Podcasting is the distribution of audio or video files, such as radio programs or music videos, over the internet using RSS syndication for listening on mobile devices and personal computers. A podcast is a web feed of audio or video files placed on the internet for anyone to subscribe to, and also the content of that feed. Podcasters’ websites also may offer direct download of their files, but the subscription feed of automatically delivered new content is what distinguishes a podcast from a simple download or real-time streaming.

Podcasting’s essence is about creating content (audio or video) for an audience that wants to listen when they want, where they want, and how they want.

Below is an MP4 file for V9. Careful though, it’s 3.5MB

V9 Design & Build podcast

podcasting

Technorati Tags: podcasting

Commercial websites believe that scoring high ranking on the search engine is so crucial  for generating traffic that many are willing to pay heavily to sponsor keywords or hire  SE positioning consultants to secure high rankings.

Also there are many dedicated bloggers who are finding that their blogs rank even higher  on search results than their actual websites, on subjects they often times know  practically nothing about.

Bloggers attribute prominent placement to the frequency with which they publish new  material and the fact that other sites often link to their blogs. These are two factors  most search engines take into account when determining rankings.

Still, easy as it may be for certain blogs to generate high traffic from search-engine  users, many commercial websites struggle to rank high in online searches related to their  business.

Companies often don’t realise that they’re competing for placement not only with  traditional rivals but with anyone who posts online.

The web is a great equaliser and good content rises to the top on internet search. Now,  it doesn’t really matter if the medium is a blog or a corporate website.

As as example, take a look at the following random samples belonging to our client, Soho  Properties (look for the .blogspot.com extension):
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=tenancy+management+bangkok&FORM=QBRE
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=tenancy+management+thailand&FORM=QBRE
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=property+bangkok&FORM=QBRE
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=bangkok+real+estate+agent&FORM=QBRE
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=condo+rent+sukhumvit&FORM=QBRE3
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=property+for+sale+asia&FORM=QBRE
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=condo+bangkok&FORM=QBRE
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=condo+for+rent+bangkok&FORM=QBRE
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=condo+for+sale+bangkok&FORM=QBRE
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=property+for+sale+bangkok&FORM=QBRE3

The full list can be viewed at http://propertybangkok.blogspot.com/

search engine positioning consultants, seo

Technorati Tags: search engine positioning consultants, seo

Blog Sites Grow 31 Percent since January 2005 to Capture Nearly 20 Percent of Active Internet Users in July 2005

Nielsen//NetRatings, a global leader in internet media and market research, recently announced that 11 percent of weblog readers, blog site visitors who claim to read blogs regularly or occasionally, use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) to sort through the increasing number of blogs available (see Table 1). According to Nielsen//NetRatings’ “Understanding the Blogosphere” survey, nearly five percent of blog readers use feed aggregation software and more than six percent use a feed aggregating website to monitor RSS feeds from blogs.

“While RSS is an established technology, the growing popularity of blogs has catapulted RSS into the spotlight as a content personalisation tool,” said Jon Gibs, senior research manager, Nielsen//NetRatings.

“RSS feeds deliver relevant posts quickly, in a customisable, easy to manage format. These types of services provide marketers with an additional avenue to tap a captive audience for time-critical offers. Since the customers themselves pick the content they will receive, advertisers are able to deliver their message within a context they know will engage their target audience,” he continued.

The majority of respondents to the survey were less familiar with RSS feeds. Among the other respondents, 23 percent understood RSS but did not use it, while 66 percent either did not understand the technology or had never heard of it.

Table 1: Use of RSS Feeds, June 2005 Survey Response Percent of Respondents
I use feed aggregation software to monitor RSS feeds for blogs 4.9%
I use a feed aggregating website to monitor RSS feeds for blogs 6.4%
I’ve heard of RSS and know what it does but don’t use RSS feeds 23.0%
I’ve heard of RSS but don’t know what it does 15.7%
I’ve never heard of RSS before today 50.0%
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings Understanding the Blogosphere survey, August 2005
Note: 1,000 online U.S. MegaPanelists responded to the survey fielded in June 2005

New Kid on the Blog Leads Year-To-Date Growth
The top 50 blogging and blog-related sites grew 31 percent to 29.3 million unique visitors during July 2005 as compared to the beginning of this year, comprising nearly 20 percent of active Internet users. Leading the way, MSN Spaces ranked No. 1 in year-to-date unique audience growth with a 947 percent increase by attracting nearly 3.3 million visitors in July, compared to more than 300,000 in January (see Table 2). Fark.com and Blogger ranked No. 2 and 3, with 63 percent and 45 percent unique audience growth, respectively.

