Google Shows MLK Love

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In our article Wu-Yi Tea Experiment Post 3, we aimed to get our experimental site WuYi.TV included in Google.  Seemingly, inclusion was slower than normal until we pulled out the big guns.  We linked to it from a few of our “secret” high PR sites yesterday.  Like clockwork, WuYi.TV has life in Google’s search engine.

WuYi.TV Indexed In Google.com

So, these sites that we linked from, are not really super secret.  They just happened to be well-respected web sites that we own, with high Google PR value.  We pick the one with the most relevant content to this landing page and strategically link to Wuyi.tv.

We suggest:

• One way Link: Meaning that reciprocal linking for SEO benefit may have little value in creating WUYI.tv as an Authority site.
• Linking in Context: Writing an article, and placing links within the content, is an effective way to link.  This prevents Google from pinging you as if you were buying links in Bad directories or link farms.

Our next phases of the experiment include optimizing our copy and Meta Tags.  Now we have to try to get ranked for coveted keywords.  WhiteNewJersey states that Dot TV domains don’t rank well.  We will see soon.

Stay tuned!

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I am intrigued by products that make assertions like this.  Are you?  But I want to tell you… this is FREE to start.  

If you are like me, I at least try a lot of different Internet Marketing programs to make my own discernment.   Of course, there are always those small print disclaimers. 

But just think about it… What if??????

Click here or on the banner to the left and try out the process yourself.  Let’s report back here and figure out if any of us were able to crack the $2k a month nut!    

Comment below on your ideas, good or bad, when you see programs like this… Also, comment after you have filled out the Google Easy Profit form and started to work the program.  Remember…. It’s Free!

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WinningTheWeb.com has ranked the top 100 Internet Marketing blogs on the internet.  (How long will it take us to get there?!!?!?!?!)

I like how they have ranked them based on many criteria like:

• Feedburner RSS Subscribers
• Alexa Rank
• Compete Rank
• Technorati Rank
• Google Page rank
• Yahoo Inbound Links
• StumbleUpon Reviews
• del.icio.us Votes
• Links from Winning the Web
• User Votes

Pretty sweet compilation in their own algorithm.  Check it out!

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Per Google’s Lively.com,

Lively by Google has interactive 3D places on web pages where visitors can see each other’s avatars and chat. Customize your avatar and decorate rooms to add another dimension to social networking!

Although I did not really jump into the 3D space on Lively, it is a great hint as to where the web COULD go!  Why?  By creating 3D animations of your offline store, club, restaurant, or any offline place… with a little infusion of real video, is one of the best ways that the web could evolve for interactivity.  Web 5.0 or Web 10.0…

From an Ecommerce/Internet Marketing Perspective, I dig the fact that I could virtually comb through items in a store.  Lots of work for the vendor, but cool prospect in web dreaming!

Check out Google’s 3D Room below….

Google

For full announcement, check out Google’s Blog on why they are discontinuing the service by clicking here

Perhaps a point of failure is the whole animated thing.  Perhaps it is still considered to be a niche interest compared to what mainstream wants to see and interact with.  If we are progressing to Web 3.0… then my guess would be Web 7.0 will be ready for this transition.

Google, continue your trendsetting…. Early adopters get the point.

Let me know what you feel by commenting below.

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BlackAtlanta.com currently runs on a popular flavor of a Content Management System.  Normally, as many of you may know, a CMS runs dynamically from a Database and generates the page content based on the structure of the page requested.  Modules, components, content, etc. are all placed into the page based on the specific page or channel requested.

Our test was to determine whether we could reduce bounce rates between:

• A short version of the page, where the whole page was above the fold.  Options in navigation and choice were limited.
• Or the regular version of the site.  A very LONG page with many options.  (Image shown to the right –>  very long so we really decreased the size )

Based on analytics, (Powered by Google), we were able to assess that “Black Atlanta Events” was a very high keyword searched regularly on the site.  As seen below, we thought that we would:

• “bait” users by placing the Events link in the top left hand hot zone of the page.
• We even thought that we would make the font larger to further entice…
• Reduce the number of options on the page by taking away navigation
• Steer users into a reduced number of channels through graphical content boxes.

