Internet Profits: February 2011

Friday, February 18, 2011

metafever

Posted: 18 Feb 2011 07:19 AM PST

The New York Times was the first to break the story about the dirty secret of search, that included JCPenny.com acquiring backlinks en-mass to help boost their ranking in Google.com.

It seems (according to the article), that the internet seems to be littered with abandoned pages that link back to JCPenny.com. The article cites examples of pages about cameras, dogs, diamond drills, bathroom tiles, and dentist . . . of course the full list is much more massive.

But the real question is this . . . is what they are doing ethical?

Google search works based on an algorithm that includes many factors of a web site such as domain age, content, and of course . . . backlinks. Google has gone around the internet preaching what is considered ethical SEO and what is not, thus creating a great divide inside of the search engine marketing arena.

Why would Google claim building backlinks is unethical?

How did the idea of paying someone for a backlink on their website make the purchaser seem slightly criminal?

In short because the Google search algorithm relies so heavily on how backlinks are factored into deciding which website ranks in any given position for certain keywords. And of course, Google does NOT like to be manipulated.

“When did it become unethical for a website/blog owner to monetize their property?” That is the question that everyone should be asking.

Another question is “Why should we rely solely upon Google to decide the fate of so many businesses?”

So let’s play the devil’s advocate for a moment. . . If you were being manipulated would you like it? Of course not! So, while I respect Google’s position on this I am very much against the demonizing of those who choose to either sell backlinks or buy backlinks to help them make more money online.

It really is not about what is ethical or unethical . . .

Remember, the one who frames the question wins the argument and Google has done an amazing job at framing the question of backlinks, thus they will win . . .

Thursday, February 17, 2011

metafever

Why Professional SEO is Important

Posted: 16 Feb 2011 12:03 PM PST

Many people who get an idea for a home business thinking that the internet is filled with opportunities to make money are absolutely right. The thing that seems to be forgotten the most is that having a professional SEO company is vitally important. This is because of the vast amount of competition out there. Do a search on just about any topic, and you will likely find hundred of thousands of results if not millions. Since many of those you see near the top employ professional SEO themselves, you are going to have to do the same thing in order to be truly competitive.

When developing a site you are going to quickly learn that there is no real get rich quick method out there. It will take a lot of time and effort, and just as much dedication as a full time job or career. This will mean that there is even less time for you to learn how to do every aspect of marketing for your site, which makes hiring a professional SEO services consultant will not only bring you profits faster, but make things easier in the long run.

There is a lot of research that you can and should do on your own, but having a professional SEO consultant provide you with a detailed analysis report is almost certainly going to provide insight you otherwise would not have seen. For that reason alone you should include in your web development plan and budget room to hire someone to provide top notch SEO for your site. The cost of not having a professional SEO expert will be greater in the long run when you have to redesign your site almost completely from scratch.

You will want to make sure everything is done correctly from the start so that none of your valuable time is wasted. It can also save you money in not having to pay for months of hosting which bring you little to no profit from your site. Having a professional SEO consultant will ensure that everything is done correctly. You will still be in charge of the operation, but you will get advice, and quality services that quickly have your site ranked high in the search results. This of course will ultimately lead to higher profits in your bank account.

For anyone who doesn’t think having professional SEO services for your site is important, you will quickly learn how wrong that is when your site sits somewhere below several hundred thousand web sites, many of which would not have as good of content or quality service as yours, but they had professional SEO services. Both the time saved learning a new field, as well as money when your site brings profit quicker will very easily pay off in the long run. Think carefully about your business plan to be sure that this is easily within you budget.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

metafever

What Makes an SEO Company Great

Posted: 15 Feb 2011 08:45 AM PST

Just do a simple search and there will be thousands of results with web pages touting one SEO company or another. It can be very hard to tell the difference between them all, and rather confusing when looking at the wide range of pricing options. You might also run across people on bulletin boards or forums who claim they can provide great results, for a much lower price. Truth of the matter is that only a real SEO company with a solid infrastructure can provide results which will make a difference in your sites income.

