05/23 /// 8 Apps Every Writer Should Have
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Out of my Gord - By Gord Hotchkiss
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/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Friday, May 28, 2010
The distraction, the tail and the dog
From: google.com
Your business has a core, a goal, a challenge and a deliverable. There is probably one thing that would transform your project, one success that changes things, one hurdle that’s tougher than the others. What’s difficult, what would respond to overwhelming attention? That’s the core.
Getting from here to there involves making sales, delivering on promises, overcoming the Dip and shipping.
Along the way, there are supporting tasks you can engage in, things you can do to make the goal easier to achieve.
A popular blog might gain attention and then trust and ultimately help you sell more widgets.
A lot of followers online might give you permission to tell a story that gets you better employees.
A vibrant party at SXSW can create buzz that gives your salespeople entree to important meetings.
These aren’t trivial activities. In fact, they’re part of what marketing means today. But…
But if they give you and your team an outlet to avoid the difficult work of achieving your goal ("I can’t go to that sales call, I’m busy uploading pictures of last night’s party to the blog and then tweeting out the url") then you’re not building, you’re hiding. Rich calls this playing with turtles. The thing is, the turtles are alive, and they’re going to demand a lot from you.
There’s a huge downside here: once your side activity gets going, it will lead to crises (we have an urgent email we have to answer), to feelings of abandonment (hey, you haven’t been on the forum lately!), to irresistible offers to have the CEO speak or get people involved. There will always be a feeling of sunk cost, of opportunities missed and of things on the verge because these are human movements, not paid ads.
Two choices: 1. find a way to make your goal completely aligned with the tactics you use to achieve it. What’s good for your blog is good for your business. or 2. Now that these approaches are working, and working incredibly well, it’s time to come up with boundaries so the tail doesn’t end up wagging the dog.
Read Original: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/rfQ7mtWBFpM/the-distraction.html
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Friday, May 28, 2010
6 RSS Steps to Syndicate Your Feed
From: sitepronews.com
RSS or Really Simple Syndication is used to distribute news and content to websites and visitors. RSS Feeds are available in a light weight xml format and can be generated for a blog or a static website. RSS Feeds are chiefly used to syndicate content such as announcements, new articles, news updates, videos and job [...]
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
6 RSS Steps to Syndicate Your Feed
Read Original: http://www.sitepronews.com/2010/05/28/6-rss-steps-to-syndicate-your-feed/
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Friday, May 28, 2010
Article Writing & Dental Self-Extraction
From: sitepronews.com
For most of us, writing an article is as much fun as a trip to the dentist, and each word extracted from our pen is as painful as pulling our teeth out one by one… I’ve just been reviewing a client’s article marketing strategy and am depressed at the fundamental shortcomings in both the approach [...]
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
Article Writing & Dental Self-Extraction
Read Original: http://www.sitepronews.com/2010/05/28/article-writing-dental-self-extraction/
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Friday, May 28, 2010
Google’s AdMob Buy Gives Ticket To Mobile Advertising in Emerging Markets
From: searchenginewatch.com
Google announced it has closed its acquisition of AdMob, in a move that will likely open wide the doors of mobile online advertising in emerging markets.
Click to read the rest of this post...
Read Original: http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~r/sewblog/~3/laBsLBlQ3PU/100528-123039
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Friday, May 28, 2010
Search Agency Update - What Are Companies Up To?
From: searchenginewatch.com
Bits and bobs to keep up with search agency news: Rosetta, Kenshoo and WebVisible
Click to read the rest of this post...
Read Original: http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~r/sewblog/~3/4Bv9m3JNEEo/100528-121441
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Friday, May 28, 2010
How and Why Corporate Blogging Can Help Your Site
From: verticalmeasures.com
In case you’re still wondering if having a corporate blog will benefit your business, check out these quick 5 reasons why every company should have a blog:1: Consistently publishing high quality of posts on your blog will establish your site as an authority in your industry which in turn helps you to build a strong bond [...] Related posts:
- 50 Topics to Help You Get Started on Your Corporate Blog
- Vertical Measures Webinar “Creating a Corporate Blog That Attracts Visitors”
- Announcing Our New Site
Read Original: http://www.verticalmeasures.com/content/how-and-why-corporate-blogging-can-help-your-site-2010/
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Thursday, May 27, 2010
We’re the same, we’re the same, we’re…
From: google.com
Take a look at just about any industry with many competitors--colleges, hotels, sedans, accounting firms (especially accounting firms)…
The websites bend over backwards to be just like all the others. You can’t identify one hotel website from another if you delete the name of the hotel (unless there’s a beach or a snow-capped mountain in the background).
