SMarT Marketing - Internet Marketing Blog

Writing Engaging Web Content

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:00:00 EST

One of the most important parts of getting customers to your website is providing relevant and engaging web content. This might seem like a daunting task to some, but writing web content is fairly easy, as long as you remember some simple points. Much like writing posts for LinkedIn (which was covered in a previous blog) it is important to understand your audience before you start writing web content. Your audience is two-fold: you are writing for both your “real” audience and for search engines....

Top SEO Mistakes

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:00:00 EST

Recently, Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cuts, published a video discussing the top five SEO mistakes that people make. Some are simple and easy enough to fix, while others are more complicated. They include: Not having a website, or having a website that is not crawlable by search engines: It seems easy enough to realize that, in order to rank in Google results, you need to have a website. But many people want to go with the glamor and creativity of a Flash website, or a website that is filled with images instead of any words which might hold SEO value. If Google cannot read your site, it will not rank your site highly....

What are People Searching for on their Mobile Phones?

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:00:00 EST

These days, almost everyone owns a smart phone, and they are using them to do more than make phone calls. They are also using their phones to look up the answers to questions, the addresses to businesses, and everything in between. This is why it is so important to have a mobile site or a site with a responsive design that adapts to mobile devices, and to have it optimized for mobile search engines. Mobile search criteria are slightly different than the average web based searches. One of the major differences is the emphasis on local. One in three searches on mobile devices have local intent, as opposed to one in five searches on desktop computers....

The Latest Facebook Changes

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:00:00 EST

The Latest Facebook Changes Facebook is at it again. Last month, we told you about the switch to Facebook graph search, and what it could mean for businesses. This month, Facebook is slowly bringing about changes to personal pages’ timelines, which could in the future also affect the timelines of brand pages as well. Some of the changes that have been made with the new timeline include: Profile picture placement: While the profile picture had previously overlapped slightly with the cover photo, it now overlaps further. The user’s name also now overlays the cover photo....

Top Tips for Local SEO

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 12:00:00 EST

If you’re a company that caters to a local clientele - whether it be a doctors’ office, a clothing store, or a restaurant - you want to make sure that people can quickly and easily find you online. To do this, your website will need a local SEO strategy to properly position you on search engines and direct the right traffic to your website. Some of the most important things you need to consider when optimizing your website for local search include: Keyword Research - first and foremost, you need to figure out what people are searching for. Keyword research allows you to figure out which keyword phrases are receiving the most hits....

Facebook Introduces Graph Search

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 12:00:00 EST

Facebook is continuing to stay on top of innovations, recently rolling out a test of its new “Graph Search” capability. Graph search will be an excellent tool for many businesses that utilize Facebook, as it allows your company to analyze and act on new information about your customers that you previously did not have access to. First and foremost, you’ll want to turn on Facebook Graph Search – you can do so by signing up here: https://www.facebook.com/about/graphsearch. Once you have signed up, it may take a few days for Graph Search to turn on, as it is still in the beginning testing phases....

Facebook Offers Gifting Opportunities

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 12:00:00 EST

Facebook has been rolling out a lot of new updates recently, such as Graph Search. Facebook has also been eying your status updates for gifting opportunities. What does this mean? Facebook has already been offering the “Give a Gift” option for people’s birthdays, where you have the option of purchasing your friends a real life gift on their birthday – for example, if you are wishing a friend that has “Liked” Starbucks on Facebook a happy birthday, Facebook might suggest you purchase them a Starbucks gift card to go along with the post. But now, Facebook is also analyzing the text of status updates to suggest gifts as well....

Optimizing Your Facebook Fan Pages

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:00:00 EST

The optimization of Facebook fan pages has been a point of great debate on many SEO and social media blogs, as different experts argue the best ways to get your fan page noticed. Despite the conflicting ideas, there are some basic ways that you can optimize your Facebook fan pages SEO. First and foremost, you need to pick the best name for your Facebook fan page. Google puts the most importance or weight on the first word of your fan page title, so you want to make sure to pick something descriptive for your company. Don’t get too spammy, either – while it may be tempting to include all of your key words (i.e....

Why Should You Use Content Marketing?

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 12:00:00 EST

More and more, Google is concentrating on content as a factor in how high your website will be ranked. Now, it is more important to focus on the quality of content over quantity – that is, it is better to have a few high-quality pages with relevant information for your users than many low-quality pages. Blogging also remains an important way to increase rankings, as it allows you to post fresh, quality content on a regular basis. But how do you write new and improved content? First, you want to make sure that it is focused on the readers. Understanding what your prospective clients want from your business is key....

Three Things Marketers can Learn from Media

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:00:00 EST

A recent article in Mashable reviewed some tips and tricks of the trade that those in the media have learned this year that can easily be applied to marketing efforts as well. The first is that integration is the way of the future. In applications for a company’s marketing efforts, this means making sure that the marketing plan offers real time branding of your company’s message, and involves many different aspects of marketing – events, advertising, social media, and public relations should all integrate to send out an overall message....

2013 Marketing Resolutions

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 12:00:00 EST

What are your business New Year resolutions? It is a new year, and the perfect time to resolve to amp up your internet marketing efforts. SMT can help you with this resolution. Our trained staff works to help your company with its entire internet marketing efforts. First and foremost, we can provide you with consultation – not only will we look over what you are already doing for marketing and your current website, but we will also discuss your goals with you so we can figure out the best internet marketing package for your needs....

New Communities on Google+

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 12:00:00 EST

A recent addition to the Google+ platform is communities. This latest feature integrates with other features such as Google+ Hangouts to allow you to gather members in either public or private communities to hold discussions. Google’s official blog touts the new Google+ Communities as a great opportunity for its users to reconnect with loved ones during the holiday season. Google+ aims to make these new communities as accessible for sharing as communities in real life are, allowing people of all interests to get together and discuss the things they are passionate about....

Growing Your Email List with Twitter

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 12:00:00 EST

Email marketing, when done correctly, can be beneficial to your business. Whether it is a monthly newsletter that you send out on a regular basis, or the occasional coupon, unless you have many people opting in to the email list, it will not be very beneficial. One way you can grow your email list is by turning to social media....

Are You Properly Using Pinterest for your Business?

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 12:00:00 EST

We’ve told you before that Pinterest can be a great marketing tool for your company. But are you using it properly? There are a few ways taht you can use Pinterest in order to attract customers to your site and make conversions. First and foremost, think about your ideal client, and think about what kind of visual content would attract them - would it be a photo of a beautiful beach for a timeshare company, or an infographic about the current job market for a job placement company? The photo attached to your pin is the hook - but it’s more than just those photos that make your Pinterest account a successful business tool....

Panda Update 21 Released

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 12:00:00 EST

It was expected - on November 5th, Google added its latest Panda Update to its search engine algorithms. This led to a slight shaking up of the Google results, as there was a worldwide impact on about 0.4% of inquiries, and 1.1% of those inquiries in the United States in the English language. As the 21st Panda Update, it fell into Google’s usual trend of releasing an update every four to six weeks. The 0.04% impact is lower than many other updates - the first Panda Update in February of 2011 saw an almost 11% impact on searches, and was rolled out in English in the US only. The last upgrade was done at the end of September of this year, and had an effect on 2....

Instagram Launches Web Profiles

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 12:00:00 EST

We already know that Instagram was bought out months ago for a high price by the people at Facebook. Up until this week, Instagram remained a mobile-device based application. But now, Instagram is slowly rolling out web profiles to its users. These profiles look shockingly like the Timeline we are already familiar with on Facebook profiles. With a “cover photo” of rotating photos from the users Instagram feed, it is slightly different than the static “cover photo” offered on Facebook currently....

Yelp Cracks Down on Fake Reviews

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 12:00:00 EST

At Sales and Marketing Technologies, we understand the importance of review websites, and making sure your company is portrayed properly. We already work with many different organizations on their reputation management. One of the biggest parts of reputation management is monitoring what users are saying about your products and services online at review sites, such as Yelp.com. Recently, Yelp announced that it will be increasing its efforts in making sure that consumer reviews are all accurate, and from real customers. In the past, some disgruntled customers have overused Yelp, writing multiple negative reviews based on the same experience....

Presidential Election: How is the Internet Swaying Voters?

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 12:00:00 EST

We are all aware that the internet is useful to help get out your message - that’s why so many companies are adding digital marketing to their overall marketing portfolios. But is it helping to sway voters to go to the polls as the November Presidential election heats up? Many researchers say yes. According to a recent article on Mashable, many advocates believe that social media especially can be useful in convincing people to go to the polls and vote. Current polls show that only about half of Americans who are eligible to vote actually head out to the polls or fill out absentee ballots....

Online Social Media Security Tips

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 12:00:00 EST

One of the biggest things people worry about is their online security. It can be scary – with the amount of personal information we are putting on the internet through social media sites, we often wonder who is able to access everything. Some people’s minds have been eased, as according to Mashable, Facebook recently announced that deleted photos will now also be removed from their servers (previously, even after the photo had been deleted, they could be accessed by entering the photo’s URL) permanently within a few days of the deletion. But what other steps can you take to have a safe experience in the social media realm and beyond....

The Cost of Cheap SEO & Social Media Labor

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:00:00 EST

Like almost everything else in the world, you really get what you pay for when it comes to SEO and social media work. You might want to try to save money, scrimping and cutting corners as it can be costly to launch, maintain, and grow an internet presence for your business. But think of this internet presence much like the physical building your company is located in – you wouldn't hire a too-cheap or inexperienced contractor to build the building, or look for the cheapest materials possible to construct it with. Much the same, you wouldn't want to buy the cheapest SEO or social media work available, as you get what you pay for....

How to Utilize Facebook Lists

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:00:00 EST

Facebook lists aren’t new, but many people do not realize the many ways they can utilize them. Normally, if people utilize Facebook lists, they are using them to manage their privacy settings – making lists to decide who can see what items on your page. But now that Facebook has launched the “subscribe” feature, lists can be used for a variety of different social media marketing and social networking purposes to help separate out business, entertainment, and friends feeds from one another....

Google Results: From 10 to 7 Links?

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:00:00 EST

It appears that Google is testing a new way to show its search results, with only 7 results instead of 10 on the first page. It also seems that it is easier for one site to dominate these results. Together, these two things could change the face of SEO, as sites have to fight even harder to get onto the front page....

How Can You Increase Your Engagement on Facebook?

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:00:00 EST

So, you created a Facebook page, got some fans…now what? There are some simple tactics you can use to keep up your engagement on Facebook. By using calls to actions, you are able to create an incentive for fans to interact with you on Facebook. First, tailor your status updates to ask your fans a question – whether it be their opinion, a call for stories, or even for advice. The more comments a status update receives, the higher it will be placed in news feeds by Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm. Also make sure that your engaging content is actually relevant to your fans....

How to Understand Your Social Media Audience

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 12:00:00 EST

One of the most important parts of crafting a workable social media strategy is understanding your audience. Unless you are providing your social media followers with information that is useful and relevant for them, they will not be engaged with your social media accounts. So how can you better understand your social media audience? There are a couple questions you can ask yourself when considering your targets. First and foremost, you should focus on the details and demographics of your audience....

Google Places Taken Over by Google Plus Local

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 12:00:00 EST

Over recent months, Google has changed Google Places for Business into Google+ Local. These pages serve as a directory listing for your business that can place prominently in Google search results. They allow you to display photos, videos, reviews, and other essential facts about your business like your address, phone number, and hours. You can also utilize your Google+ Local page to offer your customers real time updates about your business as well as offers they can take advantage of. There are many advantages that Google+ Local can offer. The biggest is its ability to put your company in front of more and more people in the Google search area....

Instagram Management Added to Hootsuite

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 12:00:00 EST

Are you using Instagram to reach your customers? Instagram is one of the latest crazes in social sharing, allowing users to share photos with friends and family, adding filters to transform their look and feel, and share to other social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. It also allows its users to “tag” their photos, and search hashtags so those with similar interests can find you. If you are using Instagram, or are thinking of adding it to your dossier of social networks, HootSuite is making it a little easier to manage. Since November, HootSuite has been adding more and more social networks to its content management system....

SEO Challenges Will Continue To Rise

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 12:00:00 EST

The world of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is getting more challenging to navigate. Updates to the Google search algorithms, Panda and Penguin, have sent those companies who rely on search engines to lead their customers to their business into a panic. SEO companies are scrambling after spending thousands of hours learning about, applying, and perfecting SEO practices to websites, only to find that Google is changing the game once again, making it difficult for companies to regain rankings that they have lost, or to compete for a decent new spot in the search engines....

Google+ Replaces Google Places for Local Search

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 12:00:00 EST

In an effort to continue cleaning up search engine results, Google released another major search algorithm update, this time dubbed “Penguin”. Released on April 24th, this update is working to eliminate Google Places, and instead replace it with Google Plus Local, which should also help increase user interactions on Google Plus. But this update is just the beginning, as Google plans to further interface Google Plus Local with Zagat in order to create a seamless online review platform....

Getting Your Company Behind Your Social Media Strategy

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EST

One of the biggest roadblocks to utilizing social media for your company is the company itself. You have to make sure everyone supports the process, and understands why social media is so important. To have a successful social media campaign within your company, your employees have to understand not only what social media does, but why it is useful and how they can play a role in its success. Social media is a team process. It is important to realize that the entire staff has to buy into its uses, not just the marketing department. By having the entire team share the same vision of success, amazing things can happen....

Are You Using Pinterest?

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EST

Pinterest is a rising star in the social media game, as users, or “pinners”, use their account to organize everything from home remodeling ideas to new diet recipes onto their boards, organized by topic or theme. With 32 different topic areas, Pinterest serves as a comprehensive wish list for most users with categories including fitness, art, science, do it yourself, and more. Even though Pinterest is an “invite-only” website, it has already cracked the current list of top 10 social networks, putting it in the ranks of social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn....

How Will Google's Social Search Affect Your SEO?

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST

We’ve told you about Google’s shift to including Google+ results in its searches, and also the controversy that has come from it as other social media outlets fight back. But what will it mean for your company’s website, and your SEO? Already, sources are speculating that this social switch to search results could have a bigger impact on Google than even the infamous Panda update, which aimed to remove lower-quality content from search results....

Twitter Speaks Out on Google Search and Google+ Integration

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST

Fast on the heels of Google’s announcement it would be integrating Google+ results with its regular search results, Twitter released a statement opposing the new changes. Twitter spokesman Matt Graves said that people often rely on Google to deliver the most relevant results when they want to find something on the internet. Often, these results are coming from Twitter: “As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant results”. This update will affect the reported 62 million users of Google+, making it a major update for them....

Google Intergrates Google+ into Google Search

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST

In their ongoing climb up the proverbial “social ladder” Google has now merged Google + into its search results. What this means, moving forward any Google + member who is signed in will be able to search the entire web as well as their own Google + circles. This includes photos and content posts from the Google + circles of that user. Google is calling this search update “Search, plus your World”. Their goal here is to try to transform Google into a search engine that not only understands content, but people and relationships as well. This all began with “personalization” back in the Spring of 2007....

Google + Expands to Include Business Pages

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 12:00:00 EST

Just when you thought you were getting a handle on Social Media and managing your online reputation, Google has gone and changed the playing field again! Earlier this year Google decided to try again at creating a social network and launched Google +. They set this “project” up so you could sign in and then invite your friends and family to your “circle” in order to share with them things you like or found interesting. Unlike Facebook, Google + was built from the ground up around the idea of being able to share information or products with a group of people....

Twitter Follows Suit with New Functionality

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 12:00:00 EST

With Facebook’s recent changes to its personal page design, Twitter couldn’t be left behind in updates. Therefore, Twitter recently implemented significant redesign changes, with new tabs for browsing, embeddable tweets, and even new brand or business pages. Twitter’s new “Discover” tab runs an algorithm which finds relevant tweets to your interests from people that you do not follow. Otherwise, the new tabs are basically features that have been available on Twitter before, but have been repackaged....

