White Label Websites and SEO

First of all let us know what this white label stuff is. A white-labeled website is eCommerce website which sells the products online just like the main site but, under a different domain name, brand or company name. It is altogether you have the same website, but with different skins. Usually, it is like selling the same products from different store fronts to different audience. This type of website should not be mistaken as an affiliate website but, they surely share some characteristics. They are particularly popular in the retail, travel and gambling sectors.

I would just like to list specific ways that can be used for white-label websites and how effectively they can help in your SEO campaign.

1. Keyword-rich domain name: You may have your main website on your brand name or company name. To get the advantage of the keyword-rich domain name/s you have then white label website will be very helpful. Usually, this can be used to target the exact phrase that matches the domain name. Next strategy will be to dominate the first ranking page of the search engines using different domain names.
2. Local Presence: If your eCommerce business requires a local touch and presence to a particular geographical area, then another brand or website which is a white label can be created having the local touch focused on localized audience. This will also help in ranking in geo-specific search engines and local search engines.
3. Targeted Keyword Approach: Imagine you have to target 100+ keywords and this will require a lot of effort and time to rank on the first pages for all the keywords. On the other hand, imagine you have 100+ websites each catering to the target keywords. In other words you have 100+ home pages for specific keywords. In fact, to maintain these websites will be easy, as all the products and scripts will hit the same database. Thus, it not like owning 100+ website, but only one website.
4. Link Building: White label sites will surely help in building links. As you will have more number of sites, with similar content you can surely exchange links among the different websites. Or most of the sites linking to the main site – or you can also try making a linking pyramid to help you in better ranking in search engines.

If you are building your own white-label domains make sure there is a damn good reason for you to host your content over hundreds of domains rather than just one. You need to take care your websites need not be considered for spamming. It is always better to have finite number of white label sites so that you can not only try getting better ranking in search engine, but can also share different percentage with your affiliates from these different sites. You can also try different marketing campaigns for different sites thus, will help you in lot of other ways as well. SERPS and search engine algorithms are unstable and unpredictable. It makes sense to maintain a multi-domain or even multi-brand strategy. This way you diversify your rankings and traffic sources thereby reducing risk. Thus, you have your eggs in different baskets.

White-labeling is surely going to rise in popularity and in some cases may even become an alternative to traditional affiliate marketing. Good examples of such white label sites – 888.com. They have quite a few white label sites like online-casino.com.

Read in detail on SEOmoz

Website Usability Checklist

Search engine optimization and other online marketing techniques get targeted traffic to your website. As per research, a visitor spends an average of less than 8 seconds on the web page. So, you have just less than 8 seconds for the visitor to do what you want them to do. Or else they will go away. So, you need to also pay proper and more attention how the website is treated by different visitors and the major portion of your visitors find the website navigation easy and comfortable. They should be able to use the site easily and should understand the content.

This is a simple usability checklist for the website.

1.      Have the navigation links easily visible. Visitors should know where they are and should easily find out where they have to go next. Also, they should know what all additional pages are there apart for the page they are on.

2.      The navigation links should be consistent and at the same place on all the pages. Visitors may get annoyed of the links appear and disappear unpredictably. The best practice is to use include files for the navigation system. This will ensure the changes made to this are effected on all the pages.

3.      Use appropriate anchor text. As the anchor text is important for search engine optimization, do not stuff them with main keywords without considering to which page it will lead to after clicking. Make the anchor text more meaningful at the same time so that the visitor will know where they will be moved to on clicking. Don’t keep them guessing as to where the link is going to take them.

4.      It is a normal practice to highlight the anchor text so that it conveys the message that the visitor has to click it. Usually, the anchor text is underlined or used in a different font or bold font. It is always a best practice to use CSS to emphasize the text links.

5.      You can use JavaScript or other scripting language to create menus for the navigational links. Just take care that the visitor can easily navigate through the link structure in the menu.

6.      Home page link is a must in the list of navigation items you have. Also, the logo should always be linked to the home page.

7.      Include site search box on every page of the website. If the visitor can’t find what they need, they should be easily guided to the search box. Moreover, if you refer the search keywords, you will know what information is searched more number of times and what should be made easily available to the visitor. Thus, prominently displaying the search box will help in improving a website.

