Chasing the Changing Demographic

Look into a mirror sometime: You are the future of Facebook. Young, middleaged,elderly, male, female, Hispanic, Caucasian, African American, Asian,Indian — no single defining demographic represents Facebook members. Ifyou thought you were too old, guess again. Facebook is experiencing its fastestgrowth among women 55 and older. Furthermore, teenagers now make up a paltry 12 percent of the Facebook audience. Overall, however, the fastest growing group by total users is still age 26 to 34. So why are adults flocking to Facebook in droves? Could it be the desire to reconnect with old friends, former co-workers, and family separated by time and distance? That pull is strong within most of us. Or, is it the basic human need to be part of a community, recognized for one’s contributions and right to express thyself? One thing’s for sure, Facebook is no longer a fad and is not to be ignored by marketers, big or small. Facebook opened to non-students in May 2006. Since then, Facebook has grown to become much more than a social network. According to Facebook, it is the largest online depository of photos, with more than 850 million images uploaded to the site each month. Additionally, Facebook is available in 35 languages(another 60 languages are promised) with more than 70 percent of users coming from outside the U.S.

The Facebook factor

The astounding growth rate of Facebook continues More than 50 translations are available on the site, with more than 40 in development More than 70% of Facebook users are located outside the United States Platform More than one million developers and entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries are creating applications for the Facebook Platform More than 350,000 active applications are currently available on the Facebook Platform More than 200 applications have more than one million monthly active users More than 15,000 Web sites, devices, and applications have implemented Facebook Connect More than 95% of Facebook members have used at least one application built on the Facebook Platform Mobile More than 30 million active users who access Facebook through their mobile devices People that use Facebook via their mobile devices are almost 50% more active on Facebook than non-mobile users There are more than 150 mobile operators in 50 countries working to deploy Facebook mobile products to amaze. Below are some stats provided by Facebook as of February 1, 2009. For updated stats, visit the Facebook statistics page. Scroll to the bottom of your Facebook screen, click the About link, and at the top of your screen, click the Press tab to access the Latest Statistics link. General Growth More than 250 million active users More than 120 million users log on to Facebook at least once each day More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of college The fastest growing demographic are people 35 years old and older User Engagement Average user has 120 friends on the site Users spend more than 5 billion minutes on Facebook each day (worldwide) More than 30 million users update their statuses at least once per day More than 8 million users become fans of Pages each day Applications More than 1 billion photos are uploaded to the site each month More than 10 million videos are uploaded each month More than 1 billion pieces of content are shared each week More than 2.5 million events are created each month More than 45 million active user groups exist on the site International Growth More than 50 translations are available on the site, with more than 40 in development More than 70% of Facebook users are located outside the United States Platform More than one million developers and entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries are creating applications for the Facebook Platform More than 350,000 active applications are currently available on the Facebook Platform More than 200 applications have more than one million monthly active users More than 15,000 Web sites, devices, and applications have implemented Facebook Connect More than 95% of Facebook members have used at least one application built on the Facebook Platform Mobile More than 30 million active users who access Facebook through their mobile devices People that use Facebook via their mobile devices are almost 50% more active on Facebook than non-mobile users There are more than 150 mobile operators in 50 countries working to deploy Facebook mobile products Take a closer look at Facebook’s recent demographics, as reported by notedFacebook blog, Inside Facebook, in February 2009. Clearly, the site’s appeal is both broad and growing, highlighted by the following: ✓ Facebook is growing in every age and gender demographic. Fastest growing segment: Women over age 55, up 175 percent over the previous 120 days. ✓ Facebook is growing faster with women than men in almost every age group. Women comprise 56 percent of Facebook’s audience, up from 54 percent in 2008. ✓ In Facebook, 45 percent of the U.S. audience is now 26 years of age or older. Facebook offers you the opportunity to get your message to all these demographics for free. What an efficient way to reach out and expand your customer base

What the Heck is Google Analytics .. Gooosh Pls Tell me ...?

In late 2005, Internet giant Google purchased a leading web analytics firm, Urchin, and began offering the service free of charge to certain well-placed technology publications’ web sites. Not long after that, Google launched the Google Analytics service based on the Urchin software, offering it to the general public as a completely free service. Response was incredible—overwhelming—and a quarter of a million new accounts were created overnight, with an estimated half to three-quarters of a million web sites tracked.All of this caught Google unprepared, and people had to be turned away because there weren’t enough resources to support everyone who wanted an account. Google began taking e‑mail addresses for interested webmasters who couldn’t be accommodated at launch. How did this happen? How did Google so grossly underestimate the demand for Google Analytics? After all, at $200/month, Urchin did okay—it had good software and a relatively low price point for the industry, but it wasn’t exactly inundated with clamoring customers. Apparently, assessments based on Urchin’s sales weren’t exactly accurate. The demand for real analytics is huge, and the price tag of free is exactly the price tag that draws in the masses. But what are analytics? Most webmasters know enough to realize that they need analytics. But do they know how to read them? How to use them? Are analytics just site stats on steroids, or can they be used by the average webmaster, who is a layman and not a professional, to improve the performance of a web site? The answer is that, with Google Analytics, the average webmaster can use analytics to improve the performance of a site. And well over a half-million users have figured this out, using Google Analytics. So many users have turned to Google Analytics and begun to make suggestions about the program that the design team at Google decided it was time to implement some new features and make the application user friendly. And that’s how the Google Analytics 2.0 application was born. Then, continuing in that vein, Google Analytics has consistently been changed and updated as features have been added, changed, and removed. The purpose of this post, about Google Analytics, is to explain the concepts behind analytics and to show how to set up Google Analytics, choose goals and filters, read Google Analytics reports and graphs, and use that information to improve your web-site performance. Advanced information about topics such as filtering, goal setting, and e-commerce tracking, and more in-depth explanations of some of the theories of analytics, are among the new features added. i will provide numerous examples of the ways companies use these reports to do business better, and I illustrate how some of the functions of Google Analytics works down the road .

