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miercuri, 25 mai 2011
The President and First Lady Meet the Duke and Duchess
Foreign Languages As A Competitive Differentiator Graywolf's SEO Blog
Foreign Languages As A Competitive Differentiator Graywolf's SEO Blog |
| Foreign Languages As A Competitive Differentiator Posted: 24 May 2011 10:27 PM PDT
A common issue online marketers have is coming up with unique differentiators. SEOs have this problem – it takes virtually no effort for an intermediate or advanced SEO to understand a competitors’ main link acquisition strategies in an hour or less. That allows new entrants into the field to easily duplicate your hard, pioneering efforts. Affiliates have this problem – there are so many people vying to sell the same thing that it’s hard to stand out. User friendliness and pricing no longer help – price comparisons, coupons, deals and reviews are now commodified. So let’s define the problem: Differentiating your site in a lasting way is difficult, because competitors can copy you without much trouble. But what about throwing up a language barrier? Suppose you’re an affiliate who starts producing content in French. The same problem applies to competitors – how are they going to source French language content? How will they proofread it? This simple tactical idea applies advanced SEOs’ 7 curiously obvious rules. For example, it questions the assumption that you need to do business in the same language as your competitors. Why not mix it up? And whoever moves first, will likely have a big advantage. Another example of applying the principles, is that this idea was inspired from experience. I’m currently planning a new SEO plugin, and my friend Jacob Share (who teaches folks to find jobs) asked me whether I’d want it coded in a way that enables translated versions. That seemed an excellent idea to me, as my first WP plugin – Internal Link Building (details on V3 here) – got loads of links from around the world, and was even translated into Russian and ported to other CMSes. If you liked this, get a free chapter from my book on advanced SEO. The text is done, and we’re finalizing the cover for printing  Related posts:
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This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review.          |
| Article Marketing in a Post Panda World Posted: 24 May 2011 11:30 AM PDT
Article marketing has been one of the foundations of link building ever since I got started in SEO. However, since sites like Ezinearticles and Suite 101 have taken a huge loss in ranking and traffic as a result of the panda update, should article marketing still be a part of your overall strategy? We need to take a step back and look at the big picture to find the answer … While many people will debate this, I don’t believe sites like Ezinearticles were passing much link equity for quite some time. The links acted more like pointers and helped with discovery. The pages themselves could accumulate trust/authority/pagerank, but they weren’t transferring much of that value to the website linked to in the bio paragraph. Secondly, if the article was republished somewhere else, it was most likely treated as duplicate content. Ezinearticles had more trust than the almost any other site republishing the article, so they were given credit as the original content “owner”. The real value from Ezinearticles was finding people who were interested in taking your content and publishing it in exchange for a link, then tracking the competition in the space to see what other link building sources/methods they were using. So should article marketing still be a part of your strategy? Yes–just a much less important one. First, you need to be honest about the quality of the articles you submitted. Chances are good that the $3 articles with 250 words that read like it was written by an ESL student working the night shift at an all night convenience store while his boss wasn’t around isn’t worth spending time/money on anymore. Most article directories have raised the bar for quality while trying to get back in Google’s good graces. So, if you are going to use article directories, you will need to send them higher quality content. Unless you are a brand new website, I wouldn’t create more than 15-20 articles a year: the ROI just isn’t there anymore. Keep in mind that you will have to point links at your articles from a variety of sources if you want them to have maximum effect. If you are doing any ORM work, article marketing is still viable. Get the person/company name in the title, point a few links, and, unless you are competing against major sources, you should be good to go. Your link building activities should never be dominated by just one tactic.You need to have a blend/mixture for maximum effectiveness. If you focus on just one technique, you run the ris:k of losing all your rankings if that tactic gets devalued. So what are the takeaways from this post
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This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review.       |
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Seth's Blog : Kingmaker
Kingmaker
Zipf's Law is the inevitable distribution of items into a curve that follows the power law. For example, the letter "e" appears in English far more often than the letter "u". For just about every human thing we look at (record album sales, votes in political campaigns, income) there's a distribution with hits and with non-hits. Click on the picture at right to enlarge.
Chris Anderson helped us understand a huge implication of the power law curve in his classic The Long Tail. The relevant notion follows...
