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The wonder tablet from Apple went up for pre-order this morning. Did you get your order in or are you going to wait until it ships on April 3? I am getting four iPads but I had to get them from the US Apple site because that’s the only place that is taking orders. I have a fairly good idea on what Apple’s plans are for the new iPad and it’s not what you might think.

I see the iPad as Apple’s entry into the online book market, which is worth $4.5 billion a year. By comparison, online music does $2.3 billion a year, most of which is controlled by Apple iTunes. If Apple can do for books what it did for music, they will revolutionize another industry, put the fear God into Amazon.com and most importantly, create another huge cash cow for themselves.

I like the new iPad so much and what it means that in addition to the four iPads, I purchased a large block of Apple stocks today. What about you? Is an iPad in your future?

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Are You Pre-ordering Your iPad Today?

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This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review.

How to Handle Old Directory Listings, Links and off Topic Traffic

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This isn’t exactly news anymore, but it’s worth noting that two more reports this week confirm the idea that consumers tend to do their research online prior to buying offline/locally.

The first is a Kelsey Group study that indicates 97% of consumers use the Internet to research products or services in their local area. What specific online research tools do they use?

• 90% use search engines
• 48% use Internet Yellow Pages
• 42% use comparison shopping sites
• 24% use vertical sites

If consumers are starting the local buying process online, this reinforces the value of great local content, local SEO, and local visibility in general. In fact, according to the study, consumers use 7.9 different media sources for research when looking for local products and services. That speaks to the importance of being visible on a number of channels — your own site, your blog, Google Maps, Citysearch, important industry sites, and so forth. Diversity of presence makes a big difference.

The second report comes from local product search engine Milo.com in the form of a large infographic that breaks down the percent of online vs. offline buying in a number of industries. The conclusion, based on US Census data, is that less than 5% of retail sales happen online.

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This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Two More Studies Confirm: People Research Online, Buy Locally

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Two More Studies Confirm: People Research Online, Buy Locally

About 80% of your blog’s success comes from “ass in chair” time. That’s the time you spend writing posts, editing posts, finding the perfect image, connecting with fellow bloggers, answering comments, shaping up your SEO, and all the other tasks we teach you about here on Copyblogger.

You’ve got to get that stuff right. But great blogs are not built by “ass in chair” time alone.

There’s actually a significant element to your success that you may be neglecting with all that work and focus.

Every once in awhile, you might consider getting out of the chair and physically setting eyes on a fellow human being. I realize this is a bizarre, arcane practice, but bear with me.

Social networking 1.0

Have you ever noticed that you don’t really know what a post is going to be about until you start writing? You throw something out there, and next thing you know, it’s gone in whatever direction naturally follows.

Believe it or not, you can actually replicate this phenomenon by physically locating yourself in close proximity to another person, with each of you taking turns speaking. This is called a conversation.

I know, you know all about conversation already. It’s answering blog comments, writing on your ex-girlfriend’s Facebook wall, and tweeting how cranky you are in line at the Genius Bar. But here’s something you might not know — “conversations” actually predate the internet.

Spend enough time in these “real world” conversations, and you actually trigger the growth of new neural connections. You come up with new ideas. You challenge your existing ideas and take them in new directions. You learn.

This phenomenon is improved by another old-school technique, called listening. It’s like lurking, except the other person can see you standing there, so at some point you should probably say something.

Conversation and listening can, if you let them, become awe-inspiring weapons in your blogging arsenal. They’ll give you a virtually endless supply of post ideas, angles for content, and insights into human psychology.

And they’ll improve the quality of your thinking, getting you out of the same stale perceptions and approaches to your writing.

Do enough of this and you will make friends. These are similar to Facebook friends, except a) you actually like them, and b) if they poke you, you get to smack them in the head and tell them to quit being a jackass.

Advanced stuff

Once you’ve mastered these fundamental tools, you may be ready to move forward to a more advanced practice.

You can practice conversing and listening with more than one person at once.

One place you can try this is an entrepreneur’s group in your local community. Generally the way it works is that you show up, pay something, they serve you a really bad lunch, and the real estate guy hits you up for business within the first 2 minutes.

