It almost sounds magical--a system with an on-demand supply of incredibly cheap labor (pennies for many tasks) that is available by simply posting a request on a Web site. Amazon's Mechanical Turk and other crowdsourcing sites have revolutionized the way companies do intensive manual labor on computing tasks. So, you might want to consider using crowdsourcing for your Internet marketing jobs. But when you do, you also need to be careful about how you do it, lest you give away too much information to your competitors....
Every minute offline means missed visitors which turn into missed dollars, especially for an e-commerce site. I know that most small businesses are operating on a tight budget, which means you're trying to cut corners wherever you can, but trust me when I say that your hosting company is not the place to be pinching pennies!...
One of my kids approached me, book in hand, asking, "What's the difference between a possum and an opossum?" I was busy doing something else, so I languidly replied, "They are the same, but opossums are Irish." Yes, I could have Googled it to find out. I could have told him I didn't know and told him to look it up. I could have at least engaged. But I was too distracted or too lazy to do it. It was autopilot parenting. Luckily, my son shook his head and went off to figure it out on his own (because he...
On Monday, one of the most significant service outages in Web hosting history struck GoDaddy's servers and affected thousands (perhaps millions) of small business sites. While the hosting downtime was initially attributed to the worldwide hacking group, Anonymous, GoDaddy representatives claim "internal network events" are to blame for the nearly four hour long outage....
I often wonder what it would be like if the power of the Internet was made available in regular, everyday life...
Now that you've gotten yourself up and running with a Pinterest account, it's time to put it to use to start collecting ideas, links and pictures. Remember, Pinterest is a powerful online filing system that gives you visual access to the things you might wish to use down the road. Back in part one we talked about setting up some topical boards to sort the "pins" you find. Today we're going to talk about how to find those pins....
No matter how good you are at your job, sooner or later, you are likely to have a client who refuses to pay you. How can you handle this while staying sane?...
A while back, I was asked to participate in an over-the-phone interview that would be later broadcast online. This is one of those interviews where they ask you to provide a list of questions up front so they know what to ask. Sadly, I don't even remember who it was or where the interview ran. But, what I do remember is my faltering missteps during the interview. Yeah, don't pretend it's never happened to you!
I just got a really compelling direct mail piece today that I think any small business could easily do... and probably get a lot of response....
As much as we hate it, criticism isn't all bad. Criticism, regardless of how it was intended, can help us adjust and adapt to situations. It can provide useful insight, justified or not, into our lives and give us the opportunity to become a better person.
No matter where you go in life, you're sure to find people who seem to make it their life's joy to make you angry. They probably don't even realize what they are doing... it just comes naturally. Two conflicting personalities at work.
Leadership isn't just for those with the title or position of leadership. Every person, in any given situation, is a leader of something. You may not have the prestige or salary, but there is no doubt that you carry some leadership responsibilities, however small they may be.
I've just finished a class where we have gone over the latest trends and happenings in the world of Internet Marketing. We look at the most important changes in Internet marketing over the last week and what they mean to you. This is an in-depth 43 minute interactive class....
Wordstream did a nice job showing us some of the free and paid search engine rank checking tools out there. If you haven't updated your rank checking tool recently (or in the past several years) you should check out what is out there now....
Search Engine Roundtable has reported on a new feature in Google Webmaster Tools. You can now update your Sidewiki profile in your tools section. Learn what Sidewiki is and how you can use it to your benefit....
Google Reader now lets you create a custom feed to track changes on pages that don't have their own feed. This is a really handy feature to keep an eye on pages when there is a change. This has all sorts of ramifications. Check out how you can use it....
Seth did an interesting article on the Lizard Brain (something I've been talking about here.) This is an important topic that everyone should understand so they can overcome it....
Delaying your first-dial response time from when you receive an online form from 5 to just 30 minutes decreases your chances of qualifying the lead by 21 times!...
If you haven't maybe you should. It's a distinctly different way of going about marketing. Understanding the concepts of this could significantly change how you think about marketing your products or services....
I have this theory that at every Search Engine Strategies conference there is a particular theme. I often times have a feeling for what I think the theme will be early in the week. I didn't really know what it was for much of the week. I think I finally figured it out. Watch to see what I think....
English may still be the dominant language in terms of content on the Web, but the majority of the world's internet users' first language isn't English. And this disparity creates a rather lucrative opportunity for those seeking to enter new markets: the competition for key search terms is much less on the non-English language internet, therefore it's possible to achieve high search engine rankings far easier than in English....
I talk a lot about fear because I know exactly what it's like to be afraid. I wanted to do this video right now because I'm just coming off of being afraid of money issues. This is how I'm dealing with it....
Tony Hsieh, has been the Zappos CEO since 2000 after investing in Zappos with his venture fund. In a former life Tony was the cofounder of Link Exchange, which was acquired by Microsoft in 1998 for $265 million. Speaking of acquisitions, the Zappos acquisition by Amazon just closed November 1st and totaled $1.2 billion....
