“Checking in” is a powerful capability that allows users with mobile platforms (i.e. a smartphone or a tablet PC) to sign into social networks and share information about their present locations and activities. For example, Gowalla and Foursquare allow users to find out which of their friends are nearby, what they’re up to, and the ability to share the same information with them. 

This power of information garnered through a customers location has endless benefits. Companies can get actual data on who their competitors are, detailed information about their target audiences eating, buying, and entertainment habits, and much more. If properly used by marketers, location based applications can provide vital information about their target audience that was never before possible. 

While location based services are still in the early adoption stages, it is expected that they may enter the mainstream this year, based on their growth in 2010.  Facebook’s inclusion in location marketing will help carry location based services into the mainstream. Currently, Facebook has a 58% reach on mobile devices, which is comparable to the 70% reach it has on home computers.  Twitter, the social network designed for messages constrained to a tiny character limit, is a very popular site for social sharing on mobile devices as well.

Last year, U.S. mobile social network users increased by 64% to 38.9 million. Currently about 15% of smartphone users access social media via their smartphone.  However, this number is expected to more than double over of the next 4 years.  Likewise, marketers aren’t currently allocating a large part of their advertising budgets to social mobile usage, but this number is expected skyrocket as marketers determine more effective ways to target mobile users.

According to a study by eMarketer, 8.6 million mobile social network users existed in 2008.  That number was multiplied by 5 times in 2010, and based on that rate of expansion, it could double again in the next five years.  The leading social networks responsible for this massive growth include Brightkite, Loopt, MyTown, foursquare, Gowalla, and Whrrl. 

Even though location based check-ins have been growing substantially, they still represent a fairly small proportion of total internet users.  According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 4% of online adults are making use of location-based services to share their activities.  7% of adult mobile users take part in location-sharing services.  It’s also worth noting that twice as many men as women use location-sharing, and 18-29 year olds share location twice as much as all other age groups of adults.

Nonetheless, you can see that this represents a growing trend, so much so that one third of U.S. companies surveyed by Forrester Research this year said that they were experimenting with location-based advertising.  27% plan to test their strategies within the next year. 

Spencer Belkofer is a blogger, researcher, and business owner. He recently started an Alabama SEO company, Lumin. In addition to online marketing services, Lumin also offers premium web design for companies looking for a conversion based web presence.

On the 6th May Google posted the latest information on their recent Panda algorithm changes that have caused so many problems and so much confusion out there in SEO land. The piece, entitled ‘Providing More Guidance on Building High-Quality Sites’ was posted on the Google Webmaster Central blog and is a useful source of information for getting to grips with the latest changes and how they have affected rankings in the last few months since February 24th.

Ever since they updated their system with the new algorithm Google has attempted to answer some of the (occasionally angry) questions about the new site requirements and has come up with questions such as ‘would you accept medical advice for this site?’ or ‘would you feel comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?’ However, unsurprisingly, such Zen like answers were not enough for many site owners who feel they have unfairly slipped down the rankings and consequently Google have expanded their list of questions that a site should ask itself about its content, to the following:

Does the information in the article in front of you seem trustworthy?

Has the article been written by an expert in the subject matter or at the very least an enthusiast who knows what they are talking about, or is the information a little light on the ground?

Is the site itself made up of 100% original content or does it contain redundant, overlapping and duplicate content?

Would you be happy giving the site your credit card details?

Are there factual, stylistic or spelling errors?

Does the site’s content seem to be inspired and written by genuine readers of the site or does the site appear to generate content that is driven by search engine rankings?

Does the page in front of you offer substantial value and interest when placed in comparison with other pages that come up in the search results?

How much time have they spent on quality control?

Does the article present both sides of the argument?

Is the site an authority on the subject matter it deals with?

Has the content been outsourced or mass-produced so that it appears not much care and attention has gone into the selection of the articles?

Would you trust the site for a health related question?

Would you classify the site as an authoritative source when you hear its name mentioned?

Is the site or the article you are reading the sort of thing you would consider bookmarking and / or sharing with a friend or recommending through social networking?

Does the site or article have too much advertising that distracts you from the content?

Would the article be good enough to fit into a magazine, a book or an encyclopedia?

Are the articles too short, insubstantial or generally lacking in useful and specific information?

Do the pages of the site seem to be produced with more care and attention or less care and attention than you would expect?

Would users be likely to complain about the articles and content that is offered up by this site?

