Archive for February, 2009

How Mobile Search Engine Optimization Is Different

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009



Everyone seems to have a Smartphone these days, and more and more focus is being put on mobile devices that call, do email, allow you to browse the web, and more. With that, however, come some interesting changes to the world of website design and website marketing. Mobile devices don’t see websites the same as computers do, mainly because the viewing area is so much smaller. To that end, many sites have created alternative websites aimed specifically at mobile users.

While this is great, there are a few challenges that come with it. First, you have to decide what content to include on the mobile page, how that content will be split up, and more. You also have to understand that these mobile sites aren’t going to be anywhere near as detailed or complex as your standard web site. Most mobile users want something specific, and since many have only a limited amount of bandwidth they can use each month, they want that specific information as quickly as possible and by downloading as little as possible. This means no large images, no big blocks of text, and no fancy menus.

What this also means, however, is that a lot of the traditional SEO techniques aren’t going to be viable. Writing large articles that incorporate keywords, for example, is counter-productive when it comes to a mobile site. So is it possible to make your mobile site stand out and get the attention of mobile search engines? Of course it is, but you have to know how mobile searching works and how it’s different from standard searching.

First, mobile users typically don’t want a huge variety of options. As stated above, they want to go straight to the content they’re looking for. Often, they actually write their searches so that they’re more specific. Rather than searching for “ringtones” for example, they often search for a specific ringtone or ringtones by a specific artist. They’re also often searching for local results, especially phone numbers or addresses. Quick answers to trivia questions are also popular.

Another thing to take into consideration is that your webpage is going to be split up into several different mini-pages on a mobile device, and most users don’t continuously click next to see the entire site. In fact, most will only click through two or three of these pages before giving up and either going to a different site or rephrasing their search.

The standard search result page generally includes ten results, which is why so many companies aim at getting their sites into the top ten. However, a mobile search result page may feature fewer results, so now instead of top ten you need to get your mobile page into the top five.

Finally, mobile searches, while often more specific, are also often shorter than PC searches. This is because people don’t want to use their tiny keyboards to type in anything too long. According to a study, around 85% of all mobile searches contain only two words.

So what does all of this mean for your mobile website? It means that you’ve got to have it very, very focused on exactly what it’s about. Instead of a wide variety of keywords like you’d use on a standard website, in fact, many say you need to narrow down your mobile site to exactly one keyword. Do that and you’ll find your site getting much more mobile traffic than it did before.



Facets of Web3.0

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009



Facets of Web 3.0-

A Boon for Netizens

B.MAHESHWARI

Abstract

With more than 10 years’ work on the Semantic Web’s foundations and more than five years since the phrase became popular, it’s an opportune moment to look at the field’s current state and future opportunities. The Resource Description Framework (RDF) and Web Ontology Language (OWL)–the languages that power the Semantic Web–have become standards and new technologies are reaching maturity for embedding semantics in existing Web pages and querying RDF knowledge stores. Something exciting is clearly happening in this area. That is none other than web 3.0

• Web 3.0 is defined as the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted individuals using Web 2.0 technology as an enabling platform.

Before this people were very curious about ‘Web 3.0’ as they asked to Tim Berner about the full-fledged information of Web 3.0 as Tim Berners-Lee stated in May 2006:

“People keep asking what Web 3.0 is. I think maybe when you’ve got an overlay of scalable vector graphics – everything rippling and folding and looking misty – on Web 2.0 and access to a semantic Web integrated across a huge space of data, you’ll have access to an unbelievable data resource.”- Tim Berners Lee

Web 2.0 services are now the commoditized platform, not the final product. In a world where a social network, wiki, or social bookmarking service can be built for free and in an instant, what’s next?

Web 2.0 services like digg and YouTube evolve into Web 3.0 services with an additional layer of individual excellence and focus. As an example, funnyordie.com leverages all the standard YouTube Web 2.0 feature sets like syndication and social networking, while adding a layer of talent and trust to them.

A version of digg where experts check the validity of claims, corrected errors, and restated headlines to be more accurate would be the Web 3.0 version. However, I’m not sure if the digg community will embrace that any time soon.

Wikipedia, considered a Web 1.5 service, is experiencing the start of the Web 3.0 movement by locking pages down as they reach completion, and (at least in their German version) requiring edits to flow through trusted experts.

Also of note, is what Web 3.0 leaves behind? Web 3.0 throttles the “wisdom of the crowds” from turning into the “madness of the mobs” we’ve seen all too often, by balancing it with a respect of experts. Web 3.0 leaves behind the cowardly anonymous contributors and the selfish blackhat SEOs that have polluted and diminished so many communities.

Web 3.0 is a return to what was great about media and technology before Web 2.0: recognizing talent and expertise, the ownership of ones words, and fairness. It’s time to evolve, shall we?

Basic Web 3.0 Concepts

Knowledge domains

A knowledge domain is something like Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Politics, the Web, Sociology, Psychology, History, etc. There can be many sub-domains under each domain each having their own sub-domains and so on.

Information vs. Knowledge

To a machine, knowledge is comprehended information (aka new information produced through the application of deductive reasoning to exiting information). To a machine, information is only data, until it is processed and comprehended.

Ontologies

For each domain of human knowledge, an ontology must be constructed, partly by hand [or rather by brain] and partly with the aid of automation tools.

Ontologies are not knowledge nor are they information. They are meta-information. In other words, ontologies are information about information. In the context of the Semantic Web, they encode, using an ontology language, the relationships between the various terms within the information. Those relationships, which may be thought of as the axioms (basic assumptions), together with the rules governing the inference process, both enable as well as constrain the interpretation (and well-formed use) of those terms by the Info Agents to reason new conclusions based on existing information, i.e. to think. In other words, theorems (formal deductive propositions that are provable based on the axioms and the rules of inference) may be generated by the software, thus allowing formal deductive reasoning at the machine level. And given that an ontology, as described here, is a statement of Logic Theory, two or more independent Info Agents processing the same domain-specific ontology will be able to collaborate and deduce an answer to a query, without being driven by the same software.

Inference Engines

In the context of Web 3.0, Inference engines will be combining the latest innovations from the artificial intelligence (AI) field together with domain-specific ontologies (created as formal or informal ontologies by, say, Wikipedia, as well as others), domain inference rules, and query structures to enable deductive reasoning on the machine level.

