Writing for and marketing with web 2.0’s New Media for Virtual Real Estate

Naturally internet marketers know that if you want to drive quality traffic to your site what you really need is quality information creating the push. That is the way marketing has been done since the inception of print media. You create quality content and drive traffic /sales by placing that content on quality sources. Right about now your probably wondering, ’so whats new’?

Whats new besides the internet of course, there are several concepts know as Deep Linking, Virtual Real Estate and Revenue Sharing (relatively speaking). Some of my more savvy readers may have heard of a little gem know as topic bridging, in a keyword, what you need is OVERLAP. Topic bridging is typically used for building relevance between an article, the page that it resides on and, the site on which that page resides. This is a great way to develop backlinks.

Now, taking that to the next level, what we have is Article Topic Bridging. Essentially, what we do is plan very well;

• register 3 keyword rich relevant domains
• use one domain for e-Commerce
• use one domain for article publishing
• use one domain that does BOTH of the above

Now use new media to create as many differing distribution formats as you can, for example:

1. Convert your articles into podcasts. With conversion services like Feed2Podcast, you can turn your existing RSS feed enries into podcasts, which can then be submitted to podcast directories like iTunes. Other websites that offer this service include Odiogo.com, Talkr.com, and ReadSpeaker.com.

2. Convert your articles into eBooks. By turning your article into a executable file, the article is then considered software, which allows you to submit it to several hundred software directories. You can turn your articles into EXE files using free software creation services like WebSiteZip Packer. This software will allow you to turn an HTML page into an executable file also containing an integrated HTML browser. This alone can bring you hundreds of extra visitors and subscribers. You can also use this technique to build your subscriber list quickly by requiring people to register before they are able to read.

3. Convert  your articles into PowerPoint presentations. Slideshare has a Google Page Rank of 7 and an Alexa.com ranking of less than 2,000. This site gets a huge amount of traffic and it packs a lot of ranking power. If you would like to entice people to click through your presentation to your site, be sure to include a link to your site at the beginning and end each one also be sure each link has the normal blue underline to increase it’s click through rate.

4. Create a video from an article. This is a simple strategy can garnish exposure from sites like YouTube, Google Video, and MetaCafe. you can even use the PPT slides from Slideshare, add audio to your presentation, and up load it. Remember to place the actual text of the article in the description of the video. This will help you to rank for your desired keywords an phrases.

5. Distributed RSS. Post your articles to Squidoo, Google Knol, HubPages, Blogger.com, Wordpress.com, Vox.com, Tumblr, Weebly, Terapad, WetPaint, PbWiki, Wikispaces, and WikiDot and more then, grab the RSS feed and submit it to all the different RSS directories. If a site doesn’t automatically create an RSS feed for you, to have one made for you use Dapper.

6. Convert article into a PDF. You can post PDF versions of your articles to iTunes, Scribd, eSnips, DocStoc, Calameo, Issuu, Yudu, FreeIQ, ButterflyReports.com and others to increased exposure.

7. Convert articles into a widget. A widget is a distributed application that can be easily placed into web pages, Facebook profiles, Myspace pages, start pages, and more. Best of all, you don’t to be a coder or even hire one. You can instantly turn your blog into a widget at WidgetBox.com then distribute it via Google Widget Director, Yahoo Widgets, Friendster Widget Directory, WidgetBox, SpringWidgets, Widget Gallery, Snipperoo Widget Directory, RateitAll Widgets, Netvibes Widget Diretory, Widgepedia and, Xanga Widget Directory.

Don’t forget to use WidgetBox to turn your widget into a Facebook application using App Accelerator. Combined with Dapper, you can turn any web page into a Facebook application and then have the potential to send thousands more visitors to your site per daily.

Now you are in position to maximize your article marketing.

When creating pages on revenue sharing sites like hubpages and squidoo. Write good quality content and link to all 3 of your sites as well as your revenue sharing pages as RS site policy allows. Next, write similar quality articles and distribute them in the ‘traditional’ ways such as eZineArticles, press releases, guest blogging and, other forms of content distribution (networks). Each of these articles should;

• be written with topic bridging in mind
• contain about 5 links per 750 words
• have keywords in the anchor text
• links in the beginning of the 1st paragraph and the end of the last
• written as a series where possible
• written with compilation into an e-Book in mind

Be sure to deep link to interior pages whenever possible. Now you’re article writing and marketing Web 2.0 style.

Related posts

• Beat Recession with eCommerce (0)

and your FeedBurner feed!

After a long nearly fruitless search, I’ve uncovered a really great widget that you can put on your Blogger Typepad or WordPress blog. I’ve also found a neat little Java based Star Rating Script that can be placed on any web site.

