No Sex, No Friends, Just Give Us The Web

The Americans and American culture is completely turning before our eyes. With more and more Americans today surfing the web and practicially to the point of obession. It's so far that many Americans feel that they can not go a weekend with out the web or to even try to take the cell phone away for the weekend.

In a recent survey it was stated that one in three Americans would rather giving up friends and sex for the Web. That's right SEX, people are giving up SEX to spend time on the web.



"People told us how anxious, isolated and bored they felt when they are forced off line," said Ann Mack, director of trend spotting at JWT, which conducted the survey to see how technology was changing people's behavior.

Some would go on to say, "They felt disconnected from the world, from their friends and family."

Where or what does this really say about our culture and society today?

Americans Saving Too Little These Days And Forever

Americans don't save

In 2005, Americans saved -0.5% of their money in their banking accounts; in 2006, Americans saved -1.0 % of their money in banks. In previous years, the only time they saved less than that was 1933, with -1.5%. As you may know, America was in the Great Depression that year.

Thanks to Funny Statistics for this funny statistic and quality information and the sad fact is it's true!

Here Is An Revolutionary Idea

So while surfing the web today, it was very interesting to continue to see this word "revolutionary" being tossed around through a few different avenues. Let's just take for starters the meaning of revolutionary - 1 a: of, relating to, or constituting a revolution <revolutionary war> b: tending to or promoting revolution revolutionary party> c: constituting or bringing about a major or fundamental change <revolutionary styling> revolutionary new product>2capitalized : of or relating to the American Revolution or to the period in which it occurred.

Though, the whole interesting part about this word revolutionary is that I found it quickly used in two popular blogs just in the past few days. The most interesting fact of the matter is that in one particular blog it continues to stress the value and how important words are and can be in headlines and more. In this blog "Is Hype Good?", James Brausch continues to stress words that are the most valuable. You would not believe what the highest valued word come about to be....that's right it was "revolutionary" scoring the second highest at 47, while the only higher scoring valued word was Paradigm-shifting at 72. We can not forget to that the word "incredible" was tied with "revolutionary" at 47.

So what does all this mean? Well, let's look at my second example. While visiting JohnChow.com, one of it his latest blog posts is Are These Wordpress Themes Really Revolutionary? and there is that word "revolutionary" again. To much of a suprise this word revolutionary seems to have a theme going around on the web.

It seems that many people are using this word "revoluationary" to levelage and gain more attention to there blogs, products, and posts. So maybe next time you think about making a new product, service, or something. Make sure it's a revolutionary idea, product, etc!

Amazing SEO News That Covers It ALL

SEO News, keep yourself up to date on all the SEO news globally, breaking news, and so much more.

* AP Breaking News
News from one of the world wide leaders in breaking news. AP has been called the source of all daily news. Most big tech news outlets use delayed AP news.
Interface: 4 of 5 (The stories are neatly arranged with titles very easy to read)

* Reuters ¦ Breaking News from Around the Globe
Internet news from Reuters. The other big daily news machine. Timely and always up to date with breaking news.
Interface: 4 of 5 (The stories are neatly arranged with titles very easy to read and it's a fast loading page.)

* NewsNow: NewsLink Search Engines
The search engine category at NewsNow is very good and timely. They don't miss much and have some stories you won't find anywhere else.
Interface: 1 of 5. The interface is quite slow and bloated with javascript. Stories are on meta redirects. Pain to use.

* Rocketinfo - News Search Engine
Probably the best kept secret on the net for finding news. Use the advanced interface to search for search engine news stories. The only draw back here is that the same story will be listed dozens upon dozens of times. There is no clustering of the same story, so all the sites that carry AP or Reuters distributed news get a listing (ugh).
Interface: 4 of 5. Micro font problem. It's still easy to use, but over eager css makes it hard to read.

* The Virtual Acquisition Shelf & News Desk
Gary Prices research, data, and search engine news tracker. Features extremely timely articles. Often first with big stories. Updated daily
Interface: 3 of 5. Stories have little or confusing separation with blood red for a link color that over powers the page (sorry Gary). The rest of the page is very clean and noise free.

