SEO EXPERTS INDIA

Effective Tips for Becoming An SEO Expert

2012-02-23T23:23:00.000-08:00

Whether you desire to be a freelance SEO expert or a part of a well-known SEO agency, you would first need to be well-versed of the different internet marketing areas. More so, your knowledge should turn in to results of getting websites, preferably your own website first, rank in the search engines especially Google. Itemized below are the things you need to be the best SEO practitioner you could be.

Stay Updated

Probably, your basic knowledge of SEO processes and how it generates money got you interested in learning more it and considering providing SEO services as a career. This is a good start. However, it is important to stay up to date on the latest developments in the SEO industry.

It is a given fact that search engine rules change almost on a daily basis. On top of that, search engine algorithms remain a mystery until now. This is why being well-informed as much as you can on SEO is important because what worked today may no longer work in a couple of days.

SEO related articles, forums, seminars and training programs flourish online. They can give you training and advice on becoming a search engine optimization consultant. You can also add in your library SEO or internet marketing books authored by specialists in the field.

Set Up Your Own Website

You can never prove yourself credible in providing SEO services unless you own a SEO themed website that will embody your SEO strategies. Apply in your website the techniques that you plan to offer your prospect clients. You can use your own website as a trial-and-error site to conduct processes from simple keyword research to building backlinks.

Following are some helpful insights in creating a successful website for your SEO venture:

Content is everything - Readers and search engines love interesting and useful content. By keeping a website of quality content, you can an authority in your niche. This can get your website all the traffic it needs.
Post images or videos - Second to content, readers and search engines are attracted to images and videos related to the search topics.

Get quality backlinks - Whether your website holds a lot of pages, it can still be highly optimized with quality backlinks. An SEO expert connects with authority sites that are related to your SEO themed website.
Always wear the right hat - Be smart with the SEO tactics that you will use to promote your website and the websites of your future clients as well. You have the freedom to choose among the SEO hats - black, gray or white. The right hat can help you build your SEO empire while the wrong one can crash your online presence anytime. So, be wise.

Create a portfolio.

Once potential clients get drawn to your website, most of them will ask for a list of websites that you have successfully optimized to their own benefit. If it happens that you do not have client websites, you can start building your reputation by offering a friend, a relative or a few non-profit organizations your services for free. Such can give you opportunity to practice your skills, build up your portfolio and create a contact list. This is also a good way to promote your SEO business.

Meanwhile you can also go for smaller and less demanding clients for a start. As you become an established SEO expert, you will be ready to optimize websites of bigger companies. Designing some websites for your own use and get them ranked is an ideal way to begin with. Once they gain some a substantial flow of traffic, you can sell them or load them up with AdSense.

Be An SEO Expert and Earn a Good Income

2012-02-23T22:19:00.000-08:00

Today, there is fierce competition on the internet as many webmasters are seeking to have their sites on the first page of search engines, especially Google. There is, therefore, an opportunity to make money at home as a search engine optimization guru, which simply means making a website or a write-up searchable by incorporating relevant words or phrases that users type into search engines.

Recommended websites:

Google.com/adwords
Goodkeywords.com
Overture.com
Blogger.com
Wordpress.org

If you want to make money at home online with the knowledge of search engine optimization, which is otherwise called SEO, take note of the following points.

You could either offer it as a service to webmasters or use it as a means to gain traffic to your own site or blog. So the first thing is to determine the model you want, from among the above two options.

Have a thorough understanding of how search engines work in respect of searches being performed by users all over the world. This enables you to play the game by the rules so as to avoid penalties.

Register an account with Google. Google is the most user-friendly search engine with millions of users. Go to Google Adwords to sign up for the account. This gives you access to its keyword tool. That is what you need to research the actual words that users are typing into the search bar when looking for information.

Set up a Wordpress blog. You may also set up a free blog at Blogger.

Log in to your Adwords account. Use the keyword tool to find keywords that you want to target for your blog. When you enter a phrase, you will get a long list of keywords or phrases as well as the corresponding number of searches performed on them per month.

Select keywords with 1,000 to 10,000 searches per month and save them in a notepad on your computer. For each keyword or phrase, write an article or blog post for your blog each day.

Submit keyword rich articles to different article directories, linking them to your blog in the resource box. Also, share the post on Twitter, Facebook and other social bookmarking sites. By doing this, you are building backlinks for your blog which will be ranked well on Google, thereby bringing traffic to it.

An alternative way to make money at home online is to offer your search engine optimization expertise as a service on forums and freelancing sites. You could even build a website for this SEO service and get webmasters to pay you for what you know. In comparison, doing search engine optimization for your own blog should be a welcome idea to you.

Pros

If your website or write-up shows up in search engines, you have gained relevance for the keywords you targeted and you will have visitors. From this, you will make money from the products or services that you are promoting.

Cons

Even though you may have a keyword rich website or article, it is still very hard to show up on page one since, in most cases, there are already thousands or millions of pages on the keywords you may target.

If you want to earn a good income online as a search engine optimization expert as far as your own sites or articles are concerned, you should target keywords that have less competition but considerable amount of searches per month.

Search Engine Optimization - Good Keyword Optimization Is Knowing How To Place Your Keywords

2012-02-22T03:29:00.000-08:00

You have taken the time and concluded a thorough keyword research to ensure the best keyword optimization. It is now time to determine how you will use your keywords and phrases for the best overall search engine optimization so that you will rank high in the search engines.

Once you've decided what keywords are relevant for your site, the work begins. You need to know how to integrate them into your content in a constructive way. You should go about this procedure in a tactful manner, if you do it hap-haphazardly by inflating your keywords or overusing your keywords the search engines will definitely figure it out sooner or later. You might be able to get to the top of the search engine rankings quite quickly, but believe me you won't stay there.

When utilizing incorporating keyword optimization there a couple of things you must be aware of. Keep in mind that not all search engines use the same algorithm, but you can still ensure by using some of the following general strategies you will achieve a better search engine ranking.

A lot of search engines will index an entire page so it's important to make sure you place your keywords throughout each and every page of your content. Also you should be utilizing the page properties of each page you create (keywords, meta tags, etc.).

A general rule to ensure good keyword optimization is making sure your web site has at least 100 words minimum of good quality content keeping in mind good keyword optimization strategies. If you are doing article writing some people say 250-300 words will do the trick, however I have found different. When I concentrate on quality versus quantity I tend to produce higher quality and high quantity simultaneously. Don't just whip out a 250 word minimum article with the sheer intent of promotion in mind, even if you have chosen good keywords, quality always comes out on top. Readers want good quality content that will actually help them solve what they are searching for.

Another tactic known to ensure good keyword optimization is 'keyword prominence' which is part of a search engines' algorithm. It simply means finding the best place to place keywords. Most of the research I have done says the closer your keywords are to the start of a sentence the better. Much research also emphasizes ending your site or article with your keywords. I do both to ensure quality keyword optimization.
Another strategy to ensure good keyword optimization is 'proximity' which simply means how close together your keywords are. In other words, putting your keywords as close together as possible within a sentence, but at the same time ensuring your sentence is clear.

Keyword Density is a clear cut strategy you want to incorporate to ensure good keyword optimization.
Keyword density measure the weight of keyword in your content, in other words how many times the keywords are being used. It is recommended that keyword density range from between 3-7%. This means for every 100 words you use your keywords should appear 3-7 times. If you go higher than this, it could qualify as spamming. Again you need to keep in mind good quality content. It can be difficult to weave in 10 keywords, but if you pick a couple of your most important keywords and repeat them, it should make things go a lot smoother.

Finally to ensure the best possible keyword optimization the last strategy you want to consider is 'frequency'. Frequency is closely related to keyword density. Search engines prefer to see the repetition of more than one or two keywords. Do concentrate on your primary (2-3) keywords, but also incorporate other keywords that you have indicated as keyword. I generally have 6-7 keywords with the main emphasis on two or three of the keywords throughout my content.

There are many tactful and proven keyword optimization strategies for ranking high in the search engines. However, many sites completely ignore them, stick with these proven strategies and you will see results. In the end your customers will appreciate good search engine optimization even if they are completely unaware of what it is. Always keep in mind that humans read your content and they are looking for good content not over used keywords.

Diana is an educator of 23 years and was first introduced to the network/affiliate marketing industry in the early 80's. Diana is now using her teaching philosophies to help turn around the 97% failure rate in the network/affiliate marketing industry. By being an affiliate with the most simplistic Network Marketing company today, Global Domains International or GDI, she is changing how people view the industry and guiding them to personal success.

Keyword Research And How to Write The Best Content For Your Website

2012-02-22T02:49:00.000-08:00

Search engine optimization has changed significantly since the early days of the Internet. Titans of the web search community, such as Google and Bing, continue to refine their methods of effective SEO in order to give users what they are most looking for in their content. In the old days, it was simply a matter of proper keyword usage, frequency, and click throughs. Today, Google is spearheading the movement to measure which links users are actually finding useful. They pay attention to the average time that a user spends on a web page and also give the user the option of endorsing or nixing a URL they have clicked upon to determine appropriate ranking in customized user results.

So do keywords even matter anymore when it comes to writing top quality content that gets the results you should be looking for? Actually, yes, it does. Keyword research is still one of the most valuable things that you can do for your SEO, because it pays direct attention to the terms that people are searching and the methods in which they are finding information just like yours. You ignore keyword research at your own risk. Many hate the process because they feel too "hemmed in" by the way they can write their articles when in reality it allows them to be more focused in the things they talk about, the things they share with the public, which are, in all actuality, what the public really wants to know.

To establish the best keywords for your content, it is best to think about a subject matter you are very passionate about. Make a list of all the various aspects of the subject that attract you. From there, use that list to develop search terms. This process can be translated to multiple disciplines or fields of interest. Make sure that you do this for all of your sites, or at least make sure that your writers are doing so.

Once you have established good, solid keywords and keyword phrases, then you can focus on writing the best content that your site has ever seen. By pouring more thought into what you have to say instead of keyword frequency, you can take your site up the Google search ranks in a hurry. But without the research part of the equation, you'll never get to the level of quality that belongs on that first page.

Whether you are the one writing the content or not, you need to know the processes, so you can train those close to your site for what to watch out for in the digital age. Without the attention to detail and quality of craftsmanship, you won't be able to survive in the age to come.

How to use Twitter in Online Marketing

2012-02-20T22:51:00.000-08:00

That social media are essential in online media campaigns has become a truism. But how do you combine your Twitter strategy with your search engine marketing campaign, and how do you generate enough followers for Twitter to make a difference?

Why should you use Twitter in your online marketing?
There are at least three answers to this question:

Given that tweeps (those that use Twitter) often refer to sites, posts and articles in their tweets, Twitter may generate traffic directly to your site. If these tweets are retweeted by other Twitter users, the traffic may become significant.

Note that many bloggers and journalists use Twitter to find stuff to write about. A link found in Twitter may lead them to your site. They may refer to it in their writing, generating a link that can be very valuable search engine optimization wise.

Search engines are using social traffic as one of the factors in their search engine algorithm. Links from Twitter to your pages may boost your rankings in the search engines.

To what extent Google make use of Twitter data is unclear, as Google no longer has access to Twitter raw data (which is one of the reasons they are trying so hard to promote Google+ as an alternative), but tweets may find their way into other sites that are indexable by Google (like Delicious, Posterous and Reddit), so this effect may still be important.

If you can build a standing as a useful and reliable source of information in Twitter, your are essentially strengthening your personal “brand” or the brand of your service or company.

If tweeps find your tweets being repeatedly retweeted by others, they will interpret that as a sign of your trustworthiness, which makes it much more likely that they will follow the link to your site.

The importance of building a Twitter following
We have seen online marketing “experts” that recommends that you put up a lot of twitter accounts and then send messages or tweets to a large number of people enticing them to go to your site.

This may work for affiliate scams and for the distribution of malware, but this tactic will ruin your reputation and any chance you have of being considered a serious and trustworthy provider of information, services or goods.

There is only one way to Twitter marketing success and that is the hard one.

You have to build a sufficient number of followers in your area of expertise, i.e. people who are likely to find your tweets interesting and who are likely to retweet them.

The retweeting part is important, not only because it leads to more direct visits to your site, but because retweets will expose your profile to a larger number of people, helping you generate more followers. That is the virtous circle you want get into.

The number of followers required may vary, from industry to industry and from language group to language group. If you are promoting a bicycle repair shop in Oslo, Norway, that will require fewer followers to have an effect, than — for instance — if you want to promote soft drinks on the global market.

How to get more followers

To build a sufficient number of followers takes time. In the beginning progress will normally be slow. Ultimately, however, you will reach “critical mass”, where the number of followers start to accellerate. This tipping point is reached because an increasing number of followers start promoting your tweets and your profile through retweets and comments.

If you continue to push good content and interact actively with your followers this tipping point may be reached when you get some 1500 to 2000 followers.

Before you get to that point, there are a few tactics that might be of help:

Identify influential Twitter users

Identify tweets that should be interested in your topic or knowledge and follow them. A simple way of finding such people is to go to the most influential tweeps in your field and look at the people who they follow and who follow them. You may also find their Twitter identity on web sites and business cards.

There are also Twitter directories and — of course — Twitter’s own Who to follow feature, which becomes more useful the more followers you have.

The 2000 restriction

Twitter has put in place a 2000 followers restriction. That is: before you yourself has reached 2000 followers, you are not allowed to follow more than 2000 people. Remember also that seasoned tweeps will look at your following to follower ration to determine whether you are a serious actor. If you follow 1999 and have only 10 followers, you are most likely a spammer, and they will not follow for your tweets.

Because of this you need to prune your follower list from time to time, to remove those that do not follow you back.

That is extremely hard work using the normal Twitter interface, but there are — fortunately — tools out there that makes this easier. You can for instance use Social Bro to identify tweeps who are passive (who do not tweet themselves) or who do not follow your back.

By all means: Do keep the tweeps that provide you with good info!

Promote your Twitter acount

Make sure to promote your Twitter account outside of Twitter.

Sign your blog posts with your @name. If this is a company account, include the name in newsletters, magazines, letter heads, business cards, and posters. Add the @name to other social media accounts like Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest and Google+.

Delivering content

You would obviously like to use your Twitter account to promote your own services. Adding a tweet regarding your latest promotion is OK and necessary, but remember that people are not normally going to follow your account because of those promotions.

That are only going to follow you if you:

Entertain them with funny and provoking tweets.
Engage in interesting and meaningful conversation.
Tweet stories and links that will interest them.

Tactic No. 1 is highly effective, but also very demanding and risky, as humor may be misread and lead to antagonism.

Be social!

Tactic No. 2 is very efficient. Replying to and commenting on the tweets of others is an efficient way of generating interest and followers. Most experts in the field will tell you that this is the way to go. But it is extremely time consuming.

Remember that Twitter is alive 24/7 and if you are planning to develop the services or good you are planning to promote, you cannot spend more than some 30 minutes a day on Twitter. So, unless you have the money to hire two or three full time tweeps, full and real time surveillance is out of the question.

Because of this most social media marketers stick to checking on the “Interactions” and “Mentions” with regular intervals, and comment and retween when possible and necessary.

Find rare and useful content

Tactic No. 3 is essential and doable. You need to produce a steady stream of tweets that will be of interest to your audience. This means that you have to go beyond tweeting about your own store, company or organisation (unless you are the Queen of Great Britain or the President of the Unites States, that is).

If you have a bicycle repair shop, tweet bicycle news. Give infomaltion about new bikes, biking travel desitinations, maintenance tips and so on.

Try to find news sources that are not covered by others. In the field of social media and search engines, everybody tweets the latest Search Engine Land or Mashable article. If you can find valuable information from less known sites, you will be considered a more valuable curator of search and social media news.

Do also retweet tweets you find interesting and useful. Preferably use the old fashioned way of retweeting , as this means that the tweet will be clearly marked with your image/avatar in Twitter. That photo or logo should be an important part of your Twitter branding!

By retweeting informative tweets you also please the original tweep, making her or him more aware of you and your online work. Your followers will also appreciate the fact that you reward other Twitter users in this way. In other words: This kind of retweeting adds to your social standing, which is a good thing.

Spread your tweets

If you spend 30 minutes a day curating content and tweeting about it, you will soon end up tweeting 10 to 20 tweets in a very shot time. Sending out several tweets in one go may actually be efficient as it makes your profile more visible in the Twitter stream. But if there are too many of them, many Twitter users will get annoyed and suspect you of spamming.

You therefore need to schedule your tweets for a more even distribution throughout the day. There are several tools that let you do this. Take, for instance, a look at HootSuite or Social Oomph.

What not to do

If you establish a Twitter account, make sure you follow up. You do not have to send out 10 tweets a day, but you do have to keep the account alive. Finding a “dead” Twitter account reflects badly on your brand. As an absolute minimum, tweet once or twice a week, so that Twitter users find it worth while to become a follower.

If you want to build an interested and efficient following, however, you must to much more than that!

One more thing: If you have managed to generate an enthusiastic and engaged following on Twitter, do not waste it by linking to crap content on your own site! All of this is worth close to nothing if your own site is of a bad quality.

Top 5 Social Sites for Film Fans

2012-02-16T01:33:00.000-08:00

If you ranted and raved about the recent Oscar nominations on Facebook, but none of your friends seemed to care, it’s time to either A) find new friends or B) find a social network that caters to your cinematic needs.
Here are five great sites that help you connect with film fans from all over the world.

1. GetGlue

If you love movies, but your interests are too varied to be contained to one medium, then GetGlue is for you. Much like Foursquare, you check in to your favorite activity — everything from movies, TV shows, the big game, music, books and plenty more — using the website or the mobile app. But instead of badges, you earn stickers with every checkin. Some stickers will give you the opportunity to win prizes, but most are simply a great way to show your geeky pride to the people that follow you. Unlike Foursquare’s badges, though, you can actually request physical copies of the stickers you’ve earned, so you can take that pride offline as well.
The interaction on GetGlue is pretty one-on-one. So if you’re looking for conversation, the best thing to do is check in after you’ve watched the movie and include a quick review in your post. Someone will usually chime in with their own opinion and you might make a new friend.

2. iCheckMovies

Some movie fans set a goal to watch everything on a particular list of films, like the Best Picture nominees, the IMDb Top 250 or any of the AFI 100 inventories. With iCheckMovies, just check off the movies you’ve watched and it will automatically track your progress on a variety of these indexes all at once. You can even create a personal list if you want to target a specific genre or area of interest. When you’ve completed a list, you’ll earn awards that display on your profile to show your movie-watching prowess to the world. Based on the movies you’ve seen, the site will try to match you with people who have similar tastes so that you can easily follow their progress and discover new movies.

If you want even more interaction, iCheckMovies recently set up forums for users to discuss genres, regional films and for fans of film podcasts to chat about the latest episode. Depending on the level of involvement you want, the site offers free membership or a couple of paid membership tiers, but for most people, the free version is all you’ll need. Be careful, though — checking off movies can become quite addicting.

