Psyence.net

Interesting Article on Advertising....

2009-07-23T19:24:00.001-07:00

Relying less on print

The majority (92%) of advertisers are using Internet advertising in their media campaigns
followed by print advertising at 88 percent, according to a new LinkedIn Research
Network/Harris Poll.

At the same time, less than half are using radio advertising (46%), television advertising
(46%) and mobile advertising (39%). The Harris poll found there is a regional difference
as advertisers in the South are more likely to use radio advertising (57%) and television
advertising (56%) while those in the West are least likely to use both (39% each).

Among those advertisers who are using each of these types of media, there is a difference
in the level of usage since last year. Three-quarters of those who use Internet
advertising (74%) say they are incorporating it more often while 69 percent of those who
use mobile advertising are using it more often compared to a year ago. Unsurprisingly, the
largest drop is with print advertising as half (49%) of those who use it are using it less
often compared to a year ago while 41 percent are using it the same amount.

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Yahoo buys Xoopit - A photosharing program

2009-07-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

Choosing your Meta-Keywords

2009-07-17T08:03:00.001-07:00

Introduction

This article assumes you already know what a 'meta-tag keyword' is and know a little about their importance to search engines. In this article I will attempt to explain the art of choosing the most appropriate and best performing keywords for your web pages.

As you should already know keywords contained within your websites' meta tags are extremely important in allowing search engines to determine the content of your web pages. In order to make sure that these keywords are bringing your site up within Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) and driving visitors to your site, the most important factors in determining your keywords are:

Relevance.
Choosing keywords that people actually search for.
Choosing keywords without too much competition.
Relevance
All your keywords should ALWAYS be relevant to the content within the page they describe. Adding keywords to your site just because they are commonly searched for words is not recommended. Not only will it frustrate visitors who are looking for other information, but it may well get your site black-listed from search engine rankings.

Highly relevant keywords will attract visitors who are actually interested in the products and services your website offers. At the end of the day, it is better to attract fewer visitors who actually have an interest in your website than it is to attract more visitors who leave immediately.

Choosing Keywords people search for
Although your keywords should all be relevant, sometimes it is best not to be too specific.

For example, I once discovered a new fossil (honest!), it was new to science so I named it, wrote a paper on it and had it published. I didn't ever build a web page dedicated to it, but if I had the most used keyword and most relevant word would have been the fossils name (Trypanites fosteryeomani). You might therefore think that it would be sensible to use this as one of my most important keywords? However, that would (at least to start with) have been wrong. No one else has ever heard of this fossil, so it is very unlikely that anyone would ever type its name into a search engine. And sure enough, a quick check shows that during Dec 2004 there wasn't a single search for this term within a particular, popular search engine.

I would therefore need to be more generic with my choice of keywords. The fossil itself was a trace fossil of a worm from the Jurassic, so keywords/phrases such as 'fossil', 'trace fossil' or 'worm trace fossil' may be more successful.

There are several tools available that allow you to check the number of times a particular word or phrase has been searched for. It is important to choose keywords that are regularly searched for and these tools can help in this decision. It is also worth including common mis-spellings of your most relevant keywords as your competitors may not have thought of this when choosing their keywords.

Choosing keywords without too much competition
The section above may lead you to believe that choosing very generic keywords is your best bet as they are often searched for. However, if you get too generic in your choice of keywords then you will be competing with many more websites for the top spots in the SERPS. If we go back to our fossil example we can see what I mean. A quick search in Google brings up the following numbers of results:

Trypanites fosteryeomani ? 1 result (something I once wrote in a forum!)
Jurassic Worm Trace Fossil ? 4,320 results
Trace Fossil ? 407,000 results
Fossil ? 9,120,000 results
As you would expect, the more generic we get, the more results we get. It can be seen then that choosing the best keywords is a matter of balancing the number of times the keywords are searched for against the number of other sites competing for rankings with those keywords. The best keywords will be those that are searched for often but have few competing sites (assuming the keywords are relevant to your content).

I find that it is best to have a balance between the generic and specific keywords relating to your web page and using key-phrases is a useful way of achieving this. In this way the entire key-phrase can be specific to your particular page, but the individual words within it are fairly generic.

e.g. Affordable Website Design Wales (4 generic keywords to create a specific key-phrase)

To Summarise, choosing keywords is an essential part of producing a successful website. Your keywords need to be highly relevant to the content of your page and specific enough to reduce competition. They also need to contain some generic keywords that are often searched for. As always, the single most important factor is relevancy and good content to go with the keywords.

Using Blogs for SEO

2009-07-17T08:01:00.000-07:00

Why Start A Blog?

I knew about blogging and blogs for years before I actually started my first blog... So this begs the question... "Why did it take me over 4 years to start my 1st blog?"

Well, why would I want a blog? After all, blogs are just for geeks, self opinionated left or right wing zealots pushing some obscure political agenda, teenage school kids waffling on about their zits and boyfriends or technical journals full of terms and jargon only a rocket scientist could understand.

And I never bothered with blogs or the development of the "blogosphere" again.

Then something changed the way I viewed blogging about July 2004. I was introduced to using a blog as a tool for SEO - Search Engine Optimization. In the crudest form it was almost spamming, but done properly, it will get your website pages spidered almost immediately and indexed in less than a week.

Blog and Ping

The crude method involved first setting up both a blogger (.blogspot) blog and a free myYahoo page. You add the RSS or Atom link from your blog to your myYahoo page, so that your blog feeds into your myYahoo website.

You then write a page into your blog with links to webpages that you want Google and Yahoo to find and index. After posting your new blog entry, you then ping your myYahoo page to tell it that there's a new entry at your blog. Then you go to Yahoo, open your myYahoo page, and the blog headline should be there.

The assumption is that Yahoo would spider all feeds going into it's myYahoo pages and because Google owns Blogger.com they would spider all new blog entries at Blogger.com ... and in fact this is indeed what happens. Start a blog, add entry's to it every day, and in less than a week it will be spidered as soon almost as you post to it. But you must post daily.

How To Become an SEO Expert - 5 Secrets That Will Allow You to Outperform 95% of All Webmasters

2009-07-17T07:59:00.001-07:00

Becoming an SEO expert, or a search engine optimization expert, is something that is worth your while if you are interested in getting your web page noticed and increasing your traffic.

It is not hard to become an SEO expert if you simply know what steps you need follow to take you there. As long as you follow these steps and are diligent, you will become the SEO expert you want to be. Read the following topics, then research them more to learn exactly what will put you above the majority of all webmasters.

Topic #1 Keywords

Keywords are a huge part of becoming a search engine optimization expert. The reason for this is that keywords are used by the search engines to find and rank their results. You must become an expert at using keywords that apply to your products and services in order to become a search engine optimization expert.

Topic #2 Links

Developing a link campaign is another important aspect of becoming an SEO expert. The reason for this is that links play an important role in how web pages are ranked by the search engines. The more links a website has present on the Internet, the higher weight and ultimate ranking it will be given by the search engine. If you want to be an SEO expert, you need to learn all you can about links and the role they play in the search engines.

Topic #3 Pay per Click Advertising

Pay per click advertising is another important topic that relates to an SEO expert. This type of advertising is used on search pages when particular keywords are searched for. Your website only pays for this type of advertising when someone clicks on your ad, hence the name "pay per click". The PPC advertising element is important to the success of many websites and results in increased traffic. As an SEO expert, you need to know all there is to know about pay per click advertising.

Topic #4 Directories

Directories are another aspect of getting websites optimized for search engines. Submitting your site to directories not only provides valuable incoming links to your website, it also sends you targeted visitors from those particular directories. To become an expert on search engine optimization, you will need to study and learn everything about directories and how they can be used by a website to build business and drive traffic.

Topic #5 Expert

You should strive to be an expert on something. It is fine to learn all about the different tools to become a search engine optimization expert, however you will also need to be an expert on specific topics and have certain niche topics where you are viewed as an expert.

7 Search Engine Optimization Strategy

2009-07-17T07:56:00.000-07:00

Search engine optimization refers to the technique of making your web pages search engine friendly so that search engines are more easy to understand and analyze your website. Consequently, your site has a better chance to gain high search engine ranking.

However, please be reminded that high search engine ranking is not your only objective, and your objective should be website traffic and conversion. The following advice helps you to achieve the objectives.

1. Make Sure Your Site Will Not Be Penalized

Webmasters realize the importance of attaining top search engine rankings. Hence, they perform many search engine optimization activities on their sites. However, improper implementation of search engine optimization can get your site heavily penalized by search engines. To avoid your website being penalized, webmasters must not commit to the following practices:

- Use of hidden texts or hidden links on web pages.
- Use of cloaking
- Excessive automated queries to search engines like Google
- Web pages loaded with irrelevant words
- Keyword stuffing
- Multiple pages, sub-domains, domains with substantially duplicate content

2. Select Correct Keyword Phrases

Correct keyword phrases allow you to drive targeted visitors to your website. Therefore, this step determines whether your search engine optimization effort can improve business result or not.

Do not restrict yourself and be open minded in this area. You may think that most of the search is coming from 1 word keyword. However, it is wrong. Most people uses 2-5 words keyword phrases because they are more descriptive and yield precise results from search engines.

In addition, think creatively and perform linguistics research can help you generate useful keyword phrases.

3. Optimize Title and Meta Tags

One of the important steps in search engine optimization is to optimize Title tag in your web page. Pages with the keywords appearing in the title tag are often assumed to be more relevant to the search query than others. Remember, title tag is the most important location of a web page after the main content of the body tag. Almost all search engines give importance to this tag.

Some search engines also give importance to the presence of the keyword in the meta description and keyword tag. Currently, it does not applicable to Google though.

4. Optimize Website Content

All search engines place emphasis on your body text content. The main content of your web page should contain the keyword a considerable number of times to make the search engine spiders feel that the content is relevant to the search query. The first two paragraphs are extremely important in search engine optimization.

To prevent your site from being regarded as "over optimization", you should not stuff keywords heavily in your body content. We suggest that you should present the keywords in a natural way. Apart from this, your website copy should have at least 200-250 words.

5. Ensure Clean Coding

To allow search engines to index and analyze your website correctly, you must check correctness of HTML coding manually. Webmasters may build webpages from WYSIWYG HTML editors such as Microsoft Frontpage 2003, but these HTML editors may leave some duplicated or unnecessary tags in your copy especially when you edit the pages very often during web design phase.

In addition, search engines are not good at understanding Java Applet and Flash. If you have Flash or Java applet navigation menu, make sure to duplicate somewhere and include HTML links as well.

Please also check whether your website has broken links. They may stop search engine spiders to crawl other web pages in your website, it may result in loss of hundreds or thousands website traffic per month, and waste your search engine optimization effort.

6. Link Building

In case you have a little bit knowledge about search engine optimization, you likely know that link popularity is very important to attaining high search engine ranking in major search engines such as Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc..

Yes, search engines use link analysis to determine search engine rankings. The phiolosophy is that if an inbound link points to your site, your site must have some value. Therefore, the inbound link is regarded as a "positive vote" to your website. The more inbound link you have, the higher is your link popularity. This can boost your search engine ranking.

However, quality of links (link reputation) is also important. If you can get an inbound link from a high popularity website, your site will get more benefit.

There are many methods to perform link building including seeking one-way link, reciprocal links, 3-way links, etc. Because link popularity and link reputation are of great importance to search engine positions, many search engine optimizers spend most of their time in link building.

7. Optimize Dynamic Website Content

Search engines are not good at understanding dynamically generated web pages. Therefore, I suggest you should change your dynamic URL to static URL. If it is not possible, you should consider using some advanced search engine optimization techniques such as Mod-Rewrite to optimize website.

Another simpler way is to create a sitemap and list all dynamic URLs on it. This can help a bit.

Conclusion

Search engine optimization is very important to search engine marketing. When it is done properly, it helps you attract many targeted visitors to your website, and can improve your business results.

A Simple 4 Step Approach To Have Google Crawl Your Site Today Guaranteed!

2009-07-17T07:54:00.000-07:00

Extra, Extra Google Now Gives you feedback. By Creating a Google Sitemap using free online tools you can get Google to crawl your site within 24 Hours. As an Added bonus after Google Crawls your site they give you feedback about any problems they encountered. To take advantage of this amazing service from yahoo just follow these 4simple steps.

Step 1 Get a Google Site Map Account

In order to create a Google Sitemap account just cut and paste the below URL in your browser and follow the simple directions

https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login)

Step 2 Create Your Site map

You can create your Sitemap either as an XML file or a TXT file. XML is the PPreferred method since you can give Google more information about your Web Site. You do not need to know XML to create a Google Sitemap. Not with this free web based tool. Simply go to the below web site type in your domain and it will automatically spider your site and create a Google Site Map for you. http://www.sitemapspal.com/

If You prefer to use a text file simply following the below direction taken directly from the Google Help File (https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/other.html)

Google accepts simple text files that list URLs. As the text files contain only a list of URLs, Google prefers that you use the Sitemap protocol so you can provide additional information about your URLs. The text file must follow these guidelines:

The text file must have one URL per line. The URLs cannot contain embedded new lines.

You must fully specify URLs as Google attempts to crawl them exactly as provided.

Each text file can contain a maximum of 50,000 URLs. If you site includes more than 50,000 URLs, you can separate the list into multiple text files and submit each one separately.

The text file must use UTF-8 encoding. You can specify this when you save the file (for instance, in Notepad, this is listed in the Encoding menu of the Save As dialog box).

The text file should contain no information other than the list of URLs.

The text file should contain no header or footer information.

You can name the text file anything you wish. Google recommends giving the file a .text extension to identify it as a text file (for instance, sitemap.txt).

You should upload the text file to the highest-level directory you want search engines to crawl and make sure that you don't list URLs in the text file that are located in a higher-level directory.

Step 3 Upload your Site Map File To Your Web Page

Once you have created an XML or TXT Sitemap using the instructions in Step 2 you would just upload it to your web page either by FTP or by using the Cpanel from your Web Host.

Step 4 Tell Google

The last step in this process is to tell Google about your Sitemap. You simply Log In to your Google site map account and add the URL of you Site Map. Be sure and check back a few hours later to make sure it uploaded correctly. https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login

Now be sure and repeat the above 4 Steps whenever you change your website

Bonus Step 5

After Google has read your Sitemap and crawled your site (usually 12-24 Hours) you will see a verify link next to your Sitemap name. Click the link and Google will instruct you to create a blank file and place it on your Web Page, Once you have done that Google will tell you any problems it encountered crawling your Page

SEO #3: Getting Listed In Google in Under 24-Hours!

2009-07-17T07:53:00.001-07:00

Yesterday you should have read the second course out of 6 courses that will help you get a TOP rank in the search engines and get EXPLOSIVE LASER TARGETED TRAFFIC for Free. Today we move on to course #3 and reveal how to Get Listed In Google in Under 24-Hours! Today is a short course but it's one that you must have been waiting for. This information sells for $100+ elsewhere but its just info and I'm willing to tell you for free. Now let's get started.

Getting listed in search engines will only happen if the search engine spider finds your website. There are many ways that this spider can find you site; one way is by submitting your website to the search engine to be crawled. This method is VERY BAD because the search engines will take months just to include your page. There's a much faster way, the faster way is if the spider finds your website by following a link from another website.

If you can manage to convince a website that is in google to link to you then you will be indexed by the search engines in no time. But how do you get into google in 24 hours? Well the answer is simple. Google spiders index the top websites very often and if you can get one of those top websites to link to you then you will be indexed in less than a day. Google ranks websites by page rank, if you download their toolbar you can see that a small green bar appears and displays what rank a page is once you visit it. Websites that have a page rank (PR) of 7 get indexed very often and if your link is on their website then you can be sure to find your website in google the next day!

