Attack Of The Killer Google Zombies!

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Amazon Unit Challenges Google, Other Search Sites

A9.com is walking a fine line between working with Google and competing against it. By Thomas Claburn Following an April test, A9.com Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon.com, today officially launched A9.com, a search site that finds itself in competition withGoogle, Microsoft, and Yahoo, to name a few of the most prominent search engines. That's not how computer scientist and A9.com CEO Udi Manber characterizes his company's place in the market. "We don't concentrate on competition," he says. "We look at user

Source: InformationWeek

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Five Reasons To Submit to Shopping Search Engines - By Corey Creed

The shopping season starts soon. Christmas is only three months away.Can you believe it?Are you ready? Do you (or does someone you know) sell products on theInternet? If so, part of being ready should include shopping searchengines. What are they? The most popular ones are BizRate,Shopping.com, Froogle, and Yahoo Shopping. You have probably seen orused them already to research a product you were interested in, tofind the best price, or to read opinions.But are you using them effectively for your products? If not, whyshould you now?Here are five top reasons:

1. Their Popularity Is Growing Fast Ask anyone you know about Yahoo Shopping, BizRate, Shopping.com, NexTag or other similar sites. They will probably say the samething... "Oh yeah! I just recently used a site like that to buy my___." I have heard that from almost everyone I know.To support this, Hitwise (a leading online measurement company)recently reported that these sites are seeing an increasing number ofvisits. Interestingly, they are also seeing a corresponding decreasein clickthroughs from search engines. Why? It seems as if oncepeople use these sites, they come directly to them the next time.If people are using these sites more and more, shouldn't you want yourproducts there?

2. They Advertise For YouLet me put this another way. Are you tired of handing your wallet toOverture and Google AdWords? Let the shopping search engines do itfor you.Try this. Go to Google or Yahoo today and type in camera, digitalcamera, fabrics, or any other product name. Many times, BizRate,Shopping.com, or some other shopping search site will show up in thetop paid-listing spots. And you know those terms aren't cheap!

3. Lower PPC Costs This is basically a continuation of the previous point. PPC costs on Overture and Google AdWords are increasing constantly. How much doesa click cost from Froogle? Nothing! What about Shopping.com,BizRate, NexTag, and others? Although it varies, it is frequently less than 15 cents and seldom over 50 cents.

4. More Qualified LeadsWhen someone is looking at Google and they click your ad, do theyreally want to buy what you are offering? Perhaps.On the other hand, if someone is on Shopping.com and they click onyour ad, what do you think they are doing? Shopping maybe? The sameholds true for Yahoo Shopping, and the many other similarly namedshopping sites.

5. Start Now To Beat the Competition

Remember the "good ole days" when you could list on Overture for 5cents for most of your terms? You probably didn't even check yourReturn On Investment. You got plenty of clicks for a great price.

What happened? Your competition, that's what.

Now you have to pay more and work harder. Shopping Search Engines isthis year what Pay Per Click was a few years ago. The opportunity isripe to get started now and the price is right.

So now you want to list your products. Where do you start?

Begin by doing some searches in the major shopping search engines. Isanyone else listing the products you offer? If so, how does yourpricing compare? After all, these sites are not calledcomparison-shopping sites for nothing. Many people are looking forthe best price.

But price is not everything. In fact, shoppers are more frequentlylooking for reputable sites. So, does your site look reputable? Doesit have good navigation? Also, be sure to sign up for BizRate'sCustomer Certified Ratings Program. If you start now, you can getsome positive comments on your site within the next couple of months.Many will choose to pay a little more if the merchant is more reputable.

To get listed, you will need to sign up with each site. Then followthe instructions. The process usually includes creating a spreadsheetin a certain format and then submitting it via FTP to the appropriateserver.

Corey CreedShopping Search Info http://www.ShoppingSearchInfo.com

Surefire Google Adwords Formula

Success with Google Adwords isn't quite as easy as some would have you believe.