3. Letterboxd

One of the newest social movie sites out there, Letterboxd is still in beta, so you’ll need to request an invite or find a friendly film fan that will send you one. Once you’re in, create a personal profile and then populate it by searching for movies. Each title has its own page, complete with a brief plot synopsis, cast information, average star rating from the community and popular reviews written by other Letterboxd users. From here you can mark that you’ve seen the movie, like it, give it a star rating, write a review or put it on a custom list, like “My Favorite Samurai Movies.”

Nearly all of your Letterboxd activity is broadcast on the site, so there are plenty of avenues to find users who share your cinematic interests. And because you don’t have to send a friend request, you can follow anyone in order to check out the latest movies they’ve seen, lists they’ve created and reviews they’ve written. Just add your own two cents to one of the ubiquitous comment boxes and get the conversation rolling.
The site is gaining quite a bit of traction with online film critics, so look to connect with some of your favorite personalities from /Film, Movies.com, FirstShowing.net, Twitch and more.

4. MUBI

If your film standards lean more toward Federico Fellini than Lindsay Lohan, MUBI may be the social movie site for you. MUBI (formerly The Auteurs) focuses on international films, experimental shorts and titles that you might find in the Criterion Collection. On the site, you can set up a personal profile complete with the style of films you prefer, like Fashionable Alienation, Vanguard Cinema and Neorealist, among others.
Next, rate your favorite directors, your favorite movies, post notes to your wall and follow people from all over the world or in your region to see what’s playing at the local art house theater. Jump into the forums where you’ll engage in discussions like “Cinema that redefines narrative,” “Kurosawa vs. Shakespeare,” and “Nihilistic Cinema.” Some of these conversations are so deep it’s like a film class in a box.
If you’re an aspiring filmmaker yourself, check out the Garage to connect with other auteurs who can help you make your cinematic dreams come true.

What really sets MUBI apart is the ability to stream hundreds of these great films directly to a computer or Boxee device on your TV. Most of the short subjects are free, longer films are available for a one-time rental fee of 99 cents to $2.99, or for unlimited access to the entire catalog, it’s only $6.99 a month.

5. Seenth.at

Seenth.at hasn’t even launched yet and it’s already generating quite a bit of buzz among movie fans. Like other sites, users can mark a movie as seen, owned, add it to a custom list, give it a star rating or write a review. But with Seenth.at, you can also recommend a movie to a single user, a group of users or the community at-large. All of this activity is grouped together as part of the site’s Chatter, a Pinterest-like graphical presentation of everything Seenth.at users are doing.

The Chatter can be broadened to all users, narrowed to only the people you follow or even filtered down to an individual film to see what people are saying about it. From there, it’s easy to recognize positive reviews in blue, negative in purple and spoiler-filled reviews are clearly marked in yellow so you don’t accidentally click on them. In addition, you can post your favorite quotes from the movie, as well as start conversations so that others can offer their opinions and insights.

The site is set to launch soon for a small group of VIP members, but the Seenth.at developers hope to make it available to a larger audience in the coming months, so get signed up for beta testing now. With its strong visual approach, this is one site you’ll want to keep an eye on.

ONLINE MEDIA GOD: 400+ Tools for Photographers, Videobloggers, Podcasters & Musicians

2012-02-16T01:06:00.000-08:00

Online media is exploding…and with it, a new class of creative people producing their own music, podcasts, professional-level photography and video shows. We’ve compiled the largest list so far of useful tools for self-made photographers, videobloggers, podcasters and musicians.

These entries are compiled from previous Mashable articles – see the links at the bottom of this article for further reading.
——————-

For photography gods, we’ve brought together more than 90 photo resources and tools. There are thousands of sites serving photographers these days, but we hope this acts as a good overview.

ONLINE PHOTO EDITORS

Fauxto – Advanced online photo editor with an interface similar to Photoshop’s
XmgImg- Image hosting service that provides an interface for users to manage, edit, and share their images online.
OnlinePhotoTool – Edit pictures taken from your hard drive as well as images that are already on the Internet.
MyImager – Upload images from your computer and from anywhere on the web and edit them freely with the dozens of tools and filters available.
SnipShot – Edit photos from your hard-drive, your Webshots account, or your Flickr account in one place, and then save them back to any of those locations.
Pixenate – Online photo editor with many special effects. You can also integrate Pixenate on your website and allow visitors to edit images.
Phixr – Edit your pictures and directly upload them to Flickr, Fotopic, Livejournal, Photobucket, Fotolog.com, Buzznet and Dropshots.
Pixer.us – Edit your photos online within your browser, add special effects and save them in the most popular formats.
Picture2Life – Edit pictures available on the Internet or taken from your hard disk. You can also import images from popular photo sharing sites.
Cellsea – Upload pictures from your PC or from an URL. It provides over 15 ways to correct color, exposure, and lighting problems.
Preloadr – Photo editor with good image manipulation functions that is connected with your Flickr account.
Picnik – Photo editor with many interesting features which is directly connected to many photo sharing sites.
Pixelmator – Pixelmator is a photo editing service for Mac users. The design is superb and intuitive. There are selection tools, paintbrushes of various size and shape, retouching tools, layering and much more. You can enhance photos, analyze colors, add text, create stylized scenes with halftones and image blurring.

PHOTO SHARING

Zorpia – Zorpia is like Myspace with some more photo features, you can upload you photos and share them on your profile.
Clickfriends -Document your life with your own digital photo essay, then share it with friends and family through ClickFriends.com. Now you can have the same site take care of your online photo albums and your Facebook or MySpace photo albums. Just upload your photos to the ClickFriends site, and then have them exported to your profile on your preferred social networking site. It´s free and easy to sign up.
Snappages – Snappages.com provides space for you to save and organize your photos, your online friends from virtual communities, and your events in one well-designed web page. It combines various web concepts, including online storage, file sharing, and Facebook-style friend communication.
Photorgy – Photorgy is photo uploading/sharing tool which works with AIM. Photo albums can be shared and owned by any number of friends, family members, and colleagues.
SlideShare – SlideShare is a content sharing site where you can host and display presentations. Maybe you would use it to show your professional work, or just for personal photo sharing, power point presentations about your latest entrepreneurial idea, or graphics you designed.
Zoomandgo – Contribute your travel photos, videos, or general advice to the Zoom and Go site, and they will reward you with cash. The site has a system of points which can be awarded to the content you submit according to what kind of content it is (written reviews receive less then photos, and videos receive the most).
Zooomr – Store, share, sort, sell, and search all your photos and those of other users at Zooomr. Users can post comments on individual pictures, therefore, gaining feedback on the photo, as well as gaining insight into the other photographers who use the site. Photos can be shared for free, or can be sold through the site.
BurstCast – Burstcast offers space for you to upload pics from your camera phone either by MMS or by e-mail, right from the phone. On the site, you can choose for your photos to be made public and shown on the home page (but it´s either all or nothing; you can´t have some photos be public and some private).
Mostrips – The photo sharing site is designed to let you create albums to be easily shared on mobile phones. It´s a useful way to send work if you are a photographer, or a head shot if you are a model or actor. Or it can just be a fun way to share photos from your vacations among friends and family.
DPhoto – DPhoto is a photo sharing service which offers well-designed graphics and a professional appearance. With DPhoto you can share your photos with friends and family in an ad-free, secure site.
Invitr – Invitr is a Flickr related application which simply extends your sharing capabilities. With Invitr you can share your Flickr photos with non-Flickr members; so photos that have been categorized as private can now be sent and shared with anyone you choose.
DigitalRailroad – Digital Railroad is aimed at aiding professional photographers connect with more fans and even help them connect to content providers and media companies who are looking to buy their work.
ContakMe – Contakme is a new site where you can upload an unlimited number of photos, create albums, and rate other people´s photos.
Flickr – The most popular photo sharing site. Upload photos, create sets and join one of the greatest communities of professional and unprofessional photographers.
Picasa – Google’s answer to photo sharing. The main application is a download, but there are also web albums.

FREE PHOTO HOSTING

Photobucket – one of the most popular image hosting services around, favorite amongst MySpace users. Makes it very easy to post your images to social networking sites; gives you 25 GB of monthly traffic and 1 GB of storage with images themselves being up to 1 MB in size.
ImageShack – The most popular image hosting service. Upload images up to 1.5 MB and embed them in any web page.
AllYouCanUpload- There is no limit to the image size you can upload. You can also upload up to three images in the same time.
ImageHosting – Upload multiple pictures at one time. The maximum filesize you can upload depends on what account you registered.
TinyPic – Upload pictures and videos and embed them anywhere. The direct link for your picture or video will be tiny (e.g. http://tinypic.com/1)
TheImageHosting – Upload multiple images at once and zipped image files. Maximum file size allowed is 1 MB.
BayImg – Free uncensored image hosting provided by the Pirate Bay. The max file upload size is 100MB and you can can upload about 140 different formats.
XS.to – Upload your images and embed them anywhere. You can also delete images you previously uploaded. Max file size allowed is 2.5 MB.
ImgPlace – Upload up to five images at one time. Maximum file size allowed is 1.5 MB
FreeImageHosting.net – Register to host your images for free. Maximum file size is 3,000 KB.
FileHigh – The free “Economy” account lets you upload up to three images simultaneously and the maximum size for each file is 512 KB.
VillagePhotos – Upload pictures straight from your browser and host them online. 1 GB monthly data transfer.
ImageVenue – You can upload up to five images in the same moment. The maximum file size allowed is 1.5 MB.
ImageCross – Free MySpace image hosting. You can upload images up to 2 MB in size.
SmugMug – SmugMug is a photo uploader, editor, and community portal all in one. You can upload and share your photos, then store the photos with up to four backup copies of each photo in three varying states.

PHOTOGRAPHY BLOGS

Digital-Photography-School – Darren Rowse’s photo tips.
Thomas Hawk – Zooomr’s Thomas Hawk on photography, Zooomr, Flickr and general tech news.
PhotoCritic – A site for photography criticism, with the intention of allowing photographers to critique each others’ work and share opinions, suggestions, and professional tips.
FlickrBlog – While it’s not exclusively a photo blog, but from time to time the Flickr staff will pick a few photos and feature them on the blog and the users see this as a big honor.
DPreview – practically the only resource you’ll ever need for digital cameras; incredibly in-depth and timely reviews of most models available on the market
Shutterlog – some great photos here with attention to detail.
Chromasia – no words, only great photos
Stuck In Customs – blog by one of the greatest HDR photographers on the net
Black and White Photography – great photo blog focusing on B&W photos.

PHOTO MASHUPS

Flappr – A slick Flash-based Flickr interface that lets you do most of the actions you can do on Flickr.
FlickrVision – displays Flickr updates from various users on a Google Map.
Retrievr – an unbelievable mashup that delivers photos based on your drawings.
Flickr Logo Maker – Turns any text into a Flickr-style logo.
Spell with Flickr – this tool enables you to write text in letters based off Flickr images. Not all that useful but fun.
Tagnautica – a slightly weird visual way to browse through Flickr images.
Captioner – adds comic-style captions to your images.
Fastr – a “guess that tag” style game; you are presented with a series of images and you must guess their common tag.
PictureSandbox – Searches the Flickr archive (as well as that of YouTube and some other sites) based on the type of license; great tool for finding images you can actually use in a project
FlickrFling – presents an RSS feed through Flickr images. Completely useless but works as a fun experiment.
Colr Pickr – One of the most useful Flickr Mashups; enables you to search Flickr photos based on their color. Works surprisingly well.
FlickrBall – a six-degrees-of-separation scavenger-hunt game (yes, Kevin Bacon is mentioned), using Flickr thumbnails and tags for clues.
Photo Tag Mashup – Retrieves a number of Flickr images in a simple interface based on a tag you provide
Flickr Sudoku – a Sudoku game based on Flickr images.

MOBILE PHOTO SHARING

SnapZone – An online service that lets you upload your photos directly from your mobile via a wireless connection. Snapzone allows you to free up space on your phone”s memory while also giving you an instantaneous way to share your images with friends. SnapZone is also a community site, so if your friends join you can use it to share your pictures easily in one place.
Fotochatter – network that enables you to share mobile pictures with your friends, as well as receive images from your buddies on your phone
Radar – creates picture conversations – you send your pictures to Radar and your friends can instantly see them and comment on them
Shozu – Mobile uploading to photo sites including Flickr.

PHOTO MIXING AND SLIDESHOWS

Slide – create slideshows easily and embed them on your site or social networking profile.
RockYou – offers several free services, including slideshow creation, photo hosting, photo enhancement and more.
Scrapblog – An online service that lets you upload your photos from many of the popular photo sharing websites and mash them up with hundreds of stickers, shapes, text and YouTube videos to create a digital scrapbook
Vuvox – Vuvox lets you create online animated and interactive slideshows using a range of effects, theme templates and designs
Mixercast – Mixercast lets you mashup your photos and movies into animated, interactive slide shows and throws in ag ood library of stock photo, video and licensed music to use as a soundtrack
Flektor – Flektor has a great set of tools for adding transitions, text, stickers, effects and overlays into movies made out of your photos and online videos

PHOTO PRINTING/BOOK CREATION

Snapfish – Snapfish is run by HP, they let you store and share your photos for free, and prints are cheap with highest quality at 12¢ each. You can also have things like mugs and cards made with your pictures on them.
Fotki – A photo-sharing and hosting site, you can share you photos with others or use it with your blog. It has some unique features like FTP access, and users can choose to sell their photos. There is an integrated printing service that lets you print at many different sizes at good prices.
KodakGallery – Kodak Gallery is owned by Kodak (no surprise there), like the other they let you store and share photos and then make prints and have custom gifts made.
Shutterfly – Shutterfly not only lets you store and share photos and then have them printed, you can also pic up your prints right at Target stores.
Moo – Moo currently has partnerships with many social networks including Flickr, Vox, and Bebo, you can print small minicards and notecards with the photos you have uploaded to these sites.

PHOTO SEARCH

PicSearch – image search with some interesting options; for example, you can choose to search only black and white or color photos.
YotoFoto – a search engine which claims to be indexing over a quarter million Creative Commons, Public Domain, GNU FDL, and various other ‘copyleft’ images.
Google Image Search – a resource so commonly used it doesn’t need a special explanation; still one of the best ways to find images of any kind on the web.
Pixsy – Image search engine that’s striking a lot of partnerships. Also provides PixsyPower, a custom video and photo search for your own site.
StockPhotoFinder – a search engine specialized in finding stock photos.
EveryStockPhoto – this site is indexing over 1 million completely free photos from various sources.

STOCK PHOTOS

iStockPhoto – royalty-free images for low prices; there aren’t any completely free photos here, but photo quality is above average
Fotolia – Another cheap royalty-free image provider, with nearly 2 million photos in stock
SXC.hu – one of the best (and biggest) repositories of completely free stock photography on the net.
MorgueFile – provides completely free photos; no registration required to download.
PixelPerfectDigital – 5000+ free stock photos
StockXpert – the commercial arm of Stock Xchange; offers cheap but quality royalty-free material
Alamy – Alamy is a search engine for stock photos which boasts millions of images from thousands of photographers, picture agencies and national collections. The site does the editing and classification of the images.
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Video blogging, live video shows and professional film-making are all blossoming now that almost everyone has access to webcams, video cameras and affordable editing tools. In fact, many of the tools for editing, mixing and sharing your clips are now completely free. Here’s a wide selection of video tools available online.

LIVE VIDEO COMMUNICATIONS

Stickam – The best site for live video communications with multiple people. There is no major competition for Stickam just yet.
Blogtv – Blogtv is a recent discovery to the public. It allows you to do a live video show, and you can stream it live, as well as archive it for later use.
ooVoo – This allows you to carry on video conversations with live video through a Skype-like program.
Mogulus – This site is basically an all in one broadcast solution for video. You can create, edit, and add things similar to broadcast companies could add.
Ustream – Allows you to stream live video and you can also embed the player in to your own website.
HeyCosmo – A downloadable application that allows you to connect with other people in many ways, even play games and more.
Operator11 – Go live with your camera and create your own channels. You can also send video comments and remix your videos.

ONLINE VIDEO HOW-TO

Better YT Video Quality – This guide helps you with getting the best possible video quality on YouTube, can be applied to other sites as well.
Make Internet TV – This guide has step-by-step instructions for shooting, editing, and publishing videos on the Internet.
How to put your readers at the scene – A scene-setting guide for online web journalists.
Tips for shooting better online video – learn the equipment, shooting and editing basics from this collection of tips.
Online video tips – a Squidoo lens with several useful online video shooting and editing tips.
Home video tips – Chris Pirillo’s tips for shooting better videos at home.
Camcorderinfo – Every online video comes from a camcorder, so here is the best place to get opinions on your next camcorder purchase.
5 Ways To Create a Great Video Podcast – A great article that applies to both video podcasts and video production in general.

ONLINE VIDEO EDITORS

Eyespot – add effects and transitions to the videos you upload, or use some of the large amount of free video clips and music from Eyespot’s media partners.
MuveeMix – Upload your movie, mix it with music, add cool effects and share it on MySpace, Friendster, Blogger, and other networks.
Motionbox – This service features the ability to link to a very specific point or “segment” within the clip itself.
Cuts – Insert sound effects in your videos, add captions, loop the best parts and in minutes you can share your creation with the world.
JumpCut – a free service that enables you to upload, edit and share your videos. Offers keyframe-based editing, effects, transitions and actions.
VideoEgg – A video editing platform that you can add to create a social network and offers opportunities for monetization.
Mojiti – Select videos from popular video sharing sites, personalize them with your annotations and share them with others.
Photobucket – Edit videos within a browser using Flash and remix photos and home videos with other elements, such as music, video captions and transitions.
StashSpace – Upload, store and edit your videos online. You can also record videos directly from your camcorder or digital camera.
BubblePly – Video annotating service where anyone can add text bubbles that are synchronized with video.
Veotag – Service that lets you display clickable text, called “veotags,” within an audio or video file.
Vidavee Grafitti – add graphics and text into any video; the service is called a “legal form of artful vandalism” by the creators.
Vmix – Vmix is a community and a hosting provider for your videos, aimed at creative authors who want to create remixes of their music and videos.
MovieMasher – a combination of a video editor with a timeline and lots of various effects, a standalone player and a media browser.
MixerCast – Mix your media with professional video, images, music, and network your MixerCast everywhere.
Fliptrack – Make a free musical photo slideshow and music video. It’s easy to do and you do it online.

ONLINE VIDEO CONVERTERS

Zamzar – converts all sorts of file formats, including several video formats.
Media Convert – a media converter with a huge amount of options; resulting videos can sometimes be out of sync with audio.
Vixy – a simple converter that can only convert Flash apps from the web to several other video formats.
Hey Watch! – an online video converter focusing on file formats that works on portable multimedia devices, like the iPod.
MediaConverter – a video converter that can be slow and needs polishing, but can sometimes yield really good results.
Movavi – another video converter that allows you to upload videos and convert them to formats you wish to use.

