In my last installment I promised that this time around I would discuss the importance of links in your search optimization efforts as well as how to get them. Unfortunately this article got long in a hurry, so we’ll just tackle the importance of getting external links now. I think you might be surprised at how vitally important they are, and mildly depressed at how hard it is to get high-value links. But stay tuned: Part 4 of this series will improve your mood.

In my opinion, the entire field of search engine optimization has become a lot simpler in the last year. In a nutshell, keyword optimization is nice, but getting external links is basically the whole enchilada. If you need to focus your time and energy, focus on acquiring unreciprocated external links.

Proving the Point

If you want to see how important links are, open your web browser, go to Google.com, and do a search on “Click Here”. The first result is Adobe.com’s Acrobat Reader download page. Interesting, no?

Even more interesting is the fact that the words “Click Here” are nowhere on the page. It would be silly to use “Click Here” as keywords because it is not a normal search term, and Adobe did not even include them anywhere on the page text, title, description, or in any metatags at all. So why does Google rank Adobe’s download page number one on that term?

The answer is external links. As a convenience to customers and site visitors, just about every web site that has a PDF file available also has a link to Adobe.com for the Acrobat download. And almost invariably, the link text is something like, “If you need Acrobat Reader, click here.”

Anchors Aweigh!

The Adobe example illustrates a key point about links: The search engines use anchor text as a huge hint as to what the target web page is really about. Anchor text, for those who need to know, is the visible link text that you click on in the browser when the page is rendered. The URL the link takes you to can be something like, “http://somewebsite.com“, whereas the anchor text can be, “Free money here”-or virtually anything the page author wants to say.

In some ways that makes our lives more difficult because we cannot control how others link to us, much less whether they link to us. There are some ways around this that I’ll touch cover in the next installment. But first a word about Page Rank.

A Salute to Those of High Rank

As mentioned in a prior installment, Page Rank is a term Google coined for how valuable or important it believes your web site to be relative to other pages on the web. Page Rank values range from 0 to 10 (which is an eleven point scale, oddly enough). The actual components of Google’s Page Rank calculation are yet another closely guarded secret, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that the number of external links to your page is a huge part of it.

The importance of Page Rank is sometimes overblown since search engines must by definition care more about a page’s relevance to search queries. However, Page Rank is definitely one of the factors that will push your page higher in the crowd of equally relevant pages returned as query results. If you have virtually no competitors for your primary keywords, don’t worry about Page Rank. The rest of us need to have it on our radar.

There are precious few PR 10 web pages and at the time I’m writing this, Adobe’s Acrobat download page does indeed have that coveted PR 10 ranking. It certainly got the bulk of its rank because so many sites provide unreciprocated links to it. Another factor in Page Rank appears to be age: All things being equal, sites that have been around longer tend to have higher Page Rank values.

A hint to those still awake: The age factor as well as the Google sandbox described in part 1 of this series are both powerful arguments for getting web sites up and spidered as soon as possible, even if only as prototypes or proof-of-concepts.

If you were to survey tens of thousands of web sites, I believe you’d find that the most successful private, non-corporate web sites have a PR of 6. There are very, very few PR 7 sites, and if you’ve managed to achieve a PR 4 or 5 without professional SEO help, you’ve done pretty well.

Now we come to the slightly depressing part: One of the best ways to improve your page rank (and therefore improving the tendency to show up higher in search results) is to get an unreciprocated link to your page from a page with a higher page rank. If the Acrobat download page linked to my site, I’d be sitting pretty.

But alas, such links are very difficult to come by. Even worse, as we said in part 2, the one thing we can easily offer is a return link, but such reciprocal links have dubious value. I have anecdotal evidence that their value is rapidly declining and they are worth far less now than they were just one month ago when I wrote those words.

Here’s another tip: Reciprocal links to sites that have nothing to do with your web site in terms of content are a total waste of time. If you have a site about wedding gowns and you exchange links with a gambling site, in my opinion you’ve achieved nothing.

I’m connecting some faint dots, I admit, but I know Google in particular is investing a lot of effort in what is called “semantic analysis”. In short, they have a pretty good idea of what your web site is about, and they are highly motivated to provide the best possible search results. If a wedding site and a gambling site link to each other, the search engines are not all that interested in your contention that marriage is a gamble. That link is worth nothing.

In fact, I predict that if Google finds many reciprocal links with unrelated sites on your web page, you will actually be punished in terms of your page’s ranking. I can’t prove it yet, but as I said in part 1, if you learn to think like the spider, you’ll be able to predict what they’re going to do.

The spider likes it when you link to things that provide value to your visitors. And the spider gets angry when you trade worthless links solely for the purpose of fooling it into thinking your site is wildly popular. I predict spidey will bite you, if not today then tomorrow.

So what’s a new web site owner to do? There is no free lunch, but we’ll evaluate the items on the menu in part 4.

