UK Webmaster World first attempt at running and SEO contest kicks of today. The contest, title seocontest2008 started at 12 midnight today, the 1st of February 2008.
Webmasters and SEO consultants from all over the English speaking world are competing, not just for the cash Prize of $1,000 but the recognition of being crowed winner.
You can find out more about the contest at SEO Contest pages . You can join the discussion about the contest at SEO contest discussion thread.

Over the last few years social networking has been steadily gaining popularity among Internet users. With hundreds of thousands of registered users and new networking sites created daily if used properly social networking can be very powerful source of traffic to your site. Even though traffic from social networking sites may be not the best quality and may not get you many conversions but it’s free and may have positive effect.

I will describe on the example of StumbleUpon since it’s one of the most popular networks how you can take advantage of social bookmarking sites.

One of important steps is creating a “name” for yourself. By “name” I mean not login or screen name. You want to earn respect from other members.
All websites you bookmark or vote for will be listed in your profile, so bookmarking junk will not help your reputation. From this point of view you need to be careful participating in stumble exchanges like it is very popular on Digital Point forums. Always check if site you are voting for worth recommending, same way as would you place link to it on your own website. Try to stay active and submit something new at least once a week.

Second step is creating network of “friends”. More virtual friends you have – better success you can expect from your website marketing efforts.
Every time you submit new site or vote for someone else’s – your vote will show up on your mutual friends pages. If your friend like the resource you have submitted he will likely to vote or comment on it. Instantly your submission will appear on his or hers friends pages. In other words it’s a pyramid effect at it’s best. If your submission is good and gets enough votes to make it to the front page – you better hope that your server can handle amount of traffic you are going to receive…
Join groups and try to find friends with similar interests – this will increase chances that they will agree to be your friends and vote for your submissions.
Don’t spam your virtual friends with some unsolicited offers or constant requests to vote for your submissions – you risk to lose them!

When submitting new resource try to write relevant title and detailed descriptions. First it will work as a link bait inviting users to visit your site for more information. Second – you will get back link to your site with relevant content and key phrase as an anchor. In addition to sending extra traffic to your site these bookmarks on social networking sites will have positive effect on your website SERPs.

One more time I suggest to be careful with participating in vote exchanges or purchasing votes – most of the time it’s useless since these “paid” visitors are not interested in the content of your site and most likely don’t have many virtual friends who would trust theirs recommendations. If you decided to try one of those exchanges I would suggest to check other peoples threads instead of starting your own. This way you can chose who are you voting for and than ask to return the favor (better by PM).

This is basically it. There are some differences between social networking sites but principle is the same – submit new resources and rate resources submitted by other users. I have been using social networking technique to promote many different sites and result was always the same – increased traffic.

Yes, this is that time again – UK Webmaster World is accepting nominations for December Website Of The Month contest.

This month contest has more juice than ever before! The prize for the winner is a great free advertising package on UKWW network and some more…

The winner of December Website of The Month content will get:

– Banner advertising on the UK Webmaster Forum home page for the month of January. – Detailed review in the Featured Websites section of this blog – Featured listing in the UK Webmaster Directory – Free 25 Rating points listing on World Web Directory

To nominate your website you must be registered member of UK Webmaster World community so don’t miss your chance to compete for the price – join UKWW.

To find out more details about the contest or become a member visit UK Webmaster Forum

Hello everyone,

Early this morning I have found in my inbox an email from Google. At the beginign I though that it is a spam, but after I discover that is an invitation to test Google Analytics.

So I procede to register myself. The process is quite simple and intuitive and has not rise any problem. All I have to do is to insert a code in enery page I want to monitorise.

This application is available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Russian, and seamlessly integrated with AdWords, Google Analytics provides the actionable information you need to improve your site content, optimize your ad campaigns, and boost your ROI.

Bellow you can see some features and screenshots.

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