VIDEO SHARING

YouTube – YouTube is the king of the video sharing sites, it has more users and videos than the others. Any video you can think of it probably already on YouTube.
Google Video – Since Google bought YouTube, Google’s Video player is mainly used for for-pay content like TV shows. Also there is a search here that indexes all of the video sharing sites on the internet (well, most of them).
Blip.tv – Blip.tv is the perfect video sharing site for video podcast makers. It’s designed to let them easily upload all types and qualities of media and then send them to their feed for the users. They also let you add ads to you video so you can make some money.
Ourmedia – A great site where you can upload audio, video, images, and text and share them with the world. The OurMedia community contains over 100,000 members.
Veoh – Watch long form, television quality content and publish your own videos.
DailyMotion – Video sharing platform with multiple video search options. You can join groups of people who publish videos based on a common interest.
Metacafe – A site that helps you discover the best videos through a community that filters, reviews and rates new videos every day.
UnCut – Video uploading and sharing community by AOL. Embed all the videos you want in your blog.
ClipShack – video sharing community that allows you to upload video clips, make friends, keep a collection of your favorite videos and comment on clips.
5min – Video sharing site with a particular vision: collecting videos that can visually explain anything in 5 minutes.
Brightcove – Search, click and watch. Music videos, news, travel, recipes, adventure. Thousands of channels, including the best in online video.
Viddler – Viddler lets add tags and comments to video that will show up at specific times. It also has unique features like flickr and twitter integration.
Revver – The first video sharing site that provides users with the possibility to earn money from the videos they upload.
Vimeo – Vimeo is a video sharing site that has an emphasis on it’s users. The video’s you find there are more likely to be home movies or shorts by aspiring film makers, and also a lot of lip dubs.
Yahoo Video – Yahoo’s version of online video. Similar to Google video, but done the Yahoo way.
HelpfulVideo – Share your knowledge and skills with others for free or little charge via video clips.
BroadbandSports – A video sharing site specifically for sharing sports related videos.
Travelistic – A video sharing site that allows users to post video content specific to travel.
Livevideo – Video sharing site that lets you create personal channels. Upload your own videos and share them with the world.
Kewego – A video sharing network where you can upload your own videos and view videos by others.
Godtube – It’s a Christian version of YouTube. All things Christian welcomed.
Coull.tv – An interactive twist to video, this site allows you to view video and add interactive elements to it by using your mouse.
Mediabum – Video sharing site focusing on funny videos.
VMIX – Another video sharing website; All content is screened, so be sure everything you upload is legit.
Grouper – Video sharing site with a big selection of content; enables you to create playlists and easily upload videos to MySpace.
Break – Break is a video site and more for comedic based content.
Videosift – a Digg-like site which lets you submit, vote, and comment on videos.
GeeVee – GeeVee is a video sharing site specifically for sharing videos of game play in video games.
Stage6 – A video site that uses the Divx player so you can upload High Definition video, of course this also means longer upload times, and you need DivX support (usually a browser plugin).
Tube Battle – vote for the best videos, organized by category.

VIDEO HOSTING

TinyPic – Host videos and images for free; it is possible to upload videos in the most popular formats and link videos on MySpace, eBay, blogs and message boards
Vidilife – Upload videos and store them online. There is no limit in terms of length of the files you can upload.
Dropshots – Good site that lets you upload videos, share them and embed them on other sites.
ZippyVideos – Upload and store video files (maximum 20 MB) in the most popular video formats.
Supload – Free service to host video clips and images. Maximum video file size allowed is 20 MB.
Rupid – Another provider of free video hosting: you can host your videos and share them with others.
Pixilive – Free images and video hosting for MySpace, eBay, Facebook and other sites. Maximum size for videos is 10 MB.
Mydeo – store and stream your videos online. You will be able to embed a video on any website and send streaming video messages .
YourFileHost – Upload files anonymously and share them with others. You can upload any file format up to 25 MB.

VIDEO ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT

Aggrega – create and organize your own music video channels and share them with others.
Feedbeat – a fantastic service that lets you create playlists with videos from different sources – YouTube, Google Video and others. Each playlist gets its own subdomain on feedbeat.net.
Ajaxilicious – an online movie catalogue which enables you to manage your movies and share them with others via RSS.
Cliproller - create custom video channels and add as many as you like to your personal Cliproller page.
CozmoTV – CozmoTV is a site that allows you to create and organize channels of video already existing online.

VIDCASTS AND VLOGGING

BlogCheese – a simple way to create and share a video blog – all you need is a webcam.
Revision3 – A video podcasting network that’s home to many well made video podcasts, including Diggnation, which is Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht’s video podcast about the top stories on Digg.
Jabbits – Social video blogging: Use your webcam to record your Post or Jab with an easy-to-use recorder.
Ask a Ninja – got questions? Ask a ninja! One of the most popular vidcasts in the world, and definitely the funniest.
Galacticast – a weekly Sci-fi comedy podcast, episodes usually consists of lots of really geeky parodies.
Scriggity – A news podcast, where the viewers send in the news that they think should be on the shows.
SuperDeluxe – A site to find videos that focus mainly on comedic content.
DL.TV – Some of the the old TechTV crew back at it again with their own own show on all things tech. One of the best video podcasts for tech geeks.
Webnation – Amber Mac’s bi-weekly video podcast with news and interviews relating to current events in the tech world.
Tom Green’s the Channel – A daily video podcast that is recorded live and is hosted by Tom Green. He usually has a celebrity guest on the show.
GeekBrief TV – a daily podcast hosted by Cali Lewis, it’s a 3-5 minute update on the latest tech news.
This Week in Tech – famous tech vidcast by Leo Laporte, one of the most viewed vidcasts in the world.
The Broken – tech show for teh 1337 h4x0rz.
Digg Podcasts – a long list of popular podcasts, containing most of the vidcasts on this list and many more.

VIDEO MASHUPS

Virtual Video Map – YouTube videos on a Google map. Find out where do all those cool videos come from.
RealPeopleStuff – a site that combines CraigsList and YouTube, offering video clips related to ads.
TagTV – enter a tag and get results from Flickr and YouTube. Clean and simple design makes TagTV a very neat way to browse photos and videos.
I Love Music Video – combines YouTube with info from your Last.FM account. Great way to get videos (at least until Last.FM signs an evil deal with all those content providers and starts offering music videos).
MusicPortl – information on bands and musicians containing biographies, Flickr images, related blog posts and YouTube videos.
Magg – aggregates videos from several video sites. Also works as a search engine.
RateMyDanceMoves – Hot or Not-style site, presenting you dance-related YouTube videos to vote on.
ReviewTube – a site that enables you to add captions to YouTube videos. Nice idea, but relatively poor execution – the captions frequently overlap, making the text unreadable.

MOBILE VIDEO APPS

Youtube mobile – a stripped down version of YouTube tailored for use on mobile phones.
Shozu – a free service for your phone that makes it easy to send and receive photos, videos and music
Abazab – a universal video player that also works on your mobile phone.
Srobbin Mobile Video – An unofficial search for Google video on your cell phone.
Yahoo Mobile – Yahoo mobile allows you to search, find, and play videos right on your cell phone.
MobiTV – MobiTV allows you to watch television video from popular networks of all kinds.
MTV Mobile Video – Anything MTV related all for download to watch on your cell phone.
ESPN MVP – If you are a Verizon Wireless customer and have the V Cast service enabled, you can watch sports clips and more.
Moblr – Moblr allows you to view videos uploaded to the site directly on your cell phone.
Mobunga – This site allows you to download videos to your mobile phone, as well as iPod and PSP.

VIDEO SEARCH

Blinkx – Perform searches within the most popular video networks, such as CBS, Reuters and CNN. Users can search for content and create TV channels that splice relevant content together.
PureVideo – Search within the most popular video directories and video sharing sites. PureVideo features up to six channels and each channel contains about six source sites.
SearchVideo – Search engine and directory created by AOL. Users can also search within specific video channels like MySpace and YouTube.
Search For Video – search engine and video directory that displays results from hundreds of video channels. Search For Video also provides an add-on for Firefox.
Yahoo! Video Search – Yahoo! has a video search engine that gathers videos from Yahoo! directory and from many other online sources. You can also search within specific domains or sites.
TubeSurf – Video search engine that gathers results from popular video directories, such as YouTube, Yahoo! Video, MySpace and Google Video. TubeSurf is also available as an add-on for Firefox.
ClipRoller – Search across popular video sites, such as: YouTube, Metacafe and more. As you continue to search for videos, ClipRoller learns your preferences and delivers content you like to watch.
Pixsy – A video search engine that lets users search content across dozens of video sites. Users are allowed to save searches and single videos.
ScoopVid – Search engine that enables you to either search for videos or browse through channels and categories.
Google Video Search – Google’s Video search recently was updated and now searches many video sites other than just YouTube and Google Video.
AOL Video – once known as the great media search engine, the AOL-purchased SingingFish, AOL Video kept some traits of the crowd’s favorite place to look for hard to find videos, but true fans claim that the site is not as good as its predecessor.
Truveo – Search videos or browse by either channel or category.
Altavista Video – good old Altavista isn’t what it used to be, but it does have a video search section.

ONLINE VIDEO DOWNLOADS

VideoRonk – Search and download your favorite videos from YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, DailyMotion, iFilm, MySpace, Vimeo, Blip.tv, Revver and more.
VideoDL – Download online videos available on YouTube, Google Video and Break.com stright to your computer.
Vixy – Grab videos from popular sites and convert them into various video formats (including iPod and PSP).
KeepVid – Download videos from many video sharing sites, including YouTube, Google Video, MySpace Videos, DailyMotion, Blip.tv, Revver and other services.
VideoDownloader – Get videos from video sharing sites. VideoDownloader is also available as a Firefox extension, allowing you to seamlessly integrate it within your browser.
YouTubeX – Download videos from YouTube. It doesn’t have a lot of options in terms of video sites among which you could choose, but it is very easy to use.
DownThisVideo – This site lets you download videos from YouTube, GoogleVideo, MetaCafe, Vimeo and other services.
KissYouTube – A service that provides two interesting and effective ways to download videos from YouTube.
YouTubeDownloads – Another site that lets you download videos exclusively from YouTube (other sites are not supported).
Kcoolonline – Download videos on your hard disk from more than 90 sites, including YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, iFilm and MySpace, Yahoo and many more.
YouTubia – A YouTube clone that lets you download and save YouTube videos within your IE or Firefox browser.
MediaConverter – A platform that lets you download and convert videos straight from YouTube.

MISCELLANEOUS VIDEO TOOLS

Hellodeo – Record videos from your webcam and post them on any web page.
Flikzor – Send and receive video comments on your profile, blog and more.
Flixn – Record a video message right in the web browser and share anywhere including MySpace and eBay.
GabMail – Service that enable users to send unlimited numbers of free video email messages.
Bubble Guru – A site for recording webcam video messages and getting them onto your website or sending to others.
CamTwist – Software package (for Mac computers) that lets you add special effects to your video chats.
WebcamMax – Software that lets you add videos, screen, pictures, flash and effects to virtual or real webcam and broadcast on all messengers (Windows
only).
StumbleUpon Video – Just press “Stumble!” and a random video is presented to you, you can also ask for random videos with in categories like Humor, or Cats.
CrowdRules – video answers to your questions.
ClipSync – interact with other users while watching the same video as them.
ClipSyndicate – publish broadcast quality news on your web site.
Broadbandsports – a big collection of sports-related videos.

ONLINE TV

For this section please visit our roundup of free online television services.
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Podcasting – distributing shows over the web for downloading to computers and mobile devices – has been a big trend over the past few years. While over-hyped in the early days, podcasting is proving itself to be a great communication medium. Many podcasters now make a full or part-time income from their shows: here’s a plethora of tools to help out all those self-made podcast stars.

PODCAST CREATION GUIDELINES

How To Create a Podcast – About.com’s step-by-step tutorial for podcast beginners.
iLounge Guide to Podcast Creation – another guide for creating your own podcast for absolute beginners.
Podcasting Legal Guide – find about legal issues relevant to podcasting in this Creative Commons guide.

PODCAST HOSTING, SHARING AND NETWORKING (FREE)

Pickstation – A Digg for podcasts and music.
Collectik – “Mixtapes for podcasts”: find, share and organize podcasts.
Podbean – Free podcast hosting and publishing.
Castpost – Free hosting for audio and video clips.
HeyCast – A tool to create video podcasts. Essentially, HeyCast creates RSS feeds from any existing video files on the web. It doesn’t provide hosting or sharing features.
Blubrry – A podcast network that lets you create a podcast and browse the podcasts of others.
Evoca – “YouTube for voice recordings”: create audio recordings from your computer mic, your phone or Skype, share them with others and embed them on websites.
ThePodcastNetwork – A network of podcasts on a range of topics including business, entertainment and comedy.
MyPodcast – podcast hosting solution offering unlimited storage, bandwidth, and free templates for your podcasts.
PodServe – this service is still in alpha stage, but everyone’s invited to try it out. It offers a hosting space for your podcast and a directory of user-created podcasts.
PodcastPeople – a service that enables you to post text, audio and video materials to your own customized show, and even earn some income from it through sponsors.
PCastBaby – free podcast hosting service offering 10MB of storage space and unlimited bandwidth.
Podomatic – create, find and share podcasts with this free service.
Blubrry – create your podcast on Blubrry; browse through other podcasts and create your personal playlist.

PODCAST ADVERTISING

Podango – get free unlimited hosting for your podcast and share ad revenue with Podango 50/50.
Podbridge – Provides podcast metrics and advertising.
Podtrac – a service that connects podcasters with advertisers.

AUDIO TOURS

TourCaster – Find audio tours of your favorite cities and download them to your iPod.
iAudioGuide – Find audio guides for major world cities and download them to portable devices.

VIDEO PODCASTING

Veodia – Create live TV shows and convert them to video podcasts.
Blip.tv – A “video podcasting” service. Broadly similar to YouTube, but the focus is on independent creators, who get a share of revenue.

MOBILE PODCASTING

Podlinez – a simple service to listen to podcasts on your phone.
Gabcast – Record podcasts straight from your phone.
Yodio – Record audio from your phone, add photos and captions.

TEXT TO PODCASTS

BlueGrind – Converts text (especially blogs) into podcasts.
Feed2Podcast – Convert any RSS feed into a podcast.
Talkr – Convert blogs to audio podcasts.
Odiogo – convert RSS feeds, text articles and blog posts to podcasts.

PODCASTS TO TEXT

CastingWords – a podcast transcription service that converts podcasts to text for $0.75 minute. It employs human transcribers.

PODCAST DIRECTORIES

Grepr Podcasts – A directory that makes recommendations by finding patterns in your interests and comparing the interests of others.
Yahoo Podcasts – Explore podcasts, listen to them, subscribe to them and even create your own.
MobilCast – directory of podcasts and radio shows, complete with playlists.
PodcastAlley – a podcast directory with over 30,000 podcasts. Maintains a monthly top list.
DigitalPodcast – a simple, categorized podcast directory
Podcast.net – a very comprehensive podcast directory; contains tens of thousands of podcasts.
PodcastDirectory.com – a directory of podcasts with a top list, a list of featured podcasts, and categorization.
PodcastDirectory.org- a simple directory with a very clean layout.
Podfeed.net – on Podfeed you can host and share your podcast, find podcasts, as well as read and write podcast reviews.
iAmplify – A premium directory where you pay to download self-help podcasts.
Earkive – Directory that lets you listen to podcasts on your phone (mobile or landline)

LIVE PODCASTING

Talkshoe – Create your own live talkshow or interactive podcast.
Waxxi – Audio shows streamed live, mainly with notable technologists. Once recorded, the live shows are available as podcasts.
NowLive – A social network that lets anyone create a live, interactive talk show. Stickam for audio, in some ways.

PODCAST HOSTING (PREMIUM)

PodcastSpot – Offers both free and premium podcast hosting.
SwitchPod – a podcast hosting service, with unmetered bandwidth, statistics and even some promotional opportunities.
Hipcast – create audio, video materials and podcasts and post them to your blog.
Libsyn – Liberated Syndication will host your podcasts for a modest monthly fee.

PODCAST SEARCH

Everyzing – Audio and video search engine.
Podscope – an audio and video search engine that searches the words spoken in podcasts.
Pluggd – Discover and share podcasts, and search for specific parts of podcasts using advanced search technology called HearHere.
PodNova – Podcast search and community.

PODCAST FORUMS

Podcast Alley Forum – a well visited forum on everything related to podcasting.
DigitalPodcast Forum – a good forum for promoting your podcast.
World Podcast Forum – a fresh forum about podcasting.

PODCAST CREATION SOFTWARE (OFFLINE)

Propaganda – Create professional podcasts including background music, jingles, crossfading and more. Windows only. Free trial, $49.95 to buy.
Audacity – Free, open source software for recording and editing audio. Versions for Mac OS X, Windows, GNU/Linux and other operating systems.
Adobe Soundbooth – Advanced audio editing from Adobe. Windows and Mac. Free trial, $199 to buy.
Wildvoice Podcast Studio – Record audio, add music and sound effects and upload to Wildvoice.com or other sites. Windows only.
SnapKast – Podcast creation for Windows. $79.99.

PODCAST CREATION SOFTWARE (ONLINE)

Odeo – Perhaps the most popular podcasting platform. It allows you to record audio within your browser, embed it anywhere and create your own audio channels.
Hipcast – Record high-quality audio right through the web browser or your phone. No additional software needed.
Gcast – Record, mix and broadcast your podcasts. You can record messages by phone and upload MP3 files from your computer.
Podomatic – This site lets you record video and audio online directly from your browser. You can also receive in line calls from listeners wanting to leave voice comments.
ClickCaster – create, broadcast and sell your very own radio shows and podcasts. You can record audio right from your browser or upload an existing MP3.
Wild Voice Shout Recorder – Online service that lets you record audio files through an intuitive interface but doesn’t let you edit them or add special effects.

MISCELLANEOUS PODCASTING TOOLS

Enablr – make your podcasts indexed and searchable.
PodShow – a network that brings audio, video, podcasts, and music to your computer, iPod, mobile device, or television.
Divicast – enhance your podcast with images and text and share it with everyone.
Divvycast – where podcasting and music meet. Helps bands to create podcasts.
Podbop – Find bands in your city and download free MP3s to your iPod to preview their music ahead of the show.
Noisely – Enter a subject you’re interested in, and Noisely serves up a selection of podcasts you’ll like. Press play, and all the ‘casts stream continuously until you stop them.
——————-

Musicians need to reach fans; fans want to find musicians. The web is the perfect way to connect them. There are now literally hundreds of music social networks where you can sample a wide variety of music, plus hundreds of online stores and marketplaces that ensure the artist gets a fair cut. Here’s our selection of the most interesting services in the online music space.

