8/19/2006

Get Better Search Engine Rankings with RSS

RSS is the latest craze in online publishing. But what exactly is RSS?

RSS or Rich Site Syndication is a file format similar to XML, and is used by publishers to make their content available to others in a format that can be universally understood.

RSS allows publishers to "syndicate" their content through the distribution of lists of hyperlinks.

It has actually been around for a while, but with the advent of spam filters and online blogging, it is fast becoming the choice of ezine publishers who want to get their message across to their subscribers.

However, not much attention has been given to the advantages RSS provides for search engine optimization.

Why Search Engines Love RSS

Many SEO experts believe that sites optimized around themes,or niches, where all pages correspond to a particular subject or set of keywords, rank better in the search engines.

For example, if your website is designed to sell tennis rackets, your entire site content would be focused around tennis and tennis rackets.

Search engines like Google seem to prefer tightly-themed pages.

But where does RSS figure in all this?

RSS feeds, usually sourced from newsfeeds or blogs, often correspond to a particular theme or niche.

By using highly targeted RSS feeds, you can enhance your site's content without having to write a single line on your own.

It’s like having your own content writer - writing theme-based articles for you - for free!

How can RSS improve my Search Engine Rankings?

There are three powerful reasons why content from RSS Feeds is irresistible bait for search engine spiders.

1. RSS Feeds Provide Instant Themed Content

There are several publishers of RSS feeds that are specific to a particular theme.

Since the feed is highly targeted, it could contain several keywords that you want to rank highly for.

Adding these keywords to your pages helps Google tag your site as one with relevant content.

2. RSS Feeds Provide Fresh, Updated Content

RSS feeds from large publishers are updated at specific intervals. When the publisher adds a new article to the feed, the oldest article is dropped.

These changes are immediately effected on your pages with the RSS feed as well. So you have fresh relevant content for your visitors every hour or day.

3. RSS Feeds Result in More Frequent Spidering

One thing I never anticipated would happen as a result of adding an RSS feed to my site was that the Googlebot visited my site almost daily.

To the Googlebot, my page that had the RSS feed incorporated into it was as good as a page that was being updated daily, and in its judgement, was a page that was worth visiting daily.

What this means to you, is that you will have your site being indexed more frequently by the Googlebot and so any new pages that you add to your site will be picked up much faster than your competitors.

How does this benefit you as a marketer?

Well, for example, let's says a top Internet Marketer comes out with a new product that you review and write up a little article on, and that your competitors do the same.

Google generally tends to index pages at the start of the month and if you miss that update, you will probably need to wait till the next month to even see your entry in.

But, since your site has RSS feeds, it now gets indexed more frequently. So the chances of getting your page indexed quickly are much higher.

This gives you an advantage over the competition, as your review will show up sooner in the search results than theirs.

Imagine what an entire month's advantage could do to your affiliate sales!

Why Javascript Feeds Are Not Effective

Some sites offer javascript code that generates content sourced from RSS feeds for your site.

These are of absolutely no value in terms of search engine rankings, as the googlebot cannot read javascript and the content is not interpreted as part of your page.

What you need is code that parses the RSS feed and renders the feed as html content that's part of your page.

This is achieved using server side scripting languages like PHP or ASP.

A good free ASP script is available from Kattanweb

http://www.kattanweb.com/webdev/projects/index.asp?ID=7

An equally good PHP script is CARP

http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/carp/

So in conclusion, besides optimizing on page and off page factors, adding RSS feeds to your pages should be an important part of your strategy to boost your search engine rankings.

8/18/2006

What Are The Ways To Work At Home and Make Money Online?

