@BasilPuglisi

Content & Strategy, Powered by Factics & AI, Since 2009

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Small Business Solutions: YellowBot

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YellowBot.com, a company formed in 2006 by Erron Silverstein out of Burbank, CA., aims to connect local businesses with local shoppers. It is a form of free advertisement businesses might want to look into.

Not only can potential customers find businesses in their area, they can read customers’ feedbacks and experiences. It is a peer referral information site, that some say is a combination of Yellow Pages and Yelp.

Their idea is as follows: Let’s not forget, with all the technological advancements, that we still live in the real world. That is where our homes are, where we work and where we shop. Dry cleaner, Veterinarian, car mechanic, smog check station – we want all those to be as close to one another as possible so we can save time. The site helps you pull it all together and share it with the world. When there are enough stories about a place, a clearer picture of the business emerges.

The site is free for searchers and businesses, and it joins a crowded field of similar local web portals, but offers elegant and quick search features and enables the use of Google maps and driving directions. The site has a mobile version as well, so no information has to be written down, the address is on your phone. They have forums oir ideas, announcements and discussions.

There were rumors in May 2010 that they are about to launch a Reputation Tool. Except for one blogger who posted an article about it (including screen shots) there is not much information. They do not mention the Tool on their website and their blog went dormant in June 2010.

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Demand Studios and the Impact from Google’s Algorithm Change

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There seems to be some serious back-and-forth about the state of Demand Studios since the Google algorithm alteration. Initial impact indicated that they may have lost ground on the search driven traffic of some of their sites. Citing eHow.com as one of the locations where the change may have triggered a down-turn, Demand Studios initial statement indeed, indicated that even they knew that the new algorithm may have relatively lasting impact on their page views.

Demand Relies on SEO

Demand Media does rely heavily on search engine optimization to boost traffic to their content which is created by over 13,000 freelancers worldwide. So Google’s announcement that its change would impact almost 12 percent of search engine queries, was definitely destined to negatively affect Demands current page views by sheer numbers alone.

With sites like eHow being a large part of their company’s content, often ranking high on search engine queries before the change, and afterwards, there can be little doubt that the effect was in fact, a minor one for them. However, falling stock values are also a cause for concern for Demand. Some searches even provide Demand Studios content ranking higher than before the change.

Google Panda

Continued updates, codenamed Panda, have provided a different viewpoint altogether. Just over a week ago Google enacted the Pandora update worldwide. This time stating that two percent of Google queries in the U.S. would be affected.

Sistrix, a site that had previously released the results of impact on content farms after the first update, also released new information on the Panda change and how it has definitely affected the page views of eHow content. Although in general, the second update was not as search engine query altering as the second, or Panda update, it did land on eHow this time, even though it is rumored that it was actually one of the targets of the first update in February 2011.

Demand Demands Acknowledgement

While admitting a slight decline in search engine traffic on eHow sites due to the recent changed, Demand still insists that the Sistrix numbers are way off. Citing a predicted 2/3rds decline in eHow traffic, Demand reps responded that the numbers were greatly so grossly overstated that they must comment.

Demand CEO Richard Rosenblatt shared with MediaMemo that the relationship it shared with Google was a highly valued and mutually generous one.

They stated their relationship with Google made much sense for many reasons.

  • That they help to fill gaps in Google’s content when other high quality content is not available.
  • That they are the largest suppliers of YouTube videos.
  • That they are a huge Google Adsense partner.

Stating that the current losses are projected to cause them to suffer around 10 million dollars in lost revenue, they are assured that with projected sales this year reaching around $311 million, they do not consider it a substantial, nor a 2/3rds percent loss.

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Did Google Panda Change the Playing Field?

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From time to time, when Google identifies a ‘gaming’ of their search engine results, its engineers open up the algorithms and tweak them, sending shudders in the world of e commerce and Internet advertising. Speculations run rampart until Google launches it to the world.

One such tweak happened lately; in February 2011, Google launched such a change and named it Panda. They called the tweak “A High Quality Sites Algorithms”. It came in reaction to what they call “Content Farms” and the blogosphere immediately filled in the name of one of the biggest player – Demand Media, who was gaining top listings with copied content.

