the blog: NetArgument-Online Skills!

Google Adwords Voucher and Top Placement Scams

In the past 3-4 years, Google has sent me 20 vouchers worth Rs5000/- each every quarter, every year. I have allowed them go down the drain, and have no regrets at all. I am not the only person receiving them, Google is kind enough to send them to every X, Y, Z in this industry, some of whom it dubiously calls Authorized!

Whenever, I have advertised, that I have vouchers to dispose, I have got calls from scammers form different part of the world. Some have even confided they are only using vouchers to run campaign on regular basis. I myself have observed, campaigns running on vouchers seldom goes beyond it. They make all the righteous claim that they are a new advertiser, but hey where you disappear after that?? I am strongly advocating completely doing away with vouchers. I doubt the percentage of genuine advertisers running campaign on free voucher is more than 10. Google Adwords is a reasonably old program, I have little reason to believe, most advertisers haven’t used this once.

There are multiple ways in which this scam is done. Some are making packages where you get unlimited clicks in limited time period. Here, the person promising has no cost involved at all, and can extract anything from advertisers. Some are promising highest placement and clicks, because they only need to insert voucher code into account. This has distorted the complete dynamics of this market. I was shocked, when a very reputed company asked me to explain these packages, and why that is not a better deal than what I offer. Surely, they are offering a better deal, with a very strong chance of you getting banned for advertising on Google forever. If you can afford getting banned in the long run, then you may try them. I offer no such scheme. Anybody who doesn’t offer you access to your adwords account and is not transparent with what goes to google and what goes to him, is not a good person to deal with.

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Wikipedia: The New Age Porn Magazine!

“But I heard it is an encyclopedia!”.

You heard right, but that is how every Porn site, who are serious about their business masks themselves. Didn’t Jimbo tell you his Bomis.com was actually somewhat adult in content and not porn! In a typical wikipedia style I would first define what is porn, before arriving at any kind of judgement. As per dictionary.com

obscene writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, especially those having little or no artistic merit.

:::Ramesh, you got it wrong here! It says “having little or no artistic merit” but wikipedia has immense artistic value. You should first get your perception of art right. When you search Michael Arrington on google the first link is wikipedia article on him, which tells you The Fucking incidence of his life at great length. Had it been porn our elder brother Google would not have indexed it at all. So, your perception is entirely wrong, because what is art can’t be called Porn. See, how we Wikipedian, promoted an obscure Yahoo CEO, through a high traffic page. But, you should know We never accept ads on our site.

The page you are showing, has messed all the information about him. It rather discusses things of fringe value to the reader and omits many notable facts. Is this what one should know before knowing the basic facts about him. My take on the entire article is that someone is deliberately trying to make a villain out of a hero.

:::You know, anybody can edit this Wikipedia. so, if you feel something is wrong you are welcome to edit this page. Though, you should take care, we have editors already involved there, so, you should not add anything with which they disagree. Move by consensus, otherwise we have admins who can block you. We greatly value neutral point of view.

First of all, You must know, I was searching for information about him. So, my position is Knowledge Seeker, how I can provide knowledge about something which I myself don’t know. Are all your editors too similar kind of Seekers who have become providers. Second point is How can I have consensus with people with whom I clearly disagree, and they frequently quote hyperlinked rules which they themselves keep on violating.

:::You see nobody knows anything perfectly, and for anything you don’t know you should Google. Google and Wikipedia goes hand in hand. Google always shows Wikipedia in the first position, which contains all the information that other 9 links below can provide you. So, we do a great service by consolidating all the information from every poor website that ranks below us, but we do take care that our editors write it in their own language, and they do mix their own expert knowledge in them. Your second point can be answered in this way that We also have a rule that allows us to break all the rules. So, whereas a newbie like you should observe all the rules, a veteran there is above every rule. You know most of them are admins or enjoy the protection of an admin.

In other words are you telling me that you have Cabals there, and all your articles are outcome of their bias and prejudices, which also somehow maligns the original authors you guy cite.

::: Everybody hates someone, and they get delighted to see something bad written about someone on the top page served by Google. That motivates them to contribute more to our site, and also show it to others. These people get complete security under the cover of anonymity, and with time they grow up as our admins. So, what they cannot write anywhere else, they can write here. Since, they also know something about other topics like science and philosophy, they contribute there too. In this way we have grown into such a big website. We have cabals

I think you qualify as a porn site and not as an encyclopedia. Porn too delight people and are shared with similar intent, but is a recognized social evil.

::: See you cannot come up with such claim without a reliable source. You either find a forum of your choice or get a blog. As I told you, we do not fit into the description of porn, per the dictionary definition, because we all are so artful. Our founder Jimmy Wales is hailed as a Spiritual Leader.

I have a blog and I am fully responsible for everything I write here. You too dare to sign your work. You may not entirely fit into Porn category, but you are a very close extension of what pornography is, a kind of New Age Porn.

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Online Encyclopedias: Wikipedia Still Rules!

An encyclopedia is must for first hand information on anything we want to learn. We frequently come across various terms and concepts which we are not familiar with and then try to get some information about it.

For over a century people have relied upon Britannica Encyclopedia, which for many is still the Gold standard in this field. However, the ease of search on internet has spoilt our habit and we have sacrificed accuracy of knowledge in favor of what satisfy us fast and easily.

To fulfill this need of fast and free content on the internet were born several online versions of encyclopedia. First one which I could trace was MSN Encarta, which though was not free, effectively, took the attention off from Britannica Encyclopedia. MSN Encarta closed completely in 2009.

First genuine attempt to create truly free encyclopedia on the web came in the form of Nupedia, which reincarnated as Wikipedia in 2001. This open source, free to read and edit encyclopedia has more or less established itself as a good resource and despite its inherent limitations it just can’t be ignored.

