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Marketing for Search Engines

By Karl Walinskas in Featured

As more and more people jump online and get comfortable with the ease of plunking down their credit card for purchases, it is becoming apparent that traditional marketing such as direct mail, advertising, and telemarketing just won’t be enough to get your small business over the top. Changes in the world that small business now sees are nothing short of mind-blowing. If you want to get your business, product or service noticed, you need to be marketing for search engines (SEM) and on board with the social media impact on business. Online tools today have changed the game and created new rules for information exchange and information commerce. Software as a service application, better known as SAAS, is bringing everything from Aunt Sadie’s bookkeeping services to your kid’s martial arts training regimen online as part of the mysterious but ever-expanding Cloud. Your business needs to be visible in the cloud, and marketing for search engines is your primary tactic of being found.

Interview with Ira Wolfe

The final piece of my Skype video interview with Ira Wolfe of Success Performance Solutions gets into the final 3 C’s of Marketing for Search Engines, including the most important piece of the puzzle – consistency.

Yes You Can Purposefully Increase Your Rate of Retweets

By Jason Drohn in Featured

Most people who have tried using Twitter for business have discovered that some forms of marketing do not work there at all. For example, viral marketing can happen a lot easier and with some purposeful intent – only after having laid the groundwork to make that happen. Viral marketing and the effects of it are incredible, and that is part of the power of Twitter. This article deals with several Twitter marketing methods that have a high possibility of giving you an edge with receiving viral retweets.

If you have ever tried to give away content for free at Twitter, then you may have experienced the inability to even do that. So what is going on is you need to change your approach and let people know what you are offering them. Have you ever noticed that some marketers at Twitter are not involved at all other than to tweet links. You will not get very far at all if you never engage your followers other than to push links at them. You need to mix in simple tweets along with tweets that contain links. The online crowd at Twitter and other places are far too distrusting with those whom they do not know. Building relationships begins with a little bit of friendly banter.

It is all right if you are not retweeted with some of your content. It is possible that the majority missed it when it first came out. This is easier to happen than you think simply because there can be so much going on, and then your content slipped by and got buried. That is why sometimes you see people tweeting multiple times, so this is not so unusual at all. This ensures that all your followers get to see your tweet and it is not missed.

Still, do not go crazy with your tweets because that can create a negative impression on you.

Leveraging your blog to make it easy for people to share your content is an important step. You should get a blog, definitely, because you can integrate so much with social media.

So make sure you place a TweetMeme button on your blog to make it easy for your readers to instantly share your content on Twitter. You want your visitors to have no trouble locating your various share icons. There are entire networks of high quality blogs, and people use social media promotion all over them. There is no excuse for not having these items on your blogs, and you do want to get retweets, right?

Be sure to do more research because there are more things you can do to increase the odds of getting retweeted.

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For more free tips on what you need to do to get retweeted, check out this article http://marketinghackz.com/learn-how-simple-it-is-to-get-retweeted-on-twitter/ . Another resource that you’ll be interested in is this blog post http://marketinghackz.com/lets-get-social-2-review/ . There are lots of helpful strategies there!

FTC’s Settlement With Google Provides Game Changing Internet Privacy Regulations

By Chip Cooper in Featured

You’ve certainly heard about Google’s highly promoted BUZZ service which is designed to compete directly with Twitter by offering much of Twitter’s basic functionality with a Facebook-like platform including location data integrated into Gmail. What you may not have heard is that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently made BUZZ the poster child for the FTC’s effort to show that the old tried and true privacy protection methodology is now not enough.

Once again, the FTC has upped the ante for privacy requirements, and all websites are expected to comply with the new game changing regulations, or face the consequences.

The FTC’s Allegations

On March 30, 2011, the FTC announced a proposed consent order regarding Google’s BUZZ service. According the FTC, Google had engaged in deceptive practices regarding discrepancies between its privacy policy statements and its actual practices regarding BUZZ.

Google’s privacy policy stated in part: “When you sign up for a particular service that requires registration, we ask you to provide personal information. If we use this information in a manner different than the purpose for which it was collected, then we will ask for your consent prior to such use.”

When Google launched BUZZ, Google invited its Gmail users to sign-up with two options: * “Sweet! Check out Buzz”, or * “Nah, go to my inbox”.

The FTC alleged that both of these options were deceptive. The “Sweet” option was allegedly deceptive because users were not clearly informed that the identities of certain of their email recipients would be made public by default. The FTC claimed this was contrary to Google’s promise to obtain consent for new information uses and also in violation of Google’s requirements in its self-certified participation in the US-EU Safe Harbor program.

