Implementing RSS (Really Simple Syndication) can be aided by an understanding of the terms relating to RSS. Learn the ABCs of RSS….

A – AutoDiscovery

Auto Discovery is code that is inserted into the header of an HTML web page, which then indicates to readers that an RSS feed is available for the content.

B – Blogs

Blogs are web logs that are updated regularly, usually on a daily basis. Blogs generally contain information related to a specific topic. In some cases, blogs are used as daily diaries about people’s personal lives, political views, or even as social commentaries. The truth of the matter is that blogs can be shaped into whatever the author wants them to be. While initially thought of as diaries or online journals, blogs have evolved into the latest fresh web content.

C – Cache

Cache is a temporary storage area for frequently-accessed or recently-accessed data. Having certain data stored in a cache area speeds up the operation of the computer. Using a cache with RSS feeds will help minimize bandwidth and display an RSS feed’s content quicker.

D – Display

RSS Many webmasters post the content of an RSS feed on their website. They use either PHP, ASP, or javascript for such purposes. If done properly, the feed’s content will dynamically update as the content of the feed changes.

E – Elements

Within an RSS feed, there are various feed elements. The elements of an RSS feed are defined by tags.

F – Filter

Many RSS feeds contain duplicate or similar content. Publishers can filter RSS feeds so that they only see content that they wish to see, by filtering out duplicate postings.

G – GUID

GUID stands for Globally Unique IDentifier. The RSS specification strongly suggests that each RSS feed item have a unique GUID. If you are creating feeds, a GUID is important because GUIDs are often used by feed readers and aggregators to determine if a feed item is new or simply an existing item that has been updated. Each item in the RSS feed should have a unique GUID.

H – HTML

HTML, which is the acronym for HyperText Markup Language, is frequently used to design websites.

I – iTunes Namespace

The iTunes Namespace allows the user to add the information necessary to have a podcast listed on the Apple iTunes Music Store (ITMS). J – JavaScript Javascript can be used to display the content of an RSS feed.

K – Keywords

Keywords should be integrated into the RSS feed to help search engines determine what the RSS feed is about.

L – Links

Links are used to direct RSS readers to the original webpage containing information that directly relates to the feed.

M – Mashup

A mashup is a combination of multiple RSS feeds that have been merged together to create a new, single feed.

N – Namespace Extensions

The RSS specification allows you to create and use your own custom elements (tags) in any RSS feed by declaring your own namespace. Doing this is 100% in line with the RSS specification and the feed will validate. However, you should have a specific and well-planned reason to do so. No RSS readers, or other RSS processing applications, will be able to use your custom info for any purpose. Adding elements (tags) would typically be used only in an in-house situation where both the writing application and the reading application have prior knowledge of the new tags.

O – OPML

OPML, or Outline Processor Markup Language, is a file format standard that can be used to exchange subscription lists between programs. OPML is used as a standard to import or export groups of RSS feed subscriptions. OPML was initially designed by Radio UserLand as a file format for outlines. The purpose of this format is to provide a way to exchange information between outliners and Internet services. OPML has since been adopted for other uses, the most common being to exchange lists of RSS feeds between RSS aggregators. OPML is an open format, allowing other services to extend the format. While OPML was not initially designed as a vehicle to share RSS feeds, it has become the de facto standard. OPML, like RSS, is based on RSS, and because of the similarities, those familiar with RSS have embraced OPML as a way to share RSS feed collections

P – Podcasting

Podcasting is online audio content that is delivered via an RSS feed. Many people equate podcasting to “radio on demand”. However, in reality, podcasting gives the listener far more options than radio does, in terms of content and programming. In addition, podcast listeners can determine their own time and the place for listening, meaning they decide what programming they want to receive, and when they want to listen to it. Listeners can retain audio archives to listen to later, at their leisure. While blogs have turned many bloggers into journalists, podcasting has the potential to turn podcasters into radio personalities.

Q – Query

Webmasters can create RSS feeds based on search queries for their websites.

R – RSS

RSS is a standard format for syndicating content on the Internet. The content can be anything! Information contained in an RSS feed is often syndicated on other sites, which expands its reach. Website visitors love RSS because they choose which feeds they wish to subscribe to. If at any point they are unhappy with the content contained in the RSS feed, they simply unsubscribe and no longer receive notification of feed updates. RSS is really a win-win for both subscribers and publishers. In order to get a better understanding of how RSS works, download an RSS reader or use a web aggregator and subscribe to an RSS feed (they are usually indicated by a small orange icon).

S – Syndication

Syndication is the supply of material for reuse and integration with other material.

