Domains starting at $7.49 for .com registration at Godaddy

I have seen people making use of odd domain names for their business or blogs. Odd domains are great, but keep them understandable and clear. For some reason, many use unmemorable and hard to spell domains which is really impossible for anyone to remember. Think “Google” not “Ghoogal”! I would always suggest to select such keywords for your domain which are short, memorable and easy to spell. Here in this article you will read 5 Top Tips for selecting the Best Keyword Domains.

5 TIPS FOR SELECTING DOMAIN KEYWORDS:

1. Make a list of keywords that best describe your company or blog. For example if your blog is related to Coffee; I would suggest select a domain having the keyword “coffee” in it for faster indexing search engines.
2. Make use of small, memorable, and easy to spell keywords only. Keep in mind popular acronyms since you can imagine how annoying it would be to write http://worldwideweb.empiremedia.com instead of http://www.empiremedia.com
3. Now try looking for a new domain with the link above. If you are not able to get the desired domain, try to altering it by inserting hyphens, adding another related keyword or using a synonymy. Don’t overuse hyphens (we recommend a maximum of two).
4. You can register a domain name with up to 63 characters, but it doesn’t mean that you should make use of the entire 63 characters. Try not to have a long domain as it is harder to remember.
5. If you are searching for a domain for your company or product launch, it is better to register all other available extensions like .com, .org, .info, .mobi, .tv, and .co. Just keep in mind, you need not have to build site on every registered extensions, but this is done to reserve the domains name otherwise you are welcoming fraud and people think that it might be one of your sister sites.

Start selling domains just like GoDaddy with your very own domain registration company. Set your own prices and be your own boss!

Doesn’t your baby deserve a website of his own?

Domain Name Hosting

The next thing to do is use a keyword research tool; which in my case I usually make use of the free keyword tool from Google. You can use other tools, even the proprietary ones. It is all up to your preference and in my opinion; there is no single authority tool when it comes to keyword research. If you are just starting out and your budget is limited, using the free tools is more than decent enough to help you with your research. I often begin my research by using broad terms and based from the results that the tool gives me, I would select the long tail keywords. That is because it is easier to rank for these keywords as the broad terms are often too competitive to get into.

It is important to look at the monthly search volume in selecting my keywords. I select those with a good amount of searches, let’s say just a few thousands, and see if there are a lot of competitions for that keyword. If the search results gave just a few sites, then I save that keyword, marking it as a potential keyword.

Now if I am doing my search engine optimizing for just one website, I make sure that there is only one theme or topic for it. I also apply that thought to my keyword research as it will be the main factor in my site’s optimization. With just one theme, your SEO campaign will be laser-focused and it will be easier for Google and the other search engines to rank your website properly.

How many keywords can be considered enough? It depends on the number of web pages contained in your website. I often use just one or two keywords per page and that all of these keywords are related to just one topic or theme to maintain the consistency.

These are just some of the tips that you can follow for your keyword research for SEO. It is a safe and effective process that can help you quickly collect the right keywords for your website. Just always remember to work within just one theme and your SEO campaign will be all sound and good.

Site optimization is not easy; this is the reason why we compiled a listing of useful resources. Please view our articles for more ways to optimize your website or contact us anytime.

Apparently, there are more than one would imagine:

1. Google X:
Google X was a version of the Google home page modeled specifically for Apple Mac users. The bottom of the page read, “Roses are read, Violets are blue. OS X Rocks. Home page to you”. Its hard to imagine Google crafting anything to Apple today, unless it’s a court document, and in fact Google X only survived for one day.

2. Google Catalog:
Google Catalogs, a search engine for print catalogs, languished in Beta from 2001 until 2009, when Google put it out of its misery, finally realizing the uselessness of a product that puts catalogs online, when only people who can’t use the Internet still use catalogs.

3. Web Accelerator:
Google’s downloadable Web Accelerator (a proxy server used to reduce web access time via caching technologies) had some terrible bugs and privacy issues. Let’s start with a simple example; it prevented users from watching YouTube videos. Google closed it in 2008.

4. Google Video Player:
Google Video player was a standalone desktop application for playing Google video files. Google hasn’t fared well at entering a market late unless it offers a clear improvement on existing products, and it turned out the world didn’t need yet another video player with no real improvements.

5. Google Answers:
Google’s answer to Yahoo Answers, literally. Google employed paid researchers and asked users to bid for a response to their questions. But users, it seems, preferred their information free, even if free isn’t always best.