To learn more about SEO, please visit http://midnightmarketer.com Ross Lambert founded Midnight Marketer, a newbie-friendly community of web marketers. He is also the author of “Ross’s Guide to the Masters of Marketing” ([http://saleslettergenius.com]).

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The term podcasting has been floating about on the radio and in discussions with

friends, but you’re still not sure what it’s all about and if it’s relevant to your

business.

I’ll start by explaining in simplest terms what a podcast is.

A podcast is the combination of an audio or video file and a RSS publishing file,

placed on an Internet server and available for downloading.

Let’s say you plug a microphone into your computer and record a 15 minute blurb

about an area of knowledge you have. Now you have a sound file on your computer

waiting for a home, and you want that home to be on the Internet for millions of

people to listen to.

You will first need to find a “host” company to take your file and put it on their

“server” to make the file available to the world. This is called a “podcasting” server.

Once you have contacted a server and have placed your file on their server, you will

want people to find your file. To do this you have to create a special document that

“publishes” your file to the world.

This document is called an “RSS” file – which stands for Really Simple Syndication. In

this document you will put vital information like subject matter, keywords, website,

contact info and other information about the podcast and your business.

When this RSS file has been created, it is placed in the same folder as the audio file

on the podcasting server. When you have posted an audio file and published it using

your RSS file, you have successfully created a “podcast”.

Now you want people to be able to find your podcast

There are many online directories for podcasts that have searchable databases.

These services are generally free. On these sites people with new podcasts fill out a

form telling the world about the subject of the podcast, which is posted to the

directory.

Once your podcast information has been posted, anyone visiting that directory

searching for podcasts containing the subject matter of your podcast, will

immediately find a link to your podcast.

Of course the more directories you list with, the more people you’ll expose your

podcast to.

Another great thing about these directories is that Google and other search engines

visit these sites to find content, so there is an even greater chance of people finding

your podcast.

Once your podcast has been posted to a number of podcasting directories, it is now

available to millions of potential listeners worldwide.

How does one listen to a podcast, you might ask?

It is very simple. Once they have clicked the link on the directory or your website,

the podcast will automatically download and play in whatever audio player is

appropriate for the podcast file.

Then VOILA, they are listening to your podcast.

The beautiful thing about an RSS file is that once it is registered with a directory,

you don’t need to go back to the directory if you decide to add new podcast

episodes. All you need to do is update your RSS file to show that there more

episodes associated with the podcast. Listeners will be made aware of this if they

locate your podcast after a new episode has been added.

Millions of listeners and Google users are searching for information in podcast form

to listen to at their leisure. This is the most beautiful part of podcasts. The listener,

once they have downloaded a podcast, can listen to it many times over, at their

convenience.

How can podcasting help your business?

Simple, a key part of your RSS document is your website URL and company

information.

When someone listens to your podcast, this information is made clear to them

inside your podcasting information. Consequently this can generate a serious boost

in Internet traffic to your website which can result in more sales.

You don’t need to be a radio professional!

If you speak with customers on a daily basis about your specialized knowledge, you

are perfectly positioned to record and release a podcast.

Where to start?

First, get a decent microphone for your computer – USB microphones are best – and

practice recording to get comfortable recording yourself and delivering your

message. The process is the same for video, but a video file will be created instead

of an audio file.

When you have a recording you’re happy with, save it as a file in its own folder, and

contact a podcasting service provider. You can find one on the Internet.

Once you have located a podcasting service provider they will help you with the rest

of your podcast, right down to creating an RSS file and properly posting it on a

podcasting directory.

It is important to find a host that provides ‘unmetered’ hosting. If your hosting is

metered, the more often your podcast is downloaded, the more your service

provider will charge. An unmetered host charges a set rate regardless of the number

of downloads.

Podcasting is a wonderfully affordable way to be heard and found. It is portable and

easy to access. Once you get the hang of it, podcasting can be an easy way to reach

potential clients.

Podcasting truly is a great gift for small business.

Sean Paddison is the president of Northstreams Inc., a company that specializes in the production of audio and video podcasts and electronic press kits (EPKs) for clients in the Greater Toronto Area.

[http://www.northstreams.com]

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OK, arachnids are not people, and search engine spiders are not really people, either. But what I’m driving at is that search engine spiders “think” like people. How do I know this? Because human beings wrote them. Any software that does analysis of any kind does so with the intelligence and analytical rules programmed into it by its human developers.

How Humans Comprehend

Imagine that I handed you an article to read that I had printed out. It’s about 20 pages long, but I didn’t tell you anything about it. Worse, you’re going to have to pass a test on the content. Get out your highlighter!

The best reading instructors teach their students to get the context before seriously studying a text like a chapter of a history book or an article. This is because educational research has shown that knowing the general scope of a selection helps human readers comprehend and retain more of the subject matter. By the way, this example is real, not contrived: I used to be a high school teacher and I took a good deal of post-graduate coursework in what is known as “content area reading”.

