I have given my opinion in the past on Google Adwords and I was surprised at
some of the negative response that I received. It seems that there are many
people out there that believe that Google Ads are the way to go. I agree that
search engines are a great way to get the word out about your business, but I
also think that there should be a limit as to how much money you spend to get
listed in the search engines. There are great ways to increase the traffic to
your site that do not cost much money. One great way is right here…blog. When
you write a blog on a specific subject and fill it with valuable keywords that
search enigines love, you will start to notice the traffic to your site
increase. This traffic will increase for a couple of good reasons.
First, if you are writing on a subject that holds the interest of of your
readers, you will get some repeat visitors that will hopefully bookmark your
site and make many returns.
Secondly, when the search engine spider comes to your site, they will find more
content on your site and more keywords or key phrases to list you in their
search engine. This will increase your search engine traffic and will not cost
you any extra money. Just a little time to write the blog.
The reason I went on this rant again is because I just noticed that Google
Adwords are currently running at around five dollars per click just for a real
estate or mortgage realted internet ad. I personally can not think of too many
businesses that would profit from paying more than five dollars just for a
visitor that more than likely will not buy on their first visit.

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By Mitch “Tipster” Keeler

Think of it as one of those sticky fly traps you hang outside in the summer to keep the flying insects away from your BB&Q. You don’t want to just lead people to your site, you want to lead them to it - get them interested and then catch them. Don’t let them go because they might not come back. Hooking visitors is a sweet science I am not sure anybody has really mastered to a T (or Mr. T). These tips should help you get on the right track though when it comes making your visitors come back.

Social Interaction - Add something like the AddThis.com or ShareThis.com badges to your web site so that people can share that information with others in the way that suits them best.

Vote - Don’t overlook the idea of adding polls to your web site layout. Giving your viewers something to do will keep them on your web site a little longer. One easy way of getting a poll up and running would be via PollDaddy.com.

Blog it - Think your web site is a little light weight, and could use some more “meat and potatoes”? A blog would be a great way to fill your web site out a little more and keep your visitors coming back for more. I would highly suggest installing WordPress for your blogging needs, but there are many alternatives.

Build a Community - Forums always come in handy to help build a community or start one. SMF is probably the most reliable of the bunch in my opinion. With it your visitors can talk with you and each other.

Syndication - If you can, toss in some RSS feeds for your visitors to grab. This way they can subscribe to your web site’s content, get updates about your latest news, and have a trail back to your web site past that first visit. Once you do get an RSS feed going hook it up with a service like FeedBurner to track how many people are subscribing.

Know of anymore helpful tips to make you web site viewers come back for more? I’d love to hear ‘em.

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - $25 off Web Hosting! Coupon Code: blog25

I like what Scribd (pronounced skribbed) is doing with their new iPaper platform. I’ve used their service to share a few documents in the past and they already brought two key components to solve online document issue.

Sharing
The first problem in online document management has to do with sharing. The only way to previously share a document was by email, sending a direct link to the document or attaching the whole document. With Scribd you can email a document without having to actually open an email program, much like you can share this blog post by clicking the share this link at the bottom of the post. Scribd also provides you with an embed code that allows you to share a doc by embedding it in another website.

Compatibility
The other problem has to do with document compatibility. The old way of viewing documents online involved clicking a link and having the doc open on your local computer or in a browser using an add on provided by the local application. A good example of this is how Microsoft Word or Excel will open up in a special container window in Internet Explorer. This can cause a problem if your program is not compatible or you don’t have the latest version of the program. Scribd converts all uploaded documents to Flash. Flash is compatible with 98% of web browsers so very few web users will have compatibility problems with documents embedded into websites using Scribd.

Scribd Platform
The tools I mentioned above already existed in the previous version of Scribd before they launched the platform. What the platform does is allow people to easily convert documents that already exist on their website to the Scribd iPaper format. There are several methods for converting documents that allow users with various skill levels to convert existing documents. Their QuickSwitch method will convert documents on a web page by adding a bit of javascript code to the page.

Monetization
Another area where the Scribd platform opens up new possibilities involves monetization. With the new iPaper system you can have Adsense links embedded into documents, allowing you to potentially earn some money if your documents are popular.

I’ve embedded a sample doc below that shows you what an embedded doc looks like in a blog post. In general I think that what Scribd is doing sets a new bar in online document management. I also think this provides new possibilities for people who want to share knowledge online. You get the best of both worlds because with Scribd you can use standard programs to create documents that are portable, shareable and integrate well with blogs and other social websites.

document.write(’‘);

Read this doc on Scribd: Social Web Basics

var scribd_doc = new scribd.Document(2159076, ‘key-27oj6gk66aqj36v70mwh’); scribd_doc.addParam(’height’, 350); scribd_doc.addParam(’width’, 450); scribd_doc.addParam(’page’, 1); scribd_doc.write(’embedded_flash_2159076_h8rpx’);

Share This

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© Robert J. Safuto - visit the Awakened Voice Blog for more great content.

I just completed a couple days participating in SMX West in Santa Clara where PRWeb was exhibiting.

At one point, I reviewed the releases of a new PRWeb customer. The items pointed out to him were probably the most common mistakes and oversights. Seeing them all occur at once made me think to lay them out here.

(more…)

It’s that time again for CocoaHeads Portland - this Wednesday at 6pm at Extensis. Here’s the url to map, we’re on the 5th floor.

Once again we’ll be providing some food, and the doors tend to get locked by 6pm, so try to arrive before then. If you arrive later and the doors are locked, give me a call at 503-819-8904.

Brian Doyel is going to do a small q & a presentation on an application he’s recently written, in his words “… an application I wrote for a client recently. It has a fairly interesting UI that is all Cocoa but doesn’t look like it and it has at least one non-trivial custom control”.

It should be a very interesting talk, I hope you can make it.

PSD Vote is a new social media site for sharing and rating Photoshop tutorials. It is set up similar to Digg and reddit where you can vote for or comment on posts that you like. It just launched and there are already some really good tutorials. Check it out.

U.S. presidential candidate Mayor Rudy Giuliani visited Segway Inc. today to conduct a town hall meeting with employees and local guests. Segway Inc. does not make political endorsements, but was honored to host Rudy as things heat up for next week’s New Hampshire primary.

Below are some photos from today’s event. We’re cutting together some video that we’ll post as soon as it’s ready. Enjoy!

Bob Schieffer from CBS News also received a Segway PT demo from CEO Jim Norrod.