Resident Funk Blog

While this sort of topic may be left best for a Blog somewhere in cyberspace, I elected to go ahead and write a follow-up article on what I have personally experienced with the YouTube/AdSense Player.

For a quick review, the YouTube/AdSense Player is a joint project where YouTube videos are played in your site and the border of the player displays relevant advertising to you site content. It all sound pretty cool but there are a few beefs I have with the current status of the program.

Firstly, the as the affiliate you have no choice in the approval of the videos being displayed on your site. There are no tags or similar tools to help ensure the video footage is somewhat related to the subject matter. I still stand by what I said though in my previous article in that the visitors do seem to like a bit of a break from the subject they are in and like the light hearted videos that appear in the player.

One good point is you can track the plays of the player through YouTube. You can see the amount of traffic that is using the link provided. So as a site manager you can see how well the player is working for your site in the video realm of things.

Now for a con. AdSense is a great affiliate program and for any who use it I am sure they would agree with my opinion. AdSense lists all the different ways in which you are using AdSense and provides a great amount of resource tools to analyze the performance of your account. That is all types except the YouTube Player advertisements. This oversight leaves the site manager with no information on a click through rate or CPM for the player advertisements. I would have to assume that if it is set for “content” then the total numbers for the “content” account also include those content ads from the player. So while AdSense is not hiding anything it surely is not providing useful data on how to best optimize the resource as it is currently offered.

Now to the important part will it work for you? The only way to know is to try it for yourself. Do I think it can be a good program? Absolutely, we are a graphics driven society, television, video games and, yes, even computers. Can the service be improved, definitely and it would be nice to see some of these spify new player options come out that they had talked about so highly in the YouTube startup videos.

Maybe I am being too harsh or expecting too much from them. Some of these problems may be due to the organizational structure of the program, you know, too many cooks in the kitchen. One side trying to do one thing and another doing something else and no one really sure of where it is all supposed to go. In any event, I have been happy with the results from adding my player to my site and I think the viewers get a kick from it too. I think for an international marketplace whenever we can see that we are all human and enjoy laughter and life and that we do not have to take life so seriously all the time… it may just bring us all a bit closer.

Being a new baby it certainly has its teething problems but I can say that when I had the videos disappear from my site after a few days from posting the player, I sent Google an e-mail and, they corrected the problem within 24 hours. That is great customer support now if we can just get a few of these other little issues cleaned up.

If I would give them a grade for the program I would have to give it a C. Does it work? Yes. Is it above the normal expectations for such a program? I don’t think so. Having two internet powerhouses I would expect a bit more refinement without making it too difficult to understand or use. Provided that Google and YouTube will collectively work together to resolve some some of these points and make a good effort in more customization options for the players layout, it is my belief that this program will only grow into a much bigger and profitable program in the future.

http://www.gyroplanepassion.com

http://www.google.com

http://www.youtube.com

Many people, especially newcomers, when they register their domain names, are convinced to sign up for a hosting account with the company that registered their domain name. That could be godaddy.com, yahoo.com or any number of other domain name registering companies. That’s really unfortunate, because the hosting services those people usually get don’t generally meet the needs of an online entreprenuer. Those hosting accounts just lack the functionality you really need to promote your business.

Here’s what happens - the domain name registering companies will make you an offer of a low level hosting plan. Since the customers that are registering the domain names are usually beginners, they aren’t aware of all the hosting choices that are readily available elsewhere. They think that just because the company they’re dealing with can register domain names, they must have the best hosting too.

To make a long story short, people that buy into the hosting that’s offered when they register their domains are usually disappointed once they get started with their new online business. Although they got what seemed like a low price, they’ll find out later, when they compare it to other offers, that it really wasn’t such a good deal.

But that’s only part of the problem. As they become more and more involved in running their new online business, they discover that there may be some special software that they want to run on their website. Perhaps it’s a shopping cart or maybe a content management system. When they look at the requirements of the software and compare those requirements to their hosting account, they’ll see that their hosting account won’t support the new software. You see, most marketing related software will use PHP or mySQL databases. If your web hosting account doesn�??t support PHP and mySQL, you�??re just out of luck.

Of course, these customers can go back to their hosting provider, who will explain to them that the features required for support of the new software are available to them, but they’ll have to ‘upgrade’ their hosting account. And the upgrade isn’t free, by the way. Their original hosting may have cost only $7.95 a month, but the new, upgraded hosting will cost them $25 or $30 a month. Now, all of the sudden, that great hosting deal doesn’t seem so great anymore.

