Quick Online Tips

Local Search Advertising: New Dimension For Small Businesses

QuickOnlineTips — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:15:50 +0000

Guest Post by Donny Gamble
A couple of years ago, local search advertising was defined as online search advertising which is made through mapping websites, local internet yellow pages, local search engines, and classified ads websites. The purpose of conducting a local online search is to rely on information collected from online sources to execute an offline transaction.

This type of search is extremely important for small entrepreneurs and small businesses. This is simply because it is almost free as it only requires a small budget to make a successful advertising campaign. The small business only seeks customers and potential clients locally and from surrounding areas. This process is also cheaper from all other types of local advertising as newspapers and media advertising like TV and radio commercials.

Image credit: Cartoon Church

Some small businesses do search engine marketing by themselves, and some outsource this operation by professional and specialized third parties. They later achieve more successful and efficient results as it is a simple process, but needs experience and knowledge of the market variables like economical conditions and customers’ trends.

Local Advertising Benefits

1. Local search advertising is based on the IP to deliver local search results. When a customer searches for a general term like “lawyer”, the search engine delivers local and non-local ads’ results, which will benefit the searcher in both cases. IP targeting search results are not perfect, but serve as required and in most times they are sufficient enough for the searchers. This is of a great advantage for advertisers like small businesses, as it will help them achieve more customers when local customers conduct online searches.

2. Local search advertising can give you the option to target customers within a specific area, like a region, a state, a city, a town, a county, or a small neighborhood. You can specify a point on the map and then target all customers from 50 or 100 miles in every direction of that point. Local search can turn up to be international advertising or exclusive to a couple of countries. The options here are unlimited as you can target more than one area with the same ad.

3. Pay per click and classified ads are the most common two methods of conducting and executing local advertising campaigns. Major search engines like Google and Yahoo are specialized in providing advertisers with hundreds of options to publish their advertising campaigns locally and globally. Craiglist is considered to be the biggest classified ads website on the web and most of the ads are for local users only.

Donny Gamble writes a blog about creating wealth by combining Internet Marketing with Network Marketing and explains why every Internet marketer should have an MLM business. You can also share your tips and write a guest article here.

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Original article: Local Search Advertising: New Dimension For Small Businesses
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3 Different Types of Keyword Research

QuickOnlineTips — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:26:29 +0000

Guest article by Pradeep.
All bloggers and web marketers know that keyword research is important for success of the blog or website. However many people new to internet marketing (even some veterans) make the mistake of assuming that process of keyword research is the same for all websites.

In this article I shall explain the different types of keyword research that can be used, the tools that may be utilized for the purpose, advantages and disadvntages of each method and how to select a method for your own website. I shall be explaining the concepts using examples from the second hand goods market as I have been working extensively on that domain for quite sometime now.

Based on my experience, keyword research is of 3 types viz
1. Finding keywords that have been popular for quite sometime
2. Finding keywords that are popular right now
3. Finding keywords that will become popular in future

1. Finding keywords that have been popular for quite sometime

This is the most popular way of doing keyword research and most of the time when people talk about keyword research, they are talking about this particular method. In this method we shall be looking for keywords that people have been using for quite sometime. Let us say, we want to figure out whether enough people are interested in second hand cars or not. We shall be using Google Adwords Keyword Tool for this purpose. We start with the keyword car. The tool will show popular keywords related to cars that are used by users. A quick glance at the result will tell us that people use keywords like “second hand cars”, “used cars” and “cars for sale” to search.

If people have been interested in these keywords for quite sometime, there is a really good chance that they will continue to be interested in them in future as well. Hence if I am planning to build a website about second hand cars, I can be fairly confident that there are enough people who are looking for it. However a quick search for “second hand cars” on google will reveal that websites that are present in the top 10 are quite strong ones and it is going to be extremely difficult for me to get into the top 10.

