Developer Shed Weekly SEO News for 2008-07-03

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July 03, 2008 Welcome to the latest issue of the SEO Chat newsletter! We're sending out two holiday wishes this week: a very happy Canada Day to our friends north of the border, and a safe and fun Independence Day to all of our US readers. Speaking of which, here's a tip for website owners: find out where your visitors hail from. It might give you some ideas about what kind of content they would appreciate. Speaking of content, it's time to dive right in to what we have for you this week. I'll start with the article we're highlighting from eWeek. Online health records raise privacy issues, but there are more companies out there that offer this convenience. What are the legal implications? And should consumers trust them? All that and more is covered in this incisive piece. Check it out today! As always, we published a nice selection of articles this week. On Wednesday we looked at web copy writing and how it's different from any other writing you may have done. Keep it short and sweet, and you're off to a good start. On Tuesday, we reviewed Viewzi, a visual search engine with a difference: it gives you a wide selection of interfaces to choose from when you search. This is a two-part review, so you'll want to check back next week for more. On Monday, we ran an article on choosing your domain name -- a rather timely piece, considering ICANN's recent decision (check out this week's article on our sister site, Web Hosters, for all the details!). We're highlighting some really helpful beginner's guides for you this week from Tutorialized. Check out SEO for the total beginner, the basics of social media optimization, and much more. Don't forget to check out the other great tutorials we have on Tutorialized. This week's forum thread covers link building. One of our forum members asked what link-building strategies other SEOs use, and plenty of our other members chimed in. Be sure to stop by the thread, share your tips, and maybe pick up a few new ideas! Our Spotlight, just for readers of this newsletter, covers a few ways to help a linkless web site rank in the SERPs. Yes, it can be done, but it's tricky, and it probably isn't as easy as it used to be, since more people know the tricks. Still, if you're trying to rank a small business web site, these ideas are worth reviewing. Scroll down to the Spotlight for some good advice. You will notice below that we have highlighted the Blackberry and GPS Webcast, brought to you by devCentral and Research in Motion. It will be available free to you in the comfort of your own home on July 10th. Be sure to drop us a line and tell us what you thought. You can find more info about this great event here! And last, but certainly not least, be sure to check out the fun and exciting SunQuest Chronicles: Ruby of Destiny choose your own adventure style book, brought to you by the good folks at Sun. Sign-up to the Sun Developer Network and play the game for your chance to win one of seven Sun Spots! Play now! Thanks again for reading. Until next time, SEO Chat Staff

ARTICLES Short is Sweet for Web Copy Writing Viewzi Offers New Look at Visual Search Choosing the Domain Name of Your Dreams SEO on Tutorialized SEO Thread of The Week SEO Chat News Spotlight TOOLS Get Our Content on Your Site with DevText! New Articles, Right To Your E-mail Developer Search Rational Build Forge Express eKit Rational Build Forge Express Edition is an automation framework that packages the latest enterprise-grade technologies into a reliable, flexible and robust configuration designed and priced specifically for small to midsize businesses. The new Rational Build Forge Express eKit provides you with valuable resources - including a case study, podcast, demo, and articles - to help you increase staff productivity, compress development cycles and deliver better software, fast. Learn more. Build Forge Express demo: Enabling software delivery excellence for small and midsized businesses This demonstration gives you an overview of IBM© Rational© Build Forge Express Edition, a global offering that provides a framework to automate and execute software processes. Rational Build Forge provides a software assembly line that can support all of your tools, technologies, and platforms so you can achieve a repeatable, reliable, and traceable build and release process. Learn more.

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[Blackberry© and GPS Webcast] In this free webcast you will learn to build LBS applications for the Blackberry© platform. Host Brent Thornton, Channel Manager for Research in Motion, will cover the following topics: Introduction to BlackBerry Device GPS Capabilities Building Browser-based applications that leverage the GPS capabilities of the BlackBerry device Building Java-based applications that leverage the GPS capabilities of the BlackBerry device Those attending the seminar on July 10th, 2008 will be eligible to win one of two BlackBerry© Pearl 8110 smartphones from AT&T. So what are you waiting for? Register now!

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It's edgy! It's irreverent! It's all about technology! It's News You Can't Use, and you won't want to miss it! View this week's edition to learn the answers to these burning questions: Will MP4 players cause you to be sent straight to a fiery Hell? Just in case they do not, these Orthodox Jews are gonna set your store on fire. Why is Yakov bringing his son to work? Bring your child to work and make him do menial tasks day, that is why. Can you kiss butt like no one else? If so, Google is looking to hire you. Also, JamesPayne Industries could use an unpaid intern. Seinfeld attorney seen rubbing hands greedily in corner, waiting anxiously to sue. Does Juan Valdezburg think fondly of the possibility of a free to use, smut free internet? No, but he does think fondley of the current one. Word play ftw! Watch the video!

