This was written by Michelle Keegan,  Constant Contact Email Marketing Expert

If you have ever felt out of your depth in a discussion about email marketing, rest assured you are not alone. The top twenty common email marketing terms and definitions below will help you expand your email marketing vocabulary and make you look and feel like an expert.

Above-the-fold
The part of a web page that is visible without scrolling. It is generally more desirable placement on a Website because of its visibility.If you have a "join our mailing list" tag on your Website, you should place it "above the fold" making it easy for visitors to opt-in.

CPM (or Cost per thousand)
In e-mail marketing, CPM commonly refers to the cost per 1000 names on a given rental list. For example, a rental list priced at $250 CPM would mean that the list owner charges $.25 per e-mail address.

CTR (or Click-through rate)
The percentage (the number of unique clicks divided by the number that were opened) of recipients that click on a given URL in your e-mail.

Conversion rate
The number or percentage of recipients who respond to your call-to-action in a given e-mail marketing campaign or promotion. This is the measure of your e-mail campaign's success. You may measure conversion in sales, phone calls, appointments etc.

E-mail blocking
E-mail blocking typically refers to blocking by ISPs. E-mails that are blocked are not processed through the ISP and are essentially prevented from reaching their addressed destination. ISPs actively block email coming from suspected spammers.

Email newsletter ads or sponsorships
Buying ad space in an email newsletter or sponsoring a specific article or series of articles. Advertisers pay to have their ad (text, HTML or both depending on the publication) inserted into the body of the email.Email newsletter ads and sponsorships allow advertisers to reach a targeted audience driving traffic to a website, store or office, signups to a newsletter or sales of a product or service.

Hard bounce/Soft bounce
A hard bounce is the failed delivery of an e-mail due to a permanent reason like a non-existent address. A soft bounce is the failed delivery of an e-mail due to a temporary issue, like a full mailbox or an unavailable server.

House list (or Retention List)
A permission-based list that you built yourself. Use it to market, cross sell and up-sell, and to establish a relationship with customers over time. Your house list is one of your most valuable assets because it is 7 times less expensive to market to an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one. Use every opportunity to add to it and use it.

HTML e-mail
An e-mail that is formatted using Hypertext Markup Language instead of plain text. HTML makes it possible to include unique fonts, graphics and background colors. HTML makes an e-mail more interesting and when used properly can generate higher response rates than plain text.

Open rate
The percentage of e-mails opened in any given e-mail marketing campaign, or the percentage opened of the total number of e-mails sent.

Opt-in (or Subscribe)
To opt-in or subscribe to an e-mail list is to choose to receive e-mail communications by supplying your e-mail address to a particular company, website or individual thereby giving them permission to e-mail you. The subscriber can often indicate areas of personal interest (e.g. mountain biking) and/or indicate what types of e-mails she wishes to receive from the sender (e.g. newsletters).

Opt-out (or Unsubscribe)
To opt-out or unsubscribe from an e-mail list is to choose not to receive communications from the sender by requesting the removal of your e-mail address from their list.

Permission-based e-mail
E-mail sent to recipients who have opted-in or subscribed to receive e-mail communications from a particular company, website or individual. Permission is an absolute prerequisite for legitimate and profitable e-mail marketing.

Privacy policy
A clear description of a website or company's policy on the use of information collected from and about website visitors and what they do, and do not do, with the data.Your privacy policy builds trust especially among those who opt-in to receive e-mail from you or those who register on your site. If subscribers, prospects and customers know their information is safe with you, they will likely share more information with you making your relationship that much more valuable.

Rental list (or Acquisition list)
A list of prospects or a targeted group of recipients who have opt-in to receive information about certain subjects. Using permission-based rental lists, marketers can send e-mail messages to audiences targeted by interest category, profession, demographic information and more. Renting a list usually costs between $.10 and $.40 per name. Be sure your rental list is a certified permission-based, opt-in list. As I mentioned last week, permission-based lists are rented, not sold. Don't be fooled by a list offer that sounds too good to be true. Save the $19.95 and buy yourself a George Foreman grill instead. Unlike the cheap list, the grill is worth the money.

Signature file (or sig file for short)
A tagline or short block of text at the end of an e-mail message that identifies the sender and provides additional information such as company name and contact information.Your signature file is a marketing opportunity. Use it to convey a benefit and include a call-to-action with a link.