Your website doesn't have to be on the homepage of these "Topnotch websites" you can even submit your link to their links directory and the spider will crawl those pages too. Just search google for a keyword that is related to your website and look at the first few website to see their PR, if you find a site with a PR of 6 or 7 that has a links directory then it's your lucky day!

Now you know this little secret that some people sell for hundreds of dollars and you might be thinking "it's so simple and pathetic! How can they sell this stuff?" Well they write huge e-books about the little secrets that not many know about and entice people to buy them by writing catchy sales letters. The simplicity of this explains why many people don't know these secrets, they search for a BIG secret but frankly there is none. That's it!

Tomorrow I will discuss Off-page Optimization and how it is the #1 factor in determining your position in search engines! This will be an exciting day for you I promise (Just like today)!

If you would like to contact me anytime and either complain (why would you!) or give me your testimonial then feel free to do so anytime. I'm there if you need any more help also.

Five and a Half Ways to Amp Up Your Search Engine Optimization

2009-07-17T07:51:00.000-07:00

Statistics show that 85% of pages visited on the Internet come from people who have gotten there from a search engine.

Statistically, people look first at the top of the first page of the regular search results, then the bottom, and then they go to the sponsored listings.

There is an art and science to being ranked highly on the search engines. The science is formatting the pages with the right meta
tags and submitting them in the right way to the search engines. The art is to make the site look and read normal in spite of filling it with key words.

Here are five and a half ways to get a higher ranking and more visitors:

1. Pick the right Key Words and Phrases

These are the words and phrases that people will put into search engines to try to find your product, business or organization. Having good key words and phrases is foundational to have good optimization. This takes research using such tools at Wordtracker and Overture's Keyword Suggestion Tool. They give you a good idea of what people are searching for and what you should focus on.

2. Use Good Header Tags

Header tags are hidden in the code within your Web page. The most important one is the "title" tag, which isn't considered a META tag. It tells what's within your page and it's important to have your keyphrases in it. It is also good to have keyphrases in your "description" META tag, though it doesn't rank nearly as high as the "title" tag.

3. Use Keyphrases in Your Visible Page Title

Provide a unique title to each page on your site that is chock full of key words and phrases. Search engines like this because it means that there is a higher probability that your site is a good match for what people are looking for. This is should be placed within the H1 tag (top heading) of your page and is visible to the visitor. It also pays to have your keyphrases in subtitles on the page.

4. Provide Plenty of Content on Your Site

Shoot to have at least 450 characters on your page. Concentrate on putting key words and phrases in the first paragraph and last paragraphs.

5. Secure a Lot of Related Incoming Links

The more sites linked to your site, the higher you will be ranked by the search engines. These links can be from strategic partners, vendors, directories or other types of sites with whom you exchange links.

If you are a web site developer, put in your contract that you are going to put a developer's link at the bottom of the site, such as, "Web site design by Green Chair Marketing Group," with an active link to your site. This will help your site grow in its link popularity.

5.5 Keep Optimizing Your Site

The more content on your site, the better. I suggest adding a couple pages a month, whether it's case studies, more product information, testimonials, articles, press releases, etc. If you add just five new pages a month, you will have 60 new pages by the end of the year, and over 100 pages by the end of the second year.

You are bound to catch some people you would have missed because there is more content to choose from. And your site will be more highly ranked by Google, because they highly weigh sites that have more content.

While you're at it, continue to get relevant links coming into your site. Google loves incoming links. And you might have people click through to your site from these other places.

If you don't have time to work on the optimization or would feel more comfortable having someone else do it, consider strongly hiring a professional to do your search engine optimization. That way you can focus your energies on sales or creating more and better product.

One caveat, I would stay away from companies that initiate contact with you through emails or phone calls. They often use techniques that can get your severely penalized by the search engines. Ask people you know who have been successful in their search engine positioning who they use.

Keep Your Web Site Content Relevant

2009-07-17T07:49:00.000-07:00

Visitors and search engines love content-rich web sites, but just having a lot of content on your web site is not enough. It all has to be relevant to a main topic with each page or section of the web site having a specific theme (And yes, this includes any resource or links pages the site may have). Each page should have its own topic and content should not stray to a different topic.

If you are promoting your graphic design business and have a page on business card design, stay on the topic and refrain from using a page title such as "Graphic Design company in Vancouver, Canada - business cards, logos, letterheads". Your want the business card design to be the most important key phrase.

There are two main reasons for content relevancy. The first is so that visitors have an easy time understanding the flow of your web site. Visitors who have to search through multiple pages to find the information they're looking for won't be visitors much longer. The average web site user takes about three seconds to decide whether or not stay on a site. A clear idea of what your site is about should be apparent immediately, followed by easy navigation to other pages that display further topics in more detail.

The second reason for keeping content relevant throughout your web site is for search engine algorithms. Keyword relevancy is an important part of search engine optimization. The more relevant your web site's content is for a specific term, the more likely the site is to show up near the top of search results for the term.

Keyword density is another big deal with search engines. There is an optimal ratio of key terms to the overall amount of text that must be used for search engine optimization purposes. The more unrelated terms that are used consistently throughout the content will bring down the percentage of more important keywords. Keyword density matters throughout an entire web site, not just on certain pages.

Other areas to keep an eye on are the contact page, about us page, and any other pages that you may not think are important to have optimized for search engines such as advertising info, privacy policy, etc. For instance, some web sites have pages devoted to reciprocal links. There's nothing wrong with them unless you link out to a lot of unrelated web sites. The keywords that are used in the anchor text and surrounding description text will detract from your overall site content if they are not related. Incoming links from unrelated sites are fine, but keep in mind that the links page counts as part of your web site as a whole.

Consider using a reciprocal links page as more of a resource for visitors instead of a long list of irrelevant sites. This not only appeases search engines but your visitors as well. And as mentioned before, both visitors and search engines should be kept in mind when creating web site content.

The Secret To Getting Indexed In Yahoo

2009-07-17T07:44:00.000-07:00

Getting indexed in Yahoo has become very difficult in the last few months. The indexing robot, Yahoo!Slurp, has become erratic. For some sites, the robot will view all pages, but only add a few to the Yahoo database. For other sites, sub-domain listings actually start disappearing! So, what's the secret to getting indexed?

Pleasing Yahoo!Slurp

The secret to getting indexed in Yahoo involves constant updates to your site. The updates, however, have to be done on both the site and through Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. Here's how you go about getting indexed.

The first step is to start a blog for your site. You can build a blog on your site or use a free service. I prefer blogger.com because it is easy to use, but you can use whatever you like. Once you have your blog up, you should make entries that correspond and link to content on your site. For example, I will post this article on my blog, Moshing Search Engines, and link it to the article page on MarketingTitan.com.

To supercharge the impact of the blog, you should also link to a site map on your site. If you don't have a site map, make one in HTML. The Yahoo robot will definitely follow it and index the pages. Don't rely on the xml site map strategy Google is promoting.

Once you have the blog up with content posted, you must turn the blog into a real simple syndication feed. Again, you can use your own system. I prefer to use a free service because I really don't have the time to waste on such things.

Feedburner.com seems to work find and is simple to use. Opening an account with Feedburner is so easy, I am not even going to explain it. At the end of the process, feedburner will kick out the link for your RSS feed. Here's where the magic begins.

If you have a yahoo email account, you need to access you're My Yahoo page. If you don't have an account, get one! Once you are on the My Yahoo page, do the following:

1. Click the "add content" link in the upper left hand under the search box.

2. When the new page opens, click the "Add RSS by URL" link on the right of the "Find Content" search box in the upper section of the page.

3. Enter the exact link provided by Feedburner and click "add." Do NOT add the url for your blog.

4. Click the "My Yahoo" tab at the top of the page and refresh the page.

At this point, you should see your feed at the bottom of the page. If you don't, be patient. Yahoo is sometimes slow, so just try it again in an hour or so. When the feed is added, you should see the name of your blog and the title of each post under it. Yahoo can take up to a day to add new posts, so don't panic if they don't show up immediately.

Once you've completed the above, Yahoo will follow the links in the blog and index the pages on your site. If one of the links goes to a site map, you are in business. As an added bonus, Google will do the same thing. Let's look at an example.

We are currently building NomadJournalTrips.com, which has been up for about a month. Roughly 10 to 20 pages are being added each day. Nomad Rick's Ramblings is the blog for the site and the feed is included on four "My Yahoo" pages for various email accounts. Yahoo has indexed 95 pages and is about four days behind the page additions. Google has indexed 151 pages and is adding to the index every day. The blog and RSS feed are solely responsible for getting these pages indexed this quickly.

Depending on the size of your site, the process can take a few days or a couple of weeks. Every time you add new content, slap it into your blog with links. In no time, you will be taming Yahoo!Slurp.

How To Avoid These Ten Costly Search Engine Mistakes

2009-07-17T07:40:00.000-07:00

If you have a website then you already know the importance of traffic. Traffic is to Internet marketing as location is to real estate. It's the only thing that really matters. If you cannot generate targeted visitors to your site, you will not make any sales.

Usually the owner or designer of the website is the person designated to drive traffic to the site. The chief ingredient in generating traffic is the search engine. Of coarse, you can use advertising, but it's going to cost you. Using the search engines to generate targeted (interested in your product) traffic is the least expensive method known.

Unfortunately, many website owners do not understand the importance of search engine visibility, which leads to traffic. They place more importance on producing a "pretty" website. Not that this is bad, but it is really secondary to search engine placement. Hopefully, the following list of common mistakes, made by many website owners, will help you generate more targeted traffic to your site...after all, isn't that what you want.

1. Not using keywords effectively.
This is probably one of the most critical area of site design. Choose the right keywords and potential customers will find your site. Use the wrong ones and your site will see little, if any, traffic.

2. Repeating the same keywords.
When you use the same keywords over and over again (called keyword stacking) the search engines may downgrade (or skip) the page or site.

3. Robbing pages from other websites.
How many times have you heard or read that "this is the Internet and it's ok" to steal icons and text from websites to use on your site. Don't do it. Its one thing to learn from others who have been there and another to outright copy their work. The search engines are very smart and usually detect page duplication. They may even prevent you from ever being listed by them.

4. Using keywords that are not related to your website.
Many unethical website owners try to gain search engine visibility by using keywords that have nothing at all to do with their website. They place unrelated keywords in a page (such as "sex", the name of a known celebrity, the hot search topic of the day, etc.) inside a meta tag for a page. The keyword doesn't have anything to do with the page topic. However, since the keyword is popular, they think this will boost their visibility. This technique is considered spam by the search engines and may cause the page (or sometimes the whole site) to be removed from the search engine listing.

5. Keyword stuffing.
Somewhat like keyword stacking listed above, this means to assign multiple keywords to the description of a graphic or layer that appears on your website by using the "alt=" HTML parameter. If the search engines find that this text does not really describe the graphic or layer it will be considered spam.

6. Relying on hidden text.
You might be inclined to think that if you cannot see it, it doesn't hurt. Wrong.... Do not try to hide your keywords or keyword phrases by making them invisible. For example, some unethical designers my set the keywords to the same color as the background of the web page; thereby, making it invisible.

7. Relying on tiny text.
This is another version of the item above (relying on hidden text). Do not try to hide your keywords or keyword phrases by making them tiny. Setting the text size of the keywords so small that it can barely be seen does this.

8. Assuming all search engines are the same.
Many people assume that each search engine plays by the same rules. This is not so. Each has their own rule base and is subject to change anytime they so desire. Make it a point to learn what each major search engine requires for high visibility.

9. Using free web hosting.
Do not use free web hosting if you are really serious about increasing site traffic via search engine visibility. Many times the search engines will eliminate content from these free hosts.

10. Forgetting to check for missing web page elements.
Make sure to check every page in your website for completeness, like missing links, graphics, etc. There are sites on the web that will do this for free.

This is just a few of the methods and techniques that you should avoid. Do not give in to the temptation that these methods will work for you. They will do more harm than good for your website.

Not only will you spend weeks of wasted effort, you may have your site banned from the search engines forever. Invest a little time to learn the proper techniques for increasing search engine visibility and your net traffic will increase.

Crash Course in Getting a #1 Google Ranking

2009-07-17T07:39:00.000-07:00

First, here's the rundown of some of the terminology I'm going to use ?

Inbound Links ? Links coming into your site
Outbound Links ? Links leaving your site
Cross Links ? Links that you have "traded" with another site (ie, they've got a link from their site to your and you've got a link from your site to theirs)
PR (Page Ranking) ? Google's measure of how "important" your site is

SEO Is Not Dead

Ok, now lets talk about what you really want to hear ? how to get those coveted 1-10 ranks for your keywords. Remember this - SEO is not dead. In fact, it is very much alive and important. The first thing to do in order to raise your site rank is target specific keywords. I say specific, because you need to target "keyphrases," meaning more than one word keywords. Some people use the words interchangeably (me included) so just ignore one-word keywords altogether. You will waste your money if you shoot for these, because chances are, there are other, MUCH larger companies who already have you beat, and will continue to have you beat unless you've got a bottomless wallet.

Check Out Your Competition

Take this example, for instance, if you sell computers, you should not try to optimize your site for the keyword "computer" or "computers." First, think about all of the businesses that do ANYTHING with computers. Yeah, that's a lot. They'll all show up if you search for "computer." Now try to think of who would show up at the top of that list. I'll make it easy, it's Apple, Dell, Computer World, Computer Associates, IEEE, Computer History Museum, Webopedia, ASUSTeK, WhatIs.com, and HP. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I 99.9% guarantee you that you'll never get into that top 10 list. The HP link has almost 5,000 backlinks (discussed later) and a PR of 7/10. Good luck.

Then What Should I Do?

So what should you try to target? Lets re-visit your computer store. What types do you sell? PCs, ok, what types of PCs? Custom. Ok, that's a little better, "Custom Computers" is still a vague keyword, though. (How many people build custom computers?) What kind of components do you use? Intel? AMD? SoundBlaster? GeForce? There you go, that's a little better ? "Custom GeForce Computers." That returned 476k results instead of our previous 633 million with "Computer." Just a little bit less competition.

I Want More

Want to go further? Forget what types you sell, go for what do your customers want. What do they use your computers for? Gaming? Try "Custom Gaming Computers" - There are 672,000 results here, but the #1 spot has a PR of 5/10 and only 41 backlinks. That shouldn't be too hard to beat, we've just got to know who is linking to them, and beat them at the backlink game.

Oh yeah, before we move on to beating the pulp out of your competition, don't forget to SEO optimize your site for your chosen keywords before spending any time on backlinks. Otherwise, this next section won't mean much.

But I Digress?

Ok, now that your site is thoroughly optimized, how do we find out who their backlinks are? Well, you can do it by hand, or you can purchase a VERY helpful tool called SEO Elite (http://www.GetSEOElite.com) that will analyze all of the backlinks to a site (and more). But, since you don't have SEO Elite yet, we'll do it the long way.

First, go to toolbar.google.com and download the Google toolbar, this will save you some time. Ok, now type in your keywords ? "Custom Gaming Computers." The first link should be overdrivepc.com (if it's not, then someone may have already read this column and risen above them!) click to go there. When the page loads, go to your Google Toolbar, click on Options > "More" Tab > Make sure the "Page Info" box is checked. Then, click on the blue circle with the i in it. (This is the aptly named: "Page Info") It should drop down and allow you to select "Backward Links," choose it. Now you should be looking at a Google search page again, but this one is different, it only shows pages that link to overdrivepc.com. (Wow, that's handy!) At the time of this article, there are 41 pages that link to the site, and you can view them all. Some are other pages in the site, others are third parties.

Get Your Site Some Friends!

