Rick Hendershot
Traffic-Advisor.com
As I mentioned in a previous post about blogs, I'm starting a "blog experiment" to determine how useful and effective the blogging concept might be for my own online marketing purposes. The truth is, I don't know a whole lot about blogs, so the purpose of my experiment will be to determine:
-- How are blogs different from programs like Postnuke? (Postnuke is the CMS software I use for four other "blog-like" journal/article directories: click-partners.com, traffic-advisor.com, trade-show-tips.com, free-web-tools.biz)
-- How does the blog format contribute to the typical online marketer's objectives?
-- Are blog links more likely to get listed by Google than others?
-- What is the easiest or "best" blogging software to use?
-- Do blogs generate more interest, traffic, response, etc., than other types of websites dealing with similar subject matter?
I am sure most of these questions have already been answered by many other webmasters and bloggers. But things change quickly on the web and yesterday's answers may not be accurate for today. New software is rapidly being developed, and policies/procedures towards blog links and google bombing with blogs are evolving.
Plus I think I can use the blog format to further my own marketing objectives. As a result I am going to start at least 5 new blogs, use different software for some of them, and see how they "perform" relative to each other and to my other sites.
The areas I am going to cover are: Internet Marketing, Trade Show Displays, Golf, Real Estate, and one other as yet undetermined.
Comments are welcome. I'll keep you posted.
-- Rick
This post sponsored by
Small-Business-Online.com
Linknet Network
FreeCard Business Card Displays
Online Audio and Video
Saturday, October 30, 2004
Friday, October 29, 2004
For Sale By Owner Money Back Guarantee
by Scott Miller
For Sale By Owner Canada
Just wanted to announce we are very soon going to roll out a major new service for "For Sale By Owner" in Canada. The major new innovation in our service is that we will provide a "money back guarantee"!
That's right! When you sign up with For Sale By Owner Canada you will receive a DYNAMITE PACKAGE OF SERVICES for the LOWEST POSSIBLE PRICE.
AND... if you fail to sell your home or property using the FSBY-C service, we will REFUND YOUR ENTIRE SUBSCRIPTION FEE...
Here's how it works.
We've tried to make The For Sale By Owner Canada package the best one available anywhere. It includes:
-- Professionally Designed Lawn Signs
-- Professionally Designed Web site Listing
-- Professionally produced FREE VIRTUAL TOUR
-- Legal advice and forms (from our website)
-- Lowest Price for Comparable Value
-- Money Back Guarantee
Here's our Money Back Guarantee:
"If you are unable to sell your home or property using the FSBO-C service, when you subsequently list your home or property with one of our agents, we will deduct the entire suscription fee from the selling agent's commission."
For more information, visit my real estate web site, or the For Sale By Owner Canada site.
-- Scott Miller
Scott's Real Estate Blog
For Sale By Owner Canada
Just wanted to announce we are very soon going to roll out a major new service for "For Sale By Owner" in Canada. The major new innovation in our service is that we will provide a "money back guarantee"!
That's right! When you sign up with For Sale By Owner Canada you will receive a DYNAMITE PACKAGE OF SERVICES for the LOWEST POSSIBLE PRICE.
AND... if you fail to sell your home or property using the FSBY-C service, we will REFUND YOUR ENTIRE SUBSCRIPTION FEE...
Here's how it works.
We've tried to make The For Sale By Owner Canada package the best one available anywhere. It includes:
-- Professionally Designed Lawn Signs
-- Professionally Designed Web site Listing
-- Professionally produced FREE VIRTUAL TOUR
-- Legal advice and forms (from our website)
-- Lowest Price for Comparable Value
-- Money Back Guarantee
Here's our Money Back Guarantee:
"If you are unable to sell your home or property using the FSBO-C service, when you subsequently list your home or property with one of our agents, we will deduct the entire suscription fee from the selling agent's commission."
For more information, visit my real estate web site, or the For Sale By Owner Canada site.
-- Scott Miller
Scott's Real Estate Blog
Online Audio and Video Resources, Part 2
Solutions. Step One: Flix Pro
A few weeks ago I started looking in earnest again for a "solution" to some of the problems I outline in Online Audio and Video Resources, Part 1 of this series.
This new found interest in the stalled world of online media was brought on by a series of projects I took on for my son-in-law, Scott, a relatively new real estate agent. We decided there were major opportunities for generating real estate business online. More and more people are looking to the web as their first source of real estate information, and most real estate agents and brokers continue to be only marginally literate in the ways of the web. In theory, at least, that spells "opportunity".
We felt that online audio and video should be a significant part of our efforts -- if nothing else this would set Scott apart from the large mass of agents. We decided this would involve two types of "programming": video-style "virtual tours", and information presented in the form of "radio" programs -- what you might call "talking articles".
And perhaps the most aggressive component of this promotional program will involve a "For Sale By Owner" website targeted at Canadians. This service will have a unique twist (once we get around to setting it up.)
Both of these required a simple technique that could easily be embedded in web pages. Flash seemed like the answer in both cases, but I didn't have the specifics figured out for either.
First, I wanted to tackle the video issue. Other than my own "talking articles" and online tutorials (mentioned above), I had not seen many workable instances of flash-encoded video. A quick Google search revealed that there were two companies seriously developing tools for encoding video in Flash.
The first product is "Squeeze", from Sorenson, a major player in the video encoding business. Squeeze has been endorsed by Macromedia, and has been integrated into Macromedia's "Flash Video Kit". Since this seems to require Dreamweaver (which I do not use), and gives the distinct impression of pushing users towards the complete (expensive and difficult-to-use) Macromedia suite of tools, this was not going to be my first choice.
The other product is Flix from a company called Wildform. At first glance Flix appeared to be my sort of product. Free-standing, no hidden Macromedia-oriented agenda, apparently quite flexible, and lots of built-in "player" designs that should hold off for quite a while the desire to go into Flash MX and start designing new players.
