Going for a responsive web design is a very strong consideration when developing web pages these days. Responsive web design allows a website to render perfectly regardless of what browser or device is used to access its pages.

Today, more and more people are using smart phones and tablets to view pages over the internet. How does your website display on such devices? That is why businesses are challenged to convert their existing websites to be more responsive to the newer browsers used by the equally new mobile devices and gadgets.

Shifting to a more responsive web design may be a little too expensive to some web owners. But the investment is very much worth it. Marketing experts say that companies are best to put their money on a fully integrated marketing program in order to produce a higher ROI. In a recent survey, it shows that 78% of teenagers all over the world own a mobile phone. And almost half of them have smart phones to boot. What more of adults with a higher purchasing power? The mobile market is indeed too meaty to be ignored. Those consumers have 24/7 access to the internet wherever they are. That alone makes the shift to a more responsive web design a very sound decision indeed.

Opting for a responsive web design is more ideal than having to maintain different versions of your website for different devices. The latter would cost you more money in the long run. If you shift to responsive web design instead, your website will detect whatever browser or gadget your visitor is using for viewing your pages and adjusts all elements accordingly. Your website will render perfectly on a mobile phone screen as it would on a desktop computer. Responsive and interactive is the current trend in web design. How good does your website fare?

Author: Petar Rastovic is an entrepreneur and internet marketer who writes for 1DigitalAgency.com, website Design Company that specializes in WordPress, Volusion and BigCommerce custom design.

Guest blogging has become one of the great ways to get high quality back links. You submit a post now and within 2-3 months it will have been shared across top social networks and related blogs; link juice grows as the months go by.

The chances are you are already posting on external blogs on a regular basis, but are you doing it right?

Finding Quality Blogs

The first stage is to find a high quality and relevant blog. The more relevant the blog is to the page you will link to, the better.

If you are submitting your low quality spun articles to 100s of low quality sites, you are going to get penalised. Simply do a Google search and you will find plenty of blogs to submit to.

You need to search “niche” + one of the following:

“Guest posting”

• “Write for us”
• “Submit article”

An example would be “write for us web design”.

• Check the PageRank using www.prchecker.info .
• Check the Domain Authority using OSE.

These are weak indicators, but combined with the actual quality of the content on the site, it should give you an idea if you want your content and links associated with that particular site.

Finding Quality Writers

Ok, so your problem might not be find places to post, but actually, finding a quality blog writer. That’s not surprising, as there are hundreds to choose from. The writers that you have found are either going to be low quality or overpriced. Here are some tips to help you choose a writer:

• Focus on quality rather than price. Quality posts will create much more link juice over time.
• View a range of samples from each service provider.
• Ask for references
• Discuss discounts for bulk orders

Making The Most Out Of Every Opportunity

Guest posting is working, there is no doubt about that. Thousands of websites have seen their websites boost in terms of their overall SEO score and SEO service providers are using this as part of their monthly campaigns. Why? They can get links on high quality sites that have huge levels of traffic; all they need to pay is the fee for the blog post!

This is a long term opportunity that will help boost your website SEO.

Vibe Tech Media offers a hands-free guest blogging package here: http://www.vibetechmedia.com/guest-posting-services.

Hey Folks!

When editing your pages, posts and even categories, sometimes WordPress can add a number to the end of the permalink to avoid duplicate URLs.

This sounds like it should be great and a useful tool but sometimes when you are trying to replace “sample” it can rename it “sample-2″ and can get a little stressful.

Here’s a nice and easy way to fully delete the old page without having to go into the database / PHPadmin etc (there’s no need:))
It’s similar to clearing a cache so you can add a new page with the original permalink and without a -2 or -3 after the postname.
Here’s the step by step:

1. Delete your page
2. Click Dashboard > Pages (Not “Add New”)
3. You will see above the page list the following: All, Published, Drafts, Trash
4. Click on “Trash” and select the pages that you want to delete permanently.
5. Click “Bulk Actions > Delete Permanently”
6. Then Recreate your page (by going to “Pages > Add New”) and the permalink should be fine and without a dash or number after the postname.

If this has helped, please leave a comment, Like or Tweet to show some love. Thanks!!

Over the past wee while, Google has been cracking down on sites which drive too many backlinks within a certain period. If a website gains too many backlinks quickly then it can be put down as spam and unnatural. Google want natural back linking because this shows that, the content is good and if the content gets enough backlinks pointing to it then Google will rank it higher.

