NetBusinessBlogWork from Home, Business Opportunities, Websites for Sale - Run an Online Business

Commercial search engines make use of information retrieval (IR) in order to determine the popularity and relevance of a website. This is because even early in the development of the search engines, IR researchers realized that these are the two critical components for search functionality. So what is popularity and relevance exactly?

Popularity – this is the relative importance usually measured through citations of the document that matches a searcher’s query. The popularity of the particular document will increase when other documents over the internet use it as reference.

Relevance – this is the degree by which the content matches with the user’s terms and query intentions. The relevance of the document will increase when the phrase used by the user occurs many times in the document including its title, the headlines, and the sub-headlines.

Up to this date, these two components are used in web search and it manifests itself in different ways today; usually in the form of link analysis and document analysis.

In link analysis, the search engine will measure not only what website is linking to a particular page but also what these sites are saying about the site. Search engines also have a good grasp of which sites are affiliated with each other through the site’s registration records, historical link data, and various other sources. Generally, links from “trusted” sites such as .gov and .edu pages are more valuable compared to any other domain extensions.

The other aspect is document analysis. Almost everybody is familiar with this; search engine looks at the important areas of the document such as its title, heading tags, meta data, and the body of the document. They also try to measure the content’s quality through complex algorithms beyond the scope of this article.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Popularity: 5% [?]

I have been using Firefox for 2 years and I have to say that it is a lot better compared to Internet Explorer. Firefox integrates add-ons seamlessly into the browser and for an avid blogger; this is definitely a great feature. There are many extensions available over the internet but not all of them will be useful. I have compiled some of the most beneficial add-ons that a blogger can use:

ScribeFire – this is a full-featured blog editor that will let you post easily on your blogs. You can simple drag and drop text from the web pages you are browsing, upload images, take notes, and post it on different blogs.

Universal Uploader – if you want to upload or download from Flickr, Facebook, or YouTube, this tool will enable you to do so.

Adsense Notifier – displays your Adsense earnings on the browser.

Dictionary Search – allows you to correct selected words easily with the online dictionary.

iWebTool bar – this enables you to access the tools and services easily from the main iWebTool website.

These add-ons may seem simple but it goes a long way to helping you save time and effort because it provides a “short cut” of some routine activities you will check out anyway.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Popularity: 9% [?]

Usually, when we hear about a site selling for $100,000 or even $50,000, we are astonished and wish we can earn that much as well. So I was flabbergasted to find out that Consumer Search sold for $33 Million last May 7, 2007 from Blogging Experiment. At first I thought it was a joke until I saw the press release from the New York Times that explains in detail how, why, and where the ConsumerSearch.com site was acquired.

Typically, when you imagine a website worth $33 million, you imagine something unique, eye-catching, and use the latest cutting-edge technology. But looking at ConsumerSearch.com, it looks as if it is the usual “Adsense” website. Also, it looks as if their reviews are borrowed from someplace else. It is hard to imaging how the site can be worth that much until you look into its stats.

The site is basically getting 1.7 million hits per month which is astonishing when you consider that it has no real information on it. It just goes to show that even a simple website like this can generate tons of money. ConsumerSearch.com has been around for 7 years at the time when About.com acquired it.

So the question is does it look like it would take a great deal of effort to build a site like ConsumerSearch.com? Well, do as they do and hire people to write everything for you. They pay writers $350 per category and when you multiply this by 330 (the number of categories in their website). Basically, you need to concentrate on marketing and promotions; if it becomes successful, you

Building a site like ConsumerSearch.com takes a lot of ingenuity though and it is quite apparent that their domain name helped a lot in giving them the credibility they need.

Sources:
The New York Times Archive
Blogging Experiment

Popularity: 9% [?]

Popularity: 9% [?]

Website flipping can be highly profitable but for you to be successful in this endeavor, you need to have great tools at your disposal. Most of these tools are free but some require paid subscription. But try to make your life easier by spending a bit of money, consider this as your investment. So what are tools you can check out? Here are the selections:

Buy-and-Sell Sites

· Digital Point – this is place where web masters from all over the world come together. However, expect that the offers for your websites will be incredibly low because everyone is looking for a bargain.

