The infographic below offers a helpful primer for how to best structure searches using advanced operators to more quickly and accurately drill down to the information you want. This is by no means an exhaustive list of search operators and advanced techniques, but it’s a good start that will help set you on the path to becoming a Google master.
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We've been using Google Plus all week and we can already foresee wasting a huge portion of our lives on it until we're forcibly herded into the next social networking breakthrough. The one stumble we had was dividing our friends up into Google Plus's suggested "circles" of family, friends, and coworkers. We believe life isn't lived by drawing such lines in the sand, so we came up with our own set of 21 suggested circles for dividing up your friends on Google Plus. We'll continue adding to this list, so tell us in the comments which ones we missed.
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There has been some discussion as to whether Google likes guest posting. Although some guest posters deny it, and guest posting can be done to leverage traffic and promote brand as well as for SEO, there’s little doubt that for some people at least the goal is to manipulate search engine rankings.
photo by Yodel Anecdotal
And that, in theory at least, is a definite no no for Google.
When manipulation can help.
Of course, as one of my favourite SEOs, Ross Hudgeons, has pointed out, manipulation is only a bad thing when it disrupts the user experience.
And I’d argue that guest posting does the opposite of that.
If Google has done its work right in the first place, the blogs and websites whose links count will be quality blogs and websites, and therefore only accept quality guest posts.
The bloggers and webmasters who can afford to pay for/are talented enough to produce great content will also be able to afford to pay for/be talented enough to produce great content for their own website.
In many cases the search battle is already being lost, with websites/blogs with great content losing out against sites with large numbers of spammy links. The last thing Google needs to do is penalise those who can and do produce good content.
What if I’m wrong?
I could be wrong, of course.
Because if Google didn’t like guest posts, there would be no point in saying it didn’t like it. That would just drive the practice underground. Sneaky links would be placed in the body of content instead of politely being placed in the footer as they usually are now, and guest blogs would be disguised as run-of-the-mill content.
And by the way, this is not a guest post, my name is not James Dunworth and I don’t also work for The Disabled Shop
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I have always admired people’s ingenuity and creativity. A new tool barely has time to get its foot in the door before hundreds of mashups, info-graphics, and follow-on tools pop up. Remember when Twitter started catching on? Tons of amazing projects suddenly appeared including Twitter translators, Twitter calendars, Twitter viral projects (like, for example, HistoricalTweets). There were so many of them that it kept amazing me how people managed to continually create newer and more innovative solutions.
Witnessing that madness gives one a great deal of food for thought. To me the whole process is incredibly educational and inspirational. As online marketers, we need to learn to create successful link bait and viral content and the best way to accomplish that is to learn by example.
This post shares three simply genius (actually simple and genius) examples of link bait based on the Google Suggest feature:... read more
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Ways to Get More Blog Readers From Twitter
This tip describes how you can create sleek and professional looking HTML signatures for your outgoing Gmail messages right inside Gmail itself without requiring any extensions or add-ons.
Gmail does support email signatures but the problem is that it limits you to plain text – you can’t add graphics (like your company’s logo) to the signature and there’s absolutely no support for HTML so you can’t use different font styles or colors for the signature text.
There are workarounds. For instance, you can create an email signature in Outlook or some HTML editor and then copy-paste the whole thing to your Gmail message. Or you can get one of these browser add-ons to create rich HTML signatures directly on the Gmail /Google Apps website.
There’s a third-option as well – it’s easy, it’s fun and doesn’t require extensions. Best of all, you can create multiple signatures for the same Gmail account and use them depending on who you are corresponding with.
Gmail Signatures Step-by-Step
Step 1: Go to Gmail Settings –> Labs and enable “Canned Responses” as well as “Inserting Images.”
Step 2: Compose a new message in Gmail and create a signature just like you would compose any other email message. Be creative!
You can either upload logos and icons* from the computer or use images that are already on the web. I suggest the former style as that will permanently embed the image into your email signature.
[*] You can find images of icons through Google Image Search. Go to Advanced options under image search and type 12 for height and width (use 16px if you are looking to add slightly bigger icons). While optional, you may also select the filetype as PNG or GIF for transparent backgrounds.
Step 3: Once your happy with the formatting and layout of your new “HTML signature,” go to the Canned Response menu and Save – give some logical name like “Personal” for a signature that you want to attach to your personal emails.
Now whenever you are composing a new message in Gmail or replying to an existing message, just select the relevant signature from the Canned Responses drop-down and it will be inserted inline as in this screenshot.
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