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The Loss of Privacy in An Opt-Out World

July 8th, 2010

Anyone over the age of 30 who spends any amount of time online has to be aware of the gradual erosion of online privacy and how we are slowly moving to a point where our online life has become opted-in by default.

… sacrifice your privacy on the altar faster than an Aztec Priest could ever rip out your still-beating heart …

A disturbing trend among people in the valley and other technology centric locations is the subjugation or near-complete surrender of one’s work, one’s copyright, intellectual property, and sometimes complete self to the great computer singularity (a concept I am shamelessly stealing from Jaron Lanier). All of your work and data becomes part of the collective sum of information. The value of the individual is subservient to the singularity of data. Your work, even if it’s under copyright, is used and often abused in mashups by others building and growing this singularity. Your sense of self worth and individuality are, as Mark Zuckerberg would have you believe, not your own: they belong to the collective body sum of human knowledge. If he sells it to the highest bidder, you shouldn’t have done it if you didn’t want that to happen

Click here to view the embedded video.

… Google will find out about it (when they invade your privacy by snooping your wifi networks, emails, passwords …

This isn’t just a Facebook only trend. Google has been opting you into things automatically whenever they wanted to for years. In fact at this point it’s standard operating procedure. If they opt you into a program that puts your life in jeopardy with your abusive ex husband … oops! Sorry, our bad. We’ll try harder next time to not invade your privacy. But really we are working towards this singularity of storing all the world’s information. And not to worry: our leader Eric Schmidt says you just shouldn’t do things you don’t want online, like have an extra marital girlfriend. Don’t worry–Google will find out about it (when they invade your privacy by snooping your wifi networks, emails, passwords, and lord knows what else).

Now, bloggers, who often fancy themselves as reporters, are considering your tips as opt-in by default. Send them a tip and, unless you explicitly tell them otherwise, they will sell you down river almost as fast as Mark Zuckerberg will. When I grew up, we were taught the value of trust, and confidentiality was the normal rule when dealing with the press and reporters. That’s not the case anymore. Silicon valley wingnuts, who have a zealot-like, almost-religious devotion to building and becoming part of the computer singularity they are constructing, will sacrifice your privacy on the altar faster than an Aztec Priest could ever rip out your still-beating heart and spill your blood on the steps of a ziggurat.

Welcome to the age of enlightenment and progress …!

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

The Loss of Privacy in An Opt-Out World

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Buying Links to Third Party Websites

July 7th, 2010

Last week I was having a discussion on Twitter about whether or not some links were bought. Quite a few people were confused about how you can use link buying to your advantage when you buy links to a website you don’t own (aka a third party). I thought I’d do a little ed-ju-macating and share some tips and tricks.

First off, standard link buying disclaimer: Buying links is against Google’s guidelines. If you engage in link buying, you may be subject to penalties up to and including complete removal from the index. The following post does not serve as an endorsement of link buying. It is for entertainment and educational purposes only. Happy, Matt? Ok, let’s get down to business … hypothetically speaking of course

Buying Links for Reputation Management:

The most common use of buying links for a third party website is for reputation management. You find a website that talks favorably about you or your client–preferably one that is already ranking in the top 20. You then buy links and point them to the website that talks about you with your name, company name, product name, or other desired KWD as the anchor text. If you buy enough links from the right places, you will see a jump in ranking. Ideally, these positive listings will displace negative listings. The great thing about this technique is you can boost multiple third party websites. This works really well if you can point links at trusted news websites, magazine websites, or other information-focused websites. The bad thing is that, unless you negotiate permanent or long term link buys, the results will change when you pull the ad dollars.

Building Up Your Supporters:

Instead of buying links to yourself, why not launder some of that purchased link equity by beefing up the webpages that are linking to you? Think of it this way: it’s like sending your backup singers for voice lessons. You get an indirect benefit. If you are going this route, choose some non-competitive anchor text. This is an expensive strategy if you want to do it right, because you really are looking to buy the most trusted and authoritative links you can get your hands on, and you are going to want to do it for a few months (I’d recommend at least 6 months).

