My Weblog Diary

Internet Marketing Blogs that Beg to be Bookmarked

What are the qualities of a great blog? Well, for me it’s one that offers me something of value, whether that be in the form of valuable information, or points me in the direction of free products or services. It’s all about me. By the same token, I do appreciate a blogger with a sense of humor or strong personality. If you’re stiff and mechanical it’s just not for me. Show me who you really are and what makes you tick.

One final point. Don’t forget about design. Blogs that are easy on the eyes, uncluttered and simple get my vote every time. If it has a black background and white text, I’m out of there in a big hurry.

So, who has some of the best blogs online today? So glad you asked. Listen closely as I enlighten you and point you in the right direction.

1) Willie Crawford:

An experienced online marketer, Willie is considered one of the world’s leading Internet marketing experts. Listen to Willie, he “walks the talk” and can teach you a lot about the world of online marketíng.

He also has a radio show at: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/WillieCrawford

2) Michael Fortin Blog:

Copywriting and marketing tips from a man who is too brilliant for words. Michael is an expert copywriter who has done work for John Reese and many of the other top marketers. Without good copy you can’t sell a thing, so learning all you can about persuasive writing is a must for your to do list. Also see: http://www.copywritersboard.com

3) Skip Mcgrath:

If Ebay is your thing then Skip’s blog is a must. An expert at selling items on Ebay, and an experienced author of several books, Skip covers all of the ins and outs of earning money with Ebay.

4) Jensense:

Jennifer helps you to make sense of contextual advertising and helps publishers to earn more money. Topics include Google Adsense and other similar contextual ad programs.

more..

Tips To Consider When Searching For Your Career Job

There are times when the need to switch a job is high on the agenda and it gets essential to breathe a new air into one’s professional life. It’s pretty humane to make mistakes, but there are a few concerns which are a strict no-no when one thinks of switching from one organization to another.

Few of them include;
• Being location centric. It is better to keep one’s options open and not be too choosy when it comes to the choice of cities. Also, preferably seek a job in a city having a good IT infrastructure.

• Having a unique skill set. With the future of IT sector in consideration, many new software packages, programming languages and developer platforms will emerge. It is better to be a jack of all trades than being a master at one, because being a master it will reduce the job profile horizon.

• Importance of Certifications. Emphasizing more on certifications will not stand you in good company as it may seem that the over publicity of certifications is an indicator of dearth in knowledge. However, you should mention the same in your resume. Preference should be given on a combination of skills rather than showing one’s certifications from different institutes.

• A Loner attitude. As IT jobs have a preconceived notion of working in a secluded cabin and breaking one’s head on complex codes, it is advisable for one to be of a friendly and outgoing nature. A loner attitude does not work here because it gives an impression that you are the one who prefers to be too filled up with work.

• Speaking about your previous employer. All the IT companies are operating on more or less the same principles and job profiles. Thus, it is important for one to not speak about the frustration levels and the working culture at the previous company.

• Emphasizing more on personal growth. A company would always prefer a candidate who would keep an organization’s growth above his personal growth. So it is imperative for a candidate to stress more on the growth of the organization he/she has for. • Waiting for regular processing. Whatever be the trend, it is always necessary to employ traditional methods of networking such as telephones, personal contacts etc. when it comes to gaining a breakthrough step in the processing of your resume. Having a contact inside the company can only be helpful when you can make him outsource some important details and take his help to gain a competitive advantage over other resumes.

• Writing a generic objective. Amongst the heap of resumes, a generic objective gets unnoticed. It is always a safe option to have a specific objective which is an indicator of an essentially definite job profile.

I hope these would help you in one way or the other to get your next job!

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Google Answers Some Tricky Questions

Recently, during a live chat Q&A, Googlers Matt Cutts and Maile Ohye, among others, faced the burning questions of webmasters around the world. Together, they put to rest some fears and myths, and confirmed some speculations.

Below are the meatier results, with the straightest answers given first, followed by responses that were a bit on the ambiguous side, which we took the liberty of translating. Did you know there are about 200 factors that go into determining a site’s ranking in the search results? How about that Google made 450 tweaks to its algorithm last year?

Only one question during that session received conflicting answers from Googlers and wasn’t reconciled: Does the age of a website/domain affect its ranking?

Ohye answered this way: a site’s reputation can be a indicator to search engines, but of course, it’s not everything. Having a site for a long period of time can establish credibility with users, and as a search engine we also want to reflect this type of credibility. Of course, newer domains can also gain users and credibility. It seems like running a good site is a bit like running a reputable business. So yes, if your domain has been credible for years it can help. If you buy an old domain and put all your content on it in hopes of getting instant rankings, that’s not the best idea.

But, when the question was rephrased from another webmaster, Cutts answered: In the majority of cases, it actually doesn’t matter–we want to return the best information, not just the oldest information. Especially if you’re a mom/pop site, we try to find ways to rank your site even if your site is newer or doesn’t have many links. I think it is fair for Google to use that as a signal in some circumstances, and I try never to rule a signal out completely, but I wouldn’t obsess about it.

Official translation: Sometimes, when we say it does.

GOOGLE STRAIGHT TALK

Do 301 redirects carry over PageRank?

Where appropriate, ranking signals will be transferred across 301 redirects (if the same page has moved from one URL to another). This may take some time, so you should probably leave the redirect in place as long as you have control over the URL.

How many 301 redirects are acceptable?

It’s ok to chain a few together. The HTTP 1.0 standard allows for a maximum of 5 redirects for a URL, so keep it minimal.

Why do pages translated into different languages each have different rankings in their respective engines?

Google looks at content on a URL-by-URL basis, so even if you have translated top content from one language to another, Google might not treat it the same way as they would treat the original content. It’s also possible that the translated content is not as relevant as other original content in that language. Generally speaking, making sure that your content is as unique and compelling as possible for the users in that target market is the best thing to do.

Do backlinks from bad sites negatively affect my PageRank?

Those links might be positively affecting your PageRank (PageRank does not go down from “bad” links like those from mature sites). In general, you don’t have to worry about bad links like that which point to your site that aren’t under your control.

Read the full article..