Top 10 Searches of 2007!

Monday, December 31, 2007 Posted by Deelip Kumar 0 comments

Top 10 Searches of 2007:


Top 10 Searches on Google:
  1. iphone

  2. badoo

  3. facebook

  4. dailymotion

  5. webkinz

  6. youtube

  7. ebuddy

  8. second life

  9. hi5

  10. club penguin


Top 10 Searches on Yahoo
  1. Britney Spears

  2. WWE

  3. Paris Hilton

  4. Naruto

  5. Beyonce

  6. Lindsay Lohan

  7. RuneScape

  8. Fantasy Football

  9. Fergie

  10. Jessica Alba


Top 10 Searches on ASK
  1. MySpace

  2. Dictionary

  3. Google

  4. Themes

  5. Area Codes

  6. Cars

  7. Weather

  8. Games

  9. Song Lyrics

  10. Movies


In comparison to last year top 10 Searches (2006), Social networking websites are still on top on Google and Ask. Social networking websites like Myspace, facebook are top in Google and Ask. Female celebrities like Britney Spears, Paris Hilton are still on top in Yahoo.
Britney Spears - Still on Top Searches in Yahoo

Server side factors in search engine optimization

Tuesday, October 02, 2007 Posted by Deelip Kumar 0 comments
One of the most important factors that always matters in Search engine optimization is server. Generally people focus on their Title, Meta, Heading tags, content optimization, code optimization etc.

Server Side Factors in SEO

Some of the most important server side factors that affect SEO are:


  • If-Modified-Since HTTP header (304-Not modified)

  • 301 Permanent Redirection

  • 302 Temporary Redirection

  • 200 Status OK

  • 404 Not Found


In all the above cases the server should response proper code.

If-Modified-Since HTTP header: It means requested page hasn't been modified since the last request. Server should configured to return this response when a page hasn't changed since the last time requestor asked for it. It helps you to save your bandwidth and overhead because your server can tell to search engine spiders that a page hasn't changed.

301 Permanent Redirection: Use 301 Permanent redirection when you are moving your webpage or domain permanent to some other locations. It indicates search engine spiders that page is moved permanently to the new location. Use Server side redirection whenever you move your domain or webpage to new location.

302 Temporary Redirection: This redirection is similar to 301, but it indicates Search engine spiders to crawl the current page. It automatically forward requestor to the new location.

200 Status Code: This means server processed request successfully. For any file you are getting this response code means, the file is successfully accessible. But make sure your 404 (Not Found) pages should not return 200 status code OK.

404 (Not Found): Server is unable to process this request. In this case file is not present on the server.

These are the main HTTP status code that search engine optimizers should consider. Apart from this these are the list of HTTP Status Code:

200: request completed (OK)
201: object created, reason = new URI
202: async completion (TBS)
203: partial completion
204: no info to return
205: request completed, but clear form
206: partial GET furfilled
300: server couldn't decide what to return
301: object permanently moved
302: object temporarily moved
303: redirection w/ new access method
304: if-modified-since was not modified
305: redirection to proxy, location header specifies proxy to use
307: HTTP/1.1: keep same verb
400: invalid syntax
401: access denied
402: payment required
403: request forbidden
404: object not found
405: method is not allowed
406: no response acceptable to client found
407: proxy authentication required
408: server timed out waiting for request
409: user should resubmit with more info
410: the resource is no longer available
411: the server refused to accept request w/o a length
412: precondition given in request failed
413: request entity was too large
414: request URI too long
415: unsupported media type
500: internal server error
501: required not supported
502: error response received from gateway
503: temporarily overloaded
504: timed out waiting for gateway
505: HTTP version not supported

To check server headers there are so many online tools are available, you can go through one or two and verify your status code. Just click here to find tools in Google. Check Server Headers

Image optimization for search engines

Sunday, June 24, 2007 Posted by Deelip Kumar 1 comments
Image Optimization As you know Picture tells thousands of words. Now a days people are not only searching for text based search but they also looking for visual results from different sources like Flickr, Webshots, PBase, Fotki etc. People also share images through social images sharing sites like Myspace and Facebook.

There are 2 important points that always matters in image optimization:

  • HTML Attributes

  • Image Size


HTML Attributes: HTML attributes used in mark-up code. Always use relevant file names for your images. Like if you are going to display a picture of Apple. Your image name should be Apple. Alternate Text (Also called Alt Tag) is also play an important role in image optimization for search engines. Apple
"< IMG Src="images/apple.jpg" border="0" Alt="Apple" >"

The above tag shows the apple.jpg as file name and "Apple" word as a relevant text. Always remember to write meaningful file names. Don't stuff your keywords on images. If your image is clickable make sure the image is relevant and you have put the relevant and meaninful words only. Alt tag is accessibility standards and it also helps user and search engine spiders to get the proper information about that image.