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Short is Sweet for Web Copy Writing by Terri Wells 2008-07-02 You cannot write the same way for the web as you would for a print publication. Site visitors focus differently on the web; they skim rather than read. You cannot change their behavior, so if you want to get your point across, you need to change the way you write. Survey after survey proves it: it is more difficult to read online, and even good readers tend to read 25 percent slower from a computer screen than from paper. Add to that the shortened attention spans most people bring to the Internet, and you can kiss the style you brought to writing college research papers good-by. Oh sure, you need to keep the rules of proper grammar and spelling in mind, but you may need to rethink everything else. For example, look at the paragraph you just read. It is almost too long for the web. You need to keep your paragraphs somewhat short and punchy. And if you ever learned, like me, that a paragraph should comprise four to six sentences, you need to do some unlearning - and be prepared to break some rules to get your point across. Read Short is Sweet for Web Copy Writing

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Viewzi Offers New Look at Visual Search by Terri Wells 2008-07-01 If you are tired of standard search results that yield ten blue links per page, there are any number of visual search engines that can change the way you look at the web. But none offer quite the variety of Viewzi. Not content to provide one version of a visual interface on search, Viewzi offers more than a dozen. Viewzi starts with the idea that there are sometimes better ways to present data than in a list of links format. If you are searching for a video, for example, is it not better for you to see a screen full of videos rather than a list of links? "Viewzi presents the right data the right way," explained Brandon Cotter, who bears the title of Chief Viewzer. "The Internet has changed dramatically, but from a user perspective, search has not fundamentally changed in 10 years. Our goal is to provide users with a unique and engaging way to discover information. Search used to be boring - we want to make it a bit more fun." Read Viewzi Offers New Look at Visual Search

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Choosing the Domain Name of Your Dreams by Terri Wells 2008-06-30 Your domain name should be the most memorable part of your business. Many web site owners struggle with this important decision, or lament that "all the good ones are taken." I cannot tell you how to create the next Amazon or Google, but I can offer a few pointers on creating a domain name. Let us start with the idea that the domain name should be memorable. Put another way, it should be easy to remember. What helps make a domain name stick in your mind? For openers, size matters. You want a short domain name. Not everyone who visits your web site is going to bookmark it right away. Who will want to take the time to type out "myfabulousbusinessdomainsellingstuff .com"? That is a permitted domain, by the way; it is well under the limit of 63 characters. But I would not recommend that you register it. Read Choosing the Domain Name of Your Dreams

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Tutorialized is dedicated to programming, designing, and many other tech related tutorials. Submit Your Tutorial Today! SEO for Beginners Guide Part 2 A guide to learning search engine optimization for the total beginner. Easy to understand and full of info. Read the tutorial. Social Media Optimization Basics - Part 2 Harvest the power of social media. Read the tutorial. SEO First Steps Choosing your website keywords carefully is the most important first step you should take. Read the tutorial. Duplicate Content Learn to avoid duplicate content in print ready pages. Read the tutorial. Social Media Optimization Basics - Part 1 The basics of using social media sites in website promotion. Read the tutorial. The Best Way To Improve Link Popularity The title says all you need to know! Read the tutorial.

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How can this SEO Newsletter be better? What do you like or dislike about this issue? Is there a topic you want to learn more about? What issues in search engine news are important to you? We'll consider your suggestions and ideas for improvement, so please email us. Email us.

Check out the amazing tutorials from IBM developerWorks and see what all the buzz is about! Hello World: WebSphere Service Registry and Repository Manage, govern, and share services across your organization by using WebSphere Service Registry and Repository. Follow the hands-on exercises to learn how to navigate the Web interface to publish, find, reuse, and update services. Building JavaScript applications with JSEclipse Using JSEclipse, JavaScript programmers now have their own Eclipse plug-in that provides many important features to aid in the development of JavaScript applications. JSEclipse gives JavaScript developers the same ease of use that Eclipse has been providing in the Java language and others for years. Learn to use this tool, while creating a colony of evolving "creatures" on your page. Learn how to install and use the Rational Asset Manager Eclipse client In this tutorial, you can learn how to install and configure the IBM Rational Asset Manager Eclipse client, explore the different views in the Asset Management perspective, learn various search techniques, work with existing assets, and submit a new asset. Improve your build process with IBM Rational Build Forge, Part 1: Create a continuous build and integration Learn how to implement a build management system that uses and extends your existing automation technologies. This tutorial shows, step-by-step, how to install and configure IBM Rational Build Forge to manage builds for Jakarta Tomcat from source code. Build Web services with transport-level security using Rational Application Developer V7, Part 1: Build Web services and Web services clients Build secure Web services with transport-level security using IBM Rational Application Developer V7 and IBM WebSphere Application Server V6.1. Follow this three-part series for step-by-step instructions about how to develop Web services and clients, configure HTTP basic authentication, and configure HTTP over SSL (HTTPS). This first part of the series walks you through building a Web service for a simple calculator application. You generate and test two different types of Web services clients: a Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) client and a stand-alone Java client. You also handle user-defined exceptions in Web services. Improve your build process with IBM Rational Build Forge, Part 2: Automate builds for a real-world Tomcat project Learn how Rational Build Forge can extend a simple compile and package build process by adding customization and deployment capability. Go from a manual method to automating: checking for code changes; getting the latest source; compiling and packaging; customizing; copying to and restarting a deployment server; and sending e-mail notification that a new version is available. Application development for the OLPC laptop The XO laptop (of the One-Laptop-Per-Child initiative) is an inexpensive laptop project intended to help educate children around the world. The XO laptop includes many innovations, such as a novel, inexpensive, and durable hardware design and the use of GNU/Linux as the underlying operating system. The XO also includes an application environment written in Python with a human interface called Sugar, accessible to everyone (including kids). Explore the Sugar APIs and learn how to develop and debug a graphical activity in Sugar using Python. Test terminal-based applications with Rational Functional Tester Regression testing -- in which code is thoroughly tested to ensure that changes have not produced unexpected results -- is an important part of any development process. But many testing environments neglect the terminal-based applications that still form the backbone of many industries. In this tutorial, you'll learn how the Rational Functional Tester Extension for Terminal-Based Applications works with other Rational Functional Tester to help test terminal-based applications quickly and easily.

