It makes sense that if you’re optimizing your site for search engines that you also get the most you possibly can out of your search engine optimization. And if you’re not optimizing your site for list building, you’re only doing half of the job at best.

You see, getting a lot of traffic isn’t meaningful if the visitors that come to your site aren’t directed anywhere in particular. There’s no need for you to do so aggressively if that doesn’t work for your site, but it IS necessary that you build a path from search engine visitors to, at minimum, signing up for your newsletter.

Let me give you an example.

If you’re getting 1000 new visitors that typically result in ten $100 sales, and you’re not making any special effort to capture visitors, you may think you’re doing just fine.

And you are. That’s a one percent conversion rate from visitors to sales, slightly below the average, $1000 for every 1000 visitors.

But if your rate of getting subscribers from 1000 visitors is 10 percent, or 100, even if the conversion rate is the same, that’s still a 10 percent increase in sales from the same 1000 visitors.

That’s a modest example, because subscribers are often more likely to buy – they often sign up to remind themselves to buy an item after researching, or closer to payday. It’s much more likely to produce a ten percent increase in sales, which would be ten more sales, and that would be double the sales, or $2000!

Now, that’s not always the case, but on the occasions that it is, that’s reason enough to incorporate a list optimized site into your search engine plan.

Okay.

That’s it.

I am flaccid with rage. If that’s possible.

And I tried to suck it up like a good girl.

Yikes, that sounds dirty but it’ not my fault. When I’m this upset, half the things I say could be taken very sexually out of context. I’ll try to be conscious of that.

Live dot com, this mess has been coming up, on and off since September, when you made your announcement about how dope/fresh/chill Live Search was going to be. (Again.)

Guess what “New Live search“, I’ve had just about enough of your little spider friend, and I’m not alone, just slow to react. My quickie stats are often unreadable due to your presence on my server, and for what? You’re not following up your search with people.

For months now you’ve been telling me not to block your bot, because then I won’t be in your precious index. Well, I’ve been just fine since all my good MSN search listings disappeared an eon ago. Yes, I know that it’s not that hard to get back in to your new good graces as live.com, but it’s just not worth the effort. No matter how many first place rankings I have from you, the conversion rate is so low, I have barely noticed not getting traffic from you.

And I just can’t stand for it any more. Especially since you keep engaging in such rude foreplay with my server.

I know, I said I wouldn’t do that. But the metaphor fits.

True, I let the search robots run wild on my server because my partners and I have already ponied up for the bandwidth. But see, when I get Google spiders in the morning, I know I’ll continue to get traffic from earlier trips all day long.

Visitors may eventually come from your scouring of my pages, but until you get your little robot friend under control, I’m blocking you from my servers. It’s a decision I may come to regret later. And if so, a line of code in my robots file is all it will take to let you back in.

Therefore, you’re officially dead to me. For at least the next month or so.

Yup, finally lost my mind.  It’s snapped about 5 minutes ago.  I hope it stays like this, cause then I’ll have a legitimate excuse for whatever.

“Ground control to Major Morgan, ground control to Major Morgan, take your protein pills and put your helmet on – Ground control to Major Morgan”.

At this site anyone, even me, can post a question about any subject, or answer an existing question.  Registration and use are completely free.

If you need an answer, ask your question, register to its RSS feed of answers, and just wait until your news aggregator pops out an answer.  Questions and answers can be rated, so that the most interesting questions and the most useful answers come first.  If you have knowledge to share, pay this site a visit from time to time, you might even earn some money.

Money!  I can make some money? Oh, I’m all better now.

Easy to install and to customize, Askeet, may be the solution you are looking for if you need a FAQ section on your site or for a mini knowledge base for your community.

Ask you, ask me, Askeet!

MorganLighter

I didn’t think so – so see ya!

Just kidding. Sorta. Kinda. Maybe. Who knows. ??

If you’ve heard about this site and haven’t shared it, I don’t know if we should be angry with you or just chalk it up to your not wanting to let the cat out of the bag.

Well, tough. I’m letting the cat loose, so there.

Yes, I had thoughts of hanging on to this for a while, but that wouldn’t be friendly or nice, and as you know by now, I’m a nice guy.

So what is it, you ask.

Well, featured on this site, which places blogs on nearly 100 top-tier news and media sites, are: Reuters, USA Today, Gannett, McGraw-Hill Architectural Record, FoxNews and Internet Broadcasting, just to drop a few names. Not that I’d drop names.

Excited yet? I can hear you say “Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie!”

Okay, don’t wet your pants.

What it is, is BlogBurst!

Once you log on to their site, click on Blogger Info, Publisher Info, Check out their editorial team, the FAQ’s, etc. I think you’ll find it’s a fairly straight forward site and will treat those that play by the rules, quite well.

A million new viewers a month, a million new viewers a month, a million new viewers a month.

Just had to say that a few times.

Makes my head spin. Here’s the front door.

MorganLighter

Have you heard about the “Bitty Browser”?

Well, check this out!

Bitty Browser helps you keep track of your favorite Web stuff by enabling navigable windows directly within your favorite sites – it’s like Picture-in-Picture for the Web.

