digitalizes

Submit site to Google or Add URL to Google – no need!

Stephen — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:15:05 +0000

When it comes to search engine marketing and search engine optimization, it is very easy for the business person who is inexperienced with the nature of the internet to be confused with how the whole “getting to the top of Google” thing works. There are a number of ways to achieve high rankings in the search engines, and in particular Google, but first of all your website has to be in Google’s index.

A common misconception exploited by some search engine optimization companies is that a website has to be submitted to Google in order for it to appear in its index. This was true in the early days of the internet and when the search engine optimisation industry was just starting out, but as the world has become more connected, computers have gotten faster and the Google tools that search the internet have become cleverer at tracking data and following links, the need to submit your site to Google has diminished.

Google still provides an online form for you to use if you wish to submit your site, but really there is no need to do so as long as you can get a link pointing to your site from elsewhere on the internet. And really, having your site discovered through an inbound link is better than using an online form.

If I don’t submit my website to Google, how does Google know it exists?

Good question. The Google tool that indexes the internet is called Googlebot. This is a small program that constantly crawls the internet looking for and following links. As the Googlebot crawls pages it will follow every link it is told to follow (there is a tag called NOFOLLOW which tells Googlebot not to follow a particular link) and if it is the first time the Googlebot has come across a page, it will set to work indexing that new page and following all the links from it and indexing those subsequent pages.

To make Google aware of your website, you need to get a link pointing to it from another website or blog.

How do I get my first link?

That is becoming more and more difficult as use of the NOFOLLOW tag increases. Over the past few years a lot of sites have been created in the “social media” or “social networking” sector. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter fall into this category. LinkedIn is another popular social networking site, but that is aimed more at professionals who are seeking employment or looking for business opportunities. But these sites use the NOFOLLOW tag I mentioned earlier. This means that Google is being told not to follow the links from those sites. In theory, the Googlebot does not follow those links, but in practice some people are still skeptical. So you have to find another way.

Here are a couple of suggestions:

1) Ask a friend, colleague or associate who has a website to link to yours
2) Submit your website to one of the quality web directories (search for “web directory”) that doesn’t add NOFOLLOW tags
3) Add a link to your Facebook profile and send a Tweet containing a link to your site just in case the skeptics are correct
4) Register with local business directories and create a profile for your business. These sites are less likely to have adopted the NOFOLLOW tag

If you have online experience then there are other methods to use such as writing and distributing a press release or articles, and submitting them to relevant sites to distribute them for you. This is a tried and tested method and if your press release or article is widely distributed, you should get you a lot of links very quickly.

But this is only the start of the campaign. The next step is to get the site ranking highly for the keyword phrases that are relevant to your business – and that is where you do need professional assistance.

You could try the DIY approach, but the road is long and hard and requires insider knowledge. If you decide to employ the services of one of the many search engine optimization companies that exists, be sure to do your homework first and ask the company for some references or testimonials. Do some searches online and see what others are saying about the company or person you are thinking of working with before you sign on the dotted line. And don’t sign up with any company that offers to do search engine submissions for you…

Submit site to Google or Add URL to Google – no need! is a post from: digitalizes
NETWORK : Digital Desktop Wallpaper

How to spot a Twitter spammer

Stephen — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:45:41 +0000

A friend of mine recently set up a Twitter account to help promote his new blog. Within minutes of the account being created he had 45 followers. He was so pleased with this reponse he called me up to tell me about it. I had a look at the list of followers and noticed there was something a little strange about the names of the people who were following him – almost all of his followers were female and every single one of them had a number after their username, for example Jenny734 (which doesn’t exist at the time of writing).

I have been using Twitter for a while and can recognise an obvious spammer straight away, some of the more devious spammers are more difficult to spot, but anyone who has a Twitter username that ends with a number is usually up to no good. Try looking at your own list of followers and take a close look at each of the usernames that ends with a number, you will almost certainly find that the user is fictional.

When I started to put this post together I had a quick look at my follower list to see which of those users could be classed as a bit iffy. I was pretty sure I would find a few, but was quite surprised to find 8 in the first 3 pages (8 out of 30).

