Useful and interesting web sites

What is AdSense CTR, RPM and CPC

2012-01-23T12:47:00.000-08:00

After adding AdSense ads on your site you want to find how successful is your AdSense combination placement with a help of performance AdSense reports. To analyze AdSense reports first you should learn what abbreviations like CTR means.

Here we will discuss most important AdSense report indicators like:

AdSense CTR (Click Through Rate)

AdSense RPM (Revenue Per thousand iMpressions)

AdSense CPC (Cost Per Click)

What is AdSense CTR (Click Through Rate)

AdSense CTR (Click Through Rate) is the number of the ad clicks divided by the number of page views.

CTR = (Number of ad clicks * 100) / Number of page views

If my blog have 10,000 pageviews per month and 40 AdSense ad clicks then my CTR is 0,04%.

CTR = (40 * 100) / 10000 = 0,04%

Higher CTR (Click through rate) more AdSense ad clicked means more earnings. So every AdSense publisher want higher CTR.

How to calculate CTR for whole page

When you calculate CTR (Click Through Rate) for whole page or site you should sum up CTR for each individual ad. For example, if my site have two ads, one ad have CTR 0,15% and another ad have 0,25% then my site have total CTR 0,40%.

When you calculate CTR for whole page you could get all ads on your site not only AdSense ads.

What is a good or bad CTR

It is not easy to tell what is good or bad CTR. Click through rate (CTR) depends on specific niche, type of site, design of site and many other factors.

Important is to find your current CTR and keep an eye on CTR during time when you make various action to increase your CTR. Ad placement have great influence on CTR, so try to optimize your ad placement. After you make changes on ad placement keep track how it affect on your CTR. Something similar to my article: Increase blog adsense revenue real case scenario.

To help with AdSense CTR benchmark I will give information what I consider as good or bad CTR:

under 0,10% - it is bad CTR, my blog have this CTR before any AdSense ad placement optimization

0,10% - 0,20% - it is acceptable CTR but it can be better

0,20% - 0,30% - it is good CTR

above 0,30% - excellent CTR

above 2% - by some sources on internet it is suspicious high CTR

Please, leave a comment about CTR on your site and your opinion what is good or bad CTR.

What is AdSense RPM (Revenue Per thousand iMpressions)

Page revenue per thousand impressions (RPM) is calculated by dividing your estimated earnings by the number of page views you received, then multiplying by 1000.

Page RPM = (Estimated earnings / Number of page views) * 1000

This is good indicator to estimate your earning in future, for example if your RPM is €1,12 then you can predict if you will have 15,000 pageviews your earnings will probably be around €16,8 (15 * €1,12).

What is AdSense CPC (Cost Per Click)

The cost-per-click (CPC) is the amount publisher earn each time a user clicks on his ad. In publisher reports, CPC is calculated by dividing the estimated earnings by the number of clicks received.

For example if your CPC is €0.26 then you need around 285 click to earn €100.

Make a blog plan for next year

2012-01-10T12:17:00.000-08:00

New year 2012 is come. It is time to evaluate how my blog is doing in 2011 and to think about actions for improving blog results in next year. In first part of this article I will show some blog statistics in last year and in second part there will be a list of planning blog activity I intend to do in new year.

How successful was 2011

number of visits per year

AdSense blog earning per year

traffic source overview

a few words about guest posting

Number of visits per year and next year expectation

In the image below is showed number of visits in 2010 and in 2011 year. There is growth of 79 percent for 2010 to 2011 or 42260 new visits. I am satisfied with this result and hope that on the end of 2012 I will get at least 42260 more visit (in this case sum will be 138.876). Or even better if growth will be 79% in 2012 I would have 172.227 visits.

AdSense blog earning per year

AdSense earnings in 2010: 11,49$

AdSense earnings in 2011: 112,61$

My AdSense earning raise much more than traffic. While traffic increased about 2 times, AdSense earning raise 10 times. Why?

Well, one reason is that I optimize my AdSense placement and type. In article Increase blog adsense revenue real case scenario you can find more details about my attempts.

Traffic source overview

My main traffic source is Google 89%, and 10% my blog get from direct traffic. In my opinion it is good to get lot traffic from search engines but I believe that my blog can get much more traffic from referring sites and I intend to work on it this year.

Guest posting

In this year my blog reached PageRank 3 for two months and fall again on PageRank 2. In that period I used myblogguest service and get more than 30 guest posts. Unfortunately those guest article bring me very little traffic. In my opinion those guest posts are not bad but are written without proper keyword research and on page optimization techniques.

Blogging plan for this year

In this year I plan to:

get more SEO driven traffic to my blog

make a blogging tribe as described in article Increase website traffic - tips from the best

improve blog structure - plan to make a few main sections pages which will lead to content pages of some topic (section). Something similar to Javascript effects tutorial. Links to those main section pages will be on main page of my blog

improve monetization of my blog - plan to try with buysellads.com service. Unfortunately they do not accept blogspot subdomain so I will think about changing domain name

prepare exact instructions for guest posting on my blog and put a visible offer for guest posting on my blog

try to buy articles with earned money using a site www.freelancer.com

publish some guest posts on A blogs. This is great way to reach audience.

Increase website traffic - tips from the best

2012-01-02T10:48:00.000-08:00

How to increase website traffic? Many bloggers ask themselves this question and struggled to find the answer. A few day ago I bumped on interview with Ana Hoffman on Michael Alexis site. In this interview Ana described her way of generating more and more internet traffic. After a few minutes of interview I figured out that this interview is very helpful and give some new ways (unknow to me) of generating blogs traffic.

Why Ana Hoffman opinion is relevant?

Recently, I visited Ana blog trafficgenerationcafe for the first time. My first impression was that it is quality blog which stand out. This blog currently have Page Rank 4 which is good, but Alexa rank is around 8500. According to Michael Alexis, Ana started her site 1,5 year ago. In this light Alexa rank at around 8,500 is amazing achievement.

So, I believe that Ana is authority and her interview have real value based on two facts:

Ana blog is interesting for reading

her blog achieved high Alexa rank in only year and half

How to increase website traffic interview with Ana Hoffman

Original interview length is over one hour and you can find it by following the link on the beginning of this article. Here are interview notes I make and decide to share in this post.

How to pick a niche

become authority in a niche, when you one become authority it is much easier to generate new traffic

to choose a niche you have to find something that is in demand

to succeed you must have passion for business, if you have passion only for niche it is not enough

to find topics in demand you need observe and reading other blogs, comments and forums, find what a people want to learn more about

pick a niche you have knowledge about, for example if you just start a blog, write about starting a blog not about how to make money with blog because you can't know how to make a money when you even don't have established blog and practically earn nothing

start from your experience, it won't go to write about something you don't know about it, people will know that you faking it

you must not just a talk about topic but show you know how to do it (like Ana generate traffic on her blog about generating traffic)

don't write about topic everybody write, try with different approach from others, put your spin at a topic or different opinion but the most important do something different

How to establish authority

there is no secret trick!

content is very important, also pay attention how you represent your blog and how you stand out

people have come to your blog and say : "Wow, I never read this before, this is amazingly helpful to me, I must come back!"