6. Google Wave:
Google Wave was supposed to reinvent email; bringing old-fashioned electronic mail together with new technologies like instant messaging and social media. It launched to huge hype, but users found it overly complicated and it died shortly after.

7. Wiki Search:
SearchWiki turned Google Search into a Wiki – logged-in users could move results up and down or delete results they didn’t like. Searchers can still start a result to mark it as a favorite, but the other wiki options went to the chopping block. Let’s see if they will be reintroduced in Google +1 updates.

8. Google Audio Ads:
Google Audio Ads, a radio-based advertising platform, which would offer the powerful metrics of search-based advertising to broadcasters, however, measuring performance proved difficult which led Google to close it down in 2009.

9. DodgeBall:
Google bought Dodgeball; a mobile search networking services in 2005. The founder went on to leave Google and form FourSquare, now the leader in the location-based check-ins and social location advertising. Dodgeball closed down, FourSquare is booming, and Google has recently launched a new mobile app; Latitude. However, Latitude does not seem to be gaining popularity and is now being overshadowed by Facebook Check-In as well.

10. Jaiku:
Jaiku is to Twitter as Dodgeball is to FourSquare. Google purchased the micro-blogging services in 2007 but It failed to take off. This was not the first time in history that a market leader was missing the next technology bus.

11. Google Notebook:
Google notebook was a browser based application that allowed users to cut, paste, save and share text, links and images from the web to personal “notebook”. This functionality has been replaced by Google Docs.

12. Google Page Creator:
Google page creator was a tool to help users to create web pages, which were hosted on Google’s Servers. Google canned the product in 2008 to focus on Google Sites (not the first time it suffered from feature overlap).

13. Google Buzz:
In another attempt to keep up with Twitter and Facebook, Google launched this social network as an opt-out service for Gmail users, many of whom reacted angrily. Can Buzz overcome privacy concerns and slow growth? With the integration of Google +1, only time will tell.

If more come to mind, please inform us via comment below.

Here are some expert search engine optimization (SEO) tips to enhance your website’s Bing search results. However, most will notice that to actually implement these, it’s not necessary to be an SEO expert nor are they very different from Google SEO:

1. Keyword in Domain
Bing appears to place significantly more weight on keywords that appear in the domain name for those keyword related search terms. This doesn’t mean that buying the website pepsi.com (obviously already taken, but a great example nonetheless) will automatically make you the number 1 result for the search term “pepsi,” however, it will significantly increase your chances of being on the first page.

2. If you can’t purchase the domain with keywords, make sure they’re in the URL
The example of pepsi.com that we used above leads to the realization that many great domain names are already taken. However, you can combat this hurdle by putting the keywords in your URL. As you can see, we do not own the domain Bing Expert but rank well for it. This is due in part to our URL: http://www.empiremedia.com/expert-seo-advice-for-bing/.

3. Bing Webmaster Tools and Microsoft adCenter
Microsoft has presented itself as an online advertising must, but the adCenter can help with SEO, too. Similar to the Google Webmaster Tools and Keyword Tool, the Microsoft adCenter and Bing Webmaster Tools can be used to find competitive keywords for a site and see site progress in results. Even though the keyword analytics is aimed at creating PPC ads, this insight can significantly aid with organic search optimization as well.

4. “Like-able” content
Facebook has become the new best friend for Bing. Together, Bing and Facebook have created new search features that will help expand both parties; with Bing users seeing socially enhanced results.

Essentially, if you log into Facebook and search for products, places or services that friends have commented on, Bing will show you when Facebook friends “Liked” results and recently it further integrating the “Like” data into the Bing search engine results. Now, recommended or “Liked” content by one of our friends may be more likely to show up in your search results and in turn, more likely to attract clicks from Bing searchers and boost overall rankings.

This relationship arguably gives Bing a major edge over Google, and marketers who prepare social content that catches “Likes” may put their brands ahead of the competition on Bing. Google is now trying to combat this epidemic with it’s social media platform “Google+.” In the same way that Facebook Likes are integrated into Bing, so is the +1 network into Google results. However, Google’s +1 is in it’s early stage and we’ve all seen how well Google is with social media (ex. <a href=”http://www.empiremedia.com/failed-google-projects/” title=”Failed Google Projects”>Google Buzz</a>), while Facebook is the king of social networking and the number 2 site in the world.

