Tag Archive for: Yahoo

WordPress Has Become My “Standard” for Blog Websites (thanks in part to Google’s Matt Cutts)

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One of the most interesting moments at Webmaster World was the endorsement of WordPress by none other than Google’s Matt Cutts. For those who may not know, Matt has become the wonderfully laid-back and articulate “voice” of Google at Webmaster World. (photo by Andy Beal used under Creative Commons license.) As detailed in the video interview linked below, Cutts unexpectedly told the PubCon audience that by designing and producing a website in WordPress you, in essence, make it defacto search engine friendly. Especially with the latest version 2.3.

I was very pleased to hear this because I’ve recently upgraded my golf blog, TheJoyofGolfing.com to WordPress 2.3; and then in the same week, ComBridges has also recently taken over site updates for a client who has a more static page (non-blog) website that was already produced in WordPress. Our company is also currently using it to add an integrated blog to a pre-existing design. These are options that, frankly, I didn’t realize existed with a “blogging” platform previously.

Bottom line, I have become increasingly impressed with the WordPress website publishing platform. In addition to a well-thoughtout and feature rich back-end interface, there are options for everything from Google AdSense to static pages that make it more than just a blogging tool. And the real capper is the excellent array of third-party plug-in tools which have been written for the open source WordPress platform. For example, as a search engine marketer, I was thrilled to find out about the “all-in-one seo” plug-in for search engine optimization. I’ve gotta believe that WordPress is now the state-of-the-art website publishing platform. Personally, I feel empowered by its features, stability and extensibility.

And then today, I got word that Yahoo has written a very impressive plug-in of their own which helps website and blog authors to almost extemporaneously add links and pictures. Yahoo’s is kind of a “smart” plug-in that has the capability to suggest links as well as pictures (via Yahoo-owned, Flickr). Click here to watch a video demo of the Yahoo Shortcuts for WordPress.

Below, you will find that interview with Matt Cutts. It includes similar comments about WordPress’ search engine friendly “nature” as well as other sage search marketing advise. Note, this endorsement is particularly interesting (as one commenter to this video points out) given that Google owns a competing blog platform (which I am using here), Blogger.

Note, as mentioned, WordPress can also do “flat” pages so it isn’t necessarily just a blogging platform. It’s really a website development platform or even a lightweight CMS (content management system) as well as a blogging platform, or some combination of the above, depending on your needs.

The only trouble is that now I’m going to have to convert this blog over to WordPress. Fortunately, I don’t think that’s too tough…

3 Tips to Save Money on PPC Search Advertising

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I like it when two of the authorities on web marketing who I most respect get together. I’ve had personal contact with both Dr. Ralph Wilson and Catherine Seda (whose most recent book How to Win Sales and Influence Spiders looks excellent… I’ve not read it yet). Bottom line, like me, both of these people are committed to helping small and medium size businesses succeed with their internet marketing campaigns. This video offers three solid tips that are fundamental strategies. I know from experience that each of these will help you save money with PPC search advertising:

MSN Makes Progress Toward Becoming #2 Search Engine

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I’m frequently asked about how much each of the big three search engines (Google, Yahoo & MSN) contribute in terms of traffic. Google of course dominates, but as this chart shows MSN has recently made progress toward overtaking Yahoo as #2. This has caused TechCrunch to ask:

Could Microsoft Knock Off Yahoo To Become Google’s Biggest Competitor?

MerchantCircle Aggregates Local Search Listings for Small Businesses

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Over 14 million Business ListingsI’ve commented before about the expansion of local search, other convergent tools for local search, and even a directory of local search directories. All in support of small businesses who are recognizing that being found on the web is now far more important than being found in the paper yellow pages.

Now, thanks to the AlwaysOn.com Media 100 “special awards for market disruption,” I’ve discovered a wonderful service, MerchantCircle.com that gives small business owners a convenient way to access (or add) local search listings on most of the important local search directories (only Google seems to be missing) including Yahoo Local, City Search, YellowPages.com, Verizon Superpages, Yelp.com, Insiderpages.com and more.

The result is the ability to manage your business’ “web identity” and online “reputation.” So, if you have a business that has local, face-to-face community contact (in other words if your business does not exist entirely on the web), then MerchantCircle is definitely worth checking out. You can monitor and update most of your localized listings and also network with other local businesses in a very state-of-the-Web 2.0-art environment.