Long Tail Keywords. Every SEO expert who knows what is he doing, has heard of them? Actually they have played a crucial role in the evolution of the search engines and the way people browse the web for information. In this article I am going to talk specifically about Google.com not only because it is the biggest and most used but because it is absolute pioneer in its field. During the last few years the search giant has made a few updates and innovations that affected the long tail keywords greatly. In the beginning there was an update. It all started with the so called “May Update” in 2010 (Although Google Suggest was itroduced in 2008, the major chages started in 2010). Yeah, that’s right, it was nearly 2 years ago, but before deciding to stop reading bear in mind that this article would offer you a solution for your long tail organic search campaign which might prove useful at the end. So I was talking about the “May Update” and the moment when Google somehow restricted ranking for pages, optimized for long tail keywords. Talking in numbers it was between 5%-15% decrease in the long tail traffic. The update, combined with the Google Suggest and Google Instant services might have really meant the end of the LKT (long tail keywords). Although this didn’t happen and our long pals are still here, they are kind of neglected.   But Why? It is common knowledge that Google have this advertising system called Google Adwords which is based on the CPC or CPI revenue models. To put it bluntly, you pay Google for in order to be ranked higher for certain keywords related to your site. So far so good, but when paid results entered the Google Suggest and Google Instant things were so pink any more. I support my idea wit a simple example. In the context of the approaching Olympic Games many people might search hotels in London. So imagine a guy that opens the search engine and starts typing his query: “London hotel in the downtown” but immediately after entering the “ho-” he is provided with numerous options which might not be in the downtown, but once the user has spotted them, he is very likeable to choose one of the suggestions and stop searching. That is why the traffic from long tail keyword dwindles. Because users simply do not input the whole query of 5-6 words but only a part of it. All this was a tactical move by Google, because short keywords combinations (1-2 words) might be cheaper, but they are searched much more than the long ones and that’s why their average CPC is higher. Automatically...

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The times when you could go to the PC store and buy a game, with all the flashy covers and posters, have ended. CDs are officially becoming history and all the games/music/videos or any other kind of digital content jump into the global web. Nowadays if you want an application for your tablet or smartphone simply go to one of the most famous app providers – the Apple App Store, Amazon App Store, Google Play or Windows Marketplace. These four places, with little exceptions for the Windows Marketplace, are true virtual giants that grow with amazing pace and will only continue to do so. In the context of the latest events (WWDC 2012 and the announcements from Amazon) I will specifically elaborate on the growth of the Apple App Store and the Amazon App Store. The last quarter of 2011 was really lucrative for the guys from Amazon. They succeeded to raise their share on the tablet market up to 17% in December, last year, by selling more than 4.8 million Kindle Fire devices. Experts explain their really impressive achievement by the fact that around Christmas and the other winter holidays people are more eager to open their wallets. Furthermore the price of a Kindle Fire is around $190 which is a relatively modest sum of money for a device from this class. The tablet comes with Android OS 2.3 Gingerbread which makes it compatible with most of the Android applications, BUT you have access only to the Amazon App Store and not to the GooglePlay. Now, nearly six months later, Amazon, with their Kindle, are still on the second place, remaining a very distant follower of the iPad with only 8% market share. According to a survey, conducted by IDC, the sells of Kindle File have dropped significantly and during the first quarter of 2012 they have reached 750 000. So what caused the substantial decrease? Actually there are few factors, that combined can explain why users have put the Fire away: The introduction of the new iPad 3 and the lower prices of the iPad 2; The low percentage of users that are satisfied with their Kindle Fire; Maybe the fact that it is distributed only in the USA; So Amazon are trying to escape the hole they have fallen into. The first step, which they have already made, was to expand their range and reach more markets in order to be competitive. Nearly a week ago it was spread around that they are going to target European countries, including: the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. More countries respectively mean more developers, submitting new products, and more users, downloading them. But why would an android programmer want...

