Search:
Site   Web

SiteProNews

SiteProNews

Article Categories





By Kalena Jordan in Featured

googleSpeculation in the search industry is rife this week with claims that Google Search Personalization has changed the SEO playing field. But has it really? Or are people freaking out for no good reason? To find out, we’ll look at how it impacts SEO in the negative and positive. But first, let’s have a quick refresher on how Personalized Search works.

What is Personalized Search?

For the past few years, Google has been monitoring what you search for when logged into your Google account and in particular, what sites you click on in the SERPs. If you favor particular sites, Google takes note and customizes future searches to show you more results featuring your favorite sites, more often and in higher positions.

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

Google drastically changed the way we search the web this week with two major changes to their Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

The first big change was the rollout of personalization to all Google users, whether they are logged in to Google or not. [Editor note: I've written a major article about this and it will appear on SiteProNews on Monday].

The second change is the introduction of Real Time Search (RTS). Google has added live scrolling web data to the SERPs for timely or popular search queries.

That’s right – you can now view web data, as it is published globally on blogs and social media sites IN REAL TIME.

From the official Google blog post:

“…we’re introducing new features that bring your search results to life with a dynamic stream of real-time content from across the web. Now, immediately after conducting a search, you can see live updates from people on popular sites like Twitter and FriendFeed, as well as headlines from news and blog posts published just seconds before. When they are relevant, we’ll rank these latest results to show the freshest information right on the search results page.”

To enable Real Time Search to become a reality, Google has been working hard for months on partnerships with major social sites such as Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku and Identi.ca, as well as Twitter, with whom they partnered back in October. Although they haven’t confirmed it, word on the street is that they are paying Twitter for access to tweet feeds.

Not to be outdone, Yahoo announced a similar deal with Twitter this week, to include tweets in their search results.

So what SERPs include Real Time Search? Google says searches for things like your favorite TV show, sporting events, breaking news stories or the latest developments in politics will trigger RTS.

I ran a couple of test searches and timely topics such as climate change and entertainment-related search queries such as movie titles and Michael Jackson also triggered Real Time Search. To get an idea of the searches likely to be impacted by RTS, visit Google Trends and view Hot Topics, which is a new feature added today to coincide with Real Time Search going live.

As exciting as Real Time Search is in terms of technological advancement, the real story is how easily RTS can be exploited. I’m working on a longer article about this, but in the meantime, a read of Sebastian’s spam recipe and Sugarrae’s post should be enough to make your eyes widen in alarm.

For more detailed coverage of Real Time Search and screen grabs of it in action, see Danny Sullivan’s two excellent articles on the subject.

By Sharon Housley in Featured

SE-TacticsSearch Engine Optimization (SEO) has become a fine science. Tweaking, changing, and measuring is all part of the ongoing optimization process. SEO truly is a process that requires constant monitoring and attention. In order for a website to perform well, its managers and webmasters must adapt their SEO techniques as the search engine algorithms change.

Use the following “on-page” optimization techniques to improve your website’s search engine ranking…

By Adam Price in Featured

Did you know that you can create viral marketing campaigns completely from scratch with tiny amounts to invest?

Yes, that’s correct, you don’t need to buy expensive advertising to be effective online and locally.

The thing is, how do you do it?

Well, the number one way to market is via word of mouth, or online it’s more commonly known as viral marketing.

I know it almost sounds grimmy and deadly, but viral marketing has been developed from the concept of viruses and how they spread so rampantly and quite often “unknown” about until it’s too late for the host to do anything about it.

Online, the principal is the same, you can silently ride the wave of modern trends and become extremely well known in a very short period of time, if you find the right hosts to spread your virus.

So, what does an effective viral marketing campaign consist of?

1. Innovation

In almost every instance viral campaigns have had a very unique twist about them, which has given them the “talkability factor” amongst it’s hosts who carry the virus and spread it on.

You can create innovation in products and services by breaking rules of the norm, using brand new technology and methodologies, change the marketplace in a way that no-one has ever seen before, invent or uncover an area that has previously not been identified.

2. Controversial

You need something that is very newsworthy and that often requires a great deal of controversy and opposition in the beginning, as that’s what turns an idea viral in the first place.

