Saturday, February 16, 2008

What is the Google Dance? Must know for SEO and SEO Tools

What is the Google Dance? It’s nothing more than the different clusters of servers that provide search results. It’s very important to your SEO, as your search rankings very day to day. And, if you have a powerful SEO tools, or use a free seo tools like ours you can check it easily. I am writing about this, as on this Saturday, I am not seeing the main Google server updates with big changes. Google’s 2nd cluster seems to be off, and lately on Friday’s I see Google’s 2nd server cluster go in to effect, while the main servers go do their database updates. On Saturdays, you see the big updates, or a glimpse of it. We see the major updates show up on Wednesday mornings too.linkmintseotoolsphoto-blog.png

A little bit of surprising thing happened to me today, I found out that our SEO tools at LinkMint.com are ranked #37 for keywords “SEO Tools” and #52 for “Free SEO tools“. We have not been focused on them at all, as our developers who worked on them are not on our team any more, and there is broken feature. We left the links to the site, and I blame my self for not even using it. Our keyword searches are based on Yahoo’s search tool, which I don’t like either. If it used Google’s I would love it. But, I still find it to be one of the best SEO Tools on the market, the best thing about it is the fact that it’s a Free SEO Tool. I just used our Google Dance feature, to check all of our rankings on Google for all of our keywords. It was more accurate than the SEOBook - free SEO Tools, meaning it was more accurate. Sorry, Aaron Wall I was very disappointed this week, when I wanted to use your SEO tools and I could not find our sites in it. We were clearly in Google for search results. Accuracy in ranking results is key for any SEO Tools, I don’t care if it’s Free SEO Tools, they need to be accurate. We still support Aaron Wall’s SEObook as probably the best SEO book on the market. We have not been SEOing the LinkMint.com site either, not for months any way. So natural links do work, but I am sure the links from this page won’t hurt:-).

Our SEO Tools do have issues, they are not 100% accurate, but closer than most, but most importantly, it’s an immediate results are from Google. We will improve on them some day. But we are ranked #1 for Wordpress SEO for this Blog Templates site, so we keep this going too. Our Free SEO Tools business model did not make much sense, we don’t think people pay for SEO Tools, maybe they do, but we see so many free SEO Tools, why bother to charge right? We do need to make money for our online businesses, but we never really wanted to be a SEO Tools vendor. We might rethink this strategy, but for now we are focused on our b2b marketplace, and online marketplace in concert with our Barter company ITEX. By the way, we have been SEOing their website for the keywords of Barter and Bartering and we got them in the top 10 in Google within 30 days. I guess we are good at SEO, even though we never really wanted to be a SEO tools provider or SEO consultants.

As far as my Online Marketplace blog of yesterday, Some of you know that I am not a fan of the Amazon Web Store tool, I do want to say that I do know a lot of people there, and I do support the company. I use to love the company, It’s just that last fall, I had some bad experiences, and too many disappointments with them. I don’t want to rip on a company, and I think if there are bad experiences I had, I do want to share with people about alternatives. I think it’s best to provide positive solutions. So I want to say to all of my friends who work at Amazon I do like you, but I think people should have their online businesses on Yahoo, eBay or our online marketplace when it’s fully launched at MyTypes.com/marketplace.

I do ask that some of you please check out our SEO tools, they are one of the best free seo tools on the market, and it’s an easy signup, with just your email. Would any of you pay for any SEO Tools? If yes, how much, only a monthly basis? If we get enough of a response, we might work on making them better and help provide you all 24 features. They really are worth while and good for SEO consultants too!

Thursday, February 14, 2008

SEO is #4 for Top Technologies for Small Businesses

Before we start telling you about these top 5 technologies, I want to make it clear these are my opinion, and not based on research institute of small business administration or the US Chamber of commerce. Last week I read the state of the small business report from the US Chamber published recently, and it was too long and not helpful. I think small businesses like all businesses have similar challenges 346602_shopping_cart_photo-blog.jpgof efficiency, lack of financial resources, lack of people resources and lack of time. If technology could help them, they would love to use it, but if it’s not easy to use, they will not! We think every one should use technology to help them, not just online businesses.

