Posts by Sariscos

It would be much cheaper to outsource SEO than to build your own team unless you're focusing on building an SEO enterprise.

I'm not your average male shopper. I'll go to the department store and try on a bunch of clothes before I decide on what I want to wear. I'll try on 5 different pairs of jeans before I choose one. I want to get the one that fits me best and looks good. So I picked up a couple of items, and as you can imagine, that took away a good chunk of my day. It isn't exactly fun standing in a dressing room with all sorts of pins and needles on the floor.

Some of my friends prefer to shop online. They'll order the clothes online, wait for them to come, try them and on, and send back anything that isn't going to work out with them. However, that process could end up being even more time consuming than actually going to the store to pick it up. I could just imagine them killing half a month on waiting for clothes. There has to be a better way, right?

So I pondered what's out there. There are some stores that will put different outfits over a picture of you. You can kinda see how it looks, but you can't really get a whole perspective. I mean, you try on clothes with more than just mirror. The sides and back are just as important. This way just doesn't seem too effective to me.

What I see happening is a store like Macy's having a place in their …

I would want to know how you can get your advertisement into their mobile device. They would need an app on the phone to do so, no?

It would be your best bet to voice your questions with Facebook. As far as how effective Facebook advertising is, I'll share this story I heard.

There was a guy who wanted to work for Microsoft. He paid Facebook to advertise only to people with said they worked at Microsoft. He advertised his resume. Low and behold, he got the job.

Depending on the demographic you're trying to access, Facebook is a very effective tool for advertising.

If you want to get more people to your site, you're going to have to make an investment. You'll need more content than just forums. Take DaniWeb for example:

We have lots of forum topics, but that's not all we have.

There's editorials, product reviews, industry news, etc...

Creating content like that will draw people to your site. Perhaps they'll sign up and make comments on that additional content. If you're doing a good job, then the visitors should be steadily coming in.

If your site already has a saturated market with your competitors and you're not offering anything new/innovative, then perhaps you might need to go back to the drawing board.

This is an interesting thread. I don't really see how this is plausible. This is in direct conflict with the constitution of the United States. Under the Freedom of Speech Amendment, you can say whatever you want. With that said, many people on Facebook and Twitter have psuedo names so that other people cannot identify them (such as employers). Granted I guess they could have multiple accounts, but that would really defeat the purpose, no?

However, I'm a staunch opponent to a National ID. I don't see how that would solve anything or make anything easier. Linking it up with private enterprises such as Facebook and Twitter would just prove to be a political disaster.

In your views, which is the best marketing technique you have ever used for promoting your website and why it is the best?

Post your opinions here.

It really all depends on what you're trying to accomplish. What kind of individuals do you want accessing your website? There are many different routes to go. I'll offer you this:

Let's say that you're trying to attract big players within your specific industry to go to your website. You want these individuals to see your site as well as use it's features and functions. Most likely, big players already have a whole bunch of sites they like to frequent. In order to attract these guys, you would have to go to trade shows/conferences/seminars/networking events. This way, there's a face to your website. The better you present yourself and acclamate yourself with these individuals in person, they're more inclined to visit your website. Hopefully, your website is really good and they recommend it to their friends. Before you know it, other big players will be tweeting about it and such and then the traffic will follow. You really want to stir a buzz to generate traffic.

If your site is dull/boring, doesn't really offer anything, then there are obviously other avenues to go through. I would certainly hope you're not building a content farm/junk site and actually adding value to your visitors. Remember that added value brings about retention which is key when operating a website.

With that said, as …

The HP ProBook 6560b at first glance is not distinguishable from other laptops. However, this business rugged machine was designed for the modern day businessman. It’s sleek, charcoal black aluminum case is smooth to the touch. Weighing in at a little less than six pounds, this laptop was made to hit the road. HP really got a handle on what the needs are of business professionals with this model. Quiet, durable, and secure would be the best way to describe this notebook. This is why:Specs and Configuration Model: HP ProBook 6560b Notebook PC Processor: 2nd Generation Intel Core i5-2410M Processor @ 2.30GHz Chipset: Mobile Intel HM65 Express Memory: 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM in dual channel (8GB Max) Graphics: Integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 Display: 15.6-inch diagonal LED-backlit HD anti-glare (1366 x 768) Storage: Hitachi 320GB 7200 rpm 2.5-inch hard drive Optical: Lightscribe DVD+/-RW SuperMulti DL Drive Battery: 6-cell 55 Wh Li-Ion Battery Wireless: Intel Centrino Advanced N 6205 a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1 Webcam: 720p HD Webcam Dimensions: 1.35 in x 14.72 in x 9.86 in Weight: 5.76 lbs. OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit Warranty: Limited Standard Parts and Labor Warranty (3/3/0) Tech Support: 1-800-334-5144

Design and Features
Spills, dust, temperature, humidity, and vibrations are no match for this model. Some of the common features on HP business notebooks are a durable finished shell, display latches, easy docking accessibility, 2nd battery utility, as well as …

I think you should rephrase that question. The word trick should not be even considered into customer retention. If you're tricking anyone, you're not running a business.

