5 Free Google Tools That Will Help Boost Your Ranking

Author: Kyle Pearce

Google wants to make it easy for webmasters that create compelling content to rank well on its search engine. Using these free Google tools you can optimize your website, improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts and gain new insights into which keywords people are using to find information on Google.



Google Keyword Tool

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal



The Google Keyword Tool is an indispensable tool for any online marketing campaign. Using this tool, you can find the estimated search volumes, Adwords advertiser competition and popularity of keywords. It is an excellent tool for finding new keywords since it provides extensive lists of related keywords and suggestions to help you generate new keyword ideas. You can then use they keywords in article or blog posts and target them to improve your rankings.



Google Webmaster Central

http://www.google.com/webmasters/



With a free account on Google Webmaster Central you have access to the important data that Google stores about your website. It can allow you to easily identify problems that the Google crawlers are having indexing your content. You can also view top search queries that visitors used to find your website on Google, backlinks to your website and even the code that the Googlebot sees when it visits your website. On the settings page, you can choose the Geographic Target for your website to specifically target search traffic in your local area. A new, recently added feature gives you data on how fast your website loads, which is a new ranking factor that Google has added to their search ranking algorithm.



Google Insights For Search

http://www.google.com/insights/search/



This is a tool that is similar to Google Trends but provides additional data that may be useful to your Search Engine Optimization efforts. When you enter a keyword into Google Insights For Search, you are given important data related to that keyword such as: search trends over time, regional interest in the keyword displayed on an interactive map and top related search keywords. If you are looking for ideas for creating a new blog posts, this can be a very useful tool.



Google Analytics

http://www.google.com/analytics/"



Every webmaster needs to know how visitors find, navigate and interact with their website and this is where Google Analytics comes in. This tool provides extensive data on your visitors such as bounce rates, popular content, keywords used to find your website on Google search, referring websites, unique visitors and average time spent on your website. You can also set conversion goals for when visitors fill out a form, make a purchase or visit a specific page on your website, which allows you to identified from which traffic sources you are getting your most valuable traffic.



Google Website Optimizer

www.google.com/websiteoptimizer/



The Google Website Optimizer allows you to test different version of your website to see which version is most effective at conversing visitors. It gives you hard data on which images, descriptions, headlines and layouts that are most effective in grabbing your visitors attention. If you want to keep your visitors engaged, this can be a useful tool along with Google Analytics to analyze and improve how your website is presented.

About the Author:
Kyle Pearce is an Internet Marketing Strategist at SmarttNet, a Vancouver Internet Marketing company. For more information on the latest Search Engine Optimization tricks and techniques, please visit our website at http://www.marketingsmartt.com

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - SEO Tips - 5 Free Google Tools That Will Help Boost Your Ranking

IKEA's successful Facebook marketing

Social Media has grown tremendously this year. We start to see whoever dares to use Social Media Strategies in their marketing efforts also started seeing the results. IKEA has put together a very successful Facebook campaign to promote a new store and at the end of the day, it was a huge success.

The Swedish furniture company opened a new store in Malmo, Sweden and rather than just using only old marketing methods they decided to go directly to the people using Facebook. They uploaded several images from the Ikea showroom over the course of two weeks. Finally the interesting part was that the first Facebook user to tag his or her name on one of the products in the picture won it.

So if you dare to use it, you can enjoy the results :)

Social Media Optimization

Social Media Optimization – 5 Major Rules Must Have

Author: Kenny Gregg
Social Media Optimization or SMO is a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites. It is in many ways associated as a strategy to viral marketing through the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites instead of having the word of mouth created through friends or family. It is also considered as an integral part of an online reputation management or search engine reputation management technique for individuals or organizations that care about establishing their presence online.
As of today's marketing industry, SMO has been widely used by marketers to give their business a boost in authority for their websites. Through SMO, they were able to raise their site's performance and visibility in the entire internet marketing world. In relation to this, many are still wondering how SMO works. Below are the 5 major rules that can assist you while conducting SMO:
1. Boost your exposure through links. As you will notice in the internet community, many sites appear to be rarely updated. So if you want to optimize your site through social media, you need to update the content then use the links of your content to be visible on different social media sites. Adding a blog is a great step.
2. Use the power of tagging and bookmarking. You should add content features to your site like quick buttons which your audience can click if they like what they have read on your site. Be sure that bookmarking and tagging on your site is easy to find and navigate. Remember, typical visitors want a quick process.
3. Reward inbound links. Inbound links send visitors to your site. So it will be a good act to reward them since it helps to boost your site. You can encourage more inbound links if you are known to be someone who provides rewards back.
4. Aid your content travel. When your site has content, submit it to relevant site article directories. This way, your content is being noticeable to many sites and will help you to boost your own site if you provide a link in the article back to your original article.
5. Allow others embed your content. Letting others embed your content is a great way to prove your existence online. It also helps your content travel further and a more tendency of showing up to different sites.
Actually, SMO is easy. You just have to know the basics. After that, you will notice that you are increasing your site's visibility. And now that I have revealed the five (5) major rules, start from there. I will be updating these rules in future articles as these ideas get more sophisticated.


