I’d like to say thanks to the people who sponsored the blog this month, without them there wouldn’t be regular posts here.

Text Link Ads – New customers can get $100 in free text links.

CrazyEgg.com – Supplement your analytics with action information from click tracking heat maps.

BOTW.org – Get a premier listing in the internet’s oldest directory.

Ezilon.com Regional Directory – Check to see if your website is listed!

Content Customs – Unique and high quality SEO writing services, providing webmasters with hundreds of SEO articles per week

Interested in seeing your message here? There are banner and RSS advertising options available find out more information. Be sure to check out our new Sponsored post option.

Here’s a list of some other programs and products I reccomend

Thesis Theme for WordPress – Hands down the best theme on the market right now, read my Thesis Theme for WordPress Review.

Scribe SEO – Improve your blog posts with this easy to use built in tool, read my Scribe SEO Review.

KnowEm – Protect your brand, product or company name with a continually growing list of social media sites, read an Interview with Michael Streko.

TigerTech – Great Web Hosting service at a great price, read my Tiger Tech Review.
photo credit: Seattle Miles (offline until Tuesday)

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

Thanks to This Month’s Sponsors July 2010

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5. Page1Hosting – Class C IP Hosting starting at $2.99.
6. Directory Journal – List your website in our growing web directory today.
7. Content Customs – Unique and high quality SEO writing services, providing webmasters with hundreds of SEO articles per week
8. Glass Whiteboards – For a professional durable white board with no ghosting, streaking or marker stains, see my Glass Whiteboard Review
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11. Scribe SEO Review find out how to better optimize your wordpress posts.
12. TigerTech – Great Web Hosting service at a great price.

Go to Source

SEOmoz has mentioned it before in their link building videos that badges and widgets are a great way to get links, but can they really help you get to the top for very competitive terms?  I believe so and have some proof to demonstrate it.  Most badges I have seen are some type of image that is hyperlinked to the owner’s web site.  I’m sure everyone would agree that there is some value in image links, but probably not a whole lot.  The big question is how can you turn this into a phenomenal ranking boosting tool?  It’s easy and I will show you how one company has been successful at it for a couple of years now.  This article may create a lot of discussion, but the numbers speak for themselves.

A normal badge would look something like this:

The company I am using in my example is called Authorize.net.  They are an Internet gateway service used by online stores for credit card processing.  What they have done is created a badge merchants can place on their web site showing their customers that they are a valid merchant.  The badge is called a verification seal.  The difference in what they have done is they added a text link below their badge.  I’m sure a lot of merchants are smart enough to remove this promotional code when they download it, but many do not.  According to Open Site Explorer, over 10,000 root domain names have not done so.

Their badge looks like this, which “online payments” is a hyperlink pointing to their home page and the badge itself is pointing to a page that verifies the merchant:

They say the best kind of links are in the content and Google is great at determining this while giving very little value to links of this nature.  This may be very true, but it is definitely working for this group.  If anything, you should consider implementing it if you can make it work for you.  If you are thinking this may only work temporarily, let me say this.  Authorize.net did not have great rankings 3 or 4 yrs ago.  I started watching them implement this and over time their rankings started to climb.  A year or two ago they moved to the top on a few very competitive keywords and haven’t dropped since.

Lets look at the numbers shall we?

Click to Enlarge

Obviously this doesn’t work for every web site due to the inherited requirements, such as having a badge people want to link to.  However, the ones that can take advantage of this could really exploit it.  Even SEOmoz could do something like this as well with their badges.  There may be a question of professionalism for some, but definitely a nice topic to debate on.  Please share your thoughts.

Curtis Stevens is the founder of Gotmerchant.com, a credit card processing service provider.  They help merchants accept credit cards or switch processors if they’re not happy with their current provider.  They also specialize in a few unique products such as the Casio cash register or a wireless credit card machine.

photo credit: Foto Blog SMR

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

Badges & Widgets Can Take Your Rankings to the Top!