This is unfortunately how we all often respond to modern day problems and issues. Here are some tips on stopping this cycle from reoccurring....
The neocortex is the newest part of your brain. "The cells in the neocortex are arranged in six layers, within which different regions permit vision, hearing, touch, the sense of balance, movement, emotional responses and every other feat of cognition." This part of your brain is the real you. This is the part of the brain that will set you free....
I want to talk about how fear is being processed in your brain and how it's all out of whack with modern day society....
Why do people do these things? Shutting down all of GeoCities. Really? What did poor little GeoCities ever do to you?...
If you're looking to attend a search conference this year, it's not too late to leave behind the cold weather and head to Vegas next month to join me at PubCon. Programmed by the team over at Webmaster World, PubCon has been one of the top search engine marketing related conferences for the last half a dozen years. It's your chance to mix and mingle with some of the best and brightest in the SEO, Affiliate and Social Media worlds and at less than $900 per person, it's one of the most affordable large-scale shows you'll find.
I am trying a site where designers bid on your design projects. Multiple designers enter the contest by submitting different designs for you to choose from. This kind of site is continuing to open up the market place to worldwide competition. But I'm not sure how I feel about this. Am I just being savvy and realistic about the world that we live it. Or am I cutting out and screwing really good designers? You tell me....
I just bought something from Tiger Direct. But they tried really hard to make me not take my money. Fortunately, I'm obsessed with forcing my money on people. And I was able to overcome their desire to get me to not pay them. Don't let this kind of thing happen to you in your shopping experience....
I'm a people pleaser. But there are other people on the spectrum of humanity. We have something to learn from the sociopaths in the world....
Do you have a dream. Are you like Bob and would be willing to do ANYTHING? Let's look at what that "anything" looks like. This is the "anything" that I was willing to do to make my dream come true....
That was one of the recent comments on my series I'm doing at Search Engine Guide. A good question. Here's my answer......
Financial services companies are the symbol and essence of reality instructors. Their compliance departments lock down communication to extreme degrees. These institutions serve as good reminders of all the people in our lives telling us what we can't do....
Take the first steps of getting out of the life you hate. People live lives of quiet desperation primarily because they don't know what lives they want to live. Here's how to figure out what you want in life. Knowing what you want is absolutely crucial to start living the life you most dream about....
If you are telling yourself or are being told about all the things you can't do, you are living in a false reality. You are living in a construct that has been fabricated to keep you in your place. If you are able to watch this video, you are blessed beyond the vast majority of the people alive on this planet right now. No matter your current situation, you are blessed with incredible opportunity. Don't let that opportunity slip by because of some false rules put in place by society. You owe it to the world to live the life...
We are happy to announce that Search Engine Guide is now offering search marketing certification courses in partnership with Market Motive....
Humanity has less control of their lives than ever. But, as they say, God closes a door and opens a window. I believe there is a new way of taking control of your life. Today I am a business owner of a multi-million dollar company. But my history would not have been any indication of that becoming a reality....
The world we live in is less reliable and dependable than it ever has been. I'm starting a series where we look at how you can start taking back that control....
Tim Myers on Twitter @muudboard posted this: #sessj - Who was the guy in the conference hall way talking to his laptop? Ah yes. That would be me, Tim....
Microsoft and Yahoo are partnering to take on the master... Google. This is the beginning of the end for Yahoo. But it's good news for searchers and ultimately might be just what Yahoo and Microsoft need to get into the search engine game....
Marketing Pilgrim did a great job of gathering a lot of really interesting stats. The numbers are incredibly powerful: Offline is getting more and more of their share of the pie eaten by online marketing. Is this the beginning of a brand new world where online marketing becomes the dog and offline becomes the tail?...
Hulu is taking the TV world by storm. They have carved out a large chunk of online video ads and they are getting a higher cost per thousand viewers than regular TV....
It's been announced that Google is coming out with a new operating system: Google Chrome OS. This is great news for the consumer. The more competition the better. But will it truly be a major competitor to Microsoft?...
Microsoft's Steve Ballmer has some pretty extreme views for the business world. I think he might be looking in the mirror too closely when he talks about the business world as a whole....
Thanks to Search Engine Guide and Robert Clough I've been able to get some new sweet upgrades to my video system. Check out what I got......
Will anyone be able to stop the Google machine? They just continue to expand market share......
Andy Beal at Marketing Pilgrim reports on a Forrester Research prediction that basically says, "It's great to be a digital marketer!"...
The CMO Council 2009 Marketing Outlook Survey is an interesting study on the state of marketing according to marketers. Watch my video on the points I think you will find most interesting from the report....
I just came across a really cool little tool that I'm excited to play around with. Contxts is a service that automatically texts your contact information to people that request it. They just text to: 50500 with your username as the text and then they get your contact information....