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  If you still haven’t heard of the new Microsoft Surface Tablet, where have you been the last week –Sahara or the North Pole? Actually it doesn’t matter because what happened in the City of Angels 5 days ago won’t be forgotten soon. When they finally unveiled the “mysterious new product” Microsoft did something unprecedented in their history of 37 years – they created not only the software but the hardware as well (I am excluding the X-box or the failure of Zune).     Do they have to be so hush-hush? Lest take a look at this new, freshly-assembled Microsoft Surface tablet as much as we can because many of its features are is still a mystery. It can be expected in two variants – one with Windows RT and ARM processor and one with Windows 8 Pro with Inter Core i5 (Ivy Bridge) processor. The first is going to target the market of tablets and the other is meant to compete with Ultrabooks. Although much of the other parameters like battery life, processor specifications, releasing dates and prices are still “kept in secret”, we know that the Pro release, also defined as a Business edition, will be with higher resolution of the display, with more storage space and will be much more powerful that the ARM-one. Respectively this means it will be thicker, a little bit heavier and surely – more expensive.   What exactly is Surface? There are two distinctive features that really caught my attention during the presentation- the kickstand at the back and the magnetic ultra thin attachable keyboard. Watch the video presentation of the Surface where it is shown in all its fabulousness – my first reaction was: “this doesn’t look like a tablet but more like a laptop from the future” What is it actually? The lighter version with ARM CPU is obviously a tablet but for the Inter-equipped version I doubt there is a fixed definition. Maybe because of the keyboard, the kickstand and the higher productivity it is put in the hybrid category. Some say that the business version with the complete Windows 8 (expected in October) will be able to support the full set of application that a conventional laptop supports. This makes it very likely many Win fans to replace their PC with a MS Surface device. Of course it is still too early and such predictions may sound ridiculous.   Microsoft’s tablet vs iPad. Is this the next iPad killer? I strongly disbelieve that. It is true that the Surface has a few pluses which are absent in the iPad – a physical keyboard, ports, including USB 3.0 and more maximal storage capacity (128GB against 64GB) but Apple...

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Nowadays you can hardly find a person that doesn’t use Google, Yahoo, Bing, Amazon or Yandex on a daily basis. After all, nearly 3 billion searches are performed only in Google.com per day. Impressive, isn’t it? With such an immense traffic all the leading search engines are trying to alleviate their current users maximally and to attract new ones. In September 2008 Google made a huge step forward by introducing the feature Google Suggest. The others just followed its example. What Google Suggest does is simply suggesting keyword combinations in real time. Of course these combinations are connected with what you have already input in the search text box. Just type in a single letter and see how a drop down box pops up on the screen with different ideas for your query. If you continue to insert characters, the content of the box changes dynamically, bringing to your attention more and more hints. In the middle of 2012 this doesn’t seem to be anything special because we have got used to it but then, in the beginning, it was like “Wow, Google is helping me to search faster. That’s great!” And it still is. Imagine that you desperately want to find a particular song but you remember only the first two words from the title. Input them in one of the search engines or in the YouTube search toolbar and you are instantly provided with at least 5-6 suggestions with 95% percents likelihood your desired result to be among them. So far so good but what happens if we look on the matter from a SEO point of view? As a site is being optimized for the search engines, it is made relevant to some specific keywords. This is where the drop down suggestion box might ruin all the SEO efforts. Let’s say that you have a virtual store for selling used cars. The keywords you will probably target will be like “cheap second-hand cars” or “used cars in a good condition”. Well guess what, none of them is currently among the suggestion that Google, Yahoo, Bing or Amazon makes and this is not good. When users input a query in the search engine, for 70% of them it is more probable to choose one of the recommendations rather than continuing to type. It is just easier. So instead of writing “used cars in a good condition” and eventually entering your site, he/she will probably stop at “used cars” and choose “used cars for sale” which is among the first suggestions. (Please take into account that the above example is quite relative. Search engines may at some moment alter their suggestion list as they tend always to offer...