Sometimes, we try so hard to fit in we give consumers no choice but to seek out the cheapest. After all, if everything is the same, why not buy what’s cheap and close?
How about a site that says, “Here’s why we’re different.” And means it.
(Easy to read this and nod your head, but… what’s your resume look like?)
Read Original: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/NkxNdSzRVHw/were-the-same-were-the-same-were.html
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Thursday, May 27, 2010
Why Adopt Social Media Marketing
From: sitepronews.com
Blogging, tweeting, friending. Odd sounding verbs, these. Not sure you’ll find them in the “verb” category in the dictionary ~ at least not yet. Give them time. “Ain’t” made it in, and that verb didn’t have nearly the grassroots
support of these three.
Indeed, this triad of “new verbs” are both the result and the harbinger of [...]
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
Why Adopt Social Media Marketing
Read Original: http://www.sitepronews.com/2010/05/27/why-adopt-social-media-marketing/
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Thursday, May 27, 2010
May 2010 Linkscape Update (and Whiteboard Explanations of How We Do It)
From: google.com
Posted by randfish
As some of you likely noticed, Linkscape’s index updated today with fresh data crawled over the past 30 days. Rather than simply provide the usual index update statistics, we thought it would be fun to do some whiteboard diagrams of how we make a Linkscape update happen here at the mozplex. We also felt guilty because our camera ate tonight’s WB Friday (but Scott’s working hard to get it up for tomorrow morning).
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Linkscape, like most of the major web indices, starts with a seed set of trusted sites from which we crawl outwards to build our index. Over time, we’ve developed more sophisticated methods around crawl selection, but we’re quite similar to Google, in that we crawl the web primarily in decending order of (in our case) mozRank importance.
For those keeping track, this index’s raw data includes:
- 41,404,250,804 unique URLs/pages
- 86,691,236 unique root domains
After crawling, we need build indices on which we can process data, metrics and sort orders for our API to access.
When we started building Linkscape in late 2007, early 2008, we quickly realized that the quantity of data would overwhelm nearly every commercial database on the market. Something massive like Oracle may be able to handle the volume, but at an exorbitant price that a startup like SEOmoz couldn’t bear. Thus, we created some unique, internal systems around flat file storage that enable us to hold data, process it and serve it without the financial and engineering burdens of a full database application.
Our next step, once the index is in place, is to calculate our key metrics as well as tabulate the standard sort orders for the API
Algorithms like PageRank (and mozRank) are iterative and require a tremendous amount of processing power to compute. We’re able to do this in the cloud, scaling up our need for number-crunching, mozRank-calculating goodness for about a week out of every month, but we’re pretty convinced that in Google’s early days, this was likely a big barrier (and may even have been a big part of the reason the “GoogleDance” only happened once every 30 days).
After processing, we’re ready to push our data out into the SEOmoz API, where it can power our tools and those of our many partners, friends and community members.
The API currently serves more than 2 million requests for data each day (and an average request pulls ~10 metrics/pieces of data about a web page or site). That’s a lot, but our goal is to more than triple that quantity by 2011, at which point we’ll be closer to the request numbers going into a service like Yahoo! Site Explorer.
The SEOmoz API currently powers some very cool stuff:
- Open Site Explorer - my personal favorite way to get link information
- The mozBar - the SERPs overlay, analyze page feature and the link metrics displayed directly in the bar all come from the API
- Classic Linkscape - we’re on our way to transitioning all of the features and functionality in Linkscape over to OSE, but in the meantime, PRO members can get access to many more granular metrics through these reports
- Dozens of External Applications - things like Carter Cole’s Google Chrome toolbar, several tools from Virante’s suite, Website Grader and lots more (we have an application gallery coming soon)
Each month, we repeat this process, learning big and small lessons along the way. We’ve gotten tremendously more consistent, redundant and error/problem free in 2010 so far, and our next big goal is to dramatically increase the depth of our crawl into those dark crevices of the web as well as ramping up the value and accuracy of our metrics.
