Analyses: Are You Up-to-date to Capitalize on Major Web Events?
Updated – Feb. 27, 2011
February has been an eventful month for the Internet and marketers. Developments include the major players – Bing, Facebook, Google, and Twitter. Are you positioned to capitalize?
Here’s an update:
Google. Because it’s the longtime mega search engine, let’s consider Google first. Depending on which research firm you prefer, such as ComScore or The Nielsen Company, Google has about a 66 percent search market share. So whatever innovations it makes, it’s important.
Google has made a major change in how it ranks search results probably because it’s been under siege for being manipulated by certain Web sites.
The vaunted Google algorithms – its tools that determine how it ranks Web sites – have been fine-tuned to reward publishers of original content. Unique valuable information, if you will. That certainly includes in-depth thought leadership. Google says it involves about 12 percent of search queries. That might not sound like a lot, but 12 percent of millions and millions of search queries is meaningful.
You might recall numerous recent news stories: JC Penney, for example. The 2010 $17.8 billion retailer was chastised for dubious Internet practices. The retailer denied it approved spam-like behavior by its search-engine optimization company, SearchDex. But right after the story broke, SearchDex was fired.
Indeed, it must have been an eye-opener to the search giant to be labeled as the “tropical paradise for spammers and marketers” by a U.C. Berkeley scholar, Vivek Wadhwa. Hence, its algorithms upgrade.
Another search development: The Google Chrome Web browser now permits sites to prevent other sites from appearing in their results. (Its competitor, Blekko, does the same.)
So, Google has taken action to disallow Web sites, with little or no unique value, to dominate in search results.
My sense: The jury is still out on Google’s changes. In my sampling, I haven’t seen a positive noticeable change, especially in its key word results. Otherwise, if successful, Google is to be commended for dealing with a crisis confronting its quality of relevant search and its image. (Candidly, as a business-performance consultant, I’ve always advised clients on the importance of frequent, strong informative content.)
Bing – social search. Bing grew to a 13 percent market share at the start of this month. But it’s created new buzz by adding Facebook “likes” that allows Internet users to see the results that their friends like.
Here’s how it works: Pictures of your friends appear when you search after you connect with Bing with your Facebook account. You can disable it easily if you choose.
Bing now includes related Twitter features (so does Google).
My sense: The new development in the Bing-Facebook partnership is unique and it affects word-mouth-marketing – as businesspeople and consumers make buying decisions. This helps to make marketing fun. It’s also a reminder that content, search-engine optimization and social media should be synergized and orchestrated in your overall marketing.
This includes:
- Listening to Internet-user preferences
- Interacting with them to maximize your opportunities
- Continually measuring results
- Fine-tuning your approach
From the Coach’s Corner, Bing’s partnership with social-media giant Facebook should remind you to capitalize on Bing search.
Here are valuable tips: Get Busy With Bing Webmaster Tools.
Winners and Losers in Facebook’s Invasion of Google’s Turf
Updated – Jan. 11, 2013
It was a big deal when comScore data indicated back in 2010 that cyber citizens spent more time on Facebook than the Google sites.
Cyber citizens spent an aggregate 41.1 million minutes on Facebook — 9.9 percent of their search-time. That beat the 39.8 million minutes, or 9.6 percent, on all of Google’s sites.
It was a major catalyst for Google to create Google+. It’s noteworthy because Google, of course, is the leading search engine and has Google News, Gmail and most-importantly, YouTube.
In my experience, Google+ is now a proven asset in marketing.
However, regarding Facebook, it would appear there are questions to consider:
- What should businesses do in marketing on Facebook?
- What precautions should businesses take to make certain their Web sites are not obliterated by Facebook?
To maximize the marketing investment, businesses should consider establishing a Facebook page.
But don’t count too heavily on Facebook or other social media for sales. Facebook and other social media only drive 1 percent of e-commerce sales. A study shows a strong presence on Google will be better to increase your odds for income.
