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By Chip Cooper in Featured

The new behavioral ad icon will begin to appear on website ads soon. Whether or not it satisfies the concerns of online consumers and governmental regulators should matter a great deal to all webmasters.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), acting with several other organizations, recently announced the release of an icon to appear in online ads and Web pages. The new icon – a blue square with a lowercase “i” in a circle – is intended to be placed within ads employing behavioral data and targeting (so-called behavioral ads), as well as on websites running behavioral ads. The icon will also have accompanying text that will read “Why did I get this ad”, Interest Based Ad”, and/or “Ad Choice”.

The ostensible purpose is to notify consumers regarding the use of behavioral ads. The real purpose is to satisfy government regulators and lawmakers that the additional, potentially harmful governmental regulation is unnecessary. But will it work? A lot is riding on the outcome.

Behavioral Ads and Proposed Legislation

Behavioral ads use technology that tracks a user’s surfing behavior on the Internet. Key data includes clickstream data such as searches made, content read, site-visit times, and websites visited. With this key data about a specific user, advertisers can create a behavioral pattern that can be linked to a specific online demographic, which becomes the basis for ads that target the specific demographic.

Behavioral ad proponents argue that behavioral ads pose no privacy threat because the key data collected is “anonymous”. They argue that it’s not tied to “personally identifiable information” (such as name, address, email address, etc.) so that privacy is maintained.

Consumers continue to be wary of websites that track their every move on the Web. They, along with their consumer advocates, argue that distinguishing between “anonymous” data and “personally identifiable information” is meaningless because some people have been identified by allegedly “anonymous” information. In addition, consumers argue that even if a person’s name is not compromised, the level of information that may be compiled about a specific person is downright creepy. For example, a frequent traveler can be tracked to different locations through geographically different IP addresses, and then by combining this information with cookie data, an advertiser can draw a clear picture of the person’s travel habits – destinations, length of stay, travel frequency, preferred airlines – plus much more.

Behavioral ads are now in the cross hairs of Congressman Rick Boucher (D-VA), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Technology and the Internet. In early May, Boucher co-sponsored proposed legislation that would place significant restrictions on behavioral ad marketers. If passed, advertising websites would be burdened with new regulations, and users would be inundated with disclosure notices, opt-in requests, and user information licenses when they visit websites that use behavioral ads.

Will The Behavioral Ad Icon Stop the Drumbeat for New Governmental Regs?

Under current practice, websites use privacy policies to notify visitors about the site’s collection, use, and sharing of online information, including both clickstream and personally identifiable information.

The growing consensus among government regulators and lawmakers is that current privacy policies are failing to inform online consumers. Privacy policies are viewed as too lengthy and confusing to effectively communicate key information.

The growing consensus among leading Web marketers is that consumer fears about behavioral ads – heightened by the prospect of new government regulation – is holding back significant economic investment and use of behavioral ads. A new study of ninety online marketers released in May, 2010 by the Ponemon Institute indicated that despite an acknowledged return on investment from behavioral ads, hundreds of millions of dollars are being held back from online behavioral ads due to privacy concerns.

The objective of IAB and Internet advertisers is to convince government regulators and lawmakers – and ultimately online consumers – that industry self-regulation through the use of the new icon is sufficient to adequately inform consumers regarding behavioral ads without the necessity of intervention by new governmental regulations.

Conclusion

Resolving the current distrust and uncertainty regarding behavioral ads is critical to the future growth of responsible use of behavioral ads and their potential benefit to both advertisers and consumers. And ditto for the yet untapped substantial investment in behavioral ad technology and use.

How to resolve the current distrust and uncertainty is the real question facing the online advertising industry. Should the government step in, or should the industry self-regulate?

Online advertisers overwhelmingly fear that new government regulations will only exacerbate the problem. That’s why the new behavioral ad icon should matter to all webmasters.

