Alliance Blog Reviews

It seems that Google likes to roll out new tools to help webmasters without really saying why. So, when Google launches a new tool that helps you determine if your web page is too wide or long for most browser sizes, you have to wonder: will the dimensions of your web site become the next variable added to Google’s algorithm? It’s not out of the realm of possibility, when you consider that the speed of your site will soon be a factor in determining your Google ranking. Whether I’m reaching here–or close to home–I don’t know. What I do know is that Google wants YOU to be aware of how many Google users don’t get to see all of your web content at first glance. Browser Size is cute, ugly, and useful. It’s best to just show you: As you can see, Trackur.com fits within the entire web browser of only 20% of all users, but our call to action gets seen by 90-95%–without any scrolling needed. You’d think that the tool would have cleaner lines, but I suspect the “kids crayon” interface is designed to not look too sinister and official–so you don’t suspect it will become part of Google’s algorithm. Go and check your own web site and let me know how you fair. PS. Keep in mind that if you use a floating width/margin, you should re-size your own browser to lose the white space either side of your main content.

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Size Does Matter! Google Says Small & Narrow is Best!

As much as many of us like to think that we’re highly organized and efficient when it comes to our use of Twitter, there is in fact a lot we can do to make our lives easier. In the last couple of weeks I’ve adopted some fairly radical measures to streamline and improve my use of Twitter, which I’ll share with you here. 1 – Cut the Number of People You Follow The temptation when you first start using Twitter is to embark on a ‘follow rampage’. You add the news sites you read, the bloggers you respect, friends, family, colleagues, business contacts and in turn many of the people that follow or are followed by these accounts. This seems like a great idea at first, but you find you soon reach a tipping point – in my own case, by following close to 2000 people, Twitter had become nothing more than a never-ending deluge of noise, with useful and informative Tweets getting lost amongst the junk. Even by setting up user lists in Seesmic Desktop (the desktop app I use), I was finding it ever harder to keep up. A couple of weeks back I made the decision to cut back on who I followed. It was time to ‘purge’. Before hitting the unfollow option in earnest, I realised it would be a wise idea to set myself some criteria for who I should keep: – Is the person I’m following bringing any real value to me? The million dollar question. It’s very easy to follow someone just because everyone else is, or because you they have a job that gives the assumption that their tweets will be useful. Often this couldn’t be further from the truth. – Is the person I’m following tweeting unique information and links or are they mainly retweeting stuff I’m already getting from other sources? – Does the person I’m following follow me and if they do, do they ever communicate with me or retweet what I put out there? I’m sure there’s plenty of further criteria of your own that you could add, but this is what suited me personally. Next, I realised that as I was currently following so many people, it would take me many hours to go through everyone using Twitter on its own. Thankfully there’s some great tools available to help you. I used Your Twitter Karma , so I’ll describe the process I went through in using this tool specifically. When you log in to Your Twitter Karma (be patient – it can take a few minutes to load your details) you’re presented with a huge list of Twitter users. Under each itemised Twitter account it tells you whether you follow that person, whether they follow you, or whether you both follow each other. Clicking on the avatar brings up that person’s Twitter profile, so you can refresh your memory as to who they are, what they do, and whether their tweets are of value to you. Next comes the evil part! The purge . . . Select the users that you wish to stop following, by clicking the checkbox next to their avatar. This can be quite a time-consuming process, but it’s well worth it in the long run. When you’ve selected everyone you want to unfollow, click the ‘bulk unfollow’ button at the bottom of the page. All done! Now check your Twitter profile to check that your follow count has dropped to what you expect. Be prepared that your follower count may also drop slightly, as some people use auto-follow / auto-unfollow tools that will drop you if you drop them. 2 – Effectively Manage the Remaining People You Follow In my case, once I’d purged my account I was left with around 200 people I was still following – a drop of over 2000! In return about 200 people stopped following me. Once I’d got over what I’d done, it was time to effectively manage who I was left with. This next step is very easy to undertake. Most desktop Twitter applications (such as Seesmic Desktop and TweetDeck) allow you to set up usergroups, whereby you can classify the people you follow into distinct groups, such as ‘friends’, ‘colleagues’, ‘business’, ‘celebrities’ etc. In future when you get a new tweet for someone you have allocated to a group it will appear in the appropriate group column. This way you can find and read it with far less difficulty. Twitter now also allows you to set up lists as well, so you can group together people in a similar way. 3 – Be Prepared to Fall in Love With Twitter All Over Again I know that what I’ve described sound quite radical, but believe me, if Twitter has become an out of control stream of tweets that you can’t keep up with, it really is your only option. Now i’ve drastically cut the number of people i follow down to the bare bones, I’ve rediscovered my love for this great tool. Additionally, whereas before I wouldn’t have dreamed of using Twitter on my iPhone, now I can login to the likes of Tweetie and thumb my way through tweet after tweet of valuable information (and the odd piece of celebrity gossip!). The value is back! Please note: Undertake the steps I’ve outlined at your own risk. I can not be held responsible for anything that may happen to your Twitter account as a result of following what you read here. Also be warned that it is not advisable to bulk-unfollow Twitter accounts then bulk-follow new accounts, as Twitter may deem you to be mis-using their service and suspend your account without notice. © 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips . Why It Pays To Purge – When and How to Unfollow