Don’t waste your time and money with ‘bargain’ web hosting that won’t do the job.

Another mistake is trying to run your business with free hosting. First of all, if you�??re looking for free web hosting because you�??re not willing to spend a small amount of money for your own web hosting account, you might as well just give up right now. If you want to do everything for free, you�??re not looking for a real business, you�??re looking for a hobby.

Usually, when you go with free hosting, your website URL will end up being something like “freehosting.megacities.com/18987/~parkavenue/1793″ If your only interest is in having a place on the web to display your family photos, maybe the free hosting is right for you. But if you’re trying to run a business, the free hosting can be a big handicap. For one thing, the URL doesn’t look very professional.

And the free hosting companies tend to display their own advertising banners on the pages of your website. How does that look to your potential customers? Just imagine that if you’re trying to operate a family oriented business and when prospects visit your website, banners advertising “Adult Chat Rooms” are on your pages.

Types of web hosting - Primarily, there are 2 different types of web hosting. One is Microsoft Windows based and the other is Linux/Unix based. My personal recommendation is to stay away from the Windows based hosting. I’ve had friends that went with Windows hosting, and then later found out that much of the software they wanted to run wasn’t compatible with the Windows server. Most all web based software that is used for marketing purposes is designed to run on Linux servers, so I wouldn’t recommend anything other than Linux based hosting.

Now that we’ve established the need for Linux based hosting and that you shouldn’t get hosting from the same place you registered your domain, the question is - Where do you get hosting?

I’m going to let you in on a little secret - all those banner ads and email messages you probably see pitching hosting deals - IGNORE THEM. The absolute best hosting I’ve seen is available at dirt cheap prices on Ebay. Yes, Ebay, the online auction.

Just go to ebay.com and search for “web hosting reseller” By getting a reseller’s hosting account, you’ll get all the hosting you’ll ever need. Here’s how it works - A reseller’s hosting account gives you the ability to sell hosting accounts to other people. One of the benefits of a reseller account is that you can usually host an unlimited number of domains.

Right now you may be thinking this isn’t for you because you’re not interested in selling hosting to other people. You just want hosting for your own business. That’s OK, you don’t need to sell hosting with the reseller’s account. You can just use it for yourself. You can use it to host the new domain that you recently registered and then, later on, if you register more domain names, you can host those also - without paying any more money for hosting.

I bought a hosting reseller’s account on Ebay about 3 years ago. It’s full featured, reliable, and the service and support is great. I pay $139 a year and I currently have about 95 domains hosted. Do the math - that works out to a little over a dollar per year for hosting that has everything I need. I think that’s a pretty good deal.

If you don’t want to get a reseller’s account, you can get by even cheaper. I have another hosting account I bought at Ebay that only hosts a single domain, but it only costs 75 cents a month. This 75 cent account supports PHP, mySQL, has unlimited space and bandwidth, unlimited email accounts and just about everything else you could think of.

I strongly recommend that you check out the hosting offers on Ebay before you make any other commitments. Here are the features you want to make sure your hosting has -

1) Linux based web server

2) CPANEL admin control. This is the web based admin where you can check traffic stats, setup mySQL databases, setup email accounts and a whole lot more

3) Fantastico - This is an installation aid that’s really handy to have. It allows you to automatically install several high powered software applications with just a single mouse click. Want a WordPress blog? Click and you have it, ready to roll. Want an online forum - same deal, click and it’s there. Catalog and shopping cart - You guessed it, click and you’ll have it.

It goes without saying that you should check the seller’s feedback on Ebay before you make any commitment. See what other customers have to say about the service. You want to make sure you’re dealing with someone that’s reputable.

Author: Carson Danfield

If you would be interested in Hosting Your Website roll over on SevenDollarSolution.com

If you intend to make money from your website by using article marketing, therefore, your first objective is to get your article accepted by the directories. To achieve this, the article must be relevant to the subject, which is defined by the keywords you choose, or the title. You must persuade the article directories to publish your article. Some directories use the title, and some use keywords.

You must devise a title to persuade visitors to choose your article, or keywords relevant to the content. You must also compose a summary or description of your article that will persuade someone interested in your niche to click on your article rather than that of someone else.