Info Agents

Info Agents are instances of an Inference Engine, each working with a domain-specific ontology. Two or more agents working with a shared ontology may collaborate to deduce answers to questions. Such collaborating agents may be based on differently designed Inference Engines and they would still be able to collaborate.

Proofs and Answers

The interesting thing about Info Agents that I did not clarify in the original post is that they will be capable of not only deducing answers from existing information (i.e. generating new information [and gaining knowledge in the process, for those agents with a learning function]) but they will also be able to formally test propositions (represented in some query logic) that are made directly or implied by the user. For example, instead of the example I gave previously (in the Wikipedia 3.0 article) where the user asks “Where is the nearest restaurant that serves Italian cuisine” and the machine deduces that a pizza restaurant serves Italian cuisine, the user may ask “Is the moon blue?” or say that the “moon is blue” to get a true or false answer from the machine. In this case, a simple Info Agent may answer with “No” but a more sophisticated one may say “the moon is not blue but some humans are fond of saying ‘once in a blue moon’ which seems illogical to me.”

This test-of-truth feature assumes the use of an ontology language (as a formal logic system) and an ontology where all propositions (or formal statements) that can be made can be computed (i.e. proved true or false) and were all such computations are decidable in finite time. The language may be OWL-DL or any language that, together with the ontology in question, satisfy the completeness and decidability conditions.

“The Future Has Arrived But It’s Not Evenly Distributed”

Currently, Semantic Web (aka Web 3.0) researchers are working out the technology and human resource issues and folks like Tim Berners-Lee, the Noble prize recipient and father of the Web, are battling critics and enlightening minds about the coming human-machine revolution.

The Semantic Web (aka Web 3.0) has already arrived, and Inference Engines are working with prototypical ontologies, but this effort is a massive one, which is why I was suggesting that its most likely enabler will be a social, collaborative movement such as Wikipedia, which has the human resources (in the form of the thousands of knowledgeable volunteers) to help create the ontologies (most likely as informal ontologies based on semantic annotations) that, when combined with inference rules for each domain of knowledge and the query structures for the particular schema, enable deductive reasoning at the machine level.

Definitions and Roadmap

There are several definitions of the web, but usually Web 3.0 is defined as a term, which has been coined with different meanings to describe the evolution of web usage and interaction among the several separate paths.

These include transforming the Web into a database, a move towards making content accessible by multiple non-browser applications, the leveraging of artificial intelligence technologies, the Semantic web, or the Geospatial Web. According to Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, “Web 3.0 is a third generation of Internet based Web services, which emphasize m a c h i n e – f a c i l i t a t e d understanding of information in order to provide a more productive and intuitive user experience.”. The third generation of Internet services is collectively consists of semantic web, microformats, natural language search, data-mining, machine learning, recommendation agents that is known as Artificial Intelligence technologies or Intelligent Web.

According to some experts, “Web 3.0 is characterized and fueled by the successful carriage of artificial intelligence and the web”. While some experts have summarized the definition defining as “Web 3.0 is the next step in the progression of the tubes that are the Internets”.

According to Nova Spivack, the CEO of Radar Networks, one of the leading voices of this new age Internet, “Web 3.0 is a set of standards that turns the Web into one big database.”

Steve, a famous Blog author has defined the term Web 3.0 as, “ Web 3.0 is highly specialized information structures, moderated by a group of personality, validated by the community, and put into context with the inclusion of meta-data through widgets”. While Leiki, the Finland based pioneer company of Semantic Web describes: “Web 3.0 makes the discovery of content streams effortless. It introduces automatic discovery of likeminded users and automatic tagging.”

The term ‘Web 3.0’ was first coined by John Markoff of the New York Times in 2006, while it first appeared prominently in early 2006 in a Blog article written by Jeffrey Zeldman in the “Critical of Web 2.0 and associated technologies such as Ajax”.

A ‘more revolutionary’ Web

The term Web 3.0 has became a subject of interest and debate since late 2006 to till date. But no exact definition has been created that everyone accepts it.

Web 3.0 Debates over Definition

Since the origins of the concept of Web 3.0, the debate continues goes on about exactly what the term Web 3.0 means, and what a suitable definition might be. As emerging the new technology, a new definition emerged:

Transforming the Web into a database

Transforming the Web into database is the beginning step towards transforming definition of Web 3.0 when the technology of ‘Data Web’ emerged as structured data records that can be published to the Web in reusable and remotely query able formats, such as XML, RDF and microformats. The Data Web is the initial step in the way of full Semantic web that enables a new level of data integration and application interoperability, which makes the data openly accessible and linkable as Web pages. To make available structured data using RDF is primarily focused in Data Web phase. The full Semantic Web stage will so expand the scope that both structured and semi structured or unstructured content will be widely available in RDF and OWL semantic formats.

An evolutionary path to artificial intelligence

Web 3.0 has also been used to describe the rend of artificial intelligence, which is being popular in the web like a quasi-human fashion. Some cynic believes that it is an unobtainable vision. However, this is being used new technologies on mass level that yields amazing information like making predictions of hit songs from mining information on college music Web sites. There is also debate on the driving force behind Web 3.0. Will it be the intelligent systems, or whether intelligence will emerge in a more organic fashion and how people interact with it?

The realization of the Semantic Web and Service Oriented Architecture

Another debate originates over the artificial intelligence direction in which Web 3.0 can be extent to Semantic web concept. Academic research is going on to develop such reasoning software that must be based on description logic and intelligent agents. These sorts of applications can perform logical reasoning operations through using sets of rules expressing logical relationships between concepts and data on the Web.

But some critics are disagree on the viewpoint, which describes that Semantic Web would be the core of the 3rd generation of the Internet and suggests a formula to summarize Web 3.0.

Web 3.0 has also been associated to a possible hub of SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and Semantic web.

Evolution towards 3D

The evolution of 3D technology is also being connected to Web 3.0 as Web 3.0 may be used on massive scale due to its characteristics. In this process Web 3.0 would transform into a series of 3D spaces, taking the concept realized by Second Life expansion. This could open up new ways to connect and collaborate using 3D shared spaces.