The “Nah” option was allegedly deceptive because users were unwittingly enrolled in certain parts of BUZZ despite selecting “Nah”.

The Game Changers

As part of the proposed settlement, Google is required to implement a comprehensive privacy program with very specific mandated requirements and to undergo privacy audits over the next twenty years. This requirement is not new. The FTC has historically signaled its expectations through consent orders with similar requirements.

What’s new, and certainly game changing, are the following.

* Covered Information. Up to now, privacy regulations has focused on “personal information” that may be used to identify an individual person. From now on, the focus will be on “covered information” which the FTC construes to cover additional elements including screen names, location data, and lists of contacts.

* Privacy by Design. Generally, privacy by design is a holistic approach where privacy compliance is designed physically into systems from their inception, rather than waiting to address compliance the end of the design process or separately through a published privacy policy. Although at this time there is scant information regarding privacy design specifics, a safe bet is that privacy by design will involve pop-up or interstitial messaging regarding the use and sharing of covered information at the time a user discloses information or opts in to a specific program.

This is in stark contrast to the current practice of providing all such messaging in a separately published privacy policy.

Conclusion

With the proposed BUZZ settlement, the FTC has aggressively raised the bar in terms of privacy requirements for all online businesses. In essence, the FTC settlements have created “common law” regarding privacy, and websites that fail to comply do so at their peril.

Expect more specific information regarding the game changers in the form of additional suits and settlements by the FTC in the near future.

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Leading SaaS attorney Chip Cooper has automated the process of drafting Website Legal Documents with his Website Legal Forms Generator. Use his free online tool — Website Documents Determinator — to determine which legal documents your website really needs. Discover how quick, easy, and cost-effective it is to draft your website legal forms at http://www.digicontracts.com/whichdocs/ .

How to Repair Your Windows 7 OS Registry

By Wesley Atkins in Featured

Over the years, Microsoft has taken its fair share of criticism and scorn. Vista was very nearly the last straw for many users. Thankfully, the software giant was able to redeem itself with Windows 7. Despite the many fine qualities of Windows 7, there’s still the old problem of registry corruption. Over time, Windows has a tendency to become sluggish and bogged down under the weight of its own extensive software infrastructure. Windows registry repair and recovery can be scary for inexperienced users. That doesn’t have to be the case, however. With the right tools, working with the Windows registry is a breeze.

The Registry In A Nutshell

As you may know already, the Windows registry is the heart and soul of any modern Windows installation. Since the days of Windows 3.1, the registry has been the central core of the Windows operating system, governing its complex labyrinth of processes and programs. Essentially, the registry tells the operating system how to function through a database of simple configuration files. The integrity of these files can mean the difference between a well-oiled machine running at peak capability, and a PC that can barely function. If there’s a problem with your computer that isn’t virus-related, the smart money says that it has to do with the registry.

The Main Issue

A properly maintained registry of configuration files does a great job of keeping Windows 7 humming along the way it should. When the operating system and the many programs that reside within it have the right registry files to go off of, Windows 7 is a dream to work with. But over time, the registry of nearly every Windows PC becomes corrupted for a number of different reasons. One of the main causes of registry corruption is duplicate registry files. In other cases, registry files are improperly stored or maintained and become overwritten with inaccurate values.

Without proper upkeep, the registry is prone to degradation and needs a bit of housekeeping to stay in tip-top shape.

Fixing The Registry

The only way to repair a corrupted Windows registry is to look at each file and rectify individual errors on a case by case basis. If duplicate registry files for the same program exist, the extra files need to be deleted. With thousands of processes and programs running on any given Windows installation, this can quickly become a tedious and daunting task. Fortunately, there’s a better way to go about this. You can use an intelligent piece of software such as a registry repair utility to do the heavy lifting for you. Registry cleaners can sift through the registry of your Windows 7 PC and automatically fix errors faster than any person could by hand. Ultimately, they produce a faster, more efficient Windows installation without all the hassle of manual registry repair.

In Summary

The biggest problem isn’t the registry itself. It’s locating a capable tool to maintain the registry without harming the underlying Windows installation in the process. This is no small task. The registry is fairly complicated, and it takes an intelligent, well-designed piece of software to do the job right. Fortunately, there are many registry repair tools available if you know where to look.

