Jan. 13 – Jan. 20 External post summary

January 13th, 2009

A timely post by Greg Finn entitled How To Prepare For Stability On Social Media News Sites; discussing the importance to have an account that is sustainable and that doesn’t rely on only one tactic for success.

January 14th, 2009

Barry Hurd warns us on his post: Beware Online Reputation Scams.  “Do yourself a big favor and take action on the dozens of expert articles written online about establishing your online profile and reputation (usually for free) and learn to have complete control over your professional brand online.”

January 15th, 2009

What my wife can teach you about search marketing is an interesting post by IBM Distinguished Engineer, Mike Moran, sharing an important lesson on how search marketers could improve their visibility to customers and buyers.

January 16th, 2009

I made a post:  The effects of the recession are being felt at Google? , hope you enjoyed reading my post too!

January 17th, 2009

Winning the web with Gyutae Park on his post “Don’t Put Your Eggs In One Basket” is Bad Advice for Internet Marketers.

Jan. 18th, 2009

Understanding the 9 Essential Elements of High-Quality Web Content that will give your content a much better chance of getting noticed, read, and recommended to others by Brett Borders.

Jan. 19th, 2009

A very-well made video, posted by Andy Beal on A Visual Guide to Online Reputation Management explaining online reputation management and its significance for every company.

Jan. 20th, 2009

Just in time, after the inauguration of President Obama, an interesting post about Word Cloud Analysis of Obama’s Inaugural Speech Compared to Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Lincoln’s posted on ReadWriteWeb.

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The effects of the recession are being felt at Google?

On the Google blog announced that Google will cut 100 jobs in there recruiting sector.

“Given the state of the economy, we recognized that we needed fewer people focused on hiring,” Laszlo Bock

In a separate post, Google said it would close its engineering offices in Austin, Texas; Trondheim, Norway and Lulea, Sweden, a step the company said would affect 70 workers.

“Our strong desire is to keep as many of these 70 engineering employees at Google as possible,” wrote Google’s vice-president for engineering and research, Alan Eustace.

The jobs cuts follow news last week where Google announced it would reduce the numbers of temporary workers (but not cut back on free cafeterias). Google cuts temporary workers but murky on details.

“Our long-term goal is not to trim the number of people we have working on engineering projects or reduce our global presence, but create a smaller number of more effective engineering sites,” Alan Eustace added.

100 jobs are not even close to 1% of Google’s workforce, but it does suggest a significant downward trend for the pre-eminent search company. At SES Chicago I got told tthat Google has for the first time ever given Google Partners a Cookie rather than a gift certificate, and the $1000 Christmas bonus for employees got cut down to a $400 cell phone. My guess everybody got a G1, not a bad present but quite a bit less than what Google employees are used to.

With Google feeling the heat from the recession and cutting down on projects and employees, is there a chance that we will see a change in Search Engine Land?

As an example, Baidu in China is proving a hard nut to crack for Google. Just last year Baidu formed a Strategic Alliance with Omniture. Omniture will help with the Ad experience to increase the Ad revenue of Baidu. China became one of the largest search markets in the world within the last few years and it is growing rapidly.

If you look at the G Stock chart you can see that Google is really feeling the recession. Once the company the seemed sure to grow year after year, now it seems not even they are safe from the major changes in the economy.

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Jan. 5 – Jan. 12 external post summary

January 5th, 2009

On “Copy Blogger” Brian Clark posted steps to monetize blogs on Blog Money: The Income Outlook for 2009.

January 6th, 2009

On ” SEO Book” Aaron Wall revealed a good outline of Internet Marketing’s Words That Sound too Good to be True.

January 7th, 2009

On “ProBlogger” Darren Rowse made a video blog post examining 5 important ways on How to Create Great First Impressions on New Readers and Convert Them Into Loyal Readers.

January 8th, 2009

Matt Cutts posted a great visualization on what the ideal conference badge should look like.

