Some people in the search engine optimization and search engine marketing world are saying "Finally!" as #2 (Yahoo) and #3 (Microsoft aka. MSN aka. Live aka. Bing) search engines have teamed up to go up against Google and try to make internet advertising interesting again. Carol Bartz CEO of Yahoo has only been in charge for 7 months and struck a deal that has been lingering for a long time. Between the 3 major search engines; Google, Yahoo and Bing there is roughly 85% of all search queries going through them. Google sits pretty with about 65% of search queries, Yahoo comes in around 10%-11% and Bing has been floating around 8% but has been increasing since its birth in May of 09'.
There wasn't any exchange of funds, but the 24 month process of taking over the Yahoo search engine is going to result in 88% of advertising going to Yahoo for letting Microsoft advertise to the millions of dedicated Yahoo email users. Earlier this year Yahoo found a home for their new data center in Lockport NY after striking a great deal with the local power company. There hasn't been any word on any changes to that deal so the residents of WNY should rest assure that the estimated 65 jobs will still be coming to the Buffalo area by 2011.
Many people know there was an offer to buy out Yahoo to Co-Founder Jerry Yang by Microsoft for over 48 Billion Dollars, which he had turned down and sources say many people on the Yahoo board, want him removed from power and that was a silly decision.
The big picture shows that even though they are going to team up, that is only 20% of the search market within the 2 search engines and more search engines are popping up all the time. Search.com has been one search engine appearing on all Analytic reports as a major contributor to traffic to the sites.
Google may not get de-throned by the two merging on this advertising deal, but I am sure over time they will give them a run for their money.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Bing New Search Engine
The release of Bing.com,late May 09', Microsoft's new search engine replacing Live.com and MSN.com as their new search platform has everyone wondering what it can bring to the table.
The first new feature noticed was the video search feature which allows the searcher to view 5-10 seconds of the video before deciding if that was what they were looking for. Say you do click into one of the videos displayed on the search results, you can then watch the video and still search more results narrowing your search down and still watching the current video.
The next feature, Bing Cashback allows searches that are looking for a product to purchase, to save additional money on the purchase, just by searching for it on Bing and signing up for a Bing Cashback Account. Some stores are listed in a database that you can scroll through and proceed to the site and look for qualified items to purchase and save anywhere from 1%-20% (highest I have seen) on the qualified purchase to be placed in an account, similar to paypal. Once the account has recieved 5$ or more worth of savings, you can either have the funds transfered to a paypal account, paper check by mail or electronic deposit into your checking account.
From what I have heard a $68 Million dollar marketing budget is going to put Bing.com on the map and to give Google.com a run for thier money.
The first new feature noticed was the video search feature which allows the searcher to view 5-10 seconds of the video before deciding if that was what they were looking for. Say you do click into one of the videos displayed on the search results, you can then watch the video and still search more results narrowing your search down and still watching the current video.
The next feature, Bing Cashback allows searches that are looking for a product to purchase, to save additional money on the purchase, just by searching for it on Bing and signing up for a Bing Cashback Account. Some stores are listed in a database that you can scroll through and proceed to the site and look for qualified items to purchase and save anywhere from 1%-20% (highest I have seen) on the qualified purchase to be placed in an account, similar to paypal. Once the account has recieved 5$ or more worth of savings, you can either have the funds transfered to a paypal account, paper check by mail or electronic deposit into your checking account.
From what I have heard a $68 Million dollar marketing budget is going to put Bing.com on the map and to give Google.com a run for thier money.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Getting ecommerce sites to convert with a shopping cart.
Just about everyone that has a brick and mortar these days, also has an online business storefront as well. These online stores always have some sort of checkout process that ranges anywhere from 3-20 steps to complete to get the purchase completed.
You really should find a happy medium to accommodate the variety of users you may be experiencing. Part of your marketing campaign "research and development" you should already have a great idea of who your target market is and you should really design and develop your site if it already isn't, for that particular demographic.
When choosing your shopping cart method, or when you develop it yourself keep in mind the number of steps and the information that you may require. The acronym "KISS" (keep it simple stupid) still holds strong today and really should be implemented on the web as well. Keep your checkout short and sweet and make sure all your charges are clear cut. Shipping charges might make a few people drop from the process, but better to have them drop early so that you could pinpoint that your shipping charge is what is stopping the sale. Unfortunately with Ecommerce sites there is no salesman that is going to inform you where he lost the sale, so you have to use behavior and bounces to determine which step is causing you to lose sales and move from there.
You really should find a happy medium to accommodate the variety of users you may be experiencing. Part of your marketing campaign "research and development" you should already have a great idea of who your target market is and you should really design and develop your site if it already isn't, for that particular demographic.
When choosing your shopping cart method, or when you develop it yourself keep in mind the number of steps and the information that you may require. The acronym "KISS" (keep it simple stupid) still holds strong today and really should be implemented on the web as well. Keep your checkout short and sweet and make sure all your charges are clear cut. Shipping charges might make a few people drop from the process, but better to have them drop early so that you could pinpoint that your shipping charge is what is stopping the sale. Unfortunately with Ecommerce sites there is no salesman that is going to inform you where he lost the sale, so you have to use behavior and bounces to determine which step is causing you to lose sales and move from there.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Website has malicious software and stops AdWords.
