Looks like you’ll no longer need to visit search.twitter.com to search for twitter updates. Marissa Mayer from Google put it best, “the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.”

If you can’t wait for this integration to happen, you can install a Greasemonkey script into Firefox in order to get twitter results on Google’s search page. I’ve been using it for awhile and it’s very handy!

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Twitter Reaches Deal with Google and Bing

Technorati Tags: google, Twitter

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Distributing articles can help build links to your website.  Below is a list of distribution sites with a PR of 3 or better. If you have any to suggest that meets this criteria, leave a comment. We are planning to update this list periodically.

updated on 4/23/09-took out those lower than pr2

Amazines – www.amazines.com – PR4
Article Alley – www.articlealley.com – PR5
Article Base- www.articlebase.com – PR3
Article City – www.articlecity.com – PR5
Articles Factory – www.articlesfactory.com – PR4
ArticleWarehouse – www.articlewarehouse.com – PR3
AuthorConnection.com – www.authorconnection.com – PR3
Business Know-How – www.businessknowhow.com – pr6
BusinessToolchest.com – www.businesstoolchest.com – pr3
Buzzle.com – www.buzzle.com – PR5
Connectionteam.com – www.connectionteam.com – PR3
Constant Content – www.constant-content.com – PR5
Ezine Articles – www.ezinearticles.com – PR6
FreeTrafficTip.com – www.freetraffictip.com – PR4
GoArticles.com – www.goarticles.com – PR5
Home business Tips Newsletter – www.home-business-tips-newsletter.com – PR3
HowToAdvice.com – www.howtoadvice.com – PR3
IdeaMarketers.com – www.ideamarketers.com – PR3
isnare.com – www.isnare.com PR6
Jogena’s – www.jogena.com – PR4
jorbins.com – www.jorbins.com – PR3
Li’l Engine – www.lilengine.com – PR4
LinkSnoop.com – www.linksnoop.com – PR3
Main Street Mom – www.mainstreetmom.com – PR3
PromoteNewz.com – www.promotenewz.com -PR3
PromotionWorld.com/articles.html – www.promotionworld.com -PR4
SearchWarp.com – www.searchwarp.com -PR5
UniTerra.com – uniterra.com -PR4
upromote.com – www.upromote.com – PR3
WebMomz.com – www.webmomz.com – PR4
WorkAtHomeArticles.net – www.workathomearticles.net -PR2
Work911.com – www.work911.com – PR5
zinos.com – www.zinos.com -PR4

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Article Distribution Sites with a PR 3 or Higher

Technorati Tags: linkbuilding

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The BBC published an article last week describing the changes in the old Whitehouse.gov’s robots.txt file vs. the new administration’s robots file. A simple glance would indicate that the new administration, in a push for higher perceived transparency, removed a couple thousand lines of code that were blocking the search engines from indexing all of the content on the site. Removal of this code may seem to open up all the dirty secrets that the Bush camp were trying to hide but in reality it may be adversely affecting the ability of the site to rank properly.

After a bit more crawling through the file that was in place, it wasn’t doing anything nefarious, but merely reducing duplicate content issues. For those that don’t know, when the search engines see two pages with the same content on them it makes an executive decision (Chief of Staff Joke) and decides which of these pages are more important and will likely only show it in results. The original robots.txt file was merely telling the engines that there is more than one copy of a page on this site and we would sure appreciate it if you served this version because it has a prettier page title for instance.

Apparently to counteract having the search engines crawl the entire site, like it now will with a two line robots.txt file, the new webmasters have deleted several pages to nudge the engines to serve the appropriate version of the page. These deletions have taken place without proper redirects which would have passed solid link juice to the preferred page. This move has again damaged the ability of the site to rank.

Now, I’m not commenting on the overall transparency of either organization nor am I taking sides here, (I know better than to play that game) but it appears that the BBC may have wanted to consult with an SEO before going to print.

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Presidential Transparency Vs. Good SEO

Technorati Tags: robots, SEO

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According to an article written by Marshall Kirkpatrick from ReadWriteWeb, professional social media consultants don’t make less than $150 an hour.

“No one we surveyed named an hourly consulting rate below $150 per hour. $300 per hour was the most common rate named. Some listed monthly rates of $2k to $4k per engagement, which we assume probably means 20 to 40 hours per month.

