Written By: Sujan Patel On November 5th, 2007 | No Comments
Whether your horrible at managing your finances or you just don’t have any money to manage, these Facebook applications are probably for you. Who new that a social networking community could not only make you money but stabilize the process at the same time. Thank you Facebook!
Pay Me – This handy little app allows all of your friends to securely send you money through PayPal’s payment service. Maybe your selling something or maybe people just feel like your a good cause, either way this app will get the money in the bank.
BillTrack Bill Reminder – Use this application to manage all of your bills such as rent, internet, gas, cellphone or any others right from your Facebook profile.
Make Money-Cash for Free – Get free cash in exchange for completing surveys and other free activities. There is no purchase or credit card required, just sign-up and make some money.
Cash Cliques – Get paid for clicking on ads and referring friends that click as well. This app also gives out random cash prizes just for using it.
Stocks – Have you considered investing in the stock market? This little application the Forbes.com stock app keeps you up to date on the companies your interested in investing in.
JunkYard – Sell your old stuff to the Facebook community and make some extra dough. Everyone got some sort of junk laying around, so just get rid of it and earn some spending cash.
Debt Manager – Anybody owe you money? Don’t forget and let that debt go unpaid. This app allows you to easily add all of those unpaid debts as a reminder to collect.
Lending Club – Don’t run up your credit cards with those high interest rates. Lending club allows you to borrow money from other members in the Facebook community at low interest rates.
Dneero – Get paid to take social surveys. You will get paid via Paypal when your account hits $25 dollars or more.
Online Coupons – Obviously we all have to make a purchase at some point in time, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get a good deal while we are doing it. This Facebook application lists a bunch of money saving coupons for your favorite stores.
Leave your comments and let me know if any of these have helped you financially. Or maybe you have some great apps you use, share them with everyone.
Written By: Sujan Patel On November 5th, 2007 | 1 Comment
Unless you’ve been living under a heavy rock for the last few months, I’m sure you’ve heard of the webs newest social networking site called Yuwie. Yuwie is strikingly similar to the bigger sites in the social networking game, with one exception – Yuwie pays you to be a member.
At least, that’s the theory.
You see, Yuwie is still pretty new to the social networking arena, but with so many people joining and a total of nearly 130,000 members, its gaining steam, and fast. Looking at the simple chart they have on their homepage, it looks like they are averaging a few thousand new members per day. I’m sure you could discount some of these numbers due to spam and people trying to “game” them, but never-the-less they’re growing at an impressive rate.
With theoretical promises of upwards of $10,000 per month assuming you refer a certain amount of people, and since the referral levels go ten deep, they are definitely attracting the crowds of people trying to make a quick buck on the internet. A great marketing strategy, even if it’s still in its infancy. The only problem with sites like this that promise to pay big money if all of the stars align, is the heavy dark cloud left over by AGLOCO. AGLOCO had just about every webmaster and blogger in the world promoting their site, but a pending bankruptcy and unfulfilled promises of riches proved otherwise. If a site like Yuwie wants to make it without losing their “you-know-what’s”, then they need to have a sound strategy in place and need to be prepared to shell out some serious dough.
Yuwie pays out based on many different actions of the user, ranging from clicking other profiles, uploading pictures, creating new blog entries, recruiting new members, and many other actionable actions. This pay comes from advertising revenue that Yuwie makes on a monthly basis, and on the 15th of each month, Yuwie decides how much each user gets paid out of their advertising earnings from the previous month. After digging around a bit in the search engines, I found that most average members made a couple of dollars, while some of the more popular bloggers and webmasters were in the $50-$90 range. Not bad, but a far cry from the $10k that users hope to be making in the future as the site grows.
After checking some statistics on smartpagerank.com, Yuwie was registered back in May, making the site close to five months old and it’s reporting around 54,000 pages indexed in Google. Of course, there is no PageRank, but that’s because there hasn’t been a PageRank update for quite some time now. One of the most impressive stats is the Alexa ranking they’ve attained already. For a 5 month old site, they’ve climbed the Alexa ladder to a 3 month ranking of around 5,000. Not too shabby…
Only time will tell if Yuwie is worth signing up for. With so many other social sites out there, unless the money is really rolling in, I can’t imagine juggling another social networking site. Give Yuwie a couple more months to see what happens, and if it’s still going strong as some predict, then it just may be something to check into.
