Use Dashes In URL Names for Better SEO

Frequently I am asked "Is it better to use dashes or underscores in your URLs?"

Dashes!

This is critical in URLs. For example here is the URL of one of my more popular pages with a list of stock photo websites.

http://www.jasonsmillion.com/2011/04/21-stock-photo-websites.html

With this URL, Google would rank this page for the terms "21", "stock", "photo", "websites".
Furthermore, it would rank higher if someone searched for any combination of those words in any order.
Finally, Google would rank me very well for the exact words "21 stock photo websites".

Testing dashes in URLs

Here's the test:

This is page #1 from Google using the words "21 stock photo websites".

The first three are sponsored links in this highly competitive topic. The next two are blog articles that have the words "21" and stock photo websites, but neither of them are a list of sites.

The last three are lists of stock photography websites, and mine is ranked highest among the relevant results. The ads above probably cost several dollars each click, and mine appears organically.

Okay, you may be saying, "but I don't need hits for the #21." That's irrelevant. True, however I also did the search using "stock photo websites" exclusively.  This time the results were more on point. The first three are major stock photography websites. Mine was fourth! Why am I happy about being fourth? Because the first three send you to websites that sell stock photography. Anyone using this search term, which is rather generic, but is looking for a list rather than a single site will choose mine!

However, if my URL was slightly different and it read ".../21_stock_photo_websites" , even with exactly the same content and incoming links I would likely be ranked 20th or 30th in this highly competitive category.

Out of 65,600,000 results, 20th is pretty darn good, but let's face it I would get perhaps 1% of the clicks I get now from being fourth. There can be a huge difference between dashes and underscores!

Still not convinced... well is take it straight from the horse's mouth... Matt Cutts, head of the webspam team at Google and original developer of SafeSearch, Google's family-friendly filter.

"... So if you have a url like word1_word2, Google will only return that page if the user searches for word1_word2 (which almost never happens). If you have a url like word1-word2, that page can be returned for the searches word1, word2, and even “word1 word2″.

That’s why I would always choose dashes instead of underscores. To answer a common question, Google doesn’t algorithmically penalize for dashes in the url. Of course I can only speak for Google, not other search engines. And bear in mind that if your domain looks like www.buy-cheap-viagra-online-while-consolidating-your-debt-so-you-can-play-texas-holdem-while-watching-porn.com, that may still attract attention for other reasons."

It's an important enough issue that you probably want to change your URLs retroactively for pages that don't get much traffic. On your high-traffic pages, this is a risky, because changing the URL means the page has to be reread and ranked again. Furthermore, any incoming links will be broken.

Source: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/dashes-vs-underscores/

Paying Taxes is Good for America

Paying taxes is one of the great things about being an American.

Okay, I know you're looking at me funny right now, but hang in there for a couple minutes.

Back in 1770-something, a bunch of British citizens living in Boston threw a whole bunch of tea into Boston Harbor. That was a big deal for two reasons; first, Brits love their tea, second, it was a bunch of colonialists creating the world's largest cup of tea. This is particularly irritating to the British because tea was one of the primary reasons they started collecting colonies in the first place. At this point in time, the business of colonizing countries such as India, growing tea, and selling it to the British people was a huge chunk of their economy.

To toss it into perspective, in 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait. While not a colony, Kuwait was flush with American money from the oil business. The threat of a group of people interrupting Americans' passion for driving sport utility vehicles caused us to amass the largest invasion in world history, and launching a ground war that lasted four whole days!

In the 1770s, this was a big freaking deal.

So why did we do it?

Taxation

Taxation was at the heart of the Boston tea party. Tea had a luxury tax attached. Everyone who purchased tea, which was, well, everyone, paid a little bit of money to the British government.

We weren't upset about taxes. What the Americans, as they would later be known, were upset about was "taxation without representation".

You see the colonies didn't have any voice in Parliament, the lawmaking body of the British government. We weren't necessarily upset about paying taxes, we were upset because we had no choice. We had no input into the decision.

Taxes are a very powerful tool. Taxes influence businesses to do one thing, versus another. Taxes influence us to buy homes, have children, get married and go to college. Taxes influence entrepreneurs when starting their own business. Taxes influence corporations when spending money on growth, distributing profits to owners, and helping the environment.

Taxes are very critical part of our economy, and part of the reason why the economy has grown to be the largest in the world.

The money from taxes has funded education, provided for building of infrastructure, and secured our independence.

Okay, countries all over the world have taxes. Why are American taxes better than most of the others?

Representation

Representation is what makes the American tax system incredibly powerful.