The easiest way to get the general context is to find the title. The next step is to look at section headings. The combination of the two frames the range or scope of the document or chapter. You can also pick up some hints from picture and diagram captions.

Once you know what the document is about, you can begin to dig into the actual text. As you read, you can often discern important or significant points by repetition. That is, content that is paraphrased and rephrased is often very important: The author obviously thought it worth the effort to rephrase the explanation a couple times (or more). [This paragraph contains a clever example, if I don’t say so myself: Did you see it?]

How Search Engine Spiders Comprehend

Not too surprisingly, search engine spiders take the exact same approach as humans.

Like human readers, spiders start to get a clue by looking at titles and section headings. On a web page the spiders all look for your title tag, so it certainly pays to create a title for your web page. Furthermore, it pays even more if that title contains keywords.

An Aside: What are “keywords”, anyway?

Most search engines ignore the keyword metatag in the HTML of your web pages, so why do web marketers constantly talk about keywords? The reason is that even if you do not use the keyword metatag on your page, you should select several keywords that describe the content of your page, and then make sure those keywords are sprinkled throughout the page multiple times and in a natural-sounding manner.

The places to use keywords include the title (in the h1 HTML tag), heading text (e.g. in h2 tags), alt and title tags for images, and in body text.

These keywords give the search engine spiders a stronger sense of what your page is really about.

Here’s an important observation: Ultimately, our goal is not to “trick” the search engine, but rather to help it see clearly what our content is about. Google and the other engines are getting very adept at figuring out artificial keyword sprinkling. Never string keywords or keyword phrases many times in succession. Google, in particular, sees this is a keyword spamming and will exact painful revenge.

There is also speculation that if your keyword-to-content ratio is unnaturally high, the search engines also discount that. I believe that to be quite likely, but “unnaturally high” is a closely guarded secret. The bottom line for me is that if the body text sounds funny because of all the keywords, you’ve moved into the danger zone. I’ll recommend to you the same thing I did to my Advanced Composition students years ago: Read your page aloud. If it sounds odd in any way, rewrite the odd part.

The search engine spider looks for your section heading in-surprise-the HTML heading tags, especially the h1 tag. You should use these tags on your pages, and make sure they contain keywords.

One often overlooked place to insert keywords is in the alt and title tags of images. Although not quite analogous to a caption that a human reader would examine, the spiders nevertheless figure that these tags probably give a hint as to what the image is about (and in normal circumstances, they do). The image, in turn, gives another clue as to what the page is about.

Once the spider provides a pretty good idea what your page is about, the search engine’s next job is to figure out whether your site has high quality content.

More Software and Human Similarities

If somebody claims to be an authority on a subject, it is usually prudent to check out the claim-especially if we’re going to be hiring them or our money is otherwise involved. We humans generally do this by checking references.

The search engine spiders operate in fundamentally the same fashion. They assume that a site has high quality content on a given subject if other web sites have links pointing to it. In other words, the site is likely good if the references check out.

Google, in particular, has become very sophisticated in its link analysis. For example, if you trade links, the value of the link is diminished somewhat (nobody knows how much for sure). The reason is that if you really have content that I value and I think my site visitors need, I’ll link to you without a trade. An unreciprocated link is one of the surest signs of high quality material on the referenced web site.

The search engines have also gotten very careful about paid links. If your link shows up on a link “farm” (a page or site that only exists for the purpose of creating links to fool the search engines), you may find your site banned altogether. Remember the old butter commercial where the lady says, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!” and then she conjures up a storm? Well, the same is true for the search engines. Get caught trying to fool the spider and she’ll bite you.

Forgive the mixed metaphors and just remember the point.

The search engines are also known to discount run-of-site links. Let’s say you have a link to your home page on every single page of your monstrously large web site. Even though it might add up to thousands of links, it will have almost zero credibility in terms of boosting your page ranking.

The moral to the story is this: Don’t use run-of-site links to boost your ranking. If it is crucial to your site navigation, fine. Just don’t do the work creating all those links and expect them to help your page rank at all.

There is one remaining question, namely “Do internal links help? That is, does a link from page “A” of my web site to page “B” boost page B’s page rank on Google or any other search engine?

According to my sources, the answer is yes, but only just a little. External links are given a lot more credibility. Unfortunately, external links are substantially more difficult to acquire.

Next time: The importance of links and how to get them.

To learn more about SEO, please visit http://midnightmarketer.com Ross Lambert founded Midnight Marketer, a newbie-friendly community of web marketers. He is also the author of “Ross’s Guide to the Masters of Marketing” ([http://saleslettergenius.com]).

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An aesthetically pleasing colour scheme can make or break your website. After all, in advertising, colour accounts for 60% of advertisement’s acceptance or rejection. Therefore, colour plays a pivotal role in determining whether or not a potential customer will choose to conduct business with your firm. A web designer needs to ensure that all of your website’s colours work in harmony, while keeping the client’s identity consistent with other marketing efforts.

