Enterprise RSS a Focal Point for Employee Information

Time Magazine hailed social media is the one thing that most influenced the news and our lives in 2006 and it continues to be a major influence as we hit the halfway mark in 2007.

One trend making the cut n 2007 is the adoption of RSS in the enterprise. RSS is poised to become the focal point that employees turn to for information, eclipsing individual aggregators and systems such as portals, intranets, and enterprise applications, says CRM Daily.
A recent Pew Internet Foundation survey found nearly one in three individuals consumes RSS feeds. So much for the idea that RSS is still in its infancy. And for enterprises, the most telling response was that 63 percent of these RSS users subscribe to work-related feeds. Understanding Blogs, Wikis, Really Simple Syndication (RSS), Virtual Worlds and other social media environments has become an essential element in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape.

So why are some businesses still loathe to use RSS on their content? According to Robin Good of MasterNewMedia, RSS feeds are far from popular with publishers intent on boosting page view statistics as they fear leakage through content that’s delivered to users who will never come in to their sites.
Yet all trends and predictions for 2007 indicate that there will be a seismic shift to mobile consumption of information. People with PDA’s, cell phones and RSS readers don’t surf the web anymore – they don’t have to. The content comes to them, when and where they want it.
Publishers will have to make this move too. They need to accept that an important portion of their revenues will rely on understanding how to make money from content delivered to their audience’s personal devices, says Good.

Indeed. Content syndication is one of the best parts of Web 2.0. Feeds facilitate the sharing of content and make it so much easier to consume the data. Perhaps we’ll see the RSS icon on the cover of Time at the end of this year. (Jayden Adams)

Why People Use SEO Companies

Seo or search engine optimization companies can help your website or business get off the ground and listed in the major search engines resulting in more traffic and sales. One of the things you should always remember when deciding to use a website search engine optimization and website ranking service is that with a bit of hard work and lots of research you could in fact do it all by yourself. Virtually everything you need to know about the subject can be found online with a bit of surfing. Ideally the best way to optimization your site is by doing it all yourself, this way you are in full control of your content, but unfortunately this can be very time consuming so in most cases doing it yourself might is not always the most practical solution. The main reason people decide to use a seo service is for time saving purposes and convenience. When you decide to hire a search engine optimizer, you are really paying for the convenience. Generally when you search around for an affordable seo service the more convenient it is, the higher the price will be.

If you only want to buy keyword optimized content for your website and then use it to increase your web traffic you can find a range of these services quite cheaply. In some cases it can cost you less than a hundred dollars per month to get all of the keyword optimized website content that you will ever need.

On the other end of the scale, if you are looking for a service to handle every aspect of your website including page content analysis, link building and traffic, you will have to pay a whole lot more. Depending on your time limits this may be the most convenient option for your business or website.

Basically people choose to use seo companies for convince as not everyone has the time to spend hours online researching the subject and optimizing their site. In some cases you may also feel that a seo company will be able to do a better job than your doing and save you time. Saving time on one aspect of your business also allows you to concentrate your time and energy on another part of your business. (andrew fullard)

Google’s Advanced Search Operators Assists SEO Efforts

Ever wonder how search engine optimizers find certain information online about your Web site, like how many other Web sites link to yours, how many Web pages you have indexed, or what date search engines last visited your site? Here are some of the latest SEO tools they use to determine the level and degree of work involved in an SEO campaign.

Using these advanced search operators modify the search results in some way, or even tell Google to do a totally different type of search on your Web site. Keep in mind too that some of these operators can be used in other search engines as well, like MSN and Yahoo!

Note that there are no spaces between the search operator and the Web page URL.

1. site:
Using the site: in the search box followed by www.yourwebsiteaddress.com determines how many Web pages within the entire Web site are currently being recognized by Google. This function also limits results to one particular domain. This helps SEO experts know which Web pages are already being seen (and which ones aren’t yet), so we can optimize those first.

2. cache:
Using the cache: in the search box followed by www.yourwebsiteaddress.com shows the last time the search engine crawled a particular Web page. You may enter your homepage address or an inside Web page to find out the most recently spidered version of a Web page stored in a search engine’s cache.