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12. TigerTech – Great Web Hosting service at a great price.

Go to Source

While UGC and Reviews can often be a mixed blessing, as long as Google continues to reward rich snippets with enhanced visual listings, it’s probably a good idea to try to make reviews part of your website strategy.For those of you who haven’t seen rich snippets and reviews in action, here’s a sample of what they currently look like

To qualify for this program you have to have reviews, format your data using microformats, and submit your website for inclusion in the rich snippet program. While it may change in the future, currently you need to have site level approval, so let’s clear the hardest hurdle: getting the review data.

Your first and best source for reviews should be your existing customer base. Contact your most recent customers and ask them to provide a review about their last sale with you. While some may provide you with the information right off the bat, most people will need an incentive to spend the time sending you a review. My suggestion is to offer a future discount to everyone who sends you a review. Or put everyone who sends you a review into a contest for a larger prize (check your local laws before getting involved in any contests). Going forward, you should make soliciting reviews part of the order process. First they get an order confirmation, then a shipping confirmation, then a review request.

This works perfectly fine if you have customer data, but what if you’re an affiliate? Affiliates don’t have that information, so what do you do? You’ll have to get creative and think out of the box. Look for reviews on Kitchen Aid Mixers. Take out an adwords ad on Kitchen Aid Mixer attachments or extras looking for reviews. Your approach might look something like this …

You could take out reviews on Kitchen Aid Mixers but it would probably be cost prohibitive. Don’t limit yourself just to Adwords: take advantage of systems that invade people’s privacy … er … offer really good targeting like Facebook.

Another suggestion would be to use forums. Looking for Disney Hotel Reviews? Inquire on any of the popular Disney forums about taking out an ad. There are plenty of people who could be easily incentivized to share extremely in depth reviews. You could also use social media services like Twitter with intelligent searches. Want to know how people feel about iPad games–here you go. You’ll have to filter for quality, but asking someone if you can re-use their tweet as a review is pretty painless. If you’re running a local geo based website, you can try going old school and take out an ad in your local newspaper. Again, you’ll be a lot more successful if you provide some sort of incentive to get people to give you what you want.

I’m not going to be naive and tell you there’s no such thing as fake reviews because we know that’s not true. That said, if it’s a practice you are going to engage in, do so with caution: the laws are pretty fuzzy and those fake reviews could come back to haunt you down the future. The real hurdle is getting that initial critical mass of reviews to jump start the process. Once you clear that hurdle, it becomes a lot easier

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

How To Get Customer Reviews on Your Website

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11. Scribe SEO Review find out how to better optimize your wordpress posts.
12. TigerTech – Great Web Hosting service at a great price.

Go to Source

The following is a sponsored post.

For this post we’re going to be talking with Steven Wyer of Reputation Advocate. Steve, for my readers who aren’t familiar with your firm, can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

Reputation Advocate started in 2006 and is based just outside of Nashville, Tennessee in Williamson County. I have a deep history in media, marketing and software development and came to ORM out of a personal need. I was involved in protracted litigation and my own search results didn’t reflect the complete reality of the situation. At that time, there were very few options that addressed the needs of small business and individuals. While major corporations utilized online tools to defend themselves, solutions for those that fell under the Fortune 1000 were hard to find. Because of previous businesses I have owned, I put a team of Internet marketing professionals together and Reputation Advocate began to develop online tools and solutions with the goal of influencing and controlling the search engine results. Four years later we have been fortunate in representing business and individuals throughout North America, Latin America and Europe.

Online Reputation Management or ORM is a growing industry, and as more personal and private information makes its way onto the web it’s not always flattering. What types of clients does Reputation Advocate provide services to and what are some common problems encountered?

