Happy Easter!

February 10 Webcast- Converting The Mobile SEM Visitor In 2015

Mobile search volumes are about to surpass desktop search. It’s forcing search marketers to rethink how they generate and analyze SEM conversions.

In this webcast, Search Engine Land contributing editor Greg Sterling will explain the important differences between mobile and desktop SEM and the new technologies impacting how people search. Attendees will learn how to create more effective search ads and landing pages specific to a mobile audience and how to optimize mobile AdWords campaigns for Google voice search.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015 - 1:00 PM EST

More info: Click Here

13 Steps to Effective Emails That Don't Suck

Three things that make an entrepreneur anxious: one, managing cash flow; two, finding the right partners/hiring the right team; and three, pressing the “send” button on an email campaign.

On the surface, email seems straightforward, not least because the people on your list have asked to receive your messages. (You are using an opt-in list, right? I hope so.) That’s an advantage: You have the privilege of interacting with a person by invitation, in the relatively intimate setting of the recipient’s inbox. All you need to do is create a compelling message, and boom—you’re done.

But email is the Rube Goldberg machine of online marketing: There are multiple moving parts in what has become a complicated process. Get one wrong, and you might jam up the whole apparatus. Here’s a checklist to follow to make sure your email machine performs flawlessly.

1. Spend as much time on the subject line as on the body of the email … 

The subject line is to the email what the headline is to an article or blog post. The most compelling prose or the most enticing offer in the galaxy isn’t going to do you a smidge of good if no one opens the email. The few words in the subject line are the most important words in the message, so they deserve extra love.

“The best subject lines use a mix of clear value to the recipient—concise language that’s not too dull or too clever, and an impetus to act,” says Hunter Boyle, senior business development manager for AWeber, an email marketing software company in Chalfont, Pa. “Picture your busy reader saying ‘So what?’ while skimming a full inbox,” he adds. “What can you say that grabs their interest in mere seconds?”

It helps to think of a specific problem that your offer or email resolves, then craft the subject line around that. For example, a message about a business coaching service might tap into the frustration mid-career people feel in their jobs. So your subject line might tease “5 signals you’ve dead-ended at your career” or “carve a new path while keeping your day job.”

The key to any good content, in a subject line or elsewhere, is this: Make it specific enough to be relevant, but universal enough to be relatable.

2. … but keep it brief. 

Emails with subject lines of six to 10 words have the highest open rates, yet most of those sent by marketers have subject lines of 11 to 15 words, according to a report from Santa Monica, Calif.-based Retention Science that analyzed 260 million delivered emails and 540 campaigns.

“All of us need to challenge ourselves to be brief and pack more power into fewer words,” Boyle says. “That’s why Twitter and blog-post headlines can be a great way to pretest subject-line verbiage.”

3. Make it smartphone-friendly. 

Don’t do anything that might render in a strange way on a small screen. The key here is that whatever email provider you use should rely on responsive design.

4. Use subheadlines. 

The seven to 10 words in a preview pane at the top of an HTML email are what the recipient will likely see first. Make sure you tailor the language of this subhead to expand on the subject line or explain it a bit further. Many of us squander this valuable spot by using template messaging such as “Having trouble reading this? View as webpage.” 

“Don’t waste this space!” Boyle says. “Think of it like a meta description tag in search-engine results, and use copy here to support your compelling subject line.”

5. Be a real person. 

Write with a point of view—from an actual person to an actual person. I don’t mean this literally: The “from” line might still be your company’s name, but the content should feel as if it comes from a human being, speaking in the first person (using “I” or “we” and addressing the recipient as “you”), with natural-sounding language.

6. Specify a call to action.

Make it as specific as you can—and say it twice within the email body. So instead of a generic “Get in touch,” try “Get a free 15-minute consult” or “Grab your own copy.”

I like how Joanna Wiebe of Victoria, British Columbia-based Copy Hackers described this approach during the Authority Intensive event last year in Denver: “Don’t amplify the act of proceeding, amplify the value of it. Not ‘Start free trial’ but ‘End scheduling hassles.’”

