Today’s SEO post is from Jason Phillips.

It is never easy to figure out the best SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tips.  There are tons of SEO experts claiming to have the best tips on the market to assist with search engine results. There is so much information looming around on this topic that if you sat down to sort through it, it would take weeks to read it all.

I wanted to list some useful information about performing SEO.  These tips do not guarantee a first page Google result. The tips were created through tried-tips that work with determination and prove invaluable with improving search results.

Free SEO tips are your friend

There is a large misconception that SEO should always cost tons of money. There is no denying that expert SEO services are not cheap; however, there are plenty of SEO techniques that you can apply to websites, articles or blogs.

The free services include:

• Analyzing your competition with SEO tools that are free
• Shoring up your on page SEO
• Contact bloggers and invite them to write guest blogs
• Perform keyword research with a handy and free tool called “Google Keyword Tool”
• Write quality articles for your blog that will attract visitors and attract useful links

If you have the time to waste, there are tons of articles and blogs that give away free tips on search engine optimization. Ensure that you pay attention to what the writers have to say because the information is free.

Start locally with SEO

Sometimes people aim high with their SEO tactics, and this is a marvelous thing, but you should always start local to the place you live. If you live in Buffalo, New York, set your goals for keywords that begin with Buffalo.  This will prove specific to the place you live.

Targeting specific keywords will gain various clients sooner than later.  It proves useful because this will allow you to obtain referrals and positive testimonials. This proves better in the long-run instead of a quick fix.  Your goal should always be for long-term compared to short-term. This also makes it easier to track your SEO progress with keywords.  There is no quick-fix when performing SEO, no matter what anyone informs you. The process is typically slow, but this is ok as long as you are making process.

SEO is always a slow-but-sure process when performed correctly

No matter how hard you try to be with your SEO techniques, the process is always slow. No matter what the experts say, no one is able to rank number one on the first page of Google. Minimally, you have to prove yourself for more than a week for Google to pick up on your efforts.  If we are talking about top-keywords, it might take you or the company you are using a year or more.

Performing intelligent SEO tactics is more of an opportunity in comparison to a problem. Most webmasters will see that they have not made progress in days or weeks.  This might prove disappointing, but eventually, Google will place trust in your website. There is tons of junk floating around on the Internet and Google needs to see relevant backlinks consistently for a period of time. Most websites turn out to be junk, and this is a way for Google to wade through the trash. Do not give up when you do not see the fast results you hoped for. Sometimes, it takes Google a little time to improve your website, but with determination and perseverance, it will happen.

Bing SEO and Google SEO go together

A colossal mistake most SEO bloggers and writers make is they tend to believe that they must optimize their website for Bing and Google separately. Unbelievably, both these search engines have different algorithms. The fact is, their algorithms determine different, but it proves useless in trying to use different SEO strategies in ranking your website on both. What works for Google, will work for Bing, as well. Most of the differences involved are things that you cannot control reference domain names and others.

Focus on diversity

It does not matter the number of links you get; what matters is how many websites you get them from. Google enjoys viewing a collection of links on your website backlink profile.  Provide Google with these links and try to earn as many quality links from different websites as possible.

Read top online SEO forums

This tip does not require an exceptional education or software.  You literally only have to read. Some SEO experts will advise to stay away from forums. I disagree with this information because there is a generous group of people who will be happy to help you in your SEO endeavor. There is an abundance of free information on performing SEO on SEO forums. If you read and pay attention, you will be able to distinguish the beginners from the experts. Once you make this distinction, ensure that you pay attention to their forum postings. Word of caution, there are tons of garbage on SEO forums.  If you have the time, read all the information carefully and learn where to go to look for experienced SEO tips.

Do not ever give up

In order to achieve your goal, you must work hard and never give up. Great SEO techniques involve a lot of work.  Keep in mind the goal is to gain more clients and traffic than you can handle. Your hard work will eventually pay off in the long-run. Do not give up because the longer you remain committed and dedicated, the higher your chances will be that your opponents will eventually give up. Once they do, you will obtain your goal.