There are thousands of things you can do to make money online. Internet has changed the life for majority of people. Could our parents have imagined that some day we will be able to work from the comforts of our homes? Actually pursue a career at that! Coming to the point, there are many ways to work at home. Do keep a few basic things in mind. Like, there could be short term opportunities and long term opportunities to work at home and make money online. Opportunities that require special skills and opportunities that don't. Some work at home offers will be such that you will be able to start working as soon as soon as you have joined the program and likewise money will also start coming immediately. while some will take time to build. We will discuss them in a nutshell here. Take for instance getting paid for Taking Online Surveys, doing Data Entry Assignments or being a part of Focus Discussion Panels. These are the simplest and most popular ways to work at home. Anybody can do it. The ground work includes identifying companies that are looking for people to do surveys or data entry work. In case of surveys, once you have found such companies, you register your profile with them and then when there are surveys matching your profile a survey will be sent to your inbox which you are expected to answer and send back. Or they may also provide you with a link where you have to go and take the survey online. One survey takes about 15 to 30 minutes. The more companies you have registered your profile with, the more surveys you will receive. And the more surveys you do, the more money you make. Likewise, you can make money shopping. It works on the above lines. Except that instead of taking surveys you go out and shop. You keep the product, they pay for it and you try them and give the companies a feedback. Simple. Data entry jobs can also be found online. They sent you jobs online which you have to do in the given time period. You make money per assignment or word depending on the policy of the companies you are working with. Long term opportunities include having a website and selling stuff through them. Its your shop on the net open to the entire world. Even on a Sunday! You can sell anything you want, from stuffed toys to computer peripherals to a recipe book written by you. You can do a lot and make a lot more money if you have a website. Building and promoting a website is time taking and requires focus and patience but the effort is worth it. Jobs that require special training or skill include, becoming an Online Proofreader, Medical Transcriptionist, Translator etc.... There are many, many more such opportunities on the net. Just surf as much as you can. Type your main keywords and you will come across many opportunities. Go through and understand each one of them before taking the final plunge. Always remember, your work at home job or business is going to last you a lifetime, so make sure you are choosing something that you enjoy doing.

8/16/2006

Cake Decorating Ideas for Fantastic Looking Cakes

You don't have to be an expert cake decorator in order to make fantastic looking birthday cakes. Here are some cake decorating ideas to help you to make your cakes extra special that do not require exceptional cake decorating skills. First, determine a theme for your cake. If the cake is for an adult, what are the likes, hobbies or interests of the birthday person? For example, if the person likes to fish, make a fishing theme cake. If the person likes to golf, make a golf theme cake. If they like to play the guitar, make a guitar cake. You could also make the cake theme match their profession as well. For example, for a mail carrier make a mail theme cake or for a carpenter, make a carpenter theme cake. If you are making a cake for a child, have it match the theme of the party or the child's favorite character, interest or even sport. You get the idea, just try to make the cake extra special for the birthday person by making it match their hobbies or interests. A really easy cake decorating idea for making these theme cakes is to purchase cake toppers that match your theme to place on top of your cake. These come in many different varieties. However, if you happen to want to make a certain theme cake for which you cannot find a cake topper to match, try the miniature section of any hobby or craft store. For the examples above, you can purchase things such as a miniature fishing rod and net for the fishing cake, a miniature golf bag and golf clubs for the golf theme cake and a miniature guitar for the guitar cake. You can then place them on top of your cake. For a mail theme cake, purchase miniature mail boxes and make little letters out of card stock that you laminate and place them on the top and sides of your cake. For the carpenter theme cake, put miniature saws and other tools on the top of or on the sides of the cake. These are just a few examples. The ideas really are endless, but hopefully this has helped to get you started thinking of different and unique cake decorating ideas that will make the next cake that you make extra special.

Dedicated Web Hosting - When & Why

Dedicated web hosting means leasing an entire host-server - not shared by anyone else - in which to locate your website. Usually the main consideration is security of data while deciding whether or not dedicated web hosting is needed for a website. In this article, we will walk down the aisle and try to understand why you would need dedicated web hosting. Why dedicated web hosting? Imagine you are a home-based programmer and you use your desktop computer for your work. Imagine again that your kids too use your computer, when you are not working, to chat online or to send and receive emails. A scenario such as this works fine until one fine morning you discover your computer has stopped functioning and all your data is lost. Not because you did something wrong but because your kids have inadvertently let in a virus that has wreaked havoc on your computer. What would you do? Logic suggests you stop your kids using your computer so that your hard work is not wasted this way. Dedicated web hosting is similar to this concept. If you choose not to allow any other website to be hosted on your server, you are in fact opting for dedicated web hosting. Who may need dedicated web hosting? For many companies, data security is a major issue. Think of multinational banks or credit card companies. Since they store and transmit sensitive data of their customers, it is imperative that any possibility of data theft or manipulation is completely eliminated. Dedicated web hosting is a necessity for them. Then again, consider big software companies who work on and create software products. They need to test and retest their products before releasing in the market. They have a large stake and privacy is uppermost. For them too, dedicated web hosting is a must. Resellers of hosting services are another lot who prefer dedicated web hosting. If you are in business of providing hosting solutions, you will not want your server space cluttered with others. Isn't it costly? Yes indeed. Dedicated web hosting comes at a price. Starting around $100 a month the cost may top $1000 or more depending on service and amenities needed. Typically, if you settle for lower monthly charge, you get a bare-bone server plus an assurance of routine maintenance and some minimal service like system upgrade, tweaking firewall, configuring control panel and suchlike. In many cases of dedicated web hosting, hosting providers may ask to be compensated for technical support. If you need more assistance for your dedicated web hosting, your cost will increase. But at the same time, expect greater level of management support from your hosting provider. Before you decide which way to go, it is a good idea to talk over details with a few providers to ensure that you will get what you want. Advantages of dedicated web hosting Despite higher cost, dedicated web hosting has certain distinct advantages. First is of course the liberty to tailor-make your software requirements that would reside on your server. You choose only those you need. This means freeing up your server space to a large extent. Second, dedicated web hosting will let you afford not only large storage space but big amount of bandwidth as well. This is crucial because surfers looking for your site can gain access fast. Third, with dedicated web hosting, you will have direct control on your server. You can quickly attend to your clients, should the need arise. Summing Up If paying more than usual for your hosting solution is not a bother, dedicated web hosting will prove eminently viable. More so if your website needs: - higher security over data storage and transmission, - large storage space, - large bandwidth volume, and above all, - proprietary software to test and implement. Be independent; be responsive with dedicated web hosting.