3. info:
The search query info: presents a collection of data that a search engine has about that Web page, like its latest cache date, Web pages similar to your site, Web pages that link to your site, Web pages within your site and Web pages containing the your domain name.

4: link:
This search query results in finding all Web sites that are currently linking to your site. This helps determine how much link building services are needed in an SEO program for a client. Link popularity is still considered a major factor to achieving high keyword rankings in search engines. It also helps knowing what sites are linking to yours, so you can then determine whether or not you want them linking to your site.

5. related:
This search shows Web pages that are similar to a specific URL. For example, related:www.santaclaus.com will list all web pages that are similar to the Santa Claus homepage.

6. allinurl: or inurl:
These searches display all Web pages where the search terms queried appear in the URL. For example, allinurl: circus world will return only Web sites that have the words circus and world somewhere in the URL. The advanced search operator inurl: is used only when a single search term queried is necessary

7. allintext:
This search results in showing Web pages where all search terms listed appear in the body content (visible text) portion of a Web page. In SEO campaigns, using this advanced search operator helps in discovering other related sites for possible link exchanges or link submissions.

8. allinanchor: or inanchor:
These queries display all Web pages where the search terms listed appear in the URL. For example, allinanchor: circus world will return only Web sites that have the search terms circus and world appear in the text of links pointing to a Web page. The advanced search operator inanchor: is used only when a single search term listed is necessary

9. allintitle: or intitle:
These advanced search operators display all search terms listed appear in the title of Web pages. For example, allintitle: circus world will return only Web sites that have the keywords circus and world in the titles of Web pages. The search operator intitle: only shows Web pages where a single word appears in the title of Web pages.

10. define:
Although SEO experts may not use this advanced search operator often, sometimes it comes in handy just to quickly learn what a particular word or phrase means, instead of going to other online dictionary Web sites. (Wendy Suto)

Top 5 Link Building Expert Strategies

Link Popularity is a greatly misunderstood subject among webmasters and online business owners. The major search engines have developed complicated algorithms that rank web pages for relevancy and quality. In determining relevancy, the search engines tend to measure on page factors such as relevant content. For determining quality, the search engines have moved towards inbound links and their quality as a measure of a website’s importance. The rise of link popularity, as a measure of the links pointing to a website, is founded on the belief that great sites will naturally attract many links and content poor sites will have difficulty attracting any links. While Google is the front runner in giving importance to link popularity, other major search engines such as Yahoo, MSN and AltaVista have also given importance to link popularity, making it a critical component of your search engine strategy.

1. High Page Rank – While Page Rank has been somewhat discredited among the elite of the search engine optimizers, the fact remains that Page Rank is by far one of the most viable methods of determining the importance of a web page. Page Rank remains an important, but not a defining element towards establishing link popularity.
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2. Permanent Links – Google puts a small restriction or penalty on new websites. This penalty, in part monitors the “age” of the inbound links of a website. This draws on the importance of getting permanent links to increase your link popularity. It will work on eliminating your Sandbox penalties while maintaining the reputation you have built.
3. Site Quality – The quality of a website, as determined by the search engines, is a major factor, along with Page Rank, in establishing the importance of a link.
4. Reciprocal Linking – This is definitely the fastest way to get a ton of links pointing to your website. As long as your link directory is broken down into themed categories, you should most definitely trade links with the other website. You should always trade links with another website no matter if they:
• Have a PR0 page. If you trade links with them, chances are, they’re also actively building links, so this PR0 page will soon be a PR3, PR4, and even more.
• Over 30 links on a links page. Any link will help your rankings, as long as the website you’re exchanging with is not banned. (Gray Google Page Rank).