This Article has been written by Jason Phillips; Jason has a passion to do research and analysis on the web and to write about SEO Strategies, Visit Flash templates for more information.

Michael Clark provides us with some Ford news.

Ford Motor Company is planning to promote social networking to their customers. The companies want to provide iPod-thumb controls and Web browsing into the majority of their new models in year 2015. This is in the works due to the heavy demand that consumers have for high-tech communicative features in their cars.

Touch-command systems

Lincoln MKX, Ford Focus and Ford Edges will be featuring touch-command systems this year. Ford is going to reveal My Ford Touch system in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show this year. The system features thumb-wheel controls located on the steering wheel, weather and navigation control functions, eight-inch television monitor with touch features in the dashboard and audio.

Kia Motors Corporation is introducing a similar system later on in the year in their Sorento model-cars. Both the Kia and Ford systems are based on the Microsoft Corp. MSFT’s in-car voice-activated technology. Most consumers view this technology as a new way of interacting with their cars.

Social Networking and driving

Introducing this new technology to consumers was only a matter of time, considering the amount of time consumers spend not only on the Internet but in their cars. Ford along with Kia found ample opportunity in establishing leadership with this type of connectivity for consumers. The Sync technology was a serious investment for Ford with viewing 32% of buyers taking advantage of the innovative software for their cars. This technology is now available on seventy-percent of Ford vehicles overall. The new My Ford Touch will become standard on the higher-end trucks, and cars. The Ford base models will feature a basic-touch screen.

Text conversion technology

Ford has begun augmenting Sync with the ability to adapt texts into spoken words. This proves beneficial for drivers who want to be safe while driving the open-road. It will give drivers standard text responses that can be transmitted with a mere voice command. You might be wondering at this point if the technology exists in converting speech to a text message. Ford is still researching the ability to accomplish this task, but consumers should expect such technology in the near future.

MapQuest and Twitter users

If you enjoy Twitter and MapQuest, Ford is incorporating the social network’s Open Beak software into their Synch technology. Ford is not stopping there with adding Stitcher and Pandora Internet radio along with MapQuest.com’s online mapping programs. Unbelievably, Ford has their own Web browser that can only be used when the car is parked. To produce the best technology possible to consumers, the automaker is allowing independent software developers to design new functions for the Sync technology.

Conclusion

One might think that Ford is ignoring driver safety with introducing these types of technology for consumers but, Ford has endorsed numerous legislations to support driver safety with outlawing texting while driving. Ford has also conducted their own research that indicates that hands-free communication does not distract drivers.

The post is contributed by Michael Clark. Michael gets inspired by technical, creative and genuine works. Visit his site for bijtelling berekenen and Auto leasen.

Amanda Tradwick serves up a few ways to bump that email list of yours.

Growing a large opt-in e-mail list is key to the success of your business and your blog. You can use it to cultivate relationships with your readers, build brand loyalty, promote your products or services, and grow your affiliate and ad revenue. Just like with any other aspect of growing your blog, targeted marketing efforts are required for effectively growing your opt-in e-mail list. Here are 5 easy ways to help you grow your list quickly:

Provide Multiple Options for Sign-Up

Not every visitor will come to your blog on the home page or another designated landing page. Perhaps they will find you through a link to a specific post, or by searching for terms that lead to another page on your blog. Make it easy for these new readers to sign up for your e-mail list by including a pop-up option that appears on each page at first visit. If you don’t like the pop-up option, you can include a permalink on your sidebar, header, or footer. The key is to make sure the option is accessible to readers no matter how they arrive at your blog.

Include Link in E-mails

Promote your e-mail list among your own contacts by including a link to it in your e-mail signature line. It provides an easy, low-pressure way for your contacts to sign up for the list or to share it with their own contacts. Be sure to also include the link in your e-mail newsletter so that your subscribers can forward it to others for easy sign up. The more options you make available to people to sign up for the list, the more likely you are to get new subscribers.

