Gmail Saga and More

As we all know, Google Labs is always cooking up some new and fresh recipe, so to speak, on its already long list of product menu. And once more, search engine giant Google is adding two interesting features on its Gmail sidebar: the Google Calendar and Google Docs.

These two features has been requested in the past and engineers at Google Labs has never ceased to keep Gmail fun and user friendly by being able to deliver what Gmail fans want!

Google Calendar: Just like your normail email client, you can now show appointments, upcoming events, details and you will also get alerts for meetings - in the comfort of one screen. That means you do not have to toggle in between features just to see what is in store for you.

Google Docs: This feature let's you see the last five accessed document. Best of all, it lets you search accross all your documents within Gmail!

For many of us who love Gmail, these features are a real treat!

SiteMaps: a road to Success

Sitemap is a page that contains an organized listing of links to all pages within the web site. You will usually find links to these pages somewhere on the home page of a web site, and on more proactive sites, every page. Often site maps are found at the top right or bottom navigation links, away from the main components and natural site navigation, but still positioned in areas of high visitor focus, based on eye-tracking tests that have been performed by knowledgeable Internet marketers.

Ever wonder why websites have sitemaps?Well simply because, sitemaps are roadmaps for search engine spiders which lets them know exactly where each and every page to your website is. In doing so, when the spiders pay their visit they will have clear direction as to where to find your website and post it successfully to the search engines. Also, sitemaps are a useful tool to guide visitors in navigating your site. It will lead them to the depths of your site where others might not have been able to do without the sitemap. With that said, I'm sure you can see why you need to create a website sitemap for all your Internet Marketing endeavors.

So now that we know why sitemaps are important, the next big question is : How do I make one?There are two options: Google sitemap and Site generator.

Google Sitemap :Log on to : https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools . From there you can follow the instructions. Reviews I've found for these tool can be summarized as "waiting for a paint to dry on the other side". If you have the time to burn then this method is for you.

Site Generator:These are automated services...for a fee. Examples are XML-Site Maps.com and HitTail.com. Since it's a paid service, it's quite faster. Quite the opposite of Google Sitemap. Additionally, it offers other services such as:

* Real time reporting of exactly who's visiting your website.

* Longtail graph of exactly where your traffic is coming from.

* E-mail support systems in the industry.

* And more

So you see, SiteMaps are just one of the many solutions out there to increase traffic and PR to a site. With these end in mind, If these site map formats are not yet in your web site building plans, consider adding them today!

Yahoo! PPC+ZIP

Recently, Yahoo! launched its PPC online marketing strategy - this time targeting Zip Codes. SEM professioanals from US and Canada can utilize this new service to add relevance to their campaigns.

Yahoo! was able to manage to type of marketing by using the queries, IP addreses and similar data to determine location of the user and create relevant searches from it.

However, this type of online marketing strategy has its down side : you are limiting your market base by targeting your audience. According to Yahoo! communications manager Kastle Waserman said "Keep in mind the more you target, the fewer users your ad may reach."

Smart Table : "Surface" for Kids

Meet the world’s first multitouch, multiuser table for primary education - Smart Table.

This fun gadget is a brainchild of Smartech. If adults can have Surface, whay can't the Kids have them too, right? They would probably appreciate it better and can learn more from it.

SMART Table has a nearly identical — if not better — set of capabilities to the Surface:

multitouch
gesture support
a 27-inch screen
and a super-simple SDK

Details are not yet available for this interactive gadget but one thing is for sure, it is offered comparatively low than Surface at $7000. Stay tuned for more updates!

SEO for Firefox

SEO for Firefox is a plug in for the the Firefox browser. Sounds boring and common right? Well...a 'lil bit but this plug in is so much cooler than you think.This plug in is very efficient and has a lot of things to offer.

1) First off, as what was mentioned above, its a plug in so there's not much installation involved. You just need to have the Mozilla Firefox browser, naturally, to get this thing going.

2) Information such as the age of the website, its page ranking, links and data traffic can be generated through this software.

3) It allows you to view pages that are indexed to Google.

