Devour The Web

Jagger, Google Analytics, and the Future of Search & SEO
 by: Glenn Murray

Two big things have just happened in Google-land: Jagger and Google Analytics. Together, these two events may have changed the face of search forever.

Jagger

First, let’s discuss Jagger… Just like hurricanes, Google updates have names. (A Google update is a change to the way Google determines its rankings. Google makes these changes periodically, and they’re universally feared because they can impact dramatically on a website’s ranking.) The latest update is called Jagger, and it has search engine optimizers (SEOs) all around the world in a state of panic.

Why was Jagger such a fearful update? Simple… With Jagger, Google once again outsmarted huge numbers of SEOs. You see, many/most SEOs spend their time (and their clients’ money) trying to trick Google into thinking that their websites are more relevant and important than they really are. They do this mostly by swapping links, buying cheap links, and placing links on free directories. While there’s nothing wrong with these sorts of links (i.e. they’re not considered ‘black-hat’), they don’t really show that the site is relevant or important. All they really show is that the site owner has made a deal with another site owner. In these deals, the incentive for the linking site owner is a reciprocal link, money, or increased link volume. Google much prefers it when the linking site adds the link simply to enhance the value of their content or to increase their own credibility and authority.

Sponsored Links

Choosing a decent RSS reader to browse and read your favourite RSS feeds was not a straight forward task. I tried and tested many different windows desktop readers but I ended up uninstalling them for one reason or another. Then I found Bloglines and I am pleased to say I have not yet been disappointed with it.

The reason I need a decent RSS reader is that I spend a lot of time reading feeds. I run an RSS resource website http://www.newsniche.com/ which means I have to keep up to date with all things RSS. Naturally I have come across many RSS readers but have found them always to be lacking in one thing or another. In my research I came across Bloglines which is a web based reader.

It’s a shame Bloglines does not have an affiliate program as I would love to promote it, purely because it is such a great tool. Unfortunately for me but fortunately for you this tool is free and everybody loves free internet tools. The main reason I am writing this is because I feel I need to give something back to Bloglines and I also want you to benefit from such a great RSS reader.

Before people ever discover something like trackbacks might be valuable for SEO purposes, there was the original purpose.

Understanding why trackbacks were created in the first place will help in the ongoing web-wide discussion about follow vs. no-follow and the debate over whether a link is worth getting if Google doesn’t give you any credit for it.

What Are Trackbacks and Why Do They Exist?

Trackbacks were created by blog software programmers to help bloggers easily link to each other and get credit for doing so with automation. Rather than writing about someone else’s blog post on your site and then writing to them to let them know you just linked to their post and asking for the possibility of them linking back to you, trackbacks automate the process.

Don’t know what a trackback is? Check out my video on how to do a trackback. And see TrackBoost.

Before people realized that trackbacks could be used for SEO, bloggers used them for the direct traffic trackback links would send them from the blogs they comment on. Not in the comments area on that blogger’s site, but remotely.

I recently invested quite some time into generating search engine friendly URLs for several of my websites to increase my ranking and to have more pages indexed. I can highly recommend to look into this if your own website does not have se-friendly URLs. Especially Google (the most important search engine nowadays) can be very picky in regards to URLs that are not se-friendly.

Example (the 2 URLs below bring you to exactly the same page):

http://www.beefkabobs.com/ShowCategory.php?CategoryID=13 -> this URL is not se-friendly and search engines will eventually ignore any page behind it or rank it much lower in search results. Visitors will have difficulties to remember this URL. These kind of URLs often come from dynamic database driven websites. Each page is dynamically created when requested. Look at the forums URL this moment, too. It is dynamically created and not very friendly to search engines or the visitor. You get the idea.

http://www.beefkabobs.com/kabob-recipe-category-13.html -> this URL is se-friendly and search engines will spider the page behind it easily. It is keyword enriched to increase search engine ranking. Overall - this URL is easy to be spidered and easy to remember by a visitor.

Some years ago, on the recommendation of a friend, I visited Amazon.com for the first time. My friend was someone whose judgement I trusted - and I had also heard good things about Amazon from other friends and colleagues.

I was certainly impressed with what I saw when I got to the site, it was well laid out, information was clear, prices were good and there was a great range to choose from. But I didn’t buy anything - not on that visit. Later on I went back to the site and I am now a regular customer.

