The Ever Changing Marketplace

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One of the hardest things facing online business owners today is
staying on top of their respective fields AND following the
rapidly changing Internet economy.

Some companies outsource this but most small and home based
companies often can't afford this so they are stuck wearing all
the hats and trying to stay on top of everything. Here are just
two of the most recent important changes for online business
owners looking to promote their business.

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The Dinosaur Awakens
=====================

At the end of September Yahoo finally made changes to the way
their search listings are displayed for the first time in years.

Considering the fact that Yahoo is still the number one search
portal, this is important news indeed!

Essentially they have rolled out a new way to display their
search listings. Rather than forcing you to scroll through pages
of directory listings, they now display results much like a
spider engine (Google, AltaVista, etc...).

The new format is much easier to read but the problem is some
webmasters have seen their site traffic plummet while others have
jumped up in the rankings.

Here is how sites are now ranked:

1. Your domain, does it contain the keyword?
2. Your site title as listed in Yahoo, does it contain the
keyword?
3. How often and where does the keyword appear in your
description?
4. Does the keyword appear in the category your site is listed
under?

They have modified the weight given to these 4 components since
the roll-out causing sites to yo-yo as they tested the results
but it seems to have stabilized for now.

If your site isn't yet listed on Yahoo planning a submission
takes some care, if you can get your main keyword in all four
places and your site matches all the other Yahoo criteria you'll
easily make back the $299 provided your site is functional but a
poor submission will be a waste of time and money.

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New Domain Names available Nov. 7th
==================================

In December of last year we released an article looking at the
new extensions that were going to be available. They were:

.biz, restricted to businesses
.info, open to all comers
.name, reserved for personal registrations by individuals
.pro, set aside for licensed professionals such as lawyers,
doctors and accountants
.aero, for anything related to air transport
.museum, limited to museums
.coop, for co-operative businesses such as credit unions

Well .info is now available and .biz will launch Nov 7th. You can
go broke trying to tie up all the versions of your domain name,
we use the new extensions as a chance to pick up a keyword rich
domain strictly for marketing purposes. www.keywordrich.info will
score much higher than www.some-thing-kind-of-related.com.

The .com is still the most important and should be used for day
to day operations but using .info and .biz from a marketing point
of view opens up new avenues. As an example we registered
registeringdomains.info that as time permits will be used to
promote our domain name business. Chances are whatever field you
are in that you can pick up at least one key domain like that.

Don't go crazy with your spending, there are better uses for your
money but one carefully chosen keyword rich .info or .biz can be
an invaluable marketing tool.

=======================
What Else is Happening?
=======================

Lot's actually, AltaVista enhanced listings are interesting but
it is likely too little too late for a search engine that seems
to have dug its own grave. Site subscribers can get the latest
scoop on that at www.marketinginsiders.com in the Search Engine
Optimization section.

If you want your site to be an online success story you need to
stay on top of your business, don't despair you can do it!

Happy Marketing!

Questions?
Send me an email: mike@surf22.com

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