Learn Internet Marketing Through Video

If you’re wondering how search engine optimization works and everything that goes with it you may want to explore IMBroadcast.com. Everyone learns differently, whether it be through reading text, illustration, audio and video. IMBroadcast is a site where you can upload videos about SEO, link building and other internet marketing strategies that other internet marketers are kind enough to share. The site is in its beginning stages so it can only grow from where it is now. I think this site is a great way to separate videos on a specific topic and that topic only, since it allows someone that wants to learn internet marketing all explore all of the aspects that come with it. I think that video tutorials give a better understanding than information written on a blog or resource website because not only can you hear a voice but you can also visualize making it easier to understand.

Here's a video from the IMBroadcast site about Optimizing for Google.

Are You Voting For The Right Person?

Still unsure of who to vote for? These two tools may help you decide.

Glassbooth.org has created a great tool to help you see if your beliefs are those of the candidate you are voting for. After rating issues that are important to you, it will generate a short quiz for you to take. The results show you which candidate you are more aligned with and it gives you explanations to the politicians stands.

Anther helpful tool has been created by The Political Compass. This is a little more demanding of time, but still worth looking at and seeing with who you align thoughts with.

Both of these will 100% make you think about your vote on November 4th. No matter who you vote for, just make sure you vote!

Economic Climate Strikes Online Retailers

Due to increased consumer pessimism toward the economy in the wake of the recent economic meltdown, online retailers are beginning to feel the effects with a steady decline in visits. Overall traffic to retail sites has shown decline for the past eight weeks in a row with no signs of change.

The biggest hit came to online music retailers, dropping 21 percent in traffic this week. The second biggest decline in traffic was in computer retail sites, followed by ticketing sites and toys. This foreshadows a dismal holiday season for all retailers, both online and offline. Offline sales declines can be predicted based on this online traffic decrease because online research strongly influences offline purchases.

Google Web History

When you create a Google Account, you're given the option to enable Web History. You know that great website you saw online and now can't find? With Web History, you can:

• View and manage your web activity.
  With Web History, you can view and search across the full text of the pages you've visited, including Google searches, web pages, images, videos and news stories.
• Get the search results most relevant to you.
  Web History helps deliver more personalized search results based on the things you've searched for on Google and the sites you've visited.
• Follow interesting trends in your web activity.
  Which sites do you visit frequently? How many searches did you do between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.?
  

Your web history is stored on Google servers, which means that you can view and manage it from any computer.

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The importance of website content?

Hello everyone, I am new at Ten Golden Rules! - and I will be blogging about my favorite subject; internet marketing. This week while I was driving I kept thinking why google and other search engines emphasize on content? We all know that search engines "reward" websites if there is a constant flow of new content on a site, but why? What is the reason behind this? If we take a look at any news website, look at their page rank, in most cases is always a high number.
In a snapshot, all internet marketers know the importance of content - titles including keywords, meta descriptions and meta keywords (although meta keywords are not that important now), body copy, etc. - okay, we know all these basics but the reason why search engines "reward" websites for content is because at the end of the day everything comes down to business, right? - and search engines need to make money. If they do not have all of us creating content on the web where will they place advertisement? They need us to give them content to be profitable and keep their business growing.
Another example I always think about is why google (you'll be hearing a lot of "google" from me) gives away so many free tools, because they are nice? And how can we learn from this idea and incorporate it on our own website? In addition, I will also be covering the list of free google tools in my next couple posts - so come back because there is always one cool tool you might not know...

Blogger Outreach 101

Blogger outreach can be a useful way to build links for a website, especially if you have a physical product to offer.

Many product review blogs will post an entire entry about your product (including a link) if you send them a free sample. Even blogs which normally do not offer product reviews may consider reviewing your product if it is highly relevant to their normal content.

However, one must be familiar with the blog and the blogger before reaching out or requesting a product review. Take into consideration the blogger's age, sex and interests before contacting them. Scroll through the blog's last few posts and read the About and Contact pages thoroughly. If the blogger specifically says they do not want to be contacted for PR or Marketing purposes or that they do not give product reviews, respect their wishes.