Image Size: Size is also matters in image optimization. Make sure your image is optimized and have minimum size without loosing your image quality. There are so many softwares for image optimization to reduce file size.

Sites that using Maps can optimize their images to display in Google top listing. For maps and other relevant search, major search engines always show 2-3 images in top. You can drive additional traffic by optimizing your images for visual search results.

Power of Title Tag in Search Marketing

Saturday, June 09, 2007 Posted by Deelip Kumar 5 comments
Title Tag

Title Tag

Play most important role in Search Engine Optimization. Whenever people search for information on the web, they spend approximately 30% time to review the Title tag to check whether it is relevant or not. Title tag is not only important as per SEO point of view but also play a major role in driving visitors to your website and conversion as well. In normal browser it display approximately 90 characters in title tag. Major search engines generally accept 60-80 characters in Title tag. Some SEO just write title tag to rank their page on #1 in major search engines. But what happens if your site is even on no. #1 and your competitor is getting clicks more than you. The only reason is your title tag is not effective.

Title Tag
The above Title tag clearly display what kind of information and services they provide. One is SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization) that provides the valuable information worldwide related to Search Marketing. The second shows about SEM services they offer. So, if user searching for information related to Search Marketing then they click on first ad, but if user searching for SEM services they can easily select the second option. The above picture shows three element Title, Description and URL. This is complete ad. in natural listing and visitors always review before selecting any ads. Always compare and do proper analysis of your competitors as well before writing ad for your website. This is initial gateway of your business and it should be effective to drive searchers to your website.

Tips for writing an effective title for your webpages:

  1. Do not stuff so many keywords on the title tag. You can add more keywords into your detail description.

  2. Think about users what they type and write accordingly and it should be to the point.

  3. Do not write anything that is not relevant to your webpage.

  4. Do keyword research and analysis before writing title tag, so you can include most important keyword (also called primary keyword) in your title tag.

  5. Try to make an appropriate sentence, so that user can read and understand your products what kind of services or products you are selling.

  6. Make sure your primary keywords should appear first and in the prominent area of your webpage.

  7. Write unique Title for each page.

  8. You can also write your website name or company name, but it totally depends upon your marketing and brand building strategy.

  9. Make sure your Title tag is grammatically correct.

  10. Make your Title tag short and targeted for some particular keyword.

Writing Content for the Web!

Monday, May 28, 2007 Posted by Deelip Kumar 1 comments
Writing content for the web is not an easy task. You need to see both aspects business and search engines. But some people try to write the content just for search engines to rank higher on so many keywords. It's not a good idea to stuff the keywords for short term results. As we know search engine rankings are dependent on so many factors including your visitors site visiting time. How much time a visitor spending on your website is also one of the major point. Try to write as per user point of view, it automatically moves you on the top ranking. Do not use same keywords throughout the page, you can use synonyms or related words. It's really affect your conversion as well. A quality content always converts visitors into customers.

Tips for Content Optimization:

  1. Try to use synonyms and place the keywords on right place only. Do not make it artificial

  2. Think about users, what is business focus and who is your target audience.

  3. Try to include some related words on the very begining of the content.

  4. You can break the keyphrases into key terms, if phrases are too long.

  5. Focus on User Generated Content

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Is your website ready for Google Universal Search?

Tuesday, May 22, 2007 Posted by Deelip Kumar 0 comments
Today People are thinking about the effects of Google Universal Search. As Google going to lauch Google universal search, It will show all kind of information related to that particular search term. Now People can see videos, maps, news, books and other relevant information at one place. User can play video from search. It's really cool.

Google also working on backend and to change their existing infrastructure. In new infrastructure it will incorporate the real time information comparison system to provide more relevant information to its users. oh! Now the #1 ranking is not an easy task. :) Existing websites needs to work on Usability and accessibility.
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Marissa Mayer at Searchology

Posted by Deelip Kumar 0 comments

Google Universal Search

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Google Universal Search

Sunday, May 20, 2007 Posted by Deelip Kumar 0 comments
Google launching a new feature i.e. 'Universal Search'. As Google always tries to provide relevant information and better user experience. Now the next step of Google is to display everything on single page from all its content sources. Including Google books, blog, group,news, maps, images, code and websites. Google has updated home page design in Google Experimental Search. Now user can play videos from Google Video and Youtube in the google search results.

Google is also implementing a new process with new technical infrastructure to compare all kind of information and provide universal search results. This is the next step to provide more relevant information with all kind of option including videos, images, book search etc.

Google New Navigation bar:
Google has updated its home page with new navigation bar. Now users can navigate other section as well apart from web search.
Google Universal Search
With the help of new navigation user can browse more relevant information in depth including images, videos, maps etc. In the left navigtaion you can also serach for relevant search terms related to that particular search.

