"Search Engine Journal" - 10 new articles
- 2010 Search & Social Awards : Nominate Your Blog!
- Google Gives AdWords a Mobile Interface
- Naveen Jain Interview : Date Check, People Search & Entrepreneurship
- 4 Simple Ways to Speed Up Your Site
- Boost Your SEO Efforts with Effective Traffic-Getting Strategies!
- 70 Seats Left for Search & Social Spring Summit : Register Now
- A Monetization Model Worth Trying: Video CPA
- Weekly Search & Social News: 03/30/2010
- Find More Backlink Opportunities with Site Finder (SEJ tools)
- iPhone and Android Phones' Traffic Rise
- Search Search Engine Journal
2010 Search & Social Awards : Nominate Your Blog!
We're very happy to announce the 2010 Search & Social Awards, the extention of the old SEJ Search Blog Awards, will be held this April to award the best in blogging and media campaigns across the online marketing industry.
For those of you who are new to the format, SEJ will open nominations today in our comments area. We let the readers of SEJ nominate the blogs for the Search & Social Awards by leaving comments or Tweeting.
Then, our panel of bloggers and online marketers will review the nominations, and add some of our own which may have been overlooked.
2010 Search & Social Awards
The 2010 Search & Social Awards are a time for the lessor known search & social media blog to shine, and since Search & Social is the parent company of SEJ, we pull out of the running, and make it a point to share a wide variety of blogs with our readers.
Once all of the nominations are in and the blogs set and categorized, we then hand over the choice of which blogs will win over to the hand of the readers of SEJ and the blogs in the contest. Readers can vote for specific blogs and rate blogs using our voting method.
The blogs with the most votes or higher ratings will win. In the past we've had thousands vote for blogs across different categories, so again, not only is this a time for your search blog to shine … but also to introduce your blog to new readers and RSS sucscribers.
Search Engine Journal / Search & Social is now opening nominations for blogs to be included for this year's Search & Social Awards in the following categories:
Search & Social Blog Awards Categories
- Best SEO Blog
- Best PPC Blog
- Best Search News Blog
- Best Link Building Blog
- Best Web Analytics Blog
- Best ORM Blog
- Best Conversion / CRO Blog
- Best Copywriting Blog
- Best Local Search Blog
- Best Blog about Social Networking and/or Social Media
- Best Social Media Marketing Blog
- Best Affiliate Marketing Blog
- Best Search Marketing Community/Forum
- Best Blog About Facebook
- Best Blog About Twitter
- Best Twitter Background
- Best Use of Twitter
- Best Youtube Channel
- Best Link Bait of 2009/10
There are two ways to nominate.
1. Comments : To nominate blogs, please leave a comment below with the category and your favorite blogs, and a link to the blog :)
2. Tweeting : You can also nominate via Twitter by tweeting :
@sejournal I nominate _______ for _______
Be sure to shorten the URL of the blog if you link to it.
You can nominate as many blogs as you want!
Nominations will be open until April 8th and voting will begin on April 15th
You can also Nominate Categories in the Comments. So if you can think of a cool category, NOMINATE IT!
LIVE Search & Social Awards Ceremony
Here's the kicker, once the nominations are in and the awards voted on (we will have a special page on Search & Social for this) we will be waiting until the Search & Social Spring Summit to announce the winners!
On May 3rd at 6 pm, during our Casino Night Happy Hour, Search & Social will be holding a live awards ceremony to give out the Search & Social Awards and Prizes to the winning bloggers. This is really exciting as we will have a decent amount of bloggers at the conference and will be broadcasting the event live and tweeting it!
And yes … the winners will receive actual prizes from our Sponsors, Search Engine Journal and Search & Social!
So, what are you waiting for? Nominate your favorite blogs or your own to the 2010 Search & Social Awards!
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
2010 Search & Social Awards : Nominate Your Blog!
Google Gives AdWords a Mobile Interface
Google has just rolled out its AdWords for Mobile applications that should run on the iPhone, Android and Palm Pre devices. AdWords for Mobile provides mobile access to your account, key alerts and statistics as well as a facility to make quick changes to your AdWords settings even while on the move.
AdWords for Mobile lets you select parts of your AdWords account that you want to monitor and access using your mobile phones. You can set up custom alerts for key account events such as when you campaing has reached a certain amount of your daily budget or when traffic is dropping substantially. The mobile app also has a link that lets you switch to the desktop interface of your AdWords account in case you need to do major edits to other parts of your AdWords account.
In short, AdWords for mobile will help you better manage your AdWords account and you will no longer have reason to say that you failed to make some changes since you are on the move. Well, unless of course you don't use any of the devices supported by the mobile app.