4) You can also find out whether the website is found in other directories.Just by the features above makes SEO fun and an easy task to do!

Okay, so much for the fun side, let's take a peek on what SEO for Firefox is really made of :

2 modes: Auto and Manual. On Auto mode, it pulls up data whenever you are searching on Yahoo and Google. However, the tool is defaulted to manual or on demand mode to prevent users from abusing it.

Keywords. SEO for Firefox can let you see the value of keywords whether its an exact match or phrase by pulling out the data like Google Ad Words, Traffic Estimator and the likes.

Business Strategies. You can make better business decisions by the data you can view and analyze. This is a very good tool to derive your marketing strategies from. You can utilize the data generated to overcome competition and possiblylessen their hold on the industry (if you cannot eradicate them!).

Security. Support when it comes to security is not a question,as the application's team will update it in a few days when there is a breach in security.

Compatibility. SEO for Firefox is compatible with Windows , Mac and yes, Linux OS.

As far as it goes, SEO for Firefox is a very competitive tool as far as research goes. And as far as popularity goes, it is being used by a lot of webmasters, SEO professionals and amateurs alike. The sofware is free so thats one more good reason to take a look at it.

SEO Building Blocks

Before the advent of computers and internet, people has developed several strategies to make people want and actually buy their products. These strategies are worthwhile yet time consuming. But with the coming of the computer and internet era, online marketing strategies has become easier and more global. Not only large companies are adapting this but also small and medium enterprises. With the developing internet industry, it is now easier to sell online and of course, sell anything. Business people have come into conclusion that their businesses needs to be exposed to attract more prospects through websites. To deprive their businesses with this opportunity to be "seen", they are depriving themselves with clients.

Previously we have discussed a very efficient online marketing strategy called "Calls to Action". But did you ever wonder how to get the leads "efficiently", in making calls to action roll? This is where SEO comes in.

Search engine optimization is the art of developing web content by adopting certain keywords that help in attracting traffic to the site. That is just the basic concept. The aim of having an optimized website is to generate massive traffic and leads and develop content that would eventually lead to higher conversion rate.

So how does SEO do it?

Website Name - most prospects find your site or competitor sites through search engines. Name selection should be relevant to the product.

Popular Search Engines - Google and Yahoo are the most used search engine and will ensure that host site is functional 99% of the time.

KeyPhrases vs. Keywords - people tend to use phrases when searching for items to isolate searches. Examples are "fine lingerie","exotic lingerie", "red shoes", "cheap shoes" and etc.

Prospect Behavior - market study is essential when aiming to target what the customer wants and needs. When you have this information in your hands, you will be managing most of the market trends.

Multi-SEO - though popular search engines are helpful in generating traffic, being seen on the less popular ones are also helpful. Do not limit yourself to one giant search engine. Doing so means limiting traffic to your website, thus leading to lesser converion rate.

Analysis and Update - once your site is up and running, now is NOT the time to sit back and relax. It is the time to analyze the traffic or hits you got on your site. You'd be able to get the keywords or phrase used, how long the prospect or customer was browsing on the site, what they were looking for(services or products) and importantly, how many converts you got! Once you have these results, you'd be able to tell,which content to modify, added or erased. Content is very important since this is one of the most single factor which drives traffic to your site. When your site content is outdated, people would not want to visit your site.

Page Ranking - highly ranked pages on searches means higher chances of getting more prospects that would lead to higher conversion rate.This means Keyword density should be adopted along with popular keywords and phrases.

Keyword Density vs. Content Quality - Keyword density would drive traffic and help pull up rankings, eventually, it would be the content of the site that would determine the actual sale or conversion. Unless you put up quality content on your site, conversion rate will not be affected or possibly diminish.

Keyword Placement - This is as important as content quality. Being able to know where to place the keyword or phrase would also determine the quality of the content. Placing it once on the title, once or twice in the body every 100 to 150 words is a farly good enough placement.

Now you know the buiding blocks of SEO, you can now start optimizing your sites and create traffic!

