Ahrefs, a new marketing research tool, is necessary for webmasters. Ahrefs currently supports 9 countries and over 45 million keywords. These numbers are growing and their index is refreshed every thirty minutes to keep data fresh and up to date.

There are four main tools offered by Ahrefs; 1) Site Explorer, 2) SERPs Analysis, 3) Reports, and 4) Tools. Within each there is a multitude of options available which will be discussed in further detail below. The tools are comprehensive with all the necessary information needed to help run successful SEO campaigns, manage keyword rankings, and see when websites are lacking.

Site Explorer

Ahrefs Site Explorer is similar to Yahoo’s old Site Explorer, but on steroids. There is so much more than just the standard YSE links. You do not need to input special coding in your results to find .gov or .edu links as they are displayed as well as .net and .org. Manage your backlinks to ensure that you do not lose backlinks with their graphs. Look at your anchor text and so much more. You have to try the free trial today!

Ahrefs gives an excellent competitor analysis so you can know exactly what your competitor’s off-site search engine optimization strategy is and how to compete with them. You can enter an exact URL, a domain without subdomains, or a domain with all the subdomains.

You are able to check the referring pages, total backlinks, referring IP addresses, subnets, domains, .edu, .gov, .com, .net, .org, backlink types, nofollow, redirects, images, frames, and much more. These are all shown in an easy to read chart as well and can be exported multiple ways. In addition to the external links tool there are many other tools available such as new links, lost links, anchors, crawled pages, referring domain, and search engine positions.

New Links

By using the new links tab you are able to view your current links at any point in time. Select a day and view the type of link, source URL, anchor text, crawl date, and more.

It is nice to be able to go back in time and review inbound links and keyword rankings to see what may have caused an increase or decrease in your SERPs. Ahrefs has a rating scale next to each link based on traffic estimations.

Lost Links

The lost links looks exactly the same as new links, but rather shows exactly when a website lost inbound links. Use this tool to track links to the exact date and see when they were lost. Then contact the webmaster and see why the links were dropped off.

Anchors

Here you can see what anchor text is used and how often it is used. Even has a drop down off example linking domains to see who is linking to you and whit what anchor text. View 50 anchors per page, but you are able to export all results to CSV.

Crawled Pages

View page URL’s with the exact crawl date. All URL’s are shown with the page title. Look at the page size, internal and external link count. Explore your linking structure and spy on competitors linking structure and popular pages within their website.

Referring Domains

When viewing the referring domains you can see the number of links from that website and its Alexa tanking. They links have a dropdown that shows the exact domain location and what page it is linking to.

SERP Positions

View keyword positions in Google and Yahoo/ Bing which are merged together. View the results in other country search engines. View keyword current positions, daily changes, rating, cost per click value, estimated cost, URL, US and global traffic volume, competition level, and the date last updated. Very thorough and easy to read and explore. Export all your results to CSV for deeper analysis.

SERPs Analysis

The SERP (search engine results page) analysis from Ahrefs is a comprehensive tool that displays PayPer Click Ads, keyword position with analysis, along with a way to monitor daily stats and changes in keyword rankings. Enter a URL to get data from Google, Bing, and Yahoo search results. All the data is exportable to CSV.

Position Analysis

Simply enter your URL and you will get a full depth analysis of your domains position, keyword, rating, CPC, cost, URL, site explorer, SERPs analysis, US volume, global volume, competition level, and date last updated.

Daily Stats

An excellent report that breaks down multiple data points such as; new and lost keywords, total keywords that moved up and down, total positions up and down, rating change, and the cost of change. Rating change is the number of visitors per month and the cost of change is rating multiplied by cost per click. Within the daily stats are multiple charts to make analyzing data easy comprehend.

History Of Changes

View the changes keywords go through in daily, weekly, monthly, and custom date ranges.

Ads Analysis

With the ad analysis from Ahrefs you can view paid advertising data from Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Look at ad text, volume, CPC, competition level, and date last updated.

