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Archive for the ‘Tips & Tricks’ Category

BlogDay Recommendations

31 Aug 2005

In case you missed it, on August 31 every blogger in the world will be asked to recommend five new Web logs to his or her readers. This event was organized by Nir Ofir.

BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. On that day Bloggers will recommend other blogs to their blog visitors.

With the goal in mind, on this day every blogger will post a recommendation of 5 new blogs. In this way, all Blog web surfers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, previously unknown blogs. .

BlogThis

1. The pulse, with O’Reilly Radar. – Good reads, always close to what lives on the web.

2. The RSS blog. – about RSS, RDF, FOAF, The Semantic Web and Social Software.

3. The Blog Herald – more blog news more often.

4. Sugar Shock Blog – Live a sweeter life without sweets.

5. Topics related to Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, by Howard Rheingold.

— Interesting reads for August 31st —

 
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Posted in Corporate News, General, Mobile & VoIP, Search, Tips & Tricks

 

Things You Can Do With RSS

27 Jul 2005

Tim Yang’s Wiki posts a list of things you can do with RSS. Basically, you can perform any task with RSS that requires search or information retrieval from a server. Automatically and repeatedly. Tim uses this list to convince people to start using an RSS feed reader. Because there’s more to RSS than just weblog syndication and news aggregation. 38 reasons, listed below.

I just couldn’t resist quoting the 38th item : ‘Ditch Your Girlfriend‘ : 

  • Get your girlfriend to download an RSS reader, get her to subscribe to your very special feed only for her. Post some items you would normally write to her via email. Do this for a couple of weeks, then drop the bad news. Expect the subscription circluation to drop off at this point.

I’ll list up the items, you can read and edit the content to them over at [the Wiki].

  1. News syndication
  2. Aggregate your feeds
  3. Display news on your website
  4. Display news on your mobile device
  5. Collect all your email in RSS
  6. Get RSS content through your email
  7. Track Fedex packages
  8. Get stock updates
  9. Get the weather reports
  10. What people are saying about you, your company, your products
  11. Music, radio shows, TV clips
  12. Stay updated on someone’s schedule
  13. Get cinema schedule updates
  14. Read your favourite comics
  15. What other people are surfing
  16. Automatically backup your weblog posts
  17. Get software updates
  18. Get the latest bittorrent files and p***
  19. Shopping deals at Amazon.com and others
  20. What your friends and family would like for Christmas
  21. Be notified of traffic conditions
  22. Be notified of updates in police and fire department logs
  23. Web metrics
  24. Virus and security alerts
  25. Events and happenings in your city
  26. Gaming statistics
  27. Search for jobs
  28. Easing government bureaucracy
  29. Create your own news aggregator page
  30. Keep track of your notes
  31. Find recent photos taken near you
  32. Build maps
  33. Make Tag Clouds
  34. All those sites without RSS
  35. Become a comment blogger
  36. Patent Searching
  37. Keep your acquaintances updated with your latest contact details
  38. Ditch Your Girlfriend
 
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Posted in General, Humor, Tips & Tricks

 

Proving The Value Of Content With Numbers

12 Jul 2005

Getting senior management’s attention is about showing how costs can be reduced and/or value created. Content needs to show how it will reduce costs by X percent and increase productivity by Z percent.

Content management has been a fuzzy, poorly respected discipline within many organizations. Its related discipline, communications, is often seen as peripheral and non-strategic.
Content is a cost to most senior managers. It is seen as not key to achieving results. It does not affect growth, profitability, or productivity, nor does it impact the value of the brand. [...]

Can you show a reduction in the average time it takes to support a customer as a result of better search? Can you show that, by improving the content quality on your website, sales leads increase? Can you show that a poor quality web experience leads to a negative impression of your department with the public?

There are quantifiable benefits that a quality public website or intranet can deliver. There are quantifiable drawbacks to giving your staff or customers a poor web experience. You must identify them and you must prove them with hard numbers. You must show that content can deliver quantifiable value. [...]

Content means business. Quality content delivers. However, you need to clearly articulate the value your content delivers. Too many web managers try to do too much with their websites. They have so much content to manage they hardly even have time for metrics. [...]

Obviously, nobody in his web team had told him that hits are a totally useless measure of success. The only reason they are quoted is because they are the largest number in the web metrics report. (Everyone loves big numbers.) Sooner or later, this senior manager will be informed that he is making a fool of himself talking about hits, and he won’t be very happy.

Senior management loves numbers. The more useful numbers you can feed them that illustrate the value the website is creating, the better. But get away from volume of visitors; that’s so crude.
Instead, talk about a five percent reduction in time per support call, a ten percent increase in sales leads, or a two percent increase in customer satisfaction.

Excerpts from the [Gerry McGovern] News Letter. One of the best sign-ups I’ve done recently. You should join it. He’s got great insights.

[WEBLINK FOR THIS ISSUE] to read the entire letter.

