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Google hasn’t gotten to the top of the very lucrative and competitive web search industry by being complacent. Their engineers are constantly thwarting the hordes of webmasters attempting to illegitimately boost their site rankings in the search results. For starters, the incredibly advanced search and ranking algorithms are as top secret as the recipe for Coca-Cola. And they are constantly modified to offset the numerous search engine spam tactics.

Webmasters that attempt to artificially bolster their site rankings by creating link farms and doorway pages or by purchasing links are penalized by demotion in the search results or by having their sites blacklisted entirely. Internet spammers who use automatic content creators or site copiers are facing similar penalties. The ranking algorithm used by Google can easily detect duplicate content and other anomalies by comparing them against the norm. The unfortunate downside is that legitimate website owners are sometimes penalized for no apparent reason.

How can you improve your position in the search results while decreasing your chances of being penalized? One way is to build links to your site organically.

The number of backlinks to a new website buildup over time as the website builds its loyal base and establishes its presence. So it is natural for links to increase steadily with some minor fluctuations. It is unnatural for a new website to suddenly increase backlinks thousands at a time. This smacks of paid links, over-seo, or seach engine spamming. Google picks up on this quickly and may “sandbox” a site, penalize its ranking in the search results or ban the domain altogether.

Instead of increasing your backlinks in huge spurts using one or two link-building methods, you can mix things up so that you increase links steadily using multiple promotional methods. You can increase backlinks by participating in forums and using a signature file with active links to your site. You can buy some links in quality web directories and submit articles to free article directories. You can also leave comments on blogs and bookmark some of your site pages on Digg and Technorati.

Don’t use the same anchor text every time either. Use a few targeted keyword phrases to link to your site. You should also link to other pages besides your home page. If links to your site have really been built up organically, then it seems logical that they would be to other pages within your site in addition to the home page. You can submit “deep links” to deep link directories and within your article resource box when submitting to article directories. A good rule of thumb is to have a bare minimum of 20% of your backlinks be deep links.

It may seem like a lot at first glance, but organic link-building becomes routine over time. Most of these link-building methods are free, and don’t cost anything but your time. No one other than the Google engineers knows exactly how and why they penalize some sites and not others. But it is always better to promote your site in accordance with their webmaster guidelines and optimize your site in a way that appears completely natural. Organic link building has become a critical component of any website promotional strategy.

Author:  Website owners, submit your site to Jason’s spam-free, ad-free human edited web directory. For a limited time, featured submissions are only $3.99.

It can be hard for many companies to justify the cost of a monthly SEO contract. This is especially the case when your SEO tells you not to expect increased traffic right away (sometimes not for 3-6 months). Some companies choose to handle SEO in-house - an idea that sounds great but yields mixed results. What you’re paying for when you’re hiring an SEO is their experience and specialized knowledge - things that don’t come cheap. Think you can have an administrative assistant optimize your site and build links for a few hours a day and launch your site to the top of search rankings? If it were that easy SEO’s would have been out of work a long time go.

Bottom line: it makes sense to hire a solid SEO with proven knowledge. That’s why good SEO’s stay working - they get results and justify their cost. Their clients are happy to refer their friends and colleagues. There are, however, some tasks that it makes sense for you to handle in-house, and the mark of a good SEO will be one who points these out to you from the beginning.

1) Provide as much information as possible. This is particularly important. One thing SEO relies on is solid content. A great deal of what an SEO does to help optimize your pages will have to do with writing/rewriting them. Since user conversions are the endgame of any marketing effort new content needs to reflect your brand and your message.

2) Give ample room for keyword research. Some clients have a list of keywords chosen before an SEO gets started. While this helps get the ball rolling there is enormous value in extensive keyword research. It helps you identify viable targets for all other SEO efforts - places where your company can make inroads into gaining search visibility. You may have done your research and chosen keywords, but give your SEO some time to do his or her own research. If they’re good at what they do (and you shouldn’t hire them unless you’re confident that they are) it’ll pay dividends.

3) Demand reporting (at least monthly). Most SEO’s will offer this anyway, but it’s important to stay on top of what’s going on with your website traffic, search engine referrals and the resulting conversions. Any good SEO will set up web analytics (if you don’t have it) right away. For monthly SEO services monitoring the traffic is crucial - it gives your SEO the right information to improve your visibility, and it allows you to keep tabs on the situation and results.

4) Review all site changes. While SEO’s who do their homework will know as much about your business as possible it’s still important for you to review the changes they make to your site. In going after a competitive search phrase your SEO might add that phrase in prominent places on a page. This might drive you up in rankings for the phrase, but remember: the goal is conversions, not just traffic. You might get to #1 on Google, but if your page looks spammy to a user your conversion rate will suffer. Make sure your SEO doesn’t let on-page optimization overtake good marketing.

5) Ensure the separation of paid and organic referrals in analytics data. One great way to muddy analytics data is to run paid search advertisements like AdWords during an ongoing SEO campaign. While this is fine when the proper precautionary steps are taken, the result can be inaccurate and misleading data. If you’re planning on running paid search advertisements yourself let your SEO know ahead of time. They should be able to help isolate the paid search data in your analytics so organic referral numbers won’t be convoluted.

6) Get involved with link building. One of the tasks your SEO will probably be performing for you is gaining links pointing to your site from others. Links are an important factor in search engine ranking algorithms. Having your SEO build links for you is fine, but you may want to consider approaching certain link partners yourself. Remember that there is a human being on the other end - in the case of link building it’ll be someone running a website relevant to your own. Use your networking skills to initiate a friendly email exchange. Explain how you can help each other out by trading links. You might make new business contacts while you’re at it, and they might be more receptive to an email from you than one from an SEO or marketer.

7) Do some of your own copywriting. The bottom line is that nobody knows your business better than you do. If someone asked you to explain why your product or service offerings are better than the competition you could probably talk their ear off. Crack your knuckles and churn out some content - with your SEO’s guidance, of course. Let your SEO give you a theme (usually a keyword phrase), and generate at least a rough draft for them. They may need to tweak it here or there, but it’ll save on their time and your budget significantly.

Author:  Mike Tekula is the founder and Lead Strategist at Tek Web Solutions, a New York SEO Company that specializes in driving increased web site traffic.