Presenting Kaixin001.com : China's Facebook

China has been known to imitate all sorts of things. From bags, shoes, clothes, wallets, gadgets and etc. They also held piracy production on cd's , dvd's and whatnot's. Upon reading an article about their own "facebook", I was not surprise at all. Not because of their capability to imitate almost all things, but because China has very big pool of able web programmers. Despite majority of the country do not speak in English, this disadvantage became a blessing in disguise.

Due to the wave of social networking sites, China would be the least to be left behind. As I've said earlier, there are still a lot of people out there do not embrace the English language as a means to communicate with the world, thus, Kiaxin001 becomes the most sought after social networking site amongst the Chinese population.KaiXin001.com allows for photo uploading, a blogging and micro-blogging platform, music sharing, and a 1G online hard drive. With regard to cloning, here are some of the Facebook application that Kaixin001 was able to bring onto their site:

• Friends for Sale
• Parking Wars
• iLike
• Where I’ve Been

Despite the site not being globally competitive, to date, KaiXin001.com has already a following of more than 14K with 8K as active members. Not bad for a site who has just been founded on April 2008! Now that's a clone that's hard to beat!

FLOCK 2.0 : On Center Stage

Technology development is supposed to create a chain reaction. If a company develops a good software, sooner or later, another would invent a better one till we get the best software that the market can offer. This supposed reaction would somehow trigger to create improved versions of the older one... or better yet, just make a new one, a more sophisticated and user friendly technology.

Somehow,this notion is not true, especially to web browsers.

With the coming of age of the Internet Industry, people seemed to evolve too on the way they use it. Human behavior changes as the need, trend and market shift its gear, so to speak. I find it ironic for browsers, which is seen as the gateway to the internet abyss, did not evolve as much as it should have. With too many browsers available, people tend to use whatever is available. Personally, I couldn't find something that can keep its pace with human behavior - my browsing behavior.

Then came Flock 2.0.

Flock 2.0 has just been very recently released with the aim to empower its users to create a rich experience across the board - whether its information gathering, sharing, communication, self-expression and user to user interaction.

Looking closely into Flock, there were several applications which were integrated into the browser itself that makes it unique from the rest.

RSS - the browser syndicates rich content like photos and videos much like regular RSS syndicates blog posts. Now Flock users can add media RSS feeds.

MySpace - your MySpace contacts is integrated into the browser for fast and easy communication with friends, business associates and the like.

Firefox 3 - Flock’s underlying code has been upgraded to match that of Firefox 3.


The makers of this software technology has the end in mind of pushing the boundaries of innovation even when Flock was just on the planning stage. True to their mission, they have created an extraordinary browser which will encompass all others...and still finding ways to better it.

Web 2.0 Meltdown???

Amidst the financial meltdown of some of the industry giants - Google's stock nosedive, Yahoo's self destruction , VC's bunkering down, not to mention the bankruptcy and merger of the some of the biggest financial institution - Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual's (WaMu) sale to JP Morgan Chase - a couple of tech geeks and elites came together in a remote but definitely in a luxurious location in Cyprusthis.

Somehow the video, where they lip sync "Don't Stop Believing by The Journey" found its way to Youtube and was viewed by thousands! This video might have been a labor of art but some people back home find it tasteless and not timely. The video somehow was take in private and cannot be viewed anymore.

Comments from previous blogs created an uproar on how these people spent their vacation...others were passive and most are tolerant. Aww...c'mon guys...it's a great song and most of all it's encouraging.Well, video or not, bloggers and people alike are associating the shoot with the end of Web 2.0.

Do you think so?

SEO vs. PPC

When deciding on what online marketing strategy to go with, ensure that you have the end in mind. You need to have your objectives aligned and you need to be focused on what is the most efficient and cost effective online marketing strategy for your business.Two of the most common online marketing strategies today are SEO and PPC. SEO, as we all know is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization and PPC for Pay per Click. These strategies are proven to work and can get you a very high conversion rate.So what makes the two distinctive from each other? Let's take a look.

SEO

• Pluses:
  Can increase your page rank.
  Higher conversion rates as well as best ROI.
  Cheaper as compare to PPC.
  It can provide 30 times business as compared to PPC.