Closer inspection revealed a lot of similarities between the accounts with regards to usernames, account usage and the subject matter of the tweets being sent out. I can’t say that every single account I found is being used by a spammer, but I would certainly suggest there is something not quite right about each account, and I would be very suspicious about clicking on links in their tweets and bio’s as they could be taking me to places I don’t want to go to and installing bits of software on my computer I don’t want installed.

These are some of the more obvious ways to spot a Twitter spammer

1) The twitter avatar – if the picture is of a scantily clad blonde (or similar) you can be pretty sure the picture is not that of the person making the tweets and is a surefire sign that the account has been created by someone who is using Twitter for something dodgy.

2) The bio has not been completed or contains claims about making millions of dollars from doing virtually nothing. If it sounds too good to be true it usually is.

3) All tweets are trying to sell something or they are about the same subject. One account I checked had sent 10 tweets in total and each of the tweets offered a solution to getting 100 or 500 new followers in 24 hours.

4) The ‘following to follower’ ratio is out of proportion. They are following hundreds or thousands of people and have very few Twitter users who have followed them in return. This can be expected on celebrity accounts, but not on the account of an average Joe.

4) Every tweet contains a link. A lot of people send links within their tweets so you should use this in conjunction with some of the other pointers above.

5) Very low number of tweets. A lot of the accounts I looked at contained very few tweets or tweets that had not been made during the past few weeks.

6) There is no avatar. Most legitimate Twitter users will upload a photo of themselves, the logo of their favourite brand or their own company logo.

Do you know of any other ways to spot a Twitter spammer?

How to spot a Twitter spammer is a post from: digitalizes
NETWORK : Digital Desktop Wallpaper

275 Twitter apps – something to do just about anything on Twitter

Stephen — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 04:29:34 +0000

Kudos to airabongco for putting together this huge list of Twitter apps. At the time of writing the list contains over 275 separate applications that allow you to a lot of things on Twitter, such as:

Find Tweeters with similar interests to you
Find out about the latest Twitter trends
Track Twitter users
Track the performance of certain keywords
Working with Twitter links
Track your Tweets around the world
Tools to enhance your Tweeting
Write reviews through Twitter
Tweet reading tools
Track the behavior of your followers
Tools that enable you to add Twitter to your website or blog
Update Twitter through other social networking sites
Integrate Twitter with other websites
Twitter for groups
Twitter as an organizer
Tools to allow you to schedule Tweets
Find answers to questions
Run a poll on Twitter
Track yourself with Twitter statistics
Make money with Twitter
Handle multiple Twitter accounts
Twitter backgrounds and other graphic resources
Integrate Twitter with files, images and videos
Twitter and email
Twitter and music
Twitter downtime saviours
Twitter spam watchers
Intergrate Twitter with your messenger
Twitter software and widgets
Twitter and your browser
Twitter on your mobile phone
Funny, useless and weird Twitter related sites

275 Twitter apps – something to do just about anything on Twitter is a post from: digitalizes
NETWORK : Digital Desktop Wallpaper

No! You don’t need to submit your blog or website to Google

Stephen — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:14:18 +0000

This is probably one of the oldest misunderstandings when it comes to search engines and websites. There is absolutely no need for anyone to submit a website or blog to Google in order for it to be added to the Google index. Honestly. You just don’t have to do it.

You can do if you want. Google supplies a submission form for you to use.

But there is no need as long as you have a link from somewhere else on the web pointing to your domain. The Googlebot will follow the link to your site and index it from there. Even a tweet containing your domain should be enough for the search engine spiders to find your site.

I have set up and run a lot of sites over the years and I have never, ever manually submitted any of them to Google. OK, that’s a lie. Maybe 10 years or so ago, but not anymore. The web is much more organic than it used to be and new blogs and websites are automatically found and indexed as long as other sites are linking to them.

No! You don’t need to submit your blog or website to Google is a post from: digitalizes
NETWORK : Digital Desktop Wallpaper

Have your AdSense earnings gone down too?

Stephen — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:30:57 +0000

Search Engine Roundtable has run a poll asking the question “Have your AdSense earnings dropped in February from January?”

60% (51 people) of those who answered said Yes, 36% (31 people) said No and 4 people had other things to say (not sure what they were!).

