By Robert Lockard

Twitter has come a long way since 2007. It exploded in popularity in 2009, though it still has yet to reach the heights of either Facebook or MySpace in terms of monthly visitors. You can read more about this in my Submit Solution blog entry, “MySpace is 3 times as popular as Twitter.”

Not only has Twitter gone from having less than 1 million visitors a month to nearly 20 million, it has also improved its downtime. Alas, just like its number of visitors, Twitter is far worse than every other major social-media site in its total amount of downtime per year. It’s getting better, but Twitter still suffers from frequent crashes. Remember the big one earlier this year?

I read some fascinating analyses of Twitter’s downtime in two Royal Pingdom articles: “Twitter growing pains cause lots of downtime in 2007” and “Social network downtime in 2008.” Check out this chart of the major social-media sites’ downtime, in hours:

The good news for Twitter, as these Royal Pingdom articles point out, is that the vast majority (84 percent) of its downtime took place in the first half of 2008. That means the second half of 2008 was a vast improvement and it could mean Twitter is well on its way to getting up to Facebook’s and MySpace’s level.

Even if you combine the total downtime of Facebook and MySpace, Twitter was seven times longer than them. That’s quite amazing. Maybe it’s like I said in my last blog entry on Twitter – the company could be on the verge of proving itself as a real contender in the fight for dominance of social media.

Twitter has never really been known for its reliability, but it could soon change that image. I look forward to seeing 2009’s numbers to see how Twitter is improving.

This blog entry is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog post, “Twitter downtime worse than other social media.” The Social Network Downtime graph is the copyright of Royal Pingdom.

By Britnee Nguyen

If you’ve owned your website for quite awhile now, you may be wondering if you should get it redesigned. Well, this would depend on a number of factors, but most likely you should get a redesigned website. For example, if you’ve had the same website design since the 90s then you’ll definitely want to get it changed. So much creative innovation on the internet has occurred since then and continues to grow every day. You’ll want to update your website to follow the design trends and keep it functional to this day and age.

Most people are smart and have realized this and have regularly updated their website’s design. You might have just had it redesigned last year; does this mean you should do it again now? Here are some internet marketing questions you’ll want to think about if you’re contemplating a web design.

What should NOT be the purpose of the redesign? If you’re redesigning it just for the sake of it, that’s not the right reason. You don’t want to constantly be changing the overall look of it because then your customers won’t be able to connect certain look or design and attribute it to your business. If they’re always seeing a new design every time they go to your website, they’ll have no idea what your actual brand looks like. Be sure you have a purpose in mind when redesigning. You don’t want your website to be like one of those girls who shows up with a different haircut, style and color every week. That kind of habit doesn’t do well for your business branding.

What should be your purpose? The purpose of your web design should be for reasons such as your website is old-fashioned, you are changing the brand of your company, or you are targeting a different market or audience. When designing a website, you’ll want the feeling of it to connect with your target customer. If you’re targeting teenagers, then you’ll want the design of it to look hip and trendy. If you’re targeting mothers, you’ll want it to connect to the feminine, emotion, and motherly instincts. So if your current website doesn’t match your target customer, then you’ll need a redesign.

Remember, these questions when you’re asking yourself when you should redesign your website. It’s important to keep in mind that when you redesign, you run the risk of losing your branding and identity work that you’ve done with it so far. But if your website is old-fashioned and not reaching your target audience, then it might be more beneficial to change your identity anyways.

By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

We’ve all seen this before: the rapid weight loss plans, the get rich quick schemes, and in internet marketing, the “amazing” linkbait strategies that will, supposedly, get you on top of Google in a matter of days!

What’s my point here?  The world is full of easy alternatives to good ‘ol hard work.  And, while these alternatives have allowed us to create indoor plumbing and sliced bread, they’ve also elevated expectations to an unnecessary degree and allowed scam artists to flourish.

In the case of SEO, I’m talking about link farms that allow you to purchase “quality links” in order to increase your search engine rankings.  These institutions claim that you will see results in days, when in reality, great SEO plans will more often take months to generate results.  However, you can be assured that when these results do kick in, they will give your site an incredible search engine presence that will last for years.

The problem with get-ranked-quick linkbait schemes is that search engines are designed to pick up on fishy activity like this, and will take action against it.

