What is twitter?
Twitter is a popular social networking service with tons of fans. People all over the world use twitter to blog their actions, ideas, jokes. Many marketing experts take advantage of its popularity to market their services and products. Twitter is an easy way to reach your end clients and to freely communicate with them. People are more likely to adopt an idea received from a fun service like twitter rather than simple advertising on a TV.
Why should I market my website or service on twitter?
If you don’t like the idea – you shouldn’t. Try twitter, make some friends and start to update regularly. When you grasp people’s attention – ask yourself – “Is this a suitable way to market my business?”
Twitter is an easy and fun way to pass a message to the masses.
First steps
Make an account, customize it to better express your personality and start micro-blogging. You have a simple question to answer – “What are you doing?”
Follow people
Follow interesting people. Twitter is just about that – follow and be followed. More of the people you follow will follow you back so go for it. Grow your community. Feed it with regular and fun thoughts, even politic comments are ok. Share what is on your mind. If you are original enough your community will grow fast.
Be careful not to add people automatically or too fast because this may get you banned.
Follow popular trends
At the time I write this article people, several crazy trends are getting popular on twitter. For example – today is Friday and people are writing on the #Follow Friday topic. It’s on the first page of course. Keep track on popular words or trends and use them. Write an interesting message to get attention.
Promote your site
Be careful when promoting. People are tired of spam. They get spam everywhere, don’t throw junks at them. Use your site to share something valuable with them. Don’t use phrases like “Visit my website”. Send your message in an appropriate way – write something that will intrigue your readers.
If you market a service – offer some promotion to your followers. Make something free for them. Give them a reason to like you and they will become your loyal clients.
Be original
I know that it is very hard to be original among thousands of people like you but please try. People prefer to read something new. Or if it is not exactly new, tell it in a different way. Its half of the work.
Twitter
Twitter got popular because people want to communicate. It is a service that offers people an easy way to shout what is on their mind. It can be a good place for marketing if you make it the right way.
Aug 14, 2009
Feb 28, 2009
Canonical link element?
What is canonical link element?
This is a new, optional directive, that helps to specify the original url of a page.
How it works?
For example, let’s have a page with parameters like this:
http://www.mywebsite.com/index.php?param1=aaa¶m2=bbb
Parameters can be session id or anything else. If their value is not relevant to the page we can specify our original (canonical) url in the head section of the page:
<head>
…
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.mywebsite.com/”>
…
</head>
We can specify canonical url to a section/page:
<head>
…
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.mywebsite.com/somepage.php”>
…
</head>
In short - canonical link element helps identify different links to one page.
More
More about canonical link element can be found at Matt Cutts blog here. And here is Google help information about it.
This is a new, optional directive, that helps to specify the original url of a page.
How it works?
For example, let’s have a page with parameters like this:
http://www.mywebsite.com/index.php?param1=aaa¶m2=bbb
Parameters can be session id or anything else. If their value is not relevant to the page we can specify our original (canonical) url in the head section of the page:
<head>
…
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.mywebsite.com/”>
…
</head>
We can specify canonical url to a section/page:
<head>
…
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.mywebsite.com/somepage.php”>
…
</head>
In short - canonical link element helps identify different links to one page.
More
More about canonical link element can be found at Matt Cutts blog here. And here is Google help information about it.
Jan 4, 2009
SEO errors during web site development and design
Many companies consider redesign or redevelopment of their website to attract and impress new clients. They contact with web development company and purchase a fancy web design and somewhat functional CMS.
Nowadays no one underestimate search engine optimization any more. Almost every business considers hiring a SEO company or expert to do the optimization part on the ready website.
Where is the error here?
Search engine optimization is a complex process. Basically it can be divided into two parts – on-site optimization and off-site optimization. Doing on-site optimization on a non-optimized, fully-developed web site will cost a lot of efforts. To cut short the costs, search engine optimization must be kept in mind during the website development and design.
For example flash menus can be good looking but the search engines still can’t handle them. The same goes for JavaScript menus and navigation. The overall site usability must be approved by a SEO expert.
There are many requirements for a site to be SEO friendly – different titles and meta tags for different pages, articles, categories, etc. Search engine friendly urls also must be considered.
I won’t list all the necessary stuff, because this post will become too long.
What is the solution?
A good SEO expert must participate in development process. Developers and designers must be in touch with him from the planning point of the project. There are some web development companies that offer a complex solution – web design, CMS development and SEO optimization. Anyway consider consulting more than one SEO expert and ask about the reasons for every step with suspicion.
Nowadays no one underestimate search engine optimization any more. Almost every business considers hiring a SEO company or expert to do the optimization part on the ready website.
Where is the error here?
Search engine optimization is a complex process. Basically it can be divided into two parts – on-site optimization and off-site optimization. Doing on-site optimization on a non-optimized, fully-developed web site will cost a lot of efforts. To cut short the costs, search engine optimization must be kept in mind during the website development and design.
For example flash menus can be good looking but the search engines still can’t handle them. The same goes for JavaScript menus and navigation. The overall site usability must be approved by a SEO expert.
There are many requirements for a site to be SEO friendly – different titles and meta tags for different pages, articles, categories, etc. Search engine friendly urls also must be considered.
