How Contextual Advertising Works

As you read this post, you will truly appreciate the power of contextual advertising. Right now your focus is within the text of this article, and should there be any links within this text, they would be much more likely to grab your attention versus any banners or text links outside of the main content. The concept of contextual advertising is to create text advertising links within your content, which means they are right in the face of your readers, but also relevant at the same time.

Think about the success Google Adsense has had over the years, but instead of taking up the big banner ad space that Adsense requires, contextual advertising is placed within your content, allowing site owners to maximize their site space. When someone clicks on a banner or link from Google Adsense, the visitor will leave your web site. This is not true with contextual advertising, as the link will usually spawn in a new window. Which not only means you will keep your current site visitors at your site, but you will also be making additional revenue at the same time.

Just like Google Adsense, most contextual advertising networks will pay their site partners on a cpc (cost per click) basis. Some networks also back out their earnings on a commission basis, but in the end, you still see a cpc average in your earnings report.

While all of this may sound amazing and complex (and it is…), it’s actually quite easy for any web site or blog to get setup and running with contextual advertising. Many of the contextual networks will provide you with a simple line of code that you can add to your web site, or a nice wordpress plugin for any blog owners. You will also have access to a wide selection of options which include changing contextual links colors, underlining, how many links to display, and more. This way you don’t have to worry about people confusing regular site links versus contextual ad links.

What Sites Will Contextual Advertising Work on Best?

As much as I would like to say contextual advertising solutions will flood your pockets with a nice monthly recurring income, that simply isn’t the case. Depending on the type of web site and visitors you have, you will see a big difference in click through rates and earnings. Here are three examples:

• An education or technology web site will earn more revenue per click with contextual advertising, versus a recipe or cooking based web site. This is simply due to the fact that education and technology advertisements are higher end and they are spending a lot more money per click.
• A web site or blog with a webmaster or internet marketing audience will most likely experience a much lower click through rate, as the readers are already familiar with how advertising works on web sites, and will know a contextual link versus a regular link.
• Review, resource and shopping web sites will experience the highest click through rates and overall ecpm earnings, simply because the visitors to these web sites are already in a buying and researching mode. These site visitors are looking for relevant links and looking to click.

What is INTENTclick, and Why Do They Matter?

Now that you have a good understanding on what contextual advertising is, and how it may work with your web site traffic, let’s get back to INTENTclick and how they can improve the revenue generation on your web site.

If you asked a bunch of online marketers bout contextual advertising, many of them would probably be familiar with the name “Kontera“. INTENTclick is actually an exclusive performance network driven by the Kontera brand network. Kontera has established themselves as one of the premier advertising companies online, and have exposure across millions of web sites, many of which you already know.

So why does INTENTclick matter and how are they any different from Kontera?

If you’ve ever worked with Kontera or contextual advertising, you already know how their content based advertising works. INTENTclick is run off that same concept, except they are focused on higher end advertisers and content rich web sites that can drive high volume and results. If you’ve ever found success with contextual advertising or simply looking for a new revenue source for your web site or blog, you will want to give INTENTclick a try.

Think about it for a second… is there anyone from your past, maybe a client, friend or even someone who is jealous of your success, that could potentially damage your name or brand online? In the end, all it really takes it a few high end and well established web sites to start posting negative reviews and content, that can rank really high in the search results and do some damage.

So what can you do?

That’s where reputation management comes in. With the usage and power of the internet growing larger and larger every day, it’s more important for every day small businesses and even Fortune 500 companies, to make sure they have a great reputation online. Through the use of reputation management services, anyone can help improve their reputation online, and lower any fake or negative comments/articles out there about their company.

How does reputation management work?

Let’s take a look at a case study of how Reputation Changer, one of the top reputation management firms out there works, and how they are helping their clients deal with reputation issues.

Case Study: UWC Corp received malicious listings online that were showing up under their company name: UWCCorp.com. In less than 6 weeks, Reputation Changer completely surpressed those listings from page 1 of Google and repopulated new / positive listings. With a brand new, very positive online reputation, UWCCorp.com saw an immediate spike in revenue.

A few weeks later, UWCCorp.com started to see an improvement in their search results, with more and more new and positive articles taking over the negative listings and pushing them down off the first page of Google.