January 9th, 2009

On “Twist Image” Mitch Joel posted a review about the latest study conducted by the NPD Group on

The Kids Are Alright which showed an interesting point of view on where the marketing focus should focus to target a centralized and consumed market.

January 10th, 2009

On “TechCrunch” Michael Arrington announced the winner of the second annual Crunchies on his post

Congratulations To the Crunchies Winners; Facebook Takes Top Prize For Second Year.

January 11th, 2009

Joel Comm made a great post for video enthusiasts about How Video Can Make Your Life Easier — And Wealthier.

January 12th, 2009

Falko Luedtke, so me 🙂 made a post at Winning the Web about Top 10 Tips for Green Hat SEM in 2009.

Have fun reading 🙂

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5 tips on how to make your Business greener!

When I created the idea of Green Hat SEM, I didn’t think much about the environment and how it could relate to the system. On Sphinn for my “What is Green Hat SEM” post “Onreact” comment this:

“Good idea, bad explanation. Using “green” without any environmental meaning seems obsolete in today’s business world.”

Since I love to get feedback from others on my ideas, I thought about that for a moment. I do think that it is a bit fatal to look at everything Green just from an environmental prospective but here are 5 tips on how you can make your Online Business greener. At the end the same basic idea as Green Hat SEM, “If you do something do it right and do it with passion”.

1.       Make your office paperless

The first prediction of Paperless offices was made in 1975 by Business Week. Until then, a lot has changed and there is so many more reason why a Business should switch to paperless office. If you are not familiar with the concept of paperless office, I recommend reading the Wiki Article about it and Siemens did a white paper on “Moving to a Paperless Office – Is it Just About the Cost of the Technical Solution?

I personally use Google Apps combined with MyTorch.com to securely store, organize and share my documents with my clients. With reducing the amount of Paper trail in your business, you don’t only save a lot of space and cost but you also reduce the amount of Trees that die every year for us humans so we can file some piece of paper away that is never looked at again.

2.       Change your hardware and monitor your energy consumption

Computer hardware and electronics in general have made huge improvements in saving energy over the last few years. With technology like the intelligent energy saving EDU from Asus or the Dynamic Energy Saver from Gigabyte can save you a lot of energy in a year. Also, with turning off your computer when you leave it, you can save a lot of energy. If you are planning to buy new hardware, do something useful with your old hardware; either give it away to Schools or non-profit organizations that need computers or recycle them correctly. Even though there have been a lot of changes within the last few years, many older PC’s have hazardous waste inside. In Europe, regulations for lead-free computing such as RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) and WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), are designed to reduce the effects of hazardous waste.

Also, look at www.energylens.com it is easy to use and cost effective software that monitors and reduces energy consumption in your company.

3.       Look for green hosting

Carbon neutral hosting is a great thing to do if you really care about the environment and if everybody helps, the cost for green hosting will reduce soon. DreamHost, as an example, already went completely green without charging more for it. Also, using WebClouds rather than dedicated server can reduce the amount of energy that your company is wasting daily.

4.       Recycle and reuse

When I moved to Vancouver, I was amazed on how much less recycling is going on here compared to  Berlin. When I went to Miami in 1999, I was shocked by the fact that there was no system what so ever in place, at least where I was staying, for separating paper from house waste or even glass. By separating and recycling all waste that we have, we can reduce the amount of waste lying around. Did you know that we have the technology to recycle and reuse most of our waste?

How much do you recycle?

5.       Cut your packaging

If you are packaging your products, it cost money and it creates waste. I am sure that if you do a survey with your customers about your packaging, you will see the part of your packaging that is really needed, can you not cut that stupid extra plastic packaging that everybody hates anyway? You could also make sure that you’re sticking out from your competition by using recycled paper for your packaging or maybe you can make your product completely package free by putting it online.

