US Daylight Savings Time changed today! Official Time changed across New York to San Francisco, and bloggers need to be aware and modify the time they send out their blog articles … the clock rolls back an hour for daylight savings at 2 a.m.

Image by Samantha

Daylight Savings Time Change

So what is Daylight Savings time? Daylight Saving Time (or summertime) helps get more light out of the day by advancing clocks by one hour during the summer. Well the Daylight saving time in most of the United States ends at 2 a.m., local time, on Sunday, November 1  (every year on first Sunday in November).

In the U.S., clocks change at 2:00 a.m. local time. In spring, clocks spring forward from 1:59 a.m. to 3:00 a.m.; in fall, clocks fall back from 1:59 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. In the U.S., each time zone switches at a different time. Read more about how the clock changes. Europe has changed time already on October 25. See the Daylight Saving Time changes across the world.

How does DST affect bloggers? US web traffic accounts for  a major source of traffic and readership for many blogs. I know several top Indian and international bloggers publish their articles (or future post it) accurately on time in early US morning to get on top of the RSS readers of US readers, which will drive more attention and better article response. Now they need to account for the Daylight Saving Time, and if majority of their readers are starting the day early, they might need to press the publish button an hour earlier!

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Guest Article by Edward Khoo
There are dozens of keyword selection “strategies.” All you have to do is Google keyword strategies to get 50,100,000 search results the day of this writing. That is over 50 million hits on a very narrow, industry-specific subject, but it makes a good point.

Anybody – everybody – working in the web space, from site owners to W3 marketing gurus, has a theory about keyword selection. The diversity of opinions offers up another point: there is no one way to select the perfect set of keywords.

The fact is, keyword optimization is more art than science. However, by using several helpful tools you can gather empirical data, test the results for your site and tweak your keyword list to increase site traffic and, simultaneously, deliver a more highly-qualified buyer – knowledgeable, motivated to find a solution and willing to pay for that solution.

The solution you sell.

Image via davidkjelkerud

1. Start with your own industry / business knowledge.

First, trust your instincts. What keywords would you enter into a search box? You know the insider jargon, you know your target market, you know your products or services so start with a list of the search words you’d use.

But don’t stop there. Remember, you bring a bias to the search. You already know the lingo. So, your intuitive keyword list brings with it a bias. Same with lists developed by other knowledgeable executives in your company. Even so, these keyword lists provide a foundation for finessing a keyword list over time.

2. Test your list of intuitive keywords.

I like Google’s keyword generator for a couple of reasons.

First, Google controls the largest share of the search market so why not go with the 600-lb gorilla. Second, Google’s keyword generator delivers empirical data – the actual usage figures of Google users over the past 30 days.

Enter your URL and intuitive keywords into Google’s keyword tool and click check. One of three results will be immediately evident:

- Your intuition is correct. Keywords you selected are popular search words.

- Your intuition is incorrect. Your search terms are too sector- or B2B-specific and, as a result, the search terms don’t drive much traffic.

- Or, the most likely result – the affirmation that some of your keywords are on target with SE users, some aren’t and, happily, you’ll discover additional keywords used by searchers. Happy surprises that you might not have considered.

3. Test the strength of each keyword.

If you operate in a commercial sector that crosses numerous business and industries, Google will hand you a list of a few thousand keywords used by its patrons. Narrowing the list down is a crucial part of the development of an effective list of 10-15 keywords.

There are a couple of ways I test the strength of a keyword to deliver good SERPs for my client. First, I use a term extractor, available for use (free) on SEOmoz.org. This tool identifies strong keywords on an existing site that’s been indexed properly by search engines. A quick examination of the results of term extraction always reveals some interesting data.

Example: I had a client that provides hearing aid advice online. The site offered a free consumer download, articles, product reviews and other helpful information for people conducting research on an upcoming hearing aid purchase.