7. Use compelling images … 

Avoid boring, impersonal stock images in favor of unique ones that don’t look like they could appear anywhere else—including a competitor’s newsletter. Sources for stock images that don’t suck include Mountain View, Calif.-based Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that enables digital sharing through free (and legal!) tools. Its search function is like the Costco of photos, with content from numerous free sources—including Flickr, Google Images and Pixabay—all in one place.

Other image sources: Compfight, Dreamstime, Photo Pin, freeimages, Public Domain Pictures, Fotolia, Ancestry Images (old and antique prints, maps and portraits) and morgueFile (gratis if you give credit to the photographer). 

In all cases, make sure you read the fine print, because there are some restrictions on commercial use.

8. … or use animated images or a thumbnail/video link. 

If a picture is worth a thousand words, animated images or videos are even more valuable. You can embed a static thumbnail video image in an email that links to a video on a landing page, or you could create an animated GIF and embed it directly into the email. 

Various tools allow you to create GIFs—GIFMaker.me, MakeAGIF.com—while GifDeck allows you to turn a SlideShare into a cool, embeddable GIF that’s more compelling than a static image.

9. Include a P.S. 

A postscript after the main body can restate an offer, create a sense of urgency or add a bonus. Additionally, a P.S. is a chance to underscore your human, personal approach.

“There’s a reason we still see these in personal emails, sales emails and even direct mail—they still work,” Boyle says. “Since the P.S. is the end of the line, use it as a call to action that supports your primary offer rather than introducing an entirely new one. This way, people who skim and scroll right to the bottom still know what the big deal is—and they can act on it.”

10. Include feedback and forward mechanisms. 

Give your subscribers a way to share the email as well as get in touch—via share, forward-to-a-friend, blog comments or simple reply. 

11. Grade your email copy to be sure you aren’t talking above your audience. 

Some email providers include a grading or an assessment option. You could also use a service such as The Readability Test Tool (read-able.com), an alternative to the Flesch-Kincaid tool that’s built into Microsoft Word, which provides document-readability statistics, such as the grade level at which it’s written and how many passive sentences it contains.

12. Verify your links. 

Click them to be sure they work and go where you want them to.

13. Before pulling the trigger, send the email to yourself.

The marketing cliché “Always be testing” isn’t just for conversion optimization—“it’s a must for your email process,” Boyle says. “We all make mistakes, but having an experienced set of eyes proofreading every send makes a huge difference. Minimizing typos and, even worse, those dreaded ‘oops’ emails, builds confidence in your brand, so make the time!”

Happy Holidays from Actimedia!

2015 SEO and PPC Strategies for Your Startup

Holiday shopping has started, but that doesn't mean the search engines are giving you a break. There have been a lot of deals in the last few weeks, as well as algorithm updates over the last couple of months.

Holiday shopping has started, but that doesn't mean the search engines are giving you a break. There has been a lot of deals in the last few weeks, as well as algorithm updates over the last couple of months. With everything going on, now is the time to think about your 2015 SEO and PPC strategies.

Whether you haven't thought about mobile, haven't tried optimizing for Bing/Yahoo! or you haven't reallocated your budget to spend more in another channel, you may want to get started. Here are a couple of reasons why:

PPC

As of two weeks ago, Firefox signed a deal to make Yahoo! its new default engine. Siri and Facebook are using Bing, and that means big trouble for Google. With a large portion of Facebook, email and social media users on mobile devices, and mobile device sales increasing with desktop shrinking, this opens up a huge opportunity to not be dependent on one PPC system.

Depending on when the moves take place, you should be planning to invest more into Yahoo! and Bing instead of the normal 70/30, 80/20 or 90/10 split. When these large sources of traffic have a new engine, and if the continued shift from desktop to mobile device continues, this is where your future traffic and sales could be. Make sure to look at how to convert Yahoo! and Bing better so that if they continue to gain market share, your website and sales funnels are ready.

SEO

If Yahoo! can continue to take market share or reach a goal of becoming the default engine for iPhone and iPad, Google could be in trouble. This means more Facebook, Twitter and other mobile traffic sources may be opening up Yahoo! searches instead of Google.