“While these sites will likely never have the traffic of some of the larger ad networks, blogs do have a specific role to play in the online advertising mix. Advertisers should look to blogs as a way to organically grow trends by leveraging the role of bloggers as peer influencers. By associating their message with the blog’s image, advertisers can legitimize new trends they are hoping to promote to a niche audience,” said Gibs.

Table 2: Year-To-Date Fastest Growing Blog and Blog Hosting Sites (U.S., Home and Work)
Site Jan. 2005 Unique Audience (000) July 2005 Unique Audience (000) Growth
1. MSN Spaces 311* 3,257 947%
2. fark.com 488* 795 63%
3. Blogger 8,684 12,599 45%
4. Xanga.com 4,810 6,862 43%
5. Daily Kos 348* 476* 37%
6. The Smoking Gun 1,706 2,243 31%
7. Gawker 411* 531* 29%
8. TypePad 3,557 4,555 28%
9. engadget 630* 787 25%
10. Boing Boing 506* 605* 20%
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings NetView, August 2005
* This data falls below normal reporting levels, and therefore may have a higher probability of error.

For more information, please visit www.nielsen-netratings.com.
Really Simple Syndication, RSS feeds

Technorati Tags: Really Simple Syndication, RSS feeds

More coverage of Danny Sullivan’s keynote address at Chicago’s Search Engine Strategies conference, continued from yesterday’s Search Marketing’s About People and Principles, Not Just Algorithms, Part 1.

As the industry has matured, forums, conferences blogs, mailing lists, organizations, and other forms of community have kept the social fabric strong, contributing to healthy debate and learning. Sullivan listed some of the more prominent ones. A maturing industry needs better communication, with members showing a more transparent “public face.”

When a member of the community, Ian Turner, went missing following a conference, posts appeared immediately on several blogs and forums, sounding the alarm. Google’s Matt Cutts pitched in with a post. (Turner was tracked down, safe and sound, and his family was grateful for his colleagues’ concern.) The community has begun to rally around “its own,” in good times and bad.

Sullivan went on to cite a variety of examples where members of the SEM community have begun to take a stronger stand against the very worst practices perpetrated by members “not in good standing.” Sullivan believes in a broadly inclusive community, save for those who refuse to accept the basic rules of society—these, Sullivan seems to think, should be banished from the loop (clearly Danny’s been reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau).

And as with J.S. Mill (and Edward R. Murrow), Sullivan is all about free speech, and countering “bad speech” with better speech. He doesn’t believe in draconian measures or top-down government, but rather, realizes that a range of social-pressure-type punishments can be effective against those who act anti-socially. (Mill, for example, believed strongly in the power of speech-oriented sanctions, such as open disagreement and shunning.)…

To read the full article you can visit:
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3577081

Search Engine Watch, Danny Sullivan, Chicago’s Search Engine Strategies conference, Search Marketing’s About People and Principles, Not Just Algorithms, viagra

Technorati Tags: Search Engine Watch, Danny Sullivan, Chicago’s Search Engine Strategies conference, Search Marketing’s About People and Principles, Not Just Algorithms, viagra

My introduction to search engine optimization started in London a few years back and, after experimenting with Web Position Gold, I honed these skills to attain very good results in promoting clients’ websites. Later, I discovered that link building was a necessary but highly tedious monthly process. This I still do to an extent, but today I am increasingly drawn to article writing as the medium for promoting both ourselves and our clients in the world of Web 2.0.

As a former sub-editor for a number of publications in London, it is quite a stimulating pastime to research subjects that interest me. It is also as a valuable means of gaining exposure for our sites. So this year I will be writing for ourselves and our clients through submitting relevant articles to high PR websites; each will then provide us with valuable one-way links.

Also, these articles will appear in the WordPress section of our website so as to syndicate the information further via our RSS feed. As an aside, Google’s Adsense has been added to WordPress and I am keenly aware that the use of high-paying keywords could see some additional rewards for our efforts ? ‘search engine optimization’ ranking amongst the top performers.

According to www.weird-websites.com the top ten keywords are:
1) 213,259 paris hilton
2) 155,497 google
3) 124,016 yahoo
4) 121,086 ebay
5) 96,264 eminem
6) 96,262 britney spears
7) 94,014 mapquest
8) 93,708 tsunami
9) 90,841 girls
10) 90,334 89.com

So, submissions have almost been suspended to the free directories and our monthly SEO programme is now much more focused on article writing. They are not intended to only have SEO value; they are being written to provide readers with relevant and interesting content that may not be commonly available elsewhere.