The site owner, intuitively, selected hearing aids as his primary keyword but couldn’t understand why his bounce rate was over 80%. Well, hearing aids, when extracted, proved to be a strong keyword. The problem was, the site didn’t sell hearing aids – the objective of a SE user querying “hearing aids.” No hearing aids for sale? Bounce to the next site.

A simple adjustment to this client’s keyword list in the site’s meta, alt and title tags and playing down the keyword hearing aids in the site’s corpus did the trick. The client’s bounce rate dropped to 40% in a matter of weeks.

Use a term extraction tool to identify which keywords and phrases are strong with search engines. You’re almost certain to be surprised at the results.

4. Calculate the “pull” of a given keyword.

I use SpyFu, a very useful tool in determining the effectiveness of any keyword.

The software is actually an AdWords metrics tool that identifies bidding ranges of given keywords for AdWords placement. Of course, I use SpyFu to help my clients get a bigger bang for their AdWords buck, but it’s also a great tool for determining the effectiveness of a keyword – even if you don’t use PPC advertising.

AdWords functions much like a stock market with investors bidding up the price of keywords, just as investors bid up the price of stocks. SpyFu shows me the range of bids for a keyword. And if AdWords users keep that keyword at $1.27 a click, well, I know that’s a keyword that pulls and more than pays for itself at $1.27 per click.

Conversely, when SpyFu identifies a low cost AdWords keyword – six cents per click (see chart), for instance, I know it’s not popular, I know it doesn’t pull but I don’t necessarily cross it off the list. Here’s why.

5. Use lower-ranking keywords to beat higher ranking competition.

If you’re just launching a new site, if you’ve just added several sub-domains that don’t show up on SERPs, or if you’ve made significant changes to your business or revenue model, you can often upend deep pockets competitors by using lower-ranking keywords.

Let’s say you own a small site that sells digital cameras and accessories. You’re in a highly-competitive market sector up against the likes of Amazon, Best Buy, J&R and other well-known, branded names. So, a search of “digital cameras” reveals that your little site is on page 34 of SERPs, and when was the last time you drilled down 34 pages searching for anything?

Using the identical keywords that deep-pockets, well-known competitors use will bury you. BUT, if you deploy lesser-used keywords, for example “digital cameras real cheap,” you won’t see as many SE users entering those particular keywords, but those who do will see your site at the top of page one of Google’s SERPs. Why? Because the heavy hitters aren’t using those long-tail keywords. Once again, before you opt for a long-tail, test it on all major search engines: Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Inktomi.

Also, run that long-tail through an AdWords metrics generator. This will enable you to uncover strong terms that aren’t being used, even by stronger sites. Look for keywords that haven’t been bid up in price but still pull a good quantity of traffic each day. This eliminates the stronger competitors.

Check out the spread sheet showing keywords and prices for digital cameras. I’ve highlighted popular search terms that haven’t been “discovered” by the competition because the AdWords bid price is comparatively low. Consider :

1. Using these less popular keywords as your primary search terms or

2. Add the most promising candidates to your existing list and incorporate them in your site’s meta data, description tag, alt tags and title tags where appropriate.

One last piece of advice: keyword list refinement is an ongoing process. It’s not something you do once and forget about it. Use tools like Google’s keyword generator, SpyFu and other AdWords metrics analyzers to determine the best list for your site – a list of keywords that pulls, but also isn’t used by more powerful competitors.

Then, as your business grows, you can add more of the most-used keywords and go head-to-head with the cost-cutting big box stores. That day will come a lot sooner if you select the strongest keywords for your site.

This guest article was written by Edward Khoo, a full time blogger from Malaysia. You can also write a guest article and share your tips and tricks with our readers.

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Here are some best tips, tricks, tactics and strategy moves for playing the Monopoly City Streets game. Follow these practical tactics and rise on the Monopoly City Streets Leaderboard quickly. I have been addicted to the game since it started.  Here are some quick tips to succeed….

