We Do Search Engine Optimization.

In December 2008 Dell Outlet announced that it had generated $1 million through their twitter account. Dell posted computer specials and closeout deals to its Twitter feed and grabbed the attention of the web.

In the summer of 2008 Barack Obama announced his choice of vice president through a tweet.

What Twitter can do for your business

• Building Community— creating a strong community of followers that
  ultimately help drive business objectives and bring in new customers
• Customer Service— using Twitter to successfully engage with customers
  needing help
• Selling— driving online and offline sales by using Twitter to post promotions,
  discounts and offers
• Prospecting— creating demand and pinpointing potential customers needing
  the type of solution your product offers
• Branding & Awareness— employing Twitter in creative ways to increase
  awareness around a product, person (celebrity) or business
• Fundraising — spread the word about important causes

From a recent poll of Twitter marketers 83 percent said that they expect
their company’s use of Twitter to increase over the upcoming six months, 45 percent of respondents said that they saw Twitter as “somewhat important” to their business and 20 percent saw it as “extremely important.”

Twitter ranks second to blogs as the social media tool that delivers the most value.

Corporate Twitterers

1. Branding and awareness was the most sought after use at 84%
2. networking 78%
3. community-building 77%
4. Brand-reputation management was fourth with 51%
5. customer service 44%
6. prospecting 30%
7. Direct Selling 20%
8. use a corporate Twitter account to promote their business 36%
9. use their personal accounts 30%

One of the best uses I have found is to get feedback and recommendations. I can tweet a very specific question and receive several detailed responses in less than 1 hour. Getting information and answers to complex problems makes this an invaluable communication tool for me.

Yahoo has a huge network of content websites, but they are ineffectively utilizing these website properties. Below is a good article on Yahoo real estate, but if you want to use Yahoo Buzz or Mybloglog you are out of luck.

Yahoo has spend tens of millions of dollars buying, maintaining, and improving these social media features but they don’t even use them on their own web properties. There is only a small link to Delicious.com bookmarks, which I only saw on my third visit to this site.

And Yahoo is completely ignoring the hottest social website on the internet today: Twitter.

Yahoo really need to integrate its disparate web properties, I have a feeling they are leaving millions of dollars of revenue on the table by not tightly integrating their content and social tools.

realestate.yahoo.com/info/experts/it-pays-to-research-homes-history

Don’t be like Yahoo – all content you create should have the social bookmarking tools most used by your site visitors.

A large domain name registrar has been an innovator of low cost domain name registration and web hosting services for over a decade, and they are always hunting for business.

How do they want to grow in the competitive web hosting marketplace? By using search engine optimization of course!

Unfortunately this SEO experience is not seamless, and is as inconspicuous as a vegan driving a Hummer.

This is my favorite part. If you look at the source code, this is in the footer.

table id=”divSEOContainer”

If you are trying to trick Google, at least try to make them work. Real search engine optimization is not adding 5 paragraphs of keyword laden text to the footer of your website.

Real SEO is adding valuable information that is designed to help your users make an informed decision.

A tip when dealing with credit card companies: always use the telephone, don’t use email. Email is quick and easy but also offers the credit card firm an easy way to deny you. I wouldn’t be surprised if they automatically denied all requests sent via email.

I had a questionable service fee charged to my credit card account and wished to get it removed. Below is the response I received from their online secure messaging system

Dear Cayley Vos,

Thank you for contacting us about the fee that was assessed to your Advanta account.

Payments received any time after the due date indicated on your billing statement are late. We must receive your payment on or before your due date to avoid assessing a late fee.

We sent you a statement on 04/14/09 showing a payment due date of 05/04/09…. a $39 late fee was billed to your account. We are unable to adjust the late fee.

We provide free account management at www.advanta.com. By using our Web site, you can make instant payments in a safe and secure environment. If you choose to mail your payment, please send it 7 to 10 business days before the due date to increase the likelihood that the payment will be received on time.

We appreciate the opportunity to serve you and your business needs. If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to contact our Customer Service Center. You can visit us online 24 hours a day at www.advanta.com or call us toll free at (800) 705-7255, Monday – Friday 8:00 am to 8:00 pm and Saturday 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Eastern Time.

Shelly R.
Account Manager
Advanta

Not satisfied with this, I called customer service the next day and got the charge removed in 5 minutes.

Below is the response after having called them:

Dear CAYLEY C VOS,

Thank you for contacting us about the Late Fee that recently appeared on your Advanta BusinessCard statement.

We removed the $39.00 charge from your account. Your next billing statement will show that amount as a credit.

Personal service is just one of the many benefits that come with your Advanta BusinessCard. We are committed to providing the service you deserve as you pursue your unique business goals.

Sincerely,

Leslie E.
VP, Customer Service

Moral: always call your credit card or financial services company to get the best service.

I just received a link request email for a great offer linking to Intel. I thought I misread the company name, but it is indeed the behemoth computer chip manufacturer.

This is a really low budget way for Intel to go about getting more links, and I thought they could be a little creative and try to use some Digg spam bait to get more links. Intel just got hit with a 1.45 billion dollar fine from the EU so they must have had to slash their search engine optimization budget.

The email is below:

Software 3 Way- Link Partner Proposal ! http://sx.intel.com

Dear Webmaster,

My name is ANDY, marketing manager of sx.intel.com website. I really liked your site So, I thought why not we do link exchange ?

Due to the possible harming nature of too many reciprocal links we suggest non reciprocal links. You can link to us from your site and we will link back from another of our sites.