INTERNET RADIO

Last.FM – one of the most popular music communities around, with personalized radio stations, a stunning array of social networking features, RSS support and lots more.
Slacker – personalized Internet radio which offers a desktop version of the application and a hardware portable music player. Available only in the United States.
ShoutCast – A large directory of Internet radio stations, categorized by genre. Streams work in Winamp.
Live365 – A directory of web-based Internet radio stations – expect popups.
Yahoo! Music – listen to Internet radio and watch music videos on Yahoo’s music portal.
AOL Music – AOL’s take on internet radio. Offers music from XM as well.
Pandora – a very popular Internet radio/community which brings you new music based on stuff you like. Works only in the US & Canada at the moment.
Yottamusic – a huge music library boasting over 3.4 million songs, accessible from your web browser.

MUSIC DISCOVERY TOOLS

MusicMesh – browse through artists based on their similarities; find tracklists and reviews for albums.
Blogmusik – browse through top lists and listen to popular artists for free.
Musicovery – discover new music with this cool take on Internet radio.

SOCIAL NETWORKS

See also: 12 of the Best Music Social Networks
iLike – a community that lets you discover new music based on you and your friends’ tastes.
PureVolume – a “MySpace for music”, albeit with a classier design.
ProjectPlaylist – popular site for sharing playlists and posting them to other social networks.
Imeem – another playlist-sharing community for artists and fans that also supports embedding of tracks on other social sites and blogs.
MP3.com – the famous music site is now a social network similar to MySpace Music.
iJigg – a place for indie bands and artists to post their music, which the users can download for free.
MOG – a place to share your music and video library and exchange thoughts on music with others.
Fuzz – discover new music; artists can sell their music, but there are also free songs to be found on the site.
eListeningPost – convert your tracks into preview files, then sell them and keep 94% of the profits.
ProjectOpus – Music community for indie bands, complete with widgets to post on MySpace and blogs.
Rapspace.tv – social networking for rap and hiphop.
Musocity – a music community with profiles for fans, artists, retailers and music venues.
Haystack – social networking, playlist sharing and band profiles.
Bandbuzz – find and rate music playlists in a Digg-like interface.
Midomi – find songs by humming or singing the tune. Then explore profile pages and network with others.
Buzznet – large pop culture community with news, videos, photos and member profiles.
JukeboxAlive – Upload music and share tracks with friends. Bands can sell their CDs, write a blog and post events to a calendar.
MusicHawk – track bands and see band-related news and reviews, as well as information on gigs and new releases.
ReverbNation – social network connecting bands, fans and venues.
MusicNation – find new music, watch music videos; if you’re an indie/unsigned artist, join for a chance to get exposure or even a record contract.
Grooveshark – an online service that rewards you for sharing, reviewing, and discovering new music (currently in private testing – enter you email address on the homepage to be notified of the launch).
Dopetracks – upload and share your tracks and beats, and record music online.
Funk Player – a music sharing community where authors can upload songs, while everyone can bookmark, select, listen and comment on them.
FIQL – social playlist sharing.
Soundflavor – create playlists and share them with other users; meet people with similar taste and discover new music.
FineTune – pick an artist and receive a custom playlist featuring music by that artists and other related artists.
MusicMobs – browse through playlists and create your own in a simple interface.

MUSIC SHARING APPLICATIONS AND WIDGETS

uPlayMe – a downloadable application that lets you meet people with similar music tastes.
DotTunes – share your iTunes collection with friends through your web browser.
Audiozue – A Mac OSX application that posts your recently-played iTunes tracks to your MySpace page or blog.
Sonific – a music network where you can store the music you hold the rights to, and syndicate it to other sites with SongSpot widgets.
Mediamaster – upload your entire music collection and access it from anywhere in the world. You can also publish this music via widgets to any website.
BooMP3 – upload and share your MP3s; unlimited hosting.
Goombah – an application that scans your iTunes library and connects you with like minded users.
Maestro – upload your entire music library and access it from anywhere.

MUSIC MARKETPLACES

iTunes – Apple’s overwhelmingly popular music download store is a service that requires little in the way of introduction.
Amie Street – music market where music starts with free price, and the price increases as a track becomes more popular (the price never goes above 1 dollar).
Emusic – one of the most successful “indie” music stores, with over 100 million DRM-free tracks sold.
Bleep – high-quality MP3s with prices that are a bit high, but offering a great assortment of quality music.
MP3 Tunes – an online music store offering 30,000 albums and some 360,000 songs in its catalog.
Amazon – a soon-to-come music store which should have a huge assortment of music from big and indie labels alike.
PayPlay.FM – choose between over 1.4 million indie music tracks, and buy them in either MP3 or WMA format.
Beatport – a Flash-based music store with an embeddable player.
Audio Lunchbox – choose between 2 million DRM-free songs in MP3 or OGG format.
Indiepad – buy music from indie artists; if you’re an artist, sell music to people directly on the site.
Indistr – another audio marketplace that connects indie artists with the listeners.
Mtraks – an indie music marketplace with a very interesting and quite strong music collection in store.
MagnaTune – here you’ll find an assortment of music from various genres, ranging from electronica, rock and chillout to metal & punk.
Jamendo – an online music repository offering thousands of albums for free while still protecting the artists’ intellectual rights.
Musicane – buy and sell audio, video and ringtones.
Musiclovr – music search, recommendations and a store. Purchases are made via Amazon and iTunes.
MySpace Music / Snocap – through Snocap’s embedded music stores, bands on MySpace sell tunes to the social network’s huge audience. Bands can also sign up for Snocap independently and sell music elsewhere.

JAMMING

Ejamming – jam with other musicians and record music online.
Kompoz – compose music with other musicians. Record a track, then invite other musicians to add their own instruments.
Jamnow – a musical collaboration site where you can jam with other musicians. Jam sessions can be broadcast live.
Indaba – listen to completed music or works in progress and give your feedback; join in the music-making sessions or start your own.
JamJunky – have a song that’s not quite finished yet? Or, better yet, have a dozen? Organize them with JamJunky.

KARAOKE

Singshot – the “YouTube of Karaoke”: record yourself singing along to popular music and listen to others doing the same.
kSolo – sing along to backing tracks, and rate the recordings of others.

REMIXING

Jamglue – remix your music online and listen to other users’ mixes.
Splice – upload samples, remix them and post them for others to hear.
YourSpins – mix your own version of your favorite track, share it and post it to your blog or MySpace page.

MOBILE MUSIC SERVICES

Flotones – a mobile social network which allows indie bands and artists to sell their content for use on mobiles.
Entertonement – a large directory of ringtones, with top lists and categorization for easier browsing.
Mercora – a social radio network that enables you to search and listen to over 3.5 million songs; offers an application for listening to music on your smartphone.

MUSIC CHARTS

Billboard – home of the Billboard charts, with music videos and reviews.
MTV’s music charts – MTV charts and videos. Videos playable only in the US.
ChartU – a “Digg for music”: vote on tracks to boost them up the chart.

ARTIST DATABASES

Allmusic – probably the most comprehensive music database on the Internet. If your favorite artists aren’t there, well, then you’re listening to some pretty unknown artists.
Pandora Backstage – artist profiles and discographies from the personalized streaming service. You can create a custom radio station straight from an artist’s page.

LYRIC DATABASES

AbsoluteLyrics – Lyrics for all major artists.
Hot Lyrics – huge alphabetized lyrics database. Hard to navigate, but lots of content.

MUSIC SEARCH ENGINES

Qloud – Music search meets social networking. Currently back in private testing once, but Mashable has a review here. The service that launches next may be substantially different, however.
FindSounds – a search engine for sound effects and music instrument samples.
Musipedia – find and listen to songs based on keywords you provide.

AUDIO CONVERSION TOOLS

Zamzar – converts all sorts of file formats, including several audio formats.
Media Convert – a media converter with a huge amount of options.
MediaConverter – a media converter that can be slow and needs polishing, but can sometimes yield really good results.

MISCELLANEOUS MUSIC AND AUDIO TOOLS

Bluegrind – converts text to audio.
BePopular – find gigs in UK and Ireland and get your tickets.
Getabuz – create voicemail and audio e-cards online.
iden.tify.us – can’t figure out where a certain melody comes from? Identify it with the help of this service.
Houndbite – share funny audio clips from your life with other users, with the possibility to earn prizes.

Latest SEO Trends

2012-02-13T05:14:00.000-08:00

So what SEO techniques are you using? Are you using the latest techniques and are you aware the latest SEO trends? Do you have any idea what direction the search marketing industry is going? Unfortunately to keep up you must work hard to be educated on the latest direction the industry is moving.

All the big forces and even some of newest players are taking the industry in a new direction and if you are not keeping up the picture will become dull. What is becoming a major change in how people communicate on the internet?

The train has left the station did you get on board? The changes taking place are so fast you may only be aware of the SEO methods you use just don't work as well as they have in the past. The old methods of directing your customer via emotions to make a purchase just is not working like it used to. The direction we are moving today some of the old guys just may remember. The new business model today is moving in the direction of trust before a purchase is made.

Some may remember that a customer's trust had to be earned instead of assumed to insure getting a sale.

If you are keeping up with the game a new area that has left the station is the mobile search technology. We are headed for a huge growth in this area get onboard for huge opportunity.

Search marketing is moving in the direction of location based searches. Have you taken note of late that even Twitter has done the job of giving the axe to the old fashion spammy business model to prepare for location marketing that is coming. You can see this change coming at us very fast by the new phones hitting the market. Just look the new phones that know your exact location and the technology even knows all the places you are close to.

The location game is growing in leaps and bounds with all the things that can be done with the information. If you are following along you may already see this with Facebook and Twitter building their location marketing options. The train has left the station in the direction of location based marketing for the industry.

Are you Onboard Yet?

You do not have to look very hard to see all the mobile phone new additions the mobile application has already blasted off with the new applications. The major search industry is no longer just providing results for laptops and kids home and business computers. The search capability is now following you everywhere on the planet. You can download and application from your phone for many businesses to improve your visit experience for more efficiency.

Today's Marketing Strategy is Trust

Not really a new concept just one that has long been forgotten. Internet marketers that are not putting in the time to learn the changes in the industry will quickly be left behind. Trust will be the key to driving sales in the not too distant future online trust will be the answer to many companies success in getting the sale.

The ever changing industry of search engine marketing is moving at lightning speed to the future. The new technologies are descending on us almost every single day. The strange part is it is not going to slow down for you to catch up. The changes in SEO techniques are going to come faster and faster as time goes by.

Are You Prepared for Your SEO Future?

Manish Singh Search Engine Marketing Professional

2012-02-01T02:47:00.000-08:00

Search Engine Marketing Professional (SEO/SEM Expert), one of highly rated Ethical SEO Expert posses excellent command over organic SEO, purely white-hat SEO techniques, knowledge & real time industry experience of optimizing various theme website, e-commerce SEO, small & large size business website's SEO.

Manish Singh believe in delivering positive results using organic, ethical worldwide industry accepted SEO techniques following Search Engine's Guidelines.

Manish always runs for - Truth, Facts, Practical Knowledge, Nature, Happiness, Health & Nation.

Manish Singh loves to do Social Work like Helping People, Consulting, Sharing Information, Social Awareness, Sharing Knowledge / Views, True Knowledge, Truth behind the Curtain, etc.

Manish don't believe in any kind of Cast OR Religion etc. He just believes in "Humanity" - We all are humans & we all should spread Humanity!

Share your experiences of life with Manish Singh, and enjoy every moment of life happily!Manish says "Never be a Follower, Be an Adopter"

Online Marketing Expert Manish Singh is Specialist in the following online marketing disciplines:

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
PPC (Pay Per Click)
SMO (Social Media Optimization)

Online marketing strategist working across all digital channels including search engine optimization, pay per click and social media. With a passion for the digital arena and an ongoing quest to understand how to achieve best results across each channel he work with leading brands in the UK, US and India helping them realise their true potential online.

A proven pedigree working in SEO he has successfully developed and implemented holistic seo campaigns that develop prominence and ongoing visibility for his clients. Looking to drive the ‘natural’ seo loop he has begun developing concepts in seo that can be interpreted in a commercial world context.

Looking to mix passion with real life application he works with his clients to understand who their target audience are and understand their customer journeys online. From greater insight into keywords including efficiency, modelling and performance he plan a conversion focussed strategy looking for ‘quality’ over ‘quantity’ and driving long term visibility. An enthusiastic contributor he actively speak at conference and am readily available to discuss search engine optimization is shaping the modern business world.

Looking beyond the SEO arena paid search and the development of cost efficient campaigns plays a major role in day to day strategy building. A proven conversion method PPC working across Google Adwords, Yahoo, Bing and Facebook continues to be a major part of strategy building for his agency and clients. With an indepth understanding of the paid advertising field the eternal quest to continually beat conversion rates is passion and quest.

Manish Singh is currently working as a Search Engine Marketing Professional in the Internet Marketing field associated with Google SEO Firm doing deep research on the current Internet Marketing World Strategies and SEO Services in India having a strong Analyzing Power with Troubleshooting Attitude.

Blogger redirects to country specific Domain/URL

2012-02-01T02:06:00.000-08:00

Bloggers would be surprised to see that their blogspot URL changes automatically to their country specific URLs. This is because Blogger and Google have decided to redirect all blogspot pages to their respective country specific domains. For example by blog http://googlesearchengineoptimizationfirm.blogspot.com/ automatically redirects to http://googlesearchengineoptimizationfirm.blogspot.in/ when I open my blogspot in India. Similarly if my blogger is opened in australia the URL would automatically be directed to http://googlesearchengineoptimizationfirm.blogspot.in/

There will be lots of issues related to this change which needs to be figured out as early as possible. The prominent issue will be the impact on page ranks. For example let us say that your website has an alexa ranking of 1,000 and Google Pagerank as 3. Now after this redirection of URLS to country specific domains your blog will not be recognized by Alexa and the Google Pagerank will be N/A.

Why this Change?

This is what the Blogger support said as the reason for the change: "Migrating to localized domains will allow us to continue promoting free expression and responsible publishing while providing greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law. By utilizing ccTLDs, content removals can be managed on a per country basis, which will limit their impact to the smallest number of readers. Content removed due to a specific country’s law will only be removed from the relevant ccTLD."

Where we can see the change?

We can see the change only at the blog URL address.

Will this change affect my blog?

There will not be any changes to your blog expect for the URL redirecting to the country specific domain.

Will there be any change to search engine optimization SEO on my blog?

Due to this change the blogspot content will be see on different domains. Duplicate contents on different domains will have an effect on search results. But Google is taking every effort to minimize the issues and to find a solution for this as early as possible.

How to redirect my blog to .com?

Bloggers can use this tip below to redirect their blog to .com. You need to type the /ncr at the end of your blog address. For example the address should be like http://googlesearchengineoptimizationfirm.blogspot.com/ncr. This will always redirect to the U.S English blog.

This defeats the purpose of the URL redirecting by Google.

Possible questions to be answered by Google

How Google is going to determine traffic data?

How Google is going to come up with the Pagerank issue?

It is still early stage and we have more questions than answers right now. Hope to see Google come up with a solution for these issues.

Till then don't worry and keep blogging.

7 Social Media & SEO Tactics Businesses Will Adopt in 2012

2012-01-16T03:59:00.000-08:00

What will happen in the year ahead? I’m no fan of making predictions, but there are some major social media tactics that we can expect to affect businesses in 2012. Some of these tactics already have been adopted by select companies, but this year we’ll see mass adoption of these tactics by businesses of all sizes.

1. Social Listening for Marketing Intelligence

Last year we saw a plethora of new technology platforms that moved social media monitoring and started crunching some sophisticated data to gauge sentiment to drive marketing campaigns.

In my view, 2012 will be a year where businesses will take a step forward from simply looking at company mentions, debatable “sentiments”, and arguable influencer scores, and instead move toward combining all disparate social data to form a marketing intelligence that drives future marketing campaigns. Quite a few tools are doing this already, but expect to see more.

Marketers will no longer be tongue tied when asked by C-suite “mentions on social media...so what?” Instead, platforms will help marketers make smarter marketing decisions based on social listening.

2. Facebook – Advertisers and Brands will Focus More on Profitability

With Facebook on pace for a billion users, playtime is over. Businesses had in the past put lot of emphasis on the somewhat superficial numbers like number of Facebook fans without taking into account the quality of that fan acquired. What we’ll see instead in 2012 is businesses focusing more on profitability and a laser-sharp ROI focus when it comes to Facebook contests, Facebook ads, and Facebook only promotion.

Businesses will also realize that there is more to Facebook than measuring a linear conversion path from a fan to a paid customer. Marketers will be open to measure non-linear path of ROI measurement like creating Facebook-only promos to drive offline traffic. Retailers are a classic example, where lots of buzz and Facebook-only promotions will be done to drive foot traffic into retail stores. Besides large retailers, we’ll see an increasing number of small and medium-sized businesses adopt this strategy.

Advertisers will start measuring their Facebook Ads campaigns based on profitability that either helps generate revenues or supports in some kind of cost savings. Brian Carter’s new book “The Like Economy: How Businesses Make Money with Facebook” is an excellent resource.

3. Google+ - Pedal to the Metal

Google will aggressively roll out new features to Google+ and make Google+ pages more business-friendly. The biggest advantage Google has is its integration with other Google properties, like in its search engine results pages, in paid search ads, Google Reader, YouTube, etc.

Google also put a great internal focus on social last year by restructuring its employee bonus and salary structure based on Google’s success on social. This internal focus ensures that everyone inside the Googleplex thinks of social all the time. So, this internal focus with external push to consumers could make 2012 a year of Google+.

4. Quality Content

We all appreciate the importance of quality content – content that is engaging, relevant, and unique to the user.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen this mad rush (and budget) from companies to create content with the sole purpose of creating content for SEO. But we all know what happened to that with Google’s Panda update! So, in retrospect, Panda was a timely and much needed update from Google.
Instead, what we’ll see in 2012 is a more structured approach by businesses to create content that focuses on provides unique value to readers resulting in higher engagement levels with their community members. We’ll see a more holistic approach from businesses with content, whether it’s videos, how-to content pieces, or other types of content.

5. Community Building

As marketers get sophisticated with planning and measuring their campaigns, we’ll find businesses paying close attention to their existing community members. An increased emphasis will be placed on building an engaged community as opposed to simply amassing numbers. This means community managers must energize their community members as well as engage members for a variety of things like product development, market research, and special product discounts, to name a few.

Community building and management is all about people, content, and consistency. This tactic will be widely adopted in 2012 and will become an integral part of community management.

6. Social, Local, Mobile (SoLoMo)

SoLoMo – the social, local, and mobile triumvirate, will get a strong hold in 2012 with more integrated campaigns combining social media with local offers involving mobile devices. Essentially, socially advocated mobile content has the potential to boost brand loyalty, and this can boost sales among nearby on-the-go shoppers.