That�??s just the start. You must then write the article in such a way that it retains the interest of the reader. It is much easier to click away from your article that read through it, so it must provide an answer to a question or a solution to a problem. The days are gone when a meaningless article would attract visitors to click on Adsense ads. If your readers believe that you can help then they will click on your link and visit your website. Article marketing is a cross between literature and advertising.

When you are article marketing, you are literally thinking of all the ways you can persuade as you are writing. You must persuade with the title, with the keywords, with the content, with your bio, and of course you must persuade with whichever offer you are using to compel readers to click into your web site.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, �?�Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide�?�

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Do you want to learn how to build a massive list fast? Click here: Email List Building

We all know that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) deals with many aspects of a site but while optimizing a site people generally tend to make mistake selecting the right keyword for the site they are trying to optimize.

The first basic step in optimizing a site starts with proper selection of keyword. If this goes well then you know that 50 percent of your work is done. I am saying so because even if you rank in the top ten for your targeted keyword in Google it will not help you gain traffic to your site as chosen keyword is an improper selection. So, your first criteria is to choose the best possible keyword that have an comfortable level of competition and would also fetch good visitors to your site.

Now, the question arises how you would actually choose the right keyword for your site. Well, like other people around I will not beat around the bush and directly come to the point. On the first instance I would suggest you to go through your site and understand the theme of it. Analyze what a normal visitor would type in to find similar sites. List down on the number of keywords that you could possibly find out. Check out with your friends and colleagues to give you suggestions. Once you have a list of keywords try to narrow down on the list by eliminating improper and irrelevant keywords.

Once this is over, now try to figure out from the keyword list how many times each keyword is being searched worldwide per month. Once you are convinced about the search rate list down the top 10 keyword as per the search rate. Do not try to optimize your pages for keywords that have high search rate because it will apparently have high competition. Try to figure out some keywords that will give you fair enough visitors but will have less competition.

Now, when you have selected three to five keywords try to optimize your page keeping in mind that it’s better to optimize a page with twp key phrases.

Start your optimizing work with proper analysis of keyword through some of the major tools. These tools will help you in searching for the search rate for your keywords. Well, I try a combination of tools. I believe none of the tools available provide accurate data but definitely they will help you to approximately guess on the search rate.

The tools I would recommend are:

1. Good Keywords
2. Overture
3. Wordtracker
4. Google Adword Tool

So, head start with your optimizing work and bring success to your business.

You can find more information related to Internet Marketing at Seo Consultant

Wikipedia defines Search Engine Marketing as a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

I could go into the technicalities of SEM, algorithms, robots, etc. However, if you’re reading this article, you probably aren’t interested in me stuffing a bunch of technical terms down your throat. You would rather learn about search engine marketing and how it can bring you more business.

I chose this topic today based on a couple of conversations I recently had with new clients.

One of our clients had embarked on a small ad campaign with Yahoo before coming to us. He mentioned that when he was spending the money on Yahoo, the traffic to his site was much higher. When I asked how many sales he garnered from the advertising, he replied that he didn’t know. Website traffic and conversions to sales are two completely different things, with the latter obviously being more important. It’s crucial to keep track of your ROI (Return on Investment), if you are going to invest in online advertising. Make sure that you have the tools within your company-whether it’s your own database for tracking sales, or another form of tracking system-before you spend your first marketing dollar.

Another conversation I had with a client involved a Google Adwords campaign. He was bidding using every keyword under the sun. He had a huge CTR (Click Through Rate), but again, nobody was buying. At the end of the day, his budget was gone and he didn’t have anything to show for it besides lots of traffic and an empty bank account. Until I explained to him that he was paying for people to come to his site and quickly leave, he didn’t “get it”. Having the right keywords in your campaign and your ad copy, that are relevant to your product or service, will get you qualified click through to your site. You don’t want people to click on your ad, only to find that your site doesn’t offer the information they were looking for, and leave immediately. That will cost you wasted dollars each and every time they do that.

My advice to our clients is to, first and foremost, invest time on SEO. As long as you are engaging in honest practices, and not trying to fool the “Big 3″, the benefits will far outweigh the time you spend. If you can afford to hire a reputable firm, all the better! Please be aware that there are self-professed “SEO Experts”, who claim they can get you to the top of the SERPs, guaranteed. Any company representative who spews this line at you is most likely just out to take your money. Check them out thoroughly. Conduct an online search on their company, and don’t just stop at the first few pages of the results-dig deep to discover if they are reputable or not. Check with the Better Business Bureau or other consumer watchdog organization. Reputable firms won’t guarantee top placement, but they will give you realistic projections of how they can help you improve your placement results.

