The recent updates in the search algorithm of Google may have
seemed too drastic if not totally devastating for many online
businesses. Most of the techniques and rules that worked so well for the
past many years were suddenly thrown out of the window.
Algorithm updates
The
businesses that survived the cleansing proved to be not necessarily the
strongest or the biggest (majority are actually small businesses).
Aside from being prepared to cope to change and capable of adjusting,
these resilient businesses turned out to be the businesses that have
high quality contents in their websites. These contents are not only
appealing and useful to human visitors but also turned out to be the
type of contents being sought after by the algorithm updates.
Google
algorithms have become smarter and discerning to some great degree.
Although still a far cry from human intellect, the new sets of
algorithms were tailored to mimic human preferences. The updates have
resulted in the elimination of junk results from the first page of
Google SERP. The previously high-ranking but deceptive websites were
penalized, relegating them into internet obscurity.
Optimization techniques
On-site
search engine and marketing techniques have become as important as
off-site marketing techniques. The former algorithms have resulted to
keyword stuffing, back linking abuses, and even the so-called Google
bombing pranks.
Applying the old algorithms, it is relatively easy to
make website rank very high given specific keywords. It is just a matter
of using these keywords as anchor texts in off-site articles. The
anchor texts served as the back links that were counted as votes in
favor of the website being promoted.
Both the Penguin and Panda
updates sought to eliminate keyword stuffing and link farming, which
formerly resulted to many junks search results. The updates forced web
masters and SEO experts to change their strategies. Many of the old
techniques still work if they are used in moderation. For example, using
anchor texts is still essential but they should not be used to
over-optimize a website for a specific targeted keyword.
Keyword roles
The
keyword placement and density are still important but they should be
relevant to the overall semantics of a website's text content. On-site
marketing or SEO strategies must be contextual and not anymore reliant
on baiting robot crawlers with meta-tags and other hidden tags. The
navigation structure of a website must also be tailored in such a way
that it is easy to use not only for robots but more importantly for
visitors and would-be customers.
Content quality
As
the old internet marketing adage goes, "content is king". The volume of
visitors might be determined by external or off-site marketing but the
actual conversion rate will be determined by the content of the website.
If it is truly interesting and useful to visitors, many of them are
likely to be converted into paying subscribers or customers.
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Homar_N_Murillo
Don't Fall for This 'Faceboourk' Phishing Scam
The scam, outlined by Australian software architect Troy Hunt on his blog, starts out as a link to a viral video or other Internet meme, perhaps in a friend's tweet. It's a shortened link that obscures its real destination, but users will be relieved to land on what looks like the standard Facebook login page.
After the visitor logs into his Facebook account, the phony site asks victims to update their Facebook account security and provide additional information — a security question, a mobile-phone number and full credit-card details, right down to the expiration data and card security code. There's even an "overall protection" graph that mimics password-entry forms.
Unless they pay close attention to the address bar, the nearly perfect spoof page is likely to make users feel perfectly safe. Although the page looks exactly like Facebook, it's actually faceboourk.com.
Once users have given "Faceboourk" their Facebook login credentials, phone numbers and credit cards, the site's work is done. It takes them to the real Facebook login page, stealing their personally identifiable information and dumping them at Facebook's front door in one seamless motion.
Scams like this aren't new or uncommon, but this one's level of sophistication and lack of spelling mistakes makes it especially noteworthy.
Hunt tried to look up the Internet registration information for the phony site, but was only able to glean that information entered into the faux Facebook pages was redirected to a "parked" (unused but registered) porn URL, and from there sent elsewhere.
Hunt said he thinks the scam may have abated for now. Still, Internet users should always treat links with skepticism and pay close attention to the URL, especially when entering sensitive information.
Scammers likely use the information gleaned from such phishing scams to sell on the black market or commit identity theft and financial fraud.
Their unscrupulous activities can lead to days, weeks and even months of financial headaches as victims attempt to sort out the financial havoc that's been wreaked on their lives.
Get the Ball Rolling in 2013
After the initial enthusiasm over new years resolutions for 2013 dwindles, keeping motivated, committed and moving toward accomplishing those goals is often tough. For many of us, our resolutions slowly vanish from our daily thoughts and actions and we wind up creating those same EXACT resolutions the following year.
So what’s the secret formula to staying on track with your new years resolutions?