Leading Internet, IP and software lawyer Chip Cooper has automated the process of drafting DigiContracts Website Legal Forms with his website legal forms generator. Use his free online tool — Website Documents Determinator — to determine which documents your website really needs for website legal compliance. Discover how quick, easy, and cost-effective it is to draft your website legal forms at DigiContracts.com.

By Jeffrey Smith in Featured

SE-TacticsThe only thing better than one search result in the top 3 positions in Google is two search results from a double ranking. This SEO tip works by pushing a competitor off the first page, broadening your websites keyword funnel and thereby doubling traffic and conversions.

Two Results are Better than One

I read somewhere that 87% of search engine traffic for a given keyword is allocated from occupying the Number 1 position in the search engine results page. If you understand SEO, then this post will share a quick method to double your SERP positions and to improve the likelihood of keyword conversions – once you have reached the Mecca for a specific search term.

By Jerry Bader in Featured

Need a Web Video campaign but can’t afford to pay for it? We get approached all the time by small businesses that would love to have a Web Video campaign but their budget is just not enough. Well if that’s a problem, Lady Gaga has the answer.

In a recent article “Product Placement Grows in Music Videos” by Joseph Plambeck in The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/business/media/06adco.html?_r=2&ref=business), Plambeck describes how record labels use product placement to defray costs and create new revenue streams. Check out the Lady Gaga video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVBsypHzF3U and see how many product placements you can spot.

Additionally, one of the first things you’ll notice is that it resembles a movie which takes the production beyond a mere performance video and places it in the category of branded entertainment (see “Web Advertising’s Future Format: Branded Entertainment” http://www.sitepronews.com/2010/06/27/web-advertisings-future-format-branded-entertainment/). Even in times of tight budgets, there are always ways to get what you need. It just takes thinking out side the box.

Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design and marketing firm that specializes in Web-video Marketing Campaigns and Video Websites. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

By John Beaumont in Featured

What is a resource box? Only the most important part of any article you may be writing! That is if you wish to make any money of course. If you are just happy to see your name in print then you can ignore this aspect.

Seriously though I’m sure that you are writing articles in the hope that you will get targeted traffic to your website in order to eventually sell some products.

So why is the resource box so important? Basically this is where you promote yourself, your product and your website/ blog . The aim of a good resource box is to do all three where possible.

It is better if you do not promote your site in the main body of the article. This is frowned upon as the purpose of an article is to provide good information NOT to try selling your product(s).

This is where the resource box comes in. However bear in mind that there are likely to be restrictions place upon the length of the box by the article directory you use. Normally we are talking from 3 to 6 lines to get your message across.

What are the important points to bear in mind when designing your resource box?

A Home Page Link You should always ensure that your resource box links to your Home Page. Why is this important? Because building backlinks is one of the main benefits of article marketing.

A backlink is basically where another site “links back” to your site thus driving traffic there as well as potentially establishing it as an area of authority on the particular subject.

So every time your article is published whether it is in a newsletter or another person’s site a backlink is established to YOUR site. This has the potential to build up traffic very quickly so IF you have an excellent site business should follow. Another important thing to remember is that backlinks will also raise your site higher in organic (free) search engine rankings.

Other Links I mentioned above about a home page link. Some article directories do not allow you to use links in your article but if they do then the number is severely limited. However most allow from one to three links in your resource box so make good use of all those that are available where you can.

Search Engine Optimisation Bit of a mouthful that!! Normally abbreviated to SEO. Remember that search engine spiders (see separate report) crawl the web to index information found on the pages of blogs or websites.

As the whole idea of your article writing is to generate traffic and make sales the links in your resource box and article (if allowed….see above) help do precisely that. The words that make up the link tell the search engine what the article is about and therefore help get the article indexed. So ensure that the words in the link are pertinent to your article!

I hope this little report helps you understand the basic requirements of Resource Boxes but if you would like more in depth details then I suggest you search the web although this should not be necessary for getting your website profitable

Go for it! John Beaumont. Internet Marketer

Get your FREE! “6 Pages To 6 Figures Special Report which reveals EXACTLY How to Build a long lasting and Passive $100,000/yr Online Business here!