* WSRN.com: Company News
This link is to Wall Street Research Net company news (Link is to Yahoo news). They have a great stock tracker where you can follow news about public companies. They often have stories covered no where else. It is most business oriented news. They cover about the last month worth of news for each company.
Interface: 4 of 5. The story titles are quite easy to read. There are quite a few graphics and ads in to the top and left, but with the story titles so easy to spot, it can be over looked.

* NewsLinx Web News
Tech news from internet.com. They take weekends off but have 30-40 hand picked articles a day from traditional tech news outlets. They also have one of the few good archive news systems of any of the scrapers.
Interface: 4 of 5. The story titles are very easy to read with good separation between stories. However, it *is* internet.com and they always have too many ads. It's page spam city with 4 graphic ads and 40 link ads and a couple of boxes. That said, it is still better than it used to be. It makes for a very slow loading page most week days.

* News Is Free: Internet
A great deal of foreign blog news. I find it is rare to find a good story here. From time-to-time they have something. Use the search feature to cut through the high volume of noise.
Interface: 1 of 5. Yet another site with good content layered under a noisy hard to read and use interface.

* Fagan Finder
A nice blog style search engine news tracker. Everything is nicely categorized.
Interface: 3 of 5. Fast loading, but hard to read colors with light blue links on light blue background.

* Google Weblog
Aaron Swartz's Google blog. Good timely info updated with new stories a couple times a week.
Interface: 5 of 5. Well separated stories with good titles in a default browser font and no link tricks (nice work).

* Portals and Search Engines
Mostly a repackage of AP and Reuters news. Very slow to update. You'll have to dig through some stuff such as the cbs marketwatch stuff (is that paid advertising?), but it's good for a weekly overview.
Interface: 4 of 5. easy to use and well laid out. Touch too many ads, but you can always find the headlines and go.

* SearchEngineBlog
Fairly easy to follow story links that are updated daily. Definitely one to watch.
Interface: 4.25 of 5. Fonts are just a smidge small for my taste, but still readable with great use of white space to separate stories (a tidbit overlooked by too many other sites)

* ResearchBuzz
Timely data, news, search, and research stories with brief reviews and comments about articles. It's a nice distillation that helps put some context on the news. (subscribe to 'extra' for the best stuff).
Interface: 4.5 of 5. Very easy to use and follow. Minor complaints: touch of small fonts, links not underlined, and no left border between brown stripe and content - I can live with it.

* Pandia Good articles and timely. Occasionally find some Euro stories no one else is covering.
Interface: 4 of 5. Very easy to read and well laid out with no nonsense.

* SearchEngineWorld Breaking News Easy to read standard links with timely article links. Updated daily. (can I say that without sounding suspect ;-)
Interface: 4 of 5. A bit dated in look and feel, but easy to use and fast.

* WebmasterWorld Timely news and discussion around major search engine and industry news events. Included for completeness sake.
Interface: 4.5 of 5. Very easy to use and read with user definable skins.

Bobcats And Domains

The Charlotte Bobcats finally brake into simple branding and into a simple web address.

The expansion team Charlotte Bobcats for the first three seasons were using a longer domain name and there official site could be found at www.bobcatsbasketball.com. The reason for this being that the owner of www.bobcats.com belonged to a Montana real bobcat breeder.

Barbara Roe owns Bitterroot Bobcat and Lynx in Stevensville, Mont., and had the rights to the Web site name for 10 years. She says team officials began asking her in 2004 about buying the rights, but the early offer of a couple thousand dollars wasn't enough. Roe says they have agreed to pay about $50,000. I believe for an NBA team $50,000 was still pretty low if you ask me, but if Barbara Roe is happy, and all the bobcat fans rather NBA teams or the real bobcats...let it be.

Roe now uses the domain name www.bobcatsmt.com.

Charlotte Bobcats president Fred Whitfield says the team is glad to have the rights.

The NBA team's new marketing campaign also includes the slogan "Elevate," new uniforms, and a new secondary logo.

The Truth Be Told About Linking

All you keep hearing is link exchange, trade this link, do that, and build links. Well, the truth be told is that it's all about the relevance, quality, and how the link is show on the site. It really does not matter if Millions over night basic sites link to you this kind of action could easily get you banned from google or if not banned really hurt your chances.

What the Search Engines are looking for is a normal way of your site growing popularity and other sites finding your and thinking it's a positive resource and will link to your site.