So the question to ask yourself is, does your new offering create anger, embarrasment, hostility, over eagerness, or some form of intense, unusual behaviour?

If not, most often you won’t see your campaign won’t be as viral and the originator won’t be able to forward it on with enough power to create an outbreak.

3. Secretive

There always seems to be a shroud of mystery around viral type news, products and services.

They also seem to be “out of reach” for a lot of people initially, and that also builds anticipation for those waiting to host the virus.

4. FREE

One of the most popular and responsive words in the world of internet marketing business is the word “Free!”

It’s used on almost every information capturing page to entice people to sign up for their newsletter and informational series, which are quite often free also.

If per chance you can’t offer a freebie, then you need to brainstorm what you can offer, that is valuable and in need from your prospects. People won’t become followers of your message if you offer sub-standard information.

5. Transferrable

The viral marketing campaign needs to have very simple and easy ways to spread.

For example, phone ringtones…

When you download a good ringtone, you load it into your phone and others hear it when it rings. If others like it and you and they have bluetooth compatible phones, it’s a snap to send it to your friend.

This is what I mean by transferrable, they have to be easily spread from host to host for the virus to grow quickly.

6. Expansive

The virus must be able to expand and scale from small to large in a very fast and aggressive manner.

However, the way that it spreads, has to be completely under the radar, or else competition will catch on its coming and craft an rebuttal for it.

The top viruses have been grown this way, and the powerful effects of a viral business marketing program has on it’s competition, when correctly executed will see your head spin.

7. Adaptable

The most successful viral marketing campaigns are very adaptable and common in their needs from host to host.

So in essence, each host will gather 7 to 10 friends as they cast the idea forward, and a percentage of them will accept it as they pass it forward.

Therefore, a very adaptable idea is easier to spread among hosts, than one that isn’t as easy to get hold of.

If you can take advantage of even some of these principal around viral marketing, then wealth and success will be yours.

Return regularly, because you’re going to learn more about viral marketing campaigns in action.

Adam Price has been a full time internet marketer for over 10 years. His company that he’s created Nett Knowledge was designed to help local businesses get on their feet correctly in the online world. He has posted lots of regular articles at www.NettKnowlegeBlog.com

By Michelle Jayes in Featured

Do you often feel overwhelmed by all the work that needs to be done to run a successful online income business? If this is true for you then don’t for one minute think that you are alone. Visit any internet marketing forum and you will find that one of the hottest topics for discussion is that there never seems to be enough hours in the day to do everything efficiently.

The kind of discussion that seems to arise from this is the question of time management and advice on how to manage time is then a hot topic. Further advice will then follow on the idea of outsourcing some of the work and finding other people who are willing and able to undertake performing some of these tasks for you.

By using freelance specialists and outsourcing some of your tasks you are leveraging your time in a sensible manner. You can find these people who make their living out of doing various internet marketing tasks and will happily undertake to do them as this is how they earn their money.

When you use some of these services you are not only lightening your load, but are also freeing yourself up to work on the tasks that you enjoy doing and that you are good at. Letting someone else undertake those tasks which are difficult for you and therefore take up too much time can be done at very reasonable rates and your online business will certainly benefit from you using these services.

Just one word of warning, you do need to take some precautions before hiring anyone to do the work for you. Below are a few points that you should consider before you sign any agreements.

  • When advertising the job that you need to outsource be sure that you are very clear on what it is that you require. Give exact instructions and a definite time limit on the job, but also be reasonable and don’t set impossible targets.
  • As possible candidates reply to your advertisement you should make sure that you check their profile. If they have not posted any information about themselves they are certainly not very professional and don’t take their freelance roles seriously. Have they posted any sorted of biography or given any information on work that they have done previously?
  • It is well worth your time to do some due diligence on them. Check back and see what they have done previously and if anyone has given them a good testimonial. This can easily be checked out via the feedback service which is available through sites such as elance.com.
  • Narrow your list of possible prospects down to a short list of those people who you feel can really do the job that is required of them and ask them to provide you with a sample of their work. It might be an idea to set a task for them to complete for you and you can then narrow your list even further. Anyone who does not respond in a reasonable time should be eliminated immediately.
  • Another consideration when looking for outsourcing prospects is price. Although price is important don’t make it your main concern when deciding on whom you will choose. The quality of the work that you require is what you should focus on. The cheapest candidate might possibly not be the best person for you to employ.
  • Remember when choosing a candidate that the person who you consider the best for you may live on the other side of the world. This in itself is not a problem, so long as you take into account the time differences involved and allow for them accordingly.