Still just about anyone who is persistent can succeed if they'll but implement a consistent testing program. Since testing can produce a nearly constant improvement in your click through rate (CTR).

Here’s the surefire three-step formula that’s as easy as one...two...three.

Surefire Step #1: Develop Your Initial Test Ads

Notice I said ads not ad.

You want to present two competing ideas to your market right away. Letting your prospects tell you which they prefer.

Tip: Test headlines first while keeping the body copy the same. Headlines can have a huge impact.
Tip: Set it up so Google serves up both ads equally. Otherwise Google will present the ad that's producing the most click throughs more often which will skew your test.

Surefire Step #2: Monitor Results
After 40 clicks review your results. Google displays the ads under your listings. Showing the number of clicks each ad got.

Here’s early results from a campaign I tested:

High PR Reciprocal Links Easily Get More Traffic Fast! Access Directory of High PR Sites. HighPRLinkClub.com 39 Clicks 1.4% CTR Served - 49.5%

High PR Reciprocal LinksBoost Search Engine Ranking Fast. High PR Links Equals More Traffic. HighPRLinkClub.com26 Clicks 0.9% CTR Served - 50.5%

Each ad was served up half the time. Yet one outperformed the other by more than 50%. As one had a 1.4% CTR. While the other only .9% CTR. So by doing nothing more than setting up two ads I found one was clearly a winner.
In case you're wondering I have no idea why one ad worked better. And really don't care. Marketing is about "what works" not so much "why it works".

CRITICAL STEP: You've got an ad that produces clicks. Now you want to improve on that without wasting half your impressions on an idea that may or may not work. So here's the trick.
Surefire Step #3: Duplicate the winner. Add another contender.

With three ads being served up equally the winner will be presented two-thirds of the time. While the test ad will only be shown one third of the time.

From here on wait until the challenger accumulates 40 clicks before deciding if it's better or not. (Unless it’s dramatically out performing the reigning winner.) If so it's the new champ. If it is, or isn't, repeat Step 3 trying another idea.

CTR Boosting Ideas to Test
Here are five known CTR boosting tactics you can test:
• Put the target keyword in the headline. Google will bold it to draw attention to your ad.
• List the big benefit on the first line of text followed by the features. Does this generate more response than an ad that simply lists various features?
• Capitalize the first letter of each word verses using all lowercase.
• Do action inducing words like...sign up, new, right now, today, buy now, save now, apply here ...impact response?
• Qualify by including the price.

Result? Over time you'll improve your CTR driving more traffic to your site. Making you a winner in the Adwords game.
This is why I say you don't have to be a marketing Einstein to develop Adwords ads that work. Just know a little bit about your market’s hot buttons and the market will tell you the rest.

See? a surefire formula that's as easy as one...two...three.

So what you waiting for? Start testing today for more traffic tomorrow.

John Gergye shares more ideas like this in his just updated eBook "Traffic From Google in 35 Days". Find out more here: http://www.traffic-test-tube.com/j/tfg35cl.shtml Or test your search engine IQ by taking his seo quiz http://www.traffic-test-tube.com/search-engine-quiz.shtml and get the free special report "Coming Out On Top".

How Popular Are You,... Online That Is?

With the web today you "sorta haveta" have a rank in the major search engines if you want to be seen. I mean with 250,000,000, yes 250 million searches a day on Google™ alone, how are your visitors and potential customers going to find you?

Now, there are numerous ways in which a Search Engine ranks a website; by keyword density, relevancy, content, etc. etc.. But Link Popularity is an ever growing statistic in how the Search Engines continue to rank websites.

Link popularity, is how "popular" your website is. That is how popular your site is compared to other websites. To put it another way; it is the number of "other websites" that have a link on their website to your website. Did you get that? :)

Now, although Link Popularity "building" is a large science and art in itself, I'll briefly touch on a couple ways in which you can see how popular you are and how to go about improving your link popularity.