5. Natural Link Building – The building blocks of site to site linking, as search engines understand and define it. Search engines justify using link popularity as a ranking tool with the idea that good quality sites will naturally attract links. (Paul Krenke )

Stand Out Above the Rest with Video for Profit

There is a lot of competition in the online community for the very product or service you’re intending to sell. You’ll have to get creative in finding ways to set yourself above the rest of your competitors. Find ways to make your website different than the average Joe Schmoe who’s using outdated ad campaigns. You can do this using the right marketing tools. You can make your website more personable using Video for Profit!
Make your website stand out by adding a touch of your personality to it. The average website has a lot of words and pretty pictures, which is great as a basic standard, but what will really make your website stand out is when you display your unique personality on your website. One of the best ways to do this is by adding a live online actor to your site. Your customers will begin to feel like they are connecting with more than just an ad or another website that’s selling something. They will actually feel like they are connecting with you!
Many businesses already know that the image they portray on their website sets the tone for the way their customers will perceive their business. Business owners know they can stand out above the rest by portraying the right image.
Take that concept and incorporate it into your own website by making sure you have full control over the image that your online actor will display. Make sure you can select the attire the actors will wear, the background setting that will be displayed and even the script that the actors will be reading. This will ensure that you are displaying the right image – the image you want.
Including a live person on your website makes your site more interesting for your customers to view. Can you imagine reading through pages of information just to get to the sales point? Break up the monotony of your site and make it more interesting for your visitors by adding some of the resources from Video for Profit. Research has shown that people are attracted to pictures in general and even more to looking at pictures of people. You’ll find that your potential clients will stay on your website longer because they aren’t tired or bored of the reading and sifting through information. A live person tells them what they need to know!
Use these ideas to make your website stand out above the rest. When your website displays your personality, has the right image and is generally more interesting than the rest, visitors will tend to stay longer on your site.
What that means for you is that the longer people stay on your website, the greater your chances of converting them into a sale. There’s a good chance that they will stick around long enough to get enough information to make a purchasing decision. Research has also shown that using a live person on your website can increase your ROI by as much as 500 percent! With a potential for a return like that, isn’t it worth it to at least check out if video marketing is right for you? (Trisha Frauenhofer)

Business Process Management: Understanding and Implementing

By Nowshade Kabir
If yours is a business with several departments, at one point you start to realize that in order to stay competitive, increase productivity and bring efficiency to your business, you need to optimize and automate some of your business processes. To identify which parts of your business activities are required to be optimized, first you need to have a clear understanding of the processes involved in your particular business.

What is a Business Process?
A business process is a series of specific, measured tasks performed by people and systems and designed to achieve a predetermined outcome. The processes have these important characteristics:
1. The processes have internal and external users.
2. They take place across or between organization’s departments or different organizations.
3. They are based on how work is done in the organization.
The business processes have three key elements – Entity, Object, and Task.
Entities: Where the process occurs.
Objects: The processes are results of handling objects. Objects could be physical or informational.
Tasks: Works done to handle the objects.
The followings are examples of business processes:
Mortgage application processing
Credit verification
Product development
Travel planning
Opening a new account
Answering to a Request for Quote
Shipping a product
Companies are trying to improve their business processes using computer technology starting ever since the computer technology has emerged. Initial emphasize was given to enterprise resource planning. Main areas where automation was adopted were production, accounting, procurement and logistics. The next step was sales and marketing automation. Next came customer relationship management and supplier relationship management. Last couple of years we are seeing implementation of Business Process Management across the board. Companies are adopting BPM in the areas where it could make real differences. Some of these processes involve several departments of the company and some are result of real-time interaction of the company with its suppliers, customers and other business partners.

Interest in BPM is growing really fast, according to a report from Forrester Research, one-third of organizations surveyed by the firm are currently using or piloting BPM, a dramatic increase compared with mid-2002, when just 11% were trying BPM.

What is Business Process Management (BPM)?

BPM automates and streamlines the business processes which are crucial for the organization in order to improve productivity. From hiring a person to processing a purchase order, BPM helps restructuring, controlling and handling workflows involving people and systems to complete a process more efficiently.

To use BPM effectively, companies must focus on the outcome of the process and design workflows based on the expected result from the process. There should not be any difference between a task done by computer systems or people. BPM should be able to map the interaction among the entities, objects and tasks and bring them inline with the process workflow. Business rules used in the process also should be clearly defined. While trying to automate a business process you have to keep in mind that finding a process which should be streamlined is not that difficult! Problem occurs when you try to define which entities are involved and how the evolved method will distribute the previous roles among the new tasks owners.

The benefits of BPM adoption are enormous:

Direct
• Update processes in real time
• Reduce overhead expenses
• Automate key decisions
• Reduce process maintenance cost
• Reduce operating cost
• Improve productivity

Indirect
• Improve process cycle time
• Improve forecasting
• Improve customer service
• Improve sourcing time cycle

How to figure out which of the business processes you need to automate?