A few points about Outbrain’s excellent Star Rating Widget

* No registration required
* Installation is super-easy… we adjust the widget’s design to your blog’s look&feel automatically
* It’s absolutely FREE

The Outbrain widget currently supports the following blog platforms:

* Blogger.com blogs are supported with a 1-click install (blogs using the “classic” template - use these instructions)

* TypePad blogs are also supported with a 1-click install.

* WordPress *installed* blogs are supported via a plugin that’s available here.

You can also get star ratings on your FeedBurner feeds

Enabling the Outbrain’s FeedFlare is super-easy. Simply follow these steps:

1. Login to your FeedBurner account.
2. Click on the ‘Optimize’ tab, and select the ‘FeedFlare’ option.
3. Scroll down to the section called “Personal FeedFlare” and paste the following URL into the text box: http://widgets.outbrain.com/FeedFlareUnit.xml
4. Click on the “Add New Flare” button, and check the ‘[x] feed’ check box.
5. IMPORTANT: Don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the page.

You can subscribe to my feed to see an example of plugin in action. You can also rate this post using the star rating widget plugin at the bottom of this post.

Things to keep in mind;

o After PETCO added reviews online, top-rated products were converting at a 49% higher clip; shoppers using the ratings section of the site for navigation spent 63% more than shoppers using other navigation column hotlinks; and shoppers who read reviews and shopped via ratings navigational hotlinks had an average order size 40% higher than the average shopper.

o The president of AWinestore.com told us that adding customer reviews was one of the critical factors that helped his ecommerce sales leap 80% in a single year. (The industry average is 20% growth.)

o Libida.com, an ecommerce site for women, considers reviews so critical to conversions that they insert fliers into all fulfillment packages offering $25 off their next order for all reviewers (even negative ones)

Other Star rating scripts include;

• Review-Script.com. The Amazon-style system allows users to rank a product or service on a scale of 1-5 stars and make comments (reviews) related to the product for other users to read. Email notification allows the administrator to approve comments before adding them to the website. Cost for licensing: $125 USD one-time.
• Rating System. This seems to be the more feature-rich of the two. Different types of ratings can be combined into one rating box. It offers an RSS feed and you can manage, modify and delete your customer ratings and reviews. Cost for licensing: Free up up to a maximum daily usage of 500 impressions. Above that, plans start at $10 per month.
• Bazaarvoice. Bazzarvoice is another popular ratings/review system, but starting at $2,000 per month, may be a bit pricey for smaller ecommerce sites.
• PowerReviews. While the services mentioned above charge a fee for use of their software, PowerReviews takes a different approach. They give merchants the ability to add reviews to their sites at no charge. The caveat is that the company reserves the right to aggregate review data to present on their own site, Buzzillions.

The last Start Rating script is a java script based utility called JS-Kit Ratings

Overview

JS-Kit’s Ratings service lets your visitors rate your merchandise items, services, pictures, blog entries, or any other objects on your site.

Benefits for visitors:

* express opinions quickly and easily
* intuitive, graphical view of community opinion
* ability to change one’s personal rating at any time
* seeing how other people rate the components of your site

Rate It With JS-Kit!!

So there you have it!

Related posts

• Hi everyone, I am testing… (0)
• Google Crawled in Hours (1)
• Feedburner RSS on Facebook (2)

at&t stores loosen their grip, on sanity

The iPhone OS 2.0 software update and the iPhone 3G are both available at long last. at 225MB this new software package offers an even bigger punch. Also bring into play the wider distribution of the new second generation iPhone 3G and Apple is looking at another home run for shareholders even though rumor has it that Apples download servers are having a meltdown. Couple that with AT&T’s notorious level of service and you can imagine that lots of people have wasted yet another iPhone sick day off.

Unfortunately what most call-offers don’t realize is you can sink iTunes with v7.7 to your iPhone to check and get the download yourself, at home, after not wasting a day off but then, yes you guessed it, you need to download iTunes 7.7 for that. so, as they say here in t he great north east, ‘you can’t there from here’.

On a lighter note, Microsoft, not to be outdone by all the fanfare reported, if you are using iTouch, and you upgrade to OS 2.0 ah, yup, you guessed it, you get to pay again, WooHoo go iPhone.

PS,
if you were reading along out loud and not saying WooHoo like you were blowing a gasket and having a meltdown all your own then you weren’t saying it correctly, Please Try Again.

Related posts

• No related posts.

