 | | | | FEATURE:
Internet Marketing Optimization: Understanding How the Disciplines Drive ROI
Author: Jessica Lee
| | | Back in the beginning days of Internet marketing, businesses were offered a limited, albeit potent, way to market their sites online consisting of few disciplines – search engine optimization being one of them. Today, the disciplines within Internet marketing have multiplied, and with the resources available to a business, Internet marketing campaigns are now more powerful than ever before. Depending on the level of knowledge of Internet marketing within a company, some may not fully understand all the assets available to them to market their businesses online. Changes and trends move quickly in this fast-paced industry, so it's not always easy to stay abreast of them. It's also not always apparent how the various disciplines within Internet marketing can work together to maximize ROI. Here at Bruce Clay, Inc., we call the merging of all the disciplines, "Internet marketing optimization." No longer is it just one type of Internet marketing that's important to a business website. We are now in an era where all the disciplines work together to offer a truly integrated online marketing experience, making online visibility and targeted reach stronger than ever before.
| | | BACK TO BASICS:
Google Places Optimization Best Practices
Author: Virginia Nussey | | | Google Places optimization is an important part of location-centric online marketing for any local business, improving search exposure to those looking for a product or service in their area. Search engines and social networks continue to roll out locally focused products and features, and a crop of local deal and check-in services have popped up, indicating recognition that the local space holds the greatest opportunity for growth in marketing opportunities and consumer engagement. Fueling this growth is widespread adoption by the business community, eager to engage in online marketing channels that introduce businesses to a base of proactive customers. But as always, the earlier you're in the game, the better your chance for exposure and audience penetration. An optimized Google Places Page is the barrier to entry in today's Web-focused media environment.
| | | INTERNATIONAL:
A Guide to the Google +1 Button
Author: Martin Orliac  | | | Google has started to release its Google+ strategy with the introduction of the +1 Button followed by Google+ itself. These two new releases are just the beginning, and as we already know, Google is planning to roll out more Gmail integrations, a Google+ iPhone app, and more. The +1 Button and Google+ are the first social move since the launches of Google Wave and Google Buzz, and this time, it appears very convincing. With the ability to granularly select who can view individual posts, Google+ will suit all those who were struggling to manage different public and private profiles across different platforms. The +1 Button seems like a simple element on the Web, but it's not. There are a number of key factors to take into account when implementing a +1 Button, or even when +1'ing content.
| | | Hot Topics Social network. Life hub. Marketers' promised land? Google+ was unveiled on June 28, becoming the search and cloud-based app company's first critically lauded social platform. Already topping 10 million members in just weeks as a limited field test, the outlook, reviews and momentum seem to be on Google's side. Facebook Killer? Comparisons were immediately made between Google+ and Facebook. As the New York Times put it: "At first, Google+ looks like a shameless Facebook duplicate. There's a place for you to make Posts (your thoughts and news, like Facebook's Wall); there's a Stream (an endless scrolling page of your friends' posts, like Facebook's News Feed); and even a little +1 button (a clone of Facebook's Like button), which may be where Google+ gets its peculiar name. But there's one towering, brilliant difference: Circles. [...] From now on, every time you share something — a news item, a thought, a photo, a chat invitation — you can specify exactly which Circles receive it. In one fell swoop, Google has solved the layers-of-privacy problem that has dogged Facebook for years." However, many hesitate to predict the end for Facebook, or Twitter, for that matter. The position of Google+ is unique from other social platforms. G+ profiles are required to be public, although the updates and media shared on them can be selectively kept from public view. For individuals on G+ and for businesses, once brand pages are made available, Google+ is an opportunity to craft a public brand presence as a web-wide aggregator that will be highly visible in search. Why Google Wants a Social Platform So Badly On Search Engine Land Ciarán Norris explains the value of the social graph for improving search relevance: "In many ways, likes are a much better model for directing search results. Linking was always a bit of a niche activity – you had to have a web page, you probably had to know a bit of HTML. In other words, links were for geeks, likes are for everyone. Therefore, if Google wants to maintain its hold on the search sector, it needs to develop its own social graph, or at least that's how people at Google have described it to me." According to Bryan Eisenberg's Facebook Knock Off or Something Else?: "Google wants to understand how to bring you more relevant search results and ads. The intersection of search, social, and mobile are a powerful force and Google was handicapped by not having full access to the data." One Ring to the Rule Them All Perhaps most significant of all the potential consequences of Google+ popular adoption would be Google's effortless transition into the role of users' go-to apps provider. With the Google Apps toolbar along the top of a browser window, Google has made it easy to use them for email, calendar, docs, photo sharing and browser, to name a few. As some media outlets have declared this week, it's Google's world; we just live in it.
