Website Advisor

The most frequent problems related to sending email newsletters are related to IP reputation and mail server blacklisting issues.
The following top 10 tips can improve the quality of your email and get it into client in-boxes :

1. Create and protect quality IP and domain sending reputations. If the email is considered spam and rejected or delivered to the spam folders by other ISP’s then you have wasted your time and money.
2. Do not use a shared mail hosting provider where other businesses are sending email newsletters using the same IP addresses. A dedicated server or outgoing IP address is best. A sudden burst of email from your new IP address is a red flag and may cause some ISP’s to block email from your server. Using a 3rd party newsletter service provider such as RippleDirect.
3. Clearly identify how the recipient subscribed to your list. Use double opt-in confirmations to subscribe new addresses to your list. After they type their email address into a form they should receive an email where they need to click a confirmation link to confirm they really want to be subscribed.
4. Clearly identify how they can unsubscribe from the list. Make this easy! Include easy unsubscribe links at the top and bottom of your newsletters. Do not make the user jump through hoops such as figuring our CAPTCHA images to get unsubscribed. The last thing you want is for them to click their spam buttons to delete and block your email.
5. Remove email addresses that bounce from your list. If an email address fails with a permanent 5xx smtp rejection code immediately remove the email address from your list. If an email address fails several times with a temporary 4xx smtp deferral code you should consider removing the email address within 3-5 bounces.
6. Throttle how fast you are sending your emails. Configure your mail server to only open a couple of smtp connections per outgoing domain name at a time. Being a resource friendly sender can help keep other ISP’s such as Yahoo from blocking your IP address due to opening too many connections at a time.
7. Sign up for the feedback loops provided by some of the big ISPs including the Yahoo Feedback Loop and AOL Feedback Loop.
8. Monitor your IP address for blacklistings. A good tool for checking your blacklist status is the MX Toolbox Blacklist check.
9. Create a custom PTR reverse DNS record for your mail server. It’s best that it have a DNS TTL of at least 14400 seconds and is a name such as smtp.example.com or newsletters.example.com. The worst names are the ones assigned by some ISP’s that start with dhcp, host, or some other dynamic looking generic name that will land you on a blacklist such as SORBS.
10. Create an SPF Record. Having a SPF record lets ISP’s that check for it know where email from your domain should be originating from. As long as you configure your record correctly, it can help to improve the chances that your email will be delivered by more ISPs.

Google’s Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts comments on the recent changes in ranking algorithm, which was named “Panda”, reveal that Google does not want to see shallow content in the search results.

Google came up with a variety of questions to judge the quality of a site.

“Would you be comfortable giving this site your credit card? Would you be comfortable giving medicine prescribed by this site to your kids? Do you consider this site to be authoritative? Would it be okay if this was in a magazine? Does this site have excessive ads?”

How can you ensure that your website is not targeted by Google’s new algorithm?

• The website must have enough content to be useful (quality content).
• The website has to contain well written content.
• The content of the website must be unique not copied from other sites.
• Content should be useful to your website visitors.

A frequently asked question pages or section such as this page for Genesis Bus Tour and Coach Charters are very specific where visitors are always looking for information that is brought all together.

How big is an instant?

Search has just become quicker with Google’s Instant. Google Instant is rolling out over several days to users signed in to a Google Account.

Matt Cutts in a  recent announcement said, “We explore ways to crawl the web deeper, faster, and better, from increasing our index size or indexing speed to crawling web forms to discovering links in javascript…We try to return your search results really fast.”

How will this affect the way we search?

The search behaviour of users will have to adapt to the results. Each users experience islikely to be differnet depending on their typing skills. For instance, let’s say a two finger typist who does not have their eyes fixed on the screen is likely to not notice this change. Since this user is likely to hit the enter key before looking at the results and search results are returned very quickly.

However, a touch typist who has their eyes fixed on the screen and likely to change the way they search. As the search results are displayed, the user is likely to refine their key phrases in order to improve the search results.

Does it change SEO strategies?

Google claims the results are the same regardless, but if the user decides to change their search query as the results are being displayed then sites need to focus their SEO on more specific search terms. Long tail keyphrases will become more relevant such as FLR solutions who are Melbourne finance brokers.

Is it as effective?

The web continues to evolve, so this is another step forward in development.

The key to success in Twitter lies as much in the peripheral data that builds up around the message as in the content itself.

Here are the Top Ten Tips to successfully use Twitter.

1. Regular Postings: Be a contributor that your followers get to really know.
2. Retweet: If you see Tweets posted by other users that you think your followers would like, then retweet them.
3. Be Helpful: Answer a question, participate in a survey, or help solve a problem.
4. Don’t Be A Follow CopyCat: Be selective in who you follow or your Twitter stream could fill up with junk.
5. What to Tweet: Late breaking industry news, specials or sales, share other bargains.
6. Comment: Participate in the community.
7. Say Thank You: When someone takes the time to retweet one of your tweets.
8. Be Personal: Every now and then show your human side with a creative thought or other statement.
9. Post Pictures/Video: It’s easy to post short videos.
10. Talk About More Than Yourself: No one will want to follow you if you’re one big commercial. Mix it up.