There seem to be a plethora of e-zines out there that accept articles from writers, but I am concentrating on making submissions to the following list that have PR rankings of 7 thru 5:
http://www.ezinearticles.com - PR7
http://www.lilengine.com - PR7
http://www.webpronews.com - PR7
http://www.articlecentral.com - PR7
http://www.web-source.net - PR7
http://www.articlecity.com - PR6
http://www.goarticles.com - PR6
http://www.businessknowhow.com - pr6
http://www.articleCity.com - PR6
http://www.buzzle.com - PR6
http://www.xongoo.com - PR6
http://www.zinos.com -PR6 AU06127
http://www.constant-content.com – PR5
http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5staraffiliateprograms.com - PR5
http://www.submityourarticle.com - PR5
http://www.isnare.com PR5
http://www.authorconnection.com - PR5
http://www.articlealley.com - PR5
http://www.articlesfactory.com - PR5
http://www.articlefinders.com - PR5
http://www.ideamarketers.com - PR5
This article was submitted personally by the media director of V9 Design & Build, who provide both local and outsourcing web and SEO services.

search engine optimization, article writing, adsense

Technorati Tags: search engine optimization, article writing, adsense

By identifying the highest paying keywords on the internet, website owners can dramatically improve earnings in Google’s AdSense programme.

What is Google AdSense?
You can earn revenue from your website, while providing visitors with a more rewarding online experience with AdSense which automatically delivers text and image ads that are precisely targeted to your site and your website. With AdSense you earn more ad revenue with minimal effort and at no additional cost.

Google AdSense delivers text and image ads that are targeted, on a page-by-page basis, to the content on your website. Website owners simply copy Google’s HTML code into their web pages, and then Google automatically delivers ads based on the content of each page.

Whenever a website visitor clicks on these ads, the advertiser pays Google, and Google splits the revenue with the website owner.

Why the price of keywords matter
Google charges advertisers on a price per click (PPC) basis. That is, advertisers pay only when a user clicks on their advertisement. Advertisers bid against each other to receive better placement in the results, and the bidding price for each keyword differs.

How to make profits
By optimising the text of your website to include high priced keywords, Google will deliver ads based on these higher priced keywords, thus yielding you significantly more revenue per click.

According to Mike’s Marketing Tools, his assessment in October 13, 2005 was that the top search terms for the last 24 hours carried out on Metacrawler and Dogpile were:
No Keyword Count
1 poetry 5,072
2 sex 4,246
3 google 4,210
4 amoxil 3,721
5 paris hilton 3,546
6 yahoo 3,384
7 hentai 3,372
8 boobs 3,286
9 ebay 3,237
10 training golfdust 2,944

I can understand ’sex’, but ‘poetry’?

Google AdSense, google, yahoo, ebay

Technorati Tags: Google AdSense, google, yahoo, ebay

The term “Web 2.0″ refers to what some people see as a second phase of development of the World Wide Web, including its architecture and its applications. As used by its proponents, the phrase refers to one or more of the following:

* the transition of websites from isolated information silos to sources of content and functionality, thus becoming a computing platform serving web applications to end users
* a social phenomenon referring to an approach to creating and distributing Web content itself, characterised by open communication, decentralisation of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and “the market as a conversation”
* a more organized and categorised content, with a far more developed deeplinking web architecture
* a shift in economic value of the web, possibly surpassing that of the dot com boom of the late 1990s
* a marketing term to differentiate new web businesses from those of the dot com boom, which due to the bust now seem discredited

However, a consensus on its exact meaning has not yet been reached.

Many find it easiest to define Web 2.0 by associating it with companies or products that embody its principles. Some of the more well known Web 2.0 entities are Google Maps, Flickr, del.icio.us, digg, Stumbleupon and Technorati.

Many recently developed concepts and technologies are seen as contributing to Web 2.0, including weblogs, linklogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds and other forms of many to many publishing; social software, web APIs, web standards, online web services, Ajax, and others.

Proponents of the Web 2.0 concept say that it differs from early web development, retroactively labeled Web 1.0, in that it is a move away from static websites, the use of search engines, and surfing from one website to the next, to a more dynamic and interactive World Wide Web. Others argue that the original and fundamental concepts of the WWW are not actually being superseded. Skeptics argue that the term is little more than a buzzword, or that it means whatever its proponents want it to mean in order to convince their customers, investors and the media that they are creating something fundamentally new, rather than continuing to develop and use well-established technologies.

Defining Web 2.0, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Technorati Tags: Defining Web 2.0, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

By JONATHAN THAW, BLOOMBERG NEWS

Yahoo! Inc., one of the first Internet search companies, has capitulated to Google Inc. in the battle for market dominance.