As usual, the single most important lesson to learn from this latest post is that when it comes to search engine optimisation and advancing your site, quality wins out every time.

Alex is a journalist and copywriter. He likes to blog about cricket and jazz but these days seems to be mostly writing about search engine optimisation.

While most languages evolve, none has done so to the degree that PHP has. PHP, formerly known as Personal Home Page, started as a series of bindings to C functions and, in version 3, changed to something more akin to its current version known as PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. Some of this evolution will become somewhat painfully obvious as you become more familiar with the language. Despite this, if you are learning PHP as your first server side language, you have made a good choice.

If you have a PHP development environment already, skip the remainder of this paragraph. Otherwise, I recommend EasyPHP. EasyPHP is a package for Windows which provides, Apache, MySQL, and PHP – everything needed to starting building web applications. The installer can be downloaded here. I would recommend simply choosing all the defaults.

Most language introductions start with a `Hello World!’ example. In deference to those who came before us, we’ll do the same. This is “Hello World” in PHP:

<?php
print(“Hello World!\n”);
?>

Lets take the entire example and create a file called `hello.php’ in the our web directory. For those of you who installed EasyPHP and accepted the defaults, this is `C:\Program Files\EasyPHP 2.0b1\www‘.

If you are using Windows, you don’t have a good built-in editor. I recommend downloading and installing EditPad Lite. I have used EditPad Pro for quite some time and love it. The file in your editor should look like this:

After you have created hello.php file, in your browser, go to `http://localhost/hello.php‘ where you should see something like this:

Congratulations! Let’s start learning PHP. `<?php’ is known as an `open’ tag which tells PHP to start interpreting everything thereafter as PHP instructions. Another such tag exists, `<?’ when you have PHP’s short_tags configuration option on. It is recommended you refrain from using short tags.

The next statement is `print(“Hello World!\n”);’. print is a PHP function which given an input, display’s said input on the screen. The last statement is `?>’ which simply tells PHP to stop processing.

If everything is working, you are done! You have successfully created your first PHP Web Application. If your having trouble running the example, I have below a list of common problems and solutions:

Error: `Page not found’, `Page Load Error’ or `cannot display the webpage’:

Either the address you typed in the browser is not correct or your web server is not started. If you are using EasyPHP right click on the black E in your system tray and click either start or restart. If you do not have a black E, go to Start -> Programs -> EasyPHP -> EasyPHP.

Error: `PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected $end in /home/noland/hello-world.php on line 4′:

The end quote is missing from `”Hello World!\n”‘.

Error: `PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in /home/noland/hello-world.php on line 2′:

The start quote is missing from `”Hello World!\n”‘.

Error: `PHP Notice: Use of undefined constant php – assumed ‘php’ in /home/noland/hello-world.php on line 3′:

Your end tag should be `?>’ not `php?>’.

Error: `PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘?’ in /home/noland/hello-world.php on line 3′:

There is a space in your end tag. Use `?>’ not `? >`.

Error: `PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function prnt() in /home/noland/hello-world.php on line 2′:

You missed spelled the print function.

If you have gotten this far, the toughest leg of your PHP journey is over. If you’ve have trouble, don’t fear, there is a large volume of knowledge out there and plenty more PHP tutorials to help. Regardless, there is much more to learn! Please stay tuned for more web development tutorials.

Requirements:

1. Basic HTML Knowledge
2. Basic Programming Logic Knowledge

I – Running Examples

In order to run any of the examples illustrated in this tutorial, please proceed as follows:

1. Copy the code and paste it in your favorite text editor – Notepad will do the job!

1. Save the file as pagename.html, you can replace pagename by anything you want.

1. Double click on the file you just saved.

1. It’ll be displayed in your default web browser.

II – The Power of JavaScript

HTML (Hypertext Mark Up Language) is the language of the web by excellence.
To put it simple, HTML allows you to display data and format the way it looks (with the help of CSS).
Check the example that follows:

Example 1

In this example, whatever you add to the HTML code and no matter how many time you refresh the page, you will not be able to change the sentence Michael is a Computer Wizard!.
What if I wanted to display Mr. X is a Computer Wizard! if Mr. X visits the page?
Just by using HTML, this will not be possible.
This illustrates the limits of using simple HTML: data is static, which means it doesn’t change from one situation to another.