You can take a look at the full slide show process and see a bi-weekly breakdown of how Reputation Changer dominated the first page of results for UWCCorp.com.

Improving Online Reputation through Google Suggests

While the majority of searching done online is through Google and looking directly for a company or brand name, have you ever thought about how much of an influence “Google Suggest” comes into play? When you start typing a search phrase into Google, it will start to suggest other alternatives or variations of what you might want to search for.

Another case study and winning example from Reputation Changer, is how they helped improved Michael Vick’s reputation through Google Suggest, which you can see in the screenshot below.

Have you ever taken the time to see what Google Suggest comes up with when someone is searching for your personal or business name?

Do Reputation Management Services Work?

Now that you have an idea how reputation management services can improve rankings, search results and how people can search for relevant information on a company, the best question to ask is “Do reputation management services really work?“. As you can see from the case studies mentioned above, they clearly do work, as the average person is most likely going to look through the first page of results to make a quick decision on whether or not they want to use a recommended service or company.

The business of reputation management is growing daily, and even Business Week has written a full article on the topic. In the article, a few interesting points mentioned where that there has been an explosive increase in reputation management over the past couple of years due to social media and the amplified voices of individual internet users. It was also mentioned that typical costs for a small online company, can range from $1,000 to several thousands of dollars a month for search engine related reputation management.

What’s Your Online Reputation?

When is the last time you took some time to really look into your search results and see what other people are saying about your name or brand online? Reputation Changer focuses exclusively on managing the reputations of Celebrities, Professional Athletes, Brands, High Profile Individuals, and Fortune 500 Brands.

If you would like to see how Reputation Changer can improve your image online, please feel free to contact them and see what they can do for you. Mention ZacJohnson.com and you will save an instant 10% off your reputation improvement package.

For years companies have tried to create a platform that could easily be sent through email, without the hassles of getting blocked by filters, while also making it a big frustration for the email users to send/receive mail. WRAP Mail is that solution.

The best way to explain what WRAP Mail can do for your business and branding, is to show you. You can visit the WRAP Mail web site and watch the short video on their web site, which is quick and fun, but also shows you how easy WRAP mail is to use, and how it works.

In short, WRAP Mail…

• Turn every day emails into brand marketing
• Wraps your emails with a unique interactive letterhead
• Shows your email recipient your regular text email, with a great design
• Reports to you “Click Alerts”, which tells you who is where on your web site.
• Provides benefits for any type of  business, web site or personal use

Driving New Sales & Customers with Daily Emails

Now as I mentioned earlier, the average employee sends 38 emails a day… If you only send around 27 emails a day, that’s still over 10,000 emails a year! Using a system like Wrap Mail can dramatically increase your business by putting your brand and advertising right in the face of your customers. If you were to only convert 1% of the people reading your email, with the additional branding and links within your wrapped email, that’s an extra 100 leads. Depending on your sales or lead generation, this could actually be much higher.

What Will Your Wrapped Mail Look Like?

After talking with Rolv from WRAP Mail and looking through the different options and services they offer, it’s quite a great looking program. Nearly any web site or business can customize their emails with a wrap that represents the look and feel of their business, while also increasing the bottom line.

The Wrap Mail design team can built a customized look for your web site or business. Just take a look at some of the custom designs posted on their site from current customers.

Yes, You Can Even Earn Money with WRAP Mail Too!

With such a unique and fun service, you would think there would be an ad serving network attached to it, right? Well, there is! WRAP Mail is in the process of rolling out their new advertising program, where clients can earn money for users to get paid when people click on their links and complete offers or decide to sign up for a product. This platform will be similar with Google Adsense, in that the users of WRAP Mail can opt-in to receive a pay per click rate based on their recipients clicking on advertisements placed within their email wrapping. Since many people are using WRAP Mail as a personal choice and looking to customize their email, and not specifically promote their own business or web site, this introduces a whole new world when it comes to emailing. You can read their latest press release on this announcement here.

What Does it Cost, and How to Get Started?

Surprisingly, WRAP Mail PRO is free for companies and individuals looking to use their services, as long as they are less than 100 employees. It’s easy to signup, all you need to do is fill out a short form and you will get started immediately. If you would like to set your 100+ employee company up with an account and custom email design, simply contact WRAP Mail directly.