Promote It on Social Networks

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social networks offer effective ways to connect with new customers and subscribers. Be sure to include a link to both your blog and your e-mail list in your profiles on every social-networking site to which you belong. Then promote the link in your tweets, posts, and other shares. Be sure to share the link regularly, but not to share it so much that your connections start to view it as spam.

Offer Special Incentives

Providing added value for your readers will give them a reason to sign up for your e-mail list. There are many ways to offer this, depending on the types of goods or services your blog offers, including free shipping, discounts on products or services, or other special promotions. The key is to make sure these offers are exclusive to your e-mail subscribers and are not offered to just any reader of your blog. Otherwise, there is no incentive to sign up for the e-mail list to get them.

Offer Exclusive Content

Another great way to offer your customers added value for joining your e-mail list is to provide exclusive content. A free e-book or e-learning course is a great way to encourage your readers to sign up for your e-mail list. Be sure to offer new content or to rotate content so that your readers will be encouraged to remain subscribers. Once they have finished the e-book or the course, they may no longer find a reason to remain subscribers. Keep providing exclusive content to maintain that relationship.
Growing your opt-in e-mail list should be a key part of your overall marketing strategy for your blog. It allows you to build relationships with your readers and to grow a list of customer contacts to promote your services and products. Following these steps will help you grow your list more quickly.

About the author:
Amanda Tradwick is a grant researcher and writer for CollegeGrants.org. She has a Bachelor’s degrees from the University of Delaware, and has recently finished research on minority grants and scholarships and west virginia education grants.

Our guest today, Mariana Ashley ,gives us some advice on offline promos.

Almost every blogging tips site, this one included, will give you plenty of great advice about promoting your blog to reach a wider and more diverse array of readers. While this advice is certainly useful, most tips focus on promoting your blog using various online methods, like social networking sites, linkbacks, guest posts, and more. Once you feel as though you’ve exhausted these methods, it is important to realize that you can promote your blog in the “real world” as well. Here are a few tips that have worked for me.

1. Create business cards and carry them with you everywhere you go.

This is a very simple and handy way to promote your blog on the go. You can easily create business cards using free, online software and quality stock paper, or you can always order them from a print shop, too. Carry them in your purse or wallet, and if you happen to strike up a conversation with a stranger at a restaurant, bar, at the gym or wherever, don’t forget to hand them out. Having a physical piece of paper that potential readers can refer to once they get home is a great way to generate curiosity among new readers.

2. Attend blogging conferences and Meetups.

While there are many blog readers who are not bloggers themselves, the majority of your audience who will play a key role in further promoting your blog will have a blog of their own. As such, getting to know bloggers in person by attending local conferences and Meetups (see Meetup.com) will help you widen your blogging network in a more personable way.

3. Write freelance articles for local print publications.

Although many people who consume media are skeptical of the future of print publications, there’s no denying that they still exist and they still have plenty of readers. A fun way to promote your blog is to write freelance articles for local dailies, and include in your byline your blog. For casual readers who don’t necessarily read many blogs themselves, seeing your name in print attached to an interesting and well-written article will pique their interest in looking you up on the Web.

4. Don’t underestimate the power of word-of-mouth!

Many bloggers only spread the word about their blog online. But they often forget their closer circle of friends and family, who, consider your close ties, will have a greater desire to tell other people about your blog. So don’t be shy—talk to everyone and anyone you know about your blog and encourage them to visit it!

While blogging itself can be very time consuming, promoting your blog can take up just as much time. Although promoting your blog offline should never be your only method, when combine it with online promotion, you’ll have a marketing strategy that’s tough to beat. Good luck!

About the Author:

Mariana Ashley is a freelance writer who particularly enjoys writing about online colleges. She loves receiving reader feedback, which can be directed to mariana.ashley031@gmail.com.

Today’s well-written article about Google Panda is provided by Mitch O’Conner.

Back in February of 2011, Google unleashed a sweeping change to their search results ranking algorithm known as Panda, all in hopes of downranking “junk” and “copy-pasted” websites while boosting the visibility of better, more useable and unique sites.

Big surprise: it didn’t work perfectly. Although the algorithm changes indeed altered search results (in some cases for the better), the search giant was met with a backlash from many site owners accusing it of everything from poor quality control to putting its own corporate interests over those of the websites they help internet users find.