When you have found the best person for your needs be sure to look after them and treat them well, your online income business depends on it. This is the person who can turn your projects into a reality and could be the biggest cause of your business becoming a great success.

Michelle Jayes invites your to visit her legitimate income opportunities website www.online-income-business for money making ideas and ways to improve and build an internet based business

By admin in Featured

Video-MarketingI can’t think of one single thing that has become more prevalent in internet marketing than the use of video and audio as a tool to increase conversions and stick rate.

What is “Flair”? Simply put… it’s that added touch of professionalism to your media that separates your websites and products apart from the amateurish competition.

We’ve learned that you don’t need to have a “Guru” budget to achieve professional media flair. As a matter of fact, it’s typically the simple things that most people miss which have a devastating effect in the quality of video and audio production.

We are going to sum it up with a walk through of the resources that you can use to make your flair come together. I’ve seen so many people in forums and blogs make excuses about the poor quality of their recordings. Some of them are justified but ALL of them are easily solvable with some effort and creativity. Do any of these apply to you?

By Phyllis Zimbler Miller in Featured

A young adult asked: “I need help with regard to Twitter. Any advice on how I can attack this in a productive manner will be much appreciated.”

First, it’s impressive that this young adult realized that a productive plan is needed to use Twitter for business. Second, I like the phrase “attack this in a productive manner.”

Why do I like the phrase “attack this in a productive manner”? Because using Twitter effectively is similar to planning a battlefield strategy. Now, of course, our purpose is not to crush the other people on Twitter. But we do want to figure out how to engage in a way that they pay attention to what we’re doing.

First I recommended reading my Twitter business articles whose links are at the bottom of my bio at Site-Booster.com — http://www.site-booster.com/blog/2009/09/phyllis-zimbler-miller-profile/

Then I said the next step would be to write a bullet point list of what the person would like to achieve on Twitter, including which areas of interest to focus on.

Let’s say the person is interested in restoring antique cars. Now will this be a hobby or a business? First, as we’ve discussed before in terms of Twitter profiles, the Twitter profile should reflect this primary focus and whether this is a hobby or a business.

We’ll say for now it’s a hobby that you would like to turn into a business.

So you do a search (using Twitter search functions as well as third-party search applications) on words related to restoring antique cars. And we’ll say you find recent tweets from five different Twitter users with keywords relating to restoring antique cars.

The first thing is to follow these five people and then to engage with them in conversation about antique cars. For example, one of these people might tweet a question about needing help finding a part. If you know the answer, you would send a public tweet reply with the answer.

And if you are on Twitter every day engaging in conversation on this topic, you will be drawn into a wider conversation as you follow other people who engage about antique cars with your first five antique car Twitter users.

By sharing in this conversation you are beginning to establish yourself as someone with knowledge on the subject as well as someone who is wiling to share this knowledge.

When you are ready to take the next step, you get a website that supports your planned business of restoring antique cars and you put the link to your website on your Twitter profile. Now at your website you collect email addresses by offering a compelling freebie such as “5 Tips You Should Know Before Restoring an Antique Car.”

And every so often on Twitter you can tweet about this freebie report. You can also tweet that you’ll answer questions on Twitter about antique car restoration. Also, you can create your own Twitter list of antique car aficionados.

While you may tweet about other things to demonstrate you are not a one-dimensional person, your battlefield strategy for engagement on Twitter will center around taking part in antique car conversations.

With attention to detail as in any good battlefield plan and staying focused on the prize, you should be able to carry out a productive business strategy on Twitter.

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is an Internet business consultant. If you liked this article, you’ll love her free report on “How to Become a Twitter Marketing Expert” – claim your report now from www.millermosaicllc.com/free-twitter-report

By Ivana Katz in Featured

This week I received at least 500 emails offering me great discounts on Viagra and just as many messages from the son in law of the late bank president of Nigeria, offering me millions of dollars. How many cases of Viagra do you think I ordered? and how many billions of dollars have I had transferred into my offshore account? Zero, zilch, zip, none!