8.      Always use breadcrumbs to let the visitor know on which page he is on and how they have navigated to the page.

9.      Always have your main content and call-to-action lines on the top or above the fold. Do not expect the visitor to scroll down, read and then click.

10.  Use proper background color and font color so that it gels with your brand and branding. Moreover, the content should be easily readable by the visitors.

11.  Always use ALT and TITLE attributes to all images. Some browsers may block images so in this case the visitor can read the ALT text.

12.  Have a custom error page that will help a visitor when clicked on a broken link or type the address incorrectly. The custom error page should be in synch with the website design and structure.

13.  Have a feedback form to always dope you with you information that will help you to increase the performance of the website. Try to improve the usability depending on the feedback you receive. The users of the site can tell you exactly how they are feeling about it.

Your website is designed just not for you but, for the ones who use it – your visitors who are your customers. A site that confronts to users’ expectations, makes them more comfortable and more compelling to visit again. Good usability is always critical to website’s business.

Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition

Google to Woo Indians with Localized Products

After Xerox, only Google has the rare privilege to enter in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. It says, to google is to use Google search engine to seek information on the World Wide Web. No wonder Google is a great brand all over, but when it comes to India the online market is quite different from the rest of the world here. The strategies and products to the Indian market should be localized having the Indian masala formulae which other products have followed say for example Maggi noodles or Lays. They understand the Indian masses tastes and changed the strategy to conquer the Indian market.

Why India?

1. Internet is penetrating at a fast pace. With 7% penetration and 50% year-on-year growth and the vast population makes India as the favorite destination
2. China market which is similar to India’s has some issues with Google. Pakistan is also following the same path. Thus, the best thing for Google is to shift the focus to India
3. Baidu in China controls the major portion of search traffic. Google will not have such competition in India
4. Major portion of Indian internet users can speak and understand English

Google knows that major part of Indian population is not conversant in English. It will be difficult to increase the user base. Thus, they have hit upon to go beyond English to offer products in local languages and started educating the people about the internet and its advantages. Thus, creating the awareness for Google and its products. They did miss the mobile internet space as well. The introduction of landmarks to Google maps apart from the street names makes it a very useful product for Indians. Google kicked off its mobile services by offering an SMS search some three years ago.

Frost & Sullivan’s Saif says the clue to Google’s success in India lies in its focused approach. Instead of spreading itself too thin like most of its competitors, Google has chosen instead to focus on a few segments. And it is taking a long-term view in each of the categories - a nicely woven strategy to target the Indian market. But, this surely rings the warning bells as Yahoo and Bing can realize their mistakes and would try to take advantage of the awareness created by Google. But, Google is Google at last.


Reference: Outlook Business, June 2010 issue

What Would Google Do?

Social Networking – 10 Good Quotations

1. The word "follower" is a misnomer on twitter. They are people who gift you their attention. Be thankful. – Gautam Ghosh, Consultant, 2020 Social


2. What matters more is whom you follow than who follows you. – Gautam Ghosh, Consultant, 2020 Social

3. Organizations jumping into social media should get ready internally first. – Gautam Ghosh, Consultant, 2020 Social

4. Social Media is a tool and a tactic. Not a strategy. - Laura Ries, from Ries & Ries, a consulting firm

5. The value of a social network is defined not only by who's on it, but by who's excluded. - Paul Saffo, Silicon Valley Forecaster

6. It isn't just what you know, and it isn't just who you know. It's actually who you know, who knows you, and what you do for a living. - Bob Burg, Author and Speaker

7. Promoting your business must not be the overriding message you communicate to your online social networks. - Helen Leggat, British Freelance Writer

8. Social media should improve your life, not become your life! - Patrick Driessen, Consultant and Executive Coach

9. This isn’t a direct marketing tool, this is human communication. - Rob Key, CEO of Converseon, a social marketing firm

10. Human beings are far more likely to communicate ideas and information with others when they are emotionally engaged. Find the key issues that concern your audience and then inculcate them within your marketing plan to get an emotional response. - Maki from DoshDosh.com

The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success

10 Simple but Important Tips for Email Campaigns

Marketing using emails is a very tricky matter. You have to face many hurdles. First you need to hit the inbox of the prospect and not the junk folder. Then, you just have 60 characters to display to the prospect – the subject line. Subject line is the one which can make the prospect open the email or just trash it away. Next is the call-to-action line. These are just few and there are many more. Below are the few best tips which can help in making your email campaign successful. Most of them are the same ones which you may already know. But, read #9 and #10 and let me know your thoughts.


