Scribd is a social networking website that is catching on at a rather quick pace which allows anyone to publish their documents and images and make them available for the World Wide Web. With Scribd you can easily turn almost any type of file such as PDF, Word Document, or Excel Document into a web document that can be viewed for the entire online world. Scribd offers the perfect solution for those that do not have a website and makes sharing your thoughts with the world a breeze.

Scribd has over 35 billion words in its arsenal which means it is many times bigger than such free publication sites as Wikipedia and others. The site has over 10 million documents publishes and boasts tens of millions of reader and viewers each and every month. So how do you get involved?

Membership to Scribd is free and creating an account is as easy as a few simple steps. Once you create your account you are given a number of ways in which to upload your files such as:

Copy and paste your text documents.
Type in the URL of existing work you have published on the web so long as you own the rights to it.
Upload files directly from your hard drive.
Use your desktop upload tool to publish multiple files at the same time.

Once you begin to contribute to scribe you can build a personal profile and then begin to build your social networking community. You can find others with similar tastes and interests and subscribe to their work and share thoughts, ideas, and even leave your comments. Others in turn will begin to subscribe to your works should they be interesting enough and they may even use some of your information in their own websites. Plus, published documents on Scribd are typically indexed rather quickly by the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Ping. It all boils down to your published work having the ability to go viral in a very big way provided it is good quality work.

This not only means increased opportunities for individuals spreading the word about their work, it also gives internet marketers in the know a distinct advantage.  Internet marketers can use Scribd as a whole new source of social networking leads and find others that are interested in what their clients have to offer. By carefully matching content with members, a win, win situation can occur as a member will get something they have been looking for and the internet marketer’s client gains further exposure.

As with any other social networking website that is online today, Scribd has some finer points and some not so finer points. Here is a breakdown:

THE GOOD

Use of iPaper: Scribd uses a technology that is powered by Adobe Flash called iPaper. iPaper allows document to be embedded on web pages much in the same way as videos from YouTube. What this means for you is that you do not have to know any fancy computer lingo, download any software, nor do you have to have a website in order to publish your work. With Scribd you can publish your work with just a few clicks of the mouse.
Privacy Settings: With Scribd, you decide who can and cannot view your files. You can choose to share a document with the entire world, or limit it to certain members within the site community; it is all up to you. You can set different parameters for each article or you can set a blanket parameter for all.
No Commitment: Once you decide that you no longer want your files to be viewed, you can easily remove them from Scribd. You can keep files active for a day or forever; again, the choice is yours.

THE BAD

Searchablity: Scribd is a bit unorganized and it is sometimes difficult to find what it is you are looking for. Scribd continues to make strides in this department and has various ways to navigate through the website, but you are usually left with a good number of things to sift through before you find what you are after.
Plain site: Compared to other social networking sites, Scribd is not all that flashy. While that is not necessarily a bad thing, some may view it as a negative.

Scribd is relatively new when it comes to social networking and has only been around since 2007. But the website and its community continue to grow by leaps and bounds. With the ease of uploading documents and the growing number of members it is easy to see why Scribd is rapidly catching on in the ever popular world of social networking.

No matter what type of business you have your success relies heavily on people being able to find you online. One of the most undervalued, but effective ways to accomplish this task is with the power of the local search. Today there are many sites that have evolved to allow potential customers in your area to find your local business including Topix, Superpages, Yelp, and many more. Many of these sites are no longer just for listing a business name and address and many of them have maps and interactive features that allow for users to generate the content, also known as user generated content or UGC for short. This content includes reviews and comments about the local listings.

These types of online sites have seen a surge in growth over the past few years and the old faithful Yellow Pages is either flat or actually losing ground. Yes online local searching is fast catching up to the traditional methods. This makes sense as all the Yellow Pages can offer you are a name, a phone number, and an address. The online local search sites however can provide you with an entire wealth of knowledge including how good the local business is and what you can expect if you deal with them. These reviews are not written by pros, but by actual past customers.
So why are local businesses so excited about this? The fact is that when people conduct this type of search online they are very close to making a buying decision. They are not just simply doing a broad search but in fact are going to be conducting a very specific search as they have already more than likely conducted all of their research beforehand.

Getting your local business involved really couldn’t be much easier. Most of the local search sites are free to use but will charge you up to $25 to upgrade your local business lisitng. If you are the only business of your kind in your community you can probably get by with just the most basic listing. However if you are like most local businesses, you have plenty of competition and it is probably in your best interest to pay the extra money if you can to allow your local business to be set apart from the rest.
Be sure that you visit the sites on a regular basis and see what people are saying about your local business. If you do get a complaint try to address it as such. Remember that word of mouth far outweighs even the most costly advertisement and there is no bigger word of mouth than the one that belongs to the online community.