Quick Rules of Thumb

– Stick to 3 to 5 colours when planning a website

– When in doubt, use white for the background colour, and black for the text colour

Using Your Company’s Logo Colours

If your company already has a logo designed by a professional – great! This is the best starting point for choosing your website’s colour combination. You may choose to use the exact colours found in your logo, or even add some complimentary colours. But, it is important not to stray too far from your logo’s colour scheme in order to keep your company’s identity consistent.

Colour Defines Mood

The colours of your website are important because they can elicit different emotions from your visitors. Colours can make us happy, excited, angry or sad. Below is a list of colours along with the corresponding moods which they evoke:

Warm Colors

Red: aggressiveness, passion, strength, vitality

Pink: femininity, innocence, softness, health

Orange: fun, cheeriness, warm exuberance

Yellow: positive thinking, sunshine, cowardice

Cool Colors

Green: tranquility, health, freshness

Blue: authority, dignity, security, faithfulness

Purple: sophistication, spirituality, costliness, royalty, mystery

Neutral Colors

Brown: utility, earthiness, woodiness, subtle richness

White: purity, truthfulness, being contemporary and refined

Gray: somberness, authority, practicality, corporate mentality

Black: seriousness, distinctiveness, boldness, being classic

Choosing a Color Scheme

Once you understand the colours and their connotations, the next step is to choose a colour scheme for your website. Below is list of different types of colour combinations:

Monochromatic colour combinations use a single color. Variations in lightness of the selected colour can be used to create the sense of different colours. Monochromatic colors go well together, producing a soothing effect, and are very easy on the eyes. The drawback however, is that, it can be difficult to highlight the most important elements on your website.

Analogous color schemes use colours that are related, but not the identical, to create visually attractive combinations. Choosing this type of colour scheme is accomplished by picking colours that are close to each other on the colour wheel. For example, a selection of blues and purples, or reds and oranges would make a good analogous combination. One colour must be picked as the dominant colour while the others are used as accents.

Complementary (or contrasting) color schemes are comprised of 2 colours that are opposite each other on the color wheel. This combination is most appealing when a warm and a cool colour are used. For example, red with green or blue work well as contrasting colours. Using one colour for your background, and its complementary color to highlight key elements will give you colour dominance and colour contrast. One word of caution: it is difficult for the human eye to focus on contrasting colours at the same time. Therefore, it is best to avoid using strong contrasts for background and text colours.

Paul Coulter owns and operates a custom web design company in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. If you would like to read more web design articles or contact Paul, visit his business’s website: Cost Effective Web Design, Windsor ON [http://www.cost-effective-design.com/services.html]

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SEPOV is an acronym for “Search Engine Point of View”; it is usually used in the context of search engine optimization (SEO) discussions. If you really want to approach SEO with confidence, you need to learn to look at your web site from the search engine spider’s perspective and consider its motivation (if you’ll forgive a little anthropomorphism).

Fortunately, search engine spiders are actually rather simple creatures.

What’s My Motivation?

There is, in fact, one simple, central, and obvious search engine truth from which everything else is derived: A search engine’s popularity is directly related to the quality of its results.

Never forget this truth. Do not minimize its importance or allow yourself to think of it as simplistic. There is much hand-wringing and money-spending by those who try to predict what Google is going to do next. The simple fact is that all the search engines will do what they’ve always done and always will do, namely try to improve the quality of their results.

Google rose to prominence because its results were the best. Their primary user interface was (and remains) ridiculously simple. Their results were just better than everyone else’s. And they still are-although Yahoo and Microsoft are gradually closing the technical gap.

The search engine spider’s motivation is therefore that of its creators: Find valuable information so that the rest of the search engine software can provide good results.

All of the major search engines apply advanced contextual analysis to return links to pages that have the greatest amount of high quality information about specific search terms. Think about that statement again for a moment, “…return links to pages that have the greatest amount of high quality information about specific search terms.”

There are profound implications to that simple statement that the vast majority of web site designers just flat-out miss.

Go Deep

For a given web page, depth is more important than breadth. A lot of information about one subject is far, far better than a little information about a lot of subjects. When the Google spider is examining one of your web pages, you have to convince it of two things:

1. Your page has a lot of information about the search terms. That is, it is relevant to the search query.

2. Your page has good information about the search terms (do you have high quality or authoritativeness)

Of those sites that are relevant and authoritative, Google makes one last value judgment: Freshness. The site with the most recently updated content wins.

Playing Favorites

Research has also proven that search engines in general and Google in particular tend to favor web sites that have one or more keywords in their URL. For example, one reason I liked the “web-marketing-advisor.com” domain name is that it contained some of my top keywords right in the name itself.

If your web site has the keyword in the URL, it also implies that depth is more important than breadth for an entire web site, too, since you’d want all the pages on the site to be highly relevant to the keywords in the title.

