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In this article, you’ll discover a key element of your Web site and how you can use it to drive traffic to your site from offline sources. What is this “basic element” of your site, you ask? It’s your domain name - your business’ virtual address.

To figure out why a business’ domain name is important to its Web site’s offline promotions, a little background into domain names is in order. To begin with, there are two main classes of domain names, gTLDs (general Top Level Domains) and ccTLDs (country code Top Level Domains). The seven original gTLDs are .com, .net, .org, .mil, .edu, .gov, and .int. As of the writing of this article, seven new gTLDs are in the process of being launched by ICANN, the governing body of TLDs. They are .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name, and .pro. The gTLDs were developed to represent specific types of entities, such as commercial organizations (.com), educational institutions (.edu), or cooperatives (.coop). The ccTLDs were developed to represent entities from specific regions, such as the United States (.us), France (.fr), or Japan (.jp).

In most cases, if you find the right registrar, you can purchase domain names with any extension, no matter why you need the name or where you are based. Does this mean you should though? Unless you need to protect your intellectual property rights in a name, probably not. The best choice by far is a good solid “dot com”. Why? Because people are familiar with it, and it’s what people associate most with Internet addresses. This is very important in offline advertising, because if a potential customer sees your Web address, he or she will likely have to remember that address when it’s time to pull up the old Web browser to visit the site. So generally speaking, a domain name ending in .com is most desirable for offline advertising.

Several other important issues to consider are the domain name length, use of hyphens in the domain name, and the name’s overall “readability”. The domain name length can have a direct impact on how effective that name is at driving traffic to a site. As you can probably imagine, the fewer the characters in a domain name, the better. The use of hyphens in a domain name can have a negative impact on a name’s effectiveness, so they should be avoided if offline advertising is planned. A name’s readability should also be taken into consideration when planning offline promotions. Do the words run together confusingly? Are the letters positioned in such a way that the name might be misread? If so, capitalization can be used in print to eliminate some of the confusion.

So what if you’ve already registered a name, and you find another name that you think would work better for offline advertising? That’s simple. Register the new name, and get your host to set up an “alias” that will direct any traffic the new address receives to your existing Web site.

Alan is the lead developer for InfoServe Media, LLC, a Houston Web design company that allows you to purchase domain names through its site.

CSS is short for Cascading Style Sheets. CSS is not new but only recently becoming utalised and its importance to the website design industry increasing. What is initially good about CSS is that gives both website designers and website users more control over how pages are displayed. With CSS, website designers and users can create style sheets that define how different elements, such as headers and links, appear. These Style Sheets can then be applied to any Web page.

CSS can reduce your server bandwidth costs

Because CSS website pages are usually much smaller file sizes than those using HTML table designs, it’s not unusual to see reductions in file size of more than 50%. Smaller file sizes mean reduced bandwidth, which in turn means reduced bandwidth charges.

Search Engine Optimisation - CSS improves your ranking

A little known fact about CSS is a CSS website design will appear higher in the search engine rankings. Why?

• There is dramatically less code and the code is cleaner and therefore more accessible to search engines

• You can make sure the content that is most important to the Search Engine Optimisation process is at the top of the code. It is bit like moving your best products to your shop window and front of shop to attract visitors.

• The ratio of content to code is greatly improved

This obviously makes CSS a big hit with a company who does Search Engine Optimisation like us.

Websites that download quickly means more business

People don’t have patience in most aspects of life. This is especially true of online browsing. There is lots of research on this subject, so it is safe to conclude that fast site make more money for your business. As far as CSS downloads times are concerned, CSS are much quick than those using tables. What’s more, with CSS you can control the order items download on to the screen and make the content appear before slow-loading images. We have all be on websites where we wished the images came later than the content.

Switching to a website design that uses CSS

How hard it is to move a website to CSS very much depends on the size of the site. For larger sites it could be a long process, but worth the transition. For new website designs, website re-designs or smaller sites just wanting to change, it is not too painful. You should choose a website design company that uses CSS, and understands Search Engine Optimisation.

By Matt Roberts Website Design

Matt Roberts is passionate about all aspects of website design, marketing and business development. He has a Marketing Degree and has worked for some of the largest advertising and online agencies in the UK, working with clients like Selfridges, Sofa Workshop, Richer Sounds, Cable and Wireless, Legal & General and many more.

The last 4 years have been spent helping small and medium sized businesses develop their businesses through the creation of intelligent and affordable website design, website redesign, and ecommerce website design and search engine optimisation strategies that work.

You’re watching TV one evening scanning through the reruns thinking it’s pathetic how little there is to watch anymore when a fantastic movie trailer comes on. It’s everything you love - the right actors, the wit, the action - and your heart beats a little faster in anticipation - if only you could watch it RIGHT NOW!

