Web Moves Blog

The UN communications chief has estimated that by the end of 2008, 61% of the world’s population will be using mobile phones – an equivalent of about 4 billion people. Thanks to low cost, better infrastructure, and the human need to connect, mobile phones outnumber personal computers by a mile. We don’t only use them to call, we also text, take photos, play music, watch videos, and even access the Internet – albeit crudely. Several tech evangelists have predicted that the mobile web will be the next great frontier, but as industry players know, that’s easier said than done. (more…)

After Yahoo! signed the controversial advertising deal with Google a few months ago, some critics denounced the company for virtually hanging the glove and giving the online advertising monopoly to Google. However, with the recent launch of Yahoo!’s new advertising platform called APT, Jerry Yang & Co. seem to be keen on proving the naysayers wrong. (more…)

Google never ceases to amaze the webmaster community. The newest controversy involving the most popular search engine started when the team at the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog posted an article about dynamic URL rewrites:

One friend was concerned about using dynamic URLs, since (as she told us) “search engines can’t cope with these.” Another friend thought that dynamic URLs weren’t a problem at all for search engines and that these issues were a thing of the past. One even admitted that he never understood the fuss about dynamic URLs in comparison to static URLs. For us, that was the moment we decided to read up on the topic of dynamic and static URLs.

After several explanations on the subject, they drew these conclusions:

Does that mean I should avoid rewriting dynamic URLs at all?
That’s our recommendation, unless your rewrites are limited to removing unnecessary parameters, or you are very diligent in removing all parameters that could cause problems.

(…) Although we are able to process this URL correctly, we would still discourage you from using this rewrite as it is hard to maintain and needs to be updated as soon as a new parameter is added to the original dynamic URL.

And this was when the problems began. Reactions among webmasters, SEOs, programmers and Internet marketers have been varied, but most of them can be summarised in the following points:

• Some people say there’s nothing wrong about Google team’s statements. For an experienced webmaster or programmer this whole URL rewriting matter can look irrelevant. But for a beginner it would be wiser not to play with URL rewrites indeed, because they could do something wrong, thus affecting their Google rankings.
• Others have gotten annoyed at that article. Some even seem to have taken offense at it. They claim that this time the Google team just put up a bunch of silly stuff and that Google underestimates webmasters. It’s been also implied that Google once again is trying to tell people how they are supposed to run their own businesses.
• Regardless of their views on this subject, everyone seems to agree that Google team’s article looks confusing and poorly-written.

What do you think? Will you stop using dynamic URL rewrites because Google said you probably won’t know how to deal with them?

If you read a lot of blogs like I do, I’m sure you’ve come across some with “Related Posts” at the end of each article (like this one). One obvious use of this tactic is to bump up the page views for CPM ads. It’s also a great way to increase “stickiness” – that is, to make your readers stay on your site longer, which in turn increases their chance of clicking on an ad or becoming a subscriber. So how do you do it? Well, you can always write them manually, one by one, but I’m sure you have better uses for your time, so why not try these WordPress plugins? (more…)

Building an email list is said to be one of the most profitable things a webmaster can do. Of course, you can’t simply ask people to give you their email addresses. You must offer something in return, and this “something” usually is a newsletter. However, many webmasters hesitate in starting their own newsletters because they already struggle to find fresh ideas for their sites; having to find content ideas for yet another venue looks like quite a challenge.

If that’s your case, fear no more. Today you’ll see there are at least two easy ways to create content for it.

1. Using your newsletter to plug your site

Even if at first you really, really can’t think of any exclusive content to fill your newsletter, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t begin collecting those email addresses now. You can always start out with update alerts and evolve as time goes by. Update alerts are great to generate repeat traffic, because subscribers will be regularly encouraged to visit your site.

Do not just put together a lame list of new items added to your site. View each site update as an important happening — and try to convey such view in your newsletter text. Use it to tease your subscribers, to make them feel that they must visit your site right away. Of course, you should never generate false expectations; if you’ve just published a new article, don’t make your newsletter’s subscribers believe they will find five new pieces.

In case you tend to update your site daily, you’d better send out weekly update alerts. Otherwise you may look pushy and even spammy.

2. Complementing your site’s content with a newsletter

This method allows you to plug a site on your newsletter and the newsletter on your site at once. But it depends on your site content’s structure. Here’s what you should do: whenever you publish a list of new items, make sure not to post all of them on your site; save some for your newsletter. Alternatively, publish only one type of media on your pages and save the other ones for the newsletter.

Say you’ve written a list entitled “50 Effective Money-Saving Tips.” What you want to do is post 30 or 40 list items on your site or blog and end the text with a paragraph like this: “The remaining tips will be published on the upcoming 20th issue of our newsletter. If you don’t want to miss them, subscribe now.” If you have shot a video to demonstrate some (or all) of the money-saving tips, you can post the whole written piece on your site and entice readers to subscribe to your newsletter in order to get the video’s link.

In both cases you must display on the newsletter some links to your site’s content. This way, subscribers who still haven’t seen the updates will feel enticed to visit your pages. Taking the examples above, they’ll want to either read the first items of your money-saving list or view its written version instead of the video one only.

Do you have a newsletter? Leave a comment to tell us how you create content for it.

If it’s true the the Internet is nothing more than a waste of time, then who else has the most idle hours to kill?

A survey conducted by Ipsos Mendelsohn between March to July of this year revealed that the higher a person’s household income is, the more likely he is to spend his time online. Additionally, the Internet is by far the most preferred media by the rich, with television and radio coming trailing far behind. (more…)

The famous “Google duplicate content penalty” is a permanent subject of debate among webmasters, bloggers, SEOs and the general Internet marketing community. No wonder the official Google Webmaster Central Blog publishes posts on this topic from time to time. A new one has been recently released and apparently it was meant to put an end to this debate. If it will succeed or no, only time will tell, although I have the feeling that it won’t. (more…)

I’ve previously written about the importance of choosing a niche for your site or blog. But I admit that knowing something should be done often isn’t enough. We also need to know how to do that, right? So I asked myself: what’s the best wat to teach people how to identify niches and subniches? Then it struck me: give the readers some actual examples and they will see what you mean.

As a result, I’m going to share with you a short list of broader niches and related subniches that can be found inside each of them. Hopefully, after reading this article you’ll be able to apply and/or adapt its concepts to your own needs as a webmaster. (more…)

From my experience, AdSense for Search churns out great CPM (at least in most cases, better than those for my AdSense for Content). The problem is that on average, very few people use the search feature on websites, translating into even fewer ad clicks. I’ve already written a post on how to try and boost your AdSense earnings, but here’s a few more little tweaks you can do, courtesy of Google’s AdSense blog. (more…)

Having a job that revolves around the Internet comes with a fantastic amount of freedom. One of the things I love most about it is that I can set my own work schedule, something that a lot of office workers would give an arm and a leg for. However, this freedom comes with a flipside: if you’re not careful, you’ll procrastinate away your day, and end up with a pile of backlog. Making money online is not all about the latest marketing strategies. You also have to manage your productivity, just like any other job out there. Being prone to distractions myself, I try different ways to keep my bad habits in check, and among them is using some nifty Firefox plugins. (more…)