• Deltas:
  Long time process
  Will not guaranteed top listing always.
  Determining the actual value of a high organic ranking is difficult.
  

PPC

• Pluses:
  Immediate exposure.
  You have to only pay if user click on your advertisement.
  Work on a bidding system, higher the bid higher you rank.
  Good method to test a new product effectiveness.


• Deltas:
  Expensive in long term basis, one click can cost you $10.
  As you stop paying, the traffic will fall with immediately.

In conclusion, both methods are beneficial when it comes to traffic leads and generation. But in the end, you have to choose one and stick with what is relevant to your business.

U Rank: The Experiment

With all the ongoing development on software and technology, Microsoft yet again came out with another brainchild - U RANK, a social search experiment site. This site allows users to move search results and share them with friends. The site also allows you to add comments to the listings.

Since this site is still experimental, there are expected glitch on the system. For one, the site is not open. Though this is not a glitch, users would need to log in and create an account. Two, the search response time is way too long. Anyhow, when the page is already loaded, there are a lot of things you can do, such as:

• drag an item up and down
• copy an item
  
• add a note
• delete search results

In any software offered online, users are more likely to think more about the privacy more than the services. With fraud and account hacking very rampant , you can never be too careful. Although U Rank is a social networking site with a lot of sharing going on, Privacy should never still be taken for granted. The default sharing function for U Rank is always "ON so all the modification you have done on search listings are automatically shared in your network, unless of course, you turn it off. Somehow, if you think about it, turning off the sharing capability would defeat the purpose of why this software was created in the first place. Makes sense, right?

The ability to edit and move around search results is not a new thing - it has bee done before - and hopefully would be arefreshing addition to search engines in the years to come.

Yahoo's APT

As years pass by, not only science mark its evolution on earth, but also technology. Technology this days are very sophisticated and cutting edge. People continue to amaze each other with the things they discover and develop ... and the SEO industry is not immune to all of this. The SEO industry is the most dynamic in all sense and with its dynamism, people continue to be creative in ways where they can unify and make things easy for the online community, such as Yahoo.

Late September, Yahoo launched a new platform: APT (formerly named "amp"), a Web-based planning and buying tool. This platform promises to eliminate much of the pain inherent to online advertising’s many laborious processes, ranging from tear sheets to insertion orders to inventory management to trafficking.

For starters, Yahoo's first customers are its select partners from its two-year old newspaper consortium, including San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News. But Yahoo promises that by next year, APT will be available to the entire online community. Currently, the newspaper partners sell their own inventory using audience data from Yahoo (for example, a local newspaper might serve ads to their site’s visitors who have previously visited Yahoo’s Autos content). In some cases, Yahoo’s partners can also sell inventory on Yahoo.

As of this time, search function is not included in the APT platform but Yahoo President Sue Decker was quick to add, that the platform would eventually encompass all types of formats, whether video, search and etc.

Other search engines, such as Google, AOL and Microsoft have their own platform to boast too...but is still in the works. Right now, the online community is savoring what Yahoo can offer them - simplication of buying and selling advertising on the internet. We'll see in the months to come it Yahoo did deliver what it promised.

Google Sandbox : A theory or a reality?

In the age of technological advancement and fair competition, it is highly unusual for a search engine to hinder the appearance of new websites. Webmasters believe that it's hard to rank newer websites till they prove their worth for a period of time. This belief is what we call Google Sandbox.

In layman's term, the Google Sandbox theory is described as a sort of a holding cell or a box of new websites where Google keep it for a time, and checks it out for relevance or viability. There are a lot of opinions regarding the Google Sandbox. Some say it exist, some say it don't. These opinions arise from the fact that there are new websites who ranked well on infancy stage and some who can't get a ranking even being online for a couple of months already. One of the main reason why Google has this sandbox is to prevent web spammers and limit the practice of black hat SEO. The most important question now is "how do we prevent from being "sandboxed?"