In the early years, most of our client projects were aimed at a handful of slander sites and blogs. They had high traffic, are very well optimized to rank, are magnets for organic back links and offered little in the way of presenting a balanced perspective for persons that they targeted. In 2010 the Reputation Advocate client base is much more diverse and the online violations now take on many forms. Reputation Advocate tracks several hundred complaint sites and there is a linear growth to these that is quite concerning. As public records become digitized and offered through the Internet, professionals can be repeatedly confronted with issues they assumed were addressed long ago. This content is now delivered at the top of someone’s search results and the ramifications can be very negative.

Businesses are now routinely attacked, and many times these violations come from former employees and competitors. Most businesses now have a presence on the Internet. They have focused on content and graphics and some clients are even employing SEO and PPC campaigns. However, problems appear because a broader perspective relating to online defense has not been considered.

Even though most people believe that they are careful about what they post about themselves online, that may not always true. Casual acquaintances, business associates and even family members might post content that is sensitive, untrue and damaging. Do you see that becoming a more serious problem in the future?

People have become much more aware of social media and with that awareness has come a certain power that has not existed before. 500 million Facebook members believe that they are “safe” and yet Reputation Advocate has seen many instances over the past six months that allow us to draw different conclusions. Hundreds of millions of blogs exist and everyone claims the First Amendment right to free speech. The difference is that you cannot confront your accuser, resolve differences in private and deal with conflict. When you are violated online you may never know who the attacker is. Client’s can speculate but very few individuals come to the point of confronting the attacker. Currently the courts have a very narrow body of law that specifically addresses these issues. While there have been several precedent-setting cases, most people attacked do not have the financial ability and stamina needed to even attempt to defend themselves. Until fundamental federal laws are adapted to meet our digital world, we believe that this problem will only escalate.

Let’s switch gears and talk about the corporate end of things. What are some of the common problems Reputation Advocate sees for your corporate clients?

As I mentioned before, most businesses now have a simple online presence. The Reputation Advocate clients we hear from most are those that believe that the digital world plays by the same ground rules that have been generally accepted business practices for decades. Traditional member organizations like the Better Business Bureau and the National Federation of Independent Business have offered channels for communication, conflict resolution and business validation. The Internet bypasses all of that. What we hear is that “It isn’t fair” and that these online attack practices “lack integrity”, and it’s absolutely true! The whole landscape for business has changed forever. Either businesses accept this new reality or they open themselves up in ways they cannot even comprehend. Businesses can actually lose their online identity, have others misrepresent themselves and even have their name associated with terms like fraud, scam, thief and worse. The only way to defend a business is to adopt a new perspective. Companies need to proactively create, monitor and manage their online reputation and Reputation Advocate is seeing an increase in the number of businesses hiring us before they are attacked online in order to build a defense for their online reputation.

As companies become more involved with social media and communication on blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, the potential for an error or mistake increases. What are some guidelines companies can set up that will allow them to participate in social media without creating a reputation management problem for themselves down the road?

To begin with, every individual and business in the United States should read the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) and the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Many businesses make key assumptions regarding rights and protections that are not correct. Once it is understood that the current laws put in place to protect Internet service providers may actually act against the protections that could be provided to individuals and business it wakes everyone up.

Next, monitor keywords. You will learn a great deal about your online reputation by simply utilizing Google Alerts. Monitor your name, your company name, company officers, products, brands, competitors and your industry as a whole. As the old saying goes: knowledge is power.  Also, make sure that you have formal, legal trademarks filed to protect your brands. If there is blatant slander against a trademarked name, a Takedown Demand can be sent to the hosting company based on trademark infringement.

Finally, the most basic of online defense strategies is to own the URLs that represent your company and your brand. Reputation Advocate consults with companies often and it seems that they almost never consider this, the most vulnerable area of all. Simply put, if you don’t own it, someone else can.
Reputation Advocate offers services both for reputation repair and reputation monitoring. Not everyone needs to monitor what’s being said about them online, but a lot of us do and more will as time goes on. When do you think people need to start being concerned about their online reputations?