Taking ACTION and staying CONSISTENT! To hell if conditions aren’t
perfect, or if this circumstance isn’t quite ideal or that person isn’t
following through the way they said they would. We’ve got to take all
these principles learned throughout the years and put them into action.This can become another one of those “Duh, Harv” moments. “Of course you have to take action and stay consistent.” But are these two principles that most people follow and really live by?
That’s exactly where a lot of people get stuck and give up on their goals, even those with greater awareness and knowledge. You know you want to work out, need to get into better shape for the sake of generating more energy to work your mission. But what step is often the hardest to take? It’s not the goal you set nor the resolution you create for yourself. It’s the first step that’s the hardest!
Sometimes getting the ball rolling can feel like pushing a boulder uphill, metaphorically speaking. You need to build the next muscle and final spiritual muscle that separates the successful from those still waiting at the gate: momentum.
Momentum is that force that makes it easier for someone who’s successful to do what’s right than to do what’s wrong. Momentum is that process of getting that snowball moving. The hardest part about working out is getting to the gym. Once you get there, it’s not that hard to do.
When you’re in motion, that’s when things begin to line up, not before (that goes for you perfectionist!). A body in motion will remain in motion and a body at rest will remain at rest. What do we want to do? Get into motion! Once you’re there, it gets easier. We already know that. Now we need to just do it.
What in your life do you need to get started and adjust as you go? What have you been waiting for? What’s the fear? Is that true or did you just make it up?
For 2013, I challenge you to set smaller, incremental goals for yourself to gain momentum, and then adjust those goals as you go. Don’t forget to celebrate EVERY goal accomplished, no matter how small.
Work Hard to Hardly Work
You’ve probably seen this painting periodically throughout
your life called American Gothic by the artist Grant Wood. It shows an
older man and woman, farmers presumably, standing stoically in front of a
farmhouse, the man holding a pitchfork.
Art is subjective—what you see may not be what someone else
sees—but even the casual viewer of this painting will see two people
devoid of any emotion that would make the viewer stoked about the idea
of ‘hard work.’
The painting, so the myth goes at least, points toward the
idea that hard work is a rewarding virtue in itself. It’s implied as if
the reward of hard work is something that just naturally happens as a
result of our having ‘paid dues.’
Please understand I’m not ragging on farming or anything
that requires hard, physical labor. I am, however, ragging on the idea
that hard work is a ‘virtue’ that we should be carrying into our
retirement years.
Unfortunately, these myths we grow up with impact our
psychology more than we sometimes give credit. So many people judge
success on superficial factors—like the prideful vanity of using a line
like “I work hard” to bludgeon other people with—but also on the wrong
metrics of measuring success to begin with. The number of hours worked
and tasks completed may produce more money per paycheck, but it’ll also
mean you’ll end up with those long, tight faces like in American Gothic.
Do years of hard work and little enjoyment of life, yet
having a ‘comfortable’ retirement, equate to success? Maybe, but you
could just as easily look at it as poor time management and a waste of
personal strengths and skills—doing stuff that (often) makes us
miserable for a little bit more money and for vanity’s sake—“I’m a hard
worker.”
If we’re honest with ourselves, the only realistic goal of
playing the money game while being truly happy and fulfilled is to play
for eventual freedom from work—way sooner than retirement.
Don’t
misunderstand me here: the most valuable things in life aren’t going to
come easy and they’re often not going to come without some pain and
effort.
If you’re going to work hard, you might as well be working hard at working less.
The real measure of success is how free you
are—financially, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—to live life the
way you want to live it.
Instagram’s New Privacy Policy Paves Way For Further Integration With Facebook
In a blog post announcing the change, Instagram makes it very clear that the changes have been made in collaboration with Facebook to better help users make the most of the combined service provided.
“Our updated privacy policy helps Instagram function more easily as part of Facebook by being able to share info between the two groups”, explains the blog post. “This means we can do things like fight spam more effectively, detect system and reliability problems more quickly, and build better features for everyone by understanding how Instagram is used.”
The first new passage in the Privacy Policy document lists the information that Instagram will share with Facebook:
“We may share User Content and your information (including but not limited to, information from cookies, log files, device identifiers, location data, and usage data) with businesses that are legally part of the same group of companies that Instagram is part of, or that become part of that group.”
The ‘group of companies’ mentioned clearly refers to Facebook and their affiliates, meaning that when the change comes into effect, Instagram will have the right to exchange its users’ personal data with Facebook.
The second new paragraph clarifies what use Instagram’s affiliates will have with the data:
“Affiliates may use this information to help provide, understand, and improve the Service (including by providing analytics) and Affiliates’ own services (including by providing you with better and more relevant experiences). But these Affiliates will honor the choices you make about who can see your photos.”