write plainly, write the way you talk

don't write fancy, do not put too many words in you post

blog content should be simple and helpful

you can't do it alone, you need a help of other people

find blog that share a niche with you, try with established but not most popular blogs (because it is almost impossible to connect with A blog, they have many various proposals every day)

try to form your own tribe (community) with 15 - 20 other blogs

try to find a people who are good solid bloggers and a hungry for more attention

spread a shares and comments on each other posts, with this method you give a life to your blog plus you learn from each other

comment on another posts builds your brand and recognition

How to find and reach member of your tribe

identify blogs in your niche

start commenting on those blogs

it is better chance to be noticed on blogs that doesn't have too much traffic, for example commenting on CopyBlogger or ProBlogger give minor chances to be noticed

when you are noticed on this smaller blog send him request for mutually social sharing and commenting

pick a blogs who have solid content

keep your group small, up to 20, if a group is bigger it is difficult to control

you can use facebook group to organize tribe

if someone in a group doesn't comment or share he couldn't be member of the group anymore

so, if there are 20 members of the group you will get 20 comments and shares per new post

Find traffic sources

there are short term traffic (like social media) and long term traffic sources

social media is just a way to find people who could be interested in your blog

job for you is not to build relationship with them but to introduce and bring them back to your blog

find something that works and concentrate on that (Ana is focused on twitter and facebook)

stumbleupon have low conversion rate

facebook have higher convert rate than twitter

choosing right social network depend on niche

when you find what work for you stick with that

facebook like widget on your blog can be negative social proof if you have small number of facebook followers

A few words about twitter

post 4 tweets one after another to make attention, 2 tweets would be links on other blogs, solid posts, 1 tweet a quote because people love quotes, a last one, a tweet to your blog (it will be at the top of tweet stream and chances are that people will click this one first)

25% tweets should be self promotion the rest just useful to other people

it is important to provide a lot of value

Conversion

pick exactly conversion goal

put a call to action in post, for example "thanks on coming, now do this please"

it must be only one call for action per post

no to popups!!!

in middle of quality post add this "if you like to hear more, I talk a more abut that with my subscribers" or lead a visitor to other page which have call to action

Two tips for increasing website traffic

think like a regular visitor, if you are a casual visitor will you stay on your blog and read it, would you even scroll down?

write a guest post it is best traffic generation strategy

I hope that my interview notes will help you to increase your website traffic. Please, leave comment does tips listed in this article are helpful for your website traffic.

Javascript effects tutorial

2011-12-21T13:13:00.000-08:00

Few Javascript effects tutorial links can be found on this page. Learn how to hide HTML element on mouseover with javascript, various javascript image effects or how to change text with javascript on some event (like mouse click or mouse over).

javascript visual effects

javascript image effects

Other javascript effects

Javascript visual effects

How to add a falling snow effect - learn how to add nice snowing effect on your web page or blog in few simple steps. Following this link more advanced users can also find how to make snow fall with a custom snow flakes.

How to show and hide HTML elements using Javascript - learn how to hide some HTML element (like textbox, div, table, table row) on click or mouse hover with javascript. There are over six samples to better explain how to do it.

Javascript image effects

Dynamically change image with javascript effect - tutorial how to dynamically change image when a mouse pointer is over image (onmouseover and onmouseout).

Jquery image preview effect - learn how to show image preview when user hover mouse pointer over link.

Moving image on my web site effect - tree samples and guide which describe how to make animate effect to move image through web page.

jQuery image zoom effect - sample and step by step guide how to make zoom effect on your web page, so zoomed portion of image is showed when user put mouse over normal size image.

Other javascript effects

Changing text with javascript - change text with javacript on some event like click the link.

HTML5 scrolling text effect with javascript - how to make animated scrolling text within HTML5 like Marquee with jQuery. In HTML5 Marquee is obsolete.

Basic web effect with jQuery - in this article you can find demos and sample code for basic effect functions in jQuery. There are: hide and show effect, fadeIn and fadeOut (disappearing) effect, slide down and slide up effect and animate effect.

Web page optimization techniques

2011-12-12T11:49:00.000-08:00

Web page optimization is a very important thing if you want to have visited web page. How to do it? There are different techniques but in this article we will concentrate on on-page SEO optimization.

find best keywords with keyword research and pick one or two keyword phrases per page

make a quality keyword placement

On site page optimization

Title tags

The most important HTML tag for Search Engine Optimization. It is very advisable to put your keywords inside title tags. Google search engine crawlers use these title tags as the main source for determining the page topic.

Text inside title tags will be showed in Google search engine result page too. On image below you can see how Google show title in result page for title: "Adding categories to blogspot (blogger) : Useful and interesting web sites". Words from search query are bolded.

Sample for title tag:
<title>Adding categories to blogspot (blogger) : Useful and interesting web sites</title>

Keyword on the beginning of the title have more weight than keywords on the end of the title. Blogspot users can find very good advice in article: Optimize blog - change title.

URL keyword optimization

Keywords in URL have important impact on your Google SERP (Search Engine Result Page) position. To prove this statement let's try type search term "Web page optimization" in Google. First five URL's in Google SERP are:

www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/
www.websiteoptimization.com/
www.google.com/websiteoptimizer
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization
www.webpagetest.org/

Tips for good optimized URL:

URL shouldn't be too long

Keywords on the beginning of URL have stronger effect than keywords on the end of URL (for example www.websiteoptimization.com/ is better than www.web-source.net/webpage_optimizing.htm). For

use hyphens as keyword separators in URLs. Blogger (Google's blog engine) use hyphens as separator for URL of particular posts.

Keyword position on web page

Keyword position also known as keyword prominence say :

The closer a word is to the front of the text area, the more relevant or important it is.

So put important keywords on the beginning of the page. Good practice is to use paragraphs in your web page. Use <p> and </p> tags to enclose text in paragraphs and put important keyword at start of paragraphs.

Keyword prominence rule is also valid for titles, URL's, headlines...

Keyword density

Keyword density is ratio between number of time keywords appear in page and total number of words on web page. Recommended keyword density is 2% to 8% by some authors, but it vary depending of source. Be careful too high density can trigger a spam penalty from Google. To find a keyword density for specific page check Page Analyzer.

Keyword proximity

Keyword proximity refers to how close the keywords that make up keyphrase are to each other.
To better explain there is an example:

A. Web page optimization techniques
B. Optimize your web page with best practice techniques

The A keyword phrase will make better Google result ranking for search query like "page optimization" as the relevant words appear next to one another and in the correct order. On the other side keyword phrase B will get better result for "Optimize web page".

Advice is to keep keywords together as a unit. When this is not possible, try to keep keywords not too far away from each other.

Optimization and body elements

Heading tag (<h1></h1>)- typically opinion is to be twice as important in weighting terms as regular body text (source Get to the Top on Google). However recent data from SEOMOZ study has shown that it has a very low correlation with rankings.

Image alt Attribute - it have significant impact on keyword web page optimization. So use keywords in alt attribute to describe images on your web page.

Bold and italic tags - it is good practice to use bold and italic tags on your keywords. By SEOMoz bold tag have a minor amount of SEO weight while italic tag have slightly more SEO weight.

How to: Keyword Research

2011-11-21T11:52:00.000-08:00

How to research keywords for your new blog article or web page? For example you decide to publish article and want to find best keywords combination and want to be on top of Google search results. It is not easy! Read this post, use proposed "How to keyword research" method and you will find how to increase probability to find best keywords combination.

How to make keyword research?

Answer on question: "how to make keyword research" is by using KEI and KOI. Let's start with KEI.

Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) - helps point out which keywords are the most effective and valuable. The KEI compares the number of monthly searches for a keyword with the number of search results and help to find the most effective keywords.

To find KEI use KEI formula:

KEI = (Number of Monthly Keyword Searches)^2 / (Competing Pages)

Number of Monthly Keyword Searches - this indicator you can find using Google AdWords Keyword Tool.
Competing Pages - find using Google search. Just enter your search term and check number of results.

we want to make keyword research on this keyword combination: "google keyword research"

on Google AdWords Keyword Tool page we can determine the number of global monthly searches for specific term, for keywords term "google keyword research" it is 9,900 searches per month
to find out raw google competition for specific keywords term we use Google search. For "google keyword research" there are 15,200,000 results.
now we can calculate KEI
KEI = 9,900 ^ 2 / 15,200,000
KEI = 6,49

higher KEI better keywords combination. With KEI we try to find keywords which are highly searched but in the same time are not overused on web

There is one more indicator similar to KEI - Keyword Opportunity Index (KOI). KOI compares the number of monthly searches for a keyword with the number of directly competing search results.

Formula for KOI is:

KOI = (Number of Monthly Keyword Searches)^2 / (Directly Competing Pages)

google keyword research

monthly searches for keywords term "google keyword research" is 9,900

number of directly competing pages can be found by using Google operator "allinanchor:". This Google operator return results containing query terms specified in the anchor text on links to the page.

number of directly competing pages for "google keyword research" is 9,740,000.
KOI is:
KOI = 9,900 ^ 2 / 9,740,000
KOI = 10,06

When you ask yourself how to do keyword research, it is good practice to find various keywords combination (thesaurus synonyms can help) find KEI and KOI for each of them and compare. Keywords combination with highest KEI or KOI is best choice. KEI method doesn't measure quality of competition just quantity (number of search results). To get quality in calculate, you can use SeoQuake, it show Google Page Rank for each result. So, if first few results have high PageRank, quality of competition is high.

Online tools for better blog

2011-11-14T12:56:00.000-08:00

There are many great online tools which can help you to build a better blog or web site. Some exists as web pages and some are various add-ons. Here you will find a list of best free online tools (in my opinion) for better blog.

Find blog visitor statistics

To improve your blog you must learn on your own success and mistakes. To do so, you need to know how well your blog or site is doing, you must track traffic and visits.

Two best web tools for tracking website visits are:

Statcounter - very simple web tool for tracking number of pageviews and visits to your site. The main advantage of Statcounter is its simplicity and it is ideal for begginers. Using statcounter you can also track:
- Popular pages
- Entry pages
- Exit pages
- Keyword analysis...
If you are using free version you can get detailed data only for last 24 hours. For basic tracking Statcounter is enough.

Google analytics - while Statcounter is easy to use, Google Analyitics (GA) is extremely powerful. Here I will not list what GA can do, it can do almost everything, it have many features and reports. What to say, GA is a king, long live to Google Analytics!

Estimate traffic of other sites

One way to estimate other web sites traffic and strength is through Google Page Rank and Alexa. Google Page Rank can vary from 0 to 10, 0 is worst while 10 is best. For Alexa on the other hand, rule is lesser is better, smaller number more visits. My blog in this moment have 217,000 Alexa value and 9,500 visits per month. So if some web site have Alexa rank lesser than 217,000 I can presume that this site has more than 9,500 visits per month.

SEO Toolbar add-on for Firefox - easy to use, shows Google Pagerank (PR) and Alexa rank for each visited website.
SeoQuake - this add-on have one great feature. User can see Google PageRank value in Google result page. This can be very helpful when you try to find keywords for new blog article.

SEOQuake have more features like Keyword density, nofollow indicator, URL comparer...

Builtwith - with this service you can learn all sorts of useful informations about site you enetered into the search bar. Find out which blogging platform is used, what type of adverts are on site (like AdSense, Amazon...), how traffic is tracked, what javascript libraries are used, what widgets are on site and informations about aggregate functionality.

Online tools for choosing right keywords

Choosing right keywords for blog posts is essential for good Google Search Engine Result Page (SERP). It is important to choose wisely, keywords with low competition and, in the same time, keywords which people looking for (high number of searches).

Google - is an excellent tool to find how many web pages for specific keywords exists out there on Internet. You just need to type keywords in Google search bar, make a search and check the number of results below the Google search bar.

On the picture above you can see that for keyword search term online tools for blogger exists 36,000,000 search results.
You can use allinanchor Google search operator which return results containing query terms specified in the anchor text on links to the page. Some people think number of results with allinanchor is a more quality measuring unit for SEO then number of results gained with common Google query.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool - with this tool you can find number of Google monthly searches for specific keywords. This tool also, will suggest keyword ideas.

Guest blogging tools

If you want to publish guest posts on your blog first you must find guest post and second, verify if guest post is a duplicate.

My blog guest is a web community of guest bloggers. This site have article gallery where you can find and read guest post previews sorted by category. You can offer to publish chosen guest posts on your blog and if guest poster agree, you will get whole guest post article. In my experience to get guest posts on this site it is advisable your blog have Page Rank 3 or higher. My blog has PageRank 3 for some time. During that time I managed to publish 30 guest posts in less than 3 months. But when my PageRank fall to 2, guest posters lost interest for my blog.

Duplichecker is a free online plagiarism detection tool. You can copy and paste text you want to check or you can choose a text file to check for duplicates.

CopyScape plagiarism checker which search for copies of selected page on the web. You enter url of some web page click Go button and get duplicate of entered web page.

Online tools for better article writing

There are some online tools that can help you to write better articles. Online tools like tool which can help you to find synonyms which are better choice in keyword terms then your first keyword, spelling checker or help with putting HTML code in blog post.

Thesaurus - with this tool you can quick find definition and synonyms. Synonyms can help you in process of keyword optimizing. For example you want to use word help and deduce word "help" is to competitive in Google search results. Then you enter word "help" in Thesaurus and find that one of the synonym is word advice which is less Google competitive then "help".

English spell checker for Firefox - Firefox automatically checks the spelling of words entered in any text boxes containing more than one line. As soon as word typing is finished, it is checked and if the word is not in the dictionary, word is underlined in red color.

Postable - if you want to insert some HTML tags (like <p></p>) literally in your post you need to encode this text. Postable encodes HTML tags and when HTML tags are encoded you can insert encoded tags in blog posts and HTML will be showed literally in post. More about this topic in How to display HTML code in blog post

PaperRater - Grammar & Spelling Check, Free Online Proofreading

Graphic element generator

Blog appearance can be important. To improve graphic appearance of your blog or web site you can use various online graphic generators.

Cool Text - this is free online graphic generator for logo style and button design. With this web application you can easily generate styled text for menus, sidebars and buttons.

Tools for find free images

Finding the right picture to your blog article might be important. But many images are non-free for use so be careful. Where to find free images to insert in your new blog article? There are the list of few sites with free to search for free image collections.

Free digital photos - on this site you will find quality free images in small format (like 400 X 266 pixels). To publish free images you need to place a text hyperlink to the image creator's portfolio on FreeDigitalPhotos.net. This link must appear on the same page as the image.

Wpclipart - public domain (PD) pictures, no attribution or linking is required.

Where to upload files

Upload additional files for bloggers - in this article you will find list of free hosting services where you can upload additional files such as jscript files, css files, image files ect.

