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How to Find Which Paid Directories are Worth Submitting To

In today’s times, finding a good premium directory is not as simple as it as it was just a few years back.  While SEO professionals have their own preferred list of good premium directories, the normal webmaster optimizing one website may find it hard to determine which paid directory is worth the review fee.  In this post are some helpful tips to help website owners decide where to spend their money.

Many people tend to believe that Pagerank is a trustworthy metric of a paid directory.  This can be a completely false assumption.  With the explosion of premium web directories have come a new type of business owner looking to make a buck from the link building needs of other webmasters.  There are thousands of premium directories operating under a dropped domain or domain name with Pagerank that has been bought in auction.  In addition to this, there are web directory operators that are spoofing Pagerank using an unsophisticated flaw that Google has yet to secure.  While Pagerank can be a good indicator of the health of a directory, once must look beyond this basic metric and do some research.

The most important factor in figuring out whether submitting to a premium web directory is worth the cost is the page cache which your listing will appear on.  If the page you are submitting to is not cached, then the near term usefulness of your listing may not be noticed.  So how do you find out whether or not a page is cached?  Using the site operator at Google, you simply type in “site:” without the quotes and enter the complete URL to the specific page where your listing will appear.  Make certain you remove the http:// part in the URL otherwise your results will not be accurate.

Now that you know your listing will be on a page that is cached and frequently crawled by Google, you can dig a little deeper.  Copy a sentence from a listing on the same page that your listing will appear on and return to Google and place it within quotes and perform a search.  Does Google return listings that match this result other then the page you are likely to be listed on?  If so, the editors at this web directory most likely are approving anything that is submitted and paid for.  This is not good for the health of the web directory or for the SEO weight it will give your listing.

The age of a directory is useful as well.  For example,  web directory is over two years old.  This directory will produce more search engine optimization benefits then a directory started a year ago.  Web directories that were released under one year ago typically have not built up any trust with the search engines at all, unless they are very unique and provide very useful content.  In nearly all cases, young web directories do not have a lot to offer.  However, young directories that are likely to grow and age may allow submitters the opportunity to get a permanent listing for life at a greatly discounted rate.  With that being considered, do not underestimate young premium web directories simply because of their age.  As these premium directories grow, your lifetime listing will gain trust with the top search engines.

When it comes to premium web directory submissions, everyone has a budget.  If everyone had an unlimited budget, we all could submit to every paid directory that exists.  Since this is not true, it is important to perform some research first to be sure that your advertising dollars are spent in such a way that results are achieved.

7 Reasons To Put Your LinkedIn Profile In 1st Person And Not 3rd Person

 

Reason #1:

When you write your LinkedIn profile in 3rd person it reads like a boring resume and seems very technical. Or, it can sound like you are writing a biography which is not very personal or interesting. It does not give the reader a true idea of who you are as a business person, thought leader or individual.

Reason #2:

When you write your LinkedIn profile in 1st person it says to the reader that “I have character and confidence in my abilities. I’m willing to tell you in my own voice.” It tells the reader that you actually wrote your profile in your own words and took the time to personalize it.

Here is an example from one of my clients, Dan Janal, who took the time to pay attention to detail when writing his profile:

“Imagine being featured on the front page of USA TODAY — and then being able to double your speaking fees immediately just like PR LEADS client Patrick Snow of Creating Your Own Destiny. Imagine the website traffic and sales you can generate if only you can find a way to get more publicity so you can speak to millions for free!

Now, small business owners, solo PR firms, speakers, authors and entrepreneurs can get name-brand publicity tools and publicity coaching they can afford. I’m talking about the same top-tier publicity tools that major corporations use to get mega media placements – but you can get it at a fraction of their cost.

For example, my PRLEADS.com service puts you in touch with reporters who are writing articles and need to find expert sources like you! We’re talking journalists from big name publications and media outlets like The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and Redbook.” You can read Dan’s entire profile at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danjanal

Reason #3:

When you write your LinkedIn profile in 3rd person you create an automatic disconnect. It’s too distant and pompous. And, it automatically makes me think of the back cover bio of an author in a book.

Let me show you what I mean. Here is a real example of someone’s LinkedIn profile summary – the name has been changed to protect the guilty: “Chris Baton is an attorney who specializes in immigration law. A large percentage of his practice is focused on immigration trials and appeals. Chris was the former chairperson for the American Bar Association Solo and Small Firm Division, Immigration Law Committee. Throughout his career, he has served on many local, state, and federal government boards and commissions. He speaks professionally on a variety of immigration and political issues.”