1. Buy extra long streets - Buy super long streets above M$5 million as they are the best way to make more money on Monopoly City Streets. Longer streets are expensive, but have higher rents values. Moreover, you can build a huge amount of property than smaller streets, and earn a really huge rental. Buy the longest streets you can afford, get lots of real estate on the street and see the rent accumulate rapidly. There are many $10 Million streets out on the highways, find them now – zoom out and look for the red “for sale” signs.

2. Small buildings earn more rent - How do you decide which building to build? Have you seen why so many players build so many small houses instead of big buildings? Firstly, the multiple small  houses pay a better rent than one building of the same value e.g. the smallest house costs $50000 and also earns a rent of $50000, while  a huge million dollar building will cost much more and give much lesser rental. Secondly, many people try to block all placements on their street so no one can put hazard buildings on their street. So what is the disadvantage? Your streets earning potential is limited as smaller buildings give less rent. As you grow richer, sell these houses and replace with more expensive buildings to increase rent.

3. Don’t sell sabotaged streets - So you login and find your street is sabotaged with a hazard building. Don’t worry and keep expanding your network, maybe even build more. Don’t panic and sell the street for a really low price, just because it makes no rent. Just by chance, a demolish chance card may come along , and make your street high rental back again, or simply place a bonus building and the effect is nullified.

4. Buy 5 streets – Don’t just stick with very few streets. If you have 1-2 long streets, with hundreds of buildings which earn a huge rental, and you get a hazard building, all your rental stops. If you have several high paying streets, at least most of the rental continues, and you have  a better chance to stay active and get chance cards, till you free the street. But dont buy more than 5 streets as tax starts after that at rate of 3% per street. So if you buy 38 streets, your rental is zero! Buy upto 5 streets and pay no tax.

5. Put more bonus buildings on special streets – Instead of scattering all your bonus buildings on multiple streets, secure your highest earning street with multiple bonus buildings. Players will never waste their demolish cards destroying multiple bonus buildings, and then getting a sabotage building in place, unless you have made real enemies with them. More bonus buildings discourages people and send them finding some other street.

6. Keep low profile - No one cares you build your empire in the heart of the most populated city or on the outskirts of a lonely city no one ever heard about. Its the long streets and properties which matter. And if you can quietly develop your empire, and save it with bonus buildings, and keep getting the huge rents without getting sabotaged with hazard buildings you will rise very fast. So keep a low profile and don’t fight for that street in front of your house. Its great to rise on the local leaderboard with only a few players, and while you make it to the national leaderboard, you are way ahead.

6. Don’t make enemies – How will you react if someone sabotaged your most pricey rent street with a hazard building? I am sure you would retaliate and sabotage all their streets given the first chance. You have  an option to discard (not use) a sabotage card if you get one. So think twice before using a hazard card – don’t make unnecessary enemies. Just as you got this card, they will too. But if you are going to do it, spot your competitors on the leaderboard and get them. Why not make friends and rise together.

7. Build more houses – If you observe closely, the huge rental income comes from the property you build on it. Simply buying a street does not give you any great income. The more you property you build, the more the property value rises, more rent  you get and more your net worth becomes. As space on you street gets limited, you can sell cheaper buildings and put  more expensive buildings to increase street rental. So the longer street you have, the more it can earn.

8. Pay no tax -  There is no sense in accumulating needless streets. Only keep and build on your select great streets. Once you cross 5 streets, you have to pay 3% tax per street. So if you have 38 streets, you pay 100% tax which makes you no rental income. Stick to 5 streets and pay no tax.

9. Follow top players - Learn what the top players on the winners ladders are doing and how they make those millions so easily. See how they have so few streets, so much property, all the Chance cards they need, and how they keep rising on the charts. Follow them and learn from them. See which streets they just sold and which players they are spying – you could get a good deal.

