Yahoo announced users can now view their Facebook News Feed via their Yahoo home page, Yahoo Mail, and other Yahoo sites. User generated content on Yahoo photo site Flickr can be shared on Facebook now as can Yahoo News, Sports and Movies too.

Titled New Ways to Increase Your Social IQ on Yahoo! With over 80 sites to share content with and from Yahoo’s move further into the social sphere by creating a central hub and dashboard called “Yahoo! Pulse, this dashboard makes it simple to set and manage your activities and privacy on Yahoo!. See the updated experience at http://pulse.yahoo.com.”

The deal with Facebook is an effort “to give people one simple, trusted place to share information and connect. We think this offers great benefit to people across the Web, and it’s key to helping Yahoo extend our reach and increase engagement,” Yahoo stated in a press release.

Ethan Beard, Director of Facebook Developer Network, was quoted in the Yahoo statement saying, “by integrating with Facebook on a global scale, Yahoo is building upon an already valuable brand to give people easy ways to share the content they enjoy on Yahoo! with their friends on Facebook.”

The cross integration between platforms was announced last December but is now coming to fruition in a big way. Stay posted for more Yahoo/Facebook cross pollination in the coming months. Kinda reminds me of David and Goliath, I am just not clear who is who in this case.

This leaves Google in the dust with Buzz unless they too have an announcement coming out soon.

IPTools offers a wide variety of online networking tools. With this site you can look up IP address information, check spam databases, run pings, run traceroutes, lookup WHOIS information and much more.

BugMeNot allows you to find and share logins for sites that require you to register. This tool is great to use when you don’t want to have to go through the process of creating an account for a site when you just want to login once for something like a driver.

SpeedTest.net allows you to test your Internet connection speed. It’s great to use when you want to see if your ISP is holding up on their end of the bargain.

Much better than You Get Signal: http://www.grc.com/intro.htm

Desktoptopia is a cool app for the mac that loads designer desktops on your monitor from an ever growing database of top creative desktops. www.desktoptopia.com

http://spambox.us/ lets you set the expire date of your temporary email address from 30 minutes, to a whole year

In addition to my last post, http://www.youconvertit.com/ lets you convert files up to 300Mb in size, instead of media-convert’s 150Mb and zamzar’s 100Mb. It also lets you convert up to 5 files at once.

dontreg.com – temp email is useful too.

Wiki tools Zoho to the list. It provides around 14 different tools like wiki to CRM tools, chat and may more.

Regarding security and mail delivery, I suggest this very interesting service: https://lockbin.com/

It’s very useful, reliable and easy-to-use. A big help ensuring your privacy online.

There are more free DNS, IP and host tools at mydnstools.info, including a very cool web host / webserver info tool.

Here is a list that has hundreds of free ware ranked by popularity

http://michaeleee.blogspot.com/2007/01/list-of-best-freeware.html

I find FreeTube useful when theres some news event thing happening that I want to learn more on..it shows live television channels mostly news rather entertaining.

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site that allows you to bookmark sites and view them from any computer. This site is great because not only can you bookmark sites and view them anywhere, you can also search through everyone’s bookmarks to find great tech articles.

Omnidrive is an online storage service that allows you to upload large files, access them from any computer, and share them with other people. They also offer the ability to edit your Office documents using Zoho without ever downloading them. You get 1GB free and the ability to upgrade to 1 terabyte. This site is great for hosting your tech tools and accessing them from computers you are working on.

10 Minute Mail allows you to create temporary email addresses that expire after 10 minutes. It’s great to use for sites that require you to receive something through email but you don’t want to be bombarded with spam.

Free Password Generator
Free Password Generator generates very strong and unique passwords. Before you generate your passwords, you can predefine settings such has what type of symbols to use and the length you want it to be.

Trend Micro HouseCall is an online virus, spyware, and malware scanner that runs in your web browser. It’s very handy when you are working on a computer that doesn’t have antivirus software and you want to scan it without having to install one.

