One of the more interesting features of AdWords that advanced PPC marketers have been using is Google Dynamic Keywords. This allows you to insert the search query that the user typed in directly into your ad. How to Use AdWords Dynamic Keywords In your title or description lines, you can enter a little bit of code that will insert the users query into your ad. The text should be formatted as follows:

{KeyWord:Alternate Text}

The KeyWord: is the query that the user typed in. The Alternate Text is what the ad will display if for some reason the query cannot be shown (such as if the query string is too long, etc.).

For example, let’s say we have “Larry’s Lamps”. Larry is bidding on the keywords “brass lamps”, “brass lamp”, “quality brass lamp”, and “brass lamps sale”. The ad is set up in AdWords as follows:

If the visitor searches for “Brass Lamps”, they will see:

If the visitor searches for “Quality Brass Lamp”, they will see:

This is brilliant, because whatever the user types in will appear exactly in the ad. The ad will be properly bolded, and will appear more relevent to the visitor.

You can even control the case of the ad:

Buy {keyword:Car parts}  Buy car parts
Buy {Keyword:Car parts}  Buy Car parts
Buy {KeyWord:Car parts}  Buy Car Parts
Buy {KEYWord:Car Parts}  Buy CAR Parts
Buy {KeyWORD:Car parts}  Buy Car PARTS
Buy {KEYWORD:Car Parts}  Buy Car Parts

Lots of folks talk about search and never delve into the content network. In the search network you choose keywords based on which ads will be shown in search results. In contrast with the content network, you choose locations, ie, web-sites and individual pages within those sites, where you would like to see your ad.

The content network is the set of sites, blogs and other web products that networks like Google and Yahoo push to publishers that have agreed to publish ads in exchange for a fee per click through an advertising program.

The owner of the website which publishes the ads chooses one or more locations where they will appear, and receives a commission for each click received. The first thing to understand is that, unlike search engine searches and resulting ads, advertisements in the content network are not geared for keywords, but by the content of websites that they occur.

David Szetela’s new book Customers Now: Profiting From the New Frontier of Content Based Internet Advertising shows exactly how to use the networks, set up ads and optimize the platforms for better ROI. Googles content network and  ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Exchange is also reviewed but does not have the reach of Yahoo or Googles network.

Domain Registration Date:

Per Google’s patent(s), the Age of a Domains Registration is a factor.  However, the value of such is, like all other factors, open to speculation. More important is for how long the Domain Name is currently registered. A longer term serves to demonstrate an intent to commit to remaining active further into the future than does a shorter term. Microsoft weighed in on this with their patent regarding Ranking Domains Using Domain Maturity

What helps most is having static content on the domain which in turn helps that domain build trust. Having a holding page on the domain brings some benefit but it is the attachment of that domain to a topic and the relation of that domain with the age of the content that helps.

If you buy and old domain and completely change the content of that domain, you have to build up trust again. However if the old domain has trusted links coming into it and a decent PR then it can be beneficial.

Domain related tools
Domain Age Tool – find out the age of your competitor’s domains
Domain Stats Tool – find all kind of statistics about a domain
Domain Look-up – Retrieve a range of information about a domain
Domain Whois – Retrieve domain whois -ownership information
Domain Availability – Check availability of domains
Instant Domain Checker – Check availability of domains instantly

2009 has been rich in articles about SEO and mobile, although the amount was reduced in the second half of the year, the number of investigations this is steadily increasing.
SitePoint has recently submitted an article on Swift – a platform that lets anyone create a mobile site.

The process has been defined as “Mobile SEO”, and there are many SEO companies that are beginning to reap money for “the creation of mobile sites” and doing “SEO phone.

For those who want to start with these practices there are some things you should know that could probably save you a lot of hassle and money in the future.

First, they should know that there is no need to buy a domain. Dot Mobi sites to rate the website for mobile platforms are dead in my opinion. Simple. com’s work well for mobile phones, like all other domain extensions.