When doing your research you should be sure to see if there are any reviews or feedback left for the SEO company you are considering for the optimization of your website. Some will even provide you with access to a portfolio so that you can see the results firsthand. You will also want to know just how long that SEO company has been in business. Make sure they do not make any claims which would be very hard to meet.

SEO Company

A truly great SEO company will offer some certain services with the packages they provide. All of these would have some sort of set time frame for results, and that is usually several months. They would be providing you with an analysis of your site, where it stands as is, as well as a report about the market competition for the keywords you would be targeting your SEO campaign towards. This is important as it will set clear goals and define expected results more clearly.

Another service that they will provide is the actual search engine optimization of your site. This includes all of your links, headers with meta tags and information, images, along with a proper description of your site. This generally referred to as On-site optimization, and it does have a counterpart called Off-site optimization. To provide this, the SEO company will be active in a link building process. This may include directory submission, placing your link on various sites which already have a higher page rank along with many other techniques so that there are more sites linking back to your own.

In many cases an SEO company will provide content creation service that is meant to give quality content which is aimed at your specific keywords, while being useful and relevant for any visitors of your site. There will often be a set limit to just how much of this is provided, with the option of adding more to the overall package.

One of the most important things that makes an SEO company great is ongoing support. They will provide you with monthly reports and analysis on just how well site is doing, where it is possibly falling behind, and what is recommended to stay up there. Good SEO is not done at once, it must be followed up on which is why it is very important to choose a well established SEO company.

Monday, February 14, 2011

metafever

SEO Services That Matter

Posted: 14 Feb 2011 07:51 AM PST

There are a great many web developers out there that have a unique idea for a website, and have some valuable content or products to share with the world. In a lot of cases, these same people also lack the skills and know how to perform basic SEO services for themselves. This is when hiring a professional or company to do the work for you is a good idea. What you must know first when going in though, is that absolutely no one can guarantee a number one spot on any search engine.

One of the more important SEO services that a web site would need is overall optimization of the site itself. The website will be evaluated, and looked at to see just how well the SEO services can be implemented into the overall look, feel and function of the site. A provider would then compose a report of recommendations they feel would be the most needed to that particular site, as well as how the site does overall as it is. The explanation of these suggested SEO services would often then be followed with a price for attaining those goals.

A reputable company that would be providing SEO services would offer continuing followup reports included with the overall plan. True search engine optimization will not be achieved in a short span of time. Often these things have to occur organically, so it may take several months for there to be actual results. This is why it is most important to choose a reputable company so that any SEO services they provide will matter. Wasting time is one thing, but wasting time and money is even worse.

Everyday there are countless more web pages being added to the world wide web. These are all competing for a spot on the many search engines, and as tactics get more advanced, the line which separates SEO from SEM ( search engine marketing ) has become very thin and hard to find. This is why you will want to pick a company that has a strong background in providing SEO services as they will be aware of and have adapted to the latest changes in the way search engines index your pages.

Often there will be several parts of the SEO services provided, one of which is directory submission, as it will increase the visibility of your site throughout the web. Some providers of SEO services will use pay per click providers in order to build a regular flow of traffic into your site. Even though those visitors may get a reward for being at your site, the fact that they are there will increase your alexa rankings when done properly. All this is to be done on top of basic search engine optimization of the content of your site, and if done right by a reputable company, can truly be an SEO service that matters.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

metafever

Search Engine Optimization Success

Posted: 12 Feb 2011 09:36 AM PST

search engine optimization success

Generally there are two main ways in which to attain any sort of success in search engine optimization which are, hiring a professional with experience to do the work for you, or research and employ your own SEO tactics. When starting out most internet entrepreneurs are on a limited budget, so they often decide to try and accomplish this themselves.