Follow each third party link and check out the page. Does it have to do with your business? Would their visitors benefit from coming to your site? (The answer is probably yes) If so, email the webmaster - there should be an email address somewhere on the site. Ask him or her if they would link to your site. Be willing to trade links with them, or to pay for a good link with a high PR. That reminds me ? look just to the left of the Page Info icon on your Google toolbar, and you should see a green bar. That is the Page Rank of the page you're currently on. You want to target pages with higher page ranks than your own, because for each of those sites that link to yours, they effectively "give" you a little bit of their PR. Kinda like in high school when the head of the cheerleading squad flirted with the nerd in the hallway, she "gave" him more popularity.

By the way, if you can manage to get a link from the #1 site itself, do it!

Do this for all of these links you can, then move on to the #2 listing for your keywords. Then #3, and so on. Don't get discouraged if some webmasters don't reply to you, it may take an email or two. If they say no, thank them for their time and move on. I try my best not to burn any bridges ? you never know when you'll need to contact that webmaster again, and if he remembers you were polite, that will make you look good.

Whew, Finally Done.

This is a very easy way to move up the Google SERPS, no "expertise" required, just good old-fashioned hard work. It will take some time for Google to re-index those pages and realize that they have a link to you now. And it will take even longer for your PR to go up (from what I hear, it's been around 3-4 months since the last PR change [Today is 7/14/2005]) But be patient, get links upon links, and keep adding great content to your site, and you will jump up in the SERPS by leaps and bounds.

To Your Success, and Your #1 Website!

How To Indirectly Get To The Top Of Search Engines

2009-07-17T07:38:00.001-07:00

There are millions of web sites trying to get listed in the top 20 spots of the major search engines. That amounts to a lot of competition! Even if your website can't get in the Top 20, you can use indirect ways to get it there.

How do you do this? By using the success of others to your advantage. Look up the top 20 web sites on the major search engines under the keywords and phrases people would find your web site. The key would be to your website's link on those web sites.

The most expensive way would be to buy ad space on those web sites. If you don't want to spend any money, you could use the ten strategies below. These strategies may not apply to every web site.

1. Participate on their discussion boards. You could post questions, answer other peoples questions, and join in on conversations. Just include your signature file and link at the end of your messages. This is a great way to build link popularity for your website.

2. Ask the web site owner if they would like a f.ree ebook to giveaway to their visitors. You could have them link to your web site or include your ad in the f.ree ebook.

3. Submit content to their web site. You could write articles for their web site and include your resource box and link at the end of the article. If they publish it, you'll indirectly be at the top of the search engines and your site's link popularity will soar!

4. Write an excellent article review of their web site, products or services. Then publish the review on your web site. E-mail the web site owner and tell him or her about it. They may link to your web site so their visitors read it.

5. Ask the owner of the web site if they would want to trade advertising. If you don't get as much traffic as they do, you could throw in some extra incentives.

6. Propose a cross p.romotion deal with the web site. You both could promote each others products or services together in one package deal. This means a mention and link back to your web site.

7. Give the web site a testimonial for their product or service. Include a little text link for your web site with the testimonial. You n.ever know; it could end up on their ad copy.

8. Post your advertisement on their free classified ad section on their web site. You want to be sure you have an attractive headline so they will read your ad.

9. Post your text link on their f.ree-for-all links page. You want to go back and post your link regularly so it stays towards the top.

10. Sign their guest books. You could leave a short compliment about their web site on their guest book. Just include your signature file and link at the end of your message.

If your site is not in the Top 20 positions in the search engines, then your goal should be to get your site's link on those sites that are there. Using these indirect methods mentioned in this article should help you to accomplish just exactly that.

Answers Count - Matching Keyword and Phrase Density

2009-07-17T07:35:00.000-07:00

What's more important to your business success - the question or the answer? Certainly, you want your questions to reflect what you are trying to find out. Obviously, your questions should be easily understood. Most definitely, you're hoping for some positive responses. But, what you really need to do is count repetitive keywords and phrases found in your respondents answers.

If you agree with the philosophy about how people tend to buy from the perspective of avoiding pain and moving towards pleasure, you know how important it is to your market research, product development and sales strategy to ask good questions and listen very closely to the answers.

Open-ended answers are made up of the words respondents have chosen to tell you how they feel about something. You need to analyze the answers to open-ended questions for repetitive keywords and phrases that match those of your current or future products and services. The greater the density of the keyword and phrase matches the higher the probability of building your opt-in list or making a sale.

The key to your business success is combining everybody's answers and counting the density of repetitive keywords and phrases to help you craft your products and services into search engine friendly content pages you can use to build your opt-in list, make a sale, generate pay-per-click revenue or leverage affiliate income opportunities.

"Learn & Do" Action Steps:

1. Design your questions for open-ended response.

2. Count the number of repetitive keywords and phrases.

3. Build your page content around keywords and phrase density.

4. Set up your lead in ads to match your keywords and phrase density.

5. Create links to non-competitive offerings with matching keywords and phrases.

The Modern Day Search Engine

2009-07-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

The first task most netizens do when they log on to the internet is to visit their favorite search engine to find information on various topics. Over the past few years the search engine has evolved to do more than list available websites on an entered subject. The modern day search engine has tools to help the user accomplish a vast array of everyday task.

Search engine is a common term to describe a tool used to find relevant webpages on an entered subject. But, there are actually two types of search engines, the indexers like Google and Alta Vista that actually search the internet based on keywords, and the directories like Yahoo and Exactseek which provides a list of sites based on predefined categories. These two types of search engines provide the bulk of searches requested by users.

These engines help the user find everything from small sites like RecoveryPets.Com, who specialize in the global recovery of lost pets, located at http://www.recoverypets.com, or larger sites like WebMD who provide medical information for patients and doctors, and their website is http://www.webmd.com. But, these are just the basic services that these engines provide, and the everyday web surfer relies on the more advance features to successfully navigate the web.

Directories such as Yahoo that offer services for every age group of surfer, from chat groups to their find people services aimed at helping the surfer locate people they have not been in contact with for awhile. They also provide discussion groups to relate ideas with others that may share the surfers interest, and mail free mail services so that everyone on the internet can have a email address.

Indexers like Google provides their uses with a vast array of tools also, and the most used of these is their groups section that enable others to share ideas on different subjects and topics. The newest of these services offered by this indexer is Froogle, which is an online merchant center that allows users to find various products listed within their service, and finally is their images that allow you to enter a search term and view only the images of the term entered.

These search engines are user friendly so that the most novice of internet users can successfully navigate the web, and the most savvy internet surfers can use their advance features to accomplish the task they set out to do. Even though these are the most known search engines, there are thousands of smaller engines that are user specific on everything from family to travel planning, it is up to you to support these engines so that they can continue bring us the services we use.

Although this is just a small listing of the services provided by search engines, and every engine is different, we suggest that a wide variety of engines be visited to find out the services they provide. As is evident the modern day search engine has evolved greatly from just a site listing service, and with time they will be able to bring searchers more services that aid the everyday netizen in the quest to navigate the internet more efficiently.

To Understand the Success of Website Ranking

2009-07-17T06:47:00.000-07:00

Time is a factor
To obtain positive results is not very fast to achieve. It always takes time to reach a good ranking on search engines since there are millions of web pages to be indexed in their databases. So it takes approximately between six months & one year to see ranking results according to new strategies set by search engines specifically Google, taking into consideration of doing the least effort to reach so. At frequent basis you will need to add new fresh text content & resubmit every time a significant change is done to your website. Always make sure that the submission process is done manually otherwise the automated system could lead your site to become penalized since spiders have the capability to identify them.

How search engine spiders index pages

Spiders are completely automated programs made by search engine companies in order to web crawl pages then take keywords & index them in databases to return the search results you find. The conclusion above explains that spiders do not understand anything about what your site says , they ranking system is done automatically, therefore before any submission action takes place make sure the guidelines are followed properly.

Spiders cannot recognize any images or graphics; instead you should rely on text as an alternative to be read in graphic or design areas in the page. Also make sure that the most important paragraph appears on top of the page in addition to keeping navigation simple & in text format.

Places your keywords should appear for optimized ranking.

- Title tags/ place the keywords in your title tag that match the ones placed in your text content.

- File names

- Meta tags/in terms of the keyword & description tags, although search engines do not put intense emphasis on them, they are still important to be taken into consideration. Make paragraph short & concise & always place keywords existing in your text.

- Alt tags/ represented in the form of text placed on image, since spiders cannot interpret any image therefore placing text keywords is the alternative.

- Frames/ if they are essential then you need to place tag in your HTML code.

Monia Hassan is specialized in providing SEO services. Working for Moon Search Engine Optimization(http://www.moonsearchengineoptimization.com) company specialized in SEO services.

Writing SEO articles is part of her task, to help increase people knowledge of what trends are used by search engines on an updated basis.

Copywriters: Make Friends with Search Engine Optimization

2009-07-16T12:34:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but I felt a lot of internal resistance when it was first suggested to me that I write 'for' the search engines.

Years of training and habit, and a lot of pride, turned me against the idea of adjusting or changing my copy to suit 'spiders'. It's about the reader, not some computer. Right?

The whole thing smelled of compromise to me. And as us ego-driven writers all know, compromise is not something we like.

Well, I'm pleased to say that my pride finally shuffled off to one side a bit and allowed me a more objective look at the whole thing.

And now, well, I'm something of a convert. I have been for quite a while now.

Not because I have made that 'compromise'. But because it became evident to me that both spiders and readers are looking for exactly the same thing...

Relevance.

Spiders are becoming more and more sophisticated in determining the relevance of a page when matched to a keyword or phrase that is typed in by the user. In short, pages that are most likely to satisfy the needs of the reader are being delivered first.

The spider looks for relevance. And the reader hopes for it.

And that's where the writer comes in. Using Overture's Search Suggestion tool, or something a little more sophisticated, like Wordtracker, you can research which words and phrases are being used most frequently by people in search for your kind of page. These are great resources for writers, allowing us to drill right down to the words that our prospects and customers use.

And how better to make them feel they have come to the right place than to greet them with the exact words and phrases they are looking for?

And once you start getting really serious about being relevant to the needs of your visitors, the implications begin to snowball. Not only do you start writing in a very relevant way, but it also makes you start thinking about more fundamental issues ? like the structure and architecture of the site in general.

Reciprocal Link Exchange Management Software

2009-07-16T12:33:00.000-07:00

When shopping online for Link Management Software that can help create and automate your links directory, some important features that you should look for are as follows:

The software should,

Create the links page based on your own template.

- Allow addition or removal of links at the click of a button and have the links page rebuilt.

- Allow webmasters to submit their site.

- Notify you when a webmaster has submitted their site and give you the option of accepting or rejecting their submission. .

- Automatically check whether link partners linked back to you.

- Help to automate the process of finding new partners.

Be easy to install.

The key to success for a website or online business is good search engine ranking. All of the major search engines use link popularity to determine how well a site will rank so the more high quality, relevant links that lead to your site, the higher it will rank.

There are a number of link management software scripts on the market but the one that I really enjoy using is LinkMachine. This is a relatively new link exchange management software that does not require an mySQL database and is very extremely to install. This software makes it very easy to find and contact quality link partners, generate custom link pages that match your site, and keep track of reciprocal links. LinkMachine automatically updates your link pages the instant they're changed - no uploading required. Link exchanges increase a site's targeted traffic, search engine ranking, and sales.

LinkMachine finds hundreds of popular, relevant sites to potentially exchange links with. Invite the webmasters of these sites to exchange links, using LinkMachine's fast e-mail templates. Generate custom link pages that perfectly match the look of your site. And keep track of each reciprocal link to your site.

LinkMachine is a Php application that runs on your web server. So it can automatically update your link pages the moment a change is made - no need to upload files each time a new link is added.

There is a free 10 day trial and a 30 day money back guarantee.

Meta Tags - What Are They and Which Search Engines Use Them?

2009-07-16T12:31:00.001-07:00

Defining Meta Tags is much easier than explaining how they are used, and by which engines. The reason is very few engines clearly lay out what they do and do not look at, and how much emphasis they put on any one factor. So, we'll start with the easy part

Meta Tags are lines of HTML code embedded into web pages that are used by search engines to store information about your site.

These "tags" contain keywords, descriptions, copyright information, site titles and more. They are among the numerous things that the search engines look for, when trying to evaluate a web site. Meta Tags are not "required" when you're creating web pages. Unfortunately, many web site operators who don't use them are left wondering why the saying "If I build it they will come" didn't apply to their site.

There's also a few naysayers in the search engine optimization industry who claim that Meta Tags are useless. You can believe them if you like, but you would be wise not to. While not technically "required", Meta Tags are essential.

If you simply create a web site and register the URL with the search engines, their spiders will visit your site, and attempt to index it. Each search engine operates slightly differently, and each one weighs different elements of a web site according to their own proprietary algorithms. For example, Altavista places an emphasis on the description tag and Inktomi states on their web site that;

Inktomi "(...) indexes both the full text of the Web page you submit as well as the meta-tags within the site's HTML."

Other search engines like Exactseek are true meta tag search engines which clearly state their policy:

"Your site will not be added if it does not have Title and Meta Description tags."

They also use the keywords tag.

Of course, not all search engines work this way. Some place their emphasis on content. The search engines have over 100 individual factors they look at when reviewing a web site. Some of these factors deal with page structure. They check to see that all the 't's are crossed, and the 'i's dotted. They note sites that have omitted basic steps, like missing tags.

One reason so many engines de-emphasized the meta-keyword tag had to do with spam. There was a time when 'search engine promotion specialists' would cram keywords tags full of irrelevant information. The web site would be selling garbage cans, but the keywords tags were chock full of irrelevant terms like "mp3" or "Britney Spears". They figured that if enough people visited their site, some would buy.

So today, to avoid and penalize this kind of abuse, some search engines don't specifically use the keywords tag as part of the scoring of a site, but they monitor the keywords to ensure they match the content in the site. The reasoning being that, if the tags are irrelevant, they must have an alternate purpose. Is it a spam site? When keywords tags are completely irrelevant to the content, some search engines, that don't specifically use keywords tags, will penalize that web site.

Even for those engines that have downplayed the value of Meta Tags, there are situations where Meta Tags gain considerably in importance, e.g. sites with rich graphics, but poor textual content. Unfortunately, a picture is worth 1000 words to you and me, but zero to a search engine. If a site has poor textual content, the engines will be more dependent than ever on the Meta Tags to properly categorize it.

Even if you ensure you have completely relevant Meta Tags, some search engines will still ignore them. But better they ignore them, than they ignore your whole site because they suspect something is less than above board. Never hope that having Meta Tags will make the difference in all the search engines; nothing is a substitute for good content. But in cases where the engine depends on that content, it may be the only thing that does work for your site.

So How To Use The Meta Tags?

Meta tags should always be placed in the area of an HTML document. This starts just after the tag, and ends immediately before the tag. Here's how the most basic set should look:

Search Engine Optimization Software - Metamend

Always make sure that your meta tags do not have any line breaks, otherwise the search engines will just see bad code and ignore them. You should also avoid use of capitals in your code (html5 standard) as well as repetition of terms within the keywords tag.

What Goes Into a Meta Tag?

For the Description tag: ; Many search engines will display this summary along with the title of your page in their search results. Keep this reasonably short, concise and to the point, but make sure that it's an appropriate reflection of your site content.

For the keyword tag;

Keywords represent the key terms that someone might enter into a search engine. Choose only relevant keywords. If the terms are going to appear in your keywords tag, they must appear in the content of your site, or be a synonym to a term on your site. Most search engines compare your meta content with what is actually on your page, and if it doesn't match, your web site can get penalized, and suffer in search results.

for the Robots tag ;Many web pages have this tag wrong. An example of the wrong usage is content="index, follow, all" - wrong because some spiders can't handle spaces between the words in the tag or the word "all". Most engines by default assume that you want a web page to be indexed and links followed, so using the wrong syntax can actually result in the spider coming to the wrong conclusion and penalizing, or worse, ignoring the page outright. If by chance you do not want your links followed, or the page not indexed, then you would substitute "noindex" and or "nofollow" into the tag.

