Flash website design has had a bad reputation in terms of search engine optimization (SEO) and visibility of flash content in search engine results. 

According to an encouraging report, the two giant search engines Google and Yahoo have partnered with Adobe, the maker of flash technology, to upgrade the engines’ spidering capability to find and read flash-based website pages.

That’s terrific news for both SEO and web design professionals –and the owner of web pages that are excluded from search engine results.

Some high-profile websites have nonetheless been able to rank well in search engines for keywords.  SEOBook discusses an interesting case where Godiva ranks #1 for the term “Chocolate” in Google even though it’s a flash-based website:

SEO Answer: For competitive queries Google’s relevancy algorithms are probably about 99% linkage data. Those brands are so strong that their linkage data means they do not need page copy to rank for general relevant terms. Should Starbucks rank for coffee? Few sites are more relevant.

Google does not aim to show the most optimized content. They want to list the most relevant content.

By having limited page copy they may end up missing out on ranking for longer related queries since it is a bit hard for search engines to make documents relevant for long multi word phrases that don’t occur in the anchor text or page copy, but for general queries they can still do great.

Popularity: 27% [?]

True to his candid perception of life, Kevin Smith’s book is called “My Boring Ass Life.” 

His blog is called Silent Bob Speaks. 

It is a great example of a blog that coasts on the popularity of a character played.

In this case it is Bob from the famous Silent Bob and Jay team of slackers that starred in Mallrats and Clerks.

However aside from being a novelty this is also a very educational blog. If you did not know much about being a filmmaker you are going to find out all about it on Smith’s blogs. There are day-by-day and blow-by-blow accounts of what he does as a filmmaker and there are also thorough discussions of current issues like writer’s strikes and government fines.  He talks about a lot of theories to do with theory and film including such concepts oars rehearsal and work shopping. He is a much more gesture filmmaker than that.

It is intelligently written and an example of how a blog can have “value” content that teaches while being entertaining at the same time.  Aspiring networking bloggers can definitely learn from its style of presentation, which is definitely authentic and very detailed.  This is no ghostwritten piece of crap. It is hot content that also has real worth to a reader if they are searching for information about film, censorship and other matters.

The most famous thing on the blog is a retort to the late “Good Morning America” movie critic Joel Siegel, who said that he walked out of Smith’s movie Clerks II. Smith later apologized when he found out the fight was mentioned in a Siegel obituary as it was unseemly a man’s entire career to be reduced to a fight with him about a movie like Clerks II which was basically an unruly, scatological comedy.

Popularity: 60% [?]

If you are starting an online business of some kind you need to find a niche for your business because it allows you to make your customers feels special.

The great thing about niche marketing is that it allows you to develop a clique with your membership.  People love to belong to forums, groups or chats that talk specifically about a hobby, interest or unique niche.

Niche marketing really benefits those who want to sell informational products such as ebooks. This is because people will for information that is rare or unique. Yet another way an ebook or report can be used in niche marketing is to give it away for free. This form of Internet marketing is called viral marketing and if you do it right it can be very profitable. People will forward your information to people who are likely to click on the links in your eBook to buy the products that you recommend. Or they might be inclined to visit your website.

An understanding of niche marketing is also vital if you are using pay per click programs such as Google Adsense to monetize your site. An important part of niche marketing is knowing what keywords your clients might use to search for products on your site. This is also an aspect of submitting search engine optimized articles to e-zine and article directories in order to boost your site’s page rankings in popular search engine indexes such as Yahoo or Google.

For ideas on how to get started when you develop a niche check out the concepts to help you get started at Smartzville.  There is lots of good advice on this site about how to utilize practical methods to launch your career as a niche marketing type of entrepreneur without going into the hole financially.

Popularity: 61% [?]

Here are some common misconceptions about what it takes to be self-employed and run your own business on the Internet.  This article is more for people who are completely new at grasping the concepts of Internet marketing and web design.

You have to have a lot of money to make money on the Internet. Not true. Many successful Internet businesses were started on a shoestring and have gone onto become giants.

One delusion is that you need to sell a lot of different products to make money. Not true. Finding a single niche and concentrating on making that work is how most people make money. It’s about focus.

Another myth is that you need a large web presence in order to make the maximum amount of profits. Not true. All you need to do is sell a quality product at an affordable price to create a loyal base of customers. It’s not that different than other businesses.