Proposed Expanded Definitions of Web 3.0

Nova Spivack has proposed the expanded definition of

Web 3.0 that indulge in itself the collection of various foremost harmonizing technology developments that are growing to a new level of maturity simultaneously includes:

• Ubiquitous Connectivity, broadband adoption, mobile Internet access and mobile devices

• Network computing, s o f t w a r e -a s – a – s e r v i c e business models, Web services interoperability, distributed computing, grid computing and cloud computing

• Open technologies, Open APIs and protocols, open data formats, open-source software platforms and open data (e.g. Creative Commons, Open Data License)

• Open identity, OpenID, open reputation, roaming portable identity and personal data

• The intelligent web, Semantic web technologies such as RDF, OWL, SWRL, SPARQL, Semantic application platforms, and statement based data stores.

•Distributed databases, the “World Wide Database” (enabled by Semantic Web technologies)

• Intelligent applications, natural language processing, machine learning, machine reasoning, and autonomous agents

Web 3.0 as Different Formats of Web

The Semantic Web

The term ‘Semantic Web’ refers to “Defined” Web that is an alliance of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and others to provide a standard for defining data structures on the Web. Semantic Web refers to the use of XMLtagged data that matches the Resource Description Framework (RDF).

Sometimes it is refers to” Web 3.0,” that is a debatable topic, but in the form of Web 3.0, the main goal of the Semantic Web becomes to identify exact required data that matches the keywords. e.g. if we search Web 3.0 in Google / yahoo / msn or any advance search engines using specific key words, there are millions of web pages appears on the window in which only very few have some information and all other pages are worthless.

Web 3.0 in terms of Semantic Web is the third generation of World Wide Web in which machines an read sites similar to human being and also follows our instructions. For example if you order to check your schedule against the schedules of all the dentists and doctors within a 10-mile radius if follows tour order and provide the appropriate information.

The 3D Web

3-D refers to the three dimensional design that represents the virtual looks of any object from three different sides simultaneously. A user can view the true picture of any building, any location or any object and walk through the location without leaving the computer desk on his/her system. Though these are the virtual pictures but seem to be real. These technologies are extensively being used in a wide range of services like computer games, Virtual Reality (VR) models and Multimedia solutions.

Now, 3-D technology has come on the Internet and has become a new trend of Web. Now user can go house hunting across town or take a tour of the world or can walk through a Second Life– style virtual world, surfing for data and interacting with others in 3D. The 3d web is being used massively in online computer games, virtual world tour, Geospatial engineering, online high tech research, online software development, online shopping, online telecommunication and social networking sites. Google Earth, Wiki Earth, MySpace, You Tube are the biggest examples of 3D web users

The Media-Centric Web

The terms Media-Centric Web refers to the web where users can find true similar graphics and sound on the other media, not just the keywords. E.g. if users searches any favorite movie/ graphics/ music in the search engines, can find the exact desired thing on the other media.

The Pervasive Web

The pervasive web refers the uses of web in the wide range of area in which the web has now been reached not only in computers and cell phones but also in clothing, appliances, and automobiles and much more, e.g. web based bedroom windows that checks weather and self open or close it according to climate.

Web 3.0 in terms of pervasive web refers to those websites, which are going to be transformed into web services and will depict and expand their information to the world.

Overview

As the times goes and he technology enriches, the experts feels to develop some thing better that can be more fruitful, advance, user friendly and intelligent. Thus originates the concept of web 3.0 and now it is taking a handsome shape. We 3.0 have some more features including the feature of Web 2.0.

Web 3.0 sites will only allow collaboration of content generated from an approved pseudo-random sequence of characters. Web 3.0 would have three main objectives:

1- Seeking Information

2- Seeking Validation

3- Seeking entertainment

Seeking Information

Searching information would be more compact in Web 3.0. Till now, the web uses keywords in order to comprehensive data into usable chunks. Search engines index the Internet in proper order and present it to the end user in order of relevance. The users select the information that is nearer to their requirement. Sometimes this becomes a very hectic process. But Web 2.0 goes one step ahead and brought us a change in the basic way of searching. It applies the tags in the searching data e.g. if anyone wants to look for car. He/she types the word in the specified space of the search engine. The search engine displays many webs, but if the user type BMW cars, it displays all the relevant site only\y related to BMW cars. So BMW works as a tag.

Web 3.0 will be more advance in searching the information for example of Cars, Web 3.0 uses the further research beyond the engines, it also uses the sub search engines that would provide more compact information and user can find the nearest desired data. It would go to all major categories like pictures, videos, blog posts, news articles, commerce etc. Each of these would happen because of RSS feed so that user can get alerts when something new would add to his/her search profile.

Seeking Validation

If the user wants to go the news not the information, it will work in a different way. It would provide the exact data what user wants. It would also search the available people on the net. The user have to type the words what he/she wants to access, Web 3.0 would provide the relevant information in order of its proximity, algorithms, tagging, and validation through user voting.

Seeking Entertainment

Entertainment, the most popular trend of Web 2.0 would be more advance in Web 3.0 as it would be based around the sect of the personality. People Search will replace the social networks that are most popular fashion in this generation of web. For searching about any person, just type the name and all the information related to regarding person would be displayed with some attached tags. If would display the total wiki profile,

In which all the data would be specified whether the user would have created it or anyone else. All the related deeds would also show in the profile. Then People would be more universal rather than now.

The looks and shape of the blogging would be also changed; the current weblogs would be converted in to Microblogging. People will be able to blog from anywhere, without having to spend hours writing a properly formatted post. Web 3.0 will see a more complete integration between devices like cell phones and the World Wide Web. Posting pictures, videos and text from anywhere, anytime would be more tussles free.

Commerce

Here the terms of commerce means the criteria of earning that will be more advance, but the whole criteria would not primarily change. The product will carry on to sell online. Conversational advertising” and detrainment will take the place of stock ads and promotions. Sect of personality and their sponsorships will also be more specific as the advertisement companies will be narrower because of categorizing of the people.

The entire advertising landscape will change; the ultra specialized sub engines will search the tightly focused target audience to selling the product.

Contextual advertisement will take second seat to product placements on sites, search results and sub engines.

Web 3.0 Design

REST, AJAX, Silverlight, Widget Enabled, Taggable, Searchable everything…

RSS. A Web 3.0 Driver

In the coming ten years RSS and its related technologies will become the single most important Internet technology because of its specific quality to development of the new web as it’s really very simple. Any person who has a little bit knowledge of coding can generate an extensible, standards based database of information that can be transferred to almost any other modern web site.