By David Jackson in Featured

marketingQuestion: What’s the best way to lose potential customers?

Answer: Make them mad!

Yet, that’s exactly what many Internet marketers are doing… upsetting customers. How? By using disrespectful marketing methods. Unfortunately, there seems to be a pervasion of intrusive and disrespectful marketing on websites across the Internet.

So, why is this happening? Well, mainly because we’re letting it happen. By not protesting loudly or often enough. And also because, as much as I hate to admit it, intrusive marketing works. After all, if it didn’t work, Internet marketers would have long ago abandoned this controversial and disrespectful method of marketing.

By Steve Shaw in Featured

Submitting articles by hand is the most time consuming method of doing article submissions, and it produces the most modest results. Still I know there are some people who prefer to submit manually as they are learning the ropes of how to do article marketing.

If you are submitting articles by hand, then there are a variety of article submission sites that you will want to submit to. There are three main types of publishers:

  • Article Directories
  • Ezine Editors
  • Article Announcement Lists

We’ll be covering here how to submit to article directories.

How Do Article Directories Work?

An article directory is a website that publishes articles that other publishers can reprint for free.

Authors will submit their articles to an article directory, and then a publisher who is looking for content on that topic will find and republish it on his website or ezine. Publishers love article directories because they provide free quality content.

As an author, what do you get out of having your content appear in an article directory?

When you submit your article, you will include a resource box. This resource box will contain a short paragraph about you and your business, an incentive to visit your website, as well as a clickable link that leads back to your website.

Whenever your article is republished, the resource box will be too.

So, when a reader sees your content on someone’s website, they will also see your resource box, and they will (hopefully!) click the link that leads back to your website.

The resource box is also the means of ‘building links’ to your website. You gain a link to your website each time your article is republished. The more times it is republished the better, because that means you are building more links to your website.

Why Is It Important To Build Links?

These links are one of the main indicators that Google and the other search engines use when deciding how highly to rank your website in the search engine results lists. By building links to your website, you can effectively improve your website-s search engine ranking over the long term. The higher your search engine ranking, the more traffic your website receives.

Why Should You Submit To Article Directories?

By placing your articles in article directories, you are giving your articles the greatest opportunity of being republished.

You may think that publishing your article on an article directory creates just one backlink, from the directory itself. Actually, if all goes well that one backlink from the directory is only the beginning. Ideally your content will be republished repeatedly, building a link to your website each time.

Also, when you submit your article to an article directory it can show up in Google’s results lists. The more ways you create for people to find your content the better. Your ultimate goal is to draw more people from your target market to your website. Article marketing helps you do this.

How Many Directories Should You Submit To?

You will greatly aid your cause if you submit to as many directories as possible.

The purpose of placing your article on an article directory is to have it republished as many times as possible. That is how you build links to your website, which has an impact on your search engine ranking over the long term.

When you submit your content to just one directory, then you have gained one backlink, but you need to wait for publishers to find your article on that directory to build more links.

However, if you submit your articles to many article directories, you are building many links right off the bat, and any links you gain from publishers who find your articles on those directories are just icing on the cake.

If you are submitting articles by hand, obviously there is a limit to how many directories you can submit to. Submit to a few of the big ones, such as Ezine Articles, Go Articles, and Idea Marketers.

Steve Shaw is an article marketing expert and founder of the popular article distribution service SubmitYOURArticle.com, used by thousands of business owners. For more info on how you can use article marketing to reach thousands of potential prospects for your website go now to http://www.submityourarticle.com/report

By Cindy Hillsey in Featured

A question I am frequently asked goes something like this, “With all the different social networking sites out there, how do I know which which is right for me, and how do I find the time to keep up with it?”

