IXI http://blog.ixi.com.au IXI website design, development and internet consulting services Wed, 06 Jan 2010 03:16:55 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 en Directory submissions for SEO http://blog.ixi.com.au/2010/01/03/directory-submissions-for-seo/ http://blog.ixi.com.au/2010/01/03/directory-submissions-for-seo/#comments Sun, 03 Jan 2010 02:10:07 +0000 http://blog.ixi.com.au/2010/01/03/directory-submissions-for-seo/ Every day there are more free directories we can submit our websites to be listed in.
Some are better then others, some are more friendly and relevant but they are all fall in the same category - just a directory.
There are a few simple steps that will help you get the most out of these directories:

1 - Free listings with no link to your site (or asking for a reciprocal link) are useless.
2 - Submit to your local directories first
3 - Submit to relevant directories second
4 - Continue submission to directories with different PR
5 - Avoid mass submissions - take your time a few here and there are a lot better than 1000 today and 1000 tomorrow
6 - Vary the keywords in the title for different submissions
7 - Never submit the same description for local and relevant directories.
8 - Refresh the title and description for local and relevant directories at least every 6 months.
9 - Check your listings every 3 months to make sure that they are cached - and if not, discontinue that directory.
10 - Keep looking for new directories.

The 10 step approach will deliver top result for anyone willing to stick with the formula. There is a lot of waste in effort if some of these very simple guides are not followed. Maximizing your time will maximize the return.

]]> http://blog.ixi.com.au/2010/01/03/directory-submissions-for-seo/feed/ Web Academy http://blog.ixi.com.au/2010/01/02/web-academy/ http://blog.ixi.com.au/2010/01/02/web-academy/#comments Fri, 01 Jan 2010 22:58:01 +0000 http://blog.ixi.com.au/2010/01/02/web-academy/ There is a new concept in town - so far all the web talk was technical and for a business owner to get ahead there was very few options. All you could do is learn the techo talk yourself or outsource the whole thing to someone you can trust and loose control. Well, no more! With the launch of the Web Academy a business owner will be able to take back control of their web solution and understand the performance and postion where they are at as well as drive it forward without the need for learning the techno talk and understanding coding techniques.
Still not convinced - how about having independent service providers right next to you displayed to all members. Get the services you need from someone next to you and know that the Web Academy has reviewed and rated their services. Every authorised supplier has also been reviewd and rated by the members and if there are any issues the Web Academy actively gets involved in the resoolution of it from the business owner side.

Web design, development as well as SEO and SEM are only some areas that the Web Academy delivers the information on - let us know what you think and what you would like to see done for your business.

]]> http://blog.ixi.com.au/2010/01/02/web-academy/feed/ Internet in the new year http://blog.ixi.com.au/2010/01/01/internet-in-the-new-year/ http://blog.ixi.com.au/2010/01/01/internet-in-the-new-year/#comments Fri, 01 Jan 2010 11:17:40 +0000 http://blog.ixi.com.au/2010/01/01/internet-in-the-new-year/ What waits for us in the new year online? Are we to experince new trends and approaches to the things we do now? How fast will we have to adopt and change in order to stay infront?
Looking at 2009 in search trends the internet will continue dominating the scene for most of the businesses with increased competition and tougher descision and at the same time slimmer pickings.
We wil be judged not only on normal metrics but on business performance. The next year will be ROI based internet explosion where the businesses will focus more on education and understaning of their marketing spend. The tough economic times have shown us the value of understanding and test and measure approach and this is why most of the businesses will be looking to see how far they can stretch their marketing $.
It is certain that the return from web will continue to outperform all other mediums in 2010 but the profitability of the major campaigns will be lower compared to last year due to increased competition and enhanced reporting requirements.
Get your thinking hats on and start pushing forward starting from yesterday.

Happy new 2010 year.