Until you really have all the pieces in place, it’s best not to engage in a pay per click campaign. Remember that it takes testing, monitoring and tweaking, as well as a significant amount of your time, before you will see any benefits.

I’ll start with my own experience:

A few years ago, the company I worked for ventured into a rather large PPC (Pay Per Click) campaign. We hired an expert, had all the tracking tools in place and launched a campaign to knock out our competition and drive traffic to our site; paying close attention to our sales funnel and expecting to convert our “browsers” into “buyers”. In addition to our PPC campaigns, we also hired a SEO (Search Engine Optimization) firm to help us with the natural results. Natural results are the result of traffic coming to your site outside of paid links directing it in. It should be noted that we had all the puzzle pieces in place and spent time on the following:

1. Analyzing the results from the analytics

2. A/B testing of different landing pages

3. Closely monitoring the PPC campaigns

4. Adjusting our ad copy and landing pages based on our conversion rate

We hired top firms for both the “paid” and “natural” campaigns, as well as an expert to oversee both of the campaigns. Without getting into the numbers here, (and believe me they were big), the end result was as follows:

1. We spent a large amount of money getting traffic to our website via the pay campaigns. The increased traffic did result in increased sales, however - the results made each sale a VERY expensive one, and not really worth the money that was spent on the marketing campaign. In short, our ROI (Return On Investment) was in bad shape.

2. We spent 80% less on the SEO campaign, which took longer, but garnered results that are still driving traffic to the website to this day.

In the end, we spent a ton of money getting traffic to our website which did not result in sales, and we learned several valuable lessons. In addition, we did suspect throughout our campaigns several instances of fraudulent PPC activity. Unethical companies will engage in this practice by hiring offshore companies at ridiculously low rates to click on their competitors’ ads. These companies use various IP addresses to avoid detection. The idea is to exhaust a competitor’s budget before legitimate click through and potential sales can occur. When we reported suspected PPC fraud, some clicks were refunded via ad credits (Yahoo!) and some could not be proven and were not refunded (Google). The best advice I have for companies on a small budget is to work on your natural search results via search engine optimization, and use various other forms of advertising, such as placing a print ad, and perhaps a nice banner ad (where you pay per month, not per click) on a relevant site. Later, when your marketing budget has grown, you can branch out into other forms of media, such as local radio or television.

Joanne Pele is the Vice President of Operations at Complete Business Systems. Complete Business Systems provides a ready-to-go branding package for your company, including website, logo, business cards and letterhead. Additional services include postcard design, databases, press release and web content writing. For more information, visit Complete Business Systems or call 800-479-9186.

Everyone is concerned about their Google rankings. An algorithm change or an update can leave many a webmaster in tears.

However, I often like to sneak in through the back door. So I�??m going to reveal to you some of my Google secrets. After you look closely, you will find that there is much more to Google than meets the eye and I want you to take advantage of every resource. So, let�??s look behind the scenes into Google�??s lab.

Google Base

Google Base was launched in November of 2005. Google base describes itself as �??a place where you can add all types of information that we�??ll host and make searchable online�?�. Now, if that isn�??t a webmaster�??s dream, I don�??t know what is.

Your item could be almost anything: your products, research papers, articles, or press releases. You can describe all of your items so that you can zone in on your targeted visitor. In addition, your items may also get included in the main Google search index, Froogle, and Google Local.

Anyone with a Google account can use this service, so why not give it a try. Google base is the perfect way to get an additional audience for your content. To find out more about Google Base, visit http://base.google.com/base/about.html

Google Local

Getting your products into Google local can put your items in front of some serious buyers. People often go to Google Local looking for a specific item or service in a particular geographic area. So, if you own a small business, Google Local is the perfect opportunity to increase your reach without spending lots of advertising dollars.

Froogle

Froogle offers searchers a directory of products by category, a searchable index of online products, and the ability to narrow searches by price range. By putting your products into Froogle, you can get some very targeted, qualified traffic to your website.

So, how do you get into Froogle? Well, Google has already been actively searching the web for online product catalogs. For many online merchants, there�??s a good chance that Froogle already has some of your products listed.

However, one of the best ways to get into the Froogle directory is by providing them with a data feed that lists your products, descriptions, pricing, and URLs. This allows you to fully optimize your listings.

