Obama Faces Political Minefield Over Deficit

President Obama is likely to outline a plan in his State of the Union address for fiscal responsibility. But don't look for immediate action to cut the deficit. Recent polls show that voters who are concerned about the deficit are also alarmed about unemployment.

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Survey Results: Impact of Blogging on Search Engine Optimization

Recently I posted a series of informal poll questions about blog SEO on Twitter to gain insights and feedback which were leveraged to construct a more in-depth survey.  I used the longer survey to collect information on how companies are using blogs for search engine optimization purposes and what kind of impact those efforts have. Essentially, I wanted to get opinions on and answers to: “Are blogs still important for SEO and why?”.

The topic of business blogging and search engine optimization as distinct and synergistic tactics have been explored here many times. A large number of companies are familiar with the process of starting a blog, but few have experienced the challenges of maintaining and growing a blog for more than a year.

Understanding long term benefits is key to sustainable business blogging.

Part of the goal was to tap into a variety of experience levels with this survey and capture insight into the SEO impact blogging.

Participants were solicited here, on social networks and vial email that blog. Here’s a simple breakdown of the 326 survey respondents:

• 28% Internal Corporate: Advertising, Marketing or PR
• 42% Agency: Advertising, PR, Search Marketing, Social Media, Marketing
• 30% Independent Consultant or Small Biz CEO

One of the biggest questions we were looking to get insight on was the degree to which marketers are using blogs as a SEO asset.

95% of survey respondents indicated that they do incorporate blogs as part of their search engine optimization efforts

While the majority of respondents  indicated SEO as a benefit to blogging, several comments indicated that there are resource issues:  ”We did but resources became an issue. Will be bringing it back in 2010.” And that the applicable use of blogging for SEO outcomes depends on the market:  ”Sometimes… depends on client and market and product/service”.

Blogs at the most basic level are straightforward or “easy” to start. But the real question is whether they deliver on the SEO promise so many blog marketers make. Our survey results show that 87.4% of respondents “successfully increased measurable SEO objectives as a direct result of blogging“. Savvy SEO practioners made comments like, “Absolutely. In fact, we make sure to create a small, quality cluster of blogs on different platforms and Class C IP’s to support their communications initiatives.”

Of the 12.6% that didn’t find measurable SEO results from blogging, comments like “starting to but since we don’t post comments from readers on our blog I think we stall any momentum that we are generating from our posts” and “Site owners are not able to follow through on keeping up with their blog.” provided insight as to possible reasons why.

How important are blogs as part of a SEO strategy? The majority of respondents (90%) cited blogging as important, significantly important or a primary SEO tactic. The remaining 10% rated blogs as somewhat important or irrelevant.

Many company marketers, public relations and communications professionals are not aware of what the SEO benefits of blogging are. We asked, “What SEO functions do blog(s) serve for you?”. While the responses were fairly evenly distributed, the most popular SEO benefit was that blogs provide an easy way to create new, optimized content. Content is the cornerstone for any search engine optimization or social media marketing effort, so it makes sense that content creation was so popular.

Overall, links were the most often cited SEO benefit from blogging: Attracting inbound links from other web sites or cross-linking from blog posts to corporate site content. Community building for content/links promotion and Increase crawl rate/frequency were also indicated as important SEO benefits from blogging. Additional social and SEO benefits from blogging mentioned include:

• Social Media word of mouth
• Show a human side to a business and another side to the more “static” web site
• Communicate back with customers
• Can surprisingly create evergreen #1 search rankings for odd phrases we might not have necessarily thought about in planning.
• We’ll serve ads through a network that allows blogs to publish our ads
• Traffic from twitter and the increased exposure that goes with that
• Establish authority in the marketplace
• Promoting products, services, sales, expertise … I come at it from the UX side – credibility, authenticity
• Blog is ideal for long tail search terms
• More long tail ranking
• Blogs dovetail well with social media efforts like twitter
• Focused silos around specific markets and functions key to the client.

With any new marketing effort, setting expectations for time to see results is crucial for allocating resources and budgeting. We asked, “In what time frame do you typically start to see an increase in measurable SEO performance indicators (links, ranking, traffic) as a result of blogging?” The most common answer was somewhat shorter than expected, 0-3 months.  54% of respondents start to see SEO benefits from blogging very quickly. This short time frame should be very encouraging to those hoping to use blog published content to gain better search engine visibility.

Since many of our respondents were professional search marketers with the ability to properly optimize a blog and promote content to attract links, time frames for results would be very different than someone who does not know how to implement blog SEO tactics.

94% of bloggers reported seeing measurable SEO benefits from blogging within 12 months

Measuring impact is important and certainly, the definitions of success from blogging will vary according to the purpose of the blog. We asked, “What are the most important measures of success when using blogs as part of a SEO effort?”. The responses to this question were fairly evenly divided with increasing company site traffic at the top closely followed by a desire to increase company leads/sales. Other important metrics included inbound links, referrals or leads directly from the blog, web site rankings and blog traffic.

