Yahoo & MSN - Are They Still Major Players?

I am sure you know that over the last couple of years, MSN and Yahoo have slowly lost ground as major players in the search engine game.  Well, the drop seems to be continuing but maybe not for long.

A couple of months ago, Microsoft put in a bid of $44.6 billion dollars to purchase Yahoo but after a few weeks of deliberation, Yahoo decided not to sell.  In what can only be described as a fit of anger by Microsoft, they decided to pursue a potential “hostile takeover”.  At this point, there is only rumors as to what is really going to happen but this move has definitely left a bad taste in the mouth of internet users.

Since the bid by Microsoft, Yahoo seems to have really increased its attempt at reviving its standing as a major search engine.  Algorithms have been under constant adjustment and tweaking with no concern for those companies that depend on them for traffic.  At this point, informal estimates show that Yahoo and MSN have tweaked their algorithms so much that tens of thousands of companies have started to lose positions that were at one time considered stable.

Most of the buzz online about the two search engines seems to point to MSN and Yahoo as being relegated to “second level” search engines and more and more people have decided that they only good they offer is in the social media realm, which includes their chat rooms and community groups with a large percentage of users taking advantage of things such as photo sharing tools like Flickr.com.

So, what does this mean for you as a business owner and someone who has come to depend on Yahoo and MSN for keyword positions and traffic?  Well, for the short term it means that Google is now more important than ever.  If MSN and Yahoo can’t find a way to improve their ranking algorithms and increase their market share in the search engine game, they will become second level search engines which no value to most businesses.

Offer a Solution, Not a Product

I have said it over and over again - offer your customers a solution not a product. Well, it turns out that there is a company doing just that. Sales Performance International (SPI) has recently opened up a Solution Selling® eLearning Suite for individual sales professionals.

Anyone that wants to get serious about doing business online and set themselves apart from their competition needs to look into this program. People are tired of buying products, they want to buy a solution that will help them not only in the short term but also down the road.

Maybe this takes a bit more work and requires a little training to be effective in solution selling but with the extra effort, you will not only close more deals but impress the search engines and add tremendous value to your website marketing program.  Remember, the search engines are always looking for companies that do more that just sell - they want to send people to websites that first educate customers in a specific industry and then offer the solution they need.

Is the Internet Running Out of Space?

AT&T has released an announcement that says by 2010 the Internet will be out of space - is this really a possibility and/or a concern for us?  No, first off, billions of people rely on the Internet for daily personal and business communication - the “powers-that-be” cannot allow this to happen.

Actually, my guess is that in the next 6 to 12 months, the Internet will be replaced with The Grid, a truly amazing technology that will change the way everybody interacts with each other online.

Read the entire article on c|net News - AT&T: Internet to hit full capacity by 2010

The Grid - Is the Internet Dead?

Have you heard about “The Grid”, developed by CERN, the founders of our current Internet? Well, according to some, it will be the next best thing since sliced bread and may eventually take over the Internet as we know it.

Apparently, The Grid is capable of delivering content from one country to another via a personal computer in a matter of seconds. I am not talking about email or something small like that - I am talking about HD Videos which currently take anywhere from 20 minutes to several hours. With The Grid, you will be able to download HD Video in about 5 seconds according to researches at CERN.

Will this sort of new technology take over our current Internet? I hope so but what will the ramifications be and how long are we talking before this will happen? Well, according to an article on Fox News, The Grid would give way to Holographic video conferencing and social media would be the dominate method for communication. This doesn’t mean websites will be a thing of the past but it does mean that what you do with your website currently, will be considered child’s play in the near future.

As far as the timing of The Grid being added to our daily lives, CERN says that it is not currently available for domestic use, however, there are companies developing applications in anticipation and some universities are going to have access to The Grid later this summer.  My guess is that in the next 12 to 18 months we will start to see some aspects of it invade our lives.

Whatever happens with the Internet, you can be sure that it will only serve to improve your ability to communicate with customers and give you more opportunity to display your products and services in more eye-catching and enticing ways.

The Fine Art of Blog Commenting

Blogging has fast become the best way to build link popularity for your website but if you’re not careful, you may get yourself listed as a “comment spammer”.

Writing blogs and commenting on blogs owned by other people has opened up an entirely new way of attracting customers to your site.  With a little creative writing, some quality information and the a little research, you can generate not only link popularity, which helps books your keyword ranking but you can also build a large customer base of direct (and very targeted) traffic.

While people still rely heavily on search engines for the majority of their day-to-day searching, they are also finding that there is a wealth of information floating around in blogs.  Not only are they able to find websites, products, services, etc. that may not have made it into the first page or two of the search engines but they can also get reviews on them.

With a little persistence, you too can benefit from blogging and target an entirely new group of people who prefer to research before they buy.  The best way is to spend a few minutes every day reading through blog articles related to your industry and when you find one that has a positive message you can post a comment about that article with a link back to your website.