With the Internet growing at a rate of over 8,000,000 new pages per day, and the search engines adding a fraction of that number, Meta Tags are a common standard which can reasonably ensure a measure of proper categorization for a web site. So, always ensure that you cover all the bases, and use completely relevant terms in properly structured Meta Tags. Using tags properly will pay dividends in the short and long term. After all, using them properly only helps the search engines, which means they will send you more qualified traffic - customers.

About The Author

Richard Zwicky is a founder and the CEO of Metamend Software & Design Ltd., www.metamend.com, a Victoria B.C. based firm whose cutting edge Search Engine Optimization software is recognized as the world leader in its field. Employing a staff of 10, the firm's business comes from around the world, with clients from every continent. Most recently the company was recognized for their geo-locational, or GIS, along with their phraseological and context sensitive search technologies.

articles@metamend.com

What is PageRank?

2009-07-16T12:24:00.001-07:00

Chances are you have been on the Internet and have been surfing in and out of websites looking for valuable information pertaining to a favorite topic or researching a subject for school or work. As you type in keyword(s) you match the information you are searching for on Google, you come up with 10,000 pages of information. It's virtually impossible to go through every one, so you refine your search by adding more exclusive keywords. Voila the number of pages reduces to around 1,000. Still this is a lot of pages, but you start looking through the information to find what you want.

As you go through the first 10 links on the page, WHAM! The information you needed to find was in the first or second in order of PageRank. You wonder how did they get such a high rank on Google? You may think it was very expensive to get that site at the top of the heap. The funny thing is, with a little know how and about $75 you too can go for the top.

Search Engine Optimization or "SEO", has become a standard in the web design industry, every customer of a good web designer wants to be number one in their keyword and may be willing to pay the extra money to get there. A good web designer will dress up a web sites home page to match the requirements of their client on specific keywords. The client will also pay more for the exclusivity to remain there untouched. SEO has become a niche for a lot of web companies. They know if they can get the company to the top fast, the word of mouth will be helpful toward their business.

Through specialized META tags (hidden group of keywords) the web designer will strategically place keywords multiple times in the title bar, keywords, and even as hidden text. Some search engines have figured these tricks of the trade out and have banned certain websites from their indexes. Google has become the engine of choice for a lot of people today. There is a different logic Google uses to calculate page rank and keywords is only a portion of it.

Google actually uses a specialized mathematical equation to place your site in a predetermined order. First things first, if your website is a keyword, that does not automatically give you a top spot. It will take time to move up the ranks and you should register with Google as soon as possible to drive your rank upwards. But just having the right URL (Universal Resource Locator) doesn't guarantee the top spot either. You must also be swapping or reciprocating links with other Google users. The more you use Google websites that are indexed the faster and higher your site will go in the ranks.

A Google robot will visit your site frequently so continue to modify your code and keep checking its rank and status. Eventually, your site will drive up the ranks and land on top. It may take time and work, but you will get the hang of keeping it there once you employ the right mix of keywords with links. Some companies can charge up to $1,000 for the top spot, they employ the same techniques, even though they don't want you to know this. Keep your META tags, title, keywords and content in line with your keywords and continuously look to optimize them. Under no circumstances take another persons keywords off of their code; this is potentially dangerous as you could be violating copyright laws.

Good Luck!!!

Your Website Title Could Be Costing You Money

2009-07-15T09:35:00.000-07:00

Nothing could be simpler than the title you give to your web pages right? Unfortunately, the vast majority of the websites I visit these days have absolutely terrible titles that hurt their online business. The title of your website is a very important part of getting good rankings on most of the major search engines. A good title also goes a long way towards getting your prospects to click on your listings.

If you go to Google right now, and type any search phrase you want, you get back a listing of web sites that match the keywords you entered in. If you look closely, you'll notice that each search listing' hyperlink is also the title of that website. The title you choose needs to describe to your prospects what your website is all about. It needs to be able to entice your prospects to click on your listing over any other listing. If your title is simply your company name, you are most likely loosing lots of traffic. You will also find it difficult to rank highly on relevant keywords to your site.

Here are some things to consider:

1. Make sure you use relevant keywords

Keywords are simply search terms that your web site prospects will type into a search engine in order to find you. The keywords you are targeting need to be included in your title. Your keywords also need to be as close to the beginning of the title as it makes sense to do. For example, if you were selling shoes online and you were targeting the keyword "children shoes", you could have a title like "Children's shoes for hard to fit children." Notice how the targeted keywords were at the beginning of the title. Putting your keywords at the front of your title speaks to keyword prominence. Prominence refers to the importance of your keyword in the title. If your main keywords are at the very beginning of the title, it is said to have a prominence of 100%. If they are at the very end of the title, they have a prominence of 0%. As much as possible, you want to have your main keywords appear towards the beginning of your title.

2. Consider using your main keyword twice in your title

If you are optimizing your site to rank well on Google, you should also consider finding a way to include your main keyword twice in the title. The trick is to do this without making the title sound stupid. One way I do this is to use the pipe character between your main keywords. For example, if I was writing a title for a fishing website and the main keyword I was targeting was 'fishing charter' I could repeat the keywords this way, "Fishing Charter Are you ready for a fishing charter you won't soon forget?" This example gets my target keyword at the beginning and manages to repeat it again without making it look stupid.

3. Persuade your prospect to click on your link

The link that your prospects will see when they do a search of your website on a search engine will almost always be the title of your website. Even if you get to the first page on a search engine for the keywords you are targeting, you still need to persuade your prospect to click on your link over all the others around you. If you title is not persuasive, or even non-existent, you won't get the traffic you expect even if you are number one in the listings. Your title must be persuasive.

4. Say what you want in 65 characters or less.

Almost all search engines limit the length of the title that will appear to the search engine surfer. Google for instance, only displays the first 60 to 66 characters. Sometimes, a webmaster will try to include every one of their keywords in the title in the hope that all of their keywords will be picked up by the search engines. Keep your main keyword prominent in the first 65 characters of your title. Do this while making sure that your title is properly targeted to your target market. You can include your secondary keywords in the body of your web page, but keep them out of the title unless it makes sense to keep them in. The rule of thumb for including secondary keywords in your title is to include them only if you can still keep the title persuasive to your website prospects.

Your website title is crucial to your success online.

Your title is vital to your efforts of getting traffic online. Make sure it is descriptive, and persuasive. It needs to include your main keywords as close to the start of your title as it makes sense to do. You need to avoid repeating the same keywords over and over again. This may work for keywords that have little or no competition on them, but it won't work for any keyword that gets even a decent amount of traffic on them.

Choosing a good domain name isnt always so simple.

2009-07-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

So you need a domain name for your brand new internet business. You may even have some cool ideas for a new domain name combination that will really impress your friends. Question is, is your new domain name going to help your business or hurt it?

What could be simpler than choosing a domain name right? Wrong. There are a number of things you need to consider and research before you register your favorite domain name.

First off, what is a domain name and why would I want one?

A domain name makes our lives much easier when surfing the internet. You see, all computers on the internet are actually referenced with what is called IP addresses. On the internet, IP addresses are four sets of numbers that serve like street addresses allowing two computers to talk over a network. An example of an IP address is the one for Google.com. It is 216.239.39.99. If you enter this IP address into the address bar of your browser it will bring you to Google's home page in that very same way that typing www.google.com would get you there. Unfortunately, we humans have difficulty remembering our phone numbers let alone so many digits for all kinds of sites. That's one of the main reasons domain names were invented.

Domain names make it easy for us humans to remember how to find a site. Most people know Google.com and anyone familiar with the internet knows that to reach Google, you simply type www.google.com in your address bar and you are transported to their website. The same goes for Disney.com, Microsoft.com, CNN.com, etc?

Now you would think that choosing a domain name would simply be a matter of choosing something that is unique and that people would remember. The problem with that approach is that most of us don't have the money needed to turn our name into a brand name on the mass market. Most of us need to rely on our prospects reaching our website through other means. The best of these are search engines.

Choosing a good domain name for your site starts with the main keywords you have chosen to focus on for your website. Before you launch your business, you should conduct some preliminary research online to determine which keywords have the most traffic and the least number of other websites competing for that particular keyword. Some tools that help in this are the Overture keyword suggestion tool and Wordtracker.com. Both of these tools will give you a rough idea of how much traffic each of your chosen keywords will likely get each month. This helps to determine which keywords to focus on.

Should you choose a domain name that includes your main keywords?

In most cases, the answer is yes. Google and to some degree Yahoo both give you a small boost for your domain name. If your domain name happens to contain your targeted keywords, your domain name will help you in your quest for higher search engine rankings. Now if you do everything else wrong, having your main keywords in your domain name will not magically catapult you to the top of the listings. Many other parts of your site must be working for you as well. Other things you can do to improve rankings are beyond the scope of this article.

Choosing a keyword rich domain is a smart business move.

For some sites, it could be the edge they need to move up a few spots in the search engines. When choosing a keyword rich domain name, you may want to consider hyphens between your keywords. An example is cheap-airline-tickets.com. Current research trends for Google and Yahoo suggest that hyphens are the only way to separate keywords within a URL that will give you a rankings boost.

Why not simply choose your company name? Simple. Is your company a household name? Are you so dominant in a category that people have stopped referring to the generic name of your category and use your brand name like Kleenex has for tissue paper? If so, register your company name. If not, register a keyword rich domain wherever possible.

You may be thinking, "But I already own a domain name that is my company name. Should I go and register a new domain and point it to the same site? The short answer is no. Years ago, you could improve your rankings on search engines simply by setting up lots of doorway pages and having them all link back to your home page with all kinds of domain names. That tactic nowadays can backfire. You are better off optimizing individual pages within your existing website than you are creating a whole bunch of "fluff" sites just to increase rankings.

The technique I suggest above is really best suited for brand new business ventures. If you still have not registered your domain name for that special online business you are about to start, then make it keyword rich wherever possible. If you have already launched your business, you'll just have to take advantage of this information next time you start another online venture.

How To Get Listed In Google For Free

2009-07-14T11:59:00.000-07:00

Below I show you 7 great ways to increase your chances of a Google ranking.

The Basics

Ensure that your website has a clear navigation system ? and by that I man that the reader of your website can get to every main page of your website, from every other page. There's nothing more annoying as a user of a website than finding yourself lost in the middle of a site with no way to find other information other than using the back button. A search engine spider (the program that the search engine uses to index your site) doesn't have a back button so will just give up.

Check the links in your site ? broken links will also stop a spider in its tracks.

Try not to use text contained in graphics or images ? spiders can't read these either.

Don't use the front page of your website to automatically redirect the viewer to another page. The spider sees this as spam, and in Google this can get your site banned!

Content Is King

It's said all the time, but it's true. Think of the phrases you would like people to type into the search engines to find your site and include them in the copy of the site. At heart, a search engine is just a database and works quite logically ? make it easy for the spider to know what your site is about. (However, beware of repeating phrases too often on your page ? this is seen as spam and will be detrimental to your listing. Aim for no more than 3 times on a 100 word page)

Headlines

Once you have a list of phrases you would like to use to promote your site, use them as titles on each page of your site. Inside Business Northampton might have pages titled in ways such as 'Business Promotion Northampton ? Inside Business' and 'Advertising Northants ? Inside Business'.

Choose two or more word phrases to increase your chances of good listings ? the less people you're competing against, the more chance you have in a short amount of time.

The Links Effect

Google is quite unique in that it sees sites with lots of links back to them as quite important. The more links you have from well-trafficked sites, the higher 'PR' level it gives you. Although this isn't the be all and end all of getting high listings, it is helpful.

If you're a printing company, approach other related businesses (such as companies offering corporate gifts) with websites and ask them to link to you, making the text for your link one of your key phrases (e.g. printers in Northampton)

If you can get links to your site from sites that are already in Google listings, then you have more chance of being indexed quickly.

Directories

Submit your website to the Yahoo Directory and the Open Directory Project ? both of these sites directly filter their results into Google and increase your chances of getting into Google listings. For an article on submitting to the Open Directory Project, please click here.

Submission

Don't forget to submit your site to Google directly! It's amazing how many people forget this simple thing.

It's true that Google is great at picking up sites without them being submitted, by following links from other sites, trawling the web, etc, but the sure fire way of making sure that they know about your site is by visiting the Add URL page on Google Itself.

Patience is a Virtue

Results don't happen overnight. Google can take between 6 and 18 weeks to even LIST your site, and then longer to move it up the listings for the phrases you want.

It's time consuming and can be hit and miss when you're learning ? but ANYONE can learn to get a site to the top of Google ? don't listen to those that tell you it's impossible.

I hope that's helped some of you to make the most of your website and Google

How To Design A Search Engine Friendly Website

2009-07-14T11:57:00.001-07:00

There are many websites that fail to target their required traffic, even if they've had some search engine optimisation work done. One of the main causes for this is simply because the website isn't search engine friendly. This is a basic essential that needs to be incorporated into the design of all websites at the outset ? think of it as the foundation to establishing your search engine optimisation strategy.

This article aims to highlight the areas a web designer should think about and incorporate into their design for maximum search engine effectiveness:

1. Search Engine Friendly Pages

It is important that when you design your website you not only bear in mind what your website requirements are, but also what the requirements are for search engines. Best way to approach this is to remember that search engines don't really care about how nice or complicated your graphics or flash movies are, or how snazzy your javascript is. Instead search engines look at the code behind your page. Therefore if you want to impress a search engine, then your code needs to be nice and easy to read. Now from this I don't mean adding 'comment' tags and breaking the lines of code up with spaces, but to ensure that the elements the search engine is interested in, i.e. Title tag, Description tag, Keyword tag (these days only some search engines really use the keyword tag), Alt tag, are readable near the beginning of the code. Search Engines don't like wadding through lines and lines of javascript to get to the core areas that can help you page's ranking. Therefore careful planning and positioning of your page elements is required.

TIPS:
- If you're using table for laying out your page then make them simple and not too complex.
- Avoid using frames.
- If you need javascripts for navigation purposes, then use smaller scripts to call up the bulk of the javascript from a different file.
- Think twice on how to use graphics ? make them relevant to your content and use the Alt tag for all images.
- Position the main content of the page before the images, or at least with the images nested between the text.

2. Keywords

Having good keywords is one of the most important areas to consider when designing a website/webpage.

One of the best tools for this is Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com), which allows you to identify good competitive keywords for your pages.

In general the range of keywords associated to your pages can be very extensive therefore for good concentration and prominence of keywords it is advisable to carefully select the top 10-15 keywords. You can always export the results to Excel and try out other competitive keywords if the ones you selected initially do not produce any noticeable benefits.

TOP TIP:
Wordtracker offer a one day subscription to their service from which you can squeeze nearly 2 ? days worth of use! Here's how ? Sign-up for the service on the evening of Day 1 (the service will be available almost immediately so you can start searching for your competitive keywords straight away). You will also be able to use the service for the whole of Day 2 and strangely for the whole of Day 3! Enough time to get some good keywords for a lot of pages!

3. Content

Many search engines look at the main body of the page and identify keywords and phrases that are used within the text.

TIP:
Use competitive keywords relevant to the purpose of the page within the main body of the page. Always try and ensure that the keywords are prominent within the text body, i.e. they appear near the beginning of the page, they are defined using the 'heading' tag, they are typefaced in bold, or they are used as hyperlinks.

