Allow your readers to promote your website with the new Tell-a-Friend service. By adding a simple widget to your site, your visitors can share your pages with any of their friends, as well as with social media sites such as Digg.
For a premium, you can customize the widget to your own personal brand, and even add an incentive program for your readers. As it is, this is a simple to use and fun way to engage your readership and improve hits to your site.
26 December 2008
Open letter to GOOGLE
Chairman and CEO: Eric E. Schmidt
Co-Founder and President, Products: Larry Page
President, Technology and Director: Sergey Brin
SVP Product Management: Jonathan Rosenberg
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
Gentlemen:
I find myself posing questions about Google PageRank to various web experts and link brokers and decided it was only fair to ask you directly about it here. After all, Google PageRank does kind of cut to the heart of everything we’re doing, or trying to do, on places like SEO Shootout–a site which, btw, my Google toolbars in both Firefox and IE currently indicate as having a PageRank of 3.
I myself labor…
Digital Response Media quotes a blog post on developments in search engine marketing likely in 2009. One that resonates strongly with me is, “Natural search will also evolve to become more about optimising a company’s web presence across a range of social media sites rather than simply tweaking the firm’s own website.”
It will always be important to optimize your home site (not just home page) for effective search results. But, for me, 2008 has been “the year of Twitter.” I’ve only been tweeting for a few months, but already I’ve seen an amazing impact in having my presence out there on social…
JEFF COTRUPE
I just launched a new site for my business. Same domain, http://marketpowerLLC.com, but anyone who saw the old site may not even recognize us as the same company today. In planning the launch I realized one of the first things I look for as a site visitor is a search capability. Not of the whole web; I can get to Google or Yahoo! via my own bookmarks, thank you, and I never understand companies who provide web search but no search of their own site. Or, as is still the case at a surprising number of sites: No search at all.…
Jeff Cotrupe, Founder and CEO
One of my favorite comedy lines ever, which in this case emanated from the magically twisted mind of Steven Wright, goes like this: “I bought some batteries. But they weren’t included. So I bought ‘em again…I bought some powdered water. But I didn’t know what to add…”
Open letter to Steven and ROW (rest of world): When it comes to websites, I can tell you exactly what to add.
It’s always a good idea to keep your keywords and metatags complete and current on a website; many search engines still key on that when deciding whether to list you in search…
AOL has launched When.com, an online guide to local events. It looks like a great place to scout for weekend activities in your area, or places to go or events to enjoy at any time. PC Magazine notes of the new service: “It’s powered by Zvents, a local search engine behind hundreds of Web and mobile partners, featuring event listings to promote local businesses. When.com will derive revenue from online advertising sold through AOL’s Platform-A service.”
We’ve been talking about why it’s important to think of search engine optimization /search engine marketing (SEO/M) and Web 2.0 not as the be-all and end-all of your communications universe but as key ingredients in a complete, balanced diet. Of course what we mean when we say “Web 2.0″ breaks out into three areas:
- Rich Internet applications (RIA) including AJAX and Flash
- Broadcast media such as streaming, RSS and mobile SMS
- Consumer-generated media (CGM) like consumer reviews, wiikis, blogs and participation in forums
All of us who post here on SEO Shootout want to talk about best practices, but today is show-and-tell: I’m going to show…
Great thoughts about SEO sites, practices, community, etc., and do please read the comments. Very good peek. The latest post however makes this pretty poignant. To this post let me just add that I too am no-one in particular, and that’s an important attribute.
Social Media and Web 2-3.0 being what they are, should I use my graphic design skills to make a “No-one In Particular” logo we can use on our sites to celebrate good practices and humility within the biz? If there are YES comments I’ll do it! With enthusiasm!
— Abigail
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Abigail Hamilton is a professional with over…
The power of social media branding and marketing is expressed really well in this post at ClickZ:
Hours after Palin was named as [MCain's] running mate, James posted a photo of Wasilla City Hall on his Facebook profile page. The photo was originally posted by djcn0te on photo-sharing site Flickr.com in 2005. Since Palin ascended into national politics, so too has this photo. It’s now accompanied by wisecracks (or insightful observations, depending on your political persuasion). Wrote clockwerks: “so McCain’s VP pick was mayor of a laundromat?” And this from emasscouple: “She really is for reducing the size of government, eh?”
One blogger asked…
My musical tastes flash across the spectrum from heart-rendingly beautiful symphonic movie soundtracks to some of the most deliciously vicious hard rock ever recorded, but somewhere in the median is a sultry, radio-friendly-yet-cult-favorite tune by Steely Dan entitled Hey Nineteen. And that’s as good a starting point as any from which today’s ravings about some of the madness inside the “2.0″ methodology may flow.
It’s an honor to be invited to be a blogger here on SEO Shootout. I know when you express that level of candor and humility these days it may seem like a creaky old covered wagon coming…