If Web 3.0 is the Semantic Web, where machine read content like human beings then RSS will be its eyes. RSS technology is still in vast uses especially in the online news portals. The entire business models have already being created around aggregating metadata. IGoogle, MyIndiaTims and Netvibes allow the users to create their own personal homepage, drawing much of its content from RSS feeds that users select.

The trend of RSS tool will be increased in the future in which user can include a host of data-points. Each blog post, the future microblogging feed can be personalize according to users’ desire as every picture, every video clip, every music will be searchable, taggable and XML based collaborate. The biggest example of it’s already exists in a web portal named MyIndiaTims.com’. The real power of Web 3.0 will be in the used in creating data and transferring it effectively. Candidate Web 3.0 technologies Web 3.0 would be used in various technologies of computer and Internet. Here is the list of web 3.0 users:

• Artificial intelligence

• Automated reasoning

• Cognitive architecture

• Composite applications

• Distributed computing

•Knowledge representation

•Ontology (computer science)

•Recombinanttext

• Scalable vector graphics.

• Semantic Web

__________________

References:

1. CSI Data communications

2. Time to Discuss Web 3.0-march 9, 2008, blog.

3. The article, “A More Revolutionary Web,” by Victoria Shannon that covers discussions from the 15th annual International World.

4. Spinning the Semantic Web: Bring the World Wide Web to its Full Potential, by Tim Berners Lee, et al.

5. “Web 2.0 Isn’t Dead, but Web 3.0 is Bubbling Up,” by Dan Farber-blog.

6. Web 3.0? Maybe when we get there.-blog



Online Marketing Vs TV Advertising

Monday, February 23rd, 2009



Marketing vs TV Advertising

 

Till recently, online marketers considered the television content as a major rival. The question was ‘TV or not TV?’ However, the scenario has undergone a sea change in the past few years and it is estimated that spending on Internet ads will take over investments on TV ads in the US in another 10 years.

 

Top market research organisation Nielsen reports that the typical American watched 4 hours and 34 minutes of TV every day during 2006-2007, signifying an increase of 36 minutes every day from a decade earlier. And it is estimated that the TV advertising budget will be around $75.4 billion in 2012, moving up from $67.8 billion in 2007, denoting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of only 2.1 per cent.

 

On the other hand, spending on online advertising is anticipated to escalate at 19.2 per cent annually till 2012 and, as I mentioned earlier, will surpass TV advertising budget in the US in the next decade.

 

According to a recent study on TV watching trends, people will continue to watch more TV content in the future, but they will gain access to and watch it in different techniques than they have done before. It is also being forecast that by 2012 at least one-fourth of the TV content viewed daily will be moved on to the Web or mobile devices on people’s demand.

 

In fact, the consumers are already flooded with new methods like video-on-demand, digital video recorders, the broadband Web and 3G mobile phones to gain access to and watch TV. Going by the crucial TV and the Internet usage standards, the number of Internet users in the US is fast catching up on the volume of TV viewers.

 

According to experts, by 2012 around 190 million Internet users in the US will be regular viewers of online videos and with the increase of broadband facilities in households, online video content creation will become more specialised.  

 

The experts further forecast the presence of VOD facility in 60 per cent of TV homes and say that 40 per cent of them will possess DVR service in the US by 2012. These unique facilities will enable the consumers to be in command over the TV content they wish to watch or ignore. Although these does not mean an end for the customary televising or do away with the usual 30-second advertisement breaks, it calls for an urgent need to make TV advertising more progressive.

 

It is pertinent to note here that the conventional TV broadcasters and advertisers do not have enough time to set things in motion to re-invent themselves and their firms to take advantage of the benefits of the latest technological changes.

John Singh

www.macquarieit.com

www.johnsingh.com



SEO Directories – A Godsend?

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009



Directories have been around for some time now, even longer than search engines have. Directories, like search engines, are used by people to search for websites containing the information they seek. However, the way they do the search and present their results are very different. Search engines use web crawlers to find and index websites on their own and will produce search results from the database of these indexed sites. Although there is an Add URL page in some search engines, websites generally are added to the search engine’s index automatically and not via submissions. On the other hand, websites owners need to submit their URL directly to directories in order to be included in the directories’ database. The submitted websites are then placed under specific categories with each site having a brief site description. Most directories take some time to approve websites before they can be added to the directories’ listing.

Traffic from Directories

Although, as mentioned earlier, directories arrived in the Internet scene before search engines did, search engines have become the more popular way for searching websites. With the advent of search engines people have come to question the viability of directories and whether people still use them to search for websites. In David Wallace’s article on Directories and Your SEO Campaign – Love ‘Em or Hate ‘Em, he found the answer to this question by going to his web servers that track all the activity in his websites. He found that not surprisingly most of his traffic came from search engines but that there were some directory referrals that still existed as well. Though it is true that in comparison to the traffic that search engines generate for web sites the traffic from directories seem measly, a website owner should not discount the importance of this traffic. As they say every cent counts, rather, every visitor counts.

SEO and Directories

Directories, however, have a new use for website owners, especially those who are SEO conscious. SEO people know that link popularity is very important when it comes to scoring well in order to get higher page ranks and thus get listed among the top results of search engines’ results pages (SERPs).

There are two important factors in link popularity. One is the quantity of links and the other is the quality of links. SEO Directories help websites in that they are able to boost a website’s link popularity as soon as a website is added to the directory. This is because the directories can pass a large quantity of links from various websites belonging in the same category of a specific website. In addition to this good directories are selective in the quality of websites they allow to be added in their listing. Hence, the quality of links passed on by directories is almost always of good quality. So once a website is listed in a directory it is almost always sure that the site’s link popularity will rise and so will the site’s page rank.

New Websites and Directories

SEO directories are also very useful for new websites in that web crawlers usually crawl directories and get to index new sites from there. Although a website can submit its URL to search engines, search engines prefer automated indexing of sites. Aside from getting noticed by search engines new sites should keep in mind that being listed in a good directory will automatically give them a good link popularity instead of the site having to build it up slowly. It is possible for a new site to establish high link popularity without being part of a directory but it would take much effort and time and will most probably not even happen to many websites unless the site is if superior quality.

