Watch a recording of the Google Buzz launch event. Be warned – it’s about an hour long.

What Google Buzz allows you to do is share updates, videos, photos, RSS feeds “and more”.  If you think this sounds a lot like Facebook you’re right…sort of.

The difference between Google Buzz and Facebook is that Google Buzz is integrated into your Gmail account which means that you can share updates and other pieces of information with the people who you already email and chat with within Gmail.

When you add a website link within Buzz, it will automatically pull photos from that link that you can share, plays videos “inline” meaning you don’t have to leave Gmail in order to view the video.

What I found most interesting was that you can connect to sites “that you already use” such as Picasa, Flickr, Google Reader and Twitter.

But what struck me the most was that this list of “what you already use” programs, is that Facebook is missing.

And, perhaps what is most interesting of all, is that Buzz shows you posts that “may interest you” or that “are popular among your friends”.

Now, I’m not exactly sure where the line falls with the whole “posts that may interest you” bit…perhaps it will be advertising?  Could we be looking at a potential new market for PPC?  I honestly don’t know but it was such a broad statement that it leads me to believe that Google left it broad for a very good reason.

When you first get Buzz within your Gmail account it will “auto-follow” those that you chat and email the most.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I do happen to send (and receive) quite a few emails to people for business related reasons through Gmail and really don’t want these people to see my status updates.  Status updates, like in Facebook for example, can be set to lists.  Does Buzz offer lists?  Again, I don’t know (yet).

But…this post isn’t all about just what I don’t know about Google Buzz…here’s some things that I do know:

There’s an app for your iPhone or Android.

You can visit Buzz at http://buzz.google.com.

Buzz will find your location (if you give it permission to) so that others can see where you’re located at any given moment.

Back to speculations…

Now, there’s quite a few people that think this is the greatest thing since sliced bread and others who believe it will be a total flop.

Personally, I am apprehensive about it.  I like Facebook – I prefer Facebook simply because I like to keep things separated.  All of my friends are on Facebook – and these aren’t folks that I necessairly email or chat with in my Gmail account.

Plus, my personal Facebook account isn’t necessarily “professional”.  At Facebook I can create professional groups or pages where I do discuss more professional topics…but within Gmail, everyone’s grouped together.

To be honest, I rarely use email any longer to communicate with friends and family since…drum roll please…they’re all on Facebook (even my mother).

So I’m not personally excited about it – because it means one more extra thing I’ll have to keep track of and use.  And frankly, Facebook does just fine for me.

All that said, where then does Google Wave come into play?

It was my knowledge that Google Wave was the way to share information like videos, links, photos and such with people who were located in your Wave.

So I don’t understand the difference between Buzz and Wave.  Do you?  If you do, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Here’s a quick introductory video of Buzz if you’re interested.

Now, not all current Gmail users have Buzz integrated yet into their Gmail account, but they’re rolling it out to everyone as quick as they can.

I honestly don’t know if I’ll use Buzz at all.  There’s always a “new” thing with Google and until I hear that it’s working wonders in some way with others, then I’ll be pretty slow to jump on the bandwagon.  I only have so much time in my day and if I jumped on every new Google release I wouldn’t get anything done.

Now…if they do decide to integrate your Facebook contacts, and allow you to create lists of people so that you can only update those lists, I’ll definitely take a second look (but…maybe they do; again I don’t know because I don’t yet have it in my Gmail account).

Have you gotten “Buzzed” yet in your Gmail account?

Will you use it yourself?

What are your thoughts?

No related posts.

They’ve also released a video that was recorded in May of 2009 at the Google I/O conference (the same conference that first introduced Google Wave).

Now, the video below is an hour long so if you feel up to it and have the time, feel free to watch it yourself.

If not however, you’ll be happy to know that I in face HAVE watched the video and have made the important notes about Google Search Engine Optimization below.

The focus of the presentation was based on organic search or natural search results.

“It’s not enough to make a site and stick on the web because there’s so much out there.  You actually need to make it crawlable so that it appears within the search results [of Google].  And there’s steps that you can take along the way to be sure that your site appears within the search results.”