Written By: Sujan Patel On October 11th, 2007 | 8 Comments
Reddit, as you already know, is one of the huge social bookmarking sites that join the ranks of Digg, Netscape, StumbleUpon and related heavy hitters in the bookmarking arena. Boasting an Alexa rank that usually hovers in the 1k range, getting put on the Reddit front page is quite worthwhile if you’re looking for some quick, heavy traffic to your blog or website.
The best thing about Reddit is the democratic voting system that allows the average blogger or webmaster a significantly better chance of hitting the Reddit homepage as opposed to sites like Digg and others. When a link is submitted, it is simply voted “up” or “down” by the users. The more users that vote it “up”, the more points your link score receives, with an opposite reaction from getting voted “down”. When you submit an article to Reddit, the main thing you need to worry about are headlines, headlines, headlines. Forget having to write a summary like you do with Digg and friends. The key to success for gaining votes on Reddit is having a compelling, click-through worthy headline. Be creative and analyze what works and what doesn’t by checking out the Reddit “Top Links” section. With a little research, you can see which stories made it and how they did it.
Of course, there are other ways to get on the front page of Reddit and leveraging the traffic potential, so here are five techniques to get you started in the right direction (which will hopefully be, up!)
1. Use Reddit regularly. This is one of the easiest ways and should be the beginning of being a Reddit power user. Being active in the community, submitting links, and general networking with other “redditers” is not only fun, but it can build up your “karma” and make you look more reputable than a “one-shot” voter (the types that only register an account to vote for a friends article). Once you have an established voting and submission history in your profile, people will be more likely vote your links up, which if it’s on your blog, means the potential of a front page hit. Make no mistake, Reddit can send massive amounts of traffic to your site if you hit the front page, especially if it’s an interesting story. Reddit plays in the same group of kids as Digg, StumbleUpon, and others. They are definitely not lightweights!
2. Create your own Reddit voting club. This is an obvious, yet highly effective way to get more votes. Why not team up with like-minded friends and associates in your field or niche. By teaming up with people you regularly network with, or even direct competitors, you can form your own voting group and routinely vote each others submissions right to the front page (depending on the size of your voting party). This is a widely known and powerful technique, and you’ll see this across all of the social bookmarking sites (some more controversial than others). If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right? Start forming your voting party by asking readers and fans of your blog or website to join up. Create a forum or a shared blog that everyone can post their links in for getting votes. This is very easy and takes minimal time. The rewards can be fantastic, as well.
3. Leverage your existing blog or website traffic. This is another no-brainer. If you’re submitting stories to Reddit, you probably already have somewhat steady traffic to your blog or website, so by placing voting buttons in easily recognizable places (at the end or beginning of an article), it allows your readers or guests (assuming they have a Reddit account) to quickly vote on your article. The extra votes you can gain from these types of people just may be the extra votes you need to push your story to the front page. Take advantage of what you already have, and as a reminder, make sure you place voting buttons for all of the other bookmarking sites as well. The more the merrier!
4. Leveraging subreddits. Subreddits are subcategories that talk about other topics like web 2.0, technology, and subjects like that. It’s surprisingly easy to gain front page status on the subreddit pages, and by gaining front page status in these areas, you stand a good chance of gaining more votes that could ultimately push your story to the front page. A sound strategy to appearing on the front page of a subreddit is the same as it would be for the front page – headline. It’s absolutely vital to pick a phenomenal headline if you want to enjoy a surge in traffic from front page status on Reddit. Although it’s not recommended and doesn’t quite work like this, your actual story or article could be crap, but you could at least get people to click through with an outstanding headline. (Of course, you don’t want to submit crap stories, because you won’t receive any votes, which in turn won’t get you on the front page, which results in no traffic at all…ah, but I digress!)