It is true that the size of the image has a role to play in making a site “mobile friendly”, but the reduction of the images or the total elimination is not obligatory. The iPhone loads the images in the same way that a computer, and so do some other smart phones like the BlackBerry Storm. Of course, not all Internet users browse with smartphones, but it’s only a matter of time given the growth of mobile technology worldwide.

From a marketing perspective is better to use the same URL for traditional sites and mobile: users will not have to remember two URLs.
The best practices of SEO are also valid for the mobile SEO.
Instead of planning to develop a special mobile site, it would be better if you just stick to some basic design principles: make your site all supported browsers, make sure the site is readable on any screen resolution, making it accessible to all and to ensure that the site loads quickly.

As for SEO, traditional media is still gold: the titles of articles, a good page description, good content on the page, correct labeling, and of course the quality of the links.

Bido.com Expert

Bido.com is off to a really great start and they can directly attribute that to me, one of their domain experts.

Expert comments on domain names at auction is a new  phenomenon which really stands out in the minds of people from both inside and outside of our industry.  Every time I comment on a domain name, the outside investment community sees the potential in investing in domain names.  They also look to me as an expert to provide valuable information and recognize my expertise for the knowledge that I hold.

Need some advice in acquiring a domain or developing a name?  Contact us at web [at] treg [dot] com

If you already have your own blog, or are thinking of setting one up, you’ve undoubtedly read one or more of the beginner’s guides to blogging that frequent the Internet. Blog often and provide unique, fresh, entertaining, accurate, and relevant information. That’s the content of virtually all of those articles, but this information is only going to get you so far.

The information they provide will help you drive traffic to your blog, as long as you stick at it, and some of the more in depth articles may even give you a basic shove in the right gold paved direction. However, there will come a time when you’re ready to take your blog to the next level.

WordPress And Why We Believe It’s Essential For A Successful Blog

First off, I feel this has to be said – if you’re not using WordPress then it’s highly likely that you’re missing out. WordPress has the biggest collection of plug-ins, themes, and other features of any blogging platform and, of course, it’s free. Rather than spend money on using another blogging platform, save your dollars to pay for a custom design or get help with marketing.

What Plug-ins Do For You

Plug-in’s represent the greatest time saving addition to your blog, as well as the greatest opportunity to add increased features and functions that will help you take your blog to the next level. To really succeed in blogging for money, you need to start treating your blog like any website owner treats their website. This means you have to look at it like a business.

A Small Selection Of Top Notch Plug-in’s

WordPress plugins offer a huge range of different functions and features that you couldn’t otherwise obtain. We’ve listed a few of what we believe to be the more important here but there are many others:

Google Sitemaps – The Google Sitemaps plugin automatically creates an XML sitemap, which can be submitted to many of the major search engines. It will also automatically inform them (ping) when you add any new posts or pages to your blog.

Firestats – There are several in-depth stat packages available as plugins but our personal favorite is the Firestats package. It is crucial that you track and act on the stats for your website. Knowing how your readers found your site can help you with promotion and improve your profit levels by giving you a clearer picture of exactly what your visitors are looking for. It’s also good to know the topics that are working out and those that aren’t.

Social Bookmarking – The social bookmarking plugin adds the links to the bottom of your posts that lets readers quickly and conveniently bookmark a post with their preferred social bookmarking site. Some of these sites can help you generate traffic and even improve your search ranking.



All In One SEO – The All In One SEO plugin enables you to add a title, description, and keywords to each of your posts. These can help improve search engine results and make your posts appear cleaner in the search results. It can also be used to ensure that visitors are highly targeted.

Related Entries – It’s important to get traffic flowing around your posts because the more of your site a person views, the more likely they will be to click affiliate links or Adsense links. If your blog is entirely related to your business, they will be more likely to buy your products or pay for your services.

Adsense Deluxe – Don’t let the name fool you. Adsense Deluxe provides a fast and efficient method of adding Adsense code to any post or page, with just a single tag, but it also does the same for Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) ads.

Comment Subscription – The big benefit of a blog is that you can often persuade interested visitors to keep returning to your corner of the net. The comment subscription plug in further enables them to sign up and be notified of any responses to comments they have added.