1. Acquire recently expired domain names - Google is less likely to penalize older domain names.
2. Unpopular Keywords - obviously, there is less competition.
3. Search Engine - do not concentrate on Google alone. You are only limiting your share of the pie if you concentrate on one search engine.You will be surprised that you will rank better on other search engine as there will be less competition.
4. Get high quality links within your niche and update web content regularly - This will help your site to be categorized as relevant.
5. AdWords - This does not come as free but will definitely rank your site quickly for sponsored searches.

It's very amazing how Google can affect the traffic and ranking on websites. World Wide Web grows everyday and there are a lot of websites created in every minute. People with websites which have been "sanboxed" for some time described getting out from it as "getting laid for the first time!"

Do You Twitter?

Twitter is one of the social networking sites available in the internet right now. It’s one good tool to get good traffic and promote your site. Its function is half blogging and half chatting.

So what makes Twitter unique?

Real Time Interaction – Twitter is capable of an immediate interaction, something that a regular blog does not cater to. This function is the reason why internet marketers love this online application – there is urgency and no time is lost in marketing efforts. Now here’s the best part – you can update your followers or customers using your cell phone anytime and anywhere.

If you cant beat ‘em..Join ‘em! – Online applications like Twitter are the “in” thing these days. If you don’t adapt to online marketing changes, you will be left behind and eventually lose customers altogether. So the best thing to do is to join the bandwagon. Get that piece of the pie you were meant to have!

No Run-Around – Twitter posting is limited to 140 characters.These make online marketing efforts so easy. A customer does not want long sales pitch and would really appreciate short and to the point marketing efforts.

So if you need to boost your online marketing strategy, Twitter is a good marketing channel you can use. If you’re not using Twitter yet, start one now!

Calls To Action : An Internet Marketing Strategy

One of the major stumbling blocks of website owners is not only maintaining the website but making a sale. This is very important since this is the bread and butter where you generate revenues and keep the website altogether.

If you are selling beauty products, then most likely, your visitors would be mostly women. I say "mostly" since a certain percentage of it would be men. They may be there for a reason or just happens to be there by browsing links. An effective marketer does not ignore these types of visitors but considers them a potential customer or prospect. A prospect may have a different need but in reality he or she can be "your" customer - when the sales pitch and marketing are done appropriately. This is where calls to action comes in.

Calls to action are best defined as "statements that call upon the prospect to act immediately". A marketer who practices calls to action does not wait for a sale to happen but they make it happen. This strategy is guaranteed and will definitely increase a websites conversion rate.

So how does Call to Action works?


Introduction Is the Key

To make your product known, you need to introduce them to your prospects.

Email - asking visitors to leave their email on "ask us" or "contact us" forms is a good way to get prospects. You can do web marketing by emailing prospects about the products you have currently or the any new product being launched.

Urgency Phrases - "buy now" tabs, and "hurry, limited offer" phrases works on getting attention to your products. By letting your prospects know that a great product is offered at a discount, you might be able to get a conversion on it.

Article Directory - You will not only get traffic of prospects but you can utilize these articles by using calls to action phrases on them to reach out to potential customers.

Outbound Calls - This is old school but still proves to be good method of making a sale.


Execution

After the "intro", comes the execution. This is the make or break when making a sales pitch.


Contact Information - Not theirs this time, but yours. Make yourself visible and available by not only giving the product website but your email address, fax, phone and cellphone numbers. By doing that, you are creating a bridge between you and your prospects.

Sense of Urgency - This is the essence of calls to action phrases. It is crucial to overwhelm the prospect with the calls to action strategy on a limited time. Giving them time to rethink would mean less to no conversion at all.

Facts - when you show prospects examples and testimonials, you are boosting their buying capability into hyper mode. Prospects who were undecided before would reconsider your offer. Using phrases like "never before" coupled with calls to action phrases would not only entice them but will seal the deal.

Utilizing the Calls to Action strategy not only benefits you by giving your site a better conversion rate but is making you a skillful sales person as well.

SEO Humor

Here are some funny SEO antics I've stumbled on the net.Hope you enjoy it as much as i did!





Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Saint Peter

Larry Page and Sergey Brin died and went to Heaven. Saint Peter met them at the pearly gates and looked them up and down.“Who are you?” he said.

