August 2006
What's up with Google?
Written by Neil Patel on August 30, 2006 |
On August 24th it was reported that Google was updating backlinks on these two datacenters: 64.233.187.104 and 64.233.187.99. It is normal to see a backlink update on a few datacenters and then within a couple days the update is usually live on all of their datacenters. ...
Don't forget about your existing customers
Written by Cameron Olthuis on August 30, 2006 | 7 comments
One of the first lessons that you learn in business is that it costs more to acquire new customers than it does to keep existing ones. Not only does it cost less but it is also easier to keep old customers. So when someone asks the question "Why do so many companies treat potential users so much better than existing users?" it really makes you think.
Danny Sullivan leaves Search Engine Watch
Written by Neil Patel on August 29, 2006 |
Danny Sullivan, the godfather of search, has just made an announcement that he is leaving Search Engine Watch. He might still continue to write on Search Engine Watch after December 1st, 2006 and the last two conferences that he will be attending are ...
Communicate with your customers, not at them
Written by Cameron Olthuis on August 28, 2006 |
YouTube is finally attempting to solve their problem of creating revenue. Brand Channels gives marketers a platform to try and broadcast their message to the YouTube community. The brand channels are a lot like a MySpace page, see the Paris Hilton channel for a great example.
Marketing on a budget
Written by Neil Patel on August 28, 2006 |
Patricia Hursh from SmartSearch Marketing recently wrote an article called "Winning Big with a Small Search Marketing Budget". The article discusses how companies with small marketing budgets can effectively use their money to get the most bang from your buck.
Increasing your blog's readership
Written by Neil Patel on August 27, 2006 | 11 comments
When I read a blog, I always think about what the blogger(s) could do to make me a regular reader. Also when I look at the stats for this blog, I wonder what I can do to keep my visitors coming back.
Catchup - 8/25/06
Written by Cameron Olthuis on August 25, 2006 |
- Yahoo Gains Search Market Share
comScore said that Yahoo!'s search share showed a modest, fractional gain for the second month in a row (but down vs. a year ago). Google, by comparison, showed a single point decline.
Have it your way
Written by Neil Patel on August 25, 2006 |
When you want a quick burger, there are a lot of options these days and with all theses options (McDonalds, Burger King, Carl's Jr., White Castle...) it is hard to choose which one to go to. ...
10 things Google knows about you
Written by Neil Patel on August 25, 2006 | 13 comments
Recently I was asked the question, "What does Google know about me?" This person was concerned with their privacy and was interested in knowing what Google knows about them, so I decided to do some searches. Here are some interesting results on what Google knows about you.
Conquering copyright infringements
Written by Neil Patel on August 24, 2006 | 6 comments
Copyright infringements can be a pain to deal with. With the Internet wide open people are able to steal content from other people's sites and acting like it is their own.
Famster embraces social media
Written by Cameron Olthuis on August 24, 2006 | 1 comment
This is a great story about Famster interacting with the Digg community. When the site was launched a couple of weeks ago someone put it up on Digg and it ended up getting dugg to the homepage. Ok, so nothing new there. The story got a couple thousand diggs after it was all said and done.
Making your blog posts readable
Written by Neil Patel on August 23, 2006 | 6 comments
Have you ever been to a blog and found that the content is hard to read? It could be because the text size is too small or the blog post just has one big block of content.
When venture capitalists compete, you win
Written by Cameron Olthuis on August 23, 2006 |
I can't tell if this video is a joke or not but I found it rather amusing, but regardless, I guarantee it's going to create some buzz, it is too controversial not to. The concept behind this video is that this company is tired of companies competing with each other for VC money, so he's inviting VC's to compete with each other to see whose money they'll take.
My thoughts on school & marketing
Written by Neil Patel on August 22, 2006 | 5 comments
Guy Kawasaki recently wrote, "Ten Things to Learn This School Year", and as a college student what he said really holds true for me. I am currently a senior in college and my major is marketing, so far it has not prepared me for the real world.
