1. Trademarked Keywords In Domain Names

If you’re thinking of registering a domain name that includes a trademarked keyword, think again. Using someone else’s trademark to attract customers is illegal. It violates federal trademark law, which prohibits the use of someone else’s trademark, if it causes a “likelihood of confusion” among consumers. Take Yahoo for example. They objected to 37 registered domains, including AtlantaYahoo.com, DCYahoo.com, Jahu.com and Yhu.com.

2. Trademarked Keywords In META Tags

It’s not necessarily illegal to use trademarked keywords in your META tags. But you could get sued, and people have. It all depends on why and how you are using the trademarked keywords. If you used the keywords in what is deemed a deceptive manner, then you’re likely to lose your case. However, there has been one instance of a defendant who proved to the judge that she had a legitimate reason to use the trademarked keyword. Here’s a short story to illustrate the seriousness of using trademarked keywords in META tags. I had a client who included the trademarked brand name of a competing product in one of his web pages. One day, he received a letter from the lawyer acting on behalf of the trademark owner in question. The letter stated:

“Use of [trademarked term] constitutes federal false advertising, trademark infringements, state unfair competition and is deliberately designed to trade on [trademarked term] reputation and goodwill. Placing the term, [trademarked term], in the keywords and META tags of your site inappropriately and unlawfully draws Internet users to your site.”

They threatened to sue, unless my client removed the trademarked terms from the META tags. Naturally, we obliged! ;o) What was surprising was that we could use the trademarked terms in the visible page body. So we kept the trademarked keywords in the page body.

3. Pagejacking

Pagejacking is copying someone else’s web page and submitting it to the search engines as your own, in hopes of getting high rankings. Quite often pagejacking also involves page cloaking. Pagejacking is no more than stealing copyrighted content. It beats me why people would be so dumb as to try this technique. Don’t try it. You will be caught sooner or later.

4. Deep Linking

Deep linking is the practice of providing a link directly to specific content on a web site’s sub-page, instead of linking to its home page. On July 5, 2002, the Bailiff’s Court of Copenhagen ruled in favor of the Danish Newspaper Publishers Association, which claimed that Danish company Newsbooster violated copyright laws by “deep linking” to newspaper articles on some Danish newspapers’ web sites. The argument is that in bypassing the newspapers’ home pages, Newsbooster links deprive them of advertising revenue. Further, they asserted that Newsbooster is in direct competition with newspapers.

5. Deep Linking Without Permission

If a site you are linking to has stated that linking is prohibited, or requires permission first, then don’t link to them. If you do, you’re asking for trouble.

6. Trademarked Keyword Advertising

Thinking of bidding for competing trademarked keywords in search engines? Think again! In January 1999, Estee Lauder sued iBeauty and Excite@Home, saying its trademarks were violated when iBeauty’s ads were presented during searches for Estee Lauder trademarked keywords. When a person searched Excite@Home’s search engine for “Clinique,” they were presented with a banner ad for iBeauty. In addition, the search returned a list of related web sites, including iBeauty.com.

7. Deep Linking Within A Frame

If you link to another site’s content by displaying it within a FRAME on your site, and your ad in another FRAME, you’re walking on thin ice. What you’re basically doing is “stealing” other people’s content to generate advertising revenue. I would recommend staying clear of this practice.

Conclusion

Take care with the marketing techniques you use. If you think a technique can be construed as illegal, search the internet for possible legal cases on the technique. If you can’t find any, then it’s a good chance that the technique in question is worth pursuing.

Call 877-627-2492 to discuss your marketing plan today.

The top two Google ranking factors are:

1. PageRank

2. Incoming Text Link Keywords

PageRank

PageRank is determined by the number and quality of links to a page. Both the quantity and quality of text links are important. Always try to get links from web pages with a PageRank rating of at least four. Concentrate on getting as many different quality sites as possible to link to one page on your site, usually your home page. Do not spread the links to different pages. This will maximize the PageRank of your main page, plus those of the subpages.

