How to promote your website - SEO and SEM

I just started using adobe air today. Wow, what a neat application. I still do not understand all that it can do but so far I am impressed. Here is some info posted on Adobe’s website about it: Adobe AIR enables you to have your favorite web applications with you all the time.

The only app I have used so far is twhirl. Twhirl is a free application that makes it very easy to update your Twitter status. I also has many other useful features. So, if your a twitter user be sure to try this one out.

Here is a listing of the current Adobe Air apps

Go here to download Adobe Air.

If you are already a facebook user you may be familiar with facebook pages. Facebook pages gives you a simple and free way to advertise for your business. You can create a page that other people can become a “fan” of. Once someone has become a fan of your page or business, you can then send them updates, event notifications, and start discussions. It is a great way to spread the word and if you want to target a niche group of people you can do so by advertising your page on facebook. Facebook provides excellent ways to promote your page by PPC(pay per click) ads.

They have built in statistics for your pages and your ads. It is nothing like Google Analytics but you can at least find out basic stats about your page.

You can find more info about facebook pages here

Well, I was trying to access Digg today and it’s not up.
Here is a screen shot I took.

Here is what it says on the site:

We’ll be back shortly.

Only two months away from the Internet Retailer conference in Chicago and I am already excited about it. I was informed by a good friend of mine who will also be attending this event that I am featured on their website here: IRCE 2008 Conference and Exhibition

screenshot from the IRCE website

photo of me sitting at the IRCE 2007 event

I am the one in the blue shirt on the front row. The two individuals on my left are from American Micro Industries and the lady on my right is from Sigma Micro LLC.

The IRCE 2008 event is June 9th-12th and if you have not yet signed up to go you should do it now. It is an event you do not want to miss.

I just returned from the Catalyst conference sponsored by ChannelAdviser, held in Pinehurst NC at the Carolina Hotel. I think the event was a great success and I feel as though I have not only learned many new things but also made many new connections with other fellow e-retail marketers like myself.

One of my favorite sessions was when Vince Monical, director of commerce and analytics, at Google spoke.
He spoke about many of the new tools that Google has and then he told everyone about all the secrets about how google does search algorithms (yeah right!) … ok but he did show some things that I had not seen before on google’s website… stuff like Google Labs and how you can use it to see search trends. If you have not tried this before and you do SEO or PPC you really should try it.
Here is a cool slide he showed in his PowerPoint presentation:

Another great session was the “Live! From the Consumer” panel of teens and adults that shared their online usage habits.

I had the opportunity to meet some incredible people at this event. Here are just a few of the individuals I met and their websites:
David Dang - President and CEO of BananaToys.com
Dan Foster - Enterprise Sales Executive at ChannelAdvisor.com
Noah Boswell - Internet Marketing Manager - LooktotheRight.com
Emma Cumming - Director at GolfClubWarehouse.com.au
Jeff Mitchell - search marketing specialist at RockBottomGolf.com

McAfee has acquired ScanAlert, Inc., the creator of the HACKER SAFE website security certification service for approximately $51 million in cash. Hacker Safe protects over 50 million e-commerce transactions per month and pro actively advises consumers about which sites are safe for shopping, but primarily using your credit card. The ScanAlert technology will be integrated into McAfee’s SiteAdvisor.

If you have not yet installed SiteAdvisor into your current browser I would suggest doing so. Site Advisor tests the Web to help keep you safe from spyware, spam, viruses and online scams.

Also, if you are currently doing ecommerce online I would strongly advise purchasing the HackerSafe logo ASAP! With this recent acquisition of HakerSafe by McAfee the cost may go up very soon. I was looking around on HackerSafe’s website and found some neat statistics hidden away on their site. When you go to the HackerSafe website and click on the small “Copyright 2008 McAfee, Inc” text at the very bottom left hand side of the page it will take you to this page: Hacker Safe Average Sales Increase Statistics
They have dozens of statistics here about A/B testing, percent of sales increase calculators and other neat stuff.

Here are just a few great posts I found reading the Natural Search Blog:

Googles Ranking Advice

Create a Blog Feeding Frenzy

Subdomains and subdirectory advice for SEO

In this video I talk about a few of my favorite social media sites and why they are worth using when promoting your website. This is the first part of a two part series talking about social media sites. Here are the ones from today’s video:

Stumble Upon - stumble upon is a great site to link to your site and other sites that you like. It is simple to use since you add the tool bar to your browser. Total set up time: Under 5 minutes.

Squidoo - squidoo is a site that lets you set up your own web page (they call it a lens). You can create as many of these pages (or lenses) that you want. Each one has many simple tools to add content from other sites like blogs, youtube videos, and much more. Total set up time: 10 minutes or more (depends on how much you put into it)

Del.icio.us - delicious is a great bookmarking website. Once you get your account set up on delicious you can be making links to any of your favorite sites and hopefully your own site! Be sure to make it a “public” so others can find it. Total set up time: 3-5 minutes.

If you have any questions please ask. Also, do you have any suggestions for other good Social Media sites??

If you have a blog you MUST use Technorati to promote it. This should be your first step to getting your blog out there so people can find out about it. Technorati is the absolute best site around for searching for blogs, so you know you want to be on it. It is very easy to set up an account with them and add your blog. In less than 5 - 10 minutes you can get set up. Here is a direct link to technorati.com and if you already have an account please “fave my blog” …..thanks!

Links mentioned in this video:
Blogger
WordPress
WP Themes
WP Widgets

Here are some ways to promote your blog once you get it started using Ping services.
First off, what is a Blog Ping? Well, Blog Pings are a notification to a Web site that a blog has been created or updated. The ping is typically an XML message that contains the URL of the blog. Blog tracking sites publish separate Internet addresses for accepting pings, and news sites may also set up ping addresses.

Here are some of the best Ping services:
Ping-O-Matic
Pingoat