SpyFu is a sweet tool that lets you reveal extremely valuable information regarding the competition’s Pay Per Click campaigns. It shows how much they are bidding, what keywords they are bidding for, and much more great information!

Google announced recently that you may now see up to 10 Local results on Google’s organic results page. Typically a user used to see anywhere from 1 - 3 results.

Google states that the reason that they are showing more links is that during usability testing, it was revealed that many people did not realize there are additional local searches beyond the 3 listings. Despite the “more results…” prompt, it was still not obvious to many users that more results could be found. Google hopes that listing 10 links will be a clearer indicator that more local content is a click away.

According to Google - the ranking of those ten results is based on a range of factors, including the query, proximity, availability of ratings/reviews and their quality and several other variables.

With Google now displaying up to 10 local results, it becomes more and more apparent that adding your business to Google Local is a crucial step.

For more information: http://searchengineland.com/080123-085354.php

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Contributed by: Karen Lo, Milestone Internet Marketing

Secrets & Strategies behind Back Linking:

The Misconception:
When the main concern is ranking high on Google, a common misconception most people have is that the more links they have pointing to their site, the better they will be. However, this is not the case, the reality should be focused on the quality of the links and not the amount of links.

Are you getting the most value out of your current links?

A majority of people overlook valuable current links that have the ability to be fine tuned and provide a greater value. The first step in fine tuning these current links is locating them. You can reveal these links through the Milestone Tool. After finding all the links that are pointing to your site, I would recommend to check the following items:

• Is your anchor text keyword rich?
• Is the link pointing to a relevant landing page?
• Is the link placed in an optimal position (this means is the link surrounded by relevant content)

Finding new links & establishing relationships:
After getting the most out of your current links; the next step would be finding quality sites or directories, and building a relationship with the webmaster. In order to build a healthy relationship, there must be some value or benefits that you will provide to them (In most cases this value will be monetary.)  Once this relationship has been established, and you have a good contact person for the website, you can now enhance your backlinks by utilizing the following tips:

• Have variations of your anchor text
• Get deep links to multiple subpages of your site
• Get links from within the content of their site
• Get links from several different pages of their site

If these tips are properly used, they will enhance your link by making it appear as a true editorial link. This is a big bonus in the eyes of the search engine and also encourages click-throughs.

Getting the most out of the webmaster:
At this point, the next step would be to build a network of webmasters. Since the site you are linking to is most likely in the same vertical, there is no harm in asking a simple questions, “Do you know any other sites/webmasters that can help promote my site”. By following these simple rules the results can be amazing!

Read more about Back Linking Strategies

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Contributed by: Alex Yunerman, Milestone Internet Marketing

This post is about the serious of issue of having only one domain name versus having many domains with variations.

By Benu Aggarwal, Milestone Internet Marketing

Effective internet marketing in the year 2008 will be a powerful promotional agent for the hotel industry – from major franchise chains in urban cities to independent inns in rural countryside. In fact, it has been projected that 40% of all hotel bookings will be generated from the internet in 2008. As we envision the possibilities this year, hoteliers must take a proactive approach to internet marketing and direct their strategies and budgets from traditional offline marketing to hard-hitting online highways.

Savvy hoteliers who utilize the hottest trends and practices in internet marketing – from social networking to mobile websites – will be well rewarded for staying ahead of the competition curve and capturing more market share . . . both now and in the years ahead.

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We are all familiar with the Google Webmaster and Yahoo Site Explorer tools. These tools provide webmasters a great deal of insight into the performance of a site by providing site metrics such as when the site was last indexed (read) by search engines, if the site has any HTTP errors, if there are certain URLs that search engines cannot read, etc.

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With the recent launch of the Yahoo! Trip Recommendations module, it’s evident that travel research continues to significantly evolve. The new tagging feature used throughout the module customizes results for the user based on recent online activity. Timing couldn’t be better, as the Yahoo! Travel Summer Survey concluded that nearly 4 in 5 travelers are still yet to firm up their summer plans.

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