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Sometimes we get an e-mail (or a blog comment) from someone who says their PageRank declined because they were buying links. This happens often enough that I thought I’d write something about why buying links is not good for search, period. It isn’t because Google is some mean, rotten pig. I mean, it actually makes sense. .

Think about what Google’s job is. It’s to return the most relevant search queries for a particular search based on the parameters that searchers enter into a query box. What would happen if the top 10 search queries were there because someone paid for them to be there? Suppose you had to pay $10,000 to be in position No. 1 and each subsequent position below that cost just $100 less than the previous one. The guy in the 10th position, the last position on page 1, would pay $9,000 to be there. But what about every one else?

Suppose the payment system “filtered down” this way until the website in position No. 100 (page 10) paid $100. Everyone below that opted not to pay at all so they just fell in wherever Google decided to put them. What would happen if the system was based on money?

Eventually (and I’m betting it wouldn’t take long), no one would rely on search at all because everyone would know that the website on top was there because he paid the most money. His website may not be relevant to the actual search that I conducted, but he paid the most money so there he is.

How many people would search the Internet through Google if that’s the way search worked? Not many. Because why would anyone look for specific information if they had to sift through a bunch of paid-for listings to find the ONE item that was relevant and answered their question?

Paid links is an attempt to turn Google into just such a system. Because Google’s ranking algorithm is so heavily based upon the number and quality of inbound links, paid links actually serve to dilute link quality. It is assumed, and always has been, that website owners link to other websites out of a value that they hold for the other site. But if website owners linked out only because they were paid to then no one could trust the quality of the links. That’s why no one should want paid links contributing to ranking factors at Google or any other search engine.

Premium WordPress Themes – Inbound Links

In a recent interview with Aaron Wall, legendary “black hat” SEO Fantomaster commented that Google’s PageRank algorithm is based on a fallacious view of links. Is he right?

Let’s review what PageRank is and how it is calculated. If you’ve been around on the Internet for awhile then you know that PageRank is based on the concept that inbound links count as “votes”. The system was devised as a way for Google to examine a website’s authority based on how many other websites were linking to it and the quality of those links. Over the few years that this system has been in place, the algorithm has changed and shifted from merely counting numbers of links to analyzing several factors related to the quality of a link. But the basic underpinning of links as votes is still in place.

Fantomaster has a point when he says this is a flawed view of linking. A link does not necessarily equate with quality in the eyes of the linker. There are all sorts of reasons, as he points out, for one website to link to another, including disagreeing with a premise or an entire point that the linkee made on his or her blog. A link could be for the purpose of criticism, not praise.

So why is this system still in use when it is clearly based on a flaw? And why do so many Internet marketers still rely on it as a test of relevance and authority?

PageRank has its flaws, no doubt. It certainly is not a reliable test of authority, especially since many “so called” search engine optimization experts have used it to buy and sell links and to manipulate rankings and their own site authority through complex linking schemes. In the world of SEO, link building has become an industry of its own simply because of the PageRank algorithm.

Aaron Wall’s question to Fantomaster regarding the future of links – will the search engines get away from link evaluation for the purpose of determining authority and relevance – is a good question. I wish they would. I’d like to see a more complex measure in place that takes into account other factors like scalability, heavier emphasis of on-page factors, and more weight toward new websites that meet a specific query answer. But until something better comes along we are stuck with evaluating links.

Premium WordPress Themes – Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking has grown in popularity in the last couple of years. I’ve noticed that there are two minds concerning how social bookmarking sites are used. On the one hand, social media marketers promote the social sites as relationship-building tools and tend to discourage their use for link building. Search engine optimization experts, particularly traditional and technical SEOs, tend to emphasize the link building aspect of social bookmarking.

With sites like this promoting the link building aspect of social bookmarking, it’s difficult to just ignore the benefits the temptation offers. The fact is, social bookmarking, if done the right way, can be useful in building links to a website and if you have a brand new website it can prove to be more than instrumental. Even the pros who stress the social benefits over the SEO benefits know this.

Social bookmarking, however, is best used as more than a link building tool. That shouldn’t be its primary use. But it is OK to know that the benefits are there and there is nothing wrong with submitting your website to social bookmarking sites that pass link building juice in addition to those sites are popular and don’t. In other words, not everything has a single purpose. Social bookmarking is one of those.

When it comes to link anchor text it is best to use it in moderation. One of the corollaries of link building is what we call link diversity. It’s the idea that you want your links coming from a variety of sources, but also you want them to use a variety of anchor text. The search engines, particularly Google, call it natural link building. 2018.

The idea is to produce an effect that looks natural. In other words, if you left the link building to its own devices, would people you have no control or sway over link to you naturally the way that you are trying to do it, using the same kind of anchor text and the same page sources?

It is really difficult to “look natural”, but rather easy to be natural. If you just do it without trying anything fancy then it can seem as natural as gravity. But some people try too hard.

Make a list of your most important key phrases. Those phrases can be your anchor text.But you don’t want the same anchor text from every source you link from. You want to vary it. So divide up the sources that you are targeting for links and assign an anchor text to each one. Write your content for that anchor text and send it out. The site owner will either reject it or accept it. If they reject it, it’s no big deal. You do have other sites to target. But if your content is accepted then go with that.

It’s really that simple. Over time, targeting a variety of anchor texts will cause your pages to rise in rankings for those phrases. You have to be patient.

Premium WordPress Themes – Links With Content

If you’re wanting to build links then you might have read in a few places that you can build something called “link bait”. Link bait is just a fancy name for content that is so good that it attracts links from other websites. Those links, being relevant and from authoritative websites, will give your website a boost in the search engines.

Make no mistake, link bait is one of the most over hyped concepts in search engine optimization. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist or doesn’t work. I am saying that a lot of emphasis is put on it that probably shouldn’t be. I’m also convinced that the best way to build links over the long haul is simply to focus on creating great content.