Top daily deals sites like Groupon and LivingSocial are perfect examples of this where they using deals to drive local sales. Foursquare is perfectly positioned for this SoLoMo tactic. We’ll see more local merchants signing up with Foursquare.

7. Social Media Drives SEO

Traditional on-page SEO factors will still hold true since it’s all about making your content search friendly, but what we’ll see in 2012 and beyond is strong social media sharing activities will drive SEO results. Last year we witnessed Google’s push to integrate social results into its SERP’s (and the newly launched Search Plus Your World update) and the Facebook-Bing partnership.

Ultimately, SEO will win because conversions will be higher (and relatively straightforward to measure) on organic search. As a result, more businesses will ensure closer collaboration between their search and social teams.

Summary

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the rapidly evolving social media and search landscape. Social and search are also closely intertwined so pushing on few tactics above will impact other tactics as well.
Over to you now: what other tactics do you think we’ll see businesses adopt in 2012?

Link Building Strategies

2012-01-16T03:33:00.000-08:00

In search engine optimization, "off page" factors have become more and more important as they relate to rankings. In particular, solid link popularity can literally make or break a site with the search engines.

Before we go any further, what is "link popularity"? In very simplistic terms, link popularity refers to the number and quality of the incoming links that are pointing to your site. These other sites consider your site important enough to link to. So, in the engine's view, your site is considered important as well. What is meant by "link popularity" can get much more complex, which is discussed further in this article.

However, one of the most difficult areas of SEO is building link popularity. Why? Because the engines don't want "artificially created" (or useless) links, so there are no easy ways to build link popularity. The days of link farms and huge link exchange programs are over. Try those strategies now and you can easily find yourself booted out of an engine.

Rather, the engines want links from authoritative sites, or links from sites that share the same focus as your site.

But besides the link popularity you gain by getting an authoritative site to link to you, you also gain additional visibility for your Web site. So, when working on building link popularity, don't forget those two basic reasons for requesting links.

The Purpose of this Article

Because building link popularity is one of the most difficult and time consuming aspects of search engine marketing, we decided to join forces with each other and with other search engine optimizers to create a list of legitimate ways you can build link popularity for your site.

When looking through this list, you may find strategies that are subject to abuse. If you use them as recommended in this article, you will have no problems. Abuse them, and you're treading in potentially dangerous waters.

Stephen Baker with Fast said one of the most memorable statements I've heard as it relates to what the engines like or don't like to see. He said: "Our position is pretty straight forward...it's not the technique that we are concerned about, it's the intention."
So, always keep that statement in mind when you consider linking or any other strategies for your Web site. Analyze your intentions, and if you wouldn't mind an engine knowing what you're doing, your intentions are okay.

Now that we've gotten the preliminaries out of the way, let's get down to business: learning ways to increase the link popularity of our sites. To write this article, we went to professional search engine optimizers for their ideas. After each strategy, we briefly attributed it to the SEO who sent it to us, and then we provided a list of all contributors along with their companies and URL's at the end of the article.

Keep in mind that these strategies aren't in any particular order. Also, keep in mind that though it isn't always stated explicitly, we're always referring to "related" and "important" or "authoritative" sites as our targets.

Start with SEO Experts:

NOTE: Link to all contributor web sites can be found at the end of this article.
Before you begin link seeking, you might want to read the article, "A Linking-Campaign Primer": http://www.ericward.com/articles/primer.html. (Eric Ward, President, NetPOST and URLwire)

This is by far the oldest and best-known method of improving link popularity. Basically you email or contact the Webmaster of a site that is complementary but generally not competitive to your own. You ask them to link to your site while outlining the benefits of doing so. You would generally offer to link back to them in exchange for this courtesy. Be sure you have developed genuine content on your Web site of interest to the trading partner. Explain the advantages to them and to their visitors by providing a link to your content. Tell them where the link on your site will be or set the link up in advance with the stipulation that you'll be glad to leave it there if they'll add a link to you in kind. Take the time to look over their site and then suggest where a link to you might be appropriate. Most importantly, personalize your emails! You must distinguish yourself from all the spam they receive daily. If the link is particularly important to you, call them personally or write them a letter or send a fax to show them you're serious. (Brent Winters of First Place Software)

Here's the simple means to find those good links. Go to the major search engines. Search for your target keywords. Look at the pages that appear in the top results. Now visit those pages and ask the site owners if they will link to you. Not everyone will, especially sites that are extremely competitive with you. However, there will be non-competitive sites that will link to you -- especially if you offer to link back. Why is this system good? By searching for your target keywords, you'll find the pages that the search engines themselves are telling you are good, as evidenced by the fact that they rank well. Hence, links from these pages are more important -- and important for the terms you are interested in -- than links from other pages. (Danny Sullivan with Search Engine Watch) SEARCHDAY NOTE: Search Engine Watch members have access to a long article by Danny explaining both link analysis and appropriate link building in depth.
When asking for a link:

ALWAYS have a link already put on your own site BEFORE you ask for a link in return and give the location of the link. It's harder to say no if you can provide the URL of where their link is.
ALWAYS give them the exact link text to use, even going so far as to put it in HTML so they can just cut/paste it onto their page.
MAKE SURE they actually have a links page!
GIVE THEM as much information as needed in order to make it easy for them to link to you. If they have a big site that's divided into sections, give them the exact URL of where your site would fit in. Then, provide the HTML for the link to your site. (Robin Nobles of the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)

Use voice instead of email to reciprocate and try contacting people by voice instead of email. More people are inclined to respond to your request when you introduce yourself by phone and let them know that you were visiting their site. Ask permission to link to their site. In return, you might state that a link back is appreciated but not required. Assuming they say yes, then you simply link up to them and confirm by email once you have confirmed. Warm personal voice contact goes a lot further than a cold email or even a warm email letter. (John Alexander with Beyond-SEO and Search Engine Workshops)

Pre-qualify the people you solicit for reciprocal links. They must have links from other sites like yours, and they must have the ability to make changes to their own site. If they don't respond to your solicitation, at most send ONE second request. Otherwise move on and take their site off of yours. Send a thank you note if they give you a reciprocal link. (Gary Woods with Beautiful Santa Barbara Real Estate)

Search for sites that rank high for search terms that are important to you, then look through the search results for sites that do not compete with you. These sites should be high on your list of link targets. Piggy back on their high ranking. (Eric Ward, President, NetPOST and URLwire)

Check the link popularity of your competitors, and find out who are linking to them. Contact those Web sites, and ask them to link to you in return for a reciprocal link. (Robin Nobles of the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)

Search the sites of the people who have linked to you for other possible link partners. (Gary Woods with Beautiful Santa Barbara Real Estate)

Find URLs that are currently linking to one or more of your pages and ask the appropriate Webmaster if they might also find value in other pages on your site (that you might suggest). (Mike Adams, the Email Doctor)
Manually search for Web sites that have the same theme as your Web site. When requesting a link, make sure to highlight what your site has to offer their visitors and why they should link to it. A compelling case will increase your success. (Becky Thompson with Inter@ctivate Inc.)

Review any Web site to which you want to link *before* writing to its Webmaster asking for a link. Like all SEO, do it manually. Automating the task is asking for trouble, especially if you haven't reviewed the site before asking for the link. (Gil Sery with Search Engine Optimization Pros)

If someone says they can not or do not wish to link to your site, I would still ask their permission to link to them. Instead of sending them a confirmation, try sending them a pleasant thank you for permission to link to their Web site. Don't be surprised if they DO link back. (John Alexander with Beyond-SEO and Search Engine Workshops)

If you've moved your site and you're asking those who have linked to you to change to your new URL, give them as much information as possible. I have over 300 pages on my personal site, but I still have people who will write and tell me to change their link to: http://www.mynewwebsite.com. Yet, they don't tell me their old URL (so I can easily do a search), and they don't tell me which of those 300 pages their link exists on. Do I have the time to dig through those 300 pages to find their old link? (Robin Nobles of theAcademy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)

Sample Link Exchange Letter

Be very clear with your request for reciprocal linking. After you have thoroughly researched a potential site to ensure they are appropriate and actually do have links to other sites, consider the following:

Start with a very brief description of your site's content and how it relates to their site.
Provide the exact URL of their page you think the link would be most beneficial. Show them that you've actually visited the site and given some thought to the link.
Finally, give the HTML code for the link so the Webmaster can cut and paste it directly into his page code. That gives you some control over the link placement and lets you include your keywords into the link text. (Terry Plank with the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Marketing Consultants)

Take care in crafting your reciprocal links letter. Make sure it's the best it can be before sending it out. Remember, you're asking for a favor (a mutually beneficial favor, but a favor nonetheless), so be polite and respectful in your letter. Otherwise, you'll get nowhere fast. (Gil Sery with Search Engine Optimization Pros)

Create a "Link Exchange Letter," requesting a link exchange with your site, to each of the sites you have noted in your list. Make sure you've come up with at least 50 good quality content, non-competitive sites with a decent PageRank score of their own to email. (Chris Genge with 1st on the List Promotion Inc.)
Example of a Link Exchange Letter from Eric Ward:

Hi , my name is Eric Ward.
Regarding your AdoptionSolutions.com site at http://www.adoptionsolutions.com/
This month I'm helping the Hallmark Channel (cable TV) announce their new Web site about adoption. The site is the companion site for their real-life TV series "Adoption Stories," which premiers this month (June).
Details about the site are below. Please feel free to feature or link to this new content in any way you feel appropriate.

By chance is your adoption news section at http://www.adoptionsolutions.com/general/adopt_topics.htm a good fit for it?

Also, if you have any questions or need anything feel free to contact me at eric@ericward.com or (865) 637-2438.

I'm a real person, not a link request bot :) :)
Best wishes,
Eric Ward
on behalf of The Hallmark Channel
Hallmark Channel Site Announcement
----------------------------------
Hallmark Channel Adoption Stories
http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/adoption/

Launched in conjunction with this month's premier of the original series about adoption on The Hallmark cable TV Channel. The Web version of Hallmark Channel's series about adoption seeks user input to help end the myths surrounding the adoption process. Share your experiences of an adoption and help others understand the process, the pitfalls and the rewards. Every week, follow the stories of real people as they seek to enrich their lives and fulfill their dreams through adoption. Go online and you can help end the myths surrounding the adoption process.

(End of sample letter)

The above example is for a non-reciprocal link request, and it resulted in a link being obtained for my client. It could be changed easily to make it a reciprocal link request by adding one sentence that says where you gave them a link. (Eric Ward, President, NetPOST and URLwire)

What Should you Put on Link Pages?

Create a link page on your Web site that gives other Web sites permission to link to yours. Make it very easy for them to include you by providing cut and paste HTML code. Incorporate your keyphrases into the linking code. Create small banners or buttons for this purpose as well. (Nancy Nelson with Search by Design)
Put a description under each link on your links page. You don't want the search engines thinking of you as a link farm. (Gil Sery with Search Engine Optimization Pros)

Complete Linking Strategies:

Complete Strategy #1:

Here is my list, in order of tactical importance:

First, build a content rich site, narrow in scope [say half a dozen high potential keywords, with a smattering of lessor important but still related kw's”.

Then, contact other sites that have the same scope as yours does, and ask for a reciprocal link [after you have already linked to them, of course!”. If you build a site that is content rich, informative, and above all else has unique content, then all your peers will beat a path to your door, asking you for a link!
Get your site listed at Yahoo [yes, it does force you to yank out your wallet, but it IS one of the best links you can get”. Do the research necessary to find the most appropriate category [which is where the Link Relevancy comes from”, and get that title and description optimized!
Get into the ODP. Do the same research as you did at Yahoo for the best category.
Find out which of the thousands of specialty SE's and directories that your site is a good fit for, and submit to them.
After you are done with 1 - 5, build another content rich site, and on this one, concentrate on your next batch of kw's. Cross link the home pages. Repeat.
Even though blogging is all the rage these days, I think it will go the way of link farms in the not-too-distant future, especially if/when the SE's determine that it is just another case of spamming. We are staying away from it, and concentrating on the 6 tactics above.
Of much less importance is cross linking within each of your individual sites. I have gotten away from heavy cross linking, relying instead on good site maps [which addresses spiderability, not link pop”. (Rocky Rawstern with 7th Wave)

Complete Strategy #2:

Like Links:

Step 1: Identify useful linkages. If you're a Web developer, break your clients (or willing contacts from the industry) into relevant linked groups: e.g. realtors, travel and tourism, technology companies.
Step 2: category-page.html. Build a link list for each group (one for realtors, one for travel and tourism, etc.), plain html, listing a keyword-relevant title for each description which links to the site for each client, with one or two paragraphs about the site. Example:

"Travel accommodations and resorts in Australia"
Save this page as say, travel-sites.html, and perhaps to remember where it lives easily, and make it easily updateable, save it in a directory like www.yourclientsite.com/accommodations/travel-sites.html

Step 3: Make each of the pages different within each site.

Now apply your site template for each site in the list, to that raw html page, (in other words cut and paste the list into a blank version of one of your existing pages for each site and save it as /accommodations/travel-sites.html) so that you have different look, feel and byte size, for each of the pages built, in line with the look of each site. This will stop most SE's viewing pages as duplicate content when in fact what you're validly doing is provided useful related links to other resources on the Web.

Step 4: Make a site-map.html. Build a site map within every site in the above list, if you haven't already. In each site, have the site map linking to every internal page, set out like the one above, with at least a one paragraph description of what is on the page, with relevant keywords, which is also useful to humans. Hyperlink the main keyword/phrase to the pages within your site. Also include a link to the above link page (/accommodations/travel-sites.html) which lists all the other related sites. Save the site map as something like site-map.html.
Step 5: Make a link to the site map from each home page.

On your home (index/default) page include a link to the site-map.html page.

Step 6: Submit to search engines. Submit your home page to major SE's if it hasn't been submitted in a while. So now you have a link to a site map on your home page, with that site map listing one paragraph descriptions and hyperlinks to all the pages in your site, including your new accommodations/travel-sites.html (which now looks just like the rest of your pages in the site).

This simple 6-step process is a popularity and relevancy boost for ALL the sites you have on the travel-sites.html list. Firstly, from the home page on each site, SE spiders and humans now have access to relevant descriptive links to all pages in your site and other related sites. They have the addition of some useful "related resource" information within the site content using the travel-sites.html page. And most importantly, they have "x" more relevant sites as incoming links. If all the sites are full of valid and unique topic-related content, you've built a nice little interlinked network of sites for very little effort. And with a resubmission to the major SE's of this new content, you should see some increased results within 3 months when checking link relevancy. (Carl Watney with Unearthed)

Complete Strategy #3:

Begin a Link Exchange Campaign to create high quality content, high PageRank links to your site by utilizing the following steps, in order:

1. Create a links or resources page on your site
2. Establish a list of at least 50 related but non-competing, high quality content sites with a high Google PageRank that you would like to exchange links with by doing the following:

Download Google toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com) to be able to establish PageRank grading for the sites that come up in the following search results
Do searches on Google for:

- terms that will show search results displaying sites that relate to your own site, but are not direct competitors
Check out these sites, one by one, beginning with the ones listed first in the search results, for quality content, non-competitiveness, and Web master's email address, and note down in a list the sites that meet these criterion, recording as well the site's title and description from the homepage source code
- terms that will show search results displaying sites that directly compete with your own site
- terms that will show search results displaying sites that directly compete with your own site

Beginning with the ones listed first in the Google search results, check out each site with a linking tool (e.g. of tool, go to http://chatologica.com.) Click on Web Site Popularity Check at the bottom of the page to establish what sites link to theirs, and make a list of these linking sites. Then check out each of these sites that are linked to your direct competitor for quality content, non-competitiveness, and Web master's email address, and note down on the same list you began in b., the sites that meet these criterion, recording as well the site's title and description from the homepage source code. (Chris Genge with 1st on the List Promotion Inc.)

Who Should You Target?

Inktomi's link analysis program policy is that sites that link to its relevant topic category page on Yahoo receive improved hub factor rankings because of Yahoo's popularity. A reciprocal link with Yahoo is even more beneficial. Get your site listed with Yahoo; it is easier today than before with the Business Express option. (Detlev Johnson with The Ascendant Group)

While you're at it, link back to the search engines. Does it help? I don't know. But what if it does? What if the search engines check if your site leads back to them? What if they give 1% boost if you do? Would 1% matter if everyone else had 99% relevancy and you got an extra 1%? Hmmm, something to ponder. I always link every important site back to the major search engines and directories as a little thank you gesture. (Michael Campbell with Internet Marketing Secrets)

Get a link in an appropriate category from an About.com Guidesite. The popularity of About and the extent of their quality links positions the network as a mandatory stop in a marketing campaign. Also, make sure to thoroughly annotate links on your Web site with targeted keyword phrases. This will aid Google and other engines in their partial indexing. (Marshall Simmonds of About.com)

Your homepage is not the only part of your site that you can get links for. If you offer an online newsletter, there are directories just for newsletters you can get links from. If your site has multimedia files, there are multimedia search engines you can submit to. If you have other files, like .pdf files or even image files, there are search engines you can get links from. (Eric Ward, President, NetPOST and URLwire)

Go to Google and search for "submit a link" AND "put your keyword phrase here." You'll be shown a list of sites that have link pages on them in your keyword area, and some of them may be worth writing to. "Submit a URL," "add a URL," etc., will work too. (Elbert Flores of Position Research)

Think in terms of related fields as opposed to actual competition. Are there any organizations or associations connected with your industry? What about educational establishments? Publications? News sites? (Robin Nobles of the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)

How many links do you need pointing to your site? More than your competition. :) (Stephen Mahaney of Planet Ocean)

Find as many themed directories to submit to as possible. Make sure the directory is already in Google, has a good PR, and doesn't use dynamic script in the address. Think about your theme. If you are a marketing firm, look for marketing directories/hubs/portals/vortals, do the same for business to business or b2b. If you are niched or focused on one aspect of marketing, then also look to that for your directories. You can probably stretch it to advertising directories. Be creative but stick with your theme. Once you are listed, it's good to have a page on your site that you use to feed the spiders: a "Where we can be found on the Web" page. Link directly to the page you can be found on. (Debra Paynter with Promotion Strategies)

Ask your upstream or downstream suppliers to link to you and you to them. If you are a wholesaler, you don't sell to the public, only to retailers. List your top 10 retailers as a reward to them. Same with retailers, link to your main wholesalers, unless they have to remain a secret for some reason. Advertising agencies and printing shops can link to their customers and vice versa. Same deal with your friends. You could each provide three links and put up a "my friends" page or "suggested sites" page. A word of advice though, don't everyone call it the same thing and don't call it a "links" page. Also don't request links on a public bulletin board. Yes, the search engines have many employees, and some of them have the job of maintaining the integrity of their search results. They read the popular search engine boards.... so be very careful about how you recruit a gang of cross linkers. (Michael Campbell with Internet Marketing Secrets)

