Winnipeg SEO

Right, and Wrong SEO

2010-01-05T10:32:00.001-06:00

SEO Experts unite? It seems everywhere online there's courses, quizzes, training webinars, downloadable ebooks, the list is extensive. Things, are getting out of hand. Search engine optimization isn't even remotely a light read over lunch, or a 2 day training course, or a handful of quizzes which magically "certify" you as an expert.

Now I'm not saying that all of the aforementioned methods are just snake oil in a jar, designed to take your money and run. For the most part, they will teach you best practices when you build a website and add to it, but if your plan was building a new site, why wouldn't you already have an idea of what you wanted and how to implement it? And if you had no idea how to implement, there are web design shops out there which can help direct you as to what needs to be done, based on your needs.

Would you honestly trust your optimization efforts, to the SEO expert who actually writes a home improvement blog (yes they exist)? SEO is as old as Google, from when they first started building their index with the first pages. It's not fly by night, it's not short term, it's not quick fix, and it's not something everyone can do.

Winnipeg Dare to Dream

2010-01-04T18:14:00.004-06:00

This is my home towns history, similar in a lot of ways to Winnipeg.

Similar population, you had the fur trade, we had wool, but Leeds diversified and changed with the times. Leeds is now the UK's largest centre for business, legal, and financial services outside London,and according to the most recent Office for National Statistics estimates, Leeds is the fastest growing city in the UK.

This could be Winnipeg. Please read on and see if you can pick similarities.

Leeds developed as a market town in the Middle Ages as part of the local agricultural economy. Prior to the Industrial Revolution it had become a co-ordination centre for the making of woollen cloth; with white broadcloth being traded at the Leeds White Cloth Hall.

Leeds was handling one sixth of England's export trade in 1770. Growth, initially in textiles, was accelerated by the building of the Aire and Calder Navigation in 1699 and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in 1816.

The railway network constructed around Leeds, starting with the Leeds and Selby Railway in 1834, provided improved communications with national markets and, significantly for its development, an east-west connection with Manchester and the ports of Liverpool and Hull giving improved access to international markets.

Alongside technological advances and industrial expansion, Leeds retained an interest in trading in agricultural commodities, with the Corn Exchange opening in 1864.

In the early years the most significant of the factories were woollen finishing and flax mills; diversifying by 1914 to printing, engineering, chemicals and clothing manufacture.

Decline in manufacturing during the 1930s was temporarily reversed by a switch to producing military uniforms and munitions during World War II. However, by the 1970s the clothing industry was in irreversible decline, facing cheap foreign competition.

The contemporary economy of Leeds has been shaped by Leeds City Council having the vision of building a '24 hour European city' and a 'capital of the north'. It has developed from the decay of the post-industrial era to become a telephone banking centre, connected to the electronic infrastructure of the modern global economy There has been growth in the corporate and legal sectors and increased local affluence has led to an expanding retail sector, including the luxury goods market.

The internationally acclaimed University of Leeds, together with Leeds Metropolitan University and Leeds Trinity University College has made the city a major centre of higher education. The student population has stimulated growth of the nightlife in the city and there are ample facilities for sporting and cultural activities, including classical and popular music festivals, and a varied collection of museums.

Leeds has a diverse economy with employment in the service sector now far exceeding that in the traditional manufacturing industries. In 2002, 401,000 employees were registered in the Leeds district. Of these 24.7% were in public administration, education and health, 23.9% were in banking finance and insurance and 21.4% were in distribution, hotels and restaurants.

It is in the banking, finance and insurance sectors that Leeds differs most from the financial structure of the region and the nation. The city is the location of one of the largest financial centres in England outside London.

Tertiary industries such as retail, call centres, offices and media have contributed to a high rate of economic growth. In 2006 GVA for city was recorded at $32 billion, with the entire Leeds City Region generating an economy of $92 billion.

The extensive retail area of Leeds is identified as the principal regional shopping centre for the whole of the Yorkshire and the Humber region and approximately 3.2 million people live within its catchment area.

There are a number of indoor shopping centres in the middle of the city, including the Merrion Centre, Leeds Shopping Plaza, St John’s Centre, Headrow Centre, the Victoria Quarter, The Light and the Corn Exchange.