How to Stake Your Claim on the LOCAL Landscape

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:00:00 EST

One of the newest and fastest moving opportunities in the online marketing arena is LOCAL. In the beginning it was just about getting your business up on the map section of the search engines, however that has evolved into, not only showing up on the map as a ‘letter designated pin point’, but having your business be at the top of the alphabet which now shows up in a list above the actual organic listings a majority of the time. Since local customers get more elusive and savvy online, local businesses need to stay in step, if not one step ahead, of their customers’ online behavior in an effort to remain significant and top of mind in their local markets....

What is Local Internet Marketing?

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:00:00 EST

When you do a search on a search engine and the results come up - what is the map and the little red balloons with letters in them? That is what is referred to as “local listings”. And it should become a bigger and bigger part of your online marketing strategy, especially if your business relies on your neighbors buying your products or paying for your services to stay afloat. Claiming your listings or profiles (depending on what you want to call them) and optimizing them to help get you to the top of the list can be critical to the success of your local business....

Google Infinite Scroll, Better Exposure?

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:00:00 EST

Google is starting to test out a new feature – “infinite scroll”. Already implemented in its Images search section, infinite scroll would allow readers to click to view more results on the same page instead of continuing through pages 2, 3, or 4 when performing a search engine query. In essence, this feature would allow everyone to rank for “page 1” on the Google search results. You may wonder what sort of impact this will have on your company’s SEO. For starters, there will now be multiple chances to “rank number one” as people click to show more results, making rankings 11, 21, 31, etc. also important....

How Google+ is Shaping the Future of Search

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 12:00:00 EST

Google’s latest attempt to build and grow a social network is called Google+ (spoken as “Google Plus”). Because most people are sharing links, articles and ideas outside of the Google network (mostly via Facebook and Twitter), the search giant has found itself at a disadvantage. Google has undoubtedly noticed that people are consuming massive amounts of content based on the recommendations of friends within their social networks. Because of this rate of consumption, Google has taken interest in the relationship of the content being consumed to the interests of the user....

Is Tweeting the New Link Building?

Tue, 31 May 2011 12:00:00 EST

A study conducted at SEOmoz is helping us understand how tweets influence search rankings. The study has shown that a bit.ly link tweeted by an influential user group has the ability to rank keywords quickly, without followed links and without anchor text. As 2011 marches on, the issue of social signals and how Google factors them in to it’s search results is beginning to take shape. While Google has been somewhat forthcoming on the key ingredients of search, it’s not ready to reveal all it’s secrets just yet....

How do you know if you’ve been Panda-slapped?

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 12:00:00 EST

On February 24th of this year, Google rolled out it’s (now infamous) Panda update. Throughout the year, Google updates it’s method of ranking and displaying search engine results for all queries. The goal of these updates is always to increase the relevancy of the search results as they relate to the search query. The latest update, dubbed “Panda”, has adversely affected an estimated 12% of US-based websites. By following the steps below, you can determine if you’ve been panda-slapped. Login to Google Analytics....

Why Internet Marketing Has Still Not Been Fully Embraced

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 12:00:00 EST

Internet marketing has been around for over 15 years now. Yet, we still see some marketers not willing to embrace it. It isn’t that marketers don’t know it is important. Without question they do. So why do they resist? The 3 main reasons we see most often are: 1) The seasoned marketers doesn’t have the background; 2) Internet Marketing requires a different skill set than they possess and 3) Internet Marketing takes time to get results. Many marketers came up through the ranks at a time when Internet Marketing didn’t exist. All this computer business is totally foreign. That’s okay as long as you are doing something to bridge this gap....

What Are QR Codes?

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 12:00:00 EST

QR Codes are two-dimensional barcodes. QR stands for Quick Response and were developed to contain more data and character types then current barcodes. QR Codes can contain up to 7,089 characters versus the 20 characters for traditional barcodes. The mobile adoption rate has fueled the use of QR Codes in recent years through the use if QR Code Readers. QR Codes are currently being used to connect to a web address, compose a text message, dial a telephone number, or prompt your email client with a sender address. QR Codes are popping up every where. We are seeing them in billboards, newspapers, magazines, catalogs, business cards, t-shirts, and more....

Google Places Business Name Optimization Strategy

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 12:00:00 EST

Google Places quality guidelines state that the business name for your listing should represent your business exactly as it appears in the offline world. Taglines, phone numbers, URLs, and extraneous keywords should not be added to the business name field. While you can still see businesses use this strategy, it is not a long term strategy and in the end could get you delisted or penalized within the local search results. A best practice in regards to Google Places is to use a standard version of your legal business name. Google gathers local citations across the web to create, update, and rank Google Place listings....

How To Edit Your Company Profile on LinkedIn

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 12:00:00 EST

At the beginning of November LinkedIn released some new features for their Company Profile section. Linkedin now allows businesses to add services and products to their company profiles, solicit customer endorsements for company products and services, as well as the ability to "follow" companies. There is now a "Follow Company" button displayed on the company profile page. Selecting to "follow" a company allows you to keep up to date on when employees of this company leave, join, or get promoted. You can also get updated on new job opportunities from the particular company, as well as receive the latest company profile updates....

Get Social With Ecommerce Receipts

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 12:00:00 EST

The integration between social networks and search engines is going to start to impact traditional search engine optimization techniques. There has been more and more social influence being built into the search algorithms in order to present better search results to the end user. Just take a look at Bing's Instant Personalization program. Businesses of all sizes need to become aware of these impacts and understand how being a part of social networks can help their business succeed online. Beside maintaining an active social network account, businesses need to look at new strategies and techniques to encourage visitors/buyers to become brand evangelists....

Google Maps Adds Hotel Comparison Shopping

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 12:00:00 EST

Noticing that Google Maps has added some additional functionality for hotel searches. I noticed at the top of the Google Maps search results a "Check In" and "Check Out" search feature. Also, beside each hotel listing there is a lowest price drop down. Clicking on the lowest price displays a list of Sponsored results with pricing information on the specific hotel. The drop down list looks to have four paid listings and the last one is the official hotel link. Here is a screen shot. This was first noted in Google's Lat Long Blog but looks to be expanding to more users with the recent Google Maps update....

Social Search Results - Facebook Friends Bing

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 12:00:00 EST

Facebook recently announced a new partnership with Bing. Bing will now pull in Facebook "Like" information into their search result pages creating "social search". Social search will take the personal link recommendations from your group of Facebook friends and include those links within a special section of the search engine results page. In the future Bing will look to add your friend's "Likes" next to the individual search engine result listings. Bing will also be providing a "Friend Finder" that will display people that you should friend based on your Facebook social network of friends....

Don't Hide Your Contact Number

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 12:00:00 EST

Not displaying a contact phone number on the web site is an issue that we come across often when critiquing a site. By hiding or not displaying your contact number, you may end up frustrating your visitor enough that they leave the site. We always recommend to all of our clients to predominately display a strong call-to-action (CTA) that pushes the site visitor to either call them or to fill out their contact form. We like to recommend that the CTA be placed in the top right corner of the page as this is the conventional spot that the information is found on most web sites....

IP Address Influencing Search Engine Rankings

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 12:00:00 EST

Google has been using the user's IP address to serve up local results for the Google Local 7-pack for awhile now. Then back in February they added a search "Nearby" feature that would allow you to refine your organic search results as well as the Google Local 7-pack for a city. On top of this Google is now using your IP address to influence search engine rankings for broad terms. So what does this mean? It means that a user in one location will be served up one set of results while a user in another location will be served up a different set of results for the same search term. It also means so long to keyword ranking reports and hello Google Webmaster Center....

Click Through Rate Can Affect Your Bing Rankings

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 12:00:00 EST

From the recent SMX East conference Barry Schwartz, contributor at Search Engine Land, confirmed with Steve Tullis, Sr Program Manager Lead at Bing/Microsoft, that Bing does indeed use click through rate (CTR) as one of the many factors in their Bing ranking algorithm. Steve Tullis made the comment that if a search result does not get clicked on Bing will likely lower the site's ranking. So what can influence a user to click on your listing within the search engine result pages (SERPs)? One of the big influencer is the actual snippet being displayed. If the snippet matches the user's expectation (i.e. the keyword being searched) it is more likely to influence the CTR....

How To Handle Secure Files Being Indexed

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 12:00:00 EST

At SMT we typically do a website audit for new clients. During these website audits we see a lot of the same mistakes from web developers and web designers that do not fully understand search engine optimization best practices. One of the issues we come across is the client's site starts to get indexed under the HTTPS version of their site. HTTPS is typically used to protect sensitive information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, or personal information that is submitted from a form on the website. Google provides an useful tool called site: command....

Twitter URL Wrapper

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 12:00:00 EST

Twitter has hinted at releasing their own URL shortener for sometime and they now have done so. Twitter recently implemented the t.co URL shortener...err URL wrapper. The t.co is not really a URL shortening service, but an URL wrapper. So what is an URL wrapper and how does it differ from an URL shortener? The Twitter URL wrapper will sometimes convert the link to a t.co link or it may just shorten the actual link length. Twitter uses this example: Original URL http://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446563048 Wrapped for SMS: http://t.co/DRo0trj Displayed for web or application users: amazon....

Survey Finds Social Media Impacts Search Engine Rankings

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 12:00:00 EST

A recent study, The Impact of Social Media on Search, by BtoB and Business.com took a look at how business-to-business (B2B) marketers are integrating social media with search engine marketing (SEM). The study polled 464 B2B marketers to see how they are using social media to improve their search engine rankings....

Time to Start Planning Your Yahoo to adCenter PPC Transition

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 12:00:00 EST

If you read Brent’s post about the Yahoo / MSN search alliance back in July, you’ve probably been anticipating when and how this is going to take place. Well, guess what? The when is mid October and the how is up to you. At Sales & Marketing Technologies, we are ready to help you make the transition. It’s important that you have this setup. As an important reminder, Yahoo! Search Marketing is transitioning to the Bing platform so you’ll need to have an adCenter account setup and ready to go in advance. We can take care of that for you too if you’d like....

Using Infographics to Build Links

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 12:00:00 EST

Infographics, or Information graphics, are a visual representation of complex data or knowledge that is presented in an easy to understand graphic. While infographics have been around for a long time, Internet marketers have turned to using infographics as a link building tactic. As you can see from the Google Trends graph, infographics started to really pick up at the beginning of 2010. So the start of 2010 has been the year of the infographic linkbait. Producing an attention grabbing and timely infographic can generate a large number of backlinks to your own site....

Few People Using Location-Based Social Networks

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:00:00 EST

Forrester Research recently released a report, Location-Based Social Networks: A Hint Of Mobile Engagement Emerges, that noted there were only a few million consumers using geolocation apps on a monthly basis. Location-based Social Networks include such sites like Foursquare, Gowalla, BrightKite, and Dopplr. The report states that only 4% of adults have used a location-based social network and only 1% haved used it more then once....

Internet Marketing: A Road Map of the Basics

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:00:00 EST

Internet Marketing: A Road Map of the Basics Survival of the fittest To this day, internet is the fastest changing industry which adapts many changes throughout every month, even on a daily basis! With the Google algorithms always increasing in complexity, it becomes harder to be able to generate organic results for any given website. If you just now want to start with internet marketing campaigns for your business, you must start with a very well defined niche which is in demand, yet is still not saturated with competitors....

Yahoo / MSN Search Alliance Update

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:00:00 EST

Yahoo and MSN have moved one step closer to completing their search alliance. Yahoo announced that they are now performing limited tests with the Bing search algorithm and ad serving platform. Yahoo has stated that they are using the Bing search algorithm and paid search listings for up to 25% of Yahoo search traffic in the United States. This test should last through July and into August. Yahoo expects that the full integration of the Bing search algorithm and paid search listings should happen before the holiday shopping season, but may be pushed to 2011. The new Bing crawler will launch October 1 and will be renamed to "bingbot"....

Tips If Your Domain Name Is Too Long For Google PPC

Fri, 21 May 2010 12:00:00 EST

Recently, we had a client that was very interested in launching an agressive PPC campaign. Everything started out perfect. During our collaboration to form a strategy, we found out the domain name for this project has 36 characters. This is not including the www. (ExampleOfA36CharacterDomain123.com) For those of you who don't know, Google's Adwords policy states that the display URL has a character max of 35 characters. Since this site is a newly acquired site, it normally wouldn't have been an issue because we can easily buy a new domain & point the website to the new domain....

Internet Marketing: Investing Wisely in your Business

Thu, 20 May 2010 12:00:00 EST

If you have a website, you need traffic. Unfortunately many people know this and also come to realize their lack of knowledge on how “Internet traffic” really works. There are lots of “opportunities” out there offering you thousands of “targeted visitors” to your website for just a few bucks, or a directory promoting your website on Google on your behalf. If you do not advertise your business, your incoming flow of customers will be low. Nowadays simple word-of-mouth and referrals are not sufficient to sustain a business....

Reduce SPAM without CAPTCHA using a CustomValidator

Tue, 18 May 2010 12:00:00 EST

There are plenty of resources and methods out there you can use to reduce the amount of submissions to a form on your website by non-humans. Some website administrators get hundreds or thousands of submissions from bogus people. They are often automated bots searching for open holes your website to infuse content for whatever their purpose is. Many times it is to promote their own website, content, or services. Sometimes they are attempts to cause the website or webserver to crash, inject viruses or spread maliciousness to anyone using the internet. Often there is intent to spread porn traffic....

Optimizing Search Engine PageRanking by Using Dynamic 301 Redirects

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST

How to Optimize your Page Rank Those seo-savvy web programmers and search engine optimization specialists are familiar with the problem caused by changing a previously ranked url to a new url. For example, an old page that a search engine has ranked on page 1 may be www.domainname.com/about/default.aspx . For a variety of reasons, it may be necessary to change the url to www.domainname.com/about-us/ . The new url will be identified by search engines as a new page, even though it is the same page. The PageRanking will be lower for the new "about-us" url and the "/about/default.aspx" url will drop its ranking....

Tips on Choosing a Good Domain Name

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:58:00 EST

Choosing a domain name is probably the most important step in getting your business online. When choosing a domain name for your business there are several factors to consider before you make that final purchase. .COM – The .com domain extension is probably the most recognized and trusted domain extension. Now if you are a non-profit or healthcare organization you may want to consider the .org domain extension. And whatever you do stay away from the .info. The .info domain extension has been over used by spammers due to their cheap “throw away” prices....

Google Local Adds Status Updates

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 08:40:00 EST

Google Local status updates are a new feature that will allow businesses to promote upcoming events, news, or promotions right on their Google Place Page. Google Local status updates are limited to 160 characters in length and will be visible for 30 days on the Place Page. In order to access the status update you will need to have verified your business through the Google Local Business Center. Not sure if your business Place Page has been verified? If the business listing has not been verified you will see a "Edit this place - Business Owner?" link in the upper right corner....

Bing - Ask your friends to recommend

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:57:00 EST

Bing is now giving you the option to send local search results to your Facebook and Twitter friends along with the option to email them the results. In order to ask them if they agree with the results or have a better option....

Internet Marketing: Looking Back In 2009

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 03:19:00 EST

2009 was a pretty big year for internet marketing. There was a lot of activity in the industry, whether it was that latest real-time search results implementation or the new search engine Bing launching. When asked "What are some of the key events that happened online in 2009 from an Internet Marketing standpoint?" the SMT Internet marketing responded with: Microsoft Launches Bing One of the top search engine providers launches a new search engine. Yea, I would consider that a pretty big deal. Balloon Boy Spreads Like Twitter Wild Fire October 15, 2009 a story of Balloon Boy broke loose and spread through social media sites like wild fire....

Page Title Length Test Results

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 08:35:00 EST

As an Internet Marketer who spends a lot of time in optimizing web sites, I have to keep testing search engine ranking methodologies to keep abreast of the latest changes by the search engines. In this test I wanted to try and debunk the whole "60 character maximum" for page titles. What I did was to create two new pages with two totally different page titles that varied in length. Each page had a meta description tag, but did not contain the targeted keywords. The pages also did not have any content. Each page was linked from the home page of an aged domain. For Link A we had a 72 character page title (with spaces) and for Link B 76 character page title....

Search Engine Optimization in 2010

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 11:02:00 EST

Search engines are always changing their algorithms, sometimes as often as twice per day, but lately there have been some major changes that will affect the way search engines produce results: Recently, major engines like Google and Yahoo introduced a real-time search feature that scrolls recent Tweets from Twitter containing the searched keyword. With Twitter's explosive growth this year, this change now exposes the millions of conversations happening on Twitter, especially when it comes to a brand. Facebook is now getting indexed more than ever, and we've been hearing for months about a major deal between search engine giants and the popular social network....