For example – Try opening Bitty in: Google, Netvibes, Pageflakes, Windows Live, Protopage, Typepad, WordPress, webwag, 30 Boxes, Widgetbox, AOL’s AIMPages. (In a couple of sites you have to log in – but it’s no big deal). Or add Bitty to any other site or blog via a simple HTML copy/paste.

It’s also a platform to Widgetize and Syndicate activity – how cool is that?!?

For all you Web developers, bloggers, advertisers, publishers, Bitty Browser is a smart way to widgetize and syndicate interactivity.

You’ll reach a wider audience by making your content or service available out through windows on other Web sites all the while maintaining closer relationships by enabling your content or service within personal start pages. And if that isn’t enough, you’ll provide your visitors with extended content and services without driving them away from your site.

Check it out for yourself.

MorganLighter

Quick now.

Don’t miss it.

Here it comes.

Search keywords and phrases  through different Google data centers.

MorganLighter

Let’s get right to it, shall we?

Static URLs are known to be better than Dynamic URLs because of a number of reasons
1. Static URLs typically Rank better in Search Engines.
2. Search Engines are known to index the content of dynamic pages a lot slower compared to static pages.
3. Static URLs are always more friendlier looking to the End Users.

Example of a dynamic URL:

http://www.widgets.com/product.php?categoryid=1&productid=10

This tool helps you convert dynamic URLs into static looking html URLs.

Example of the above dynamic URL Re-written using this tool:

http://www.widgets.com/product-categoryid-1-productid-10.htm

Note* – You would need to create a file called “.htaccess” and paste the code generated into it. Once you have created the .htacess file simply copy it into your web directory. URL rewriting of this type would work ONLY if you are hosted on a Linux Server.

Dynamic URLs  vs.  Static URLs.

This article explains the various challenges of Dynamic URLs vs. Static URLs.

 And there you have it and here you’ll get it.

MorganLighter

This tool will determine the country by the IP address.

It’s lightning fast and free. The database is huge and is updated on a regular basis. Go!

Want a bonus?

Click on this link to lookup the host or website which an IP address belongs and the country where this host is physically located.

MorganLighter

Search Engine Strategies in San Jose is going on right now, and I’ve been on the hunt for short videos. If you find more that are shareable, please let me know as tomorrow is Search Engine Wednesday and I’ll add them then. If you have shot some that aren’t shareable, please let me know as I can splice links to them in my feed, share them on Facebook, or in one of my shared Google Reader pages.

Here is one I found with Lee Odden interviewing Tim Mayer of Yahoo. There’s a funny comment at the end about spam. [video length - 2:52 |comment on his site]

Here’s another one with Michael Gray and Bryan Eisenberg on sustainable social marketing. The last two minutes are critical issues that we’re addressing in the Facing It Group, formed of our FUN Traffic clients.

The way they put it in this video should help you understand why you need to build a social media strategy, not just for what links you’re going to submit where, not just that you have to build a groundswell of grass roots support, but how. [video length - 4:15 |comment on Lee's site]

This last one is with Dan Perry from Cars.com. Very good point about why to go to these conferences. I’m planning on going to Everything next year, if anyone wants to meet me in person, ’08 is the year to do it. [video length - 1:35 |join discussion, already in progress]

These are awesome. I saw that Lee posted them to his blog only after I’d already finished the post.

Here’s another one with Mike McDonald from WebProNews interviewing Jon Stewart of Nielsen//NetRatings… and I quote:

Jon Stewart of Nielsen//NetRaitings [sic] talks with WebProNews after his panel at SES San Jose on The Search Landscape. Stewart reminds viewers to remember other ways to bring traffic to their site besides search. For other tips watch the interview on WebProNews.

Emphasis mine! [video 3:08 | link to video]

Here’s another with Abby Prince interviewing Jon Lisbin of Point It.

[video length 5:00 | video]

Okay, we’ve gone over the Backlink Anchor Text Analysis and the Backlink Builder – so, here’s the Backlink Summary!

Quite simply, this tools help you build a LOT of quality backlinks.  It searches for websites of the theme you specify that contain keyphrases like “Add link”, “Add site”, “Add URL”, “Add URL”, “Submit URL” etc. Most of the results could be potential backlinks.

Do it!

Click the link.

Now.

Oh, yeah – here’s the link, sorry.

MorganLighter

Wayback Machine!

If there is anyone out there who never watched ‘The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show’, then I am so sad and sorry for you. You missed out on one of the greatest cartoon shows to have appeared on television. In my opinion, you need to watch this program, or otherwise you will never be well adjusted. You can get it through Amazon!

Okay – What has this got to do with anything, you ask. Hee-hee-hee.

It’s the – (ta -da) Domain Age Tool.

This tools displays the approximate age of a website on the Internet and allows you to view how the website looked when it first started. It also helps you find out the age of your competitor’s domains, older domains may get a slight edge in Search Engine Rankings.

So how you gonna go back to when the website first started? You’re gonna use the Wayback Machine! How clever is that?

MorganLighter