Buying Links to Boost Non-Commercial Listings:

Let’s say you are ranking for a commercial keyword, but you have a lot of competition below you, and it would be really great if they weren’t up your butt, so to speak. One tactic you can try is buying links towards other websites that are ranking for the term but aren’t actually selling anything–like wikipedia. You buy some links and point them there. If you’re the only one selling in the top 5, you can get a nice boost in converting traffic. The danger of course is if you push too hard you can end up knocking your own listing down a spot or two, so using caution is advisable with this tactic.

Link Sabotage:

Floating out there in the nether regions of cyberspace are some poisoned web networks. After getting a few links from them, in 30 days most sites will take the plunge. If you can’t find one, go out and buy run-of-site links from a few warez or other auto-gen networks. These come really cheap and are easy to find on places like eBay. Choose one phrase (not too commercial) and completely throw off someone’s backlink profile. There’s no amount of links you’ll be able to buy to tip over a website like CNN or Amazon, but for mid level or below it’s just a numbers game. Personally I think this is pretty crappy thing to do and remember that karma is a bitch … but I did want to not leave any gaping holes.

There are some other subtle nuances and variations on the theme, but you’ve always got to have few tricks up your sleeve when you need them. Right?

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

Buying Links to Third Party Websites

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Case Study: I Listened to Google and I Failed

July 2nd, 2010

This is a post of why natural link building seems to be no longer working, despite Google not admitting that.

I don’t know how many times Google have said: “Produce great content and if users find it useful, they’ll recommend and link to you.” But Google, how do I get these people to even come through your engine? “Produce great content and they’ll (somehow) come. They’ll find your content and recommend you!”

It was January 1st. I’ve decided to start a blog and listen to Google’s advice. I started MixTheNet and decided to write on topics I like and also some I want to rank for. So far I wrote 31 world-class articles, all amazingly great content. My motto was: I’m not going to focus on building links for the search engines at all (by building them manually), I’m just going to get traffic to my articles and hopefully, some of the people who see them will find them useful and link to them! So I focused 90% of my time on building useful content, 10% on building links manually.

I did that for 6 months. Some of the articles got on the Digg front page 5 times (it’s easy to get on the Digg FP if you know how with an average article, but mine got a lot more diggs than the average because the content was really useful). Many of them got featured on StumbleUpon which is all about good/interesting content (over 10 of the articles got 20k+ views each, this one had the biggest success, 110k+ views.) Here are the traffic stats for the site from January:

But what about Google? Only 2000 people? That’s around 10 per day (it was actually 10-20 daily because I wasn’t receiving much traffic during the first 2 months.)

Several days ago I took my most popular posts and did an analysis to see what traffic Google sent to each of them over time. I was shocked to see most of them didn’t rank even in top 100 for the keywords which weren’t so hard, judging by the top 10 pages. Ironically, the ones that received most traffic from Google were the ones where I took the time to manually build the links by doing some forum marketing/guest posts (there was one exception though, I got one article that went both popular on Digg and StumbleUpon and 2 authority sites picked it up but it still wasn’t ranking in top 20 for the intended keyword, it was frustrating to see that most of the top guys for that keyword did manual link building.) Overall, I wasn’t receiving much traffic from Google.

2 lessons here: social bookmarking (Digg, StumbleUpon, Mixx, Propeller) currently SUCKS if you want to build good links (for popular posts that got 30k+ views, I barely got 2-3 links from PR2-3 sites who feature daily ‘interesting sites’ so those are not that valuable links.) I also got some good links, for example, a link from HowStuffWorks which ir PR7 blog. With 400k views, you are bound to get some of these links However, the results weren’t enough to persuade me to focus 100% of the time to this strategy. I mean, spend 10 days writing and researching content for (hopefully) 1 PR7 link? In the process of promoting my site on Digg, I met several people who had their sites go on the front page more than me. Same results there.

Back in 2007, if you had an article go popular on Digg/StumbleUpon you would get a bunch of authority links. This great article on 25 free people search engines got also over 100k views from StumbleUpon and got featured on around 5 authority sites who made separate posts just to review it. But now, things aren’t that easy because all this got over-saturated.

2nd lesson: Google mantra “Build great content and users will find you” isn’t valid anymore. The fact they still spread this propaganda makes me sick. I’ve realized that building great content is just one piece of the puzzle (so I’m not saying building great content is bad, I’m just saying it’s one piece of the puzzle, not everything.)