In total there are approximately 1,000 retail stores, with a combined floorspace of 2,264,100 square feet (210,340 m2).

Of the 40,000 people who work in retailing in Leeds 75% work in places which are not located in the city centre. There are additional shopping centres located in the many villages that became part of the county borough and in the towns that were incorporated in the City of Leeds in 1974.

Office developments, also traditionally located in the inner area, have expanded south of the River Aire and total 11,000,000 square feet (1,000,000 m2) of space.

In the period from 1999 to 2008 $5bn of property development was undertaken in central Leeds; of which $1.4bn has been offices, $530m retail, $775m leisure and $1.6bn housing.

Manufacturing and distribution uses accounts for $50m of new property development in the period. There are 130,100 jobs in the city centre, accounting for 31% of all jobs in the wider district. In 2007, 47,500 jobs were in finance and business, 42,300 in public services, and 19,500 in retail and distribution. 43% of finance sector jobs in the district are contained in Leeds city centre and 44% of those employed in the city centre live more than nine kilometres away.

It's your turn Winnipeg, dare to dream or let Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and the rest keep calling you the shit pot of Canada.

Info from Wiki

Optimization Resolutions for 2010

2010-01-04T14:33:00.000-06:00

A new year, a new decade. Welcome to 2010, do you have your resolutions handy to go over them? Good! Lets begin..

Resolution #1: I will not try to perform my own SEO. This is a great start for the new year for you! Yes, you do indeed know your business better than anyone else, however, your expertise is not in SEO, it's in your industry. SEO is our world, let Freshtraffic take care of that for you.

Resolution #2: I will communicate better with my SEO. Another great idea for 2010. Again, you know the best when it comes to your business, we at Fresh however know SEO. For us to serve you to the absolute best of our abilities we need you to remain in contact with us about any changes to your services or features so that we may change and update your pages properly. If we've helped you to setup a blogging service, please be sure to use the service regularly so to help firmly place yourself as the authority within your industry.

Resolution #3: I will work harder to understand "You get what you pay for". In every situation, you get what you put in. If you receive promises of quick, high rankings for a low investment, expect to have very mixed results, worst case scenario, your website being kicked from Google's index. Fresh has been in the search engine optimization business, since before SEO was a buzz word being tossed around marketing tables.

Resolution #4: I will understand that SEO is not SEM. Going straight to Wikipedia:

Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion.

Versus:

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results

SEM = sponsored links (top or right side) SEO = organic ranking (center of the page)

Resolution #5: I will not meddle after having my site optimized. We couldn't have hoped for a more important resolution than this one. Search engine optimization isn't an exact science to be sure, however, there are steps which need to be taken to ensure compliance within the industry, and that's our job to know those lines and to not step over them. Something as simple as deciding to add a picture, or reword a page, without consulting first, could completely undo any and all work been done on your entire site.

Well then, it looks like you've compiled some great resolutions for moving forward in the New Year! We'll have to check back in a few months, just to see how you've been doing at keeping to your resolutions. Happy New Year, may your year bring you highly placed organic rankings, limited to no paid inclusions, and exponential growth in unique visitors to your site.

Google’s Personalized Search Results

2010-01-04T14:13:00.002-06:00

There are two ways to NOT see Google’s Personalized Search results:
(1) Log out of Google
(2) Append &pws=0 to the end of your search URL in the search bar.

Hope this helps

Canada needs a digital plan

2010-01-04T12:18:00.003-06:00

The chairman of the National Film Board says Canada risks being left in the dust by other countries on the information highway if it doesn't put serious thought into dealing with the digital age.

Hurray for Mr Tom Perlmutter, Please call me, we have something in common.

He says "It affects all sectors, it affects government, it affects education, it affects health sectors, it affects politics. You only have to look at the presidency of Obama. I cannot imagine that he would have been elected president without the power of the Internet."

Obama used the Internet to reach out to supporters and raise millions in funds for his campaign, that's true and we know better than most.

Read full story

If you require expert advice or help on the digital age Call us 204.942.4200

Start Living Manitoba

2010-01-04T10:22:00.005-06:00

Today's news says Manitobans will soon see another round of taxpayer-funded ads promoting the province to the rest of Canada.

