Google has already been approved as a FedRAMP launch vendor, and now has submitted its final materials to certify its government-specific cloud. Google is working to get certified by the U.S. Government to be able to take care of all email, interdocument transfer and other office tools.

This is a huge move for google. Currently they have started moving into the public sector of local government too. Among the government customers Google already has for Google Apps are the city of Los Angeles and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. However, Google remains locked in a battle for customers with other providers like Microsoft, as shown by the fact that the University of Arizona, a Google Apps customer, recently signed a deal to become a customer of Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite.

We know that as of this posting google has more than 100 government agencies that are using their tools.

Way to GO GOOGLE!!!!

Technorati Tags: business productivity, google apps, government customers

Spam tactics may be deliberate and unintentional in internet marketing. What’s certain is that they are a regrettable and unavoidable reality for all those organizations with an online business. Perpetrators of spam, spamdexing, or black hat techniques will tempt using sales patter – guaranteed search engine rankings, campaigns measured in weeks not several weeks, and a quick shot of immediate search engine visibility. Sooner or later , most website owners will have been pitched these empty guarantees . Most will have considered, even if only for a moment, the appealing prospect of circumnavigating a drawn out and potentially pricey optimization or paid search campaign.

The tough facts are that these shortcuts can cause damage to existing search engine rankings and harm long-term listings if search engines like Google or Bing decide that the site has used spam or non-ethical tactics to unnaturally inflate search positions. Sometimes though despite the best motives of all concerned, sites do stray into spam territory. This happens simply through not being aware of what does and does not constitute questionable methods. Spam can happen accidently, particularly when search engine optimization work continues to be performed by novice campaign managers. Being on guard for the following stumbling blocks can help limit mistakes and penalties.

Keyword stuffing: This is the most common of black hat SEO or spam techniques, and can become a problem on a site by simply too placing too much attention on certain key phrases in the dash to enhance search engine ratings. An oversight small site owners frequently make is to believe that they have to place primary key phrases just about everywhere on the page – in titles, headers, alt tags, meta descriptions, body text, and anchor text- and as often as possible. While a certain degree of keyword density is imperative, unneccessary use of key phrases with little or no synonym consideration is usually categorised as spam.

As a standard, anywhere from 5% – 8% key phrase density is satisfactory, but anything over that is considered SPAM. If unpracticed optimizers have been given free control on your site, check that you’ll be not displaying identical anchor text throughout, that titles are restricted to five or six descriptive phrases, that meta tags provide significant, unique details about that web page, that H1 and H2 headers are not simply vehicles for having key phrases in bigger, bold print which the body text utilizes both long and short tail keyword variations.

Cloaking: As the name suggests, cloaking is a means of hiding information on your website. It is commonly used to send one lot of information to the various search engines while presenting a completely different view to the user. Proponents of black hat search engine optimization use cloaking as a way to present a highly optimized page of code for the spiders, often filled with keywords along with other factors which are known to aid favorable rankings. Because these pages in many cases are keyword stuffed, they are of little help or sense to a real user so an alternative version of the page is designed for a human reader. Which page is presented is determined by the IP address or User-Agent HTTP of the requesting user.

Look through your CMS system or FTP files to evaluate that you recognize each listed page. Actually it could be necessary to have a different version for the search engine, for instance image descriptions in the code. If you suspect that cloaking has been performed on your own website, it’s a good idea to consult with an SEO agency or consultancy to go over helpful resolutions.

URL Redirects: Redirection methods have many useful and ethical applications, such as redirecting a user with a bookmarked page to the correct new page when the URL is renamed or moved. However, there are also some non-ethical applications used in black hat SEO and spam which the various search engines will take a dim view of. One example of this is directing a search engine to at least one version of a page full of popular search terms while siphoning the user off to a very different page. Temporary redirects have also been utilized to attempt to steal the PageRank of a well established page and pass on to a new page. These techniques are both identified as spam by the various search engines and can lead to the website being given lower rankings or dropped from the search engine results entirely.

Doorway Pages: Sometimes called bridge or portal pages, a doorway page is quite similar to cloaking in that it is a page that is used to make the search engines think one thing while showing entirely different data to the end user. A doorway page will redirect the user off to another page either via a Meta refresh command, JavaScript, or a link.

It is rather simple to detect a doorway page on your own server as they are clearly constructed for search engine purposes so will contain plenty of keywords, perhaps make little sense to the reader and have very simple navigation structures or links.

The existence of any of these tactics on your site can jeopardize your ranking and may even lead to blacklisting by search engines. Make sure that your SEO program avoids this pitfalls to preserve your good name online!

I have searched high and low for a easy to use backlink checker and have finally found one.
This tool analyzes 1000 links attached to your site, this includes backlinks and inbound links these are all links to your URL. The tool shows the domain if they are top tier sites and lower tier. What they do is show them separately by different classes of URLs like .com, .net, .org Etc. It is NOT a IP backlinks checker. This is fast because it is based what the search engines see.

