08 May 07 Apogee Search, helping you to get money from your site

# Sponsored Post # Apogee Search is a SEO company that has been around in the market already for a few years . One of the reasons we are writing about it today is to let you know about an interesting section they have and the service they offer because I guess it could be pretty useful for all of us, working a bit to improve our positions in search engines, rankings, visibility, etc. The topic I am talking about is how to Avoid Search Engine Marketing Malpractice, a hot subject on the network these days as there has been some big news about companies ( one hotel chain) being blacklisted in Google and their pages completely removed due to the use of those black hat SEO techniques.

The company offers specialised services on a variety of online marketing methods that include paid search, natural search, affiliate marketing, and pay-per-call ( not sure if I missed something else :-)). In fact, you could simply ask them to review your blog or website and let them do the job of improving every single page on it so you can earn some more cash and exposure. Their solutions seek to drive qualified and targeted visitors to B2B and B2C websites, so if you are a shop for example you will attract more leads, customers, revenues and profits. Something I was impressed when I read about them was that it become since its creation in 2001 one of the 25 larges Search Engine Marketing firms in the world, which is indeed not bad at all just for a 4 years old firm :-).

 

08 May 07 ShareThis, tell everyone about your favourite sites

Not to be confused with AddThis, the application to submit your blog posts to several social sites and readers, ShareThis is a new useful tool allowing you to share with your group of people the websites you like most, you find interesting, or you simply want to share for the sake of making someone aware of it :-).

Although we are being invaded by tons of ways to sharing content, and most of us finally end up sending the typical email with the url included, at least Sharethis is quite simple and does not make it complicated to spread the word about interesting stuff you found out surfing the web.

To use it you basically need to create an account, where you can import your contacts, and use the toolbar they provide. When you find something interesting, just use the features in the toolbar to send it to whoever you want. It is as easy as that :-).

27 Abr 07 Google Desktop Search Assistant

Google Desktop Search Assistant is a free plug-in that extends the search capabilities of both Google Desktop Search and Datacatch Librarian, allowing users to search their offline removable media and desktop in a single operation. If you are the type of consumer or user from small office/home office applications that regularly turn to low-cost removable and portable media solutions to store an ever-growing amount of data including files, photos, movies, music, and business archives, here is something that can be of your interest.

Datacatch Librarian is totally integrated with Microsoft Windows so provides a familiar view of archives, backups and other data stored on removable media. To locate a particular document, file or photo, a user simply browses files, folders and thumbnail images in the same way as browsing a computer’s hard drive. Alternatively, a user can type in a title or file name into the Windows search engine to locate the removable media.

24 Abr 07 Google Toolbar 3.0 , more utilities for your browser

Although it is not a “new product on the market” the truth is that any blogger, webmaster or just a normal internet user has a lot to profit from the last version of the Google toolbar, that one that most probably all of you reading this blog will have installed on your browser.

The thing is that the version 3.0 really nails it. For road warriors, there is a lot of interesting stuff here. The drop-down bookmarks menu is great, it maintains a copy of your bookmarks on the google servers so they are accesible from everywhere, and the only thing you need to do to access them is to log in with your google account.

The new “sendto” functionality is also great to send yourself, or someone else, a webpage or a part of it, via email, sms or via a post should you have a blogspot hosted blog. And another enhancement, you can now access the Docs and Spreedsheets application directly from the toolbar, so it is becoming increasingly easier to do all sort of stuff on the net at the reach of a few clicks. It is without doubt a must have in your browser

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22 Abr 07 Twenga, shopping search engine

#Sponsored Post #

If this blog is about product and services reviews, the website we are presenting you now is more or less about the same, on a shopping search engine format :-). We talk about Twenga, which despite being still in their beta version, looks like is gonna be one of the majors search engines about new products and shopping options for european consumers. The search engine is focused so far in 4 european countries (France, UK, Spain and Italy), and according to their creators, Twenga is defined as a next-generation shopping search engine, which, since it was launched in 2006 uses a proprietary crawl technology to agregate merchant offers so to make it powerful and easy to use.

I have been playing around a bit the site to find out its capabilities. I like that the main categories are displayed quite nicely on the top bar, so it is easy to go directly to the directory of the item you are searching for, be it computers, photo, video gaming,  or supplies,  to name the ones I am more interested in.

While looking for a laptop ( yes, I want to change mine :-)), it was quite easy to sort out the different options by brand, price, store and other parameters, so I finally got up applying several filters to get to the one I may buy soon. In this way, it works in a similar way as Yahoo Shopping!, and although I would have liked to see more filters so to digg more in the products, I am quite happy with the choices I got.

Another option to help us consumers find out best products out there, which is indeed not always easy!

21 Abr 07 MarketingMule, plenty of tools for marketers online

# Sponsored Post #. From time to time you find on the net new directories compiling the best of many things: the best sites about movies, the best web 2.0 blogs, the best decoration shops, etc. Now for almost everyone having something to offer via internet, this one, that we have discovered thanks to Sponsored Reviews, could be one of the handiest to keep in your bookmarks.

 

We are talking about MarketingMule, a directory of internet marketing tools and software with more than 1000 items on their list (not bad really :-)). The site is clean, with a well organised and easy to search database, where you can find almost anything you may be interested or you may need. I am, myself, pretty interested in all those kind of helping-stuff to make this great blog better known on the net ( yes, I know, even more! ), so going through the categories I found tools for creating rotating banners like Adpeeps,  track ads like Hypertracker,  or analysing my traffic stats with ActiveStats, among many  more.

I guess we can spend the whole day  browsing their archives for cool utilities to improve our website, online shop or blog. And apart from that, you get a full review of each product in a single page, so you can read about it before trying it, which is always good when there are several options. Also, in the home page, you will see an interesting section of updated articles on marketing to get more knowledge on the subject. So not only for professionals, but actually for everyone to improve our marketing capabilities!

 

04 Abr 07 Is your URL blocked in China?

Many websites and blogs are blocked for the Chinese people so it is not possible to access them, reasons about it can fill 20 posts like this one so I will not talk about it, instead what I will show you is a tool that can let you know if your URL is blocked in China or not.

We are talking about The Great FireWall of China, an online application where you can enter your url and see its status…. for reasons I can not understand, this blog appears as Blocked! Is it the name, is it the content, is it my photo…? :-).

What about yours?