SEO Competition Report shows you how the top 10 sites in Google for a particular keyword stack up when it comes to links and several other factors.

The Google Keyword Tool is another great way of finding out what people think of another company. You can use Google Trends for larger companies to see how often people are searching on particular company keywords.

For example, if you’re starting a search engine and want to beat Google in its own rankings, you can go to Yahoo and do the search “linkdomain:google.com” and find out that you’re up against 1.4 billion links. If you want to find out where a competitor is getting links, a Yahoo (not Google) search on the site using the command “linkdomain:” will show you most of the other party’s links.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of getting higher positions for websites by enhancing the factors that search engines want to see. One of the easiest ways of getting market intelligence on another website is to closely look at the site itself. The two biggest factors are the layout of the website and the external links pointing at it. If you look at a few dozen websites and take notes about what you like, you’ve probably reaped the benefits of several thousand hours of research and testing. To find out how much traffic your website is getting compared to that of your competitors, Compete.com is a great source of information. Web.com Search Agency has a variety of tools that can point you in the right direction.

The advent of the World Wide Web has made it possible to learn things about competitive strategies which previously had been known only to a handful of people By assembling pieces of information from different sources, you can find out which strategies you can emulate, and what approaches would be most profitable if they were applied to your own business model.

You might also find gaps in your own marketing strategy and learn ways to shore up your own practices in order to make them more profitable. If you know your enemy’s most important keywords, you can get a pretty good glimpse into their current marketing strategy. This tool is also great because it lets you see year-over-year results for certain searches, allowing you to identify seasonal sweet spots for some keywords.

First, a search engine has to be able to classify and categorize your site so it will match up with whatever keyword searches you want to be found for. As a hint, these are usually the very same keywords you are buying in PPC. Another online tool, Spyfu.com, lets you measure sampled Pay-Per-Click (PPC) spending by your competitors, and even allows you to export a list of the keywords that your competition is being found for.

Another well known success story involves Compaq’s reverse engineering of IBM’s PC architecture, which opened the door for the proliferation of cheap “IBM Compatible” personal computers (now just called PCs) and the success of Microsoft.

You can even monitor another company’s reputation and offline marketing success with a few well placed searches. Within the space of a few searches, you can get a workable profile of just about any company’s market position and its relative success in the online world. By doing a search on the company name, you can get the last month’s data on what words people associate with it, and you can even find out how many people use a certain word or phrase when the company’s name comes up.

The free version lets you compare your site traffic over time to data for 2 competitors, but you can open this up to 5 with a paid subscription. Some of this information can be obtained for free, while other data may be available through a subscription that costs a few hundred dollars per year.

The internet is a vast source of publicly available information, and several sources aggregate valuable data from various places, and make it available to you for free or at a low cost. Finally, you may learn how much information about your own site is available on the internet, which will encourage you to create a profile that impresses the people who just might be spying on you!

Since much of this information applies to your competition, you can effectively run a sophisticated intelligence operation on your adversaries without resorting to expensive or dangerous cloak-and-dagger tactics. You can then study the different tactics used by your adversaries to see which ones are the most popular for your field of business.

The advantage of Compete.com is that you can see if your competition is more popular (or spending more money) in one season versus another. Goliath position, you can use your competitor’s formidable research skills to your own advantage. Whether you’re operating out of a garage or your own office building downtown, you can still glean a lot of actionable intelligence from online sources.

McDonald’s spent a lot of time and money figuring out how much traffic was in an area, checking out various locations, and paying people to do all kinds of research which would decide if a certain spot was good for a store. One of the best known stories in marketing involves Burger King’s strategy for finding customers, which usually involved opening a store up right next to a McDonald’s franchise.

Every year companies spend millions of dollars on market research, focus groups, surveys, and special studies to find out how to better serve their customers and gain increased market share. You can improve your own site further by learning from sites like MarketingExperiments.com, which regularly runs case studies and webinars that test actual conversion results from different site types.

This allows you to either add these terms into your own campaign, or carve out a niche where you aren’t going to be outbid by someone with deeper pockets. By searching on a company name with the term “commercial” you can see comments by people about whether or not they liked a TV advertising spot.

Piggybacking on your competition’s work isn’t exactly new. You can read Patrick Hare’s full article.