You Get Signal allows you to check which ports are open into your network. This is great tool to use when you are trying to patch holes in your firewall.

WhatIsThatFile.com
WhatIsThatFile.com allows you to identify unknown files on a computer. This tool is great for looking up files that you suspect might be possible viruses, trojans, or malware.

YouSendIt allows you to send large files to other people when the files are too large for your email. This tool is a great alternative to using FTP.

DLL-files.com has a huge library of downloadable dll files. Next time you get an error about a missing dll file, you can go here and download it.

Google Microsoft Search allows you to search specifically through Microsoft-related sites. This site is great for searching through Microsoft tech articles for a specific problem.

Zamzar is a file conversion tool that allows you to convert file types through their site. Currently they support over 60 file types. This is a great tool for converting files when you don’t have the appropriate application to do so. make sure your pop up blocker is turned on!

Default Router Passwords Database allows you to search for router as well as other devices default passwords. This tool comes in very handy when you have to reset a device but can’t find the manual to look up the default password.

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.

There are many reasons social media can be a productive marketing channel or platform. Rather than employing it as a tactic du jour, the purpose should dictate strategy and the tactics used for reaching desired goals. A few common outcomes for social media marketing efforts include:

Gain insight into a community of interest -You can run all the customer surveys you want, but some of the most interesting and progressive market research can be found within the social communities where your customers interact, share information and make recommendations. Tapping into the streams of dialog is a great start to engagement and social participation with your brand.

Build brand visibility and authority – You’ve heard it before, “Conversations are happening online about your brand, with or without you.” You might as well participate and do so in a way that pays close attention to the interests and needs of your customers – providing them with information and interactions that further support your brand.

Influence and promotion of products/services – Providing information to educate customers about your products in the formats and media types they prefer can go a long way towards building the kind of buzz that results in new business. By promotion, I mean advertising on social media sites.

Link building for traffic and SEO – Creating linkbait and promoting it to social media news and bookmarking sites can attract a slew of links from bloggers that read them. However, sustaining high levels of promotion to the same site or with the same user accounts will quickly be outed as social media spam. Creating value for the community is not the only rule, creating value and behaving according to formal and unwritten rules is what sustains social media sourced link building.

Drive traffic for ad revenue models – Becoming a power user of several social communities involves consistently contributing quality content, rewarding those who vote positively on that content as well as growing a large base followers. That base of like-minded connections can serve as an effective distribution channel for unique and interesting content which drives traffic to ad supported blogs that host the content. The linkbait suggestion above not only attracts links, but also attracts traffic. However, many ad supported sites report that traffic from social media sites is notorious for not clicking on ads. It’s the bloggers that write about linkbait content first viewed on social media sites that drive the kind of traffic which results in ad clickthroughs.

The mechanisms for putting these strategies into action vary depending on the resources and time allocations a company can make on its own, or when working with an agency. In fact, it is most often due to internal resource constraints that companies outsource social media strategy and tactics in the first place.

Type in “social media marketing” into Google and you’ll get about as many search results (23 million) as there are social media tactics being promoted. As with any type of marketing, social media promotions center around matching content with interested audiences as well as stimulating conversation and buzz. Content can be created from scratch, mashed up or you can “borrow to build” by piggybacking on someone else’s social media success. The key is to listen and participate.

WordPress SEO Tip #20  Don’t Block the Search Engines!

First and foremost: make sure you’re not inadvertently telling the search engines to go away! Believe it or not, some WordPress installations block the search engine bots by default.

From your admin panel, go to Options > Privacy and make sure its set to I would like my blog to be visible to everyone.
Bonus Tip #1 – Are Comments Enabled?

Some WordPress users restrict comments to registered users, or disable them entirely. While this may be appropriate in some situations, in most cases comments are a very beneficial factor, and a defining mark, of a blog.