Another plus associated with many of the local search sites is that people can now access them right from their mobile phones. This technology allows a consumer to enter their zip code and the product they are interested in and they are then sent a photo of the item, a brief description, prices, store locations that carry the item with directions, and a store phone number. If that doesn’t get your local business blood pumping there probably isn’t anything that will.

Now many of you that have had a website for some time now have probably been bombarded with e-mail solicitations from different online search companies promising you the world. Naturally you are probably a bit skeptical and with some of the fly by night companies that are emerging you have good reason to be. What you can do though is stick with the bigger names and work your way forward from there.

The only drawback that lies with the local search sites is that there is no “standard” way to do the listing and you really need to get creative in order to stand out. This may be time consuming but you will see that it is definitely worth it in the long run.

Here are some things to remember as you begin your local search site adventures:

• Ride the wave of others: Do a local search in your area for a business that is similar to yours. The ones that are always coming up first are the ones you should be looking at in terms of content. Now you certainly don’t want to copy them word for word, but you do definitely want to get some ideas from them.
• Make sure your info is accurate: Many of the local search sites will derive their information about your local business from places like Amacai, InfoUSA, and Axiom. It pays to first visit these sites and be sure that all of your information is correct.
• Geo-Target for best results: Be sure that you optimize your website pages accordingly. Your keyword listings should always include the location of your local business. You will also want to include your address on your website for the search engine spiders to find.

Local search sites are not only here to stay, but will more than likely continue to see the amazing growth that they have enjoyed in recent years going forward. If you are a local business owner you will want to take full advantage.

These days it seems that social media and other facets of search engine marketing are gathering up all the headlines and thus all the hype. But before any of that stuff ever existed there was something else that did and it still does today; e-mail. E-mail marketing is an often overlooked gem when it comes to driving traffic to your website. No matter how great your website may be doing traffic wise, the fact is that e-mail marketing can help it do even better. This is by no means a new concept as e-mail marketing has been going on for many years but it seems now that marketers are rediscovering its importance.

E-mail marketing is quickly gaining popularity because it is so easily traceable. In fact the results are so obvious that those that market using e-mails are under the microscope far more than those using other methods. Perhaps it is for this reason that e-mail marketing is showing absolutely no signs of slowing.

In June of 2009, StrongMail Systems surveyed some 1,000 business about their future plans for marketing. The result of the survey speaks volumes. Of the 1,000 surveyed, 42% plan on increasing their marketing budgets for the full year of 2009. Of those 81% said they intended to increase their e-mail marketing budget. The proof is in the pudding; e-mail marketing is rapidly gaining momentum. But why is this?

Along with being so easily traceable, e-mail also represents a real bargain to business owners. There are no printing costs, envelope costs, stamps cost, or standing in line at the post office as occurs with a typical direct mailing campaign. With e-mail you only write one boy of text and a few clicks later it goes out to as many recipients as you see fit, but that isn’t even the entire story.

One of the main reasons that e-mail marketing is enjoying the growth that it has is that all consumers seem to rely on e-mail and vendors are getting better at enabling web pros to turn their services into integrated communications platforms. This leads to a fast success rate in which marketers find themselves in need of a navigator. That navigator comes in the form of different e-mail service providers, or ESPs for short. The way these ESPs are selected is by marketers using several methods to form a decision.

While there are other factors to consider before you choose an ESP here are the most basic requirements:

Recipient Priority: This has to do with permission-based marketing and each ESP may be different at this. No matter what you should always have a validation process by a double opt in process. This may seem like an obvious point, but many vendors don’t get this point and therefore have a poor response to their efforts. When ESPs support the priority you place on the recipients properly a better environment for results usually follows.
Reporting Priority: This allows for a per campaign data access of such important things as opt out, SPAM complaints, and click through rates. Only by reviewing these factors can you better understand how good your e-mail list actually is. Having such detailed reports allows you to adjust your strategies if need be.

Basic Feature Compliant: This is the ability to correctly and rapidly make individual e-mail campaigns that can be previewed, tested, and have SPAM checks in place. Other basic features are the ability to schedule delivery and set up auto-responders. If your ESP doesn’t have these very basic features then perhaps you should be looking elsewhere.

Advanced and Forward Thinking: It is critical that your ESP is always on the cutting edge of advances in relation to e-mail marketing. If your ESP is doing a poor job of communicating this to you then again you may be I need of a different ESP vendor.

The future of e-mail marketing is now. Even now e-mail marketing gurus are getting together and collectively coming up with new and innovative ways in which to effectively target different markets and are coming up with strategies that will be the wave of the future. The many different advances that are happing now are a bit confusing to many but if you ensure that you are with a worthy ESP that knows the game and the future of the game then you will always be able to take advantage of this ultra important segment of search engine marketing known as e-mail marketing.

Picking a Product

* Analyze your product. Are you interested in it yourself?