The constant inclusion of the word “affiliates” insinuates that, at some time soon, Instagram will be further integrated with its affiliate Facebook. The final sentence of the paragraph suggests that, in light of the change, Instagram users will be able to reset their photographs’ privacy settings at some point soon.
The change will come into effect on January 16, 2013.
8 Lessons Learned Growing a Site to One Million Monthly Page Views
Some time ago one of my sites crossed
the one million monthly page views mark. The screenshot from Google Analytics
for the month of August is below.
While I know there are thousands of
other websites out there with much higher traffic, reaching this milestone made
me quite happy, as this is a website I built from scratch (i.e., I still
remember when I registered the domain).
Below you’ll find the eight most
important lessons I learned while building this site (I won’t reveal the URL
for privacy reasons, but the useful stuff is below anyway ):
1. Choose Your Niche Wisely
Most people who read this blog
probably think it is my largest and most profitable website. Well, it’s not.
The reason? Niches like blogging, make money online, SEO or Internet marketing
are pretty small when compared with mainstream stuff like gadgets, movies and
television, cars, health and so on. That is why my “money” sites are placed in
those niches, while I write on Daily Blog Tips mostly because I have fun doing
it.
2. Find A Unique Angle
While picking the right, relatively
large niche is important, I wouldn’t recommend you to start yet another tech or
cars blog, where you would get most of your content from other, larger blogs
and sites. Most mainstream niches are crowded, and if you just write about what
everyone else is writing, after them, people will have no reason to visit your
site. The solution? You need to find a unique angle. You need to come up with
an idea that will differentiate both your site and your content from others in
the same niche. Not easy, but possible.
3. Repeat Visitors Matter
There’s one metric that very few
people pay attention to, yet I believe it’s one of the best indicators of the
potential of a website: repeat visitors. Basically if the amount of repeat
visitors on your site is increasing over time it means that you are converting
some of your casual visitors into loyal ones, and that your overall traffic
will increase overtime. If the amount of repeat visitors is not growing, on the
other hand, it means that your content is failing to engage visitors to the
point that they will remember your site a couple of days after visiting it. In
this case you need to rethink your strategy.
4. Quality Over Quantity
If you need to choose between quality
and quantity, go with quality. In order words, you’ll get much better results
publishing one top quality article per week than publishing five average ones.
It’s the quality of your content that will increase the amount of repeat
visitors you get, after all, and the amount of backlinks you’ll receive from
other sites (more on that below).
5. Google Is Your Friend
Whether you like it or not, Google is
the main traffic driver around the web, so you better befriend it and use its
help to grow your site. This means that you need to understand how search
engines work (e.g., how Google crawls the web, how it decides which websites to
serve when people search for stuff, etc.) in order to optimize your content,
pages, and to promote your articles in a way that will increase their exposure
with search engines. It will take some effort from your end, but the results
are certainly worth it.
6. Research and Gather Data
When it comes to Search Engine
Optimization and to promoting your website in general, you’ll need to research
and gather data (as opposed to trusting your gut or intuition). That is, you’ll
need to understand what are the hot topics inside your niche, what search terms
are sending you more traffic, what visitors are more likely to stay on your
site and so on. With the numbers on your hand you’ll be able to make much
better decisions, both in terms of content and promotion.
7. You Can’t Do It Alone
While there are many people who manage
to grow large sites alone, I found that getting some help along the way made
all the difference. On most sites I have these days I focus exclusively on the
strategy/promotion aspects, while leaving the web design/content development to
other people. Sure, you’ll need to spend some money, but this is one of the
most efficient ways to grow any website (and any business, for the matter).
8. Slow and Steady Wins the Race
It took me around three years to go
from zero to one million monthly page views. During that time frame there was
no single event that catapulted my site’s popularity, no large spike in
traffic. It was a gradual and slow process, where every month I would promote
the site a bit more, do some guest posts and so on. All that mattered to me was
to see the traffic numbers increasing, albeit slowly, month after month.
Five Steps To A Better Facebook Business Page
Ah, the frustration. Nine hundred million
Facebook users and only a hand full are fans of your business. Worse still, no
is actively following your page or sending business your way. You decide, like
many, that Facebook is probably not an avenue to increase business or sales.
Before you delete your page or let it die a slow death through neglect, here
are some pro-active steps that can give your page, and your business a boost.
Step 1. Learn the competition. Take a look
at your competitor's page and see what they're doing right, and doing wrong.