Reporting

The reports offered by Ahrefs are very thorough and complete. I have used their domain reports and have received more than I could have expected. The Analytical standpoint was beyond my expectations with more information that I thought I could have used. This has led me to new ideas and marketing techniques to use on my own sites.

You can run reports on your website or any other website. Each domain is counted as a separate report, so look at your monthly subscription. You are allowed as many reports as your monthly subscription allows. This is extremely powerful and allows multiple ways to find good links and ignore bad links.

The report has multiple tabs and filtering options available to analyze websites and export the data. Filters are able to be layered as well for more flexibility.

Filtering options include: URL’s, backlinks type, pages, subdomains, counties, anchor text, referring domains, IP addresses, subnets, top level domains, and dates when the pages were crawled and indexed in the SERPs.

Here is a screen shoot of how to register your domain for the reports.

Tools / Labs

Ahrefs is constantly pushing out new products and services for their subscribers. As of how there is a backlink checker, domain comparison / analysis, batch analysis results, and even top rated SEO toolbars to streamline your daily workload.

Ahrefs Top Backlinks

This shows the top million domains by the number of backlinks. You can also search the list for a specific domains exact position.

Domain Comparison

Compare and analyze up to 5 domains at once for an in-depth competitor analysis. This is excellent when starting a new site or trying to outrank a tough website.

Batch Analysis Results

You can easily analyze batches of domain with a report stating total backlinks, referring domains, and IP addresses for each link. You can export all the results to CSV.

SEO Toolbar Integration

Ahrefs is compatible with SEO Doctor and SEO Quake, excellent SEO plug-ins for Firefox and Chrome. This integration allows for in depth analysis that the add-ons do not offer. This is just an added bonus to all of their tools.

Plans & Packages

Their packages are competitively priced and well worth it. The basic plan starting at $49 monthly allows for daily limits set at 2,500 results per query, 500 queries, and 20 standard reports that are exportable to Excel or CSV. This package includes an additional bonus of 5,000 API’s. Larger packages are available depending on the amount of data you want to use. For an individual managing a few websites the basic package is more than enough.

Overall, I am very impressed with this tool and its capabilities. I really like the fact that the data is updated every 30 minutes to give you real time numbers. The functionality and ease of use is very nice. There is not a steep learning curve like other tools. Try it out and let us know what you think of Ahrefs below.

Social media has exploded in recent years due to sites such as YouTube, Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, and thousands of other social marketing websites. What really stared the trend was in 2004 at a web conference the term “Web 2.0” was coined by Tim O’ Rilley. Web 2.0 is a way for internet users to directly interact with other internet users on the web via social networking sites, social bookmarking sites, social media sites, blogs, etc. When internet marketers realized the potential of these social media sites is as a way to gather customer information they began to join social and actively participate in these networks. There is a goldmine of information that customers share on social media websites.

All these new means on communication created new jobs in the internet marketing field. There are now companies desperately seeking out designers, programmers, internet marketers, and social media gurus to maintain and grow the company’s presence on the web. Businesses even have entire departments devoted to social media marketing specialists that spend all day interacting with others on the web. This has become a full time job and if your business is not participating in social media marketing strategies then they are falling behind and losing customers to their competitors.

What does all this mean for you? It means there are many job opportunities available in the field of social media marketing due to the influence of the internet and the trillions of websites that have emerged. All these websites are potential employers and many of these businesses are very lucrative; while the majority is unfortunately failing. This is where internet marketing, specifically search engine optimization and social media marketing techniques come into play. If you are looking to get a job involving social media there are endless opportunities out there; from start ups looking to make a name for themselves to established businesses that are looking to boost their presence on the web.

Most social media jobs do not require formal schooling or college degrees, but rather prefer to see that you have had hands on training and experience in the field of social media. You have to love internet marketing and always stay up on the latest trends and topics because what works today may no longer work tomorrow. The internet evolves at a rapid pace so formal education does not play a role in the hiring process; although it is always a good idea to get a college degree in Business Marketing. If you are looking for upper level positions you may want to inquire a MBA program in your local area.