However, Wikipedia has been criticized for its inaccuracies, bureaucracy , polluting the web with anonymous false facts, providing platform for criminals to publish illegal misinformation, and for what people have termed it –“The Single Most Dangerous Website on the Internet”.

To fix its inaccuracies and inherent problems with wikipedia, its co-founder Larry Sanger, started Citizendium. Citizendium aims for the articles to reach an approved status, accorded by its editorial team. They are also known for verifying the actual credentials of the editors. However, it has been learnt that it is more bureaucratic and reportedly the environment there is more uncivil than wikipedia. Some users have even complained that Sanger himself is the most abusive person there. As a result it could not grow as per expectations and with time number of users have drastically come down. It has also been learnt that it has been into financial crisis too.

If you want a very high standard of reliable content, then Scholarpedia may be the right option for you. This encyclopedia can be edited only by people with proven credentials. You shall have to apply for becoming an editor there and you would be approved to edit the topics which they consider you fit for. Given its structure, its growth is very limited and slow, and doesn’t offer you content on all kind of topics.

The most serious competitor of Wikipedia ever was and possibly is to the present day is, Google’s Knol. Although, it had been perceived as Wikipedia Killer initially, there is no immediate threat to wikipedia from this. Google has done little for this project except for allocating a server and bunch of softwares. The project suffers critically from Google’s indifferent attitude and has been frustrating enough to compel its best contributors to leave the project. Shortly few months before there were rumors about Google going to shut down this program. Despite all speculations Google’s Knol is still there, though they are not paying any attention to enforce the terms of services on users there because of alleged lack of interest and human resources from Google. As a result of which it has become spammers’ paradise.

Google Knol’s structure provided some definite edge over wikipedia and other similar sites. It has no bureaucracy and you can write alone or in team. Some of the knol members had formed Knol Publishing Guild, which promoted a value system among knol writers. To display its badge, one needed to have got approved after writing a bio knol and shown some degree of proficiency on the subject. It is all history now. After Google itself donated to Wikipedia recently, users have taken it as a sign of disinterest from the side of Google. Several knol writers have started feeling that Google is slowly killing this project. So, unless Google shows some major sign of revamping the system, it is taken as- dying a slow death.

Apart from Citizendium and Google Knol, no encyclopedia or anything like that has wikipedia like ambition. Though it is too early to write off either Knol or Citizendium, it looks less likely that they would be competing with Wikipedia in near future.

P.S.----> Google to Shut Down Knol, officially reported on 11/22/2011 01:40:00 PM.

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10 important things to do immediately after starting a BlogSpot blog

10 things that will supercharge your blog. Immediately, after starting your blogspot blog, you require some customization, which gives it professional look and also helps it perform well on search engines.

Remove/Hide the Top Blogger bar.

Add the Following line of code by going to Edit HTML (Expand Widget):

#navbar-iframe{height:0px; visibility:hidden; display:none}
body{ margin-top:0px; position:relative; top:2px}

which should look like this after adding the code:

<b:skin><![CDATA[/*
-----------------------------------------------
Blogger Template Style
Name:     Simple


----------------------------------------------- */
#navbar-iframe{height:0px; visibility:hidden; display:none}
body{ margin-top:0px; position:relative; top:2px}
Split the Header into two columns

. Although, blogger has launched many designer templates, none till date, has split header by default. So, you need to insert extra section in Header to get two column headers. Two column header helps you insert extra widget in that area. Find the following code, by going to edit HTML in your blogger control panel, leaving Expand option unticked: <b:section class='header' id='header' maxwidgets='1'showaddelement='no'>. Just after </b:section>, insert the following code:
```
<b:section id='header-right' showaddelement='yes'/>
<div style='clear: both;'/>                                                 
```
Now Find the    ]]></b:skin>    and add the following line of code just before it:
#header {width:20%;display:inline-block;float:left;}
#header-right {width:80%;display:inline-block;float:right;padding:0px;}
#header-right .widget {margin:0;}

After saving the template, go to add page element, choose the image only option, and insert Logo in Header Left, and description or Adsense in header right column. Here, for those who have opted for image only option in Header, need to tweak the template again. So, go back to edit HTML, and, find below code:


      <div id='header-inner'>
        <a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl' style='display: block'>
          <img expr:alt='data:title' expr:height='data:height' expr:id='data:widget.instanceId + "_headerimg"' expr:src='data:sourceUrl' expr:width='data:width' style='display: block'/>
        </a>      Replace this code with one given below:


      <div id='header-inner'>
        <a expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl' style='display: block'>
          <img expr:alt='data:title' expr:height='data:height' expr:id='data:widget.instanceId + "_headerimg"' expr:src='data:sourceUrl' expr:width='data:width' style='display: block'/>
        </a><div class='titlewrapper' style='display:none'>
        <h1 class='title'>
          <b:include name='title'/>
        </h1>
      </div>
Change Post Title tag to write search engine friendly headlines.

Blogger, by default has Blog Title, into header description. it reduces the real estate of first 150 characters, which are of so importance these days. Your important, headlines goes with blog title to all important services updates, including your posts’ Search engine description. Just go to Edit HTML, and find <data:blog.pageTitle/>. Replace it with the following line of code: <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "index"'>
<title><data:blog.title/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageName/></title>
</b:if>
Show more posts on home page. SEO the archives

