RSS feeds are changing the way people are consuming their media. You need to stay on top of this channel in order to remain competitive online.

Web 2.0 is also changing the way people interact with web properties. The user generated content phenomena is helping site owners to actively engage an audience and build community online.

This presentation will also discuss how one online publisher, www.dmnews.com, is leveraging the Web 2.0 tool kit.

Social Media Sites are emerging as a channel to be reckoned with online. If you are not participating in these communities you are missing opportunities for increased brand recognition and traffic to your sites.

You Will Discover:

• Best practices for RSS usage
• The benefits of user generated content
• Why tagging matters for website owners
• How industry leaders are leveraging Web 2.0
• How social media can bump up your traffic and impressions

This presentation was originally held on Tuesday, January 30, 2007 at The Country Springs Hotel in Pewaukee, WI.

Think about the sites you advertise on as potential partners. Join forces and create a microsite together and then promote it to a joint captive audience. Or make a deal with them and syndicate some useful content onto their site. For example, you could develop a whole library of useful tips and, rather than doing standard banner ads, you could provide these tips to your partner, who would then fold it with the rest of their content. Et voila!… “Sponsored content”!

Even better if, between the two of you, you can develop some sort of “hook” or viral component, such as a funny video, an addictive game, a downloadable ebook, worksheet, calculator, widget, etc…

Got an example to share of a site where the whole is greater than the sum of the partners? Post a comment!

An Open Directory listing is a useful thing to have. With it comes some good link gain ?Į from Google Directory, DMOZ.org, and a pile of lower-tier directories that use the DMOZ database. It’s not a magic bullet by any means, but it’s worth getting listed.

The key to getting into DMOZ seems to be in picking the right category. The actual mechanics of submitting is easy. From the chosen category page on DMOZ.org, simply click on “suggest URL” (or “Submit a Site” from the category page in Google Directory). I’m going to mix metaphors here (English majors please forgive me)… if you want to give yourself the best shot and to put your best foot forward, heed these words of advice:

1. Peruse the categories where your competitors are listed.
   Often times you’ll find multiple suitable categories this way. You can search either DMOZ.org or Google Directory. Try searching for their domain name, and if that turns up nothing, try their company name / website name, and variations thereof.

2. Read the category information to ensure that category is appropriate for you
   When viewing the category page within DMOZ.org, click on the “Description?Ĺ link at the top right of the page. Make sure your submission will be totally on-topic and fall within the guidelines listed here.

3. Try to pick a category with an editor.
   This is important. You don’t stand much of a chance if there’s no editor. That’s because your submission will go to a higher-level category editor who is probably overwhelmed with submissions coming in from all the unmanned subcategories underneath him/her. You can see if a category has an editor by scrolling to the bottom of the category page at DMOZ.org. If the category has one or more editors, their name(s) will be listed at the bottom of the page preceded by the words “Category editor.” For example, the Computers: Internet: Web Design and Development: Promotion category is edited by cmconsulting. Clicking on cmconsulting takes you to her profile page, which in this case includes a link to her company website.

   To find relevant categories with editors, try this search on Google:

   site:dmoz.org intitle:keyword “Category editor” OR “Category editors”

   replacing the word “keyword” above with your main keyword. So, for example, if you’re looking for jewelry-related categories with editors:

   site:dmoz.org intitle:jewelry “Category editor” OR “Category editors”

4. Fine-tune your home page to fit the category you are targeting
   For example, if you are a jeweler with a range of inventory and you are submitting under the Shopping: Jewelry: Charms category, make sure Charms is a primary feature on the home page (in the title tag and in the page content), at least until you get approved.

5. Spiff up your site prior to submitting
   Scan your site for broken links and broken images with a broken link spider tool and fix them. Remove any “This page under construction” messages. Spell check all the copy for typos. Ensure that you’re providing your full contact information, including address. Remove anything dodgy like doorway pages or tiny text (and NO, don’t put them back after you get in!). Make sure the content of your site is valuable. Thin affiliates aren’t welcome in the Open Directory.

6. Consider going Regional
   You might consider it more desirable to be listed on a main global category page, but we need to be pragmatic here. If you are a retail shop in Dallas, Texas, you stand a much better chance of getting into DMOZ if you found a Regional category for Dallas, Texas. If you have multiple locations, consider a broader Regional category that encompasses all your locations. For example, if you have locations in Dallas and Houston, go with Texas. If you have locations in Dallas and Vancouver, go with North America. Sometimes, multiple Regional categories would be more appropriate.

7. Get your home page listed first before trying to get “deep links”
   For typical sites, DMOZ strongly prefers listing only the home page. Exceptions are made where a sub-section or sub-page adds substantial value to the category and wouldn’t be located easily by visitors to the home page. Examples of such: an article library, a video archive, conference proceedings. If you have such a resource, submit it and see if you can get in — but do it after you’ve successfully gotten your home page listed. And submit the resource to a DIFFERENT category. Quite a number of sites have achieved multiple listings in DMOZ. Hopefully you will too!

8. Be non-promotional when crafting your title and description
   You will need to work in your most important keywords into the title and description (the title is most important), writing in the third-person, and without sounding salesy. And this title needs to look like the name of your site, not a list of keywords. This will reduce the risk that you’ll turn off the editor and the risk that the editor will change the title and description. DMOZ information is sometimes displayed in SERPs ?Į like when the search term used isn’t present in your page content or your meta description. If an editor rewrites your title or description for you, your most important keywords may be stripped out or your site could be introduced in an unappealing way on Google SERPs.