Say for instance your website sells chemicals for killing weeds and grass and in your daily blog searches, you come across a blog article talking about the best weed whacker that a person can buy to keep those pesky weeds at bay.  You could post a paragraph or two about an alternative to getting rid of weeds and include a link to the product page or home page of your site.  If the comment seems genuine and sincere, there is a great chance your comment will be posted.

Below is two examples of blog comments based on a blog review of the best weed whackers:

The Bad Version:

Great information - check out my site at: www.abcchemicals.com

The Good Version:

I found your article very informative and really appreciate the time you took to assemble this review.  For years I struggled with weeds in my rock gardens and other landscaped areas - most of the time I spent on my hands and knees pulling the weeds, which just came back a few weeks later.  Eventually I tried various weed whackers and while they saved my back, they didn’t prevent the weeds from coming back.  I finally found a great product that is environmentally friendly and a back saver - it is called “No More Weeds”.  I sprayed tested this in a small area of my garden and found that after just a few days, the weeds were no where to be found.  Unlike some of the popular weed killers, this one is environmentally friendly and doesn’t harm pets.  Anyone look for a quick solution should check out this site: www.abcchemicals.com.

Thanks,
Weed Free In Montana

The above example I just gave you only took me about 2 minutes to write and because it seems to be genuine, I have a better than 80% chance it will be picked up and used but the bad example I showed is sure to get you listed as a spammer.  What you will gain from this is instant traffic from anyone reading this blog post as well as the much coveted link popularity that will drive your keyword positions to the top in Google and other search engines.

* Note - the website address in the above comment should actually be made clickable to your site. 

We actually do this a lot for our clients since this technique is what has replaced the reciprocal link program that we used in the past.  And, the great thing is that you don’t have to be a marketing expert to help with this program.  If you have a few minutes a day, you can post a couple of these comments and who knows, any one of those comments that are picked up, could be your ticket to a lot of future sales.

I recently spoke with a company that has taken to blog commenting and a single post they made a couple of months back, has sent over 2,300 visitors to their website.  They estimate that out of those 2,300 visitors, 40% have purchased from them.  Not a bad haul for a few minutes worth of typing.

Keyword Research - DIY SEM #1

Welcome to the first post in a series on do-it-yourself search engine marketing (DIY SEM).

Keyword research is the most important part of good website marketing. Targeting the wrong keywords will cause you to lose valuable time, not to mention crucial sales.

Even though you think you know your products better than anyone else, you don’t always know the lingo people are using to find those products. Remember, what may be common to you, especially when using slang or industry specific terms, may not be what your general viewing audience uses. Don’t take for granted that you know what keyword terms people are using - spend a little money and buy a subscription to a keyword analytics tool. Most professionals in the marketing industry rely on a program called, Wordtracker.

Once you have your keyword analytics program, you are ready to begin the process of Keyword Discovery.

First thing you want to do is spend a little time on your website looking over the products and services you offer. Then, take a few of the product/service names or common words used to describe them and enter them in the keyword analysis tool you purchased. Depending on the quality of the tool, you will have the ability to see if those terms are actually searched on using Google, AOL, MSN, Yahoo, etc. but more importantly, you will be able to see the following:

  • Estimated daily searches
  • Keyword data with and without plural versions
  • Exact match keyword data (keyword entered exactly as you want)
  • Keyword variation data (keyword that may include additional terms or variations)
  • Predicted daily searches for the coming months

Once you have determined the keyword terms that you feel are appropriate for your site, ask yourself, “Self, do I have enough content on my site to support all of the keyword terms I have chosen?”. If the answer is “I think so” or “I don’t know”, then you probably don’t know what the general rule of thumb is for keyword usage.

My personal “keyword selection rule of thumb”, which by the way has not failed me yet, is to choose one keyword term or keyword phrase for each page that I have on my site. I don’t generally focus a keyword term to the contact page or about us page but product service pages get the full treatment. So, does this mean that you can only target one phrase per page? No, if you are clever enough, you can get two or three variations included as well - see example below.

Example:

I have a product page dedicated to selling Gourmet Coffee from around the world. My obvious keyword term is “gourmet coffee” but I also know that my coffee is organic, fair trade and shade grown. So, if my keyword research showed that those other terms are used in conjunction with “coffee” products searches, I could create a title that to that page that read something like this, “Organic Shade Grown Fair Trade Gourmet Coffee”. It may be a bit of a mouthful but know I have the following keyword terms that I can get rankings for without looking like I am stuffing my page with keywords:

  • organic coffee
  • shade grown coffee
  • fair trade coffee
  • gourmet coffee
  • shade grown organic coffee

So, select the keyword terms you want but don’t over-do-it on the product/service page unless you can incorporate multiple keywords like I did above.

The next thing you need to do before settling on the keyword terms is check the competition for each term. The Wordtracker tool I mentioned above has a tool for that but I prefer to go straight to the horses mouth - Google. I take each keyword term, type it into Google and click the search. If you see that there are several million to several hundred million other sites competing for that keyword term, you may want to pick another instead. For sure you don’t have to but the more competitive your terms, the longer it will take to get top search listings.