. Read this/Expand the post feature also, indexes your archived pages by April, May, June… Which helps Search engines to index it in this way. To automatically get the post thumbnails on your home page, copy & paste the following code, just after the </head> tag in your template:                                                                                                          <script type='text/javascript'>
var thumbnail_mode = "yes"; //yes -with thumbnail, no -no thumbnail
summary_noimg = 430; //summary length when no image
summary_img = 340; //summary length when with image
img_thumb_height = 125;
img_thumb_width = 150;
</script>
<script type='text/javascript'>
//<![CDATA[
function removeHtmlTag(strx,chop){
    if(strx.indexOf("<")!=-1)
    {
        var s = strx.split("<");
        for(var i=0;i<s.length;i++){
            if(s[i].indexOf(">")!=-1){
                s[i] = s[i].substring(s[i].indexOf(">")+1,s[i].length);
            }
        }
        strx = s.join("");
    }
    chop = (chop < strx.length-1) ? chop : strx.length-2;
    while(strx.charAt(chop-1)!=' ' && strx.indexOf(' ',chop)!=-1) chop++;
    strx = strx.substring(0,chop-1);
    return strx+'...';
} function createSummaryAndThumb(pID){
    var div = document.getElementById(pID);
    var imgtag = "";
    var img = div.getElementsByTagName("img");
    var summ = summary_noimg;
        if(thumbnail_mode == "yes") {
    if(img.length>=1) {
        imgtag = '<span style="float:left; padding:0px 10px 5px 0px;"><img src="'+img[0].src+'" width="'+img_thumb_width+'px" height="'+img_thumb_height+'px"/></span>';
        summ = summary_img;
    }
    }
    var summary = imgtag + '<div align=justify>' + removeHtmlTag(div.innerHTML,summ) + '</div>';
    div.innerHTML = summary;
}
//]]>
</script>                                                                                                     After this save the template, tick the expand widget option and find <data:post.body/>, in your template. Replace this line with the following code:                               <!—Netargument.com Read This code Start --><b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "static_page"'>
<data:post.body/><b:else/>
<div expr:id='"summary" + data:post.id'>
<data:post.body/>
</div><script type='text/javascript'>
createSummaryAndThumb("summary<data:post.id/>");</script>
<div style='clear: both;'/>
<span class='rmlink' style='float:right;padding-top:5px;'><a expr:href='data:post.url'><b>Read This >></b></a></span></b:if></b:if>                                                 <!—Netargument.com Read This code End –>                                                                                                          Now, Preview and Save the template. This will create thumbnail of posts on home page, labels and archives. This also helps search engines index your archives by months like March, April…
Insert Meta tags for home page and other pages.

Use of conditional tags to help the search engines, index the pages, and prevent content duplicate listings. To help search engines index your blog by proper keywords and descriptions, you should write meta tags for home page. Just copy the meta tags from below, alter it suitably and paste after <head> in your template: <b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:blog.homepageUrl'>
<meta content=' DESCRIBE YOUR BLOG HERE AS YOU WANT TO APPEAR ON SEARCH PAGES ' name='description'/></b:if>
<meta content='WRITE 8-10 KEYWORDS HERE RELEVANT TO YOUR BLOG' name='keywords'/> If you want to write Description for other pages too, simply add this code: <b:if cond='data:blog.url == "WRITE YOUR POST/PAGE URL HEREquot;'><meta content='DESCRIBE THE CONTENT OF THE PAGE' name='description'/></b:if>
Change default comment permalink.

Blogger default comment permalink adds “?’ attribute to the page url with comment id in post url. Google will then see as an issue of duplicate title tag. To avoid this, you need to change the ‘?’ attribute to “#”. This can be achieved by replacing the default code which is like this: <a expr:href='"#comment-" + data:comment.id' title='comment permalink'> <data:comment.timestamp/> to this one: <b:if cond='data:post.commentPagingRequired'>

<a expr:href='data:comment.url' title='comment permalink'> <data.comment.timestamp/> </a>

<b:else/>

<a expr:href='data:blog.url + "#" + data:comment.anchorName' title='comment permalink'> <data:comment.timestamp/> </a>

</b:if>
Bottom Page number for posts, archives and labels.