Companies use BPM systems to automate virtually every aspect of their businesses. A company for example might have priorities to automate their sales activities, requisition process, procurement process, warehousing, call center, etc. However, the focus initially should be given on those areas that meat the following criteria:

• The business process should be crucial for productivity improvement
• Savings from automation is clearly visible
• Return on Investment from implementation is high and preferably immediate

Since your business has unique characteristics which differ from others, you might have business processes that have exceptional business rules. Normally, this type of business processes need maximum attention and substantial resources. Business Process Management tools are great in handling exceptions. Use BPM systems to streamline these processes.

What are BPM Systems?

BPM Systems are applications that help organizations to automate their business processes end to end from a workflow task to process outcome so that they can reduce process costs, improve productivity & bring efficiency to their business.

A successful implementation of BPM systems requires clear understanding of organization’s business processes, business rules, and willingness of the management and workers to embrace new way of doing business.

Your Enterprise Portal can be the BPM platform you need

Your company Portal is the access point for your customers, vendors, business partners and staff to company information and services. A typical company Portal is an integrated website of Intranet, Extranet, Repositories, Procurement and Sales Systems, Customer Relationship Services, etc. Today, advanced Portals are also integrating Business Process Management Systems, which enables automation of workflows that model end-to-end business processes.

In any business process the owners of the process, the users and the objects interact at many levels, such as starting a process, monitoring the process, doing a task, creating new activity, approving a task, etc. In order to reflect the business processes, their progress and interaction with users and owners, a dashboard is used. You can easily integrate any business process into your company Portal and display needed workflows, notifications, charts, performance indicators as a dashboard on it.

Conclusion
Investment in BPM is the same as any other technology related investment. If you plan the project properly, set a clear goal, educate those people who have to change their mindset once the system is implemented and get necessary support from the management, you can count on a massive return on your investment. (Nowshade Kabir)

How to Market Your Ebook

Writing and marketing your own ebook is an excellent way to help build your online and/or home business.

Being able to offer your own informative, quality ebook will establish you as someone who knows what they are talking about. This will earn you trust and respect and go a long way towards building your online presence.

People will start coming to you and your site when they need products, advice, support, help, etc. thus bringing you many more customers and /or subscribers.

There are many ways to market your ebook. Some of the best ways are listed below:

Put your ebook in your sigtag along with a free bonus. The free bonus will attract more people and bring in more sales.

Joint Ventures: Team up with other ebook authors or ezine publishers or webmasters to cross promote each other’s products or services. Agree to send referrals to each other and recommend each other’s products.

Use an excerpt from your ebook as an article and submit it to as many directories as possible. Be sure to mention your ebook in your resource box.

Search out quality targeted ezines and purchase solo or top sponsor ad spots.

Submit your ebook to as many ebook directories as you can. The more links to your ebook, the better.

Write a keyword rich sales page and optimize it for the search engines with meta tags and page title.

Offer two or three free bonuses with your ebook. make and offer that is very hard or impossible to refuse.

Ask a few people to write reviews for your ebook in exchange for a free copy. Post the reviews on your site.

Offer a free report as a lead-in to your ebook. People love free information and if you offer a quality report that gets them interested they very well may want to buy your ebook.

If you publish an ezine, ask other ezine publishers to swap solo or top sponsor ads. I prefer top sponsor ads but many marketers have said that solo ads get the most results.

Start an affiliate program and offer people a percentage to sell your ebook. One of the best places to do this is Clickbank. For a small fee you can set up your affiliate program and increase your sales many times over.

Offer the first chapter or two as a freebie. Be sure and leave them wanting more.

Visit message boards or join discussion groups to learn marketing strategies that have worked for other publishers and authors. If it works for them, it can work for you as well.

As with any marketing campaign, you have to stick with it. Be consistent. You cannot submit to a couple of directories and post to a couple message boards and then sit back and wait to get rich. Marketing is a daily commitment.