Running ColdFusion on your Web Server

Designing a Website in ColdFusion Linux, Solaris, and Windows Servers can run an application called ColdFusion for accessing web pages. A request for web pages is made through an HTTP server in conjunction with a ColdFusion Web Application Server. When a request for a ColdFusion web page is made, the ColdFusion Server assembles the data and sends it back to your web browser. ColdFusion can help you create and modify variables just like other languages, but it's not a database language. Program flow controls like IF, Switch Case, Loop, plus many other complicated tasks are made easy with its built in functions. Using ColdFusion makes interacting with your database easier. By using SQL, you can easily retrieve, store, format and dynamically present information on you web page. If you are comfortable with HTML you will love ColdFusion Markup Language. Many of ColdFusions powerful features like reading from and writing to the server's hard drive are tag based. Wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to write all the JavaScript for your pages? The CF tag CFFORM will automatically build all the JavaScript code to verify required fields before the form submits. ColdFusion is designed to run on multi-processor machines and store your web sites on a cluster of servers. This helps with the biggest problems web designers have of complex, high volume web sites. Basically, if you have plans to have a web site built that is more than just an advertisement for your business, ColdFusion enables you to perform many more functions. You can spend a large amount of time building a site and, over the years, adding more ideas and therefore more complexity and more functions. Many new and powerful features are available for Mcromedia's ColdFusion MX7. MX7 is the most significant release of ColdFusion within the last ten years. You can create dynamic web pages utilizing some of CodFusion MX7 (13 min.) new features. These features are faster and more cost- effective than many other solutions on the market. They can help you easily create, manage and deploy web applications. Using a single tab, web content can be transformed into portable documents in PDF and FlashPaper formats. Coldfusion makes it possible to create rich Flash forms in minutes using just a few ColdFusion tags. You can re-skin forms easily across applications. Besides, you can easily interface to SMS text-messaging, instant messaging clients, and other Internet protocols to reach customers in new, exciting ways. It's time you explored ColdFusion MX7 and experienced the power that ColdFusion has to offer by browsing code snippets, examining sample applications, and seeing new features in action. Many of our ColdFusion customers include organizations like Boeing, Goodyear, and Lockheed Martin along with many other organizations, education facilities and government offices. ColdFusion MX 7 is considered to be an incredible release with nearly everything desirable incorporated in the software. With ColdFusion MX 7, you can do more work in less time.

