The online visiblity forumula. The one sentence answer to the meaning of life (at least for online marketers)

The QUESTION:

For the duration of 5 year web marketing career I have been asked the same question. How do I get my website ranked higher? How do I get more traffic? Or sometimes, almost incredulously, how do you get websites ranked higher? In the modern day of ultra-sophisticated borderline artificially intelligent search engine algorithms (formulas Google and the other the other search engines use to rank websites) this question could be considered along the lines of “what is the meaning of life”….anybody who understands search engine holistically knows there is no one right answer for marketing a website.

So maybe you belong to the growing market of web marketing newbies and rather not spend hours learning and researching search marketing. When starting out, how can you determine the best plan of action is for marketing a website? Well barring all extraneous circumstances or outliers the answer simply lies in fundamental economics (and you thought you were \done with high school/college economics…..)

The ANSWER in ONE SENTENCE.

Lets clean up the chalkboards and mute out the noise. Here is a simple formula you can apply to web marketing visibility.

Demand (Money + Time) = On line Visibility

Yes thats right. This simple algebraic equation is a baseline approach you must consider when promoting a website. Let me explain the variables to this formula.
MONEY

Welcome to the NOW generation. Most businesses are impatient and will quickly turn to only paid advertising for quick traffic and sales. This includes spending on paid advertising, paid linking, press releases, anything that costs money to get visibility on line. It could take months to rank for “New Balance running shoes” where it takes only 15 minutes to setup a Google Adwords campaign and start getting traffic immediately. However you must be willing to pay anywhere from $0.01 to over $50 a click for this traffic. Once your out of money, tough luck.

There is nothing wrong with spending money on paid advertising as long as your business is producing a positive ROI. Also considering this primary way search engine generate revenue (in fact Google makes 99% of its revenue through ad words) it’s unlikely the paid advertising will ever go obsolete. Our suggestion is to make sure you are carefully managing your paid accounts…or find a professional to manage them for you. Many people are clueless when it comes to setting up and managing ppc campaigns. Similar to hiring an accountant to save money on taxes, hire a legitimate search engine marketing professional to save money on pay per click and/or other forms of on line advertising

TIME:

It’s possible to generate on line visibility without spending a dime on paid advertising. This is usually accomplished through search engine optimization, blogging, social networking, etc. This is often more common with hobbyists/part timers who are under less pressure to generate on line revenue. The problem it may take several months to learn how to naturally promote a website and much longer to actually apply these tactics. Worse yet beginners may succumb to taking bad advice and end up wasting time and effort on learning search engine optimization. Plus it isn’t just about SEO anymore, there are new marketing options such as blogging, video promotion and social marketing.

Spending you own time promoting a website/blog can be very rewarding if you are diligent in your work. However remember the old cliché “time is money”. Do you really have extra time to devote to your project? If “yes” great, if no find someone to do it for you (unless you want to become a SEO professional).

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Is Your Site Social Media Friendly?

You should consider many factors when getting involved in Social Media Marketing, such as the quality of your content, your domain name, and who is submitting your content. But there is almost always one thing I find myself looking at before any of the above conversations even begin: the design.

You need to make sure your site is designed and performs in a way that is suitable for social media.

Most social communities are not filled with web novices or beginners. They are filled with internet savvy individuals, who know what a site should look like, and more importantly, which sites are legit and which sites are just spammers trying to look legit.

Below are some tips and suggestions that you can apply to your site, to make it social media friendly.

1. Be Modern. It has never been easier to upgrade your site with a modern design. Web design templates are for sale everywhere, sites like 99designs.com offer contests to get designs, and there are a ton of templates and designs that you can use for free.
   
   Your website is your store or place of business online. Just like in the real world, no one wants to step into a messy, old, dirty, and broken down office when considering whether to do business with you and your company.
2. Be Hospitable. Make it easy for people to see your content and read it without interruption.
   
   Don’t force people to view more than one page in order to finish your article and avoid any sort of pop-ups or distractions.
3. Downplay ads. There is a time and a place for having advertisements on a web page and that time is almost never during a social media campaign.
   
   
   A social media campaign normally lasts up to 24 hours. During that time, you are likely to see around 100 to 300 unique visits to your site. Doesn’t seem like much compared to the 10,000 to 100,000 thousand you will get once your campaign is successful, does it? So why potentially risk having someone associate your site as spam, resulting in them casting a negative vote on your submission?
   