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Why It Pays To Purge – When and How to Unfollow

Yahoo’s taking ad targeting to a whole new level with its new Ad Interest Manager . Now advertisers aren’t the only ones who can target you—you can target yourself, too! The new AIM system enables users to select their interests and block ads outside of those interest areas. According to the press release , the tool: Provides a central point where Yahoo! visitors can assert even greater control over their online experience. Gives visitors an unparalleled view into the information used to deliver interest-based advertising. Shows the visitor both Yahoo!’s educated guesses about their interests and a summary of observations, along with other information they have provided. Provides a list of specific interest categories that Yahoo! has placed a user into and lets people turn those categories off. Allows people who don’t want to see interest-based ads to turn them off entirely. As the quote indicates, the system gives you a list of ad categories Yahoo believes you’re interested in, based on your activity on the site, including search history, and properties including Yahoo Answers, Flickr and Yahoo Groups. You can then switch off each individual category. Switch off seven categories, and the system prompts you, asking if you want to switch off all behavioral targeting. Overall, this is a smart move—allowing users to target ads to themselves insures greater value for advertisers. But the system will only work as well as its implementation—both the targeting and the promotion of the system must be good enough for the system to gain widespread use. Yahoo will have to use fairly prominent, probably front-page, promotion to not only show that are they behind this system, but to make their every day users aware of the improvements. What do you think? Will you use the AIM targeting system? As a user or an advertiser, are you excited about this?

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Yahoo Lets Users Customize Ads

We are all aware that social networks, social marketing, social media and just plan old being social are the new wave regarding the Internet and its magical powers to make the world a better place for all. As we move further along in the life cycle of this still relatively new phenomenon (OK, all of you folks who have ‘been doing this for years’ can huff and puff at this point) there will be more opportunity to slice and dice the nature of the social network and the networkers that inhabit them. The folks over at Pingdom have taken a stab at looking at the gender breakdown of this group and found that women rule. Kinda. 84% (16 out of 19) of the sites have more female than male users. The social news sites Digg, Reddit and Slashdot have significantly more male users than female. The standout here is Slashdot which takes male geekdom to new heights with 82% male users. If we hadn’t included the three social news sites, all of the sites would have had more females than males. Twitter and Facebook have almost the same male-female ratio; Twitter with 59% female users and Facebook with 57%. Now we need to apply the classic question that all marketers must eventually apply to statistics and sales presentations: So what? But before we go there we can’t waste the very nice chart that the Pingdom folks put together for you to look at. I suspect that these ratios may always hold true to some degree but as there are more an more business applications of social media they may balance out a bit depending on the situation. Easy for me to say, sure. Honestly, social media is just like a very other tool that is used to reach people for a specific reason. Knowing how many is neat but the more important question is why someone is there. Certain networks may attract more of one gender over another for reasons that will then truly tell a marketer what the value of that network may be to them. And of course, just because it is that way now is no assurance that it will remain that way. So Pilgrims, as you awake from your tryptophan induced haze what is your take on the various guys and girls clubs in the social networking space?