2. Finding keywords that are popular right now

Mostly these are keywords in the news. Result of some cricket or football match, any controversy, Oscar awards 2010 etc will fall into this category. These keywords get a lot of traffic for a short span of time which then dies down. Since the keyword did not exist till yesterday there are no existing web pages for it and the first ones to write about it can rank quite high on Google. Google Trends and Trending topics on Twitter are some of the best places to find recently popular keywords. Write them fast and write regularly and you shall be surprised by the result.

Only problem with this method is you need to keep writing regularly to keep getting traffic. And since the keyword did not exist till yesterday, it is unlikely that anyone has setup an Adsense campaign for it. So monetizing the traffic is difficult.

3. Finding keywords that will become popular in future

I think this is one of the best methods to use for anyone who is serious about building an e-business. For example there are lot less people looking for second hand bikes on Google right now. However I am confident that the number will go up in future. That is why I am working on developing a website for second hand bikes in India. The traffic will take time to buildup. But by the time it does, my website will be an authority website for this term.

The trick lies in finding keywords that are popular right now, using tools mentioned in 1 above. Then apply your knowledge to find out keywords that are going to be popular in near future. Let us say keyword research shows that browser extensions are popular for Firefox. When the discussion about Google Chrome started, using this method you could have created content about Google Chrome extensions. As soon as Chrome got released, your site would have become exceptionally popular.

To conclude …

Use method 1 i.e finding already popular keywords if you have a really strong website say like QOT.
Use method 2 if you have a website that is at least 1 year old with some backlinks. It is going to be really easy to rank for news items if you do on-page optimization right.
The last method is my favorite one. This is how businesses were supposed to be built and this is your best chance at becoming really successful.

Let me know your views in the comments below.

Guest author Pradeep is a blogger with more than 4 years of experience of developing web businesses in India and advises other bloggers about increasing traffic and earning from their blogs. You can also write a guest article and share your tips and tricks.

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Original article: 3 Different Types of Keyword Research
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Google HiStory Video

QuickOnlineTips — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:15:39 +0000

Have you seen this Google Story video which quickly tracks the Google history over the last 11 years from Stanford to Mountain View and around the world, featuring different products, starting with BackRub (Search) up to Google Wave, StreetView and Chrome.

Looking for more details on Google History? Read the key milestones in Google’s development and how Google started in a garage and reached the browser of every web user. You can also view the Google Timeline for an interactive version of Google company history.

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Original article: Google HiStory Video
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Blogger Alert: Official US Daylight Saving Time Change

QuickOnlineTips — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:24:47 +0000

US Daylight Savings Time changed today! Official Time changed across New York to San Francisco, and bloggers need to be aware and modify the time they send out their blog articles … the clock rolls back an hour for daylight savings at 2 a.m.

Image by Samantha

Daylight Savings Time Change

So what is Daylight Savings time? Daylight Saving Time (or summertime) helps get more light out of the day by advancing clocks by one hour during the summer. Well the Daylight saving time in most of the United States ends at 2 a.m., local time, on Sunday, November 1 (every year on first Sunday in November).

In the U.S., clocks change at 2:00 a.m. local time. In spring, clocks spring forward from 1:59 a.m. to 3:00 a.m.; in fall, clocks fall back from 1:59 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. In the U.S., each time zone switches at a different time. Read more about how the clock changes. Europe has changed time already on October 25. See the Daylight Saving Time changes across the world.

How does DST affect bloggers? US web traffic accounts for a major source of traffic and readership for many blogs. I know several top Indian and international bloggers publish their articles (or future post it) accurately on time in early US morning to get on top of the RSS readers of US readers, which will drive more attention and better article response. Now they need to account for the Daylight Saving Time, and if majority of their readers are starting the day early, they might need to press the publish button an hour earlier!

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Original article: Blogger Alert: Official US Daylight Saving Time Change
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5 Out-of-the-Box Keyword List Strategies That Work

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:33:01 +0000

Guest Article by Edward Khoo
There are dozens of keyword selection “strategies.” All you have to do is Google keyword strategies to get 50,100,000 search results the day of this writing. That is over 50 million hits on a very narrow, industry-specific subject, but it makes a good point.

Anybody – everybody – working in the web space, from site owners to W3 marketing gurus, has a theory about keyword selection. The diversity of opinions offers up another point: there is no one way to select the perfect set of keywords.

