Pay-per-click or PPC is a form of online advertising where an advertiser pays a certain amount each time a user clicks an ad. This advertising model is found in search engines, blogs and other content websites. Ads relevant to the user are placed on a page where they search for specific articles, products and services.

Google Adsense Ads

Flat-rate PPC and Bid-based PPC are two of the most popular arrangements to determine the cost per click. Flat-rate PPC allows you to negotiate a fixed rate for each click a user makes. The Bid-based PPC however lets you bid on keywords that you think are relevant to your target market.

If you have a company selling antique furniture for example, you can bid on keywords like “antique” or “furniture” and keyphrases like “antique furniture” or “old furniture”. These are words that users type to search for antique furniture on the net. The auction is typically hosted by a publisher or by advertising networks such as Google Adsense, Bidvertiser and Adbrite.

Keywords or Search Terms

Pay-per-click advertising is a very effective way of driving customers to your website without paying a monthly fee for ad spaces. When using PPC, there is an estimated 1%-10% chance for users to click on your ads and eventually go to your website because they will be presented with ads that are related to their searches.

Geographic limitations are not a problem with PPC ads. If your business is based here in St. Louis, you actually have the option to choose locations that are near or within the St. Louis area only. This feature enables you to control the amount of money you want to spend on your advertising campaign without sacrificing the results.

The pay-per-click scheme, given its advantages, also has its weakness. Scammers can impair its integrity by committing an internet crime popularly known as click fraud. They are able to do this by clicking ads over and over again without being detected.

Due to this rampant abuse, Google and other advertising networks commit themselves to developing advanced tracking systems that would prevent click fraud from happening. This solution has garnered its own share of controversy but its ultimate goal is to assure advertisers that they are not paying for void clicks. On top of all these, advertising networks address transparency by providing advertisers with detailed PPC reports. This allows advertisers to see where the clicks are coming from.

Straightline Technology Group Website Services

The possibility of converting user clicks into sales is endless if you have a good product to back it up. Your product also needs an attractive and easy-to-navigate website to appeal to its buyers. Straightline Technology Group offers you a wide variety of services on web development and planning. We can assist you from conceptualizing the website, creating it and all the way to marketing it online. Contact us now!

So you were reading random internet articles one day and a couple of interesting pieces about “networking your office computers” caught your attention. You wanted to read the articles for later and share it with your friends but the bookmarking toolbar on your browser is just not good enough.

In this day and age, internet users go to social bookmarking websites like Digg, Y!Buzz, Technorati, Furl, StumbleUpon and del.icio.us to solve this problem. Social bookmarking allows users to bookmark, classify, search, organize or share files and web pages they find on the internet.

Social Bookmarking Websites

The internet is a great big world of information. One can only keep up with thousands of websites and millions of different articles that are created everyday. If finding a reliable piece of article is not hard enough, try reading through 100,000 pages of Google search results. A person who wants to read about “search engine optimization” can open twenty websites at a time and see SEO definitions written in twenty different ways. If he closes a web page, it will be difficult for him to backtrack it later.

A social bookmarking system enables users to categorize articles by using one-word descriptors called tags so that other users can find it.  It allows users to share articles via e-mail or embed them into their blogs. The comment feature and rate system also encourages a healthy exchange of ideas among them.

Digg Homepage

Information overload and link spamming aside, social bookmarking websites can become a treasure trove of interesting stories and an archive of our favorite articles. They are also great platforms to promote and advertise websites for free. Digg alone has an estimated 33.5 million site visitors every month. One can only imagine the exposure a single website can get by just submitting relevant articles.

A blog is a shortened version of the term “weblog”. It is a website which acts as an online journal for individuals or organizations that own and maintain it. Blogging is the act of maintaining, organizing or adding content to a weblog. The one who does all of these things is called a blogger.

A blog is made up of individual articles consisting of texts, videos, images and links to other websites. The latest entry is usually seen first on the page.

Contrary to popular belief, a blog is not only an online diary for personal experiences. It can be— but not necessarily. A blog can also focus on diverse topics like food, making money online, news headlines, household tips & tricks, cars, stock market, technology and gadgets. It can also feature controversial themes such as politics and religion. Some blogs allow comments after each entry to encourage a healthy discussion among its readers.

Popular Online Blogs

A blog can be used in an unlimited number of ways. A world traveler, for example, can set up a photoblog to update his friends and family about all his travel experiences. A food enthusiast can create a blog to document his trips to restaurants around the city and even feature his favorite recipes.

A laptop company, on the other hand, can create a corporate blog to reach out to its employees and inform its clients about its newest products and services. A corporate blog takes on a more serious approach to blogging. It is used by a number of businesses to develop brand awareness and a good reputation in the market. It also improves their websites visibility in search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Corporate blogs educate customers about certain products and create an avenue for manufacturers and consumers to communicate.

Blogging is indeed a great equalizer. It is a venue where people from different walks of life can give their opinion about a certain topic without being judged or persecuted. A blog is for anyone who has something to say regardless of race, social status, economic standing or educational background. Popular bloggers like Darren Rowse, John Chow or even St. Louis’ own Steve Patterson already have a certain level of influence to their readers.

Steve Patterson

Steve Patterson has been blogging about St. Louis New Urbanism and local politics for several years now and has a dedicated following not only in St. Louis but nationally as well.   Wether you agree with his politics or not you cannot argue with the effectiveness of his blog.   

If you want to create a customized blog for your company, contact us.

Have you ever seen the following logo from any website before? What is it? What does it stand for?

RSS Logo

The image above is called an RSS logo. It tells you that the content of a website that you are reading is already available for syndication– meaning all of the articles, images, video and audio featured on that website can be shared to multiple other websites on the internet.

