Archive for January, 2007
A New Player in the Paid Review Market – SponsoredReviews.com
First there was PayPerPost which was followed by ReviewMe, both of which are relatively new services that pay bloggers to write about web sites, products, services, and even companies. Now Text Link Brokers will soon launch SponsoredReviews.com to compete with the other two. How will this new service differentiate themselves from the other two? For starters they claim to offer lower transaction fees and a bidding system. Following are a few key points the service will offer.
Weekly Rap-up of Search Engine Industry News – 1/8 – 1/12
A summary of search related news items that occurred this week including Yahoo! announces oneSearch mobile search product, Jennifer Slegg provides 25 tips on how to optimize your blog for readers and search engines, Apple announces new mobile phone offering – iPhone, Cisco is upset with Apple using its trademark for iPhone and sues them, another Google PageRank update is underway but what does it really mean, and finally, Yahoo! may be using dirty tactics to switch Google & Firefox users.
Better Business Bureau Discriminates Against Online Companies
The BBBOnLine Reliability Program has bugged me for some time now. This is a program the Better Business Bureau (BBB) offers its members in which they can place a seal (as shown to the left) on their web site indicating they are a BBB member which then links to the company’s online profile. It requires its own fees in addition to what a company pays to be a BBB member. The program discriminates against businesses who solely conduct business online. This bothers me to no end. Let me tell you why.
Have You Seen the New Features at Keyword Discovery?
Keyword Discovery is definitely our keyword research tool of choice here at SearchRank. Not only does it give its users access to one of the largest databases of keyword data on the planet, it is loaded with features. Trellian, announces today enhancements and new features to what is becoming the most popular keyword research tool on the market. This includes keyword database update, plural search feature release, import to any Keyword Discovery keyword database, and a Dutch keyword database is now available.
Search Engine Marketing Still Foreign To Many
I had the opportunity to speak at the Business Network of Anthem’s weekly meeting on the subject of what else – search engine marketing. A small group of around twenty people gathered, all who own small businesses in the Anthem, Arizona area where I also live. The group consisted of bankers, financial advisors, insurance brokers, home improvement service providers, an auto repair facility owner, a flooring company, a swimming pool service provider and the list goes on.
Yahoo!’s Latest Acquisition – MyBlogLog
It was first rumored in November but never confirmed. Today it is a reality. Yahoo! has acquired MyBlogLog, a social network for bloggers and blog readers. MyBlogLog will be part of the Yahoo Developer Network. The size of the deal is not being confirmed, although rumors put it at around $10 – $12 million.
ChaCha.com Secures $6 Million in Private Funding
Remember ChaCha.com? They created a lot of buzz in September of last year when they officially announced their human-powered search engine. I had blogged about it and after doing so, received a flood of inquiries from people who wanted to work for us, thinking we were ChaCha itself. Not only did I find this amusing, I had also voiced my opinion that their concept may have been useful before we had search engines that can retrieve results in nano seconds. But why now?
Securing Your Brand on Social Networking Sites
With all the social networking sites popping up everywhere, the idea of branding comes to mind. Sure there is the thought of how web sites can draw traffic from social networking sites, even sell product or services but in addition to that, what about protecting your brand before someone else beats you to it? This is especially important with respect to user names and unique URLs.
Weekly Rap-up of Search Engine Industry News – 1/1 – 1/5
A summary of search related news items that occurred this week including a great post defining the difference between social media optimization and social media marketing, Yahoo and Dash team up to provide Yahoo Local content via in-car navigation systems, Lee Odden compiles a list of 250 plus search marketing blogs, Search Engine Journal Blog Award results are in, Google Tips which promoted Google’s own products and appeared above organic listings have been pulled after stirring up controversy, and finally, Yahoo! Local adds new features for listing and editing local business listings.
Disney Joins Social Media Fray
Is this a sign of trends to come? Large companies setting up MySpace types of sites? Disney has now jumped on the social media bandwagon and will launch a new site next week focused on social networking for kids. The site will be similar to MySpace.com but will have parental controls and feature chat and video clips. WebProNews goes on to say that analysts are skeptical about the success of the site despite the strong brand behind it.
What To Look For in a SEO Friendly E-Commerce Application
We very frequently receive RFPs (requests for proposal) from e-commerce sites. The application behind the e-commerce store, often referred to as a shopping cart application or product database, can be an off the shelf product such as osCommerce, MonsterCommerce or X-Cart to name a few. Or it can even be proprietary, custom developed by a web programmer. No matter how the e-commerce site is powered, there are specific features that we look for in order to know if we will have full liberty to optimize the site so that it has the best opportunity to position well in the organic search results. Some applications already have SEO friendly features built in but many do not. Therefore if you own or are getting ready to set up an e-shop, make sure your product database has the following SEO friendly features.
New Year’s Retro Resolutions
I’m not one for making New Year’s resolutions as I tend to be the type of person that really doesn’t differentiate one day from the next. Of course there are the really important ones that are special – my wedding anniversary, birthdays of family and friends, tax due dates and of course trash days. Other than these, every day is pretty much the same for me. Therefore why put together a list of resolutions that I may or may not keep? I find myself doing that naturally throughout the year anyway.