Here is the complete truth being told about linking:

1. If you are a lasik eye site and another lasik surgery site links to you, this will add a positive boost because of the relevance of the sites. Now for example i you have a basketball site and soccer site links to yours...more or less it's not as relvant and not as good as having link from the same topic.
2. Let's say your site is all about window blinds and the link to your site is like this window blinds that will give you a boost because the link is a search term.
3. This is a must and g is really cracking down hard on this one. But, your site popularity or links need to come at a slow steady natural pace. Compared to the overnight wondering of getting tons of links.
4. Lastly, if you can pull of a link to internal pages of your site, as well as your home page, this is like a huge bonus that willl give your site deepth and looking deep.

SEO Simple Thoughts

SEO Simple Thoughts

Some Polish President is not really enjoy the internet so much these days. Especially after a 23year old Polish man is facing 3 years in prison for ranking his president #1 for penis. The news first came up on a Polish newspaper “Gazeta Wyborcza” (website is in Polish language)

What to know some of the "nicest blokes in SEO"

Fifty Most Influential Bloggers - Why do you need to know who they are? Because if you want to see the shape of blogging future, the trends that show us where blogging is heading, then these are the "Most Influential Bloggers" to watch and listen to. Their success stories hold for us a key to and an inspiration for our own success.

You can not forget about David my friend you have done it again. Not only is David Airey the best logo designer he is throwing "THEE" biggest online blog competitions I have ever seen. The just of it is that this is his first Blog Aniversary and so he has gathered some of the most amazing items as prizes for the winners (this would be a bloggers dream come true to win!).

Come on really did they think they had a chance or a case. American Blind and Wallpaper Factory agreed to settle its four-year-old trademark dispute with Google out of court. American Blind had filed one of the first trademark cases revolving around Google's AdWords practices concerning trademarks, but it wasn't the last, and there are more in the works. Don't expect the search engine giant to change its behavior any time soon, however.

When is google going to update pagerank again? When is google's next update? Well Matt Cutts with some insight on this matter and more. Did you know that Matt Cutts was part of the Digital Point Forum? Matt Cutts knows his stuff, and you should check out this post if nothing esle.

It's always good to go back to College. SEO Basics is the only place I can think of going back to school. This is the best place to start when seriously beginning SEO work and helps you refresh yourself with the website SEO basics. This means making sure that each individual page is compliant with search engine standards and ready to be indexed correctly. Follow each of the steps below for each page on your site.

So say your trying to learn a little more about link building. So for the average person your going to head over to google and search "link building". So google than shows you two of the top ten results. To the disbelieve you find two top articles that were posted back in 131 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies posted back in 2002 and The Art of Advanced Link Building posted in 2003. Come on, do you think link building has changed in the past few years...google guesses not or maybe they are just hiding something from you. Nevertheless, these are both must read link building articles.

Keep It SEO Simple

Keep It SEO Simple!

Now this video is probably what has been wrote about, talked about, and continues to be the focus. It's honestly not rocket science, it's just a little work, and continue to do the little fundamental SEO work.

Listen and watch about simple SEO below...

Biggest Online Blog Competitions I Have Ever Seen

This is one of the biggest, best, blog competitions that I have ever seen! I can hardly believe what I am seeing. This is just nuts! You can not be serious David Airey. You mean your giving away all this stuff. All, I want to know is how did you work out these kinds of deals?



Well, David my friend you have done it again. Not only is David Airey the best logo designer he is throwing "THEE" biggest online blog competitions I have ever seen. The just of it is that this is his first Blog Aniversary and so he has gathered some of the most amazing items as prizes for the winners (this would be a bloggers dream come true to win!):

1. Professional logo from David Airey himself. He says “Add a touch of professionalism to your business with one of my logo designs”.


2. Custom WordPress theme design from Nate Whitehill, this guy has been doing many great themes, from JohnChow to Darin.cc


3. Personal marketing / advertising plan from Maki of Dosh Dosh. Now this is something I really need


4. One year’s hosting and blog setup from John Boardley of I Love Typography. I would say “yes please” to a dedicated server.



5. Signed copy of Blogging Tips by Lorelle VanFossen of Lorelle on WordPress. If I don’t win, I will be putting this on my shopping list





6. A second logo design from Tara Roskell of Graphic Design Blog. You only need to visit Graphic Design Blog to realise that Tara really knows a lot about great design.


