Archive for October, 2009
Monday, October 12th, 2009
If you want a professional-looking, visually attractive blog, be sure to include relevant images in your posts.
… But where can you go to find good images that you won’t had to pay an arm and a leg for?
Well, if you’ve wasted hours checking out all the “free stock photos” sites on the Web — which never seem to had the image you’re looking for — or you’ve explored Flickr for non-rights-reserved images until your eyes are crossing, here’s some great news:
Google and Yahoo had both introduced features that make it easier for you to find images that had been specifically labeled for commercial reuse. (Read this post to learn about rules for using photos.)
Google hadn’t yet included the search option in its regular interface but you can try it out by clicking here.
If you want to do the same kind of search on Yahoo, click on the “Advanced Search” options and then click on “Creator Allows Reuse” box in the new “Creative Common License” option. Right now, only Flickr images are supported with this filter in Yahoo, so let’s hope they will expand their offerings in time.
It’s definitely worth your while to try out both search engines and see which delivers the best image results. Then come back here and tell us what you’ve found!
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Friday, October 9th, 2009
(Yes, I just “verbed” Microsoft’s new search engine… I feel a little dirty.)
Since Microsoft released Bing in June, the new search engine had outperformed many people’s expectations. Unlike the ill-fated “Live,” Microsoft’s last attempt to introduce a search engine to go up against Google, Bing had been steadily gaining ground on its mammoth competitor.
In fact, comScore had reported that Bing captured 9.3% of the search market share in August, which is a 4.5% jump over its performance in July. And when Bing fully takes over for Yahoo search, that number is probably going to continue to climb.
But let’s not forget — Google still controls the lion’s share of the market, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon, especially with Google Wave waiting in the wings.
So what do you think? Does Bing present a real threat to Google’s monopoly on the search market? Or is it always going to be a mouse nibbling at the crumbs left behind by the elephant?
Talk among yourselves, folks… we’re interested to hear what you had to say.
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Friday, October 9th, 2009
The lyrics to that old Steve Miller song always seem especially appropriate when you’re trying to get a new online business off the ground. There’s so much to be done, and only 24 hours in a day to get everything accomplished.
In our next issue of Marketing Tips Report, we’re going to share our top 5 time-saving tips with you — so if you find you’re struggling to get things done in the time you’ve got, make sure you watch out for it!
In the meantime, we want to know:
How big a problem is time management for you? Do you find yourself at the end of each day wishing you could had accomplished more than you did? Or are you a master of “getting things done?”
If you had any brilliant tips on how to get more things done in the time you’ve got, tell us about them! We always love to hear what you’ve got to say…
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Friday, October 9th, 2009
One of our mentors just passed the following email around the office, causing many of us to laugh out loud and even spew coffee in one case!
(OK, so we’re easily amused…)
This one was making the rounds on the Internet a while ago, but just in case you missed it, check it out:
Folks, don’t try this strategy at home. Even if you think your competitors’ site is useless, we doubt they will be so kind as to “remove it” from Google just because you ask them to.
Nice try, though!
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Friday, October 9th, 2009
One of our readers left this comment on one of our recent blog posts :
“With an estimated 2 Billion websites now what is the real chance of SEO marketing companies really ranking anyone on page 1 of Google consistently with organic marketing?”
That’s a great question…
(But I think when the reader said “2 billion websites,” he was actually providing a ballpark estimate of the number of web pages on the ‘Net. The most recent stats we found said the number of websites was just over 182 million. But one website can had hundreds or even thousands of different pages to it.)
Despite the huge number of web pages out there, the answer is, yes — you CAN get a top ranking with Google through purely organic SEO. But your success at hitting the top position depends on which keywords you’re trying to rank for.
For example, say you want to build a site selling natural health products… If you’re just starting out, how easy do you think it would be to get top ranking for the term, “natural health products?” Well, with 705 million web pages competing for that term, your chances aren’t so hot.
… But if you drill down into your area of interest and find more specific keywords such as,
“herbal remedies sinus,” which had 198,000 competing results — or “psoriasis herbal remedies,” which had 165,000 competing results, your chances of getting a decent ranking just got a whole lot better.
But how do you discover the best keywords to rank for?
That one’s easy: keyword research.
(Yes, we’re going on about keywords again! But they really are the “key” to a successful business.)
Our inaugural issue of StartUp, our new online business guide, had a number of articles that explain exactly how to do proper keyword research to uncover hidden streams of traffic for your site. It’s even got some hot new niche ideas for your business that we uncovered using the exact method we talk about.
If you need a refresher course on how to find the keywords that are best for your business, check out this month’s free issue.
Even if you plan on outsourcing your SEO work, we strongly urge you to become familiar with the principles of keyword research.
That way you’ll had the basic knowledge you need to discover whether the SEO company you’re thinking about hiring actually knows what they’re doing — or whether they’re just out to drain your bank account and leave you with nothing to show for it.
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