If you’re having registry problems, the worst thing you can do is spring for the first available option or the cheapest program you come across. Good registry tools are hard to find, but they’re out there. Do your due diligence and explore all possible options before entrusting your Windows PC with any registry repair program. A little bit of research can save you hours of headache and wasted time in the long run.

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Wesley Atkins is a technology writer on behalf of http://www.registrycleanergeeks.com/ he regularly writes about Windows 7 Registry Repair & reviews the best Windows 7 Registry Cleaners on the market to speed up and optimize your PC.

The New Marketing Geography – Six-Digit Postal Code Boundaries

By Adriana Noton in Featured

Location intelligence has become an essential tool to helping businesses expand and grow their markets. Making use of marketing analytics to drive their business activities has become a standard practice for most enterprise. Today, using the new marketing geography – Six-Digit Postal CodeOM boundaries, acquired through location intelligence solutions, businesses can achieve optimum levels in trade area delineation, market segmentation and serviceability.

There are approximately 818,000 active postal codes (FSALDU) for residences and businesses in Canada. In the past, experts promoted the use of government administration boundaries as the ideal geographic unit for marketing activities. Only recently, a six digit postal code geographic boundary fabric has been created that covers all urban and rural areas across Canada.

Postal code boundaries are typically smaller geographic units representing smaller clusters of households and individuals. The maintenance and updating of geographies is also significantly different. Census geography is determined for the primary purpose of collecting descriptive statistics regarding the populations within their boundaries. Businesses with GIS software, access to vector street data that is ascribed with address ranges, and customer data that has been address-referenced, have the ability to delineate and study the trade areas where the majority of their customers are located which includes where they live and work. Companies can also focus direct mail advertising campaigns on their own trade areas, or their competitors’. Furthermore, GIS can be used to analyze the socio-economic characteristics of the population within trade areas, enabling businesses to make sure that the products and services they offer meet the needs and preferences of target populations.

Data acquired from location intelligence solutions that provide a more granular and present view of the market place provides the following business benefits: The business is able to locate higher value customers that have higher purchase value and purchase frequency. The ability to achieve higher sales conversion rates by more accurately targeting marketing activity to specific customer profiles. The business is able to reduce marketing campaign costs, from analytics through to distribution.

Six-Digit Postal CodeOM boundaries data provides increased precision to the marketing professional. As well, increased granularity in marketing geography allows marketing researchers to identify more subtle variation in geodemographic variables. This new capability enables business benefits directly associated to the use of six digit postal code boundaries when driving marketing analytics where location is a relevant consideration.

Postal addresses are now used for more than just sending mail. Businesses now have the ability to use location intelligence solutions to identify key information from postal code data to better identify and develop markets and determine potential risks so that they can effectively grow their business. Location intelligence solutions such as Postal Code mapping software will have the most comprehensive and detailed collection of Canadian postal geography products that provide a robust marketing analytics and distribution data solution, with unmatched neighborhood level precision. By using Six-Digit Postal CodeOM boundaries as the new marketing geography acquired through location intelligence solutions, businesses can now achieve the most favorable levels of performance in trade area delineation, market segmentation and serviceability.

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A Postal code map suite and Location intelligence Solutions software can be tailored to the demands of large organizations. It combines modern technology with geographic coordinates systems to deliver solutions to business obstacles. http://www.dmtispatial.com/

How To Use Twitter for SEO

By Kristina Weis in Featured

Links Tweeted on Twitter Matter for SEO

It’s official. Google and Bing include social signals – namely, links that get tweeted on Twitter – when determining rankings in their search results. This was confirmed by Danny Sullivan in his December 1, 2010 post on Search Engine Land, and it was likely a factor for a while before that.

To put this new factor in perspective, Google uses hundreds of signals to determine how it should rank a website. These include inbound links to the site, the title tag of a web page, and site speed.

Getting people to link to your site is really all about having great content that people want to share, whether on their blogs or websites, or on Twitter. As Google and other search engines increasingly take note of social activity and the links shared on sites like Twitter, having a good social media presence will become increasingly important for ranking well in search results.

Website Redesign Best Practices – Part 2

By Ben Kemp in Featured

Site architecture can make or break a site’s chances of achieving prominence in the search engine results pages. There is usually no one single element at issue, more a combination of items that collectively add up to an overly high impediment to search engines. Improper use of Flash and JavaScript are common culprits, as is failure to use the most basic of website building blocks.

Site Architecture Issues in Detail

Search Engine Friendly URLs:

* URL’s should include a relevant keyword phrase specific to every page generated!

