Source: SiteProNews

As more websites compete for valuable search engine “real estate”, search engine optimisation is becoming much more complex. And keyword selection remains one of the most important (yet least understood) pieces of the puzzle.

To clear up the mystery, let’s break it down into bite-sized pieces by answering our most frequently asked questions about keyword selection:

“What’s the difference between a keyword and a keyword phrase? And which should I use?”

Put simply, a keyword is a single word, like “Thailand”. But a keyword phrase is a more descriptive string of two or more words, like “Vacations to Thailand” Your approach to keyword selection will vary, depending on your industry. For certain niche markets, using single words can be a good strategy (as long as they are specific to your product or service). But regardless of your industry…

Well-researched keyword phrases will attract quality, targeted visitors to your website who specifically want what you are selling.

Let’s assume you sell English vacations and your website is listed at the top of the search results for the keywords “Thailand” and “Thailand Vacations.” Let’s look at the characteristics of two groups of visitors you’d attract.

Those who perform a search on “Thailand” are searching for a wide variety of topics, such as Thailand’s history and culture, snorkelling, beaches, entertainment, golfing, and yes — some will be looking for Thailand vacations. But only a small percentage of the people who perform a search on the keyword “Thailand” are qualified prospect for your vacation packages.

Now think about the prospects who find you by searching for “Thailand vacations.” Every prospect who performs this search is a qualified prospect for you. And by getting a top ranking with this more descriptive keyword phrase, you attract people who are more likely to become paying customers.

Someone who wants to take a vacation to Thailand is not likely to search for “Thailand.” They’re not going to search for “Vacations.” They’re much more likely to enter a keyword phrase like “Thailand vacations.”

Today, more than ever, your ideal prospects are going to enter precisely what they want to find, rather than general, open-ended terms. Which means your keyword selection must target your ideal customer with laser-beam focus.

At the same time, the search engines and directories themselves are also becoming much more strict with the pages that they’ll accept and index. They’ll be watching your submissions like a hawk to make sure that they’re completely relevant to the topic reflected by your keyword phrase.

There are pros and cons of doing your search engine positioning yourself versus hiring a reputable company to handle this time-consuming task for you. Many of you have wisely realised that it can be much more time-effective and cost-effective to leave your search engine placement in the hands of experts, so you van focus on your core business.

So the most important question of all now becomes: “If I hire a company to do my search engine placement for me, should I be expected to provide my own keywords and keyword phrases, or do they have a responsibility to advise me?”

Frankly, any company that doesn’t provide hands on consultation in this area is not helping you to maximise your search engine rankings. Keyword selection is the entire foundation on which your search engine campaign is built. Can you imagine hiring a contractor to build your house…only to have him say, “Okay, YOU lay all the bricks and pour the concrete — then I’ll do the rest?”

How To Select The Best Keywords For Your Site

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Source: SiteProNews

There are a few great things about Barack Obama’s new economic plan, and some of them should help us out as internet marketers. But, with the positives come the negatives. There are parts of Obama’s economic plan that might hurt us. First, let’s start with the best news…

The most exciting thing for internet marketers is that part of Obama’s new economic plan is to deploy what politicians are calling Next-Generation Broadband. With this plan, Obama wants to bring broadband to every community in America. Overall, this should eventually bring the costs of broadband internet down across the nation. Also, the internet users that are still on dial-up will likely switch over to faster internet, meaning more chances for them to stay on your site instead of clicking away because your graphics are taking too long to load. Overall, with this plan implemented, more of America should spend even more time online, meaning more chances for you to make a sale.

There are a couple of other parts of Obama’s economic plan that could turn into positives depending on your market niche. Part of the Obama plan is to issue a $1,000 dollar emergency energy rebate. This rebate is said to be a type of “down payment” for Obama’s long-term plan to give middle-class families at least $1,000 per year in tax savings. The personal savings rate here in the United States in the lowest that it has been since the Great Depression. We seem to have turned into a society of instant gratification. As much as I would love many Americans to put this extra $1,000 towards savings or debt, I believe most everyone will continue to spend this extra income on whatever they want. So that means there’s an extra $1,000 each year that families could use to make even more online purchases.

Another positive in Obama’s plan is the tax relief for small businesses and start-up companies. Obama wants to eliminate all capital gains taxes for these businesses in order to encourage the creation of more jobs. Since we work online, most of us don’t owe capital gains taxes, but some of us might. A better positive for most all internet marketers is the proposed “Making Work Pay” tax credit which promises a $500 credit to almost every worker in America, which looks like it will include self-employed small business owners.

