How To Make Money From Passions

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How To Make Money From Passions

Maverick Money Makers � 1997 - 2008

Maverick Money Makers
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To make money online many people jump right in before they are properly prepared. You know that to be a rocket scientist, a doctor, a brick layer, a construction worker, an office worker, a teacher there are prerequisites, things you must learn, before you can be successful, you don't just jump right in unprepared.

The same applies to the Internet marketing industry even though there are unsavory people out there who'd have you believe it's a "Walk in the Park" and requires no more than the belief that you can just do it.

And I'll have to admit, it is a walk in the park compared to what you have to put up with in the working world punching a clock being a subordinate to someone who does not have your interests in mind, but there are still rules you have to follow and pitfalls you must avoid to actually make Internet marketing work for you.

Most people will not make a dime online and yet there are others who will make more in one month than most people make in a whole year. Why is that?

My answer begins with the age-old chicken or egg question, "what comes first the chicken or the egg"? Personally I vote for, well never mind, each argument you or I make comes back to the same old conclusion - I have no clue and I don't think many of us do either.

But one thing I do have a clue about and know for sure is that to make money online you must first have Passion for the company products and/or service of any Internet business from which you expect to make money.

Passion in this sense simply means that you've researched and like the company and products or services. It is then that you translate that like (or Passion) into the education, excitement and work that usually accompany Passion.

I will have to say that many online entrepreneurs are so good at what they do that they ignore passion because they can sell anything. But I'm concerned about those of you who are not so knowledgeable at working an online business successfully.

Now, I'm not trying to make anyone believe that Passion is the only thing necessary. Because to be successful you must also have a good website, good marketing, widespread advertising, company support, effective keywords, and etc. Those things are often learned from the company you join - but sidestep Passion and you reduce your chances for success dramatically.

It therefore follows that, if you have no Passion for the company and the products and services provided by that company, again, you won't attempt to do the work you are being taught.

Internet marketing work is typically not all that difficult or time consuming but it does take motivation caused by Passion to get you off and running with a sustained effort so that you won't stumble.

You have a great resource in the Internet search engines to search about the Internet Marketing industry for business opportunities, USE IT!

Your research should uncover a company that you like and have confidence in. It should be solid, founded on great principles, and easy to understand with great products and services that are sell-able for which you can have Passion. If you don't find it move on,
You can find the right opportunity containing the attributes identified above.

Comments like, well, that one sounds good and the compensation plan is excellent so I guess I'll start that business - does not sound like a decision based on anything near Passion. And remember when you hear that an Internet "guru" does that, don't be tempted, because as I said earlier they are experienced and can sell just about anything, without being Passionate about the company products and services.

Note: By the way it's your goal to get to the point where you can sell about anything online. That end skill and goal is a worthy one indeed.

Remember, there are other steps you must make before you step into Internet Marketing but if you don't first find the right company products and services to be passionate about, all of those other steps may just cause you a lot of frustration instead of bringing you great success.

Not being Passionate about a company and products and services that has market proof that it will sell is a pitfall you simply must avoid.

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Maverick Money Makers is a private
society that will teach you how to
build a six-figure a month business
on the internet.

If you want to make money online,
join the society before it's too late.

Join The People That Are Making Real Money Online

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How To Make Money From Passions

Skype Founders Sue eBay for $75 Million Per Day

By Chris Crum

eBay Says Skype Deal Will Still Go Through

Update 2: At the Shop.org Summit this week, eBay John Donahoe said that despite lawsuits, the $1.9 Billion deal will still close.

Update: The Skype founders filed another lawsuit today, complicating matters even more. Reuters reports:

The founders of Skype on Friday filed a new lawsuit against Index Ventures and one of its partners, Michelangelo Volpi, accusing him of misappropriating trade secrets to help broker the sale of the Internet phone service owned by eBay Inc.




Original Article: eBay is being sued by the founders of Skype for no less than $75 million per day. Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom now own a company called Joltid. They have asked for an injunction to stop Skype from using a piece of software it owns in a filing in a US district court in San Francisco, according to Bloomberg.