Spam or UCE (Unsolicited Commercial E-mail)
E-mail sent to someone who has not opt-in or given permission to the sender.Do you get spam? (a rhetorical question, to be sure) Find out how the sender obtained your e-mail address.

Targeting
Selecting a target audience or group of individuals likely to be interested in a certain product or service. Targeting is very important for an e-mail marketer because targeted and relevant e-mail campaigns, yield a higher response and result in fewer unsubscribes.

URL (or Universal Resource Locator)
A website, page or any other document address or location on the Internet. URLs indicate the location of every file on every computer accessible through the Internet.

Viral Marketing
A type of marketing that is carried out voluntarily by a company's customers. It is often referred to as word-of-mouth advertising. Email has made this type of marketing very prevalent. Tools such as "send this page, article or website to a friend" encourage people to refer or recommend your company product, service or a specific offer to others.

Do you wonder how to go about exercising good social etiquette and managing your social networking communities, all at the same time?

Social media community management has expanded into a growing field and there’s a lot to think about.

Here's a great link regarding great tips...

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-community-management/

We produced the packaging and photography for the 14oz and 30oz jars.

Unfortunately with popularity it has attracted hackers who would love to get into your site and do malicious things. The good news is that theres a few plug-ins and tweaks that you can do to keep them out.

This article will discuss some security techniques to better harden and secure your Word Press site; this is especially effective in a hosted environment.

Step 1 ? Install Better WP Security (easy) .

Better WP Security is the easiest, most effective way to secure any Word Press site in seconds.

You can download it here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/better-wp-security/.

Once downloaded; unzip it and upload it to your \wp-content\plugins\ folder. Now login to Word Press and activate the plug-in.

Now you will see a new item called Security on the left hand side menu. Click on it and you will be prompted with:

Definitely make the backup by clicking "Create Database Backup". It will take a few seconds but well worth the wait if something goes wrong.

Next you will see this text:

I personally do not want to change any core files as this could cause issues so let's just click "Do not allow this plugin to change WordPress core files."

Finally you will be at the main landing page for all of the settings. You should see a list of color coded links that can be updated or changed.

? Items in green are fully secured. Good Job!
? Items in orange are partially secured. Turn on more options to fully secure these areas.
? Items in red are not secured. You should secure these items immediately
? Items in blue are not fully secured but may conflict with other themes, plugins, or the other operation of your site. Secure them on if you can but if you cannot do not worry about them.

There are many options but be sure to at least update the following items:

2. Your WordPress header is showing too much information to users.
8. Your login area is not protected from brute force attacks.

That it for this fantastic plug-in. The next set is a bit more advanced and will require you to have FTP access to the server.

Step 2 ?Restricting access to the wordpress login by IP address (advanced).

This requires you edit or add a new file called ".htaccess" to the root directory of your word press installation.

Before we start You will have to know what your IP address is so visit http://www.whatismyip.com/ and save it for the next step. For this example we will be using 123.456.789.012.

Next copy the code below and replace our dummy IP with yours

 
<Files .htaccess>
deny from all
</Files>
 
<Files wp-login.php>
order deny,allow
allow from 123.456.789.012
deny from all
</Files>
 
 

Finally past the updated code it into your ".htaccess" file save and upload it to you server. Now only you IP address can access the login page. You can add multiple address by duplicating the line "allow from 123.456.789.012" and replace it with the desired addresses.

Now that we have our site locked down you can sleep at night knowing that you site will be safe. If you have any questions or need help you can always reach me at: macguyver@cosmicegg.com

Click here if you want to know his tour dates, and let us know if you spot our design!

1.?? ?Do not purchase a new domain unless you have to. The search engines put a lot of stock in how long your website and domain have been around. While you can purchase a new domain and redirect your old one to the new one, your best bet is to use your existing domain/website if at all possible. If you're redesigning or starting from scratch and you have to use a brand-new domain for some reason, you can expect at least somewhat of a loss in search engine traffic. It could be anywhere from a few weeks to a few months or more.

2.?? ?Optimize your site for your target audience, not for the search engines. This may sound counterintuitive, but hear me out. The search engines are looking for pages that best fit the keyword phrase someone types into their little search box. If those "someones" are typing in search words that relate to what your site offers, then they are most likely members of your target audience. You need to optimize your site to meet *their* needs. If you don't know who your target audience is, then you need to find out one way or another. Look for studies online that might provide demographic information, and visit other sites, communities, or forums where your target audience might hang out and listen to what they discuss. This information will be crucial to your resulting website design, keyword research, and copywriting.