   Leave ads off your site until your social media campaign has succeeded or failed. This way you take no risk at someone associating your site or content with a marketing ploy to make money.
   
   If you must leave ads on your site, limit them or position them in a way that does not interfere with the content and annoy a potential voter.
4. Give Visitors a Button to Push. It is important to include social media buttons so that your visitors are able to help vote for your content. Social Media is about getting votes so make sure your regular readers have an opportunity to vote on your content.
5. Serve Visitors Quickly. Always make sure your page loads the content as quickly as possible. Try coding your site in a way that loads any components that could potentially delay the content from being rendered. You can use CSS or other popular coding options to accomplish this.
   
   Social media users have hundreds of sites and articles they want to read each day. They don’t have the time and won’t sit around long waiting for your content to load. They might even get frustrated enough to vote negatively on your submission, so make sure your content loads quickly.

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Advanced Link: Operator to Explore Your Competitor’s Backlinks

by: Ann Smarty

I for one do backlink research almost daily. Why is that so essential in SEO to know how to properly analyze backlinks?

• It educates. The established sites in your niche set an example to follow and give you an idea of how link building is done.
• It inspires. The more you know about pages linking to your competitor, the more ideas you get for link building for your own website. That shouldn’t be copying the competitor’s strategies - but this analysis gives you an idea in which direction to move forward.
• It keeps you up-to-date. Who’s my friend? (Learn who your partners are and do them a favor in return.) Where am I discussed? (Reputation management: participate in threads discussing you site.) And plenty of more important questions the analysis will be able to answer.

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Driving New Clients to Your Door Using Local Search Marketing

It used to be that all you had to do to get noticed and drive potential clients to your door was to advertise in the local newspaper, community magazine or on a city billboard. Year after year, you would place what was often a costly print ad, and then wait for new clients to call or come knocking on your door - assuming, of course, the ad was actually viewed or found by potential clients in the first place.

Today, the Internet has changed everything.

That’s because today the Internet is the medium of choice for consumers seeking out products and services they can buy in their local, geographic region. And let’s face it, as a local real estate professional, you service certain areas and neighborhoods and want to attract most of your new clients from that region. One of the best ways to do this is through “local search,” which allows you to target potential clients in a desired area or region.

For clients searching online for a real estate professional who is an expert in a particular area, they get highly relevant search results - specific to their search inquiry - and not a lot of irrelevant listings from outside that area. According to global Internet information provider, comScore, Inc., 47 percent of local searchers contacted or visited a local merchant as a result of their online search.

Connecting with Potential Clients

Although real estate is among the top 5 topics consumers search for on the Internet every single day, the trick to connecting with these potential clients involves a successful online marketing strategy that helps improve your chances of being found online. Using local search, you can target your message using the right keywords and search phrases to pull potential clients to your website. With local search, it’s also about relevancy - that is - delivering highly relevant search results to the client. In other words, local search can deliver consumers who are looking right now to purchase or rent in a particular area directly to your website.

For the Local Search provider, facilitating local search involves providing efficient search algorithms and solid local web indexing technologies that can help “connect” the searching customer to the right company that can meet that customer’s needs. Here’s how it all breaks down:

1) Determine who your target client is and what type of property they are looking for.

2) Determine the key words these potential clients use when trying to find a real estate professional in their area. Add these keywords to your website and make them part of your core marketing blueprint.

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China's Internet Users Get The Buzz

Buzz Technologies, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: BZTG) (www.12buzz.com) is pleased to announce that the company has successfully launched Web, News and Video search linked to Buzz Marketing ad network in China and Thailand.

Web Site Traffic Rankings from Alexa have gone from 90,000 to now 7,700 (www.alexa.com), making Buzz one of the world's most popular web sites only 1 month after the official launch. Traffic has increased most dramatically in Thailand and China; in Thailand, Buzz is now one of the top 500 web sites, and in China, it has rocketed from 200,000 to 15,000 in a few weeks.

Traffic is coming most noticeably to Search and Buzz Marketing; Buzz has their sights firmly set on becoming Thailand's number 1 online ad supplier this year. Google predicted Thailand would see an explosion of spending on online and search-related advertising that would be worth an estimated $250 million (7.88 billion baht), according to Google's regional managing director for Australia, NZ, Korea and Southeast Asia, Richard Kimber.