What's your marketing plan?
Written by Cameron Olthuis on August 21, 2006 | 8 comments
You could put up a pretty strong argument that marketing is one of the most important factors of a company's success. It is definitely up there, but these days the actual product or service is probably most important. Okay, so why are there so many companies being launched right now that have no marketing plans at all?
Crazy Egg officially launches
Written by Neil Patel on August 21, 2006 | 11 comments
Have you ever found it hard to figure out how to improve your website? We have been having this pain for years which is why we created. We just launched Crazy Egg today. So what is Crazy Egg?
Getting Links 5 of 5
Written by Neil Patel on August 20, 2006 | 2 comments
Some people do not believe in link building, are not concerned with it, or do not know about it, and in these cases link popularity is achieved naturally over time. So how do these people increase their link popularity naturally?
Getting Links 4 of 5
Written by Neil Patel on August 19, 2006 |
Linkbaiting is word that has been getting some attention recently. It is getting so popular that Aaron Pratt created an award for linkbaiting. So what is linkbaiting and why is everyone talking about?
Getting Links 3 of 5
Written by Neil Patel on August 18, 2006 |
Text links have become a hot commodity in the last couple of years. Website owners have realized that they can earn money by selling links and businesses have realized that they can increase their search engine rankings by buying links.
Catchup - 8/18/06
Written by Cameron Olthuis on August 18, 2006 |
Internet search giant Google is reportedly planning to set up a server farm in India. This would be the second attempt by the Mountain View, California-based company, after infrastructure-related problems forced it to cancel an earlier plan which was scheduled for March this year. The company went on to set up that server farm in Taiwan.
Stupid marketing
Written by Neil Patel on August 18, 2006 |
Stupidity is something that we all see on a regular basis. It could be others around you doing stupid things or it even stupid things that you, yourself do. Companies such as Vonage have used stupidity in their TV commercials ...
Getting Links 2 of 5
Written by Neil Patel on August 17, 2006 | 8 comments
Reciprocal linking in its most common form is when website A links to website B and website B links back to website A. This link building tactic has been used throughout the web for many years and its main purpose is to help websites increase their search engine rankings.
Getting Links 1 of 5
Written by Neil Patel on August 16, 2006 | 5 comments
One subject that I seem to get asked a lot about is links. Is it better to buy links, reciprocate links, or to just try to create linkbait? Is a paid link better than a natural link? Are reciprocal links dead? Is this link stronger than that link?
10 things you should be monitoring
Written by Cameron Olthuis on August 16, 2006 | 25 comments
Tracking your buzz is really something that is becoming more and more important over and will continue to increase in importance as time goes on. Everything is going social right now and messages fly around the web at a million miles by hour. In order to manage your reputation you need to track the right things, so here's a list of 10 things that you absolutely need to be monitoring.
Choosing between short or long URLs
Written by Neil Patel on August 16, 2006 |
Today I was posed with a question on URL structure, "is better to go with a short URL or a long URL?" Many websites/blogs have specific goals that they are trying to reach, and depending on your goals you can go with one option or the other.
Introduction to Social Media Optimization
Written by Cameron Olthuis on August 15, 2006 | 15 comments
Social Media Optimization (SMO) is a new term that was recently coined by Rohit Bhargava and has since been taking on life of its own. In his introduction to SMO, Rohit draws similar comparisons to SEO.
Optimizing your blog for search engines
Written by Neil Patel on August 14, 2006 | 46 comments
Lately, blog optimization has been catching on like a wild fire. People have been blogging about their increase in search engine traffic due to SEO and others are starting to realize that they need to optimize their blog.
Catchup - 8/12/06
Written by Cameron Olthuis on August 12, 2006 |
Google and Yahoo have been quietly agreeing to deals that compensate some of the country's top news organizations for their content and help drive more traffic to their Web sites and that a major shift might be ahead in the relationship between old media and new Internet gatekeepers.