1. Address recipients with their name in the email. Make it a bit personalized but, make sure you do not overdo it.

2. Avoid spam friendly words in subject and text of the emails like $, Dollars, Discount, Free… If at all you want to use in the body text of the email use it once. Better use these words in images.

3. Avoid sending promo emails during vacation and holiday seasons. This will lead to a very low open rate.

4. Avoid sending promo emails during starting of the week or during the weekend. Wednesday is the best and auspicious day to have email campaigns.

5. Create clear call-to-action line in text and not in image. Most email clients block images by default.

6. While designing the email, make sure you have the both vertical and horizontal preview panes in mind. Have your main text viewable to the reader through both the preview panes. Move the boring stuff down.

7. Have the email of two are three short paragraphs. Have bullet points. Short and simple. Do note that readers will not spend more time on the email.

8. Test you emails for all the email clients.

9. Most emails are read on mobile devices now. So, make sure your email is easily read on mobile devices as well.

10. Put URLs in subject line with the attractive subject line. Let the URL be short as well. Mobile users can just click the URL and visit the landing page. Example: Register for a Demo now. http://short.in/demo.

The Constant Contact Guide to Email Marketing

South Indian Film Stars on Twitter

 South Indian film starts are not behind even when it comes to Twitter. Most of the Telugu film stars or people related to Telugu film industries are creating their presence on Twitter. Few of them are below. Hope they are real accounts...

Allu Sirish
Hansika
Junior NTR
Nagrjuna Akineni
Nithin Reddy Nalla
Priya Anand
Ram
Rana Daggubati
Richa Gangopadhyay
Siddharth

Refer this for other Indian (Hindi) film celebraties and more... - Famous Personalities / Celebraties on Twitter

1961 Usha Parinayam - Telugu Film Songs

13 Easy Tips to Make Landing Pages More Effective

Landing page is the crucial first step for any conversion to happen. Be it a download, a registration or a sale, the prospect will spend an average of 8 seconds on landing page. So, you have approximately 8 seconds to make the visitor, what you want him/her to do. In these 8 seconds, the visitor may close the page or will do what you wanted.


Thus, the landing page should be so effective such that those 8 seconds should be more than enough for the visitor to deliver your message and action. So, how do you increase the effectiveness of the landing pages, say for a banner or any PPC campaign?

1. If the visitor is coming to the landing page, through PPC campaign then the keywords which prompted the visitor to click should also be promptly displayed on the landing page or should be used in the body content. So, in the title and header tag try to use the keywords. Have separate landing pages for separate keywords groups in your PPC campaigns specific to the set of keywords they are targeted at.
2. Do not use long paragraphs and sentences. Remember, you have less than 8 seconds. Have short sentences preferably, bullet points. Usually, it is easy to read and understand the bullet points. So, try to deliver the message you want to convey in short and crispy manner.
3. Have your main and important lines on the above fold of the page. Do not expect the visitors to scroll down to read the lines. Just remember, they spend very less time on the page and scrolling down or side-wards will take a couple of seconds away.
4. Have the product image or the screenshot or a nice attractive image to compliment the text you have on the landing page. Images do speak louder than words and can also attract the attention of the visitor.
5. Forms? I hate when I see forms. Moreover, if the forms are too long I hate them more. And, if the form does not trust me as a human and makes me type what I see in the image, I get pissed off again. So, try to make these forms as simple as possible. Ask only the info which you require. Do not try to ask more info. What you may need at the first place is the prospect’s email address, so grab it first. You can use dropdown or radio buttons for other form fields which are much easier to select as the visitor need not type the whole stuff.
6. The call-to-action link or the button should be promptly displayed on the landing page. The visitor should really know what he/she is supposed to do and that also is your objective. So, make these buttons a bit attractive and use a nice call-to-action line like “Get FREE Whitepaper”, “Add to Cart – Use Coupon Code XXXX before Check-out”, “Download it NOW”. Words like Register or Submit will not be that much useful on the landing pages. You need to attract the attention on the prospect for the click.
7. And where can I have this call-to-action button/s? It should be visible in the above fold of the page. Do not expect the visitor to scroll the page up and down or side-wards and click on the button.
8. Test the landing pages for all the popular browsers. Differences in browser rendering can cause pages to display improperly, leaving an unprofessional experience and making the prospect to bounce out. Browsershots.org offers a free service that provides a snapshot of your webpage in most of the popular web browsers.
9. Do not forget to test the landing pages for different resolutions as well. A change in resolution may push the call-to-action button below the fold. Do test the complete process on all resolutions. The best you can do is to know the resolution (size) most of your visitors are using. You can get this info from Google Analytics or any other website stats tool and optimize the page for that and try to adjust the images, buttons etc for other resolution as well.
10. Try to reduce and optimize the download time of the landing pages. If the landing page does not show up in 3-4 seconds, then the prospect may exit from your website or will move away to a different window or page. Avoid using heavy images and flash elements on the landing pages. This post proivdes links to few good tools to optimize download time for the web pages.
11. Try to gain trust from the first time visitors to your website / landing page. If your site is authenticated by VeriSign or you accept payments through PayPal then display the logo somewhere at the bottom or near the “Buy” button.
12. If you have a strong customer testimonial or a perfect feedback, show it on the landing page. You can also display any recognition or award received on the page.
13. The last step is doing numerous tests on the different types of landing pages. You have A/B testing; you have Google Analytics… which can provide the bounce rate and conversions the landing page is providing. Google Website Optimizer allows you to test multiple variables at a time and determines the best combination of them. CrazyEgg will show you where exactly the visitors are clicking. The advantage of this tool is, it will also show the visitors’ clicks even when the element is not hyperlinked. So, depending on that you can have that text / image linked appropriately.