Miscellaneous

https://flippa.com/ - site for selling web sites

HTML5 scrolling text

2011-10-25T12:19:00.000-07:00

HTML5 will not support scrolling text (marquee), marquee is obsolete. There is no marquee element defined since HTML 4.01 specification.

This article will answer how to make animated scrolling text within HTML5.

One way is to use jQuery marquee plugin. In next section you will find simple guide how to make animated scrolling text effect like marquee with jQuery.

Animated scrolling text with jQuery Demo:

Demo for marquee scrolling right

Animated scrolling text with jQuery code:


 <script src="http://jqueryjs.googlecode.com/files/jquery-1.3.2.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
  <script src="http://remysharp.com/downloads/jquery.marquee.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

<marquee behavior="scroll" direction="right" scrollamount="2" width="350"><p>Demo for marquee scrolling right</p></marquee>

So to have scrolling text effect in HTML5 you need to:

reference on jquery-1.3.2.min.js and jquery.marquee.js files

add a marquee HTML element

In Marquee HTML element you can adjust attributes such as:

direction - left, right, up and down

scrollamount - speed of scrolling

behaviour - such as slide, scroll and alternate

width

You can find jquery.marquee.js file.

In the end you have marquee like animated scrolling effect which you can use in HTML5.

Here you can find more cool javascript effects tutorials.

Check is blog dofollow or nofollow

2011-10-19T12:11:00.000-07:00

How to find does blog have dofollow comments or nofollow comments? This article will teach you how to difference dofllow links from nofollow links.

what is DoFollow and NoFollow
recognize DoFollow in Google Chrome
find DoFollow links with Internet Explorer
know which link are DoFollow in Firefox
easiest and best way to make difference between DoFollow and NoFollow links with NoDoFollow add-on

DoFollow and NoFollow difference

NoFollow

NoFollow is an HTML attribute value used to instruct some search engines (like Google) that a hyperlink should not influence the link target's ranking in the search engine's index. Search engine spiders will NOT crawl NoFollow link.

If link is Nofollow then link will not receive any vote and Google Page ranking will stay the same. To learn more about Pagerank visit Google PageRank simple tutorial.

Example NoFollow link:

<a href="http://interestingwebs.blogspot.com/2011/09/high-pr-dofollow-backlins-blogs-list.html" rel="nofollow">DoFollow blog list</a>

DoFollow

DoFollow links will be crawled by search engines and will get PageRank value (so called Google juice) from site.

Example of DoFollow link:

<a href="http://interestingwebs.blogspot.com/2011/09/high-pr-dofollow-backlins-blogs-list.html" >DoFollow blog list</a>

How to know does link is DoFollow on Google Chrome

Find hyperlink on web page

highligh hyperlink

click right mouse button and choose Inspect element

Inspect element box will be opened in which you will see HTML code of link, if it have rel="nofollow" then it is nofollow link, it doesn't it is DoFollow link

Find if link is DoFollow in IE

Press F12 to open IE Developer tools

in Developer tools click on "Select element by Click", click on link and look in developer tools HTML code for selected link. If in HTML code exists rel="nofollow" then it is nofollow link, if it doesn't exists it is DoFollow link

Determine DoFollow links in Firefox

Find link on web page, highlight link, right click on mouse and choose "View Selection source"

inspect select source HTML code, if in HTML code exists rel="nofollow" then it is NoFollow link, if it doesn't exists we have DoFollow link

Use NoDoFollow add on for Firefox

Most effective and fastest way to determine DoFollow links is to use NoDoFollow add-on for Firefox.

In Menu Bar go on Tool menu and check NoDoFollow menu item

Now all DoFollow links are colored blue and NoFollow are colored red

Blogger dynamic views and gadgets

2011-10-13T12:09:00.000-07:00

Recently google announcements 7 new dynamic views. Dynamic views offer users enhanced browsing experience. Dynamic views are build on latest web technology (AJAX, HTML5 and CSS3). In short it looks great, take a look at my blog using sidebar dynamic view. This link will lead you to sidebar view.You can easily try 6 other dynamic view styles, just choose from menu at the top of opened page. So far so good ...

Where are gadgets in dynamic views?

Unfortunately in this moment if you choose blogger dynamic view you can't use gadgets or widgets. When I say gadgets I think on gadgets like popular posts, recent posts, HTML/javascript gadgets, header gadget etc. So dynamic views are very effective, look very nice but if you use dynamic views you lose control over appearance of your blog. For many bloggers this will be unacceptable.

AdSense exists in dynamic views but blogger owner can't control where will ads be showed.

To setup blogger dynamic views go to Design --> Template Designer and chose your favorite dynamic template.

Dynamic views and old blogger side by side

In my case there are two facts:

I like blogger dynamic views
I want to keep gadgets

Solution to this problem is to keep old blogger appearance and put a link on my blogger sidebar (using gadgets) to favorite dynamic view for my blog.

You can see any blogger blog in dynamic view if you type web address in this format: http://[BloggerName].blogspot.com/view/[TypeOfView].

For example to see this blog in sidebar view you should type this address: http://interestingwebs.blogspot.com/view/sidebar

Another example for googleblog.blogspot.com in magazine view should be: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/view/magazine.

For [TypeOfView] use one of blogger dynamic views.

Type of blogger dynamic views

Classic: A minimalist template. All posts are in one page. Older entries will continuously load as visitor scrolls down
Flipcard: Photos are grouped on the page. When the reader hovers the mouse over the pictures, it will flip and display the corresponding post title and date
Magazine: A elegant editorial style, posts with one image and extract of article
Mosaic: A mosaic mix of different sized images and text
Sidebar: An email inbox-like view with a reading page for quick scrolling and browsing
Snapshot: A panoramic view of your images
Timeslide: A horizontal view of your posts ordered by time

Does PageRank work?

2011-10-08T11:04:00.000-07:00

On October 6, 2011 PageRank in 3rd party tool SeoToolbar Firefox add-on on my PC stopped working. Many people start to asking does Google PageRank is dead? The answer is that Google did make a change, they changed the lookup URL for the PageRank value. So 3rd party tools stopped to work correctly.

How to find Google PageRank today?

To find PageRank today you can install Google toolbar add-on. It will work immediately.

For SeoQuake add-on you can find instructions how to fix SEO PageRank following this link: Google PageRank is not dead.

If you have patience you can wait for updates of various 3rd party tools which showing Google PageRank.

Find DoFollow blog article with high PR

2011-10-03T13:01:00.000-07:00

This is search for DoFollow blogs (PR 4 and higher):

This custom Google search make search on over 25 DoFollow blogs in technology niche (blogging, SEO, internet earnings) with high PageRank, PR 4 and higher.

How to use DoFollow finder

Let's say you just write a nice article about methods for increasing number of visitors on blog and want to boost Page Rank of your article. To do that you can go on this page and type some search term connected to written article like "more traffic". When you click Search button you will get a list of result pages. All result pages are from DoFollow blogs with high PR. You can leave comments on result pages and this will have postitive impact on your PageRank.

Steps to find DoFollow article with high PR about specific topic in blogging niche:

First go to this page http://interestingwebs.blogspot.com/2011/10/find-dofollow-blog-article-with-high-pr.html

enter keywords for specific topic and click search

in Google custom search find and choose the best result:

enter your comment and you have new dofollow link to boost your PageRank

For those who want to create own custom Google search follow the link.

What is DoFollow blog?