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Most of you are so used to the high-resolutions screens of the Apple devices that when holding other smartphone or tablet you feel weird and uncomforable. The retina display technology is truly amazing and provides the user with unique experience. Sharp edges, crystal clear image and incomparable details. When reading an online newspaper it is like holding a freshly printed issue in your palm. Retina Walls is a very nice iOS application that can give you the best retina wallpapers. Download it now from the Mac AppStore for Free. From Apple have decided to take the things to the next level and to provide retina display screens not only on the iOS devices (iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod Touch and iPad 3) but on the MacBooks as well. It became official with the presentation of the next generaton of MacBooks Pro on the WWDC, a few days ago. Alongside with the conventional MacBook was represented and the sensation of the conference – MacBook Pro with retina display. It is undoubtedly something unprecedented in the laptop sector. Here we are talking about 5 million pixels crammed into a 15, 4 inches (diagonal) screen. Add to this the 2880-by-1800 resolution and you will find that the 15,4” MacBook display has a few more million pixels than a 60” HD TV. The ppi is 220. It is not 326 or 264 like in the iPhone 4S and the iPad 3, but bear in mind that you are going to look at the screen not from 10 or 15 but at least from 30 inches. Thus pixelation can hardly be spotted and this practically is the main idea of the retina display technology – no “small squares” that annoy the eye – only perfectly smooth and realistic picture with lively and vibrant colors. There is no second thought that the high resolution display of the new MacBook Pro will be a success and only after a few months people will wonder how could they have lived without it. If I take an iPad 3 and place it next to its far predecessor – the first iPad – the one without the retina technology will look as if it is not 2 but 20 years older. Of course I am not saying that MacBooks that do not support retina display have become some kind of crap. On the contrary, they will continue to be produced with pretty much the same parameters as the retina version. The only visual difference for the user will be the screen with higher resolution and the thinner and lighter body of the laptop. If we look under the hood there are changes too. It seems that flash memory has...

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Nowadays there are so many smartphone users that working as an app developer can guarantee you a substantial monthly income. You have to be knowledgeable in order to create something both efficiently functioning and nice-to-the-eye but the programming and the attractive design are only the one side of the coin. On the other are the marketing campaign and the way you will engage your target group. Some people think that the only mean to gain some profit is by making paid apps. Wroooong! Did you know that 96% of all the downloaded applications for 2011 were free. This happened thanks to the so called “freemium business model”. If you don’t believe check out the current ranking at the Top Grossing Apps in iTunes or simply take a look at the chart below. The “secret” is to stimulate the user, to give him a reason why he/she should give his/her money for your product. There is a smart psychological trick – instead of putting a price tag of $1.00, make it $0.99. 1 cent is not such a loss, but for the customer it seems better. Unfortunately not everything in the App Store is sold for $0.99 and not everybody is willing to buy something only after seeing an icon and reading some summary and comments. That’s why in 2009 a new way of gaining revenue from applications and services was introduced, different from the premium (paid) apps – the  already mentioned freemium model combined with in-app purchases. The freemium revenue model can be perceived as an ancestor of the trial periods program testing. When a new piece of software was let out there was a trial period during which you exploit it for free, to see what’s updated and decide whether to purchase it or not. Such practices are still popular with antivirus systems, but let’s not get too far from the main subject of this article. Freemium applications are – as you might have guessed – distributed for FREE. “OK but how can I make money from something that people will download without being charged?” Very simple – first release a basic version of the application that will be free. Of course basic doesn’t mean some hello-world program. Make sure that it is not primitive because after all this basic version will have to attract the user and to get under his skin. Once being impressed, the customer will immerse himself into your product and will even welcome your next move – the in-app purchases. Practically the free version of the app is kind of foundation and there are many additional functionalities and options. These functionalities and options are not part of the application but are available and can...

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