Summary

I hope these 5 tips will give you some ideas on how you and your company can save the environment one step at a time. I personally try to never use the free plastic bags from the stores; I think it is shameful to actively destroy our environment as what the big supermarkets are doing. Ask your cashier what they do at the end of the day with all the plastic bags, I think you will be surprised by the answer, I was.

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Local Search, the opportunity to grow your Local Business!

Wiki says: “Local search is the use of specialized Internet search engines that allow users to submit geographically constrained searches against a structured database of local business listings.”

All major search engines including local search results into their search results. There is a good Indonesian place on Commercial Drive but I forgot the name. Think for a second how you would try to find the Business. I would go to Google.ca and type something like “Indonesian Restaurant Commercial Drive Vancouver

The name of the place I was looking for is Pondok, but their website is not in the top ten of the search result. Also there is no local business listing for them in place, Google comes up with an Indonesian place on Dunbar at 41 Ave … not the perfect result but they have their business listing in place.

Local Search, the new Yellow Pages!

With spending the time on local search optimization you can drive more targeted traffic to your Business and increase the revenue. It does not matter if you are an Indonesian Restaurant or a Plumber, visibility of your business in search engines can bring you more Business than an ad in the Yellow Pages.

With providing the most relevant content to a local search term, you can funnel far more visitors to become customers then trying to rank for broad terms where you are lacking relevancy. Local Online Business ads is a great way to create market share and brand awareness.

Being visible for more than just your name can improve the flow to your local business and increase offline customers to it.

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What is Green Hat SEM?

Green Hat SEM is an advanced way of thinking how to make money in a long run on the Internet. By focusing on providing more value to the customer you indirectly focus on making more money.

Everybody knows about the discussion of Black Hat vs. White Hat SEO. I think it is the same as the discussion about fakers and real people at the end of the 90th in Internet Chats. It’s a question of opinion, it’s a question of integrity but most of all, it is a question of what is working for you. I am not a fan of spamming; I do not like when I come to a site and find myself confronted with millions of ads. I think that the real problem about link buying is that it is just about money, if you have enough money you can buy yourself to the top. However, the Internet is different; the basic concept is free information for everybody. In addition, search engines want to provide the most relevant information to their customers and not the most unnaturally made relevant page.

What is Green Hat SEM then?

Simple, it is a way of thinking, putting all unnecessary useless things to the side and focusing on what is important, making money. With focusing on relevance and providing value to visitors and into the community, your site will create more brand awareness and thus becoming more trusted.

Many people try to keep up with algorithm changes and track their ranking on a daily basis. They are spending too much time on useless and mindless tasks. Many webmasters are scared to take the risk of trying new things with their site. Others do everything to get as many links and traffic as possible.

However, does that really work? Some spammers make a lot of money, others do not. On the other hand, some people do not make the money that their site could generate. The Internet is just polluted with useless links and ads now a day. Instead of focusing on providing a great service or tool they just think of making money, but most of them fail.

How do you set your mind to Green Hat SEM?

Stop thinking about rankings, stop thinking about how to get as many as possible links, stop doing mindless tasks and focus on relevance. Don’t try to rank for the keyword that has the most traffic in your industry if you don’t have any relevant pages for it. Stop promising things you can’t deliver. Stop being scared of reviews; if you are doing what you said you do; you should not be scared at all, right?

Green Hat SEM Summary

Green Hat SEM is a way of living, a way of thinking about the Internet not in how to manipulate it, more on how to make it more relevant. With focusing on being relevant and providing value, you focus on making money without being focused on it. Soon you will be wondering why you are making more money and why you are getting more and more referrals from your existing customers. Green Hat SEM is focused on the most important element of e-Business: the customer. A happy customer has more impact on your traffic than any link to your site. Conversion is King, Content should be the Priest and ranking is useless if you are not relevant for the keyword you are ranking for.