T – Template

Many webmasters use templates to layout the contents of their RSS feed and make it match there website.

U – URL

URLs can be embedded into the description of the RSS feed items, so that when the feed is syndicated, the content originator gains backlinks.

V- Validate

Feed validation is important. If a feed is not properly formed, it will not always be valid for reading.

W – Website

Updates RSS feeds can be set up to notify visitors when a website changes.

X – XML

RSS is a subset of XML, or eXtensible Markup Language.

Y – Yahoo Answers

Yahoo’s interactive system of questions and answers can be tracked using RSS feeds. You can create keyword or category feeds for anything in Yahoo Answers.

Z – Zero Feeds

Not having RSS feeds for your website puts you at a competitive disadvantage. RSS feeds bring traffic and help the stickiness of your website.

Source : sitepronews.com

Meta descriptions (the text snippets of the webpage you see in search results) used to be an important ranking factor. Until not too long ago both Google and Yahoo! officially announced they no longer used Meta-descriptions in their search algorithms. But recent developments in Google’s search algo bring Meta description back to life as a ranking factor.

No, Google did not back out of their decision to discount Meta descriptions as a ranking factor. However your site’s search snippet can now significantly affect your rankings. Here’s the deal.

Google and Personalized Search

Early this month Google announced that they would be tailoring everyone’s search results based on their search history even when users are not signed into Google. Personalized results are nothing new on Google. The search giant has been customizing peoples SERPs (search engine results pages) for quite a while already, but until now it only happened when you searched while signed into your Google account. Today, signed in or not everyone gets personal results.

Here’s How It Works

Whether you’re signed in or not, all the searches you run on Google are stored in your browser cookies. This data is referred to as your ‘Web History’ and Google uses it to customize your search results. If you’re not signed in, your Web History is stored for 180 days, then old data is replaced with new searches. If you’re signed in, there’s no time limit and you can manage you Web History. Either way the searches you run and sites you visit will affect your future search experience.

The sites you visit more often will be pushed higher in the search results on related queries. For example if you search for ‘cat food’ and visit www.petfood.com, next time when you search for ‘dog food’ you may see www.petfood.com in top 10 results even if it doesn’t rank there in the general impersonalized search. You can tell that your search results have been personalized by the ‘View customization’ link in the upper right hand corner.

The personalized search results can differ significantly from the general SERPs. I ran a couple of tests searching for related keywords and clicking the same site each time. I also checked this site’s rankings with a rank checker to get a list of impersonalized rankings. In one of the tests a few click-throughs to a site pushed it 26 positions up on a highly competitive keyword. That is from the 31 position on page 4 straight to the 5th spot on the first page in personalized search results (I was signed out).

How Meta Descriptions Can Affect Your Google Rankings

Although Meta descriptions are no longer part of the ranking algorithm they can affect your site’s positions in the personalized search results. Your Meta description is a crucial factor that determines the CTR (click-through-rate) of your site in search results. The more compelling your description is, the more searchers will click it. When they click through to your site from search results this is recorded in their Web History. Next time they search for a product or service related to your site, it may appear high up in their personalized search results.

Since everyone now gets personalized results, the scope of the effect your Meta descriptions have on your rankings can get really huge. That’s another reason why you should invest some time into testing and optimizing your Meta descriptions.

Meta Description Optimization

There’s plenty of advice out there on writing compelling titles and descriptions, so I won’t go there. Just keep in mind one thing. Google doesn’t always show the Meta description you provide. Sometimes it just compiles a random text snippet from your page that contains the keywords used in the query. But you can easily locate the keywords where your own Meta description shows up by searching for them on Google.

In Conclusion

There’s been a lot of criticism coming down on Google for introducing personal search to everyone. Some people are worried about privacy issues. Others don’t like it because the whole concept will help the rich get richer and keep the small guy out of the game. And some SEOs are just whining that this makes SEO success harder to measure.

Although I don’t think it is the best idea Google had either, I prefer to embrace it and run with it. And I suggest that you take this news as a call to action. A strong motivation to actually do something that’s going to help your SEO, your sales and your business. And that is to take a look at your Meta descriptions. Go and see how your website appears in the search results and find ways to improve it. With personalized search or without it, having a catchy compelling text in your search results snippet will get you more clicks, more traffic and more customers.

Source : sitepronews.com

Google just released its Fourth Quarter 2009 Earnings Report and never mind if it didn’t exceed expectations of the Wall Street Journal, it’s still quite an achievement for the Internet’s biggest player. Total earnings for Q4 2009 was at $6.7 billion, and with that Google’s Eric Schmidt couldn’t be much happier.