Comments engage your readers, help you get more fresh content SEO brownie points, and give search engines another reason to come back frequently.

Here’s how to fully enable comments:

1. Login to the WordPress administration center
2. Click Options on the menu bar
3. Is Users must be registered and logged in to comment checked? If so, consider unchecking it.
4. Click Discussion on the submenu bar
5. Make sure the following are checked: Allow people to post comments on the article and Allow link notifications from other Weblogs (pingbacks and trackbacks.)

WordPress SEO Tip #19  Does Your Blog Have a Topic?

Some of us would prefer to have a blog where we talk about anything that comes to mind: cars, movies, photosynthesis, dust mites, you name it.

In and of itself, such a blogging style isnt wrong; however, you can leave search engines clueless as to what your blogs about and thus for what search queries your blog should appear. And some of your readers might get annoyed in the process as well.
WordPress SEO Tip #18  Ensure URL Canonicalization

If your blog posts are accessible from more than one URL, you could end up with:

* Search engines confused as to which URL to display in the SERPs.
* PageRank split between multiple pages.
* Duplicate content penalties.

Starting with version 2.3, WordPress takes care of this and makes sure your content is accessible from only one place. So if you use an older version, either upgrade to the latest version of WordPress.
WordPress SEO Tip #17  Check for Valid XHTML

Most code errors are minor, but the more serious ones can cause content misinterpretation by search engines, lower rankings, and rendering errors.

WordPress itself produces valid code, but errors can crop up from two other common sources:

* Poorly written plugins or themes
* User-created coding errors (in the blog posts themselves, or through theme customizations)

First check your site for errors. If an error is found, look at the surrounding content to determine the source of the error.

If a plugin is the culprit, fix it if you’re good at that sort of thing (the beauty of open source!), or send a quick email to the plugin developer and let him or her know.
WordPress SEO Tip #16 – Don’t Leech Link Juice!

One characteristic of WordPress blogs is the sidebar, which is typically present on every single page. Do you really need to be passing link juice from every single one of your pages to every single one of those links? If the answer is no, consider adding rel=nofollow to the less important ones.
WordPress SEO Tip #15  Use Images in Your Posts

Not only do they increase visitor attention and retention, they give you an opportunity to use keyword-rich alt attributes, title attributes, and filenames. Plus it’ll give your blog visibility in image search engines.
WordPress SEO Tip #14  Does Your Theme Use Header Tags Correctly?

* The blog title, or your main keyword should be in an <h1> tag.
* If your subtitle is keyword-rich, you can put it in an <h2>; otherwise I recommend putting it in a non-header tag like <div>.
* The post titles should go in <h2> tags.
* Sidebar section titles should be <h3> tag or non-header.

Unfortunately, some themes (including the WordPress Default Theme) put the sidebar section titles in <h2> tags. Although this makes sense from a strict structural point of view, it also gives irrelevant sidebar headers (Categories, Archives, Meta, etc.) equal weight with your SEO-important post titles.

To sum it up: Use a theme that utilizes header-tags properly, or try fixing the theme you have.
WordPress SEO Tip #13  Use Pinging

A ping is a this site has new content notification that invites bots to visit your blog.

WordPress pings one website called Ping-o-matic by default, which in turn pings others. You can also add additional services by going to Options > Writing in the admin panel. (For example, the pinging URL for Google Blog Search is http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2)

Another Bonus Tip: Once a post is published, WordPress issues pings whenever the post is edited. Try to cut down on after-publishing edits to avoid being considered a ping spammer.
WordPress SEO Tip #12  Install the Google XML Sitemaps Generator Plugin

XML Sitemaps are search-engine-friendly directories of your blogs posts and other pages intended to help search engines spider your site. Though pioneered by Google, theyre supported by Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.com as well.