MySpace was once the largest haven for marketers, musicians, and people to visit. That lasted for a few years and then Facebook emerged. Facebook changed the game completely with the live stream, chat features, image and video tagging, and many other innovative features. A few years later Twitter emerged as a micro-blogging platform and has become a favorite site for most internet users. And do not forget about YouTube, which is the second most popular site on the web. All these changes happened so quickly and unexpectedly that to be a successful internet marketer you need to always be reading social media news.

Many job boards have emerged in recent years such as Monster, Indeed, Career Builder, Craig’s List, and many others. These are like social networking websites that allow employers to post jobs and employees to seek out jobs related to their expertise. Another useful way to find a job I to go to the website and search for employment opportunities or a contact us page. This will lead you on your way to finding out who is hiring and how the selection process works.

anSocial Media as a concept has been flipped several times, and surprisingly has revealed varied faces. In a broad sense of a term Social media is a medium of connecting and drawing communities together in an engaging activity or discussion. A process occurring the other way round with communities being drawn together first and then being cumulated into a social group will also refer to Social Media.

There is another facet to Social Media, it is although a marketing tool, and it involves a number of technology giants to get social media solutions. This marks the coming together (to clash or to merge is a big question) of two different fields of operation – Technology and Marketing. While Social dynamics drive purchasing and branding, technology enables branding and further activities.

In general social media is the common thread that blends technology and social interaction, resulting in creation of value. Social media is a communication instrument that not just provides information, but also interacts by the means of comments and likes or dislikes. Social Media is also different from the usual one way media instruments such as reading a newspaper or a magazine, without the writer or creator of news being unaware of user comments or opinions. Social media contrarily is a two way communication process.

Social Media is a frequently tossed phrase, and there are various social media websites with varied motives and functionality. There are Social Bookmarking websites like the Del.icio.us, Simpy etc; Social News websites like the Reddit, Digg etc; Social Photo sharing websites like the Flickr and YouTube etc; and the most famous of all Social Networking Websites like Hi5, Facebook etc.

Today’s society is being taken over completely by Web 2.0, human existence boiling down to network computers. Internet and its usages have changed drastically, so has the way human beings interact and use it. Web 2.0 is the force that brings people together over a wide platform – the Internet, through the medium of social media. Web 2.0 is thus responsible for creating a wider and a much interaction friendly web that receives and responds. It makes this harnessing of interaction easier thus making it easier for everybody to use and interact.

Social media is thus a wide perspective, unfathomable by mere descriptions of social websites. It is a revolution that is changing its tone and intensity with every passing second, revolutionizing lives of the entire human community as whole, which belongs to the World Wide Web.

One way not to land a social media job is to submit a resume with little to no social media experience. It would be like applying for a job as a writer, with no writing experience or writing samples to show for. Social media positions are many and on the rise, but they’re competitive. It’s a dream job if you love interacting with people, and brand promotion. Some jobs can also be done from home. Here’s what you need to do to position yourself to land one:

Prove that You’ve Branded You

You may not be able to show any experience promoting a business brand if you’re new to social media. It would be nice if you can show on your resume or portfolio how you took an unknown product and made it known on social media channels, as evidenced by increased sales. However, if you’re not there yet, then there’s one brand that you need to build, and that’s you. Employers are going to go to the social media channels and enter your name. They’ll do a Google search to see what comes up. If you’ve built your personal brand, and have followers and fans, they’ll take note. If you don’t, why should they bother?

Know and Understand SMO

The social aspect of social media is important, but just as important is the technical aspects. You must know and understand social media optimization (SMO). An employer sees value in someone who already gets it and doesn’t need to be trained in that area. They like it because they want people to find your tweets or other YouTube video. If you don’t know SMO and are serious about finding a social media job, then get the online training you need and start learning it soon.

Social media jobs are growing, and business owners are willing to outsource work to freelancers. It’s a great way to supplement income and eventually strike out on your own.

There are so many add-on’s for Mozilla Firefox, that it can become a headache to sort through all of them.  If you are an internet marketer there are tons of valuable SEO addons for Firefox that are free and can save you hours of time.  I will discuss a few of the more popular search engine optimization add ons below.

