SEO Pulse » General

Generate Traffic to Your Site from Facebook

admin — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:59:17 +0000

Let’s admit it. Social web sites are here to stay and they generate tremendous amounts of visitors each day. You as a much smaller website would LOVE to have just a smidge of that traffic coming to you. You’re not asking for millions of visits (although millions would be WUNDERBAR!), you would like a few thousand or maybe even just a few hundred. How can you generate enough interest to get people coming to you? Good question! Let’s analyze a few possible strategies and see where they might lead (hopefully to money!).
Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Friendster, Technorati, and the many other social sites generate tons of traffic. There are some effective strategies that you can begin employing NOW to get them visitors on those sites to your site. This might mean new subscribers and page impressions that you can then turn around and sell to advertisers. Or it might also mean that people purchase your product or service. That can’t be a bad thing!
Let’s take a look specifically at Facebook which happens to be one of the hottest social sites on the internet today. If you have a blog on your site (and you should!) you can take advantage of some free tools to syndicate your blog posts to your profile. Anytime someone sees you profile they will see your blog posts and often times will click through to your site. Depending on the software that runs your blog you will have to use a different tool:
• Wordpress – One of the most used blogging tools is Wordpress and there fortunately is a Facebook application that links directly to your Wordpress site. You’ll need to download the plugin to your own web site to interface directly. It is called Wordbook (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordbook/). Once copied to your plugins folder and activated you’ll click a link that takes you to Facebook. The application on Facebook will give you a code to identify your personal blog which you’ll enter into the plugin. Once this is done your site and Facebook will now communicate! Now whenever anybody sees your profile they’ll also see you “mini-feed”. Notice that the plugin only works with future blog posts and not ones that have already been posted. One limitation is that you can only add one blog. Make sure to add friends and socialize with these friends so they will see your blog posts. Otherwise you’ll sit in obscurity!
• If you use Blogger it is very simple to set up your mini-feed. Just go to the Facebook applications page (http://www.new.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=13253871830&ref=s) and add the application. Click into settings and provide your blogger login details and voila! You now have added your Blogger blog to your profile!
• TypePad – TypePad has also gotten into the Facebook game with an application of its own! (http://www.new.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=13253871830&ref=s) This, like the application for blogger, will interface directly with your TypePad account and add feeds to your profile. The nice thing about this tool, called Blog It, is you can post and share your content across multiple platforms with only one click! Whether you blog using TypePad, Vox, Movable Type, LiveJournal, Blogger, Tumblr, WordPress.com or WordPress.org, or micro-blog using Twitter, Pownce or your Facebook status, now you can update everything via one easy-to-create post on Facebook. Plus, when you post using Blog It, you can ensure all your friends and contacts know about your post regardless of where they follow you on the web.
The key to all of these tools is that unless you put a little work into being sociable they really won’t help you much. You need to do some of the legwork and get to know people. You don’t have to be drinking buddies with the hundreds of people you might add as friends on Facebook, but you should at least join some groups or causes to become known. My own Facebook account has over three hundred friends and I know personally about ten of them. I came to know them through various groups that I joined and causes on Facebook that I support. You will never earn a single cent or generate a single visitor to your site unless you are willing to do some extra work. The upside is, however, that once you start you might actually enjoy it. The more sociable you become the better your results! Let’s get to know each other!

IE 7 operation aborted due to Sitemeter Bugs

admin — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 12:17:23 +0000

Today, many of the webmasters wakeup with problems of having an operation aborted for the website users browsing through IE 7 for no apparent reason. Hours were spent trying to figure out what happened to their websites and thousands of users around the world thought they had internet problem or even went beyond to formatting their drive.

Well the painful truth is that all of this is because of a bug in the Sitemeter JavaScript and HTML widget caused sites like PerezHilton.com, Gizmodo, Valleywag, and Problogger to be in accessible for a very long time.

For those who don’t know Sitemeter, it is a FREE web analytics tools that is widely used throughout the web by many of webmasters and blogger to track their online records and until this incident Sitemeter was the most suitable choice for those looking for a completely free service.