But for a Facebook presence, Website Magazine’s Linc Wonham published some basic tips:
- Set goals for your Facebook page and monitor your progress
- Make your page interesting and informative, and update it as often as you can
- Promote your Facebook page on your business website and elsewhere; add a Find us on Facebook button wherever you can
- Reward your Facebook Fans with discounts and special promotions
- Create a Facebook user group that will be of interest/useful to your audience
- Join other Facebook user groups that pertain to your industry or niche
- Take advantage of Facebook’s tools; track your success with Facebook analytics
“Businesses can add a Facebook Place to their Facebook Page, or the two can be combined,” according to the Website writer. “The result of either option is getting your company’s address, map, phone number and other data in front of Facebook’s massive user network and giving them a way to share the information with friends.”
Mr. Wonham specifies the benefit: “The result of either option is getting your company’s address, map, phone number and other data in front of Facebook’s massive user network and giving them a way to share the information with friends.”
His tips for Facebook ads:
- Be as specific as possible with your keywords and demographic selections
- Use compelling images, titles and copy in your ads
- Make your ads as interactive and engaging as you can
- Frequently update and refresh the images and copy for better results
- Be vigilant about testing your ads and monitoring the results
- Bid high to get your ads approved faster by Facebook
- Start with CPC ads if you have a very small budget, otherwise CPM is the better bet
- Use Facebook Ads Manager, which can be downloaded and installed on Firefox
Warning: You might as well know that advertising professionals are increasingly criticizing Facebook for being obnoxious (see: Facebook Draws Fire for 6 ‘Stubbornly Childish’ Behaviors).
That’s not all. There are two additional dangers to Facebook marketing:
- Facebook tends to supersede the importance of your Web site in the minds of cyber citizens.
- The most successful companies achieving success on Facebook have done it by slashing prices and offering coupons.
For more on this angle, see this article: Aside from Privacy, Security Issues — Facebook is a Threat 2 Ways.
But always remember the best mediums to drive cyber citizens to your Facebook page and Web site — broadcast advertising and strong PR – the ultimate keys to your marketing mix.
To target credit-worthy or high net-worth customers, broadcast news and WSJ are especially your best bets.
So, harness the power of Facebook, but don’t let it make your Web site irrelevant. You want to dialogue with consumers on your own turf. Use these measures and you’ll be a winner in Facebook’s invasion of Google’s turf.
From the Coach’s Corner, consider reading: 11 Tips to Make Money on Facebook
“The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn’t understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.”
-Eric Schmidt
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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.
Optimize for Bing to Achieve 30% Reach on Internet
Updated Dec. 30, 2012
The time has come to optimize your Web site for Bing. Bing is generally recognized for leapfrogging over Yahoo in search market share – it has a 16 percent share compared to Yahoo’s 14 share.
So with Bing powering Yahoo’s search as a result of their marketing partnership, it’s important to optimize for Bing so you don’t miss out on a 30 percent reach on the Internet.
Yes, Google, has 65 percent share. The remaining 5 percent is held by several smaller less-known search engines, which are powered by Google.
Bing and Yahoo continue to maintain separate identities. You might recall that Yahoo and Bing signed the advertising deal for a 10-year duration.
Website Magazine originally reported the change. The magazine also reported an alert by Yaho0 to optimize for Bing “…if organic search results are an important source of referrals to your website.”
You know what? Success in organic search listings is indeed noticed by most Internet users.
In my experience, Bing has kept its promise to improve its method of organizing searches compared to MSN. The navigation has proved to be easy. While it’s similar to Google in many ways, personally, I’ve found it to be a great search experience.
Moreover, it’s fairly easy to optimize your site for good placement on Bing.
Here’s a checklist:
- Make sure you add your site to Bing. It has a dashboard for analysis of your summary, profile, links, keywords, site map and crawl issues. Don’t forget to add your site to Bing’s Local Listing Center.
- Like Google, Bing more easily recognizes domain age. Both recognize title tags and keywords for your content.