Tax laws are designed in the legislative branch of the federal government. The Senate's 102 members are distributed evenly among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Each state, no matter how large or how small, has an equal vote.

The House of Representatives has 435 voting members, and these members are distributed roughly proportional to the population of the United States. California, our most populous state, currently has 53 members. Not only does this insure representation by population, but each member of Congress represents a specific district. This means that every individual in America has one member of Congress specifically charged with looking out for them.

No matter where you live in the United States, you have exactly 3 representatives that help determine the tax laws. You have exactly the same number of representatives as every other citizen. Your voice, and your vote determine the manner in which that representative does his or her job. If you are unhappy with any of those three representatives, you have within your power, to campaign for a new representative, or even to run for office yourself.

Taxation Is Power

The only power any representative has is the ability to increase or decrease taxes. They have no other authority to change the behavior of their constituents.

Would you like a greener planet? Tax breaks can encourage businesses to change manufacturing to create less pollution.

Want better educated workers? Tax breaks can encourage families to save for college, even years before their child is old enough to attend.

Want a better economy? Tax savings encourage companies to hire. They encourage people to buy homes. They encourage people to buy greener appliances and give them "cash for clunkers" which all stimulate the economy.

Want more financial security? Taxes encourage us to save for retirement, but encourage us to spend the excess while we are still alive.

Taxation Is Freedom

Government can only influence its citizens in two ways, taxation or force. Want us to recycle? Create a taxation incentive or hold a gun to our heads. Either way, more people will recycle.

I recognize this sample seems extreme, but look at the countries that don't have representation built into their tax structure. North Korea, the former Soviet Union, Cuba, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and others were or are able to control their people only through the use of force or threat.

Taxation without representation by definition is a dictatorship.

Is Taxation Broken?

Of course it is. Taxation in the United States is a constantly evolving concept. Today we have income taxes at the federal, state, and local level. We have property taxes, sales taxes, estate taxes and excise taxes. We have luxury and use taxes. We have occupancy taxes and even tourist taxes.

It's impossible that such a complex system isn't broken, at least in some areas.

The key is, taxes are put in place by our representatives in this democracy. In the United States, people have the power to change and to influence others by communicating with our representatives, and replacing them when necessary.

If you hate paying taxes, if you think your taxes are unfair, or if you think you're simply not getting your money's worth, then you have the responsibility to participate in the system. Communicate your happiness or unhappiness with your representatives. Encourage them to make changes, or encourage them to find a new job.

-- -- (As always, I encourage your comments. Because of spam, comments are moderated, but all legit comments will be accepted. You're allowed to disagree; you're allowed to tell me I'm an idiot, but please tell me why you think I'm an idiot.)

21 Stock Photo Websites

Stock photography is needed whether you are a professional designer,  blogger, eBook author or app developer.

This fairly comprehensive list has websites for every level, from free sources through high end editorial content.

A few notes to help beginning users of stock photography...

There are 3 ways to purchase stock photo, subscription, credits or direct purchase. 

• Subscription allows you to download any photo on the site during a period of time, usually limited by a daily cap. 
• Credits are purchased in blocks. The credits can be used to download images. For most sites, an individual image can be downloaded in multiple sizes; larger images requiring more credit.
• Direct purchase images are downloaded in a batch and paid for with credit card or PayPal

Licensing rights are managed in several ways.

• Rights managed - images are purchased for a specific purchase and can only be used for a specific period of time. These images are typically time sensitive and rare, such as current events and celebrities.
• Royalty free - a one time payment covers unlimited use and for an unlimited time.
• Attribution - many free images are distributed with an attribution only license, meaning you must provide photo credits and/or links to the photographer. For details about many types of free licenses, visit www.creativecommons.org.
• Public domain - these images are free to use without restriction. Either the copyright has expired or the original copyright holder has given up all rights.

Paying attention to licenses is important. I know of two websites that were charged big dollars for copyright infringement by using stock photography without the license. Sometimes the copyright holder will simply ask you to remove the image. One of our clients was asked to remove the image and pay a $1,200 retroactive usage fee to Getty images. With reverse image searching technology, copyright holders have new tools to find and enforce illegal image use. It's no longer acceptable to go to Google Images and grab your favorites for your blog.

Prices and quality of images vary widely. We strongly recommend choosing sources for images based on project and budget. The following list, therefore, is in no particular order. 