7. Website critique from Randa Clay of Randa Clay Design. If you want some expert advice on how to improve your website design, you won’t be disappointed by this offering.



8. One hour SEO consultation with Lyndon Antcliff of Cornwall SEO.


9. $60 of books from Amazon courtesy of Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.





10. Logo / blog header design from Jonathan-C. Phillips of Smart Wealthy Rich. Jonathan has donated his expert skills to help your blog stand out from the crowd.


11. One hour blog optimization consultation with Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips. This consultation will cover design, SEO, monetization and blogging strategy, from the author of one of blogging’s most useful resources.



12. Revolution Premium WordPress theme package (personal package) from Brian Gardner, WordPress designer and consultant. Brian’s WordPress skills are second to none.


13. Blog review and email interview published on Make It Great! with Phil Gerbyshak. The man to ‘make it great’ will critique your blog and feature you on his very own PR5 blog.


14. Behringer Podcastudio USB Podcasting Kit, kindly donated by Fraser’s Affiliate Marketing Blog. Looking for a new way to express yourself?



15. $25 via PayPal courtesy of Gayla McCord of Mom Gadget. Free money! Who doesn’t want free money? Very kind of you Gayla.


16. 2GB USB storage key x 3 courtesy of Jamie Clague at Terinea Weblog. Three USB sticks will make up three separate prizes, with free worldwide postage. Jamie, Edinburgh Computer Services, has also kindly donated his valuable time to helping with the prize draw administration.


17. Full blog review with deep links and images published on Blog-Op with Chris Lodge. Chris knows how to piece together an excellent blog review, giving you an added insight into the impression your website is giving.



18. Blog review from Aaron Russell of miLienzo. Aaron has been coding WordPress themes for a while now and certainly knows his stuff where blog design is concerned.


19. Expert WordPress blog help from Lakshmi Mareddy of Chilligavva. Have you ever had any ideas for your blog that you haven’t been able to incorporate? Lakshmi has kindly agreed to offer her WordPress skills, helping you out with either code or graphics.


20. Blog review from Hock Ng of Marketing Tools Review. Hock will focus his review on your blog content, design, SEO and usability.



21. Blog makeover from Charles Jordan of The Queer Chef. Charles is proficient with design for the Blogger platform, and can also design WordPress. He’ll tantalise your taste buds with one of his blog makeovers.


22. Blog writing consultation with Ben Yoskovitz of Instigator Blog. Ben has offered his expertise to review 3–5 of your articles, providing tips and giving suggestions on writing, plus a quick guide to social media and how you can benefit from it.


23. Two 45 minute coaching consultations with Mark McGuinness of Wishful Thinking. Mark specialises in coaching creative professionals, and is a real expert in his field. The first session will involve goal setting, with the second session reporting on progress and making adjustments.



24. 4 hour business growth consultation with Rebecca Caroe, via telephone / Skype, or face-to-face in London / Cambridge. Rebecca is a business growth consultant for creative agencies, so if you’re looking to expand your company then this is the prize for you. If you want Rebecca to visit your offices simply pay her travel expenses.


25. Tele-Coaching with Tammy Lenski. A one-hour, private telephone consult with professional mediator and conflict coach Tammy Lenski. Figure out how to deal with a challenging client, strengthen your contract negotiations, or confront difficult conversations with more confidence and success. Free call within the U.S., via Skype outside the U.S.



26. One hour product launch consultation with Design Translator (DT) of Design Sojourn. Whether you’re launching a line of t-shirts, custom furniture, electronics, or any other product, DT will lend you his product launch expertise.


27. Blog improvement or monetization advice with Easton Ellsworth of Business Blogwire. You choose, do you want to generally improve your blog or do you want help making money from it? Easton has kindly offered his help.


28. Two premium quality books designed and produced by David Hyde of david the designer. John Hinchcliffe, internationally acclaimed designer-maker, is the subject of the richly illustrated first of two quality books. Crafts in the 20th Century is the second book kindly donated by David.



29. Copy of Brand Aid by Brad VanAuken of The Blake Project. Brand Aid is a practical how-to guide on building winning brands. Derrick Daye was kind enough to offer this great prize.