How Organizations Use Twitter

Barack Obama’s successful presidential campaign in 2008 was perhaps the best example of an organization using Twitter to solicit donations, raise awareness, and call people to action. During the campaign, tens of thousands of Twitter users followed Barack Obama at http://twitter.com/ barackobama, where campaign staff used the service to provide the thencandidate’s whereabouts on the trail and kick off new donation initiatives. (Even though election laws mean the account can no longer be updated, it has hundreds of thousands of followers at the time of this writing.) The power of Twitter works for much smaller organizations, too. Groups such as churches and local charities can use Twitter to provide an additional way for members to connect, plan, and reach out beyond their immediate community. Preachers tweet about their planned sermons, youth group directors tweet about events, and local soup kitchens tweet when they need help. Whether it’s extra hands for a project, far-reaching assistance with a fundraiser, or some other big idea, Twitter can enable organizations operating on a budget to think on their feet. New organizations have also sprung up through Twitter. Some people have commenced their own donation campaigns on Twitter and encouraged other. Twitter users to donate and then tweet about it. But Twitter isn’t meant for charities. Enthusiasts of just about any interest have banded together on Twitter. Lets take it as an example, you can find organizations for food and wine lovers, sharing recipes and swapping restaurant reviews on Twitter. (You can search for the subjects that interest you on http://search.Twitter.com.) For example, musicians use Twitter to spread the word about concerts, song releases, charitable efforts, and their daily lives as celebrities. (Even Britney Spears has an official Twitter account: @BritneySpears.) John Mayer (@JohnCMayer) live-tweeted from the Grammies. Musicians working hard to make a name have used Twitter to engage thriving, and involved, fan bases. Twitter has also been a big help for community efforts. Whether it’s Amber Alerts, fundraisers, searching for kidney donors, or rescuing James Buck from an Egyptian jail (http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/statuses/786571964), Twitter has shone as a tool for social good. Plenty of people in the world want to lend a helping hand, and Twitter’s platform makes it easy, in real time, with a global network of connections.

How Individuals Use Twitter

Looking at Twitter for the first time, you might be compelled to ask, “But why are all these people, many of whom seem like just random strangers, talking?”At first glance, Twitter seems flooded with disjointed conversations, interactions, and information. You can find news headlines, political debates, observations on the weather, and requests for advice. The idea of Twitter can be a bit confusing for new twitterers (people who use Twitter). People have several reasons for using Twitter: ✓ To connect: Most people start using Twitter to forge connections and be a part of a community. Others just want to be heard. Twitter lets millions of people around the world hear what you have to say; then it lets you connect with the ones who want to hear from or talk to you about your passions, interests, and ideas. ✓ To record: Some people tweet as a way to take notes on life. They use Twitter at conferences, events, or just walking around and may even jog their own memories later about something that happened or what they’ve discovered. For example, if you’re walking down the street and you notice a new restaurant you want to check out when you have more time, you might tweet about that. Now everyone who follows you knows about this interesting-looking place, and you have a way of remembering to go back there yourself. ✓ To share: Some people use Twitter to share what they think, read, and know. They may tweet links to great articles or interesting items, or they may tweet original thoughts, ideas, hints, and tricks. Some tweet notes from speeches or classes, and others share choice bits of their inner monologue. Even when this information can get pretty obscure, with millions of listeners, someone’s bound to find it informative or interesting. ✓ To stay in touch: Whole families and groups of long-term friends use Twitter to stay in touch. Twitter can send public or private notes to your friends, and it stores all sent messages, which means that you don’t lose your thoughts when you close your browser (or your desktop application). Connecting to one another on Twitter is a great way to preserve an initial contact, such as at an event or conference, in a way that lets you gradually get to know them more over time. Twitter lets millions of people around the world hear what you have to say; then it lets you connect with the ones who want to hear from or talk to you about your passions, interests, and ideas.Twitter is pretty easy to actually use, meaning everyone from your 8-year-old cousin to your 90-year-old great-grandma can figure out how to use Twitter and say hello. Because you can access Twitter by using either a computer or cellphone (or both!), it fits into mobile lifestyles and brings you closer to the everyday thoughts of those you’re interested in.