In any physical store, the store owner has to make bets. She needs to buy inventory, to choose this over that, to make decisions in advance about what's going to sell. With Christmas coming, the owner might need to make these decisions five months in advance, with no chance to re-order if there's a hit and nothing but the trash bin available for what doesn't sell.
The relentless physics of the situation, then, means that retailers needed the ability to not just pick hits, but to make them. And so they invented the speed table and the pile of stuff at the checkout. They perfected the end cap display and the free standing insert as well.
Years ago, getting our products on the table next to the check out at Target and Lechmere was enough to make the year at the software company where I worked. Two big retailers picked our product and that was enough.
Retailers want to be kings and they want to annoint kings. They want the lever to decide what sells and what doesn't, because it earns them power of pricing and profit (if the retailer can make your product a hit, she can extract better terms. If all she does is sell what sells, then the manufacturer is in charge).
Thanks to the long tail, the digital world ignored this thinking. The iTunes store, and Netflix, for example, take the position that, "We're going to sell everything, and a lot of it. We don't care which thing, because it's all the same to us. Just put everything in the store and the market will sort it out."
As a result, they have far less promotional power. They didn't build a lever. The app store doesn't make a hit, it contains hits. Most long tail retailers are staffed around this idea and have a culture that reflects it. They'll sell everything/anything, because the longer the tail, the better.
Marketers, of course, want their product to be the hit, and they're always in search of someone who will make that happen. They understand that the long tail sellers will do well because they sell everything, but marketers don't care about everything--they care about their thing.
And so sites like LivingSocial and Woot) built online levers, permission assets that allow them to become the new kingmakers. If they pick your product and alert their audience, you have a hit, at least for a short while (and sometimes at great cost to the marketer, which turns into profit for the kingmaker.)
Seeing the success of retailers who are able to make kings, sites like Netflix are trying to figure out how to transform themselves. Finding the lever, though, isn't trivial. The cultural shift from ubiquity to selection is difficult.
The challenge for online retailers (and perhaps for your company) is to build the attention and trust and leverage you need to make kings, to earn attention and trust and make hits. While it's digitally enticing to be the indifferent-to-choice long-tail retailer, the fact is that marketers will always be willing to pay a premium to someone with the ability to generate a hit.
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- How else are you supposed to take it?
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marți, 24 mai 2011
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis |
- Foreclosure-Gate Screw Tightens: Banks Face $17 Billion in Suits Over Foreclosures; Common Sense Says $5 Billion is Very Generous
- Chinese Rating Agency Downgrades UK Sovereign Debt; Downgrade Party Needed
- Structural Problems in Greece Compared to US
- Energy Shortages Spreading: Rationing in China, Pakistan, Venezuela, Japan, Argentina; China Resorts to Punitive Prices to Curb Demand
| Posted: 24 May 2011 09:44 PM PDT State attorneys general are not happy with a $5 billion offer by major banks to settle lawsuits regarding robo-foreclosures and other alleged grievances. Some officials want as much as $20 billion. The compromise threat is on the high end. Please consider Banks Face $17 Billion in Suits Over Foreclosures State attorneys general told five of the nation's largest banks on Tuesday they face a potential liability of at least $17 billion in civil lawsuits if a settlement isn't reached to address improper foreclosure practices, according to people familiar with the matter.What are the Damages? This is what I want to know:
Throw Category #2 in the Ash Can I am sure category #2 is the largest. Throw those cases in the ash can where they belong. No one want to admit they were stupid. Yet people paid stupid prices for homes. Others were unlucky. Some lost their jobs. Even then, one can ask "did you have a year's worth of living expenses saved up in the bank, in case you lost your job?" Regardless of the answer, banks should not be on the hook for people losing their jobs or having medical problems. Here's the cold simple truth: If you do not pay your mortgage, it is reasonable to expect to lose your home. There is no other realistic way of looking at it. Robo-signing may not be right, but it is irrelevant. Category #1 the Real Problem I have deep sympathy for those in cases where banks foreclosed on the wrong home, the wrong address, or on homes with no mortgage at all. Those people deserve their home paid free and clear and some huge penalty on top of it. I suspect the number of such cases is minuscule. They receive enormous publicity but is the number 10,000? 5,000? 500? or 50? I suspect the number is far closer to the lower end than the higher end. 50 might easily be on the high side. Whatever the number is, banks should pay mightily and punitively for it. The money should go to those wronged, not to the states. Even with massive penalties I doubt the total would come close to $200 million. Category 3 is Where the Uncertainty Is I do not know how big the "strung along" category is, but the only ones in this category who were genuinely harmed to any significant degree are those who continued to make mortgage payments, strung along on a promise, when instead they could have and should have walked away. How many is that? You tell me. However, the harm is easy to quantify. The harm is extra payments people made (if any), while the banks engaged in deceptive practices or were simply understaffed. Assume banks engaged in deceptive practices and people made extra payments instead of walking away. Would those extra payments amount to as much as $1 billion? I rather doubt it. $5 Billion is Very Generous What is a valid penalty? $4 billion seems like a lot of money to me. That would be a 400% penalty if the total wrong-doing amounted to $1 billion which I doubt. The sad truth of the matter is we have a full scale witch-hunt over robo-signing and other alleged grievances even though there was little actual damage caused by banks. If you disagree then total up the damages. However, I insist you start from two essential points.