To solve this problem, Netscape created JavaScript, a scripting language for the web.
Let us try the HTML code with some JavaScript this time:

Example 2

In this example, the user will enter his name in a prompt box and the message will be displayed.
If Bob enters his name, the message Bob is a Computer Wizard! will be displayed.
You don’t believe me, do you? Try it yourself; the best way to learn is by trial and error…

III – Understanding JavaScript

Before you understand properly how we were able to do that, you must understand some principle of JavaScript.
Contrarily to other programming languages (such as C, C++ or Java) which are mostly used for standalone application, JavaScript is a web-only scripting language (a scripting language is a less complicated programming language).

JavaScript is also:

1. Interpreted
   No code compilation is required.
   The JavaScript code is simply interpreted and executed when the page is opened.
   We just typed the code in a HTML file, double clicked on the file, and the browser did the rest for us.
2. Executed on the client-side
   The code is executed in the user’s browsers when he opens the page.
   You can view the code from your browser; this operation differs from a browser to another.

   

   Actually, the HTML and JavaScript code is visible to any user who opens the page.

3. NOT the same as Java
   The two programming languages do not share the same creator or the same programming concepts.
   They might look similar in some cases, but their programming dialects actually differ.

IV – JavaScript Essentials

In what follows, we will consider Example 2 as a reference, more particularly this piece of code:

1. The <script> tag

   Except the content within the script starting (line 6) and ending (line 11) tags, the code is simple HTML which you are probably very familiar with.
   Any JavaScript code written within our HTML must be preceeded by <script type=”text/javascript” and succeeded by </script>.

2. Declaring a variable

   In JavaScript, a variable is an element that stores data. Data can be anything: an integer (eg. 14), a decimal number (eg. 0.4), a character (eg. ‘J’), a string (eg. ‘I hate brocolli’), or any other data type.
   To declare a variable we use the following format: var <variable_name>;
   The <variable_name> must start by either a letter or an underscore (‘_’) and can only contain letters, numbers or the underscore character.

   In our example, we declared two variables:
   var name on line 7
   name is used to store the name of the person (eg. ‘Michael’)
   var message on line 9
   message is used to store the message to output (eg. ‘Michael is a Computer Wizard!’)

3. The Prompt Box

   JavaScript has three different built-in popup boxes: the alert box, the confirm box and the prompt box.
   A prompt box displays a message, an ‘OK’ button, a ‘Cancel’ button and prompts the user to input data.
   It is called in this format: prompt(<display_message>, <default_data>);
   <display_data> is the message to display to the user.
   <default_data> is the default value entered by the user.
   The prompt function returns the value entered by the user once he clicks the ‘OK’ button.
   If he clicks the ‘Cancel’ button instead, null is returned.

   In our example, we used a prompt box on line 8: prompt(“What’s your name?”, “Your Name”);
   “What’s your name?” is the <display_data>
   “Your Name” is the <default_data>
   You notice, in the example, ‘Your Name’ is entered in the prompt box when the page first loads.

   Assuming the user enters ‘Bob’ and clicks the ‘OK’ button, the variable name will have the value ‘Bob’ after line 8.
   In this case the message ‘Bob is a Wizard!’ will be output.
   Assuming the user clicks the ‘Cancel’ button, the variable name will have the value null after line 8.
   In this case the message ‘null is a Wizard!’ will be output. Try it yourself…

4. Strings

   In programming languages, a string is any sequence of characters (eg. ‘Duh!’, ‘Chi huaha’). A string can also be empty (eg. ”).
   In JavaScript there is no specific data type called string.
   There is only one data type called var, a variable (which we discussed earlier).
   In a variable, we differentiate a string from other data types by using single quotations or double quotations on both side of the value.
   var bob1 = “Bob rules”; Valid string assignment.
   var bob2 = ‘Bob rules’; Valid string assignment.
   var bob3 = ‘Bob rules”; Invalid string assignment: a single quotation on one side and a double quotation on the other.

   Strings can also be concatenated together: that is two or more strings can be attached together to form a new string.
   To achieve this, we use the ‘+’ operator. The operator is also used with other data types; what you need to know for the moment is that when used with strings, the ‘+’ operator concatenates.
   var bob4 = bob1 + bob2; Valid string assignment. bob4 will have the value “Bob rulesBob rules”.
   var bob5 = bob1 + ” i tell you, ” + bob1; Valid string assignment. bob5 will have the value “Bob rules i tell you, Bob rules”.
   var bob6 = bob1 + ” but I am” + ” da King!”; Valid string assignemnt. bob6 will have the value “Bob rules but I am da King!.
   var bob1 = bob1 + “: this is not true!”; Not valid string assignment: bob1 is already declared.
   bob1 = bob1 + “: this is not true!”; Valid string assignment. bob1 will have the value “Bob rules: this is not true!”.