Insert the code just before </b:skin> in your template:                                                                                                         .showpageNum a {
text-decoration:none;
border: 1px solid #ccc;
margin:0 3px;
padding:3px;
}
.showpageNum a:hover {
border: 1px solid #ccc;
background-color:#ccc;
}
.showpagePoint {
color:#333;
text-decoration:none;
border: 1px solid #ccc;
background: #ccc;
margin:0 3px;
padding:3px;
}
.showpageOf {
text-decoration:none;
padding:3px;
margin: 0 3px 0 0;
}
.showpage a {
text-decoration:none;
border: 1px solid #ccc;
padding:3px;
}
.showpage a:hover {
text-decoration:none;
}
.showpageNum a:link,.showpage a:link {
text-decoration:none;
color:#333;
}                                                                                                                 Save the template, return again to Edit HTML, and leave the Expand widget unticked. Press ctrlF and find Blog1. This should take you to following line of code:                                                                   <b:widget id='Blog1' locked='false' title='Blog Posts' type='Blog'/>
<b:widget id='HTML12' locked='false' title='' type='HTML'/>
<b:widget id='HTML2' locked='false' title='' type='HTML'/>
</b:section>                                                                                                                  Immediately after </b:section>, add the following line of code:                                                                                                            <script type="text/javascript"> function showpageCount(json) {
var thisUrl = location.href;
var htmlMap = new Array();
var isFirstPage = thisUrl.substring(thisUrl.length-5,thisUrl.length)==".com/";
var isLablePage = thisUrl.indexOf("/search/label/")!=-1;
var isPage = thisUrl.indexOf("/search?updated")!=-1;
var thisLable = isLablePage ? thisUrl.substr(thisUrl.indexOf("/search/label/")+14,thisUrl.length) : "";
thisLable = thisLable.indexOf("?")!=-1 ? thisLable.substr(0,thisLable.indexOf("?")) : thisLable;
var thisNum = 1;
var postNum=1;
var itemCount = 0;
var fFlag = 0;
var eFlag = 0;
var html= '';
var upPageHtml ='';
var downPageHtml =''; var pageCount = 14;
var displayPageNum = 10;
var upPageWord = 'Previous';
var downPageWord = 'Next';var labelHtml = '<span class="showpageNum"><a href="/search/label/'+thisLable+'?&max-results='+pageCount+'">';for(var i=0, post; post = json.feed.entry[i]; i++) {
var timestamp = post.published.$t.substr(0,10);
var title = post.title.$t;
if(isLablePage){
if(title!=''){
if(post.category){
for(var c=0, post_category; post_category = post.category[c]; c++) {
if(encodeURIComponent(post_category.term)==thisLable){
if(itemCount==0 || (itemCount % pageCount ==(pageCount-1))){
if(thisUrl.indexOf(timestamp)!=-1 ){
thisNum = postNum;
}postNum++;
htmlMap[htmlMap.length] = '/search/label/'+thisLable+'?updated-max='+timestamp+'T00%3A00%3A00%2B08%3A00&max-results='+pageCount;
}
}
}
}//end if(post.category){itemCount++;
}}else{
if(title!=''){
if(itemCount==0 || (itemCount % pageCount ==(pageCount-1))){
if(thisUrl.indexOf(timestamp)!=-1 ){
thisNum = postNum;
}if(title!='') postNum++;
htmlMap[htmlMap.length] = '/search?updated-max='+timestamp+'T00%3A00%3A00%2B08%3A00&max-results='+pageCount;
}
}
itemCount++;
}
} for(var p =0;p< htmlMap.length;p++){
if(p>=(thisNum-displayPageNum-1) && p<(thisNum+displayPageNum)){
if(fFlag ==0 && p == thisNum-2){
if(thisNum==2){
if(isLablePage){
upPageHtml = labelHtml + upPageWord +'</a></span>';
}else{
upPageHtml = '<span class="showpage"><a href="/">'+ upPageWord +'</a></span>';
}
}else{
upPageHtml = '<span class="showpage"><a href="'+htmlMap[p]+'">'+ upPageWord +'</a></span>';
}fFlag++;
}if(p==(thisNum-1)){
html += '<span class="showpagePoint">'+thisNum+'</span>';
}else{
if(p==0){
if(isLablePage){
html = labelHtml+'1</a></span>';
}else{
html += '<span class="showpageNum"><a href="/">1</a></span>';
}
}else{
html += '<span class="showpageNum"><a href="'+htmlMap[p]+'">'+ (p+1) +'</a></span>';
}
}if(eFlag ==0 && p == thisNum){
downPageHtml = '<span class="showpage"> <a href="'+htmlMap[p]+'">'+ downPageWord +'</a></span>';
eFlag++;
}
}//end if(p>=(thisNum-displayPageNum-1) && p<(thisNum+displayPageNum)){
}//end for(var p =0;p< htmlMap.length;p++){if(thisNum>1){
if(!isLablePage){
html = ''+upPageHtml+' '+html +' ';
}else{
html = ''+upPageHtml+' '+html +' ';
}
}html = '<div class="showpageArea"><span style="COLOR: #000;" class="showpageOf"> Pages ('+(postNum-1)+')</span>'+html;if(thisNum<(postNum-1)){
html += downPageHtml;}if(postNum==1) postNum++;
html += '</div>';if(isPage || isFirstPage || isLablePage){
var pageArea = document.getElementsByName("pageArea");
var blogPager = document.getElementById("blog-pager");if(postNum <= 2){
html ='';
}for(var p =0;p< pageArea.length;p++){
pageArea[p].innerHTML = html;
}if(pageArea&&pageArea.length>0){
html ='';
}if(blogPager){
blogPager.innerHTML = html;
}
}}
</script><script src="/feeds/posts/summary?alt=json-in-script&callback=showpageCount&max-results=99999"; type="text/javascript"></script>                                    Preview the template. This won’t show you any impact, but it’s a safety against any code error. Save it, and you would find the page numbers on home page.
Style/Remove Older Post, Newer Post link

Following code will add style to the below post older/newer/home link. Just go to Designer>Advanced>Add CSS, and paste this: #blog-pager-older-link, #blog-pager-newer-link, .home-link{background:#FFF0B7; padding: 5px 5px 5px 5px; } If you want to completely remove them use this code instead: #blog-pager-older-link, #blog-pager-newer-link, .home-link{background:#FFF0B7; padding: 5px 5px 5px 5px; display:none;}
Remove Subscribe link below the post body.

Subscribe link below the post looks ugly and should be removed. Just find the following code: <b:include name=’feedLinks’/> in your template, delete and save. It is gone.
Add Favicon:

Choose a favicon, host it on web preferably in ico/png format(check favicongenerator.com), and paste the following code just before </head> in your template: <link href='YOUR-FAVICON-URL' rel='shortcut icon'/>
<link href='YOUR-FAVICON-URL' rel='icon'/>

In addition to all the above I also recommend using an offline Blog Editing software. I myself use and recommend windows live Writer for windows and Blogilo for ubuntu.

Top Resources:

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1+9Bold Ideas for Writing Google Adwords Ad Text/Ad Copy that Performs!

In 2006, I started using “Keyword?” in Ad Text Headlines. It was my original bold decision, which many initially termed Bizarre! I had not seen anybody doing this before. However, after six months, I could find many ads written in the same way, on different search result pages of Google. Later, I learnt, Google customer support staff are recommending it. It was a quick fire solution for CTR enhancement, that works for every campaign. Lesson to be learnt- You can’t call an Ad, bizarre, till stats prove it.

Since then, I have made it a norm, to test at least one ad text, in every campaign, which you may term as a bold idea. I am sharing with you some of them that has become part of my ad arsenal.