DoFollow link is the opposite of NoFollow - it's a link that can be followed by search engines. DoFollow blog is a blog which have nofollow links in comment section. So when visitors leave comments on DoFollow blog, links to visitors blogs without NoFollow attribute remain in comment section od DoFollow blog. It is important to say that most blogs automatically mark comment links as nofollow, most of blogs are NoFollow. If link is NoFollow there is no PR gain from that link for linked page. Opposite if link is DoFollow (it is not NoFollow) linked page have PR gain from link.

High PR DoFollow backlins blogs list

2011-09-28T11:28:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of high page rank blogs which have dofollow comments. DoFollow comment means that backlinks to commenter home page on DoFollow blog is not using "nofollow" tag, so part of PageRank juice flow to commenter blog.

Blogs are Pagerank 4 and higher till PageRank 6. All blogs listed on this page belong to Technology niche. When I say Technology niche primarily I think on topics such as : blogging tips, search engine optimization and internet earnings.

In following table with links to DoFolow blogs you will find next columns:

Link - url address of Dofollow blog

CommentLuv - if CL is written, blog is CommentLuv - When a visitor (commenter) leaves a comment on CommentLuv blog, the CommentLuv plugin automatically searches for commentators latest post. If it finds one, it automatically adds a titled link at the end of the comment which links back to commentators post.

DoFollow columns - Comments usually have two backlinks, first on beginning of comment which points to commentators blog main page and another link on the end of comment (on CommentLuv blogs only) which point on last post. In this column you can find information which of those two backlinks are DoFollow.

Comment - some basic information about a blog

PageRank - information of Google Pagerank of blog

Alexa - Alexa rank of blog. Alexa Rank is a measurement about popularity of web site. Alexa is relative because it depends on the data of users who have installed Alexa Toolbar on their browsers. Best Alexa Rank is 1. DoFollow blogs are sorted by Alexa rank from smaller (better) to bigger.

You can search listed DoFollow blogs with PageRank 4 and above by specific keywords, just follow the link.

If you know for DoFollow blog in technology niche with PageRang 4 or higher please leave a link in comment section.

Link	Comment Luv	DoFollow	Comment	Page Rank	Alexa
http://www.grokdotcom.com/		Blog premalink is DoFollow	Marketing optimization blog focused on improving conversion rates, increasing leads, web analytics, SEO, SEM, social media, testing and customer experience. Allows keywords.	6	39271

http://blog.2createawebsite.com/		Blog premalink is DoFollow	Blogging, web earnings, traffic	5	5047
http://kikolani.com/	CL	Blog premalink is DoFollow	Blogging tips, blog marketing, social media	5	15570
http://www.seobythesea.com/		Blog premalink is DoFollow	Getting Information about Search and SEO Directly from the Search Engines	5	17378
http://www.outofmygord.com		Blog premalink is DoFollow	Personal blog, posts on this blog are very long, Blog Notices, branding, Online Evolution, Search marketing, author of this blog is a mart but little boring	5	270720

http://www.sitesketch101.com/	CL	Blog premalink is NoFollow, last post is Do Follow	SEo, blogging, web design	4	20349
http://basicblogtips.com/	CL	Blog premalink is NoFollow, last post is Do Follow	Blog tips, blog tutorials for blogger and Wordpress, COmentLuv...	4	21178
http://weblogbetter.com/	CL	Blog premalink is DoFollow, last post is Do Follow	blogging tips, social media, SEO	4	24199
http://wordpress-websitebuilder.com/	CL	Blog premalink is DoFollow, last post is Do Follow	Wordpres SEO, basics	4	24500
http://www.stayonsearch.com/	CL	Blog premalink is DoFollow, last post is Do Follow	Blog marketing	4	27537
http://www.jonathanvolk.com/	CL	Blog premalink is DoFollow, last post is Do Follow	Making money online	4	29108
http://www.jonathanvolk.com/		Blog premalink is DoFollow	internet earning, affiliates	4	29140
http://kaiserthesage.com/	CL	Blog premalink is DoFollow, last post is Do Follow		4	33620
http://www.attractionmarketingonline.com	CL	Blog premalink is DoFollow, last post is nofollow	Attraction Marketing, blogging,social media	4	34099
http://wassupblog.com/	CL	Blog premalink is DoFollow, last post is Do Follow	Blogging tips, making money	4	46302
http://freebloghelp.com/	CL	Blog premalink is DoFollow, last post is Do Follow	SEO, blogging, Google, Leveraging tools	4	75695
http://jamesmartell.com/		Blog premalink is NoFollow, last post is Do Follow	affiliate marketing train site	4	79615
http://www.techtricksworld.com/		Blog premalink is DoFollow	Techology blog, facabook, google, blogging, reviews, WordPress	4	81361
http://www.authopublisher.com/	CL	Blog premalink is DoFollow, last post is Do Follow	Author is preacher and blogger. Write about blogging, publishing, writing tips.	4	85038
http://www.memwg.com/		Blog premalink is DoFollow	unofficial AdSense blog	4	86439
http://blondish.net/		Blog premalink is DoFollow	Social media, blogging, tutorials	4	89458
http://www.dazzlindonna.com/blog/	CL	Blog premalink is DoFollow, last post nofollow	Author is a woman who is live from internet earnings. Blogging, earnings, marketing.	4	98880
http://bloggingwithoutablog.com/		Blog premalink is DoFollow, you can put a dofollow link in a comment	Grandmother who like to write things down in her notebook and started to blogging	4	128062
http://www.windowstalk.org/	CL	Blog premalink is DoFollow, last post is Do Follow, with some javascript in links,	Technology, Windows, Blogging, Software	4	137223
http://www.doitwithwp.com/	CL	Blog premalink is DoFollow, last post is Do Follow	WordPress, this guy really love to write about Wordpress. WordPress Tutorials	4	138116
http://www.ezaroorat.com/		Blog premalink is DoFollow	SEO, web designing and internet marketing..	4	183055

Ctrl Alt Del on Remote Desktop

2011-09-26T11:26:00.000-07:00

How to send Ctrl Alt Del key combination to rdp (remote desktop)?

Answer:

On remote desktop right combination is CTRL + ALT + END. This key combination on remote desktop has same result as CTRL + ALT + DEL on ordinary Windows.

Ctrl Alt Del key combination work on Windows, and no other application is allowed to intercept it. This is very important for security reasons. So when user click Ctrl Alt Del he is sure that he see real logon screen.

How to send CTRL ALT DEL combination on VMWare

Answer is: Ctrl Alt Ins

CTRL ALT DEL combination on Virtual PC

[Host Key]-Del (the host key is Right-Alt by default)

Change text to UPPERCASE with jQuery

2011-09-07T11:40:00.000-07:00

How to convert text to uppercase with jQuery? It is very easy, just follow steps in this brief tutorial. To make things easy this article will provide two demo examples with jQuery code.

jQuery uppercase - change text to uppercase in messagebox

Demo:

Click here to uppercase

In this demo text "To uppercase with jquery!" is changed to uppercase "TO UPPERCASE WITH JQUERY!". When link "Click here to uppercase" is clicked changed text is showed in messagebox.

Explanation for uppercase:

jQuery have toUpperCase method which convert text to UpperCase. Here is a sample code:


<script src="http://jqueryjs.googlecode.com/files/jquery-1.3.2.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

<div id="target">
  Click here for uppercase
</div>

<script>
    $('#target').click(function () {
        var strVal = 'To uppercase with jquery!'
        alert(strVal.toUpperCase());
    });
</script>

First line is reference on jQuery library which every page using jQuery must have.

