Next Generation Language and Programming Tools Ready to Go

On Monday November 7th Microsoft is finally taking the wraps off the next generation of programming and web development tools with the release of ASP.NET 2.0, Visual Studio 2005, and Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

The improvements are simply incredible. If you are still programming using ASP (what is commonly referred to as "classic ASP") you simply must take the time to jump on the bandwagon and learn ASP.NET.  Using legacy ASP code versus ASP.NET 2.0 is like saddling up the horse to ride to the blacksmith shop instead of jumping in your Ferrari and zooming over to Bloomingdales.

We are ready!  We have installed a brand new server to host ASP.NET 2.0 sites and we are ready to accept orders now!

If you have an existing dot NET hosting plan and would like to use ASP.NET 2.0, contact us and we'll migrate your account to the new server absolutely free of charge.

If you would like to start using ASP.NET 2.0, simply choose any of our dot net hosting plans to get started:  http://www.voicegateway.com/services/dotnet_hosting/default.htm

For tutorials, info, and tons of assistance in learning to program with ASP.NET, be sure and visit Microsoft's site at http://www.asp.net

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This month we have a guest editorial on search engine optimization from the experts at Bloofusion.  We continue to receive a lot of inquiries about "how do I get my website listed high on Google" so we asked some of the experts and here's what they have to say:

Introduction:
Search Engine Placement (SEP) is the practice of making a website show up at the top of search engine queries. For example, if your website sells organic flytraps, you want a search for "organic flytraps" to list your site at the very top of the Google results page.

The bottom line is that it takes skill and effort to effectively boost your site's search engine visibility. As Markus Hoevener of Bloofusion Group puts it, "You get what you pay for. There are a lot of scam artists in this industry who promise guaranteed instant results, top ten placement on all key search engines, and so on. But in reality, there are no silver bullet solutions."

Optimization:
"Search engines rank pages based on how relevant they are to certain keyword combinations. For example, if your organic flytrap information page includes the term "organic flytrap" in the title and twice in the upper part of the page text, it will be considered more relevant than a web page with the same words appearing only once in the lower portion of the page."

This relevance ranking is of vital importance in getting the link to your web page to show up on the first result page returned by a search engine. It is important to place this word or phrase throughout your site in page titles, text links, meta descriptions, and body text. But how do you determine what keywords to target?

Keyword Research:
Markus explains the importance of finding the right keywords: "Language is inherently ambiguous, and although humans are very good at determining precise meanings through context, computers don't have that ability. So you need to do some work up front to help the search engine find your information more easily."

Overture's Search Term Suggestion Tool is a widely-used free tool that can help you evaluate which keywords are most frequently searched for by search engine users. It will ask you for a keyword (e.g. "flytrap") and display related keywords and phrases that you might use (e.g. "odorless flytrap", "organic flytrap"). The tool will reveal how many times each phrase was searched for in the preceeding month.

Link Optimization:
"People often underestimate the importance of link popularity," says Markus. "The fact is, the more popular and relevant sites you have linked to your own, the higher search engines will rank your site. It's just part of the overall equation for determining search engine results, but it's an important one."

Google's free Google Toolbar allows you to determine the link popularity of a given page. A Page Rank of zero indicates a site that is not linked to by any other sites, while a Page Rank of ten is reserved for sites like Amazon, eBay, and Google, which are all linked to by thousands of other sites.

Just as with everything else in the world of SEP, there are nuances to link optimization. For example, Markus advocates focusing your attention on being linked to only by sites that have a higher Page Rank. "Developing a linking strategy with another site that only has a Page Rank of 2 or 3 is generally a waste of effort," he cautions.

Pay Per Click:
While a thorough SEP program usually takes between 60 and 90 days to properly implement, you can also advertise directly with search engines using a Pay Per Click campaign. There are several ad services, from Overture to Google AdWords to FindWhat, and they all offer different pricing and results. As Markus points out, "It is critical to evaluate each service thoroughly, and to properly research your search term keywords so you can maximize your return on investment."

Links:
Bloofusion Group - www.bloofusion.com

 

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How do you make your website exciting and stand out from the crowd?  This month we are featuring High Hook Fishing Tours located at http://www.fishinginamazon.com They get right to point and explain that High Hook Fishing Tours operates adventure sportfishing destinations located in South America, designed for the discriminating fisherman.

In addition to the usual text and graphics, the site makes good use of multimedia.  They have posted videos on the site ( http://www.fishinginamazon.com/videos.htm ) and make sure they are available in multiple resolutions while keeping the length just right - not too long and not too short.

The site owners went to a lot of effort to have the videos professionally edited and encoded so they asked us to help them with a solution for determining how often they are downloaded and watched.

We recommended the use of our advanced LiveStats.NET real-time statistics tracking and they implemented the special "downloadable media tracking" which gives specific information on all downloads from their site.

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