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Archive for the ‘Online Business’ Category

When it comes to ranking in Google News, the same criteria is not used as getting page rankings on Google searches. Page ranking is not as crucial in Google News because it is the nature of the stories themselves that carry higher clout. Fresh content that appeals to the widest audience can be more important.

When Google News crawls to find news articles, it will look in a few minutes and then will check again 12 hours later. It is unlikely that you will generate any backlinks in that amount of time, so they won’t be as helpful as on Google searches, for ranking purposes.

Google News ranks stories using two different criteria. They group stories together to figure out the ones with the widest appeal are going to rank higher than ones that have a limited audience. The ones that make it into this cluster of top stories are going to appear towards the top of Google News. From there, it ranks the articles by individual basis within the top story cluster, so the bigger your story, the more competition you will have in the story cluster for top spot.

Freshness, citations, local or personal Relevance and trusted sources are the criteria used to make it through this second ranking for Google News. The criteria are broken down using these remaining tests to see where your story should rank. To get ranking in Google News, there are 5 easy steps you can take.

1.     Make sure you story has wide appeal and will be interesting to a large audience. Even if you use keyword optimizing in a small news event, it won’t matter, when it comes to rankings with Google News. They are looking for the most newsworthy articles to appeal to a wider audience.
2.     Break the story quickly. Being the first to report a breaking story is more important that using too many citations with other links. While citations can be helpful, it is the freshness of the story that can make the difference, so publish as quickly as you can.
3.     Local or Personal relevance pertains to quoting local sources at the scene of the story. This gives your story more relevance than the stories that are reporting hearsay accounts. If you are quoting local sources or those close to the story, it will move you up in the ranking criteria.
4.     Trusted sources mean that you need sources for your story that are relevant to the subject matter, especially as it pertains to the country or location the story takes place. You wouldn’t want to cite a tabloid as a source for a breaking business news story, for example.
5.      When in doubt, check the Google News publisher FAQ page they posted a few months ago. It can answer many of the questions about how Google News works and these are answers that come from Google News, themselves. That is the best way to make sure that your stories fit into their guidelines.

To get the best ranking in Google News, make sure that your articles are newsworthy. That is the most important part of being part of the news. Like any other news source, people want stories that are the most interesting and offer news they haven’t already read about.

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To write attractive page titles for better click through rates, you need to write relevant titles that are attractive to the normal person and give a description (and unique Meta page title), that will make people want to click on it. The mistake that many people make when creating page titles is that they make them so SEO optimized that the average person has no idea what the website is about. As a result, they go to another one that fits better, even though it is lower in the page rankings.

The best idea is to keep in mind that your readers drive your rankings, so you want keyword optimized titles that provide useful information to the customers looking for you. Search engines look at the page titles based on relevance to the subject to determine rank. The Meta page title is what will be bookmarked by your customers and it is the title that will appear in the bookmarks list. You want to be sure the title is accurate and not missing or your readers will have a hard time finding your website later.

You want to be sure that your primary keyword is the first word in the title tag and then your corporate name should appear at the end of the page titles. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but you want the primary keyword as close to the beginning of the title as possible. Of course, when you are making home page titles, it should include your company’s name and include what will be on the page, or your website credibility can be lowered because the search engines won’t pick up what is being represented in the contents.

A few other pointers on attractive page titles are that the title shouldn’t be too long, the title matches the first paragraph content, and that the page titles are different for each page, but consistent with the rest of your website. Usually 5 to 9 word titles are best or under 80 characters in entirety. Avoid making the page titles obvious selling pages, but you want them to be compelling enough to be descriptive.

Another thing to be certain of is the titles are typed in proper title case and headers should use the right capitalization. The title of your pages should tell the reader what the page is about and the title should be able to stand alone, in other words, it should be more than a generic “about us” title. If you keep in mind the most likely terms that your customers are likely to type into search engines, you can have an idea of a good way to come up with your page titles.

Because you have to consider relevance to get the click through, you want to consider what the normal person is likely to type into the search engines and click on when looking through your pages and those of your competitors. Using your keywords, corporate name, and plain language makes it easier to understand your page titles and you will get better click through rates.

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Paypal began in 1998 as a privately owned venture; in 2002 it was acquired as a wholly owned subsidiary of Ebay for 1.5 billion dollars. At that time Paypal became a preferred method of payment for Ebay purchases.

Over the years Paypal’s Ebay banking system has become one of the most popular ways of sending money all over the world. Originally set up to charge fees to those who accepted paypal payments, the company has now branched out into allowing personal payments with little to no fees.

When sending money through Paypal, there are 2 option tabs available, either Business or Personal. When you choose the personal option if allows you to send money direct from your Paypal balance to any resident of the United States for no fee to you as the sender or the receiver.

You can also send money to persons in other countries using the personal option on Paypal, however even when paying with a paypal balance there is a nominal fee, associated with sending money to other countries. It is the sender’s choice whether they will pay any fees associated with sending money to people outside the United States or if the fee will be deducted from the recipients money before payment is given to them.

With this new banking strategy added to PayPal’s services, there are bound to be a larger number of transactions done through the PayPal Bank. When one takes into view the amount of money taken by banks for domestic or cross-border transactions, this idea of sending money is definitely more attractive.

Additionally you can use an e-check for sending payments through the Paypal personal function and not incur any additional fees. However for those that do not retain a Paypal balance for making payments you do still have the option of sending personal payments using credit cards, however there are additional fees incurred. These fees may not be as high as a business paypal account will be charged; nevertheless there is nominal fee. It is the sender’s option whether they will pay this additional fee or allow the fee to be taken from the amount being sent.

