Tools

Charles Darwin taught us that competition is part of nature. In fact, it’s an integral part of evolution, and drives all of us to come up with creative ways to survive, or even dominate. The same is, of course, true in the context of business. You have to always be aware of what your rivals are doing in order to plot your next move and measure your own success. There are many competitor-analysis tools out there, but there’s one that’s tailor-fit for blogs and other online business, and it’s called Competitous. (more…)

For an average blogger’s needs, I’m inclined to think that Google Analytics is more than enough. The number of features and the zero tag price are definitely welcome. However, I’m sure out there somewhere are folks who have a nagging feeling that things can and should be better. If you’re one of them, you might want to stop and take a look at Clicky. (more…)

If you read a lot of blogs like I do, I’m sure you’ve come across some with “Related Posts” at the end of each article (like this one). One obvious use of this tactic is to bump up the page views for CPM ads. It’s also a great way to increase “stickiness” - that is, to make your readers stay on your site longer, which in turn increases their chance of clicking on an ad or becoming a subscriber. So how do you do it? Well, you can always write them manually, one by one, but I’m sure you have better uses for your time, so why not try these WordPress plugins? (more…)

Having a job that revolves around the Internet comes with a fantastic amount of freedom. One of the things I love most about it is that I can set my own work schedule, something that a lot of office workers would give an arm and a leg for. However, this freedom comes with a flipside: if you’re not careful, you’ll procrastinate away your day, and end up with a pile of backlog. Making money online is not all about the latest marketing strategies. You also have to manage your productivity, just like any other job out there. Being prone to distractions myself, I try different ways to keep my bad habits in check, and among them is using some nifty Firefox plugins. (more…)

The date range operator is one of those great yet little-known, rarely used Google search strings. As a webmaster/blogger, you shouldn’t ignore it though.

How does Google’s date range search operator look like?

Here it is:

desired search term daterange:2007 january-2008 june

Of course, you must replace the phrases and dates by the ones you want to research. For instance, if you want to search for SEO tips published between Jan/2005 and Dec/2006, type the following on Google’s search box:

seo tips daterange:2005 january-2006 december

Now choose a topic and try it for yourself. (more…)

When Google started displaying search volume numbers on its famous AdWords Keyword Tool, I thought things could hardly get any better. It seems I was wrong though.

This week Google announced the release of a brand new tool. It’s called Google Insights for Search.

How is Google Insights for Search like?

I see it as a sort of Google Trends on steroids. This is due to the fact that with Google Insights for Search you can not only analyse regional trends — which are shown in maps for easier visualisation — but also view other data, such as related search terms and rising searches. Besides, this new keyword popularity tool lets you choose the desired comparison criteria: search terms (the traditional option on Google Trends), locations or time ranges. (more…)