The fact is, keyword optimization is more art than science. However, by using several helpful tools you can gather empirical data, test the results for your site and tweak your keyword list to increase site traffic and, simultaneously, deliver a more highly-qualified buyer – knowledgeable, motivated to find a solution and willing to pay for that solution.

The solution you sell.

Image via davidkjelkerud

1. Start with your own industry / business knowledge.

First, trust your instincts. What keywords would you enter into a search box? You know the insider jargon, you know your target market, you know your products or services so start with a list of the search words you’d use.

But don’t stop there. Remember, you bring a bias to the search. You already know the lingo. So, your intuitive keyword list brings with it a bias. Same with lists developed by other knowledgeable executives in your company. Even so, these keyword lists provide a foundation for finessing a keyword list over time.

2. Test your list of intuitive keywords.

I like Google’s keyword generator for a couple of reasons.

First, Google controls the largest share of the search market so why not go with the 600-lb gorilla. Second, Google’s keyword generator delivers empirical data – the actual usage figures of Google users over the past 30 days.

Enter your URL and intuitive keywords into Google’s keyword tool and click check. One of three results will be immediately evident:

- Your intuition is correct. Keywords you selected are popular search words.

- Your intuition is incorrect. Your search terms are too sector- or B2B-specific and, as a result, the search terms don’t drive much traffic.

- Or, the most likely result – the affirmation that some of your keywords are on target with SE users, some aren’t and, happily, you’ll discover additional keywords used by searchers. Happy surprises that you might not have considered.

3. Test the strength of each keyword.

If you operate in a commercial sector that crosses numerous business and industries, Google will hand you a list of a few thousand keywords used by its patrons. Narrowing the list down is a crucial part of the development of an effective list of 10-15 keywords.

There are a couple of ways I test the strength of a keyword to deliver good SERPs for my client. First, I use a term extractor, available for use (free) on SEOmoz.org. This tool identifies strong keywords on an existing site that’s been indexed properly by search engines. A quick examination of the results of term extraction always reveals some interesting data.

Example: I had a client that provides hearing aid advice online. The site offered a free consumer download, articles, product reviews and other helpful information for people conducting research on an upcoming hearing aid purchase.

The site owner, intuitively, selected hearing aids as his primary keyword but couldn’t understand why his bounce rate was over 80%. Well, hearing aids, when extracted, proved to be a strong keyword. The problem was, the site didn’t sell hearing aids – the objective of a SE user querying “hearing aids.” No hearing aids for sale? Bounce to the next site.

A simple adjustment to this client’s keyword list in the site’s meta, alt and title tags and playing down the keyword hearing aids in the site’s corpus did the trick. The client’s bounce rate dropped to 40% in a matter of weeks.

Use a term extraction tool to identify which keywords and phrases are strong with search engines. You’re almost certain to be surprised at the results.

4. Calculate the “pull” of a given keyword.

I use SpyFu, a very useful tool in determining the effectiveness of any keyword.

The software is actually an AdWords metrics tool that identifies bidding ranges of given keywords for AdWords placement. Of course, I use SpyFu to help my clients get a bigger bang for their AdWords buck, but it’s also a great tool for determining the effectiveness of a keyword – even if you don’t use PPC advertising.

AdWords functions much like a stock market with investors bidding up the price of keywords, just as investors bid up the price of stocks. SpyFu shows me the range of bids for a keyword. And if AdWords users keep that keyword at $1.27 a click, well, I know that’s a keyword that pulls and more than pays for itself at $1.27 per click.

Conversely, when SpyFu identifies a low cost AdWords keyword – six cents per click (see chart), for instance, I know it’s not popular, I know it doesn’t pull but I don’t necessarily cross it off the list. Here’s why.

5. Use lower-ranking keywords to beat higher ranking competition.

If you’re just launching a new site, if you’ve just added several sub-domains that don’t show up on SERPs, or if you’ve made significant changes to your business or revenue model, you can often upend deep pockets competitors by using lower-ranking keywords.