The most direct answer to your question is right now! We believe that every individual and business should be concerned about what is presented about them online. The old adage “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure” absolutely holds true for a person’s online identity. There are a number of good general monitoring tools that can deliver comprehensive reports detailing every time you or your company are mentioned online. For most people this is just too much information. The sheer volume can overload small businesses and consume a major part of most days for business professionals. What most people need to be aware of is the negative information that can be found. Reputation Advocate offers these services as part of a comprehensive ongoing online defense.

What is some advice you can give people about preventing reputation management problems or minimizing them right out of the gate?

You must be vigilant. Just because a negative listing is not easily found today, does not mean that it will not begin ranking next week, additionally, you don’t always know what long tail search terms people use when doing research on you or your company. Reputation Advocate’s best advice is to establish your online presence immediately before you find the need to defend yourself. Also remember that whatever information you place on a social site can be used against you. This goes for contact information, pictures, family information and the names and titles of employees. For headhunters this is low hanging fruit. Slander has the ring of integrity to it when it includes specific information and many times this information comes from the client themselves. Always have the perspective that every piece of content that exists about you online is available to anyone at any time to be used for any purpose by those who know how to use it.

How does someone know they are in over their head and that it’s time to use a professional service like Reputation Advocate to help with the problem?

In general, by the time a person or company discovers an online attack, outside help is immediately needed. One reason for this is that when someone is slandered they react and want to be vindicated. Generally speaking their response, which is usually triggered by emotion, almost always hurts their online reputation rather than help it. The solution usually lies in a solid planned response that may not provide the immediate gratification of a fiery response but will deliver a stable long-term solution. Simply creating a bunch of social sites and hoping to hide the negative listing(s) does not work anymore and nicely asking for the content to be taken down seldom works. Online violations are not easy to address. There is no such thing as a “silver bullet” or cookie cutter solution. Companies that offer services with blanket marketing statements may not approach a client solution comprehensively. It is always easier to sell then to deliver. By partnering with the right online reputation management firm, over time a client can have confidence in a solid online defense that protects the most valuable thing they own; their name.

While every situation is different, what’s a reasonable timeframe to expect that it will take Reputation Advocate to “clean things up”?

While we read marketing materials that indicate conclusive permanent ORM results in a matter of days, our experience suggests that there is simply no definitive answer to this question. The biggest companies involved in ORM suggest 30 day results. We benefit from these claims when clients contact Reputation Advocate after being disillusioned by unrealistic expectations and disappointing results.

Everyone who contacts us receives a free initial evaluation. During this evaluation we review the negative listing(s) and their SERPs, and after this is completed we can provide them with a reasonable timeframe about when to expect to see new positive listings on page 1 and when they can expect the negative listings to begin to be pushed down. Clients are involved in reviewing content and the initial collaborative effort is an important aspect of a project for most of our clients. Our average client begins seeing results within two to three weeks of beginning a project.

Let’s look to the future a little bit … what are some interesting things you see on the horizon in your space … and how different do you see things in the next 12-18 months?

As I mentioned earlier, there is an absolute linier progression of growth as it relates to unwanted content for all sectors; business, professional and every day people. The damage is real. As additional historical information is digitized and social sites continue to expand, the need for services like Reputation Advocate provides will also multiply. The wild cards are held by the search engines and the dominant social sites. With Google changing algorithms daily and the projected growth for sites like Facebook and Twitter, an ever-growing percentage of business will be driven by SERPs. Congress is scrambling to address privacy concerns and foreign governments are asking for meetings with the CEOs of private social media companies. This digital landscape changes daily and those providing ORM will continue to adapt.

If the question is asked, “Where is this leading us?” everyone within this industry peers into the same dimly lit glass. I don’t believe many people have any true sense of what this means to the average business owner or college graduate looking for a job. What I do believe is that the need to take action is immediate, that those who take control of their online reputation will defend themselves better than those who ignore the inevitable and that all of us will be viewed increasingly as who we appear to be online and less by a more thoughtful examination of our business, our character and our lives. We are not going to stop this train.