To get the most out of Froogle, you�??ll want to make your product description clear and enticing. Create titles that not only have targeted keywords, but also encourage the visitor to click-through to your site.

Once they are at your site, it is important to upsell and cross-sell. Otherwise you will be throwing potential profits down the drain. Make the most out of every Froogle referral.

When someone does decide to make a purchase from you, be sure to capture their name and email address. This way you can develop a relationship with them and offer them related products in the future.

Now, onto a facet of Google that you certainly won�??t want to miss out on.

Google Blog Search

This is one of the best ways to get some additional listings in Google. If you have a website, why not start a blog. By starting a blog, you can be indexed on a number of blog searches, including Google Blog search. This area of marketing is largely untapped, so it is the perfect time to get your particular niche grounded in these specialty search engines.

To get your blog listed you simply need to ping an updating service such as weblogs.com. It�??s as simple as that. If you are using Wordpress, you can set it up to where your blog pings the major services every time you make a post.

You can have multiple listings in the Google Blog Search because they list specific posts as well as entire blogs.

Google Video

Google Video allows you to have your very own tv show on one of the largest search engines on the internet. This is a form of multimedia that is certainly gaining popularity online. Right now it is in a growth stage and it�??s one of the perfect times to get in and be one of the first one�??s in your particular market. Videos are also a great selling point if you have a product that can be demonstrated. With Google video, you can now have your very own infomercial indexed in the search engines. Of course, you�??ll want to provide some great content too. To check out this new technology, go to http://video.google.com

Google News

Want to get your article and even your picture into Google News? Well, it�??s really not that hard. The first step is to go to www.americanchronicle.com, Scroll down to the very bottom of the page and click on the link that says �??submit work�?�. From there you can sign up to be a contributor.

If accepted as a contributor, you will then be able to submit articles along with a picture. Many of their articles are syndicated on Google News and will be available to the millions of searchers who go to Google News each and every day.

If you are looking to get your press release into Google News, all you have to do is submit your press release to PrLeap.com. As you can see, there�??s certainly no need to pay money to get into Google News.

Now that you know about the many faces of Google, you will be able to use many of these hidden tactics to your advantage. You see, there are so many people who just don�??t put in the extra effort required get exceptional results.

This puts you at a great advantage over at least 70% of webmasters online today.

Kim Roach is the hip marketing gal at http://www.unleashthetraffic.com/traffic.html, where you can learn exactly how she increases her targeted web site traffic using techniques she acquired straight from the trenches.

To be able to properly benefit from a reverse area code search, you may first want to know what an area code actually is. The area code of a telephone number is the first three digits out of the ten digit layout. That is, if a phone number is laid out NXX-NXX-XXXX, it is the first three numbers that make up the area code. In that format, it is possible for N to be any number from 2 to 9 and X can be any number from 0 to 9.

The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is the system that determines the way that the public phone system in the United States and its Territories, Canada, and some of the Caribbean islands are structured. It was initially developed by AT&T and Bell Laboratories in 1947 and works within the boundaries of the numbering plan international standards.

Area codes are usually used to designate various calling areas. Just because two people share the same area code, it does not mean that they are necessarily within the same local calling zone - though that is sometimes the case.

New area codes are introduced when old ones have been exhausted. This causes an area code overlay or an area code split. An overlay means that a new area code is introduced for the same geographical zone as the original one(s). New numbers will be assigned with the new area code no matter where they are situated within the physical boundaries of the former code. Area code splits occur when a geographical area is divided and one division keeps the old area code while the new one takes on the new area code.

Since area codes can indeed represent different geographical areas or the same ones, a reverse area code search can be a useful tool to know where a telephone number has originated. It can often be very beneficial in reducing confusion and discovering whether a call will be local or long distance. Reverse area code queries can also assist in discovering who has called your number if you have Caller ID to reveal these first three digits.

Martin Verite is a freelance reporter and technologist who enjoys covering the telecommunications industry.

Google’s AdSense program is a proven money-maker that has enriched the pockets of many website owners. Unlike many pay-per-click systems, the AdSense program has a large pool of advertisements to draw from — the ads come from Google’s AdWords program, which you can think of as the flipside of AdSense — which almost guarantees that AdSense can find relevant advertisements to display alongside a site’s content.