Space before exclamation(!) Mark:

I seldom use exclamation like, Now!. Instead, I prefer to write, Now !, unless I am compelled by the space limitation. It emphasizes, your exclamation mark.
Long Display URL:

Write Long display URL to draw attention towards your ad. Character limitations are surely there, but if You use, dynamic insertion like, DisplayURL/{keywor:word}, it goes beyond that limit. DisplayURL/{keyword} too works,you get error message in Adwords Editor only.
Yes Sure! :

This is my phrase, which I have used like my trademark on every campaign. Better, let the whole work say it. However, if you have limitation of space, just use this phrase, at the end of the copy. I promise you, it Works like a magic.
Three Dots Magic(…):

Credit of using this as a technique and publically publishing it, goes to Mind Valley Labs. They had figured out, it works best, at the end of the copy. However, I could find, in addition to what they have found, it works great at the middle and even at the start of the last line. Like: Want Proof… Yes Sure!, “Fast Courier Service. /New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore…/ … On time delivery everywhere!”
Inverted Commas(“”).

Use inverted commas in First and second line, for better results. “Most honest Deal I ever Had!”
Use of Special Characters:

Use of special characters, like copyright and Registered, symbols, draws attention towards your ad. Use of currency symbols too have good impact.
Writing Ad texts in language, which users know but is not using as a keyword:

Writing Ad texts in Hindi while targeting India, in Urdu while targeting Pakistan, in Arabic while targeting Middle East, in Spanish while targeting Latin America, for ad groups containing English language keywords. It draws the attention of users who knows the language, and your ad looks Unique!
Use of Symbol “&”, at the End of Line1(Headline):

This symbol at the end of the Line1, plays the magic. It surely enhances CTR and conversion rate. Readers are involuntarily forced to read the second line and it increases their interest level. Use it like: Just pay Rs7000 &/Stop losing Millions in………
Use of Conversion Boosting Words:

“Easy” is a word that surely improves your ad copy. All its variants work very well. Use it like, Easy, Easily, with great ease etc. Higher you place it in the copy, more impact it makes. Similar other words are, Just (works best with Pay!), Yes!(preferably with sure).

I believe,You must be having your own list too. Kindly Share.

fb_xd_fragment, Fix for Blogger powered Blogs & Websites

While going through analytics last year I found a large number of urls with query string ?fb_xd_fragment=. While going to this link in a browser, I found, it displays the page for a while and then it goes white. It has been a big problem for a lot of websites, which uses FB Java SDK for like buttons. Someone, in facebook developers' forum recommended using the following code just before the </body> tag to solve this problem.

document.getElementsByTagName('html')[0].style.display='block';

</script>

This fixed the problem for a long time, till it started once again, when I replaced the like button with, Like+Send button. A large number of pages, in analytics were showing the same query string with same problem. I was losing a big chunk of my traffic. I inspected once again if code installed has got corrupted, and hence pasted it there once again. It produced no impact on how the pages with that query string were served. Google has started indexing the pages with these query strings, and that is what has caused the problem. A blogger has suggested the following fix for this problem, which seems to work in most of the cases.

1/ Change your FB.init to the following

FB.init({appId: appId, status: true, cookie: true, xfbml: true, channelUrl: 'http://example.com/channel.html'});

// ^ channel URL above used to workaround fb_xd_fragment bug

2/ Create the static file for http://example.com/channel.html with the following content:

However, a blogspost blog cannot host a .js file. You need to host it on some other website. The solution is not the best for a blogspot blogger.

Fortunately, a member of Facebook Developer forum has given his own script and it works perfectly for blogger. You just need to paste it after opening <body> tag.

if(window.document.location.href.match('fb_xd_fragment')!=null)

{

var reg=/\?/

window.document.location.href.match('fb_xd_fragment');

var start=window.document.location.href.search(reg)

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Baba Ramdev, Anna Hazare, Poonam Pandey… Twitter Trending Hazards!

Twitter Trending Hazards

Twitter trending is an effective way to get more attention by throwing your weight into a trending topic.

A lot of people in your timeline talks about it and you too get tempted to throw your weight into it. Getting carried away by this stimulus may bring embarrassment for you, if you fail to understand the sensitivity of the issue.

Impulsive tweets carry heat with them. The heat of negative emotions like jealousy, greed, hatred and anything you always wanted to hide from the public.

Twitter trending and also many other similar situations on twitter may expose your negative side, and you just can’t take it back. Other similar situation is, when you are venting anger on some famous brand or personalities to get more attention. Gone are the days, when journalists reported an anonymous person abused some famous person, while surveying. You are living in a completely transparent world where both side knows Who is Who!

Live Examples

Suhel Seth & Others

Indian Politicians like Sashi Tharoor and Sushma Swaraj have found their own tweets embarrassing after some real life reactions on them. You surely don’t need to bother about it if you are Digvijay Singh, however, if you are @suhelseth, then you should resist the temptation to tweet like this.

I seriously believe if Simi had offered to break Ramdev's fast, he would have done it in two hours without a drip..she is sugary enough....

Suhel Seth while tweeting about Simi in several of his tweets earlier, apparently got carried away by the temptation of shooting a tweet into Trending. Had he substituted Poonam for Simi, who was into trending earlier, for her promise to pose naked in public if India wins the Cricket World Cup, it would have become a scoop. However, it would have been more hazardous for his personality and would have sounded cheaper than what it is in the present state.

Navjot Singh Sidhu

Indian Cricketer turned Politician, Navjot Singh Sidhu, tweeted on a trending incidence, involving his Political Opponent Sharad Pawar slapped publically by a mentally challenged youth Harvinder Singh, which was trending on several topics, like this:

RT @droople: Only a sardar can walk up like that to a man bigger than him, slap him tight and scare the shit out of him. Salute. #slapgate

While @droople was conscious of his folly, though hesitantly tried to justify it, Sidhu stopped tweeting for a while, and quite wisely stopped discussing the topic at all. Here Sidhu perhaps felt the guilt and prevented himself from being dragged into a controversy. It is pointless to argue, whether Sidhu really feels the way he tweeted, because he offered no explanation about the tweet. Actual point is whether he would have been better without tweeting like that. He revealed an important part of his persona, which was unknown to us, and Sidhu may not feel comfortable when someone would remind him of this. Even his own political party BJP and any other Indian Political Party did not approve of the misdeed of Harvinder Singh, and unanimously postured and condemned the incident. Yet, Sidhu became victim of a trending coup, who otherwise has a rather clean record on twitter.

