Bios on the Web

For business and pleasure, people are placing bios on multiple sites, from Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn. That’s because Internet users have an increasing number of accounts where we make friends, build networks or market businesses.

So it makes sense to invest some effort or resources in a bio, and even have a couple of different versions serving different sites and purposes. After all, you’re branding yourself on the Web, and the right bios can make a world of difference to how people perceive you.

Presenting consistent information in your bio(s) makes you appear more professional and memorable. However, personal brands are often disjointed on the Web because most people have different identities on each social network.

The good news is there are emerging technologies that will enable a transportable identity, which will empower Internet users to bring your identities with you. It’ll lead to an integrated social experience.

Meanwhile, whether you have one bio or 10 floating around the Web, it’s wise to ensure your profiles are up to date, consistent, and put your best side forward.

Google Launches One-Line Sitelinks

You wanted Google’s sitelinks? You got ‘em!

When businesses get serious about online presence, many ask about Google’s sitelinks – the set of links that show up underneath the first search result on the page. These links are great because they provide significant exposure, and allow Internet users to instantly access deeper pages.

Now Google is launching an expansion of sitelinks. Indeed, a single row of links can now appear for results beyond the first position. This means multiple results on one query can now have sitelinks. Up to four sitelinks can show up right above the page URL, instead of the usual two columns below the URL of the first result.

It’s a clever move by Google as businesses may be able to draw more visitors to valuable, but previously overlooked pages. And online visitors (or guests) will be able to scan additional headings and get to relevant information with less time and fewer clicks.

Read: One-line sitelinks on Google’s Webmaster Central Blog.

One-Stop Searching at Soovle

Soovle, a customizable engine that lets you tap into Google, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, Answers.com, Ask.com, YouTube, and Amazon with efficiency and ease, is entering the mainstream.

Despite common beliefs, the suggestion site doesn’t actually crawl the Web. When you start typing a search term, Soovle immediately offers suggestions for related terms. When you want to hook up with Soovle’s suggestions, just click on the result and the innovative site will take you there.

It makes for a neat search tool, and is packed with features. Surf Soovle now!

Google’s Next Step: Voice Search

The BBC reports Google sees voice search as a major opportunity to generate presence on the mobile web.

Vic Gundotra, Google’s Vice-President of Engineering, made the comments during a wide-ranging discussion at a recent Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.

“We believe voice search is a new form of search and that it is core to our business,” he stated.

Read Google sees voice search as core.

.Pro Domains Break Language Barriers on the Web

If you’re looking to expand your reach with .pro domains, consider the fact that the .pro domain extension transcends language barriers.

Indeed, these three letters begin the word professional in many different languages:

  • Albanian–profesional
  • Catalan—professional
  • Croatian—profesionalne
  • Danish—professionel
  • Dutch—professionele
  • English—professional
  • Estonian—professionaalne
  • Filipino—propesyunal
  • French—professionnel
  • Galician—profesional
  • German–professionelle
  • Indonesian—profesional
  • Italian—professionale
  • Latvian—profesionālās
  • Lithuanian—profesinės
  • Maltese—professjonali
  • Norwegian—profesjonell
  • Portuguese—profissional
  • Romanian—profesional
  • Spanish—profesional

So, if you’re looking to buy .pro domains, think big. Think internationally.

.Pro domains are available at select hosting companies, such as Network Solutions.

Link Building 101

Like keyword-rich website content, link building is an essential element to achieve high search engine rankings.

The more websites that link to your site, the easier is to get high rankings on Google, Yahoo and MSN. Links to your site are like votes – the more ‘link love’ you receive, the more the search engines trust you.

But it’s important to get the right links. Links from related websites, which are also credible (for instance, they’re
 popular and have been around for some time), help your search engine rankings more than links from websites with limited inbound links.

On that note, search engines are not fond of paid links, which, if reported, can actually get your website penalized. That’s black hat SEO, and it’s bad news.

Effective ways to get others to link to your website include providing useful tools, as well as insightful articles or posts. When you offer something worthy, website owners are generally quick to make reference to your website, and reward you with that all-so-valuable link.

SEO Copywriting Services

SEO copywriting services

Whether you’re a New York IT firm or a San Diego design studio, SEO copywriting services can help you tap into a new stream of leads and sales.

The fact is that 85% of all new traffic to websites arrives via search engines. And it’s no secret that Google owns close to 75 per cent of the market. Hence, if SEO copywriting services get you to rank top 10 on Google, you’ll achieve a powerful return on your investment.

On the topic of investment, website owners often ask what do SEO copywriting services cost. Some supposed ‘SEO experts’ make themselves available for as little as $150 a project, while large SEO agencies can charge tens of thousands of dollars per month.

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Playing in Google’s Sandbox

Owners of new websites often ask about the Google sandbox, a filter the search engine uses to fight spam.

Google typically indexes a new website, lists it for a few search terms and then the web pages drop from the search engine result pages for some months.

Generally, brand new websites with new domain names need about six to eight months to get top rankings on Google.

How Do You Get Out of the Google Sandbox?

While some waiting is required, you can prompt Google to speed up the process.

When you register a new domain name, create a temporary page immediately as the six- to eight-month delay appears to start with Google’s first contact with your web site. The sooner Google knows about your web site, the better.

Also, ensure you acquire some quality inbound links from other websites, and get your meta data optimized. The meta data, which comprises title, keyword and description tags, can make a big difference. In fact, this factor has helped some Webcopyplus clients attain desired rankings in as little as six weeks.

So get a page or two up as soon as you can, and take your links and keywords seriously. It can make a world of difference to your new website’s search engine rankings and online presence.

Putting Social Media to Work

Putting social media to work

The recession has put major pressure on marketers to deliver results, and many are responding by increasing investments on social marketing. The reason?

Social media provides relatively inexpensive tools that can quickly get marketing messages out through interactive discussion and rapid word of mouth.

But how does a business go about making social applications a permanent part of its marketing efforts?

Plan for Success

According to James Wallace of Kontent Creative, a Vancouver design studio and web development group that helps clients tap into the social media realm, there needs to be a cohesive company strategy in place for social media interaction.

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Search Engine Optimization: Don’t Deceive

Despite the perception of so many business owners, search engine optimization is not about tricking search engines to get anyone and everyone to your website.

It’s about building an effective online marketing strategy that delivers a flow of highly targeted prospects who are seeking what you offer.

Yet, so many business owners think more traffic — any traffic — is the key to their success on the Web. Sure, it looks impressive when reviewing Google Analytics. But the wrong traffic will do little for a company’s bottom line.

For more insight, read Good Traffic, Bad Traffic.

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