Google is also rolling out mobile icons next to search engine results for sites that it feels are mobile friendly. With these changes it is important to watch out for and take action on a few things.

1. Make sure your site is mobile friendly and optimized. If end users start to use the icon and you don't have one, it may mean your site gets skipped over and eventually gets a penalty for mobile search.

2. Pay more attention to ranking reports and positions in Yahoo!/Bing. Although the traffic doesn't come anywhere close to Google yet, with the current changes taking place, optimizing for these two could mean large rewards in the near future.

3. Find tools like UpCity.com which give you ranking reports by day/week/month in Google and also in Yahoo!/Bing so you can compare them. This is very important for the future of SEO.

If something was good for Google but bad for Yahoo!/Bing, you know to no longer do it if the traffic shifts change. If it was good for Google and had a positive impact on Yahoo!/Bing then you want to remember what the changes were and test them more.

Search marketing experts like Adam Riemer are also saying:

"Microsoft uses bing for clip art search, Siri uses bing, Facebook uses bing, Firefox uses Yahoo! as a new default, if you aren't prepared for a mobile search shift with a multi-engine marketplace with tools and by tracking your negative and positive effects from optimizing for Google on Yahoo! and Bing, you will be left behind!"

The SEO landscape has always changed with Google alone. When you throw the large new traffic sources into Yahoo! and Bing, the world of SEO just became a lot trickier. Moving into 2015, make sure you site is mobile friendly, and you have your Bing webmaster tools set up properly since Bing/Yahoo! are becoming players again.

What is UX Design?

Web Developer Joke

A wife asks her developer husband: "Could you please go to the store for me and buy a carton of milk, if they have eggs, get 12." 

A short time later the husband comes back with 12 cartons of milk. 

The wife yells at him, "Why the hell did you buy 12 cartons of milk?!" 

He replied, "They had eggs."

Team Working for Success!

Diana's Lunch at Actimedia Venezuela

Social Media and Small Business [infographic]

Five Companies that are Rocking Social Media

Nielsen: Discounts Drive Brand Love on Social Media

Nielsen recently conducted a survey to understand what drives users to Like a Facebook Page or follow a brand on Twitter, and it came out with pretty much expected results. Deals and discounts are single biggest factor for Liking/Following a brand followed by the love and the support towards a brand/celebrity. Different regions of the world echoed similar results. Users from North America showed the greatest interest in deals and discounts followed by asia-pacific.

Last year, Exact Target found similar patterns on social media where it saw about 43% of Facebook users liking a Page to receive discounts and promotions.

And in the backdrop of debate about daily deals sites and their questionable business models, Nielsen found out that more people visited sites like Coupon.com, Living social and Groupon in September than previous months thereby thrashing all the negativity surrounding these companies.

W3C Adds Time Element Back to HTML5

If HTML5 editor Ian Hickson’s recent decision to remove the  element from the HTML5 specification left you scratching your head, you’re not alone. The W3C, the group that oversees HTML5, feels the same way and have stepped in to override Hickson’s earlier decision to remove the widely used element from the HTML5 spec. That means is once again part of HTML5.

There’s a hint of friction in W3C member Paul Cotton’s post to the HTML Working Group, suggesting that the W3C feels Hickson overstepped his bounds in removing . “Therefore we direct the HTML5 Editor to NOT process this bug further,” writes Cotton, who goes on to say that the  element will be reinstated to the spec by Nov. 8.

The HTML WG wants, ahem, more time to hash out. It’s unclear exactly what this means for the WHATWG version of the HTML5 spec (see our article onthe Difference Between the WHATWG and the HTML WG), but the W3C’s new love for time should be welcome news for web developers who’ve already deployed  on their sites.

While Hickson’s move to toss time out was probably premature, there are nevertheless some problems with . The  element offers the ability to add semantic meaning to pages by marking up dates and other time data, but not all use cases have been covered and some gray areas still exist. For example, the code 2:30 could refer to a time of day or perhaps the length of a movie. Both are theoretically valid uses and figuring out the details and the various potential use cases, is exactly what the HTML WG wants more time to do.