The bottom line which you have to definitely remember when designing the landing pages is - you need to be in the visitor’s shoes and do what he / she will do in first 8 seconds. You landing page only has 8 seconds to lose or make a customer.

Related posts:
5 Easy Tips to Improve the CTR for Google Adwords
6 Basic Tips for a Perfect PPC Campaign

Landing Page Optimization For Dummies

9 Tips to Guide Your Conversations on Facebook

If you are an online marketer, then you will surely not miss in promoting your brand on Facebook. Facebook has become one of the top referrer to websites like Google. BUT, you need to have a proper strategy for Facebook. Facebook requires a different approach from other forms of marketing messaging and engagement. Here are few recommendations to guide your interactions and conversations on Facebook.

1. You need to act as if you are a real person from your organization and you are also taking to a real person. People like speaking to a real person as they feel confident that they will be attended to.
2. Read carefully through all the comments before joining the conversation. And chip in when you feel it is the perfect situation or required situation.
3. Have patience when you want to comment. Do not go on commenting on each and every discussion. Give others a chance to talk about your products and services. It is always good if other customers respond to questions about your products and services.
4. Do not talk about yourself always. I really do not like a firm which always comments on their business.
5. Focus on conversations with your fans which are of interest to them. Give fans a topic which can ignite a healthy conversation. Discuss about the topics and do not try to sell the product here.
6. Have contents, quizzes, coupons… so keep the audience engage. This can also initiate a viral and can attract more fans. But, ensure you are not doing too much of selling here.
7. Do not forget to promote your Facebook fan page on other promotional materials and collaterals. Example: your website, email signatures, business cards, other ads, events…
8. Make sure the content on your website can be easily shared on Facebook using the ‘like’ icon. This helps in expanding the reach and prospect base through your friends and their friends as well.
9. Try to measure the impact of being on Facebook – no. of fans, no. of comments, no. of engagements, no. of new prospects, traffic referred to your website…

You need to know that Social Media has turned into a powerful marketing medium – it needs a perfect planning and strategy to make the campaign successful.

Facebook For Dummies

Some Great Books on Google Adwords and Analytics - All 5 / 5 Start Ratings from me.

Ultimate Guide to Google Ad Words, 2nd Edition: How To Access 100 Million People in 10 Minutes

Ultimate Guide to Pay Per Click Advertising: Advanced Strategies to Help You Beat 97% of the Competition 

Advanced Google AdWords

Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity

SPEED: Google Says It Matters

Google has sent strong signals and indications that the download speed of webpages does matter for SERPs. So, a faster download of the webpage, not only helps the visitor to stick to the page for longer time with better user experience and to improve conversions. Now, it will be one of the important factors in the ranking in the search results page in Google.