Premier Greg Selinger says the province’s promotion council is gathering resources from the public and private sectors for the next phase of its “Start Living” campaign.

The campaign has been somewhat in limbo since last spring (Surprise Surprise), when $2 million worth of television and newspaper advertising was purchased in other provinces.

Okay $2 million so far on television and newspaper Hello!!! When will someone in this province start walking not talking?

People of the marketing and promotions council, firstly, "start living" does this mean start going to gym, start eating healthy, start what? surely in the promotion it would have been far better calling it "Start Living Manitoba" why, because one you're telling them exactly what it's about and secondly for half the amount already spent you could have spread the word globally not just Canada via the Internet just how great living in Manitoba is.

With professional Online Marketing, "no your website is not enough" you could spread the word more efficiently to more people and eyeballs, 92% of people now search the Internet for everything including relocating, even the newspapers are online and only this week a deal was done for television to follow.

Selinger says Manitoba has to promote itself to compete with other jurisdictions and the “Start Living” slogan has gone over well with the public.

Greg, Mr Selinger, Sir, Please, have a word, half the people here have never heard of it, may be the public working on it, but not the general public and to compete means you would have to be top of the search engines to even start to compete.

The campaign boasts about the province’s quality of life, focusing on things such affordable homes and short commute times.

This is all true, I love living here, a little backward sometimes but the gains certainly outweigh the negatives.

Time to get onboard Manitoba to a brand new world to you guys, it's called the NET.

This does not mean just having a website built by the local winnipeg web design company and hoping someone see's it, it means marketing that website in the proper manner to get full exposure, this can only be done by using a professional seo and internet marketing company.

I'll let you work out the rest.

Blocking Social Media at the Workplace

2010-01-02T10:38:00.004-06:00

You hear all the time about employees using social media websites while at work, well if you haven't already blocked them, here's a simple trick.

In Linux, you can type “sudo vi /etc/hosts” and add the following lines:

127.0.0.1 twitter.com
127.0.0.1 www.twitter.com
127.0.0.1 facebook.com
127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 myspace.com
127.0.0.1 www.myspace.com

What these lines say is “Computer, when you try to use the domain name system (DNS) to resolve twitter.com to an IP address, hard-code the IP address to be 127.0.0.1.” Note that 127.0.0.1 is a special IP address that corresponds to your own computer. In essence, these entries make it impossible to browse to Twitter, Facebook, or Myspace. You might need to reboot your computer too for the settings to take effect.

Thanks to Matt for the tip.

Winnipeg Business Please Change

2009-12-31T17:51:00.005-06:00

When I arrived here in 2007 I saw Winnipeg as a place of opportunity, I had calls and emails from around the globe asking why of all places Winnipeg. The BBC called me the first week I was here asking the same thing.

I use to answer opportunity, locality and a nice place to live.

In recent times I have questioned myself on more than one occasion, a nice place to live? It is, a little jewel that not many people know about, but trying to do business here, well that's another question.

I was harassed by the chamber when I arrived to join the business community, I succumb and became the 2008th member in 2008, it even got a mention in the local Free Press.

What have they done so far for me? absolutely nothing.

I did enjoy the golf tournament though, I also had the pleasure of sitting down with the president Dave Angus after I had been here two years and asked him if he knew what I did, he openly admitted he had no idea.

We showed him letters of thanks from very prominent world business leaders which raised a few brows, when asked if we could help the chamber progress in to the new world of digital Internet media he was very open to that, as in his own words the chamber had failed miserably in the last nine years in trying to get Winnipeg anywhere on the map.

If your a business leader, premier or mayor (sorry Sam gets it) and your reading this, it's time to act.

In the late 1800's early 1900's Winnipeg was thriving, the coming of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1881, Agriculture was a booming, The Manitoba Legislative Building reflects the optimism of those boom years.

Winnipeg has stood still on a global stage since those glorious days, but it's coming back full circle.

CentrePort, Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the Winnipeg Airport Extension to name a few, all huge new developments that can be beneficial to all Manitobans and yes could potentially put Winnipeg Manitoba on the map.

But it wont happen by painting a bus that travels up and down Portage Avenue or a billboard on Main Street, Flyer distribution or even a TV commercial aimed at Ontario, if it's going to happen it's going to happen ONLINE.