Here is a list of linkbait tactics that will raise red flags with Google and Bing:

1.  Your inbound links increase suddenly and dramatically in a short period of time.

2.  Your inbound links come from irrelevant blog comments and unrelated topics.

3.  Hiding links in your pages.

4.  Receiving links from known link farms, paid link firms, and other known spam websites.

5.  Linking out to known spam websites.

In the long run, when it comes to SEO, don’t fall for the get-ranked-quick scheme!  Good ‘ol fashioned networking, relationship building and conversation is the best way to receive quality inbound links.  Yes, it will take time and effort, but the search-engine-deities will surely reward you for your diligence!

By Britnee Nguyen

If you’re planning on doing a PPC campaign or any type of internet marketing through the winter months, you’ll want to take the holiday season in consideration. Undoubtedly, there’s going to be a rise of on-line traffic during the holidays as many people turn to the web to find gifts. You’ll want to make sure you have your PPC campaigns properly set up to make the most of your on-line advertising investment. Use these guidelines to be successful during the holiday season through your PPC campaign.

Use keyword reports from the previous holiday season to see what keywords did well during that time. You can use the search-based keyword tool to see these reports. Most likely, these terms will do well again this year. You’ll want to use Google’s sbKT (search-based keyword tool). When you’re on the website you’ll see how well keywords are ranking and how much they are per click. This is really helpful any time of the year, but can be of great assistance if you’re trying to sell your product or service during the holidays.

The one day out of the year you should have your PPC campaign geared for is Cyber Monday. This is like Black Friday which is the day after Thanksgiving where every store has discounted prices on items. Cyber Monday occurs the Monday after Thanksgiving and is for sales available on-line. You could bid higher this day compared to other days to take advantage of the increased traffic on Cyber Monday. To get the most clicks, you’ll need to get your ads in the top 3. If you don’t, then it might be useless to do it since your competition will dominate you. You’ll want to be part of the holiday revenue that day so make sure you maximize your ROI the best you can on Cyber Monday.

Also, even after the holidays come and go, many sales happen after the holidays. Consumers are looking for the best deals after the holidays, so don’t miss out on this opportunity either. Don’t end your PPC campaign on Christmas Day, instead you should keep it and monitor it to make money off of the post-holiday shopping. You’ll might want to alter your keywords a bit after this to make sure you’re still targeting the on-line shoppers.

This holiday season, don’t miss out on increased revenue from your PPC advertising. Be sure to plan and prepare it in advance to get the most ROI. If you’re busy taking care of your own holiday shopping, it’s best to hire a professional company who can handle your account during the busy season. Submit Solution is an example of a company who are experts in pay per click advertising and will maximize your ROI this holiday season.

By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

Remember AOL–the internet access, instant messaging and email service that ran rampant in the Internet’s earlier years?  Where have they been all these years?

AOL has turned to providing content rather than internet service in order to stay afloat.  With this change has come a new look and new logos.  Yes, logos, plural.  These new designs are creating quite a buzz in the social media world, as people gather together to either love it or hate it.

The new branding technique includes a new, lowercase version of their name, which now reads “Aol.”  This play with capitalization is reminiscent of  Apple’s “iPhone”, “iTunes,” etc and is meant to showcase AOL’s features, such as Aol.shopping and Aol.music.

However, the true story in Aol’s makeover are their logos: from a goldfish to what looks like a fluffy ball of cotton-candy, shaped like a human brain, Aol is truly moving in another direction, aesthetically.

What’s the lesson to be learned here?  Whether people like it or hate it, re-branding your business in this drastic matter will get them talking… a lot.  Now that their new look has gone viral, sparked controversy and spurned debate, Aol can be assured that their new brands and services will be noticed.  What a powerful internet marketing device… but I guess that’s just the power of social media people!  Harness it, or be swallowed up like a little orange goldfish.

By Robert Lockard

Optimizing your website’s content for search engines costs about half as much as relying solely on a paid-search campaign for getting customers to your site. So says a recent study by Frommer’s Unlimited I read about in the Travolution article, “WTM: Rich content ‘more cost-effective than PPC’.”

