Search is rapidly turning from the darling of the internet to a demon. The latest attack, brought about by search's phenomenal financial success, is that search is sucking all the value out of millions of websites by scraping content in bite sized pieces and doling it out to searchers, at the same time monetizing traffic that's being create by value created by the site owners, not the search engine.
Usability guru Jakob Nielsen ran a post on his site a few weeks back (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/search_engines.html) taking the engines to task for fostering dependency on search traffic, while at the same time enjoying the impact of ever escalating bid prices. A few analysts have also started to intimate that perhaps it's time for marketers, especially those in direct response, to look beyond search as click prices move the cost per acquisition beyond what's reasonable.
There has been a long running debate about web applications replacing desktop software applications. While some functions are better suited to web applications. It is my belief that security concerns and legacy systems will prevent desktop software from becoming obsolete.
Some argue that the debate between web applications and desktop applications is pointless; as their is no clear answer. While still others argue that the issue at hand is as much a business and marketing issue, as it is a technological issue.
I am always looking for new ways to promote my clients websites. And sometimes 'regular' link building just isn't enough.
I mean, you can spend hours and hours looking at competitors and searching out new opportunities only to find that after you've spent these hours searching you have only come up with a couple of adequate links.
So as part of my job I look for those sources which could be ideal for links, which are easy to request and get and will help contribute to the site's overall link popularity because the links are high quality and relevant.
A few weeks ago I wrote an article titled How Often Do You Use Local Search? Recently I was checking the local results in MSN and came across something I hadn't noticed before or at least I hadn't paid much attention to ... Windows Live Local. Hmm something fairly new in search from MSN and Microsoft? Windows Live Local (http://local.live.com) is powered by their Virtual Earth technology. I must say that I wasn't really all that impressed with MSN's Virtual Earth technology when it debuted a few months ago. However I thought that there were some great features with Windows Live Local.
There are many rumors about the best way to get listed on Google. Every now and then, a new secret trick pop ups that promises that your web site will get top Google rankings quickly and easily.
These secret tricks have one thing in common: while it might be possible to get listed with these methods for some time, nearly all of these tricks will get you banned from Google sooner or later.
The twains have met. Back in the dark recesses of my past, I used to toil in the radio biz as a copywriter. I had thought I left that industry far behind when I started working in the search marketing game. But zounds, suddenly the search player's strategy is starting to sound like it was devised by Herb Tarlek (for those of you under 40, Google 'WKRP in Cincinnati').
Daily more and more realtors are turning to RSS as a tool to market homes for sale. The growing RSS phenomenon in the realty market makes perfect sense. Unlike email RSS feeds have a 100% delivery rate. In addition the costs involved in creating and managing an RSS feed are insignificant when compared to the print advertising Realtors spend on each week. Imagine the amount spent each week to promote various properties in circulars and weekly newspapers, compared to the costs associated with updating and managing an RSS feed.
Most reputable Online Markers, whether they are from multi-million dollar e-commerce mega-sites or small companies with just a few employees, know the importance of high Search Engine Rankings by the top search engines.
Large firms can afford to dedicate several full time staff members to a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) program, or write five-figure checks every month to out-source the project to a specialized SEO company. While many small companies don't have that luxury, there are companies such as VNS Search Marketing that provide superb SEO programs at affordable prices, programs that deliver results.
Any company can realize a decent amount of success in their SEO efforts if they follow the guidelines we will cover in this article. Improving your Search Ranking can have a very significant impact on your bottom line. The higher your Search Engine Rankings, particularly if you appear on the first page of Google, Yahoo and MSN hits, the more traffic you will see on your web site, increasing your potential to turn that traffic into revenue.
In order for Google Base to succeed, it will need the support of both publishers and users. Quite frankly, most are having difficulty seeing the value in Google Base. Google Base, is a new service in beta, from Google that requests that publishers add their information to the "Google Base". Google Base is hosted by Google. All types of item submissions are accepted online and off-line information in a variety of formats. Google Base uses tagging similar to that found in many social-bookmarking applications, though Google refers to it as labels. The labels are used by Google to categorize or add attributes to the information, that better describes the content. The more popular specific attributes become, the more often Google will suggest them when others post the same or similar items. Additionally, items that become more popular will show up as suggested item types in the "Choose an Existing Item Type" drop down menu.