5. Create a specific page for Reddit. This one is great, and can work wonders for a site that normally wouldn’t appeal to regular Reddit users. Let’s say you run a generally boring site about stocks, or ophthalmology…you get the point. Generally speaking, these kinds of sites aren’t the kind of sites that Reddit users frequent, but maybe you still want to leverage traffic from Reddit with the intent of exposing your business and name to the masses. No problem! All you need to do is create a sub-domain, or a page that carries the same tone and layout of your regular site, and use it strictly for Reddit worthy material. If you get lucky and submit breaking news first, or an otherwise Reddit worthy story that hits the front page, you’ll garner the massive amount of resulting traffic, and even though the odds of the visitors coming back is low, you at least presented them with your business name and style. Building name recognition can be a long, boring process, but doing it this way will at least put you on the right path. Who knows, one of the users may want to get into stock trading, and they just may remember your site from that funny story you submitted. It’s definitely a possibility.
I hope these tips help you become a better Reddit user, and more importantly, I hope by using these tips that you hit the front page soon. The traffic, even if it’s short lived, can have residual effects that can last a long time.
Written By: Sujan Patel On September 24th, 2007 | No Comments
4 tips to consider if you want your articles to do well on Del.icio.us:
1.Creating lists about your niche and inform the reader as much as possible.
2.Create “How To” articles and consider making it a list. Lists to really well on Del.icio.us.
3.Discuss your success in grand terms, “How I increased my income by 47%!”
4.Funny lists and humorous articles tend to do well.
Tips to on How to Become a del.icio.us Power User and Increase Your Traffic!
1.Bookmark everything you like - The more marks the better, but you don’t want to just bookmark anything. As with all social media sites, del.icio.us users are looking for good information
2.Tag Effectively - del.icio.us is all about the tags and the tags are going to help you find articles later. You can use multiple tags, but don’t stuff this section.
3.Add Your Favorite Bloggers to Your Network - When people check you out they tend to look at your network.
4.Use Your Inbox - you can get subscriptions in your inbox, add favorites and network through this area. The inbox is your central command.
5.Get some Subscriptions - You can use tags, such as SEO, and you will get articles on SEO. When you subscribe you find great articles and begin networking with others. You get your name and site out there. So, subscribe to tags that relate to your blog or business.
6.Browse - when you have time browse for interesting articles. This will help you add more favorites, find great writers and network.
7.Share Your Links - Share links you find with people that will be interested.
8.Add a Link Roll to Your Blog - You can add a link roll to your blog and publish your bookmarks or you can publish some of the RSS feeds you read. Remember, you are trying to establish yourself as a power user and when you feature bookmarks and RSS feeds from other sites/blogs people will appreciate it.
9.Add a Del.icio.us Badge to Your Site - The badge will display your username, your bookmarks and it quickly lets people add you to their network.
10.Stalking Others Can Be A Benefi t- If you know who is watching you and or what articles people admire are reading you can learn more and network more effectively. You can either check other user’s inboxes. Just use this url- http://del.icio.us/inbox/Username. You will be able to see what they read, what subscriptions they have and who they have bookmarked.
Written By: Sujan Patel On September 19th, 2007 | No Comments
Most of us know Facebook as a social network to connect with our college friends. Now that Facebook is open to everyone, how can businesses benefit?
Is Facebook is succeeding as entertainment and as rolodex for your friends, or is it serving a useful business purpose? Business users are joining it because it is the hot new platform and everyone is talking about it. So, how do you leverage it for business?
1)You can create applications using the Facebook Platform. This is a great viral marketing platform and proves very effective for 1-to-1 marketing.
2)You can use Facebook as a focus group to evaluate ideas and to your Facebook applications. Also Facebook groups allow you to create groups for your organization.
3)If you rely on access to people, Facebook is for you. You can build your network and leverage your friend’s network.
4)A blog is a business card whereby Facebook is a rolodex. Did you meet a prospect at an event or social gathering and then add them as a friend? Now you can see what their interests are, and more importantly, see a picture of them so next time you meet them you will be able to recognize the face and the name. You will also be able to get introduced to new prospects via your friends.