“Given that the global economy is still in the early days of recovery, this was an extraordinary end to the year. Our performance in 2009 underscored the strength of our management team, the resilience of our business model and the pace of innovation within our product and engineering teams, which continued unabated throughout the downturn. As we enter 2010, we remain hugely optimistic about the internet and are continuing to invest heavily in technological innovation for the benefit not only of our users and customers, but also the wider web.”

The fourth quarter revenue registered a 17% increase from the same period in 2008.

Here are the other highlights of Google’s Fourth Quarter Earnings Report:
$6.67 billion in total revenue for Q4 2009, 17% increase from Q4 2008 and
$4.42 billion revenue from Google Sites, 66% of total revenue
$2.04 billion revenue from AdSense programs, 31% of total revenue, 21% increase from Q4 2008
Aggregate paid clicks increased by 13% from 4Q 2008 and 9% from Q3 2009
Average CPC increased by 5% from Q4 2008 and 2% from Q3 2009
Traffic Acquisition Costs increased to 1.72 billion, up from $1.48 billion in Q4 2008
source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com

paidContent.org is reporting Facebook and Microsoft are scaling back their ad relationship. Microsoft powered much of Facebook’s display ad network. Facebook is no longer using Microsoft for their international display ads but might also drop them in the U.S. as well.

Back in 2007, Microsoft invested $240 million in Facebook, and made an ad deal. The ad deal originally did not include search but soon later added Live Search to Facebook.

Most these relationships do not last forever – so it will be interesting to see where Facebook goes from here. Do they continue a relationship with Microsoft, make a deal with Google or go at it solo?

source: http://searchengineland.com/

Nokia said today it's releasing a new version of Ovi Maps for its smartphones that includes walking and driving navigation for free.

The move by Nokia to offer free navigation on its smartphones is widely seen as a way for the handset giant to boost sales and better compete with the likes of Google, which already offers free Google Maps Navigation in the 2.0 version of the Android operating system.

The new version of Ovi Maps includes car and pedestrian navigation features, such as turn-by-turn voice instructions for 74 countries in 46 languages, and traffic information for more than 10 countries, along with detailed maps for more than 180 countries.

"Why have multiple devices that work in only one country or region? Put it all together, make it free, make it global and you almost double the potential size of the mobile navigation market," said Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President, Nokia.

"Nokia is the only company with a mobile navigation service for both drivers and pedestrians that works across the world."


Ovi Maps is available for download for 10 Nokia handsets, including the Nokia N97 mini, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and Nokia E72, with more Nokia smartphones to be added in the coming weeks.

In addition, starting in March, new Nokia GPS-enabled smartphones will include the new version of Ovi Maps, pre-loaded with local country map data, allowing users to view maps offline.

"The large-scale availability of free-of-charge mobile phone navigation offerings using high-quality map data will be a game changer for the navigation industry," said Thilo Koslowski, Vice President Automotive and Vehicle ICT at Gartner.

"Such offerings will accelerate mass market adoption for navigation solutions and shift innovation focus to location-based services that go beyond traditional routing benefits."

source: webpronews.com

Planning on how to run a Twitter marketing campaign requires, first, the assumption that you want to run a successful Twitter marketing campaign.

Thus you must plan a marketing campaign that actually does little selling and more connecting. Why? Because this “laid-back” strategy on Twitter is more likely to get you loyal followers interested in what you have to offer.

Let’s look at an imaginary Twitter marketing campaign scenario:

You join Twitter and immediately start tweeting only about your products and services. Every time someone follows you, you send that person a DM (direct message) with a link to one of your sales pages. You use an application to automatically bring your blog feed into your Twitter account, and every one of your blog posts focuses solely on pushing your products and services.

How many people do you think will be interested in continuing to follow you and clicking on your links?

Twitter is effective for marketing purposes only when you realize it is NOT about sales but that it is about relationships.

A different imaginary Twitter marketing campaign scenario:

This time you join Twitter with a marketing strategy in place. You find and follow people who might be interested in what you have to offer but at this point you do NOT tell them about your products and services.

If you still want to send a DM when someone first follows you, make it a personal appreciation for connecting without pushing any of your sales page links. If you really want to include a link, make it to a free report.

In your general tweets you share links to worthwhile articles that relate to your products and services. These articles do not have to be your own; in fact, sometimes they should be to other people’s material.

Then every so often you throw in a tweet about a product or service of yours and include a link. But even in this case what you say can make a difference:

Instead of tweeting:

Buy my super-duper widget right now and you’ll make tons of money in 30 days. You can tweet:

Check out my new widget training program – it can help you attract more visitors to your website.