Can your marketing survive on PPC alone?

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 10:42:00 EST

There has been a lot of debate on whether a business can survive and thrive using pay per click (PPC) marketing alone. While PPC marketing can be very effective, using it without an organic search plan can be costly. There are several reasons PPC marketing needs to be coupled with organic search strategies. 1) Your Google Adwords bids can cost you more if your campaigns and landing pages are improperly optimized. Google states "Include specific keywords that directly relate to the specific theme of your ad group and landing page". A poorly optimized landing page can give mixed signals to Google and drive up your bid costs....

4 Online Marketing Techniques Your Business Should Be Using

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 04:18:00 EST

Here is a list of 4 online marketing techniques your business should be using. 1) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) By implementing an SEO strategy, you are optimizing your website to be found under certain keywords in the search engines. Users typing in these keywords are typically looking for information regarding their keyword; hence, targeted audience. If your site is setup properly, then you should be seeing conversions. 2) Social Media People love interacting! Social Media does something really neat that a lot of other marketing techniques don’t do....

What Google Real-Time Search Means to Your Business

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:27:00 EST

Real-time search makes social media (more) important On Monday, Google made a giant leap to the front of the real-time search game by adding "Latest Results", a real-time search result box, to the first page of search results. The "Latest Results" feed pulls results from major news sources, blog posts and social networks including Twitter and FriendFeed. Here's an example from Google: Try it out for yourself: Google real-time search for 'Pearltrees', a French social network. The "Latest Results" box gives you the option to pause the feed, or to click the "Latest Results" link for a full list of updates....

Why Online Marketing Should Be In Your 2010 Marketing Budget

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:00:00 EST

If it’s not too late, I wanted to go over your 2010 marketing budget. No, I physically can’t look over it, but what I can do is list off reasons why you should invest in an online marketing strategy. It’s a tough advertising world out there with all of the advertising options you have (especially when they ALL say they deliver a good ROI). I’m not here to pick on the other guys today, I’m just here to tell you what online marketing can do for your business. The Numbers According to a recent report from eMarketer, US online advertising spending will dramatically increase from 2009 to 2014 and I don’t think this is a fluke....

Google Implements Personalized Search Based on Browser Cookie

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:24:00 EST

Google announced an extension to personalized search on Friday. Google noted that they will now provide customized search results based on past search activity for users not logged into their Google account. Google will set an anonymous cookie in your browser that will store up to 180 days of "signed-out" search activity, including search queries and results you click. How will you notice the change? Google has been nice enough to place a "View Customization" link on the search results page. Clicking on this link will allow you to see how Google has customized the search results. They will also allow you to disable this customization feature as well....

How To Create An iPhone Favicon For Your Website

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 04:19:00 EST

Favicons are very important for branding your website and your services. As you might already know, the favicon.ico shows up in several places. The greater exposure to of your brand, the better effect it will have on your visitors. Does your site have an iPhone favicon? If not, don’t worry. I’ll tell you exactly how to get one. But first, let’s look at what I mean. Load up your website in your iPhone or iPod Touch. Once it has been completely loaded, click on the ‘+’ at the bottom of the screen, then press ‘Add to home screen’....

Tips To Prepare Your eCommerce Site Tis' Holiday Season

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:34:00 EST

It’s coming. The wonderful time of year when houses and stores are being decorated with lights and trees, the time when the weather is cold enough to drink hot chocolate, and the time when you start hearing Christmas music while you shop. The 2009 Holiday Season is right around the corner and you need to make sure your eCommerce site is prepared for it! Do not fret. This blog post focuses on some basic tips to make sure your eCommerce site is prepared this holiday season. Add some holiday cheer to your homepage Set the mood for your visitor to shop for this holiday season....

Twitter Adds Retweet Button

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:05:00 EST

... and then takes it away Twitter recently made changes to the way people retweet in a limited beta release of their retweet button. Usually, retweets are done by appending 'RT' to someone else's tweet. Example Tweet: JonNegrini I'm blogging about Twitter Example Retweet: JoeSchmoe RT @JonNegrini I'm blogging about Twitter In this example I made the original tweet and Joe Schmoe retweeted my tweet. Something to remember in this method is that tweeters need to leave room in the 140 characters if they want to be retweeted. This room allows the retweeter to append the 'RT' and the @name....

Google Webmaster Tools Keyword Significance

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:54:00 EST

Google has now started showing what it believes are the most significant for you website. Here's what Google believes are the most important keywords for SMTUSA.com In a Webmaster Central Help Page updated 11/12/09 Google explains: "The Keywords page lists the most significant keywords Google found when crawling your site. The significance of each keyword reflects how often it's found on your site's pages. Click each keyword to see a sampling of pages on which it appears." Google goes on to recommend: "If unexpected keywords, such as "Viagra", appear on this page, this could be a sign that your site has been hacked....

Effective Call To Actions Help Increase Conversions

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST

There are so many different aspects and fundamental elements that need to be in place for a website to be prosperous. With so many different, yet important elements that make up a successful website, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about Call To Actions (CTA). While an intriguing design, a lot of relevant and up-to-date content, visibility, a user friendly layout, and accessibility are all very important, I wanted to share the magnitude of creative and captivating call to actions. Call to actions come in many different forms, shapes, sizes, and categories. Depending on the site, your call to action will vary....

Google Local Listing Ads - Not Quite Ready

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:57:00 EST

Earlier this month Google introduced Local Listing Ads which allowed local businesses to pay for their local listings to be included in the Sponsored Results. The results? The ads appear in search results very sporadically, much like a poorly managed Pay Per Click campaign, and don't always show up for all the keywords relating to the business' offerings. The targeting is based on the existing local business listing, and the ad is preset with the same content found in the existing ad. Google clearly has some tweaking to do, but either way it still looks like local search marketing is still the best way to go....

Popular Email Newsletter Services

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:17:00 EST

Recently I have been doing some work and research with email newsletter services. While there are so many great companies out there that offer superb services and competitive prices, I wanted to blog my favorite 4! Mail Chimp Talk about user friendly! Mail Chimp helps you build and manage your email list, create HTML email campaigns, and track and analyze your email campaigns. Mail Chimp also offers very competitive pricing. Have less than 500 subscribers and need to send out less than 3,000 emails per month? Well Mail Chimp will let you do that for FREE! Mail Chimp also offers Twitter and Facebook integration....

What Google Social Search Means For Companies

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:47:00 EST

Google has just launched Google Social Search. Google Social Search is a new feature that will pull in relevant information from people within your online "social circle". Google is going to display this information within the organic search results under a new section called "Results from people in your social circle." For this to work the user needs to be logged into their Google account. Google will then use the Gmail address book, articles from your Google Reader subscriptions, data from Google Profiles, Twitter, FriendFeed, Picasa, Blogger, and public information to create the search results for Social Search....

Google Analytics Conversion Tracking Facelift

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:14:00 EST

Today as I was setting up a Google Analytics profile, I noticed that there was a small, but neat little update to their conversion tracking. Typically you can setup your goals as specific URL's being visited. For example, if setup yourdomain.com/thank-you.html as your goal tracking URL and a visitor lands on that page, Google Analytics will count that was 1 goal (or otherwise known as conversion). But today, I saw that Google is giving users two (2) more options for their goal tracking. The first one was Time on Site....

Bing Strikes a deal to include facebook updates in its search results.

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:02:00 EST

To update your privacy settings, click on Privacy settings and adjust these options:

What Balloon Boy Can Teach Us About Social Media

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:27:00 EST

Still not convinced social media is a good way to spread the word? Let's take a look at this past Thursday (10/15/09) and the five hours that 'balloon boy' captivated the world. Balloon boy is a 6 year old from Colorado that was, at the time, believed to be trapped in a homemade hot air balloon floating out of control. Local authorities and the National Guard reacted quickly to the situation (read balloon boy story here), but the world saw an even faster response from the Internet through social networks like Twitter. Within minutes of the story breaking the term "balloon" was trending on Twitter at over 1600 tweets per minute....

How To Make a CSS Sprite Rollover List Part 2

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:00:00 EST

I know there have been many people anxiously waiting for Part 2 of How To Make a CSS Sprite Rollover List. Didn't read part 1 yet? Well before you learn how to make a CSS Sprite, why don't you head over to part 1 and learn Why Use CSS Sprites. View the working DEMO Now let's get to work. Follow these easy three instructions on producing a cross browser compatible list with a CSS sprite and rollover functionality! 1) Create your image First thing is first. Go ahead and create your CSS sprite image. Make sure you keep each icon the same size and the same distance away. In my case, I have each icon 54 x 54 pixel....

Droid Does

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:01:00 EST

In a commercial made just to point out the shortcomings of Apple's iPhone, Google and Verizon's "Droid Does" campaign has officially taken off the gloves in their battle with Apple and AT&T. When Google's Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple's board of directors back in August you knew more competition between the two companies was coming and this appears to be the first real shot across Apple's bow. It's a very simple commercial showcasing what the iPhone can't do that began showing during major sporting events over the weekend....

Using Landing Pages to Maximize PPC Results

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EST

Linking your Google Adwords Pay Per Click ads to an effective landing page can help increase your ad rankings, increase traffic to your site and increase conversions on your site, but choosing the wrong landing page can cost you both rankings and money. Here are a few tips that will help keep your Adwords ROI high: Choose a Relevant Page - Pay Per Click advertisements are ranked by a combination of their Google Adwords quality score and their bid price. Having a higher quality score will allow your ad to rank higher without spending more per click....

Testing Google Wave

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 04:12:00 EST

Google is at it again, adding yet another new product this year called Google Wave. Google Wave is a web-based application promising to bring together e-mail, chat, wiki and social networking in a clean and organized platform. The system works in real-time, and features some potentially useful collaborative tools including live translator extensions and virtual conference calling. With that said, what does it Google Wave really do? While Wave is not completely released yet, a few of us at SMT got a sneak peak invitation into the beta version, and all I can say is......

Google Sidewiki - Steps To Claim Your Site

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:33:00 EST

Google recently launched a new product called SideWiki. Google's Sidewiki is a browser sidebar that allows users to add comments and information about a particular site. There has been some controversy about this new service already. Some of the issues brought up: The Sidewiki content is hosted on Google Taking comments /content from site owners and centralizing it Lack of comment filtering, open up for spam Some equate it to bathroom wall graffiti With that we want to talk about getting a "Page Owner" citation listed in the Sidewiki for your company....

New Google Keyword Tool

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:21:00 EST

If you haven't seen or heard about it, Google has a BETA version of the new Keyword Tool out. It still contains its fundamental functionality, but added some new features, made some tweaks, and changed the layout a bit. Here is a brief list of the new features and changes I noticed right away. If you know of any other neat features with the new Keyword Tool, we'd love to hear about them. My personal favorite, the Google Keyword Tool now lets you download a selected keyword list. Before you would have to download the entire list and then modify it in excel. This makes this a lot easier and smoother. Nice....

Keywords Meta Tag Doesn't Matter To Google

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:40:00 EST

The Google Webmaster Tool blog announced officially Monday that Google doesn't use the keywords meta tag in their ranking algorithm. But what really caught my attention was a little episode on Matt Cutts' blog, where he reiterated the Google doesn't use the keywords meta tag as a ranking factor and Graywolf actually called him out on in the comments. In case you missed it, it goes like this: graywolf September 21, 2009 at 12:42 pm "so what about this about meta descrptions http://bit....

Is your site search costing you sales?

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:02:00 EST

Recently we were attempting to establish why there were a proportionally large number of visitors leaving a site from the site search results page. In other words, a customer would search for a product and then leave without clicking on any of the products. We decided to install a “sniffer” to watch what keywords users were using when they performed a search. We not only wanted to find failed searches we also wanted some more in-depth intelligence on the customers and their intentions when they performed a search. Almost instantly our preconceived notions on how a visitor interacted with the site’s internal search engine were shattered....

Why Use CSS Sprites Part 1

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:07:00 EST

You’ve heard the term bouncing around the Internet, but still not sure what, why, or how to use CSS Sprites. I’m here to enlighten you on this neat little feature that is sure to help speed up your site. This is part 1 of a 2 part series blog. Part 2 will entail “How To Use CSS Sprites”. Why would I want to use a CSS sprite? CSS sprites reduce the total number of http requests, can reduce the total size of the images, and increase your pages load time....

Image Link Test Results

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 10:41:00 EST

I performed a small test to see how image links pass keyword relevancy to pages. I wanted to see if the search engines would rank a page merely based on the keywords used within the image link. I first researched five made up words and made sure that no search results showed for each word. I then created five images with just the word in the image. I wanted to see if the search engines are starting to use optical recognition for images. I then created five new pages for each link. Each page had readable text, but no mention of the keyword within the text, file name, or meta tags. I placed the image links on the home page of an aged domain....

Ormond Beach Chamber of Commerce Thank You Letter

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 08:43:00 EST

We received a nice letter from the Ormond Beach Chamber of Commerce in regards to our recent Internet Marketing workshop at their last quarterly breakfast. Dear SMT Team: I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your participation in last month's quarterly breakfast. The educational workshop on Internet Marketing had to have been one of our most interesting and well-received topics, and there is no question that you and the team at SMT are experts in your field. You guys did a phenomenal job educating our 80+ chamber members that morning....

Understanding Google Adwords Quality Score

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:02:00 EST

We get questions all the time on how to improve Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns. One issue that comes up a lot is related to how Google ranks Adwords ads. What we find is that small businesses as well as large businesses do not understand that Google Adwords has it's own algorithm that is entirely separate from their organic search algorithm. It used to be that which ever advertiser bid the most on a keyword would have their ad show up the highest. This is no longer the case. Google has now gone to a Quality Score to rank your Adwords ads. Ad Rank Formula The ultimate factor in how your Google Adwords ads rank is based on your Ad Rank....

What ICANN's New gTLDs Mean for Search Engine Rankings

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:21:00 EST

For the past several months there has been a lot of talk and speculation as to whether or not ICANN will be opening up their gTLD-global top-level domain(extension)-registration in late 2010. ICANN stands for 'Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' and is essentially the Internet's governing body, focusing specifically on domain registration. If ICANN's new gTLD program launches as planned, in late 2010 corporations, interest groups, cities and anyone else who has the financial means can apply to have a custom domain extension created. This doesn't come easily, however....

Need an Internet Marketing Speaker for Your Next Seminar?

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:38:00 EST

Our team of Internet Marketers at Sales & Marketing Technologies have been busy the past couple of months speaking to various medium and small business owners throughout Central Florida. As one of the largest Internet Marketing firms in Central Florida, we are on top of all of the latest Internet Marketing trends. We have been providing our clients with Internet Marketing services since 1995 (before Google)....

Advertise on Twitter - What You Need to Know

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 04:27:00 EST

The topic of advertisements on Twitter is one that is controversial. Some users hate the idea, others think it is the natural evolution of Twitter. While Twitter does not have any official means to allow companies to advertise on Twitter, there are several third-party companies that do. Currently Twitter is really trying to educate companies about how to effectively use Twitter. There has been some speculation that Twitter is going to try to generate money through various add-on tools and services for business and professional users....

Nested GridViews in C#.NET: How to display relational data together

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:48:00 EST

First, you must understand the purpose of a GridView in the .NET framework. A GridView control displays rows of data in a table like structure. It displays one record from the table per grid row. This article explains how you can extend the functionality of this powerful control so that relational tables can be displayed together. This article shows you how to accomplish such a task. One reason to nest GridViews in .NET would be to display data in a one-to-many relationship. In some cases there is detail data that has a parent-child relationship to other data in the database....

Google adds Options to its search results

Mon, 18 May 2009 10:45:00 EST

Google has once again refined its search results. Google has made tremendous strides when it comes to localizing search results. In an attempt to compete with real time search results provided by companies like Twitter they have introduced "show options". Show options which is located just below the search box and above the listing results allows users to refine the search results by various means, but my favorite refinement would have to be the refine your search query by timeline where you can choose recent, past 24 hours, past week, and past year....