5. Invest in quality content
Marketers trying to optimize their sites for Bing should take a high-quality content approach (which will really help promote rankings across most search engines). But in reality, neither Bing nor Google has mastered the war on spam and therefore, many Black Hat SEO gurus suggest quantity for Bing as compared to quality backlinks for Google. WE DO NOT SUGGEST THIS! Spamming can hurt right away or in the future, but in the end, it doesn’t matter since it will lower search engine rankings. This is why we recommend relevant link building to relevant articles on your site that will not only better search engine rankings across the board, but also attract traffic actually looking for your product. Furthermore, content should be over 300 words per page, but try to have a picture or video as well so that you keep your visitors happy as well as the search engine bots.

6. On-Site Optimization
It’s important to have your keywords or phrases in the title, meta description and scattered throughout the body at approximately 2% density (although we don’t suggest using it more than twice per page/article). However, unlike Google that blatantly punishes for over-saturation of a certain keyword or phrase, Bing does not factor this as much. Make sure that your website is crawlable by providing a sitemap.

As stated, this advice isn’t hard to implement, however, it is only the beginning to the world of SEO. After reading articles as great as this (insert image of a self-pat-on-the-back), people tend to believe that SEO is an easy task and sadly, find out the hard way that there’s a non-discussed science. Therefore, we always recommend dealing with professionals and industry leaders from the beginning as compared to waiting until it’s too late.
Contact us today.

Distribution is calculated from the top million websites on the internet. This was last calculated on May 30th, 2011. The chart below will show distributions for the top 10K websites, however, scroll down for distribution in top million, top 100,000 sites and top 10,000 sites.

*Information Provided by BuiltWithTrends

Google has recently stated that it is working on a Google+ for businesses (or Google+ Business Profile) and is asking companies not to create Google+ profiles as of yet.

In a post and accompanying YouTube video on Google+, Product Manager Christian Oestlien states that the Google+ team is working hard on creating a unique experience for businesses that includes deep analytics and the ability to connect to more Google products; such as AdWords. “How users communicate with each other is different from how they communicate with brands,” Oestlien states.

As a result, Google is asking businesses to put their Google+ ambitions on hold. Meanwhile Google+ continues to delete non-user profiles and therefore will not allow for porting over once testing has finished.

Several prominent brands have already joined Google+, including Ford, Breaking News and Mashable, one of the top ten most popular users on Google+. In a survey by <a title=”SocialStatistics” href=”http://socialstatistics.com/” target=”_blank”>SocialStatistics</a>, Mark Zuckerberg is the most popular user on Google+ with almost double the followers of the second most popular user. That might not be exactly what Google was hoping for when starting Google+. Especially considering that Larry Page, the Co-Founder and current CEO of Google is the runner up.

The next issue is similar to that of Facebook and Twitter; User Verification. Twitter has a check-mark for users/celebrities that have been verified and in this case where for instance, Mark Zuckerberg’s profile is inactive but has many friends, one starts to question if it is truly Mr. Zuckerberg or just a fan.

While the new Google+ experience for businesses won’t be ready until “later this year,” the company intends to launch a “small experiment with a few marketing partners” to test the brand-oriented accounts over the next few months. It even has opened up a Google Spreadsheet where “non-user entities” can apply for the program.

Still, the biggest problem with Google+ is that most users won’t be switching over from Facebook that easily. It may prove to be too much of a hassle to re-invite friends or family members to a new social network. This holds true for company profiles that have spent countless time, energy, and funds to increase their community. From a business perspective, Facebook Pages trumps Google+ Business Profiles because companies are already invested and established there.

Nonetheless, many analysts have stated that Google+ Business Profiles will dominate over Business Pages on Facebook and cite the Google Checkout payment system as a major factor. Then there are rumors that Google will integrate Google Places with Google+ Business Profiles, but these are not confirmed and in our opinion unlikely.

We’re not surprised that Google is building an optimized Google+ experience for businesses, but we are surprised that Google wasn’t more prepared for the wave of brands that have been joining its social network. The same thing happened with Google Buzz and has happened on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and countless other social networks. Brands like to go where their customers are; so Google shouldn’t stop them!

Here are a few more known <a title=”Google+ issues” href=”http://www.google.com/support/+/bin/static.py?page=known_issues.cs” target=”_blank”>Google+ issues</a>.