Great question! One that I am sure we’ve all asked ourselves at some point or another, right? This much is clear: If you don’t have a purpose for utilizing social media you are going to feel much like a person who has been thrown into the water and can’t swim! You are going to panic, and try to keep your head above water however you can. Not only is this scary, but it is exhausting. I would answer the above question with this question, “What is your primary reason for wanting to use social media?” Please don’t say ‘because everyone is doing it’. That is not a good reason. You need to have a well-defined reason so that you can then determine which site, or sites, you wish to spend your time on.

Here are five questions to ask yourself to help you determine which networking site(s) you want to utilize:

  1. What is your *main* purpose for utilizing social media? Be specific with this question. Don’t generalize.
  2. Who is your target audience?
  3. What specific results will your social media efforts have on your target audience?
  4. What is your comfort level with social media? Are you new to social media? Are you an intermediate user? An advanced user?
  5. How much time do you want to devote to social media per day? Per week?

Once you’ve answered these questions, you can begin to explore what social networking site(s) are the best fit for you based on the answers you’ve provided.

The big three in Social Media are: LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Here’s how I like to think of these:

  • LinkedIn is like putting on a suit.
  • Facebook is like casual Friday’s.
  • Twitter is like an afterwork party or hanging out on the weekend.

Business happens on all three of these sites just as it does in the traditional workplace during the day and after hours. I use this analogy only to provide an idea of how ‘business’ or ‘casual’ the site is. I, personally, am on all three of these social networking sites. They all ‘fit’ for me. The key to finding a fit is that you will then get involved. Don’t just sign up to sign up. You *must* get involved in some fashion. Whether that is joining a group and participating, or answering questions, or tweeting about some useful information, you must be involved. Remember, people need to know, like, and trust you *before* they will consider doing business with you.

As for how much time you need to spend on these networking sites, that will really depend on your purpose and target audience (see questions 1 and 2 above). Plan on at least 30 minutes a day. Block this time off on your calendar, set a timer (here’s a really cool no-cost one: http://www.nestersoft.com/timeleft/index.shtml ) for 30 minutes, and get busy! Once the timer goes off, you are done for the day. Wasn’t that easy? Doesn’t that sound manageable? If you find you really enjoy this, do this exercise again at the end of the day. As with anything, it is all about what you find comfortable, because when it’s comfortable you’ll do it!

Cindy Hillsey, Certified Professional Coach, is a Mentor/Coach to Solopreneurs, and specializes in coaching Virtual Assistants. As an innovative and inspiring business maverick, Cindy’s number one goal is to remove the unease around being a first time business owner. For more information and FREE resources and articles, please visit: http://www.virtualpartnering.com

By Jackie de Burca in Featured

Google introduced another algorithm update in May 2010 and many webmasters have seen a huge drop in traffic from Google for keyword phrases that are three or more keywords long, known as long tail keywords.

Google is now able to index longer keyword phrases more accurately. It seems that Google guessed the best pages for long keyword phrases until recently based on other signals and keywords on the indexed pages. The new Google patent indicates that Google now has the computing power to index longer keyword phrases on web pages instead of guessing them.

What does this mean to business owners, webmasters and SEO companies? It means that those who have taken the time to anticipate the need of their customers and Google’s customers will be rewarded.

Whether in SEO terms or in pay per click advertising terms, longtail keywords are highly valuable. Think about what your search process is yourself and you will more than likely realise this.

The average person searching at the research phase will use a competitive generic keyword such as “party dress”. Not long after searching and seeing some high prices they will modify their search to something like “cheap party dress.” Now we are already into long tail keyword territory but it can go further. As the search deepens the searcher realizes that pink is the trendy colour at the moment, or pink is what she fancies wearing on her next night out, so then she is using the long tail keyword “cheap pink party dress.”

The more experienced the searcher the more likely she will start off with this right at the beginning so as not to waste any time. And in general people are becoming far better at searching as the search engines continue to improve the results they show to us.

A long tail keyword means one of two things; either the person is close to making a buying decision or is an experienced searcher. Now with the Google algorithm update of May, combined with the buying profile of a long tail keyword searcher being stronger, and add in here the fact that a well optimised page for a long tail keyword has a far higher chance of getting to the first page of the SERPs then it is what they call a no-brainer.