Additional success measures from blogging included many benefits besides search engine optimization, which is very important in our opinion. Starting a blog purely for SEO reasons will make content sustainability difficult in the long run. A blogging strategy must meet meet other goals as well, especially those that involve engaging customers or interactions with readers. Other success measures from blogging include:

Getting a blog implemented in a company is not always an easy task. Resources can be slim as well as expertise and confidence in the ability to achieve a return on effort within a given period of time. We asked, “What have been the most common objections from internal or external clients to implement blogs (with or without SEO benefit)?” This question received the most comments of all in the survey.

67.2% cited resource issues as the most common objection to implementing a blog

Other reasons cited included issues with content sourcing (42%) or simply not seeing the benefit (35%). Regulated industry or legal issues got in the way for 19.3% and lack of measurement round up the answers with 12.9%. Many of the comments about obstacles to blogging centered around time, resources, measurement and a lack of awareness.

On the surface, implementing a blog is straightforward, once you gain approval. The trick is sustainability and reaching measurable goals. Staying on top of what strategies and tactics are successful blogging also takes time and therefore it’s important what resources marketers depend on. We asked, “How do you stay current with blog SEO best practices?”. The overwhelming most popular answer was Other SEO blogs. The good news about that answer is that we publish a list of over 500 SEO and Internet Marketing related blogs on the TopRank BIGLIST.

Other popular resources for staying current with blogging and SEO include: Social Networks & Groups, Conferences, Observations from Testing, Newsletters, Forums and books. Interestingly, Paid Subscription Communities ranked lowest which is a niche community.

92% of respondents feel blogging will continue to be an important content optimization and marketing tactic for the next 3+ years

Interestingly, 8.3% feel blogging will only be important for the rest of 2010.

What is your opinion on the longevity of blogging as an online communications and marketing tool? Do you think the death of blogs is imminent in 2010?  What blogging benefits have you experienced and how have you overcome objections to implementing a blog in your company?

We hope this survey and results have been helpful to you and plan on conducting many other surveys in 2010 to provide additional insights into digital marketing and PR topics. Clearly, there is interest and a need for companies to better understand the strategic and practical applications of business blogging. Specifically, there is benefit in understanding how search and social channels can be combined with core blog content publishing to reach business goals.  We hope to continue providing such insight here at Online Marketing Blog as well as the conferences and corporate training events we’re engaged to speak at.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
Survey Results: Impact of Blogging on Search Engine Optimization |
No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

FX360 – Forex News & Currency Trading Analysis

Tags:currency trading, economic outlook, forex, forex news, forex trading, FX360.

FX360.com is the new site of renowned currency analysts Kathy Lien and Boris Schlossberg. Get their daily insight on what moves the currency markets. Get the same quality forex news and analysis that makes them regulars on CNBC, Bloomberg and SKY TV. www.fx360.com ... FX360 "currency trading" forex "forex news" "forex trading" "economic outlook"

Personal Finance & Investing : About Different Ways of Investing Money

Tags:bonds, finance, funds, investing, IRA, money, mutual, Roth, stocks.

Different ways of investing money include shares, bonds and property, or in something more physical, like gold bars. Before investing money, try to figure out if the intent is to have money keep its value or increase its value, with advice from afutures and options floor trader in this free video on personal finance. Expert: Mark Griffith Bio: Mark Griffith has graduated in economics and philosophy at Clare College, Cambridge. He has been a futures and options floor trader at LIFFE (London ...

Lesson 04 | THV System Part 01 | Free Forex Trading Lessons

Tags:cobraforex, forex, free, lessons, thv, trading.

Introduction of the CobraForex THV system found at Forex Factory

5 Ways to Cover Your Online Tracks

You would be amazed to find out just how much personal information is collected every time you log on to your computer to use the Internet. Recently, I came across an article from Palaestra Training that talks about some ways that you can cover your online tracks. Below are five of the tips that they provide. To read the full article, click here.

5 Ways to Cover Your Tracks

1. Remove Your Most Recently Used (MRU) List: Yes, it may be difficult to believe, but information can be had from your most recently used list. In order to remove or clear this list, click here.
2. Make Your IP Address Private: Did you know that your IP address is recorded in things such as e-mail headers, discussion boards and mail servers? Your IP address is typically recorded whenever you visit a website and leave a comment and can also tell others what pages you’ve viewed and any transactions that you make (which is pretty scary considering the fact that we use our computers to conduct many personal transactions). That being said, you can actually install software that will hide your IP, such as MMIP or Anonymous IP.
3. Delete Your Cookies! Most people nowadays are at least somewhat familiar with what ‘cookies’ are. Essentially, cookies allow websites or marketing people to create a profile on the type of person that you are based on information that you’ve unknowingly provided them regarding your Internet surfing patterns- all because your movements on the Net are tracked. Deleting your cookies occasionally will help to resolve this problem.
4. Clearing the Cache: A cache is a place on your computer that stores temporary Internet files such as previously visited web pages, images, etc. It allows others to see where you’ve been. Clearing this periodically is always a good idea.
5. Turn off AutoComplete: It may have seemed like a good idea at the time. However, other people can easily see where you’ve been if you’ve got the AutoComplete turned on. Why make it easier for them? Switch it off!