5)One to one marketing is possible on Facebook. You will know your friend’s demographic as well as psychographic information.
6)Do you have a business blog? You can now import your posts directly into Facebook via Facebook Notes
7)But, I think the best business feature is market research. Following the interests of your friends and the groups that you join, allows you to spot trends. Ask questions and tap into the collective intelligence of Facebook.
So, if you are not using Facebook for business now is the time to start.
Written By: Sujan Patel On September 17th, 2007 | No Comments
Netscape is a socially driven web site that has over 5,000,000 unique visitors every month. You can participate in Netscape four different ways:
- Read the Content – There are many ways you can find articles you are interested in:
- Netscape has “Netscape Anchors Recommend…” which is typically hot world-wide news stories and it is located at the very top of the page. Tabs with different subjects allow you to scan through subjects quickly.
- There is a “Today’s Hot Stories Submitted and Voted by You” section and the stories with the most votes are located on the home page.
- On the far right there is a “Channel” box with many subjects to choose from. You can find specific articles you are interested in with this feature. You can also sign up to receive an RSS feed from the channel you are interested in. An RSS feed of the home page is also available.
- Vote or Sink Content – It is very easy to vote. You either click “Vote!” or “Sink”.
- Comment on Articles – You will see a link to “Discuss” on the list of search results you receive. If you click on the title of a story you will see the discussion below the article summary.
- Submit Content Yourself - This is as simple as adding the URL, a title, a quick summary of the article and then choosing the right subject area to submit it to. You will want to add some tags, but don’t make the tags too specific. For example, “HP Pavilion Entertainment PC” will not be searched for very often, if at all, but “Laptop” or “Notebook Computer” will. When you are done filling in all of the information your only option to click on will be “Check My Story”. Netscape checks to see if the article has already been submitted; if it hasn’t your done with the submission process.
Additional Information About Netscape
- Netscape offers “Site Mail” which allows you to easily keep in contact with your Netscape buddies. However, there have been reports that the mail system is being abused by spammers. People will become your friend and then bombard your mail with their articles hoping you will vote for them. So, be careful choosing friends. Any success with socially driven web sites depends on creating “friends” and supporting one another. It is the same for Netscape, but you also want to avoid spammers at all cost.
- Netscape is upgrading their video sharing feature. Once the process is completed you will be able to upload video and tag it with the appropriate keywords. Video Search Optimization (link to other article) is an important aspect of social media and should be considered when submitting a video.
- My Netscape is a customizable Netscape page that integrates content, mail, account settings and more.
- Netscape is also an ISP with unlimited usage.
- Netscape APIs help you use their system more quickly and effectively.
Written By: Sujan Patel On September 10th, 2007 | No Comments
Tapping into social media and social bookmarking is quickly becoming a critical element to any site promotion plan. But when it comes to using these sites, how do you know which ones are worth using - and which ones are just a waste of time?
Today, I’ll dissect the major players and give you a quick recap of how to make the most of them…
Wikipedia - Wikipedia and other wikis are treated like gold when it comes to Google rankings. In short, if you can get some long term links from wikis and Wikipedia specifically, you won’t have any problems ranking in the engines.
YouTube - Now that YouTube is a Google property, you can bet everything you own that it’ll play out as a necessary tool to comprehensive marketing plans. Videos used on your site and added to the YouTube network, along with descriptive tags and commentary, will go a long way in helping out your Google rankings.
MySpace / Facebook - These powerhouses (and others in the same mold) are traffic goldmines. Creative use of their features like comments, friends, groups and blogs can all tie into making your web sites more successful. Here’s a tip… For every site you’re trying to market, go ahead and open up a new profile for it on these sites. It’ll allow you to have an offsite factor in rankings and traffic, and will help to personalize the site a bit.
Digg / Reddit - These news aggregators are two of the most popular available. There are people who do nothing but submit and Digg stories all day long. That alone should tell you how much value is out there - but here’s the kicker… Using these services and encouraging others to tap your RSS feeds is an instant way to upgrade your inbound link campaigns.