21 Stock Photography Sources

Dreamstime – www.dreamstime.com

• Use credits or subscription
• Some free images, registration required
• Royalty free and licensed images available
• Credit packages start at $9.95
• Subscriptions with daily limits range from $44.99 to $3,739.99
• Accepts credit cards and Paypal
• Active community with message boards and blogs
• Sell your images for 30-60%

Stock.xchng – www.sxc.hu

• Free images, registration required
• Limited number of photos, but all free
• Owned by Getty images
• Blog with photo tutorials

Veer – www.veer.com

• A few free images and fonts updated each week
• Free trial with 10 free credits
• Credit packages start at $16.92
• Stock photography, illustrations and fonts
• Interesting merchandise selection for typography geeks
• Caters to designers

MorgueFile – www.morguefile.com

• Free images placed in public domain
• Images are donated by creators
• Good search feature includes keywords, categories, size and color among others
• Small community with forums, etc
• Supported by advertising and Amazon shop

FreeFoto – www.freefoto.com

• Free images for web use, attribution required
• Free images may be licensed starting at $30
• Categoriezed, but poor search functionality
• Images may be purchased as prints or cards
• Images may be sent as free ecards

DepositPhotos – www.depositphotos.com

• Stock photo by credits or subscription
• Subscriptions with daily download limits range from $19 - $1,600
• Seven day free trial with 5 image per day limit
• Purchases with credits range from $0.50 - $9
• Sell your images for 40-60%

Istockphoto – www.istockphoto.com

• Sells photos, illustrations, video, audio and flash files
• Credit packages start at $18.50
• Subscription with daily limits start at $699
• Minimum subscription is 3 months
• Sell photos for 15% or exclusive rights for 45%
• Largest traffic photo site
• owned by Getty images

ShutterStock – www.shutterstock.com

• Huge collection, nearly 15 million photos and illustrations
• HD footage organized by category
• Subscriptions start at $249
• Blocks of five high-res images can be purchased for $49
• HD footage blocks start at $149 per 5

Getty Images – www.gettyimages.com

• offers royalty-free and rights managed images, footage, and music
• extremely timely images of celebrities, news events, and sports events
• has many exclusive contracts with events
• rights-managed images are purchased based on intended use and duration
• worldwide offices to answer rights management questions and help find images

BigStock – www.bigstockphoto.com

• Photos and vector images sold by credits
• Credit packages start at $15
• Pays $0.50 per credit spent to contributors
• By ShutterStock, less expensive collection

Corbis Images – www.corbisimages.com

• Rights managed and royalty free images
• Editorial section featuring celebrities, current events, fine art and archival images
• Nice fine art collection featuring Andy Warhol, Ansel Adams, Smithsonian Institution, Philadelphia Museum of Art and more.
• Exclusive celebrity portraits
• Comps available

Thinkstock – www.thinkstockphotos.com

• Getty images subscription site featuring mid range royalty free photos
• Subscriptions are $299 per month or $199 per month paid annually
• Comps available

Jupiter Images – www.jupiterimages.com

• Jupiter was the parent company of Photos.com, but recently merged with Getty images
• Combines 50 websites of rights managed and royalty free images
• Images start at $49

Stock Vault – www.stockvault.net

• Free image collection provided by contributors
• Texture and background images for sale through texturevault.com
• Partnered with Square Space, a high end blogging platform

Free Digital Photos – www.freedigitalphotos.net

• Offers images for sale from contributors starting at $3
• Web sized images are available free with attribution required
• Payment by image rather than using credits

Free Vectors – www.freevectors.org

• Small collection of about 1,200 vector images
• All free for commercial use
• Liberal license with no attribution required
• You may also download 1,000 vectors for $14.90 via Paypal, convenient way to download all vectors at once and support the site

Every Stock Photo – www.everystockphoto.com

• Search engine for free photos
• Over 9 million photos searched on many different websites
• Because photos come from different sources, licensing varies
• Searches Library of Congress, NASA, Flickr, Wikimedia and other photo sites

Free Range – www.freerangestock.com

• Free stock photography, much of it from in-house photographers
• Ad supported
• Images up to 2400x1600
• Registration required

Photo Rack – www.photorack.net

• Free photos
• Photos are categorized, but not easily searchable
• No attribution required
• No login required
• Ad supported

Photos.com – www.photos.com

• Mid range photo subscription site
• Owned by Getty images
• Photos.com was one of the early subscription stock image sites. For some industries their collection is overused.

Clipart.com – www.clipart.com

• Collection of clipart, illustrations, web size photos and fonts
• Low end subscription service, only $159.95 per year
• Owned by Getty images

 Twenty-one websites will certainly cover most demands. However, there are many others. If you know of a stock image service worth mentioning, feel free to link it in the comments below.

Two Approaches for Writing Great Sales Copy

Earlier this week, I was a featured guest at Epic Launch. My topic was 7 Terrible Marketing Terms To Avoid

One of the commenters asked how I come up sales copy that is new and original and still catchy.

