Bitcoin - is it all it's cracked up to be?

It seems like the fast-money days of the Internet Bubble 2.0 will never end, and perhaps the latest symptom is bitcoin, the weird crypto-anarchist digital currency that's changing the shape of your newsfeed. Here's a good bitcoin primer for an introduction to this anonymous system of trade.

Free Word-of-Mouth marketing book

BzzAgent's Dave Balter has written a free Word-of-Mouth marketing book called The Word of Mouth Marketing Manual Volume II. I'm a BzzAgent myself, so I was given exclusive access to the book as soon as it was released. If you've ever wondered about social marketing, you should give this book a read, as it gives great insight into how to create authentic buzz without relying on surreptitious schemes or sleazy tricks.

The good news is that you can download the book free! I chose to grab it from Seth Godin's blog, since he's my favorite marketing writer and he's acting as one of the 'distributors'. You can buy the book from Amazon as well, but the author is choosing to use his own WOM tactics to promote it free online, so you should take advantage while you can.

3 Tips for the New Blogger

1) Get familiar with blogging through a free service like Blogger, Wordpress, or Xanga.

Unless your first blog is a GREAT idea, chances are you will get bored of it and let it flounder. Don't bother buying a domain name and hosting (and a content management system, and a layout...) until you have whittled your blog into something great. If you get some viewers and ad clicks, then upgrade to your own domain name. You can still use the old, free blog for incoming links to your new professional one.

2) Test out different blog topics to see what kind of ad money you can make.

"Sex" and "Britney Spears" might be great keywords to some, but they are not big money words like "asbestos lawyer". If you can focus your blog while remaining interesting and relevant, you will attract much pricier ads.

3) Make list posts.

Seriously, I have no idea what the psychology behind this is, but I always find myself reading them. Maybe it's because it gives you a vague idea of how long an article you're getting into. Try it out!

Get paid to surf while viewing ads

The AGLOCO advertising network is a unique new opportunity for people who want to make money online but don't want to go through all the "work" of creating content or optimizing designs. By displaying advertisements on your screen while you surf, you can earn a share of the network's ad revenue. You can also refer friends and get paid as they surf.

I would appreciate it if you signed up (for free) by clicking my referral link. It only takes a minute and you can start earning and referring right away.

SEO Tip of the Day #5

Yerfdog recently put me on to a hot search engine optimization (SEO) tip. Google Image Search is an invaluable yet underutilized tool for web developers interested in increasing their Google PageRank.

An "img" tag contains a few different sections:

• src - the address of the image file
• height; width - the image dimensions
• alt - alternate text for the image in text-only browsers or browsers with images turned off
• title - the markup title of the image

The "src" portion must be filled in for the image to function, the height and width portions are optional, but help in making the page display properly.

The "alt" and "title" text are completely underused by most developers though. Very few people take the time to label their pictures, yet this is one the main ways GIS indexes pictures (along with the picture filename).

If you view the HTML of this page, you'll see the picture of the SEO girl at right is using these functions to the fullest. Let's hope GIS crawls and indexes it soon!

SEO Tip of the Day #4

Do you sell products on your website? If e-commerce is your thing, make sure you don't use a manufacturer's generic description when listing your products. Google will still index your pages, but you will get penalized for having duplicate content, since every other retailer will be using that same description.

A better option would be to write your own product copy (starting with the most popular products first), and writing a very descriptive, original outline of the product containing keywords people will be likely to search, especially if the product has a somewhat ambiguous name.

For instance, a USB key can call be a flash key, flash drive, thumb drive, pen drive, or portable hard drive. Including these synonyms in a relevant way to the reader will boost your Google rating and subsequently, sales.

SEO Tip of the Day #3

Trading links is a great way to increase your Google PageRank. The more incoming links you have to your site featuring favorable keywords, the higher up your page will be when someone uses those keywords as a Google search.

Don't have anyone to trade links with? Drop me a comment!