Posts belonging to Category Internet



Mobile networks | Internet access

The one issue that held mobility back was the availability of mobile networks that were actually useful. Until recently, surfing the Internet on your mobile phone (all other things aside) was like surfing on a dial-up connection or worse. Currently, there are two available mobile data networks: 2G (also called the Edge network) and 3G.

The 2G network transfers data at about 360 Kbps or less. That’s not terrible, but for web sites that are built for broadband and large displays, it does create a slower — sometimes maddening — experience. Still, even a 2G network is tolerable on a mobile platform when working with web sites that are designed for mobile surfing.

The 3G network can be considerably faster. In some areas, the data transfer rate can be as much as 7.2 Mbps, and most of the major wireless carriers now offer 3G network speeds, which reduces much of the irritation that users experienced in the past with mobile Internet access.

Increased network speeds also mean that you can offer your mobile users a richer mobile experience. However, keep in mind that mobile is still not the same as broadband, and the richness of the mobile Internet experience is derived from better features and functionality, not flashier graphics and bandwidth-eating applications.

Mobile devices | Internet Access

Clearly, one of the main factors affecting the mobile user experience is the device with which the user accesses the mobile Web. As mentioned earlier, there are more than 200 different devices available on the cell phone market. Not all of them are even Internet-enabled, but of those that are, many still have screens that are only 1 inch by 1 inch. A few offer screens that are a bit bigger, but not big enough to make the mobile user experience appreciably better.

What has changed the way people connect on the Internet using a mobile device are devices designed much like the iPhone. These devices are all screen, though some have a slide-out keyboard or a digital keyboard on the screen. That overcomes some of the difficulties that users had in the past with entering URLs and information into web forms.

Devices today are also set up to switch seamlessly between mobile network web surfing (meaning surfing the Web on the wireless carrier’s network signal) and Wi-Fi network capabilities (meaning the user can connect to a wireless network, such as the one that’s probably used in your home or office). This switching capability makes it possible for users to access faster download speeds, making the user experience less frustrating.

It also helps preserve the battery life of the device, lack of which is another complaint you’ll often hear from users about surfing the Internet on a mobile device — it eats battery the way a fire consumes dry brush. A Wi-Fi network still consumes a great deal of battery life, but it uses slightly less battery power than what’s required for the carrier’s network.

In general, until more recent generations of wireless devices, none has been specifically designed for surfing the Internet. That’s changing rapidly. The iPhone’s release led to an avalanche of devices that are mostly screen, with increasingly improved methods of input. Now all that remains is building a mobile Web that intersects with visitors’ needs — and that’s the biggest difference between mobile Internet users and those who use a desktop or laptop computer.

SEO Goals

How exactly do you go about SEO? One thing you don’t do is begin trying to implement SEO strategies without defining some sort of goal you want to accomplish. One of the greatest failings of many SEO plans, like all technology plans, is the lack of a clearly defined goal.

The goal for your SEO plan should be built around your business needs, and it’s not something every business requires at the same level. For example, if you run a simple blog, in-depth SEO might be more expense than it’s worth; but if your plans for that blog are to turn it into a brand, then something a little more than the simplest of SEO strategies might be just what you need to build the traffic that begins to establish your brand.

If you have a larger business, say a web site that sells custom-made silk-flower arrangements, one way to increase your business (some estimate by more than 50 percent) is to invest time, money, and considerable effort into optimizing your site for search. Just don’t do it without a goal in mind. In the case of a silk-flower web site, one goal might be to increase the amount of traffic your web site receives. Another might be to increase your exposure to potential customers outside your geographic region.

Those are both good reasons to implement an SEO plan. Another reason you might consider investing in SEO is to increase your revenues, which you can do by funneling site visitors through a sales transaction while they are visiting your web site. SEO can help with that, too.

In other words, before you even begin to put together an SEO plan, the first thing you need to do is determine what goal you want to achieve with that plan. Be sure it is a well-articulated and specifically defined goal, too. The more specific it is, the closer you will come to hitting it.

For example, a goal to ‘‘increase web-site traffic’’ is far too broad. Of course you want to increase your web-site traffic. That’s the overarching goal of any SEO plan. However, if you change that goal to ‘‘increase the number of visitors who complete a transaction of at least $25,’’ you are much more likely to implement the SEO that will indeed help you reach that goal.

Make sure the goal is specific and attainable. Otherwise, it’s very easy to become unfocused with your SEO efforts. In some cases, you can spend all your time chasing SEO and never accomplish anything. As mentioned previously, search engines regularly change the criteria for ranking sites. They started doing this when internal, incoming, and external links became a factor in SEO. Suddenly, every webmaster was rushing to add as many additional links as possible, and often those links were completely unrelated to the site. That led to a sudden and often meaningless rise in page links. It wasn’t long before the linking criteria had to be qualified with additional requirements.

Today, link strategies are quite complex and must abide by a set of rules or your web site could be banned from some search engines for what’s called SEO spam, or the practice of targeting a specific element or criteria of search engine ranking with the intention of becoming one of the highest-ranked sites on the Web. If you establish an SEO goal, however, you’re more likely to have a balanced traffic flow, which will improve your search engine ranking naturally.

In addition to well-focused goals, you should also consider how your SEO goals align with your business goals. Business goals should be the overall theme for everything you do with your web site, and if your SEO goals are not created with the intent of furthering those business goals, you’ll find that the SEO goals ultimately fail. Make sure that any goal you set for optimizing your site for search is a goal that works well within the parameters that are set by your overall business goals.

Finally, remain flexible at all times. It’s fine to set a goal, or even a set of goals, and hold tightly to them. Just don’t hold so tightly that the goals get in the way of performing great SEO activities. SEO goals and plans, like any others, must be flexible and grow with your organization. For this reason, it’s always a good idea to review your SEO goals and plans periodically — at least every six months, and quarterly is better.

It is free, it is powerful.

Internet is a very powerful tool to promote anything, but getting on the top of the line is quite hard actually. There are lots of optimization stuffs that have to be done and I am not too professional to do all that. Anyway, what I am doing is look for those free ones like free directory submissions, a very useful system and yet free. These are good, because you won’t spend a single penny by doing so. All you have to do is to create lots of good contents for your viewers to keep coming back.

I like to buy stuffs.

I always surf the Internet to look for some useful things and stuffs. Like just when I wanted to buy valuable things for my guitar collections. But most of the times, the seller doesn’t want to accept my credit card. They said that what I have is not on their list of accepted credit cards. Easy for them to say when it’s hard for me to accept the thought that they were the only one that sells that specific thing. My brother told me to use the merchant services, he said that it’s very convenient when times like this. Well in my part, I think it is a great solution.