If you take a look at your site within Google’s Webmaster Tools area you might notice that the total URLs that Google found is larger than what the Indexed URLs are within your site.

“We can’t index everything because a lot of it’s boilerplate duplicate content information.”

It’s important to verify your website using Google’s Webmaster Tools.

Planning for a New Site

• A compelling product or service.
• I have unique content that I want to create.

“If you have a great service or you have great content you want to look to make a site.”

Selecting Your Domain Name

You want to look at what you want your site to target.

To target international vendors from all over the world, look to get a .com, a .net or a .info. (gTLDs)

If you want to get a ccTLD (country specific domains) then you can only target people in that region (at least through Google.)  For example, if you get a domain such as www.SomeSite.fr then it’s only going to target customers in France not in the United States.

“If you want to get the most authority, then you’ll want to self-host [your site].”

It’s important to choose a non-www or a www version of your site because of PageRank dilution.  It will disperse your links between two sites.

If you want to target users who only speak a certain language then you don’t want to use the Geographic target tool in Google Webmaster Tools.

Determine Where to Host

If you don’t give Google an indication of who you are serving (country specific domain or Geographic location setting in Google Webmaster tools), then you’ll want to choose a webhost that is in the same location as the location you’re trying to target.

“Shared hosting with “bad neighborhoods” does NOT affect your rankings.”

There’s new Google Webmaster Tools API data available.

Designing Your Site

Site Architecture:  Navigation

• Important that users are able to navigate your site.  For example, breadcrumbs.
• A Search Box
• Logical category navigation
• If they come to a child page, how can they get back to that home page?
• Know that they’ve already visited.
• Modify color for visited links or “Items you also looked at”
• Site Architecture for Users:  URL Structure

“Shareable URLs are always good.”

• The URL takes a user to the exact item they clicked on, not a menu or a homepage where they would have to search for the item.
• “Descriptive file names also help users as well as search engines.”
• Keywords separated by hyphens.
• Lowercase URLs for “safest implementation”.  For example, users might manually type it in and they’ll use lowercase.
• Keep in mind that robots.txt is case sensitive so mixed-case URLs can be a “hassle”.

Site Architecture for Search Engines

First think about what’s going to be private vs. public and secure the private data.

If you have a site that has adult content – separate the adult content from family-friendly content.  Especially for safe search.  It’s easier for the search engines if they see a directory structure that’s logical.

For example:

www.SomeSite.com/adult-images/

www.SomeSite.com/family-friendly-images/

“For search engines, static links are always best.  Because we can follow those and they have good anchor text.”

• Keep important pages well-linked from the home page.  Don’t hide it in a child node, link it from the home page.
• Submit an XML sitemap with Yahoo!, Ask, and Microsoft as well.  Often these are from sitemaps.org.

Disallow Throwaway Content:  Shopping Carts

Since Googlebot will never actually “purchase” a product from your site, there’s no need for shopping cart code.

Disallow Login pages as well.

Create and test the Robots.txt file within Webmaster Tools.

Dynamic URLs

Often recognized by name/value pairs. Eg:  page.foo?category=1&answer=10

Create easily understood name/value pairs:

http://www.SomeSite.com/product.php?item=g1-phone

http://SomeSite.com/product.php?item=g1-phone&category=mobile

http://www.SomeSite.com/product.php?item=g1-phone&category=mobile&affiliateid=1234

http://www.SomeSite.com/product.php?item=g1-phone&category=mobile&affiliateid=5678

Each of these lead to the one product page for the g1 phone.  But they differ from one another because of all of the different parameters.

You might have 1,000 products on your site and you might have 10 URLs that could actually link to each product so now you’ve created a site with 10,000 URLs and actually you only have 1,000 good product pages.

Google can’t crawl all the web.  ”We’re trying to limit our resources and crawl what’s useful.”

Since each category is the same, and the affiliate ID’s differ only slightly they’re able to throw those out as not being a single, different URL and makes it much easier for Google to process.

They’re going to find out ways to crawl the most important of those [URLs].