Once you are satisfied with the terms you chose, put them into a spreadsheet with the estimated daily searches. Be sure to date the spreadsheet because you need to come back in about 3 months and run the keyword analysis tool for those terms again. You do this simply to verify that the terms you chose were not just a ‘fad’ term - you want to make sure it still produces decent traffic.

Well, that is about it - you have mastered the art of choosing proper keyword terms. Actually, there is no way to master keyword selection - just when you think you have nailed down the best term(s), you find something that looks better. The key here is to find terms you are comfortable with, produce good traffic and have a low amount of competing sites, then stick with that term for a minimum of 4 to 6 months. You want to be able to see the fruit of your work and changing keyword terms too quickly won’t give the search engines adequate time to rank your terms.

Just one more thought - don’t trust your keyword analysis to just anyone if you can’t do it yourself. A lot of SEO/SEM firms don’t really care about getting you keyword terms that return great traffic and even better conversions, they just want to get terms that they know they can get rankings for (something non-competitive/non-preforming). Even then, don’t always trust yourself either - it never hurts to get a second opinion.

A little extra time spent upfront will save you months of wasted time down the road.

Backup Your Data with USB Flash Drives

Everyone should know the value in backing up your data weekly, if not a daily basis but how many of us really domemorysuppliers_1983_113850210.gif it?

My computer of choice is a MacBook Pro and with the new Leopard operating system, I can have a program called “Time Machine” backup every time there is a change in my data but what good does that do me, especially if it is being backed up to a place on my hard drive or even on a portable hard drive? What would happen if there was a fire and I was not in the office or unable to get to my computer and portable hard drives - obviously I would be in a world of trouble.

I used to backup to CD’s, then to DVD’s and keep those at my house rather than the office but with so much data, that became a task that I didn’t keep up with very well. Over the years, USB Flash Drives have been a popular method for people to carry photos or a few documents with them but the drives didn’t offer much storage space - if you were lucky, you could get a 4GB USB Flash Drive. Thanks to the ever increasing or should we say “decreasing” technology, I can get a USB Flash Drive up to 64GB if I want. Granted they are a little spendy but can you really put a price on the security of your important data? No Way!

Think about it - with a USB Flash Drive, you can backup all of your important documents, even put a little music and some favorite movies on there. Most USB Flash Drives work with any computer, whether it be desktop or laptop, PC or Mac, they make a great storage alternative (make sure it is compatible with your operating system) and since they fit in your pocket, you can do a quick backup every day and slip that little sucker in your pocket and Presto! Secure Data that won’t get left behind if tragedy should strike.

The other day, I started researching companies that were selling large capacity USB Flash Drives - below are a few places that I think offer quality customer service, great pricing and a good selection:

Memory Suppliers - www.memorysuppliers.com
- USB Flash Drives

SuperMediaStore - www.supermediastore.com
- USB Flash Drives

TigerDirect - www.tigerdirect.com
- USB Flash Drives
Buy.com - www.buy.com
- USB Flash Drives

* Note - not all of the above websites offer the 64GB drives but they all offer at least 8GB which should be plenty for your most important documents.

Corporate Holiday Cards

picture-1.pngThis past December, as part of our holiday ritual, my staff and I took one day to spend searching for just the right Corporate Holiday Card to send to our clients. The only rule is that we pick a different company each year to order the cards from - kind of spices things up and keeps the holiday cards looking fresh.

This year, we chose a company that may put the end to our tradition of choosing a different company. Not because the prices were amazingly low (although they were) but because the selection was so vast and unique compared to the other stores we have purchased from in the past.

If your looking for you next set of holiday cards, check out Invitation Consultants. You’ll be surprised and pleased with the selections.

Should I Use LinkedIn?

Should you take the time to sign up with LinkedIn? What benefits will it provide? Well, first you need to understand what LinkedIn is.

LinkedIn was launched in 2003 with the primary focus being a business networking site where registered users can find and connect with other professionals in their company, industry or in complementing industries. The largest advantage to this type of networking is that you can not only connect directly with a person but you can also connect with anyone they are currently linked to. Before long, you have a list of people that may be beneficial to you or your company. A great additional benefit of LinkedIn is the ability for employers to list jobs and of course job seekers to find those jobs.

According to LinkedIn’s company profile page:

linkedin-profile.png

With over 17 million registered professionals in 150+ industries around the world, LinkedIn can be a great tool for you and your company.

My recommendation is to get everyone within your organization to create a LinkedIn profile, then connect with each other and before long, you have a group of professionals that is sure to attract others.  Some of these could be your next customer.

17″ MacBook Pro - Product Review / Complaint

About 6 months ago I made the switch from PC to MAC and boy was it a good switch but after this short time, my keyboard is already starting to wear out. I don’t mean the keys won’t work but the paint and numbers are starting to wear off my most common used keys and since I rely on keyboard shortcuts to cut time, I get a lot of key wear.

Anybody else experience this? Apple won’t replace my keys so I am thinking that if I can get enough people with the same problem, maybe we can file a complaint and I will get this fixed.