Flix Pro is not real cheap -- $149 for a tool that encodes flash video. But it will encode from almost any other format (including .wmv, .avi, .mpeg, mp4, mov/qt, and audio formats .mp3, .wav, and .wma), and then nicely wrap it up with one of several special built-in players. Add on the "Power Players" ($29) and you'll have 135 players to choose from.
Flix Pro is a very nice product which quite effectively solves my embedded video problem. Now I can throw together a movie in Ulead MediaStudio Pro, output an all-purpose .avi, and have it flash-encoded and "player-ized" in no time at all. Here's an example. I expect it to be the basis for a unique type of "virtual tour" product we are working on.
-- Rick Hendershot,
Online Audio and Video
A few weeks ago I started looking in earnest again for a "solution" to some of the problems I outline in Online Audio and Video Resources, Part 1 of this series.
This new found interest in the stalled world of online media was brought on by a series of projects I took on for my son-in-law, Scott, a relatively new real estate agent. We decided there were major opportunities for generating real estate business online. More and more people are looking to the web as their first source of real estate information, and most real estate agents and brokers continue to be only marginally literate in the ways of the web. In theory, at least, that spells "opportunity".
We felt that online audio and video should be a significant part of our efforts -- if nothing else this would set Scott apart from the large mass of agents. We decided this would involve two types of "programming": video-style "virtual tours", and information presented in the form of "radio" programs -- what you might call "talking articles".
And perhaps the most aggressive component of this promotional program will involve a "For Sale By Owner" website targeted at Canadians. This service will have a unique twist (once we get around to setting it up.)
Both of these required a simple technique that could easily be embedded in web pages. Flash seemed like the answer in both cases, but I didn't have the specifics figured out for either.
First, I wanted to tackle the video issue. Other than my own "talking articles" and online tutorials (mentioned above), I had not seen many workable instances of flash-encoded video. A quick Google search revealed that there were two companies seriously developing tools for encoding video in Flash.
The first product is "Squeeze", from Sorenson, a major player in the video encoding business. Squeeze has been endorsed by Macromedia, and has been integrated into Macromedia's "Flash Video Kit". Since this seems to require Dreamweaver (which I do not use), and gives the distinct impression of pushing users towards the complete (expensive and difficult-to-use) Macromedia suite of tools, this was not going to be my first choice.
The other product is Flix from a company called Wildform. At first glance Flix appeared to be my sort of product. Free-standing, no hidden Macromedia-oriented agenda, apparently quite flexible, and lots of built-in "player" designs that should hold off for quite a while the desire to go into Flash MX and start designing new players.
Flix Pro is not real cheap -- $149 for a tool that encodes flash video. But it will encode from almost any other format (including .wmv, .avi, .mpeg, mp4, mov/qt, and audio formats .mp3, .wav, and .wma), and then nicely wrap it up with one of several special built-in players. Add on the "Power Players" ($29) and you'll have 135 players to choose from.
Flix Pro is a very nice product which quite effectively solves my embedded video problem. Now I can throw together a movie in Ulead MediaStudio Pro, output an all-purpose .avi, and have it flash-encoded and "player-ized" in no time at all. Here's an example. I expect it to be the basis for a unique type of "virtual tour" product we are working on.
-- Rick Hendershot,
Online Audio and Video
Link Spamming vs. Power Linking with Blogs
Link spamming with blogs
A recent issue of WebProNews focused on how people are using Google's own free blogging service to take advantage of Google's lenient attitude towards link-heavy blogs. As one poster put it, "people are using Google's Blogger to set up dozens of free blogs and then setting up hundreds of keyword rich anchor text links to point to pages."
What makes this a questionable practice is that content like this is not intended to ever be read by anyone. It is simply a bunch of keywords and embedded links strung together for no purpose other than to impress Google's spiders. Another term for this is "google bombing", and for years enterprising bloggers have been pushing their sites to the top of the listings for keywords like "Talentless Hack" or "Operation Clambake". The idea is to get lots of sites creating lots of posts that pack lots of links together in content that focuses on one or two keywords.
It was only a matter of time (probably about 24 hours) before this started to be used for commercial purposes. One of the most striking applications of link spamming is the program called "Search Engine Cloaker". You can set this program up on any website and it will spit out thousands of pages of jibberish stringing together reams of keywords and building in hundreds of links pointing to exaclty the pages you want to promote.
Another example is your typical link directory — page after page of links serving no purpose other than to give outbound links in exchange for inbound ones. Of course in theory a link directory is a "resource directory" that gives web visitors useful information, and is even a kind of "endorsement" by the webmaster. But in fact, most link directories are never meant to be looked at.
That means they fail the same test we have applied to blogs: this material is not intended to be read by anyone. That makes it spam.
Power Linking with Blogs
Power linking is different. As I point out in my FREE Power Linking Course, there are quite a few fairly simple strategies almost anyone can implement that will give you lots of high value links on high value sites. These are sites with real traffic, so this content is meant to be read. You can't post meaningless jibberish on real sites. Webmasters will simply not tolerate it.
Of the four leading power linking strategies outlined in my course, the second easiest is creating a blog and posting interesting content that is keyword rich and packed with links. (The easiest is buying links from high value sites.)
If you go ahead and try the power linking blog strategy, just keep this simple test in mind: "Is the material I publish in my blog meant to be interesting to readers?" If it is, then you're not engaging in link spamming. Go ahead and pack it with your most important keywords. And build in as many links as you can.
--Rick Hendershot
Linking Strategies
Free Web Tools
Online Audio and Video
A recent issue of WebProNews focused on how people are using Google's own free blogging service to take advantage of Google's lenient attitude towards link-heavy blogs. As one poster put it, "people are using Google's Blogger to set up dozens of free blogs and then setting up hundreds of keyword rich anchor text links to point to pages."