If you want to try new Google Experimental Search just click here: Google Experimental Search and for more information on Google Universal Search just check it out here: Google Universal Search

Importance of Web Analytics in Online Marketing

Sunday, May 13, 2007 Posted by Deelip Kumar 0 comments
Web Analytics plays an important role in the field of Search Engine Marketing. To track different user sources and which medium is more successful and their share is most important point in online marketing.
Web Analytics

Their are different free and paid tools are available to track visitors movement online:


  • Google Analytics

  • Statcounter

  • Hitwise

  • Web stats etc.



Below is the type of valuable information that you will get for your websites are:

  • Total and Unique Visitors with GEO Locations: It's a very important point where you can see the geographical location and their share in total traffic. These figures helps online marketer to analyze the overall performance and how to move next step.

  • Keyword Conversion: On which specific keywords customers are actually buying your products. These keywords are also called conversion keywords.

  • Different sources of traffic: It clearly gives you an idea about from where you are getting traffic. It may pe through paid or organic listing. After that you can get the exact data about different search engines and amount of traffic you are driving to your website.

  • Website performance: It helps online marketer to get all kind of website performace related data like: Bounce rate, Avg. Pageviews per visit, visitors lengths etc.


Analytics - GEO Location

The above data shows the website KPI (Key performance indicators) areas.

Importance of Demographics, Psychographic and Topographic analysis in e-business

Sunday, April 15, 2007 Posted by Deelip Kumar 4 comments
One of the most important aspects of e-business is demographics anlysis and searcher behaviour What they prefer and analysis of surrounding situations. It includes age, gender, income, marital status, ethnicity. It helps online marketer to know about the potential customers needs and helps to promote their product in that way.
For example:

Demographic

  • Gender: Target is male or female ex:male

  • Age: Age group you are targeting for ex:18-25 years

  • Income: Earning of the customer $10K+

  • Ethnic group: Desired audience ex: Asian

  • Marital status: Target is single or married ex: single


Psychographic
Psychographic is based on the consumers ethics, values and psychological beliefs.

Topographic
It is a model that integrates psychographics and demographics with detailed buying process data. Topographic profile will give you a very good idea about customer needs and motivations.

How to avoid RSI or CRI

Sunday, March 18, 2007 Posted by Deelip Kumar 0 comments
RSI: Repetitive stress injury or Repetitive strain injury is a big problem for those who overuse computer. In modern life people spend their maximum time on computer for different purpose like for online shopping, games, chatting etc. But it becomes sometimes dangerous when people overuse. May be due to work pressure and some other reason. RSI-Wrist pain

Researches shows that due to wrong gestures, repetitive movements, exceeding time limit is main reason of RSI. Indication of RSI is recurring pain in shoulders, back, neck, wrists or hands.

How to avoid RSI:
  • Maintain good posture alignment during working on computer system.

  • Don't work regularly on computer. Take a break for 5 mins on every 45 mins.

  • Maintain proper distance from computer screen.

  • Stretch your back, arms during break.


Click here for Books and videos on RSI

Useful links:
Harvard RSI Action
RSI Prevention
Safe computing tips
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Scope of Vertical Search Engine or Specialty Search Engines

Sunday, March 11, 2007 Posted by Deelip Kumar 0 comments
Vertical or specialized search: A type of search engines that focus on specific business or industry i.e local, topical and vertical search. Google, Yahoo and MSN these are the major players in search engine industry that covers a wide range of online consumer search market. Now what is the scope of vertical search engines? why people wants to search in specialized search engines?

Sometimes, People want to see all the information they can get related to that industry... at that time users generally wants to use the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. But when user interested to buy a specific product of any particular brand like tanishq watches. When consumer enter the term "tanishq watches" in major search engines and he not only found tanishq watches but all kind of watches then its really frustating for him. That's where speciality or vertical search sites stand. For any specific items related to their business or buying something on the net, users don't want to waste their time in searching and filtering relevant information.

The major search engines using "Web Crawler" to fetch very large number of documents. All the search engines use some criteria to filter and sort the document. A step by step procedure to find out the relevant information is called algorithm.
Vertical search engines used to send their spiders on highly refined database only. So that user can find only relevant information, closely related to their specific term. There are so many specialized search engines are also available like for Travel, shopping, medical search engines, science search engines etc. Ultimately vertical search engines will play an important role in next few years.
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User generated content

Friday, March 02, 2007 Posted by Deelip Kumar 0 comments
Traditional media and User generated content
User generated content is just opposed to traditional media producers, and production companies. These contents are influenced by end users. The user generated content include blogging, podcasting, digital video, wikis, etc. User generated media such as Youtube, myspace, wikipedia, these are the examples where people come and share their experiences and opinion. According to youtube official sources, people upload 65,000 (sixty five thousands) video clip per day by using their mobile phones and other medium. It's really a big figure. We can just imagine the power of user generated content :)

Open source free softwares such as linux operating system also encourage user-generated software. This is a two way media also called web 2.0 which encourages people to comment on other people content and publishing their own content.