I can add your link here ::
http://www.netsalad.com ( Any Inner Page )
OR
http://www.boogiedada.com/ ( PR 1 Content Rich).

If you are interested, please reply to this email and I will be happy to discuss our link exchange requirements.
Please add my site information under any Quality Inner Page. Here the our site details:

Link Title: business software
Link Url: http://sx.intel.com
Link Description: Business Software Solutions with Intel’s Software Download Store, Special prices, Featured software downloads with superb discounts.

Again, awesome site!

Sincerely,

ANDY
sx.intel.com

I wonder how this 3 way link strategy is working for this multi billion dollar company. The top backlink listed is from HV Web Directory :: SEO Friendly Web Directory.

Intel should be proud of the money they are saving from having axed their online marketing department.

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=linkdomain:sx.intel.com%20-site:sx.intel.com&n=100

Using this small string, you can link to any frame of a YouTube video. Just append a 7 character query string to the end of a YT URL and you’re done.

This is a great way to skip unnecessary content, link to more meaningful and relevant content while reducing unwanted advertisements.

Code for deeplinking to Youtube Videos:

#t=1m5s

Here is a live example of a link with the location code included

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifXRkA8Y34o#t=1m5s

Top 10 lists will always gather attention. Before David Letterman, Malcom Forbes, and the early European media publishers, lists thrived.

It is very easy to scan lists, which makes them ideal for the web. Also, people love to see things ranked and ordered. Structured information is best suited for our brains.

Below is an excellent example of a top-x list: timely, controversial, ubiquitous (if you are reading this you are online)

Here are Media Metrix’s top 15 Web properties from April 1999. Monthly unique visitors rounded to the nearest million.

1. AOL (46 million unique visitors) Yes the newbie network really was #1 in 1999.

2. Microsoft (32 million unique visitors) Being a big monopoly has its advantages online.
3. Yahoo (31 million unique visitors) started out as a human edited directory.
4. Lycos (29 million unique visitors): Sold more often than a fruitcake at Christmas.
5. Go Network (21 million unique visitors): Disney’s star crossed attempt to dethrone Yahoo
6. GeoCities (19 million unique visitors). animated gif hosting for the masses.
7. The Excite Network (17 million unique visitors): Once-mighty Excite collapsed years ago, but its site remains in business as part of Mindspark, a minor outpost of the IAC empire. IAC controls the Ask Network, which is the sixth largest Web property with 73 million unique visitors.
8. Time Warner Online (13 million unique visitors): Not counting AOL, which it owns today, 2009’s Time Warner network is the 33rd largest Web property, with 25 million unique visitors.
9. Blue Mountain Arts (12 million unique visitors). famous for selling itself for nearly 1 billion dollars while earning nearly zero revenue giving away digital goods.
10. AltaVista (11 million unique visitors): The original hot search engine is now a sad front end for Yahoo Search, and therefore presumably rolled up into Yahoo’s ComScore numbers.
11. Amazon.com (10 million unique visitors) remember when they only sold books?
12. Xoom.com (9 million unique visitors) a miniature empire of Web services, including free hosting, clip-art downloads, and psudo-social services.
13. Snap (9 million unique visitors): CNet’s attempt to build a Yahoo-like portal, then became a joint venture with NBC.
14. Real Networks (8 million unique visitors): The online media company with ubiquitous media player adware software.
15. Cnet (8 million unique visitors): tech site network was bought by NBC

The new additions for 2009

1. Google (151 million unique visitors): The super simple search system and do no evil philosophy has led Google to become a ruthless competitor, leaving hundreds of unfortunate web properties in the deadpool.
2. Fox Interactive (85 million unique visitors): MySpace is the heart of this online empire, but it has arrhythmia at the moment.
3. eBay (70 million unique visitors): How many more online garage sales do people need?
4. Wikimedia Network (61 million unique visitors): RIP Encyclopedia Britannica, Encarta, World Book Encycopedia – welcome to collective user sourced facts.
5. Facebook (61 million unique visitors). Could potentially be the site with the longest user engagement.
6. Apple (53 million unique visitors). sneaking iTunes in through the backdoor of the record labels was a genious move.
7. Glam Network (52 million unique visitors). Ad network of more than 500 independent pop culture sites. Gossip and fashion FTW, we might as well paint the Tubes pink.
8. Turner Network (47 million unique visitors): Online news is hot, no matter what Sam Zell says.
9. Viacom Digital (47 million unique visitors): MTV is the standout

The top 15 Websites in 2009 are Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, Fox, Ask, eBay, Wikimedia, Facebook, Amazon, CBS Interactive, Apple, Glam, Turner, and Viacom. Which ones will still be strong in 2019, and which will be in the deadpool?

Read more details about the top 15 web properties at
technologizer.

Google is still using the domain name as a primary ranking factor. With a good domain name, rankings are nearly guaranteed.

Below is an example of a niche retail site, but if you want to rank for “Keyword Keyword” all you need to do is purchase www.KeywordKeyword.com and you will have no problems getting to the first page.

In this example, if you do a search for beach towels several sites show up in the Google SERP’s

http://www.google.com/search?q=beach+towels

The #9 result is a single page redirect site, that doesn’t mention the keyword phrase ANYWHERE on the page!

The site ranks for the fairly competitive keyword phrase “beach towels” while breaking every search engine optimization rule available. With some simple SEO this site could rank #1, and beat out target.com

All they did was spend a few thousand dollars on a premium domain name, and the rankings come with no effort.

Note to all SEO’s and entrepreneurs: invest the extra money on your domain name and you will be duly rewarded, premium domain names will increase in value like real estate.