If you want to try AdWords for mobile, simply point your mobile device's browser to http://adwords.google.com/dashboard/Dashboard.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Google Gives AdWords a Mobile Interface
Naveen Jain Interview : Date Check, People Search & Entrepreneurship
Part of learning about business, search and technology is learning about those who have done well in each respected field. While SEJ generally concentrates on search marketing or search optimization, there are many other fields of search that prove of interest.
People Search is the cornerstone of many different search related business models, from the White Pages of Yahoo & Verizon and the social networks of Facebook & LinkedIn, to the background check platforms of Intelius and other companies. I was reading up on Intellius and saw that the company is branching out beyond traditional personal information checks.
Intellus launched Date Check last year for the iPhone as a practical and interesting application for conducting people searches of potential dates and people you may meet, to be able to find out more about them than you can by Googling their name before establishing a more intimate relationship. Date Check launched with the slogan "Look Up Before You Hook Up"
Today's dating scene is tough to navigate, which is why Intelius developed Date Check, a free mobile app that deciphers fact from fiction in the palm of your hand. Simply enter a name, phone number or email address and instantly get accurate and comprehensive results. With features like Sleaze Detector, Compatibility, $$$, Interests and Living Situation, you can be in the know on the go. "Look up before you hook up."
Here's a video about Date Check … I think it's not only hilarious, but brilliant. Not only did I check it out, but I asked many single friends and colleagues about the tool and they ALL thought it was useful and practical.
I looked into Intelius and Date Check a bit, and got connected with the man behind the company and its vision, Naveen Jain. Naveen has a pretty long history in the world of people search, and his company acquired Spock.com, a people search engine that incorporated social networking features into its people search results. I found this to be a great chance to not just talk to Naveen about his success (which is inspirational to me as an entrepreneur, publisher and a co-founder of a growing tech company with 20+ employees), but also about Date Check and the direction Intelius is going in social and mobile. Here are some excerpts from our conversation.
Hi Naveen, thanks for the time to chat. I've been following you for a while and am quite interested in the direction Intelius is going in. But what interests me more from a business perspective is the formula for success. What things can you attribute to your success?
- Passion – You must be passionate about what you are trying to achieve. It must mean something to you and you must be willing to sacrifice a large part of your waking hours to this purpose. Your passion will ignite the same intensity in others who join your team and help the same cause. Your team members and your customers are more likely to believe in what you are doing because of your passion.
- Focus – Great entrepreneurs see many opportunities where others see nothing; this is a gift but without focus can be the downfall. We can only focus on things that we can control and that means we need to stay focused on our efforts and let the results be what they will be. You have to always remember that most companies die from indigestion rather than starvation i.e. companies suffer from doing too many things at the same time rather than doing too few things.
- Hard Work – Success comes from hard work; there is no such thing as overnight success. Behind every overnight success lies years of hard work and sweat. Even the luckiest people will tell you that there is just no easy way to achieve success. Luck comes to those who work hard. Successful entrepreneurs always give 100% of their efforts to everything they do. There should never be any regret in the outcome if one knows that they are giving it their best effort and leaving no stone unturned.
What are one of the first things you notice when you meet another business professional?
Whether they are humble. Over the years, I have learned that those who are humble typically have accomplished the most in life and have had the realization that its time to focus how YOU can help others. They usually attribute their success to having good timing and luck along with all the hard work and vision they likely had.
Since family is very important to me, there's a common bond with those professionals who share similar values. Regardless of what size company you are CEO of, at the end of the day we are spouses, and parents concerned with the broad issues that impact us globally
How do you see people using social media and Date Check?
We've seen positive success with Date Check our first mobile application…consumers want immediate access to information that can help them make more informed decisions…We plan to expand our mobile offerings into services help Parents keep kids safe, business people more aware of potential partners, and overall verification of credentials
Speaking of family, with Date Check – would you let your daughter use it?
Since my daughter isn't in college yet, she usually uses Date Check to look up her new school friends addresses or if she needs a student or home phone number quickly.
But she really thinks its useful and when she's older and dating it will come in handy
Why is this so important today? Why now instead of before the rise of social networking?
Now people are so accustom to meeting others online with various social networks, or gaming that there's this false sense of "trust" that's emerge and you really have no factual information about this person you may plan to date or give phone number or invite over to your home. Years ago before social networks and online dating, you typically would get more information on the person before "blindly" inviting them over or going on a date. We receive many letters thanking us for Date Check that it reinforces all the situations where this information is helping them live a safer life for them and often their kids.