SEO Book Toolbar

Pulls useful market research data right into Google’s and Yahoo!’s search results, including the following data near each search result. Shows information such as: Google PageRank, website age, inbound links, .edu links, .gov links, social media data, technorati, Alexa rank, cached pages, dmoz listing, Yahoo Directory listing, WhoIs, and much more.
Download SEO Book today!

SEO Quake

There are two parts, the SeoBar and search engine results information. SeoBar can be described as an additional toolbar, which shows the values of selected parameters for the page currently opened in the browser window. Set of parameters shown by SeoBar is fully customizable by user. SeoQuake shows values of the parameters for search results under each search result shown on SERP. Set of parameters shown is fully customizable by user. Loading of parameters can be handled in two different ways – simultaneously with the loading of the SERP or after SERP loading, by user demand. Ranking of the results by selected parameter in ascending/descending order and storing results in file are available features.
Download SEO Quake today!

Firebug

Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page…
Download Firebug today!

Web Developer

This is the most popular Firefox SEO addon for webmasters. So I assume that it is most likely that you are already using this Firefox SEO addon. This toolbar has all the tools that a designer would require to test the design and layout of a webpage such as in analyzing style. It also allows you to view the site without images, shows the layout format, outlines tables, forms etc, validates the code, among the many other things that this addon can perform.
Download Web Developer today!

SEOpen

Provides some basic tools to help with search engine optimization. Including google backlinks, yahoo backlinks, PageRank check, http header viewer, and more. All features are available by right-clicking on an open area of a web page, or by using the included toolbar.
Download SEOpen today!

Link Checker

LinkChecker checks the validity of links on any webpage. Check webpage links at a glance with simple color coding. Ditch those massive listings of bad links that provide no context and add LinkChecker to your arsenal of web development tools today.
Download Link Checker today!

User Agent Switcher

The User Agent Switcher extension adds a menu and a toolbar button to switch the user agent of a browser. View websites in different browsers and mobile devices with this useful tool.
Download User Agent Switcher today!

Search Status

Display the Google PageRank, Alexa rank, Compete ranking and SEOmoz Linkscape mozRank anywhere in your browser, along with fast keyword density analyser, keyword/nofollow highlighting, backward/related links, canonical links, WHOIS, robots and more.
Download Search Status today!

Foxy SEO Tool

Foxy SEO Tool is a free, open source toolbar that provides quick and easy access to a multitude of search engine functions such as Google Site, Yahoo! Site Explorer, Live Fromlinks. Also included are famous web traffic analysis sites such as Alexa, Compete, Quantcast, popular statistic aggregators like Quarkbase and WebSiteOutlook. You can check a site’s listing in important directories like Dmoz and Yahoo! Directory, buzzing Web 2.0 sites such as Technocrati, Wikipedia, Digg, Delicious and links to useful network functions like Whois, Geotool, Internet Archive, etc.
Download Foxy SEO Tool today!

X-Ray

One installed the X-Ray command is available by right-clicking as well as in the Tools menu. When applied to a page it can help you see how the document was constructed without having to go back and forth between the source code and the page in your browser. Is that list made of li, dd or p elements? Is that an h3 tag or just some bolded text? X-Ray shows you what’s beneath the surface of the page.
Download X-Ray today!

K Gen

KGen (Keyword Generator) allows you to see what keywords are strong on visited web pages for search engines.
Download K Gen today!

Flagfox

Flagfox provides a wide range of uses such as: Site safety and malware checks, Finding similar sites and reviews, Automatic translation to your language, SEO and web development research, Diagnostics like pings and traceroutes, Whois and DNS information, Page code validation, Quick URL shortening, Copying a server’s IP address or other info, or you can create your own custom actions!
Download Flagfox today!

What Mozilla Firefox addon’s do you use to help with your daily search engine optimization / internet marketing techniques?  Leave your responses below.

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Your not alone if you wake up in the morning and take the time to express yourself on Facebook. People of all ages have made Facebook their home base for social media interaction. When I say all ages, I’m referring to parents setting up a page for their kids and grand kids showing their grandparents how to contact old friends.

