Top 10 Blunders Search Marketing Firms Make

Search is the backbone of online businesses and can turn out to be extremely effective provided it is done judiciously. However many Internet marketing companies continue making some common mistakes that seriously hamper their business objectives. The following slideshare throws more light on some must-avoidable mistakes of Search engine marketing.

Top 10 Blunders Search Marketing Firms Make

Are we scared of the Great Google Kingdom ?

Imagine the magnitude of the tasks Google undertakes -

• Add servers to store 1 trillion web pages

• Build world’s largest photo album

• Scan every book in print

• Be the world’s No. 1 destination for online video

• Develop its in-house web browser and leave the tech world guessing

• Release its own operating system for mobile phones that promises astonishing capabilities

The outstanding question here is, what is Google seriously up to?

We’re not talking of a “phenomenon” or a “market space”, we’re witnessing concentration of information on a more than mammoth scale and we don’t even know whether we want to restrict it or not?
It’s a Googlesphere – One super super computer functioning on world’s most powerful network of computers, brought forth by one organization and the world heeds it. In it’s first 10 years, Google undauntedly undertook some of the largest scale tech challenges. What Google was indulging into wasn’t hidden at any point in time. That it assiduously started harnessing, processing and commercializing “all” the world’s information since its inception, was known. What makes Google’s supercomputer more herculean is that the more information it keeps collecting, the smarter its algorithm becomes.
Is the scale at which Google functions as a storehouse of personal information demands a public oversight?

The Google empire is ever expanding. Recently it announced the release of its T-Mobile’s G1 phone, first phone ever to be using Google’s OS for mobile phones, Android. Developers claim that Android phone has the potential of beating the iPhone in features and capabilities. It intends to take the future of the smart-phones to the next level, bringing the Google supercomputer to the palm.

The most consequential era started when there was an ideology clash between Google’s new kingdom and the reigning Microsoft Empire. Microsoft’s founding mission to put “a computer on every desk and in every home” was challenged head-on by Google which aimed at re-centralizing computing, shifting it from our desktops and laptops to “the cloud” (remote servers having no exact location yet accessible wherever there is an Internet connection).

The shift of power was natural. During Microsoft’s reign, it did not have the access as to what its customers were doing. The information (on Word and Excel) was restricted to our PCs. This was not to be continued in Google’s territory where information (on Spreadsheets and Google Docs) can be tracked.

The era has marked a noted shift in dominance where Microsoft is compelled to tread a path opposite to its own creed. This when Microsoft was quietly witnessing the global shift against itself but was sluggish to adapt.

Google’s immense might surely scares but isn’t it justified? Imagine how disturbing it would be if our government was to embark on a collection of information on the scale of Google without having any accountability and transparency that we demand of it.

What’s the fuss about “No Follow”?

Lately, the concept of NoFollow attribute in the industry of search engine optimization seems to be losing its significance due to numerous intelligent reasons. However, those who have tasted success with the support of this concept, surely stand out on a huge scale. Hence, an interesting combat over the issue of “value of no follow links” has profoundly emerged.

Before I start highlighting the main reasons responsible for demanding the failure of NoFollow links, let us have a look at the emergence and theoretical aspect of the same.

NoFollow was introduced with the motive of instructing certain search engines about the hyperlinks that should not regulate the link target’s ranking in the search engine’s index. Mainly, the purpose was to eliminate the potential of certain search engine spam so that the quality of search engine results get improvised and prevention of spam indexing can be avoided, for example : Spammers spam in blog comments to achieve better search engine optimization results.

