Podcast project for Web Audio:
Reel Deal Podcast
http://jdi031.aisites.com/imd240/
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Understanding 301 and 302 Url Redirects
Its been a minute since I have written any content on AskMichaelHart.com since I have been so busy with my SEO internship developing content for AtlantaSharpCopiers.com, a blog created to help boost rankings for my current client, Southern Office Machines, also currently under redesign. (If any of you are looking to lease or purchase a copier in Atlanta, these guys have been around since 1985 and do a great job on customer service, fyi)
Anyway, I wanted talk a bit about url redirects. You may be wondering what the heck is a url redirect? Good question.
URL redirection, also called URL forwarding and the very similar technique of domain redirection, (also called domain forwarding) on the web for making a web page available under many URLs. (If you don’t know what a url is, it stands for uniform resource locator, aka domain name, aka web address, aka www.yourwebsite.com)
A web browser user might mis-type a URL—for example, “exampel.com” and “exmaple.com”. Organizations often register these “mis-spelled” domains and re-direct them to the “correct” location: example.com. For example: the addresses example.com and example.net could both redirect to a single domain, or web page, such as example.org. This technique is often used to “reserve” other Top Level Domains with the same name, or make it easier for a true “.edu” or “.net” to redirect to a more recognizable “.com” domain.
A web page may be redirected for several reasons:
* A web site might need to change its domain name.
* An author might move his or her pages to a new domain.
* Two web sites might merge.
With URL redirects, incoming links to an outdated URL can be sent to the correct location. These links might be from other sites that have not realized that there is a change or from bookmarks/favorites that users have saved in their browsers.
What you may not know is that a 301 redirect is moved permanently and should be seen as a link. A 302 found/moved temporarily might be seen as a link.
Sometimes you might not want a page to be indexed for security reasons. This can be done by altering your robots.txt file. You can specify noindex, nofollow, or noarchive. In addition, you can block affiliate tracking scripts via robots.txt by using -disallow:/afftrack.cgi.
Another type of redirect is the www vs the non www. Search engines will index http://yourwebsite.com and http://www.yourwebsite.com . This is bad since google punishes duplicate content. (Think of it as a nagging housewife that repeats the same instructions over and over 
)
The solution to better rankings is to include code in your .htaaccess file which is in the root directory of your website to tell the spider or browser to always redirect to your web address with the www included everytime so there are not duplicate pages and a lower search engine ranking.
The code is simple. Within your .htaaccess file you would type:
ReWriteEngine on
ReWriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.example.com
ReWriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=permanent,L]
It should not affect subdomains at all. Redirection can be applied to many duplicate content problems as well as other link issues. Redirection can also make links untrackable as links pointing through multiple redirects MAY NOT show up as links to the target URL.
Now, what if you have a broken link on your page and it renders a 404 not found page? Easy. Customize your 404 page with some content to appear so redirect people back to your primary category or related links. Alot of internet marketers use 404 pages to recommend related products on their site and have excellent increased conversions. You could also show a search box, sitemap, or link back to your homepage. Regardless, you need to fix those links.
I’ll talk about custom 404 pages in a future post.
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Maybe you have some money and want in invest in a niche or maybe you don’t have the money but aren’t sure about what market to pursue. You certainly don’t want to be affected by a recession that hit us recently, and if anything, if you’re smart you might want to excel in a recession. That’s probably one of the reasons I enjoy debt management. Its unaffected and you help people solve financial problems. Here are some industries that flourish despite recessions.
Debt Management/ Settlement
The Wedding Industry - Wedding Products, Planning, Photography, etc.
Other things people always want to know more about are:
1. To attract sex.
2. To keep their possessions.
3. To have more fun.
4. To satisfy curiosity.
5. To protect their family.
6. To be in style.
7. To have beautiful possessions.
8. To quench their appetite.
9. To emulate others.
0. To avoid trouble.
11. To avoid criticism.
12. To be an individual
13. To protect their reputation.
14. To grab opportunities
15. To be safe.
16. To make work easier.
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So what’s the benefit when you read everything you can read about SEO and then you realize all the top guys you have learned from are repeating themselves and demonstrate a life changing profitability in their online companies? Peace of mind.
