I am presenting a Webinar on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to Medicare Marketing professionals July 10th, 2008 @ 12:00 PM - 1:15 PM EDT.
I recently presented at the World Research Group Medicare Marketing Strategies conference in Washington DC. I am looking forward to working with World Research Group again.
The Medicare Marketing Strategies Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Webinar Overview:
Harness the Power of the Internet! An increasing number of potential Medicare beneficiaries are turning to the web, and specifically to Google, to find and research area plans. Make sure your name is at the top of their list. This webinar shows how Medicare plans can utilize Google-specific Search Engine Optimization techniques to improve their outreach among prospective enrollees.
Who should attend the Medicare Marketing Strategies Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Webinar:
Target your prospects online instead of offline for measurable results
Transform your business into a modern marketing machine
Speak with your customers in their language, one they understand and prefer
Tap Google Adwords to reach prospects when and where they want to be reached.
Acquire new business more rapidly and efficiently through Google positioning.
Reduce friction and costs in your acquisition and retention program
About Tim Cohn:
For more information about the Search Engine Optimization Webinar or to register, please contact the World Research Group toll free by phone at 1-800-647-7600, via e-mail at info@worldrg.com or sign up for the Medicare Marketing Strategies Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Webinar at World Research Group.com
YouTube India has launched with a local home page (youtube.co.in) which features user-generated videos and content from their existing Bollywood and broadcaster partners Eros Entertainment and New Delhi Television among others.
The site resolves to its India specific YouTube sub domain.
Other partners include the International Indian Film Academy Awards, Krishcricket.com and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.
YouTube India YouTube.co.in launched Wednesday May 7th, 2008.
According to today’s online edition of the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft’s Chief Executive Office Steve Ballmer and it board remain undecided about whether or not they will raise their bid to acquire Yahoo and its internet display advertising and search audience business.
As I previously wrote in a post on Greg Sterling’s blog, Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Yahoo is really about Microsoft’s need to retain, preserve and grow their existing audience and keystrokes before Google has completed their quarterback sneak through Microsoft’s desktop.
Without Yahoo and its internet audience, Microsoft will face accelerating short and long term audience losses to Google.
The question Microsoft hasn’t yet been able to answer for itself remains: “How much cash do we have to spend today to save and protect the future of our desktop franchise and its cash flow?
Apparently the price is one Microsoft has yet to come to grips with or let go of.
Today I was having problems with my Internet connection and had to jump through a bunch of hoops to figure out what was causing the problem.
After jacking around with my modem and wireless router for what seemed like an eternity, I determined the problem was the new unfiltered telephone I had installed yesterday.
While on my telephony science fair project, I got reacquainted with the internet speed connection test.
From their site: “By measuring the download and upload rate from the following locations you are able to accurately measure your current line throughput or internet connection speed.”
My Internet speed connection results were as follows:
Download Speed: 1277 kbps (159.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 313 kbps (38.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
There are a lot of things that factor into your speed test results. Download and upload speeds, backbones, networks, latency, ping times, and DNS servers.
The following are some common internet speed connection terms to help you understand internet speed connection test results.
Download is a measure of how fast your internet connection delivers content to your computer or local area network.
Upload is the measure of how fast content is delivered from your computer or local area network to others on the Internet.
Download and upload speed should match or at least be very close for applications like VoIP, email, on-line gaming and other interactive programs. Upload speed is even more important if you are operating an email, web or file server at your location.
Kbps
Kbps transfer rate = kilobit per second transfer rate. There are 8 bits in a byte, so we would divide kbps by 8 to get KB/sec transfer rate.
FTD Group Inc., the second-largest online florist after 1-800-Flowers.com Inc., is being acquired by Internet company United Online Inc., the companies announced today.
Nasdaq: UNTD is a provider of consumer Internet and media services with over 50 million members. The company’s brands include Classmates.com and NetZero and Juno.