“One reason why people might not have done this in the past is they thought “ranking reasons”…they thought “oh, I need to put keywords in my path because that’s better for ranking.  Which isn’t the case.”  We’ll actually interpret keywords whether they’re in the page or in the name/value pair.”

Remove Session IDs from Paths or Position

Creates undesirable infinite crawl possibilities.

If you put your session ID in the middle of a path, it looks infinite to Google.

“Our search engine wants to crawl every category and every leaf node page. ”

If you have a lot of navigation, expand one category at a time.  Keep it standard.

Google’s Message Center in Google Webmaster Tools

They’ll give you a notification if they’re found an infinite URLs.

Indexing and URL Structure

• “You want to have pretty sweet anchor text.”
• Create descriptive anchor text that names or labels your link.
• You don’t want “click here”.

Choosing Technologies

Design initially with static HTML content and navigation to reach the largest audience.

Add Flash & AJAX later.

JavaScript

Google now processes many onclick events to discover new URLs.

This functionality is continuously updated.

Can also call an onclick if the onclick calls a function but ONLY if the function is on the page itself and not dependent on external files.

Examples of what Google can now process on your site:

div onclick=”document.location.href=’http://somesite.com/’”

if myfunction(x) is defined within the page:

onclick=”myfunction(’index.html’)” <a href=”#” onclick=”myfunction()”> New Page</a>

<a href=”javascript:void(0) onclick=”window.open(’welcome.html’)”> open new window</a>

They’re not yet there with AJAX.  Consider Hijax for AJAX.

For Flash

Google can find all of the user-visible text in a Flash file.

Avoid text in graphic files if you desire content indexed

They associate text with the embedding page (if one exists)

For embedded Flash, use well-known JavaScript methods to do the embedding:

• SWFObject
• SWFObject2
• UFO
• AC_RunActiveContent

New functionality added by Google:

If your Flash file loads an external resource (e.g. HTML page, XML file, another SWF file), they’ll capture that content and associate it with the Flash file.

Frames & iFrames Current Behavior with Google

Crawl

• Frame/iframe URLs discovered at crawl time within the parent page.
• URLs do not require a separate link on the web

Index

• Frames often indexed with parent page.
• iFrames often indexed as an independent URL.

Historically we’ve seen a lot of ads within iFrames and so there was no use to bring that into the parent page.

Making the Web Page

Anatomy of a search result.

There’s a title which corresponds to the title of your page.

A Snippet  which can either be found within the context of your page or used from your meta description.

URL and sitelinks.

Sitelinks are calculated algorithmically done especially if you have a site that’s very accessible to search engines (and it’s going to be the high result.)

You want to create unique titles for EACH URL.

As well as a unique meta descriptions.

Use rel=”canonical” to specify one URL from others with duplicate (or near duplicate content).

Minimize Duplicate Content

If you have multiple URLs that go to the same page this means you could be losing PageRank.

Specify your preferred version in the header of each duplicate page (Yahoo and Microsoft accept this standard).

For example:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://SomeSite.com/product.php?item=g1phone” />

Properties such as link popularity will be consolidated to one version.  The canonical URL will also likely appear in search results.

Specifying canonicals only work within the same domain.

Google Webmaster tools can help with titles and meta descriptions.  It will point out to you if you have duplicate titles or duplicate meta descriptions or titles that don’t exist.

Adding Content

Make sure you’re keywords are included in the text.

“Keywords are important.  If you want to rank for a certain word, you should use it in your text naturally.”

Adopt the language of your users.

“Keyword stuffing is spam.”

Images

For image search here are some of the signals:

• Google looks at the text surrounding the image.  The paragraph text and the heading.
• The quality of the image matters.  The higher the better.
• Image attributes are very important.  Often, the alt text is used as the images anchor text.
• Image file names.  Use file names that are hyphen-separated rather than a default.
• “Hyphens will be seen as word separators whereas underscores are not seen as a full-strength word separator.”

Image Replacement:  Hiding Text Can Be Risky

Developers (or some site owners) will often think that “Oh, I’ve got this image with some text in it so to let search engines know about my text, I will actually use “text-indent:-999″.