Display Google Base Products in Google Adwords

Tue, 05 May 2009 08:36:00 EST

Google introduced a new feature for Google Adwords advertisers this past week. The new feature allows advertisers to integrate their existing Google Base products into their current Adwords campaigns. By integrating your Google Base products into your Adwords account you will be able to gain additional exposure for your product listings. Once integrated you will see a expandable "Show products from COMPANY NAME" link right under the Adwords ad. Clicking this link displays three products with product title, price, product image, and a short description. I have seen these "Show products from..." links being displayed in the top three Adwords groups as well as down the left hand side....

Google Adwords Conversions (1-per-click vs many-per-click)

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 04:43:00 EST

Google decided to spice up the metrics in Google Adwords. In the old Google Adwords, it was basically as black and white as it can get. Conversions = 6. You can say “Okay, I had 6 conversions this month.” With the new Google interface, you now can track conversions in a new way, actually two ways, 1-per-click and many-per-click. Conversions (1-per-click) Conversions (1-per-click) count a conversion for every AdWords ad click resulting in a conversion within 30 days. This means if more than one conversion happens following a single ad click, conversions after the first will not count....

Google Penalty – How to Properly Request Reconsideration

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 02:23:00 EST

Today Google released a video from two leaders of the Google Search Quality Web Spam Group, Racheal Searles and Brian White, giving their recommendations for creating a good reconsideration request. Their Tips Include: Admit any mistakes you’ve made and let Google know what you have done to fix them. They want you to realize there is actual people who read the re-inclusion request. If you don’t know what your site did to get the penalty the suggest going back and rereading the Google Guidelines which you can see here: Direct Link in Video: 0:17 Your server timing out and/or temporarily showing bad content will not give your site a penalty....

Parsing data in C#

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:59:00 EST

Parsing data in C# is a simple process, and can be done using some basic language syntax. Sub Strings provide this functionality, and when used properly can make data collection, or simple parsing operations a much easier task. First when parsing data from sources such as a web page, it is important to first remove all data at the beginning of the document which is unnecessary, in order to prevent the parsing utility from finding the wrong information.

Google Local Search Single Box Result

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 08:35:00 EST

Looks like Google is pushing even more changes to how the local search results display. I am now seeing a single box result listing. My co-workers are still seeing the traditional Google Local Ten Box. I have added a screen shot from my search....

Dual Authority – Dual Inline Site Links

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 04:51:00 EST

We have seen for a few different searches today where Google has begun showing multiple sites on the same search with site links. It appears as if Google is splitting the 8 site links it normally gives high authority sites to 4 inline site links each if the two sites both qualify as high authority for the search. The example below is for the search – Search Engine Update 4/2/09: Brent Nau noticed another form of inline site links today, using the search for Internet marketing blog, Hubspot has 3 sitelinks with a number next to them. It appears the number represents the number of posts within that blog category....

Google’s April Fools – Introducing CADIE

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 08:12:00 EST

The Google tradition of April Fools jokes continues today with CADIE the world's first "artificial intelligence" tasked-array system. “On January 12th 2009, the STT run (Standard Turing Test) confirmed behavior indistinguishable from that of a reasonable human being with above-average intelligence and 3.8 GPA (we're still struggling to understand that missing .2; we suspect it points to fundamental flaws in the GPA system rather than CADIE. It's also worth noting that CADIE was never shown any textbooks and reading material for the classes; she was only administered the exams....

Google to Start New Venture Capital Division

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 08:09:00 EST

According to the New York Times Google is set to announce a new venture capital division, Google Ventures, who will invest over 100 million dollars over the next 12 months in companies that are expected to turn a profit. Google Ventures will invest in Internet Startups, Cleant Technology and Life Sciences and has already invested in two companies: Silver Spring Networks, a company that makes technology to help manage electric grids, and Pixazza, which links online images with related products that can be purchased. As pointed out by Tech Crunch, the new ventures site can be found at http://www.google.com/ventures/. There currently is only a parked domain on www....

Google local one box listing results are now based on IP addresses.

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 01:11:00 EST

Google has made changes to their one box local business listing results based on IP addresses. In the past users had to add a GEO qualifier, i.e. a city name to get the Google one box local listings to show up within the search results. But recently they have made changes which return Google local listings defaulting to searcher’s city when a GEO qualifier isn’t present. The results are based on the searchers IP address. This is just more evidence that if you don’t have an optimized Google local listing, you are missing the boat....

Top 5 Reasons your Business should be Blogging

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:24:00 EST

#5 – Control What is Said About Your Business Blogging allows your business the chance to inform customers, both existing and potential, of upcoming product launches, special discounts, conferences and the inner working of your business. It allows you to get information out to your clients quickly, easily and the way you want it to be presented. #4 - Establish Trust for Your Business A consistently updated blog allows customers to become familiar with your brand message and assures them your not a company that is here one day and gone the next....

City Centroid - Local Search Ranking Factor

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 02:38:00 EST

There has been a shift from Yellow Pages to Search Engines to find local companies and products. According to a TMP Directional Marketing study, the Internet has become the primary source for local research. The study found that 31% of respondents to the study used Search Engines to find local products and services first, with Yellow Pages or White Pages at 30%, Internet Yellow Pages at 19% and Local Search Sites at 11%. The importance of showing up in Google's Onebox Local Search result is becoming more important for businesses. We are finding more and more large and small businesses wanting to show up in the Local Onebox as well as in the organic search results....

Internet Explorer 8 and Web Standards

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:35:00 EST

Internet Explorer 8 is out of beta and the final version is available! It actually became available today at noon ET. On the IEBlog, they state that IE8 will comply more with web standards. Internet Explorer’s development team actually worked closely with the Web Standards Project. Which is huge for web developers, because many web developers have to use CSS hacks or javascript to get around the IE browser bugs. Microsoft could be moving in the right direction by adding a new optional mode called “super standards” that supposedly will balance backward compatibility with web standards....

Automated Spanish Translation System for Web Sites

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 01:08:00 EST

Miami Children’s Hospital (MCH) recently requested the assistance of Sales & Marketing Technologies to provide an effective solution to dynamically translate their English content from their web site to Spanish using the third party vendor, Translations.com. SMT’s in-house Programming team worked closely with Translations.com to perform the initial Spanish translation by building the necessary XML file needed for input into their system. Once the translation was complete, the initial file was imported into a staging environment and sent to the client for review. Once approved, the newly translated Spanish content was published to the live MCH site....

Integrating Online and Offline Marketing Through Twitter

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 02:03:00 EST

We saw a pretty cool example of integrating your online and offline marketing through Twitter. Our VP of Sales received a postcard in the mail today from one of his Twitter followers. The postcard read: "Hi Bernie, I'm one of your followers on twitter and wanted to introduce myself. I could have sent a message from twitter but I'm sure you get a ton of those and I wanted to stand out. The reason I'm writing you is because I'd like your opinion on a new start-up I founded... I'm hoping to fnd a place for printed communications like this in the world of social networking. You seem to know a lot about the online world so I'd value your opinion......

Implementing 301 Redirects on Legacy URLs

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:53:00 EST

The implementation of 301 redirects for legacy URLs is a crucial step in website redevelopment and URL optimization projects. It seems that web development companies that are not strong in Internet Marketing often make the mistake, out of ignorance more than anything, of not properly taking care of legacy URLs, that is of URLs that used to rank on the previous website version but whose content has been assigned a new URL. For example if the details page of a product is now on http://www.domain.com/Products/CategoryX/ProductY.html the legacy URL prior to the website redevelopment or URL optimization could have been http://www.domain.com/product....

Twitter Contributes to Globalization

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 04:24:00 EST

If you are asking yourself, “What exactly is globalization?” -- Well, here is my understanding of it… globalization has been and most likely will always be an ongoing process that eliminates borders between nations and allows an interconnectedness between nations. For example, 20 years ago it would have been very difficult for me to speak with someone from across the nation. Now with the internet, I am able to speak instantly with others around the globe. There are many factors that contribute to globalization; some more than others. One of the more obvious ones is the internet....

Action Required: Cost Data Change

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:17:00 EST

If you receive the "Action Required Cost Data Change" Email from Google it may seem a little confusing, I know I read it a couple times, and you only have until March 4th to make the required changes. To help alleviate some confusion Google has an employee, Stephen, actively answering questions about the email; below is some of his answers: First, some background: Right now, Google Analytics will attribute clicks and impressions to AdWords as long as the visitor has the 'gclid' auto-tag in there request....

Retail Dominates in Top 50 Rankings

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:54:00 EST

I was going through some recent (11/08) comScore data and came across something I thought was interesting. A list of the top 50 internet properties in the United States. The rankings are based strictly from unique visitors from home, work, or university locations. You can view the Top 50 Properties on the internet here. Even though search engines dominate the top rankings, it is the retail industry dominating in numbers. It was actually a surprise to see some Weather competition in the midst....

How Small Businesses Are Leveraging Twitter into Sales

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 08:38:00 EST

The explosive growth of Twitter has made Twitter a main stream micro-blogging platform. With the estimated 6 million users, businesses are find that there are true opportunities to connect with customers and drive sales from their Twitter accounts. Twitter is a free social messaging utility for staying connected in real time. Twitter is considered a micro-blogging platform where you only have 140 characters for your message. An estimated 5-10 thousand new users are signing up daily on Twitter. Traffic to the site has grown by 600% over the last 12 months with 20% of Twitter users joining in the last 60 days....

Super Bowl Ads 2009

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:44:00 EST

The 2009 Super Bowl Ads are almost here, but don’t expect to see any General Motors or FedEx advertisements. That’s right, GM and FedEx has decided to sit the bench for Super Bowl 43. Why, you ask. Well, one word: recession. But the big bad recession hasn’t stopped last years Super Bowl 30 second ad space at $2.7 million to jump up to $3 million this year. Did you know that somewhere between 90 million and 150 million people (depends on which survey you use) tune in to watch the Super Bowl simply for the commercials and half time show! I couldn’t believe that statistic when I read it....

Three reasons why Long Tail Keyword searches are so important?

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:41:00 EST

Long tail keyword searches are the secret to tremendous website traffic. Why are they so important and how do they work? Here are three reasons why long tail keyword searches are so important. After studying the traffic to a popular website whose domain name is the same as its primary keyword, we found that during a thirty day period the website received 500k visitors. But only 12k of them where for the primary keyword. The other 488k visitors found the site using long tail keyword searches, keyword searches with additional discriminators like the location of the service, a specific model number, or brand of product....

Yet another reason an optimized Google local directory presence is a must.

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 12:00:00 EST

Other than the obvious reason why it is important to have an optimized Google local listing. It is now even more important because of 1800Goog411, Google's free 411 information line (which has been around a while). Basically it performs the same function as a traditional 411 number; however, it is free and pulls the information straight out of their local listings and if your listing is number one for the users search terms and city and state then your business will be the first one returned with an option for an instant free connection to your business number at the press of a button....

Famous People on Twitter Part 2

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 04:57:00 EST

First, let me say that Dennis' first post, "Famous People On Twitter - Where Are They?" rocked! However, it has been quite some time since that infamous post and I bet the Famous People On Twitter list could probably get an update! Before I release the list, please note that I cannot say for sure if these Twitter Aliases are actually who they say they are....

SMT Internet Marketing Seminar Was a Success

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 08:42:00 EST

I am glad to say that our "Achieving Breakthrough Results From the Internet in 2009" seminar in Orlando was truly a great success. We had a a packed house of current clients as well as some local business owners from the Greater Orlando area attend. The seminar provided a nice overview of Internet Marketing and some of the emerging Internet Marketing trends for 2009. We touched on such topics as Social Media, Blogs, Local Search, Video Search and Universal/Personalized Search. We are continuing this series in Tampa in February and expect an even larger turn out at our new office location off of Hines Avenue....

Amazon.com Had “Best Ever” Holiday Season

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 04:28:00 EST

Powerhouse Online Retailer, Amazon.com said that this holiday season was their, “best ever”. One of the busiest online days to shop is December 15th, and Amazon customers ordered 6.3 million items that day. Which is a significant increase compared to last years 5.4 million on their peak day. Unfortunately, Amazon has not released any dollar figures and wouldn’t say whether the average value of orders had changed. Many people are debating if the sole purpose of this increase was because of the online retailer giant or because there simply is just a larger demand to shopping online. I bought a couple items online this holiday season. It was simple and convenient....

Google Leading Mobile Web

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 04:11:00 EST

Surprirsed? Yeah, me neither. According to Nielsen Mobile, surprisingly (sarcasm) Google is the leading force in mobile search in the US. With iPhones, Google Androids, Blackberry Storms, and other internet capable phones, the mobile web is on the fast track for either booming success or failure due to overload....

Five Great Google Adwords Tips for Saving Money on Adwords

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:00:00 EST

Here are five Adwords tips to help you get more bang for your buck with Google Adwords. Put your phone number in the Google ad, because some people are likely to call instead of clicking through. If you are on a small budget, have your ads scheduled to start running later in the day to give some time for some advertisers to blow through their daily budget. Geo target your ads to prevent paying for clicks outside your servicing ability. Make sure to use negative keywords when setting up your keywords, and review them often. Try and target your products or services which have the best profit margin....

Top Ten Reputation Management Tips

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:00:00 EST

When it comes to your image, or the image of your brand, reputation management is a word you need to know. The internet is a very powerful and quick force and a negative comment on a blog, Twitter, or forum can literally spread across the internet in minutes and can result in a loss of business and profit. That’s where reputation management comes in. Monitoring what is said about you on the internet and responding when appropriate can reduce the spread of negative comments, but the real damage is done when the negative comments gravitate to the top of Google or Yahoo. Here are a few tips to manage your reputation before it becomes a problem. Check your website on www.statbrain....

Google Continues to Grow in November

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 10:57:00 EST

Just a few minutes ago ComScore released their November Search Engine Ranking Report and Google continues to grow in the search market with both Yahoo! and MSN losing ground. Overall Americans searched 3% less in November when compared to October. November 2008 vs. October 2008 Total US - Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch 2.0 Core Search Entity Oct-08 Nov-08 Point Change Nov-08 vs....

Hackers Can Steal Your PageRank

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 05:44:00 EST

Recently John Mueller, a Webmaster Trends Analyst for Google, reported on his personal blog that hackers have been stealing PageRank from websites. He writes: In this particular case, a "massive amount" of sites were hacked and likely redirected through suomi.co.in. The Hackers were able to 301 redirect pages for search engine spiders only so the webmaster and site visitors never saw a change on the site. By redirecting the Spiders this way the Google believed the site had moved and began giving PageRank and inbound link credit to Suomi.co.in site. Thereby stealing the work of the original website for their own benefit....

Is MySpace going to speed up adoption of IE7 and Firefox?

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 10:07:00 EST

It looks as if Myspace is strongly encouraging people to upgrade their browsers to either Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox. Now I must admit I'm not a huge MySpace user also I use primarily IE6 for my work from home and save IE7 and Firefox for my time in the office where I would lean more to being an early adopter than at home. When you log into MySpace with IE6 you get the following "MySpace recommends upgrading to IE7" screen shot: MySpace hits you again if you attempt to use their new Profile 2.0 tool. If you look closely at the two screen shots it appears MySpace prefers FireFox over IE7....

Online Spending Up 846 Million on Cyber Monday

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 03:18:00 EST

Not all is bad in the retail world especially if your primary business is online. comScore’s latest survey results show Cyber Monday, the online equivalent to Black Friday, up 15% over last year making it the second busiest online shopping day on record. The weekend between Thanksgiving day and Cyber Monday (Nov. 29 - 30th) was up 19% over 2007. Holiday Season to Date Millions ($) 2007 2008 Percent Change Nov. 1 - Dec....

Consumers Continue to Research Online, Buy Offline

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 08:39:00 EST

A recent study, Local Search Usage Study, by comScore shows that more consumers are doing their research online while purchasing offline with a phone call or a visit to the local store. The study found that once online research was performed 39% of consumers contacted the local business via phone, 32% visited the local business, and 12% contacted the local business online. The number one source for research was Search Engines (31%), followed by Print Yellow Pages or White Pages (30%), then Internet Yellow Page Sites (19%), and finally Local Search Sites (11%)....