Paying for a link at Overture.com (formerly GoTo.com) that is not in the top five in the search results is, in most cases, a waste. Results of six and lower are not made available to the Overture partner sites, which collectively have millions more users than Overture does alone. Like AOL, for example. If the cost increase is just a few cents, get in the top five, and your site could be found across all of Overture's partner sites rather than only at Overture.com. (Eric Ward, President, NetPOST and URLwire)

Download Google's Toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com) to ensure that inbound links are from decent sites, with a minimum of 3 out of 10 on the toolbar. (Dixon Jones with Receptional)

Link quality simply means how well positioned are the pages that link to you. There are also boosts and penalties involved. If you are linked to by a spammy link farm, you get a penalty. If you are linked to by a directory like Yahoo, LookSmart, or Dmoz you get a boost. What about the hundreds of free directories? Yes, they all help. In my Vault, I list about 80 search resources. Dozens of them are directories. Take a few days and MANUALLY submit your site to every directory that will take it. I was surprised to find several directories for my own city. Regional directories can often supply plenty of incoming links. Every relevant link helps. (Michael Campbell with Internet Marketing Secrets)

Go after authoritative sites. Look for vertical engines and directories in your topic areas. Look for popular sites. One or two authoritative sites linking back to you will do you more good than 1,000 irrelevant links. Visit Search Engine Guide and Beaucoup for a listing of vertical engines and directories. (Robin Nobles of theAcademy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)

Work on building rapport with other Webmasters. By building up a "working rapport" with other local Webmasters or affiliates, there are lots of ways that you can mutually benefit by trading links with several similarly themed sites, which are non-competing. Once you start working with other Webmasters, it's surprising what synergies may develop. Remember to give your very best to your fellow Webmasters as these relationships are win/win. (John Alexander with Beyond-SEO and Search Engine Workshops)

I am not a fan of reciprocal links unless they are complimentary. Portals and directories will naturally work better. My logic with outbound links is, "You have already lost the client for today, Dixon, so get a better product tomorrow.") (Dixon Jones with Receptional)

Become a Content Provider:

The bottom line is the easiest most obvious answer. It's also the toughest to do. Give people a reason to link to you. Think about it. Sites get linked to for a reason: usually if they provide the most information or the best resources on a particular topic. Is there any reason WHY people should link to your site? How is your content? Even if you are not a writer, ask the writers if you can use their stuff. The answer is usually yes. The writer gets a link from you. And you get great content. Now people will start linking to you. (Michael Campbell with Internet Marketing Secrets)

We all want to get on the top ranking sites listed in Google with few, if any outbound links. But what if they don't have a links program in place? Here's one way to get yourself linked from these choice sites. The top sites in a keyword category often don't have a links program, but they do have an e-zine or content library on their site. So... Write a 300-500 word article on a topic of real interest to their target market and submit it to the Webmaster, as well as to other e-zines reaching the same target audience. Include in your article sig file (or credit box) your site link and an enticing description. In other words, give the site owner something they can use that delivers real value to their constituents. By providing them with an asset, you're reaching them in a new way that goes beyond a simple link request. A couple of notes:

Don't market in your article. Deliver real value instead.
Before writing anything, subscribe to their e-zine first or go through their site content. Fill any gap you see - create something new that they don't already have on file
Market in your sig file only – and be sure to include your full site URL! (Scott Smith with LinkagExpress)

Become an "expert" in your particular field and write related articles. Market those articles to online content providers. Be sure to include your byline at the end of your article, including your name, company name, and URL's, and make sure to use appropriate keyword-containing link text. Visit this URL for a list of places that accept articles:

http://www.coachmaria.com/articles/articlebanks.html (Robin Nobles of the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)

I am hopeful that http://www.marketing-strategy.info is a good idea for link building – giving up "brand" in favor of white labeling. How does white labeling work? If you have a good product or content but a weak brand, then why not give up the brand altogether and concentrate on your content? Focus on why a human would follow the link that the other site has made for you – a compelling reason. That will usually come down to superior content. MarketLeap.com allows you to "brand" their stuff with your logo, but it involves a link to do it. (Dixon Jones with Receptional)

Write a testimonial for a product or service that you particularly like in your topic area. Many companies will put testimonials throughout their site, with links back to the company providing the testimonial. (Robin Nobles of the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)

A very effective strategy to gain quality links as well as traffic is to license content from your site for free in exchange for a link back to you. For example, we encourage anyone to post individual articles or the entire MarketPosition newsletter on their own Web sites so long as they properly credit us for the material and link back to http://www.webposition.com/ or http://www.marketposition.com/. (Brent Winters of First Place Software)

If you're asking someone for a testimonial, tell the Webmaster to whom you're writing that you're willing to put a link to their site under their testimonial if they're willing to reciprocate. That way, everyone wins. Actually you win twice! First, because you have a good testimonial for your product/service and second, you've increased your link popularity -- all with one link! Make sure that the link under the testimonial opens in a new browser window so that you don't lose that visitor to the linked site. (Gil Sery with Search Engine Optimization Pros)

Create teaser articles. See if you can get the first third of the article listed on their site with a keyword rich text link leading back to your site where they can find the rest of the article. Be sure you get the bio with an additional link to your homepage as well. (Debra Paynter with Promotion Strategies)

Offer something for free (such as a downloadable report), and then ask for a link back to your site if the person finds value in the free item. This works because you're giving away something of value, and when people find it valuable, they're likely to reciprocate. (Mike Adams, the Email Doctor)

Spend time building valuable content on your site through different keyword windows. As you do, more and more people will begin linking to your site, as they're linking to your valuable content. (Robin Nobles of the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)

Offer yourself as an expert. Contact editors and writers and let them know you are available to be used as a source in exchange for a link and always push for the bio. (Debra Paynter with Promotion Strategies)

Have an easy way for people to link back to an article or content if they like it. Example: an icon that generates the HTML code they can copy and insert into their own HTML pages. (Mike Adams, the Email Doctor)

A sure fire way to increase link popularity is to have a high quality newsletter or article section on your site. If you have good content on your site, people will want to link to you to provide their visitors useful information. You can take this approach a step further by offering your article or newsletter to other sites with the condition that they link back to your site. This is especially good when you can get a high quality site to use your linked story on their site. (Chris Churchill with NetMechanic)

Use emotional content to give people a reason to link to you. A site built on a single theme may often benefit from using content which employs:

unique theme-related information which appeals to the emotions
original and appropriate humor
content of extremely useful nature (references materials)
original cartoon work
animation that appeals to the senses or tells a short story
something with an uncommon emotional element

Web sites that employ emotional elements often find that other sites with a similar theme will automatically link up to them just because of that emotional appeal. (John Alexander with Beyond-SEO and Search Engine Workshops)

Leave your Links Everywhere!

Host your own affiliate program on your own server. Sure it takes more work: you have to set it up, administer it and pay out the affiliate checks. However, if you use an affiliate service, such as Commission Junction, the links point to the affiliate service and get redirected to your site. If you host your own affiliate program, all those affiliate links point directly to you. You can find affiliate programs, some of which may be free at The CGI Resource Index (http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/
Website_Promotion/Affiliate_Programs/). (Bill Gentry with Look Sharp Designs)

Look for linking opportunities within discussion lists related to your site's topic, but do so carefully. Try YahooGroups, which has thousands of topical discussion groups on almost any topic. I often send short posts to appropriate lists with links for my clients' sites, and if you do so properly, it is very effective. (Eric Ward, President, NetPOST and URLwire)

Anywhere you can leave your link, do it: in chat rooms, guest books, etc. You would be surprised at where your link turns up on search engines when you start doing this. And if the SE has found it, then it adds to your link popularity. (Don Hammond at DonOmite.com)

Now that Google indexes the content of newsgroups, if you post to related newsgroups, be sure to use a signature line with your link and appropriate link text. (Robin Nobles of the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)

Ask a question (FAQ) and include a link. Post questions on forums that allow links. Post into the newsgroups. Include an email tail tag. Put it on your T-shirt. Include it as a sticker with each shipped order. Tattoo it on your forehead. Tell your mom. Get a vanity license plate...etc etc etc :-) (Michael Campbell with Internet Marketing Secrets)

The number one way I've built link popularity is by offering a good information product or service, establishing a good conversion on the site, and then getting super affiliates. I've found that getting super affiliates multiplies the number of regular affiliates I'm able to get. All of this leads to hundreds of inbound links. It takes a very disciplined approach, but one I've found very effective. (Jon Keel with Improved Results)

The last remaining major free directory is The Netscape Open Directory. What most folks don't realize is that you can have multiple links to your site's content as long as that content is a match for the category you are submitting to. (Eric Ward, President, NetPOST and URLwire)

I'm surprised at how many people don't have their link in their signature line of their email. (Don Hammond at DonOmite.com)

Be Creative and Visible!

One of our most successful methods for increasing link popularity is to offer "awards" (a gif that links back to our site). We create a strong incentive for the awardee to place the award on their site because the awardee perceives a benefit – he gets to tell the world that another site recognized his site as a quality site. One way we do this at NetMechanic is to offer "Star Performer" awards to Web sites that get 4 or more stars on their site when they run our validator tool over their site. This tells people visiting the awardee's site, that the award-winning site is a professional site run by individuals interested in quality assurance and providing a good visitor experience. Remember to make it easy for awardees to place the award gif on their site. Have the snippet of code available so all they have to do is cut and paste it into their Web page. Even if your site doesn't support an award, offer visitors a gif to put on their site. You'd be surprised how many people are willing to do something like this for a site they like. (Chris Churchill with NetMechanic)

Build a stand alone search engine or directory. Add your own sites, your clients' sites, your affiliate sites, your own sites that are affiliates for others, etc. It's a great way to legitimately build link popularity for all your sites, even if they are unrelated. Some programs will even allow you to supplement your results with ODP. You can find search engine and directory programs at The CGI Resource Index (http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/Link_
Indexing_Scripts/) and The PHP Resource Index (http://php.resourceindex.com/Complete_Scripts/Link_Management
/Directories and_Portals/). You can also build a stand-alone themed search engine or directory, with a link to your own site. (Bill Gentry with Look Sharp Designs)

If someone wants to interview you for an article in your related field, say YES immediately! That person will list your qualifications with a link back to your site as part of your introduction. Plus, you'll get added visibility and credibility for your Web site and online business. (Robin Nobles of the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)

Although joining a banner exchange program would probably not improve your link popularity, you can improve your link popularity by starting your own banner exchange service. The concept of these services is that people sign up and agree to add special links to your Web site. Your server will then display banner ads on their pages. In exchange, you agree to automatically display a certain number of their banners on your own site and other Web sites within your banner exchange network. (Brent Winters of First Place Software)
Submit your site to the many awards sites on the Web. If you win, you get to place that award on the site and the award site usually links to your site from theirs as a bonus. (Judith Silver with Coollawyer.com)

Go to sites that offer "free" Web space and create a small (3 to 5 page) site on the same subject as your own site. Link it back to your site. Submit the new site to the SE's for indexing. It isn't an obvious self promotion and it should get you some credit for link relevance. Just make sure that the "free" site is one that the SE's will index. (Ron Gotcher with GotcherLaw.com) (Author's Note: And, make sure that the content on the new, free site is valuable and useful to both the engines and the search engine public.)

If you have your own server, or if you can work out a deal with your ISP for extra IP addresses, register URLs and point them to the extra IP addresses and do the same thing described above. URL registration has gotten so inexpensive these days that cost should not even be a consideration.(Ron Gotcher with GotcherLaw.com)

If you offer a contest or sweepstakes on your site, you can get free links to it from the many contest and sweepstakes directories on the Web. (Eric Ward, President, NetPOST and URLwire)
Offer a small discount to anyone who agrees to post a graphic pointing to your site on theirs. Anyone who goes through that link will get a discount off your goods or services, and you'll get added link popularity. (Robin Nobles of the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)

I have found that it is hard to handle the "mechanics" of building link popularity pages. It is very time consuming to add the links to a client's site and follow up by sending an email to the site that you would like a link back from. So I have developed a dynamic database link system whereby the client can add the link, logo, and description on their own without having to know any code. We also created for them the template email that they can send to the other site's Webmaster. This saves the client money and enables them to take over this function instead of me having to handle this task. (Steve Wilson with Worldsites.network) (Author's Note: Make sure that the template email is personalized for each recipient in some way.)

Host a Top Site. Top Sites can work for almost any topic. A Top Site is run by a cgi program. There are several ways to configure the program, but most rank by the amount of incoming traffic a site sends. Here's how it works. A site signs up for a Top Site. They add your link or button with their top site id in the link on their site. The link points to your Top Site via the cgi program. The referring site gets credit for the visitor. The more visitors that site sends, the better it ranks. An added benefit is that all the outgoing links from your Top Site go through your cgi-bin and are redirected to the site. So if you are worried about sharing too much PageRank (which I wouldn't worry about myself), you won't be sharing it by using a Top Site. You can find Top Site programs, some of which may be free at The PHP Resource Index (http://php.resourceindex.com/Complete_Scripts/Website_
Promotion/Top_Sites/) and The CGI Resource Index (http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/
Website_Promotion/Top_Sites/). You can also use the Top Site to generate some advertising revenue. Peruse other categories at the above sites to find advertising programs. (Bill Gentry with Look Sharp Designs)
Do you have a members-only Web site? Offer site owners free membership if they link to you. (Scott Smith with LinkagExpress)

Host your own Web Ring. All the links on every Web ring banner point to your site and redirect to member sites, your site if you host it. You can find Web Ring programs at The PHP Resource Index (http://php.resourceindex.com/Complete_Scripts/Website
_Promotion/Web_Rings/) and The CGI Resource Index (http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/
Website_Promotion/Web_Rings/). However, don't join a Web ring for link popularity purposes as all the links point to the ring server and redirect to member sites. However, they can be useful for building traffic. (Bill Gentry with Look Sharp Designs)

Do you have a discussion board? Invite other related sites to link to it. (Scott Smith with LinkagExpress)
If you give away something on your site, don't forget to try and get a listing from the sites that list sites that give stuff away, such as The Free Site (http://www.thefreesite.com). (Bill Gentry with Look Sharp Designs)
Write a review of a Web site, then tell the site owner it's theirs to post in exchange for a link. (Scott Smith with LinkagExpress)

If an established and respected writer, like Robin Nobles, asks you for a contribution for an article he or she is writing, always say yes (if you have the knowledge)! Established writers get published in a lot of places that you can't. The writers will always give you credit and may give you a link in the article as well. (Bill Gentry with Look Sharp Designs)

Especially for B2B Sites:

A few suggestions to increase external link popularity to B2B sites:
- incorporate the requirement to link to your site in all contracts with:
- resellers
- partners
- subcontractors
- vendors
Remember to ask them to put the link on a page that is accessible to search engine robots (not behind password control). It should appear on a page already showing up in results. (Barbara Coll with WebMama.com)

Submit technical papers to Web sites that are either interested in the subject or offer technical papers for a fee (like bitpipe.com). (Barbara Coll with WebMama.com)
Increase the amount of case study, technical studies (i.e. non-product or sell oriented) material on your Web site and point industry editors to it as fodder for their articles. (Barbara Coll with WebMama.com)
Apply to awards programs. For example: -> Windows & .NET Magazines Reader's Choice Awards. Any company who sells technology products is eligible to nominate their product(s) using the form at the link below. Top 100 Winners published in September, but deadline for nominations is April 5th. Entry is free. http://www.winnetmag.com/mediakit/editorial/Readers-Choice
-Form.doc (Barbara Coll with WebMama.com)

Make sure that all employee speaking engagements at tradeshows, etc. are listed in the online brochure for the show and ask for a live link back to your site. (Barbara Coll with WebMama.com)
Submit your site to all online industry and general business directories you can find. Consider paying for a few. For example, www.business.com, www.allbusiness.com, www.yellowpages.com, www.dmoz.org. (Barbara Coll with WebMama.com)

Implement small money (or large if you have it) buys on Pay-per-click engines like Overture.com and FindWhat.com. (Barbara Coll with WebMama.com)

Pay to have your home page spidered by search engine robots for search databases like Inktomi (through www.positiontech.com) and Lycos. Make sure that page is well optimized before you start. (Barbara Coll with WebMama.com)

Why not hire a summer student to go looking for places to submit your site and to clean up (verify accuracy) of current links. To find all sites currently pointing to your site, go to Google and enter link:www.domainname.com. Keep in mind that 'link farms,' a whole page of only links, do nothing to increase your link popularity. (Barbara Coll with WebMama.com)

Off the Net Ideas:

Make News! Draft a brief press release about something newsworthy at your company. It can be the announcement of a new location, landing a big new contract, speaking at a prestigious conference, or even just announcing a new hire. Then fax or email your press release to all relevant newspapers, to the attention of the Business Editor. You can do a free search at www.gebbieinc.com for the contact information of the newspapers in your region and/or industry. Most newspapers today have a companion Web site and your article will often end up online, adding another new link to your site each time a press release is published. (Susan J. O'Neil with @Web Site Publicity, Inc.)

Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper(s). Just make sure you aren't saying nasty controversial things! Many newspapers are mirrored online nowadays. (Don Hammond at DonOmite.com)
If you belong to professional organizations, your local Chamber of Commerce, etc., see if they will give you a link. (Bill Gentry with Look Sharp Designs)

Contact your local radio and television stations and offer your expert knowledge as a source. This may get you a link on their site. If you get the gig – get the link. (Debra Paynter with Promotion Strategies)
Set aside a certain amount of money to use to join associations within your industry. Make sure they have a good site with great PR and that they list links to their members sites. See if they accept articles, teaser articles, or are interested in using you as a source in exchange for additional links. (Debra Paynter with Promotion Strategies)

Put your URL on your stationary, business cards, off-the-Web advertising, invoices, statements, print publications, T-shirts, promotional items, anywhere you can think of. The more times that people see your URL or business name, the better chance you'll have at their remembering and recognizing your site and eventually visiting. (Robin Nobles of the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)

Keep Track of What You're Doing:

Research your competition. During the process, open a spreadsheet and start making lists from the information you find. The standards include: general directories, themed directories, link partnerships to explore, and the biggie – PR or public relations. I consider PR as all the oddball links your competition gets, either an actual Press Release you find listed on a Web site, an article they've written that's placed or a quote with a link back to your domain. Look at your main keywords during this research and the top competitors for each. It's not just who is linking to them but the relationships and patterns you see developed. This information is invaluable in structuring your link popularity campaign. (Debra Paynter with Promotion Strategies)

Create a spreadsheet and detail who you've contacted, when and the results. Or if you have a contact database (ACT!, Access, FileMaker Pro, etc.), use that contact's "notes" field to keep a record of this information. (Gil Sery with Search Engine Optimization Pros)

Open a spreadsheet for general directories (themed directories or link partners – whatever you are working on). At the top of the page in copy/paste form, list in order the pertinent information that directories look for in a submission. Have all that information ready ahead of time to make the process run quick and easy. In one column list the URL of the site, in another list the category you are submitting to, the next list the page you are submitting, then a column for the date you submitted and one for the date you are accepted. This information will help you to know where you've been and where you are going. An additional tip I like to follow is to come up with 3-5 variations of a title with the most crucial keyword phrase included. I then rotate these variations of the title, with each submission. You say the same thing but in more than one manner. I also create at least two descriptions, a long and a short form and I am sure to maximize the use of keywords in submissions. You want these to sell in that you want click-thrus and you want them keyword rich for search. (Debra Paynter with Promotion Strategies)

Check out the affirmative replies for a link exchange, and make sure they have uploaded a link back to your site from theirs. If they haven't, politely email them and notify them of it, with your thanks. (Chris Genge with 1st on the List Promotion Inc.)

