Web Marketing SEM

Good times with inbound links

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Inbound links are links from pages on external sites linking back to your site. Inbound links can bring new users to your site, and when the links are merit-based and freely-volunteered as an editorial choice, they’re also one of the positive signals to Google about your site’s importance. Other signals include things like our analysis of your site’s content, its relevance to a geographic location, etc. As many of you know, relevant, quality inbound links your PageRank (one of many factors in our ranking algorithm). And quality links often come naturally to sites with compelling content or offering a unique service.

How do these signals factor into ranking?

Let’s say I have a site, example.com, that offers users a variety of unique website templates and design tips. One of the strongest ranking factors is my site’s content. Additionally, perhaps my site is also linked from three sources — however, one inbound link is from a spammy site. As far as Google is concerned, we want only the two quality inbound links to contribute to the PageRank signal in our ranking.

Given the user’s query, over 200 signals (including the analysis of the site’s content and inbound links as mentioned above) are applied to return the most relevant results to the user.

So how can you engage more users and potentially increase merit-based inbound links?

Many webmasters have written about their success in growing their audience. We’ve compiled several ideas and resources that can improve the web for all users.

Create unique and compelling content on your site and the web in general

  • Start a blog: make videos, do original research, and post interesting stuff on a regular basis. If you’re passionate about your site’s topic, there are lots of great avenues to engage more users.If you’re interested in blogging, see our Help Center for specific tips for bloggers.
  • Teach readers new things, uncover new news, be entertaining or insightful, show your expertise, interview different personalities in your industry and highlight their interesting side. Make your site worthwhile.
  • Participate thoughtfully in blogs and user reviews related to your topic of interest. Offer your knowledgeable perspective to the community.
  • Provide a useful product or service. If visitors to your site get value from what you provide, they’re more likely to link to you.

    • For more actionable ideas, see one of my favorite interviews with Matt Cutts for no-cost tips to help increase your traffic. It’s a great primer for webmasters. (Even before this post, I forwarded the URL to many of my friends. :)

Pursue business development opportunities

Use Webmaster Tools for “Links > Pages with external links” to learn about others interested in your site. Expand the web community by figuring out who links to you and how they’re linking. You may have new audiences or demographics you didn’t realize were interested in your niche. For instance, if the webmasters for example.com noticed external links coming from art schools, they may start to engage with the art community — receiving new feedback and promoting their site and ideas.

Of course, be responsible when pursuing possible opportunities in this space. Don’t engage in mass link-begging; no one likes form letters, and few webmasters of quality sites are likely to respond positively to such solicitations. In general, many of the business development techniques that are successful in human relationships can also be reflected online for your site.

Now that you’ve read more information about internal links, outbound links, and inbound links (today’s post :), we’ll see you in the blog comments! Thanks for joining us for links week.

Written by Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead

Check your rank

How important is submitting sitemap to google?

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Years ago, getting back links to a website was the most important factor in SEO, but now, that is not the only important factor. This article explains the use of sitemap in SEO as an essential factor in assisting web crawlers to navigate a website.Here are some hallmarks of a good site map, which helps visitors at finding information quickly on your web site

  • The site map should be the simplest page on your web site.
  • Do not give a fancy name to the site map link such as “Web Site Tree” – keep it as “Site map”, this way your visitors understand immediately what you mean.
  • You should always avoid “dynamic” site maps. Those in which the visitors have to “work” their way to get hold of information. Remember, the reason visitors comes to a site map page is because they are lost. To make them work again for something that you can display as a simple static link will just kill the purpose of having a site map.
  • If the site map is list of text links, be sure to use the TITLE attribute of the anchor tag and include keywords inside it.
  • It is a good idea to put a sentence describing the page contents below the link for that page on a site map.
  • A site map should not be the primary navigation on your web site it should complement it.
  • A link to the site map page is very important and all pages should carry this link. The site map link can be included with other links in the main menu on your web site or placed at a section on the web page from which is it clearly visible.
  • Other important aspects on a web site should complement site maps. For example, the link color for visited links should be different from that of non-visited links so that visitors understand which pages they have already seen and thus, save time.

Search Engine Optimization. A lot of people are clamoring to know exactly what it is. SEO is the process of enhancing the presence and visibility of a website on search engine listings. Not only is it a process, it is about the tool required to make the enhancement happen. There are two main types of search engine optimization:

  • On page Optimization
  • Off Page Optimization

When SEO was in its infancy, getting back links to a site was the most important factor. In fact, many books and articles written on the subject will still tell people that getting back links is the only proper way to optimize a website. Back links with proper anchor text, of course.