Choosing a Good Directory

When choosing a directory to submit your website to, there are several factors to keep in mind: the directory’ reputation or quality, the cost of getting listed, the length of time it takes to get listed upon submission. In the last few years there have been quite a number of new directories that have popped up. However some of these directories offer virtually no quality control and tend to accept any kind of website that submits themselves for listing. Although the nature of directories are supposed to be such that only sites of quality get listed, the new breed of indiscriminate directories, whose real purpose is to simply build link popularity for the websites has marred the reputation of directories as a whole. Google and other search engines of course quickly caught on to the new questionable practice of trying to get higher link popularity in this way. Because of this Google has been banning some directories and have given less value to the links found in others. This is entirely justifiable since link popularity, as mentioned earlier, depends on the quality of links, and since the directories accept websites of even low quality then naturally the value of links from these sites is going to low. It is therefore imperative that website owners do some research on the web directory they plan to submit their website to since and submit to only those with sound reputation.

Cost is also always a factor in choosing directories. For low budget sites there are plenty of directories out there that offer free listing. Usually the free listing of course comes with conditions like slower processing time, being required to have a reciprocal link, or being a volunteer editor. The condition that comes with it is worth it though and shouldn’t be a big issue. The free directories usually give websites the option of not having to deal with the conditions if the website opts to pay a minimal one time fee. The only directory that remains to be truly free is the Open Directory or Dmoz. Websites aren’t given the option to pay but the processing time is reputed to be particularly long especially if the volunteer editor of the website’s category is not very active. The length in processing time is however worth it for quality sites since Dmoz is known for accepting only websites of high quality. There are also plenty of options for paid directories out there with prices ranging from a $25 one time fee to as much as a $299 annually recurring fee. Whatever directories you choose to submit to, whether paid or free or a combination of both, remember that the quality of the directory should be your first consideration. Remember also that before you do submit your website for listing on any directory be sure that you have made your site as appealing, full of fresh and quality content, and as of high quality as possible. This would not only ensure inclusion in the directories’ listings but would determine your site’s success as well.



To Retain a Competitive Business Edge you Need to Blog

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009



If you have an internet business, or some form of online home business which doesn’t currently support a blog then you are losing a lot of ground to your competitors and quietly signing the death warrant of your online money making ventures.

Blogging Is The Future Of Online Activity

Actually to be honest blogging isn’t the future of online activity Blogging Is The Now of Online Activity and has been for some time. Everything and everybody is leaning towards web 2.0 based sites such as blogs and when I mean everyone and everybody I’m talking about the people who count and search engines. That’s right search engines…remember those pesky not-so-trivial online dictators that we just can’t seem to do without but fervently wish we could?

SURE…a lot of savvy internet marketers are harping on how the golden era of the search engine has been one-upped by social media sites and is for all intent and purposes over; truth be told that’s a pile of steaming hogwash. Why? Well let’s look at some figures…you can’t go wrong with figures and stats; just as long as they are right I guess:

Search Stats End of 2007

* Google: 63.98% (The bigboy has muscled up)

* Yahoo: 22.87% (Retained the same balanced diet)

* MSN: 7.98% (Looks like Microsoft’s search is on a slimfast diet)

* Ask.com: 3.49% (The toddler of the pack…must be doing good because it won a PC World Nomination for 25 Most Innovative Products of The Year)

Fine And Dandy But What Has Mainstream Search Got To Do With Web 2.0?

Hmmm,wasn’t the whole point of social media websites and the explosion of new refined niche-category search engines supposed to circumvent bigboy online mainstream search? After all Google is no longer the darling of the people it once was and doesn’t seem to abide by its “Do No Evil” motto anymore. Be that as it may Google ain’t going anywhere anytime soon no matter how loud disillusioned acolytes may chant. Google is making sure of that by strengthening its grip on search and its influence in the social media theater…that’s why it bought Youtube for $1.65 billion dollars despite having its own Google Video platform which however, in comparison, performed dismally.

What was the real driving force behind the Google buy up of Youtube? How about the fact that Youtube has over 100 million videos viewed a day and well over 72 million unique visitors each and every month!

But this is happenstance digression, time to get back to the point!

Mainstream Search Engine Web Traffic vs. Social Media Traffic

If you think of mainstream search as enormous relatively unrefined web traffic and that of social media websites as more niche-oriented or refined web traffic you wouldn’t be far wrong. But that is not the complete story because conversely search-engine based web traffic is more valuable to you as an internet marketer or if you have an online home business. Catch is, it ain’t easy to get to the top of the search engines where it really matters! Luckily this is where social media sites and web 2.0 truly shine.

It is a lot easier to get a good flow of web traffic from web 2.0 and social media sites than it is from the search engines, most especially if your website/blog is spankin’ brand new! However getting internet traffic from social media sites also requires a level of input from you (Yup! What one-time big-hair advocate and internationally recognized hairstylist Vidal Sassoon quipped stands ever strong today as the day he uttered it: “The Only Place Where Success Comes Before Work Is In The Dictionary”).

Social Media And Web 2.0 Is All About Community

Much as we like to think of ourselves as unique creatures and largely independent-minded the truth is we humans are little more than herd animals. We tend to appreciate and hangout with like-minded individuals, people who mirror our thoughts and ideas. In other words people gravitate towards people who share the same interests. True there is some time-whipped saying which states that opposites attract but that’s best left to the field of love not the frenzied amphitheater of social media.

Social Medialites are all about the community and friends!

If you wish to capitalize and make any headway using social media sites you need to become part of the community; a task that involves active participation and not merely flagrant self-promotion! Blatant self-promotion without community service is the quickest and most assured way to get banned from a social media site (oh did I mention that most social media sites loathe internet marketers with a venom that Cleopatra’s Asp would’ve envied, though there are a few good ones solely devoted to internet marketing and online business).

Participation in this context means:

* voting for posts

* reading posts (and not just wanton voting)

* making comments

* joining and inviting friends to lists

* writing your own posts

If you’re new to this whole social media thing a good point to begin is read the TOS (Terms Of Service and conduct of behavior) then start making friends by voting for articles or posts you actually like (leaving a comment tends to warm even the coldest of hearts…assuming the comment is positive; social media afficionados tend to favor positive affirmation, much like what goes on in the real world) which will in turn make it easier to get votes for your own posts. The whole point of votes is that that the more of them you have the greater the exposure of your post which translates into more web traffic.