· Site Point – if you are selling high-dollar items, Site Point is more recommended than Digital Point. This site has a lot of traffic and you can enjoy high bids for your websites.

· eBay – you can buy and sell your sites in eBay as well. A lot of turnkey sites here turn out to be useless but there are also sites that turn out to be great deals.

There are many smaller buy-and-sell sites you can explore and if you are selling a blog, it would be a good idea to look into blogging forums and make money online forums as well.

Determine Your Site Value

iWebTool – you can take advantage of different tools such as pagerank predictor and backlink checkers among others.

DnScoop – this tool can pretty much provide an accurate estimate of what a site is worth based on its pagerank, backlinks, etc.

Alexa – a lot of webmasters still look to Alexa to determine web popularity and the number of site visitors.

Website Grader – this tool can look into everything including Alexa, pagerank, and backlinks. It even provides an SEO report and the number of times your site has been hit by social bookmarking sites.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Popularity: 6% [?]

Nowadays, bloggers tend to create blogs on topics that are considered popular and profitable. This is as opposed to creating blogs for their personal interest or enjoyment. Bloggers frequently need to battle the temptation to create another real estate blog or debt consolidation blog simply because they believe that this is where the “real money” is. However, unless you conduct an extensive research on the topic; chances are, you will not be able to write anything substantial about it. Also, you might discover that the blog you started is just far beyond your interest. So what can you do then? There is a simple solution: website flipping.

·         Talk to people in the same niche – if you know a blogger who already has a few sites related to your niche, try to talk to them. They just might be interested in acquiring another blog in the same niche.

·         Post it on your blog – some people don’t recommend this method because search engine can index the content you wrote. But this is a method you can also consider.

·         Use blog networks – some blog networks solicit new blogs. These networks are looking for blogs with quality content so your blog needs to pass their standard before it will be bought. Also, some blogging networks require you to stay on as a blogger for some time until they find a new writer.

·         Forums – most forums have a marketplace section where you can buy or sell blogs. You might find a webmaster who’s interested in buying your blog.

These are just the plain basics of website flipping. A more in-depth article will be uploaded tomorrow.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Popularity: 5% [?]

Everyone encounter times when they simply don’t have any time to write their blog posts, their e-book, or their web content. If you have a lot of commitments that hinder you from completing a post at your leisure, then you need to make the most of your spare time. First though, you need to make a commitment to write regularly because otherwise, you will always have an excuse to do something else. Here are some tips on how you can effectively find the time to write even when it seems you cannot have enough time to do it:

Make the time – you need to find at least 15 minutes a day to write. Once you start looking for that 15-minutes, you might discover you actually have some time to spare. This can mean setting the alarm 15 minutes before you actually need to get up or sleeping 15 minutes later than usual.

Make a calendar – mark off days when it is essential for you to write and stick to it. It is incredibly easy to put writing off until you discover that it has been several weeks since you last put up a blog post.

Set goals – do you actually have an idea where you want to take your blog or website? If you don’t have any goal when you blog, you might be putting a lot of energy on the wrong things.

Notes – always have a pen and notebook ready so you can make noted when you come up with an idea. Many bloggers waste a lot of time in front of their computers without being productive because they forget what they wanted to write about.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Popularity: 4% [?]

Subscriber lists can help in any online marketing campaigns because you can send promotional materials direct to your target audience’s mailbox. You don’t need to worry about the technical aspects of putting the subscription form in your website either because e-mail management service providers will provide the necessary HTML for this. So you just need to focus on its marketing aspect.

Aside from search engine optimization which will enable visitors to find your site, you also need to focus on promoting your subscription form on your website itself? But how will you do this? Well, simple marketing tactics such as putting the subscription form where readers can see it will surely help. Most of the successful placements I observed had the subscription form placed at the upper right corner of their home page.