Then we have "Click here for uppercase" link with id target.

Inside script tag we have function which is fired when item with id "target" is clicked. Variable strVal is changed to uppercase with method toUpperCase() and showed in messagebox.

Change text in input textbox to uppercase jQuery

Change to uppercase

Above is a link "Change to uppercase" which change text in input text box to uppercase.

Code:

 <div id="Change">
  Change to uppercase
 </div>
<input value="to uppercase" type="text" id="inpChng" />

<script>
    $('#Change').click(function () {
        var strVal = $("#inpChng").val();
        $("#inpChng").val(strVal.toUpperCase());
    });
</script>

In the code above when link in div with id "Change is clicked" value from input text control is taken and changed to uppercase.

Fixed row in excel

2011-09-05T11:33:00.000-07:00

How to fix row or column in Excel so when you scroll up or down this row remain locked? In this short tutorial you will find an answer. Usually users need to fixing top row in excel.

Fixed row in Excel 2010

Select row in Excel which you want to be first non fixed row (row 2 in example, because we want to freeze row 1)

Click View tab, then click Freeze panes icon and choose Freeze panes

That's it, now you have fixed (locked) top row in excel!

For top row you can just use Freeze Top Row option

Fix row in earlier versions of Excel

To get a fixed row, highlight the row where you wish all rows before the selected row to be fixed or locked, go to Window>"Freeze Panes" and you will see a line appear across your worksheet. Everything above the line is fixed and will remain viewable till you scroll down your worksheet.

Google plus games

2011-08-29T13:04:00.000-07:00

On August 10 2011 Google added games to Google Plus. In this way Google challenged facebook with its games.

Difference between Google plus and Facebook games

Google plus games have separated game-related messages on games section. Contrary Facebook users share messages with all their friend and this have side effect, Facebook users didn't like anybody see their game notifications. For example what if a user have boss as a facebook friend and boss see game notificatio issude during work?

Google said:
The Games page is also where your game accomplishments will appear. So you can comfortably share your latest high score—your circles will only see the updates when they’re interested in playing games too.

If you’re not interested in games, it’s easy to ignore them. Your stream will remain focused on conversations with the people you care about.

Quality of Google plus games

Google claim:

Because we want to provide both a great user experience and a great developer experience, we’re focusing on quality before quantity

In this moment games on g+ already exists on facebook. So, Google plus choosed games from facebook and payed developer teams to make a version for g+.

Let's comment best of them:

EdgeWorld - in my opinion best of Google plus games for now. Be careful, it is extremely addictive. It is SF strategic game where you build a base, defend from other players, join alliances, make research ...

Dragon Age Legends - online RPG adventure game with lots of options. Players take on quests, earn loot and grow their kingdom as they customize and upgrade their characters. The game includes both cooperative and competitive modes. Battles are strategic as the good guys and bad guys take turns attacking on a small grid.

Angry birds - it is very popular game where players use a slingshot to launch birds at pigs stationed on or within various structures, with the intent of destroying all the pigs on the playfield. As players advance through the game, new birds appear, some with special abilities that can be activated by the player.

Find more followers for Google plus circle

2011-08-04T13:29:00.000-07:00

How to increase number of your followers on Google plus one network?. More followers more social power, new social network appeared: Google plus one (some call it just "g+"). And battle for followers is started. This article will discuss about few methods to extend your google circles. How to convince people to step in your google circle?

Make your profile noticable

Profile picture

Ask yourself what possible G+ follower first see when he come in touch with your Google plus profile?

First thing G+ member will see is your Google profile photo. So, you must find a photo that will grab G+ user attention. Someone once said that one picture is more powerful than thousand words, let's see example.

Take a quick look on picture above and say who is most popular. In my opinion most of the people will first notice picture of Seth Godin. And yes, he is very popular and have most followers (not just on Google plus network). One of reasons of his popularity is his appearance, he is standing out. Standing put is a key of success on various social networks.

Conclusion is to choose profile picture wisely.

Posts

Posts are very important when someone make decision does he will follow your Google plus profile. If your posts cover Google plus member interests then you have good chance to get one more Google plus follower. Try to make smart and (or) funny posts and follower will come one by one.

When you have some really good post use extended circles. Extended cicrcles mean that you will share your post with everyone in your circles plus all the people in their circles (only first level).

About section and subtitle bar

Fill About section. There people watch when they want to learn some basic information about you. For example I always take a look at Introduction line under About section.

Under your user name there is one subtitle line where you can write short line of text. My advice is to use it.

Follow people with many followers

This is a rule for any social network. If you follow some person bigger chance is that this person will follow you. If that person is influential you will get more followers. Very simple, in language of numbers it is better to have follower who have 10000 followers than follower who have 15 followers.

To find Google plus influential people like celebrities and hottest Google plus posts in last 24 hours visit: Google + Statistics.

Invite people you already know

Google plus offer you to get in circles people who are in your gmail contacts. Also, under Find people there are options for invite Yahoo contacts, Hotmail contacts and option for upload address book. So, you can add all your contacts (or maybe not all) in Google circles and hope they will add you to their circles.

You can try to establish connection with your connections in other Social networks (like Twitter, Digg...) but you must find them by their gmail address or their name.

Add Google plus profile button

If you have web site or blog you can add Google plus profile button on your site. In case your site or blog have good traffic there are good chance to get some more Google plus follower.

This is how G+ profile button look like:

Guide to add Google plus profile button

Go to Google profile button page

enter your Google plus profile URL - you can find your profile URL in URL bar when your Google profile page is opened

Chose Google profile button size

Copy Google + button code and paste it on your site or blog

Try to find new Google plus followers using various groups

With time there will be various places on web where you could take an opportunity to get more Google plus followers like forums, facebook pages, internet sites, social networks...

For example take a look at this facebook page: Google Plus Add List - Get More Followers and Bigger Circles.

Add Google Plus One Button to Blogspot (blogger)

2011-08-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

This is short step by step guide how to add Google +1(plus one) share social button to every blogger post. To implement Google plus one button on blogger you need to copy Google code for button and paste copied code inside HTML Layout section in blogger interface.

This is how Google Plus one social link looks like:

To add Google plus one button to blogspot (blogger) first copy this Google plus one code:

<!-- Google  1 button Start -->
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != &quot;static_page&quot;'>
<p></p>
<div style='float:left;padding:10px;'>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script>
<g:plusone expr:href="data:post.url" size="standard" count="true"></g:plusone>
</div>
</b:if>
<!-- Google  1 button End -->

You can replace value of attribute size (on example is standard) with one listed of values depending on appearance you want to get:

Button size (with count)	Value
	`small`
	`medium`
	`standard`
	`tall`

To add Google +1 (plus one) button on the beginning of every post or on the bottom of every post follow this steps. In HTML layout search for <data:post.body/> and paste the code just before if you want to have Google +1 button on the top of the post or after it for Google plus one button on the bottom of the post.

