I was able to IM with all my staff with no difference than my home wifi connection.

I tried doing a skype call with my wife just for fun, didn’t really work out. Reportedly she saw a frozen image of my face but could hear my voice clearly.

It’s definitely worth checking out.

Rafferty Pendery

Twitter has put a new twist on the “old” Web 2.0 theme. Twitter is a cross between blogging and instant messaging, popularly referred to as micro-blogging. You have 140 characters to convey what you are doing to your fellow twitter peeps. Although the message is short and sweet, there is something to be said for the 140 characters Twitter provides. This essentially eliminates the long-winded messages that make readers and recipients (or clients) yawn. Your 140 characters, used wisely, can pique another’s interest, evoke emotion and potentially have them contacting you to learn more or visiting your link to get the full low-down.

The transparency of Twitter is quite divine and is an excellent way to build trust. Twitter is personal which is why many businesses seem to shy away from the forum, but imagine that all of your clients are viewing you as a person, not an industry or business. You are real to them and that is an essential element in establishing quality and long-term relationships with customers. Consider it a way of adding a human voice to your brand.

Another valuable asset of Twitter in the social media arena is that it updates in real time. This gets your message to your audience immediately. When you engage in two-way conversations, and please don’t be a spammer, you have an opportunity to interact with your audience on the spot. You can ask and answer questions and really open dialogue with your following.

Twitter also offers an opportunity to follow your competition and possibly join them, if you are so inclined. Joining the competition may not seem like a good part of your marketing plan, but by connecting with others in your niche you are opening yourself to new opportunities should they need assistance with a project or if for some reason they need to suggest another company to their client. You can also stay on top of trends in your market as a lot of news hits Twitter way before it hits the local news.

You want to know the very best part? Twitter is free. This is a powerful return on investment if you consider the number of tweet peeps you can follow and be followed by. The sheer number of Twits is a great motivational factor for becoming one your self. Like most social media, Twitter offers the opportunity to connect with literally thousands of potential clients looking for information about your business or services.

We do have one warning. As with most social networks, Twitter can be addictive. Don’t let it take you away to Twitterland. Keep your tweets simple and use Twitter wisely. Posting too much can take things overboard. Using Twitter moderately can make it a powerful marketing tool expanding blog exposure, with the Twitter Widget, and gaining valuable readers.

Check me out on twitter: Rafferty Pendery’s Twitter.

Rafferty Pendery
Internet Marketing Consultant

People searching for information enter specific keywords into the search engines to find what they are looking for about products, companies, services or whatever. Keyword research allows you to see how people are searching for information, what words they are using and which phrases you should use in your content so they are directed to your website. By gathering keyword data, you can gain valuable insight to searchers behavior and ways to create a user-friendly, informational website that converts visitors into customers. So where to does one start their keyword research?

Start by washing away the common misconception that you already know what terms searchers use to find your website. If you are just guessing at what people are looking for, you run the risk of getting it completely wrong. Place yourself in the searcher’s shoes and don’t look for one right answer. Successful keyword research should lead to numerous great answers.

When doing your research, don’t limit yourself. It is easy to get trapped with a specific phrase you have your heart and mind set on. In some situations, starting with a single word can open the door to a much larger range of potential keywords. If you are not sure where to start, select a broad, non-specific term to start your search and discover a plethora of less competitive yet very effective keyword terms to develop your keyword list. Bear in mind, many keywords and keyword phrases are so popular it is almost impossible to get a high ranking for them.

Once you have completed your keyword collection, and it should be a fairly extensive list, the next step is to research the keywords popularity and competition. This can be accomplished through the use of several keyword research and analytic tools. There are many keyword research tools available, like those offered by Overture, Google and Wordtracker. To ensure the quality of your keyword data, analysis should be performed and cross-referenced across multiple tools. There are also web analytics tools available such as those offered by Webtrends, Omniture and HitBox. Using these tools will allow you to identify the most effective keywords for your optimization plan.

It is also important to target locally. Local targeting, including your location in your keyword search phrases, is very successful as many people mention specific locations when searching for services and products. Also take the time to explore all niche opportunities. It is essential to identify what part of a market you’d like to focus on. Don’t forget, getting ranked number one for a term that has nothing to do with your website is a giant waste of time and money.

Keyword research is the first step in the optimization of your website for search engines and to gain greater site traffic. So get out there and start researching. Discover new keyword opportunities and fix existing keyword uses. Keyword research is an ongoing process. Your customers and your website change over time. It is important to monitor your keywords and tweak them accordingly. Although keyword research is a tedious task it is well worth the effort.