In the minutes from the last HTML WG meeting developer Tantek Çelik, makes the case for re-instating  just as it was, but also adding several new capabilities. Çelik suggests accounting for use cases like a  tag with only a year (commonly used on sites like Wikipedia or for copyright), and also for using  with only a day and month, commonly used when specifying dates like Christmas — 12/25 or 25/12, depending on where you live. Still to be decided are use cases like duration and some details around time zones.

Like the rest of HTML5,  remains a work in progress. Now that it’s once again a part of the HTML5 spec that work can resume and those who are already using  in some of its well-established roles can breathe easier.

Source: Scott Gilbertson

SEO vs PPC

If you want to attract visitors to your site then there are a couple of ways of doing this. Among the most popular and effective ones are SEO and PPC. Which one is better?

I have been thinking about this issue for a while and have come up with a few points to try and help me reach a final decision. Let’s take a look.

The Cost

PPC stands for Pay Per Click. As the name suggests, you pay for every time someone clicks on your ad and gets directed to your site. In theory this means that the more visitors you receive the more you pay. Anyone who is completely confident of converting the majority of their visitors into paying customers should get big benefits out of this. SEO is all about search engine optimization and the price you pay is generally not related to the results you get. You will be paying for a package which involves carrying out the tasks necessary to get you up the search engine rankings. However, you are not paying for the results as such but rather for the process.

The Results

In SEO the results you see will really depend upon how competitive a market you are operating in. For instance, if you are up against some big hitting sites then you are going to have to plug away for a while before getting into a good position on the rankings. On the other hand, if the competition is pretty puny then you should sweep them aside more easily. PPC is a different kettle of fish, as you aren’t really battling it out to get more visibility; you are paying for it. You would think that this means that the results are more guaranteed but I have a spanner to throw in the works. With SEO the people who find you are those who are looking for you. With PPC you might get a lot of idle clickers reaching your site. If your page is SEO optimized for your keywords and it has been done professionally then you know exactly what your visitors have typed in as their searches. With PPC you are attracting visitors who were maybe looking at something completely different but saw your advert and decided to have a look at it. Therefore, they probably have less intention of buying something when they enter your site.

The Long Term Sustainability

The final point I want to consider is which of these two methods is better in the long run. This is another close call and again comes down to the website’s own position in the overall market. For example, if I have a site which doesn’t have particularly strong competition then I can run some SEO work for a few months and blitz my way to the top of the rankings. If the rival sites don’t wake up then I can carry on in my lofty position with little or no maintenance work or costs. With the PPC approach you only get what you pay for. If you stop doing it you stop getting visitors from it, as simple as that.

Takeaway

This means that I have to go with SEO here, as it is something which is designed specifically to give your site visibility on an ongoing basis. Getting business from organic searches seems to me like the most natural and long term solution to finding your next generation of customers.

ICANN Approves Historic Change to Internet's Domain Name System Board Votes to Launch New Generic Top-Level Domains

ICANN's Board of Directors has approved a plan to usher in one of the biggest changes ever to the Internet's Domain Name System. The Board vote was 13 approving, 1 opposed, and 2 abstaining.

During a special meeting, the Board approved a plan to dramatically increase the number of Internet domain name endings -- called generic top-level domains (gTLDs) -- from the current 22, which includes such familiar domains as .com, .org and .net.

"ICANN has opened the Internet's naming system to unleash the global human imagination. Today's decision respects the rights of groups to create new Top Level Domains in any language or script. We hope this allows the domain name system to better serve all of mankind," said Rod Beckstrom, President and Chief Executive Officer of ICANN.

New gTLDs will change the way people find information on the Internet and how businesses plan and structure their online presence. Internet address names will be able to end with almost any word in any language, offering organizations around the world the opportunity to market their brand, products, community or cause in new and innovative ways.

"Today's decision will usher in a new Internet age," said Peter Dengate Thrush, Chairman of ICANN's Board of Directors. "We have provided a platform for the next generation of creativity and inspiration."