The concept behind Glass is quite amazing… think of blog commenting, instant messenger clients and social network sharing all in one. Now think about all three of those features I mentioned, but all in one in-browser extension, and without the need to continually open/change new windows. The best way to describe how Glass works, is to actually show you.

Now that you have a better understanding on what Glass is and how it works, let’s think about some cool ways we could use Glass to interact with others and expand on the ever changing world of social media.

• Create private or public conversations on any web site
• Integration of Glass through Facebook and Twitter
• Ability to integrate social networks and blog commenting
• Share web sites and content without using Twitter, Facebook or Email directly

Next, let’s go beyond the traditional ways of thinking, and look at ways Glass can be used from a marketing or teaching stand point.

• On site training/tutorials as you want the site visitors through a process
• Study and discussion of ad placement and site structures
• Create a mastermind community and share ideas
• As a site or blog owner, you can chat directly with people at your site

Start Writing on Web Sites with Glass

As mentioned earlier, Glass is a free in-browser extension that can easily be used with FireFox, Chrome or iOS. For anyone who is addict of Facebook and Twitter, I’m sure Glass will be right in your alley. I mentioned that Glass in an in-browser application, but that doesn’t mean you have to have it installed for use. Just like Facebook or Twitter, which is accessed through a web site, Glass also offers a full members area for storing, searching and connecting with other members on Glass.

I’ve been playing around with Glass for the past week or so and today they just went live with their new web site, which is much better to use and navigate. It’s a completely new concept, and quite impressive. Check it out and let me know what you think.

My blog is in the weight loss niche, and initially, when I started I had a lot of plans to make money from it, over time I came to discover the potential of being an affiliate for other people’s product and why it is an easy and smart approach to making money online. I have built my blog to a stage I’m really proud of, and my affiliate income is growing every day. While I’m currently satisfied, the journey wasn’t as easy when I started. You would have heard the saying, that, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Most of the things that have the most impact on how much I make from affiliate marketing aren’t those things I expected will be a great deal—in fact, I never really thought about most of them initially, but, over time, I have been able to learn a lot of lessons and I’ll be sharing some of them with you below.

1. A Brand Can Influence Online Income

I didn’t learn this lesson by reading books, and I didn’t learn it because I made a mistake that affected my brand, or anything of that nature, it was simply a matter of time and experience. If you’re reading Zac’s blog now, there is every probability you’ve been following him for months, or years, now and that you follow him because you see him as a go to expert as far as blogging and affiliate marketing is concerned–that doesn’t mean he is the only one talking about affiliate marketing online, and that doesn’t mean there aren’t other affiliate marketing blogs. It’s really simple; Zac has built a brand and has been able to gain your trust. If Zac should recommend a product now and a brand new blogger to the affiliate marketing space does the same, I’m pretty sure that for every one person that buys through that new blogger, five will buy through Zac – it’s that simple, there’s no magic formula, it’s only a matter of time.

This isn’t something you should obsess over, as a brand is associated with trust, and trust is built over time. Don’t expect to have the same level of trust as a blogger who started five years ago when you only started last month.

Building a solid and respected brand is a game of time, and we all have to wait for that time. For me, it was 3 years, for you it might be more. The only way to accelerate the process, and ensure your brand is appreciated, is to give great value. Don’t compromise your value, or integrity, no matter what, and always put your readers first.

2. Coupons Can Make a Huge Difference

This was one lesson that took me some time to figure out, but it is also one of the best affiliate marketing lessons I have ever learned from my blog. It might be stressful asking product creators for coupons, or to be looking for discount codes for products you promote, but truth be told, using coupons to promote affiliate products might mean the difference in you making $100 or $1,000. I used to find it difficult to make product sales even after spending a lot of time trying to write the perfect review. I just couldn’t figure out what was wrong, until one day, I accidentally promoted a product with a coupon, and I saw sales go through the roof. I used this technique to promote medifast products on my blog, and it worked. I used this same technique to promote nutrisystem products, and it worked. I also use coupons to promote a lot of other products on my blog, and the results have been stunning.

It might take some time to get a coupon for a particular affiliate product, but even if it only gives people a 10% discount you will be able to make a lot more sales compared to not having used the coupon.