It comes down to Economics 101 if you ask me. What if Google suddenly started recommending you build links? Webmasters wouldn’t spend so much of their time building great content. SERPs will be filled with less quality content and users won’t like what they see. Google profitability will suffer. Also, Google always recommends you get only ‘natural links’ (of course, you can get these with good content ) but as we’ve seen, people don’t link very much nowaways. That’s why, I think, most of the SERPs you’ll see for any keyword are by people who went and built the links themselves.

How to protect yourself against present (and future) Google SEO propaganda

There’s one question you can ask the person or entity who is spreading a particular propaganda (I’ve learned this from Thomas Sowell, an economics professor, great guy) and literally destroy their argument. The question is: “Do you have any (hard) evidence for that?” A good question to ask someone from Google once they start saying ‘produce great content’ is: “Do you have any proof that the majority of sites got their SERPs on the basis of following your advice for ‘producing good content’ and that was all they did?” According to my experience, that is far from the truth and I have hard evidence for that. Do you have any hard evidence to back up your claim?

Does good content matter?

Yes. Personally, I’ve been noticing that my return visitors increased as I’ve been producing more great content. You also build trust, authority and all that. Heck, someone might even link to you (although that doesn’t happen much these days.) I’m going to continue to produce great content for all of my sites, more because for a matter of principle (I want to contribute value to the web, not pollute it) than results (people linking to me.)

Before I finish, I want to leave you with one video of Matt Cutts talking about getting natural links through producing interesting/useful content and getting it on places like Digg, Twitter, Facebook and so on. There were 2 top-rated comment that summarize my point quite well:

For TechieGeek1, he doesn’t have to ‘think’ that is the case anymore, it’s confirmed (by me and other webmasters I know who have quite popular sites.) And for the first comment, I agree that Google needs to do something do adjust this side effect. Things aren’t going good for natural link builders.

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

Case Study: I Listened to Google and I Failed

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Thanks to This Month’s Sponsors June 2010

June 29th, 2010

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!

SEO Automatic Plugin – Get custom white labeled SEO reports within minutes saving you time and money, see SEO Automatic Review.

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: tropicaLiving

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 June 2010

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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!
Page1Hosting – Class C IP Hosting starting at $2.99.
Directory Journal – List your website in our growing web directory today.
Need an SEO Audit for your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services
KnowEm – Protect your brand, product or company name with a continually growing list of social media sites.
Scribe SEO Review find out how to better optimize your wordpress posts.
TigerTech – Great Web Hosting service at a great price.

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The Webmaster, Programmer, Developer and Blogger’s Guide to Getting Things Done on an iPad

June 26th, 2010

When I got my iPad, some of the things I wanted to know were how much could I actually get done on an iPad and in what situations could it replace my laptop. Here are the programs and apps that I use to help me get things done.

Here’s a screen shot of the programs I use

Google Apps for Domains Email and Calendar
I use the built-in mail and calendar functions, but each has its own problems. The mail function doesn’t handle multiple threaded messages well and doesn’t archive, so I only use that when I need to. Currently the iPad only syncs with one calendar (the iPhone syncs with more than one), so if I need to see something not on my default calendar, I use it here. It webpages bookmarks saved to the home screen. Here are instructions about how to do that if you’re interested.

Analytics app

This gives me the ability to see my analytics without needing to be in front of a laptop. I did a much more extensive review of the app when it first came out. I was part of the beta program. You can read more about it.

WordPress App

The Worpress app allows you to write new posts and to edit existing drafts and posts right from your iPad. You can connect it to multiple blogs as long as you have xmlrpc enabled. In fact this post was written using the app while I was waiting in a car dealership waiting room. The app isn’t perfect: the features for inserting links, placing images, and editing either don’t work or are so hard to do it’s not worth trying. If you have special plugins like Scribe SEO those aren’t accessible either. Don’t try and use safari and log into your admin panel: all the Ajax that WordPress uses makes that impossible. The best solution is to use the iPad to write drafts, note where links go, upload, and hire an editor–or add the link yourself later when you are in front of a computer.