10. Login every day – You get rent only if you login daily. No login, no rent for the day. So losing the precious millions of monopoly dollars simply because you did not login, is a total waste of money and a sure chance to fall from the leaderboard. Even if you dont play, but simply keep logging in, your streets will keep earning huge rental. Be warned that if you forget to login for 2 weeks, all your streets are gone!

11. Fill up streets – Don’t leave any empty space on your street, instead fill it up with houses. People with hazard cards, will first need a demolish card to remove  a building to create space, then place a hazard building. If your street is full, they will go elsewhere. If you have a long street, you can fill with cheaper houses.

12. Find inactive players – Find players who have low activity and bid to buy their expensive streets. The rule is if they do not respond to your request in 7 days, you win the street however ridiculous the price! Once you find low activity players with long streets, send your request – and you might just get them. Add them to your spy list. There are many players losing interest and the smart players are watching.

13.  Add bonus buildings on sabotaged streets -  So your street is sabotaged with a hazard building and stops earning rent. Don’t keep waiting for a demolish card to remove the hazard! Instead place a bonus building on the sabotaged street, and the the rent starts even with the hazard building still there!

14. Get more chance cards - Although it is still not clear how Monopoly City players get more chance cards, here are a few things which worked for me -  Place buildings at streets ends, place lots of buildings on streets, place clustered buildings at intersections, show lots of activity which increases your chances of getting chance cards.

15 Demolish competitors bonus buildings -  So you want to stop your competitor, but they have bonus buildings on the street. Did you know you can demolish these bonus buildings too and make their  most costly street vulnerable to hazards. Once any street is vulnerable, anyone can sabotage it. So do they have multiple bonus buildings? Keep reducing their number, and eventually you or some other competitor might sabotage it eventually.

And here is the most important tip -

16. Have fun - Don’t be afraid to sell your worse streets and bid to buy better streets. The game of monopoly is  not about sitting on long streets and grabbing rent, its about trading and playing the game to have fun. If you are earning millions, but not enjoying the game – then you need to sit up, trade, make friends, sabotage streets, spy more and get more active and actually enjoy the game – after thats what it is all about – FUN!

What are your favorite strategies in Monopoly City Streets? Post in comments.

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I use Google Reader for RSS reading daily and today stumbled upon this easter egg called Ninja mode that causes Ninjas to appear in the sidebar and hearts to bloom and break in Google Reader.

Matt Cutts from Google reveals this easter egg in the video below and you can try the secret code and enjoy it. I know most QOT readers use Google reader, so if you are reading this in Google Reader right now, see the video and test the magic for yourself.

In case you did not catch that video, in Google Reader press following keys in this order – Up arrow, Up arrow, Down arrow, Down arrow, Left arrow, Right arrow, Left arrow, Right arrow, B key, and lastly A key. See the Ninja! Break a heart!

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Guest article by Jessy Troy.
How to find shopping deals with Twitter? The Holiday season is coming, the wisest of us are already getting ready for it to avoid last year’s holiday rush. More and more people choose to escape mall queues by shopping online and thus are looking for ways to spot a timely Internet deal. Twitter has turned into an awesome tool to do almost anything: you can use it to track news, keep in touch with your friends, find a job and save some money.

This post is about shopping with Twitter to use the micro-blogging platform to develop a smart shopping strategy.

1. Use Twitter Search

Check what people / sources you trust have to say about the product / seller you are considering: Twitter search has a few nifty advanced operators – one of them allows to find all updates tweeted by someone:

[apple from:CNETnews] – allows to find all news and reviews of Apple products tweeted by Cnet.

2. Use Comparison Shopping

TinyMassive is a Twitter bot allowing you to compare product prices while on Twitter. Just tweet your product search to @tinymassive and the bot will get back to you with the search results generated by the site itself.

Thus, the Tweet will contain:
1. The Twitter user name who has requested the info;
2. The search results count;
3. The minimum price found;
4. The link to the search results.

3. Follow Your Favorite Money-Saving Site

If you are an experienced shopper, you should be keeping an eye on a couple of coupon aggregators and deals directories. You might be monitoring them via email or RSS. But you’ll be happy to learn, there are more ways to track them.