What makes this a questionable practice is that content like this is not intended to ever be read by anyone. It is simply a bunch of keywords and embedded links strung together for no purpose other than to impress Google's spiders. Another term for this is "google bombing", and for years enterprising bloggers have been pushing their sites to the top of the listings for keywords like "Talentless Hack" or "Operation Clambake". The idea is to get lots of sites creating lots of posts that pack lots of links together in content that focuses on one or two keywords.
It was only a matter of time (probably about 24 hours) before this started to be used for commercial purposes. One of the most striking applications of link spamming is the program called "Search Engine Cloaker". You can set this program up on any website and it will spit out thousands of pages of jibberish stringing together reams of keywords and building in hundreds of links pointing to exaclty the pages you want to promote.
Another example is your typical link directory — page after page of links serving no purpose other than to give outbound links in exchange for inbound ones. Of course in theory a link directory is a "resource directory" that gives web visitors useful information, and is even a kind of "endorsement" by the webmaster. But in fact, most link directories are never meant to be looked at.
That means they fail the same test we have applied to blogs: this material is not intended to be read by anyone. That makes it spam.
Power Linking with Blogs
Power linking is different. As I point out in my FREE Power Linking Course, there are quite a few fairly simple strategies almost anyone can implement that will give you lots of high value links on high value sites. These are sites with real traffic, so this content is meant to be read. You can't post meaningless jibberish on real sites. Webmasters will simply not tolerate it.
Of the four leading power linking strategies outlined in my course, the second easiest is creating a blog and posting interesting content that is keyword rich and packed with links. (The easiest is buying links from high value sites.)
If you go ahead and try the power linking blog strategy, just keep this simple test in mind: "Is the material I publish in my blog meant to be interesting to readers?" If it is, then you're not engaging in link spamming. Go ahead and pack it with your most important keywords. And build in as many links as you can.
--Rick Hendershot
Linking Strategies
Free Web Tools
Online Audio and Video
Are Link Exchanges Useless?
by Rick Hendershot
Power Linking Strategies
In my Free Power Linking Course I point out that it is virtually pointless getting links in link directories that are nothing more than long lists of "link partners".
For instance, I recently had a link exchange request from a website with a link directory containing thousands of link "partners". The "Business" section alone had 3000 outbound links. Page upon page of links to sites who, presumably, have posted links pointing back to this site (or some other one designated by the site owner).
None of the link pages on this site I checked had any Google PR at all. In other words, according to my definition, these pages are SPAM. They are not intended to ever be read. They exist for no reason other than to create links.
This is a pretty good deal for the spammy link directory: trade links from sites with legitimate link resource directories, from pages which likely have PR, and in return dump the reciprocal link into a bottomless pit of useless link pages.
If you think that linking with sites like this is going to do you any good, you haven't really thought about it. If link exchange of this sort is your primary linking strategy, you are wasting your time.
Quit wasting your time, and start doing some serious "power linking".
-- Rick Hendershot
Power Linking Strategies
Power Linking Strategies
In my Free Power Linking Course I point out that it is virtually pointless getting links in link directories that are nothing more than long lists of "link partners".
For instance, I recently had a link exchange request from a website with a link directory containing thousands of link "partners". The "Business" section alone had 3000 outbound links. Page upon page of links to sites who, presumably, have posted links pointing back to this site (or some other one designated by the site owner).
None of the link pages on this site I checked had any Google PR at all. In other words, according to my definition, these pages are SPAM. They are not intended to ever be read. They exist for no reason other than to create links.
This is a pretty good deal for the spammy link directory: trade links from sites with legitimate link resource directories, from pages which likely have PR, and in return dump the reciprocal link into a bottomless pit of useless link pages.
If you think that linking with sites like this is going to do you any good, you haven't really thought about it. If link exchange of this sort is your primary linking strategy, you are wasting your time.
Quit wasting your time, and start doing some serious "power linking".
-- Rick Hendershot
Power Linking Strategies
Friday, October 22, 2004
Business Card Displays #2
Analysis of "business card displays" text.
I did a quick search in Google for "business card displays" The page n the #1 position says this:
"Business Card Holders - Desk Displays and Pocket Wallets
Business card holders are ideal for keeping your business cards clean and organized. It looks more professional having a xxxxxx business card holder and you are less likely to lose them than if they were loose in your wallet or pocket. They make a good corporate or promotional gift and metal holders can be engraved with your company name to be given out as a marketing tool. Desk business card displays that sit on your desktop keep your business cards available and easily accessible. Business card cases that can be carried comfortably in your pocket are great when you are on the move.
"Desk business card holders
Desktop business card holders are usually made of acrylic – these are clear plastic stands that sit on your desk displaying your business cards. The advantage of these is that you have access to the information you need right in front of you without having to search through draws or pockets. There are several designs available – a triangular base with a slit that business cards slot into is one design. These have the advantage of being stable and are not knocked over easily but the cards are not covered so can get dirty and marked. A similar design is a type of desk display which is also triangular in shape, like a Toblerone (a chocolate bar) or a tent, with one edge acting as the base and the other two edges being large enough to hold business cards. These have the advantage of being double-sided so you can fit twice as many cards in."
Further study will reveal the significance of this text. If there is any...
Anton Brule, The Traffic Advisor
I did a quick search in Google for "business card displays" The page n the #1 position says this:
"Business Card Holders - Desk Displays and Pocket Wallets
Business card holders are ideal for keeping your business cards clean and organized. It looks more professional having a xxxxxx business card holder and you are less likely to lose them than if they were loose in your wallet or pocket. They make a good corporate or promotional gift and metal holders can be engraved with your company name to be given out as a marketing tool. Desk business card displays that sit on your desktop keep your business cards available and easily accessible. Business card cases that can be carried comfortably in your pocket are great when you are on the move.