Monetizing Your Blog

If you want to make money from your blog and you have a reasonable amount of traffic then the methods of advertising you use will quickly become an important topic to you. There are a lot of different ways to monetize a blog, and it would be damaging of me to try and tell you exactly what method will work without knowing at least a little about your blog. However, there are some things we will willingly share.

Don’t Sell Out – There’s a temptation for those with more mature blogs to write a post and review an item, website, or service and get paid for doing so. Our opinion on this can be summed up in pretty much one word or two; “don’t” or “do not”. You might think that you can write a genuinely informative piece and be completely open and honest without your readers ever realizing what you are doing but it is highly unlikely that this is the case.

Sponsorship – Sponsored advertising is a great way to monetize some blogs. Generally speaking (and there are exceptions), the more specific the topic of a blog, the more likely this will prove to be a viable advertising solution and it may be easier to bag sponsored ads than you think. And, because this is WordPress, there are plugins that help you do it too (AdServe is a good one).

Affiliate Data Feeds – Most affiliate networks have some form of data feed or affiliate feed. If you intend to promote affiliate programs then make the most of these, but ensure that the feed fits with your site. Don’t just slap up a bit of code and expect it to miraculously turn your hobby blog into a multi-million dollar, award winning blog because it takes careful planning, ad placement optimization, and some trial and error to get the best results. Guess what? There are numerous plugins to use with the Amazon affiliate program and other programs so make the most of them.

Blog Networks

The final point we’re going to cover in this, now extensive, article is whether or not you should join a blog network. A blog network is, unsurprisingly, a network of blogs. The overall aim and the method that connects the blogs differs with each network. Some may be connected by having different subdomains on the same main domain. Others may simply use the same banner. Similarly, some networks are established to bring profit to bloggers and (understandably) to the network owner. Other networks want nothing more than to promote a near state of hippie euphoria over one particular topic.

To Join Or Not To Join

It seems to have become a habit but we can’t honestly tell you whether you should definitely join, or definitely not join, a blogging network. They work out for some by providing traffic, improving search rankings, and even helping out with the general blogging process. However, other blogs would fare better on their own, especially the more popular ones. Similarly, some networks are so powerful that they can generate thousands of hits to a blog instantly before you even submit a post, while your blog may carry a smaller network if you have good traffic levels.

The reason that a lot of bloggers do join a network is so that they can network with other bloggers. It provides a sense of belonging and can help develop blogging relationships. If you get invited or accepted into a particularly large network then you should consider trying it because it really can pay dividends but be warned that the large networks have pretty stringent guidelines that you must adhere to in order to be accepted.

What’s Next For Your Blog?

This article covers some of the blogging factors that you need to look at when you consider taking your blog to the next level. Simply posting good content will often help you build traffic, but that’s really all it will do. You need to monetize that traffic, and where possible, keep it returning over and over again. You should also employ some methods of further building your traffic, other than posting good posts.

Here’s how we work:

We examine your business. This is not a laborious inspection that takes days or weeks to accomplish, but a top-level brain-picking session through which we learn what your business is about, who your customers are, why they buy, who your competitors are, what differentiates you from others in the minds of customers / prospects, and what your unique competencies are. We also want to know where you’re going – where you plan for your company to be a few years from now. (To help you get there, we must know where you want to go.) We routinely sign nondisclosure agreements (NDA’s) , of course.

We create a web strategy. Our strategy leverages your market advantages while simultaneously pushing key customer hot buttons. We appeal to what customers want and need and position you as the company to meet their needs and help them achieve their objectives – quickly, easily, and at reasonable cost. We can also handle all your collateral and PR needs through Boston Media Domain, being a seasoned provider of strategic marketing communications and PR programs to clients worldwide.

We create copy & site design. Once you’ve bought into our strategy, we get to work. Generally within six weeks of project launch, you have first-draft website copy. With your approval, we then deliver a full design that reflects your objectives and is consistent with your corporate culture. We include client-supplied photography and site executions of your logo. Once you approve the design, any final touches are completed and the site goes live. (We can recommend a company to host your site, too.)

