Google bring Deskbar search to Windows desktop. Now any website can take advantage of this search technology.Written by Michael Ginzburg
Google's premier of desktop search proves that desktop is an extremely valuable marketing real estate. Google, which holds about 75% of Internet search market, just introduced "Deskbar" – a small desktop application that allows users to search Google directly from their desktops. Google currently rules Internet, but positioning themselves on desktop gives them power to rule not only Internet, but also entire personal computer. Unlike other interactive marketing avenues, such as website and email, desktop is virtually free of advertisements and promotional materials. The desktop is competitor free and just waiting to be claimed. The advantages of desktop search are not limited to Google and their major search engine competitors though. Any website with search technology can take advantage of this new marketing channel including e-commerce and shopping websites, reference sites, online magazines and news sites, and more. So, if you have content on your site that visitors or clients are interested in searching through on a regular basis, what better way to keep them coming back for more than offering them a desktop search tool? If you could offer them a useful downloadable desktop search application, you could ensure that they will remember you and search your site before your competitors. Developing a desktop search tool yourself would be quite costly. Luckily, there is a ready-made desktop search tool that can be customized to work with any website's search.
| | Improve your Website Through the Proper use of Tags, Alt Tags, & Attributes in LinksWritten by Richard Zwicky
Improve Your Web Site Through The Proper Use Of Tags, Alt Tags & Attributes In Links By Richard ZwickyImproved web design, and search engine performance all in one easy step! Believe it or not, it is possible, easy, and really straightforward. There are 3 extremely useful tags and attributes that most people overlook, or do not take advantage of properly. Theses are alt tags, title attributes in links and tags.The reason you want to spend some time focusing on these 3 facets of your web site is simple. Two of them make web site easier to understand and navigate, for people and search engines. The third one is much cleaner than tags, and it works really well for key phrases and terms within search engines. This article deals with merits and value of each of these mostly misused, or ignored opportunities.Alt Tags The first opportunity is one that is most often used, and misused: The alt tag. Alt tags are comments that should be used whenever you add a graphic, or image to a web page. Pictures are worth a thousand words to you and me, but zero to a search engine. An alt tag should be a little bit of short, descriptive text which helps any user (and search engine) understand what reference is pointing to. If you are not aware of what an alt tag looks like, here's an example: The code to make this banner appear is as follows. When you move your mouse over graphic, words appear. The words tell people what graphic refers to, what it is about, and where it leads to. Internally, if you had a hardware store, you could use an image of a power tool link to a "tools" section, with words "Tools & Power Tools" in alt tag. It may be obvious, but most people don't take advantage of this opportunity. Most people don't even have alt tags attached to their images, or have alt tags that look like this - alt="" - not much good, they're blank. That's all search engines, and some old web browsers will see - blank space. Alt tags also afford you an opportunity to give search engines more meaningful content to work with. If you have a graphics rich web site, there's very little to no text for search engine spiders to use to analyze your site. If you attach a relevant alt tag to each image however, search engines will read them as your textual content, and your web site will show up in relevant searches. Even if your website is content rich, alt tags allow you to reinforce what is highly important, key terms, within content. Here's key - use relevant terms. Don't just put "About Us" Use descriptive key terms, such as "About Acme Power Tools". Tags Next, we have tags. Often, when web designers are building pages they use tags, and to emphasize page heading, and subheadings for each section. Whenever you get chance, use tags instead. There are 5 different tags. The largest two - & should be used for major title on each page, and then next three - , & for subheadings. The smallest one, will look just like regular bold text on a page.
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