“We don’t think it’s reasonable to assume we’re going to gain a lot of share from Google,” Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker said in an interview. “It’s not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share.”

Yahoo!’s comments underline the difficulties any Internet company faces in trying to challenge Google’s dominance of the Web search industry. Google has at least double the market share of Yahoo! and Microsoft Corp. in Internet search, the largest and most profitable segment of online advertising.

“In some countries, it’s already game over in search, with Google the clear victor,” said RBC Capital Markets analyst Jordan Rohan in New York. “Google’s product development pipeline runs at such a fast rate that it’s very difficult for any company, Microsoft or Yahoo! to catch up.”

Shares of Yahoo! fell as much as 13 percent Wednesday, the day after the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company reported fourth-quarter profit that missed analysts’ expectations. The stock rose 43 cents to $34.17 Monday in Nasdaq stock market composite trading.

“It kind of makes you wonder about how serious they are about search,” said Danny Sullivan, editor of London-based SearchEngineWatch.com, which tracks the search industry. “It really ought to be their goal” to be No. 1, he said. “Whether it’s realistic or not.”

Yahoo! founded in 1994 as one of the first online directories of Web sites, switched from Google’s search engine to its own technology two years ago.

To boost revenue from each search, Yahoo! plans to make ads more relevant to search terms, meaning people will be more likely to click on them. Advertisers pay Yahoo! a fee when Internet users click on the ads.

“We have held our own, and we should gain revenue share in the industry as we roll out these new initiatives,” Decker said in the interview after the company reported earnings last week.

“Our goal has been to hold our share and to be a leading, if not the leading, total marketing platform, which would include both brand and search.”

Yahoo! handled 19 percent of global Internet searches in November, a drop from 27 percent a year earlier, according to Web tracker ComScore Networks Inc.

Google’s share, by contrast, rose to 60 percent from 47 percent.

Decker last week cautioned analysts on a conference call against taking the ComScore figures too literally, saying the data exclude Asian countries where Yahoo! is “exceptionally strong.”

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/256748_yahoo24.html

Yahoo!, internet search dominance

Technorati Tags: Yahoo!, internet search dominance

Search engines such as Google discover information about your site by employing software known as “spiders” to crawl the web. Once the spiders find a site, they follow links within the site to gather information about all the pages. The spiders periodically revisit sites to find new or changed content.

Google Sitemaps is an experiment in web crawling. By using Sitemaps to inform and direct our crawlers, we hope to expand our coverage of the web and speed up the discovery and addition of pages to our index.

If your site has dynamic content or pages that aren’t easily discovered by following links, you can use a Sitemap file to provide information about the pages on your site. This helps the spiders know what URLs are available on your site and about how often they change.

A Sitemap provides an additional view into your site (just as your home page and HTML site map do). This program does not replace our normal methods of crawling the web. Google still searches and indexes your sites the same way it has done in the past whether or not you use this program. A Sitemap simply gives Google additional information that we may not otherwise discover. Sites are never penalized for using this service. This is a beta program, so we cannot make any predictions or guarantees about when or if your URLs will be crawled or added to our index. Over time, we expect both coverage and time-to-index to improve as we refine our processes and better understand webmasters’ needs.

Also, you can submit updated Sitemaps as your URLs change, but you don’t have to, as the spiders will periodically revisit your site (and will use the frequency information you provide in your Sitemap as one of the factors in how often they revisit) and look for new pages.

Once we verify that you own a site, we show you statistics and errors about it and the pages in it that we’ve crawled.

This information has been taken from Google at
https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/about.html

There is an online generator that will build the XML file for you at
http://www.sitemaps.blocklayer.com/Default.aspx

Google also have their own at
http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/sitemap-generator.html
Google sitemaps

Technorati Tags: Google sitemaps

Last year, we  recommended a company in the UK for the hosting of our clients’ websites, where we have enjoyed a 50% discount on annual hosting fees. However, they have discontinued these special rates and we have found a very effecient and reliable local ISP (Internet Service Provider) in Bangkok, Thailand. We are now recommending Siam Inet as our favoured host.

Special Rates

• 100 MB:    2,000 baht per year
• 200 MB:    2,400 baht per year
• 500 MB:    4,000 baht per year
• 1000 MB:    7,000 baht per year

NB: The rates shown above are the negotiated rates for V9 clients and we are recommending the 500MB option for most clients. The above prices do not include VAT at the standard rate of 7%.

In addition to the prices shown above, V9 are charging a standard one-off fee of Bt1,000 to relocate your site and transfer your domain name.

website hosting in Thailand

Technorati Tags: website hosting in Thailand