Incoming Text Link Keywords

ALWAYS provide text links for linking to your site. Avoid image links. Google does index image links, but without any text for it to index, it won’t help your link popularity rating for your important keywords. In addition:

1. Include the most important keyword phrase in the text link, using the EXACT spelling.
2. Do not pluralize the keyword phrase, if people usually search the singular version of the phrase. And vice versa.
3. Avoid excess words, where possible.
4. The linked to page MUST have the text link keywords in the body of the page, otherwise Google will discount the page.
5. Include the text link keywords within the title tag of the linked to page. It is possible for a page without the text link keywords in the title tag to get top rankings. But I have discovered that around 80% of top 10 rankings have the text link keywords in the title tag, so always include it.

Well, there you have it. Those are what I consider the two most important ranking factors used by Google. Other factors are considered by Google, but their importance pales in comparison to the two I have discussed in this article. Follow these tips whenever you optimize your web pages and they will quickly shoot up the Google rankings.

Earth Skater delivers the most BANG for the buck!

Call 877-627-2492 to discuss your marketing plan today.

The following list contains directories which you may be able to submit your website to in order to build links.  Link Building in general is a good initial strategy for building in-bound links to your website.  However, after link building, you should move on to content creation and other forms of marketing and advertising.

Directory URL

dmoz.org scrubtheweb.com directoryworld.net somuch.com jayde.com rdirectory.net dmoz.in.net tsection.com freewebsitedirectory.com wwwi.co.uk viesearch.com 1abc.org businessseek.biz cipinet.com directmylink.com directoryfire.com prolinkdirectory.com pedsters-planet.co.uk amray.com gainweb.org linkbook.pcgraphicsolutions.com the-web-directory.co.uk links.scrabblestop.com submission4u.com suggest-url.net elitesitesdirectory.com inteligentd.com linkpedia.net 1websdirectory.com 9sites.net synergy-directory.com wikidweb.com 247webdirectory.com piseries.com pr3plus.com nexusdirectory.com the-net-directory.com linkdir.info bestfreewebsites.net suggestsite.net nipao.org sighbercafe.com diggdirectory.com 10directory.com visionwebdirectory.com xysyst.net seofreelinks.com dir4uk.com prweblink.com royallinkup.com adityawebs.com directorybooks.com leadinglinkdirectory.com answerspots.com seouplink.com directories.cf good-useful-links.com visionwebseo.com uklistingz.co.uk webappsdirectory.com findwebsite.net localsuccess.org

  We would like to thank http://www.clambr.com/49-free-web-directories-for-building-backlinks/ for compiling this up to date list of link building directories.

1. What is a Web-Certificate?  2. How does a web-certificate work?  3. Can you explain “how a web certificate works” in “Plain English”? 4. How can someone tell whether a website is using a web certificate or not? 5. How are your web certificates trusted by the browsers? 6. What browsers will my web certificate work with? 7. How do your web certificates work for different versions of browsers? 8. How long does it take to get a web certificate? 9. How strong are your server certificates? 10. Is my web certificate tied to my IP address? 11. I am using several servers in load-balancing configuration.  How many certificates do I need?