Many new Internet marketers are now using Unique Article Wizard to make backlinks, although many people are sending the links straight to their domain name. This is not good for SEO, because Unique Article Wizard makes tons of links and it will look unnatural to Google if you send them straight to your domain name.

A good idea is to make a blogger blog and a squidoo page. You can then send the Unique Article Wizard links to the small blogs and then add your domain name onto the small blogs, giving your main site an SEO boost in the keywords you are want to rank for. If you know Pat Flynn, then you will be happy to know that this is how he ranked his blog, “smartpassiveincome.com”, quickly.

If you want to get some quick rankings then doing this is safe from the panda and penguin because all the links are point to the small blogs which can take, these kind of link building, then just point the blogs to your main site which will give you a great SEO boost.

What you should not do!

Do not send all links to your main site if you’re using Unique Article Wizard, because you will most likely get banned from Google. It looks very unnatural and the last thing you want is to get banned.

If you keep your site looking natural then Google will award you with good consistent rankings, so be smart.

My name is Larry and I have been helping people with Internet marketing for years now. You can check out my Unique Article Wizard Review at my blog.

For many hardcore webmasters, investing in domains is a part of their every day life. Although they are not considered an actual commodity, there is certainly potential there.

We all despise those people that got 95% mortgages, making 100% ROI within the space of a few years. If only we could turn back the clocks, right?

Remember, at the time, these gains were not guaranteed. Many people put all their assets on the line. They made calculated investments that paid off. The position many people were in then, is similar to the position that domain investors are in now. Their question was then, and is now; is this investment going to make me, or break me?

With property becoming unstable in the UK and the internet booming, could investing in domains be the nest egg that we all dream of?

Background research

Stats to help with investing in domains can be found on IDNX. This is about as close to valuing the domain market as anyone is going to get, for the time being. It gives a good visual overview of the market as a whole (take that into account).

Valuations

Appraisals are fairly pointless; the market operates similarly to unique artwork. When the price that a seller will sell for, is equal to that of the price the buyer is willing to pay, it will sell. Of course, the above could be applied to any market.

That said; compare this to the property market, prices of property will generally be inline with historical pricing. Investors can take the prices of multiple sales in the past, apply the increase/decrease in the market since the sale and get a fairly accurate idea of what the value is.

This is coupled with the fact that houses, using mortgages, are leveraged investments; increased potential gains, but losses too. This is obviously the reason why investing in domains could still be lucrative. As soon as detailed information relating to domain investing is released, the margins will close up; so the time is now or never.

Choosing domains for investment purposes

Here is one of the rules we have been using; if a basic ideas don’t pop into your head for a domain within 5 minutes, don’t buy it. Obviously it gets a lot more detailed than that. The ideas should consist of:

What is the purpose of this domain?

Fetch.co.uk recently sold for £17,500. The idea behind the new site will be a transportation based company.

Who will buy the domain?

Typically, “end-users” will pay MUCH more than other domain investors. Yes, you could flip a domain for 100% profit, but factor in those domains that don’t sell for 5-10 years; you’re probably making a loss.

How will you value the domain?

Each to their own, we have a fairly detailed formula for valuing domains on an individual basis. The formula is adapted based on SEO value, traffic, historical sale prices (of that exact domain and other similar tlds), CPC cost, search traffic and more.

This is our “assumption” of what a domain is worth and by no means fact.

What will you do with the domain?

If the time was available, would you invest time and energy, trying to develop a project and implementing SEO strategies? If not, most end-users are probably thinking the same thing.

The result

Investing in domains has proven to be profitable for some, but then again, so has poker. Like great poker players, great investors fill in gaps in information, the ones others fail to see.

Our unbiased opinion is that there are plenty of opportunities out there, but each opportunity should be studied in depth. Thin the herd, find the great opportunities.

At the same time, hang around for the right price. The same buyer might pay up to $2,000 for a domain that is advertised for $1,000. This was the case for hotels.cd, which sold for $986 (Feb 07) and $2,022 (Aug 07).

Prepared to spend time on SEO? That domain is probably worth investing in…

Vibe Tech Media is a UK business blog discussing ecommerce businesses issues, online marketing and more…

The emphasis is always put on business SEO. Why? Without great SEO, a fantastic idea is left uncovered. That’s not to say that a site with great search engine optimisation is going to succeed though. There are 100s of sites out there that fail to convert customers that visit their websites every single day; a loss of opportunity.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Have you focused any time on analysing conversion rates?
• Are your SEO efforts really worthwhile if your website doesn’t convert?