Here are steps:

Go to Layout in your blogspot blog

Click on Layout --> Edit HTML

it is recommended to backup template on local hard disk before doing any change in edit template box

check on Expand Widget Template checkbox

find <data:post.body/>

for Google +1 button counter on the top of post add Google plus one button code (for code check previous section of this article) before <data:post.body/>
```
...

[GOOGLE +1 BUTTON CODE]
<data:post.body/>
...
```

or you can want Google plus one button on the end of your posts, add Retweet button code just after the <data:post.body/>
```
...
<data:post.body/>
[GOOGLE +1 BUTTON CODE]
...
```

There is one problem. On my blog main page when more than one post appear, google plus one button is showed only on first post. When one post per page is showed everything is OK. I didn't find solution for this problem on the web. On the other side this problem is not so serious.

Windows taskbar showing only one item per IE instance (not one per tab)

2011-07-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

After I installed IE9 on Windows Server 2008, found that in Windows taskbar for Internet explorer are showed items for each open IE tab. If you are get used to showing only IE browser instances in Windows taskbar like me then you just found easy guide how to conifgure your IE to show only one item in Windows taskbar per instance.

So, you have many tabs opened in Internet Explorer, and widnow taskbar display many previews, one for each opened tab. On image below, two instances of IE are opened, first instance have two opened tabs and another IE instance have one opened tab.

And you think it would be better if only one preview per instance of IE will be visible. In our example we want to have two previews (imagine what a mess will be if you have dozen of open tabs) for each IE instance one without tabs:

Solution:

Click the Tools option at the top right corner of your Internet Explorer browser window and then click on Internet Options

Internet Options --> General --> Tabs --> Settings

uncheck option "show previews for individual tabs in the taskbar *", click OK and restart your Internet Explorer.

Now you configured your IE to show previews in Winodws taskbar only for each instance not for tabs.

jQuery picture zoom

2011-07-25T11:32:00.001-07:00

How to make jQuery picture zoom effect in a simple way. This jQuery image zoom effect you can easy add to your web or maybe to blogger's post. On this blog you can find more useful jscript effect tutorials.

Let's first take a look how jQuery picture zoom look like:

So when visitor hover a mouse over small picture zoom portion of that image appeared on right side with help of jQuery. On mouseover, image is zoomed! I believe that this is one of the simplest implementation of picture zoom effect you can find on Internet.

To accomplish picture zoom with jQuery like in demo you need to add this code on your web page:


<script src="[PathToJqueryFile]" type="text/javascript"></script>

<script src="[PathTojqzoomFile]" type='text/javascript'></script>

<script type="text/javascript">

    $(function () {
        var options =
{
    zoomWidth: 275,
    zoomHeight: 275
}
        $(".jqzoom").jqzoom(options);

        var options2 =
{
    zoomWidth: 275,
    zoomHeight: 275,
    zoomType: 'reverse'
}

        $(".jqzoom2").jqzoom(options2);

    });
</script>
<!--JQZOOM-STOPS-HELP@-http://bloggerstop.net-->

<a href="[PathToBiggerImage]" class="jqzoom" style="" title="Paris">

  <img src="[PathToSmallerImage]"  title="kawasakigreen" style="border: 1px solid #666;"><br />
</a>

You can copy code above and replace green words with real values:

[PathToJqueryFile] - path to jquery-1.3.2.min.js file. You must have this file to implement any jQuery functionality on your web site. You can download this file here.

[PathTojqzoomFile] - path to jquery.jqzoom1.0.1.js file. This file is needed for zoom functionality. You can download this file here.

[PathToBiggerImage] - path to image that will be displayed as a zoomed part of picture (in example it is zoomed portion of image which appear on the right side of the screen)

[PathToSmallerImage] - path to image that will be displayed as a image that you can move cursor over it (in example this is left picture)

In the end, here is some real code that works but please use it just for testing purpose. If you want to implement jquery picture zoom fuctionallity on you page, please, do not use paths you find on demo code below but download jqury files and upload them somewhere.


<script src="http://jqueryjs.googlecode.com/files/jquery-1.3.2.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="http://nikofer.opendrive.com/files/54142960_wVVW5/jquery.jqzoom1.0.1.js" type='text/javascript'></script>

<script type="text/javascript">

    $(function () {
        var options =
{
    zoomWidth: 275,
    zoomHeight: 275
}
        $(".jqzoom").jqzoom(options);

        var options2 =
{
    zoomWidth: 275,
    zoomHeight: 275,
    zoomType: 'reverse'
}

        $(".jqzoom2").jqzoom(options2);

    });
</script>
<!--JQZOOM-STOPS-HELP@-http://bloggerstop.net-->

<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-9akl-4Xf3Rk/TyHBLXlctII/AAAAAAAAA1w/xKfe6wtvOmg/s800/SealSmall.jpg" class="jqzoom" style="" title="Paris">

  <img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-F6xj8uQ3I5Q/TyHBK3ZN57I/AAAAAAAAA1s/b-u4OHLnzmc/s144/SealBig2.JPG"  title="kawasakigreen" style="border: 1px solid #666;"><br />
</a>

What Is Direct Email Marketing?

2011-06-09T06:55:00.000-07:00

Direct Email marketing is when a company sends a profitable message to a group of people by the use of electronic email. The emails generally consist of advertisements, business requests or donation and sales solicitation. It is considered email marketing if it helps to build a company’s reputation, trust in a product and/or customer loyalty. A direct email marketing solution is believed to be an excellent and resourceful way of keeping in constant contact with clients and potential business associates while promoting your business at the same time.

An online marketing company can help businesses greatly benefit from this sort of advertising as it is enables you to reach out to your target audience without a huge amount of expense. Television advertisements, radio air play and leaflet drops are time-consuming and costly, not only that, there is the issue of not reaching a wide enough audience. A direct email marketing solution is worldwide and free. You can also tailor your email lists to meet several criteria’s such as customer’s likes and dislikes, spending habits and how long certain addresses have been on the list. Emails are created and sent out to specific members of your email list personalised to provide the information they have requested or are interested in. This not only increases your sales but also makes your customers value you.

There are a few different ways of developing an email marketing campaign. An online marketing company would advise you to start off by sending a welcome email to thank the new client for expressing interest in your company. Welcome letters notify the public about the company and help to give you information about the customer so that they can be put into the correct categories for the specific information they need.

Other email campaigns can include special announcements on products or services, a monthly newsletter concerning your company and/or products, money off coupons for future purchases etc. each email you send out needs to have company information towards the bottom of the page, enabling potential clients to learn more about your company and to ‘opt-in’ to receiving any upcoming emails. An online marketing company may advise you to offer your clients an incentive program by giving out a ‘promo’ code so that they can collect discounts on future purchases. This is a simple way of monitoring the worth of your campaign as well as what your contacts are interested in.

With the additional help of marketing software, a direct email marketing solution is a fantastic way of reaching your target markets but also staying connected to your purchasing base. When used efficiently, this form of marketing can keep hold of older clients and get new ones as satisfied customers will recommend your services to their friends and family and it could not be simpler, with the touch of a button you can forward an email. Your profit on investment is substantially higher than with the more traditional ways of marketing. With the help of an online marketing company to ensure these methods of advertising are correctly employed, your company will go from strength to strength.

This post was written by Crispin Jones on behalf of Boom Online Marketing. Crispin writes on marketing subjects including direct email marketing.

Why isn’t social media marketing working for you?

2011-06-07T12:35:00.000-07:00

So you’ve got your blog in place, a Twitter account and your Facebook page created? Surely it’s time to sit back and wait for the money to roll in?

This may sound like a rather foolish plan of action, but it does rather typify the approach of many small businesses. It seems that there are plenty of small business owners who don’t really understand what social media marketing is all about.