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Social Networks – More ‘She Said’ Than ‘He Said’

If you are new in Internet Marketing and thinking of earning some good money online, then Affiliate Marketing is what you’re looking for. It is a blossoming virtual industry that offers promising potential revenues. This has become a vital extension of E-commerce. Investing little money from you may be required along the way, but eventually you will earn it back. Affiliate marketing for the past few years has become the tool for company or individuals to advertise their products. There is no start-up capital to start earning in Affiliate Marketing that is why this is suitable for those people who want to try their luck at Internet Marketing. This method became the top provider of advertising for merchants and for affiliate marketers, a source of income. There are various forms of Affiliate Marketing. You can choose what type of affiliate marketing suits you. You can choose from the most basic Pay per Click to the most advance, Residual Income Marketing. The most popular and easiest form of Affiliate Marketing is Pay per Click. Whenever someone clicked an ad placed by the affiliate he will get credited by the merchant who pays affiliates for placing their ads anywhere in the internet. The affiliate still gets paid, even if the visitor did not buy anything from the website. Google AdWords is a perfect example for this. The pay may be small but with a little effort, you can earn easily. Pay per Sales is widely used by merchants to promote their products. The affiliate gets a commission for every referral that he made, that purchased or sign up a paid subscription from the merchant. This is popular for merchants because this helps them save from advertising cost because the affiliates do the job for them. The commission in this type of marketing is great. Sometimes it ranges from 15% to 20% and evens up to 75% of the actual selling price of the product. One advantage of Pay per Sale for affiliates is that they do not have to create their own website. To help affiliates convert sales, they can run a PPC campaign. You will have to pay for every click on your ads. But sometimes it’s worthy because it’s really effective. Another type is Pay per Lead, this is mostly used by finance and insurance company and those companies that rely on their lead for their success. Mostly known as paid sign ups, the affiliate gets paid by a merchant for every referred visitor; he draws to the merchant’s website. There is a fixed commission for this type of affiliate marketing. An effortless earning process that both benefit the merchant and the affiliate without any raised issues. Each action from you has a reward so earning will easily multiply. All you have to do is choose the best affiliate program that will suit you. There is no need to be afraid in risking your money and effort in affiliate marketing. Joining such beneficial market interconnection is an already proven and tested healthy profitable move.

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Affiliate Marketing

Facebook just keeps chuggin’ along doesn’t it? While everyone talks about the latest in this or that, the next greatest innovation in the next greatest thing since sliced bread and all the other fixings that go with Internet marketing and social media hype Facebook just gets results. Sure there are the occasional misfires on how they handle making changes in policies but in the end there is little or no effect on a few pretty important factors: the number of people actively using the tool AND the increasing number of people coming on board. One of the results of this continued growth and maturation is the fact that Facebook is now the third most popular place to view video on the web as reported by cnet based on the latest Nielsen VideoCensus numbers. Considering how much video is ingested by Internet users, that is saying something that is actually pretty astounding. Here’s a pretty chart for you While not a threat to YouTube (it’s actually a bump to YouTube since much of the video is from there to begin with) Facebook is basically cleaning the clock of major media outlets on pure volume of vides viewed. Now what is not considered in these numbers are the types of video viewed. Many folks on Facebook are not there for hard news so if the content of these videos was sliced and diced I am sure these numbers would look different. For Internet marketers that targeting will mean more about where dollars are spent than just shear volume. Nonetheless, Facebook is becoming more and more of a force while avoiding the drama of other Internet players like Google, Yahoo et al. The numbers speak for themselves. According to Nielsen, the “total time spent viewing video on Facebook” grew by 1,840 percent year over year. The number of unique viewers grew 548 percent over the same period. Total streams increased by 987 percent year over year. “Facebook’s rapid growth in online video during the last year illustrates the site’s evolution from simply a communications focused tool to a media portal,” Nielsen Vice President of Media Analytics Jon Gibs said. “Social networking sites are evolving from a venue for catching up with friends to a platform for personal expression, allowing consumers to share their experiences in the full variety of content formats available online.” Enjoy your weekend watching video. We know Facebook will love it.