A small side note though, is link popularity is a BIG way in which Google™ ranks their search results. They refer to this as "PageRank". With the Search Engine, FAST, they call it "link score".

Now there are quite a few software programs and sites that can help build your link popularity as well as check your popularity.

Now, there are many ways to check your link popularity. But if you simply want to get a small idea, a little way for you to do this is go to any search engine and type in, "link popularity", without the quotes, and there will be lots of results for you to choose from. And then simply pick a site and check your site popularity.

Now, a small way to build your popularity is by going to the altavista.com engine and type in "link:yourcompetitor.com", and the results that show up will tell you what sites have posted links to your competitor's websites.

Then simply visit a site and look for a contact method, be it an email address, phone number, etc. and express an interest to them in trading links. It is a win-win method for both sites so, you have nothing to lose. Some might happily oblige, and some might not. It’s certainly worth a try.
In summary, link popularity can be a never ending chore if you have a website. This is because having links on related websites to your website is a very good form of Targeted Traffic which never really quits, because most related links stay up for a long period of time, thus providing a continuous stream of targeted traffic, which, by the way is totally cost free.

And Search Engine traffic and reciprocal link traffic are the best forms of Targeted Traffic there is online. And both are free.

Burke Ferguson holds both a BSc. degree in Computer Science as well Certification in Search Engine Optimization and Marketing Strategies. He regularly publishes The ACE! newsletter, in which he shares his experience, methods, and knowledge about what works and about what is 'BS'. He can be contacted by http://www.the-ace-ezine.com or http://www.altacanweb.com

If Content is King, then surely Relevance is Queen!

There has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in the searchengine world of late and there are lots of conspiracytheories as to why these things happen.

It is easy as a webmaster to get caught up in these webs ofintrigue.
You get email notes about them, you view so-called experts'thoughts on bulletin Boards - hey you probably even readthings in newsletter articles!

Well I hope so anyway....

The big driver for webmasters currently appears to becontent and link building.
While link building is important I don't believe it makesQueen. Maybe a Prince. Content and links DO go hand inhand but, without relevance, the Kingdom is doomed. Sorry Iwill stop the analogy now! :-)

If your site is about finance, then finance content is bestsupported by finance link exchanges.

Relevance!

If your site is about finance, then finance contentsupported by casino link exchanges from a PR8 site while inthe short term may help,…but all the signs are saying thisis not a long term strategy.

Okay,so what is the best strategy?

Keep EVERYTHING relevant. It is that simple.

Make sure that you only swap or link to sites that arerelevant to the content on your pages. Yes I am suggestinglink exchanging on pages of your site not a links page.
Links pages seem to be being abused. There are rumours thatpages called links, resources or partners are not passingpage rank. You could be wasting your time building linksthat are not giving you any benefits!

Delivering relevant links from relevant content is thefuture.
Look at sites such as www.bbc.co.uk orwww.independent.co.uk. News sites have the right idea.They have 2 or 3 relevant internal links to otherarticles on the same topic or links to internal tools thatare related. These usually can be found at the right handside of the article.
They also then have weblinks or external links to sites ofinterest that are related to the topic. These are relevant!

Another benefit of this is that with a content rich site youcan add hundreds of links quite legitimately and really addsome value both to your Rankings and your users.
With a content-poor site it is difficult, you have to addlink pages or create a links directory. A five page sitewill need to add 10 or 12 good link pages to compete andeven then with algorithm changes, this may not be prudent.

Having a site with 400 pages means you can easily add 3links per page, so you have 1200 link options straight away. Hopefully this explains that relevance runs a close secondto content.

Always bear in mind when writing content that relevant links will not only boost your search engine rankings, but you will also add a service to your visitors.

Jason Hulott is Director of J2 Squared, leading specialists in Internet Consultancy whose specific aim is to drive more revenue to websites. Their main area of focus are the insurance, finance, and automotive industries.

What is The Google Sandbox Effect?