Don't scam your clients/customers/visitors. If you provide them with the best possible service you can provide them and it's a viable service that does address their needs, then you'll have no problem for customer retention.

If you're not selling anything of particular importance that there isn't demand for, don't push it on people. You're better off closing up shop and saving face. Remember, your reputation is the only thing you possess that is eternal.

I just took a look at email-lists.com. They're definitely a legit company. They have their company address listed on their website. Their address is in Florida. I guarantee you, if it were illegal to purchase anything from them, the U.S. Government would have shut them down.

I believe that mass mailing campaigns are a thing of the past whereas you're better off advertising on twitter, facebook, or other social media. However, I still hear from other sources that mass e-mail campaings still generate a lot of revenue. They're cheap, so you might as well use it. Best of luck.

I think I might have an idea of what you're talking about.

Any mass mailer program should be sufficient. You should research which mass mailer gives you the best options available for your purposes.

If you can get a link of your site on an authority site (a site that Google ranks as holding more weight than most sites), it will promote your site extraordinarily well. In some cases, the ROI is well worth a significant investment on a link.

I'm sure many of you who use Pandora wonder why it hasn't been sucked up by Microsoft, Google or Apple. For those of you who don't even know what Pandora is, it is a internet radio station that uses algorithms to fit your music tastes. How does it fit your tastes? Well, you either simply like or dislike a song. Everytime you do that, it finds more music that is suitable to your interest. I've known about Pandora for years, but I've been a loyal Zune customer. Zune is the equivalent of iTunes.

Zune offers Smart DJ which is sort of like Pandora, but it doesn't really care if you like the songs it lists or not. It just finds similar artists/styles for you to listen to. In a recent conversation I had with a personal friend of mine, we discussed how it would be advantageous for Microsoft to acquire Pandora. Now I'm taking it a step further and tying it into my notion of Web 3.0. If you've been following my series of articles, I've written about how new web technologies that exist now are propelling us into a transformation of how we interact with the internet. The idea is based on the notion that a web community will be the nucleus of how advertisers and content reach us.

Below are my 5 reasons for why Pandora should be purchased by Microsoft:

1) Smart DJ is terrible and doesn't really care about what I think. As …

Capitalism = 90% productivity + 10% resources.
Communism = 10% productivity + 90% resources.

Imagine this: You go to your local 7-11 convenience store, and you’re at the counter to buy a coffee. You realize you forgot your wallet or pocketbook in the car and all you have is your phone on you. Your phone happens to be a smart phone with the required software to communicate with the contactless terminal to read your phone. Success! You paid for your coffee and you go back into your car.

So you’re driving in your car and you have the local radio station playing and then all of a sudden an advertisement from the coffee distributor comes on that you just bought. Maybe you thought it was a coincidence. Then you’re at work and you’re browsing Google and all you can see is this coffee distributor and 7-11 advertising to you trying to get you to come back. At this point, you might feel that Big Brother is watching you. In reality, he’s really not. This is the future we’re going to be looking forward to and this is going to be driven by Web 3.0.

How do I know this you ask!? Well, interestingly enough, Google just announced that you’ll be able to use their virtual credit card system. Mastercard and Citibank are teaming up with Google to make it possible to buy your coffee like that. Google is definitely going to be collecting information on your purchase as much as they can. In Web 3.0, Google will be communicating with as many …

I was extremely surprised (in a good way) with how my last forum thread turned out. I planned on Web 3.0 being a series of forum threads (now articles). In case you missed the last article, I discussed how Web 3.0 relies heavily on community/social oriented activity. In particular, I'm discussing the possibilities of Web 3.0 impacting how advertisers will advertise more appropriate content to the end-user. Today, I'm going to reach out to one of our DaniWeb users, Vikula, and answer a question they wrote in response to my previous article while including other ideas.

Vikula wrote:

“So my main question here is: how would you implement this fantastic idea?”

Well what really drives Web 3.0 is the information that's available about you. Most of the information about you was most likely contributed by you. Facebook, for example, has tons of information about you in their databases. They know what party you said you were going to. They know what products you like. What videos you like. Anything you've hit like on. Any words or phrases that you put on your status. Making comments about your friend's picture. The list goes on and on about what you do on this one site alone. Don't forget that you might have a Gmail account and you're browsing the web logged in. Don't you think Google wants to know what's up?