A few weeks after you've received the reciprocal link, check the people who have linked to you to make sure they're still linked. (Sites change policies and go 404, no dead weight and no free riders) (Gary Woods with Beautiful Santa Barbara Real Estate)

Monitor your site on a monthly basis utilizing a linking tool to ensure that all the links are still in place. If they're not, email the site politely, mentioning same and asking them to reinstate the link. If they don't, remove your link to them from your resource page. (Chris Genge with 1st on the List Promotion Inc.)

Link Checking Services and Information:

Check your link popularity at Link Popularity Check.com, which will give your link popularity for Lycos/Fast, AltaVista, and MSN. The service, which is provided by First Place Software, will even send you a weekly or monthly report showing your link popularity in those engines. (Brent Winters of First Place Software)
You can also check your link popularity at LinkPopularity.com to learn your link pop for Google, HotBot, and AltaVista. (Robin Nobles of the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)
Visit LinkPromotion.com for a step-by-step walk through of how to increase your link popularity. (Robin Nobles of the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)

Software or Services:

LinkagExpress is a hand-tailored link popularity service at http://www.linkagexpress.com. They go out and find you link partners to link to you in exchange for reciprocal links. You need to put up one page on your site with link partners on it (and have a small link on your main page to it). You could do this yourself of course, but it is very time consuming work. We are up 62 unique visitors a day already...which computes out to 1,860 new visitors a month. The fee I paid is a one-time fee. The traffic is forever. (Terry Dean at NetBreakThroughs.com)

OptiLink is a software program for determining from 4 major engines the overall theme of your site by analyzing and evaluating the incoming and outgoing links to your pages. OptiLink records the text others use to link to you, their title page words and your keywords on your page so you can isolate problem areas with your pages Reputation and Topic. Visit http://www.optitext.com/optilink/index.html for more information. (Terry Plank with the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Marketing Consultants)

Zeus is a link popularity building software program that you "train" to go out and find links that are related in focus or theme to your own site. Once it finds those links, you go through them and pick and choose which ones are of quality and are appropriate for your site. Using Zeus, you can create your own personalized email to be sent out to sites asking them if they will link back to you, and it will also set up an individualized links page. (Robin Nobles of theAcademy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops) (Author's Note: Use Zeus in the way the creator intended and it won't be considered "spam." This is a great program, but like many SEO strategies, it has the potential for being abused. Don't abuse it!)

Hire a high school student part time to hunt for related links for you. Give that person very specific instructions. If the student is going to send out email on your behalf, craft the email very carefully yourself, and make sure the student includes all of the pertinent information to make the request appear to be personally sent and not a blanket email. (Robin Nobles of the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)

You can use a free service like TrackEngine (http://www.trackengine.com) and your favorite search engine to create a free link tracking alert service that sends you email any time a search engine finds a new link to your site, or your competitors. (Eric Ward, President, NetPOST and URLwire)

Use the "linked" facility at Spyonit.com (http://www.spyonit.com/Home) to be automatically notified whenever anyone else on the Web links to your Web site! (Nancy Nelson with Search by Design)

Things to Avoid

Don't participate in link popularity farms. Don't participate in programs that send out emails soliciting people to swap links (link spamming). Never place a link on your own site for the sole purpose of trading link popularity. Only place links that are valuable to your readers. Never try to get low-integrity Web sites to link to you. The link will actually hurt your site, not help it. (Mike Adams, the Email Doctor)

Create your link directory to be tightly themed. DO NOT include directory listings unless they match the themes or subjects of your Web site. (David Notestine of Cyber-Robotics)

Tell people to LINK OFF. Yes, it's really odd. Turns out my marketing site was also known for wicker furniture and adult chat among other things. Huh? Yes, a couple of sites thought it would be a good idea to link to me, just because I do well in the search engines. The problem was their links didn't make sense as they were totally off topic. We both ended up getting penalized. Usually you cannot make people remove incoming links, unless they are infringing on some kind of patent. But if you kindly explain that what they are doing is actually giving their site a penalty and hurting their findability, the links come down pretty fast. What they are doing is building the reputation of my page with what they say in their outgoing links. If what the links say do not match the topic of my page, the search engine gives the page containing the link a penalty. Simply put: Reputation is what a page is known for. What incoming links say the page is about. Topic is what the page is really about. The actual content of a page. The Reputation must match the Topic. (Michael Campbell with Internet Marketing Secrets)

Be careful about who YOU link to. Stay out of "bad neighborhoods." Don't submit to FFA (Free for All) sites or join link exchange programs or farms. Using bulk submission programs won't increase your link popularity either. (Robin Nobles of the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)

Never send out a "blanket" email to hundreds of sites asking for a reciprocal link. Make each email personal. Mention something that you like on their site. Give the URL for their links page. Discuss one of their products. Ask them a question. Do ANYTHING to make it clear that this is a personal request and not a mass-generated email. (Robin Nobles of the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)
Don't solicit sites that have their reciprocal links pages so deep in the site it's difficult to find. If you have trouble finding the pages, so will the spiders. (Gary Woods with Beautiful Santa Barbara Real Estate)

Don't apply to sites that have hundreds of links on one page. Just like with the search engines, "If you're not in the Top 10, you're Cyber-Road Kill" (quote from Ginette Degner of SearchEngineServices.com) (Gary Woods with Beautiful Santa Barbara Real Estate)

Traffic patterns are also analyzed and used as a filter or booster. The worst possible thing is to set up 10 sites on the same IP address and then link them together exactly the same way. Setting up 10 sites on similar topics is a good idea but vary the links, the byte size of the pages and store them on several different hosting companies. The trick is to build your own mini net without setting off any filters. The only way to do that is not copy what you've already done, but start each site from scratch. When done properly, you can set up a very effective cluster and really boost your rankings. (Michael Campbell with Internet Marketing Secrets) (Author's Note: Remember to create added value to both the engines and your users in these mini net sites. These need to be stand-alone sites that are full of valuable content.)

Keep your link directories clean of 404s or dead links. (David Notestine of Cyber-Robotics)
Don't solicit sites that have nothing to do with your business. (Gary Woods with Beautiful Santa Barbara Real Estate)

Extra Tips and Notes:

Make link popularity building a part of your overall search engine marketing efforts. Spend a little time every week trying to find a few more links. You'll be surprised at the snowball effect that link popularity building has. You'll work hard on it for a while, and then all of a sudden, everyone else will be writing to YOU to ask YOU to link to THEM! (Robin Nobles of the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Workshops)

Google uses PageRank. You can either be a hub or an authority. Decide which one you want a particular page to be and stick with it. Don't mince types with Google. Hubs have many links and are ranked by backwards clicks. Meaning that every time someone hits their back button - to find more sites - you actually score points. Hallway pages or directories are good examples of hubs, especially if you link to them with authority pages.

Authority pages contain relatively few links - the fewer the better in my opinion - and are rated according to forward clicks. Authority pages are not likely to be found with backward crawling and most often lead to pages with many links.... hubs. Doorway pages are good examples of authority pages, especially when you link them to hubs or catalog style sites. Hubs lead to authorities, which lead to hubs, which lead to authoritie

Top Ten Best Discussion Forums for Blogger

2011-11-03T01:09:00.000-07:00

Almost every blogger is familiar with discussion forums and take active part in it. They are a good source to learn and share the knowledge. Some popular discussion forums also send huge traffic to blogs. If you want to take your blog to the next level, then you must join these forums. Participating in these forums will give you firm ground of the blogging basics,and will also give good exposure to your blog.

Bloggeries Forum: It is one of the best discussion forums for bloggers. Here you will find tons of useful information on blogging. Lots of relevant sub-forums and very helpful community. Bloggeries also maintain a blog directory, where you can submit your blog for more targeted traffic.

Digital Point Forum: If you want tons of free traffic for your blog, then you must join and take active part in this forum. Very high traffic forum with large community base. Dozens of sub-forums on almost very topic a blogger is concerned with.

Blogging Tips Forum: Yet another discussion forum for bloggers, which is relatively new as compared to digital point or bloggeries. Growing very rapidly and a must join for every blogger. Recently, a chat box has been added to the forum, so that members can directly submit their views, suggestions and similar stuff.

Blog Mastermind Forum: One of my favorite forum with unique theme and layout. Large community with some of the best bloggers giving their valuable advice. Another striking feature is long session expiration time. So even if you come after 10 minutes and start posting, you will not be asked to login again.

Bloggst Forum: Another discussion forum for bloggers with nice green theme. Good community base and very active forum. While creating a new thread, tagging is compulsory, which makes searching the archived threads very easy. Worth registering and actively participating in it.

The Blog Experiment Forum: A good discussion forum for bloggers. Large community base with active members in 3 figures. Here you will find a Developer's Sandbox sub-forum, dedicated for discussions related to technical aspects of blogging.

Blogger Forum: Excellent forum with unique theme based on XOOPS CMS. Blogger Forums also offer free Wordpress themes for forum members. Large community base and very active discussion board. Dedicated section for newbies and well as theme developers. Blogger forum also give RSS feed of each sub-forum. While registering there is a restriction of 10 characters id.

BloggerBuster Forum: A must join forum for those bloggers who have blogs on Google blogger platform. Amanda of BloggerBuster is an expert in blogger hacks and tweaks, and here you will find lots of valuable information about keeping your blogger blog up-to-date.

Blogger Talk Forum: Very lively and informative forum for bloggers. Navigation is very easy with large community base. Registration is easy and quick with no hassle. Lots of sub-forums on diverse topics, making it easy to pick the right thread for posting a question.

SEO Forums For Bloggers

Search Engine Watch Forum: A must join discussion forum for every blogger. Topics covered are SEO, web analytics, promotion strategies and much more. Very large community base with experts giving their valuable advice to newbies on regular basis. Prompt response to queries by the community members.

SitePoint Forum: Another excellent SEO forum with very active community. Here you can get lots of information about various popular PPC programs apart from regular SEO knowledge base. I would highly recommend joining this forum, as the response is prompt and some very valuable archived data.

About the Author

Manish Singh is currently working as an SEO Executive in the Internet Marketing field associated with Indian SEO Experts Community and doing deep research on the current Internet Marketing World Strategies, Contextual Link Building Services and SEO Services India having a strong Analyzing Power with Troubleshooting Attitude.

Directory Submission Services Firm

2011-11-03T00:45:00.000-07:00

Directory Submission has been aimed at productive implementation of the web sites relevant to all type of e-commerce with greatest endorsement cost that constantly escort to upgrading the search engine ranking, boost the amount of web traffic, increase branding and more changes and deals. We again and again verify to make you sure that your site is not enlisted before.

Manual Submissions have been processed with attention and in harmony with the web directory strategies. It will be accomplished by our specialists who are dexterous in their respective fields. It is simply the effective way to gain best, pertinent one-way links for the web site. And it becomes easier with the certain instantaneous directory submission. It is now regarded as a strong web promotion tool used by online marketing industry and SEO specialists not only to obtain useful back-links for your web sites but also to improve desired traffic and search engine rank. It will never be a wild thought about the sites which are put to directories can finally result in the highest rank and generate massive traffic for your web site.

We will manually submit your web site url to high page-ranking directories. We also make you sure that our service will remain fully satisfactory and beyond the purview of any complaint.

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Content marketing: How SEO and thought leadership go hand in hand

2011-10-28T23:01:00.000-07:00

When I ask marketers about their goals for their sites, the answers vary depending on their industries. I often find marketers with retail sites want SEO in order to become accessible and drive sales, technology solution providers are looking to gain visibility so they can utilize sites as a lead generation tool and others, such as marketers at environmental agencies, are primarily looking to be positioned as online resource centers to gain subscribers or customers. The goals may vary, but the solution remains the same: provide fresh and informative content that is keyword rich to engage your audience.

For businesses that want SEO, I consistently tell them they need search-optimized, quality content. For those that want thought leadership, I consistently tell them (you guessed it) they need search-optimized, quality content. The current online marketing climate necessitates marketers who want SEO results to publish niche content, and marketers who want to be known for their authoritative resources need to make sure content is optimized to standout in search and social channels across the increasingly cluttered web.

What I hear from my clients is that this is much easier said than done. When it comes to the hurdles they face, you name it I’ve heard it. Marketers struggle to write fresh and unique content, to optimize every piece of content that goes live on their site and – often – to make their SEO/ thought leadership/ content strategy sustainable.

These hurdles must be tackled; failure to do so ends in your competitors’ favor. Whether you work it out in-house or decide it’s time to call in the experts and work with agencies for content marketing (the subject of a recent Brafton blog), steps must be taken to overcome your content issues. Otherwise, competing businesses will outrank you and win over your prospects with compelling information that your site and social pages lack.

If you’re still not sure content marketing is the solution to your SEO and thought leadership woes, let’s explore how it addresses each of these needs. With Google rewarding sites with fresh and relevant content, the search giant is making the requirements very black and white…better known as Panda.

PANDA AND THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTENT FOR SEO

In January of this year, Google reaffirmed the importance of timely, fresh and relevant content. Google’s Panda, which is up to version 2.5, penalizes sites with duplicate content or content that isn’t relevant to their audiences. After the first Panda update, seo experts reported that sites lacking content that balanced SEO with quality information saw rankings and keyword referrals plummet. Conversely, sites with fresh, exclusive and niche content saw gains in terms of indexed pages, organic traffic and – often – rankings. One of the winners we explored was a niche ecommerce site that beat out shallow SEO pages from larger sites by offering high-quality, industry-specific information in an SEO-friendly format. The content was centered on its products (“drywall paint,” in particular).

Utilizing your keywords organically in the content builds up your site’s keyword density. This attracts more visits from search engine spiders and (when done right) can lead to overall better rankings in SERPs. Google is on to keyword stuffing, so SEO best practices that improve users’ experience of your site are a must.

Here’s an example of a business in the B2B cloud computing sector with steady organic traffic levels through the first killer Panda update – in fact, it claimed some non-paid search traffic gains toward the end of February after Panda rolled out. The site publishes multiple, search-friendly industry news articles each day. Its SEO viability is clear as it gained keyword search referrals throughout the launch of Panda. The number of organic referring keywords to the site in February represented a 14 percent increase over the number of referring keywords it had in January.

Brafton has reported other cases where fresh content helped sites gain (or regain) organic search traffic post-Panda. But marketers shouldn’t forget that even pre-Panda, major search engines have been working to promote quality content in search rankings.

Bing is equally adamant about giving search visibility to high-quality results, though Google’s Panda undeniably places a premium on top-notch content – and not just any content, but content that is clearly marked via SEO as being relevant to searchers’ specific queries. Brafton has reported that being a niche authority is the No.1 factor correlating to top results in Google News, and Google’s Matt Cutts has suggested that brands that want to see SEO results should focus on becoming authorities in their niches… which brings us to our next point.

If you’re going about your content marketing(L) strategy effectively, you’re not only driving more traffic and separating yourself from your competition in terms of visibility, you’re also establishing yourself as a thought leader.

EFFECTIVE CONTENT MARKETING AND THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

Before we can understand the relationship between content marketing and thought leadership, we need to understand the concept of being a thought leader. This is a person or entity recognized as a credible authority on a niche topic. Thought leadership requires businesses to communicate with and engage current and potential customers. While you can demonstrate thought leadership with your charm and quick (verbal) answers when you’re at an in-person event or on the phone, the way to do it online is by (frequently) publishing useful content. This can range from insightful blog posts to how-to videos (supported by on-page text for SEO); from info-rich white papers to short, breaking news stories.

There are many benefits to being recognized as a thought leader by online audiences – from improved SEO to brand recognition and repeat traffic. When your company is a thought leader, visitors will likely stay on your site for longer periods of time. You can drive them to other web pages through internal linking, which increases the interaction metrics (and further contributes to SEO success). You might be worried that integrating SEO into your thought leadership marketing will detract from the information’s value, but in reality, good content marketing should include keywords and on-site optimization that attracts (rather than alienates) your audience. It makes it easy for people to find the resources you’re providing.

Google principal engineer Matt Cutts recently addressed this issue when he answered the question “Is SEO spam?” in a Webmaster Help YouTube video. He explained that useful information positioned with the right keywords is good for search engines and users.

Another way search-optimized content can be leveraged for thought leadership is distribution across social platforms. Sharing useful content helps your business gain loyal Facebook fans or become added to Twitter Lists. Traffic driven from social media is frequently the kind that is engaged and relevant and will stay on the site longer, come back more frequently and convert.

The same B2B business referenced above shares its news headlines to its Twitter feed. In the past two months, Twitter has been a leading referral site for the business, driving highly relevant, valuable traffic. Twitter visitors tend to stay on the site 61 percent longer than the average visitor, and they view 154 percent more pages than average. (Did I mention the site has a solid internal linking strategy?) Plus, Google Analytics indicate the percentage of these Twitter visitors who are new site visitors is lower than the overall share of new visitors to the site overall, meaning Twitter drives more repeat traffic.

Social users will repost your articles and drive your brand marketing in social media channels – but you have to make sure it’s easy for them to discover the content in the increasingly search-friendly social spaces. (Twitter and Facebook are continuously evolving new search capabilities that make it easy for users to find categorized content on the sites). Plus, positive social sharing metrics can make your content more visible to logged-in searchers, which means you should be adding social sharing buttons to your content pages to create advocates who will sing praises of your thought leadership and help boost SEO.

In summary, content is king. While this is a phrase all marketing professionals have likely heard, the fact of the matter is that more than half of the prospects I talk to in a marketing role don’t even have a clue as to why content marketing is crucial to a business’ online success. They want to gain more organic traffic and/or be thought leaders, yet have no content marketing in place to position themselves for success. Content is necessary for these ends, and compelling content that generates demand for your products/ services/ expertise can transform a visitor into a customer.

