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The internet is getting bigger and social media has become a powerful marketing tool. While the future seems to be clear -the internet is not going away and social media will continue to grow- many business owners are still unsure how to use social media to promote their brand and generate sales. The good news is understanding how these new marketing tools are used does not have to be difficult. Although developing an online social network takes a lot of time and a decent understanding of social media tactics, the role social media plays in today’s marketing plan is a relatively simple concept to grasp.

A Websites

1. A website is similar to a store-front that is open 24/7.
2. A website can also be described as an online brochure.

Google:

1. Google is like the Yellow Pages (Phone Book)
2. A search engine can also be compared to the Library. Remember that place?

LinkedIn:

1. LinkedIn is similar to using a Chamber of Commerce to network with other business owners.
2. LinkedIn can also be described as a modern, Referral group (like BNI).
3. All the old timers out there will appreciate this comparison, LinkedIn is like the Rotary Club.
4. LinkedIn can be thought of like the White pages of the phone book.

Twitter:

1. Twitter is like a cocktail party -Lots of short conversations flying around the room.
2. Or, tweeting is similar to driving by a billboard on the freeway. You only get a glimpse to get the message.
3. For all those raised when newspapers dominated, tweets are like headlines. The goal is to get the reader to stop and read the story (click your tweet if there is a link ..etc.
4. For those who like videos, here is a classic video about twitter. It is from the Late Night Show with David Letterman interviewing Kevin Spacey. Great video. Lots of fun.

Facebook & Fan Page:

1. Facebook is like hanging out at the Barber Shop or Beauty Salon, only you can’t get a perm or color with facebook, yet -maybe there’s an app for that???
2. Coffee shop or Diner. I’m not just talking about Starbucks.

Email Signature:

1. Adding a signature at the bottom of your email with links to your social network accounts and website/blog is like a modern day business card.

Blog:

1. Blogging is like giving a presentation.
2. Blogging is also like a press release (depending on the content.)
3. Some people might compare blogging to sending a letter to the editor of their local newspaper. Imagine that, sending a letter by mail.

When social media and the internet are described in these terms, confused business owners might get a better idea of how modern marketing tools are similar to traditional methods. If you have any comparisons you would like to share, be sure to  comment below. I would really like to read your ideas.

See Ya Read ya soon,
Gary

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Submitting To DMOZ – The Open Directory Project

Open Directory Project (DMOZ)

If you are going to submit your site to the DMOZ directory (Open Directory Project), it will require studying the DMOZ rules on how and where to submit your site. When I say study, I mean …STUDY. This is no exaggeration! Sure the DMOZ dragon (Their Logo) looks cute, but don’t be fooled. This little DMOZ dragon will eat you up, spit you out and never look back after rejecting your website.

So if submitting to the Open Directory Project is such a terrible experience, why bother? Who cares? Is it just pride and bragging rights, or are there other reasons? Yes, pride and bragging rights are always motivation, but there are a other (perhaps more important) reasons why submitting to DMOZ is worth your time:

• Search engines, like Google, use it as part of their ranking system that can help grow traffic to your site.
• Organizations take advantage of free access to the directory’s content to populate their websites, providing additional exposure across niche communities.
• A listing in DMOZ will get you listed in the Google Directory.
• And yes, bragging rights.

Is Your Site Listed In DMOZ?

Since it is not my goal to unnecessarily torture you, before you begin this process go to DMOZ to search for your domain. To do this, search from the DMOZ home page for your domain excluding the “www”.

If your site was not found, but you are still interested in getting your site listed in DMOZ, the first thing to understand is DMOZ is a human edited directory. That’s right, a human editor. An editor who I imagine is ringing their hands together as they pick-a-part the submitted website for typos, missing graphics and broken links. These editors are not just glancing at your site, but evaluating the sites content, or lack-there-of. So “take your time” and double check your sites links. Make sure to go through your site, removing under construction pages and symbols. From this warning comes my advice: start by reading the rules on how to submit to DMOZ; and don’t submit unless you have a few hours.

DMOZ Rules To Submit

Free Link Checker

Once the official DMOZ rules have been read, take a moment to reflect on your site and what needs to be done. As you begin to prepare your site for review, do not assume anything. Check you site with a link checker and use a spell checker to review your site’s pages.

W3C Link Checker

Free Browser Checker

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but overflowing text that makes navigating a site difficult will hurt your chances of getting approved. The best way to ensure your website is displaying properly cross browsers is to use a free browser checker. One note on using BrowserShots, select only the primary browsers or it will take a long time to receive your results (screenshots).

Check Website Pages

The Open Directory Project

I’m sure you are beginning to see that submitting to DMOZ is not a 1-2-3 process. However, hopefully any issues regarding your site are addressed and fixed. Once your site is ready, it is time to concentrate on actually submitting your site. As you may have guessed this process is also filled with potential pitfalls, so make sure you are well rested before proceeding.