WILL THEY RECOMMEND YOU TO THEIR FRIENDS?So, your prospect is touring and runs into one of your customers and they strike up a conversation. Yikes, what now? Well, It is the Moment of Truth. Are you ready for the answer? Have you done all you can do to nurture and create Customer Evangelists? ...
Sage goes all gaga over one particular scene in the Matrix. He then goes on to use that scene as a metaphor for life: Get out of the day to day grind. Rise above it....
Sage discusses the difference of things you can control and the things you can't control. Sage labels these two worlds as the Circle of Concern and the Circle of Influence. We spend too much time in the Circle of Concern and not enough time in the circle of influence....
Google upgraded its Mobile Maps application this week to enable location-awareness. Called Google Latitude, this upgrade is not ground breaking but it does signal a change for the mobile landscape now that Google has put another foot in that arena. So where could this technology lead with Google at the helm? I put a few ideas together that seem entirely plausible and totally within the realm of Google's current capabilities....
When the economy is recessed, it's easy to go into self-preservation mode (both personally and in our businesses). Thinking about others can easily get put on the back burner. However, when times are tough, it's more important than ever that we work together and help each other out. To borrow a concept from the Beatles, we all can get by with a little help from our friends. If we all do this, we can make it through tough times, together.
According to the New York Times article Websites Wage Holiday Price Wars (Nov. 19, 2008), small and large etailers alike are facing some tough choices this holiday season. It would seem that in the end, everything really does come down to price. And if you're not willing to fight the good fight--or if your bottom line simply can't survive the battle--your ecommerce business is doomed. Or is it?
I'm not ready to talk about how Twitter has benefited me or my business yet--we have a complicated relationship. But I think it goes without saying that a lot of people (or should I say "peeps") would like to grow their Twitter following, and I think I've cracked the code. Whatever your social networking goals are, the following tactics will not only increase the number of people following you, but you will begin to experience that old fashioned thing called "community" right from your desktop....
One of the most annoying tasks you might face as a web site owner is moving your site to a new host or domain. I've done this a couple of times and am actually going through a site review and revision again as I shift one of my hobby sites to a new domain. Since I've never been a big fan of the "technical stuff" I always appreciate it when a good post goes up explaining how things work. That's exactly what Mike Churchill did on the Key Relevance team blog last week.
We've all heard the phrase "You get what you pay for" and deep down we all know it is true. But as small businesses operating on a low budget, it's easy for us to get into the habit of going for what's free when it comes to our websites. The problem is "free" or "cheap" for hosting and other foundational resources comes with major limitations that are costing you much more than you are saving....
There's something to be said for a little personality. Once you meet Sage Lewis, you'll see there's a whole lot to be said if you have a big personality. In this workshop Sage Lewis walks you through the best ways to interact with your readers. He'll guide you through technologies like podcasting, video blogging and discussion forums and show you how to leverage them to build a stronger community around your brand....
Where should email fit in your marketing mix? While search and social media can help traffic come to you, the latest email techniques are essential to attract and retain customers in the long run. One of the best ways to do this is through ongoing email marketing and email newsletters. Learn how to grow your mailing list and how experienced marketers increase delivery rates while avoiding the latest spam filters. Understand US law and how to avoid three simple mistakes that can land you heavy fines or even jail time. Michael explains common email measurement techniques, such as open rates...
Ads are in the air this week. Microsoft AdCenter announces the addition of a fourth mainline ad placement; MIVA tells us about its new advertising platform; and Google makes a strategic partnership with NBC Universal to display their TV ads on stations like CNBC, Sci-Fi and Oxygen. Google also takes an official stand on duplicate content, stating that there is no penalty for it, other than the possibility of the search engines picking the wrong content to search. Lastly, AOL pulls it all together by allowing you to aggregate Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! email accounts through their site....
Gore is warning Americans to wake up, stop being so numb about their runaway government, their privacy, their ability to maintain a free press and an open market. But Gore works for Google. And Germany thinks Google is becoming a threat to one of the basic rights which the United States Constitution and most state Constitutions make much of - privacy....
Search Engine Watch steals the show this week with three informative articles. We learn about Microsoft's BrowseRank, Compete's site traffic comparison tool and China's search engine Baidu's soaring profits. Google makes an appearance this week as well. Search Engine Roundtable reports on Google's governmental search engine, Uncle Sam, and the Comscore press release sites Google as number one of the top 50 U.S. web properties for June of 2008....
Sage lays the smack down on the internet marketing industry as he brings to light the immaturity and name-calling surrounding the Edward Lewis "hubbub". Having been at the receiving end of scathing, hateful remarks by Shoemoney and his cohorts, Sage identifies with how it feels to be the underdog. He tells the industry to grow up! -- and stop acting like the immature children of the marketing world. If we want to play hard ball with the big boys of TV and print, then we have to start acting like a mature professional industry....