Also See:

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Google Display Ad Templates Vs. Custom Uploaded Image Ad - A Comparison - Which delivers the best Result?

Template Display Ad Advantage

Google has added a big inventory of display ad formats, in your Google Adwords account over the past 2 years.

There were several barriers in trying image ad earlier. First, you needed to have it designed by yourself. Second, you need some technical knowhow to get it uploaded correctly. Flash files require click tags and size has to be compatible with given formats. Third, you need to pay the designer, who may not understand what idea to convey, and would have to stick to what she has given you for a long period.

Google Display ad templates, removes all the above barriers. It has some definite advantages over traditional image ads.

You get a large number of templates for various categories. You can choose and filter out them to meet your requirements. Your designer won’t give you so many choices. When it comes to ads, more the variety, better the outcome.
You can test several combination of text, font, color and background. Each gives different result and you can come up with best combination by testing. Testing is the key to get the best ad for you, which gives best result. This gives it a big edge over traditional image ad, where you remain stuck with limited creativity.
Template Display Ads very often have Better Performance Stats. If you haven’t yet run Template Display Ads, you won’t know it. Again I would stress here, better ads are achieved by testing many ads. Yes, it is the simple game of numbers. More you test, better it becomes. Because, traditional image ads have limitation with respect to testing, Template Display ads produce better results. In one account I found, it made the other image ads look useless in the account, which needed to be paused after sometime.

When you should Pay for Image Ad Designing

Image ads made by designers too can produce great result, and there are occasions when you should go for it.

When you have designer with exceptional skill.
When you have several creative to choose from. In that case, the picked ad has already beaten few ones.
When you know the message to be conveyed and have clear cut idea of what you want and what will succeed, after testing display templates.
When you want an improvement over display ad messages and have clearly understood that it will improve the performance.
When you get a chance to grab a winning idea. An idea which has already performed somewhere, maybe on some other network.

If you are a great fan of image ad and Display ad Templates, do not look appealing to you, you should place bid on 99designs.com or similar sites, which offers you choices. In any case, avoid going after a solo design, you would be taking a big risk going for it. On internet,

Nobody knows in advance when you are going to be proven wrong.

Internet tells you very quickly, when you have taken a wrong step.

It is always better to have something in store, when you are proven wrong.

Variety of ads reduces the chances of you being wrong and hence increases the chances of being successful. So, the strategy which gives you more options and security is a better strategy.

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Failed Ad Diagnosis - Why Some Ads Fail to Produce the Desired Conversion Rate and How to Avoid Them

Ads that do not produce conversion has Failed. It has failed to acquire attention. It has failed to acquire attention of the desired audience. There are several reasons of this failure. Some you can figure out after failing many times. Some are not so obvious and we cannot theorize on them. We can only eliminate the ads that fail and learn not to write the ads we know will fail.

My experience tells, some ads will fail even before they start running and some successful ones have common characteristics. It is through this sense that I create ads which I think will serve better than previous ones. While writing ads for Google Adwords, we all rely on this sense, which develops through experience alone. Key to develop this sense is to study the ads and just try to figure out why one is success and other is failure.

Let us talk about the ads that fail, and learn to avoid them.

Again from my experience I would share some characteristics of ads that push your conversion rate downward.

Ad aesthetics

it is an area, which is ignored due to laziness. A failed ad often has poor aesthetics. Not only image ads, Text ads too has to be written keeping this mind. A question mark in wrong place, Exclamation and lack of punctuation at proper place adds to poor aesthetics. Avoid it to get better results.

Message clutter

it confuses the reader. Don’t try to say too many things. Give a single clear-cut message. Best Ad is one which does not tense the mind of the reader, and invokes some involuntary action, an urge to take the next step. Avoid the clutter. If you are trying to say too many things, there is little chance audience would get attracted to any. Your buyer buys from you because you are unique to her in some way. Try to understand that and pitch accordingly.

Unjustifiable Call to action.

If you say Try it, You must give a solid reason before saying it. Present your “Try it” with a Punch. If the ad lacks that punch behind it, your call to action is useless.

Lack of scent.

A good ad conceals a hinted Wow on landing page. If it promises too much, traffic will call it a gimmick after arriving on landing page. Creating scent is an art which comes with practice and persistence. Try to drop this scent after analyzing the traffic and landing page carefully. This is not an easy craft, and you would hit the dot after many trials.

Lack of Phrases & Words from Landing Page.

You must not create an ad without going through landing page thoroughly. Users must be able to find what you are promising with ordinary diligence. If she fails to discover it soon after landing, she would call you a cheater.

Saying something which encourage rubbernecking.

Ads written with intent to create humor falls into this category. People will visit you to have fun, it won’t draw the attention of people who are serious buyer. Always try to talk about your products and services, if you say something humorous it would get the attention of wrong people.

Also See:

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Writing Adtexts to Boost Conversion of Your Google Adwords Campaign – Ad Writing Strategy!

Some adtexts convert better than others. Some ads have better CTR than other. To get optimum CTR and Conversion, You need to continuously test ads for performance. Some phrases do the trick, experiment them as much you can. From my experience with managing vast number of campaigns I can tell you what works best, rather what has worked best for me and my clients.