About the Author:

Kenny Gregg is a Kung Fu Genius with regards to MLM Secrets. Kenny is an expert on attraction marketing in the MLM profession, and if you want to learn and master his secrets to growing a Network Marketing Empire, visit his MLM SecretsFormula

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Social Media Optimization – 5 Major Rules Must Have

We are Thankful, cause we have too much to share

Its been a while I couldn't update my blog. So many things happened past couple weeks. First my partner in Turkey got sick, later myself and my family. Some forms of H1N1 and bronchitis, sinus infection. We postponed our event. So time to time, I feel sad, disappointed. But during those times, I felt how much I've been cared. So many friends shared their concerns, they helped me to ease my pain. They showed me one more time that, life gets easier when we share. I was thinking, "God this must be a curse" and a great person that I know from Twitter told me that "who knows that curse may actually be a blessing :) " It was true. It turned out to be a blessing.
It was couple days ago, I met a friend through my grocery shopping. She told me that one of our common friends is in the hospital with a late stage of cancer. She might not see the Thanksgiving. Three little kids, a very young age and a nice career. She worked so hard, too much stress. She is such a nice person and I'm praying for her and asking for your prayers.
We have so much to share, we share our knowledge through Social Media, we share our success stories through Social Media, and we share our friendship. I'm so Thankful this year; I have so many friends that I can ask their prayers for my friend.
Happy Thanksgiving :)

Instant gratification by Jemma @cousinslowpoke

Twitter is my new bff. I have been on twitter for just a few short months and I already cannot live without it. I would have chuckled if I had heard someone say this a bit ago but here I am saying it to you. We are in an era where we are always waiting for the next new and improved something or other. Most are dependent on some type of tech gadget like an iPhone, Blackberry, etc. Ever see someone misplace their phone and have a full blown panic attack from withdrawl? I thought so. I'm only 35 but I feel ancient remembering what life was like before computers, cell phones and cable tv. We are fortunate to be spoiled with so much technology to keep our ever growing appetites fed. Although I was never part of Myspace I assume their users experienced the same euphoria that I feel now with Twitter just as I did in my first few months of Facebook. I haven't resorted to Twitter being my set home page when I turn on my lap top but it is definitely the second site I check after my email. My hubby loves to make fun of me for always being on Twitter and I actually see @ signs when I close my eyes at night. So it is safe to say I am a Twaddict. Hello my name is Jemma and I'm a Twitter addict.

Now that I have made fun of myself I would like to tell you why Twitter, Facebook and the internet in general is so important to me. I was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's 5 1/2 years ago at the age of 30, right in my prime techie years. As a result of ALS I have lost the majority of my speech. So although most cannot understand me in person I am definitely heard online. It keeps me entertained from an otherwise mundane day due to my illness. ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that will eventually leave my body paralyzed. So I am very grateful to technology for making my life easier and more fun while living with such an awful fate. While I cannot just pick up a phone and call a friend to chit chat I can still sign on to Twitter and chat away with my new friends until I lose the function of my right hand and my typing finger. Twitter is an open forum unlike Facebook that only connects you with friends and family you already know. I've "met" quite a few amazing people through Twitter and call them my friends. I am just hoping they are legit users and not men in a creepy basement wearing only boxers posing as my friends. Whether you are looking for friendship, business contacts, social media tools or all the above it's amazing how you can connect with people for a wide variety of reasons. I'm only on for the entertainment value and it has definitely lived up to what I expected of it.