There are times, however, when using AdSense makes no sense at all. Here are some common scenarios:

1. Your site gets too much traffic.

The basic AdSense program is geared for small-to-medium sites. If your site gets significant traffic, look into the Google AdSense Premium Service. This is the program used by sites like Amazon.com and the New York Times.

2. Your site does not conform to AdSense program policies.

You cannot display AdSense advertisements on any site that violates the AdSense program policies. This is outlined in the first section of the AdSense terms and conditions, to which you agreed when you joined the AdSense program.

Practically speaking, this means that any content that promotes pornography, gambling, drug use or any illegal activity is unsuitable for AdSense use. You are also forbidden from using AdSense to promote alcohol, tobacco, conterfeit goods and other controversial products or services. If you’re running an online casino, for example, AdSense cannot be used on the casino’s site.

3. Your visitors are offended by advertisements.

Above all else, AdSense is an advertising distribution program: you’re renting space on your pages to Google for the display of advertisements drawn from its AdWords program. In return for the use of your space, Google gives you a cut of the pay-per-click revenue it makes from the advertisements shown on your pages. If most of your visitors find ads offensive, they’ll stay away from your site and you won’t make any money from the ads that are displayed anyhow, so you might as well not display any ads.

Note that there’s a difference between offending your visitors by showing any advertisements at all and offending them by showing the advertisements in so obnoxious a manner that all they want to do is leave your site. In fact, displaying ads in an intrusive manner violates the AdSense program policies and should be avoided for that reason alone.

4. The ads are simply unsuitable.

Although Google does its best to find targeted advertisements that are relevant to a page’s content, sometimes that targeting fails and unsuitable ads are shown. If your content is about the evils of dieting, for example, you probably don’t want to see advertisements promoting specific diets. Nor do you want to see advertisements for competing products or services. AdSense lets you filter out many advertisements, but in some cases it’s simply impossible — or too much work — to keep out the unsuitable advertisements.

5. You make more money by keeping visitors on your site.

The fundamental premise of pay-per-click advertising is that you’re willing to send your visitors elsewhere in return for some kind of payment. If AdSense is your only form of revenue then this is an acceptable trade-off. If, however, your site makes you more from other programs, you should consider whether or not losing some of your visitors to pay-per-click ads is worth it.

You don’t have to remove ads entirely to handle this problem. You can simply reduce the number of ads that you display and even reposition them so that they’re clicked less often. Or place them only on the site’s exist pages — the pages from which your visitors typically leave the site. Remember that your visitors are going to leave your site eventually anyhow, you’re just trying to get them to stay longer.

Another strategy is to use AdSense link units instead of regular text or image advertisements, because you can configure link units (unlike the regular ads) to open in a separate window when clicked.

Remember that the AdSense program is a flexible pay-per-click program. You don’t have to show advertisements on each page of your site — in fact, the AdSense program policies forbid you from displaying ads on certain kinds of pages. Nor do you have to display ads on each site you own. You can even decide whether image or text advertisements (or both) are to be shown on a page-per-page basis. And of course you can use AdSense channels to discover just exactly which pages are making you money and which pages aren’t.

Use AdSense’s flexibility to your advantage, but don’t get stuck on it if it’s not working for you. There are other pay-per-click and impression-based advertising systems out there to explore. For a general, all-purpose program it’s hard to beat AdSense, but your situation may warrant a more specialized program. Some sites make more from affiliate programs that from selling advertising, or use a combination of both. Do the search and figure out what’s best for you.

Copyright 2005 by Eric Giguere. Permission is granted to reproduce the article in electronic newsletters or on websites provided that the complete article text is included, unchanged, and that neither the copyright declaration nor this license are removed.

Eric Giguere is the author of Uncommon AdSense, the must-have book for any AdSense publisher, and writer of the award-nominated Make Easy Money with Google and AdSense blog.

Every business looks for business promotion and market exposure. There are numerous ways to do so but one of the most widely chosen and proven ways is gifting useful promotional items, such as mugs. Promotional items are one common and popular strategy used by companies round the globe. With the help of promotional items, business promotion can be judicially done, as these gift items easily promote your business beyond your present customers. Promotional mugs are one of the universally interesting and appealing gift items and prove to be a smart choice for all types of audience. They are capable of generating bright prospects for your business. Despite being so popular, promotional mugs are still not at the top of your list of choicest promotional items. One of the reasons is their not being feasible to be delivered via post or mail. Still, promotional mugs are very popular and widely used, by virtue of their utility and their attractiveness. You can also make them a collector’s item with a great design.