What this does is push the text off the screen so no one can see it.

This is a bad idea because this is a long-running spam technique and will generate a penalty.

If you’re using images, use alt text if possible.

If Google believes that you are a legitimate site trying to use something like the text-indent, they’ll send you a message in Google Webmaster Tools.

For Videos

“YouTube does a lot of good things.  They have static HTML navigation, text descriptions, good titles, you can visibly see the popularity of a video so you can see the views, the ratings, they have comments that help the user become engaged; comments can also be a turnoff but it also keeps some people there.  They have related videos that keep it sticky on the site so you keep looking at more…and of course the best thing about video optimization is to create a compelling video, right?  One that people do want to share.  And if you’re hosting on your own, uptime is important.”

Video Site Maps

You can submit a video sitemap to Google.

Responding Appropriately (Response Codes)

200 – For when the URL exists; No “soft 404s” that redirect to your homepage.

301:  Signals the content has moved permanently; Use when existing content has new URL; Transfers URL and linking properties from source to target URL.  Search results will show the target URL not the source URL.

404:  File not Found; Google treats 410 similarly

Webmaster Tools allows you to copy and paste code that will give a nice looking 404 with the closest match to the URL they were trying to get to.

503: For temporary site maintenance, signals to crawler to revisit later.  Don’t noindex everything and don’t 404 it.

Review Crawl Errors

Google Webmaster Tools will give you response codes for errors.

Fix Broken Links!

Webmaster Tools provides the source (within your site or external to your site) for 404s.

They’ll tell you where that 404 is from.  Can reach out to people linking to you who are coming to a 404 and let them know that they’ve mistyped something, etc.

It is up to you as the site owner to attempt to correct this.  You can redirect the page they’re linking to using a 404.

301s don’t tend to get visited and crawled quickly.

Sitemaps

There’s lower-case sitemaps.  The HTML type of sitemaps.  SE’s can follow that but what Google likes and wants is an XML sitemap.

You can put the link to the XML sitemap in the robots.txt file.  This is a list of URLs that you WANT crawled.  They’ll use this to feed the URL to their crawler.  It maximizes the pages being crawled by Google.

“It’s best to have strong link architecture in your site.”

Engaging the Community

Blogs

• Become an authority in your field.  Don’t just “put something out there.”
• Use categories that are also good keywords.
• Keep your blog secure; Hackable software warnings in Webmaster Tools Message Center
• Review http://www.MattCutts.com/blog/whitehat-seo-tips-for-bloggers/; or just Google [matt cutts seo blogging tips]

P.S.  On this site there is a link to a video where Matt Cutts talks about White Hat SEO Tips for Bloggers from Wordcamp in 2009.  And yep, I’ve added the finer points to that 45 minute video as well.

Blog FAQs

• Publish full content or a snippet?  Only mildly better for Google if full content is published.  Your preference.  ”Most users prefer to see the full content.”
• Robots.txt disallow duplicate content categories/labels like “archives”?; Sure, if you’d like Google to only crawl unique sections that’s just fine.
• What about tweets?; Not currently in ping service, crawled if linked to on the web, can appear in web search results.
• Twitter has no ping service.  It has to be linked to on the web.

Engaging the Community:  Comments/Reviews

Benefits

• Informed purchasing decision for consumers
• Communication with/between readers.

Host comments and reviews on your own site for stickiness (need to moderate for spam).

Place reviews on same URL as product to consolidate content (all related links go to the same URL).  Keep the reviews on the same page as your product so that they don’t go to a separate URL to read a review.

Microformats and RDFa Reviews in Snippets

Initial focus is on sites whose primary intent is to provide

• Reviews
• Descriptions of people (e.g. social networking sites)

If they’re marked up in RDFa or in an hCard we can actually show that on Google.

Check Backlinks in Webmaster Tools

Find out who is linking to you in Google Webmaster Tools.

Maximize Traffic

Google shows you up to 100 queries now of how people are finding your site.

Final Question to end the session:

“Do you think it’s better to create a good website or to start a social media campaign?”

Google’s answer:  A good website.