Building a Presence on Facebook

Earlier It’s been said that if Facebook were a country, it would be the sixth most populated nation in the world. Imagine being able to get your message in front of the Facebook nation free. That’s exactly what Facebook is offering companies with Pages: an online location for businesses, organizations, and individuals looking to market themselves to the Facebook community. Not just for businesses, Pages can be created by not-for-profit organizations, public figures, entertainers, photographers, and professionals of all types. Facebook Pages are fun and easy to set up, provide a powerful set of online tools for engaging with your customers (or, as they are called in Facebook, fans), and easy-to-understand metrics to measure your success. Every day, 3.5 million people become fans of a Facebook Page, according to eMetric’s February. 2009 Facebook Usage Metrics Worldwide study. That’s a lot of fans. Although popular consumer brands, such as Apple, Coke, and Skittles enjoy large installed fan bases, smaller brands, business-to-business (B2B) companies, consultants, and personalities can also build a loyal following by using Facebook Pages to enhance their businesses. Prior to online social networks, companies centered their Internet strategies on their Web site. Typically, advertisements and promotions focused on driving traffic to that site and success was measured by traffic metrics and conversions, such as how many forms were completed or how many items were purchased. Now, the market is throwing these companies a twist: With the growing popularity of social networks in general, and Facebook in particular, people’s online consumption habits are changing. For one, they’re spending a lot of time on Facebook. The average Facebook member visits the site an average of nearly 18 times per month, according to recent figures by Web traffic analytics provider comScore. That’s why marketers like you can no longer be content to stay on your.dot-com islands. In response to the challenge, many marketers are adapting their Internet strategies to include these major hubs of social activity by using a mix of advertising, promotional, and word-of-mouth campaigns to drive awareness, traffic, and engagement. And they’re interacting with their customers in new and unprecedented ways. Facebook has remade itself to satisfy marketers’ needs to take part in the conversation. They’ve managed to balance commercialism with its members’ strong desire for privacy while fostering an open, transparent environment where discussion flows freely between consumer and marketer. It’s within this new Facebook marketing paradigm that the role of traditional marketing is changing. It’s no longer a question of whether your business should have a dedicated marketing presence on Facebook. Now, the only question is do you really need a Web site anymore! Think again.

How To Attract 57,000 Likes And Become Famous On Facebook

How To Rise To Facebook “Fame”

I bet a lot on Facebook. I bet that its social graph will become ingrained in the internet itself. I bet that most of the big websites, including Google, will rely on it for personalization. I bet that it will become the de facto way that people get recommendations about new products and services – that it will tell me what movies to see, what books to read, what products to buy. That is why, when it comes to the promotion of my own brand, I will do just about anything to increase awareness on The Social Network. And in Facebook terms, awareness equals likes.

Where I Was 8 Months Ago

In early 2010, I had a regular Facebook page like most people. I used Facebook to catch up with old friends and look through people’s pictures. But the more time I found myself spending on Facebook, the more I realized that there had to be a huge business opportunity in a site where literally everyone I know managed their social life.

But common sense told me that people don’t like to be bothered with business while they’re on Facebook. They’re there to see what everyone else is up to. So, instead of creating a fan page for my company, I created a fan page for myself. Fair enough, but I still had a problem. Why would anyone besides the small percentage of my friends who didn’t think that creating a fan page for yourself was conceited and ridiculous actually “like” my page? I needed to provide something genuinely interesting for them to follow.

The “Aha” Moment

In poring over status messages to see what people “liked” the most, I found that simple, positive statements were the most popular. Quotes, song lyrics, and proverbs did especially well, but original content that had the same sentiment as popular sayings seemed to do the very best in terms of quantity of likes and comments. It seemed people appreciated unique, inspiring words.

So I started saying the things that I genuinely felt each day. Now, I’m not sure if this is your cup of tea; I happen to be a really optimistic person. But I found that status updates like “Surround yourself with people who believe in you” and “Take it one day at a time. You’ll get there.” really resonated with people. I was getting way more likes than I ever got on my private page.

My System

Now, how to reach more people? The most obvious thing I could think of was to click the “Suggest To Friends” link on my fan page. I had already suggested the page to all of my 337 friends (yes, I had to individually click on each name – man, my finger was tired!), and 115 of them had liked it. My goal was to reach 1000 likes within the month.

I asked my brother if he minded if I invited his friends. He said OK, as long as I did the inviting. So I did. And that’s how I got another 100 likes. But more importantly, I realized the simple of power of inviting people’s friends.

I immediately wrote a personal e-mail to 10 people I consider good friends asking them if they would suggest my page to all their friends. 4 of them were willing to do it. Within a week, I was up to nearly 600 likes.

That was when I implemented one of the most basic rules in the Facebook Marketing Playbook – adding a landing tab introducing myself and asking people to “like” me. As I continued on my strategy of e-mailing people and asking them to suggest me to their friends, this page converted people into “likers” at almost twice the rate of the page without the landing tab.