Well, the film industry has heard you. Along with the speed of the internet, consumers have now come to a new stage of demand. It used to be that we WANTED everything immediately - now we EXPECT it.

This is not the sort of thing that goes unnoticed by industries that cater to public reception. And now it has been announced that we may not be far away from simply walking over to our computer and downloading the newest releases.

During a meeting at the Cannes Film Festival, Culture Ministers from across Europe, film industry representatives and Internet Service Providers were among those who met to discuss the possible policies needed to distribute movies online.

BBC news reports European Union media commissioner Viviane Reding as stating: “In Europe, as in other continents, the opportunities for people to enjoy films online are set to increase tremendously over the next few years”.

Naturally there are still many issues to be resolved before movies are readily available to the public online. Piracy and broadband capabilities are still being questioned.

Piracy became the prominent issue when music files were being illegally shared over the internet. While the music industry fought against such services as Napster, they are still far from recovering their market revenue and the film industry is not anxious to join them.

What can’t be debated is that there IS a market, and no industry likes to bypass that because of possible problems.

Right now European broadband may not be up to the task of downloading such large files but has plans to proceed with distribution soon.

In America there has already been movie distribution with the inevitable legal proceedings against individuals facilitating unauthorized downloads.

Although the fight against piracy is being taken very seriously by the industry, it is still parents who are at the forefront of setting the example and instructing children on the ethics of downloading such material. Responsibility is learned.

In any event, the next time you see a great movie advertised and you are handy to the internet, perhaps you should stay in, avoid the lines and the traffic and check it out online!

The author runs a website,8mm projector which is a directory website for anything pertaining to film projectosrs

While such images provide us with an insight into what lies beyond out little rock, they are usually grainy, black and white, and extremely slow to arrive. This is because the data transmitted from outer space which is used to process the images must travel long distances using technology which is not capable of producing better results.

However it may be a case of broadband suppliers to the rescue as scientists working on the problem have recently unveiled a tiny light detector that may allow for super-fast broadband communications over interplanetary distances.

Using current technology, still images broadcast to Earth from equipment located on other planets are difficult and time-consuming to retrieve. It is estimated that the new detector, however, will improve efficiency to 57% at a wavelength of 1,550 nanometres.

If that makes no sense to you, consider that this is the same wavelength used by fibre optic cables to carry broadband into offices and homes. This represents a threefold increase in efficiency for the transfer of images from outer space, which currently has a detector efficiency of around 20%.

Using the wireless frequency technology currently available it can take several hours to get useful information back to Earth from Mars. Using an optical link, as provided by the new technology, this same task can be completed thousands of times faster.

The light detector will allow real-time collection of large amounts of data from space, and may also permit the transmission of colour video between astronauts or equipment in outer space and scientists on Earth. This is obviously a giant leap for mankind.

The way the light detector works is by using nanowires and superconductor technology to sense extremely low light or laser signals in the infrared part of the optical spectrum down to a single photon. This is the smallest and most basic unit of light known to man, and such a feat has not been possible using conventional optical systems.

Apart from the wireless frequency technology being generally inefficient, because of the vast distances between planets and other objects in outer space, such optical systems would require a large laser and a lot of power to be able to send data at a high rate. If this were to be achieved on a spacecraft, it would use up an enormous amount of energy, which renders the technique impossible as spacecraft as are typically starved of power.

So it appears that there is a need for a device such as the new light detector that can operate quickly and without using much power.

Is the first interplanetary reality TV show almost upon us?

Broadband-is-cheap contains up-to-date news, information, and deals from leading UK Broadband Suppliers market.

One most important way to help increase web traffic is by link development. A typical way is by link exchange which is not a good practice especially if you are exchanging links with sites with unrelated topic. Your ranking will not benefit or even get harm by SE if you have a website about dogs but exchange links with an online casino. Search Engines will detect that and knows that you are doing unnatural link exchange.

blog - add value to your website
Now it comes another way of smart link building - blogging. You can create a blog and write related topics about your website. You can posts links to your website pages, of couse dont make it appear that you are ad marketing your website.

Index your website quickly
blogger.com is a best place to create your blog as it is owned by google. All blogs in blogger.com are automatically included into the crawler. You dont need to submit your blog to google to ask for inclusion. In this way if you have a new website and wish to be indexed by google in a quick way, conside creating a blog there !

More backlinks
You may choose to host your blog in your own domain, or you can let them host it for you. In either case you are probably using another subdomain (e.g. blog.yoursite.com, yoursite.blogspot.com). Search engine sees subdomains as separate websites. So any links from the blog to your main website would be valuable and not counted as internal links. This naturally increases your SERP.