So total up the damages, add a huge penalty, and let me know what you come up with. No doubt, many will accuse me of siding with banks. The reality is I am siding with common sense. No one fought against bank bailouts harder than I did. Banks should have been allowed to go under. Unfortunately they were bailed out. However, two wrongs do not make a right. I am all for punishing banks provided the punishment is based on damages rather than the widespread belief "we need to stick it to the banks". Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. 
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| Chinese Rating Agency Downgrades UK Sovereign Debt; Downgrade Party Needed Posted: 24 May 2011 03:09 PM PDT The Wall Street Journal, the Telegraph, and International Business Times have stories regarding a downgrade of UK sovereign debt by a Chinese rating company. Much of the information overlaps, but some snips vary site-by-site. Wall Street Journal: China Ratings Agency Downgrades UK Sovereign Credit Ratings Chinese ratings provider Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. said Tuesday it downgraded the local and foreign currency sovereign credit rating of the U.K. from AA- to A+ with a negative outlook.The Telegraph: Chinese rating agency downgrades UK debt Dagong Global Credit Rating Company downgraded the UK's local and foreign currency sovereign credit rating to A+ from AA- with a "negative" outlook for its solvency, the company said in a statement.International Business Times: UK credit rating downgraded by Chinese rating agency Dagong sees relatively low growth and high inflation. This is simply another institution pointing out the new global phenomenon, Stagflation.Downgrade Party Needed Ironically, Iceland deserves an upgrade for telling the EU where to shove it, thereby getting its fiscal house back on the right track. Nearly every other country deserves a downgrade. Let's have a downgrade party. We may as well downgrade some states too. In case you missed it, the Illinois Treasurer Warns Against Lending to Illinois Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. 
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| Structural Problems in Greece Compared to US Posted: 24 May 2011 09:32 AM PDT Many countries have restrictions and requirements on doctors, nurses, lawyers etc. Greece carries the idea to extreme. According to Keep Talking Greece "closed professions" include beauticians, drama and dance school instructors, bakers, antiques dealers, insurance agents, insurance consultants, employment consultants, diagnostics centre staff, translators, divers, cameramen, driving school instructors, cab drivers, tourist bus drivers, newspaper stand owners, electricians, sound technicians, private school owners, tobacco sellers, gun manufacturers and sellers, hairdressers, private investigators, port workers, real estate agents, lifeguards, carpenters, financiers, opticians, auditors, movie/theatre director and even car mechanics. Restrictions will be lifted July 2. That is a much needed maneuver, and the same applies in the US as well. Many states have prevailing wage laws and other restrictions that have nearly the same effect as the insanity in Greece. Greek Asset Fire Sale Please consider Greece Will Accelerate State Asset Sales to Stem Debt Crisis as Bonds Drop The Greek government endorsed an accelerated asset-sale plan and 6 billion euros ($8.4 billion) of budget cuts to win extra aid and stem a market slide that threatens to swamp the most debt-laden euro-area nations.Untenable Timeline Note that Roubini's timeline is 5-10 years. The ECB an EU expect Greece to return to the dent markets by 2013. Structural reforms or not, Greece will not pay back its debt in two years, nor will Greece return to a healthy bond market in two years. Greece will default. Greece Compared to US Ending Restrictions on 130 "Closed Professions" is a badly needed reform. However, the near-term effect will be lower wages, lower benefits, and increased competition. Increased competition needs to happen in the US as well, with public unions kicking and screaming every step of the way. The SEIU, like the Greek unions, don't want reform at all. Regardless, the US desperately needs to reduce red-tape and open up competition for jobs in education, in garbage collection, in prisons, in healthcare, in all government work. Unfortunately Keynesian clowns and politicians alike want results now, and when it doesn't happen now, they clamor for more stimulus, even though stimulus is a problem. Fed's Misguided Tactics Compounding the problem, the Fed fights wage destruction with policies