"Desk business card holders
Desktop business card holders are usually made of acrylic – these are clear plastic stands that sit on your desk displaying your business cards. The advantage of these is that you have access to the information you need right in front of you without having to search through draws or pockets. There are several designs available – a triangular base with a slit that business cards slot into is one design. These have the advantage of being stable and are not knocked over easily but the cards are not covered so can get dirty and marked. A similar design is a type of desk display which is also triangular in shape, like a Toblerone (a chocolate bar) or a tent, with one edge acting as the base and the other two edges being large enough to hold business cards. These have the advantage of being double-sided so you can fit twice as many cards in."
Further study will reveal the significance of this text. If there is any...
Anton Brule, The Traffic Advisor
Online Audio and Video Resource
by Rick Hendershotfrom www.videoinabox.com
For years, would-be internet prophets have been predicting that the web would be revolutionized by audio and video content. For a variety of reasons this has just not happened. There's something about the way the web has developed that is just not "rich media" friendly.
Nevertheless, I still think there are fantastic opportunities to put audio and video to work for online marketers. Not just for promoting products either. These techniques are ideal for supporting event and trade show marketing.
In all the years I have been playing around with online audio and video, I have always been unhappy with the mainstream alternatives — Windows Media, Real, and Quicktime. Without a doubt these are three sophisticated alternatives. But at different times and for different reasons they all appear to be going nowhere.
From the perspective of the "developer" or "publisher" of online content, having to worry about three competing audio and video formats is a complete and very distracting waste of time. What a pain having to encode for different players — and then trying to get those players to work. It is no wonder that rich media has been stalled for the last three years or so.
The "Flash" alternative
Flash was originally developed as an animation tool, but very early in its development (by 1996) it turned into a "complete multimedia development environment". This accounts for the schizophrenic relationship webmasters have with flash. Creating original flash productions with a tool like Flash MX is much too difficult for your average webmaster. But completed Flash "movies" are easy to work with. You can just plug them into your website. And if you're handed an already functioning flash module that you can use to do a limited range of things -- like show a movie, play an audio track, create some simple animated type -- then it is a wonderful tool.
About a year ago I stumbled onto Camtasia. TechSmith had just started including a flash encoder in their upgraded suite of screen capture tools ("Camtasia Recorder / Producer"), and I found I could create some very good looking (and sounding) software training videos by using a combination of these tools. The final step in the process involved encoding the finished .avi file as a .swf, and then embedding it in a web page. This worked like a charm, was relatively easy, and the quality was surprisingly good (here's a sample.)
But, as usual, there were some problems...
First, I didn't like Camtasia's clunky stock control buttons. TechSmith had anticipated this, and actually made a separate controller available — one with more functionality, and one that looks much better (see the sample.) But to add it to your flash movie you had to do some work in Flash MX.
If you happen to own Flash MX — it is ridiculously expensive — you probably agree with me that it succeeds in making even simple little tasks like this painfully difficult. No problem. I learned enough of Flash to get by, and was able to crank out quite a few demo training sessions.
Second problem: the Camtasia system is based on screen captures and uses a special codec that gives you incredibly crisp images at very low frame rate (usually about 5 fps). This is good for screen captures (software tutorials), but no good for regular videos that have much more motion, and a higher frame rate. Using the Camtasia tools to encode regular video into .swf files creates files that are much too large for streaming or progressive downloads. So "real" video can't be done in Flash with this set of tools.
Curses! This means the enterprising online video guy is back to using a hodge podge of tools. Forget it!
Third problem: the Camtasia system (Producer) doesn't have enough flexibility to handle straight audio. So if you want to just take an online article and create an audio version of it, there is no easy way to do it.
Well, that's not quite correct. Creating a Flash audio controller amounts to creating a "movie" -- some buttons that control an audio source. For a while I took advantage of this to create "radio" presentations that included photos (see this example.) I actually constructed simple videos (.avi) with Ulead MediaStudioPro, and crunched them through Camtasia Producer to encode them as .swf files. But apart from the clunky work flow and mish mash of tools, Camtasia Producer simply does not (did not?) have enough audio conversion capabilities. You pretty much take what you get.
In the next couple of posts I will review the "solutions" I have (at least temporarily) settled on.
— Rick Hendershot, Real-Estate-Radio.comThis is my most recent project.
For years, would-be internet prophets have been predicting that the web would be revolutionized by audio and video content. For a variety of reasons this has just not happened. There's something about the way the web has developed that is just not "rich media" friendly.
Nevertheless, I still think there are fantastic opportunities to put audio and video to work for online marketers. Not just for promoting products either. These techniques are ideal for supporting event and trade show marketing.
In all the years I have been playing around with online audio and video, I have always been unhappy with the mainstream alternatives — Windows Media, Real, and Quicktime. Without a doubt these are three sophisticated alternatives. But at different times and for different reasons they all appear to be going nowhere.
From the perspective of the "developer" or "publisher" of online content, having to worry about three competing audio and video formats is a complete and very distracting waste of time. What a pain having to encode for different players — and then trying to get those players to work. It is no wonder that rich media has been stalled for the last three years or so.
The "Flash" alternative
Flash was originally developed as an animation tool, but very early in its development (by 1996) it turned into a "complete multimedia development environment". This accounts for the schizophrenic relationship webmasters have with flash. Creating original flash productions with a tool like Flash MX is much too difficult for your average webmaster. But completed Flash "movies" are easy to work with. You can just plug them into your website. And if you're handed an already functioning flash module that you can use to do a limited range of things -- like show a movie, play an audio track, create some simple animated type -- then it is a wonderful tool.
About a year ago I stumbled onto Camtasia. TechSmith had just started including a flash encoder in their upgraded suite of screen capture tools ("Camtasia Recorder / Producer"), and I found I could create some very good looking (and sounding) software training videos by using a combination of these tools. The final step in the process involved encoding the finished .avi file as a .swf, and then embedding it in a web page. This worked like a charm, was relatively easy, and the quality was surprisingly good (here's a sample.)
But, as usual, there were some problems...