However, now, the idea of NoFollow has generated various other features beyond simple blog comments as wikipedia is employing NoFollow for external links and Google suggests that paid links are also using the NoFollow attribute on a large extent.
Some of the other basic reasons for NoFollow fiasco are as follows:

• In the concept of blog comments, the latest anti spamming tools such as question, maths and plugins(Akismet, SpamKarma) are considered as much more effective options than the usual NoFollow links as it does nothing with the original intent of the tag and thus comment spammers are left unaffected.
• If there is no value in terms of search engine indexing, then the significance of NoFollow on sites, text ads, and blogs appears more or less minutia.
• If some information is linked with NoFollow attribute, then people usually take it as an unreliable source or something that cannot be trusted completely.
• On WordPress blogs, use of Nofollow links remains unnoticed by most of the bloggers while commenting, simply because it is set as default.
• NoFollow creates lot of confusion in the deciding pattern of leading search engines, as experienced index webmasters fail to settle that whether NoFollow all outgoing links from their website to prevent it from page rank leakage or not. Hence, it could be a risky option for many websites.
• NoFollow has been declared as an “ineffective search engine’s solution” to hide its own failure to rank websites appropriately. Hence, a more smart technique of identifying and devaluing links to spam sites should be discovered.
• Commenting on a blog post mainly offers the idea of adding more relevant information to that blog post. However, this may lead to pages of comments in form of a debate. Moreover, now a trick is used to build the site’s content through posting comments, which has a professional courtesy to give them some link love.
• On Wikipedia, the use of NoFollow links is almost insignificant.
• Any thing that you need to spread on Google such as Text link advertisements, does not need a NoFollow link.

Recently, the founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg also acknowledged the failure of NoFollow.
Moreover, Yahoo, a leading search engine does count NoFollow links as backlinks in SiteExplorer, but still, all those trying to build backlinks through comment spammingare are in total loss because it builds your site’s value in terms of selling advertising options. For instance: TLA, ReviewMe, SEOmoz’s PageStrength and other metrics programs use Yahoo Backlinks as valued criteria.

And finally, in order to add a touch of practical experiment to this notion of “NoFollowlinks failure”, Matt Cutts presents an example to search how each search engine deals with the command. His experiment states that:

• Google totally negates the visibility of the page in search results, similar is the case with Ask.

• MSN is little lenient and thus, offers an url reference and Cached link, without any snippet. On clicking the cached link, nothing new will flash on the screen.
• Yahoo, offers the same result, where on clicking the cached link, the cached page returns.

Therefore, by now, the complete conception of NoFollow is in doldrums, where experts find its significance eliminating day by day.

Google’s Page Rank Updation- Lethal Impact

The A-list bloggers are going ape and so are some of the high-profile news sites. Well, precisely because Google is out again with the PageRank updates making different websites swing, rather differently.

Though there has been a drop down of PageRanks for some of the websites, but there are also sites who’s numeric value has risen up steeply from 4 to 7.

Google was always based on the idea of pagerank so the best sites had the best PR, hence ranking them higher in google’s listing. But now it seems google is “down ranking” them (apparently manually ,as the sources say).

Interestingly the recent updation has seen the brutal attack on paid search rankings, making them deteriorate like never before. Here’s a list of some of the websites whose PageRanks dropped overnight:

http://www.forbes.com/ : PR7 to PR5
San Francisco Chronicle : PR7 to PR5
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ : PR7 to PR5
Joystiq : PR6 to PR4
www.searchengineguide.com/ R7 to PR4
www.searchenginejournal.com/ : PR7 to PR4
weblogtoolscollection.com/ : PR6 to PR4

(source : www.searchenginejournal.com)

Whatever the case be, the recent page rank updation has sparked off new questions in the blogosphere like, is the google’s pagerank algorithm changing, or is google punishing websites that accept paid links or is this how google is trying to suppress its critics? But why would google have such notable companies on its hitlist.

Well, whether page rank matters and how much, if it does,is another issue but for now the recent updation is really hurting and how!

Google Unveils New Video Features on Youtube with Omnisio Acquisition- An Online TV revolution?!

Google has given all its different profile users across the globe a big reason to cherish with the coming of their latest acquisition of Omnisio, an Australian based social video mashup service
provider company allowing its users to splice and edit online videos, giving it all a remix type setup.

