@BasilPuglisi

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

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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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Can Virtual Salespeople Increase the Bottom Line?

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With the rise of digital media communications such as video advertising and remote access viewing, another element that has been showing promise for small and large businesses alike is the use of speaking avatars, or virtual spokes models.

SitePal is one of the websites taking advantage of the benefits of speaking avatars for business and education. Their features allow for detailed personalization such as the ability to upload your own photo in which to create the website avatar, as well as over two-hundred and fifty customizable pre-made examples to choose from or build upon.

Users can use their own voices or take advantage of the built-in version. The good news is that voice synthesis, or artificially produced human voices, have greatly improved since the early days of the internet. Instead of the droning monotone of old, voices now include fairly realistic inflections and the highs and lows of natural speech.

This fun and powerful tool has become more common and beneficial as seen on many of the sites that now use SitePal.

Global ranking for Sitepal is at #34,425. While around one-third of the site’s visitors are from the U.S., it is also very popular in Mexico.

LiveFaceOnWeb also offers an element of employing digital salespersons but with a bit of a more realistic slant than the average creatively constructed speaking avatars. LiveFaceOnWeb stands behind their belief that people relate better to real people, so that providing human models for their digital avatars can help to enrich the interactivity of any website.

LiveFaceOnWeb allows users to choose from a selection of live models to represent their services, products or other online opportunities. Creating the finished product gives the individual purchasing the service the ability to customize video length, shot parameters and the type of presentation.

Users will then create a script and submit it, and within a few days they will have a completed advertisement made with, and by, live professionals in their industries. They also offer packages with complete services for those who have little to no experience.

Whether due to these web sites’ ages or because users prefer the animated avatars to the human versions, may still be undetermined but global rankings show LiveFaceOnWeb at #58,595. The sites viewers are predominantly males between the ages of forty-five to sixty-five and older with some college education. 

The Bottom Line

So how can this form of advertising offer any benefits to your business or services website?

  • Results show that placing an avatar or live human communication element on your website’s landing page can greatly reduce bounce rates.
  • Beyond the aesthetic and the ability to keep readers on your page longer, avatars can also supply a marketing nudge by delivering short, precise sales pitches to the visitor while they are simultaneously browsing the text aspect of your site.
  • Digital advertising in this format has also shown to be effective in announcing discounts, specials and bonuses on your products or services that can lead visitors deeper into browsing your product or service line, as well as closer to becoming a new customer.
  • Custom avatars can also be used to help site visitors navigate your site. This can help users who may be interested in your products and services, but are not net savvy enough to navigate other sites that may be more confusing.
  • Personalized Avatars can also be configured to collect contact information from prospective customers before they exit your website. Attaching interactive contact forms help to make this an easy and flexible format for data collection.
  • Call-to-action buttons or prompts can be reinforced by a speaking avatar that makes the visitor aware  them.

A study conducted by Dr. Ralph Wilson, the CEO of WebMarketingToday, analyzed the influence of the speaking avatar against how long visitors spent on his website. The results showed that the speaking character had enormous impact. The average time spent on his site increased by an average of 33% with a 17% increase in page views for each visitor.

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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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Why Every Small Business Should Go Online

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Why a Small Business should go Online: Ways Your Offline Business Can Benefit from an Online Presence

Although it may be hard for some of the ‘old timers’ regardless of age, to understand how much it can be of benefit, there is no doubt that it would be a very rare offline business that could not benefit from an online web presence.

Here are a few ways a business owner could benefit immediately.

Broader Target Market

Obviously, advertising on the internet is going to bring in a much larger geographical market than remaining offline and using offline advertising methods such as billboards, newspapers and local discount promotions. Custom product orders online can rake in big money for businesses in most any niche.

No Need to Rely on Foot Traffic

One of the biggest killers of business can be the lack of foot traffic on location. A bad location even for the best business can sometimes spell big trouble. Opening up your digital foot traffic is the same as opening any other flood gate, you never know exactly how much is going to flow in, but it will definitely be a lot more than simple location traffic generates.

This can be an incredible benefit for seasonal businesses. Does your business sell pool accessories in middle America? If so your foot traffic likely grinds to a halt in the winter months. Fortunately, people in Florida and other southern states as well as the lower west coast can still enjoy summer-like temperatures year round. This means putting your business online will turn your company from a seasonal entity, to a year-round production.

Affiliate Marketing

The best way to understand affiliate marketing for those who are entirely unfamiliar is to imagine having a full-time salesperson to sell your products for you, 24/7/365. Although these affiliates will likely work on a commission basis, you should also have the option to choose a flat rate per sale that should meet your profit-loss requirement needs.

Ease of Communication

Although some who do not use computers often may be intimidated by communications with users via online methods there is nothing to fill. Regardless of the rumors, the internet is not full of ranting loonies anymore than anywhere else is, and you are likely to have good communications with your online users, since they are going to be coming to you, for the product or service you have to offer. Not to mention that this eliminates loads of sales pressure as well.

Permanent Business Card

Your website will serve as a permanent business card. Permanent in the fact that it is there, once set up, forever. However, your website can always be updated or upgraded at will and the only limitations you are likely to deal with are those of your own imagination.

A business owner can also provide much of their products and services information on their web site which will greatly reduce their need to continually repeat the same product pricing or services options.

Paperless

This should be enough said. It is paperless. Forget the rainforests if you like, but removing your paper needs from your business will save more money per year than you may think. Many customers are now satisfied with paper billing. This also gives you an additional option of paperless advertising in such forms as email campaigns.

Automatic Statistics

One of the greatest things about getting a new website is the ability to set it up to track any and all of your traffic. This can give business owners a whole new perspective on who is browsing their wares and from where.

Optional Revenue

Once you have a site that generates traffic, you may have other options to increase your income outside of selling your products or services. Selling banners and other links on websites are common methods for networking as well as generating money simply for owning a well traveled site.

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Some Knowledge For Creating A Small Business Website

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There are a few things that you will need to know in order to successfully build and maintain a website for your small business. These things are mostly common sense issues, but a few of them are things that only the top flight business people really focus on and have now mastered. You have seen just how successful some of the big companies have gotten with their online advertising, so if you want a piece of that action, here are a few things to take note of.

For one, you will need to have a clear idea of what the purpose of the website is going to ultimately be going forward. As you business expands, you will need to kind of make adjustments on the fly. Your customers need to feel safe and secure that you and your partners know what they are doing and are able to keep up with the ever-changing marketplace. Be precise in your marketing plan and things should fall into place quite nicely.

Another thing to take note of is to know right off the bat exactly what you are going to need in order to run a successful website. Whether you think that some video advertising or maybe some audio clips will do the trick to attract more and more people to your site, you will have to have a plan set up no matter what direction you decide to go in.

Also, you will need to have a good idea as to what to expect in terms of profits and website clicks from the very start of the site to even as far down the line as five years. We all know that it is pretty much impossible to predict a fluctuating marketplace too far down the road, but with the right people at the helm and a solid business plan, the sky really can be the limit in terms of your eventual success.

No matter what you decide to do with your website, it is going to end up being one of the most powerful tools for your company’s present and future success. The internet can work wonders for you and these days it is pretty much imperative to have a strong website and at least a decent sized following. We have come a long way with the internet providing us with more and more extra abilities every day. Just make sure to keep an eye on the market and for what is hot and in on a monthly basis, and things will start looking up.