First, I didn't like Camtasia's clunky stock control buttons. TechSmith had anticipated this, and actually made a separate controller available — one with more functionality, and one that looks much better (see the sample.) But to add it to your flash movie you had to do some work in Flash MX.
If you happen to own Flash MX — it is ridiculously expensive — you probably agree with me that it succeeds in making even simple little tasks like this painfully difficult. No problem. I learned enough of Flash to get by, and was able to crank out quite a few demo training sessions.
Second problem: the Camtasia system is based on screen captures and uses a special codec that gives you incredibly crisp images at very low frame rate (usually about 5 fps). This is good for screen captures (software tutorials), but no good for regular videos that have much more motion, and a higher frame rate. Using the Camtasia tools to encode regular video into .swf files creates files that are much too large for streaming or progressive downloads. So "real" video can't be done in Flash with this set of tools.
Curses! This means the enterprising online video guy is back to using a hodge podge of tools. Forget it!
Third problem: the Camtasia system (Producer) doesn't have enough flexibility to handle straight audio. So if you want to just take an online article and create an audio version of it, there is no easy way to do it.
Well, that's not quite correct. Creating a Flash audio controller amounts to creating a "movie" -- some buttons that control an audio source. For a while I took advantage of this to create "radio" presentations that included photos (see this example.) I actually constructed simple videos (.avi) with Ulead MediaStudioPro, and crunched them through Camtasia Producer to encode them as .swf files. But apart from the clunky work flow and mish mash of tools, Camtasia Producer simply does not (did not?) have enough audio conversion capabilities. You pretty much take what you get.
In the next couple of posts I will review the "solutions" I have (at least temporarily) settled on.
— Rick Hendershot, Real-Estate-Radio.comThis is my most recent project.
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Member Sites of the SBO-Linknet Network
When you become a Linknet Partner, your listing or text ad is placed on two different high ranking pages on at least 15 of these sites.
Small-Business-Online.com contains articles, reviews, opinion pieces, and tips covering Web Marketing, Small Business, Link Exchange, Web Design and E-commerce. Products are offered such as web makeovers, website copywriting, low cost domain registration and hosting, link exchange services, and much more. Member of the linknet network of websites.
Ezine-Network.com This site contains information pertaining to getting published — submission of articles, photographs, ebooks, and other special features for a growing number of online publications. Ezine-Network.com is a member of the sbo-linknet.com network of websites.
Trade-Show-Tips.com Articles, tips, product reviews for Trade Show and Event Marketers. Trade Show displays and portable displays for event marketers, sales professionals, trade show exhibitors, event presenters. Articles and advice for staff training, sales motivation, event planning, event website building, lead generation, event follow-up. Trade-show-tips.com is a member of the sbo-linknet.com network of websites.
Banners-Canada.com Beautiful vinyl banners printed with full color outdoor resistant printing. Include photographs, logos, special artwork. Banners shipped across North America. Custom Banners are ideal for many trade show applications, as well as special events, indoor backdrops, or to cover old outdated signs. You can attach them right to the outside of your building, to a wall, a fence, or between two posts or trees. Since they are lightweight and very flexible, they can be easily rolled and unrolled, and can be used for many years. They make perfect banner backdrops when hung from the appropriate hardware, or can be used as a sign hanging on the front of your display table.
CanadaDisplayGraphics.com Trade Show Graphics, Oversize display materials, Popup Displays, Retractable Displays, Bannerstands, Blowups, Mounts, Vinyl Banners. Vinyl Graphics, self-adhesive graphics, floor graphics, point of purchase display materials. We also output high resolution film for offset printers. Products are shipped across North America. CanadaDisplayGraphics.com is a member of the sbo-linknet.com network of websites.
America-Banners.com Beautiful vinyl banners printed with full color outdoor resistant printing. Include photographs, logos, special artwork. Banners shipped across North America. Custom Banners are ideal for many trade show applications, as well as special events, indoor backdrops, or to cover old outdated signs. You can attach them right to the outside of your building, to a wall, a fence, or between two posts or trees. Since they are lightweight and very flexible, they can be easily rolled and unrolled, and can be used for many years. They make perfect banner backdrops when hung from the appropriate hardware, or can be used as a sign hanging on the front of your display table.
Tradeshow-Display-Experts.com Up to 50% off all kinds of portable trade show displays. This includes PopUp Displays, Retractable displays, Bannerstands, and Trade Show Graphics, as well as Full Color Vinyl Banners. Trade Show Displays are shipped across North America.
1-Webworks.com Website In a Box is a complete turnkey website package. The package includes domain name searching and registration, website hosting, website concept development and design, sales-oriented copywriting, custom designed graphics, Search Engine Optimization, and much more. These are websites for business, websites for small business, websites that work, webs that get traffic. We build webs with the ingredients necessary to create a web presence for your company or product, and to get traffic. Websites from 1-webworks.com are guaranteed to get traffic because they share the resources and integration of the linknet network. 1-Webworks.com is a member of the Linknet network of websites.
SBO-Linknet.com is the home of the sbo-linknet network. This is a growing network of active websites covering various areas of interest from Online Marketing to Golf to Personal Health and Finance. There are currently about 20 web sites in the Linknet Network.
Free-Web-Tools.biz contains product reviews, downloads and descriptions of free web tools for website owners, webmasters, internet entrepreneurs, and web marketers. We focus on free software and other products primarily for online marketing purposes. We also list ebooks and other digital publications that are free for internet marketers. Free-Web-Tools.biz is part of the Linknet network of websites.
EasyTrainerOnline.com is about online training. We provide a number of basic training courses, as well as articles and demos of online technology that is used for training purposes. We also offer links to training resources, and "how-to" articles to help in the development of your own corporate and institutional training programs. EasyTrainerOnline.com is a member of the Linknet network of websites.
Videoinabox.com contains articles, reviews, opinion pieces, and tips covering Online Video and Audio, Streaming Media, Flash Presentations, and Streaming Technology. Demos and production techniques, as well as applications to marketing and content creation. At Videoinabox.com we also design and market specific applications of online media, primarily for marketing and training purposes. Videoinabox.com is a member of the Linknet network of websites.