I continue to be amazed by the number of people, who still believe they will sell loads of products/services if they send unsolicited emails to millions of email addresses.

It is unfortunate that because of a few people who have abused the email system, genuine business messages are now NOT being delivered. ISPs (Internet Service Providers) have had to take drastic action and implement rigid spam filters and many people have set up rules in their email software which discard messages that contain certain words, phrases, subjects etc.

Getting Your Messages Delivered, Opened & Read

So even before you start thinking about writing an email message, you need to be sure it gets delivered. Your chances of having your email arrive, be opened and read greatly increase if you:

  1. Personalise your email, ie. include the person’s name in the subject line as well as the body of the message.
  2. Only send messages to people you know and who know you. (We will cover creating your mailing list next time.)
  3. Avoid using words such as “free”, “make money”, “extra income”, “lose weight”, “satisfaction guaranteed”, “IMPORTANT”
  4. Do not send attachments
  5. Send text messages rather than HTML emails
  6. Do not use ALL CAPS
  7. Ensure your emails have a meaningful subject that relates to your message

Creating Compelling Messages

So you’ve had your message delivered and even opened. Congratulations you are half way there! Let’s now look at some points to ensure your message is read and action is taken:

  1. For a good-looking email, format your message to 65 characters or less per line. Use a hard return (that means hit the ‘Enter’ key when you get to 65 characters). Use a fixed width font, like Courier New.
  2. Personalize, personalize, personalize. People love seeing their name and business name in print. Use it in the subject line and in the body.
  3. Write just like you talk. Use plain, easy to understanding English. Be friendly and personable in your writing.
  4. Get to the point right away. Your first two sentences should include a summary of the whole email.
  5. Put passion into your email. Let your customer know you are excited about the offer.
  6. Write to one person. Think of your customer and pretend like you are talking only to him/her.
  7. Keep your sentences and paragraphs short and simple.
  8. Use subheadings. Think of them as mini headlines. These are great for breaking up large bodies of text.
  9. Use action verbs whenever possible.
  10. Create urgency. Let recipients know the issue is time sensitive.
  11. Encourage people to forward your message onto others
  12. Explain who you are and how readers can contact you.
  13. Do a spell check and grammar check
  14. Avoid URLs (website addresses) that wrap. Ensure links are short, so that they do not stretch over 2 lines. If you can’t control the length of the URL, tell the readers how to put it together in their web browser.
  15. Use only ASCII characters. Many email readers can’t display text other than the standard set of ASCII characters (roughly equal to what you see on your keyboard)
  16. Always offer an option to unsubscribe.
  17. Include a PS. at the end of the email. Use it to effectively highlight a reminder or a point of interest.

The best ways and times to put email to work

  1. Acquire new customers at incredibly low costs
  2. New product announcements
  3. Holiday season and event specials
  4. Stay in touch and on customer’s mind
  5. Endorse and cross sell other products

Next time we will cover ways to collect email addresses and how to manage your email list.

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

By Adrian Key in Featured

If you’re like many Google advertisers, you’ll be very frustrated by your AdWords Quality Score.

You’ll be regularly hammering your fist against the table with anger because your score is stuck at 1 or 2 and no matter what you try, you just can’t seem to get it to rise.

But what is AdWords Quality Score, why is it important and how is it calculated?

Once you understand the answers to these questions, you’ll be able to improve the Quality Score for all your keywords and save money too.

What is AdWords Quality Score?

Just think about it, what is the purpose of Quality Score?

Google prides its self on providing users with relevant search results to queries. Quality Score is their way to ensure that only the most relevant AdWords ads appear to users.

Why Is Your AdWords Quality Score Important?

The reality is that AdWords calculates a Quality Score for a keyword every time it matches a search query. In general, the higher a keywords Quality Score the lower your bidding costs and the higher the position your ad will appear.

What this means to you is that the higher the Quality Score for your keywords, the less you pay in bids.

How Is AdWords Quality Score Calculated?

If you’re like most people, when you start using AdWords for the first time you might find the way your Quality Score is calculated and keeps changing very confusing.

What is actually happening is that when you create your brand new campaign, Google calculates a provisional Quality Score for each of your keywords based on how the keywords you choose have performed in the past when used by other advertisers and how relevant your ad is to those keywords.