“A lot of people make conversions when they feel they’re well-informed and comfortable.”

No related posts.

Since he has a LOT of videos (174 as of this writing) that discuss a LOT of different topics, I felt it would be useful to put all of the answers here in one easy-to-reference blog post that will concisely answer the question for you rather than having to watch the entire set of videos.

Note that as of this writing this is not all inclusive.  As time permits I will continue to add snippets of answers.

Links to the specific videos themselves are included as well as the date that the videos were added to help give you some reference.

Matt Cutts' Videos

Related posts:

1. Getting a Handle on Your Canonicals
2. Tips to Get Your WordPress Blog to the Top of the Search Engines
3. Google’s Link Operator – What’s it REALLY Holding Back?

It seems everyone is building a blog these days – foregoing the typical static HTML website for one that’s easier to use and update in the form of a blog; usually a Wordpress blog.

As a side note here, I’m NOT recommending a Wordpress blog that you would get for free at Wordpress.com.  Instead I’m referring to a Wordpress blog that you would host on your own domain name.

But…you might not know that it takes a lot of work and dedication to keep that blog running smoothly and most importantly to get those blog posts that you make showing up in top positions in a search engine.

So here’s a few tips that may help you out:

1. Time – First know that a blog takes a lot of time and dedication.  Part of the responsibilities of owning a blog is to keep it updated frequently with timely information that your readers will appreciate.
2. Your Readers – Nothing is more of a turnoff to blog readers than coming across a blog only to be promoted to over and over again.  Sure, promotions have their place but it shouldn’t be the sole reason for you running a blog.  The biggest tip?  GIVE.  Put yourself in your site visitors shoes and consider for a moment what you could post in your blog that would be considered helpful to them.  Not you.
3. Link OUT - Did you read something you found interesting and did you talk about it in your blog.  Then, credit the source!  Link out to that source freely with no strings attached.  You might not know that if you link to another Wordpress blog from your own, that this will generate what’s called a Pingback to the source you’re crediting.  Oftentimes this will also generate a link back to you.  So don’t be shy, credit where where is due.
4. Promotion – Are you promoting your blog?  If so, where?  With the growth of Facebook and Twitter in particular you can get traffic from multiple resources online.  Create your own Facebook Fan Page that links back to your blog.  Add your blog link to your Twitter profile page.  Whenever you update your blog, make a post about it at both Facebook and Twitter.

The bottom line is, it’s a lot of little things that you do that end up making the biggest difference.   And don’t forget to appreciate the people that will eventually visit your blog.

It’s easy to forget that your site visitors are real people looking for real solutions so why not be that guy or gal that will give it to them?

No related posts.

I can’t believe an entire decade has passed and although it’s been wonderful, I’m looking forward to a new and exciting 2010.

Hope all of your dreams come true not only in this new and upcoming year but far beyond!

- Kristine

No related posts.

I mentioned something back on December 10th about some Bonehead SEO Updates I was thinking of doing for you and I believe I have the perfect solution; a way to learn online marketing that’s just a little…well, different.

I’m currently working on a few of my own personal projects and the process that I use to market those projects as well as optimize those projects will soon be yours.

I haven’t yet decided what (if anything) I’m going to charge.  And yes, it may very well be free or as close to it as possible.

That said, here’s the “why” behind what I’m doing.

You see, even though I’ve worked online going on 14 years now, I’ve seen a lot of people offer products and services that just really don’t pan out the way that they should.

A lot of these products and services cost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars – heck some of them cost so much you could buy a good used car with them!

I get pitched these same products just like you do.  Probably more.

And frankly, I’m sick and tired of seeing all of the thousands of dollars your charged for stuff that isn’t worth a fraction of that.  And I think you deserve better.

Secondly, I love to teach.

I know countless people who really want to succeed but get caught up in the “newest product of the month” or the “quick and easy way to fast profits”.

The problem behind this is that for the products that do work, it’s only one solution; one piece of the puzzle that needs so many other pieces to make it a full picture.

So I want to take you by the hand and show you step-by-step, day-by-day, what you need to do in order to succeed online.