TheWeg.com The Weekend Golfer contains articles and commentary of interest to "weekend golfers". A weekend golfer is a golfer who plays regularly, but doesn't take the game seriously enough to regularly enter into tournaments or competitions. He only takes lessons or instruction because he / she doesn't want to be utterly embarrassed during regular weekend rounds. One of the regular features of theweg.com are reviews of various classical instructional pieces and overviews of classic golfers like Moe Norman, Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, and many others, too numerous to mention (mostly because they haven't been thought about yet.)
InternetGolfReview.com contains articles, reviews, opinion pieces, and tips covering Golf Instruction, Golf Books, Golf Equipment, and Golf Travel. If you are involved with golf, addicted to golf, have a passion for golf, or are just marginally interested in golf, then this golf website will have information of interest to you. We look at golf instruction and golf teaching products, as well as swing theories both old and new. InternetGolfReview.com is part of the Linknet network of websites.
Golf-Around-the-World.com Amost anywhere in the world is perfect for a golf holiday, but some places are more perfect than others. This site is about some of the most perfect golfing places in the world. It is a collection of information I have compiled over the last few years — and continue to collect — about famous and not-so-famous golf courses, towns and villages, special people, local history. And it includes as many unique photographs as I can find. If you have articles, photos, or just tidbits of information you'd like to see included, please contact me.
Traffic-Advisor.com contains articles, reviews, products and programs dealing with generating website traffic. It is also a self-serve Article Publishing, Article Distribution and Article Archiving resource. It is for the use of marketers wanting information and resources about increasing website traffic, link exchange, search engine marketing, advertising, and more. Traffic-Advisor.com is part of the Linknet network of websites.
Click-Partners.com is a self-serve Article Publishing, Article Distribution and Article Archiving resource. It is for the use of marketers needing a resource for Web Promotion, Self Promotion, Article Archiving and Distribution, Product Announcements, Exchanging Links, and more. Click-Partners.com is a member of the sbo-linknet network.
ScottMiller.ca is the official website of Scott Miller, Re/Max Real Estate Representative for the area of Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Scott works out of the RE/MAX Real Estate Centre at 720 Westmount Road East, Kitchener, Ontario. He is also a regular contributor to the Real Estate Radio Show. ScottMiller.ca is a member of the Real Estate Radio Network, and of the SBO-Linknet Network.
Real-Estate-Radio.com is a unique radio-style website that will feature audio (and some audio-video) presentations of various topics of interest to buyers and sellers of real estate. This will include tips on buying and selling, home renovations, evaluating properties, For Sale By Owner information acquiring mortgage financing, and much more. Your host is Rick Hendershot, and regular contributors will be featured weekly. Real-Estate-Radio.com is a member of the Real Estate Radio Network, and of the SBO-Linknet Network.
Cottage-Sales.com Looking for a cottage or summer home in Canada? You've come to the right place. We have valuable background information on cottage sales and what to look for in a summer home. If you've done any searching for cottages or summer homes, you know this market changes daily. You know the online cottage and summer home listings are often out of date. And you know the only way to find out what is really available today is by talking to people "on the ground" in the location you're interested in. We will put you in touch with experts in the exact part of cottage country you are considering. Cottage-Sales.com is a member of the Linknet network of websites.
ForSaleByOwner-Canada.com will offer services to people wanting to sell their homes privately.
ForSaleTours.com will offer no-hassle, low cost "virtual tours" to real estate agents and FSBO real estate sellers.
When you become a Linknet Partner, your listing or text ad is placed on two different high ranking pages on at least 15 of these sites.
Small-Business-Online.com contains articles, reviews, opinion pieces, and tips covering Web Marketing, Small Business, Link Exchange, Web Design and E-commerce. Products are offered such as web makeovers, website copywriting, low cost domain registration and hosting, link exchange services, and much more. Member of the linknet network of websites.
Ezine-Network.com This site contains information pertaining to getting published — submission of articles, photographs, ebooks, and other special features for a growing number of online publications. Ezine-Network.com is a member of the sbo-linknet.com network of websites.
Trade-Show-Tips.com Articles, tips, product reviews for Trade Show and Event Marketers. Trade Show displays and portable displays for event marketers, sales professionals, trade show exhibitors, event presenters. Articles and advice for staff training, sales motivation, event planning, event website building, lead generation, event follow-up. Trade-show-tips.com is a member of the sbo-linknet.com network of websites.
Banners-Canada.com Beautiful vinyl banners printed with full color outdoor resistant printing. Include photographs, logos, special artwork. Banners shipped across North America. Custom Banners are ideal for many trade show applications, as well as special events, indoor backdrops, or to cover old outdated signs. You can attach them right to the outside of your building, to a wall, a fence, or between two posts or trees. Since they are lightweight and very flexible, they can be easily rolled and unrolled, and can be used for many years. They make perfect banner backdrops when hung from the appropriate hardware, or can be used as a sign hanging on the front of your display table.
CanadaDisplayGraphics.com Trade Show Graphics, Oversize display materials, Popup Displays, Retractable Displays, Bannerstands, Blowups, Mounts, Vinyl Banners. Vinyl Graphics, self-adhesive graphics, floor graphics, point of purchase display materials. We also output high resolution film for offset printers. Products are shipped across North America. CanadaDisplayGraphics.com is a member of the sbo-linknet.com network of websites.
America-Banners.com Beautiful vinyl banners printed with full color outdoor resistant printing. Include photographs, logos, special artwork. Banners shipped across North America. Custom Banners are ideal for many trade show applications, as well as special events, indoor backdrops, or to cover old outdated signs. You can attach them right to the outside of your building, to a wall, a fence, or between two posts or trees. Since they are lightweight and very flexible, they can be easily rolled and unrolled, and can be used for many years. They make perfect banner backdrops when hung from the appropriate hardware, or can be used as a sign hanging on the front of your display table.