Traditional media required knowledge experts who can write content on specific topics. This type of content is edited by experts to maintain the quality of the content. Whereas UGC (user generated content) is created by users. This type of content is in the form of discussion groups, wikis, blogs, video podcasting etc. Everyone wants to say something and share their ideas on their interested topics. So, User generated media is the best place where they can share their experiences, ideas and valuable information.
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Difference between web 1.0 and web 2.0

Saturday, February 24, 2007 Posted by Deelip Kumar 5 comments
All about Web 2.0 and Web 1.0:

Now a days people are just not searching for information, end users wants to share their ideas, experiences, their own opinion through social media like wikis, blogging, social bookmarking, tagging etc. Now users are moving forward from Desktop to online internet applications. There are three terms that used in web marketing for different purposes: Web 1.0, now people are using Web 2.0 and the next step is Web 3.0.

Web 1.0: In web 1.0 its webmaster responsibility to keep the website updated and provide useful and informative content to the end user. Examples of web 1.0 are
Double click
Kodak express
personal website etc.

Web 2.0: Web 2.0 is more than search for information. Now user is searching for information as well as experience. Social MediaUsers wants to share their opinion, thoughts on his/her interested topic. Web 2.0 contains more organized and categorized content. Web 2.0 include RIA (Rich internet applications) that is for share their experience online.

WikisRIA (Rich internet applications) - Ajax and flash are key technologies that is used to make rich internet applications. Ajax (Asynchronus javascript and xml) is basically used for overall application usability. Whereas flash is used for better presentation and user experience. With the help of these applications user can drag and drop their interesting and informative content, create a link, edit and tag these links online and can share at the same time. SOA (Service oriented architecture) is also used in Web 2.0. Watch this interesting Video about Web 2.0.



Some of the Web 2.0 applications that allow user to share their experiences and allow to edit and provide drag and drop facilities are: Flckr, bloglines, del.icio.us, technorati etc.).

Blogging is also one of the best example of Web 2.0. Where user can write something about their interests and linking to something that they find interesting, share via RSS feeds(really simply syndication). Blogging
Although most of the blogs were manually updated, but now some RIA is developed to maintain it easily to automate the maintenance of such sites, and the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of "blogging".
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What is web 2.0?

Thursday, February 15, 2007 Posted by Deelip Kumar 0 comments
Web 2.0 is a term coined by O'Reilly Media. The first principal of Web 2.0 was "The web as platform", discussed at first web 2.0 conference in october 2004. Web 2.0 is a web based services like communication tools, wikis and other social networking websites that emphasize online information sharing and collaboration.

Web 2.0 expected to replace desktop applications for many purposes. Because Web 2.0 applications are available anywhere and user can access their informative content or links from anywhere.

Example of Web 2.0 are:
  • blogging

  • search engine optimization

  • wikipedia

  • google adsense

  • syndication

  • tagging

  • web services etc.
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Social media campaign - emerging trend of 2007!

Wednesday, January 24, 2007 Posted by Deelip Kumar 0 comments
Internet marketing - emerging trend of 2007 is Social media marketing.
Social Media Marketing
Are you ready to take the advantage of this? First of all I want to introduce what it is? and how it works?

Social media describes the tools and applications that people use to share their experiences, opinions, insights and perspectives with each other. In my previous post Top 10 Searches of 2006 it includes so many social network websites such as myspace, radioblog, wikipedia etc. It can take many forms like audio, video, images and text. Popular medium includes blogs, podcasts, wikis etc.

Blogs:One of the most popular form of social media is blogs. Blogs are online journals consisting regularly updated entries. You can take advantage of blogs for branding purpose as well as in global popularity.

Social Networks: This type of website allows you to easily communicate and share your ideas to other people connected in this network. One of the popular example of social networks is Myspace.

Wikis: These types of websites allow people to add informative content or edit the existing content.

Podcasts: audio and video files that are available by subscription.

Examples of Social media marketing

Examples of top social media services are:
1. Myspace (A platfrom for blogging)
2. YouTube (A Videoblogging platform)
3. Digg (A platform for news sharing)
4. del.icio.us (A bookmark sharing platform)
5. Reddit (A news sharing platform)
6. Flickr (A photosharing platform)

How you can take benefit of social media marketing campaign?
Blogs are written in personal style and it shows credibility. Take advantage of links and comments. Subscription via RSS technology, ultimately you will get global popularity, that also helps in viral marketing.
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