Goodreader

Goodreader lets you connect to multiple places, download files, and upload them to a server ( see How to FTP Files From Email Using an iPad, for more details on how to do this). Its a lot less user friendly than other programs, but it has functionality they don’t and is the only one that lets you upload and download a wide variety of file types.

Readle docs

Lets you tie in with services like box.net and dropbox to access different files. You can also pull in documents from your mail account. You can view and read them and move them to other services, but you can’t FTP to a server using this program or edit them.

Markup

Need to log into a sever and edit a file? This is the program to help you do it. Editing files on a live server is a dangerous thing, but sometimes it needs to be done. My suggestion: don’t plan on doing a lot of big edits using this program. It’s best suited for small minor changes.

FTP on the Go

Need to FTP or upload images from your iPad? This is the program ( see how to FTP files from your iPad). If you need to move files from one server to another, this program lets you do it. Download the files to a temporary holding bin, then reupload them somewhere else. It’s a shame you can’t use this program to move email attachments. You still need good reader from above to get that done.

SEO Review

This is the iPhone companion to SEO Automatic. See the full SEO Automatic Plugin Review.

Linkjuice
Want a quick snapshot of a Website’s link profile? Linkjuice will do it on the spot. It also links to SEOMoz, majestic SEO link tools, and SEM rush to give you more in depth information (note some of those services are paid services).

Odesk

If you use odesk to outsource some of your work, this tool lets you tie into the system, get status updates, or see screen shots from your remote team’s previous work sessions. Pretty handy when you have multiple people working for you and need to correct any mistakes before they get too far.

Office2 HD

Office 2 HD lets you create and edit documents and spreadsheets. It lets you work with services like box.net, drop box and Google documents (even the Google apps for domains version). Additionally Office2 HD is the only iPad app that let’s you edit Google documents. I’m sure others will come soon but as of right now this is it. It’s a huge productivity boost to be able to edit shared Google documents while you are poolside … err… slaving away at an undisclosed location

Photo pad

Need to edit pictures or screenshots? Then photo pad is the app for you. You can crop, resize, rotate, and do some basic color correction all while on the iPad. You can then upload using one of the FTP programs from above or email them to yourself and upload when you edit/format later.

RDM+

Sometimes you’ll need to remote log into your home computer or file server. RDM+ lets you do it. You won’t be able to work like you are sitting in front of the machine but you can log in and do that quick thing you need or get that file you forgot to share … As long as you left that machine on before you walked out the door …

Airsharing

If you want to share files from your iPad over a wifi connection, this program lets you do it. It’s not super secure so don’t use it for really confidential documents. Emailing files is usually easier, but sometimes you’ll need to move files to a computer that has wifi but no email (like a presentation laptop at a conference). At times like that, it’s good to have this option.

Basecamp
Like most Internet centric companies with remote workers I use Basecamp for project management. There are some Basecamp apps but IMHO they don’t work as well as the Basecamp website. I saved it as a bookmark to my start screen and then moved it to my home bar .

Pageonce
Pageonce ties all my bank accounts, credit cards, stock market, Tripit travel plans, cell phone, insurance, cable, and utility bills together in one spot. It’s sort of a virtual overview of the financial and travel details of my life all on one page, which is extremely helpful. Again this is a bookmark saved to the start screen. As of this writing, they only have an iPhone app not an iPad app.

That’s a list of all of the programs I use on my iPad to help me get my work done.

Thanks to Michelle Robbins who helped with this list of programs
photo credit: Rego – twitter.com/w3bdesign

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

The Webmaster, Programmer, Developer and Blogger’s Guide to Getting Things Done on an iPad

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BOTW.org – Get a premier listing in the internet’s oldest directory.
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Page1Hosting – Class C IP Hosting starting at $2.99.
Directory Journal – List your website in our growing web directory today.
Need an SEO Audit for your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services
KnowEm – Protect your brand, product or company name with a continually growing list of social media sites.
Scribe SEO Review find out how to better optimize your wordpress posts.
TigerTech – Great Web Hosting service at a great price.

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Book Review – Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus

June 25th, 2010

Clay Shirky has a new book out called “Cognitive Surplus” in which he examines how the internet is changing us as a society from consumers and how we are using our newly found surplus of time, energy, and brain power to create, share, and connect with each other.

