Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Service

I was going to write about online persuasion and architecture, but since I am still trying to crackle it, I decided to put off the task until I gather more insight into the topic.

So thinking, what should I write about? I recently stumbled on a white paper released by U.S. Dept of Defense, laying out a sneak peak for years 2007-2032 detailing it’s plans for unmanned drones and autonomous weaponry. Truly a tip of iceberg, as this stuff is probably already in place. But would you be interested? Nahh I know you got that mouse button aimed at that little X on the top right had side.

So lets talk about…. business?

You’re probably:

• Business owner
• Working towards a business
• Thinking about owning a business
• Wanted to own a business at one point
• Failed

So which one are you? One thing for sure, everyone at some point wanted a business. A real profitable thing, which you do every day on your own terms, without a boss.

Everyone wants or wanted one. Myself, I’d have to put a little checkmark to “failed”. =) It was a bad plan(or no plan) and poor execution. But I’ve learned a lot of value on the way, which couldn’t have been learned if I didn’t try. It also lead me to landing a job with, I take it the most wonderful company in Canada(no BS). So from bad comes the good?

What does that tell you? Give it a shot. Don’t matter if you fail, you’ll pick up valuable lessons on the way, that will help you in your next attempt. Don’t think of failure. Imagine dating. You can read all the books you can, but when it’s business time it’s your experience that cuts it.

What I learned:

Do market research. Don’t rush in thinking “it’s all good”. You’ve got to know how thin the ice you’re walking on is and how many people are walking on it with you. The crowd is one of the most important factors. There’s plenty of profitable business models out there. For example SEO. Corporate contracts can go well over $100.000 US, but guess what? It’s crowded. There so many would be companies, real guys are getting props just by being good at what they do. Unless there’s really something unique about you, or you have extreme passion in the field - don’t go there. You may go there, but again only if there passion boiling at 6000 C inside you. I heard John Grisham got turned down 16 times before publishing his first book.

That brings us to the topic of passion. That’s something so beautiful you’d have to experience. A feeling of doing a deed, where there’s no time, no distractions and hunger(ok there’s hunger, but you don’t give a fly). So yes, if there’s the passion for anything - follow that thing. A a good fella by the name of Joseph Campbell once said:

“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls”

If you’re persistent enough, something good will manifest.

Another thing is the discipline. Maintain focus. Successful people are the most disciplined. They don’t need a head over their shoulder telling them it needs to be done. They go out and do it, even if it’s a drag at times.

So is there a formula for a successful business? Nope. There’s the general info you can follow, but when it comes down to business it’s about your passion, discipline and ideas. There’s no text book that will tell you how to make a business in 10 easy steps or 445 pages to that matter. Burn them now.

Visit our other blog today Why? Just check it out =).

As a business owner you have much more on your head than your website. After passing a marathon to the SEO company you don’t want to touch a grain of sand on the site, afraid to hurt rankings.

One thing that will never hurt your rankings are articles related your field.

Google likes to see new content and if you’re able to provide it from day to day, Google will love you more. And Google love as you know, means profits.

How to Crease SEO Safe Content?

Don’t touch your website in general. Leave that to search engine optimization professionals.

Request them to install a blog instead. A blog, is short for “web-log”. It was originally designed as a journal, but became the new internet media, being used for news reporting, tips and other good blemish.

Once your company installs a blog - roll up your sleeves and prepare to let out some of that knowledge outta your head.

The ground rule. Internet was created on basis of sharing knowledge. From server to server, people shared what they knew. First internet users were colleges and universities. The ground truth is solid to this day.

What this means to you as a business owner is that you must share some of your knowledge. It doesn’t have to be your secrets, but something that can provide a degree of value to the visitors(the more the better).

Get down once week, for an hour and write a 500 word article. Whatever it is, write about it. Once you write give it a name and post it on your blog. As google bot comes, it’s going to see new content, which indicates that your site is active. This is an advantage, over competitors that stay static.

One of the most popular blog software programs is called WordPress.

Just let your SEO company know, they’ll know what you’re talking about.

Some Blogging Tips

Here’s some tips. I am not a professional, but learned a couple of tricks.

Do general keyword research. If you don’t know anything don’t worry, It’s easy.

Here are some keyword Research tools. Simply type in your word of interest and the tool will show actual searches.

