Month: April 2008

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PPC Yahoo Google Test

I read this in the Washington Post this morning; that Yahoo, in a three week test, will be showing Google AdWords ads in about 3% of their searches. This is big news, but is it good news or bad news?

I have to say I think that it is bad news. Google owns such as large portion of the search engine marketing market that to expand their holdings onto Yahoo, which really had a good new program, means to the average business that you will simply pay more per click.

Competition is good in a marketplace; offers alternatives, typically keeps prices lower, and keep competitors sharper as they work to garner market support. Moving AdWords onto the Yahoo platform can only mean that you as an advertiser will now pay more money for Yahoo clicks.

Yahoo had an excellent pay per click product and different search demographics which gave advertisers real differences and an alternative to AdWords. Now, when you advertise on Yahoo, you get Yahoo AdWords! I do say this tongue in cheek now, because remember this is a limited test, and it is not a done deal, but it does not bode well for people who are currently advertising on Yahoo.

What it does appear to me however is that with Yahoo and Google cozying up, a merger there may be in order creating GoogleY! Wouldn’t that just smack Microsoft in the face? First Microsoft bids too low to move their advertising onto AOL – which really killed their fledgling pay per click program several years ago and now they are letting Yahoo slip through their fingers. A better plan would be to up the ante for Yahoo and then become a real contender to Google searches and advertising.

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New Pricing For Blog Set Up

We want everyone to try out a blog and in an effort to help you get online with a blog, we have adjusted our pricing for blog set up. For now, you can get WordPress, Blogger, or
Blogspot set up for $150 on your hosted server.

WordPress and Blogger are open source applications meaning that they cost nothing to use, but many clients find the set up and configuration intimidating. Here is our value to you, we know what settings are best, we understand how to implement the programs and what extras to recommend to you that are best.

If you have been holding off starting your blog up, now is a good time to consider our new program for blog set up which even includes 15 minutes of online blog training.

If blogging on your new blog becomes tedious, yet you want the benefits, consider our blog writing services to keep your blog fresh and up to date with interesting content.

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See Your Site Like a Search Engine Spider

When you want to check out what you’ve done on your web page to see if it is search engine friendly, you can use this smart online tool to take a peak.

Why is this tool valuable, if you are using scripts, Ajax, spry, layers, or grids in the implementation of your website, sometimes you need to know can a search engine see the content of what I am doing? This online tools shows you what a search engine will see.

If you didn’t think that keyword density was important on your page, run your own page in the tool and you will see that all you see is text, text from your text-based navigation, text from your content, and your meta tags. You won’t see JavaScripted items, but you will see the text included from the links.

One thing that I found today that I will be correcting is that I do not have a space at the end of my navigation links and so when the spider sees my site, the see words run together instead of separate words in some cases. Wow, very valuable especially when the words are top keyword which are important for the spider to see and help with your organic position.

Run your own site through and see what you see. Remember to enter your URL in the syntax with the http:// in front of it. Enjoy!

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Spidey Glasses to See Your Site With

Now you can put on spidey glasses and see just what the search engine spiders see when they look at your web page with this online tool.

This tool is valuable as you will be able to see if the code you have in a show-hide layer is visible, if you have the spacing set up properly in your navigation, and what a spider sees right when they hit your page. If you did not think that keyword density was important, you will after you review your results.

All a spider sees is text! Now here’s the test, what does the spider see on a Flash site? Nothing! Enter in http://www.katybar.com in the tool. Then visit the site, you will see that all the spider has indexed is the text that has been added below the Flash image.