OK, now for the negative aspects of Obama’s plan: All through the debates you have heard Obama say that nobody making less than $250,000 per year will see a tax increase. He has even been quoted saying that these people should all see a tax cut. Well, what if you are making more than $250,000 per year? What kind of tax increases will this mean? Not all of us internet marketers are making $250,000 per year, but the ones that have turned the internet into a career rather than just a side job or hobby usually do pretty well.

Now, there is one last part of Obama’s plan that I see as a potential negative for internet marketers. He wants to “simplify tax filings for middle class Americans.” With this plan, Obama wants to make it so that millions of Americans can get their taxes done in less than five minute. They want to have the IRS use the info it gets from employers and the banks in order to give taxpayers the options of simple pre-filled tax forms that they can simply verify, sign, and return. As internet marketers, we know that there are a lot of tax benefits that come from being self-employed. Some of us work very hard in order to find as many tax deductions that we can. And others pay CPAs big money in order to find even bigger deductions.

If middle class Americans are given the option of getting pre-filled tax forms, I believe a huge majority of them will take it. Out of laziness, I believe a large number of these Americans will miss out on tons of legal tax breaks that they could receive for their families. Obama says that this plan can save Americans up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees. But I sit here and think to myself about how much some people save when they do have professionals file their taxes. I could be very wrong, but I think that this plan is a perfect plan for the government to issue a lot less refund checks to American citizens. This means less money for middle class American to spend at your site.

So, what will Obama’s economic plan do overall for your business? Well, I believe there are chances to see spikes in sales, but the truth is that we see spikes in sales all the time. It seems to me that there are almost an equal amount of positives and negatives with Obama’s plan. I think that most of our sales will stay around the same during the Obama candidacy. It will likely take a few years for this economy to really get back on its feet and moving again. What do you think?

What Barack Obama’s Economic Plan Does for Internet Marketers

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Source: The Guardian

Industry critics warn of danger in giving internet leader more power

Google is to launch a service that would enable users to access their personal computer from any internet connection, according to industry reports. But campaigners warn that it would give the online behemoth unprecedented control over individuals’ personal data.

The Google Drive, or “GDrive”, could kill off the desktop computer, which relies on a powerful hard drive. Instead a user’s personal files and operating system could be stored on Google’s own servers and accessed via the internet.

The long-rumoured GDrive is expected to be launched this year, according to the technology news website TG Daily, which described it as “the most anticipated Google product so far”. It is seen as a paradigm shift away from Microsoft’s Windows operating system, which runs inside most of the world’s computers, in favour of “cloud computing”, where the processing and storage is done thousands of miles away in remote data centres.

Home and business users are increasingly turning to web-based services, usually free, ranging from email (such as Hotmail and Gmail) and digital photo storage (such as Flickr and Picasa) to more applications for documents and spreadsheets (such as Google Apps). The loss of a laptop or crash of a hard drive does not jeopardise the data because it is regularly saved in “the cloud” and can be accessed via the web from any machine.

The GDrive would follow this logic to its conclusion by shifting the contents of a user’s hard drive to the Google servers. The PC would be a simpler, cheaper device acting as a portal to the web, perhaps via an adaptation of Google’s operating system for mobile phones, Android. Users would think of their computer as software rather than hardware.

It is this prospect that alarms critics of Google’s ambitions. Peter Brown, executive director of the Free Software Foundation, a charity defending computer users’ liberties, did not dispute the convenience offered, but said: “It’s a little bit like saying, ‘we’re in a dictatorship, the trains are running on time.’ But does it matter to you that someone can see everything on your computer? Does it matter that Google can be subpoenaed at any time to hand over all your data to the American government?”

Google refused to confirm the GDrive, but acknowledged the growing demand for cloud computing. Dave Armstrong, head of product and marketing for Google Enterprise, said: “There’s a clear direction … away from people thinking, ‘This is my PC, this is my hard drive,’ to ‘This is how I interact with information, this is how I interact with the web.’”

[About time, if you ask V9]

Google plans to make PCs history

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Source: The Guardian

PM says radical increase in global cooperation is necessary to prevent the emergence of ‘financial mercantilism’

Gordon Brown will today call for a “new global order” to deal with the economic crisis as he warns against the protectionist policies of the 1930s.

In a wide-ranging speech on the global economy, the prime minister will say that a radical step-up in global cooperation is necessary to prevent the emergence of “financial mercantilism”.

“We face a choice. We could allow this crisis to start a retreat from globalisation. As some want, we could close our markets – for capital, financial services, trade and for labour – and therefore reduce the risks of globalisation. But that would reduce global growth, deny us the benefits of global trade and confine millions to global poverty.

“Or we could view the threats and challenges we face today as the difficult birth-pangs of a new global order – and our task now as nothing less than making the transition through a new internationalism to the benefits of an expanding global society – not muddling through as pessimists but making the necessary adjustment to a better future and setting the new rules for this new global order,” the prime minister is expected to say.