But beware "Having a beautiful website no one can find is like having a store and keeping the doors locked. You know it is there, you've done a great job decorating it, the products are waiting for the customers, yet no one comes in."

Online is where most people look for anything these days, this is not to say old traditional marketing is dead, it's not, we just have to integrate it into the new.

When I arrived and decided to open office here, we did are due diligence and found three other Winnipeg company's offering Internet marketing, admittedly web design companies who had just added the latest buzz word tag, today two years on we have over 190 claiming to do the same.

Now we like to think with the PR coverage we got opening the new office here that we started a trend with others deciding to jump on the gravy train, but with these numbers it must be the fastest growing Winnipeg industry.

Winnipeg you have a great opportunity to prosper, dont waste it, It's time for change.

Bookseller pulling out of the Winnipeg airport

2009-12-31T17:21:00.005-06:00

Plans that McNally Robinson had to open up in the new air terminal building at the James Richardson International Airport in Winnipeg are now off.

The Winnipeg bookseller entered bankruptcy protection earlier this week and announced the closing of two of its four stores.

The company cited the economic downturn and digital competition for closing their stores at Polo Park in Winnipeg and in Toronto.

I hope this might be the final straw that breaks the camel's back in Manitoba regarding the new era of digital media and Internet Marketing as the so called business leaders in the province seem very reluctant to embrace it.

New Flyer. Global and now McNally Robinson have all succumb recently, enough talking Winnipeg, enough setting up committees to overlook other committees, enough provincial grants to pay salaries with no results, it's time to move forward, it's time to act.

If you require help in the new digital world speak with the premier Internet Marketing company in the province and get some Fresh Ideas.

Winnipeg Booksellers file for bankruptcy protection

2009-12-30T04:08:00.004-06:00

Winnipeg Booksellers McNally Robinson has filed for bankruptcy protection, many believe the company succumbed to a combination of the sudden surge in e-book sales and an ill-fated foray into southern Ontario.

Online retailer Amazon has reported it sold more e-books than printed books during the pre-Christmas sales rush.

McNally Robinson's intentions to develop its online e-commerce sales store may be a good approach, especially if optimized correctly and if it can establish a niche selling local Canadian authors to a global marketplace.

Some say e-books will have the same effect music downloading had on music retailers and movie downloads and video on demand on the video rental stores. But in addition to the potential devastation e-books might have on the book-selling business, the retail industry in general has become much more competitive.

Reports show at least $3.2 million owing to more than 300 unsecured creditors.

Brands Should Increase PR in 2010

2009-12-30T03:45:00.004-06:00

Reports are showing that the weekly use of the Internet is growing, figures from a recent study by Harris Poll says the average amount of time spent on the web has risen from seven hours in 1999 to 13 hours for the period between July and October in 2009.

"Hours online may have increased because of the recession," Harris Polls was quoted as saying. "Going online is free; going out usually costs money."

Website Marketing departments might also like to focus on targeting older generations, as the statistics showed that those aged between 30 and 39 registered an average 18 hours on the Internet, while 40 to 49-year-olds spent 17 hours surfing.

Brands should take note that a little more PR in 2010 may well help as it's predicted that Internet advertising will grow in the next 12 months.

Need expert advice on Internet Marketing & Advertising? Call (1)204.942.4200

Google Caffeine Algorithm Update

2009-12-30T02:46:00.003-06:00

So Google is getting ready to unleash the caffeine onto the world of search,sometime after the Holidays Google Caffeine, their newest Search Engine Algorithm, is going to be fully operational on all of their massive servers. For confirmation you can read a Blog entry (dated 11/10) by Google Engineer Matt Cutts:

"Caffeine will go live at one data center so that we can continue to collect data and improve the technology, but I don't expect Caffeine to go live at additional data centers until after the holidays are over."

Read entire Blog by Matt Cutts here:

The following partial list of concerns were discovered while randomly evaluating these SEO Internet Marketing practices:

Lack of emphasis on fresh and updated website content.
Downplaying importance of Social Media where applicable.
Not addressing issues with website page download times.
Ignoring poorly constructed Meta Title & Description Tags.
Advocating Link Farming and insisting on keyword stuffing.
Not emphasizing quality outbound links that are relevant to the websites theme.
Download speeds of website.