In order to cut on the clutter of results you get from a query, Google is trying to root out the low quality sites either by checking content, enabling users (through a Chrome extension) to block sites from their searches, or by lowering the ranking of copies material. “The net effect is that searchers are more likely to see the sites that wrote the original content rather than a site that scraped or copied the original site’s content.” Said Google’s Matt Cutts.

This changed impacted US sites only until April 11, 2011, when Google rolled this change to all English language queries and made a few changes. Their statistics show the change has impacted 12% of the queries in the United States. Most impacted were Mahalo.com, Wisegeek.com followed by Ezinearticles.com, Hubpages.com, Suite101.com, Superpages.com and spike.com. The gainers were news sources like Reuters.com, LATimes.com, CBSnews.com and information sites like Techcrunch.com, Blogpost.com, Mashable.com and even YouTube.

The new adjustment was meant to take care of a gap in their program that enables a site like eHow.com not only slide down but gain in ranking. Demand Media, the owner of eHow, was immediately impacted.

Some small businesses might have seen a change in their ranking. Google is said to be open to complaints that will be implemented, if found correct.

Online Publisher Association estimated that $1 Billion will be redistributed across the online publishing industry as a result of this change.

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Google Tags Calls it Quits

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It seems as if April 29th will be the last day of existence for Google Tags. If you have ever used Google Maps or Places, you have likely seen the red tags that represent an ad campaign launched by Google in a testing phase about a year ago. This marketing attempt was created to allow business owners to enhance the representation of their businesses on any Google Maps or Places searches. If a viewer was browsing areas near the businesses location, this handy tag not only designated a landmark, but also provided a more detailed look at that business.

What Are Google Tags?

Once clicked on the tag can display a variety of information including:

  • Directions to and from
  • Zoom in and out
  • Street view
  • Save to map options

And even the options to send the tag information via email, GPS, and other car systems. In addition, when viewing Google Maps or Places in full screen, other options on the left-side panel also provide another great looking manner of business advertising by showing users:

  • Thumbnail photos of the location
  • Other nearby landmarks
  • Related Ads to nearby options that directly support the advertised business. I.E. resort sites are likely to show ads for lodging and travel nearby.

While some users appear to be feeling let down by Google for eliminating this advertising option, others are not so sure that they truly benefitted from it in relation to its cost per month of $25 USD to maintain.

Success Stories More Localized

Google had previously provided a video extolling all of the virtues, benefits, and advertising opportunities within their Tag system. Users, most especially those who live in extremely urban areas report that in a very competitive local war with other businesses offering the same services, Google Tags has helped to direct those most locally to their business once users locate their Google Tag on the map.

Why are Google Tags Going Extinct?

Google execs cite the extinction of Tags due in large part to the fact that it was mostly an advertising experiment to begin with. Back in September 2010, it was reported that Google was aggressively pushing their Tag system for advertising. However, in October, they then pulled their ability to utilize the website URL tag option, which suddenly rendered the system a lot less useful. So, in this past week, Google has announced an end to the Tag system.

Google developers then stated ,”We’ve made a decision to shift our efforts toward other present and future product offerings for local businesses, and will be discontinuing this trial. To that end, we’ve now halted new signups and will be working with existing participating businesses over the coming weeks to help them meet their marketing needs with other Google products where possible.”

They also acknowledged that they had learned quite a bit from the Tags trial and that knowledge and understanding would be carried on with them as they strive to find the most accommodating ways to server their users as well as small and local businesses.

We’ve learned a lot from our Tags trial and will take that knowledge into account as we continue to find the best ways to serve users and local businesses alike. Lastly, we want to thank all of the businesses that were part of our Tags trial, and we hope we can meet their advertising needs with one of our existing products.

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Google is Still Winning – But For How Long?

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Although Google may still be the top search engine in the U.S., and by a still impressively immense margin, the last six months have shown that Bing, powered by Microsoft, is leading an impressive race in the competition for top search engine status. If this trend continues to increase at its current rate, Bing may very well be a real competitor for leading search engine status by 2012.

Bing Growth

According to recent statistical data, Google received over 64% of searches conducted from within the United States in March of 2011. Searches powered by Bing, which also include Yahoo and Bing.com, were utilized at a rate of 30%.