Google Adwords - i recommend Google over all.

WordTracker

KeyWord Discovery

So for the word “flowers” Google Adwords generated:

• flowers
• wedding flowers
• send flowers
• flowers com
• flowers online
• silk flowers
• cheap flowers
• flowers delivered
• flowers delivery
• fresh flowers
• mothers day flowers

Now you know what people search for. Go ahead and pick a keyword. That keyword is your topic. Just write naturally, without worrying about repeating the keyword, as it doesn’t matter as much anymore.

Create one blog a week and Google will love you more. It’s your business and industry, write about it.

When you get tired of “flowers”.

If you get tired of your topic, you can write about something related to it. For example, I write about SEO almost on daily basis. Sometimes it becomes a drag. Just too much of the good thing isn’t always good. So I take a break and write about something related to the field. Like technology, internet, Microsoft and so on. This keeps the relevancy bar without loosing the focus in Google’s eyes. Here’s how Google sees keywords.

As you can see, writing about plants, trees and plant festival isn’t too much off and will not hurt your positioning. If you do however switch the topic too much, for example start blogging about cars, constantly, Google will take notice. So don’t do it.

Good Luck.

Microsoft announced it’s going open source with some it’s products.

“Affected product lines include Windows Vista (including the .NET Framework), Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007.” - quote

In large the largest competitor to Microsoft, apart from Google is open source. Not one rival, but a community of organized developers have created software just as good as Microsoft’s at no charge to consumers or with ability to modify whatever they deem appropriate. Google teamed with Apple and other smaller companies and aimed the guns to do whatever it takes to topple or at least move MSFT.

This is also in part due to Gates departure from the board, since the move would not likely been through if Gates was still in charge. His empire was built entirely on closed-end soft and open source is an assault to the deep philosophy of domination.

The $40 billion dollar bid also indicates that MS admits it’s inability to stay competitive in online advertising market, which created the biggest rival Google.

This is a new wave in technology, as markets are moving from closed to open source and as established online presence is going to be key to the future.

“Think of this week’s opening up of Microsoft’s proprietary software alongside its effort to buy Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500). That deal is intended, I believe, as much to prod Microsoft’s culture toward a Web-centric mentality as to acquire powerful new advertising properties. Ozzie has had trouble getting the company to move as quickly toward the Web as he said it should in 2006. Spending more than $40 billion dollars signifies the company’s seriousness much more than exhortations ever could. I suspect it will work. And recent alarms raised by Google execs suggest they worry it might.”

Source

Internet is one of the most dynamic business environments in the world. Search Engine Optimization in itself requires constant testing and a good eye on community forums to spot changes in algorithms. Algorithms are calculations developed by search engines to filter through website and deliver relevant results. Algorithms are changed(adjusted) couple of times per month in different niches. It is the bread of search engines and they invest heavily in their development.

Apart from search engines, internet is skimming with other types of business models. This post is too small to grasp all of them, but hottest one on the block is “dynamic learning environment”. Let me explain.

Blogging is viewed as a money maker if you’re able to build up a dedicated audience and monetize the traffic. The most successful bloggers cashed in an astonishing $40.000 per month just from a couple of blogs. This trend was largely followed as people inspired by money threw their efforts into blogging.

As anything that works well somewhat losses its value when too many people are using it. The money making with blogs(direct) somewhat lost the value, but having a dedicated community is always beneficial.

A number of high profile bloggers, such CopyBlogger, SEOMoz, SEOBook and others have started what Brian Clark of CopyBlogger coined dynamic learning environments.

This is a new breed on the internet.

As you read SEO articles number one thing that comes up is: “new content”, “unique content”, “valuable content” and so on.

Though this is essential for successful SEO, content can have another value at a different price. If you’re passionate about something or know topic well enough to give expert opinion, you can monetize that knowledge, because some people will pay to know it.

You become a teacher to them and they pay you to be taught. Here’s how’s it works.

As an expert in your field, you have what others want – information. You start a dedicated website / blog that provides TON of value to the reader. As people visit it, they analyze the content – if it’s good enough they come back and link to it. This where social element of the web rushes in. If something good shows up eventually it’s going to get noticed.

People will start commenting(make sure that’s possible), asking questions, advice, emailing and talking about you on their blogs(if you’re good enough). As the audience grows so do your future profits.