For updated detailed information on the anticipated impact of Caffeine on SEO Internet Marketing efforts visit: www.freshtraffic.ca

Google SEO with a Fresh Approach

2009-12-29T16:27:00.004-06:00

Check out the video

Prepping your SEO for 2010

2009-12-22T14:20:00.002-06:00

In continuation from yesterdays post about prepping for the new year, and being ready to take the bull by the horns online, below you'll find a couple of tips to be aware of in regards to getting ready. An insight or two, as well as some advice to bear in mind as your advertising year starts anew.

An easily forgotten fact, is that web crawlers from the search engines treat each individual page of a website as it's own entity. This means that rather than regarding the optimization of your website as a whole, it can be more productive to think of it as the optimization of each page. Using this approach is much more involved and meticulous care needs to be taken, but, once all of your pages have been optimized, your entire site will be search engine friendly, and loaded with relevant content.

An important SEO fact every business owner should know is that true, organic SEO, requires a multitude techniques, and time for those techniques to work if an SEO campaign is really going to be successful. Using a single SEO method may help improve your results a little; but if you want your business to be ranked highly by the search engines for a long time and to increase the amount of traffic that visits your site then proper identification and implementation of acceptable SEO techniques will be required. It is also important to note, that rankings can, and do, fluctuate day to day within the search results page. It's impossible to guarantee the number 1 spot in the results, but when Fresh works your site, with our proven organic optimization techniques, you will climb the results in ranking.

The third basic fact in search engine optimization that you should always have in mind, is that SEO is a continuous process. It does not stop, because there's always another website, another business, and/or another competitor knocking on your door online; trying to take your place. Once high rankings have been achieved through an efficiently run SEO campaign, if this optimization is suddenly halted then it is likely that the rankings achieved will drop too. You could liken the effect much the same as watering a flower garden properly and with care, to suddenly stopping. All of your efforts in raising that product, will be for nothing. Google, Yahoo, and Bing are constantly changing and developing their technology and new techniques to help be ranked are also constantly being developed. If you want to remain on top, then you must remain updated on all developments and make the necessary changes to your SEO campaign.

At Freshtraffic, we're constantly monitoring our clients sites, and if a slip in ratings is found consistently, and not a momentary lapse in a reindexing, we will retool the site to return to, and retain the previously held high ranking.

Are you, and your website, ready?

2009-12-21T13:29:00.003-06:00

2009 is nearly finished, there's only 10 days left in the year, even less so in a business sense. It's in the middle of all the hustle and bustle, that leaves you spinning and almost out of control with the speed of trying to keep up to customers needs and demands. We are in the midst of some of the biggest consumer spending for the year, and there are some businesses out there which can make or break their year with the next few days of consumerism.

But what if you could have that kind of customer spending, for more than just a few days a year? If you truly have the best product, for the best price, why aren't you rich beyond your wildest dreams? Or even comfortable? A quick checklist then, for the new year, and the resolution to proactively move forward and let the world in.

Do you have a website already? If you were to have a friend use your site, is it easy to read? To navigate? Is the customer experience pleasant, engaging, and informative? If you've answered "yes" to any of the questions above, you have a good starting point for being noticed online.

It doesn't matter if you own the goose that lays the golden egg, or if you have the greatest product ever discovered, if you can not be found online. Your brick and mortar store is only open for set amount of hours, you need to rest. But the internet does not rest, there is no sleep on the web. Having a website, and having a positive flow of visitors to your website are two, very different, and very distinct differences. A couple of interesting notes about online spending for consideration:

-On average, 49% of shoppers do their holiday gift buying online
-In 2008, Holiday Season Spending (Nov-Dec) $29,200 (millions)
-Predicted that US e-commerce will reach $156 billion in 2009

Search engine optimization (SEO) is quite possibly, the highest ROI (return on investment) form of advertising available to your business today. 2010 is the beginning of a new decade, it's time for a Fresh start online, be found and claim your piece of the $156 billion dollar pie.

The end of SEO?

2009-12-18T12:07:00.001-06:00

Doom and gloom! SEO is dead! Google won't care about your effective optimization anymore!

Noise is being made by the little guys about Googles new display tendancy which is incoming. Google announced recently that they're going to start displaying search results based upon each individual users history, irregardless of being logged into a Google account or not.