Mainstream Search And Social Media Sites Feed Off One Another

Undoubtedly building up a quantifiable list of friends and fellow voters can take time but when all is said and done that time spent on amassing friends is time well spent indeed! A well-written, intriguing, controversy-juiced post (otherwise commonly known as a linkbait piece) could send anywhere from 1000s to 100,000s of visitors to your site in next to no time.

Web traffic to your blog or website translates into greater love from the search engines which means better positioning in the SERPs (search engine index pages). The bottom line is your social media and web 2.0 efforts will draw web traffic far quicker to your fledgling website than the bigboy search engines, plus that web traffic will push your website further up the search engines.

A good linkbait post helps your seo efforts not only through the links garnered from your amazing penmanship (post) but also for the fact that the search engines these days ascribe greater rank and influence to such links that are heavily and often trafficked! Many heavy-weight links of yesterday that largely exist today as shadowy relics of their former selves (one-time high PR links that now boast little to no movement across their borders) are being consistently and all too frequently downgraded with each passing Google update.

If Content Is Still King; Fresh Content Is His Queen

No denying it, original content is still, as ever, the engine that powers the internet as well as being the enviable darlingest of darlings of the search engines. And you don’t have to be a genius here to figure out that in this respect static sites just cannot compete with mobile platforms such as blogs. King Content’s queen (HRH Fresh Content) is the driving force behind your site being crawled by the search engine bots on a regular basis. With a blog any new content automatically gets inserted on the homepage and pings (notifies) the search engines almost instantaneously. This means even a short post is going to bring the search engines sniffing to your site within hours (sometimes minutes) like a panting beast hot with lust. Just try and get that response with a static website even with a totally original, lengthy article in play!

Make Money



Wireless Merchant Accounts for the Age of Mobility

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009



Merchant accounts that chain you to a physical location are for dinosaurs. You should be able to do business whenever you want, wherever you want, and take your merchant account with you.

Wireless technology is evolving rapidly, and it could be an important development for your business. Many merchants have seen their sales volume multiply after setting up a wireless merchant account for credit card processing.

Once you set up a wireless merchant account, you’ll be able to process credit card transactions from virtually anywhere—at home, in your car, at a customer’s office, or at trade shows and conventions. A wireless credit card terminal is ideal for many service businesses. Here’s how it works.

Using advanced credit card terminal technology, wireless terminals have an internal battery that powers wireless service and access to your merchant account. You won’t need a phone line or any external source of power.

It can take three seconds or less to process wireless credit card transactions, and you can get instant approval and decline codes. If your wireless credit card terminal uses a fast thermal printer you can give your customer a physical receipt on the spot.

A wireless merchant account can also save you on credit card processing costs. Wireless credit card payments can qualify as swiped “card present” transactions, so you’ll get the lowest interchange rates.

If you have a high sales volume, and you need an extra fast transaction speed, a wireless credit card terminal may be the answer. The convenience of wireless payment processing also reduces the number of lost sales opportunities.

It’s fairly easy to set up a wireless merchant account. The first thing you need to do is

check for network coverage. Wireless credit card terminals work on a network, just like cell phones, and the service varies depending on your location. If you know where you will most frequently use your wireless terminal to process credit card transactions, you can select a network that covers your area.

Likewise, you should also consider how weather, network traffic, terrain, signal strength,

obstructions, building density, construction, and environmental conditions will affect your wireless credit card terminal.

Once you’ve found the best network for your wireless merchant account, you have to choose the right wireless credit card processing terminal. This is where you don’t want to compromise. Ideally you’ll get a lightweight, flexible terminal that allows you to securely process error-free transactions in a short amount of time.

Once you’re processing credit card transactions through a wireless terminal, you’ll be working in a broader range of situations, so you’ll need a broader range of services. A handheld wireless terminal should support credit, debit, T&E, EBT, Smart Card, gift cards, and loyalty cards.

You can add to your payment processing power with an easy-to-load thermal

printer, a touch screen, a built-in PIN Pad, or an EMV smart card reader.

If you want greater network coverage, use GPRS. It works on a tiny chip, just as it does in mobile phones. GPRS practically assures network coverage at no extra cost, so it gives you the freedom to roam almost anywhere with your wireless merchant account.

Finally, ensure that you have an equipment warranty with your processor. This will ultimately save you time and effort.

Congratulations on joining the wireless revolution. By choosing to accept credit card payments through a wireless terminal, you’re offering both your company and your clients a brave new world of opportunities.



Search Engine Marketing Explained

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009



This article has been prepared by Tug. Tug, is a Search Engine Marketing specialist agency, based in Shoreditch, London.

Search Engines have evolved into a new consumer, communications and marketing channel. Google, Yahoo and MSN serve 213 million searches a day.

In fact, 9 out of 10 internet surfers use a Search Engine to start their internet journey. Therefore, if your website doesn’t have visibility in the engines, you are missing significant volumes of traffic.

Natural vs. Paid for Listings

There are essentially two listings within a Search Engine Results Page (SERP): the Natural listings (on the left) and the Paid for listing (on top and on the right).

Natural listings are the results the engine believes to be the most relevant sites to your search. The natural listings consistently receive over 70% of consumer clicks. Paid for listings are the ads served by Advertisers, who have bid on the term searched for by the consumer.

The Natural listings therefore list all available websites in the World Wide Web, while the Paid for listings only serve links by relevant Advertisers willing to pay for their spot, and thus high visibility in the engines.

To increase Reach, advertisers can pay for ads on the Search Engines themselves, as well as their local listings, mobile listings and their Content Network of websites.

Pay per Click (PPC). Pay only for Visitors

Unlike other marketing channels where you pay for the number of people who see your ad, in pay per click advertising (PPC) you only pay when someone clicks on your ads and is driven through to your site.

• 75% of users search for goods and services through a Search Engine.

• PPC has the lowest cost per lead compared to other Direct Marketing methods.

• Pay per click advertising is relevant to what the individual is searching for – targeting them at the right moment and mood.

• Pay per click is 100% accountable.

• Advertisers can know the cost of each conversion in real-time, and campaigns can be instantly optimised for maximum ROI.

To get visibility in the paid for listings you can set up a PPC campaign for your website yourself, or by commissioning a specialist Search Engine Marketing agency like Tug.