So far none of the affected sites made any counter action to the loss of business opportunities due to the drop down of the service. I think they will be merciful for Sitemeter as they have enough publicity problems.

Google releases Mobile search application for iPhone and iPod

admin — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:01:55 +0000

Google has unleashed their first FREE mobile application for iPhone and iPod touch . Google announced today that mobile searching is now easier and faster with the smart features including auto completion , Adding Google search to your address book so that you can search contacts on your iPhone.

Google announced that “U.S. users can get Google Mobile App. right now. Tap the App Store icon on your iPhone, or open iTunes, and search for ‘Google Mobile App. (You need to have the latest iPhone software update to see it.) “.

The release of this mobile application won’t be the last of Google’s contributions to the mobile community as many think that this is a small baby step towards establishing a similar mobile product to Google accounts including Gmail , calendar ,documents ….. and integrating the whole bundle together.

Well I think we will have to wait to see what will happen , waiting is also a virtue

Back in action

admin — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:48:56 +0000

I am back…..:) . I have enjoyed my vacation throw out last month and came back fueled up . Seems that alot has happened during my vacation . Things are going getting harder for Yahoo , Google retires adsense referrals program seems they had enough customers and wants to keep the whole cake for themselves and mostly important for myself ” the new IPhone 3G is in town” . Things that I have missed for a while sorry for me.

Well I am back again live and kicking

Microsoft launchs Microsoft Live Search Cash back wednesday

admin — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:08:04 +0000

It seems that really Microsoft is going forward after the withdrawal of the takeover bid of Yahoo.Tomorrow Microsoft will announce that they established a joint program with eBay and Paypal to offer a Cash Back program that entitles the users of Microsoft Live Search for a cash back for every search conducted and results in a purchase.The new program offers a variety of savings deals from major online stores including : Shoe Mall, Newegg.com ,Sears , Home Depot, Barnes & Noble , overstock.com and many more offering cash back percentages up to more than 30% .Every time the user of Microsoft Live Search Cash Back make a qualifying purchase from any of the subscribing advertisers, he will receive an email to confirm his Live Search cashback savings. When your cashback account reaches a balance of at least $5, the user can claim his cash.

For Merchants , Microsoft is adopting a new method CPA (cost per acquisition) rather than the ordinary CPC (cost per click) commonly used throughout the search engines. With CPA, the merchant pays only when the user buy some of the listed products.

Microsoft Bill Gates will be announcing the new product on Wednesday in a ceremony held specially for this purpose to introduce the new program and detail the future Microsoft strategic plans.The Microsoft Live Search Cash Back will be available later today online for public viewing.

the Microsoft Live Search Cash Back wasn’t a surprise for many as the folks have trying investing heavily to improve their search engine position and gain more users loyalty after falling way at the third place in the list of the most visited search engines.

I am just wondering how desperate Microsoft is for gaining a higher search engines presence to maintain such a program which generates no revenue as all the cash back earnings will be passed to the program user. Are Microsoft is adopting a new approach of “saying the truth for once” and putting the user interest before any financial gains.

With Microsoft Live Search Cash Back program, Will Microsoft continue with the new venture in search business with Yahoo or this new program can save them a few BILLIONS .

Google knocks out Yahoo for the most visited U.S. Site

admin — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:19:18 +0000

Com Score Inc. has announced that finally Google sites have knocked out Yahoo from the long held number one position for the most visited U.S. site for April 2008 .

Google stands proudly at top spot of the com score Inc. Top 50 U.S. Properties for the first time in its history.Google attracted 141 million U.S. visitors while Yahoo got 140.6 million and Microsoft sites 121 million.The most searched content categories were job search, career resources, and television sites.

“April was a very active month. Google took the top property position, thanks to continued search growth and rapid growth at YouTube,” commented Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix.

Seems that the bad news doesn’t to end for Yahoo these days . With the news going around about Yahoo and the lawsuit ,hopefully it can get the traffic back again

Carl Icahn declares war against the current yahoo board

admin — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:48:19 +0000

Billionaire Carl Icahn , one of the major holders of Yahoo shares ,is leading a Yahoo shareholders campaign to to replace Yahoo’s 10 directors headed by Roy Bostock at the company’s July 3 annual meeting .