Joltid alleges that eBay has been showing the source code for the software to third-party developers without their permission. Joltid claims that peer-to-peer technology of the software is being used in Skype, although they demanded to retain the rights to it back when eBay purchased Skype in 2005. Now, they want $75 million for every day the source code continues to be shown.

eBay says the Skype founders' claims are "without merit," but according to Bloomberg, eBay says it may shut down Skype if the dispute is not resolved, although they claim to be developing an "alternative technology."

The companies that are planning to buy Skype have also been named in the lawsuit.

eBay recently signed a deal to sell most of Skype, while retaining a 35% stake. The deal valued Skype at $2.75 billion. According to the deal, an investor group led by Silver Lake, which also includes Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Investment Board would control about a 65% stake. eBay is supposed to receive approximately $1.9 billion in cash upon the completion of the sale.

You have to wonder if the acquisition will go through at all after this mess. This was probably a little more than these investors bargained for.



Skype Founders Sue eBay for $75 Million Per Day

Money Fast

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How To Make Money Fast Online

Maverick Money Makers � 1997 - 2008

How do I make money fast?
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The question has come into everyone's mind at one point or another."How do I make money fast?" Luckily for everyone who has ever had that question come to mind there is an answer! There are several ways to make money quickly online, now we will venture through the online category.

3 websites to make money online.

1. Associated Content.
2. Cash Crate.
3. Forum booster.

Let's begin with associated content. Associated content should be the number one stop for those people who frequently ask themselves, how I could make money fast. Associated Content requires you to write content, which in other words for those who aren't familiar with the online language, content means articles.

Associated Content requires that you write articles for them, they will pay you anywhere from $3 to $40 for your content.

Most of the time however the bids that they place on your content are for much less than $10. However, this is still a great way to make money online if you can type several articles per day. You may be surprised to see how easy it has become to earn a part time income through writing for Associated Content.

The next site that we will talk about is Cash Crate. Cash Crate is a site that pays you to take surveys. They may pay anywhere from a dollar to possibly a hundred dollars, just for you to take a survey.

Doesn't sound too bad now does it? The reason they pay you to complete surveys is that companies are willing to shell out loads of cash for in-depth information from their consumers to find out exactly what they word on the street is about their product or services.

They even have a daily survey on the homepage that is guaranteed to make you some extra income; the guaranteed survey on the homepage pays $0.80. It may not seem like much but do the math, over a 30 day time period. That is almost $30 extra dollars just for taking surveys.

Are you still asking yourself that question, how do I make money fast? Well if writing tons of articles and taking surveys doesn't really sound like your cup of tea, there is always the alternative of Forum Booster.

Forum Booster is a website that pays you $0.10 for each post you make on a forum. This is great for those of us that would be searching and posting on forums either way, why not get paid for it? If you can post sixty posts in 1 hour, you can make $6, which is not that bad for earning money online.

It may not be minimum wage, but you have the advantage of being in the comfort of your own home. You can be in your pajamas sipping coffee while working on posting on these forums. Each post should be a minimum of 12 words, which is not difficult to do at all.

Overall there are tons of ways to make money quickly online but these are just the tried and true and the best of the best.
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Maverick Money Makers is a private
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build a six-figure a month business
on the internet.

If you want to make money online,
join the society before it's too late.

Show me how I make money fast?

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Money Fast

How Google Penalties Can Help Your Site

In this clip, Jim Hedger takes the mic for WebProNews, and talks to Ross Dunn, CEO and Founder of Stepforth Web Marketing about how Google penalties can actually be good for your site.

Dunn is basically talking about the principle - “What hurts can make you stronger.” His point is that when you get a penalty in Google, it forces you to really pick apart your site and figure out what’s wrong. At that point, you can make it better (and perhaps better than ever).

Dunn talks about a specific example in which a client had an issue with a site. There was keyword stuffing going on, and it got penalized by Google. When they went back and cut back on the spam and cleaned it up, they got back in Google’s good graces. Dunn attributes this to the fact that the client had good content (better than competitors in fact), and Google likely recognized this fact when determining rankings after the keyword stuffing issue was addressed.