Google Releases Guidelines for Bloggers

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 03:36:00 EST

Earlier this week Google released a new set of Blogging Best Practices in their Creating a Google-friendly site section of Webmaster help. The document starts out with Google reiterating their pro-blog feelings: If you have a website but don’t have a blog, consider creating one: A blog is a great way to connect with people who share your interests, or to publicize your site or product. Blogs are easy to create and update, and rich, useful, and original blog content will encourage readers to come back to your site....

Christmas Time Revenue

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 03:28:00 EST

Now that you have filled your belly with turkey, ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and every kind of pie your grandma can whip up, it’s time to focus on this Christmas seasons potential revenue. What I am about to share with you isn’t a million dollar idea, but will help you or your business earn those extra Christmas dollars. The Christmas season is a great opportunity to market your product or service and put a little Christmas season twist on it! There are “Doorbuster Deals” and “Christmas Sales” around every corner in every city....

Search Engine Usage Statistics

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 04:49:00 EST

COMscore, a leading internet research firm, released their October 2008 Search Engine usage statistics a few days ago and Google still retains a sizeable lead on all other Search Engines combined. Google led the US in search with 63.1 percent of the searches conducted, followed by Yahoo (20.5%), MSN (8.5%), Ask (4.2%), and AOL (3.7%). Of the 12.6 Billion searches by US residents in October Google provided results for 8 billion of those an increase of 7 percent from September of 2008. Yahoo and MSN came in a distance second and third, 2.6 Billion and 1.1 Billion respectively, as Google continues to increase its search footprint in the US market....

TravelMax Nursing Launches New Website

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 08:54:00 EST

Sales & Marketing Technologies is pleased to announce the launch of the new TravelMax Nursing website, http://www.tmaxnursing.com. The new website is an extension of the TravelMax brand focusing on direct placement and travel nursing jobs. The website provides cutting edge technology which allows job seekers to automatically receive new job opportunities via email that match the job seeker’s preset specifications. In addition, the Clinician Availability database provides clients with 24/7/365 access to the latest available nurses for a particular location or clinical discipline....

Google Trends for Websites.

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 01:59:00 EST

Google just recently added Google Trends for websites which is a great research tool for analyzing authority type websites. I say authority type websites because websites with lower search volumes usually return this message “Your website sampledomainname.com does not have data to display”. The Google trends for websites tool gives an insight to what regions the visitors are coming from, what sites visitors also visited and what search terms the visitors also searched for....

Even in a Tough Economy E-commerce Continues to Grow

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 03:01:00 EST

Market research group comScore released their third quarter retail e-commerce report today which shows as the economy struggles Internet Retailers continue to grow albeit at a slower rate. Their research shows US consumers spent 30 billion online in the third quarter, excluding travel, a 6% increase over the same period last year. However, the growth rate was slower when compared to the previous two quarters of this year with the growth rate in the first quarter up 12% over 2007 and the second quarter up 13%....

How do I increase traffic & sales on my website?

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 01:00:00 EST

I hear this question “How do I increase traffic & sales on my website?” all the time, and the funny thing is most of the time its from clients who’s sales have doubled and even tripled over the past year. The answer to this question is simple but applying the principles is not quite as simple because it usually requires some work....

4% of Websites Meet Web Standards

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:10:00 EST

Matt Cutts stated a very interesting comment on twitter a couple of weeks ago and it goes something like this: “Only 4% of web pages comply w/standards: http://bit.ly/2BJMnZ . That’s why Google can’t return only those pages; too few of them. “ You can view that quote here. I have been thinking about that lately and wanted to put my thoughts in a blog post. My first thought is, it’s quite pathetic to only have 4%, excuse me, 4.13% of the web complying with web standards. My second thought is, should search engines reward websites that comply with web standards? I think with their efforts and compliance with the web their should be some sort of incentive....

How To Launch A New Site

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 02:09:00 EST

Shhh… Do you hear that? Yeah, me neither. If you want to avoid launch failure and the crickets, follow these easy steps to create a buzz about your newly launched site. 1) Check, Check, and Check Again I can’t tell you how many internet users shy away from websites because of failed image loads, broken links, and/or internet browsers displaying the content wrong. It is so important to do a thorough check of your site to assure the functionality and display (check in multiple browsers) is working correctly. These are such simple and minute errors, but can cause a major toll on your users experience, causing them never to return....

When Great Google Rankings Hurt Your Business

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 01:11:00 EST

Never would we have ever thought that great Google rankings could hurt your business, but its true. So many businesses are focused on Google rankings that the most important thing is usually over looked. Conversions, whether your conversion is a sale or just supplying important information about your company, that should be the focus of your Internet marketing. So how do great rankings hurt your business? Its when you rank great for irrelevant terms, terms with little or no search demand, or terms that aren’t geared towards your product....

Healthcare Consultants Launch Newly Redesigned Website

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 04:32:00 EST

Sales & Marketing Technologies is pleased to announce the launch of the Healthcare Consultants Pharmacy Staffing Division redesigned website, http://www.pharmacy-staffing.com/. The redesigned site provides an updated look and feel while enhancing the site visitor’s experience with HCC’s brand. HCC Pharmacy Staffing division provides temporary and permanent pharmacy jobs around the United States. HCC provides pharmacy job opportunities in the following settings: clinical, compound, home care, hospice, hospital, long term care, mail order, institutional, retail, and specialty pharmacies....

Google Adwords Smart Positioning Beta

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:23:00 EST

Today I noticed a new option in one of our clients Adwords accounts, Smart Positioning Beta. Google describes Smart Positioning as: Smart Positioning (beta) is a bidding feature based on an auction model that differs from the regular AdWords auction model. Here are a few benefits of using Smart Positioning: * It’s designed to get you more clicks for the same total cost. * It aims to place your ad in the most cost-effective position each time it’s displayed on Google and the search network. (Learn how Smart Positioning works on the content network.) * It can reduce the frequency with which you need to adjust your bids....

Webmasters don’t punish your users

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:43:00 EST

Recently I have visited numerous websites and more often than not its as if the websites are punishing their users. Webmasters need to start asking themselves “What is the purpose of my website?” Usually the purpose of a website is to inform, entertain, provide a service or product to the user....

Yahoo’s Locations Near You Show Competitors

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:03:00 EST

We had issues with one of our clients in the Yahoo search results earlier this week. Yahoo was pulling in a page title and meta description for totally different pages on the site. That issue was quickly resolved after @yahoo_directory found the conversation on Twitter. I checked our client’s listings this morning and noticed that Yahoo started to add the “Locations Near You” link under the main listing. The “Locations Near You” link brought me to Yahoo Local. I first noticed that the locations near me were actually from Jacksonville, while I reside in Orlando. Then I noticed that there were competitors being listed as well....

New Tampa Online Marketing and Web Development Office

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 07:33:00 EST

Sales & Marketing Technologies, a full-service Web Development, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimization and Website Hosting firm headquartered in Orlando, Florida has just opened an office in Tampa. The new office is an extension of the company's ongoing expansion of its web development and Internet marketing services. The Tampa office will be headed up by Mark Redmond. SMT is a privately owned firm with clients throughout Central Florida, the United States, Canada, South America and the United Kingdom. Our specialty is Internet Marketing. We are proud to say our in-house team of web designers, programmers, and Internet marketers have been delivering online success since 1995....

Web Retailers Looking Towards Social Media

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:32:00 EST

The latest eMarketer report, Social Media and Shopping Behavior, takes a look at how consumers are using social media sites to influence their purchase decisions. The report states that 85% of Gen Y participate in social networking and 57% are invloved with blogs. The report also cites an Internet Retailer report found 39.3% of their retail respondents use social networks, 32% have a page on Facebook, 27% on MySpace, 26% on YouTube, and 5% on Flickr. The eMarketer report goes on to reference another report by Nuance Communications that online rating systems, discussion forums and blogs are believed to be the most valuable social media sources....

Think SEO Before a Website Redesign

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:00:00 EST

We always hear the question “We are thinking about redesigning our website. When should we think about search engine optimization?”. The simple answer is at the beginning. When considering redesigning you website, ensure that you consult with a search engine optimization company at the beginning, not at the end. Here are some examples of issues that can arise when your web developer is not well versed in search engine optimization: Removing a page from the site that was driving traffic You need to be careful on eliminating content from the site. We always recommend to 301 redirect the old page to a existing page that has similar content....

Google is 10 and We get the Gifts

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:42:00 EST

Currently Google is the largest search engine in world and one of the most visited sites on the Internet, its stock is currently trading at $400.52 (Sept 30th 2008) and it’s name has become synonymous for a web search (Google it) but it hasn't always been that way. In celebration of its 10th anniversary Google opened up its archives to the world. I'm not sure if this is something they plan on keeping up or if it's something their going to take down after the celebration. So take a look at the Google History Timeline and relive some past searches with a search from circa. 2001 (it’s weird to think of a time when Myspace was a Windows 95/98 software application)....

Effectively Using Google Webmaster Tools

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 06:05:00 EST

Google Webmaster Tools is a free service from Google that provides webmasters with tools and data about their site. I want to touch on some of the benefits of authenticating your site through this service. The first step is to have a Google account (set it up here). Diagnostic Tools The Diagnostic Tools section provides information on any crawling issues that Google may be having with your website. This section will provide a list of problematic URLs with a short description of the problem. You can use this data to further investigate the individual pages on your site that may be hindering Google in the indexing of your site....

Google Android Apps Developer Challenge chooses 10 $275,000 winners

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 01:33:00 EST

The winners of the Google Android Apps Developer Challenge each receive $275,000. 1. Cab4me.com - Ever been looking for a cab? cab4me is the answer. Anywhere. Anytime. http://www.cab4me.com/ 2. CompareEverywhere - Shop smarter using your phone. Compare prices, read reviews, and connect with local stores. http://compare-everywhere.com/ 3. Ecorio - Ecorio automatically tracks your mobile carbon footprint, suggests transit and carpooling alternatives and lets you stay carbon neutral by offsetting your trips easily. http://www.ecorio.org/ 4. GoCart - Scan a product’s barcode with your phone’s camera and view all the best prices online and at nearby, local stores....

Why and How To Add Breadcrumbs To Your Wordpress Blog

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 08:08:00 EST

As a long-time internet user, I have seen breadcrumbs really take off around the internet and recently with many of the major Wordpress websites using them. You may be asking, “Why should I use them on my blog?” Well, breadcrumbs are excellent for improving user navigation and helping the search engines establish your website's structure, otherwise known as SEO purposes. Unfortunately, Wordpress hasn't inherited the use of breadcrumbs, which is a grave disappointment in my opinion. However, there is hope. Wordpress plugin developers have created various breadcrumb plugins that enable us to enhance the functionality and SEO of our blog....

Blog Orlando - My First Conference

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:08:00 EST

Upon hearing news of attending Blog Orlando 3, I wasn't sure what to expect. Having worked behind the scenes in an online world, I wasn't sure what kind of environment to expect, people who were new age, older generation, people who were like me, or people who wouldn't get me. Being the chicken I am I asked my girlfriend (who is not a web person by any stretch) to join me so I wasn't alone in the experience. We arrived to an empty street close to Rollins college (the site of the conference), hoping that we parked in a "permitted" parking area. We walked to the building, with our paper notebooks in hand; we saw people with briefcases and laptops, and quickly felt inadequate and unprepared....

Top Five Wordpress Plugins

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:55:00 EST

Wordpress has become the best blogging software and will continue to reign as the best. With the popularity of Wordpress, I am surprised to find the unpopularity of certain plugins being used. If you manage a Wordpress blog, I would strongly consider my list of the top five plugins to use: Wordpress Database Backup - An excellent automated or manual backup solution for your Wordpress database. A classic. Akismet - Can someone say SPAM? Yes, we all hate it and Akismet is the best Spam protection you can get for handling comments on your blog. Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they are spam or not, also checks the trackbacks for spam....

Microsoft's Vista armor starting to fade

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:21:00 EST

HP recently ran an article which hinted that it was developing a software package that had the ability to bypass a portion of the Windows Vista Security. HP might not be the first, but should be noted as a major player in the game. How does this affect your experience? First it shows that it is possible to circumvent the all powerful security features Microsoft is so proud of. If hackers have not already found a way, HP’s tremendous resources will surely be reverse engineered and used for evil. It was inevitable that it would happen, and although Vista was touted as the most secure OS that Microsoft has ever produced, this proves that problems will always exist....

Mobile Search On the Rise in US

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EST

comScore M:Metrics released a new report denoting that mobile search grew 68% in the US over June 2007. The report also notes that the US had a 9.2% penetration of mobile subscribers using search. The expansion of 3G and smart phones, as well as the widely available flat-rate data plans, has helped fuel the fire for mobile search. It was also noted that Google has a 63% market share of mobile-browers, followed by Yahoo at 34.6%....

Effectively Leveraging Videos for Universal Search

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 03:36:00 EST

Univeral Search, also known as Blended Search, blends listings from local, images, video, news, and blogs. Universal Search was introduced first by Google in May 2007. MSN and Yahoo quickly followed in July and October respectively. Universal search has had a big impact ever since on how people search. We find that many companies do not have an online strategy when it comes to videos. Videos are becoming an important part of the marketing mix. Let me provide you with some background information concerning video search. As of March 2008, online video search accounted for 1.09% of all U.S Internet visits (Hitwise, Aprill 2008). US Internet users viewed 11....

Protect your website from SQL Injection Attacks

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 02:51:00 EST

(two of two articles) This article is a little more technical than the first article, but I kept it as simple-worded as possible. Is your website vulnerable? Very possible. You could do a few quick checks, but explaining how to write SQL Injection code is out of the scope of this blog. Websites written using Classic ASP language, PHP, AJAX, and other website languages are vulnerable, but that doesn't leave .NET websites in the clear. Any website that gives full access to the SQL database is vulnerable. That gives the hacker full range at manipulating the information in your database....

IZEAFest Conference Thoughts

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 04:01:00 EST

I am re-energized to blog again after attending the IZEAFest conference. The conference had some big money bloggers in attendence. I was really surprised that there wasn’t a packed house. I thought the conference was a little bit light on content and not enough technical information for advanced bloggers. However, I did find the session about Wordpress plugins really informative. I found several plugins that will help are clients such as FeedWrangler, RSS Footer, Zemanta, Bad Behavior, and several others. The conference was also leveraging Twitter and Ustream.tv. It was pretty cool to see all of the live tweets from the audience as well as those watching it live on Ustream....

What’s the hype about SQL Injection?

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:39:00 EST

(one of two articles) You may have heard of the term “SQL Injection” often or never before. So, what the heck is it? And, why should I worry about it? Below I try to put in lamen's terms what it is and why it is a bad thing. In basic terms, it is a way to hack into a database and a website. First I will explain a little bit about what SQL means. What is SQL? Is it an acronym for something? Yes. It stands for Structure Query Language. It is not only an abbreviation and a programming “language”, is also a database. SQL Server is a database, it is often just referred to as a SQL Database. You may have also heard of “MySQL”....

Pimp’n out Your Twitter Profile

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 04:32:00 EST

If you have not taken notice on the explosion of Twitter, you may not have realized that this micro-blogging platform has increased their traffic by 400+% with over 2 million unique users a month (stats gathered from Compete.com, actual numbers maybe greater). Hop aboard this train, but before you do make sure your Twitter page matches your company’s look and feel. Here are some tips on doing this: - Use a real person’s image, people want to connect with a face not a logo - In Settings –> Design select “Use my custom style below” - Select “Use background image”, uncheck “Tile” - Creat a image 1600px wide by 1200px high....

Reputation Management - Protect Your Company Online

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:07:00 EST

It's time to consider online reputation management into your monthly marketing budget. If you have never thought about reputation management for your business according to Wikipedia it's "the process of tracking an entity’s actions and other entities’ opinions about those actions; reporting on those actions and opinions; and reacting to that report". With more and more user generated content online your company's reputation is under constant threat of attack be it from bloggers, review sites or even your direct competitors. A well planned marketing strategy can be completely taken down by a few well placed bad remarks. Let's take one example I stumbled upon recently....

