Ideas for Business

We may hear a lot of hype about Twitter, but it’s really Facebook that is dominating the social network marketing arena. After all, Twitter has nowhere near the traffic that Facebook has, which is one good reason why you should at least have a profile. But I wouldn’t just stop there. Facebook rules the social [...]

The TopRank team loves to have fun – for holidays, on team outings, at conferences, etc. Because tomorrow is Halloween, a few members of the TopRank team decided to dress up for a costume contest. And it’s up to you to decide the winner! Winning includes at least $50 worth of coffee, so be sure to share this post and get your friends to vote too.

Please vote on your favorite costume below.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | TopRank’s SEO Halloween Costume Contest | One comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

PineCone Research is one of the older, more reliable survey panels online. They consistently send 15 to 20-minute long surveys that pay $3 each and occasionally, they also send products to test. As a PineCone Research panelist, you are part of an elite group that represents consumers nationwide and, your opinion is very important to manufacturers who count on people like yourself to help predict which product ideas are winners and which are losers.

PineCone will only send about one, two or three surveys per month along with household questions (screeners) to insure that you qualify for surveys that are sent. Payment is received via PayPal three to five days after the survey is completed and will be posted to your account from panelpayment@pcrint.com. PineCone also issues checks, which are good for 120 days from the date of issue, to those that prefer them. Technical and other issues are quickly resolved by contacting Karen Scott at scott@PineConeResearch.com. The answers to most questions can be found on the FAQ page here: http://www.pineconeresearch.com/FAQ.asp .

In addition to free products and the $3 incentive offered for completion of surveys, each survey also entitles you to be entered into PineCone’s biweekly sweepstakes for $500. The winners list is posted here: http://www.pineconeresearch.com/sweepstakes/sweepstakes.htm The schedule for the sweepstakes for the remainder of 2009 is as follows:

November 3, 2009
November 17. 2009
December 1, 2009
December 15, 2009
December 29, 2009

I rank PineCone Research very high, not just because they have earned me $81 and rank 16th on my Top 25 Online Surveys list, but because they have short, relevant, well-constructed surveys that are compensated well and received in a timely fashion. They also respond very quickly and thoroughly to problems that may arise. For me, PineCone Research is the model which all other survey sites should emulate. I will end by echoing what everyone else always says about PineCone “I just wish they would send more surveys!”

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PineCone does not recruit new members through their website, however, from time to they do accept new members via registration links posted on various websites. At the time they are currently looking for US Male Members to join their panel.

Feel free to use the following link to join: PineCone Research Registration Link.

Is StumbleUpon trying to compete with Google and Twitter in social search? While they may have been trying to move into that area earlier this month, now they appear to be moving in the opposite direction. Maybe they’re afraid of Google? Whatever it is StumbleUpon has going on, I still consider it a unique and fun [...]

If you’re attempting to improve search rankings for your web pages, these days it’s no longer an option not to optimize digital assets. With search engines incorporating video, images and news into standard search results, marketers have the opportunity to achieve increased visibility by implementing video SEO principles.

These 5 basic tips for video SEO are a good starting point for marketers looking to improve the “searchability” of their videos.

1. Optimize with keywords.
Just like any type of text-based content, video SEO involves optimizing with target relevant keywords — both for search engines and for user experience. Use keywords in:

• File name
• Title
• Tags
• URL
• Link text

Beyond that, include a paragraph of optimized text that provides a brief description of the video. Again, the benefits are twofold: You’ll improve the user experience and your search rankings.

2. Distribute videos on video-sharing sites.
In addition to posting videos on your own site, video-sharing sites are effective tools for gaining visibility and additional links. Remember these few points to maximize results:

• Don’t forget that videos hosted on YouTube and other video-sharing sites should be optimized for keywords
• YouTube channel pages — and those of other video-sharing sites — should be optimized, as well
• Use a video distribution service like TubeMogul to deploy your videos to the top sharing sites

3. Implement a linking strategy.
Video is judged by the same linking standards as all other forms of digital content. So building both internal and external links is crucial for video SEO. Ideas for a linking strategy include:

• Cross-linking to other videos
• Linking to videos from relevant web pages
• Linking to videos in blog posts
• Tweeting the video
• Linking to videos from social media pages
• Bookmarking the video

4. Encourage viewers to share your videos.
First thing is first — if you want users to share your videos, you must create content worth sharing. If your video isn’t interesting, relevant, entertaining or informative, users aren’t likely to share it, let alone view it. From there:

• Allow and encourage users to comment on the video
• Make it easy for users to share your video on You Tube, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace
• Offer video content in multiple formats so users can choose the one that best suited to their platform and connectivity speed

5. Re-purpose your videos.
As with text content, the more optimized video, the better. Get creative in order to re-purpose videos across the web:

• Embed videos in blog posts
• Break up long videos and create multiple shorter ones
• Use transcriptions of videos to create blog posts or content for web pages
• Take screen shots from videos and post them to Flickr and other image-sharing sites
• Turn offline content, such as training videos or videos of a conference keynote speech, into optimized digital assets for your website

What basic video SEO tips do you find useful?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | 5 Basic Tips for Video SEO | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com