Social media is all about participating and listening to what others have to say. It’s all about creating and sharing information and becoming part of the community. If you approach Twitter in this fashion, you’ll not only have a lot more fun, but your followers will like and respect you – and if that doesn’t strengthen your brand, nothing will.

The threat of Facebook becoming a part of people’s every day lives is growing.  Consuming more of users’ online time, and that doesn’t appear to be abaiting. Facebook has a great deal of control over users privacy, therefore is a powerful marketing tool for content and online retail. Facebook offers users a many reasons to use it, and in some cases it’s not really even a conscious decision. A recent South Park episode illustrates how Facebook is sucking more people in. Facebook is the latest fad, therefore millions of people are using it.

How important is Facebook to your online business?

Facebook is already taking up a position in e-commerce with a service called Payvment, which is offers a Facebook storefront application to retailers. The concept is simple – a Facebook user gets a discount on merchandise by becoming a fan of the retailer who using Payvment. This will drive some interest in Facebook e-commerce and user engagement with retail brands.

Businesses are getting used to the idea of  social media but now want to know about Return on Investment.

How Payvment’s Facebook storefront app works.

B. Acts as a network of retailers from which customers can make multiple purchases across, all in one checkout process (money is then divided up among the retailers on the back-end)

C. Each retailer provides a gateway to other shopping brands.

D. Retailers set any percentage they wish to offer in exchange for becoming a fan.

Here’s what a page might look like to a fan or non-fan:

This may be perceived as a form of endorsement but it may be reasoned the same principles apply when becoming a member of a club or joining a mailing list. Not all friends are alerted when the user becomes a fan.

Payvment’s also lets users add comments and reviews to storefronts. Built-in spam protection allows retailer to control inappropriate content in the comment and review section of their storefront.

Facebook’s terms of use restruct Payvment sellers from selling inappropriate content such as alcohol, tobacco, munitions and items that promote hate, criminal/terrorist activities, or items that infringe upon the rights of a third party.

Whether you are going to use an app like Payvment or not, it is possibe to start monetizing Facebook fans and achieving  ROI on social media. We expect this type of service will become more popular within the Facebook system.

On Google’s Official Webmaster Central Blog it was confirmed that Google now factors a site’s load-speed when assessing its search ranking.

Many blog commenters & readers have expressed concerns and doubts over the reason for Google’s new signal in search ranking. Take into account, that slow page loading speeds is attributed to Google’s own Analytics script or  AdSense code.

Are these doubts about major ranking damage warranted on the average website?

It has been known in webmaster circles for a few months that Google was going to factor this into their page ranking factors. However, when comparing the ranking of a slow versus fast loading web site, there has been no negative differences in search engine rankings.

Whenever Google does something new, there is an initial concern from the webmaster community.
It is possible to believe that this is a win-win situation for both Google and the user experience, the ultimate agenda here could be to improve the indexing capabilities of the search engine servers, thereby returning more relevant and up-to-date results for searchers.

Matt Cutts said: “People shouldn’t stress out too much about Site-Speed, and the reason is that we’re always going to care first and foremost about quality. How good is a page for users? Don’t think it’s going to be the largest of the two-hundred factors.“

The latest social media network has become more commercial.
What does this mean for current users?

Twitter has just released their business model called “Promoted Tweets”. These are easy to do and just like normal tweets except with the label “promoted”. Although they will have the same features such as reply, retweet and appearing in Twitter search results , if these do not resonate they will be  stopped from showing.

The companies who have started to use “promoted tweets” include Red Bull, Best Buy, Sony Pictures, Bravo, Virgin America and Starbucks.

Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone says the company ”Before we roll out more phases, we want to get a better understanding of the resonance of Promoted Tweets, user experience and advertiser value. Once this is done, we plan to allow Promoted Tweets to be shown by Twitter clients and other ecosystem partners and to expand beyond Twitter search, including displaying relevant Promoted Tweets in your timelines in a way that is useful to you.”

“Since all Promoted Tweets are organic Tweets, there is not a single “ad” in our Promoted Tweets platform that isn’t already an organic part of Twitter,” Stone comments. “This is distinct from both traditional search advertising and more recent social advertising. Promoted Tweets will also be timely. Like any other Tweet, the connection between you and a Promoted Tweet in real-time provides a powerful means of delivering information relevant to you at the moment.”

There are alternative ways to use Twitter for business to reach and interact with their audiences without having to pay for “promoted tweets”. For example:

A recent study shows more journalists using Twitter and Facebook. Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies research reveals more consumers favour brands on Facebook and Twitter.

Use social media to get your message out there.

by Mike Mills

Understanding the internet fundamentals will help you in appraising a domain name.

Criteria for evaluation

Top level domain names (TLDs) are very important. This sets the memorability of the domain, good TLDs express a more professional and experienced business. COM, NET, and ORG are currently the most credible and best known TLDs. As time passes the familiarity and credibility of newer TLDs will probably increase.
The TLD of DOT com is valued higher.