Let’s say you own a small site that sells digital cameras and accessories. You’re in a highly-competitive market sector up against the likes of Amazon, Best Buy, J&R and other well-known, branded names. So, a search of “digital cameras” reveals that your little site is on page 34 of SERPs, and when was the last time you drilled down 34 pages searching for anything?

Using the identical keywords that deep-pockets, well-known competitors use will bury you. BUT, if you deploy lesser-used keywords, for example “digital cameras real cheap,” you won’t see as many SE users entering those particular keywords, but those who do will see your site at the top of page one of Google’s SERPs. Why? Because the heavy hitters aren’t using those long-tail keywords. Once again, before you opt for a long-tail, test it on all major search engines: Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Inktomi.

Also, run that long-tail through an AdWords metrics generator. This will enable you to uncover strong terms that aren’t being used, even by stronger sites. Look for keywords that haven’t been bid up in price but still pull a good quantity of traffic each day. This eliminates the stronger competitors.

Check out the spread sheet showing keywords and prices for digital cameras. I’ve highlighted popular search terms that haven’t been “discovered” by the competition because the AdWords bid price is comparatively low. Consider :

1. Using these less popular keywords as your primary search terms or

2. Add the most promising candidates to your existing list and incorporate them in your site’s meta data, description tag, alt tags and title tags where appropriate.

One last piece of advice: keyword list refinement is an ongoing process. It’s not something you do once and forget about it. Use tools like Google’s keyword generator, SpyFu and other AdWords metrics analyzers to determine the best list for your site – a list of keywords that pulls, but also isn’t used by more powerful competitors.

Then, as your business grows, you can add more of the most-used keywords and go head-to-head with the cost-cutting big box stores. That day will come a lot sooner if you select the strongest keywords for your site.

This guest article was written by Edward Khoo, a full time blogger from Malaysia. You can also write a guest article and share your tips and tricks with our readers.

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Original article: 5 Out-of-the-Box Keyword List Strategies That Work
Copyright 2009. Quick Online Tips. All Rights Reserved.

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Amazon Launches Same Day Delivery in Seven US Cities

QuickOnlineTips — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:40:26 +0000

Amazon.com has launched “Local Express Delivery,” a new shipping option that provides same-day delivery in seven US cities like New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Las Vegas, Seattle and Washington D.C. This is really exciting news as this will speed up delivery times and people might actually like to buy online rather than go and buy the products from the shopping mall or local shops.

Same day local delivery cut-off times are now on each product’s detail page. Here is a overview of how late you can order for same day delivery:

New York City – Order as late as 10 a.m.
Philadelphia – Order as late as 10 a.m.
Boston – Order as late as 10:30 a.m.
Washington D.C. – Order as late as 10:30 a.m.
Baltimore – Order as late as 10:30 a.m.
Las Vegas – Order as late as 11 a.m.
Seattle – Order as late as 1 p.m.

Of course Local Express Delivery does not work on weekends and no P.O. boxes or APO, FPO, or DPO allowed. Items may be delivered up until 8PM local time and are also eligible for Guaranteed Accelerated Delivery and charged extra. They say the service will be extended to Chicago, Indianapolis and Phoenix in the coming months.

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Original article: Amazon Launches Same Day Delivery in Seven US Cities
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How to Transfer Domain Name to New Registrar

QuickOnlineTips — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:17:07 +0000

Guest Article By S.Pradeep Kumar
In this article I’m going to explain the steps involved to transfer domain name from one registrar to another. If you have couple of domain names, it is better to keep all of them in a single registrar. Below mentioned steps are common and can be applied to all the top domain registrars.

1. Purchase Domain Transfer At The Your New Registrar
Normally if you purchase a domain transfer, your new registrar will let you to keep all the time remaining on your existing registration and provide One-Year free extension. After the purchase of domain transfer, your domain at the new registrar will require an Authorization Code. Your new registrar will send an email to you which contains “Transaction ID” and “Security Code”.

2. Request Authorization Code At Current Registrar
Login to your current registrar account and request for Authorization Code. But remember you should have turned off the domain protection or your domain should be unlocked before requesting the authorization code from the current registrar.