Thanks Steven for taking the time to talk to me about Reputation Advocate. If you have any questions please contact Reputation Advocate or Steve Wyer at 888-229-0746 or request a free consultation regarding your online reputation.

The preceding has been a sponsored post. Find out more information about sponsored posts

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

Interview with Steven Wyer of ReputationAdvocate.com

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Go to Source

“Paid links from off topic sites get devalued and flagged.” A common claim by otherwise savvy SEOs such as Ross Hudgens.

Ross, would you take three links from the Wall Street Journal if its reporters write about internet marketing?

Would you buy those links?

I would.

Both for the direct traffic (duh) and the SEO boost (duh).

The page is relevant, the readers are interested in the field… what more do you want?

Guys like Ross seem to think that if a site isn’t on your topic, then you don’t get any value. The reasoning is that their site is irrelevant, so the links are bogus.

That’s obviously wrong.

For starters, the Yahoo directory isn’t on any topic. Yet the links are good.

Second, even if the regular audience isn’t core/interested, the author obviously is.

Last I checked, the test for a link’s acceptability to Google was editorial discretion. Not readership discretion.

Lastly, sites are dynamic. You can start out writing about your mother and then end up talking about my mother. Then you no longer have a site. But I digress…

(Those of you who care about paid links and text links, check out my 101 tips on how to buy text link ads.

If that’s your bag, you’re probably also advanced enough for an advanced SEO book free chapter. Also, I personally liked Mike’s bit on buying links for third party sites.)

p.s. I know that the title should have been, ‘Can Count’ not ‘Do Count’, because links from offtopic sites in a sidebar aren’t getting you anywhere. So sometimes, paid links from offtopic sites don’t work. But “do” has more pop to it than the timid “can” … it’s a style issue.
photo credit: TheTruthAbout…

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

You’re All Wrong! Paid Links From Offtopic Sites Do Count

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7. Content Customs – Unique and high quality SEO writing services, providing webmasters with hundreds of SEO articles per week
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11. Scribe SEO Review find out how to better optimize your wordpress posts.
12. TigerTech – Great Web Hosting service at a great price.

Go to Source

As I continue to be amazed at the way people are making use of their iPad, it occurred to me that the potential far outweighs the limitations.  For example, let’s say you have a presentation or speaking engagement coming up at one of the search conferences.  You now have a choice: bring your heavy laptop or bring your lightweight and ultra-portable iPad.  Not sure what to do? Here are some ways you can use your iPad at your next speaking gig, and then you can decide the best device to take.

Getting Your Presentation Organized
There are some great tools you can use on the iPad to help you organize your speech and get it ready to present.  Here are a few that will help you prepare.

Evernote

This is an invaluable tool to have as you get ready for your presentation. Evernote is a very popular tool amongst bloggers as it helps you remember anything and everything quickly. You can use it to capture ideas for your speech in multiple ways and then sync these with your iPhone and/or your Mac or Windows desktop.  Here are some of the ways it can help you as you prepare:

• Write down ideas
• Save web clips
• Snap photos for your presentation
• Record voice memos

Dropbox

Putting a speech together means you probably have a lot of files of various kinds and it also means you need access to those files from where ever you might be working.  Dropbox is perfect for that. It is one of the easiest ways to sync and share files online and across computers.  You get 2GB of online storage free and you don’t have to worry about hard disks crashing or failing.

Keynote

This is a great (basic) presentation app.  You can import MS Powerpoint presentations and Keynote ’09 presentations designed in iWork ’09 (be warned that there are some compatibility issues).  As a way to show slides, however, it is perfect for text, images, transitions, and tables/graphs.  Here are some of the features:

• 12 Apple-designed themes
• Over 20 professional-quality slide transitions
• Slide navigator for arranging your presentation
• Works with the iPad Dock Connector to VGA Adapter

Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite

If you really want to supercharge your productive time then you will want to check out this app.  Quickoffice Connect is an entire mobile suite which gives you access to multiple cloud services such as Dropbox, Google Docs, or Box.net.  It also is the only app that lets you view/edit MS Excel and Word.  If you are on the go and getting ready to present, then this will help you stay organized and connected.