Buzz also expects to be in the top 3 across Asia within the next 3 months competing directly with Yahoo, Google, MSN and Baidu. Buzz has seen a rapid uptake and use of the English Beta of the Buzz Search Engine. The Search Engine offers Keyword enabled 120 x 60 banner ads as well as relevant Text ads in the search results.

Online Ads and Search ads are available for Buzz Advertisers on the Bangkok Post (www.bangkokpost.com) and many Thai sites, as well as being on 1000s of PCs in internet cafes in Thailand and over 20,000 in China and growing daily.

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Microsoft Spends To Undermine Google's Pay-Per-Click Gold Mine

Google executives reportedly met in the U.K. this week to discuss how to respond if Microsoft decided to revive its bid for Yahoo. Had they known that Microsoft on Wednesday would start offering cash rebates to searchers who buy products found using Microsoft's Live Search, they'd have been able to discuss a more pressing threat than the possible purchase of Yahoo.

Last year, Microsoft bough Jellyfish.com, a company that made its name by sharing the wealth of Internet advertising. Jellyfish.com was able to offer those using its e-commerce search engine very competitive prices because it gave half of the ad dollars paid by its e-commerce partners back to online customers.

This is a form of cost-per-action advertising -- the advertiser pays for a specific action, such as a sale, rather than for a click. Cost-per-action ads are generally less profitable that cost-per-click ads for search engines like Google and for publishing partners.

One reason is that not all advertisers want to buy cost-per-action ads. Another reason is that cost-per-action ads don't pay when an online shopper is just looking, which happens quite a bit.

In the model Microsoft has just rolled out, the cashback rebate, set by the merchant, goes directly to the consumer.

The fact that Google hasn't said much about its cost-per-action beta test since June 2007 suggests that the testing isn't going all that well. "[Cost-per-action advertising] does not appear to have been eagerly embraced by publishers, in part because the process is cumbersome and not automated as with AdSense," said Internet marketing consultant Mark J. Welch in the Google Groups AdWords Help Forum last November.

If cost-per-action ads did generate more revenue that cost-per-click ads, you can be sure Google would have rolled them out years ago.

Regardless, now is the time for Google to redouble its effort to make pay-per-action ads work and to come up with incentives to match those offered by Microsoft. If Microsoft's Live Search cashback scheme goes unchallenged, Google risks losing a lot of e-commerce business. After all, as a company selling goods online, why would one pay for clicks, which may or may not lead to a sale, when one could buy guaranteed sales?

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Search Engine Optimization - Get Your Brand New Site to the Top of Google in Weeks

If you are trying to get a brand new site to the top of Google and Yahoo it is going to take a lot more than just submitting the URL to a few search directories, however here is a simple step by step system that will get you listed within a just few weeks.

First you should select 3-4 keywords for your new site. These keywords should be long tail keywords which have 3 or more words to the keyword.

Long-Tail keywords are a lot less competitive than the shorter 1 and 2 word keywords and they are also more specific. This is why you should target these at first to try and get some targeted traffic from these keywords. Once you have mastered these then you can move onto the shorter keywords. This works for me on all my sites.

So for example if my new site was selling dog food it would be better to target long-tail keywords such as "cheap pedigree dog food" and "cheap food for dogs". The reason for this is because you will get ranked higher for these keywords as they are less competitive. Once you start to generate some traffic through these long tail keywords then you can move on to targeting the more competitive keywords such as "dog food".

On page search engine optimization plays a big part in search engine optimization (SEO) and this is what you should use to boost your rank, target your long-tail keywords and integrate them more efficiently into your web pages.

The title of your page/site is the first place to start the optimization process. Let’s do an example to make it easier. We have now found our 3-4 keywords for our new site as mentioned above. Your page title should contain ONLY those keywords.

Your page title should not look like this:
“Welcome to our website”.

It should contain all your top 3 or 4 keywords. However a page title such as the one below would still not be good enough:
“Cheap pedigree dog food and cheap food for dogs and discount dog food".

It contained all our top 3 keywords however it needs to contain ONLY our top 3 keywords. The title below would be a perfect example:
“Cheap pedigree dog food | Cheap food for dogs | Discount dog food”

Once we have our page title then the next step is to optimize our headings on the page.
Our heading 1, in the 'H1' tags of our page should contain our most important long tail keyword for example, 'Cheap pedigree dog food'. The heading 1 should be as far to the top left of the page as possible.