Oral agreements and ConnectU’s Outsourcing Woes

I’m sure everyone who is reading this is aware of and has made more than a few oral agreements in their life with no problems at all. Not the case when 3 Havard students, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra, needed to outsrource some coding to fellow Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg to help them build a social-networking site. As it turns out not having a written contract with a no compete clause ended up being a $15,000,000,000 mistake.

At the time, Zuckerberg was a 20-year-old double major and well known on campus for launching a website called Facemash. Faecmash prompted users to rate who the “hotter” student was. That site eventually wound up landing Zuckerberg on probation for using Harvard student photos with out permission.

The 3 students alleged they had an “oral contract” with Zuckerberg who was going to help them build their social networking site named ConnectU but, Zuckerberg dragged out the work for several months. Eventually Zuckerberg began ignoring their attempts at communication and a month later, in February 2004, he launched Facebook.

The ConnectU founders engeged in a battle that started at Harvard’s disciplinary board. Contending that their idea had been stolen. Eventually reaching federal court. A judge finalized a settlement that will require Facebook to give Narendra and the Winklevoss twins an undisclosed amount of money and stock.

Facebook, in a press release Thursday, stated it was happy the settlement had been finalized and were gratified that the Califonia court rejected ConnectU’s allegations about Facebook lying about its value during settlement talks. The statement said ConnectU’s founders were suffering from buyer’s remorse and trying to back out of the in February settlement.

Related posts

• No related posts.

Paving the way to web 3.0

Connecting everything is no small job but Calais wants to make all the world’s content more accessible, interoperable and thereby, far more valuable as well. Also known as Web 3.0, the Semantic Web or the Giant Global Graph, they call thier piece of it Calais. What it does sounds simple – what you do with it could be nothing short of absolutely amazing.

So what the heck is Calais anyway? Using natural language processing, machine learning and other methods, the Calais Web Service automatically creates rich semantic metadata for the content you submit – in well under a second, Calais analyzes your document and finds the entities within it and goes goes well beyond classic entity identification returning facts and events hidden within your text. This metadata gives you the ability to build maps (or graphs or networks) linking documents to people to companies to places to products to events to geographies to…well, whatever logical object you can construct. You can use those maps to improve your sites navigation, provide contextual syndication sources, tag and organize your content, create finely structured folksonomies, filter and de-duplicate news feeds, or analyze content as shown below.

Presently major focus areas of the Calais initiative are delivering the tools with which to build great applications and fostering a community of developers that will make those applications happen. The web service is free for commercial and non-commercial use. The initial release has been sized large enough to handle millions of requests per day and will be scaled as necessary to support our users the user base.

I’m currently using Tageroo which is a highly functional blog plug in that fetches both tags and images. For more great Calais products please visit the Gallery.

Related posts

• No related posts.

Finding Blogs for Links

I’m sure if you are reading this then you are fully aware of the importance of link building and, since thats the case, I’m quite certain you are aware of the power of contextual link building. I don’t think it’s any surprise that the power of contextual link building is derived from the fact that it’s the very basis of what the internet is all about after all, hyperlinking relevant text to related sources. I wonder who thought that would make things so easy. Anyway, with blogs being the current pinnacle of contextual link building evolution, I’ve put together a little checklist of how to go about finding those little gems of link love that will absolutely help you push your rank.

In order to rank for any given keyword or phrase, it’s important to have that key-phrase represented numerous times with anchor text. Even better to have those key-phrases present early within the publication or later in the publication because just like a good academic and/or researcher will tell you, that’s where all the most important references can be found with in any worth while document and, I’m her to you that Google knows that too.

Before moving on to the list, there are a number of things to look out for. Be aware that many blogs use the nofollow attribute on their links so if you are not planning to contribute, just move on. Try to contribute on sites which posts and pages carry and pass PR. You can make use of services like LinkConnector.com to offer some sweets for links. Look for sites that are about 300k or less on Alexa for the home page, also use Compete and Quantcast. Offer articles with embedded links to blog owners as original content and ask for product site reviews in exchange for…..So on th the list:

• search.technorati.com sort by authority
• Google alerts set to blogs
• blogsearch.google.com also use intitle:key words
• search less ‘vertical’ directories such as DMOZ
• use Alexa ‘related links’
• search bloglines.com
• search digeratimarketing for ‘comment followed’ blogs
• check the authoritative / quality sites bloggroll’s for other sites to participate in
• use your blogroll and inline text to attract other bloggers to reciprocate
• ask for comments on your blogs posts

You can also use paid blog tools such as:

• Blogger Wizard .com
• Comment Sniper

to help in you link building efforts.