After search engine optimization has a chance to mature, SEO specialists became aware that using only back links is not at all the best way to optimize a site. In fact, if an SEO is only creating back links, the site is not getting optimized.

In On page site optimization, there are techniques and tools that are related to your own website and in OFF page optimization, there are items which are related to the other websites. In On page the old technique was Meta Tag Optimization, appropriate content, Alt tag optimization, proper navigation for the website and much more activities through which changes were made to the website, itself. In OFF page optimization, only back links were created.

Today, optimization is a little bit different. While usimg the old techniques are still appropriate, creating a Sitemapcan be added to the list. Sitemap is something that came in existence a few years ago.

A Sitemap is a graphical representation of the architecture of a website. There are two kinds of site maps. The first is used to assist visitors to a site to navigate the site and the second is done in XML. XML Sitemaps, usually called Sitemap with a capital “S”, are used by Goggle to gather information about the site.

Sitemap is especially important if your site:

  • Has dynamic content
  • Has pages with a lot of flash or AJAX
  • Is new and doesn’t have many links
  • Has a lot of archived pages that are not linked well, or not at all

The use of Sitemap becomes doubly important if the site has pages that can only be accessed through user entry. Sitemap will assist web crawlers in finding and accessing the pages.

SitemapDoc – Google Sitemap Generator and Editor
RSS Feed generator

Top Strategies and Intelligence…

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Foundational Link Building Part II- Article Marketing

Last week we talked about building links through directories. Now we turn our attention to article marketing which is about more than just mere links. At least this is the mind set one needs when approaching it. You see, ultimately one must go beyond links. Think about the actual value of the placement as far as potential traffic, branding and reach. You will find that when you do so, that the links are of better quality and the benefits greater. As we learned last week once again quality supersedes quantity.

Google Apps Tour Video

Take a quick tour of Google Apps to learn how your organization can benefit from Google’s innovative tools.

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Using Social Media to Drive Traffic

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Tools to use
At the BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas, Don Crowther, founder of SMARTS, spoke about using social media to bring traffic to your Web sites. (WebProNews will be spending the weekend in Vegas. Bummer, right? But we will be working, reporting from the BlogWorld Expo and chatting up the brightest minds in the blogging business. Stay tuned to WebProNews and WebProNews Video for updates.) He said social marketing is “using social media to actually do what you want them to do.” Statistics show that Facebook is almost as big as Google in pageviews. YouTube is double in page views according to Alexa. Facebook adds 100-250K new viewers each day. Forty-one percent of all Facebook members are 35 and older. Crowther said the “average competitor is clueless and this is how you can get the competitive advantage.” “Social media has made it possible for you to get into Google without being a rocket scientists.” Crowther offered a series of tools to use to generate traffic using social media.

  1. Smarts Tool #1: Squiddo (It monetizes, builds links and content)
  2. Smarts Tool # 2: Hubpages: (Content sharing site, may outpull your blog, but 60% of revenue share)
  3. Smarts Tool #3: Create your own Wiki
  4. Smarts Tool #4: Twitter
  5. Smart Tool #5: Create online video
  6. Smarts Tool #6: Facebook Pages
  7. Smarts Tool #7: Digg

WebProNews Reporter/Anchor Abby Prince-Johnson contributed to this article.

SEO Techniques

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So you want Your website to be on the first page of every Search Engine – Art Dimension SEO Techniques will help You get there! The Techniques on this page will enpower You with the information that will move You towards that goal. Set Your aim high, the sky is the limit! Others have done it, so why can’t You — Search Engine Optimization ( SEO ) is really quite simple!If You have been putting off optimizing Your website for a higher Search Engine results position, today is a good day to make Your start. SEO Techniques will make it much easier that You expected!

The following list of SEO Techniques will help you optimize your website so you will get a higher Search Engine Results Position (SERP). Some of the items can be done quickly – others will take a bit of time.

If you complete all the items on the following list of SEO Techniques, give the Search Engines some time to send out their bots to deep crawl your website, your site traffic will increase. Make sure you are ready for it!

Search Engine Optimization – What is it?

Optimizing your website so you will obtain a high search engine results position is what SEO Techniques is all about. It is reported that 65% of all websites visited start with a search from a search engine.