If you consistently produce outstanding content on your blog and website then you’ll attract the kind of links that you want. Instead of trying to produce content that will attract links, try to write great content that will attract readers. Your readers will link to you if they like your content. Over time you’ll begin to attract more readers and they in turn will do their part to link to you as well. But the links don’t come because you focus on getting links. They come because you focus on delivering great content to your readers.

Premium WordPress Themes – Which Content

Link building is a tough task yet every time you publish a new page on your blog or web site you increase the potential for inbound links. If you think about it, if there is no content then there is little to link to; the more content you have, the more links you can attract. That doesn’t mean you can publish just anything and expect others to link to it. You need to provide a reason for that link and it all comes back to that one word – content. There are many different types of content but three standout as ideal link building elements:

Humor – everyone loves a laugh and if you can provide the right humor at the right time then you can gain a lot of links, often quite quickly.

Controversy – if you have a controversial attitude to life then publishing your point of view could become popular – at least to those that think along your lines or who love an argument. You will also be surprised how quickly you can build inbound links once you become popular.

Of course, for many commercial or professional website, those two approaches may not be appropriate. There is always one type of content that will attract links:

Information – provide information that is timely and useful for your readers and you will build a following. Produce information that is definitive for your niche and you will develop a lot links quickly.

The bottom line is very simple – if you provide content that is worth linking to, others will provide quality links. If you provide content that is rubbish then the only links your likely to get will be the rubbish ones. Which content is best for link building as part of your off site, long term search engine optimization strategy – good content of course!

Premium WordPress Themes – Content

You’ve heard it said that content is king. A few people have signed great content is king. Or original content is king. Whatever it is, a few clever souls will often come back and claim that something else is queen – links, pretty pictures, Latifah, a basket of rocks, etc.

Silliness aside, I don’t care who is queen, links are content and content is king. OK, cliche, but how about this? Unique, original, awesome content is king. Did I cover my bases?

SEOs like to separate links from content, presumably because content is often thought of as on-page while off-page SEO such as links is considered a separate animal. It may be more important, less important, or equal depending on who you talk to but it’s separate. But I don’t see it that way. Links are a part of content and content is the most important thing you can create for yourself.

Links are content in one very simple way: They help you build your reputation and drive rankings. It’s time to start thinking about your web strategy holistically instead of piecemeal.

If you own a lot of websites then you may want to consider moving them to separate servers, especially if they are in the same niche. Google does not give the same weight to inbound links from sites in the same niche that sit on the same server. That’s because it is assumed that they are associated with each other and therefore not really “inbound”, but “crossbound.” It’s like the difference between a crosstown bus route and a charter bus from another city or town or even state. You know the bus from out of state is a visitor’s bus, but a bus you recognize as seeing every day isn’t. Google looks at servers the same way. Best .

Let’s say that you have a website dedicate to pitching horseshoes and a blog on a separate domain name with a forum in the same niche at a different URL. That’s three domains in the same niche. You should consider putting them on separate servers and IP blocks.

I’m assuming that you’re cross linking these sites because they are related. They are in the same niche. Keep them on the same server and Google will automatically associate them. Put them on separate servers and you run a better chance of Google considering them as different entities that link to each other from separate servers and IP blocks. Google will then give greater weight to the links for search engine optimization factors.

Premium WordPress Themes – Blog Links

The online world is becoming dominated by blogs; at least it seems like it. For a website owner, you may wonder if backlinks from blogs actually help in your overall search engine optimization strategies.

There are two ways to look at this question. Are blogs simply valueless sites that contain little in the way of value, or are blogs just an extension of a website and contain valuable content. The reality is somewhere in between I am sure. However, when it comes to SEO considerations, if a blog ranks well for a particular keyword then the value of any link is little different to a standard web page (if that exists anymore?).

Google indexes a lot of blogs, do they place high importance on them in the current algorithm? Probably no higher than any other page. However sidebar or blogRoll links and blog posts which lead to relevant content can be of high value. Almost every section of Google has a blog, often in several different languages.

Google could hardly consider Blogs as useless since they use them to broadcast new information. In fact many search engine marketing operators watch these Google blogs for hints to changes in the way Google ranks pages. Yahoo! also likes blogs, but not to the extent as Google. Like Google, Yahoo! uses a blog to make announcements.

Blogs often offer value as they are generally written by related industry bloggers. Blog links should not be discounted and should be a part of every SEO campaign. As with any website, treat each blog on its merits, there are good and bad websites, there are good and bad blogs. Obtaining a link from a well ranked blog can offer real value to your SEO link building strategy.

Premium WordPress Themes – Link Popularity

Search rankings are nothing more than a popularity contest based on chosen keywords and the number of pages linking into yours. The role of an SEO consultant is to dress up the model to try and win that contest.

Link popularity, generally measured using PageRank as a base, is one of the most talked about aspects of SEO. Link popularity is a measure of quality of peer recognition of a page. It is not the only form of popularity.

Social popularity is becoming more important and over time may become of the most important keys to a sites credibility. Add to this niche popularity, a measure of how many other sites from your niche link to you and the formula becomes complicated.

Click popularity has been important and into the future will take on a broader importance. At presence most click popularity comes from either PPC or generic search responses. Into the future, the users habits will also be taken into account.

Trying to determine rankings is impossible. Trying to determine what value each section has is even harder. Most links fit into one of those key areas, and together help to determine the search value of your page for any given set of keywords.

Premium WordPress Themes – Video Transcripts

Videos have become an extremely popular addition to web pages and much has been written about how to optimize them for search results. One little used option is to include a transcript of your video. As part of your SEO strategy you can submit the transcript to Google.

A thread on Cre8asiteforums discusses the use of transcripts. Google have a preference for including time stamping in the transcript. Those who participated in the thread doubted the user benefit of the time stamping, and for most users I tend to agree. I cannot see how time stamping can help with the videos indexing – since, from a search and SEO perspective; it is the content that is important.

