Gregory's Online Business Blog

How can I rank higher in search engines?

That's a question I hear often. I also hear a lot of questionable answers being offered in response.

Because Google and other search engines don't publish their methodology for ordering search results, there are a lot of theories floating around on how websites can improve their search rankings. Some are sound; some may actually hurt your rankings.

SEOmoz, a leading consultancy and website dedicated to SEO, has asked the top 37 search engine professionals what were the most important factors that affect a website's search rankings. Thanks to this survey, we have a list of the top 10 factors we should be focusing on when we optimize our websites for search engines.

The full results of the survey is fascinating, but lacks practical application tips. In this article, I explain the top 10 factors in easy-to-understand terms and offer a few tips for applying it to your online business.

Read it: How to rank higher in search engines? Top 10 Search Ranking Factors

This article comes from guest expert and Web designer Naomi Niles of Intuitive Designs.

As a Web designer, she knows what it takes to have the most pleasant, best resulting Web design process. It all boils down to good collaboration between designer and client.

In this article, Naomi walks through the three phases of a Web design project, and offer tips for maximizing your designer each step of the way.

Continue reading: How to Get the Best Out of Your Web Designer

While I was at the BlogHer conference in San Francisco, I got a chance to talk to Camille Wright, bookkeeping consultant to small businesses. Her firm, Wright Solution, teaches small business owners how to keep track of their finances and get a better picture of how their companies are doing.

She said three things that really struck me:

1. Most small businesses (especially sole proprietors) have no idea how their business is doing financially because they don't have well maintained books.
   
   
2. Many users of financial software, like Quickbooks, are not fully utilizing the power of modern day accounting software.
   
   
3. Intuit has a ton of different versions of their Quickbooks (business accounting) and Quicken (personal finance) software. There's probably a version specifically for your company profile.

After the conference, Camille graciously answered a few more questions about small business accounting.

Read the interview: 13 Questions for a QuickBooks Expert

Part 2 of Scott Fox's series on do-it-yourself SEO is now live.

To finish off the series, Scott offers 6 tips for using keywords wisely on your site. He also writes about two dangers to watch out for.

Continue reading: Top 11+2 SEO Practices You Can Do Yourself (Part 2: Using Search Keywords)

Despite lots of hype by SEO consultants, the basics of search engine optimization are actually pretty straightforward. In this guest article, Internet Riches author Scott Fox recommends against hiring SEO consultants until you have tried the DIY strategies for improving search engine rankings in this article.

DIY SEO not only saves you money, it makes you a smarter web marketer.

Continue reading: Top 11+2 SEO Practices You Can Do Yourself (Part 1: Building Links and SEO Friendly Design)

Social news websites like Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon are a force to be reckoned with on the Web. Having your website featured on one of these sites can send massive amounts of traffic.

These are 3 key features of a social news site:

1. Users submit links to interesting content around the Web. Could be articles, pictures, videos, etc.
2. Other users vote on stories, usually via a +/- voting widget. StumbleUpon uses a browser plugin that integrates voting with your normal Web surfing.
3. Top rated submissions (those that get the most votes, fastest) are featured on a "popular" page or the homepage.

Getting linked from the "popular" page of a social news site can bring upwards of 50,000+ page views in just 24 hours. But lots of traffic is just the beginning of the benefits of social media marketing.

Continue Reading: Six Reasons Why You Should Care About Social News

Cuil, pronounced "cool", is a search engine that made its debut last Monday to much hype.

The early assessment from around the Web is that Cuil is nowhere near as useful as Google, so maybe it wasn't worth all that hype. A lot of tech bloggers were quite disappointed. But still, checking out these new search engines is interesting because it gives us a glimpse of what might be in store for us in the future.

My initial impression: Cuil still has a long way to go

One thing you immediately notice about Cuil is a the sleek black background. Very anti-Google.

Read more...

If you are thinking about launching a blog -- whether as a profit making entity on its own or as a marketing tool for your business -- keep these 10 blogging best practice tips from blog and copywriting expert Mary Nolan of marketing firm livemercial.

Blogs have emerged as an effective and inexpensive way to reach millions of consumers. But it’s not enough to just set up a URL and begin writing, particularly if your goal is to publish a blog that generates revenue or promotes your own product or service.

The key to success lies in reader retention. For that, you need the right focus, engaging content and the right promotion to attract readers and keep them coming back for more.

And to do that, you'll need to read the article: 10 Tips for Building a Successful Blog

Lynn Truong, sales director of blog network Killer Aces Media*, spoke at the BlogHer 08 conference this past weekend. While preparing for her panel discussion on blog monetization, we spoke a lot about how bloggers can make more money if they spent some time to create an advertising plan.

Here's are some of the more helpful tips Lynn mentioned. I've published it in an interview form for easy reading. The interview should be helpful for probloggers and other Web publishers looking to increase their advertising revenue.

Read it: How Do I Sell Advertising On My Blog?

* Disclosure: I'm a cofounder of Killer Aces.

The BlogHer '08 conference wrapped up today in San Francisco. Over 1,000 women bloggers (and a few male ones including yours truly) descended on Union Square this weekend to learn and network.

(Lynn Truong, my fellow cofounder and Sales Director of Killer Aces Media, was in the panel discussion on blog monetization (session notes). I'll be posting an interview with Lynn later this week on how you can better monetize your blog.)

(Update: Here's the interview - How Do I Sell Advertising on My Blog?.)

In this week's online biz roundup, eBay reports strong earnings, Google search loses market share to Yahoo and Microsoft, and ICANN introduces ".anything" domain names. Plus we link to a case study on how to hit the Digg front page, a discussion of how much bloggers are/should be paid, and a look behind the technologies that power Google search.

Read more...