More Traffic
People like to see blogs, as they are more human. Keep your blog content fresh and frequently updated. This can grant you a new source of traffic. Dont underestimate the traffic that a blog can bring you. If you have a product related page, it is strongly suggested you write comments and some product reviews on your blog.

Come to my blog at http://make-money-online.softbath.net for more SEO tips.
Also visits http://ezine.softbath.net for ezine articles about internet marketing

Today you can broadcast your message on the Internet to hundreds of people in one digital web conference room. You have a certain control of content and audio in the conference room. With today’s software technology, digital communication has reach a higher level. Now you can sit in New York and make a meeting with your business partners in London without being in the same room. Show the latest sales charts, discuss a new business plan all with a high level of interactivity. Home business owners will show their web site while they speak about their affiliate products. Below you can see the features of most digital web conference rooms.

1. In the same window you can talk and co-browse with students, partners or business associates.

2. Share applications of your choice in the same window. The participant will use the same application. Very useful for IT training.

3. Customise the communication software to suit your need.

A digital web conference room can be the perfect tool for Internet Marketing. The biggest advantages is that you reach people without the cost of traveling and you save time. Plus your presentation becomes visual, therefore more easy to conceive. Web conferencing service provides you the personal contact and hands-on collaborative features that are crucial to productive communication.

My name is Lars Nielsen.
I run a business in the area of search engine optimisation.

Visit my site: http://www.ultimate-mlm.com

Over the years, I have been amazed at the “blinding” greed and reckless approach to commerce that some business owners have employed. Lying to customers, selling inferior merchandise, and not offering refunds, left a firestorm of irate customers in their wake. Without fail, all of this “ill will” led most businesses to bankruptcy, and in some cases, Federal Prison.

I realize that not everyone engages in “business criminality” that rises to the level of fraud and incarceration. Most people try to be good stewards, and approach their enterprise in an honest and forthright manner. For those of you who own thriving business concerns you already know that in most cases the customer is always right. You make sure that you communicate effectively, refund monies if the buyer is truly unhappy, and try to meet the needs of the people who buy your goods or services.

However, there are more than a handful of Ebay sellers that are of the mind that customer service and effective communication is not something that they need not participate in. Take the case of a woman named Barbara, (Nickname: BobAnn) who recently posted her disappointment on the Ryze Business Network:

“When will sellers on Ebay understand that customer service is key? And when will Ebay sellers learn using customer friendly approaches can only make their business grow?” Again today I’ve bought from a less than friendly seller.

Thought I was placing a bid and instead bought the item at the buy now price. Of course the seller refused to allow the retraction, nor was I allowed to place a bid. I always pay for my winning bids immediately upon email confirmation.

BobAnn

End quote…

The operative phrase here is “repeat business from me and my friends”. There is no better endorsement of your product or service than word of mouth advertising. Lack of flexibility on the part of the seller, not only cost them one customer, but also destroyed the possibility for future business. Good news travels fast, but bad news travels faster!

As an auction seller, (Ebay auction ID: LevelBest77) I would have accommodated her request right away. And while I have never had anyone use “Buy It Now” by accident, I have had several people over the years ask me to retract bids. The number of people who have made that request can be counted on one hand! Some, did not even understand the process, (bid retracting) and I was more than willing to guide them through it.

Hot Tip! People that buy on ebay are looking for a bargain, the trouble is they think that Ebay is the best place to look.

People make honest mistakes, and you should never “abuse” a buyer for doing so. If you plan to get into Ebay auction selling for the long haul, always practice good will toward your customers. Unless someone is totally unreasonable, and you have done everything in your power to accommodate their request, never deny people the ability to change their mind, return an item, or retract a bid! Developing good will also requires that you anticipate customer needs…..

Hot Tip! The items you will be putting on eBay the following week.

For instance, I had a few overseas customers bid on a wireless router. This particular item needed to be powered with a Universal Adapter, since voltage requirements in France and Australia are obviously different from those here in the United States.

I made this abundantly clear to both bidders before they sent me any payment. The purchase of such an adapter, not to mention the shipping price, would have doubled the US retail cost. I told them that they could probably get the product cheaper at their local electronics stores. Without hesitation, I let them out of their obligation to pay for the item. I then contacted the next highest bidder and offered that person the chance to make the purchase.

How To Make Easy Money On eBay® Simple Home Based Business Plan To Make Extra Money On The Web.

Both bidders thanked me for my honesty. They had forgotten about the electrical differences. I could have ignored that little detail, and sold them the item anyway. I just had to put myself in their situation. Think of how frustrated they would have been if I did not reveal that information. Buyer’s remorse would have set in quickly, once they realized that they could have purchased the same item for a lot less in their native countries.

