With all of the hype surrounding the .me registrations, I couldn’t help but wonder what good domains, if any, were still available for registering. I started plugging away at the Go Daddy bulk registration tool and realized within the span of a couple minutes that my searching for single word .me domains was futile. Moving on, I brainstormed two-word .me domains using Google and stumbled across a gem (at least that’s what I thought having recently read about the need for an iphone social network on TC).

I immediately registered the two-word domain with Go Daddy half-thinking it was going to get rejected anyways. However, the “Congratulations! Your registration request for the domain name(s) below was successful” email and $40 debit proved otherwise. Looks like I’m the proud new owner of the following domain:

www.peoplenear.me

Soooooo… Anybody interested in starting up an iphone social network?

Looks
Although you shouldn’t base your entire decision on looks alone, I still don’t recommend running a butt ugly theme. Give your visitors something pretty to look and they’re more likely to stick around. Your bounce rate will thank you later.

Layout & Usability
How many columns is too many columns? Can visitors easily navigate your site and access your content? Is it easy for them to subscribe or contact you? Before you can choose the right Wordpress theme, it is important to understand your own goals and those of your readers. A good theme will accommodate both.

Easily Customizable
It should be easy to customize your free Wordpress theme. However, if you have to dig through unorganized stylesheets or non-commented PHP code, the theme may be more trouble than it’s worth especially considering most default themes will need to be tweaked in one way or another.

Custom Functions & Features
Free themes typically include only the bare bones essentials and do not offer more advanced features such as custom 404 pages or stylized comments. Other goodies might include dashboard management tools for custom theme functions, built-in advertising options, and social media sharing solutions.

Theme Author & Support
Just because it’s free, doesn’t mean it’s any good. Would you rather download a free theme from an experienced publisher or a one-off designer’s coding nightmare? Additionally, does the author/publisher provide any support or regular updates for the theme?

All things considering, I opted to run a slightly modified free UBD Moneymaker Theme courtesy of Unique Blog Designs. It looks pretty, is usable, easily customizable, equipped with premium features, supported, and provided by a company known for their unique blog designs.

After running the full scan, as with most spyware/adware solutions, I was presented with a list of items which could potentially be hindering/affecting the performance of my computer. Without doing much more research, I decided to let Spybot fix and/or remove all of the potential problems it found. Besides, I don’t really have time to query all of the various cookies and verify on my own whether or not they are evil doers.

Great, the scan is done and problem solved. Or at least that’s what the hope is. Sure enough, I go to login to my affiliate network and can’t because Spybot is blocking cookies. After customizing the browser internet options and making various site exceptions, I’m back in business. However, since the process was such a pain in the ass, I went ahead and uninstalled Spybot altogether. Truthfully, the only reason I installed it was to find the problems and delete them. Problem solved, software gone.

Fast forward a month or so to present day. I’m working on a new commission junction campaign and setting up the landing page links. Weird. The commission junction links don’t work. Contacted the advertiser and they can’t seem to replicate the problem. Contacted my friend and asked him to verify whether the links are working. Well what do you know, they work fine he says. Hmmm…

Oh, that’s right (slips and falls hitting my head on the toilet), didn’t CPA Affiliates mention something about Spybot killing your affiliate sales? Problem is, when I originally read the post, I didn’t really know wtf they were talking about. Oh, I think I have a much better understanding now.

Which leads me to part II of the Spybot search and destroy saga. How exactly do you fix the problem now that Spybot has already been uninstalled? After some Google poking, I came across the following fix:

Locate your “hosts” file in one of the following directories:

Windows 95/98/Me c:\windows\hosts
Windows NT/2000/XP Pro c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Windows XP Home c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Linux /etc/hosts

Once you locate the hosts file, open it up with your favorite text editor such as notepad and remove any lines with the following:

bfast.com
linksynergy.com
qksrv.net
cc-dt.com
commission-junction.com

After that, save and close your browsers. The links should work now. If the links still don’t work, make sure you are editing the hosts file located in the specific directory mentioned above.

And on a final note, Yodama, a member of Team Spybot, indicates that they have since removed apmebf.com, emjcd.com and kqzyfj.com from the hosts and Internet Explorer immunization. So there you go, short story long.

1. Identify your advertising goals.
Your optimization strategy depends on the objectives that you define for your campaigns.

2. Organize your account for maximum effectiveness.
A well-structured account is easy to manage and allows you to effectively target your audience.

3. Choose relevant keywords and sites.
The more relevant your keywords and sites to your goals, the more easily you can reach your potential customers.

4. Create straightforward, targeted ads.
The content of your ads should capture users’ attention and set your business apart.

5. Optimize your website for conversions.
Ultimately, your website determines how well your ads convert, so be sure it’s designed to let users complete the action you want them to take.

6. Track your account performance.
Monitoring your results allows you to ensure you’re getting a good return on your investment.

7. Test and modify your campaigns to get the results you want.
Optimizing your campaigns regularly will help you keep up with users and market trends and ultimately reach your advertising goals.

Google suggests you check your stats regularly and provides some quick tips regarding the new top ad placement formula.

You want answers?
I want the truth!

You can’t handle the truth!

Chris Sherman from Search Engine Land just revealed 14 strategic truths about search marketing that are imperative for success.

1. You must set goals.
2. SEO is an ongoing process.
3. Competition is nasty, brutal, and long.
4. The long tail is your friend.
5. Both paid and natural SEM are crucial.
6. Strive to balance paid and natural results.
7. Tools simplify everything.
8. Being #1 isn’t everything.
9. Beware the brand trap.
10. Customers hear their language, not yours.
11. SEM complements other marketing efforts.
12. Traditional marketing complements SEM.
13. Searchers are desperate to reach you.
14. Let their fingers do the talking.

In conclusion, Chris Sherman suggests that search should be considered as an integral component of an overall marketing campaign. In addition, be prepared to spend time and money but have patience because search marketing really pays off.

Search Marketing Now offers free webcasts covering topics about search engine optimization, paid search advertising and search marketing in general. If you haven’t tuned in already, register now.

The newly launched sites feature more than 15 million business listings across all major yellow pages categories including tens of thousands of vertical, local and local-vertical websites.

Wow! Marchex must have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, drank a V8 and had their Wheaties this morning.

Local search just got a swift kick in the ass.

The SEMPO courses are designed to keep you aloof of what’s going on in the fast growing search marketing arena, help you influence website traffic and introduce career options. SEMPO is a global non-profit organization serving the search engine marketing industry and marketing professionals engaged in it.

Although you can enroll in any of the search marketing classes, the SEM Fundamentals is a prerequisite for both the advanced SEO and PPC courses.

I’m jealous. I just finished reading an article on Slate entitled In Your Face - How Facebook could crush MySpace, Yahoo!, and Google. And frankly, I want to steal their on-page post titles for my blog. I’m growing tired of dulling down my post titles all for the sake of SEO.

Slate has the perfect setup. Short, creative, reader attention-grabbing headlines preceding the keyword laden sub-headline that double as page titles. Great! Where can I get some?

If anybody knows how to pull off the aforementioned Slate effect, please share in the comments below. Ultimately, this would come in the form of a plugin but I’m willing to open up the hood if need be.

p.s. If a plugin like this already exists, shame on me for not looking harder.
p.s.s. It’s Sunday. I’m lazy.