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There have appeared a few really cool interactive buttons recently that visualize how popular the story is. The best thing about them is that they really encourage the visitor to share and promote the page and therefore I highly recommend you to install a few of them. The question is which one …Tweetmeme seems to be the most popular one recently, though I see blogs invite readers to also share on Facebook, Digg, etc. So my question is, which one worked the best for you in terms of traffic and overall response? ( of course I realize this also largely depends on the niche and blog type, so I am not setting up a poll and asking you to share your experience in the comments instead ). Here are the 4 more or less general ones (those that seem to work for any niche / blog): 1.
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worked-the-best
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I find it sad that many people are absolutely unaware of Google advanced operators, or even if they do know about the advanced search, they never use it. I for one use Google advanced operators all the time: when doing on-page diagnostics; searching for backlink opportunities, doing competitive research, etc, etc So in this post I decided to share the best tools and tutorials that will help you remember and learn to use the advanced search (if you are not using it already): Advanced search
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tools,
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yahoo
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It’s easy to forget sometimes, when you hang around the cool SEO blogs, that there are those of us who are just starting out – learning for the first time the ways your website code and inbound links effect the likelihood that your pages will rank. Like most of us I stumbled into SEO. I was working at a web development company, and the president asked me to look into this “SEO stuff.” It’s been a long and exciting (though sometimes painful) learning experience since then. One of the most important things I learned: don’t believe everything you read. But there are a few resources I’ve found over the years to be deep wells of actionable knowledge. The 12 resources below are, I feel, the best places to learn about SEO. 1. SEOmoz This was one of the first websites I frequented when I started learning SEO. The open spirit of the community combined with the consistent publication of thorough educational content makes this one of the first places I send those looking to learn more about SEO. To get the real meat and potatoes you need a PRO Membership, but via the blog and the free SEM guides there is a ton of free information for most SEO’s, beginner or otherwise. 2. Webmaster World Most SEO bloggers are guilty of writing too much theory and too little in the way of concrete examples. As a result we’re often left thinking, “sounds good, but how do I know this really works?” Webmaster World is one of the oldest and most trusted forums on topics related to web development and marketing online as a whole. These are real webmasters sharing their thoughts and issues in an environment conducive to open discussion. As a result the threads often involve specific issues, a variety of voices and, most importantly, no-holds-barred discussion of the issue at hand. Of course, you have to subscribe to Webmaster World to participate – but that’s not free. Two other forums worth checking out: Cre8asite High Rankings 3. SEO by the Sea Bill Slawski’s blog is the #1 place to learn about search engine patents. Period. Kudos to Bill for being insane determined enough to read through every search engine patent he can get his hands on and then translate them for the rest of us. Keeping up with patented search technology helps you keep abreast of what search engines are capable of – and where they may be going in the near future. 4. SEO Book Aaron Wall is widely considered one of the true papa’s of search. He’s been at it a long time. Aaron is one of the few bloggers online whose posts I never miss. Not only does he share actionable insights on SEO, but Aaron’s writing often highlights the transcendental issues that link SEO to other aspects of the online world – and understanding the big picture is crucial to surviving online competition. 5. The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Search Engine This the legendary paper submitted by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin during their Ph D work at Stanford. It is a blueprint of sorts of the original working model for Google. While in its current form Google in many ways dwarfs the original concept, the original Google concept was truly an engineering work of art – and reading the paper above will take you a long way in understanding the processes that are at the core of the search engines we know today. 6. Search Engine Land Search Engine Land was founded by Danny Sullivan who is perhaps the most recognized face and name in SEO. Danny is frequently on the cusp of the latest developments in search – with unprecedented contacts at the search engines and a huge network of experienced SEO’s and developers. There is a constant stream of relevant and well-written posts at SearchEngineLand.com from some of the best SEO’s in the business. Subscribing to this one is a no-brainer. 7. Google’s SEO Guidelines While I wouldn’t tell anyone to do “whatever Google says” to do to get your website to rank, it’s important to know what Google’s public position is on a variety of tactics/techniques you might employ. 8. Search Engine Guide This self-billed “small business guide to search marketing” is not just for small businesses – the posts here are written by a community of experienced SEO’s who have experience getting websites to rank when there isn’t a wealth of resources at your disposal. 9. Search Engine Journal The blog you’re reading now has been around for some time. Loren Baker, who started it, is one of those other papa’s of SEO. Maybe I don’t need to tell you about this one since you’re already reading it – but in case you were thinking you need to look elsewhere, you’ve got years worth of tremendously helpful blog posts right here. 10. SEO Black Hat There’s power in the dark side. QuadsZilla doesn’t mince words when it comes to where he stands on the “White Hat vs Black Hat” issue. He’s black hat all the way – and proud. I don’t necessarily condone some of the tactics black hat SEO’s employ to boost their rankings, but there is plenty to learn about automation and how ranking algorithms can be exploited. Even if you plan to be an angel it’s worth knowing what the dark side is up to. 11. Sphinn This website was also started by Danny Sullivan. It’s essentially a social bookmarking website dedicated to Search Engine Marketing (with some laterally-related topics). Sphinn is a great place to go when you’re looking to sift through the SEO blogosphere and find those posts that are picking up steam (as well as some classics that are worth going back to read). 12. SEO Fast Start This eBook from Dan Thies, a veteran of SEO, has been around for quite a few years now. That doesn’t mean it’s outdated – Dan updates every edition with the latest in search engine updates and tactics. Dan’s writing style is straightforward, and he offers plenty of great SEO advice for beginners as well as some tips seasoned folks might not have thought of (or just need a refresher on). Bonus. Your experience. The best way to learn SEO is through hands-on experience and experimentation. There are a lot of smart people out there sharing killer content, but the best education you can get comes from seeing for yourself. Get your feet wet. This guest post written by Mike Tekula of Unstuck Digital – an Internet Marketing agency that provides SEO Consulting and other custom-tailored services. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . 12 Best Free Online Resources for Learning