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3 reasons why e-Business needs Strategic SEM Today

  1. Search Engines are always Changing: Search Engines are the major traffic creators for websites. With the application of a steady Strategic Search Engine Marketing Campaign, e-Business can better succeed long-term. Search Engines are evolving their algorithms daily to devalue inorganic websites to provide the best search results to there users.
  2. User Behavior is Improving: The user behavior is changing too. Visitors are looking for the best Information, and they’re getting better in determining which websites are spam and who provides real value. Visitors who find real value on a website become most likely customers and often also salespersons for this website.
  3. Competition gets stronger: The Internet is the most used medium in the world, almost everybody in the Western world has access to the Internet. Only when your e-Business can created trust, it would stick out of the competition and become a leader in its marketplace.

Strategic Search Engine Marketing is no longer an option for revenue-generating e-Business: It is essential, if an e-Business wants to succeed in short and long term.

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Freaking cold in Vancouver

Vancouver Freezes

Vancouver Freezes

That is why I didn’t update you guys with any new post, look at my office…it turned into a ice palace 🙂

Last time Vancouver had that much snow is 50 years back if I’m not mistaking. It takes me 10x as long to get around at the moment. Not very funny at all to be honest.

Anyway I spend these week with working hard on my company and for my clients.

I hired Jen to help me as a assistant. More info’s coming soon 🙂

And that it is for me today, I wish you folks a merry Christmas. Enjoy the holidays and I see you around I guess 🙂

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Dec 13 – 19 external post summary

One of the things I like to do every week from now is a summary of Blog post I liked over this week. Nothing fancy but maybe take you guys to get some more input from great marketers.

Dec 14th: On “SEO Book” my review of the SES Chicago 08 gets publish.

Dec 15th: On the “John Chow Blog” Michael Kwan makes a great review of the free landing page templates from Invesp.com

Dec 16th: Gyutae Park on “Winning the Web” did a great post about how to build the best natural links.

Dec 18th: Invesp published the Top 100 Online Marketers in 2008 List, very cool and interesting stuff. Maybe not everybody agrees on it but it is voted from people and I like it.

Dec 19th: PeterD on “SEO Book” published a great article about Credibility. I suggested to everyone to read the SEO Book blog on regular basic, just great information from some of the best minds in the industry.

Dec 19th: Gyutae Park from “Winning the Web” a follow up post to the Invesp Top 100 Online Marketer list from the day before. He gives 8 tips how to personally brand yourself better.

Have fun reading, and enjoy the last weekend before Xmas.

Anybody suggestions for me what I should buy as presents? Leave a comment 🙂

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SEO and your Web Hosting. Find out what’s important

In my previous post I talked about Why Reliable Web Hosting is worth your Money and the difference between SEO friendly Web Hosting Linux vs Windows. Today, I’m talking about the Requirements for SEO friendly Web Hosting. If you are choosing your Web Hosting you should watch out for the following things included in your package to make sure you don’t road block your SEO efforts.

Minimum Requirements on your Hosting Package

  • PHP: the most commonly used Internet Program Language
  • MySQL: the most commonly used Internet Database
  • e-Mail: e-Mail Marketing and customer support over email is important; make sure the ISP mail server is not blacklisted or use applications like Google Apps
  • Web space: you need to have enough space to grow, you don’t want to end up moving when you run out of space
  • Include Traffic: nowadays, traffic is cheap but make sure that you don’t pay a fortune when you are slightly over the included traffic, you don’t want to end up on the first page of digg.com and pay a few hundred dollars in traffic bill after
  • URL rewrite: Make sure that the ISP you want to partner up with allows url rewrites on their server. All Linux packages should have that included but some windows server providers don’t have the extension, so watch out
  • Directory Protection: You should make sure that your ISP has a simple directory protection in place
  • SSL ability: The ISP of your choice should be able to provide you with SSL certifications or let you use your own
  • Cronjob: Good ISP’s let you run your own cronjob on your shared Web hosting
  • SSH: Most of the big ISP’s allow you access via Secure Shell, that comes in quite handy if you are faster with doing things on command line then via click and drop

What can help you to rank better in your target marketplace?