Nothing in SEO invokes as much vitriol and outright misguided advice as link reciprocation. I do understand how we got to this point, and it is a sad state of affairs. The current situation with reciprocation and the beliefs that surround it does reflect on the entire SEO industry, and not positively. That is because there are a lot of people who don’t do it properly, and thus, don’t understand it. Then they make all kinds of claims about how it works. Much of this gets passed along as gospel in the SEO world, where recruiting “true believers” is a common goal among the name brands.

The real problem here is that reciprocation can be done properly, and it can be done very improperly. Those in the latter column tend to be the spamming, ask-for-a-link-from-anyone, three-way link swap crowd, and they are very visible. Especially to people who do not want to reciprocate, or want to do it correctly. The spammers are in your face. The fact is, the spammers live outside of the world of proper reciprocation.
Legitimate site owners who are just trying to do the right thing tend to avoid these pests like the plague. That fact is not obvious to people who do not have much experience with reciprocation. Let’s compare it to the massage world. There are two kinds of massage, and the legitimate practitioners have to fight a PR battle every day. In fact, illegitimate “massage” is not even massage. The same situation occurs with link reciprocation.
To truly understand reciprocation, we have to review the World Wide Web before there were ANY search engines or at least before search engines began using links as a significant ranking criteria.

Thousands of niche-category site owners exchanged links graciously with other sites of interest to them and their visitors. They did it because it was good for everyone involved.
Gracious link reciprocation between two sites that have a reason to do it is one of the original, fundamental web marketing practices.

That fact is irrefutable.
These early exchanges grew to the point that the listings needed to be categorized. Thus, properly categorized directories began to crop up on these sites. Software tools emerged to facilitate the effort and make it manageable. These directories served a good purpose, and the niche sites with the largest directories gained a lot of credibility and repeat visitors. They’re called hubs, and it does take work to manage them. This is not free.
It is curious that the dot.bomb sites never did much of this. Their lack of gracious participation in their community was palpable. Most of them vanished with their ability to buy overpriced advertising.

Similarly, large corporations prefer to be islands unto themselves on the Web. Link reciprocation was always a decidedly grass roots practice. Before search engines used links in rankings, the SEO advisors and other high-brow marketing types ignored link reciprocation, while small site owners with their eyes wide open did not.
Nowadays, confused SEO gurus refer to these link directories as “link farms” and other derogatory terms, with no concept of where they came from, and what they can accomplish for a site, in terms of repeat traffic and direct traffic from the links coming back from other related sites. Having no real experience with a practice allows ignorance to run rampant, especially in an industry where admitting to a lack of knowledge is rare.
Lets get real
But enough theory. Let’s apply all of this to an example that represents a very real life situation. Let’s say that an young airbrush artist decides to focus on motorcycle and auto-racing helmet painting. Many artists are already in that market, so it is already competitive. It is also quite global in scope. You could service the entire planet, from just about anywhere
With a very limited budget, it simply makes sense for this budding business owner to establish their presence within the motorcycle and auto racing communities effectively as possible. When they look around, they will see that a lot of sites in those niches have link directories (some going back over ten years now) and they offer to reciprocate with other motorcycle or auto-racing sites. Again, the cost to participate is simply gracious reciprocation.
Many of these prospective link partners will be rather substantial commercial enterprises, and well-known in the motorcycle and racing world. Some will be clubs and organizations. Most of these sites do not have forums, nor does the site owner sit around and post “articles” about other vendors in their marketplace, nor do they run RSS feeds, or play the other modern-day SEO games. They have a business to run, so their link offer is limited to a listing in their directory, yet it is also a very accessible link.
The bottom line is, if you want a link from their high traffic, well-regarded site, then gracious reciprocation is the ONLY way to get it. Take it or leave it.
In those two realms of interest (motorcycle and auto-racing), there may well be over two thousand sites that make just such an offer.

Should this new helmet painter ignore every one of those marketing opportunities, just because some SEO guru says it is “bad” for them to go out and get those links? That is a preposterous marketing concept, and it flies in the face of all common sense. Yet that is exactly what most SEO advisors are telling their clients today. It’s the world turned upside down.
Again, to the unaware of the world, they fail to grasp that the very act of asking for the links from sites that publicly invite such requests might just generate a large number inquiries and positive feedback for an airbrush artist. Maybe newsletter mentions. Maybe bulk orders. Only people who have actually done this kind of reciprocation work on real sites can fully understand the power of it. A link request to a related site that invites them is also a press release. It creates a lot of awareness, especially for unique products and services.
Further, how many of these directly related links are “too many”?

None. Gaining hundreds or even more than one thousand links from other sites within a related realm of interest is a very powerful marketing weapon. Those who are the most diligent also gain the most benefit. A thorough reciprocation effort alone may well negate the need for any additional marketing investment for our airbrush artist, if it generates enough business to consume the production capacity.

That is quite possible.
As well, this worldwide awareness will spill-over and thus create a lot of non-reciprocated links as well, as people find and appreciate our helmet painter.
It is also quite likely that the helmet artist will receive good feedback and a lot of repeat traffic from his site visitors for putting together a very nice, useful directory for their industry.

The directory itself can be used as a marketing tool, by featuring the new listings in an email newsletter. So what if some of the listed sites do not graciously reciprocate.
A good directory is a good directory, and it has value. It is not a “link farm”, except to those who have a very limited, SEO-centric understanding of marketing. YAHOO! started as a directory. So did a lot of very well-regarded niche sites, or the directory was a main feature of the site. Is YAHOO! a link farm? Or do they have some kind of mandated right to do it that others do not? Again the “link farm”

Logic fails.
You will notice that in this example, search engine ranking has not been mentioned. Not once. It is inconsequential to the primary goal, but yet it may well prove to be a very substantial, secondary outcome in terms of traffic. Examples of this kind of result are not hypothetical. They exist everywhere, in every realm of interest, for those willing to look.
It is quite unfortunate that most of the information that is put forward about link reciprocation is put out there by people who have very little understanding of the practice when it is done properly, it’s historical significance on the World Wide Web, and the positive benefit that it can bring to a site owner. It establishes the site as a vibrant and gracious participant within their realm of interest.