Dunn says being penalized by Google serves as a wake-up call to webmasters. He says you should get someone outside of the company to look at the site. You can consult with an SEO or a friend with some SEO experience, look for advice in forums, and/or get a site audit.

Dunn and Hedger go on to discuss how you know if your site has been penalized from Google or your rankings have simply dropped. They also discuss Google’s Caffeine update and what this could mean for SEOs. Watch the video to find out what they think about the matter.

How Google Penalties Can Help Your Site

Are You Tired Of Endlessly Searching for eBay Niches?

It's nothing new to eBay sellers -- you spend hours and hours searching for a new niche to take advantage of, and after a full day of research you see that it's already occupied and being mastered by someone two steps ahead of you. It's never a good feeling and it leads to a massive amount of stress and wasted time. Searching out niches on eBay is an important and time consuming part of any online business, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a stressful activity.

What if you could minimise the time you spend searching out eBay niches, and maximise the time you spend on the important parts of your business. It's not as impossible as it may sound. What is the solution? Don't worry, it doesn't involve expensive and frustrating outsourcing, or a poorly crafted internet script. The easiest way to search out new and potentially rewarding eBay niches is by making the most of software designed to maximise your eBay seller experience.

So what software should you use? It can be difficult knowing what to pick. The best software for the job is Auction Inspector, a powerful new tool that's helping eBay power sellers absolutely dominate the online auction market. Allowing you to search out new niches and profitable business avenues quickly and easily, the software is the ultimate replacement for your precious time wasted searching out eBay niches.

Click Here To Download Your Free eBay Niche Report

How can this save you time? I know, it's often difficult to see the potential when groundbreaking software is released. Think about it this way: How much do you value your time? If you can make more money by focusing on the most profitable parts of your online business, then it makes perfect sense to optimise the less profitable hours by eliminating them altogether. Auction Inspector allows you to save valuable time and focus on what's most important to yourself and your online business.

Click Here To Download Your Free eBay Niche Report

So, are you ready to become an eBay power seller? It's not as difficult as you might think, and the big buys are really just a few steps in front of you. Recover that lost ground and get your eBay business to the top of the pile by reading this free report, packed with information on how to succeed on eBay.

Click Here To Download Your Free eBay Niche Report

Low-Cost Search Tactics

Although search marketing is not known as being an extremely expensive marketing endeavor, it still takes some monetary resources. Not every small mom-n-pop business has the budget to fund these efforts. There are some small businesses that even have to make a choice between paying utility bills and investing in search marketing strategies.

Matt Van Wagner of Find Me Faster explains that, in spite of these circumstances, the Web offers every business an opportunity to be found, even with a small budget. First and foremost, a business needs to have an online presence with a website. The site does not need to be elaborate, but needs to be able to operate and provide basic functions.

He recommends utilizing David Mihm’s site called GetListed.org. This site gives actionable tips and information for small businesses and the best part is, it is free. If you are going to do paid search, Van Wagner suggest being conservative and local in what you do.

Low-Cost Search Tactics

Are You Tired Of Endlessly Searching for eBay Niches?

It's nothing new to eBay sellers -- you spend hours and hours searching for a new niche to take advantage of, and after a full day of research you see that it's already occupied and being mastered by someone two steps ahead of you. It's never a good feeling and it leads to a massive amount of stress and wasted time. Searching out niches on eBay is an important and time consuming part of any online business, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a stressful activity.

What if you could minimise the time you spend searching out eBay niches, and maximise the time you spend on the important parts of your business. It's not as impossible as it may sound. What is the solution? Don't worry, it doesn't involve expensive and frustrating outsourcing, or a poorly crafted internet script. The easiest way to search out new and potentially rewarding eBay niches is by making the most of software designed to maximise your eBay seller experience.



So what software should you use? It can be difficult knowing what to pick. The best software for the job is Auction Inspector, a powerful new tool that's helping eBay power sellers absolutely dominate the online auction market. Allowing you to search out new niches and profitable business avenues quickly and easily, the software is the ultimate replacement for your precious time wasted searching out eBay niches.