4. Page Title

This is arguably one of the most important areas of a page and needs special attention to ensure that a good title is selected. Similar to many other areas of designing a search engine friendly page, the Page Title should also have a good keyword which describes the page content. To keep within the limits of many search engines the number of words for the Title shouldn't exceed nine.

5. Page Description

Another important area to work on for good ranking is the Page Description. This is the text found under the META Description tag and is displayed to users in the search results. Again, it is a good idea to pay attention to the use of good keywords when writing the description, which should be short (not more than 20-25 words) and sells your page before the user has even opened it!

6. Graphics

We've covered the use of graphics briefly above, emphasising the importance of using an Alt tag containing the relevant keyword(s). Although the use of images can be nice and very appealing to a website, it is also important to bear in mind that they shouldn't overpower the textual content of your page. As a general rule of thumb it is best to stick to a 70/30 ratio (70 text/30 images).

7. Site Map

A Site Map is a fantastic way for search engines to find all your juicy pages on your website. There are many free Site Map tools available on the web that'll create your site map instantly.

8. Navigation Links

Navigation links to other pages on your website should be nice and easy. There are some engines which find it difficult to navigate through to the other pages on your website if the nav bar is too complicated, e.g. complicated pop-ups, use of flash, etc. Therefore if your site does have complicated navigation then it's always a good idea to implement simple text based hyperlinks to your common pages at the bottom of every page on your website.

Following the basic suggestions above will help lay the foundation to apply further good search engine optimisation advice which will make the difference in your overall search engine ranking.

This finer area of SEO is beyond the realm of this document and will require further investment based on individual needs.

If Content is King, then surely Relevance is Queen!

2009-07-14T11:25:00.001-07:00

There has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in the search
engine world of late and there are lots of conspiracy
theories as to why these things happen.

It is easy as a webmaster to get caught up in these webs of
intrigue.

You get email notes about them, you view so-called experts'
thoughts on bulletin Boards - hey you probably even read
things in newsletter articles!

Well I hope so anyway....

The big driver for webmasters currently appears to be
content and link building.

While link building is important I don't believe it makes
Queen. Maybe a Prince. Content and links DO go hand in
hand but, without relevance, the Kingdom is doomed. Sorry I
will stop the analogy now! :-)

If your site is about finance, then finance content is best
supported by finance link exchanges. Relevance!

If your site is about finance, then finance content
supported by casino link exchanges from a PR8 site while in
the short term may help,?but all the signs are saying this
is not a long term strategy.

Okay,so what is the best strategy?

Keep EVERYTHING relevant. It is that simple.

Make sure that you only swap or link to sites that are
relevant to the content on your pages. Yes I am suggesting
link exchanging on pages of your site not a links page.

Links pages seem to be being abused. There are rumours that
pages called links, resources or partners are not passing
page rank. You could be wasting your time building links
that are not giving you any benefits!

Delivering relevant links from relevant content is the
future.

Look at sites such as www.bbc.co.uk or
www.independent.co.uk. News sites have the right idea.
They have 2 or 3 relevant internal links to other
articles on the same topic or links to internal tools that
are related. These usually can be found at the right hand
side of the article.

They also then have weblinks or external links to sites of
interest that are related to the topic. These are relevant!

Another benefit of this is that with a content rich site you
can add hundreds of links quite legitimately and really add
some value both to your Rankings and your users.

With a content-poor site it is difficult, you have to add
link pages or create a links directory. A five page site
will need to add 10 or 12 good link pages to compete and
even then with algorithm changes, this may not be prudent.

Having a site with 400 pages means you can easily add 3
links per page, so you have 1200 link options straight away.

Hopefully this explains that relevance runs a close second
to content.

Always bear in mind when writing content that relevant
links will not only boost your search engine rankings,
but you will also add a service to your visitors.

Increase Traffic to your domain...

2009-07-09T12:46:00.000-07:00

If you want to increase traffic to your website and better your search engine positioning, here is an easy 6 step process that will enable you to do so.

1. Get a free blog.
Go to blogger.com and sign up for a free account.

2. Link your website to your blog.
In your blog template, add a link to your website. Also, set up your blog so there is a link field in every post. Set this field to link to your website. Thus, every post will contain a link at the bottom of the post to your main website.

3. Write 3 articles each week.
Even better would be one article each day (5/week), but 3 each week is a great start. Each article only needs to be 300 words, so you don't need a major essay. Just write an opening sentence, expound on that sentence in three short paragraphs, and conclude your post with a restatement of your opening sentence, reworded just slightly. Then, post your article to your blog.

4. Submit your article to EzineArticles.com.
Doing this will enable your article to be indexed by Google. This is very good for you, because once your article is indexed at Google, a backlink to your website will be generated for you. This will result in better search engine positioning and more traffic for you.

5. Submit your article to GoArticles.com.
There is software available that searches Go Articles for articles in specific niches and genres. These articles are then pulled by the software and put on websites. This generates more backlinks and exposure for you, and builds traffic to your main website.

6. Keep this process going.
Make a commitment to write one article each day, post it to your blog, and submit it to EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com.

Following these 6 simple steps will increase both your traffic and search engine positioning.

Jeremy M. Hoover is an online freelance writer who writes promotional and content articles for website owners. Each article is $15, or you can buy 5 articles for $50. If you need articles, contact Jeremy at his website, http://www.jhooverwebcopy.com

Read more marketing articles by Jeremy at his blog, http://www.jhooverwebcopy.blogspot.com

Domain Names Sales Jump over the last year

2009-07-07T07:43:00.000-07:00

Website domain names have jumped in value over the last year, according to figures, which suggest the internet is flourishing while other areas of the economy struggle.

According to Sedo, an auction company that sells internet domain names, the average price has increased from £1,282 a year ago to £1,757.

Some domain names sold far this year have fetched eye-watering sums, as companies and individuals pour money back into the internet, in an echo of the frenzy that led to the dot.com boom of 1999.

Toys.com was sold for $5.1 million (£3.11 million) in March to the retailer Toys R Us, while Fly.com went for $1.76 million.

Toys.com has become the fourth most expensive domain name in history, according to the Domain Name Journal, a trade magazine.

Domain names are the addresses that every website needs to have a presence on the internet. It costs about £10 to register a new domain name and the owner of the address has to pay an annual registration fee to keep ownership of that name.

However, many companies and investors like to get their hands on addresses that have already been registered. And for that they have to turn to an auction house.

Nora Nanayakkara, director of Business Development at Sedo, said the internet was becoming increasingly valuable because of the recession.

"With the credit crunch many customers are looking to save money and are turning to the internet and price comparison sites. Buy buying up domain names – especially catchy names – companies are trying to garner the audience online that they have lost on the high street," she said.

Many of the buyers of domain names are investors, with no intention of using the name to set up a website. They purely own the names in the hope of selling them on later for a profit.

"Domain names have fared very well, compared with asset classes, especially property. They are a good investment for some people," Ms Nanayakkara added.

The most expensive domain name in history was Sex.com, which was sold for between $11 and $14 million, according to different and conflicting reports, in 2006.

The address was subject to a long-running legal dispute and is now owned by a company called Escom.

Original Article Here

Erotica.com sells for $850,000: Sexy Internet domain names still big business

2009-02-20T10:37:00.000-08:00

Recession or no, the market for sexy Internet domain names still means that some enterprising entrepreneurs with the rights to URLs like Erotica.com can cash in: business.avn.com, the news arm of the Adult Video Network, is reporting that the Erotica.com domain name went for $850,000 in a pre-auction deal at the Internext domain name auction in Las Vegas.

Internet Domain Names Grow to 177 Million in 2008, Latest VeriSign Industry Brief Shows

2009-02-19T07:43:00.000-08:00

The Internet added 24 million new domain names in 2008, according to the fourth quarter 2008 Domain Name Industry Brief published by VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN), the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world.
The year 2008 ended with a total base of 177 million domain name registrations across all of the Top Level Domains (TLDs). This represents 16 percent growth over the previous year. In the fourth quarter of 2008, more than 10.1 million new domain names were registered across all TLDs. The composition of the domain name industry and rank order in terms of base size remained consistent in the fourth quarter. The five largest TLDs in terms of base size were .com, .cn (China), .de (Germany), .net, and .org.

See Full article here

Hells Angels Sue Alleged Cybersquatter for $2 Million

2009-02-18T20:06:00.000-08:00

There are two types of cybersquatters: big, systematic cybersquatters and small, just-don’t-know-any-better cybersquatters.

Sometimes it’s the big guys that get hit with lawsuits, but a recent case shows even the small time cybersquatter can be hit hard.

That’s the case of Fawn and Terry Myers, who are named in a lawsuit alleging they registered about 20 domain names related to Hells Angels. Either Fawn or Terry subsequently listed the domain names on eBay with titles such as:

“Hells Angels Domain Name HA-MC.COM USA Europe RARE Dot”“Hells Angels Domain Name ALL 81 LLLL.com 4L USA EUROPE”

Hells Angels Motorcycle Corporation sued the Myers this month on 20 counts of cybersquatting at $100,000 each.

Many small time cybersquatters think a UDRP is the worst that can happen to them. This case shows that’s not true. I asked Hells Angels’ attorney Fritz Clapp today why the company chose to file a lawsuit rather than UDRP. He cited the delay in UDRPs as well as the attention this case will draw to other people that might cybersquat on Hells Angels’ brand.

Clapp first contacted Terry Myers through the eBay contact system. Myers allegedly wrote a terse response to Clapp before listing another related domain name on eBay. Clapp contacted eBay, which removed the auctions.

You’ll find the eBay listings somewhat humorous, so I’ve uploaded a copy here (pdf).
Among Myers claims in the eBay listings:

I b.s. you not, once this name is sold, it will NEVER be up for sale EVER again. Buy it now, it will go FAST. First off, I would like to say I have no HA affiliation and the purchase of multiple 4 letter (LLLL.com) and 5 letter (LLLLL.com) domain [sic] was quit [sic] by accident. I did not correlate the 81 with the Hells Angels identification at time of purchase. I have purchased 100’s of four letter .com domains prior to them running out before November 2007, and some after that went up after expiration. I was contacted by a person outside the United States interested in purchasing 81EU.com for a European web site. A brandable four or five letter dot com domain name now days goes for $3800 all the way to $1,000,000 +.

Huh, at $8,181.81, I’m shocked this domain name didn’t sell within minutes
GoDaddy was named as a defendant in the original lawsuit, but was dropped after cooperating. In at least one of the eBay auctions, Myers wrote “If auction is canceled on ebay, please go to domainsite host (godaddy). It will be placed for auction there.”

The City plans to raise cash selling .nyc domains

2009-02-12T19:51:00.001-08:00

As officials search for cash to help plug the city's widening budget deficit, City Council members say they’ve found a relatively painless way to generate millions of dollars for the city. It will come from the Internet.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced during her state-of-the-city address Thursday that the “.nyc” domain will start generating a fresh stream of revenue for the city next summer.

dotNYC, a private group, has asked the city to let it sell Web addresses such as www.GrimaldisPizza.nyc or www.EmpireStateBuilding.nyc for about $10 a pop to people, corporations and small businesses. In return, the company would give the city one-third of the domain's profits.

However, a city spokesman says officials have not yet chosen a partner for the project. The city may decide to send out a request for proposals.

“A local business won't have to outbid a guy in Kansas to get TonysPizza.com,” Ms. Quinn said. “They'll be able to get TonysPizza.NYC, a name associated with the greatest city—and home of the greatest pizza—in the world.”

She said the city will generate millions of dollars per year through the system just by giving its permission to allow .nyc to be created.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is responsible for approving requested domain names. ICANN, which was founded 10 years ago, is expected to begin approving new domains named for cities and states this summer, although the sites may not go live until mid-2010. Until now, only 21 domains, such as .com, .org and .edu, have been accessible. Country and continent codes have also been in use, including .us in the United States and .fr in France.

During a Thursday address, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said the ".nyc" domain will start generating a fresh stream of revenue for the city next summer.

Webfusion to Offer Customers .us Domain at $0.99

2009-02-11T10:09:00.001-08:00

PHILADELPHIA, Feb 11, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Earlier this week, Webfusion launched a promotion that gives their customers the opportunity to register a .us domain name at $0.99. With over 9 million .us sites in Google's index, this promotion offers customers the opportunity to show their patriotism and express their individuality in an arena that is becoming increasingly difficult to enter due to limited domain name availability.

As President Obama ushers in a new era of change, Webfusion offers Americans and companies doing business in the United States an opportunity to distinguish themselves in an increasingly .com world while showing their patriotism to the United States.

Webfusion is celebrating this new era by offering its customers the opportunity to register the .us domain for a year at $0.99 with three months of free Web hosting included on the

"Techie" hosting package. This special promotion on .us domains will be good on purchases made by May 31, 2009.

"The .us domain offers the opportunity for our customers to distinguish themselves online while celebrating this new era of 'change' in America," said Thomas Vollrath, CEO of Webfusion. "We are pleased to join the nation in celebrating this new era with a special rate on this patriotic domain."

Webfusion's hosting plans appeal to beginners, businesses and techies alike by offering up to 400GB Web space, 5,000GB monthly traffic and 100 MySQL databases. All our packages include first-class technical support and are backed with a 30-day money-back guarantee, so customers can try the service at no risk.

About the .us domain
The .us top-level domain (usTLD) was established in 1985 as the official country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the United States. It is administered by NeuStar. The expanded second-level .us domain launched on April 24, 2002, enabling companies, nonprofits, government entities and individuals to establish unique, memorable American addresses online.
About Webfusion

Webfusion was founded in 1997 and entered into the American market in December 2008. It offers domain name registration and easy-to-understand Web hosting packages. Hosting starts from just $2.99 a month and domain names are only $0.99 with any hosting package. More information can be found at www.webfusion.com.

Tucows Sells $1M Domain Name Portfolio; Domain Parking Flat

2009-02-10T08:32:00.000-08:00

Domain name wholesaler Tucows Inc (AMEX: TCX) has sold a portfolio of 2,553 domain names for $1 million, the company announced in its quarterly earnings call yesterday. That’s an average of $392 per domain name. In a filing with the U.S.Securities and Exchange Commission, the company reported thatthe same buyer has rights to purchase up to $1.8 million morein domain names under similar terms between now and June 2010.

On the conference call, Tucows CEO Elliot Noss said the continuation deal gives a buyer rights to buy expired domainnames from Tucows as they expire. The company just inked a deal to send domain names to NameJet. It sounds like Tucows has a separate deal to offer expiring domains to a third partybuyer either before domains go to NameJet or sell remnants that aren’t purchased at NameJet. I have contacted Tucows for clarification.

In a positive sign for the domain name parking business, Tucows reported that its domain name parking revenue flatlined over the fourth quarter, ending a trend of dropping revenue.Tucows continues to grow its domain name registration business,with new registrations up 9% compared to the same quarter lastyear and renewals up 15%. Since its domain names are mostly sold through resellers such as web hosts, Tucows says it has a higher proportion of domain names in use (as opposed to parked)compared to other domain registrars.

The company also announced it is purchasing up to 4 million shares of its stock for 32-45 cents each

Fly.com sells for 1.8 million

2009-02-04T11:59:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, travel site Travelzoo announced that it had purchased the domain Fly.com for $1.8 million. Not a lot of details were released about the transaction, so I contacted Travelzoo to find out a bit more. Mindy Joyce, Travelzoo's senior marketing director got back to me and answered a few questions.

Chris Crum: Obviously fly.com is a tremendous domain to have for a travel site. How did this transaction come about? Did Travelzoo approach Fly.com or vice versa?
Mindy Joyce: Travelzoo was considering names for its new travel search engine when we became aware of the availability of Fly.com through a domain broker. We recognized the name as a perfect match to Travelzoo’s renowned approach: simple, fun, and world class.