Creative One Way Linking Strategy

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:28:00 EST

The other day I saw a creative one way link exchange request. The request asked if the website owner would add a link to a requested website, and in exchange the requester would add a link to the owner’s website from two of theirs. What made this interesting was the fact that the link they wanted added to the website owner’s site wasn’t one of the two sites they would link back from. Therefore, the owner would get two links for one (which seems like a good deal), yet the requester would get one way links to their primary site without having to link back (seems like a great deal). The requester also made sure to only target websites with similar themes....

National SEO Day

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:30:00 EST

National SEO Day is approaching! Approximately 28 more days until the first annual National Search Engine Optimizer’s Day! It all came about on June 26, 2008 through Dana Larson’s Twitter page and through word of mouth and intense viral marketing techniques this annual celebration might be a start of something big! The National SEO Day website does a very good job at keeping tabs on the event and actually nominated me to wear the first National SEO Day Badge. Thank you National SEO Day, I know the family will be proud....

Google’s Ranking Philosophy

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 05:23:00 EST

Today Amit Singhal a Google Engineer in charge of the ranking team introduced Google’s three core ranking philosophies. 1) Best locally relevant results served globally. 2) Keep it simple. 3) No manual intervention. He then took the time to break-down each one. Best locally relevant results served globally What he goes on to say is that if they run into a problem with a query they use that as method of improving the algorithm or as Amit says it “no query left behind” Keep it simple This is in reference to the Google Search Algorithm itself, he basically says that they keep the Algo as clean as possible without any loss of quality to the search....

Famous People on Twitter - Where are They?

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:18:00 EST

First, If you don't know what twitter is, check out www.twitter.com as it says on their home page "Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?" Since most of my friends and family are not tech savvy people, I help them turn on the computer, and my co-workers already make me read what their twitting I decided what to see fun I can have with this....

National Search Engine Optimizers Day - August 8th

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:54:00 EST

National Search Engine Optimizers Day is coming so mark your calenders! I first came across it on Dana Larson’s Twitter page. All I know thus far is it will be acknowledged on August 8, 2008 and will be the first of hopefully many of celebrations to come. Do search engine optimizers get the day off for this holiday? Probably not, but if it grows legs we can cross our fingers for a lunch to honor us....

Video Search Usage on the Rise

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 04:26:00 EST

Recent data on video search usage shows that video consumption on the Internet is on the rise. While video search only accounts for a little more then one percent of all U.S Internet visits in March, this has translated into over 11.5 billion videos being watched online during the month of March. Even video search sites, like YouTube, Yahoo Video, MySpace TV, and others, have seen the amount of time spent on these video websites increase by 7%. Currently 73.7% of the total US Internet audience is viewing videos online. eMarketers projects this to be almost 87% by 2011. This represents over 183 million users watching videos! Guess who dominates in the video search market? One word, Google....

Yahoo Flagging Harmful Websites in Search Results

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:28:00 EST

With Yahoo’s recent search index this past week, we are noticing that Yahoo has followed in the steps of Google by marking harmful websites within their natural search results. We noticed when searching on the term “surge protection” that a warning message is produced “1 potential harmful website is marked on this page”. The flagged listing has a warning stating “Warning: Unsolicited Emails”. So it looks like Yahoo is taking it one step further then Google and actually using spam submission details. I like how Yahoo is now putting the Scarlet Letter on those who sending spam! Here are a couple of screen shots....

Internet Marketing Specialist Job Opportunities Avaliable

Fri, 23 May 2008 03:01:00 EST

As our client base continues to grow, our need for experienced Internet Marketing Specialists does too. Our Internet Marketing Department is looking for two qualified candiates to join our team. Find out the details for these positions by visiting http://www.smtusa.com/jobs/. Here we GROW Again! Sales & Marketing Technologies is located just North of Orlando, Florida in Altamonte Springs....

Google Universal Search Now Including Blog Posts

Fri, 02 May 2008 04:32:00 EST

I just noticed today that Google is incoporating blog posts into their Universal Search results. Now I know Google has been including blog posts into the search results, but they are grouping related blog posts below the 10 organic listings by matching the keyword search to related blog postings. The “Blog posts about…” is grouped just like their Shopping results. I have only noticed this at the bottom of the search results. This is a great example of why companies should be blogging on a regular basis....

Another New Addition To The Internet Marketing Team

Thu, 01 May 2008 05:37:00 EST

Here We Grow Again! I want to welcome Jonathan Crowe to our Internet Marketing team. Jonathan is a recent graduate of Southeastern University, earning his Bachelors of Science in Business Management this past December. Jonathan has a passion for Internet marketing and building websites. As our client base continues to grow, Jonathan will be a valuable asset to SMT....

How Google is Killing Your Adwords Quality Score

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:31:00 EST

We came across this interesting scenario with Google Adwords and how they are displaying some of their ads. I searched on the term, “orlando car accident lawyers”, and received the normal Adwords ads. I then refocused my search on “nursing jobs orlando”. This is where it gets interesting. From the screenshot below you will notice that one ad is related to my search term “nursing jobs orlando”. All the other ads are being served based on my previous search, which does not relate to my current search. Thus the lawyer ads are receiveing impressions on a term that is no longer relevant to the ads being displayed....

Following your Passion, Why I joined the SMT Team

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:06:00 EST

I have been marketing for years and while most people do not realize that they are always marketing something whether they like it or not, I do realize it. And over the last five years I have been refining my marketing skills towards the internet. Just recently I joined the SMT team for selfish reasons. Reasons being, I am consumed by the internet, search engine optimization, and internet marketing in general, and since I would rather spend my entire day engulfed by my passion, I might as well get paid for it. A good friend of mine once told me in order to be successful, just be the best at what you do....

What is URL Canonicalization?

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:42:00 EST

Search engines can see variations of the same domain as different pages and this can cause confusion and possible ranking reductions. For instance, domain.com, domain.com/default.asp, www.domain.com/default.asp, and www.domain.com can all be seen as different pages, even though they are actually the same page. Typically a server-side redirect can be implemented to point all of these domain variations to one main domain. You may, do search engines care which domain variation I should use. The short answer is no. As a standard, we typically redirect all of our client’s websites to the www.domain.com....

New Addition To The Internet Marketing Team

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:28:00 EST

It has been quite a while since we have posted on the blog, but we have been extremely busy in the Internet Marketing department. We have been growing our department and are still looking for qualified Internet Marketers to join our team. Through our recent acquisition of EZ SEO Solutions, Ken Moody has joined our Internet Marketing team at Sales & Marketing Technologies. Ken has over 5 years of experience in SEO, Web Development, and PPC Management. Ken also served in the Air Force fulfilling 20 years of service. We welcome Ken to our team....

NoFollow - What is it?

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 02:09:00 EST

The nofollow is a HTML attribute for links. The nofollow attribute supposedly excludes links from search engine ranking calculations. This attribute was first introduced by Google’s Matt Cutts and Blogger.com’s Jason Shellen. Example: Ancor Text It has been found that Google still follows these links, but if the page was not in the index previously they will not index the page, will not show the link as a back link , and will not associate any keyword relevancy from the anchor text of the link. Yahoo will follow the link and will index the page, show the link as a back link, and will use the keyword relevancy from the anchor text of the link....

MSN Buys Yahoo

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 07:34:00 EST

If you MSN does get their hands on Yahoo this will definately open up the market for another player. Although MSN may try and keep the brand seperate, in the online world, this is very hard. It is a big move for both companies, but based on the huge shareholder incentive for Yahoo holders, this may just go through....

Postlets - Real Estate Marketing Tool

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 09:55:00 EST

Came across a nice free tool for real estate agents called Postlets. The tool allows users to post properties to several main stream classified networks such as backpage, Google Base, Kijiji, Oodle and more. The site steps you through the process of creating your listing. This is a great tool to propogate your listings across some fo the bigger free classified networks. This application also works for selling cars, but on a more limited distribution....

Digg = Traffic

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 08:25:00 EST

Below is a chart taken directy from Google Analytics showing a spike in traffic. This spike occured from one comment (the first comment) on a related article that made the first page of Digg.com. If you come across an article on Digg that is related to your site, you may want to seriously consider adding a relevant comment that includes your url. You can often comment on both the Digg site and the page of the actual article....

Can Google Get Any Fresher?

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 03:33:00 EST

I just posted a blog entry on one of my client’s sites and within 40 minutes the blog entry shows up second for the key term the blog entry was discussing. Is Google just that fresh or was I lucky enough to have the Google Bot visit the site right when I published the blog? Any how here is a screenshot of the listing....

High Bounce Rates Mean Its Time To Revise Your Website Content

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 07:47:00 EST

Definition: Web Page Bounce Rate The % of single page visits to your site where the visitor left your site from the same page that the entered. During the past year Google Analytics made this more prominent in it's reporting data and I am glad they did. A bounce rate gives you a good starting point into how your users experience your site. I use the bounce rate to evaluate web page changes, user experience and overall satisfaction and I know that if I can reduce a websites bounce rate I can increase the conversion. So I created a Bounce Rate Scale Bounce Rate 80% and above You are not connecting with your audience and they are arriving at your page expect one thing and not finding it....

Google’s Christmas Balls

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 02:27:00 EST

Has anybody else seen this: It appears for certain queries, Google is showing it’s Christmas spirit. As an AdWords user, I think initially this would help advertisers, as the new design should draw some eyeballs to the right....

Matt Cutts IS Google

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 01:26:00 EST

From PubCon’s “Meet the Google Engineers”…Matt Cutts was swarmed immediately when the doors opened for the “Meet the Google Engineers” gathering out in Vegas. As Matt entered the hall it started out as just a crowd of about six people, but as the night went on Matt Cutts stayed in the same place while more and more webmasters gathered to hear his Google Wisdom. Matt was “trapped” right next to the bar all night and as I approached the bar for my beverage the bartenders were bantering back and forth about who this guy was that all these people were gathered around....

Google Toolbar 5 Tracks 404 Error Pages

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:52:00 EST

I just downloaded the Google Toolbar 5 beta and just happened to read the Google Toolbar Privacy Notice. There is a quick statement in thier stating: “In Toolbar 5, if you navigate to a URL that does not exist, the Toolbar may send the URL to Google so we can help you find the URL you were looking for.” This is interesting....

Duplicate Content Issue? Couple of Tips to Solve Your Problem

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:04:00 EST

One of the hot topics at PubCon last week was the issue of duplicate content. One may say “What’s the big deal? I can get more of my pages indexed in Google.”. Well, it is a big deal and it could be affecting your rankings. When Google comes by your site and starts to index it, it does not necessarily index every single page during that particular visit (especially if you have 10,000+ pages). But when the search engine bot (or spider) arrives, it starts to go through each page and index them one-by-one while placing links on that page into a queue for later indexing. So as the spider continues to index the site the queue of additional pages to index keeps increasing....

Pubcon 2007 Take Aways - Buying Links, Video, Buzz

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 09:49:00 EST

I finally found a few minutes to blog after returning from Pubcon to an over flowing inbox, voice messages, and rescheduled meetings. It was a great time, as always, with lots of knowledgeable speakers. Here are 3 points that seemed to be stressed by multiple speakers and attendees alike: 1) Buying links is not a good long term strategy. Google (and the other major search engines according to Matt Cutts) are cracking down on sites who buy and/or sell links. Will buying 1 link get you black listed from Google? Probably not. However they have already cut the legs out from under many sites who sell text links based on PageRank....

5 Keys to Planning Your 2008 Internet Marketing Strategy

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 03:36:00 EST

As 2007 comes to an end and 2008 is just around the corner, now is the time to review just how far you and your business has come. Did you improve your website, adjust content, include conversion, develop tools that benefit your audience; are you getting more out of this 24 workhorse than you did a year ago? If the answer is no, you need to start looking making changes. And if the answer is yes, then you are most likely already planning changes for 2008. So Where Do You Start to Plan Your 2008 Internet Marketing Strategy? The Basics and Build from there 1....

HubPages & Other Industry Pages, Leading to More Sales?

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 03:12:00 EST

What follows is a crazy, but true tale of a little HubPage that never gave up. Nearly four months ago I created a HubPages account for a client. The page was succinct and targeted one of their main keywords. As the months go by, some other optimizations are performed. Four months later (present day), I'm looking at the main site's progression up the search engines and who do I run into - well good ole HubPages, all sweaty and out-of-breath. This particular client has a niche, geographically-tight target market....

Open Search Forum with The [Search] Engines at Pubcon 2007

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 03:48:00 EST

Late Tuesday night (tonight) at Pubcon was the open forum with the main public figures from each of the major search engines; Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask. This was moderated by Guy Kawasaki (one of the best speakers I have had the pleasure of learning from!). So, what was learned from this forum……well: Google (Cutts) is very defensive about their position on user feedback about their organic search results. It is clear they are not only relying on their algorithms to determine results, but also on user feedback....

Using Social Networks for Links

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 08:47:00 EST

Just got out of a very good session at Pubcon here in Las Vegas about leveraging social networking websites to generate incoming links to your site. In fact, Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOMoz listed about 60 websites that can be used for content submissions, profile building, and general marketing purposes. Unfortunately he has asked we do not publish the full list…..so here is a partial Flickr DeviantArt Care2 Hugg. Sphinn Mixx To find out how to implement social networking into your internet marketing strategy to increase your links and your search engine rankings, contact SMT....

WebmasterWorld’s Pubcon 2007 in Vegas

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 09:09:00 EST

Well, we’re off to Pubcon in Las Vegas again. This year should be full of useful information and SEO tidbits especially with keynotes such as Matt Cutts from Google and Craig Nemark from Craigslist. This has always been a great conference for the nuts and bolts of internet marketing....

Google’s Did You Mean

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 05:14:00 EST

I am sure you have seen it or possible even use it daily as a spell checker. If you search Google and spell your word(s) incorrectly, Google will ask you “Did you mean…?” with a suggestion link to alternative search results. Sounds like a great idea and usually it works very well. However, let’s take a case where your brand name is close to an actual word. If my company name was “fintastic fins” and a potential customer heard about me and searched on Google, they would get these results. This wouldn’t be so bad, unless of course my competitor’s name was “fantastic fins”....

KeyWord Expectation, How Do You Rank?

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:19:00 EST

Keyword Expectation - Simply meeting the expectation of the person performing the search request based on the meaning of the keyword or keyword phrase. And the closer you are to meeting users "Keyword Expectation" the most likely you are to close a sale, a lead or have a subscriber to your blog or newsletter. Why this is a simple concept, many of our new clients are often surprised to learn that they have been trying to mislead users and often disappoint visitors. The result is high web site bounce rates and higher than normal conversion costs. Here is an example: A Daytona Beach Hotel created web pages for Orlando hotel and Hotel near Disney, because these are popular search terms....

Using Web Site Behavioral Clickstream Data As An Email Targeting Tactic

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 06:33:00 EST

Using web analytics can help you better understand your customer’s needs and help you market to them more effectively. It has been found that emails generated from clickstream data saw a 9x improvement in revenue and 32x more in net profit versus undifferentiated broadcast emails (”The ROI of Email Relevance”, Jupiter Research). Who has not completed a transaction? Use your web analytics to see which customers have abandon your shopping cart. After a few days send a reminder email encouraging customers to return and complete the process. You may even want to inform the recipient that their shopping cart will be expiring soon....

Increase Web Site Traffic by Eliminating These 5 Web Site Mistakes

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 02:26:00 EST

Web designers, programmers, IT specialist and business marketing departments are all involved in the development of wonderful web sites. However, few of these professionals care how you rank in the search engines and whether your site produces leads or sales. If you want to Increase Web Site Traffic you need to see if your site makes any of these web site mistakes and then take action to correct them. 1. Flash Home Page / Web Site Nothing stops a search engine spider than no readable content. Flash pages can be great for paid traffic, however for organic rankings learn to integrate readable content. 2....

Offline and Online Marketing

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 10:24:00 EST

The importance of having a consistent message should never be overlooked, especially when it comes to your website. Recognition that carries over from print or traditional media to the internet will greatly strenthen your brand and can result in customer loyalty. If you are planning to update the your website design in the near future, here are some points to keep in mind to help ensure your message is clear and consistent: 1) Are you basing your website design on existing marketing materials or vise versa. If you have boxes of already printed materials, this may be a very easy question to answer....

YSM’s Blocked Sites Functionality, Is the Promised Fulfilled?

