The best Email Marketing Solution !

Okay so maybe I am overstating a bit, but I love it and so do my clients.




We have tried the software to run from the office, and the big ones online (who drop out with our broadband connection!), and these guys & girls have aced it every time. I recommend them 100%

Get ready for Social Media Marketing

The year 2006 saw the emergence of social media. If you are engaged in operating a website, you must realign your site to exploit the popular social media sites for increased traffíc.

You should also introduce social media components to your site because web users are experiencing these new forms of interactions on more and more sites and they may have an expectation of the same from your site also.

If you want to attract repeat visitors and want them to stay longer, your focus this year should be on the social aspects of your site....

Read more at Deepak Dutta's website

Great Book: The Long Tail

In The Long Tail, Chris Anderson offers a visionary look at the future of business and common culture. The long-tail phenomenon, he argues, will "re-shape our understanding of what people actually want to watch" (or read, etc.). While Anderson presents a fascinating idea backed by thoughtful (if repetitive) analysis, many critics questioned just how greatly the niche market will rework our common popular culture. Anderson convinced most reviewers in his discussion of Internet media sales, but his KitchenAid and Lego examples fell flat. A few pointed out that online markets constitute just 10 percent of U.S. retail, and brick-and-mortar stores will never disappear.






Anderson's thesis came under a separate attack by Lee Gomes in his Wall Street Journal column. Anderson had defined the "98 Percent Rule" in his book to mean that no matter how much inventory is made available online, 98 percent of the items will sell at least once. Yet Gomes cited statistics that could indicate that, as the Web and Web services become more mainstream, the 98 Percent Rule may no longer apply: "Ecast [a music-streaming company] told me that now, with a much bigger inventory than when Mr. Anderson spoke to them two years ago, the quarterly no-play rate has risen from 2% to 12%. March data for the 1.1 million songs of Rhapsody, another streamer, shows a 22% no-play rate; another 19% got just one or two plays." If Anderson overreaches in his thesis, he has nonetheless written "one of those business books that, ironically, deserves more than a niche readership"

Meaningful Marketing

The impressively collaborative effort of Dough Hall (CEO of the Ohio-based invention think tank Eureka! Ranch) and Jeffrey Stamp (Vice President of Research & Development, Eureka! Ranch), Meaningful Marketing is a practical, "user friendly", resource book which offers the reader 100 truths and 402 useful ideas to improve marketing, and move more product with less expenditure.





A one hour audio CD complements and enhances the presentation of insightful and useful ideas, as well as caveats to guard against common mistakes and misconceptions. Meaningful Marketing is a superb resource for anyone considering, studying, or employed in the complex business of commercial marketing regardless of the products or services involved.

Google Rankings - Improve Your Search Engine Ranking

Google Rankings - Improve Your Search Engine Ranking:

How Google Ranks Your Web Page

For some time, Google was hands down, the Internet's most important search engine. It now has a lot of competition in the running now with Yahoo's new search engine and with the upcoming MSN search. Regardless, Google is still an important search engine to understand as it has the power to deliver a tremendous amount of traffic to your website.

This article does not strive to provide all the answers to Google rankings. This is not a technical document - it just provides you with practical tips on improving your Google rankings.
What Google Looks at:

Link Popularity: Google's version of this is called PageRank. Very simply put, the idea is that site A votes for site B by placing a link to site B on site A. Despite popular belief, simply exchanging links with a whole bunch of sites isn't necessarily going to increase your PageRank. The Google search engine analyzes the importance of the sites providing the links to your site. Focus on receiving links from sites with good rankings and that are related to your website.

Download the Google Toolbar to check your PageRank and the PageRank of sites you link with: Be weary of linking with sites a PageRank of 0 ~ perhaps, they are new to the Internet, but they may also be a banned site. "

Google Rankings - Improve Your Search Engine Ranking:

Link Exchanges

Make it as easy for people to link to you as possible. Here are a few tips:

1. Create a page where people can get the information about linking to you. In other words, make a "Link to Us" page. Make it easy by providing with them the HTML that they can easily pasted into their web page editor.

2. Make sure your link partner's link page is on their own domain. There are free links managers (ex. Bravenet) that create links pages for users, but they are not on the users' domains. By exchanging with these people, you are actually exchanging links with Bravenet (for example), rather than your link partner. This is not the link you are looking for!

3. When you find suitable link partners, put their link up on your site before contacting them. Write a personal email requesting an exchange. Let them know why you think your exchange is a good one and provide them with the HTML code to put up your link. Don't send a mass email to everyone...it's too impersonal and your message is likely to be ignored.