While the benefits of these actions may not have an immediate effect, you can be sure that should I ever have another “item of interest!” these two gentlemen would not hesitate to purchase from me. They can count on me to accommodate their needs, instead of catering to my wants. Creating this type of good will instills trust, and the knowledge that you have the customers best interest in mind.

“What we have here is a failure to communicate!”

Communication with your customers should not amount to the sound one hand clapping! Bottom line, if someone e-mails you with a question–answer it! Here is an example of the type of feedback I obtained by doing just that……

Robert C. Potter is the author of “The Ultimate Guide To Products For Resale.” Over 300 Wholesale & Surplus Supply Sources, For Ebay Auction Sellers, E-Commerce Websites, Flea Market Vendors, and Retail Store Owners! You can find his ebook here: http://www.productsforresale.com

We all have this dream. I wish I could work from home, have my own business, be my own boss, get up when I want, determine my own income and then we meet Internet Marketing, Network Marketing, MLM call it what you want.

I use to be so frustrated in Network Marketing because I would jump from one program to the other, getting new downlines, try another program, add another product, and then everything changed. Something in my mind changed. Now I see the world rushing forward in that same mode, and I relax. My thinking has changed.

So, what happened you may ask. I realized that Internet Marketing is not about the money, the products, the downlines, the traffic, the new signup.
Internet Marketing is about people. People like you and me. Real people with real families and real dreams.

If you focus on people and relationships, the rest will follow and it does.
Did you know that the average network marketer only build a downline of 2 - 3 before they give up? Some of your downlines will never even sign up one person. Building an online relationship will not only help that person to be successfull, but it will help you put money in your pocket for a long time to come.

If you want your prospects to literally ask you to be in your downline, the you have to start giving them personal attention.
Something that really get to me is people that will sign up in your downline, and when you send them an invitation to talk to you, they don’t even bother to reply to your email. What is happening in the world if we can’t take the time to talk to someone?

Where do you start?

Focus on people. Start talking to people. Find out what their dreams are, Find out what makes them tick. Start writing personal emails. Ask the guy on the other end about his children.

One of the tools that really helped me is a little free program that I downloaded from www.skype.com that let you talk to people across the world from your PC for free. It is amazing. You can see the guy’s picture. This tool is really great for building Internet Marketing relationships.
If you can build a relationship and teach other to do the same you will have hundreds of downline members that will not go away next week to try some other program. If you choose your program wisely you will make money. No matter which network marketing company you choose.

A lot of my time is spent mentoring people over the internet, and the one thing that sticks out above all is that if you care about people and relationships, your business will prosper. I want to challenge you today, get to listen to people’s hearts and I will guarantee you a prosperous business.

Read some more of my articles at http://www.netbiz.ukwaka.co.za or contact me for free personal Internet Marketing coaching at chris@ukwaka.co.za
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Reproduction of this article is allowed with an html link pointing to http://www.netbiz.ukwaka.co.za

Christo Fouche is an online marketer who specializes in free online training. His motto is If you help enough other people to get what they want, you will end up with what you want.
Christo Fouche
CEO
Ukwaka Netbiz
http://www.netbiz.ukwaka.co.za

chris@ukwaka.co.za

Many people who want to build a website don’t know where to start. Building a web site is simple, all you need is a web host and a site builder, A web host is the website that gets your site up and going and they usually provide you with a web site builder. Once you get the web builder and start building your web site, you can see that building a web site is pretty simple, and with a little practice, you can be building professional websites that could generate mass amounts of money, if you know how to efficiently promote your website on a continual basis. Building the website takes a little practice, promoting the website efficiently takes a little knowledge, time, effort, and patients, as long as your promoting your website, constantly learning, and you never give up, you are a better internet marketer then the next guy. If you’re not out to make a living online but you want to build a website that’s ok you still need to know the term “internet marketing” and “search engine optimization”, just because your not selling a product doesn’t mean you don’t need people to come to your website, to me that’s what internet marketing’s all about, “bringing targeted visitors to your website”.

There are many free website host out there and you can easily find them through a search engine, but I don’t recommend them, and if your trying to make a living online I highly recommend you not using free web hosting because they will stab you in the back, and eventually you will loose whatever kind of work you put into your website. There is also a ton of paid host out there, and in my opinion; most paid web hosting is extremely cheap. If your planning on only running one website you can get a good website host for as little as 3 dollars a month, if your looking build lots of websites, you can find a good web host plan, with unlimited websites, for ten dollars a month. I use hostgator web site hosting I get unlimited websites and unlimited domain names for a little less then $10 a month. Find a Good Web Hosting
Directory at this website: Marketpost.net also finds information on Internet marketing and other information to help your Internet business succeed.