While creating adtexts, it is always a good idea to do some searches for keywords you are targeting to see what people are already writing. Replicating the same would be a poor idea. you have to cut through this clutter. There are some basic rules which you should learn first and there are some advanced strategies, which I would discuss later. some of the points that you should always follow are:

If you are writing for search, don’t ever ignore the keywords. use them as much as you can. Use them in Headline, text line & Display URL. More keywords you use, more attention you get.
Use at least 3 adtexts in an adgroup, and never go beyond 5. 4 is the ideal. Fewer adtexts would give you lesser choice of eliminating the worst performer. Also, fewer ads mean you are testing fewer ideas, and testing is the key to take your campaign to higher level. Too many would also be a problem, because then you won’t get enough data to eliminate. More the data better the decision you make.
Always use some lines from the landing page itself. It helps maintain the scent. conversion happens because visitors sense something on reading the adtext, if she readily finds the same on the landing page, she falls in love with the website and is eager to take the next step.
Use call to actions like, Try, Buy, Get etc. Point to be noted here is all call to action don’t give the same kind of result. Some does just the opposite of what you have anticipated. So, testing is again the key.
Always try to write Full Length Adtext. This means you should make use of all available character limits. It has been observed, full length adtexts perform better, with lesser chances of failing.

Above rules would help you get started with your Search Ads. For better results, you would need to keep on eliminating the worst performer and creating the new ones for further testing. You can in this way keep on trying and eliminating the ads, and hence, keep on boosting your performance to next level. While refining you should keep in mind:

If variation in CTR is observed. Don’t knock out the High CTR ad, even if it performs mediocre in terms of conversion. Very often you would find, low CTR ads gives better conversion rate, but once you knock out the high CTR ad, QS of ADG start suffering, ad delivery deteriorates, and hence conversion rate drops and rather cost of conversion shoots up. So, while filtering always have your eyes fixed on CTR, which must not fall below the optimum.
Also while filtering, see if some Ad Keyword pairing would perform better, if shifted to a new adgroup. So, before knocking out try exploring if these ad-keyword pair may perform better in a different adgroup. If you can identify adgroup within an adgroup, it opens a fresh new opportunity.
Apply logic what idea converts and why they converted, if any ad has any conversion data to its credit, however poor it may be. If that ad you are going to remove had an idea which you can grasp, that gave conversion, try using that in combination with other ideas, in other ads.

If you find Adtext1 and adtext2 are top performers. Try to create Adtext3 which sums up the merit of the two. I call this Summation. This often gives wonderful results. If you can catch which idea is getting converted in those adtexts, you can always come up with a better ad copy.

Just like summation, also try removing something from the ads. sometimes you may hit upon a great ad copy doing this. You might be able to figure out what is turning off potential visitors.

Keep on repeating the above two processes to continuously improve your ad copy.

Last but not the least, the real key to write great ad copy is to discover the persona of your buyer. If you hit upon the right trigger, you will gain great advantage over all your competitors. Always discover as much as you can about them.

10 Ways to Quickly reduce the Bounce Rate on Landing Page

When bounce rate is too high, you need to reduce it as soon as possible. There are some tested methods which brings down the bounce rate without any need to scratch your head.

1. Increase the font size of text.

If it was 10, make it 11 or 12 or even 13. Higher font size surely reduces the bounce rate. You can increase them till it start looking odd. This technique works like a magic. Try it!

2. Paste a beautiful picture in the header

Paste a beautiful picture in the header.Preferably a smiling woman or a child.

3. Post with a picture

Post with a picture generally have lower bounce rate. Grab something relevant and if not possible post something beautiful.

4. Post a video on the page

A demonstration video would be great, but if you are doing a crisis management of bounce rate, choose anything from youtube.

5. Rotate a message near header

A marquee tagged message relevant to the page announcing something would serve the purpose.

6. Increase the size of tabs

Tabs with suitable size and bordering are great in increasing pageviews. Increasing the size does reduce the bounce rate.

7. Improve the page aesthetics

Improve by playing with colors and layout.

8. Use hyperlinks

Use hyperlinks as much as possible, and route them within your website. For External links be careful to force it open in a New Window.

9. Increase the length of the post

Add something more, to let the visitor feel there is still something there. It helps him to stay longer and reduce the likelihood of bounce.

10. Bullets and Numbers

Convert paragraphs into bulleted or numbered ones with suitable headings.

Also See:

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Google Analytics is the Google Adwords Conversion Booster- Ignoring it may prove too costly

Try to know your prospects as much as you can. Conversion through off the site optimization has a limit. You can break this limit only by on site optimization. Google Analytics gives you enough data to profile your visitors. There are many more tools to give you more data on this. However, data are useless unless you harness actionable insight from them. Google analytics throws unique visitor, returning visitor, bounce rate, geographical distribution of traffic and much more than you can crunch. You need to make a profile of your visitor regarding, what they are looking for, how they navigate, why they leave and how you can address them in better way. Whenever, looking into the stats of analytics always try to make a picture of your visitor into your mind and then try becoming one and try navigating your site according to their persona. It will give you the feel of what your site lacks. Too much of data are not desirable, you have just too many of them. You have some free analytics tools and some paid ones promising to throw even more data on your face. What is important is How much actionable insights you have gained from them and how capable you are to interpret them into actionable tasks ahead.

To get better insight into google analytics, you must have organized it in such a way that it gives you refined data to clearly indicate, what is up and what is down. If you don’t have segregated figures of different sources of traffic and different parameters, you are very likely to ignore potential insights that can revolutionize your business. We want refined data to look how the different traffics have different user behavior on your page. How people from different sites reacted to your page. A single percent decrease in bounce rate may bring sharp increase in conversions. Always try to make your visitor stay a bit longer on your page. Give me some more time and give me some more attention has to be your attitude.

If you study analytics regularly, you begin to feel the shortcomings in a website by just looking at it and start feeling the required changes. On many occasions I can tell the website must be having a bounce rate of more than 70%, without even looking into the stats, because I can feel what a new visitor would feel arriving on it. If link to your goal is not visible clearly, they are very likely to miss it. On site conversion optimization mostly is to make the important links visible and clickable as early as possible. This simple looking fact, though, is the main problem of most of the websites. If a percentage of visitor simply fails to notice your offer, your ad campaign and hence your objective fails. No matter how well targeted and well written your ad copy is, if the visitor bounces off your website because it fails to present him with what he wants you are losing.