With the Google and Omnisio being stringed together, my expectations have shot up sky high.
The regular fun lover users can annotate and share videos from various websites, mash various clips together, and there’s more coming to rock you, one can extract different sections of clips they find on the web (currently Google video, Youtube and Blip.tv) which can later be ensembled together to form the new original compilations.

With their presentation tool, corporate people too have reasons to hold on to them, presenters can now upload slideshows in PDF format or slideshare and synchronize them with videos uploaded allowing viewers to jump around within presentations.

With all these features, it seems the newly found team of Google and Omnisio is all set to spice up the lives of its innumerable users.

This acquisition, for sure, is going to a resourceful function for Google as now the technology and knowledge of the online videos that vested with Omnisio can be explored creatively and effectively.

I feel this is like igniting an Online TV Revolution.

The present and future of web-based applications in India

The web browser can be called the operational agent for the internet’s prowess as it is fast emerging as an integral software part of a computer system(apart from the O.S.).In India, there are numerous technical, circumstantial factors driving the success of browser-based web applications. Consider these-

Universally accessible
Internet based applications can be accessed at any place and at anytime,all you need is an internet enabled device.It gives flexibility to work beyond the restriction of one’s workplace.

Proliferation of web startups
There are numerous web startups, incited by open source software, decreasing hardware costs and what not, aiming to build business or consumer based web applications.The internet opens global markets for these applications.

SAAS – an alternative to licensed software
What a SAAS application does is provide an alternative for an extensive distribution and sales network ultimately cutting down the selling cost.In future more and more software would come as metered services(like electricity bills);SAAS would aid in this.

Trend of Online transactions
Everything is online and what is not will soon be.Web replicates real life business models,for eg online job recruitment portals, matrimonials,ticket bookings.Most of them are based on transactional business models.Since more and more services are moving online,the future looks bright.

Web for a cause
Web can tremendously help to overcome the deficiencies of the physical world including the socio-political factors like corruption, usual city problems.This assumes significance in the Indian scenario.

Online content storage and distribution tools
The global players like Youtube, Flickr come in this category.These sites store,collaborate data over rich media like podcasts, videos etc.There are also some less-popular Indian sites in the list.Basically these web applications are inclined towards entertainment, learning,and business networking.

Social Networking
The future of Social networking is huge considering that it’s a big hit in India and most of the youth is addicted to it for entertainment.The providers’ list include big global players like Orkut,Facebook along with some of our Indian versions like Mingle Box,Indyarocks etc.

All these factors signal that the country’s environment is conducive to the growth of Browser-based applications notwithstanding some issues which can be dealt with.

Interactive video format is the latest add to affiliate marketing

With Buy.at introducing video interactive feature to its affiliate marketing format, can it be seen as the beginning of a race to acquire it as the “latest trend” ?

Buy.at ,the affiliate marketing network from UK, has introduced interactive video ad format after joining hands with British video tech firm Coull. The motive is to improvise the affiliates’ access of Buy.at among the clients.

This is a significant handshake considering that the use of interactive video add has slowly gained popularity and is now rapidly used by the advertisers. It will help increase the reach and response among the advertisers, to make it more accessible. Use of interactive video footage will allow individual to link and tag independently and moreover clients can purchase from the direct product pages of the company.

Video Interactive technology, as being easily accessible can change the face of affiliate marketing. The latest format includes the features of linking individual pixels. This will help in in increasing the potential uses of the affiliates.

What Buy.at achieves from this is the capability to track click-through as, sales and cost-per-acquisition commissions by embedding its analytics tags into the video itself. As a result, the units can be copied and placed elsewhere online, for example on social networking sites, while ensuring that reporting functionalities remain intact.

Let’s hope the trend will be picked up by the other major clients and be made the “latest fashion” in order to make affiliate marketing more accessible.

Microsoft shakes hands with Icahn, warning bells for Yahoo!

As Microsoft shake hands with Icahn, the fight to overtake Yahoo! Management control takes a new turn. What’s gonna be the consequence , the world will see in up coming days??