Related posts

• Web Page Optimization Compontents 2 (1)
• Web Page Optimization Components 5 (1)
• Web Page Optimization Components 1 (0)
• Squeeze Page 2.0 (0)
• Phone Support 2.0 (2)

When The Internet Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade
Fly Hover & Pop

About the time when the good’ol days gave way to anti-spam legislation, a new way was needed to entice visitors to allow the capture of those lucrative e-leads. Many hard core information marketers turned to what became know as the ’squeeze page’. This technique is still in practice today. Essentially a squeeze page is a forced opt-in that requires an information hunter to trade their contact information in exchange for viewing the information they desire. This method is becoming less and less effective in the modern Web 2.0 world. Fortunately or not many just don’t have a compelling enough offer to employ this particularly distasteful technique.

Now that we have Web 2.0 in full effect, what has changed is lead capturing with the ‘do it my way’ marketing of the past. If you are to survive in the brave new Web 2.0 world, marketers need to make information more accessible, not hold it ransom. Unfortunately that leaves very few approaches for the current marketer to use in pursuit of the six figure launch. A simple web page opt-in, a hover pop or, a pop up window. Lets assume you run adSense on your site, now we are left with only 2 approaches, simple opt-in or hover pop.

What’s needed is some sort of call to action hybrid that will give away the information but not cower there sheepishly whimpering for a pet and a home. Enter the Hover Pop “light box”. The Hover Pop Light Box is an excellent compromise between a squeeze page and hover box. The light box allows you to comply to Google adSense terms of use, FORCES an action, can incorporate numerous calls to action and, serve ads while still allowing for the free flow of information. All at once. Viola! Welcome to the new world of squeeze pages.

Related posts

• Web Page Optimization Compontents 2 (1)
• Web Page Optimization Components 5 (1)
• Web Page Optimization Components 1 (0)
• Phone Support 2.0 (2)
• Link Building 2.0 (1)

Free offline support numbers in an online world.

So if you have been in marketing or support for a while you know the value of having your customers being able to reach you easily. Email is nice, Live Chat is better but, nothing beats a human voice assuring your prospects that they are making the right purchase decision. Traditionally this has been the role of 1-800 numbers but not any more.Now with the convergence of home PC based IP telephony and free online conference call software, paid 800 numbers are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. For example, anyone using Skype, Yahoo or any other IP telephone, can place a free call to a service like Basement Ventures which you could use to offer support to folks who call in. In a nutshell, you put the conference call number on your home page and update it and/or it’s conference line number as you need to. Now naturally this would necessitate a somewhat nimble and motivated office environment. Of coarse this is absolutely perfect for the budding entrepreneur. Are you wondering how a conference call would work out if more than one person calls in at the same time? Many of these services offer the ability to mute everyone except one person. neat eh! Other service are also available. Gizmo for example allows anyone on any type of phone to call you free for 5 minute, they only need to opt-in. You can even funnel your clients through Facebook profile in order to have a chat with you if want. Have a look at Google for a good listing of other free conference call companies.

Ok I know what some of you are thinking, I have to update my home page with a new phone number every day? All I can say to that is, you’re kidding right?

Related posts

• Web Page Optimization Compontents 2 (1)
• Web Page Optimization Components 5 (1)
• Web Page Optimization Components 1 (0)
• Squeeze Page 2.0 (0)
• Link Building 2.0 (1)

(more or less)
A.K.A, open a web store without spending a dime

Scenario A: So you have a the need to open a web store. You have your product all picked out and have found a drop shipper. What now?

Scenario B: You just found this super great affiliate program and don’t want the hassle of getting a web host and so forth.

Scenario C: You want to sell your service online and don’t want the same old hassles

Scenario D: Sell Google adSense.

Scenario E: Any other offer you can think of featuring.

Now there’s Totally Free eCommerce Have yourself a look. What we have is a web store serving adSense, selling a physical product, selling an affiliate product and offering services. Best of all, every single thing on that page is completely free to offer. In fact, the only time you need to spend anything is when a purchase is made and, that money is not out of pocket, it’s deducted from the physical product purchase as a PayPal fee. The site hosting is FREE, the products are sold FREE, the cart is FREE, it’s all FREE. The store even has a way to phone you for FREE or chat with you directly and yes you guessed it, EVERYTHING THERE IS DONE TOTALLY FREE!

Related posts

• No related posts.

with desktops

Have you heard of the expression, ‘designing above the fold’? It is terminology taken from print media meaning, put your best stuff where it can be seen. In the case of a news paper that would mean, place your most eye catching content above where the paper would be folded, similarly when it comes to a web sites home page,

you want to place your most ‘profitable’ offerings where web surfers can see it immediately upon seeing your page.

