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YouConvertIt File Format Converter
I dont know about you, but Ive got all kinds of software utilities on my computer to convert files from one format to another. Ive got one that does videos to mpgs, Ive got another one that does Word documents to pdf and so on. And its a mess because very often I forget how to use a particular piece of software, and Ive even bought the same application twice because I had forgotten that I had it.
So here's a Web tool that gets rid of all of that. Its an online resource that converts file formats for free -- zero technical knowledge needed on your part. Now there are a few other services that have tried to do this, but this one really is streaks ahead and Ill show you why.
Go to YouConvertIt.com and just look at how simple the interface is. Now, the really great part is the site converts more than 120 of the most common formats of documents -- audio, video, to images. Want to convert mp3 format to wave? Word document to pdf? Quicktime movie to flash? It handles all of those, and it does it really quickly.
Whats the Buzz Keyword Ranking Tool
Whats the Buzz is a keyword research tool that you can use to find out whos talking about a certain keyword or phrase. You simply enter a keyword or phrase that youre interested in, and Whats the Buzz will display the following information after it completes its research.
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Technorati blog popularity chart showing how popular that keyword has been in blog posts for the last 90 day
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Google Trends chart for that keyword,
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Several example blog posts tagged with that keyword
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Several example blog posts that contain the keyword in a regular, straightforward search
What's the Buzz closes out the report with a series of social bookmarks tagged with the particular keyword that youre searching for.
For example, if you enter the word "business" into the search field and click the Whats the Buzz button, it does a few calculations and contacts Technorati and Delicious, a social media, social blog bookmarking Web site.
The results: the keyword business has been talked about, used within all the blogs that Technorati tracks for about an average of about 20,000 to 30,000 times every day for the last three months.
Clearly its a very common keyword. Following that, there is a Google Trends charts for this keyword of business that shows its actually trending slightly down over the last couple of years in blog posts. However the news references indicate that its actually trending slightly up over the same period.
The bottom of the report lists a handful of recent blog posts that have been tagged with business. And then at the very end lists social bookmarks on Delicious that have been tagged using the keyword or the key phrase business.
If you're looking for help with finding good keywords for your Web site, Whats the Buzz is a very quick and easy way to do keyword research.
Search All Craigslist
I love SearchAllCraigs.com. Its a website that allows you to instantly search all of Craigslist. Now, Im not sure how much you know about Craigslist, but its a very powerful site with a big disadvantage, and that is that you can only search within a very small geographic region.
Heres how you can use SearchAllCraigs to your advantage. Lets say youre looking for someone to help you with some aspect of your business like Search Engine Optimization. Type in SEO Service and see what comes up. On the first result we found someone whos an official Google person -- what do they call themselves I wonder?
Anyway, its someone who offers help with SEO. So for any outsourcing services you might need in your business, check here first. You might find what youre looking for. Again, that's SearchAllCraigs.com. It's a good one.
You'll find lots more small business marketing tips and resources from Andrew Lock in our Small Business In-Depth series, Lock in Your Marketing Resources.
Andrew Lock is a self-described maverick marketer and the creator and host of Help! My Business Sucks, a free, weekly Web TV show full of practical marketing tips, advice and resources to help small businesses "get more done and have more fun."
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This article was originally published on July 19, 2010