In the age of fair competition you may find it hard to believe that a search engine may hinder the appearance of a new website. This is what is currently believed to be happening on more web servers today. Some programmers have viewed Google as uncomfortable to rank newer websites until they have proven their viability to exist for more than a period of “x” months. Thus the term “Sandbox Effect” applies to the idea that all new websites have their ratings placed in a holding tank until such time is deemed appropriate before a ranking can commence.

However the website is not hindered as much as the links that are reciprocated from other users. Newer links that are created are put on a “probationary” status until again they pickup in rank from other matured sites or placed directly by an ad campaign. The idea behind the hindrance is to prevent a fast ranking to occur on a new website. The usual holding period seems to be between 90 and 120 days before a site would start obtaining rank from reciprocal or back linking.

Some advice has been given to have companies you are going to reciprocate back add your link

first to the website. This may help grandfather your site in, thus reducing the waiting time associated with “new” websites. People have noticed a 0 page rank when first signing up and receiving a bolstering 7 page ranking after 4 months. Why the delay? The fact is, that if people realized how easy it would be to get a high ranking, would that take away the credibility of the engine. It depends on whom you ask, but it does seem to be happening frequently to newer subscribers. Do not discontinue back linking, your rank will eventually appear.

Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.sitetube.com. Visit his website for the latest on planning, building, promoting and maintaining websites

One Way Link Building Strategies

One-way link building is a great way to improve your link popularity and ranking in the search engines. One-way links are more difficult to obtain than traditional reciprocal links, but pay off in securing solid long-term search engine ranking results.

Why Are One-Way Links Helpful?

Link building in general is an important part of making sure your site ranks well in the search engines. Google and many of the other search engines include link popularity as part of the way they evaluate the web pages they include in the search engine databases. Links are seen as a positive "vote" towards the quality of the web page. Each individual page acquires link popularity based on the pages that link to it. Google and Yahoo both have toolbars showing the page rank of pages you visit, so you can use these tools to get a good estimate of your pages' link popularity. It is not necessary to get totally caught up in the minutia of which types of links from which types of pages are the most important. The bottom line is this: acquiring links pointing back to your website, particularly links from sites covering the same or related topics as your

site, is helpful in the overall scheme of search engine ranking.

The big "plus" of one-way links is that you don't have to worry about linking back to a "bad neighborhood". If your site has links pointing back to sites that serve as "link farms" or "free-for-all" sites, you may not gain, and could actually lose page rank. These sites are rarely focused, and tend to have links to and from all different sorts of sites. Since there is no particular topical emphasis here, it is clear to Google and the other search engines that the sole purpose of these sites is to artificially increase the number of links pointing to your site. Since there is no value added for the search engine's users, they in turn give no value to these links.

Another advantage to these focused, one-way links is that they will tend to stay in place. A website that features a link to your site probably does so because that site's owner thinks that their visitors will benefit from the content your site has to offer. Rather than simply trying to manipulate search results, they want to add to the experience of their visitors; you benefit from having a long term link in place. Sites featuring reciprocal links may simply drop your link when it no longer suits their linking strategy.

How Do I Obtain Natural Links?

Building good content helps interest your visitors and keeps them on your website. By becoming an authority on your topic, you will attract more visitors. When another website in essence "votes" for the quality of your website by placing a link pointing back to it, you are obtaining natural linking. The more you can build upon helpful articles, FAQs and white papers, etc., the better reason for visitors to link back to your website because of the quality content.

One-Way Linking Sources

There are a number of ways to get links from other sites back to yours. The most important principle to keep in mind is that you will get the most links when you offer something significant to link to. Think of what you can provide that people will want to link to:

Natural links given from topic-related websites that like your website
Providing free content, such as access to articles, e-books, FAQ's and white papers
Directory links, listed under the category related to your topic
Business directory links, listed under the category related to your topic
Blogs, submitted to a blog directory and archived online
Business associations, listed under the category related to your topic
Newsletter text ads promoting your business, archived online at topic-related websites
Original articles, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites
Original press releases, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites
Original newsletters, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites
White papers, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites
E-books, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites
Free software tools provided with required link back to website

For each of these types of content, you will want to have an active link pointing back to your site. Of course, when creating your own original content, always archive your own work on your website to build your content and increase your own link popularity by growing the number of pages on your website.