Being Your Own Boss means working on your own. Not true. Most freelancers and owners of home based businesses find themselves constantly networking with other individuals to create business and business-to-business business.

Many beginners also thing that “Freelancing will allow me more free time”  Not at first. During the first year of your operations expect to work harder and longer hours than you ever did at your full time job. That is what it takes to get the business of off the ground. This is true no matter what.

One of the biggest myths ever is the idea that the government gives out grants to start businesses. This really is misleading. Nobody really ever gets a “free ride” like this. Entrepreneur.com has a great article that can help you sort out the myths from realities when it comes to government handouts.

Popularity: 100% [?]

When you use a blog as a way of affiliate marketing it is casually known as bum marketing.

A blog is basically just another persuasive marketing tool, just like a web page, newsletter or a press release.

However unlike web pages, that can take a lot of time to create, you can upload your message quickly to a blog and have it able to be searched the same day.  This is because blogs are created on templates that are quickly refreshed and indexed by the search engines. This is a boon to affiliate marketers whose links are seen a lot sooner then if they are just posted on ordinary web pages.

The fact that blogs can be easily updated and indexed quickly search engine spiders allows you to post the “latest” news about your product or services or news stories that relate to your business. It also allows you to be more entertaining and personable in general as an affiliate marketer.

Another advantage is that bogs are cheap to set up. They are most valuable for small Internet businesses that can’t afford other forms of advertising.

On most blogging sites each entry or post is supplied with its own unique URL. This means that search engines can easily spider and index individual posts. This of course greatly increases your visibility in the search engine indexes and if your blogs are also linked to your site, it can increase the number of sales.  This is one of the simplest ways to make money online if you want to start small or don’t have much income at your disposal to design a big website on your own.

Once you have your content you can then decorate your blog with affiliate URLs and monetize it using Adsense. This is known as bum marketing.  For great information about bum marketing check out Bum Marketing Method.

Popularity: 80% [?]

Dan Kennedy is internationally recognized as the renegade Millionaire maker guy. He has been called the “Professor of Harsh Reality” because of his joking and irreverant way of teaching the business.

 He likes to refer to himself as a veteran of direct response mailing advertising or as the renegade millionaire maker. This is because most people who have gotten rich off of Dan Kennedy have utilized his theories about the direct mailing business. Kennedy was one of the founding members of the now gigantic Guthy-Renker Corporation which famous for its celebrity infomercials with Victoria Principal and Vanna White, and its Tony Robbins infomercials.
Dan Kennedy’s sense of humor is what makes his materials so  easy to read. His observations about the marketing business cut to the quick in a way that does not leave you with any illusions about getting rich in one day.

Dan Kennedy is very well known as not only a great marketer but also a speaker author and mentor. His best selling book ” How to Succeed in Marketing By breaking All the Rules” is a must read for anyone serious about building any business. However Internet marketing professionals take note.  Kennedy’s books are not about online marketing specifically but the entire business as it can be applied to both the virtual and real worlds of commerce. If you are focusing on developing an online business you should look for other alternative money making programs.

 Dan Kennedy’s advice is universal and draws on an illustrious career in marketing that has spanned thirty years. His advice comes from his wealth of experience as a leading consultant in direct marketing, copywriting, Internet strategies, and profit improvement systems.   His marketing wisdom can be easily applied to many different marketing fields, industries or professions. In short, Dan Kennedy is one marketing guru who really knows himself. His wealth creation seminars on DVD run about $400 each.

Popularity: 66% [?]

Setting up a mailing list and a set of autoresponders that allow you to send out messages to subscribers can be absolutely crucial to your survival as a marketer and also to looking very professional.  There are many free list services on the Internet that will enable you to set up a mailing list however, they won’t allow you to personalize your messages, and they require that your subscriber reply to a confirmation message. They can also choose to shut your list down at any time for any reason like that.
 
Your first step in setting up your system will be to get a good form processing script. This script will be used to enable your subscriber to submit their information via a form and send the information to a specified address.
 
Whatever form you select, make sure that it will allow you to use email templates, as you will need each subscription request to contain certain words in the subject for processing. Email form templates will enable the email messages sent to your subscription address to contain any information you’d like.
 
After you’ve gotten your form set up, you’ll need to set up a pop3 email account on your server just for your list. You can name it “lists” or whatever you’d like. In addition, you will need to create two email aliases for subscription requests. Example, yourlist-subscribe@yourdomain.com and yourlist-unsubscribe@yourdomain.com.  The second email name is VERY important as it allows people to opt OUT of your opt-in mailing list.
 