Also read :

Content management measurables and
Subject classification for New Thinking

 
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Posted in General, Thoughts, Tips & Tricks

 

15 Common Mistakes By Adsense Users

09 Jul 2005

Some people I know just recently got kicked out of Google’s AdSense Program for one reason or another. Google suspended the accounts. Then I was reading the comments of one particular friend who had blogged away his frustration using the new TypePad 1.6 interface, and somebody had posted a link to 15 helpful tips for publishers who’re enroled in Google’s MoneyMachine.

[...] So here a few helpful reminders, probably many you already know, and few you might gain by knowing now. These are all picked from the Program Policies, Terms and Conditions and FAQ itself and presented in a simplified manner.

1. Never click your own ads or get them clicked for whatever reason.

2. Never change the Adsense code.

3.Do not place more than 3 ad unit and 1 ad links or 2 search boxes on any web page.

4. Do not run competitive contextual text ad or search services

5. Do not disclose confidential information

6. Label headings as “sponsored links” or “advertisements” only.

7. Never launch a New Page for clicked ads by default.

8. One Account suffices for Multiple websites.

9. Place ads only on Content Pages.

10. Do not mask ad elements.

11. Do not send your ads by email.

12.Keep track of your content.

13. Do not alter the results after ad clicks or searches

14. Avoid excessive advertising and keyword stuffing

15. Ensure you Language is Supported

Whenever in doubt, it is better to ask the learned staff of Google Adsense. They are very helpful!

Read the content to the reminders at [QuickOnlineTips]

Visit : the New [TypePad] and more specifically the Dutch site [here]

The comment page on Maarten’s [Blogologie] where the link was posted.

[QuickOnlineTips] – where the complete 15-points-list is posted.

 
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Posted in Advertising, Tips & Tricks

 

How To Get Picked Up By A News Service

07 Jul 2005

The SEO-chat has asked Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR.com, probably the most well-known PR firm dealing directly with the SEO industry, to stop by SEOChat and answer questions about getting picked up by Google News, and about press releases in general.

“Getting picked up by Google News is fairly straightforward. Just use one of the major press release distribution services. You can select from PR Web, PR Newswire, Business Wire, Market Wire, and others. Google News considers all of them ‘news sources.’

The harder part is getting high rankings in Google News. I provided some basic advice in an article for WebProNews entitled, ‘How To Write A Press Release For Google News.’ You can find it at one of the world’s longest
URLs: webpronews.com/ebusiness/seo/wpn-4-
20040107HowToWriteAPressReleaseForGoogleNews.html [...]

The other place where you can find lots of great information about Google News is the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review. I would strongly recommend that you read the interview with Krishna Bharat, a Principal Scientist at Google and the creator of Google News. You can find it at ojr.org/ojr/kramer/1064449044.php.

Let me add one word of caution. Google News, like Google, changes its algorithm periodically. So, unless you are working with it day in and day out, it can be as cranky to work with as a curmudgeonly journalist. That why it helps to have someone with both PR experience as well as SEO expertise to tackle the news search engines.

No, this isn’t a plug for any one company. You can find a list of more than 63 firms that offer these services at searchenginepromotion.prweb.com/searchenginepromotionpartners.php.”

[...] Later in the thread PR Guy adds an interesting point :

“Q: Have you run any tests or have data comparing the effectiveness of Internet releases vs. print media releases for driving traffic and/or sales? Which do you consider the most effective and why?

A: Yes, we have. And it isn’t a question of Internet releases vs. print media releases because the same release goes to both. So, if you get a story in The New York Times or Washington Post, as Southwest Airlines has, it helps to generate web traffic. But, print media generally won’t mention your URL in their story, so you need to look at your web analytics to ‘guess’ if a spike in traffic came the same day or week as your offline publicity. Online media, of course, can be tracked a lot better. But both sources of traffic are always welcome. And if the spike in online traffic that you can track back to a press release coincides with a spike in traffic from offline media that you can’t track, you generally get credit for it “because you can at least track something.”

Read more at [SEOChat] via [SearchEngineWatch]

 
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Posted in Advertising, Marketing, Tips & Tricks

 

Niche Marketing : The One Page Wizzard

05 Jul 2005

Niche marketing is a distinct segment of Internet Marketing and is the quickest way to get maximum exposure if you know how to leverage the search engines to draw attention to your niche web site. With very few words and space used, you’ll still be able to target your consumers directly. Some tips.

You wait for your moment. Your great-great uncle was wounded in the Battle of Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia. When the discussion turns to Sherman’s March to the Sea, you tell what you found in Uncle John’s old letters you discovered among your grandmother’s papers. At the end of your e-mail message, however, you’ll include your e-mail “signature” which gives a mini-ad for your business.

Signature

Netiquette allows for signatures, but is offended by the straightforward give-your-sales-spiel approach. So have a very-carefully-thought-out signature. Maybe you could find a way to add a cutesy Springfield-rifle drawn completely with typewriter symbols, I don’t know.
[...]
Will your signature on a message produce hits on your Web page. You bet it will! The right kind of hits, too, from people who are highly interested in your topic.

  1. Create a profile of your potential customers.
  2. Find out where they congregate on the Internet
  3. Get your message out to them in a Net-acceptable manner.

Ted Ulle spoke at the webmasterworld conference in the nichemarketing panel. Some interesting points noted by Aaron Wall of SEO Book.