- Unlike Google, Bing is not as concerned about the quality of back links as it is anchor text. But my sense is great content attracts great links. (In my SEO work for clients, I simply don’t allow back links from sites with a Google Page Rank of less than 3. Even then, I do check to see the site’s focus before allowing it to link to my client.)
- Be extra careful with your content, especially the headlines and blog summaries. Bing has a great feature, a document preview, which is a text box that shows up next to your mentions on Bing – the verbiage is copied from your site.
- As both Bing and Google pay homage to flash with stronger prominence, be sure to consider inserting such videos.
- Bing is far more amenable to publishing quality press releases than Google, which accelerate your success.
- Bing is very cognizant of social media. For B2B sites, concentrate on LinkedIn, Digg, Twitter and Facebook. Bing powers the search for Facebook. Unlike Google, Bing shows updates of tweets from Twitter. The more relevant social media you have, the better. Despite what you’ve read about sharing blogs on Digg.com, Digg is still a player.
For more information, get started here. To summarize, it’s important not to dismiss the potential of Bing. Bing is attractive and is doing a good job. You’ll find it to be a fairly simple process to optimize for Bing.
From the Coach’s Corner, here’s a startup toolkit – how to make a tit on the Internet.
“The Internet is the most important single development in the history of human communication since the invention of call waiting.”
-Dave Barry
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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.
Google Speaks Out About Frequency vs. Value
In blogging and Web site publishing, what do you think is most important, freshness or quality? It’s a discussion that never seems to end.
Actually, Chris Crum first raised the intriguing question in his post at WebProNews in June of 2010. His post was entitled: “What’s More Important in Search? Freshness or Quality?”
Mr. Crum thoughtfully spotted a Google Q&A webmaster video featuring Google’s Matt Cutts. In the video, Mr. Cutts explains the difference between what is important to users of your site vis-à-vis what’s important in SEO for search engine prominence.
Repeat visitors to your site probably appreciate being able to return to your site and enjoying new content. That gives them a reason to keep checking out your site and is, of course, the advantage that mega sites have over small blogs because they have more resources. They can insert new content every few hours.
However, the situation is different for search engines. If a blogger has to make a choice between frequency and quality, Google’s Mr. Cutts advocates quality over frequency. He states your site will fare better with quality on Google. He also asserts your site will attract more links in the long run.
That’s not to say you should necessarily forego focusing on frequency. When asked about real-time indexing of sites, Mr. Cutts comments in another video.
Mr. Crum also presents some interesting thoughts about freshness and the new Google SERP redesign (search engine results page).
“…the smaller brand sites have a better shot at showing up the more frequently they are updated, wrote Mr. Crum in another post. The bigger brands tend to rank higher, the wider the range of time selected.”
He also wrote about how smaller sites succeed: “Brian Klais, General Manager and VP of Product Mangagement at Covario had a very interesting post at Search Engine Land looking at how the time filter may even help smaller brands get some visibility.”
So, it’s a thought-provoking blog by Mr. Crum. My sense is value is important. But do what you can to accomplish both – delivering value as frequently as you can.
From the Coach’s Corner, some publishers have experienced a sudden decline in their search engine rankings.
Here are the solutions:
- Good Blogs Have Nothing to Fear from Google’s Updates
- 5 Factors to Get Peak Google Results for Your Web Site – Study
- Checklist: 14 Strategies to Rock on Google
- Google Insights – 23 Key Questions about Your Web Site
“With Google I’m starting to burn out on knowing the answer to everything. People in the year 2020 are going to be nostalgic for the sensation of feeling clueless.”
-Doug Coupland
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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.
Microsoft and Bing: The Hits Just Keep on Comin’
June 7, 2010
At the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ keynote speech introducing the iPhone’s facelift was big news. The buzz leading up to the rollout was deafening. Any time Mr. Jobs makes a presentation, it’s exciting for Apple aficionados.
The big news was supposed to be all about Apple when Mr. Jobs unveiled the new-look iPhone 4. With 16GB and 32GB capacities, it’s priced at $199 and $299, respectively. It’s 25 percent slimmer than its predecessor. It has twice the picture resolution, and has a computing brain with video-chat function. It will be sold in 88 nations.