The decision to proceed with the gTLD program follows many years of discussion, debate and deliberation with the Internet community, business groups and governments. The Applicant Guidebook, a rulebook explaining how to apply for a new gTLD, went through seven significant revisions to incorporate more than 1,000 comments from the public. Strong efforts were made to address the concerns of all interested parties, and to ensure that the security, stability and resiliency of the Internet are not compromised.

ICANN will soon begin a global campaign to tell the world about this dramatic change in Internet names and to raise awareness of the opportunities afforded by new gTLDs. Applications for new gTLDs will be accepted from 12 January 2012 to 12 April 2012.

Journalist and media expert Oksana Prykhodko arrived at ICANN 40 in San Francisco with a mission. She had set out to improve understanding in Ukraine of the importance of the Internet.

Oksana characterizes the week that followed as "great, wonderful, and a little crazy." She found an ally in the manager of the Russian country code top level domain, and gained insight into Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). Attending her first ICANN meeting as a Fellow, Oksana found the experience rewarding – and three short months later, has been elected Secretariat of the European Regional At-Large Organization (EURALO). She also has joined the Working Group for Cyrillic IDNs.

Can participating in ICANN's volunteer community accelerate your Internet agenda? Quite possibly. Listen to Oksana's video. Then, if you're from a developing country, consider applying to ICANN's Fellowship Program to attend a future ICANN meeting with some travel expenses covered.

The application round for attending our October meeting in Dakar, Senegal, as a Fellow is open until 8 July 2011.

Friendly, outgoing, and technologically savvy, Fouad Bajwa was the State Webmaster for the government of Pakistan. When he returned to private sector employment, he thirsted for technical knowledge that could keep him relevant in the international market as he promoted the open-source movement.

Despite strong doubts regarding ICANN's model and motives, Fouad attended our meeting in Seoul, South Korea, in 2009. Today, he volunteers as the co-Vice Chair for the Asian-Pacific Regional At-Large Organization (APRALO), a key part of ICANN's At-Large community.

What changed Fouad's opinion of ICANN? And how has working with ICANN helped this accomplished IT trainer? Hear Fouad's story, in his own words, in the accompanying video.

This video continues the "Who Is ICANN?" series we launched last week. Part One introduced Mistura Aruna of Nigeria.

Fouad attended his first ICANN meeting courtesy of the Fellowship Program. If you're from a developing country, you can learn more about the Program on our ICANN Meeting Fellowships page. Apply now to attend our October meeting in Dakar, Senegal, as a Fellow. The deadline for applying is 8 July 2011.

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Adobe Anuncia Disponibilidad de Aplicaciones Photoshop Touch para iPad

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) anunció la disponibilidad inmediata de las aplicaciones de Adobe® Photoshop® Touch (Adobe Color Lava, Adobe Eazel y Adobe Nav) para Apple iPad en Apple App Store. Estas tres aplicaciones de Adobe fueron desarrolladas usando el Kit de Desarrollo de Software (SDK) Photoshop Touch para demostrar el potencial de la interacción entre Photoshop y los dispositivos tipo tableta.

Adobe Color Lava para Photoshop, Adobe Eazel para Photoshop y Adobe Nav para Photoshop reúnen la experiencia divertida e interactiva de los dispositivos de pantalla táctil con el poder y precisión de Photoshop permitiendo a los usuarios crear muestras de color personalizadas, pintar directamente en la pantalla y usar conocidas herramientas de Photoshop desde sus dispositivos tipo tableta.‡ Estas aplicaciones aprovechan la pantalla táctil del iPad para ofrecer una experiencia móvil táctil y rica para todos los sentidos y amplían los avances realizados por Adobe en el mercado de móviles y tabletas, que empezó con Photoshop Express, Adobe Ideas y Adobe Connect™ Mobile.

Photoshop es parte de la familia de producto Adobe® Creative Suite® 5.5 recientemente anunciada, con la que diseñadores y desarrolladores en todo el mundo pueden crear contenido para las más recientes plataformas de teléfonos inteligentes y tabletas. Los usuarios actuales de Photoshop CS5 pueden descargar la actualización de forma gratuita y empezar a disfrutar de la interacción entre Photoshop y los dispositivos tipo tableta.

