to find information online was to use a search engine.

However, with the advent of what is called Web 2.0 (interactive, dynamic websites that promote or operate as social networks), people can easily find information and websites that other human beings recommend. Recommendations are very powerful on the web and is a big component of social networking.

The most popular instance of this is social networking phenomena is social bookmarking. Websites such as Del.icio.us, Digg, and Stumbleupon allow users to share their personal favorites (bookmarks) with others, Stumbleupon encourages site reviews as well. Users tag each bookmarked site with the keywords they feel are most applicable, by using a bookmarking site it’s easy to zero in on authorative and trusted sites.

Instead of using a search engine to find information, people can search tags that will display all websites bookmarked with that specific tag, a human edited directory. This amounts to a human referral system or vote based rank for sites and its relevance to subject being searched.

Other versions of social networking include blog based social networks, most popular being Technorati.com. Technorati indexes blogs based on the amount of incoming links those blogs have, as well as the tags associated with their posts.

One of the most popular social networks is MySpace, with Facebook trailing right behind. Though the social giant enjoys over 20 million unique visitors every month, few businesses or website owners have thought to penetrate this incredible resource.

Lastly, there is a powerful new social media networks that has emerged that is revolutionizing video sharing: it is YouTube. These mega network allows citizen filmmakers and broadcasters to share their visions with the world and spread their word about what matters to them. This has leveled the playing field for anyone to have a TV show, Commercial and voice on the web.

Very few businesses have realized this yet, but this media network has potential goldmines stock full of future Speilbergs, Bloombergs, and Oprahs, any broadcaster can create a video based marketing message.

Can Social Networking Help My Site Traffic Grow?

Two out of three people online in June 2007 visited a social networking site. In fact, 1 out of every 20 website visits is to a social networking website. Experts say that social networks are starting to eclipse traffic from the major search engines such as Yahoo! and Google.

In 2007 Myspace closely matched the volume of traffic that Google experiences on a daily basis, now Facebook is coming up as the new contender.

So if your company is not present on any of the major social networks, you're missing out on the easiest, fastest way to access a massive portion of internet users.

How Can I Get Involved in Social Networking?

Working with social networking sites is very similar to working with the media. Give them a juicy story, a secret, a little known tip, or resource that they can sink their teeth into and you’ll have an army of talkers spreading the word about you, your site and your business.

All of this translates into referral traffic, which convert into sales on an average of 667% better than cold prospects resulting from search engine results. So even if you reach less people through social networking, your conversions will be far higher, these implications are enormous.

We practice targeting various social networks through a variety of methods:

Article or Blog Promotion

We manage blogs for our various clients (as well as article updates) that contain posts written purely to capture the imagination and interest of our client’s niche target market.

For instance, if you sell nutritional products, gifts, and items, we will develop a series of blog posts and / or articles that discuss controversial aspects or “hot off the press” type topic that health oriented readers either find highly valuable as an information resource, or highly intriguing or emotionally stimulating.

We then promote the article to various social bookmarking and blogging networks which then circulate your story and generate traffic back to your website.

Social Promotion

Particularly effective for clients who target young adults, musicians, or other highly active social groups, we implement social promotion campaigns on networks like MySpace, FaceBook, Kajiji and CraigsList to spread the word about your business. This of course is dependent on your particular niche.

Depending on your niche, even if your business does not target the “myspace crowd,” we can almost always devise a creative campaign to get the net and the blogshpere buzzing about your products or services.

How Does Social Networking Work With SEO?

As internet users begin to use tags to find information (a tag is a keyword that a human associated with a website, vs. a keyword that a search engine attributes to a website), A good Search Marketing professionals cannot ignore the growing dominance of the social networks.

We view the partnership between social networks and search engines as an excellent and balanced marriage. Of course, social networking gets you in front of people who no longer use search engines in lieu of finding their information through referrals or bookmarks and tags.

But the added, and perhaps more exciting bonus, is that while you grow in popularity with social networks such as Technorati, Digg and MySpace, your search rankings will continue to increase as a result!

Your popularity will tell Google that you are an authority in your particular niche market according to your human peers who review and bookmark your site and pages.

Stratégie Communication

2009-07-06T09:33:00.000-07:00

2009/07/03

La communication en ligne constitue un support indispensable à toute démarche de relations publiques. En effet, Internet n’est plus seulement un canal parmi d’autre de la communication d’une entreprise mais de plus en plus le vecteur indispensable de son positionnement dans les médias.

Cependant, afin d’éviter tout faux pas, il est nécessaire d’élaborer une stratégie de communication en ligne ciblée et adaptée à votre audience. D’où l’importance d’une démarche en trois étapes afin de relayer efficacement voter message incluant :

Une veille de l’opinion
Une analyse des groupes cibles
Une cartographie des acteurs influents

Demandez du conseil en stratégie de communication en ligne, afin de relayer efficacement votre message auprès de votre audience

Communiquez en ligne requiert en amont un travail de veille, analyse et cartographie nécessaire à l’élaboration d’une stratégie efficace se traduisant en aval par la rédaction et diffusion de messages spécifiquement adaptés à votre public cible.