Click Here To Download Your Free eBay Niche Report

How can this save you time? I know, it's often difficult to see the potential when groundbreaking software is released. Think about it this way: How much do you value your time? If you can make more money by focusing on the most profitable parts of your online business, then it makes perfect sense to optimise the less profitable hours by eliminating them altogether. Auction Inspector allows you to save valuable time and focus on what's most important to yourself and your online business.

Click Here To Download Your Free eBay Niche Report

So, are you ready to become an eBay power seller? It's not as difficult as you might think, and the big buys are really just a few steps in front of you. Recover that lost ground and get your eBay business to the top of the pile by reading this free report, packed with information on how to succeed on eBay.

Click Here To Download Your Free eBay Niche Report

You Tired Of Endlessly Searching for eBay Niches?

Disc Mojo Physical Infoproduct Income Streams

Use this software to create a highly profitable residual income stream

Well it's good news for all marketers because a new window of opportunity to create a "highly-profitable-set-and-forget" income stream has just opened up.

If you remember, just one year ago digital products such as e-books were selling for as much as $97 or more.

Have you noticed a steady decrease in the price ranges of these products recently? Digital products alone can no longer create a steady income stream on the internet.

Creativity is the key! One has to think out of the box to create a profitable business empire online. One such creative idea is to convert your digital products, Audio/Video content, PLR products or resale rights products to PHYSICAL CD/DVD's.

There are two reasons why you should consider selling physical products.
1. Physical products have a high perceived value and sell for much higher prices than digital products.

2. Physical products have very low refund rates and almost always keep your customers satisfied!

Few years ago, small marketers such as you and me were scared to sell physical CD/DVD products. Why? because converting your digital products into physical products need a lot of time and money to create and deliver them to the customer.

GOOD NEWS! Now you no longer have to waste hours of time trying to package, label and ship your CD/DVD's to your customers. Disc Mojo Software will completely automate the process and deliver the products to your customer’s doorstep. Once you upload your product to Kunaki and set up Disc Mojo on your server you are all set to receiver orders.

Once the customer orders using the order page Disc Mojo creates, your product will be burned into CD's, professionally packed and delivered to your customer using kunaki CD fulfillment service.

Check your more details here:
Click Here

I highly recommend it to everyone. Get this killer product for a very low price!
Act now... and build your very own UNIQUE highly profitable income stream in the next few minutes.

Disc Mojo Physical Infoproduct Income Streams

The Power of Thumbnails and Images

According to Rebecca Lieb of the ClickZ Network, recent surveys show that video has a greater chance of being clicked if it has a thumbnail or image. These results are evident in the popularity of universal search. Rebecca advises marketers to take these statistics seriously and recommends posting related videos with each new video just as Greg Jarboe suggested.

The Power of Thumbnails and Images

The Internet Marketing Success Formula Review

The Internet Marketing Success Formula Floored Me

I have to tell you right off the bat, Soren Jordansen's Internet
Marketing Success Formula knocked me for a loop when I got my finally
got hands on his free 41 page e-book.

It's bursting at the seams with useful information Soren gleamed from
his own experience and, more importantly, from conducting scientific
surveys of internet marketers.

Basically, the average internet marketer is a new marketer who
desperately wants to make enough money so they can quit their day job
but has doesn't have the foggiest idea on how to actually go about
doing so.

There is one startling finding that many seasoned marketers overlook,
or just plain don't know, and it is from this fact that Soren lays out
detailed proven tested step by step plan

This e-book is written for the new marketer or for any other marketer
who is stuck and hasn't yet experienced success online.

When you can get right down to it, it's a roll up your sleeves and
get your hands dirty how to guide on starting a internet business from
scratch.

Everything, and I mean everything, is covered from choosing a web
host, building a squeeze page, monetizing the list building process,
how to set up a profit pulling email series and what types of
affiliate programs convert the best while creating the trust and
creditability.

The traffic generation system starts with methods that generate tons
of free traffic immediately and progresses through more advanced and
time consuming tactics as well as using paid traffic to build your
business.