Even though Google still leads Bing by more than 2 to 1, the 30% mark for Bing is a rather notable one considering that just six months ago, Bing held a rate of U.S. search engine queries at only 23%. Down 10% since August 2010, the same month when Yahoo searches began to be powered by Bing, should these statistics be compounded in their current directions, it could be possible that Bing would beat out Google as the leading search engine sometime in January 2012. Although it doesn’t seem very likely, at current projections, it could be the result of current search engine trends.

Google Growth

While Google’s growth has obviously flattened out in recent months, Bing has continued to rise. However, Google continues to fill up their handy box of tricks with new features such as +1, Google Instant, and their social search, as well as their ability to block unwanted websites.

Search Ad Profitability

With the above statistics in mind it is easy to understand that at this point Bing is still chasing Google in search ad profits. While Google’s search engine advertising profits still massively outweigh Bings, Bing still seems to be on a winning rise in some of the most imperative categories.

Outside of the U.S.

Google remains a dominant tool for search engine queries with a rate that steady for the U.K. at 91%. This rate is even higher in other European countries like Germany, France and Australia.

 

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Google’s New E-Commerce Features

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Web retailers may have just received extra encouragement for product promotion from Google with the launch of their new E-commerce, product-specific search capabilities. At least two new features will stand out to regular users.

Instant Results

First, there is the type-as-you-go feature that Google users have grown accustomed to in their web search tool. This feature will now attempt to fill in some of the most commonly searched products, even localized when possible, and get instant results for browsing and purchasing items from your query.

How Does this Work?

To see this feature in action head to babyage.com a Baby Store site and begin to type the phrase “portable cribs” into the search bar, as you do you can see that even at the letter P it is offering quick search results with clickable photo links directly to the product page. The more letters added the more specific the search results are displayed.

Product Availability

Since commerce for major purposes over the past few years has taken on a combination of online and offline shopping, the second new feature of the ecommerce upgrade encourages localized shopping by maintaining inventory management systems of many of the larger retailers. This allows users to find out exactly where an item they are interested in can be located in their area. Wal-Mart has been using a similar system for their online shoppers for quite some time.

This type of product availability mapping can be a great tool for those who do not have hours on end around the holiday seasons to hunt down the year’s hottest products. Utilized widely it may even have some impact on economical aspects such as saving on travel expenses. For those used to shopping online for their minor needs this may not seem like a big deal, however, considering that some items even the sharpest online shopper would likely never purchase online, this could make that bargain shopping hunt far easier.

Items like furniture, appliances and heavy equipment such as lawn mowers or outside storage containers may certainly be items that are well worth the trip to the actual store to save on shipping cost. The new system can also help you to find the store closest to you so that those ungainly trips to return home with those items much more convenient.

The Business End of E-Commerce Updates

Business owners are allowed to fully customize the appearance of their results any way they choose. With some additional merchandising and marketing options users can easily configure their own promotions to be displayed with a visitor enters a related search as well as designate their banner zones on site.

To help users better understand the new changes, Google has supplied a video with a great explanation on YouTube. 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nje9fUcIkKc&feature=player_embedded]

There seems to more happening these days beyond google checkout, take a look at the big picture and google commerce in conjunction with google apps and google checkout any small business can now rival the technology of the biggest corporations.

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Digital Visibility: The Local Search Snapshot

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As a business owner, you know you must have a presence on the World Wide Web to be considered a legitimate business. There are thousands of digital touch points out there, and knowing how you or your business appears to the world is almost as important as being there in the first place.

If you are serious about your visibility, leaving it to chance and luck is not good enough anymore. Sure, Google will do some of the work, categorizing it, linking it, but there is so much more to the World Wide Web than just Google, as big as it may be.

The first step is to make sure you appear in the right places and appear with the correct information. Some companies on the web will help you do just that.

GetListed.org

GetListed.org, in existence since January 2009, serves as a resource for small business owners to find out how they are listed. Their goal is “to help small businesses claim and enhance their listings at major search engines”. They provide a clear picture of how effectively you are using the free resources available today. You might be able to compare it to your competitors as well.