* Analyze your market. Is it oversaturated? Is it growing or changing?

* Is it easy to order your product from the web? Or are you selling commodity dog food that is expensive to ship?

* What can you do to be unique in the market?

* What creative and original ideas can you add to your site?

Picking a Domain Name

* FOR NEW SITES: Ponder your domain name choice. Depending on your brand strategy, it should either be highly brandable or have your primary keywords in it.

* Make sure your domain is easy to say over the phone and is memorable.

* Consider buying different domain names for each targeted language or niche in your market.

* If you have additional ideas and the matching domain names are available register them at market price, because if someone else buys them first it might cost you a few thousand dollars to buy them later.

Domain Registration & Hosting

* Choose an ICANN accredited registrar.

* Register a .com as soon as possible. If the .com is out of reach then register a .net or .org.

* Register a country’s top-level domain if your primary market is local in nature.

* Choose a host that supports the technology you will be using (ASP or PHP, etc.).

Keyword Selection

* Use keyword tools and customer feedback to find the most targeted keyword phrases for your site.

* Develop grouped themes of keywords that reflect the different sections of your site.

* Use an Excel spreadsheet to organize your keyword ideas. Keeping them within a grouped theme, choose different keywords to target each page.

Page Optimization

* Put your chosen words for each page in your page title tags. Make sure your page title tag text is unique to each page.

* Write a description for the meta description tag. Make sure your description is unique to each page.

* Use only one H1 header per page, and target similar keyword phrases as the ones you targeted when writing the page title.

* Use subheaders H2 and H3 on your page when necessary.

* Use bulleted lists and bolding to make content easier to read.

* Make sure your text is written for human consumption—not bots.

Home Page Optimization

* Make sure your home page builds credibility and directs consumers to the most important parts of your site.

* Target your most competitive keyword on your home page or a page that is well integrated into your site.

* Link to major theme pages from your home page.

* Link to your home page from every sub page.

Site Optimization

* Use text-based navigation.

* If you already have, or insist on using, graphic navigation, use descriptive alt text on the images, and link to every primary page from your sub pages in the footer of the sub pages.

* Use descriptive keyword breadcrumb navigation.

* Make a site map if you have a large site.

* Check your link text to make sure it’s descriptive whenever possible.

* Link to resources outside your own site that improve each user’s experience.

* Deep link to related articles and content from your page copy.

* Rely as little as possible on the site navigation. Instead, guide your visitor through your site with links in the active content portion of the site.

* Use external CSS to minimize page load time.

* Avoid duplicate content issues. Ensure that each page has significantly unique content that does not exist on other pages on your site or other sites.

Registering With Directories

* Register your site with the major directories – Yahoo!, DMOZ, and Business.com.

* Register your site with a couple better second-tier directories – JoeAnt & BOTW.

* Register with a couple local or niche-specific directories – from ISEDB.

Link Building

* Make sure your site has something that other webmasters in your niche would be interested in linking to.

* Create content that people will be willing to link at even if it is not directly easy to monetize. These linkworthy pages will lift the authority and rankings of all pages on your site. Think of remarkable content production as cheap advertising.

* When possible, get your keywords in the link text pointing to your site. Use product names and article titles that contain keywords in their offical names.

* Register with, participate in, or trade links with topical hubs and related sites. Be in the discussion or at least be near the discussion.

* Look for places to get high-quality free links from (like local libraries or chambers of commerce).

* Produce articles and get them syndicated to more authoritative sites.

* Participate in forums to learn about what your potential consumers think is important.

* Issue press releases with links to your site.

* Leave glowing testimonials for people and products you really like.

* Start an interesting and unique blog and write about your topics, products, news, and other sites in your community.

* Comment on other sites with useful relevant and valuable comments.

* Sponsor charities, blogs, or websites related to your site.

* Consider renting links if you are in an extremely competitive industry.

* Mix your link text up whenever possible.

* Survey your vertical and related verticals. What ideas/tools/articles have become industry standard tools or well-cited information? What ideas are missing?

When you perform a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign what you will notice is that certain keywords work straight away and others will need special nurturing through optimization in order to be successful. The problem persists with figuring out how to know it is time to throw in the towel and scrap a specific keyword or keywords. Before you do give up on a keyword there are several factors that you need to consider before making the decision to let it go or keep it. After all, if you can save the keyword, why not do so?

Time is on your side

The most important factor to consider is how much time you have actually allowed for the keyword to do its job. If you are the type of person to choose a batch of keywords and give them exactly a day to work, you are going to miss out on a wide variety of opportunities. You need to allow your keywords ample time to do their jobs. In order to make an informed decision as to the effectiveness of your keywords you selected you need to know how many clicks that word is getting and how much you are spending on that keyword.