StumbleUpon - StumbleUpon allows you to quickly “stumble” your way onto sites that match your preferences. A handy toolbar add on for IE and FireFox also allows you to post opinions more quickly. In turn, you’re leaving your fingerprint all over the ‘Net and allowing others to find their way back to you.
There are other players out there, but if you can begin to use the above to help your cause, your overall web site marketing plan will go a lo
Written By: Sujan Patel On September 5th, 2007 | 2 Comments
Videos are an important part of web 2.0 and videos, if optimized properly, will show up in the SERPs (and this is what you want). So, where do you start? We have some suggestions:
Research First
There are two areas that in need be researched and compared.
- The keywords and keyword phrases- determine which apply to you and create an easy to read list for step 2.
- Analyze videos currently doing well and also review some of the videos that have done the best in the last few months. Determine how many of top videos include keywords/keyword phrases that relate to your keywords and video. Search for videos with your keywords and notice the number of views. If not many people are looking the keywords may not be right. If you see that videos with certain keywords do very well, or have done well in the past, you can reduce your keyword list and use the keywords that will increase your video’s visibility.
Video Suggestions
- Create Something Unique – one of the biggest problems on YouTube is you see many videos that are either exactly the same or very similar to other videos. People are not going to watch a video they think they have already seen.
- Create Shorter Clips – People tend to watch videos that are 1-3 minutes long more. These shorter clips can be used as an introduction to your business, longer versions of the video or an introduction to a series of videos on the same subject. If you used the smaller video to publicize your other videos, business and/or web site you have a better chance of people viewing it. Additionally, you can submit multiple videos without running the risk of duplicate content. Your short video is an introduction to the topics you discuss, but they give you an opportunity to submit multiple videos with similar keywords.
- Remember Branding – Your video should be publicizing whatever it is you are discussing. Make sure you remember to brand your web site and business.
- Linking – Many business use their main URL in the description and name of the video and this is fine, but if you are referring users to longer videos located on your web site you want to link back to the page with those videos. People are not going to search all over your web site to find your videos. Also, keep the URLs to your videos as short as possible.
- Use Keywords in the Name of the File – Naming your video with keywords is just as important as using keywords in your alt-tags/attributes.
- Video File Format- YouTube accepts video in WMV, .AVI, .MOV, and .MPG file formats. If you are going to create larger videos for your web site you have several options that include Flash, Windows Media, QuickTime and MPEG4. More people have access to a Windows Media player, so it is often considered the best choice.
- DO NOT Forget Data Rate – I am sure you have seen web sites that give you multiple viewing options such as T1, Cable/DSL and Modem. If you only offer one data rate you could be preventing many users from viewing you video(s). No one wants to try and watch a video that stops, skips or has bad audio.
- Web Sites with Video AND HTML Do Better – web sites with both video and HTML tend to do better in the SERPs. All-in-one players are typically not search engine friendly.
- Remember Tags and Anchor Text Keywords – Tags are crucial today and anchor text describing the links to the videos are just as important. Remember these two crucial areas when you are organizing your video data and keyword research.
Promoting Your Video Effectively
You need a publishing tool that supports a Media RSS output with enclosures related to SEO. You also need to have your feed validated if you are hoping for the search engines to index it correctly. These are the beginning steps.
- The next step is to help your viewers sign up for your feed easily. Feedburner is a great way to promote your feed. They give you the HTML to add an email sign-up, a button that brings them to Feedburner where they can sign up and you can also promote your feed through email. Feedburner also offers statistics which will allows you to see what your subscribers are doing with your feed.
- If you place your video on YouTube other video search engines (VSE) will pick up the video quickly. This is an effective way to get your video out there for viewers to find.
- Crosslink to your video throughout you web site. You can also use the link in online articles, email, your blog and forums.
- Submit your video or video feed to video search engines.
- Do not make viewing your video difficult for the viewer. People do not want to work to see something. They want things to be quick and simple. Most people exit sites that make them work. Keep this in mind, If your site and/or video are easy to view the link could easily be passed on to others.