Of course, the main flaw I saw in this study is that it analyzes SEO and PPC results separately when many ecommerce companies use a combination of the two. SEO and PPC have different strengths and weaknesses. SEO is slower but more cost-efficient while PPC is fast, but each click costs money.

It’s essential for a website’s long-term future for it to have strong content that is designed to attract search engines’ attention and increase its ranking in their search results. But that doesn’t mean PPC is irrelevant or too expensive for companies to take advantage of in their Internet-marketing campaigns.

According to Frommer’s study, it costs about 17 cents per visitor to optimize a site’s content. On the other hand, it costs about 33 cents per visitor through PPC ads.

The company based its findings on the results of eight companies focusing on travel, hotels or airlines. They divided the total cost of an SEO package by the total number of visitors who clicked on the sites’ natural search results to get the cost per SEO visitor. They divided the total amount paid for a PPC campaign by the number of visitors who clicked on PPC ads to get that average cost.

They found that 70 percent of their site visitors clicked on an organic search result, not a paid-search ad. Thirty percent isn’t bad, though.

What are your thoughts on this paid-search vs. search engine optimization debate? Which works best for you, or do they both work well together?

This is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog post: “Is SEO a better deal than PPC?” The photo of the SEO, PPC Scrabble game is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of therichbrooks.

By Robert Lockard

I read an article on Entrepreneur.com a while back, entitled, “Rev up the Search Engines.” It gives a helpful rundown of solid SEO principles for small businesses, which don’t have a whole lot of money to spare but need to start generating results from ecommerce.

This article gives six tips for a small business to get the most bang for its buck, when it comes to search engine optimization. They are attributed to Steve Wiideman, a fairly renowned SEO expert. I already talked about most of these in my SEO series in the eHarbor Blog, back in February and March of 2009. But I think a refresher is healthy.

Here are some of the highlights I took from these tips:

- Search engines are getting smarter. Don’t expect Google, Bing or Yahoo to fall for the same old SEO tricks. Bloggers and other content generators used to focus on their keyword-to-content ratio, but now search engines recognize when you use the same keyword too many times in the same post. Use relevant keywords prudently. If you use keyword-stuffing tactics, don’t expect much success.

- Google should be the focus of your SEO strategy. I thought this one was interesting because, while Google is certainly the king of search engines at the moment, things can change fairly quickly in the digital age. Of course, Google is constantly changing its algorithm for search results and it’s even changing its search engine completely with new products like Google Wave, Google Caffeine and a focus on social media, images and music. But that’s the topic of a whole other blog entry.

- If an SEO consulting company guarantees No. 1 placement on Google or any other search engine, don’t believe them. Google is the only that can absolutely guarantee top placement on its results pages, and every other company has to do its best to influence Google, but none can absolutely guarantee success. Keep that in mind when you come across SEO companies’ marketing messages.

Having said that, I’ll note Submit Solution is a good SEO resource for you. Submit Solution has more than 13 years of experience working on Internet marketing, which includes search engine optimization. It’s a great resource because it has helped many companies like yours reach customers online through its efforts. Like I said, they can’t guarantee No. 1 placement for competitive search terms, but you can expect dramatic improvements in your search-engine rankings for specific keywords in the months after they start implementing their SEO strategies on your behalf.

Keep coming back to the Submit Solution SEO Blog for the latest updates on major search-engine trends. This is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog entry, “Top SEO tactics for small businesses.” The photo of the flying bicyclist is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Tom Grundy Photo.

By Britnee Nguyen (@brit_witters)

If you are getting a new website domain name, you might be wondering if all the SEO and internet marketing work you did for your original domain will carry over. Some people change their domain name to target a better audience by using their keywords in the URL. If you choose to do this, there are ways to do it without affecting the SEO you’ve already put in place.

Keep your old URL for the purpose of getting it forwarded onto your new website. This way if you have a returning customer who doesn’t know you changed your website, when they type in the original site they will get redirected to the correct one. This will keep your customers coming to your website and keep your page rank. Always use a 301 redirect that is permanent. If you use a 302 redirect that is temporary this could do some damage to your SEO.

When using the 301 redirect, it will redirect every page on your site to the correct page on the new website so you won’t lose any web traffic. Some just redirect it to the main homepage, but it’s better to make them all direct to the most relevant page you have on your new site.