]]> http://blog.ixi.com.au/2010/01/01/internet-in-the-new-year/feed/ Get paid by search engines for crawling your site. http://blog.ixi.com.au/2009/12/23/get-paid-by-search-engines-for-crawling-your-site/ http://blog.ixi.com.au/2009/12/23/get-paid-by-search-engines-for-crawling-your-site/#comments Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:47:04 +0000 http://blog.ixi.com.au/2009/12/23/get-paid-by-search-engines-for-crawling-your-site/ Twitter has been paid by Google and Microsoft for the privelege of crawling its site. That is a first incidense of such transaction ever recorded. Does this mean that if your content is great and is of interest to the search hungry visitors that you can charge a search engine for it??? Perhaps we are entering a new stage of web evolution where knowledge holders will ask for $ every time you want to find something. If it costs for the search engine to have access to this information (which is free on the actual site) than they need to pass this cost somewhere and the bacis consumer always ends up paying for it. This particular case is very interesting on many levels:
1. Does this mean that tweeter (paid search inclusion) will be classified as premium content and will bypass all the normal hurdles like page rank and backlinks to be rated highly in the search results?
2. Will the websites be able to have the content blocked on their site from “free crawling” and be entered into the search as “premium partners”?
3. What happens to free information online?
4. Will there be exclusive areas where a search engine specializes - social sites, medical, consumer - depending on which content they are purchasing?

There will be a lot of discussions on what this deal means to the whole industry and how it will affect the Search Engine Optimization for the little company. We all will have to keep a close eye on what comes out of this transaction.

]]> http://blog.ixi.com.au/2009/12/23/get-paid-by-search-engines-for-crawling-your-site/feed/ Wizards of Oz tour http://blog.ixi.com.au/2009/12/22/wizards-of-oz-tour/ http://blog.ixi.com.au/2009/12/22/wizards-of-oz-tour/#comments Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:51:26 +0000 http://blog.ixi.com.au/2009/12/22/wizards-of-oz-tour/ Wizards of Oz tour luncheon at Sydney Hilton hotel was a great success. Packed full of useful information on how and what in the world of business and coupled with a great cause - raising funds for Kidney Health Australia this event was heard far and wide. Tons of positive comments from participants is a sure invitation that the information was not just useful but practical and relevant.
“Great motivation to get off the chair and do something positive for the business!”
“What a delivery!!! Give me more anytime!!!”
and a lot more
look out for Wizards of OZ tour near you.

]]> http://blog.ixi.com.au/2009/12/22/wizards-of-oz-tour/feed/ Global Rags http://blog.ixi.com.au/2007/03/01/global-rags/ http://blog.ixi.com.au/2007/03/01/global-rags/#comments Thu, 01 Mar 2007 01:00:02 +0000 http://blog.ixi.com.au/2007/03/01/global-rags/ I have come accross Global Rags recently and being a consumer myself must say that a collection of everything under one roof with great prices is pretty impressive. There are a lot of chains out there and they all have their selling points. My 5 cents is that Global Rags can really be a one stop shop. Check it out - it is well worth the look. A Global rags store got to be somewhere near you. www.globalrags.com

 

 

]]> http://blog.ixi.com.au/2007/03/01/global-rags/feed/ Directory Submission case study http://blog.ixi.com.au/2006/11/28/directory-submission-case-study/ http://blog.ixi.com.au/2006/11/28/directory-submission-case-study/#comments Tue, 28 Nov 2006 10:39:15 +0000 http://blog.ixi.com.au/2006/11/28/directory-submission-case-study/ Directory Submission case study

 

Chapter 1 – Submission

 

There has been a lot of talk as to what is the best and the most effective promotional service for a website. We are here to experiment and report every bit of the information on what is happening and what effects are felt by a simple “free directory registrations” approach.

 

There are a couple of tasks that need to be completed before the submission process:

 

1.                  Write an effective title. Start with the primary keyword and finish with the company name. “Web design and development by WSI”

2.                  Write an effective description. Start with the primary keyword and expand the service definitions. “Web design and development by WSI. Internet Consulting and optimization services. Our Internet Consultants can provide you with an affordable solution to meet your small or medium size business needs.”