One option that was mentioned in the thread included:

This makes more sense and, from a user perspective, is value adding. The user can see the contents of the video first, if it appears to answer their query, they can then watch the video. There is still a degree of dilemma in the search engine optimization world about videos and how best to optimize them. Providing a transcript in the form of a web page may be the better option. However, it is still the page that is being indexed, not the video.

Submitting the transcript to Google will at least have the content accurately indexed, even though it is a video. The only question left is whether or not you have the time to transcribe your videos.

If you’ve noticed that certain web pages have lost search rank in the last couple of months then you may be wondering why. According to Blogstorm, it’s because Google has devalued anchor text in its algorithms. But according to Google Webmaster Central, one of the two most important, quality inbound links counted are links with good, relevant anchor text. The other is a link where the URL is hyperlinked. .

If the anchor text has been devalued then why is Google saying that anchor text links are one of the two most important types of inbound links? My guess is because that anchor text is still important, but it’s not – as Blogstorm points out – as important as it was a year ago as part of a search engine optimization strategy.

We know that Google is constantly updating its algorithms. It’s possible that this may be a measure to combat Google bombs. It could also be an attempt to combat paid links without hurting sites that legitimately use natural linking methods and their inbound link recipients.

If you’ll look at the diagram on Google’s blog post, it seems to say that the two types of important links are fairly equal. It doesn’t say that one is more important than the other. But if the same blog post were written a year then I’d guess that it might show that anchor text links are given more weight than links where the website’s URL is the link. Am I reading too much into this?

Nevertheless, it does seem as if anchor text has been given a little less weight lately than it has in the past.

Premium WordPress Themes – Inbound Link

Google wrapped up its blog series on links last night with a post on inbound links. Quite frankly, I’m not a bit surprised at the message they delivered, but I am surprised that the post was much shorter than I anticipated. Their post on outbound links was much more detailed.

Reading the Google Webmaster Central Blog, one might think that Google values outbound links more than inbound links when it comes to good search engine optimization strategy. That could be because of Google’s philosophy that the Web is a massive connection of networked computers. Links are what the Web is all about. Why then do we say “Content is King?”

It all boils down to POV. From the perspective of individual webmasters, quality content is your value. Put up a blank page as a website and what will you get? There is nowhere on earth where “you get out what you put in” is more relevant and more true than in website development. In a word, links are content. But that doesn’t mean you can build a page with nothing more than links and do well. It does mean that you should consider links as a part of your content.

If Google is correct and natural linking patterns are the preferred way to link from site to site and from page to page then to think of links as anything other than a piece of your content is a bit foolhardy. Links are the commerce of the Web. That’s why anchor text is so important. According to the Google Webmaster Central Blog, there are three levels of link relevance:

• Inbound link with anchor text and valuable content message
• Inbound link using URL as hyperlink and valuable content message
• Inbound link using URL as hyperlink and generic content message

The first levels of relevance are described as “Quality, relevant” inbound links. The last level is described as “low quality”. If that doesn’t tell you what Google is looking for then I don’t know what will. But the real meat of Google’s blog post is in the how. How can you get those types of quality links that every webmaster is looking for? Here’s a quick laundry list:

• Start a blog
• Make videos
• Use original research
• Post interesting information regularly
• Be a teacher
• Deliver something new
• Be entertaining
• Be insightful
• Become an expert
• Interview interesting people in your niche
• Participate in other blogs in your niche
• Post user reviews
• Provide a useful product or service

Interestingly, Google doesn’t mention buying paid links, submitting press releases, article marketing, directory submissions, or one of the many other methods of link building often touted by the top search engine optimization “experts.” That’s because Google’s philosophy is based on natural linking methods, not forced link building strategies. While directory submissions, articles, press releases, and other types of links can be good inbound links for your website, though I wouldn’t recommend buying links as that might get your site penalized, the best way to get inbound links is to produce quality content on your site. Then if you succeed at building a website that people love, they will link to you automatically with natural links that Google will favor.

Premium WordPress Themes – Affiliate Marketing

Article marketing is a good way to drive traffic and build links as part of your search engine optimization efforts to any website or property online. But what is the most effective way to use article marketing to promote your affiliate products and services? If you promote your affiliate companies directly then you are building links for them, not for you. And you miss all future marketing opportunities because you have no private information capture.

While you may make more sales by sending buyers directly to companies whose products and services you want to promote, you’ll probably make more money by capturing e-mail addresses for marketing to those buyers directly in the future. That’s why I recommend setting up a landing page for each product or service you want to promote and using articles to drive traffic to that landing page. On that landing you page you can capture e-mail information for future marketing purposes AND close the sale. In fact, you should ask for the e-mail address at the point of sale before sending the lead to the company with the product for purchase.

Of course, your landing page should be highly optimized, as should your articles. But this is the best way to promote your affiliate programs with articles.

Yesterday, SaveTheInternet.com celebrated its first birthday. This is the organization fighting to keep Verizon and AT&T from stripping away your right and mine to the use of a free Internet. These large communications companies want to create a high band Internet for government and people willing to pay the price and then a slower “lane” for everyone else – that is, small business owners, non-profit organizations, and people who won’t be able to afford the elite steak dinner along with the keynote address. Simple s includes one year of support.

There’s a great article in today’s WebProNews on one senator, Byron Dorgan, who is criticizing his colleague Ted Stevens and AT&T head cheese Ed Whitacre for their evil scheme. Essentially, good guys like Dorgan want to keep the Net open to everyone while the bad guys want to build a wall between the haves and the have nots. And if this happens there will be more have nots than haves, but there won’t be power in numbers – unless numbers refers to the number of dollar bills you carry in your pocket.

I encourage you all to swing by the SaveTheInternet website and sign their petition, if you’ve not done so already. And while you’re at it vote for them for the 2007 Webby Award. They’re in second place right now. Voting ends today.