One of the first things you absolutely must do is decide which keywords you are going to want to focus on. While this can be changed from article to article, you will want your website to stay within a specific genre to be more easily recognized by the major search engines. Make sure that the title of your web page accurately reflects, as well as contains the desired keywords while checking on your search engine optimization SEO. You will also want to do the same with all the content on your site, including image names, captions, and headings where possible. Make sure that all of your urls are search engine friendly. The popular blogging software WordPress includes the permalink feature for this very reason. This will go a long way towards making your site appear relevant when crawled by the various spiders.

While trying to attain the maximum search engine optimization it is important to track your progress as you make changes to your site. You can search the keywords themselves and see where you rank on the search engines, but also remember to regularly check your referrer logs as this will tell you exactly where your visitors came from. This will help you in realizing any shortcomings that you might be having, as well as giving you the chance to improve upon the results.

Another basic strategy is to make sure your site links to itself often. Link to your own archives or other articles on the site. This will convince the search engines that your site is more relevant about the specific topic being covered, offering much more than just one page of information. This is a very basic search engine optimization SEO strategy everyone should know. You would be amazed at just how much that little trick will influence your overall ranking.

Try not to be too flashy, specifically, you might want to avoid using flash or video content if it is not needed. This type of content is not recognized by the search engines at all, so will do you no use towards your search engine optimization efforts. If you absolutely must make use of this type of content. You should be prepared to name both the files and any relevant text related to it in accordance with your ultimate search engine optimization plans.

If you are just getting start, do not expect to get incredible results right away. All good things take time, and search engine optimization is no different. Remember that every effort you make for search engine optimization counts, no matter how small. In the end you will want everything to flow together and be both recognized by the major search engines, but be pleasing to the eyes and easy to read for visitors.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

metafever

Search Engine Marketing Basics

Posted: 11 Feb 2011 10:29 AM PST

Not only will you have to market your site to visitors in order to properly monetize, but you will have to do some search engine marketing as well. This is simply marketing your site to the search engines so that you will get a higher ranking in the search results. You want to do all that you can to appease the requirements set forth by the major search engines, as they will ultimately play a huge role in the success or failure of your web site.

Search Engine Marketing Basics

You will want to perform the general strategies required for SEO in order to get the maximum effect from your search engine marketing campaign. This includes utilizing ways to make your site easier to index. Make all of your URL’s search engine friendly by using the proper keywords for the content of the site. Also it is imperative that you make a site-map to help your search engine marketing. Believe it or not, how the search engines view your site is directly affected by the XML site-map you include.

Make sure that your strategy for search engine marketing starts with a focus on your target audience or customers. You will not want to waste valuable time and content attracting visitors which will not bring you any monetary gain. Be sure to know exactly what category your type of sire will fall into, and what kind of audience this will attract. This will let you base more of your content around trying to convince that specific group to either buy, or click on your ads.

Try your best to stay focused on your main products or ads you are trying to promote. The more you stay in the general area of ideas, the easier it will be to make proper use of SEO and search engine marketing tactics you will be using. While there are often a ton of different offers you can present to a single visitor which might be relevant, the information overload will have adverse effects on both the search engines, as well as the visitor themselves.

Remember that most visitors to your site will have first found about it through one of the various search engines out there. Also keep in mind that a rather large portion of these hold a value to how high in the search results your site appeared. This is why search engine marketing is so important and absolutely cannot be left out of any long term strategies. Always have a plan before setting out, that way you can more easily achieve your goals on reaching a higher place in the search results for the keywords you have targeted. If you stick to your search engine marketing plan, there will be a lot less time wasted, and much quicker results which will benefit the bottom line in the long run.

Friday, February 11, 2011

metafever

Hire A Top SEO Consultant

Posted: 10 Feb 2011 11:24 AM PST

You will almost certainly need help in getting your website to the first page of the search engines. This is because there is a lot of competition, and all of the big name sites will have hired an SEO consultant already. In order to be successful you will have to hire one for yourself in order to make sure that your site is as successful as it possibly can be. Just remember that in your search for an USA SEO consultant that this is not a job which can be done by anyone who knows how to use a computer. Often they will be a person who has a business, marketing or communication degree, as well as several years of experience in the field of online marketing.

