Google’s Webmaster Tools is a valuable resource for both new and experienced webmasters and webloggers alike. It has a variety of features which allow users to analyze how Google search results rank your page, learn more about generating traffic and ask questions about search engine optimization and visitor trends. The following are some the essential tools and services Google lays out for you.

Once you’ve set up your Google Account (having a gmail account will work), you can submit your website or blog to Webmaster Tools by simply inserting its URL into the Webmaster Tools Dashboard. After you verify your site (by either uploading a HTML file to Google or inserting a Google metatag into your site’s source code), you can take a look at your blog through Google’s eyes.

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At Apollo’s blog, we have talked extensively about creating captivating content, posting on a regular basis and listing your most popular posts. These are all strategies and features that can bolster your blog’s communicative power and quickly draw in a dedicated fanbase.

Once you have a regular blog posting schedule set up for yourself, you can improve the organization of your blog by listing your most recent posts at the side.

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The Internet is home to hundreds of thousands of overnight success stories, where everyday people writing everyday things can propel themselves to the top of their respective niche markets and communities. And it’s never just the luck of the draw or being first at the post. There are several key strategies to blogging success and having a strong blog community around you is pivotal to attracting readership and getting your voice out there.

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Search engine optimization is a growing trend that has taken the Internet by storm, creating and enforcing effective strategies that direct traffic to your site based on the search terms of your potential customers.

As every company who is expanding online knows, SEO is integral to the success of their digital offerings. So, for those companies out there looking to take the plunge into effective internet marketing, here are 5 reasons why you need to invest in SEO consultation. Read the rest of this entry »

So, you’re a dedicated, consistent and knowledgeable writer who has a clear understanding of your subject matter and the drive to get it out there for the world to see. You understand catchy titles, and have a clear idea of who your audience is. Yet even with all these effective qualities at your disposal, your blog may not be generating the type of widespread response you’re looking for.

What’s missing from the mix here? One of the key ideas of effective blog writing is to think visually and present information in a way that is more suited towards reading on the Internet rather than reading for text, like it is in a book or newspaper. Simply throwing all your knowledge down like its on paper is so 20^th Century!

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Picasa is Google’s software application dedicated to editing and publishing photos for the web. The program is free and very easy to use, placing it among the ranks as popular web photo services like Flickr. Here is a quick run down of Picasa’s features and uses.

After importing your photo files into Picasa, you can resize, crop, reduce red eye and enhance the color of your pictures. You can also optimize your pictures so that they can easily be sent as emails or as elements of web pages. Printing optimization, slide shows and image timelines are also included. There are customizable tabs that allow you to name and divide sections for your photos, organizing them a cleat fashion.

In order for you to easily search through your digital photo albums, Picasa uses IPTC keyword data to keep track of the keywords attached to your jpegs. This also allows other photo programs like iPhoto and Adobe Photoshop to access these keywords for cross-accessibility. The search bar is an incredibly useful tool when you are dealing with literally hundreds of photos imported from your camera. Read the rest of this entry »

On December 19^th, among jolly patrons and bright lights at the lively Madison Avenue Pub, the Toronto Bloggers celebrated their fifth meetup.

Eleven Toronto Bloggers’ members were able to make the December meeting between holiday shopping and prepping for time off work. Some of the members included Emmanuel Lopez (a.k.a. Motivatorman), Mauricio Osegueda of The Quarto, Apollo Media’s very own, Luciano Sampaio (a.k.a. The Code Master), Damien Van Vroenhoven (a.k.a. The Rock Blogger), Afshin Mousavian of The Gap Factor, Darius Bashar of Websites that Make Money, and myself: Stephanie Miller of Live Lighter.

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Google Labs has expanded on the coveted search engine’s power by providing alternative views and shortcuts to better organize and specify your search results. Here is a list of some of the new features that are being implemented with Experimental Search:

Alternate Views: List, Info View, Timeline, Map

The alternate views for search results presents 4 tabs next to the search bar that will separate information regarding your search term into specified areas, like historical events or location. Hitting the ‘list’ tab displays the search results in conventional order. The ‘info’ view allows you to specify search limits (in terms of time period, measurements, locations and images). Click on ‘timeline’ and it plots the chronological history of your search term. And the ‘map’ tab locates where your search term is or where it has been featured geographically using the conventional Google Maps satellite imagery.

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Google Trends is a tool put out by Google Labs that allows users to monitor the most popular search results on the web and how they have changed over time (since 2004). Google Trends also displays news stories covering factors that may have affected the volume of the term’s search results.

After entering your search term, Google Trends will display a line graph that has time (in years) across the horizontal axis and search volume (on a global scale) on the vertical axis. There is also a news-reference-volume graph that tracks which news stories relevant to your search term have appeared on Google News. Below this, Google Trends displays which countries, cities and regions have searched for this term the most.

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A few weeks ago, Apollo Media’s own Darius Bashar had the pleasure of attending one of the blogosphere’s most important events: The Blog World and New Media Expo in Las Vegas.

The Expo is an annual opportunity for anyone involved in blogging, podcasting, internet marketing, business and media to learn of exciting strategies and methods for expanding in the online world. Over the course of November 8 and 9, attendees were treated to a large panel of guest speakers who discussed the massive impact blogging has had on public life, from corporate business, to journalism, to sports and pop culture. Read the rest of this entry »