On SEJ, we write a lot about reputation management and also the sharing of information with business colleagues. For example, I take my Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn and even MySpace accounts very seriously and treat them differently depending on my respected connections in each network.
Can you talk about the need for people to "manage" their online profile in today's increasingly online world?
We've truly entered a new level of transparency in our private and professional lives – thanks to the Internet and the resultant "digitalizing" of information. More and more public records about your life, ranging from education and real estate transactions to social activities and business relationships are now accessible to people. From a personal, professional and safety point of view, it has never been more important than now to effectively "manage your digital footprint."
Whether you're being considered for a job, buying a house, having a child over for a play date or just moving next door to new neighbors, there is now a world of transparency available to give you peace of mind for important aspects of your life.
Intelius equips people with knowledge about their Internet footprint – whether it's through our free People Search, which offers an aggregate profile of what's online about a particular person, or through Identity Protect, which monitors your credit report, address history, aliases, and more, to make sure that you're being accurately depicted online and beyond.
Also, there's always the danger and threat of information being misused. The threat of identity theft is real and growing rapidly. Intelius has specific products, such as a Comprehensive Identity Report and a Real-Time Identity Fraud Watch to provide consumers with proactive means to protective many times can be used for improper purposes – we help people protect themselves from this type of practice.
Backing up a little, what makes a successful entrepreneur today?
That's an interesting question. Openness to change, persistence and thinking without boundaries – both geographically and intellectually are key attributes I would point for being a successful entrepreneur today.
I'll give you a concrete example. My twenty-year old son is one of the founders of a student-led global organization of young business leaders, called Kairos Society founded on the principle that entrepreneurship is the key element to driving world innovation, progress and prosperity. This year, for the second year in a row, they will bring together 500 of world's most promising student entrepreneurs with a select group of world leaders for two days of discussion, relationship building, mentoring and idea exchange.
Entrepreneurship then is essential built on a foundation of openness and sharing of ideas, constant learning, building relationships and execution. That's what's happened with the Kairos Society in just two years. Let's face it a group of college kids who have built a global organization that attracts speakers such as Bill Clinton, Phil Condit of Boeing and Bill Gates Sr. in less than two years is remarkable. These young people have truly demonstrated entrepreneurship in what they've accomplished. So one word of additional advice to aspiring entrepreneurs – listen to and watch what young people are doing these days. You can learn a lot by being a mentor to this up and coming generation of entrepreneurs.
On your website, you devote considerable time to philanthropy and "giving back to the community," can you elaborate on these concepts and why they're so important to you?
Over the past two years, when many corporations were cutting back on charitable giving because of the difficult economy, we've significantly increased our contributions. Quite simply, when our country has an unprecedented number of people in need, we felt it's our responsibility to step up when others are forced to step back.
Groups who received gifts from Intelius include a mix of nonprofits supporting education, healthcare, youth and family issues. We've been listed among the top 15 Corporate Philanthropists in the greater Puget Sound area. Among the community organizations that have benefited from their activities are: The United Way, Children's Hospital, Hope Link, Tree House, Boys and Girls Club, The America India Foundation, Vedic Cultural Center, Seattle Art Museum, Children Rights & You and the Bellevue School Foundation. In fact, our family foundation, this year, the Ana & Naveen Jain Foundation will hope to be among the Top 60 in the United States, the only one founded by an immigrant from India or Southeast Asia.
We hope to match or increase our contributions as a corporation while also encouraging the giving spirit in its employees. In order to achieve this, we've developed programs to help employees own a personal stake in the philanthropic success of the company, including:
- A corporate matching program. Employees can donate and Intelius will match up to $250 annually to a qualified charity of the employee's choice.
- Paid volunteerism. Intelius will grant employees paid leave to volunteer with their favorite charities.
- My philosophy has always been "doing well by doing good." Like any company we want to be financially successful, but more important than that-we never want to lose sight of our core values and the understanding that we are only as good and productive as the communities we do business in.
And the results are multiple, including employees who are truly proud and energized to be associated with such an organization.
Can you talk about the concepts of "trust" and "humility" and why they are so important to how you run Intelius?
CEOs, it seems, have a natural tendency is to attract likeminded passionate workers. A sense of humility and an awareness of one's own limitations help a CEO resist the temptation of being surrounded by "yes-men" who are more interested in telling you what they think you want to hear. As CEO, I need to welcome ideas different from mine and ensure I build a trusted culture where employees see this benefiting the company and the individuals. Another benefit, as mentioned earlier, is that the humble CEO also gets out of the way of his team. Employees than thinks more like entrepreneurs and are more self-reliant because they aren't depending on the CEO to solve every problem. Employees must trust their bosses to provide intelligent leadership, but leaders must be humble enough so they aren't stunting their employees' entrepreneurialism and intelligence through micro-management, the inability to hear bad news or a misguided sense of infallibility.