Knowing your target market place will help you rank better since you can focus your efforts into this marketplace and increase your revenue. Depending on where your marketplace is located, you should localize your Server. The principle is that you want to keep the connection time between your customer and your e-Business as short as possible. Also the domain extension, the tone and language you use are very important to focus your e-Business for your target marketplace.

PeterD made a post about SEO for Regional Domains which should give you some hints what you should watch out for. If you are planning to work on a global scale it is useful to generate multiple sites fitting exactly to the needs of the marketplace you are targeting.

When you forget to Target your Marketplace you miss out on Business.

Let’s say you are a global provider for hotel accommodation and you are spending thousands of dollars every month on PPC Campaigns and spending a lot of effort on organic SEO but you only have your server localized in USA. The prospective customer might come to your site and it is taking him 30 seconds to load your site, guess what happens, he leaves as there are hundreds of other websites offering reservation for the same hotels. So why should he wait for your website?

But if you spend the time and effort to create regional sites for different major markets like .de, .fr, .co.uk, co.au etc., focus on the tone your customer will use as well as the convenience to reach your site, that includes localized hosting in your prospective marketplace, you can achieve much higher organic ranking in this marketplace, increase the quality score of your PPC campaigns and most likely increase your conversion rate as well as your return on investment.

So what helps you really to rank higher in your marketplace? Localizing your marketplace will help you the most if you try to rank well. So please think about this whether you are thinking of procuring a Web Hosting package in New York or you are a Restaurant in San Francisco. Ask yourself, would this really help you to focus on your marketplace?

Recommendations for Web Hosting Companies

I can recommend to you a few of the companies I worked with and as such, I would be happy to recommend them to other people.

Separation of Domains and Hosting

You should always try to separate your hosting from your domain provider. In the event of complete failure of your web host, such as the data center burned down, you can quickly point your domains to another server. As well as being able to move hosting without the hassle of transferring your domains between providers is very convenient. I use GoDaddy.com for most of my domains, they do a great job with providing you with all the tools as well as products you need for any kind of domain hosting. The support is excellent and you always feel welcome if you have questions. GoDaddy.com also provides you with hosting.

Web host company recommendations

As I described before, choosing the right web hosting company is a difficult process and a lot of factors need to be considered. If you are planning to work in a marketplace like New York, you should try to find a local hoster who can provide you with all the features you need, that may be a bit more pricey but a good business relationship with a small business web hoster who really cares about the service and server could make a difference when you are starting out. Smaller hosting companies are providing you often with information and services for free that cost at big companies.

1&1 Internet Inc. – is regarded as leader in web hosting, with over 10 million registered domains they are the leader in their market. 1&1 is founded in the 90’s and provides services around the world. Their services almost never fail, in close to the 10 years I have used 1&1 for hosting, I had never once a server failure. While the customer support back in Germany was not the greatest 10 years ago, now their customer service is solid, the Company is going with Internet trends and is one of the leading companies in the development of Internet services.

DreamHost.com – Dreamhost is providing their services from the USA, these guys really care about what they do and the support is great. The hosting package that they offer with all the different functionality and optional features are beyond crazy cheap pricing for such a reliable web hosting company. With their 1 click installation from popular Internet applications, they can make life easier for a lot of new e-Business owners. I had a great experience with DreamHost.com and could never complain about their services. I got answers on problems within minutes rather than waiting around for days and the knowledge the DreamHost staff has is solid and that’s why I would always recommend them to others.

Summary

Know your facts, if you are just starting out or thinking about changing your hosting. Research, locate your marketplace and don’t be afraid to contact multiple hosting companies to get a quote. A lot of companies will also offer you a test for a few months to show you how good their servers are. Don’t waste your money on cheap unreliable web hosting, try not to mix your domains with your hosting and also think about which Server OS would best fit your web hosting needs. If you take factors like the ones pointed out by myself in account, your e-Business should have the basics needed to succeed in your marketplace.

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