That, in turn, creates enormous goodwill, and can lead to all manner of good outcomes.
The current trend among SEO advisors is to advise clients to link to nobody else, if they can get away with it. All to satisfy their very narrow, myopic SEO theories about one-way linking and PR bleeding and bad neighborhoods, and all the rest. That is not what the World Wide Web is about. None of that kind of talk existed before engines began evaluating links. That is all just gaming. Yet gaming what passes for good SEO advice these days.
For those of us who have some real perspective and experience with real world reciprocation, and view it independently of SEO considerations, we can only hope that this kind of misguided advice will someday die it’s rightful death, as site owners who are being swayed by anti-linking snake oil will eventually see that it may well be holding back their own marketing efforts in a very substantial way. Especially against competitors who simply ignore these SEO pundits, and instead, just do what makes sense and needs to be done for their own business.
In other words, good luck to the helmet painter who takes the advice that “reciprocation is bad” from some big-time SEO guru and then follows it. How many years and how many unnecessary dollars will they spend learning otherwise, while their competitors benefit? In fact, they may never catch up.

Author:  Anonymous Link Builder contacted SiteProNews after we published Suicide in Cyberspace - Your Outward Links Can Kill Your Rankings. He wishes to remain anonymous due to fears his client’s websites might be effected by this article.

Like going on a blind date, choosing the right web designer can be an adventure fraught with false hope.

Unlike a big corporation, a small business generally has a tight budget–especially when it comes to advertising and promotion–to engage a big web design agency to serve their online marketing needs.

With the understanding that a cheap-looking website is not the best way to represent your business–or that you do not have unlimited funds to throw at web designers on the off-chance that you’ll get something that resembles what you want–there exist good small design studios and professional freelance web designers with reasonable rates, fortunately.

Here are some tips on how to choose the right one to meet your small business needs.

Identify the Fake Web Designers

Check out their portfolio!

Do they look professional? Is the style of the designer something you would like to have on your own site? Are they logical, easy to use, and provide what’s needed to help customers achieve their (and the clients’) goals? That means that a lot of business development has gone into them.

Web Designers vs Web Programmers

There are many web designers who are actually programmers who know little, if at all, about design. They use templates that are created by other professional designers. Unfortunately, templates aren’t customized to your unique business.

Moreover, with advances in software applications, it is easier than ever to create and build a website. These software can help anyone build a website without knowing a thing. However, there is a distinct difference between creating and designing one.

Design, be it web or print, is about communication. Without the necessary design knowledge how could the programmers do an effective job communicating with your prospective customers?

How Can Good Design Help Your Business

Design is about you–what you know, what you see, and what you have to say. Behind every design is a vision, a purpose, a reason to be. Web design is not about decoration but communication; about making your words and vision visible, giving it form and body for all the world to see.

While the sales copy of your website remains vital for the effective selling of your products or services, the use of typography, color, graphics and layout help lead your prospects read and navigate your website.

This makes your page a pleasure to read and increases their overall user-experience.

A professional, well-designed website has been proven to increase sales!

Web Design Process

The web design process is also a matter of planning, what to include and what to exclude, good design, appealing text, how to sell, what business plan to follow, and more.

Like any other marketing medium, it requires a lot of work by individuals who understand what visitors and the search engines like to see: properly organized text. Combining a nice layout with SEO isn’t easy, make sure the designer understands both the human and search components.

The result is pages that perform well for visitors and rank high for specific keywords.

No doubt, there are many who can turn out professional websites, but few who will volunteer to spend dozens of hours consulting with a client, designing a clear and unconfusing website, and sweating over ad copy, pictures and all the major and minor details — in essence, creating a online marketing vehicle.

Online Marketing

The number one mistake that most first time web site owners make is that they don’t know what to do with their site after it’s designed. It is very possible to have a beautiful site designed for you and no one ever sees it.

A website is merely another means of marketing your products or services. With hundreds, if not thousands, of websites sprouting out everyday, competition is fierce. Having a “web presence” for your business has virtually become an understatement.

A good designer will not only help you create a professional looking site, they will also ensure that your site gets a good ranking with the search engines so that your site can be easily found online. Make sure that your designer will optimize your site for the search engines and submit it to the major search engines. Your website need to rank reasonably well in search engines.

Moreover, small business should seriously look into harnessing the power of the social media and sound web marketing design to increase the exposure of your services and products to extend your reach.

Is a Website Just a website

In the online world, traffic and targeted prospects is the life blood for you website. A pretty website becomes a white elephant if no customer visits it.

Does the web designer practice what he preaches? How much traffic is his website receiving?

To get an estimation of the amount of traffic, go to www.alexa.com, enter his URL to get the traffic details. You’ll see the Traffic Rank for his website. As a general rule of thumb, if the traffic ranking isn’t within the 1st Million globally (e.g. Yahoo ranks no. 1), then his online marketing effort certainly has much room for improvement, even for his own business website.

Offline Marketing

Small businesses exist in numbers far larger than big corporations.

It is ever more important for your business to stand out from your competition with a professional, consistent image–your corporate identity, namely from your web design, company logo, to the offline marketing collateral such as business card and flyer designs etc.

Having the same company to design both your online and offline marketing collateral have significant advantages of consistency and cost.

Word of Mouth and Testimonials

Word of mouth is a good indication of someone who knows his stuff.

If he comes strongly recommended by trusted friends or family members, chances are he’s created design solutions that work for their business quite well. Ask them whether it was a good experience or not.

Most designers will have testimonials from previous clients on their website. It’s a good idea to see what his customers are saying about his services. Follow the web links and try contacting some of them. You should have a feel after talking to one or two. This also ensures the testimonials are not fake ones that were simply “made up”.

Chemistry is Key

You are going to have to share aspects of your business, from visions to operations to preferences to competition, with this person.

So it’s important that you feel comfortable enough with him to be honest about your business details and goals, as well as ask as many questions about his advise as you need to. Does the designer seem friendly and are they willing to answer all of your questions? Does he respond promptly to your emails and/or phone calls?

A good designer will keep in touch with you every few days, at least. You don’t want to get down to the final days of creating the site only to find out you don’t like it!