The only thing I wished Soren would have spent more time on was the
chapter where he shows you how to take it to the next level. However,
it's really for internet marketers who need to get their basic hands
free affiliate system set up and running first.

Now, what make Soren's report stand head and shoulders above every
other basic how to guide are the real life examples Soren is currently
using in own business. He doesn't waste your time with fictional dog
training case studies or other such nonsense.

And get this, Soren is letting people rebrand this e-book for a
ridiculously low price.

I'm not kidding when I say using the methods revealed in The Internet
Marketing Success Formula could mean the difference between you
becoming one of the scant few percent making real money online or
still spinning your wheels trying make sense of internet marketing and
going nowhere fast!

My recommendation is to get your hands on this free e-book and follow
the steps exactly as Soren says.

Click Here For Free eBook





The Internet Marketing Success Formula Review

This guys no dick

Oh, RSS Is Definitely Dead Now: Feedburner CEO Dick Costolo To Become Twitter COO

Former Google exec and the cofounder/CEO of RSS service Feedburner Dick Costolo is Twitter’s new chief operating officer, we’ve heard from multiple sources. Costolo, who sold Feedburner to Google for $100 million in 2007, left Google in July. We’d heard he was looking to start a new company, but obviously Twitter swooped in and grabbed him.

Steve Gillmor is going to love this, of course, since he proclaimed that RSS was dead and Twitter was the new messaging protocol bus, or something to that effect. “Rest In Peace, RSS,” he wrote, saying “It’s time to get completely off RSS and switch to Twitter…All my RSS feeds are in Google Reader. I don’t go there any more. Since all my feeds are in Google Reader and I don’t go there, I don’t use RSS anymore.”

Santosh Jayaram, Twitter’s existing head of operations (and also from Google), will presumably remain with the company and report to Costolo.

Costolo, who is also an early Twitter investor, is someone who has actual experience building scalable infrastructures, which Twitter sorely needs. The company hasn’t launched any new features in recent memory, and continues to have regular downtime. In fact, Twitter’s inability to build features and keep the service live is a serious competitive disadvantage. Costolo can presumably fix all that.

Twitter is actively hiring more senior people, we’ve heard. In July they hired Alexander Macgillivray, Google’s associate general counsel for Product and IP, as their new General Counsel.

RSS Is Definitely Dead Now

Richard Ball critical of Yahoo’s Search Marketing

Search engine marketing specialist Richard Ball has been critical of Yahoo’s Search Marketing business. Their practice of placing search ads on their distribution network, even when advertisers opt out of content matching for their campaigns, has led to some of Ball’s clients receiving lots of clicks through sites he calls “low quality” Yahoo distribution partners.
Yahoo does not offer an option for advertisers to place ads only on their properties. Ball thinks that the issue is so much of a problem that he has chosen to end his status as a Yahoo! Search Marketing Ambassador. Ball said, “Seems odd that you can’t buy only search.yahoo.com ads via Yahoo! Search Marketing. You have to accept ad distribution to their partner network, which is rife with syndication fraud.”

Richard Ball critical of Yahoo’s Search Marketing

U.S. Gets First Internet Addiction Center

By Mike Sachoff

Located near Microsoft headquarters

A new Internet addiction center has opened in Fall City, Washington, that claims it is the first of its kind in the U.S.

The center called reStart is a 45-day program costing $14,500 and is located near Microsoft's Redmond headquarters. reStart says its program is specifically designed to help Internet and video game addicts overcome their dependence on gaming, gambling, chatting, texting and other aspects of Internet addiction.

The center was co-founded by Cosette Rae, MSW, and Hilarie Cash, PhD.
According to reStart, current research indicates that anywhere from 6-10 percent of the online population is dependent on the Internet. Among gamers, those playing MMOGs (like World of Warcraft) appear to be addicted at much higher levels.
reStart argues that the United States has been slow to recognize the problem of Internet addiction and its program is part of the process of drawing attention to the issue.
The mission of the program is helping people, addicted to video games and the Internet, find balance, and reconnect to the real world. The program includes individual and group therapy, life-skills coaching, cooperative living, physical and nutritional education, mindfulness training, skill building and 12-step meetings.
The American Psychiatric Association currently does not have a listing for Internet addiction in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The possibility of Internet addiction making it into the manual will not happen until its next update in 2012.