Avoiding bad traffic
Written by Neil Patel on August 12, 2006 | 6 comments
When people think about search engine optimization they think about increasing their traffic from search engines. Most people see it as a good source of relevant traffic and a potential way to increase revenue but there is one major downside of search engine optimization, bad traffic.
Reputation monitoring 101
Written by Cameron Olthuis on August 11, 2006 | 2 comments
Over the last couple of years social media has really taken off and participation is growing at a super fast rate. At any given time there are millions of people writing blog posts or content to put on the web. The minute these people write something and post it, an audience is already there and waiting to read it.
Can your company dedicate?
Written by Neil Patel on August 11, 2006 | 2 comments
Have you ever heard the saying "dedication is the key to success"? Well, in many cases it is true, if you can show your customers that you are dedicated to all of their needs then there is a good chance that they will keep on paying you.
Back from Northern California
Written by Neil Patel on August 10, 2006 | 3 comments
Today was the last day of our trip and I am on my way home as we speak. We had a fun time at WordCamp, Search Engine Strategies, and all of the parties that went along with it.
Interview with Guy Kawasaki
Written by Cameron Olthuis on August 8, 2006 | 18 comments
Recently I did an email interview with Guy Kawasaki who is a well known blogger, venture capitalist, and an evangelist (not in any particular order). I asked him 12 questions regarding blogging, venture capital, and marketing.
WordCamp: SEO speech
Written by Neil Patel on August 6, 2006 | 3 comments
Yesterday Matt Mullenweg asked Cameron and me to give a speech on SEO during WordCamp. Our session was on WordPress and how people can optimize their blog to maximize their search engine traffic.
Mistaken marketing
Written by Neil Patel on August 4, 2006 |
Has there ever been a time when you made a funny mistake in public? It could have been walking into the women's restroom instead of the men's restroom or perhaps confusing a woman for a man.
Taking a trip up north
Written by Neil Patel on August 4, 2006 |
For the next 7 days, you will probably see light posting on Pronet because Cameron and I are on the road again to San Jose, California. We are going up to northern California for the Search Engine Strategies conference and Wordcamp.
My FeedBurner options
Written by Neil Patel on August 2, 2006 | 6 comments
I have been using FeedBurner on this blog and several others for some time now. One thing that FeedBurner has is a lot of options, they do well at explaining what each option does but I wanted to point out some of the ones that I use and think are important.
How to keep your buzz warm
Written by Cameron Olthuis on August 2, 2006 |
Staying warm with buzz is as important as the buzz itself. If you can keep it going the effect will keep snowballing. In addition to having a solid product in the first place, you need to also manage your buzz. Managing your buzz well will also help keep it going. One company that's been red hot with buzz lately is YouTube, let's take a look at how they are keeping their buzz going.
Yahoo launches Yodel Anecdotal
Written by Neil Patel on August 2, 2006 |
Lately, more and more companies have been starting blogs because they now know how much it can potentially help their business. It is a great way for a company to communicate with their customers and also respond to and get feedback from them.
Creative ads in strange places
Written by Cameron Olthuis on August 1, 2006 |
BusinessWeek has come out with an article that showcases creative ads that are showing up in strange places. For each ad BusinessWeek gives a brief overview of the campaign and how it was created.
What is in store for YouTube?
Written by Cameron Olthuis on August 1, 2006 | 9 comments
YouTube happens to be one of the most popular sites on the net, yet they haven't figured out how to make money and no one seems to be interested in purchasing them. With a burn rate of over $1 million per month and no real signs of revenue I can see why not that many parties would be interested.
1000 free pizzas for Googlers = priceless marketing
Written by Neil Patel on August 1, 2006 |
As a business you deal with vendors that you rely on heavily. So when your vendor does a great job, what do you do? You buy them lunch! This is exactly what one company did to Google; the Cambrian House was so pleased with Google they bought the Googlers 1000 pizzas.