Look out for his modus operandi during the first meeting. He should be asking you extensive, detailed questions about your requirements and goals, in order to analyze your needs.

Someone who is more interested in telling you the different design packages he can offer you is probably more concerned about making a quick buck.

Website Maintenance

A common issue with most small business is a lack of technical skills. What happens if you want to update the content after the project has been completed? Can you update it yourself without any HTML knowledge?

Content Management System

Would your website be built on a content management platform such as Wordpress or Joomla? This will allow you to update, edit and add pages on your own without going back to the web designer. Thus saving time and cost.

Engage Your Customers Via Blogs

If you are marketing your business on the web and you don’t have a blog, you will always be beaten down by your competition.

A Blog platform allows you to do things no one else in your market can do with static websites. This means you don’t just have a web site, you have a search engine magnet and an interactive community builder that will drive targeted, willing-to-buy visitors to your site.

Price

This is an important factor for any small business to consider.

Although there is no clear-cut rule as to what an “average” price for web design is. In most cases, you get what you pay for. You are paying for this his expertise, time and experience.

Be realistic about your budget. You may not have all the bells and whistles such as animation and special effects.

It is more important to create a successful website that has a good position in the search engine and one that you are very happy with the look and function of than to save a couple of bucks. If you get a good site, your site will be able to grow with your company and, hopefully, that’s for a very long time!

The savvy, experienced web designer can implement your ideas and enhance them, spotting possible pitfalls and making recommendations along the way–and he’ll help you to understand the procedure and give you the benefit of his experience and understanding of the Web, so that you come away not only with a website, but with an enhanced understanding of the Web and online business. In short, he’ll work with you and be effective.

Author:  Pagethinker is about web design for small business. A small singapore web design studio specializes in designing effective websites for online marketing. For tips on how to design to attract both customers and search engines, and ultimately, sell your products & services, visit http://www.pagethinker.com

Remember when Virtual Reality was going to be the future of online interaction? Or when the Information Superhighway was the speedy road to success? We’ve been through Cyberspace, where all the previously-named Virtual [blanks] became Cyber [blanks], and then we landed in the middle of Dot Com. At first it was the Dot Com Industry, and then the Dot Com Craze. And now it’s forced to reside in the Land of Failed Business Models as the Dot Com Bubble or Dot Bomb. These were all the best new ways to describe the best new thing. But was it something new, or was it just a new label? Was it a better product or a better buzzword?

Where are we now? We’re still getting used to the newest word: Web 2.0. Nothing says “new and improved” like “2.0″. Of course, the Internet isn’t really “new and improved”. No one has sat down and designed a brand new World Wide Web. But the name is perfect. It’s perfect for a fresh start and a second chance. Investors get a little twitchy when things like “bubbles” go and “burst”. “New and Improved” is the perfect way to get them to come back.

But no one really seems to be sure what Web 2.0 actually applies to. There is no massive, all-encompassing upgrade to the Internet. No change in underlying technology. The phrase seems to apply to those newcomers that involve customer interaction. What are they called? You know, those things that allow users to post their opinions on literally anything they want… and in an environment where users can respond with their own opinions. What are they called? BBSes? No, wait - Homepages? Oh, right. Blogs. That’s it. They’re blogs now. Of course. Silly me.

And since we haven’t been able to clearly define what Web2.0 encompasses, we begin to develop new buzzwords to describe our first buzzwords. It’s a vicious cycle. We’ve created phrases like “social networking,” the “semantic web,” and - like the cyber- and virtual- days before it - we’ve started tagging a precious “2.0″ to the back of all our other industry titles. When I see an advertisement for Lawn Care 2.0 I’m walking away from my marketing job and never coming back.

There is another problem with this particular buzzword, and that is the question whether or not it actually describes anything new and different at all. Is it really all that impressive that people are using a world wide network to… network?

Sure, we’re delivering information at more phenomenal rates than ever before, which allows us to change some of the mediums that carry that information… but other than that, the only thing that seems to have changed is the venture capitalist willingness to throw money and Internet companies again.

And who wouldn’t want to? After all, social networking and other web applications have made billions… if, of course, they happen to get purchased by Microsoft, Yahoo, or Google.

I’ve been a writer for years. I also have the potential to make millions of dollars from a book. After all, a bunch of other authors have done so. I think I’m a pretty good author, and I could probably tell a story that is a lot like those million dollar books. And yet, no one has thrown a lot of venture capitol my way. There must be something wrong with them.

Maybe I just need more buzzwords.

Novel 2.0!

Now the bleeding edge of literature doesn’t have to involve paper cuts. And you can be part of it for a mere 100k investment!

Who could refuse? Novels will be the wave of literary future. Surely if J.K. Rowling can sell eight and a half million copies in a single day, surely a book that looks a lot like it but adds a couple new features will make almost as much money?

It’s not going to happen. A lot of similar books will hit the shelves, but it will never be the same. Historically, it never works. But history has never had much to do with the prevailing business mentality that people will only buy the same thing over and over again.

But somehow, in the online world, all it takes is a few well placed buzzwords to convince investors that they are worth bucket-fulls of money. Somehow we’re sure that a slightly tweaked use of old technology will garner the attention of Microsoft, Yahoo, or Google.

Is it because of the power of the almighty buzzword?

Do you realize that “buzzword” is, in fact, a buzzword? (There’s that vicious cycle again.)

Writers can do a lot with buzzwords, and it doesn’t matter if the current preference is for Information Superhighways or Dot Coms or Web 2.0s, we can make something of it. Sometimes we can make millions of dollars of it.

During the Dot Com Craze we had convinced ourselves that we were on the cusp of a revolution. People were ready to throw money at Internet businesses rather than business models. Who needs a model when you’ve got the Internet… and a pocket-full of buzzwords? The Dot Com revolution was going to be amazing. It was going to revolutionize the way we interacted with each other, the way we shopped, the way we advertised, the way we learned, the way we accessed information.

It didn’t really happen.

Luckily, now we’ve got Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 is going to revolutionize the way we interact with each other, the way we shop, the way we advertise, the way we learn, and the way we access information.

Whew. Finally!

So until it’s time for the next big thing to describe the same old thing, as writers we’ll hold onto our buzzwords like secret, mystical words that, when put in the right order, will create magic. Or, if we’re really lucky, money.