This corresponds with my own experience of AdSense earnings this year. January was a great month, but as soon as February started my earnings from AdSense took a nosedive.

Unfortunately, AdSense earnings fluctuate so much it is hard to predict what the income from the program will be on a month to month basis.

Have your AdSense earnings gone down too? is a post from: digitalizes
NETWORK : Digital Desktop Wallpaper

How to use the Google AdSense Allowed Sites feature

Stephen — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 10:51:42 +0000

A recent post on the Inside AdSense blog highlighted the possible value of using Google AdSense’s Allowed Sites feature to enable publishers to identify malicious activity and click fraud. The recent post was in answer to feedback Google had received when asking for AdSense Product Ideas.

One of the suggestions received by Google was this:

Show a list of sites displaying ads from a specific publisher ID to prevent malicious activity.

The response from Google was to try the Allowed Sites feature. So I did.

Set up is straight forward – login to AdSense > AdSense Set Up > Allowed Sites > Only allow certain sites to show ads for my account

If you have never used the feature before, the box that appears when you tick the radio button will be empty. Add all of the domains you have authorised your AdSense code to appear on. This should obviously include your own sites, but there could be others that have requested access that you may have forgotten about. Some article websites and forums allow revenue sharing.

What happens next?

Google will now look to see if your ad code is being used on any other sites. And if it is you will be informed through the AdSense interface. If the use is legitimate you can add the domain to the allowed list. If it is not legitimate the ad impressions and earnings will no longer be recorded in your AdSense account data.

What can go wrong?

1) If your pages are being translated by Google you may lose out on some income as the address being translated is the Google translate page and not your own, therefore it is not an Allowed Site. SP Blogger wrote about the experience in a recent blog post. AdSense earnings went down until the Allowed Sites feature was switched off.

2) If somebody has scraped one of your sites and has never changed the the original AdSense code, you could be losing out if the ads on that site are being clicked.

3) You might forget to add all of your sites to the allowed list or you might forget to add any new sites you add your code too.

This is the first time I have used the Allowed Sites feature so it will be interesting to see what kind of information comes back and whether my earning increase or decrease.

Have you used the Google AdSense Allowed Sites feature? How was it for you? Please share your experiences in the comments section below.

How to use the Google AdSense Allowed Sites feature is a post from: digitalizes
NETWORK : Digital Desktop Wallpaper

RSS feeds or updates by email?

Stephen — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:49:55 +0000

RSS feeds or updates by email? Which do you prefer?

RSS feeds are great for taking in a lot of information in little more than a glance; speed reading headlines, picking out keywords, choosing links to follow and stories to ignore.

The problem with following links from an RSS feed is that once you arrive at the destination page it is easy to become distracted as there are more stories to read and more links to follow. If I feel so inclinded, of course.

Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I am a top bouncer. I dip in, read my fill, and dip out. I guess a lot of people do that.

Updates by email are more engaging. I can read the article inside the email. I do not have to click here to read it in full. I can do it without even opening a bowser.

I am starting to prefer the email method. There are still distractions, but not as many, and staying in touch this way means I can get more work done rather than get caught up in a trail of link clicking and blog reading.

RSS feeds or updates by email? is a post from: digitalizes
NETWORK : Digital Desktop Wallpaper

Sell advertising space on your website or blog

Stephen — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 07:32:48 +0000

If you have a website with high traffic numbers you have probably thought about selling advertising space directly to advertisers. The thought of locating those advertisers and setting up a workable system to take payments, deliver the ads and monitor performance may be the reasons why the idea has not been carried forward to fruition.

I have just signed up for a new service that hopefully takes away all of those headaches. Advertise Space is the name of the site and all you have to do to sign up is complete a simple form and submit the details of the sites you would like to offer advertising on. Your sites are not accepted straight away as they will first have to be reviewed.

At this time I have submitted two sites. I have chosen one to automatically accept any advertising and on the other I have requested that each advert should first be approved.

Each person who signs up is automatically added to the affiliate program where he/she can earn 5% monthly recurring revenue for up to 12 months.

UPDATE

In the time it has taken to write this post the two sites I submitted have been approved. The next step is to create my ad units, set a price and then place the javascript code on the sites in question.