At Intelius, I can tell you that trust and humility have certainly driven us to be far more customer-centric then we were when we first started the company six years ago. We've increased our customer services capabilities seven-fold and the result is today our Intelius Screening Solutions is ranked #1 overall in the category of employment screening services by HRO Today Magazine.
How important are these concepts to both your and Intelius' overall success?
Our customers rely on Intelius to help them decide whom to trust with the most important parts of their lives, whether that's their children, their finances or their marriages. We must hold ourselves to the highest possible standard of trust and integrity that's the very thing we are delivering to our customers in millions of transactions daily.
As I've said before in a number of interviews, the foundation of a successful entrepreneur is based on three things: integrity, education and humility. That's how I've built my own career starting at Microsoft and that's also how we've built our company's success. With this foundation, we've also built Intelius' success on maintaining our focus, executing on our plan and also working hard to continually upgrade our customer service and reinforce a high level of trust with our customers, truly enjoying what we're doing here.
We built Intelius to be a visionary company that also conducts all its business practices with a high degree of transparency and integrity, and with great respect for individuals' privacy. As I mentioned earlier, we've worked hard to gain the highest qualifications in our industry that acknowledge customer service and consumer. We've assembled a very high quality Board of Directors who strongly support our activities here. And we've made our services available to intelligence agencies, the US military and others who can properly use our resources for positive purposes.
What's your outlook for Intelius going forward – what kind of company will it be in 10 years' time?
I think we're sitting at the center of societies is being transformed around the world by the open access to information of all kind. All of us, in our personal and business lives will have to adapt to this new transparency and accessibility of data – and it's already begun. From a personal, professional and family perspective, there has never been a time where it is absolutely essential to "Manage Your Digital Footprint" – and Intelius offers the most advanced, comprehensive customized solutions to address this issue in a very customer friendly way.
Two goals I would set out for Intelius going forward are the following: first, continue to be recognized as a visionary in this new global "community of information" which is growing each day and is empowering people to make better, more informed decisions. We have to do this by being entrepreneurial and implementing new ideas quickly. Second, maintain customers' trust in everything we do, from continuing to build up customer service to being very responsive to their needs and concerns.
It's a challenging time for many people who did not grow up with this new world of transparency, but it is the new a reality for all of us. My hope is that Intelius becomes known as an innovative and reliable partner for people trying to manage their affairs in this new, global, transparent world. The array of products we'll be able to introduce in the coming years is literally endless. But my hope is that along with business success we also achieve a level of esteem and trust among our customers that is equal to the great global brands.
Thank you for your time Naveen. I've learned a good amount from this interview and I'm sure our readers, who are a majority of entrepreneurs in the fields of search marketing and social media will find some inspiration as well.
Thank you Loren.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Naveen Jain Interview : Date Check, People Search & Entrepreneurship
4 Simple Ways to Speed Up Your Site
As a user nothing can be more frustrating than waiting for a site to load. So when I saw a video near the end of 2009 I was excited to see that Google would be taking site speed into consideration, giving credit to sites that load fast and penalizing those that load slowly. I have to agree with Matt Cutts in the video when he says "The web should be fast". The Internet should snap and respond quickly. So if you have clients with slow load time here is a short simple list to get started:
1. Use Flash Sparingly
I personally think flash is pretty cool. There are a lot of amazing things that can be done with it. But as with most good things, too much can be a bad thing. If a webpage is loaded with flash it can take some time to load. It is possible to build a site without flash, but if you must use it treat it as salt. Only to enhance, never to overpower. Should you choose to use flash heavily I'd compress the files as much as you can so they can load faster.
This last sentence about flash is more of a recent frustration but I think it still holds true.
As a side note, if you don't have a link for visitors to update their flash player please add it. Nothing is more frustrating to me than visiting a website and having to go find what I need in order to enjoy the contents on said website.
My first experience with compressing images was a brutal one. I worked for a non-profit who sends numerous teams internationally to provide medical care. And each team that returned had at least a thousand photos. By this point they had a 'designated web guy', me, to crop and upload the photos. So when I got in to work and had 50 CDs full of photos waiting for me, I panicked a bit. Thankfully I only had to upload 50 photos from each team. But I quickly learned a few things about image load time:
- Be sure the dimensions for all images/photos is set within the code
- If thumbnails are used, set them to open in a new tab when clicked
In case the full size is really big the user can click the previous tab to browse while it is loading
- If the file is missing either find it, or remove the spot where the image is supposed to be
- When you have a lot of photos consider using something like Flickr
We had pretty good success with Flickr, but I have heard some who did not. What has been your experience?