If you have a lot of website traffic and are having your website hosted with a third party with low level security on the servers you may encounter someone with a little more time on their hands than you and decide to hack the server.
Now when you go to your home page it says the site may contain malicious software and you have an option to continue to the site at your own risk.
Now when you go to your home page it says the site may contain malicious software and you have an option to continue to the site at your own risk.
- Step one is contact your hosting provider and have them clean up the server so that you may be reconsidered for your listing.
- After you are cleared you need to use your webmaster tools to request a reconsideration for your adwords account and your listing with Google search engine.
- Wait about 24 hours and if the malicious software was cleared you should be good to go.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Banned from search engine result pages?
Are you looking for the perfect URL name and it's already owned? Thinking of buying it? You might want to take a few minutes to see if the URL is worth purchasing.
Go to the Google search box and type in; site:www.NewCastleFarmersMarket.com, this will tell you what pages if any are listed in Google search results. If you have multiple pages listed in the results the URL is meeting Google guidelines.
Repeat these steps for the other search engines you want to make sure you are listed in.
If for some reason there are no pages or links available on that search you may want to check the wayback machine to show the last page indexed for that URL, this will give you an idea of why the site may have been de-listed with the search engine(s).
Sometimes by looking at the previous site you can tell if the search engines were mislead or there was questionable content on the site that may have had it removed from the search engine results page. In any case you can ask for special reconcideration of the site using the Google Webmaster tools after you verify that you are the site owner by putting in a meta-tag code for the search engine spider to see.
- Check the URL Status
Go to the Google search box and type in; site:www.NewCastleFarmersMarket.com, this will tell you what pages if any are listed in Google search results. If you have multiple pages listed in the results the URL is meeting Google guidelines.
- Check the URL Link Status
Repeat these steps for the other search engines you want to make sure you are listed in.
If for some reason there are no pages or links available on that search you may want to check the wayback machine to show the last page indexed for that URL, this will give you an idea of why the site may have been de-listed with the search engine(s).
Sometimes by looking at the previous site you can tell if the search engines were mislead or there was questionable content on the site that may have had it removed from the search engine results page. In any case you can ask for special reconcideration of the site using the Google Webmaster tools after you verify that you are the site owner by putting in a meta-tag code for the search engine spider to see.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Flash and Search Engine Optimization
Recently I was approached with a project to optimize that was completely flash and was just created and the URL was purchased about a year ago. Right there is an SEO nightmare and not an easy task by any means.
So how do you optimize an interactive flash site? Social media and networking 2.0 can start getting people to visit the site, maybe some ppc (pay-per-click) advertising on Google to develop a brand image for the new site and provide immediate traffic. As long as the interactive flash site has a tool of some sort to have a purpose other than viewing information. This is more or less for the other websites on the web having a reason to link to your site. There isn't any text content on your site to give them a reason to link for search engine purposes.
Flash sites do not get attention from the search engines, they don't have text for the spiders to index, thus not proving their worthiness to the search engines. I really wasn't able to find any information on the subject so I am sure in search of work arounds and any other insight on the subject, but linking will certainly work for the time being until Google changes the algorithms for links and Page Rank.
So how do you optimize an interactive flash site? Social media and networking 2.0 can start getting people to visit the site, maybe some ppc (pay-per-click) advertising on Google to develop a brand image for the new site and provide immediate traffic. As long as the interactive flash site has a tool of some sort to have a purpose other than viewing information. This is more or less for the other websites on the web having a reason to link to your site. There isn't any text content on your site to give them a reason to link for search engine purposes.
Flash sites do not get attention from the search engines, they don't have text for the spiders to index, thus not proving their worthiness to the search engines. I really wasn't able to find any information on the subject so I am sure in search of work arounds and any other insight on the subject, but linking will certainly work for the time being until Google changes the algorithms for links and Page Rank.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
My Website Was number 1 now its not on the first page!?
Welcome to my world! Due to the amount of exploiting and constant tweaking that search engines make to their algorithms to improve the SERP's for the searcher. The trick to it is that no one knows exactly what they did if they did anything at all. It could be some other competitors that did something to better their rankings pushing you off the page. First off you should know which page of your website was ranking #1 because it was not your entire site. After you narrow down the page you have to go through your SEO step by step. Start with internal and external links, make sure all the pages you point to actually work. Than your title's, spelling, source code for the meta tags in the HTML.
It's really a lot of time and effort to continuously keep your pages on the first page results, otherwise their wouldn't be a need for SEO experts. So if you have a lot of competition, usually ecommerce sites, or competitve services you should invest some of your marketing dollars in either an on staff employee or company or freelance SEO to take care of your site for a monthly or hourly fee. For total Search Engine Optimization or even a complete content management system with SEO and Web Design you many different options and should prepare for the future.
It's really a lot of time and effort to continuously keep your pages on the first page results, otherwise their wouldn't be a need for SEO experts. So if you have a lot of competition, usually ecommerce sites, or competitve services you should invest some of your marketing dollars in either an on staff employee or company or freelance SEO to take care of your site for a monthly or hourly fee. For total Search Engine Optimization or even a complete content management system with SEO and Web Design you many different options and should prepare for the future.
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