Our heading 2, in the 'H2' tags of our page should contain our second most important long tail keyword for example, 'Cheap food for dogs'. The heading 2 should be a subheading of heading 1 and should come after heading 1.

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Google Opens AdSense To Third-Party Ads

Google on Monday said it is now accepting third-party ads on the Google content network in North America.

"This will empower advertisers to work with approved third parties to serve and track display ads, including rich media ads, across the Google content network through AdWords, giving them more options, flexibility and control over their campaigns," wrote Google senior business product manager Rajas Moonka in a blog post.

The change comes because Google now has a process to review third-party ads to make sure they comply with the company's format and content policies.

For Google and its AdSense publishers, this means a larger advertising inventory and the potential to earn more money through the placement of those ads. For advertisers, this means that ad campaigns can be managed using a consistent software application, whether it's provided by Google or another ad serving company.

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Most Search Engine Optimized (SEO) Press Release Ever: Tips for Building the Perfect SEO Press Release

Summaries for Search Engine Optimized (SEO) press releases should include keywords early and Search Engine Optimized press releases should repeat their most important keywords.

o create the most Searched Engine Optimized press release ever, Bill Balderaz of Webbed Marketing, the Columbus, Ohio Search Engine Optimization agency, recommends using your most important keywords in the first sentence of the press release.

"In creating the most Search Engine Optimized press release ever, we focused on creating a release with our most important keyword phrase-- "most Search Engine Optimized press release ever" into the copy. We also make use of related phrases, like "tips for creating SEO news releases" and "how to write a Search Engine Optimized media release."

Balderaz explained that he also included photos of his dogs, chickens and children in the release. "Uploading pictures greatly increases pickups of Search Engine Optimized press releases," added Balderaz. Cute kids and animals are some of the best pictures to include, he said.

"In addition to focusing on the content and photos, we released the most Search Engine Optimized press release ever on PRWeb, although we have also used Webwire," he said. He also mentioned ClickPress, 24-7 PressRelease.com, and PRLeap, in case there is anything to the concept of latent semantic association. He mentioned that all of the above online newswires were useful in getting Search Engine Optimized press releases indexed in Google News and Yahoo! News.

Search Engine Optimized press releases are things that should be written in the passive voice," Balderaz added.

He explained that a well search engine optimized press release must be found by your online influencers, consumers and the media. "No one goes to Google News and searches on 'Webbed Marketing' and not many bloggers have a Google alert set up for the term 'Webbed Marketing.' But influencers, bloggers and the media do search newswires for news on "Search Engine Optimization" and "SEO". Over time, this release will also be indexed in the main search engine indexes. As people search for "Most Search Engine Optimized press release ever", this press release should rank well.

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Role of Meta Title Tag in SEO

Do you want to secure a top ranking in search engine result pages(SERP)?

I think every one is going to answer - Yes. And a very common belief is that add lot of most searched keywords in the meta tags of your web pages and see your site skyrocketing. But it feels highly frustrating when this magic proves of no avail. Remember, meta tags alone don't do a magic in getting better placed in the search pages. These meta tags sure help you to describe your web pages to a search engine and gain a better place in its results. But at the same time they help search engine too to prevent indexing of improper web pages. Which may have good weight keywords in their meta tags but having no relationship with the contents of the page.

Meta tags are the blocks which contain information about the contents of your web page and they exist into the head area of your web page. They are basically meant to communicate with the search engine. Most of the Meta tags are visible to the search engine only and not the visitor on your web page. But, Title tag is one which is visible to the search engine and the visitor as well. Most importantly, it attracts the search engine and the visitor very aggressively. Most search engines consider this tag as the primary information about the site and also an human visitor sees this information as the first thing on top left corner of the browser. Moreover, when one bookmarks the site, the text in this tag appears in the bookmarks list.

In this article, I have tried to focus mainly on 'Title Meta Tag' that how a good Title Meta Tag can render a great help in optimization of a website.

What is the significance of Meta Title Tag

Amongst the three major Meta tags (Meta Title Tag, Meta Keywords Tag, Meta Description Tag) the Title Tag is one which is given the most weight by search engines' algorithms. In fact, this tag should be written so that it should give the idea about your site instantly. A perfect written Title tag can generate quick and appreciable traffic to your site. The text written in this tag appears as clickable text in the search engine result page (SERP) and if it is really meaningful and conveys most about the web page, more clickthroughs will be the result.