The Google XML Sitemaps Generator for WordPress makes creation of these sitemaps easy and automatic. It also lets the engines know when you post new content.
WordPress SEO Tip #11  Avoid Sponsored Themes

There was a debate in the WordPress community not too long ago on the topic of sponsered themes. These themes include paid links (usually in the footer) than can suck PageRank and possibly result in a Google paid links penalty.

Stick with WordPress theme directories that dont include sponsored themes, like the WordPress Theme Viewer.
Bonus Tip #2  Write Right Post Titles

SEO isnt everything: once youre high in the SERPs, you need action words to prompt clickthroughs.

Put keywords in your title if at all possible, but not if it’ll compromise the click-trigger action title.
WordPress SEO Tip #10  Use Traditional SEO Techniques

A WordPress blog is a website too, so the traditional SEO techniques still apply:

* Use important keywords in the title and throughout the post, but don’t overdo it.
* Bold your keywords when it makes sense.
* Develop links to your blog.

WordPress SEO Tip #9  Use the Power of the Slug

Ever wondered what the Post Slug on the Write page was? Its the text that goes in the URL when you have Pretty Permalinks enabled (see tip #2).

By default the slug is a sanitized version of the post title. However, if your title is overly long or keyword-sparse, you can change the slug through the Post Slug box.

Yet Another Bonus Tip: The SEO Slugs plugin can take out common words like you, is, etc. out of the slug for you automatically.
WordPress SEO Tip #8  Use Timestamping to Stagger Fresh Content

Search engines and visitors love fresh blog content on a steady, regular basis. But for a lot of us, creativity comes irregularly: 10 post ideas one week, none the next.

Enter timestamping. When writing a post, click the plus sign next to Post Timestamp. Set a date and time, and the post will publish by itself whenever you specify.

Search engines will keep coming back, and visitors wont be inundated with a ton of new posts all at once.

Hint: If youve timestamped a post, dont click the Publish button, since thatll publish your post immediately regardless of your timestamp. Instead, select Published under Post Status and click the Save button.
WordPress SEO Tip #7  Use Tags for Free Keyword Boosts

WordPress 2.3 and above include a tags feature that lets you assign keywords to your blog posts. Once you start using them, then since each tag gets its own webpage, youll be generating a ton of your own themed, keyword-oriented internal backlink pages.
WordPress SEO Tip #6  Integrate Social Media

Adding social media links/buttons like the ones above makes it easy for visitors to promote your quality content (hint, hint). Social media is a great way to build links naturally as well as drive targeted site traffic.

* Share This is a very popular social media all-in-one plugin.
* If youre a FeedBurner user, you can use FeedFlare to add action links, including social media ones, to the bottom of your posts.

Lots of social media sites provide code you can use to generate buttons like those above. Grab your own code from:

* Digg
* Sphinn
* StumbleUpon
* Mixx
* Scoop

WordPress SEO Tip #5  Implement Deep-Linking

Here are several great ways to implement deep-linking on your WordPress blog:

* Within your posts, link to other posts on your blog and use important keywords in the anchor text.
* Install the Similar Posts plugin, which inserts a list of related posts youve written to the bottom of each of your blog posts. This process will create aged deep links and increase visitor retention.
* Display your most popular posts in your sidebar using the Popularity Contest plugin. Gives your most popular posts tons of internal links, and helps your visitors find your best content.

WordPress SEO Tip #4  Make Scrapers Work to Your Advantage

Most of us would probably be upset if someone used scraping (automated content stealing) to publish our laboriously-written posts as his or her own.

But with a little work, you can make the scrapers work for you, not against you.

Heres how to do it, courtesy of EarnersBlog.com:

If you use WordPress its very easy to take full advantage of these sites linking to you, all you need to do is create links back to your content within your feed.

What youll need for this:

* Cave Monkeys Full Text Feed Plugin
* Solo Technologies Add Related Posts to your Feed Plugin

These plugins simply show your entire post in your feed & also add some related posts in your feed only (which will also increase the amount of people in your feed reading more than 1 post).
Now, everytime anyone scrapes your blog via your RSS feed & republishes it theyll be deep linking to 5 or more of your existing posts. Bingo.