There are two approaches I use frequently for writing original sales copy. They don't work for all marketing situations, but often will get you started.

The Marketing Reporter

Write your copy like you're a journalist. Ask yourself, "who, what, where, when, why and how?"

Not all six questions apply to every scenario. I find the most useful when describing an information or service-based product. Journalists usually don't write about things, they write about ideas.

You can describe events, workshops, and seminars easily.

It also works to describe services, even when the recipient doesn't understand the service. For example, if you are a freelance IT network installer, most of your clients are baffled by jargon, but you can make them understand what you do, why they need it, how long it will take, and what is the value.

The Sensual Copywriter

Note, it says sensual, not sexual. That's an entirely different type of copywriting.

Use your senses to describe your product.

• How does it taste?
• How does it smell?
• How does it feel?
• What does it sound like?
• What does it look like?

For physical products, the results may surprise you.

I used to sell mudflaps with NASCAR logos. In the description I talked about how your truck would look great as you roll into the parking lot at the track. I described the smell of rubber, which to a NASCAR fan, is a very distinctive smell. By the end of the race it permeates your clothes and hair.

While mudflaps don't have a particular smell, describing that scent creates a mental picture for my target customers.

Great sales writing doesn't necessarily describe your product or service. Frequently, it describes the buyer's experience while using that product or service.

Whether you go sensual or factual, these two techniques should get you started on unique and original sales copy.

photo credit: Three Monkeys - Vishal K. Bharadwaj, allvishal.com

Web design tools: Mockingbird Wireframes

I haven't needed to spec out a website for the past couple of years, but I'd wish I'd had Mockingbird then.

Web designers and application designers should definitely check out Mockingbird for wireframe development. Essentially, it's an online tool for sharing basic layout.

I played with the free version a little bit. The free plan allows you to create one project with up to 10 pages. It's really a test drive more than a free plan.

Prices range from $9-$85 monthly, depending on the number of active projects you need. With all of their paid plans you can use unlimited collaborators and archive an unlimited number of projects.

Another reason I like Mockingbird is that they only charge you based on usage. If you have no active projects, you aren't billed, which is a refreshing change from most web services. It's great for the small designer who is working independently on a project or two. Bigger design firms will have no problem paying the monthly fees, because again it's based on the number of clients. If you can't squeeze $40 across 25 clients, you aren't doing something right.

When you're done with the project, you can archive it. Need to do updates? Simply move it out of the archive to the active projects again. Just don't forget to archive them when you're finished because you're billed based on active projects.

Like I said, I've just briefly played with Mockingbird, but it seems like a useful development tool. If you have more experience, positive or negative, with wireframe development, please let us know in the comments. Also, let me know if you run across another tool that's different or better.

Blogger Buzz: What’s New With Blogger

I use Blogger for this blog and a bunch of others.

I like it because of the simple user interface, and the dashboard allowing me to manage multiple blogs from one login.

In the past, Blogger was more of a trend follower than a trendsetter, however in 2010 we've seen a bunch of improvements including a far greater selection of templates.

I just watched this video from 2011 SXSW conference, and it looks like they have a new user interface that should finally make it competitive with WordPress for professional blogging.

Blogger Buzz: What’s New With Blogger

Glossary of Fundamental Marketing Terms

I'm always surprised when I talk to clients how many business owners don't know some of the fundamentals of sales and marketing.

Here is a quick list of sales and marketing terminology and basic premises. If you're a business owner or entrepreneur you probably know most of them, but they are also fundamental that issues are one new item, it'll be worth your time.

The List -- The List is a throwback term to the days when direct mail marketing was a cornerstone. Every good direct mail company had lists. These lists were highly prioritized. Companies purchased general mailing lists, but also accept customer lists and "hot lists" that contained names of frequent repeat customers. Today, the mailing lists are less important because more people are using e-mail. It's still a good idea to keep a hot list for direct-mail purposes, but for e-mail the list is simply an opt-in list of e-mail subscribers. It doesn't cost any more to send e-mail to dead addresses than live ones, so you're less concerned about percentages and more concerned about quantity.

List building -- This is going to be complicated. It's the process of building your list! Okay, it's not complicated but it is immensely important. Direct mail and e-mail lists degrade over time. Additionally, your listing goes stale once your customers have purchased a number of products. You want to constantly be adding people to your lists. Make sure you have a distinct process for list building, and you'll want to track the costs associated with building.