This small example explains the function of Meta Title tag better. Suppose I need to visit San Francisco and need a road map of the city and go to a book store to find the same. There are lot of books on tourism and travel with different titles but my attention will go to a title which says something like "Latest Road Map of San Francisco" rather than a title "All about San Francisco". May be the second book contains better information about the subject I am looking for. But the title of first one speaks exactly about what I need. This how a better title gains priority over the other because of the contents of its title. This is exactly what happens with search engine. It picks the most matching title with the query and places in its result page as clickable text.

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New Google Widgets Socialize the Web

Following key data portability announcements from MySpace and Facebook, Google May 12 introduced a service that helps Web site owners add social features for their visitors without having to do any programming.

Google Friend Connect lets site operators add a snippet of code to their Web sites to add user registration, invitations, member galleries, message posting and reviews, features that are increasingly becoming the norm rather than the exception online.

The news comes as industry experts claim that socialization tools will drive more traffic to Web sites, keeping visitors to consumer sites engaged and sticking to the site longer than they would normally. Increased user stickiness boosts the probability that those users will click on ads, adding more pennies to the piggy bank for Google, Yahoo, Microsoft or whoever a site's chosen ad partner is.

Sites leveraging Friend Connect will let users see who is online and invite them. Moreover—and here is Google's data portability entrée—site owners will be able to use secure APIs to create a bridge between their sites and other social networks, including Facebook, Google Talk, hi5, orkut and Plaxo.

Google provided an example of how this works in statement. Independent musician Ingrid Michaelson has added music features from iLike with Google Friend Connect to run the iLike OpenSocial application on her official Web site.

Michaelson fans who visit her site will be able to see comments by friends from their social networks, add music to their profiles, or even see who is attending concerts, ostensibly making her Web site a mini walled garden for creating communities of Michaelson fans.

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Top Online Marketing Techniques

I've been involved with Internet marketing for over ten years and have seen marketing techniques come and go. Some are still around and some are new and innovative. Below you will find what I believe to be the best and most effective online marketing techniques.

Article Marketing - Article marketing was and is one of the most powerful online marketing methods available. Not only does it do wonders for you and your business, it's also free! Article marketing consists of writing helpful, informative, easy-to-understand articles that actually help your readers, instead of trying to sell them something. You then submit your articles to article banks, directories and ezine publishers. When your article runs in a popular ezine, it can make a major difference to your business. Contrary to what you might think, it's not that hard to get started.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Don't worry about your ability to write. People are looking for help, not big words.

• Advertise in your resource box, not your article.

• Provide real, helpful information and resources, not hype!

• Write from the heart! Let your personality shine through in your articles.

Blogging - Blogging is a newer form of online marketing that became popular in the late 1990's. Blog is short for weblog and is an online publication in the form of a log or journal. Blogs can increase your customer base, your traffic and your search engine ranking, thus increasing your sales.

Blogging can be done for free through such sites as:

• blogger.com

• wordpress.com and

• livejournal.com

Be sure and update your blog regularly; every day would be best as people like fresh content, ideas and information.

Ezine Publishing - Ezine publishing has been around much longer than blogging and is far more effective, in my opinion. Your ezine needs to contain helpful resources and information, not just sales pitches. It's important to develop a relationship with your readers. Let them know they can trust you and rely on you when they need your help.

Things to remember when putting together your ezine:

• Keep it clean and easy to read.

• Limit your advertising and be selective.

• Always provide quality content and information.

• Add your personality into your writing. This helps readers to get a feeling for you as a person.

• Always provide contact information and be accessible.

• Be consistent; send your ezine regularly as scheduled.

• Be sure and proofread your copy before sending it out.

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Google FriendConnect enters social web fray with FaceBook’s Connect and Data Availability by Myspace


Not one to be left out of a good thing, Google has been developing its own version of the social web over the last few months. One part data portability and one part DIY social network API, Google’s FriendConnect should go live after their big Campfire One meeting at the Google complex in Silicon Valley.

Google unveiled a limited edition preview a few hours before the meeting, creating the typical buzz that comes from Google API announcements. One question people are asking is whether it is a direct response to the recent data portability release from MySpace called Data Availability or the recent open web release from FaceBook, FaceBook Connect.