“I’m Larry Page,” Larry said.

“And what did you do in life?” Saint Peter asked.

“Well, Sergey and I invented PageRank, which we named for me,” Larry answered. He immediately wondered if he should be feeling so proud, but Sergey was looking suitably humble.

Just then an SEO died and stood before Saint Peter.

“Who are you?” Saint Peter asked.

“I’m a poor Webmaster,” the SEO said. “I’ve worked hard all my life and only tried to help my family. But just before my father died he handed me this note and said I should give it to you.”
Saint Peter took the note, read it, and admitted the SEO to Heaven.

“Hey, what about us?” Larry and Sergey demanded together. But just at that moment a spammer died and stood before Saint Peter.

“Who are you?” Saint Peter demanded.

“I’m a poor spammer,” the new soul told him. “I lied, cheated, and stole. I dropped links on every Web site. I got several hosting services banned from search engines. But I finally saw the light on my deathbed and I’d like to be allowed into Heaven.”

At that moment the SEO who had just entered Heaven said, “That’s my brother! I’ll vouch for him! Please let him in!”

Saint Peter stroked his beard thoughtfully for a moment and then nodded. The spammer beamed and sprouted white wings as he walked through the pearly gates.

Larry and Sergey were getting a little impatient with Saint Peter so they stood squarely in front of him. “Hey! Are you going to let us in or not?” Larry demanded. “I’ll vouch for Sergey here!” “And I’ll vouch for Larry!” Sergey said quickly.

Saint Peter reluctantly agreed to admit the two to Heaven. “But first,” he said, “I want you two to take the side entrance.”

“Side entrance?” Larry demanded angrily. “Why?”

“I don’t want anyone to see you since you don’t come with any good references,” Saint Peter replied.

Review of Qassia

When I first entered on to Qassia's site, first impressions were "this is just one of those sites where you can get the usual backlinks" like a directory or social bookmarking site. But as I read more of its content coupled with the reviews from other sites, there's more to it than meets the eye., this review takes a closer look:

Intelligence Engine
Qassia is neither a social networking site nor a seach engine - Qassia is an intelligence engine. Though it may seem like Wikipedia and Squidoo with its basic design and feel, Qassia aims to provide information that by any means is not lengthy and academic in nature but materials that their growing members list know about and contribute - places, things, people, products and the like. People can choose to an extensive article or a tidbits of information which are useful to them. This means that there is a lot of content in Qassia that is rare and valuable. Though most people prefer to look at specialty site and deeplink from there, Qassia offers the same information, if not more.

Knowledge Driven
Qassia encourages its members to add original ideas and concepts through articles which is called "Intel" - their own lingo for articles uploaded onto the site. Intel ranges from lengthy materials to tidbits of information which can be posted like a blog.

SEO
Speaking of ranking, Qassia can help your site on this aspect by giving your site with quality and unlimited dofollow backlinks. The intel you upload will earn you Qassia dollars (they do have their own currency) which is the equivalent of points. To earn more points, visitors need to upload more intel, screen other users intel, and of course refer a friend to Qassia. The more Qassia dollars you have, the better your website will be ranked.

Revenue Sharing
Qassia run Google Adsense ads and other advertisement programs on their site. When an ad in your user page or intel generates an income, 100% of the revenue go straight to your account in real dollars. This is a nice feature for utilization, simply by using your own Google Adsense Account or Affiliate ID, removing Qassia as the middle man.

Police Business
Qassia has a very stringent policy in place.

-You can only sign up for a single account. With these type of restriction, Qassia can control spamming on its site which is a big headache for most.
-The screening process is tedious. Twelve people are needed to reject or approve your intel before it gets published. When it does get published, the intel with the highest rating on the same topic, gets to be displayed first.
-Allow users to screen once only.
-Does not allow Plagiarism on its sites, only original intel. It allows copyrighted material to be uploaded as long as you bought the rights on it.

Qassia is doing great so far it seems, but is this just another engine that will soon loose steam? If it does fail I at least hope my backlinks back to my site stay put:) I will say I have noticed a ton of improvement on their sites infrastructre.