The world has become a lot smaller of a place these days. For businesses, the marketplace has extended to include the entire globe. Many more people are traveling much more extensively for business and personal reasons. Staying in touch and being able to communicate quickly have become important in today’s world. That’s where the new technology offered by international ISPs is becoming increasingly useful. Everyone is now as close as you need or want them to be.

The global Internet service providers make access available in over 150 countries on five continents. The technology makes it possible to connect with the Internet with your PC, Mac, PDA or other mobile device. Their aim is to provide access that is easy to use. They provide access that is as fast as you need it to be, and will work with the system you have. You can get dial-up, wi-fi, broadband, and satellite access, so that it is convenient for you and you don’t have to change the hardware and software that you currently possess. Their goal is also to have Internet service in as many places as possible, and most of these companies are working to make it available in more places every day. Soon, the entire planet will be accessible with these global ISPs. They are also very competitive when it comes to price. Each of these types of international providers has different plans to suit any budget and any need. Most of them bill by the second and offer a pay as you go kind of deal. Others require some type of service commitment, but the various plans are very flexible and affordable for nearly anyone.

The billing process is also very streamlined. Your bill arrives monthly by email, and usually details your usage by date and time, the duration of usage and the location in which it was used. This makes it very easy to see if the current charges are correct, and the billing is understandable and clear.

All of the companies that are international ISPs have excellent customer support. It is offered round the clock in every country, so that if you have a problem or issue, it is a toll-free call from wherever you are. They work hard to minimize any downtime and make sure that the service you receive is of the quality that you expect. If you have a problem, you will always have live technical support to help you out.

A global ISP is another step in the right direction for both small and large businesses. It is another way that the future is becoming an easier place to navigate and communicate with others around the planet. The future is here, so it is time to embrace the possibilities.

Bob Hett offers great tips and advice regarding all aspects of Internet Service Providers.
Get the information you are seeking now by visiting http://www.internetservicecenter.info

2 days after Google ushers in Checkout, PayPal sends an email announcing opening of new regional HQ in Singapore. PayPal Private Limited, as it’ll be called, will cater to PayPal’s non-US, non-EU customers effective 1st August, which is a month from now. In a way, this was destined to happen, and hopefully the new dispensation will offer improved services.

To its credit, opening and using PayPal account is very easy. One only needs a verified email address to get going. When PayPal scented opportunity in online payment business there were only a handful players in the field. Keeping it easy makes PayPal the most accepted face among countless small online business owners. Though PayPal charges good amount for its services, people take that in their stride. For most of them, PayPal remains the only choice, because, among other reasons, setting up one’s own payment gateway is prohibitively costly.

Yet there are grumbles and often, frayed tempers. Getting answers from PayPal is never easy. Sometimes it would seem that all your fervent pleas are falling on deaf ears. For small entities, there is yet another problem. You wouldn’t be able to lay hands on your money unless it reaches a threshold limit - usually $150.

When ebay acquired PayPal, its business soared manifold. Sellers on ebay are urged to use PayPal as preferred payment mode. However, more often than not, sellers outside US, EU and other rich countries receive PayPal payments after a long delay. This is not the case if you prefer direct delivery of selling amount to you, and in so doing you can also avoid hefty PayPal check-making charges. Adding up, one gets the idea that ebay+PayPal combination is not equally helpful for all sellers.

There are other concerns too. PayPal’s resource-rich information attracts hordes of hackers and online-thieves to prey upon. This means that on many occasions, for none of your deliberate wrong-doing, you may have your legitimate account frozen along with whatever money there is in it.

As PayPal spread far and wide, the problems above should have prompted it to diversify and systematically organize its services in time. That was not to be, until Google arrived on the scene. Google’s arrival is rumored from April last. So ultimately PayPal rolled up its sleeve and started serious thinking. Singapore’s proposed set-up is an indication of that. One hopes that PayPal’s Singapore unit will address customers’ problems with alacrity. For one, why not facilitate direct bank-transfer of payments for its customers, say in India, like PayPal does for its customers in US, EU and few other countries?

Checkout is presently only for US buyers and sellers. There is no doubt Google will offer the service elsewhere too in near future. For AdWords users, Checkout is expected to be a boon. Who knows, as time passes, Google may even entice Governments to use its discounted service for different revenue collections. Google is not known to play second fiddle in whatever it does. So Checkout will very shortly become a serious contender to PayPal.

It is unlikely that PayPal users will unceremoniously dump it in favor of Checkout (as and when it becomes available). In any case, Checkout’s features are still in evolving stage. In all probability, it would be that PayPal customer will also become Checkout user and weigh pros and cons before choosing one over another. To that extent, PayPal still has some time. What about new customers? It’s difficult to hazard a guess here. I’ll not put my money on either one’s succeeding, at least till the dust settles or till the fight begins in right earnest. After all, it’s my money, honey!