No matter what kind of mood I'm in I can sign on to Twitter and find someone that shares my temporary state of mind. Amazing right? Feel like complaining about something or want to share exciting news with someone, well then jump on Twitter and express yourself. What a concept. Instant gratification. Now that's my kind of site. It also opens your eyes to others, other's issues, other's feats, etc. I've met people fighting a battle just like me. People that need the support and ear of someone that understands. It's not just about being silly it's also about learning of people and causes in need. Twitter is amazing like that because information can spread like wildfire. It's an online support system. Let's just hope Twitter isn't just a fad and forgotten like cameras with film because I'm not ready to lose my bff.

by Jemma @cousinslowpoke

Thank YOU Jemma, you are such a great inspiration, I'm honored to call you "my twitter friend" :) Jade

Give Unconditionally !

Help someone today who can never help you...you will both feel so good! Thank you @Joebees
It just made me think about how important this is :) Truly, how many of us help someone without expecting anything in return.
This should be it. Than you really feel good, its like without self-pity and prejudice, you are giving to somebody who can never return your favor. I send my positive attitude to universe sometimes, or say hi to somebody that I never met in my life, who knows may be thats only what she needs that day. A warm hi :) A hug, little smile, answer a question, or just wait when you say "hi, how are you?" may be there is something they want to say in return :)))
So please help someone today who can never help you :)

University Student 2.0

University student 2.0 what does this mean? The argument that the Web 2.0 internet more social convergence, sharing and individual activities with intense expression mean that Web 2.0 is coming from.

University is the host of lots of activities, organizations for students. However, students are looking for different areas, tastes. Internet is the very first place to be more social. You can easily realize that importance of Internet. When I walk around the Bilkent Campus, drink coffee at Mozart or Break or take photocopy at Library. They are talking about Facebook, MSN, and Twitter.

Social media supports the human need for social interaction, using Internet. Especially at the beginning of social networks; they were created by young geeks at university dorm rooms or their garages. On the other hand, Turkey does not enough infrastructures to create global social network places so; we would have focused on consumption rather than production. A recent ComScore Survey (Q1 2009) shows that Turks spend more time on the internet than all other European countries. Turkish users spend an average of 32 hours online per week and are also active on social networks.


Relations are now also start Facebook is continuing to MSN chat, Text messages also ends. In this way, they don’t have real-life experience and feel in the deep. I have many friends who are just speaking their friends just online. Their Facebook and MSN lists full of people but they are always doing something lonely.

Of course, Lots of benefits for using the social media and networks. Especially in the ongoing exam week, you can chat classmates on the MSN and create online discussion platforms with your friends, or send lecture notes to each other. Furthermore, before you met people, you can check in out their Facebook profile activities, latest news about them.

Aykut Karaalioglu

Co-Founder Impreda Tech./Marro.ws

aykut@impreda.com

Human in Social Media

I've been thinking lately about the human factor in Social Media a lot. Why is Social Media a huge success? Why more and more people are signing up those social networking and other sharing sites? That is because since we are human we need to interact, we need to socialize and we need some place that we can be just ourselves. We now need each other more than ever :) It's true that for a long time we have been building walls around us not letting many people in. We always keep an arm distance. Because we do not trust each other anymore, we are scared and this fear leads us to being left all alone. Even though while we're networking in those meetings, we are not really ourselves, we mostly pretend a person that we want to be.
Now that we have Twitter, Facebook and others, socializing has become easier. We mutually introduce ourselves and instantly we drop our shields and we start sharing, laughing and trusting eachother again. Look around you. Nothing is the same anymore. We used to love and respect one another. We need to gain our values back, because that is what makes us different. Don't you agree?

Dealing with a loss and staying strong

1936-2009
In our daily lives, we have to deal with a lot of things. And losing a loved one is one of them. We still need to be strong, courageous, and most importantly we need to act normal, do our daily routines. You still need to pay your bills, make your phone calls, take your shower and smile :)
I've lost a lived one today, he is my sister's father in law. But because I grew up with my brother in law, he is more than a brother in law; he is a brother to me. So Hamdi Artar was my uncle. He was a character. When I say "Character" , Abraham Lincoln's quote comes to my mind "Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing." He was a strong tree, but still humorous. I remember, how many times I invited him to States and he used to tell me, "Okay if you get me a new wife, I'll come"
He was a good husband, father, grandfather, friend to many and an uncle to me. The worst thing is, I'm so far a way and even I can't able to attend his funeral tomorrow. But because of Social media sites, I can be able to reach so many, and I've been reached by so many. We all received prayers, comfort and I'm so grateful.

So sometimes you think what is my gain with Social Media? Think about this, you may receive what you need...
GOD REST HIS SOUL IN PEACE

Are we catching up with change?