8/15/2006

Google high paying keywords beta for publisher

Incorporating high paying keywords into your site is critical to maximizing your income. Who has the time to figure it all out? How much are you willing to pay for this type of information? The secret is out: Here are 99 keywords you can use with payouts averaging $2-$100 per click: 1. Structured settlements 2. Mesothelioma 3. Acne 4. Life Insurance 5. Death Insurance 6. Bextra 7. Asbestos 8. Car Insurance 9. Dental Plans 10. Private Jets 11. Debt Consolidation 12. Credit Cards 13. Rewards Cards 14. Equity Loans 15. Equity Line Credit 16. Loans 17. Mortgages 18. Pay Day Loans 19. Cash Advance 20. Bankruptcy 21. Reduce Debt 22. Refinance 23. Jet Charter 24. Vioxx 25. Wrongful death 26. Legal Advice 27. Taxes 28. Investing 29. Bonds 30. Online Trading 31. IRA Rollover 32. Refinance Quotes 33. Adult Education 34. Distance Learning 35. Alcohol Treatment 36. Rehab 37. Drug Rehab 38. Spyware 39. Cell Phone Plans 40. Calling Cards 41. VOIP 42. Weight Loss 43. Canadian Pharmacy 44. Depression 45. Spam Filter 46. Lasik 47. Facelift 48. Teeth Whitening 49. Annuity 50. Anti Virus Protection 51. Adult Diaper 52. Free Credit Report 53. Credit Score 54. Satellite 55. Anti Spam Software 56. Dedicated Hosting 57. Domain Name 58. Need Money 59. Bachelor Degree 60. Master Degree 61. Doctorate Degree 62. Work at Home 63. Quick Book 64. Extra Money 65. Eloan 66. Malpractice Lawyer 67. Lenox China 68. Cancer 69. Payperclick 70. Personal Injury Attorney 71. Lexington Law 72. Video Conferencing 73. Transfer Money 74. Windstar Cruise 75. Casinos Online 76. Term Life 77. Online Banking 78. Borrow Money 79. Low Interest Credit Cards 80. Personal Domain Name 81. Cellular Phone Rental 82. Internet Broker 83. Trans Union 84. Cheap Hosting 85. University Degrees Online 86. Online Marketing 87. Consolidate 88. Helpdesk Software 89. Web Host 90. Homeowner's Insurance 91. Yellow Page Advertising 92. Travel Insurance 93. Register Domain 94. Credit Counseling 95. Email Hosting 96. Business Credit 97. Consumer Credit 98. Blue Cross 99. Laptop Computer Actual payouts vary depending on whose PPC program you belong to and on the amount that has been bid per click by advertisers. Still, the savvy web administrator will take good care to incorporate some of these key words and reap results higher than they ever expected.

8/13/2006

Shared Web Hosting Explained

Shared web hosting is a service offered by web hosts wherein more than one website is hosted on a single server. It is an economical option since the overall cost of running and maintaining the web server is shared among many websites. A real-life comparison can be that of a students' dormitory where all students share the same facilities. Except that in case of shared web hosting, individual website owners do not normally know each other. Usually small websites prefer shared web hosting to keep overhead cost minimum. It is quite common to find websites from any part of the world availing shared web hosting service from a single provider. For them, ability to host own website is more important than other considerations. On the other hand, in many large companies every department has its own server which is shared only by department personnel. Clearly then the concept of shared web hosting varies from need to need depending on necessity and ability to afford the cost involved. In the paragraphs below we will look at the pros and cons of shared web hosting in more details: Shared Web Hosting - The Pros If you are dipping your toe in web-world for the first time, shared web hosting will be a good choice. Costs are low since you are entitled to a small portion of the whole pie. More than that, shared web hosting offers unique advantage of many features and software that already come installed in host server. In addition, a system administrator, available 24x7, will be there to help you in case of any trouble with your shared web hosting. Depending on service provider, typical freebies in shared web hosting include open-source software such as fully-featured shopping cart (like Agora, Oscommerce, CubeCart, Zen Cart, etc.), content management system or blogs (like Nucleus CMS, Drupal, Wordpress, etc.), image galleries (4Images, Coppermine, etc.) and so on. This apart, most shared web hosting plans come equipped with web statistics facilities like Awstats and Webalizer, and sometimes even with a site-builder so that you can design your website in no time. Since all hosting-related needs are taken care of, shared web hosting specially appeals to those website owners who want to focus on their web businesses and have no reason to bother about nitty-gritty of host server. In short therefore, with shared web hosting, one gets going without too much of hassle and certainly in shortest possible time. Shared Web Hosting - The Cons Not everything is rosy with shared web hosting. The principal concern is lack of privacy. If your website deals in sensitive data, then shared web hosting is not preferable. Since you have no control on what others are doing in shared web hosting, there is no guarantee that your website data will not be tampered with intentionally or otherwise. It is true that some shared web hosting will offer SSL and TLS shields (SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and TLS means Transport Layer Security) to ensure that all your web communications remain totally confidential. But in practice this is not so. This is because in shared web hosting, all websites have same IP address (Internet Protocol Address) and therefore share the same SSL/TLS digital certificate. Another issue of concern is when your host server malfunctions. This can happen even if yours is not a shared web hosting. The problem is that since you do not control the server, you will not know what ailed the system and so you cannot take any preventive measure. Summing Up Shared web hosting is without doubt the first stepping stone across the turbulence of web world. Once you graduate and progress you will find you no longer prefer shared web hosting for various reasons. You have grown big and have reached a point where it will be a better option to move out of shared web hosting, for good.