Google Helps You Find Out Where You Can Vote

This is my first election voting in Florida and after not receiving my voters registration card, I ended up calling the Supervisor of Elections and was happy to hear that I was in the system and registered to vote. The person I spoke with even told me my voting location.

Google Maps launched a US Voter Info site to help people who are not sure where their voting location is based on where they live. The site was developed in order to increase voter participation and helped by many state and local election officials, the League of Women Voters, Pew Charitable Trusts and the Voting Information Project.

I checked if the voting location the person had told me on the phone was indeed correct and it was, offering me directions, information to Vote by Mail and on Election Day.

So if you’re registered to vote, find out exactly where you have to go and how to get there.

Web Surfing Stimulates Your Brain

A recent University of California at Los Angeles study shows the effects of web surfing on brain activity. In an attempt to refute claims that Internet leads to shorter attention spans and makes people dumber, researchers tested twenty-four volunteers between the ages of 55 and 76 with MRI scans while the participants were given various Web searching tasks and book reading tasks.

The participants were broken into two groups - experienced Web surfers and those with no Web searching experience.

While both groups showed similar levels of brain activity during the book reading tasks, the experienced web surfers showed a significant amount more brain activity while performing Internet searches, much more than while reading a book.

What this means…Internet surfing doesn’t make people stupid. Rather, it triggers brain centers that control decision making and complex reasoning, which can actually help older people fight senility.

Tmobile launched first Android Phone The G1

The T-Mobile G1 with Google is the first commercially available phone to run on the 'Android' operating system, which empowers developers with tools to create and offer consumers applications that add value to their lives. This is one of many initiatives T-Mobile is working on to lead the industry in bringing real innovation to wireless customers.

The G1 starts out looking like a somewhat chunky (4.6" x 2.1" x .62") PDA-phone, topped by a big 320x480 touch screen. The touch screen is wonderfully quick and responsive. Below the screen are five buttons and a small, slightly slippery track ball. Slide the screen to the right and turn the device 90 degrees, though, and it reveals a full QWERTY keyboard of slightly rubbery, nicely separated keys. There's a miniUSB charging port on the bottom, and a MicroSD memory card slips into a difficult-to-open slot to the right of the keyboard. (The phone comes with a 1GB card.) On the back, there's a 3-megapixel still camera.The G1 works on T-Mobile's 3G network, on foreign 3G networks, and on GSM EDGE networks all over the world, including in the US.


The G1 also has Wi-Fi, though you can't use it for phone calls. We got 600-700 kbps on a speed test Web site using T-Mobile's 3G connection, which is a decent speed. You won't be able to use the G1 as a 3G modem for your PC, T-Mobile execs said at the G1's launch.

Some features of the G1 are:

480 x 320 resolution HVGA display

3G connectivity

GPS support

3.1 megapixel camera

Max. 8GB memory

5 hours talktime

130 hours standby time

I found this video on YouTube, enjoy

Social Media Overload : Tips on Being Successful with Social Media

Many of us, me included has dealt with information overload at some point, and because the internet is limitless, the creation of social media sites are always popping up. I’m sure a lot of the social media fanatics out there try out every social media site that comes up, but at some point there is always a feeling of being overwhelmed. If we spent all day on social networking sites, we’d never get anything done.

Here are a few tips to avoid social media overload.

1. Pick social media sites that you find that benefit you. Are you trying to keep in touch with friends who live all over the world? Then you’ll probably enjoy Facebook or MySpace. Like to express what’s on your mind? Maybe you’ll enjoy Twitter. Do you like to read about the latest news on the Internet? Then you may like Digg.

2. It’s ok to try but not ‘buy.’ You may enjoy Plurk, Pownce or Brightkite, but is it interfering with your life? If you don’t want to feel out of the loop then don’t give yourself more than 5 minutes on each site.

3. Think about why you joined these social networks in the first place? Did you sign up because you want to be the first to know? Or is it useful to your everyday life? Not everyone is the same and it’s ok if you don’t have a Facebook account if you know that you won’t use it. Those who are looking for you will eventually find you.