At Yahoo Anecdotal today Yahoo announced they had recently opened the Yahoo Accessibility Lab; a place where only Yahoo employees (for now) can experience the world of the Internet as a disabled web surfer would. Read on for a peak at accessibility guidelines and more on what Yahoo had to say about this important issue....
Sage touches on some of the sadder aspects of our economy and world, broaching the greatly suffering real estate and energy industries. He believes people currently in these fields have wonderful opportunities to reach out to people and make a difference. A call to action is issued, encouraging these people to share their stories on the web, using blogs and Youtube as their platform....
As you think about your web marketing and what you want to accomplish, remember your American DNA. Your goals for the rest of the year can be achieved but you have to be tenacious and optimistic....
As Sage says, "It's a Yahoo! and videos week." CBS and Yahoo! reach a deal for web video sharing, and Yahoo! becomes the exclusive portal to resell display advertising for Walmart.com. Youtube ads the option of interactive Video Annotations, allowing you to add commentary, background and link to other stories and videos. Youtube also ads apology center and underwear fitness to its list of attributes....
C-Level people are spending more time on line. Historically consumers of traditional media, C-Level people are now incorporating online media into their daily routine. Comscore data is out and it shows Google going up, up, up and Yahoo going down, down, down. No surprise there. Microsoft is now less than 10% share of the US market. New York Times reports online search ads are faring better than expensive display ads. Search ads are considered cheap and effective. Microsoft is now willing to pay you for searching with their Cashback from Live search. Google Sites now available to everyone....
This week's site clinic is focused on making sure visitors like what they see when they come to your website. Studies have shown that one of the key reasons visitors spend time on or buy from a site is a professional design. If your site doesn't live up to their visual standards, you're losing conversions....
Do you consider yourself an advanced Gmail user? I thought I was too until I saw the post titled: "57 Habits of Highly Effective Gmail Users" at CollegeDegrees.com. The team over there has a compiled a list of 57 tips, shortcuts, and features available in Gmail, categorized into 4 main topics. Here are a few from each topic:...
Sage talks about Google's expansion of their Beta version of "Automatic Matching" for Google AdWords and brings to light SEMPO's latest survey about online advertising. The survey found that 57% of online advertisers would rather target age and gender specific demographics with their campaigns. Ask.com becomes the ninth largest web property in the world with their acquisition of Dictionary.com, and yes, you, I said you, can work for Barack Obama. According to the job posting on Search Engine Watch, Obama is looking for internet experts to help him with his campaign....
When deciding where to build your bricks and mortar store, one of the main determinants is the neighborhood. If you're a toy shop, or other type of store catering to kids, you don't want to go in next to the 'adult novelty' store, or the strip club. After all, your neighborhood sets the tone for the type of clientèle that you can expect to enter your establishment.
Twitter and DirectTV go head to head this week by creating and solving customer service issues at the same time. Mack Collier's article "Worst Example of a Company Twittering?" exposes DirectTV's bumbled use of Twitter, explains the frustration that can cause, and encourages companies to use social media tools "as the rest of us do." The DirectTV/Twitter saga actually begins with Stoney deGeyter's tweet about the company's presence, is filled in with his article "Why DirectTV is Losing My Heart (and Quite Possible My Business)," and then ends with another tweet about the company's immediate response to his customer service...
Registering multiple domain names is, and should be, common practice for businesses wishing to protect their brands. Once purchased, what you do with these domains can have a positive or negative impact on your main URL. Here are some tips on how to set up alternate domains to prevent the search engines from seeing duplicate content.
Two weeks ago, I came home from Small Business Marketing Unleashed to find a note on my laptop. It said "Hey Jen! We need more content! The masses are circling and you're not giving them enough to read!!" Now as someone who used to regularly churn out 6000 words of content a day, I found I could do nothing more than hang my head in shame. After all, what good is Search Engine Guide if we aren't feeding our readers a steady diet of small business marketing articles to keep them happy?
Mobile web browsing is gaining popularity and acceptance thanks to the extensive proliferation of iPhones and other mobile appliances with surf-friendly interfaces. As a result it is becoming more and more important to offer a mobile-friendly alternative to your current website....
There are two important questions that every business needs to be able to answer: What's in it for me? and Why should I buy from you? The first questions, when answered correctly, helps sell your product or service, but it doesn't necessarily close the deal. In order to get the deal sealed and money in hand you have to be able to answer the second question sufficiently....
This is a live blogging of Stoney deGeyter's Site Architecture session at Search Engine Guide's Unleashed Conference for Small Business Marketing. Stoney covers Website Architecture, Page / Document Architecture and Site Linking Architecture in this great session....
Legal details are the name of the game this week. First up, Sage covers Search Engine Watch's story on Internet Advancement, the SEO agency slapped with a $100,000 scamming fine. Then it's on to Georgia's ruling on trademark infringement as it pertains to meta tags. Amidst the legalese, he touches on the info that Google Bots now fill forms to uncover invisible data, Yahoo!'s "no minimum bid" rule, and Facebook's new IM tool....