Essentially, these mega-websites, as I'd call them (because their traffic and usage is beyond most of our comprehension), gather tons …

It depends on the amount and type of traffic you're getting. If a specific niche market is coming to your site and you have a high Click through ratio, then you want to pursue CPC to maximize your profits every quarter. If you're getting a ton of traffic from various places, you want to focus on CPM. However, most media buyers come to you with what they want you to offer. Certain campaigns have certain kinds of requirements. If Microsoft was releasing a new operating system and you had a tech site, they might be more interested in just making a ton of impressions to bring up awareness. If a no name hosting site is trying to access your tech site then they might want to do CPC this way they get the impressions and only have to pay you for those who really are interested. It goes eitehr way.

Is there any way you could develop your owner application for your eCommerce site? Perhaps that would be the best mechanism to do so. That way you get exactly what you want and you can scale it to how you please. Perhaps you might in turn make that software proprietary and make a little business out of that as well. I'm sure that would be useful considering I didn't see too many "Light Weight eCommerce" wares.

Just cause you can't hear fans doesn't mean the computer doesn't work. If you lappy is just hanging, I agree that it's a hardware failure. The culprit is a hard drive. I'd invest in a new laptop. I haven't seen a Packard Bell in years!

Be careful that you're not spamming websites, but rather contributing relevant content. Otherwise, you might find yourself on a lot of BANNED lists.

We all know what Web 1.0 was about. Essentially that's when the web was born and we were able to retrieve information from various sites. Web 2.0 changed the whole dynamic of how we use the internet as end users allowing us to store data, software applications within the browser, and user interface manipulation to go along with it. However, Web 3.0 is a new concept. Not many of us really know what it's about considering it's not a mainstream idea. I'm going to share what my vision for Web 3.0 in it's application towards Marketing and Advertising. For those of you who did your homework on me, you would know I'm the new Director of Advertising and Marketing. The ideas reflected in this thread does not reflect DaniWeb in anyway. Contributions to this thread are more than welcome.

As we can see today, on most web pages, there is an advertisement (i.e. look at DaniWeb). Advertising is generally the life blood for most websites that are not point-of-sales units for parent companies. With social media becoming more and more popular, we're immersed in this rich web environment where social collaboration is on the fore-front of advertising. Online advertising is becoming less of a world of blatant advertising, but more of a world of word of mouth. Technologies that are coming out today are allowing us to access our social media networks to see what they have to say about certain products and services.

With the social media …

The water cooling mechanism is used for heat dispersion. The more surface area you have for the heat to cool off with the more effective the cooling unit. It's not like the liquid is going to be heavier, so the pump will be fine.

If you want a solid SEO plan, I strongly recommend you contact and agency that deals specifically with SEO and has a great track record. Having someone random do for you on forums is not advisable. Whether they're professional or not, they really don't have any idea how to accomodate your preferences. Nonetheless, the SEO agency will need to work with you directly to improve contract. SEO isn't something a third party could just do for you. There are many things you need to do as well.

When would a directory submission not be free? Who isn't free to use?

I agree with PG. A custom option would be the best.
Determining the legal consequences, the third party software you might want to use may compromise the information of your users. If that information was only available to you, you can relieve yourself of many legal ramifications. If you have them check a disclaimer, you could sell that information to advertisers and marketers.

All those reasons are extraordinarily valuable. I think the most important thing to drive traffic is great content. That will get you repeat traffic which is very valuable in the long run.

No problem guys. Please post more links of useful free SEO tools and if you can, explain why they're awesome.

SEO will get you traffic, however, what is that special, unique thing you have to offer that will sustain your traffic? It's very important you have something to do so.

Dani posted a great article about how DaniWeb is recovering from this "Pandalization." Check it out here:http://www.daniweb.com/internet-marketing/search-engine-optimization/news/364574

I hope this article shed some light on your recent Pandalization attack. I hope you too can recover. Thanks for posting.

I personally use Wordpress because I'm not a programmer. The best blog service is your own service. You're fully customizable.

What you would call "online," is a new form of marketplace. A website with advertisements is much like a magazine you receive for free in the mail. It offers information you're interested in. The other side of a website is the commercial side where you buy a product or service.

What everyone should be aware about is like most small business, many websites fail as a business. Actually, the number of failing websites is greater than small businesses.

My philosophy on building a successful website starts with it's community (much like Daniweb). Thinking you're going to have the next Amazon.com is frankly ridiculous. If we look at the foundations of Amazon, it was a bookstore turned into a one stop shot for just about anything that can sold on a computer. They got in the market just in time with a lot of money behind it.

