Andrew Rollins

For just about any online business, it’s important to employ proper tactics to build your rankings in search engines. That’s why this post from Google about building link-based popularity should be a must read. It’s pretty short and to the point.

In this post from Google, they clarify some issues relating to building link popularity. Here is the setup for the article:

Late in November we were at SES in Paris, where we had the opportunity to meet some of the most prominent figures in the French SEO and SEM market. One of the issues that came up in sessions and in conversations was a certain confusion about how to most effectively increase the link-based popularity of a website. As a result we thought it might be helpful to clarify how search engines treat link spamming to increase a site´s popularity.

The Google post has caused some confusion and incorrect speculation. Danny Sullivan elaborates and clarifies in an article entitled Stop the Freak Out Over Linking, which I recommend you check out for some no nonsense interpretation of what Google is saying.

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I just finished reading Mavericks at Work, and I highly recommend it to people who are interested in opening their minds to new ways of doing and thinking about business.

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Guy Kawasaki is starting his next book, and it seems like this time he is going to expand on the awesome power of Web 2.0 and the democratization of the Internet. Interestingly enough, he is offering the opportunity to contribute ideas for the book. He has created a wiki where you can go and add some thoughts. Who knows, maybe he’ll write about something you’ve been burning to read about. For details, check out this post on his blog.

For those of you who don’t know Guy is, I suggest you check him out and maybe pick up one of Guy Kawasaki’s books packed with entrepreneurial advice.  He’s an excellent entrepreneur and venture capitalist who contributes a lot back to the community in terms of information, tips, and advice.

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Anita Campbell gives us a concise breakdown of a report done by Six Disciplines (PDF) on the top five traits of successful small businesses. These traits were collected by surveying 314 businesses, each with between 10 and 100 employees. A graph is included to demonstrate the point.

Many of these “secrets” are fairly obvious - it’s a no brainer that a strong business needs traits such as strong leadership, quality talent, and a disciplined approach to their business. One that did catch me off guard, however, was “effective use of trusted relationships.” Read Anita’s summary or the report to see what that means.

Regardless of whether or not these traits are obvious, the Six Disciplines report provides some tips for increasing your performance in these areas. Perhaps some of these tips can help improve the way you do business.

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With the year coming to a close, it’s time to compile some of the best business books of 2006. There are already several quality lists out there that will provide plenty of reading. Check out the following:

• Biz Book Talk has compiled several lists of the best business books of 2006. Sources include Amazon and Business Week. One of the Amazon lists includes Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win, which I read and definitely recommend.
• Mitch Ratcliffe from Zdnet has his own list.
• Strategy+Business has a list of business books for 2006, but it requires free registration to see it.

Feel free to post recommendations or links to other lists in the comments.

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Aviva has a guide on branding a startup. I have not seen an article on Aviva before, but I have read through the guide and it does offer up some gems for any online entrepreneur. Most of it revolves around developing an online personality for your web site and extending it across the web (and in real life) in various clever ways. Don’t expect this to be a quick solution. There are 99 tips for a reason - hard work is required to properly brand your startup and get it out there. But this isn’t a bad starting point.

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While doing my usual daily perusal of digg, I found a useful video of Stacy Williams describing some liberties that Google and Yahoo may take with your search engine ad campaigns. This short video (just under 4 minutes) was filmed at the Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference in Chicago, and in it Stacy touches on the following three points:

• Sometimes ads are not active even if Google/Yahoo say they are (because they are actually in the process of editorial review).
• Search engines may change your ad match types (broad vs exact and so on) sometimes without notification. Stacey gives a funny example.
• Swapping of text ad titles and descriptions in certain scenarios.

The moral for us online entrepreneurs is that if you are using search engine advertising to promote your new business, you may need to pay closer attention to those ads than you thought.

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These days, it seems that every Internet entrepreneur is trying to form a business around the explosive growth of Internet advertising. There is continued debate about the sustainability of such a business model, with the real life outcome having dire consequences. After all, let’s not forget that companies like Google form the majority of their business (and profit) around online advertising.

To extend the debate, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP recently published a study of Internet advertising revenue. Sprinkled about this study are words of optimism. For instance:

Interactive advertising, with its eighth consecutive quarter of growth and the largest single quarter ever, is on pace for its biggest year.

Jason Calacanis, CEO of Weblogs Inc., probably bases the majority of his business on Internet advertising. He’s had a large amount of success. Weblogs has some of the most successful blogs out there to their credit (Engadget, Joystiq). It’s no surprise that he’s posted a commentary on the study called The real story of Web 2.0: Advertising 2.0. Here is what he believes:

How far will this trend line go? Think 20 more years of similar growth.

Will it get steeper? Absolutely.

Why? Video and audio advertising hasn’t even started to move to the Internet in a major way.

There are a multitude of ways to get involved in and to benefit from this growth, but don’t let it lure you away from your core business. In other words, if you aren’t an advertising company, don’t let ads dictate how you run your business. As a web entrepreneur, the temptation to slap ads all over your page may be irresistible, but don’t lose site of what it is you are really trying to accomplish.

Case in point: Massive makes a business out of putting subtle advertising into games, but you don’t see the game developers they work with churning out games purely to convey ads (most of the time). The developers recognize that their purpose is to produce fun, entertaining games. Advertising complements their business, but it isn’t their core business. Learn from that, and you are well on your way to becoming a part of Advertising 2.0.

Article Tags: Internet Advertising

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I’ve already described the domain name business, some of the history, and a strategy involving expiring domain names to build your portfolio (with background on how a domain name expires). Now let’s go over methods for obtaining expiring domains.

Note: This is also relevant if you are not a domainer, but you are trying to obtain a great domain name for your business.

In my searching on the net, I found two articles which nicely sum up the methods required. The first and perhaps most informative article I found was by Mike Davidson. In his article entitled How to Snatch an Expiring Domain, Mike goes over the method he used to acquire the domain for his news site, Newsvine.

The second article I found was a guide to tools and services for grabbing expired domains. This guide was contained within an overall guide to expired domain names.

I hope these two articles help you develop a robust plan for snagging the domain names you desire.

There is still one more piece to this puzzle that I have yet to cover. How do we find great domain names? That’ll be the topic of my next (and perhaps final) post on the subject of domainers and domain names as a business.

Tags for this post: Domainers, Domain Name Business, Expiring Domain Names

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For any entrepreneur, funding is a critical step in starting your business. Tech startups in particular have a dearth of options in front of them. However, if you are just getting into the game, you may feel somewhat lost as to where to start.

Guy Kawasaki, an author, managing director at venture capital firm Garage, and all around interesting entrepreneur, has a post on his blog featuring a video of venture capital panelists. They answer many questions that should help you navigate the world of venture capital.

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