The zeal to apprehend Yahoo! takes a new hitch as Microsoft shakes hand with Icahn in order to topple Yahoo! board and management and to take total control over the company. Steve Anthony Ballmer, the Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft put forward the proposal on Friday evening with the non-negotiable acquisitions after making the pact with Icahn.

However, Yahoo! discarded the proposal. Roy Bostock, Chairman of Yahoo! said, “This odd and opportunistic alliance of Microsoft and Carl Icahn has anything but the interests of Yahoo!’s stockholders in mind. Clearly, Microsoft, having failed to advance in search, is aligning with the short-term objectives of Mr. Icahn to coerce Yahoo! into selling its core strategic search assets on terms that are highly advantageous to Microsoft, but disadvantageous to Yahoo! Stockholders.”

According to Bostock, Yahoo! had problems with the non-negotiable acquisitions stating, ”Replacements of top management and current board along with the overseeing of the Yahoo’s! remaining non-search businesses by Icahn’s slate of directors, would lead into a total dismantle of the company and the business. ”

Months back, Ballmer had grounded his three years desperate efforts of acquiring Yahoo! but the supremacy of Google in the online industry and the growing threat of GNU/Linux, compelled Microsoft to go for the pact. To a concern, business analysts have cited the deal as a non feasible act and suggested Microsoft to reorganize themselves, in order to be in the hunt.

Internet Advertisement ,a business-booster for marketers

Internet is expanding day by day and it has reached a stage when it is not only a medium for gaining information about products and services but also one of the major mediums of exchange. Internet advertising is arising as one of the most effective way of tapping this e-market for merchants.

Trade has come a long way from barter system to present day when people no longer have to take the pains of going to an actual market in order to execute trade. Now customers can order the services and products of their choice sitting in their air conditioned homes via the domain of Internet.

One of the biggest challenges in front of merchants has always been to reach out to the potential customers. Following the old and established rule that a consumer is more inclined towards an established brand as compared to others, one can easily conclude that display advertising is the saviour for lost merchants who are unable to find their way to a wider clientèle.

Display Advertising follows the basic concept of flashing a particular brand name in front of the user so that the name establishes in his mind and he can be redirected to the merchants website, solving the needs of the consumer and raising the income of the merchant.

With the emergence of various Internet Advertising providers, the merchants can transfer the task of exploring the Internet market to professionals who provide them with assured results with the help of pay per click scheme. This way the merchants can keep a track of their expenditures on advertising and concentrate all their attention on production.

NDTV New Media Congress debates on the status of Indian Online Marketing

Indian markets are finally rolling on the wheels of Internet marketing. The fourth and the final session of NDTV New Media Congress brought about various discussions on Branding, Marketing and Advertising strategies.

The congress session was lead by esteemed panelists from the web world including Anurag Batra, Managing Director and Editor-in-chief, Exchange4media; Lloyd Mathias, Marketing Director, India and South West Asia, Motorola; Ravi Kiran, CEO, Starcom, South East and South Asia; Rohit Sharma, COO, Zapak Digital Entertainment; and Manish Vij, Co-founder and Chief Business Officer, Smile Interactive Technology Group.

The summit held by NDTV was very enlightening especially for the members of the Internet media industry. The panelists appealed to the merchants that online marketing has more potential than just acquiring leads.

Anurag Batra boldly pointed out that Display advertising works 2.5 times better than search marketing. While talking about the number of Internet users in India, it was stated that it’s not just about 4 per cent of the country’s population but about the 40 million influential people. The companies must build their brand here. It was also pointed out that companies spend crores of rupees on a single showroom but they don’t spend the same amount on their largest showroom- their website.

Lloyd Mathias of Motorola pointed that most marketers are not savvy enough to take the new media seriously. According to him, new media is still new; marketers are still from the analogue world, specialists have to accept the new trends and evolve in their work procedures, and consumers are still flirting with the medium but are not serious about it.

The congress concluded that the specialists have to educate themselves about the scope of Display advertising in India which is mis-conceived through out the nation, merchants spend all their budgets on other mediums whereas display advertising is the boon which can effectively establish their brand names.