But what about the Art? No one chooses writing as a career without at least a little desire to create - a need to make something with a little quality.

Are we ruining that by succumbing to the convenience of the buzzword? Do we sell out just a little bit every time we leverage the synergy of optimized word usage?

Maybe.

But what can we do about it? Wait for the current bubble to burst and then be the first to name the next trend?

Maybe.

It’s not exactly Art, but there is definitely an art to it. Shifting Paradigms and Revolutionizing Outside the Box can only be used in certain ways. The right way means a catchy phrase and intellectual influence. A true Masterpiece. The wrong way means a words that are hollow and completely devoid of meaning. The wrong way is a cheap fake… from a dot matrix printer… printed on tattered, sun-faded construction paper.

There’s nothing wrong with big, trendy words. In fact, they’re usually fun to play around with. We just have to remember to use them for good rather than evil. We can obfuscate or we can enlighten. The choice is ours.

Author:  Andy Eliason spends his time writing and being generally pessimistic about the state of Internet affairs. You can learn more about Internet marketing at Main10, the company he works for.

For the majority of Google advertisers who are not professional SEMs or don’t work with a search marketing professional in some capacity or other, Google’s content network remains a mystery. It is a tantalizing way to get more volume for a campaign, but conversions are inevitably lower (often MUCH lower) than ads on the search network, and click volume can be extremely high which translates into big bucks.

Understanding what Web sites are opted into Google’s content network (e.g., display Google ads) is the first step in creating order out of the chaos. For example, MediaPost reported that CNN.com will be continuing its partnership with Google Adsense and opening up its extensive inventory to all advertisers. The official press release about the agreement can be found on Google’s site.

Google is notoriously tight-lipped about the sites in the content network. However, they will occasionally announce partnerships like the one with CNN.com in order to dangle the carrot of high-quality traffic in front of their many Adwords advertisers.

The possibility of getting your ad on a top tier Web site such as CNN is definitely a compelling reason to opt into the content network, but before you launch a content-targeted campaign on Google and let it rip, there are a few things you should know.

First of all, in a content-targeted campaign you can’t actually choose the sites your ad appears on. You can only do this with a site-targeted campaign. What’s the difference?

• A site-targeted campaign is created at the campaign level (in the campaign-summary tab within Adwords) and runs on an impression-based cost model (e.g., cost per thousand impressions or CPM). That means you get charged for every 1000 ad impressions whether or not someone actually clicks on your ad. Even though you can set your CPM via a bidding system, this can still get pretty expensive.
• A content-targeted campaign can only be set up as a keyword-targeted campaign. That is, there is no separate content-targeting campaign setup option within Adwords. So, after you’ve created your keyword-targeted campaign, you’ll need to opt out of the Google and partner search network and opt into the content network, which can be done at the campaign level. Clear as mud?

So how can you refine your content-targeted campaign so that your ads show up on high quality sites only? Well, it’s not entirely possible to eliminate all poor-performing sites, but you can certainly eliminate a lot by adding a list of URLs where you don’t want your ads to appear.

First create a content-only campaign based on your top performing keywords. You can do this easily using Google’s Adwords Editor which allows you to copy an entire campaign and clone it in about three seconds. Creating content-only campaigns also gives you complete control over ad messaging, which should be different from keyword-targeted ads since user motivation is different with content-targeted ads.

Then get a list of sites that are currently running Google ads. To do this you can create a site-targeted campaign (but remember, don’t launch it or you’ll pay on a CPM, not a CPC basis). 

1. First, log in to Adwords - it can’t be done from the Adwords Editor.
2. From the Campaign Summary page select “create a site-targeted campaign”
3. When you get to the “Target Your Ad” page select “List URLs” This is the good part! You can search for specific Web sites that are showing ads in the content-network if you’re curious to see who’s partnered with Google by typing in a specific URL. For example, when I typed in CNN.com, Google showed me a list of similar sites displaying Google ads including Digg.com, SFgate.com, Nasdaq.com and many more.
4. If you want to see what sites might display your ads within the content network, then paste the keywords your targeting into appropriate field and see what comes up. When I typed in a short list of SEM-related keywords I came up with a list of very low-traffic Web sites and/or competitor sites. I saved this list to a spreadsheet and went back to my content-targeted campaign to add them as negative URLs (this can be done by selecting Tools/Site Exclusion in the Adwords console.

I have one more trick up my sleeve for weeding out poor-performing sites in a content-targeted campaign. Run a Placement Report report on your campaign. This report lists some sites where your ad appears in the content network and if you’re tracking conversions through Adwords, you can see the best performing sites and eliminate the sites that don’t convert. This report is limited in that it doesn’t disclose all the URLs, but instead lists things like “Domain Ads” or “Other” as this post on SE Roundtable explains.

The key point of this extremely long post is that you can definitely benefit from Google’s high-profile content partnerships if you implement some optimization strategies, but they’re not necessarily going to make it easy for you to do this on a cost per click basis. My advice is to test, review results, weed out poorly performing sites and test some more. You might also consider running a site-targeted campaign on select Tier one sites to gauge performance - just be sure to watch the spend closely and (did I mention) test, test test!

Author:  Jacqueline Dooley is the owner and founder of Jacqueline Dooley Internet Marketing, where she works primarily with agencies large and small as a consultant on a variety of search marketing campaigns. Read more of Jacqueline’s bio here.

Have You Heard Of Facebook.com?
By now, you are probably familiar with the popular social-networking website called Facebook. Facebook has more than 19 million registered users across 47,000 regional, work-related, college or high-school networks. I Was Skeptical At First Initially, I was very reluctant to embrace the Facebook phenominon. However, my friends kept asking me “Hey Vincent, are you on Facebook?”…”Did you join Facebook yet” “You need to visit Facebook.” This went on for weeks.

Surprisingly, when I checked my Hotmail account, I also received invites from dozens of friends including Andre, David, Trisha, Renee and Kevin

How Did Facebook Become So Popular, So Fast?
Finally, I decided to visit this website called Facebook. Once and for all, I wanted to discover why Facebook is so popular. I wanted to know how they managed to gain millions of members in a few short months? How did they become so big, so fast? I had to know the truth. I wanted to know their secret!