3. Your Best Sales Might Not be Made the Same Week a Product is Reviewed

I used to be someone who reviewed products with the hope of making a lot of sales the same week I reviewed the product. I poured all my efforts into promoting a particular product, and it is sometimes saddening to only make a sale or two after all those efforts. What I didn’t know was that those reviews were a long time investment – those reviews I did months, or years, ago that nobody found started bringing in traffic from search engines, and I now make more sales in a week than I made in the month I reviewed them.

Whenever you are trying to review affiliate products on your blog, don’t expect to make all the sales just at once. Sometimes, it might take a few months to make real sales, and sometimes, it might take a year. Either ways, don’t ever stop promoting that review, and don’t stop working on driving traffic to it – you will love yourself for doing that on the long run.

4. Search Engines Provide the Best Traffic for Affiliate Marketers

This lesson was also learned as a result of the 3^rd lesson above. Not that I initially expected to get a boatload of traffic to my review page a few months after doing the review – in fact, I have even stopped thinking about some reviews I did, only to start noticing traffic come in day by day, months after the product was reviewed. After taking a look at my analytics to see where the traffic was coming from, it was one major source I saw: Google!

I was stunned! Those reviews I did months ago have now been picked by Google, and I’m now making a lot of sales for doing nothing.

Search engine traffic is currently the best source of traffic for affiliate marketers because people only use the search engines when they need a solution to a problem.

5. Traffic Isn’t the Only Factor

I keep on hearing misconceptions from new bloggers about how making money from affiliate marketing works. A lot of them will say they only need to get a lot of traffic to their site and, boom; they are already making tons of affiliate cash. I used to think the same way, but time proved me wrong.

So many factors come into place and decide how much you will make from an affiliate product. Some of those factors include the demand for that product, the manufacturer of that product, the competition for that product and the audience the product is promoted to. By focusing on promoting affiliate products that provide great value to my readers, and are in high demand in my field, I have noticed a significant increase in how much sales I make.

John has been blogging and learning how affiliate marketing works for years now. He has tested a lot of options ranging from simple reviews to using coupons on his weight loss blog and he shares his journey on WeightLossTriumph.com.

With all of that said, there are plenty of great news sites and forums that can get you started and pointed in the right direction, without having to wade through a sea of information and affiliate marketing blogs. I have listed some of the best places for you to get your daily fix of what’s hot and working well in the affiliate industry.

AffDaily.com

Powered by AffPaying.com, AffDaily is a collection of the top affiliate marketing blogs and Twitter feeds all in one place. Highlights of the site include the ability to create an account and customize what feeds you would like to follow, along with having a page full of top affiliate marketers and their Twitter accounts. Each day new “popular” content will be added to the top menu section of the site. (Facebook Fan Page)

AffBuzz.com

One of the first big sites to create a news platform for affiliate marketing blogs, AffBuzz has quite the following. The most read and interesting posts are highlighted in the top section of the site and updated on a daily basis. (Facebook Fan Page)

IMToday.com

A new affiliate and internet marketing new and discussion agreator is IMToday.com, which displays the trending blog posts, news and forums discussions that related to all online marketers. You can register on their web site to change around what sites you want to receive news from, or use their sorting options for the most recent or latest posts. There are currently over 250 internet marketing blogs, forums and twitter users currently covered through IMToday.

Twitter Affiliate Marketing

Even today, I still haven’t been that active on Twitter, but I know that so many others are. Instead of having to seek out every top marketer worth following, through the power of “Twitter Lists”, you can follow them all in one simple click. @JonathanVolk has created a great list of nearly 500 affiliate marketers who are currently on Twitter. To follow them all, simply follow his Affiliate Marketing list.

StackThatMoney Forum

Right now Stack That Money forums is at the top of my list for where to interact and read up on what’s hot in the industry. Not only is through forum run by a bunch of guys I know personally, but the content and support inside is just killer. From tutorials, case studies, tools and guides, everything you could ever want as an affiliate marketer is in this one site. (Facebook Fan Page)

IMGrind Forum

To finish off the list, IMGrind has also seen phenomenal growth over the past few months and they have an excellent community of their own. Ruck and Ryan are building quality content, while coaching forum members on the best ways to build out new web sites and membership programs, outside the normal thought process, while driving incredible results. A huge plus in this forum is when Ruck and Ryan write out their success stories from past web sites and campaigns… one of the best ways to get yourself motivated to create the next big thing! (Facebook Fan Page)

Where do you go for your affiliate fix?