Most of the big websites out there are funded or are branches of larger conglomerates looking to spread it's reach. Different people have different experiences in success no matter which industry you're talking about. I think if you guys were to talk about anything, it would just be sharing your story about how you grew your business from the ground up to inspire entrepeneurs.

Going back to the idea of a community. As long as you can sustain your community and keep your members happy with relevant, substantial content, then there's no reason why you can't succeed. A …

Mukut,

This might help your search for you to earn some money: http://www.bestptcsites.org/

PTC = Paid - to - click

Essentially you take surveys all day to earn money. It's great money when you're watching TV and there's a commercial. Might as well be a productive couch potato.

Jack,

You'll need to get traffic as stated before. Ad Sense will be a great way for you to earn some money in the meantime (Granted people are coming to your site). Eventually you'll want to work with marketing agencies to sell advertisements on your site through various means. Best of luck to you.

Oh! Then: Can You tell me about "TARGETED TRAFFIC"? is it REAL?

Targetted traffic is REAL. Meaning: When you specifically display advertisements to certain geographies. You're not going to display an ad in Swedish to North American traffic. You're probably going to want to put the Swedish ads in the Sweden demographic. Just a thought. ;)

All good things take time to produce results, especially if you want to have a sustainable business. There are a few ways to promote your online business:

1) Radio/TV/Media advertisement time. If you have the money, you could be like Bing.com and run a commercial to get people to come to your site. Then again, that's a huge investment, but it is a valid way.

2) Go to events and promote your website there. Have business cards, flyers, t-shirts, whatever, you can go to events appropriate for your site. If you had a music oriented site, going to a rock concert, or local clubs/bars wouldn't be too expensive.

3) You can buy online adspace! Yes, you can advertise on websites to drive traffic. This would be very similar to purchasing media.

There are many more ways to get traffic to your site without SEO. However, most of those ways won't create the results you desire. After all, who doesn't use Google to find what they're looking for?

So let's say you have an awesome website. Your website totally rocks, but you can't bring people to look at what kind of awesomeness you have. So you might want to use some SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tools.

Here's some tools you can use: http://tools.seobook.com/

I think the best features are the keyword tools. They will help you rise to the top of the google page ranks faster than ever.

You're going to have to develop connections with the target industry you plan on reprsenting. Most advertisers are in niche markets where entry is almost impossible because of the closed nature of their association with one another. As long as you have one company to advertise for, then you can use it as a case study to get more clients. Of course, there is going to be a lot of proposing you'll have to do to the companies respective marketing departments.

Think of your website as a store front. You want to get people to go to your store, but you don't know how to do it (effectively). Most likely you don't already have a brand, or a recognized website. So you could spam forums, send out e-mails, use SEO techniques, etc...

However, the best way to really get your product to take off is to get it reviewed by a reputable source. Referrals are the most powerful form of advertising. If you can get it reviewed positively then surely you will get the revenue you desire.

Back to my store example. If it's virally spread that your store rocks, then your website will rock. This is the viral generation!

New York City's mayor, Michael Bloomberg embarked on an ambitious plan to revamp the entire "technology" infrastructure of the city. The goal is to essentially make New York City digitally friendly. Part of this digital expansion of the city is creating a .NYC domain. Are we likely to see the New York Yankees create Yankees.nyc? Probably not. However, there will be a third party distributor that will be selling .NYC domains. It's not going to be a government/municipality domain like you would find with .GOV, but rather sold as a .com, .net, .tv, etc...

How does the community feel about this?

Are there any New Yorker's looking forward to having a .NYC domain?

I know for sure I won't be jumping on this bandwagon, will you?

Hey all,

Thanks for the warm welcome. I appreciate it greatly. I look forward to working with Dani. Granted I'm pretty new to the community, I still have a wealth of information to offer. That is not to say that there isn't a lot to learn. I'm sure we'll all find some common ground and learn a lot from each other. Thanks again everyone!

Like Sarah said, it's your banner space. More specifically, it's the banner space that reaches visitors from the United States only. Since the web is boundary free, you get visitors from all over the world. In doing so, you can specifically isolate your US viewers to see that ad only. This will allow you to reserve your outside of US visitors for other advertising campaigns to increase revenue.

If there was a perfect sales plan for any product in any industry, then it would violate the nature of economics. Essentially what you want to do is bring the most exposure to your product for the lowest cost.

In my experience with software, the most successful companies offer freeware as what's known as a "leader product." What you want to get out of this leader product is brand exposure, product exposure, and company exposure. If your product is really hitting it off with the public then you can seek to diversify your product line and charge for new products, while still keeping your original product freeware. You may also consider charging for your product once it's successful.

It all really depends on the nature of what you're offering and what kind of business plan you have. There's many ways to approach a sales plan. Finding one that works for you will take a lot of trial and error. Best of luck to you.