This is the start of a 10-day period when Brown, who talked to President Obama on Friday, will meet a number of world leaders to discuss preparations for the G20 meeting in London in April.

The meetings will discuss how Britain can best work internationally on financial reform, economic expansion and the creation of jobs in new sectors such as the environment.

Having held lengthy discussions with European leaders last week, Brown will meet the prime ministers of China, Korea and Japan in the next week. He will also meet the heads the international financial institutions, starting with Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, on Tuesday.

In his speech later this morning Brown will say: “The ability of banks in Britain to operate as we wish depends not only their management at home but on getting regulation right internationally.

“Our banking systems have been shown to be totally interdependent and interconnected. No financial institution anywhere can insulate itself from the shock that started in the US mortgage market earlier this decade. As banks facing losses retreat to their home markets, we have had a loss of lending capacity in every major market.

“And it is in order to fill this gap, we put forward last week a package of support for the economy.”

The prime minister will argue that the latest rescue package is designed to reduce the uncertainty that banks face with losses on their historic loans, alleviates their capital ratios, ensures their funding but most importantly enable and requires them in return for this to increase their lending to businesses and families.

“This is the key to preventing a deeper and longer recession than we need to have,” Brown will say.

“The fragility of the global financial system must be addressed internationally. If what happens to a bank in one country can – within minutes – bring potentially devastating effects on banks in a different continent, then only a truly international response – in policy and governance – can be effective. If we all coordinate our response there will be a quicker global and therefore British recovery.

“We have not yet seen the same protectionism in trade with beggar-thy-neighbour policies of the 30s. And I will fight hard to ensure we do not. But we also need to ensure we do not exercise a new form of financial mercantilism of retreat into domestic lending and domestic financial markets.”

If you read post http://www.v9designbuild.com/seo_outsourcing/?p=52, you will see that Henry Kissinger and Gordon Brown and on the same page, but only yesterday Timothy Geithner asserted that China “manipulates its currency”. This mercantilist approach is doomed to fail and is a deeply worrying coming so soon after the inauguration of the new US president.

Financial crisis: Gordon Brown calls for new global order

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According to Henry Kissinger, the international order will not come about either in the political or economic field until there emerge general rules toward which countries can orient themselves. What happens if America and China are protectionist?

Just prior to Barack Obama’s inauguration, Henry Kissinger wrote the most erudite piece, “The world must forge a new order or retreat to chaos”.

In it he analysed the “grave financial and international crises”, saying that the financial collapse represents a “major blow to the standing of the United States in the eyes of the world”, and that “every country will have to reassess its own contribution to the prevailing crisis. Each will seek to make itself independent, to the greatest possible degree, of the conditions that produced the collapse”.

Because of the economic exuberance, he said, a “gap had opened up between the economic and the political organisation of the world.” What he meant by this, and this is by far the most pertinent idea in the article, is that while the economic world has been globalised, the political order has not and that “every major country has attempted to solve its immediate problems essentially on its own and to defer common action to a later, less crisis-driven point.”

Both America and the UK are in a woeful economic state, with one The Daily Mail editorial pointing out that if the second tranche of the bank bailouts fails to stimulate the economy, the country itself will be bankrupt. One could argue it has been since the Second World War but if Gordon Brown’s so-called saving the world policies fail at home, which the financial press largely think it might, it would send an almost doomsday-like message to the world and its markets.

Rescue packages have been set up on a piecemeal, national basis and, for most countries, with unlimited credit guarantees by governments. So far, none of these tactics seem to have reined in the maelstrom from rescuing more industries from bankruptcy.

In part, it was run-away domestic credit that produced the crash in the first place and these measures have not been able to stem the panic since. According to Kissinger, “international order will not come about either in the political or economic field until there emerge general rules toward which countries can orient themselves,” and also that “in the end, the political and economic systems can be harmonised in only one of two ways: by creating an international political regulatory system with the same reach as that of the economic world; or by shrinking the economic units to a size manageable by existing political structures, which is likely to lead to a new mercantilism, perhaps of regional units. A new Bretton Woods kind of global agreement is by far the preferable outcome.”

This underlying threat is perhaps what sparked the euphoria surrounding President Obama’s inauguration and the unrealistic and unprecedented expectations put on his new administration. And while that was going on the actors on the world’s political stage were “avowing their desire to undertake the transformations imposed on them by the world crisis in collaboration with the United States”.

And in all this we cannot forget China, which has witnessed its export markets being mauled, with worries that should its growth rate fall below the 7.5% range, political stability in the country could become a real problem. It thus begs the question of how China and America deal with the crisis.