In other words, in my opinion, it is better to have several sites, each of which is focused on a narrowly defined subject matter than one site that has a shot-gun approach to many subjects.

Coming up in the next installment: Spiders are more human than you think!

————————————— To learn more about SEO, please visit http://midnightmarketer.com Ross Lambert founded Midnight Marketer, a newbie-friendly community of web marketers. He is also the author of “Ross’s Guide to the Masters of Marketing” ([http://saleslettergenius.com]).

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More and more businesses are migrating to the internet in hopes of attracting additional clients, you may be looking to do so yourself, and when these businesses go looking for internet exposure, they must first find a hosting company.

But the hosting companies all are in the business of finding new clients too and one way they attract new business is through their uptime guarantee or SLA. The uptime guarantee is a way of advertising how often your hosting servers are off line, put another way, it is how often the content on the web hosting servers is inaccessible to the public, your clients.

The term uptime guarantee is a little ambiguous. The term really means “how much downtime is acceptable”. The figures presented also tell a story, one large web hosting provider advertises their uptime at 99.9%, what they are really telling you is that out of a normal month, their service maybe off line for as much as 43.2 minutes. Advertisers who advertise a 99.5% uptime permit their service to be off line for as much as 216 minutes per month. The advertisers who advertise a 99.99% up time however, are advertising their service may only be inaccessible for 4.32 minutes per month.

Now you must be thinking

Surely the better the figure the more reliable the provider, and correspondingly the more money you have to pay

And to an extent you are right, but this isn’t the whole picture.

The basis of the uptime guarantee is that your site will be up 99.9% (or whatever figure the company provides) or you will be compensated for potential loss. It is critical that you read the fine print because when a company does not provide compensation for down time, then the “uptime guarantee” is a mere marketing ploy. For example; if you purchase hosting with a company and your website is off line for three days out of the month, then it was down about 10% of the time. The hosting company should not bill you for the downtime, however, most companies will play off as if nothing had occurred unless you request the compensation for the time lost due to downtime.

But in today’s world, internet links are faster and computers are more powerful than ever

I hear you saying to yourself,

Surely there must be some way to have your information available online 100% of the time

But that is just not the case; let’s look at what factors play into uptime and down time. The biggest factor in determining how stable a hosting company is going to be is their hardware and software configuration. It is undisputed that some operating systems such as FreeBSD and Linux are more stable operators over the long run than some alternatives. Also, the stability of their internet service provider plays a large role in how things work out for the hosting company. The stability of the internet linkup, that being the vital backbone in a webhosts operation, is crucial. Because of this, many large hosting providers will use fiber linkups which are less prone to failure and provide a higher throughput than their copper counterparts. The final part of the uptime equation has to do with the web hosting company itself or the data center they have engaged to host their physical servers and your precious data. Have they taken safeguards against common problems – wear and tear on hardware, power outages, severe thunderstorms, and malicious computer users? These are all problems that plague service providers of all sorts but are particularly relevant to large internet facing companies.

When figuring which web hosting company you choose for your VPS, don’t only consider the brand name, cost and the numbers and statistics they throw around. Read the fine print to see what their numbers mean and if they are as stable and sound as their marketing copy describes. Following this precautions may just keep your business online.

Remember: Your company’s image is in the hands of your hosting provider, if they go down they can take your reputation with them, so be careful and make sure you understand what you are buying before you commit to it.

If you found this interesting we have a site on Australian VPS Hosting that has some more information on Choosing a VPS Host

Andrew Mailer is a Web Developer, Systems Admin and all round geeky guy bringing you information and advice on web hosting:-)

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Email marketing – best practices for unsubscribing

What should you do when someone clicks an unsubscribe link on your newsletter or marketing communications? Do you just let them unsubscribe without any further hullabaloo or do you grovel and set up other delaying tactics in the hope you’ll keep them on your list?

Like most folks, I subscribe to quite a few newsletters and such; and unsubscribe when they are no longer of any interest. I hate having to jump through hoops when unsubscribing and with my own newsletters that I send out, I ensure unsubscribing is a one-click affair.

Others take a different approach – they’ll use messages like “are you sure you want to unsubscribe?”, which I think many folks find terribly annoying.

Autoresponder software & mailing list managers Get more from your email marketing – tips, reviews & free trial software/services.

 

Others will try and make you take a survey asking for reasons why you want to unsubscribe before letting you do so.

Aside from frustrating the user and leaving a bad impression of your company; in some countries, putting blocks up and making people jump through hoops is just plain illegal. For example, the USA’s CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 states:

“You can’t charge a fee, require the recipient to give you any personally identifying information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for honoring an opt-out request.”

Something borderline (in my opinion) is where a company has multiple communications, such as email alerts, a newsletter and general promotional material. The person wanting to unsubscribe will be taken to a screen to confirm which communication they want to be unsubscribed from and be offered other options such as changing the frequency of emails.