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 08:42:00 EST

On Oct. 15 - we got an email from Yahoo Search Marketing "Block Sites Where You Don’t Want Your Ads to Appear" Our expectation was high as this could really give advertisers a chance to control where their ads are shown. We looked at the system during the first week and noted it was not what we expect. So we waited a month to see if time has improved this system. Review of Yahoo Search Marketing’s Block sites Functionality:Usabilty: Difficult The user must know which urls the want to block. So you must know which sites send you YSM paid traffic. YSM noted this can be found if you have their analytics program set up....

Learn What Small Web Site Changes Are Adding Up to 50% Sales Increase

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 08:33:00 EST

It's was 10:43 pm last night when I logged in to check the daily ecommerce sales. The results Up 20% for the day and for the month up a whopping 50%, "Yes" I said. This would seem routine if I worked or owned the company, but I don’t. I am their Internet Marketing Manager and live hours away from their business and I was ecstatic. All the little changes and adjustments we have been working on all year are now paying off and the are swampped with huge sales increases. In a way, I feel terrible as Scott and his team are working weekend just to keep up with demand, but I know they are excited as well....

The Importance of Domain Name Extensions - .com Vs. .org and the others

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 03:14:00 EST

Domain name buying, selling, and brokering is big business. People will scoop up the good-ones and hold them ransom or auction ‘em off to the highest bidder. Your whole business model may be cut down when you are forced to buy i-wanted-this-in-a-dot-com-but-they-only-had.org. But how much will it effect business? Well, luckily, from an SEO perspective there is no difference. All domain extensions are created equal. The same onsite and offsite factors integral to good rankings apply across the board. I have not, however, seen any research pertaining to the user’s propensity to click a search result ending in a .org or .com....

Using LinkedIn for Introductions

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 12:17:00 EST

Dave's Network Status Report: 56 direct connections, 1000+ friends of friends, 210,200+ total network Dave's Quick LinkedIn Tip: Be sure to add your photo on LinkedIn. You want people attempting to contact you to know they have the right person. After sending out the invitations, I heard from some old friends. It was great catching up. In the pile was a very large business opportunity. It was so large we couldn't even attempt it. What can you say, you can't get them all. It was an honor to even be considered. I tried my first shot at using my network for outbound business development. I picked a company we would very much like to have on the client list....

Business Benefits of Blogging

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 09:27:00 EST

Often times, to a business, a blog may have an undeserving negative connotation. By now, most of us are aware that it is no longer exclusively for teens Tommy and Tina to hobnob about their weekend events. Blogging has become a powerful internet and business tool, when used properly. Maybe a blog on your site still makes you a little squeamish. Do you prefer a newsletter, events page, industry articles section, or a press release section? Well, in all honesty, a blog can act as all of these. While it may take some time to properly implement a blog on your domain with the same look as your site, there are quite a few blogging services that are free, including Blogger and WordPress....

SEO Problems with Pagination

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 06:14:00 EST

Organization of content on a website is very important for search engine index-ability. It can be a challenge to create a system that is friendly to both human visitors and search engine bots. A common example is a list of articles. Even with categories, over time there can become a huge amount of articles within any given category. Then what? You don’t want an enormous page with 1000 article titles on it…do you? So, of course, you use pagination. The most common way is to have multiple links at the bottom (and sometimes top) of the list such as that allow users to navigate through the various pages within a category....

SEO For Flash Only Websites

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 07:07:00 EST

I was reviewing a website today that was a flash only website and needed to know if the company that built the site was smart enough to include a HTML version of the site for search engine indexing. The short answer…no. At SMT we do use Flash, but only as elements within a website. As any seasoned SEO expert will tell you, search engines have a hard time indexing sites that are totally developed in Flash....

Template CMS Based Websites

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 11:58:00 EST

There are many companies out there offering very attractive hosting and website solutions. They promise to give you 99% uptime and tools to build your own website in minutes for a low monthly fee. Many of these services are focused on certain niches such as golf courses, churches, hotels, etc. These are great solutions for businesses who just want an online presence and a url to put on their business cards. However, these template type systems generally have some huge seo drawbacks for those looking to attract and gather leads online. These content management systems often advertise seo tools, search engine submission services, meta tag generators, etc....

Mergers, Acquisitions and Web Sites

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:14:00 EST

Recently we have seen several of our clients purchase additional businesses or be purchased by another company. My first question to my clients is "What is going to happen to the web site?" This is often followed by a "Huh?" and a statement like "We buying a business and not a web site." and that is where I reply you are buying both. In many cases people know how to value a business but not how to value a web site or even understand how a successful web site plays into the success of a business. So what do you look for and questions should you ask to better understand what you are buying? There are some key items you should review and ask when doing your due diligence....

Convert a Google AdWords Bulk File for Use in Yahoo

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 01:13:00 EST

Yahoo high rollers are given an “import” link under the campaigns tab in their Yahoo Search Marketing accounts…available upon request. A user can convert their existing Google PPC account into an Excel file for upload to their Yahoo account. I commend Yahoo for making our lives easier…or at least trying. As a sidebar, this is a feature that Yahoo only offers big spenders. If my competition holds the majority market share, would it not be in my benefit to let everybody know that they can “easily” convert their existing Google accounts into Yahoo accounts AND on top of that, we’ll give you $50 free bucks....

Flash and Search Engine Optimization

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 06:59:00 EST

There seems to be a misconception that flash is bad for search engines and overall website rankings. This is simply not true. What is true is Flash, to date, can not be properly indexed by search engines. This means that any Flash on a website is essentially non-existent to search engines. The misconception most likely came from websites that are entirely created using Flash, since these website are invisible to search engine spiders. Without a massive amount of on topic incoming links, it is almost impossible to rank using a site made entirely out of Flash. This does not mean Flash does not have its place....

Corporate Transparency - Web 2.0

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:00:00 EST

Blogging has become an important part of the online experience. There is no better way to get the very latest information on almost any subject or company. But what makes a company blog worthwhile? The answer: improved corporate image and building customer loyalty. A corporate blog should be written by multiple high level officers within the company. It should be written to include the personality of the writer. Blogs that are manicured by the corporate PR team often come across as nothing more than advertising. In the new Web 2.0 age consumers expect transparency. They like to hear about problems, decisions, and goals of a company, not just a plug for the newest product....

How Google Sees Your Site

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 01:31:00 EST

Google, like many search engines, sees a website just like a browser would. To view the code that is getting indexed by Google, simply visit your webpage, right click and select ‘view source’. This will pull up a notepad filled with the page html code. If you are not familiar with html, there is another way to see what a search engine bot sees. Just follow these steps: 1) type in a word that you know your site ranks for in Google. The most obvious search is simply your company name....

Accessibility for Search Engines

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 01:27:00 EST

We find that most new clients that have had their site built by another company fail to have their page’s code optimized correctly. The most common issue that we come across is having internal JavaScript code on the page. You may be wondering why this would be an issue. When search engine spiders crawl your site, the spider will go through all of the page code to understand what the page content is about. Typically spiders will index up to 110K of data before abandoning the page. So if the page is top heavy with irrelevant code like JavaScript or CSS style sheets, spiders will not be able to effectively decide if your page is relevant for a particular topic....

The Importance of a Good Hosting Company During Website Launch

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 07:19:00 EST

When your ready to launch a new site, it is easy to forget the little things, like search engine rankings. Enamored by the glitz of a fresh looking website and new images, often redirects are overlooked and the old site just forgotten. But Google will not forget so easily, unless properly told. The old site worked hard to migrate up the rankings, slipping past competitors and nestling on the first page. Often the old site’s content was so amazing that outsiders would even link to it. If the new site goes live without telling the server what to do with people following these inbound links, people will just get kicked to the 404 Error landing page....

New SMT Website Launched

Tue, 29 May 2007 04:21:00 EST

Sales and Marketing Technologies has launched a new website with a “2.0″ look and feel. The new design was created for easy navigation, up-to-date information, and of course for search engine marketing. Although redesigning a website is often necessary to keep up with the changing trends online, it can also have some negative effects on search engine rankings, if not done properly. It is important to remember to 301 permanent redirect all old pages to the corresponding new pages. This can help avoid the initial “dip” in the SERPs as search engine bots reindex the new pages....

Server Set up Error Can Be Costly Mistake

Fri, 11 May 2007 06:45:00 EST

Even the big boys make little mistakes that can prove to be costly. So what is the cost of a simple server set up issue for Yahoo? It could be thousands of dollars a day and the longer it goes on the more money MSN, Google and others can earn off this error. If you simply type in Overture.com, you land at MSN's and Google's search results page because the server is not pointing to www.Overture.com which is working fine. The first listing in MSN is a paid listing for Searchmarketing.Yahoo.com, so every time someone clicks on this listing Yahoo gets charged, even worse number tow is an MSN listing so now MSN gets a shot to invite the user to click on their PPC ad instead of YSM's....

Tracking Google Base Listings

Thu, 10 May 2007 01:38:00 EST

The Official Google Base Blog offered up a tip recently on how to track your Google Base listings in Google Analytics by creating a special landing page to identify that traffic as unique. While this would work, it’s not exactly a elegant solution and quite frankly outdated. Google Analytics enables you to append tracking variables to URLs that you can place as links on various inbound traffic sources, including Google Base, that will feed in data about where specifically the traffic came from right into every aspect of your Google Analytics account....

Why 1-800-FLOWERS Fails in Marketing

Tue, 01 May 2007 03:45:00 EST

There was a time when 1-800-FLOWERS was a great business name. However with today's PDA phones like the BlackJack and others, it is nothing more than a dialing disaster. What, You're kidding right? That is the original response I had when my friend Danielle told me how she hated that she could not dial a phone number with a word in it. In fact the only way she said she could dial such a number was to look at a standard or traditional phone. And until you test it for yourself, it is the response I get from all my friends until I ask them to dial 1-800-FLOWERS or any phone number with a word in it on their phone PDA and they can't....

Social Networking And Your Business

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 08:13:00 EST

Social networking sites have become big business because of the sheer traffic volume many of the larger sites are bringing in, including MySpace.com, FaceBook.com, LinkedIn.com, WetPaint.com, MerchantCircle.com, and YouTube.com. What is very appealing to many businesses is the typical demographics of these sites; young with lots of disposable income. So how, or can, your business take advantage of these social type site? First, know your target market, which you probably already do. Not all social networking sites cater to kids. Linkedin.com for example is directed towards professional networking....

YouTube Poised to Lose 25% of their Traffic

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 08:33:00 EST

From bloggingstocks, Google to add 30-sec ads to YouTube videos, blog post: “(Google) was testing the concept of offering people and companies that post videos half of the ad revenues, if they agree to allow a 30-second spot to run before the video.” From BurstMedia’s Online Video Advertising (PDF) study: “…one out of two (52.7%) say they typically continue watching video content once they encounter an advertising unit; 40.4% say they typically stop watching. Interestingly, one-quarter (27.9%) of respondents who stop watching video content once they encounter an advertisement also say they immediately leave the website....

Video SEO (VSEO)

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 01:58:00 EST

Video SEO, also known as VSEO or Video Search Engine Optimization, is a strategy to help get video found on popular video search engines such as Google Video, You Tube, AOL Video and Yahoo! Video. BurstMedia released a study, Online Video Advertising (PDF), that looked at how users consume video content and how they preceive advertising placement with in the video. 69....

Greatest Living American Google Bomb Defused

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 09:13:00 EST

With the recent Google Bomb denoting Stephen Colbert as the “Greatest Living American” we have discover that Google Bombing still exists. The ColbertNation.com homepage ranks #1 for “Greatest Living American” without any reference to the specific term or any of the individual keywords on page. We took a sample of the pages that link to the site and noted that they were directing their links to the http://www.colbertnation.com/cn/letter-from-stephen.php. This page does not contain any reference to the term Greatest Living American....

Webmasters Can Now Auto-Discover With Sitemaps

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 02:15:00 EST

An XML sitemap file is a fairly recent standard adopting by the major search engines that can help with indexing. Yahoo recently announced that the big 3 search engines, Google, Yahoo and MSN, have agreed on another standard that relates to how these sitemap feeds can be submitted. Previously they could only be submitted through some site management tools maintained by the search engines, but now your robots.txt file can be used to automate the process a little more. By adding a single line to your robots.txt file you can identify the URL location of your sitemap file for indexing....

What Can Small Business Owners Do?

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 09:31:00 EST

So, you own a small business and you don’t have any technical expertise. You are one of the least internet savvy people in your company. You hire a geek to make sure the computers all work and maybe an internet marketing company (self promotion;) to help your company site show up for some relevant searches. Well then, you’ve done your job…right? Sure, if you are happy with “just getting by”. Here is what every small business owner could (and should) be doing to take advantage of a huge market that they have no idea how to tap, i.e. the internet. Write down your thoughts and observations and insight into your industry....

Website Asset Rather Than Expense

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 01:47:00 EST

There seems to be a misconception by many businesses that a website is an expense. Of course this is true to the extent that a properly built and marketed website costs a decent amount of money, but so does a new building to facilitate your employees and day to day business. If we want to make a further analogy, the land the building sits on is also an asset. A website sits on a domain or URL (or URI) rather than land. There are expense associated with buildings; electricity, taxes, water, upkeep. There are expenses of owning a website; domain registration, hosting, upkeep. Buildings are sold for a lot of money. Websites are sold for A LOT of money....

Which Local Event Web Site Is Better? Eventful or Upcoming

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 07:58:00 EST

Local event web sites are gaining in popularity. There are several sites out there that are trying to capitalize on serving local markets by allowing users to search for and share local event information. Two companies that are at the fore front of this are Upcoming.org and Eventful.com. Basically the two sites allow the user to promote a local event for a particular city or metro area free of charge. Both are simple to use and provide an easy way to search for local community events. The biggest difference between the two is that Upcoming.org is backed by the Internet powerhouse of Yahoo. With the backing of Yahoo, Upcoming.org distribution network includes Yahoo Local....

NOYDIR Meta Tags and Weather Update

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 07:04:00 EST

Search engines such as Google and Yahoo recently began supporting a new value for your robots meta tag that would prevent them from forcing your DMOZ (Open Directory Project) title and description to be used in your search engine results. DMOZ is the source Google uses to populate it’s own browseable directory of websites and Yahoo as well will pull information from it for listings from time to time. The issues that would result from this often would be that an old outdated name or description of a site or company would appear in listings despite the site itself having newer more appropriate information....

Update To Google AdWords Algorithm - February 2007

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 06:00:00 EST

If you have a Google AdWords account, check it now. You may find their update to the algorithm has taken some of your main keywords offline, requesting that you either increase the bid amount to $10 per click or increase the ad quality. We have seen this before, but the instances were pretty isolated and often were for keywords that may have not been as focused as they could have been. But with the recent change (it seems to have happened last night), no keywords seem safe. One account I manage was very suspicious. “keyword” was fine. “keywords” was not. Both terms had the same ad tile and same bid amount....

Importance of a Good Internal Linking Structure

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 05:01:00 EST

A website’s internal linking structure is simply how each page links to other pages on the site. Seems simple enough, but surprisingly, many internet marketers overlook how important it is to search engines such as Google to properly display and name internal links. Each page on a website should link to many other pages on the site. The most common place to accomplish this is in the footer. It is out of the way, yet if users get lost on a site they will often look in the footer for the link they want. This is the same reason it is important to have a link in the footer to a sitemap that lists all pages on the site. If a website is a hotel, the links are doorways....

Online Marketing Before or After Web Site Development?

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 07:38:00 EST

A prospective client called in yesterday and said we just finished our web site and now we are looking for a marketing firm to drive in new business via search engine traffic and media buys. After asking for the domain name, I took a long pause and a deep breath... and said "You have a beautiful web site that showcases your product as a high end prestige brand but it is not built for online marketing success." "What do you mean?" I noted that it appeared that while the site had all the spit and polish a famous established brand and yours is new to the US market, it was not built to take advantage of the of what search engines use to index web sites....

What exactly is a PING and how do I do it?