Facebook’s Secret Exposed
Aside from having an easy to navigate layout, the ability to keep tabs on friends, great content, and, amazing search capabilities, Facebook is utilizing one of the most powerful viral marketing strategies ever conceived.

It’s so simple, but yet extremely powerful. Once my account was created, I immediately clicked on the friends tab. I noticed a drop down menu with several options including Invite Friends. Once clicked, I was taken to a page that allowed me to Import Email Addresses from my Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, and Gmail. I was also greeted with the following message:

“Enter your email login info below and Facebook will securely import your contacts from your address book.”

I simply inserted my email address and password and instantly all 78 of my Hotmail contacts appeared before me. With one click of a button, I was able to invite all my contacts to join Facebook.

I Quickly Realized The Power of This Application
After using this tool to instantly invite all 78 of my Hotmail contacts; I quickly realized the power of this application! What impressed me the most was how simple it was to import and invite all of my contacts. Unlike traditional tell-a-friend forms, it only took a few seconds to invite 78 people using Facebook’s PHP address book importer.

By implementing this viral marketing strategy, Facebook has become one the most popular websites online.

5 Reasons Why Traditional Tell-A-Friend Forms Are Obsolete!

• They forced your visitors to manually input email addresses.
• Your visitors must also manually type the name beside each email address.
• Most forms only have around 10 input fields. Remember, the average person, has over 100 web mail contacts. Why limit yourself?
• People are lazy. Nobody wants to sit around and insert dozens of email addresses into your form!
• Ongoing subscription fees.

Once you make the decision to upgrade to a PHP address book importer. You will need to implement a variety of marketing strategies to maximize your success. In other words, simply installing such a script is NOT good enough.

3 Viral Marketing Strategies Facebook uses to EXPLODE Their Online Business Strategy (You should too)

#1: Motivate Your Visitors!
We live in a very selfish world. I’m sure you have a fabulous website. However, nobody is going tell his or her friends about it without asking the following question what’s in it for me? You will be surprised what people will do if you provide the right incentive! Offering Free Giveaways is a good place to start.

#2: Don’t Hide Your Tell-A-Friend Link
Hiding your link is a huge mistake. This is very frustrating to me. Most webmasters will place their tell-a-friend link at the bottom of their web page. They place it in some remote area of their web page and wonder why nobody uses it.

You must add your tell-a-friend link to the main navigation of your website. For example, most websites will have “About us” “Contact Us” “Products” added to the primary navigation. Your tell-a-friend link must also be added to the primary navigation of your website.

Strategy #3: It’s All In The Name
Here’s an idea. Instead of using the same boring link title “tell-a-friend” Why not say “Free Ipod” “Free Coupon”, “Free E-Book” This will cause your visitors to actually click on the link. At that point, you can provide contest details / instructions. Viral marketing is not a fad or gimmick. It’s a real marketing strategy that can increase the profitability of your business. Adding a PHP address book importer to your arsenal will instantly provide your visitors an easy way of inviting others to your website.

Facebook is already utilizing these strategies and technologies, and thriving for it. Why shouldn’t you?

Author:  Vincent Newton is the creator of Friend Inviter, http://www.friendinviter.com
Friend Inviter a powerful PHP address book importer that helps webmasters to increase traffic to their websites.

After word got out that dear old Google is either ignoring or giving fewer points in that mystical concoction called Google’s algorithm, website owners like you are probably receiving a substantial number of 3 way link exchange offers. X offers to add a link to Y’s site in exchange for a link to X’s site in your link directory, usually with a short sales pitch proclaiming this 3 way link exchange to be the perfect method to get those all important one way links Google rates so highly. On the surface, it seems like a wonderful deal. You provide X with a link on your website, and you get a link on Y’s website in exchange-so you and dear old X both get a one way link and a couple of points added to your Google algorithm right?.

Trouble is, it seldom works that way. A great many of these 3 way link offers we receive are actually not worth the time and effort it takes to set X’s link up in our directory. In fact, a large number of webmasters create a simple web design and host it on a free hosting provider to use as a “catch-all” for link exchanges. Here are three steps you can use to help you determine whether your 3 way link offer is a deal or a dud.

Step 1. Before you accept their offer, check out Y’s site. Are all the links listed on the link page related to your site contents? If the answer is no, then I suggest you politely decline the offer. If the answer is yes proceed with step two.

Step 2. Right click on the page and select view source. Is there a meta description and meta keywords included in the head of the page. Are the description and keywords appropriate for the contents of the page?

While many SEO experts suggest that most search engines no longer use meta tags, it’s been my experience that a few search engines will not even accept a submission of your site for indexing without meta tags. Keep in mind, that your SEO efforts should take the requirements of all major SE’s into account. While we all long for that magic top ten on Google for our keywords, getting that top ten spot on other search engines will substantially increase your website traffic. Whether Google places any relevance on meta tags in the ranking algorithms is anyone’s guess, however, after personally conducting a test using the same web page design with and without meta tags in the head, I can assure you Google definitely relies on meta tags for placement of Adsense advertisements. In my opinion, the lack of meta tags on a link page (especially if that page contains Ads by Google, is a sure sign that the webmaster is either unaware of the importance of using those nifty little tags, or could care less whether that page is indexed by the search engines or not.

There are always exceptions to every rule however, so if the description and meta tags are missing, I suggest you follow step 3 before you make a decision.

Step 3. If you haven’t already done so, install Google’s toolbar (a link to the download is available on Google’s site). One of the great perks of Google’s toolbar is that it provides the PR of the page you are viewing. Whenever possible, try to place your links on pages with a minimum PR of 2/10. Although I have accepted offers for a link on pages with a lower ranking if it passed the tests in Step 1 and Step 2, this is a good rule of thumb. Most SEO experts agree that the higher the PR, which is an indicator of the importance Google places upon upon the page, the more value for your link.

Keep in mind, if X places your link on a page filled with unrelated links to other websites, and the description and keyword meta tags are either missing or not related to your site’s content, and Google gives the page a ranking of 0/10, that’s precisely what your link on that page is going to be worth in Google’s algorithm–Zero.