WordPress Premium Themes – Speed Your Site

With the speed of the internet and the rate of growth we have been seeing, it is very difficult to keep up with everything never mind taking the time to actually analyze your own website surroundings and linking structure to see what websites are linking to you from a structural stand point. It is important to take the time to really understand the linking structure of your website so you know where to make improvements and where to ratchet things down. Let’s take a look at some of the important areas the Google webmaster will show you for your website:

Links to Your Site: This is a great area to be familiar with because it will show you all the links that are pointing to your website along with all your internal website pages as well. It is nice to be able to look at who is connecting with you so you can estimate what direction you want to take your link building into. Your links should be evenly spread out throughout your entire link building campaign. You don’t want to be top heavy on any one effort.

Crawl Errors: Google webmaster tools will also show you in detail any crawl errors that are occurring on your website. This is important because you want to know if certain areas of your website are having a difficult time to be read by the search engine crawlers.

Keywords: It also shows you what keywords have a significant focus on your website. This will allow you to diversify or shift your focus in order to utilize a variety of different keywords throughout your website.

Sitemaps: Having a sitemap is just SEO 101. It will show you how many pages are being indexed currently by your existing sitemap. If your sitemap has any issues this is where you will see it.

Make the effort to install Google webmaster tools on your website. This also gives Google a heads up that you are open and willing to let them in so they can understand everything about your website. This is important from a ranking and trust factor standpoint. This tells the search engines that you have nothing to hide from them and you don’t mind them seeing how you build your links and market your website. If you have nothing to hide this will help you in the long run.

WordPress Premium Themes – Best Friend

For a newcomer, stepping into the area of search engine marketing can be quite overwhelming especially if they haven’t really ventured into the online marketing space before. It is bad enough for those individuals to try and learn how to do many of the items themselves but to analyze the raw data and dissect it in order to understand how it is working for them could be a lengthy learning curve. There are many good analytics software packages out there, but I highly recommend Google analytics for most websites. It is easy to use, free and reliable.

Let’s take a look at some of the most important areas to view in your Google analytics account:

• 1. Visitors: In this section of your Google analytics software you can see a variety of information specific to your visitor. You can see what types of browsers people use to find you along with things like connection speeds and what kind of mobile devices people use when they are on the go to find your business. Often times a website or functions of a website will appear different in other browsers. This will give you a better understanding what elements you need to work on with your website to make sure things are consistent across the board.
• 2. Traffic Sources: This section will be your best friend. This is where it shows you what keywords are driving traffic along with which referring sites are bringing over traffic. You are going to want to look at this information on a regular basis in order to see what is going on with your marketing. If a website posted a link about you and it is delivering traffic to your website you are going to want to know this type of information. Once you get going with your online marketing and SEO this section of the analytics software is going to be your best friend. It will show you what is actually working and what isn’t. If you spend a great deal of time in a certain area that almost never delivers any type of traffic than this information will be valuable so that you can make the proper changes so that traffic does find their way to your site.
• 3. Content: This section allows you to go through the pages of your website along with any blog posts you might have to drill down to specific page data. This will allow you to target various elements on those specific pages in order to maximize their overall efficiency. If you notice a certain page get a great deal of traffic but the bounce rate is quite high you can make the necessary changes to reduce that bounce rate.

Google analytics is very important and will be even more important when times moves on and your SEO becomes very robust and comprehensive. Learn it now while you are getting started. You will have an easier time to understand the data down the road.

Your blog theme is important not from an SEO point of view, but from a customer optimization point of view. I remember talking to an older Internet marketer that chose not to do business with one company because of its color scheme. It seems strange, but he had a point. .

“If I start marketing their products,” he said, “I will have to stare at that color scheme all day long. It is too dark and it is too hard to read. I don’t need the eyestrain.”

The thing was, the site appealed to me visually, but it had a black background with a light gray font which, while stunning, was hard to read. In addition, the font was small, which made it an enormous turn off to my older friend.

Pick your blog’s theme carefully
All the optimization in the world will not help you turn a profit if your customers don’t want to stay. You can get creative and artistic with your headers and stuff, but when it comes to your basic color scheme, light backgrounds and simple fonts work best. Aim for a good contrast with a dark font and light background. Other than that, anything goes.

Premium WordPress Themes – Search Engine Optimization

Let’s face facts, not all sites need analytics. If you have a five page simple website then analytics are not for you. There is little that can be gleaned from analytics on a simple website that cannot be gleaned from a web counter on a small site.

On big sites, however, analytics come into their own. A website does not have to be a whole lot bigger than five pages for analytics to make sense. Once you start fleshing out your page with content, it is time for analytics, why? Because you want to know what works.

Analytics allows you, the webmaster to monitor which parts of your site are getting hits and which parts are not. Alexa does not cut it in this regard. The sort of information that constitutes real business intelligence is generally provided on a subscription basis. It is affordable, so it is relatively easy to bring it into your site as you begin to build it.

If you are interested in the potential that analytics can offer your site, please do not hesitate to contact us at Brick Marketing.

Premium WordPress Themes – Site Search

One great tool you can use to improve your SEO and the user experience on your website is called Site Search. Google Analytics allows you to track what your users are searching for. You can see what pages they are on when they search and where they end up. Then you use the information you gather from the analytics tool to improve the SEO of your website and the experience of your users based on what they’ve searched for on your site.

Site Search is easy to set up, but there is a free and a paid version. Which you use is up to you, but I’d definitely put it on your website, especially if you have a website that has a lot of pages on it. Some of the great information about your site visitors that you can gain from the tool are:

• Search terms they use
• Start pages
• Destination pages
• Categories they search for
• Trending allows you to see individual user statistics over time
• Segments lets you group your users and see how they act as groups

It’s the perfect tool for large websites with lots of information.