On the one hand Kissinger is asking that the globalised economic order and the silo-based political order to come tangentially into line. But how can the two systems, wholly different in both architecture and culture, be fused into a union that is able to deal with this depression? And what if protectionism grows in either country and becomes adversarial in nature? That would have long-lasting and devastating long-term consequences on every country the world over.

Kissinger argues that “the Sino-American relationship needs to be taken to a new level”, to reshape relations “into a design for a common destiny, much as was done with trans-Atlantic relations in the postwar period”.

But can his vision of an international order be permanent? Can it work?. Obama’s inaugural address sought to build bridges in a vision of hope, but with all the conflicts that are currently dogging the world, will the depression be the healer of these divisions or will it explode into a disastrous new world disorder and war?

Globalised Economic World And Regionalised Political Orders Must Harmonise

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With the combined effects of the credit crunch spreading into the real economy, it should come as no surprise that hotel bookings have plummeted.

There have been many articles appearing in the press recently that point to a massive downturn in tourist revenues in 2009 and that the industry will soon be forced to lay off thousands of workers.

From our perspective in Thailand, over the past few weeks, reported occupancy percentages have swung wildly: from single-digit occupancy rates in Bangkok to some hotels managing to retain up to 80% occupancy in Phuket. But irrespective of these hazy figures, there is now some good news filtering through. According to Ratchaprasong Square Trade Association president Chai Srivikorn on New Year’s eve: “We have seen an increase in foreign guests at many hotels in the Ratchaprasong area, with average occupancy climbing from only 20 per cent during the unrest to nearly 40 per cent [today].”

Whilst many hoteliers have expressed concerns about the joint effects of the economic meltdown on their revenues and are uncertain of what the year ahead will bring, few I guess have looked at search engine marketing as a way to offset the drop in tourist numbers. It goes without saying that it is now more important than ever before to stay competitive in the online marketplace.

One suggestion, rather than idly stand by and watch events unfold during this disruptive downturn, with the scratching of collective heads over how to best manage marketing spend, there should be a dramatic shift from offline to online channels in order to help generate incremental revenues and improve marketing ROI.

According to Hospitality eBusiness Strategies (HeBS): “A hotel’s overall competitiveness today is determined to a great extent by how well it manages its internet marketing and distribution efforts,” with 45% of all hotel bookings in North America now being generated from the internet and signs that this will increase significantly in 2009 and 2010.

Now, more than ever, is the time for hoteliers to seriously consider downsizing their brochure-and-billboard approach to marketing their products and concentrate their efforts in shifting ad spend towards the web. To support this, HeBS commented: “In 2008, a remarkable 68% of hoteliers reported that they would be shifting their budgets from offline to online marketing activities.”

But how does a company approach this intelligently? First, analyse your website thoroughly; research your keywords and look at the traffic being generated from them; review your placement on Google and Yahoo for each; and then optimize the entire site with keyword density in mind. This, however, is just the first step. The real effort then comes in the form of obtaining relevant, high-value links from other websites, article writing, involvement in forums and registering the site with hotel booking portals.

Search engine marketing techniques are at their most effective when used as part of niche online marketing strategies, which has changed over the last couple of years with an emphasis on “authority sites” regularly contributing content. This has been dubbed Web 2.0, which aims to enhance creativity, communications, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web. The result is that PR departments need to be far more actively involved in contributing to the web.

As business blogging became more commonplace as a means of communications for public relations, it has been shown to increase company revenues over time through the marketing and relationship-building power of the blog. To effect this, free blogging software, such as WordPress, can be added as a seamless addition to an existing website, increasing exposure by extending reach and expanding sites and feeds that link to it.

WordPress also comes with an inbuilt Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feature, but of what use? For a long time users have been crying out to have the latest news and features delivered directly to them, rather than searching and clicking from site to site. It has been around for quite some time now, but it is still not widely understood. RSS allows you to see when sites from all over the internet have added new content. You can get the latest headlines and articles — even audio files, photographs and video — in one place as soon as they are published, without having to remember to visit individual sites.

In summary, search engine optimization, professional blogging and RSS should form part of the fundamental elements of any company’s internet marketing strategy; it is the process of improving your website’s rankings on targeted keywords, primarily with the ‘big three’, namely Google, Yahoo! and MSN, and to extend your reach to a wider audience via RSS.

Once these strategies are satisfactorily in place, your online marketing efforts should be concentrated and consistent. If so, companies will benefit from:
• Increased and targeted online traffic;
• Competitive strategies for placement;
• Measurable return on investment (ROI);
• Increased conversions;
• Broadening of market share.

In the troubled times ahead, the most prudent form of advertising is to shift from expensive “bricks-and-mortar” campaigns to the relatively cost-efficient distribution channels of the web, by outsmarting the competition using an ROI-centric paradigm that increases market share in line with the tourist industry’s best practices.

Hoteliers should reform to stay afloat in 2009

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