Rafferty Pendery
CEO Studio98

1. When you write articles with good information related to your industry these sites are no only more likely to be accepted by the article directories, but then many times other sites will republish your articles as well. Search engines search article directories all the time due to the high amount of traffic these sites get and tons of content being generated. So your articles start showing up on the search engines in topics related to your industry.

2. At the end of the articles, there is a place to put links back to your site. This is a completely legitimate way to build links to your website, because you are providing good content in exchange. This aligns with the very purpose of Google. The result is increased presence in the search engines.

Check out my Squidoo page called: Distributing Your Content with Article Submission Services for a more detailed description of article submission and article submission services.

Rafferty Pendery
CEO Studio98

The GM Onstar commercials have found a way to market a product that touches our soles with small children saving parents, soccer moms becoming heroes, and Onstar operators being the helping hand to millions of crash victims.GM has done a great job of marketing this valuable automobile and life accessory. But what if you want to watch a commercial again and you didn’t think to record it yourself?

Having searched the Internet high and low, it can be very difficult to locate a GM Onstar commercial. There are plenty of spoofs and spin-offs and I am starting to wonder if it wasn’t in Jeff Gordon’s contract that his are one of the only commercials viewable on YouTube. Although Gordon’s role in the commercials were good, this series did not have quite the heart touching effect as the crashes and emergency situation responses. Why is it that GM hasn’t taken their Onstar commercials to the Internet?

They obviously know they have a great marketing channel open, with the value of realty in their commercials, why have they not taken advantage of the free and many times permanent advertising capabilities of online video services? They could quite possibly save money on advertising and create a pervasive, long term campaign. That’s just a thought, but this service is invaluable to so many and in honesty, some of the Onstar spoof videos could generate a little bad publicity. By launching an online video marketing campaign, GM could make Onstar the most loved and watched commercial in all the land. In turn, more people looking for Onstar in their next vehicle.

Rafferty Pendery
CEO Studio98

Smooth sleek design combined with speed; simple yet elegant. Sounds like a car commercial, but these are the words I am using to describe the view of the web from Chrome, Google’s new Internet browser released in Beta yesterday. Downloading Google Chrome is quick and easy. Chrome automatically detects and copies your bookmarks, passwords and other information from your existing browser and imports it into your new Google Chrome browser. This is an amazing time saver. In the end starting use of Google Chrome takes only minutes and you are ready to view the web in a whole new way.

The first thing you will realize, as you open your browser, is the simplicity of Google Chrome. It can actually be baffling to some people because it is so simplistic. The open page view and uncluttered space of this browser make if feel more like a meditation than an Internet experience. By combining this minimalism with great features such as being able to change your default search engine and the introduction of the OMNIbar, which combines the classic URL address bar with the search box, saving time and space, Google has been able to utilize features of current browsers and add new features of their own.

Two other great advantages of the Chrome browser are the OMNIbar and their tabbing processors. First the OMNIbar, is not only unique in its dual function, but when you enter a search term into your OMNIbar, Chrome searches not only your browser history’s page titles, but the page content as well and the search results are often accompanied by thumbnail views of the websites. The tabbing and multiple web page views also go beyond traditional browsers as each tab opened runs in its own process and if there were a crash, only that particular tab would be closed not the whole browser. In addition, Chrome features its own task bar, allowing users to identify which tab or web page is eating up CPUs and a user can terminate that page with one click.

Being Beta, there are some flaws to be worked on with the Google Chrome Browser. These include the scrolling mechanism, organizing bookmarks, font visibility, and Google Chrome Beta depends on a lot of shortcuts that beginner users may not be aware of, and other points like navigation. Google Chrome is also missing the vital elements of add-ons and some plug-ins. Page Rank lovers like myself, may find it difficult to move around the web without this important tool and as it is a Google tool it should be simple to integrate into the browser. There could also be some lingering issues with privacy for me, as Google Chrome clearly states that they are tracking usage and using this information to develop advertising, etc. But for all I know other browsers could already being doing this too-they were just never kind enough to tell me.

Chrome comes from Google so the expectations are high and for a beta version, overall I was impressed. For now, I am sticking to my Firefox as it has all my plug-ins and bookmarks right there, but I look forward to the final release of the Google Chrome browser; provided there is one as many Google Betas stay Betas for a long time, but I am hopeful that Google Chrome will be the new browser for every PC.

Rafferty Pendery
CEO Studio98

Communication is much more than words. Communication involves tone, gestures, meaning and movement. Dumping lots of facts, figures and bullets on your site doesn’t mean you are delivering a message your audience wants to hear. Think true sincere communication, not marketing. Be honest and sincere, offer knowledge not sales jargon, and leave the technical stuff for the glossaries.

Write your content in a natural voice, as if speaking directly to a customer. No filler. No fluff. Keep your content interesting, engaging and relevant to ensure a fulfilling experience for your online guests. Your website should be about giving your customers attention, addressing their need to know and the ability to find an immediate answer to their question.