I’ve studed SEO like it was oxygen for my existence but mainly because its interesting because once applied can change the lives of every business you interact with. And that’s just enjoyable when you can enhance someone’s business and lifestyle. I also enjoy it because its sales and isn’t that the bottomline in every business..to make sales? Its enjoyable to grow relationships and educate people on critical information. All a part of growing a new blog I’ll be writing, Maven Entrepreneur
The fun part about making all these sites is that I get to test different things. For example, making small tests that have improved rankings. Your url keywords are important for making a smaller site begin to show rankings if its very relevant so three or more keywords is pretty easy to rank for. But its important that your pages retain content. What is content? Words! Sentences written in a logical order that make sentence and describe something. Filling that content with links and descriptive changing yet related anchor text diversifies your website from a robot perspective.
If you forget everything else in this article and realize two key things:
1-PageRank-
and
2-Link Reputation you have 90% of SEO down.
Its the implementation and architecture of how you compose your SEO strategy that makes the difference in your success. Its interesting how I just create a structure that makes it optimize better. All I really do is have the keywords repeated on every page for the title text, meta description, anchor text, breadcrumb navigation, and inside the actual body content (text). Then you repeat that on 60 to 100 different related pages and content and you start to rank so much higher.
A more advanced seo strategy is to automatic the growth of your keyword rich pages. How about a forum? A forum where people have a reason to come back and everytime a post is made you have pages duplicated and that just increases your page rank. Or a blog. Blogging is getting easier and more social in similar to a forums in some ways. Its an excellent shortterm strategy to grow exchanged links between sites and the search robots index them faster since the content is updated more often.
Again, your never ending strategy is increasing the number of links from inside the website via internal pages and then external pages.
Now with social media and video you can have your own little tv show. How did Soldier boy get found? On youtube. Retarded, isn’t it?
Video indexes faster than blogs and its yet another medium to be taken over as people search for television rather than television attacking us with their 20 extra decibels louder and obnoxious commercials about crap we just don’t care to hear or watch.
Thank you permission marketing for saving my life
Please comment if you liked this article.
Anyway,
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Affiliates learn how to sell once, get paid forever
Jeff just posted a new video to his blog.
Perpetual Payouts with Jeff Johnson
He shows you how to tap into the power of “perpetual payouts” as an affiliate to make more money rather than a short launch like most.
His stuff is always straight to the point and full of “take it to the bank” info.
Check out his “perpetual payouts” video tutorial
here:
Enjoy!
P.S.
You don’t need to give your email to watch this video, or a dozen others just like it on his blog.
But if you like the video I strongly recommend that you join his mailing list.
Jeff is always sending out the highest-quality tutorials, and they are free.
Plus his free SEO blog software is killer, and he’ll send that to you for free once you join his mailing list.
Here’s that free video…
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As a group project for Psychology class we were assigned the topic of how to make a presentation to 7th and 8th grade students about the dangers of drugs. The presentation will serve as a Public Service Announcement (PSA) to present persuasive general arguments you can give to convince students not to start using drugs.
As stated in Chapter 4 States of Consciousness in our textbook, Mastering the World of Psychology, Second Edition by Samuel E Wood, Ellen Green Wood, and Denise Boyd, nicotine, like caffee increases alertnesss, but few people wh have tried to quit smoking doubt its addictive power. For example, Gren and Lynn reviewed the results of 59 studies of hypnosis and smoking and concluded that hypnosis cannot be considered effective in helping smokers break the habit. However, over the counter nicotine patches help 1 in 5 smokers quit and enable others to cut down on the number of cigarettes they smoke…(Joicoeur et al, 2003).
There are many serious health problems that are discussed in Chapter 10. Smoking remaint the foremost cause of preventable diseases and deaths in the United States (US Dept of Health Svcs, 2000).
The highest number of smokers are found to be among Native American men (41%) and women (29%) while the lowest rates are reported are reported for Asian american men (18%) and women 11%.
Smoking increases the risk of heart disease, lung cancer, and ther cancers and emphysema. It is known that smoking suppresses the action of T cells in the lungs, increases susceptibility to respiratory infections and tumors. Other issues are bronchitis, low birth weight, and retarded fetal development in babies born to smoking mothers.
We have created a simple video game to remind 7th graders of low birth weight mothers and the problems smoking causes people.
Conduct additional research from credible sources on your assigned drug in the PSA. A list of credible sources has been included in this packet for your use. Although you may use these sources, the group will need some additional information for the presentation.
http://www.askmichaelhart.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/cigarettebeta.swf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNKVjm5QoQE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoIZCnp_Wp8
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Tuesday, 01 Sep 2009
Companies may want to consider how their SEO plays out on the world stage
When companies begin to use search engine optimization (SEO) to increase their online presence they often just think about optimizing for Google, but new figures from comScore show that companies that sell in the world market may want to consider some alternative search engines.