We optimize the “live” site and submit it to search engines. Our site optimization specialist looks at how customers access web-based information from businesses similar to yours, and uses what she learns to “optimize” your site for the best possible results in key search engines. She “codes” the site, submits it, and usually within a few weeks, you begin to see the results.

Follow-up. Websites are not static; they are living things that grow and change over time, just like your company. As your company’s needs change, we’ll be available to help you update your site to accommodate the changing face of your business.

There will always be do it yourselfers succeeding at web promotion and search engine optimization. Many established businesses offering web services today came from humble beginnings. The Web evolves as the result of the innovation and experimentation of individuals. The sharing of knowledge. The do it yourself attitude.



As text link brokers and mass link networking decrease in value and use in social media increases, it becomes more important for companies to have an internal approach and awareness of search engine marketing. Outsourcing to SEO firms is still a smart option. Making the most out of Web 2.0 usually requires some level of cooperation between SEO firm and site owner. You don’t need to be an expert to know the basics of good SEO practices, and that added knowledge will be a great advantage whether you’re working along side an SEO team, or promoting your own site in your spare time.

So if you’re on a “need to know” basis with SEO, the following points should show what a plan should include:

1. Create Original Search Engine Friendly Content

Original web content is your most valuable asset, and ensuring search engines can read it is very important. Text embedded in images or Flash cannot be read, so make sure you use important keywords, headings, and hyperlinks in plain text form. Instead of using images as navigation links, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) makes it easy to format those links to look more like ‘buttons’, thus creating powerful anchor text as well as making it visually appealing. Use heading tags properly and don’t try to hide keywords or text by making it the same color as the page background or shrinking it so it can’t be seen. Make sure the keywords you wish to rank high for are used frequently in the page copy but within reason.

Copy and paste a page’s URL into a search engine to see if it has been indexed. If you’ve just created the page, it may take a few days (weeks) to show up. Aside from age, many factors can lead to web pages not being indexed by search engines, such as duplicate content (ie. a printer-friendly version of a page might be indexed and the normal version not, or vice versa); links generated by JavaScript instead of HTML; poor site architecture (ie. using too many sub-directories); lengthy, dynamically generated URLs using special characters; and orphaned pages.

2. Choose Keywords Wisely

One of the first steps of SEO, this needs to be done properly the first time or all your future efforts and promotion could end up being wasted. Start by writing down general terms that describe your products, services or web content. Use keyword research services to investigate word and phrase variations. Wordtracker, KeywordDiscovery, and the Google AdWords suggestion tool are good starting points. The goal is to find those niche phrases that your target market uses to find sites just like yours and optimize your site for them. If the phrases do not get enough use by searchers, your profits from ranking for them will be low. At the same time, stay away from general terms that are tougher to rank for (ie. like “Apartments”, “Computers”, “Business”, etc.) as a great portion of the traffic will be irrelevant and you’ll break the bank attaining such competitive phrases.

3. Get Others to Link to Your Site

In theory there are countless ways, some traditional and some quite innovative, to get other web sites to link to yours. In practice, it can be easier said than done. Google defines a link as it pertains to rankings and SEO as a “vote” from one site to another. The more quality votes your site receives, the greater chance you have of rankings well. If a well established site links to yours, that link carries more weight than one would less reputable page.

If your site has useful content and is doing something unique, you’re already ahead of much of the competition. People need a reason to link to your site, as very few will do it out of the goodness of their heart. Trading links can work, but link exchange networks have decreased in value and won’t be of much use in competitive fields. Buying links, if you haven’t heard, is a big Google no-no. While entire articles could be written on this topic, here are a few popular methods of acquiring incoming links:

- issuing company press releases with a link back to your site
- submitting to reputable business directories such as Yahoo! and Business.com
- be active on related blogs by commenting and exchanging ideas
- if you have clients with web sites, ask if they would mind adding your link in a “partners” section
- participate in relevant forums and discussion boards with a link in your signature
- write and submit original articles to web publications in your field with a link in your bio
- get involved in social media and bookmarking

4. Social Media Revolution

The collaboration between Internet users and the development of online communities is at an all-time high. Social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Furl, Reddit, and Technorati offer users a way to store their favorite pages and media online, and share it with others. These services also provide a way to promote your own content or create a buzz over a product or service. Creating a Myspace page or Squidoo “lens” is also a way to network and share information.