There was initial resistance to use thumbnails, but as most things, once the administration experienced our site without thumbnails a unanimous decision was made to use them. While these pages I worked with weren't meant to be landing pages, I did learn to integrate images efficiently.
3. Less Cookies
If you didn't hear, Sesame Street taught Cookie Monster that cookies are a 'sometime' food. As funny as it may seem, we can learn something from this. If it is possible, reduce the amount of cookies on your site. This isn't because of the cookies you've got, but you don't know how many cookies that user's particular browser has already 'eaten'. A user can set his/her browser to accept/reject cookies, but then it is up to you to make sure they can access the site should they choose to not accept the cookie. No sense feeding someone that doesn't want to be fed right? As with flash, minimize the amount of cookies and make it possible for users to enjoy your site whether they accept the cookies or not.
4. Less Widgets
Ah widgets, I remember the first time I learned how to add widgets to my website. By the time I was done I had 20 or so lining the right and left sides of my site. I was excited, then a friend from college called me, "Dude, your site is taking forever. What's up?" I was on a pretty quick connection so I didn't notice, but when I tried accessing my site on a slower connection, I realized it was taking a little long to load, around 15 seconds. So I took a second look and decided to reduce the number of widgets. Presently I've got 5 located on the right side of my site. Just in case you are debating about adding widgets consider the following:
- How many do I presently have?
- Which do I need?
- How will this widget enhance the experience on my site?
As with the previous methods to quicken loading time, too much can be a bad thing.
Hmm, there seems to be a common theme throughout these tips. Too much can slow a site down. No matter what connection speed a user is on, the internet experience should be the same for everyone. It's one thing to have a site that has the right information a user is looking for, but if that site takes too long said user will settle for a faster site that might not have the 'perfect content'. Sites can have a lot of information to provide users, and they can have a lot of things to entertain. When the two come together it's best to have a good ratio so the experience is enjoyable.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
4 Simple Ways to Speed Up Your Site
Boost Your SEO Efforts with Effective Traffic-Getting Strategies!
In many ways, being an in-house SEO is like working on your own site. You will develop a personal relationship with the website/s you are responsible for. Actually this is the only way to work. If you don't feel at least a little passion for what you're doing then you're in the wrong job.
And speaking of passion, we need to talk about getting traffic. Now that may be what you consider 'outside' your in-house SEO duties, but since the art of true SEO will result in a huge increase in traffic, using any ethical tactics you can to bring more traffic will only make you more indespensable as a member of your company team.
The newer your website the more important it is to try and find other ways of getting eyeballs to your site, because:
- SEO only improves with time (meaning you may not get the traffic you need to begin with)
- Some of us (me included) believe that Google includes traffic as a metric when ranking sites.
Unfortunately though, many of the schemes for getting traffic (and there are thousands) include strategies that are, at best, ineffective, and at worst may get you into serious hot water with Google.
So here are some good ideas for getting more traffic–all ethical and above-board. Most of these strategies also have the added bonus of creating community (very important for successful business) as well as extending your brand reach.
Links into Your Site
I can hear groans here: yes we always come back to the issues of creating valuable incoming links for your site. But quite simply, you need links if you want to get out in front–including for traffic. A good blog is one way of creating links fast–especially if some of your content can be categorized as Link Bait ! Most of the strategies that follow create backlinks as well as traffic.
Create a Blog
If the company website is static, then it's a really good idea to add a blog so that you have an easy way of adding fresh content on a regular basis. WordPress is by far the easiest and most rewarding system for allowing members of the team to add content simply and effectively. Creating a blog can take a boring website to a completely different level.
You may be thinking that this will be a lot of work–and there is work involved–but you can dramatically lighten the load if you invite other, qualified writers to guest post for you.
RSS
This one is obvious but it's amazing how many people are not taking full advantage of their potential traffic from RSS. If you have a blog you need a way for people to sign up so they can be reminded when you post fresh content. Make sure it's really easy (and obvious) to sign up for your site's RSS feed.
Video and Audio Content
Video is all the rage now, and you may be wondering why so many websites are going to such great lengths to post videos on their website. The truth is, people love media files. Audio is fantastic but Video is simply out of this world for creating buzz, community and brand identity. If you have created a video for your website though, don't just post it on your site. Post it on YouTube.com and other video hosting sites–and watch your traffic take off. If you have a video worth watching you'll be amazed at how much extra traffic you'll get from YouTube–not to mention valuable links back to your site.