It’s not hard; you can easily increase conversion rates in a few minutes:

#1 – Use a CTA that is bold, possibly a different colour to your website template

#2 – Make the checkout process simple; the fewer clicks the better

#3 – Make use of great copy; put it in the right place to really sell

#4 – Do you offer just one payment option? Offer more!

#5 – Make sure categories are in a clear format. Customers know what they want and you need to show it them; quickly!

How do you think the above changes will help?
The obvious answer is; they increase conversions.

I’ll ask again; how do you think the above changes will help?

Dig deeper this time. A website that really “sells” products and services well, and is easy to use, means consumers can find more products. Sales increase, but sales value with increase too!

So there you have it. SEO is important, but don’t avoid conversion rates!

Vibe Tech Media is a UK online marketing company that helps people think outside the box; making their presence in the internet known. Try and relate this post on outsourcing to the above post on conversion rates.

Broken links are one of the worst things your website can contain. When your site is full of broken links, your visitors will view you as unprofessional and quickly leave your website in favor of another one whenever they encounter a broken link. Since it is so hard to get people to visit your website in the first place, you want to do everything you can to keep them on your site. Fixing any and all broken links immediately is a great way to accomplish this goal.

Checking for broken links is also important for your website’s SEO. When a search engine crawler comes across a broken link on your website, it will be unable to move to another page on your site and index the rest of your content. This can leave you with unindexed content, which will limit your exposure in the search engines. Also, you do not want a search engine to serve up a URL that does not exist in their search results as no one will be able to visit your website when searching for that particular term.

 Tools For Checking Broken Links

There are several tools that you can use to help you check your website for broken links. Rather than spending your time manually checking all of the links on your site, it is recommended to use one of these tools to help speed up the process.

 W3C Link Checker – This particular tool checks your links for a variety of issues including whether or not the link is broken. The W3C Link Checker is a good tool you can use to make sure your website is functioning properly.

 Free Link Checker – Free Link Checker is another tool that helps you check for broken internal and external links within your blog. A nice feature associated with this tool is the ability to check image links as well to ensure all of your images are rendering properly.

 LinkTiger – LinkTiger may be the most robust link checking tool of the bunch. This particular tool allows you to check up to one hundred links per week for free. Once a broken link is found, LinkTiger will send you an email alert so you are the first to know about the broken link.

 Google WebMaster Tools

Another good tool to have in your arsenal to fight against broken links is a Google WebMaster Tools account. By setting up a WebMaster Tools account for your website, you will be given further data you use to help run your site. One of the nice features of this tool is letting you know the Google search engine spider finds errors with your site, including broken links. Through your WebMaster Tools account, you can request a broken link be removed from the search engine results if it had been indexed by Google and no longer exists on your website. This will prevent people from visiting broken links on your website from Google’s search results.

 Plugin For WordPress

If you are using WordPress as your content management system, you can use a plugin to manage your broken links. The plugin named Broken Link Checker is one of the better plugins you can use to address this problem with your blog. This particular plugin will check for links that do not work, missing images and redirect. If the plugin happens to find any issues with your site, it will send you an email notification, allowing you to quickly address the issue.

Another nice feature of the Broken Link Checker plugin is being able to update links from within the plugin itself. There is no need to go through every page of your website and update all of the links manually.

Having broken links on your website makes your website appear unprofessional as well as hurts your rankings in the search engines. Utilizing a series of link checker tools and updating any errors in your Google WebMaster Tools account will allow your website to proceed without any broken links.

Richard H. is trying to optimize the loading times of a site for a NYC law firm Samuelson Hause & Samuelson. Curious as it is, release versions of popular CMS programs can still be optimized.

If the past year has taught us anything it’s that the world of SEO is changing and if you cant change with then you’re going to get left behind which means no first page rankings for you, sorry about that. So what exactly is changing in SEO that is making old tactics obsolete and have a negative impact on a sites rankings? The main change over the past year or so has been a shift of focus by Google from link building to link earning. So what is the difference between link building and link earning?

Link Exchange vs. Partnership Creation

Link building is all about creating as many links back to your site as possible often regardless of whether the site that is linking back to you is relevant to your industry or has any strength to pass on. The old link building tactic of exchanging links with other websites is no longer a sensible strategy. Instead you should focus on establishing natural partnerships with other sites within your industry. Don’t worry too much about getting a link from their home page or through exact anchor text. The important thing is that the relationship you have with them is natural so if you think your users will enjoy or benefit from reading a blog on their site then link to it and the same goes for them. Natural linking will reap far more rewards than obvious reciprocal linking for no other purpose but boosting your rankings.

