Kikabink News

No Internet marketer – well, no Internet marketer with at least a passing interest in search engine marketing – should be without:

1. The Firefox web browser - whether Firefox 2.0 or 3.0 (the latest version); or

2. The free SEO tools and software available from Aaron Wall’s Seobook.com website. These are available as plugins for Firefox.

I’ll cover some of these tools in future issues of Kikabink News. For now, though, let me explain why Aaron’s RankChecker tool is a must-have.

To put it simply, if you want to know how your website ranks for one or more keywords… RankChecker will tell you. You basically type in your domain name, type in however many keywords you wish to check, click “Start” and RankChecker will tell you where you rank (if at all) in Google (US and international), Yahoo Search, and Microsoft Live. You can also export the results in CSV format (i.e. to save in your spreadsheet program).

Click here to download or learn more about RankChecker (yes, it works with Firefox 3.0).

If you haven’t already, click here to download Firefox 3.0 (I’ve heard a couple people say it’s buggy but it seems fine to me… and it certainly leaves its main competitor in the dust).

The New York Times has launched the beta version of its own social network application, TimesPeople.

TimesPeople currently operates as an add-on for the Firefox web browser and allows users to share articles, videos, slideshows, blog posts, comments on articles, and ratings and reviews of movies, restaurants and hotels. Future versions are not expected to require the Firefox plug-in.

This is one smart move on the part of The New York Times. The move will surely encourage readers to stay on the New York Times website longer and promote sharing of The New York Times content (rather than other Internet content). Other traditional media companies would do well to watch closely and possibly emulate the move.

Sources: Vasanth Sridharan , “NYT’s TimesPeople Social Network: Another Good Idea From The Times”, Silicon Alley Insider, June 18, 2008, TimesPeople