Two months in, I had already gotten 1200 likes on the page, and people were loving the content. I was getting about 5 new fans a day naturally from people who suggested the page on their own. But this wasn’t enough for me - not if I was going to leverage my fan base to promote everything I did for years to come. This was way too valuable an effort to slow down.

I had completely run out of friends and acquaintances to e-mail. So, I did the next best thing: contacting popular people on Facebook and asking them if I could get them to suggest my page in exchange for services, shout-outs, or, as a last resort – cold, hard cash. Most people ignored my request. But some bit. And for far less money than it would have cost me to run an ad campaign, I had my first 5000 likes. I was just over 3 months in.

I kept my system going, finding people with 3,000+ friends and incentivizing them to suggest my page. Eventually, the system expanded to my asking people if they could do a status update about me on their page as well, telling their friends to like me. I had a goal of reaching out to 20 popular people per day, and found my conversion rate to be about 10%. But it was getting expensive, especially because I wasn’t receiving any return on my investment yet.

Thankfully, that was when I realized I had reached a tipping point. By month 4, with over 10,000 likes, I was able to offer people a “sponsored” status update on my page in exchange for the friend suggestions. So rather than paying people, I was able to do a trade most of the time. This made my effort sustainable again.

In the last 4 months, my likes have quintupled, a combination of putting out high quality, authentic status updates and maintaing a systematic approach of e-mailing Facebookers. The page has a light viral momentum (it’s no Double Rainbow), of about 50 likes per day on its own.

The Road to 100,000 Likes

Whether there are a limited number of popular people for me to e-mail I don’t know, but I’ve also found that sending page suggestions a second or third time to the same group of friends can eke out a substantial number of additional likes (about a third as many as the first wave of suggestions yielded).

And more importantly, I’ve made enough money from the page that I have been able to recover my marketing costs and invest in an employee to send out e-mails and keep good communication with the folks that promote my pages. So far this year, my SEO and social media business has added nearly $300,000 in revenue from likers of my page who learned about my company through my landing tab.

My goal is 100,000 likes before the end of the year. I may not be the first person to make money from a Facebook fan page, but I believe I have proved that building a big audience on Facebook can be straightforward – and even profitable.

Sharing Your Thoughts, 140 Characters at a Time

You may have heard of Twitter but have no idea what it actually is. Twitter is basically a powerful mobile social network that enables you to keep up with the people, businesses, and organizations you’re interested in — whether you know them personally or not. It also lets you share what you’re doing with the world — everyone from your family and friends to complete strangers. (You’ll have to bear with us to find out why you would want to do that.) Harvard Professor Andrew McAfee (@amcafee) describes Twitter this way: “With Twitter, my friends are never far away.” And www.Twitter.com itself says that The New York Times calls Twitter “one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet.” Time magazine says, “Twitter is on its way to becoming the next killer app,” and Newsweek noted that “Suddenly, it seems as though all the world’s a-twitter.” What will you think? Every day, we see dozens of new ideas and ways to use Twitter. In this chapter, we do our best to introduce the basic ideas and explain how Twitter works and why it’s so powerful.

Figuring Out This Twitter Thing

Twitter is a fast-evolving, surprisingly powerful new way to exchange ideas and information, and stay in touch with people, businesses, and organizations that you care about. It’s a social network — a kind of map of who you know and who you’re interested in (whether you know them personally or not) — that you can access from your computer or your cellphone. Twitter has one central feature: It lets users instantly post entries of 140 characters or less, known as tweets, through the www.Twitter.com site or your cellphone, or by way of the numerous applications that are available for both. On the most basic level, Twitter is a mobile social network that combines elements of short messaging services (SMS or texting), instant-messaging communication tools, such as AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), and blog publishing software, such as Blogger or WordPress. Like blogging, your tweets are generally published to the world at large where anyone can read them on Twitter. com (unless you choose a private account, so that only those you choose can see your tweets). Unlike blogging, you’re limited to just 140 characters. Like instant messaging, you can communicate directly with people (through direct messages), but unlike instant messaging, each message has its own unique resource locator (URL), so each message is actually a Web page. Instant messaging also lacks the social network “following” features of Twitter and basic ideas like “publish-subscribe” and one-to-many broadcasting of messages. Think you can’t say anything meaningful in 140 characters? Think again. Not only are twitterers innovating clever forms of one-liners, haiku, quotes, and humor, but they’re including links — in 23 percent of all tweets by one measure — and links carry a lot more information and context. Writing 140-character messages seems trivial. But headlines and very short advertising copy are famously hard to do really well — and known to be powerful. The idea of Twitter sounds simple — even a little too simple. But when you think that millions of people around the world are posting Twitter messages, following other people’s Twitter streams, and responding to one another, you can start to see the significance behind Twitter’s appeal. True, Twitter can look like it’s full of noise. But once you find interesting people and accounts to follow, your Twitter stream shifts from a cascade of disjointed chatter to one of the most versatile, useful online communications tools yet seen — that is, if you take the time to learn to use that tool correctly

What Is Social Media Marketing?