1. What is a Web-Certificate? A Web Server Certificate permits securer communication between a client and a server (say a customer’s browser and a web retailer’s server) or two servers (any servers who want to “talk” securely amongst themselves). Simply stated, a web-certificate is a digital document that has unique codes to identify the holder of the certificate to the person accessing the site.A Personal Certificate is issued to individuals to certify their identity. One can use them to digitally sign email, documents, jar files etc. to prove that they were the author, and that the files have not been tampered with. Total Web Designs will be offering web certificates. Personal Certificates may be offered at a later time along with other security products. 2.How does a web-certificate work? A Web-certificate functions as follows: Whenever anybody transacts with a “secure” web-site, their browser (or server) authenticates the identity of the web-site using the web-certificate If the site’s certificate is not valid, a warning is issued to the user, otherwise the web-cert creates an SSL (Secure Server Layer) session and encrypts any information exchanged during that session This prevents communication from being intercepted and deciphered by nefarious people on the Internet. 3. Can you explain “how a web certificate works” in “Plain English”? Basically, when two parties (say a customer and the Amazon.com web-site) wish to “talk” securely (transfer the customer’s credit-card number to Amazon.com), then a web-certificate sets up a “secure” session that first verifies the true identity of the party that requests data transfer (Amazon.com). If a certificate is valid, the other party (the customer) gets a message saying that its OK to “talk” to them (Amazon.com), as they are who they say they are. The other party (customer) then transfers the info (CC number) securely, without fear of any nefarious elements intercepting the data. If the certificate is invalid, a message pops up saying so. Transactions can still occur, but at the risk of counter party fraud (It may be joesbooks.com tying to appear as Amazon.com) 4. How can someone tell whether a website is using a web certificate or not? The pages of a web-site which are secured by a web-certificate are characterized by the following traits: The URL of the secure web-pages change from http://… to https:// A lock symbol appears in the lower left-hand (right hand) status bar in Internet Explorer. A lock symbol appears in the beginning of the Web Browser Address Bar If one wants to view and verify the encryption information of the secure pages, one should simply undertake the following: In Google Chrome – click on the lock symbol above and select “View Certificate” button In Internet Explorer – double-click on the lock in the lower right-hand status bar. 5. How are your web certificates trusted by the browsers? Our web certificates are automatically and transparently trusted by browsers. This trust is established because our supplier’s Root Certificate has been embedded in all major browsers. 6. What browsers will my web certificate work with? The web certificates we issue work with 99% of the browsers in use today. 7. How do your web certificates work for different versions of browsers? Cross Certification: The process by which two Certificate Authorities (CA) certify each other’s trustworthiness. 8. How long does it take to get a web certificate? Companies will usually receive a web certificate within the same day or up to 1 week after the an approval process has been complete. The verification period varies and relies greatly on the information provided by the company during the application process. For EV SSL (Extended Validation SSL) the entire process can take up to 1 week or longer. 9. How strong are your server certificates? Our server certificates are 2048 bit capable. 10. Is my web certificate tied to my IP address? No, server certificates do not contain any information about IP addresses. However, the domain name listed in the server certificate must match the domain name of the server on which the Web server certificate is installed. The domain name can be mapped to any IP address. 11. I am using several servers in a load-balancing configuration.  How many web certificates do I need? You will need one web certificate for each of your secure servers (including any virtual servers).

Customer Driven CRM

Customer driven CRM means that organizations first understand the customer, then move inward to operations.

•  What will they buy, when, why and for how much?
• What creates value for them, and does this create a structural bond?
• What services can we perform that merit premium margins?
• Can we establish a new market segmentation strategy focused on potential profitability and willingness to purchase?
• Do we understand their business drivers, financial metrics, buying process and decision criteria?

A decade of CRM has taught us that nothing happens until your people interact with the customer in a manner consistent with new CRM customer strategies and systems. And, finally, you should be well positioned to apply predictive modeling algorithms to establish a financial model with exceptional accuracy. Not an easy task, but case studies are proving financial predictions that can demonstrate account-level forecasting with over 80 percent accuracy.

Summary

Here’s a simple framework for CRM:

• Focus on financial results: Learn how to identify existing profitable customer segments and determine what will establish a profit-based profile for moving forward. Then develop the business requirements to support sustained, and structurally bonded, relationships.
• Find cost effective alternatives for non-buyers or low-margin customers: Not all customer relationships are profitable and very few companies can afford to pay to deliver an equal level of services. Control costs and save your best resources for premium accounts—while working to bring low performers into an acceptable profit portfolio.