Sage invites you to come meet him and hear him speak in person at Search Engine Guide's upcoming Small Business Marketing Unleashed Conference....
Sage encourages industry experts to be aware of their audience as Search Engine Roundtable reveals, via Jacob Neilson findings, that 25% of people don't know how to do a Google search. SEMPO releases statistics at SES New York from a survey that shows the North American search marketing industry growing from $9.4 billion in 2006 to $12.4 billion in 2007 and projecting an increase to $25.2 billion by the year 2011. Also, YouTube announces the "Adorable Laughing Baby" as the winner of its contest....
Whether you're a hard-core newspaper reader or an avid obtainer of news on the Internet, results from a Reuters' study show that 70% of people are disillusioned with traditional journalism and that 50% of them are turning to Internet news sources. Online news sources such as the New York Times inform us 17% of people who click on paid links are more likely to buy. Ask.com denounces speculation about becoming a Q&A site for women, firmly stating they will remain a search engine, just a slightly smaller one after their 40 person lay off. Don't bother looking for the new...
Sage packs this video full of everything from a new gadget on Google’s Webmaster Tools to a free website service provided by Google Sites, which was formerly the Jot Spot. Matt Cutts also gets air time this week for his article on subscribed links and how to use them, and the Harvard Business Review notices how the Internet-originated peer to peer (or P2P) business approach is influencing other societal structures, like banking....
So, here it is almost the end of January. How are y'all doing with your New Year's Resolutions? Still going strong? Or have you found yourself starting to "backslide" just a little bit?...
This week's "In the News" video talks about advancements that companies like Southwest airlines and Ask.com are making to enhance personal touches for their uses; Southwest is adding internet access on some of their planes, and Ask is now offering customized skins on their search tools. Also, Google expands its local search results, making more options available to users but SEO harder for other sites.
Concern spreads as Yahoo announces that profits are down and that it will be cutting hundreds of jobs this year. Web Side Story users find themselves in migration formation as the site gets acquired by Omniture, and Google remains in the headlines as they launch their attack on BlackBerries via Google's iPhone capabilities.
Sage details an article by David Wallace, "Why You Should Not Place All Your Eggs in One Basket," in which David uses IncrediMail as an example of why it is important for small businesses to invest in multiple forms of marketing. He lists six different opportunities to project your business, including paid search, blogging, social media, web forums, word of mouth referrals, and even traditional marketing.
I've spent years working with small businesses to help them improve their online marketing efforts. In that time, I've seeing companies falling into one of two traps. They either begin to obsessively focus on the latest and greatest or they go into panic mode and avoid trying anything new for fear of making a mistake. That's a point Mike Moran addresses beautifully in his latest post over at Biznology.
Flat panel television sets will allow you to watch YouTube videos and view your Picassa pictures without even going to your computer. 60 Minutes interviewed Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg about possible privacy problems surrounding its Beacon software.
The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), http://www.sempo.org, today announced this and other top line findings from its first-ever survey of in-house SEM job salary compensation. I had a chance to chat with Duanne Forrester, co-chair of SEMPO's in house committee, about the findings from the survey....
Sage highlights an article by Search Engine Guide's Jennifer Laycock that asks vital questions of small businesses in 2008. "Would your company be missed if it closed today?" and "Is your business able to keep its promises?"
Sage uncovers the pros and cons of Ask's new voice activated mobile device for driving directions and Wikia's new search engine launch. With ease of usability is a concern for both releases, Sage extols the virtues of a free Internet design "Best Practices" report found on Matt Bailey's accessibility website.
It's the new year and registrations are starting to roll in for Search Engine Guide's upcoming Small Business Marketing Unleashed event. If you've been thinking about joining us in Houston this April, you may want to think about reserving your spot son. Registration is limited and there aren't many on site rooms left.
Search Engine Guide blogger Manoj Jasra just dropped me a note to let me know about the launch of a new "global marketing" blog that aims to offer up some specific advice for marketers reaching out in ten different countries. Knowing we have quite a few non-U.S. readers, I thought this was something worth passing along.
The business landscape is changing and the longtail-esque small business is gaining power.
Not every site needs, nor should have, an on-site search feature. But those that do must be sure that the search isn't just an after-thought. It needs to be more than something to add because you think visitors want it. Adding a search function is not necessarily good for on-site usability. Implementing a search function improperly is often a greater source of frustration than not having one altogether.
Todd Mintz and the members of SEMpdx share what motivates them to attend search engine and online marketing conferences. From networking to knowledge to increased credibility with clients, you'll find a wide range of responses that may convince you to attend one of the many upcoming online marketing events in 2008.
Google toolbar version 5 is out. Flickr offering stats to pro users. Only 47% of Internet users check their Google reputation.