Notes+

while you are thinking about your content, you might want to jot down some notes.  This is the perfect app for doing just that.  Notes+ offers a handwriting tool with palm detection, exporting to PDF, and Google Docs uploads.

During The Presentation

2Screens

This is an invaluable app to have if you are going to be presenting anything other than your Keynote show.  With this app and the VGA connector you can show any type of presentation materials stored on your iPad or on the Internet.

Prompster

Now it’s time for the big speech and you have it all typed out but you don’t want to look down at your notes.  How about a teleprompter?  This app smoothly scrolls easily readable text (which you can get from Pages, Email, or any other app that contains text), and at any speed you choose.

Speakerclock

If you have a speech to give where there is a time limit (as most of them do) then you might want to have this handy tool running.  Speaker Clock is a digital LED countdown timer that has a large enough display so you can see it from a distance.  It actually emulates the famous countdown clock that all of the speakers at TED conferences adhere to.

Bluetooth Keyboard

This is a tool you don’t want to be without if you are going to be typing at any length on the iPad, such as when you are typing up your meeting notes, etc. The keyboard on the iPad screen is great but for typing up lengthy documents you will definitely want to consider a separate device.  Apple’s Bluetooth keyboard is flat, light, and it pairs instantly with the iPad.  There is also an iPad keyboard dock that you can buy which is not wireless but I prefer the wireless one since it’s less bulky and thus easier to travel with.

iPad Stand

If you are using a bluetooth keyboard you will definitely want a stand.  Also, during your speech, you will want the stand to prop up your iPad so you can see your presentation, your notes, or the clock.  There are dozens of stands available to choose from and more get added to the market each day.

iPad Dock Connector To VGA Cable

This is a must-have if you will be showing any portion of your presentation on a screen.  It will connect to a projector or a monitor that has VGA.  If your monitor/TV does not have VGA then there are adaptors you can buy that go from VGA to Composite or HDMI.

After The Presentation

Angry Birds

I had to throw this in. After that big speech and before the parties begin, you will definitely want to just clear your mind. This game is one of the most mindless and addicting games for the iPad.  There is just something oddly calming about slinging little birds at green pigs.

So, that’s the list of apps that can supercharge your next search conference speaking gig – and it will make your life easier because not only can you do all of the things above, but you can still answer email, surf the web, and work on Twitter/Facebook.

So, is that compelling enough to try it out? Or will you stick by your tried and true methods?

Shane Ketterman is the owner of iPaddaily.com and describes himself as a driver and writer. He drives traffic and writes daily for his iPad blog.  Shane became involved with the Internet since it was text-based and websites were built in Geo Cities.  He is passionate about search, marketing, and gadgets.
photo credit: Richard Jones

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

Use Your iPad For Your Next Presentation And Make Life Easier

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Go to Source

About a month ago I went to a client meeting where they had a glass whiteboard in the conference room. This was the first one I had ever seen and I remarked how cool it was. The folks at Clarus GlassBoards were monitoring for keywords on twitter, and reached out to me about sending a sample for review purposes.

Glass Whiteboard from Clarus

Now if you’ve never seen a glass whiteboard it’s a pretty substantial item, a lot more sturdy and durable than your ordinary dry erase board. Basically it’s a marker board made from
tempered safety glass, that gets shipped in some heavy duty shipping protection. They have a few different options as far as sizes, and colors. If you have a white or very lightly colored wall you can go with clear glass, my wall was green, so I went with a frosted board that was 3′ x 4′. They also make one that has some rare earth metals in it making it magnetic.