For people to find your site via a search engine, the site will require a high Search Engine Results Position (SERP). This means when they search keywords phrases like SEO techniques, they will find you site page on the first page of the search engine results. Ending up on the 10 page of the search engines results will not get you any traffic.

Getting a high SERP is a combination of a number of things. Leaving out any of the items on the following list of SEO Techniques can result in your page not getting as high a search engine results position as it could.

The SEO List

There are no tricks here, just a bit of work and some time. So let’s get started by reading the following list of SEO Techniques!

  1. Domain & File Names:
    Choose your site domain name that contains words from your primary keyword phrase. Your domain name should also be easy to spell and easy to remember. You keyword phrase also should in many cases go in your file name. Read this thread Keywords in the URL from SEO Chat Forum.
    For example I use the file name seo-techniques.html for this page.
  2. Keyword Phrases:
    1. Use keywords that are being searched for. You can check your keyword phrases with either the Search Term Suggestion Tool or the Overture Keyword Popularity Tool to find out how often they are being searched. You can also look at Google AdWords Keyword Suggestions for suggestions for different keyword phrases.
    2. Add keyword synonyms to your content.
    3. Put the keyword phrases in the <title>keyword phrase</title> .
    4. Insert the keyword phrases in a <h1>keyword phrase</h1> tag at the beginning of your page. Keyword synonyms should be put in your h2 & h3 tags. The h1, h2, h3 tags are used for titles and subtitles in articles.
    5. Make sure you use your keyword phrases from the page you are linking to, in your anchor text on the site map. i.e. SEO Techniques.
  3. Keyword Density:
    Keyword density is a very important part of search engine optimization. Keyword density is the percent that your keyword or keyword phrase are of your web page text. You may want to look that your competition to see what keyword density they are using. To high a keyword density will be considered search engine spam and can get you blacklisted.
    Your keywords should be toward the top of your page and your keyword phrase be in either every paragraph or every second paragraph depending on your paragraph length.
  4. Bad Techniques:
    Bad search engine optimization techniques can get you blacklisted from a search engine. Some techniques that are considered spam are cloaking, invisible text, tiny text, identical pages, doorway pages, refresh tags, link farms, filling comment tags with keyword phrases only, keyword phrases in the author tag, keyword density to high, mirror pages and mirror sites.
    While these techniques might work to give you a higher ranking for short time in the long run they will hurt you.
    Google has a good article on Google information for webmasters that is very imformative if you are considering Getting a SEO Company to so work on your website.
  5. Title & Meta Description Tag:
    Construction of your title tag is one of the most important things you need to do. Each page should have a different title with 2 or 3 of your keyword phrases at the beginning. When search engine results are displayed the title is the first thing people see.
    Below the title is a description which will be either be taken from your meta name description content=”Description phrase” or from the first sentence on at page. You description should also have 2 or 3 of your keyword phrases at the beginning as so should your first sentence. You should have a different title, description and first sentence on each page. You many also what to try shorter titles with only one keyword or keyword phrase as this will raise you keyword relevance. Also you can consider putting your domain name at the very end of the title.
  6. Meta Keywords Tag:
    The meta keywords tag is not as relevant as it used to be and some say Google doesn’t ever look at it anymore, but put it in anyway. It is as follows, <meta name=”keywords” content=”keywords,go,here” /> and put in it all your keywords and keyword phrases. This tag should be different for each page.
  7. Author & Robots Tags:
    The Author Tag should contain the name of the company that owns the site. This tag will help you get a #1 position for your company’s name.
    <meta name=”author” content=”Solutions with Service” />
    Use a generic Robots Tag on all pages that you want indexed. This instructs the robots to crawl the page. The following is the generic robots tag.
    <meta name=”robots” content=”index, follow” />
  8. Quality Content:
    Quality content will bring people back and as people always want to tell others about a good thing it will get you forward links from other sites. Your content should be written with your keyword phrases in mind
  9. Quantity Content:
    The more the better. Just remember your content will need to be both quantity and quality.
  10. Changing Content:
    You can do this by hand or with a script. For example you can have a php script that draws five paragraphs from a pool of twenty paragraphs when the content is different each time the php page is accessed.
  11. Avoid Dynamic URLs:
    Are you pages via php, asp, or cf? Some search engines may have a problem indexing them. Create static pages whenever possible. Avoid symbols in your URLs like the “?” that you will often find in php, asp or cf pages.
    Static pages are the best but if you have a db driven site, make sure the menu and site map like go to inventory.cfm not inventory.cfm?vn=0 .
  12. Frames:
    Many search engines can’t follow frame links. Make sure you provide an alternative method for the search engines to enter and index your site. For more information read Search Engines and Frames.
  13. Site Map:
    A good menu system is really a site map. A well constructed menu system that is on each page and contains a link to very page on the website is all you need.
  14. Site Themes:
    All of the top 3 search engines look for site themes or a common topic when they crawl a website. If your site is about one specific topic you will rank better than if you have more than one theme or topic on your site. By using similar keyword phrases in each page the search engines will detect a theme this will be to your advantage.
  15. Site Design:
    You may think, what does site design have to with search engine optimization. Well if your website has a bad color scheme that is hard to read, is not organized, is a cheesy looking site, then all your site optimization has been a waste of time. Make your site attractive to the viewer, make things easy to find, have you graphic header and menu bar the same place on each page.
    These things will keep your visitors on the site and bring them back. A well optimized site with a high search engine results position that is ugly and is hard find information on, will not keep the visitors your optimization has brought to the site.
    Use W3C Link Checker to make sure all your page links are good. If you have broken links on your site this can effect the ranking you are given.
    Put a proper doctype on each page. If you don’t have a proper doctype on each page Internet Exployer will go into quirks mode and display it different.
    Use The W3C Markup Validate Service to verify that your pages are Validate HTML or XHTML code. The W3C validation will verify that your HTML or XHTML is not broken. This validation show you any broken code that could cause your webpages from displaying properly in all the different browsers and browser versions.
  16. Separate Content & Presentation:
    Put all your presentation code into Cascading Styles Sheets (CSS). This separates the presentation from the content and makes your html files up to 50% smaller. It is reported that the search engine bots prefer this and the more content you have compared to presentation in your file, the better you get rated. Read why tables for markup are stupid for an overview.
  17. Robots.txt File:
    While this file is not really required it should be included so that the search engine bots don’t get 404 errors when they look for it. Just include the following 2 lines and drop it in the root.
    User-agent: *
    Disallow:

Ultimate Social Media Optimisation List

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Over the last couple of months I’ve found myself reading through more and more social media optimisation (SMO) articles. I found Lyndon Antcliff’s enormous linkbait list to be a great resource so I thought I’d share a similar list of articles which I found to be useful in improving my own understanding of SMO.

Pronet Advertising
Introduction to Social Media Optimization
A Comparison of SEO and SMO
Social Media Optimization Vs Social Media Marketing
Targeting Social Media Optimization
Will Social Media Optimization become mainstream?
55 Sure-Fire Social Media Headline Formulas That Work
Social Media Sensationalism
Measuring the ROI from Social Media Marketing
Social Media Discussions at SES
Traditonal PR with a touch of social media

SEOmoz
Social Media Optimization, eh? Let’s See What’s in Our Bag o’ Goodies

Rohit Bhargava
5 Rules of Social Media Optimization

Search Engine Land
Forget ABCs – The Social Media Alphabet Is DNRS
More Letters of the Social Media Alphabet
Beyond Google: Social Media Engines First, Other Search Engines Second
Social Media Marketing Is Ethical!

social-media-optimization.com
Social Media Optimization Not For Everyone
Are You Welcome in the Neighborhood?
Looking at the Social Media Numbers

Search Engine Journal
Social Media Optimization : 13 Rules of SMO

Tropical SEO
Andy Hagans’ Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and Social Media Marketing

Lee Odden
New Rules for Social Media Optimization
New Tools for Social Media Optimization
The Power of Social Media, Blogs and Online PR

GrayWolf
The Dark Side of Social Media Optimization
Profiting From Social Media Optimization

WebProNews
Social Media Optimization: The Backlash
SES: Social Media Optimization
Different Approaches To Social Media

Stunt Dubl
Pubcon Vegas Social Media Optimization Presentation

Eran Arkin
Popularity of Social Media Sites

Search Engine Roundtable
Optimizing for Social Search and Web 2.0
When Will Google Begin Devaluing Social Links; Such As Digg.com, Yahoo! Answers & del.icio.us?

Andy Beal
The Five Pillars of Social Media Optimization

If you know of any more feel free to add a comment, please note that social media optimisation is spelt with an s instead of a z the UK and is also known as social media marketing.

The Ten Commandments of SEO

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For the Gods of Google to accept your site, you must do more than offer up a golden cow. Here are the Ten Commandments to follow. Sinners will face purgatory with a penalty or be sent to hell with a lifetime ban.