SEO Consultant

This is why it is very important to understand that you will not find an SEO consultant willing to provide you with professional SEO services for your site for some cheap price in a webmaster forum somewhere. This is not to say that you won’t get any results like that, but hiring a top level SEO consultant will get you better results in a quicker more efficient manner. It actually takes infrastructure and money in order to be able to provide the level of analysis you will want for your site.

By hiring a top SEO consultant you will have the advantage in knowing that the person knows how to conduct business, and would not take on more clients than he can handle. This is because proper SEO takes time, along with a lot of on going monthly support. A real expert knows this, so won’t promise you with world for some ridiculously low price.

Whoever you choose, they need to be highly skilled and professional. The SEO consultant will be able to provide you with in depth statistics about the category of you niche, along with the level of competition you will be up against. The very best SEO consultants out there will have a lot of experience providing this, so would be almost second nature.

Hiring the wrong one could do you more harm than good. Once you would realize you need to switch, your website and SEO marketing campaign may very well have to be redesigned and started from the ground up. This would put all of the time and money invested into getting where you already are to waste. For that very reason alone it is a good idea to make sure you plan to hire a top level SEO consultant so that you can stick with them for the long term, and avoid the many hassles that could come from having to restart your site yet again. Make sure that the budget for your web design is written with this in mind, and you will enjoy much more success.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

metafever

Is Bing Making a Move? Sure Looks Like It

Posted: 09 Feb 2011 08:59 PM PST

After all of the updates and announcements we've made about Bing the past year or so, it's time to talk about the moment everyone has been waiting for. We have, at least.

In a recent report by online intelligence gathering firm, Experian – Hitwise, total monthly searches for Bing increased by 21% in January.

The Microsoft spawned and Yahoo cloned search engine has seen consistent growth in recent months. Hitwise also mentioned recent rankings from Compete.com, with Bing exploding to over 105% growth in unique searches for 2010. . . also passing Wikipedia for 6th in the overall unique visitors race with nearly 80 million.

Some other interesting stats included:

Google rounded out the Compete.com list with 149.9 million unique visitors. Yahoo came in second at 136.9 million uniques, Facebook settled in at 134 million and YouTube completes the Fab Four with 117.2.

In terms of search engine success rates (% of visitors who click onto web page) Bing and Yahoo had the highest numbers – both resting nicely at 80% or above. Google seems to be "struggling" near 65%.

Bing searches leaped to 12.81% in Janruary – up from 10.6%. Google search market share dropped down to 67% from a previous high of 69%. All Bing powered searches made up roughly 27% of all search traffic.

Yahoo searches declined to 14.62%, down from 15.17%.

This information is followed by another report stating Bing's search results are more accurate than Google. This is based on the search success results.

In a quotation obtained from ComputerWorld.com, it seems like Google is becoming today's Alta Vista (insert early dot com SE.)

“In my business and personal searching, I feel like I’m seeing less on-point results and more garbage, even on pretty specific queries,” said Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group. “Search success is a big deal for both advertisers and users. This same study also pointed out a significant increase in multiword, more-complex searches. To me, this means that users are looking for more specific results.”

They have to be cheating.

Let us know what you think about these new results. How will this affect your search decisions. . . if at all?

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

metafever

Effective SEO Marketing Strategy

Posted: 09 Feb 2011 09:14 AM PST

Just about any would be web designer or developer knows that SEO marketing is essential in order to produce any kind of good results. What many of these same people do not know however, is exactly what a good strategy is in order to achieve the desired results. Why don’t we go over just a few of the basics, so that you can get a general idea of what to expect and see if it might be better for you to hire an outside agency to provide your SEO marketing strategies effectively.