Cheapest Gas Prices

If you’re looking for cheap gas, as I’m sure most of us are, you need to check out at Yahoo!’s new tool. When you type in “gas prices” and your zip code you’ll be shown a map with prices in the area. I’ve used this now several times and the prices have been exactly what’s been posted. The other search engines only list local gas stations without showing you prices.

Importance of HTML Title-tag:

The title tag is very important in terms of search engine visibility because it servers multiple functions:

• Title-tag is considered primary text, meaning that all the search engines index this text an use it to determine relevancy.
• Title-tag is the first text shown in individual lstings on search results pages.
• Title-tag is the text shown in Bookmarks and Favorites.

All the search engines consider title-tag text when calculating relevancy. A good Title for your website should contain 10 words or 60 characters. Your website Title also should contain your most important keyword phrases and accurately reflect the content of your Web pages and finally have to be unique for each page.

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Online Advertising Holding Strong through Meltdown

In this tough economic time, safe investment options are scarce. Dwindling revenues across the board are resulting in a decrease in spending for most businesses. Online ad sales, however, continue to look promising, showing double-digit growth for the first half of the year, compared to the first half of 2007. The first half of 2008, according to data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers, shows a 15.2% online ad growth rate. The growth includes spending on search, display (banners), rich media, and email advertising.

It is actually possible that online advertising can benefit from the current economic uncertainty. Marketers are forced to tighten up and focus their efforts on a medium that is both measurable and effective so they know that their ad spending is creating real revenue. Since online advertising provides both measurability and effectiveness, many advertisers are likely to pull the brakes on traditional marketing strategies and spend more on internet marketing.

This is not to say that online advertising and ecommerce are completely safe from economic downfall, as no business really is. The industry is, however, showing much more promise than most industries.

How to OWN a SERP

Recently a client asked me why we are recommending they create a blog, a Wikipedia page, a Google Knol, and a YouTube channel with videos. They couldn't understand what one had to do with the other. We often refer to the combination of these tactics as Reputation Management. And while we find it essential to control as much of the search engine results page (SERP) for a client for messaging reasons, we also like the fact that it just plain allows an opportunity to own as much of the real estate on a SERP as possible.

But since most search engines only allow up to 2 links from a single domain, you must create optimized presence in a variety of domains in order to do that. With strategic website choices (like those I mentioned above) and appropriate tagging and optimization, a client can achieve many slots in a SERP, even for competitive phrases. If done well, a client can potentially own all 10 first page results.

Woz: Ipod will die?

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (Woz) warns that the iPod's days are numbered in an interview with UK newspaper, the Telegraph.

"The iPod has sort of lived a long life at number one. Things like, that if you look back to transistor radios and Walkmans, they kind of die out after a while", Wozniak warned.

"It's kind of like everyone has got one or two or three. You get to a point when they are on display everywhere, they get real cheap and they are not selling as much," he added.  

One way around this inevitable consequence of change may be to slow down, Wozniak advised: "It is time for the whole computer industry to maybe have a bit of a slowdown. For twenty years we have been in this replacement and upgrade market," he said.

Woz was also critical of Apple's tight control over iPhone development, warning, "Consumers aren't getting all they want when companies are very proprietary and lock their products down. I would like to write some more powerful apps than what you're allowed." 

Source:  9 to 5 mac

Get an Android Phone Now!

T-Mobile’s G1 smartphone, with a tentative release date of October 22, may be attainable much sooner if you have the right connections. The phone, which is the first to utilize Google’s Android interface, boasts features such as Wi-Fi, a QWERTY keyboard, a touch screen, and support for third-party applications.



Of course top dogs like Larry Paige have been showing off their new Android phones, but a number of lower-level Google employees have recently been spotted tinkering with the Android phone too. Apparently, the G1s are quickly making their way around the Google hierarchy.

So if you want to get your hands on the next generation smartphone, get out your black book and look for a Google employee to call.

Free Internet Marketing Tools featured in a short Snippet of eBay Live Presentation

eBay Live 2008 Chicago Presentation Video featuring Free Internet Marketing Tools

- Bounce Rate Calculation
- Google Trends
- Landing Pages and Conversion Strategies
- Optimizer
- Google Analytics
- Google Page Rank
- SEO Quake

Big thank you to Drew McGriffin!