30. Watercolour print from Ed Roach Watercolours. Ed has quite a talent, and will graciously ship your favourite print from his watercolour studio.


31. 728px by 90px banner ad for 30 days above the fold on The Blog Experiment, courtesy of Sara. This is quite a new forum for bloggers, but already there are approximately 5,000 posts! You must supply your own artwork.



32. 125px by 125px image ad for 30 days on Smart Wealthy Rich. An excellent donation from top blogger, Jonathan.


33. Ad icon located site-wide in the top left of Blog-Op, courtesy of Chris Lodge. Another kind gift from a fellow blogger in Scotland.


34. 30 day text link ad shown site-wide on Contest Blogger. This is a great way to advertise your very own blog contest. Blogging is about giving something back, so get your contest featured.



35. 125px by 125px image ad for 30 days on Freelance Folder. Another superb offering from Jonathan a.k.a Smart Wealthy Rich


36. Lifetime membership to the paid membership site that Andy Beard, WordPress SEO and Niche Marketer, will launch on Andybeard.eu (eta and value yet to be determined).

I can not believe it! If you would like to join the contest or just find out more you can click here, but remember you need to get in before September 26th, so do it now! Man, some one is not only going to be a lucky person, but a pretty happy camper come Sept 26th!

Link Marketing

Link marketing or web linking is a pop form of advertising on the Internet. Typically, it involves the process of connecting one’s website to another through links or a series of backlinks. Usually a new entrant or a website with lesser traffic is the one engaged in link marketing. The new entrant places an advertisement in a host site holding related information, products or services to avail of the host website’s guaranteed traffic volume. In return, the host website benefits from the new entrant’s traffic as well. Once the website is linked to a host website, the linking website in a way becomes a part of it. And should the host website carry a priority rank in search engines, the linking website inherits the same importance in the crawl of search engine spider. Once a relevant search is made, the website will most likely stay on the first few pages of relevant search results.

Some Link Marketing programs can be purchase while others are free. However, buying a paid link tends to be very risky because you may end up dealing with a scam. But if the link turns out to be genuine, then your website will benefit from it because of the increased traffic that could ensue in just a couple of days. Finding a website that would accept links is not difficult because there are link management services available on the internet. What is important is for the webmaster to thoroughly check the credibility of the service and the conditions set forth in the agreement before engaging into it. Likewise, before accepting and paying for the link, check whether the host website maintains a guaranteed volume of traffic as specified and if it has similar products and services that your website advertise.


An unpaid link usually involves posting an article in the website. This procedure takes a longer time before the expected traffic can be attained. In order to take advantage of the benefits of link marketing, the article published in the website should be unique, of high quality and must be useful to the readers while being relevant to the products and services that the website offers. This is necessary because it would be easier to find a host website that would be willing to link to your website. The webmaster may even opt to create an original article or perhaps check out information from an article directory. Just make sure that once an article is published, the author, website URL and article directory is mentioned accordingly.

Make Money Online The Moolah Way

Daily Moolah is giving away a copy of The SEO Book by Aaron Wall in a contest. This is an amazing book that anyone wanting to learn about SEO has to have. SEO book is valued at $79...so hurry for a stunning chance to win today!


Daily Moolah is ran by Dev Basu, a web strategist through this wonderful idea to "make money online" blog that is a great resource sharing ways to improve blog's SEO, both white hat and gray.

Start improving and building traffic and make money online, by making a daily visit to Daily Moolah. In less than 21 days see astounding results that will start making money online guaranteed!

When you stop in, tell Dev that Keep It SEO Simple sent you and congratulate him for reaching 100 subscribers.

Pro Blogger Challenge...Who Can Score The Highest

This is very interesting, and I would like to challenge, post your highest scores make a comment. That's right at Daily Blog Tips, there is a Pro Blogger Test. The test is actually put on by Daily Blog Tips and asks 20 blog questions about web design, SEO, online marketing and more. It's fast, easy, and fun.

Do you think you have what it takes to a professional blogger? Take the test now and find out.




What did you score there "blogger pro" or "blogger smo"? By the way, this test is great linkbait! I should create some kind of test as well.