Choosing A Best SEO Link Building Services Company in India

2011-10-28T04:29:00.000-07:00

If you are looking to increase the visibility of your website then you must be searching for Link Building Services Company in India to accomplish your needs. If your target customer base exists only in India then an Indian based SEO Company can understand your business needs better than anybody else can. The reason is that if the physical presence of an SEO company is where you live then it will be very much helpful for you to judge their quality and can expect quick communication. However if you are looking for a link building services company it won’t matter whom you hire since the campaign can be designed to target your niche market area from anywhere in the world. Here is a list with some points to watch for when choosing a link building services company

Does the company guarantee #1 ranking?

Well realistically speaking if any company does that, you must not take their candidature seriously since no one can guarantee #1 ranking especially in the scenario of changing algorithms of the search engines. Ask the company whether they themselves stand rank #1 for link building? If not then how can they guarantee their cleints #1 position?

References from friends

It is good to take references from friends who have their websites optimised. Online websites can misguide you, even the correspondence of the company you approach for the services can misguide you to grab business but your friends or partners will give you best advice. Ask people around you if they know any company or recommend any link building firm they have already worked. If the recommendation works, its best to go with that company as the skills and results of the recommended company would already have been tested.

Online feedbacks can work to get you the best services

Look out for online reviews and feedbacks of the company you want to decide on for your SEO link building services. You can search various SEO or link building forums or sites like mouthshut.com or any other review site to see what feedback does the clients or the customers have given for the services of the company you want to run your campaign with. If the company had any negative reputation, you will find it on various forums or blogs but just going through these forums and finding nothing wrong with the company still does not make it a capable company. You need to research as much as you can before to decide on one.

Ask the company for work samples

If you have selected a few companies to then you must ask from all candidate companies to provide you with the work samples that they do to optimise websites and examples of websites they have already optimized. SEO link building Companies that do not hesitate to provide information and have already optimized a website that belong to your niche theme then it will be a great advantage. This is because since in such a scenario the company professionals must know most of things about your industry and that will save your time and big efforts to teach them about business processes.

About the Authort

Manish Singh is a SEO Expert in India currently working as an Search Engine Marketing Exceptive in the Internet Marketing field associated with Indian SEO Services Firm and doing deep research on the current Internet Marketing World Strategies, Social Media Marketing and SEM Services having a strong Analyzing Power with Troubleshooting Attitude.

SEO algorithms – Which SEO algorithm works best?

2011-10-24T04:09:00.000-07:00

If you were taking an English language test today, or a mathematical test, and you were asked to define “algorithm”, what definition would you provide? Do any of the following match your idea of what an “algorithm” is?

1. A process for completing tasks

2. The means by which the end is reached.

3. A problem for which there is no resolution.

4. A method for solving problems.

5. A method for defining methods.

A lot of people find the SEO Theory blog through search engine referrals for variations on “SEO algorithm”, “SEO algorithms”, “search engine algorithm”, etc. The funny thing about those referrals is that I haven’t actually written about SEO algorithms. I write an SEO algorithm roundup article last year (some of the advice in that article is now outdated, by the way). But what I called “SEO algorithms” in that post were not really SEO algorithms.

Search engine algorithms are complex things. One does not simply detail a search engine algorithm in a single blog post. But one can recap (or attempt to recap) the basic steps in the search indexing process. A fair number of SEOs have done this, some even using pictures. None of them have really done an adequate job. Nor am I likely to do an adequate job.

Search engines don’t have much to work with when they are indexing billions of pages. They just get a few hunderd pieces of information to pick from. If you have ever designed an inventory management system you’ll immediately see the advantages you have over a search engine. If you have never designed an inventory management system, you may appreciate the comparison with a little explanation.

Let’s say you operate a warehouse for automobile parts. On average I would say they have to stock around 100,000 individually identified parts. Each part comes with one or more unique identification strings or tags. The manufacturers provide their own model numbers and serial numbers, shippers and distributors may provide their own tracking IDs, and retailers (you, the guy with the warehouse) usually assign their own identification strings for internal tracking.

That one paragraph provides you with more detailed information about any given manufactured item intended for use in an automobile than any search engine knows about Web pages. If search engines could know that every Web page was tagged with one or more unique identifiers other people had provided, that would make life so much easier for them. But as it is, anyone who has struggled with canonical URL issues knows that search engines can easily confuse one page with many.

In order to index and arrange billions of pages, search engines have to make up their own unique identifiers and manage those identfiers without the benefit of making sanity checks against other people’s identifiers. But the average inventory management system has more advantages over search engines than that.

Knowing that an auto parts warehouse needs to stock about 100,000 different types of parts, we can design our facilities, software, and procedures around 100,000 unique types of parts. A search engine has absolutely no idea of how many pages it will eventually be asked to index. Your resources have to be allocated very conservatively if you are dealing with an open-ended inventory rather than with a limited inventory.

An auto parts Warehouse can track customer purchasing habits over time and find out which parts are most likely to be in high demand. A search engine can track queries and clicks but because search engines see 20-25% new queries every month, they never really know which pages will be in high demand for how long. The typical auto parts warehouse doesn’t see 20-25% new parts requests every month.

Predictability influences how you manage and organize data. Unpredictability also influences how you manage and organize data.

So think of how you might organize an endless supply of new Web pages as you find them AND how you might respond to an endless stream of new requests for information that you’re constantly growing (or changing) inventory of Web pages may or may not satisfy. In today’s world of search the major search engines rely on two major factors more than anything else: content and links.

Content is a fuzzy concept. Does content include the meta data that accompanies many Web pages? Does content include descriptive text that accompanies links (such as the descriptions we provide in directory listings)?

Links may seem more straight-forward than content but the answers we provide ourselves with for the content questions may make links more complex. After all, if we don’t associate all the text around a link with the destination page, should it be associated with the link? Have you ever thought about a search engine simply looking at a link for itself rather than for the relationship it creates between two documents?

A search engine can collect a lot of information about a link and some search engines may indeed be doing that. They may use that information to determine whether the link should be trusted, whether it should be given extra weight, or whether it should be followed (crawled). A search engine can record how it handles what it finds on the destination page and associate that finding with the link (or, perhaps more likely, with the linking page).

Ultimately, the search engine is trying to solve two problems: first, how to manage an ever-growing inventory of Web pages of unpredictable quantity, quality, and design; second, how to respond to a continuous stream of requests for information that it may or may not have seen before.

In mathematics, one algorithm can be used to solve more than one problem but the problems have to all belong to the same group (or class) of problems. They have to share similar characteristics. For example, you could use the same algorithm to find out how fast two trains are traveling if you are given their relative speeds and directions AND to find out how fast a bullet is traveling toward a moving object if you are provided with similar information. But you would have to use a completely different algorithm to determine what the volume of a sphere is.

Managing data and searching data require different processes. Hence, every search engine requires at least two algorithms. When you speak of a search engine’s algorithm, therefore, you’re thinking of a mega-algorithm that incorporates many smaller algorithms. Your task as a search optimizer becomes more complex if you address that mega-algorithm rather than focus on each real algorithm separately.

And that brings us to SEO algorithms. An SEO algorithm is the process by which you optimize content for search. Optimization doesn’t mean get the best possible ranking. In our SEO glossary here on SEO Theory you’ll find this definition for search engine optimization: “The art of designing or modifying Web pages to rank well in search engines.”

That is the most broad and comprehensive definition possible. I will occasionally clarify the definition by adding that we want converting traffic, but sometimes you optimize for something else that you hope to achieve through search. Spammers and SEOs alike prefer to optimize their link profiles (although the rules for link profile optimization have never been articulated, so basically no one knows what they are optimizing for).

In search engine optimization, you can rely on one algorithm to address the two types of search engine algorithms or you can rely on several algorithms. Most SEOs seem to prefer the several algorithm approach but let’s look at the one algorithm approach first.

Your optimization problem can be described this way: how do you get a page indexed so that it is used to respond to as many queries as possible?

Our goal is to achieve maximum optimization, such as ranking a single page for 100 seo questions (technically, I did not address 100 questions — I got tired somewhere in the 80s or 90s, I think). Maximum optimization is an ideal state in which a page ranks well (not necessarily first) for every query to which it is relevant. I don’t think that is humanly possible, at least not with the current level of SEO theory we have available.

Your algorithm needs to be simple but it can be self-referring. That is, it can invoke itself. We don’t usually speak in terms of “invoking an algorithm for SEO” but that is essentially what we do. Maximum optimization requires that a page be strongly relevant to as many queries as its indexable words are relevant to. To achieve maximum optimization, you have to repeat and emphasize every word in every possible combination in as many ways as possible.

You could create a huge page that attempts to tackle everything or you could look at how you construct your text, how you emphasize it, and how you repeat terms to determine a pattern that ensures every word (or nearly every word) is used optimally. Hence, you may find yourself emphasizing your emphasis, repeating your repetititions, and reorganizing your word patterns into more complex patterns.

We used to call that last part power keyword optimization, where you construct complex keyword expressions that can be broken down into less complex keyword expressions. This method was proposed for the keywords meta tag in the late 1990s. We can extend the method to the indexable copy of the page and call it power content optimization. So, instead of using “keyword1 keyword2″ you use “keyword3 keyword1 keyword2 keyword4″ and optimize for several variations.

There is a little more to it but let me move on.

Most SEO Experts and eTailers are not interested in maximum optimization. The algorithms one might employ for maximum optimization are more theoretical toys than anything else, as most people are looking for a return on investment. But many people are very interested in what we could call extended optimization, where you design your content to rank well for many queries (but nothing like “all relevant queries”).

For example, let’s say you have a jewelry Web site and you have a category page that lists 20 different types of jewelry (perhaps they are all rings with stones). Although you want those individual ring-with-stone pages to rank well for their most specific queries, would it not be great to have the category rank alongside them? Sure it would. That’s extended optimization. Of course, not every search engine prefers to show category pages if it can serve up the detail pages.

Your algorithm is defined in terms of what you do on the page, what you do around the page, and what you do to the page. “On the page” is self-evident to anyone who is familiar with the basic concepts of SEO page design. What you do around the page is a little less familiar because most people don’t think in terms of “managing sibling relationships” but rather they focus on “theming a Web site”. You don’t need (or want) to theme a Web site, but you do want to cross-promote your most valuable content for a specific query. Put your best foot forward.

What you do to a page usually occurs as link building, but you can do other things to a page (such as embed it in a frame, embed it in an iframe, block it, replicate it across multiple ambiguous URLs, etc.). That is, most people focus on link building rather than on piggybacking content, although there are optimizers out there who have piggy-backed plenty of my content.

A well-designed Web site should address the types of search engine algorithms (indexing and query resolution) adequately in most cases. However, if you’re the kind of person who wants to walk around the mountain rather than quickly fly over it, you can do what most of your fellow SEOs have been doing for years.

You can devise a links-to-get-indexed algorithm and a links-to-get-ranked algorithm. Remember that link building is the least efficient, least effective means of optimizing for search. It’s the most time-consuming and resource-hogging approach to search engine optimization. Therefore, everyone does it simply because it looks like it’s the right way to do things. After all, the right way has to be harder than other ways, right?

So how do we manage to separaet our algorithms for search engine optimization through link building? Because there are those links where you control the anchor text and those links where you cannot control the anchor text. If you cannot control the anchor text, all you can use the link for (with respect to search engine optimization — there are clearly other valuable uses) is to get crawled and indexed.

Some people invest a great deal of time in building links with anchor text they cannot control. These types of links “look natural”, “confer trust”, “reflect editorial opinion”, and (my favorite) “are SEO friendly”.

Some people just go for the throat and grab every link they can get with the anchor text they want. These types of links usually “look spammy”, rarely confer PageRank (or trust), bypass editorial opinion, and (my favorite) “are SEO friendly”.

Anything that is SEO friendly must be good, right?

You probably divide your link building time between asking for links and creating links. However, many SEOs are now chasing the dream of creating long-lasting link bait (something that rarely happens). Link bait provides you with “natural” links whose anchor text you cannot control. Link bait will get you crawled and will probably help you rank for expressions you never imagined, but it isn’t helping you optimize for both types of search algorithm.

Good link bait should statistically attract more links with targeted anchor text than not. Great link bait creates a brand, but that’s another story.

If you divide your resources between creating link bait and building links, you’re not optimizing your content. Link bait can be optimized after the fact but most link bait that I have looked at is not optimized. It’s designed to attract links, not rank well in search results. A well optimized page should rank well in a non-competitive query. A high optimized page should not require many links to rank well even in competitive queries.

So if you’re not thinking in terms of “SEO algorithms” then you’re not looking at how you allocate your resources. You’re not looking at how you solve the problems of getting your content indexed and getting it to rank well.

Simply being indexed doesn’t guarantee a good ranking. Of course, simply ranking well doesn’t guarantee click-throughs and conversions but that leads to a problem that doesn’t have anything to do with the search engine algorithms.

In search engine optimization there is no right way to optimize. Every query resolves the question of “which optimization methodology works best” only for itself. You cannot use one query to prove a point about optimization with another query. Your SEO algorithm therefore has to be immensely flexible but it also has to be replaceable.

That is, to do this right, you have to know more than one way to optimize. You have to be prepared to tackle your problems from different angles every time because sometimes the old tricks won’t do the job and sometimes the new tricks won’t do the job.

An algorithm is a method for solving problems. There is no universal algorithm in search engine optimization, although the SEO Method applies to all of them: experiment, evaluate, and adjust.

The Next Google Update

2011-10-24T03:31:00.000-07:00

I would venture to guess that one of the most common questions on any webmaster forum involves someone asking, “When is the next Google update?” Although they are probably asking about visible PageRank updates in the Google toolbar, the answer involves a bit more than that.

Visible PageRank is what you see in your Google toolbar. At this point, that has been updating an average of every three months or so.

HOWEVER, real PageRank is continually updated and continually factored into how the search results are determined. By the time you see a change in the toolbar, any effects of that change have already long since been included in the search results.

Google updates its index data, including backlinks and PageRank, continually and continuously. We only export new backlinks, PageRank, or directory data every three months or so though. (We started doing that last year when too many SEOs were suffering from “B.O.”, short for backlink obsession.) When new backlinks/PageRank appear, we’ve already factored that into our rankings quite a while ago. What Is An Update by Google Engineer, Matt Cutts

For a few years now people have been confused as to what the cache date on page actually indicates. It used to be that if there were no changes on the page since the last cache date, then often Google would only change the cached version of the page about once or twice a month. If there had been changes, people would see the cached page updated much sooner.

Google has now changed the cache date to reveal the last date the page was accessed by Google. (Updated September 6, 2006)

“We’ve recently changed the date we show for the cached page to reflect when Googlebot last accessed it (whether the page had changed or not). This should make it easier for you to determine the most recent date Googlebot visited the page.” Google Webmaster

How often a page is crawled is determined by the number of links that are out there bringing the robots back to your website again.

Search engine spiders crawl the web on a continual basis by following links. The more links that are pointed to your site, the more often your pages will be crawled.

This means that websites with very few links pointed to them, will notice it taking longer for Google to find and index their new pages.

Websites with a large number of links pointed to them will likely see their new and updated pages added to the index quite rapidly.

The search engine result pages update continually. As Google finds new information, it is added to the index. The goal of the search engines is to display the results in the exact order of relevance to the search query. The more relevant your page is to the search query, the higher your page should show in the results.

Since the information going into that determination is continually changing, so are the results you see in search engine results. When you combine all that with occasional changes in how Google factors page relevance (algorithm) to the search query, you end up with results that are continually fluctuating.

In the end, all of this should mean very little to you as a site owner. The more time you spend focused on what Google is up to, the less time you are spending on building a website filled with quality content for your visitors.

If you follow the basic guidelines and develop a quality site that invites incoming links naturally, you can focus on your results over time, rather than day to day search engine fluctuations.

Tips for effective social media optimization

2011-10-24T03:18:00.000-07:00

Social networking sites have transformed the way we communicate and connect. By now most internet savvy companies are already using (and reaping the benefits of) SMO or Social Media Optimization. For those who are still unaware of this rising global phenomenon, here is a heads-up on what SMO entails.

SMO is the process of creating multiple points of access or visibility by utilizing the traffic leverage of already existing social networking sites for brand/service promotion and in-turn improve the bottom line. In simple terms SMO is the utilization of sites like Facebook and Twitter to create a buzz about your company. SMO is a process that not only requires innovation but it also requires continuous dynamism.

7 Tips for SMO

SMO used effectively can have a tremendous impact on the traffic you generate. Here are some handy tips for efficiently using SMO to your advantage –

•    First and foremost set up fan pages or company groups on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter
•    Inform, engage and provide information that people can actually use through these platforms
•    Set up accounts on image sharing sites like Photobucket for image sharing and optimal tagging
•    Create accounts on social bookmarking sites like Reddit for sharing additional information
•    Maintain blogs on popular blogging sites
•    Innovate and communicate for retention and increase of members on social channels and finally
•    BE ACTIVE! Regular updates on all social sites is imperative

Whether you want to be a part of this social bandwagon or not is not really a choice now! The digitalization of this world has brought with it newer ways of connecting with people and changed the way we market and promote.

-Adapt if you want to move ahead.
-Stay fresh if you want to stay viable.
-Use SMO effectively if you want to succeed in this digital world!

URL	Alexa	Pagerank	NoFollow
knol.google.com	1	7	NF!
ehow.com	148	7	NF!
squidoo.com	209	7
hubpages.com	294	6
ezinearticles.com	300	6
examiner.com	742	7	NF!
articlesbase.com	1085	6	NF!
technorati.com	1145	8
seekingalpha.com	1293	7	NF!
buzzle.com	1670	5
associatedcontent.com	1728	7	NF!
suite101.com	2213	7
gather.com	2403	6
goarticles.com	2520	3
brighthub.com	2897	6
selfgrowth.com	3970	6
ezinemark.com	4020	3
helium.com	4118	6	NF!
thefreelibrary.com	4304	7
infobarrel.com	4675	4
ideamarketers.com	4831	5
articlesnatch.com	4903	5	NF!
pubarticles.com	5147	4
articlealley.com	6009	5	NF!
bukisa.com	6029	5	NF!
amazines.com	6061	3
selfseo.com	6227	5
sooperarticles.com	6285	5
triond.com	6889	5
articledashboard.com	7418	5
web-source.net	7571	3
articlerich.com	7697	4
isnare.com	8753	5
articleclick.com	9604	4
articlecity.com	9987	5
submityourarticle.com/articles/	11425	4
articlesfactory.com	11491	4
articletrader.com	12033	5
articleblast.com	13565	5
upublish.info	13709	4
articleslash.net	14038	5
EvanCarmichael.com	14110	5
biggerpockets.com/articles	14659	4	NF!
articlecompilation.com	15829	4
thewhir.com/find/articlecentral	16110	5
site-reference.com	16261	5
articlecube.com	16273	4
xomba.com	16835	4	NF!
ultimatearticledirectory.com	16876	3
articlemonkeys.com	17234	3	NF!