Once you’ve detached the real estate guy, these can be quite fun. You can engage in listening and conversations with other people who are facing the same issues you are. Some stuff you’ll know a lot about, and you can teach them. Some stuff they’re going to be a lot smarter about than you are, which is when you want to shut up and take a few notes.

You can also go to parties. These are gatherings of people in one place for multiple real-time instances of conversing, listening, and friending, often accompanied by beer, tequila, and possibly pretzels.

These “parties” often include music, dancing, and laughter. Things may even liven up thanks to the noisy presence of one or more highly intoxicated people, who provide entertainment and a comforting sense of moral superiority.

What do I know?

I’m writing this post based on a dim memory of these old-school practices, since I haven’t done them for months. (OK, I did a warmup and had coffee this week with Grandma Mary, which was delightful.)

I’ve developed quite an impressive blogger’s tan. In other words, I’m about the same color as the surface of the moon. I’ve developed it by holing up in my basement office recording and writing content, editing posts, coordinating transcripts, and other 80% activities.

So I thought I’d try something radical. I’m going to work on my 20% and fly out to Austin today to hang out with Brian and lots of other friends for a few days at the South by Southwest Interactive conference.

Maybe you’ll bump into me having a margarita with a pal, crashing a party or two, or just wandering around the streets of Austin enjoying some unobstructed solar radiation.

We’ll be back next week. Maybe.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and a co-founder of Inside the Third Tribe. She solemnly promises this is the last “funny” post you will see on Copyblogger for at least one month.

Originally posted here: 
The Surprising Old-School Secret to Blogging Success

One of the series of posts that we’re building here at ProBlogger is all about what to do in the first week of your new blog. We’re assuming you’ve already got your domain, chosen your blog platform and have installed a template/theme/design – but what comes next?

So far we’ve covered:

• Writing Your First Compelling Content
• Planning Future Content

Today we’re going to look at some of the key pages on your blog that can be worth setting up.

Why ‘Pages’ are Important

When a new person arrives on your blog there are a variety of types of pages that they may look for that will help them to decide whether they want to remain connected with you (or that will help them to actually make that connection).

Many blogs come with some of these set up by default but you’ll want to personalise these defaults as much as possible and possibly create some new pages of your own. These might include:

• About Page – setting up an about page is really important – it’s one of those pages that a new reader will head to in order to help them work out what your blog is about, who is behind it and to decide whether they’ll keep reading it. Read more on how to do it at Add an ‘About’ Page to Your Blog and How to Write Your “About Me” Page.
• Contact Page – some bloggers get a little nervous about being contactable either out of a fear of being overwhelmed by emails or over privacy concerns. While I get this – there are many benefits from being contactable (it opens up opportunities to be contacted by potential partners, advertisers, other bloggers, the press and readers) and there are ways of safeguarding your privacy. If you use WordPress there are numerous contact page plugins that will help you to set up a page that will safeguard your privacy.
• Subscribe Page – most blog templates have subscription buttons and links built in by default – however not all of your readers will be familiar with what they mean or how to use them. While most of us as bloggers understand what that orange RSS symbol means – many will not. Over at my Digital Photography site where I have readers of all levels of tech savyness I have a subscription page which outlines the different subscription options that we offer. This page is visited a lot and converts very very well both with RSS and Email Subscription methods (note: later in this series we’re going to explore the idea of ’subscription options’ to help you think through how to let readers connect with your blog).
• Other Pages – there are a variety of other types of key pages that you might want to consider setting up, depending upon the goals of your site. These might include a ‘Advertise with Us‘ page, ‘Press‘ page, ‘Disclaimer‘ page, ‘FAQ‘ page, ‘Resources‘ page (if you’re selling something for example), a ‘Privacy Policy’ page, ‘Testimonial‘ page (if you have some good ones from previous customers), a 404 page, a ‘Resources’ page, an Archives page etc. Not all of these would be relevant for new blogs but for more information on these and others – I’ve previously outlined 20 types of pages that bloggers should consider.

What pages have you got set up on your blog?

Position Links to Your Pages Appropriately

Once you’ve set up the pages that are important for your blog it is also important to think carefully about where you’ll link to these pages on your blog. Having the pages is one thing but you’ll also want to think about how you’ll be driving traffic to them.

