I did not make much fuss blogging, or talking about Netscape turning into Propeller when it all went down a week or so ago. I know so many were talking about how this will be the end for the popular Netscape program, and predicting all kind of bad things. I just laughed them all off, just like everyone saying Digg was going to die about a year or so ago.

I think its a good time now, to talk about why I will continue to use Propeller. REASON ONE: If you keep a close eye on your SERPs and brand management you will notice how Propeller is already helping out with that. That alone should be reason enough to even just have an account with Propeller, right?

If you need more convincing, then how about this - REASON TWO: I had a client call me today and talk about how much they love the traffic they are getting from the new Propeller. Out of only hundreds of visits, they had received several qualified leads, and two of them have closed down for large amounts, making my client very, very, very happy. Most of my clients had enjoyed traffic from Netscape, and thought they were receiving new love from a “new” traffic source. They were surprised to learn of the switch!

These two reasons are good enough for me, even though I will continue to use Propeller for so many others. What are your thoughts about the new Netscape social network?

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A while ago when Pownce first came out I tried (for a second) to get an invite, but never got one, so I lost interest and forgot about it until today. Today, a buddy of mine, Brandon Buttars hooked me up with an invite, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to ask if anyone else wanted a Pownce invite? I got 6 of them, so I will give them to the first 6 commenters that ask nicely.

This is also going to be a good test to find out if anyone even cares? Do you already have a Pownce account, and do you use it? What do you use it for? Has it been useful, or a waste of time? I guess the main test will be if I am able to give away all 6 invites. If you care and want to add me, here is my Pownce - http://pownce.com/Matt_Siltala/

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I do my best to teach (those who ask) about finding targeted niches and keywords when starting their business online (and sticking with them), and I want to spotlight a company that I think has been brilliant at this. The guys at DB Clay are friends of mine, (especially Mr. Diggles) and this is not a paid post, and I just wanted to thank them online for sending me one of the sickest unique wallets I have ever owned in my life!

DB Clay has been making unique and designer wallets for several years now and has had a humble beginning, but has managed to turn their niche into an empire, and stay true to their product line. The reason for their success is they figured out what people were looking for online when it came to wallets, and they hit that group of people hard, and did not venture out into other areas. They knew the keywords they wanted to be found for, and built a website around it.

They also understand about the power of social communities and getting people to talk about your product, so they started Evil Backwards (LIVE). DB Clay considers this their online business paper trail, but I think of it as an amazing idea to get people involved and actively talking about product. Every business owner can learn a lesson from the accomplishments of DB Clay, and their small little niche!

Again guys, thanks for the wallet!

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My new best friend Pierre Far brought to my attention via a post last night that there may be some problems with our new Firefox extension Social Media for Firefox. He stated that there were somethings being sent to a Data Base that looked concerning to say the least. Dazzling Donna also covered it and the story is on Sphinn right now.

I am thankful for them posting this and I would of done the same if I noticed something fishy regarding a new tool I just installed that a lot of people were exited about.

Immediately after Pierre posted on his blog, I replied and emailed him directly giving him full access to our Data Base reports so he could help me recognize any wrongful data that was being stored. We did set up a data base and the reason was to watch for problems in the vote reporting especially for SU and Reddit as they do not have API’s and we have always had issues with them. Pierre noticed that there was some problems particularly with less protected sites that was leading to the recording of things that we had no idea of. Things like URL strings having the user name in them etc..

Upon this info we immediately deactivated the reporting and we now have a new version available that has no ties whatsoever to any reporting or database.

You can access the new version 1.0.12 by going to tools in FF and selecting “add ons” and then “find updates”

or you can delete it through add ons as well and install a new version here.

I will be the first to admit to this Folly I take full responsibility. I do not know how to program, nor do I plan to learn. I sent the tool in beta to a programming friend he was too busy to check it out, and I should of waited until he did.

This was not intentional I apologize to the SEO community, we created this tool to help us build better SM accounts and it definitely helped us, we wanted nothing but to share it with everyone else so they could do the same. Mat and I have built 97th Floor from the ground up, it is our source of income, and our passion. We would never intentionally do anything that would jeopardize users of our product.

Again I apologize know now that you can build those power accounts without the 97th Floor Big Brother Watching Over you. Everything that was recorded has been destroyed and deleted.

Again this was an innocent mistake that I will not back away from.

On a positive note we have had some people report that they are already experiencing very positive results with reaching first page glory on the different social sites.

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Over the summer we have been building some sweet tools to help us save time while finding good content to submit to social sites. It can take a lot of time out of your day to find really good content that would be suitable for the audiences of Digg, Reddit, SU and others. So we developed a tool that does just that for you.

It is called Social Media for Firefox it is a status bar extension and you can read the FULL DETAILS HERE.

After downloading it and testing it out please comeback to this post and leave us feedback or comments.

Thanks to Cameron Olthuis for testing it with us and Modern Blue Web Design for programming and design

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I did a post about Google News (and link building) a while back on YouMoz (SEOMoz) that quickly became one of their most popular blog posts with loads of comments back when they first launched. I was surprised to not see more SEO’s talking about Google News, or loving it as much as I do for finding powerful links that are very targeted and relevant. I have been doing case study after case study and have perfected what I wrote about back then. I wanted to share with all the updated information that I think is beneficial for all those trying to do a better job building relevant links.

I am not a big fan of press sites like PR Web, PR Newswire or PR Leap for the “SEO- Factor”, but rather for the exposure. However; I am a fan of getting my press release (or article) to the most targeted “Press” sites possible so they do the most good link wise.

Finding a powerful, relevant link inside a press site that was created for my niche is going to give me additional link juice and rankings that will help my bottom line. In turn I will get more traffic due to additional rankings, make more sales, and experience a higher conversion rate because of the targeted press.

Here is how it all works:

Go to Google News and type in a keyword that is the most targeted keyword for your site; Make sure you are using the “Search News” (see picture below)

Once you get a list of results that have made it on Google News you will start to see what I am talking about. Start paying attention to the targeted press sites that are related to what you are doing on your website.

I tested this on a site selling memory foam mattresses. I went to Google News, typed in memory foam mattress and got an amazing list of targeted press sites likes product review sites, home textiles sites, furniture today news sites and so on that would be perfect for link building. I ended up submitting the press to a “product review” site that was ranking fairly high on Google News. All I did was find the place on their website to submit, or just contact them directly and asked them to accept my release. They did the very same day I submitted it, and just like that I had a very targeted relevant link on a site that was already showing up, and ranking on Google News.

The links alone you gain would be worth it because of how targetd they are, but I want you to see an additional “bonus”. In the picture below pay attention to the very first result when memory foam mattress is typed in. It is the product review site that I submitted the press release to and has been in this spot (at time of posting this article) for almost a month in the #1 spot.

What does this teach us? Finding relevant links that are targeted to your business are not as hard as you might think. Google is giving up the tools to use (as well as other major search engines), we just need to take advantage of them.

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