Give it a spin and you will love it.
If you find a tool that is easier to use than this one and has the same functionality please leave a comment and we will add it to the list as a great backlink checker.

Technorati Tags: backlink checker, inbound links

If you are a firefox lover (Like ME) you can now learn to spread the love. I have been using the new beta version of Google Chrome, I am happy to say that it is FINALLY turning into a GOOD Browser. They had the right idea of starting over and trying to create a FASTER and more simplistic browser but… We love our tools, we want to be able to tweek it and add our own little bells and whistles.
With the new release of Beta 4.0 you can now easily install themes, import bookmarks and even install a google toolbar (sort of). There is a pretty easy way, it all has to do with bookmarks!

I found a forum that talks about how to do so. Chrome Plugins

Here is a screen shot of me using the Google tools that you would normally see in the tool bar. I have organized them into folders on my toolbar.

Here are some of the best bookmarks to put on your tool bar in chrome.

Google Cache:

javascript :void((function(){var%20a=location.href.replace(/^http%5C:%5C/%5C/(.*)$/,”$1″);location.href=”http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:”+escape(a);})())

Google Links:

javascript:void((function(){var%20a=location.href.replace(/^http%5C:%5C/%5C/(.*)$/,”$1″);location.href=”http://www.google.com/search?q=link:”+escape(a);})())
Pages Indexed in Yahoo:

javascript:void((function(){var%20a=location.href.replace(/^http%5C:%5C/%5C/(.*)$/,”$1″);location.href=”http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=”+escape(a);})())

Alexa Rank

javascript:void((function(){var%20a=location.href.replace(/^http%5C:%5C/%5C/(.*)$/,”$1″);location.href=”http://alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=&url=”+escape(a);})())
Get More HERE Chrome Plugins

I am truly loving Google Chrome NOW> I think I will start using it as much as FIREFOX.

Technorati Tags: google tools

Developing a Website That Generates Traffic and Increases Sales

When you own a business, your website is one of your most important tools that can be used to reach new customers and generate higher sales.

Whether you have an established website that is not currently working for you, or you are a complete newbie to the online marketing world, improving your website so that it generates traffic and increases sales is the right thing for your business.

Without a high quality website that attracts visitors and provides you with a way to capture information, you are not using the Internet’s power to its full potential. The information below can provide you with an idea of why a good website is so important for your businesses’ bottom line.

Why is a Quality Business Website so Important?

A high-quality business website provides you with a way to capture the enormous amount of traffic that is on the Internet. It also makes your business more accessible to your customers.

It does this, by giving website users a way to contact you or find out valuable information about your products or services without having to get on the phone, and during non-business hours.

There are literally millions of people searching the Internet for various reasons on any given day. If you are not trying to capture some of those visitors, then you are losing out on many potential sales each month. Just as your store gives you a physical presence a high-quality website provides you with an online Internet presence.

Benefits of Having a Good Website

As a business owner, there are many benefits to having a quality website that is able to not only generate traffic but also increase sales for your company. The first benefit that a business website can provide you with is it enables you to have access to customers that you otherwise might not have contact with.

Without a website, you are only able to reach your potential market through traditional means, and not those potential customers that primarily use the internet for their purchase research.

By enlisting the help of an internet marketing service company, you can create a highly effective direct response website that enables you to reach out to Internet traffic.

By adding an opt-in form to a quality website, you can increase your earning potential each year by at least 20%. An opt-in form provides a means of capturing visitors’ contact information. This is very valuable as it will allow you to send current and potential customers information about promotions, important updates, and special sales events throughout the year.

The visitors on your list will be people that you know are already interested in the services that you are offering, and by sending out a sales message to them your rate of return will be much higher than with an untargeted ad in the newspaper.

One of the most important benefits that a business website provides is that it allows you to remain a step above your competition. If other related local businesses do not currently have websites, you are already reaching far more people than they are.

By creating a high-quality website that can generate massive traffic and drive sales, you are ensuring that your site will be listed before the competitions’ in the search engine rankings.

How to Develop a High Quality Business Website

Unless you are professional, the best way to develop a high-quality business website is to seek out an Internet marketing company or web designer that can create a customized plan for your business.

These companies have experience marketing to those online, and they can help your website by marketing it for targeted driven traffic, and ensuring that it gets ranked well within the search engine listings.

Off-line business owners can increase their revenue by creating a business website or revamping their old one. Without a high-quality site that is able to generate traffic and increase your sales, your online presence will do you no good. Enlist the help of a professional Internet marketing company to develop a website that will help your business thrive.

About the Author: Aaron Howard – For more information on website development and online marketing, contact Aaron Howard, Business Development Manager with CU Innovative Marketing at http://CUInMarketing.com.

If you ever want to get your blog read, then you need make sure you are note duplicating other peoples words and ideas into your blog or site. Why? Well Google defines duplicate content as “substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar.”

Ya so… why is this bad? Well think of it this way. If you are trying to become the biggest and most used Search Engine, what would be your number one goal be? Well for me would to give my users the most relevent results to what they searched for. Now if I looked up a subject and all of the results that came back were the same do you think that people would feel that they are getting the selection that they wanted?