The First Commandment – Thou Shalt Have Fresh Content

The easiest way to accomplish this is with a daily blog. One to three paragraphs of original content related to your site.

The Second Commandment – Thou Shalt Do Keyword Research

For each of your daily blogs, go to the Free Keyword Researcher on our Free Biz Tools page and identify a keyword string of 2-4 words long to title your blog.

Use the Keyword string in your blog content 1-3 times.

The Third Commandment – Thou Shalt Submit Daily Blog to Social Bookmarks

The exact keyword string that you identify for you blog’s title will be used in each submission. Change up the description for each submission.

Here are the angels of Google that will help you ascend in the rankings and find a home in Google Heaven:

http://bibsonomy.org
http://bringr.com
http://buddymarks.com/
http://clipclip.org/
http://clipfire.com/
http://del.icio.us/
http://faves.com/home
http://folkd.com/
http://linkagogo.com/
http://mixx.com
http://multiply.com
http://myweb.yahoo.com/
http://netvouz.com/
http://newsvine.com/
http://panamanewsblog.com/
http://pixelgroovy.com
http://reddit.com/
http://searchles.com/
http://shoutwire.com
http://slashdot.org/bookmark.pl
http://sphinn.com/
http://spurl.net/
http://startaid.com/
http://theoryoffun.com/
http://wikio.com/
http://www.a1-webmarks.com/
http://www.blinklist.com/

For the complete list of Social Bookmark Sites go here.

The Fourth Commandment – Thou Shalt Use the Site Name in the Title

The Google Gods want you to be true to yourself and not try to trick your fellow man.

The best way to accomplish this is to use it in the second half of the title. Ex: The Ten Commandments of Search : Sta.rtUp.biz

The Fifth Commandment – Though Shalt Have Links from Directories

Identify the keyword string that you want your index page to rank for and use it in the title of your submissions. Also, only do a couple of submissions each day.

Here is a list of PR4+ directories that have free submission. The $299 Yahoo directory submission is also a good move.

http://www.dmoz.org/ 8
http://www.la-ma.org/ 6
http://www.mxdu.com/ 6
http://www.jayde.com/ 6
http://www.mygreencorner.com/ 6
http://www.ghinmeca.com/ 5
http://directory.classifieds1000.com/ 5
http://www.concensus.org/ 5
http://www.directorydice.com/ 5
http://www.domaining.in/ 5
http://www.freewebsitedirectory.com/ 5
http://www.illumirate.com/ 5
http://www.info-listings.com/ 5
http://www.publimix.net/ 5
http://searchsight.com/Directory.htm 5
http://www.uc33.com/ 5
http://www.amray.com/ 4
http://www.a1webdirectory.org/ 4
http://www.boshuda.com 4
http://www.businesspagesupdate.co.uk/ 4

For the complete list of Free Directories go here.

The Sixth Commandment – Thou Shalt Post Comments on Blogs with Do-Follow

Do-Follow simply means that a link on a page is valued by the Google Gods. Be sure to post a good comment and use the keyword string that you are focusing on as your name.

Here is a list of Do-Follow Blogs:

http://brownsista.com 6
http://foolswisdom.com 6
http://www.billhartzer.com 5
http://howtosplitanatom.com 5
http://andybeard.eu 5
http://engineering.curiouscatblog.net 5
http://www.davidairey.com 5
http://www.fastlanetransport.ca/blog 5
http://lifelearningtoday.com 5
http://www.pixelheadonline.com/blog 4
http://www.logon.ie 4
http://www.howtowakeupearly.com 4
http://www.joebartender.com 4
http://jakeldaily.com 4
http://tallfreak.com 4
http://blog.achille.name 4

For the complete list of Do-Follow Blogs go here.

The Seventh Commandment – Thou Shalt Use Signatures in Forums with Do-Follow

Focus your signature around the main keyword string for your home page. Try to be the first response to new posts and participate on long discussion threads that will consistently be pushed to the top of the main discussion page.

Here is a list of major forums with Do-Follow signatures:

http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/- SEO
http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/ – music
http://forums.seroundtable.com/ – seo
http://www.submitexpress.com/bbs/
http://www.startups.co.uk/ – business
http://www.v7n.com/forums/ – seo, webmaster
http://www.webmaster-talk.com/ – webmaster
http://www.webicy.com/ – Webmaster, seo
http://forums.comicbookresources.com/ – comic books
http://bzimage.org/ – photo
http://www.earnersforum.com/forumsindex.php – ecommerce, advertising
http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/ – domains
http://forums.onlinebookclub.org/ – books

For the complete list of Do-Follow Forums go here.