The ad units available at this time are 125 x 125 banners. There are 20 different styles of “advertise here” banners for you to choose from. The price you set and the graphic used to promote the available space can be changed at any time, but you should allow 24 hours for price changes to take effect.

Sell advertising space on your website or blog is a post from: digitalizes
NETWORK : Digital Desktop Wallpaper

Would you like to make money with niche websites?

Stephen — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 06:06:57 +0000

People have been making money with niche websites for years. And they have been teaching other people to do the same for years also. Two of the leaders in the both fields are Adam Short and Alen Sultanic. They have 94 websites covering a range of niche subjects that make them thousands of dollars each month. It has taken a long time for Adam and Alen to reach the stage they are at. They have done a lot of experimenting and research into the various marketing methods available to them (and you) and these have been refined over time into a failsafe system.

You too can learn those methods

Adam and Alen share their system through an online training course called Niche Profit Classroom. The course was opened in August 2009 and is still available to people who are interested.

On the course you will learn how to use free online resources such as Amazon and Google to research potential markets for your niche website. You will also learn how to create a product such as an ebook to sell on the niche site, and how to generate traffic within a matter of days of it being launched using article marketing. Most of the training is done through the use of video and there are a range of tools available to members to assist them with their research and launch of their niche site.

Adam and Alen’s methods have been used over and over again and consistently generate cash while their sites run on autopilot. Some of the sites are several years old. They never get updated and they are still making money. This is because they have become established authorities in the niche they are targeting and rank very highly for the chosen keywords.

I listened to what Adam had to say to Yaro Starak during quite a lengthy interview about his methodology for making money. The interview was first made available in July 2009, but yesterday Yaro sent a link to the interview in his newsletter, so I had another listen.

During the interview Adam “gives away” a lot of his “secrets” and talks very frankly about the killer system he has developed with his business partner. If you already have a good knowledge of the internet, keyword research and online marketing, you could learn a lot just from listening to the interview.

If it is so simple why isn’t everyone doing it?

A lot of people are. If you research the subject you will find plenty of ebooks and blogs offering advice and information on how to make money from niche websites. This advice is made available by people who have been there and done it. Niche Profit Classroom is another example of a course put together through experience, and should offer anyone interested in generating an income on auto pilot a solid foundation for getting started.

Footnote

As with all courses of this nature I would advise you to first do some research before signing up. There are a lot of scammers out there who offer the world and provide very little. From what I have read about Niche Profit Classroom this is not the case. Far from it in fact. I have only read good reports about the course, the contents of it and the value received by the participants.

Would you like to make money with niche websites? is a post from: digitalizes
NETWORK : Digital Desktop Wallpaper

The ‘Fox is loose in The Eternal City – catch him if you can

Stephen — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:50:35 +0000

Google Chrome may be my default browser, but I still have a soft spot for Firefox. After all, he was the upstart that kicked off the browser wars. Here is a fantastic video of the wily old fellah on a tour of Rome accompanied by an awesome soundtrack. Enjoy.

The ‘Fox is loose in The Eternal City – catch him if you can is a post from: digitalizes
NETWORK : Digital Desktop Wallpaper

digitalizes

Submit site to Google or Add URL to Google – no need!

If I don’t submit my website to Google, how does Google know it exists?

How do I get my first link?

Here are a couple of suggestions:

Other articles you might like

How to spot a Twitter spammer

These are some of the more obvious ways to spot a Twitter spammer

Other articles you might like

275 Twitter apps – something to do just about anything on Twitter

Other articles you might like

No! You don’t need to submit your blog or website to Google

Other articles you might like

Have your AdSense earnings gone down too?

Other articles you might like

How to use the Google AdSense Allowed Sites feature

What happens next?

What can go wrong?

Other articles you might like

RSS feeds or updates by email?

Other articles you might like

Sell advertising space on your website or blog

UPDATE

Other articles you might like

Would you like to make money with niche websites?

You too can learn those methods

If it is so simple why isn’t everyone doing it?

Footnote

Other articles you might like

The ‘Fox is loose in The Eternal City – catch him if you can

Other articles you might like