There are plenty of blogs, sites, news feeds and forums out there, so be sure to leave a comment on your favorite place for connecting with other marketers and reading up on the latest blog posts and news.

The Idea of Running Your Own Small Business

There’s two types of people in the world. Those who work for themselves, and those who work for other people. There is nothing wrong with the path you decide to take, and running your own business definitely isn’t for everyone. If you have a family and costs that need to be paid, it will take a lot of work, dedication and sacrifice to have those responsibilities looming over your head month after month without a secure pay check coming in every week.

With all of that said, the benefits of running your own business can pay off big. Along with all of the stress and dedication, comes big benefits such as potentially making a lot of money, being your own boss, and building a business the way you want and maybe even selling for millions of dollars in the future. You can only work so many hours, and make a limited amount of money when you are working for someone else, but when it’s your own business, you are in control of your salary and the business’ earnings.

What Does It Take to Run a Small Business

Personally for me, it was an undying drive and dedication that brought me to where I am today. I always had a passion for business and thinking up new ways to make money. When I first started making money online, I was around 15 years old, and didn’t have a lot of financial responsibilities, which helped put me in a unique position to start my own business. At the same time, I was also investing everything I made right back into the business, and never took any investment money or loans to start the company. I started from scratch, learned everything I could about making web sites and affiliate marketing and everything else that has brought me to where I am today.

So what does it take for YOU to start your own business online? I keep saying it, but it’s the truth, you actually NEED to WANT to do this. I have so many friends that think I am so “lucky” to be where I am, but there are thousands of hours and blood, sweat and tears behind every successful business. For every successful idea, there are thousands of wasted hours and dollars lost in failed ideas. The bottom line is, you need to have the drive to keep going til you hit that next big success!

Depending on what type of business you want to create, you will need some investment money. To start with a web site or blog, your investment is minimal (not counting advertising dollars). You can get started with a domain and web hosting for just a few dollars a year. If you wanted to focus on affiliate marketing and creating ad campaigns, you would want to start with at least $500-$5000 to get an idea of how campaigns works, while turning them profitable.

For every successful web site or ad campaign we build, there are tons of failures we’ve hit before them. The difference between those who succeed and fail, is the driving passion and dedication to not fail, and keep working those extra long nights and learning what it takes to make a profit.

You Have an Established Small Business… Now What?

Congratulations, you now have a successful business and are your own boss, now what? All the time people are saying “Why would they keep working?“, in reference to the millionaires and billionaires out there running big companies. The answer is simple, go right back to what we talked about in step one… it’s all about the passion! When you are in business long enough, and doing well at it, it’s more like a game than anything else. You want to keep succeeding, hitting new levels (whether that is revenue or personal goals).

This is the driving force behind every business and online marketer who stays up to 5am in the morning, continually pushing out new ad campaigns, and pushing conversions for that extra 1%. We are the future of business and if this is the game you want to play, you have to take it seriously and never doubt yourself for a second!

I received compensation from Visa for sharing my views in this post, but the views expressed here are solely mine, not Visa’s. This post was sponsored by Visa Small Business as part of their #gobiz Sweepstakes for @VisaSmallBusiness. Visa will be rewarding small business owners with $10,000 in prizes for their hard work from October 25^th through November 17^th. Visit here http://hosting.thetenthwave.com/visasb/ for more details, and follow @VisaSmallBiz for ways to help make your small business more efficient and successful. Discover more at http://visa.com/business.

Recently, all the buzz has been about buying and selling web sites. Over the past couple of years, the process of buying and selling web sites has become a lot easier through the use of online marketplaces. No longer do you have to search through old forums, or try and contact web site owners directly. Here are just a few of the problems you may come across when it comes to buying or trying to sell your website outside of using a third party or market place.

• Annoyance of finding contact information
• No medium for actual value of web site
• Accepting or actually getting paid
• Fraud, scams and denial/refund of payment

The list can go on and on, which leads to why we need a marketplace for buying and selling web site. Flippa has shown us the importance of having a marketplace where buyers and sellers can connect and they are pushing some massive volume the amount of web sites trading hands on a daily basis… however, there is plenty of room for competition.