People who ignore analytics are simply losing. Even if you are making great killings today by not implementing required changes in your website, your competitor would start making the killing because they would have moved ahead of you in terms of presentation by implementing those actionable insights gained through analytics. You know, only 2% of people make the most online and rest are just trying and failing. to secure your place in this 2% you need to be on toe. Conversions won’t always be coming at the same rate if you don’t position yourself to meet the coming challenges. So, in the days of throat cutting competition, it is not your adwords campaign that fails, but you fail to accept adwords and analytics goes together. Any lacuna in accepting this would get you near to negativity of ROI sooner or later.

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Twitter Social Media Meetup in Delhi - 50th Social Media Breakfast Group Meeting in Delhi

50th edition of Social Media Meetup Group, Social Media Breakfast was held today(April, 19th, 2011). The meetup group founded 50 weeks ago, is a fortnight short of reaching its annual anniversary. Commendable feet! A without fail, weekly meetup, where people come in to share thoughts on social media, also get excellent breakfast free of cost.

I have been part of most of them. Today's gathering discussed about the future course of this meeting. I and several regular attendees have enjoyed the hospitality of the host Simarpreet Singh, throughout the year, and he has agreed to take it forward in future too.

Simarpreet shared ideas behind the formation of this group and also how he would be adding some other dimensions to it. Roughly, a year ago he had used meetup to promote his new launch twitsnaps.com, inviting famous twitter personalities to share ideas on its usage, as panelists.

This time, however, he declined the possibility of this becoming a similar kind of session in future, at least not on a regular basis citing two reasons, 1) What better they can contribute than what they do on twitter, and 2) He does not want the group to listen to sermons of few people and not interacting among themselves. Both seems to be valid reasons.

I have noted on several occasions, Simarpreet does not like following people, simply because they are celebrities, sometimes he shares why he unfollowed X, some of which I can easily recall are: 1) They were not interactive; 2) They were serving automated tweets; 3) Though X is a famous TV personality, she has communal mindset.

All of us have their own reasons to follow and unfollow, however, if you can share the ideas on which you base your following and unfollowing decisions, you are very likely to refine and improve it, and convert it into principles.

Twitter is not the game of numbers, however, it does impact your thinking, because you react or tend to react to every tweet that goes through your timeline. Simarpreet, may not be a great twitter entertainer, in terms of number of followers, many other boasts of, but he surely is the master of interaction, taking it beyond twitter, which is the very purpose of tweeting.

Although Simarpreet is the owner and sponsor of this meetup group, he surely has not attended all the meetings, I've found him missing on many occasions. I myself haven't attended many of them however, Kaushik, his employee and organizer was visible in all the meetings I have attended, and should get some credit for continuity of this group for such a long time.

Evaluating the success of this group from organizer's and attendees' side, while organizer gets some PR boost at the cost of time and money, attendees have only time to scarifice and gain depends on their level of interaction with other members. Some online corporate twitter groups, like Four Square, have mastered the art of Twitter Best Practices and if you follow one, they will make you familiar with others through their tweets, mentioning them frequently, and follower of one are very likely to become follower of others.

Choosing the right occasion and time of mention is an art and those who want to pursue a career in social media management must master it to the hilt. It must look natural, at least. Simarpreet says, he may not be interested in maintaining a group of larger than twenty in the long run, and may have to rethink the strategy, if the situation arise, for it becomes uneconomical. A gathering of more than 20 is surely not something that can be entertained, if you can't see some kind of return in them.

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How Adwords has changed from 2006 to 2011

Google Adwords has changed a lot, since I started using it for marketing. In 2006 everything was simple from interface to managing. Google kept on introducing new features and things became more complex thereafter. People were shy of targeting content network. I remember, clients used to tell specifically – No content targeting. Now, scenario has changed and people do want to see their sites on premium content listings. Those who were targeting content initially were very fortunate people. Lesser advertisers targeted it. Still lesser monitored them closely, and very few knew the real magic of this network. Now the scenario has changed completely with many advertisers monitoring it and in many segments there is nearly war for impressions. Publisher network too has gone smarter, they too monitor the result very closely and knows the optimal layout to make the battle fiercer.

Search Targeting too has evolved with idea of match types and adtext writing becoming more common than before. It is no more confined within the network of professionals, rather advertisers are highly familiar with the concept within their niche. Keeping watch on their competitors is very common among advertisers. This is also because internet has now become the premier weapon in their marketing arsenal, which earlier used to be TV and print media. If you change your ad, response is visible in your competitors ad too. Finally, the advertising has become highly competitive and survival requires a lot of patience. Positioning yourself with respect to the cost effectiveness is highly challenging, and cost limits need to be sharply defined. When to be aggressive and when to become passive is the key to keep yourself living in the competitive market. Most advertisers who had made PPC, their sales channel are facing sharp decline in their ROI. Entry of bigger players who understands the importance of branding keeps them ahead of those who only calculates immediate sales.

Advertisers who can play bigger game and have long term goals are more likely to win this game rather than those who have limited short term goals. Better advertisers with better goals will eventually eliminate those with inferior goals. Goal setting was always the focus of adwords campaign management and it looks like it would always be. Earlier, cheapest click was considered to be the goal. we saw proliferation of bid management tools and techniques. This has become obsolete now. It gave way to conversion based strategy and bid based strategy became inferior. Now, conversion based strategy too has become obsolete, because conversion may not come immediately and concept of conversion needs refinement. If sales was your conversion consider abandoning it. Rather, focus on long term. Improving user interaction on your site might be a better idea. Start seeing sale as a function of engagement rather than something which comes instantaneously. Trying to improve this engagement is a better idea rather than just focusing on some immediate outcome. Those who have understood it are only likely to stay longer and those who cannot would surely make an exit now.

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