Podcasting Web Marketing Business Blogging Articles

“Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving, is the biggest shopping day of the year for U.S. brick-and-mortar retailers. But, for each Monday after Black Friday, consumer searches spike up on the internet and online retail websites enjoy their highest traffic and associated sales of the year. Search engine use is directly impacting businesses during this period, and companies which haven’t optimized their internet presence stand to lose out on some of the sales they could be getting if consumers could find them. This is true for online businesses as well as for brick-and-mortar stores.

While savvy companies planned for this season all the way back in the summer, and already have their internet storefronts in order, it’s not too late to do a few more things to insure a business can squeeze out more from gift shoppers on the “Cyber Mondays” following Black Friday.

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“In this era of Web 2.0, it seems that blogs, mash-ups, RSS feeds, and wikis have been the buzzwords occupying most of the limelight. But personally, tagging is the Web 2.0 technology that excites me the most, because of its versatility and wide applicability,” writes Stephan Spencer, President and Founder of Netconcepts, in this article written for Search Engine Land. Find out how you can utilize effective tagging for your website, social bookmarks, or other Web 2.0 functionality to get the most out of tagging and SEO.

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In this SEO report card Jeff Muendel, Analyst for Netconcepts, reviews a site called “Back40books.com.” Jeff writes, “According to the site’s “About Us” page, Back 40 Books is run by back-to-nature people and the books they sell on their site are predominantly focused on issues related to that lifestyle. It also sounds as if the website was put together by these same outdoor people with little help from web professionals. This is to be commended, but everyone needs a little help sometimes.”

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Facebook.com — a company that less than a year ago looked like fools for not accepting Yahoo’s bid to purchase it — has become the powerhouse of social media websites. It’s been said that much of the success is due simply to Facebook being the latest in a string of recently-hip online socialization sites, with MySpace being the last destination to peek out and then slow as the “true hipsters” move on, drawing the semi-hip behind them. A large part of that rise, however, has been Facebook’s open source policy with regard to the creation of Facebook applications. The result has been twofold: A huge demand for fun and informative applications and the corresponding, explosive proliferation of applications created for the site.

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Panelists:
Andy Beal, Marketing Pilgrim
Vanessa Fox, Zillow.com
Aaron Wall, SEOBook.com
Stephan Spencer, Netconcepts

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“Wouldn’t it be great if all those whiz-bang Web 2.0 interactive elements based on AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and Flash—such as widgets and gadgets and Google Maps mashups— were search engine optimal?” writes Stephan Spencer, President and Founder of Netconcepts. In this article, Stephan addresses the challenges of Web 2.0 functionality and offers advice on how you can make your site more visible to the search engines.

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Web users rely on community-contributed-content sites such as Wikipedia and Yahoo Answers. These sites enable you to communicate directly with an engaged audience. But contribute to the conversation with care. Too much spin and you’re credibility will be shot-and your brand damaged. You’ll come away from this session knowing how these influential sites work and how to participate constructively.

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It seems like Wikipedia shows up in the first page of results in Google for just about every search imaginable. Wikipedia’s position as a top authority site is undisputed. Having a presence in Wikipedia has never been so important as it is now, despite the fact that external links in Wikipedia no longer pass PageRank. And it’s never been so dangerous to make self-interested edits to Wikipedia as it is today, particularly with the advent of such wikisleuthing tools as the Wikiscanner.

Is there a place in Wikipedia for you? Can you protect your interests within Wikipedia in a way that is appropriate and minimizes the risk of a backlash — now and in the future? Want to know the best ways to interact with the service? Want to learn some valuable lessons from a few Wikipedia marketing successes and failures? Then this session is for you!

Moderator:
Stephan Spencer, Founder and President, Netconcepts

Speakers:
Neil Patel, CTO, Advantage Consulting Services
Jonathan Hochman, Founder/President, JE Hochman & Associates
Don Steele, Director of Enterprise Marketing, Comedy Central

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Shopping for industrial tools online can be a major production — especially if a site is not up to snuff. Production Tool Supply sells such complex items as precision measuring instruments, carbide inserts, hand and power tools, workholding devices, safety supplies, fasteners, machinery, and accessories. We decided to see if the Warren, MI-based mailer markets with precision online. Critiquers Amy Africa, president of Helena, VT-based Web consultancy Eight by Eight, and Stephan Spencer, founder/president of Madison, WI-based SEO agency Netconcepts, gave a thorough review of the PTS site, with Africa examining the site’s content and functionality, and Spencer testing its search capability. Does Production Tool Supply’s site hit the nail on the head, or does it get a hammering from our experts? Read on to see.

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Candlesandsuch.com is a website run quite frugally by its two main proprietors. For a site that hasn’t had a lot of professional help with regard to search engine optimization, it possesses some positive SEO attributes. That’s not to say there aren’t issues, but some of the main facets of good SEO are observed and incorporated.

In this SEO report card originally featured on Practical eCommerce, Netconcepts’ Search Analyst Jeff Muendel takes an in-depth look at how inbound links and sculpting PageRank can help improve the overall site.

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