Think about it logically, when you want to find information online on products, services or for research reasons, you want to find it quickly, you want it to be as precise as possible and give you something extra that other information has not up until that moment.

Long tail keywords can be optimised in this way. The trick here is getting into the mindset of your customer and pre-empting all the possible things they would like to know about whatever the subject of the long tail keyword is and then going at least one step further. You will create a page which is resource, which means customers will like it and sites which see it as an authority may link to it.

On some of the search engine forums SEOs have stated that this algorithm which was named Mayday by some and Black Tuesday by others has had a disastrous effect on some well established sites which did not have enough content in deep pages.

Whether you are a small business owner, or a medium to large business owner, all the signs show that drilling down into your site with niche information across all aspects of your site based on long tail keywords is a good way to go. Long tail keywords are important both to your customers and the search engines; ignore them at your peril!

Jackie is co-owner of CWA Europe which is an International Search Marketing Agency. If you are not already doing it she highly recommends building long tail keywords into your online marketing strategy. http://www.cwa-europe.com/search-engine-optimisation/the-importance-of-long-tail-keywords-since-the-last-google-algorithm-update/88-10.html

By Jill Whalen in Featured

website-promotionFor the past few weeks I’ve been tasked with reviewing a few different sites that have seen a loss in traffic – their owners hoped to find out why. I love these kinds of reviews because it’s like solving a mystery or figuring out a puzzle. While it’s not always possible to determine the exact cause for the traffic loss, I can usually make some educated guesses based on what I dig up in Google Analytics.

Here are 9 steps you can take to diagnose the cause of lost search engine traffic:

By Kerry Russell in Featured

For any online business to succeed you need to gain an online presence and the only way you are going to do this is by getting your site seen by potential customers who are interested in the products or services you have to offer.

There are a lot of big advertising networks who sell website space all over the web to place your banners on, however this can be very expensive for many small business owners but today I would like to introduce you to an alternative method of getting your banners seen by using other peoples traffic at a price within your budget.

Instead of using the bigger networks you need to place your banner on sites related to your own niche who are already showing on the first page of Googles search results. As long as you do your research this method is very effective so give it a try and see what happens.

  1. Go to Google,search for a keyword related to your chosen niche and find a site who’s service or products compliment your own.
  2. Once you have found a site or blog that you are happy with scroll down and see if they display banners advertising other websites. If not check to see if they have an advertise link at the bottom of the homepage.
  3. If you can see other banners then they probably offer banner advertising so you now need to contact the owner.
  4. Tell them you would like to place a banner on their site for a small fee, maybe £50 for the month or whatever you feel is a reasonable price.
  5. If they accept your offer send them your banner and come to some agreement for payment.
  6. Wait a month and check your site stats, hopefully there will be an obvious change in your sites visitors or sales. If this is the case then stick to it. You never know you may be able to get a discount if it’s worth you using their site for the long term.

Before You Go Ahead Consider The Following Before You Choose A Site! This technique will only work if the site you place your banner on is popular and receives a steady flow of traffic. Don’t just take the owners word for it take a look at the following factors:

  1. What is the sites page rank – the higher the better.
  2. How relevant is the site to your own. It only goes to say that you wouldn’t want to advertise babies toys on a site in the gaming niche.
  3. Take a look at the Alexa Rank of the site, you can do this by downloading the Alexa toolbar. The lower the number the more visitors it receives.
  4. It’s position in the search engines. If it isn’t on the first page it’s no good to you.

Before I Go if you do your research well and your banner is eye catching there is no reason why you won’t see an increase in site visitors. If you

see a large increase in visitors but no increase in sales I would recommend taking another look at your service, prices, site design and any other factors that play a part in the visitors decision to buy.

Kerry Russell provides free Internet Marketing advice to others helping them build the foundations of a successful online business. You can find tips, articles, tutorials and much more at her businesses blog New To Internet Marketing.

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