WordPress SEO Tip #3  Install the All-in-One SEO Plugin

Like the name implies, this plugin covers a lot of the bases.

* Puts the blog name after the post title, giving your keyword-rich titles more prominence.
* Allows you to override title and meta tags on your homepage as well as your individual posts.
* Lets you add noindex to your category and/or tag pages to avoid duplicate content.
* And more.

A must-have for serious WordPress SEO.
WordPress SEO Tip #2  Use Pretty Permalinks

Sure, you may already use Pretty Permalinks, but are you using the best possible permalink structure?

For those of who dont use Pretty Permalinks, its a must-do for WordPress SEO. Permalinks, in essence, are the URLs of your WordPress blog posts. Pretty Permalinks put slugs (which should contain keywords  see tip #9) in your URLs instead of the default numbers.

To enable or change them, first login, then go to Options > Permalinks.

The two options you do not want are Default and Numeric. Here are my suggestions for picking a pretty permalink structure:

* Date and Name Based: The problem with this is that your posts are several extra directories deep, which can decrease relevence in some search engines. However, such a permalink structure can nevertheless be desireable if your blog is news-oriented or date-sensitive.
* Post Name Only: If your blog covers one topic that has no subtopics (which, though possible, is unlikely), select Custom and type /%postname%/
* Category Based: If your blog covers multiple topics, implement category-based URLs. (You have to look into the Codex to find information on category-based URLs, so many WordPress users probably dont realize that this option exists!) To implement it, select Custom and type /%category%/%postname%/

WordPress SEO Tip #1  WordPress Secret: Use Category-Based Permalinks for SEO Siloing

Heres the big finale. Problem is, this tip is so important (and lengthy) that it really merits its own post.

Heres a teaser: it entails implementing the powerful siloing technique on your WordPress blog through a combination of plugins, settings, and strategies.
Conclusion

Okay, so it was actually more like 23+ tips instead of 20. I certainly hope you gleaned a useful strategy or two in your quest for WordPress search engine optimization. If you enjoyed this post, please social it, email it, link it, or leave a comment!

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.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a critical component in having a successful website! No matter how great your website looks, if it can’t be found on search engines like Google and Yahoo, then its value weakens. Optimization allows your site to be found through specific keyword phrases (META tags) and can raise your website’s ranking to higher positions on top search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.) and will greatly increase web traffic exposed to your site. All SEO packages, except the Basic SEO, include monthly maintenance. This is important because people’s search phrase patterns change, the search engine firms’ ranking algorithms evolve, plus all of the major search engines take 30 to 90 days to “crawl/spider” your site to check for updates and optimization changes and if your site hasn’t changed between crawls your ranking will fall; therefore it takes some time to see a significant rise in your website’s ranking. We can also work to build inbound links from other relevant but non-competing sites. The search engines are continually changing their search algorithms and changing the rules on what constitutes ‘spamming’. Many cheaper SEO firms use automated submission and optimization techniques, while faster, the major search engines are aware of this and will penalize your site (with low rankings) if these unethical methods are used. We only use Organic SEO techniques, otherwise known as Natural search engine optimization, that guarantee you won’t get penalized while achieving the high search engine ranking your business deserves.Other terms for Search Engine Optimization are:

* SEO
* Organic Search Engine Optimization – Organic SEO
* Natural Search Engine Optimization – Natural SEO
* Search Engine Positioning
* Search Engine Marketing – SEM
* Search Engine Ranking Optimization
* Internet Marketing