CC: Who was behind Fly.com before Travelzoo purchased it?

MJ: Decline to answer due to confidentiality agreement with former owner.

CC: When do you expect Travelzoo's version of Fly.com to go live? [note: nothing was up yet when I contacted Travelzoo]

MJ: A beta version of our travel search engine is already available at http://www.fly.com/. It includes a number of innovations, such as our simultaneous search for fares in all cabin classes so users won’t miss a great fare in any cabin, at-a-glance Summary view, and “Why Me” boxes, which provide users with useful information. For example, users searching NYC-SFO would see “Why

Me” boxes that highlight in-flight entertainment and Internet options available. And this is just our beta version. We expect to officially launch Fly.com within a couple of months.

In the News....

2009-01-30T09:26:00.000-08:00

January 29, 2009 (Computerworld) Want to know if you're actually getting what you're paying your Internet service provider for?

If you are, join the club. The problem is that it it has been far from easy to get a handle on how your service provider deals with various kinds of traffic. That may become an easier job now that Google Inc. is launching what it calls Measurement Lab (M-Lab), an open system that researchers and consumers can use to access its new Internet performance measurement tools.

"Researchers are already developing tools that allow users to, among other things, measure the speed of their connections, run diagnostics, and attempt to discern if their ISP is blocking or throttling particular applications," said Vint Cerf, Google's chief Internet evangelist, and Stephen Stuart, Google's principal engineer, in a blog post. "These tools generate and send some data back and forth between the user's computer and a server elsewhere on the Internet. Unfortunately, researchers lack widely-distributed servers with ample connectivity. This poses a barrier to the accuracy and scalability of these tools."

To tackle the problem, Google announced late on Wednesday that it will host the tools on 37 servers in the U.S. and Europe. The tools are designed to help users try to figure out what might be impairing their broadband speed, as well as find out if BitTorrent is being blocked or throttled by their Internet service providers.

"Seems like the intention behind this is to give consumers a way to keep tabs on their provider and make sure that they're getting what they're paying for in terms of speed," said Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group Inc. "Also, with these tools, consumers will supposedly be able to tell if particular high-bandwidth applications, like BitTorrent, are being constrained by their ISP. So if an ISP is limiting video downloads, for example, consumers can use the Google tool, figure it out and start a huge outcry, putting pressure on the ISP to stop."

Just last month, an analyst with ties to the telecommunications industry released a report calling Google a bandwidth hog. Scott Cleland, president of Precursor LLC, a research firm bankrolled by telecommunications heavyweights such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., reported that Google uses 21 times more bandwidth than it pays for.

Google was quick to fire back. Richard Whitt, Google's Washington telecommunications and media counsel, noted in a blog post that Cleland is "not exactly a neutral party." Whitt also claimed that the analyst had made methodological and factual errors.
Olds noted that the new measurement platform is another salvo in the war between content providers such as Google and network providers.

GoDaddy

2009-01-28T08:32:00.001-08:00

Danica Patrick Godaddy Web Exclusive - Watch more TV Videos

What's in a Domain Name? The Changing Internet

2008-12-18T07:44:00.000-08:00

Generic, top-level domain names, or gTLD, such as .com or .net, are the sorters of the Internet. They serve the single purpose of identifying the database in which a domain name is registered. The .gov component of whitehouse.gov, for instance, identifies the domain name as registered in the "government" database. The .com in microsoft.com identifies that domain name as registered in the "commercial" database.

The best known gTLDs are .com, .org, .edu, .net and .gov. Lesser known gTLDs include .info, .biz, .name and .tel.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, is the nonprofit corporation that oversees the distribution of domain names. In the 10 years since ICANN's inception, ICANN has permitted the number of gTLDs to grow to 21. ICANN believed that creating additional gTLDs risked confusing users of the Internet.

That has now changed. In June, ICANN reversed its long-held position and announced that it would allow an unlimited number of generic top-level domains.

The genesis for the change may reside in a 2005 report on the Internet from the National Academy of Sciences. The report addressed the technical feasibility of greatly expanding the number of registrations of gTLDs. The academy focused particularly on the ability of the servers that make the Internet possible to withstand an increase in the number of gTLDs. It concluded that the servers could easily handle the greater demand, pointing out that the .com gTLD alone was easily processing the 20 billion queries it received daily.

According to ICANN, its decision to open up the domain name space will lead to greater competition and lower costs for the public when registering domain names. Additionally, the well-known gTLDs are crowded. Every word in the English language and every letter combination between two and five letters in length, for instance, have been registered as a domain name under the .com gTLD.

The cost of applying for a new gTLD guarantees that there will not be a stampede of new applicants. ICANN has tentatively set the fee for a gTLD application at a steep and non-refundable $185,000. Once registered, a gTLD will also carry an annual maintenance fee of at least at $75,000. ICANN has stated that it believes the high fees to be necessary for it to recoup the $12 million already spent implementing the open gTLD system.

The fees will probably decline in time, and smaller businesses will then be able to obtain their own gTLDs. Lower fees, however, will carry a downside as well. There may emerge the kind of frenzied speculation for gTLDs that occurred in the 1990s in connection with domain names. In addition, abusers of the current Internet domain-name regime will be able translate their illicit behavior to the new gTLD space.

For so long as the fees for a gTLD application remain high, however, there should be few abuses occurring, such as cybersquatting, typosquatting and domain tasting.

Typosquatters register as their own domain names, misspellings of popular domain names. Web users who expect to land on the popular domain name's Web site, but who unintentionally misspell the domain name, are directed instead to the typosquatter's Web site. Undoubtedly, the somewhat greater complexity of domain names in which both the gTLD and the sub-domain are less familiar than ".com" will lead to a greater number of mistyped domain names, benefiting typosquatters.

Domain name tasting takes advantage of the five-day trial period that a registrant of a new domain name receives. During the five-day trial period, the prospective registrant can test the domain name for its profitability on a pay-per-click basis. If profitable, the tester simply retains the domain name. If not profitable, the tester relinquishes the domain name at the end of the five days and receives a full refund of the registration fee.

This inventory of potential ways in which gTLDs can be misused underscores the need for gTLD owners to obtain a trademark or service mark registration for their gTLD from at least one national trademark office, such as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A registration serves as a governmental imprimatur of a trademark owner's claim to rights embodied in a registration. It carries considerable weight in dispute resolution proceedings against Internet abusers of the registered mark.

The appeal to businesses of owning their own gTLDs lies in the ability it provides to use the company name or one of their brands in place of .com or .net. If Amazon.com, for instance, were to obtain .amazon as its gTLD, it could use the sub-domain portion of the .amazon gTLD as a directory to its Web site. The domain names book.amazon and dvd.amazon, for example, could direct Web browsers to the book and DVD sections of its Web site, respectively.

Ownership of a popular gTLD could also benefit the placement in search results of Web sites operated under the gTLD. A search engine's algorithm might weigh the number of hits that a gTLD receives in its assessment of the relevance of a Web site to a query.

Marketers may find that a gTLD permits greater emphasis of a name or brand. Businesses that own their own gTLDs will not only be able to identify all of their business functions under a single gTLD. Additionally, in the sub-domain portion, a business will be able to customize content for its community, such as for employees, vendors, customers and the like.

Owners of gTLDs will also have greater assurance that security measures for the gTLD are adequate. They will have complete control over those safeguards in place for protecting against Internet threats.

The availability of new gTLDs, may also offer the chance to obtain a gTLD to those who were foreclosed from registering a name or mark under the .com gTLD.

In October, ICANN issued a draft manual of procedure for processing gTLD applications.

ICANN is expected to open a 45-day window in the first quarter of 2009, for submitting applications for gTLDs. The first round of gTLD registrations are expected to be granted in the second quarter of 2009. Individuals are not eligible to own gTLDs.

Processing of an application for a new gTLD, will begin with comparison of the applied for gTLD with other applications and registrations. The comparison will be conducted by both a computer algorithm and by a human.

The applicant itself will also be assessed. A successful applicant for a gTLD must show that it has the financial, technical and operational capability to deploy a gTLD. An entity that meets these requirements and obtains its own gTLD is referred to as a registry. As a registry, the owner of a gTLD oversees the maintenance of the authoritative master database of all domain names registered under the registry's gTLD. A registry is also responsible for ensuring that computers anywhere in the world can route traffic to and from the registry's gTLD.

The U.S.-based company VeriSign Inc., for instance, is the registry for .com.

The gTLDs granted under the new policy will fall into one of two categories: "open" and "community-based." Open gTLDs will be available for any purpose. "Community-based" gTLDs will be operated only for the benefit of groups, consisting of a defined community with a restricted population. To qualify for a community gTLD, the community must be clearly identified and organized in an established community; the gTLD must be endorsed by the community; there must be a connection between the gTLD and the community; and the applicant for the gTLD must establish a registration and use policy.

Geographical gTLDs include any word or combination of letters that represent a country or territory name; a subnational jurisdiction such as a county, province or state; a city name; or a continent or any U.N. region. Geographical name gTLDs permit a Web user to narrow his or her search results for a particular product or service to a locality of interest.

Geographical names or abbreviations, such as .london, .philly, and .dc are likely to face strong demand from applicants. ICANN intends to resolve competing claims for geographical names by requiring each applicant to prove its authorization to register the geographical name as a gTLD. Applicants will need to show support or at least the absence of an objection by the relevant government or public authority for the name.

This change to an unlimited number of gTLDs is not universally applauded. For some, the new gTLDs may simply add to the difficulty of browsing the Web. They may more easily remember a domain name under the familiar .com or .net gTLDs than under a welter of different gTLDs.

Additionally, a .com gTLD is more likely to land a user directly on a home page, while a gTLD and its sub-domain name may lead to an internal page of a Web site which the Web user did not intend to visit.

The potentially limitless number of gTLDs, will also hobble the ability of trademark owners to pre-emptively register domain names, in order to deny them to cybersquatters. Under the current scheme where there is only a limited number of gTLDs, a trademark owner can register an important trademark across the major gTLDs. For example, Acme Tools might pre-emptively register acmetools.com, acmetools.biz, acmetools.net and so on. These pre-emptive registrations prevent cybersquatters from improperly registering the Acme Tools domain names first.

With unlimited gTLDs, pre-emptive domain name registration will be much less effective, if feasible at all. Instead, in place of across the board pre-emptive domain name registrations, trademark owners will need to systematically monitor the Web and gTLDs to detect improper use of their names and brands.

The format adopted for resolving gTLD disputes closely resembles the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, which is familiar to many trademark owners. Any party with standing to object, as defined by the manual of procedure, can do so. An objection can be based on a conflict with the objector's own gTLD, on a conflict with the objector's legal rights, on the grounds of morality and public order or on the fact that a community gTLD is non-representative.

Objections based on morality and public order will inevitably lead to questions as to whose standards should apply and who has standing to raise an objection. Potential applications for .xxx as a gTLD from purveyors of adult entertainment or for .free from a Chinese democracy movement, raise standing and subject matter issues emblematic of the difficulties that enforcing the morality and public order criteria will face.

Where multiple applicants apply for an identical or similar gTLD, all applications that pass the evaluation process will be resolved by comparative evaluation or auction.

The availability of new gTLDs will change the way Internet traffic is managed, conflicts are processed, companies conduct their marketing and trademark owners protect their rights. Whether the value of a gTLD proves to be commensurate with its cost will remain unanswered for at least several years.

Stephen Meyers is a partner with Woodcock Washburn in Philadelphia. His practice is concentrated in trademarks and copyrights, both litigation and transactional. His articles have appeared in national and regional publications and he authored the chapter on e-commerce for the Thomson-West treatise "Computer Software."

Webdesign: Importance

2008-06-13T06:34:00.000-07:00

The World Wide Web was released to the public in the early 90’s. It wasn’t until 1996 that the usage of the word “Internet” became a commonplace for most people. The Internet, sometimes called simply “the Net,” is an international system of computer networks that allows users to send and receive information from other computers (Rhie). This concept influenced many corporations to expand their services worldwide by developing an online presence through the implementation of a company website. It was only a matter of time before the Internet became a global marketplace for virtually everything. Investors and business owners began buying web space and hiring web designers to develop their online web presence. Having a professionally designed business website is an important component of success for any company doing business in the 21st century.

Registering a strategic domain is one of the most fundamental steps in the early developing stages of a professional website. A domain is a unique name assigned to an IP Address that identifies an internet website (MacDonald). It can make or break the success of any company trying to establish an online identity. When choosing a domain name it is important to incorporate the company’s brand name or key phrases that correspond to that business. This allows customers to easily access the company website directly or through any major search engines. An efficient domain name is easy to remember and works well with TV and Radio advertising. The most common domains are “.com”, “.net”, and “.org”. Competition for domain space is higher than ever since the average cost has dropped dramatically. The longer consumers wait to purchase their online web space, the more likely the domain name they want will already be taken.

Competition is so high that every single 3-character “.com” domain name has already been registered (Hayward).A professionally designed business website must be both aesthetically pleasing and encompass a strategically designed page layout. If the look and feel does not appeal to a potential customer, they are most likely going to leave, never to be seen again. It is important that the sites navigation structure is featured on every page of the website and is in a location that the user can easily identify.

This allows potential customers to access the information they are looking for without becoming frustrated. Today’s professionals use third party web application software like Adobe Dreamweaver to achieve that professional look along with a structurally sound design. The use of template based layouts allows for complex navigation structures and advanced page features. Professional web designers also use the latest web markup language to produce fully customized websites. Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS, are a series of instructions that specify how text should appear on a Web page. You can use CSS to set specific styles for text, borders, and other elements, and apply these styles to your entire Web site (Nigrerio). The importance of using CSS instead of standard HTML Markup language is endless.

Cascading style sheets offer the highest amount of customization, along with faster loading times and cross-browser compatibility. Cross-browser refers to the ability for a website, web application, HTML document or client-side script to support multiple web browsers (Geraci). In lemans terms, a website designed in CSS will be displayed properly on different browsers, operating systems, and mobile devices. This is useful to any business that offers products or services to a wide variety of customers. Fast loading times is another key component for any professional website. Although most users today use cable, DSL, or broadband, it is important that the customer doesn’t wait. Since CSS uses about half the amount of text compared to a regular HTML document, the page is loaded much faster.

This leaves room for higher quality images and other media solutions to be incorporated into the design. However, even the most attractive, fast loading, and cross-browser compatible websites are not successful unless they can be found online.A website is not complete until it is considered to be search engine friendly. After the final build of a website is complete it is important for the website to undergo MTM. Meta Tag Marketing is the process of fine tuning the content of a site along with the html and meta tags so that it can be found in the search engines. (Mark) This allows a website to establish a higher rank under certain keywords and key phrases that pertain to your business. Having a website that is not search engine friendly is like having a billboard advertisement in the middle of the woods, no one is going to see it. MTM allows a business to move higher on the search engines to increase qualified traffic to their website.

The more traffic being driven to a website significantly increases the chances of a potential customer purchasing services and referring more unique visitors.A strategic domain name, cascading style sheet design, and search engine optimization implementation are three key components to a professionally designed business website. Once these elements are combined, it is just a matter of time before the true benefits of having a website are revealed.Everything from the latest news to celebrity gossip can be found on the internet.

When people are looking for information they turn to the computer. The internet allows a business to display what they have to offer through text, images, flash presentations, and user interactive web sites. A company can also setup online shopping carts that allow them to sell products online. Any business today that does not have a company website is looked at as incomplete. There are so many benefits a professional business website has to offer any company that is looking to compete in today’s marketplace.