Author:  Loretta Wright is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Topcat Hosting, where she takes full advantage of the low cost hosting plans for the eight websites she personally owns.

I am guessing an article on this subject has been posted prior to this one, I should hope a few have! However I hope this will provide a refreshing angle on the subject and branch to some other interesting bits of stuff.

I am sure that anyone who has taken even only a few steps into web development has come across the gigantic force that is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Even for the most experienced coders, the most popular browser of this age has always been a prominent foot across the path of our websites technological progression and the possibilities of which the internet is yet to yield. Maybe not crushing ideas, but certainly making it a lot harder to bring these ideas from paper to browser.

However, although IE, wielding its scathing weapon the Microsoft corp. and therefore for-fronting the battle as the windows default has dominated the market; we have weapons which allow us the fight back! I think I’ll cut the metaphors here and get back to business… Well, how can we fight back? And more importantly, what can be done to keep our designs looking slick in the interim… Yeah before the proper browsers take over!

I’ll start with the fighting back. Personally my favourite method would be to utilize a conditional comment and tell people what they should be doing! Something like this…

<!–[if IE]> <h1><strong>Internet Explorer is Sh**e! Get a proper browser like <a>Firefox before I come round and make you!!!</strong></h1> <![endif]–>

Realistically I wouldn’t try this method though, probably not the most tactful way when it gets down to it. You could however place a banner showing your support of these less buggy browsers such as Firefox. This websites great for this promoting Firefox business, very nice banners right here: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates/homepage

Conditionals are pretty clever little buggers though, for general use they can become quite useful. And you’re not just limited to <!–[if IE]>. The comments understand other operators as well; you’ve got the NOT operator which is an ‘!’. So “if not IE” would be <!—[if !IE]>. In addition to this there are “greater than” = ‘gt’, “greater than or equal to” = ‘gte’, “less then” = ‘lt’ and “less than or equal to” = ‘lte’. These can be used when referring to browser versions, so <!—[if lte IE 5.0]> could be used to warn users about a feature unavailable to them when browsing your site with IE version 5.0 and below.

But we are not here to help out the Internet explorer users; we’re here to convert them! Doing your bit locally can make all the difference. If you are round at a friends and he/she happens to log on to the internet using IE (boooooo), make it your concern that the very first thing that is done is the downloading of Firefox (sorry Opera etc I’m a bit biased to the mighty Fox.) Of course if the loging on to the internet part does not occur in the general flow of things it must also be your concern to make sure it does!… “Umm, you mind if I check the train times?” Okay I’m getting a bit carried away here, although very important to the advancement of the human race, you need not devote your life to spreading firefox.

The great progression in the internet and its uses over the last few years has meant that the look and the feel of a site has come under a lot more scrutiny, especially with ever rising amounts of traffic as more and more people connect to the internet. Complicated uses of graphics and CSS mean that when it come to interpretation by different browsers, everything can go wrong. The Browser that is renowned for taking perfect code and screwing with the end results is of course Internet explorer. It is so tempting just to say screw it and ignore the IE users and their browser, but with over 58% still using a version of IE this really isn’t plausible solution.

So okay we’ve got to fix the problem. Where to start?

Well firstly it is a must to make sure your code is valid. Just from an incorrectly written Doctype or wrongly phrased line of css can through internet explorer into all sorts of funny modes where anything can happen. Make sure you get a green light here http://validator.w3.org/ and here http://htmlhelp.com/tools/csscheck/ .

Good stuff, that’s one step in the right direction if anything. Now if the problem still exists, what now?

Most of IE’s rendering blips are caused by bugs, which can be worked around with quick alterations or what are called hacks. Chances are your problem has been experienced by people before you and a fix has been fabricated already.

So what’s going wrong? I will list a few of the most common bugs, some which I myself have experienced and a link to some relevant articles explaining in depth the fixes.

* My borders have gone crazy! - fix… http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/border-chaos.html

* Margins doubled, pushing my content down and generally mucking stuff up - fix… http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/doubled-margin.html

* Contents there one minute gone the next, the peekaboo bug - fix… http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer/peekaboo.html

You may have noticed that all those fixes above are at one website. Basically “Big John” and co of Position is Everything .net have done a fantastic job among some other geniuses out there, so why don’t I just give you guys a link to his site, the chances are you’ll be able to find a fix there… http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer.html

You’ve now with a bit of time and effort (it sucks doesn’t it, and it really is unnecessary effort!) probably been able to fixed up your site. But what if something still purists, what can you do!? Well here is what I do…

Firstly if you know something which could be causing the inconsistencies in your site when rendered by different browsers, try just experimenting with this particular element of the code. Say the content part of your page is being pushed below your side navigation and you recon that IE is playing with your margin values but it’s not the double margin bug. Just adjusting the values of margins can bring results. This is a good time to introduce an excellent piece of free software called CssVista. If you know css well it can also be an excellent tool when in depth analysing your code when looking for problems. Check it out here http://litmusapp.com/cssvista/

If you can still find no joy using this experimentation method I’m afraid the best hope is now to do what I really find annoying especially since if browser bugs didn’t exist it probably wouldn’t be necessary. We’re going to have to start again. Now don’t panic we’re not going to redesign your site from scratch, we’re going to make a mock up page of your current design, testing for rendering problems all the way.

Okay, well your average website nowadays is divs inside divs inside divs. So first step is to create you’re outermost div and in your css give it all the position you want and a background-color so that you can see it. Now add the divs that are contained with-in this one and do the same thing, giving them all nice bright colours so you know exactly where they are. Now test it like crazy, anything going wrong so far? Basically keep going like this, until something starts to look weird, then think why it doing this? What have I just done to make it go weird? Google and other free recourses can be come very useful now. Yahoo answers is fantastic for everything so it is always worth a try at http://answers.yahoo.com.

That’s about it really; Give that a try and well, good luck!

So, we’ve had a quick look at how to rid the world of Internet Explorer and how to get by in the time being. I’m not a fan of Microsoft attempt at an internet browser but not really in the league of this guy http://toastytech.com/evil/index.html .

Basically friends, have fun and make sure you’re not supporting the IE domination by using it!