If you run a website or blog, there’s no getting around Google Panda. Instead, you’ll need to adapt and adjust, which in many cases will mean improving the overall quality of your site. Here are seven ways to do exactly that:

1. Create More Content, and Don’t Worry About Length

If you read too heavily into SEO guides (many of which are outdated by Panda, by the way), you may think that every single page on your site should contain no more than 300 to 500 words of content. Although there’s certainly a case to be made for short, punchy, to-the-point posts, the reality is that Panda calls for the best possible user experience, which in turn calls for content that’s only as long as it needs to be. You might have one page that makes its point in 200 words, while another may exceed 1,000.

Of course, there are some common sense limits to this. If a single page of your site exceeds, say, 2,000 words of content, you may want to think about how it could be restructured or broken into two or three separate pages that obviously deserve dedicated areas of their own. The old advice about breaking up lengthier posts with plenty of pictures, lists (when applicable and needed) and subheadings still applies, too.

2. Make Your Content Valuable and Non-Redundant

If you’ve had some sub-par content sitting and rotting away on the outskirts of your site, now might be a great time to clean it up. Although this type of content may have been seen as a neutral factor in the eyes of Google pre-Panda, especially if the rest of your site was high quality, it’s now viewed as a serious detriment that could drag down the rest of your site along with it. Anything that even remotely resembles spam will fall into this category.

Here are a few tips that go beyond the basic advice of writing for value:

• Update pages whose only purpose is to link to other pages. Roll them into other pages that have content, or write some new valuable content for them.
• Place plenty of original content above the fold, in the area immediately visible upon landing on the page.
• Don’t plaster every page with ads. Having some ads is still fine, of course, but they shouldn’t take up more real estate than your actual content.
• Never use auto-generated content. This simply won’t fly anymore with Google’s new algorithms.

3. Aim for a Natural Link Profile

Let’s say the purpose of your site is to discuss wireless internet services. You might link to a bunch of broadband providers, and possibly some mainstream media articles regarding the same topic. What you probably wouldn’t do, however, is link directly to competing sites trying to fill the same niche. In a post-Panda online environment, this is a mistake.

Panda is all about delivering the best possible experience to the user. Your site can do that by linking to other sites solely based on the value and relevancy of their content, regardless of whether they’re competing for your traffic. Your readers will appreciate it, and hence, Google will too.

4. Build Your Empire by Creating More Assets

When Google looks at your “brand,” they want to see more than just a single website that looks like a buoy in an ocean. Modern internet users want more than just pages with pictures. By creating more assets for your site, such as email lists, interactive forums and Facebook pages, you build a community around your brand. In a post-Panda environment, these are the types of sites that Google will prioritize in search results.

Get creative: is there some aspect of your site, or facet of your content, that could be better conveyed with an ongoing, regularly updated video series instead of just text? Seize the opportunity to use increasingly affordable multimedia to beef up your site/brand.

5. Select More Natural Keywords

Outdated SEO advice went something like this: pick one or two keyword phrases most closely related to the topic you’re covering in a post, hammer them into the content as heavily as possible, and make them even more obvious by bolding them and putting them in every subheading as well. Google’s new algorithms see right through this, and treat it as nothing short of a devious tactic.

Of course, you still need to include the keywords you’re trying to promote, but the key is to let that happen naturally. Write about the topic in a thorough and insightful way, and you’ll probably notice upon proofreading that you automatically included several variations of the keyword phrase without even really trying. It’s less work for you, and Google actually appreciates the efforts by ranking you higher.

6. Pay Attention to Navigation

No amount of excellent content will be worth anything if your users can’t find their away around your site. This one’s rather basic: keep menus consistent and logically arranged, use internal linking whenever appropriate, and don’t bury anything on your site.

7. Skip the Short-Cuts

Lots of site developers and SEOs are claiming that they circumvented the downranking effects of Panda through what basically amounts to a tricky short-cut: moving pages and sub-domains from a “pandalized” domain to a new one, and suddenly recovering the search rank and traffic they experienced before Panda even happened. Sounds like they just beat the system, right?