Some of these sites have an associated Twitter accounts where they post coupon updates from the site. Here’s a quick example of how this can be useful:

• My favorite coupon aggregator, Cheap Stingy Bargains tweets coupons here, so I follow it;
• I use Seesmic Twitter desktop application which is awesome because it allows to sort your friends into groups. So I create a separate group for “Money saving tweets” and categorize it there. So each time there’s an update, Seesmic will update me.

4. Use Twitter-Based Tools

There are a couple of online tools searching Twitter and aggregating all the tweeted prices. Cheap Tweet is my personal favorite. It lists all tweeted prices in a Digg-like interface allowing users to upvote deals by clicking “It’s cheap!”. It also enables the user to quickly share the deal on Twitter (Share link) as well see all the Tweeple who have Tweeted this deal (Details link):

5. Contact Customer Service

Plenty of sellers are on Twitter – what you need to do is to find them there, see what they Tweet and who they follow as well as try to get in contact with them via Twitter. Here’s the most comprehensive list of customer service agents on Twitter I was able to find.

Quick tip: try @search on Twitter to see what people are saying about the seller. Example: [@zappos]

The guest post is written by Jessy Troy, an Internet enthusiast striving to discover plenty of web hacks and creative DIY gadgets. You can also write a guest article and share your favorite tools and services.

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If you are addicted to the Monopoly City Streets online game like me, hold on, the game will reset and restart anew with millions of streets ready to be bought again and will deal with the rampant cheating currently on in the game.

Over the last few days, I have been totally hooked to the game and besides some performance and loading issues, there are a lot of issues that needs to be fixed.

1. Cheating - I think this is the major issue that is spoiling the game as top users are creating multiple accounts and selling off properties at higher prices to  get rich quickly. Since there is no IP check, or email check in place, anyone can create as many accounts as they like.

2. Response time slow -  If you decide to buy a property, your money is debited and the seller has 1 week to respond. Till that time your money is blocked, and the seller might simply reject your offer. That should be significantly reduced to 24-48 hours so that the  money is moving fast.

3. No New Streets -  Almost all the cities I went to, all streets were already bought. Purple streets signify new streets which players can buy directly from the bank, without waiting for a response. There should be an easier way to find new streets in a city. You cant possibly keep browsing endlessly searching purple streets, which may or may not be there.

4. Negotiate Deals - There should be a system of private messaging or chat where the property buyer and seller can negotiate and get d0ne with the deal in minutes rather than wasting lot of time waiting across world timezones for users to login.

5. Online Status – In any online game, this is really important. All users should have a online status icon, so that you know that the proposed real estate deal can be acted upon immediately.

6. Faster loading – Many times I am stuck on the interface which keeps loading streets available in the area. Till it loads, you cannot do any deals on that screen. I am sure the overwhelming response is slowing their servers.

7. Updated FAQ - They need a really detailed FAQ to elaborate all aspects of the game. There are still many questions which are unanswered for newbies.

8. Register Link Missing -  The first time I started, I spent half an hour looking for the sign up link. But it was simply not there. Unless you buy a street, the register link never appears. They really need to add a sign up screen there ASAP.

9 Define Buildings – The role of several buildings in not too clear. It seems the bonus buildings can be destroyed too. Some people can sabotage a street with so  many buildings, that it might never get rent ever, and no one is willing to buy at market price.

10 Slow refunds – the money does not come back instantly once the seller rejects the offer. Why is the money held up in the system

and the list can go on and on….

But the fact is that Monopoly City Streets Game is one of the best games I have ever played. Its is too addicting and Hasbro has created a winner exploiting  the power of Google Maps and bringing Monopoly to our own streets. Of course there are glitches, but they are listening …. so wait for the reset and restart which will happen in a week, and they promise a 24 hours notice before that. I am sure the game will come out much stronger and better after that.