Who’s Your GoDaddy? Google Tag Teams Webmaster Tools

At BlogWorld, an audience member asked me to share my #1 SEO recommendation for bloggers. Tough question, right? I told the audience that every blogger should sign up for Google Webmaster Tools.

Andy Beal’s advice is stellar. GoDaddy is one of the best web hosts online and no blogger should go one day without Google Webmaster Tools. The information you get as a part of Google Webmaster Tools is unquestionably the best you can get anywhere. You can manage your Google AdWords account, read the Google blog, add your sitemaps, report spam and paid links, check your gmail messages, and they have a host of other features as well.

And GoDaddy? What do they have to offer? That’s easy:

• Hosting plans starting at $3.99 per month
• 24/7 monitoring
• Firewalls
• Dedicated servers
• Up to 2,000 GB data transfer
• Up to 200 GB disk space

When it comes to webmaster tools for you small online business, Google and GoDaddy make a good team.

Brick Marketing Launches New Blog: Website Marketing Journal

Last week, Brick Marketing launched another blog. The Website Marketing Journal is focused on bringing daily blog posts to help website owners improve their overall marketing efforts for each website they own. Going beyond search engine optimization and web page design, Website Marketing Journal is devoted to covering the full scope of marketing a website without it being too broad of a subject matter.

Website Marketing Journal was officially launched on September 1, 2007. Since then, Brick Marketing has posted five blog posts, including:

• Understanding Website Search Engine Optimization
• Website Marketing Tools For Building Your Safe List
• Easy Ways To Boost Your Website’s Lead Generation Potential
• Branding Your Website
• Choosing Better Keywords For Website Search Engine Optimization

Over the next few weeeks, Website Marketing Journal will cover the following topics more in depth:

• Website branding
• Website customer management
• Website lead generation
• Website local advertising
• Website marketing content
• Website marketing tools
• Website sales
• Website search engine marketing
• Website search engine optimization

For daily insights on how to make the most of your website marketing potential through organic search strategies as well as through other effective website marketing tools, be sure to read the Website Marketing Journal.

Premium WordPress Themes – Query Information

As you know, the queries used to find your website in search results can change over time. Your website content changes, as do the needs of all the busy searchers out there. Whether the queries associated with your site change subtly or dramatically, it’s pretty useful to see how they transform over time.

This is a useful feature. If you want to know how queries that led to increased traffic to your site have changed over time, now you can get this information at Google’s Webmaster Central. This has been a useful tool for webmasters all along, but now it’s even better.

Google is now letting webmasters see this information as far back as 6 months. If certain search queries that found your site six months ago aren’t leading to results for you now, you can go back and analyze that and find out why. Maybe you’ve watered down your SEO or maybe people aren’t using certain queries as much as they were six months ago. People do change their search habits based on past search experiences and they do get better at it.

In all, I’d say this feature is long overdue. I’m glad they’ve come up with it.

Have you ever heard of .yu domain names? If not, then you won’t be disappointed that they’ll stop working after September 30. If you have one then you might be alarmed. What should you do? Themes | TeslaThemes.

The following advice is really for anyone, regardless of whether you have .yu domain or not, who is planning a transfer of domains to a new domain. If you have a .yu domain then you’ll need to start making your transfer as soon as possible. I would not recommend waiting until September. You want your new site working before your old site stops working and if you are planning 301 redirects, forget about it. They won’t work either. The entire .yu block of domains will be dead and so will any links that are pointing to them.

So how do you transfer an old domain to a new domain? Here’s a short list of items that you should keep in mind in your preparations.

• Do a little keyword research first – in other words, update your keyword list to see if your old list is still the best list for your niche – and secure a domain name that is adequate on another TLD; be sure to choose a TLD that is sound and doesn’t have a history of volatility.
• Transfer a handful of pages from your old site to your new site and test them before you move entire site. Do they work and are they visible in all browsers? Is the internal link navigation between them intact?
• If all is good, transfer all of the pages from your old domain to your new domain.
• Check all of your backlinks to your old domain. Are there any that you can control yourself? If so then get those links changed to point to your new domain. Contact the site owners of all other links and request that they change the link to point to your new pages. Make sure that you give those site owners the exact address of the old page being linked to and the exact page URL of the page you want them to link to on your new site. Be prepared for some site owners not complying with your request, which means you’ll lose some of your links, but if you can get most of them changed then you’re off to a rocking start.
• If you have not already done so, change all of your directory listings. For some directories you may need to delete your old listing and submit a new one. Whatever it takes, make sure those directories are listing your new site and not your old one.
• Create and submit a sitemap for your new site to all of the search engines that crawl them.
• Test your new site again for crawlability, navigation, and user friendliness.
• If you are satisfied wit your new site, take your old site down so that your new site can get crawled and indexed with no duplicate content issues. If your site is not a .yu domain and you have reason to believe that it will stay where it is for a long time, use a page-to-page 301 redirect on every page of your website so that you don’t lose any visitors. Your links to the old site should count for PR and link juice to the new site. But in the case of .yu domains, that won’t happen so taking your site down is a better option.
• Continue marketing your new site.

If you do have a .yu domain name, now is the time to start your transfer. The bigger your site the more likely you are to run into problems and the larger those problems are likely to be. You’ll need to plan for contingencies so sooner is better than later.

Premium WordPress Themes – New Look

If you’ve never used Google Analytics then you’re missing out. It’s free and that’s a good selling point, but it’s also one of the best metrics tools on the planet. It’s certainly better than anything else out there in the free (or even paid) category of tracking products. And if you’ve been to the Google Analytics site but decided it wasn’t for you because you couldn’t find any of the helpful information, that has changed. They’ve changed the way they look.

Obviously, the new face is meant to make Google Analytics easier to work with for new users. If you are a veteran user then you likely sign up through your Personalized Google account. If not then you may see the face. It’s still helpful.