However, if your goal is to generate sales then you must offer something without the promotional hype. The reality of social media is that popularity is based almost entirely on public interest. If your information or media isn’t unique or of interest to anyone, you cannot force success using social media communities.

The key to using social media and bookmarking sites to your advantage is to not be shy. Network with other users, bookmark and share useful content, create eye-catching titles for your entries, and tell your friends and co-workers to vote on content you have on these sites.

These four points are a general guideline to follow for SEO. Search engine optimization experts and firms are a good outsourcing option in competitive markets, while the DIY attitude can yield great results for web site owners with smaller marketing budgets. If you’re in the latter group, hopefully this helps get you started.

OrganicFamilies.com

Tips for Organic Families

1. Protein in Perspective

Years ago, our moms sent us to school with protein-heavy meat sandwiches and coins to buy whole milk. These days, it’s easy to lighten up with your kids’ favorite organic vegetables, low-fat cheese or tofu—each of which proves wholesome with whole-grain bread. Beans are another terrific source of protein and fiber, with negligible saturated fat.

“Make a great-tasting bean dip, and cut up some whole-wheat pita triangles for a healthy lunch to go,” advises pediatrician Mary Ellen Renna, MD, author of Growing Up Healthy the Next Generation Way: Add Years to Your Child’s Life & Life to Your Child’s Years.

“Nuts and seeds are portable, healthy snacks that are perfect for lunch boxes,” she adds. “They are loaded with protein and packed with energy. Ounce for ounce, pumpkin seeds have almost as much protein as beef or chicken, with a lot more of the good fats—and even have some of the amazingly heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids.”

2. Liquid Logic

“What your child drinks with lunch each day is just as important as what he or she eats,” Dr. Renna says. “Send your child with either water, low-fat milk or a fruit-juice box—but make sure that the juice box is made from only 100% juice and is fortified with calcium, as well. Many juices contain only minimal amounts of real fruit juice and instead are filled with a lot of sugar. Read the labels and look for a juice box that is 100% pure fruit juice, such as Apple & Eve’s 100% juice box line.” (It’s organic!)

As an added bonus, juice boxes can help keep your child’s lunch cold throughout the day. Simply freeze a juice box the night before school and use it as an ice pack, Dr. Renna suggests. By lunchtime, it will be perfectly defrosted and ready to drink.

3. Involvement and Input

Moms haven’t traditionally asked us what we wanted to eat for lunch. We’d open our lunch box and grab a soggy tuna sandwich and some cookies—the icky kind no one even wanted in the daily trade. Times have changed: When you take your children to your local natural and organic food store, allow them to help you shop for school lunch staples and snacks.

“Involve your children in picking out the foods and packing the lunch box,” says Elena Serrano, an assistant professor of human nutrition, foods and exercise at Virginia Tech. “You’ll find out what they like and, if they feel a part of the process, they’re more prone to eat it.”

Make sure your children have a variety of foods in their diet, including whole grains and low-fat dairy products, she adds. You can visit MyPyramid.gov to learn more about healthful organic choices in each food group.

4. No Fuss, No Muss

It may seem obvious, but it helps to prepare organic lunches that are easy to eat, Serrano says. Make sure food is cut at the appropriate size for young children.

“Kids don’t have a lot of time to eat, and they don’t want to spend that time getting their foods ready,” confirms Carmen Byker, a Virginia Tech senior majoring in human nutrition, foods and exercise. “Cut, peel and slice fruits and vegetables in advance, or buy them ready to eat, like baby carrots, sliced apples, raisins and grapes.”

Byker encourages shopping for fruits and vegetables at your local farmer’s market. Not only will you find the freshest organic produce, but you’ll also support regional growers. These fruits and veggies also taste better, which encourages your kids to eat more servings each day, she says.