Since Google was one of the first to sign on to the Data Portability movement, and has been actively working on Open Social for months, the answer to that question is obvious: no. Add in the fact that applications take months to develop and it is reinforced that this is Google’s answer to a growing social media movement, separate from the trends of other sites.

What FriendConnect is supposed to do for the web is make the vast percentage of it that isn’t social into a social network you port with you using technology found in OpenID, OAuth and Open Social. If Google succeeds in making the first successful, DIY, completely portable social network, we could be done with the heinous assault of the glitter graphics of MySpace forever by being able to interact with those friends on other sites.

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Google brings Friend Connect to the masses

As expected, Google has unveiled a preview of Friend Connect, a way to add social features to a Web site without programming.

David Glazer, director of engineering at Google, described Friend Connect, whose site is inaccessible Monday morning, as plumbing for the rest of the Web.

"The Web is getting better by getting more social. We've baked social features into the infrastructure of the Web, and it is not tied to any particular site," Glazer said. "Users can interact with any of their friends anywhere they go on Web, and with any app."

I asked Glazer if Friend Connect is a response to Facebook connect and MySpace.com's Data Availability. "People will speculate a lot in that direction. We didn't create this code in the three days (since Facebook and MySpace made their announcements)."

Unlike Facebook and MySpace, Google lacks a dominant, centralized social-networking hub. Friend Connect works the edges of the Internet, applying an open and distributed approach, and bringing a social dimension to the 99-plus percent of sites that aren't socially enabled.

Guacamole is a sample site created by Google for demonstrating Friend Connect features.

"The distributed model has worked well for the Web. That is what the Web does--many points of light loosely coupled and massively distributed, allowing users to connect to pages of information," Glazer told me. "Now it is working to connect people to other people."

Friend Connect-compliant sites will be able to view, invite, and interact with newfound friends, or with existing friends, from established social-networking sites, including Facebook, Google Talk, Hi5, Orkut, and Plaxo via secure authorization application-programming interfaces.

Currently only a few sample sites, including Google's Guacamole site, are available to end users. "We are looking to get feedback from Web site owners about what kinds of sites and apps they want," Glazer said. Ingrid Michaelson, an independent musician, integrates iLike's OpenSocial application with Friend Connect to connect friends without having to leave the site.

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How Branding Will Replace SEO

After yesterday’s firestorm, I feel the need to clarify a few things and then explain what I mean by branding.

1) Was I linkbaiting? No. Telling the truth as I see it even when it is unpopular is not necessarily linkbaiting. I do have a small gift for provocative titles though.

2) Do I really believe what I said? Yes, every word. Some people seem to find it stunning that I would actually believe what I wrote. Trust me when I say I do believe it.

3) Do I know what I am talking about? You can be the judge of that. I have been pretty successful selling online for ten years though.

4) Can a small company actually brand themselves? Yes, and if you keep reading, I will tell you how.

If you are a store that sells other brands and are currently depending on SEO, you are probably in deep trouble. I don’t care how spider-friendly and organized your site is or how many metatags you add, articles you write, or inbound links you barter for. Products come and go, and while in the past, you could achieve SEO for new products quickly, those days are almost gone. My guess is that most companies with this business model have seen decreased sales and profits over the past three years.

I know this to be true because I have watched what has happened to that part of our business, and I have talked to numerous other companies in the same boat. In the past, watching for other brands to become popular and then capitalizing on their success worked. Today, it still works but not nearly as well, and the trend is getting worse every year.

If, on the other hand, you spend time branding your company, or if possible, your actual products, you are going to be immune to this trend. Is it more difficult to do? Yes. Is the initial cashflow as good? Of course not. But if you change your focus from SEO to branding, within a few years, when all the SEO-dependent stores are out of business, you are going to be in much better shape.

Three years ago, when I recognized the trend, I made a decision to use the great cashflow we had from SEO-driven business to start building the Vitabase brand. Over the past three years, I have watched the SEO-driven business shrink and our business built on our brand grow exponentially.

Branding is normally associated with expensive media campaigns that try to get a brand drilled into the consumers’ heads. That approach is out of reach for most small companies and is not the way we brand either.