Business Basic SEO Package – $355/month
(12 month minimum) The Business Basic search engine optimization package is designed for small businesses who want to develop their presence on the internet and increase the amount of traffic driven to their website. To make your website optimization successful, you
must be ever-mindful of your competition and their marketing efforts. In order to be found on search engines, the need for a well optimized website is paramount. To help you keep track of your competition, we have included a Competition Analysis Report with this package. Giving you a baseline to see how you stand-up against your competition. This package includes ongoing analysis, research, optimization, submissions as well as delivery of a Competition Analysis Report and detailed Search Engine Ranking Reports, to keep your website in a high ranking spot on major search engines.INCLUDES:

* Optimized for up to 10 keyword phrases on up to
20 pages.
* Top 5 Competition Analysis Report
We will send you a complete review of your website as well as a review of your top 5 competitors’ websites. Giving you a baseline to see how you stand-up against your competition.
* One Initial Search Engine Ranking Report, plus
2 bi-annual Reports.
* Analysis of Keyword popularity
* Analysis of link popularity, internal link text & inbound links
* Optimization of web page titles
* Optimization of Meta Keywords & Descriptions
* Optimization of the body text & headlines
* Optimization of Img Alt attributes for all images
* Optimization of the internal link structure
* Hand Submissions to major engines (including Google, Yahoo, MSN)
* Hand Submissions to major directories
* Submission to 40 minor search engines
* Submission to 20 minor directories & special interest directories
* Re-Submissions to keep you at the top
* Re-optimization and tweaking to enhance positions

Business Plus SEO Package – $475/month
(12 month minimum) The Business Plus search engine optimization package is suitable for any website owner or company who wants to significantly develop their presence on the internet, raise their search engine ranking and increase their market share. This package is designed for small to medium sized businesses, and is the smallest plan recommended for e-commerce websites, who would like to increase website traffic, sales and awareness of their brand to a broader audience.
Since this market is larger, the number of competitors you have increases. Therefore, in order to be found on search engines, the need for a well optimized website is paramount. Top 10 Competition Analysis Reports and Quarterly delivery of detailed Search Engine Ranking Reports are included, to continually keep you informed and in a high ranking spot.
With the ever growing number of websites, changes in search engine algorithms and your competitors marketing efforts, you have to continuously update and optimize your site to maintain a high ranking in the top search engines. INCLUDES:
(Items in White text are unique to this package)

* Optimized for up to 20 keyword phrases on up to
40 pages.
* One Initial Report, plus 4 Quarterly Search Engine Ranking Reports
* Top 10 Competition Analysis Report – We will send you a complete review of your website as well as a review of your top 10 competitors’ websites.
* All body copy will be rewritten by an SEO specialist to assure high search engine ranking for key phrases.
* Submission to 60 minor search engines
* Submission to 40 minor & special interest directories
* Creation of a spider friendly site map
* Reciprocal Linking to Increase Link Popularity
* Deep Submission strategy to make sure even the inner pages are indexed
* Hand Submissions to major engines (including Google, Yahoo, MSN)
* Hand Submissions to major directories
* Analysis of Keyword popularity
* Analysis of link popularity, internal link text & inbound links
* Optimization of web page titles
* Optimization of Meta Keywords & Descriptions
* Optimization of the body text & headlines
* Optimization of Img Alt attributes for all images
* Optimization of the internal link structure
* Re-Submissions to keep you at the top
* Re-optimization and tweaking to enhance positions

Business Pro SEO Package – $625/month
(12 month minimum) The Business Pro search engine optimization package is designed for any company who wishes to create and sustain
a strong long term presence on the internet. This package covers every aspect of the search engine optimization campaign essential to the success of your business.
It is designed to work closely with your marketing plan to increase your revenue and market share. This is also the package we suggest for e-Commerce sites in order to drive traffic to their site and increase the bottom line.
This package includes everything in the Business Plus package, PLUS a continuous link building campaign, quarterly Competition Analysis reports, monthly Search Engine Ranking reports to continually keep your site in a high ranking spot. INCLUDES:
(Items in White text are unique to this package)