Another option you can do in this process is while you’re redesigning your new site, go ahead and move your old site to the new URL. When you have the new design ready to be put up, go ahead and change it. This might affect your rankings for a small time on Google, but it shows them that you are just moving your domain name and not some outsider who is trying to bank on your built-up credibility.

If you do these things, then you should have no problem with Google recognizing your new site as the correct version of your old one and will keep your page rank and SEO in place. Remember to keep your old domain name and use a 301 redirect and to have your company’s old design on the new one while waiting for the new one to be completed.

By Alyssa Udall (@udallyss)

For many people who are just starting an online business, blog, or other type of website, they use Do-It-Yourself web design in order to save money.  While this often works for blogs, which often come with free themes, e-commerce sites are far more complex and require an intimate knowledge of computer languages.

However, if you need to be your own web designer, this post is aimed at helping you proofread your website or blog to make it the as easy-to-use and successful as possible.

DIY web design and proofreading is a lot like self-editing your own writing: it’s hard to see the mistakes when you are so invested in the work!  Therefore, I suggest that you enlist the help of a friend, coworker, family member, the stranger sitting at the library computer next to you… anyone will do.

1)  Do a quick look-around: Ask your help-mate to look around your home page.  See if they can easily navigate through your pages, categories, archives, etc.  Ask them to find the “Contact Us” page, or to sign up for your email newsletter.  This will help you understand if your site layout and navigation is successful!

2)  Check the text: Ask your helper to read some of the main text content on your home page: is it easy to read?  Are the fonts and colors easy to see?  Are there any spelling errors that jump out at you?  This will tell you whether or not your content will translate to your visitors or if you should make some changes.

3)  What annoys them most? Nobody likes an annoying site design, like pop-up ads, flashing banners, etc.  Ask your helper what part of your website they would change if they could.  This will help you avoid a high “bounce rate” of visitors leaving your site.

These steps are designed to help you proofread your own web design.  Of course, there are thousands upon thousands of companies who provide services like this, but if you use DIY-web design, you will probably use DIY-proofreading as well.  Good luck!

By Britnee Nguyen

When you have a PPC ad in Google AdWords, you’re only given 25 characters for the headline and 70 characters for the body of the text. You probably thought writing in 140 characters on Twitter was hard! But after seeing the very limited amount of space you’re given for a PPC ad, you realize you have to be extremely clear and concise to get your message across.

While being concise, you need to make sure that you include relevant keywords, explain the benefits, stand out and have a “call-to-action” message. In addition, you need to remember that you are speaking to real humans so don’t sound too wordy or stuffy.

When writing PPC ads, you need to focus on the goal. The immediate goal you’re looking for is to convey why the person should click on your ad. The next long-term goal is how to convert those clicks into sales. But for this post, we’re just talking about the goal of getting them to click. Getting someone to click with just 95 characters total to entice them can be difficult. The last sentence I just wrote was 87 characters which shows just how concise you need to be.

Headline (25 characters)

Your headline is the attention grabber.

If your headline isn’t interesting, the viewer won’t continue reading the rest of your text; therefore, won’t click your ad. It needs to simply say what you have to offer. If you are selling free birthday cards on-line and want to do a PPC ad to promote your website. If you wanted your keyword to be “birthday e-cards” then you should keep the headline simple such as: Free Birthday E-cards. It’s basically just blatantly stating what you have to offer because you don’t have room to do much else.

Body (75 characters)

When you write the body text, this is where you’ll want to explain more about what you offer. This is typically one sentence long and you’ll want it to be “call-of-action”. This means that you are telling them to do something with action words. You can do this by starting off your sentence with words such as “Send”, “Choose” and “Make”. In the example of using “birthday e-cards” as the target keyword, here are some good examples you could do using the call-to-action and keywords:

Send a personalized birthday e-card to your loved one today.
Choose from 550+ unique birthday e-cards delivered right to the inbox.
Make your friend’s day special with an interactive birthday e-card.

So just make sure you get to the point of what the person will get if they click on your ad. Remember to keep it clear and concise and don’t use too much flowery words because they’ll just skip over it. Make sure to use an action word so they will actually take action and click on your link instead of just reading it. PPC ads can be very effective when written properly. Take the time to write your PPC to make sure it targets the right keywords and creates a call to action.