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Google continues to improve its Analytics service by introducing some more great features namely – annotations, custom variables, new tracking code setup wizard and a new version of the Google Analytics API. In brief, here’s what each of these new features will let you do on your Google Analytics account. Annotations – Lets you leave shared or private notes right on the over-the-time graph of any Google Analytics account which you have been granted access to. This is useful for company analytics account which is being shared among several members of the company. Each of these members can leave comments whenever a significant spike or downturn is experience by the company’s website as recorded by Google Analytics. Custom Variables in Advanced Segments – Lets you create advanced segmentation based on any key, value or a combination of all custom variables. You can see this advance segment across all your Analytics report. Custom Variables in Custom Reports – lets you create custom reports with any of the key or value dimensions that are associated with any custom variable. This is useful for seeing how a custom variable segment behaves on Google Analytics’ metrics. New Analytics Tracking Code Setup Wizard – automatically generates appropriate tracking code based on the setup options you specify. New Google Analytics API – new features will be announced later this including support for advanced segmentation. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Google Analytics Rolls Out More Great
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In case you have not noticed from your Google Analytics account yet, Google has recently added 7 new features into the already useful site traffic analysis tool. These new features are – Analytics Intelligence with Custom Alerts, Expanded Goals and New Engamenet Goals, Expanded Mobile Reporting, Unique Visitors Metric, Advanced Analysis Features, Advanced Segments and Custom Reporting Templates, and Multiple Custom Variables. So, briefly here’s what each of these features can do for your Google Analytics account: Analytics Intelligence with Custom Alerts – monitors your site’s data patterns on a daily, weekly and monthly periods. It brings up significant data trends and insights and lets you create custom alerts for monitoring site dimensions and metrics. Expanded Goals and New Engagement Goals – lets you track site conversions per up to 20 goals. It also measures user engagement and branding success through Time on Site and Pages per Visit. Expanded Mobile Reporting – lets you track your mobile websites performance through your iPhone or Android phones. It lets you track non-Java-Script enabled phones as well. Unique Visitors – a nice feature that tracks how many actual visitors with unique cookies got into your sites Advanced Analysis Features – find deeper meaning into your Analytics data with pivoting, secondary dimensions and advanced table filtering features. Share Advanced Segments and Custom Report Templates – allows you to share URL link for Advanced Segment and Custom Report to any Analytics user. This will import the pre-formatted template into the person’s account. Multiple Custom Variables – lets you customize Google Analytics for collecting unique site usage data. It also lets you define and track visitors based on various attributes – visitor, session and page-level. Overall these are nice addition to the already powerful features of Google Analytics. And these more than add for the reasons why Google Analytics is the only site-monitoring tool that I’ve used since I started managing my blogs. In case you want to learn more about these new Google Analytics features, you might want to join this webinar . Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Google Analytics Unloads 7 Powerful
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Using Twitter for streaming news on one company or business is nothing new. It’s considered perfectly fine to separate your personal Tweets from your business life and maintain several Twitter accounts at a time. This week I am sharing a cool tool called TweetFunnel that allows several people to post to one Twitter account and provides you with really useful options: (1) Grant different users with different rights (those who can contribute and those who can review and approve submitted Tweets); (2) Schedule Tweets for later publication; (3) Manage your whole multiple Twitter accounts from one handy dashboard: The process is really quick and easy: Hit “Try it” in the top-right corner of the page and create your account. You will need to specify your company name, a name to create your custom company URL at the site and login details (email, account name and password). The service requires no email confirmation, so setting up an account is really quick and easy. Login and add your Twitter account (either by Twitter’s secure authentication method or by providing your Twitter account login information). When logged in to your dashboard you will be able to see your Twitter stream and manage your Twitter activity: reply to Tweets, retweet, send private messages, favorite Tweets and schedule Tweets for publication: Now add users (contributors and publishers). Go to “Manage TweetFunnel Users” and add or invite users. There are 3 levels of users: an administrator (who can do everything: he creates the account itself and adds users as well as reviews and publishes Tweets), a publisher (reviews and publishes or denies Tweets) and a contributor (who writes and submits Tweets to the administrator for approval). To add a user, you will need to provide his login and contact details: Once a new contributor logs in, he can see the same dashboard with some limited options. He can create new Tweets and only submit them for approval. The administrator or a publisher can then go to “Review Queue” to moderate the Tweets received from the contributors. He can do the following with the queued Tweets: approve and post, approve and publish later, reject the tweet. Looks like a neat tool, what do you think? The tool has been reviewed under SEJ policy . Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Manage Your Corporate Twitter Account with
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tweets,
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using-twitter
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Google has just made it easier to monitor news items from the Google News stream. Now, you can create your own topical news streams based on keywords that you would normally use if you want to get the latest news on a particular topic. To create your customized news section, simply go to your Google News home page, click on the “Add a Section” link located at the top right hand corner of the page and select from the current sections created by Google. Or you can create your own by clicking on the “Create a Custom Section” button. This will take you to another page where you can filter the news items that you will like to get based on specific search terms, geographic area and source location. You will also be given the option whether you want to published your news section to the Google News public directory where other users can see it. When you’re done simply click on the “Create” button and go back to your Google News home page. You’ll see the news section your just created alongside the other default Google News subsections. The feature is currently available in the Google News editions for Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. If you want another way of monitoring topical news items, you can always search Google News and create an email alert instead. You’ll get the same thing although browsing the news on a web page is more enticing than browsing them via Gmail. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Google Makes it Easier to Add Custom Section to Google
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india,
makes-it-easier,
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united-kingdom