Update: They will take down the game on Thursday, September 17 at 15:00 GMT. After 12 to 24 hours of reset, the site comes back live, and the game will restart.

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Guest Post by Anand Srinivasan
You read about how Twitter is the next big thing on the internet. Blog gurus rave about how their websites were choked with traffic as their blog articles got retweeted. You spend a few months on Twitter building a huge followership. Finally you realize that nothing that you post on Twitter get your followers interested. Where did things go wrong? Here are five tips to help your blog articles get more traffic from Twitter through retweets

Get Retweeted: Get Free Twitter Traffic

1. Install the retweet button

A lot of people realize the importance of an article when they read it. But most people need to be told the importance of an article before they realize its significance. When your articles are engaging enough, your blog visitors tend to form an opinion for or against what you have written. Either way is fine, but ensure you instigate their thoughts to make an opinion. Such a visitor shall surely be looking to put his point of view forward to his group, and the retweet button reminds him to do just that – retweet your link.

2. Cater to the Ego

Let us suppose you write an article on “Most beautiful cities in the world”. No matter how much time you spent in researching your subject, all that the reader wants to know is whether his city has made it to the list or not. A tweet on this post mentioning the title of this post with a link to your blog might get you casual visits, but then that is not enough to make them hungry to retweet. To do that, soothe or hurt their ego. A tweet that reads ‘Detroit better than New York in beautiful city list’ is sure to make both Detroit and New Yorkers read your blog and either praise or curse you while retweeting. And people from other cities are always going to visit you to see where their city stands!

3. Find the maven

While growing your followership is important, the quality of your followership is important too. There are the ‘absorbant‘ kinds – those who read all your tweets but don’t care sharing them to others and the ‘dispersant‘ kinds – those who retweet anything mildly interesting. Study the behavior of twitterers, and follow them. Retweet interesting links they have posted (Why? Read Point 2). Reply to their tweets with your opinion or suggesting better reads. They are sure to follow you. They matter a LOT!

4. Direct message with link

If you blog about “pets”, keep following all that people tweet about “pets”. You can do so by simply following the Twitter search RSS feed for that particular keyword on your RSS reader. Study the kind of things people tweet about. A lot of them could be people tweeting queries on the subject. Check back on your blog to see if you have written about those queries. If not, write down a quick post and reply to the twitterer with this link. Do this to a few people a day and you will have people following your blog posts blindly and retweeting every article you post.

5. Put it in perspective

Statistics are great. People like them a lot. But you need put your statistics in perspective to get them ‘retweet’ interested. “200 people infected with Swine flu” is a good article to tweet about. But what does the reader want to know? 200 people – Is it too many people or less? But suppose you tweet ‘Swine flu has affected 50% more people than SARS’- now this is something that will set the reader thinking. He is definitely going to retweet to alert his followers on the danger posed by this new flu!

Guest blogger Anand Srinivasan writes an interesting blog on Internet statistics, tips and news at TechCrunchies.com. You can also write a guest article and share your expert tips.

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Effective SEO is important for any website to stay on top of Google and get high search engine rankings. Mani Karthik is a top SEO consultant and professional blogger in India, and shares his SEO secrets which can increase your website traffic easily.

Why did you decide to become a SEO expert?
It wasn’t a thought-out decision really. Fascinated by the web, in my college days, I used to run a couple of websites. They were amateurish but in the struggle to develop them, I kept experimenting things (which I didn’t know was actually SEO) , but they gave me a lot of insights, which I could use later on. So it was sort of natural learning I’d say.

And I’d never call myself an SEO Expert or Guru for that matter, those are people’s perceptions, and I go with it. I’m a learner and I’ve never really understood why one would call himself an SEO expert, when there’s always, a lot more to go.

How did you learn SEO?
As I said, I learned from my own experiments. In fact, that’s the safest and the most effective way to learn SEO. Over a period of time, you get to know what’s the real stuff and what not.