Not just with SEO but with all aspects of online marketing.

I’ve accumulated a lot of knowledge during my nearly 14 years online and I believe that in 2010 it’s my turn to give that knowledge back to people who really need it.

That said, I want you to know something very important here.

This is not for those of you who consider yourselves “experts” when it comes to online marketing.

No, this is for those of you reading this who need to know what it takes on a daily basis how to go from point A to point Z and need someone to tell them how to do it; every day.

This includes people who are:

A) Looking to start a new online business

B) Don’t know where in the world to start

C) Need to know the basics before heading into the “heavy” stuff

D) Want someone to keep them in check.

I’m currently working on this series of video lessons for you and should have them available early 2010.

So if this is you, if you are someone who wants to really learn how to not only locate a market, but set up a website for that market, and get visitors to that website, then you need to keep checking back here to see when it will be available.

I’m pretty excited about this and I hope you are too.

I hope to see you back here very, very soon.

- Kristine

No related posts.

The world wide web is a highly competitive market. Companies vie for the attention of billions of internet users in the search for better revenue. A lynch pin to the internet marketing war is the search engine.

Search engines are internet venues where billions of people congregate to search for information. The most prominent search engine giants are of course Google and Yahoo. The kind of traffic these dot-com companies receive per hour is phenomenal.

So naturally, companies would gravitate towards placing their links and sites in an attempt to garner more visits to their web sites.

In order to maximize ranking and placement, companies have used tools such as search engine optimization or SEO. Search engine optimization is the method or process of improving a web site’s ranking in a search engine listing.

Legitimate search engine optimization practices focus on the improvement of a page’s ranking in the search engine list by improving site content, usability and using legitimate methos of promotion through web phenomena such as viral marketing.

Search engines all use complex algorithms in keeping their relevancy in the web and to keep illegal and abusive search engine optimization methods from prospering. However, “black hat” SEO users will always be around so it is expected that search engine giant such as Google and Yahoo will continue to make more complex algorithms to filter the garbage out.

Search engines display different kinds of listings on a result page. The more common ones are (PPC) pay-per-click, adverts, paid inclusion, and organic listings. Of all these listings, SEO concerns itself foremost with organic listings for a variety of keywords. This can increase the quality and quantity or visitors to a desired web site.

Getting   or trying to increase   website traffic requires  a plan and  regular effort. The rewards are definitely worth it.

Organic searches are searches conducted by web users in a search engine that is free from solicitations. A study from Jupiter Media stated that 5 out of 6 commercial online purchases originated from organic searches versus paid online ads.

This has made SEO much more in demand in creating revenue for companies as SEO is not a paid ad but a method of intrinsically improving content.

Here are a few tips on improving content for a much more improved result in organic searches:

1.    Expertise. Follow your strengths. Sites you set up must be on subject you consider yourself an expert on. People can smell an amateur a mile away.

2.    Plan the site. A good layout for the site can improve usability. This in turn will not unnecessarily aggravate the browser.

3.    Research. Check out the competition and see what they have set up. See what works and what does not. If possible try to communicate with users in forums and get feedback on what should or can be improved further.

4.    Decide on important keywords. Decide on the most important keywords to use for your sight. Include these keywords in the metatags, copy page, page title, and file names.

5.    The Search Engine is your friend. Make friends with your search engine and don’t give it a hard time. Being nice and friendly to it will make its job easier to serve your site up to your target audience.

6.    Focus. Focus on the topic at hand and nothing else. The rule is one topic per page.

7.    Join the directories. Directories are repositories of knowledge done by human hands while search engine are huge databases collected by mostly machine methods. The relevancy of your page when joining the right directory may shoot through the roof. Of course, make sure you know what you are talking about.

8.    Start a linking campaign. A most effective SEO method. This is a must to do. Ask your allies, strategic partners, friends and acquaintances to place your site’s URL link on their sites. With a short description this can draw traffic from other sites and increase exposure. Google especially ranks the importance of its sites by the number of sites linked to it. 

9.    Repetition is the key to victory. Keep repeating the above tips, supporting and increasing what works and killing what does not as fast as possible until the desired result is achieved.