The possibilities are endless as to ways to market your ebook. Be sure and combine many of the strategies for one successful marketing campaign. Be creative and come up with new innovative marketing ideas. Find out what works and get started marketing that new ebook. (Terri Seymour)

How to Use Relevance in Your Web Content

If you really want to know how to use relevance in your web content for any page on your website, and write content for your website that cannot be misconstrued, you have to open your eyes and look at what you are writing. I have read so much hysterical tripe online, even on the first page of Google from reasonably respected websites, that I despair for the intelligence of many people.

Given that their sites are not at #1 – #5 due to a lack of ability or intelligence, then I also despair for their honesty. Who really cares about complex mathematical equations? This big term ‘Latent Semantic Indexing’, or LSI for short, is a meaningless term for webmasters and they should not even be bothering with it, let alone contemplating teaching you about it.

I have a page on my website telling you what it is not! Perhaps more people should read that. In fact, the Google algorithm contains an element of Latent Semantic Analysis, there is no such a term as LSI, and you certainly can’t make your website LSI compliant, since that term indicates a total ignorance in what it actually is. Any statistical mathematician can tell you that! It’s pretty basic.

Here’s a heads up on how to keep relevance to your topic and keywords, or to phrase it another way, maintain contextually relevant content on your web pages. ‘Phrasing it another way’ is a good way, in fact, to maintain that relevance without repetition. This is what Google likely mean by LSI (a misnomer in any case), since it works perfectly for me.

The first thing you have to do when writing content for your website is to determine your keyword or phrase. To me ‘Relevance in your Web content’ is a keyword. OK? That’s normal accepted terminology. Your keyword can be a single word or a long phrase – what is called a ‘long-tailed keyword’. Decide on the keyword you are using, then use THAT as the title of your web page. Use the Title html tags for it, and put it in H1 tags at the top of your web page.

Now study that keyword very carefully, and break it down into its components. Is their any way that an alien using a dictionary for every word could come down to earth and misinterpret the meaning of your keyword? If so be aware of the fact, and immediately put the alien right in the very first sentence of your article or page content. Here are two examples. Once is very commonly used on the web and the other is not. Have you spotted the second already? It is in this article! Now the first:

Take the keyword ‘How to Train German Shepherds’. Great – good keyword, lots of demand and it makes a good title. However, let’s break it down. In the Concise Oxford Dictionary, ‘german’ can mean having both parents the same, and shepherd is somebody who tends sheep. So your alien could believe that your article is about a shepherd tending his flock with two parents the same. Illogical? Perhaps. Semantically correct: certainly. So now, for the alien read the Google algorithm.

Your job is telling the alien exactly what you mean by your use of words. First, you might mention the German canine – so the alien does his thing and comes up with one of the front teeth of a person from Germany. Get the drift? So-called LSI has nothing to do with it. You have to write using vocabulary that explains exactly, and incontrovertibly, what the subject of your page is.

In your first sentence use ‘dogs’, ‘Germany’ perhaps, Alsatian, dog training, puppy, and so on so that when put together the meaning is obvious. Leave that till the last paragraph and the spider will be off wondering why you are trying to train a shepherd with two similar parents that have front teeth – and wear dog collars! Perhaps they are German vicars!

Write using as much text as is reasonable and normal in your article that describes the true meaning of your page, and the message it is conveying. Don’t overuse your keyword: in the title, first 100 characters and last paragraph is enough, plus once each 400 words. Certainly not 3% – 15 times in a 500 word page? That’s spamming and you will not be listed. The algorithm is looking for no more times that you would use in speech or normal writing: the rest should be of similar meaning. Use a thesaurus: thesaurus.com is a good reference.

OK? Get the idea. Now for another twist to this. Check out my title again. “How to Use Relevance in Your Web Content”. You know what I mean and I know what I mean, but we don’t determine the listing position of this article on a search engine. What does? A spider!

What does a spider think of when it sees the juxtaposition of the words ‘Web’ and ‘Content’?