They are not usually very tech savvy, and don’t have huge corporate arms training them on the latest version of Powerpoint, word or the sales force automation tools. If you don’t know this, 715774_exploring_from_sxc_b2b-photo-blog.jpglarge corporations spend billions of dollars a year training their employees on technology tools. In my professional opinion small businesses have a major disadvantage here. I use to work for Gartner Group’s learning division where I have 2 years of experience in the online business and corporate technology training area with large and small organizations. Bottom line is that today, small businesses can compete with large companies because of simple technology initiatives and tools available. You no longer need to work for a large company to have similar online tools, or be an online business. Look at Google, they just announced a suite of applications for small businesses, read the Boston Herald articled linked at the end of this blog. But here are the top 5 technology tools all small businesses should utilize to grow, why not use the advantages that online businesses use?815597_comprando_photo-blog.jpg

1. Mobile email device, such as a blackberry is a must. You shouldn’t have to go back to your computer and go check email, you should be busy spending time with your customers, employees, and suppliers. Do not check email back at the computer, and waste your time. Instead Save time, by using a blackberry or something similar, check email and send email from any where any time. I am a blackberry user of over 7 years now, there is nothing better, yes I have tried Plam and Treo products. It’s important to remember, You don’t have to check your email all the time, or respond to all of your emails all at once. Have some self control folks! You should be out and about doing your business, and check it when you have a moment. Do not set it to buzz every time you get an email. Control your time, save time, and be connected, not be a mess. There is no better tool for small businesses or actually any online business or not, than a mobile email via blackberry. 863240_shopping_bags_online_business_photo-blog.jpg
2. Having a business blog is a must! And you should be using a free business blogging system such as Blogger.com, Wordpress.com or MyTypes.com, as those blogs get indexed by Google every day. What does that mean, and Why you say? This whole website and company is based on blogging, and we wanted to develop a business blogging platform that had built in SEO for you. Blogs are the #1 way to promote your businesses on line, because search engines such as Google consider them news, you need to blog about your specific products and services and generally what is going on about your businesses regularly. 912245_queen_of_shopping_photo-blog.jpg

3. You need a website ( or blog site ) with a custom Domain, that has your professional representation with a custom design for you. First thing we recommend is that if you have the money, you hire a custom html web designer and have it done. Next best thing is for you to find a industry based solution, one with templates already built in for you. For example in the real estate or mortgage industry there are specific solutions, and there is so much specific content and application tools, that one really has to consider those solutions first. Next for a blogsite, in addition to your website or within your URL. For example: blog.MyWebsite.com, Great place to start is Wordpress.com or Wordpress.org. Ask your tech person for help, if they don’t know about these tools, have them take a look for find another tech person.

To find a tech person, If your needs are custom and complex you may want to look at Joomla.org or Drupal.org to find a great solution. These systems have thousands of programmers that know them very well, and they are totally free to use, you don’t have to pay in licensing fees at all, or give them your code. Chances are you are not very technical, so go to one of those communities websites and hire a programmer for about $2k or less you should get a full Joomla or drupal based site custom designed for you. All of the tools such as blogs, templates, shopping cart, and online business needs should be there for you. Best of all they are free, this new wave of Open Source technologies really is changing the world. 914374_buying_a_book_photo-blog.jpg

4. Learn about SEO (which stands for Search Engine Optimization), Online business marketing. It’s not just about mail marketing with news letters, SEO, blogs and Google Adwords based Search Engine Marketing are key to help you target key customers. Again there are many great resources on the web, including our SEO blogs and main blogging and SEO blogs coaching areas from the front page of our website at MyTypes.com.

5. Join an online businesses community such as a Barter system at ITEX.com. Why should small businesses join any online business communities, especially active one’s like Barter networks? No man is an island, neither is a women, or are any businesses. We all need each other to succeed, businesses need customers, suppliers, employees, not just owners:-). There are number of challenges and situations that you may want to get advice on. The chances are there are owners of businesses out there that have dealt with those issues, and often times they want to help you. You may have some advice that may help them, this is what online businesses communities do in an efficient time saving way. Barter services company like ITEX also have an online marketplace, such as eBay. eBay has been immensely popular due to it’s online business community of checks and balances of buyers and sellers. It almost forces you to have references, and that gives businesses credibility, and makes them more successful. woman_photo-blog_525119_shopping_1.jpg

Bonus technology advice, you probably use Quick books to manage your books via your accountant already. If not, you should have a book keeper accountant do that, but you should use the online version of QuickBooks, not just the desktop. This way, your accountant can work remotely, yes you can just mail them your receipts, save time, save hassle!

Technology usage to grow your small businesses is not just about being efficient, it’s about saving you time so that you can spend it with your clients, employees, friends and family. Remember relationships are usually the most important things in life, especially the friends and family kind. If you treat your customers and employees like family, which most successful businesses do, you will succeed. And, our technology advice above is catered to help you do just that. Yes you can!

Here is Google’s free applications article promised earlier:

Google releases new online software for businesses in latest swipe at Microsoft - BostonHerald.com