 | | | | Shuffles Facebook has announced three changes to the platform. The new features and functionality include: video calling in partnership with Skype, group chat and a chat redesign. Former Microsoftie, Sanaz Ahari, has left her position as Principal Group Program Manager for Bing to join Google in display advertising. Electronic Arts purchased online gaming company PopCap Games for 1 billion USD. This is EA's section acquisition of an online gaming company. Online streaming TV and movie site, Hulu, has reportedly decided to offer itself up for sale. Hulu is currently owned by an amalgam of media companies including News Corp, Walt Disney Co. and Comcast. News Corp sold beleaguered social network Myspace to Specific Media for 35 million dollars, far less than the $480 million they paid in 2005. Further layoffs came with the buy. Following the recent exit of co-founder Ev Williams, Twitter now loses co-founder Biz Stone who is moving to work on new projects with Williams at Obvious Corporation. Backtype, a service for tracking social mentions on the Web, has been acquired by Twitter. Current products will be offered free for now to current users but no new users will be accepted and the core Backtype product will be discontinued. Google has acquired loyalty card startup, Punchd. The six-person company will be working from Google's Mountain View headquarters going forward.  | eBay India's country manager Ambareesh Murty will be leaving the company to pursue his entrepreneurial interests. Muralikrishnan B will take over as the country manager. | | Microsoft India's joint managing director, consumer & online business manager Hemant Sachdev is slated to leave the company after serving his 90 day notice period. | | | | | Shindigs
SES San Francisco will take place August 15-18. Bruce Clay, Inc. will be there liveblogging, speaking and chatting at booth 507 so we hope to see you there as well. As a bonus, there will be an author signing of our Search Engine Optimization All-In-One for Dummies. Get 20 percent off your registration with code 20BRU. Bruce Clay will be presenting the popular SEO one-day training at SES San Francisco on August 19. Your dollar will go even farther with special deals Bruce is offering for workshop attendees and SEMPO members. Don't miss out on this great opportunity to extend your conference experience and take advantage of expert training. From August 21-23 in New York City, Affiliate Summit East will tackle the latest trends and information for the affiliate marketing industry. SMX East will take place September 13-15 at the Jacob K. Javits Center. Bruce Clay will present a one-day SEO Training Workshop on September 12. For a free All Access pass to SMX East, enter the Small Biz Local Discovery Contest by submitting an article about SEO, PPC or social media for local businesses. The contest entry deadline has been extended to Friday, July 22. Read about the full contest rules and prizes here. In the U.S., the newly updated SEOToolSet® standard and advanced training and certification dates for 2011, taking place in Simi Valley, CA, are as follows: - September 19-23
- November 14-18
| SMX Melbourne will be held on November 16 and 17 for anyone in the online or search marketing field. | | Bruce Clay Australia presents the upcoming SEO training courses in 2011: | | The 3-day SEO training course will take place in Gurgaon, India, from 2 to 4 August 2011. | | | | | Attaboys According to comScore, the biggest network of sites on the Web is Google, with over one billion visitors. The report also notes that Facebook's vaunted 700 million visitor number is not representative of the active number of viewers. Twitter continues to gain legitimacy as a news source with the new site Twitter for Newsrooms. Foursquare, the location check-in site, has reached the milestones of more than 10 million people registered and more than 500,000 specials from businesses. A trio of girls swept the Internet-based Google Science Fair, taking home the gold in all three age groups. Grand prize winner, Shree Bose, delved into testing methods for ovarian cancer. | Yahoo7 has appointed Andrea Rule as their Strategy and Business Development Manager. "The newly created role will provide us with additional senior digital expertise in the Melbourne market," said Damon Scarr, Commercial Director at Yahoo7. |  | In Japan, real-time/social search has officially started. SEO and social media marketing must work together as Yahoo Japan released real-time search and Google social search went global. | | World News juggernaut BBC launched a Hindi mobile site complete with audio news. The site is a good example of being sensitive to local needs. | | | | | Word on the Wire As part of its major strategy shift to integrate social influence into search, as embodied by Google+, Google has made a number of changes to its products and features. Google now displays +1 counts in search results. Google has allowed its deal with Twitter to lapse, shutting down the search engine's real-time search which relied on the Twitter fire hose. It's likely that in the future, Google real-time search results will be populated with Google+ content. And Google's Picasa and Blogger platforms have been renamed as part of an effort to unify the brand. Google confirmed the Panda 2.2 update has been rolled out, making live the expected algorithmic improvements for detecting scraped content. YouTube is testing a new interface design, dubbed Cosmic Panda, that features a darker background and less cluttered feel, with playlists and channel lists moved below the video. A scandal has rocked Rupert Murdoch's media empire when it was discovered that his publication News of the World hacked the phones of members of the British Royal Family, the British prime minister and victims of murder and bombings. The fallout from the revelation led to the closing of the tabloid, the arrest of News International's former chief executive, and intensifying scrutiny of British police. The scandal has highlighted publicly accepted invisible boundaries for the appropriate use of technology. | Comscore India's Director Kedar Gavane in a webinar on June 7, 2011 revealed the latest India centric stats and findings in their report on the "State of Internet with a Focus on India". Interesting stats include: - Facebook is the most popular social network in India with 31.5 million users (double the number of users in 2010).
- 15-24 year olds in India are the heaviest Internet users.
- Social networking sites reach 84% of the Web audience in India, and take up 21% of all time spent online.
- Fifty-five percent of the Qeb population in India visited a technology site.
- India boasts the highest reach to travel sites among the BRIC countries, and is almost at levels similar to Europe and North America's.
You can download the full report here. | | Linkedin's subscriber base in India reached 10 million. | | An infographic on Digital Media in India says that India has the world's third-largest population of Internet users. | | It's about time to wipe out the paid links!? Go, go Google Japan! Google tightened the spam links in Japan and points out paid link issues in Google Webmaster Tools. | | | | 
| If you have any questions or comments on any of the above Internet marketing news items or if you would like to suggest topics for future search engine optimization articles, please contact us at Bruce Clay, Inc. | | | |
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