In reality, these types of short-cuts may work for a few days, at which point Google’s search-bots will finish analyzing your “new” pages only to penalize them yet again. The only real way to get your ranking back post-Panda is to shape up your content, cut the duplicate copy and give your users a thoroughly better and more valuable experience.

About the Author: Mitch O’Conner is an online marketer and writer. When he’s not busy testing sites, generating traffic or writing content, he enjoys spending time with his wife and kids, watching TV, playing games or going camping.

ZK from Internet Marketing Blog shares with us how earn from writing for others!

There has been much talk about making money from your own blog. However, there are many opportunities out there for writing for other people’s blogs. There are many people who make a living from this. You just need to know where to find these opportunities.

There are many blogs which allow people to write for them. When you find such a blog, you can apply to write for them in return for a specific payment. However, you will need to give evidence of your experience. If you don’t have one, it is advisable to set up your own blog before applying for these opportunities.

Many people would be willing to allow you to write for their blog as a ghostwriter. This means that all posts will appear under their name. Normally, you will get paid per post or for a specific number of posts per month or per week.

As you gain experience in blogging, you can eventually start writing for a number of blogs and do it on a full time basis. Blogging is a great way of making a living since there are always people looking for writers for their blogs. There are many jobs available, which will ensure a steady income for you. Opportunities for writing for other people’s blogs can be found advertised on various job boards online. Such jobs can also be found on sites such as Craigslist. When starting off, it might take some time before finding your first job. However, with patience and persistence, you might soon find yourself blogging for a living.

ZK is the co-founder of Internet Marketing Blog where accomplished writers and bloggers share their tips, strategies and stories. Follow him on Twitter at @webtrafficroi.

The first article of the year is brought to us by special guest, Sachin.

Smart and intelligent website design will do more than integrate with your social media marketing and provide the platform for your online marketing strategy. With intelligent integration of smart web-based business solution effective web design will save you a lot of money. Most business owners think of a website as something that is money spent on marketing, but actually we can remove costs in other areas of our business while we make money. Online shopping stores have had the head start on every other business when we look at removing costs and making money, but that does not mean that the same mentality cannot be applied to your business. Let’s look at some of the ways we can save money, and make money with a site that has inbuilt browser-based applications.

• Reducing communication costs. Have you thought about supplying 24/7 support services for your customers. With VOIP (Video Over Internet Protocol) technology, even instant messaging, you can have people working for your all over the world at lower costs as they communicate to your customers through your website. They could even be making a call that is directed through your website – how funky is that? Utilising low cost people because they are in lower cost regions makes real sense. You will make more money because you are providing a better service while you save.
• Reduction of IT costs. If your business has a large mainframe, you will probably need a Windows terminal emulator so your people can communicate with it. If you have new suppliers around the world, they will all need those applications. That was the case before. You can have your terminal emulation application built in, or as a part of your website, and reduce your IT costs. This is only one example and a very sophisticated one, but it does show what can be done. You can implement expansion without having to set up the IT architecture for new local representatives because it is already there – it is online.
• Application integration replacing employees or contractors. Unfortunately for us out there who need a job, smarter applications are reducing the need for people in all industries. You don’t need an accountant and stock manager like you used to because you online applications are managing all that for you. I run my small business and my site collects my payments, sends out invoices and puts it all together for the taxman at the end of the year. Yes, I don’t need an accountant. Sorry about that!
• Market researching costs. Market research is one of those costs at the end of the budget. It is the first to go when times are tough. Smart sites do it all the time. They collect information on whoever is visiting your site and more. If you are a business and looking to expand one day, you could put a portion of your business online. As that online business makes money, it saves you money by gathering data, and could point you in the direction of a new location for expansion. Perhaps you did not know your services were in so much demand in Colombia, for example.

Everyone is excited about Facebook and social media networking. It is time to look at Facebook and realise it is an online application doing a whole lot more. How could your website be saving you money and making you money, at the same time?