A basic rundown of how it'll work:

User searches for "blue suede shoes" and gets their results, for arguments sakes we'll just call them A, B, C, D, E, representing the top 5. In that showing of top 5, based upon the descriptions given, they decide that C, is most relevant to their purposes, and click on that link and browse that site. Now, should that person search for "blue suede shoes" again, the rankings may look more like this: A, C, B, D, E. Google will assign a tad more authority to the previously clicked link, specifically for that user.

Does this mean all of a sudden that all SEO is worthless? Quite the opposite really, if anything it's more important now than ever before. If your site isn't engaging enough, or relevant enough to be listed initially, why should a user click through to your site?

Having the quality, building up your authority, being relevant, now more than ever proper optimization; both on and off site, is exceedingly important. There's no time like the present for a Fresh start.

Fresh Traffic Group - SEO Services Experts

2009-12-17T15:51:00.003-06:00

Search engine optimization experts, Fresh Traffic, has an entire toolbox of SEO services in which to assess, and address any and all of your websites woes. An initial consultation by Fresh would look somewhat like the following:

1) Initial breakdown of your website: We'll deconstruct your site, and decide from a look at some key points as to whether or not your site is hindrance or not to your efforts. If, worst case scenario, your website is an issue, we have a team at Fresh which is trained in building sites with search optimization in mind.

2) Content: We'll work over your content with you, pointing out solid phrases and determine your keywords with you. After our due diligence, we'll work with you to mold your content, pictures, text, etc, until you become a prime authority in your niche.

3) The Fresh edge: Where the real work comes in, the team here at Fresh will monitor your site, using in house technology and methodology will address issues which may rear their head to try and stop your inevitable climb in rankings.

The team at Fresh Traffic, has been in the SEO biz well before SEO (search engine optimization) was a buzz word in the advertising field. Google was a dream in a Stanford basement, and Internet Explorer ruled the Internet browsing world. Fast forward 15 years, SEO is on the lips of every intelligent marketer, Firefox, Opera, Safari, are all synonymous with browsing, and Google is getting ready to take over even more of the world with their promises of their foray into the telecommunications market.

Where will we be in another 15 years? Drinking water from the moon perhaps? One thing is for certain, the world *will be* online, in an ever increasing desire for knowledge. And Fresh Traffic will be there, ever at the forefront of search, whether it's real time, or semantic, Bing, Google, or what ever new engine should decide to come take a bite of the cash cow that is online marketing; Fresh will be there.

SEO 2010 - Never say never

2009-12-17T15:26:00.002-06:00

2010 is right around the corner, and are you poised to march into the new year with authority and your presence online?

New Years Resolutions, out with the old, in with the new.. change is good. If you're an "old hat" in the biz world, you have had your methods which have worked to advertise (tv, radio, newspaper, etc). But the simple, honest truth is, those mediums have lost the majority of their impact on society. The world is online, gone digital, and in the realm of switches, code, and information exchange, the world never sleeps.

The 24/7 marketplace, the Internet, where you can sink or swim based upon your decisions as a business owner. Is your site easy to use? The information relevant to your product or services? Are you easy to find within the search engines; Google, Bing or Yahoo?

If you've not concentrated on your presence online, don't fret as it's never too late to get started. In the game of cat and mouse online however, you're not just competing with the shop down the street, you need to contend with your competitors the next town over, or in the next state/province. The web moves and breathes with a life of it's own, and having the real optimization experts on your side, is your first step towards taming the beast.

The year in Google

2009-12-17T10:04:00.002-06:00

2009 was a big year in the technology industry. Live search was rebranded and marketed, Wolfram Alpha (remember them?) came online with it's "answer engine", and social media went another step up what with Facebooking and Twittering, blogging and real time results starting to make their way into your searches.

But seeing as Google is the big fish in the waters of the web, here's a quickly compiled list of some of their advancements through out the year.