Search Engines Bringing Back Variables In URLs – At Your Expense

Did you realize that search engines have gone full circle on URLs in variables? It used to be considered something to avoid, now search engines are saying variables in URLs are good, as long as you use the canonical meta tag. Google is pushing them with FeedBurner and if webmasters aren’t careful, they could fall victim to a new onslaught of duplicate content issues.

One of the biggest issues with SEO is duplicate content. If search engines can’t tell which version of a document is the original or canonical version, then there can be consequences involving less than ideal search visibility. For example, the following URLs might all point to the same web page, creating the illusion that they are copies of the same thing. But in reality, it’s just one web page.

www.domainname.com
domainname.com
www.domainname.com/index.html
www.domainname.com/index.html?referid=somesitethatyouareadvertisingon

Content management systems, e-commerce stores, and dynamic sites in general, used to be big on adding variables to URLs as a way to construct search queries on content or to track visitors. Then along came advice from the search engines that said they see each URL as a unique if it has different variables. That little improvement caused a duplicate content mess.

So over the past few years, web site owners and marketers have been hard at work cleaning up their URLs, removing variables and trying to make duplicate content a thing of the past.

Then Google came out with a canonical meta tag that could be used to help fix duplicate content issues. The advice was to simply add a canonical meta tag to any page and every version of that page will be considered one. No longer will there be duplicate versions and no longer will variables be a problem in creating the illusion of different copies of the same page.

The good news here is that Yahoo, Bing, and Ask also jumped on board to support the canonical meta tag.

What we didn’t realize was Google had a hidden agenda. (In my opinion) For a few months after the canonical meta tag came out, Google FeedBurner started populating every feed that runs though their service with additional variables in the URL. These variables are then used to better track FeedBurner clicks in Google Analytics.

So now, Google is pushing out URLs with multiple variables creating duplicate content issues for anyone who isn’t using the canonical meta tag. Additionally, if you use TwitterFeed to auto post content from FeedBurner to Twitter, or even copy the URL from a feed and share it, you’re also spreading the problem.

Google then came out with a URL builder tool that allowed you to track custom campaigns in Google Analytics by customizing your URLs with additional tracking variables. This extends the potential duplicate content issue even further.

So what doess this all mean for web site owners and marketers? It means that if you’re not paying attention, duplicate content could be causing you problems with increasing frequency. Do you know if your site has canonical meta tags? It should. Do you know if your FeedBurner feed is going out with additional tracking variables? It probably is.

A Solution: What needs to happen is the canonical meta tag should become a standard meta tag in web development. It should be added to all web pages as a safety measure. It doesn’t harm anything, unless implemented improperly, so ask your developers to code it into all pages.

As for variables in the URL, they’re still not good when it comes to SEO and avoiding duplicate content issues. Short and sweet is the best way to create URLs, but on that off chance that you need to track affiliates, want to track visits to a page from a specific online or offline campaign, or for whatever reason can’t avoid variables in the URL, then they are OK as long as you use the canonical meta tag.

Like it or not, the canonical meta tag is the only way to ensure that your site doesn’t fall victim to duplicate content issues. If you stop and think about it, it is an easy solution to a big problem. And once a site has canonical meta tags on their site, using the URL builder or variables in general to track URLs can be pretty handy. Webmasters just need to remember that a variable or two may be ok for some campaigns, but we don’t want to go back to long and ugly URLs because the longer the URL, the more difficult they’ll be for search engines, and users, to interact with.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
Search Engines Bringing Back Variables In URLs – At Your Expense |
One comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

Hard Times Lead To Dramatic Rise In Bankruptcies

Personal bankruptcies rose more than 30 percent in 2009, with more than 1.4 million protection filings. Even though so many people are in dire financial straits, having to declare bankruptcy comes as an embarrassing shock.

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Forex Trading #4: Elliott Wave “The Vehicle”

Tags:Bill Poulos, carry trade, Elliott Wave, Fibonacci Forex, forex coaching, forex EA, forex market, forex system, forex trading, learn forex, Peter Bain, Prosper Coaching, Stephen Story.

www.ForexCoachingPros.com http Stephen Story (Trader, Coach, Author) discusses Elliott Wave Principle that many Forex traders don't understand nor utilize.

Confronting The Affordability Gap In Health Care Bills

It doesn't seem likely that House Democrats will get the government-sponsored health insurance plan they want as part of a final health overhaul bill. What they're arguing for instead is more help for middle-income families to pay for health insurance they'll now be required to purchase. The Senate bill, however, is not as generous.

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