RSS is an abbreviation for Really Simple Syndication. It is an array of standardized “news feeds” that webmasters use to automatically publish the latest articles from their website. Syndication, being a free form of website promotion, is beneficial to the site providing the information as it is to the site acquiring the information. It readily generates new traffic and added exposure for both parties.

An RSS feed is similar to a monthly magazine subscription. Immediately after printing, the magazines most recent issue will be automatically delivered to the subscriber’s doorstep.

Most websites offer RSS Feed Readers and RSS e-mails to eliminate the need for subscribers to constantly check for new content. As see on the image below, a premier news and lifestyle website in St. Louis also uses Rss Feeds to reach out to many of its readers.

stltoday.com Rss Feeds

Subscribers who use feed readers or feed aggregators like Google Reader, Pageflakes, iTunes and Netvibes  are redirected to a link where they can click on the feed reader of their choice. This automatically enables them receive updates from the website they subscribed to. RSS Mails, on the other hand, allow subscribers submit an e-mail address where they want the updates to be forwarded to. Subscribers can easily unsubscribe if they don’t like receiving more news from that website.

Feedburner is a good website to go to for all of your RSS needs. A lot of webmasters and bloggers prefer it because it is free and easy to use.

Feedburner Logo

The internet is a constantly growing market where websites aiming to be the best are created on a daily basis. An RSS feed helps a lot in attracting a massive audience and gaining momentum over the competition but it takes more than just that to maintain a position on top. It is a webmasters main duty to continue feeding their websites with fresh, informative and entertaining content to keep their readers interested.

When it comes to technology, everything should always be lighter, thinner, smaller. Manufacturers are  on their toes when it comes to making the best laptops and gadgets in the market. Don’t they ever get tired?

Case in point, the much awaited Dell Adamo (pronounced as uh-dahm-oh), that everyone claims to be “thinner than Air”.. of course referring to what used to be the “world’s thinnest notebook”, Apple’s Macbook Air.

I think it’s about time for laptop makers to slow down on the frenzy and focus more on what really matters.  Laptop users, like any other human being, tend to appreciate functionality more than beauty in the long run.

If they were to ask me, I don’t really care if it’s only one centimeter thick or only 10 grams in weight. The important question is, am I comfortable carrying it around? Will it freeze on me in the middle of my presentation? Is it easy to use? Does it fit my budget? Does it have good tech support?

Dell Adamo

Apple MacBook Air

The estimated date of release is said to be on March 26, 2009 at $1,999.00. I just hope it can live up to the hype. After all, Adamo is a Latin word which literally translates as “to fall in love”.

For expert advice on the latest laptops, gadgets and other technology devices,  contact us.  We offer a wide array of services that you can choose from, including CTO Services.

One of the pillars of a successful business is having a good computerized network. Maintaining it, however, also means hiring qualified IT people to monitor the system round-the-clock. Amid a global economic crisis, spending a fortune on expensive manpower is not really the smartest option.

Straightline Technology Group offers a solution to businesses through Managed IT Services. Imagine your whole network being monitored by a server that records and analyzes all of its activities with great accuracy and reliability. There is no need for you to “call IT” each time something goes wrong because this system enables us to detect and repair minor problems remotely, thus, allowing an environment where your network can always perform at it’s best.

Tasks such as 24×7 secure monitoring, backup management, spyware management, asset management, firewall and anti-virus management, many others, will be handled by the system for you. Added services like monthly reporting, onsite review, remote assistance and phone support makes it a very cost-effective package.

With pretty much everything in the IT aspect of your business covered at an affordable price, you could either take a day off or focus on the areas of your business that need more attention.

A previous blog post already gave you an overview of what Google Pagerank is. Now that you already know the basics, the next step is to determine you website’s Google Pagerank. There are a lot of sites that you can choose from to do this.

One of the sites I like is http://www.prchecker.info/. It’s very easy to use and it doesn’t have any ads that pop up in front of your face. The website is very straightforward and best of all, it’s free.

One of the many things that I like about it is that you can choose from three different icons that you can place in your own site for everyone to see. They are already in HTML format so all you have to do is copy and paste. I like simple and uncomplicated badges so they work fine with me.

These icons will be a symbol of your status in the internet food chain and a reminder of how far you have gone. After all, going a notch higher is not that easy. It takes a lot of hard work, patience and consistency to reach a perfect 10/10, an industry standard. Some people call it a “badge”. I call it achievement.

The good news is, Straightline Technology Group offers a wide variety of services that include Search Engine Optimization and Online Marketing.

We understand how a high google pagerank is to every website. We can help you increase it in no time. Our advice to our clients is to sit back, relax, while we do the hard work. Contact us.

This is a list of other websites you might want to check out.

Blog Flux
Google Rankings
Li’l Engine Pagerank Checker

You already know that a group numbers in the following format are called IP addresses right? How do they work? Why are they important?

120.28.240.3
192.168.1.1
216.27.61.137

When you come to think about it, they are more than just numbers. They play a very vital role in the exchange of information between computers.

An IP address is also called an Internet Protocol address, a unique identifying number for your computer in a network of computers. Think of it as a home address in a very crowded street.

When you are using the internet or simply using a computer in your office network, you are sending and receiving big and small amounts of data. It works pretty much like sending and receiving packages via FedEx. Without a specific address, it will be very hard for the FedEx guy to deliver a package and knock on every door while he’s at it. We don’t really want that kind of hassle because time is always of the essence. Same goes for a network with a lot of computers.

There are two popular ways to get an IP address. There’s the static IP which you can forcibly assign to your computer. The other one is called DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol), wherein the network will automatically assign you an IP address. The latter often proves to be more convenient since no two computers can have the same IP address in one network.

You can check your computer’s IP address using http://whatismyip.com/.