Once the audience is big enough, you develop what is known as a dynamic learning environment. You develop more content, in more depth and more often. Since you’ve already build a profile, people trust you and will sign up to be taught in depth by you. They will sign up for your subscription($40-$60/month) because they trust you as an expert in the field.

The beautiful thing is that content development never stops(just like with a blog), but this time you’re actually charging for access.

Those are some of the earliest environments on the web:

SEOMoz

CopyBlogger (Teaching Sells)

SEOBook

All 3 have large audiences, and all 3 are monetizing it, but not with advertisements - with their own content.

Microsoft is going after search regardless of Yahoo.

Microsoft announced today it will be going after $100 billion dollar online advertising market regardless of Yahoo!

Quoted:

"We can afford to make big investments in the engineering and marketing that needs to get done. We will do that with or without Yahoo," said Gates in an interview with Reuters.

"But we also see that we’d get there faster if the great engineering work that Yahoo has done and the great engineers there were part of the common effort," said Gates, who is Microsoft’s biggest shareholder.”

He also stated that the bid is fair $44 and will not change. This puts more pressure on Yahoo’s board as it must work out a deal with News Corp or face a take over from Microsoft.

Microsoft is not in a good position to go after search market alone, since it’s quality lumps well behind Yahoo not to mention Google.

CNN Predicts Yahoo - Microsoft will most likely happen.

CNN has released an article which predicts that Yahoo is most likely to be swallowed by Microsoft, because there are not many options left on the table. Annalists say that Yahoo can either outsource search to Google(outright defeat) or score a deal with News Corp., which can buy out 20% of Yahoo.

Most say that New Corp talks are simply a sweetener to get a better price from Microsoft, as it is desperate to compete with Google. Here is what CCN had to say:

“In the fourth quarter, Google’s revenue jumped 51% to $4.83 billion vs. the year-ago period. Yahoo posted fourth-quarter revenue of $1.83 billion, up 7.6% from a year ago.

In December, Google handled 5.6 million search queries in the U.S., up 30% from a year ago, says research firm comScore Networks. Yahoo ranked No. 2 with 2.2 million searches, down 4%. Microsoft came in third with 940,000 searches, up 8%. Likewise, Yahoo’s paid search service, known as Panama, and Microsoft’s adCenter business don’t generate nearly as much revenue as Google. Merging the two services could be a problem, says David Hallerman, senior analyst for research firm eMarketer.

Google has become a household name by providing quick and reliable answers to search queries.

“If you buy Yahoo, then you just get what traffic they had,” he said. ” Google has been slowly but steadily gaining share from Yahoo, so the question becomes whether a combined Microsoft-Yahoo entity can get that (search) number higher.”

Dow Jones did not invite Google.

Dow Jones, the parent company of the WallStreet Journal(News Corporation, Murdoch) did not invite Google to the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), while smaller companies were. Canadian Globe & Mail has an interesting article regarding this.

“On the surface, this seems odd. Google, after all, is the world’s most popular search engine and a growth stock par excellence. No other company symbolizes the Internet’s entrepreneurial spirit, or underlines the growing importance of the Web as an information, entertainment and advertising medium, more than Google does.
Google’s size certainly isn’t an issue. At roughly $163-billion (U.S.), its market cap is larger than many current Dow members, including Pfizer, IBM and Coca-Cola. And the company is a leader in its field, which is one of the criteria Dow Jones & Co. considers when selecting members for the DJIA.