Some factors that affect the value of the domain name are:

• Total number of characters. The lesser the more valuable and easier it is to remember and type.
• Hyphens generally detract from the value of a domain because they can be easily forgotten.
• Digits in a domain name, as in cars4sale.com, decrease the value of a domain.

Criteria for appraising by the Market Factors

The number of words in a domain affects its value.
Names with fewer words can be more memorable, and therefore more valuable.

Search engines can help us determine how much content exists on the Internet with the keywords of a domain. The Internet frequency of these words is a good way of determining the current buyers market for individual terms and the level of industry-specific activity. This element is very time sensitive, the popularity of a given term may fluctuate often as the market changes and new areas grow.

The index of the search value of a domains keywords is used to determine it’s value in a sellers and advertising market.

Google can help rate the value of a domain by determining the search frequency of the words in the domain in comparison to other search lists. This can be used to indicate what is hot in the industry at any given time.

Proper names can affect the value by estimating the demand for particular terms used in the domain.

Have you ever had a web page that has been saved from Microsoft Word?
It usually is full of styles and endless repetitive parameters.

Here’s a new on-line tool that can be used to remove it all.

The clean up HTML tool works by stripping unnecessary tags and styles from the code. You choose from two options; select a HTML file on your computer or copy and paste code into a text box.

A quick and easy online utility that saves hours of editing with a single click.

By Mike Mills

Web sites are beginning to put the consumer at the centre of attention, so web surfing is more fun than ever.
However, now there are more distractions than ever, Twitter, EBAY, Myspace, YouTube, Blogging, Second Life, just to mention a few.
The internet continues to grow at such a rapid pace that content is king and will always be.

To take advantage of this, your marketing plan must contain an extensive on-line component. Many of my clients are dropping print media in favour of the internet. Site owners, both small business and corporates, are evaluating their ad buys and shopping for high-quality targeted visitors.
Their aim is to draw more traffic.
There are a many online options for web site owners with on-line marketing budgets. For example:

• search engine optimisation by web specialists
  
• pay per click and pay per impression advertising
• e-mail marketing

Whether you buy banner or text ads, you must carefully plan your strategy to optimise your campaign. Time is also another key investment which requires a focus on optimising your organic search engine listings.

Why? Well, there are two reasons to consider this approach.

• search engine optimisation is results-oriented.
• research indicates that over 80 percent of web site visitors come from search engines

If you have the in-house resources you may wish to continue with your efforts, although outsourcing can provide you access to a much broader range of expertise. The experts use the latest tools and services available to make this tedious role into a pain-free, no hassle, turn-key operation.

To be number one on page one requires multiple keyword phrases on multiple search engines to accumulate any volume of quality traffic. In the early days of search engine listings, meta tags were very important. As the web has grown, so have the systems for measuring the value of a web page. Google uses over 100 different criteria to rank a web page. This means the techniques are complicated to derive a good position and best left in the hands of an experienced web developer.

To attain the best results with search engine optimisation you must take the time to develop your most appropriate keyword phrases. Selecting keyword phrases that are commonly used in your industry may not serve you well because your clients often will use a completely different set of search terms.

However, none of this is possible without a well defined key phrases. This is paramount for your success. Like life, getting results is hard work. Choose the right keywords, and you’ll receive pre-qualified visitors.

Steps to identifying your keyword phrases.
Be empathetic. What words will your customer use when looking for you on search engines?
Separate yourself from your product, service, or home page.

Think outside the square to generate a list of up to 50 keywords without worrying about whether or not they are right. Prioritise and edit the list down to 20-30 keywords. Drop those that don’t fit and add any that come to mind.

Now group your keywords into 6-10 sets of 2-4 keyword phrases.
Combine your keywords with other qualifying, more specific or descriptive terms.
For instance, marketing becomes web search marketing ; hardware becomes corporate network hardware.

Do not use keywords that are too generic. Use broad terms with something more specific. If you service a specific region, use something like ‘network hardware melbourne’. With a dental clinic, it might be ‘dentist sunshine coast’.
You need to be specific to pre-qualify your visitors!

Concept keywords help qualify visitors.
Specify the concept in your keywords, such as adventure holiday, if that’s what you provide, but also be specific so that the keyword phrase is not too broad, such as ‘island adventure holiday’.
Do not use trademark names, unless you have permission from the owner. A Toyota dealer may be able to use toyota corolla. Well known companies should include their own company name in the key phrases.

Avoid individual common words in favour of more specific terms, such as hardware, web, mobiles, cars, etc. These terms are too general and compete with millions of other web pages.

Once you have identified your best keyword phrases, test for effectiveness with customers, colleagues, friends, and spouses. Listen to their feedback.

Now that you have confirmed your set of targeted key phrases, contact your marketing manager, site developer, ad agency, or in-house web guru. Request that you are seeking an improvement in search engine position. Otherwise, use your content management system to do-it-yourself.

Finally, do it and do it now! Getting your site recognised on the major search engines is one of the best ways to drive pre-qualified traffic to your site.