Here is a sample of the email notification from Google:

“Dear site owner or webmaster of http://www.domain.com/,
We’ve detected that some of your site’s pages may be using techniques that are outside Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes.
We encourage you to make changes to your site so that it meets our quality guidelines. Once you’ve made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google’s search results.
If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request.
If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support. Sincerely, Google Search Quality Team”

As you can see, Google is telling webmasters that their site has been penalized because they have bad links, maybe paid links or other unnatural links, pointing to their site.
Google began its campaign against paid links in October 2007 and has continued the fierce campaign since then.

With this, the previous selling links campaign and the site update reminders; Google is trying to clean up their search results.

Our suggestion has always been natural and organic backlinks from relevant websites that increase search result rankings as compared to hurting them.

This tool will help advertisers and websites that have already made big investments in Flash. Adobe released the tool called “Wallaby” (official free download link provided) that will let developers convert Flash to HTML5, which can run in the Safari browser used by Apple devices.

Apple has publicized its negative opinion of Adobe’s Flash technology because it eats extensive battery life, is not open-source, and therefore refuses to support it on the iOS platform used by the iPhone and iPad.

HTML5 received a show of support from such large enterprises as Google, Microsoft (The HTML5 version of Bing will reportedly include instant search, smooth animations, and many other features), and Facebook (In 2011, Facebook will begin moving toward using HTML5, mainly because it works similarly across many different platforms).

With this first showing of the white flag, it seems more realistic and probable that HTML5 is going to replace Flash as the default way to make interactive Web apps in the next few years. Moreover, Adobe recently suffered another Flash setback on mobile devices when the Motorola Xoom tablet, the first tablet running Android Honeycomb which was designed specifically for tablets, was shipped without Flash support.

The e-mail or message in Google Webmaster Tools tells you that your site appears to be running an older version of WordPress and that you should update because otherwise your site may be vulnerable to hacking (attacks) or malware, which can all lead to a site being removed from the Google index.

Not-upgraded WordPress sites are fairly easily hackable and therefore a possible danger from spammers and hackers, which can lead to lower SERP (search engine results page).

Finding a webpage’s WordPress version is as simple as two clicks: “right click” then “viewpage source” and search for “<meta name=”generator”

content=”WordPress ###” />,” where “###” represents the WordPress version used.

On Mozilla Firefox, it’s even simpler:”right click” then “view page info,” where it will say “generator” and across from that “WordPress ###.”

Matt Cutts of Google confirmed the new notifications via Twitter by saying, “we’re kicking off a fresh run to inform webmasters with out-of-date/insecure versions of WordPress.”

Webmarketing123, a California online marketing agency, compiled the 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report. This report surveyed over 500 online marketers in the United States during the months of August and September 2011. The majority of survey participants identified themselves as business-to-business marketing organizations.

Regardless of whether a company identifies themselves as a business-to-business marketer or a business-to-customer marketing organization, almost all marketing specialists agree that SEO is the most effective method of generating leads and has the largest impact on lead generation. 57% of business-to-business marketing specialists identify SEO as the main method of lead generation. 41% of business-to-customer marketing specialists echo B2B marketer feelings regarding SEO and lead generation.

Website traffic, which is impacted by SEO efforts, are the best source of business leads, say both business-to-business and business-to-customer marketing specialists. And website traffic is the main way in which SEO success is measured. For both types of marketers, brand awareness by customers was the lowest measure of SEO success.

Regarding budgets, the Digital Marketing Report asked respondents several questions. One of the questions was about where budget funds are allocated in marketing. One-third of B2B marketers responded that the majority of their budget goes toward SEO efforts. However, for B2C marketers, in excess of 42 percent dedicate their budgets toward PPC efforts. This is in sharp contrast to B2B marketers, who place a strong emphasis on SEO for their budgets.

While SEO continues to be of importance, social media marketing is also getting a significant boost. 60% of all responders in the Digital Marketing Report indicate that they have plans to dedicate more money in their budgets toward social media marketing. 53% of responders indicate that they will place more emphasis on SEO and increase their budgets for this activity and only 40% indicate that they will dedicate more funds for PPC efforts.

One of the considerations to account for the marked increase in social media marketing budgets in the future is lead generation from social media outlets. Survey responders indicate that they have received significant lead generation from social media outlets such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. 68% of responders indicate they have received leads from these sources. Additionally, 55% of survey responders indicate that they have used social media outlets to close business deals.

The impact of social media cannot be ignore. However, with website traffic as the primary source of lead generation for marketers, SEO continues to be important to both large and small businesses.