Tradeshow-Display-Experts.com Up to 50% off all kinds of portable trade show displays. This includes PopUp Displays, Retractable displays, Bannerstands, and Trade Show Graphics, as well as Full Color Vinyl Banners. Trade Show Displays are shipped across North America.
1-Webworks.com Website In a Box is a complete turnkey website package. The package includes domain name searching and registration, website hosting, website concept development and design, sales-oriented copywriting, custom designed graphics, Search Engine Optimization, and much more. These are websites for business, websites for small business, websites that work, webs that get traffic. We build webs with the ingredients necessary to create a web presence for your company or product, and to get traffic. Websites from 1-webworks.com are guaranteed to get traffic because they share the resources and integration of the linknet network. 1-Webworks.com is a member of the Linknet network of websites.
SBO-Linknet.com is the home of the sbo-linknet network. This is a growing network of active websites covering various areas of interest from Online Marketing to Golf to Personal Health and Finance. There are currently about 20 web sites in the Linknet Network.
Free-Web-Tools.biz contains product reviews, downloads and descriptions of free web tools for website owners, webmasters, internet entrepreneurs, and web marketers. We focus on free software and other products primarily for online marketing purposes. We also list ebooks and other digital publications that are free for internet marketers. Free-Web-Tools.biz is part of the Linknet network of websites.
EasyTrainerOnline.com is about online training. We provide a number of basic training courses, as well as articles and demos of online technology that is used for training purposes. We also offer links to training resources, and "how-to" articles to help in the development of your own corporate and institutional training programs. EasyTrainerOnline.com is a member of the Linknet network of websites.
Videoinabox.com contains articles, reviews, opinion pieces, and tips covering Online Video and Audio, Streaming Media, Flash Presentations, and Streaming Technology. Demos and production techniques, as well as applications to marketing and content creation. At Videoinabox.com we also design and market specific applications of online media, primarily for marketing and training purposes. Videoinabox.com is a member of the Linknet network of websites.
TheWeg.com The Weekend Golfer contains articles and commentary of interest to "weekend golfers". A weekend golfer is a golfer who plays regularly, but doesn't take the game seriously enough to regularly enter into tournaments or competitions. He only takes lessons or instruction because he / she doesn't want to be utterly embarrassed during regular weekend rounds. One of the regular features of theweg.com are reviews of various classical instructional pieces and overviews of classic golfers like Moe Norman, Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, and many others, too numerous to mention (mostly because they haven't been thought about yet.)
InternetGolfReview.com contains articles, reviews, opinion pieces, and tips covering Golf Instruction, Golf Books, Golf Equipment, and Golf Travel. If you are involved with golf, addicted to golf, have a passion for golf, or are just marginally interested in golf, then this golf website will have information of interest to you. We look at golf instruction and golf teaching products, as well as swing theories both old and new. InternetGolfReview.com is part of the Linknet network of websites.
Golf-Around-the-World.com Amost anywhere in the world is perfect for a golf holiday, but some places are more perfect than others. This site is about some of the most perfect golfing places in the world. It is a collection of information I have compiled over the last few years — and continue to collect — about famous and not-so-famous golf courses, towns and villages, special people, local history. And it includes as many unique photographs as I can find. If you have articles, photos, or just tidbits of information you'd like to see included, please contact me.
Traffic-Advisor.com contains articles, reviews, products and programs dealing with generating website traffic. It is also a self-serve Article Publishing, Article Distribution and Article Archiving resource. It is for the use of marketers wanting information and resources about increasing website traffic, link exchange, search engine marketing, advertising, and more. Traffic-Advisor.com is part of the Linknet network of websites.
Click-Partners.com is a self-serve Article Publishing, Article Distribution and Article Archiving resource. It is for the use of marketers needing a resource for Web Promotion, Self Promotion, Article Archiving and Distribution, Product Announcements, Exchanging Links, and more. Click-Partners.com is a member of the sbo-linknet network.
ScottMiller.ca is the official website of Scott Miller, Re/Max Real Estate Representative for the area of Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Scott works out of the RE/MAX Real Estate Centre at 720 Westmount Road East, Kitchener, Ontario. He is also a regular contributor to the Real Estate Radio Show. ScottMiller.ca is a member of the Real Estate Radio Network, and of the SBO-Linknet Network.
Real-Estate-Radio.com is a unique radio-style website that will feature audio (and some audio-video) presentations of various topics of interest to buyers and sellers of real estate. This will include tips on buying and selling, home renovations, evaluating properties, For Sale By Owner information acquiring mortgage financing, and much more. Your host is Rick Hendershot, and regular contributors will be featured weekly. Real-Estate-Radio.com is a member of the Real Estate Radio Network, and of the SBO-Linknet Network.
Cottage-Sales.com Looking for a cottage or summer home in Canada? You've come to the right place. We have valuable background information on cottage sales and what to look for in a summer home. If you've done any searching for cottages or summer homes, you know this market changes daily. You know the online cottage and summer home listings are often out of date. And you know the only way to find out what is really available today is by talking to people "on the ground" in the location you're interested in. We will put you in touch with experts in the exact part of cottage country you are considering. Cottage-Sales.com is a member of the Linknet network of websites.
ForSaleByOwner-Canada.com will offer services to people wanting to sell their homes privately.
ForSaleTours.com will offer no-hassle, low cost "virtual tours" to real estate agents and FSBO real estate sellers.