that encourage speculation and debase the dollar but don't increase wages. The result is repetitive asset bubbles and debt that cannot possible be paid back. Wages have not gone up, nor have housing prices, nor has employment, yet the Fed persists with failed policies that slowly destroy the middle class. It's a nasty brew. In many ways the US has more in common with Greece than most realize, especially when it comes to public unions and lack of competition for protected government jobs. Interestingly, self-serving extortionists compared the public union protests in Madison to freedom fighters in Egypt. As I pointed out in Public Union Protesters More Like Greek Extortionists than Egyptian Freedom Fighters; Unions Under Fire in Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee; Student Idiocy, comparing SEIU protests to freedom fighting is sheer lunacy. The Gimme, Gimme, Gimme "Better Way" Chanting Mob looks more like the Greek public union extortion than it does anything else. Our cure is simple. Pass national right-to-work laws, scrap Davis-Bacon and all prevailing wage laws, and end the Fed. Dissimilarities Bear in mind Greece has other problems that are not comparable, so does the US. For example, the US has untenable military spending and a health-care system that is the most costly in the civilized world. Greece is in a currency union with no fiscal union. Greece has no way to devalue its currency or set interest rates. Greece has few exports while the US is a huge exporter that simply imports far more than it exports. Thus, I do not want to imply the US is Greece. I simply highlighted one area that is more similar than most think. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. 
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| Posted: 24 May 2011 12:50 AM PDT Electric power shortages caused by insufficient water levels at hydroelectric stations in some places, and unaffordable oil prices in others, have led to rationing, blackouts, and other problems. China Resorts to punitive Prices to Curb Demand Bloomberg reports China's Zhejiang Plans Punitive Power Prices to Curb Consumer Demand China will impose punitive power prices on businesses that exceed consumption limits in Zhejiang province, a manufacturing hub bordering Shanghai, to curb demand during an expected electricity supply shortfall this summer.High Coal Prices Cause Plant Closures Please consider China's Power-Capacity Utilization at Record Low China's power plants are operating at a record-low utilization rate as many have closed, potentially causing the most severe electricity shortage since 2004, Mirae Assets Securities said.Venezuela Plans Rationing Bloomberg reports Venezuela Plans to Ration Power for Second Year Venezuela will ration power again this year, planning steps similar to those taken in 2010 amid an energy crisis, Electricity Minister Ali Rodriguez said.Energy Shortages Spreading Please consider the ASPO May 23 Energy Review Pakistan and China continue to top the list of countries with the most serious power shortages. Last week brought in reports of energy shortages developing or worsening in Egypt, Guyana, the Dominican Republic, India, Japan, El Salvador, Bangladesh, Libya, Mozambique, Nepal, Venezuela, Argentina, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Tanzania. Most of the reported shortages are of electric power caused by inadequate water levels at hydro dams or insufficient coal, but some of these shortages stem from unaffordable oil prices or the inability to import sufficient quantities of liquid fuels.Rogers Predicts Oil Price to Rise "Beyond Anybody's Expectations" Speaking with the British BBC, last Tuesday 17 May 2011, famed investor Jim Rogers chairman of Rogers Holding said he believes that the oil prices will rise "beyond anybody's expectations" in the foreseeable future and that America is in serious trouble. I do not know how high oil prices go and in what timeframe. Nor does anyone else. However, I do know that the price of oil (and everything else) will not rise above people's willingness to pay for it. Demand for oil will drop with rising prices. Currently, much of the rise in oil has been speculation, just as it was in 2008. Rampant credit expansion and overheating in China has also contributed to higher prices. Near-term, slowing global growth seems likely to put a damper on prices. Long-term, those who assume the Chinese economy can grow at 10 percent a year for another decade are in Fantasyland. Energy constraints will not permit it. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. 
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