Los primeros comentarios de la industria acerca de las aplicaciones Photoshop Touch han sido muy positivos; en una revisión First Look de Macworld, Lesa Snider dice que “al no tener obstáculos entre tu pieza de arte y tú, puedes enfocarte en crear en el más puro sentido”. Snider también denota emoción acerca del nuevo SDK de Photoshop Touch, diciendo “no tengo duda de que los desarrolladores no querrán soltarlo hasta dominar la tecnología y crear otras útiles aplicaciones Photoshop integradas”.
El SDK de Photoshop Touch hace que sea posible desarrollar para numerosos dispositivos, como iOS®, Android® y BlackBerry® Playbook®. Con el SDK, los desarrolladores tendrán amplio acceso a la funcionalidad de Photoshop con la libertad para innovar y crear nuevas aplicaciones o agregar capacidades a las existentes. Adobe ya está comprometido con un número de desarrolladores para incorporar las tabletas y otros dispositivos a los flujos de trabajo creativos, lo que dará a los usuarios de Photoshop mayor poder de vanguardia.

Photoshop Touch y los Procesos Creativos

Adobe Color Lava permite que los creativos usen la punta de sus dedos para mezclar colores en el iPad y crear muestras personalizadas de color que puedan luego transferir a Photoshop.

Adobe Eazel aprovecha la avanzada tecnología de pintura para que los artistas creen pinturas realísticas enriquecidas con la punta de sus dedos, y presenta un nuevo tipo de interacción entre pinturas “húmedas” y “secas”. Estas pinturas pueden luego enviarse directamente a Photoshop CS5 para composición o para trabajar más en la pieza de arte.

Adobe Nav incrementa la eficiencia del flujo de trabajo porque permite que los usuarios seleccionen y controlen las herramientas de Photoshop usando el iPad como la superficie de entrada, personalicen la barra de herramientas, exploren y hagan acercamientos en hasta 200 archivos abiertos de Photoshop, o creen fácilmente nuevos archivos.

Kit de Desarrollo de Software Adobe PhotoShop Touch (SDK) para que los desarrolladores elaboren aplicaciones de tableta que interactúen con Photoshop desde dispositivos Android, BlackBerry PlayBook y iOS.

Happy Mother's Day

New Search Engine Optimization Tips

Social Networking:

Social Networking and SMO is one of the best way and these are now considered as the web 2.0 and web 3.0 technologies, so i think every webmaster must use these technologies and make a network there, this will live your brand name in the public, even you don’t have to invest more money for online advertising if you this method.
Most of the tech gurus and other big giants are still using this method to grab leads for their websites, so it is also an important thing in search engine optimization. For this you need to use Twitter and Facebook share buttons to publicize your content.


Content is King – Updated Content:

Content is the heart and brain for any website, even you have done a perfect optimization and you do not have a Good and fresh content, then it is just waste of time. Because search engines love fresh content, they are always wanted to get updated content for their search viewers. So it is very important that you have to give more priority to the Content. Maintain standards while writing a post, means you have to be very careful while writing content for your web page, need to use some header tags, bold tags, keyword Prominence etc.
And also it is very important to keep update your content regularly, if you keep update your content, then search engines think that your website is in an active state and updating always, so you will prioritize in the search results.


Increase External link Popularity:

Getting external links for your website is most essential to increase your page ranking, external links are just like a vote for your website, as many links you get from external websites, that much good rank you make in the SERP, this called Bakclinking in search engine terms.Not only this you can use directory submission, article writing, guest posting and many methods. But be careful don’t do the excess amount of submissions as search engines can consider it as SPAM.
So if you are working on the external linking part, you must remember some issues..
Don’t do excess amount of directory submissions, because search engine may consider it as SPAM.
Always use anchor text with targeted keyword when providing a link to a directory.
Use Article writing directories and SPIN your articles and get effective backlinks.
These are quite enough to work out, if you have more suggestions please let me know.

Wishing you a Socially colorful and Cheerful Easter!