Posted via web from João’s posterous

Top Twitter Clients Applications

Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio

“To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me.
It is the most-requested column I’ve ever written. My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here goes:

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. Love your parents because they will be gone before you know it.
11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.
12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry
13. Don’t compare your life to others’.. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: ‘In five years, will this matter?
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
42. The best is yet to come.
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

1. A vida não é justa, mas ainda é boa.
2. Quando estiver em dúvida, apenas dê o próximo pequeno passo
3. A vida é muito curta para perdermos tempo odiando alguém
4. Seu trabalho não vai cuidar de você quando você adoecer. Seus amigos e seus pais vão. Mantenha contato.
5. Pague suas faturas de cartão de crédito todo mês.
6. Você não tem que vencer todo argumento. Concorde para discordar.
7. Chore com alguém. É mais curador do que chorar sozinho.
8. Está tudo bem em ficar bravo com Deus. Ele aguenta.
9. Poupe para aposentadoria começando com seu primeiro salário.
10. Quando se trata de chocolate, resistência é em vão.
11. Sele a paz com seu passado para que ele não estrague seu presente.
12. Está tudo bem em seus filhos te verem chorar.
13. Não compare sua vida com a dos outros. Você não tem idéia do que se trata a jornada deles.
14. Se um relacionamento tem que ser um segredo, você não deveria estar nele.
15. Tudo pode mudar num piscar de olhos; mas não se preocupe, Deus nunca pisca.
16. Respire bem fundo. Isso acalma a mente.
17. Se desfaça de tudo que não é útil, bonito e prazeroso.
18. O que não te mata, realmente te torna mais forte.
19. Nunca é tarde demais para se ter uma infância feliz. Mas a segunda só depende de você e mais ninguém.
20. Quando se trata de ir atrás do que você ama na vida, não aceite não como resposta.
21. Acenda velas, coloque os lençóis bonitos, use a lingerie elegante. Não guarde para uma ocasião especial. Hoje é especial.
22. Se prepare bastante, depois deixe-se levar pela maré.
23. Seja excêntrico agora, não espere ficar velho para usar roxo.
24. O órgão sexual mais importante é o cérebro.
25. Ninguém é responsável pela sua felicidade além de você.
26. Encare cada “chamado” desastre com essas palavras:   Em cinco anos, vai importar?
27. Sempre escolha a vida.
28. Perdoe tudo de todos.
29. O que outras pessoas pensam de você não é da sua conta.
30. O tempo cura quase tudo. Dê tempo.
31. Independentemente se a situação é boa ou ruim, irá mudar.
32. Não se leve tão à sério. Ninguém mais leva…
33. Acredite em milagres
34. Deus te ama por causa de quem Deus é, não pelo o que você fez ou deixou de fazer.
35. Não faça auditoria de sua vida. Apareça e faça o melhor dela agora.
36. Envelhecer é melhor do que a alternativa: morrer jovem.
37. Seus filhos só têm uma infância.
38. Tudo o que realmente importa no final é que você amou…
39. Vá para a rua todo dia. Milagres estão esperando em todos os lugares…
40. Se todos jogássemos nossos problemas em uma pilha e víssemos os de todo mundo, pegaríamos os nossos de volta.
41. Inveja é perda de tempo. Você já tem tudo o que precisa.
42. O melhor está por vir.
43. Não importa como vc se sinta, levante, se vista e apareça.
44. Produza.
45. A vida não vem embrulhada em um laço, mas ainda é um presente

Posted via email from João’s posterous

Use Google Friend Connect to join the social media landscape

With millions of websites now using the widget, it looks like they may have succeeded.

Google Friend Connect allows your website to function as a social network. People can join, leave comments, rate your site or start a dialogue. As a result, visitor interaction is encouraged by the widget, which is great for both the visitor and the owner of the site. Watch this video to get more detail on Google Friend Connect:

We all would love to gain and maintain the highest possible ranking in global organic search positioning. Attracting the maximum visitors to your site is the optimum goal but it is also essential to know the rules regarding compliancy, brand protection, media awareness and corporate communications. Looking for ways to ensure your company is obtaining the best organic search positions?

What is Organic SEO?

Organic SEO is the process that is used to enable any given website to feature in the natural results in search engines. You cannot buy these positions and although PPC is a method of obtaining a high listing; organic listings hold more weight and are a much more accurate representation of the relevancy and quality of your site.

Organic search positions essentially hinge on the quality of the information in a website and of the search engines interpretation of that information. Leading search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN have their own set of regulations – known as search engine compliance – which they use to determine a site’s relevancy based on the information it finds therein. Websites can be optimized with organic SEO tactics that ensure your site conforms to all the necessary criteria, thus helping it to gain a better organic search position.

Organic SEO facts

It has always been recognized that organic search listings or general search listings are the ones most used by search engine browsers to the extent that research shows in excess of 70% of search engine users prefer these listings to the 30% of browsers that utilize sponsored listings or PPC.