According to the most recent figures released from comScore, global searches now exceed more than 100 billion each month and while Google still makes up the vast majority of searches, a number of other sites are seeing their use increase - including some located outside of the U.S.
The statistics show that more than 113 billion searches were conducted across the globe in July - a 41percent increase over July of 2008. And while it’s no shock that Google and Yahoo are in the number one and two spots, Baidu.com, a Chinese search engine, comes in third on the list - ahead of Microsoft’s sites.
But the biggest market to watch for might be Russia as Yandex, a Russian search engine, saw the biggest growth in the last year, increasing from 663 million searches last year to almost 1.3 billion in July - a 94 percent increase.
Using search engine optimization (SEO) for only an American market might be a bad move for many companies as comScore finds that both Europe and the Asia Pacific region have a larger percentage of the search engine market. Original link here
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As a web designer, I am always bookmarking and maintaining resources for pieces of code to build a webpage. Rather than look it up I thought I’d share some simple code to create a simple navigation bar. Once again we’ll structure things with a list of links and use some CSS to turn that list into a navigation bar.
(x)HTML List
The (x)HTML structure will be an unordered list with links inside each of the list items. In fact it’s basically the same list used in the menu example (with a different id applied) in part to show how powerful CSS can be in generating a different look to the same (x)HTML structure.
<ul id=”list-nav”>
<li><a href=”#”>Home</a></li>
<li><a href=”#”>About Us</a></li>
<li><a href=”#”>Services</a></li>
<li><a href=”#”>Products</a></li>
<li><a href=”#”>Contact</a></li>
</ul>
Just a typical list of links with an id of list-nav applied to allow us to specify the list in the CSS. The code as it is now will look like:
Styling The Navigation Bar With CSS
Let’s start by setting padding and margin on the list itself so we have things looking the same in Firefox and IE. We’ll also remove the bullets and set a width on the overall list.
ul#list-nav {
margin:20px;
padding:0;
list-style:none;
width:525px;
}
List items normally display as block level elements, but here we want them to display inline to achieve the look of a navigation bar as opposed to a menu.
ul#list-nav li {
display:inline
}
For the links we’ll again take out the underline, add a little padding, give the links the familiar green background color and white text color. We’ll also give the links a width and use 100px for each link. The key this time will be in positioning the links by floating each one left.
ul#list-menu li a {
text-decoration:none;
padding:5px 0;
width:100px;
background:#485e49;
color:#eee;
float:left;
}
The navigation bar is now taking shape and should look like:
All that’s really left is to add some styling touches and also a rollover effect.
Finishing Touches
The text looks a little off up against the left egde of the bar so let’s center it. We’ll also add a white border in between the links to help differentiate where each one begins and ends.
ul#list-nav li a {
text-align:center;
border-left:1px solid #fff;
}
Here the border has only been applied to the left side of each link. This leaves a 1px border on the left edge of the overall navigation bar, but since it’s currently sitting on a white background it disappears into that background. Depending on the structure of the rest of your document this could throw the positioning of things off by 1px, but it’s easy enough to remove the border from the leftmost link if it’s an issue.
We’ll do the same thing with the rollover as last time. We’ll just change the color of the background and the color of the text itself. Naturally enough the CSS is exactly the same we used in previously when creating the rollover on the menu.
ul#list-nav li a:hover {
background:#a2b3a1;
color:#000
}
The complete navigation bar should look like:
Just as with the simple menu the navigation bar is also quite simple. In fact if you compare the code for both you’ll find that the majority is exactly the same for each. The (x)HTML is the same with the exception of the different id, as is much of the CSS. The major differences here are making the list wider since the navigation bar is wider then the menu, and changing the list items to display inline and floating the links left to get them to display next to each other instead of stacked on top of each other.