Are there any formal college courses to learn SEO?
If you’re talking about universities, none in India, but there are online courses that promises to teach you SEO.

What is the best way bloggers can learn SEO?
Trial and error method. If you’re really keen about learning SEO, keep a blog (or more than one) for trials. Experiment with your learnings and theories. You must have a lot of patience and also a habit of recording things, so that you can cross check what triggered what.

What are the dangers / dark side of SEO?
You know, more than the “black hat methods”, the danger is of over optimization or undue importance given to SEO by obsessed webmasters. The search engines out there are really smart in finding out patterns and artificial elements from your site, and when you over do things, its easy to detect patterns.

I’ve seen that neither all the 100% perfectly SE optimized websites are doing well, nor are the poorly optimized. You got to hit a balance, and work more on creating a good website, a healthy one. SEO can give you the best foundation to build your website. SEO shouldn’t over power the rest of the legs on a website, when it does, things inflate to a dangerous level, often proving fatal to the website.

Can you suggest some must-read SEO articles for webmasters?
Read Google webmaster guidelines and Top 25 commonly believed SEO myths. Can’t really point out the rest, may be the archives on DSB itself is a good reference.

What are the 5 best SEO practices for WordPress Blogs?
- Page Titles
- Curbing duplicate content occurrences
- Internal linking patterns
- Theme with the best SEO optimized code
- Effective, non competing use of plugins

Tell us about your favorite SEO tools?
I don’t rely much on tools, they haven’t been consistent, although there are some powerful SEO addons to firefox, which do a neat job.

What the 5 most common SEO mistakes?
- Over optimizing.
- Poor linking structure.
- Negative elements in design.
- Keyword Density formulas
- Poorly developed content

Why should I hire a SEO consultant?
Gone are the days when you could hire someone to get ranked for 5 keywords in 2 months. It doesn’t happen that way now. You should hire a SEO consultant if you have long term goals, and want a healthy, authority website that can survive competition. If you’re looking for quick fixes, then I am afraid SEO isn’t the right thing to go for.

Mani Karthik is a professional blogger and SEO Consultant from India and helps websites and companies make their online visibility perfect through SEO and Social Media. You can hire him for web development and SEO projects. Check out more interviews on QOT.

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All Wordpress.com blogs and pages now have their own wp.me short urls. Automattic decided to follow the short url craze and now grants wp.me urls to all permalinks in Wordpress.com blogs, giving more branding to these WP blogs.

Firstly WP.me claims to be the only two-letter .me domain in the world! From now on every blog and post on WordPress.com will have a WP.me URL, which will be linked in the <head> section of the webpage html using rel=shortlink. Wordpress promises these permalinks will stay around the internet forever and they will regularly monitor these urls for spam.

So can you get a  short wp.me url for your blog? Sorry, WP.me urls will only work for Wordpress.com hosted  blogs.

Where is the wp.me url? Click the “Get Shortlink” button next to your permalink when you edit or write a post, and when you click it you’ll get a popup with the wp.me link.

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Guest Post by Srikanth
Looking for common chat acronyms, smileys and emoticons? Micro-blogging and text messaging are the hottest trends now a days with the up come of websites like Twitter, Facebook, etc., which allows you to post short messages limited in number of characters. To make the most of the available characters, using short forms of words, acronyms and emoticons is a brilliant idea and most of the people use these short forms in chatting and IM’s.

While you are chatting online using an instant messenger or via SMS you need to work out your fingers really fast on the keyboard to keep up with the chat. By using short forms and symbols this task is really easy but most of the users do not know the meaning or which short forms to use. Online gamers also use these short forms to stay in contact with their friends.

SMS & Chat: Acronyms, Smileys, Emoticons

Herein are the most used short forms and symbols in chatting.

Guest blogger Srikanth writes on Tech Inspiration blog about tips, gadgets, and technology. You can also write a guest article and share your favorite tips.

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