… Although so much of what kids are doing online may look trivial and frivolous, what they are doing is building the capacity to connect, to communicate, and ultimately to mobilize …

Clay Shirkey

In the spirit of full disclosure, I want to say that I was given a complimentary review copy of the book, but this in no way influenced my opinion of the book. I’ve been a fan of Clay Shirky’s work for quite some time. I’ve also read his book Here Comes Everybody and enjoyed the keynote he gave at SES San Jose in 2009. The main thrust of the book with how we as a society are moving away from being a group of sedentary consumers content to consume TV, movies, videos, and print media to a more active society that not only consumes but also shares and produces content.

In the past only large businesses and corporations could afford to produce and distribute video and print content. Thanks to the Internet, sites like YouTube, and blogs, anyone can be a producer. Thanks to the rise of social media ,we have the ability to connect with other like-minded individuals and share these creations. Many people–and not just established media providers–wonder where people find the time to engage in these new activities. As the book discusses, once people understand how to tap these resources in a motivating way, and they give up being sedentary consumers, people discover they have a wealth of time and choose to use it in a way that enriches and makes their lives more satisfying, often without the goal of making a profit.

Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky

If you work for an old world media company like TV or print, are an electronic publisher or creator, or are involved in any aspect of social media, I recommend reading this book. It offers insight and things to think about, plan for, and use to succeed in a world where more people are creating and competing for attention. With the rise in the amount of published material, especially from amateurs and prosumers, it’s important to understand that more people are producing and sharing than ever before. Make no mistake–there is a lot more competition for eyeballs, and it’s only going to increase.

While the book has a lot of theory and explanations for how and why things are happening, it concludes with some advice about how to put this into action for yourself. The understanding it provides will benefit everyone living in the digital world we are now creating.

photo credit: Joi

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

Book Review – Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus

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Ezilon.com Regional Directory – Check to see if your website is listed!
Page1Hosting – Class C IP Hosting starting at $2.99.
Directory Journal – List your website in our growing web directory today.
Need an SEO Audit for your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services
KnowEm – Protect your brand, product or company name with a continually growing list of social media sites.
Scribe SEO Review find out how to better optimize your wordpress posts.
TigerTech – Great Web Hosting service at a great price.

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Why You Should Care About AT&T’s iPhone Data Plans Even If You Don’t Own an iPhone

June 24th, 2010

While a lot of the attention on AT&T and Apple in the past few weeks has been focused on the release of the iPad and new iPhone, the elimination of unlimited data plans is an equally important development, especially for website owners and publishers.

Even though the iPhone is meant to render full web pages, research has shown that people still prefer mobile-formatted content on iPhones …

In prior years, AT&T offered unlimited data for $30 a month; however, they maintained that a small percentage of users were using a disproportionate share of data. To compensate for this, they announced two new data plans and eliminated the unlimited plan. As I understand it, existing customers are grandfathered until they renew. Upon renewal, they have to choose. Engadget has an excellent breakdown of the details of the plan.

So what does this mean to website owners and publishers? IMHO if you are a publisher, you really need to evaluate your use of rich media and use of a mobile version of your site. If you think that AT&T dropping the unlimited plan is an aberration, you might want to reconsider that position. While free wifi may be on the rise, it’s not as ubiquitous as many in the valley would have you believe. I can find open free hot spots if I really need one, but it isn’t easy. So it’s not unreasonable to expect consumers to start being more conscious of their data use. Additionally, while smart phones and devices like the iPad, Blackberry, or Android can handle some rich media, studies have shown that many users prefer “lite” or mobile websites when on these devices.

From an SEO perspective, creating a mobile website has a few pitfalls to watch out for. In my experience, it’s best to avoid using a separate subdomain or subfolder for a mobile version; instead, you want to serve a different CSS version or serve modified content based on mobile user agents. Again this strategy is tricky if you don’t want to look like you are cloaking; however, as long as you serve the same content to Google’s mobile crawler as you do to mobile browsers, you will be fine (for more info, see this post from Google’s webmaster central team).

While using Word Press as a CMS has issues, this is one area in which it works to your advantage: there are multiple plugins to help you address the problem. I use WP Touch, but you can also use WP Mobile. I’m sure there are other plugins or adapters for other CMS systems. Make sure the systems can handle mission critical functions like shopping and ordering. In the month I’ve owned my iPad, I’ve made a dozen purchases from my iPad, which I suspect is a growing trend.

