If you, as I do, operate an enterprise online, you know that one of the things many people obsess about is keyword rankings in the search engines. Since it is virtually impossible to be noticed without being visible in the search engines, a whole science has emerged with respect to getting sites ranked for certain keywords. For example, if your site is about movers, ideally you’ll want to rank number one in Google whenever someone’s searches include the word “mover” in context.
The problem is that there are only ten listings on the first page by default (you can change this to some greater number but the vast majority of people casually searching for stuff on the Internet do not) and there are oftentimes millions of search results. In addition, we all know that there are more than one keyword to which any one product relates. People might search for “movers” as well as “New York movers,” “NYC movers,” “New York moving companies,” and so on. In order to engage in proper monitoring of these long-tail keywords, you need the right tools to check your keyword rankings from time to time.
While there are a number of free tools available to help you check your site’s keyword rankings, I recently came across two tools from a company (Caphyon) that have become invaluable to me to help in both monitoring my website ranking as well as managing my link popularity (a necessary process to move up the rankings for virtually all your most important keywords). [click to continue…]
In this tough economy, how many of us have considered turning to the web as a source of work? If you have the skillset of a professional but can’t find work in the traditional markets, why not consider leveraging some of your skills you’ve acquired over the years as a provider on Elance? And, if you are really ambitious but don’t have the skills, why not learn a skill and make money while you do it?
I know how to ace interview questions like the back of my hand and can whip out a snappy “Knock ‘Em Dead” resume in about 3 hours. I see some of those services being offered up for $300 or more. And it doesn’t take much for me to pick up a business proposals book from Barnes and Noble and offer up my services writing proposals as well after a little brushing up on the basics.
We all spend time on our blogs, why not also spend some time being paid to provide writing services for others? It might be even more lucrative than earning a few dollars on Adsense while blogging…
I just wanted to point a link to Tom and Kerrie Everett in Vancouver, Canada. They’re real estate agents in the Vancouver market and started doing short, simple and fun videos on their real estate website. Over the course of less than 6 months, they’ve grown their business and audience by setting themselves apart from their competition with these short videos.
What is so great is that you’ll notice they’ve been featured by two television stations - one national (CTV) and one local (City TV) and have only done 11 episodes! Also note that, while not really professionally produced, the videos are fun and informative.
Here is the takeaway:
you can do videos easily with a digital camera
you don’t need to make them fancy
you do have to post regularly
make them fun and short and you will probably be surprised at the results!
OH, Kendra Todd (of Apprentice fame) is in one!!
More videos over at ThinkTom.com. By the way, I went to grad school with Kerrie.
I’ve found that, on Twitter, I’ve been befriended by people who claim to be either well-known (like Barack Obama) or people I know. Problem is, they are fake profiles. Even the Dalai Lama had his profile faked. Often, the only thing that’s changed is the addition of an underscore or a middle initial.
Two reasons why this is a problem:
1) They may phish me at some point by responding to my Tweets, for example, and then asking for info I would only provide to people I trust.
2) They may be legitimized by being followers or being followed by others not wise to their scheming. So, when someone else sees that these scammers are friends with someone they know, that third person may be fooled into befriending the scammer.
This whole development reminds me of the AOL chatrooms and instant message clients from the last century where random scammers would overrun the services and try to defraud you. It drove me, and perhaps others, into services that were more secure.
Twitter needs to nip this in the bud before it gets out of control.
At the University of Utah, Prof. Juliana Freire is working on DeepPeep, an ambitious effort to index every public database. Now, check out the screen–Mac OS X 30 inches * 6 across * 4 down = 720 square inches and 98,304,000 pixels of resolution.
Hello. I'm Philip. I live in New York City and am the guy behind a small website called CityMove that's been featured in The New York Times, Time Out New York, Frommer's New York City for Free and Dirt Cheap, among other places. I have also written a Google Knol about what to look for when choosing movers.