“This transaction will meaningfully diversify our revenue base within a large global market experiencing significant migration to the Internet,” said Mark R. Goldston, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of United Online. “Our proven expertise in implementing marketing initiatives to drive results should enable us to leverage the FTD brand and bring FTD products to United Online`s over 50 million consumer accounts. Further, we will explore opportunities to encourage repeat purchases of FTD products using reward programs based on our MyPoints loyalty marketing service.”
United Online will pay FTD shareholders $456 million in cash and stock. Assuming FTD’s debt will put the value of the deal at approximately $800 million.
By cross-pollinating (pun intended) FTD with its existing brands, United Online believes the combined businesses will have a rosy future.
Google re-introduce an expanded roster of Artist Themes for iGoogle.
What if you could have your brand’s most loyal customers display your brand image alongside Google’s in your customer’s browser’s homepage?
Can you say Brand Lift?
Innovative earlier adopters like Dolce & Gabbana, Philippe Starck, Diane von Furstenberg (I guess Mr. Diller approves) the Beastie Boys and even Lance Armstrong have already taken the leap.
See for yourself in this YouTube video montage showcasing 68 original iGoogle themes by world-class artists:
I am trying out the WordPress.com “Make this blog your personalized blog.com” domain mapping service with my personal domain: TimothyCohn.com
Previously the TimothyCohn.com domain was hosted and parked at WhyPark.com.
TimothyCohn.com at one time was in Google’s search engine results. However, like all short cuts - the WhyPark.com domain parking solution proved to be both: short and cut.
I own TimothyCohn.com and haven’t changed the domain’s ownership during this trial. Only time will tell if my realigning my site with WordPress.com will find the TimothyCohn.com domain back in Google’s index.
Google recently made it clear they weren’t planning on indexing parked sites while also outlining their methodology for identifying parked sites and eradicating them. Google simply searches for parked domain “web template patterns” and then deletes the parked sites and their offending patterns from their index.
This particular WordPress.com sub-domain TimCohn.WordPress.com is in Google search results and also appears in Google Blog Search.
The purpose of this blog post is to see if and how Google will crawl and then supplant this TimCohn.WordPress.com subdomain with the TimothyCohn.com domain.
I am looking forward to seeing how long the “Make this blog your personalized blog.com” domain mapping service from WordPress takes to replace the TimCohn.WordPress.com subdomain results in Google search results - if at all.
Google search now provides WhoIs domain registration information directly in their search results via Domain Tools.
Domain ownership details can be found by clicking the result.
A search for: whois domaintools.com produces the following result.
Be sure to to type whois as one word as opposed to two because a search for who is domaintools.com doesn’t produce the domain’s registration information, it produce the site’s search results.
I have used Domain Tools for several years and highly recommend their site and tools. As far as I can tell, there are few if any other domain intelligence tools that provide anywhere near the data Domain Tools does.
Jay Westerdal of Domain Tools blog posts about the domain industry are also worth investigating further.
Alexa.com has revised how they rank web site traffic.
Excerpts regarding their changes from the Alexa.com blog:
“Alexa began displaying rankings in 1998 it was with the goal of showing Alexa Toolbar users how popular any given site was within the Alexa community. We generated the rankings through an analysis of Internet usage by people who use the Alexa Toolbar. Since that time we’ve been delighted to see that the Alexa Rankings have become a yardstick by which website popularity is measured.
We listened to your suggestions, and we believe that our new rankings system is much closer to what you asked for. We now aggregate data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users.”
I had stopped looking at Alexa.com data several years ago because Alexa data was being manipulated and exploited by webmasters who were looking to make their traffic appear greater than it actually was.
Previously, Alexa gathered its data from a single source - the Alexa tool bar installed in web browsers.
Webmasters simply installed the Alexa tool bar and visited their own site(s) once, twice, several times a day which then resulted in an exponentially higher traffic ranking for their site because of the way Alexa.com extrapolated its data.
By gathering their data from more than one source, Alexa should restore the spirit and accuracy to the web traffic rankings system Alexa.com pioneered.