As expected, Google is the iPhone’s default search engine. But wait, here’s some surprising news – a big secondary angle is that Bing is a search option on the iPhone. Now we know why we’ve heard rumblings in recent weeks about meetings between Apple and Microsoft.
“…Bing will be included as one of the search engine choices within Safari on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and within the Safari browser on the Mac and PC,” announced Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president at Microsoft, in a blog according to CNET.
“Needless to say, we are excited that Bing will be included as an option in Safari because it will make it easier for you to search and get the benefits of Bing,” he added.
“In addition, we are continuing to improve our existing Bing mobile application for iPhone which makes it easy to search, map, and find commerce and movie times,” Mr. Mehdi said. “We will have a new release with even more great features very soon. For those of you that have not already tried it, you can find it in the App Store today.”
Microsoft’s track record in partnerships is really terrific. Indeed, in its first year, Bing also scored by being the search engine for Facebook and Verizon phones.
And I’m not certain it’s getting full credit for its successes. Depending on the research firm, Bing is credited with a 10 to 11 percent market share. (But based on this Web site’s visitor’s data, Bing’s share appears to be at least 50 percent higher.)
It’s also worth noting Google has been tinkering with it home page appearance, including offering an option to change the background. To use football-announcing vernacular, “Is Google hearing Bing’s footsteps?”
From the start, Bing has been offering colorful, informative schemes. For my SEO taste, Bing has a more objective search process compared to Google’s quirky approach. And I love the Bing mouse-over option on the news videos.
Frankly, I don’t get it when I’ve read bloggers’ posts about Microsoft having a so-so year. The company has had a stellar year in forming partnerships. That’s an excellent lesson for any company.
So regarding Bing’s progress, as I used to say as a young rock ‘n’ roll DJ working my way through college, “The hits just keep on comin’.”
From the Coach’s Corner, here’s more on the new iPhone.
Trend: Google Down Slightly While Yahoo, Microsoft Up
May 11, 2010
In U.S. Internet searches, Google sites dropped a bit while the Yahoo and Microsoft Web sites experienced an increase in visitors in April 2010, according to the latest comScore Core Search Report. The research company also reports there were 15.5 billion searches last month.
Google’s market share was 64.4 percent – down .7 percent from 65.1 percent.
Yahoo’s sites jumped in visitors by .8 percent – from 16.9 to 17.7 percent.
Microsoft increased by .1 percent from 11.7 to 11.8 percent.
“Both Yahoo! Sites and Microsoft Sites have experienced gains due in part to the introduction of new site navigation experiences that tie content and related search results together within several channels,” according to the comscore press release.
“These features provide search results to users as they navigate through topical content and meet comScore’s established criteria for counting search queries,” added comScore. “Ask Network captured 3.7 percent of the search market, followed by AOL LLC with 2.4 percent.”
The ranking in terms of searches:
- Google – 10 billion
- Yahoo – 2.8 billion
- Microsoft – 1.8 billion
- Ask Network – 574 million
- AOL LLC – 371 million
The comScore disclaimer: “Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.”
Here’s the link for the comScore press release.
From the Coach’s Corner, here’s a helpful article on Six Ways to Test Your E-commerce Site.
Google vs. Microsoft-Yahoo Heats Up – Indirectly
April 25, 2010
There seems to be a misconception that recent upgrades on Facebook imply an intensified competition with Google. Well, yes and no.
On three occasions since Christmas Eve, 2009, Facebook has outdrawn Google in U.S. visitors. And Google now counts social media in ranking Web sites, but ostensibly tends to disregard the importance of Facebook.
Facebook made some big news when it unveiled details about its new “Like” button. What you should know about Facebook’s changes – CNN.com was a very popular topic on the Web.
So, in defensive football parlance, Google is probably hearing Facebook’s footsteps. At the same time, however, Google is also hearing Bing’s footsteps. Bing provides search for Facebook, which means its capitalizing on Facebook’s success. And, of course, the effect of the Bing-Yahoo advertising-search partnership will soon be obvious. My sense is that Yahoo is already doing better in search.