The right thing to do therefore when setting up a new campaign is to divide your keywords into small ad groups of 10 or less closely related keywords. Each ad group should trigger at least one relevant ad that includes within it the most popular keyword in the ad group, ideally in the title and in the first line of the text.

The landing page of your ad should also point to the most closely related page of your web site for those keywords and not your home page.

As time passes by, Google will evaluate your landing page and the rest of your web site.

Therefore your entire web site or at least a significant amount of the content on it needs to be on the general theme of the keywords you’ve selected.

Now, as your account starts to mature, so the Quality Score of your individual keywords will change based on their performance. If the ad your keywords trigger has a high click-through-rate then it’s likely that your Quality Score will rise, poor click-through-rate and it will probably fall.

As a rule-of-thumb you should be aiming for a click-through-rate of at least 1% for all your keywords.

What Is Google Actually Looking For?

The actual formula for calculating a keywords Quality Score is a closely guarded secret. However, we do know what Google looks at when making the calculation.

Your AdWords Quality Score is calculated differently depending on if you’re using Google and the search network or the content network.

For Google and the search network, factors used to calculate Quality Score include:)

  • The historical click-through-rate of your keyword and the ad it triggers.
  • The historical click-through-rate of your entire account. The historical click-through-rate of your domain.
  • The quality of your landing page.
  • The relevance of the keywords to the ads in your Adgroup.
  • The relevance of the keyword and matched ad to the search query.
  • Your accounts performance in the region you’re targeting.

For content network, factors include:)

  • The ads past performance on the target and similar sites.
  • The relevance of your ads and keywords in the ad group to the target site.
  • The quality of your landing page.

The best way to improve your keyword Quality Scores is by optimizing your account. This entails making sure that each of your ad groups contain descriptive ads all advertising the same product or service, and that each keyword in the ad group closely relates to the ads.

Adrian Key is editor of the AdWords Adviser, a blog dedicated to making AdWords more profitable for you. Learn more about improving your Quality Score and discover resources, ideas and tips to improve your AdWords campaign at: ==>> http://www.adwords-adviser.co.uk/

By admin in Featured

Website-TrafficReal Estate internet marketing is like any other kind of marketing, you’re trying to reach a niche market and must plan accordingly. You have to start by identifying your target market in order to develop your message convey exactly the kind of high value business proposition which your niche will respond to.

The first steps are to:

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Subscribe to SiteProNews Articles

Receive New Articles As They are Posted


Webmaster Headlines

Apple's stingy employee discount

iOS and OS X: Time for Some Real Convergence

Anonymous Strikes: Symantec Says Stop Using pcAnywhere

Google+ Is Now Open To Teens, Offers New Safety Features

SOPA's Big Brother Signed By EU Nations Amid Widespread Protests

Why Your Business Needs to Be on Google+ Now

5 Simple Ways to Explore Your Social Media Following

5 Basic SEO Troubleshooting Tips for Content Marketers

The Glee Guide to Attracting a Raving Horde of Social Media Fans

10 Clever Ways Your Email Signature Can Support Your Marketing

Recent SiteProNews Articles

RecentSiteProNews Articles

Write Current Content and Explode Your SEO – A SPN Exclusive Article

Best Free Business Cloud Apps You Probably Haven’t Heard Of

Has Google Replaced Content as King of the Web?

SEO Short Cheat Sheets

Beef Up Your Internet Marketing and Your Body At The Same Time!

Optimizing Your Business Facebook Page for Maximum Hits and Return Visits – A SPN Exclusive Article

SiteProNews Blog News

Google Celebrates Art Clokey’s Birthday
Not many people will recognize the name Art Clokey. But a lot more people will recognize the green c...
more >

Reader Rescue : Should My Meta Description Tags Just Duplicate My Title Tags?
Hi Everyone From early days learning SEO, I went ahead and did all my meta descriptions with a bi...
more >

Death of Steve Jobs Fails to Break Twitter Record
We all heard the sad news yesterday that Steve Jobs, founder and visionary at Apple, had died at...
more >

Recommended Links


   Get Facebook Fans

   Submit Express - SEO Services

Wordpress 3.3.1