So what’s the moral of the story? I went to one of the best websites on the planet, I was already interested and I had plenty of first hand recommendations from people who I knew and trusted - but I didn’t buy anything. Why not?

Simple - it’s perfectly normal behaviour that’s why, in fact had I bought anything on that first visit I would have been flying in the face of conventional behaviour - on the internet or in the real world.

Sounds kinda neat huh? I’m sure someone else has coined this phrase by now, so I didn’t even go searching for it before writing this post. (I swear!)

Besides I have a definition for quantum marketing I want to run by you.

Quantam Physics and Quantam Mechanics are said to be the study of the “little things” that make up the Universe. We’re talking the smallest stuff science has been able to measure and even things they know are there but are so small and fast that measuring them is not yet possible.

Yet what scientists have found in the last century about the little things is that they mean a lot. In fact, they mean everything, because they make up “everything.”

Quantum Marketing, therefore, is the study and application of the little things that mean a lot in business and marketing. Things like how approachable you are for clients, customers, prospects and possible associates and partners. Like how you treat an email from a client or prospect that, in the scheme of your day-to-day responsibilities, is seemingly insignificant or at least far less significant.

First, let’s look at the opposite of Quantum Marketing.

Online video is a knife that cuts both ways for rapper 50 Cent.

While ClickZ today examined how 50 Cent uses online video to to build brand loyalty, a video on celebrity gossip site TMZ is bringing attention to problems in his personal life.

A multi-million dollar home — and the center of dispute between 50 Cent and an ex-girlfriend — was destroyed in a suspicious fire. Six people, including 50 Cent’s 10-year-old son, went sent to the hospital for smoke inhalation and were released, according to the Associated Press.

In a video interview on TMZ.com, 50 Cent’s former girlfriend Shaniqua Tompkins said she and 50 Cent were fighting over the house. She also complained that 50 Cent “made no contact to see how his son is doing” after the fire.

Newsday.com reported that 50 Cent was in Louisiana at the time of the fire. According to reports, his spokesman said any suggestion that the rapper was involved in the incident is “outrageous.”

7 Steps to Easily Increase More Sales - Step 3
 by: Tina Valiedi

You’ll find plenty of advice on techniques and methods to

use for increasing sales. But which ones do you believe?

Which ones do you try? How do you know their methods will

produce the same results?

Many web site owners make the big mistake of trying the

“latest” and the “greatest”, thinking that they will see

the advertised results or at least a high percentage of it.

They may see an increase or just as likely see a reduction

in their current figures.

When you test and track you can be sure you’ll know the

answers to the questions just asked. In Step 2 we discussed

how to set up the split test and what to track. Now we’ll

look at the different things to test and track.

Step 3 - What To Test For Better Conversion

There are many elements contained in your web site sales

copy that can be tested…an overabundance at times! You

can even test different groups of elements. It is usually

If there’s one album you don’t want to grab off of a P2P server, this would be it.

Rock the Net, the nationwide coalition of musicians and labels that support net neutrality (841 bands, 177 labels and counting), are releasing an album to benefit their very worthy cause on July 29.

Wilco, Bright Eyes, DJ Spooky, They Might Be Giants, Aimee Mann and more have dontated tracks to the compilation, which will be released by indie Thirsty Ear Recordings.

Kind of ironic that musicians, who have seen their industry gutted by the Web, would band together to support this critical cause. It would be nice to see interactive marketers and advertisers, whose bread and butter depend on a freely accessible Internet, make their own brand of noise about the issue.

"Todd" was keen to compete in one of the most notoriously difficult categories ? work-at-home. He was smart, earnest, hard-working and keen to make affiliate marketing more than just a part-time endeavor. He had dreams of living on the beach in Mexico and surfing between sessions at the computer.

He had put together a sweet little landing site. He had 20 keyword groups running about 10,000 unique visitors a month. He was spending $5,000 per month on pay per click on sales of $6,000. He was collecting email addresses at a rate of 100/day through an opt-in form. He had placed his Google tracking data on the confirmation page of his subscription form. He had great data he collected daily over the past 4 months. He had calculated his visitor value based on commissions divided by clicks and was bidding accordingly. He was a dream client.

Could I help him?

I was drooling over this one. In this case I was 100% sure I could at least double his profits, and likely triple or quadruple. Why was I so sure?

1) He was tracking sign-ups, not conversions

2) He was selling 22 different items off of one landing page