You don’t have to be ‘Fly for white guy’ to work that one out. Use the first paragraph to begin your explanation, so that the spider isn’t salivating thinking that your article is relevant to its dinner. (Peter Nisbet Nisbet)

Online Business: Multiple Disciplinary Skills Required

Online Businesses, unlike many on-site businesses, require entrepreneurs to not only have a background in business, but also computers. Yes, on-site businesses function on computer systems, too, but they don’t rely solely on computer technology for their operation. No matter how shrewd or savvy an entrepreneur may be, if s/he doesn’t have a strong grasp on how computer technology works regarding ecommerce; the utilization of marketing strategy through online systems; hypertext languages; a knowledge of other forms of software, such as Adobe, Flash and Java; and other essential aspects of business networking, the online business is sure to fail.

This is why a whole new type of business study has emerged in recent years: Online business. Yes, double majors in Computer Science and Business would prepare those who wish to primarily work online, but business schools now have incorporated a computer-oriented dimension to their programs on all levels, not only because computer technology has become an important integration in society in general, but also because online businesses, revolving around ecommerce, have become a prominent and necessary community in the overall scheme of global business altogether. It is crucial for all business students to know about computer technology, whether they intend to eventually work online or not. Many on-site businesses today are also available online, so Internet interaction is inevitable for everyone involved in business.

As it stands now, any business person who is unable to maneuver successfully through online communities is likely already destined to fail. Such graduates from Business schools are arguably incomplete in their learning.

Those who wish to set up their own business site must know how to establish and work through online banking systems; download software an files essential for business site management like templates and tutorials, upload files, such as image files; moderate forums for technical support; integrate registration and merchandise ordering software for interactive purposes; write in basic HTM, HTML, PHP and/or other hypertext languages; incorporate clipart and icons applications as necessary; and effectively initiate advertising and other marketing strategies. Conducting online business is much different than offline because the community in which it thrives operates according to its own distinct set of rules and mannerisms. Being able to maneuver through the landscapes constructed by such distinctions with ease and to one’s own advantage will lead to success in that community. This is even true for the Internet.

It can also be argued these days that those who learn about online business first are likely the more valuable because of their technical capabilities. Computer technology is just as appreciatively vital and important in business as it is in Computer Science, and every single business, whether online or offline, will be looking for those with such experience, inclusive and/or aside from any academic achievements. Anyone in business having both academic degrees and experience with Internet technology are understandably most ideal. (Michael Laleye Laleye)

Truths On Effective Unique Selling Proposition

The unique selling proposition in any business, particularly in the internet marketing business, is what helps draw customers to support you and your products. Many people capitalize and invest on their unique selling propositions because making the best use of it really brings in the profit with so much less effort.

When you are presented with the unique selling proposition, you need to learn three basic truths pertaining to the use of the unique selling proposition for your business.

Truth Number One: Each advertisement must have a proposition.

The most important thing that you need to realize is that you can never really call an advertisement a genuine advertisement unless you have a proposition in it. The only thing that makes an advertisement readable is the proposition that it contains. Unless the advertisement provides them benefits, it will be ignored.

Most internet marketers have different gimmicks when it comes to making their advertisements and propositions. A good mix of the elements that will make the advertisement visually appealing and visible to the target market also augments the proposition.

Truth Number Two: The competition must not be able to offer your proposition.

It’s either they are not willing to offer that proposition or that they are not able to do so. This is the rule of thumb if you really want your unique selling proposition to make an impact in your target market. The fact is that most people always want something new.

The originality of your unique selling proposition will render you success in reaching out to your target market. So you must always strive to incorporate a sense of “something new” to whatever proposition you wish to package your business with.

Truth Number Three: The unique selling proposition must be strong.

A unique selling proposition can only be strong if it has impact in affecting many people in your target market. Your goal in making a unique selling proposition is to get as many prospects and buyers from your target market as humanely possible. If you have a weak proposition, you will not be able to achieve this.

The unique selling proposition is also something that you may have to give time to think about before you go ahead and plug it in your advertisements. While you might want to give your prospects a good deal, make sure that you are not compromising your own earnings just to be able to provide that for them.

In making your unique selling proposition, you will have to consider the elements of balance, timing and openness to adjust your own styles to accommodate your customers. You will really have to consider your customer’s preferences and needs as your top priority with your selected target market.

Success of a unique selling proposition can be later seen over time, when your name is starting to become known for the particular product or service your unique selling proposition continues to claim. Ultimately, you will need to deliver what is in your proposition and make actions speak louder than words. (Joel Christopher Remandaban)