Partha Bhattacharya is an experienced href="http://www.words2content.com/">web content provider. This article can also be seen at Partha’s href="http://www.prioriti.in/blogs/?p=73">blog on web marketing, a big help for small website owners.

We’ve been searching the Internet for quality Internet TV content for a very very long time. The web history is filled with “almost”s ventures trying to give the world of surfers what they really want - FREE content, but there aren’t many success stories out there.

There once was a brilliant TV show named “The Prisoner” and one of the famous lines from the series is: “I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered”. It seems like we don’t mind being indexed anymore, like we don’t mind being watched and used, that we will forget all about the cookies they implant and the spam we see everywhere (and not only in e-mails) - as long as we get our content for free.

There are many great sites to visit today that are actually working good and offer TV content for free and we’re not talking about the funny clips, homemade movies or 3 minutes music videos. We are talking about the real deal - Internet TV.

If you’re looking to something to watch online, you will probably find something interesting in one of these really high-quality sites (the list is not sorted in any particular order):

1. AOL In2TV is the first real broadband TV network, as far as we know. You can watch hundreds of high-quality, full length classic TV episodes that you probably never forgot about them or never heard of them. The content is mostly nostalgic, but you can find many gems there, like Babylon 5, Beetlejuice, Freakazoid, Growing Pains, Head of Class, Luis and Clark, The Fugitive, V: The Series, Wonder Woman and many others.

2. ABC Streaming is available only until June 30th, so hurry up and try it, before it goes down. It’s a test they’re running to check the effectiveness this will have on advertisers and viewers, and we believe it will have good results. It’s only open for US residents, so if you’re living somewhere else in the world - forget about the global village. You can watch TV series like, Lost, Desperate Housewives, Alias, Commonder in Cheif and others. If you haven’t done it already, you should check it out.

3. The Innertube is run by CBS and although it’s not nearly as good as the above sites, it has some good original content there, like companion shows that extend CBS broadcast programs - Survivor Live, The Big Brother Talk Show, Clips from The Amazing Race and some funny comedy bits. We’re onlt mentioning this site in this list, because we see it has great potential ar becoming something worth visiting, but unfortunately now is not the time.

4. The not-so-legal PeekVid is something completely different. Peekvid collects the quality content from YouTube and categorize them into these groups - TV shows, cartoons, anime, Asian movies, independent TV, comedy and music. After you select one of the groups, you’ll recieve a more detailed list of all the shows available for you. For example - if you choose TV Shows, you’ll see a list of all TV shows available to watch (use this bookmarklet to save the videos you’re watching with KeepVid) and if you choose Comedy, you’ll have to select your favorite artist or show. You can spend hours and days in that site going through and watching all the shows. You can almost say it looks like the future.

Links to all sites mentioned and many more sites are available at 6initiative.com.

Whether it’s a corporate blog, a news-type blog, or even a personal blog, optimizing your blog for the search engines is a must. There are some simple changes that you can make to WordPress and Moveable Type that will make your blog more search engine friendly and make the search engines beg for more (more post and content, that is!).

Optimizing a blog is just like optimizing any other website. The content and pages (posts) must be unique, they must be search engine friendly, and it needs links from other websites. If it’s a new blog, then you first need to make sure the blog software you’re using is set up so that it takes advantage of all of the possible optimization features. Then, announce it to the world, work on getting some links to it, and start making posts.

WordPress Optimization

If you’re using WordPress for your blog software, it’s important to make sure that your site is search engine friendly, meaning that it can easily be spidered by the search engine spiders. Just like optimizing a website, it’s important to have good title tags and meta tags. Keep in mind that blog software usually uses the title of your post as the title tag, so include keywords in your titles as much as possible.

It’s important to set up your blog’s software so that the URLs don’t contain a lot of variables. Instead, use URLs that include the post title or post name in them. For example, if you’re using WordPress you’ll need to set the permalinks so that it uses %postname% in the URL. You can also set up a specific category for the post archives, and you might consider using a keyword that’s related to your blog instead of the default, which is typically the word “archive”.

Fintan Darragh of www.dech.co.uk has a great blog post called “Ultimate WordPress SEO Tips” (http://www.dech.co.uk/2005/11/ultimate-WordPress-seo-tips/). Mr. Darragh talks about permalink optimization and says, “The goal: stick more keywords up into the URL and remove the faff which nobody uses, to make the URL search engine and people attractive. Having keywords in your URL is an absolute must, especially when it’s as easy as WordPress makes it.” He also goes on to talk about getting rid of useless tags like the month, day, and year, as well as one important detail: whatever you do stick with the site structure you choose—otherwise you might end up with a lot of useless links to your site. Other tips that Mr. Darragh mentions are optimizing your page titles and your post titles–and installing a few plugins that are useful such as the “Related Posts Plugin” and the “Technorati Tag Generator”.