In the world of search engine optimization, content matters a lot. If a site has amateur or worse falsified information, fewer and fewer visitors will want to visit it. They will spread bad news even faster than they spread good news, so expect a garbage site to be ignored even in a week’s time.

No related posts.

I haven’t used any of them so I have no idea how well they work but they are interesting.

• Pet Caskets (yes, really) – Here’s one site that carries them (no affiliate program found however).
• Strange Pet Breeding – http://www.businesspundit.com/7-strange-animals-bred-for-business-purposes/
  • Giant Guinea Pigs
  • Fainting Goats (I’m really not making this up)
  • German Giant Rabbits (there as big as a Great Dane)
  • Mini-Cows
  • Jersey Giant Chickens
  • Glowing Fish
• Pet Cremation Urns (that look like your pet) – http://www.perfectmemorials.com/black-labrador-lifesize-figurine-pet-cremation-urn-p-1217.html
• Christmas Ornaments made of Reindeer poop – http://www.examiner.com/x-996-Strange-Pet-News-Examiner~y2008m12d2-Christmas-ornaments-made-from-reindeer-poop
• Flights exclusively for your pets – http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jul/21/nation/na-pet-airways21
• Pet Taxidermy - http://www.xtremetaxidermy.com/

There literally is a niche for everything!

No related posts.

I’ve got big changes coming to Bonehead SEO and I hope that they’ll surprise you in a very good way.

Over the 13+ years I’ve worked online, I’ve always done so pretty silently, working on websites, either for myself or others, marketing, optimizing and more.

But if there’s one thing that has always stood out to me it’s that there’s A) a lot of misinformation out there about online marketing, SEO, and affiliate marketing in general and B) that a lot of people get really fed up with all of that misinformation so that they’ve begun to mis-trust many people.

And it’s no wonder.

If you’re like me, you’ve no doubt noticed quite a few of the “well-known” names online all of a sudden “leaving” the industry to focus on something else.

Ironically this comes shortly after the FTC announced that they’ll be cracking down on websites that they believe are using fake testimonials and under-handed tactics in order to make a sale.

I don’t know about you but I for one have wondered “WHY?”

If everything was so legitimate and worked so well for everyone why the need to suddenly shut down everything?  You can’t help but have a myriad of questions run through your mind as to what they’re trying to “escape” from.

And quite frankly, in some cases, it’s very disheartening.

That said, I want to let you know that the changes coming to BoneheadSEO will be very enlightening for you (at least I hope so).

I’m not changing businesses by any means but do want to make real, honest-to-goodness information available to those who really need it.

I’ll be flat honest with you and let you know that a vast majority of my income personally does NOT come from this website.  It comes from other sites and businesses that I own.

I know a lot of things.  And I mean a LOT.  You don’t simply work online for over 13 years and not pick up a little bit of something here and there.

And it’s this knowledge that I want to pass along to you so that hopefully your new year will be the one that you look back at and say to yourself  ”I DID IT!” and not have to look at your bank account and wonder where all that money went that you spent online buying product after product; idea after idea.

I’m not trying to be secretive or leave you in some kind of “marketing suspense”.    I actually haven’t made my final decisions yet as to exactly what it is I’m going to do quite yet. I’ve got plenty of ideas…and one of them will be the winner. But for now, I hope that you’ll simply just hang tight with me until the beginning of the new year when I’ll announce the final decision.

That said, I’d like to leave you today with a very inspirational video from Jim Rohn.  For anyone who isn’t aware, Jim passed away recently and is one of the foremost inspirational speakers of our time and someone that I certainly looked up to.  Although his talks almost always consisted of being involved in the MLM or Network Marketing business, his ideas can apply to any business.

Enjoy.

So stay tuned…subscribe to the RSS feed to make it easy for you to keep up to date and I’ll be in touch very, very soon.

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From One Gutsy Internet Home Business Owner to Another

During a recession like this, learning about how to increase profits is often the most rewarding experience for experienced business leader.

How does this happen? Amazingly, it is no surprise that the absolute top way that is manifested for the corporate executive improve the bottom line is to publish and market a book and become a bestselling author.