Many of the profiles are done this way because the user has copied a biography from their website or another source where 3rd party format is more common. This shows me that you did not put any thought or time in to creating an effective LinkedIn profile. You need to show viewers that you care enough to connect with them on a personal level.

Reason #4:

LinkedIn is a virtual networking platform for business professionals who want to do more business. It is the first step in building a relationship with someone. You wouldn’t introduce yourself in the third person if you met someone at a networking event – would you? Then why would you introduce yourself on your profile in 3rd person when writing in first person gives you a more genuine and personal touch.

Reason #5:

Your profile should be more about the reader than you. It should provide as much value as possible to the reader and it should be used to create discussions and conversations about you, your company, your products and how you can benefit others. It should be focused on what will or can be provided to the reader should they engage with you. Your profile is a “marketing piece” not a resume. And, marketing pieces are in 1st person!

Reason #6:

It’s YOUR profile. You are not a reporter writing a story about somebody. Nor are you putting together a press release. You have to personalize your profile to enable a reader or prospect to relate to you. Writing in first person gives the other person more confidence and trust in you. You are telling your own story. You need to write your LinkedIn profile for the audience MOST LIKELY to read it. Remember, you write to be read.

Reason #7:

You want to sound like you are speaking directly to someone, face-to-face, and telling them a story about your background and how they can benefit from your expertise. By writing in first person you are able to show your true character as a person and business owner.

Remember when writing your LinkedIn profile to personalize it by writing in the 1st person. Show your audience that you are just like them. Now, do you still think you should be writing your LinkedIn profile summary and experience sections in 3rd person?

 

 

 

 

YouTube Marketing Can Promote Your Brand

 

It is no shock that YouTube could bring some nice quality traffic to any website when utilized properly. Some like to get in front of a shaky camera and talk, some like to launch viral marketing campaigns and some like to catch humorous footage at the office. The truth is that there is no right or wrong approach for the most part. Just getting some video footage online will help you in some sort of way.

Here are some ways you can tackle YouTube if you sell a product:

Product Videos: Regardless of what you sell you shouldn’t have a problem of putting together a short 30 second clip of your product and using a relatively inexpensive editing software to spruce it up a bit and posting the videos on YouTube with nice product titles and descriptions. This will get the product videos bouncing around which you can then use right on product pages.

Customer Videos: Whether you have a physical store or just a website try and see if you can get customers on video (with their permission of course). Put on fun little games inside the store for your customers to get involved with to win free stuff or have a contest on your website to entice customers to send you videos of themselves doing funny stuff with their products. Use these videos on YouTube and other websites like Twitter and Facebook to slowly build a following.

Office Videos: Video marketing is all about getting people to smile and show the video to their friends. Try thinking of some fun things the employees can do in the office to catch on tape and start to push them through YouTube and other social media channels. Customers love companies with personality.

Video marketing is all about thinking outside the box. There are many different videos out there that companies put out so don’t be scared to just shoot something and get it out there. Unless you are a FTSE Index brand most people will not throw their arms in the air if they don’t like your video, they will most likely just move on. Get your team together and start brainstorming some video ideas and see what you come up with. I think you might be pleasantly surprised with your results.

It is no shock that YouTube could bring some nice quality traffic to any website when utilized properly. Some like to get in front of a shaky camera and talk, some like to launch viral marketing campaigns and some like to catch humorous footage at the office. The truth is that there is no right or wrong approach for the most part. Just getting some video footage online will help you in some sort of way.

Here are some ways you can tackle YouTube if you sell a product:

Product Videos: Regardless of what you sell you shouldn’t have a problem of putting together a short 30 second clip of your product and using a relatively inexpensive editing software to spruce it up a bit and posting the videos on YouTube with nice product titles and descriptions. This will get the product videos bouncing around which you can then use right on product pages.

Customer Videos: Whether you have a physical store or just a website try and see if you can get customers on video (with their permission of course). Put on fun little games inside the store for your customers to get involved with to win free stuff or have a contest on your website to entice customers to send you videos of themselves doing funny stuff with their products. Use these videos on YouTube and other websites like Twitter and Facebook to slowly build a following.

Office Videos: Video marketing is all about getting people to smile and show the video to their friends. Try thinking of some fun things the employees can do in the office to catch on tape and start to push them through YouTube and other social media channels. Customers love companies with personality.

Video marketing is all about thinking outside the box. There are many different videos out there that companies put out so don’t be scared to just shoot something and get it out there. Unless you are a FTSE Index brand most people will not throw their arms in the air if they don’t like your video, they will most likely just move on. Get your team together and start brainstorming some video ideas and see what you come up with. I think you might be pleasantly surprised with your results.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Hi All,

We wish the upcoming year be filled with joy and prosperity, all your aims be achieved, you and your family be healthy and happy!