3.                  Keywords, Keywords, Keywords. “Internet Consulting, consultant, web design, web development, internet, website, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, SEO, SEM, webpage design, database design, webmaster tools, information”

 

On top of the actual analysis you must come up with a good directory list. It is not good to have paid, reciprocal or “no follow” submissions as they will not produce good affordable results. We are submitting into 100 directories that we have found to have good Google page rank and there are no “no follow” tags on most of the directories we are using.

 

It is important to understand that these directories are human edited and sometimes it takes a lot of time for the approval process to complete. Be patient and keep checking the results.

 

We have picked up http://www.wsiadvantagenet.com.au as the case study and have submitted the site to 100 directories for inclusion.

 

The site currently is Google page rank 1 and the following information has been obtained about the links to the site:

 
Engine Current Min Max Avg
www.wsiadvantagenet.com.au
Google/ AOL/ HotBot 14  14  14  14 
MSN 17  10  17  14 
Yahoo!/ FAST/ AltaVista 52  52  64  58 
Total/ Current 83  74  83  78 
Click on the links above to view trending for each engine.

 

Google results:

 

CLIENT SHOWCASE : CASE STUDIES

HOME |. OUR COMPANY |. CLIENT SHOWCASE |. Testimonials |. Case Studies |. Our Websites |. ABOUT US |. WHAT’S NEW |. OUR APPROACH |. OUR PRODUCTS | …
www.wsiadvantagenet.com.au/CaseStudies.asp?PId=15410 - 11k - Cached - Similar pages -

Online Survey Systems

Our Online Survey Systems have several unique benefits over traditional market research methods. View our online demo of our.
www.wsiadvantagenet.com.au/WebsiteSurvey.asp?PId=15405 - 13k - Cached - Similar pages -

WSI Video Email - WSI Internet Consultants simplify the Internet …

Welcome to the WSI Internet Consulting & Education website. Our Internet Consultants can provide an affordable Internet Solution to meet your small or …
www.wsiadvantagenet.com.au/VideoEmail.asp?PId=40591 - 14k - Cached - Similar pages -

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques are quite complex. Your WSI Internet Consultant can offer SEO Services as part of your new Internet Solution.
www.wsiadvantagenet.com.au/SearchEngineOptimization.asp?PId=15402 - 13k - Cached - Similar pages -

The S&S Solution

The S&S Solution. … What is the S&S Solution. Avant Solutions is pleased to introduce an Innovative Corporate Super Service for Advisers. …
www.avantsolutions.com.au/index.asp?pgid=3 - 34k - Cached - Similar pages -

About Us

About Us. … Who is Avant Solutions? Avant Solutions was established in March 2006 to launch a product that allows every member in a corporate super fund …
www.avantsolutions.com.au/index.asp?pgid=2 - 16k - Cached - Similar pages -

 

 

As we can see there is not much going on here, the intention of this exercise is to find out the benefits that the site will receive by being listed in 100 good rated directories

]]> http://blog.ixi.com.au/2006/11/28/directory-submission-case-study/feed/ Yahoo Search Engine Marketing changes. http://blog.ixi.com.au/2006/10/27/yahoo-search-engine-marketing-changes/ http://blog.ixi.com.au/2006/10/27/yahoo-search-engine-marketing-changes/#comments Thu, 26 Oct 2006 23:31:10 +0000 http://blog.ixi.com.au/2006/10/27/yahoo-search-engine-marketing-changes/ Yahoo search engine marketing is back on the map. It has been lacking a lot of services and loosing heavily to Google on a lot of fronts in terms of performance, flexibility, usability and content. Most of the professional SEM firms have dumped Yahoo for all of the above reasons and now is the time to look at it again. Below is the comparison table from Yahoo Search Engine Marketing release outlining the new functionality in the Ad centre:

 