The internet giant has taken social media by storm and become the number one source of connection between friends and family world wide. As with any business the start up was slow until word spread about the newest thing since MySpace. In 2008 a report completed by Tech Crunch listed Facebook next to MySpace in the social media category with 115 million worldwide monthly users. Since that report Facebook has seemed to dominate the world of social media and hold its ground against stiff competition from MySpace, Twitter and other social networking websites.

A report released in January listed Facebook as being the home of 600 million monthly users. In the last six months Facebook is said to have increased this number to an astonishing 750 million monthly users. These new numbers show a dramatic increase of about 150 million new monthly users over the last six months. These also numbers reflect the 7.5 million users under the age of thirteen and the 11% growth in users from Brazil. There could be millions of other users but it was good to see the numbers released in these reports only reflect those users who log in once a month.

It is safe to say Facebook has pleased its current users and shows no signs of slowing down. There is always those people who have a too cool for the newest thing personality. Facebook has managed to attract those type of people by making it possible for users to connect with groups of people and like things that interest them. The ability to network and get up to date information on things geared to the different social demographics that make up Facebook also add to its appeal.

The old saying “There is Something for Everybody” is the truth when your talking about Facebook. The world wide appeal of Facebook has made the social media giant somewhat of a pop culture icon. The rate of increase in users gives us every reason to believe Facebook will be able to reach 1 billion monthly users before the new year.

Would you be willing to pay to get your tweets listed at the top of search results, based on keywords? That’s the idea behind TweetUp, a venture started by Bill Gross. It’s a search service that readers can use to find relevant tweets based on keywords. Business owners and others pay for the privilege of appearing at the top of the results. The New York Times explored the service further with Gross and reports:

“The gamble is whether Twitter users who have turned the microblogging service into global communications phenomenon will be willing to pay to get their 140-character messages noticed — and whether other Twitter users will view such paid placement as legitimate.

So who does Mr. Gross expect to pay to put something as ephemeral as a Twitter post on top of the charts? ‘I think everyone who is looking to build a following will pay,’ he said. That means companies that want to build their brands as well as individuals who hope to drive readers to their Web sites.”

Similar to Google Adwords, you’re bidding on keywords for higher page ranks. With TweetUp, you’re paying for higher tweet post ranks. Either way, you (or your competitors) are paying to stand out among thousands of tweets.

Whether or not you should pay for TweetUp will depend on how much they charge. Like with Adwords, you’ll want to limit your spending in order to control your marketing budget. If the price is too cost prohibitive, then it’s back to grassroots marketing on Twitter, which has helped many entrepreneurs to boost sales and transition from the workplace to their own business.

Ask any entrepreneur who has any success with social media marketing, and you’ll find out the truth about it: This form of marketing is pretty labor intensive. You won’t be effective if you approach it in a hit or miss fashion. If you’re not careful, it can consume all of your time. You have to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Limit Time on Social Media Marketing

Some entrepreneurs find social media marketing addictive. When you work alone especially, social media marketing can become an outlet and a means of socializing and interacting with humans using technology. The problem is, you may not make any money the same day you’re messing around on Twitter, talking about the latest in news and events. It’s easy to excuse the behavior and call it “community building,” when you’re really wasting time. Allocate 30 or 60 minutes to social media marketing tops each day. Larger businesses pay staff and outside consultants to spend a lot of time on social media channels, while they deliver products and services, and make money. It’s on you to do it all, and you don’t have precious time to spend for the sake of social media marketing.

One Part SMM, Two Part SEO

For every minute you spend on social media marketing, spend two minutes on search engine optimization (SEO). The two should overlap, which is fine, but you should do strictly SEO activities when you’re on social media channels. For example, it’s fine to post a tweet on Twitter that includes a keyword that you took the time to research, and that will give you more web traffic. Focus on general SEO and not just social media optimization work (SMO) so that you don’t put all your eggs in the social media basket.

If you’re spending too much time on social media marketing, and not seeing a return on your investment, it’s time to reevaluate your marketing strategy.