Author:  Pete Taylour is co-owner of the fast growing ebook site http://www.liqiuidebooks.com the only place to go for your cheap and free ebooks. With strong interests in a huge amount of different music styles Pete and friend are soon to embark on some crazy mix submission site for upcoming DJs across the globe, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for that and make sure you check out Liquid Ebooks at http://www.liquidebooks.com

Since Search Engine Strategies San Jose has just past us, we thought it would be interesting to get the low-down on what it takes to actually manage an SES conference.

Andrew Goodman, author of “Winning Results with Google AdWords”, editor at Traffick.com, founder of Page Zero Media, a frequent speaker at industry conferences, and conference chairman at SES Toronto, was kind enough to chat with me in Toronto.

I have to say that Toronto had one of the best SES conferences I’ve been to. The keynote speech by Seth Godin was phenomenal, and Andrew made some changes that made me (an occasional conference wallflower) enjoy it even more!  - Pauline

Pauline: Let’s talk about the organizing. When you first got this opportunity did you have a bunch of new sessions in mind or was it sort of a brainstorming team effort? How did you come up with the new sessions?

Andrew: It evolved from past SES Toronto conferences. I had given input to Chris Sherman on past ones from previous evaluations of other panels. Overall, I think I had the anecdotal feedback from people in Toronto who had previous complaints that people had stumbled into panels that were too basic. There were people around the table trying to determine whether it should be more basic or less. My analysis of it was that we had the widest spectrum in Canada running the whole gamut.

All SES conferences have a large number of brand-new people who need to be given fundamentals — that’s what they’re paying for. So you need to keep that fundamentals track. You can’t just get rid of it and have this avant-garde SES advanced or whatever. I tried to track it so that it would stretch to have both — and maybe even be extreme. That way we could have a really basic kind of panel on SEO in a way that was fun, like one of the ones Jill sat on. (Is Content King? Is SEO “BS”? White Hat Hotseat) I didn’t attend it but I sensed it might have been fun and light to get people easing into understanding content in a more discussion-based format.

Pauline: Well, I thought when looking at the program that just by changing some titles of the sessions, things sounded a lot more entertaining. It was great to see some new presentations and content. It seemed like some speakers were kind of scrambling about putting finishing touches on new presentations, too!

Andrew: You’re absolutely right. I may have caused a lot of discomfort just by changing titles and revamping the descriptions or mixing it up slightly. I got this kind of weird reaction sometimes, “What’s this all about?” For instance, in the Purple Cow workshop, Rand Fishkin made this kind of “What’s going on?” gesture. The session was like a site clinic, only it was more about differentiation and cutting through the clutter and creativity and business ideas. I didn’t know how that would turn out, but I wanted to have a panel that followed Seth’s keynote that paid homage to one of Seth’s concepts. Of course, it turned out well, although it’s true that updating your material is hard. I don’t like to do it, but I do it all the time. People do appreciate new stuff.

Pauline: Yes, the banter I was hearing amongst the speakers made it seem like it was their first time! I thought that was brilliant. But I think all in all people were very happy that the sessions were really great. Was that your main job in putting this whole thing on? Paying attention to the content and who’s going to speak? What was your actual role in putting this whole thing together?

Andrew: It started there. It does involve a lot of adjusting and interacting with the speakers. But it also involves finding speakers, and that’s a fun thing because there’s a process. Either people are pitching or you’re finding the ones that have already presented. This was all new to me. So I think again with so few tracks there’s an interesting thing that happens. I mean, I certainly proactively contacted some people, but it was getting full and I just didn’t get to contact a lot of the old familiar and awesome speakers that I know personally. Also a lot of people who pitched wanted to know why they didn’t get on, and I suppose that’s something I’ve never experienced before. Often there’s no good reason, it’s just that we proactively went after 3 or 4 people, because in our heads we thought that would make for a dynamic panel. So there’s no reason. Nobody had done anything wrong in their pitch. We just thought, “Let’s try this,” and we already had enough people. So this aspect was kind of interesting.

Pauline: So there are some politics involved. Saying no must be tough too. Did you get a lot of people pitching to you?

Andrew: Yeah, and I was pleased with that specifically. I don’t have experience receiving pitches for Chicago or elsewhere — I’ve never had that experience, but for Toronto, what Chris and I noticed for the first few years was that we were trying to find people. The marketing community in Canada didn’t know SES and SES didn’t know the people. And that included companies. So we didn’t get many pitches in the past. We’ve started to get them now. Most potential speakers don’t know where the blog is that tells you the dates to pitch. I’ve had friends say, “Well, you know the organizers, and you were helping with SES Toronto 2 years ago, so can I just get on?” And I’ll say, “Look, I have to pitch just like everyone else at San Jose, etc. It’s the same thing. There’s this page with the instructions and the dates, and everyone should pitch according to plan.”

Pauline: Did you have anyone speaking who was doing so for the first time?

Andrew: Quite a number actually.

Pauline: Oh, good.

Andrew: I think it’s important even though people don’t do their very best job the first time out. I didn’t my first 6 times out. And I remember Danny noted in 2001, my first time speaking at SES, that I’d been nervous. That can detract, but people become very good with practice. Rebecca Kelley of SEOMoz was a first-time SES speaker; it was very well received. It’s obviously because she does SEO for a living. She has the fundamental info. There are also a number of local speakers I’ve gotten to know and did proactively seek out. I sat down with them and asked what they could contribute. Some of them had new ideas, which helped me decide that these panels were going to work out!

Pauline: OK, switching gears, do you have any plans to write another book or an update to “Winning Results with Google AdWords”?

Andrew: Yeah, I’m under contract to write a second edition with the same publisher. That’s behind schedule — catastrophically so, maybe. My colleague Mona has just completed a new report; it’s about Yahoo, which is the second-most important company in this space. [see “Stuff You Might Like” below]

Pauline: So, she’s got Yahoo and you’ve got Google.

Andrew: Yeah, I know, her topic is harder.

Pauline: That’s all I have, thanks Andrew.

Andrew: You’re welcome, Pauline.

Author:  Pauline Kerbici is the Director of Marketing of High Rankings, a search marketing firm outside of Boston, Massachusetts. She co-founded SEMNE, a New England search marketing networking organization in 2006 and holds an MA, Integrated Marketing Communications from Emerson College.