So if Google is such a perfect fit, why was it snubbed?
The official explanation from Dow Jones & Co. is that the DJIA already has enough technology exposure with stocks such as Microsoft and Intel. Tech “seems to be at about the right weight in the Dow compared to the market as a whole, so we did not make any moves in that regard at this time,” John Prestbo, editor of Dow Jones Indexes, told journalists on a conference call yesterday.
What he didn’t say was that the Dow is a price-weighted measure, meaning higher-priced stocks wield more influence than lower-priced ones. Most indexes, by contrast, are weighted by market-cap, such that larger companies hold the most sway regardless of whether their stock trades for $25, $50 or $100. This is what makes the Dow such a strange animal.
But why does this matter? Because if Google, which trades for more than $500, were allowed to join the Dow, it would immediately overwhelm all the other constituents. Even small percentage changes in the stock would cause huge swings in the average, rendering the Dow useless as a benchmark. According to Bespoke Investment Group, Google - which hasn’t split its stock since going public in 2004 and appears to be quite happy to let it rise, Berkshire Hathaway-style - would account for a staggering 26 per cent of the average.
I sent an e-mail to Dow Jones Indexes, a unit of Dow Jones & Co., asking if Google could conceivably be added to the Dow at some point or whether its high share price would be a barrier. Spokeswoman Sybille Reitz responded: “We don’t discuss any prospective additions and deletions at all and look at the facts at the time of the decision. One of the facts would certainly be price.”
In other words, if Google wants to join the exclusive Dow club, one of two things has to happen: It will have to split its stock (unlikely), or Dow Jones will have to change the way it calculates its namesake stock benchmark (even more unlikely).
Which is why investors will have to learn to love Chevron and Bank of America.”

So Google got excluded because of its success? Interesting reasoning, who would think?

VP of Google showed his concern about Microsoft’s take over of Yahoo, going into the length of mentioning Microsoft’s unethical and illegal activities that helped it monopolize PC market. Here’s a some excerpts.

“Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies — and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets.”

“Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft — despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offences — to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet? In addition, Microsoft plus Yahoo! equals an overwhelming share of instant messaging and web email accounts. And between them, the two companies operate the two most heavily trafficked portals on the Internet. Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors’ email, IM, and web-based services? Policymakers around the world need to ask these questions — and consumers deserve satisfying answers.”

So Google isn’t happy about Microsoft takeover? Understood, its Google biggest enemy and when enemy makes a good move – you cant be too happy about it.

Microsoft’s attempt to take down Google miserably failed with launch of Live search and Yahoo is their only hope for the future.

Microsoft on the internet is like Goliath of ice – it cant skate for crap!

Though Microsoft has monopolistic status over OS market, Google is moving in the same direction of search. One thing that differs Google - is the game plan, which is very fair. People voluntarily choose to use Google, simply because of its relevancy. It takes care of its users to the last bit.

For example, if you Google the same term 2-3 times in the row, Google will remove PPC on top of results to make sure people find what they want as opposed to making money. It also integrated universal search, so people find local businesses fast and easy.

On the other hand… Microsoft? Its recent launch of Vista shows that Microsoft does not care about user experience. It goes to length of using people as beta testers, giving people a bad product – to be fixed later.

Google concerns are understood, as Microsoft a formidable player and ain’t going away fast. Yahoo deal is the biggest in search news this month and we’ll keep you updated.

In an attempt to avoid Microsoft takeover, Yahoo is negotiating with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, parent company of myspace.com and FOX News.

According to a report by Techcrunch, News Corp wants to invest in Yahoo and buy shares totalling $15 Billion, making it the largest stakeholder of the company.

It is said the negotiations should end in 48 hours, in time for Yahoo’s board meeting.

Yahoo says no to Microsoft.

Over the weekends Yahoo board headed by Jerry Young discussed the proposed take over by Microsoft for $45 billion at 31$ per share and declined the offer. Times UK reports that Yahoo raised its price by $12 billion at $40 per share.

It also mentions that Yahoo is in talks with AOL for some kind of partnership, where Google holds 5% stake.

Yahoo experienced an eight quarter decline in profits, largely loosing customer base to Google. As Google continues to dominate search, Microsoft sees it as a threat to its future, with only one solution – Yahoo.

Jerry Young(CEO) and Yahoo board might be playing on that fear in hopes of getting more money out of the deal, as microsoft went for a bargain, giving the 5 year low price.

It is not yet clear what partnership Yahoo is hoping to get with Time Warner(AOL).

San Francisco Chronicle talks about Yahoo outsourcing its advertising to Google, while 2 companies split the revenues. Outsourcing advertising with would allow Yahoo to cut costs, increasing its share value.

Though this would save Yahoo! From Microsoft, it would become dependant on Google, which already owns more then 60% of world wide search market. Also antitrust would burst into reaction, as it did with proposed doubleclick deal, which barely competes with Google.

With rejected Microsoft offer Jerry Young now must convince the board he is capable of raising Yahoo! stocks to at least $30 per share, as Yahoo`s future does not look to bright at the moment.