Current Sponsored Search New Sponsored Search Benefit to You
Account Dashboard A high-level overview of your account’s key metrics A performance overview, complete with graphs and a customized “watch” list of your “top” campaigns Easier management, and better visibility and control over your campaigns
Ad Activation 3 to 5 business days Online within minutes1 No waiting for your ads to go live in search results
Ad Testing Not available Test your advertising messages and improve the quality of your ads You can easily determine which messages perform best with your audience
Geo-Targeting (target by location) Keywords and listings require specific location name. Local Sponsored Search available as separate account Narrow your distribution to cities and surrounding areas;2 test new markets Allows you to target your ads to the right geographic audience, which can help improve your return-on-investment (ROI)
Campaign Scheduling Not available Manage your campaigns with the ability to schedule them by date Control the start and end dates of your campaigns for more efficient spending
Ad Groups (new account structure) One-to-one relationship between keyword and creative (title and description) Keywords in ad groups can be served with multiple ads Saves you time setting up and monitoring your campaign
Content Match Ads are matched to content pages based on keywords Contextual relevancy is determined by your ad text and landing page text Improved relevancy for contextual ads that can result in more targeted traffic for you
Insert Keyword Feature Keywords must be manually written into titles and descriptions Keywords can be automatically inserted into titles and descriptions. Save time and focus on creating highly relevant ads
Reporting Pre-defined reports Customizable reports that fit your needs Get more of the information that really matters to you

1 Assumes no sensitive content is contained in the submitted ad campaign.
2 Please note that geo-targeting accuracy is not guaranteed and may vary depending on the level of targeting selected, as well as other factors.
 

We are back on track with all of the items that Google has in their package and more. Depending on the industry it is a lot more effective to advertise in specific search engines more than in others. This depends on a lot of factors and mostly the experience helps to identify the best way forward. It is great the Yahoo has introduced these new features now as it has become increasingly difficult to convince clients to allocate a part of their advertising budget to Yahoo Search Marketing.

]]> http://blog.ixi.com.au/2006/10/27/yahoo-search-engine-marketing-changes/feed/ Web Design challenge - Form spamming. http://blog.ixi.com.au/2006/10/22/web-design-challenge-form-spamming/ http://blog.ixi.com.au/2006/10/22/web-design-challenge-form-spamming/#comments Sun, 22 Oct 2006 02:57:26 +0000 http://blog.ixi.com.au/2006/10/22/web-design-challenge-form-spamming/ Latest spamming technique involves using the standard forms on the site to send unsolicited messages to the owners of the site. Instead of sending spam email – illegal practice – spammers now are beginning to fill in the forms with inappropriate content and submitting it to the site owners.
Web Design has now a dilemma to work with:
1. Make sure that the forms cannot be auto filled in by adding the visual verification code to them
2. Deter prospects and customers by adding visual verification code to forms.

No one was ready to this new angle in spam distribution. Since it is not affecting large populations it is unlikely to be banned and with billions of websites it is likely to spread fast and wide. These distributions rely on ability of the form to be populated by a computer program and automatically submitted. The only sure way of combating this behavior from the design point of view is to block the submission of the form with a visual confirmation. The form still can be populated by software, but the verification ode must be entered by a person. This will not stop the spammers but will severely limit their ability to have a wide distribution.

Please comment on this issue and add your opinion on how it will impact yourself and your customers while submitting standard contact us forms.

]]> http://blog.ixi.com.au/2006/10/22/web-design-challenge-form-spamming/feed/ Welcome to IXI web logs http://blog.ixi.com.au/2006/10/03/welcome-to-ixi-web-logs/ http://blog.ixi.com.au/2006/10/03/welcome-to-ixi-web-logs/#comments Tue, 03 Oct 2006 12:09:47 +0000 http://blog.ixi.com.au/2006/10/03/welcome-to-ixi-web-logs/ We are proud to share our expertise with the rest of the world.
You will find here information on just about everything that is related to the internet sites and technologies.
Please do not forget to come here often to see what we have to say about new developments on the internet.
Best Regards,
Val Saidor
Managing Director
IXI Pty Ltd
www.ixi.com.au

 

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