Here is a 3-step branding process for a small business:

1) Develop a USP (unique selling position). I know–this is advice that you have heard before. However, I cannot tell you how difficult it is to have a USP in internet retail–very few internet retailers have one. We have struggled with this issue for years and are constantly refining what our USP is. “Great customer service” and such things are not USPs.
2) Improve every part of our business to the point at which customers are loyal and refer others to you. We like to call every way a customer interacts with us a touchpoint. Phone calls, emails, packaging, products, and such are all touchpoints that need to be in a constant state of improvement.
3) Incentivize customers to talk about you and your USP. You can call this viral marketing or word of mouth marketing or any number of things.

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Is SEO a dying industry?

According to Shoemoney, SEO has no future. I do not always agree with him, but in this case, he is dead right. Let me pull on my flame retardant suit before I explain why.

First, understand that the only reason SEO has ever worked is because search engines were not advanced enough to always show relevant information. I remember when I started selling online. At the time, I had only a few competitors in my industry and it was easy to beat them in the SEO game. It took only a few metatags and such, and within weeks, I was dominant.

That went on for years. Back in those days, a monkey could have dominated search engines rankings. We moved from metatags to inbound links with the right anchor text and continued our domination. How easy was it? I basically knew during that period how many inbound links we needed to achieve top three rankings, and the results were uncannily consistent.

Eventually, the search engines got smarter, and ended the concept of guaranteed SEO dominance. Some people are still in denial. I still have SEO snake oil salesmen calling me trying to sell me link trading services.

Here is why SEO as we know it is going to continue its death spiral. Search engines are too smart and they have a different agenda. They do not want to reward crummy companies that play SEO games–they want to give the top listings to the best companies. And they are quickly gaining access to the information they need to do exactly that. They will use traffic and buying stats to figure out who the top companies are.

Take my industry of health supplements. Do you think Google wants to reward the SEO contortions of unknown companies and affiliates with lots of free business? Of course not–they want to send their visitors to the top supplement sites in the industry.

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PasswordSafe.com – Is it safe to store passwords online?

The concept is not unique, but the marketing on the site certainly is. Passwordsafe.com offers to secure memos and passwords over a SSL encryption on your desktop or online. The problem is that the security of the service is questionable, and even the marketing team agrees. So if you want to store your ever growing list of passwords, what should you do?

“PasswordSafe.com has been your secure personal assistant username / password manager since 1998. All connections are encrypted, all data is stored encrypted and backed up every 4 hours,” the website states.

The statement is innocent, and something you would expect to see on a website of this nature, but the aspect of the site that stands out is the non-SSL login area on the main page. In fact trying https://www.passwordsafe.com on the browser forwards you to the non secured portal. Reading the source code for the form, you can see direction to https://www.passwordsafe.com/secure. Some testing with Wireshark confirmed that you are encrypted the moment you submit the form, no clear text was located in any of the capture tests.

Can you trust this site? “As we mentioned, pretty much every function is automated, no-one here ever sees your information as it's all taken care of by the programs and encrypted into the database. Again, we'll remind you, we do not recommend you store sensitive information at PasswordSafe. In house, we've used this service for many sites, banner programs, affiliate programs, free email services and much more,” the PasswordSafe FAQ reads.

Therefore, if you want to store non-essential passwords, can you use this service? Sure. However, you are left with a need to store essential passwords; this means two options of storage right? So how can you store both online?

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The Rules of Reciprocal Linking

In most SEO-related articles, one finds a mention of reciprocal linking. The concept itself is simple: Site A adds a link to Site B, Site B adds a link to Site A. Both sites are noticed by Google, and proceed to benefit from the so-called "reciprocal" link. It's not quite that simple though -- there are a couple of rules that one should know before constructing an SEO strategy around reciprocal links.

First, you need to set a goal. It's not realistic to shoot for twenty links a day: unless you're a really good salesman (or you're bribing your link partners), that's just not gonna happen. Instead, you should set a goal that you can comfortably meet. For new sites, this might be as little as one reciprocal link per week; for more established sites, a couple links per week might be possible. Once you've set a goal, stick to it! E-mail other webmasters and ask for link exchanges, look on related boards for link partners, etc. It's not hard to get links, but you've got to actually try in order to do so.

Choose your link partners wisely. Link only to sites that are relevant to your target topics. Reciprocal links have little to no SEO value unless they're between two sites with related content. Google (and others) are pretty lenient about this (I've gotten PageRank value from sites that only shared a couple keywords), but it's best to link with the most relevant sites possible.