Social media is best defined in the context of the previous industrial media paradigm. Traditional media, such as television, newspapers, radio, and magazines, are one-way, static broadcast technologies. For instance, the magazine publisher is a large organization that distributes expensive content to consumers, while advertisers pay for the privilege of inserting their ads into that content. Or you’re sitting down, watching

your favorite sitcom, and suddenly you’re interrupted by commercials (luckily, you have a DVR, so you can fast-forward through them). If you disagree with something you read in the newspaper, you can’t send the editorial staff instant feedback. And good luck connecting with your morning radio on-air personality. New web technologies have made it easy for anyone to create—and, most importantly—distribute their own content. A blog post, tweet, or YouTube video can be produced and viewed by millions virtually for free. Advertisers don’t have to pay publishers or distributors huge sums of money to embed their messages; now they can make their own interesting content that viewers will flock to. Social media comes in many forms, but for our purposes, I’ll focus on the eight most popular: blogs, microblogs (Twitter), social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn), media-sharing sites (YouTube, Flickr), social bookmarking and voting sites (Digg, Reddit), review sites (Yelp), forums, and virtual worlds (Second Life).

More About Page Rank

PageRank is one of those mysteries that may never be completely unraveled. Volumes have been written about it, but probably the only two people in the world who understand it completely are Larry Page and Sergey Brin. That’s because it was their brainchild. PageRank as part of a research project that Page and Brin were working on at Stanford University. The project involved creating a new search engine that ranked pages in a democratic fashion with a few weights and measures thrown in for accuracy. Hence, the term. (What else would you call a ranking system for web pages that was developed by Larry Page?) The interesting thing about PageRank is that although Page and Brin conceived the idea and created the algorithm that arrives at a PageRank, it didn’t belong to them. Stanford University actually owned the patent on the PageRank algorithm until Google purchased the exclusive right to use the algorithm for 1.8 million shares of the company (which were sold in 2005 for $336 million). PageRank is a method by which web pages are ranked in Google search results. A combination of factors create the actual rank of a web page. Google explains it this way: ‘‘PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the Web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves ‘‘important’’ weigh more heavily and help to make other pages ‘‘important.’’’ In other words, it’s a mystery. A page that has more links (with equal votes) might rank lower than a page that has a single link that leads to a ‘‘more important’’ page. The lesson? Create pages for visitors, not for search engines. Still to understand pagerank algorithms is tough science to pin down.

Twitter hack sends users to hardcore porn sites

Washington, Sept 22 (ANI): Hackers have managed to exploit a security flaw on the popular micro-blogging site Twitter, by activating pop-ups and even directing some users to hardcore porn sites.

The hack utilized the onMouseOver JavaScript code to run automatically when a user visits the Twitter.com site, tweeting itself out to other users and redirecting users to malicious sites.

According to security analysis firm Sophos, simply running your mouse over certain tweets could activate pop-ups, send you messages, or even redirect you to another site.

"It's tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of messages that have been posted," Fox News quoted Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley as saying.

"It's pretty widespread and has left some major egg on the face of Twitter.

"It shouldn't be possible to plant JavaScript code like this into your tweets," he said.

Cluley also added that there is obviously the potential for cybercriminals to redirect users to third-party websites containing malicious code.

He said many current security risks are two-part procedures, as first they take over a browser and redirect the PC to a compromised website, then they load up additional code to continue the exploit.

Twitter representatives have said that the security flaw has been fixed.

"The XSS attack should now be fully patched and no longer exploitable. Thanks, those reporting it," the company wrote in its Safety news feed. (ANI)

Google 'defames French user by linking his name to rape in searches'

London, Sept 28 (ANI): A French computer user has accused Google of defaming him after the Internet technology giant linked his name to the word "rapist" in web searches.

Court documents said the function, which suggests options and phrases as a user types, linked the man's identity to words including "rapist", "satanist", "rape," and "prison", reports The Telegraph.

In a turning-point decision, the Superior Court of Paris found Google guilty of the "public slandering of a private individual".

Google said it would appeal the decision, which also named Eric Schmidt, its chief executive. A spokesperson said that the searches are algorithmically determined based on a number of purely objective factors including (the) popularity of search terms.

According to French reports, the man was convicted of the "corruption of a minor" and sentenced to three years in jail earlier this year. However, he is considered innocent under French law until all of his appeals have been exhausted.