My experience with SEO is that it´s very hard, and most people involved in learning it well or consulting for others are damn patient and more damned smart than I am. The difference in a domain that is parked for traffic revenue and one that is minimally built out for stickiness is the SEO strategy. I EXPECT anyone who is going to build their website and strengthen the power of their domain value to invest in SEO prep and maintenance (P&M) of their website.
Sage discusses AskEraser, Matt Cutts' take on sub-directories versus sub-domains and record breaking online sales this year.
There's no doubt 2007 will be remembered as the year social media exploded. Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube, Digg, Flickr and quite a few other social media sites entered the mainstream as companies scrambled to figure out how to approach this new form of marketing. There's no doubt 2008 will see continued growth of social media, but you have to wonder what the "big" explosion for 2008 will be. Logic + Emotion's David Armano thinks 2008 may be the year of mobile media.
Homestead is one of the best known template-website-builder companies out there. They offer website design and hosting, have a pleasant user interface and convincing testimonials. Yet there is something about signing up with Homestead that must be located somewhere in fine print but appears to be escaping the notice of small business owners...until it's too late.
Radiohead moves should open your eyes to possible changes in other industries. Verizon debuts Web 2.0 marketing campaign. AOL acquires Quigo for $300 million. Google at your gas pump. Tapping into social networks.
Planning downtime? Better 503. Matt Cutts... get ready to get dinged! What does constant innovation get you? $700 a share.
Jennifer Laycock's blog post, "Twitter CAN be Useful! Who Knew?", reminds us that in today's business world you need to be open to new ideas and new iterations of ideas. What may seem a waste of time at first glance may hold promising potential as a business application.
Matt McGee made a post on Sphinn asking us, and other publishers, to be open with our decision making process and to share what we planned to do regarding Google's nofollow stance. I think Matt had a good idea and being open with our decisions may help other publishers. So I've decided to publish some of our IM conversations to provide insight into where we stand.
In this week's video news, Sage discusses Googley goodness, the upgrade in storage capacity for Gmail, Webmaster Central updates, AdSense revenue share numbers, Microsoft voice search, Live Mobile and The Office gets their Social Media groove on.
Zillow should create a much more meaningful process that will have a greater likelihood of matching buyer and seller. Put together a serious app where a motivated seller can let folks know that they would consider selling their home and in much the same manner that Priceline uses to get people to make near-market offers for hotel rooms and airline tickets, attempt to guide the seller into naming a realistic price. Then, buyers can register their requirements and the system can attempt to make meaningful matches between buyers & sellers.
Check out Sage's latest video to learn about new goodies in Google Analytics, Google Reader stats, YouTube, Gooruze and other hoobidiha.
So, if image alt tags aren't just for SEO, then what are they for? Your visitors! SEO plus usability equals more traffic. StumbleUpon is fun, fun, fun! And it's a great resource to tap for new visitors for your site. More AdSense meets YouTube goodness. Now there is more than one way to cash in. Online consumers love online reviews and recommendations. Did we mention it's a social world?...
Last month I posted about Barnes & Nobles tedious process for unsubscribing from their email newsletters. It was so complex that I honestly couldn't even figure out why I was receiving emails to begin with. By all appearances I was not subscribed to anything. This was confirmed after a couple of submissions to tech support, they also told me that I had already unsubscribed. Phew! But that's not the end of the story....
Earlier this week I made a blog post about the potential pitfalls of Small Businesses relying on Google Analytics. Of course Google Analytics is far from the only free (or potentially valuable) resource being offered up by Google these days. Which ones are worth using? Which ones aren't worth your time? Matt McGee walks small business owners through several of their options and offers up his own opinion on what's worth your time in a column called "Which Google Products Should a Small Business Use?" at Search Engine Land.
So you just started a new job in the "Insert Category Here" industry and are instantly expected to get up to speed so you can begin helping your team with billable work. You've heard that blogs are a great resource to begin your education, however you discover that there are literally a million blogs you could read, so where do you start?? This situation is one that probably many individuals face and I can understand where they are coming from especially since it's quite difficult to believe which bloggers are actually telling the truth or which bloggers' strategies actually work....
Stoney has offered up a few articles here in the past week that aim to remind folks of the importance of community when it comes to building and establishing solid content. He took a lot of heat for the first one from the industry. Mostly, from folks who felt you couldn't have community without content. I've been thinking this concept over for the last week and I've got to say, I agree with Stoney.
In my last article I declared that content was dead and community was the new king online. The title of that post was a bit of an overstatement which wasn't backed up by the rest of the article. (It was a link bait-y title, but yet another example of community ruling content. But I digress.) In the article I found some stats that some have used to re-declare (yet again) that "content is king" but I went on to show how those stats really didn't say that at all. I wanted to go a bit further in today's post while...
Hitwise announced today that Google accounted for 63.98 percent of all US searches in the four weeks ending September 1, 2007. Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com each received 22.87, 7.98 and 3.41 percent respectively. The remaining 48 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.68 percent of U.S. searches. ...