While site speed is a “new” signal, it may not carry as much weight as the relevance of a page, title tag of the page or the content on the page. Google Webmaster Central says that, currently, less than 1% of search queries are affected by the site speed signal and the signal for site speed only applies for visitors searching in English on Google.com at this point (April 2010).

With Page Speed, Google will be able to comfy with the website performance in no time and will be able to provide us the suggestions to make it better. Page Speed is open-source Firefox / Firebug add-on. Page Speed performs several tests on a site's web server configuration and front-end code. These tests are based on a set of best practices known to enhance web page performance. Webmasters who run Page Speed on their pages get a set of scores for each page and helpful suggestions to improve its performance.

Page Speed evaluates performance from the user’s point of view, typically measured as the page load time. This is the lapsed time between the moment a user requests a new page and the moment the page is fully rendered by the browser. The best practices cover many of the steps involved in page load time, including resolving DNS names, setting up TCP connections, transmitting HTTP requests, downloading resources, fetching resources from cache, parsing and executing scripts, and rendering objects on the page. Essentially Page Speed evaluates how well your pages either eliminate these steps altogether, parallelize them, and shorten the time they take to complete. The best practices are grouped into five categories that cover different aspects of page load optimization:

• Optimizing caching - keeping your application's data and logic off the network altogether
• Minimizing round-trip times - reducing the number of serial request-response cycles
• Minimizing request overhead - reducing upload size
• Minimizing payload size - reducing the size of responses, downloads, and cached pages
• Optimizing browser rendering - improving the browser's layout of a page

Webmasters can as well use these free tools to evaluate the download speed test for the web pages / website.

• YSlow, a free tool from Yahoo! that suggests ways to improve website speed.
• WebPagetest shows a waterfall view of your pages' load performance plus an optimization checklist.
• In Webmaster Tools, Labs > Site Performance shows the speed of your website as experienced by users around the world.

3 Most Important Social Media Strategies

To be successful in social media is it important

• To increase your network in social space - have more and more followers in Twitter?
• To have presence in all the forms – blogs, forums, Twitter, Facebook…?
• To keep talking about your own business?

If you feel so, then you are wrong. Social media is about others talking about your business. It is about sharing knowledge. It is not a place to do sales. Your network should talk about it and spread the word.

The most important steps for a social media campaign to be successful are

1. Identifying the evangelists who will talk about your business and get them into your social network.
2. Make the evangelists to talk about you and your business.
3. Allow the evangelists to spread the word among their network

Who can be these evangelists? They can be your customers, prospects, analysts and/or your partners. Try to convert them into evangelists. Discuss a topic among them so that it can ignite a healthy discussion. Share knowledge so that these evangelists can get more dope to discuss. Let them review your product or service. Let them discuss about your customer support. If at all there are few negative conversations or feedback in the social media space, inspire these evangelists to have more positive conversations apart from you immediately responding to the same.

Also read below articles to know more about social media and networking:

The Four Important Steps to Start Social Networking for Business
6 Tips To Be Successful In Social Media Marketing
5 Important Approaches for Social Networking for Companies

6 Basic Tips for a Perfect PPC Campaign

I did come across a couple of online marketers who define their PPC campaign success to no. of clicks on the ad, click-through-rate (CTR) and cost-per-click (CPC). I definitely agree these are required to measure the performance of the PPC campaign but, do not judge the success of a PPC campaign by taking only these two factors. Many advertisers generate a large amount of clicks for their ads, but at the end you also need to note how many of these clicks have been converted to leads or sales.


So, ensure you have the following when you run the PPC campaigns -

1. Look at cost-per-acquisition (CPA). This will let you know average cost of each lead or download or sales that has happen. Accordingly you can compare or plan to invest in other online / offline campaigns.
2. Doing an analysis on the CPA number you get, try to predict the CPA at various spend levels. This helps you to reach optimal CPA.
3. Make the campaigns as keyword rich as possible using long-tail keywords pertaining to your business or products segregated as different groups. You can use the keyword tools provided by Adwords or WordTracker or KeywordSpy.
4. Each group or the set of keywords has the respective and related landing page. This will help to get a better quality score and will reduce the CPC. Not only CPC, but will also help in better conversions.
5. Use the geo-targeting, day-parting methods to reduce the unwanted clicks.
6. Try to use a back-end database or system which can track the CPC of each click and measures the ROI of each keyword.