NOPE. So they would leave and go start using some other search tool. Hopefully now you can see why google wont allow duplicate websites and blog entries. They want to become the best. To be the best they need only to show the best results.

So get out there and put your thinking caps on and dont duplicate (steal) content from other peoples sites.
Write your own, be creative.

Technorati Tags: duplicate content, writing your own content

Guided navigation means more sales.

When designing an e-commerce site, retailers must consider how to get a shopper to the product she wants quickly. Site search is an important tool to accomplish this but can actually be slower because if they don’t put in the correct phrase it can show to many products.

A faster method that allows shoppers to drill down from category to features with great speed is a guided navigation tool. It can become an important element of the site experience because it gets shoppers to the products they want quicker that trying to spell Mississippi!

One strategy for improving guided navigation is to make the feature the mandatory starting point for any onsite product search. Site design and development firm Americaneagle.com Inc. has developed such a guided navigation system for Weathertech.com, a retailer of auto parts and accessories.

After navigating to the retail site, shoppers are required to enter the make, model and year of the vehicle for which they are buying accessories, or they can enter the product type. In both cases, shoppers select the required information from a pull-down menu. Shoppers that enter the make, model and year of the vehicle are shown product categories specific to that vehicle and can drill down further from that point by clicking on a category. Shoppers selecting a product are shown that product.

The change to guided navigation from open-ended site search boosted the retailer’s conversion rate from less than 6% to 10%, Americaneagle.com reports.

“The retailer wanted to improve the way shoppers search for products specific to a vehicle, as well as specific types of products, and decided that steering shoppers into guided navigation was the best way to eliminate the risk of having site search return unsatisfactory results,” says Americaneagle.com chief operating officer Mike Svanascini. “In the current economy, guiding shoppers to the products they are looking for in as few steps as possible is going to create a more satisfying shopping experience and boost conversion rates.”

based on an article from Internetretailer.com

So have you heard the BUZZ? you can now Blog and Text message together in one tool called Twitter.

Here are the Basics of Twitter:

Technorati Tags: basics of twitter, can I make money with twitter, how to make money with twitter, how to use twitter, what to put in your twitter profile

After putting a lot of thought into how to best use RSS feeds on your website and then creating them on your website, the next step is to promote them. As with any kind of marketing, where and how you advertise your website can determine the amount of visitors. The same applies to RSS feeds.

As you create your RSS feeds, keep in mind that the title should contain optimal search keywords. The more keywords contained, the more likely you are to have your feed come up when a particular search string is entered. This is not to say you should cram every possible keyword into the title of the RSS feed. Instead, keep in mind that you can have up to 15 different titles listed for the same link, article, content, etc. when creating the original RSS file.

Use descriptors to attract visitors to your site by tempting them to click on your feed. Think of text that will enhance your content, but not make it appear irrelevant. People are less likely to click on a RSS feed if it doesn’t fit their needs and wants. By keeping the descriptors concise, but also tempting, you will drive people to click on your link over someone else’s.

In keeping with the keyword search, don’t forget that you can now search by theme. Use this to your advantage and group your RSS feeds into themes. When submitting them to search engines, group the feeds into specific themes. This can help bring your feeds up more often when similar themes are searched.

When you add RSS feeds from other companies, you can tell your website how to react when the feed is clicked on. Rather than have visitors transported to the new site, have it come up as a new window. This will help lessen the chance your site visitors will leave your website completely.

People don’t use the back button as often, so it increases your chances of the person to continue to peruse your site if the RSS feeds pop up as new browsers.

As you design your RSS feeds, include your company’s contact information. This entails your website, any relevant contact information, and if possible, your logo. The more experience a person has with your website, the more frequently he or she will recall it when thinking of your products or services.

Consequently, it also goes to say you need to make sure the experience is a positive one because it goes the same way with a negative experience, except it deters visitors from returning.

Use your feed within your own site. By promoting it within your own website, you can improve its standing on external search engines. Search engines often return results by the most frequently clicked first. If you don’t have enough faith in your own RSS feed to include it in your website, why would anyone else want to subscribe to it? At the same time, RSS feed search engines often return results alphabetically.

Typically an English teacher would not count the word ‘A’ in a title when cataloguing it, but in RSS search engines, it is viewed as the first word of a title. Try to word your titles to begin with ‘A’ to improve their standing. As they are clicked on more and more, it will increase the feeds’ standings in other search engines.

In order to utilize your well written and constructed RSS feeds, remember to subscribe to them yourself. Nothing gives others’ faith in their content like seeing it on the originators’ website. Use keywords appropriately in titles because you can write multiple titles to fit the same content. You can also use themes to help capture the essence of your RSS feeds. Keep site visitors at your website by ‘instructing’ external RSS feeds to open in new browser windows.

Lastly, don’t forget to include your company’s contact information with the website in your feeds. The more often these are put out to the general population, the more exposure you will get.

Technorati Tags: article content, search engine optimization