Create a List
If you don't have some way for people to sign up for a list on your website you're wasting a huge opportunity. A list is a way of communicating with your target market, letting them know about developments and special offers, and getting them to pass the word on to people they know. Tip: offer a gift in return for a set number of introductions (say five signups in return for a valuable report or video).
Members Area
Just about all truly successful websites have some form of members area where those who sign up can take advantage of resources and/or applications that are truly of value. The emphasis being on value. Offer your members something they'll be able to use again and again and you'll have a captive audience. You can get people to sign up to start with by offering them a free gift, also of value.
Launch Your Site
If you are planning significant changes and improvements on your website you can set a day for a launch, and provide a way for people to sign up to be part of the launch one way or another. Some of the ways you can make your launch special includes:
- Have a draw, offering free services or some other prize.
- Have some kind of a joint venture with another, compatible business. An example of this would be McDonald's partnering with Pepsi or Coke.
- Offer coupons for potential customers via your launch newsletter (great way to get people to sign up).
- Keep friends and customers informed about your launch via social media, particularly Twitter. On Facebook, you can start a group and a fan page–this can result in a dramatic increase in traffic.
Feeder Sites
Creating sites that provide links back to your main website is a great idea for many reasons. Out of this you get backlinks, traffic, and you create a wider net to draw more traffic.
You can create your own websites as feeder sites, using keyword domains, or you can make use of free networks such as wikis (and if you're not sure what a wiki is, here's an explanation), Squidoo, and Spruz, to name just a few. There are hundreds of options out there.
Forums
Starting a forum for people who'd like to discuss ideas or anything about your niche can be a superb traffic-creation plan. Again, it needs a little work but once you have everything set up, you can appoint a few moderators and the thing might well need next -to-no upkeep. This is a wonderful way to build community as well as extend your brand reach too.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Boost Your SEO Efforts with Effective Traffic-Getting Strategies!
70 Seats Left for Search & Social Spring Summit : Register Now
Only 70 seats are left for Search & Social Spring Summit (formerly IM Spring Break), the OFFICIAL Conference of Search Engine Journal, which is to be held in Tampa, FL May 3rd and 4th. With 70 seats left, low ticket prices, an increible speaking lineup, 3 meals a day & lots of snacks, nonstop networking events and free shuttle to and from the airport, you will not want to miss out on Search & Social Spring Summit 2010.
Search & Social Spring Summit is one of the most cost effective conferences in the search & social media marketing space with a ticket cost of only $525 for the two day event. Top industry experts have been recruited to give the best information in topics, trends, strategies and possibilities.
There are only 70 seats left and 34 days to register until S&S Spring Summit!
Search & Social Spring Summit Speakers include :
- Greg Boser Founder, WebGuerrilla, LLC
- Tony Adam of MySpace
- Rae Hoffman, CEO of Outspoken Media
- Neal Rodriguez, SEO for the Nielsen Company
- Chris Winfield, President of 10e20
- Brent Csutoras, Social Media Marketing Expert
- Dave Szetela, SEO of Clix Marketing
- More Search & Social Summit Speakers
Search & Social Spring Summit will of course be moderated by the founders of Search & Social and Search Engine Journal :
- Loren Baker
- Jordan Kasteler
- Dave Snyder
Attendees can expect to learn, at this affordable conference, the latest trends and successful marketing approaches by speakers who are headliners at other conferences costing a thousand dollars or more. With a waterfront view and in an air-conditioned outdoor complex, it will be exclusive to the first 120 registrants : Register Now.
Business Networking Events
Along with the content driven sessions at Search & Social Spring Summit, which are perfect for the beginning online marketer to the advanced SEO, Search & Social Spring Summit hosts day long networking events & group workshops for the limited 140 seat conference so you will leave with business connections in affiliate marketing, social media marketing, online reputation management, paid search and search engine optimization. In summary, the connections you make at Search & Social Spring Summit will forge long term trusted business relationships and friendships.
Networking events include :
- Fully catered Breakfasts, Lunches & Group dinners (all included with event ticket)
- Casino Night with various Casino Games, Dealers and Prizes
- Poolside Luau Night with a Calypso Band and Catered Goodies
- Group Workshops between sessions
- VIP Sushi Party
- Open Bar Happy Hours and Session Bar stocked with Link Juice
Location & Venue
The Search & Social Spring Summit 2010 will be held at the Doubletree Guest Suites in Tampa, FL on May 3-4, 2010. Special conference rates are just $109 per night for the suites, which include a kitchenette area, living & meeting area and separate bedroom.
