Archive for ◊ August, 2009 ◊

I’ll be the first to admit that my writing style is …. I’ll say “unrefined.” I may not be as good as Twain, but as long I’m better than Bodine, I think I’m doing OK. I’ve recently discovered a great checklist that should improve my writing and make it easier for all of you to comprehend just what it is I’m trying to say. I’ll putting this process to use from here out. Well, that’s the plan anyway.
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Link Building

Getting other site owners to link to your Web site is one of the best ways to improve your search rankings.  Researching the best places to get links, and convincing the site owners to add them can be a time-intensive task.  While I don’t suggest you take link building to the extreme, I cannot stress strongly enough its importance.   For your time and efforts to be properly rewarded, you need for the links to be created in the most beneficial way possible. more…

. . . and bloggers are liars and cheats. That’s what the U.S. Government seems to think anyway.

The U.S. Government has started rattling its sword at bloggers, saying it thinks bloggers should disclose when they have been paid (or given a free product) for a review.

The FTC guidelines concerning endorsements and testimonials already contain this text: “endorsements must reflect the honest opinions or experience of the endorser, and may not convey any representation that would be deceptive if made directly by the advertiser.”  In other words, anyone that does an endorsement must tell the truth.  If we, as bloggers, choose to endorse a product or service, we are already bound by this guideline. Why must we also tell people it’s a paid (or traded) endorsement?  Why the second rule?  Is the Government foolish enough to think that a blogger who is already breaking the honesty rule will think twice about breaking the notification rule?
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I’ve had my iPhone for about six months, and I’m always amazed by the wide range of apps available for it.  From the flat-out silly, like “fart machine” to those much more useful like Tweetie and Fandango.  It seems that no matter what your interest is, there’s an app for that.

I spent some time recently scouring the app store looking for tools that might be useful for those who want their sites to rank better on the search engines, for people interested in buying domain names, reviewing web statistics or monitoring the health of their web servers. more…

You need professional help

Selecting professional help of any type for your business can be a complicated and often difficult task.  But when you add back-biting and in-fighting among the possible candidates the task becomes nearly impossible.

Some disagreement about the best way any job should be done can always be expected within any professional community, but lately the members of the SEO community seem determined to undermine and discredit one another.  Some even going so far as to say the entire industry is a boondoggle, except of course for what they say is the right way to do it (of course). more…