The packaging may seem a bit intense (we’re shipping glass here people), but installing the glass whiteboard was easy. The unit comes packed with a template for drilling holes for the mounting brackets, so be sure not to rip it when you are installing it, I’d also suggest saving it in case you need to move it later. You drill four holes and put in four heavy duty wall anchors. It’s not hard at all, but you do want to pay attention while doing it so the board is straight. Once you get the wall anchors and the stainless steel stand-offs in place, you put the glass whiteboard onto the mounting brackets. You will need two people to do this since it’s a little heavy. Then you put the mounting caps on and its good to go. It’s actually a really professional looking installation (see pic1, pic2). You can choose to mount your board horizontally or vertically, there’s a gallery of writeboard installations on the website, I put mine in the vertical position shown in the picture to the above right.

So why would you actually want a glass whiteboard instead of  your standard dry erase board? First off it’s a much more professional looking piece of office equipment. A dry erase board is cheaper, but it also looks cheaper too. A glass whiteboard is much more durable. After you’ve had a standard whiteboard for a while and someone forgets to erase it after a meeting you get “ghosting”, we’ve all seen it. So you get to relive the details of that meeting over and over again, with a glass whiteboard that never happens. With standard dry erase boards you need to use special markers. Eventually someone forgets and uses a sharpie permanent marker and then you’re stuck with whatever they wrote forever, with a Clarus whiteboard that’s not an issue, you can use any marker you want and clean it later with a little glass cleaner and paper towel.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you’re interested in getting a glass whiteboard I suggest contacting the folks at Clarus and following them @ClarusBoards. You won’t regret it.

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

Clarus Glass Whiteboard Review

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Go to Source

As the web matures and begins to displace, replace, or work with established news, information, and entertainment sources, the advertising that pays for this content to get created is going to change as well. When you combine this with the growth of smart phones like the blackberry, android, and iphone and appliances like the ipad, advertising will soon be faced with new obstacles.

 The problems advertising faces are coming from multiple fronts. First, carriers are abandoning the unlimited, all you can eat business model in favor of tiered pricing based on consumption (see Why You Should Care About AT&T’s iPhone Data Plans Even If You Don’t Own an iPhone). This will lead consumers to think before using high bandwidth programs like streaming audio or video. A second aspect is usability: some publishers have designs that take up so much real estate that it affects usability and makes it nearly impossible to read the content on a normal website, never mind a smart phone (see Forbes or IDG).

As a response to this problem, consumers are starting to use software to strip out the advertising. Programs like Norton have stripped out affiliate links for years, and adblock is one of the most popular add-ons for both Firefox and Chrome. A new contender in the marketplace is a script known as Readability which removes ads and sidebar navigation, converting a page back to text. The same is true of other programs like Instapaper or Read it Later. While many publishers cling to partial RSS feeds as way to drive advertising views to their websites, it’s becoming clear that partial feeds are no longer a viable solution. With the announcement that Apple has incorporated the ad stripping technology from Readability into their OS, this is becoming a problem we will have to deal with sooner rather than later. If you think ads won’t become part of computer operating systems, you might need to rethink your position. Publishers need to adapt and overcome–and they need to do it quickly if they plan to survive.

While this is still an evolving issue, fortunately there are solutions you can implement today. For example, if you are using WordPress as your cms, you can solve the problem with an off-the-shelf plugin Yet Another Related Post. Here’s a sample post presented five different ways: on the web, on Readability, from the mobile site, in an RSS reader, and in instapaper.