There are many more tips and strategies that need to understand. PPC campaigns are easy to setup, but much more difficult to manage and optimize. Doing this takes time and effort. But, if you have the dedication to make the campaign a success then cheers.

Related posts:
5 Easy Tips to Improve the CTR for Google Adwords
13 Easy Tips to Make Landing Pages More Effective

Kindle Wireless Reading Device

This is an introductory video that provides a demonstration of the new Amazon Kindle eBook reader. A good one.

It is priced at US$ 259.00 as of now.

You can get more details an Amazon Kindle here. Do not miss the long review by the users.

Good news. Kindle can now be shipped to customers outside the U.S. Check out for the costs and shipping details in the above link.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization Bible

SEO: Search Engine Optimization Bible written by Jerri L. Ledford, is a very good book to know and learn the basics of SEO. This book offers readers about what they need to write a SEO plan and implement a successful SEO program. It also provides useful and easy tips on getting the website to the top on SERPs, The sidebars provide more information and additional resources on the topic which are very helpful to a rookie.

The main topics covered include –

• Creating an SEO plan
• Identifying and managing keywords
• Maximizing pay-per-click strategies
• Understanding the best practices for link building
• Regarding search engine robots, spiders and / or crawlers
• On-going process in SEO
• Tracking and generating useful reports

 If you want to make SEO work for you, this is the book you need to succeed.

About the author, Jerri L. Ledford: She has been a freelance business technology writer for more than 10 years. During that time, over 700 of her articles, profiles, news stories and reports have appeared online and in print. Her publishing credits include: Intelligent Enterprise, Network World, Information Security Magazine, DCM Magazine, CRM Magazine, IT Manager's Journal. Jerri also authors corporate collateral -white papers, case studies, web content, and presentations. Her corporate clients include Switch & Data, The World Health Organization, FujiFilm, Coco-Cola, and NaviSite.

Optimzation of Google Products Data Feeds

I have been looking at ways at optimizing the data feeds for Google products listings. I am doing research and all trials and this is what I assume the right way to get the listings on to the top of the product search results. If we follow the best practice and guidelines then it may surely be in top in the search results. Here are few guidelines which I feel will help.

(If you want to know how to create a data feed, then visit Google Merchant Center, which provides step-by-step process to create one.)

1. Specify Geographic Country: When you register for or sign in the Google Merchant Center you will be asked to enter the country for your target audience. Make sure you enter the right country. This will help you target the right audience as it increases the relevancy of your product's listing. Thus, it improves the quality of traffic and reduces the bounce rates.
   
2. Identify Right Keywords: Just as you identify keywords for organic search engine optimization, in the same way identify the keywords for the product data feed. Once you identify the keywords check if you can use them in the title and description of the products in the data feed. Try repeating them - but it should not look silly for the readers. Make sure title is about 65 characters and description is less than 160 characters. Also, ensure you are not repeating the same title for different products.


3. Product Type: Google Merchant Center uses the product taxonomy to categorize the products. Do make sure you specify the right category and are as specific as possible. Search for the right category here for your product and specify the same in the data feed.



4. Enter Relevant Attributes: Google provides the merchant to enter three types of attributes viz. mandatory, recommended and optional. Include all the mandatory and recommend attributes and as many of the optional attributes as possible. You can find the list of attributes here.


5. Images: Do submit high quality images. The best and minimum size of the product image that can be submitted is 300 x 300 pixels. If you have larger images, do not re-size them. Just give the path in the feed.


6. Data Feed Quality: Do check the data feed is formatted correctly. You can review this page for formatting guidelines.


7. Check Performance: Use the performance tab in Merchant Center to check average item performance. See how many of your items are currently searchable in Google Product Search, and track clicks by item. Learn more about the 'Performance' tab.


8. Track Your Listings: You can track your listings through Google Analytics. You can measure the traffic that is being referred from Product Search by adding tracking parameters to the URLs you submit. Keep track of products listings which are working well and try to tweak the ones which are not working well. The feedback received from Google Analytics will help to adjust the product feed. Check here for more details.


9. Data Feed Update: Ensure that you regularly update the data feed accordingly when there are any changes in product details like price and specifications. Do update the attributes accordingly and upload the feed on regular basis. You can also automate your data feeds so that they are submitted to Merchant Center regularly. Learn more about the available options to upload your data feed.