The extra value of one-way links is the fact that you are also promoting your website from the listing as well as the active link. Articles, newsletters, white papers, directory and business association links may bring in traffic from visitors who are interested in the description of your website listing.

How Do I Know The Links Are Valid?

To gain the most benefit from your links, the link back to your web page should be one that can be followed by the search engine robots. Plain old text links and image links usually can be followed by the search engine robots. More exotic types of links, like JavaScript links, cannot typically be followed by the search engine robots. When you provide suggested linking code, the simpler the better. Don't be afraid to suggest linking formats to owners of sites that link to you. The types of links that serve your purposes best will generally provide their visitors with the best experience as well.

Check to see if the page where the link will be located can be found in the search engine results. You can search via the entire website or by individual page. Different search engines use different syntax in looking for individual pages and links; refer to the advanced search function for each search engine for details.

Google Search Example:

Shows indexing of all pages listed in website site:www.websitedomainname.com
Shows indexing of a specific web page in website info:www.websitedomainname.com/pagename.html

If the page is listed in the search engine results, this means the page has been indexed by the search engine robots. This means the web page is valid for indexing and that your link will be picked up as well.

Research And Quality Content Equal Success

One-way link building means hard work and long term determination to achieve good link popularity. By improving the quality of your website, you improve the chance to obtain good quality natural links. Spend a set amount of time each week to seek out quality one-way links to achieve your goal. By using this long-term game plan you will be able to safely build links for optimum link popularity success.

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Daria Goetsch is the founder and Search Engine Marketing Consultant for Search Innovation, a Search Engine Promotion company serving small businesses. Besides running her own company, Daria is an associate of WebMama.com, an Internet web marketing strategies company. She has specialized in search engine optimization since 1998, including three years as the Search Engine Specialist for O'Reilly & Associates, a technical book publishing company. You can read more of her articles at the Search Innovation Articles page.

The Great Internet Gold Rush - How You Can Cash in Now!

Never before in history have we had such an opportunity to cash in on the explosive growth of the Internet. Why it's only been a few years since the web really became popular, and now hundreds of thousands of people are connecting to the Internet daily.

Many of these people are like you and I, searching out the ultimate home business. Fortunately for us, the time is here. We now have the opportunity like never before, to sell our products to a worldwide market. In fact, we can even do this without leaving our homes. In my case, my favorite chair; my "Lazy Boy" to be exact!

Perhaps the easiest product to market is Information Products. An item that can be purchased on line and easily downloaded. Information Products include any type of media that someone else would find of value. A good example is a "how to" pamphlet or book. Most of us have some type of interest or hobby that could make us perhaps a subject matter expert, or at least a very informed enthusiast. People everyday are using this knowledge and creating on-line books, otherwise known as eBooks. They are selling these products to others interested in the same type of information and in turn, making gobs of money!

Personally, this is my preferred method. I can either sell my own creation such as en eBook, or sell (through affiliate marketing) some of the many great products already out their. With this method, I can either work from home or from anywhere else in the world. It really doesn't matter. How would you like to run your own business from your mountain top home; or even from your condo in Hawaii? It's entirely possible. In fact, once set up, your business can be completely automated. Work as often or as little as you like.

Many people prefer to market a combination of electronic products and hard copy media. This provides the opportunity to capitalize to those that prefer reading an actual book or manual. Something they can throw in a brief case and read anywhere at their leisure. In this case, the order could still be processed on line but you would have to make a few trips to the post office each week to mail out your product. Either way, it's still a great way to go.