“The power of long copy…people either leave with a back button or a buy button.” Direct mail showed longer copy works better.

  • The people who are actually going to put the effort into reading long copy are the most qualified prospects.
  • You should write to your BEST prospect, not necissarily to the largest audience. (My sales letter is lacking, and out of guilt I will make it much better soon.)
  • As you widen your targets you lose your best prospects.[...]
  • Telling a story in first person is a strong sales technique. You want prospects to visualize the happiness and enjoyment your product will bring them.
  • Typeset is important (For example I know I should change the font type on my testimonials to something like Courier New or a newspaper looking )
  • Create a rhythm of small agreements, and then the final agreement or purchase is much easier to make.

from [SEOBook] via [Findory]

Dr.Ralph F. Wilson reflects on [Niche Marketing] and on how we’re
[Searching for a Profitable Niche]

 
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Posted in Advertising, Ethics, Marketing, Tips & Tricks

 

Getting Reincluded in Yahoo or Google

05 Jul 2005

For some reason or the other (and believe me, there are plenty) sites get kicked out of the search engines. Suppose this happens to you? Then what? On the forum of SearchEngineWatch some valuable advice has been posted in an ongoing thread on being reincluded in Yahoo and Google. Some excerpts.

For Yahoo! :

” To sum up, the form is at:

http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/ysearch/cgi_feedback

and the email address is:

ystfeedback@yahoo.com

and make sure your site complies with the webmaster guidelines before contacting Yahoo by either method:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/

Unfortunately, that domain is almost always down these days. But it be up more often in the future.

There’s also this older thread:

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com…read.php?t=2212”

For Google :

[...] do a root and branch examination.
Check your robots.txt,
check for any noindex tags,
check the httpd.conf file,
check the .htaccess file.
Someone could have been naughty and put something in one of these that said “hey google, bugger off”

Always best to assume the worst, as it wouldnt be the first time a website was the victim of some dirty tricks, so try and iron those out first.

You might want to check the cache of a few pages here and there on Yahoo or MSN.
Does the cache match that of the page?
Check for hidden divs, text and things like that.

Run the site through a browser like firefox using various useragents,
see if it changes.
Set the useragent to Googlebot, is there anything there for the bot? Maybe it has a noindex message?

[...]

If you are 100% sure that you or the previous seo haven’t done anything that would be likely to raise a big red flag and the site is crystal clean, then drop google an email explaining the situation, maybe they can help.

Read more [SEW's Google thread]
More at the forum of [SearchEngineWatch] through [Findory]

 
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Posted in Marketing, Search, Tips & Tricks

 

Pay Per Click Marketing

05 Jul 2005

Sharon Housley has defined a simple guide that could assist marketeers in navigating through the Pay-Per-Click marketing model. She’s lined up some keywords and situatues them to their content within the model.

From [SmallBusinessDefinitions] through [Findory]

“Pay-Per-Click marketing has become an online phenomenon, with marketers only paying for traffic they receive. As Internet marketing has evolved, pay-per-click is seen by many as the middle ground between paying per impression and paying per sale. Advertisers only pay when they receive traffic that may or may not be targeted.

  • Bid – The amount that an advertiser is willing to pay for a click on a specific keyword.
  • Budget – The amount of money that an advertiser sets aside for an advertising campaign. Different publishers allow for advertisers to set daily, weekly or monthly budgets.
  • Clickthrough Rate (CTR) – The percentage of clicks on a link. This is usually a percentage based on the total number of clicks divided by the number of impressions that an advertisement has received.
  • Conversion Rate – The relationship between visitors to a web site and actions considered to be a “conversion”, such as a sale or request to receive more information: the percentage of people whose clicks have resulted in a sale or desired action in relation to the total number of clicks on an advertisement.
  • Cost Per Click (CPC) – The cost or cost-equivalent paid per click-through to an advertiser’s website.
  • Cost Per Thousand (CPM) – The amount an advertiser pays for one thousand advertisement impressions, regardless of the consumer’s subsequent actions.
  • Delisting – The removal of a listing as a result of inaction or poor performance.
  • GeoTargetting – An advertisement targeted at a specific geographical region, area or location.
  • Impressions – The number of times an advertisement is viewed by web surfers.
  • Keywords – Search terms or phrases that are related to an advertisement or ad copy.
  • Landing Page – The specific web page that a visitor ultimately reaches after clicking an advertisement. Often, this page is optimized for a specific keyword term or phrase.
  • Linking Text – The text that is contained within a link.
  • Pay Per Click (PPC) – Advertising model in which advertisers pay for click-throughs to their website. Ads are served based on keywords or themes.
  • Rank – How well a particular web page or web site is listed in a search engine or advertising results.
  • Return On Investment (ROI) – The percentage of profit that results in a marketing or advertising campaign. Naturally, advertisers want the amount of money made to exceed the money spent.

Understanding the above terminology will help marketers navigate the pay-per-click advertising model, which has emerged on the Internet and become one of the leading advertising models in the online world.”

Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net a wireless text messaging software company.

 
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Posted in Advertising, Campaigns, Marketing, Tips & Tricks

 
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