When looking at well-communicated sites like www.futurenowinc.com, their success is no mystery. They know why a consumer would visit their site, address that need to know and help to identify paths to meet those needs. All of this is done in a no-nonsense tone and they don’t squander their message space bolstering their own business egos.

As many businesses have learned the hard way, bad content can kill your site. You don’t have to be boring because you are talking about business. Be creative. Be Bizarre. Just don’t be mind numbing or the only place your content will lead is to the back button.

Rafferty Pendery
CEO Studio98

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Is it possible they were trying to put the antisocial violent subcultures of the world into a car of their own? This would be an unusual target audience choice. As it turns out they are reaching out to the 18-35 year old males who embrace that little bit of “bad-ass” in them. Even this eludes my logic, as guys in a mini-wagon just don’t seem all that deviant to me, unless of course they are going to tool around the city taking out the conformists, but that is well beyond deviant behavior.

Could Toyota have spent their dollars on a more profitable campaign? We have all seen that the car industry giant has targeted the younger generation with their previous Scion line, but this branding point appears to so limit their buyers’ interest by associating the vehicle with deviants. Are there enough deviants in the world to make the millions spent on this promotion worthwhile?

A five-door mini-wagon would be an ideal car for small families, but what family wants to put their loved ones in a vehicle that will forever be associated with massacring misfits. And what about the millions of car guys who love to customize their rides? Scion offers many options for customizing your vehicle making it a popular choice for the younger generation, but are all those “pimped out” car drivers now considered deviants? Not to mention the “sheeples” of the world who may now steer clear of Toyota knowing that the carmaker views them as mindless, zombie-like conformists. Point being that there was a much larger audience they could have addressed and not scared away.

With all the violence going on around the globe and this generation’s movement toward unity, caring for animals and going green, I have to question the mental state of the person who thought up this approach. The delivery was outstanding, but the message was disturbing. Although I in no way identify with either the Sheeples of Attik’s campaign nor their genocidal foes, from this moment forward I will be watching in my rear view mirror, as my head will not become a hood ornament for any little deviants.

Rafferty Pendery
CEO Studio98

I thought this was great, I asked him if I could take a look at a very small part of what he had done. He showed me a few sites where had set up accounts and posted information and was proud about the fact that these sites were going to push him up in the pretty competitive search terms on Google. Just to be nice I decided to point out how his one way link building had gone bad.

rel=”nofollow”

Many sites are doing this now because spammers had found it fun to get thousands of links from 1 site that were to worthless websites. What this one simple command does is prevent search engines from following that link. So while this guy was doing his amazing strategy, it wasn’t actually doing anything for him, because the search engines were being stopped before they left the site.

The deceiving part is that when you look at it on the page, it appears as a normal link, its what’s behind it that matters. You can see this if you right click on a page and select view source. Then find your link on the page, easiest way is to search for the text of your link when viewing the code. You will see the link show up. It will look something like the link below:

Visit my <a href=”http://www.example.com/” rel=”nofollow”>your link</a> site.

Notice that rel=”nofollow” in there? If you are getting that, don’t think about that site for the backlinks to your site, because they don’t exist. If you see the link without that, then you are good to go and take advantage of it.

Needless to say, we are now working with the client mentioned and are getting him on sites where his one way link building strategy will actually be successful. May yours be too!

Rafferty Pendery
CEO Studio98

Spammers have gotten smarter and smarter and work has become easier for them. Back in the day, spammers had to hand search for and enter your email address to be able to achieve their love for filling up people’s inbox with junk… now its automated. In this day and age, they have bots that search your website and can pull your email address off and add it to their database for junk mail. They don’t even have to lift a finger after they get it started.

A good friend of mine, Kerry Jones, who is a great programmer, created a free email encoder tool I highly recommend. What it does is scramble the code on the backend so the scammers bots can’t pick it up off your website, but looks the same on the front end. I personally use it and have seen a dramatic decrease in my spam intake because of it.

Click on the link I provided above, simply enter your email address and a title (which shows up when you mouse over the link it creates) and click Encode. You will see the code generated. I created one using my email address and it looks like this:

<a href=”&#109;&#097;&#105;&#108;&#116;&#111;&#058;Rafferty&#64;Studio98&#46;&#99;&#111;&#109;” title=”Rafferty@Studio98.com”>Rafferty&#64;Studio98&#46;&#99;&#111;&#109;</a>

On my website it would show up as a standard html email link.

You just fill that code in the html of your website in place of your email address now and you are all set. Studio98 implements this email encoder on every website we do for clients, greatly reducing the spam intake for them. Give it a try…

Rafferty Pendery
CEO Studio98