With all the varying desktop PC screen resolutions currently in use, designing for less bounce and more conversion is getting more and more tricky to do. The key thing to remember is, this is not your 1985 experience any more and this is not you high school PC. Believe it or not, there are actually some out of touch folks still designing for 800×600 screen resolutions. All those folks really to need to smell the e-java and take a look around to see how many new PC’s are now coming with a ‘wide screen’ as standard equipment.

Design Above The Fold 2.0 Center of left justify will have the same results

At this point in time I would have to say that designing a site presentation with any smaller than a 1024×768 screen resolution in mind is a an ill informed decision. In fact, if your offering has even the slightest hint of high tech, you may want to go the next step, 1280×1024. If your offering is exclusive or pricey, then you know your clientèle will have the latest equipment so, design with 1600×1200 in mind.

Related posts

• No related posts.

Hi everyone. I’ve arrived here at the Downtown Hilton in Atlanta, Georgia and I must say everyone I’ve met so far is really, really nice and I’m looking forward to Don’s SMARTS’s event here this evening. That’ll be wonderful. If you miss this seminar then you missed out. But I’ll see you all next time. And you’ll here from me soon. Thanks. Bye.

listen

Powered by Jott

Related posts

• StomperNet Live Best Speaker Award (0)

Powered by Jott

Related posts

• Testing Utterz Mobile Blogging (0)
• Star Rating Plugin (4)
• Google Crawled in Hours (1)

Mobile post sent by Jim using Utterz. Replies. mp3

Testing Utterz from the road. This web application works great! Just create an account over at Utterz.com and phone the number provided. Utterz will post a ‘pod cast’ on your blog for you. Naturally you will need post a transcription or other words for Google and readers etc. Special thanks to Sherman Hu over at ShermanLive.com for bringing this to my attention.

Related posts

• Hi everyone, I am testing… (0)

a new stream

No doubt you have heard of Article Marketing. Additionally I’m sure you have heard or seen the phrase Web 2.0. Today we are going to dive beyond the surface of the bold new internet and discover how 2.0 applies to Article Marketing.

Traditionally, internet marketing (don’t you just love technological oxymoron’s) had been comprised mainly of getting your message to prospects via the cultivation of personal relationships and/or outright adoration. Over time, internet marketing progressed into what was perceived to be the ultimate ‘in line’ achievement, the article directory. Sites similar to eZine Articles seemed to have the edge and, in a peculiar turn of events, had no real relationship with the average marketer.

I can only wonder if the ‘early’ article marketers realized that they were on the leading edge of a torrent (pun intended) of user interactive distributed technology, or, Web 2.0 to the rest of us.

Now that the spring of web 2.0 has passed and full bloom has seemingly been reached, we can see web 1.0 for what it really was. A stale, static conveyance of technology window shopping without much more excitement than a hearty allergenic sneeze. It’s no wonder flashy banner ads were so popular. No doubt words like OMG it blinked, it blinked could be heard the net over.

Now, at long last, as with web 2.0 we have article marketing 2.0. This is where sites like hubpages.com and squidoo.com will not only accept your article and rank it rather well, they will share the article and allow passer byes to comment too. Best of all, they will actually share the revenue that the page earns with you! Now I find myself wondering, will it get any better than this? Frankly I have no doubt, YES, it will get much better than this! I also have no doubt that when web 3.0 arrives, most will not recognize it until the blooms are in full and, the endless winds of change bring with it the Blade Runner reality all us true geeks are really waiting for.

Related posts

• No related posts.

Thats a good question Amie as people new to site building aren’t aware that there are actually 3 types of site maps, each with it’s own specific purpose. The three type of sitemap are;

1. sitemap.html
2. sitemap.xml
3. sitemap.xml.gz

Way back during the ‘wildwest’ days of the internet (10 years ago), web surfers liked a concise way to scan the contents of the site they were viewing and, necessity being the mother of invention, the site map was born. This type of site map was really only a normal ‘.html’ page containing short descriptions and links to the sites resources. Later on as the web matured (5 years ago), the site map was also used as a way for spiders to find all you sites pages. The only real reason for this was due to poor or broken site navigation.

Now that we have entered ‘Web 2.0′, the site map has been reincarnated as a search engine specific tool. This current not for human consumption incarnation of the sitemap is designed to let the search engine spiders find each page of our web site with out having to follow hyperlinks throughout the site. This type of sitemap uses the ‘.xml’ format file extension and is located at the root of the publicly accessible portion of the domain.
The third type of sitemap is a Google specific archive ending in .xml.gz and is simply a compressed version of your .xml sitemap.

So there you have it!

Related posts

• No related posts.