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Archive for December 29, 2009

bikram | December 29, 2009
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SEO and HTML 5

Prepare a farewell script and practice it. It is time to give a tight hug and bid farewell to HTML 4.01. It’s time to extend your arms to welcome HTML 5. It is going to make coding easy for web developers and easy-to-understand for SEO guys.

With HTML 5 the webpage will be free of multiple usages of <div> elements. Many new elements have been added to HTML5 that will make the use of <div ID=”ABC”> and <div class=”XYZ”> redundant.

Diff between HTML 4.1 and HTML 5

A typical Content layout in HTML 4.1 looks like:

<body>

<div id=”header”> …</div>

<div id=”nav”> …</div>

<div class=”article”> …</div>

<div class=”section”> …</div>

<div id=”sidebar”> …</div>

<div id=”footer”> …</div>

</body>

Content layout in HTML 5

<body>

<header>…</header>

<nav>…</nav>

<article>

<section>

        <h1>Level 1</h1>
        <section>
        <h1>Level 2</h1>
        <section>
        <h1>Level 3</h1>
        </section>

</section>

</section>

</article>

<aside>…</aside>

<footer>…</footer>

</body>

Tags like <video> and <audio> will help you imbed your audio and video files directly in your HTML pages, which means more control on how they appear on your web page.

A new <header> tag has been announced that gives more flexibility. It works similar to <H1> tag, but <header> will contain more elements like h1, h2, h3, a complete paragraph of text, hard-coded links, etc. It’s a blessing for SEO people.

This was just a brief overview of what will change once HTML 5.0 will become the standard. Lot many things will change, which we can witness only when it will be up and running. I am excited about it, and what about you? Are you also waiting for it as impatiently as I am? Share your view, I am all ears.

Category: SEO | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | December 27, 2009
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Top 10 Most-Visited Websites of 2009

The eventful year of 2009 is about to wrap up, and it is time to analyze what has happened in the year passed by (well about to pass by). Experian Hitwise has done a study of the most-visited websites of 2009, and to no one’s surprise Google.com is the most searched website second year in the row and mail.yahoo.com is the second most searched website for the second consecutive year in 2009 as well.

Google.com got 6.70% of the total US traffic between January and November 2009, whereas, Yahoo mail got 4.44% visits. Facebook with 4.26% was at number 3 and Yahoo.com was at number 4 with 3.36% of the total US traffic between the said period. MySpace.com settled on number 5 with 3% of the total visits. Yahoo Search was on 8th Position. As we can see Google got just one listing in top 10, whereas, Yahoo has three. See the table below for the rest.

Category: Technology | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | December 27, 2009
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5 More Online Marketing Tools

In the last article, we talked five online marketing tools that you can use to promote your product online. In this article, I will talk about 5 more such tools. These tools will help you fetch more traffic to your website and will give you backlinks as well.

Article marketing

Writing articles and posting it on article directories like ezinearticles is a good way to bring traffic to your website. The more articles you write the more channels you are opening for your prospective customers to come and pay a visit to your website.

Video Marketing

With the increase of network speed and computing power, the demand for multimedia contents increased. And more and more multimedia content provider started supplying with free video contents to visitors. You can also join the league and use this tool to not only pull the visitors, but also to establish yourself as an expert in your domain.

Podcasting and audio articles

Like video content, you can also use free podcasts to establish your domain. Podcast and audio articles have seen significant increase in reach. You can use this channel to promote your product and establish yourself as the leader in your chosen field.

E-mail Marketing

Permission-based e-mail marketing is a wonderful tool to use to reach to your target audience. By reaching to the e-mail box of those who want to hear from you, you will create a perfect atmosphere to promote your product, as your audience has given undivided attention to you.

Blogging

Blogging is a nice way to establish credibility in the market. By posting relevant content on ongoing basis, you will not only keep your visitors apprised of recent development in your niche, but you will also better your ranking in the search engine. This is a nice tool to use to promote your business and establish yourself in your niche.

Category: Marketing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | December 25, 2009
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5 Online Marketing Tools

When it comes to marketing, every medium has its own set of tools, and the Internet is no different. You need to know about these tools in order to succeed on the Internet. It may sound simple, but it is not simple. Many people err at this, and they resort to old-world tools, which are incompatible to the new media. In this post, I will talk about 5 online marketing tools that we can use.

Keyword research

Everything on the Internet begins with keyword research as keywords are the basic building block of the Internet. People search for keywords, web master develop websites around keywords, and marketer use them to place their products.

Link building

If keyword is the most basic tool a marketer uses to market his product, links are among the most prized possession on the Internet. Every marketer aspires to get as many links to their website as they can within the given budget. A Link is like a door that brings the visitors from other website, and the more doors you will have the more visitors you will get.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

No matter how much money you pay to bring visitors and what mean do you use, it cannot compete with the number of visitors one get because of your being number one in a search engine. Traffic from PPC and other form of ads are expensive, but organic traffic is priceless.