So what is Google doing? It continues to evolve, too.
Google is already tweaking its Google Places, which it launched in the Q4 2009. Google Places inserts listings for companies that Google lists also in local searches.
The features include:
- Companies can display the territories they serve in their service areas.
- With advertising tags for which Google charges $25 per month, companies can be spotlighted on Google Maps and Google.com. Their applications include pictures and coupons.
- Depending where you are based, Google provides free photo shoots of business interiors. If you wish, you can also add your own pictures.
- From Google Places Dashboard, you can get customized QR codes, which direct customers to your place page. Prospects can use their smartphones to scan the codes, which can be inserted on your marketing collateral.
- The search engine’s Favorite Places program is forwarding window decals that have codes to about 50,000 U.S. companies.
- With Google Places, you will be able to learn from where customers are coming and who they are.
There are restrictions, for example, companies must indicate a mailing address and only one listing for each address.
Huh? Yes, all of these developments are true. Check them out for yourself.
Whatever your online marketing and search-engine preferences, such competition is exciting and provides more options for businesspeople and consumers.
From the Coach’s Corner, there are Google restrictions. Here are the Google provisos.
How China-Google Controversy Might Affect Business, Government Security
Updated 6:50 p.m. April 20, 2010
The security issue between China and Google appears to be taking on new ramifications – threatening proprietary information for business and government agencies, if they do business with the giant search engine.
When Google was hacked last year by cybercriminals in China, they stole a computer program that managed access to Google’s programs, according to a New York Times article Monday. In the past, Google has denied hackers were able to access personal information from Gmail accounts, but the search engine did not respond to The New York Times report.
“As the story makes clear, businesses considering cloud services like those offered by Google, Amazon and others must ‘look before they leap’,” warns Internet security expert Stan Stahl, Ph.D., Citadel Information Group, Inc. (www.citadel-information.com).
“While it’s probably obvious to look at the security provided by the cloud provider, less obvious is that the business needs to also look at that part of security that will still be its responsibility, the part of security that the cloud service provider isn’t providing,” says Dr. Stahl, as the go-to security authority.
“Security can never be a matter of looking at ‘this’ or ‘that.’ Security must always be about looking at ‘this’ and ‘that’,” he adds.
As a management consultant, I wonder about two other questions: What about the privacy of Google’s services and business and government agencies? Is the threat to Google’s business model more severe than first thought?
Google’s services for the private and public sectors are not limited to the following but they include:
- AdSense is a platform for publishers to generate income by displaying a bevy of click-through advertisements, but Google requires sensitive information in order for publishers to receive payment. Google’s AdSense automatically inserts display and text ads, which are frequently changed.
- Google Analytics is a service that helps Web site owners to understand how they’re faring with visitors , such as how they reach your Web site and what they visit.
- AdWords is a sponsored links section. It’s the largest service of its kind and Google has the No. 1 market share.
- Merchant Center uploads product listings in for use in a variety of ways. They include AdWords ads, Google Search, Google Product Search, and Google Commerce Search.
- Checkout helps businesses increase sales by selling online.
- Website Optimizer, with access to sites, tests content in order for publishers to optimize the conversion rates of their visitors.
There are other Google services, but you get the idea.
The news article provided more alleged details that include Google’s “Gaia.” That’s Google’s stolen password system. Gaia is the Greek mythological goddess of earth. Gaia managed the entry to its services for the private and public sectors.
For more of the report’s details, see: Cyberattack on Google Said to Hit Password System
If The New York Times article is accurate, and my Biz Coach sense is that it is, businesses and public agencies doing business with Google might want to consider a security-needs assessment by a qualified expert. This is also a bigger threat to Google’s business model than we first believed. Google deserves support on this security issue.
(Disclosure: This site published Google public service messages.)