There are several other places where you can get specific tips about setting up WordPress in a search engine friendly manner, including:

* SEO at Aleeya Dot Net - http://www.aleeya.net/category/WordPress/seo/
* The Best WordPress SEO Possible - http://WordPress.org/support/topic/49168
* Search Engine Optimization for WordPress - http://codex.WordPress.org/Search_Engine_Optimization_for_WordPress
* Search Engine Optimization for Blogs - http://www.blog-maniac.com/blog-seo.htm
* DYI Search Engine Optimization - http://lorelle.WordPress.com/2006/01/15/dyi-search-engine-optimization/

One of the best tutorials out there is one called “DYI Search Engine Optimization” by Lorelle VanFossen. Specifically, Lorelle (lorelle.WordPress.com) has some great tips, including how to optimize your code, develop strong intrasite links, write with strong keyword usage, use categories and tags, and how to use ping services. Lorelle says that “the goal is to help search engine crawlers move through your website collecting information to be stored in the search engine’s database. The key to your blog’s data making it successfully into a search engine’s database is to:

1) Make sure there are no road blocks in the path of a search engine crawler.
2) Make sure the crawler can move through your blog, examining all your web pages.
3) Provide adequate keywords and key phrases which clearly help categorize your content.
4) Provide clearly labeled tags and categories recognized by tagging service crawlers and many search engines today.
5) Take advantage of pinging services.”

There are several WordPress Plugins available that will help you take advantage of internal linking (like the Related Posts Plugin) which will link to other posts in your blog that are on the same topic. Other plugins that might be helpful are plugins that automatically generate a Google Sitemap file as well as plugins that help you categorize the site such as the WordPress Subdomain Plugin (http://www.webguerrilla.com/WordPress-subdomain-plugin/).

Movable Type Optimization
If you’re using Movable Type for your blog software, then it’s also important to make sure that your site is search engine friendly and can be spidered by the search engine spiders. Just like optimizing a website, it’s important to have good title tags and meta tags. Keep in mind that blog software usually uses the title of your post as the title tag, so include keywords in your titles as much as possible.

Miles Evans (http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/expertarticles/wpn-62-20060310Movable TypeSEO.html) says that “Movable Type is optimized quite well out of the box, but there are a few quick tricks to easily providing the spiders with some dynamic content.” He goes on to say that you need to optimize your template. “For my main home page and category index pages I hardcode most of my meta data. Your meta tags will be at the top of the template within the tag. You can get fancy on your index pages but I cannot really see why. Optimize these two templates by hand for whatever keywords you are targeting site wide.” Mr. Evans also has another article titled, “Best Movable Type Plugins” (http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/expertarticles/wpn-62-20060310BestMovable TypePlugins.html) that talks about his favorite plugins that help him get great search engine rankings. His favorite Movable Type Plugins for SEO are Dashify, MTPaginate, MT Blogroll, MT InlineEditor, MT-Textile, BigPAPI, as well as Ajaxify (a set of plugins that adds several ajax/javascript widgets into the Movable Type interface), CheckLinks, FormatList v1.0, and Better File Uploader for uploading files.

Nicholas Carvan (http://www.nicholascaravan.com) has a great article about Movable Type optimization called “Optimizing your Movable Type blog for Google” (http://www.nicholascarvan.com/blog/optimizing_your_Movable Type_blog_for_google.html). In it he talks about PageRank (and how it relates to your internal linking on your blog), having keywords in your URL (which is important for all blog optimization) and blogrolling. He defines the term blogrolling very well, saying, “Blogrolling: Inbound links are gold, but in Google’s eyes, not all links are equal. In particular, Google isn’t wild about links contained within JavaScript - apparently they can index them, but that doesn’t mean they always want to.”

Once you’ve set up and configured your blog’s software, it’s important to make sure that you leave it alone—if you change your page URLs then any links that you’ve received from other bloggers may not be valid anymore. If you need to change your site’s structure (perhaps you’ve been blogging already and wish to use the tips from this article to optimize your blog), then you might want to take a look at the Objection Redirection WordPress Plugin(http://WordPress-plugins.biggnuts.com/objection-redirection-WordPress-plugin/) if you’re using WordPress. The Objection Redirection Plugin gives you a simple interface to redirect users (and search engine bots) to the proper page, especially if you’ve changed your site’s structure.

Start Blogging
The best thing you can do is to start blogging. Go ahead and post to your heart’s content and write, write, write about your topic. The more content you can provide the better—and it seems as if adding content on a regular basis really helps, as well. Feel free to link out to other blog posts that are related to the topic you’re writing about. For example, before you publish a post, go on over to your favorite blog search engine and find another recent post on the same subject—and link to the post. Linking out to other bloggers will get their attention, and hopefully they’ll end up linking to you as well. If other bloggers have trackbacks turned on then their blog will link back to your post. Some trackbacks are moderated, so it might take some time before your link shows up on the other blog. And some bloggers have trackbacks turned off, so a link back to your site might take some manual intervention.