Without that little unsubscribe link at the bottom of your page, people can report you for spamming.

Popularity: 66% [?]

Armand Morin is perhaps best known for his eCover generator program for ebooks. In fact if you are trying to write an ebook, there is probably no other software provider that is likely to have as many helpful programs as s as Armand Morin. 

Aside from the famous eCover generator his extensive portfolio of Internet marketing related products includes the Go Generator, the Header Generator, the Directory Generator, the Instant PDF Generator, the Multi Track Generator, the Sales Letter Generator, CB Clicks Generator, Instant Video Generator and the Audio Generator.  If you know anything about selling ebooks you will see why these products would be such a time and energy saver when it comes to both creating them and selling them.

Not only are many of his products an example of “giving the people what they want in that 2.0 kind of way that pleases the customer. they are also affordable.  A lot of his ebook related software can be had for $150 or much less depending on which vendor you buy it from.

An example of Morin’s own marketing genius at work is the way that he sells the ebook cover generator separately from the pdf generator or his ebook generating products. Of course one would think that you could combine a graphic design program with a pdf generating program and create one comprehensive ebook creation tool. However by selling all of these products separately, Morin has made himself a rich man as you really need one with the other to have a complete business.

The ecover generator is a very simple program that allows you to choose from templates and fonts to create your own ebook cover image. You can also create covers for audio and visual courses with it all. His other products help simplify the functions provided by other programs such as Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Popularity: 66% [?]

Lots of things have been said about Courtney Love’s Blog on MySpace.  She is like the Britney Spears of blogging and that is what is both good and bad about it.

Love is a rambler when she writes and she doesn’t care much about spelling, sentence structure or anything else. However even though she is grammatically despicable it is exactly that flaw that makes what she writes into surreal and Dada –esque works of art. Love or hate her Love is one of the premier songwriters in the world and every single word she writes is precious to some fan somewhere. This may not be about being sloppy or stupid as some reviewers of her blog have said. The remnants of thoughts might be more about imitating the voriticist poets of the twentieth century who were also greatly admired by the punks and the Goths in the nineties music scene.

This blog is also very personal. Love has always been known for her candidness about her plastic surgery and her antics. She also has a lot to say about addiction and has been blogging about the problems of Britney Spears online.  There may be some wisdom in listening to what Love has to say about this she has had several meltdowns herself.

Love’s blog is an example for marketers about how breaking all of the rules is sometimes the way to get the attention of the people. It is also an example of a blog that has a great volume of writing on it form a celebrity which is unusual. One can’t help what the search engine spiders might be thinking of Love’s natural SEO.  It is one of the sites on myspace that has had the most hits as she is also an Oscar winning actress and of course the wife of Kurt Cobain (of the rock band Nirvana) who committed suicide over a decade.

Popularity: 72% [?]

If you are into Internet marketing you have probably heard of David Deutsch. He is world-renowned freelance copywriter for large publishers such as Boardroom, Phillips, Agora, and KCI, and author of the best selling business creativity system, Million Dollar Marketing Secrets. He teaches businesses how to be more user friendly when they brand and try to sell themselves.

In his book, Million Dollar Marketing Secrets, David provides a comprehensive guide as to how to take advantage of trends that are revolutionizing both what and how customers buy - - and what you must know to succeed in today’s highly competitive and ephemeral business environment.

The point of all of his marketing techniques is to teach you how to give the people what when what they are really doing is giving you what YOU want, which is of course, the increased profits and return business.

David Deutsch, not to be mistaken for the award-winning physicist who shares his name, supplies a number of psychological tips about marketing in “Million Dollar Marketing Secrets.”   He starts by preparing you for the life of an entrepreneur by introducing you to the realities of the marketing business that are the non-negotiable facts of life.

David Deutsch is also known for his copywriting tips that teach you how to get rich by giving something away and how to maximize profits from every single customer by using effective ad copy.

Aside from his psychological insights into the heart and mind of a buyer, Deutsch includes advice on how to improve your pricing without having to cut the cost, how to save thousands of dollars by learning how to piggy back your advertising through joint ventures and multi level marketing and how to be a successful when it comes to designing a sight that can compete with discount chains, aftermarket sources, auctions and giant e-corporations.

Popularity: 67% [?]