To send a personal payment, all you have to do is go to the Send Money option, and click on the tab for personal payments. Then choose from personal money owed, household expense, gift or other decide whether you or the recipient will pay the fee (if any) and then your friend or family member will receive an email telling them that a payment is waiting for them.

With paypal you have the option of having a Personal, Premier or Business Account. No matter which of these you choose you are still able to send money for free to persons residing in the United States if you select the personal option when sending money.
Additionally a person that has a Paypal account is able to withdraw up to $500.00 USD to his or her own account per month without having a verified account. Once the account has been verified (by adding a bank account) these limits are raised.
That’s it! Simple. And a lot less costly than the previous methods of sending money through Paypal

Image Courtesy : http://www.ehow.com/how_4863982_avoid-getting-scammed-craigslist.html

Thanks to one man’s initiative in which he decided to use the social media for business purposes and began marketing his product and services extensively on social media websites, a large number of businessmen have begun using this excellent marketing strategy for getting in touch with their potential clients on the Internet. That is the reason why Facebook, YouTube, Multiply Gather, Twitter and Friendster are being used by farsighted businessmen for marketing their products to visitors online.
If you have full intentions of doing the same thing you would want to develop a social media strategy, which is not only effective, but manages to give you profitable returns at the end of the day. You start the strategy by signing in on a number of social media websites.
The point is to introduce yourself to the general public and show that you have a face behind the company. After that, you are going to start a methodical download or upload of a number of videos, photos, as well as music; any sort of media which includes information about your product, company and services comes under the social media network marketing strategy.

Even though the services are free and thousands of blog posts are entered on these websites every single day, a businessman is going to have a much better chance of having his blog read, by people who are interested in his particular products. This naturally is a much better way of marketing and advertising than spending lots of money on ads in journals and newspapers.
That is the main reason why many marketing firms have begun using social media websites in their marketing campaign.

To begin your social media strategy and marketing campaign, you need to set out one particular goal. What is the name of your company and which target market are you interested in? Which particular social media site caters to that particular target market? You are naturally going to be doing a little bit of research on these sites.

Your job is to make new connections, and to tell your already existing clients and connections that you are alive and ticking. This is at the top of your priority list, especially when you are building a new marketing strategy which includes social media.

Social media has taken the old marketing strategies of using market surveys to find out the opinion of general consumers, regarding some particular product, to the new stage of free discussions on the product quality, online. That is why you have to keep in touch with the pulse of the general public and that can only be done by looking at the reviews, views, and discussions going on in forums.
You need to go out amongst your clients and general public and become visible. You need to make sure that the customer service is so perfect that any problem is solved within 24 hours.

The Customer is King and never more so than when he is sounding off online. One unhappy customer is quite capable of losing you more than a 100 prospective customers in the future. So when you go online and manage to talk to your customer about his problems, it shows that you care.
This marketing strategy is not only going to make your social media presence quite strong, but it is going to do wonders for your future business prospects. This also includes taking part in a number of forums online and explaining queries and FAQ’s to any prospective client, who is interested in buying your product in the near future.

Extensive research needs to be done so that you know exactly who your customers are and where they can be found. You could use Technorati, through which you can find blogs and websites related to your product, through a search query. You would also want to try out the marketing scope of Twitter. It has a really good search and monitoring tool called Twitscoop.

Once you know about the specific needs and requirements of the customer, you would want to tell them that you are capable of giving them a product, which deals with solving that particular requirement and need.
You would need to measure The Traffic with Google Analytics, Social Mention and Tweetreach. These free tools give you a broad idea of how positive your participation in the discussion was and you can base your communication strategy using the data obtained by these tools.
Once you have found a good social media strategy, which works, stick to it!

Image Courtesy : http://ictkm.cgiar.org/2009/07/29/social-media-the-next-revolution/

Does anyone remember the days when all you had to worry about on the internet were those pesky viruses? Anyone at all? Well believe it or not there was such a time and while it wasn’t that long ago it seems like another life now. Today you have to worry about all sorts of things online, ranging from spyware, to adware, and of course, the newly popular internet scam.

Why has the internet scam become so popular? It is more than likely because of the economy. Making money has gotten harder and harder, and many people have taken desperate measures, and sadly one of those measures is cheating others out of their money. Well, as sad as it is for them, you have to get the most out of your money too, and that means staying away from those nasty internet scams and being able to spot them early on.

The first step in spotting s cam is asking yourself the following simple question: Is this too good to be true? If you even have to ask yourself then odds are you are dealing with a scam. You might have received an e-mail about some miracle product that the person wants you to invest in so that he or she can get the funding they need to develop the product. Now why would that even tempt you? Well when they tell you this it is more than likely they have promised you a share of the profits that are generated by the product in question. If it is a product that is a huge success, then you would be receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is definitely an attractive offer. While there is a slim chance this could be true, you need to do some research into any sort of offer you get and make sure it is legitimate before you invest ANY money into it.

Of course this isn’t the only internet scam out there that you need to keep a weather eye out for. You also need to look out for the many pyramid schemes that offer you a piece of something for just a little bit of your hard earned money, and often a monthly payment of some sort. You might also run into people that claim they need passage to your country and if you pay them some money for a plane ticket they will give you some sort of service in return. This is generally scam, and sometimes the replies are even scripted so that there is no actual human behind the keyboard that sent you the message. Do yourself a favor and don’t fall for these obvious scams.

The key thing to remember is perhaps the most obvious: If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is. You need to watch yourself and make sure that you are not falling for the scams that countless other people have fallen for. You work hard to earn your money, and there is no reason for you to just throw it away at someone else’s whim. Always pay attention and keep your wallet safe when you’re surfing the web!

Image Courtesy : http://www.youngmoney.com/credit_debt/credit_reports/Five_Internet_scams