3.?? ?Research your keyword phrases extensively. The phrases you think your target market might be searching for may very well be incorrect. To find the optimal phrases to optimize for, use research tools such as KeywordDiscovery, Wordtracker or Google's Keyword Tool. Compile lists of the most relevant phrases for your site, and choose a few different ones for every page. Never shoot for general keywords such as "travel" or "vacation," as they are rarely (if ever) indicative of what your site is really about.

4.?? ?Design and categorize your site architecture and navigation based on your keyword research. Your research may uncover undiscovered areas of interest or ways of categorizing your products/services that you may wish to add to your site. For instance, let's say your site sells toys. There are numerous ways you could categorize and lay out your site so that people will find the toys they're looking for. Are people looking for toys to fit their child's stage of development? (Look for keyword phrases such as "preschool toys.") Or are they more likely to be seeking specific brands of toys? Most likely, your keyword research will show you that people are looking for toys in many different ways. Your job is to make sure that your site's navigation showcases the various ways of searching. Make sure you have links to specific-brand pages as well as specific age ranges, specific types of toys, etc.

5.?? ?Program your site to be "crawler-friendly." The search engines can't fill out forms, can't search your site, can't read JavaScript links and menus, and can't interpret graphics and Flash. This doesn't mean that you can't use these things on your site; you most certainly can! However, you do need to provide alternate means of navigating your site as necessary. If you have only a drop-down sequence of menus to choose a category or a brand of something, the search engine crawlers will never find those resulting pages. You'll need to make sure that you always have some form of HTML links in the main navigation on every page which link to the top-level pages of your site. From those pages, you'll need to have further HTML links to the individual product/service pages. (Please note that HTML links do NOT have to be text-only links. There's nothing wrong with graphical image navigation that is wrapped in standard <a href> tags, as the search engines can follow image links just fine.)

6.?? ?Label your internal text links and clickable image alt attributes (aka alt tags) as clearly and descriptively as possible. Your site visitors and the search engines look at the clickable portion of your links (aka the anchor text) to help them understand what they're going to find once they click through. Don't make them guess what's at the other end with links that say "click here" or other non-descriptive words. Be as descriptive as possible with every text and graphical link on your site. The cool thing about writing your anchor text and alt attributes to be descriptive is that you can almost always describe the page you're pointing to by using its main keyword phrase.

7.?? ?Write compelling copy for the key pages of your site based on your chosen keyword phrases and your target market's needs, and make sure it's copy that the search engines can "see." This is a crucial component to having a successful website. The search engines need to read keyword-rich copy on your pages so they can understand how to classify your site. This copy shouldn't be buried in graphics or hidden in Flash. Write your copy based on your most relevant keyword phrases while also making an emotional connection with your site visitor. (This is where that target audience analysis comes in handy!) Understand that there is no magical number of words per page or number of times to use your phrases in your copy. The important thing is to use your keyword phrases only when and where it makes sense to do so for the real people reading your pages. Simply sticking keyword phrases at the top of the page for no apparent reason isn't going to cut it, and it just looks silly.

8.?? ?Incorporate your keyword phrases into each page's unique Title tag. Title tags are critical because they're given a lot of weight with every search engine. Whatever keyword phrases you've written your copy around should also be used in your Title tag. Remember that the information that you place in this tag is what will show up as the clickable link to your site at the search engines. Make sure that it accurately reflects the content of the page it's on, while also using the keyword phrases people might be using at a search engine to find your stuff.

9.?? ?Make sure your site is "link-worthy." Other sites linking to yours is a critical component of a successful search engine optimization campaign, as all of the major search engines place a good deal of emphasis on your site's overall link popularity. You can go out and request hundreds or thousands of links, but if your site stinks, why would anyone want to link to it? On the other hand, if your site is full of wonderful, useful information, other sites will naturally link to it without your even asking. It's fine to trade links; just make sure you are providing your site visitors with only the highest quality of related sites. When you link to lousy sites, keep in mind what this says to your site visitors as well as to the search engines.