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Facebook Is a Video Powerhouse As Well

By Karl Staib of Work Happy Now! Follow him @workhappynow . Twitter only allows 140 characters. There is an infinite amount of things you can say, but only so many ideas to pull from. It’s hard to keep people entertained with your tweets. The best way to keep from burning out and giving up is to have a brilliant plan that will allow you to reach your goals and meet amazing people. 1. Stay Creative Tweeting looks so easy, but we all know it’s not. There is a lot of thought that goes into each tweet. Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist ( @penelopetrunk ) has each tweet reviewed by an editor before she sends it out. Well that’s what she told us. You need to find new ways to get onto other tweeters’ radars. Don’t be afraid to switch around words. Tweeting is an art and sometimes you need to stand out by being different. Don’t be afraid to disagree. Don’t do this too often, but every now and again you can spur on an exciting conversation. It’s the routine that kills the most tweeters. All they do is link back to their blog and they wonder why they aren’t meeting cool people and having fun connecting with other tweeters. 2. Find a Brilliant Quote to Share I love finding really cool quotes and posting them on Twitter. It’s amazing how many people will retweet a good quote. I posted a quote from Gandhi that said, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” The CEO of Zappos ( @zappos ) liked it and retweeted it to his billion + subscribers. I gained over 200 subscribers in one weekend. I was lucky, but any of you can get lucky too; you just have to keep tweeting stuff you believe in and people will want to follow. 3. Just Listen When I first got on Twitter I wasn’t very active. I just read and listened to others. I began to see what I liked and what I thought would work well for me. After a little while, I jumped in and began tweeting. I learned the value of just listening to other tweeters. Instead of just getting on there and posting my tweet and leaving, I hang around. I notice when some people are jerks or humble or fun. It’s during these ten or fifteen minutes that I become more attached to the people I’m interacting with. You’ll burn out quickly if all you do is broadcast your stuff and you don’t listen to the other brilliant people out there. Believe me, there are some smart people using Twitter. 4. Ask a Question You may want to know what it feels like to stand at the top of the Eiffel Tower, or if anyone has a long commute to work and how they pass the time. The questions you can ask can be crazy, fun, or serious. I would suggest that your question stay in the theme of the tweets. People like routines and expect to receive a certain type of tweet from you. If you shake it up too much, they may not stick around. I’ve put out plenty of questions that were never answered. Don’t sweat it. Just post it again in a few hours. If you still don’t get a response, move on and try a different question in a few days. 5. Top 5 Tweeters to Follow Darren wrote an excellent post about creating niche lists of tweeters that you should follow. For example, “top 5 marketers on Twitter” or “top 5 most interesting people on Twitter.” When you send out some tweet love you might get a follow from a really cool person. I know that I would love to be included in the top 5 tweeters in the business category. Don’t be afraid to give other people attention because it’s all about Twitter Karma. The more you give the more you will eventually be given back. The more people who love your style of tweeting, the more motivated you will be to connect with other tweeters. 6. Take a Break and Recharge There will be some days when you just don’t feel like typing even a tweet. Then take a break and just let everyone else tweet their hearts out. Stress occurs when we push too hard to accomplish something we aren’t ready for. If you don’t feel like tweeting then don’t. It’s better than sending some big sour puss of a tweet out there and everyone reading it and thinking “Man he is having a bad day.” That’s when people decide to unfollow you. 7. People Will Unfollow You Some people aren’t going to like your tweets. Just like every guy or girl doesn’t think you are hot stuff, there will be tweeters that just don’t like your personality. Don’t take it personally. Your thoughts are not everybody’s cup of wisdom. Even Kevin Rose ( @kevinrose ) has people who stop following his tweets. He is in a position to add way more people than he loses, so his numbers keep growing anyway. 