The court also ordered the company to remove the "harmful" suggestions from the search and adopt measures to prevent it from reoccurring. It added that the search function was not illegal. While the court awarded "symbolic" damages of one euro, it ordered the company pay 5,000 euros (4254 pounds) in costs. (ANI)

Search Engine - Anatomy

By now you probably have a fuzzy idea of how a search engine works, but there’s much more to it than just the basic overview you’ve seen so far. In fact, search engines have several parts. Unfortunately, it’s rare that you find an explanation describing just how a search engine is made — that’s proprietary information that search companies hold very close to their vests — and that information is vitally important to succeeding with search engine optimization (SEO). Query interface The query interface is what most people are familiar with, and it’s probably what comes to mind when you hear the term ‘‘search engine.’’ The query interface is the page, or user interface, that users see when they navigate to a search engine to enter a search term. There was a time when the search engine interface looked very much like the Ask.com page shown in Figure 1-1. This interface was a simple page with a search box and a button to activate the search, and not much more. Today, many search engines on the Web have added much more personalized content in an attempt to capitalize on the real estate available to them. For example, Yahoo! Search, is just one of the search services that now enable users to personalize their pages with a free e-mail account, weather information, news, sports, and many other elements designed to make users want to return to that site to conduct their web searches. One other option users have for customizing the interfaces of their search engines is a capability like the one Google offers. The Google search engine has a customizable interface to which users can add different gadgets. These gadgets enable users to add features to their customized Google search home page that meet their own personal needs or tastes. Search has even extended onto the desktop. Google and Microsoft both have search capabilities that, when installed on your computer, enable you to search your hard drive for documents and information in the same way you would search the Web. These capabilities aren’t of any particular use to you where SEO is concerned, but they do illustrate the prevalence of search and the value that users place on being able to quickly find information using searching capabilities. When it comes to search engine optimization, Google’s user interface offers the most potential for you to reach your target audience, because it does more than just optimize your site for search: If a useful tool or feature is available on your site, you can enable users to have access to this tool or feature through the Application Programming Interface (API) made available by Google. Using the Google API, you can create a gadget that users can install on their Google Desktop, iGoogle page, or Firefox or Chrome browser. This enables you to have your name in front of users on a daily basis. You can find more information about Google APIs in Appendix A in the section ‘‘Optimization for Google.’’ For example, a company called PDF24.org offers a Google gadget that enables users to turn their documents into PDF files right from their Google home page once the gadget has been added. If the point of search engine optimization is ultimately to get your name in front of as many people as possible, as often as possible, then making a gadget available for addition to Google’s personalized home page can only further that goal. Search engine results pages The other sides of the query interface, and the only other parts of a search engine that’s visible to users, are the search engine results pages (SERPs). This is the collection of pages that are returned with search results after a user enters a search term or phrase and clicks the Search button. This is also where you ultimately want to end up; and the higher you are in the search results, the more traffic you can expect to generate from search. Specifically, your goal is to end up on the first page of results — in the top 10 or 20 results that are returned for a given search term or phrase. Getting there can be a mystery, however. We’ll decode the clues that lead you to that goal throughout the book, but right now you need to understand a bit about how users see SERPs. Let’s start with an understanding of how users view SERPs. Pretend you’re the searcher. You go to your favorite search engine — we’ll use Google for the purposes of illustration because that’s everyone’s favorite, isn’t it? Type in the term you want to search for and click the Search button. What’s the first thing you do when the page appears? Most people begin reading the titles and descriptions of the top results. That’s where you hook searchers and entice them to click through the links provided to your web page. But here’s the catch: You have to be ranked close enough to the top for searchers to see those results page titles and descriptions and then click through them, which usually means you need to be in the top 10 or 20 results, which translates into the first page or two of results. It’s a tough spot to hit. There is no magic bullet or formula that will garner you those rankings every time. Instead, it takes hard work and consistent effort to push your site as high as possible in SERPs. At the risk of sounding repetitive, that’s the information you’ll find moving forward. There’s a lot of it, though, and to truly understand how to land good placement in SERPs, you really need to understand how search engines work. There is much more to them than what users see. Crawlers, spiders, and robots The query interface and search results pages truly are the only parts of a search engine that the user ever sees. Every other part of the search engine is behind the scenes, out of view of the people who use it every day. That doesn’t mean it’s not important, however. In fact, what’s in the back end is the most important part of the search engine, and it’s what determines how you show up in the front end. If you’ve spent any time on the Internet, you may have heard a little about spiders, crawlers, and robots. These little creatures are programs that literally crawl around the Web, cataloging data so that it can be searched. In the most basic sense, all three programs — crawlers, spiders, and robots — are essentially the same. They all collect information about each and every web URL. Databases Every search engine contains or is connected to a system of databases where data about each URL on the Web (collected by crawlers, spiders, or robots) is stored. These databases are massive storage areas that contain multiple data points about each URL. The data might be arranged in any number of different ways and is ranked according to a method of ranking and retrieval that is usually proprietary to the company that owns the search engine. You’ve probably heard of the method of ranking called PageRank (for Google) or even the more generic term quality scoring. This ranking or scoring determination is one of the most complex and secretive parts of SEO. How those scores are derived, exactly, is a closely guarded secret, in part because search engine companies change the weight of the elements used to arrive at the score according to usage patterns on the Web. The idea is to score pages based on the quality that site visitors derive from the page, not on how well web site designers can manipulate the elements that make up the quality score. For example, there was a time when the keywords that were used to rank a page were one of the most important factors in obtaining a high-quality score.