3. Authorization Code Received From Current Registrar
You will receive an email from current registrar with “Authorization Code”. Now you can begin the domain transfer from the new registrar using the authorization code. Login to your new registrar and begin the transfer process. Then the new registrar will display the status as “Authorization Required” and choose “ Begin Transfer Authorization”(Recommended).

Now enter the authorization code that you received from the current registrar through mail and complete the process. After completing this step, the status will be displayed as “Pending Current Registrar approval” and choose “Accept transfer at current registrar” (Recommended).

4. Email Notification From Current Registrar
After completing all these steps, you will receive an email from your current registrar confirming your transfer request. You don’t need to take any action if you want to accept the transfer. If you wish to cancel the transfer, follow the link provided in the email.

You will receive an email like this :

We received notification on November 5, 2008 5:11:27 PM EDT that you have requested to transfer to another domain name registrar. If you would like to proceed with this transfer you do not need to respond to this message…..

…..If we do not hear from you by November 10, 2008 5:11:27 PM EDT, this transfer will proceed. We are committed to providing you with the solutions, services, and support to help you succeed online. We hope to continue serving you in the future.

5. Domain Transfer Completed To New Registrar
You will get a confirmation email from your new registrar received approximately four days after initiating the transfer at the current registrar. Remember that the current registrar has up to 5 days to release the transfer of the domain.

Have you ever transferred a domain name to a new registrar? If so, please share your experience here.

This guest article was written by S.Pradeep Kumar, a technical blogger and writer specializing in blogging tips, product reviews and tutorials. You can also write a guest article and share your tips and tricks.

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Have You Seen the 4 Billionth Photo on Flickr?

QuickOnlineTips — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:34:54 +0000

Flickr, the popular social image sharing service today crossed a new milestone of 4 billion photos! Punimoe had the honour of uploading our 4 billionth photo.

This is what the 4 billionth photo looks like -

You can also check out what the 2 billionth and 3 billionth photos look like.

Lots of free publicity for these pics… how lucky is that!

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Download Free Blackberry Dictionary App

QuickOnlineTips — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:16:55 +0000

Now download the free Blackberry Dictionary app and get a pocket English dictionary and thesaurus live on your Blackberry mobile phone. It is one of the most useful applications to download for your Blackberry smartphone.

Released today, this app claims to be the only free dictionary app for BlackBerry. The trusted content is provided by Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com and includes more than 500,000 terms, definitions, and synonyms. Some key features are -

Dictionary.com – Access 325,000 word definitions and spelling suggestions
Thesaurus.com – Search Roget’s Thesaurus with 275,000 synonyms
Phonetic & Audio Pronunciations – Hear pronunciations of words
Word of the Day – Learn a new word every day with definitions
Recent History - editable list of recently searched words
Social Networking Function - Email or SMS text any word and its definition
Email Integration - access synonyms, definitions while reading /drafting emails

Download Dictionary /Thesaurus App from the Blackberry App Store and enhance your Blackberry. Students and English enthusiasts would find it particularly useful. Get it now.

Dictionary.com iPhone App is also a Top 30 favorite app in the iTunes App Store and is named by US News & World Report as the #1 iPhone app for college students, and has been downloaded more than three million times since launching in April 2009.

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Miley Cyrus Quits Twitter, Sings Rap Song!

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:30:14 +0000

As more celebrities join Twitter everyday, Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus decided to quit Twitter, but she did it in style and made a rap song to tell her fans why!

If you hear the Miley Cyrus rap song, some reasons she suggests are she wants her private life private, and wants to put a stop on gossip sites buzzing news of every tweet she makes. She wants to stop pleasing people and admits she is too busy. Naturally Tweeple are tweeting our loud which gets the topic trending at #mileycomeback.

Celeb sites are analyzing if Miley Cyrus boyfriend provoked her to quit

And many Miley Goodbye videos are emerging all over the web

Did you know that the top 10% Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets and its not surprising that 60% twitter users quit within first month! Did you quit Twitter?

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