Bright eyed and bushy tailed, you are ready for phase two -information gathering. Luckily, in the fight to get your site listed I found an online quasi insider who has shared some great tips. Our informant is an editor of DMOZ, whom provides some tips on submitting to DMOZ.

Finally, here are a few other DMOZ resources:

DMOZ blog

DMOZ forum

Lastly, if you have a teen or kids specific site, on November 14, 2000, the Open Directory launched the Kids and Teens directory. DMOZ Kids and Teens

If you have a story about submitting your site to DMOZ we would enjoy hearing from you. Or, if you know of any other resources please comment below.

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“How does Google’s search engine (algarythm) work?” Of course this is a huge question, but there is a general answer.

• To rank well in Google, write good original content that your visitors will find valuable.
• Make sure the robots understand what information you consider to be the most important.
• Get other sights to link to your website.

Now this is very general and basic information, but it leads me to an interesting article called, “Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine“. It was written back in June 2007, but the information is still very relevant and if you have not read this article …Google allowed a reporter from The New York Times to spend a day with Mr. Singhal and others in the search-quality team, observing some internal meetings and talking to several top engineers. There were many questions that Google wouldn’t answer. But the engineers still explained more than they ever have before in the news media about how their search system works…

So if you are curious about how Googles search engine works and you want some insight into Googles search engine,  read the article, Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine

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From my last post on concatenation of your non-www and www urls, I mentioned I wanted to go through how to set a preferred domain in Google Webmaster Tools. This is not difficult and only takes a second especially if you already have a Google account and you have already activated the webmaster tools. If you don’t have an account or have not activated the webmaster tools do so now …I’ll wait for you to get back.

Ok …everyone should have a Google account and they should have activated the Webmaster Tools.

1. From the Dashboard, click the link to your website.
2. In the left sidebar click the Tools link.
3. There will be a few links under this option, you want the one that says, “set preferred domain”. Here you will choose either the non-www version or the www version. If you are not sure what version to use take a look at my post on Increase Your Link Juice.

I realize for some of you this is nothing new, but for those who are not familiar with this feature it is just one more thing to add to your seo arsenal.

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Let’s talk search engine optimization (SEO). Specifically I want to talk about the importance of concatenation of your “non-www” url with your “www” url so your links are pointing to one website.

Before we begin lets check to see how our non-www and our www url is set up. To do this lets check the server headers. Go to this link – Check Server Headers – and enter your non-www into the field provided. Below you will see a response, typically of either a 200 ok, or a 301 permanent move, or a 302 temporary move. After you get the information on the non-www server header, do the same thing with the www url.

What you DON’T WANT TO SEE is a 200 ok for both the non-www and www. Why …well basically this result means your non-www and www urls are considered two different sites. Depending on how your website has been getting indexed (and how you have been submitting backlinks), this could be hurting your search results!

To make sure this is not hurting your website, you will want to concatenate your non-www with your www.

First, if you have been using a mix of non-www and www in your backlink campaign, stop! Pick one version. Which version should you use. Well …generally there is no benefit to using one or the other, non-ww vs. www. However, if you have been using a mix and you are unsure of which version to use here are a few suggestions to help make a decision.

1. Type in the non-www into your browser, using the Google Toolbar, check Googles PageRank. Next, type in the www version and check Googles PageRank. If one is higher that will be good to know before Rewriting your URL.
2. Next, type in your primary keywords that provide you with the most traffic. Find your listing(s) and note the url that is being linked; is it the non-www or the www??? Depending on the url that is indexed will also help you in making a final decision as to what version to use.

Once you made your choice on non-www or www you will want to do the following:

For a website on a Unix Server you will be changing (or adding) a htaccess file.  NOTE! -CAUTION you should have technical experience when changing a htaccess file. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

With that being said. If you are on a UNIX server create an htaccess file and add the following code making sure to replace the “yourwebaddress” with your website address:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourwebaddress.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yourwebaddress.com/$1 [R=301,L]

The above code will change your “non-www” into your “www”. It will also tell the server that it is a permanent move; which is what you want in this case. If you want to keep your non-www as your primary, switch the RewriteCode.

If you are a Windows Server contact your host and ask them to make the change for you.

To make sure your Rewrite was done correctly use this link – Check Server Headers – Once you are on the site recheck your server headers. Depending on how you Rewrote the url(s) you will either see a 301 permanent move or a 200 ok.

As a result of doing this you will consolidate your links to one website giving you a bigger BANG for every link.

In the next post learn how to set your preferred domain in Google!

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Better targeted ads are great, but I think the price is too high. Let’s remember the bottom line, we are allowing Google to gather our personal information so they can serve better ads. The bottom line is revenue, the all mighty buck, mooola; not world peace -your personal info is not being used for some altruistic endeavor, but for serving ads.

On June 17, 2008 The New York Times reported,

…Nick Fox, a director of product management who looks after ads on Google’s search site, said the company was now testing the use of more search queries in its ad targeting. He did not describe how it was doing that. But Internet experts said that it was most likely using its cookies.