We ran this test between November 5-7, 2008 and compared this mini-home page landing page against the regular landing page (home page) between October 29-31, 2008.

Hypothesis

We hypothesized that the limited option landing page would funnel users into more popular areas of the site immediately, and thus reduce the bounce rate.

Now, Google defines the bounce rate as:

The percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. Use this metric to measure visit quality – a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors. The more compelling your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert. You can minimize bounce rates by tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run. Landing pages should provide the information and services that were promised in the ad copy.

Now, all traffic was organically driven.  So keyword relevancy would be high based on Google’s strict algorithmic excellence   LOL!!!

Our findings.

We honestly pulled the plug early on this assessment.  We found an immediate reduction in the total number of page views, AFTER the click through.  In other words, those that stayed and beat our Bounce rate…. were only looking at a few pages and THEN bouncing.

Bounce Rate

Although we did see the Bounce Rate INCREASE by a little over 8% with the shortened page, we cannot fully call the test conclusive, as the number of page views sent to the shortened landing page was only 28% of what the normal long page received.

Time on Page

Strangely enough, the time spend on the page almost doubled with the shortened page.

Conclusions

As stated above, very few conclusions can be made without truly increasing the number of test page impressions, where the home page was the entry point.

I AM a betting man though.  So here are my conjectures:

1. The Increased bounce rate experienced on the landing page, could be improved with a simpler layout.
2. The bounce rate also had less “flair”, meaning that the bored user left the page.
3. Our other experiments on landing pages that are longer than the fold of the page, show that with the use of Clicktale, a large percentage of users actually scroll down the page past the fold and some even scroll back up, until they find where the click will be.  This is an interesting observation, that means that most users don’t mind scrolling if the content is appealing enough and if they feel the page has the content that attracted the click through.

We will continue to tweak our landing pages and improve hot zone studies.  For the time being though, we will allow this user demographic base to continue to get what we project they like…. Longer pages… More Content, More choices…and yes… more sizable length

If you like this article, please subscribe to our newsfeed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/BlackInternetMarketingLessons

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In our blog post observing the diversity opportunities at Google –>  http://blackinternetmarketing.com/diversity-a-welcomed-vision-at-google/-/Black-Internet-Marketing/2008/08/03/ , we talked about

Check out the following blog post from Google’s Blog, which outlines:

• the advertising agreement with Yahoo
• how it would have been beneficial to multiple parties, including us as publishers

In regards to continuing the agreement with Yahoo, Drummond states that the agreement would “…be like trying to drive down the road of innovation with the parking brake on”.

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We run a WordPress blog on our own servers here at BlackInternetMarketing.com.  You can, as an option, go to WordPress.com and register there, where they can host your blog for you.  That is a viable option for some of us, but to those who want to make their own revenue, have more control over user experience, and be able to better track and analyze the success of the blog, then hosting your blog on your own servers is a desired path!

With that being said, WordPress normally has templates or skins that can be installed.  Normally, if you change or install a new template, then you have to copy and paste Google Analytics code into the code, prior to the </body> tag of the template’s index page. 

Enter Semiologic WordPress Google Analytics Plugin.

This plug-in can be installed in the WordPress administration system.  It takes your Google Analytics tracking code and allos installation from the administration panel. 

• The pro of this is that you can change templates multiple times with no affect on having to add code to the templates! 
• The con, is that, as of 10/31/08, you can only use the Legacy Tracking Code, which limits some of the features that Google otherwises tests in their new Tracking code.

I will track and test over the next few days and let you know how it goes! Other than that, feel free to mosy on over to Semiologic’s website and read up on the plugin yourself.

Happy WordPress Analytics!

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