9. Be patient, but not too patient
   Don’t expect your listing to be approved in a week. But then again, don’t wait a year. If after a month or two you don?Ĵt get in, submit to another category. Don’t waste your time submitting to the same category; you’ll just sit in the queue with multiple copies of your submission and that’s not going to make the editor happy.

10. If it’s a second submission, lower your sights
    Ok, so your listing didn’t get approved and it’s been a month or so. Well then, this time pick a category that’s more attainable for you. For example, maybe you should submit to a more specialized category (e.g. Shopping: Jewelry: Handcrafted, instead of Shopping: Jewelry). Or pick a Regional category.

11. Once you’re in, request a category reassignment
    Didn’t get in to your first choice category because it didn’t have an editor or you didn’t get a response from your submission? Then I’ve got good news for you: it’s a lot easier to move categories once you’re in Open Directory than it was to get in in the first place. You don’t need to settle for a listing in a sub-optimal category.

12. Get more involved in the ODP (Open Directory Project) community
    This could mean volunteering to become a category editor. Or just becoming known as a constructive, helpful person on the Resource Zone forums. Insiders have a better lay of the land. They know the politics, the manoeuvering required, the favors to call in, the buttons to press.

Here’s my first installment: a recap on the session I attended before lunch today on “Earning from Search & Contextual Ads”. Panelists were: Jason Calacanis, Co-Founder, Weblogs, Inc., Will Johnson, Yahoo! Search Marketing, Scott Meyer, President & CEO, About, Inc., Gokul Rajaram, Group Product Manager of Google AdSense, Google Inc. and Jen Slegg, Owner, JenSense.com.

Jen from JenSense.com started the panel off:
Jen started off by comparing and contrasting AdSense w/ Yahoo’s new YPN (Yahoo Publisher Network). Similarities include…
- very large pool of advertisers
- real time stats
- neither will tell you the revenue split
- can’t show both YPN and AdSense ads on the same page

Differences include…
with AdSense:
- 4 ads in smaller font
- international publishers ok
- offers additional tools & services
- more competition for higest paying
- multiple ad units per page
- “smart pricing” (CTR taken into account in pricing)

with YPN:
- 3 ads in a much larger font
- beta for US publishers
- only traditional ad units
- fewer publishers means less competition
- same ads on multiple units
- no smart pricing
- in future will be able to transfer your earnings to your advertising account

Many alternatives to AdSense and YPN:
- Kanoodle brightads: avg $0.35 earnings per click (EPC). 30,000 advertisers in network.
- Adsonar: thousands of advertisers
- Clicksor: avg $0.20 EPC. 4,000 advertisers running 20,000 campaigns. Will pull ads from other ad networks if insufficient clicks.
- Chitika: avg EPC $0.50
- Mirago: avg EPC .21p (approx $0.31 USD). you must invoice them. 12,000 advertisers
- ContextWeb: over 40,000 advertisers
bidclix: avg EPC 0.30. 11,000 advertisers
- Others include Miva Adrevenue xpress, Quigo, etc.
Rhetorical question from Jen: “When will MSN jump in?”

Optimizing tips:
- Placement: Bottom of page is bad. Good practice is to make link color the same as other links on the site. Anther good tactic is to place the ads on the left column where the nav usually is.
- Proximity:
- Ad unit selection: Try a variety of sizes and test.
- Ad unit colors & borders: Don’t use the standard ad unit colors / layout. Mix things up to prevent banner blindness. Try both complimentary and contrasting colors. Most sites find hidden borders yield highest CTR. like 2 or 3 times
- URL filters: Don’t do it as a way to get higher paying ads to appear. Only block your direct competitors or your own websites.

Testing:
- Use AdSense or YPN channels to track highest CTR & earnings pages. AdSense or YPN may perform better. Try both.
- Test on non-holiday weeks
- Try switching ad placement, ad unit sizes and colors
- Keep track of what works and what doesn’t
- Never assume that what works on one site will work on another.

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Now, surprisingly, this little trick appears to work again (it stopped working in 2003), thanks to a bug introduced into Google’s algorithm. Two months ago, a search for http would have revealed results like HTTP - Hypertext Transfer Protocol Overview and Welcome! - The Apache HTTP Server Project. Today, these sites appear nowhere near the top of the results. Instead, the top results are occupied by a “who’s who” list of highly important web sites — sites that don’t include the word http anywhere in the text of the page.

As already noted by blogger Nathan Weinberg, this same phenonemon occurs when you search for www.

One thing I found curious is that http and www Google queries return different results. Now these results are NOT in order of PageRank score, at least not the PageRank scores as revealed by the Google Toolbar. You can verify this to be the case yourself simply by using SEO Chat’s PageRank Search tool. Indeed, it’s a well-known fact within the SEO community that the PageRank scores served up by the Google Toolbar servers are not the actual PageRanks used by Google in the ranking algorithm. PageRank debate aside, perhaps this list offers us a (now) rare glimpse at some of Google’s Chosen Ones — the most important sites on the Internet according to Google.

What makes me say this is due to a bug in Google? For one thing, these results are NOT relevant to the search query. Secondly, I’ve uncovered another bug newly introduced into Google’s algorithm, namely that the inurl: query operator does not work properly, and I think these two bugs might be related. For an example of this second bug in action, search Google for site:blogs.msdn.com scoble inurl:msnsearch and the top search result is currently blogs.msdn.com/mikehall/archive/2004/11/10/255417.aspx. Note there’s no msnsearch in that URL!

I’ve compiled a list the top 1000 results for each of the two queries for your convenience. You’ll see, they do vary quite dramatically:

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