Most corporate search engine optimization companies now avoid organic SEO and have moved ever further towards paid search (PPC). Ethical search engine optimization and compliance technology is the only way to gain these listings.

If your website adheres to the strict search engine guidelines with informative, well written content, organic listings will serve you well. It will also save you money on the PPC method which is specifically aimed at your budget and skill in setting the campaign.

To test the theory for yourself, visit Google and check out your listings for your main products and services. If you have a good rating by chance, it will be difficult to maintain.

User free webmaster tools from Google, Yahoo and Bing; follow the guidelines, and keep optimizing!

Usability is such an important factor for the success of your website that it should be on your mind from the beginning on. The rule for the usability test is: The sooner the better. The best is to start testing website usability before you start working on your website: Ideas, concepts and drafts are easier (and cheaper) to change than existing websites. But, of course, it is never too late to start optimizing your website and make it more user-friendly. The only things you need to conduct the usability test are five test persons and some time.

Five Methods to check usability:

1. Card Sorting for user friendly navigation and menu structures. Write the name of each of the main items (products, topics) of your website on paper cards. Give each user a set of cards ask him to sort them thematically. This will help you find out which topics belong together in the eyes of your users and tells you where they expect to find the information they’re looking for. Use this information to determine the menu and navigation structure of your site.
2. Paper Prototyping helps you test if your site structure makes sense. Draw your website on paper. Do not concentrate on design issues, but only on the structure: How are website pages organized hierarchically and how are they linked to each other? Let your test users perform real tasks with the paper prototypes and watch their reactions. Ask them also for feedback and suggestions.
3. Interviews to find out more about user-experience. Ask your test persons about one aspect of your website. If you conduct written interviews, it is recommended to use closed questions with predefined answers (yes/no, I agree totally/ I agree partially/ I disagree). If you interview your test users personally, you can use open questions where users can reply freely. Interviews will give you important feedback and will help you look at your website through the eyes of your users.
4. Thinking aloud will give you high quality feedback during testing. Let your test user perform a task and ask him to explain his decisions. What is he doing? Why did he choose this option and not another one? How is he feeling? What is his opinion? Thinking aloud will give you important information about the user’s mental and emotional interaction with your website and can give you many good ideas for improvement.
5. The Five-Second-Test is a fast and easy way to test the functionality of your website. Here, you let your test user perform a certain task again (for example, if you sell products, ask the person to tell you how he would go about buying a certain product). Let the person look 5 seconds at your website without scrolling or clicking on links (you can also use a screenshot). After that, ask the person to tell you what he remembers from the website. This will show you what catches the user’s eye and tells you if your images, titles and banners are sending the right message to the users. On the next step, ask the test person to perform the task. If he has difficulties or takes too long, this means your site is confusing and needs restructuring.

Motigo Magazine

There is a lot of confusion about the use of hyphens being used in domain names.  While researching hyphenated domain names I found a lot of conflicting information  so I will give you a distilled view of what is currently believed to be the facts  regarding hyphens in domains.

When I started had a lot of trouble finding a domain that I could use to reflect  the topic of my site. It used to be the case that using a hyphen to separate keywords  in your domain name would give you a better ranking in the search engines. For a while this was the case but due to the over zealous use of keywords in domain names,
search engines now consider this as a spam technique.

If you use an un hyphenated domain name like myself using keywords it is generally  believed that search engines such as Google can pick out the keywords. The answer  is undoubtedly anchor link benefits and ease of readability. If you have hyphens in your domain name it is easier for a human to read and recognize the keywords
in a domain.

Recognizing the domain name is one thing but entering a domain name into your browser  is another. It is easier for someone to type the un hyphenated domain name and it  is easier for someone to give out the domain name to a customer if it doesn’t have  hyphens in it. If a webmaster links back to your site from their site they often  use the domain name as the anchor text. I do use hyphens but only in my file names  as this makes it easier for people to read and people are less likely to type in a page name as they are a domain name.

Many keyword researchers and copywriters automatically assume that searchers type in a natural word order all of the time. If a potential customer is researching prices for help desk software, that person might type in the keyword phrase “help desk software prices” (without the quotation marks) directly into a commercial search engine’s search box. This is an specific search and is about someone really searching a help desk software to buy.

When the search has just one or two words, the user is researching. This is a kind of generic search and brings a lot of results on search engines. You can try the query above and another search using only “help desk”. The first will show 10 results of about 7,850,000 pages and the second of about 98,500,000 pages.

If you are targeting a product or service to sell you’ll need to user keyword phrase 3 to 5 words. Google has a beta version that can help you find a niche and see search trends.