   Now that you became familiar with variables and particularly strings, examine these lines of code once again:

   7 8 9

   var name; name = prompt(“What’s your name?”, “Your Name”); var message = name + ” is a Computer Wizard!”;

   On line 8, name is assignned the data entered by the user.
   On line 9, message is assigned the data entered by the user (eg. Bill), concatenated with the string ‘ is a Computer Wizard!’ producing a new string (eg. ‘Bill is a Computer Wizard!’).

V – From JavaScript to HTML

In order to output, from JavaScript, data to the HTML code, we use the function document.write.
The function is called in this format: document.write(<output_data>);
<output_data> is the data to output to HTML.

In Example 2, we used document.write(message); on line 10.
This outputs the value of message to HTML.

Let us consider some new examples in order to understand more the document.write function.

Example 3

“Hello There” will appear on our HTML page.
We can actually rewrite this page in simple HTML, which will produce the exact same result. The code is as follows:

Example 3 Bis

Now, how about this example:

Example 4

The output of the page will be: 1984 in bold, then a line break, then by George Orwell in italic.
You can span several lines when dealing with a string (such as on line 9-10) by using the ‘+’ operator then continuing on the next line.
The ‘\n’ (on line 10) is used to create a new line in the output process of the HTML code. That is, a line break will exist after the <br /> tag.
The equivalent simple HTML version of Example 4 is as follows:

Example 4 Bis

You now observe how powerful the document.write function is.
You can output to HTML anything even HTML tags or even JavaScript code (within <script> and </script> tags) to be executed.

Still, there’s much more to JavaScript than just printing HTML. Maybe some other time…

Netfirms’ web hosting service includes 3 types of plans, each serving the needs of large corporate firms, medium and small sized businesses and individual users. Netfirms web hosting has set industry benchmarks by offering some of the best web hosting products to its customers. There are advanced features like multiple domain names, high storage, bandwidth and data transfer rates and capacity, fully integrated web based file manager that allows instant remote website editing. The three Netfirms web hosting plans are:

• Netfirms Advantage is the best value and highest selling Netfirms web hosting product. Like all the Netfirms web hosting products it also promises great web hosting features and advantages to the clients. With 2000 MB disk space, 100 GB month data transfer, 100 email accounts, 10 mySQL databases and a 24/7 expert technical support, this offer is surely not to leave. Plus, you get 2 domain names absolutely free of cost. Add to it advantage of feature rich e-commerce pro shopping cart along with $25 worth of Google AdWords credit it surely comes in cheap at just $9.95 a month.
• Netfirms Business is an ideal web hosting product for large corporate firms. It provides 5 domain names for lifetime, 3 GB disk space, 150 GB monthly data transfer, 200 email accounts, 20 MySQL databases, e-commerce pro shopping cart, and $35 worth of Google AdWords Credit.
• Netfirms Plus is designed especially for individuals who want to get their website hosted for $4.95 a month and also get 500 MB disk space, 10 GB data transfer, 10 email accounts, Netfirms picture pro photo gallery, FrontPage Exts. & PHP Scripting and 24/7 expert technical support.

For the novice web publishers who want to test waters for web hosting, Netfirms offers a basic free web hosting plan that can be availed along with domain name registration. This basic plan offers free web design software, 25 MB disk space, E-mail and 24/7 FTP access. However, to keep this plan free, all sites are sponsored by banner advertisements. The one possible disadvantage of Netfirms free web hosting and domain names registration is that your web pages might get too cluttered with sponsored ads and banners. You must optimize your web page space so that all these ads are accommodated without choking the page flow.

Getting a domain name registered for as low as $4.95 a year is a great way to build your brand power. And to build it with Netfirms web hosting is certainly a serious option keeping in mind the added perks of the package. These added perks include 24/7 technical supports, personalized web based email account, and web based domain manager. Netfirms backs their business class products with a money back guarantee.

Visit Netfirms Web Hosting

The major search engines are not looking at individual websites and ranking them, they are ranking pages from every website in the world. This means that if your website contains more than one page you should optimise for the specific content that is found on each page.