Google Expands AdSense Euro Reporting

By Chris Crum

Now Available for More European Locations

Google has expanded the number of European places where Euro reporting is available for AdSense. Users who are in the following locations can now switch to local currency reports to view their earnings in Euros:
- Cyprus- Luxembourg- Malta- Monaco- San Marino- Slovenia- Vatican City
"Once you make this change, any earnings generated from advertisers paying on other currencies will be converted to Euros each day," says Arlene Lee of Google's Inside AdSense Team. "This also means that if you're receiving payments in Euros, there won't be any additional conversions at the end of the month when payments are issued."




Google recommends that users download and save copies of their past reports in US dollars for their own records, before they switch to local currency reports. After that, the company says to look for the green prompt in the upper right-hand corner of the Reports Overview page, and click the link in the prompt, where you'll be asked to agree to a new set of terms and conditions. Google says that it is a good idea to switch to local currency soon, because in the future, it will be a required update. More information about the new reports can be found in the help center. Google also suggests contacting your lawyer if you have questions about the new terms.

Acquisition Rumors (Re)surround Facebook

By Doug Caverly

Yahoo "needs them," Zuckerberg fond of Spotify

Facebook might soon be involved in another acquisition. New analyses/rumors are swirling, anyway, with one person suggesting that Facebook should be bought, and another indicating that the social networking company could extend an offer to a smaller firm.

Let's start with the idea of Facebook itself getting acquired. Scott Moritz, a senior writer at TheStreet.com, appeared in a video this morning saying that both Google and Microsoft would be smart to acquire Facebook. He then continued, "Yahoo really is the one, I think . . . it needs them the most."

Moritz supported his argument by saying that both Facebook and Yahoo act as destinations and sell ads, and that Yahoo would do well to receive traffic from Facebook.



As for the possibility that Facebook will go on the prowl, Michael Arrington discovered that Mark Zuckerberg recently updated his status update with the message "Spotify is so good." Spotify is a music service similar to iLike, which MySpace is buying, so a move here would help Facebook keep pace. Facebook and Spotify also happen to share an investor - Li Ka-shing.

Social Networks Leaking Users Data To Tracking Sites

By Mike Sachoff

Browsing profile linked to unique identifier

Many popular social networking sites typically make personal information available to companies that track users' browsing habits and allow them to link anonymous browsing habits to specific people, according to a new study by the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI).

"When you sign up with a social networking site, you are assigned a unique identifier," says Craig Wills, professor of computer science at WPI.

"This is a string of numbers or characters that points to your profile. We found that when social networking sites pass information to tracking sites about your activities, they often include this unique identifier. So now a tracking site not only has a profile of your Web browsing activities, it can link that profile to the personal information you post on the social networking site. Now your browsing profile is not just of somebody, it is of you."



Social networks use third-party tracking sites to learn about the browsing habits of their users. Cookies are managed by a browser and contain information that allows tracking sites to build profiles of the websites visited by a user. Each time a user visits a new website, the tracking site can review those cookies to offer ads that might be relevant to the user.

Wills says social networks go to far by allowing the transmission of unique identifiers. "Users put a lot of information about themselves on social networking sites," said Wills.

"A lot of that information can be seen by other users, by default. There are mechanisms users can use to limit access to their information, but we found through previous research that most users don't take advantage of them."

With a unique identifier tracking sites could gain access to a users personal information. Wills says this could lead to having one's identity linked to inaccurate browsing profiles, depending on how many people use the same computer.

"Tracking sites don't have the ability to know if, for example, a site about cancer was visited out of curiosity, or because the user actually has cancer," said Wills. "Profiling is worrisome on its own, but inaccurate profiling could potentially lead to issues with employment, health care coverage, or other areas of our personal lives."