The company has created a resource center which includes articles and tips about internet visibility. They accumulated listings of many SEO experts in different areas and will direct you to the right people.

In this one place you can check, for free, how you are visible to the world, learn about other places and other listings you might want to appear on, and participate in seminars held from time to time in different cities around the United States to help business owners learn about SEO and search engine ranking, in a face to face manner.

GetListed.org operated only in the US until Jan. 2010 when the company started beta testing in the UK as well.

AmIvisible.org

AmIvisible.org is another company which offers their services for free. By goin g to their website you can find how visible is your service or company to potential customers and compare that information with that of your competitors in your area.

AmIvisible.org covers millions of pages on search engines, yellow pages directories and local searches, and provides analysis of your business’s online visibility.

The service is fairly new and is in beta testing in several US cities. It will expand to the whole nation soon.

UBL.org

Universal Business Listing (UBL) strives to be a central collection and distribution point for all your business information online. A one-stop location for complete and accurate listing information.

UBL.org offers more than the sites mentioned above; it will list your business, monitor your presence, provide visibility reports and enhance your profile. They are not only aggregating information, they are actively doing things to change it for the better.

They have packages from $75 as an essential payment, which includes checking listings and monitoring your presence, to $599 which includes all the rest. They have an annual renewal fee of $59, regardless of the program.

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Google Search goes social with +1

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While Google may cover around thirteen percent of US display in online advertising marketing, Facebook may garner around twenty-two percent. Not surprisingly, it seems like Google has decided they actually do like the way Facebook allows users to share their interest, recommendations and ideas. So they have now added their own method of ‘liking’ or upvoting favored websites and other content. This method for helping to endorse chosen content and search results gives Googlers just one more way to endorse the products and services they enjoy.

Along with the recent algorithm change, Google execs say this is just one more way that they are heading off the pass between low-quality and irrelevant search engines results to see that their search engine queries cultivate the most useful and helpful websites that pertain to a users search results, and as quickly as possible. 

The Google Experiment

Testing out this new method for yourself is incredibly easy. Just make sure you are logged into your Google account and head to their experimental search page. Select Join this Experiment, and it is on.  If you are already participating in a Google experiment you will need to select the leave option on the current one to join the +1 experience. Now head to Google search and type in a search query. Once your search results appear, next to the title of the page will be a small, mostly blue edged box with a faint +1. Once clicked, the box will now display as solid blue and a text display just under the title will now show that you publicly +1’d a site.

Now those in your Google network only will also be able to see the sites that you have shown your +1 interest in. Additionally, if your friends have been there before you, and +1’d the same link, this will show up as well. Your Google account profile will also save a list of any site you +1 to your account details. For those who utilize their Google and Gmail accounts regularly, this could be a quite helpful tool for saving any site they may have a particular affinity for.

Pros and Cons of Up-Voting

Although for now, the results of +1’s will only be displayed publicly to those in your network, as well as a select random few public +1 voters, it may also be likely that if results from the experiment are positive, a global public will probably be next in their sights.

It is yet to be seen if having ‘friends in high places’ or highly reputable +1’s will make any difference, but it seems highly likely that if Google Labs does take this experiment to the global public, that having top-notch and highly reputable +1 friends could certainly make a huge difference in a web sites own popularity.

With the internet commerce of all types having such a large crowd of competitors this could certainly prove helpful on the local fronts rather quickly. Search engine queries for local businesses will, of course, display far fewer results then queries on a statewide, national or global scale. With far fewer competitors, favored local businesses will likely be quickly noticeable.

While up-voting may in fact give smaller businesses a shot at more public recognition, it may also leave another slot open for SEO tricksters and black-hat marketers to once again send to the top of the +1 pile those with enough resources and techniques to gain those +’s in perhaps not so organic manners.

Google Goes Social

Although quite an attempt was made at sending Google openly into the social media world with the inception of their Google Buzz system, it has had seemingly little effect or impact in the social media marketing world.

Google does plan to integrate their +1 system with Twitter as well, which will add another huge aspect of socially marketing and bookmarking to a users basic browser search results.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAyUNI3_V2c]

Immediate Impact

Although Google has used social media interactions for years in its search engine displayed results, they seem to have definitely monitored and watched for important signals and statistics to give their regular users the ability to help promote more product-centric marketing.