Optimising each webpage is overlooked by so many websites within Ireland and can be the difference between competing for a highly competitive keyword phrase such as “Irish Hotels” and competing for a much less competitive keyword phrase such as “Hotels in County Galway”. After that they can check out the rest of your website that is all about “Irish Hotels”.

2. Pick appropriate keyword phrases

This is the single most important thing to do when it comes to optimising your website for search engines. The keywords that your potential customers type into Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask Jeeves are the keywords that your site should be using within the specific areas of your webpage (see below; Optimizing your Page Titles and Optimizing your Content). There are a number of useful keyword research tools available on the web. The most recommended and user-friendly are Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery. Both offer trial versions.

3. Optimizing your Page Titles

All of the major search engines have 100’s of different algorithms that compute where your webpage should be listed for different keyword searches. Putting your keywords within the Title description (the blue bar you will see at the top of your screen) of your pages is one of the most important SEO techniques and will help your website climb through the rankings and allow your visitors to remember exactly what your page is all about when they save it to their “favourites”.

4. Optimizing your Page Content

It is sometimes very difficult to write content for your website. Not only do you need put the information that you want the visitor to see in front of them in an easy-to-read style, you also have to keep in mind the keywords or keyphrases that your page is targeting so that you can rank better within search engines.

One of the best pieces of advice that I have come across is to write for your visitors and include the keywords and keyphrases as much as makes sense. Read what you written out loud to yourself and a few others. If it sounds stupid… lather, rinse, and repeat.

5. Create an inbound linking strategy

Submitting your site to online directories is a very beneficial way to drive targeted traffic to your website. People will find your listing in a directory and click on the link to go directly to your site.

This not only brings visitors to your website, but it also creates links for search engine “spiders” or “robots” to find your website and index your pages within their results. If your site doesn’t have a link pointing to it on the World Wide Web the search engines will never find it and you will never see any traffic from Google or the other big ones.

6. Descriptively labeling your links and images (aka the anchor text)

This technique is both common sense and good practice. Telling your visitors what the link that they are going to click on allows them to know exactly what they are going to be directed to. Saying “click here” is not enough to help them understand what they’re going to find once they click through. Be as descriptive as possible with every text and graphical link on your site. The cool thing about writing your anchor text and alt attributes to be descriptive is that you can almost always describe the page you’re pointing to by using its main keyword phrase which is another one of those many factors search engines that into account when it comes to ranking your web pages.

7. Make sure your site is spider-friendly

Your website may look fantastic. You and your web designer may be talented graphic designers that can make Flash and Javascript dazzle your visitors with a show that would put RiverDance to shame. However, if your website contains Flash and Javascript it’s important to know that search engine spiders can’t read this code (or appreciate the effort you put into the design). The way around this is to provide navigation alternatives to allow the spiders crawl deep within your website and index the web pages within their results.

8. Create Fresh Content

When you are optimizing your website properly you will see a trend. If you are doing something that benefits your websites visitors then the search engines will reward you for it.

Search engines do tend to like websites that create fresh content regardless of the format. If they know any given site is adding new articles on a frequent basis, they will come around often to index it.

Blogs and forums are effective and easy ways of adding new information to your site on a regular basis.

However, if your only purpose of setting up a blog or a forum is for better search engine rankings then there really is no point in doing it. Only add a forum if it contributes something beneficial to your website and if you have the traffic to make it interactive enough for visitors to return to it. And, only add a blog if you have something of interest to say on a regular basis.

9. Do not think that you can trick Search Engines

As noted before, “If you are doing something that benefits your websites visitors then the search engines will reward you for it”.

If you try to trick the search engines by hiding keyword phrases in your pages by making the text colour the same as the background colour, hiding keyword phrases in tiny font, joining link farms, or any other sneaky practice your sites will be removed from the search engines and it will take you a long time to get back in (and you will also have to spend more time cleaning up your website before they will accept you).

10. Offer something unique

If your website offers something that is unique and interesting to your target market and it is properly optimized (by applying all of the techniques that are listed above) you will not only rank well within the major search engines, you will also get the added benefit of people linking to your website in forums, blogs, and through other websites which will send your site more visitors and create more inbound links which will help it rank higher.

About the author Barry Fenning is the owner of betteririshwebsites.com (site no longer live), a website that provides articles for people that want to learn how to conduct effective and professional SEO campaigns without having to outsource. Please contact the author for permission to reproduce this article.