Social media (or in many cases Search Engine Optimization) consulting is probably making a fair number of people six figures. What are these people doing? They are advising companies on how to set up and run blogs, how to reach out to and relate to bloggers, how to use Twitter (seriously) and how to make advanced use of RSS. The SEO work is probably the most technical, but degrees of technical challenge are all relative. A lot of this work is about communication skills.”

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So just how much do social media consultants get paid?

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Abbey Klaassen at AdAge.com published this report last Friday,

“Just three months ago, it seemed as though the internet advertising industry could get through this tough economy relatively unscathed. But in what may be a bad sign for a seemingly recession-resistant sector, several internet companies have reported relatively disappointing earnings.

The giant in the space, Google, didn’t grow as fast as analysts expected, and its shares dropped about 7% on the news. It reported net income of $1.25 billion, or $3.92 per diluted share, up 35% from $925 million, or $2.93 per diluted share, during second-quarter 2007. Of course, Google doesn’t offer financial guidance, so there’s a greater chance investors can be caught off-guard.

The company continued to milk the stronger international economy, which accounted for 52% of total revenue, up from 51%.

Google spreads the blame
Despite the troubles, Google executives didn’t blame the economy or weakness in the online advertising sector, instead attributing the company’s less-stellar-than-hoped-for performance primarily to financial moves and a bit to costs related to its acquisition of advertising service DoubleClick. However, signs from other companies, such as display-ad-heavy ValueClick, indicate the economy is having an effect on the sector.

ValueClick announced it was paring back its second-quarter guidance. The company now estimates growth will be in the low-single digits for 2008, compared with the first quarter’s 17% growth. Display and comparison-shopping business was proving particularly weak.

“Against a deteriorating macro-environment, online display advertising is being materially impacted, much more so than performance-based search advertising,” wrote Citibank analyst Mark Mahaney. “We believe [ValueClick] is seeing display-ad weakness across almost all verticals.” Such news, he added, could have negative implications for a company with a heavy display business, such as Yahoo.”

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Online Advertising Spiraling Downward

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In part 1 of Why sooner is better for small business SEO we discussed the benefits of SEO in regards to developing niches and the advantages of establishing age early. In this section we’ll focus on how establishing SEO in a small business earlier rather than later will help us better understand customers, avoid spending unnecessary resources and learning to do it yourself.

Understanding your customers

• One of the most integral parts of implementing SEO in your web presence is extensive keyword research. You want to find and utilize the keywords that your customers are using to find products and services that you offer. This research is more often than not quite eye opening, and as a business owner you likely have many preconceptions regarding the ways your customers find you, often times wrong. Becoming involved in keyword research will help you understand what your customers are looking for. These could be products that you may not be offering or possibly, something you are offering but are calling it the wrong name.

Affordability during earlier stages

• Deciding to take on SEO practices earlier rather than later will also save you money on the bottom line. In the earlier stages of the web site design phase you can build your site to be SEO friendly. If you were to wait until much later in the life of the business a redesign of your website to become more SEO friendly would cost a great deal.

Learning to Do it Yourself

• In initial stages of almost any project small businesses tend to take on a good portion of the work load in-house. SEO practices should be no different. The advantages of starting early allow the small business to learn as they grow rather than having to spend great deals of resources either hiring an outside SEO firm or by trying to learn when the company is larger and there is much more at stake.

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Why sooner is better for small business SEO Pt. 2

Technorati Tags: SEO, Small Business

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As a small business owner, capital and time are typically the most precious resources. Deciding where to allocate these valuable assets can often be a tedious task. With so many options available to you, putting your resources into the activities that can grow your business effectively can mean the difference between coming out on top or sinking to the bottom.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, isn’t typically the type of expenditure that an emerging small business thinks of in the early stages of development but there are several reasons why doing SEO early can greatly benefit an organization in the long run.

· D     Developing Niches

o As companies grow markets tends to decide which products and services are the most valuable to them, often without any guidance from the company themselves. Unique offerings can appeal to specific niche markets that the company may not have anticipated. By using SEO before these niche markets fully develop you capitalize most of the market exposure on the search engines before competitors join the niche. Getting your roots down early will establish your organization as an authority in the marketplace.

· B     Building Age

o Age of links is a very influential factor in search engine ranking. The sooner that you can start building links the sooner those links can start passing benefit. This thought process will also get you in the habit of thinking of ways to leverage your content as you build it rather than saying “We will adjust this for SEO at a later date”.

In part two we’ll discuss how good SEO will help you further discover and understand your market.

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Why sooner is better for small business SEO Pt. 1

Technorati Tags: SEO, Small Business

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