This will depend upon your blog’s design but as with anything – make sure that the pages that are most important to you (for example an ‘About Page’ or a ‘Contact Page’ might be included in this category) ‘are linked to prominently on your blog. This might mean setting up a navigation area across the top of your blog or having one at the top of your sidebar.

Other less important pages might be linked to from your About Page or even in your footer (in this case I’d be putting things like disclaimer pages).

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

The First Week of Your Blog: Set Up Key Pages

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The First Week of Your Blog: Set Up Key Pages

My worlds are colliding. I mean my “U2 world” and my “SEO world.” I try to keep them separate, but this story makes that impossible. Check it out on the Somerset County Gazette web site.

Apparently, a local/small business owner recently got a job fixing a broken GRAMMY Award that belongs to U2. The article makes several cheesy references to U2 song titles, but here’s the part that matters:

“…one of the band’s management team got in touch after typing in ‘trophy repairs’ into Google.”

SEO FTW!

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This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

U2 Validates Benefits of SEO

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U2 Validates Benefits of SEO

Look out, Big Apple. Search Engine Strategies is coming to town. As always, Bruce Clay, Inc. will be there with blue shirts and plenty of knowledge to share. We’ve got a bunch of ways to do that this year.

First up, on Monday, start the conference off right with SEO training. It’s an all-day class taught by Bruce and you get to take home a copy of the book I spent a year of my life on, SEO for Dummies All in One. Bring it with you to the rest of the conference and I’ll force my broken crippled hand to scribble something trite in it.

At the conference itself, you can visit our booth (#1217) or you can catch one of Bruce’s three speaking opportunities. I’m thinking the White Hat, Black Hat: Unconferenced session at the bar is going to be unmissable.

As for me? I’m liveblogging this time around and you’ll find my schedule below. Use it wisely to plan treats, bribes and icepacks for my hands.

So, to recap…

Training:

Mon. March 22 Search Engine Optimization Training

Bruce will be speaking at:

Tues. March 23, 4:00 – 4:20 p.m.: Theater Presentation in the Americas Hall 1 exhibit hall – “What to Look For in an SEO Vendor”

Wed. March 24, 5:00 – 6:00 p.m.: SEO Super Tools

Wed. March 24, 6:00 – 7:00 p.m.: White Hat Black Hat: Unconferenced (This is a first-time, unique session, taking place in a bar.)

We’ll be in booth #1217 in the exhibit hall.

And I’ll be here:

Day 1: Tuesday, March 23

Day 2: Wednesday, March 24

Day 3: Thursday, March 25

SES New York 2010 Liveblog Coverage was originally published on BruceClay.com, an SEO tools provider.

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SES New York 2010 Liveblog Coverage

If you missed last night’s PPV Webinar with Jonathan Volk, David Ford and Corey Bornmann, then you missed out big time. It was one of the best webinar I’ve ever attended. David and Corey held nothing back and even showed how they have earned $27,287.50 in affiliate commissions in only 8 days using PPV traffic. That is serious money! It was one of the very few webinars I’ve attended where I actually took notes.

For those who were not able to make the webinar, Jonathan has made the entire PPV session available for download. Trust me, you will want to download this! The information David and Corey present was simply awesome. I’m sure readers who were at the Webinar will be chiming in the comments about its awesomeness.

The PPV Webinar download is only available to people who downloaded Jonathan’s new Affiliate Marketing 101 guide. If you have the guide, then you should have received an email from Jonathan with the webinar download link. If you don’t have the guide yet, then go sign up for it and Jonathan will send you Affiliate Marketing 101 and the PPV Webinar.

Download Affiliate Marketing 101 and PPV Webinar

Discover the SECRETS I’ve Learned to go from zero a month to over $40,000 a month from blogging. Download Make Money Online with John Chow dot Com for FREE!

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PPV Webinar Available for Download – $27,287.50 In 8 DAYS!

There’s been some recent news about the possibility of Google working with the Dish Network to bring searches for television programming and YouTube videos to TVs, reported at places like the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ article tells us that besides actual tests of a Google settop box that allows searching for TV programming, [...]

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Will Google Bring Us Tabbed Windows on TV?