Somasoma wishes you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We look forward to working with you in 2012.

Wishing You

Soma

How to Automatically Resize an Image to Fit the Screen

This Quick Tip explains how to use an image as a website background and scale it proportionally to the stage size. It’s great for when you’re using a SWF that’s full-height and full-width inside a webpage.

http://somasoma.in/blog/BackgroundResize.swf

http://somasoma.in/blog/BackgroundResize.swf

Adjust the Color Properties of an Image Using ActionScript 3

http://somasoma.in/blog/AdjustColor.swf

The interface will be very simple; just an image in the stage that will be then modified by the Sliders Components in the Adjust Color Panel.

http://somasoma.in/blog/AdjustColor.swf

Use the Flash Project Panel‏ to Build a Dynamic AS3 Menu

The Project Panel in Flash to create a vertical animated AS3 menu. The whole process will allow you to easily customize all aspects of the menu using the parameterized constructors. Read on to learn more!

somasoma.in/blog/AnimatedMenu.swf

Online Video Editing Tools

According to statistics, online video is exploding.  YouTube serves approximately1 billion videos per day, Facebook users upload 20 million videos each month, 177 million U.S. Internet users watched video in June.  What is this trend telling you?  If you are selling anything online, you better start making, producing and publishing videos!

With that being said, you will need some kind of editing tools after your video is shot.  Windows 7 no longer comes with native video editing capability.

Editing suites such a Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere can be cost prohibitive if your just starting out.
No worries.  With new online video editing tools, editing your own video is becoming much easier and cheaper.  All you need is your footage, a web browser, a broadband connection plus some time and imagination.
Here are some free online video editing tools you can start using today.

1) Jaycut – Edit your own videos on JayCut’s community.

2) Movie Masher – A set of Adobe Flash applets that provide front-end tools for common video editing tasks.

3) Kaltura – Open source online video platform

4) YouTube Remixer- YouTube now offers basic editing features.

These tools can get you started down the right track when you are looking at video post production work.   If you need more powerful, professional grade tools, you will need to go with Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro (Mac).

Video and Video Optimization Should be Part of Your SEO Strategy

Video and video optimization are an excellent way to increase the visibility of a brand to customers and potential customers so that they become aware of the products, services, or content that a site has to offer.

The potential of video and video optimization is growing every day. A study conducted by Nielsen found that in January of 2011, users spent 45 percent more time viewing videos online than during January of 2010. This presents a fantastic opportunity for all markets.  People are not only searching for video, it now appears organically (naturally) in Google search results for many queries.

In addition to the organic search results, it is now possible for users to search specifically for video content. Of course, Google is not the only one who is doing this. Bing and Yahoo have implemented video search well.

Currently, YouTube is the most popular way for people to discover video on the web. Estimates suggest that there are between three and four billion searches of YouTube every month. This means more people search YouTube than Bing.  Proper video marketing can put you ahead of your competition so the time to act is now.

Another way to take advantage of video marketing is through the use of social media. Twitter and Facebook give you the opportunity to push content to all of your subscribers or “Friends”.  They in turn can share content with their friends.  Since the video is being recommended by a friend, users are often more willing to pay attention to it.
More on the how this all ties in with Social Media later.

Onsite and Offsite Optimization
In order for users to find the video easily, you will need to implement proper video optimization which includes onsite and offsite techniques.  Onsite being the video section of your website and offsite being YouTube, a Social Media site or where ever else your video resides.

When optimizing both onsite and offsite elements, some important factors include:

1)  Keyword rich file name and sub-directories ( if applicable)

2)  Video name and title should be keyword phrase targeted

3)  Page content that describes what the video is about.  Again, keyword phrase rich copy.

4)  Keyword phrases and descriptions in meta tags

5)  Be sure to include your video in your sitemap and XML sitemap

Google is working on an algorithm that will actually interpret your videos.  Until then,  Google can’t analyze the content of a video without the proper optimization.

Establishing a YouTube Channel

YouTube is another important social media channel so establishing your own business YouTube site  is essential.  Like any other social media site, you will need to create an account and enter your business description, URL and keyword phrases that will help Google Search, YouTube search, subscribers and customers find you.

Flash slideshow

This Flashy blocks theme can be used in any of our applications as a foreground or background movie clip. For example create a Flash slideshow and add the blocks as a foreground movie clip.

Sample of this effect made with the somasoma.in Flash slideshow