Let’s all step back for a moment and keep in mind exactly why we are allowing Google ( and other online companies) access to our personal information. Personally, I will sacrifice my user experience for a little privacy!

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Using Google and SEO here are some interesting comparisons between Barack Obama and John McCain.

In Google type in obama and search results are #155,000,000
If you put “obama” in quotes you get #156,000,000

In Google type in mccain and search results are #76,900,000
If you put “mccain” in quotes you get #77,300,000

Barack Obama has a splash page with his family.
John McCain does not have a splash page.

Barack Obama has optimized his title tag on his splash page as “Welcome to Obama for America”.
Barack’s home page title tag is “Barack Obama | Change We Can Believe In | Home”

McCain has optimized his title tag as “John McCain – John McCain for president”

Prime real estate on Barack’s home page has a “Donate Now” button, followed with “Make A Difference”.
Prime real estate on John McCain’s home page has “Get Involved” followed with a “Contribute” button.

On Barack Obama’s splash page the meta keywords and description read:

meta name=”keywords” content “Senator Barack Obama 2008 Presidential Campaign”
meta name “description” content=”Official Website of Barack Obama 2008 Presidential Campaign”

On Barack’s home page the meta keywords and description read:
meta name “description” content “Official Website of Barack Obama 2008 Presidential Campaign”
meta name “keywords” content “president, senator, illinois, chicago, barack, barck, barek, obama, 2008, 08, presidential, president, campaign, election”

On John McCain’s home page the meta keywords and description read:
meta name “description” content “John McCain 2008 – The Official Website of John McCain’s 2008 Campaign for President”
meta name “keywords” content “John McCain, McCain, mccain for president, John S. McCain, McCain 2008, president, presidential, 2008, campaign, election, straight talk, straight talk express, politics, political, john mccain, john mccain for president, senator john mccain, sen. john mccain, cindy mccain, john mcain, john mckaine, john maccane, jon mccain, john maccaine, john mccaine, mccain 2008, johnmccain.com, senator mccain, mccain 2000, mccain campaign, mccain hq, exploremccain.com, explore mccain, mccain exploratory committee, mccain exploratory”

And finally my last Obama vs McCain comparison between candidates is their use of the h1 tag:
On Obama’s home page the  <h1><a href=“http://www.barackobama.com/index.php”><img src=“http://www.barackobama.com/images/temp_flashheader.jpg” alt=“Obama for America”/></a></h1>

On McCain’s home page there is NO <h1> tag.

And the next president of the United States is …???

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So what is Page Rank? This is a scale Google uses to measure the relative importance of your site. Google’s scale is a 1-10, with 10 being the best; but a rank of 3-5 is considered good. Page Rank will not get you traffic, but it is a tool to help evaluate a site’s potential to be ranked for your keywords phrases. Generally, page rank is established by:

1. Backlink campaign or Reciprocal link campaign .
2. Internal link structure.
3. Site structure.

So if a website is getting a decent page rank than the search engine optimization and search engine marketing campaign are working in unison. As a result website traffic will benefit from a continued effort. However, if a backlink campaign has been in place for 12 months and there is no PR it might be a signal that something is wrong. This might translate into lower website traffic.

Importantly, a site can be doing everything correctly (backlink, internal structure and site structure) and still not have a good PR. In this case, finding out why the PR is low might uncover valuable information that could lead to an improvement in some other area of the website. In the end this has the potential to improve the website’s traffic.

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Title tags are one of the most important elements effecting what keywords your page will get ranked for. When you are optimizing for a title tag keep these points in mind:

1. Each title tag should be original and unique.
2. Use keywords and keyword phrases that people will be searching for.
3. Don’t use a lot of extemporaneous words like and or the.
4. If your title tag is for a product, put the product name in the tag.

For people looking into content management systems (CMS), make sure the developer, or existing CMS, gives you the ability to change the title tag. If the CMS does not let you change the title tag and search engine optimization (SEO) is important to you, find a CMS that does give you the option.

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A couple tips and information on getting your website in Google and Yahoo.

The first tip is really easy, just submit your website to Google and Yahoo. Here are two links to help you:

Free submission to Google – submit to Google

Free submission to Yahoo – submit to Yahoo!

2. The next tip is to submit a XML sitemap. This tip is more difficultespecially for a novice, but it is very important. Basically, there are two types of sitemaps: html or xml. You should have both, but if you only have time for one, create a xml sitemap.

To help you, here is a link to a free sitemap generator- sitemap generator

You will have to do two more things:

1. Create a Google Account and activate the “Webmaster Tools”.
2. Upload your xml sitemap to your host, or root directory.

Here is a link to learn more about Google Webmaster Tools – webmaster tools

I hesitate in bringing up the xml sitemap because a novice user might get overwhelmed. However, I included the tip because it is very important! So if you want to learn a little seo, crating a xml sitemap is a good place to start. Here is a link to get you reading – Google Sitemap Info

If you want a xml sitemap but don’t want to mess with the process, it is worth hiring a web designer or webmaster. Sometimes the best tool in your tool box is your checkbook.