To get visibility in the Natural listings you need to optimise your website – this is called Search Engine Optimisation. Again this is where you need to commission a specialist agency like Tug.

What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

Search engine Optimisation, or SEO as it’s commonly known as, is an online marketing strategy that involves designing, writing and coding your entire website with the intention of enabling search engines to index your site easily and efficiently. The sole aim and objective is for it to rank higher for keywords relevant to your business. Optimising a website is critical to gaining visibility on the organic or natural (left hand side) search results (SERP’s) of search engines.

SEO, is done in two stages, known primarily as on page and off page. On page involves the website itself and fundamentally evolves around the design, build and copy laid out within the actual site. Off page relates to ongoing SEO development and includes link building campaigns, news and article submissions, paid directory submissions and joining discussion forums that relate to your chosen industry. The latter is basically about gaining 3rd party exposure of your website.

On Page Factors

• Keyword mining

• Keyword density checks

• Credible copywriting

• Meta tags scripting

• Clean and valid mark-up (HTML)

• Link management

Off Page Factors

• Free / paid directory submission

• Article and news submission

• Press release distribution

• Reciprocal link marketing

• Inbound link building

• Digital signatures

Using Search Engine Marketing to meet your Communication Objectives

Consumers using a Search Engine are primarily in two sets of mind: ‘Research’ mode and ‘Ready to act/buy/sign up’ mode. From a marketer’s point of view they are at different stages of the Purchase Cycle.

PPC campaigns should be set up with this in mind. Different campaigns can be geared for different objectives – for example one for Awareness and one for Sales. The Awareness campaign should be optimized for Reach, concentrating on the highest number of clicks at the cheapest possible price. The Sales campaign conversely should be optimized for sales volume and cheapest Cost per Acquisition (CPA).

Search Engine Optimisation will primarily meet your Awareness and Traffic objectives, as the campaign usually concentrates on fewer, broader keyterms. But keep in mind that this broader Search might ultimately lead to a sale as the Searcher moves through the Purchase Cycle. Remember to optimize your Meta Descriptions (the description in the SERP) with the consumer in mind.

Search Engine Marketing Case Studies:

Search Engine Optimisation Case Study: UK Business Properties. http://ukbusinessproperties.com

Problem

• UK Business Properties launched a new Commercial Property directory in 2006

• While the agency that built the site assured them it was SEO friendly, they were languishing on page 3 on Google for the most important keyword: ‘Commercial Property’

Solution

• Tug developed an SEO strategy that emphasised the keyword ‘Commercial Property’

• Review and editing of website content – addition of content pages for all UK regions

• Review and editing of Meta

• Review and editing of code to make more spider friendly

• Directory and site map submission

• A bespoke link building campaign where we submitted to directories, article websites and actively exchange links with high PageRank sites in parallel business verticals

Results

• Within 6 weeks the website was listed #3 on Page 1 of Google.co.uk

• The keyword ‘Commercial Property’ now drives 65% of traffic to the site

• They are now #1 on Google and we are now optimising and link building for new relevant keywords

Pay per Click Case Study: Truffle Shuffle http://www.truffleshuffle.co.uk

Problem

• Truffle Shuffle is an online retailer competing in a tight margin business, against small t-shirt retailers and huge online retailers like ASOS.

Solution

• PPC campaign on Google and Yahoo.

• Avoid Broad keywords even if they can drive sales volume.

• Use only very specific product related keywords.

• Use bid management software to set strict Position and ROI rules.

• Develop specific, relevant ad Creative for every available t-shirt.

• Weekly coordination with PR efforts.

• Concentrate only on keywords that convert under £5.25.

• Measure revenue and work with exact margins to measure profit on every keyword weekly.

Results

• In November 07, Tug drove 1,949 sales (1 or more t-shirts) at an average cost per conversion of £1.39.

• We delivered a 24:1 ROI (revenue generated/ad spend).



Seo Services Florida

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009



SEO services is a broad term and includes various marketing and promotion tools. Some of them are search engine optimization, pay per click, social media optimization, SEO copywriting, SEO consultancy, link popularity building, search engine marketing, affiliate marketing, etc.

Some companies claim that their offshore development services are good and competent. However, you should look around in your area as well. Some of the qualities that you should look in a SEO services company are:

* Take references from them and cross check the references. Ask them for case studies, and go through them to exactly know how things move in the company.

* Never, go in for a site that has one fit size approach. Every site needs differ and so it becomes necessary to evaluate the needs accordingly. Some sites need more content and many would require structural changes. Your site would also be different, so see what new feature they can add to promote the companies.

* Ask them for the SEO tools and strategies they will use. This will help in you in knowing whether they following SEO ethics or not. After all, you don’t want to ban the site or get it blacklisted in the books of search engines.

* Go in for a company that knows the art of link bait.

If you are residing in Florida, then easily you can find SEO Consultant Florida and SEO services company Tampa. Ask them the aforementioned things and only upon complete satisfaction go ahead with the deal.

Get your website listed optimized at affordable cost seo consultants Florida, Techgrowth offers seo services Tampa seo solutions Tampa, Clearwater SEO, search engine optimization services.



Mobile Search Market

Saturday, February 21st, 2009



Mobile internet and mobile search is gaining ground. While surfing is inconvenient, many people are accessing their emails from their mobile phones. Google has just announced it had released a special java gmail client for mobiles, following Yahoo!, which already has been offering service for some time.

All major search engines offer a version customized for mobile devices, and are quite active in expanding market reach within mobile networks and device manufacturers. At the beginning of 2006, Yahoo! signed a distribution deal with several key manufacturers for a suite of Yahoo! services that includes email, search and photos. Google signed a deal with Motorola to ship a pre-installed Google icon on some of its devices, allowing instant access to the Google search page.

In the meantime, mobile search startups are actively striving to create an effective network of advertisers while developing mobile search tools and indices for integration into cellular devices and networks.

The mobile search experience

Search through mobiles fosters dilemmas:

1. What types of results will be returned for a given user query? Should it be wml websites, html websites that are more relevant but not fully compatible, or should it be some sort of “answer” that the search engine has compiled for the query rather than a list of links?

2. How should the user location be taken into account? Should the search engine assume mobile search is local by essence and serve local data?