Email Marketing vs. Social Promotion

Although I wouldn’t go as far as to say that you shouldn’t pursue an email marketing strategy I would suggest that instead you focus on social promotion. If you create a social community of relevant contacts within your industry and potential customers then you can promote your latest offers and deals in a more engaging and less intrusive way. People don’t like promotional emails, the majority of us delete them with even reading them as we see them as spam but if you already have an online relationship with someone then they will be more likely to pay attention to your promotions.

Directory Submissions vs. Content Creation

The days of adding your url to every online directory you can find are thankfully long gone. Directory submissions are an example of link building at its worst although there are still some local business directories that are useful to be in. Instead of adopting a directory submissions strategy I would recommend focusing on creating excellent, engaging and most important of all, unique content that other websites will want to share, embed and link to. This will tell Google that your site is relevant within your industry and that you know what you’re talking about therefore they will want you to ranking highly in their search results.

Stuart Cooke is a freelance SEO Consultant. His business Pinnacle SEO helps webmasters of all levels achieve higher rankings and gain more visitors through ethical link earning techniques.

Between the ages of 19 and 29 I spent several years as either a full or part-time student and had to supplement my paltry student loan “income” by doing all sorts of part time jobs including bar work, handing out flyers, helping out in shops and stores and even busking!

OK the last one is maybe not a real job I guess, but it was pretty good cash and it taught me a very valuable lesson that I could make money doing something that I loved and I could also work in my own time without a boss looking over my shoulder 24-7 or breathing down my neck (Isn’t this counted as harassment these days?)

Some days I would pop out in the morning with my trusty, but rusty guitar and spend an hour on the London Underground – The district line, that’s where all the record companies (and rich folks) were and i’d make a nice little earner.
£20 was considered a very poor result and on average I was pulling in around £40-£60 per hour depending on whether I could be bothered to “work?” or hang out with the other buskers drinking copious amounts of tea and avoiding the transport cops.

Now, i’m not here to tell you guys to learn the guitar and do what I did – those days are over my friend – However, what I will advise is find something where you can utilise your talents and be paid for doing something that you enjoy.

This is where the point of the post is

There are a few micro job sites online and one of my favourites is this one – dedicated to helping students all over the world make a bit of extra cash in their spare time by performing jobs, services or promotion in their own skill set that only takes a few minutes to complete but makes the buyers life a lot easier and cost a lot less than if they were paying a professional freelancer.

How it works

• The seller posts their job for free and shares it via social media eg. Facebook, twitter etc.
• The buyer orders the job via paypal or credit/debit card (each job is only £5).
• The seller completes the work in the allotted time-scale (set by the seller) and delivers the work.
• The buyer reviews the work and once they are happy, gives feedback on the completed job.
• The seller is paid and withdraws their money to their paypal account.

There are a few things to take into account when posting your jobs:

1. Only post jobs that take a maximum of 15 minutes – You don’t want to be working for any less than £20 per hour
2. When choosing how many days the job will take, allow for time differences, holidays etc. – Bad feedback will impact on future sales.
3. Keep in touch with the buyer and let them know how you’re getting on.
4. PROMOTE YOUR JOB. This is the biggie! The more you share your job on facebook and twitter etc, the more orders you’ll get, the better your feedback will be and err… the more orders you’ll get!

CLICK HERE to visit JacksAlive.com

Well, that’s it folks. I hope you’ll find this post useful. If you did, please show some love with a “like, share, tweet, comment” etc. Have a great day all!

The Best 404 Pages Online

Hey folks,

We’ve all seen it, the dreaded 404 Page Not Found  – that’s it. No more information given, be on your way, nothing to see here, move along…

Wouldn’t it be great if your site had a custom 404 error page which could not only give your visitors the information that they’ve landed on a broken link or deleted page, but also took them back to the homepage or allowed them to search for what they were after in case the erroneous page had just been moved (Check 301 redirects on Google).

In this post i’ve gathered a bunch of my favourite 404 pages which were either unusual, gave me great information or just plain ol’ made me chuckle.  Let’s get started…

List of the best 404 pages in 2012

1. http://www.jacksalive.com

2. http://www.github.com

3. http://www.southparkstudios.com

4. http://www.homestarrunner.com

5. http://www.amcharts.com

6. http://suspendedanimations.com

7. http://www.jhuskisson.com

8. http://www.mint.com

more to come…