From the Coach’s Corner, in a new related development, BusinessWeek reports government criticism of Google in this article: Google Is Neglecting Online Privacy, Authorities Say
Also, worth reviewing are two Biz Coach columns regarding Internet security:
How to Protect Yourself from the Internet Crime Wave
Business 101 Lessons: Google vs. China’s Censors, Cybercriminals
In SEO, Your Site’s Download Speed Matters to Google
How fast does your Web site download? Google announced that it determines site rankings, in part, by download speed. That was the message in April of 2010.
“We mentioned site speed as early as last year, and you can watch this video from February where I pointed out that we still put much more weight on factors like relevance, topicality, reputation, value-add, etc. — all the factors that you probably think about all the time,” wrote Google software engineer Matt Cutts in a recent blog.
“Compared to those signals, site speed will carry much less weight,” he added.
But another blog, Google’s Webmaster Central Blog, also mentioned site speed: “But faster sites don’t just improve user experience, recent data shows that improving site speed also reduces operating costs. Like us, our users place a lot of value in speed — that’s why we’ve decided to take site speed into account in our search rankings.”
Personally, I wonder if being fast qualifies as a green initiative.
Google also makes these suggestions:
- Page Speed, an open source Firefox/Firebug add-on that evaluates the performance of web pages and gives suggestions for improvement.
- YSlow, a free tool from Yahoo! that suggests ways to improve website speed.
- WebPagetest shows a waterfall view of your pages’ load performance plus an optimization checklist.
- In Webmaster Tools, Labs > Site Performance shows the speed of your website as experienced by users around the world as in the chart below. We’ve also blogged about site performance.
Mr. Cutts also wrote that Google’s official blog provides even more tools.
“…Google’s webmaster console provides information very close to the information that we’re actually using in our ranking,” he added. “In addition, various free-to-use tools offer things like in-depth analysis of individual pages. Google also provides an entire speed-related mini-site with tons of resources and videos about speeding up websites.”
He also says “big sites” will not get a competitive advantage in the added factor of site speed.
“Often even a little bit of work can make big differences for site speed,” explained Mr. Cutts. “So I think the average smaller web site can really benefit from this change, because a smaller website can often implement the best practices that speed up a site more easily than a larger organization that might move slower or be hindered by bureaucracy.”
In addition to downplaying load speed, he emphasized Internet users would appreciate the fastest-possible user experience.
“…this change highlights that there are very constructive things that can directly improve your website’s user experience,” he concluded.” Instead of wasting time on keyword meta tags, you can focus on some very easy, straightforward, small steps that can really improve how users perceive your site.”
My sense is that site speed does indeed play a vital role in search engine optimization. If you haven’t already, you might want to make certain that your site downloads fast as possible.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are related tips:
- Good Blogs Have Nothing to Fear from Google’s Updates
- 5 Factors to Get Peak Google Results for Your Web Site – Study
“SEO is not synonymous to JUNK E-MAIL.”
– Matt Cutts
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Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.
U.S. Internet Search Grows, But Pace Slows
April 10, 2010 -
Internet usage continues to grow in 2010 – by 7.6 percent in March – but at a much slower pace than reported during the same period a year ago, according to a published report.
Website Magazine reports that recent comScore research indicates Americans increasingly used the Internet last month but not at the torrid rate of increase during the same period a year ago.
Google’s market share declined from 65.5 percent to 65.1 percent. Yahoo’s share increased by .01 percent to 16.9 percent. Bing moved up from 11.5 to 11.7 percent.
Here is the Internet usage-growth by reporting period:
- March, 2010 – 7.6 percent
- February, 2010 – 10.4 percent
- January, 2010 – 12.4 percent
- December, 2009 – 16.5 percent
- September, 2009 – 17.3 percent
- June, 2009- 21.8 percent
- March, 2009 – 33.1 percent
Obviously, it’s hard to sustain double digit growth indefinitely. And it’s way too early to conclude that the Internet has reached its saturation point like mature companies and sectors will do over time.
From the Coach’s Corner, also from Website Magazine: Weekend Warrior Websites You Can Build This Weekend.