Don't submit your link to "free-for-alls", or poorly-categorized directories. Since about 2002, Google's been smart about link-farms; any page with more than a couple dozen links on it will carry little to no SEO value, and may even hurt the scores of pages linked from it. In order to avoid this problem, don't submit your site to free-for-all directories, or directories with more than a few links per page (i.e. poorly-categorized ones.) If you must submit to directories, be sure to submit your site to the most refined sub-category you can. Doing so will yield more refined traffic and will give your link more SEO power.

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Online Advertising in Rapid City

Take the Budget Challenge

Online advertising in Rapid City has many faces. So how do you pick which method, which firm, who's brother-in-law to assist you? How do you decide how much to spend? What rate of return can you calculate?

If you have already built a website, chances are, you might have learned that just because you built it, doesn't mean 'they will come'. You also need to plan a method to drive traffic to your site. Once you get the people to the site, you then need an attactive website to keep them there.

How old is your internet site? Websites have a shelf life of about 30 months or less. After that, most are in need of remodel or a tear-down to accommodate new technologies. Like a house, a site can either be remodeled or completely rebuilt from the ground up. It all depends on how outdated your current site has become, how skillfully it was built in the first place, and how well it has been maintained over time.

Website Goals

With all the web designers vying for your business, free hosting offers, search engine optimization offers, and other online advertising bling, how do you begin determining where to start and how much to budget? You can begin finding these answers by doing an economic impact estimate, to determine your goals for the Web site.

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Is it worth submitting your site to web directories?

Submitting your site to free web directories is often a key recommendation for link building efforts, but can be very time-consuming.

So is it worth the effort or is it better to pay for 'higher quality' links from sites like Yahoo Directory?

We asked a number of SEO experts for their opinions...

What is the SEO value of submitting your blog / website to free directories?

Usman Patel, SEO Manager at The Search Works: A listing in a free web directory increases the number of links to your site, and therefore improves your link popularity; an important factor in SEO.

Submitting to a directory also means a permanent text link to your website with specific anchor text, which, if you can define, can help your search engine visibility.

Search engines will find your website through these links so that your site is indexed more often.

Another SEO benefit of web directories is that they can be an ideal place to find potential link partners.

For example, the Yahoo! Web Directory has a detailed directory listing categories and sub-categories that allow you to quickly find websites that are related to your site/industry.

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Nilhan Jayasinghe, VP of Natural Search at iCrossing : In the past, human-edited directories have been an important element of SEO, as search engines viewed them as an important indicator of quality content.

However, this situation changed as directories became popular on all types of websites, driving down the quality and making it increasingly difficult to distinguish between the higher quality human-edited directories and less trustworthy listings.

Today, the value and benefit of a high-quality directory has changed. A brand mention in a key directory is unlikely to rank on its own, but it can help to drive specific search terms and provide longevity.

Furthermore, the importance of directories should not be underestimated for the user, helping to locate useful information and answer specific queries.

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Andrew Girdwood, Head of Search, bigmouthmedia: It is often worth submitting your blog or website to a directory that has a barrier to entry. That barrier may be a payment, or it may be strict editorial guidelines.

We've seen the Google engineer Matt Cutts echo this sentiment on his blog. A very valid SEO technique is to recognise those directories which are currently free to submit which show both the promise and potential to grow, and which will become harder to submit to.

It is also possible to harm your SEO rankings by submitting to too many poor quality web directories. Annoyingly, some directories also sell links via known text link brokers and lose significance in search engines as a result.

Bigmouthmedia spends a significant amount of time evaluating web directories, rating the appropriateness and if/when a client URL should be submitted.

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Are the paid directories, such as the Yahoo Directory, worth the expense?

UP: A listing in a paid directory has many benefits. As well as delivering traffic to your site, you gain a link from a quality paid directory with some authority, which benefits you. In some cases when you pay for a listing you will get the benefit of the link located at the top of the page, drawing the web user’s attention and thus increasing traffic/sales to your site.

The Yahoo! Directory is, for most businesses, certainly worth the expense because a review of your site is included (which, if you submit for free, is not guaranteed).

These reviews help the directory to ensure that the sites it includes are of good quality, and you benefit from the authority and trust that the directory has already gained from the search engines.

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