It’s a rarity these days to find high quality business information on the web that’s free of charge, but Dun and Bradstreet’s Zapdata offers it in droves.
Experienced business researchers know that it’s difficult to find high quality industry research on the web. Most info pros turn to proprietary (and often expensive) databases of information providers such as Factiva, Dialog and others for critical business information.
There’s one top-notch resource that offers some of the best industry research available at no charge. Dun and Bradstreet’s Zapdata.com provides free market information for anyone who requests it.
The site claims that these industry research reports would typically cost $100 or more and would take weeks to generate from other business sources. Zapdata.com lets you build SIC code industry reports in real-time using D&B business data, which the company strives to keep up to date.
To build your reports, simply drill down using basic SIC code based industry selections. Once you’ve targeted the specific industry you’re interested in, you can choose up to five market research reports. These include:
Market size statistics. Data includes the total number of U.S. companies in the 4-digit SIC code you select, total number of people employed in this industry, total yearly sales for the SIC code, average number of employees per organization, and the average sales per business.
Market analysis by company size. For every company size range, data in this report type includes the number of companies in the 4-digit SIC code you select, their total and average number of employees, and their total and average annual sales.
Market analysis by state. For each state, you’ll be presented with the number of companies in this 4-digit SIC code, their total and average number of employees, and their total and average annual sales.
Market analysis by metro area. Similar to the market analysis by state, for every metro area, see the number of companies in this SIC code, their total and average number of employees, and their total and average annual sales.
Market analysis by specialty. For every 8-digit SIC code under the 4-digit SIC code you select, see the number of businesses in the entire U.S., their total and average number of employees, and their total and average annual sales.
Zapdata’s industry research is an exceptionally rich source of business information — and also proves the maxim that some of the best things in life really are free.
Zapdata
http://www.zapdata.com/
Search Engine Forums Spotlight
PPC tools
Cre8asite Forums
http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=1457
“Can anyone recommend any good (free or low cost) PPC campaign management programs out there?”
Text surrounding the link
ihelpyou Forums
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“Google and the other crawlers have said for some time that text in or near the link is taken into account as part of link analysis. It is better to have the text in the link, for ranking purposes, of course. But surrounding text can have an impact.”
PageRank experiments
ihelpyou Forums
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Professors fighting search engines
Webmaster World Forums
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum9/4521.htm
“Instead of trying to restrict his students to ‘approved’ resources, examining and discussing their Googled results would be a great chance to teach the kids critical thinking and analysis skills.”
Top 10 do’s and don’ts?
Webmaster World Forums
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/10615.htm
“DO: Remember at all times that you are building a business. Even what seems a completely virtual business is still a business and other things than just the search engines and the Google ranking matter.”
LookSmart has acquired Grub
Webmaster World Forums
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum16/838.htm
“By spidering your own sites, compressing it up and sending it to them, you are sparing them the bandwidth to crawl your site. You’ll also be more inclined to make sure all your content is properly spidered and fresh.”
Search Engine Forums Spotlight courtesy Search Engine Guide.
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