* Avoid capitalization AND spaces in file names. Use hyphens to separate words instead.

Search Engines can now cope with URL’s with multiple iterations of ?, & and = in them, but they are incomprehensible to HUMANS! But nonsensical URL’s do not provide any clue to the search engines as to what the page content is about. Search-friendly URLs are valuable components in the process of categorizing page content.

Capture More International Business Through Website Translation

By Russell Lundstrom in Featured

Like a needle popping a balloon, your website will be your most effective tool for exploding new, foreign markets. Website translation is an extremely powerful tool for reaching new markets. You can translate a ‘micro-site’ within a few days and with very little expense. Almost immediately you create a marketing funnel for acquiring new customers. On the other hand, if not done properly, you can just as quickly damage your companies’ reputation.

Here is some advice that will give you the framework and processes you will need to penetrate and dominate a new market by using your website as the primary vehicle for communication.

Paint your target.
One of my favorite sayings,”You can’t hit a bulls-eye if you don’t have a target” sums it up nicely. The first place to start your international website initiative is by working on your international business strategy. No sense in spending the time and money to get your website translated if you don’t have a strategy to manage the new business.

The first and most obvious part of your international strategy is to define your target markets. Surprisingly, many companies do not even get this basic step before jumping into translation. For example, say your target market is in China, are you translating into Simplified or Traditional Chinese? Another example is Spanish, are you translating for Latin Spanish or European Spanish? This seems like international business 101, but you would be surprised how many companies do not know the answers to these questions.

With the markets identified, you can define your international objectives. When entering foreign markets it is important that you establish the metrics for success.

You should have an annual budget for the project.
Including the cost of website localization, but also the site maintenance and customer support. You will have to have some method for decision making. What events would have to happen for you to increase your investment? Are your metrics going to be based on website traffic generated or on revenue from the translated site? How are you going to measure local customer satisfaction? The key question is “What are you going to measure and use as a standard for success?”

Next, plan your marketing.
How are you going to generate traffic? Are you going to employ local SEO talent? How about local advertising? Just putting a translated site up on the Internet does not guarantee any success. The same sweat, blood, and tears it took to build your business at home will be required in foreign markets.

Think about the communications required after launching your foreign website. As visitors arrive at your localized website, how are you going to manage customer service inquiries? For instance, if you have a customer in China who sends an email in Chinese how are you going to answer their questions? How are you going to support your non-English speaking customers?

What are the technical strategies you will have to employ?
Will you host your site in-country? Does your site accept payments online? Have you determined if and how your payment processor works in foreign currency? For example, in many European countries the local postal system manages many day-to-day financial transactions. The logical move would be to have your online processor use the local standard for payments.

Finally, what are the logistical needs for your foreign business?
If your business is selling physical products you will have to have distributors and the entire logistics chain in place. Selling a service is going to require the physical presence of your business in the foreign markets.

The starting point for your website translation project should begin with your international business strategy. Define your markets, set your standards for success, plan your foreign marketing, think about the communications and support required, and finally determine the technical and logistical needs of your new business. A flexible strategy will accelerate your website translation project greatly. By the way, your strategy should also alert you to when you might need to pull the plug on your international site.

The ease with which you can enter new foreign markets gives you great opportunities for growing your business. Don’t let the simplicity of entry entice you into action before you give some serious thought to the execution of your business overseas. Just like starting any new business, you will have to establish the ground rules for success.

Remember, you cannot hit a bulls-eye if you don’t have a target.

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A successful website translation can launch your company into new markets and new opportunities. Russell Lundstrom has been helping companies achieve success in foreign markets for more than 20 years. You can learn exactly how to repeat these successes at http://globalsitesecrets.com and by following Russell on Twitter @gssguy.

Using Facebook Marketing Strategies For Online Business Success

By Celene Harrelson in Featured

Almost everyone has a Facebook account these days. Are you using yours in a way that will help grow your business or diminish it? Are you using the right Facebook marketing strategies that can significantly increase your online business? If you are using your Facebook page to play FarmVille and games you are missing an incredible opportunity.

Facebook is second only to Google with well over 500,000 visitors each day. It only stands to reason that you should be using Facebook marketing to improve your online business. What an incredible opportunity to connect and interact with like-minded people. The problem is, many new to social media are confused by the choices Facebook offers. Should they have a personal page, a fan page or perhaps a group? Let’s talk about that.