What is a Business Card Display, #1
business card display, business card displays, business card dispenser, business card dispensers, free business cards, free business card, small business ideas, small business idea, small business opportunity, Europe, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, France, England, Ireland
by Rick Hendershot, www.small-business-online.com This article is not really about "business card displays". It is about the mysterious art of "Search Engine Optimization", and a complaint about the puzzling way that Google occasionally categorizes and ranks websites. |
The website in question is www.freecard.com, the subject matter of which is the promotion of a product called the Free Card Business Card Display. This is not your typical "business card display". For instance, it is not one of those little card holders people put on their desks. And it is not a non-descript plastic rack that holds a bunch of business cards. Rather, it is a very specific kind of device that dispenses business cards one by one. Typically an advertiser buys a compartment for a period of time. His or her business card is placed in the front of the compartment, on "display" -- this is why it is called a "business card display". Then people who are interested in one of the displayed services can take the appropriate card.
Is this the right keyword? Yes, but for a variety of reasons we won't spell out how we know this. Our competition has been stealing ideas, keywords, meta tags, etc.
What can be done about it?
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For more information about the linknet website promotion opportunity, see our website. You can place your link, or your text ad on at least 30 pages just like this — on at least 15 different websites for one low annual fee. Getting links like this is a great way to increase the Search Engine ranking of your website. |
Search Engine Optimization
| by Rick Hendershot, M.A. www.small-business-online.com |
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Listen to this Article |
If you know anything about how websites work, then you probably know something about "keywords", and maybe even a little bit about the mysterious art of Search Engine Optimization. In this article I take a brief look at these two things.
How Search Engines work
In a nutshell, Search Engines create large indexes of as many web pages as they can. They do this by sending automated information gathering "spiders" out onto the web to crawl from one page to another compiling information about the pages they visit. Eventually all this information is stored, and the pages are "indexed". This involves categorizing web pages according to their subject matter. The search engines also store information about the "importance" or "relevance" of each page, so when a search is done on a given term, the search engine can return listings of pages in the order of their relevance to the term searched for.
For instance, say you do a search for "golden retrievers". The search engine will consult its index and return a list of pages about golden retrievers; and it will attempt to give you the most "relevant" pages at the top of the list.
Now if you were interested in having your pages listed in a particular category — say you are a breeder of golden retrievers — it would probably be helpful to know how the search engines analyze your pages. That way you could structure them so the search engines considered them more "relevant" and more likely to come up higher in searches for "golden retrievers".
This is Search Engine Optimization in a nutshell: structuring your pages so the search engines will place them higher in relevant searches.
Content (text) is King
Search engines primarily deal with words and numbers. They are really just huge databases containing information about the word content of millions and millions of web pages. In other words, they show an almost complete bias towards text (including numbers) as methods of conveying content, as opposed to images, animations, sounds, or design effects.
Is this because text is more powerful than images or sounds? Is it because the word "Violence" on a page more effectively communicates a message, than say a picture of a bloody corpse? Obviously not. It is simply because text (including numbers) can be analyzed and categorized much more easily than other types of non-text content. So text can be made much more search engine friendly than non-text content. The result is that search engine optimizers are primarily interested in words. They don't really care what your site looks like, how creative it is, or what it sounds like. All they care about is what is says in words.
This is one important reason that web designers are not necessarily good search engine optimizers. Designers care about appearances, style, colors, aesthetics, sounds, images, font styles. Search engine optimizers only care about text. When they say "content is king", they mean textual content. And as long as we are trying to impress the search engines, they are right. Content (text content) IS king, because that's all the search engine spiders are capable of reading and categorizing.
The Importance of Keywords and Key Phrases
Obviously the search engines need a way to analyze and categorize textual content. They do this by using what are called "keywords" or "key phrases". Think of how the "search" utility in your favorite word processor works. You ask it to search a document for all instances of a particular word combination — say, the word combination "golden retriever". The program does a quick scan of the document and highlights all instances of the word combination "golden retriever".
Now imagine you program your search utility to scan all documents within a specific folder on your computer. You tell it to give you a summary of all the documents containing the word combination — the keyword — "golden retriever", and you ask it to list these documents starting with the one having the most instances down to the one having the fewest.
You now have created a mini search engine.
The real search engines, like Google and Yahoo, have massive databases where they store information about and "index" billions of pages. When they "index" pages they store information about their content and do some preliminary ranking of their relevance.
Try putting yourself in the shoes of the automated spider that comes around and analyzes web pages. As a spider, you job is to go out onto the web, analyze the content of pages, and report back so these pages can be listed correctly in the search engine's database. So when searchers ask for information on "golden retrievers" they are given the pages most relevant to their inquiry.
How is the spider supposed to know what each page is about, so it can index and rank it properly? At the heart of the indexing process are "keywords" and "key phrases". The spiders look for keyword patterns in the structure of your page: what the title of the page indicates about its subject matter, the content of the major headlines, terms that are repeated and emphasized throughout the body of the page, the source and content of inbound links, the content of pages your outbound links point to, the subject matter of the images on your page.
All of this information gets added to the search engine database. Then, when someone does a search, they do it using "keywords". The search engine consults its database, and returns a list of pages that are the most "relevant" to the searcher's inquiry.
The 1st Law of the Web Universe
Once you know how search engines work, and once you discover that the majority of website traffic comes from search engines, you should become very interested in the "1st Law of the Web Universe". Here is what it says:"Search Engines categorize web pages according to keywords."
This "law" dictates that to get traffic, you MUST design your web pages around keywords.
Is this difficult? No, not really. But it does require some serious planning and analysis BEFORE you start building your site. Because not only should you build the right keywords into your web pages, but you should CHOOSE THE RIGHT KEYWORDS before you begin. The fact is, some keywords get lots of searches, and some get none. There are tools available to do keyword analysis before you spend the time and effort "optimizing" your pages.
The Bottom Line...
Find an advisor or company that properly understands how the Search Engines work, and how your keywords should cater to them. Find somebody who is prepared to do the sort of analysis described here for a reasonable cost. And, by the way, this is just the sort of service available at http://www.small-business-online.com/.
--Rick Hendershot,
contact me by email
www.sbo-linknet.com
www.small-business-online.com
www.freecard.com/
This is Anton's first post
Hi. I'm Anton Brule. I'm a internet marketer, and want to use this blog to post articles, etc.
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