Categorize your posts as much as possible, and feel free to add categories as you blog—it will help the internal linking structure of your site, and help the search engines and users find on-topic posts.

Promoting Your Blog
Whenever you make a post in your blog, your blog software will attempt to ping certain sites to let them know that you just updated your blog. There are many blog ping services out there, including Ping-O-Matic and Pingoat. Your blog software can be configured to ping sites automatically, and I’ve posted a list for WordPress of ping services on by blog (http://www.corporatewebsitemarketing.info/cwm/WordPress-ping-list).

If your blog is new or you would like to get some more links, you can submit your blog to blog directories as well as other sites that will list your blog (don’t forget to submit to DMOZ.org, Yahoo! Directory, and the Best of the Web Blog Directory). About.com has a great article about promoting a blog (http://weblogs.about.com/cs/blogpromotions/a/promoteblog.htm) and even Biz Stone has great tutorial about promoting your blog (http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=1060). Lastly, don’t forget to turn on your blog’s RSS feed. And if you’re looking to promote your RSS feed, try searching your favorite search engine for “promote rss” to find a lot of good tutorials.

Promoting your blog is just like promoting a website—you need good spiderable content, links to your content, and you need to set up your blog software to take advantage of all the great features. There are also plugins that will help make blogging easier for all of us.

Bill Hartzer manages the Search Engine Marketing division of MarketNet, Inc., a leading full-service interactive design and development firm in Dallas, Texas. Hartzer recently joined MarketNet, where his vast experience significantly bolsters MarketNet’s already robust search engine marketing offerings. Hartzer is a successful writer and search engine marketing expert.

No sooner had I blogged on the merits of using Paypal to secure payments from clients that Google has taken the wraps off of its long anticipated payment processing system. Google Checkout has arrived and it promises to be one more program for merchants to consider when setting up payment options for visitors to their websites.

With Google Checkout, customers to your site can make payment for goods and services much as they can do with Paypal. Google is sweetening this deal by charging merchants a lower fee than Paypal and by offering rebates on Google AdWords advertising to merchants using their new program according to an article in the San Francisco Examiner.

Google is also using this service to “collect” and store people’s credit card information in the hopes of making checkout time faster online. In some ways this gives me the creeps as it becomes just one more way for someone out there to have your vital information on hand. Of course, if you use Amazon and similar services they already do the same thing.

Will I switch from using Paypal to using Google Checkout? For the short term that answer is no. However, I will monitor the program’s progress as I consider adding some additional features to at least one of my websites…a storefront perhaps.

Copyright 2006 - For additional information regarding Matt Keegan, The Article Writer, please visit his blog for wit, quips, and freelance writing tips.

Announcing the winner of the best ISP award…the one that works for you and your family! Finding the best ISP is finding the one that works best for your internet experience and your needs. There is not an across the board best choice that will make every user satisfied. You need to choose an ISP that enables you and your family to use the internet in the ways and for the uses that you choose.

The best ISP will be one that offers software upgrades regularly and has been in business for a long time. The software upgrades will show you that they are constantly changing to give their users more features and speed. They will have a good track record with customers and their customer service associates will be available 24/7 with quick and efficient responses.

The number of email addresses available per account will help you decide which is the best ISP for you. If the number does not match or exceed the amount that you need for you and your family, then that ISP may not be the best choice for you and your family. Nothing is worse than your children fighting over an email address or reading each others emails.

If you have young children, then the best ISP choice for you may be one that offers the blocking of websites that are inappropriate for children. Some ISPs also offer special children’s offerings like games, cartoons, and movies. They also may offer links to homework help sites and other child appropriate sites.

The best ISP will be one that offers SPAM blocker and virus protection for your email and computer. This will protect your computer from any viruses that may be sent to you. SPAM blocker will help to save you time in reading your emails as it blocks many of those irritating emails that you do not want.

Unlimited internet usage is also the mark of one of the best ISPs. If you are on the computer several times daily, then this is the way that you want to go. Otherwise you could be paying extra money for any minutes over your specified time limit.

Price may be a factor in choosing the best ISP for you and your family, but keep in mind that you should not use price as the primary decision maker. Prices vary but so does service. The best ISP should be one that connects quickly and loads websites and information speedily. This may not happen with an ultra-cheap ISP. So choose the best ISP for you and your family to ensure that you receive the service that you need and deserve!

Learn the essential information for picking the right Internet Service Provider at Net Zero