See how the second tweet is much less selling and much more sharing?

Now if you’ve been sharing worthwhile information connected to this topic, people following you will be more inclined to click on the link because these people are already conditioned to trust you. You’ve established this trust by providing these people with valuable free information on the topic.

In conclusion, the best mindset for developing a Twitter marketing campaign is to take the perspective of your potential clientele/customers: Not constantly tweeting about how great your products and services are; instead consistently tweeting information that will help solve their problems.

And occasionally you can tweet that the products and services you’re selling are the solution to those problems.

Google announced that it is now making sure that ads linking to mobile app downloads automatically appear only on devices that actually offer those apps. In addition, the ads will display a "download" link rather than a URL.

"Simply include 'itunes.apple.com/' or 'market.android.com/' followed by the app name in the ad's visible URL, and it will automatically display as 'Download iPhone App' or 'Download Android App,'" says Katrina Kurnit of Google's Inside AdWords crew.

Advertisers also have the option to select specific devices or carriers for their ads in general.

"If you've chosen to show ads on iPhones and other mobile devices with full internet browsers, you can now target specific mobile devices or carriers," says Kurnit. "This feature makes it easier for you to reach the right users if you have a carrier- or device-specific message. This includes landing pages that have been optimized for a specific device, billing relationships with certain carriers, or mobile apps developed for a specific platform. For example, if you sell iPhone cases, you can use device targeting to ensure that users with Android phones won't see your ads."



Mobile Internet usage is expected to continue to increase rapidly. That means a lot of people using a lot of different mobile devices through multiple carriers. Google's new targeting options could become increasingly important in getting your ads seen by the right people, depending on what you are advertising.

SMS Text Message is a plugin for WordPress to allow blog owners to update their readership via SMS.

A user comes to a site and wishes to be updated (daily, weekly, monthly, etc) via SMS Text Messaging. The user enters their 10 digit phone number on a sidebar widget. The number is then added to a database. Then every so often, the site admin can send an update via text about what is new on the site.

Features
-includes built-in widget
-easy, simple administrative management interface
-support for all the major wireless carriers

Download

I got into search engine optimization when Yahoo was king and Google was a gleam in Larry Page’s eye so I’ve had a front row seat to all the big doings. And one thing I can tell you for certain is Microsoft just took off its kid gloves with the release of Bing and is looking for a shot at the reigning champ Google.

This article will show you how to hedge your bet with both contenders and come out a winner while these two Goliaths slug it out.

Round One:

First and foremost make sure you follow the one major rule that will apply to both engines; Content is King!

Although we don’t yet have a clear picture of how Bing will react to all situations we do know that, since it is being touted as the first decision engine, it will focus greatly on quality of content. That said, be ready to make your pages a little longer than you did when optimizing for MSN and be certain the copy reads well.

Round Two:

Great content is not enough. It has to be well written and natural sounding. Anything that sounds like it was written for a search bot will not make it into the top one hundred let alone the top ten.

Round Three:

Still dealing with on page content, you need to carefully consider how many times your keyword is mentioned and where it is found on the page text. Both search engines will not only look for your keywords but also the context in which they are found. It is no longer enough to simply have them sprinkled in the text randomly. Now the keywords need to actually flow in the context of the text as well. This is typically taken care of for you when writing naturally but is definitely worth the extra once over before posting the final page live.

Here is a little formula to help…
Use one main keyword and up to two supporting keywords per page.
Do not repeat the main keyword more than three times on a page.
Do not repeat the supporting keywords more than twice each per page.
Try to have at least five hundred words per page.
Try to place your main keyword at the beginning, middle and end of the page text while keeping the writing natural and flowing.

Round Four:

Get as many high quality inbound links as possible. You already know this but it bears repeating. Search engines today are about popularity of the individual page returns. Having inbound links from Google authority sites will be more important than ever because any other search engine trying to trump Google will also be checking these stats as well as adding a few of their own.

That said, getting links from just the Google authority sites is not enough. You also want to get links from MSN’s top picks (which are now Bing’s top picks.)

Round Five:

To really hedge your bet, get an early leg up on your competition by becoming proficient in proven SEO software with a good track record on both Google and MSN (The tool at http://www.SEOeliteWeb.com has proven a good pick over the years for its ability to help develop SEO friendly content and locate the most beneficial link partners but there.)

And finally, look for domains for sale that are already ranked well on MSN. This could be the diamond in the rough opportunity of a lifetime for your online business.