Web design conversion

How you place different elements of your website on different places will decide the conversion rate of the visitors. You do not need just the visitor to make money, you need visitors who make purchase. A carefully designed web site helps you in that.

PPC (Pay per Click) marketing

If you need immediate results PPC is the tool to use. It does not require months to show results, and if proper keywords are chosen, it can bring quality traffic. You cannot discount the efficacy of this tool.

Category: Marketing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | December 25, 2009
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Facebook Replaces MySpace to Become the Most Searched Term of 2009

According to a study conducted by Experian Hitwise, it was found that Facebook is the most searched term for 2009. The online research firm has made a list of the top 300 search terms from January 2009 to November 2009.

MySpace, which was at number on in 2008 has slipped to 2nd position, whereas, Facebook which was number 10th in the list in 2008 has climbed up to number one slot in 2009. This has been a big leap for this social networking site.

This may be taken as an indication of growing popularity of Facebook, and falling importance of MySpace. Facebook received 0.67 percent of total searches in 2009, whereas, social networking sites and related terms had 2.48 percent share of top 300 searched terms in 2009.

Another major change was with the search volume of eBay. In 2008, it was 3rd most searched term on the Internet, whereas it has fallen to 8tt position in 2009. YouTube at number 4th was the new entry in the top 10 list. (See figure)

Category: Marketing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | December 23, 2009
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How to Create a PPC Campaign

If done properly, a PPC (Pay per Click) campaign can be very cost effective in bringing in targeted traffic to your website. You need to be methodological in your approach while creating a PPC campaign. This will help you create a system that could be duplicated campaign after campaign. Creating a PPC campaign is a five-step process, which I am going to discuss below:

Step 1: Make a budget

Budgeting should be the first step of whatever marketing activity you undertake because resources are always limited, and you would not like to spread your budget too thin. Make a budget stick to it, and do not get carried away. Make a monthly budget and then break it down to weekly then daily. Seeing the nature of the Internet, it is required to make a daily budget. Make sure, you are earning money and not wasting it.

Step 2: Brand identity

Construct an Identity for your brand. You will need a strong brand identity to clearly define what you need to say and what kind of customers you need. You should have your brand identity system handy before you build a PPC Campaign.

Step 3: Get keyword

Define your keywords more tightly, and do not use any non-commercial keywords. I am advising against using non-commercial keywords because PPC costs money, and you would not like to pull freebie hunters through your campaign.

Step 4: Write an effective copy

Your PPC ad will be clicked or not depends upon the power of your advertising copy. Your copy should reflect the product or services you are offering. You should also be careful about word usage. Some words are more effective than others. Run a split-test before moving the campaign live.

Step 5: Make it live and monitor

What is not monitor has not been achieved. You need to monitor every critical aspect of your PPC campaign. See what is working and what is not. Do away with ineffective element and duplicate the elements that are working.

Conclusion

You need to carefully consider every step while creating a PPC campaign. Always keep an eye on Click-through rate (CTR). You can increase your CTR by minor tweaking. For that, all you need to do is experiment.

Category: Marketing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | December 13, 2009
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Advantage of Setting up a PPC Campaign

In the previous articles, What is PPC advertising and When to Use PPC Campaign, we talked about the basics of Pay per Click advertising campaign. In this part, my goal is to tell you about various benefits that a PPC campaign has to offer, which search engine optimization (SEO) cannot meet.

Benefit of PPC campaign

  • In most of the search engines top 3 positions (yellowed ones) and the vertical right listing (under sponsored links) of the SERP belongs to PPC advertiser. Unlike in SEO, you can control where your website’s URL will appear on the SERP.
  • If you are using PPC campaign to promote your business then you are not limited by SEO rules to design your website. You can use whatever ways to make your website look good.
  • You can control the page titles, and Meta description that appears on the SERP. You are creating the ad, so you can put whatever you want. You can optimize your title and description to match the landing page or the search query.
  • Tracking is easy. If you use PPC campaign then you do not have to indulge in guess work. You are given all the tools required to track the efficacy and effectiveness of the ads and the campaign.
  • PPC advertising works similar to the traditional advertising medium, therefore selling this concept to the company’s management is easy.
  • Setting up a PPC campaign does not take long. It can happen just in hours.
  • And most importantly most of the users cannot differentiate between a paid listing and organic listing.

In the next blog post, I will talk about the disadvantages of PPC campaign, and why one should be cautious while using PPC to promote one’s business. You need to look at both sides of the picture, before making any decision.