Last but not least, do provide as specific and quality information of the products as possible the product data feed. This may help a better ranking in the product search. As in Adwords or organic search the long tail keywords will lead to conversions. So, do not worry if your products are not being on top for generic keywords. We need to really bother about long tail keywords and specific product name rankings as those are the words used by prospects and will lead to sales.

Voice Based Microblogging: Bubbly

By the way Bubbly is going, it seems to be the next big thing after the current internet fad - Twitter. Bubble Motion has recently launched this Bubbly - a voice-blogging social network built for mobile phones.

Bubbly is already moving upwards with the number of subscribers, which have reached 500,000. They claim to they have more than 150,000 users from India only.

With Bubbly, you can record and broadcast messages from any mobile device. When a users records audio messages (lasting up to one minute) and updates, followers can listen in whenever they want. To start voice-blogging, you enter a short code onto your phone, and start recording your messages. To follow another voice-blogger, users dial the phone number for whomever they want to follow. Whenever there’s a new audio update, followers are notified via SMS with instructions on how to listen. Bubblers can also control who can listen to their messages, and have the option of masking their actual phone number to prevent followers from calling them directly.

Bubbly is currently partnering with mobile operators in India and has launched with regional and national Indian celebrities using voice-blogging using Bubbly. India seems like a perfect market for Bubbly. Among the first few is Sonu Niggaam. He said, "This platform offers no space for pretensions and is a genuine way of engaging with fans". Hey, can't one mimic the celebs voice?

Looking at all this, Bubbly can have success in markets where mobile usage is more than the internet usage.

Google PageRank Updated - April 2010

Google have taken the time over the Easter holidays and the weekend to update the PageRank system. The last time it was updated was during the Christmas holiday period of 2009. I see few of the new websites (lanced in Februay 20101) getting a PR of 1 which seems to be good for webmasters. I am yet to hear if it has caused any harm to any of the websites.

I do not think the PageRank is the only way Google judges the value of a website. A site without PageRank can still rank well in the Google search results. A website with a PageRank 2 or 3 can outrank a PageRank 6. I think PageRank is one of the metrics Google uses to rank the websites. But, still it is important to most of the webmasters. What are your thoughts?

The Four Important Steps to Start Social Networking for Business

We have seen over the past few years the “buzz” was and is all about social networking say it on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn or…. the list goes on. Many other brands, retailers and corporate have also boarded the bandwagon to listen and respond to their consumers with the intent to increase the interaction and communication with them.

But, what are the main things the social networking depends on?

I have just tried to summarize the vast thing in under these four steps. This is just to provide the reader a hang of the buzz word.

1. Listening: The first and the foremost thing is to know where your prospects or customers come together to share knowledge and interact. It hardly makes sense if you try to build your social networking setup at a place where you do not have your prospects. So, one needs to do extensive research and study to identify such platform as to where they are getting together. If this is not possible, then identify where is the communication relevant to your business is going on. In fact you want to be among with your peer group. You need to know the answers to these basic questions
   - Where do they live?
   - What do they do?
   - How are they currently using social media?
2. Interaction: This is the ability of users to engage with each other and the business owner. The most important thing is a social network mainly depends most upon the quality of the interaction features and interaction between the peer groups. Without them, a social network’s growth becomes difficult, its membership becomes disengaged and its purpose is missed. Moreover, the quality of content that is being shared should be of interest and related to your business. Try to identify thought leaders in your business or organization that can submit good content regularly and can interact with the community. Do not try to talk more of sales here or more of me. You can build successful network if you share knowledge and this platform is not to advertise your business. Create distinctive content that fits with the organization’s identity and mission. The owner should make this as a part of the routine – create content, respond to members and engaging them.
3. Relationship: The third important step is to build relationships with your prospects and customers. With proper interaction (step #2) one reaches to build on this step. This relationship should be such that it should trigger offline relationship and get-togethers. Here the member is more matured in the networking space and would like to increase his/her network may or may not be in the peer.
4. Measurement: So your question now is “What is the ROI?” Lot of sharing content, exchange of opinions, reviews…etc is going on. So, would you like to see the no. of page views, referrals or sales conversions? I would suggest you to develop a set of objective-oriented measurement standards, tied to existing business objectives, to assess the effectiveness of the social networking initiatives. For any social media community, there is an unlimited scope of activity to measure: interactions, contributions and connections across time location and topic. You need to focus on relationships and not selling.