If you have a website and you want to know how users are using your website then I highly recommend Google Analytics. You simply add a little code to the pages of your site and verify it then you can track how users are using the site, including the number of visitors, unique visitors, time on site, time on individual pages, bounce rates, navigation patterns, traffic sources, and you can even create your own customized reports. It’s the perfect metrics tool to measure your search engine optimization efforts as well as paid search. Try it out.

Premium WordPress Themes – Local Business

If you run a local business, things just got better for you. Google has announced that it will now start providing Google Analytics data for businesses that are listed in its Local Business Center.

The specific data you’ll be able to track includes:

Number of impressions your LBC profile receives via Google.com search or Maps search
The number of actions people take to interact with your business listing
Top search queries used to find your listing
Zip codes where driving directions came from

The value of this information extends far beyond mere search. The zip code information, for instance, could be used to help you add business locations. If you see a lot of queries coming from a specific zip code and you know that residents in that zip code have a long way to travel to get to your office, you could open up a satellite office in that zip code or a new business location.

Just like with Google Analytics and any website you own, knowing the top search queries to find you is smart for future optimization reasons. So, in a word, this information is valuable to you and now you have access to this information through your Local Business Center listing. Take full advantage of it.

Testing your landing pages is one of the most important parts about being an effective online marketer. You should be testing constantly. But there are different types of tests. You can run A/B tests or multivariate tests and which one you use on your site depends on a number of factors. Quality themes for your website.

A/B testing is when you have two pages, or two elements on the same page, that you want to test side by side. For instance, let’s say you have a landing page that currently converts at 5.5%, but you think you can increase that by changing your headline. So you rewrite the headline and test the new headline against the old headline. This is an A/B test. After a predefined number of page views for your new web page, you’ll have a clear picture on which headline is better for conversions. If your old headline wins then you do nothing. If your new headline wins then you make that page live – nothing on the page changes other than your headline.

A multivariate test is a bit more involved. In this case you are testing multiple elements at the same time, hence the name. By testing multiple variables simultaneously, you can arrive at a conclusion much sooner. Maybe you want to know which headline of three and which call to action of two are most effective. You can determine that through multivariate testing.

Another way to conduct multivariate testing is by running a test on a combination of variables. Suppose, for instance, you want to know which mix of headlines and calls to action will be most effective. You can test that with multivariate testing as well.

Which type of test you run for your landing pages depends on your goals and the individual web pages you are testing. There are times when you’ll use the A/B test and then other times when the multivariate test is more appropriate. But one thing is clear: You’ll want to develop your testing of landing pages strategy early on and always work toward improvement.

What’s A Good Conversion Rate?

Before you start to think about search engine optimziation, I always recommend that the content and structure of a website is built with conversion elements. When it comes to conversion rates, they’re not all created equal. I have seen conversion rates for clients over the years as high as 15% and as low as 0%. It’s one thing to say that 2% is good, but it’s quite another to say that 2% is good for landing pages within such-and-such industry. In truth, 2% is not bad for conversion rates. If you can snag a 2% on any of your landing pages then you are doing pretty well. But what did you have to do to get to that?

If 2% is your starting point then you can probably do better. You should consider testing your landing page and using Website Optimizer to help you achieve the best mix of variables for your landing page. Obviously, 4% is a better conversion rate than 2% so if you can improve your conversion rate then that’s even better.

But another startling fact – startling if you’re new to online marketing, or marketing in general – is that conversion rates differ from industry to industry. What is considered good for one industry may only be mediocre for another. And there are several factors that influence conversion rate averages. It is important to have some idea of what is considered normal for your industry so that you can benchmark your own success against that of others in the same niche. One way you can do that is to ascribe goals for your landing pages within Google Analytics.

Conversion rate measurement is one important metric. You can’t change or influence what you don’t measure so keep an eye on your conversion rate and whatever it is when you start your measurements can probably be improved upon.

Optimize Your Web Pages With Website Optimizer

Google is constantly adding new offerings to help webmasters better optimize their websites and increase their conversions. One tool I’d recommend for any website, beginner or advanced, is Website Optimizer.

If you have a Google Webmaster Tools account then using Website Optimizer is a cinch. Even better if you use Google AdWords and/or Google Analytics. Website Optimizer is designed to allow you to test different versions of a landing page to see which one converts better. If you use it correctly then it will do that well.

The first step, of course, is to choose the page you want to test. The next step is to create alternate versions of your web page. It’s important to note that you can test more than one variable so if you wanted to test three different headlines and four calls to action, you could upload different versions of the web page to see which one converts better. You could mix and match your headlines with calls to action and test all the various combinations if you wanted to. In fact, that’s a highly recommend strategy.

Website Optimizer would then rotate these pages to your visitors and over time you’ll be able to tell which page is best optimized for converting your traffic. One word of warning: I wouldn’t recommend testing 12 different pages at once because the test period will take longer. Website Optimizer is best used to test 3 to 5 versions of the same web page. Given the above scenario, I’d test one headline with each of the four calls to action and pick the best one. Then I’d test the next headline against the calls to action and then I’d test the third headline. After getting the best headline/call to action combination, I’d then test those three best performers against each other to see which landing page ultimately passes the test.

Website Optimizer is a great tool for webmasters. It’s a great tool for testing landing pages and I highly recommend it.

Video conferencing for inter-office employee meetings and training sessions saves time, money for travel expenses and salaries while gone from the home office. High quality for your business website.

Employees can purchase a company-quality webcam for about $50 or less, or an HD quality webcam for less than $100. They can use their own computer or smart phone to view and participate in video meetings. More savvy users will connect their Internet with television screens and/or projectors to view the video meetings, but may not be able to participate in them, depending on what device they use to connect with.

Thanks to the reduced or eliminated travel costs, companies are now holding monthly employee meetings. Companies also use the video conferencing technology to bring board members together for meetings. PowerPoint presentations, recorded videos, audio files and photos are loaded into the video meeting library for use any time they are needed. Other documents can be transferred to all attendees by simply clicking a few buttons.