Then came the inevitable. If the ranking criteria could be manipulated, then you can bet it would be. Link spam became a plague first on guestbooks, then forums and finally blogs. Also of course, there were a great number of link farm schemes and huge link networks. Google reacted well it has to be said, and eventually discounted a large majority of the guestbook link spam, some forum and a lot of the linkfarm and organised link network shenanigans. Also my research has shown that Google now counts multiple links from a single domain as just one link when it comes to PageRank and for the ranking algorithm. Hence a sitewide link is no better than a single link on a homepage.

Therefore it is not the number of inbound links that are important, but the number of different domains that link to you.

It is very important to remember that. Especially if you are using Google for your backward link checking. I am fairly confident I can pronounce

“Link Popularity” is dead, long live “Domain Popularity”!

The Google backward links feature is far from ideal nowadays for link research. Webmasters who use the backward link feature on Google should drop it immediately if they are serious about getting the real picture on inbound links.

If you must use Google for your backward link checking, be sure to discount all links from your own domain and just count one link from those domains linking to you. You can do that, or you can be savvy and go elsewhere for your linkage research, such as Yahoo!.

Fortunately, Yahoo! search have far more options and features when it comes to checking backward links. It also however has an extra search option called linkdomain. But lets look at what you can do with Yahoo!s link: command.

The simplest form is a basic link:http://www.yourdomain.de/ Or even link:http://www.ihredomain.de/sub_page.html (note: you need the ‘http://’ for this feature to work).

Here you get the total number of links going to the particular page specified after the link: command. It is not filtered in anyway and is far more comprehensive and accurate than the Google backward links option. You can however make it even more relevant in that you remove your own internal links (NOT an option on Googles link: feature). To do this you simply add the ­site: option.

For example in Yahoo! try the following:

link:http://www.yourdomain.com ­site:www.yourdomain.com

or

link:http://www.yourdomain.com/sub-page.html ­site:www.yourdomain.com

Here you get all those pages that are linking to your specified page from an external domain. Far more important than internal linkage numbers.

Of course you can use this to analyse your competitors links quite effectively, in fact I should imagine it will be used more on competitors sites than your own. I would recommend you do check your own however and follow a few of the results links to see what anchor text / alt attribute text is being used and importantly if it is ideal.

There is as mentioned another option at Yahoo! called linkdomain: This option for me is the most powerful of all link research type options on any search engine. What this does is tell you what domains are linking to ANY of our pages (or your competitors).

Eg. linkdomain:www.yourdomain.com (note: there is no http:// in this search option)

Now we have a list of all external domains that link to your site. You also however have your own occasionally so it is time to use the exclude filter again… linkdomain:www.yourdomain.com ­site:www.yourdomain.com

You can add multiple exclusion filters so for example if a competitor has a sitewide link on a huge website, rather than clicking though hundreds of pages, exclude the domain but don’t forget to count it once (don’t forget it is the number of domains not the number of links that count!)

Eg. linkdomain:www.yourdomain.com ­site:www.yourdomain.com ­site:www.sitewidelink.com

The above will show just those domains that link to you without showing your own site, or the site which has a large amount of links to you (sitewidelink.com).

This is very powerful. It means you can quickly check those domains that link to your own (to check link text) or those of your competitors (find potential link partners for your own site). It is far more accurate than the Google backward link feature and makes researching for a link campaign that much easier.

Also, do not get all uptight about accepting only links from high pagerank sites. Diversity is more important now as for a start if all links to your site are PageRank 5 and above this is not natural linkage and might well raise a flag at Google (I know if I was Google I’d check for this). More links from different domains without being fussy about PageRank will help a great deal. If you are going to buy links. Take the cheaper one link option than a sitewide link. In my experience it works just as well.

I hope you all enjoy a successful domain popularity campaign!

Alan Webb Editor & CEO, ABAKUS Internet Marketing Copyright 2004 (c) ABAKUS Internet Marketing

Company newsletters can be an amazingly successful marketing technique. Whether you want to up-sell or cross-sell, establish your brand or establish your authority, or simply reach a wider market, a newsletter can do the job for you. You just have to make sure you write it right.

Television, radio, and print advertising are often too expensive for many businesses to justify – especially small businesses. Fortunately, there is an alternative. Today’s internet and email technologies make company newsletters a very inexpensive, yet surprisingly effective, form of advertising. When it comes to newsletters, big companies and small are finally competing on a level playing field.