This is legal in the USA. The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 states: “You may create a menu to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to stop all commercial messages from you.”

I feel such a screen shouldn’t be necessary at that point – if the person has clicked the link to unsubscribe from a company’s newsletter, that’s the list they want to be removed from.

Press release tipsPress releases aren’t just for big companies – small online businesses can benefit too! Free tips on how to write a press release, learn where to submit them and grab a free press release template.

The place to put all this sort of guff is *after* the person has been able to unsubscribe – on the unsubscribe “success” page. However, it means being able to get your message across really quickly as once the job is done, visitors are ready to scoot.

Something else you can put on the unsubscribe “success” page is this message:

“Did you unsubscribe by accident? Click here to re-subscribe.”

It might sound silly – and I thought it was the first time I saw a company use that message – but over the years I’ve had a bunch of people email me saying they had accidentally unsubscribed from one of my newsletters and they want to be back on the list.

I’ve never quite understood how that occurs if the link that triggers the function is plainly labeled “unsubscribe”, but it certainly happens and often enough that I wonder how many people make the mistake, but never follow up or resubscribe themselves.

Michael Bloch
Taming the Beast
http://www.tamingthebeast.net
Tutorials, web content, tools and software.
Web Marketing, Internet Development & Ecommerce Resources
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In Linux and Unix, the syntax that is commonly used by many applications for specifying text patterns is known as regular expressions or in short form – regex. Regex is a very powerful technique to describe patterns and many programs use them to describe sequences of characters to be matched. Search programs such as ‘grep’ rely heavily on regex. Basically regex forms the core in the linux world. Many scripting languages such as perl, ruby, php…etc has build in regex functions as well. So you can see, learning regular expression is important because they are used alot in many places and probably more so in the future.

Regex can be scary at first but if you can get the basics, it is really not too hard to understand. In this article, we are going to look at how regex comes into the picture when writing php applications.

To do a quick summary so far, a regular expression is a sequence of literal characters, wildcards, modifiers and anchors.

Literal Characters

Literal characters are letters, digits and special characters that match only themselves. Examples are abc, 123, ~@ and so on (some characters are reserved though).

– An inclusion range [m-n] matches one of any character included in the range from m to n.

Example ‘[a-z]’ will match any alpha character that falls within the a to z range.

– An exclusion range [^m-n] matches one of any character not included in the range from m to n. Example ‘[^0-9]’ will match any non-digit character.

– A period “.” matches any character. It is also known as the wildcard. Example ‘a.c’ will match ‘aec’, ‘acc’, ‘a@a’ and so on.

– The escape character ” enable interpretation of special characters. Example ‘a.c’ will match ‘ac’ only. Remember that ‘.’ is a reserved character to represent a wildcard? Therefore to match a period, ie ‘.’, we need to escape it like so ‘.’

– The expression [:alnum:] will match all alpha-numeric characters. It is a shortcut to [A-Za-z0-9]. As you can see, it is not really a shortcut. The expression [:alnum:] might be easier to remember for some people.

– The expression [:alpha:] will match all alpha characters. It is a shortcut to [A-Za-z].

– The expression [:blank:] will match a space or tab.

– The expression [:digit:] will match a numeric digit. It is a shortcut to [0-9].

– The expression [:lower:] will match all lowercase letters. It is a shortcut to [a-z].

– The expression [:upper:] will match all uppercase letters. It is a shortcut to [A-Z].

– The expression [:punct:] will match all printable characters, excluding spaces and alphanumerics.

– The expression [:space:] will match a whitespace character.

Modifiers

A modifier alters the meaning of the immediately preceding pattern character.

– An asterisk (‘*’) matches 0 or more of the preceding term. Example ‘a*’ will match ”, ‘a’, ‘aa’, ‘aaaaa’ and so on (Note the use of ”. It simply means that the expression matches nothing as well).

– A question mark (‘?’) matches 0 or 1 of the preceding term. Example ‘a?’ will match ” and ‘a’ only.

– A plus sign (‘+’) matches 1 or more of the preceding term. Example ‘a+’ will match ‘a’, ‘aaaaaaa’ and so on. It will not match ”.

– {m,n} matches between m and n occurrences of the preceding term. Example ‘a{1,3}’ will match ‘a’, ‘aa’ and ‘aaa’ only.

– {n} matches exactly n occurrences of the preceding term. Example ‘a{2}’ will match ‘aa’ only.

Anchors

Anchors establish the context for the pattern such as “the beginning of a word” or “end of word”.

– The pike ‘^’ marks the beginning of a line. Example ‘^http’ will match any new line that starts with ‘http’.

– The dollar sign ‘$’ marks the end of a line. Example ‘after$’ will match any line that ends with ‘after’. (Variables in php starts with $. Try not to confuse with it).