Links take time to build. THERE IS NO SHORT CUT! I don;t know how many times I have had to tell people this, yet everyone seems to think there is some 'secret method' to get links.

The Importance of Keywords

The Importance of Keywords: "The Importance of Keywords

The basis of all search engine rankings is keywords. Yes, search engines employ all kinds of technology that is beyond the average person's comprehension...but it all comes down to words.

Search engine users enter keyword phrases into a search engine to find the information they need. You need to find yourself on top for those keywords. Do you know which keywords people are entering and how to choose the most appropriate ones for your website?

Whether you are optimizing your website for natural rankings or looking to start a pay-per-click campaign, these articles will help:"

News Aggregators

News Aggregators: "Web-based aggregators

These are sites that aggregate feeds for reading in a browser.

* 24bytesSimple Blog RSS/Atom aggregator
* 24x7 News24x7 Medical News Aggregator
* 24eyesWeb 2.0 RSS aggregator
* AggregatoTag-based RSS/Atom aggregator (R)
* Alesti Feed ReaderWeb 2.0 RSS reader
* AlmondRocksSimple aggregator
* Attensa Onlineis a free AJAX RSS reader that works like a dedicated RSS reader application.
* BeanRocketSocial aggregator (R)
* BlogLinesFolder style aggregator (R)
* Blox0rSimple news aggregator
* ClickBioClickBio Biological News Aggregator
* Chrysanth NETime Channel Online RSS/Atom aggregator and RSS/Atom preview (R)
* Editaste Aggregator, also enables creating feeds comprised of arbitrary items (free)
* FeedBucket RSS/Atom aggregator with River-of-News or individual feeds
* FeedFeeds RSS/Atom aggregator that also features FeedTV
* FeedLounge Commercial aggregator (N)
* FeedReader.net Your personal web XML/RSS news reader
* FeedShow.com RSS feeds reader / includes RSS monetization
* FeedZilla Dutch online RSS aggregator (N)
* FlipSkipper River-of-news style web based aggregator
* Freepress An political-news weblog aggregator with a set list of feeds, grouped by political party

"

Social Media, Social Networking, User-Generated Content, White Label Solutions from Pluck

Social Media, Social Networking, User-Generated Content, White Label Solutions from Pluck:

"Why Social Media? Social media, social networking, Web 2.0, new media"

There are a lot of terms flying around that are hard to make sense of or understand. What do they mean? Should I get involved? How can they help me, or my business?

Social media is the concept of bringing content and information sharing from a passive to an active experience for everyone from a CEO of a fortune 500 company to your next door neighbor. Social Media makes the web, and specifically web content, more interactive and accessible to both the savvy and not-so-savvy Internet users.
User-generated content

Times have changed, and increasingly, the masses are adding their expertise, opinions and interests with others through their own words, photos, video or commentary. This phenomenon can be seen in social mediums, such as blogging, and in the explosive growth of social networking platforms, such as MySpace, Flickr and YouTube as resources of information and enablers of the next generation of monetizable Web technologies.

The world of social media is empowering to users, but also to the traditional mediums of information dissemination: publishers, media sites, portals and major brands. Icons such as the Washington Post, Better Homes & Gardens, USA Today and many others are embracing social media."

Social Media, Social Networking, User-Generated Content, White Label Solutions from Pluck:

Punk Marketing: Get Off Your Ass and Join the Revolution

The marketing revolution is here, so get on the right side of the barricade and become a part of it! Let's thank Mr. and Mrs. Consumer and their little Consumerlings who have seized power from the corporations and are now firmly in control.

In Punk Marketing, Laermer and Simmons take an irreverent, penetrating look at the seismic change in the relationship between the people who sell stuff—products, services, entertainment—and those who purchase it. They demonstrate that to survive in business, a revolutionary approach is needed—one they have branded “Punk Marketing”—and it's one we all need to understand, for the traditional divisions among commerce, content, and consumers are continuing to blur ever more rapidly.

Never dull, sometimes controversial, but always a helluva lot of fun, Punk Marketing presents a manifesto for any businessperson needing to engage consumers—or any consumer seeking to understand and employ their newfound power. And here's the good news: It's based on principles that have existed forever. In an age of digital video recorders, “branded” entertainment, cell-phone TV, multiplayer online games, and never-ending social networking, a coherent approach to marketing has never been more vital. With Punk Marketing, there's a built-in plan to equip you with tools to make all this change work out just fine, thanks.

Punk Marketing is the first shot—soon to be heard 'round the world—of a long-awaited and breathless uprising that businesses want, deserve, and desperately need.