All brands are fair in SEO

The heavyweights of SEO have spoken: Big brands cannot do whatever they want.

The good news about what Matt Cutts and Duane Forrester’s proclamation is that this has been true in the history of search engine optimization. Google has been fair when it comes to treating brands, when it comes to penalizing duplicitous websites. In fact, in the standpoint of Google, all brands are fair in SEO.

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However, for small brands, especially for startup companies, it is understandable if they feel a bit daunted when they vie with bigger brands on the Web for the first time. Bigger brands have been leveraging power, money, and established audience and customers since time immemorial, and launching an online campaign against theirs is no easy endeavor.

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But the renowned SEO expert and AudienceBloom founder Jayson DeMers has some pointers for some startup companies out there to jumpstart their online advertising. The gist: he wants them to focus on branding.

 
Spending too much on time and money on keyword research is bad, and focusing more on the visuals is essential in getting would-be followers and consumers to their site. Getting a nice Web design, having a good logo, and writing good content are a good start. In addition, instead of competing with popular keywords that have already been dominated by big brands, shooting for long-tail keywords—the longer, more specific keywords that are less common, individually, but add up to account for the majority of search-driven traffic—is cheaper and better. Getting local is quite effective, too, since most big brands focus on national scale-advertising.

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However, the most important element is persistence, since everyone knows that SEO is a time and-algorithm-driven method.

Are you a small brand owner who seeks more effectual small-scale SEO methods? TopSEOs website contains many helpful and efficient search optimization methodologies that may help any business owner to conduct an effective online advertising.

'The Art of Cyber War': NATO creates the first book on cyber warfare

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The Art of War was written by the Chinese in the second century B.C. to compile the military strategies that govern wars. In the modern times, however, some of these rules have gone obsolete as military attacks become digital. The massive cyberattacks launched by computer servers in China to various large organizations in the US—including the White House, Chamber of Commerce, and international private companies—have inspired the creation of the first book on cyber war, The Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare.




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Sunday Morning Herald reports that the 282-page handbook is the brainchild of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE). It contains rules on cyber warfare and discusses “the practice of international law to the world of electronic warfare in an effort to show how hospitals, civilians, and neutral nations can be protected in an information-age fight.” The book's main idea is that “war doesn't stop being war just because it happens online.” A cyberattack launched by one nation against another nation is still considered an attack in traditional warfare. And just as hostile armies are not allowed to fight in neutral country's territory, so is launching an attack from a neutral country's computer network prohibited.




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The traditional law allows nations to strike if they see enemies on the borders, but how can this be dealt with in the virtual realm where hacks happen in just a matter of seconds? The traditional law also prohibits armies to attack civilian objects, but what if a military cyberattack erases civilian's data, like voter registration records? These are some issues in the book that leave readers room for open discussions.


Marco Roscini, a professor of international law, predicts that the Tallinn manual will become an important reference especially to military lawyers. NATO CCDCOE, however, says that the handbook is not an official document but an expression of opinions of a group of independent experts.  


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Code of ethics for Internet marketing vendors

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Internet ethics are defined as values that generally focus on the proper use of online resources. These serve as a guide for online vendors that sell products and services in a virtual environment.

For an emerging business, “the temptation to cut corners or compromise one's values is pervasive,” writes Dan Crawford, a senior fellow at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, in his article, How to Navigate Your Way Out of No Man's Land With Ethics, published on the Santa Clara University website. Internet ethics serve as a “backbone” that helps online companies decide and act on what’s right. The rules set may change over time as values and Internet usage change, but the existence of a guideline provides direction.


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TopSEOs.com, an independent authority on vendors who supply Internet marketing products and services, has created its own EthicsViolations code of ethics to guide companies and individuals in using the Internet for marketing purposes. The following are cited in its code of ethics:

• Do not intentionally charge customers for non-delivered services or products.
• Do not intentionally set false expectations for services or products.
• Do not provide customers with inaccurate or false information.
• Do not demean, threaten, incite violence, or be hateful to another individual, service provider, competitor, client, or any other entity.
• Do not make false allegations of competitors.

TopSEOs notes that a continuous pattern of complaints against any entity deemed breaching any of the codes above will result in blacklisting. The agency has also warned that customers of Internet marketing services should be cautious when dealing with companies that have been identified as ethics violators.


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Are you a victim of unethical services from an Internet marketing service provider? File a violation report here.

The disparity between highly ranked and reputable

In the high-stakes battle for visibility on Internet search pages, it is easy for companies to lose sight of the ultimate goal -- to gain relevance in the minds of their targeted audience. Picking the wrong kind of Search Engine Optimization method may net the company a top spot in page rankings but may come at the cost of the company’s reputation.

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TopSEOs.com maintains that online reputation is a factor that can be hard to build up and is easy to lose, which is why it allows companies to freely choose from the best service providers for their online marketing campaigns.

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The capacity to lead a business’ website to high rankings on search results is not the only criteria for an exemplary online marketing campaign. When the site’s claim to the top of rankings was made at the cost of the site content’s quality, the company’s reputation may quickly suffer as the content turns away all the potential clients which could have found an important resource for their queries related to the brand, product, or service.

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Despite the fast pace of the digital age, for businesses that aim to build reputation, the long route is still the preferable one. Letting consumers find the website is only just the beginning of any e-Marketing campaign, and convincing them to stay and return should be among the main goals of any company that wishes to succeed in this endeavor.

www.topseos.com provides more information about e-Marketing.

Content marketing: Where non-profit and commercial agree

There isn’t more direct market research than that issuing straight from the horse’s mouth. Customer feedback may be highly individualized but commercial brands have learned to use it to their advantage. Brands with high frequency of engagement with their consumers periodically move about their strategies, not merely working on their Web visibility but also personal recall.

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Content marketing is centered on a call to attention, something that not only businesses could employ to their advantage. Come to website interface, there’s already a huge difference. Businesses devote more time bringing sheen to their brands, while non-profits depend on striking humanitarian chords with potential donors and volunteers.

This doesn’t mean that the latter should rest on its softer nature to capture audiences. Studies show that non-profits need to have game, otherwise those advocacies will languish under the dull glare of disinterest.

More strategic content marketing for non-profits recommends gathering feedback. In other words, doing market research the way businesses do, with a truculent avoidance of using the word “market.” Website content should also be thought-provocative to elicit responses. Above all, there has to be a mechanism for collating user feedback.

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Volunteerism may be all and well but it peters out when a cause fails to grow in intensity or reach critical mass. Non-profits that have employed the wise tenets of content marketing have successfully engaged donors and introduced a cycle of organizational maintenance based on voluntary participation.

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