So what is an email newsletter?
An emailed newsletter serves much the same purpose as a traditional company newsletter. Think of it as a short newspaper – but instead of relating to a town, city or country, it relates to your business. You can include articles on new products or services, awards, recent success stories and case studies, promotions, specials, share price rises, company events, research. And if it’s a quiet month, you can simply write articles that might help your customers out.

8 Steps to Success
Follow 8 simple rules of thumb, and you’ll soon be writing great newsletters and reaping the rewards.

1. Keep It New! Your readers won’t waste time reading something they already know, so make it ‘news they can use’. Keep it personal: Always use your reader’s name. Make sure when someone signs up, you get their name, then use it in the subject line, in the greeting, and anywhere else you can.
2. Know your reader: Find out what your reader is interested in. Do some pro-active research, invite response, or use an email marketing solution such as Ezemail** which will track the links your readers click on and keep a history of their activity.
3. Let them know you: Let your personality shine through. Readers are far more likely to become loyal if they feel they know you. Always include a bit of you in the newsletter, whether it’s humour, personal details, personal anecdotes, or personal views.
4. Subject is Headline: The subject line of an email newsletter is like a front-page headline in a newspaper. You need to draw the reader in, so make it engaging and relevant (maybe promise a benefit) but no more than 25 characters so your reader can see it all before opening the email.
5. Make it ‘scannable’: Most people don’t read online – they scan. Make sure you use easy-to-read bullet points and sub-headings. Link to your website and post extra details there.
6. Easy unsubscribe: Make your unsubscribe easy to find. If it’s obvious, they’ll feel safe and can then appreciate the content. To many people, the ease of unsubscribing is an indicator of the integrity of your company.
7. Forward to a friend: Include a link to encourage readers to forward the newsletter on to their friends and colleagues. Find an email marketing solution which allows you to do this and sit back and watch your database grow!
8. Use White space!: If your page is too busy, you’ll lose your reader. Give them a chance to absorb valuable information by dedicating about 30% of your screen real estate to white space.

* Glenn Murray heads copywriting agency Divine Write. He can be contacted on (02)43346222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit www.divinewrite.com for further details.

** Ezemail enables you to create, manage, deliver and track your email marketing and sales communication. Email solutions@ezemail.com.au or visit www.ezemail.com.au.

Traits: Owner of a new university-supplied computer account with httpd access. Complete lack of originality. Multiple references to beer/Disney movies. Several photos of student with college buddies (high school, if freshman student).
The Good News: They don’t know how to get their page linked to the outside world, so only they and their friends download their 16 million color pictures from the last party.
The Bad News: They, their friends and their 16 million color pictures might be on your server.

Mr./Ms. “Enhanced For Netscape” (Equally Bad: Mr./Ms. “Optimized for Internet Explorer”)

Traits: The second thing you see on his/her page is a Netscape logo and a link to an ftp site where you can download Netscape <BLINK>NOW!</BLINK>. The first thing you see is about 80 different <TITLE>s scrolling back and forth across your screen.
The Good News: You won’t have to look at their pages for long, because there won’t be much there to see.
The Bad News: Half of the rest of the people who look at these pages are going to think “Hey, that’s cool!” and copy the source.

The Old-Timer

Traits: Pages compatible with HTML 1.0, no graphics and very few attribute tags. Normal-text-size message at top says “This page not enhanced for Netscape or Internet Explorer. Cope, whipper-snapper.”
The Good News: He’s likely there because he has something of importance to say.
The Bad News: Whatever it is will likely be boring or far too technical for you.

The 5-Year-Old

Traits: Pictures of their parents, the family pet, etc. More data about the daily life of a kindergartener than you thought possible. Cute “kiddy-talk” dialect to the text. <ADDRESS> contains the note “such-and-such’s mother helped her build this page.”
The Good News: The first few of these you see give you a warm, fuzzy feeling.
The Bad News: The last few dozen of these you see all look the same.

The Computer Science Major

Traits: Links to the Linux FAQ, the Geek Code, Star Wars theme music and DOOM .wad files. Cautious use of Netscape enhancements. Picture of Darth Vader instead of personal pictures. HTML 3.0 (Beta) compliant seal-of-approval at bottom of her page.
The Good News: If you’re a geek, you’ll find what you’re looking for here. Even if you’re not, you’ll like the page design.
The Bad News: Complete lack of socially redeeming qualities. Unfortunate tendency to upload specs of their home PC.

The Businessman

Traits: Pages without fancy backgrounds and with only one nice, clean, image map. Unfortunately, there are no text-links for those using Lynx.
The Good News: You won’t go blind staring at his pages.
The Bad News: You might wish you had once you see the prices of the goods/services he’s offering.