You first must have a personal page. Only after you have built a personal page can you build a fan page or have a group. You can have up to 5000 friends on your personal page. Because your page is personal and requires a user name and password to access it, the search engines do not index content on these pages. Obviously you want your content indexed by the search engine. Here’s the rub, most people who” like” your fan page never return. It’s much easier to get responsive interaction on your personal page then it is on your fan page. Therefore I recommend you actively post on both pages.

A fan page has a few things going for it. Not only do the search engines index the content on your fan page, the look of your fan page can be customized as well. You can carry on with your branding seamlessly. It’s a good idea to include an opt in box for your giveaway to bribe fans to subscribe to your mailing list.

A FB group is a great way to interact with a specific groups of people. Because it is private, only those within that group can see or access it, therefore it is great for a forum type environment for clubs and organizations. To join a group you must be invited. Google does not index content from groups.

Regardless whether you use your personal page or your fan page for your business you must build relationships, connect with people. engage and interact with them. Be an encourager; inspire others to be all they can be. Share your blog posts, give them helpful tips and hints. If you’re posts reflect a giving nature; that you truly care about others you will fill your stadium with friends and fans.

While it is important to interact with friends and fans throughout the day on a consistent basis, you can’t spend your entire day on social media. Sites like HootSuite, TweetDeck, SocialOomph and Posterous will help you organize all of your social media networks in one place, allowing you to view your streams and walls, sort and view your lists and schedule your tweets and posts in advance. This means you are free to be productive in your business, but still be highly active on social media. You will then only need to pop in and out for just a few minutes a few times a day to respond and interact with others.

Facebook makes it easy to tell your story. You can share photos, audios and videos with your friends and fans. Scheduling an event such as a teleseminar, webinar or contest is easy.

In conclusion are you using Facebook marketing strategies to improve your online business? Don’t underestimate its significance. You should be using Facebook to increase your visibility, create brand awareness and instill trust, allowing you to take your business to the next level.

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To learn more about Facebook and Social Media Marketing go to http://myonlinebusinesstraining.com to get your FREE 3 part audio training.

Cashing In On Blog Marketing-5 Things To Do

By Jeff Schuman in Featured

Some people are perfectly happy to blog for the fun of it. However, others are in it for the money. It is possible to make a lot of money as a blogger.

Ultimately blogging comes down to attracting new readers on a consistent basis. You then need to keep those people coming back for more. To do this there are a few things you must learn how to do it consistently worked on.

1. Write interesting content. The best way to do this is to start a blog in a niche you have knowledge on, or have a passion for.

You’ll find it’s much easier to sit down and write blog articles when you don’t have spent a lot of time researching. Not only that, but when you write from the position of passion or experience it will come across in the type of articles you write.

Is your blog going to be informational by nature? Hopefully it will be. However, you also want to interject things into your writing style that are controversial, humorous, and so on.

2. SEO your blog posts. Optimize your blog articles around keyword phrases people are searching for relating to the theme of your blog.

Keep your content tightly focused around a specific niche. This makes it easier to build a keyword list that you can write blog articles around.

Include your keyword phrases in the title of the blog post. Also include the exact keyword phrase in the first and last paragraphs of the blog article. Then in the body of the article use variations of this phrase as it sounds natural.

3. Update your blog regularly. You do not have to do a blog article every day if you do not want to. However, at least be committed enough to your blog to update your content one or two times a week.

Many people who are busy will sit down on a Sunday afternoon and write one month’s worth of blog content. You can then publish your posts to be updated in advance based on the schedule you choose.

4. Blog comments. Encourage your readers to post comments on the blog articles you are writing. To develop some good backlinks go out and make blog comments on other people’s blogs.

You can subscribe to Google Alerts for the primary keyword phrase of your blog. Every day in your email inbox you can receive updates on blogs that relate to your specific keyword phrase.

When making a blog comment use your primary keyword phrase in the name field. This will help you build backlinks based around the relevancy of those keyword phrases.

5. Monetize your blog. Join affiliate programs and place banners for them on your blog. Also join Google Adsense and include some Google ads on your blog. These are two proven ways for you to make money as a blogger.

Doing these 5 things will help you cash in on blog marketing. You need a commitment to make your blog as good as it can be. When you do that you will attract readers on a consistent basis and that will lead to more income for you.

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If you enjoyed this article by Jeff Schuman please visit his take paid surveys website today. Join JV With Jeff for free and receive tips on how to make money online without any experience or website of your own. http://www.Team-Schuman.com

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