10.?? ?Don't be married to any one keyword phrase or worried too much about rankings. If you've done the above 9 things correctly, you will start to see an increase in targeted search engine visitors to your site fairly quickly. Forget about where you rank for any specific keyword phrase and instead measure your results in increased traffic, sales, and conversions. (You can sign up for a Google Analytics for free, which easily tracks and measures those things that truly matter.) It certainly won't hurt to add new content to your site if it will really make your site more useful, but don't simply add a load of fluff just for the sake of adding something. It really is okay to have a business site that is just a business site and not a diatribe on the history of your products.

sudo yum install gcc php php-pear -y
 
sudo pecl install mongo
 
sudo echo ?extension=mongo.so? >> /etc/php.ini
 
sudo /etc/init.d/httpd restart
 
created blank file called 10gen.repo in /etc/yum.repos.d/ 
 
vi /etc/yum.repos.d/10gen.repo
 
past the content below
 
For CentOS on x86_64(64-bit)
#------ copy after this line --------
[10gen]
name=10gen Repository
baseurl=http://downloads-distro.mongodb.org/repo/redhat/os/x86_64
gpgcheck=0
#------ end copy --------- 
 
For CentOS 5.4 and Fedora on x86(32-bit)
#------ copy after this line ---------
[10gen]
name=10gen Repository
baseurl=http://downloads-distro.mongodb.org/repo/redhat/os/i686
gpgcheck=0
#------ end copy ---------
 
save in vi by using :wq
 
sudo yum install mongo-10gen mongo-10gen-server -y
 
sudo /etc/init.d/mongod start
 
sudo chkconfig mongod o

Lets make sure that the database is working

 now type "mongo" this will connect you to the database shell
 
If all goes well you should see something like:
MongoDB shell version: 1.8.2
connecting to: test

Now we can use our script to convert our MySQL database to MongoDB

create a new file called convertMySqlToMongo.php

<?php
 
// mysql settings
$mydb   = "database";
$myconn = mysql_connect('localhost','user','password');
$setmydb   = mysql_select_db( $mydb );
$mytables = getMyTables( $mydb );
 
//mongo db settings
$modb   = "database";
$moConnect="mongodb://user:password@localhost";
 
function getMyTables( $dbname ) {
 $tables = array();
 $sql = mysql_query("SHOW TABLES FROM $dbname ") or die("Error getting tables from $dbname");
 
 if( mysql_num_rows( $sql ) > 0 ) {
   while( $table = mysql_fetch_array( $sql ) ) {
     $explain = explainMyTable( $table[0] ); 
     $tables[$table[0]] = $explain;
    }
 }
 return $tables;
}
 
function explainMyTable( $tbname ) {
  $explain = array();
  $sql = mysql_query("EXPLAIN $tbname") or die("Error getting table structure");
  $i = 0;
 
  while( $get = mysql_fetch_array( $sql ) ) {
     array_push( $explain, $get[0] ); 
     $i++;
  }
  return $explain;
}
 
function checkEncode($string) {
 
  if( !mb_check_encoding($string,'UTF-8')) {
    return mb_convert_encoding($string,'UTF-8','ISO-8859-1');
  } else {
    return $string;
  }
 
}
 
try {
  $moconn = new Mongo($moConnect);
  $modb = $moconn->selectDB( $modb );
} catch(MongoConnectionException $e) {
  die($e."Problem during mongodb initialization. Please start mongodb server.");
}
 
foreach( $mytables as $table => $struct ) {
  $sql = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM $table LIMIT 0 , 500000") or die( mysql_error() );
  $count = mysql_num_rows( $sql );
 
  // Starts new collection on mongodb
  $collection = $modb->$table;
 
  // If it has content insert all content
  if( $count > 0 ) {
    while( $info = mysql_fetch_array( $sql, MYSQL_NUM )) {
      $infosize = count( $info );
      $mosql = array();
 
      for( $i=0; $i < $infosize; $i++ ) {
        if(!empty($struct[$i]))
			$mosql[$struct[$i]] = checkEncode($info[$i]);
  }
 
  $collection->insert($mosql);
  }
// Only create a new entry empty
} else {
 
  for( $i=0; $i < $infosize; $i++ ) {
 
	  if(!empty($struct[$i]))
   		 $mosql[$struct[$i]] = '';
 
  }
 
  $collection->insert($mosql);
  }
}
 
echo "Done! Please, check your MongoDB collection!";
?>
 

Now fire up your browser and launch the page. If all all goes well you should see
"Done! Please, check your MongoDB collection!"

That's it for now! Please leave a comment if you have any questions.