You can find the page by going to Facebook's search engine and typing in your
customer's page. If you can't find it that way, Facebook search is still not up
to grade in some respects,,try going to your competitor's website. They may
have a link or a "like" widget that will navigate you to their page.
Once on the page, Facebook, not the website, take a look around. You want to
look for how the Cover photo and Profile photo compliment each other. Do they
make sense? Do they enhance the brand? How often does this page post? What
seems to be working for them? What kind of content are they posting? Imitation
is the highest form of flattery. Flatter your competitor.
Step 2. Learn some of the best practices.
There are no hard and fast rules to social marketing, but there are some
strategies that work better than others. Here are a few:
· Don't sell, engage. Most companies that
complain about Facebook as a business platform do so because their sales
campaigns don't deliver results. If all they're trying to do is sell, they have
a long wait. Successful brands that have thrived on Facebook don't sell to
their fans, they engage them. You can engage them by offering advice on
products and services you offer; doing surveys; asking fill-in-the-blank-type
questions. Asking fans to name a Facebook friend who uses your product or
service is a great way to engage a current fan and maybe find a new one.
· Post every day. It may seem to be
unnecessary but not all of your fans see every post. If you only post once or
twice a week, it may be quite some time before a fan sees a post from you.
· Include a call to action. It could be to
click into your website, answer a question, or participate in a survey.
Anything that encourages a fan to interact with your page is worthwhile.
· If you do sell, don't over do it. One
sales related post out of five is plenty. Beyond that and you're probably
disengaging your audience.
Step 3. Add to your page. Replace your
cover photo and profile picture on a regular basis. Create a video to introduce
yourself. Build a gallery of images that reflects your work or your product.
Add a contact or email form. You can highlight a product or service.
Step 4. Plan. Don't go about posting
willy-nilly. Have a plan for what you are going to post and when. Plan for the
short term and longer. The shorter calendar, typically a week or a month,
highlights everyday events and news. The longer view highlights sales
promotion, large events and the like.
Step 5. Consider a paid ad campaign on
Facebook. Facebook lets you build a page for free, accumulate fans for free,
and create a brand presence for free. What they won't allow you to do anymore
is communicate with all your fans for free. Facebook is in the money making
business and have realized that they can't give away the store and make money.
So to reach all of your fans, you'll have to spend some cash.
At first glance, the Facebook platform
appears similar to Google's AdWords. But there are differences. Keywords are
not important in Facebook, interests and demographics are. You can micro target
an audience to certain categories such as age or interest. Images play a key
role in the Facebook model so be sure to upload one. You can promote a post to
get it a wider audience. Promoted posts will allow you to broadcast outside
your network of fans. The cost for a Facebook ad won't bust your budget.
Facebook is an effective advertising tool when page owners realize it's not
free and sales results will be generated over time.
J.A. Moffitt is the President of Elvin Web
Marketing. Elvin Web Marketing is a full service online marketing company.
Whether it's getting on the first page of a Google search, improving your site
content, blog writing, submitting your business to online directories, or
social or email marketing, we can help! Call us at 203-882-0171. We now offer
targeted ads on national websites. Visit our webpage at
http://onlinemarketinginct.com
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=J_A_Moffitt
US Social Media Ad Revenue To Double By 2016
US
social media ad revenues are estimated to double over the next four years, with
spend set to hit USD9.2bn in 2016 as brands increasingly turn to Facebook and
Twitter for advertising.
The
research, by BIA/Kelsey, differentiates between the traditional display ads
that marketers can pay for on sites such as Facebook and what it calls ‘native
ads’, in-house ad products that social media sites have developed themselves,
such as Facebook’s Sponsored Stories and Twitter’s Promoted Tweets.
The
report forecasts that demand for these native ads, as well as new mobile ad
formats, will drive growth over the next four years. In particular, revenue
growth for native ads will outstrip the wider market, with sales set to triple
over the next four years to nearly USD4bn as premiums on in-house ad products
increase.
“The
year 2012 can be viewed as social advertising’s ‘coming of age’,” says
BIA/Kelsey’s social local media programme director, Jed Williams. “The
continued development of native ads, such as Facebook’s Sponsored Stories and
Twitter’s Promoted Tweets, and the acceleration of mobile monetisation will be
the primary drivers of social advertising growth through 2016.”
Mobile
ad revenues are increasingly important for social media companies, with
consumers increasingly accessing social networks on Smartphone's and tablets,
rather than while sitting at desktop computers.
