KGen is an extension for Firefox web browsers that displays the strongest keywords on a particular web page. Words on the page repeated more than once are ranked by "weight" (a user-tunable algorithm based on html tags and page placement), number of repetitions on the page, and "position" (which appears to be how far down in the page's code the keyword appears, relative to other keywords in the list). At present, the tool displays only single-word keywords (not multi-word phrases).To install, in Firefox go to the KGen Add-on Page and download. After installing and restarting Firefox, to use KGen   read more

If you've got some experience managing cost-per-click (Google's term for pay-per-click) advertising using Google AdWords, you surely by now realize the high importance of optimizing for Quality Score. Either that, or you enjoy throwing away your or your clients' money.According to Google, Quality Score (QS) is "the basis for measuring the quality and relevance of your ads and determining your minimum CPC bid for Google and the search network. This score is determined by your keyword’s click through rate (CTR) on Google, and the relevance of your ad text, keyword, and landing page.” Those   read more

Starting today (October 23) you should be seeing some important changes to your FB home page. You can now select between News Feed and Live Feed. Live Feed is what you've been used to seeing for the past year: Everything your friends are posting as it happens. New Feed is now a "best of" your feed, the posted items from your friends that Facebook thinks you are most likely to be interested in or want to interact with.By popular request, some of the notifications that used to appear in your feed but had been moved to a sidebar are now back in the Live Feed.in reference to: (view on Google Sidewiki)   read more

On October 21 Google announced at Web 2.0 Expo the coming-soon implementation of real-time Social Search incorporated into the regular search results page.Results will appear at the bottom of the results page and will be culled from the searcher's own social networks, the ones listed on his/her Google Profile.Marketers who have been ignoring social web sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Friendfeed would do well to get on board now and start learning how to use them properly and building followings. Why? Imagine this scenario:You run a website selling vacation packages for Tampa Beach, FL. One   read more

Overwhelmed by your News Feed? Too much to read? Facebook allows you to create groups of your friends so you can temporarily just see who you want to see in your News Feed. For example, you might create a group of "Relatives" or "College Buddies." To make a new group:1. In the News Feed column, click "More"2. Click "Create New List"3. Name the list and select the friends you want to include.Now when you visit Facebook, just click the group in your News Feed list, and you will see updates only from friends in that group!in reference to: (view on Google Sidewiki)   read more

If you're trying to do marketing on Twitter the "hard but right" way (i.e., actively engaging with and listening to followers instead of just link spamming), one of the most pain-in-the-but burdens you take on is deciding who is worth following back. There was a time early in Twitter's history when I used to auto-follow back, but as Twitter has gained in popularity and thus become a prime spambot target, I now make all follow decisions "by hand" as it were.If you're getting dozens (or hundreds!) of follow requests a day, that becomes a burdensome--or perhaps near impossible--task. Enter TrueTwit   read more

I wrote a couple of months ago about some elements of fail in Facebook's Pages feature from a marketing standpoint. A recent new feature at Facebook solves the main gripe in that postsort of.Facebook now allows users to "tag" other users or Pages by name in a wall post or status message. Similar to Twitter, the feature uses an @username nomenclature. A very nice addition is that once you enter @ and start typing a name, a dropdown appears suggesting all possible matches among your friends. Any post or status you tag will appear in the notifications of the friend or Page thus tagged. This is   read more

Blogger is a great, easy to use site for creating a personal blog. However, if you are planning to build a blog for business purposes, it is probably not your best choice, even to start out on. I just learned that Google does not allow Blogger sites to 301 redirect. What this means is that if you are successful in building up good page rank and back links to your Blogger site, and then later decide to move it to another domain, you will lose all of the SEO "juice" you had built up on the Blogger site. For this reason and others, we're planning to move http://virante.blogs pot.com off of Blogger   read more

Proving once again that it is the Santa Claus of the Internet, Google last week announced yet another free toy: Google Sidewiki. Sidewiki is an addition to the Google Toolbar (so far only for Firefox and Internet Explorer) that allows anyone to leave comments and links on any web page anywhere on the Internet. The comments appear in a left-hand slide out that can be opened and shut either from the toolbar or by a small handle icon that appears on pages when you have the toolbar active. This video shows it in action: This morning Sean Carton of ClikZ ruminated over the possibilities and pitfalls   read more

If you've been using Google's AdWords and/or Analytics products for any length of time, you must be aware that the numbers don't always add up. In fact, they don't add up at a sometimes alarming frequency. That is to say, the reported numbers either don't match up to what you know must be reality, or they are not consistent. Needless to say, this realization can be a little disconcerting, considering the amount and level of detail Google provides.I ran across yet another curious example of this the other day. One of the features in the new AdWords interface about which I was most excited was   read more