The web is one of the most effective and cheapest methods of advertising available. For about the same cost of a small one time newspaper ad, a company can have a 4 or 5 page web site, open 24 hours a day with the potential to reach millions of people. Potential customers can obtain product information when they want it, not when a business is open. Many people will turn to a business that supplied them with product information when they needed it, which in many cases is outside normal trading hours.Having a website allows small businesses to compete on the same playing field as the larger corporations. It has a low cost of entry and allows any company to market at a global level. A website works around the clock with little effort to keep it running. A professional developer can analyze any existing promotional materials and integrate these elements into a coherent design for an authentic online web presence.

This allows for a more custom marketing presence that can’t be obtained by just using templates included with off-the-shelf software packages or online services.In conclusion, having a professionally designed business website is an important component of success in today’s competitive market. The internet allows companies across the world to establish them as a credible and professional business. Building a website is like building a house; you must start off with a strong foundation before you can add more bricks. Registering a strategic domain name, developing a CSS design template, and optimizing a website under keywords and key phrases are all key components to establishing a professional website. A business website is the ultimate form of customer service that can be provided to any client.

Creating Search Engine Friendly Pages

2008-05-02T07:35:00.000-07:00

There is no point in building a website unless there are visitors coming in. A major source of traffic for most sites on the Internet is search engines like Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Altavista and so on. Hence, by designing a search engine friendly site, you will be able to rank easily in search engines and obtain more visitors.
Major search engines use programs called crawlers or robots to index websites to list on their search result pages. They follow links to a page, reads the content of the page and record it in their own database, pulling up the listing as people search for it.

If you want to make your site indexed easily, you should avoid using frames on your website. Frames will only confuse search engine robots and they might even abandon your site because of that. Moreover, frames make it difficult for users to bookmark a specific page on your site without using long, complicated scripts.

Do not present important information in Flash movies or in images. Search engine robots can only read text on your source code so if you present important words in Flash movies and images rather than textual form, your search engine ranking will be affected dramatically.

Use meta tags accordingly on each and every page of your site so that search engine robots know at first glance what that particular page is about and whether or not to index it. By using meta tags, you are making the search engine robot's job easier so they will crawl and index your site more frequently.

Stop using wrong HTML tags like to style your page. Use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) instead because they are more effective and efficient. By using CSS, you can eliminate redundant HTML tags and make your pages much lighter and faster to load.

Microsoft May Be Running Out of Time on Yahoo Deal

2008-05-02T06:17:00.000-07:00

May 2 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer may be running out of time to clinch his proposed purchase of Yahoo! Inc. as the Internet company forges tighter ties with Google Inc.

Microsoft was leaning toward making a hostile bid as of last night, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Yahoo may agree to use Google's Web advertising software within a week, the newspaper reported. The decision would build on a test program the companies ran last month.

After three months of pressing Yahoo to give up looking at alternatives and agree to a deal with Microsoft, Ballmer faces a potential setback. An accord with Google may spur Yahoo's sales and give it a better chance of staying independent, pressuring Microsoft to raise its $44.6 billion bid.

``The board and management of Yahoo are trying to retain independence at all costs,'' said Laura Martin, an analyst at New York-based Soleil Securities Corp. who has a ``hold'' rating on Yahoo shares.

Yahoo's test of Google's ad system initially applied to 3 percent of its search queries. If the company extends that to all of them, it may generate more than $1 billion in incremental cash flow, Citigroup Inc.'s Mark Mahaney said in a report last month.

The San Francisco-based analyst, who advises investors to buy Yahoo, said then that the deal might force Microsoft to boost its $31-a-share bid. Last month, Ballmer gave Yahoo a deadline to negotiate a deal at the original price, which the Internet company ignored.

Walk Away

Ballmer said yesterday that he would walk away from the purchase before he overpays for Yahoo, the Sunnyvale, California- based owner of the second-most popular Internet search engine.

``I know exactly what I think Yahoo is worth to me, exactly,'' Ballmer said in a meeting with employees, according to remarks provided by spokesman Frank Shaw. ``I won't go a dime above, and I will go to what I think it's worth if that gets the deal done.''

Yahoo spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler and Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich declined to comment. Shaw didn't return a call late yesterday.

Yahoo has repeatedly turned down the bid since Microsoft's first approach Jan. 31. Microsoft, the world's biggest software maker, would use the takeover to bolster competition with Google, the leader in the $41 billion online advertising market.

Jerry Yang, Yahoo's CEO, has said the offer is too low. Ballmer, who gave the company until April 26 to agree to a deal, let the deadline pass without taking action.

Microsoft's Options

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft may make a friendly deal with Yahoo, start a proxy fight to replace Yahoo's board or abandon the bid, Ballmer said at the meeting. The company will make an announcement in ``very short order,'' he said.

``Not getting this done is putting a substantial amount of pressure on him,'' said Rob Enderle, president of the research firm Enderle Group in San Jose, California.

Microsoft rose 8 cents to $29.48 in trading before exchanges opened after closing at $29.40 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have dropped since Jan. 31, pulling the value of the half- cash, half-stock deal to $29.48, based on yesterday's close. Yahoo climbed 89 cents to $27.70 in early trading.

Google may be using its Yahoo partnership to delay the deal, Enderle said.

``Google wants it to go as long as possible,'' he said. ``The longer this goes on, the happier Google is.''

Google Fights

Yahoo said last month that it would test displaying ads sold by Google next to Internet search results. The trial would last as long as two weeks, the company said.

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft sell text links that appear next to search results, charging advertisers when they are clicked. Google generates more revenue from each search query, so a partnership may boost Yahoo's revenue.

Yahoo and Google may strike a nonexclusive partnership, meaning that the system could display ads from competitors, including Microsoft's, the Journal said. That approach is designed to keep antitrust authorities from blocking the deal, the newspaper said.

The U.S. Justice Department is reviewing the initial test, Mountain View, California-based Google said last month. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee would examine any formal partnership between Google and Yahoo, Chairman Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat, said last month.

``Regulators will not allow this,'' Soleil's Martin said. ``It would put all of Internet advertising into the hands of Google, the predominant search marketer on the Web.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Amy Thomson in New York at athomson6@bloomberg.net; Jonathan Thaw in San Francisco at jthaw@bloomberg.net

Blogs Build Up Back Links in Search Engines

2008-05-01T19:04:00.000-07:00

One of the most powerful online tools that any online entrepreneur can use to quickly build up back links pointing to their sites is a blog or web log as it used to be referred to in the early days.

Actually there are very few other online tools that can be as effective as a blog in helping a webmaster build up the number of back links pointing to their site at high speed. Link Bait Articles and Blogs One of the most effective techniques to use with blogging is to create a link bait article on your blog.

Link bait articles as the name suggests is the kind of article that provokes others to link to it. To succeed with link bait articles, you will need to be very focused about what you want to achieve because there are various techniques and the worst mistake you can make is to try and combine several of them instead of selecting one.

The most common technique is to target the most popular blogger for a well orchestrated campaign. You can contradict them on a certain controversial issue for instance. The idea here is to create a buzz around the controversy. The more people discuss the issue the more they will want to link to your article as they refer to it. If you have access to explosive industry news that nobody else has, this is yet another way to create a link bait article or post.

It will help if your news item is closely related to a hot topic of debate or discussion that is going on at the moment. Remember that the objective here is to accumulate a high number of back links as quickly as possible pointing to your site.

The effect of this will be to dramatically increase traffic to your site immediately and gradually to help improve your ranking with search engines so that you get even more traffic coming in directly from search engines. Using Blogs to Create a Presence and Winning Image Yet another way in which you can use blogs effectively is in creating a presence for yourself and an effective image. This is very easy to do. All you need to do is to launch a blog that shows off your expertise. And then to attract attention to yourself visit other blogs that cover a similar subject to what you are an expert in. Give free advice and useful incites but make sure that you do not link back to your site in your comments.

Just concentrate on building up the right image you want as an expert in your field. If you do this effectively, two things will happen. Firstly sooner or later those reading your comments will start to look for your site. Finding it should not be too difficult because most blog software links back to your site using your name.

The blogs that do not do this like blogger will link back to your profile and so all you have to do is update your profile and it will be very easy to find your site. The last resort is to use your name on a search engine which most folks are able to do very easily.

The second thing that will happen is that as traffic to your blog grows, so will the back links to your site Link to Other Blogs to Receive More Links Than You Can Handle This strategy may look suspect but it usually works like a charm. It is based on the simple golden rule of life that to receive, one has to give first. All you have to do is to create a useful blog with plenty of valuable information and then link to other blogs and sites that are useful resources for further information concerning what you have discussed on your blog.

Now while it is true that not every site you link to will link back, the truth is that some will and if you continue with this practice for a reasonable period of time, you will end up with a sizeable amount of back links pointing to your site. Blogs are very valuable online tools for helping any webmaster quickly build up their traffic and back links.

Why it's a BAD Idea to Promote Hot Selling Products on eBay

2008-05-01T06:10:00.000-07:00

Do a quick search on Google, Yahoo, or your favorite auction resource site, and you'll quickly discover there are several software programs targeted to vendors who want to promote hot selling products on eBay.

The infatuation with hot selling products exists because sellers believe if you target items that have a robust sales pattern, you'll have a better chance at profiting on eBay. This is both true and false.

Yes... hot selling products can improve your bottom line. But unfortunately by the time the average eBay seller (a) realizes what the hot selling products are, (b) purchases stock to sell on eBay, and (c) actually puts the items up for sale, the demand is already being met by other eBay sellers who probably started the hot selling product trend some time ago.

Not only that, with thousands of people also having access to the same hot selling product lists, you'll have to contend with other eBay vendors who have the exact same ideas that you do. So you'll be up against the original sellers who are currently feeding the demand, AND doing the tango with newer sellers who have jumped on the same hot selling product bandwagon that you did.

Okay maybe this won't happen to you. But suppose it does. What if competition becomes so great that prices start dipping below the wholesale cost that you paid for the item? (It happens all the time on eBay.) And what if you lose $100, $200, or even $1,000 on inventory that you thought would be flying off the shelf? Suddenly that hot selling item is looking rather cold sitting in your garage collecting dust.

So if not hot selling products on eBay, then what? Do what the majority of PowerSellers do. Sell what you want, instead of what's hot. Repeat after me, "Every day ordinary items sell extremely well on eBay... Every day ordinary items sell extremely well on eBay... Every day ordinary items sell extremely well on eBay." Allow this to become your mantra, because it is very much true.

I know this from first-hand experience as I analyze top sellers instead of hot products. And my research has continuously shown me that mediocre products don't necessarily translate into mediocre sales. For instance, there's a seller right now who clears about $1,000-$2,000 a week selling magnets. And that's AFTER eBay and PayPal fee's. Another seller promotes homemade CD's to a specific audience and clears $900-$2,000 a week.

A few sellers make $500-$700+ a week - after expenses - promoting public domain information. And the cool thing about public domain information is that anybody can sell it because it's free. So that's pure profit by selling something they never paid for. Talk about the ultimate arbitrage opportunity!

The ultimate key in succeeding no matter what product you end up selling, is to build a successful strategy. To figure out 'how' to profitably market what you have, instead of chasing after the next great thing. Because once you have the strategy part down, you can sell anything on eBay and make it a hot seller to your bank account.

What Does a Good Sales Web Page Need?

2008-04-30T07:36:00.000-07:00

I have a background in sales and public relations which transfers nicely to the internet, which is just another form of media with the same human beings with the same wants, needs and reactions as those who read the newspaper and watch TV.

As a means of increasing my affiliate products income, as of the date of writing this, I've been going to topic related websites in order to secure interesting products and services I may offer to others for a commission. Because I'm already Clickbank merchant, using them to pay my own affiliate partners and take my orders, I did my search for other merchants using the same service.

What I found is this: The great thing about the internet is anyone can try to start making money by making a sales web page. The bad thing about the internet is anyone can try to start making money by making a sales web page.

That's right folks, with no training whatsoever you to can get started and make many of the same mistakes I've seen on some of these websites some of which may still even be uncorrected on my huge whatever you need discount type site.

Here are some of the conclusions I developed while studying these sites for product inclusion and sales potential:

1.Use Your Title Tag Home Page doesn't give anyone including search engines enough with which to work. Would you open the door to a building without sufficient signage? Then why should a prospective buyer click on the link on a search engine that says Index?

2.Description tags Come Second to Importance
This is the description that search engines will use. It's your job in your description not just to describe, but to sell me on the idea of clicking on your link to visit your site. If your sales pitch sounds better than your description then put some of that pitch into your description tag!
Two book stores happen to be located side by side. Both have attractive store names, but one is offering comfortable chairs and coffee as you browse. The other store may offer the same thing but how do I know that without the description of the benefits of going into that book store? Which store would I go into? Which link would you click? The one describing benefits or the one with just the title?

3.A Large Font Descriptive Compelling Title
Okay, I'm at your page, you have about five seconds to get me to stay on your page and keep reading, listening, watching etc..
How to Take Strikes and Counter-Attack Even When You're Hurt http://KirkhamsebooksMartialArt/Martial_Arts_Videos/
This title obviously attracts martial artists, boxers and those interested in self-defense.

Graphics
Due to an experiment in making my sales pages copy and pasteable into emails some of my pages are lacking graphics. Graphics include a book cover please. Some of my older books still lack book covers and I'm finding a good titled, colorful book cover will attract attention, give prospects more confidence in your product and therefore potentially increase sales.
Samples

When I go to an off line book store, I'll read the cover, read the inside flap, table of contents and flip through pages. Admittedly, I'm still correcting this in some of my own ebooks, but I see the importance in giving the public the same options as they would in an off line book store. Providing a downloadable free version of your ebook would give your prospects the same privileges as if they trekked through the rain, paid $3.00 per gallon for gas and drove to their local book store. An on-line version with the page linked should be considered as an alternate option.

This will help with search engines and help with a problem I myself have. I will often download a sample of a product and sometimes not look at it for over a month. 'What's the hurry', I think to myself, 'it's on my hard drive.' Sometimes I feel reading it online will tempt me faster to buy.
Customer Service

Okay you're at the book store and you have a question about a book or you can't find the book you're looking for. So you look for the staff, which are no where to be found. What do you do? Well hopefully go to my book store, but probably go to the the next book store down the street, find an attentive staff member, get your questions answered and buy your book there. By the way, which book store will you refer your friends to?

My fellow authors and business friends, all of this is true on the internet, only your competitors are only a click away not a block away.
Don't worry about spam, you have filters just like a book store may have a staff member to screen calls. Worry more about having better communication with your guests than your one click away competitors have with theirs.

Post Visit Contact
Ever notice how book stores will do everything possible to stay in contact with you and get you to come back. They know you may not buy that expensive book, CD or DVD on your first visit. Being a multi-product store as opposed to a single product as some of you are including myself, the book store will send you offers and discounts in both snail mail and email. Every book store and coffee shop I walk into has a card for me they punch every purchase I make and after a set number I get a free product.

Do not forget about your prospects after they buy or after they leave your site.
The big point here being you're losing a lot of sales and future sales without offering incentives to stay in contact with your previous visitors as well as making it to their advantage to revisit your site due to fresh content. Do you archive your newsletters on your website with a link to those archives on the newsletter you're sending out? Do all of your newsletters contain a clickable link to your sales page. Giving prospects a chance to read your archives could peak their interest enough to buy your product. The links to your sales page will help your search engine ranking a bit as well.

Conclusion
Familiarity leads to comfort, comfort leads to confidence, confidence leads to increased sales and happy clients confident enough to buy again from you and refer others to your website. The next time you go to a successful book store or comparable off line store similar to your product or service, think to yourself, are my guests offered the same benefits?

How to scrutinize your web design professional when building your accessible website

2008-04-29T09:11:00.000-07:00

In all extent, creating something by with a tiny basic knowledge can be stunning and exigent task for all in any view. Stunning because, you are going to produce something by holding elfin knowledge on it and exigent because of the ways and means that one needs to take in order to finish the development.