Some creative companies are also solving issues with members via video conferencing. The meetings can be locked for use as a private room, or open for an entire group to attend. Up to 12 attendees can be on video at the same time. Every attendee can also have presenter and/or drawing tools access so they too can share documents, draw their thoughts on a white board, or even share their screen.

Those options help maintain a sense of community with your employees and allow board members and other company personnel to attend the meetings no matter where they are around the world. Cutting company costs while bringing people together encourages a sense of belonging, personal engagement with the company and more productivity.

Video email is a necessary tool to use for inviting all participants to the video conferences. Hearing directly from a company official and seeing them on video makes a huge difference in participation.

Does your company use video email and video conferencing yet? Global Video Group / Team GVG can help you get started today with WowWe, a leader in video communications technology.

Premium WordPress Themes – Video Conferencing Microphones and Software

When attending or moderating a video conference, you may have the option of activating your voice or webcam. In order to use those comfortably, you will need the right equipment, software and settings. These audio tips will help guide you to more comfortable video meetings.

Using a microphone and speakers normally produce echo, because the sound coming out of the speakers when others are talking, feeds back into the microphone. Some laptops have built-in settings to prevent feedback. Desktop computers need additional settings, sometimes built into the webcam or video meeting room.

Some video meeting rooms allow you to adjust your microphone settings, while others use the same settings for everyone. The video conference software provided through WowWe allows you to select which microphone you want to use in case you have multiple microphones attached to your computer. You can also select the volume level within the meeting itself without having to change it locally.

When using an audio headset, the echo is eliminated. That is the best option to attending a meeting that will have multiple microphones open at once. In that situation, when someone uses a microphone and speakers, there will inevitably be echo. It can be minimized by reducing the speaker volume to a point where you can just hear what is being said, along with muting your microphone when not speaking. That keeps the sound quality clear.

The audio software you use will depend on the microphone itself. Most often you can use a webcam that has a microphone built in. That too will have an option to reduce echo, although not a very effective one. You will still need to act as though it is a stand-alone microphone, but keep it away from your speakers. Microphones placed near speakers will result in feedback, or echo and deliver an unpleasant experience.

A major source of distraction during a productive meeting is feedback or echo from an open microphone. When in a meeting, be courteous of others and mute yourself when not speaking, especially if you do not use a headset. You could use the microphone in your webcam and either ear buds or a small, inexpensive headset.

To get more tips and training on video conferencing etiquette, become a WowWe Team GVG member today and the Global Video Group members will help you get started fast.

Premium WordPress Themes – Handling Feedback and Complaints Using Video Email

Testimonials and feedback forms are needed with small and large businesses. Every business needs feedback from their clients and customers. They tell you how you are doing, what information or training they need and how you can continue helping them better.

Complaints happen. That is one of the natural facts in life. How you handle them determines whether you will keep your business and personal relationships strong, or drive others away.

The best way to handle complaints is in person. When that is not possible, the next best thing is the telephone. While not as personal as being face to face, using the telephone has been our way of life for many years. What if there was something you want to say than you want to tell an answering service or machine?

Video calling is available on a limited selection of smart phones. Those who do not have that type of phone and even those who do, have the option of recording a video to send, save and share with others if desired.

What if for some reason the person you sent it to did not receive it, or accidentally deleted it and wants to see it again? You simply select it from your library and send it again. Try that with a video call. Once you hang up the phone that conversation is done, not available ever again.

Video email solves that problem and many others. Yes it is a one-way communication, but you will like it much better than voice mail or typing long letters. The other person will not only hear your message, they will see your expressions to get the full meaning. They will have a much better understanding and respect for you taking the time to respond personally.

Of course there are many other uses, such as: Invitations; meeting schedules; parents sending their children greetings while away; children checking in from their friends homes letting you know they arrived safely at wherever they went; thanking a prospective employer for the interview; inviting someone to a video meeting… let your imagination run wild with video email uses.

Now try video email free and see how it will improve your life. Then incorporate video conferencing into the mix and you will have the services needed to reach all your contacts personally.

Premium WordPress Themes – How Website Managers Select Banner Ads for Your Page or Blog

When adding banners to your web page or blog, you need to consider what type of banner you will display. There are several choices, ranging from static JPEG, animated GIF, transparent PNG and eye-catching flash.

When using banner ads, you have to decide what the focus of your page is – the content or the ads. Most often people will read the content and then look back at an advertisement. If your content is long enough to make people scroll down and read the rest, changes that they scroll back up to click the ad are slim.

Flash banners slow the page loading because their file sizes are generally 3-5 time larger than JPG images and their content is usually obtained from another site such as an advertising supplier.

Animated GIF images would be an improvement over JPG to grab attention, although their file sizes vary depending on several factors. The biggest factor in keeping GIF sizes smaller is omitting high resolution photos. GIF compression options are not designed to compress photos. Use 256 color graphics or lower, line art, cartoon characters and as few frames as possible, while keeping the animation smooth. Using an image compression tool will help reduce file size by decreasing the number of colors in the banner.

1. JPG banners are there and non-intrusive. GIF banners are animated to divert attention from the content to the banner. This type of banner usually gets a higher click-through than static JPG banners.
2. PNG is Portable Network Graphics. Although it does not include animation, it can contain transparency so the banner can blend into your background color. Depending on the banner content, the file size may be smaller than JPG, or larger if it contains high resolution photos.

When streaming video is reduced in size, it too can serve as an advertising option. It will usually not look very good as a banner, unless it is recorded for that purpose. Come to think of it, I just made one of those to track the responses. Adding a link to the video banner will be tricky, but there is a way and I found it.

Click the Play button on this banner to see how a video banner ad can also work in your advertising. The button is on the lower left and is pretty small. I could set it to play automatically but that might annoy some people.