"Once someone is in possession of your unique identifier, there is so much they can learn about you. And even if tracking sites do not use the information themselves, can they guarantee that it will never find its way into other hands? For these reasons, we feel this issue is something that we should to be concerned about."

Is a Picture Worth 1,000 Clicks?

To get the most out of the images on your site, you have to optimize them. According to R.J. Pittman of Google, good image optimization starts with having the best quality of images that you can have. The next step is to have an expressive title as well as rich descriptive content that explain the image.

Webmasters also have the opportunity to provide topic tags, which are keywords that a searcher might use in a query. As Pittman tells special guest WPN correspondent Eric Enge, the more information that the user provides for the image, the better Google can index and surface the image.





Google is even developing RDFa tag structure, which would allow it to work off of a new language vocabulary that users could embed into their Web pages. The html structure would provide a means for search engines to identify various features of the image and thus provide more accurate image results.

Despite all the additional exposure images could bring to websites, Google is not seeing images being utilized as well as they could be. Pittman encourages webmasters to embrace images since they improve understanding and, ultimately, click-through rate (CTR) once they are indexed by the search engines.

Are you embracing the use of images?

Effective Tools for Every SEO

It is difficult to know which tools to use for your website since there are so many options to choose from. Aaron Wall, the well-known author of SEOBook, explains his favorite tools in this video, which just might make your selection easier.

First of all, Aaron recommends Google’s Search-based Keyword Tool. This tool allows users to find keywords organized by categories. It also displays the competition for a keyword, its suggested bid, and more.

Competitive research tools have become increasingly popular over the last year. They give users an insight into what their competitors are doing and provide an opportunity for them to capitalize. Aaron recommends the following competitive research tools:

- Google Keyword Trends
- Google Search Insights
- Alexa
- Compete
- SEMRush
- KeywordSpy

Lastly, Aaron humbly explains his own SEO Toolbar. The toolbar does a number of things, but in summary, it lets users select keyword tools, gives data on the number of links to a site, tells the amount of traffic coming into the site, estimates the value of the traffic, provides competitive research tools, and is easily exportable.

Is SEO Dead?

The stability in the future of search has recently been put into question due to the impact of social media on search. Since people are doing more and more searches on social sites such as Facebook and Twitter, does it mean that social media will eventually replace search engines?

Both Twitter and Facebook have launched real-time search engines within their service offerings, and the major search engines are still struggling to enter the real-time search arena. Heather Dougherty, the Research Director at Hitwise, said:

“I think this [social media] will become integrated as part of search but certainly not circumvent search entirely.”

Based upon this information, it is however fair to say that social media has changed SEO permanently. According to Hitwise data, the number of visits to social networking sites exceeds the number of visits to email sites. As a result, Dougherty suggests that marketers increase their efforts with social media in order to reach their customers better.

How have your SEO efforts changed as a result of social media? What role do you see social media playing in the future of search?

Guarantee Conversions on Your Landing Pages

Given the economic environment we are all living in, businesses cannot afford to not have their landing pages convert. In this video from SES NYC, Tim Ash gives two distinct ways to ensure that they will convert.
1. Apply best practices to it2. Ask your audience
One of the biggest problems Tim sees when analyzing landing pages is a problem with clutter. The business needs to have a clear call to action. Allow the customer to focus on their current transaction and don’t confuse them with too many options. Consider basic usability tips when applying your best practices.
Businesses have to keep up with the current trends and know what their audience wants. It is vitally important to get involved and communicate with the audience. If you give your audience what they want, you will have better results, which translates into more revenue.
On the topic of tools, Tim gives 2 recommendations. The first is Google Website Optimizer. This is a free tool that Google offers which allows users to conduct both A/B split testing and multivariate testing. Tim says it is a very powerful tool that is effective for both beginners and advanced users.
The second tool that Tim recommends is OnDialog. Tim prefaced this solution in an interview with us at PubCon South. OnDialog provides landing page creation software that puts the marketer in control. Tim’s company, SiteTuners has partnered with OnDialog and incorporated its tuning engine technology into their software. The tool allows more tests in parallel and bases data on actual results.