January
* Offline Gmail gets released with Google Gears
* Picasa for Mac released

February
* Google Latitude and search by voice for Android launch
* Google Sync for your mobile phone launches

March
* Google Calendar goes offline with Google Gears

April
* Google Profiles show up at the bottom of search results
* Updated mobile Gmail and Google Calendar webapps for iPhone and Android launch
* Google Maps mashup tracks swine flu
* GV Mobile makes Google Voice the default for your iPhone (later, Apple pulled this app from the iTunes Store for reasons that are still unclear)

May
* Engineers demo Google Wave at the Google I/O conference, give developers access to the Wave "sandbox"

June
* Google Apps Sync syncs Microsoft Outlook with Gmail, Google Contacts, and Calendars (updates with push Gmail in September)
* Google Squared puts your search results into a spreadsheet
* Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, and Talk leave beta

July
* FeedDemon, NetNewsWire sync exclusively with Google Reader
* Google announces Chromium OS (but doesn't release any code, doctored screenshots and fan-made versions start popping up)
* Apple rejects all Google Voice applications from the iTunes Store
* Gmail Tasks graduates from Google Labs (where it first appeared in December of 2008)

August
* Gmail makes importing mail and contacts from old email accounts easy
* PubSubHubbub gets baked into Google Reader

September
* Google Wave Preview opens to 100,000 users
* GrandCentral closes its doors, transitions entirely to Google Voice
* Google Sidewiki launches

October
* Google offers voicemail storage and transcriptions for your existing phone number (part of Google Voice)
* Google Maps Navigation adds turn-by-turn GPS to Android
* Google Voice gives existing users invitations to send to their friends

November
* Chrome OS announced, Chromium build demo'ed and source code released (here's how you can try out a Chromium build yourself)
* Google Chrome adds bookmark sync
* Google releases Go, a new programming language

December
* Chrome browser hits Mac/Linux with extensions enabled (Chrome for Windows left beta in December of 2008)
* Google's new real-Time search includes Twitter streams
* Google Public DNS launches
* Google "lets the sun set" on Gears, moving to HTML5
* Google Goggles for Android searches the web by photo
* Google Favorite Places puts a barcode on restaurants and shops you can scan with your mobile phone

Look here, to read more of any of the above.

Search Marketing and Your Business

2009-12-16T09:44:00.002-06:00

In little more than 10 years, search-engine marketing has grown into a $14.7 billion industry. It's a big pie, are you getting your slice?

In setting up a new business, you sell the best product, you setup shop with the newest and best furniture and accesories in order to showcase your wares. You hire attractive, intelligent, well trained staff to promote your store and your product, and ensure you have enough cash registers to be able to ring people up and send them through in a quick, friendly, professional manner. It's at that point, you decide to advertise; newspapers, fliers, billboards, maybe tv and radio ads, but all of these measures are taken only after you've setup shop good and proper.

So why would a flippant stance be taken towards your companies website and it's effectiveness as a selling tool?

Hastily constructed websites, with little to no content, excessive scripting and/or flash based websites; all points which hamper your online presence and placement within Google's results pages. If your business is in retail, it only helps you to have a shopping cart tied to your website, with a listing of your most popular wares (at the least), and an intuitive way to navigate your website and shopping cart so to assist in sales. An extremely high percentage, think in the 80-90% range, of people research purchases on line prior to actually making that purchase, imagine your income gain with having a proper website constructed with a friendly, and easy to follow website in order to help them make that purchase.

Having your website properly built, tuned, and compliantly stuffed with content, only increases your companies worth, in the long and short term.

Halfway SEO, halfway results

2009-12-15T10:24:00.001-06:00

Many local businesses look online to take advantage of SEO/SEM marketing tactics to “try it out”, and to see if it works. Newsflash! It works. But it doesn’t work if you’re just "trying it out". You have to want to make it work, and that requires a level of seriousness and dedication, just like it does for the rest of your business.

Here's an example of "trying it out". Your local fire department shows up at a house fire with their gear to “see if it works”. How long do you think they need to keep their hoses on the fire before they decide it’s working? Five minutes? A half hour? Three hours, maybe? I’m no firefighter, but I know enough to know that every fire is different. Some fires can be put out in 30 minutes. Some can't be put out with water! So how long should your fire department remain on the scene before they decide that firefighting works?

Search engine optimization isn’t anything like fighting fires, but it does require a commitment, and is much different than other forms of marketing and advertising. How long will you only go through the motions before you realize if you only go halfway, you only get half as much?