The Newbie

Traits: Very little created text on their pages, it’s almost all links to other people’s pages. Missing right brackets in <A HREF>’s kill whole lines of information. Several image files are not able to be loaded.
The Good News: They’ll almost have to get better.
The Bad News: They just might not.

The Egotist

Traits: Large image of him/herself greets you when page is loading. 1/2 Meg .au file of him/her chatting with his/her dog. Access counts shown for every page. Several lengthy pages devoted to his/her compact disk/Magic: The Gathering card/beer can collection. More personal details than you’d ever want to know.
The Good News: There isn’t any.
The Bad News: Frequently friendly with Mr. “Enhanced for Netscape.”

The Maniac

Traits: Last counted 1267 .html files in his public_html directory and 100+ CGI scripts in his cgi-bin directory. Is known as a “Close Personal Friend of Bob (Allison).” Thinks the people at Yahoo! “don’t keep up with the Web fast enough.” Will be the first on his block to have an Ethernet cable hardwired into his brain.
The Good News: You could go through all his pages and never find an error.
The Bad News: You’ll never make it through all his pages.

–Author Unknown

Choosing a font is something that most of us give little thought to. After all, most fonts are more or less the same, right? Let’s face it, most writing is presented in a stock-standard font like Times New Roman or Arial.

Why is the choice of font important?
There are many differences between fonts: some obvious, some subtle. As well as setting the mood of what we write, these differences can have significant effects on legibility. In this article, we’ll classify fonts in several different ways and compare the effects that these have on legibility. Let’s start by comparing serif and sans-serif fonts.

Serif versus sans-serif fonts
Start up a word processor and type a letter “h”. Change it to a large size (say 72 points) and use Times New Roman as your font.Notice the three small cross strokes at the ends of the strokes. These are called serif. Fonts that provide these are said to be serif fonts. Fonts that do not are sans-serif fonts. (“Sans” is the French word for without.)

Now change the font to Arial, Helvetica or Verdana. These are all sans-serif fonts. Notice that the three small cross strokes have disappeared.

Serif fonts, all things being equal, are easier to read.

This is because the serif makes the individual letters more distinctive and thus easier for our brains to recognize quickly. Without the serif, the brain has to spend longer identifying a letter because its shape is less distinct.
An important proviso must be made, however.

On the low resolution of a computer screen, very small serif text (say 10 points or less) might actually be harder to read than corresponding sans serif because the more complex shapes of serif characters cannot be accurately drawn in sizes this small.

Deciding whether to use a serif or sans serif font is still a personal choice, however, and no hard-and-fast rules apply. Even though serif fonts are usually easier to read, you might prefer a sans-serif font for a particular document if you feel that it sets an appropriate mood. Sans-serif fonts are often thought to look more modern.

A commonly followed convention, though, is to use a serif font for the body text of your document and a sans-serif font for the headings. My recommended fonts for general work are Georgia (a very lovely serif font) and Verdana, a very legible sans-serif. Verdana is probably already installed on your computer.

Fixed-width and variable-width fonts
In some fonts, every character is the same width; in others, the characters are of different widths. Not surprisingly, these fonts are termed fixed width and variable width respectively.

Start up you word processor. Type half a dozen lower-case “l”s and then on the next line type half a dozen lower-case “w”s. In most fonts the “w”s will be much wider. (Such fonts are variable width.)

Now select the two lines of characters and set the font to Courier or Courier New. Notice that both lines are now the same length. Courier is a fixed-width font.

It should be no surprise that variable-width fonts look more natural and are thus easier to read. Fixed-width fonts such as Courier have quite limited application:

* Computer programmers use fixed-width fonts in order to neatly align their code.

* The other main use of fixed-width fonts is to produce tables that need to be neatly tabulated into fixed-width columns.

Conclusion
As an exercise go through the fonts on your computer and find five variable-width, serif fonts that you like the look of. Choose among these for the body copy of your documents.

Now find five variable-width, sans-serif fonts. Use these for your headings, captions, headers and footers.
Armed with these simple ways of classifying fonts, you should now have an easy time of choosing suitable fonts for all occasions.

You’ll find over 200 tips like this in Tim North’s much applauded e-book BETTER WRITING SKILLS. It’s just $19.95 and comes with a 90-day, money-back guarantee. Download a sample chapter here: http://www.betterwritingskills.com