Rouper.com, a new marketplace for buying and selling web sites has caught my eye recently. I’m starting to see their banners appear on many familiar web sites, and as I’ve been watching their web site over the past weeks, I am seeing more people listing web sites and using the service. Though the marketplace is new, I think if they play their cards right, they can be a top competitor in this unsaturated game. In the screenshot below you will a preview of one of the site listings.

If Rouper.com wants to compete in this competitive space, they will need to be offer something the top players in the game aren’t. I also think some extra work into their site design is needed. Right now the site is a bit too plain and could use the following upgrades to their site:

• Main page shows full directory, and not option to choose to BUY or SELL
• All listings with in directory should include screenshots
• Minimum amount of listing information and text required
• Provide all web site information/stats/seller info etc on listing page (no tabs)
• Increase overall activity and attract some big site sales

As mentioned earlier, the marketplace is new, but that doesn’t mean they should be overlooked. You never know who may come across Rouper.com and find a web site they really like, and end up purchasing. As for listing fees, you can see the Rouper.com rates below, which are listed in their terms and conditions.

It will be interesting to see how Rouper grows and continues to develop their marketplace in the coming months. It would be healthy for competition and the business of buying and selling web sites, to see a few more big resources and names pop up in the industry.

List Your Web Site on Rouper

Now that you have an idea on what Rouper is all about, why not list a web site and see what happens? From now til October 31st Rouper is offering a coupon “64W0SJ87“ that will allow sellers to list for only $1 instead of the regular $49 price. In the meantime, whether you are a buyer or seller, keep Rouper.com on your radar and check out their site listings for any hidden winners.

Scope Out the Competition

It’s good to know as much as possible about your competition so that you can know who you’re up against and what you should strive for. For instance, you may want to start by finding out how many incoming links your competitors have. This way, you have a good idea of how many you need in order to pass them. Also take a look at where they rank in search engines, what keywords they’re using, and what’s in their meta tags. You can’t strive for the top spot unless you know what you’re competing for. So be sure to analyze your competition as an initial plan of action.

Research Your Keywords

It’s one thing to optimize your website for keywords, but if you’re using keywords that are not even being searched for then it’s a huge waste of your time. There are plenty of free tools available on the Internet that can help you find the best keywords that are being searched for consistently. These are the keywords that you want to optimize your site for. Also think about using long tail keywords, which are keyword phrases that have 3-5 words in them. These are great for drawing in targeted, quality traffic. Lastly, be sure to use evergreen keywords which have longevity and will be relevant for years to come. This way you can always count on them to bring you traffic.

Write Quality Content

If you’re not writing quality content, you really don’t stand a chance at ranking very high. Your content needs to be useful and original. When you create content, keep in mind that you want something that will make others want to link to it and share it. Try to focus on How To’s, tutorials, and lists because these tend to generate the most traffic. If you can, add numerous supportive facts and references. Also be sure to link keywords within your content to other useful and relevant web pages. When others see that you’ve linked to them, it will encourage them to link to you which will in turn help boost your rankings. Images and visual examples like charts, videos, images, and screenshots are also very useful and add to the quality of your content.

Deep Link to Other Pages

Deep linking involves linking to other pages within your site (other than the homepage) from within your content. It’s important to link to internal pages with anchor text that contain at least 3 of the keywords for that page. This will not only help with rankings, but it also helps to keep people on your site longer – thus reducing the bounce rate. We worked heavily on this at a neon signs store I advised to and it showed great results.

Optimize Your Meta Tags

Google hates duplicate content, so if you want your website to be indexed properly then you have to make sure to optimize your meta tags. The title tag and meta tags should be different on each page of your website or else you could risk penalties. One thing that you don’t have to worry about too much are the meta keywords, since Google has already stated that they do not use these in their ranking criteria anymore.

A few pointers to remember is to keep the title tag under 60 characters and the description under 160 characters. Both of these tags both should also be relevant to the content on the page. You want to stay away from spam-like methods such as keyword stuffing and falsification of what’s in your content. Remember that in order to get to the top of the rankings, your information (that is displayed in search results) has to be attention grabbing so that people will click on it within the search results.

Optimize Your Headings and Subheadings

Just like your meta tags, you also want to be sure to optimize your headings and subheadings. These are your H-tags (H1, H2, H3, etc) and they really play an important role in organizing the information on your web pages. You should have only one H1 tag (the largest header) on your page; this is usually the title of the page or the title of your article (i.e. if you have a blog). You can then break up sections in to H2 tags and even further into H3 if needed.