By following these simple tips you can outdo ninety nine percent of your competition trying to share in the rewards offered by Google and Bing going head to head.

The global financial downturn is driving millions of people to try to earn extra income from the Internet, without losing what little they have.

Many thousands of internet entrepreneurs have succeeded and attained financial security. So what is their secret? How do they get a steady stream of visitors to their website and how do they persuade them to click the “Buy Now” button? By far the majority of marketers use a combination of Google Adwords and Search Engine Optimization.

Google Adwords carry millions of small ads every day, for every conceivable product or subject imaginable. So it must be the way to go, right? Sure, many people are making a good living from Adwords and a few can make a fortune at it. But, if you’ve tried it, then you’ll know it the true difficulties involved.

Being potentially very profitable, this market is very difficult to break into. First, you have to learn how this thing works, then you have to constantly improve your ads and you will need to spend money before you find the best performing keywords and the most profitable ads. You can set a daily limit to your spending but just twenty dollars a day will mop up 600 bucks in the first month.

Most popular keywords cost anywhere from 50 cents to 2/3 dollars per click, so twenty dollars won’t buy many clicks and, at a click-through rate of two or three percent, you will not get many visitors per day.

There are only about eight slots for ads on each page of Google, so the competition for these slots, particularly on the first page of results, is very fierce and often very sneaky. Each of the eight “tenants” of those valuable places on Page 1 are striving to get to position one, which, on average, gets over 70% of the traffic on that page and the only way to do that is to push the others down. All the Adwords users on the second and third pages are also fighting to climb up the greasy pole.

It is now possible to buy software that will allow you to spy on details of competitors’ campaigns and to see what keywords they are using and even what they are paying for each keyword, so you can potentially bid slightly higher and gain a higher position. If you do get your ad on Page One or Two, someone will be sniping at you with this type of software. Even if you have gained a comfortable position on Page 1 of Google, it is a constant struggle to maintain that position.

There is an alternative approach to running a successful Google Adwords campaign. You can employ a specialist team of experts, with the experience and the time to do the whole thing for you. The problem is, they won’t be interested unless you’re going to be a big spender on Adwords. That’s why I say that Google Adwords may be one of the most difficult ways to make money on line, certainly for a newcomer with little money to risk.

So how about Option Two? Search Engine Optimization. Surely this is the ultimate solution!

You learn how to design and build a web page which meets all Google’s guidelines (and I’ll tell you what they are) and then you get on Page One, with a page which costs nothing to be there and wait for the money to roll in. How cool is that?

This is all you need to do. Find a suitable keyword phrase (preferably 4 or 5 phrases) which gets at least 100 searches a day and which does not have many heavy hitters in the competition. 1,000 searches a day is obviously much better but is likely to have strong, well-established competition.

Then you need to get a domain name which incorporates the main keyword or phrase and build your web page so that it includes the keywords in the Title of the page; in the Description of the page; in the URL of the page; in the Headline of the page and in the Anchor Text of all links to other websites. That’s not too difficult, is it?

Then, to convince Google that yours is an “Authority” site, you need to get multiple links to your page, from other related sites, dealing with the same subject, whether it is Health, or Family, or whatever. The more important these other sites are, the more weight Google gives to these links. I can tell you, getting these links is hard work.

Here’s a real example. My website is on Page One of Google, for the phrase “Stop Arthritis Pain”, out of 2.1 million results. Last time I looked, it was at position 6, on Page One, and has been there for months. The same search phrase is on Page One of Yahoo (at position 2), out of 21.7 million results. Impressive eh?

I’ll bet you’re thinking “that page must be pulling in a ton of money”. Well, it isn’t. The reason is, that keyword phrase is not a popular search term and only gets about 20 visitors a day, so it makes a few dollars a day but nothing significant. Think about those other twenty million pages, who are getting even less traffic than those on page one.

So, if you can get onto Page One of the big search engines, you may make a lot of money but 99.9% of the pages up there are having no impact at all, in terms of making money for their owners. In many cases, it’s a lot of time and effort for no reward.

A well established method, used by High Street businesses for many years, is gaining credibility in online marketing. Make money by giving stuff away for FREE! We’ve all heard of BOGOF – “Buy One, Get One Fee!” How about, “Get this valuable stuff, without buying anything”? Many internet marketers, smarter than I, claim to be making excellent earnings with this method and without the aid of Google Adwords or the Search Engines.

This is a quote from an expert, who has many profitable websites from using these methods -

“There is no more powerful way to sell your product than by ‘preselling’ it with free and useful information, typically with a free ebook.”