SEO Marketing

Probably the first thing you are going to want to do is research just what kind of keywords people use when searching for a site like the one you are running. This is essential as it will prove to be the basis of your entire SEO marketing campaign from start to finish. Make sure that you find what it is you are targeting before implementing any long term plans. This will save you a lot of time by not having to go back and revise your work in order to reflect the proper keywords.

Now this might be very obvious to some people but we have to cover it here due to just how important it is. Your content absolutely must be made to effectively contribute to the overall SEO marketing plan for the keywords you are targeting. This applies to everything from title pages, image names, captions, just about every piece of content you will have on your site. Again, I cannot stress enough just how important it is to do this right the first time so you can focus your attention more on other parts of your SEO marketing campaign which have less to do with your actual site.

A very important aspect and one that is also missed until later on is building up effective back links to your site. This can be done by submitting your website to relevant directories, or even something time consuming like leaving your link in the comment section of blogs ( do this with respect and without spam, trust me ). By including a plan to get more links back to your site, the overall SEO marketing strategy will be much more effective.

Every part of the SEO marketing campaign absolutely needs the others in order to be truly beneficial. It is not just one or two of these basic parts that bring you higher page ranks, but the combination of the whole SEO marketing strategy as a whole. Try not to focus too much of your efforts on any one part while neglecting another. In the end you will be disappointed with the results as you will be lacking some of the key ingredients to having a successful web site.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Test

Posted: 08 Feb 2011 08:21 AM PST

Test

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

metafever

Google, Twitter Join Forces For Good

Posted: 01 Feb 2011 08:20 PM PST

No, they didn't JOIN forces for good. More like, join forces for GOOD.

These two online giants teamed up to create a communication stream, amidst the uprising and protest against the Mubarak regime. Egyptian residents have been left with little resources for outside contact, as result of the nationwide Internet crackdown.

Until now.

Speak2Tweet, a service recently acquired by Google, allows users to call a select set of numbers, and have their voicemail tweeted at: twitter.com/speak2tweet. As of right now, (9:19pm, Feb. 1st, 2011) tweets and voicemails are coming in from Egypt every 5-10 minutes.

I was taken back for a second when I landed on the Twitter account. As you can see, there's no fancy logo insignia – it looks more like an abandon affiliate venture. Yet, minute by minute, voicemail is flowing in with support or opinions about the situation in Egypt.

As most of you know, this is nothing new for the good people over at Twitter. In June 2009, the U.S State Department requested a delay in their regular upgrade – as to not risk the interest of Iranians protesting the June 12th Presidential election.

On a slightly different note, last month it was reported that North Korea's official Twitter was taken over by South Korea hackers and made to call for an uprising against Northern leadership.

I could go on for a while with smaller examples of how social media companies have led the way in doing good.

If any readers are interested in using this, Google put the following info on their blog:

We worked with a small team of engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company we acquired last week, to make this idea a reality. It's already live and anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet

Update earlier today – Update Feb 1, 12:47 PM: When possible, we’re now detecting the approximate (country-level) geographic origin of each call dialing one of our speak2tweet numbers and attaching a hashtag for that country to each tweet. For example, if a call comes from Switzerland, you’ll see #switzerland in the tweet, and if one comes from Egypt you’ll see #egypt. For calls when we can’t detect the location, we default to an #egypt hashtag.

No, they didn't JOIN forces for good. More like, join forces for GOOD.

Until now.

I was taken back for a second when I landed on the Twitter account. As you can see, there's no fancy logo insignia – it looks more like an abandon affiliate venture. Yet, minute by minute, voicemail is flowing in with support or opinions about the situation in Egypt.

On a slightly different note, last month it was reported that North Korea's official Twitter was taken over by South Korea hackers and made to call for an uprising against Northern leadership.

I could go on for a while with smaller examples of how social media companies have led the way in doing social good.

If any readers are interested in using this, Google put the following info on their blog:

We worked with a small team of engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company we acquired last week, to make this idea a reality. It's already live and anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet

Friday, February 18, 2011

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