Each of these heading tags should contain a keywords that you want to rank for. Since search engines consider the headings to be more important than the actual content, it’s really important to get those keywords in there.

Optimize Your Title and ALT Tags in Images

Next we have the title and alt tags that are used within images to describe what they pertain to. Again, these can be optimized with keywords to help you rank higher. Remember that most search engines now have image search capabilities. When users search for specific images, the search engines use the keywords within your title and alt tags to help them display relevant images. This is why it’s so important to use them and include your keywords, so that people can also find your content through image searching.

Optimize File Names

When you save your images (before uploading them to your site), what kind of file names are you using? Are you using something like image 1, image 2, image 3, etc? If you are doing this or anything similar, it’s a very bad idea because they don’t say anything about what your image is. Your file names should be relevant to the image and, you’ve guessed it, should also include keywords. Doing this also helps you rank high within image searches because it shows that your content is relevant to the search term.

Really anywhere you use any kind of words is an opportunity to optimize your website, include keywords, and increase your rankings. So also be sure to use this same type of technique with web page names as well as the slugs for your blog posts. Add those keywords where you can because unless you’ve blocked robots from viewing a certain page, all of your words are visible by search engines and will be indexed.

Use An XML Site Map

Sitemaps not only help your visitors find content faster, but they also help search engines understand the structure and layout of your website. This is one of the easiest ways to increase your rankings because web crawlers can quickly find your content. Also, sitemaps are fairly easy to create, so why not take advantage of them?

Validate Your Source Code

Lastly you want to be sure to validate your code and fix and errors that are found. This helps to ensure that you don’t have any broken links, images, or invalid code that may cause issues for your visitors. The easiest way to do this to use the free W3C Markup Validation Service. Google does penalize for a large number of errors, so be sure to fix as much as you can if you have any errors.

If you’re up for another tip, you can even go as far as validating your search engine optimization. A great tool for this is the Website Grader by Hubspot. It lets you see how well your website is doing and whether it has any SEO problems. It also shows you how well you’re doing on Twitter. So once you’re done with these 10 tips, also be sure to find out the grade of your website and use the provide tips to boost your SEO even further.

This guest post was written by Lior Levin, a marketing consultant who works for various online companies including a popular online to-do list app and a psd to html company.

Yes, Steve will be missed, but he did change the world in the process and his products and brand is well known through out the world today, and for many decades to come.

With all of that said, let’s take a look at the progression of the Apple logo over the years, and how it’s become one of the most recognized symbols in the world today.

What’s that funny logo at the beginning? Yes, it’s actually the Apple logo back in 1976! The concept is Isaac Newton sitting under an apples tree. As you can see from the dates under the logos, this one didn’t last long. It was missing simplicity and color, which Apple soon implemented into their colorful new Apple design, which lasted over twenty years. With more people using computers and the internet growing like crazy, it was time for another updated and sleek design. Apple would go live with their latest futuristic, yet still simplistic Apple logo.

So what was the story behind going from one crazy original design to a completely new concept?

Jobs thought that the overly complex [Newton] logo had something to do with the slow sales of the Apple I, so he commissioned Rob Janoff of the Regis McKenna Agency to design a new one. Janoff came up with the iconic rainbow-striped Apple logo used from 1976 to 1999. (source)

Works for me! Imagine if Apple still had they same logo today? Things could be very different. I can’t imagine seeing that logo lit up on the back of laptops everywhere, or people placing stickers on their cars or getting “Apple Computer Co” tattoos on their bodies, like we see today!

With the passing of Steve Jobs comes one more Apple Logo that will be sure to be used and spread around for many years to come. Another simple design, yet is speaks so strongly to all the Apple users around the world about the loss of Steve and his impact at Apple. This design was created by a 19-year-old artist named Jonathan Mak, a self-described designer, photographer and philosopher living in Hong Kong. Since posting his design, his page has had nearly 900 comments and has been receiving world wide television and internet exposure.

Simplicity and color are key when it comes to creating a brandable logo. Just think about the greatest and most well known companies/brands in the world… Pepsi, CocaCola, Apple, Nike and Starbucks. They’ve all made progression with their logos over the years, but have always stayed true to have a brandable design with simple colors and design that are memorable.