The waterfront Doubletree Guest Suites in Tampa Include :
- Complimentary 24-Hour Business Center
- Complimentary Airport and Local Transportation
- Heated, Outdoor Pool that overlooks the Old Tampa Bay Wildlife Preserve – a feeding area of Dolphins & Manatee
- 24-hour fitness center
- Waterfront Location with Bay View Suites
For additional information and to purchase tickets, please visit SearchSocialSummit.com.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
70 Seats Left for Search & Social Spring Summit : Register Now
A Monetization Model Worth Trying: Video CPA
Being in online marketing for a bit more than two years, I am now at that stage when getting traffic and promoting a resource is not a problem any more: I can do that pretty quickly and easily.
What is still the problem is building a solid monetization plan. So far what I've been earning from was from selling my services. I still have yet to learn to earn from monetizing my (multiple) web sites effectively.
Therefore exploring various monetization models is so important to me.
Today I'd like you to share your opinion on the model I plan to try: video cost per action.
I have discovered this site specializing in video CPA – Video Performance Network – and it looks and sounds very promising.
Here's how the process looks:
- Fill in the application;
- Get approved (the service seem to be open to all countries and all niches);
- Preview the videos you'd like to run, grab some simple code, and embed it on your site just like you do for a banner;
- Get paid on a CPA basis when anyone clicks through from the video and goes to the Advertiser landing page.
In the past, if you wanted to run video on your site and get paid for it, you had to integrate a certain type of player specified by an ad network. You usually did not get to choose what type of videos were displayed on your site, and you had no say in what kind of payout you received for playing someone else's video on your site. Video Performance Network has changed all of that. Now, for the first time ever, any Affiliate or Publisher can run Video Ads on their sites, and get paid on a CPA basis
I am wondering how effective this model is and what are the advantages (and maybe the pitfalls) of the model?
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
A Monetization Model Worth Trying: Video CPA
Weekly Search & Social News: 03/30/2010
Welcome to another edition of '7 Days of Search and Social' – I hope it finds you well. Once again, like the Trademark guy before it, the SEO world got together again last week. This time it was the drama that was the 'Verfied SEO Affair'. That one leads the way this week. Even Bill (Slawski) was taking a stand – a fiesty bunch we be! And hey, there are even the usual collection of informative and entertaining posts as always…
I hope you find something of use… or a giggle even.
Lead Story
Verify This
It was probably a no brainer that the adventure of Verified SEO was the lead story this week. For those that missed out, there was a firestorm of a response to a fella that was selling a service to 'verify' us for the general public's benefit.
Of course the problem is that no one had ever even heard of Mr. Preston and he most certainly wasn't someone we wanted speaking for us. Great scam if you can get it. Pay $99/month and give them (an SEO company) your client info for them to contact.
Some details;
- Original Sphinn thread that started it all – Sphinn
- Peek a Boo I see you! – Tim Nash
- VERIFIED SEO – An Open Challenge – SEO Bullshit
I had a great time watching this fiasco and it warms the heart to see the SEO community get together en masse for a cause. It is these types of situations that bring us together in what is generally a clique-ish world in this thing of ours.
Great fun… now on with the serious stuff…
Quick Nav Links – Talk of the Town – Geek Central – Social Search – Local SEO – Videos – Tools – Patents -
Talk of the town
Best Practices for Building Scalable Information Architecture – is a post from old school trouble maker Terry VanHorne. Some great stuff for the geeky. IA is an area I am personally bullish on.
Site links for directory structures; concepts in IA – speaking of IA, hehe, I had a post on the Trail that looks at how Google can give site links for directories, not just sub-domain approaches. A small, but valuable post (IMO).
Good SEO – Bill (Slawski) had another non-patent speak post last week. I am really starting to enjoy these. He looks at making the case for value in good SEO practices, not that crap-hat approach we all get saddled with.
Will My SEO Company End Up Competing With Me? – Barry was reporting on a WMW thread where a website owner that hired an SEO, worried that they would some day compete with him.
Top 100+ Link Building Resources – A great round up from Kristi over at VM. There are a ton of links and resources on this one… def worth bookmarking considering many SEOs consider link building to be their weak spot.
5 Reasons To Make Sure You're Deep Linking – while I hope that we all know the value of (and purpose for) deep links, it can't hurt to have a good refresher course now and again. A good read and even an old horse like me can use posts like this :0)
My Google Local Presentation From Think Visibility 2010 – Tom Critchlow posted his excellent presentation from the recent ThinVis conference. It's almost as good as being there…or at least cheaper than travelling to the UK :0)
Internal Linking Tactics For Users & Search Engines – seriously, if you're not up to speed on the benefits of internal linkage, get on it. This post is a good warm up or reminders for the pros, on just that.