3. How can search engines capitalize on the search results? Even displaying more than three results requires scrolling and frequently another access iteration, so how could the severely limited screen space be conducive for advertising?

The answers to these questions are not clear, and currently there are more experiments and trials than facts and conclusions. Some analysts have argued that search results should be answers rather than a set of links. This might be true in some cases, not appropriate in others and not feasible for many queries. Searching the normal google.com or yahoo.com through wireless devices returns the same set of results as a desktop search with the snippet modified and number of results shown ranging from 1 to 4 depending on device screen size, listing length and other factors.

This means that the websites found have been designed for desktop and will not be suitable for wireless application (WAP) browsers. Searching through Google or Yahoo mobile search engines, for example google.com/wml, will allow selection between internet results and mobile network results. Selecting the mobile network results will only return listings of wml documents. However, since the selection of content written in wml is drastically inferior compared to the wealth of options on the html web, result relevancy is generally low.

How is presence to be gained within mobile search results?

SEOing for mobile

Very scarce research and knowledge exists in the SEO community regarding mobile search algorithms. There is reason to believe that the basic algorithms, still in the making, resemble those for web search. However, all the basic elements that exist in html and matter for search engines, such as relevant inbound links and formatted content, also exist in wml and the logic behind the way robots analyze link popularity and texts prevails here as well. Nonetheless, designing your website in a W3C-compatible manner as far as xhtml and css coding, will increase visibility of websites within mobile search results along with desktop search.

Website mobile version

In the future, most website publishers will likely produce mobile versions of their websites for WAP mobile browsers. An abundance of html to wml converter tools exist on the market, but as long as standard xhtml coding was not applied initially, it is unlikely those tools could work in the general case. The operative recommendation for website owners and marketers planning a new website or redesigning the information architecture of an existing website is to comply with xhtml, or better yet, have all the content stored in xml and the display adjusted with xslt. This way a website can easily be created and maintained in an updated, valuable wml version.

Mobile search advertising

Google, Yahoo! and MSN are experimenting with mobile search advertising and the major problems inherent with highly limited screen space. MSN currently offers a pay-per-call advertising model, which seems only natural for mobiles. No integration is offered yet with any of the respective paid search advertising programs. Some startups are offering mobile advertising platforms on their proprietary search engines to be distributed on partnering devices and networks. While many potential interactive online advertisements are natural and useful for cellulars and may result in action such as ordering flowers and parking payments, the market is generally not yet mature enough to call mobile search a real venue for internet marketers.

However, search engine engineers and designers are now hard at work tackling the issues at hand to create useful concepts, models and methodologies for serving relevant mobile search results while marketers are working out feasible mobile search advertising models. It is unlikely to happen immediately, but within a few years it will be a dynamic market in its own right. So internet marketer, get prepared.



Want to Hire a Professional SEO Company?

Saturday, February 21st, 2009



In efforts to increase sales and profitability, more and more companies are turning to online marketing initiatives – specifically, search engine optimization. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art and science of the mixture of technical and marketing into a finely tuned website that is both search engine, ranks well for certain keywords and phrases, and suits your audience a perspective buyer and seller.

According to a recent American study found that only 20% of all businesses outsource search engine optimization programs to professional SEO Companys. The remaining 80% would be to conduct search engine optimization or they believe they have all the resources and skills to do it in-house. Of this 80%, it is likely that 90% of these companies can not be found on the Web – they do not exist. In order to generate a significant amount of Web visibility, your website must typically rank in the top-30 results.

So, the question boils down to what is in your best interest to the business?

Make your SEO program in-house or subcontract. To answer this question we will first focus on the knowledge, skills and resources necessary to implement and maintain a good program for search engine optimization.

SEO knowledge and skills

1) Basic understanding of how search engines and directories.

This may seem too obvious, but you would be surprised the number of people do not understand how they actually work. This knowledge is the basis of your SEO program.

2) Website design

Although SEO is not completely a technical marketing process, it requires a fair amount of technical knowledge of what constitutes search engine-friendly web design. Some elements of web design can help your search engine rankings or hurt them. Simply knowing who is who.

3) the experience SEO Expert

This is the most important and most difficult to obtain knowledge. If you have never implemented a programme of SEO, then you are in a big surprise. Search engine optimization programs require a lot of research and are extremely tedious. More importantly, they need real SEO experience. That means knowing what strategies and tactics SEO work and those who do not.

In-house vs. out-sourced programmes SEO

If your company is considering conducting your program search engine optimization in the house, here are some questions to consider.

• Who will be responsible for the analysis, design, implementation and measure the success of your program SEO?

• Is this considered the role of your department, marketing or other service (s) in your company?

• Do they have the time, knowledge and resources to successfully implement and maintain your program search engine optimization? And do they really care if it works or not?

IT Department

Typically your IT department handles multiple tasks daily troubleshooting your company’s LAN or WAN to fixing the sales department laptop? Over a long IT person of the day, what priority and focus do you think he or she will commit to for your listing? And even if your IT department has some skills in web design or development, these skills represent only a small percentage of the knowledge required for a successful programme of search engine optimization.

Marketing Department

Typically, your marketing department juggles many marketing projects and the faces of both the timely completion. From handling new campaigns for print collateral is preparing to launch new products or services, marketing personnel’s time to spread very thin. In addition, our skills and your marketing department is in the technical aspects of web design and search engine optimization? Do they have the time to become well-versed? Do they have sufficient internal resources? Often, the answer to both questions is no, they do not.

Other individual (s) within your company

Well, the responsibility falls on someone outside or your marketing department. Who’s who and why are they responsible for your SEO program? To give interested parties a new “project of the month,” usually result in another tick off their monthly to-do list and frustration by senior management on their website is why not produce results sales.

Summary

From a business standpoint, it makes sense to try to mobilize domestic resources to maximize your company’s productivity and profitability – whenever possible. However, there must be a line drawn in the sand between what your organization’s capabilities are and what they are not.

As you can see, there are no more search engine optimization than meets the eye. In order to implement and maintain a SEO program, you must acquire the knowledge, skills and resources. This can be done by hiring a professional search engine optimization of the company. Professional SEO Companys have devoted their resources and experience to support your company’s web marketing initiatives. Building on their experience and know-how, your company can quickly and more effectively successfully implement the programme of SEO Expert.