Complete Navigation Bar (x)HTML And CSS
The complete code for our simple navigation bar is:
<ul id=”list-nav”>
<li><a href=”#”>Home</a></li>
<li><a href=”#”>About Us</a></li>
<li><a href=”#”>Services</a></li>
<li><a href=”#”>Products</a></li>
<li><a href=”#”>Contact</a></li>
</ul>
ul#list-nav {
list-style:none;
margin:20px;
padding:0;
width:525px
}
ul#list-nav li {
display:inline
}
ul#list-nav li a {
text-decoration:none;
padding:5px 0;
width:100px;
background:#485e49;
color:#eee;
float:left;
text-align:center;
border-left:1px solid #fff;
}
ul#list-nav li a:hover {
background:#a2b3a1;
color:#000
}
Just as with the simple menu I hope you’ve seen how is it is to create a simple navigation bar. The (x)HTML is as simple as it can be and even the CSS isn’t too complicated. By changing the CSS a little you can easily get different size bars or different colored bars. It would also be rather simple to use an image behind the links as opposed to a block of color. The power here is really in the css. Compare how easy it was to change a menu into a navigation bar with just a few minor changes and then apply a little creativity to style your own navigation bars from a basic (x)HTML list.
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These are two voicemails of an overconfident guy calling a woman he found attractive on the street. The detail to which he tries to rule out every possible option for why he did not get a callback is funny.
Click here to hear the voicemails
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Should We Take Social Media Seriously?
Ponder These Social Media Statistics for 2009
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In the 1960s, Dr. Peter Witt gave spiders different kinds of illegal drugs like LSD, Marijuana, and Alcohol to observe the effects on their wbs. The results, shown in this Environment Canada Wildlife Service video, were interesting to say the least, and comical.
You can watch the video below:
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What kind of products should I sell?
This is an age old questions for marketers whether online or offline. You want a product that works best across multiple networks. Have you ever thought about testing your product in a public place? You don’t have to actually do it but think about if you were standing in New York and people were walking by and you stopped ten people; how many of those people would be potential buyers for your product or service?
What are issues everyone has? Weight-loss, education (one of my favorite markets) like making money online, cellphones ( the Iphone especially), clothes, food, things to help you sleep, you get the idea. Naturally the greater your prospective buyer is, the greater your change of conversions and accruing wealth.
The Right Product Or Service Solves A Problem
Does the offer provide a simple, inexpensive solution to a problem that irritates millions of people worldwide?
Does the offer enable customers to easily solve problems that would normally cost them a high dollar amount if they did it themselves or even used someone else?
Does the product easily solve messy chores without the hassle normally associated with it?
If yes, you are on the right track to a great idea. If no, keep thinking. If you can show that your product makes life easier you’re still in the game.
The best product or service relieves a perceived problem that your client has but in many cases, people aren’t always aware of the problem they have so you have to show them their problem.
For example, are your credit card interest rates high? Most of the people I speak with have no idea what their interest rate is. Nor do they realize that a 20% interest rate assumes some 80% of their monthly payment they send in which is why the credit card companies make hundreds of millions of dollars off people making the minimum payment on their cards.
So you must ask the question, How do I make my clients lives easier? Finding the answer to your question helps you determine the problem they are experiencing.
I Want It and I Want It Now - Instant Gratification
The need to have it now is ingrained in our culture. Instant messaging, email, microwave ovens, pizza delivery, 24/7 open grocery stores and gas stations, people want results and quickly. Lately I have been reading about continuity programs which is simply a word for some product or service where you pay a reoccurring monthly fee to gain that service.
Many people get bored of the long-term commitment. The average continuity program lasts 3 months long so consider if you are selling that type of service that you find a shorter way like 30 days to accomplish a goal.
Keep in mind that a product does not have to be necessarily better than its competition; just different. Look at the variety of cellphones out there today. So many of them really aren’t any better, but in fact just look “cooler”.
The Right Product At the Right Price
If you watch infomercials, you already know that 95% of the time its going to be $19.95 and if you act now, you get a bonus, right?
Books are a little different. From conversion studies I’ve read you have the same conversion at a $47.00 price as you do a $29.95 or less, so why not charge more? Keep in mind that is typically for “front end products” Back end products or down sells are typically 50% of the price at half the value, unless you have a great offer.
Perceived Value
Perceived Value is critical for any product. Naturally your consumer has to want it. Unique products always have a higher perceived value, so try to set yourself different from the pack.
Test Your Product
You should always test your product prior to a launch to see how well it does. No matter how well you sell a product or service, if it doesn’t come through on your guarantee, what good is the effort?
The same is true with affiliate marketing. You always send a sample of your product to your affiliates prior to them promoting it so they can know if their word is good behind it. You stake your reputation on every single product you endorse and you need to protect it accordingly.
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Forno Bar & Pizzeria in Big Canoe
Marble Hill GA Has Great Italian
Food
Forno Bar & Pizzeria located at 218 Foothills Parkway in Marblehill, GA, located in the IGA Shopping Center has excellent food. I just ate there last night and had the chicken penne pasta with alfredo sauce. It was excellent. This is especially good considering the prices are low and there really aren’t any italian restaurants in Big Canoe or Marblehill, GA for that matter.