In the beginning of a new century, world nations know that following knowledge and technology is the only way to keep up with time. Being a modern and developed society is only possible with giving due importance to knowledge, research and application of novelties. Education is the fundamental system that makes them possible. The aim of educational institutions is to raise qualified individuals who catch up with changes.
Are we catching up with change you think?

by Muge Artar

Social Media- It means so much to me :)

I was in Turkiye for 3 weeks, where I was born and grew up. I saw my parents, my sister, the family, and close friends... It was really nice. Getting together, sharing meals and love. Socializing, caring and loving. But if you ask me now, what I did for 3 weeks, mostly I did meetings, work, work work... I tried to explain, Social Media and how it works. There were quite a lot of people, first listened than tried to understand my approach. It was not quite close what we have in United States on this field. Cause people are really socialized in their day to day lives. Either you have friends for dinner or after dinner for a drink or sharing a cup of tea. But the main idea is getting together and socializing. Sharing is easing their daily problems and hectic lives. Nothing is easy lately, not even close; especially with tough economic situations. What makes things easy is sharing them. So they don't understand my approach to socializing in Internet, Twitter and so on... They really use Facebook, but that's it. They don't have that much of connection with Social Media. What I tried to show them is the power and support in Social Media, the importance of it. How Socail Media helped me and how it helped me to help others. How its so important to me. Now, when I'm looking back to my three weeks in Turkey, am I feeling guilty not to share my time in the fullest with my family? No I don't think so, I'll always miss them dearly. But I feel like I sparked one of the first torches in Social Media in Turkey :)

What is your Social Media Business Model?

Social media is becoming more and more attractive to Small Business Owners. However, the majority of social media services do not have a clear business model to present.
If you search around the web, you can easily find a list of business models, which is pretty much like this:
*Merchant – selling somebody else’s products or services
*Manufacturer – selling your own stuff
*Affiliate – making money referring people to somebody else (pay-for- performance)
*Infomediary – money is made by selling customer data
*Community – everybody pitches in (not sure how money is made)
*Brokerage – brings parties together and takes a cut of the action
*Advertising – no need to explain
*Subscription – paid, metered, pay as you go, etc.

In the long run, however, social media has to adopt alternative means for making money. At the moment there are a few alternative business models, of which four larger themes are; Crowd-sourcing, revenue sharing between services and users, developing and selling underlying technologies, and adopting social media tools and approaches for professional use. Some examples of these approaches already exist.

Some core concepts of social media, as well as investigates various phenomena co-occurring with social media, namely user activeness, identity, copyrights, mobility, trust, and side-effects. These phenomena should be kept in mind when designing and launching social media products and services.

Social media tools can also be used to change the working methods of an enterprise by, for example, encouraging openness and networking. The tools also operate in complex enterprise networks. Enterprises offering these new tools as part of the operations of the corporate world will have business opportunities.

So many question marks; too many questions looking for answers. In this crazy world don't we have enough already?????

Stand Out From The Crowd

So lets brainstorm together. Think about how social media has influenced you. Which service have you needed recently? What was your last purchase? How about the last restaurant you ate at? What was the last thing you read? What was the last electronic gadget you bought? Have you purchased a car recently? If you think about it long enough you agree that most things you do and buy have been influenced by conversations you’ve had both offline and online. So now you’ve got a vision of social media as a way of making business communication more human and more effective, while making the bottom-line results more measurable. In that vision, social media is integrated fully into existing business disciplines. Most companies are at least starting to see the potential. They understand word of mouth, and they understand that this is word of mouth in 2009. They’ve still got a lot of ground to cover between a willingness to experiment and a willingness to embrace social media. That’s my role most of the time: finding the path of least resistance between my clients’ willingness to explore social media and the results that will hopefully move them towards embracing it in a way that can transform their business. We help companies generate traffic, leads and sales via the web using newer tactics in social media marketing such as Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook and other relevant tools. What makes us different than others is media production and Video Sharing sites, such as YouTube, ICYOU and Metacafe. We film, edit and post your messages via those tools.

So we are here for you, to help your businesses "Stand Out From The Crowd" in this tough economic times. We price our work that suits with your budget, we should say its really affordable, cause we strongly believe that in order to survive we should walk hand in hand.