Grouping

Grouping ‘( )’ allows modifiers to apply to groups of regex specifiers instead of only the immediately proceding specifier. Example ‘( aa | bb )’ will match either ‘aa’ or ‘bb’

Enough of boring stuff, it is time to put what the theory of regex into good use.

PHP Implementation

There are 2 main variants of regex, Perl-compatible regex (PCRE) and POSIX-Extended. PHP offers quite alot of functions to implement these 2 types of regex. In PHP, the most commonly used PCRE function is ‘preg_match’ and in POSIX-extended regex, ‘ereg’. Both syntax are slightly different but equally powerful. The preference to use ‘preg_match’ or ‘ereg’ is entirely up to individual although Zend suggested that preg_match is slightly faster. I prefer to use ‘eregi’ simply because of my background in linux administration.

Example 1: Matching United States 5 or 9 digit zip codes

Zip codes in USA have the following format ##### or #####-#### where # is a digit. If you want to verify the zip code submitted say from an online form, you will need to use regex somewhere in your script to verify it. The matching POSIX-extended regex pattern will be:

[[:digit:]]{5}(-[[:digit:]]{4})?

Confused? Wait, let me explain why. This regex is split up into 2 parts: [[:digit:]]{5} and (-[[:digit:]]{4})?.

First Part: ‘[[:digit:]]’ means the digit range and {5} means that the digit must occur 5 times.

Second Part: The bracket ‘( )’ groups the ‘-[[:digit:]]{4}’ together and the ‘?’ means the expression ‘(-[[:digit:]]{4})’ can either occur 0 or 1 time.

To implement the regex in PHP, we use the following code:

$zipCodes = ‘xxxxx-xxxx’;

$pattern = ‘[[:digit:]]{5}(-[[:digit:]]{4})?’;

if (ereg($pattern,$zipCodes)) {

echo “matched found “;

}

else {

echo “match not found”;

}

Example 2: Matching Dates

Say we want to verify the dates entered by the user. If we only accept dates like “YYYY-MM-DD” or “YYYY-M-D”, the regex pattern will be

[0-9]{4}(-[0-9]{1,2})+

The ‘+’ behind the term (-[0-9]{1,2}) means that the term must occur at least once. Note that I can also rewrite the regex as:

[[:digit:]]{4}(-[[:digit:]]{1,2})+

or

[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{1,2}-[0-9]{1,2}

As you can see, there can be many solutions to a problem…

Conclusion

Regex may be hard to digest at first but the logic is simple if you are able to practice more. Learning regex is as important as learning PHP. More examples can be seen at web-developer.sitecritic.net. Good luck.

Bernard Peh is a great passioner of web technologies and one of the co-founders of Sitecritic.net Site Reviews. He works with experienced web designers and developers for more than 5 years, developing and designing commercial and non-commercial websites. During his free time, he does website reviews, freelance SEO and PHP work. Visit his blog at Melbourne PHP

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bernard_Peh

http://EzineArticles.com/?Introduction-To-Regular-Expressions-In-PHP&id=222113

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Every business needs SEO. This is because every business needs to be on the internet, to one extent or another. Unfortunately, most businesses cannot afford to do their own search engine optimization. They have to concentrate on running their business.

This isn’t a major problem, since there is an entire industry of people who’s business it is to get your business optimized for the search engines. However, when looking to hire an SEO firm, there are a few things that you need to be wary of.

1. If they won’t tell you their methods for any reason, RUN!!
2. If they claim to be a partner of Google, RUN!!
3. If EVERY one of their clients refuses to give a testimonial, RUN!!
4. If they tell you that they can SEO your site in no time flat, RUN!!
5. If they guarantee results, RUN!! (this one has a caveat)

Let’s consider these warning signs in a bit more detail.

Number one: They refuse to tell you their methods. Why is this a red flag? Because the techniques used for successful SEO are not secret. Everyone who has studied the practice for more than a day and a half will know the general methods: article marketing, content marketing, pay-per-click, and so on. If your potential SEO “specialist” tells you that their methods are proprietary, it’s a good bet that they’re doing something that the search engines would frown upon. This may work in the short-run, but will have definite negative effects in the long-run. You DO NOT want to get banned from Google.

Number two: They claim that they are a partner of Google. Why is this a red flag? Because Google does not partner with SEO’s. At best, what they mean is that they took the Google Adwords class or something of that nature. By the same logic, I am a partner of Google’s because people can find my website through their search engine. At worst, they are simply lying. And lying is not a sustainable business practice. Eventually, the truth will out.

Number three: They claim that every single one of their clients wishes to remain anonymous. Now some may make the argument that it is perfectly reasonable for a business to want a non-disclosure agreement signed, and that it is plausible that this SEO firm has only catered to these businesses. In that case, they are likely getting backroom off-the-record referrals. Otherwise, who would hire them except the unwary? In the former case, you wouldn’t have heard about them, because they don’t need to ask you for business. In the latter, you don’t want them anywhere near your business.