I won’t list all the necessary stuff, because this post will become too long.
What is the solution?
A good SEO expert must participate in development process. Developers and designers must be in touch with him from the planning point of the project. There are some web development companies that offer a complex solution – web design, CMS development and SEO optimization. Anyway consider consulting more than one SEO expert and ask about the reasons for every step with suspicion.
Dec 22, 2008
The basic SEO rule!
Search engine optimization is a relatively complex business. Many people start working on it and give up after a while, thinking that they are not suit to do it.
Really, SEO needs a lot of work and knowledge. Any SEO master must know in depth many technologies like marketing, internet marketing, search engines, web design, some programming languages, etc.
Often, people start doing SEO without any knowledge, hoping that they will get it after some practice. Of course, large number of them fail. But there are few that succeed even without knowledge, support or investment.
So what is the basic rule of success in SEO?
It is simple - just never to give up. Yep, the success is not related to any knowledge, the most important thing is the wish for success. It is easy on words but after few months of hard work people tend to give up.
It is hard to continue working when you are disappointed of your achievements.
The cure for this state of mind can be a large vacation away from work and a strict schedule after it. This works for me pretty good, maybe it will work for you. And don't forget that you may be only one step away from the big SUCCESS!
Really, SEO needs a lot of work and knowledge. Any SEO master must know in depth many technologies like marketing, internet marketing, search engines, web design, some programming languages, etc.
Often, people start doing SEO without any knowledge, hoping that they will get it after some practice. Of course, large number of them fail. But there are few that succeed even without knowledge, support or investment.
So what is the basic rule of success in SEO?
It is simple - just never to give up. Yep, the success is not related to any knowledge, the most important thing is the wish for success. It is easy on words but after few months of hard work people tend to give up.
It is hard to continue working when you are disappointed of your achievements.
The cure for this state of mind can be a large vacation away from work and a strict schedule after it. This works for me pretty good, maybe it will work for you. And don't forget that you may be only one step away from the big SUCCESS!
Dec 13, 2008
Blog planning – how to start a high-traffic, high-paying blog?
After reading about a SEO experiment in DP, I gave a serious thought about what is the best strategy to start a blog. What is the best planning? How to attract more visitors? How to get maximum revenue? How to make people remember you?
I am not exactly a SEO expert, it is more likely that I am a SEO enthusiast. I am not interested in making money from SEO, my money source is programming. But for the past two years I do (and experiment on) search engine optimization for some sites. It is not a complete service and only small part of them are mine. I have some sites in high competition niches and some in low ones. And I make tests on different types of blog/website monetizing.
So what I have learned till now. The basic is – you have no guarantee in anything related to search engines. Two websites with no duplicate content but identical in niche/ marketing/ optimizing will have very different performance. This is not a rule of course but it happens most of the time. And all of this is just my opinion and analysis, I don't pretend to be fully right in anything.
I’ll make a simple plan for starting a blog, according to what I have learned till now. I choose a blog, not a website because it is a little more complicated for a website.
I am not exactly a SEO expert, it is more likely that I am a SEO enthusiast. I am not interested in making money from SEO, my money source is programming. But for the past two years I do (and experiment on) search engine optimization for some sites. It is not a complete service and only small part of them are mine. I have some sites in high competition niches and some in low ones. And I make tests on different types of blog/website monetizing.
So what I have learned till now. The basic is – you have no guarantee in anything related to search engines. Two websites with no duplicate content but identical in niche/ marketing/ optimizing will have very different performance. This is not a rule of course but it happens most of the time. And all of this is just my opinion and analysis, I don't pretend to be fully right in anything.
I’ll make a simple plan for starting a blog, according to what I have learned till now. I choose a blog, not a website because it is a little more complicated for a website.
- Initialization
This is the research part. If you haven't selected a niche for your blog - now is the time to do so. You must select a niche where you can provide quality content. If you are not a pro in writing consider hiring a professional writer. Make a deep research on your target niche. Analyze your competitors, niche forums, social sites, trends, keywords, etc.
Spending a little more time on this first part will help you to solve many problems of the future.
- Actions - any of this step may be not appropriate for your niche, make the final decision what to do in a clear mind
- Make minimum 20 posts before doing anything else with your blog. Maybe this advice is not suitable only for political/ civil/ spicy blogs.
- Make gradual link building campaign – too fast link building may put you in a sandbox
- Make minimum 3-4 posts per week for the first 3 months
- Active membership to some related forums and communities – minimum 3-4 quality posts per forum per week
- Make 30 or more directory submissions per week – prefer high rank directories
- Make minimum 20 posts before doing anything else with your blog. Maybe this advice is not suitable only for political/ civil/ spicy blogs.
- Goals
Define your goals depending on the niche popularity in a monthly rate:
- Unique visitors expectations
- Performance
- Revenue
Keep in mind that in a high competition niche your blog will need more time and efforts to become popular.
I usually start to monetize my blogs after 3 months starting period. It is better to set goals according to the niche for the expecting revenue. Don’t aim too high because one disappointment at the beginning may be critical.
Selecting the type of revenue program is also a very complex task. I’ll live it for another post.
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