The Eighth Commandment – Thou Shalt Use Free Classified Ads

This is an easy way to get a little push and some customers at the same time.

Here is a list of some of the large free online classified sites:

http://www.craigslist.org/
http://www.thefreeadforum.com/vbull/
http://www.adlandpro.com/
http://www.gumtree.com/
http://classifieds.yahoo.com/
http://www.google.com/base
http://caklassifieds.com/
http://classifieds.myspace.com/
http://expo.live.com/default.aspx
http://www.kijiji.com/
http://www.adlandpro.com/
http://www.backpage.com/classifieds/
http://www.usfreeads.com/
http://www.oodle.com/
http://www.adpost.com/

For the complete list of Free Classified Websites go here.

The Ninth Commandment – Thou Shalt Create and Submit RSS Feeds

Here is a list of free RSS feed directories that will get your feed slurped up by Google:

http://www.aspin.com/
http://www.bloogz.com/
http://www.daypop.com/
http://www.daytimenews.com/
http://www.devasp.com/
http://www.dummysoftware.com/
http://www.feed24.com/
http://www.feedage.com/
http://www.feedbomb.com
http://www.feed-directory.com/
http://www.feedfury.com
http://www.feedooyoo.com/
http://www.feeds2read.net
http://www.feedsee.com/
http://www.feedsfarm.com/

For the complete list of Free RSS Directories go here.

The Tenth Commandment – Thou Shalt Not Forget about Google Images

Google images accounts for a large amount of traffic and should not be ignored. On each daily blog, you should have an image that is clickable. Remember that Google images shows a bunch of thumbnails and not your blog content. Then use the keyword string to name the image, alt tag, and caption.

Although I may not be Moses, this list just may save the soul of your website.

Another Social Network for Small Businesses is Born

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A little competition for the Visa-Facebook project?

The options for small business-targeted social networking have increased lately. Last week of course, the Visa Business Network for Facebook was announced.

Another network is also in existence that is separate from the major players like Facebook and MySpace. It’s called Sta.rtUp.Biz, and it offers some similar features to Visa’s creation. Dot Com Mogul explains:

Not only can you network with other small business owners, the site is jam packed with resources for the small business owner, such as Motivational Video Clips and Free Search Engine Optimization. The forum also has three experts to provide you with assistance in each major area of small business. A corporate lawyer will answer your legal questions, the “Search Guru” helps you with Google rankings and provides Free Search Engine Optimization, and there’s a veteran serial entrepreneur to mentor you on business management and strategy. 

Upon first glance, it looks like a nice blend of a lot of useful content and resources for small business professionals.

Sta.rtup.biz

Profile pages include the usual personal information as well as blogs and a list of the member’s recent activity, such as comments, and what groups the member has joined.

I’m not a big fan of the del.icio.us-style domain for reasons I’ve gone into before, but the site appears like a useful B2B tool just the same.

If anyone signs up for this network or already has, let us know what you think of it. Would you recommend it to other small business owners or would you just as soon stay within the established Facebook/MySpace/etc. crowds?

For Sale: Facebook Shares, 67% Off

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What is Facebook really worth? We know it’s not worth $15 billion — earlier this week a federal court, ruling on the ConnectU case, confirmed that the company has already placed a different value on its shares than the one they publicly announced as part of last fall’s Microsoft deal.

Now Mike Arrington reports that Bill Dagley, a California money manager, is repping a seller with a block a stock they’re willing to part with at a “value far less than $15 billion.” He then cites a source that says the valuation Dagley’s client is looking for is in the $3 billion to $4 billion range.

Sound plausible? It does to us. We’ve heard a different but similar version of the story from “Stone”, a prolific and anonymous SAI commenter, for a while. The last time that Stone threw this one out — this week — he asserted that the valuation was “less than $4 billion for sure.”

And now, prompted by Arrington’s report, we’ve heard from a different source — this one we know, but have agreed not to identify — who says that in April, he was offered a 0.25% stake for $12.5 million — a $5 billion valuation. Our source, who didn’t move forward with the deal, says they weren’t approached by Bill Dagley but by a Facebook employee, inquiring on behalf of another Facebook employee.

So either said Facebook employee is now working with Dagley, or there are multiple Facebook shareholders looking to unload shares for 2/3rds or less of the $15 billion number the company boasted about last fall. We’d bet on the latter.

Peter Kafka