To wrap up, here is what I would concentrate on as a publisher:

Rethink your use of complex, hard to read layouts that are overflowing with ads or other large-file-size elements and images.
Minimize your use of rich media elements to the places where they are most essential. IMHO, at this stage flash is a liability on so many fronts it’s not worth the headache.
Avoid using a subdomain or subfolder for mobile content. In addition to being a maintenance point, the potential for duplicate content and split link equity is another liability.
Choose your mobile implementation method carefully to avoid creating cloaking issues.

photo credit: Jilles

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

Why You Should Care About AT&T’s iPhone Data Plans Even If You Don’t Own an iPhone

Advertisers:

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!
Page1Hosting – Class C IP Hosting starting at $2.99.
Directory Journal – List your website in our growing web directory today.
Need an SEO Audit for your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services
KnowEm – Protect your brand, product or company name with a continually growing list of social media sites.
Scribe SEO Review find out how to better optimize your wordpress posts.
TigerTech – Great Web Hosting service at a great price.

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$5 million spent on a domain? Here’s why.

June 18th, 2010

Recently Slots.com sold for 5.5 million dollars, when the general public looks at a domain sale of six to seven figures it erupts feelings of envy, mysticism, curiosity and plain head scratching disbelief. Much to the delight of companies such as Godaddy.com people go out in droves registering hundreds to thousands of domains treating the url’s like virtual lottery tickets. Let’s be realistic, companies do not sink thousands of dollars into an investment unless there is a calculated ROI, here we explore the reasons such as SEO value, branding power and conversion.

SEO – Needless to say one looks at a short, intuitive .com and sees obvious immediate value, but the real underlying benefit is in the Search Engine Optimization edge an owner gains. When you target a keyword(s) to rank for in Google what you are doing is attempting to gauge your prospects as they are having an internal conversation. Long story short (and what many people in the domain industry miss) is domains get you to the front page of Google for that term in a shorter amount of time. Many Internet marketers who read this are going to say, “Nonsense, there is no proof of this.”. Sorry, but I have tested this with my own domains, PurchaseDomains.com after a week of development was on the front page of Google for “purchase domains” competing with Godaddy.com, Sobriety.org was on the front page for “sobriety”, wildstyles.com on the front page for “wild styles” and the list goes on. As a result, these companies are not really buying domain names, they are purchasing the potential for massive amounts of traffic. “Slots” the word by itself is typed into Google 200,000 times a month, should the online gambling company Bodog optimize Slots.com correctly they will be more than just chuckling all the way to the bank. Understand this and you are ahead of the game on ninety percent of people blowing money on domains that serve only to drain their pockets.

Intuitive Branding – Did you know an estimated 15% of all Internet traffic is derived from misspells? Owning a short, intuitive .com can largely remedy this issue, on top of that return visitors who do not bookmark (and trust me, a majority of traffic still do not even know what a bookmark is) have a much higher chance of returning to a site if it easier for them to recall. CheapFlights.com, Hotels.com, Fly.com, what they have in common is that they are short, intuitive, brandable and easy to remember. A majority of my site’s traffic derives from return visitors, I want to make it as easy for them to punch up my website as possible.

Conversion – Perry Marshall, an authority in Google Adwords advertising, said from experience he has realized a lift in traffic conversion from owning the exact term domain of a keyword(s) he sought out. The closer your site comes to the internal conversation a prospect is having in his or her head, the closer you come to a click. If your domain, title and description line up with the thoughts and intentions of a user I promise you will see higher conversions that result into dollars. In fact, I know a few companies that own a domain for every term they go after, they find utilizing this technique allows them to target and become authoritative for multiple keywords.

Where does that leave me? – The most common argument I come across is, “I do not have that kind of money for a domain, I would rather sink my funds into development and marketing.”. While the domain is useless without marketing and development think of it this way, would you prefer spend the next ten years and oodles of money into a name such as slots.com or my-company-domain.net? Also, keep in mind that like real estate this is a one time purchase, it is the house you will be living in for quite some time, perhaps you should spend a little more than ten dollars? I can guarantee your competitors are and besides, the domain can be used as a company asset and later sold as such or flipped, good intuitive domains will only go up in value.