How To Make Facebook a Valuable Tool Guarnateed

Facebook.com continues to grow, and if you have not heard of Facebook yet shame on you. Facebook, is another social networking site similar to the power house Myspace. Though, the with enough twists, turns, control, and versatility to make it unique and addicting.

While many have tested Facebook out as a valuable tool to help either promote, market, or connect with others. For many it seems to be over rated and not worth the time to invest in using this tool.

Why you ask?

Great questions, for starters the biggest problem with all web 2.0 social media sites and driving traffic from these sites are to time consuming and not worth the return in traffic. To make anything worth while traffic would turn into a full time social media junkie, while I am sure there are many out there.

Though, I am sure many people out there could benefit a lot from Facebook, just like many have benefited from Myspace, and the list goes on from there. Through some creative pictures and networking to produce some huge amount of traffic that you will probably start selling on Digital Point Forum.

While for many other business and specific business markets, the social networking sites are a complete waste of time. Seriously, so many people try to justify that using sites like these are work, stop pretending unless your going to put the man hours it takes to make this type of strategic marketing work.

So, your next thought is...Well, I will just go and outsource it on Digital Point Forum. This will just help me get one up on my competition.

However, nothing stops you from outsourcing the legwork, if you're so inclined. But just like everything else it has it's draw back as well.

The biggest issue with social media traffic is it's so untargeted. People using are on these “social” sites do just that socialize, entertainment, free information, and to spam.

There are far so many other ways to target quality traffic through a solid marekting strategy that will be better converting, and out producing anything you could through social media sites. Just a few of the top of my head would be article marketing the correct way, blogging, a few in the actual web 2.0 market (but you have to be select and target).

Though one thing is for sure is that Facebook, Myspace, Stumbleupon and all the other Web 2.0 site will be staying around because the bottom line is...it's just flat out FUN!

People will always enjoy posting there pictures, ideas, activities, videos, etc. People will always enjoy communicating with old and new friends. People will always want to socialized even more using the media of the web as means, and will probably take it to the next level soon.

Though, some have tested and have little no success, while others have used it to make a pretty good profit. Take look at two examples that I have researched:

Michel Fortin - For example, last week my wife Sylvie and I quietly launched our new dual coaching program, Massive Action Mentors.

I posted a brief announcement on Facebook. And for a while, Facebook was a great source of traffic. But the traffic didn't convert well.

In my estimation (and research shows this to be true), people on Facebook were either interested in me personally and looking to connect with me, or simply looking for free content or advice without paying for it.

(Everyday, I get at least 2-3 questions and "pokes" from Facebookers asking me for help or feedback. I don't mind, because I love to help. But I reserve my best and more detailed answers for my paying students.)

The best source of qualified traffic to the coaching program actually came from Internet marketing forums, including my own. Besides, how good will an offer of paid coaching be to a group of people who are looking for free coaching, anyway?

The bottom line, however, is that I wouldn't have known that if I didn't test it.

Neville Medhora - Neville, more know for his Nevblog have much more success with and through facebook. But, it was mostly due to the website that he created that went along with facebook.

Article Submissions Suck...Why

So the buzz around SEO is articles submission, and does it really work?

Looking into using article submission for SEO and noticing some of the big time SEO guru's calling out and saying they are not big fans of article submission makes you think and this is how the article "Does Article Submissions Work for SEO?" Comes about...

Some thoughts of why article submission is a poor SEO tactic and why you should publish your articles on your own site as apposed to article sites:


• One of the biggest issues that comes up with article submisison is that fact that you get a link. But, fore example everyone has to come to that site for the link. So say you were to digg your articles that you have submitted. Well, that link is all going to that site and not your own sites.


• Here is the second scenerio, so is stay that you drive tons of traffic to your article that is on a article submission sit, but than you get known to little traffic that actually click through to your own site.

• Did you know that a lot of these article sites are continue to not be trusted by some of the big search engines. Many are not authoritive links, becoming less weighted links, and Suck.

• These article submission sites are becoming over populated, semi spam, and not worth a hoot.

So your asking what's the bright side of all this? Well, don't be totally discouraged as of yet, because we will be passing along a solution to this issue of article submission sucks!

SEM vs. SEO

SEM vs. SEO

So everyone is talking about SEM and SEO, which one is better? Which one should you be focusing on? Which one should your blog or site be working with? And for some your just asking what in the world is SEM?

