How to Sync Your IE Favorites between Computers with SkyDrive Using Vista

Live Mesh from Microsoft is going away in February. I have used this service from Microsoft to sync my IE favorites between four or five computers which I really love. With Microsoft dropping Live Mesh in favor of the new SkyDrive, I just had to find a new alternative way to sync my favorites between my myriad computers and screens.

This excellent video will show you how to set up this action to sync IE favorites using the new SkyDrive from Microsoft.

Here’s a special tip for Vista users:

These instructions work great for Windows 7 and 8 systems, but do not work for Vista. I have, however, found a work around for Vista users. If you follow the video instructions and are using Vista, when you try to open favorites in Internet Explorer, you will get an error saying that the favorites/favorites folder is missing and your favorites will not show.

To solve this problem, open your SkyDrive folder for your favorites and copy all the files. Then create a new folder called favorites inside of the favorites folder and then paste inside all the favorites you have just copied. I know this seems redundant, but it works. Now open IE on a Vista machine and you can now see all your favorites in Internet Explorer.

If you are syncing to a Windows 7 and Vista machine and you are saving a favorite, you will see that you have the option to save your bookmark now in two locations  the plain favorites folder and the favorites/favorites folder. Save your same URL in both and this way you can see your new bookmark on Vista and Windows 7 and 8.

Want a Vanity URL for Google+ Now? Here’s How to Get One

Although Google+ is getting ready to create vanity URLs they don’t have them available for everyone right now. So GPlus.to has created a way for you to use their third party app to create a short easy to share URL for your Google+ profile page.

It’s simple go to GPlus.to and set up an account, enter in your Google+ long URL and create a simple short vanity URL.

Here’s a short video that give you the steps if you want to watch. Just remember that if GPlus.to goes away in the future that your marketing and branding efforts are for naught, but this does make your URL way more sharable.

Using Google+ Posts for Improved Web Visibility

Get going with Google+ for your business.
Get going with Google+ for your business.

Here are just a few tricks to help with web visibility when it comes to using Google+. First, it is important to know that your posts will appear in the Google.com search index. Your first line will actually appear as the title in the search results, so make sure that you consider what you’ll write first and make it work to your advantage.I’ve found more often than naught that my personal profile posts will be in the search results more frequently than my business page posts. Remember also that there is no limit on the number of links that you can add to a post, but I recommend not going link crazy. You’ll want something readable yet memorable while still being sharable for your update.

I’ve found that the Google+ community is more visual than text oriented and so make sure to use images, links — as Google will auto add the image for you, and videos.

While you are thinking of how you can leverage Google+ to your advantage, don’t forget to optimize your About page. You can embed links into your profile information so make sure to point back to important pages for more information on your website.

Google does not allow automation or scheduling of any kind to personal profiles. They do however allow automation to business pages. This unique difference assures that the voice on your Google+ personal profile is real. This authenticity is one of the reasons that I personally like Google+ but find it problematic for client’s to embrace for their own business’ web visibility. For now we don’t offer Google+ status update writing to personal pages, but do provide services posting to business profiles.

Matt Cutts States ECommerce As We Know It Is Dead

This video from Google’s Lead Web Spam Engineer, Matt Cutts, literally quashes ecommerce as we know it. Make sure you watch this video which states Google’s view of ecommerce sites and be prepared to give up trying to get organic placement for ecommerce enterprises that are reselling products.

Watching this video from Matt Cutts is incredibly concerning and illustrates a HUGE change from Google in regards to how stores can and will be placing and thus selling on Google.com.

Here’s the hard truth from the video:

1. If you are not selling your own unique products, but rather selling someone else’s products as an affiliate or reseller, you must have unique product content on your pages and invest in differentiating yourself from other competing sites as Google will no longer allow you organic placement on Google.com. Matt Cutts clearly states the harsh reality in this video – as an issue for Google in regards to search quality.

2. If you do set up a store borrowing product content from your manufacturer you should expect to only be able to bring in sales and traffic from an investment on Google AdWords. Paying for SEO services to assist your site in improving organic placement will be money wasted if you have not addressed the most important consideration for your site’s ranking which Cutts says is the issue of duplicate content.

3. Matt states that if you don’t have the time or where with all to create unique content for your products, that you should not be posting them and selling on the Web.

With nearly all ecommerce stores picking up cookie cutter content on products this is a very huge hit from Google in regards to how store can and should sell on the Web. Will this impact stores like Amazon and big box stores like Best Buy? Certainly, but the greater impact will be on small enterprises that have made a good living from selling on the Web and have just recently seen their organic placement drop from the Google Panda update.

As I watched the video, I grew increasingly concerned that these new revelations would have serious and long term impact in regards to how small business owners will sell and promote their products on the Web. I see this as a very strong shift to move businesses into paying to play on Google by forcing businesses to get visibility using Google AdWords. As I provide AdWords services this is not necessarily a bad thing for my business, but a very strong indicator and warning to the SEO industry that Google is changing their business model significantly.

Google Tag Manager – Changing the Way You Add Code to Your Website

You may have missed this in the last several months and so I wanted to bring the Google Tag Manager to your attention. Tag Manager is a revolutionary way to add code to your own or clients’ websites. With so many improvements and changes happening at Google, for some websites and particularly larger sites implementing code to track activity or conversions can sometimes be problematic and time consuming. Tag Manager solves these problems.

With the Google Tag Manager you simply install, just after the <body> tag in your code, one snippet of JavaScript code. Once in place you will be able to control what code is shown (in this external script file) from within the Google Tag Manager control panel.

Want to add Google Analytics? No problem! Want to add AdWords conversion tracking to two pages on your website? No problem. You can do it all not from the website but rather from the Tag Manager control panel.

With advanced rules and controls you can select what code shows on what pages all from within one location. With new AdWords remarketing features planned for 2013 now’s the time to get Tag Manager code in place on your website and migrate your account IDs into a new interface. I think you’ll find management easier and implementation of future code a snap!