Building a good social networking for business is not that easy as mentioned here in four steps. It needs lots of thinking, detailed plan, strategies, identifying the peer group, getting hold of the contributors that can ignite interaction and engagements and the list goes on. But, these four steps will really help you in understanding what ground word is required. So, good luck.

Also read:
6 Tips To Be Successful In Social Media Marketing
5 Important Approaches for Social Networking for Companies

The Future Could See Searches for 3D Content

It is talked that the “most used” button in search engines is the “back” button. That means, the searcher often cannot find what he/she is looking for in the top listings and are compelled to go back to find other links or to modify the search string. It is here that Bing is trying to look at this as its big opportunity as per Qi Lu, President – Online Services Division, Microsoft.

The search started with finding documents and then moved to images, videos, real-time information, events… The future could see searches for 3D images, 3D videos… And it seems Bing is trying to build the capability of capturing all the information and use it.

The bottom line is Google has such a better headstart over Bing that the former has more wealth of information and understands the user intent better that any other search engine.

The search giants’ alliances with the social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter will get information about people and real-time events. This will be not just limited to celebrities. Bing thinks their alliance with Yahoo will bring together lot more information for the searcher. But, will it beat Google?

Source: Times Of India

Famous Personalities / Celebraties on Twitter

Twitter has become very famous among the personalities, especially among the film celebraties. You find Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Gandhi and not to forget Priyanka Chopra, Mallika Sherawat, Rakhi Sawant et al... Here are few Twitter accounts which I was able to find out. Not sure how many are verified. You can directly follow my list on Twitter - Films and Sports.

Abhishek Bachchan
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan
Ajay Devgan
Akshay Kumar (verified)
Amrita Arora
Amrita Rao
Amitabh Bachchan
Anand Mahindra
Anupam Kher
Anushka Sharma
Arbaaz Khan
Arjun Rampal
A R Rehman
Arshad Warsi
Asin Thottumukal
Ayesha Takia
Barack Obama (verified)
Barkha Dutt (news channel, verified)
Bill Gates (verified)
Boman Irani
Celina Jaitly
Chetan Bhagat (author)
Chris Gayle (cricket)
Dalai Lama (verified)
Deepika Padukone
Dino Morea
Farhan Akhtar
Geoffrey Boycott (cricket)
Genelia D’souza
Gul Panag (verified)
Hritik Roshan
Imran Khan
Jiah Khan
Jugal Hansraj
Karan Johar (verified)
Konkona Sensharma
Kris Gopalakrishnan
Lara Dutta
Lalit Modi (cricket, verified)
Madhavan
Madhur Bhandarkar
Mahesh Bhatt
Mahesh Bhupathi (Tennis)
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (cricket)
Mallika Sherawat (verified)
Mandira Bedi
Meera Sanyal (politics)
Meghna Gulzar
Mohammed Kaif (cricket)
Narendra Modi (politics - protected account)
Neha Dhupia
Neil Nitin Mukesh
Oprah Winfrey (verified)
Pragyan Ojha (cricket)
Prannoy Roy (NDTV)
Priety Zinta
Pritish Nandy
Priyanka Chopra (verified)
Radhika Roy (news channel)
Rajat Kapoor
Rahul Gandhi (politics - protected account)
Rahul Khanna
Rajnikanth
Rajdeep Sardesai (news channel)
Rakhi Sawant
Ram Gopal Verma
Ranbir Kapoor
R P Singh (cricket)
Riteish Deshmukh
Sachin Tendulkar (cricket - verified)
Sajid Khan
Salman Khan
Sameera Reddy
Sania Mirza (tennis)
Shahrukh Khan
Shammi Kapoor
Shane Warne (cricket)
Shashi Tharoor (politics)
Shatrughan Sinha
Shekar Kapoor
Shilpa Shetty
Shreya Ghoshal
Shruti Hassan
Siddharth
Sona Sinha
Sonam Kapoor
Sonu Nigam
Sussanne Roshan Khan
Sushmita Sen
Trisha
Uday Chopra
Vijay Mallya
Vivek Oberoi (verified)
Yuvraj Singh (cricket)
Zaheer Khan (cricket)

Let me know if you have more. You can add them as comments here.

For Twitter ids of Telugu film stars click here.

The A to Z of Sachin Tendulkar