- Do not forget to optimize with keywords, descriptions, tags and title-tags. Blogs, web sites and VSEs all operate differently, but they all allow you to optimize.
- Use web analytics- Google Analytics is free, but a combination of analytics is better. You can see what words people were searching for when they found your site, how many visitors you have had, how long they stayed on the current site, how many returning visitors you have…the list could go on and on. You can use the stats you have to determine if your current optimization is working or not working.
Written By: Sujan Patel On September 4th, 2007 | 1 Comment
1. Create a Memorable Profile - Your name, and picture, are very important. Think of how many avatars you remember well and why…they stick out and are memorable.
2. Submit Valuable Content - Don’t just submit from your own site. Provide something others will consider valuable. Adding nice comments is helpful. Also look at those that have power accounts, those that do well on Digg and bookmark their sites and the sites they Digg. If you Digg from these sites you are automatically connecting and networking.
3. Do Not Make Friends with Everyone - This strategy does not look good and does not benefit you.
4. Do Not Review A Story and Digg It - If you discuss another news story and then Digg your own story it could be considered blog spam. However, you can discuss why you disagree with an article or news story and Digg it.
5. Digg Your Blogging Buddies, Work Associates and Writers You Respect - If you Digg their stories they will most likely Digg yours. You want to create a Digg network of non-spammers.
6. Create a Resource of Articles - Review Sphinn, StumbleUpon, Reddit, NetScape, RSS feeds, industry web sites and any other place you find valuable articles. Digg them and get your name out there.
7. Befriend Those That Digg You - You can see who Dugg your stories and you should befriend them. Remember, networking is important. If you befriend someone their network of friends my befriend you.
8. Review the Stories That Do Well on Digg - What are the topics? Who is submitting the stories? There are trends; pay attention and mimic the behaviors that work. Also, comment on the big stories, but make sure the comment is a good one. “Good Article” is not enough.
9. Create an Exciting Title and Description - If you want people to read and Digg, the title and description need to draw readers in.
10. Use Effective Keywords - When you choose keywords or tags you do not want to spam and you want to choose words that will bring in a lot of readers. “SEO Tips will not being in as many readers as “SEO”.
11. Be an Active Participant - If you are active in the community you have a better chance of building a trustworthy reputation.
12. Pay Attention to Your Diggs - Check and see how the stories you Dugg are doing. Which did well? Which did not do well? Where any buried? Keep a record of the topics that do well and those that don’t. Use this record as a guide.
Written By: Sujan Patel On August 29th, 2007 | No Comments
If you are new to the industry and business of marketing web sites, harnessing the power of social media optimization seems like a no brainer. For the experienced veterans in the search marketing industry, social media has created a new set of rules to follow.
Today, we will take a look into how you can adapt an aging site optimization plan to better utilize the opportunities that social media has given us.
Understanding What “Social Media” Is…
As the name implies, there’s a social or community aspect to social media web sites and services. Sites that use social media as their primary means of content share some common traits. They are sites that are rich in user generated content. In other words - if you were to own a social media web site, you would not be creating the content… Your users would.
Why Social Media Assists SEO Efforts
Most social media sites are really social bookmarking sites, or sites where links and summaries or opinions are shared. Let’s say you write an article on a topic that relates to your business. You can submit that article to various social media sites like Digg, Reddit and even former big time players in the aging search industry like Netscape.
Once submitted, other users can comment on the story and help to raise it’s value on the bookmarking system. That alone generates more attention and increased visitor flow - but there’s another major factor in play - free inbound links.
Wait, Aren’t the Links Using NOFOLLOWs?
In some cases they are, and in others - they are not. Regardless of that, there has been evidence that engines are still seeing and considering the hyperlink using a NOFOLLOW in context to the rest of the page.
Even if all of the spiders and bots out there ignored the backlinks, you’re sure to raise some eyebrows and instigate others to comment, trackback to your article from their own sources, etc.
In the end, you’re generating backlinks to your unique content… and that’s the name of the game when it comes to SEO.