We look forward to your feedback around this latest index update and any of the tools powered by Linkscape. Have a great Memorial Day Weekend!
Read Original: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/MX7OoXJMX_Y/may-2010-linkscape-update
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Thursday, May 27, 2010
Google Moderator on YouTube Enables Real-Time Feedback from Your Audience
From: searchenginewatch.com
Starting today, YouTube has integrated the ability to use Google Moderator into your YouTube channel. Moderator is a social platform that allows you to solicit ideas or questions on any topic, and have the community vote the best ones up to the top in real-time. YouTube previously used Google Moderator as part of its interviews with American President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Click to read the rest of this post...
Read Original: http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~r/sewblog/~3/h_PYb3JUSsA/100527-155111
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Thursday, May 27, 2010
Apple Tops Nasdaq - Steve Jobs Finally ‘Beats Out’ Bill Gates
From: searchenginewatch.com
This is huge. Literally. At the close of the stock market on Wednesday, Apple became the first company of the Nasdaq, meaning its value finally surpassed that of rival Microsoft.
Click to read the rest of this post...
Read Original: http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~r/sewblog/~3/4ktfm6jpMUU/100527-130517
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Thursday, May 27, 2010
Google Gave U.S. Economy $54 bln Boost in 2009
From: searchenginewatch.com
Apple may have just overtaken Microsoft as the biggest U.S. technology company but Google is already positioning itself as the iPad maker’s next competitor. Case in point, Google has issued a report on its impact on the U.S. economy in 2009, showing that the company has generated $54 billion worth of business activity across the country.
Click to read the rest of this post...
Read Original: http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~r/sewblog/~3/G8EEpdzcM24/100527-130251
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Thursday, May 27, 2010
Facebook Unveils Simplified Privacy Settings, Pursues Expansion With Sharegrove Buy
From: searchenginewatch.com
CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the world on Monday that Facebook’s “drastically simplified” privacy settings would roll out in the weeks to come and here they are. Zuckerberg presented them at a press conference, just two days after his op-ed in the Washington Post and some of the changes are already in place.
Click to read the rest of this post...
Read Original: http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~r/sewblog/~3/3L0QcBFb4js/100527-123003
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Thursday, May 27, 2010
Made by Hand
From: google.com
Mark Fraunfelder, a leading voice of the post-industrial age, has a new book out today.
It’s not what you expect, and it provoked quite a few thoughts.
- The book is about the increasing insulation between modern life and the idea of actually making/growing/fixing things. As Mark chronicles his journey into the world of tinkering, I realized that this is a spiritual journey, not merely a hobby. Tweaking, making and building are human acts, ones that are very easy to forget about as we sign up to become cogs in the giant machinery of consumption and production.
- Mark has shepherded the world’s most popular blog for eons. What do we owe him for that? Even if the book is merely good, shouldn’t it sell a million copies, if only as a gratuity? Of course it’s not merely good, it’s foundation-shaking, at least for me.
- Is it any surprise that Publisher’s Weekly didn’t like it? Of course not. The anonymous reviews in this dying trade publication are almost always diametrically opposed to what the book delivers and whether it’s interesting enough for a bookstore to sell. Almost all bestselling books are surprise bestsellers, because it’s the surprise part that makes them bestsellers in the first place.
Read Original: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/XA5xc3KTpFw/made-by-hand.html
/// Posted by Alexandre Brabant on Thursday, May 27, 2010
Long Tail Keyword Choice for Niche Marketing
From: sitepronews.com
Long tail marketing consists of niche marketing to a great many niches, selling small quantities of many products or services to each. Customers are targeted with “long tail keywords.” What does the term “long tail” refer to?
Chris Anderson popularized the “long tail” in an October 2004 Wired magazine article. Long tail keywords and [...]
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
Long Tail Keyword Choice for Niche Marketing
Read Original: http://www.sitepronews.com/2010/05/27/long-tail-keyword-choice-for-niche-marketing/