If you are a publisher and you are selling advertising, you have a few responsibilities: write posts that are on topic and engaging on a regular basis, make sure that as many people as possible are seeing the posts and the ads, and avoid obstacles that might prevent either of those first two conditions. Don’t let fear, antiquated stat collection, reporting, or bizarre business rules get in the way. If you do, you’re pulling a WAYMISH …
photo credit: Jeff Kubina

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

Advertising and Usability

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Go to Source

One of the things I often say that most bloggers get wrong is they sacrifice keyword focus for being clever, cute, or entertaining. Yes, it is important that you make your blog posts as interesting as possible; but you should never ignore the opportunity to tie into commercial concepts. Since I often get criticized for telling you what you do wrong but not how to do it right, here are some examples about how to write interesting blog posts that are more keyword focused.First out of the gate is an article from the New York Times about how to get an artificial tan without looking like Snooki from the Jersey Shore. As we come into summer, lots of people are looking for ways to look like they have a tan without spending time in the sun or in a tanning booth. Artificial tanning products have been around for years, but the results can be hit or miss. This article addresses that issue with a tie in to the Jersey Shore, which makes a nice pop culture hook.  If it were my site and not a news site, there would have been some affiliate products links, but I think you get the picture.

Next up is another seasonal post–but this one has a viral keyword hook. I know that flip flops aren’t the most supportive shoes, but I didn’t know they made your shin muscles work harder … did you? When I passed by the magazine rack at the gym, I noticed that toning shoes have started to  appear on the covers a lot, but I didn’t know much about them. Here’s an article about toning shoes from USA Today that plays the viral hook “revolutionary sneaker, or overhyped gimmick.” When you come across the article, it’s very likely that you’ll share it. I know I did. Again, if I ran a site and we did an article like that, it would certainly have some affiliate links in it.

Hopefully by now you are familiar with the concept of an editorial calendar and are using it to your advantage. It’s also an excellent opportunity to try and capture some KWD focused searches with things like posts for Father’s Day. These kind of posts are easy because you know they are coming, have a lot of lead time, and can time your publishing for maximum exposure. Something else to note: see how they interlinked the Mother’s Day post at the bottom … don’t miss out on opportunities like that.
photo credit: Johny hanging head down from the tree

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

How to Write Keyword Focused Articles and Posts About Timely Topics

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Go to Source

For a moment, I’d like you to think back to high school. Remember how there was always that one kid who would raise their hand and ask the question “Will that be on the test?” Now, thanks to Personalized Google News, we have the answer.

Last week Google announced they will be bringing personalization to Google news.  I have no love of Google’s personalized search,  but I understand that Google thinks it gives them a POD (see point of differentiation). The problem with this personalization is that if you limit your news only to sources you agree with, you’re missing the whole picture. Like that annoying kid in high school, you’re so focused on passing the test and getting a good grade that you’re missing the bigger picture and the opportunity to think and learn.

Since I got the iPad, one of the things I’ve started doing again is reading the news via newspaper apps. They expose me to ideas and concepts that I wouldn’t see if I read only SEO blogs and forums. Hopefully they make me a more educated and well rounded person, but I know they allow me to be more creative: I take things I read and use them as starting points for the projects I am working on. For example, this article about the Crown Victoria and Lincoln Town car being discontinued gave me the inspiration to write a social article about the Prius and other “green” cars becoming taxis for an automotive website I work on. If Google News was LIMITING the news sources I read, I never would have seen that article or had that idea.

I know that the culture of Google is one populated by people who believe in the singularity of life. This belief in the singularity permeates everything they do, how they approach their problems, and life in general. It’s why they are willing to sacrifice everyone without a second thought to achieve that singularity with an almost religious zeal. This difference in beliefs was accentuated when I read Clay Shirky’s book Cognitive Surplus (see Book Review – Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus) and Jaron Lanier’s book You Are Not a Gadget (review coming soon) at the same time. I think it’s important for people to read and understand as many sides as possible of an issue. By limiting your input, you limit your perspective and your ability to better understand an issue. At the end of the day, you end up limiting yourself.

Using Google’s personalized news may give you more of what you want, but does it give you more of what you need? It’s funny that a company that has so many smart people and probably the largest concentration of PhDs in the world can’t see that the McStandardization of what readers are exposed to on a daily basis is not a good thing.

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

Personalized Google News – Will That be on the Test

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Go to Source