In the last of my four part series about lessons learned from Blockbuster's Total Access program, I'll explore the need to make sure you're giving site visitors enough information to make the sale.
I can hardly bring myself to say the old cliche about content being... well, you know. I think it's one of the original cliche's in the SEO industry. And as redundant as it has become, for whatever reason we keep hearing it over and over again. And every now and then a new studies pops up seemingly proving proving, once again, that content is... uh, good....
Ok, so she's not "our" Diane Aull as much as she's Acroprint and Nine Yards' Diane Aull, but she is a regular writer and forum moderator here. Liana Evans has an entertaining (and information packed) interview with Diane over at Search Marketing Gurus this week as part of her Women of Internet Marketing Wednesday series.
Blockbuster provides a perfect real-world example of a company struggling to get it right. Sometimes they get the DVD in the tray and sometimes they don't. (That analogy sounded better in my head!)
Every week I receive weekly emails from Barnes and Noble telling me about books that are being released and other such stuff that I'm not interested in. The other day I decided to go ahead and click the "unsubscribe" button and be done with it all. If only it were that easy....
The team at Yahoo! announced yesterday that they've taken steps to make it even easier for small businesses to authenticate their site and setup full access with Yahoo!'s Site Explorer.
While high-speed access is far more common today than it was just a couple of years ago, web technology has also gotten more advanced. With each new whistle and bell added to your website, with every new feature, wait time is added in your page downloads. So high-speed access or no, you still have to make sure you keep your download times in check and therefore reducing wait time for your site visitors....
Meet the Search Engine Guide Timbuk2 Blogger bag...
What's Yo Gabba Gabba you ask? It's a new kids show on Nick Jr. that combines 80's style animation with oddly costumed "monsters," pop media guests and annoyingly catchy songs that will have you waking up at night to the internal sounds of "snacky snack snack snack snack, snacky snack snack SNACK SNACK!" It's apparently also the type of thing that sparks passion on both the "love it" and "hate it" side, as demonstrated by the blog storm generated by a simple post.
Sketchcasting is basically podcasting with a whiteboard. Rather than publishing content through text or audio, authors express their ideas on a whiteboard (through video). I think this method of conveying thoughts and ideas to your audience is very effective because it will engage readers at a whole new level....
MIVA is updating their records... and in the process giving all of their contacts access to over 1200 email addresses. Early this morning I received an email from MIVA and there it was, right in front of me, over 1,217 email addresses staring at me in the TO box....
Do you ever get the feeling that there are super cool websites out there that you have not discovered? Sites that everybody is talking about, except to you? Well, fret no longer, young Internet Junkie. Time Magazine, in partnership with CNN.com has issued their report on the 50 Best Websites for 2007....
I've been submitting my articles to Ezine @rticles for a few years now and I have great respect for them, but lately, well, they've been riding the short bus to school drinking crazy Uncle Joe's home made Koolaid....
Though already successful, Pepsi understands that long-term success and company growth means always being willing to attempt new ideas and strategies. Marketing online has proven that rule time and time again....
We once had a client complain that they didn't know if we were doing anything for them. I guess the ranking improvements they were seeing wasn't enough of a clue. That complaint only happened once. We realized then that there was a breakdown in communications between us and our clients and instituted measures to insure that it would never happen again....
A recent New York Times article has pointed out a trend showing the slow down in the growth of online shopping. The article points out a few previously hot industries are starting to show a slowing in growth....
McAfee recently reclease their State of Search Engine Safety report, an updated from their May and December 2006 reports....
Finding biblical wisdom in a pop-culture geek film! I love it! (Oh, I love the marketing angle, too!)...
When we find something that works, it may not be for the reasons we initially thought. Only after thoroughly analyzing one success, and seeing the big picture we can realize that the strategy that we thought was the reason for success is really just one of many pieces. It was really all of the pieces together that formed the path which led to success....
If you're paying for marketing that will drive traffic to your website but have not spent any time or money providing a better customer experience on your website, then you might as well be paying your visitors to leave....
As a small business, everything you do has an impact on your marketing message and ability to get that message out clearly. This includes how (or whether) you answer your phones, how you reply to email messages, what you say in online forums, the comments you make in blogs the speed of your computers, the presentation of your website, and potentially even the car that you drive....
Years after having any sort of relevance in the search engine landscape, Microsoft has finally chosen to close down their bCentral Submit It service. Yesterday I received an email from Microsoft explaining, in that Microsoft sort of way, what's happening....
Yesterday MSN posted on their blog that they have turned of certain advanced search queries because, (gasp!) people are using it for research!...
Within the last week or so Google updated their Google Alerts service to incorporate it with some of Google's other services. Somewhere in the process of the change they screwed up as over half of my Alerts are missing!...
In reading an article about the plummeting of music CD sales believed to be caused by the increase in music downloads (purchased and pirated), I got to thinking about the music business in general. While most news stories and editorials talk about the effects of the music distribution industry, I can't help but wonder if this will effect the music industry as a whole--artists and fans included....