Big Brands and Social Media

IBM owns more than 100 different blogs, a dozen islands in the virtual world of Second Life, several official Twitter accounts, and a popular forum called developerWorks. It publishes a machinima series (a cartoon video made in Second Life) on YouTube, and several employees upload presentations to the media-sharing site SlideShare. Dell has tapped the power of social media with its hugely popular IdeaStorm website, where users add ideas for new product lines and enhancements, vote them up or down, and comment on submissions. Because of the site, Dell has started to ship linux installed computers, and has added community support. Starbucks has also started to use this model to some success with its My Starbucks Idea site. Burger King has made headlines time and time again with its innovative viral and social marketing campaigns, most recently with the “Whopper Sacrifice.” The burger chain offered Facebook users a free Whopper coupon if they would “unfriend” 10 of their social network connections . Cable giant Comcast has begun to salvage its tarnished reputation with a customer service outpost on Twitter led by Frank Eliason, Comcast’s “Director of Digital Care,” and his @comcastcares account. Whenever someone tweets negatively about the company—and that happens a lot—Frank jumps in to offer whatever help he can. This has led to some of the only positive press the brand has gotten in a long time. The shoe retailer Zappos, which most people already love, also has an awesome customer service presence on Twitter. U.S. President Barack Obama has been called the first social media president, and a strong argument could be made for the label. As a candidate, he had one of the most popular Twitter accounts and Facebook pages, and his website contained a social media section where his supporters could create profiles and connect with each other. The campaign was also present on YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn,MySpace, and Second Life.Big brands have also faced embarrassment on social media. Motrin released a commercial that offered its product as a solution to the pain women experience when carrying babies in harnesses attached to their torsos. A day later, a small but vocal group of mommybloggers had made the commercial the most discussed topic on Twitter, mostly expressing outrage.These moms made critical videos and blog posts and called for a boycott of Motrin. Eventually, the company apologized and withdrew the commercial.

Getting Acquainted with Search Engines.. Contd..Part-2

Okay, so you know the basic concept of a search engine. Type a word or phrase into a search box and click a button. Wait a few seconds, and references to thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of pages will appear. Then all you have to do is click through those results to find what you want. But what exactly is a search engine, beyond this general concept of ‘‘seek and ye shall find’’? It’s a little complicated. On the back end, a search engine is a piece of software that uses algorithms to find and collect information about web pages. The information collected is usually keywords or phrases that are possible indicators of what is contained on the web page as a whole, the URL of the page, the code that makes up the page, and links into and out of the page. That information is then indexed and stored in a database. On the front end, the software has a user interface where users enter a search term — a word or phrase — in an attempt to find specific information. When the user clicks a search button, an algorithm then examines the information stored in the back-end database and retrieves links to web pages that appear to match the search term the user entered. The process of collecting information about web pages is performed by an agent called a crawler, spider, or robot. The crawler literally looks at every URL on the Web that’s not blocked from it and collects key words and phrases on each page, which are then included in the database that powers a search engine. Considering that the number of sites on the Web exceeded 100 million some time ago and is increasing by more than 1.5 million sites each month, that’s like your brain cataloging every single word you read, so that when you need to know something, you think of that word and every reference to it comes to mind. In a word . . . overwhelming.

Getting Acquainted with Search Engines..

Tell me what you do when you need to find a small bit of information, that may be a description , a product, or anything you are looking for . Exactly you go to your favorite search engine, enter the keyword ( anything you are looking for), And there you go. Millions of results will pop up at screen with just a single click, like a magic. But this was not possible in earlier 80's when search engines were not there . All Of you must be thinking at this point . that " if there were no search engine's existence at that time, then how we used to search information ? And if i say that there were no interconnected sites or internet at that time too , then.? World wide web was invented by Sir Tim Berners Lee - then set up 1st website in 1991, made available to all in 1993. Needless to say his creation was gigantic . Dr. Vinton G. Cerf was the father of internet who has also worked with the biggest search engine today (Google) . He shared his title with Robert Kahn. At that time what was called the internet was actually a collection of FTP Files ( File Transfer Protocol) . Sites that are used for uploading and downloading of files. To find the exact information user has to go through every file very precisely. Although there were shortcuts but if you know exact user with exact file address only then you can take deep breath. This whole process will test your patience in searching for files . But Student at Mcgill University at Montreal was engaged in building a better way of searching files. It was Allan Emtage who created the first search tool used on internet in 1990. The task was to index the files on internet by the tool called Archie. Archie wasn’t actually a search engine like those that you use today, but at the time it was a program many Internet users were happy to have. Again in 1991 Mark McCahill, a student from University of Minnesota, realized that if you could search for files on the Internet, then surely you could also search plain text for specific references in the files. Because no such application existed, he created Gopher, a program that indexed the plain-text documents that later became the first web sites on the public Internet. later Archie was combine with Gopher which used to search the files indexed by Gopher. Both the index was proved to be a boon for user blessing users with indexing and searching by keyword . These invention changed the image of search engines . the first search engine was developed by Mathew Gray ., and it was known as wandex. the first program to search and index pages . This technology was first program to crawl web and later this technology becomes the base of many search engines today. From 1993 to 1998 major familiar search engines of today were created ■ Excite—1993 ■ Yahoo!—1994 ■ Web Crawler —1994 ■ Lycos —1994 ■ Infoseek— 1995 ■ AltaVista — 1995 ■ Inktomi—1996 ■ Ask Jeeves — 1997 ■ Google —1997 ■ MSN Search—1998

