David Mercer's blog

"Here's a useful guest post from Adam Henige about the Google Penguin algorithm, and some SEO advice that may help you avoid damaging page rankings by unnecessarily disavowing backlinks."

When Google launched the latest Penguin update on May 22nd, 2013, some people checked their rankings the following morning and saw a catastrophic drop in page rankings and Web traffic.

Others likely never noticed and may have never even heard of the update until reading this article right now.

Essentially, Google is tightening the screws on what it perceives as low quality links and sites with rankings propped up by such links got nuked pretty bad by this last update.

"Are you tired of pouring time and money into Internet marketing strategies that bring little to no return on investment (ROI) for your business?"

Internet marketing covers such a wide range of disciplines (SEO, PPC advertising, email marketing, social media, etc) that it is hard to know which marketing strategies are the most effective.

Many small businesses have limited budgets and resources to create the content and get the reach they would like - so focusing on marketing strategies with the highest returns is important.

Learning how to start a business from home in order to make money online is a priority for many people suffering in today's tough economic climate.

Plenty of people make good money online from their businesses and blogs - yet the sad fact of the matter is that over 95% percent of online business startups don't make a cent.

This is because the Internet has increased the business opportunities available to entrepreneurs, and lowered the barrier to entry (by reducing startup costs) at the same time.

For sales and marketing people looking to get more leads for their business, the Internet offers great opportunity wrapped up in some interesting challenges.

Inbound marketing strategies (ones that don't interrupt readers, unlike, say, banner ads) are proving to be more effective as the Web migrates to mobile enabled, content based marketing.

Capturing sales leads is no longer a case of securing an online advertising budget and plastering ads all over social networks, blogs, and industry websites.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Internet marketing rely heavily on creating high quality content - a technique not often associated with online advertising.

In general, online ads tend to be in the form of banners, or Google ads in search results - a short message, lacking any intrinsic value for the reader.

On the whole, online advertising is intrusive, and unwelcome.

But advertisers and marketers are having to change their stripes as the Internet moves toward content based marketing and advertising (driven by the adoption of mobile devices with less screen real estate for banner ads).

Business websites need Web hosting that is simultaneously affordable and reliable, with high performance and good, 24/7 technical Web support.

A business website is an integral part of your company's brand - so it needs to be well designed, fast, and operate smoothly.

A high quality Web hosting service can save businesses hundreds or thousands of dollars by ensuring near 100% up-time, avoiding SEO penalties or direct loss in revenue & Web traffic (by proper management of IP addresses, etc), and a minimum of technical issues.

"Here's a great guest post, from Chad Goulde, highlighting some of the top reasons why bloggers fail to succeed or make money online."

To be a successful blogger, it's important to understand some of the reasons why some bloggers fail.

And, it's important to note that many of these reasons began at conception. For one, some people tend to blog about what they "think" people want to read.

Blogging, content marketing, & SEO (Search Engine Optimization) are all important aspects of a well rounded Internet marketing strategy to generate buzz, drive Web traffic, and make money online.

But content marketing is not easy, and many businesses do not see decent returns from their content and online marketing.

SEO is subject to constant Google algorithm updates that make organic search traffic unstable, and blogging is time consuming, and requires practice and skill before it becomes profitable.

Small businesses need fast, reliable, and affordable communications (that cloud based, virtual PBX systems offer) in order to be competitive with larger companies.

Upgrading to a virtual office that is able to manage customer and client calls professionally, and from anywhere (via the cloud), at a fraction of the cost, is a huge advantage.

In the same way that data has moved into the cloud, so businesses are waking up to the fact that cloud based phone systems can manage communications via a Web interface, at lower costs, with greater flexibility, reliability and call quality, from anywhere, at any time.

(01/06/2013, London - paid press release) FX Market Leaders, known as a leading trading community and provider of free signals, has launched its new premium Forex signals service.

Until recently the system has been undergoing BETA testing where select members of the community had access to the signals through a web interface.

Throughout the BETA trial, FX Market Leaders received excellent feedback from users, as well as requests for additional services. Users wanted to receive sound alerts and email notifications in order to make their trading easier, which will lead to the integration of new features in the premium signals service.