To break it down to you SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing which deals more with the advertisers, ad agencies, marketing firms and anyone that owns a web site and has a search advertising budget to pay for sponsored listings on a cpc (cost per click) or ppc (pay per click) basis.

SEO on the other hand is the technique employed by web site owners to make their web site more search engine friendly.

While, everyone continues to state that you should on one or the other, but rarely do you hear that you should do a good mix of both. This is one's first money making mistake for webmasters. This like saying you don't need to diet and exercise but everyone knows that you have to do the two together to see the best results in getting into shape.

Why Does Your Site Need SEO and SEM?

For starters the competition especially with specific keywords that have the potential to pay well are very hard to rank seriously high. For keywords that you can not rank high at, it's best to try and test out using some SEM work. Also, the best way to brand your site which will help you draw instant results than SEM is the way to go. Buying targeted traffic through SEM will help you not only become an instant brand, but also bring in visitors that will either turn out to be faithful visitors or hopefully in most cases a customer that will be interested in your products.

One of the best results of SEM is all the testing that you can do to really figure out what works best for you and your site. Through all the competition out on the web today, it's best to really narrow down what keywords give you the best results. Testing, test, and more test is the best way to go with competing keywords and using SEM.

If your looking to start a SEM project, but don't know where to begin. Well, it woud be in your best interest to start the SEM project using your top 5 keywords. But, when you do this make sure you play a very close attention to your google analytics or analytics software to figure out which are the best and highest converting keywords for your site and in the long run this will help save you money on testing keywords that may not work.

Combining SEO and SEM can really give you a nice leverage over your competition already. So make sure you put both of these to work for you and not against you from someone else.

Web 2.0 To the Max

Check out this Web 2.0 video...you never know it could happen...

Top Global Social Bookmarking Sites Around

When you look around the Global internet these days and especially looking at the the ever so growing Social Bookmarking and Social Media sites. While you have some of the big names such as Digg, Reddit, and Netscape. But, what continues to seem to grow is global mimicks of these social bookmarking and social media sites in all kinds of different countries.

So I am here to point out a few international social bookmarking and social media sites that might be a old idea, but in a new language for many.


* menéame - Most reknown social news site in Spanish
* Yigg.de - German version of digg social news community
* Fuzz - French Digg-like community news
* Wykop.pl - Polish social news community
* Balatarin.com - Iranian Digg
* Kilasan.com - Indonesian social news

While, I may or may not be able to fully read and understand every single word on these pages. I do come to appreciate that they all have and are one of the best social media websites in there own lanuage. One great factor that I come to appreciate is the image that all these sites have so no matter what language some still can get an good understanding or at least a picture of the news.

But you ask, why should I care I can only speak and read English? Well, for starters most of these sites still offer a English submissions on there news sites and sites you land on often have English sections. Pictures and brand names are the same everywhere so it does not matter in which language you find them.

Though you might see that some countries are still lacking or missing in this social media or social bookmarking. It's surprising that this could still be a growing market and will have so see what is still out there in these growing countries such as China, India, and the Arabic speaking countries.

Simple ROI - Blogging

Simple ROI - Blogging

That's right as the ever expanding and always growing real estate of the web becomes one of the safest ways to invest and get a solid return on investment these days. As the never ending social networks, search engine optimization, paid reviews and advertising spikes the web and market as no other right now.

We continue to see shifts being made by almost all search engines and adding the contribue of the marketplace and communities. The test results continue to point towards this direction in the market and web.

Though will all this change happening in and around the marketplace and web. One thing that they continue to point towards this movement is blogging. The ever so powerful blog is still and continues to be the back bone of the web.

So why not start you blog and get your feet a little wet in trying to make your little niche in this ever expanding world wide web. If your interested we are her to offer you some simple web suggestions on a simple way to start a blog.

1. Set up a Blogger WordPress blog. Anyone and everyone has and does run a blog. It can be your personal name to a personal company, and now even colleges are paying some of there students to blog about the college life at there university. While places like wordpress and blogger will host everything for your for free. I believe as if you are you looking more for a professional look and would like to host it yourself I would highly suggest hostgator.com


2. Content is King. If your starting off your blog we would highly suggest that you start of by blogging at least 4 to 5 times the first few days and after that you can little the load by posting a blog at least once or twice a week. Though to really get a good solid fan base and attention it's best to blog at least once a day. When you add content, make sure you add the tags and category. Tags and directory structures help show the search engines what your post is about.