Carl Icahn says that his decision came based on his complete believe that the current board failed to handle the Microsoft takeover in an “irresponsible” and “irrational” manner. These Actions lead to Microsoft withdrawal of a proposal of $47.5 Billion US Dollars to takeover Yahoo .

Carl Icahn is now preparing an alternate board of directors to manage Yahoo in hope that they can bring Microsoft back to the negotiation . The nominees for this board other than Carl Icahn himself are Mark Cuban, Adam Dell,Frank Biondi Jr. and others.

Carl threatened that the only way for the current Yahoo board to overcome this embarrassing situation is to reopen the negotiation again with Microsoft.

Carl has sent Thursday a letter to the current Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock expressing his anger from these actions made by the current board and implied that Microsoft is still interested in taking over Yahoo and he aims on getting Microsoft back and completing the deal.”It is irresponsible to hide behind management’s more than overly optimistic financial forecasts,” Icahn wrote. “It is unconscionable that you have not allowed your shareholders to choose to accept an offer that represented a 72 percent premium over Yahoo’s closing price of $19.18 on the day before the initial Microsoft offer.”

Until this no comment have been issued from the Yahoo chairman but Microsoft spokesman declined to comment on Icahn letter and stated that Microsoft has moved over.

I guess we will be hearing more of this subject now that the angered shareholders is declaring mutiny. Hopefully this issue will be resolved soon as the only loser of this derby is the shareholders themselves.

Google – Yahoo Ad partnership – No news , Is it good news ??

admin — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:09:08 +0000

Since Google and yahoo have announced the launch of their trial ad partnership which enables Google to display Google ads along with Yahoo search results. We have been waiting for this breakthrough in the marketing and advertising online and wondering how it will affect Google adwords program.

All what was disclosed is that the two internet giants has agreed to conduct a two weeks experiment to test the idea and both parties claimed that it was a success. Just a success nothing and everything else is hush hush.

Until now no comments have been issued from both sides on how this deal will be concluded or is there any deal coming their way or was it a leverage that yahoo used in Microsoft takeover proposal and Google found a golden opportunity to weaken Microsoft proposal .

Now with the two weeks experimental period is coming to an end , Followers of the subject strongly suggest that an agreement is in the horizon as the two sides have their own agenda

Yahoo is relaying heavily on this partnership to boost their revenues and gain the shareholders support after the failure of the Microsoft proposal after months of negotiations.

Also Google is in need to this partnership to deny all voices claiming that Google used this partnership to weaken Microsoft position in the takeover situation and also find more channels as Google will benefit more from this deal than anyone.

I think that the situation is going to a new direction with this partnership. What I really believe is that we will be hearing good news soon !!!!

Domain names prices for .com and .net will increase starting October 1st

admin — Mon, 12 May 2008 21:40:06 +0000

VeriSign Inc. has reached an agreement with ICANN to increase the prices of .com and .net domain names world wide starting October 1st, 2008.

The registry fee for .com domain names will increase from US$6.42 to $6.86, and that the registry fee for .net domain names will increase from US$3.85 to $4.23. The additional US$0.20 ICANN fee will remain unchanged.

VeriSign indicated the increase is due their continual efforts to fortify the .com and .net infrastructure against cyber attacks and service disruptions. VeriSign is also increasing the capacity of its global Internet infrastructure by ten times by the year 2010. Additionally, VeriSign will increase its daily DNS query capacity from 400 billion queries a day to over 4 trillion queries a day

IMHO I think we will be hearing more increases in the future as we heard last year at similar date about an increase in the .com and .net domain names. For VeriSign the sky is the limit for these increases as there is no agreement for a bounding limit of the domain name registration fees.

Mac book thieves caught in action

admin — Mon, 12 May 2008 21:21:36 +0000

An Australian victim of burglary was able to take a photo of the thieves who stole her Mac Book by connecting remotely to her laptop from another Mac book through a service offered by Apple Inc. Called back to My Mac. A paid service (worth every penny) offered to all subscribers to .Mac services.

Read the full story at The Sunday Morning Herald