Lionsgate films may have an unintentional hit on their hands. It appears that someone put up the wrong billboard campaign which many are finding objectionable....
Should you change your page content frequently? The answer is yes and no....
The big news of the past couple of days is that Yahoo now allows you to opt out of having Yahoo use the directory title and description in their general search results. As I was installing the new robots meta tag onto my home page I started thinking, "why am I opting out when I never opted in?"...
According to comScore, 65% of Bank of America account holders use their online bill pay service. In fact, B of A is dominating the online bill pay market. According to the study, Wells Fargo has the next highest usage at 18% and then Chase and Wachovia at 13% each....
A new company is about to change the face of off-line advertising as we know it. They are starting in the movie industry (and only for eight seconds at a time) but the implications of this will reach into every aspect of paper advertising and even into the digital photo market....
True success doesn't come easily but requires patience, determination, hard work and sometimes even personal sacrifice. If you do want to succeed and are willing to put forth the effort, here are seven steps to success in business and in life....
Mapquest now lets you find and compare gas prices in your city, state or zip code....
What were you doing the day after Christmas? If you were like many folks, you were online. According to Nielsen//NetRatings online shopping for the day after Christmas rose 35% over 2005....
PPC (pay-per-click) advertising has been a great way to almost instantly start an online marketing campaign and get immediate returns. Recently, however larger companies seem to be cutting back on their PPC spending. Last week MarketWatch posted a story about PPC costs and why businesses are looking for greener pastures....
The blogosphere is a great place to get information, learn new things and even to spread your own knowledge. It's also a way for myths and rumors to spread, many times unchecked. These myths get passed on from blog to blog and soon they are simply believed because they've been repeated so many times....
SEO Guru Dan Thies has announced that he'll be closing his doors to his SEO training programs. Why, you ask? Well, Dan will explain it all at his "retirement party" teleseminar, during which he'll answer all our questions....
There seem to be enough MySpace ripoffs that it doesn't make much sense to talk about any of the lesser-known alternatives. That is, of course, unless one of those alternatives brings something unique to the table. I came across ShoutLife while perusing through my daily blogrolls. I was intrigued by what I saw but still wasn't sure of the big "so what!". What is it that ShoutLife offers that MySpace doesn't? I talked with ShoutLife president Paul McLellan to find out....
I admit it. I am a WebmasterRadio junkie. Not only do I listen to many of the live shows that they do on a weekly basis, I also find myself listening to archived shows as well. I absolutely love it. It allows me to not only keep abreast of the latest happenings in my industry very quickly, it also allows me to hear the audible voices of many folks that I already know online or have met in real life. If you frequent any of the popular search marketing forums or blogs or have attended conferences such as Search Engine...
As day thirty hit I spent some time wavering between relief and sadness. The relief at finally being finished with such an enormous task was fairly overwhelming. At the same time, the sadness that I felt bringing the project to a close was a bit more palpable than I would have expected. The good news, that day thirty wasn't really an ending, it was more of a milestone....
The last few days of the Lactivist project were going to be all about wrapping up plans for my press release and solidifying my ongoing marketing plans. That meant day twenty-eight was spent reviewing the final press release copy, making plans for distribution, and exploring a new marketing outlet that might have potential....
I don't suppose I can really complain. After two solid weeks of surprising productivity, day fourteen actually delivered a fair share of frustration to make up for the supposed ease with which things had launched. That said, I still managed to get quite a bit done and I was encouraged to see that the search marketing world had finally started to buzz about the project as well....
Before it gets Z-to-tha-izzapped from the Web, you might want to take a few moments to Gizoogle yourself on a new parody search engine that's the talk of blogs and forums everywhere....
MSN has removed the beta-wrap from its proprietary search engine and is now showing self-generated results at MSN.Com. Beta results had started bleeding into MSN listings over the past three weeks but since Sunday (Jan 16), the .COM (US / Global) version of MSN has consistently mirrored those found at MSN(beta). Regional versions of MSN continue to display Inktomi (Yahoo owned) / Regional partner generated results (Jan19, 05). ...
Wall Street watchers have warned that an influx of Google shares on the NASAQ could cause share prices to drop....
A recent telephone survey conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project and comScore Networks reveals that 84% of American Internet users use search engines....
As search engines become more skilled and finding and indexing content, what was once considered private might not always stay private....
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made it clear this week that Microsoft plans to compete head to head with Google in the world of search....
On the heels of a trademark dispute with children's Web site googles.com, search giant Google is now dealing with another lawsuit involving the use of the name Froogle....
A 54 year old former executive has filed an age discrimination suit against Google, claiming that he was fired because of his age....
The online search industry has really only existed for about a decade, but veterans of the rise and fall of search companies are already learning from the past....
Google has launched a new fee-based program in beta that provides live answers on any topic. Don't have time for research? Google Answers researchers are waiting in the wings to find the information for you....
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