If you have a domain name in mind and need help acquiring it or want help analyzing keywords give us a ring, you can find me at NameConnect.com any time during the day or night prowling for good generic domain names.

John Daly is the CEO and founder of NameConnect.com, LLC , he has brokered millions of dollars in domains including FileSharing.com, Outgoing.com, Custody.com, Katie.com and many more. He consults for small, medium and large companies look for advice on domains strategies, investments and search engine optimization.
photo credit: Phil Guest

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

$5 million spent on a domain? Here’s why.

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June 17th, 2010

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

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A Look at Full and Partial Feeds in an Increasingly Mobile World

June 17th, 2010

I’ve long stated that I prefer full feeds over partial feeds. Now that I’ve spent the past few weeks using an iPad, I feel even more strongly that full feeds are the way to go and that offering partial feeds is an obstacle to getting your posts read by as many people as possible.
Two sites I read on a regular basis that offer partial feeds are Search Engine Land and Wired Magazine. I like both websites and read them on a mostly daily basis, using a either Google reader or the Newsrack iPad app. In an effort to be clear, I’ll disclose that I am also a regular columnist for Search Engine Land.

As use of blackberries, iPhones, iPads, android, smart phones, and other Internet consumption appliances increases, I think it’s time that publishers rethink the use of partial feeds …

My typical routine includes scanning the list of feeds 1-3 times per day. If an article is interesting and something I want to read, I’ll send it off to Instapaper to read on the iPad while I’m at the gym later that day or (if absolutely necessary) on the laptop. The iPad has really affected the way I consume. It’s much easier to read on the iPad than it is on a laptop or desktop computer.

When I encounter a partial feed, it’s problematic because I have to send it through a middle service provided by Google. Google actually scrapes the content and provides a “light” version. You can see an example at this URL or the screen shot below.

As use of blackberries, iPhones, iPads, android, smart phones, and other Internet consumption appliances increases, I think it’s time that publishers rethink the use of partial feeds. Providing content that has barriers to consumption isn’t a smart long term solution.

I think it’s time for publishers to rethink using partial feeds as consumption habits change …

The most common argument revolves around advertising and not being able to include it in the feeds. To be honest, this really isn’t a valid argument. There is a lot of off the shelf space available right now for free. You can use the feed footer to randomly insert advertising links in the bottom of each post. Want the ads at the top? Use the RSS Footer and you’re all set. If you need a more sophisticated solution you should have enough of a budget to build a custom plugin.

The next biggest argument is that the posts will get scraped. Getting scraped sucks but, to be honest, it’s a non issue most of the time since Google is pretty good at figuring out the original. They aren’t perfect, but they are right more often than they are wrong. Lastly in most cases getting scraped works to your advantage.

Another solution would be to turn full feeds into a revenue-generating opportunity. You could offer partial feeds for free, and publish full feeds using a subscription model. Give each subscriber a unique feed that redirects to the full feed published at a secret URL. If the subscription is expired redirect to a partial feed. Change the full feed secret URL every month to eliminate people sharing or getting access when the subscription expires. Concerned about people republishing? Embed a unique identifier in each feed in the form of a tracking bug. Its not a perfect or foolproof solution, but it’s a big step forward.

I think it’s time for publishers to rethink using partial feeds as consumption habits change and devices allow content to be read in new ways. Publishers have to adjust and make changes.

PS: I’ve read a lot of reports about mobile consumption and, unless you are delivering rich media, you should consider providing a “lite” or “mobile” version. If you view this website on an iPhone, iPad, blackberry, or even a Wii, you’ll see a slightly different version. I use the wptouch plugin with some custom user agent settings, and it works pretty well.
photo credit: Yutaka Tsutano

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

A Look at Full and Partial Feeds in an Increasingly Mobile World

Advertisers:

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!
Page1Hosting – Class C IP Hosting starting at $2.99.
Directory Journal – List your website in our growing web directory today.
Need an SEO Audit for your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services
KnowEm – Protect your brand, product or company name with a continually growing list of social media sites.
Scribe SEO Review find out how to better optimize your wordpress posts.
TigerTech – Great Web Hosting service at a great price.

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