Have you ever thought about how to get your website or blog included in Google News? Well, you wouldn’t be the first. Business owners, Internet marketers, online reputation management and public relations (PR) professionals, and SEO specialists all recognize the value of having their content show up in one of today’s biggest online news aggregators (and search engines). Why get listed on Google News? If you’ve never given a thought to getting listed, consider these benefits and key features of Google News. Millions of people use it to keep abreast of what’s happening. (It cannot be a bad thing to be able to tap into that, right?) These users access Google News using a variety of ways: via search, personalized Google News pages, regular E-mail alerts, mobile device or a tablet (like the iPad), RSS or Atom feeds, and more. Get listed and immediately you have a multitude of ways to reach out to an audience (search engine marketing, mobile – Read the full article
The Facebook “Like” button has a new friend. Or rather, a new “competitor”. After a series of unsuccessful attempts to incorporate social into search – such as Orkut, Buzz, Wave – Google is launching what observers believe can serve as a rival product to Facebook’s “Like” button. It’s called the Google “+1” Button. In an announcement made last week on the official Google blog, the search engine giant is rolling out the new +1 button as a way for users to share their recommendations to others, as well as to give a “public stamp of approval” on search results and linked sites that they like. This then enables other Google users to find more relevant – and more social – search results. “Sometimes it’s easier to find exactly what you’re looking for when someone you know already found it,” reads the explanation on the Google +1 Button page. “Get recommendations for the things that interest you, right when you want – Read the full article
Now that your website is up and running, it’s time to start working on your Google PageRank (PR). My what? What is PageRank? PageRank, in simple terms, refers to the value given to your site by Google. Sometime ago this value was measured by link popularity, or the number of links pointing back to your site. (It was thought that the best and most relevant pages attracted the most links.) So the more links you have from other sites, especially those sites with a higher PageRank, the higher your website will be ranked by Google. And what does the high ranking do? Well, a number of experts consider PageRank to be the most important factor in establishing the relevance of a website or page, for each particular phrase, keyword, or search term entered on Google Search. Nowadays it has changed. Search engines like Google no longer rely solely on the quantity of links. They’re taking link quality and reputation into – Read the full article
Before Facebook, before Twitter, there was something called blogging. Remember that? Well, blogging hasn’t exactly gone out of fashion; only, this form of online content publishing has evolved since the time of LiveJournal and Open Diary. (That was so 1998!) And it’s certainly attracted the attention of more and more business owners who have recognized that the interactivity and SEO benefits of blogging go a long way in establishing – and enhancing – their visibility online. Now, any SEO expert will tell you that incoming links are a great way of boosting the popularity of your company or business blog – that they increase your PageRank (PR). But few ever counsel linking out to other sites or blogs, which should actually be just as integral a part of your linking strategy as generating incoming links. Why? Well, here are only some of the reasons: It’s good practice. Bloggers tend to get obsessed about getting as many incoming links as possible. – Read the full article
Watch out, WordPress and Tumblr. Blogger is about to undergo a major makeover this year. At this year’s SXSW in Austin, Texas, search engine giant Google provided a glimpse of the new and improved Blogger, its very own blogging and publishing platform and sixth largest website in the world (according to Alexa). To be included in the series of updates to Blogger are: a brand new interface, a revamped post editor, a more customizable template designer, and a new content discovery feature. These and more are going to be rolled out throughout the year. “2010 was a big year for Blogger,” wrote Chang Kim, Blogger Product Manager, in a blog post covering the announcement. “We introduced template designer, real-time stats, comment spam filtering, mobile templates, web fonts and more. 2011 promises to be another exciting year. We’re kicking things off at SXSW by giving folks a sneak peek at our next-generation user interface. The new design is not only cleaner and more modern, but it also – Read the full article
Most businesses and websites that invest in Pay-per-Click (PPC) campaigns know the basics of running one. They’d also know that the most important element of any PPC campaign is keyword research: spending time on finding out what phrases will be the most useful for your website when set against the cost of the most commonly used phrases in your business sector. Keyword research and keyword selection make up the single most important job for any website, and finding the balance between the most commonly used phrases and value for money when competing with your rivals can often make or break the performance – and value – of your campaign. Once you have mastered the basics of keyword research, it is possible to dig deeper into the more sophisticated arts of Pay-per-Click and hone your PPC strategies and skills even more. One way of doing this is through Pay-per-Click tracking. PPC tracking allows you to evaluate the Pay-per-Click campaigns you have – Read the full article
The E-commerce industry hasn’t only grown bigger than ever. It has also become more social than ever. Thanks to the constant evolution of the Web – and to the popularity of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter – businesses and retailers are now doing more than just catering to individual Internet users and online shoppers. They’re also marketing to the people’s friends, inner circles, and communities, with the aim of bringing in more fans, followers, and dollars. Yes, dollars. In a recent story by Mashable, Jason Taylor, vice president of Platform Strategy at Usablenet, wrote that, when it comes to marketing, it’s “no longer just about ‘liking’ brands.” With a social network like Facebook giving way to new sales opportunities, businesses and online retailers are maximizing their social presence to drive not just marketing and branding campaigns, but also additional revenue. “By integrating purchasing into their branded pages,” Taylor said, “businesses can effectively take advantage of Facebook as a – Read the full article
Google Analytics holds a wealth of information about your site. Within a few clicks you’ll have all of the metrics that are important to you: page views, visits, unique views, bounce rates, and conversions, etc. If you want to go a step further you can start to segment this information or create custom reports so you can look deeper into the data. Regardless of whether you are an e-commerce site owner, a marketer, a business owner, or a blogger, if you know how to interpret the data correctly, you will be able to make the right choices more often. The numbers don’t lie and if you can base your decision on what the numbers are telling you, you’ll be able to improve the performance of your website and increase the number of business opportunities you’ll get from it. Site Search: A hidden gold mine One of the most overlooked tools in your analytics arsenal is quite possibly the Internal Site – Read the full article