When SEO Is Not Really SEO – Alan releases a semi-rant on the topic of half assed SEO. It is a fact of life that there needs to be the time and resources to do SEO well… you can't just fake it. Nuff said.
Google Gains Try Again Button For Discussion Results – was an interesting development over at Google that does some dynamic query revisions when you bounce back to the original SERP. Will we see this expanded? Only time will tell.
Surviving a Site Migration [An SEO's Guide] – this is one area that is VERY important. Doing a site migration can cause a TON of problems when not done right. A good round up of potential areas of interest… Read it, learn it.. master it! You will need it some day.
Are you using microformats & rich snippets to increase clickthrough rates and traffic? – yup, I'm at it again. As any long time reader would know, microformats are something I am on about a lot. The WordTracker blog had an interesting post on CTR around them. A worthy read.
Qualifying SEO clients; keeping Pareto at bay – was a post from yours truly over on SEJ that looks at the problem of trouble clients and how one can (hopefully) avoid them with some diligence at the time of sales.
Qualifying Your SEO Clients: The Intangibles – is a follow up post from Anthony to my Qualifying Clients post on SEJ. Good stuff too…
Is Alexa Relevant in 2010? – was the question Aaron was looking at over on the SEO Book blog. For me, I tend to consider as many different data sources as I can get my hands on.
Quick Nav Links – Talk of the Town – Geek Central – Social Search – Local SEO – Videos – Tools – Patents - Search Geek Central
Quick Nav Links – Talk of the Town – Geek Central – Social Search – Local SEO – Videos – Tools – Patents -
Search Patents
Yahoo
Microsoft
Calculating web page importance based on web behaviour model
/end SOSG session
Quick Nav Links – Talk of the Town – Geek Central – Social Search – Local SEO – Videos – Tools – Patents - Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Weekly Search & Social News: 03/30/2010
Find More Backlink Opportunities with Site Finder (SEJ tools)
One of the most tedious link building tasks is looking for backlink opportunities. There may be plenty of ways to do that but the first thing I usually do is learning who links to my competitors.
This way I both get a deeper look into the niche, analyze competitors' link building tactics and find some backlink opportunities for myself.
The easiest way to start is to actually grab the top ten domains ranked first for your main keyword and research their backlinks using your favorite backlink checker.
This is exactly what Site Finder, one of the most useful features inside SEJ Tools, does.
Site Finder allows you to enter a keyword phrase and then it automatically finds and ranks domains that link to the top ten Google results for that keyword phrase. It then uses a combination of ranking factors to determine how valuable a link from one of the returned domains would be to your site…
So, just give it your main key phrase and the tool will return the table containing the following data:
- Domain name of your potential backlink provider;
- The site "quality" (represents the summary of the below listed metrics);
- Connections (number of competitors the site links to);
- ACRank (powered by MajesticSEO);
- mozRank (powered by SEOmoz);
- Page authority;
- Backlinks (Number of backlinks from that page).
You can hide any of the metrics:
You can also configure the number of rows displayed per page or use the search option to filter the table by a keyword.
Additionally, you can also hide any of the lines or add it to the link manager.
You can also see the list of your top competitors and some summarizing data for each of them (like Google position and retrieved backlinks):
Lastly, you can export the whole table to a CSV or a PDF file.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Find More Backlink Opportunities with Site Finder (SEJ tools)
iPhone and Android Phones' Traffic Rise
Mobile Metrics firm Admob's February report is showing some interesting trend in the mobile market today. Specifically, Admob's report indicates that smartphone's worldwide traffic is rising with February's market share growing to 48% in February 2010 as compared to 35% in the same month last year. In addition and perhaps more interestingly, worldwide traffic of the iPhone OS and Android phones is quite significant not to take notice of.
iPhone's share of request in February 2010 increased to 50% from 33% last year. Quite significantly, the Android's share of traffic all of a sudden jumped to as much as 24% from its mere 2% share in February 2009. The bad news fell on Symbian OS as its worldwide traffic decrease from 43% to 18%.
For feature phones, or those regular phones that don't fall under the smartphone category, the trend was also decreasing – from 58% to 35%.
While this may show that both the iPhone OS and Android devices are gaining grounds and may seem the new black in the smartphone industry, this does not however reflect market shares of these smartphones. Hence, it's no indication of the smartphone's market success.
Still, the fact remains that both these smartphones are showing positive signs of eventually capturing the smartphone market. And if Symbian wants to retain its previous clout in the industry, it must introduced some drastic changes to what it can offer to users.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
iPhone and Android Phones' Traffic Rise
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miércoles, 31 de marzo de 2010
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