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 08:56:00 EST

A “Ping” is a basic internet program that allows one to verify that a certain IP address exists and can accept requests. Pinging acts as a notifier to search engines that you have updated your RSS feed on your site. Once a search engine receives the ping they will typically schedule an immediate refresh of your feed so they have the latest content. This is the easiest way to get your blog or RSS feed indexed by the search engines. There are two easy methods to ping a search engine. You can use the REST client method or use a pinging service such as Ping-O-Matic. The REST client method consists of a specific URL that can take optional parameters such as, site URL or site name....

What’s a Title Tag? Why Does It Matter?

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 09:00:00 EST

A “title tag” is coded into each page of a site and is meant to define what a page’s content is about. It appears in the title area of a browser window and will be the default name when you go to bookmark a page. It’s defined in the underlying HTML coding of each page. Title tags are a critical part of SEO. While not as important as the content of a page in gaining rankings in the search engines, it does get heavily factored by the search engines. However, arguably its greatest importance lies in getting people to click your listing in the search results in the first place....

Benefits of RSS for Internet Marketers

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 01:58:00 EST

What is RSS? RSS, also known as Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary, is an XML-based format for distributing links to content on your web site that you would like others to use. Each area of your site that features a changing list of information should have a corresponding RSS feed. Current State of RSS RSS users can be lumped into two types of buckets, "Aware" and "Unaware". Aware RSS users are knowingly using RSS. Unaware RSS users enjoy the benefits of RSS without knowing it. Workplace Print Media (via eMarketer, subscription required) released results of a study on RSS feed usage and knowledge among US Employees. They found that only 9% know what RSS is....

Tracking Offline Media Buys

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 12:00:00 EST

Your website analytics can be used for far more than just tracking the performance of your search engine optimization efforts. Media buys these days almost always have a website address as one if not the only path for conversion. Think about how many television spots, radio reads, magazine ads, direct mail pieces, or billboards feature prominently a website address as the next step for an interested party to take. When the people making these media buys are not working with the ones tasked with tracking and analyzing your site’s traffic you are missing out on a bevy of useful performance data....

The End Of Google Bombing?

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 12:00:00 EST

So what is a Google bomb? Basically, for fun or spite, a large amount of webmasters link to a particular page using a specified word. They did this for the George W. Bush page on www.whitehouse.gov using the word failure. This in turn “pushed” relevancy to the Bush page for the word failure and up until today the page ranked #1 for it on Google. Google claims not to hand edit their results and say the change was to the algorithm, not to just one site. And since they certainly could not eliminate the relevancy of the text that links to a page, it leaves us with one obvious option; they now require the linking text to appear on the site....

Getting Local on Yahoo! Local

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 09:32:00 EST

According to a recent comScore study: 63% of US Internet users perform a local search online last July This is a 43% increase over July 2005 As Local Search starts to take off in the next couple of years, businesses need to monitor and update their business listings in the local search engines. Today we are going to take a look at Yahoo! Local. First, determine if you are indeed listed in Yahoo! Local by doing a search on your business name and the city / state that your local business resides in. If your business does not exist you will see a message stating "Sorry, no The Business Name found in or nearby The City, The State". No worries....

9 Years of Internet Marketing and Everything Continues to Change

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 03:39:00 EST

When I started Search Engine Marketing in 1998, there were 10 to 20 key players, instant search engine updates, Google was in beta, GoTo a new pay per click search engine had penny bids, banner ads were overpriced and black hat techniques of hidden text and tag manipulation were all the rage. Today there are 3 main players in the search engine world, content is king and offsite factors are a greater influence in your online success....

The Pros and Cons of Google Analytics

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:00:00 EST

Google Analytics has been on the website traffic statistics scene for just a little over a year now and looks to be in no danger of fading into obscurity. For many website owners and professional online marketing firms it has become the de facto standard for helping to manage online marketing campaigns. Much of this is due to the depth of data and the ability to cross reference categories of information and really drill down to specifics on the who, what and when of your site’s visitors....

A Simple Guide to Sitemaps. Or Is That Site Maps?

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 12:00:00 EST

Most people are familiar with the term "site map", but how does it differ from "sitemap? Besides the obvious spelling, these two terms have different meanings. A site map is a collection of plain text links to all of the pages on your website. A sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs for a site in addition to providing metadata about each of those URLs. Site Map Site maps are standard on most websites and are most commonly linked to in the footer section of the site. By providing a site map, you will be providing a resource for you site visitor who can not find the site information they are looking for....

Ranking for Long String Keywords

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 12:00:00 EST

When conversations begin about converting website visitors to sales, it will generally come up that “we need to rank for this term”. While “this term” may be very high demand, it may not be the converter you hope or think it is. Here is a brief summary of an internet users experience when buying. Research. This is, in most cases, where users start. If I wanted a new air filter for my house, I may search for home air filters. Take note of the top 5 listings (air-purifier-home.com, theairfilterstore.com, airpurifiers.com, ushomefilter.com, 3m.com). I then browse these listings and learn about my options for air filters....

Google Supplemental Results

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 12:00:00 EST

You may have heard about the Google “Sandbox” while surfing the web for internet marketing, seo, sem, or other related terms. Although this is a heavily debated topic I will throw my understanding into the ring. Google doesn’t trust new sites. This means they don’t want to show sites in their search engine results (at least not for high demand terms) that: 1) Just registered their domains….brand new sites 2) Have had no links from other sites pointed to them There is no rule about how long Google “punishes” a site for being new but it is related to how quickly your site gains links and who these links are from....

Getting Local on Google

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 02:10:00 EST

As local search continues to grow and mature, businesses need to be aware of getting their business listed in Google Local. Google offers an easy way to get listed through their “Local Business Center“. There is a step-by-step form to fill out and once the form has been submitted you have a choice of either requesting them to call you or send you a postcard so they can verify your address. Once the address is verified your done. You also benefit by having a expandable Google map of your location listed with your search result listing....

Promoting Your RSS Feed Through Auto Discovery

Wed, 27 Dec 2006 08:48:00 EST

RSS Feed Auto Discovery is a technique that allows browsers and other software to discover your site’s RSS Feed automatically. RSS Auto Discovery is now supported by all of the major browsers (IE 7, FireFox, Apple Safari, Opera…). So take the time now to implement the small snippet of code to allow your site’s RSS feed to be discovered. You maybe asking how do you do this to your own site… it is simple. Add this html code inbetween the HEAD tags:

Using NOODP Meta Tag

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 10:36:00 EST

What exactly is the NOODP meta tag? It is a meta tag that tells MSN and Google not to display your site’s OPD directory title in the search results. Google went a step further and will not display the description either. This can have a hugh effect on your click-through-rate since now you are in control of how your page title and description show up in Google and MSN. You can add to your source code. If you want to just exclude MSN use if you just want to exclude Google use ....

Email Experience Council Releases Preliminary Survey Results

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 12:00:00 EST

The Email Experience Council ( EEC ) released some preliminary results from their recent Deliverability Roundtable survey. The ECC is going to use this data to set some standards in the areas of bounce management and more. Here are some of those results: 20% of respondents are using a combination of internal email systems and ESPs with limited, to no coordination between the two platforms. 65% of respondents are not tracking whether their email is being delivered to the inbox or spam folder. 10% of respondents admit that they are not removing bouncebacks (hard or soft) from their list. They hope to have the final results out in a few weeks....

Yahoo Reveals New Search Marketing Blog

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 12:00:00 EST

Yahoo officially launched their new Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog. Looks to be a customer facing blog that is going to allow a two-way interaction on Yahoo digital products. There is also a blogroll for their other Yahoo company blogs....

Yahoo Site Explorer

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 12:00:00 EST

The Yahoo! Site Explorer is a great tool for analyzing the depth of your crawl in Yahoo!’s search index. If anything, it’s good to see search engines taking an active role in helping marketers do their thing. Instead of just assuming spam and junk listings are the only goal of site promoters, this kind of stuff sends a positive signal that the role of search engine promotion is being recognized and the relationship between search engine and marketers is taking a much less adversarial tone....

ModRewrite for Apache and IIS

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 12:00:00 EST

There’s a lot of ModRewrite tutorials out there, but I always had a hard time finding a pretty clear cut explanation for the most common uses: redirecting and making search engine friendly URLs out of query string dynamic ones. Finding a simple laid out example was always a bear as well. A friend recently asked me for a rundown on using ModRewrite for both Apach and IIS servers and I wrote out a pretty good email explanation and thought, hey, perfect blog post. So here goes: “Rewrite” is a misleading term, nothing it really getting rewritten so to speak. What is happening is you are putting a matching statement first and then what content to serve....

Leveraging Behavioral Targeting for Your Email Marketing

Fri, 01 Sep 2006 12:00:00 EST

Jeff Daniels, JupiterResearch, released a new report called, “The Connected Click-Through“. The report looked at how email marketers are using their web analytics program to imporve their behavioral targeting. The report found: 15% actively use Web sile click stream behavior as an audience segmentation attribute 21% of marketers are planning to implement this kind of behavioral targeting in the next 12 months The report also notes that there are some obstacles in implementing behavioral study into email marketing....

RSS- The Email Marketing Killer

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 12:00:00 EST

Derek Harding, clickz.com, released a new article, "RSS: The E-mail Marketing Killer?". Derek explains how he is skeptical that RSS is an alternative to email for mass marketing. I agree with him that RSS has not matured enough for mass marketing. But I definitely see that RSS can be used for niche marketing in its current form. Derek also states, "It's not useful or effective to take a quarterly newsletter or monthly promotional e-mail and publish it via RSS for the mass market." By no means would you want to stop emailing and only offer a RSS feed. You want to compliment your email marketing by putting RSS into your marketing mix....

Top Social Bookmark Sites List

Sat, 05 Aug 2006 12:00:00 EST

I was curious as to which social bookmarking sites were the most popular. I took the list of social bookmark sites from TopRank Social Bookmark Link Creator and plug them into Alexa Traffic Rank to see. Digg - 100 Del.icio.us - 147 Technorati - 247 Reddit - 1411 Furl - 2357 BlinkList - 4002 Spurl - 9870 Magnolia - 11536 Blogmarks - 12538 Shadows - 15021 Simpy - 16669 Rawsugar - 22406 Onlywire - 23680 Wink - 29121 Connetea - 29538 Blinkbits - 30773 Netvouz - 30958 Gravee - 39647 Citeulike - 41924 Scuttle - 45341 Linkagogo - 49738 Feedmelinks - 54967 de.lirio....

Using Flash in Email Newsletters

Sun, 30 Jul 2006 12:00:00 EST

In ChiefMarketers latest newsletter, E-Centric, they have a new article, "Tips for Dealing with Tough E-Zine Challenges". The article had a good list of email marketing basics, until I got to the end. The last bullet point was: “Only Outlook can accept a Flash e-mail, so do not use it across all e-mail clients." This bullet point peaked my interest because I just had a co-worker ask me about embedding Flash into an email. I did a little research on using Flash in email newsletters. I found a great resource at Campaign Monitor blog. They did a thorough test on the major PC, Mac and web-based email environments. Campaign Monitor found that support for Flash was only found in Mac Mail....

Test Shows Specific Subject Lines Increase Conversion

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 12:00:00 EST

The Marketing Experiments Journal released their latest findings in regards to their latest email subject line split test. The test found that the more specific the offer is in an email subject line the higher the conversion rate. The article also points to three factors that have a significant effect on open rates, click through rates and final conversion rates....

How Critical is it to Personalize the Email Subject Line?

Tue, 01 Jan 1980 12:00:00 EST

Melinda Krueger, The E-mail Diva over at Media Post, answers a question about how critical is it to personalize the email subject line. Melinda points to some testing that she has done concerning this topic. Melinda provides some interesting stats that back up the notion that personalizing the subject line affects open rates, click through rates and conversion rates. One reader of the Emial Insider blog ask how old the test results were. Melinda points out that the data was a year or more old. I believe if your are not personalizing at least the subject line of your emails you are missing an opportunity to increase your open rates, click through rates and even your conversion rates....

Getting Connections on LinkedIn (Continued)

Tue, 01 Jan 1980 12:00:00 EST

I sent out 89 invitations in the first shot. The LinkedIn system is very nice. It shows you if the invitation is undeliverable. A great way to clean up your list. I had to follow up on a few and get updated email addresses. After scaring up a few more email addresses, the total was up to 95 invitations out. The next day, I got a bunch of calls and emails asking... "What is this?" and "Did you really send this to me?" I think after I explained all but one did set up a LinkedIn account. Here is what I sent out if they emailed me... Greetings! It is an online tool that helps you build an easy to access network. Done right, it helps you expand the number of people you have access to....

Getting Connections On LinkedIn

Tue, 01 Jan 1980 12:00:00 EST

After loading my profile, I needed some connections. Connections are people who have a LinkedIn account and agree to connect to you. How you get people to agree to connect is you send out an invitation. In the invitation, you ask if they will link to you. It is that simple. You send invitations out from LinkedIn. Just go to the button at the top that says "Expand Your Network." Who should you link to? Typically, you send invitations to friends, colleagues, business contacts, family members, etc. I decided for me I wouldn't put in just anyone. I didn't want people I barely know. Though I did put in one like that as a test. I didn't want to be seen as a "LinkHo....

Getting Started With LinkedIn

Tue, 01 Jan 1980 12:00:00 EST

When I first logged in to LinkedIn didn’t seem like much is there. It doesn’t really tell you what to do or why. I think they do that so it doesn’t overwhelm you. The first thing I did is set up my profile. It is easy. Where you went to school, your job history, stuff like that. Get out your latest resume and you should pretty much have everything you need at your finger tips. Once this info is in the next step is to put in your contacts....

The LinkedIn Experiment

Tue, 01 Jan 1980 12:00:00 EST

Greetings! This is Dave Larson President of Sales & Marketing Technologies. I have been hearing for a while now the power of the social networking sites. I have seen my sons using MySpace. I heard of the guy being offered $1 billion for FaceBook and turning it down. Then one of my friends asked me to connect to him using LinkedIn. I had heard of LinkedIn, however, I didn’t know anything about it. Since he was a friend, it was free, I thought… Why not? I signed up. I looked around a bit and left. My account sat there for a couple of weeks. It didn’t seem important. Though I was still curious what everyone was seeing in these things....

LinkedIn Experiment Update

Tue, 01 Jan 1980 12:00:00 EST

Just the quick update on the LinkedIn Experiment. I am now up to 89 1st Tier direct connections, 15,100+ 2nd Tier connections and a total network of 1,483,300. Not bad for someone not very active. LinkedIn has added some new features to their service. You can do Twitter-like updates and they now have an iPhone app for Mobile updates. I guess the folks at LinkedIn realized they needed to do something to make it more interactive. Otherwise, people have no real reason to return except to update their resume....

The Forgotten Power of Internal Linking

Tue, 01 Jan 1980 12:00:00 EST

Did you know that Google says there are hundreds of factors that go into getting your site to rank for targeted keywords? It can be overwhelming to think about. That’s why many of our clients came to us in the first place and are now prospering from that choice. There have been many instances where a client would search "SEO" or "Rank #1 on Google" and come back to us saying, “Build me links so I can rank for keyword!” We hear that all the time, but like I stated above, there are hundreds of factors that go into ranking and I’m here to talk about one that is overlooked often: Internet Linking....

LinkedIn Experiment Final Update

Tue, 01 Jan 1980 12:00:00 EST

The final update on Dave's LinkedIn Experiment. It is almost 3 years to the day that I started this experiment. I am now up to 122 (1st Tier) direct connections, 33,400+ 2nd Tier connections and a total network of 2,869,000. I have been putting in more effort on LinkedIn lately. I have been trying to do more business related updates for the folks following me, finding more interesting stuff to put on my LinkedIn page, updating my Amazon reading list and participating in a few groups like eMarketer Association Network. The bottom line is it isn't hard to get start using a social network. It does take time to keep it up and make it more interesting....

Why You Need Analytics On Your Website

Tue, 01 Jan 1980 12:00:00 EST

From day one, you need to make sure your web hosting provider sets up website analytics for your website. Web Analytics is software that will track information about visitors to your website. Without it, you are “flying blind” you have no idea how many visitors you have or where they came from. With the right analytics program you can tell things like... how long visitors are staying on your site, what web pages they are visiting, how long they are staying on your website, where the website traffic came from and much, much more. Insist the hosting company has analytics on your site or find another host provider....