Google tests new phone

2009-12-14T19:36:00.002-06:00

Google Inc. is determined to gain more influence over how the Web is used on mobile phones, even if the next step in the quest tramples some of the relationships forged during its two-year expansion into the wireless industry.

The focus on Google's mobile ambitions is sharpening now that the Internet search leader is working on a new phone called "Nexus One." The handset is being tested by Google's 20,000 employees, who received the device just before the weekend.

Google declined to comment on the reason for the Nexus One's development.

Mobile is clearly the next big business opportunity and (Google) wants to do everything possible to control its own destiny.

SEO Mechanics

2009-12-11T16:00:00.000-06:00

In frequenting a forum or two, I've come across some rather interesting questions and scenarios from time to time. Potential clients asking about techniques, both white and black hat, SEO "experts" posing questions that they should undoubtedly know the answers too, in order to consider calling themselves even an SEO, let alone an expert.

Today I encountered a scenario I wasn't entirely ready for, a person who used to create and publish advertisements under the Google Adwords program, wanted to use Google as a reference on a job application for a position as an "SEO Expert".

The biggest and most blatant problem with their question being notably; under Adwords, you don't work for Google. The relationship between yourself and Google, is one of independant contractors, not as an employer/employee relationship. So, out goes that reference.

The second problem, and it's as much a pet peeve as an actual issue, writing Adwords does not qualify a person to be a search engine optimization expert. Trying to draw the comparison between the two, would be the same as having applied to be a mechanic after changing a tire on your car.

Would you go see that "mechanic" with your business, knowing his prior experience?

Not the time to save..

2009-12-10T16:21:00.002-06:00

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most common internet marketing strategies used by website owners to promote their popularity on the Web. Driving traffic to you site is the goal of this strategy -- making sure that you appear on the first page, preferably, in the top 5 results.

Marketing itself is pretty much simply an act of finding out what people want and then giving it to them exactly how they want it. It is important you carry this thinking over into your SEO campaign and make sure you give each search engine, Google/Bing/Yahoo, EXACTLY what they want. Good SEO practices will have a positive effect on all engines, but each has their differences.

Ask any online marketer, whether they are affiliate or network marketers, and they can readily explain to you how powerful being #1 in the Google listings can be for their business. Being able to rank #1 on Google, for your chosen keywords (if they are keywords that attract buyers) is like a blank check you get to fill in. The best part is you can rank high with some work, and your cost to receive this advertising is zero dollars. Your ROI is thus very high since you are not paying for traffic. Everything is profit. Since Google is the Big Daddy of the online marketing field, it is also the most difficult search engine to climb, and maintain top ranking position in.

Can you save some money and hope to maximize your return? Of course, but as true as it is in all circumstances, "you get what you pay for" is a very powerful phrase to bear in mind when looking at embarking on your SEO campaign. Google catches 75% +/- of all search traffic, can you afford to miss out or make a wrong step?

Google is in it for you

2009-12-08T13:43:00.000-06:00

Online visibility has become one of the worlds largest PR hypes in the last decade, mainly due to the world coming online. The attention is more than warranted, as any company who goes from the bottom of the rankings to the top will tell you; customer interaction and productivity can be directly linked to your position on the SERPs.

Google, the giant that it is, made the industry what it is today. And as of Friday, they've added into the mix, a new tool really, for the true SEO Experts to take advantage of. Personalized search, whether you're signed into a Google account, or just using the internet, is here for everyone. Basically this means, that over time, searches will become more, and more relevant to the user.

A huge selling point in the Search Engine Optimization field was the ability to drive quality, qualified traffic to a clients website. There are billions of people online, and hundreds of billions of webpages out there, and as such the needle in a haystack analogy is completely appropriate. Personalized search being available however, for all Googlers, is an added advantage in the long run. Quality content as well as other factors, help your appearance in the results page. Odds are, if you rank highly, you'll get the traffic you crave and deserve.

But, with the addition of the personalized search for all users, if you rank number 6 for example, and have better content than the previous 5 results and you get the click, the next time that user makes that search, their search results will return you higher on the SERPs, because that user said you were better for them.

What's changed? Only that the addage "content is king" is much more relevant than it was last week. Quality, relevant, well written content has become even more important than ever before, so allying yourself with the true SEO Experts, is in your best interests.