Number four: They tell you that they can have your website optimized for the search engines in no time flat. While highly effective, SEO cannot be done overnight. The fastest results I know of are counted in weeks. If they tell you they can offer you an instant solution, just remember TANSTAAFL (There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch).

Number five: They offer you guaranteed results. Every marketer knows the power of a guarantee. But when it comes to search engine optimization, buyer beware. The only way for an SEO professional to honestly provide a guarantee would require them to know the inner workings of the search engine algorithms. These algorithms are some of the most closely guarded secrets in the world.

One possible exception would be an SEO professional or firm that offered a PPC deal. For example, they run a link building campaign for you and agree to be paid by the click. Basically they are doing what Google Adwords does.

This does not eliminate the problem. There is still the issue of a guaranteed conversion rate. perhaps they get you one million clicks but only 5 people sign up. You have just bankrupted yourself.

Conclusion: Search engine optimization is an excellent business strategy. However, it takes time and must often be outsourced. When considering whom to outsource it to, keep in mind these 5 red flags, and you should do just fine.

Jeff Miller is an SEO specialist and marketing enthusiast with experience in the retail industry. He blogs about various internet marketing topics at http://milleronmarketing.com.

Find him on Facebook.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeff_M_Miller

http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Avoid-SEO-Snake-Oil:-5-Red-Flags-You-Need-to-Know-About-Search-Engine-Optimization&id=5542285

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“How can I attract thousands of visitors to my site?”, many people ask me this question. Well, driving high traffic to Website is very important, but what’s even more important, is designing a website in that way which makes them stays longer.

In this article, you’re going to learn 7 important website design tips to make your site more attractive. So not only your website will attract many people, but it will also motivate them to stay for a long time.

1. Be Aware during Selection of the colors scheme:-

If your company has a logo or preferred colors on its stationery that’s a good start. For those of you starting from scratch, choose two or three complementary colors and stick with them – don’t change colors on every page. The most common color schemes include:

– Red, yellow and white

– Blue and white

– Red, grey and white

– Blue, orange and white

– Yellow, grey and white.

– Onion shade, Tan, white

If you’re not sure what color scheme to choose, surf the internet and find a website that you like. You can then model your color scheme on what already exists.

Always Select those colors which Attract the visitors, and the person revisit your site.

2. Page Backgrounds

Ensure your visitors can read the text on the background, i.e. no black writing on dark blue background or yellow on white. Means if the page background is dark always use light color for the writhing a text or if the light color is used for the page background the always use dark color for writing a text, like this color scheme for the background everything is visible to the visitor. Also be careful that your links are visible before and after being visited. The default for links in most programs is blue (before being visited) and burgundy (after being visited), so if you have a dark background, ensure your links are light.

3. (Page loading) site open within a minutes

All I’ve seen for the last 10 minutes is ‘page loading’, I think something might be wrong with my browser this is probably one of the biggest gripes a site visitor has. If your page takes more than a minute to load (on dial-up) and you have anything less than the meaning of life hidden within your content – something needs to be done. The average person does not have time they just go for another site without passed his time for these type of site those take time to open. So a good website takes less time for loading a site.

4. Appropriate page Size

Web pages are measured in pixels. Pixels are the unit of measurement for the screen. A Web page can literally be any size. Standard Web pages usually fit into a few sizes:

* W × H * 600 × 800 * 640 × 480 (Dream weaver default) * 1024 × 768 * 550 × 400 (Flash default)

The default Web page sizes provided in Web friendly applications and listed earlier are a great place to start. You will probably use a smaller, custom size for pop-up windows. The Web page size you choose is up to you. Remember to use actual space for the Web page effectively so that the content is in the proper proximity to the user’s navigation patterns. Web page size affects the way users move around the Web pages and the Web portfolio site. One rule: Pick a size for all main screens and stick to it.

5. Logo

Create a simple logo to identity your website. Have a captivating tag line somewhere with the header, and write an About Us page which describes the uniqueness of your website. These will leave an impression for your visitors to remember your website.

6. Application of graphic designs

You must be careful in choosing for the appropriate design that will best represent your projects, and tell about your business. Create a design which coveys in a stylish way what it has to

7. Be aware about grammar and spell

Grammar is overrated [and the spill-checker too] Most web authoring and word processing software comes with a spell/grammar check utility – don’t let your hard earned money go to waste, use it. Some of the more common grammatical mistakes are misusing its, it’s, there, their, they’re, your, you’re, and no one (correct=no one). Proof reading your final product is also helpful. No one is infallible, that’s why pencils have erasers and computer programs have [ctrl+z].

Sean Mcgill,

The Author is the owner of a web site design Company, and providing affordable web site design to clients across USA and UK for sensible prices.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sean_Mcgill

http://EzineArticles.com/?Seven-Website-Design-Tips-to-Make-Your-Site-More-Attractive&id=423177

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