By 4:00pm yesterday, even though shares had fallen by 2% this year, Google had risen by 11 cents to $581.84 per share on the Nasdaq.

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YouTube Advertising & Channels

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Having a custom YouTube channel is kind of like having your own television channel. It will allow the user to upload their personal videos and to promote their own products or services via their video as well as URL linking on the custom YouTube channel page.

To begin you would simply need to sign up for a YouTube account and begin uploading your videos to their site. Once uploaded, users should than plan to ‘market’ their videos in various places online such as social medias, blogs, news articles and website content.

Once you have an account you will find many options for customizing your personal channel. However, if you want more than just a custom channel for private use and have a good history of having great views on your YouTube content, you may need to apply for  a YouTube Partner account.

YouTube Partners

Becoming a YouTube partner will make you privy to specialized tools and customization options, including page analytics. This will absolutely help to generate far more revenue than simply using the regular methods of ‘getting the word out’ via social medias and bookmarking.

How Does YouTube Advertising Help?

When you use the phrase YouTube advertising this can mean two different things. YouTube does offer their own method for advertising your products or services via Ad campaigns through their web site similar to Facebook ad campaigns, where a user pays for a certain amount of views or clicks.

YouTube advertising can also mean the method where business owners or those promoting their personal services use YouTube videos as a means to help drive more traffic to their own website. Providing helpful YouTube video ‘How-to’s’, Tutorials and walkthroughs on products, services, internet tools and a vast variety of other things that can help bring one more viewer to a users site via providing helpful content in hopes that it will encourage the user to get help from the ‘pro’s’, which is hopefully what your YouTube video will make you appear as.

 There is no doubt that both of these forms of YouTube advertising can be effective. Even the smallest bloggers have had great results by utilizing links to and from their YouTube videos. The more videos a user uploads the better their chances of bringing more users to their channel.

Most YouTube advertisers also understand the what’s and why’s of why others are utilizing its capabilities as well, so are commonly known to help promote good content by sharing it on their own social medias, or by joining your channel or choosing to ‘favorite’ your videos. This type of ‘word-by-digital-design’ is just as helpful if not more so than traditional methods of advertising such as banner ads or affiliate linking.

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    Google’s New Algorithm

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    Do you stay glued to financial news for the biggest trends, or failing ones, to keep your business thriving and productive? If so, you may want to take a seat for this one. Designed to improve search results, Google has initiated a new algorithm.

    For those who have made a habit of providing the highest quality content, you are about to be rewarded. However, low ranking sites that regularly copy content or provide low quality information, should expect to take a bit of a beat down.

    The new algorithm will target a few key issues about the way content is promoted by their search engine. Content that is rich in helpful informative information, charts and graphs,  properly key worded and updated regularly, will get high priority by the new implementation, while those with second hand content and low quality outlines will be bumped further down on the search results regardless of their current page rank or unique visitors. In fact, the new algorithm is likely to change the latter aspects for those fluffy sites altogether.

    Google’s Goal

    Google says their goal is to provide users with the most relevant answers to their search engine queries, and as fast as possible. They intend to achieve this while also reducing the search engine rankings of things like content farms and over advertised spam ad.  Considering the user ship of Google, it is fair to say that when we refer to us, we really do mean, the huge collective US, that will be greatly affected by these changes. This could literally make or break some online businesses.

    Although an algorithm change such as this may likely turn the search engine world as we know it upside down, the service it should begin providing, with the changes having taken place immediately, should definitely be a positive one.

    Positive for the effectiveness of the search engine users that is. For sites who may have raised their page rankings and traffic with less than notability informative content, they may have already noticed a significant loss of traffic due to their new rankings on this algorithm system.

    Some Win, Some Lose

    Google also acknowledges that any changes to their algorithms, including the most recent ones, can cause some websites to achieve much greater results in readers or consumers, it can also cause previous winners on this path to suddenly be set back greatly.

    However, take note also that if your rankings have dropped you may either be the false positive, or a unfortunate casualty of Google’s new algorithm, or you may need to sit back and take a longer look at your site and determine the best course of action to ensure that it provides helpful and informative content, not spun or copied content.

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