SimpleMap is a powerful and easy-to-use international store locator plugin. It has an intuitive interface and is completely customizable. Its search features make it easy for your users to find your locations quickly. and responsive wordpress themes for your business.

Best Premium WordPress Themes 2018 – What SimpleMap all about?

With SimpleMap, you can easily put a store locator map on your WordPress site in seconds. You can manage locations from any country supported by Google Maps. With SimpleMap you can also easily manage an unlimited number of locations, put a Google Map on any page or post that gives instant results to users. Users can enter a street address, city, state, or even the name of a location to search the database.

Want to make the map fit with your theme; it’s simple to customize the appearance of the map and results with your own themes. SimpleMap come with clean design, its means you’ll have a classy store map that perfectly fits with any WordPress theme. SimpleMap give you familiar interface that fits with WordPress admin area, it’s comes with easy-to-use settings page. You can import and export your database as a CSV file, it’s useful to collect the database so you can see from where your visitor come from.

Best Premium WordPress Themes 2018 – Installing SimpleMap WordPress Plugin

• Upload the entire simplemap folder to your /wp-content/plugins/ folder.
• Go to the ‘Plugins’ page in the menu and activate the plugin.
• Go to Google Maps to sign up for an API key for your domain.
• Enter the API key in the ‘General Options’ page of SimpleMap.
• Type [simplemap] into any Post or Page you want SimpleMap to be displayed in.
• Enter some locations in the database and start enjoying the plugin!

Best Premium WordPress Themes 2018 – 7 Paypal Donation WordPress Plugins That Help You to Make Money with Donation

If you want to making money from your blog or think that your reader and visitor love your content, you might be want to make a little money by asking for donations to support your blog.

When you write great contents and working hard on it, your reader may want to give you a reward for this. It’s like buy you a cup of coffee for your efforts to create value and give useful information for them. I think this is not bad idea to try. It will be love to be surprised when you turn on your computer and checking your Paypal and saw there are a little penny on your account. Thanks for our readers icon biggrin 7 Paypal Donation WordPress Plugins That Help You to Make Money with Donation

If you interesting to give opportunity to your readers to make a donation to your blog, you can put donation button on your sidebar or your posts.

To make it easier you can use paypal, the most popular and safety payment systems on the world nowadays. Use PayPal is also a universally accepted way to transfer money so your visitors will feel safety to feel happy because it’s easy enough.
PayPal Donations

• Collect donations from a button on your website, or even using a link in an email!
• PayPal Donations is a low cost way for you to accept credit card and bank account donations. Integrate PayPal Donations with your website in a few easy steps

If you blogging use WordPress self-hosted you can try some plugin to put Paypal donation button or link on sidebar widget or post. Here I make list of WordPress plugins that can make you easier to take a donation from your visitor by asking donation.

Best Premium WordPress Themes 2018 – Buy Me a Beer

This WordPress plugin allows your readers to donate money to you via PayPal. The plugin is widget enabled. The plugin adds a “Buy Me a Beer” button to sidebar and at the bottom of all posts.

When your readers click on that button, they are taken to the secure PayPal page from where they can donate money to you.

WordPress Paypal Donation Plugin

WordPress Paypal Donation Plugin can be used to receive donation in one click. Donation can be received in multiple currencies. The plugin can be used in the sidebar, posts and pages.

Best Premium WordPress Themes 2018 – WordPress PayPal Donation

Another small and beautiful plugin. It adds a fully customizable PayPal button to the posts. The only thing you have to do is put [ donate] in your post or in your theme. Via the options panel it is fully customizable.

Paypal Donation Shortcode

A very simple plugin that allows you to easily create a link to a Paypal donation page, by using a customizable shortcode.

Best Premium WordPress Themes 2018 – I Like This WordPress Plugin

Do you think your visitor like your post? If you are Facebook user you must be know about ‘like’ features on Facebook. These features allow you to mention your friend that you like their status update, notes, photos, etc. Now I want to tell you that you can bring these cool features to your WordPress blog.

I Like This is WordPress Plugin that allows your visitors to simply like your posts instead of comment it. This plugin will display the number of people who liked your posts.

To use this plugin you need WordPress 2.3 or higher, this plugin is also compatible with WordPress 2.8.5. So if you want to display the number of people who liked your posts on your blog you can use I Like This WordPress plugin.

Tracking Your WordPress Blog Using Clicky WordPress Plugin!

If you make money online from your blog, you must be want to measure your blogging success. How much visitor reach you at the day, what content the read, and where the come from so you can optimize your blog for SEO and continue write great content. If you are blogging using WordPress now you can try Clicky. Clicky is a pretty cool analytics tools with real time features and it can work awesome, including on WordPress blog.

I was read that Clicky developer was asking Joost de Valk to join to re-develop their WordPress plugin. I don’t know, but from me Joost de Valk name itself is mean guarantee. Like how he was doing a great job with StudioPress. He recommends to trying Clicky and I try it.

Actually Clicky can use on another blog platform or website. To make it work on WordPress you need to install Clicky WordPress plugin. I register to Clicky and just playing around to see how it working. And honestly, it’s cool icon biggrin Tracking Your WordPress Blog Using Clicky WordPress Plugin!

We can also look from where the visitors come from, and even see it on Google map. Like Joost de Valk mention ‘their “Spy” feature is quite addictive…’. Yeah that true. Please not play with this when you want to write a post. You will fail, because it’s fun and addictive icon biggrin Tracking Your WordPress Blog Using Clicky WordPress Plugin! . To see how many visitors come to your WordPress blog on real time is cool.

You also can integrate your posts with http://clicky.me URL shortener and tweet it to twitter.

Just try it and tell what you see on Clicky. If you have use Google Analytics I think using Clicky is not really difficult for you. I am rare to use Google Analitycs and just open it for once per week. But with Clicky I think it will be more often icon biggrin Tracking Your WordPress Blog Using Clicky WordPress Plugin!