This shouldn’t really come as a surprise. We’re talking about a subject here that has a considerable “buzz” surrounding it, but that level of hype often only adds to the confusion. It may be that plenty of business owners and marketing executives are aware that they should be doing something with social media. You may well be in the same position.

Do you need social media?

You could be forgiven for thinking that all of this hype suggests that there is no substance to the social media revolution. But you’d be wrong to dismiss the impact of this type of marketing.

Many businesses have embraced social marketing successfully. They’ve realised that a Facebook presence, for instance, can reduce their dependence upon other traffic drivers, such as search engines. This clearly offers a number of advantages.

If you’re tired of having to spend a significant amount of money optimizing your website and having to take your chances on Google, there’s certainly something to be said for reducing costs and reliance on this particular channel.

Although there are small business SEO providers around, there’s absolutely no doubt that good quality SEO companies are frequently too expensive for many small business owners to make use of their services.

Maximizing the impact of social media marketing

The important things to do if you want to be successful in your social media marketing approach are:

Sign up on the main social networks. These include Facebook and Twitter

Make sure that you post regularly. This ensures that potential clients know that you take social media seriously. Try to post daily on Twitter and update your blog at least twice a week.

Engage with your audience. Remember that you’re not simply sending a message out there – you should be actively engaging in a two-way conversation. Always think about the target demographic.

Monitor the results. If you find that a particular channel is working really well for your business, then it makes sense to put more effort into that channel. You can use Google Analytics to monitor results.

If you know that social media could have a vital impact for your business, then how do you go about getting the returns that should be available to you?

It’s simply not enough to create a Facebook page and to expect that you’ll derive a significant income as a result. You need to engage with potential customers.

The best approach is to make sure that you regularly post to Facebook, Twitter and any other social media networks that you choose to use. Try to offer a “joined up” marketing approach, enabling potential clients to know that you use multiple channels.

This approach has a number of benefits. By reaching out in this way, you maximize your chances of exposure. But you’re doing a lot more too. You’re also allowing customers to see that you take online marketing and business successfully.

There’s an enormous amount of evidence to show that most of us like to buy from trusted brands. We often worry about using retailers and companies if we don’t know much about them. That’s why many organizations spend an enormous amount of money on increasing brand recognition.

This is particularly important when it comes to online marketing too. Think about your approach to social media as offering the world a window on your brand, your ethos and the services that you have to offer.

If you can create an interesting, dynamic, informative approach then there’s no reason why social marketing can’t help to transform your business.

Author Profile

Keith Barrett is an experienced search engine optimization expert and has been working in this area for more than a decade. His agency, Search South, currently offer Hampshire SEO services, as well as a full range of SEO packages.

How Strong Copy Will Help Your Websites

2011-06-06T12:10:00.000-07:00

Strong copy is an essential part any website. Even the most exquisitely designed websites fall flat if they are not supported by strong and effective copy, which is one of the first things to make an impact on visitors. Words that are eye-catching and hit the right spot, content that appeals and engages them, are what make a difference. If keywords are included, even Google obliges by picking up the site.

Website layouts will appear different depending on the device used. Thus the same layout will look different on an iPod, laptop, notebook, smart phone and desktop, and the display of words and phrase can also change. But if you have crafted the copy correctly the words will never loose their meaning the power they can have over the visitors to your site.

Tips for Strong Copy

A single topic per page- Sticking to a single topic on a page is far better than a page crammed with information that leaves the visitor confused. If one page is devoted to one service, topic or issue, the visitor is able to follow better and if it is keyword rich it will get picked by Google as well.
Copy that includes calls to action- After all has been said, it is time to reap the benefits of providing all the information to the visitor. This can be encased in the form of calls to action, where you tell them what they should do next, giving that visitor a clear idea of how they can move to the next step, which could be signing for the newsletter, or ordering a product from the website. No matter what action you want your visitor to take, each page on your site should clearly highlight a specific it; If you don’t tell them what you want them to do they may not figure it out themselves.
Client focus rather than the business- A critical mistake made by many websites is the endless banter about the company they represent, which generally ticks off people. The website must instead talk about how it can address customer wants and requirements, resolve their problems and help them. The advantages of doing this are twofold, firstly it gives you an ideal opportunity to engage with your customers and it also portrays you as an expert in your industry which will help to reassure any protective clients and may even help to push them over the line.
Links to relevant pages always help visitors move directly to the relevant page on the website. This helps them save time and score at Google, whose rankings of content with links is generally higher.
Catchy headlines, short and crisp paragraphs- headline must be very catchy to evoke reader interest, and long text must be broken in short and crisp paragraphs. Each idea can be elaborated in a few lines.

Strong copy is important for website success and so all efforts must be made to ensure that the copy for the website is informative, interesting and keyword focused, to help customers and score in search engines.

This is a Guest post by Neil Jones, who Specializes in launching ecommerce sites, he is currently plying his trade as head of marketing for eMobileScan. With 18 websites based all around Europe they are on course to be one of Europe’s largest online retailers of Industrial handheld computers and label printers like the ES400 or the Motorola MC9090. Neil has been an online marketer for the past 6 years and in that time he has owned and run a range of sites all built around the ecommerce platform.

5 SEO Tips for Blogs

2011-06-03T11:46:00.000-07:00

Everyone wants to be recognized for the hard work they put into writing for their blog each day. However, is you blog getting the recognition it deserves? Are you easily found on Google? Here are 5 quick tips that can greatly improve your SEO, and readership, without much effort.

1. Blog Titles: Make sure that the (title) portion of your blog page has the title of the article contained therein. Meaning, your main blog page will naturally have a generic title, but does your comment page? Make sure your comment page ALWAYS includes the title of the particular article. You already have the code for the title in your blog section template, just copy and paste between your title tags. This could be the difference between being on page 1 or page 40 in Google.

2. Email Field: Every blog should have an Icon to subscribe to RSS feeds. Although, most people won’t subscribe until they know you, you should allow them an easy way to simply add their email address and press subscribe. Super simple and sends your new posts straight to their inbox. There are lots of websites to help you will this. I use Feedburner.com because it is free, and will also ping your blog automatically to other media sites.

3. Plug It: After you press submit, you should spend the next 10 minutes plugging your new post. There are several free sites out there to help you achieve instant search engine results. Technorati, Digg, Twitter, Buzzit.com are just a few of the networks that will get you onto Google almost instantly. Plus with all the link traffic and building your SEO, this is one of the biggest, and easiest ways to get your blog to the top.

4. Tell a Story and Respond to Comments: Engage your readers. They will want to “check in” with you everyday and see how things are going. Make them hang on to every word you write as you interestingly tell them about how you were just on a flight with Patrick Dempsey. (Which you might have been!) And when they comment, respond! Blogging is about making friends and relationships. Instant readership when you become a relatable friend.

5. Analytics: Pay attention to your blog stats. Which posts were popular? Which posts didn’t work as well? When you focus on what your readers want to hear, incorporate those search terms into your posts and link them to past articles you have written.

These are simple tips, so there is no reason not to implement these tools and watch your blog increase SEO and readership. What is your favorite SEO tip for your blog? Leave it in the comments!

Caitlin is currently a writer for Amazing News, which is a website updated daily with heartwarming and cheerful news stories. Caitlin graduated from the University of Kansas with a journalism degree specializing in advertising and marketing.