8. Be Yourself Don’t try to be like @problogger because you’ll fall flat. I fell into this trap when I first started blogging. I tried to be like @stevepavlina . I only started succeeding when I let go of trying to be someone else and let my true personality come out. I’ve taken a lot of great ideas from fellow tweeters, but always incorporated them into my own style. You have to trust that your interests will excite other people. As long as you are authentic, people will catch on. I promise. 9. Copy a Leader To step on my own advice, I’m going to tell you to copy a leader and his/her style for a day. See what happens. Are you getting more attention? There is nothing wrong with learning form the masters of Twitter, such as @guykawasaki , and trying to incorporate their style into yours. Be very careful of taking this too far though, because in order to get people who want to follow you and stick with you, you have to be you. 10. Retweet Great Tweets Retweeting other people’s thoughts is a great way to connect and share with your readers. I retweeted a @lizstrauss tweet and she sent me a thank you note. The more that you connect with talented people, the more likely they will be able to help you in the future. If you’re not sure exactly what you are trying to accomplish then you must ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?” When you figure out the answer, avoiding burn out will be much easier. 11. Know Your Goals When you know what you want to accomplish with Twitter it’s much easier to justify using your time and energy on it. If you have a blog, static website, or an offline business you can define your goals and start to make your dreams a reality. I want to be the one person everyone thinks about when they think about work happiness. Twitter is just another tool that I can use to leverage my expertise. The best part is that it’s easy to see what is working and what isn’t. If you are sending out the tweets and no one is following then you have to change strategy. If you are only on Twitter to pass the time and only want to make friends then that’s your goal. Understanding your needs is the most important way to avoid burning out and giving up. 12. Start a 30 Day Challenge The more compelling the story you tell, the more likely people will want to follow you. One of the best ways to get people involved in who you are and what you have to say is to challenge yourself to become a better person. I created a “No Complaining” challenge that lasted for the whole month. I blogged and tweeted about it. Fellow tweeters gave me advice and empathy. This is when my tweeting became more personal and more compelling. People want to know how the situation makes you feel. The Twitter society on the whole is very caring and supportive. So let them know what you are trying to accomplish and let them help you succeed. 13. Remember Twitter is Supposed to be Fun Twitter should never feel like work and when it does then you know you need to change your habits. I’ve seen some tweeters adding new friends by the hundreds, just trying to get as many friends as possible. They burn out quickly because it stops being fun. They are more worried about how many people are following them instead of the value they are giving and receiving through Twitter. Let your personality come out because that’s the person people want to see. At first Twitter can be daunting and confusing, so find the right tools that fit your needs. Darren has plenty of them on this blog. I would suggest Tweetdeck to anyone who hasn’t tried it. It organizes all the tweets making the experience much more enjoyable and less overwhelming. 14. (What would be your number 14? How have you avoided burn-out or overcome it and came back better than ever?) I’ve posted over 1,500 tweets and I feel like I’m just grasping the art of tweeting. The more that I tweet the better I get and the more fun it becomes. I felt close to burn out a few months ago, but I realigned my goals and I’m back to tweeting up a storm. © 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips . 14 Ways To Fight Twitter Burnout

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14 Ways To Fight Twitter Burnout