SEO - A tough Science to pin down

Before starting a long Journey I would like you to know few things about Search engine optimization. Seo involves hard work and is dynamic in nature. Just recollect this before taking Seo as a career . Don't think that seo is never going to change. Seo rely on search engines and search engines rely on algorithms ( Algorithms - Its types of dynamic mysterious Mathematical calculations based on which search engines rank there web pages ... Just as our academic marks decides our rank in class) . Search ranking algorithms keeps on changing . If you are lucky, then these changes will mildly effect your website ranking . Always construct your site while keeping targeted users in mind . Don't build it to please search engines. Because its more likely that your search ranking will turned on their head. That's why its vitally important to build users oriented websites and then for search engines . Its realistic to understand that you will end up putting dozen of hours into your seperate seo efforts. Like Site Design, Its Conten, its Developing part etc. This seems to be little confused explanation to many of the novice out there .. but don't worry the picture will be more visible as the wonderful journey of seo progresses. SO R U READY FOR EXPEDITION.?

Why this Blog..?

In Every Person’s Life There Is One Place Called “Guru -The Teacher”. In This Self-learning Hi-tech Era Such Gurus Are Hard to Find. But We All Together Can Share The Place, And Can Be Teacher and polite student of other Blog members. What Is Your Place is Your Decision, But It Is For Sure That Every Person Belong To Other Field, Holds A Place in Our Blog.This Is A Place Where Every One Who Belongs To SEO , SEM, Marketing Field Comes Together And Celebrates The Joy Of Sharing Knowledge. In my last post I have shared the brief introduction about me with you all . This post is about what is the purport behind opening this blog . So this blog is all about Online marketing - Biggest Secrets Revealed. Many of us faces fractious time in finding out all the relevant information at one place. Almost all of us are in same boat, Browsing and leaping one site to another, in search of relevant info. This Online Marketing blog will serve as blessing in disguise to you all. It will overlay various aspects of Online marketing tips and tricks, How to improve your site ranking in various search engines . It will not only hold expound(detailed) and punctilious (accurate) information about search engine optimization but also areas like 1. Search Engine Marketing 2. Social Media Sites Secrets Like (facebook secrets , Twitter , Linkedin etc) 3. Google Adword 4. Google Analytics 5. Google Adsense and many more area . Lets all come together and dominate the World's Most Powerful Search engine . (yeah you guessed it right :) :: Request :: Do Invite Your Friends To The blog And Give This Plant a Shape of Grown Tree, And Then We Will Be Having Nice Fruits of That Grown Tree.

A Brief Introduction about me

Hello Friends

As all of you know that this my first post here . After landing on new blogger's blog. The first thing that always strikes our mind is that who is the blogger.? what I am going to get from this blog..?. Is it worth spending so much time on this blog ..?... and so on.. O come on, we all want to get acquainted to many more out there like us, whether by any social networking sites , through chatting and talking hours on online calling facilities like skype . we all like it.... isn't it ? Yeah I know. well the answers to these question is you .. who will going to read this blog .. u will gonna decide the fate of it. All I can say is that being not a content writer I will still try to make this Blog as interesting as possible. And will give you best information that I have learned in my learning days .

Alright Alright ... I know that you are getting bored with my pathetic lectures. :) . so without pushing it in further detail . I will going to tell you about me ..

I am Vitun Sharma from India ( your admin and your friend ) ..Still those days are like fresh flowers which blossoms everyday in my memorie's garden .. I have started my career Long time back .. ummm ya in 2ooo when i have just ended my schooling and was on voyage of searching job ... after 1 week of sweat shedding my quest was over when I found my first promotional job for the newly opened showroom. It sounds funny to some of you out there, that the job was to carry the big promotional hoardings in local market area that too in summers with my black clothes on. But the satisfaction of getting my first job and procreative was like cold breeze in summer days, Since then I have been into many short-term promotional campaigns for 2 years . Later I have commenced my career again with graduation and course in digital film making . on completion I have worked again as Graphic Designer for some years , worked as Video Editor in News Channels too. Also tried my luck in big production houses for special effects and animation but all in vain .That time I was tasting the worst period of my life. For me it was hard to engulf the fact that i was not getting the desired job, may be my luck was designed to deceive me . Now the things are in favor of me and working in reputed digital marketing firm. You always cherish that one desired chance, all your life which you always dream t off .

I always Believe in Surfing the Excellence. My life is my teacher . you can say me jack of all trade and master of excellence .. now possess well versed knowledge of all the field that i have been related to once or all my life.

The Purpose of this blog is to get your feet wet with digital marketing information to all newbies. Will keep you update with atleast one weekly post. I hope you will all appreciate my little effort and enjoy your stay here . Spammers please don't hurt me . Thanks Regards Vitun Sharma