Wonderful, you’ve made the decision to publish and market a book. Congratulations, success is in your future! A book can give you recognition and help you to attract more clients to your business. If such things are your only reasons, then it would be important to learn to market your book fast. But you might miss one of the best reasons for having a book if you just concentrate on getting it done fast. That reason is to make money

Getting an eternal bestseller credential and attracting more clients can actually be achieved quicker and easier says book business expert DrProactive Randy Gilbert, if you “slow down and take some time to create a bestselling business around your book”. He says that you will be rewarded with an outstandingbook, higher profits, and a passive income that far exceeds what you would have otherwise made with just a book.

It can make you a bestselling author, and a millionaire at the same time, which is why DrProactive named “bestselling business”. Learning how to write and market a book and building a business around it at the same time is crucial.

No matter what subject your book is about, there are several ingredients that are helpful when marketing your book. If you want to sell lots of copies and make it a bestseller, then some features are essential. Everyone knows that in order for your book to be sold in retail stores, it must have an EAN barcode, an ISBN number, and certain bindings and features.

However, if you add certain less well known features to your book, you will hugely expand your book’s marketability. Did you know that there are a few common features in almost every New York Times bestseller? You can take advantage of the marketing research of the giant publishing houses to help your own book sell more copies.

Listed below are the top 7 features that will make it much easier to promote and market your book into becoming a bestseller. When you design these features into your book (right from the beginning), you will market your book faster and better than other authors who fail to do so.

Feature 1 – Begin with a powerful theme and grow it. Give your book a zesty title that grabs attention. Write your book outline to be specific about what will attract the right people to your book. Don’t just grab a bunch of your best ideas and slap a cover on it. That will get you a book, but it won’t be a bestseller. You want something that you (and others) will be proud to promote.

Feature 2 – Become known as the top expert by collecting stories from others. Ask people in your field to share a personal story with a self-help element relating to something in your outline. You’ll reach a bigger audience if each story provides benefits and helps the reader to see how they could apply the lesson to their own situation. Important resources, specific examples, strategies, tips, and insider secrets are things you should add to every story, whether it be yours or others.

Feature 3 – You can build in marketing value by quoting the top people in your field. Choose the quotes wisely so that they match the theme of each of your sections. Consider using quotes from “live” people who might be flattered enough so that they tell others to buy it and help with promoting your book to their customer list. And, they might even buy some for themselves to give away to colleagues and special clients.

Feature 4 – Proactively seek out interviews and testimonials, and find the right person to do the Foreword. Interview other experts if you can and use the opportunity to get relevant examples for your section of the book and audio clips for promotion. Your book will have greater credibility by including interviews and endorsements from experts.

Feature 5 – Give credit to the individuals and groups who helped create the book. You can also try to find a company to cover the costs in return for notable attention in your book. And it is often very helpful to seek out a sponsor to partner with in your promotion.

Feature 6 – Add an index so that your book is easier to read and use. This feature will make your book much easier to sell to libraries which will enlarge your readership and help you draw more customers to your website. Yet this feature is often ignored in the book writing process.

Feature 7 – Make a list of associations, organizations, services, agencies, and other professionsals in fields around the subject of your book, and include it in your book as a topical rolodex in the resource section of your book. This feature will help increase your audience, and give those listed in the rolodex a reason to help you distribute and promote the book.

Bonus Feature – Have a bibliography in your book. Many people want to buy copies of books that reference their own book in a bibliography. Also, it makes your book more attractive those doing research. Be sure to include the books from any experts who contributed stories, interviews, or examples.

SUMMARY:

Add in as many of the above features as possible to your book. Put emphasis on the features that cause other people to want to help promote the book for their own sake. This makes the Law of Reciprocity work for your benefit because as they are helping themselves, they are also helping you, and vice versa.

If you need help to know more about write and market a book that makes money and becomes a bestseller, then you must use the recipe that the top 1% use to reach that goal. Make a decision to use the Key Factors outlined above and keep your eye on the ball, and you’ll hit a home run every time.

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