Media Landscape

The recession has accelerated systemic changes in the media landscape: Audiences are fragmenting, taking more control, and seeking inexpensive — or free — alternatives. Combined, print and television lost almost $17 billion in US ad spending in 2008 and 2009. While it may seem to be a buyers' market, this media meltdown risks being highly disruptive to campaigns and partnerships. Marketing leaders must work with media companies and agencies to reinvent integrated marketing, blending content with messages and extending channels not for reach, but for deeper audience relationships.
Do you remember the last time you found a plumber through a newspaper ad or yellow pages, I believe you use one of the search engines. So in order to stand out of the crowd, you should take your place in Social Media. Besides nobody has time to read long articles any more; thats why Twitter is so successful, you should finish your message in 140 characters. Its just makes the message deliverable and readable.
Twitter has made marketers rethink the way they market. You can follow any company and get their tweets on your twitter profile. (On twitter you can find more companies than users.All have their twitter accounts and send tweets to their followers.The new age marketing.)
New product launch,new ad,relaunch,any news about company,results anything,they send you tweets instantly the thing happens.Viral marketing has a whole new dimension and medium to grow.
Bloggers like me use Twitter to announce the new posts instantly as the post is published.

How many people in USA Tweets per day?

Invitee™—Corporate

*The 'paperless' society hasn't quite happened yet, so you are continually seeking innovative ways to draw attention for your corporate events.
*You want to let your clients know how important they are to your business.
*Your CEO is the headline speaker at a major trade show.
*Shareholder communication with a punch is at the top of your list of objectives.

Let Invitee be your coporate communications headquarters
www.invitee.us

Affordable IT ???

Most Smaller enterprises do not have dedicated IT resource, nor they want to invest on expensive IT skils. Most companies need centralized information of the resources, business generated information and collaboration tools beside their financial processes.

Our Affordable IT is aimed at helping transcend the business and technology challenges of doing IT on a tight budget. We not only review inexpensive products that pay off big but also offer analysis such topics as negotiating with vendors and managing IT staff time wisely.
Survival Strategies for Small IT Shops:

Remote Desktop Management
DatabaseManagement Outsourcing
Server Management Outsourcing
Security Outsourcing
Storage and Backup Strategies
Cloud Computing Models
Capacity on Demand Modeling
VMware ESX , Solaris Virtualization, HPUX Virtualization, ZVM (Z-Linux on Mainframe)
DR Planning and Management

Executive Management Online System

What is EMOS ?

EMOS will be used to support a number of decision situations including structuring of complex problems, developing priorities and ranking alternatives, measuring consistency of judgments, allocating resources, and conducting a cost/benefit analysis. Also assists in organizing problem-related information in a hierarchical model consisting of a goal, possible scenarios, criteria, and alternatives. EMOS enables the decision maker to systematically make judgments about the relative importance of criteria and the preference fro alternative to criteria.

Main goal of EMOS is to easily create management bridge mechanisms with the organizations both executive and IT group. EMOS is nothing with neither of them, because managers set models to support their decision process in EMOS and the IT group makes these models work effectively. This serves to the solution of one more chronicle problem that resides between the executive and IT group, which is the translation of different languages that the two groups speaks. EMOS becomes a natural gateway between these groups translating them the other group’s demands and thoughts.

A Little Background

I started my career in Turkey as an announcer at Turkish Radio and Television Corporation in 1987. After 1991 I transferred to TV Broadcasting. I worked in every stage of my career requires finally I was an anchorwoman in prime time news. After we moved to USA, I worked from New York UN as TRT Correspondent. I resigned from TRT in 2005 after 18 years. I started Promin Video Productions within my husbands company Promin Computer Technologies Inc. I implemented my knowledge and experience into our company. We do corporate commercials as well as high quality documentaries for Broadcasting. Such as "21. Yuzyil"
But at the end of the day, me and my team became experts in Social Media Strategies. If you want to stay competitive, attract new clients and retain your existing ones, you'd best be prepared to change with them. We know social media is important not that we are recommending to change everything and only replace all your sales strategies with only Social Media-but we want to help our clients to integrate social media with other marketing efforts so that they can gain measurable and strategic results especially in todays economy.

Welcome

So what is this milkshake all about? I truly love milkshake especially chocolate milkshake, but how this is related with Social Media. First of all, I believe if you love what you do, you don't feel like you're working. So I really enjoy what I'm doing, helping my clients, watching them grow and being a part of their success; is almost the same feeling of having chocolate milkshake. Besides Social Media by itself is a perfect shake with all those perfect social networking sites, like Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed.  So welcome to our milkshake, be a part of our blend, with your feedback and participation we'll have a perfect ProminMilkShake.