Dominate Your Local Market!

Ever sent a long URL in an email only to have it break in many of your recipients email program? Email clients sometimes break the lines in a long URL causing them to become unclickable.

BudURL offers shortened URLs that will not break under most circumstances. An added advantage of using BudURLs is link click tracking. Here is how the service is described on the BudURL website:

“BudURL was designed from the start to give small businesses and marketers insight into previously invisible click traffic. Not everyone has access to Google Analytics and most of those that have it don’t know how to use it. BudURL makes link tracking amazingly simple. Shorten the link, put it somewhere, and watch the clicks roll in. It’s that easy!

“BudURL is easy to use! Just paste in a large, unruly web address in the box above and click the “Shrink It!” button. You’ll get a unique BudURL™ that you can use anywhere you’d like such as social networks, instant messages, emails, ad campaigns, electronic newsletters, etc.”

Try it on these two URLs – they take you to the same place.

http://bobstovall.com/how-fast-does-google-index-your-wordpress-posts/

http://budurl.com/googlefast

You can shorten any URL for free on the BudURL website. If you want to track clicks, you’ll need to open a free starter account. More options are available for a small monthly fee, but up to 250 URLs can be added to a free account.

Get a BudURL or open a BudURL account by clicking here.

Internet Marketer Robert Plank has been banned from YouTube (YT). It was supposedly for a Terms of Service violation.

I know Robert and if he says is fully compliant with YouTube’s Terms of Service, I believe him. After all, YT’s Terms of Service are fairly simple and specifically ban copyright infringement, anything illegal, hate speech, etc., none of which Robert’s videos contain.

In his blog post from yesterday, “Banned from YouTube,” Robert explains how he thinks Traffic Geyser may have been involved in his problem. This same problem could occur with other aggregating services as well.

He also gives a few tips on how you can prevent this from happening to you.

This incident points up some interesting issues, not least of which is that those of us who use YT as a content supplier (often of our own content) can end up having dozens of posts and web pages with unviewable videos.

If your YT account is suspended, all the videos you embed that are hosted on YT cease to function. That might not be a disaster for a high school kid posting humorous videos, but it could be deadly for a business website.

How can you avoid that? Host your own videos in Flash (.flv) format yourself (or on Amazon S3 service) and publish them to your blog or website using a player. And hope that those whose videos you embed on your website don’t get banned.

We’ve all heard that posting to a WordPress blog can get your new content indexed quickly. But just HOW quickly?

Last Friday, I posted to my WordPress blog at YourKentuckyHome.com with an Easter holiday related video. YourKentuckyHome.com happens to hold the #1 position for this set of keywords, but that is irrelevant to indexing.

As you can see, within 6 hours, the new post was indexed in Google under my #1 position result. If you’ve waited days or weeks for new content to be indexed on your static website, that’s great news. But even better news is I’ve had posts appear much quicker than that – a few in under an hour.

That’s why I have been so enthused with WordPress blogging since I first tried it several years ago.

Whether you are posting information, or news and opinions, or if you are marketing your service or product, there is no quicker way to get the word out than blogging.

If you are new to blogging, or haven’t taken the plunge yet, there are videos that can take you from newbie to expert in just a few enjoyable hours. Don’t let fear hold you back.

Filling out forms by hand on a clipboard. Having to interrupt the job to drive back to the office for something like a missing work order. Such time-consuming tasks are a thing of the past with the complete range of mobile office features that Ford Work Solutions™ provides.

Full mobile office functionality

A 4-gigabyte computer, developed by Magneti Marelli and powered by Microsoft® Auto, makes your Ford pickup or van a full-functioning mobile office.

Open a word processing or spreadsheet document, generate invoices, or perform a variety of other business tasks – all on a bright, high-resolution 6.5” in-dash screen with wireless keyboard. Load and back up files with the built-in USB port or SD memory card slot. Make prints on an available Ford-certified, Bluetooth®-enabled wireless inkjet printer. And that’s just for starters.

High-speed Internet access

Full Internet connectivity with all your favorite sites is available right from your vehicle with the available high-speed Sprint® Mobile Broadband Network.

Watch the video and read more »

In this engaging talk from the EG’08 conference, New York Times tech columnist David Pogue rounds up some handy cell phone tools and services that can boost your productivity and lower your bills (and your blood pressure).