I spoke with the owner of Forno and decided to help him develop his website and search engine placement for relevant keywords like ” italian restaurant in big canoe,” “italian restaurant in marble hill”, big canoe pizza, etc.
They have a great bar selection and the peroni beer, one of my favorites, is currently only $3 a draft.
I haven’t explored too much of Jasper GA or dawson county for italian restaurants. I imagine you can’t be the price or the great service they have for italian food It is conveniently located a few miles south of the Big Canoe gate so if you are a big canoe resident looking for good food, Forno is definitely the place to visit.
They have everything from philly cheese steak subs, meatball subs, chicken alfredo pasta, chicken parmigiana, rigatoni, lasagna, calamari, bruschetta, hot wings, chicken and veal cacciatore, francesse, marsala, piccatta, etc you get the idea.
If you would like to contact them, their phone number is 770.893.4222 . You won’t be disappointed!
Their new website will be www.BigCanoeItalianRestaurant.com
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Testing michael hart’s blog facebook link
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A city boy, Kenny, moved to the country and bought a donkey from an old farmer for $100.00. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day. The next day the farmer drove up and said, “Sorry son, but I have some bad news, the donkey died last night.”
Kenny replied: “Well then, just give me my money back.”
The Farmer said: “Can’t do that. I went and spent it already.”
Kenny: “OK then, just unload the donkey.”
The Farmer asked: “What ya gonna do with him?”
Kenny: “I’m going to raffle him off.” (Note: To raffle is to sell a
thing by lottery - draw lot - to a group of people each paying the same
amount for a ticket)
Farmer: “You can’t raffle off a dead donkey!”
Kenny: “Sure I can. Watch me. I just won’t tell anybody he’s dead.”
A month later the farmer met up with Kenny and asked, “What happened with that dead donkey?”
Kenny: “I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars apiece and made a profit of $898.00.”
Farmer: “Didn’t anyone complain?”
Kenny: “Just the guy who won. So I gave him back his two dollars.”
Kenny grew up and eventually became the chairman of Enron.
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I am amazing at how many marketing plans I see out there that do not have a free offer. If you test the case studies by switching from just selling a product at a set price, your average conversion rate is 1-2%. Or you could try the “free” offer, followed by say a shipping and handling fee, then the upsell for the actual product, and possibily a downsell of the upsell at half the price.
The Results? Staggering. Conversion rates for free offers jump up anywhere from 12%- 35%, for simply giving away free products!
Think about it? How many of you see the value of a product at times but just aren’t sure if you really want it. The “try before you buy” gets me everytime. Whether its software, a tutorial course or dvd, music online, free food samples, trying on clothes or shoes, I could go on and on but the concept remains the same.
People by nature are cautious buyers. They want their money to count for something. I sure do.People want answers to their questions. People want tools they need and things they should know. Give them tips they can instantly use in their lives and business. Give them pleasant surprises. Give them interaction. Give them promises you can keep. Develop a history of giving. Be known as a giver and nuture that relationship. Don’t believe me? Test it out and let me know how it goes for you.
To gain more free marketing tips, Click here to Suscribe now
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To sign up for my free newsletter on how to build a list and make money online, simply sign up below!
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United Airlines Breaks Man’s Guitar, Refuses To Pay, So He Pays Them Back
Dave Carroll, a light hearted musician from Novia Scotia, Canada, flew United Airlines with his band and noticed outside the window that his guitar was being thrown by the baggage handlers. After fighting with United over the claim for his damaged $3,500 Taylor guitar, he decided to release a music video on the situation.
After 150,000 page views on Youtube, United finally decided to face up and contact him. You can follow the story here with the 2 videos below: The first is the CNN coverage of the situation that came out 3 days after the video’s release, and then the actual music video which is actually pretty good, and I don’t particularly care for country music myself.
The lesson to be learned from this: Don’t treat your customers like crap. Its very easy to get people’s attention these days with social media. In the case of United, not only did the flight attendants not show any concern, but neither did anyone else he spoke to until much, much later after attention was received.
It really makes you wonder what so many of these high salaried executives for airline companies actually do with their time. It also teaches you a good lesson, make sure you have good insurance on expensive things if you fly!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpQNWNN_HS4&
And here’s the actual music video..not too shabby.
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