Category: Articles | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | December 13, 2009
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5 E-mail List Building Tips

Building list is the biggest favor you can do to your business. This is the lifeblood of your business, but some people messes with it quite often. They forget to do simple things that help the marketer increase their reach and effectiveness of their list building effort. In this article, I will share five little secrets of list building secrets.

  1. Always add subscription form and link near the top (above the fold) of the website. Giving it a prominent position on the website will increase the sign-up rate. Keep the sign-up process very simple. Use maximum of 2 steps to the process.
  2. Do not tempt the user by glossy ads and poor freebie. If you want to retain the interest of your subscriber long after they have downloaded the freebie then offer them a high-quality freebie. Crappy material will force them to push SPAM button.
  3. Do not address the receiver with “Dear reader” salutation. Add name of the subscriber, his e-mail address, and other details that you collected from him. Strike a personal conversation with your subscriber. No one likes one-to-many talks.
  4. Take a regular backup of your e-mail lists, and store the backup in more than 3 places. You would not like to lose the list which took so much of effort to build.
  5. Do not SPAM your subscribers. Only send them relevant offers. There is no need to push creepy affiliate products. One creepy affiliate product pushes off at least 10 quality subscribers.

Bonus Tips

  1. Build a rapport then sell. Do not start selling immediately. You need to build credibility by providing useful information before you can offer a product or service to your visitors.
  2. You can also use your list to ask your subscribers about their need. This will give you a fair idea about requirement.
Category: Uncategorized |
bikram | December 12, 2009
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When to Use PPC Campaign?

SEO is very important for the success of your website, but there are times when SEO will do no good. One such situation is the time when you need immediate result. SEO cannot give that because this thing takes time. What are the other situations when you need to use PPC campaign?

  • You need to use PPC campaign to pull in traffic when you need immediate result because SEO takes months before it starts showing some result.
  • You can also use PPC campaign to show your search presence when getting SEO listing seems difficult. For example, if the first page result against a keyword contains links from universities, Wikipedia, Amazon, etc., then you will have to use PPC to get on the first page of SERP.
  • If you are running a time-sensitive campaign, or have a product which can only be sold in one particular season or month than you will need to use PPC campaign to promote your product or service.
  • If you have a new site, it will take time before search engines start showing results from your site. In such situations, you will need to use PPC campaign to reach your target audience.
  • If you are using Flash, AJAX, JavaScript, or any other opaque content then you will need to use PPC to make your presence felt for the chosen keyword. Search engine spiders have hard time indexing such content.
  • You can also use PPC to test your website design, keyword, landing page, etc. PPC can be a good website testing tool.

Contrary to what other thinks or preaches, PPC is not bad word. When preparing a marketing campaign do not overlook this tool. PPC may be expensive, but it is a very useful tool if used judiciously.

Category: Marketing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
bikram | December 8, 2009
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What is PPC advertising?

PPC advertising stands for pay per Click advertising. It is a popular form of promotion on the Internet. Marketer uses this advertising tool to spread the word about its product and services. Like SEO (search engine optimization) PPC also depends upon keywords, but unlike SEO, the traffic that a PPC campaign brings is not organic. It is paid-for traffic, which can both be good and bad depending upon the goal of the website.

PPC advertising companies do not charge the advertisers based on page view or advertisement display, as the name implied, it is charged based on the clicks advertisement receives from the visitors. The more users will click the ad the more advertisers will have to pay to the PPC companies. The revenue is further divided between the publisher where the ad was clicked and PPC companies. Google Adwords, Yahoo Search, Microsoft Adcenter, Ad brite, etc., are the major player in the market.

PPC adverts appear as a sponsored links in the SERP (search engine result pages). These as are generally placed on top of organic result as well as on the left side of the SERP. Marketers have to buy a keyword or set of keywords to make the advertisement appears in the search result or on publishers’ website that has enrolled in the program run by the PPC companies.

The success of campaign depends upon the following five things:

  • How tightly focused the keyword is.
  • How prominent the listing is
  • How well optimized the landing page is. (A landing page is the page on the other side of the advertisement link placed in the advert.
  • How well the PPC campaign has been created, and
  • How much deal one got in buying the keywords for the campaign

Bidding for the most attractive keywords and getting the juiciest position in the search engine is at the core any PPC campaign.

3 Steps of a PPC campaign

Step 1: The advertiser bid on the relevant keywords

Step 2: The advert is published. The location and frequency of the ad is determined by the search engine depending upon the price paid by the advertiser for the keywords.

Step 3: The advertiser pays the PPC companies as soon as someone clicks. The advertiser has to pay only for the valid clicks. Money charged for the invalid clicks are credited back to its account. If it does not happen, the advertiser can ask for the refund.

Category: Marketing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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