The
report anticipates that mobile social ad revenues will grow from USD500m this
year to USD1.5bn in 2016. An increasing willingness by advertisers to
experiment with the platform will drive this increase, alongside the
integration of native social ads and soaring consumer engagement on mobile.
Facebook
reported strong growth on mobile in its latest earnings call, claiming that
mobile accounted for 14% of its ad revenues in the last quarter and helping
drive its overall ad revenues from UDD798m to USD1.09bn year on year.
Although
Twitter does not break out revenue figures, numbers from eMarketer suggest that
Twitter will rake in USD129.7m from mobile ad revenues this year, boosting
overall ad turnover to USD288.3m. According to CEO Dick Costolo, around 84m of
Twitter’s 140m users are now accessing the service on mobile, while Facebook
CEO Mark Zuckerberg predicts that its mobile users will eventually outnumber
its desktop users.
Despite
the growth of native ads, display ads will continue to dominate revenues in
social media, as in other online ad categories, boosted by demand for
Facebook’s Marketplace Ads and the multiple display formats available on
YouTube, which include video and traditional banner ads. The report forecasts
that spending on these formats will increase 80% over the next few years to hit
USD5.4bn by 2016. Meanwhile, localised social ad spend is also expected to see
strong growth, with BIA/Kelsey estimating that revenues will nearly triple in
the period, which predicts that revenues will hit USD3bn by 2016.
5 Critical Content Marketing Mistakes That You Must Avoid
Content marketing i.e. creating and distributing content is one of the most effective ways to promote a business online. Businesses and marketers all over the world are using content to attract new customers. However, creating quality content regularly, takes valuable time and resources. It is thus important to do it correctly and get the most out of your efforts.
In
this article we take a look at five common content marketing mistakes that
should not be left unchecked. If you want your business to benefit from content
marketing, you will need to avoid these mistakes.
1. Writing For The Wrong Audience
When
I first started blogging a few years ago, my content was aimed more at
marketers, designers and SEO specialists as opposed to businesses. Although my
content performed well and I was building a good following, I finally came to a
realisation that I was not targeting the right audience.
One
of the main purposes of starting a blog for me was to generate leads and sales
from my Web design and Internet marketing business. It thus made sense to
target businesses instead of other professionals in my niche. Finally, I had to
shift focus to address businesses instead of other designers and marketers. I
still write about the same topics, but I use less jargon and have had to adjust
my tone to address businesses instead. It took me two years to realise this.
You can learn from my experience and define your audience right from the start.
2. Poorly Crafted Headlines
Compelling
headlines or titles are vital to the success of your content whether it is a
blog post, an eBook or a report. Compelling headlines play a major role in
determining the popularity and readership of your content.
A
great headline should:
·
Grab
the attention of Readers
·
Generate
interest and compel users to read the rest of your content
·
Should
be clear and concise and easy to understand
·
Should
include keywords
You
can take advantage of list posts or instructional content as they are very
popular among readers and tend to be share more on social media.
Let's
take a simple example. The same headline
“methods to improve the usability of your website can be better written as “10
Easy Ways to Improve The Usability of Your Website” which is more compelling
and will grab the attention of readers.
3. Focusing On Quantity Over Quality
It
is often suggested that a business or web master should publish content every
day in order to get more coverage and reach. Publishing daily does have its
benefits, particular on blogs. It can improve your search engine rank and drive
more visitors towards your website. However it should never be at the cost of
quality. Publishing quality content once a week can be equally effective for
meeting your marketing objectives.
4. Not Optimising Your Content Search Engine Optimisation
Optimising
your content properly is essential to get the desired results. Both, external
SEO factors such as link building and on-page optimisation are important. The
importance of good on-page optimisation should not be under-estimated. Good
optimisation is a must for all content produced as part of your marketing
efforts. It should not be overlooked whether you are creating a blog post, press
release or an article.
Here
are some SEO tips you can use:
Choose the right keywords:
Use Keywords in Headline
Use Keywords in Meta title and description
Use keywords in headings and bold text
Optimise Image ALT descriptions
Use in URL e.g.
www.yoursitename.com/keywordphrase.html
5. Syndicating The Same Content
Everywhere
It
is common for businesses and marketers to distribute content on several sources
in order to maximise their reach. For example, a business may post content on
its blog, publish articles on article sites, create eBooks and as well as
publish documents on document sharing sites. Some businesses make the mistake
of publishing the same identical content on several sources. Although targeting multiple channels can be
very effective, syndicating the exact same content everywhere should be
avoided.
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