Always write unique creative content that will make readers want to come back to your blog. Some other great ways to provide this service is by having guest bloggers write for you. Or you could even go the routine as paying writers such as niche articles which is a very solid content and blog provider.


3. Manage RSS feeds. This is very important to try to really gett as many RSS feeds out there and getting people to sign up for your feeds. Rss is an easily tracked and managed XML-based file structure that allows compatible Web systems to read the data. Get an account with Technorati.com and update it with your site feeds -- also known as pinging. You can also use FeedBurner.com and OnlyWire.com to help distribute content and PingOMatic.com and Pingoat.com to alert systems that you've made a new post.

4. Promote your blog. Try to get links from other bloggers. Use a specific keyword that your trying to target. Here are 5 simple suggestions on how to promote your blog the cheap way.

Social bookmarking sites are as popular as ever such as Stumbleupon.com and Digg.com, as well as del.icio.us, reddit.com and MySpace.com. Content that can help or teach such as "how to" articles, are always very popular.

5. Leverage podcasts and videos. Podcasts are a simple way to provide more detail and personalization around your company or service. The MP3 format can easily be streamed for listening on the Web and from your blog. You can podcast your files and even manage them via iTunes. You also can stream video into your visitors' homes and let them watch it on their Apple TV, a recently announced product.


6. Optimize your blog. Professiona looking, clean, and optimized blog will seriously go a long way. For simple SEO, change your permalinks to this custom option:

/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/

and enable the customizable permalinks. This is a search-engine friendly URL that's commonly used.

As I mentioned earlier, WordPress has a number of powerful plugins to consider. Here are some to start with:

*Google Analytics -- tracks everything on all pages

*Chicklets -- an array of social media tags for your users, including RSS reader icons

*AdSense Deluxe -- for publishing ads on your site

*Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress -- creates a sitemap for your site

*Akismet spam filtering -- filters link spam from blog comments; requires WordPress API key

*SEO Title Tag -- easy optimization of title tags across your WordPress blog

*Ultimate Tag Warrior -- incorporates the tag name into title pages on tagged pages

*Podpress -- everything you need for podcasting

More plugins are available at the WordPress plugin directory.

After you're set up, follow the basic rules for long-term success:

*Do not use Black Hat SEO -- unethical techniques -- to stuff keywords and duplicate content in your blogs.

*Provide value through quality content. If you're selling something, don't be pushy. Try to provide educational and constructive comments on products, services and competitors.

*Use the chicklets you see on many blogs, including a big button for your RSS feed, so visitors and search engines can easily get to your data.

*Place strategic AdSense components to generate money for yourself, while still providing value. Don't feel bad; big companies do it, including news outlets like CNN. Match the text and color with the layout of your site. Over time, you may get a check from Google.


P.S. Imagine 25%, 50%, or even 100% YTD return in this up-and-down market...Than your safest move is starting a blog today.

SEO Consultants Simple

According to Tim Nash over at http://www.timnash.me.uk he shares a few times that he suggest to get you started into become a SEO Consultant.

He lays it out very simple and plain for you...but he does suggest to dig into your pocket and spend alittle money to get things started off right. But, it's just like the old saying "it takes money to make money".

Some of the SEO Consultants Simple Stuff he suggested is the follow: recommend buying Aaron Wall SEO book its packed with the basics and is worth every penny. Tim Nash states, "I think it will save you days of research if not weeks."

Next he would suggest a paid membership to SEOMoz. But no worries and on with keeping it simple. If you can not afford that than you have to check out the Illustrated guide to search engine friendly site at less then $30 its a bargain, mind you their whole site is a bargain as for every paid feature they are committed to bringing out free tools and articles.

Than you will need hosting and domain and it would be pretty easy and simple and on your way to becoming a SEO consultant. That's right that's SEO consulants simple my friends.

Now you are ready to become an SEO consultant, well not quite its time to read those books and papers you just bought or if you have any more questions you can always just email me at sacredmpp@gmail.com

Enjoy your new career or if you already an SEO or just a curious amateur then I still recommend all of the above.