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Link-building questions pop up on a regular basis in our forums, and it's no wonder, since that's an important part of SEO. Here's one of the latest; join the thread and trade tips! What's Your Link Building Strategy? mhsiao45 I know this topic has been done over and over, but I really haven't seen a really complete up-to-date thread about this. Basically, I'm saying I'm kind of stuck in my link building, so I'm hoping to get some ideas. I try to keep my blog up with good content, but its finding the right websites and contacting them that's got me a little bit in a rut. For those that wish to divulge, can you give an outline of the steps you take in starting and implementing a link building plan for your site or a clients website? thegodfather What I usually do: First, I source potential link partners based on the following criteria: - relevance - indexed in Google, and the other SE's? - PageRank (a secondary factor) - what kind of sites they link to - their optimization status (how well optimized are they, and are they ranking well in the SE's?) In my experience, researching your link partners is a critical aspect of any link building campaign. Linking to any Tom, **** and Harry isn't going to be healthy for your site's rankings. Last, I do the usual - contact the sites and request. Gipsy I post on many forums creating signatures. Leave comments under some good article I have read, buy high PR links, very rarely exchange links. In many cases it can't give my PR rich juice... Posts from this thread may have been abridged or removed. Forum members are responsible for the content of these posts. Read the full thread.

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No Links? You Can Still Rank If you do SEO for small business web sites, you face some interesting challenges. They may lack back links. You know getting these is a high priority, but what can you do in the meantime to help the site show up in the search engines? Back in October, Convert Online published four tips for ranking a linkless small business web site. Some of these points are still valid. First, you know that if you create a page devoted to a single unique word or phrase, you can rank for it. Of course, it has to be something searchers will put in the search box. Your company name is out of the question (nobody will search for you unless they've heard of you first), and the name of your industry isn't unique enough. But you can try the name of your industry plus your geographical location; Italian restaurant Fort Lauderdale might get lots of searches. It also returns 486,000 hits in Google. A lot of people know about this trick, but that doesn't make it played out yet. Do a few test searches on Google for the terms you're thinking of using. And check the sponsored links on the right-hand side when you do. If you see relatively few relevant results but a lot of AdWords ads, you're on the right track. The second point is to remember that search engines return pages, not sites. In other words, if you want to show up for the phrase landscape design sussex county, you have to use those words on the same phrase; better, you should use the full phrase (for example, Our company has been doing landscape design in Sussex County for more than 25 years.). If you have one page on landscape design and another page on Sussex County, you will not show up for landscape design sussex county. You can use that to your advantage by creating pages with different content that are optimized for slightly different keywords landscape design versus lawn maintenance, for instance. If you do searches on the different key phrases, despite the fact that Google has been getting better at spotting words with similar meanings, you'll see that very different (though still relevant) sites come up. If you can make the content different enough to avoid duplicate content penalties, you can use this trick. As you've probably guessed from the previous tips, the order and proximity of your keywords matters. So think about what you want to emphasize. It's natural for a searcher to think about the service they need and then their location; accounting services NJ may be less grammatically correct than NJ accounting services, but it might get more searches. This is something you can check with Google Trends by putting both terms into the box, separated by commas. Finally, you might have to just be patient. But there are links you can get while you're waiting. You can add your business listing to Google Maps. Make sure to verify the listing; Google gives you several options for this, but at the very least you will need a touch-tone phone, and you will need to be able to receive regular mail at either your business address or a post office box. With Google now showing Google Maps listings in the first result for some local searches, it's an opportunity you can't afford to miss. Good luck!

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