When you're starting a new online business your first wish to create a website that will looks to be specialized and decipherable. Then you have to search for the best web design professional who will guide you the traditions to build the creative website design which will represent you and your business theme. What are the symbols for a graceful professional website builder? How to identify affordable and accessible web design? Who will save you wealth by combining numerous features of a traditional website program into attractive website? These may be your thoughts arises in your mind but it is viewed that ethical productive website builders are also easy to use. They offer you a way to fabricate a small business website design without the need of knowing a lot of technical stuff or html.

When choosing a cheap professional website builder, just remember to judge the following features which are crucial when building a productive handsome web presence for your business:

1. To build a professional-looking website they must have little bit basic knowledge on FTP, HTML, web designing styles and java script. If these are all new to you, you should learn them through different online resources and tutorials.

2. They should identify your target market and then made a vast RND on it. Remember, they will be creating your website for that market. They should realize the criteria and features of the visitor’s means what they would like to see on your site, as well as the content.

3. Advice them to study your competitors. Recommend them to visit the websites of your competitors and identify the things they used to effectively attract visitors.

4. Plan ahead. Write down the sections and features you would like to be included in your website and discus with them. Combine your ideas with the demands of your potential clients.

5. Navigation should be in first preference when they build your website. Make sure that your website is easy to navigate. Make sure that all buttons and links can be easily located. Also, put a link on every page that will take your visitors to you homepage.

6. Suggest them to consider effective color combination. You can't simply use pink and red on your website just because they are your favorite colors. Advocate them, to build your website look professional; you will need to stick with neutral colors.

7. Advice them to make your homepage tantalizing. This is the first page that will be presented to your visitors. Thus you have to concentrate on it vastly. Make sure that it is eye-catching so your visitors will be convinced to explore the whole website.

8. Advocate them to seal your website with unique quality content. Make your website will be a great resource of information to entice your visitors to visit again that site.

9. Shopping cart - When someone is fascinated in a product or service on your site, you'll need to have a shopping cart for them to place that item. Consult with your web design professional about this function. If the builder you're looking at doesn't provide this, you might want to look elsewhere.

10. Templates and image libraries - Some website builders have templates and they will suggest you to use any of them, and some even provide gallery images that you can add to your site. However, a really good professional website builder will have more than just a few. It is better to you to create just what you have in mind. Efficiently designed websites might be a little costly issue but it is a good to one time investment. Online business is fast grabbing up and more and more people turn to shop online as it is time saving and cost effective views. Thus you have to consider the emotions of those visitors who will visit your website and your simple idea to restrict them into your site in long time basic.

Strategic Domain Name Selection for Increasing Traffic and Conversion Rates

2008-04-28T13:24:00.000-07:00

The days of a domain name being just a web address are long gone; today, domain names are a critical element of your marketing toolbox. In this presentation, learn how you can build a portfolio of traffic-generating “Direct Navigation” domain names to drive additional traffic to your web site while simultaneously increasing conversion rates.

“Direct Navigation” domain names—essentially highly-targeted descriptive domain names that users type directly into their browser—are one of the fastest growing advertising channels: in 2007, nearly 10% of all paid search clicks—an estimated $1 billion worth—were derived from direct navigation portals.

Do you know how to take advantage of direct navigation traffic? Who are these users who search via domain names rather than Google, and how can you best sell to them?Via case studies and empirical research, Johnston will help attendees learn:

What is direct navigation traffic?

How does your choice of domain name effect search engine placement?

How does your choice of domain effect your ad click-through rates?

How can you capture traffic from users “searching without a search engine?”

How can you build a portfolio of descriptive domain names that will generate targeted traffic for
many years to come?

Blogging for Profit and Traffic

2008-04-28T07:19:00.000-07:00

Blogging for profit involves specific knowledge of how to make money online, although if you are only blogging for traffic then you are guaranteed that if you link your website to your blog.
In order to blog for profit, or to make money in other words, you need to understand the principles of Google Adsense, a selling advertising space on your blog and affiliate marketing.

You could also advertise your products on your blog if you have any to sell, but you will likely be doing the selling from your website and that is another technique altogether. Before discussing ways in which you can use your blog to make money, let’s first discuss your blog, and where you are operating it from.

If your blog is a Blogger or Wordpress blog hosted by either of these two, then your options are very limited when compared to uploading your own blogging software from wordpress.org. If you are serious about blogging for money then you should do so from your own website. If you have no web host as yet, and are seeking one from which to operate your blog, then make sure that your host offers MySQL.

You will need that to run Wordpress from your website. The reason that Wordpress is recommended is that it is the best blogging software online if you have your own website. If you do not, then many people prefer Blogger, although others still use Wordpress from the Wordpress.com site. I will not go further into this because it is not the object of this article, which is to recommend ways of making money from a blog.

First register with Google Adsense. Enter that into your browser and follow all of the instructions. You will be able to offer adverts on your blog, and will be paid every time somebody clicks on an advert. They don’t have to buy anything, just click on the advert. You should place your Adsense blocks somewhere on your sidebar, and also at the bottom of your blog so that when people have finished reading they have something to click on.

If your reader reaches the end of your article, page of blog, it means that are interested in what are writing, otherwise they would have left and clicked on to somewhere else. If you have nothing at the end of the post or the page, then people will feel somewhat let down. If you provide them with something to do, even just to click on an advert that interests them, then that is what they are liable to do.

The theme of the adverts are determined by the Google contextual algorithm often called LSI, that determines the theme of your content through the vocabulary that you use in it. You can also offer affiliate links on your blog: links to products being sold by others whereby you get a proportion of the sales price for each sales (frequently 50%).

You can find lots of affiliate products to sell on Clickbank.com. or simply by entering the term into your favourite search engine. These links can take the form of banner ads, text links or clickable logo, and you can place them anywhere on your blog. This applies predominantly for blogs run from your own website, where you have total editing over the html of the various components of your blog: the stylesheet that controls each complete page, the headers, footers, sidebars and everything else that makes up your blog.

You do not have this degree of control over a hosted blog. If you want to use your blog to make real money, then it is necessary to have your blog on your own website rather than on a blog host such as Bloggit or Wordpress.com.

There are other ways in which to use your blog to make money, and blogging for profit and traffic is a combination of many sources of income and traffic generation techniques. Once you understand how to use these, you will find your blog a lot more useful than just a simple website. Pete has been blogging for less than a year, but already his blogs are making him good money. Find out how he does it on his blog Blog on Blog and also check out his website Create a Blog for more information on how to use blogs to make money and generate traffic to your website.

Traffic Generation and Affordable SEO Services

2008-04-26T09:38:00.000-07:00

In order to help you achieve the type of traffic you need to make your online business a success, we shall look at each of these statements separately and discuss what options are available to enable you to attract the visitors that are essential to your online future.

Although there are ways to attract traffic other than through search engine optimization, it is definitely to your benefit if you can secure traffic by means of the free advertising that a high listing in search engines such as Google and Yahoo can provide you with. There are many ways in which you can make your website as search engine friendly as possible and improve its capacity for traffic generation. Did you notice the mistake I just made there? I mentioned websites in the same sentence as search engine.

True search engines look at web pages, not web sites. More on that in a minute. In order to make it easier for me (and you) I am going to apply the name Google whenever I write about ‘search engine’, since although Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, Ask, etc are important, no one can deny that Google is the biggest search engine. Not only that, but it was the first true search engine. Yahoo started life off as a web directory, and if your site was not in the Yahoo directory, it would not be listed in a search. Now, however, in addition to being a website directory, Yahoo, MSN and Ask are true web search engines, the same as Google.

I will explain the difference later from my website that you can access from the link in my Resource Box. For the moment, accept the fact that Google and the other true search engines crawl the whole World Wide Web for the web pages that are most relevant to the search term that your customers are using to find the information they are seeking. Did you notice what I just wrote there? ‘Web pages’? Not ‘web sites’ but web pages, as I mentioned earlier. Google and the rest list individual web pages in order of relevance to its interpretation of the words that your potential visitors use to find their information.

That is very important to keep in mind. How do they do that? How do the search engines decide what is relevant and what is not to a character string – that is all that your search term is. That is another story really, but it is connected with what is commonly termed ‘Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)’, a misnomer for a mathematical statistical analysis of the vocabulary on each of your web pages.

I say misnomer, because LSI is not an indexing technique, but an analysis method that uses character strings and known juxtaposition of characters, to determine what you are writing about through the use of contextual relevance of the whole passage of your text to the keyword, or theme, that you have highlighted by means of the search engine optimization techniques available to you. Nobody can make a web page LSI compliant, or ‘use’ LSI on a website. It is akin to saying that you can use probability equations to write an article on fly fishing. It is a nonsense that even the best known internet gurus believe, unless they are lying to us and I sure that they would not do that. They must therefore be more ignorant than we believed them to be, which explains quite a lot all things considered. Which of the two options would they admit to I wonder. You no longer need the oft-quoted 1% - 3% keyword density on your web page, but instead more vocabulary and content on your page that makes the topic of that page clear, without any doubt, to software that parses our page for its meaning in additional to human readers who can tell that at a glance. You have to use more vocabulary than just repeat the keyword or Google and the rest of the search engines will not list your page.

The most affordable SEO services will provide you with the small things that you do to your individual web pages to improve your listing position and traffic generation capability. Such services need not be expensive, although the sites you find online that offer them tend to charge high prices since they are targeting large companies rather than individuals with single small websites of a hundred pages or less. One technique that they all mention, however, is the use of meta tags. Many get it wrong! The only important meta tags are the Title and Description tags. You should also point out to the spiders what your more important vocabulary is by use of H tags, bold text, italics and underlining. Google appreciates that, but while you might be rewarded for doing so, you will not be punished for not doing so.

There is a massive difference between breaking the rules and failing to give a helping hand. Your linking strategy is of critical importance, and you must have a good number of links back to your web page from other relevant web pages. Take note of the two important words I have used there: ‘pages’ and ‘relevant’.

I could write 10 pages on Google PageRank without doing it justice, so won’t start now. Just believe me that you get a share of the Google PageRank of a page linking to yours (not of the home page of that site), and since most linking pages are designed only to hold URL links and consequently contain masses of other links on them, then your share is practically zilch. Do not therefore give a website a link from your home page that reciprocates with one from deep inside the directory structure that provides you with absolutely no benefit. You cannot lose PageRank by providing a link, but why should you give more than you get. Come to an arrangement: you will provide a link from your PR 5 page if the other party reciprocates. Not if their link is from a PR 0 page. There are many more ways in which you can legally attract search engines to your website and achieve high listings and to generate loads of traffic.

There are also many illegal methods of doing so. It is the end result that counts, but before you can even begin to understand what the term ‘black hat’ means, you must first understand what SEO means! Traffic generation is critical to your success, and if you can find affordable SEO services to help you to achieve that, then you are most of the way there. The effect that good search engine optimization has on the generation of traffic to selected pages within your website cannot be over-estimated and will likely determine your future over the next year.

Peter enjoys the game of contesting the search engines with his SEO techniques, and this article is continued on his web page Traffic Generation. His site Seociousalso provides screenshots of how he gets his sites in Google’s top 10 only a few days after submission using one of his simple website designs.

Choosing Small Business Website Names

2008-04-25T13:26:00.000-07:00

I disagree with the comment made by some web developers that all the good domain names are taken. Search engine optimization, or seo, does not depend heavily on the www name you select. For my clients just starting out the decision choosing small business website names has never been an issue. It is a fact that all the 3 character and 4 character domain names with the key extensions are taken. Furthermore, I agree that a vast number of choice domain names are no longer available; however, the selection of a suitable www domain for your small business is possible if you remain flexible.

The real value in the name you choose from a search perspective is how easy it is to spell and remember. Of the two types of visitors to your site, the human visitors and search engines, the ability of a person to remember your domain name and spell it correctly to pass it on to others outweighs any SEO value. Search engines are robots and don't care. Using words like "greatest", "best", or other exaggerated terms in your domain name is thought by some to be a disadvantage and penalized by search engines.

Search algorithms change often and likewise that theory, and although you may not be penalized for using such words, consider the reaction of your human visitors. They may not stick around if they feel you boast without the content to back it up. For a serious small business commercial enterprise, my advice is avoiding adjectives in the domain name entirely. In some cases new clients approach me to redesign an existing website, and it surprises me that some of the basics are overlooked. For example, a commercial enterprise in business for profit should not select a dot ORG domain simply because the dot COM was taken. This was the case from a conversation with a client interested in a site makeover.

Their ORG version was online for two years with little or no backlinks or serious indexing from search engines. The mindset of getting one particular name should be reconsidered especially if it's your first online venture. Here's a breakdown of the most desirable domain extensions and the usual purpose of each: COM - Commercial for profit enterprise INFO - Information only related website NET - Companies providing internet services ORG - Non-profit organizations Certainly there are many more like BIZ, US, WS, and others which are all reasonable choices, but for your commercial small business my recommendation is always acquire a dot COM www domain name. The client mentioned earlier did not realize a dot ORG was intended for a non-commercial enterprise, and they decided the poor website SEO performance was something that justified getting a new dot COM. We easily found an available www domain using their company initials and one key word about their target market which is medical. Despite my advice that they keep the existing site and simply change the theme, they decided to just let it go when it expired. My commercial site choice was my first and last name, and very unique at that. Using your name is okay, and expected if you're famous. There is, however, little or no value as far as keywords in my www domain to attract visitors, so is that a mistake for search engine optimization? Certainly not.

The fact that I have collected more than 100 screenshots of generic phrases relative to my business that made Google page one is evidence the content, not the domain, is key. Here's some advice to help you when choosing a new dot COM small business website domain name. Start out with a list of about 10 domain names that you would like to have. Next, make a list of market related single word terms about what you do and the customer base you service. If your market is localized, consider geographical terms that relate to where you sell or provide services. Spend 30 minutes brainstorming to come up with the initial names and additional lists of single word terms. You may want another list of significant initials. Next, search for "WhoIs" in Google to find free online services that keep a database of available domain names, and follow the link in the search results. Each database has a search box which allows you to input the domain name and extension. Begin with your first choice and work down the list and keep track of available names for review later. It may not be easy, so try combinations of the key terms as you continue to search, and keep in mind you want a domain name that is easy to spell and remember. By the time you're done you should have a half dozen or more available names, so take your time and select the best one, and then register the name immediately. Tip: The domain name may not be significant for search engine optimization, but the length of your registration can be. My advice is registering domains for 2 years minimum, and 5 to 10 years if that's in your budget. Search engines consider that the length of your registration reflects your commitment to be online long term, so at today's prices 5 years is practical and should cost less than $50 USD. There's nothing wrong with getting the dot COM domain name you want, and then registering the other major extensions that are available for the same name.

If you are highly successful in your online venture, having the other extensions registered in your name prevents others from attempting to take advantage of your reputation by association. In conclusion, the concept that all the good domain names are taken is a myth. You may not get exactly what you want, but practical options are available with a little research and due diligence. Jim Degerstrom writes small business advice based on 30 years in management, sales, and marketing, including GM or President of small companies in 5 states. He is proficient in website and graphic art design, and runs his online Small Business Resource Center and offers advice on his Small Business Advice Blog from Kissimmee, Florida USA.

Your chance for online success?

2008-04-18T18:17:00.000-07:00

When building a business and a brand on the Web, your chosen domain name is everything. Website domain names - the Internet address the helps Web surfers find your site - are the backbone on which we all locate things on the Web and thus are the communications glue that makes the web work as well as it does.

For any new or existing business, selecting a domain name can be the most challenging and frustrating process that a business can undertake. This process can often times cause an existing business to change it’s name to fit a domain name. It simply is getting harder to find a good name that has not been registered.