On the other hand, giving free stuff for subscription always works. Because the internet is all about information, you can use information as your leverage. For example, in order to get access to a free e-book or whitepaper, the reader must first subscribe to your newsletter. This has been proven to be effective time and again and in fact, I have been “forced” to subscribe to several newsletters myself because of this.

You can also explore offline methods such as joining conventions and exhibits. This will definitely give you a competitive edge because people generally trust blogs and websites that they have personally encountered offline as well.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Popularity: 5% [?]

Finding the perfect web template is undeniably hard. And just when you think you found the right template for your site, you discover that exclusive ownership starts at several hundred dollars or more. This is way beyond the budget most web owners. It is a good thing then that Yes Templates keeps the needs and budget of their customers in mind in their pricing strategy. In fact, exclusive ownership rights to high quality templates starts at only $75.

It is easy to find the best web template for you because their product offerings are neatly categorized per topic. Some of the categories I browsed include agriculture, baby, beauty, business, car, computer, dating, education, family, fashion, finance, gifts, and music. There are many other selections you can look into. Everything looks good as far as I can see. And with their extensive range of choice, it is almost certain that you will find something you like.

All Yes Templates products are created by a skilled “in-house” team of designers so you can be sure that you have the most unique and eye catching design on the internet. Custom solutions are also available at an affordable price. So whether you are looking for the perfect website template, logo, CMS design, or corporate identity design, you are sure to find it at Yes Template. The company also offers up to three revisions for free on design elements; they are certainly serious about ensuring customer satisfaction.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Popularity: 9% [?]

Most search engines have different keyword matching options. I decided to focus on Google’s PPC matching options in particular because Google controls a significant share of the market. So what are the matching options available in Google?

Exact Match and Phrase Match

The exact match is exactly what it sounds like, your ads will display when a searcher types on the exact phrase on his query. You need to use brackets, [ ], for the exact match option. So if your keyword is debt consolidation, it should type [debt consolidation] on your account.

Meanwhile, the phrase match can be used through quotes. So you should type in “debt consolidation” on your account. For phrase matching, your ads will display when a searcher types in phrases such as “debt consolidation benefits”, “what is debt consolidation”, or “best debt consolidation”.

Extended Broad Match

The extended broad match is quite complicated. This is because not only will your ads display whenever a searcher types in anything with “debt” and “consolidation” on it. In addition, Google expanded broad matching so much that it is sometimes difficult to see any logical connection between the ads and the search query. For example, ads about counseling or credit financing can appear when a searcher looks for debt consolidation information.

Some experts recommend the discontinuity of using broad matching altogether but a lot of web masters still believe in its benefits. If you do decide to go ahead with extended broad matching, you should take note to use at least four words in the phrase because it will minimize the chances of algorithms misplacing your ads. You can also add negative keywords in your list so your ads will not display when searchers look for terms that are not relevant to your site.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Popularity: 7% [?]

1.       Always start with your goals – before you decide to get a SEO vendor, you should first know what they want from them. If you have a team, ask their opinions and get their feedback on what they want to be accomplished with your start on your SEO endeavors. On the other hand, good SEO vendors would know what your goal should be. Try to ask for their recommendation and integrate their suggestions with your own goals.

2.       Connect with people – if you don’t know of a potential vendor for you, try to ask family, friends, SEO bloggers, and online business owners for their recommendation. When you ask for their recommendation, try to provide details about your project goals.

3.       Get advice from SEO-savvy friends and personalities – asking for advice in blogs and forums focused on SEO is a good idea. Most SEO-savvy people here have actual experiences with using SEO companies and consultants.

4.       Talk to them personally or over the phone – communicating through e-mail is great but nothing beats personal meetings because it will give you the sense of being in a team. Make sure that you’re not just talking to the sales personnel which are the case with using a large company but with the SEO person who is in-charge of the whole process.

5.       Present some concerns over e-mail –some consultants will not do any work until the contract is signed. But getting them to talk about how a problem will be tackled would be recommended because it will give you an idea about their willingness to communicate and their competency.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Popularity: 4% [?]