Study your keyword-level quality score

All keywords are not created equally and what you need to be focused on is whether or not your keywords are achieving a good click through rate (CTR). If you have certain keywords that are achieving your CTR goals and others that are not, you need to figure out why the underperforming ones are doing poorly.

If you are using Google AdWords to perform your PPC campaign then you can study your keyword level quality score. In the case of AdWords, a score that is under six is one that requires attention.  What are some ways that you can improve this score?

Review your ad texts: Does your ad texts contain the troubled keyword?
Review your landing page: Does your landing page contain the troubled keyword?

This may seem like a silly inquiry, but you would be surprised at how often this is actually overlooked. If your ad texts and landing page do not contain the keyword in question then the relevancy will be knocked down and so too will the performance of the keyword.

Average position and bid

Certain keywords will perform just fine as a “bottom feeder” which typically finds the keyword at the bottom of the first page and top part of the second page in the search engines results page (SERPs). On the other hand some keywords need to be in the top three to five in order to their jobs properly. If you find that your keyword is not doing well at bottom feeding status then try increasing the bid to better the position of the keyword.

Negative Keywords

When the first steps don’t succeed it may be time to take a look at negative keywords. This is done with AdWords by performing a search query on your keyword to see why those keyword are underperforming. What you may find is that you may be getting traffic from search queries that have little to nothing to do with your site or services on your site. Use the information you find and begin to craft a negative keyword list. You may be surprised to see how much a well crafted negative keyword can improve an existing keyword’s performance.

‘Tis the season

Another reason that your problem keyword may be underperforming is the season. Certain keywords can do better or worse depending on the time of the year that they are being used and using a tool such as Google Insights for Search or Google Trends can help you better understand how your keyword is performing throughout the year. You can then see when is the best time of the year for you to use your keyword.

When all else fails

If you try these techniques and your keyword continues to give you fits then it may be time to throw in the towel and start over from scratch.  Just be sure that you are positive you never want to use a keyword again before you totally delete it from your AdWords account. You can always “pause” a keyword and have it there to be revisited at a later date if you so desire.

Just be confident that you have exhausted all avenues of making your keyword work before you give up. Remember a successful PPC campaign sometimes takes a bit of time to work and the same holds true for the keywords within it.

Keywords and more Keywords…

If your website has been lucky enough to get onto the first page of a Google search, you must be doing something right. This is especially true if you got there using only short tail keywords because these types of keywords hit a lot of generic sites. Sitting back on the laurels of this listing is not something you want to do and it may be time to invest some energy in looking for those long tail keyword visitors.

It is true that you will not generate as many hits using long tail keywords as you would with the short tail variety; however, with long tail keywords, it’s not the volume that counts. When you make use of long tail keywords you are going for the quality visitor who is more likely to generate a sale or just the right click-through you need.

How does one go about nailing down the right long tail keywords choices? This process can be a tad bit time consuming but, when done correctly, profits and sales will see a definite jump when compared to visits. The first thing is to choose the short tail keywords which match your website. There are specific tools and procedures you will need to look into to make this happen for you.

Know Your Short Tails

Knowing the short tail keywords which most directly link to your website is incredibly important. Using Google’s AdWords Sandbox Toolkit, you are able to discover how people are searching for the type of product you offer. Using this information, you are able to decide what are the best short tail keywords to incorporate into your website.

Linking Short Tail to Long Tail

What happens when a highly used short tail keyword is coupled with a specific long tail keyword? Long tail keywords make it more likely to see your website on the first page of a search because of its more specific nature. This will generate more targeted traffic to you site and this is the type of traffic who is more likely make a purchase if you have what they want.

Knowing which long tail keywords to use is where various analytic systems come into play. You never want to sit back and rely on the keywords you are using. The market is always changing as are the searches people are creating. You will need to research various keywords to see what appears more than others. Simply doing the search yourself can show you this information in your search window through related hits.

Rankings

Once the long tail keywords are chosen, you want to start looking into rankings. If your site is in the top 20 or so for your short tail and long tail keywords, you are on the right track. A little refinement is needed as well as adding additional long tails to the list. However, be careful of a trap some people fall into with this type of keyword work. Just because it’s a long tail does not mean you will rank well.

You have to have the content on the site that relates to your long tail keywords otherwise, search engines will not rank you well. If your long tail is best jackets for men in winter and you don’t have any men’s winter jackets, you will not rate well for those keywords. However, best jackets for men may give you many more hits.

Once the long tails are worked out, you will want to use tools such as Google’s Insights to track the rise and fall of long tail keywords. As seasons change or holidays approach, certain long tails will become better than others and using this tool, you can keep an eye on those as well. This tool will also allow you so see how these keywords are rising and falling in comparison to previous months.

In conclusion, knowing how long tail keywords will affect the traffic to your website is important and can be extremely beneficial. Take some extra time to learn the ones which will best benefit you and continue to do this over the life of your website for continued success.