For people who have recently entered business, promotional printed mugs are both functional and practical. We all like to drink a cup of coffee whether at home or at the workplace, at leisure or to relieve stress. Hence, promotional mugs should be carefully and gracefully designed. Keep in mind that your company receives round the clock brand recognition in various locations through these mugs. When it comes to brand recognition and popular corporate gifts, promotional mugs are very effective. However, always make sure that your company’s promotional mugs are well designed and they appealingly carry a motif that befits your company image. The biggest advantage of using promotional mugs is that they can be easily customised. By using the latest printing techniques, Ideasbynet can get your company name, contact details, logo, slogan, and website URL imprinted on your chosen promotional mugs, flawlessly.

At www.ideasbynet.com, you will find a wide range of promotional mugs ranging from white or beige mugs to travel mugs. They are available in a variety of colours reflecting a corporate style too. While designing your company’s promotional mugs, ensure that your company logo is identical to the one found on all official documents and your company website. Companies have started choosing promotional mugs over promotional pens now because after some point of time, promotional pens are thrown away after the ink runs out, but promotional mugs are likely to stand the test of time.

Whatever may be the situation, your promotional mugs will be in use and in different ways. Till promotional mugs are in use, they serve the purpose to speak about your business. In case you are planning to compose a promotional gifts pack, why not combine a promotional mug with a promotional pen, a promotional mouse mat, customised calendar, or a promotional keyring. All these promotional items are easily available online at highly competitive price points.

Gareth Parkin is the co-founder of Ideasbynet.com, the UK’s leading online promotional mugs and printed mugs supplier based in the north of England.

One of the simplest methods to improve your search engine optimization is to look at the way you name your files.

Keywords in file names are a good thing. Don’t call your webpages names like “services.html” or “products.html” actually use your keywords. Here is an example for you.

Let’s say you sell tennis balls online and you have three brands available, Slazenger, Wimbledon and Wilson and your webstore is at www.bigballsintennis.com.

A mistake would be to call your sales page something like this

www.bigballsintennis.com/product1.html
www.bigballsintennis.com/product2.html
www.bigballsintennis.com/product3.html

This just tells search engines that you sell products! What you want to do is use the keywords for the main search terms you want that page to show up for in search engines. Something like this would be better.

www.bigballsintennis.com/slazenger-tennis-balls.html
www.bigballsintennis.com/wimbledon-tennis-balls.html
www.bigballsintennis.com/wilson-tennis-balls.html

Note that it would also be a good idea to have a tennis balls homepage that links to all those pages but focuses on the keyword tennis balls only. Something like:

www.bigballsintennis.com/tennis-balls.html

Conduct Keyword Research

Now remember you probably face a bit of competition for the keywords “tennis balls” since globally you might have a few competitors also selling online. You should conduct some keyword research first and determine which phrases you want to work towards optimizing for.

You might notice there is little competition for Slazenger and work towards optimising for sales of that brand. Maybe your research shows that most people are using the phrase “tennis ball shop” so you should optimize for those keywords. Or you might consider working towards a local geographical niche, like “tennis balls Bahamas” or your home town or state.

Remember you don’t have to get things right the first time. Do some keyword research, choose some keywords and then test to see how high up you can get your pages to rank for certain key phrases. If those phrases don’t bring in traffic keep testing until you find a combination that works. Remember though that file names are only a small part of the overall SEO process and if you only optimize your file names and not the on-page copy, the incoming links, your internal site structure etc. etc, your efforts in file name design will have little impact.

How To Structure Long File Names

Dashes make for better file naming - at least that’s what research in Google has demonstrated.

When I say dashes it’s like this -

www.bigballsintennis.com/wilson-tennis-balls.html

as opposed to this -

www.bigballsintennis.com/wilson_tennis_balls.html

I have been structuring my files with dashes for a long time now. I made this decision not only for SEO purposes but for human navigation too. Many people don’t know what an underscore is and even have trouble finding it on their keyboard. Dashes look clearer on screen and act as a good divider for keywords.

The only thing to be careful with is to not go over board with file names. Don’t do this -

www.bigballsintennis.com/the-best-cheapest-most-impressive-wilson-tennis-balls-you-will-find-online.html

Clearly this is just silly. You are diluting your keywords, creating a page that is next to impossible to remember or type in manually and are certainly not helping your search engine optimization.

By Yaro Starak
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com

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