Direct sales, or Outside Sales -- Direct selling is when you're meeting someone person to person. Even with Internet businesses, many of them rely on a direct sales strategy. Direct selling has two methods. One method is used by insurance companies, real estate, party-based MLM and others where you're selling direct to consumer. It also can be used in business-to-business selling if you're dealing with a business group that's geography-based rather than niche-based. Key account selling is the other method, and our next glossary term.

Key Account Sales -- This is a method of direct selling for business-to-business that's highly targeted. Each salesperson has a list of key accounts they service. The goal with this type of selling is large dollar value sales, or ongoing repeat customer sales. Manufacturers' key accounts would be distributors or retailers. Raw material key accounts would be manufacturers. Other examples would be pharmaceutical sales, consulting firms, IT companies and office suppliers. Key account sales can be Outside or Inside Sales.

Inside Sales -- Similar to direct selling, but the primary techniques are telephone and e-mail rather than traveling by car or airplane. Inside sales is actually growing considerably because more and more companies are relying on web-based technologies to hold meetings. Many web-based companies have solid inside sales forces as well. Dell Computer would be a good example of a company that uses its website and inside sales staff to sell to the consumers. Other companies such as CDW have sales people who manage corporate accounts. Inside sales has three primary methods; outgoing sales or telemarketing, incoming sales such as customer service reps for utilities or online retail, and key account which is a blend of the two but more targeted.

Telemarketing -- Everyone knows the definition of telemarketing, it's the people you cuss out when they call you at dinnertime. With do-not-call lists, direct to consumer telemarketing has declined, however telemarketing is still a solid strategy for business-to-business marketing. The key is having an organized campaign. Create prospect lists, then funnel them through the sales process.

The Funnel -- The Funnel is the process of narrowing prospects, down to hot prospects, down to customers, and down to repeat customers. The process is critical. The concept of the funnel is to have a clearly defined process with measurable results. How many prospects or leads to you have to drop in your final to yield X number of new customers? How can you refine the process to improve those ratios?

ROI -- Return on Investment (ROI) is the expected number of sales you get for each dollar that you spend marketing. When companies want to increase sales, they use this number to determine how much additional money to spend marketing. Then, after a marketing campaign, they gauge its effectiveness based on the adjusted ROI number. Effectively tracking ROI can be complex, however inevitably it separates the rapid growth companies from the rest. Rapid growth companies are able to grow because they are investing huge quantities of money marketing based on predictable results.

Call to Action -- Every sales pitch requires a call to action, whether it's an eBay auction, or a multimillion dollar presentation. Every marketing technique for campaign needs to have a very specific action they want the audience to take. Sometimes it's "buy now" but other times it could be "subscribe to our newsletter" or "sign-up for a free trial". When tracking you want to clearly define each marketing campaigns call, then base ROI numbers on the number who answer the call.

PPC -- Pay-per-Click is a type of online advertising where you pay the publisher based on the number of clicks you get to your website. AdWords and Facebook both utilize this type of advertising.

PPI or PPM -- Pay-per-Impression marketing is where you pay each time your ad is shown, regardless of whether the customer clicks your ad. (PPM stands for Pay-per-Mil, or 1000 impressions.) This is most often used with banner advertising.

CPC or CPM -- These two terms are Cost-per-Click or Cost-per-Mil. This is a rate the advertiser charges. So PPC is the method, while CPC is the expense associated with the method.

Pay per Lead -- A more advanced pay-per-click style of marketing is where the potential customer visits your website from an advertiser's website and take some action, such as filling out a form or signing up for a newsletter.

Affiliate Sales -- Affiliate sales is wary publisher or list owner promotes your website or product without cost, however they earn a commission or the finder fee for each sale.

Spam -- Everyone thinks they know what spam is, but it's a term that is often misused. Some people call any form of advertising spam. In fact, the term refers to unsolicited advertisement. The term spam only applies to e-mail. Whether you want to see advertisements or not, visiting a website and seeing ads isn't spam. Some message boards, such as the community boards on craigslist, do not tolerate promotional messages. Frequently these are incorrectly referred to as spam.

CAN-Spam Act -- This is a California law that has become the accepted practice for e-mail promotion. Residents of California were happy with the federal law passed, so they passed a stricter code. The basics of the law requires that you have consent, implicit or explicit, before e-mailing someone with a promotion. The law also requires that the individual be able to opt out a future mailings. Finally, the law requires that each promotional e-mail include the physical address of the company during the promotion. This is a very general overview. If you plan to do e-mail marketing you will need to know more about this law. There have been few prosecutions so far, but the penalties are extreme.

I hope this gives you a little more information.

Please add additional marketing related words in the comments section below, as I know this is far from a comprehensive list.

Photo courtesy of Elektra Grey Photography