* Optimized for 35 or more keyword phrases on up to 50 pages.
* One Initial Report, plus 12 Monthly Search Engine Ranking Reports
* Bi-annual Top 10 Competition Analysis Reports -
We will send you a complete review of your website as well as a review of your top 10 competitors’ websites every 3 months. Giving you a expanded view to see how you stand-up against your competition over time.
* Active Link Building Campaign to Increase Link Quality and Popularity
* All body copy & product descriptions will be rewritten by an SEO specialist to assure high page ranking.
* Submission to 75+ minor search engines
* Submission to 60 minor & special interest directories
* Creation of an XML format spider friendly site map
* Deep Submission strategy to make sure even the inner pages are indexed
* Hand Submissions to major engines (including Google, Yahoo, MSN)
* Hand Submissions to major directories
* Analysis of Keyword popularity
* Analysis of link popularity, internal link text & inbound links
* Optimization of web page titles
* Optimization of Meta Keywords & Descriptions
* Optimization of the body text & headlines
* Optimization of Img Alt attributes for all images
* Optimization of the internal link structure
* Re-Submissions to keep you at the top
* Re-optimization and tweaking to enhance positions

Basic SEO Package – $985 one time service The Basic search engine optimization package takes the guess work out of search engine optimization and is suitable for a website owner familiar with SEO techniques who can perform SEO maintenance on their own, therefore does not include monthly maintenance. INCLUDES:

* Optimized for up to 10 keyword phrases on up to 10 pages
* Initial Search Engine Ranking Report (additional reports available)
* Analysis of Keyword popularity
* Analysis of link popularity, internal link text & inbound links
* Optimization of web page titles
* Optimization of Meta Keywords & Descriptions
* Optimization of the body text & headlines of pages
* Optimization of Img Alt attributes for main images
* Hand Submissions to major engines (including Google, Yahoo, MSN)
* Hand Submissions to major directories
* Submission to 10 minor search engines

PersonalGeneticTest.com

Ancestry DNA Testing

Your pre-historical ancestry is buried in your DNA.

Leading anthropologists have turned to DNA because they can learn about the past by studying the present in DNA from people around the world. Now you can order the same DNA tests that have revolutionized the study of human history and embark on your own personal expedition of genetic discovery.

Individualized Testing Reports

Scientists study populations of people. The reports that come with your DNA tests explain what the results mean to you as an individual. What’s more important, they’re written in language you can understand. Our Common Male Ancestor Test and Common Female Ancestor Test include a summary of what scientists have learned about the geographical origin and age of your maternal and paternal lines based on your DNA test results. Our Ethnicity DNA Test provides a global overview of your genetic makeup telling you what percentage of your DNA is shared with Africans, Europeans, Asians and Native Americans. If the Ethnicity DNA testing shows that you have enough European ancestry to proceed, our European Ethnicity DNA Test will further breakdown your European heritage into Northern European, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and South Asian. Our Native American verification testing can confirm if you are of Native American descent.

Complete, Customized Testing Services

The complete battery of tests available let you pick and choose to customize your own personal genetic “dig.”

Here are some of the things you can find out by DNA testing.

• Africans Were your ancestors from the Forest Dwellers (pygmies) or !Kung, the oldest existing human populations at more than 100,000 years? Or were they part of the Bantu expansion out of Central Africa? Markers largely confined to specific tribes, such as the Ibo, early merchants and travelers, may be discovered.

• Europeans Do you have ancestors from the original hunter-gatherers of Europe or were they among the farmers who migrated from the Middle East? All Europeans are descended from seven maternal clans as outlined in The Seven Daughters of Eve by DNA researcher Brian Sykes. Which are you from? Do you have markers that are largely confined to specific areas of Europe, such as Sardinia or the Basque region?

• Native Americans Four clans dominate the ancestry of Native Americans and each is associated with specific language groups and are thought to be evidence for the different waves of migration that originally populated the new world. Possession of one of these markers is some of the best genetic evidence available for demonstrating Native American Ancestry.