Others prefer to sell tangible products such as wholesale products that can be purchased at huge discounts. These are sold over the Internet and drop shipped from the supplier directly to your customers home. With this method you can market your products through traditional online methods and with your own web site or possibly through the many popular auction services such as eBay.

Regardless of the services offered, online marketing is truly a wide open market. Today, like never before can you market your products to a worldwide audience from the comfort of your home and achieve so much. To your success! Alan

Alan Nelson publishes Home Business Tips, a fresh and Informative newsletter dedicated to supporting people like YOU! If you're looking for the *best rated* home business Opportunities, the latest time saving tools and helpful support from an honest friend in the business, come by and grab a F-R-E-E subscription today at: http://planyourfuture.biz

Optimal Website Design

The idea behind good website design is to offer your viewer a logical flow while making it interesting and easy to navigate.

Lead your viewers to the starting point and then direct them through your site without confusing them.

Here are some excellent tips that can help you develop a user friendly site and please your visitors senses. Give yourself a chance before they get away.

1. Use lots of white space. Don't feel that because you have a whole screen that you need to fill it up with stuff. Your page should follow a clean outline. Include your site name at the very top. Below that list the subject of your page and below that expand on your topic. Leave adequate space between each section. Don't cram a lot of pictures and ads. If you have an ad keep it off to the side or subtly intersperse it between your text. The idea is not to overwhelm your reader.

2. Don't use animation and flashing objects. As advertisers we feel the need to get our viewers attention. This is important but we need to do it gracefully. Flashing objects and scrolling images distract your visitor and take away from the content. If your product is better demonstrated with animation or some other multi-media, allow your viewer to select the option. Don't force it on them.

3. Every page of your site should contain an 'about' link. The internet can be a rather cold and quiet environment. If someone can come to your site and find out about who you are and what you are about, they can feel a little better about doing business with you or taking advice from you. Always include your business address and phone number and email address as well. This lets viewers know that you are serious about your business and that you welcome contact.

4. Include a 'Privacy' Link Viewers like the reassurance that you have a policy that follows privacy guidelines. They want to know that you will not sell or give away their information. In these days of rampant spam, your privacy policy needs to be prominently displayed. Many viewers and business partners won't do business with you unless you have it.

5. Always keep your links in blue. Why does that matter you might say? It's an expectation that viewers have along with the links being underlined. There's certainly no law that says they need to be as such but people spend a lot of time on the internet and it's good practice to keep your navigation consistent and recognizable. If it's not you may lose out on clicks.

6. Keep navigation consistent Keep your site's navigation consistent. What you do on your index page should be done the same way on the rest of your site's pages. Keep the colors consistent as well. Don't force your viewers to relearn each page of your site. Keep your navigation bars and links the same for each page.

7. Understandable buttons and links. Title your links appropriately. Don't use cute or misleading names. For example, if you have a link to sports equipment don't label the link 'Great Outdoors', call it 'sports equipment'. If you have a link to 'cameras' don't label the link 'hotshots', label it 'cameras'. Your viewers don't want to waste time figuring out what things are. Be clear with your labeling.

8. Focus on the 'YOU', not the 'ME'. Make it obviously clear to your readers that you are there for them. What can you do for your reader? What benefits are there for your viewer? How can you make their life or business better or more profitable? Request feedback on their success. Find out what they want to know or how you can offer them what they need.

9. Make sure your page loads fast. If viewers have to wait for a page to load they will click elsewhere. Here's a site that will help you determine how well your page loads. If a page doesn't load in 8 seconds you lose 1/3 of your visitors. Here's a great free tool to help you check your website's load time:



About the Author:

Elizabeth McGee has spent 20 years in the service and support industry. She has moved her expertise to the world wide web helping businesses find trusted tools, enhance customer service, build confidence and increase sales. You can contact Elizabeth at mail@pro-marketing-online.com or visit her website at
http://www.pro-marketing-online.com/