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  Genealogists Do you have a common last name such as Smith and are trying to track down other Smith’s that descend from the same male ancestor? Do you think you have found a removed cousin and want to confirm that you have the same great-great-great-great grandmother?

bostonautism.com Genetics, genomics, bioinformatics and neuroscience join forces – Children’s Hospital Boston has begun enrolling patients as part of an ambitious new multidisciplinary study of autism that will attempt to pin down its genetic and biochemical causes. Results could be available in a year or two, and could yield a greater biological understanding of autistic spectrum disorders, better diagnostic and prognostic techniques, and potential medical treatments.

More than 90 percent of autism cases are believed to have a genetic component, and multiple genes are believed to be involved. But although much research has been done and many candidate genes identified, none have been clearly implicated. The Children’s study, partially funded by the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation, will bring together researchers in genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, and developmental medicine to try to solve the puzzle.

Autism is a complex behavioral syndrome defined by developmental deficits, particularly communication deficits, impaired social interaction and repetitive behaviors. Affecting about one in 1,000 people, it is now thought of as a spectrum of disorders including autism, Asperger’s syndrome and pervasive developmental disorder. There is no specific medical treatment, although behavioral interventions help children on the autistic spectrum live fuller, more functional lives.

The Children’s researchers plan to enroll 100 to 150 children age 2 years and older per year, along with their parents and affected siblings. They also will enroll 150 unaffected children to serve as controls. The study has several components:

– The Children’s Developmental Medicine Center will first conduct detailed behavioral evaluations of the children and their families, led by Drs. Janice Ware and Leonard Rappaport. Subjects will be assessed for autistic spectrum disorders and carefully classified according to rigorous clinical research criteria. The goal is to develop behavioral profiles that can be correlated with genetic data. Children and their parents will then give saliva samples for DNA analysis and blood samples for RNA gene expression studies.

– Led by Drs. Ingrid Holm and Louis Kunkel, researchers in the Children’s Program in Genomics will study the DNA samples, performing association studies and linkage studies to look for genetic differences (polymorphisms) that are shared within families and may accompany clinical manifestations of autistic spectrum disorders.

– The Program in Genomics also will perform microarray (“gene-chip”) studies of RNA from white blood cells to examine differences in gene activity, or expression, among autistic children, their parents, and matched control subjects. By looking at 60,000 genes simultaneously and determining which are turned “on” and “off,” the researchers will seek patterns or genetic “signatures” that mark the different autistic spectrum disorders and give clues to their biological causes. The investigators hope to show that gene expression in white blood cells is similar enough to that in brain cells to be a useful surrogate measure, avoiding the need to obtain and test brain tissue.

– The Children’s Hospital Informatics Program (CHIP), led by Dr. Isaac Kohane, will perform computational analyses to help detect subtle genetic patterns, group patients according to their gene-expression profiles, and apply statistical techniques to determine the reliability of the patterns and linkages found and eliminate false-positive findings. As new data become available, CHIP will factor them in to create the strongest possible predictive models for autistic spectrum disorders.

– The Neurobiology Program of Children’s Hospital, led by Dr. Michael Greenberg, will examine the connection between autism, a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and several genes known to regulate BDNF. BDNF regulates many aspects of brain development and function, including formation of synapses. Mutation of one gene that regulates BDNF, called MeCP2, has already been linked to Rett syndrome, which is characterized by mental retardation and autistic behaviors. Further studies of MeCP2 and related genes will explore how they work and how brain-cell activity triggers them. These investigations may uncover other genes and biochemical pathways that underlie autism.

– Children and families enrolled in the Children’s study also will be invited to take part in research at MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Study participants will be tested for their ability to recognize and respond to faces (a critical deficit in autism), the development of specific language skills (also impaired in autism), and gross and fine motor function. Although not a formal part of the study, the data collected by MIT will be fed back into the Children’s study and correlated with the genetic data.